TheElvenJedi

Sum up your week in roleplaying in just 3 words

Damn writers block!!!

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Post is in the works sorry, having a bit of trouble getting my brain to write today T_T

Darth Revan is Here

Welcome to the Guild! :')

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

They actually are, my gosh xD

Sounds good, I shall get my metaphorical ducks in a row for that in the meantime :P

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Slightly shorter one but I wanted to leave it open for Bol to suggest his idea without giving away too much of the surprise or anything :P next one will make up for it I promise haha

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Manaan, of course, had not been a destination that had immediately come to Aria's mind, given the chaos that had ensued the last time they touched down on the planet she had been concerned that the Selkath would flag the duo down and deny them entry to the planet. The young woman's suspicions proved to be entirely wrong as soon as they arrived, evidently Aria had forgotten that the last time they had arrived on Manaan had been on a hot-wired shuttle after barely escaping the clutches of Soto and her-

They weren't supposed to be thinking about work. The Champion mentally scolded herself and filed the thought away for another time. Right now, no tyrannical overlords were threatening the newly established political body, no planets were blowing up and all they had to be concerned about was the order in which they would visit the tourist attractions on the planet. At least they could both agree that they should find their holiday accommodation and settle in before they did anything else. This proved to be easier said than done, however, as there was more than one pathway leading out from Ahto City and down to the beach and this led to somewhat of a disagreement (it wasn't fair to call it an argument really, any name calling was done entirely in jest and they both knew it)
“Ari, just admit it. We're lost.”
“We're NOT lost!” she insisted, brow furrowed as the Champion squinted at the map on her datapad for about the fourth time since leaving the spaceport, then spun in a circle trying to look for the pathway. “The beach should be juussttt around...here...somewhere….”
“Lost?” Chwuq snorted in agreement with Yerbol, earning a playful glare from Aria.
“Honey, if we had stopped and asked for directions an hour ago like I said, we'd be there by now.”
She was forced to admit, cheeks bright pink, that he was right as usual.
“Well, if we have to stop and ask for directions then we really WILL look like a pair of dumb tourists that can't read road signs.” (most of said signs were written in the Selkath native tongue too, which didn't help!)

They didn't do much that first night by the time they arrived at the beachfront property, instead choosing to simply lounge on the balcony and enjoy the sunset before bed. The rest of the week they had spent on Manaan however was filled with pleasantly “normal” activities: long walks along the beach while the Tuk'ata frolicked through the waves and stuck their snouts into rock pools, laying about on the beach and enjoying the sun while they tried to spot shapes in the clouds during the day or find familiar constellations at night, enjoying drinks on the second story balcony and even spending the fifth day building sandcastles (until the dogs had thought it was a fantastic game to charge right through the duo’s meticulous handiwork and stomp it to bits...it was hard to stay angry at them too when they simply barked and wagged their tails as if they had no idea why the duo could possibly be upset)
They seemed to be enjoying the relative solitude just as much as Aria was, it was refreshing to be able to walk around in public and not have to worry about being approached by people who fawned over them as ‘saviours of the galaxy’ (some people recognised them, no doubt, but they were far less exuberant about pointing it out than those on the more heavily populated planets like Coruscant.)

On the sixth day they made an entire morning’s trip of exploring the Ahto City Market (there was so much to see that there was no other way to get through it all...it was an enjoyable if tiring trip and they were all too glad to return in the late afternoon and rest)
While Aria had settled the dogs down on the ground floor, her partner slipped out onto the balcony. Their bond allowed Aria to tell something was occupying his thoughts, though whatever it was he was doing a very good job of keeping it from her. Shrugging, she tiptoed onto the second floor to join him, her master plan to launch a sneaky tickle attack ruined as she rounded the corner to the balcony doorway. With a playfully dramatic sigh, Aria paused to lean over the back of his chair and plant a kiss on his lips.
“Damn. And I thought I had you that time.” plopping herself down in a seat next to his, she leaned back, resting a hand gently on his knee. "This is nice...almost makes me not want to go back, you know, to all that teaching and other scary stuff." She waved a hand absently to indicate the sheer volume of all the "other stuff" with a lighthearted chuckle. Yerbol had smiled and nodded along with her, but he still seemed distracted by something which prompted her to ask gently:
“Is something up?” after a few moments of silence had passed between them. “You've been chewing the inside of your cheek all day and you only do that when you're thinking too much.” she tried not to worry about anything being amiss, but she could have sworn she had heard Tabitha and Volgorl’s voices speaking when she'd been in the shower that morning, only to find Yerbol had disconnected the call by the time she had finished.
“Is something going on back on Taris?”
She was relieved when her partner quickly smiled and shook his head, his parents were both fine, although he did have something else he wanted to suggest about their next stop off on their vacation….

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Yes, it's so nice to just let them do silly normal people things for a bit instead of always having to be "saviours of the galaxy" :')

Wahaha, glad it made you chuckle. Seemed appropriate given her upbringing haha xD
Of course, add away! sounds good to me c: I'm actually really looking forward to this little not-actiony bit if I'm honest xD

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

Tah dah, those were the most obvious planets and places they could go visit that I could come up with. As always if you have any additions feel free to slip them in xD

Time to go sightseeing! Haha

You never see it coming[Freedomliveson/The Elvenqueen]

A soft smile came to her features at his remark, the Champion nodding her head as she glanced up at him.
“She would have liked you a lot, I think. More than my dad did at least.” she patted his hand gently, her gaze shifting to the approaching Alliance tower. “Though even he was more fond of you than he wanted to admit, by the end. I don't think either of them would be unhappy about us, if they were still alive.”
_____________

“No actually,” Aria teased back from the little bathroom as she worked to let her hair down and change out of the glitzy attire into something more comfortable for sleeping in, “they always get the wrong side and make my nose look horrendously large.” she couldn't stifle her chuckle as she joined him in the bedroom. “I don't see a reason to put it off, Neta will be ecstatic I'm sure.” smirking playfully, she kissed him on the nose before adding:
“Hm, but if you think I'm going to partake in said activities in the middle of the wilderness on a planet full of nasty bugs, you've got another thing coming, baby. I've still got standards.”
_________

Aria had sorely underestimated Neta's excitement at seeing the duo again, which was abundantly clear as soon as they arrived at the spaceport and the former spec ops soldier hugged her so tightly the Champion worried she wouldn't be able to breathe again when she was finally released.
“Missed you...too Neta…” she coughed out, grinning back at the redhead who had moved to give Yerbol a hug of his own.
“It's really, really good to see you again.” she affirmed Yerbol's reassurance. “We meant to come sooner, but….things got out of hand pretty quick and we got caught in the middle of it.” With another smile, she patted Neta's elbow and promised: “We'll fill you in on everything once we get there, okay?”
The Tuk'ata didn't much like the look of Neta's speeder, trailing behind the duo with wary grumbles and distrustful looks cast in Neta's direction. They remembered the pilot of course, but as the human who Roan had made an ally of circumstance because of her skillset, a person whom they had learnt not to bring harm to because Roan had commanded it as such and not because they had any kind of trust in her whatsoever. Sighing, Aria dropped to one knee and patted each hound on the flank. “Chwuq, Taral, Neta's a friend, remember?” the question was met with grunts of understanding though the hounds were clearly uncomfortable. They did seem eager however, at the promise that they could wander freely for a while and return to the duo at their own leisure.
As Aria put it: “plenty of kiliks or other things out there for them to chase, it's not like they'd be at risk of attacking any people” In response to Neta's quizzical look as they settled into the speeder and headed off, Aria shook her head and chuckled.
“Yes, he gave them names. Don't laugh. We tried to chase them off and they kept coming back so I guess we're stuck with them now.”
The beasts in question kept pace with the speeder at a reasonable enough distance, though as they reached the forest they peeled off to do some exploring off their own. They could of course, find their own way back and certainly could handle a few hives of kiliks if they came across them so Aria thought very little of it.

As they reached Neta's abode, the Champions were set upon by a pair of exuberant “mini-Neta’s” (for they did indeed look very much like their mother, bar a few differing features which Aria deduced they got from their father). The young boy was more outgoing than his sister, who peered at Yerbol and Vivi hesitantly before approaching Aria. Smiling back, the Champion dropped onto one knee so as to appear less threatening and nodded.
“That's me. And you must be Iris.” the girl nodded and proceeded to ask questions about her abilities with the Force which prompted the Champion to chuckle.
“ ‘wicked awesome’, huh?” she shot Neta a look as the former pilot returned from putting away the speeder to promptly shoo the little group inside. There was much more chatter involved as they gathered around a small dining room table to drink beverages (mostly tea, or blue milk if they were so inclined) while the duo filled Neta in on the events that had occurred with the Xiis-omitting the gory details for the sake of Iris and Vivi, of course.
“So you got all the bad blue people?” Iris squeaked, tiny hands clutching her cup as she looked at the Champions with round eyes. “We saw them on the TV too, ages ago.”
“We got them.” Aria promised, tapping the young girl on the nose which caused her to giggle. “They aren't gonna come after anybody.” the signing ceremony had been televised of course, so naturally they talked about the academy on Zinuthra as well. This was a topic of great interest to Neta's offspring, who proceeded to bounce excitedly around the table with jubilant choruses of: “can we go, can we go pleaseeeeeee?!” after which the Champions had some difficulty explaining that using the Force wasn't something you could just read out of a book and learn to do.
To quell their disappointment, Aria had smiled and told the kids that there was nothing stopping them from taking a trip out to Zinuthra to visit the academy for a look around or even to watch some of the training sessions (except of course, their mother, who would have to agree to it and accompany them first!). Some time after that Chwuq and Taral had wandered back in and almost instantly wanted to disappear again after Vivi chased them around the dining area proclaiming that they were “soooo cool!”
Neta had scolded the kids and shooed them off to play amongst themselves, Yerbol conjuring up a few whisps of blue Force energy which they took great delight in chasing about the ground floor, Taral even feeling playful enough to join them while Neta and the Champions talked further without any more interruptions from the children.
“We're taking a bit of a ‘sabbatical’ from everything, before we go back into teaching lessons again.” they explained, to which Neta simply shot them a knowing look and smiled. It had come as no surprise, she had told them, to hear that the pair had ended up in a relationship and insisted that it was no trouble at all when they thanked her for the mysterious gift she had left them on Coruscant.
Leaning back in her chair, the former pilot sighed softly and listed off a few places of interest: “If you're up for sight-seeing there's a fair bit around here: House Organa of course, and the Cloudshape Falls of course, everybody loves that area, very romantic.” (this was met with flushed faces and protests of “Neta, please!”)

“Alright, alright!” Neta flashed a grin and waved them off. “Then there's always Manaan I suppose, a lot of people say it's always relaxing over there. Plenty to do, the Selkath do like their visitors after all as long as you're not there to start fights.” this the Champions thought they would consider, if for nothing else but to get a chance to appreciate the planet’s atmosphere without being preoccupied with political matters or stopping power hungry Sith Lords.
Aria hadn't considered returning to her home world until Neta mentioned Onderon as a possible stopping point on their travels too.
“There used to be a nice market in the square, and the view from the Skyramp is quite nice, especially if you haven't been there before.” the Champion shrugged. “We could go check it out, if you like.”
Neta insisted however, that they should at least stay for lunch before they went wandering off. After all the trouble she had gone to in order to include them, the duo could hardly refuse. Vivi and Iris of course, were more than pleased to keep the duo for another hour or so, chattering excitedly about “how cool using the Force was” and persuading the duo to levitate various items of their crockery (much to Neta's dismay).
"Don't be a pair of strangers, okay?" Neta urged them as they were on their way out. "I don't want to be waiting four months to hear from you again!"

Why do people not want to do premade plots?

@pugbutter and @The Harbinger of Ferocity have essentially summed it up. I avoid excessively-detailed premade plots because it means you've already decided what you want my character to be like without letting me dictate that as it should be well...my character.

One of my biggest pet peeves is somebody running off with my character and turning them into something they're not just to suit what they wanted out of the story. For instance there is an experience currently where I set up a character to be a side-character to our mains and yet this person seems intent on focusing in great detail on these side characters which I never intended to do nor got to give input on. Not to mention when I first created said character I thought I made it abundantly clear she was NOT interested in kids and yet that was pushed onto her anyway and now she's been forced into being this woman who's happy to have a baby because that's what my rp partner decided he wanted and I'm just kinda being dragged along because every time I bring it up he kind of goes "well I was just letting them leave off properly" and we jump back to the mains for a while only to have that sidelined a week later to go back to these side characters again.

Don't get me wrong I'm happy to talk and compromise on stuff but when you're dragging my character along for a ride they didn't want to ride, it becomes a bit ridiculous. The best 1x1s I've had were where somebody came to me and said "here's a general outline of where we could go, here's my character. What's yours and what do you think we could add or take away to make the plot better?"

That RP specifically even went in a totally different direction to what we had originally planned out, but you know what, it was actually GREAT because we both went "well this is unexpected....ah well, let's just go with it!" And neither of us was forced to act in a way that would be out of character for either of our characters just to suit the other person because we talked about every idea and plot point beforehand and agreed on a final rough "outline" to follow while leaving it open for the other person to edit it a bit if they felt they needed to.

Tl;DR: saying "this is the plot we're following and you will do what I say" or completely twisting every idea your partner throws at you to suit your predetermined agenda for the plot is bad and of course people are going to avoid that. You need to leave stuff open to being changed and let them feel like they have some creative freedom to decide some aspects of the plot WITH you without forcing them to make their characters something they're not by expecting them to do what YOU want them to all the time