Chosen One Technology – #StarWars Meta

A last ditch effort to rebuild the Jedi Order, Luke Skywalker attempts the impossible lessons he learns from a secretly sent holocron to recreate Hego Damask’s experiments of Pregnancies through the Force. He failed. In some ways, he tried the In Vitro Fertilization with heterologous cloning. That failed. Several Imperial scientists that turned to the Rebels before being brought up on war crimes said it cannot be done. That the Force won’t allow biological manipulation like that. Luke Skywalker did not believe it. But with the help of a few of his new trainees, he was able to product one successful living fetus to parturition, and then, he had to give this child up at age 4.

Basically, Luke messed up. Recreating the Jedi Order with more Force sensitive users cannot be rushed. There are no short cuts to become a Jedi. Becoming a Jedi is a natural process, some are born into it, some have talent, like a ray of sunshine. The Jedi Order had its time and now, it must become something new. The Force knows when.

Oversharing as an #RP Character

How much is too much?

Review of the blog: When Everything’s Shareable, You’re Never Not Performing from a RP performance perspective

Our blog is about what is going on in RL regular profile, non-RP accounts. Imagine what happens in RP accounts when there is a MUSE vs MUN problem?

If 70% of 18+ are using social media and it affects their real interactions with people, and 60% are unhappy with their interactions on social media, think how it affects our RPs in performances? IF SOMEONE SEES RP LIKE A PERFORMANCE!

Most RPers are trying to develop relationships with one another. Some serious relationship that lead to dating, marriage or otherwise. To some people who is very strange, to others it’s the norm. In reality, from a socio-psychological standpoint, it’s unrealistic of how a relationship truly develop no matter the words of the intimacy. Historically it could be true, but humans need physical interaction and not through a keyboard.

Treating RP like creating a movie, television show or play production, makes it easier to digest the psychological connections people erroneously conceive as real relationships, even if on-screen there was a sexual filming. This is why not anyone is an actor without classes.

RP works the same way.

SO SICK OF #RP MARY SUES!

What a Mary Sue is

In “Roleplay” or RP you will meet one of a Mary Sue, eventually. While mostly dedicated to girls, guys can be “Mary Sues” or “Gary Stus”.

What is a Mary Sue: think of an individual who does not want to tell a story, but be everything to everyone in every story. The lines of demarcation are blurred. They will have all their “objects of desire” fall in love with them, including her villains. Mary Sues can do no wrong, and if she does wrong, it can be easily overlooked.

They have no story and their backstory is so confusing to listen to, it will be like “Mommy and Daddy didn’t give me a pony for Christmas and so I’m mad at them”, but then the character is an orphan.

For guys it’s the “Ultimate Power of the Universe” and it I build my super saiyan powers to maximum with a COD lightsaber pistol with a grew up hard, gangster lifestyle as a Sith Lord, then no one will beat me, ever.

In essence it is a form of GODMODDING!

Example of a Mary Sue character sheet: More than 1 story & it’s the first 1 = mary sue.

It ruins storytelling. Those that delve in it are NOT RPing, hence they are not performing with SWAG 77.

What a character has to have:

A character sheet somewhere. What are their reasons for existing? What is the plot to their story? Exposition? Theme? What is here that I want to see a character.

A believable backstory based on the facts of the genre and a reasonable continuity.  Making up new stuff is a flow of creativity, but not a fairytale that makes it impossible to believe.

Why do people do this? LAZINESS! They don’t care, they just want to plug and play. They have not qualms or quips about being better. All they want on social media is to be distracted from their mundane lives than to build anything positive. They are TROLLS in the RP community and when they are discovered, they resort to cyberbullying the individual who has discovered their insecurities.

These same individuals will cry foul on you, when you delve deeper into their motivations. When you review their feeds, they are of no substance.

They are fantasizing about their “character” really being with your character and they LIVE THEIR LIVES BEING THEIR CHARACTERS. They actually believe they ARE ________________ (insert latest popular movie/book/RL celebrity) — an no, not talking about cosplayers, or page or Twitter managers. If you ask them their true name, they will say their character as their name. They LIVE through their character’s lives and they want to be that. It’s a dissociation identity disorder hiding behind a mask with a mix of narcissism.   It’s like, “I am Napoleon…”

What to do: If all you want to do is be distracted, there are other ways than misleading the public that you are a badass character from your favorite story, then switching your character when their popularity wanes.

You TELL YOUR STORY! If you don’t know how? We offer resources to where you can learn how to do that on our Facebook page.

Write your character sheet and test your character in this litmus test.

OUTLINE the story you wish to tell. Be prepared to receive criticism. Don’t be afraid of that. Because if you are, it means you refuse to grow into something better. And most of the time, people are well-meaning.

Participate in writing activities. Do you blog? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? If you are a good performer, step up your performance and put in the written word. Show what you’ve got. And remember:

Break a leg!

How To Create Your Best Star Wars Character and Perform or Roleplay on Facebook.

We just read this great article from Club Jade about:

The (completely unofficial) Star Wars style guide: Terms every fan should know how to use correctly

It got us thinking about how people set up their “Facebook Character Pages” and their backstories. Most people are eager to just be performing or “roleplaying”. It is because of this eagerness, it opens them up to cyberbullying and negative experiences. Most of these people perform with a lot “overpowering” and “godmodding” .

If you do not know what those terms mean, they are not performing and roleplaying. They are messing around and hurting innocent people.

The fact is to DEVELOP ONE’S CHARACTER!

First you need to have a character sheet. This character sheet is a modified form from the Star Wars: The Old Republic game forum.

At minimum you need fill out the top 5 items:

Species/Race:  Is your character human? Or Zabrak? Or some combination that makes sense in the canon? It is a good idea to be as close to the canon, or the Star Wars story arcs, as you possibly can be. Your character will appear as reasonable in the Star Wars Universe. Too many species combinations makes your character appear overpowered and it looks like you cannot perform or roleplay. Moreover, it says something about your roleplaying when you cannot decide your character’s species.

Name: Choose a name based on something that will make you proud and you would be honored to show others. If you name it after yourself, your character appears to be lazy, and that you are pretending you are some hotshot overpowering godmodder in roleplay.

Additionally, stalking pedophiles who appear to be nice online initially will wait to do something crazy like show up on your doorstep, if you reveal your real information… IT IS NOT SMART USING YOUR REAL NAME IN RP!

There are name generators can help you create a name. Creating a good name also assists you in starting your character’s backstory. Why did you name your character that name?

If you do not have a good cause for your character’s name, then it tells you something about your story — you need to work on it. Why? Because RP is ultimately about acting out a story for fun. Storytelling takes a talent and writing. Inherently on social media, particularly Facebook, writing a story is about key elements in creative writing: plot and exposition. You should have learned this in the 8th grade. You can claim whatever floats your fantasy boat online, but you still would look like an overpowered godmodder in roleplay when you name your character after yourself or lack a good story behind your character’s name.

Gender:  Be clear about your chosen gender even if fluid. If you don’t, and you have no justification as to why you do not, then you could be bullied. We think being bullied is WRONG, but there are a lot of simple-minded people on social media. Make sure your RP partners are open to diverse genders and are willing to go with it.

Year of Birth (BBY or ABY): Birthdate is needed due to timeline in Star Wars. If all the RPers are roleplaying in The Old Republic, like Darth Malgus, and you are a part of the Legacy One Sith, Darth Nihl, then you to reconsider your character’s birthdate. Why? It is a “soul-searching” get over it kind of thing – your character being 100,000 years old is lame in RP. If  you chose the “Yoda’s species” or a “Hutt species” or another justifiable long-lived species, you had better have images and pics reflecting your character. Do not appear a “Draco in Leather Pants” kind of character or a Mary Sue. Seriously, no one will RP with you when it is like that.

Age: Same issue as above. It is easier to play a character at an age you have passed because of your life experience. But there are some people who can perform really well as characters older than themselves. It is what you are comfortable with as the age you are. But choose wisely.

Home Planet: CHOOSE A STAR WARS CANON PLANET NOT EARTH! It is called a “Long ago in a galaxy far, far away” that means before the dinosaurs, before there was air on Earth, which means there is no way you can time travel and go back to other planets. You are doing alternate universe that is NOT STAR WARS! Besides being from Earth is not an interesting story. What you are doing is living your real life through your roleplaying character page. People do not want to see YOU as your real named from Earth in a fictional Star Wars universe!

Final Insights: Be about storytelling. Be about roleplay in the verse. Be about acting and performing. Learn how to do these things and you will come out on top where people enjoy your character as well as your performance.

Character Sheet Reasons

In SWAG 77 we use character sheets for all our N-canon characters.  The character sheets we have used vary from the Star Wars The Old Republic Long Form to an abbreviated short form.

What we found is, both of the SWTOR forms lacked a good backstory necessary for character development and performing the character on social media without attack.

Having a good backstory takes time, and the audience does not want to see your personal history as a backstory for your character. It appears as if you are living your life through your fictional character, rather than trying to really tell a story and having your character’s voice. It lacks plot and depth and your character is trivialized in the story.

 

A good backstory generally gives the motivation for the plot and the story arc.  Some backstories are too long and no one wants to read them. Other backstories are too short and leaves too much to be desired. But a backstory in social media entertainment should be nearly a “tagline” to a plot or the “blurb” on the back cover of a book. Long enough to be intriguing, but short enough to read it quickly.

 

Character identification: SWAG 77 is Star Wars Actors Guild 77. STAR WARS! Not the latest popular fiction out there, but STAR WARS! Characters must be identified MORE than the movies and television. You must delve into the literature to fully understand the nature of your character’s identity.

A Sith Hutt would have poor exposition in performing a Star Wars story on Facebook. Your character would be unbelievable in Star Wars and would be traumatic for you when explain your character to Star Wars fans. Most of the time people who do that overpower their characters making them “Mary Sues” to fit into the performance, rather than studying the canon and seeing what is possible.

When you create your character, you had better know something about his or her homeworld, what the latest Star Wars Expanded Universe literature is on it, and you should know everything about your character.

Senator Yemaja is half-Human, half-Yuuzhan Vong. 1) How can that happen? It is justified on the power of the Force to go absence as desired if one believes in the Unifying Force Theory. The basis of this was Force Sever. Does one become absent in the Force when severing herself from it? What causes that severance? What I found is Force Sever is a choice. The Force user can choose to sever herself from the Force and it is painful. The research was obtained by reading all the novels about the Yuuzhan Vong, what Force Severing was in the book, “Jedi vs Sith” and constantly looking for updates on Wookieepedia.  2) Senator Yemaja is part Korunnai from Haruun Kal, making her a power in the Force due to her past Jedi heritage. I used the molecular cellular biological concept of “variegation” to justify that not all of Yemaja’s cells had “midichlorians” in them. That in fact Yemaja’s mother was a Chimera – the eggs in her mother did not match the cells in her body. This is a real occurred in human biology. By implementing this process, I enriched the plot into what does the Force do with variegation and chimeras?  These are the stories that are performed under SWAG 77.

 

SWAG77 is not affiliated with Lucasfilm except in Star Wars Celebration 6. The reason for that is the information submitted on the application. We read and write a lot for our stories and characters. Our reading list is long. Our sample writings spread over several blogs and stories. We follow a scripting format. Our process is intense. Our purpose is to not only get as close to canon as possible, but also to predict it. We have followed information on our favorite characters so closely that we have been accurate on what is shown on television and/or written in the novels. We ask the content creators of Star Wars, keep aspects on the characters and situations. We stay on top of the Lucasfilm Star Wars franchise. That is what it takes to perform on social media.

Many people barely do that and want to chase “roleplayers” for sexual conquest. But our performances are like a production for television – the audience wants more.  Screen Actors Guild actors ask us what we are doing. Bestselling authors are watching our progress. Now we need Lucasfilm to see us at our best. So when we say “audition”, these people are the ones that we have to impress, not some alleged little girl (maybe) attempting to sleep her way to the top with all the “Star Wars Jedi”.

On SWAG77 we follow the rules of Facebook and Google+ and use pages for all our characters. If you cannot use a page because you use a phone, then SWAG77 is not for you at this time. Our work demands us to create and manage a lot of pages. The demand to switch from one character to another on the numerous different pages. There will be NO fake impostor accounts in our system. Other groups may use different systems and that is them, but that is not SWAG77. We have a standard and we would like to keep it. Using fake accounts is risky and you can lose them. We are running an ethical business and we want people to be honest for their best performances.

You do not need a performing page, we have several members who do not perform but assist us in writing, evaluating and developing our stories. That is a great service to us and we appreciate their input.

Assume all information you present to us is an “audition” for your admittance to SWAG77. So would it not be in your best interest to put your best foot forward? If you think you are up to the challenge, complete our simple character sheet!

 

 

May The SWAG77 Be With You

Star Wars Performance University is a project under SWAG77

Star Wars Performance University started as “Star Wars Roleplaying University” in 2011 to assist new performers in improvisation techniques and writing. There were several courses organized. Due to circumstances, beyond our control, SWRPU had to change.

By December, 2011,  the “Star Wars Actors Guild 77” or SWAG77 separated from the Isle Sanctuary Creative Artists (ISCA) to be dedicated solely to fans of Star Wars.

All pages associated with Star Wars that were under ISCA were moved to SWAG77 for one unifying page dedicated to the promotion of Star Wars fandom on social media. To unleash one’s inner fandom online and promote real life fan related activities.

One page was SWRPU. However, to be fair to other groups, it was decided to allow SWRPU should be an autonomous entity. Its sole goal was to help performers write creatively, set up their social media and market their efforts in a professional manner. The goal for SWRPU was to show Lucasfilm a novel form of entertainment and performance of their products on social media.

However, in the business of social media entertainment and performance, things rarely go as planned and business expectations could not be predicted. The owner of SWAG77 and SWRPU was cyberattacked, late 2011 and partially resolved until early 2012.

SWAG77 retooled and shifted its policies to a traditional form of social media and introduced several products to the market. The shift changed the goal and name of the SWRPU to “Star Wars Performance University”.

In May, 2012 SWAG77 was accepted to have a fan table at Star Wars Celebration 6 in Orlando, Florida on August, 2012.

All activities of SWAG77 must comply with Lucasfilm standards and one of them is removing the word “Roleplaying” from the activities on social media.

SWAG77 also has to agree to perform canon characters only and stay within the continuity of the canon.

SWAG77 are like “Costumed Players” or “Cosplayers”, but we are online. Everything we use to perform is from Lucasfilm licensed and published materials.

As such, SWAG77 and Star Wars Performance University (SWPU) must follow the guidelines of the social media platform, such as Facebook and only use pages to represent their fictional characters. SWAG77 will no longer use profiles to perform. Anyone using a profile to perform will only be seen as a member of the audience or a heckler.

All characters or entities will be performing “in character”. RARELY will the person behind the character release personal information from the page.

“Roleplayers” who lack a page and a character sheet will be seen as a member of the audience and any responses by the Page Character, if there are any responses will be made in character.  If there are altercations, the person will be banned from the page.

“Roleplayers” who have inappropriate names for said characters, usually aligning with a lack of a character sheet, will be seen as a member of audience and any responses by the Page Character, if there are any responses, will be made in character. If there are altercations, the person will be banned from the page.

Be realistic, it took many hours of hard work to make this project happen and to catch Lucasfilm’s eye. When someone refuses to follow our rules belligerently in both SWAG77, SWPU and ISCA cannot be tolerated.  What we are talking about here is just posting and interacting on our pages… Not “roleplaying” or setting up a story arc for performance. Simply to post and interact.

If these guidelines are ignored, then membership into SWAG77 is compromised. These are courtesies so that posters avoid being banned from our pages.

These are about respecting the process of character development and the work that has been done.

If  the SWAG77 organization is for you, we would love to have you come on board through our membership intake process.

If you prefer another group, we wish you much success in your goals!

Take care!

Dr.G-

SWTOR Character Sheet LONG FORM

Performing improv on Facebook is NOT roleplaying on board games or video games. But there are similarities. This blog is one of them. Performing improv on Facebook is not about 20 sided dice. It is more like a TV show using creative writing and techniques.

What performing improv is not is posting on random pages or in individuals’ chats and instigating a story. That is called trolling, which can also be called cyberbullying on Facebook.

You want to strike up a conversation with your favorite character and performing improv with them, then it is wise to read their character sheet and have yours ready. If the other person does not have one or a backstory, then ask. If they are not open to it, that should tell you something about the kind of performing they do. Interacting with unknown performers on comments and posts randomly is lazy and disrespectful on your part.

Creating a character sheet can alleviate this issue of performing on Facebook. This sheet is an outline for character creation from the SWTOR game forums in 2010 (link archived). A character sheet’s purpose gives the audience a general description of the character and assists the writer in developing a character. You may also add to it if you wish.

Create your own character using this sheet to use in performing improv, developing story arcs and writing. Readers gain insights into your character, personality, background, and travels. Please remember that this is your character, and you do not have to follow this outline. We implore you to follow this recommendation.

Species/Race:

Name:

Middle Name:

Last Name:

Nickname:

Gender:

Date of Birth:

Place of Birth:

Date of Death:

Place of Death:

Age:

Height:

Weight:

Hair Color/Style:

Facial Appearance:

Eye Color:

Body Appearance:

Home Planet:

Current Residence:

Ship:

Allegiance:

Profession:

Armor:

Primary Weapon(s):

Secondary Weapon(s):

Miscellaneous Item(s):

Biography (more detail and 2 paragraph backstory): —

Additional Categories:

Bounty Hunter:

Number of Bounties Captured:

Number of Bounties Killed:

Sith:

Number of Jedi Killed:

Lightsaber Color:

Jedi:

Number of Sith Killed:

Lightsaber Color:

Smuggler:

Number of Shipments Smuggled:

Trooper:

Rank:

Specialties:

—DO NOT DUPLICATE BELOW—

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