Weekly Roleplay Tip: Making Readers See What You See

It is (unfortunately) no secret at Birchwood Isle that I have a lot of problems with "cute inner kids." I've had to address this issue so many times that it's become a tremendous embarrassment to me. "Cute" inner kids can be very triggering for me. I've tried to explain the problem on our forum, but since non-members can't see what I've written there, let me put it to you simply: Just because you think your inner kid is cute doesn't mean that she is cute, and you can't convince me that she's lovable or worth adopting by telling me how "cute" or "little" or "tiny" or "adorable" she is. The harsh reality is that your inner kid probably isn't as cute as you think that she is.

As I've come to understand what it is about the "cuties" that bothers me so much, I've discovered an important element of good role play: You need to make the reader see what you see. Instead of telling me that your inner kid is cute, show me. When I can see it, too, I'm more likely to love your inner kid the way that you want me to. Telling me she's cute repulses me; Showing me she's cute attracts me!

Obviously, therefore, this tip is quite personal for me. It's also been weighing on me for some time. Showing rather than telling will get you better results with nearly every adult role player.

First things first, simply stop telling me what you see. The key here is to stop telling that your inner kid is cute, or flirty, or pretty, or sweet, and illustrate it for me instead.

One of the most common errors that we see on Birchwood Isle is when a role player tells us what their inner kid is wearing. This is only a problem when done out of context or when it makes up the entirety of the post or when the clothing the inner kid is wearing is described as a "cute little red turtleneck." 

Leave whether or not the red turtleneck with the hearts on the collar is cute up to the person who is reading. Maybe they don't find red turtlenecks on seven-year-old little girls "cute" and your telling them that it is turns them off. Personally, I don't find seven-year-old little girls cute, so I'm going to take more convincing than the average person that your seven-year-old inner kid is cute.

So please don't simply tell me that she's cute. That's the fastest way to turn me off, and I tend to drop threads in which the other player "puts on The Cute."

I need you to show me.

The question is, how do you do this?

First, ask yourself what you want me to see. Do you want me to see how excited your inner kid is about going to the park? 

Then tell me how she's hopping from one foot to the other as she waits by the door for her guardian to take her to the car.

Do you want me to see that your inner kid is cold? 

Then tell me about how she's shivering and rubbing her hands together, or how her teeth are chattering as she bounces on her toes to keep the blood flowing.

Do you want me to see how lovable your inner kid is?

Then show me the way that she reaches for her guardian's hand when it's time to cross the street, without even being told to do so.

Showing instead of telling is an important part of writing good fiction, but it's especially important in a community in which the intention is to find a long-term partner for your character (either a parent or guardian, or sometimes even a sibling). Some of us (because I'm not the only one) don't like having The Cute shoved in our faces, but nearly all of us can experience an adorable inner kid as lovable if you show us rather than telling us.

Weekly Canon: Brigitta Hirsch

Brigitta Hirsh is the seventeen year-old daughter of Brynner and 

Claudia Hirsch of Birchwood Isle. She attends St. Jude's Academy,

 where she is a senior. Her nationality is Icelandic. 

She is currently open.

Who is Brigitta?

Brigitta is a biological child of a well-known (and well-liked) family on Birchwood Isle. She moved with her parents and twin brother and sister to Birchwood Isle several months ago and are just beginning to learn English. Her native language is Icelandic, and her parents are German and have taught Brigitta and her siblings basic German in addition to their Icelandic.

Her father believes that he is teaching the family the value of togetherness by moving them to a country where he believes they can help others, and Brynner works as a pastor on the island while also engaging in social work and a growing list of community projects. Brigitta is often pressured into engaging in these projects with her family, whether she wants to or not.

Unfortunately Brigitta is distracted by the boyfriend she left behind in Iceland. He has been stalking her regularly on the internet prior to the move, and she continues to fear him. Her obsession outlives his interest, however, and the stalking has stopped. Now it's Brigitta who is creating problems, though she continues to see her ex-boyfriend as the problem.

Who Should Play Brigitta?

The best player for Brigitta is an independent role player with an eye for character development. Both of her parents are active player characters played by the administrators of Birchwood Isle, and both of her siblings are currently available. A player who is interested in building stories through story arcs and in developing her character beyond what's given in her bio should do well with her. Parents might not always be available for play, so the right player will focus on telling her story through friendships and school whenever possible.

Why Would Someone Want to Play Brigitta?

First of all, she's well connected. As part of a biological family, she comes with both parents (already in play by Devin and Ava) and two siblings (boy-girl twins). She's the oldest in the family.

Furthermore, the Hirsch Family is connected to  both the church family on Birchwood Isle (through Fruit of the Vine Christian Church) and they work closely with the poor people on the island, meaning that they are heavily involved in community projects and get to know those who are less "well off." Other community activists will also be tightly connected to the Hirsch family, opening up opportunities for friendships for Brigitta.

How to Claim Brigitta

If you are interested in playing Brigtita, the first thing that you'll need to do is create an account on Birchwood Isle. We highly recommend that your first account username be your alias, as this will give you an "out" in case you change your mind about the character.

For canon characters, we will then move you into a user group that will allow you to create a "plot page" for Brigitta. Once this has been completed, we will complete her profile for you and approve your account so you can see the rest of the board!

You may wish to reserve Brigitta when you first register, to make sure that you get the full seven-day period to finish her bio. To do that, go to the Hirsch Family Page and request her there. We'll take care of making sure her name is crossed off on the list!

9 Reasons to Make Birchwood Isle Your Next Ageplay Home

If it's somehow not yet clear, we love Birchwood Isle! So does every member who has been polled on the subject, with a unanimous 5/5 star rating from our members. Clearly we have something going on that you can't find anywhere else on the internet, so what is it that makes Birchwood Isle unique? Why should you consider making it your next ageplay home on the web? 

Here are just a few reasons.

1. We're inclusive. Birchwood Isle has a place for people of all preferences, whether you want discipline or sexuality in your role play or you don't, whether you like to play little kids, teenagers, or adults, whether you are an exceptional writer/role player or are just starting out, whether your character is an emotionally-real inner kid or one of our canons. We are accepting of everyone who can follow our basic rules!
2. We provide every (inner) child character with someone to play with. Even if you choose to play a biological child in a canon family waiting for parents, your child character will always have at least a teacher and a doctor to interact with. Every child on the site has at least one adult in his or her support network. Child characters in foster care will be assigned a social worker, guardian, therapist, physician/pediatrician, and a teacher. Birchwood Isle doesn't ignore your inner kid!
3. We're personable. I've written before about the community at Birchwood Isle. Unlike most ageplay groups of our type, we have an ongoing out-of-character chat (via chatbox in the sidebar of our site or above the main board for guests). Our members are welcoming and personable, and most of all always anxious to talk to guests and new members! You won't find another site in this genre capable of greeting you the way you'll be greeted at Birchwood Isle!
4. Everyone plays together. We actively encourage our members to play with one another by using events to reward people for plotting with other members and planning threads with them. Our goal is to foster an environment in which members get to know one another personally and care for one another and one another's inner families. No environment is altogether clique-free, but we put every effort into making sure that everyone has a roleplay partner!
5. We have great events. Every month Birchwood Isle hosts a minimum of three events. Each of the three group foster homes on the island has an "activity night" which we play out monthly for those interested, and we also have community-wide events for everyone to participate in. Those participating receive an award for doing so (see below). Most months we also have an out of character event to encourage people to plot with one another.
6. Everybody loves awards! My co-administrator is a wonderful artist who creates graphic awards for the members who participate in the events and involve themselves in the contests. Who doesn't like getting an award added to their trophy case when they do something exceptional on the site? These are usually added monthly, though sometimes we get a bit of a back-log, since we like for them to be unique!
7. We encourage our members. Each week we post a "Weekly Encouragement" to lift up our members and to show them how much we appreciate them. These are words of encouragement for those who might be needing it, and also a way for us to point out areas where we'd like to see some particular character groups filled in. Members then have the opportunity to reply with their own form, to encourage one another or the staff!
8. Our characters are diverse. Though it's rare in ageplay, Birchwood Isle has a diverse cast of characters! They come from every race, many ethnic backgrounds, several genders (binary cisgender, binary transgender, non-binary and gender fluid), most sexual orientations (including asexual, demisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, pansexual, and bisexual), and socio-economic backgrounds. We truly are diverse.
9. We won't pressure you to play an adult. While we do encourage our members to make adult characters (and play them), we aren't going to force you to play an adult in order to take on another child character. You may play as many children as you want without a requirement to play an adult. Our files often say that we would like to see more adults and teenagers, but we don't carry any ratios unless absolutely necessary!

If you need one more reason, we'd love to have you at Birchwood Isle! Nobody's going to pressure you into being something you're not on Birchwood Isle, and we only ban for two reasons: Predatory behavior and discriminatory (racist or sexist) behavior. We're happy to have you with us!

Creature Feature: New Feature

You might be hearing a lot about new features on Birchwood Isle this week. That's because I'm doing what I can to establish a new structure for the blog (one I can keep up with!) and help you to understand our process and our island a little bit better.

The Creature Feature is an interesting one, for sure, especially if you didn't know that Birchwood Isle also has a moderate supernatural element to the role play!

Each week, we will be choosing either one of our species, one of our supernatural family lines, or one of our supernatural characters to feature in the Creature Feature on Wednesdays. This will allow our guests an opportunity to get to know the types of things that we do on Birchwood Isle that are somewhat out of the ordinary. 

If you have an inner kid who doesn't seem quite human, then this might work out well for you! Just bear in mind that our family lines are important to us and therefore we try to piece them together via canon families of people who fit together. We may occasionally accept a "creature" as a foster child or as a single adult, but they must be adopted in order to qualify for this status!

We'd like to encourage our guests to ask any questions they may have about the creature feature every week! This is something new to ageplay as far as we can tell, and since it is seemingly unfamiliar, we'd like to make sure that all necessary questions have been answered for our audience.

3 Ways that Inner Kids Depersonalize Adult Characters in Ageplay Groups

Inner kids in ageplay groups are notorious for treating every adult like they are "any adult." What I mean by this is that the adult is left feeling as though his personality matters less than his availability. As long as the adult is willing to adopt/punish/cuddle/spoil the inner child, it could be anybody with a name and a gender. Most child players prefer one gender over the others (I used to like male adults, but gender matters less to me now than it used to), but for the most part, the availability is the most important factor in ageplay.

While this might not be a problem for most people who play adults in age play groups (after all, many adult players want nothing more than to adopt cute inner kids), the purpose of Birchwood Isle is to be a dynamic, rich environment with a wide array of different characters to choose from. 

Personality matters on Birchwood Isle.

We want everybody thinking about how they build their characters, whether they identify their character as an "inner" or not. A fully-developed character includes positive and negative traits, hobbies, skills, hopes, dreams, fears, and overall is a well-rounded person. 

You treat your inner child as a person, so why not treat the adults in a group in the same way that you'd want your character treated? Look at it this way: If you believed that an adult was "shopping" for kids to add to their family and chose the first one they came across because the first one was the most "convenient," wouldn't it bother you, especially if your inner kid wasn't the first one the adult came across?

Hopefully you can understand how this would be an issue for adults the same as it would be for child characters. So let's look at the ways in which child players treat adult players as though their character is simply a convenience.

1. They accept the first adult offering to add their inner child to the family. We understand that in most cases there isn't a lot of variety staring you in the face because most ageplay groups have more children than they do adults (Birchwood Isle is no exception to this rule!). However, we've also noticed that many players will take up the first offer without chemistry testing or play testing a variety of scenarios (including discipline situations). In this way, the adult is only a convenience because his personality doesn't matter so much as his willingness to parent them does.
2. They treat every adult as though they are the same as every other adult. This is particularly common during punishment threads, because the child player treats the punishment as though anyone could be delivering it. A couple of times I've felt as though I'm working with a copy and paste job from previous punishment threads, and that particularly hurts because each of my adults spanks differently. While the formula is roughly the same, the characters are different.
3. They become angry or belligerent when the desired outcome doesn't happen. A few months back, this happened on Birchwood Isle: One of our members had an end-game in mind for their character, and instead of following the planned thread, they pushed for more (a harder spanking). The result was not what they desired, as the adult in the thread would have either walked away or (being a cop) called for backup to take down the defiant kid. In this case the member became irate that the adult in the thread didn't change his personality to meet the needs of the child.

Try to remember that your inner kid's needs are important, but that the needs and most of all the personality of the adult are also important to his or her player. The best stories are always mutually fulfilling, and you're more likely to find an adoptive parent for your inner kid if you treat the adults as unique individuals!

If you're interested in finding an ageplay group where every character (inner) is respected for his or her uniqueness, you should definitely...

Check out Birchwood Isle!

Inner Kid Connection: New Feature

A recent discussion in our chat box has led me to reach the conclusion that we're not talking enough about inner kids. Because we try to be a LSRPG (legit serious role playing group), we think this is pretty typical: Who spends a lot of time on their group talking about characters, after all? On Birchwood Isle, our "characters" are our inner kids (and sometimes inner adults) and therefore they don't get a lot of mention either on our forum or on our blog. 

We believe that it's time to change that, for two reasons:

The first reason is that most of the traffic to our forum comes from this blog, and people are finding this blog by searching Google for "Family Discipline Role Play" (presumably among others, but those guests and members we've spoken to tell us that this is their search term, and Birchwood Isle ranks high for it. In theory, if we talk more about inner kids we will do more to gain traffic for this search term. While we are a legit serious role playing group, we are also dedicated to building relationships for our inner people of all ages, and we would like to illustrate this to people. This illustration is impossible if people can't find us for the right reasons, so the goal at this point is to help others to find Birchwood Isle.

The second reason is that the structure of our site is rigid and many people feel that it's stifling. We've created it the way that we have because after extensive play testing and frequent abandonment by parents to our own inner kids, we wanted to do all we could to protect the inner children at Birchwood Isle from predators (or those exhibiting predatory behavior) and to make sure that any adoptions are "sticky" (meaning that they don't fall through the moment the figurative paperwork is signed).

If you don't like our structure (which we're expanding right now to illustrate for guests who and what we really are), that's fine: Birchwood Isle might not be for you. We do what we do for a good reason, and we hope that the right people (those whose inner kids need a solid, structured, environment that is as real as they are, and who are able to write extensive posts) can find us and will join our ranks.

In the meantime, this new series, published every Monday, is intended to help those who might fit with us to find us. So bring us your inner kids! They are welcome here!

7 Things Age Players do Wrong at Birchwood Isle

I know that nobody wants to hear that they're doing it wrong, and I also recognize that much of what this blog covers is "this is what you're doing wrong" and "how to make it better." We've been at this a long time, with Birchwood Isle coming up on four years running, and it's predecessor, Foster Forest, having run for close to seven years (off and on) before going belly up to make way for the grand project that is BWI. Ageplay has been part of my life for about seventeen years, and I've been running groups for fifteen. Very few people have been around this block as long as I have, and of those who have, none that I am aware of have been so consistent in playing nor have they maintained their own groups.

I'm not saying I'm better at this than you are: I'm saying that I likely have more experience than you do and that come what may, I know what's best for Birchwood Isle.

Some of our articles have universal application within ageplay role plays, and some of them have universal application in role play generally. This one relates specifically to Birchwood Isle, and the things that come up most often to disrupt our role play community.

1. Respond to a call for more teenagers with 13 or 14-year-olds. This is largely the fault of our founder team, as both of us have been unclear in the past about what it is that we're actually looking for when we ask for teenagers. Teenagers in this age range are still considered "younger" children and don't fill the need for high-school-aged teens.
2. Respond to a call for adults with an adult who won't adopt. Unless an adult is in a position to interact with the children of Birchwood Isle either in the group homes or as a potential adoptive parent, there is no use for the adult and he or she might as well relinquish the face claim to someone who will create a utilitarian adult.
3. Depersonalize adult characters to turn them into "spanking machines." We expect all of the characters on Birchwood Isle to show some character development and to have strong personalities. Some members treat our adults as though they are all interchangeable provided they are the "right" gender and face claim.
4. Refuse to interact with one or more genders. Birchwood Isle is proud to have a mix of genders (male, female, cis and transgender, as well as non-binary) and we also have a small group of members who insist on playing with only one gender. When we accept you, it is assumed that you will interact at least with binary male and female characters. Refusal to interact with males is upsetting to us.
5. Choose an adult character when shown a list including children and teens. We know you want to get spanked, and we recognize that the majority of you want to get spanked as early and often as possible. However, when you are shown a (short) list of administrative characters, we expect you to choose a character closer to your own character's age, not to aim to get spanked right away.
6. Refuse plots with administrator children while asking for plots with their adults. This happens more often than I'm comfortable admitting. Child and teen characters are often passed over in lieu of adult characters new members prefer to get to know in the hopes of getting spanked or adopted. The key to getting spanked or adopted is the child or teen characters!
7. Not reading what's posted for your information. For example, I have posted in more than one location that I do not like to spank little girls, and that I prefer to play males. Many members continue to ask me to spank their little girls with one of my adult females. This is a combination that turns my stomach for reasons I won't get into here (except to say that I have triggers, too!).

Nobody's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. We only ban for one reason, and that's predatory behavior. Different things come across as predatory, and I will list those here since it's related to the above information. Unless you are doing or have done one of the things listed here, you will not be banned (at least not permanently).

1. Reject all characters of a particular gender while demanding members create children for your character of a specific age and gender. One person was banned because he insisted on only role playing with girls and demanded that they all be teenage girls. He was very clear and insistent that they would be under strict rules and frequently spanked. (It should be noted that this member also mentioned publicly, in our chat box, a girl he knew who enjoyed detentions because they made her feel "loved." The risk of pedophilia was too high to keep him.)
2. Demand that a punishment meet certain criteria or expectations. It is one thing to have a preference for a certain scenario, but you may not demand of our adults. This is considered predatory. One member was banned when he refused to accept that an adult couldn't complete a thread due to the dire consequences it would mean for his teenage character, and called me all kinds of names for not changing my adult character to accommodate him. He was just here to get his jollies, and nothing else.
3. Attach to a single character, family, or member and refuse to play with others. This has happened a total of two times on Birchwood Isle, and in both cases the member was unsatisfied and wound up leaving the group. In one case the member was also banned. Not only is this behavior highly predatory as it preys upon the object of fixation, but it is the beginnings of a "clique," which are dangerous in our community environment.
4. Singling out a member or character and then leaving the group with a final message asking that member to role play with you privately. This was our last ban, and it would appear that the member arrived on the site for the sole purpose of singling out a new role play partner. We are not a personals service and I have rarely felt so crept on as I did with this particular situation. Please don't ask our members for 1x1 role play: It's incredibly bad manners!