November Event: Food Drive

Though many of the families on Birchwood Isle are quite well-to-do, there are still some very poor families who struggle to make ends meet. For this reason, the police department has come together in a food drive to support the community.

The officers of Birchwood Isle will be working closely with both public schools (the elementary school and the public high school) to raise awareness of the poverty-stricken areas of Birchwood Isle while also gathering donations of non-perishable foods. Community members are encouraged to also donate whole frozen turkeys, which will be stored for distribution on the day before Thanksgiving. 

Everyone is invited to participate. This is an opportunity to help the community and to come meet the police officers who keep Birchwood Isle a safe place to live, work, and play. Show your community spirit by signing up to help with collection and distribution, or just to spread the word about the food drive!

Threads will take place in a special board in the Police Station, with opportunities to meet the officers and other people in various age groups. Teachers are encouraged to spread the word through their students via threads in their classrooms or simple announcements.

If you would like to participate in this monthly event at Birchwood Isle you may join us now!

The sign-up form for existing members is located here.

November Activity Night at Second Chances

What better time for a roaring bonfire party than November? In the hopes that the teens are capable of behaving responsibly, Second Chances is giving them a chance by throwing a (supervised) bonfire party the first week in November. Refreshments will be provided for the teens, and there will be music, dancing, and social times for everyone! 

Adults will be on hand for supervision or for any kind of assistance that the teens may need. Teens are reminded that they are not permitted to engage in any illegal activity and that the house rules apply during activity nights, meaning that they must maintain respect for the adults and for their peers.

Everyone is expected to participate in this activity night. This includes the teens at Phillips House!

Use this opportunity to get to know other characters in your age group as well as to socialize with the adults who work at Second Chances. This is a great social opportunity and not intended as a chance to get your character into trouble.

If you're interested in joining our foster teens for bonfire night, then you should come along and join us at Birchwood Isle!

It's November on Birchwood Isle!

Birchwood Isle is quite probably the best literate ageplay site on the internet today. We're different than most role playing groups of our genre because while we encourage physical discipline (spanking, paddling, caning, and so on) of the errant children and teens living on Birchwood Isle, we stress the importance of building relationships within the peer group and with the adults who take care of our inner children. In short, we're not just about spanking.

Ultimately our goal is to help every child or teen who wants to find a family to find a loving adoptive family with parents who are able and willing to make a commitment to that child. We understand the flighty nature of ageplay, but our goal is always to provide a stable environment for your inner child to grow and flourish on. Stability is important for the healing process many of us come to ageplay to achieve, and we want to provide that stability for our members.

We would like for Birchwood Isle to become "home" for your muse(s). The real world is the home our bodies live in, but the inner people (our muses) that occupy our minds need their homes as well. Birchwood Isle serves as a fully-developed and overwhelmingly solid "world" for your characters to inhabit. On Birchwood Isle, you will find shoppes, services, restaurants, bars, and coffee shoppes. You will find Community Parks and Recreational facilities. You will find three developed foster care programs for children, teens, and teen parents and married youth. Your inner kid (in foster care) will be well cared for by a team of up to five individuals looking out for his or her best interests. This team consists of a guardian (ad litem), a social worker, a therapist/counselor, a medical doctor (pediatrician or g.p. in most cases unless there's a medical history), and a teacher (elementary school children only). 

Our goal is to get every child adopted, and we have a fully developed Adoption Policy to help ensure that we achieve the best matches. When you find the right person, your inner child will also have a sponsor, foster parent, or adoptive parent to help support and guide them.

Nobody on Birchwood Isle gets ignored. We're active (between 20-60 posts a day), with a relatively large member base (17 members) and the best part? The events and activities! We provide plenty of opportunities for your inner kid or adult muse to get involved in the community and to interact with all of the characters on the Island. Our November Announcement will give you the information you need about the current events going on, and we have even more planned for December!

We don't have an application. Instead, we interview new members in our New Member Interview Room. This room isn't always open. I'll send you an e-mail when you register to join us there so that we can chat about your character. All we need from you is your age, your character's full name (first middle and last), age, year in school or occupation, face claim, and your alias. That's all there is to it, and we can get you started right away! We're very accepting and loving as a group, and we'd love to have you with us!

Join Birchwood Isle Today!

November Activity Night at New Beginnings

At New Beginnings, the kids have a lot to be thankful for. For most of these kids, they have a safe home for the first time in their lives (or at least in quite a long time) and they now have the opportunity to be adopted by members of the Birchwood Isle Community.

November's Activity night focuses on two things: Being thankful for the things these children have been given that they might never have had without New Beginnings, and learning to prepare a meal together (something that's usually fun for most kids!).

This month we're going to be doing things a bit differently than we did with the October Activity Night. Each child is going to be placed into a group with their legal guardian, who will help them to prepare the Thanksgiving dish of the guardian's choice. Groups will consist of one adult with up to five children and threads will be completed with rotational play. All characters at New Beginnings are required to participate.

November provides an excellent opportunity for the children to get some time to spend with other people in their group as well as with their guardians, getting to know them. The age groups will be mixed, allowing for social opportunities with a variety of different ages. 

The Activity Night will continue through the end of November, and new characters can be added to the existing groups right up to November 30th, so if this sounds like something you'd have fun doing, please come along and check out Birchwood Isle Family Discipline Role Play.

Why I Won't Adopt Your Inner Kid

I'm a "yes man" (except that I'm a woman) in as much as I have a terrible time telling people "no" when they ask me pleadingly if I will give them their heart's greatest desire. After all, I'm physically capable of doing it; In theory it's nothing more than words on a screen, written to satisfy the emotional needs of another person. It's a kindness to take care of people when you're capable of doing the work necessary to care for them, isn't it? Don't we all wish to be kind?

Let me break down the reasons why asking me to adopt your inner kid is impractical.

1. I just don't like being asked. It's very difficult to say no to somebody, especially when you understand their need. Being asked makes me highly uncomfortable and if we were on our way to bonding, there's a chance that asking me will interrupt the process that might have actually led to me adopting your inner kid. I'm not doing this to be cruel; I'm just telling you the truth.
2. If I agree to adopt your inner kid, then everybody else will want me to adopt their inner kid too. It might not occur to you that other people in the group have already asked me to adopt their children, but to put it in simple terms, three people at Birchwood Isle have at this point asked me to adopt one of their children. I can't adopt all of them, and if I agree to adopt yours, then that's not fair to others.
3. I have a trusting relationship with my primary roleplay partner, Ava. I role play with everybody and I do not consider myself to be insular with Ava in that I'm willing to play with and punish everyone in the group -- within reason and moderation. I'm even willing to adopt a small handful of kids -- at my discretion. However, my trust has been placed in Ava and I know that our relationship is symbiotic. She gives me more than she takes from me.
4. In general, I'm doing more for the group than I'm getting from the group. Ava and I operate on a 2/3 rule. Each of us believes that we should be giving 2/3 and taking 1/3. Most of the time I'm already giving my 2/3, and I'm not ready to give up the final 1/3 of time that I have to focus on my own inner kids in order to focus on your inner kid. I'm sorry if you feel this is unfair, but I'm giving more than I'm taking.
5. I don't know you very well. Ava's and my relationship took three months to get to the point I was willing to parent one of her kids (Bryn, as it happens), and then took another nearly three months before we were even actually friends. It took a lot of time before we built the trust that we have now. We've been together (intimately) for three years now, and we live together. Getting to know you takes time that many aren't willing to spend.
6. I'm afraid I'll abandon you. Part of knowing someone well, and trusting them well, is knowing that they aren't going to abandon you or that you aren't going to abandon them. Most of us have at some point or another been abandoned by a roleplay parent. I don't want to be the person who gets too exhausted or frustrated with having to do a lot of punishing and therefore walks away from you. Trust me when I tell you that I have little patience for inner kids who drive from one punishment thread to the next, and I'll wind up moving on. I know myself: Trust me.
7. You're too demanding. Insisting that I adopt your inner kid is a very demanding thing to do, and most people who ask do so repeatedly over a period of days or weeks (often before leaving the group, I'm afraid). It's better if you let me interact with you naturally, get to know your inner kid, and come to you. We do adoption on Birchwood Isle for a reason, and our adoption policies make this an extended process that takes a long time so that both parties can be sure. By the time three months is up, if you keep demanding, I'm going to be sure. I'm going to be sure I do not want to adopt your inner kid.

If I want to adopt your kid, I will make sure to come to you with the invitation. I'm not trying to be mean about this, but I'm trying to give you an opportunity to prevent me from getting overwhelmed by you before you even have the chance to explore that type of relationship.

This has been a personal post. Other players may feel differently than I do, so feel free to add your own thoughts to the comments below.

Active vs. Passive Posts: What you Need to Know to be a Better Roleplayer

When people ask us "how are my posts," it's a difficult question to answer, because we're always worried that we might offend somebody with the response. The truth is that no matter how good a role player you are, there is always room for you to improve. We'll be posting a series of posts about how you can improve your role playing. 

Today's topic is "Active vs. Passive Posting." Understanding this concept and applying it will improve any post that you make in any role playing group and it will make you a more desirable roleplay partner.

Good posts are always active, since active posts give your partner something to reply to. 

It is a popular belief in role play that longer posts give the partner more to reply to. On the contrary, an active one-sentence post gives your partner more than 900 passive words. But what's an active post?

An active post creates an action, giving your partner some kind of story to reply to. Here is an example of an active post:

Drew's feet carried him along the path that bordered the woods, his eyes on his feet as he walked with Bryn beside him. For a long time they didn't talk, neither of them exchanging a word as he considered the circumstances and the reasons why they couldn't simply vanish into the woods. He was about to say something to Bryn, to point out that they were being impractical, when a rustling at the edge of the woods caught his attention. Surprised, he nudged her with his elbow. "You see that?" 

In a single paragraph, this post has provided the role play partner with something to reply to. What is that in the woods? Now Bryn's player can reply to the post by seeing something, going to explore it, or pointing out that it was just a rabbit. One way or another, Bryn can reply to this post by doing something or saying something in direct response to the post and to Drew.

Using the same scenario (belonging to real characters at Birchwood Isle), this is a passive post.

Drew continued to walk along the path, his eyes fixed to the ground as he went. Lost in his own thoughts, he didn't speak aloud to Bryn. A bird flew overhead, and he raised his eyes to look at it, then sighed and continued to head back to their home at Second Chances. He wished that they could do more together, get out of the house more, and go into the woods together and never come back again, but that would be impossible. Both of them would get in trouble, but that wasn't the part that concerned him. He was much more concerned about whether or not they would be able to get enough food or supply their clothing.

Do you see how in the second example, Bryn might have difficulty replying except to make a post in which she shares her own thoughts about what she's doing? 

Passive posts are an especially difficult problem for role players who place heavy emphasis on the length of a post. The longer a post is, the more likely it is to be filled with "filler," words that aren't required in order to make the author's point. Good role play posts focus instead on three things:

1. Setting 
2. Action
3. Dialog

Since setting need only be discussed in the opening of a thread, and it's unnecessary to repeatedly describe a character's attire, points two and three become the imperative parts of a post. Your focus, therefore, should always be on the action and dialog of your posts.

In other words, each post should ideally contain two cues for your partner: An "action" cue and a "line" cue (much like in theatre). 

The action is something that your character has done or which has happened in the environment to which your partner may reply. 

Drew reached out to grab Bryn's arm, pulling her back from the danger of the bear lurking at the edge of the woods.

The line is something your character says to your partner which indicates that it's their turn to speak. 

"Watch out! Back away slowly, and be careful where you step!"

If you have questions about how this works, or would like to see more examples, please feel free to leave a comment, and I will supply some examples via our Tumblr page.

4 Reasons Severely Disordered Ageplay Characters aren't "Special" but Annoying

Although Birchwood Isle Ageplay and Spanking RPG is appless (meaning that we don't require many character details before you can get started), we do expect our members to work on developing their character and on fine-tuning their personalities. BWI is obviously a discipline-related role play, and we encourage (and use) physical punishment with the children and teens on the Island. However, our primary focus is not on the spanking, but on the relationships that build out of it.

Here's what I want to talk to you about today: Everybody wants to be special. 

Every player is trying to make their character stand out in the crowd of other characters on the site, especially considering that the administrators have a long list of characters originally created to flesh out the group and to give it the feel of a thriving community. More on this in another post.

The problem with this is that all-too often, people choose to build their character around what amounts to a list of disorders and symptoms in lieu of giving them a real personality. Before I get into the specific reasons that this doesn't work out well in the long run, I want to give you some examples of what we're talking about. These aren't specific examples pointing fingers at specific people, and any one of these issues alone wouldn't be a problem. 

• A severely autistic child who is also intellectually disabled and who is entirely mute. He writes backward using his left hand and only knows the Greek alphabet.
• A teenager who has a special eating disorder causing her to only want to eat rocks. She won't eat real food and any attempt to make her do so results in massive tantrums.
• A child who still wets their pants at age 11 and cannot be potty trained. This child is entirely antisocial with children his age and relies entirely on interactions in which adults change his pants.
• A girl who is absolutely terrified of men and who therefore becomes non-compliant in their presence, forcing them to punish her for her fear, or to simply stop interacting with her entirely.
• A child whose religion forbids him from being housed with other children in of the opposite sex, meaning that he must instantaneously placed in a private foster placement.
• A teenager whose chronic insensitivity to pain means that she cannot be physically punished in a system that espouses physical punishment, but who then acts out frequently due to her ADHD.

I could go on for quite some time about this, but my point is that your character needs to be more than any symptoms of diseases that they have. 

Please don't misunderstand. We absolutely permit you to play characters who have disorders or symptoms. All we ask is that you take the time necessary to research your disorder and understand the disease instead of making it up as you go along. For example, we have a thriving community of Deaf characters on Birchwood Isle. The people playing these characters have a firm understanding of Deaf culture, American Sign Language, and the Deaf community. 

If you choose to play a character with a disorder, be prepared to understand that disorder. Eating disorders and drug addiction are the most common and likely types of disorder we'd see in foster children on Birchwood Isle. These are relatively easy to research!

I've composed some reasons why making your character nothing but a list of their symptoms is unwise.

1. Characters who don't have personalities are boring. Bear in mind that a list of symptoms does not a personality make. Strengths, weaknesses, skills, and hobbies are the foundation of personality, as are motivations and behavior. Symptoms aren't any of these things, and therefore they are secondary to your character's personality. Characters with too many symptoms are generally void of personality, making them dry for their role play partners.
2. Disordered characters are difficult for adults. Our experience tells us that there are plenty of age players who seem to enjoy the strain that they place on the adult players, but we frown on this because over time, these types wear down the adult players, who will eventually leave the group or who won't want to continue to role play with the disordered child or teen. Don't make a difficult kid for the sake of being special. Do it because it's inside of you and be patient with your partners.
3. Disordered characters are often bratty or needy. Many people make a list of symptoms in the hopes not of making their character unique, but of making somebody "love" their character and want to bond with them because they are so needy and special. The fact is that most players with adult characters don't have the time or energy to devote to these disorders, and it's probably not going to happen for you. 
4. Severely disordered characters are generally considered "unadoptable" on Birchwood Isle. Because these children are especially difficult and place a lot of strain on the adult playing with them, the character is going to need to form a strong bond with an adult (and their player) in order to convince them to look past what makes the child or teen character difficult in order to love them.

I'm writing from experience. My character Toby is one of my earliest characters. I still play her because I love her, but she is especially difficult, with a nicotine addiction, anorexia, and a learning disability. It's taken me years of cultivating her personality and showing her vulnerabilities (which are few) in order to make her endearing to other people. Many people find her strange and unlikable because she's just too much.

If you need to, or want to, go ahead and make a disordered character, but bear in mind that they need to have a personality and that three or four disordered stacked on top of one another may result in your character being undesirable for adoption.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments!