Romance... that's a little bit of a hard subject. Personally, I like to let the characters get to know one another very well before things are decided. I'm not the 3 days = love kind of person.

I would allow your character's emotions to work things out, and their perception of that character to determine things. As for having children, that is something you should discuss with the person who has the other character. c: Collaboration helps a great deal. I wouldn't get into discussing pairing up with another character if they have just met- rather, just wait and see if the other person's character is showing great interest in yours, and take it from there. This approach can work for both in game and role playing, but for the in game experience you need to pay particularly good attention to the other person's body language and see how long they are willing to stick around.

A lot of this is a waiting game and dependent on interest. Or at least, that how it is for me. What particular route have you been taking with this?

@Cato- Yup I would definitely agree with you on a lot of those points you brought up Mhm.
@cloud- I agree with you too, yup, especially the 'no instant-mate' thing. No excitement in that, hah. A good relationship has to marinate a bit ah. As for me, when my doe had a mate, yeah it definitely was gradual and I valued the connection between player-and-player. May not be mandatory, but it's always a plus to really befriend the other person. Art is another thing I like to use to show connections between deer, you have the freedom to interpret the emotions of both parties and I've always really liked that.

@Jacklo- Mmhmm, mmhmm, I gotcha. I agree esp. with you on that last part. Which is why I probably wouldn't start anything with my characters at least too soon because I might just be drowning in work very soon and, well, that would suck if I couldn't maintain the love aha, but I like reading y'all's opinions *nodnod*

my method of choice is doing this with the characters



I'm kidding though. Everybody has given advice that I myself would have given!

Jacklo summed it up pretty well.

*INHALES and slides in because this is actually super relevant to one of my characters right now*hi Kostya

Short version:
I giant headache about it.
Then my friend/rp partner/Helel and I also giant headache about it together because we're both "??romance?????? and try to work out "what do"

Long version:
It's kind of like real life romance, and I personally think a golden rule is never, ever rush into it. And always discuss it with your rp partner. Of course there's also not really any written rule against having your characters just suddenly mash themselves into being mates/having a relationship, but I think it's a whole lot better if you play it out slowly and watch it gradually develop and blossom into something. It feels a lot more rewarding.
Also as Jacklo put it, forcing characters into a relationship isn't great cos it looks......forced and fake. It also seems kind of hollow and looks like there's something lacking between the characters.
(Unless you have some plot where that forced relationship happens between characters.)

Also want to quickly bring up that it's okay for characters to have unhealthy relationships, as long as the players recognise it's unhealthy and not romanticise it.


Do you prefer to know the other player personally for a while before starting anything between the characters?
I dont think it's required, especially in the crush stage. But for more serious things it really does help if you know the player too because it'd be easier to talk to them and keep track of it. That and it feels a lot less one sided.


Is it critical to do roleplays versus in-game interaction(or the reverse, or both)?
Roleplay = mostly yes, ingame wise = it depends?
Personally I prefer some rps to happen, cos it's fun. But it's not always necessary.

For example with Kostya's budding romantic feelings, Helel and I haven't rp'd anything out yet and are having a sort of "let it develop behind the scenes" type thing (basically where we discuss it, and agree on things that have gone on outside of actual rp). Also because you can't really rp everything and some things aren't really worth rping at that point in time. For example it's not really worth me trying to rp Kostya getting tense each time Thomas jokes about him and Bucky being boyfriends, even though it was actually a catalyst for Kostya recognising those romantic feelings.

We generally rp the major things. Like at some point soon we're going to be organising a rp between their Jude and Kostya, with Kostya admitting to Jude that he's got feelings for Bucky because he's not sure if his and Jude's friends with benefits thing is okay anymore.

Basically all of this relationship stuff happens outside of forest in the human world.

Interestingly waaaaaaaaaay back when Draak and Mitra (Quamar's) were a thing we didn't really rp it at all and it all played out inforest while we talked and jittered over it over msn, and it still all worked out. Eventually we even planned for them to have a kid; Aura.


Do you just kind of let the character's emotions flow and let things happen or would you contact the player and come up with a sort of plot-line and discuss what you would want to happen with the couple and possibly their offspring?
I don't decide who my characters fall in love with, it kind of just, happens after a while sometimes (it also depends on the character cos it doesn't always happen). And if the other character has requited feelings it's a bonus. If not...it's angst central for them.

If my character ends up having feelings for someone elses I'll quietly watch it for a while, and then if it persists I'll bring it up with the other person and tell them that "WELP I think *character* has feelings for *character*" and then it will go from there and the planning/plotting/etc will begin.

It's really, really important to contact the other player if things start getting serious for characters because discussion is vital if you want it to succeed. It really does not work if the planning and plotting is one sided and there's minimal discussion between rp partners.

I think the only time it's okay to do things "one sided" is if your rp partner goes MIA and you have no idea where they've gone. I had to do that with Chime and Olive's relationship because Hubalaboo (Olive's player) vanished for real life years (and they're still MIA D: ) and I ended up making Chime move on because it was bringing her down.


Also this.


Not pictured: All the squee-ing that also happens during discussion and planning.

woah giant rambled LOL