The wait for Season 3 of True Blood is coming closer and closer to an end, but it's still torturing everyone. With the new True Blood minisodes and posters only making the continued wait more difficult, I've been trying to make my own wait a little less torturous by casually joining in on a little role play. I recently stumbled upon an amazing group of Twitter roleplayers, and they've been incredibly kind to me, allowing me to interview them. After seeing how well my interviews with Sookie, Tara, Queen Sophie-Anne and Sam went, young vampire Jessica Hamby agreed to sit down with me for an interview as well... An interview that will be featured in 2 parts. This is part 1. Isis: Thank you for your time, Jessica. Won't you please sit down so we can get started? @MadeJessica: Ok. *twisting hands a little nervously.* Isis: No need to be nervous. It's just a few questions! For example, when did you begin roleplaying? @MadeJessica: When I was in college actually. I write A LOT to start out with and then one of my roomies turned me on to RP and it's been a good writing outlet ever since Isis: Is it similar to fanfiction for you? @MadeJessica: No, not really. I'm still trying to define fanfiction for a character writer like myself. I don't know if what I do is fanfiction. Isis: I'd suggest for character writing you try first person point of view if you want to write stories @MadeJessica: I do know that I'm a very heavy character writer, be they self made characters or canons from books or shows. The kind of voice I use to write depends on how that character is made up. I also play Tara in another group and though I've tried it, I can not write for Tara in first person, but I think that's because she's a very guarded person, so nobody else is supposed to "be in her head" but her...if that makes sense. Isis: It does. Have you ever been anyone in another genre? @MadeJessica: Yes, a ton of characters, when I join into a genre that is created after a show/book/movie I usually start out as a canon character before I introduce my creation into the mix. I've played in X-Men, Firefly, and even American Gods, one of my favorite books by Neil Gaiman. I LOVE that book! Isis: Oh, I agree. Gaiman is amazing, right up there with Alan Ball! @MadeJessica: Yes, Alan Ball is fantastic too. Isis: You said that you role played in another universe I personally like. Who were you in X-Men? @MadeJessica: CopyCat and Tag. They were minor characters and died in the comic but I liked their significance to the whole story. Copycat was a bad guy who was linked to Deadpool. They had something of a toxic but passionate relationship and Tag was a smartass laid back kinda guy. Isis: It all sounds like fun. How did playing them compare to playing Jessica now? @MadeJessica: I can't compare them, the worlds are SO different for me, X-Men for me was more fantastical, and even a boring day for someone in the mutant world of X-Men had some kind of fantasy/dreamlike feeling to it. The True Blood world, though it does have its fantastical side, is very real and gritty and even the fantastical characters can have a no drama quiet boring day or two. Jessica gets bored REALLY quickly. Isis: I've noticed that. @MadeJessica: But that's what I like about Jessica; she will make her own fun no matter where she is. Isis: Yep, and she's still a bratty teenager on top of that. @MadeJessica: Yeah, but I find that her bratty side is sometimes misinterpreted. There are times where she is genuinely frustrated with her situation because she can't find something stable to keep her grounded… Well, not 'til Hoyt anyway, and even then there's some shaky ground with that relationship too. Isis: There definitely is. @MadeJessica: I think she's a survivor among all things, so when she gets bored it's kind of scary because of what she is now. She potentially has FOREVER, and if she gets bored now, who knows what else will fall away. It scares ME to think about being bored for a day, poor Jess could get bored for years if she's not careful... Isis: Yeah, she could cause some SERIOUS destruction! @MadeJessica: Yeah because she is, as you said, a kinda angsty teen, and somewhat of a klutz in my opinion. She's perpetually stuck in that in between phase, so not only is she dealing with emotions, I think she even has physicalities to get used to. Isis: Yes, and she has to find her place in the world… And stay away from The Magister! @MadeJessica: I think she's more looking for a place, period, she tends to break things up into smaller situations so she can deal with them better. Of course, this is all MY interpretation of her anyway. Jessica can make trouble but she HATES being IN trouble. For me, that's the comical side of her pairing with Bill, he spends so much of his time trying to get Sookie out of trouble while Jess forces him to chastize her for being in trouble herself. Isis: I've noticed that in a previous Twittersode, Jessica was punished rather harshly. @MadeJessica: Yes, that was also my idea. Isis: Really? @MadeJessica: Jessica's punishment anyway. I wanted to challenge myself as a writer. Jessica talks a lot and people spend alot of time telling her in one way or another, to shut up… So I said to myself, okay, what if she did shut up, for awhile, as an ultimate punishment? How would she cope, how would she still BE Jessica without being able to talk peoples' ears off? I actually had fun doing that. Isis: Yes, but it was a pretty horrible punishment. (Jessica faced a tribunal and had her tongue… removed as well as being forbiddent to take nourishment from a human donor in any way… Only TruBlood for her.) @MadeJessica: Meh, as long as she doesn't meet second death, I figure any punishment she gets isn't that bad. Isis: Great point. @MadeJessica: A harsher punishment in my eyes would be defanging. I think Jessica would go entirely mad if she had to endure that... Isis: Why do you think that? @MadeJessica: She was made into a vampire. Her fangs are the biggest feature about being a vampire that defines WHAT she is. Taking away her fangs, I think she'd feel more dead tot he world than anything else and push her into a deeper sense of liminality, she would be an awkward teen vampire who wasn't really a full vampire who then needed to depend more on other people for survival. It would force her to be around Bill more and when they are together, Bill is still awkward with her and she still feels like a mistake around him. Maybe it would be a good crash course for Bill to learn what responsibility of another child is, but I dont suspect it would be any fun for Jess. Isis: Yes, Bill's never had to deal with teenagers before, especially one of his own. @MadeJessica: He's hilariously awkward with her. Sometimes I feel bad for him even as I am he reason for his troubles with how I play Jess. Isis: You have to agree that Jessica on True Blood is pretty bad herself, and you play her really accurately. @MadeJessica: She is; she cracks me up and sometimes I just wanna hug her, but even in that, I feel even if I did hug her she'd STILL try to bite me and get in an argument with me... and she'd huff "I wasn't gonna kill you, just gonna take a sip." Isis: *laughing* @MadeJessica: And thanks, thats what I strive for when I do play, although I do go off on my own creative legs, I like to keep as close to canon as I possibly can. Well, that's all for now. Come back next week to read what else Jessica had to say! And as always, for those of you interested in checking out the role playing (which I highly recommend because this group is so good), you can find a list of the current group of role players on their website, twittertrueblood.webs.com, which can be found under the Character navigation link. It is worth it to check them out! http://truebloodnet.com http://truebloodnet.com/community http://truebloodnet.com/forums
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