confessions by and for roleplayers

The RPC is inherently selfish with far and few exceptions.

There's this mun in my fandom. We've been mutuals for ages, they're an absolute sweetheart, but we've barely written together because they're never around. We started a couple threads that I ended up dropping because they disappeared for almost two years. Anyway, what keeps happening is they'll message me out of the blue so excited that I'm still here and how they can't wait to start RPing again, and I'll reblog their promo or send them a meme to help them "get things going again," which they never answer because they disappear again after that until a year or so later and it repeats. Seriously, our last three conversations (if you can consider 2-3 messages a conversation) were all over a year apart. As nice as they are, I've lost almost all enthusiasm for interacting with them, because I know nothing will happen. My own blog is semi-retired at this point and only running on a queue of pics of my muse, and my pinned post says this, yet they still messaged me "OMG YOU'RE STILL HERE!! I'M COMING BACK!" (not those exact words) every year or two. I didn't see their most recent message until days later since I barely check that account now, but I honestly don't know if it's worth it to respond. I'm not into ghosting or whatever, but we literally only exchange a few words every one or two years because that's how little they're online. Yet for whatever reason they always message me like we're RP BFFs whenever they come around (despite us never actually getting to know each other that well) and I feel bad because like, do they really expect me to still be super excited to see them and super pumped at the thought of writing when we haven't written anything together in almost five years now? When the last few comeback attempts lasted all of a week where they reblog one meme and a gifset or two and that's it? I don't want to hurt their feelings, but what do they really expect here? What do people who only come around once or twice a year or less, really expect to happen?

If you aren't having fun because you aren't everyone's main version of a popular canon character, then that's something you need to sort out with yourself. Popular canons will have multiple writers. It's okay for you to write with the multiples of popular canon ship interest but the second it happens to you, you are mad?

People are so unwilling to add conflict to their threads it's so boring! everything just constantly being happy with no conflict for muses that have flaws and red flags is just really boring! then people get overly sensitive if a muse is mean to their muse!! my muse is being mean to your MUSE not you. this is not a personal attack towards you!!! stop projecting onto your damn muses! people weren't so vanilla in the better tumblr years. 2010s era RPC i miss u everyday.

Remaking your blog every time you go inactive, return to a "fresh start", then proceed to leave for months again, and repeating the cycle has me fed up to the point of blocking every time I see you. Sometimes I question if you're doing this to block evade those who cut off mutuals with you, but again this is speculation on my part. I've never seen someone move blogs this often until now.

The best time to rp was up to the year 2014, but the second best time is now and I mean that. People are kinder than they have ever been on this website. I’ve seen a lot of people kinda glorify the days of 2016 tumblr rp when genuinely I think those were the dark ages. I think the years from when Tumblr started to about 2014 were good, but after that, many rpers came in who… it’s hard to describe fully. It’s like I couldn’t interact with anyone. I rarely ever had anyone follow and getting people to interact was like yanking teeth out. Also, writing became more prose-y and thats when the “I owe you nothing” rhetoric started spinning. I recall around this time there was the feeling of a panopticon rping here. Then around maybe 2019-2023 this started to fade out. People talk to me ooc now! This is great! Maybe I just found a good group of people and this is just my experience so I cant speak for everyone, but what was going on? What changed for the better?

I am inclined to believe that people who reply a pm prompt directly instead of doing a new post aren't interested in turning it into a thread. It's really not that much work to copy-paste a prompt into a new post.

There was this mutual of mine who likes my starter call and I created one for them but they never responded to it for months. Same mutual also liked my inbox call but I sent three asks to them and only responded to one of them. However, they liked my HCs and send me asks once in a while and partially engage with me, which is a good thing because not many would bother doing these. I understand people being slow due to real life. I would like to ask them for a follow up for a starter without sounding too pushy, but I feel like they’re ignoring me on purpose or just generally busy despite I wanna remain mutuals with them. I don’t know if I should break mutuals with them because I wrote starters for them a few times but they don’t reply to any of them. We discussed OOC for a bit but our conversation doesn’t go anywhere. I don’t know what to do. I feel like they’re losing interest and they just want to keep me as a follower count.

It is frustrating when you throw your partner a pitch that works for both muses, and they completely ignore it to pull something out of their ass that only works for their muse instead.

Sometimes I hate being on here because there's this one person who has a history of block evading a good friend of mine and keeps deleting blogs after having them for a while then making new ones for new muses with no indication of who is behind that blog. I'm a little paranoid, right now.

So there is a topic that I normally don't feel comfortable writing, but lately I have been exploring it in once particular universe with one particular rp partner who I feel comfortable doing so with. I only write it with them, and I tag the posts in case anyone sees it and wants to blacklist (I don't think anyone is interested enough in my writing to read it and notice, but I still take precautions because it's the right thing to do). But I can't help feeling a little disheartened when I look for new rp partners and see their rules stating that anyone who writes that topic will always be banned from interacting with them. 100% it is absolutely their right to curate their experience and make sure they are comfortable, that is so important, but to know that because I write one single thing in one single verse with one single rp partner who I trust, I'd therefore be banned from interacting with so many people, it's a little sad.

You told me how it is you prioritise threads, that those you don't really care for, you don't even draft and put them in a tracker instead. And yet now, years later you're replying to threads I have basically forgotten about because I assumed you didn't have interest in continuing them. If they're the bottom of the pile for your interest and have been for years, why are you bothering with them now and what made you think that I would be interested in continuing them? You invertedly told me you didn't care about them so I stopped caring too. Don't try and put the onus on me to carry on a thread that I can't even access properly because they're legacy posts, they're dropped as far as I'm concerned after you didn't even bother to draft them. You're only replying now because your faves have moved on to new faves, you even complained about that to me too btw, I'm not an idiot.

It pisses me off whenever I see my bully gets positivity and shoutouts. It makes me wanna warn anyone to show how terrible person they are but too bad they’re super popular.

As a multimuse, I am very chill about people not picking a muse. I happily pick a muse for them at random, no problen. HOWEVER, if you want a prompt or starter from a specific muse, you have to tell me. Because surprise, I'm not a mind-reader, and I let my mutuals know that. If you wand Muse B instead Muse E from that starter call, comment on it. If someone repeatedly refuses to specify a muse but also ignores what I wrote or sent them, I softblock them. Either specify a muse if you have strong preferences, or deal with what I give you. That shouldn't be so hard to understand.

I don't understand people getting upset about inbox calls. Especially if someone runs a multimuse, and have inspiration for specific muses, they can post one or multiple inbox calls for those muses and see if their mutuals are interested in getting them in their inbox. No big deal.

I hate that this community had jaded me so much that when I see a mutual replying back and forth quickly with an rp partner while a ton of things like our threads are stuck their drafts for weeks, I'm not happy for them like I used to be. I'm bitter. I'm jealous. I fear I'm being fucking lied to my face again about the person wanting to write with me. That I'm being led on. I hate it. I wish I could think "good for them!" all happy like I used to!

I don’t have any issues writing with any OC regardless of their race. I write OCs of color and I usually get blocked and unfollowed by OCs who uses white and overused FCs because I’m not afraid to be vocal how we usually get overlooked and ignored. It’s upsetting. I wish I get the same treatment as them. That’s all I ask for.