Strange Feelings

"Why are you helping me?"

"Because I think you should be helped."

Indie In Stars and Time Siffrin and Loop

Written by Arrows

OC, AU, and crossover friendly

Follows via fullyphantom

“He’s been making us just to kill us! He’s been doing it for ages!”

                                                 “I just want to be safe.”

Indie Owl House Golden Guard OC

Written by Arrows

OC, AU, and crossover friendly

Follows via fullyphantom

This is one of my worst pet peeves in Role playing or doing any collaborative writing with other people. It’s something I myself have been guilty of, especially if my muse is running low and I am forcing out replies. It’s something I see a lot of even from very good writers. It’s a widespread problem, that is exhausting for an RP partner to deal with in threads especially if it’s every reply.

And just like any problem – the first step in resolving it is looking out for it and realizing it’s there to begin with. Being conscious about this I personally believe separates a good RP partner from a great one.

I’m talking about passive replies.

Passive replies come in various forms. They can be anything from a novella sized reply – to a one-liner but they all share a similar trait. They do not contribute to pushing the action of a thread forward. They tend to be a summary of the reply preceding it through their character’s eyes with a small verbal or nonverbal reaction to the character they are interacting with. They do not add any new information for the other character to react to because the reply is pure reaction without any proactive elements.

This means your thread basically becomes the equivalent of a conversation like this:

Hey, you!  Oh, Hey! How are you? Oh, I’m good. What are you up to? Nothing much, really. Have any plans? No. Not really.

It’s a functional conversation – sure, but it’s one-sided and relies on one person driving the action while the other simply responds. It is exhausting for one mun to constantly be the one driving the action of a scene forward. It makes things harder to respond to because you’re giving your RP partner fairly little to work with. The example above is obviously an extremely simplified example - but I hope you can get the gist of what I am getting at.  

Even if your character is shy, or anti-social, or maladjusted in someway – your replies can still play and active role in the situation. Being an active participant in a thread doesn’t meant that your muse has to be crazy and outgoing. It means that you have to do more than simply react to what is happening. Every reply should add at least one new thing for your partner to react to.

This can be anything from adding to the conversation – not just reacting to what was said prior. This can be your character doing some non verbal action. This could be and NPC or outside situation or the weather doing something to react to. No matter what the situation is – there are things your muse can do to be an active part of the scene, and not just a reactionary prop.

If your replies or even your starters are one of these two things:

1) Expecting someone to find or stumble upon your muse in someway. Or relies on your partner to initiate some action between your characters. 2) Is just a summary of what happened in their reply through your character’s eyes without adding anything new.

It’s a passive reply – and by nature harder to respond to. It means you should consider looking over your reply and tweaking it to give the other character something more to work with to take the pressure off and your partners should be doing the same for you. After all a conversation like this:

Hey, haven’t seen you in forever! I know right? What have you been up to? Honestly – nothing much. Work’s been murder. What about you? Ah that’s unfortunate. I’m the same, but I’m going out for drinks later want to come? I can’t tonight, have to wake up early tomorrow. Maybe we can catch up later?

Is a much more interesting conversation because both parties are doing their part to drive the action forward.

It’s easy to say that passive replies are spawned from laziness or poor writing. But they’re not (the vast majority of the time anyway). Even good writers who make beautiful replies do it. I personally think it spawns from equal parts insecurity and good intentions. People don’t want to rock the boat, or take risks with their writing in case they accidentally step on any toes. Not realizing of course that they are putting strain on the writer they are working with by letting them drive all the action.

It can be exhausting.

Roleplaying is a collaborative writing experience. A great RP partner is someone who works with you as a team to tell the story of both your characters. Each person should be putting forth new things to react to and being an active part in building something awesome. It makes for a more interesting read and more dynamic plots and quite frankly more chances for characters to build genuine chemistry.

Y’see some pretty weird stuff at the bus stop every now and then. 

Wrote a fic~ *does a little dance*

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"Here's your invitation to the truce party," said Skulker, dropping the letter by Danny's head, "and here's the duty list. Pick something." He shoved a piece of paper into Danny's face.

"You know," said Danny, testing the rope Skulker had tied him with, "you get a lot better at chasing me when you're doing it for non-murder purposes."

Ive been wanting to explore the idea of just how some ghosts are made in the ghost zone (and maybe some cool character backstories too.), I thought it’d be interesting if the little blobby ghosts had some type of ability to sense when a soul is near and would help build the ghost from the ground up so to speak. They’re dormant most of the time, and only congregate when this kind of event happens. Furthermore! I think that ghosts form near other ghosts, maybe not the nicest ones, its more like a dice role, and unfortunately for Johnny he roles with some bad luck.

Ive wanted to redraw/expand on this ol thing for a while, abt Ultimate Enemy Vlad being a very unreliable narrator. Boy oh boy drawing DP comics is still fun

And this goes for ALL fandom RPCs. These are all things that I have observed at many different points throughout this year. From many different people from many different fandoms.  I’ve done my part to be better about some of these myself already. It’s never too late to correct old, bad behaviors and build a community that’s happier and safer. 

Confronting people about unfollowing you. Regardless if you were long time mutuals or not, if someone unfollowed you, they probably had their reasons. And they don’t need to justify their choice to you nor do you get to decide if their reason is “good enough” for you. Let people unfollow/soft block/hard block however they want so that they feel safe in the community.

The habits of begging for things from others while not reciprocating. People will exhaust themselves of things to constantly shower upon you if you’re not doing the same every now and then. If you are constantly reblogging memes, constantly asking people to send your muses questions, to write your muses starters and never being the one to do those things yourself… It’s unfair and everyone knows it, yet it keeps happening year after year. If you’re going to ask others for things, be willing to reach out on your own every now and then. 

 Acting like other people’s rules don’t apply to you. If someone says they don’t RP with a specific fandom/genre that is their choice and you neeed to respect it. If they say they only write a specific way, you need to respect that. If they say they are mutuals only, YOU NEED TO RESPECT THAT. No one needs to justify their rules to anyone. Most people have those rules because someone in their past did things to them they didn’t like and they are trying to prevent it from happening again. It doesn’t matter if you’re a new follower or a long time mutual. Follow each other’s blog rules. If you view yourself as the exception to the rule, you’re part of the reason that rule exists. 

Vague blogging about your mutuals. Just. Stop it. Confront people in private or take your hands off of your keyboard. Be a good person and talk to someone if they do something you’re not okay with or just unfollow/block them. Vague-ing on the dash just fills everyone who sees it with unnecessary anxiety and a fear that “Oh god are they talking about ME? Did I do something wrong??” and they have no way to know because you chose to make it everyone’s problem instead of confronting the issue directly.

Emotionally manipulative posts to get people to respond to your stuff. No more making a scene to get people to send you a bunch of stuff. Even worse is when people do this and then delete the posts where they did it as if it never happened. There are better ways to get people to interact with you than cussing at your mutuals. These are your rp partners. They deserve your respect. and tying into #2 up there… Especially don’t do this if you’re not sending things to others as well. This breeds an unhappy and unhealthy RP environment

The lack of respect for RPers of all ages. No one is too old or too young. Stop treating new, young RPers like they aren’t as good by default. Or older RPers like they’re out of touch and don’t belong in the community. And by that same notion, respect if people aren’t comfortable RPing with people outside their own age groups. If a blog is 18+ only, that should be respected- Especially if there is graphic content on their blog. If a minor isn’t comfortable RPing with the 30+ community, we should not be pressuring KIDS to interact with strange adults online. 

Pressuring people to leave their safe spaces and RP with fandoms they don’t like or just aren’t in.  If someone isn’t comfortable rping with a specific fandom, a specific genre or a specific type of character, they are allowed to have those preferences. Do you have to like it? No. But you do have to respect it. We need to stop this “Just treat them like an OC if you don’t know/like the fandom” stuff because there are always more factors you don’t know. And the ties to the source material that is probably making them uncomfortable will always be there in your muse’s portrayal. Because they are not your OC that you made up. They will ALWAYS be a character from a fandom. No one can just shut off the part of their brain that recognizes something that potentially triggers them and view it as something  brand new. Stop expecting people to set aside their boundaries for the sake of your muse(s). 

Feel free to add more if you feel the need. 

How the humans see Phantom: Mysterious protective entity. Strange and inhuman. A little scary. An otherworldly being of unknown power and origin. Hero that only appears in the moments when he’s needed before vanishing again.

How the ghosts see him: