#(mun speaking)

As I realised this blog was created nearly 10 years ago, I reasoned it went through so many different phases: at first, it was strictly Dragon Ball-related (and so was the community I mostly interacted with); then, as the DB community became narrower, I opened it to more side-verses to allow for flexibility, and Mariko interacted with muses belonging to different universes -- her being a Time Patroller allowed for different possibilities with it. Lately, however, I feel like the potential for interactions has narrowed down further. Partly because the number of people I regularly interacted with became smaller, and partly because the frequency of interaction grew more sporadic.

At first it was mostly because of people being busy, which happens; but even then, as soon as I'd get a prompt or a chance for a reply, I would quickly jump on it, because I still loved writing Mariko and keeping her relationships alive and active. Lately, however, I realised there was a lack of engagement on my part too. I don't know if it was because I was waiting for replies more often than I would be writing them: my replies were often quick to come to my mind, so I would usually write them down and post them almost instantly, which I understand it's not always the case, and the fact that I would then have to wait for a while was a necessary consequence of it.

But on top of that, as the community I interacted with narrowed down, so did the chances of writing something beyond casual responses to asks. Along with waiting becoming more frequent than engagement, this all boiled down to a point where I now often look at this blog and feel it has become, for lack of better words, pointless -- and at times, so has its muse.

I do still like Mariko as a character, I'm still fond of her and of the unexpressed written potential she has; but as the opportunities for it are running shorter, I'm wondering if putting any energies into this blog still has a point, as the frustration over the lack of chances to write her is becoming more frequent and intense than the pleasure I get from writing her when I can. Even the random asks I get only feel like short-terms interaction, or even just a simple Q&A single session, and so I wonder whether I feel like answering them at all, because I often think it’ll land nowhere. I have many asks in my inbox that have been abandoned there for months because of this, when I would usually never pass a chance to write, and the more I see them, the more it saddens me. As an extension, even Mariko now feels uninteresting -- not just in the way I am afraid people would perceive her as such, but even to me, because given the current situation for potential interactions, I don’t think she has much to offer.

I guess it all ended up creating a negative loop: I used to reply instantly and then wait; waiting became more common; opportunities feel more “low commitment"; initiative now feels heavier and enthusiasm doesn’t come as automatically. Which leads to the next issue: the problem is that I'm also picky. I like intense threads, I like plotting, I like engagement and brainstorming. I'm always up for it, but I'm also very selective about who I'd like to participate on it with, and at the same time I understand it's probably not everyone's cup of tea, or people are too busy to dedicate too much time to it. I don't think I've ever lacked initiative when I was interested in a potential mutual, but I also don't like to be the one prodding the other more frequently. That's not a matter of pride, it's just because I've experienced both mutual engagement and one-sided one, and when the latter happens more often, I just assume the other person is probably not as interested; in this case, I just prefer to not insist further and risk passing as annoying, and instead adjust to whatever comes my way whenever the other person feels like interacting.

While it can be a bit disheartening, I know it's part of the whole RP deal. I’ve seen the RP landscape changing across the years, and as community engagement evolves, so do engagement methods. Maybe short interactions are just more frequent recently, as people might not have the time/energy/motivation to plan for something long-term, but I feel it’s not a style of writing that keeps me motivated. Maybe it's just physiological -- sometimes, what used to work for you just doesn't anymore. Maybe it will again, maybe not. But even then, I feel guilty about it, and I tell myself I should still love a soil that gives me my favourite fruits, even if it now only happens rarely. It’s just that, as of lately, the bitterness that comes with frustration over this change overtakes the gratification of the little chances of enjoyment I get.

I also feel bad towards Mariko as my own creation, as I feel I’m not giving her the dedication I wish I could give her as a character; but lately, the more I look at her, the more I wonder “what am I supposed to do with you?”. Even drawing her saddens me, as I realise the scenarios I put into my art are just projections of what I wish I could explore in writing, but lack the chances to. With this, I realise these are also constraints that come with writing only one muse, as the range of potential interactions always boils down to one character. I have other single-muses blogs, but in Mariko's case, I feel she's very rooted in a certain role/range of actions, and can't be easily isekai-ed in other verses without proper plotting (and even then, again, there's the whole deal of how much people wish to commit to plotting and engage in it, or if I feel the effort put in it is worth it). Maybe I expect too much of her when it comes to writing, I’m not sure. I've considered making a multimuse blog too, but the enthusiasm over the idea fluctuates a lot; I'm very "all in" when I'm into a character/story, and I'm not sure this same enthusiasm would work when writing many characters at once.

This being said, I'd like to say this is a call for "hey, if it hasn't been clear already, I'm happy to write with you!" -- in a way, I wish I could say it is, but it wouldn’t be fully true, because given my current mood about this whole issue, I'm not sure how I feel about my own will to engage on this blog. I wish I felt different about -- better, more enthusiastic, more motivated -- I've tried to prompt myself to do so, but after a while, the mood drops again.

I realise posting about it and saying stuff like this is basically shooting in my own foot, as I doubt it’d make anyone more motivated about reaching out (if anything, quite the contrary). On top of that, I feel even more guilty about writing all this stuff, because I was often the one upset by seeing posts like this, but this confusion has been haunting me for a while, and I felt the need to articulate it somewhere, black on white, to get it out of my system (and since this is my RP blog, well, I guess it was the most fitting place to write this stuff).

I don't know. I'm still very confused about it all, but it was a confusion I needed to externalise. I wanted to do something with it, and I decided to post it here so it wouldn’t just be put in a drawer until it comes back to bother me again. After all, clarity comes through articulation.