#outofrum

Happy Halloween.

Trying to resurrect this pirate, and I forgot how intimidating this dash was?? Too much quality everywhere my god

// You know, I've seen some fabulous tips and guides rolling around this website and can I blimmin' find any of them I thought I'd reblogged? Can I bugger. Let's see what I can think of off the top of my head!

First things first, your blog: This is the first thing people are going to look at to make a decision if you're suited to them. Doesn't have to be anything fancy. Ensure you have an icon so we don't assume you're a spam bot. Have a bio and/or a rules page so people know what you expect and note if you're 18+/21+ as many adults aren't comfortable role-playing with people under this age for safety reasons. If you're writing a canon character, a bio page can just be a brief summary of who they are and what they're about. If you're writing an OC, a reasonably detailed bio is practically essential. You might know why your muse is awesome, but your prospective partners don't so give everyone the goss on who they are, what makes them interesting, what their backstory is etc.

Next is both the most difficult and probably the next most essential: Have no fear. What I mean by this is not to let insecurity get the best of you. If you love writing, have that be your anchor. Not everyone is going to say yes and that's ok. Not everything works out. Starting out is often the most difficult time because it's easy to feel like no one is interested and that you're doing all the work. I promise you, it will get better if you keep plugging away, but you have to reach out and brave things for a bit. Be kind, be open about what you want, and enjoy every little thing until you get more opportunities.

Good ways of finding partners are to search tags for 'rp masterlists' in fandoms you are interested in e.g. 'marvel rp' or 'potc rp' or even 'open rp'. Scroll down people's blogs and have a look at who else they're playing with, read their rules and pages etc. and see if they have preferences on how to be contacted. Some people will do open starters, some will greet you if you follow them, some accept memes from anyone. If someone mentions you need to be mutuals this means that you have to wait for them to follow you back before they will be open to writing with you. Once they do, check their rules how they like to be contacted. If it's not clear, brave an ask, send a meme, or a private message.

Private messages - best advice for these are not to start off with 'wanna rp?'. I recommend dropping in, saying hi, expressing that you'd be interested in writing and leaving an idea for something you'd be keen on doing should they be interested too. If they're not, thank them and move on. If they are, hooray, make friends and have fun plotting!

An extremely valuable RP tool is the New X-kit and X-kit Rewritten browser extensions. Tumblr is not built to be friendly for role-playing and I couldn't manage without these. Rewritten lets you trim posts so you can get rid of the pesky top post that would otherwise stay when using tumblr's new beta post formats. It helps us keep posts looking neater on our blogs and dashboard, although thankfully tumblr introduced the 'shorten posts' feature to save everyone's eyeballs from super long threads.

General etiquette: Lots of role-players have preferences on how long they prefer replies to be and how often they are active. Trial and error until you find partners that suit you. Ideally check your spelling and grammar if it's not something you're adept at. A big thing not to do is godmodding, which is when you might be tempted to write someone else's character doing something on their behalf. Even if this might mean your post is shorter, do not do this. You must let your partner write all of their own muse's actions. If your muse attempts to do something to their muse, they should be given permission to dictate what happens on their end. It's a give and take relationship to make the best possible fun for both of you.

Other big ones: don't let jealousy get the better of you. There might be duplicates of your muse or you might like someone who gives lots of attention to someone else. It's very easy to get wrapped up in your muses' feelings and get obsessed with gratification. Be gentle with each other, we've all got our own stuff going on, and we all need different things. Be gentle with yourself, too, that's most important!

To those few of you I have been writing with and am about to tag, please know I love you and I've thoroughly enjoyed the stories we've been telling. Thank you so, so much, including those of you I've already parted ways with. It's been amazing.

@ashortdropandasuddenstop @itslordnow @teachthekraken @vyrulent

#JUSTICE!