#rpedia

When you write a starter, basically you're writing a hook to get someone involved in a situation. You're putting out into the world a question, or something that looks like it needs to be interrupted or acted on, so that other people will interrupt or act on it. So write it from that perspective: what would make you want to engage with a post?

So, pick apart what's important to you to get from a partner. When you roleplay, you look for specific goals, an A to B, essentially. Are you writing this scene in an attempt to explore the character and maybe find out something about their past or reveal a secret? Do you simply want to see how they respond to others? Or do you have a plot in mind? If there's an arc of a story you wanna get through, you're gonna have to nestle your starter securely in a situation that will allow you to forward that plot. See what I mean about it being deeply personal?

For example: If I were playing Tony Stark, and I wanted him to show off a new invention while handling his PTSD, I might drop a starter invoking curiosity. I'd set it up with a scene, probably near his workshop but public enough someone would have a chance to see me. I'd be carrying something remarkable but, questionable. "Did you just see him with a bomb?" This item would effect another character, so it would be rewarding to double check Tony isn't about to wreck your household by blowing it up. Then I'd have an experiment or invention in mind. He's made a robot that goes and grabs bombs, and folds over them to protect the household ala Steve Rogers jumping on a grenade. Mostly to stop Steve doing that shit. Cool, cool. I'll have that in mind when I describe what they find if they call out to him, and he ignores them and keeps bolting, or they follow him to see what's up. Then I can discuss it, and show emotions in my post that lead the other character to ask questions why I made this. Reveal a personal story or anecdote, and eventually get cornered by their curiosity or my loud mouth into joking and revealing some deeply personal trauma. Tada, a starter!

A starter that only works for my goals of exploring Tony's trauma, that only works for Tony Stark, that only works with characters who would see him when he's vulnerable at home with the other Avengers. So it's absolutely personalized and broken for anyone else.

Except, throughout, you can see how I logically broke it down! Here is the hook, here is my character's interests, here is why another person wants to care, here is my goal for the reveal, here's enough plot to feed into the machine to keep them interested, here's how I expect the scene to get to a certain point. It's very loosely put together, because by the end of it I might be looking at their trauma instead if, for instance, the explosion sets off a panic attack. Keeping flexibility helps keep a conversation going.

It also helps to provoke. Prod, ask questions, be curious, or offer something that makes other people want to know more. When you just roleplay hi, how are you, hello, how's the weather that's not a conversation so much as small talk. Which will die out quickly because there's no bonding or true interaction beyond the surface level. Like a geode, a character must be broken to see what shiny things are inside. So find something to crack them open a little, a chip here or there.

Now, if the other person absolutely fucking sucks at prompting you or offering a chance to open up? You may wanna, as a player, screw with the narrative and make for external pressure. Put your character under a deadline, by making them be waiting for something stressful. It makes them try to get things in fast, and they mess up. Maybe have a phone call or something happen, so they have to talk in front of the other character and divulge more than they meant to. You can force things on your character from outside, and it can help keep things going.

Relying entirely on your characters to keep things going is a fool's errand if the characters are not expressive, extroverted, and mouthy. A quiet stern guy who keeps to himself will want to kill a conversation quickly, and it'll drive other players off because they think that's you doing it, not your character. So make sure your narration explains why they're acting like that, and give tips to approach for the other character. Like I said, external forces may be the only way to force someone out of their shell while making sure your RP partner wants to keep digging!

You may have to fudge your character's personality or characterization slightly to get the ball rolling. Don't be afraid to make them slightly OOC if it means opening a door to tons more IC things. What, you've never blurted out something by mistake, or gotten mad and said something you regret because it's not really you? You never lied? Tch! They can fuck up too! Let them! Explore that!

Starters are never gonna be as easy as reading off cards, or having something set-up for you. You're gonna have to look at the setting for your character and see what's important. Are there places people frequent? Are there hobbies your character does that may be interesting? Can you arrive covered in blood because you're an assassin to prompt other people to fret until they realize it's not your blood and you can brag about the kill? Can you do something that seems out of character, but is perfectly normal? Be interesting! be interested in what your partner has to offer too, maybe it's not what you intended but following THEIR plot concepts can be super rewarding too!

When you are roleplaying and you're not enjoying yourself explicitly, if the journey to a finished post is not fun itself, we're kind of fucking ourselves over. Creation of these words, excitement at turning a phrase or approaching an idea you really want to explore is basically the whole gist of it. It is a hobby, and loving what you write and laughing at your own jokes is important! You are your own first audience, and if you're not impressed or pleased with what you're writing, it becomes an endless Sisyphean task where you unhappily struggle to write something, anything, to just get through it.

In this case it may be a lack of inspiration. With no structure, or core, we can really easily lose sight of what kind of play we're looking for. What are your goals? Are you here for plot, or character? For smut, or a quick playful bit of banter? Do you want to fight, or are you reaching for some overarching thing? Hell, do you know where THIS scene is headed, or does it feel like an endless trudge? These ideals disappearing or falling to the wayside for someone else can really fuck the vibe!

How are you supposed to know what to write, if you don't have any plans for the character, or don't know where they might potentially go? Like it doesn't have to be hard and fast, but understanding your characters own personal goals, fears, joys, and secrets (entirely different to you, the player) can help with motivation in writing them. I like to explore these by playing games with myself, and daydreaming about scenarios and possibilities that aren't "canon" to my character, but just let me know more about them if a similar situation were to come up. Having a library chock-full of potential what-ifs can help a ton in figuring out how to approach any actions or direction a partner may push you towards. Be excited to explore your character, and to show them off to others! This journey is soooo important to love for itself!

Like with any piece of art, not enjoying the process is a quick short-cut to burn-out and misery. So, if this is happening you might want to adjust some things if you're sitting there upset and bored instead of enjoying what should be a fun pastime you can lose yourself in! So instead of beating yourself up about posting, figure out why it's a chore. Are you taking care of yourself? Have you met the S.H.R.E.K. criteria for the day? Is this post not something in your wheelhouse, or do you feel like you could be doing something else and getting more fun out of it?

Before I get ahead of myself, let me address the truly horrific acronym I just threw at you. S.H.R.E.K. criteria? Who would inflict this on you? Well... me, because it's so memetic and stupid I remember it way better than most acronyms, so buckle up buttercup. It stands for:

Socialization: Have you talked to someone or had meaningful interactions with others for the day? Depending on your needs, you may need hugs, touching others, chatting with loved ones, or cuddling. Some people literally need to be touched, held, hugged, and talked with the thrive, and others can do just fine with a little less. Listen to the monkey studies: Don't be a wire mother to yourself, let yourself have cloth mother sometimes. Hydration: Have you been drinking enough liquids to be hydrated and keep your piss from being too yellow? No liquids means your body starts sucking at everything from getting oxygen to the brain, to making food into energy. Make sure you balance hydration with salt and food intake, but never underestimate what a good cold cup of something can do. And yes, any liquid works. Coffee is dehydrating, so is soda, but their hydrating effect is way bigger than how often they make you piddle so it balances out. Still, water is best but don't beat yourself up about it. Rest: Have you slept enough in the last 24 hours? I know you think 4-6 is okay, but it's really not, it will actually cause you to behave like an alcoholic and lead to later insomnia, mental issue worsening, and health problems like heart issues. Nip that in the bud, sleep full 8-10 hour nights. Or nap if you're just sleepy! Eat: Have you shoved nutritious food in your gob or are you dying from scurvy, beri-beri, and malnutrition simultaneously while depriving the lil dudes who help you write a good lunch? Don't starve your lil neuron folks, they need a good meal too. Even if it's just ingredients for a meal, anything is better than nothing and you deserve food. Kinetics: Have you moved around? Stretched? Walked or played? Sometimes if you're starting out from zero, you might try just standing up and sitting down a couple times to help get bloodflow going! Getting active at whatever level you're at is good for the brain.

Anyways after that interlude, back to basics. At the lowest tier we want to be having fun. If we're not, it might be us, or it might be a boring lackluster partner. That's where a lack of reward comes in. If the partner is, bless them and their hard work, just not giving you the thrills to pay the dopamine bills? That just might mean you guys aren't a good match! This is not the end of the world, it just means you might need to stop playing with them.

Step back, consider if roleplaying with their style and output is worth your time and effort, and do BOTH of you a favor if they aren't. Set them free to play with other players who love their writing and can't get enough of it, and stop grating your teeth across cement trying to come up with something to keep things you don't even like going. This is the communication part, remember how I used to harp on that? Well old Uragani still thinks it's super important. So discuss that 'hey, we might not be a great fit for writing together' and come up with solutions. Maybe finding new partners, and just staying friends, or just waving goodbye to each other and hitting the road.

Here we find ourselves looking at challenger #3, the good old fear and apprehension. This comes up more than I'd like to admit. Are you worried about what's happening next? Or how you might portray something? Have you worked yourself up too much, and now you feel like you can never meet your own expectations? Are you scared of letting down a partner, and not giving them your best? Do you feel like your post might go over an unwritten line, and leave people upset with you?

Congrats! I hate that shit too! I do not know why brains do this to us! I would like to sue!

Anxiety is a hell of a beast, so is Impostor Syndrome, and fear of letting people down, and all the other fun goodies in that bag. They can be worked on at home, in small doses. You gotta learn to sit back, and be able to talk to yourself. Why are you feeling this way, and finding the name for your emotional state, accepting it, and letting it pass through can help. In major situations, you might need to find yourself a good old Common Sense Dispenser, better known as a therapist. They have the tools you need, and yes, roleplay can be a play you find out what you need. It's not dumb, it's useful.

Working through this can be as simple as discussing your fears with your partner and making sure everything is kosher. It might need you to look at a worst case scenario and then planning an exit strategy for that, even if it never happens. Sometimes, you just gotta heft yourself up, and push through the fear. There's a million ways to get through it, and I'm not the person who can tell you which will work for you. But I can tell you, it gets better the longer you work with it. Confidence comes from experience, the more you work at it, the more it feels like second nature.

But that brings with it the last beast, the hidden #4. Burn-out. Sometimes, when we delve too deeply into something we love, we ignore the signs of burn-out. Losing interest in things we once deeply enjoyed. Feeling exhausted at the thought of starting a post, or writing anything. Feeling like we've lost touch with what we used to be good at. Burn out can be a miserable thing, because it stand between us and our goals, our happiness, and it keeps them behind the thickest glass, so we can see them, but getting them feels impossible. The harder we push, the thicker the glass becomes.

In cases of burn out, like the kind I've experienced, sometimes you need to take a step back and just do something else. Go on hiatus. Maybe it's hooked to a character, and you simply have to play with some other muse. Maybe it's with another player, and finding a new fandom without them in it can help. Maybe it's with writing at large, and you need to go find some other outlet to explore while this one heals. You cannot do the same thing forever, you will lose touch with what makes it special. Believe me.

But after healing, which can take years if you keep pushing it like some idiot who wrote RPedia long after you should stop, it'll be fun again. You'll want to come back, and do the thing you were good at, and loved again. The spark will return, and things just... settle and feel better. I promise. Just let yourself have that time to recover without pushing yourself somewhere you aren't meant to go right now.

Naturally there's other stuff too. ADHD/Autism/other issues could be throwing the executive dysfunction ball into your lap and suddenly doing the thing you've done a thousand times is impossible. Stars aren't in alignment. Maybe you're stressed out because of an external force and need a break. Maybe the thread you're in has been going on too long in the same scene, and you need to cut and start a "fresh episode" before everything stays stale forever. Maybe you just aren't in the mood! There's a million reasons, but all of them come down to figuring out what the problem is, and engaging with ways to break that problem down into bits. Find your fun. Look for partners who make you feel like writing with them is worth it. Work with your fears, and express yourself about them and let them past through you. Find external help if needed, and take care of your body while you're at it.

Start out by pointing out their abilities to people. Then, in narration (that's the story bit the player is writing), maybe reference a reaction to it. Keep a light hand, make it a thing that exists, but don't misuse it. It's flavoring, and if you don't use it to be an absolute twat right off the bat, you can get people to trust you with more details, or information.

Communication is key here, and in this case OOC communication is downright needed. You can contact someone, and set-up rules and comfort zones. You can ask them details, that you can expound on to give the writing more oomf. The trick is, this is cooperative writing, you're both working together to make something that's fun to write, fun to read, and has an impact when put together nicely. That means they want you to succeed as much as you want to succeed. Let them.

Having limits on it that allow people to 'block' your character, or temporarily distract them can help a ton. It gives other users a sense of control/power over your powers, so they feel like they're on an equal playing field. Maybe how far away they are effects how clearly they can hear those thoughts. Maybe they're preoccupied, so they can't focus on them. Maybe tinfoil hats, for once, work. Whatever your reasons, giving yourself human weaknesses can be a delightful way to work off the power.

I, for one, enjoy exploring how although a character may be able to read minds, minds may not always be so clear cut. Are you reading their jumbled thoughts? Can you just collect the general gist of their uppermost thoughts, and are deeper thoughts something you need to push to get to? What if they're a type of mind that can't imagine images because of aphantasia, or what if they think in internal narration? Some folks don't have an internal narrator. Some have a million voices that seem to be thinking at once. You might not even understand what the symbolism of their thoughts mean. This person feels yellow: what the hell does that mean to you?

Misunderstandings also humanize your character, which means failure is an option, and plot can be safely worked around. It's another failsafe that keeps you from overdoing it, or being a godmodding jerk. You can simply 'oopsie' around any thought you shouldn't be able to pick up because it would ruin the RP by simply... not looking at that moment. Or being in someone else's head at the time. A lot of using this power is going to be down to balances like this, where you as a player hold your character's hand and gently nudge them down a staircase if they're doing too much and hurting other people's enjoyment.

Once you find partners who feel safe, pushing the boundaries with them can be more fun because they know what to expect so you're not some stranger weirdo. You're someone who is communicating, and they can trust you to catch them when they narratively freefall into your arms. They know you'll use the power to further the story, not cut the legs out from under it.

It's important in these situations to have a major idea of what you are to everyone else. Attention seeking, godmodding, forcing yourself into situations you don't belong, whiteknighting because you can sense other people's distress and ruining their distressing-on-purpose-RP. These bad habits and more can come up in RP, and when you have the power to "see beyond the 4th wall" so to speak, it becomes even easier to fall prey to them. You need to understand how you exist in this space, and be conscious of stepping on toes.

Check in, check in, check in. If you have any doubts, run the idea past your partner, and then do as they feel comfy. Check in for this, or that. Clarification. Give them a spoiler for your upcoming post and go 'Hey, can I use your PC's thoughts to jump start this plot advancement' and 100% let them direct you. If they say no, sorry bud, you gotta respect that whether or not your character should be able to do it. The more you ask, the better you'll get a feel for the tone of others, and what they're cool with, and the more you can do without asking knowing both of you will love the outcome.

Your character is, as far as I can tell, able to manipulate all of existence, including every multiverse, hyperverse, and whatever-the-fuck-have-you because they can fuck with but infinity times infinity, except they're a step below the ultimate Boundless, and one step above the guy who can mess with infinity times three. Really getting back to the playground "infinity plus one" argument. You must be going up against someone who is going a little faster than you or doing better than you to have them cockblock your entire existence. I think I have the scenario broken down for more feeble minds like me can figure out what the hell this means.

Logically, the answer is you can't do shit. Guy is faster/better/more tactically sound, so he wins. He's managed to outdo you on every level, and made your existence just stop, you can no longer be who you are, you're a never-was similar to Cul from the Thor comics. Absolutely buckshit wild stuff here. This suggests to survive, someone has to remember you, which may be a way through if there's space where you still exist while you don't exist. How does time work in your universe? What's the standards here for how to change existence? Is there a ripple effect, or is it impossible to change the timeline? Are you forced into an alternate universe where you DID exist, and how is the other guy handling the obvious issue that if you never existed, he would never have gone back to erase you, and shit— we've got either a figure eight loop forcing us to repeat these two states of 0 and 1 endlessly, or a paradox.

So go for the throat, make them explain the paradox. Make them fix the paradox, which can paradoxically never be fixed because that's what them boyes do. You might have to live one step ahead of them in only alternating universes for the rest of existence and be satisfied with that. Or, I suppose, find someone bigger and stronger than old Jokey-poo here who is putting you in the un-birth grave, and have them de-powered or something to end the rigamarole. Maybe you have a good trap for them set-up where the state of your birth is a fixed point, and them entering it makes time stop entirely so they can never reach the point at which they actually delete you.

But this is all just Watsonian fuckery, stuff from within the perspective of the story. If you go Doyalist, we can ask the question "What kills a vampire?" and come up with the answer "Whatever satisfies the narrative." because those blood thirsty bitches be fictional. This is all fictional. You are imagining a story. The only truth of a story is the satisfaction of those who write/read it.

Therefore, if you are happy with the end of your character, and you feel like it's been given weight and meaning, and you like the outcome. You win, you finished the story, they are gone.

If you are unhappy, you can make up whatever bullshit you want because it's all in your head anyways, and suddenly your character survived going over the falls due to some vague handwaved plot point far in the misty difference that is really an in-universe cover to 'they made me write Sherlock after the Reichenbach Falls was supposed to be the end of the damn serial'. It all comes down to what you're happy with as a player and a writer.

You think any Shonen writer had the good sense to end their series after the bad guy seemed all-powerful? Absolutely not, these other guys had trickery and even more power beyond the power that is infinite power to call on, and they sure did win because they said so. Same thing here. As long as no one is upset, you can do whatever you want. "Blue fairy said I could come back." "Some Boundless Character found me beyond the universes and pulled me back into this world." Seriously, make shit up, it's all you've been doing anyways.

I recognize at this point it's more of a thought experiment, kind of a highbrow push against the mundane realities of our existence. It's where philosophy meets story. Making something that really sticks to the bones of your story, and gives you something to work off can be a huge ask when it gets to these extremes. You're working with a framework outside our actual existence, a thing we can comprehend only because we've pushed so hard against the limitations of this world we've given concepts like infinity not only a limit, but a word for when that limit is breached and repeated.

Being able to truly understand what you're asking, and whether there's any rules to it is more than a simple roleplay help blog can give you. You're bending rules that aren't even confirmed to exist, that have been developed to create a framework by which people can enjoy fighting tiers to simplify things that are wildly imaginative and unusual. Certainly you are at the moment asking me if I can conceive of a situation in which literally Death themself, if they were a character, could be erased from existence by something just as powerful or even more powerful than themselves, and then get around that somehow. It's mythical. It's entirely a toy that you, yourself, are defining the rules for play with. I can simply say "this Roleplaying Blog is actually a Boundless level character and has rebuffed that attack" and it would be equally true because the canon of this blog now says so.

So you can do whatever works for you.

Just make sure it's satisfying, so you can do it again next week and relish it all over. The point of RP is to be fun. Keep having fun. You do you, in whatever style makes you happy. Even if it's a lot of math and now I know there's a term for approaching the infinity after Real numbers run out of integers because someone made their character so powerful they ran out of numbers for them and somehow this is the same power level as Those Who Sit Above In Shadow, which means Loki's punked their ass plenty of times in-comics by saying he's the Storyteller who tells them into existence anyways. God damn Beyonder ass...

So as a writer it’s pretty normal to feel like the characters are writing themselves, this is true whether you play a side character, a villain, or a hero. There’s no one group of characters who take over the most, even if villains sound like they should. I mean. Evil overlords. It’s kind of their game right? But the truth is, there’s way more to it than the characters just seeming to have more control. 

Writers, that’s you and me babe, are essentially actors. Some very good writers are method actors. Method acting is when you put yourself in a character’s place, and ask yourself how the character would feel. You explore life as the character, expand your mind and sublimate your own emotions into that of the character. You essentially shelf yourself and live out their lives to get a more unhindered tap directly into their emotions and reactions.

This is instinctive, as a writer, and many people are not aware that they do it in quite so many words. They simply think of the Muse as a sort of half-alive being that talks to them, that they’re sharing space in your mind and memories. Sometimes people are afraid to voice or express that because it seems awkward, or out of touch. I mean, imaginary friends? That talk to you? Who has those as adults right? (Give or take some sensitive topics.) Surprise! It’s okay, you’re creating an identity within yourself for the purpose of acting, and will wear that persona to get in better touch with their goals and instincts. This is a normal human process. We do this. It happens.

So with method acting, or rather method writing in our cases, it almost feels like the roles have come alive. We understand the characters intuitively. We’ve harnessed our memories, our emotions, our knowledge of situations and growth as a character and allowed ourselves to live, or relive them as we write them. This can form extremely strong attachments and memories to those characters. I myself sort of wanna slug people who say they aren’t real because they feel so real. They feel so strongly there that they are my friends, and they are important to me as both a coping mechanism and as a way to write. Maybe don’t hit people, but it’s not going to hurt anything to love and appreciate your muses like I do.

In fact, treating them as their own people helps you create a compartmentalization box around them. You can define their ‘edges’ so to speak, to keep them from leaking into your own personality. Since you’ve invested so much time and effort into making sure they feel, breathe, and exist on a level that makes your writing so much better, of course they’ll fucking leak, dude. That’s like, it’s just a part of you you attributed to another name. It’s a persona you wear to act like that person. You remember the shit they do, not vice-versa, and what they do changes your approach in life however minutely. The thing is... they are never actually in control.

I know! It feels that way sometimes right? This unstoppable urge to do something because it feels so right for the character, so perfect as a reaction. The easiest way to put it into words, or to understand it, is to go ‘well the Muse feels in control’ but it’s okay. They aren’t, you just know the best course of action as that character. You understand the Muse’s point of view, and your development of this persona is so advanced that you can react as them without thinking about it. So you don’t think about it, why waste braincells on that, when you can begin creating something we like to call immersion instead? Immersion is important to get a really good depth to a character, and we experience it both as a writer, and as a consumer of media.

When we go to a movie, or read a book, we aren’t sitting there thinking about that movie or book from an outsider’s point of view unless we’re really trying or we aren’t that into books/movies. When you get a good one, you forget you exist. You fall into the suspension of disbelief and immerse yourself in it. You don’t think about your seat, you don’t think about your life. You adapt your empathy to the story being told, to characters onscreen. Your heart thrills with their victories, and falls with their loss. This is also part of the human ability to adapt to other points of view. Turns out, we got empathy up the ASS.

That’s why we anthropomorphize animals, we give them human traits to explain behaviors which are... probably not what we think, but it’s cute. You don’t have to stop, unless it might be harmful to the health of the animal, or causing issues in scientific explanations of these behaviors, but it shows we empathize so much with animals. Whoo boy, we see absolutely any animal and at least one human goes FRIEND! and bolts across the meadow to be besties. We see an animal in pain? We want to help it. We see an animal going hungry? We want to feed it. We see anything happening to something that isn’t even human, we understand that problem from the perspective of the animal, reflect that onto our own emotions, and act accordingly to either make it stronger (yes! You love tummy rubs don’t you!) or lesser (You poor thing! Here’s more water. You must be so thirsty.) in reaction to that empathy. We care. We as a species care. This is why we can look at a sagging chair and thing the poor thing is tired. It’s a fucking chair people, but hey, I guess that’s our superpower.

We do that for other humans to, of course, that’s why the sad eyed children in commercials were supposed to work. They function on the principle of battering your empathy and sympathy until you try to fix it. But the place they fall flat is giving us a tangible story we understand and connect with. This goes to show, thankfully, humans are also extremely limited in where we throw that empathy the strongest. We don’t like keeping other people’s stories in our head 24/7, or we get lost, unless they have a significant connection with us. 

We actually have something we like to call Dunbar’s Number, which is a proposed idea that there’s a limited number of close stable relationships we can maintain. We think it’s about 100-250 people we can comfortably hang out with at any given time without feeling out of touch with them. Cool right? We actually fuck with that number on Facebook, studies show we tend to only keep up with the lives of about 150-200 people comfortably and more than that stresses us out. Okay wait, I got a little side tracked with cool info.

The point is, we connect to people because as humans we are empathetic and stories make us relive things. We watch movies and read books and listen to our coworker’s funny story to connect to those emotions. Those emotions are at times connected to fictional characters. Once we start feeling a connection to someone else’s imaginary friends, what stops us from making our own imaginary friends so in depth, so real, that we feel a connection to them? Part of our ability to imitate others, to act, to understand their lives, to put ourselves in their shoes depends on our ability to assume that other points of view are people.

So, Muses are as far as our emotions and brains are concerned, people. Fictional people, yes, and we should always keep that line in mind. Once we stop seeing the line of fiction and reality, shit does downhill really fast. We start attributing things to the Muse rather than taking responsibility as a writer. Because they can force us to have a kneejerk emotional response when we’re currently letting ourselves occupy their space, we assume they can force anything. They are the tiny man at the controls, laughing evilly while they hurt someone else’s character.

I mean, you’re not mean right?

You’d never hurt someone on purpose, like your character is doing.

It must be them.

That’s where shit goes wrong really quickly. Once you compartmentalize and develop a distance between you, and the outcome of what you do, it becomes so much easier to blame ‘someone else’. But it is you, I’m so sorry if you are scared of what you are capable of, but it is you. There is no Muse who can actually take you over completely without it being part of a significantly atypical neural landscape that may need a form of psychological help. It’s easy to attribute the darker parts of yourself to ‘someone else’ in your head, but... you can’t. The thing that separates you here is your willingness to carry them out in reality verses fiction.

It is alright to have bad thoughts. I know, sometimes people can get a little obsessed with purity of the soul. This happens in religions, militaries, utopias and dystopias, this happens in any place with an ideal to strive for, this happens everywhere. People push for purity, because they imagine that if no one ever had a bad thought, that bad things could not exist. It’s not a functional way of living by any means, but let’s put that oft spoken of empathy and ability to see a Point of View to work here. It’s understandable that if you boil it down to the simplest answer, no one having any bad urges at all is the best one if somehow you could accomplish that. But it misses a lot of other factors, and it won’t work. 

It doesn’t take into account what people are. We are imaginative. We are complex. We need to understand what happens when we do something. We want to see things that are bad, or wrong, and develop problem solving methods for those situations, or similar situations. So we do think of bad things and it’s alright! That’s fine! The shit that is absolutely horrifying for another person, does not have to be horrifying for us. We are individuals, and so long as we respect the boundaries of others, and give fair warning when expressing ourselves, we have to go through the darkest, most disgusting underbelly of humanity to understand it. We cannot be satisfied with ‘it’s bad, don’t do it’ or our parents arguments of just doing what they say because it’s bad would have had a lot more weight. You cannot forbid another person from thinking of something you don’t like, because they do not have your experiences or limits within them. 

We are raised to question and explore limits for ourselves in a very personal fashion. Don’t be ashamed of that, don’t. It’s one of our greatest strengths. The ability to push empathy into fictional territory to explore problem solving methods and what if’s so we can develop further as a whole. We aren’t perfect, of course. When we imagine what we would do if we were scared, it rarely matches up with real life. As much as you yell at horror movies not to drop the weapon, how many of us might drop the weapon without thinking and be cursing ourselves while outrunning Chainsaw McStabby? But the fact that we understand that hanging onto that weapon is a good fucking idea, comes from us exploring things that no one wants to happen to them.

So you’re going to have ‘bad thoughts’. You’re going to think of situations which other people have experienced and been traumatized by. It happens. It exists. It’s okay. The point at which that becomes bad is when you inflict it on others without permission. Fictional scenarios have a level of permission to explore shit we wouldn’t. As a people exploring this medium, we’ve learned about squick (things that simply make us uncomfortable and feel icky that we aren’t ready to endure) and triggers (things that set off a response, in psychology usually relating to panic attacks or PTSD, or other forms of flashbacks). There are certain things that cause these squicks and triggers disproportionately to the rest of existence. We’ve decided to tag those, so people can explore them at their own speed.

This is an amazing healthy social growth thing honestly, as an aside. We have, through fictional works, developed a rather solid list of things that people like to be warned about, and have as a social unit, put those into play to make sure people are safe. There’s a few things that go wrong, sometimes people don’t understand the labels, sometimes people forget them, or don’t use them. Sometimes people have one that is pretty rare and unique, so no one knows to tag and it’s superfluous to the larger group. But as a big picture, we commonly hit the big shit with a nail on the head every time. This shows groupthink built to ID problems, and solve them in a way that allows people to actively continue empathetic troubleshooting and exploration, without damaging a portion of the group. We’re functioning as a single organism protecting the vulnerable already hurt parts of itself, while still continuing an action using the less experienced and worn down parts to push through and understand it more fully. It’s amazing.

So while we mutate the ideas a little this way or that way, we’re just exploring ways to understand it. People say ‘this is wrong’ and we auto-correct over the sizable population doing this. It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay not to write thing perfectly, or to understand them if we’re exploring them. We may be exploring a related idea through a format we can apply it to, and get an entirely different lesson. That’s okay too. So don’t worry, you’re part of a much larger communal whole, and thinking of bad shit for you villain to do is helpful. So long as you know, people can opt in or opt out. We need forms of crisis to solve and grow, even if other people have faced those crisis and come out with a perspective of their own already. Limiting other people with your perspective damages their growth as a person, and everyone needs to make mistakes in order to learn from them. As long as those mistakes take steps to avoid hurting others, then don’t attack them, encourage them with changes and ways to alter their perception more towards a realistic goal, and remember their goals may be different. They might be taking a round-about or unused path to their destination and you have to respect that you don’t know everything even if you’ve experienced the path they took and came out with a different opinion, emotion, issue, goal, or story. 

Now that we have that caveat out of the way, and we understand it’s natural to mentally follow the path leading into the dark sometimes... Your ass better understand it ain’t the god damn Muse. It’s still you, and as a player you have a responsibility. You are in control of them, no matter how much it feels like you aren’t. You are the one who will have to deal with whatever comes of their actions. You have responsibility. The fallout of your actions while in-character fall squarely on your shoulders, with no respite. That’s it. Period. There is not “But--!” There is only you fucking did it. You wrote it, read it, and decided to hit send. Your character is not hitting send. Your character does not stop you from understanding what is written. Your character doesn’t grab you and throw you out of the way to do things. You make the choice to let it into the world.

You can write that thing they want! No matter what it is! But then you have to let yourself take on a sort of ‘Godhood’ in relation to your Muses. You are in full control of their lives, you can rip off their limbs in accidents. You can destroy their lives. Change their names. Curse or bless them. You can rewrite their histories, make them look different, swap their genitalia, and throw nasty wrenches into their games. So as far as your Muses and characters go, you’re their God. You have all the power.

And as usual, ‘Why would God let this happen?’ comes into play. We like to make anyone with the power to stop things, responsible for the things. If you see something bad or wrong or badong going on, you netted the job of editing it. Fix what they did. Create an alternate universe and smash the one that would have caused problems for your real life under your thumb. Make sure your character’s initial instincts about a situation and another person’s Muse, doesn’t hurt the second layer of their reality. That is, in other words, behind the 4th wall another player exists and you have to be aware of that. You get to make sure the other player is safe. Give them warnings and know their limits. As a narrator, explain what’s going on that your Muse doesn’t realize, and make sure they know what is going on is the character. Know yourself that it is a character, and you have control. 

Once you stop letting your character be the only voice on the keyboard, your writing will get that much better too. You can start playing against yourself, showing more details by cracking open things they say, and displaying the innards for the other player playing God with their own characters. The more they understand, the better they can respond. This give stories you can enjoy with them more depth and realism. Share. Share everything. Share the power, the story, the limelight, the details of your character’s soul. Bare them to each other, and then do like writers always do:

... Totally fuck with them.