#RP tips

[maelancoli]

Writing Intimacy

i often see writers sharing a sentiment of struggling with writing kiss scenes which honestly bleeds into other portrayals of physical intimacy. i see it a lot in modernized styles of writing popularized by the recent trend in publishing to encourage short, choppy sentences and few adverbs, even less descriptive language. this makes intimacy come across awkward, like someone writing a script or clumsy recounting of events rather than a beautiful paragraph of human connection.

or just plane horniness. but hey, horny doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with poetic or sensual.

shallow example: they kissed desperately, tongues swirling and she moaned. it made her feel warm inside.

in depth example: she reached for the other woman slowly and with a small measure of uncertainty. the moment her fingers brushed the sharp, soft jaw of her companion, eliza's hesitance slid away. the first kiss was gentle when she finally closed the distance between them. she pressed her lips lightly to gabriella's in silent exploration. a tender question. gabriella answered by meeting her kiss with a firmer one of her own. eliza felt the woman's fingers curling into her umber hair, fingernails scraping along her scalp. everything inside eliza relaxed and the nervousness uncoiled from her gut. a warm buzz of energy sunk through her flesh down to the very core of her soul. this was right. this was always where she needed to be.

the first complaint i see regards discomfort in writing a kiss, feeling like one is intruding on the characters. the only way to get around this is to practice. anything that makes you uncomfortable in writing is something you should explore. writing is at its best when we are pushing the envelope of our own comfort zones. if it feels cringy, if it feels too intimate, too weird, too intrusive, good. do it anyway! try different styles, practice it, think about which parts of it make you balk the most and then explore that, dissect it and dive into getting comfortable with the portrayal of human connection.

of course the biggest part comes to not knowing what to say other than "they kissed" or, of course, the tried and true "their lips crashed and their tongues battled for dominance" 😐. so this is my best advice: think beyond the mouth. okay, we know their mouths are mashing. but what are their hands doing? are they touching one another's hair? are they scratching or gripping desperately at one another? are they gliding their hands along each other's body or are they wrapping their arms tightly to hold each other close? do they sigh? do they groan? do they relax? do they tense? are they comfortable with each other or giddy and uncertain? is it a relief, or is it bringing more questions? is it building tension or finally breaking it?

get descriptive with the emotions. how is it making the main character/pov holder feel? how are they carrying those emotions in their body? how do they feel the desire in their body? desire is not just felt below the belt. it's in the gut, it's in the chest, it's in the flushing of cheeks, the chills beneath the skin, the goosebumps over the surface of the flesh. everyone has different pleasure zones. a kiss might not always lead desire for overtly sexual touches. a kiss might lead to the desire for an embrace. a kiss might lead to the impulse to bite or lick at other areas. a kiss could awaken desire to be caressed or caress the neck, the shoulder, the back, the arms etc. describe that desire, show those impulses of pleasure and affection.

of course there is the tactile. what does the love interest taste like? what do they smell like? how do they kiss? rough and greedy? slow and sensual? explorative and hesitant? expertly or clumsily? how does it feel to be kissed by them? how does it feel to kiss them?

i.e. examine who these individuals are, what their motives and feelings are within that moment, who they are together, what it looks like when these two individuals come together. a kiss is not about the mouth. it's about opening the door to vulnerability and desire in one's entire body and soul.

[mcflymemes]

when i send memes, i usually send a handful to give you a variety of options to choose from. you don't have to answer every single meme i send — i just want to give you plenty of lines to pick from so you can decide which works best for you. you can also hold onto the extras and come back to them later when the muse strikes... or, if they're taking up space in your inbox, go ahead and delete them. that's okay too! i'll send you more another day! whatever the case may be, don't feel pressured to answer every single one!

[rpmemegraveyard]

Cool RPC Fact!

It's not elitist to set boundaries and be selective with who you interact with.

There's zero reason to go on anonymous pestering someone on why they don't follow people back, or, arguably worse, vagueblogging about it. Guess what; roleplaying is a collaborative hobby. You need to cope with the fact that not everyone will be interested in writing with you.

Why? Who cares. I assure you that there will be someone out there who will be willing to write with you, but I can also assure you that obfuscating the term 'elitism' with 'someone who might just wanna roleplay with friends' and having an attitude towards people who don't engage with you isn't gonna make people crowd towards you. Maybe people can only handle having so many rp partners at a time. You don't know, and you don't need to know.

Cultivate your own communities. Learn to accept silent rejection. Read people's rules pages when it comes to their rules on interactions, exclusives, whatever. It's their blog. Not yours. You can set all of the rules you want on your blog, and people can do the same on theirs. It's 2024. The world doesn't revolve around you, every blog has someone behind it who has their own boundaries for their own reasons.

[lannasroleplaymemes]

THIS IS YOUR RP REMINDER!

If you are reading this right now: GO RE-READ YOUR RP PARTNERS' RULES & CHARACTER PAGES!

Even if you've been following them for ages, you most likely only ever read them when you first followed and/or if they explicitly stated they updated things. Now is a wonderful time to refresh now that you know the mun/muse better!

READ, DO NOT SKIM! Make sure that you know exactly what your RP partner needs and remind yourself of any fun character quirks or story beats that you can use in the future.

Alternatively: This is a reminder to make sure YOUR rules and character pages are also up to date!

[fea-resources]

A Roleplayer's Guide To Disabling Reblogs

So something I've noticed again and again is people complaining about people reblogging posts that are not meant to be reblogged, such as individual headcanon posts about their muses, even when they explicitly ask people not to do so, or personal blogs reblogging threads they're not part of.

Luckily, tumblr's Beta Editor actually has a feature/option for this that's hard-baked in to the website! Its just that many people seem to be completely unaware this is even an option, but its very quick and easy to do.

You can do this with any post, a new/fresh one or a post you've already made in the past, but for simplicity's sake, I'm going to show how to do it with a fresh post.

Whether you're making a fresh post or editing an old one, you'll want to click on the gear icon in the top corner.

Once inside the post settings, you'll get a whole bunch of hidden settings/options, including the ability to turn off reblogs.

At first glance, our options are limited to "Anyone on Tumblr" or "No one".

However, you can also make a post only rebloggable for certain people as well.

So for instance, let's say that you have a roleplay thread with someone, and Personals keep coming in and reblogging your replies. In order to prevent this from happening, you would go into the post settings and change the reblog settings to "No One", and then @ tag your roleplay partner. This will allow the person you've tagged to reblog the post, but no one else will be able to reblog it!

You'll know its worked because your post's "Reblog" button will now be faded out and will prevent anyone (including you, the original poster) from reblogging the post unless they are directly tagged (and yes, you can tag yourself).

Now, you won't have to beg people to not reblog or delete reblogs for your headcanons, roleplay threads, and other writings!

Happy posting!

[lovely-rants-alot]

Tips for starting an RP blog

ooc: like one person asked for this but I thought that other people might also enjoy these so I’m sharing with the world

1. Interact with people!

You’re probably sitting there going ‘no shit Sherlock’ but I actually mean it. Send people asks, reblog posts, hell go out and @ people. I can tell you from experience, they’ll be super happy you interacted with them

2. Find the lists

This is coming for a Percy Jackson rp person so it could be different but I know we have a whole blog that’s a database for all the accounts. Even if there’s just an account who’s just list who’s apart of the rp, reach out! Most of these list won’t reject you, even if you’re just starting

3. Give us information

This is mainly for my OC peeps but let us know who you are! Even if it’s just the basics

4. Rp starters

Now, this is something I haven’t actually done yet, but I plan too. From what I’ve observed (and interacted with) rp-ers eat rp starters up. We love it. This is something you probably want to tag people in, especially if you’re still finding accounts you vibe with

5. Trial and error

It really is trial and error. This is my third rp account. The first one I deleted and the other one isn’t active. Just find what works. Everything I’m saying could do jackshit for you, and that’s okay

[rpedia]

I’ve seen your post about good starters, is there anything with good conversations starters that’ll actually get characters somewhere?

So, starters are something that gives other people an idea of how you play your character, what your goals are, and what you're looking for. They also need to be pretty open ended, or happen in a public place unless you want to hook a specific other character. That means a starter is infinitely customizable and super personal to write. Just copy pasting any given starter is not going to do the job you need it for, it'll stymie your growth and leave you scrambling to keep up with whatever someone else chose for you. On top of that, starters are not what keep RP going: The plot and player is.

So, let's jump in and break it down a little more so it's easier to put together your own starter from absolutely nothing, and how you as a player can keep plot going after the initial starter is dead in the dust behind you on your little journey, shall we?

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!

So, good luck, and happy roleplaying!

[fatherless-behavior-prompts]

Tips on playing the villain

Advice from a 15+ year veteran of villain muses writer. How to tap into your inner unhinged and still be a good rp partner.

Your muse is in their eyes, the hero of their own story. The ends justify the means of reaching their goal.

Have a goal or endgame in mind. What do they want? In this respect they are no different from a more good aligned character.

They can have good qualities about them that draw others in. Very, very few villains are completely evil bastards. Good characteristics here and there add flavor.

Exploit the trust of others to what your villain wants. Be manipulative when it suits.

Have nuances. Peeps love nuance.

Even if your muse is an all powerful deity, for a one off interaction give your writing partner's muse a chance to escape. Even a slim one.

Discuss any permanent maiming or death of a character before hand. Consent is the name of the game.

Use trigger warnings for content that is unhinged.

Respect your writing partner's need to back off from a situation. Respect your own need to do so too.

It's okay to take a break and do fun stuff.

I'll repeat this one again. Consent. Consent. Consent from your writing partner. Communication is key.

Writing partners

This is for you. Do not approach evil aligned characters/villains and expect no consequences for your actions. Their morals are not your morals. They will react in unhinged ways. And that's okay. If you aren't prepared for that, do not approach them.

Especially do not approach them with your sassy wit, a confrontational attitude, or I'm gonna kick your ass stance and not expect backlash.

If you aren't okay with any of this, don't approach a villain. Live and let live. Villain writers are often the kindest and most well adjusted writers behind the screen. They deserve to enjoy themselves too.

[monsterblogging]

For whoever needs to hear it, learning to play more kinds of characters will always make your roleplaying experiences better. It's a skill and you have to work at it, but it's worth the effort, I promise.

[kipscorner]

Friendly reminder that in these days, when you're replying to a thread, to @ your partner. Sometimes the notifications won't always show up in the activity, and sometimes they won't even show up in thread tracker. At least with @'ing your partner, you have a better chance of actually seeing that your partner replied!!!

[maelancoli]

PADDING OUT DIALOGUE SCENES

in another round of very unprompted writing advice i thought i figured i'd share my two cents when it comes to the topic of struggling to fill out conservational scenes. another thing i see a LOT of lately is a general fretting among writers who find that dialogue comes easily to them but the rest is a struggle. for me it's often been the opposite, i had to work at honing the talking part but description? i've always done a little too much tbqh. but funny enough the solution for both is not disconnected.

a lot of it will come down to knowing your character. what are their ticks? what are their filler words? are they bold and expressive when they're speaking? or are they withdrawn and shy? deciding the behavioral quirks of your character will improve your instincts when trying to be more descriptive. do they fidget with their clothes? do they pick up objects and toy with them? do they fold their arms around themselves or have other defensive posture? where do their eyes go when they speak? do they look around a lot? do they have an intense, unwavering gaze? do they zone out to look at other objects? what are they looking at when they do look away to think or listen? (this is also where having a faceclaim to build characteristics and mannerisms around can be helpful, not just in rp settings but any kind of fiction.)

"i guess...i don't really know how i'm supposed to feel about it," he admitted.

okay so we already have information here to expound on. the character is uncertain and conflicted. how would that effect their demeanor outwardly?

"i guess..." he trailed off with a sigh. he shook his head and his gaze grew unfocused, wandering away from his companion to stare blankly at a clock on the mantelpiece. his index finger tapped lightly at his knee. "i don't know how i'm supposed to feel about it, ya' know?" amir admitted with a shrug. he finally looked at the other man again, but there was a vulnerability which brought a sheepish shadow to his tumultuous gaze.

we've shown he is pensive with a wandering eye and that he's a little uncomfortable with his nervous tick of tapping. the next step is to consider the inner workings of their PoV. what does the scene itself call for them to be doing and thinking between lines? what does the emotion and tension of the scene—or even the comfort and familiarity of it—reflect inside them?

"you don't have to know right now," malik pointed out. he lifted his hands from where they had rested on the surface of the table to turn his palms outward, leaning in closer. "it's okay not to know." they held one another's gaze for a silent moment. amir's lips pressed together and he swallowed down the lump which had formed in his throat. he was not an emotional man. he had always prided himself on his restraint. but it was all beginning to be too much and the empathy in his friend's eyes was only another weight upon his already bowed shoulders. "...maybe you're right," he mumbled thoughtfully.

here we have shown his friend's gesture, adding more presence to the environment around them. and then we have given a little space for the character to feel. we have given a little information about who he is, or at least how he thinks about himself. by bringing his eyes back to his companion we have shown he is opening up, he is actually leaning into the intimacy of comfort and listening. but the mumble shows he is still not confident in admitting the need for help. it shows he has not even accepted fully the grace he's being given.

it isn't just what a character is saying, it's how they're saying it. it's how they're carrying themselves. it's how they're receiving the other characters' words. and showing how they're carrying themselves along with their inner feelings will also help show what is driving their dialogue. it will create a contrast if they're not being a reliable narrator, if they're contradicting or if they're withholding etc.

taking time and being patient with yourself to expound upon these things and to develop your character will make them more real. the more you practice and get to know them, the more instinctive and natural it will become!

[mcflymemes]

IF YOU USE GOOGLE DOCS / GOOGLE SLIDES / ETC. FOR ROLEPLAYING PURPOSES (i.e. rules pages, muse lists, etc), please be aware that people can find your email, your full legal name, and other info when you share the document or link it in your bio. if you put your name on your account when creating it, people can find it. INSTEAD, USE A BRAND NEW EMAIL WHEN MAKING YOUR DOCUMENTS, or create an account using your muse's name to protect your identity.

[rpmemesbyarat]

A close cousin to "he would not fucking say that" is "he would not fucking say it LIKE that" and it's something that can really make or break writing a canon character in RP or fanfic. I've seen lots of writers who were good, but I couldn't vibe with their portrayal of a canon because the way they wrote the canon character speaking was just so OFF from the source material. Likewise, I'm a comics reader, and I once just straight up skipped one writer's entire run on a series for the same reason; the way he wrote the dialogue for characters with a VERY established and distinct dialogue style was just WRONG. Naturally, there is room for variation. When it comes to comic book characters, every writer who takes them on in canon will write their speaking style a little differently, just as every writer will envision their personality, psyche, and so on a little differently. And I think it's perfectly fine--great, even---for RPers and fanfic writers to put their own spin on things too. For instance, I made my own verbal quirks when I was writing some canon characters, that I thought fit them, without departing from their canon speaking style. I just made it my own too. But there's a line between "making your version of a dialogue style" and "making an entirely different dialogue style" and while I wish I could be more distinct on where that line is and how to avoid it, it's such a case by case thing that all I can do is caution against it and urge writers of canons to be conscious of it. And you know what, OC writers too---if you're CONSISTENT in how your OC speaks, they feel much more realistic!

[memesfromstuff]

pro tip; the one place you should censor the word 'nsf.w' and other words / triggers that are usually blacklisted, are in your pinned posts (unless said pinned post also contains visual and/or descriptive content of it).

why should you censor it? because by not censoring the words, the people who have said words blacklisted will not see your pinned post when opening up your blog.

[fea-resources]

Managing Your Drafts/Ask Count: A Roleplayer Guide

"I have so many drafts / asks right now. I'm feeling overwhelmed!"

Does this sound familiar? If it's not you personally, you probably know at least a good dozen roleplayers on your dash who have said some variation of this.

Overload and draft/ask stress is a pretty common problem in the RPC. I've seen some accounts that go well over 1,000 drafts! More than on one occasion. Yikes. That's super stressful!

So how do you manage that? And manage it in a way that keeps your followers / mutuals happy? Here's a few easy tips! From someone who has never let their draft count go over 50.

Set A Draft / Ask Limit For Yourself

The first and easiest step is to impose limits on how many drafts and asks you accumulate in the first place!

If you start feeling overwhelmed with answering things once you hit 30 drafts/asks, don't just keep pressing for more interactions until you start hitting double or even triple digits! Figure out where your comfort zone is and stick to that.

If you go a tiny bit past that (you set your limit to 30 drafts, but you have 31), that's okay! Just be careful about not using leniency as an excuse to move your own goal posts. If your limit is 30, allow yourself to go to 31, but don't start moving to 40 drafts, then 50, then 100. This is how you get yourself dug into a hole you can't get out of!

Set A Time Limit On Everything Before It Gets Deleted / Dropped

Yes, it sucks not having Asks answered and threads dropped, but it happens. Sometimes the muse just isn't musing for something, and that's totally fine!

If its an actual dedicated thread or a very special tailored custom Ask or Starter, I would recommend communicating it with your partners before yeeting it into the void, but if its just a random ask from a meme list, especially if you've already got 20 other things going with the person who sent it, you're probably safe to throw it away without much fuss. Chances are your partners won't even remember half the Asks they sent, especially if they're repeat customers who send you a lot of things.

The fact of the matter is, if something is clearly never going to be answered, there's no problem just dropping it. Otherwise its just going to be another number in an ever-increasing pile of things you're never going to answer stressing you out!

Set general time limits, like if it hasn't been answered in 2 months, it gets thrown away (unless its just one particular super ultra special ask/thread you DEFINITELY want to answer, you just haven't been able to yet ; everything else goes in the trash).

Set A Thread / Ask Limit Per Partner

Maybe you have that one person that has 50 unfinished threads with you, but lo and behold, they want to start another one! While you're still struggling to keep up with the 50 that you have with them.

If you want to give more people an equal chance, a simple solution is to divide up that everyone gets X amount of time and effort from you.

Feel free to set limits with your partners, such as "I will only do 2 threads with each person at a time". If that person wants another thread, they will have to either complete the ones you already have, or drop some.

Likewise, you might have a rule that someone can send you 10 Asks, but you will only answer up to 2 of them that you receive. The rest get deleted.

The same goes in reverse. If you already have whatever number of interactions you want with a particular person, you don't have to send them more interactions yourself until activity has dropped off enough that you want to create extra engagement to fill the void of whatever other interactions you had that used to be there.

If you're really determined to give all your partners an equal chance at interaction, this is a good route to consider going with.

Curate Your Mutuals List / How Many People You Follow And Interact With

Another one of the easy ways to deal with Draft / Ask stress: Don't follow too many people to begin with!

If someone follows you, you don't have to automatically follow them back, especially if they have a muse or universe you're unfamiliar with or not particularly interested in.

Setting yourself up to interact with muses or universes which barely hold your attention or that you struggle to figure out how to interact with is just setting yourself up to have a lot of unanswered stuff that never goes anywhere.

This is as frustrating for you as its going to become for the other person.

Likewise, only follow back and interact with the people you actually have the time and energy for. Mind you, there are ways to still effectively manage your blog if you're low energy, but that should come after you've found a comfortable number of people to keep up with, not after you're already overwhelmed!

Otherwise, you're bound to frustrate yourself with too many people you can't possibly interact with, and frustrate the people who follow you who aren't getting the engagement they're looking for.

Be Upfront About Playing Favorites (If You Do)

Nothing is more frustrating for both people in a writing partnership when two people who clearly aren't each others' mutual favorites try to interact.

What I mean specifically is that you have one person who tries really hard to engage, and another who barely puts in any effort unless its only for specific people.

Truth of the matter is, everyone has favorites. Some play favorites harder than others. Don't lie to people and say you treat everyone in your mutuals list equally if you don't. Lying to people about it is bound to create problems and resentments, and justifiably so! No one likes to be strung along.

What ends up happening is that you have one person putting in all kinds of effort to get nothing in return, and another person who keeps getting flooded with attempts at interaction they don't really want, adding to their pile of Things That Will Never Be Answered, adding to your stress with a high draft count.

The simple solution is be honest so your partners know what to expect. If there's only three people you ever care to answer and everyone else is a Once In A Blue Moon interaction, just tell people! They're bound to be far more forgiving about it if you set their expectations of you realistically. At worst, the person will quietly move along to interact with other people who actually put in the effort.

Delete Things That Just Don't Work For You

It happens. Sometimes we get an ask that no matter how we think about it, we can't think of how we want to answer it or a good situation we can turn it into.

Or sometimes we just get a bad ask.

You reblog that meme that has 100 options, and that one person you haven't agreed to Ship with sends the only 2 that involve something Shippy, like kissing.

Or they send the one Ask that would be completely out of character for anything your character would be involved with, like you've got a mustache-twirling villain who likes to kick kittens, and someone sent you a meme insinuating your character is catsitting out of the goodness of their heart.

If something just plain doesn't work no matter how you try to turn it around, delete it!

Alternatively, you can reach out to your partners and discuss how to turn the Ask into something. Maybe your partner had something specific in mind when they sent that particular ask, and its just not coming to you, but once you find out the vision of the sender, it'll be much easier to reply to!

Likewise, feel free to delete a few things that don't work for you if someone sends you a lot of Asks. Maybe someone sends you 10 different Asks. You don't have to answer every single one. Pick the ones that are easy to work with and delete the rest. If you answered 3 out of 10, you still answered 3, and that's good!

Stop Reblogging / Asking For More Memes

I'm not saying everyone should do this. Memes are great! They're good, easy interaction starters! Especially when you don't have a lot of interactions going already or you're stuck waiting in limbo for other people to reply back to you!

But if you're just using memes to run away from your ever-growing pile of unanswered things, stop yourself.

Chances are, at least half of your problem with being overwhelmed is that you're chronically reblogging memes when you don't actually need to be, further compounding your problem of having too many drafts and being even more overwhelmed as a result.

I get it. The instant gratification of getting something in your inbox is nice. Its a real dopamine rush that makes you feel good! At first. But its going to come back to bite you later.

Its also a good, quick way to ruin your relationship with people who want to interact with you. If someone is already waiting on you to answer a bunch of things they sent in, and you post "Wow, I'm feeling so overwhelmed right now because I have too many things I still need to answer! But send me more things!", that's bound to put a sour taste in peoples' mouths.

That tells your partners that you have an impulse problem and that they're bound to keep sending you things that will never be answered, which defeats the purpose of following another RP blog.

At worst, people will get tired of it and unfollow, ending all chance of interaction from ever happening at all.

Some people think the answer to solving this problem is to simply purge their inbox of everything or remake blogs "fresh". While these steps can help in some cases, if you never solve the underlying problem of actually managing your draft count moving forward, eventually you will just find yourself back to square one.

I've seen this happen plenty of times, where people purge or remake a good two, five, ten different times to make a fresh slate, only to go back to the same problem given a little bit of time, because they never took any other steps to stop from ending up in the same situation. They got rid of their draft pile, but never addressed the habits that got them there in the first place.

A good, easy first step in that is to stop endlessly reblogging memes when you already have a pile of them just sitting unanswered.

Instead of letting everything pile up to unmanageable levels and keep asking for more, prioritize going through what you already have first. Answer whatever you're able to, talk to your partners about Asks or threads you're unsure of, delete anything that you know for a fact won't go anywhere.

Then, once you've dealt with the things you already have, then you can reward yourself by reblogging more Memes and Starters and whatever else you want!

Don't Lie To Your Mutuals (Or Yourself) About Guarantees To Answer EVERYTHING

I've seen this a few times before. Someone talks about how they have over a thousand drafts, but they swear up and down to their dashboard that they answer EVERYTHING they receive, so keep sending in more!

Don't do this.

The moment I see someone saying something like this is usually the moment they instantly earn an unfollow / soft block from me, because I know they're completely full of it.

These are the people who chronically never answer anything and end up blog-hopping because they let it get so out of control that the only way forward was to purge or completely remake their blog fresh, often multiple times.

This kind of rhetoric will also establish you as a liar in the eyes of your mutuals, especially your mutuals who never get any engagement while they watch you reply only to the same five people and everyone else is just a number to brag about collecting.

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the fact that you simply cannot and won't answer every tiny thing you receive. That kind of unrealistic expectation placed upon yourself is just going to end up creating problems for both you and your mutuals.

Learn to let some interactions and Asks go unanswered, and be honest with people that that is the case! You're a human being with finite time, not a writing machine, and your partners are more than just a number for you to collect and ignore.

Yes, announcing you're going to be dropping or deleting things may lose you followers, especially the ones who keep going unanswered, but it shouldn't really bother you if you weren't going to be giving those people proper engagement anyway.

Plot With People If Interactions Aren't Happening Organically

Everyone has their own style of RP and how heavily they want to plot things. Some people need things heavily plotted, others just like to wing it. Sometimes the heavy plotter ends up with the wing-it roleplayer.

Regardless, sometimes an answer to an Ask or Thread just won't come to you. Maybe your partner had something in mind already or a direction they want to take things, while you're just scratching your head with nothing.

Sometimes, getting to answering things is as simple as reaching out to discuss it with your partners!

Of course, there are times where this goes nowhere. Maybe both of you are stumped or didn't really think very far ahead. Maybe its just not vibing with either of you. Maybe you or your partner suck at communication and brainstorming. That's fine! But at least if you reach out, you can say you tried before dropping something!

And it gives you a chance to discuss doing something else that does work instead of such is the case!

Create Side-Blogs For Organization and Bookmark Purposes

The great thing about tumblr is you can basically create however many blogs and side-blogs you want to!

Let's say you're scrolling the dash and you see some neat stuff you want to save, but not reblog. Maybe its a PSA post. Maybe its a gifset. Maybe its a funny canon information/fanon post you saw and want to look back on.

Don't save "other" things in the same place as your Drafts and Asks go!

When you start mixing in "other" posts with your Drafts, your drafts are going to look even bigger and more daunting than they already are! Chances are you're not keeping a mental count all the time about those 50 other "drafts" you have mixed in with your real drafts.

Make a side-blog (or a Personal) for saving all those other completely unrelated things on! This will help keep your actual draft and Ask count in perspective, otherwise you might be stressing about having so many drafts when you actually have a lot less of them than you thought!

Use The Queue

If you find a lot of your problem comes down to having too many things at once, or your partners reply to your threads too fast so you can never make a dent in them, then you can always Queue up your posts to spread them out!

You can even customize how often and at what time frames your Queue posts things to the dash, which will slow down how fast you receive replies and allow you to get through things at a more comfortable pace.

You can always alternate using it as much as you want, such as using the Queue when you have a high volume of things to answer or return activity, and then publish things in real time or push things through the Queue faster as you like when things are going slow!

Prioritize Easiest / Favorite Drafts First (But Don't Do Them Exclusively)

This one is fairly easy, and I think most people already do this intuitively. The problem is, a lot of people do this, and then that's where they stop. They end up doing their favorites exclusively, instead of only doing them first, while letting everything else just rot in their drafts, never actually touching them.

But there's a good reason to prioritize easy and favorite threads first, especially when paired with the queue or other partners who are slower to reply. It's the easiest and fastest way to reduce your draft count and make it less daunting to deal with, without deleting and dropping things entirely.

Then you can focus on the other unanswered things that aren't speaking as easily to you, and get through those.

This step works, but only if you actually commit to answering the other stuff that you have to actually think about next. If you just answer your favorite things, and then do something like, say... immediately run to tell people to send you more memes and starters instead, you are falling back into the trap of overwhelming yourself with things you're never actually going to answer.

Instead, try to knuckle down and work on what you already have, whenever possible.

Prioritize Oldest Drafts First

Okay, so you've already gone through and answered the easiest stuff first! (Or maybe you didn't). Great!

Now what?

While this one isn't strictly an issue having to do with Draft Count, I find some people have insecurity about answering things simply because they're old.

While this inevitably happens to everyone at some point, as some threads or Asks may not be speaking to you until much later, I find that one thing that helps with this is to prioritize the oldest replies / first come first serve as much as possible!

Go to the oldest things you have, sit on them for a few minutes. Try to think of something, and work on that reply. If you try to work on it and its still not coming to you, then go on to the next second-oldest thing you have. Rinse and repeat.

Personally, I rarely have things sitting super old unless I just end up in a straight up writer's slump/block, because I prioritize oldest things first whenever possible, which helps to never have super old stuff just sitting there forever, taunting me.

This way, you're avoiding thoughts like "oh god, but they sent that thing 5 months ago. Should I really answer it at this point? Do they even want it anymore??".

Instead, you're replacing it with "Oh, they only sent that 3 days ago. That's not too bad."

Doing it like this means that my turn-around time is seldom ever so slow that I stress about how long its been.

Don't Be Afraid To Sit On Something For A While

Yes, we've talked a lot about deleting things if you just can't think of anything. And sometimes that is the correct and obvious answer! Likewise, sometimes we get something we need to set aside (but not forget about).

The more you manage the rest of your draft count, the easier this is to do without getting overwhelmed about it!

You don't have to just delete everything that doesn't immediately spring out at you. You can set some things aside however long you want to, just be careful not to use "I'll answer it later" to feed your bad habit of Draft Collection.

If you managed to answer 25 other threads and Asks, but those last 5 are just giving you a lot of trouble, that's totally fine! Even the best of us get hit with that sometimes. It doesn't always mean its time to delete them. Sometimes you sit scratching your head for a month, and then one day, the answer to that thread just comes to you!

But be honest with yourself about it. Are you really going to answer that thread, after you have some time to think on it? Are you really really going to answer it? Or are you lying to yourself and your partners? If not, there's no shame in dropping it.

Close Your Inbox

So let's say you're personally taking all the right steps you need to to manage your workload, but people are still trying to send you more things than you can handle to your Ask box.

You always have the option to simply close your inbox from receiving any new activity! Whether you just turn off Anon (not because of receiving hate, that's another topic altogether, just regular activity) or the entire Ask box, you can limit or entirely halt inbox activity from receiving anything new for a while until you have what you currently already owe into a comfortable and easy to manage state!

Yes, this means people won't be able to send you more, new things, and if they want to message you, they will have to do so through a different avenue (such as IMs or discord), but if you're already too overwhelmed with what you have, you don't need more activity.

Don't Keep People Around Who Make Your Dash Uncomfortable

And finally, though a bit of a sad truth, some people just make the tumblr dash a very uncomfortable place to be.

Maybe they stir up drama. Maybe they don't tag triggers (or they use stupid fancy tags that can't be filtered). Maybe they write too much of a topic or fandom you don't like to see. Maybe they write nothing but OOC and treat their RP blog as their personal blog. Maybe you're not even following that person, but they interact with someone you DO interact with and don't want to see them around.

Whatever the case, chances are good that if someone's presence makes your dash uncomfortable, its going to affect how well you're able to write.

Luckily, there are options available.

You can unfollow / block people.

You can filter tags and key words through tumblr.

You can use the mute function from the xKit extension.

Whether you make it public or private, you can have a DNI (Do Not Interact) saying who is and is not allowed to interact with you based on whatever criteria you set.

If people are sending you unsolicited Anons that you don't like, you can turn Anon off.

If people send you things you don't like with real or burner accounts, you can block those accounts or turn your Ask box and IMs off.

Ultimately, your tumblr blog is your space to curate, and you shouldn't let anyone else tell you otherwise. Having boundaries and expectations for how people act on your blog is your right and their privilege, not the other way around.

If other people aren't going to behave appropriately within and/or invade your yard space, you always have a right to lock people out of it by any means necessary until they either behave or leave.

Don't be afraid to do so, no matter who its coming from, even from so-called "friends" or "good people", because the only people who have a problem with you exercising your right to making your blog a good place to be for you are unsafe people who feel entitled to crossing your boundaries.

[rpedia]

Hello, just a question pertaining RPG's in tumblr, this is the first one I'm into in a long time, and I've noticed mods often save good characters for themselves and like don't even post them for other's to try and apply, they post the bios when they are already taken by THEM and rule out anyone who might have tried for said chara, my only question here is if being bothered by this (even if I don't even want said chara) makes me petty or is it justified anger?

Honestly, that's just them making their own space and playing the characters they're excited to play. If you're unhappy about it, you can make your own roleplay. It is a little silly to feel angry because someone on the internet developed a character/world for them and their friends with an invite to try out some minor characters and see how you fit in. You could always take those characters and make them well-written and amazing. You have no idea how good they might be under your guidance without trying!

If you feel strongly enough about it, you're always welcome to develop your own characters and world and roleplays. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but in the end, that's why they get the good characters. They did all the work to get where they are. You're not entitled to be part of random roleplays just because they exist. They aren't spiting you, they don't even know you exist. They're planning a fun party together, and you're standing outside the cafe seething because they got the cake they ordered ahead of time custom made for themselves.

Many times I see a fully fleshed out character in a roleplay application process it's because someone made them that way. They didn't come out of the keyboard as the perfect awesome character they are. They were just someone's pet project they put a lot of time and effort into. So they might appear to be the best character, but that's because someone loves them! That means any character, even the weird guy with only one line is capable of the same thing. Don't be afraid to try for a nearly empty character sheet, it's not a bad character, it's an opportunity to make a good one. The freedom to adapt and change them to suit you, and really express yourself. Once you love them, they'll become a good character too.

Hell, their characters may be from another roleplay entirely, just changed a little to suit this one. Imagine playing a character for years, moving them to a new RP, and someone you don't know gets mad because they wanna play your character. Kinda... weird right? And they wanna apply to take your character away from you? I'd be wheezing at the audacity.

So, my advice to you is to let that grudge lie very very deep until it rots into fertilizer, and the use that fertilizer to make your own garden to play in. Plant the seeds of character development and work on a character until it's a "good one" and make your own RP and invite people to do the same: expand on your world and make it even richer and cooler than it was when you started. It's a lot healthier as an approach, and you look 90% less like a fucko who got mad at someone for having fun the wrong way. Haha.