#every time i find out someone was using characters in a romantic rp with me as like. idk .

[suenitos]

I need someone to explain the !cdnf lore to me 😔

oh my godddddd how do i even go about this... so much of this is like you had to be there but i'll try my best ok. here are some things that helped me tremendously while writing:

cdnf manifesto (pretty much all cdnf moments compiled into one document with streams attached)

some cdnf moments

cdnf is an interesting case because it kinda emerged a little bit before the time the separation between Lore (plot) and Real Life officially happened (in my opinion this is when dream put out the please use c! to refer to our characters tweet) where a lot of the fandom attitude towards rpf was still being kinda weirded out by it, so a lot of people were drawing dnf "as a dare"/"because i lost a bet" and infamously "only shipping the minecraft skins" slash characters. previous to this/around the time of fundy's wedding video there was no real culture surrounding shipping most characters in a serious immersive way according to the story really up until the election and around the november 16 event. everything earlier than the explicitly described roleplay is kinda shaky at best in being considered canon, except for the kingdom line where cdream tells cgeorge that he will be the next king once they take back the land from lmanburg. theres also someee moments where theyre protective of each other during this war as cgeorge had always been on the side of the americans, kinda like irl which is a common theme in why a lot of people find this relationship fascinating. like. the rituals. we were still in dreams "straight" arc mind you.

a lot of the canon relationship relies mostly on the protective knight and king dynamic around late 2020 in which cdream crowns cgeorge king after he deems him more neutral to every conflict going on in canon over ceret, because of the running joke that irl george slept through every major event and he was building a mushroom house during the november 16 event. the big thing to remember about george is he wasnt super into the rp as much as dream was and we didnt see a ton of designated lore streams from him as a result, leading him to incorporate his sleepy/inactive nature as part of his character to sort of "excuse" him from a lot of the plot and from interacting with other characters. this was later though, but during the time of king/knight cdream was shown to be very protective of cgeorge and doing things like buying him flowers in secret (this was before fundy wedding was retconned but i still consider this one canon), stealing back his fish beckerson from cquackity i believe, and going to war against lmanburg and building obsidian walls surrounding the place AND exiling ctommy BECAUSE ctommy and co burned down cgeorge's house he built before becoming king. at the time people did read that as cdream using cgeorge as an excuse to do build walls and enact exile but i like to read it romantically i think thats more fun.

but as the person who created the server along with dream he was bound to have one of the most important relationships to him no matter what. after a while though, cdream dethroned cgeorge to re-crown ceret as cgeorge was starting to align himself with cquackity, csapnap, and ckarl in making a new independent nation that wasnt lmanburg, dsmp, or the badlands named el rapids (making him no longer the most neutral of the server) and this is the moment cdnf (and cdteam really) kinda split up for good in a way. do remember the reason this even happened is ALLEGEDLY because george irl wasnt super into the lore and dream gave him an out through lore, yet he underestimated the DRAMAAAA george would give as his character which led to a way more compelling story/narrative surrounding dethronement as cdream's complete betrayal of both cgeorge and csapnap to focus on other matters like ctommy or whatever. sadly, no more cdnf proper after this that doesnt come in the form of crumbs/mentions from other characters (such as two times csapnap confronting cdream and mentioning george to which cdream has very Normal responses) or dreams that dubiously affect real life (in canon) but cdream does what he does and cgeorge moves to kinoko kingdom with csapnap and ckarl. but honestly i think the most tragic part of dethronement was probably the fact it was on quackity's stream tbh 😒

the first time dreamxd showed up on the server was during george's tiktok banned me stream due to the fact cdream was in prison canonically but dream still wanted to play with george on the server on the rare occasion he got on, and this was the only stream that featured dream voicing dreamxd without filters, because it was a semi rushed decision. this stream could technically be considered the first cgeorge dream presented to us, but the concept that george's lore streams were dreams came one stream later featuring cniki and cbad as well. anyway this stream is kinda technically not canon because dnf and quackity were rping george getting banned from tiktok so its very much Not lore in that sense but it again featured a lot of dream being protective of george, "betraying" him and groveling and george acting sad and crying irl on command. rituals. ONE MORE THING TO ADD ABOUT THE PRISON THAT IS VERY IMPORTANT: cdream is captured and put into prison before this stream as previously said, but almost EVERY SINGLE character is there to watch EXCEPT cgeorge. meaning, he may have been in deep sleep at this point. HOWEVER, he never visits the prison ONCE in canon. more on this later.

anyway the next stream features some interesting implications about cdream and dreamxd's connection like are they two separate entities? are they split from a singular entity? can cdream take over dreamxd's body temporarily or is it dreamxd mimicing his voice and body (dream was using the same skin for both). also, dreamxd had access to creative mode which led many to characterize him as a god of the server and dream incorporated that into his character as a result, but also that he's a massive fucking simp for cgeorge in giving him items he asks for which again. rituals. this is the stream where cgeorge and dreamxd become friends forever as well.

but before explaining the last lore stream george ever did and also some stuff that happened after on cdream's side, there are also things to address regarding symbols and things that just made cdnf's relationship a lot closer than the others. for example, the wooden pickaxes they left in the nether near the beginning of the server's birth that philza eventually found and eret put in a museum. another is their literal child nugget (this one is a stretch tbh but it makes me smile) a chicken that george had in dream's room during the construction of the community house before a sewer ran through it :/ this one is purely me in that i also consider tnt to be a symbol of both cdnf in that cdream uses it a lot and cgeorge uses it to blow up the world in his last stream, and they both use it to blow up cquackity's las nevadas sign both in the dream and in canon. but the most important one of all is The Shield.

this damn. motherfucking shield. with a blue field masoned banner. was somehow the longest running symbol surrounding cdnf. i have gone to bed sick over this shield. a brief timeline about it: the first time we saw it was when cdream had it equipped during the obsidian lmanburg wall incident and cgeorge famously saying "im not going to be hurt if dream's next to me". cdream doesnt show up again with it to my knowledge but CGEORGE has it during the lil nas x stream (cdream in prison) during which he gets killed and lil nas x briefly equips it before karl gets it back to george near the end/after the stream. we never saw cdream give him this shield, it's kinda maybe implied that he gave it based on the fact its the same design?? who knows. later, the shield gets stolen by sapnap during another dream (this was during george's first year anniversary stream) featuring dream! where he dreams that cdream left prison and joined cgeorge csapnap cbad and ckarl on a tour of the server and kinoko. karl steals it back from csapnap during sapnap's stream with drista in secret, and manages to get it BACK to george MANY MONTHS LATER after an mcc and time travel shenanigans without sapnap knowing. george is GENUINELY happy about this damn shield and puts it in his enderchest, nearly freaking out when cpunz kills him and he thinks he lost it. super normal behavior. anyway. interlude over back to the last stream.

cgeorge's i blew up the dream smp deserved an oscar. seriously. masterclass in acting and streaming. the key point to remember from earlier here is cgeorge had NEVER visited the prison, but a specific moment from quackity's forming las nevadas stream revealed him standing outside the prison, looking inside, before cquackity got his attention, so he was clearly thinking about visiting, yet never had the courage or will to see him again. anyway this stream's inciting incident is cgeorge noticing no one is on the server and encounters cdream LEAVING the prison. they have a confrontation in which cdream asks cgeorge to join him or else he destroys kinoko. he kills cgeorge. after beating ctechno And cdream, cgeorge goes on a destruction spree and also kills cquackity ckarl and ccallahan before finally killing god aka dreamxd, his last link to cdream/humanity. that sequence where he fights him is oddly flirty. anyway he then goes on to go to the End and almost kills the dragon to rule over a world of nothing except.. it was all a dream. cgeorge ends the stream furious. this is the last we ever see of cgeorge.

meanwhile cdream gets taunted of cgeorge on various occasions: with csapnap, with cbad, and at the end with ctommy. one of the signs he has listing his plans has the name george on it, discovered by ctommy and ctubbo before they go defeat him. during the finale, ctommy goes into limbo and sees/hears cdnf during dream's FIRST dsmp stream before he abandoned showing his pov and convinces cdream destroying the world isnt the way before everyone blows up from the nuke L. thats the end of canon before "season 2" which. lets not get into that but them also dying to the dragon when the official end to the dsmp stream happened was really cute :( and its very poetic to note that irl dnf started this insaneeee phenomenon an ocean away and ended it all together in the same house in LA :(

last notes: dream fucking ADORED this ship so much that when he held a fanfic contest (dnf barely being accepted by the mods but allowing lore fics) he chose a cgeorge-centric cdnf fic as the winner. he liked so much fanart of it, and he particularly liked dreamxd and cgeorge fanart. he also accidentally revealed two google searches during one of his geoguessr streams which were "georgenotfound dream smp wiki" and "georgenotfound dream SMP king short story wattpad". okay man. protip ao3 is better for inspiration but whatever. but lets also not discount george here as he was also a freak and liked the famouss king/knight fanart of their characters near kissing and replied "hot" before people really took the concept of cdnf or any shipping super seriously. now, you can debate whether he meant that seriously or as a joke, but based on his streams if you were to find anything to ship, you seriously could not do that with anyone other than dream in either his cdream or dreamxd form unless you were looking to break up ckarlnapity in some way but those ships were less popular, probably because of irl dnf's real life chemistry. cdream is another story but thats not the focus here, though i wont deny there isnt grounding for a lot of other popular cdream ships, which is fine.

over time, dnf became incredibly close as friends and as a duo, and in terms of fandom developments, over the course of 2021 leading into 2022, shipping dnf as real people and not the pseudo heatwaves/accelerate/minecraft skins image of them became much more popularized. as dnf grew closer they did less streams in lore and their real life dynamic became a lot more interesting the closer the face reveal became. but in a way, in my opinion, the lore streams were a way for dnf in particular to sort of deal with their situation due to covid and dream's inability to go outside and do shit, in a sense the prison arc kinda symbolizes dream's irl situation though thats likely not the case. but a lot of their dynamic shone through in their characters via dream being very protective of george and george caring about him in his own way/being kinda obsessed with him in general.

overall, i think the best part of this ship is just how founded on delusion, crumbs, and denial from the fans it was yet how surprisingly supported it was by dnf themselves over time as the server became super mega BONKERS insanely popular??? like it is genuinely one of the only actual canon slash r ships in the story, moreso implied than anything else but holding much more water than something like ckarlnapity in the end which is CRAZY. the imagery and inspiration that came out of the ship was incredible and yet its still a very tragic story in canon that doesnt actually truly get resolved (i like to imagine season 2 fixed this). however in the end, although cdnf didnt get a happy ending, irl dnf did, in meeting/living with each other and officially shedding off this wild part of their life and career as characters in a story coping with their real life circumstances, to living life to the fullest physically together and happy. :)

[givemethesleep]

Kay, I read the post about your DnD OC's and I am SO INVESTED! That is one HECK of a traumatic backstory! I guess my biggest question is, what's kind of the endgame in your head for these characters? Because they are SO COOL and SO FULL of potential!

Do you want them to reconcile? To physically fight it out? To become an immovable object and unstoppable force, doomed to constantly butt heads?

Is there any sort of plan for either of them to address their trauma and/or get themselves in a healthier environment? Will Boreal ever find someone who loves him just for him and not for what he can do? Will he ever be able to conquer his constant need for validation? Will Australis ever find someone who isn't afraid of her and cares about her, even past her rude and snappy defense mechanisms?

Or are we going for more of a negative character development angle where they go in increasingly darker paths, with Australis eventually succumbing to her patron or Boreal's savior complex becoming much larger scale?

And please tell me anything else about them too, because holy heck, this is juicy!

I ADORE YOU. THIS IS THE BEST ASK EVER. YOU'RE INCREDIBLE MWAH<333

Answering these questions and more + some random picrews and images I have for them under the cut (when I add the cut tomorrow because idk how to do it from the web browser) <3 And grab some popcorn because this is probably gonna get long AND juicier.

SO as far as their endgames, I'm not entirely sure. I use them in a variety of contexts (D&D with my friends from highschool, Australis is my Tav for BG3, discord rp ect.) So their endings are sort of fluid but.

They don't reconcile. They miss each other terribly. Australis offends Boreal's desperate attempts to be "good" and "pure" in spite of the magic that made him the way that he is. Australis cannot forgive him for driving her into exile and building his reputation by painting her a ghastly villain. Every time they meet, they tear each other apart. More often than not, though, Boreal is the antagonist in these meetings. More on this later!

Australis gets a lot of comfort from her pact, drawing her magic and knowledge from the pool of those that came before her. Even if it's confronting, she grows a better understanding of who she is, and why she is how she is. And that, at least, is a comfort. It doesn't change the fact that a 9 year old child was tortured as she was, it doesn't change the fact that she was forcefully stripped of both her human and elven heritage in exchange for crystal-coated horns and otherworldly blue skin. But she understands it, and understanding is the first step to accepting it. Her patron is careless in how knowledge is accrued, so long as Australis contributes it's happy

I think, be it platonic, familial or romantic, Australis does have the capacity to love and be loved. How this will come about is up for debate - I'm using her in an upcoming campaign with friends, and (when I get the hardware to properly play) she's my Tav in BG3, so she has the companions from that game to play into this idea too. I'm also super keen in mushing my ocs together with friends and mutuals so. if you see this. hit me up if you like fucked up and mildly unnerving undead tieflings that turn into a creature of nightmares and explodes sometimes. She does have a pretty big heart, under that spiky exterior.

But, naturally, her story/ies are unfinished, so whether she finds a proper support system in one of her parties (or even one or more partners) is something that is still to come!

Boreal is the one that has the negative arc, with the help of @waffles5588. And his need for validation and the steps he takes to achieve it aren't specifically combatted. He does chance across an adventurer. An orc, looking for work in the more rural towns to help build his portfolio for bigger jobs. The two hit it off right away, and Boreal tags along on one or two jobs as the local guide and emergency healer should Mal take too much damage. They kind of end up in a sort of fwb bordering on romantic relationship. Mal adores Boreal. He's funny, he's someone who sees Mal as something more than a weapon, and who cares about his safety. He's also illiterate and not particularly bright, so he doesn't really pick up on the fact that most of the incidents in the general vicinity Mal and Boreal are asked to help with were incidents that Boreal himself setup. He's open to the idea of sharing his fame with Mal. It's a sort of intimacy, and he doesn't feel like Mal is a threat to him and his persona.

Though we haven't really gone into specifics, it's probably not going to be a happy ending for a long time, if at all. Boreal has to do some introspection and fix himself, which is going to be an unpleasant experience, but losing Mal due to his conniving nature would probably hurt just as much, if not more. Boreal's kind of dug himself into a lose lose situation that nothing short of a full rehaul of his entire person can fix. Sucks to be him, I guess. (All jokes aside, Boreal has two major forces that would force him to change for the better. One would be Mal threatening to leave or leaving him and ruining his reputation, the other being Helm directly stepping in and stripping Boreal of his divine power. Both of these would destroy him, but it'd be the wakeup call he needs)

That should answer your questions re: arcs, so now for some more fun facts (mostly about Australis she's the girl ever)

- Australis is an undead warlock with the pact of the tome, meaning she has her Book of Shadows to learn spells from, does not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and can turn herself into her form of dread - with a grotesquely twisted face, distended limbs and cold sharp crystals covering her body. When she hits 0 HP, she explodes into a fine powder littered with small shards of crystal, dealing considerable necrotic damage to those in her vicinity. From the dust, she regenerates with 1 HP and 1 level of exhaustion.

- Australis' pact has had a noticeable impact on her appearance. Her sclera are a very dark blue and her irises a startling pink. Her horns, once barely ridged, are slowly being encased in the same crystals that encase and hold her patron and it's vast knowledge. Her and her brother both had faint purple markings where they had once had normal birthmarks, but Australis' grew and wove elaborate patterns that darkened and pulsated.

- Every time she uses her warlock skill set, it widens her connection to her patron and the souls that make up it. Often, the voices of her patron question her actions and bombard her with alternate actions, sometimes even downright berating her. It's very very overwhelming, and she can't make it stop. Most of the time, after battles or fights where she has to take the lead, she has to shut herself in her tent and just completely shut down and endure it. She'll often emerge exhausted and with bloodied fingers from trying to claw the crystals growing on her horns off. Hence why she may come off a tad cowardly, insisting others try and carry the brunt of a fight.

- To flex his righteousness, Boreal sends Mal and some other mercenaries up the mountain to find Australis, claiming she's a witch spreading misfortune to the communities on the mountainside. Boreal helps as Mal and the crew attack and destroy the crystals in the cavern. Attacking Australis' Archivist and, indirectly, her. It's agonizing for her, her patron screaming at her in its thousands of voices to protect it, her mind and her vision swimming. She can't fight off her brother, the other half of her, and the pain Boreal and his friends are inflicting make focusing a spell nearly impossible. Her patron channels its power through her and drives the mercenaries from the cave injured, and nearly kills Australis a second time. Boreal tells the others that they must have killed the witch, or at least deterred her from attacking the villages again. They are hailed as heroes. Australis is almost fried from the inside out, lying half-dead in her damaged cavern with so many of the souls that made up her patron just... gone.

Besides, Australis had not once attacked the villages.

- Boreal is a bartender at the town he and Australis spent their late teens and early 20s in. People come to him for comfort and support, for healing and advice. That's where his people skills come from, and how his network and influence became what it is. He's a gossip and a busybody, sure, but he uses it to his advantage! The more he knows, the more damage he can cause and then ultimately fix!

Images are from picrew + a photo from BG3

[public-trans-it-deactivated20240]

Proper noun: Ceetee Pronouns: It/Its* Common nouns: Girlthing, Tranny, Doll Adjectives: Trans, Mixed-Race, Aegosexual, Polyamorous, Plural Verbs: Game Design, Shitposting, Flirting

🖋 Last edited: 5/20/24

Unreasonably proud of that stupid grammar joke. Anyway yes, I'm Ceetee. While I am plural, I try to avoid the use of first person plural pronouns, except when we are specifically talking about our experiences with DID/Plurality. We also do our best to conceal who is fronting at all times (you can read more about that in the links about gender and plurality at the bottom of this post).

I'm a dork with very VERY strong opinions that I am VERY VERY vocal about. If you do not share those opinions, that is perfectly fine and probably to be expected. Just know that I am very obnoxious about them, so you will see them a lot. I have a lot of confidence on my stances and it is very unearned! That said I'm always happy to actually discuss this stuff, and also perfectly understanding of people unfollowing over it! Never feel like you HAVE to follow me for whatever obligation. Curate your feed, damn it!

For the pronoun exceptions mentioned above, It/Its are my pronouns for most people. If you aren't willing to call me that, well, I can't stop you. Use whatever you want, but I will absolutely be judging you for it. Though there are some exceptions. For people I'm intimate with (Romantic partners and people I'm in a QPR with), my pronouns are It/She. If you work for my HRT clinic my pronouns are She/Her because like fuck am I risking my HRT just because my doctor doesn't understand my gender. If you are a coworker my pronouns are He/Him and also I don't have a tumblr, please block me immediately, for both of our sakes.

I have a NSFW sideblog. You can probably guess its name pretty easily. If you can't, I'm happy to give it to anyone brave enough to DM me or send me an ask off anon. In fact, you can ask me basically anything about my life and I'll happily answer. I'm a pretty open book like that.

Rambles

I tend to ramble about various things. Usually when I do, I tag it as #text essay. Sometimes about gender and my views on it, but also just... stuff in general. Here is a list of some of the general stuff. Its usually just stupid pointless stuff, but its a good look into how my brain works.

The Darkspore Rant (Long)

Pokemon Picross Monetization Model

Movement in VR

Time is Fake as Hell

Fighters Should Have Magic

Where I Stand in Regards to AI Art

Identity stuff:

Bespoke Genders (Part 1)

On Detransition (Part 2)

Plurality (Part 2.5)

Plurality and Being Transgender (Part 3)

Fandom shit:

Pokemon Eggs, and the Fundamental Nature of the Pokemon Multiverse (Long)

List of FFXIV OCs (LONG. Its also a recap of 4 years of weekly FC RP)

Posts others have made but are very relevant to me and who I am:

Back When I Was A Boy (Not every trans femme used to be a boy, but I did and that is important to me)

The Scorpion and The Frog (I desperately need to get a tattoo of a scorpion and a frog. I can't read this without crying)

Tags

#text essay - As mentioned above, I use this for when my rambles go very very very long. The ones I like the most or feel are important enough I also add to this pinned.

#Zenos ♥ - For the FFXIV Character that I am super normal about (lying).

#dnd hate train - A tag that exists for blacklisting purposes at the request of a close friend. As a designer, I fucking HATE Dungeons and Dragons. I hate it a lot. And I talk a lot about how much I hate it.

#laugh rule - For that age old tumblr rule: "If it makes you actually genuinely Laugh Out Loud, you have to reblog it."

#peer reviewed tags - another, more modern tumblr rule. If I screenshot someones tags to share them, I add this tag to it.

#dudes rock - Essentially, just a bunch of guys doing stuff that is just 'boys being boys' in the fun sense and not the rapey sense, but also just a reminder that the world is better with these dudes in it, and a way for me to find happiness is the masculinity that made my childhood miserable.

#partner gushing - For when I am being GAY AS HELL about my partners, or reblogging something and going 'its because of one of them'

#talking to myself and #talking about myself - Conversations between me and my alters, and talking about my relationships with my alters, respectively. More details here.

I also just... ramble in the tags. A lot. I just add so much commentary in the tags. You will see A LOT of rambles.

[novella-writers]

Mercy, pirates and star fleets: a sci-fi story

”When you dare to stare in the eyes of someone whose fate mirrors yours, no one can blame you for wanting to try and change its course.”

Hey there my fellow space exploring pals and writers from previously uncharted worlds! I am once again on the hunt for some sci-fi based goodness intertwined with an overly generous helping of drama, spaceships, lasers, aliens, romantic endeavours, intergalactic sized portions of chaos, moments of tenderness and heartbreaks, more lasers, some cool tech and a story that leaves us hanging on the edge of our seats whilst we eagerly await the next reply with a few unexpected plot related twists and turns thrown in to keep us on our toes.

What I’m looking for right now specifically is an story revolving around two characters, one of whom is a particularly Nefarious and well known space pirate that frequently terrorises anyone who is unfortunate enough to stray too close to uncharted areas of deep space whilst the other is a alliance captain who is widely viewed as a hero for their ability to single-handedly take down and capture some of the galaxies most dangerous criminals with near perfect success every time they’re encountered, that are forced to band together after a intense space battle results in the damaged ship they were duelling on hurtling towards a nearby planet and the decision to flee is made for both of them by the pirate in what can only be described as a unexpected but presumably sinisterly motivated act of mercy on their behalf.

Why does the pirate decide to rescue their enemy instead of just finishing them off and saving themselves? Well dear reader and potential fellow writing partner, that is up to us to figure out and I’m more than happy to hear any ideas or theories you may have. Maybe they were former friends who split after going down different paths in life. Maybe the pirate isn’t as big and bad as the wanted posters or news stories make them out to be. Maybe the captain has something of value to the pirate that they need to be alive for. Anything is possible provided it fits the theme of the story. I am also open to it being the captain who makes the decision to save both themselves and the pirate instead and I have no preference for who plays who, so don’t hesitate to say if there’s one role that you have your eyes set on more than the other and claim it.

IMPORTANT DETAILS, PARTNER REQUIREMENTS AND OTHER THINGS:

-I am looking for someone who can write a minimum of at least three to four properly fleshed out and detailed paragraphs per response in third person past tense as well as a decent grasp on spelling, grammar and punctuation. One liners, single paragraph responses, rushed out replies with frequent spelling mistakes that go uncorrected and constantly swapping between tenses are a no go for me.

-I would like to aim for at least one to two responses per day/every other day, but I am open to planning a schedule with my partners depending on their overall availability so long as there are at least three days of the week where they are able to make a post for the rp and I’m given a heads up about any changes that may need to be made due to life related things outside of our control. I am not open to only receiving one response a week or less than that.

-I am looking for a long term rp partner who is also open to having multiple threads/plots/stories/etc running at the same time or at our leisure. I’m not looking for a short term story that is over and done with in just a couple of days before we part ways and never hear of each other ever again.

-I am in the AEST time zone. Whilst I have no trouble working with people who are in different time zones, please be aware that this might cause a bit of schedule clashing depending on how many hours behind or ahead of you I may be and what times you are available to chat with.

-I am a big fan of ooc chat and love nothing more than opening up discord on my phone to find that I have been flooded with messages containing ideas for the rp, silly little goofy character scenes, memes or even just a funny story about something that happened during the week. As long as I am not being spammed with “you there?” “When will you reply?” “Hello?” Or something similar, you are free to message me at any time even if I am not actively online.

-All writers and characters must be 20+. No exceptions will be made in regards to this rule.

-I only play male characters and they’re all aliens. If you do not like the idea of playing against aliens that may have/has fur, claws, fangs, tails, the ability to walk on ceilings, multiple limbs or just anything that doesn’t look like it could be anything else besides a regular earthborn human and lacks any noticeable features to help distinguish them as another species, then I am not the rper for you. I do not care if you wish to play as a human or alien provided it doesn’t look like a xenomorph or insectoid like alien, isn’t made from slime, doesn’t have magical powers, isn’t telepathic and can function in harsh or combative environments without automatically being severely handicapped in some way because their helmet broke and they can’t survive without it due to being unable to breathe without water or they’re blinded by regular lighting and cannot adapt to it.

-I often incorporate certain themes and topics in my stories which may include, but are not limited to: gore, violence, war, PTSD and how that may affect the way a character interacts with others, disabilites, major injuries or illnesses and how they’re treated, abuse, character loss or death, torture, etc. any and all limits will be discussed prior to the planning stages of the rp itself but please keep in mind that I’m not the kind of person who skimps on the dark and gritty parts of a story (barring a few very specific exceptions) so if you are not comfortable with this, I am not the rper for you.

-Romance is my bread, slow burn is my butter. Together they help create the perfect sandwich that I absolutely adore. Gimme that drama which comes with realising that the guy who was only a few seconds away from shishkabobing you with his cutlass is kinda hot, let them simmer in the tension those feelings cause and stew flusteredly over the little things they both find cute about each other, engage in a bit of insulting (banter) that leaves the characters going “dang….they’re good.”, mercilessly plunge them into the pits of emotional despair when one of them gets hurt, let em see the best and worst sides of each other. Don’t be afraid to sling any ideas that may make it all the more dramatic-er wholesome either! Just don’t get too carried away and let it completely overtake the main story. Pairings wise MxM is what I prefer the most but I’ll also happily indulge in a FxM (with me playing the male character) couple as well. I will not play the role of a female character as part of either a primary or secondary romantic pairing so don’t come to me if you’re looking for someone to do that for you.

-Spice (smut) is a ingredient that I add to all of my rp’s and I don’t like to skimp (fade to black) on when it comes to sprinkling it in amongst the main storyline, but it’s also not something that will come first over anything else either. I like to keep things 50/50 when it comes to having a story to smut ratio and do not wish to have one exceed the other in excessive amounts. I am not a fan of strict dom/sub roles when it comes to bedroom dynamics and will only accept characters who are switches/tops who don’t mind swapping places every now and then, I will not play against submissive bottoms who have no intention of reciprocating or have to be constantly guided on what to do.

-Please keep your time travellers, dimension hoppers, androids, heavily augmented cyborgs,overly emotionally fragile characters, characters who need to be constantly looked after or guided by mine, characters who are blinding rays of sunshine that never feel any negative emotions whatsoever and those who may be more suited to a entirely setting, genre or role at home please.

-I only write on discord due to the ability to make servers so that everything stays neat and organised/easily accessible within its own little category. I will not write on any other platform.

-usual rp etiquette rules such as don’t control my characters,don’t rewrite a whole scene without asking first, don’t overstep any boundaries, let me know if something comes up (if possible), please actively contribute to world building/plotting and have fun also apply.

Still with me? AWESOME! For anyone who is interested in diving headfirst into this interstellar adventure with me please shoot me an introductory dm on discord that has your time zone, your availability, your preferred role and pairing, what you liked about the idea and your favourite food so that I know you read through everything. Anyone who messages me with “rp?” or “hey I’m interested!” will be ignored.

My discord: tiberionwars

Time to fly!

[sobeautifullyobsessed]

☾ and ★ and ♦ for Beauty! Thank you <3

Thank you for asking about Beauty, Nonny! She's so dear to my heart, and at the moment my only active RP character--and I'm always happy to talk about her.

☾ - sleep headcanon Beauty has been a night owl her whole life...

Which was easy in college because she was usually able to schedule her classes no earlier than 11am. One semester she made the mistake of taking a history class at 8am (because she had enjoyed that professor's class in the past), but when she got cast in Romeo & Juliet (in her dream role), the rehearsals ran until nearly eleven each night--and after, of course, cast & crew traditionally hung out at a local bar (Maggie's) frequented by generations of theatre majors. When the need for better sleep asserted itself--

--and it was too deep in the semester to drop that class--she chose to fail, and took it again the following semester as an afternoon class.

In dating Stephen Strange, she could easily adjust to his proclivity for late nights--but as her job makes her an early riser, she's developed a habit of taking quick power naps on her lunch breaks. Still, there are nights when they are snuggled on the couch together, lights out and watching a movie or a series, that she can't help closing her eyes ('only five minutes!' she tells herself) and nods off because she's not built to burn the candle at both ends.

★ - sad headcanon Alrighty, well...I have two to share; both bittersweet, and one must go under the cut for length of post reasons

When she was a child, the person she loved best in all the world was her maternal grandfather, Gramps. As his only granddaughter, she was his princess, but he never treated her like just a kid. He listened closely to her childish prattlings and always encouraged her imagination. He guided her to become an avid reader by reading works to her above her grade level, every time they were together. Brought her books she might never have sought out for herself, and that fed her romantic nature and her thirst for tales of adventure. She had plenty of friends at school and in the neighborhood, but Beauty always thought of Gramps as her bestest. He passed away suddely when she was twelve; it was her first encounter with losing someone, and it hit her hard. But she took consolation in the piles of books he left behind for her, most of which still occupy the shelves of whatever appartment she lives in as she journeys forward on life's adventure.

And the second, sad, little headcanon has to do with sleep as well...

Naturally, being the significant other of a much in-demand Hero and Protector of Earth has some downsides, but all along, Beauty tried her damndest to roll with them. When you love someone, you make adjustments and try to make their life a bit better even if it means some personal sacrifice. When Stephen is away (more and more and more of late) she can't help but worry, especially when he's out of contact for long stretches. And that eventually affects her ability to fall asleep as her imagination kicks into overdrive. So she discovered a little trick to help. She either wears one of his t-shirts or hoodies to bed, to be wrapped up in his scent, or sleeps with the pillow he uses when he stays over, snuggly in her arms. She focuses on his scent and their happiest memories, and in time she calms enough to finds herself drifting off.

It's worked for a while, now--but he's been either gone so long or been too distant when they are together, that the scent on his pillow has faded away to nearly nothing.

((don't look at me that way, you did ask for sad))

♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon

When something is really, really funny, Beauty can't help that she snorts when she laughs.

Sometimes she's kind of clumsy, which most of her boyfriends have found endearing. Though she is extra careful at work to appear the complete professional, recalling an incident early on in her career where she accidentally got her skirt tucked in her pantyhose in the loo one day, and gave a half a library tour to a group of tourists before she realized she was a mess.

Beauty loves to bake primarily, but she's also a great cook, thanks to the fact that she had five older brothers and took it upon herself to help out her mother in the kitchen even before she started kindergarten. Baking & cooking for someone are key elements in her language of love.

Even though she couldn't make theatre her career, she still stays active in whatever way she can, most often now by organizing little plays for her reading groups to perform for parents & friends, based on the materials they are reading. And she's felt blessed when her little ones have gone on to middle school and come back to invite her to the plays they do, often telling her they would never have had the courage to try out if it hadn't been for the fun of the plays she did with them.

Beauty's a sucker for good, old-fashioned romantic comedies, either plays or movies, and loves the modern adaptations of Shakespeare's comedies in movies such as 10 Things I Hate About You.

Anon, please know that I'm truly grateful for the chance to write about my sweet Beauty. I miss writing her terribly, and this did my heart much good!💗

HEADCANON MEME

[holified]

1. When are you usually online?  My working schedule has been so awfully overwhelming that the only free time I have is on the weekends, but sometimes I’m so exhausted I cannot even write anything, although I’m often lurking here on Saturday and Sundays nights.

2. What verses are you involved in outside of this page? I have a blog for Sakura Haruno, so every once in a while you can catch me there, but it usually depends on whether my friends there are online or not. As for my verses here, I most use my “alive” verse, and I have recently been able to use my Yu Yu Hakusho verse thanks to some amazing new friends! I also have a special verse in which Kikyo and Kagome are sisters with my beloved Rarity, and a Sesskik verse that I absolutely love.

3. What is your biggest RP pet peeve? I’m a pretty laid back person, so it’s hard to anger me (or so I believe). But I suppose I could say my biggest pet peeves are when people try to pressure me into writing/doing something or when people start drama over small things. I have seen so many people arguing over stuff that’s just... so stupid! Dunno, I’m just too tired to deal with people right now.

4. Are you drawn to specific types of muses? Hmmm, maybe I am? I think it has changed over time, but I LOVE an angsty/misunderstood character. Powerful, complex women that are often mistreated by their writers bring out my fire to write. I need to like and find the character interesting to write it. Oh! And I don’t write male characters, dunno, I just don’t feel comfortable, I’ve had blogs for male characters before but they were always short-lived.

5. Are there recurring themes in your writing that people might not notice? I don’t know, maybe? I LOVE shipping threads, like, omg I’m a hopeless romantic and all the romantic love I don’t have in real life I seek in my writing. But I also love an adventure and I LOVE angst so... I’m not sure which theme could be considered “common” in my writing.

6. What are your favorite RP trends? Hmmm... I think the return of big icons, some time ago it was SUPER cool to have tini tiny icons that were overly saturated and were just a blur of colors that was impossible to decipher. I never understood this trend tbh, to me icons provide a visual reference to your character’s expression, the scene or to focus on a particular aspect of your character’s face/body language, so those impossible-to-understand icons were absurd! Anyway, but enough complaining about old trends! I think the new aesthetic trends are pretty great!

7. What is your process for starting a new story with someone? Good question, I usually just IM them or we start writing and go with the flow. I like this organic kind of writing, where ideas pop up and you move along with them. Planning is great, and having a general idea of where the thread will go is amazing, but discovering HOW it will get there is so... rewarding! 

8. How do you feel about duplicates? I’m incredibly insecure, so I avoid duplicates not to compare myself and end up abandoning the blog for thinking I’m not good enough :|

9. How long have you been involved in roleplaying? Oh my, here is where you discover I’m a dinosaur on Tumblr. I’ve been writing on tumblr for around 10 years, and I’ve never written outside of this website, I think I wouldn’t be able to roleplay outside of tumblr at this point.

10. Is there a muse or verse you wish you could write in, but haven’t? Oh, quite a few! But alas, I have no time to write the muses and verses I do have, imagine writing new ones! But one day I want to make a couple more blogs for one or two muses I’d like to give a try!

tagged: @thuganomxcs​   — thanks so much! ♥♥

tagging: literally anyone who sees this!

[vigilantdesert]

Name: Marie

PRONOUNS:: She/ her.

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: tumblr IM or disco if we've talked for a while.

NAME OF MUSE(S) : Asari Urbosa (Breath of the Wild, canon), Ondaru Stanna (Breath of the Wild, OC), Makeela Nabooru (Ocarina of Time)

EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?) Mmmm something like 13 years? Started in Phantom of the Opera, been in the LoZ community for fourish months now

PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED : I started in YouTube comments before Google bought them out if you believe that. I used forums for a while, then Rolepages (I have no idea if they're still up), skype, then I started on tumblr in 2014ish.

BEST EXPERIENCE: All of my eras have had ups and downs, to be honest. I've had some absolutely fabulous partners and plot threads, but my favorites are probably a few ships I had in the Alice in Wonderland and Les Miserables fandoms. The AiW fandom ended up imploding and Les Miz died down after a while (to be fair, I also lost muse) but I cherish those threads.

RP PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS: Dealbreakers are repeated rule-breaking, attempting to coerce me into playing something I'm not comfortable with/don't want to do, and the "everything proof shield" flavor of godmodding are dealbreakers. I know there are always going to be power disputes, especially in fandoms like LoZ where we're dealing with big G God powers, but threads in which a muse is always impervious to everything (even if their weakness is not something my muse can reasonably do!) is exhausting. My biggest pet peeve is not respecting in-universe reputations for canon characters. I used to play a lot of villains and, while I know you do need some conflict between muses for a lot of good threads, it gets really tiring trying to come up with excuses why an immoral, powerful muse wouldn't just sentence someone to death if they annoy them enough (Yes I'm talking about the Queen of Hearts, no I haven't gotten over it). I've found this is most common with villains but it can also apply politically or with interpersonal relationships cough cough Carlotta Guidicelli cough cough

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT: I do enjoy angst, but the older I get, the more I really appreciate warm fluff. I like smut from time to time, but it depends on the muse

PLOTS OR MEMES : Either are fun!

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: I don't write as long as I used to, but I do still prefer paragraph form replies unless it's for a crack thread. I don't use icons, so I find that one-liners get difficult for extended threads.

BEST TIME TO WRITE : I'm usually better at writing in the morning, but I can't usually communicate at length until after 6ish CST. I often write before I go to work or over lunch, but always feel free to hmu! It may just take a bit to get back to you.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): I believe there's a little bit of the author in every character they write, but with my current trio it's a little bit like the ego, the superego, and the id. Stanna's closest to the ego in the sense that she's balanced, but her temper flares and she has. So much drama with her family. Nabooru has a lot of my anxiety and the put-upon "I don't want to be in charge but I guess someone has to be and I'm the only one left standing" attitude is very me. A lot of that is frankly me venting about my own job. Urbosa is aspirational for me in a lot of ways. Her confidence, self-assuredness, and her gifted speech are all traits I wish I had. Urbosa and I also have very similar romantic tastes, with our taste in women being "women." Her gender presentation also resonated with me, as a woman who still likes to dress fairly femme, but takes the "masculine" role in romantic relationships.

tagged by: @warriorsofxwild

tagging: @archaeval @righteousruin @eissibee @flamekeeperbellroc @libertytaken @scarfbond @somnium-led

[arcxnumvitae]

❥ ☀

@soulsxng || the salty af munday meme

❥ Has someone ever ruined an FC or character for you?

Not a super dramatic “ruined” like “I’ll never interact with a muse that has that fc again”, but I do have one that comes to mind that triggers...I could you could call it Pavlovian annoyance? The mun tended to spout negativity a lot of the “I feel like everyone here hates me and no one wants to interact with me” type which is a valid feeling because emotions aren’t always rational! But when a post of that nature was being made every few days it started bringing my mood down too.

Anyways, yeah, they were ship obsessed to the point where they’d only get interested in writing with you if they thought they were, not ‘could’ but ‘would’ getting a romantic ship out of it, only interacted with muses they could get a ship from, and their muse’s personality and the way they wrote them just kind of personally grated against me. Especially in some, to me, semi-reductive ways they approached and talked about their muse’s interest in sex.

That fc isn’t super used though and other than that, any others that could reach Pavlov’s Annoyance aren’t that popular either, so I guess I’m lucky.

☀ What's your rp pet peeve?

Man let me tell you. What’s really been a thorn in my side these past couple of years? People who follow/follow back but then simply refuse to write with you. Like you respond to an open starter and the thread quickly gets dropped. You like starter or plotting or inbox calls and they quietly get deleted?! You send in asks and nothing? And all the while it isn’t as if they’re gone or not in the mood to write, their activity is fine it’s just that they’re writing with the 3-5 mutuals that are their favorites, and who they generally have romantic ships with.

Hell, I was getting ignored like that once over the period of a month or so, so I went to their IMs to see, like, what was up? They assured me that they totally did want to write with me, so as I was trying to plot with them they.....then simply stopped responding. Same deal as before, still active, still writing, just weeks of no word from them.

Anyways, I’m totally fine if people find a tightknit group of mutuals they get very passionate about writing with to where the responses come faster and easier for them, I’ve got that myself so I get it. I just wish that if those are the only people they’re interested in writing with that they would at least acknowledge that to themselves before following other people they won’t ever give the time of day. I’d much rather someone realize maybe our styles or muses or their energy don’t mesh well and then softblock me instead of me putting in the time to craft a really good ask, plot, or starter that I think could lead to a great dynamic just for it to go unacknowledged completely.

[vcnusians]

NAME? . . . stephanie

PRONOUNS? . . . she / her only !

MOST ACTIVE MUSES? . . . lisa, cyndi, lydia (@bansheas), patti

RP PET PEEVES? . . . the bullying, sending hate, PLAGIARISM / stealing ocs (it's happened to me), taking someone's OC and using it for "x reader / yn" fics, the ostracism / deliberate exclusion if you're not in a "popular" clique, liking someone's starter call but never getting anything ever because i'm not deemed "cool" or popular enough

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS? . . . 12!

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT? . . . anything as long as it's dramatic, something to keep building on, there's chemistry and it makes me feel something.

PLOTS OR MEMES? . . . both are great! memes are fun and have potential to evolve into threads and grow, but plotting is more specific and to the point and we can keep expanding on ideas and those small details and that can be really exciting. i do like direct communication, it's easier for me to process and helps me focus.

TIME TO WRITE? . . . in the early mornings, late evenings or on the days i don't see my boyfriend.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES? . . . it really depends on the material, what i have inspiration for and how my muses respond to them, but i can promise i will never give you the bare minimum! sometimes i'm "into" more things than others, or another muse is louder, but whatever comes out will be written with pure love.

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)? . . . cyndi, lisa, lydia and jane in different ways. cyndi with her sensitivity, intuition, obsession with beauty / fashion, her dreaminess and energy, her creative way of looking at things and how "venusian" she really is - she has aphrodite / venus vibes in the way she does everything with love. she has this deeply sensitive piscean energy that i vibe with. also she's got a thing for the "bad boys" and hahaha yep :))) lydia with her infinite levels of sass, bougie princess attitude, to-the-point straightforwardness, drama, "extra"-ness, high standards, can be a little bit of a brat when she doesn't get her way, knows what she wants and won't stop until she gets it but also highly sensitive and cares deeply for the people closest to her, and scary intelligent in a way that intimidates most of her peers. jane in the sense of being "different", the experience of having been bullied, having psychic abilities, being smarter and stronger than most "adults" give her credit for. she can seem superficial but she really isn't at heart. she has a way of "seeing through" people and knowing their secrets. yeah.... same. that's why i was drawn to these characters, i can relate. malia because she's a little socially "behind" after such a very different life experience and missing out on key adolescent milestones but also doesn't care about social norms, very blunt and has her own way of making sense of the world and other people, does and says what makes sense to her, a little rebellious, a little moody and mysterious but also funny, still healing from trauma that colored her life in every way but finding herself and knowing she can still have a good life. devi because she's always getting into one mess after another but still manages to have a good sense of humor about it. i would say loryn from valley girl, too, being a hopeless romantic but no one really knows who she is so i removed her from my muse list. cassie for having a big heart that's easily hurt, very emotional and sensitive, being a "lover girl". patricia for craving something different, adventure, wanting to live on the edge and have a taste of forbidden fruit, mystic psychic vibes.

tagged by : no one but i saw this on @miercolaes and wanted to do it

tagging : you !!! but also tag me so i can read it because i'm curious <3

[messengerhermes]

You know, I've only had it a few times, but I feel like the closest I've ever felt to romantic attraction is when I'm making up worlds with someone else. I don't RP with people very often. But the times I have, and managed to do so at length always had such a power in my life. Writing creatively with other people feels a bit like saying, "I think you're clever enough to play God with" and when it's really good and you're matching up well together I feel like I'm flying through ideas with each exchange of a draft. The excitement of "oh you took us there! I love it. What will you do if I shift us this way?" the slight nerves of "oh will you like it? Did you like this? Are you as excited to see my posts to you as I am yours? I don't actually care where we end up when the story's over, I just know I'm having fun any which way we get there, because I'm with you." And that's what I feel like folks describe romantic attraction as. It's magnetizing and while it takes work to sustain, it didn't take work to fall into it, and it didn't feel scary either. So many of my abusive relationships didn't take work to get into either. No work except tricking myself that the woosh of fear and hunger for someone's approval was excitement to see them, to be chosen by them. As I probe the wounds from this latest round (unfortunately my longest bout with trouble yet) I find myself realizing how often I wasn't having any fun doing the dance of those partnerships, even when I was nailing it. I just felt frantic and sad and so desperate to please the other person. And that was a pretty bleak realization to have. I kept sifting through all the different relationships I've had trying to find a glimmer of hope that I had some sense of what healthy romantic love could be. Of what it felt like to find a river that you can flow with not one that tosses you ass over elbow in the rapids. And then I found writing, creating, play. The binders of drawings passed back and forth between my teenage besties and I. The memory of an AOL chat roleplay with another. Spitballing with a lover in the dark, laughing as we take our favorite characters and paint them with our own angle of light. There in every stroke of a pen that drives me wild, "You're brilliant." There in the beat afterwards when I can't contain the ideas flowing through me in response to you and I'm scribbling on the paper bag from my lunch, "What if it looked like this? That's such a good idea, I can't wait to show you!" There, in those relationships, I never pushed myself to improve my craft out of fear of failing to meet the other person's expectations. In those relationships, we'd bounce the ball of ideas back and forth, running up and down the court pulling trick shots. Everything was saturated by the perfect moment of playing after sunset as a kid. Knowing I had to go home soon and home wasn't so great, but right here, right now, I'm with you, and we are safe and that is wonderfully, beautifully enough. Creative relationships are that same haven. Life is scary and I am no longer scared to go home, but the world still yaws open with the wounds of hostile rules from a handful of vicious hateful people. But right here, I am with you, between the lines on the page and we are safe and that is wonderfully beautifully enough.

And the ways I push myself in those relationships, that stretch of muscle from new growth doesn't hurt, the effort is exciting because I feel the way my art becomes better in real time. My heart takes over with this urge of "you understand what I'm trying to get at with my art! You see me! I want you to see me more, more, more! Look what I can do! Let me see you, too! I want you to show me, I'm dying for it!" Because the thing about a creative relationship is, you can't keep your heart out of art. So when someone really gets your art, understands what you were trying to put out with your work and then can be in conversation with that? That's so phenomenally alluring. The heartsong of "you get me" woos me in art more than anywhere else. When someone gets me and then puts out art that sets recognition ringing in my head like windchimes? When I am desperately excited for them to share their creative work with me? I'm in love, then aren't I? If I can't wait to hear about your latest workshop ideas, If I want to see the smudged ballpoint sketches you doodled out on the nightstand at 3am If I don't even finish reading your post before my mind is singing with ideas of what to type back to you If you can show me some thing that you've made and I'm so over the moon with the beauty of it that I just have to kiss you If the pleasure that comes from you noticing a little detail in my work, one that I polished just to catch the beholders eye, rings sweeter from your lips than others What other thing could we call this, but love? Sure, I've never wanted a house with any of these people, or to marry them or do any of the other checklist things that would beget a romantic relationship, but how is it any less romantic to say, "I want to create with you, again and again and again and maybe kiss you sometimes, in between" just because that desire for me doesn't magically transform me into someone looking to be a spouse blouse? This is why I stay saying i'm aromantic, because it feels like the only acceptable form of romantic relationship is "you have to want to do date type things together, and eventual live together, and pledge the world to each other as lovers." I don't want to pledge this world to anyone else but myself. But I want to make worlds with other people. I want those to be gifts of devotion and a place that is "ours." But I don't want to compromise my life for lovers any more than I compromise it for my platonic friends.

[mothbeasts]

Thinking I may be some flavor of aromantic

[pomp-and-circumstance]

Fuck. Here we go. Episode 106. The flight. I have so many thoughts about the flight.

(I have a lot of thoughts about things, who am I kidding. Maybe I can wrangle them all together here to make some sense.)

I feel like the first thing is that... I don’t know how much credit Marisha gets for how she’s handled everything, but I’ve heard these rumblings that people felt like this ship came out of nowhere, and while I can see what they’re saying to a degree, I think that statement ultimately belittles Marisha as a player. She’s said she was going to make Beau a fuckboi and sleep her way through the campaign until Ashley introduced Yasha, but the most important detail here has nothing to do with their characters and everything to do with Ashley’s schedule. 

These guys are all friends. They love each other. Marisha isn’t going to require Matt or someone else put words in Ashley’s mouth to RP some kind of romance from the beginning. The biggest thing when RP’ing romance is to have the consent of both parties and who knows? Maybe Ashley would have changed her mind in the middle of being gone? My guess is they probably talked about it and decided to put in some hints, play with the chemistry a little, but not do anything major until Ashley came back. That said, it’s on Marisha to play the subtlety card for several weeks. If you think about it, it’s a clever “does she or doesn’t she” in terms of how Beau feels for Yasha, because what better time to try and settle possible conflicted feelings than when your interest is under mind control and can’t break free? Was she playing us the whole time? What does that mean about my feelings? I can brush those aside if she’s evil... but what if she isn’t?

Bottom line, Marisha isn’t going to try and do something that’s going to make Ashley uncomfortable upon returning, and it really showed in a lot of ways. If you think this ship came out of nowhere, that’s fine, but I think it’s far more a testament to the respect Marisha has for Ashley. After all, listening for thunder can be platonic or romantic. Did things really take off after Ashley came back and Yasha was free from mind control? Hell yeah it did - because there’s no schedule limitations holding them back. Who’s to say this wouldn’t have been how it started? We won’t know.

I won’t stand for Marisha Ray slander on my here Tumblr. She’s exactly the type of person I’d want to play with. I love her friendship with everyone, and I love her patiently and gently guiding Ashley through something she’s stated to be nervous about doing in the first place. The respect cannot be understated.

Now... the flight.

It’s Ashley’s choice when exactly the wings come out, but you gotta have a little fun with everyone at the table too, yanno? Of everyone in the party to take a hit from a falling body and not take a lot of damage, it’s the tank. The flirting hasn’t exactly been subtle, but Beau has the right idea asking Yasha to catch her. (Could she have asked Caleb to do something? Sure, but where’s the fun in that?) Besides, you gotta think Yasha wants a moment to check if those wings are real and see what they can do, and it’s not like she went super high to catch Beau anyway.

But the moment she catches Beau... oh, the moment she catches Beau.

This play-it-cool fuckboi who didn’t think twice about sleeping with Keg and made the immediate first step to grab and kiss Reani is a flustered, babbling, incoherent mess, and that, my friends, is the difference. She could have said any number of cool or suave things Beau has in her arsenal to charm any woman she wants, but Yasha is an actual angel and she has no idea what to do with that. She’s also been able to tell - every time - when someone else is interested in her, but here it’s a moment of stammering and flustered noises, holy shit this woman is so much more than she or I knew and those giddy butterflies you get in your stomach when you realize you like someone and they probably like you back. Beau and Yasha both are reduced to stammering disasters who shared a pivotal moment together that will change them forever.

Which brings me to Yasha. Granted, the wings could have come out at any point - a battle, a moment of privacy, etc - but I think it’s so symbolic that Ashley took that chance to use them to catch Beau the session immediately following Yasha putting her past behind her. She fell in love with Beau in Kamordah, sure, but I feel like this is when Yasha starts believing it’s okay to fall in love again. This is when she lets herself do that. Looking back on it by herself, she probably realized it had been a thing since Kamordah, but there’s a difference between realizing you’re in love and acting on it. Beau has witnessed a handful of moments that have to do with Zuala, including when Yasha pulled the image Caleb made of them to fall asleep to, but those feel far more like Yasha becoming comfortable with letting her go than they are yearning. (Which Beau could easily misinterpret.) If Yasha fell in love in Kamordah, she has to come to terms with her grief and move on, and it shows in her dream where she hears Zuala. It wasn’t an agonizing reunion of regrets and wishes and pondering if things could have been different. “I have to go.” I have to move on. There’s something here, and I have to let you go to find out what it is. I’m in love again. It was the final piece to releasing her past and stepping into her future.

So where are we now? 

Two people who are seeing themselves in a different light, for the first time, together. 

Mutual admiration in full swing, set on a path to something more. 

Ashley’s courage to try something different in D&D. 

Marisha’s delight and guidance into something she’s familiar with. 

A love story with all of it’s twists and turns and yearning, as well as trust and faith and admiration. 

It’s beautiful.

The real MVPs of all this are Laura and Travis, who have got to be the biggest Beauyasha shippers out there, let’s just be real. It’s almost more fun to watch them than anybody else, lol.

[pumpkinqueenautumn]

(Giving this another go for 2022!)

Hello there! My name is Grace/Winter/Autumn, and I use she/her pronouns! I am a college student that’s been roleplaying for around 9 years! With my short time off from work beginning, I am hoping to find new partners who play MxM romantic pairings in fandom universes to create something wonderful with! In terms of what I generally look for in a partner, I would like to find someone who is flexible with plots, as I often enjoy jumping back and forth between ideas (though I have been working on being less overzealous). I am in the EST US time zone and would like someone in a reasonable time as myself, so if you are more than 6 hours off, I don’t think it will work out. Below, you will find a list of fandoms I am actively searching for. I am wanting to do OCxCanon, but I am also happy to double if need be! Here are a few I have plot ideas for:

Adventure Time

Aggretsuko

ATLA/LOK

Danny Phantom

Disney

Inuyasha

Pokémon

Regular Show

Scott Pilgrim (comic)

Star vs the Forces of Evil

Teen Titans (2003)

TMNT (2012+AUs)

Yugioh (DM, GX, 5Ds)

**(All characters will be aged to 21+)**

~Rules~

1. Please be literate. No text talk or bad grammar (minus OOC chatting). 3rd person only. I don’t expect massive novella responses, but your replies should be detailed and show effort.

2. Please be relatively active. I understand we all have busy lives, however if you ghost or aren’t around for long periods of time, I am not the partner for you. If you aren’t feeling our plot or want to part ways, just communicate! I also sometimes have a terrible memory, so if it’s been more than a few days, (politely) nudge me!

3. Because every plot will be 21+, I am asking that you also be 20+ (I am 18+ and all participants and characters must also be 18+). When you reach out me, your age should be present somewhere in your opening message.

4. In terms of 18+ content, I am happy to do fade to black or a long build up to it, however regardless, the plot and romance is my primary focus.

5. Please make your introduction more than “hi”, “wanna rp” etc. Your opening message should state where you are coming from, your age, what you are interested in, writing samples (not required, but certainly a bonus) etc. Messages with little effort will be ignored.

6. I do not do stock characters/established characters in original settings. Please be ready to make a plot first, followed by our characters if we choose original.

7. I tend to play the less assertive character in the relationship dynamic, so please be open to taking on that role here (unless we double).

8. Let’s have fun and be friends! Let’s chat OOC and talk about our days! As much as I love roleplaying, I love getting to know my partners as well!

And I think that about covers it! If you’re interested, please shoot me a DM and/or heart this post and we can exchange discords!

[mikaze-discord]

Quartet Night: Love letters

Annnnnd these are the love letters written for Quartet Night!!!

Please enjoy under the cut~

REIJI KOTOBUKI

From Anon:

I've always been drawn to characters with complex (and fairly dark) personalities, so liking Rei-chan was honestly inevitable for me.

He looks like a very bright and cheerful character at first, which he is, but sometimes that part of him is a little misleading because, in actuality, he's a character that holds a lot of negative feelings about himself due to a past that he can't seem to move on from. He holds a lot of those feelings to himself because he doesn't want to burden anyone else with them. He's a reliable, cunning, and ultimately selfless character that chooses to shoulder a lot on his own out of his infinite care for others, and perhaps a secret sense of atonement, all hidden behind his bright demeanor and goofy smile, and it's endlessly interesting to me.

Besides the duality of his personality, he has a lot of other endearing quirks to love about him. He loves his mom a lot and is a mama's boy. His old-man jargon and catchphrases never fail to amuse (I still can't get over the way he says "my girl"). His obsession with anything even remotely British is something my APH England phase can relate to. His style of music brings a lot of pleasant feelings of nostalgia for me, and his pretty voice suits them a lot. And most of all he's just a very good boy overall. I rate 99999 out of 10 would love and support him and also maybe pay for his therapy because god knows he needs it. Happy anniversary!!

From another anon: 

Would you like to hear a story? You do? Very well then, may this story be one you enjoy.

What do I like about Reiji kotobuki? A Lot of things actually!

Well, I've always really liked Reiji as a character as he seemed to be one of the more interesting characters to me, due to how complex he is with his backstory and general just personality.

I have always really enjoyed how Reiji just solves problems too? Like he is just such an outgoing person who deserves all the support!!!

Like the best word I can use for Reiji is just, unique. Everything about him is just so Reiji. From the way he talks, to his nicknames or even his texting style. Like have you seen how many people use emoticons when texting as Reiji? It's just so him.

I like his way of thinking too! I feel like some of the interactions in the games are just so interesting, just seeing Reiji’s point of view. How he deals with a sort of survivor’s guilt and all of that.

Personally, some of my most memorable roleplaying moments were watching a Reiji rper in action, like just seeing them interact and flow so seamlessly with the other characters was just so fascinating to wee baby rper me. Such a large part of playing Reiji is just how you flow with the people around you and comedic timing. I have so many funny moments where Reiji was just interacting with people and it was just so inspirational (?) like I couldn't stop the smile on my face. I had learnt alot from them. I still consider them my roleplaying senpai almost! I don't talk to them anymore but I really had an amazing time just seeing their spin on the character.

I don't find him to be a romantic partner towards me nor do I see any of the characters in that light, but I've always found Reiji as such a personal character. Not even just towards me, like even with other utapri stans. The most relatable character always seems to be Reiji.

I've always been pretty similar in many aspects to him and I often find myself relating to him in numerous ways like his vibe is just relatable! I have often found myself trying to make other people laugh and have fun that many times I'm spreading myself thin and feel unappreciated...Reiji really helped with that.

This is where i start getting into the really personal stuff LOL feel free to skip if you dont wanna hear the angsty backstory.

I had really come to love Reiji when I had just...hit a low. I had a group of friends who I enjoyed hanging out with and just talking to, but they weren't very good friends per say. I often had to schedule every activity we did and I spent days and nights trying to think of concepts that might be fun. They took it for granted.. I had spent 4 months trying to make a game for them, and they had constantly pushed back times that we would play it. Using excuses to not play it, without telling me out right what they did not like or even why. The site I used was later taken down without notice and thus I had lost all my progress. Later, they had mentioned how they would like to play it except that later ended up being two years later. I really wish I could've solved things with that friend group like Quartet Night did but that didn't happen. That is when I started seeing things Reiji’s way? Not to say that it was the same or similar scenario to Reiji but I had just associated it with him.

RANMARU KUROSAKI

From Anon:

Ran is such a fun character! He sounds like a "rough outside, soft inside" kind of character, but his roughness is more like an integral part of him and it's through it that he shows he cares rather than setting it aside. That's what made me want to rp him. I also like how he is such a strong guy who's always determined to do his best in everything he does despite so much having gone wrong in his past. And it's very satisfying to see him form bonds and start to trust people.

From @mikaze-san:

Originally, my favourite Utapri boy was Ai, and it had been the robot boy for several years upon entering the fandom. In fact, it only switched to Ranmaru sometime late last year but regardless, I would still die for this man. Part of the reason why I switched is because I’ve always been a fan of Suzuki Tatsuhisa and I have a huge bias towards any man who wears nail polish without fearing being “feminine” because fuck gender roles.

As someone who studies fashion, I think Ranmaru is very coordinated and confident when it comes to portraying himself that way. He knows he’s not very good at expressing his emotions and utilises his passion for rock and playing the bass to portray those feelings through his songs. It’s also incredibly inspiring to know that he bounces back from pretty much anything considering his backstory and the stuff he deals with in the game/anime.

But my main reason for loving Ranmaru so much stems from the fact that I admire him a lot and want to be more like him. For a long time last year, I got to roleplay as Ranmaru in a few Utapri groups and through those experiences, I gained a better understanding and appreciation of the characters that I wrote for. In some weird way, by highlighting his flaws, character progression and how he dealt with different emotions, I ended up providing insight into how I dealt with similar issues by looking at them from a 3rd person perspective.

I used to be very shy and was very shut off from friends and family, and due to this I’ve always admired people in my life or fictional characters that are so confident in being who they are. Ranmaru particularly struck that chord in me because his bluntness knows no end. He’s very opinionated and doesn’t fear confrontation, in most cases being the one to provoke it. He speaks his mind openly without being overly anxious of the consequences. This is something that I feel is especially relevant today with being your authentic/unapologetic self is such a trend.

It’s something I’ve also noticed with having met people in or outside of this fandom, the notion of idolising a fictional character containing traits that we want to see in ourselves. Which made me think about a lot of my favourite kinds of characters which at the end of the day all boil down to sharing one similar trait: Being a bitch.

And in Utapri, Ranmaru embodies that. So naturally it’s very easy for me to idolise him.

(Tldr: I like his bitchy attitude.)

AI MIKAZE 

From Arashi:

It's hard to put into words why I love Ai Mikaze, perhaps it's because I'm subconsciously drawn to him, maybe it's because his hair and eyes are my favorite color, maybe it's because his voice is that of an angels, there are many reasons why I love him. I couldn't tell you a definite, "These one or two reasons are the entire reason I love him", but I'll try to sum it up.

I grew to love him by admiring his personality, his smile, his determination to reach his goals, everything about him made me happy. He's strict and a little scary at times, but when he sees people caring for him, he becomes happy and in a way, sentimental. He's not sure how to explain the way he feels, but he tries. I think I admire how he holds all the little things precious to his heart as he learns about them, and he wants to understand how to care for others and how they care for them in return. Even after six years, he still remains the most dear to me. I think that he now has a sentimental value to me, because even if I 'loved' another character more for a while, I will always come back to Ai. Ai deserves the world, and I'd give it to him if I could. He'll always be special to me, and I think that he very much deserves that.

From Maronda: 

My love for Ai started after I found Shining Live by chance and started to play. At first I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters and decided to go back and watch the anime to maybe remember some context other than who Starish was. When I got to the episode focused on Ai and his "secret" I was absolutely thrown off by it all. I ended up feeling like I had so many questions and I knew that the anime would give me little to no answers, so I frequently turned to rambling on the internet about it. Eventually, this fixation on weird things about him seemed to turn into a clear fondness for him, and friends made me realize just how much I liked him. Knowing the cold and often strange aspects of his personality was due to something out of his control was something I resonated with as someone on the autism spectrum. He reminded me of some of the ways I used to think and behave.

I also began to notice other things I loved about him. Things like how soothing I found his voice, the pleasant shade of light blue in his hair and eyes, how ridiculously pretty he is... but the best things are the endearing parts of his personality. Though he's somewhat harsh, he's still entirely genuine. His curiosity is absolutely precious and his occasional awkwardness in expressing emotion or understanding the emotions of others made me empathize with him. And if you look at the Ai in Shining Live and compare it to the Ai in the anime and games... he really has changed a lot and grown as a person. He now seems so much gentler and understanding, and he clearly values the friendships he has now too! I think he's a wonderful character and ever since friends of mine encouraged me to selfship I've essentially been in love with him, but it also makes me happy to see other people appreciate him for other reasons as well. He's just so lovable!

CAMUS

From @uta-no-fakku-sama:

At the very beginning of my UtaPri interest, Camus never really caught my attention. That is until he became my first My Only Prince UR. I’ve come to appreciate him a lot more ever since, and now he’s become my favorite QUARTET NIGHT member! Along the way, I learned more about him and realized he’s one of the more complicated characters to understand. Nonetheless, I absolutely adore him. I tend to tease and make fun of him a lot, but deep down I truly do like him a whole bunch!

From @/waddamaloooon on twt: 

A little Camus appreciation post

(alternatively known as; how this guy managed to harshly take my heart and step on it like the gumin I am.)

Hello, this is Suikamaru, here to share a tiny story of why I, and eventually you, love Camus Rondo Cryzard.

At first glance, his looks appealed to me, but not his behavior (and ironically enough, his voice) so I didn't bat an eye on him. I've always been on a neutral leaning to dislike opinion on Camus, which is quite understandable because have you SEEN the way he acts. Unfathomable.

…..To a Young Suikamaru, that is.

I've grown, so naturally I've changed preferences regarding characters, ikemen, and who to stan and who to avoid like the plague. I will lie if I said that I expected to like that blonde confectionery devouring machine at any point of my life.

But it did happen so who are we fooling here.

It dawned on me that Camus is the type of character that you cannot appreciate unless you go in depth into his lore, backstory, and see him for who he really is. Because then everything else will make sense. And that never happened in my case until I started roleplaying as him.

I realized that he's not just a two faced, sweet toothed mean man. He's a perfectionist, someone who's always been raised since his childhood days to be nothing less than complete, who has locked on his heart and emotions to devote himself completely to the purpose given to him. He has the looks and brains for what though? He should be a little stupid honestly.

But his intelligence gave him the complexity that he just needed for his characteristics. Because as aforementioned, he's not someone to easily like or fall in love with. And I think that's quite rare in characters, and very much appreciated due to the fact it gives the fans a chance to not actually stay on a flat level of knowledge regarding their favorite characters.

I've slowly started to see myself in some aspects of him, which was the number one factor of liking him. Then came the Maeno magic when I realized Camus shares the same VA as another character that I love as well. (Hamelin, from SinoAlice.) From then, everything went downhill.

In a good way. I think..

Well, that is all from me, please read about this handsome man and appreciate his hard work both as an individual and as an idol. There is SO much to him that's p much overlooked and I'm getting broke from spending my money on his living expenses rent free in my head. Take him off my head.

[conjuredarchive]

i need to vent. so you can read if you like but not necessary !! i have a lot on my mind and just need to get it out.

i don’t have as much passion as i used to when it comes to roleplaying on this site. i think nowadays, more often than not, i find it tiring and kind of a hassle to navigate. there are great people on here of course, many talented and kind people, but i don’t have as much energy or time to give as i used to, which is also something i’m okay with.

no matter what i seem to do, the effort i pour into muses who are women doesn’t seem to largely go anywhere ( unless it’s with close rp partners ). whenever i’m inactive on on here and then i go to round up drafts, more than half of them are always for my male muses. if i ask, my women usually have been dropped. i can start out with a balanced amount of drafts ( platonic, romantic; a good amount for my women and men ) but usually the drafts that have a higher and faster reply rate are always the romantic ones...for my men. this happens every single time i round up drafts after a long period of inactivity. it gets so. tiring.

and usually when i’m tagged in shippy things ?? it’s exclusively for my men. and usually when i get spontaneous praise on my portrayals ??? usually for my men. i notice anytime someone replies to one of my more popular male muses, i get a fresh surge of followers right after that, too.

it’s just...as dramatic as it sounds, aggravating. that something so silly and unimportant can factor into how my muses are received. read the bios for my female muses. they’re usually much more in depth and filled with headcanons because they’re where my passion lies, yet that doesn’t seem to matter. if a male muse has an attractive faceclaim, people won’t even need to read their bio or know their canon to show romantic interest in them !! it’s transparent and frustrating.

i still remember when i used to write wishlists for my muses, because i thought that would help me achieve a better balance all around for my characters while showing i was open to fresh dynamics with new partners. i mentioned both in depth platonic and romantic ideas for almost every muse i wrote one for. when i posted one for two different primary female muses, i wasn’t approached for any romantic prospects. when i posted one for a male muse, i was almost instantly dm’ed and bombarded with five different romantic proposals. that’s how it always seems to go, so i stopped posting wishlists altogether. if anything i only discuss wishlist things i’d like to write in private nowadays.

i’ve basically written every type of male character you can think of. if i’m honest, i only have the utmost and fresh passion for two among the ones i’m writing now due to them being unlike any guys i’ve portrayed in the past; though i do like rex a lot, he’s pretty fun, he’s still similar to a couple muses i’ve taken on so it feels like slipping on an old pair of shoes when i portray him. overall, when it comes to male muses, i’ve seen it all, i’ve written it all. i’ve written them in all sorts of romances, messy, fluffy, a mixture of the two, etc. there’s only one dynamic i haven’t had the opportunity to explore though i have no doubt if i posted about wanting to explore it i’d get offers.

something else that’s truly bizarre. i came to find out that i didn’t even know how to write smut from the perspective of a woman anymore because during the occasions i did write smut, the majority of the time it was from a man’s viewpoint. i didn’t have the experience of writing it with women, so i lacked confidence in doing so until recently ??? within the last year. and hey, i’m good at it !!! one of my partners on discord was so impressed they said they felt lucky to be writing it with me. it’s just ridiculous...how i was so used to writing as men initiating, making the first move, charming, seducing, and courting women, etc that i felt i couldn’t do it if it was a woman. because in all of my rp history, i’ve basically only had the fortune of ships for men advancing and meaningfully developing enough to get that far.

so like i mentioned about having vast amounts of experience with writing men...obviously the same cannot be said for female muses. i’ve barely written women in comparison. at this point in my roleplay career, i’m writing women !!! finally. i’m letting myself focus on them and exploring different types of women with varying backgrounds and dispositions and quirks, something i never was able to do in the past. it’s refreshing. but so bittersweet because in spite of how many more women i write compared to men, the amount of adoration and attention is still overwhelmingly biased towards my male muses.

it’s really impacted my ability to write as of late. i generally don’t care to write men as much anymore. and someone even pointed out to me how they noticed that my women don’t seem to have as many romantic ships as my men, as a whole, which is...absolutely true. if i didn’t have romances with my friends, my women would only have platonic threads, and my men would overrun my blog in popularity.

i don’t have as much time or energy to write as i used to and when i do i can’t help but feel frustrated and like  maybe it’s being wasted. i also just wish my women could get the same amount of love as my men, that the love i did get didn’t have to be from my friends. that i could play two characters from the same film or show and not worry about the male half eclipsing the woman in popularity in terms of threads, ships, etc.

regardless, i think about how a toxic friend of mine tried to dissuade me from writing women anymore, insisting i wrote men better, degrading my writing for my women so i’d write men she was interested in shipping with. i think about her sometimes along with the male muse bias in the rpc, and i’m more proud of myself for not giving in and just reverting back to only playing males again. i know i’d be guaranteed easy threads, ships, be generally showered with attention, but i won’t do it. i prefer to write women more and i embrace that. even if it’s frustrating. even if i get very discouraged in noticing the difference in treatment i get.

this is a long rant with no organization. a lot, though not all, of this has been said in private to friends before but i didn’t want to blow up anyone’s messages after getting frustrated yet again with the state of my other blog. i’m still working on dropping muses, some i never expected to consider. i feel like more will be let go of potentially than i even initially planned. sadly, sometimes i worry i’ll never get the spark i used to have when it comes to enjoying this as a hobby. maybe i won’t. maybe i will. i voluntarily don’t spend as much time on here as i used to either way !!! but i’ll be around until i reach a point i get truly fed up with it / this site dies and probably move to disco rp exclusively. that time isn’t here though...yet. so i’ll try to enjoy it with my faves while i can.

[rpbetter]

I'm a novella roleplayer who writes long-term threads. Since this is very rare on tumblr, I've noticed that many muns are intimidated or put off by how much I write, how much information there is on my muse, and other things inherent to long-term roleplay. People have even told me outright, "I'm intimidated by you". But I do wonder if there's another component besides, well, just the amount of writing I do. Maybe there's a way to negate some of this by using certain techniques, wording, etc in my rules and overall presentation. Do you have any advice on how to reduce how intimidating I seem, even with the amount of writing I do? Any particular things I should avoid? And at what point should I just not worry about it, because it's out of my control?

Hello, Anon! Thank you very much for this question, I think it's a discussion many could benefit from. That should probably be head's up for everyone that this is going to get long, yes.

People have also told me, outright, that they're "intimidated," and I know that's something my writing partners have been told as well. It's also something that seems to be a common statement toward novella roleplayers in particular, and one's chance of having it said increases with factors such as being a long-term RPer, particularly good vocabulary, visible skill with writing, and indeed, having a muse you've dedicated obvious time to developing - made obvious in not only the amount of information available on your muse but also in your confidence about that muse.

I honestly do not think most people who say this any more realize that it's a little offensive than they know precisely what it is they are trying to tell you. Regardless, it makes it a bit hard to know what you're doing, if it's actually something wrong, is it something you can or should change, or is it just another case of being the minority in the RPC, therefore, having more muns out there that you're not suited to writing with? No one knows, because it's vague!

So, I’m additionally going to beg everyone out there to not say this. Please, if you find yourself categorizing another RPer as “intimidating,” do everyone a favor and consider what is making you feel this way, even if you never tell them this. Eventually, you will tell someone, and if you’ve thought on it already, you’ll be better able to express yourself in a way that is neither offensive nor vague. If you do tell someone they are “intimidating,” expand on it and be specific. Tell them whether it is the length, writing style, the mun OOC, it’ll be very helpful. You needn’t be shitty about it, just honest and polite.

Try: “I’m not confident enough to write with you, I don’t feel like I’m capable of writing that much, or that well, but I would love to keep following so I can read it!”

You’ve not been offensive at all, but have told them what your difficulty is. You’ve also kept this a you problem, not a them problem. When we tell people they are “intimidating,” that is a negative connotation that implies they are doing something wrong. We've made it a Them Problem. Maybe there is something they could work on, but your feelings over perceived limitations aren’t their problem. They can’t change the way you feel about yourself and your writing in contrast to theirs. By saying it this way, it’s still clear that you don’t think this will work out, you’ve told them why, and you’ve done it without projecting responsibility.

Alright, sorry, just in case anyone out there who says this and isn’t immediately turned off by the length of this reads it.

As I said, I've been told this as well, when it seemed like a mun that would be alright with me asking for specifics, I have. Unfortunately, they couldn't describe those specifics in any more detailed terms. I'm not saying this to shame anyone's capacity to describe their impressions or wishes, sometimes even the best writers aren't good at expressing themselves more personally. I'm just saying that a clearer description wasn't possible, and that I am taking this from what has been expressed by these people and others in limited ways, directly stated or vented about vaguely.

The length appears to be the predominating issue.

"It's just a lot," "I feel like I'd miss things in it," "intense," and "I like quicker back and forth" are some of the major points that have been made to or around me. They're the first and primary things that are mentioned, and they all deal with the length (though, the intensity thing also deals with the writing itself).

As you already know, as a novella RPer and how unpopular that is, the length is usually an issue, yes. Let me rephrase that - it is an issue that is a part of the vague descriptor of being "intimidating," I do not feel that lengthy RP itself is a problem! Just the problem that some muns are having with seeing you as a viable, approachable RP partner.

Looking at someone's writing is something I always highly advise doing while looking for new partners, but I believe that our writing as novella RPers can obscure it for some when they're not actively a writing partner yet, thus, not involved in it. I enjoy reading threads I am not a part of, and since everyone I write with is also novella, that means I'm essentially reading short stories every time I do - that's not typical. Most people just see Wall of Text in a novella thread they're not involved in.

It's kind of a seeing the individual trees in a forest situation, and might not have anything to do with the mun's potential interest or viability as a partner. I mean, I doubt you're looking to engage interest of short multi-para or one-line muns, since that isn't your preferred writing type and yours is not theirs. So, you're likely looking at the few and far between other novella and any lengthier multi-para muns. So, it's not going to be an issue of simply being novella, thus immensely overwhelming and not their thing. It's more likely to be that your novella is particularly lengthy, and again, they're not yet involved in it. They’re seeing a task, not the fun engagement of it yet.

I know that I've had several mid to lengthier multi-para muns approach me wanting to write, they're usually interested specifically in beginning to move toward doing novella. They also see the fruits of these great storylines, OOC friendships, and in-thread relationships on the dash, not the building that went into them. The expectation is different from the reality, and once they start receiving my replies, that can quickly turn overwhelming. They've now got something on their hands that has been too lengthy for other, established novella writers, and it's all at the beginning still with the muses.

This is when I tend to get that I'm intimidating from people who have begun to write with me, and I think it is telling of the Wall of Text problem with partners you've not gained yet, too. The problem of how they're viewing the writing is that they do not see things within it that are immediately, and easily, engaging to them specifically.

The people I referenced, they're having the same problem. Our muses do not know each other, there is no established connection of animosity or affection, no "dynamic" to fuel their replies. When looking at a lengthy novella reply and trying to judge interest in writing with the mun, they're naturally not going to see that either, since it doesn't exist yet.

And it might not exist at all.

I want to be clear to everyone that I am not saying one needs to write in a way that is not enjoyable to them, I'm just guessing at problems based on the majority of the RPC's interests and what I have been told over the years, a lot of years. Like, no one come at me about forcing anyone to write anything, or being acephobic or something fucking nuts, thanks!

People are really, really into the romantic ships. I do not care what the RPC says because it knows it's the right thing to say lol if it wasn't true, it wouldn't be a huge, and totally observable as true, problem that characters who are hard to ship with or do not ship are passed over. Regardless of beautiful writing, engaging muses, and incredible worldbuilding, they're passed over because they're not a ship partner in the waiting.

So, it's quite possible that if you do not have threads in which there are observable ships, muns are seeing the Wall of Text because there's nothing that grabs at their particular interests. I don't even just mean smut, either. I've found that far more muns than there used to be are willing to not write that, but they still want the ships.

You might be a RPer who does not do shipping at all, has a difficult to ship with muse, or who simply does not place this as a priority in your own interests. There is nothing wrong with either direction of this preference! It’s alright for people to have preferences, even if they can feel annoying to us because they’re leaving us out, or we genuinely just do not get the thrill. It’s totally okay for people to not be interested in shipping, or not place a particularly high value on it, and more muns than the RPC realizes feel this way. It’s as unpopular, and far more limiting, take on RP as being here openly only for them is. There’s nothing wrong with you as a writer or a person if you don’t write ships and smut, but it is the opposite of many people’s interests here. This would be something you can’t control, yeah. It’s still good to know as a part of the puzzle!

They see a lot of things they do not have any instant feelings about and/or what they perceive as interaction points. As, unfortunately, the predominant mode of writing here is reactive, and in brutal honesty, often self-interested. It's not rewarding to many muns in this RPC to build stories cooperatively together for the sake of those stories and love of the muses, they require putting their muse on display, having impassioned interactions through that muse's reactions.

So, you might be writing the most vivid scenes, the most beautiful character study, and letting your muse be a fleshed out, realistic person, but they're seeing "I can't react to this."

Which is, by the way, bullshit. Not just that it's bullshit as a way to try to write together, it's also bullshit in that you can react to anything. You can react to, literally, nothing. If you're muse has said not a word to mine for an entire reply, not physically interacted with them, they're just sitting there in a chair staring off into space (also not a great way to write, but I'm giving an extreme example) the whole time, I can react to that.

To be fair, my primary muse is really uh, busy, let's say lol it does make him both incredibly easy to interact with and very easy to generate natural reactions from. And that might also be a problem people are having...

Your muse is quiet.

They're the opposite of someone who is physically or verbally “busy.” They think more than they move or speak, they remain at emotional, verbal, and physical distances from others. The quiet, and still, type on the outside.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, I love reading a muse's internal processes because I'm approaching this as a reader as much as I am a writer. It doesn't need to be something my muse can know or react to for me to enjoy it, I want to enjoy your muse, other people's muses are part of the joy of RP for me. And not just in what I might achieve having mine interact with them. There are muses mine very, very much did not work out with that I have continued to enjoy the stories of for years without writing with them!

But that's me. And I'm weird.

A lot of people are going to look at the sort of writing, particularly when not involved with it yet, and see...Words. Maybe they don't find them boring or any such thing, but they can't so easily envision themselves responding to it with the sort of vigor required to reply with length in kind. It's again the same dual issue going on that might just be making your writing difficult to approach.

It might be legitimately daunting, and might be more so if...

You're well-written.

One would think this would be a boon to written roleplay, but I haven't seen it be that in a long time. On tumblr, that has weirdly come to signify "elitism."

It's not just more legitimately intimidating for some out there because they feel they cannot write as well as you, might appear lacking or boring, end up dropped because of it. No, of course not! It's tumblr, where decent behavior as well as logic comes to die! It's because they've gotten the idea that you might be shitty to them because you posses more experience, skill, or innate talent with writing.

That's not helped when every time someone is told on any basis at all, in any manner at all, or one has any existent expectations for RPing that someone else might take issue with as though they're being forced to comply with them instead of not interacting, people freak out and call it elitism. Since most people who choose to be mutuals only and as such, are going to have to decline sometimes, are also those who are lengthier RPers...we're all categorized as Elitists.

People see what works for us as different kinds of RPers as something that is in opposition to them, and judgement of them. We can’t have scores of active partners when we write ten thousand word or more replies to everyone, it doesn’t work for us, and that doesn’t mean we think you’re an awful RPer for doing this differently than we do. We’re just exercising boundaries that are necessary for the way we enjoy it. Like how much length in return, literacy, and dedication we’re going to give and expect in return. It isn’t passing judgement, but when you want to write with a particular portrayal and they’re limited threads, mutuals only, novella and it shuts you out of the interaction, it’s easy to agree with the posts you’ve seen condemning differences of choice as elitist and hateful.

While you'd hope that people would exercise their own judgement, with the way that the RPC is so often on edge, you can't entirely blame people for being willing to believe they can identity a potential source of unpleasantness to avoid. As wild as it is, that includes people within the novella community. Your OOC is too well-spoken, your writing is too well-written? Might be an elitist. Even while they write much the same way as you do without realizing it!

I think when most people say someone here is "intimidating," it's not exactly what they mean, but for others, it's more literal than it is literary.

If you have any reason to believe this might be part of the issue, while I would never advise anyone to alter their writing to be something they personally feel is lesser than what they're capable of, you might want to consider a greater air of the casual in any OOC posts you make. Try to be as approachable there as you can - so long as that doesn't mean lying about it, of course! If we're genuinely not that gregarious or socially open, we shouldn't act like that's the case. That sets up one party with expectations that are neither true nor going to prove anything but frustrating to the other party.

I've had some success with that! And, even at my most casual, I'm not the most approachable of people lol I come off as rather intense, kind of aggressive, way too salty, curses flow from me like water during a monsoon, interspersed with...well, things like "interspersed." So, if I've seen success with that, it's possible that muns who are more genuinely gregarious, chill, and verbally polite people might see it as well!

It seems to be a case of allowing other muns the opportunity to see that you, yourself, are not frightening. You're just a person like they are, and a person who isn't going to be hateful to them if they are not perfect writers or perfectly on your level of writing. When that is apparent, approaching the writing itself is more openly done - yes, this mun has a grasp on description/dialogue/vocabulary/descriptive scenes that I do not, but they don't aggressively think they're the shit for it, so, it's safe for me to try to interact.

The Wall of Words that was once a poster for how badly they might be treated is now a collection of RP replies.

Write for the partners you want to attract.

Again, I do not want anyone to stop writing in the way they enjoy! However, what we put out is also what we attract to a large degree. It could be that your writing is an attractant for only a very small portion of the RPC, and it already is, by virtue of being both novella and the sort of novella it is.

That's very easy to do anyway, but even more so if we have few partners to write with. What we have on display is minimal, it might not have the range we're actually capable of, and therefore, might not be attracting that range of muns.

This is something I have experienced as well, though it was a little different a situation. Upon first writing RP on tumblr, I couldn't find anyone writing novella. I could barely find anyone doing short multi-para. Just as I'd find it inappropriate for someone approaching me to insist that I do one-line RP because it's what they do, I didn't find it appropriate to force novella on these muns. That's what I agreed to by interacting with them, after all! It isn't what I enjoy doing, however, it's harder for me to write short replies, so, I was consistently on the lookout for novella partners.

Those novella partners couldn't exactly see decades of my lengthy RPs, though, since they didn't take place on tumblr. They could only see the current threads, which were all quite short and rather limited in range of action, tone, muse interaction, and so on. Basically, just about whatever someone was willing to give me, and those things were pretty similar. I couldn't exactly blame potential partners for looking at this "resume" and thinking that I just thought I wanted to write novella, but was capable of neither that nor the sort of stories I wished to create.

Since I couldn't find partners to organically give me these different things, I wrote them sans partners. Much of this was in headcanon form, showing that I had spent quite a long time thinking about my canon character as more than was presented in canon only, as well as showing that I could string more than a paragraph together, but it seems like you've got the muse information down, so this might not be the best direction for you.

That might be the other thing I wrote to this end: one shots.

Especially as I do not do open starters as someone who requires some plotting, these served as a way of allowing various situations to be displayed in which other muns could better see what interacting with my muse was actually like. They could see that this truly is the way I'd prefer to write, this is a better display of my muse under various conditions and emotions, and this is how interacting with my muse as this or that type of person might go.

I don't know if you have a canon, OC, or multiples of both, but it also seemed to be helpful that I took canon events people might be familiar with and wrote snippets of them from my muse's perspective - yes, even if they were already in those events, it shows your unique portrayal. People like that for the same reason they like fanfic, a dozen people can write a canon event and give you a dozen different takes on it. It meant that they'd be more likely to read it at all, too, let's be honest.

If you have an OC, you can flesh out a fandom-specific verse they have by writing such a one shot revolving around a fandom event. I'd say not to directly insert your OC into a major canon event, but if you're going to anyway, be sure you are giving realistic changes that might occur with this character's presence in that event. Not going overboard and making them the thing that saves the day, not just having them there in the midst of some great cataclysm miraculously surviving to bear witness only. It's still my advice to place them within that world and have them aware of an event.

Something like...trying to think of a fandom and event the most people would be familiar with here...your OC is in the MCU or has a verse there, they're employed as a police officer with the NYPD - tell me what they did at work the day of the invasion in New York City in the 2012 Avengers. Did they see superheroes in the distance while they and their fellow officers were engaged in a situation they were in no way equipped to handle? And how did your OC feel about that?

That sort of thing.

If it's a canon, try to think of a situation that isn't represented among your current threads, but that is also going to be of interest potential partners. If you have few threads showing your muse in friendship with another, find something in their canon that does. No threads with much action, go for that. Show an aspect of your muse that was present when they were younger, but that is downplayed in them now. Show some things that will be new information from your unique portrayal, and do all of this while displaying your range as a writer - you can be more serious or more fun, can destroy someone with angst or make them hope a ship works out well.

This way, you're showing people what all they might get, not just what you've been given to work with. That can go a long way toward negating feelings of "intimidation" if all they're seeing is you doing one thing extremely well, so well that they feel they cannot compete with it. So, yeah, write the things you feel you're not good at, too! It puts people at ease to see you're not perfect either.

As regards rules...

Oh, boy...lmao with no intent to inflame anyone's righteousness here, so long as your rules are conveying what you feel they should, they're fine. I'm not going to say that rules cannot be a turn off, that you shouldn't find a voice that is clear, polite, and when it needs to be, firm. It's simply that you do not come off as someone who needs to be told that, Anon. If you're worried about how your rules might sound, they're almost certainly fine.

However, rules are the way they are for a reason - if you feel like you're coming off as too strict, harsh, whatever, there might be a reason why that was your first inclination. If you remake them to be softer, are you going to run into the same problems that caused you to harden them before?

I know, you're trying to attract people and downplay a notion of being "intimidating," but it's important to realize that, short of either finding a way to please everyone who comes across them or telling everyone to do whatever they please, you have no opinions, expectations, or needs, you're going to put people off. I've seen people be incredibly offended by the nicest of rules simply because they were rules. They were still clearly stated boundaries that did not align with what was desired.

For example, if I were to have in my RP rules the following:

My rules are basically just have fun and don't be a dick! This is just a hobby, I'm not paying you.

That's going to turn some people off and anger them because that's, firstly, incredibly vague, secondly, the latter part has become seriously negative.

If I were to have in my RP rules this:

I have a lot of detailed rules because I want to only write with people who will be as dedicated to it as I am, I'd rather we know now than later that we're not a good match before anyone is disappointed or offended!

That's going to turn some people off and anger them because it is contrary to the way they view and partake in the hobby. To these people, it'll come off as ridiculous expectations that are aggressive despite the wording not being so.

The point is, because this is a hobby dependent upon interacting with other people, there is a lot that is out of your control.

I probably should have done a better segue to this, but hey - most of this is out of your control.

By its very nature of individuals interacting, what is "intimidating" means different things to everyone. What I find to be that, isn't going to be what you find to be so. You can't know what someone, let alone everyone who says this, means by it in order to make those changes.

Some of those changes are a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, like the rules.

Other changes are undesirable. You, obviously, cannot RP without partners, but it's no good making changes that will see the partners you won't work with being added, or that will ruin the things you enjoy about RP. If changing your writing style is going to do that, don't do it. If opening up new types of plots is going to do so, don't do it. Anything that is going to excessively give you stress or personal disappointment isn't a change you should make. That’s the sort of shit that was meant by it being “just a hobby” in the beginning - you’re not obliged to make yourself miserable like you are at a job sometimes, and you aren’t beholden to the standards of a professional author unless you wish to be.

It's wonderful that you're addressing this problem from the perspective of what you can do! The idea of changing much of anything is a negative one to many people. They have to be carefully approached to even consider that as a possibility, and once they do, it's more often than not that the reaction is volatile. We never think we're perfect until someone so much as loosely implies we might need work on something. So, your willingness and interest in what you can do to fix something nebulous is both incredible and a credit to how approachable you probably are in all actuality.

It bodes really well, is what I'm saying lol or...it would, if this were not the environment that it is. One in which people do react with volatility to anything that does not go exactly and immediately the way they desire. Including wanting to interact with a particular muse, then seeing that the mun doesn't write in their preferred style, length, or with their desired topics.

Many times, that's really what is meant by "intimidating." It isn't truly that they're afraid of you or your writing, but rather, that they're not getting exactly what they think they want, in the way they want, on the timeline they want. But they don't want to be offensive, they're walking on eggshells like most everyone is when telling someone, "I'm sorry, but I don't think we'll work out" is tantamount to personally attacking them.

So, giving what they feel is a compliment that still shuts down the possibility of someone trying to push for interaction anyway, that becomes the best approach. They're not giving you specifics because no, they may not even know those specifics, it might just be the feeling your writing gives them, but they're also not giving them when they have them because they don't want to be unfairly taken to task for the crime of being honest with you. After all, when we don't know someone OOC yet, we don't know that they're a reasonable person. Telling someone, "I like what you're doing, I love your muse, but the tone of your writing isn't something I can reply to, it's just too different," might have them defensively putting words in your mouth.

As I said, asking someone for details didn't get me very far. I've had to try to piece together what "intimidating" means to many different people over the years by what they tell me in conversations away from the mun they said was thus more than anything. So, don't expect that you'll get much either, but next time someone tells you this, if they seem like someone who won't take as you pressing for interaction and react badly, ask them to give you specifics. Tell them you'd like to know what makes you intimidating to them so that you can work on it, that it would really help you out to know. Make it about them helping you, not declining you.

Just going off of the only writing I have from you, which is definitely not sufficient (if you'd like, you can always submit a portion of your in character writing or tumblr message me some of it so that I might be able to be more effective) since it's both short and OOC, I'd say people might feel that you're not...relaxed? Not entirely the word I am looking for, I apologize! But something in that vein!

It doesn't come off like you're frighteningly or excessively official to me, but knowing tumblr, I can see it. Because you are quite well-spoken, and even in this casual format, you are displaying good grammar and principle. Fifteen years ago, I might have also felt something like “intimidated" by you!

Like everywhere, tumblr is full of educational snobbery. Which is insane, considering it's also full of crimes against writing that make me want to rip my hair out, but anyway...the mark of being authoritative is to display one's intellect the only way we truly can here - by suddenly out writing everyone. If we're already establishing ourselves as well-spoken muns, we've laid the foundation of being capable of utterly destroying someone publicly by shaming them on a core level.

Tumblr is also full of people who are not at a point of life experience, and the writing experience accrued within it, to use what they've learned in the higher education the majority have or are presently obtaining. It's easy for younger people to feel pre-offended by someone who writes with more skill and confidence than they do. They've bought into the notion of such validations of superiority, but they can't quite lay those down upon themselves yet, or see that they’re capable of this and it doesn’t make them an elitist, so, it’s absurd to assume everyone else is on the same pretext.

Please, everyone here under, like, 25, I'm not shaming you. I've obviously long internalized it as well! When I'm angry, I don't become less articulate, I become more so. That probably says something unpleasant about how well I understand this problem. So, don't be offended. It's a societal problem, we're all impacted by it. It just takes a little bit to realize these things is what I'm saying here. Not that you're dumb and malicious because you're young and learning.

With this in mind, it's very possible that some younger muns, or muns who have otherwise been given cause to feel they are lesser than you because of your proper writing, might be intimidated by it. Part of that is also that proper writing, and verbal speech, can come off as lacking warmth. It can be impersonal, give fewer clues as to someone's tone when that's already lacking in writing that isn't descriptive, as in an RP thread itself.

Again, I always have a bit of an issue recommending someone change something vital about themselves, and one's mode of writing is that. However, you might want to consider giving way to some indicators of not being official in your OOC behavior toward others. It's something that I did, something I will admit I still struggle with as well. I'm not naturally inclined to add things like a :) or a xD because I have some problems conveying those things either correctly or organically in person. If I'm not either, literally, acting or feeling something intensely, I'm the grand master of resting bitch face no matter what I'm feeling.

As a quick on-the-safe-side interruption: people, please, I am aware that some forms of neurodivergence can exhibit in struggles with understanding and conveying tone, as can be the side effect of some medications and physical conditions. It’s possible that you have this difficulty, Anon, it’s possible that some of the people you have approached do. Advising how to work on understanding and conveying tone with these difficulties in mind is a huge post of its own, however. (Though, if people might be interested in it, I can add it to the list, of course.) All we can do is try our best, work on it, and if we know we have this issue, politely warn partners in your rules so they know you’re not coming off less emotive and warm intentionally. You’re not thinking yourself in an ivory tower above them. I so do not want to be bitched at about how advising someone in ways to be more approachable in text is ableist, just don’t. I don’t know you, Anon, so I don’t know what difficulties you may or may not have, if you do have some complication that is impacting this in your own opinion, please, just send another ask and I can work with that information more specifically!

It's also...it grates on my nerves when people text speak, I'm not going to lie. So, forcing myself to do anything too close to it feels like someone has separated the halves of my brain. I do it because it can make people more comfortable, I don't sound like a damn robot like I easily can when trying to explain something with a lot of specifics, for example.

What was easier was letting go of the inhibition of writing conversationally. That is always something that is advised against intensely, it isn't proper writing. Don't write like you speak, and all that. It's often been my inclination to write conversationally, even if I struggled to let the hell go and actually do it, and when I allowed myself to do so, people responded to it much better. It's something I get compliments on as a part of what can make my storytelling immersive, humorous, relatable, and frightening. (Just so that the last bit there isn't confounding - in addition to the professional writing that sometimes pays for my internet, I write horror lol...now y'all know! I deal in "freak shit," I'm sure.)

People responded to me much better. I still get that my writing is intimidating, but it tends to be over length and wording more than being wholly unapproachable. Too like trying to respond to a novel that most people would only listen to if it was about a character they were deeply into and read by an actor they were also deeply into. There seems to be a more natural engagement with the material for more people this way.

I'm only using this as an example of something I found that worked to some degree in making me more approachable, meant to say that there might be something that you would enjoy, unique to yourself, that would make your writing more approachable for more muns. I'm in no way recommending that you, or anyone else, try to go with what I did! That isn't going to work out for everyone, of course. It isn't everyone's solution in those specifics, just the idea that following what people have expressed they especially enjoy about your writing could be a good path.

Other things to consider:

When you have obtained a new partner who says this not in declining further interaction, but within a conversation or one of those interaction memes, especially if you are writing them a starter at this time, experiment with what you can do in your writing that makes it more approachable. I say “experiment” because this is another point of individuality, it's naturally going to vary like everything else.

Like I said above a few times, most people approach RP in terms of reaction. And, again too, that's part of RP. I didn't say it earlier because I felt like that was obvious, but after considering...how tumblr is, I probably should say it. It is necessary to have things to react to in order to build the interaction between muses and their world. I believe in the “yes, and” method and having things to react to. My meaning by saying that people approach RP in terms of reactions was that people excessively do so. Their muses have trouble existing fully in their own right sometimes, they literally require multiple points of possible reaction.

So, give it to them while you’re figuring each other’s writing out.

When you're writing your starter or replies, give them what I call Actionable Points in unexpected places. For example, when your muse is doing as I said earlier, sitting in their chair, having Deep Thoughts they're not expecting any action within, give them something in the environment itself to interact with. Perhaps there is a pet, an insect, temperature change, or sound for their muse to notice.

He was still, as though the animating force of his very soul had flown. So entrapping were his thoughts that the ladybug making its way across the floor, technically before his eyes, escaped notice. No notice, even as it briefly took flight like a tiny, skipping stone across water, headed for where his attention would truly prefer to light as well.

Which would be, of course, the other muse in the room. They can't interact with the things in your muse's mind that you're revealing to the mun, but they can have their attention jump to the insect. They can also react to your muse’s facial expressions, most people make micro-expressions even while in thought, but this isn’t as active or available.

Just small, simple possibilities that make no difference to the immediate happenings in the thread. They can become things of great difference, that's half the fun of it! How something like a bug can alter the course of a thread's trajectory is really cool to see happen.

By doing this, feeding multiple Actionable Points into the reply, you're giving someone who feels intimidated by the thread's length and weight more points to feel active within it. If they can see themselves interactively within the text of the story, it's less intimidating I've found.

Eventually, people relax and start creating these points for themselves. They're now part of this story and its direction, so they organically see things within it. While their muse is in the room with the Chair Muse, they notice a ladybug on the floor themselves because they feel comfortable and confident enough to create that sort of realistic moment.

Most of my experiments of this nature have had that objective - make my writing partner feel more confident about their writing, muse, themselves. It either works out wonderfully, or...you can spoon-feed some people actions, ideas, and confidence forever without them ever taking up the spoon themselves (some people will totally miss the spoon every time, even). At the latter point, if they're still feeling unconfident about writing with you, "intimidated," it's never going to change. It might be better that this be addressed as something that simply isn't going to work out for either of you.

Because it can become tiresome to do this. Tiresome and disheartening, and you never want to set yourself up to feel like you've wasted your effort and energy. That's a great way to experience burnout and frustration.

Another thing to make yourself, and by nature of that, your writing, more approachable and available is to put out a decent variety of memes for people to send you and engaging in tagging games. Not only do these not need to be writing memes like starters, it's better that they are not! If someone is intimidated by you/your writing, they're not going to engage with a meme meant to begin a thread.

Reblog memes that are meant to be answered OOC like headcanon asks, writing asks, and asks about the mun. Do tag games with tests in them, bolding aesthetics or other information, and those that give details about the muse...or even yourself, there are Munday versions as well!

The point of doing this is to show people you want to interact with them, neither you nor your writing is scary and removed from the vox populi of the RPC. You're not someone with so much skill that you're above such common pursuits. You're just another RPer with the same things of interest as they do - enjoying yourself whether it's something silly like a quiz that tells you what coffee your muse would be or an in-depth headcanon. Just another mun who loves their muse and wants interactions with them.

This, too, is something I tried, and it might have been the most successful thing I did. It's even easier to do these days, as more muns don't just tag people outright, but rather, offer that anyone can take it, they just want to be tagged back so they can see the results. You don't have to wait for someone who neither knows you nor knows whether you'd be alright with being tagged to tag you in them anymore!

And as an aside, this is why I encourage that. I've seen some muns out there taking issue with it, thinking it lazy and less interactive for people to be forgoing tagging others in it. Yes, it is unfortunate that you might miss such a game from a mutual or friend, but you do realize you can go to their blog anytime? You can search their tag for these kinds of dash games, or scroll what you missed while you were away, and I recommend doing that anyway with close friends because tumblr's notifs are perpetually screwed.

It's not less inclusive, it's more so. I think it could even go a distance toward lessening the illusion that all friendships in the RPC are "cliques." Instead of the same five muns, none of whom are you, being tagged every time because they occur more quickly to the mun who interacts with them often, there is an open invitation for you to do it. It allows muns to be more visible to those they haven't established friendships with yet and allows others to put themselves out there as approachable and interested.

Alright, back on topic!

Send others these sorts of interactions when you see them. Unless someone has it in the tags or their rules that memes are only for established writing partners, send them an applicable meme.

Applicable, in this case, would be those OOC-answered memes. With most muns, it would be poor form to send in memes that are too personal. Such as sending someone you've never really spoken to, plotted with, etc. a particularly raunchy headcanon ask. I was going to give an example, but for the sake of keeping this SFW lol...we all know the sort of ask I speak of.

With some muns, this isn't an issue. Any excuse to talk about their muse is a good excuse, and they'd not have reblogged the meme if they did not intend for people to send it in. I know that I'm such a mun, and unless someone only ever sends me sexually explicit questions like this, I don't mind at all. It's just an aspect of my muse to detail in a HC.

Just exercise reasonable awareness - "read the room." If a mun seems to answer those questions from anyone, then it is alright to send them in. If they have established openness on these discussions, have nothing in their rules that would imply they'd be perturbed, etc. Conversely, if they've established such opposing behavior that you have to wonder why they posted this meme at all? Don't send anything from that one. They may be trying to establish greater comfort with these topics, but whether they realize it or not yet, they may not be ready for this to sent by anyone who isn't a very established writing partner/friend.

You want to be attracting good attention, demonstrating that you're not someone intimidating, not giving muns any reason to be disturbed by you. Even if they openly asked for it!

This brings us back to: no, really, a lot of things are out of your control.

How people view us isn't as up to us as we'd like, on or offline. Everyone has preconceived notions, biases, and developed preferences. And everyone has had experiences that lead them to react differently to all of these things where they do and do not exist.

Unfortunately, the RPC fosters a serious environment of paranoia, hostility, and the inherent defensiveness of both. Even when that is coming across more peaceably, it can lead to things like...the multiple muns I've known in the last two years alone that seem to almost panic and block potential partners for extremely negligible things they're perceiving as a red flag portending of inevitable bad behavior.

I really do mean irrational actions that are often contrary from one move to another. One potential partner is too exuberant in response to plotting, they are designated a red flag for being too inclined to pester OOC. Another is lacking exuberance and does not easily come up with plots, they are designated as being too passive a partner who will drop. One is too nice, they won't possibly be able to tell that mun of problems in the thread, another is too aggressive, they'll do nothing but stress the mun and fight with their friends. And on and on.

It's not an unreasonable situation, as we all continue to be reminded, the RPC is far more hostile than it should be for what it is. We all (that's not entirely true, but let us pretend it is) want to avoid problems and enjoy the hobby, but in the attempt to avoid those problems, we often see them where they are not.

So, you really cannot control whether someone designates you as being too much this, too little that, an inevitable problem. Your presentation is in the eye of the beholder, just as what "intimidating" is, is in the eye of the intimidated.

You can only try to identify the things that might be putting off the most people you want to write with, work on them when and where they will not ruin your time here, and hope for the best.

It's wonderful that you care, but it's also wonderful that you seem willing to accept that there are things you just have to let go of as already being out of your hands. That's honestly the best way to approach RP, period. The only things you are fully in control of are your own creativity and your behavior. That's it, in the end.

Present yourself with honesty as to who you are as a mun, be as approachable as you truly are, and know what you're looking for in writing partners.

Personally, from what little I have seen of you, Anon, there isn't anything that glaringly needs changing. You're not possessed of a shitty attitude or unrealistic expectations. You seem like a pretty reasonable mun to me who is struggling with something any of us who concentrate on the writing do; being vaguely told we're "intimidating," and seeking other partners who are interested in the same variety of RP we are.

That's my final point to touch on, and the one most likely to piss people off: there are different varieties of RP, and the people telling you this might be in the wrong corner for you.

That doesn't make them bad RPers or anything, variety is good, it's an open hobby! We're not all compatible, though, and so many problems arise from muns not accepting this reality, but rather, taking extreme offense over it.

No one I have ever established the sort of RP I enjoy most with has told me that I am "intimidating."

The people who have said this to me have been those who would not have worked out anyway. That's not said in some bizarre bitterness lol I have the best writing partners, I could not ask for anything more! It's just said in honesty of continuing to see them on my dash and/or interacting with friends. They blog and muse hop often, prefer the genres and fandoms I do not, and so on.

Changing to be less intimidating to those RPers would put me back where I started when joining the RPC here years ago, and while it's great that a lot of people enjoy RP the way they do, I don't. I worked rather hard to get away from it.

So, you do have to consider what you want. Do you want any partners, or do you want the right ones for you?

I'm genuinely glad that people are enjoying themselves, especially when they do not have hateful things to say about those who enjoy RP differently than themselves, but it'd be nice if some of the niches in the RPC were a bit wider! It shouldn't be this difficult to find people in a writing hobby who are invested in the writing, but it is. And it is something you should keep in mind when figuring out this whole "intimidating" thing.

So, my ultimate recommendation would be to assess whether there are things you can be doing to make you, as the mun, more approachable so that your writing is less “intimidating" to people within the RP corner you’re trying to attract, but consider whether the people who have said this to you might just be looking for different things and not as viable as partners as you might have liked. There are definitely more RPers on tumblr who do not enjoy RP in this way than there that do, and while the only thing you have control over is yourself, you don’t have control over how you and what you are putting out there is perceived.

I really do think that most of the “intimidation” problem comes from different varieties of RP and what muns have been led to believe about them. You check off a lot of boxes for the false perception of “elitism,” as a literate, long-term, novella RPer. People are going to see many things that you do in a threatening or off-putting light through no fault of your own because of that. Even other, lengthier writers can fall into that because they feel overwhelmed at the volume of content you have, for example. A thing that should be promising of how well-developed your muse is and how committed you are to your interest in them can come off as overwhelming to people who are less well established or interested in being around for the long game. I certainly don’t think it’s a good idea for you to remove that material or stop writing it! I cannot encourage people enough to do what you have!

Maybe, since you expressed concern of this specifically as well, you could consider how it is presented?

Do you have approachable formatting on those posts? Do they appear to be a lot of very plain text, or do you practice adding some graphics like a header and dividers, formatting that also breaks up the text like segmenting it into clear topics with bold, bigger text, and so on? Is it the opposite and potentially difficult to read, like using font that is smaller than the default small size available, or incredibly busy with colors? It’s a difficult balance, and one that will never be 100% appealing or accessible to 100% of the RPC, to make things visually appealing, easy to read, and informative while being engaging. It could be that you have information people would love to know, but the design of how you’re putting it out there is adding to them feeling overwhelmed.

Maybe, consider how it is placed on your blog, as well? Using specific tags for organization and having a detailed navigation might help. Instead of someone pulling up every one of your many HC posts in the HC tag you have, they could choose specific topics to view at their own pace with a little more control over it. Giving people some control in their experience can go a long way to giving them comfort in it!

So, let’s say you have a headcanon that addresses how your muse portrayal diverges from strict canon, and in that HC, it’s important to address their mental health and how it impacts their relationships with others. That’s a great HC, it’s going to be informative, but it has multiple topics within it. You’d want to tag it with the overall HC tag, a tag for your “player canon” topics, muse metal health discussions, and a general tag for your muse’s relationships/interactions with others.

When you do that, in your navigation, if someone clicked your tag-based link for all information pertaining to the muse’s mental health, they’ll just get that. They’ll see this headcanon post, they’ll see all relevant, tagged posts you’ve made or reblogged, but only that pertain to this topic. They won’t also get twenty extra posts that don’t discuss this, but do discuss your muse’s personal opinion on making bread at home and why sourdough is a labor of love. Unless, of course, your muse is partaking in that labor of love as an exercise that benefits their mental health, of course lmao

Delineating topics for people to engage with at their own pace, need, or interest can prevent them from scrolling through what could be hundreds of HC posts. We all desperately want people to read every one of our posts, especially if our portrayal is different from canon or popular fanon or we have an OC whose entire existence has to be learned this way, but we have to resist the temptation to make people read them all, and all at once. Because that is how it comes across when someone pulls up a ton of HCs - they may be super interested, but it’s a lot that they may put pressure on themselves to learn immediately, back to back to back. It begins to feel like a task quickly. Most people who are genuinely interested in your muse and writing are going to end up reading all of them eventually! If they don’t shut themselves down on doing so prematurely, and this could be a way of helping them avoid doing that.

Hell, if you’re really feeling it, you can even link to closely related posts and your navigation on those HC posts! Just mention at the top of the post that this is related to the one linked here, and to find more informative posts on any topic, please visit the navigation page here. You can even remind at the bottom of the post with just the links.

While like anything, it could make people feel you’re too organized and “serious” about RP, but you probably want other “too serious” RPers to interact with, so it might be a passive way of establishing partners that won’t work out. I think, for the right partners, an organized system they can interact with easily would be appealing, and again, a lot of people in the RPC do have problems that disrupt their ability to engage with a great deal of content at once. This might make them feel less overwhelmed and frustrated by themselves, or negative about themselves that they cannot but aspire to your level of content and organization.

Willing to bet that much of “intimidation” comes from negative feelings about oneself projected outward protectively and unconsciously, honestly. So, when you see ways to combat that, take it on. Make it clear that you’re not expecting anyone to be anything other than themselves, you appreciate your partners’ unique approaches and skills. The more of them you have, the more approachable you are proving yourself, too.

Since you are interested in long-term and have so much material on your muse, I have to assume this is a case of having gone on hiatus or had partners who have left. You could be appearing as less approachable because you’ve few interactions, and that’s a problem that will start correcting itself as you have more of them. If that’s the case, it may be adding serious frustration in the slow process of getting your foot back in the door, but I believe you can do it!

I hope people haven’t made you feel too anxious or bad about yourself by telling you you’re “intimidating,” Anon. Try not to internalize it or make into a more serious matter than it is! I really do think it has less to do with the RPer being told that than it does all these other factors, poor ability to express ourselves very much included. You’re interested in what you can do, willing to accept what you can’t do, overall approaching this from a chill and reasonable place, I think you’re going to find the people you need to with this attitude!

Keep at it, keep doing what you love, and my sincerest best of luck to you! Thank you for giving me the excuse to discuss this topic, it’s an important one that I hope made some difference to others out there as well. I apologize that took me a minute to get it out, and that it is still a bit more disjointed than I’d have liked.