#I wrote you an essay sakrine im sorry

[kyberled]

☀ ♦ ♥ ☢ ✖

the salty af munday meme

☀ What’s your rp pet peeve? –> Ship forcing. This is literally the best way to get me to unfollow or even block another mun. I’ll explain what ship-forcing is below, but yeah, that’s one of them.

♦ What was a mildly annoying thing that has happened to you rp wise? –> See above. It happened once on my Warren blog, and once very recently on here. Now, a bit of a definition, here - I don’t see ship-forcing as asking me if I want to ship, or saying your muse has a crush on Braig - heck, that can be flattering (though I prefer if we know each other, first - it can get a bit uncomfy for me, kind of like virtual catcalling, I guess, when complete strangers tell me how attractive they think Braig is). I don’t see it as someone’s muse having feelings for Braig, one-sided or otherwise. All of these things are A-Okay, and can be quite fun, too! What I do see ship forcing is when someone asks if they can ship with Braig, and instantly, as soon as I say ‘we can give it a try’, deciding that our muses are suddenly soulmates, even if they’ve hardly said four sentences to each other, before. I see it as asking to ship, then immediately dropping the thread where they were actually in the process of meeting each other to have them now in the middle of a date, which, given the context of where, when, and how said date was taking place would likely have gotten them both killed. I see it as pestering Braig to do something ‘romantic’, having both Braig and I say no, he doesn’t want to, and the other person keeps pushing, regardless, or getting upset when Braig decides to respond with something not romantic and replying to that with some rude, snarky comment. ‘Uh, I think [muse] wanted Braig to do [X], actually’ - Yes, that has happened, before. I’ve been vagueblogged about, spammed on and off anon, been told I’ve made peoples’ depression/anxiety worse, had on-blog events ruined and muses killed and simply been harassed at all hours of the day because of ship-forcing and my trying to deal with it gently and politely, instead of just flat-out saying ‘no’ or ‘I’m not comfortable with this’. So, if it ever seems like I’m coming down too hard on someone in regards to shipping, I swear I don’t mean to come off as abrasive or rude - I just learned the hard way that you’ve gotta be blunt about your comfort zones or else things go south faster than a flock of geese on an adrenaline high. Basically, to sum this novel up: As long as you respect my boundaries, we’re good; if I haven’t told you you’re skeeving me out, we’re good. If I have told you you are, and you keep doing whatever it was, we’re not so good. 

☢ What fads/trends are you so over? –> I don’t really keep up with trends enough to know lmao. I mean I guess I’ve seen a few, but they don’t really bother me. You do you, and all… Though, I guess I never entirely understood the whole ‘personified objects’ thing? I mean, you do you, and all, but it just never  made sense to me.

✖ How has Tumblr RP changed since you started? –> It hasn’t, not really. I think the only real changes have been purely aesthetic, like small text,  contained themes, etc. I really don’t care what other people do, as long as they’re happy and not hurting anyone.

♥ What’s the WORST thing that has happened to you rp wise?

[Under a cut for length]

Okay, so, I told two of my rp horror stories over on Xig, so I’ll tell my third one here. Since I gave the other two pseudonyms, we’ll call this one ‘Cheeper’. Cheeper was someone I had met when a mutual friend we’ll call Battery allegedly recommended my blog to them. Now, Battery was someone I had approximately zero problems with. Really friendly, sweet guy, talented writer, great sense of humour, one of my favourite people to write with. So, I figured, if Cheeper was a friend of Battery’s, they must be cool, too, right? … Wrong. So, things start out okay-ish, as they always do, but things get downhill pretty fast. Starts off with small things, like ignoring asks or dropping literally all of our threads without letting me know. And I understand wanting to drop threads or not being able to get to everything in your ask box, but when that happens consistently, it gets a little disheartening.

The next little thing was when they started making AUs of my muse, and expecting me to write them. Lemme say here that I am totally fine with people suggesting AUs for my muses. That’s where this blog came from, Rodi suggesting a Star Wars AU where another one of my muses was Obi’s padawan, so, again, I’m fine with AU prompts. What I’m not fine with is when someone writing a really detailed version of my muse without consulting me at all, and then expecting me to write that AU they made with no warning and no problems. Cheeper comes into my IMs listing this novel-length AU detailing not only how their muse changed, but how mine did, as well. Basically, the entire idea was that their muse, who in canon was a big tank-type character who had been straight-up abusive to multiple characters, and turned them into a small, fluffy little mage who was actually a good guy and hadn’t done any bad things, and was being forced to do the bad guys’ dirty work, whereas my muse… Was suddenly the abusive one. For absolutely no reason. In a way that not only completely contradicted all of my personal headcanons - all of which were posted and easily viewable on my blog - but also went against all of what canon had showed us about my muse, and quite frankly made me really uncomfortable. I mean, you’ve seen some of the stuff I’ve written, you know I’m down to write some pretty messed up stuff, but to straight up turn my muse into a child abuser, WITHOUT CONSULTING ME AT ALL, just so your muse can be the good guy? That doesn’t fly so well. On top of that, writing such a detailed version of my muse and expecting me to play it for you? Why not write it yourself? I mean like I said, I am thrilled with AU suggestions, but, hell, keep it to a sentence or two, tops. Let me experiment and develop my muse to fit the AU myself, thanks. … And, while these things were pretty irritating, especially when a few of them happened over and over again, it got worse.

A lot of the time, when I’m having OOC conversations to get to know another mun before we start writing together, I look for a sort of ‘spark’ or ‘click’ - something that shows this person and I are gonna get along. For a lot of people, including my favourite partners, this click is basically immediate - just this instant ‘wow, we’re gonna be good friends, this is great!’, and, for others, it takes a bit longer, and that’s totally okay! Some people take a while to open up, or maybe it wasn’t a good day for one of us, I totally get it, happens to me, too. How quickly the click happens has absolutely NO BEARING ON MY OPINION OF A PERSON WHATSOEVER. There have been I think only three or four times I haven’t clicked with someone - twice on Warren, once on Xig, and once here. If I message you first, send asks, tag you in things, like your posts, etc, we’ve clicked, don’t worry. Anyway, Cheeper was one of these rare occurrences where there was not only no click, there was the opposite of a click. At first I thought it was just ‘cause our first convo was a bit awkward - from what I remember, it was basically just ‘hi, My name is [Cheeper], I’m [Battery]’s friend and he recommended your blog so I thought I’d give you a follow’, you know, typical ‘hi, nice to meet you’ type thing, I didn’t think much of it. Unfortunately, that was the only pleasant conversation we had.

You see, Cheeper had the habit of starting conversations with some variation of ‘how are you?’. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well, in typical Canadian fashion, I always did my best to follow social protocol and be polite, and say ‘I’m good/fine/great, thanks, how are you?’, and, much like Han Solo, I learned that there are some situations you shouldn’t ask that question. Every time, without fail, Cheeper would say some variation of ‘bad’ or ‘horrible’, and proceed to dump literally all their life’s problems on me, and I mean all of them. I’m perfectly fine with letting my friends vent/rant to me as much as they need, and offering advice is a pass-time of mine. But, I had only known this person for- Less than a week, when this started (I hardly even knew their NAME I had to look it up on their blog), and they kept going on and on about some really personal shit, like hours of how they hated their job and school was stressful, and their family was aphobic and never used the right pronouns, literally everything about their personal life, no matter how private it was, just- Constant negativity, all the time. It was literally all they spoke about, ever. I don’t know anything else about them, just that their life was terrible and they decided to use me as some sort of verbal stress ball. Even if I tried to divert the conversation to a different topic, or just ignore them entirely, I’d still get floods of negativity and complaints. And what makes it even better? They had a frickin therapist! This person, who had a professional, trained therapist, would spend hours unloading all of their mental/emotional burdens on me, an untrained stranger who had only said ‘hi’ to them once. And, after they had dumped all their baggage on me, they’d say, ‘oh, gotta go, it’s time to go to my therapist’. And, honestly? That was the only time I felt safe to post on my blog. Yes, you read that right - it was the only time I felt safe to post on my own blog. I honestly could not make a post on my blog without Cheeper spamming my IMs with boatloads of stress-inducing negativity. And, call me selfish, call me insensitive, call me whatever you want, but, fuck, I had my own problems! I was in university, trying to get law school level grades, while working a part time job to try and help my family out when we were struggling financially, doing what I could to make sure there was enough food in the fridge for my younger brothers, trying to help my grandma take care of my grandpa, trying to keep up with my martial arts - which I have to do in order to keep my job - and trying to write multiple essays for both my younger brother and myself, as we were prepping for our black sash tests, but he was also trying to get into film school, so I’d volunteered to write the sash essays for him, and, let me tell you, I did not need to play counsellor to someone I didn’t even know on top of that. And, like I said, this happened constantly, and I’d get a new flood of messages every time I so much as hinted at being online.

And believe it or not, it got worse, Sakrine.

I remember there was one conversation we had (’conversation’ being used loosely, of course) towards the end of our interactions where Cheeper was complaining at me, as per usual, and mentioned how all of their friends were blocking them without saying why. Funnily enough, I was planning on blocking them soon, myself (probably should have done it a long time ago). But, lo and behold, right after saying how they were always getting blocked, Cheeper goes and says ‘but you’d never block me, so at least I have you. You’re my best friend, Jay’. And I’m sitting here really uncomfortable because, uh, no, we’re not best friends, and I have no idea what gave them that idea, since I never told them anything of the sort, and in fact barely spoke to to them at all, both because I didn’t much care for their company, and because I could hardly get a word in edgewise - and, even if I could, how does one respond to a total stranger badgering you for advice on how to deal with their family not handling their being out well? I’m not out to my family, and I don’t think I ever will be, so, again, how can I give that sort of advice to someone I don’t know?

About the time this was happening was when I met and was chatting with Rodi, who’s actually one of my best friends and the light of my life. Like I mentioned above, it was at her suggestion that I decided to make this li’l OC mess that we know and love here. He was originally gonna be a verse on my other blog, until I realised that I’d have tags for a Jedi verse, a padawan verse, a Sith verse, etc., and that was too many for one AU, so I made a sideblog. Then, after only a day of having that, and a bit of encouragement from both Rodi and Milla (my main Talon), I made this stand-alone blog for my son, and I was having a great time.

Cheeper, however, was not, and made sure I knew it.

Now, my muse for that blog had been steadily dying, mostly because of this, but also for a few other, more minor reasons, and I felt way more comfortable here, was having more fun, and generally just enjoying myself way more on this blog than the other, so, naturally, this is where I spent most of my time. Within a day or two of my neglecting Xig, Cheeper pops into the IMs to complain about me, to me. Yes, I am dead serious, this is an actual thing that happened. They start badgering me to go back to my other blog, and, I dunno if this has ever happened to you, but, it’s really disheartening. I explained to Cheeper that I felt more comfortable on this blog (though I didn’t tell them why I felt that way on Xig; Perhaps I should’ve), that I had more drafts and asks on this blog, and that I had more muse for this character at the moment, so I’d be spending my time over here, at least for a little bit. Their oh-so-eloquent response was, and this is a verbatim quote, ‘boo, you suck.’ And I had absolutely no idea how to respond to that, so I didn’t. I just sat there, staring, feeling an interesting concoction of shocked, annoyed, and offended. About a minute later, they added a ‘lol, just kidding’, and proceeded to… Continue… To complain about me, as well as about their life and still expected me to give them advice and solutions I didn’t have. I’ve never had someone act more entitled to my time and energy as this person did. 

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking - ‘they were probably just some kid, Jay, young people can be like that at times, you’re taking it too hard’, and, hey, I thought so, too. I was nineteen years old when this was happening; Cheeper was around 24 or 25. Yup, this person was about five or six years older than me, and a grown-ass adult the entire time. And like I said, they were constantly acting entitled to everything I did, like I owed them something. There was another time where I’d actually gotten a bit of muse for my other blog back, so I went on, answered a bunch of asks, slammed out some drafts, sent some memes, answered some IMs… It was a really productive evening for me. Once I was finished, I came back here and got a bit more done. Next morning rolls around, and Cheeper messages me with ‘I miss you, dude. You’re never on Xig, any more.’ I tell them that, actually I’d been on last night, for a few hours, at least. Their response? ‘Well, I wasn’t on.’, after which they kept complaining about how much they missed my muse and my writing. I get this was probably supposed to be flattering, but it really wasn’t? Especially considering that, while they were going on and on about how much they missed me and wanted to write with me, they were completely ignoring the THREE STARTERS I had written for them in the weeks leading up to this point. Hadn’t even given them a like, which I like to do to let someone know that, even if I’m slow as all Hell - which I tend to be - I have seen it, and it’s in my drafts. So, I mentioned this to Cheeper, said ‘you know, I have a couple starters for you on the other blog, why don’t you check those out?’ ‘Oh, I didn’t see them, I’ll give them a look.’ And then, blissfully, they stopped messaging. Little while later, a few days, I got another message from them (keep in mind I never contacted them or interacted with them first, since, rude as it may sound, I was kind of hoping they’d get the message), and once again they were whining about how I was never on Xig again, so I went to check the starters again, and… Still no notes. So I ask them about the starters, and they say ‘I couldn’t find them’. You know how I looked them up? [my blog’s url]/tagged/[cheeper’s url], and, bam. There they were. I told Cheeper this and even sent them the link to their tag. They said okay, that they’d check it out later, and started complaining about their life again. I was serious when I said this was the only thing they talked about, outside of basically harassing me to write with them. Few days later, they get on my case AGAIN for not being on Xig/not rping with them. I check the THREE FUCKING STARTERS again,  STILL NO NOTES. I ask, and ‘oh I just don’t have muse for them right now lol’. And I’m left sitting here like, okay, do you really want to write with me, or are you just mad I’m not dedicating all of my attention to you and your godawful AU muses? I mean, I have NOTHING against AU muses - that’s where this kiddo came from, after all - but AUS WHERE THEY PUSHED MY CHARACTER TO BE A FUCKING CHILD ABUSER WERE APPARENTLY ALL THEY HAD MUSE FOR. And my character was a moral fuckhead I admit but he WASN’T OVERTLY ABUSIVE THAT WAS ONE OF THE REASONS I WAS COOL PLAYING HIM AS THE ANTAGONIST HE WAS AND JUST. And as well, when I have no muse, it’s apparently a major fuckin’ disaster and they complain to the ends of the earth about it and go on and on about how I should still be writing that character and how much they miss me, but when THEY have no muse I have to accommodate it and make allowances and write with them anyway???? Like???

So anyway yeah they proceeded to ignore those starters for months, and every time I posted a new starter call,they’d like that, I’d post a starter, they’d completely ignore it, then come crying and complaining to me, berating me and all but sobbing about how much they missed me.

BUT IT GETS WORSE STILL, SAKRINE.

After a while, Cheeper starts asking me about Star Wars. And I’m torn between ‘fuck no, this is my new safe place, and I’m TRYING TO BE SAFE FROM YOU’ and ‘well maybe if they get into this series they’ll stop getting upset with me for not writing on a blog I have no muse for and am not comfortable on’. So they ask me what they need to watch to understand Star Wars. I tell them to watch the movies, since those are the unchanging canon, no matter what Disney did to the Legends material. Apparently they don’t even have the attention span for their favourite show, so they can’t watch the movies. They complain to me about that for a while, because apparently I care. I did not. I tell them that everything Star Wars - or at least, in the era I write in - revolves around those movies. I tell them they can just watch the PT (and explain what the different trilogies are) and that will get them caught up with where I write. Nope, can’t do that. So I tell them there are book versions of the movies they can read, instead, and there are also comics and stuff they can look into if that would be better.

Nope, don’t have the attention span for books.

Complain about that to me for a while, then ask what they absolutely HAVE to watch to understand. 

I tell them about the Clone Wars show, give them a link to the relevant KissCartoon page. They ask how long the show is - I tell them the number of seasons (mention that 6 is unfinished), and the average length of an episode.

Nope, don’t have the attention span for that, either.

They reiterate that they hardly have the attention span for their favourite show, and once again complain to me before asking me what the /HAVE TO WATCH/ to understand.

I tell them that they’re free to try interacting with my muse on their KH blogs, since I’m open to crossovers and still, for some ungodly reason, trying to be civil.

They keep asking about star wars.

I mention the video games.

Don’t have the attention span for video games.

So this person, who apparently can’t watch movies or TV shows, or read books or comics, or play video games, is asking me what source material they need to know to roleplay a Star Wars verse. 

I, as a last-ditch and mostly sarcastic effort, give them a link to Wookieepedia. I’m a terrible person, I know.

…

They don’t have the patience to look through the wiki pages.

I’m all but smashing my face against the keyboard now, while this person is COMPLAINING TO ME ABOUT HOW LONG STAR WARS IS. 

I mean I get it’s a lot but I tried to break it down?? And last I checked I’m not George Lucas like I’m sorry but it’s not my fault, my problem, or in my power to change? And I tell them it’s 40 years worth of worldbuilding and try to help them break it down again and they just KEEP FUCKING COMPLAINING.

And after like. Two hours of me trying to reason with them and help them out they say ‘I’m not even interested in star Wars, I just want to write with you’. 

And now, maybe I’m reading into it too much. Maybe I listen to too many narrated Let’s Not Meet videos too late at night. But holy shit, I have never felt like I had a legitimate stalker until that moment. It was one of the most uncomfortable things that has ever happened to me. I had zero idea how to respond, and so again I don’t think I did. Or, if I did, it was to again try to explain to them that there was a lot of material, and they should [leavemethefuckalone] focus on things they were interested in, especially if they didn’t think they could handle just the show. So they complain to me about that for a bit, before moving on to other topics to whine about. Always comes back to how I’m not writing with them any more (meanwhile, the countless starters I’ve written them are still being ignored, as are any and all threads we had on the go at the time. Everything’s either been ignored, abandoned, or both, all without letting me know.).I honestly don’t remember how that conversation ended. Just thinking about it makes me blank out and get a sort of mild pins-and-needles feeling. I mean, I get it was probably supposed to be flattering, and if we had been friends it might have been, but coming from this person? Alarm bells were ringing like a retro emergency evac PSE. 

AND IT GETS WORSE STILL, BECAUSE FOR SOME REASON I STILL PUT UP WITH THIS PERSON. 

So, enter me, just going back to uni for the spring/early summer semester. Our stage sets itself in my campus’ bookstore, at about noon or one o’clock in the afternoon. The line from the bookstore stretches from the counter, at one end of the store, wraps around the perimeter of that very large, very spacious room that was at one point a lecture hall, goes through the hall to the next room which also used to be a massive classroom, wraps around that and goes out the back door. I had to get up for an 8:30 that was across the field that day. I had non-stop class until this point, I had had no breakfast (though I think I had a sip of orange juice to keep from conking out), I had been waiting in line for close to an hour, my arms were full of heavy textbooks I dreaded having to pay for, and I only had one hand free for typing, and there was a chance I’d be late to my next class if this line didn’t get moving. As you can imagine, I wasn’t much in the mood for talking (though I think I made the effort for Rodi and Maddie (my best friend from public school who I still talk to) since I enjoy talking to them and it made me feel a bit better). Anyway, I’m in line, tired, irate, and scrolling through tumblr, and Cheeper messages me with a ‘hey’. Oh fuck, I think, this isn’t good. I greet them anyway - just a ‘hi’. I’m only giving one word answers at this point, since I’m not in a chatty mood, and, as I mentioned, I’m typing with just my thumb and that fucking sucks and takes forever, and I’m also trying to keep my place in line. Cheeper starts asking me about school, and I’m very confused, because never once in the months I’d known them had they ever taken an interest in me or my life. ‘so you’re in university right’ they ask. I remember most of this conversation word for word, and you’ll see why. ‘yeah’, I reply. ‘What year?’ they ask; ‘Second \o/’ I say, adding an emoji b/c I love that one. ‘Cool, what’s your major?’ they ask, and I’m getting hopeful that maybe they’ve turned a new leaf and my patience with them has been rewarded. So I tell them ‘Classics \O/’ with a slightly more excited emoji, and they tell me that’s cool, mention their major is in foreign languages - I think Chinese? Maybe Spanish? This is the one message I can never remember in its entirety, because the next one almost knocked me over. I replied with ‘cool’, and a half second later, Cheeper asks, 

“Are you out to your family yet?”

This complete fucking stranger, this grown-ass adult I barely knew, straight up asked me if I was out to my family, yet. I have never been asked that question before or since. I am out only to people on tumblr, and a small group of my most trusted friends from high school. And this person had the fucking audacity to ask me right out if I was. 

I was shocked.

I will not lie to you, I almost dropped my phone. I think I stopped breathing for a second, and I nearly lost my place in line. I was torn between just being frozen and being fucking livid. After a moment when I didn’t respond, they added, ‘Can I ask that?’ And I swear those two messages are tattooed into my mind.

“Are you out to your family yet?”

Holy fuck.

So I manage to collect myself enough to type out ‘no, I’m not’. 

‘Damn,’ they say. ‘Because my mom keeps messing up my pronouns and I wanted to know if you have any advice.’ 

Because why the fuck else would they care about me, right?

And then they proceeded to complain about their life and their aphobic family to me AGAIN, for HOURS, but at that point I’d been ignoring their messages and was instead talking to Maddie for advice on how to handle the situation. I had no idea what to do. I was lost. Like. I wanted to block them so bad but they’d been subtly guilt-tripping me about it for so long (’you’d never block me, you’re my best friend’ was just the start of that, tbh) that I felt bad for it? And Maddie was just like ‘jay no that’s fucked up get rid of them’ and I did.

I have never once regretted it and holy fuck it feels amazing to get this shit off my chest.

And yeah, so.

That was one of my worst RP experiences.

Are you out to your family yet.

I’d sell them to Satan for half a stale corn chip I swear to Christ.