#rpc discourse

[ghost-hosts]

The other anon had misgendered screamw0rks' partner. She doesn't identify as a girl. They also seemed to have the story incorrect - screamw0rks and his partner were minding their business and the partner put out a post talking about the drama that was going around. It wasn't targetting people. There were also a blog that mew put out clarifying the misunderstandings, but she had to delete due to the drama. I'm sorry people are trying to bring you into this. - 🐞

I believe that my friend is the one youre speaking of. They blocked and made a statement telling people not to follow them if you dont like the majority of fcs they use. Then they started getting anons.

[shdwtouch]

While I absolutely agree with the sentiment and think oc positivity is sorely needed, comparing writing canon muses to fast fashion sounds a bit icky to me. I know you don't mean it in a bad way, but it does kinda sound like you're implying that people writing canon characters are putting less love, effort and creativity into their portrayals. Just because there are multiple people writing the same character doesn't cheapen their value, so I'd personally look for some other metaphor.

firstly, just want to say: I have so much anxiety about this message. like I know you're coming from a good place but its confrontation and alarm bells in my head so let me see if I can articulate. ; ; also, I'm posting this from mobile so I apologize for any weird formatting etc owo;

I'm going to stand by my statement (tho I deleted the tags [edit: I did take a screenshot for context sake]) honestly because I definitely was not implying that canon portrayals have less value, in fact I specifically stated that both canon and original characters have value, just like fast fashion and couture have their own values.

let me explain my thought process.

you walk into, say, Walmart and pick up a pair of Levi's. why ? because you've probably worn them before and like them, or heard of them from others and want to try them out. or because you're simply browsing and like the style and color and they're in the right size so why not ? canon muses have that ease of access, whether it be knowing the fandom or simply having a range of content and reviews to go off of as a "consumer".

original characters don't have that luxury; I don't know about other people, but for me sometimes engaging with original characters - and this is coming from someone who writes predominantly fandomless original characters and agonizes over how accessible their lore is - is, well, bottlenecked by my own energy and willingness to engage with the information and content the creator had provided. it's much easier for me, energy wise, to play a video game and then gravitate to muses from it because I'm already familiar with them, so I already have a foot in the door so to speak.

I fucking love reading original lore tho ! I also FUCKING LOVE canon divergence and headcanons ! but it isn't always easy to engage with or incorporate, and I think that's something that impacts a lot of people in how they view ocs compared to canons. original characters just often take more effort to engage with and understand, and that's not a bad thing ! but in a busy life it's understandable that folks want to go to what is comfortable and what they know, so they pick up a pair of Levi's instead of going to get a tailored pair of pants.

next, I should clarify that the characters are clothes, and we, as writers, are the ones who wear those clothes. which is to say, our own personal style and actions play into the overall appearance and feel of our portrayals. two people can take the same shirt and make completely different outfits with it ! maybe one of them decides to crop it, or bleach it, or cut it up and sew it into something new. and all of these things are valid ! and they all have value. you may be wearing the same shirt as someone else, but you still style it the way you want to. you still look different, still unique, still beautiful. there is nothing bad about liking fast fashion or canon characters. fast fashion is convenient, so are canon characters. some canon characters are poorly written and need to be dressed up or fixed to be worn, while others are quality and wonderfully made ! just like clothes ! and honestly, the same applies to original characters too !

the pants I'm wearing right now ? my favorite pair of pants. I've had them for like... four years. and they're still going strong. fast fashion isn't necessarily cheap, just like couture isn't necessarily haute. but again, it's about how you wear it. and everyone in the BG3 rpc wears their clothes, whether they be canon or original, in their own unique, beautiful way ! we all have our own style, and that style provides value to what we're trying to portray. neither canon nor original characters are better than the other, they BOTH have pros and cons. just like fast fashion and couture. they both have value, and their mode or means doesn't detract or add to the value of the final product.

I apologize if it seemed I was implying canon writers aren't as valuable as original writers, or somehow cheaper due to volume, in my tags. I definitely see where you are coming from and that's a valid perspective. However, that was not my intention and I hope I've managed to clarify my stance and explain myself a bit better. thank you for your message, I hope you're well ! sending lots of good vibes ♡

also, in case anyone was curious, my pants:

they are incredibly soft and flowy, very nice. I sleep in them and wear them out. I know they're winter themed but I think they're subtle enough to be worn outside the season, plus they have polar bears on them and I love polar bears !

also, if it's of any value, I have written my fair share of canon characters. I wrote extensively for assassins creed and marvel, in fact that's where I got my start in the rpc ! if I had to carry the metaphor, my "fast fashion" would be my (canon divergent) cli.nt bar.ton. I may have gotten him from marvel but I have since sliced him up and incorporated the pieces of my portrayal into my original projects ♡

[greatloss]

yo i miss season one :(

[gerudospiriit]

[Probably going to come off as salty enough to get into the Salty Spitoon by default at this point but it makes me really sad that the Zelda RPC is deader than a graveyard unless you're part of certain cliques/bffs with this blog whose bffs with this other blog and none of them have any kind of beef with you. Because if one link in that clique-y chain decided you're bad news, the rest follows suit. You're basically going to find people that you've never even MET that have blocked you because of this and it's so...goofy to me. Group think isn't healthy and I'll die on that hill.

And like...yeah tailor your experience and all that but idk. I feel like Mean Girls behavior is a BIG reason this RPC suffers so bad if I'm perfectly honest. All RPCs have this kind of issue, sure, but this isn't NEARLY as much of a problem in other RPCs I'm in (shoutout to the DB RPC for the most part tbh). I dunno. If I'm honest? When I'm over here, I feel like I'm back in like 2012 with the high school-esque behavior, and I'm too old for it.

So here's my last bit: most things people say are not a personal attack, even if it's something that doesn't agree with your ideas about something, and it's better to use critical thinking and use your own judgement rather than taking even a friend's word at face value.]

[nikkiitalks]

Race Baiting - A thoughtument by Nikkiitalks.

Okay.. Here we go.

Firstly, for the sake of absolute transparency, when I was first contacted by @olivaraofrph in a tirade of a novel of a response, my skimming through it had me starting to be swayed in her favour, mostly because of the depths of which her privacy was invaded for the sake of the allegations against her. And in that moment, I prematurely forgave her. Told her I understood. But it turns out, after much more has come to light, that I in fact do not understand. And in turn my forgiveness is recanted.

I did not have all the information. Hell, I had a fraction of it. Natalie and I, we were friendly, but not close. We don't talk every day and we never did. We had, though, stood arm in arm against that moment's hot button issue that I had felt strongly about, and so had she. It seemed. We'd held each other in places of mutual respect, shouting each other out and praising each other's advocacy.

Now, it all feels so... silly. This performative display that I so willingly let be pulled over my eyes. But that's beside the point. That was all I knew of her, really. There are others in this tiny niche of our already tiny community, that were far closer. Those that ran servers, indigenous servers, with her. They weren't even afforded the respect of being given an explanation to, but I did?

I was the one, who when I it was brought to my attention, when I was urged to send a DM which I already had, that was deemed the one to get that? A novel, let me be clear, the contents of which I won't make public upon request. A lot of it had nothing to do, truly, with the issue at hand but served to distract from it in a wall of text. It was overwhelming, and it felt just a teeny, tiny bit, manipulative.

There's so much evidence now, even evidence regretfully obtained, that the only place her advocacy extends to is Tumblr. None of your public, irl facing socials having anything there about it. Your own admission of percentage, (how that had been confirmed as she claims I can't speculate), and other things that don't line up. Those of us in the community affected haven gotten together to compare and talk through our feelings toward it all and there is a consensus.

It fucking sucks.

Just the fact that this needs to be brought up absolutely sucks. It detracts from the credibility of other indigenous creators in the space. Not all press is good press, and Natalie right now, is bad press. Beyond myself and the others being lied to. Beyond the personal offense I take to that. This is what bothers me the most. For all the posturing and all the 'talking in wrong and confusing ways' it makes us all look bad. And for what?

The other personal and religious or spiritual beliefs she believes doesn't mean anything to me. The other racism claims about her I can't confirm, whatever. Talking shit about a beloved creator, real or not. Doesn't matter.

What matters is there is damage done to the indigenous community here on the rpc, and before we came together to discuss it, it was distressing to all of us. There is no such thing as clout on tumblr and I don't know why people can't seem to get that through their heads? What need is there to claim to be something you're not, even through insinuations, half truths and vague details? I don't understand.

Yes, the indigenous community is so willing to accept anyone with any indigenous blood, and it's the fact that this is what was taken advantage of by someone... that really gets me. That's what really makes it sting. It's a blow to every white passing Native out there, in my opinion. That's where my hurt is. It's the fact that there is question of the validity of the claims toward a shared familial and generational trauma to myself. That still impacts my father's side of the family to this day.

I don't even know where I'm going with all this, and I feel like I'm typing myself in circles, but it's all to say that I don't care about all the other stuff that serves to muddy the waters of the real issue. Race baiting does nothing but end up hurting those who's real life experiences you're roleplaying.

[kinglywarden]

Not for nothing but how about Alistair and either the goodest boy Aedan Cousland or the literal war criminal Daylen Amell?

Listen you KNOW Couslands who don't force a crown upon Alistair's head are fair game!

[ignisnatione]

The RPC is fucked up and it's our fault for letting toxic people join our communities and allowing them to misbehave, brushing it to the side thinking it will fix itself in the end. It hasn't. Then they cry wolf whenever their bad behaviors are pointed out. We should stop sympathizing with these toxic roleplayers, and start calling them what they are. Bad roleplayers. Start kicking these people out and stop forgiving them. They don't deserve it. They will destroy you, and whatever circles you are in. Whether that be in Discord RP Groups or Tumblr RP Groups. It starts with bubbling, it starts with these dick measuring contest, and these incessant needs to be the center of attention. Give them nothing. They deserve nothing until they can behave better. If they want to act like middle schoolers. Treat them like it.

[jcinkbabble]

to the "consequences of your own actions" person: i have a question for you when someone does something wrong, they mistreat someone, they hurt someone, etc. why is it then the response to go and air out that drama publicly for everyone to see? all the things that were posted on tattler, including the sasha situation, were truly not things that needed to be public rpc knowledge. people's interpersonal conflicts, who people like/don't like, etc are not everyone's business. shaming people publicly is still bullying even if they hurt you first, and if you truly want to be a bigger person, then don't facilitate the same hurt onto someone that they put onto you. the old take "an eye for an eye make the whole world blind" is true here for this situation, if someone hurt you, i am so sorry that you were hurt, but you are not owed public restitution for the hurt done upon you. the accountability falls on the person that hurt you to make it up to you in private, not in public. most people that rp in the jcink sphere are 21+, i'd say that the majority are 25+ to be honest, and we should be able to handle conflicts maturely. without gossip blogs, people will still get hurt and people will still gossip, but the hurt will not be widespread. no one owes anyone a public apology, my friends. you are not entitled to that, no matter how much mudslinging you have done. ignore the people that you don't like, don't have them in your spaces, don't join their sites. your experiences are not universal and even the world's biggest assholes have friends. you don't get to change that because you're salty.

I would be inclined to agree. There's a difference between resolution/closure, and punishment. Seeking to wound back because you were wounded isn't commendable. It's just revenge.

[skinsort]

Hello, I've been thinking about code and selling code and sharing code in the rpc because someone posed the question to me of what I'd want to happen if someone was heavily editing a skin I sold, and to be honest, my first instinct was 'take my name off it'. That was met with some surprise, but let me explain why.

Code, to me, is a largely democratic landscape. If you want to learn, hundreds of thousands of people and websites have come together to teach you. Masses of people share open source work on codepen, stack overflow etc. Code as a skill is like assembling an especially abstract puzzle where you can only think about the pieces, not really see them. But most puzzles have similar strategies to solve- start with the corner pieces, then the edges, then the most recognizable patterns etc etc etc working your way down to the more and more difficult details. Most of code- most of my job writing code- involves minimizing the amount of time working on those shared strategies so we can have more time to work on the the interesting bits, the hard bits. the bits that make the site we're working on unique and useful. Frankly, jcink is the easy part of code, by and large. Your data is already structured and provided to you in a very particular way. It is inefficiently, but largely documented. Many other people have solved all the problems you are likely to have trying to build a skin. Skinning is html and css for the vast majority of items. It is the easy stuff. If I sell code, that code is now the property of the person I sold it to. It is not shareable or redistributable. You can't take my code and resell it as your own, but as far as I'm concerned you can do whatever you want with it. If I solved problems that might otherwise feel difficult (accessibility and responsiveness come to mind) cool. You can solve the easy ones, like styling and colors and fonts you like. You can add or subtract things that vibe with what you want that code to do. Once it is sold, it is yours to do with what you like when it comes to personal use. This is true of almost all coding contracts that exist in the entire world. If it weren't, no one would ever hire external contractors to do any work for their company, and I can tell you now, even companies which could fully afford to do all their tech in house absolutely do not in 99% of cases if their business isn't selling their own tech. The rule is generally- you may do anything you like with this, except resell it to someone else. So why take my name off it? I don't endorse how other people code. Even in my professional life, I've taken projects off my portfolio because the client took a project I worked on and broke it (imo), often with other professional developers doing the breaking. If a prospective employer were to go look at it, I'd be embarrassed by what it looks like today. Tell me why I (and my team) created a website that was fully responsive, and they went back to make it adaptive in the year of our lord 2022 because they preferred to have pixel perfect views at 3 specific breakpoints rather than a responsive site. I don't know, it's infuriating. I can't cite that project as an example of my work anymore, because it isn't. I would never leave a site in that state.

So, my first instinct with the idea of people using a skin i sell them as a base is 'take my name off it.' I don't want to be associated if responsive/accessible features are lost due to others working on a skin I wrote. But at the same time, where is the line between using something as a base, and editing a few small features? I certainly don't want to be an arbiter of that, or have to field questions or navigate feelings about it. In fact, personally I would not feel upset at all if someone used a paid for skin as a base, and inviting that kind of discussion is the only way I possibly could get upset since people have weird attitudes about a lot of this stuff. So I think the more practical standard is just to put credit, but make it explicit that the work has been heavily altered. Don't resell or redistribute, and you're golden, imo. Anyway, those are my feelings as someone who writes code for a living. I'm interested to hear counterpoints - constructively of course.

[ghost-hosts]

Hi the anon saying that screamw0rks stalked and harassed someone is absolute bullshite. I'm sorry but if people do not know how to read (they said the musicians were problematic not that they hate them) and that person that went berserk thought the attack was personal. This whole thing is blown out of proportion and you're all blindly just following a well known lunatics enabler on this site

Clarify that last part please. But i will also say ive been friends with andy and i saw all the blogs following them telling them to delete. I can acknowledge people are problematic, but that also means that i can keep using them if i so wish. If you think i need to change im gonna unfollow so that we dont interact and you can feel better about your tumblr experience. Simple.

[unboundwanderers]

Genshin Mutuals, do you think trains exist in Teyvat. Like, with how advanced Genshin Science is - if we acknowledge the fact that waypoints are only accessible to the traveler, then how else would other people get around? On the mainland, at least - I know Inazuma is an island, and it's totally sectioned off but on the big main land.

I saw this reddit post about a transit map if trains existed in teyvat, and it's been on my mind FOREVER. Yes, I know we don't SEE trains or locamotives in the MAIN GAME but really think like- could there be trains? The ruin guards are made from cogs and seem to have some type of automated function to them (What, was the forbidden knowledge an affordable transportation system? No wonder the Abyss Twin is so pissed off.)

These have been Binary's brainrot hour. Thanks for coming.

[blindmagdalena]

sorry if I sound like I'm taking things too seriously, but I disagree that Homelander's a mary sue. mary sue characters are OP as fuck for no reason, win everything, have no flaws and everybody falls in love with them. Homelander has lots of flaws - his arrogance, laziness, need to be loved at all costs, his temper, etc. He's special because he was genetically engineered to be special and nobody loves him.

don’t worry anon, it was definitely a joke! i agree that homelander is a very nuanced character. that’s why I love him! that said, the mary sue trope is largely rooted in straight up misogyny that has only gotten worse with time. it’s gotten so warped and abused that literally any female character who displays powers beyond the norm for whatever universe she occupies gets instantly labelled and dismissed as a mary sue.

my comment was much less about homelander himself and more about how unfair it is that we can’t seem to have incredibly powerful women (flaws and all) who don’t get labelled mary sues. i’m tired of the assumption that if a woman is powerful or special in a universe, she’s a mary sue. the ONLY detail about the theoretical character in that ask was that she was insanely powerful, which was enough to create mary sue anxiety.

the tropes you’re describing can all be very fun if handled correctly. and honestly, even if they’re not handled great, women should be allowed to have ridiculous power fantasies, too. they get written for a reason! it’s not hurting anyone. men get them in pretty much everything.

long story short, i just want more OP women.

[foxytonic]

I don’t know how many of my followers were around or on here in like 2014/2015, but do y’all remember those burn book blogs? Or the positivity blogs that were their complete opposites? That’s what I immediately thought of when I reblogged that post about old school tumblr discourse lol

[unladielike]

( i honestly can’t help but laugh whenever i discover an anti has me hardblocked... and these antis spread misinformation about pr/o-shippers too, that it’s just like trash taking itself out.

but honestly, you don’t necessarily have to have problematic ships in order to be a pr/o-shipper - you just have to not condone harassment over ships. and yeah, while i won’t deny most pr/o-shippers in the rpc tend to ship inc/est or minor/adult ships, the fact antis have to resort to spreading misinformation to make them self seem morally superior is so damn hilarious to me.

honestly, i wouldn’t be surprised if people would assume i’m a pr/o-shipper too despite the fact i actually agree with them in/cest and minor/adult ships are gross - i just do not appreciate seeing people witch hunt others or hurl death threats at people consensually writing things they don’t like, regardless of how i might feel about the topics they are writing about, because at the end of the day, real people matter more than fictional lines on paper.

seriously, it costs $0 to just block/unfollow/blacklist and mind your own business. plus, all this moral outrage people have towards supposed ‘p/edophilia’ is performative af. like, if you care about csa victims so much, then why are you exerting so much of your energy on being mad at fictional characters being abused when you could help out actual victims of csa/grooming in real life??

i dunno, man... i just feel like these people need to touch grass or something, because they do more slacktivism than actual writing. i mean, maybe it’s just me, but i personally do not get how you could not be tired, calling out people for shipping crimes or being angry all the time, when all i wanna do when i come back home from work is scream about characters and maybe write self-indulgent shit.

...TO THAT END, I DO NOT HAVE THE SPOONS TO CARE ABOUT WHAT GROSS SHIT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING, because it doesn’t concern me. honestly, i wouldn’t say i ‘support’ it, but it’s more like i acknowledge that people are always gonna write weird shit regardless, so i’ll simply ignore it and move on, because for me, it’s not healthy or productive to my mental health, focusing on things i hate. )

[nikkiitalks]

Just for context, the DM novel she sent me was 23 mobile screenshots long.

[ignisnatione]

Stop your bullshit, and be a better roleplayer and human being.

One big problem that the RPC has these days is that people keep trying to roleplay like this: *Muses having a heated conversation with one another* Them: *Is an asshole to someone's muse* Other persons muse: *Is an asshole back to them* Them: D: NOOOOO! YOU CAN't DO THAT! Their friends' muses: *viciously attack the other person's muse without the context needed or awareness of how anything started here*

And then you step into other territory at times. Not only. Are these roleplayers making it difficult for you to properly play your muse? But if this roleplayer also happens to be popular, or been in a group longer, or in a community longer. Or their muses themself is well-liked by other muses and muns in the Rp. These roleplayers will as a group gang up on one muse and then get mad if that muse doesn't back down.

This would not be a problem if everyone in the group understood that this is roleplaying and disputes and disagreements happen. But many roleplayers of today do not seem to understand this. That their muses having conflict with other muses is going to happen. That not all muses are going to like your muse, and that's okay. That all muns are not going to like you or your muse, and that's okay.

What is not okay is mistreating someone because you dislike them or their muses. What is not okay is ganging up IC on that person's muse and then trying to play your muses off as holier than thou pricks that think that just because they're being agreed with they are automatically in the right (not because this isn't a good thing, this is character. But in many of these instances, this is a reflection or projection of the mun thinking that behaving like this is itself alright OOC, this is not to associate muse to mun, but the revelation of mun using muse to attack players in IC and mun believing their muses opinion to be the only one that's right. If a mun thought differently, these situations would play out far differently with both muns involved coming to a fair balanced conclusion to the interaction, instead of shady backstabbing tactics that tend to play out behind the scenes after it when the mun DOES believe their muses opinions and thoughts are the only correct one's. You get a group of these kinds of roleplayers in one roleplay doing that to any muse outside of the social group, as a leader of an RP you need to have a chat with those players. Whether the opinion IS right or wrong, this behavior is disgusting when other players cannot play their muses having their own agency because then they will be piled on by the group that thinks theirs is the only one. These players are toxic and like to play down things by saying things like 'Well the other muse should have just shut up then', because no, the other muse doesn't have to shut up doesn't have to believe their muse, doesn't even have to play nice with their muse, it's called roleplaying, and leaders out here who have participated in, or let players participate in that engagement between your players, you need to cut that shit out. ASAP.). This is not always the case. Stop being ignorant about these interactions. In character or out. These interactions are a fact of life. Brigading to get a player kicked because you cannot personally overgrow your own inability to understand these interactions and moral complexities of humanity is not the other players' fault. Or the fault of the muse they are playing.

This works on many levels. But at the end of the day, when the mun playing a muse becomes the victim of the aftermath of one of these interactions it has crossed a line. Many of you need to grow up and stop associating mun with the muse and separate yourselves from yours in a manner that you can understand how and why the other person would be playing their muse as they are. The RPC is for everyone. If you don't like someone or a muse, because of such petty shit, how are you going to protect the rest of the community from those who are a real danger? Because the pendulum always swings by, guys.

What you are doing to your fellow roleplayers today, will be done to you one day. You will have to deal with the consequences of your actions. Only as the years go by, it will grow worse. It will inevitably make what you do not want to happen, happen. You will have chased away all the decent players just because you couldn't be bothered to take a moment of your time during an IC dispute to recognize that neither of you, the muns, hates each other, or should. Neither of you, the muns, needs to bitch and complain to the leaders of your group because you could not be grown enough to recognize that not all roleplayers play the same way you do. But you are both in the same roleplay.

If you don't like where a conversation is going with your muse and another. It's not the other muse's job to stop talking. It is definitely not the other muns job to make their muse stop talking. This is natural engagement and many people understand that the muns not attacking people just because their muse isn't the friendliest or argumentative. These things are part of people everywhere. People are argumentative. People don't shut up just because you want them to. They don't obey you just because you can't deal with the moment you involve yourself. It is your job as the mun to look at it and decide if it's worth your emotional toll to spend on it. And if not, you're the one that needs to have your muse shut up. Stop shifting the blame onto the other mun for having fun just because you weren't.

If such interactions with your muse aren't something you want, stop getting involved in them. Or kindly ask the other mun to avoid those interactions with your muse. It's that simple. Communication is very fucking important, and it's a shame a lot of you can't get that in your heads. You are the master of how your interactions go. Communicate that you don't like something if you don't. Stop expecting people to read your mind just because you're a 'shy baby UwU' who thinks that people should step in and save you or your muses from conflict. They don't have to, and you don't need it. If you have communicated your boundary with a mun who refuses to listen, that's when you go to the leaders of your group. Your petty bullshit where you sob and whine to your group leader first is not only a hassle and a burden on the entire group who now has to cater to your whiney ass, but now they have to have a conversation with the mun you should have spoken to first. Most muns appreciate when you communicate with them first, it's a sign of trust. And once trust is broken between players it's only a matter of time before shit starts falling apart.

So take some responsibility, people. Stop destroying your communities over some petty shit that you could easily prevent by communicating clearly and easily what you want. Shyness shouldn't be an excuse, if you want a mod to mediate for you, fine. But just keep in mind what that projects when it comes to the other mun. Keep in mind how you are not the perfect mun either. None of you are. You are all writers in a fucking roleplay. You all had to pass the same test to get in there. Start treating each other better. Stop attacking each other every couple of days or weeks because you can't understand that not every conflict is fucking about you. It's not. If it's with your muse it's because your muse has done something. Most people, mun or muse, don't just wake up one day and decide to hate someone for no reason. So many of the roleplayers in these communities are behaving like sociopaths and narcissists and it's gross. They aren't.

But for some unknown reason, they have picked up these behaviors along the way which makes it hard to differentiate between who really is, and who just thinks it's cool to be. It's not cool. Stop it. Be a fucking decent human being, that's all you have to do. Many of you are failing at that these days. Whether it be in roleplays toward each other, or in society at large. Stop it. It's not funny. It's not cool. You look gross. The rest of us hate you. We don't want to hate you. Because we get it, we've all been a little self-centered prick before. But the thing is eventually we grew out of it. Not anymore though. A lot of you have stayed frozen in this state and you've kept others frozen in this state. Hindering your own ability to write, and theirs.

If you didn't like reading this and actually bothered to truck your way through to the end, then here's a little hint, you might be the type of people focused on here. If it is, it's time to stop doing this. If you know someone who does this and have been a part of it you need to stop and you need to help your friends stop. Recognize that this is bullying. This is toxic behavior. If they won't be your friend anymore because they can't help themselves, and refuse change, cut them off. There are other people out there who don't need to be bullies to get ahead. Neither do you. Because this is not healthy behavior to be in the presence of. This isn't to make you feel bad. But good if it does that means you recognize something is wrong. This is a wake-up call. You need to stop participating in this behavior. It's not cool. It's not funny. It is juvenile. It doesn't matter if you are 18 - 55 as a roleplayer doing this. This is not how you should be behaving. Whoever taught you to engage with anyone this way was wrong. Whether that be anyone you spoke to when you first started writing telling you you had to act this way, or whether it was you, deciding that being this way was cooler or easier (or whatever other reason for doing this kind of thing) than making a friend.

The truth is it's not. You don't need to tear someone else down, to be a good roleplayer. You don't need to make everything go exactly your way to be a good roleplayer. How you become a good roleplayer (And even better person) is how well you treat your fellow roleplayer. How well you understand them. How willing you are to let them be as creative as you want to be yourself. You may not have all the same prowess as them, or tools, or wordsmithing. But any good roleplayer will love you without needing all of that, they just want someone who is not going to make this hobby harder than it needs to be. Because this is supposed to be a relaxing and fun hobby, so many roleplayers as mentioned above have made it into a stressful, competitive, and aggressive boxing ring where some of the players have decided to hide razors in their gloves instead of playing fair.

Stop competing with other players if you lose against another muse/mun you're writing against your losing the gold medal (it's not that fucking serious guys) and start writing because you want to have fun as much as the other player does. This hobby isn't always all about you and your muses, other people exist and partake in it every single day. The players mentioned above cannot conceptualize the idea that other people exist outside themselves and their muse, or their friends, and their friend's muses. They aren't there to serve to make them happy. I'm not here to write for someone who cannot consider for a moment the thought and care that goes into writing my muse and just because my muse would disagree with yours doesn't make them a horrible wicked person and it doesn't make your muse one either. Allow your muse to be disagreed with. Allow yourself to write a muse that can be wrong that can make a mistake and not be able to accept they made it. Why are we acting like muses arguing with each other is the mun projecting that onto their muse? Start asking yourself where those thoughts are coming from. At some point, you may reach a very important conclusion. You're the one that's been projecting onto your muse. Making them self-inserts because of your own beliefs conflicting with another muse.

If you don't see that as happening, check in with the other mun. See how they think, and ask them how they feel about the engagement. Stop acting like you're always under attack or that your muses are always in the right, just because you think they are. They might be, they might not be. You have to listen to other people's thoughts too, though. You or your muse even, let your muse reflect on their stances when opposed instead of just jumping to the defensive just because you agree with your muse. Other people don't have to, and some muns tend to not write their muses as doing so if they are writing a muse that does believe differently from yours. It's the same as dealing with each other. I might not believe the tooth fairy exists. But that doesn't mean Johnny doesn't and no matter how many times I tell him his moms putting that bill under his pillow when he lost a tooth he won't believe me. He just cannot believe me....

If you're going to write someone like Johnny, you have to be prepared to have someone write someone like me. The matter of opinion is ever-changing. What's written as truth today may be discovered as wrong tomorrow. Your muse will be wrong sometimes and your writing them fighting about it bitterly is only going to make most interactions with another muse worse, and that's okay. As long as you understand that if you also believe what bullshit your muse is saying, you can also be wrong, and that doesn't mean you have to get the other mun kicked out of a roleplay just because you have some authority to do so and didn't like their muse arguing with yours over a point you or your muse may or may not write about. Either get over it and move on or stop engaging and go live out the rest of your life going "Phfft, what a stupid person that muse is." just don't bring it into OOC because that's not you or your muse's fucking business to be dictating other peoples opinions by force muse or mun. But I keep fucking seeing these roleplayers doing this shit all the damn time and it's like they don't even see the problem with all this absolute trash behavior they are putting on.

Cool, so you have five fucking people on your side, and that one mun writing a muse that won't agree with your muse is annoying you because everyone should love your muse-- what the fuck....uh,. no? No not every muse has to love your muse. Not every mun has to love your muse. Your muse is honestly probably hot fucking garbage and your friends are probably fucking ignorant to the fact they can dislike your muse, too, and still like you. You're all a bunch of shady bitches though so who the fuck can ever tell you might just all like sitting in a circle masturbating on the thoughts of how awesome all your muses are and how perfect you are, who knows, who even gives a shit honestly. The point is, shut the fuck up stop acting like your shits the best ever, and let other people write the way they want to write if it's not actively hurting anyone but your personal feelings about how you're not the best thing in the roleplay and how dare someone not be nice to your muse. Fuck you. And fuck your muse. And your silly little friends who help treat other people like shit can go fuck themselves too. You make everyone sick and want to flee to a different planet. But we have to realize. We don't have to flee to a different space just to take these fuckers down. All you really have to do is not let them lead you on with their bullshit and stop turning on other players who aren't part of their usual cliques. That's how you get the RPC back to its usual standard of things lasting for more than a few months. Aren't you fucking sick of that?

You'll enter a fresh roleplay and usually within a few months you have players like this or players who constantly bubble but get mad if you don't include them or some stupid ass shit that is just so impossibly mind-numbing insane and it feels so stressful roleplaying against these people but you feel obligated to because your in a group together. Alright. Well, these people have no sense of that in their thick skulls. They literally only have "Me, get what I want! Me! Have my muse be the best ever. Me! Want all the threads!" They are assholes and the leaders have got to start fucking bringing them down to ground level with the rest of us. Because if you let these players go for too long thinking the sun only shines out of their assholes then you have a bunch of surmounting issues coming. You don't have to kick these people or treat them badly either. You just have to ignore them a lot of the time when they start kicking up dust about things not going how they want in interactions between their muses and others. If the mun is misbehaving, reprimand accordingly. Time outs. Warnings. Removal from the whole RP once, maybe twice.

Then just downright ban them. Most of the leaders of roleplays won't do that though. Because they are often afraid of these kinds of roleplayers. These roleplayers also have a tendency to go on to spread lies about the group leaders or the other muns of a group and they are always the victim. This is why I call them acting like narcissists. Because this is a key component of their toolkits. They like to start shit, get backlash, then throw a fit about it. Not just once or twice, no. This is every single day with them behaving like this. They treat their muse like they are the main character in the entire group, and they and their friend's muses are all that should get any event progress or special treatment and focus above all other players in the roleplay. If you don't give them that focus some of these muses even have little protests on the mun's behavior who will sit there and either write to the leader, in the OOC, or in IC with their muse about how 'boring' everything else is because their muses aren't involved or as involved as they want them to be.

They won't try to involve their muses in anything themselves either. You have to be the one to ask. You have to be the one to come up with the ideas. There are so many tricks these people pull and it's easier to see them once you know who they are and all it takes is looking at how they write their muses. Here's one very easy tell. If your muses are in fact arguing with them. They say something mean or insensitive. The muses they are writing usually become excessively violent or insulting toward the other muse. Now if the other mun muse reacts the same way, that's just two of the same roleplayer type. But if the other mun's muse reacts in a more relaxed way and manages to not be bothered by the exaggeration the other mun is going to great lengths with their muses reaction then you have more than likely identified your bad apple roleplayer. Because these players cannot help themselves. Their muses have to be excessively aggressive or violent when provoked, they cannot help themselves. They for some reason think that this is how you play a character that's been made to be upset. It could be. But a little offhanded comment or such shouldn't immediately warrant threatening another muse's life over.

Especially if it's one of the first interactions these characters are having. That's if you're trying to play a muse whose temper is notably bonkers by the muse on description. Not many of these kinds of roleplayers add that into their muse's bios. Because these muns don't actually follow their own muses' personality traits when they are more than likely just projecting their own personal feelings and morals into the muses anyway. These muns just love to try and their muse says the most savage string of violence-laced words and does not think about the actual logic in them. And their friends will write their muses eating that shit up because none of them share more than a single brain cell between each other. That's why people get kicked out though. Because most leaders also don't share much brainpower to decipher that. They just get a whole "This player did this with their muse and I feel so attacked right now." And the leader won't think about it much further than "Stop having your difficult muse be difficult. They are supposed to heel like any other muse to that muse." Even if it would not make any logical sense. These people couldn't follow a fucking character sheet if you taped the goddamn thing to their fucking glasses.

That's really how you start to identify them. They don't usually serve as one. Many of them even form from scratch in a server. But they all, almost always, portray the stupidest fucking muses you could ever imagine interacting with. Like if you tell these people muses that they are about to walk on a minefield, this motherfucker will have their muse be like "Oh well he knows ballet, go Johnny, show em your moves" or some shit and by the time the scenes finished Johnny has magically danced his way through a minefield. Because he's sooo awesome. He's sooo cool. I'm not even jealous either. I find these players amusing when I'm not at the speartip of their inane clusterfucks of making everything about them and their muses personally. I recognize them for what they are, clowns. But they can be very dangerous clowns if you let them stew in that tendency to whip an entire group into a frenzy on their behalf and gang up on one muse.

You may be like "Ah well that's just because that player that's being ganged up on must be annoying. It must be their fault for writing a difficult muse, right?" No. It's not. It's not that muns fault. It's not that muse's fault. The players who are writing this ganging up on for malicious intent are the ones at fault and we often ignore it because we are told if we say anything that we're the problem. Or we soon become the target of it, too. None of us should have to put up with this domineering type of roleplayer when it turns into something like that. IC or OOC is the same. This isn't right. This isn't how a roleplay functions. All the muses matter, all the muns matter. They are all equal parts of the machine. These players are not the arbiters which should be anything more or less than that. The leaders need to educate themselves on how these players are in their RP because not only do they attack and single out the average mun outside of their groups. But they will also attack the leaders by accusing things like bubbling when it's clear they are the ones bubbling and not trying to interact with other players. Or they will pit you against each other. Or they will threaten you with leaving en masse if you don't do what they want.

I've watched these people do this time and time again. I've told roleplayer leaders about these players. I usually get told by the leaders that they don't know what to do with those players. You reprimand them. You make sure that they are not treated any better than any other roleplayer. If need be, you remove them if they do not follow your rules. Because that is the only thing between your roleplay being kept together and total anarchy with these players. Who will ask that you break your own rules to cater to them? Like when they start drama with another mun. But make it that mun's fault. These players do this, and often. I am not kidding right now. It is one of their most malicious tactics. They will get rid of all your supportive players. To where you only have them and then they will fucking not do anything. They won't really write. If they do, they only write to themselves. They only want to do the events they want to do.

They won't let you do any other ones. They will mini-protest the shit out of you if you do. But what should you do, if you punish one of them they'll all leave, right? Good. Fucking let them. Advertise your shit till you find players who want to interact with each other. Who wants to build on the world you have presented to them. Who doesn't want to take vacations away from it and text back to the main chat "Ahh this is a nice day on the beach, its a shame some of you couldn't come because I didn't invite you." text. Fuck those players. They deserve to be on the same playing field with the rest of us and if they don't fucking like it, they can go jerk off to each other in a different group. If you're a mun who started their own roleplay group that also is this kind of roleplayer. You have to stop behaving like this. The worst version of this is a leader who is that roleplayer. Because they still fall into the same trappings as those who aren't. You're not exempt from these guys just because you're part of the group. They will and have done it to leaders like you, too.

This kind of shit stops, when you stop it. It doesn't really fade out. It's been present in every RPC community that had desired quantity over quality from the start. So what if your fucking member numbers are low? At least it can fucking thrive better in an environment with control rather than one thrown into total disarray by these dipshit roleplayers who think they are better than others. I'd rather have a group of dedicated roleplayers who couldn't string a perfect grammatically correct couple of sentences together. The princess 'let's bully others for fun while we pretend to roleplay' and her court jesters destroying the RP after only a few months of it being active. They should find a different hobby or they should learn to be better roleplayers in this one. No more 'oh that's just how things are.'. No it's not and it doesn't have to be that way. Fuck those guys. You need to start saying to them "Get with the program or you're gone" If they leave then because of that, BYYE! Stop taking it out on single muns who are being isolated by these players, stop taking it out on mun's who write muses that don't like those mun's muse. I'm tired of seeing it. You need to get with the program guys.