I tend to reply quicker to characters I am most excited about the plots for (or I'm most excited over in general).

Additionally, some characters I write are easier for me to reply to than others. EX: My super happy, outgoing chars typically are chars I can reply to quickly and whenever/wherever (like via phone if I am phonebound). Whereas, my more stoic, serious characters require me to be in a certain mood to reply with. This means my partners really can't do anything when that's the case.

But I'm the type it's not hard to get me excited over plots and thus rope me into rapid responses. Send me memes that fit our chars ongoing plots. Send me pictures of yours or my characters. Toss me ideas to further our plots or to go with our characters past interactions. If it's an IRL modern day site, do text messages or letters to fill the time in between replies as a quick filler.

The more openly excited my partner is about the plots, the more excited I get because I tend to be a bit reactive. In return I try to match that energy.

For the posts itself, I tend to prefer easy to read posts that aren't filled to the brim with purple prose. I don't enjoy large words that you know the person probably doesn't use in day to day conversations to be the brunt of the post. Also, if it's not a jam packed filled with emotion or action post, I tend to take longer to respond to overly long posts. I'm okay with shorter posts as long as there's stuff to reply to - actions, dialogue, stuff like that.

Lastly, at least in my case, if my partner always taking a week plus to reply, I tend to lose excitement for plots - especially if there's no filler content happening (like the stuff noted above). My own anxiety kicks in and makes me feel like you're not interested in it and feel pressured to RP with me because so few people are willing to be open and just admit they've not got interest in the plots so they just kind of ghost, ya know? So my anxiety hits and my excitement plummets. Like life happens, but there's ways to fill the space in between if you can only reply once a week or something.

This is all just for me personally, other people certainly vary, but for me personally, this is what keeps me going - and usually going quickly.

oh god i have been absolutely dissecting this as of late. here's what i've thought of and noticed, but ofc this is all about me and sometimes The Muse Strikes and all of it becomes irrelevant because i just gotta write that one reply now!! and all of this is also impacted simply bc...life. and external or ooc factors are not included.

i like and easily reply to posts that are:

- relatively simple. the more stuff you have for me to reply to, the longer i'm going to take. interestingly, i've found it applies to spliced dialogue in posts or posts with too many dialogue segments. the more stuff there is to reply to, the harder it is to maintain a continuous and logical flow of reactions and responses in my own posts, EVEN IF all of that stuff is amazing and i love it, it's just going to require a Coorindation Effort from me.

- however, the above does NOT apply to super long descriptions or things like that. i don't mind winding prose and people going "all out" or throwing in flashbacks or writing something incredibly long with lots of introspection. love it! ur absolutely not going to get length matched from me HAHA but it will not affect how long i take to get back to u.

- characterizes other things well. i've noticed even when there r subtle mischaracterizations or misalignments—say, if we are both interpreting the setting differently, or if your interpretation of my character is off-base, or if i write xyz npc as being a, b, and c, but then your post chooses to portray them differently...it takes me longer to kind of bridge the gap and figure out a compromise, and also makes me lose interest because i have to do "logistics" for the thread.

- has a very obvious hook. sure, not all of everyone's characters are going to be talkative. but you can embed an obvious hook within prose as well ("my character is quietly reading a book. the book is upside down. on closer inspection, they don't even look like they're blinking. are they asleep?") without the need for dialogue or action. provide direction.

- the thread/scenario itself has a clear direction, or at least a goal. if the thread is a "let's throw them together and see how they mix!" kinda thread (or even "hey let's do another a x b thread, love their dynamic!"), i'm going to take 99 days to respond because the thread isn't serving a clear purpose for me personally...i really need something concrete to be happening in the thread! what, by the end of the thread, will have changed for my character? if you can answer that, i'm hooked!!

- if i'm doing most of the work/"dm-ing" the thread, i tend to reply very very quickly at first, and then absolutely lose interest after a while. HAHA. i love control but hate to be stuck with it, what can i say. not sure why this happens, just a pattern i notice. sometimes the "DM high" lasts and i'm quickly replying the whole thread, though. i don't mind if i have to do most or all the work though, personally.

- ultimately...if i know what i gotta do. if there's a post and i just. i know what the next plot point is cuz we discussed it, or i know what should happen next bc ur giving me clear signals, or if i know exactly how my character and the setting are interacting and we're on the same page about the vibes, or i know what the timeline and context of the thread is so i can tap into my character's mood and thoughts...yea. im writing u that response soon!!


BONUS: if the writing itself is fun. if i feel like we're pingponging off each other and we're stealing each other's metaphors and i'm engrossed by ur writing and ur vibing with mine and we're getting playful w/ the characterization... delicious! (though, i think this tends to happen only when the above are also happening)

Homing in on this sentiment a bit, I wonder how many share this feel. I've known some people who absolutely disliked it when I would want to plot out (in broad lines) what's going to happen in the thread. Let's say we've got our opener:

Our characters are classmates. It's the rainy season, and it's coming down hard. My character did not bring an umbrella. Yours did. We're both at the school entrance, and my character is definitely going to guilt trip yours into sharing the umbrella. (We go the same way, after all.)

People are often fine with this, because it gives us a good starting point, and we both know what we're in for. But it's been on and off for whether people actually want the rest of the thread to be "a surprise", or if they want to plan it out in the broadest of terms. 

When you say "know the next plot", what do you mean exactly? Like, discuss the entire rest of the thread beforehand? Our characters are in awkward silence, mine breaks the ice by blabbering about random things, she accidentally talks about something they both like, the characters get hyped and decide to go to a concert of their favourite oshi together, but then get into an argument whose oshi is best? Or do you mean less detailed/more detailed?

I'd like to get better at all this! I love writing, but I'm having a rough time sharing that love so that others can also indulge in it. :sadface:

Yeah the contradictions that you're seeing (some people want zero plotting, others need a lot) can just be rpers have different likes and styles. I'm more on the side of taking a random open or doing minimal planning and seeing where it leads, so someone else could advise better on plotting. But this is my "zero plotting and a dream" approach to threads

“Know the next plot” to me, is an idea that the characters are working to and helps guide what I'm writing. Going to your umbrella example, character A has no umbrella, character B has one. They share one and begin walking home. They are walking point 1 to 2, talking. If this is ALL the thread will be, it will be hard to reply to since I don't know what to do other than chitchatting

Switch it up: same concept, but character B really needs to get to work, character A trips falls and cannot walk, character B “sorry you gotta come with me or I’ll get fired” and carries them off. The next plot point is they will get to work, have to explain who A is, maybe get medical help for the injury, and the ball just keeps rolling

In the first one, it seems to be just small talk with nothing really happening. Now I love a good dialogue, but if you’re threading with someone for the first time, it might be difficult to find what to talk about unless there's something happening. The second one, it's building off each other, they are actively going somewhere and have something more sustainable to talk about

Actions help a lot, what your character wants to do and how they’ll want to achieve it helps establish characterization. Add in how they react, interact, or build off the other character(s) and you'll have a great thread!

I'm in the category of liking a direction - usually. Now if it's a opening where there's a lot already happening (IDK lets say your character came into contact with someone trying to steal their purse, cause I'm creative). It's already got a direction. My character, depending on who I am throwing in there, is either gonna go after the guy cause they are an idiotic hot head or call the police and try to comfort yours, right? So I don't need a direction there. We have one.

For your example, we're just being the leaf in the wind. Going with the flow, which is great, but like...me personally, I suck IRL at maintaining conversations just for the sake of it, so you'll end up with the brunt of it because that bleeds over to maintaining IC convos, its just something I never learned to do. If we've got a general idea of where we're trying to get to though, I suddenly get a little better at it. Are we aiming to make the two characters friends? Enemies? Lovers? Whatever, now I have a direction - and honestly, I'd have noted if xyz goals was capable in our initial planning and let you know something like "hey, you might unlock being friends with this person, but they have trust issues and the first thread or three might be a little slow with them being closed off, so we can just make them shorter threads of the two getting to know one another to break the ice." and then we can proceed from there. Just like I'd expect my partner to let me know something like that, lets us both know what we're getting into, makes it clear that the RPer is def interested in the plots, even if the character may not seem like it.

Nova's example is really good too.

Dialogue is great, but that action added in is :chefskiss: some of my favorite chars of my partners aren't talkers but are doers, so as long as there's stuff to respond to, you're doing great.

But yeah I think this is just one of the areas where knowing your partner and communicating with them is going to be key. In my intro posts / on my OOC accounts on sites, I try to be upfront about my own personal preferences. I love communicating, I love plotting, I love people "bothering" me. It's not actually bothering, but somehow so many people seem to think sliding into DMs is bothering, ya know?

I'm extremely open to preplotting stuff that happened in characters pasts, and discussing things we hope to achieve, and if we get there, great, if we take detours, well also great, sometimes that happens. Even though I like preplotting, I am pretty flexible on how long it takes to get places - and I'm always open to changing things on the fly if it's what makes the most sense for either of the characters.

Not everyone is like that of course. Might be worth asking when you first start threading with someone if they have a direction they'd like to work towards or if they'd like to just go with the flow - if you're flexible that is. If you, yourself have a preference, it's also very okay (at least in my mind) to state your own preferences and finding some sort of middle ground between your preferences and theirs.

I'm in a similar boat where I'm not an enthusiastic/chatty person and it can come off as uninterested. But there's hope, here is how I cope.

- Generally accept that people prioritize where their interest is and the vast majority of the time that would be their ship or potential ship.
- If you post regularly and reliably people have more trust in you (I'm failing this right now due to Baldur's Gate).
- Be adaptable with plotting. If my partner likes to pre-plot I'll pre-plot. If they're all quiet on the western front then I wing it.
- Read your own post as if you were the other person trying to respond to it. Did you give them enough to go off of, without overwhelming them? If not, edit.
- Sometimes you just don't have chemistry with another person's writing and that's OK.

echoing a lot of ppl here wrt "enthusiasm and energy" — it's a lot easier for me to be enthusiastic and confident about a thread, where it's going, and where it'll go in the bigger picture, making it easy to reply back if the other person shows a similar amount of effort, enthusiasm, energy, and investment. also genuinely SUCH a thing i appreciate. if you talk to me in dms and openly engage, talk about our shit, etc. (esp despite my general npc energy) with me? my dude, i'll love you and be so down to do anything with you quickly. it helps so much. 

i think stallas hit the mark in saying "if you post regularly and reliably". idk, if i see threads left incomplete (esp when its threads w other ppl and not me) it tends to make me feel uncertain just as well, esp on reply speed. it enables taking your sweet time, which is chill, but also tends to lend to a lot of stuff being either slow moving or never going to fruition. (on that, i have SO much respect for people who are willing to take accountability and be communicative/transparent if they can't finish threads, commit to plots, etc. i think its a major plus in rp-ing if you do. pls just talk to me, let me know whats going on, i'll respect it so much and work with that)

i also rlly like introspective threads, philosophical ones, those that are dev'ing characters and their feelings and personalities. so i love more character / personal-focused replies; it lets me do the same, and its just rlly fun to see similar or different opinions between characters. give me that contemplation to read and i'll feel so much compelled to return the favor.

As someone who likes to wing things 70% of the time, I'd say, I do think that, as everyone is saying, The enthusiasm behind posts is what makes me excited. Usually i'm the type of person who lets the other person push a plot if they have one, if not and it's just both of our characters waiting for something to happen, then it gets boring really fast. And I've noticed that happen sometimes, so I think the best way is to switch up your style a bit. Depending on a character or whether they have an agenda in the thread, or if they don't and they are just here to support the other character (s). Even then some threads are just fun where you don't really know where they're going, but they sure are going. I've had some of my best threads just with that or a short premise and just letting it go and see where it falls. 

I also agree that I would rather be able to talk threads and laugh about dumb shit our characters are saying or thinking via DMs or whatever shared space we have. Being able to communicate with your partner, ask if something is okay to do or approach, is very important to me for threads. Like, sure I am threading with your character but I'm also wanting to interact with the person behind the character too. And it doesn't have to be guaranteed every time. 

It's easy for me to rapidfire, when I'm really invested in a thread. And it makes it sound like I'm not very invested in every thread it's just sometimes you're feeling a groove or a character is hitting just right, you just have to let it go. 

I will say, I like several threads with the same characters that are like in a timeline. But sometimes it does mess things up if we're slower on one and the other is ahead so we have to wait for another to finish before we can move on. 

That being said, the tl;dr here is communication between mun and characters, switching it up whether your character is the one with an agenda in the thread, or the other is and your character is supporting, don't always wait for them to make the move, and having FUN! Those threads where you just see where it goes tickle my bones all the time. 

Don't mind me not actually knowing how to use PB anymore...so we're just winging it.

I'm pretty frank with this in my intro's, but this is accurate.  My personal list is typically:

• Ship plots or family dynamic plots (they rank similarly, and there's been times I have prioritized family ones over ship ones)
• Friendly threads with dramaz (I need the sparkle emoji from discord ;-; )
• Misc threads that have drama (maybe not a thread between 2 chars that are friends, just a thread with a lot going on and we're seeing what happens with our chars)
• General friendly threads
• Everything else

not to jump on the bandwagon to parrot others but i definitely prefer to thread with people who seem...excited to thread with me. tbh i'm not that picky, i'll thread with just about anyone at least once. but my biggest pet peeve is if i feel like i am not getting the energy back that i am putting in, and i ain't gonna wanna thread with you again. like who wants to thread with someone who doesn't seem like they care? i have friends who aren't as animated as i am, and i have come to accept that not everyone has the personality of a vibrating cartoon character. but it can be challenging to find someone who matches your excitement and energy sometimes, especially when they don't seem interested at all. communication obviously- but for me it's like christmas morning when people get excited and start dumping ideas on me about our characters unsolicited the way i normally do LMAO

You stated it aptly! Incorporate characters into your greater story, even if they are not present in the thread. Just like in books and movies, where characters will talk about others, whether it be exposition or creating links, we can do the same in roleplay!