what's on your mind: RP Edition

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how do you get active in the discord though. i have a few people in mine but i'm an awkward turtle and never know how to break the ice!
“Hi everyone, what’re you up to?”
"Once upon a time I was a baker and everybody was impressed. But I didn’t need approval because I already knew I was the best. Everything I made was a masterpiece - it all taste like heaven! But then unfortunately I turned seven."
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It’s rough out there ngl. I’m putting my whole heart and soul into something that I’m scared will flop. When you don’t have a built in group or rp friends, it’s taking a huge chance to make a site. Even to join one tbh. And there is a dearth of sites to choose from. I spent months looking before I caved and started building mine bc I wasn’t feeling the vibe or the content of current sites. It’s nothing personal at all, it’s just that I don’t want to join a site and end up that awkward island by himself in the corner.

So I feel the anxiety angle and the dissatisfaction with the current choices. All we can do is keep creating and hope something sticks!

Oh, man, I really do agree with the 'rp friends' bit. My own site aspirations are a bit of a pet project, more than something I expect to finish any time soon for the sake of a 'home' for myself, but I agree that I don't really have a super big community of core friends who do play-by-post anymore. I have friends who play on discord, but it's not really the same.

I'm a little shy by nature, and I'm criminally bad at keeping in touch. I think there are people I wish I'd messaged and tried to make friends with in DMs/more closely while I could, but it's really easy to feel like the outsider. In that sense, I think I do understand and 'get' people who ghost sites. Sometimes it's easier to run away when you don't really feel like you belong. It's a big leap to take, especially when you aren't coming in with a friend or a connection.

In a happier sense, though, (sorry for whatever that was up there!) I really like small-knit communities, too! I think I (as a roleplayer/writer) do tend to look more at activity over how big a memberbase is. If a member base is small, but they're posting pretty consistently (3-4 posts a day on the whole site is enough to me, usually), it's just as inviting as a big member base that's racking up the same amount of posts per day. People, at their core, really care about reliability; it's just that I think it's harder and harder to find those reliable spaces when you're too scared to take the first jump. I'm scared, too.
last edit on Jun 3, 2024 16:57:29 GMT by capsella
I'm @capsellas on discord! Feel free to reach out if you need anything.
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felt on the serial flakers thing. there are a lot of people that like the aesthetic of RP but don't actually ever. rp. it's part of why I wouldn't ever recommend making a site someone says they want to see in that thread. make a site you want to play on. don't bother catering to the community.

there's also a list of people whose sites i won't join because they close and open too many sites, so I feel like that's part of why some sites are Dead on Arrival. i would absolutely give these people a chance after the site's been open for a while, but I've been burned too many times by brand new sites made by serial site creators.
last edit on Jun 3, 2024 17:26:37 GMT by illidan main

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Possibly gonna get a bit ranty but here we go.

Yeah, I get it, we're all nerdy, shy, probably socially anxious and bad at keeping in touch for various nd-related reasons. But someone has to be the one to make the effort. Sometimes that person is me. When it gets to the point that I feel like I'm the only one making any effort to reach out, I have to remind myself to stop trying, to not get over-invested because it will only make myself upset, but there's still that small part in the back of my mind that likes to tell me that everyone else is having a grand old time private messaging with each other and ignoring me (which is absolutely their prerogative, don't get me wrong!) because I'm not actually liked or wanted anywhere.

anyway my rp confession is "rp friends? haha what's a friend"
last edit on Jun 3, 2024 17:41:53 GMT by Jenesis
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nah, not ranty, it makes total sense. i'm shy and socially awkward and anxious but I'm pushing myself to get out there anyway. gotta push past the awkward parts and sure, it's work sometimes but I feel like it'll be so worth it when things get moving on the site! even though I'm scared and awkward I'm also excited!

haha, well rp friends for me are friends that also rp. I had some but after we all quit, I'm the only one in my group that has come back, hence... no rp friends. so I'll just have to make new ones !
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I prefer smaller communities but I don't go out of my way to shun larger either. However, the attitude is more of an issue for me. What I want out of rp is rarer and rarer it seems and since I really don't care to ask people to budge on it. If we don't jive, we don't jive. I care about reliability, understanding, reading comprehension, more of an informed consent model than others. So yeah, some communities are harder for me to click with. (let's not count all the times people think I'm scary tho) - but rp friends are hard to come by and keep since I think a lot of people want *friends* but they don't even want to try to be acquaintances first. This means feeling each other out, if there's big issues that there isn't friction later, etc.

Like I've known Nightbloom and Sister Ghoul for like 5+ years and I have gone through heck and back with them and our issues. I have people who will randomly message me *months* later and ask 'hey I'm going through a rough time, do you have any cat pics' and I am happy to do so. Just because I don't talk to someone for months/years doesn't mean we can't just stick together like glue again. I am happy I made friends wherever I can whether it's super close or not. Heck, my HUSBAND was from rp, so while it is rarer cause the world is on fire and we're adults, I think we can all make friends. If anyone wants to make friends with me, just dm me and ask me for my discord. lol. I'm being serious.

If I don't answer I'm probably taking care of the 7 kittens I have currently or hospitalized, but yeah. I think that since we all take part in this hobby that sometimes we want a super strong connection right from the get go but I think we can all eventually have that.

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In that sense, I think I do understand and 'get' people who ghost sites. Sometimes it's easier to run away when you don't really feel like you belong.
I wouldn't describe it as "run away" when you "don't [...] feel like you belong." If a site makes you feel like you don't belong, then leaving is the logical course of action. Especially because there's a stigma on confronting people about it, because that's drama and there's no war in Ba Sing Se.
"Once upon a time I was a baker and everybody was impressed. But I didn’t need approval because I already knew I was the best. Everything I made was a masterpiece - it all taste like heaven! But then unfortunately I turned seven."
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on the topic of ghosting: as someone who became a serial ghost, i can get it a lot more as to why people do it. for me, i found that it is because of my overall life schedule. i just didn't have a lot of time. but i didn't want to be left out of participating in the sites that interested me.

the crowd i followed around sites was super hard to keep up with. a lot of people had more time to dedicate to the roleplay than me. if you didn't post within a week (sometimes even a few days), interest in the thread would begin to wane. events and plots went by quicker than i could manage. it was so stressful. thus, i had a harder time posting and decided to dip soon after.

so,,, uh,,, when is the slow-paced roleplay trend coming? :sweats:
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so,,, uh,,, when is the slow-paced roleplay trend coming? :sweats:


Isn't that the here and now already?

Speaking as someone who started roleplay in the early days of Proboards where 10 posts a day was considered normal, and posting once every day was already slow... Then at some point, someone came in and said there was this thing called "liquid time" where you could...not roleplay in real time.

Wild, man.
"Once upon a time I was a baker and everybody was impressed. But I didn’t need approval because I already knew I was the best. Everything I made was a masterpiece - it all taste like heaven! But then unfortunately I turned seven."
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Am I the only one who wants to use the fancy words on those aesthetical images? They are just so pretty and sometimes I wanna stroke my ego while saying "Yeeah! I'm so smart. >:3 Look at me."
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The issue I have with ghosting is less the fact you ghosted and more the member’s list clutter; and I understand 100% why that’s probably just a me thing.

I’d have less issue if the ghosters just left rather than clutter up the sidebar….and I know it’s stupid but sometimes in my personal discord server I have to rearrange or delete channels because the amount there are makes my brain angry af.
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Uh, if it's just on Discord, you could ping them and tell 'em to get out because you don't want people cluttering your sidebars.
"Once upon a time I was a baker and everybody was impressed. But I didn’t need approval because I already knew I was the best. Everything I made was a masterpiece - it all taste like heaven! But then unfortunately I turned seven."
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The issue I have with ghosting is less the fact you ghosted and more the member’s list clutter; and I understand 100% why that’s probably just a me thing.

I’d have less issue if the ghosters just left rather than clutter up the sidebar….and I know it’s stupid but sometimes in my personal discord server I have to rearrange or delete channels because the amount there are makes my brain angry af.


befriend the regular activity sweep, imo

if someone hasn't posted on the discord nor on the site itself in the past ~3 months there should be no hard feelings about them being deleted off the server (unless they're undergoing an extensive hiatus period but specifically stated their intention to stay on and lurk, ig)
last edit on Jun 4, 2024 22:22:14 GMT by Jenesis
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The issue I have with ghosting is less the fact you ghosted and more the member’s list clutter; and I understand 100% why that’s probably just a me thing.

I’d have less issue if the ghosters just left rather than clutter up the sidebar….and I know it’s stupid but sometimes in my personal discord server I have to rearrange or delete channels because the amount there are makes my brain angry af.
As someone who only leaves discord servers when I get kicked out or hit discord's cap for joining servers, part of it is that I rarely ghost because I want to. If that makes sense? Any time I think of "officially" leaving there's that voice in the back of my head that's like "but this would be so fun if you could just get your footing" even if that almost never happens.

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