Aren't you tired of toxic roleplay experiences? Don't you just want to go ape shit? Well you've come to the right place. Here we vent experiences with the worst engagements the RPC has ever spat out into the ether yet. There will hopefully also be some good lessons taught here on how to stay away from such players in your groups, or indie's, or whatever else you desire to express your writing. But I'm sure if you're here, you've come across terrible roleplayers who just can't seem to get behind the idea that this hobby is meant to be enjoyed. I know I sure have. I know my friends on this site and Discord sure have. It's time to address it. It's time to lay it bare and change things in the RPC to make it not only a better place for ALL roleplayers. But a safer place for people to come and enjoy this hobby as a community, which we are severaly lacking that these days. Community, that is.
"I am compassionate, not insane."
The takeaway for me is that a society with only compassion and empathy but no justice or discernment is like a car with an engine and gas but no brakes or steering.
Toxic empathy is the tool used to facilitate this: "When I am weaker than you I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles"- Frank Herbert
Another key aspect of empathy I find people rarely consider is its basis in perception, imagination, and theory of mind. You’re not feeling the other person's emotions, you are feeling what you imagine the person's emotions to be, based on how your TOM interprets your perceptual inputs of the social situation. Some people are good at accurately sensing and interpreting others’ feelings, many (if not most) people are horrible at it, and more often than not, project their own baggage into the situation, distorting reality. Add to the fact that culture glorifies empathy, so people will vainly overactivate their empathy and thus project even more. End result is cringingly annoying AF
Empathy is simply the ability to understand and share in what others feel. It doesn't suggest a course of action. Just because you can empathize with someone doesn't mean you need to give them everything they want.
They're manipulating you and using your empathy against you.
Something I have noticed over the years as a roleplayer is the increased excuse of 'so and so making so and so uncomfortable' and that almost automatically ending in a player (almost always the player accused no matter if it's true or not.) Players get kicked out of roleplays for this. For this! It's ridiculous. No one wants to write and make other people uncomfortable. I would hope not. But on the other hand, players can't know you're uncomfortable unless you tell them. No one can read your mind, and no one can understand your personal feelings unless you share them (Nor should they be expected to be empathetic to you just because you have them, you're feelings are your responsibilities, not everyone else's, we can accept to cater to them or not, that doesn't make anyone a bad guy. No one has to accept you were uncomfortable over something trivial or fictional, because your emotions and sensitivities are not shared amongst the rest of the population to the same degree, sorry to say. Some of us don't fold like lawn chairs over every gust of fucking wind, Sharon, and you're just going to have to get the fuck over it or go somewhere else, maybe off the internet till you can fucking use it properly, who knows. but if you're in the god damn RPC you better get really fucking chill with writing fictional scenarios real fucking quick.) Even so, that shouldn't be an automatic removal. Yet every so often I keep seeing it. A player gets removed, you ask why they were removed.
"Oh. So and so said I was making them uncomfortable for something I wrote." In a fictional setting, between fictional characters. And don't give me this bullshit "There are consequences for what you write." Yes, there can be. Yes, you should make sure players all feel comfortable. But you should at least talk this discomfort out, together, instead of taking sides. Because what I'm learning in recent years about those players who are the first to cry 'discomfort' are just crybullies. They cry wolf because they aren't getting their ways. They target players who don't let them get their way by going to admins about their discomfort instead of talking to the player they claim are the source of the discomfort.
Again, don't give me this bullshit "Oh why would that player want to talk with someone who is making them uncomfortable?" Because that's how proper fucking communication works. You have to talk things out, to reach a mutual understanding. It isn't just 'I tell you I don't like thing you did, you obey now' that's not how communication works. It's 'I didn't like thing you did, is there a way to work this out' and if not, then that's just how it is. Unless the player is a danger to you and other players. Danger here meaning, unfictional danger, not in character writing, either. Like this player is making physical and abusive threats to you, the player. Not their fictional character, to another fictional character, even your fictional character.
Beware of players like this in your roleplays, because they are only there to satisfy their own needs and will target your players who do not bend to their wants and wishes. The players are not their toys. We are all here to write and enjoy the roleplaying experience and exploring our characters in fictional worlds or settings. We don't have to obey another players sensitivities just because they 'felt uncomfortable' over fictional writing. Your discomfort ends when it becomes solely about you being uncooperative/understanding and expecting that it be the only side that is understood because you feel that way. We all feel a way, sometimes, sometimes just talking to someone who makes you uncomfortable without expecting them to do as you want, isn't going to fucking hurt you.
So stop using 'this player made me uncomfortable' as a way to get your way, because it's actually gross, you're ruining the community, and go fuck yourself. I hope anyone who has, is, or is considering this behavior in the future, honestly, has the worst fucking experiences in the roleplay community. You deserve no peace from your future of isolation once everyone gets tired of being so nice to you, that they start noticing you've ruined the entire area around you because, it's not just one instance of 'this one player makes me uncomfortable', there is always going to be another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another... And many roleplayers are just going to keep letting you do it, because they think they are being nice, they think they are being kind.
When really, they aren't. Not to you, not to themselves, not to all those they subject you to. These words cannot save you, because your image of kindness is more important to this community than actual kindness. If a player like that popped up it's ugly head, I'd shove it back down immediately. Not ignore it's grievances, of course, but consider its 'discomfort' as low grade. Because I'm tired of hearing about discomfort over something that's not even fucking real.
How some roleplayers treat this hobby vs how I treat this hobby.
Don't "you treat it so seriously bro." me. It's because I'm just happy to be able to fucking write with other people, and don't need everything to be perfect. "or wait on the 'muse'". Baby, it's not coming, just write.
Them: You shouldn't say anything when someone hurts you.
Me: Sounds like cowardice, and I don't know, maybe like you told them I said something?
Me: *Gets in a fight with the people abusing me on discord* Bye, freaks, see ya, I got better shit to do than argue about how awful and abusive you all are.
Them: See, what did i say?
Me: Nothing that's going to get you or me anywhere, but seeing as you only want to RP with those people, I guess we aren't roleplaying together anymore!
Them, only about three months later and us not saying anything to each other, as I suspect, unless I was the one starting the conversation: *Suddenly gasps, unfriends me on discord, oh no*
Me: Go ahead and just confirm my suspicions that you were a rat and/or, didn't want to be my friend because I like to tell people to stop abusing everyone. Have fun with those messy, abusive, dramatic bitches, though, I guess. *-Blocks them on discord so they will never have the opportunity of coming back either, I don't want to play with them, and the compliance with abuse toward people, as I have already moved on to new groups of people, who are significantly better than the old group I was in and haven't have one single problem in nearly three years with these groups, as I did just that ONE group, who was always having some issue with someone every god damn week. Me mostly because I didn't give a damn about their crying about not being able to abuse people. Sorry? But, nah, we don't do that here. You are mad I wouldn't let you be abusive? Boo hoo. it offends you that I wouldn't let you mistreat people? CRY ABOUT IT!-* They can fucking have you. Because apparently that's where you want to be. With a group of abusers who justify their actions by saying I am mean to them. When I'm MEAN TO THEM BECAUSE THEY FUCKING ABUSE PEOPLE?!
It is endlessly amusing to me how pathetic role players are these days. They either aren't role playing, and they are confused why their group dies. Or enabling people not role playing, and confused why their group dies. Like, baby girl, it's because you let your muns take three weeks to write fucking replies, and play over a handful of muses they aren't role playing? What did you think you were doing? Being nice? Being respectful? Being helpful?
Meanwhile that mun, or those muns, are going on Hiatus every other fucking week, and just, lingering online, lurking and not, I don't know, actually enforce rules? You do know it's NOT normal to wait a month for one reply on a character, just to do it AGAIN for the next month? Right? Do you understand how anti-productive that kind of shit is?
<Mun writes lengthy ...two paragraph reply, then fucks off for a month, because apparently this takes a lot of out them?>
<One Month Later they finally build up the energy to write the next part of the plot which no one FUCKING REMEMBERS BY NOW! So now we have to change it, or write an entirely new thread, with a NEW plot, or to fit the plot (if we are in a group) JUST TO DO THIS SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN NEXT MONTH!>
This is literally madness. Learn to fucking role play. Enforce your fucking rules. You aren't being 'kind' just because you give clearly active role players more time. They aren't respecting you and your guidelines; that's the issue. So you either make them reply or get rid of them. Because it's not productive having 32 players in the game, and only 4 are writing at least weekly, and the other players, also playing five muses are more, are dropping in with ONE muse of theirs, a month or so, to reply to one mun, who is also never online?
Are you stupid? Because you have to be to think that this shit's okay. This isn't role playing. This is just lazy bitches who are sitting in on the hobby hoping someone will give them the light of day, and if they don't get it, they wait, or make everything smutty or shippy. It's fucking stupid. Especially in group role plays. When you're supposed to, I don't know, interact with the group on building a plot?
ONLY!
You can never actually do any plots?! Want to know why!? Because some asshole is too busy worrying about their SHIP or getting their muses dicked down! or having their pussy eaten. Like, shut the fuck up, loser. Why are you so obsessed with something you're not even having? Sex isn't all writing, or even role playing is about, you dipshits.
It's a facet of life, not the epitome, stupid. Learn to write. Some of you all only write this kind of shit, or make it the focus of your 'plots' because you have the creativity of a rodent. Actually, I think rodents are at least more creative.
Aww, you're being mean. Noo. I'm being honest. Anyone who wants to role play would want to actually, I don't know, do it?!
Instead of pretending to?!
Does that make sense to any of you? If you like doing something, you do it?
If I like playing the fucking guitar, I'm not going to wait two months between playing it?
You like sex? More power to you. Write about it all you want, I guess. Even though it lacks creativity. As long as you're role playing and have a group of people who like it too.
Which clearly seems to be the main pull on this site, god-damn.
So no real shade there, just, what the fuck are you even doing?
“I'm a writer!” And your entire catalogue is you writing the shittiest smut and more boring ship known to man.--yeah, you're a writer, Mhm. You definitely wrote…something.
JUST DON'T TAKE A MONTH!?
And then you get assholes who are just isolating other players. Because they don't like them. Or something was done that now they are offended about. BUT that player isn't going to TELL you what you did. You have to read their fucking minds! Figure it the fuck out, what are you, stupid? You can't read minds? You weren't given the gift of mind-reading? LIKE MEEE?! No, please, make people feel isolated and stupid for several weeks, to years, until it is imagined into the worst possible scenario because YOU didn't want to have a conversation. YOU had the problem. But somehow it's MY responsibility to figure it the fuck out.
And the most moronic part of all of this, is when you DO actually talk, you might, and very often find out. Everything YOU thought, the reason YOU mistreated someone, is because of a miscommunication? And then, you try an excuse for why “oh, they did this though?” So the fuck what, if no one was hurt, or they apologized, when made aware of the infraction. Act accordingly? But no, you want to hate someone. So you will hate them. Even if that means making other people hate that person, too?
Some of the people in this space are so pathetic and ruining everything. But we all have to sit around and coddle them when they no longer deserve it and shouldn't be allowed in the space if they are going to behave in an untoward manner toward people. When they aren't even themselves, role playing? We have given them too much power.
And enough with the 'affiliates' bullshit. You aren't that special, be so for fucking real. “Oh, I'm trying to protect my space.” No. Here's what you are actually doing: you're trying to ostracize people you don't like, often for the most tepid of reasons, and you're projecting that to the rest of your followers. Fuck you. You absolute garbage human being. You don't belong in this space.
“Oh. I'm not doing that.” Yes, you absolutely are. Because that's the only trajectory something like that has. Fuck you. You are disgusting. Role playing isn't supposed to be about that. It's supposed to be about writing stories together. It's something you would have learned if you weren't wrapped up in the thought experiment some players have been going through, where they get popular off of pretending to do good, pretending to project good things. But ultimately, they have been fostering the ruin of the community.
And dipshits have eaten it up. Acting like this shit's good. It's not. You need to learn proper role play etiquette. Unfortunately, so few people in this space, on this site, remain who actually believe in its philosophies anymore.
“You take this hobby too seriously, like it's some kind of job.” No. I treat it like it's a fucking hobby I want to DO! I don't treat it like it's a hobby I hate doing and am forced to fucking be here? Unfortunately. I have to interact with people who don't belong here! Which is the only forced part, other than that, I go and write and role play anywhere the fuck else. Easily.
“What if the ways of role playing in the old days were just too problematic?” It wasn't. Just because you like isolating people and excluding parties, doesn't mean your modern take on role playing is any better. When it's statistically not. Most of the modern role players spend their days not role playing, smutting, shipping, and plotting scenarios they are never even going to start, before finishing. Whereas in the old days, even if you hated a role player, you usually still interacted with them. I'm not advocating for that, of course. But, also back before this new bullshit of the last several years, you at least had a good reason to hate someone.
Like, they made fun of you and your writing. In the current day, you have your muse say the wrong thing and you're cast into the void, and anyone is allowed to spew some fake bullshit about you to keep you there. No one ever LETS GO OF FUCKING ANYTHING. They want you to grow as a person. But they aren't going to help you, or even tell you what you did wrong. Then, somehow, if you do manage to grow as a person, that's never enough for them. You have to completely change yourself, entirely.
They want you to be their machine, their pet. Their little toy. That's the problem with not just the modern state of role playing. But the social culture of the internet today, period. And it's disgusting. You are disgusting if you think that's better than what we had. You don't know what you've lost for this.
Me, minding my business: *-Writes my muses like I like writing my muses-*
Losers: I HATE YOU, your muses annoy me. You sometimes spell words wrong. Why do you write like your muses are the main characters?! MINE IS THE MAIN CHARACTER, YOU FUCK!
Me: Okay Regina, calm your cunt for a moment. Jesus, I'm just writing my muse and enjoying doing it. It's not my fault I enjoy writing my muses and YOU don't enjoy writing your muses, so my muses are able to get more 'screen time' you know. You could fucking write YOUR muse as if you are writing them as a main character, instead of, IDK, FORCING everyone else NOT to write their muse as better than your muses, when they are, and when your muses is a WEAK pale comparison of another, or doesn't like what mine, or other peoples muses have to say or some other bullshit. YOU can also, pfft, I don't know, can't add more brain cells to the count, unfortunately. BUT YOU COULD TRY WRITING YOUR DAMN MUSES. As if they are muses YOU are writing and not my problem.
Loser: But your muse did THIS to my muse, and now I don't have muse for my muse and don't want to even be here. BWAHMP BWAMP BWAMP!
Me: The fuck should I care? Seek help for your inferiority complex and call me never you waste of fucking time. When you learn how to ACTUALLY roleplay, instead just sitting there being a green monster with your envy issues. I'll be avoiding you in another group, because, I'm sick, and tired, of you people, running the RPC into the ground because you refuse to roleplay, and are mad at the people who do. I rather fucking roleplay with a fucking brick than see you in any more of the RPC crying about some nonsense and expecting your tears to be seen as anything more than crocodiles. You selfish, inconsiderate, bitch. AND your muses being mad on your part is the WORST portrayal I've fucking seen. Knock it the fuck off. "My muse is a sweet baby till I'm mad" worst fucking writing, you incompetent moron. It's YOUR muses personality, not YOURs, god. Stupidest motherfucker on the factory floor, honestly. You're the guy who would stick his damn hand in the meat grinder 'to see what it does' GRIND MEAT! Go anywhere else, get out of the RPC "What would happen if I don't roleplay my character" Well Gretchen, let's see, you don't get anything you deserve nothing, and everyone hates you. No matter how many times my muses make you feel bad, everyone HATES YOU MORE than you can ever make them hate me. And I'm tired of being the scapegoat for your bad behavior never being checked, because my imaginary person wasn't doing things the way you WANTED. You are fucking stupid. That's all. It's not my fault you're fucking stupid. It's yours! It's no one else's fault you suck. It's yours! Your responsibility is to sell YOUR muses. And your muses are cunts. And no one likes them because all they are is 'I'm am a sweet angle till you make my mun mad!' Fuck you. You aren't a roleplayer. You're an interloper trying to fit in a circle cutout when you're a square. You want designer muses, go play D&D and tell everyone about how stupid your muse is, they love that shit over there. I'm sure having two personality traits and the ability to fuck every situation you're in up will go swimmingly over there for your muses.
When your character says something to describe how another character looks. But the muns get upset and instead of talking it out like adults. They don't have enough 'spoons' for it. Get over yourself. Talk like a fucking adult. Do you think either one of you wants to have that conversation? No, dipshit. But an adult has that conversation to clear the air and offer apologies and talk it over because they are an adult. A child hides in their fucking room (Metaphorically) and demands their tantrum be heard. Along with any demands they make during it. It's pathetic. Roleplayers who behave this way are pathetic and need to be treated as fairly as they treat others. Not fairly at all. You can be uncomfortable, and not like what a muse said, or even what a mun said. But you cross the line when you make no attempts to reconcile this with the mun. You are a child. Get out of the RPC, you don't belong here. Grow the fuck up and act right, or don't come here.
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.
I remember just starting out with this hobby. I was scouring the internet, listening to Inuyasha AMV's, you know, as you do, when you're a child with limited access to the internet. That's all I would do. Then, I found this site where people would be writing back and forth with one another. I had no idea what it was at the time. But I wanted to do that. I had to find a way to do that. But I was nervous about it. After all, I'm just some kid watching fucking Inuyasha AMV's, for the most part. So over the next few days I would try and find a place where I COULD WRITE with other people too.
That's all I could think about. I wanted to write. I wanted to write with other people. It was like, finally finding a purpose in life, to me. Not that I would notice this sort of...realization, till much later. But I set my course, this is what I wanted to start doing. I was too nervous about the site I originally found, and I had also lost it after the initial time I'd found it. It was just a bare bones kind of roleplay site, i'm pretty sure. Anyway, so, I searched for this activity and I found it was called roleplaying. Then I searched sites where roleplaying was taking place. Eventually, I had landed on Gaiaonline.
I was excited, but nervous still. Where was I going to start this journey? How? Would anyone even want to write with me? I don't know what I am doing! But I'm learning. That's the most important thing. I'm trying to get into this hobby. I'm trying to understand it. I go to school, thinking about it. I'm getting more interested in books outside of the one's with pictures in them. This is something I REALLY want to do. Then, one day, I get home. I find that a new roleplay group had started, and I figure "Ah well, it's new. It's going to have people in it that might be new to this like me, or at least, maybe new to each other, right?" So I applied with my very first muse. She was an angel with black wings, I know. HAHAHA, very original. But this was the kind of characters that were listed as being part of the story.
So, that's where I first started, I did one reply, no one answered. But that wasn't because I was a bad writer. No. That was because no one was actually writing at all in this roleplay, period. With each other, let alone, at all. So that was my first experience with this hobby. Disappointment. But I had broken the barrier, I wasn't as nervous anymore. I had done it! I did it. I was free. After that, I joined another RP. Here is where some troubles began. Where I first noticed the problems that would later plague Gaiaonline's roleplaying community, pretty much destroying it. The same behavior that now holds it's death grip on this RPC, too. The writing is on the walls. There's no stopping most of many those who are in our community and behaving badly. But we can try and show people how they should be engaging with this hobby we all mutually love. Right? I'd hope so.
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.
