OOC // Rules Update #2
(aka the post where I discuss the group's activity rules update)
((So shortened and dirty version:
Here's my tracker, it'll be in my stats page as well. From the main page of my blog, click Muse then Classes and my Thread Tracker will be there. Lmk if said tracker is not working.
After sorting through my backlog this past month, I am formally dropping the following two threads because I have lost energy for them for one reason or another (nothing against muns or their lovely muses as usual): Like Glue @knighteclipsed and Fruit Ninja @luminousrider (there were other muses in this thread that have since dropped so not tagging them)
Lmk if you do not see your thread in the tracker and believe it should be there. Besides the two above, there is one thread (The Lion, the Mermaid, and the Pirate) that is not in the tracker yet because Tumblr was being a bitch when I tried to post + link it. Other than that, if something is missing, my scatterbrained ass prolly just missed adding it in the setup hustle.
Beware I am still slow af as an rp'er, even if I now obviously will be working on bringing things within the new rules about reply speeds. If you do not like slow partners, you still will probably not like rp'ing with me.
I still don't care how slow or fast you are with replies to me.
I will now be going over personal expectations wrt reply speed and stuff with each potential thread I pick up -- both yours and mine. Please be frank and upfront with me about whatever they are, including when something changes.
My new goal for thread replies on my end will be to keep them within the 3 month drop rule, assuming nothing else has been discussed between me and my rp partners OR special circumstances have come up that keeps me away from writing for a prolonged time.
One of those special circumstances is happening this month (June) because I will be taking a hiatus to focus on archive stuff. I will still be continuing to work on my backlog, which has been almost fully brought within the 3 month reply window, but it will not be my primary focus this month, so some threads may go back over this window. Please lmk if this bothers you and I can try to work something out (eg fast track a reply). After that though, these new standards will be in full effect.
I am very sorry to anyone I have upset with my slowness; I hope these changes encourage people to tell me in the future when there's a problem with me if they were afraid to before so we can sort it out.
Longer version:
I of course am one of those slow rp'ers the May newsletter mentions. The potential why's of that are unimportant/irrelevant for this since they don't change anything about it for me or yall. What matters to the discussion the mods' newsletter has brought up is only that I am definitely one of these slowpokes, and also that there seems to be this growing sense of dissatisfaction/frustration/[whichever negative emotion(s) you think fits best here] lurking behind the scenes in regards to reply speed, muse hoarding, etc. Whether these feelings have been brought up to the people they're directed towards, I don't know. Whether those feelings are also directed at me, I also don't know.
I only have one muse at least so hopefully I don't count as a muse hoarder too, but as a slow poster I know that this surely still includes me in some shape. I have responded whenever anything has been brought up to me, but I can't say that has assuaged my concern brought about by the newsletter. I can't fully know for certain if there are or aren't still people who have issues with me but haven't been able to tell me about them. But like the newsletter said, if it has become this pervasive yet silent, I wanted to make a general post/reflection on the info so that everyone in the group, rp partner with me atm or not, knows what to expect from me now after these new rules have been implemented.
This post is not meant to vague my partners or anybody else to be clear; what you do or don't tell me is always gonna be your choice and your business, and I will respect it/never force you to do otherwise. That said, I also don't like the idea of muns potentially having issues with me (or anyone else) but choosing to sit and stew on them/vent to mods instead of taking a stab at bringing them directly to the mun in question at all. Not that I think muns shouldn't report things to mods either of course -- by all means do it -- but I fear a tendency of holding onto these feelings and never wanting to at least also discuss them 1 on 1 will breed a silently corrosive atmosphere prone to resentment and blame even if these rules fix the group reply speed. (If again that is indeed what's going on, since idk if these feelings already were discussed privately or not). And at least on my end, I certainly don't want anybody who interacts with me to feel so trapped that they not only don't wanna talk to me about their issues they have with me, but also just choose to grin and bear it through any threads they may have with me and no longer wanna do just to avoid a confrontation they fear. That's an awful feeling/situation, one that I've been on the other end of before, and I would like to try to control what things I can on my end to hopefully help contribute to an environment where muns are as comfortable discussing grievances and expectations directly as they are taking things to mods. Especially before they are allowed to build like they apparently have if I understood the newsletter right.
So with that all in mind, let's start again with the biggest problem the newsletter brought up -- mun activity/reply speed. As I said, I am one of those who are super slow. I have never pretended any different to myself or to my partners and done my best to be upfront about that. My slowness is, in general, not because I lack interest in a thread or I don't wanna do it anymore -- I would tell you if that was ever the case (as I just did above). This is just what I have been like as an rp'er for years now. I am also very aware of how that slowness can chafe with people, which is why I try to warn about it in my rules so people who wanna start threads with me can make a more informed decision without being blindsided and nope out anytime they want to without worry.
None of anything I've said in this post so far (or will say) is me saying 'well it's your fault if you still went in and felt bad when I'm slow to reply'. Nor is it an attempt to blame people, shift responsibility, or call anybody out, etc. As I said, I have always been aware of how my slowness can piss people off, and those feelings/preferences are valid. My being upfront about it here, in my rules, and all of this in general is not to disrespect people's feelings or set up any gotcha's; it's to try to acknowledge them and not betray any trust and expectations people place in me as an rp partner.
To that end, let me be frank again here: I am still gonna be slow compared to others. Anytime I push myself to be exceptionally faster is never sustainable for me in the longterm, and I'm not gonna pretend that can change all of a sudden.
This isn't me digging my heels in and giving a middle finger to any of the mods, the newsletter, and/or the dissatisfied muns out there who prefer faster partners/thread turnaround. I'm obviously gonna work to bring things in line with the new rules, with my specific goal going forward being that no post gap goes older than the 3 months marker on my end (see bullets above for my thread tracker). And that is just coming from me being realistic here about how much I can conceivably speed myself up. Even if I only have like 5 threads, I am not ever gonna be consistently shooting replies out on the daily either. I will always skew towards whatever slower side of the ratio there is, and be erratic at best. So as I've always said, if you hate slow partners/reply times, I am probably not gonna be able to provide you with an enjoyable threading experience even after I bring my threads up to speed. Don't be afraid to tell me no flat-out if I approach you with an idea or anything either and you know this. It's no skin off my nose, truly, and it spares us both a lot of headache and hurt feelings down the road.
"But what about the part in your rules about no nagging for thread replies? You seem sensitive there about being told certain stuff."
I worry this may have contributed to why some people, if they DID have any grievances with me, never spoke to me about them, or might not in the future if I don't clear it up now. That part of the rule was never about people checking in every so often. It was for people literally asking every day or other day or so on about when a post is going up -- messaging repeatedly within a very small timeframe. Which had been a problem in the past in other groups and does indeed stress me out, so I added that in to prevent it. That's all really. I tried to explain in the rest of that rule section that it is a separate thing from checking in every so often, but if that wasn't clear I hope this is: it's not the same thing. It's ok to ask. Just don't do what I just said further up in this para.
Being on the same page in general is important to me to ensure we both enjoy threading together and know exactly what to expect before even agreeing to start a thread, as I see no point in rp'ing with somebody who hates me or the thread or my slowness or whatever else, and vice versa. On my side at least, I personally do not feel negatively about any of my partners and am always endeavoring to make sure they feel content on their end as well.
I have also encouraged via my rules for people to speak up and tell me when they do feel that way; my dm's/im's are always open and they always will be, and that goes for vice versa too. Unless something so egregious has already happened that it's made me believe I can't speak to you, but the number of those instances are something I can count on like one hand and very much in the past. If there are those harboring negative feelings or grievances towards me out there and you just have been too nervous or disgruntled or w/e else to tell me, be it due to my reply speed or anything else, then I'm sorry. I never want to be a source of such feelings for anybody, or intimidating enough that people are too afraid to say so to me. If you would be willing to let me know about them somehow, then we can work on an answer from there so I don't continue perpetuating things for you, even if you have to have a mod play mediator for you to help you feel ok enough to do it.
There's even several options I can offer depending on what the issue is, such as keeping IC mentions of your muse out of my posts if you, say, have a muse connected to mine. However, I can't correct anything if I don't know about it. Simply coming out and saying you are done and wanna drop interactions counts under this umbrella to me and is totally fine too -- I again would just need you to tell me somehow. Doesn't even need to be a dm in the latter case. I read dash, so just put it there if it works that way. But as I said above, the decision to tell or not tell me is always very much yours to make, and I will respect it still.
I would also like to note that, while communication needs to be clear if rp is to happen (like in general), that doesn't mean it's gotta be frequent. I tend not to talk unless prompted after sorting out initial discussions, just because I have nothing more to say. I assume everything is clear and set up after that point. If I needed to say something else, you'd hear about it, but I just usually don't, and I then assume things are fine on your end too if I hear nothing. If that's not the case then I implore you to tell me.
To that end, my next change I will be implementing from now on will be that, for every potential thread I discuss with a mun, I am gonna preface it with explicit warnings about my post speed, my expectations for the thread, ooc communications, and so on. Basically slap in a condensed disclaimer/reminder about all this stuff I just said so far. And I will be asking about yours as well, with a hope that you update me when/if they change. That way there will hopefully be less hesitation and more understanding/communication to help nip any potential negativity before it gets to fester longterm.
And on that note regarding expectations, know that I still will always not care about YOUR post frequency with OUR threads. I never have, and I've said as much. Take your time, however long that is. And if you gotta do a big catch-up sesh on threads to avoid getting bonked for activity speed, you never have to worry about ours being part of your priority list -- you aren't gonna mess me up if you don't post unless we're in the middle of an event that makes things extra time sensitive. If both of us are of the same mind about this, then great. Maybe we can cut each other some slack and just let that thread go with the flow, if that's ok to do within the group's new speed expectations of course. This isn't me trying to circumvent the mods or anything though. I just figured if all parties are in agreement for a particular thread there wouldn't be any harm being done, especially if they are keeping up with the rest of things just fine. Feel free to correct me though mods!
That's about the extent of the changes I plan to do, as well as my logic behind them. My rules have been updated to reflect these changes. Hopefully this will all be enough to ensure I personally am not contributing to this negativity and satisfying the new speed rules. And hopefully I've made my intentions clear enough here to not have them be misconstrued as some kind of attack or whatnot, or some demand on the group to follow my logic, cause it isn't. Cutting back on any sense of blame and resentment is my goal here, not adding to it, and communication/clarity on expectations is imo just as important to that as speed adjustments. This is just how I have personally chosen to go about it, and I hope that my approach is ok and kosher with group rules. Maybe I'm wayyyy overthinking/overexplaining things here, which I tend to do, but better safe than sorry.
If this is still not good enough to meet new expectations, then we'll re-evaluate from there. Hopefully I can make things work with this though, so fingers crossed.
That's all. Ty for reading.))












