In late May, I announced I was going to be leaving Tumblr in August. That took a huge weight off my shoulders, but part of me did wonder if I could go even further. This may feel as sudden to some of you as my announcement that I was going to be leaving, though I did discuss it with more people this time. Yet at the same time, I feel that not only is it also just a confirmation of something that has been true for the past 5 months, it may end up being for the best.
The past month, and in particular the past two weeks, have been a world of stress for me. I had thought I was doing fine this year, that I had stabilized due to taking a higher dose of my medication as prescribed by my doctor, because things did feel better than they had been before. But I didn’t even realize just how badly I was doing until recently, my mental instability came to a head. Once I came to that realization, I began to reevaluate a lot of things, particularly how I handled my stress and also my relationship to roleplay. I came away with the following conclusions.
The first is that RP doesn’t suit my desires and needs as a writer as much as I thought it did. Not only does it often take place in communities that I’ve already decided are no good for me, it has also become burdensome to me in a way that I only recently was able to articulate. I’m a person who doesn’t like writing slice of life--I love to write huge, epic narratives that rend the heart and stun the senses. But the thing is…I have so many characters and so many massive narratives that I want to take on, and for each character I want to devote that sort of time to, there are like 3 AUs that I also want to give the same treatment to. In the end, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Everything has started to collapse in on me to the point that it has become unbearable. And dropping threads or trying to do smaller things won’t solve this problem, because my brain works primarily in big narratives and I won’t feel as satisfied restricting myself to the smaller stuff. It’s painful, because this is basically damned if I do, damned if I don’t. But I do feel as though if I keep most of my storytelling to worldbuilding, drabbles and character metas in an original setting, I at least won’t feel the pressure to constantly keep up with threads to move the story forward, or even to formally write out all the stories in my head. I can go more at my own pace.
The second is that on the whole, my main engagement in the RPC has been through events, particularly IC Pokémon Contests, and they’re probably more trouble than they’re worth. This isn’t something that’s just limited to the past five months--I feel like this has been a thing since the Galarian Stars Showcase which ended last October, and perhaps something that’s been true to some extent for my entire time RPing. In seven years of Tumblr roleplay, I can recall only finishing one thread that wasn’t part of an RP event, and as I’ve mentioned in the previous point, this leaves me greatly unsatisfied. I love screaming about my muses and plotting stuff, but the follow-through writing usually never happens, especially recently. It got to the point where recently, I’ve been feeling like the only reason I’m even in the RPC is to that I can do events with people…Yet RP events, whether I’m running them or participating, bring all of their own stresses that I don’t need in my life and that I may want to leave behind.
In terms of participating, I noticed that I tend to get way too competitive and obsessed with winning. I don’t take it out on the judges or on fellow contestants, but I still have an issue where I can’t listen to my favorite songs the same way if I use them in an Appeal and don’t win. I have written before that events are fun before winning, but I really needed to take my own advice. What’s more, they also take up an ABSURD of my time. There were seven Appeals--seven, count ‘em, seven--that I wanted to do for existing or upcoming Contests between now and the end of August…and there were two more I wanted to do for an October Contest that I wanted to finish first drafts of before law school started. Even accounting for the fact that I’m no longer obligated to do at least four if not six of those Appeals anymore, I was still prepared to just throw my novel (which I haven’t even worked on for a whole month because I was working on Appeals) out the window and spend every waking moment of my free time entering Pokémon Contests. I was a woman possessed! Even writing this, part of me would still have been willing to write all nine of those Appeals. I know I shouldn’t blame myself too harshly for it; this is probably all a really bad reaction to the fact that as I said before, RP events are my only real connection to this RPC anymore. Still, it’s time to come to terms with the fact I have a problem. I have a serious problem.
That’s to say nothing of running events. While I’m known as the event person around here, that reputation comes with a burden. I don’t talk much about event drama but I have had good friendships of mine obliterated thanks to it, to the point that this would be a major factor if I chose never to host a RP event again. And while I wouldn’t say I’m traumatized by this, I do always have the nagging thought in the back of my head…When event drama rolls around, which of my friendships will be the next to go? There are many people here who I would trust not to leave if we had a spat about event policy, but I’ve been surprised before and I may be surprised again. On the whole, when my only RP is during events and if events are this bad for me, maybe it’s time to put down RP.
The third is that I feel as though the amount of effort I put into my Pokémon RP is more fulfilling when spent on original lore. Like. The amount of blood, sweat, tears and knowledge I have put into my portrayals is unreal, and as I think about it more, it’s rather impractical. I have put any and all of my knowledge and research into my lore--Indigenous issues, Judaism, Russian history, Slavic witchcraft, Japanese culture, anarchist ideology, ancient Chinese philosophy…I want to use all of this to create something bigger.
I had my first taste of it in the past few days. I’ve been working on an original lore document that was based on all the 50k+ words of lore I’ve written for the Pokémon fandom. And let me tell you…the feeling was ecstatic. The idea that I could just worldbuild and meta endlessly, on an original project still deeply tied to a fandom that I will always hold dear, with no obligation to reply to threads, no obligation to be at least somewhat faithful to someone else’s work, and no fear of gaining or losing interactions with it--I felt cleansed. I felt liberated. I felt as though there had been invisible shackles on my arms and legs for the past five months, and now that I was writing original work, it was just gone. I felt light and free, finally able to release a whole mass of tensions that I didn’t even realize I had. I don’t know yet if this will be my forever future. But if it is, it’s one I will embrace with the greatest joy.
I’m still nervous to say definitively that I will be leaving RP. I’m nervous even to say that I want to take a hiatus, let alone leave the hobby for good. Because first of all, there’s the old saying “never say never.” And more importantly, I’m worried about what this could mean for some of my friendships--I have lost contact with dear friends of mine after we stopped RPing, and I know it could happen again. But part of me feels strongly as though one day, if/when I do decide to leave, it will be forever. My life won’t get less busy. I’m gaining, not losing, responsibilities as I get older. I have realized the importance of proactively freeing myself from negativity and limiting thought patterns and activities…Maybe it’s time for me to free myself from this as well.
Thank you all again for being with me on my journey. Wherever I go, I hope our journey together can continue.
prguitarman
gummygunk
stormborns
areudirty
vaporwave
janainaart
annaxmalina
