Because when I first started, I was too shitless to ask anyone for pointers or help :)
If someone follows you/follows you back, do a starter. Even if it's only a gif and a single sentence - do something. That's the only way you're going to start interacting with people.
If someone has dashes (-) in the url, leave them out in the tag, otherwise they won't know you've tagged them: wipe-my-ledger-clean = wipemyledgerclean.
Read the 'about' sections before you interact - their character might be AU, comic-verse or movie-verse, you won't know unless you check first ;)
Always reblog as a text post. tumblr has an awful habit of changing things to link posts. If you get a little confused, just look to the top of the page, you should see a button that says 'reblog as...' click that and select text post.
If your text posts get long, please skim them down, it clogs up the dash - and people may get tired of scrolling past. What I do is, when the posts start to get long and one letter a line, I select everything above my partner's last post and delete it before adding my new reply.
There is a very fine line between reminding someone and tormenting them. Sometimes people get caught up with other RPs, sometimes they can't find a way to respond to a reply. Reminding is okay, but seriously guys - don't start sending messages every couple of minutes, I can guarantee you'll end up making the person feel extremely guilty and they might not want to continue RPing with you.
Never, ever, ever, ever, EVER, just jump into someone else's thread. Not unless you've been asked to jump in, or you've plotted/asked for your character to be included. It's kinda rude.
Do not steal other people's headcanons. Please. People put an awful lot of effort into these, and the point of them is for you to develop your character and discover headcanons of your own. Each character is supposed to be unique - take the time to put the effort into your own, you'll find you'll have better grasp of the character.
Don't criticise someone else's interpretation of a character - to each their own. Respect that.
If you don't want to put smut under a read more break, let people know on your account, just a quick word saying it might be nsfw (not safe for work) will do fine.
RPers - make sure you're above the age of consent before RPing smut - it might sound completely ridiculous in an age where everything is sexualised, but seriously. You mighn't think it's a big deal, but it's the older RPers who can get in to some serious shit because of it. It's not fair.
Don't sit there bemoaning the fact that no one interacts with you - do you reply to the open starters others post? If not, then you can't really complain. That's why people post them.
Anon hate? Smile, be polite and tell them to go fuck themselves. Then fuck themselves sideways - we're here because we enjoy RPing, if they don't like it, that's fine. But who are they to tell us to stop doing something we enjoy?
Know the difference: passed/past, you're/your, there/their/they're, it's/its. Small, but it makes a big difference.
If you're going to be using different languages in your RPs, have some consideration for the people who might be following the thread, or your partner themselves - we're not all multi-lingual. And it gets a bit tiresome switching tabs between tumblr and google translate. If you're going to use it, then do hover text :) It's simple enough: type in/paste in the words you want in the chosen language. Highlight the words and go to the 'insert link' button. When the window opens up, write the English translation in the 'title' area, then press insert. Now when a person holds their cursor over the words, the English translation will hover show up for them alongside the cursor.
