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Why You Don't Actually Want to RP With Me
a year ago
So hey everyone, this is a bit of a PSA sort of journal. It's for both you guys and for myself, because I keep fumbling into the same issue. Namely, I will get a jonesing for an RP despite my self imposed moratorium and decide to bend my rules and try looking for RP again, and this inevitably leads to disappointment. I want to put this out here, both for everyone else to understand my self-imposed RP ban and to remind myself why I should keep consistent with it.
WHY DOESN'T LIGHTEST START NEW RPs ANYMORE?
So you guys all probably know the main surface level reason, I talked it about it on my journals awhile back. When I started taking my journey as a furry writer seriously I decided I wouldn't want to spend so much time on Roleplaying when I could be spending time writing. And while that's certainly true, it's actually not the only reason why I decided to quit RPing. There's a myriad list of reasons and I want to break them all down for you now. This will help perhaps ease the disappointment for people I turn down, and remind me to resist the temptation to start new RPs when the bug starts to nibble at me.
The list is presented in a random order and isn't meant to be sorted by intensity or validity.
#1: I want to focus on my writing: Yes you know this one already but I want the list to be exhaustive and this is still just as valid as before. Time and creative energy spent setting up and running a new RP is time and creative energy not spent on stories that have been in progress for gods know how long.
#2: I have too many partners already: Contrary to how it sounds, I haven't stopped ALL my RPs, my moratorium is on starting new ones. There's people I've had longstanding stories with who I still barely find time to keep up with. It wouldn't be fair to these people if I kept adding more new RPs to my list. Moreover, you probably don't want to ask me to start a new one when I am a lot more likely to want to focus on my older longstanding ones first. You'd feel left out and it'd suck.
#3: I suck at maintaining focus, like, seriously: For those unaware, yes I am very neurodivergent. Been diagnosed on the autism spectrum and I also have some ADHD traits. This means that even when I'm enjoying an RP, all it takes is one significant distraction like my parents phoning me or a new video game announcement video dropping to cause me to completely fucking forget the scene I'm in the middle of. I've done this even to my closest friends and best partners, and yes I am ashamed of it and am trying to improve. But controlling my brain problems is kind of an eternal uphill battle, and my partners who still deal with it are infinitely patient and I appreciate it. You may not like being balls-deep in a sex scene only for me to completely fucking space it because my mom texted me the latest family drama.
#4: Work sucks the soul out of me: So yeah, as I mentioned above, I am autistic and yet I also maintain a full time day job. Add in the fact that I am massively introverted too, causing all socialization at work to be even more draining to me. Every weekday I come home feeling like a dessicated corpse, and I collapse into my chair to try and rehydrate my brain with relaxing video games and videos. I often only just barely have enough time to get to a minimum level of human again to handle going back to work tomorrow morning. This makes trying to set up a serious RP immensely difficult. I can't exactly set up a proper story for an RP when my brain feels like a raisin due to the misery of being an autistic person working in a job meant for neurotypicals.
#5: Scheduling is HELL: So you know from Point #4 above that weekdays are already ruled out for RP for me, but what about weekends? Well, then there's other problems. I spend the mornings of all my weekends at the coffee shop working on my writing. I'll go in from 7AM-3PM on Saturday AND Sunday morning to work essentially a full time shift on my writing. But what about afterward? Well, on Saturdays I run a full D&D game for my brother and his friends, and on Sundays I'm a player in another D&D game. And needless to say, after writing for 8 hours straight and then tabletop roleplaying for another 2-4 hours after that, my brain is exhausted and drained. This leaves no days left where I have free time AND mental energy. This is already a problem for my existing RP partners, who I have severely neglected too.
#6: I find casual, non-story RPs to be IMMENSELY FUCKING BORING: Seriously. If an RP is only just sex, I might as well just pull up a porn video and get my rocks off easier that way. I get ZERO engagement or interest in "Meet n' fuck" type RPs. I need an actual long term story behind an RP to keep me interested. But this issue combos lethally into point #4 above. I can't enjoy RPs without story, but there's no time when I have any actual spare mental energy to dedicate to setting up such a proper long term story. This is why I still keep at my few current existing long term story RPs, at least they already have their settings and plots all set up and I can just drop in for easy scenes within them. The only times I actually like casual plotless smut are with people I already know and trust deeply, and there's like 3 people on the entire fucking planet who I love that much. (You know who you are!)
#7: My cravings are EXTREMELY fickle: Anyone who's RPed with me before knows this is a huge problem of mine. One day I'll be craving a twinning scene with my Draenei, then I'll see some new Pokemorph smut that tickles my pickle and suddenly I wanna drop that Arina scene and do a Pokemon based scene as Lightest. Then the Lilith urge strikes, or a craving for shaftbeasts, or something else entirely. Sometimes these wild craving swings can happen multiple times per day. All it takes is me seeing a hot picture that activates neurons in my brain and BOOM, time for a different scene entirely. Naturally this can be immensely irritating for my partners, and it means I often have several parallel stories running with the same person that we switch back and forth between. This also combos lethally with Point #3 above, because my focus is terrible I will often space out and forget these different parallel stories too.
#8: I'm UBER-PICKY: This gets its own bullet point separate from #7 because it is so intense. Even when I plan a scene out with someone and we have every single plot beat and idea all outlined in extensive detail, RP is an interactive medium with unpredictable humans and this inevitably leads to deviations. And me having the novel writer's brain means that these small deviations can often still be enough of an irritant to kill my enthusiasm for a scene. I've had it be caused by things as simple as a character being a bit more uppity than I expected them to be. I also refuse to budge even a little on my limits and boundaries, which is a bonerkill for a surprising number of people. Sure, any group activity with multiple participants inevitably may end up needing some amount of compromise, but when I have all these other issues above why should I end up going through with playing out something I don't like when I could just be writing a solo story that I know I'll like?
#9: My Standards are likely higher than you'd enjoy keeping up with: This could technically be rolled into #8 but I wanna flesh it out more. #8 is more about content of RP, this is about RP partners specifically. I refuse to play with people who wanna do one-liners, as I find one-liners to be just as mind-numbingly boring as plotless RPs. I define one-liners by amount of sentences in this case, rather than lines of text, since your screen resolution affects lines. I want a MINIMUM of 4-6 sentences per post, every single post, or I get violently bored and disengage from the RP in short order. I ESPECIALLY HATE IT when I am like, 2 hours into an RP with someone who has maintained significantly big juicy posts only for them to suddenly just dip down to one sentence per post. I can feel my interest just instantly deflate, and inevitably whenever I try to gently ask people if they can pick up and give me bigger posts again, they either take offense and get pissed, or get super guilty and descend into self-hatred. People who can take criticism over post length seem to be vanishingly rare, and I hate having to defuse someone's anger or try to uplift them from a self-esteem implosion the moment I try to ask for a little more engagement. And of course, me being a gay woman means I am just...not into dudes. A fact that A LOT of dudes refuse to listen to, or get angry about. Sorry, just because I like ladies with penises doesn't mean I will like your dude character too.
#10: Sometimes the muse just isn't there: This is the most infuriating and inexplicable one of the bunch. Even on those rare days where the stars align and somehow I have spare time, energy, and a consistent mood, the muses in my brain just won't wanna do their thing. Perhaps I'm sucked into hyperfocus on a video game, like how I got for Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, or there's just some misalignment in my brain's QPUs. This is especially infuriating for my partners, as I can often seem cheerful and energetic in my public group chat but then just have nothing for them when they ask me for a scene. This isn't a you problem, it's a me problem.
Taken together, yes I understand all these points do not paint a rosy picture of me as a person. In fact I'd go so far as to say that to a stranger, this stuff might make me look like a fickle, finicky shithead. Hell, I wouldn't even necessarily disagree with that assessment, as I'm often just as frustrated with my shortcomings as my partners are. But the point of this journal entry wasn't to shine up my reputation or make friends, it was to give people a dose of realism. Humans are imperfect beings, we're just as capable of being little shits as we are of being cool. I can't be on and kind and smart 24/7, hell I can barely meet my own standards 25% of the time. I'm still working on that of course, I want to be better. But I figure this little peek at the flawed, mentally fucked up person behind the screen will at least help y'all not feel resentful or left out if I've refused you before. Chances are likely it's not you, it's me. I may have fun concepts and ideas, but there are better RPers out there for sure. I hope you'll still at least read my stories though, since those are what I'm really proud of.
Anyway, ramble over. Hope y'all are having a good day and I didn't bring you down with this vent.
WHY DOESN'T LIGHTEST START NEW RPs ANYMORE?
So you guys all probably know the main surface level reason, I talked it about it on my journals awhile back. When I started taking my journey as a furry writer seriously I decided I wouldn't want to spend so much time on Roleplaying when I could be spending time writing. And while that's certainly true, it's actually not the only reason why I decided to quit RPing. There's a myriad list of reasons and I want to break them all down for you now. This will help perhaps ease the disappointment for people I turn down, and remind me to resist the temptation to start new RPs when the bug starts to nibble at me.
The list is presented in a random order and isn't meant to be sorted by intensity or validity.
#1: I want to focus on my writing: Yes you know this one already but I want the list to be exhaustive and this is still just as valid as before. Time and creative energy spent setting up and running a new RP is time and creative energy not spent on stories that have been in progress for gods know how long.
#2: I have too many partners already: Contrary to how it sounds, I haven't stopped ALL my RPs, my moratorium is on starting new ones. There's people I've had longstanding stories with who I still barely find time to keep up with. It wouldn't be fair to these people if I kept adding more new RPs to my list. Moreover, you probably don't want to ask me to start a new one when I am a lot more likely to want to focus on my older longstanding ones first. You'd feel left out and it'd suck.
#3: I suck at maintaining focus, like, seriously: For those unaware, yes I am very neurodivergent. Been diagnosed on the autism spectrum and I also have some ADHD traits. This means that even when I'm enjoying an RP, all it takes is one significant distraction like my parents phoning me or a new video game announcement video dropping to cause me to completely fucking forget the scene I'm in the middle of. I've done this even to my closest friends and best partners, and yes I am ashamed of it and am trying to improve. But controlling my brain problems is kind of an eternal uphill battle, and my partners who still deal with it are infinitely patient and I appreciate it. You may not like being balls-deep in a sex scene only for me to completely fucking space it because my mom texted me the latest family drama.
#4: Work sucks the soul out of me: So yeah, as I mentioned above, I am autistic and yet I also maintain a full time day job. Add in the fact that I am massively introverted too, causing all socialization at work to be even more draining to me. Every weekday I come home feeling like a dessicated corpse, and I collapse into my chair to try and rehydrate my brain with relaxing video games and videos. I often only just barely have enough time to get to a minimum level of human again to handle going back to work tomorrow morning. This makes trying to set up a serious RP immensely difficult. I can't exactly set up a proper story for an RP when my brain feels like a raisin due to the misery of being an autistic person working in a job meant for neurotypicals.
#5: Scheduling is HELL: So you know from Point #4 above that weekdays are already ruled out for RP for me, but what about weekends? Well, then there's other problems. I spend the mornings of all my weekends at the coffee shop working on my writing. I'll go in from 7AM-3PM on Saturday AND Sunday morning to work essentially a full time shift on my writing. But what about afterward? Well, on Saturdays I run a full D&D game for my brother and his friends, and on Sundays I'm a player in another D&D game. And needless to say, after writing for 8 hours straight and then tabletop roleplaying for another 2-4 hours after that, my brain is exhausted and drained. This leaves no days left where I have free time AND mental energy. This is already a problem for my existing RP partners, who I have severely neglected too.
#6: I find casual, non-story RPs to be IMMENSELY FUCKING BORING: Seriously. If an RP is only just sex, I might as well just pull up a porn video and get my rocks off easier that way. I get ZERO engagement or interest in "Meet n' fuck" type RPs. I need an actual long term story behind an RP to keep me interested. But this issue combos lethally into point #4 above. I can't enjoy RPs without story, but there's no time when I have any actual spare mental energy to dedicate to setting up such a proper long term story. This is why I still keep at my few current existing long term story RPs, at least they already have their settings and plots all set up and I can just drop in for easy scenes within them. The only times I actually like casual plotless smut are with people I already know and trust deeply, and there's like 3 people on the entire fucking planet who I love that much. (You know who you are!)
#7: My cravings are EXTREMELY fickle: Anyone who's RPed with me before knows this is a huge problem of mine. One day I'll be craving a twinning scene with my Draenei, then I'll see some new Pokemorph smut that tickles my pickle and suddenly I wanna drop that Arina scene and do a Pokemon based scene as Lightest. Then the Lilith urge strikes, or a craving for shaftbeasts, or something else entirely. Sometimes these wild craving swings can happen multiple times per day. All it takes is me seeing a hot picture that activates neurons in my brain and BOOM, time for a different scene entirely. Naturally this can be immensely irritating for my partners, and it means I often have several parallel stories running with the same person that we switch back and forth between. This also combos lethally with Point #3 above, because my focus is terrible I will often space out and forget these different parallel stories too.
#8: I'm UBER-PICKY: This gets its own bullet point separate from #7 because it is so intense. Even when I plan a scene out with someone and we have every single plot beat and idea all outlined in extensive detail, RP is an interactive medium with unpredictable humans and this inevitably leads to deviations. And me having the novel writer's brain means that these small deviations can often still be enough of an irritant to kill my enthusiasm for a scene. I've had it be caused by things as simple as a character being a bit more uppity than I expected them to be. I also refuse to budge even a little on my limits and boundaries, which is a bonerkill for a surprising number of people. Sure, any group activity with multiple participants inevitably may end up needing some amount of compromise, but when I have all these other issues above why should I end up going through with playing out something I don't like when I could just be writing a solo story that I know I'll like?
#9: My Standards are likely higher than you'd enjoy keeping up with: This could technically be rolled into #8 but I wanna flesh it out more. #8 is more about content of RP, this is about RP partners specifically. I refuse to play with people who wanna do one-liners, as I find one-liners to be just as mind-numbingly boring as plotless RPs. I define one-liners by amount of sentences in this case, rather than lines of text, since your screen resolution affects lines. I want a MINIMUM of 4-6 sentences per post, every single post, or I get violently bored and disengage from the RP in short order. I ESPECIALLY HATE IT when I am like, 2 hours into an RP with someone who has maintained significantly big juicy posts only for them to suddenly just dip down to one sentence per post. I can feel my interest just instantly deflate, and inevitably whenever I try to gently ask people if they can pick up and give me bigger posts again, they either take offense and get pissed, or get super guilty and descend into self-hatred. People who can take criticism over post length seem to be vanishingly rare, and I hate having to defuse someone's anger or try to uplift them from a self-esteem implosion the moment I try to ask for a little more engagement. And of course, me being a gay woman means I am just...not into dudes. A fact that A LOT of dudes refuse to listen to, or get angry about. Sorry, just because I like ladies with penises doesn't mean I will like your dude character too.
#10: Sometimes the muse just isn't there: This is the most infuriating and inexplicable one of the bunch. Even on those rare days where the stars align and somehow I have spare time, energy, and a consistent mood, the muses in my brain just won't wanna do their thing. Perhaps I'm sucked into hyperfocus on a video game, like how I got for Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, or there's just some misalignment in my brain's QPUs. This is especially infuriating for my partners, as I can often seem cheerful and energetic in my public group chat but then just have nothing for them when they ask me for a scene. This isn't a you problem, it's a me problem.
Taken together, yes I understand all these points do not paint a rosy picture of me as a person. In fact I'd go so far as to say that to a stranger, this stuff might make me look like a fickle, finicky shithead. Hell, I wouldn't even necessarily disagree with that assessment, as I'm often just as frustrated with my shortcomings as my partners are. But the point of this journal entry wasn't to shine up my reputation or make friends, it was to give people a dose of realism. Humans are imperfect beings, we're just as capable of being little shits as we are of being cool. I can't be on and kind and smart 24/7, hell I can barely meet my own standards 25% of the time. I'm still working on that of course, I want to be better. But I figure this little peek at the flawed, mentally fucked up person behind the screen will at least help y'all not feel resentful or left out if I've refused you before. Chances are likely it's not you, it's me. I may have fun concepts and ideas, but there are better RPers out there for sure. I hope you'll still at least read my stories though, since those are what I'm really proud of.
Anyway, ramble over. Hope y'all are having a good day and I didn't bring you down with this vent.
Vadrigos
~vadrigos
I feel all of these. TBH, it's at least a little part of why I'm taking a break from writing to learn drawing.
Danji Draconid
~lurdanjo
I totally understand, I'm pretty much the same way on most of these points!
AJthekeldeo68
~ajthekeldeo68
That's ok
