Forums » RP Discussion » Noticing a trend for myself -_-

Winter, if I might.

In my opinion and from what I've read, I think there is little doubt that you value your partner(s)'s RL as a priority and you seem to make many efforts to find a way to relieve their stress about feeling that they need to post to you such as taking a hiatus. If they are saying that they cannot reply to you IC and yet are off doing RP elsewhere, it would seem dishonest to me as well. In my mind, I would take what they are doing as a form of ghosting and dishonesty. I had to end an RP, with someone who I considered a friend and a long time RP partner for over a year, in June of last year, who in my mind was doing something very similar to this.

I have implemented my own policy since December here. Do what you want, but if I have zero IC or OOC communication for a month, then the RP is at an end for me and I move on with my OC. It's on my profile and I let people know. I keep up with the RPs I have, I also will not take on more than I can handle, knowing I work full time. I do not think it is my job on top of that to tell another adult that if they have agreed to take on a collaborative writing project with me that I should be hounding them for replies, in fact I don't think that works at all. If they drop off the radar, I take it as a loss of interest and move on. Taking some control on this, has given me a better peace of mind.

Sadly there is almost anything that people would do. Or at least when it comes to me they do, as I do not know about others. Which is why I'm so hesitant of things a lot of the times, and why people consider me to be so strict on rules.

I rped on anirp and had people look at a rule blog I had, which consisted of 20 rules. People always went: Dang, you are strict. And I say: Yes. Yes I am. It's what happens when people continue to do bs stuff to me which resulted in said rules.

I think that Falyn’s suggestion and approach sound extremely reasonable.

When I said that RP wasn’t marriage, I did it because in my mind, if you are actually counting on people dropping out for whatever reason (and 90% inevitably will), you can take steps to avoid the frustration - such as the suggestion outlined above. When you have not taken the steps, then to me it sounded like you expected overt commitment - I think I made the wrong assumption there.

But why not still take some additional steps? The disappointment will probably still be there, but hopefully it won’t stop you that much from enjoying roleplaying.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter that the other person insists that the RP continue if you have begun the RP by informing them of a time limit of your choice after which you’ll consider the RP to be expired. It’s a unilateral decision for you to make, and IMO it’s fair if you let your partner know in advance.

Not that it will protect you from everything, by the sound of what tends to happen to you, but IMO it should mitigate the impact of many of these RPs and hopefully grant you back some of your previous ease.

Her suggestion is very reasonable. And I will also take your advice into mind as well. Usually I'm one of the most laid back people, since I too have issues responding to rp's at times. But I need to start not being too laid back. As I see it's part of why I get walked all over as it were. Thank you for helping me to remember that. Things won't go as I would like, if I don't start doing things myself at times. -firm nod-

Thank you for keeping an open mind despite your frustration I hope that things go better for you going forward, and I couldn’t agree more with your last sentence.

You are welcome, and thank you!

*Hugs* Winter, I really hope it well go well for you.

-hug- Thank you. ^-^

I just wish people would have the courage to admit that yes, they need to go on hiatus. Hell I'm just now slowly coming back from one after my cat disappeared. Yet even when I was a sobbing, grieving mess, I still made the effort to let my partners what had happened and that I was going on hiatus.

As it's been pointed out to me, it's been thought that part of the reason no one says they need the hiatus is because: They fear what would be said and or done, if they admitted it. Plus if you have a lot of good things going on, then of course you don't want stuff to stop. Doesn't make it any easier, but still.

Yeah I know how it goes. It’s all good here so don’t worry about it.

I guess I couldn’t understand your concept of “forced”. It does seem to me that it is a bit of fuzzing the line between IC and OOC, but that is just my perception of what you wrote.

As I archive every RP thread I have after I reply to it, I tend to not ponder on waiting for replies. If I never get a reply to it, it’s ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and I have three years worth of incomplete RPs ‘waiting’ for a reply. Chances are they will never come, and it is what it is. If the RP was one I was really ‘into’, I follow up OOC after a month of no-contact. They tend to do one of three things. They don’t respond to the OOC. They reply to the RP with an IC post that is often times short and shallow and has a ‘forced’ feel to it. Or they respond to the OOC with the ‘RL is hectic’ sort of response where they either officially say they want to end the RP or want to continue. If they say they want to continue, then it’s up to them to continue when they get around to it. If/when they do, it pops back up in my Inbox. That said, if I’m really invested in my character and their story and the RP is a part of that, I do have an unwritten, variable statute of limitations as to how long I wait before writing them out in the character’s history.

As far as ‘hiatus’, I sort of assume it after I reply. Yes it is the polite thing to do to let your writing partners know, but it’s been my experience here and on other sites that it is the exception rather than the rule. I think the ‘status’ function here has helped a lot in some of this communication. Anyway, I’m probably still missing your whole point.

I think part of it is: I take to heart my rp's that I have made good connections with. So when they don't go anywhere, due to a person's rl being busy and the role player doesn't want to put things on hiatus, it just gets to me a bit more than it should.

Plus the whole thing of people not wanting to stop and hold off on rps, they keep wanting to reply and wanting to keep things going. So it's the continual promise of they will respond when they end up not doing so.

Reading over the original topic and all of the replies, I didn't know what to think at first. Admittedly, before my transition, I've done a similar tactic of promising replies when it was clear a hiatus was in order. I was afraid of retaliation or being hurt by others; I didn't want to lose something I liked roleplaying because life was busy, but it was too much for me to handle back then. I'll admit, I'm still a little confused about everything that was said, so I can't give much of an opinion here.

But I think I know what you're saying, Winter: if things are too busy in real life, there's no shame in calling a hiatus and replying when you can. Don't give out hollow promises and/or time limits to continue a roleplay when even you know you can't keep them. Am I close? If so, I think that's very reasonable to ask for. I've since stopped doing that and am still on hiatus as of now. It doesn't mean I won't work on ideas; I'm just not ready to commit in full right now.