oh to be a beautiful widow taking a rest against my fainting couch

[socksuke_uchiha]

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

how do you nicely ask an enthusiastic new rp partner to please add some more detail to their tags? we're not on a one-liners level, more like two-to-three-liners. their replies are notably, consistently shorter than what i'm giving them to an extent that it's affecting how much i enjoy the thread - they basically just state what action the character does/what they say and nothing else. i've never really been in this situation before so i don't like... know how to ask without possibly sounding like i don't like their writing or something as opposed to just wanting a little more of it

[(Anonymous)]

you accept that you just have different playstyles and a) continue on, knowing you'll never be completely satisfied, or b) drop them as a partner.

those are honestly the only two options i've found to work in the past. sometimes the cr and dynamic is worth it, sometimes it isn't.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

nagging someone into changing their writing style never works out

either accept it or just stop tagging with them, op

[(Anonymous)]

say everything you wrote here. i think your desire to critique them is a good indication that you'd still want to write with them

although they just might not enjoy writing introspective tags and trying might take the joy out of it for them too

you guys might have incompatible styles altogether. it's worth discussing tho

[(Anonymous)]

If they enjoyed writing introspection they would already be doing it, surely.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt but i write introspection sometimes and sometimes not; it depends on the situation. sometimes i like to preserve some mystery as to what my character's thinking. if a thread partner asked me to write more introspection i'd be happy to do it, and i'm sure there are others who don't actually have a strong preference

[(Anonymous)]

I've been on the other side of this situation, went back and edited my tag to be longer, and immediately got dropped. You may not get out of this with a solution unfortunately.

[(Anonymous)]

are they not giving you any hooks, or are you just bothered by the fact that their tags are shorter than yours?

if it's the former, i would suggest letting them know you're struggling to figure out a response because they're not giving you much to work with, probably in softer words than that. even requesting something as simple as including more physical tells or how the character is saying their dialogue might be helpful to you.

but if it's an issue with just the length, you might want to accept that it's not always necessary to dump your character's entire life story in every tag or go full purple prose. tbh i would rather have small tags with hooks over bloated tags that are slogs to read through. i'm here to have fun, not write the next NYT bestseller.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't mind tags that are shorter in length than mine on principle, and I'm not asking for purple prose or a novel, despite what everyone seems to be assuming. I write short tags when the situation calls for it. But when you give a paragraph or two and get literally one sentence every time, maybe two, that's just not satisfying, at least for me.

[(Anonymous)]

it sounds like you just don't like their writing, anon

which i know you said that's not the impression you want to give but that's exactly what you're saying

if you just want details for a particular tag, it's easy to just pm and ask for some extra info. but if your issue is the way they tag each time, you probably should either let the thread go or keep tagging

[(Anonymous)]

yeah this just sounds like a compatibility problem, time to move on

+1

[(Anonymous)]

op, you clearly don't like this person and you're at bitch eating crackers level of resenting them being near you. just tell them you're sorry but you're not feeling the thread any more and then drop it.

[(Anonymous)]

the ecats taggers really couldn't resist zooming in here to defend their honor when nobody asked, huh

y'all get defensive almost as fast as you write your tags

[(Anonymous)]

maybe because it's not a nice thing to do to randomly tell someone their tags suck? not everyone is here because they want writing crit. if op's partner wanted crit they'd ask for it. op is the kind of asshole who thinks their opinion is the only thing that matters and that attitude rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

fwiw i would be saying the same thing if op was writing short tags and was unhappy they were getting long tags. either way it's not a cool way to treat people who are just trying to have fun with you.

da

[(Anonymous)]

More like you're jumping into conclusions.

"and i say this as someone who also writes tags that are way too long and full of pointless introspection" is what someone already mentioned and I'm fairly certain they aren't the only one.

[(Anonymous)]

i don't care how long or short the tag someone writes me is as long as it gives me things to respond to. three sentences of action/dialogue that my character can react to is way better than three paragraphs of introspection that my character doesn't know is happening.

[(Anonymous)]

here, what you actually asked for:

"Hi [player]!

I'm really enjoying this thread and I was wondering if there's a reason you don't put a lot of introspection or narrative in your tags? I love your take with [character] and I want to see more of them, but I feel a little weird writing as much of it as I do when you don't. If that's not your style I understand, but I wanted to reach out to you about it."

it's very possible they're going to think you sound like an asshole no matter how you say it (as evidenced by the anons in this thread) but kudos to being willing to try and solve an issue instead of avoiding it forever and dying mad about it. the whole problem is genuinely very silly but we've all got our lizard brains. sometimes they're going to interpret short responses like that as a lack of interest, investment, or care, when their lizard brain is telling them faster tags is the interest, investment, and care vs. longer ones. you just need to find a sweet spot between that for the both of you to be comfortable on when you're playing together.

good luck with your lizard brain and their lizard brain. may the lizard brain gods smile upon you both.

[(Anonymous)]

You are reaching out, which is what people here bitch about people not doing, and they bitch. You're not going to find much constructive feedback here because by and large rpa and wg are places people come to be contrary.

Talk with your rp partner, be as kind as you can and respect their decision whatever it may be.

Don't worry about the people saying you can't speak to others about this because they are the same people who would hate getting longer tags filled with introspection and say nasty things themselves. Some of us love them, some hate it, there is no right or wrong as all of this is individually subjective.

Best wishes that you both have fun writing in your preferred way as everyone should.

[(Anonymous)]

"I really enjoy threading with you and I was wondering if I could make a request? I'm not very familiar with the character. If you're comfortable doing so, it would help me understand them better if you expanded more on their actions and introspection."

[(Anonymous)]

ia with the other anons saying to accept you guys arent compatible and move on. i like meaty tags sometimes and sometimes i like quick and to the point. even so, i find that the "quick and to the point" ones it really depends on the other persons style

ive seen people do a lot with a little and i never minded the shorter tags. but ive also seen styles that are too direct for me. that isnt to say those tags dont have their place or arent good, they just arent the style im drawn to. in the end the tags we like or styles we like are pretty subjective, even chemistry is

like you can... try? but i honestly dont think its fair to go into this with the mentality that youre going to criticize their writing. especially since they might not like long tags or might not be able to write "better." the best i can offer is saying, "hey! i love your ideas and the plans weve made, but im having trouble because i gravitate to longer tags. i think we might not mesh but i wanna try to make it work. is there something i can do in my tags that might help?"

like, maybe you arent adding enough hooks for them to respond to? i love introspection and do it too much too but sometimes when a tag is 99% introspection and only the last line is an action someone can respond to theyre, uh, hard to respond to. not saying youre doing that, but i know i have to stop myself from doing it and i have seen others do it too

[(Anonymous)]

i've been in your position and i understand. it's not fun when it feels like the person you're threading with isn't really reading your tags and is just quickly firing back something barely (or not at all) adequate. people being real defensive in here over their [blinks] tags.

unfortunately chances are you will just have to stop tagging this person. i ended up frustrated with someone and started putting off responding to their tags, and when they asked if i was still interested, i admitted i was having a hard time responding because their tags often seemed like they hadn't read all of mine. for a few tags they forced themselves to put a little more into their tags, but the quality did not actually improve.

some people just write like that and what they want from rp is not what you want. there's no reason to have a prolonged awkward conversation about it, just do what everyone in dwrp does and flake.

[(Anonymous)]

there's so much projection in this thread we should start a movie theater

[(Anonymous)]

This may be hard to navigate depending on the play style of certain people.

Personally, it’s not the length of response that bothers me, but if they do not give any indication of what a character’s feeling/expressing and their icon is lacking (like it’s a back shot of the character). My character cannot read their expression. And oocly, I won’t be able to determine an appropriate response.

Ask the player for clarification on the expression their character is making or any body language they may have. They don’t have to go deeper into their character’s thoughts at all, just the non-verbal cues.

[(Anonymous)]

1. you don't like their writing

their replies are notably, consistently shorter than what i'm giving them to an extent that it's affecting how much i enjoy the thread - they basically just state what action the character does/what they say and nothing else.

^ this is not what i'd write about someone whose style i enjoyed playing off of, and how a person frames their tags is a writing issue.

2. asking them for more writing in general won't fix the problem - which is that they just state the action.

look at the tags and ask yourself if 10 sentences instead of 3 of the exact same shit will satisfy you. don't headcanon that they'll write in a style you'll like, just assume it'll be 10 sentences in the exact same style with the exact same type of writing.

3. and then do one or more of the following
3a. suck it up and suffer in silence (this is a bad choice do not do this)
3b. hmd them (especially consider this if you're in a game with them!)
3c. flake silently
3d. drop them, but pm and say why, kinda like something between 3b and 3c in terms of effort

[(Anonymous)]

i'm in this exact same boat, and while i don't think there's any reason for the anons here to get riled up over the suggestion of offering them crit if they have an HMD, i also don't think you're going to see the results you want.

i have a castmate right now who does this exact thing. their smut reads like the instructions for ikea furniture, and that's when they actually decide to write actions versus just a snappy one-liner that doesn't progress the thread at all. they actually found a way to pillow queen from the top. they frequently complain that they struggle to build cr because people drop threads with them, and it's pretty obvious why.

sometimes people are just shitty writers, and no amount of enthusiasm is going to make threading with them more interesting. if i were you, i'd just say that you aren't enjoying the threads/cr, and think they'd be better off tagging someone else. and if they ask why, there's no reason you can't be honest and say they just aren't giving you enough to work with.