❣ Attention; Tumblr Users ❣
Hello there; sweeties ! I’m bringing an IMPORTANT subject to speak about with you today. Tumblr has a VARIETY of interesting blogs, & they can ( easily ) be classified. We have those whose pleasures lie in voice acting; adult things ( is that still allowed ? Well; bots are showing us there’s not much that admins are doing ! ); cooking blogs, tutorial blogs, artblogs ( Like this one ! Or many grandiose ones as well ! ^^ ); an extension of famous YouTubers, personal blogs ( whose ones takes most part of Tumblr, probably ! ) & there’s a little group of blogs that have few mention despite the great number of those that can be found in this peculiar site.
Have you seen something like THIS in anyone’s blog’s description before ?
These are ROLEPLAY BLOGS.
WHAT IS ROLEPLAY ?
Let’s start with a bit of History. Roleplay has started along Theater, & it was used through history to represent certain events that happened for entertainment, and / OR ( maybe ) for educational purposes. Monarchs & noblemen have invested great quantities of money to witness a form of olde roleplay just to say so for different reasons. Such performances consisted in a group of people ‘ acting in the role of ‘ a character; if the name didn’t explain itself enough xD. Even kids roleplay, don’t you tell me you haven’t played at least once to be a character with siblings, cousins or friends in your childhood !
In a world where there are probably more digital devices than humans, the best way to communicate each other is through social media. We use it everyday to share our tastes, to express our thoughts, and why not ! To roleplay too !!
I have both a personal blog, an art blog &. a variety of roleplay blogs here or there ( I ever am OBVIOUS with them ! ) & since I feel RP ( or roleplay blogs ) are ignored by the big majority of this site, I’m trying my best to let you KNOW about them, & consequently, to RESPECT them & the space they need as well. Why do I speak about respect ? Well, I’m gonna explain it below.
HOW DOES ROLEPLAY WORK ?
A roleplayer exchanges posts with other roleplayers. They use text & sometimes a small picture. Sometimes they use bigger images but it happens in few cases. It’s text accompanied by dialogue, sometimes it’s just dialogue & sometimes it’s just text narrating a situation. Pretty similar to our so loved fanfiction, right ? but don’t let this confound you.
FANFICTION is fictional text followed by next formatting;
Title; summary; text.
The writer makes control of ALL character’s choices, acts, dialogue, thoughts, etc. There’s from few to no graphics, it’s not much common to see little graphics followed by dialogue.
ROLEPLAY is fictional text exchanged by TWO blogs. There’s cases where more blogs participate, but it’s not common at all & the participants must be roleplay blogs.
It has NO summary, title & it has a variation of narration &. dialogue. Optionally; it’s accompanied by small graphics named ‘ icons ‘, that shows the expressions of each character. A roleplayer can’t control what the other’s character does, thinks & how they act, so it’s unpredictable how a roleplay will advance with time.
WHY TO ‘ RESPECT ‘ ROLEPLAY BLOGS ?
Now you have an idea of the difference between roleplay &. fanfiction; I’m going to explain it why fanfiction is good to be reblogged &. why roleplay shall stay as something shared between two roleplay blogs constructing a story without interference of anybody else.
You can REBLOG a fanfiction, yes ! It encourages the writer to do more content because you are SHARING their creation. It works like free content with an unique writing style. Some people even live of that, or they can pay bills by selling fanfics at least. So, by sharing a fanfiction you’re making a favor to the writer, as big as you might favoring an graphic artist by sharing ( not reposting; just reblogging ) their pieces.
You CAN’T reblog a roleplay. Think about it like AN ONLINE GAME rather than content that wants to be shared by more than a reduced number of people. It’s what it is. And if you reblog it, you might be interfering with that game. This said, if you reblog the roleplay, you will be DISCOURAGING the roleplayers to continue creating content for their own entertainment, & they might end up shutting the blog down. They validate likes however, but they prefer to avoid people like-spamming them too. You know, extremes aren’t good at all.
HOW TO IDENTIFY ROLEPLAYERS ?
Check their description. The terms you will see might be;
RP, independent, selective, Ask blog, RP / Askblog, roleplay, penned by, written by, Est. + date (i.e. Est. September 2009); [character] blog, [fandom] + [character]+blog, OC+[fandom]+blog, indie, ind; ind.+sel, canon divergent+[character]; etc…
If nothing of these appear, check their content. You will see posts like
Sentence starters; starter call, [text]+[dialogue], [solely dialogue]+[solely text], small graphics showing some character’s expressions.
Maybe you might ask the next questions;
Why not ? I reblog whatever I want.
So what’s the point of roleplay ?
I saw personals reblogging many funny roleplay stuff !
I can’t see the difference between fanfiction & roleplay tho :/
b-but i like it so muuuuch uwu
I think I have clarified enough while saying that roleplay is like an online game played by two people. They give allowance to new participants when it’s another roleplay blog. They ( we ) use Tumblr like a GAMING PLATFORM. & if you reblog roleplays, you might be interfering with;
1. Our activity feed.
2. Tools like thread tracker that tells us who was the last one who reblogged a roleplay so we can see if it’s our turn to reply or not.
3. The entire situation.
TO CONCLUDE;
I can understand you enjoy roleplays so much, but I also am aware that some roleplayers use this to cope with the obstacles their life outside Tumblr is giving them. They don’t need additional situations to worry about. They need a space to express themselves, to feel safe & what personals who reblog roleplays are doing is to break that safety.
Spread this post so many people can identify roleplay blogs & avoid misunderstandings / future conflicts by reblogging their content.