Look folks, I appreciate your tags, I do, but could they please not involve physical injury? Just cause you can say sorry afterwards doesn't cut it. My characters are not happy-go-lucky social butterflies, ok?

They may not be the psychopaths of the group, in fact, if you get to know them, they're quite sweet really, but how many times do you strike up a conversation with someone who knocks you over?

But how often are you annoyed when that happens? Often enough for me. And I'm not an awkward, slightly unstable, person who rather be rude than find themselves hexed or care about someone who will get hexed.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't all that annoying. I just mourn the lost opportunities and having my characters irritated with and irritating every other character.

Next time, ask for directions or complement my shoes, ok?

Dear 14-year-old screaming fangirl:

No, my werewolf is not from Twilight. He's a fucking Uratha. Learn your lore.

Go drown yourself,

-Tag

I am sick and tired of people OOCly trying to coach me on how my character should behave, or react. I find it is horribly common in the Minds Eye Theater (that's nerdy rock paper scissors LARP) games from guys. Not to say chicks aren't capable of being irritating rules lawyer types, but, I've only had the urge to stab rise in regards to my male cohorts.

There is nothing more irritating for me, than being in the middle of a private scene, or a crucial decision for any character of mine, and some nosy know it all feels the need to interject and "help." No amount of "mind your own business," stops these people. Sure, they are deterred for a short while, but they always come back with their "great ideas," insisting that, despite actually involving *roleplay* in your decisions (you know, that thing where you do what your character, not you, would do), you are doing it wrong.

Fie! Fie! I say.

I just want to be left to make my own IG choices without a bunch of irritating, OOG peanut gallery "Help."

So this is an application just received at a game I am in and I just couldn't NOT share it here. I'm not certain that I have adequate words to express the horror I felt when I gazed upon it for the first time.

( Kill it with fire! )

*of note, this is NOT the same game I posted about in my previous post, though I am thinking she should be sent there.

Okay, new RP partner. Your character is very cute and sweet and interesting... I think. We haven't done much yet. And you insisted that you had to draw the character because that would 'tell' you his personality. Which should have warned me off the bat.

But you want to plan before we start the second scene! At first I suggest being mean to my character, that gets derailed. Then I suggest we exploit one of his phobias to bring our characters together. You complain at first, but then just hop to the suggestion. Well, okay. I love hurt/comfort and this is fine by me.

We've done, what, 4 posts? Maybe 6? And you have spent the. entire. time. bitching about how you can't write him like this and it's making you sick to your stomach (in fact, -he's- making you sick to your stomach by being so nervous). And you absolutely can't write him freaking out because it makes you freak out. So... why did you AGREE TO THE SCENE?

I am slightly unnerved by how much your characters appear to affect you personally. I mean, really. The whole 'my characters decide what they do and I can't control/write them any differently!' has always squicked me. It doesn't work like that. You are the writer! -Write-.

I can't make this up. This is his actual entrance tonight.

... Ebony, a shade we all follow though rarely do some call it home. A being that would caress the shadows like the breast of a woman, whispering to her of promises meant only for mad men. Sanity screams when it falls in step with him, Insanity has become his sheet of music. Through eyes of discourse he travels, deep into a world most put to paper...

...Those whom has peeked into his window, has fallen victim to his heartless cries... silence is a virtue to most, but for him it has been his gaurdian and friend, carrying him forward onto the backs of white horses. Into a lucid dream do those around him fall, waiting for that one chance to cry away all that was given to them.

...People look on and watch waiting to do what he lives. Pulled in by sweet dreams and spit out by holy nightmares. Crimson is a shade we all live, though few worship it like him...... there, in the secure embrace of Darkness, that figure unknown to many, yet somehow familiar comes into view, a shadowed figure standing amongst the darkness,

--... of the corner where light held no authority, one, whom had come to be known, simply... as 'The Phantom'...

No one calls him the Phantom. Make up your own mockery as you would. It's worth it.

Our log has been hanging for quite a bit. I understand that our lovely banter between two scientists isn't as interesting as the absolutely hard smut you are having with another player- but I'd really like to continue our banter. Because its nice and fun! Thats why I assumed you were lagging, but I wouldn't call your bluff because I understand. Even I get into a good romp sometimes and tend to space others. We're human.

So, when I ask you a few days later if your blocked or something with your thread? Don't completely chew me out. Don't tell me that I'm barking up a tree and being a nag- I asked you once. We've been constant for a week now and I'm excited to see where this goes, and this is the first time I've asked whats up. Please don't bare your defensive fangs and tell me all about your horrible times with your ex-gf and your mother and your doctor, and I'm heartless for ignoring it, so for me to nag you is making it worse. And when I say I'm sorry cause I didn't know, please don't call me out as a liar because you have it posted on facebook. All 50+ people who have friended me know I've never checked the damn thing once. Mostly cause I haven't friended them back, and I've been inactive on it for two years. I'm just too lazy to remember my password to delete it.

And I'm your RP companion on a com. Not your BFF intarwebs buddy or someone who is worried about you every second of your life. I can't read your mind, nor will I assume emotions through your AIM texts.

I just wanted to know if you forgot about our log... thats all...

For those of you who remember oceandezignz previous posts about the Sonic the hedgehog clone*, I bring you a new level of fail straight from the live Rp chat. Given this dude's preoccupation with playing female characters that look both underage AND 'sexy', this becomes doubly creepy...and alarming. Just a two line excerpt of an OOC interaction between hedgehog freak and a respected player on the board:

Name witheld to protect player's identity, making an idle statement: *Could probly sneak into the local high school and pose as a student based on size*
Creepy Sexay Moon Bunnay: wish I still could**

Note that this was an entirely OOC statement by what seems to be a man in his mid-twenties. I shudder.

* For those of you who don't remember, links are here: http://community.livejournal.com/bad_rpers_suck/7161929.html
And here: http://community.livejournal.com/bad_rpers_suck/7190886.html#cutid1

**NOTE: The original text of CSMB had <> on either side to denote OOC, but when I put them in it did a strange format error, so I had to leave them out.

Those are from the past. I just felt like venting after reading some of the other rants.

Dear Idiot,

If a mod tells you to stop godmodding, you should do as they say. You shouldn't try to argue you're such an ~awesome~ player that you should be an exception. Nor should you bitch at them when it's clear they won't bend to your will. Or at us when they reveal (without naming anyone) that the rest of us have had complaints about you. Or threaten to bring down the board by "taking all the players with me". Funny how no one left after you got banned...

Dear Douche,

There is never, ever a time when roleplay is more important than real life. Especially if said real life includes working up my grades. No, claiming "grades aren't important" is NOT a good argument.

Not missing any of you,
me

Ugh. So after months of more or less avoiding chat room RP like the plague I let a friend talk me into visiting her site again. I get excited when an old RP partner PMs me requesting RP. I wake up my muse and formulate a way to restart afresh and get ready to post.

But....if that had been a happy ending I wouldn't be posting here. He proceeds to post, but it may as well have been that I didn't post at all as his post had nothing even remotely to do with my character's actions. Then a few minutes later someone else posts, and he responds to her post.

Yeah. Way to drive me back of chat room RP. Offering me RP only because you thought your partner had left and then 'forgetting' you'd asked me and had even been lining up a potential plot when they suddenly showed back up. Thanks...thanks a lot.

Let us suppose, BRPS, that you are making a roleplay that brings together characters from the "Tales of" series of games.

When you create this game, you decide that you need a banner to represent your game. Which character, then, do you use as the lucky representative for your game? Should it be one that people are familiar with? Or perhaps the hero from the first game? Or maybe multiple characters!

If you decided to ignore these ideas and use Sakura from Cardcaptor Sakura, that is obviously the correct choice. Carry on!

Hey Moderator! You there-- yes, YOU the Owner-mod!

( Cut to spare the flists )

In short, no I don't think I'll be applying for your game. Which is a shame since there are so few active games out there for this fandom, but I just have to pass.


ETA: Bonus find - Hugh Jackman, a la Van Helsing, as the PB for a 22 year old character?! Yeah, THAT'S believable. *snort*

Double ETA: A 10 year old is NOT a Time Lady. Gallifreyan yes. Time Lady NO.

Okay, really... I KNOW we have a lot of rules. I do. I know this because *I* wrote them. All of them.

And I know that some formatting (eg: bold, italics) doesn't carry over well to mobile browsers, which you used to read the rules, and apply. So when the rules page says "Items in bold are unbreakable; breaking these may result in OOC consequences" but you don't SEE anything in bold? You might ASK. And if you don't know what's unbreakable, why would your boy break rules until you know what IS? No maybe some of the rules aren't "a big deal" but they are still there, I didn't write them for my own amusement.

(The unbreakables are now denoted by a + in front of them, because of this, btw.)

And when a mod talks to you, please, don't have a conversation like THIS:

Mod: Hello, have a minute?]
Player: [ yes ]
Mod: I'm sorry, but there is no way [char] would have gotten his makeup back. Additionally, if you read the IC rules, that is listed as a unbreakable rule.
Player: [ ...oh i know.... i was reading it through my phone. so i guess it didnt show up as bold.
Mod: Well, if you KNOW there's no way, then why are you saying he did?
Player: [ because i didnt think it was a big deal. ]
Mod: I see. Well the rules pages are amended, so please review what is considered unbreakable. ]
Player: [ um..okay..?

It's a prison. Your pretty boy (and god I'm starting to hate this character in general) is NOT going to have makeup, not going to "get it back somehow" as you told another player, and IS going to get caught if he has it.

tl;dr: don't assume that because some rules are breakable (with consequences), the one you want to break is, until you know. Don't assume that because some rules are breakable, they're ALL not a big deal. And when a player who's been around longer corrects you on something, try listening.

And if this made no sense, feel free to ask--my brain's fried, so I may not have worded things well.

Oh Player P, your character is very obviously a Twilight vampire (Twivamp? Sparklepire? Retarded?). You're a nice girl and I get that you really love the Twilight series but please stop spooging about it in this RP, which has absolutely nothing to do with vampires. Yes, it's about runaways with weird powers, but you're supposed to be originalish. Your character manages to "shimmer" in the light and be deathly pale and cold to the touch and drink the blood of wild animals...Player Q's character can turn invisible. Does that mean she is a ripoff of Sue Storm, or even Violet Parr? No, she is pretty much nothing like either of them. Player Q knows what she's doing--she made an original, believable person who happens to have a power she doesn't want or even really know how to use. That's good characterization.

When I grow a pair I'm going to talk to you and tell you my concerns, and hopefully you won't get all defensive...

This is a bit old, but nevertheless, I think it's worth sharing.

So, I was going to RP with Girl. The setting was a bit in the future with mecha. Our characters were going to be genetically-engineered pilots. Not very original, I guess, but then it's pretendy-fun times.

In her first post, Girl has her female character wear a male uniform, because the female uniform has a (gasp!) skirt. We didn't discuss uniforms previously, so I'm really confused. A. If she doesn't like the idea of military uniforms having a skirt, then why not assume all uniforms have pants? It's in the future. B. Wouldn't not wearing the uniform you're supposed to wear be... uh... punishable? It's the military.

I can accept this sort of thing in a high school environment, but the military? Really, if you want to show how tomboyish/feminist/liberated your character is there are other ways.

Srsly. I'm still confused.

If you tell someone who offers you RP when you go seeking it "Let me do this thing IRL quick, then we can see about playing."

That means either you'll do it, come back and play, or make a polite excuse why you can't play.

Manners, bitch. I know you play a psychotic slut who doesn't have them, but you as a player should at least try to fake it.

It's you and your kind doing shit like this that makes good players hesitant to ask for RP.

Hey, you! Remember that idiot we all used to hate? The one our mutual friend started bringing along despite our wishes? The one who fueled many a gleeful secret midnight bitchfest with her mere presence? The one for whom you had absolutely no respect?

It's adorable to see you trotting at her heels now, rubbing elbows with her and supporting her even through her awful attempts at leadership. Oh, but I see! You have a goal.

You're gonna be popular.

Not that I expected much more from a psychotic, self-hating sycophant like yourself, but really? I'm half-tempted to sprinkle some incriminating logs here and there. I do kind of hate you, and your plastic bullshit persona is cramping my style.

I live in a different timezone from the majority of the players in my game, and as such it can be a little difficult to get involved in plots or to thread with my canonmates. But we try. We can usually get 2-3 hours (half when I wake up/they go to bed, half when I go to bed/they wake up) a day if we try.

But I do have one complaint. Seriously, can you keep OOC plot planning threads open more than 2-3 hours? I hate that I always have to go in after the fact and beg to join in. And when there's a limited number of slots, could you at least give the people like me in another timezone a chance to sign up before the usual suspects join in?

I absolutely, utterly and completely loathe derivative, but original-setting games that encourage you to pick up canon characters because any OC is going to automatically be a second-class citizen. My hate for these communities increases exponentially when the mods profess "wariness" towards OCs.

In fact, I think I hate the majority of conventional wisdom about OCs. And I find that the people most willing to propogate it are the people who never freaking learned how to play 'em. The majority of it is useless anyway - you can say "don't make a mary sue" all you want but it isn't going to help much in the end and it certainly won't help if you've already resolved in your mind that all OCs = Mary Sues forever and always.

I also think the taboo against playing people who have ever known or had any kind of relationship (general, not romantic sense) with a canon character is bullshit. People meet a lot of people in their life. They have relationships. It's just how it works. If you're not fucking with the timeline, what is the harm? It's just another example of putting canon characters on a pedastal, which is doubly infuriating because half of them didn't exactly earn their place there in the first place.

I guess the stigma is just getting really, really irritating.