Forums » RP Discussion » Pet Peves in characters and/or RP

You're right. I do see a lot of similar male characters, too.
They make me roll my eyes less, though.
Mainly because I have an affinity for manly men, though.
Oohhh, I'm such a terrible person
But at least I'm aware of it haha
Though, I think guys who play guy characters are a lot less concerned about making their characters "unattractive". Or something I've noticed at a few communities.
Though, I won't lie, I hate boys that are wimpy or fit into that "assassin" type group just as much as the female characters.

I too am sick of all the "drop dead gorgeous" female characters. I am okay with semi-cute, decent looking females. I am okay with bland and unattractive girls.

But man, I am so dang sick of seeing hourglass-shaped*, "perfect goddess bodied", porcelain-skinned women with "long, flowing tresses" and eyes of vibrant colors that wear clothing that is made to show off their "best assets". By the by, said clothing usually seems to be impractical for the character's setting (and some even make mention of this: In spite of the cold weather, she wears yadda yadda yadda... because they're perfect and can willfully ignore the uncomfortableness said clothing makes in winter!)


*(with a waist line of 03" and a bust size that borders on DDs)

How about thick hourglass figures that wear a bunch of poofy clothes in the winter?
But yeah that's annoying. If any of my characters have above a C cup, it's because they're chubby.
It's like they're scared their character won't get laid if she's not AMAZING LOOKING.
Which I have a very inappropriate response to, but I will refrain because I know there quite a few youngins that probably lurk.

One thing that really bugs me about Star Wars roleplaying, when people say their lightsaber blade has a black core. It's a LIGHTsaber, the blade is made of light, it's supposed to be bright!

/priceless vase2

Also, while on that subject, people who think that all you need to do to play a dark side character is rampage a lot. Granted, an evil character is more prone to kill people that get in their way but try and be more interesting than random violence. That should really apply to evil characters in any setting, not just Star Wars.

Yeah, evil characters I can understand killing people.
Especially if they're crazy Hitler evil.

My light saber has a NEON PINK CORE

All men are manly, though, by the virtue of being men~!

There's a lot more societal pressure on women to be pretty and perfect. Ever notice how many anti-aging ads there are aimed at women, or ads promoting the latest skincare or makeup or hair products, or clothes, or...? All, of course, with gorgeous models showing off their products, perpetuating the myth that 'you're not good if you don't look like us!' Men mostly get tools and trucks and beer tossed at them. Society doesn't care if they get old, fat, scarred, or even if they start out fairly average looking to begin with. (Although, gods help you, regardless of gender, if you're actually majorly disfigured or have a plain ugly face.) On the other hand, women are seen as hags - full of sagging wrinkles and fat and flab and grey, stringy hair - once they hit forty, unless they bow to pressure and do everything in their power to try and stave off the inevitable march of time. There's a huge pressure on us to be beautiful - downright eye candy - and screw everything else, right from the time we hit puberty, and that age is getting lower all the time.

Of course, the rash of perfectly pretty female roleplaying characters may also just be wish fulfilment, and I'd normally say 'what's really wrong with that?' - but I'd be willing to bet those wishes are also caused by the above pressures. We cannot, alas, win.

Man, Sidious would've never gotten anything done if he was busy rampaging all the time. Some people need to go back and learn their canon some.

Hmm..if I may.. Since reading all this about female characters, I'd just like to say that my female character *coughMinkcough* has evolved away from "drop dead gorgeous." I have made gradual changes to her over long periods of time, enough changes to make her a more tolerable stereotype than most. In my opinion, anyway.

I might as well mention a pet peeve while I'm here Nothing new though, I'm afraid.
Misspellings. Every sentence. Yeah, that whole thing.

I think we can all agree that there have been male and female characters that are overused and entirely too perfect. Perfect men, perfect women. I am tired of them as well. I am drawn to those characters that are imperfect because aren't we all? It makes them more realistic and makes the Rp more engaging.

I can say with confidence that my character doesn't fit into any category mentioned above. She is petite, small busted, and lastly concern with her appearance. She wears functional modest clothing -- What a shocker. She isn't a bad-ass, cannot fight, and has no clue how to wield any weapon. And, oh wait, did I mention she has absolutely no idea how to flirt or how to deal with flirting. She is good at her trade, but rather awkward with it comes to social or personal situations.

~ And I want Rp! So send me a message. kthnx.

Meanwhile, I want to add another peeve:

Those who don't read at least the Rp Preferences/Rules on our sites or just simply don't read enough to know about the character. They just jump IC and post and then we have to be the bad guys and tell them we don't wish to Rp. I.E.: My character is medieval-pirate age based. I started roleplaying with a character and later found out through Rp that he wore flannel and denim.

And this character, wearing flannel and denim, also used the term "Hark!" during the Rp. x.x

... I sort of hope you're asking that rhetorically because at this hour I am tempted to answer it with full-on seriousness.

... oh what the heck, I guess I will anyway!

I don't mind the hourglass shape, but it doesn't mean that every woman that has it owns a waistline much smaller than their hips and bust. I've almost got that shape myself, but I don't have a skinny waistline at all-- in fact, I've been dealing on and off with trying to keep some pounds off so I don't get too chubby. What bugs me though is exactly what I posted above-- the goddess-esque or "hot model" figures which are normally unrealistic anyway compared to real life.

I'd just like to clarify that my target was the really bad female characters and not at all wonderful female roleplayers! A large majority of those boring lady characters are also played by dudes.

I do realize there are also a lot of male characters who fit the masculine counterparts to many of the stereotypes I mentioned, but there's also a sizable portion of decent and original dudes, too, not just in roleplay but also in other forms of fiction, whereas ladies hardly have any. Even Wonder Woman, who's lauded as one of the best female superheroes ever, is barely clothed, and the emphasis is on her femininity, not on her as a person. The same can't be said about Batman or Spiderman. Is masculinity a part of their stories? Of course. Are there masculine ideals involved in those comics? Yes, of course! Is it the primary focus of everything, from visual representation to the storyline and back story of the character? No, it's not. They're just superheroes who happen to be men, not male superheroes. The difference is obvious on every level, and it's kind of an appalling indication of how estranged females have been made from being 'normal' people, if they can't be female without everything having to be about being female.

To take another commonly used character trope, the mad scientist, compare any male ones you can think of to female ones. Which one illustrates the trope better? Which one seems to fall more in line with the base-line of hotness that characters are often plagued with having to meet? Which ones get to enjoy most of the deeper character development, interesting villainy or comic appeal? There are lots of endearing, admirable or badass male characters who don't come anywhere near what I guess is the average hotness line that society has drawn for men. Funnily enough, a lot of them obtain fanbases based on, GASP, the CHARACTER, not their physical appearance and/or sexy personality traits! That is absolutely unfair. Why can't there be female characters like that, too? Why do they have to be liked for such flat and shallow aspects? Rather, why must they have these flat and shallow aspects to be liked?

I know it's vastly the fault of social conditioning... but come on. Something is wrong if more than half of the female roleplaying character population (and fictional female population), even at higher levels of skill and experience, is all exactly the same.

WOAH double post!

I agree completely. Pick any character archetype and compare the females and males- even among villains, the females are very rarely plain, let alone outright ugly. On the rare occasion that I do play female characters, I myself tend to play either perky, petite mechanics who look cute with grease on their faces; or evil hot scientist-types with hearts of stone. There are exceptions, of course, but those characters are mostly for writing and not roleplaying.

I foresee a shortage of priceless vases in the near future

... I suddenly just remembered an old, overused detail in characters.
Soul piercing eyes. Does anyone realize how overused that description is? If I had a buck for every time I saw soul piercing eyes in descriptions, I'd be at least 100 dollars richer-- and I'd have a very violated soul.

Now then, if I got a buck for every soul-piercing eye I saw in real life... I'd have 0 dollars. And a very private soul.

But yeah, soul-piercing eyes are horrendously overdone. Keep out of my soul. That thing is private property and is reserved for a mis-colored Haunter upon my death. Seriously. He has an IOU for it.

Any use of the following 'words': Specifically over-used, or previously so, in Furcadian RP.

Describing EYES:
Orbs
Hues
Occulars
Optics
Lanterns

Describing HAIR:
Tresses
Locks

Describing EARS:
Auds
Audits

Describing FINGERS:
Digits

Describing LEGS:
Pillars or Pistons (really? reaaally? First time I heard that one I wtf'd.)

*snorts* Those ones get me, too, Dylan. You really see them popping up in feral animal RPs - and of course, Furc has a number of those, so along with them come the words that don't-really-mean-what-player-thinks-they-mean.

(Although 'digits' is acceptable for fingers if and only if it is Herr Doktor that is uttering the word.)

I am reminded of post 1 and post 2 at Bad RPers Suck. Get a load of the list linked in the second one, if you really want to make your head hurt!

Also, Wizard, no need to apologize or clarify - Rhaetia's little rant there was actually from the perspective of a somewhat stereotypical-looking female character, since she kind of is one herself, hehe. I definitely didn't think you were talking about female roleplayers! If you were, things would probably have been much more strongly worded.

You're right about the social conditioning thing, though. It's exactly the problem: a lot of people tend to think of men as people and women as women - with only their femininity to define them - unconsciously. Same kind of thing that makes people say "augh, I just don't understand [gender]", when what they really mean is they don't understand the thinking of particular people.

I'm sure there's a million essays about women characters in different forms of media, though, and everything wrong with how people portray them. I wonder if one's been done for roleplaying characters?

What I seem to see a lot is people playing what I suppose would be attributed to the 'mary sue' phenomenon, which hopefully everyone here dislikes.
But the thing I hate most is when people seem to model their character as merely a caricature of themselves, only better. So it's not really a fun game of creative storytelling, it's an inconfident person (in my mind) making a rendition of what they WISH they were but perhaps will never be. It's especially worse when they ARE completely obvious mary sues. Drives me mad.
Not to say that personas are a bad thing. I just don't agree with roleplaying them. Or anything that you attribute to yourself... to me, it's not good roleplay to be using yourself as a base.

I see that a lot, too.
I wouldn't want to be any of my characters hahaha. Especially not my main.

Also, Dylan, you forgot locks!

/fixed

I haven't gone so far as to read every single post to this, so I'm simply going to throw this out there regardless:

I don't know that it stands for this topic just right, but... I can't stand to see cliques. It's such a sorry thing when there's characters you'd love to interact with, but they (more or less) want nothing to do with you because they've found something better, or because they're friends with "the cool people". I wonder if anyone else has ever experienced this?
I consider this a pet peeve, gosh darnit!

@Syd I do roleplay a fursona, but... I can't say he's much different from me, and I don't think I've played him with anyone but my fiancée for a long time, but I can totally understand where you're coming from.

@Dylan PILLARS? REALLY?