Forums » Smalltalk » What's your role play pet peeves?

Yes! This happens even when they have a decent storyline summary in the request thread, with a request of getting "at least a para or more" from their co-writer. Then they want you to write the opener, and they respond to your 200 word multi-para with ten words in reply, and so your next post is 80 words, and they post twelve words with three of them being dialogue. When I encounter such scenarios, I try and give then the benefit of the doubt and may give them a reminder of what they said in the request thread, but usually I end up 'ghosting' them because when I say I can't keep going with the responses, they want to OOC talk and such and beg to keep going only to keep writing the same way. Sorry, my time is limited. Some RPs just dont work, and some writers don't mesh.

When people rp with you and they start ghosting you , and i am thinking like 'Maybe they don't have time.' and then i see they are posting on forums like 'searching for rp partners' or making forums for new rp's , usually i don't say anything about it because i don't want to be rude but it annoys me a lot!

^^^^^
THIS
Thank You

When someone obviously hasn't taken the time to look at your profile before rp-ing with you because maybe you had something important about you or your rp style that they should know.
Because no.
If my profile says "I am not interested in romance" or something like... "I don't do anything sexual" and you go ahead and say "Hey! I'm interested in smut/sexual themes, I'd like to do that."

DON'T get mad at me when I say no or block you if you persist or spring it on me mid rp, (and you send your friend to say nasty things to me) because its quite clearly stated on my profile that I DON'T do those kinds of things and I will respond in a manner like that.

When people make their character the victim the entire story. Or they don’t let my character have any interactions.

I was in this one RP where she played her character and I played mine. I also played her love interest. I got so annoyed because the entire time when I tried to play my character she would switch it around so I had to respond with her love interest. I was like honey no let me be my character too. This is adventure not strictly romance oh my god. So eventually I just ghosted them. Oops. No regrets.

I hate when I have to direct write the whole roleplay while the other roleplayer writes one liners. Another one is when a roleplayer totally smuts out our roleplay and destroys it.

Ooooh...I wasn't gonna do this at first, but...I don't like people at all, who send friend requests and do absolutely nothing afterward. Like, no message, nothing. It's annoying, really, and, that stings a little. You've reviewed my profile, decide I'm cool and all, but wait, this guy has a set preference (which I sort of do, to be fair), so I won't do anything to RP with this guy, just be a waste of friend space...or something like that.

Honestly...I get that some people will do it, and get back to you at a later date (which is actually fine by me, so long as you do so), and that's not really what I don't like. I just don't like when they make no effort to express an interest in roleplaying with you, after making a friend request. As I said before, it kinda stings.

My terrible luck. It's either that I have a lot of people to write to during an extremely busy week, or a boring, lazy vacation where literally all the people I'm RPing with just don't respond to me at all after six days of nothing. There's no in-between.

Yeah I hear ya, though I do feel a maiden in distress thing can be done well if the character actually remains a character and not just an object to be rescued. If you would like some clarification on what I mean, I made a more detailed post in this thread here.

I must admit I am guilty of this from time to time. Like in a superhero RP one time, I spent a couple paragraphs on how my character was afraid to step through a portal into a pocket dimension. Granted, being afraid of portals was a big part of her character that I had included in the sheet, but I probably could have shortened it just a tad. At least I can honestly say none of the stuff I wrote was repeating the exact same stuff in a slightly different way, hahah.

Another thing I have occasionally been guilty of, though usually because I pretty much just like the scenario as is. In such a case I at least try to tell them as much so we can get to the good stuff--the RP itself!

I can understand people not liking certain things happening in their RP. We all have preferences and dislikes, things that we love to see and things that terrify or enrage us--I have them too! I do, however, feel it is important to not forget that what makes a story/RP fun, is generally some form of conflict that drives the plot forward. Whether the conflict is an internal thing (a person driven by guilt of a past action, fear of something happening, being divided between a practical course of action vs. an ethical one, etc) or an external force (A natural disaster, hostile military/organization, or even just a single menacing villain) doesn't matter, as long as it is compelling for the characters involved, it'll likely be compelling for the readers and writers too!

I can totally understand this, though I don't mind the occasional RP'er who writes in first person, mostly because I have been lucky to run across people who can do that while keeping it literate and keeping IC separate from OOC. Also, admittedly, I run across it more within character profiles than in the RP threads that come after.

I agree, to a point--I don't mind RP'ing with someone who is playing a canon character, I don't even mind them going off in a different direction than planned if a canon interest shows up in the RP later, as long as we can all still make the new direction interesting, but I am wary of playing canons from a source I am completely unfamiliar with, because I don't feel I know them well enough to do them justice.

Ehhh, no character picture I feel is the least of the RP sins, lol. As long as they compensate with a nicely detailed verbal description, of course--lack of a picture and only a single small sentence isn't really enough to give me an idea what my character is supposed to be looking at!

Understandable--I feel such a character is only fun if they can grow and learn to eventually ask for/accept help occasionally. Having a character remain the same always, never learning from their mistakes ever, is no fun. It's more fun when they learn from old mistakes--and then make completely new ones!

I hear you, though from a slightly different perspective. A lot of the time I worry that my character that I am building will be the one that is too powerful, though in some cases it's justified as perhaps I am playing the big bad villain of the RP, so the heroes need someone challenging to fight. Or they got into the position they are in because of some powerful skill or talent--but in the end I do my best to avoid making any invincible characters. Powerful, sure, but a concerted effort from a handful of other player characters will always be enough to take them down. I do not like to make ones that can take on an army and win, that's just ridiculous. Never mind the kind of stuff you tend to see in Dragonball Z, lol, where there are characters that can blow up planets

You said some other peeves, but these were the ones that I really felt compelled to contribute a few words to. Anything else you said you can assume I agree with, or personally have no stance on.

Understandable. I do it myself from time to time, though usually as a hypothetical, like if the other person reacts this way, I take action A, but if they react that way, I take action B, and I try to let them know to assume this means I do exactly that if they take the action I anticipated.

Hahah, yes...I hate when RL seemingly conspires to make schedules the least compatible it possibly can. And no, I am not sarcastic, it is legitimately frustrating, albeit something beyond the control of anyone involved in the RP.

Ooof, another pet peeve is more on myself--I dislike when I think I'm just about done with a post...but I can't seem to stop writing, or alternately I have no idea how to finish off the last paragraph. Something which seems to have happened here. Looks back on my previous post.

Also I tend to dislike double-posting (the same person posting twice in a row with no one between them) unless it's for a very good reason...which I am aware I have done. Clears throat awkwardly. But anyway, good reasons would include stuff like, setting the scene, then making the character introduction in a separate post to keep from getting too long (something that I see happen frequently in T1 fights, for example), or making a separate post as a different character so it's clear which one you're posting for each time.

Stallions

I know, I know... ever since you read "The Black Stallion", you've fantasized about having one for yourself. But most male horses were/are gelded for a reason! And not just to avoid making more baby horses.

Stallions are difficult, often (there are exceptions, of course) aggressive. Most average horse boarding facilities won't even allow them as they are considered too much of a liability.

Unless horses are a huge part of your character's story, he wouldn't be riding a stallion.

The Fantasy Writers Guide To Horses

Doing this on a (new) anon character because I lowkey feel like I'd some backlash about it.

1) Grammar! Jesus it sucks to be going in a really good, prospective roleplay, you're into it, want to keep going in with it but... when you get chatspeak or lack of proper punctuation or something like that, it is SO hard to want to continue on with the roleplay! Now I am not by any means perfect, no one else is. If you have a couple mistakes, that's fine. But when it's so prevalent and happening more often than it should, it's frustrating.

2) I am sorta bad about taking a few days to reply to messages, but that really depends on the current pace of the roleplay. If we are at a dead end, I'm likely to take a little bit to respond. If the roleplay is going fairly smooth, it may take me all but an hour or two to respond (depending in what I'm doing in rl, that is). And I will admit, I disappeared for almost a year due to mental health issues and am immensely grateful for the couple of people that have stuck around and continued to roleplay with me despite that. BUT, when you have someone message you super excited about a roleplay and the two of you hash out the ideas for it, you get a nice starter message and such from them a few days later - you wait a few days to respond, and then don't hear back from them at all? That irks me. Especially when you see they're active in the forums with other people.

I try not to complain cause roleplay is something I genuinely enjoy doing but if I had to nitpick:

1) People who can’t respect anonymity.
2) Stolen artwork & plagiarism. Not similar concepts but like literally lifting commissioned artwork and paragraphs word for word.
3) Super strict canon/taking roleplay so seriously that writing becomes a chore. I’d rather imply that something has happened/shortly summarize it than painstakingly detail every step of my character performing an action. That’s boring to write and read.

Most of the time I don’t have these problems because I find people on my same wavelength and stick with them, though. (ovo)b

Also replying anonymously due to backlash and the last thread I partook in I was stalked to by people who I wasn't even friends with lmao.

- IC; It use to really bother me when people would write their characters being able to know/assume/instantly understand my character as if they've obtained knowledge or assumption about them from the rpr itself that they would not otherwise have access to - especially without my permission!

- IC/OOC; Rushed rped! Not so much in that certain scenes or situations are vaguely written to help push what otherwise could be a very slow or potentially boring roleplay along but I'm talking about people who are eager for things to happen, so they force rp down yours or another users throat until they eventually achieve their 'goal' and then instantly lose interest in the roleplay thereafter. This applies to situations where I've discovered that some users will rebound off another player just to have replaced the previous and -I- certainly don't appreciate being the rebounded player, nor would others I imagine.



- OOC; Being led on/lack of communication! I could rant about this but a few users have touches on this already!! It's discouraging to experience a roleplay partner that can't tell you what's up, or who simply continues promising interaction and roleplay and plotting head-canons with you only to leave you high and dry. What's further more discouraging is that while you are not entitled to anyone's time these promises and expectations are still made while your roleplay partner is actually rping and investing with someone else entirely! Not on the same characters of course (or possibly on the same characters I'm sure some people have experienced) but I think you'll basically get the gist of what I'm trying to explain! This has been a constant theme I've encountered throughout my many years of roleplay and is sometimes an unfortunate result of why I might turn someone down or be defensive when seeking new roleplay partners. It's one thing to feel ready to move on from a roleplay or roleplay partner, but it's another to keep them hostage with promises!

- OOC; Stolen Artwork & Plagiarism; as Lune's touched on already!

I have to add my two cents, because this happens to me constantly in RP and it has become so incredibly tiring:



RP grows stale quick for one person if they're the only one making substantial contributions.

I think Pet-peeves and in general things that burn a person out from roleplay/creative ventures are a culmination of out of character and in character interactions. Most of the time its things that are recurring issues with multiple players or from exceptionally terrible experiences stemming from a particular person or group.

Like anyone here though I definitely have my peeves.


I am going to somewhat lay it out similarly to how Eskimo did with theirs. Sorry if it is lengthy.

---

- OOC: Communication or lack thereof.
This topic has definitely been a subject of controversy with a lot of people who are apart of creative means. Literally, a dead and beaten horse (or if you want to akin it to relative content then like the burning horse bug in Red Dead Redemption 2). But it is an issue that is sorely looked over or even ignored by individuals who are involved, but often bitch about. I found that it is extremely frustrating when you are interacting with someone else either through their main handle or through an anon character and they do a number of things that are considerably rude or even the point of being hurtful. Such as not communicating with you on things that may afflict your own character’s standings with theirs, or their relationship. Or not telling someone that you or they have decided to have someone else do something, or completely ret-conning a character to fit the needs of another player even if they were already in play. Here comes the brain vomit -- Personally, I expect to maturely communicate about how you may feel about a particular plot device between two characters, a characters relationship, if the person or your self are not in the ‘mood’ to roleplay that particular pairing or at all and so on and so forth. However, I have found that beyond roleplaying it stems in to how one may talk to another person that you are actively venturing with in to creative means. Sometimes we have AWESOME relationships with people that we roleplay with other times not so much and it turns exceptionally sour. Personally, I have been in the saddle in terms of being pulled in to toxic bullshit or dealing with someone acting like a victim/defensive -- being called names like an uppity bitch or high and mighty when one just inquiries why something is happening the way it is and trying to fix that or improve upon it with minimal fallout. Heck even being purposefully left out of a group or even ostracized from was a fun experience that i would 10 out of 10 not experience again.

I found a great way to essentially deal with this is just to be open and honest with your communications + acting like a decent human being to another person regardless or not of your comfortability with them, is also a great step. It is scary, it will give you anxiety because one's brain may not let go of what they may do to you or say to everyone around you. But telling the other person your truth sets you free, and if they cannot accept the person you are or what you may be trying to convey to them then you don’t need it in your life. Just be honest - you aint feelin an rp or even a character or a friendship be like hey i feel like this isn’t working for me. If they can’t accept that even then move on.


- OOC: Bullying/Ostriszation/Catty behavior
This should be in it's self something that people know of and dislike. But it still occurs even by people who say they dislike it.


- OOC; Plot hijacking/interjecting?
I HATE THIS with a burning passion. It may not necessarily be a partner that is already interacting with you - this can also go for external people who may see it fit to latch on or attempt to do so to benefit themselves and their characters. What I mean is simply that their character has absolutely NO interaction with another character you may have been rping months or years with and they try to suction cup their characters to your friends or to yours. This can also be seen by myself as an incredibly vindictive behavior on part of the person doing the hijacking? That they hate someone or dislike someone that much that they are willing to screw up a plot that the original owners may have a hand in. If you are already involved with the person then it can be seen as a method of control or a really uncomfortable way for them or their character to get closer to you as Uhh said with out natural development. Even worse is cementing the deal with the purchase of character artwork and in game (for ex furcadia digos) items to guilt and fear monger the player in to staying with a hijacked plot // also applicable to autopair or pairing with out consent.


- OOC/IC: PLOT RECYCLING
I find that reutilizing a particular character or plot device with other people regardless of the fact that it has been thoroughly thought out by previous owners of the ideas is really…...lazy? I can understand if someone is really vibing with a plot but the other people may have fallen out and they still want it to continue, it should be re-worked so it can work for newer players but not the same word for word. For instance instead of someone playing the exact same son of said character they should play a second kid they have had unless they were an single child. Same with siblings. Lovers or what


- OOC: Art Theft/Plagiarism
Enough said as a artist and as a writer i find it discouraging to see people just YOINK artwork from other people's characters or from major media. And profess that it is theirs. It’s like really?


- ic/ooc: Autopairing
without context? Without plotting/with out actual story development - this is what I mean. A lot of times people are often far more comfortable pairing with the same 1 or 3 people so they automatically just give their characters to them out of because. I know I am guilty of such actions. However, It gets stale, unappetizing and boring to be apart of. I rather try and branch out and see what other characters and people have to offer than constantly turning to someone because its comfortable. What sucks is that there are so many people like that? And so penetrating that wall and getting to know someone is an additional hurdle to overcome. Equally - whenever you have a pairing with someone and then their activity halts all together. A+ or when some one from their original bosom buddy group becomes jealous of your self or their friend pairing with another and decidedly begin to shit talk either member when it doesn't even concern them. Great content. As well there is the issue of autopairing with out consent and using art and items to cement it further and fearmonger or guilt a person in to staying in a -relationship- that wasn't earned.


- IC; Canon characters.
I can understand that some people really enjoy playing or pretending to be a character from a franchise or series . For me it is exceptionally unfeasible for one of my own characters to interact with them when they themselves GREW UP reading them in comics and watching movies. Most of the time canon characters are overpowered and unrealistically played as per their franchise or sometimes the player. Or not played to their canon.



- IC/OOC?; Quality vs Quantity
Posts don’t always have to be lengthy and gorgeous thesaurus humping monstrosities. But they should be eloquent and well written + inclusive of the other character.

May I say this is why I don't accept random friend requests? I always have this rule on my profile that says you need to either have talked to me in a full conversation at least twice or you're currently roleplaying with me.

It's also a sort of trust issue, I'll admit, because I'm not fond of getting too close to others just to end up hurting myself... But I'd rather have you on my daily feed if I know you're going to talk to me in a nice conversation at least once or twice in your lifetime. I'm not just a random number on your ever-growing friends list that you can skim over and ignore.

I have a couple. .. er... a few hahaha.

- Railroaders. But this I mean people who have already planned out the whole plot/story in their head, they know the exact direction everything is going to take, thus making any other player's actions completely irrelivant. Worse, these sorts of rpers often either ignore character actions that go against their "plan" or worse, get angry about it and go off in a huff because you "spoiled everything" by having a character act IN CHARACTER.
I just don't see the point. If you already know exactly how you want it to go, why are you collaberating at all? Why aren't you just writing this as a story? Why roleplay it? It makes literally no sense to me.

these sorts of roleplayers will often go so far as to even have expectations for how dialogue will go down, assuming your character will act in a specific way. This annoys me because I find it presumptuous to assume you know my character better than I do. I'm god to my character, they're mine, only I get to say what is and isn't ic for them.
But sadly you get people who seem to think they can "play your character better than you can" and will go out of their way to make sure you know you're "doing it wrong."
the arrogance of that just... really irks me.

- this one more applies to tabletop rp but gms and other players who CANNOT HANDLE players playing cross gender. It just makes no sense to me. You can believe i'm an orc, or an elf, or a fricken kobold but a guy? that's too much of a stretch of the imagination? SERIOUSLY?
The amount of tabletop rp games I was literally forced to play female because I happend to be born a girl just.. eugh.
to be honest I think it really didn't help matters and made me ever MORE reluctant to play female characters when given free choice. I resent them, and that's all down to years of people forcing me to play a gender I didn't neccisary want to play.

On a similar vein, I sometimes get pms from people here, probably guys, who ask me to play a girl and i'm like "do you SEE any female characters on my page?" and then I get the reply "you could make one" and i'm like "or I could not?" because damnit stranger, I owe you nothing and i'm not creating a character just for your personal fap fantasy. -_-

- Pregnancy fetish. I just flat out can't wrap my head around this one. And I don't mean fetish like "adult", what I mean is this OBSESSION a lot of roleplayers seem to have with hooking up, getting knocked up and having lotsababies and doing the whole domestic thing.
I don't mind a little domestic bliss in an rp if it comes about naturally, the relationship is a natural forming thing over time and as the years go by maybe they decide to have kids and settle down or whatever, but I see way too many rps where that's the ultimate goal, that's like, the whole point. Like, they'll hook up really briefly then oops baby and then... what? you just rp changing diapers and sleepless nights? not my idea of fun lemme tell ya now.
I also just don't see the point, does contraception not exist in adult rp land? Only way I can see story potential is in the forced interaction/relationship of two unprepared parents who barely know one another. But even then, eventually they have a baby and then what? Domestic bliss? they go their separate ways? What happens then?

I was in a long term rp where this happened with one player a LOT. basically any character who ended up in a relationship with ANY of their characters somehow there was some way for a "whoops, pregnant" thing to happen, and it was ALWAYS twins. (again why?)
I just... I don't get the appeal. I assume these are people who've never had children and thus don't know the reality of child rearing and how freaking thankless it can be and how repetative.
Sorry but.. I want action and adventure in my rp, not diapers and soiled baby grows. Unless there's some dramatic story reason for the addition of kids, they really just aren't interesting to rp till they're you know.. older. Babies are just a prop you carry around in game and that's just... yeah.. not so fun.


- Instaromance, just add water - Two characters meet, they exchange literally two words, suddenly they're "soulmates". Just.. no. It's tacky and it's lame and it's just childish wish fulfilment. I can't vibe with it man. I just can't.
I love romance, I love the drama and turmoil but also the cutesy fluffy stuff that comes from having characters together, but I like it to evolve in a way that feels at least partially natural.
I am however, AOK with random one night stand hookups hahaha.
Or if you wanna play that your character has become needless attached after said hookup and we play out that awkward. ahem.

I'm a jerk.

- Clumsy characters. Now this needs clarification too. I don't mind well DONE clumsiness, but honestly, most of the time when you see "clumsy" listed as a character trait, what they mean is she'll fall over her own shoes and smack her face in and bleed in front of the vampires so they "try to bite her" or she'll fall out of a tree and hurt herself so all the other characters have to rush to her aid.
What it really means is "attention hog" and "drama queen" and I can't be having with it. I know immediately the SORT of character i'll be dealing with and it puts me off maaaajorly.

and omg.. I sound so arrogant ahahahah.

- "edgy" characters. Again, not all characters who are edgy are "edgy". I mean those lone wolves who sulk in a corner and don't interact with anyone and just monologue the whole time and do nothing to advance the plot, interact or in any way make their presence relivant at all.
If we could literally remove your posts and the rp would still make sense, you're adding nothing.

- Post length/word counts - nothing makes me run from an rp faster than the words "I expect x number of paragraphs per reply"
NOTHING.
I'm a verbose roleplayer, but the arrogance of forcing a word count just... it rubs me the wrong way. I don't want to be sitting there adding needless fluff to fill a word count or to add another paragraph when my reply is perfectly fine as it is. Sometimes replies will be long, sometimes they'll be short, variety makes for more dynamic reading surely? And fluff and purple prose is just a slog to get through.
Whenever I see "I expect you to write 5 paragraphs MINIMUM" I automatically assume "well this person will spend half an hour describing a fricken lamp won't they?"

The worst example of this I ever had was an rp a few years back where two characters were talking in a tavern. It was one of those tense sort of scenes, two people who didn't trust one another making a deal you know, like... close angle camera kinda stuff (lol I always think of rp as if it's tv/movies, I can't help it) and I posted a reply that was you know, a good long bit of dialogue and a decription of my character's posture and tone, the sort of stuff that's relivant.
the other player then chided me OOC telling me I needed to "write more" and I asked what she would like me to add. "Oh I don't know" she replied dismissively "What are the people in the background doing?"

yes, this roleplayer wanted me to spend a few paragraphs describing what NPC irrelivant bar patrons and the barmaid were doing. I kid you not.
I was just so bewildered. Suffice to say, I noped outta that rp fast.

So alas, when I see a word count minimum, I think of that player and I think of the stress i'd feel knowing I had to write to a word count. I rp for fun, not to have some "who can write the most flowery nonsense" contest. Sheesh.
(and for the record, YES I can give 3-5 paragraphs if I feel like it and the rp/scene/plot calls for such, just most rps don't call for such long winded responses)

- I'm not a big fan of face claims either, I honestly find the idea of rping using a real person's face slightly creepy. Like.. do they KNOW you're using their face for your ERP slave thing? Or casting them as some psycho murderer or something? I dunno, I just find it... unsettling. I'd rather there was no image to be honest and I tend to completely ignore photographs.
I dunno who they are, I don't want to imagine a stranger who's face you've stolen and yeah... it just... *shudder* it's like a particularly creepy form of identity theft or something.

- Getting ghosted - Come on, jsut tell me it's not working up. heck, LIE and say stuff came up! I'd sooner know you were ok and not have to worry about whether a reply will come outta the blue or have that forever nagging "what'd I do wrong?" "was I not good enough? oh god, what if i'm actually super terrible?" angst thanks. Just... you know.. let me down gently guys! A simple "i'm sorry i'm swamped, I took on too many rps and i'm not feeling this one as much i'm so sorry!" would be FINE!
In fact I got a message like that earlier today and i'm SO grateful to the person for having the decency to do that rather than just running a hiding. I'm kinda tired of an rp starting and then like 4 posts in the other person ceases to exist and i'm left thinking "well damn.. did they fall in a ditch and die or did they just think I sucked?"

and the last one

- introducing triggering content without running it by the players first.

Now i get it, you want to keep things a surprise so it's shocking and such, but certain stuff you HAVE to make sure is okay with your players before you do it! otherwise you're just upsetting someone for no good reason by being a thoughtless jerk. Just because YOU don't find something upsetting doesn't mean you can't be considerate of how certain topics might be a bit... inappropriate to just dump on people without first checking.
Sadly this happened in one rp, one of my triggers was brought up and I said to the gms "stop, if this is going where I thinkit's going, you need to stop right now, back up and rethink."
Sadly they didn't take it well. Me having issue with it "ruined their story" or something, and I spent 3 nights crying myself to sleep feeling stupid and dirty and having all these awful memories dredged up coupled with a feeling of immense guilt for my discomfort causing the rp to stall and the gms to flounce off in a huff.
I felt like it was "my fault" when really, the gm was just being a selfish jerk. They didn't want to check if this was okay first, they wanted to just get away with it and as it was, when I mentioned "uh is this going where I think it's going?" one of the other players went "OH HELL NO! I don't wanna do that either!"
It was an awful experience. In the end the whole overarching plot thread was effectively aborted by the gms and resolved in a really unsatisfying manner, I believe out of spite because we, the players, wouldn't let them do whatever they wanted and DARED to say no. It left us all feeling pretty unhappy and left me especially feeling extremely unneccisarily guilty and responsible. Which wasn't at all fair.

Don't do that to another person. Be considerate and respectful and when tackling controversial or potentially triggering material, ALWAYS make sure it's okay first, don't just spring it on people without warning. It's not cool, it's just mean.

this was long... I am sorry. I get uh.. ranty.

This. I honestly have never had that problem (yet) but I have had a couple acquaintances get complaints that it was weird for them to play the opposite gender. From what I've seen around one or two roleplaying communities: it seems that people think that if you're a boy playing a girl, you're looking for sexual roleplay and smut. But if you're a girl playing a boy on the other hand, you're looking for either romance or shonen-ai/boy's love and nothing else.

I just don't think people realize the countless reasons that girls might want to play as boys or boys prefer playing as girls outside of those stereotypical (and often incorrect) scenarios... Especially if the roleplayer is someone who identifies as the opposite gender or non-binary. Then it starts to border on transphobic.
I'm going to let you know right now: I screamed in agreement as soon as I read this. Coming from someone who never wants to become pregnant ever in real life, sometimes I feel that half the reason people go for the whole pregnancy spin is because they're secretly trying to find someone to date who wants that outside of RP. I could be dead wrong on this, but it's happened before, I assure you.

Either way, all of my muses except for one have their reasons for not wanting kids, from being physically unable to bear children or give live sperm to someone (Merrin, Meliere, Maxwell, Yuuki) to having a psychopathic man kill every child they give birth to unless they plan to have his kids instead (Lexi, Creatia), to just simply not wanting babies (Vanillope, Kagura).

Also, if people really want to add kids into a RP to signify domestic bliss... Then why can't they just adopt? That's an option too. Overall, all of this times infinity and beyond the realms of the space/time continuum.
No, you are not, because I feel the same way. I'd actually like to see more roleplays where the character pining for the object of their desires doesn't get what they want in the end for whatever reason. Makes for more variety and character growth, I feel.
I've seen this once or twice in a roleplay, and it made me reconsider making my Creatia clumsy. But I decided to make her clumsy in a more detrimental way: she can actually get herself into major trouble and attract enemies or even break something important to a quest. (Thus she gets scolded and berated for it, which is not cute at all.) When she does just simply fall on her face, she bounces back from it because she's used to it. Half of that clumsiness is all an act anyway, and she knows it, so it kinda plays into her secretly manipulative personality.

Though dear gods I know your pain. There's actual detrimental clumsiness that can move a plot or provide proper comic relief, and there's clumsiness that's there to seek attention and nothing else. I think you mentioned that if you can take an edgy character out and the story still makes sense, they're not really needed, right? I feel that the same applies to a "clumsy" character too. If their actions can be taken away and the plot works exactly the same without it, then it's just unnecessary. I could be wrong of course.
To these last two, all I have to say is this. I can also give three meaty paragraphs, but seeing people demand this of me every time I post is just too much. Sometimes I have an off day, and then what? But what irks me morw is people combining this with a daily response requirement. I see that, then I'm gone. I can barely do weekly to bi-weekly responses with three to five paragraphs average. I'm not wracking my brain for three or more paragraphs on a daily basis. It's just too much.

On the face claim? I also prefer just a blank profile pic rather than a RL face claim or stolen art off Google. Not that I won't play with them if they use it (I'm usually welcoming of it unless I know who the character they're using is and they don't and just pulled it off Google without a second thought... That's another rant in and of itself though), but at least let me know that the art you're using isn't yours. Also if I'm really feeling the roleplay, I can offer to draw their character if it's just a blank space. I'm very much not okay with people asking, "Hey, you're an artist, right? Draw this character ref or real life person I found off Google exactly how it is, because that's what my OC looks like."

Not sure if anyone has mentioned these or not, but here's some of mine.

• People who try to force their OC, or sometimes canon as it has happened before, into my own OC's backstory. Back on Ani Roleplay before Guild became popular, there was one girl who was way out of bounds. Kept claiming her character's family, who was canon, not OC, would always give someone to my guy's family as like sacrifice for being a bride or something like that. I'm like: No that's not true. Nowhere in my bio was shit like that. She dropped it for a bit. Then she tries to show a tattoo on her back that tells this story or some shit, and I was like: You are gone. My guy was a Dragon Lord if anyone is curious. Hence the sacrifice part...
  
• People who claim they have read my OC's bio, yet when they try to plot with me, they obviously have not read fully my OC's info. Such as I had one OC who was self-exiled from his castle, due to he was blamed for the murder or his brothers. This person also insisted that my guy's family castle held an item this person's OC needed. I didn't have it that they hold anything of great value in the castle, but ya let's go ahead and assume they do, because they are royal. Let's not even bother with the fact there is a murderer on the loose, who framed the youngest sibling for killing his brothers.
  
• People who end up ghosting on me either during plotting or right in the middle of the rp. Now. I fully understand people have a rl. But still. Telling me how awesome my character is, how you so want to rp with them, then suddenly the person ghosts me, and days turn to weeks, weeks turn to one month. I give up on them. There are very few I will make acceptions for, due to normally I get a heads up. But when I don't even get a heads up, without detail just a simple: I can't post or I'm no longer interested, it doesn't really boost my confidence
  
• I do my best to make starters and or replies as workable as possible for my rp partner to respond to it. Sometimes people will take 3-4 posts of their own, and 3-4 posts of my own combined, before making an effort for our character's to interact. Yes, I am aware that I could also put forth the effort. However. If I have and they don't take it, then that fault is on them.
  
• Somewhat in regards to the previous peeve. When I post what I consider to be necessary, and nothing more, and I do not match a person's posting length. I had one person who posted close to ten para's once, for a starter, most of it was before his own character was in the same area as my own character. Like. I could care less to read about your character strapped to this rocket that's about to blow, and the villain monologing etc. before the rocket shoots off with your character and so forth. It's not that important for me to read that. And then because I didn't match this person para for para, he blamed me saying I was not up to par with him and that he couldn't rp with me because of it. i don't do the matching game of para for para.
  
• People who assume outright that my male OC's are bi and or gay. I don't mind if personally close friends of mine, who in play will tease me and tell me how a male OC of theirs would react to my guy. I can have a good laugh with my guy friends like that. Take Demi (Demilicious) as an example. I've shown him an image of an OC of mine, incomplete, who looked like a military dude and was serious etc. On Discord, Demi played and teased how one OC of his would flirt with my guy, and my guy responded how he would. Demi made me laugh, I had fun in the brief Discord exchange. It's when I have people who tell me they want to hook up with an OC of mine, and it's an m/m relation but no one asks me if that would be okay. They just automatically assume it's perfectly fine. If it's not listed in the info, then ask before assuming.
  
• I have a preference for portraying male characters over females. That is just me. I can rp females, but I portray them how I wish. I've had people who don't like the fact that my female OC's basically aren't what I call DID's. DID = Damsel In Distress. I'm sorry. It's just not my cup of tea. Yet I've had people give me hassle in various ways, for my females being who they are. They have standards, nothing too strict, but if they don't like whoring or whores, that's them. I'm not going to make my OC's be outright jerks to another person's OC who happens to do those things but don't give me crap if my OC's aren't into those things.
  
• When I've done m/m relations, I've had to always be seme. It would be nice to once in a while be the uke. It doesn't need to be all the time. But this is another reason I am strict on any m/m relationships in rp.
  
• This hasn't happened any time recent. But one thing that has happened, is surprised rp pregnancies. If it hasn't been discussed in ooc, nor in character, then babies aren't happening. I don't care how badly anyone wants it for their character, it's always better to respect your partner and ask. I've had one person who tried telling me her OC was pregnant by my guy, but then turned around and said she wasn't after my guy told her they weren't ready for parenting and she got re-checked by the doctor. I also had a guy be pregnant by some weird magic that also involved a tattoo. Point is I learned this the hard way, especially when I found the character page for the kid and I hadn't been informed. It was to surprise me by my rp partner and his friend. Nope. Just, no. I so cannot stand unplanned pregnancies.
  
• When I see people who just make their OC's so OP its not funny, while I am always having to run by a close friend of mine to view my OC's powers/abilities/limitations to make sure they sound within reason. Especially when it comes to the limitations. When you make it so that you are basically a God OC, even if your character isn't an actual God, and there are no limitations written for your OC, then that's just total boredom for me.
  
• People who do not help with the plot, and make me "pull teeth" like a dentist to get answers out of people. I ask what people want to have happen, so I can then from there give suggestions and all I get is that they go with the flow. If I don't have something to follow like a guideline then I can't contribute.
  
• When someone has something so vague for their OC's backstory, and ask to rp with me when my OC is more fleshed out, and then the one asking me for rp won't give me more information on their OC for plotting...then why bother asking for rp? I need things to work with. Give me something about your OC enough that I can make suggestions for rp. The more I have at my disposable for plotting the better. The vaguer your OC is, the less I have to work with.

I beieve that is it. For now at least.