HeinousSaurus wrote:Hello there. I'm a newish RPer with a question about the chat room. You see, I've made 8 attempts to RP in the chatroom so far. All of them have been whisper/PUB communications attempting to set up and play a one on one private roleplay. I have a grammatically/structurally sound profile with image and fully fleshed out pref list. I read profiles and sliders before I reach out to people, and incorporate that information in my proposals. I maintain grammatically and structurally sound posts when speaking with other users. Additionally, I have offered primarily to play pred, which is apparently the role in greater demand.
Man, I wished more new people were like this. Welcome to a toxic hellpit that barely functions as advertised, it's not much but it's our toxic hellpit that barely functions as advertised. You'll just have to stick it out and find your place.
HeinousSaurus wrote:In spite of this, 5/8 attempts have failed completely
Norm, or a good record depending on who you are. This isn't your fault per se because statistically spoken, the chances of any two people having exact reciprocal kinks while also finding what the other represents attractive is low in and by itself.
HeinousSaurus wrote:(partner dropped off the face of the Earth mid conversation, or was impossible to reach to schedule the next session) and of the three that succeeded in some capacity, two began with my partner missing or being egregiously late to (hour plus) the session with no warning. Out of eight attempts, I've had one RP experience where things proceeded smoothly.
Norm, this chat is disposable timesink time. It is the lowest possible priority of most people's days, so the slightest bit of thing that gets in the way of anyone's plans will cause a delay.
HeinousSaurus wrote:Additionally, the quality of writing has been pretty abysmal. One person didn't understand what perspective was, necessitating a twenty minute back-and-forth explanation of the difference between first, second, and third person.
Bad luck. Overall, most chat regulars are literate to some extent (but you will remember the bad ones). You usually have to catch one of the low effort people, and while profile is not an end-all judge on that, the conversation you have beforehand is usually a good hint at what you're getting. If the person is asked two questions in one sentence, answers one with a single word and then forgets about the other one entirely, you're not dealing with someone with any will or interest to actually write.
HeinousSaurus wrote:The others have been better, but it's still overwhelmingly a mess of run-on sentences and random tense-switching (spelling is, surprisingly, generally strong). This occurs even when it seems clear that the other person was not rushing (ex: four line post that took fifteen minutes written in this way.)
Depending on post sizes and time of day, it's not uncommon for 5 minutes of dawdling on another tab, 5 minutes of studying the post and then 5 minutes of writing. As a new user, you're probably very excited for every person willing to spend time with you, but when someone's been there and done that, they stop staring at the screen with anticipation. Run-on sentences happen to good people as well, I literally have that problem sometimes - pretty sure you've found one in this post somewhere. This is because chat posts aren't super conductive to being reviewed, and I'm not going to review this post a lot, or return to this thread tomorrow. But yes, the quality can be bad at times because everyone has to be the good roleplay person but everyone wants to do the fetish stuff, and the demands for the good roleplay produces stilted volume-based writers who then perpetuate snobbery. Depending on who you are, you could just see if they were just there for the fetish stuff, and not hold any pretenses in the scene itself. But again, you'll usually notice from how people talk to you.
Here's a quick rundown depending on if you approach or are approached:
Approachers:Hi: "Hi - how are you? - wanna play?" Don't judge the 'hi', not everyone wants to write a giant paragraph to an AFK person or get ghosted, but 'how are you' is received as well as a hatecrime and people who don't understand that probably haven't learned enough to not drag that round of redundant smalltalk. They made someone turn their head and tab over on the 'hi', and haven't learned yet that the longer they drag on a potentially unwanted conversation, the more annoying they are. To not be terrible to this person, but if talking to them after the 'wanna play' comes off like with a real life NPC, you're going to get what you let yourself into.
Zero patience: "Hi - hello? - u there? - bitch" Spams you if you take longer than 1 minute to reply to anything. Usually new players who stare at the screen, take a moment to explain them you might take 10 minutes a reply and see from there.
IC Approacher: *Does things in your proximity* If creepy asterisks exists outside of fetish chats, it damn well exists in chats. This person thinks social norms can be sidestepped by invoking the assumption that everyone is horny like they are and they do not care who is creeped out by it. If you have not noted in your profile that IC approaches are welcome, then courtesy of their lack of empathy they function like a Nigerian Prince scam: The egregiousness guarantees that only pushovers they can manipulate into sating their base desires will get into things. Like a Nigerian Prince scam, they are spam to everyone else and make the world a little worse. No beef with IC approachers who stick to IC approach welcome profiles, you guys do your thing. Only indulge them if you're into it, but please don't enable them and actually mark your profile.
Seductive wannabe: "Hi there hon~" Bleeds virgin energy from the very first sentence by throwing verbal sexual harassment as their first contact method, because due to having zero experience in actual flirting, they think it actually starts like that. These people aren't usually terrible though, just socially awkward, so most of them will return to talking like human beings if you talk to them like human beings, at which point they might even be workable. Sadly, if they play female characters, they're often enabled by the desperate because guys on a whole often don't receive enough positive attention.
Catcaller: "Nice char" All the charm of a construction worker doing the cartoon wolf whistle. Thank them and watch as their brain melts trying to come up with the step after unsolicited compliment. If they revert to human speech, they might be workable if you're lucky.
But I'm horny NOW!: "Are you willing to X and Y me?" nevermind the things they asked are explicitly stated as unwanted in your profile. This person's blood is just not in their brain in the moment, so no, they have not read your profile at all, or even considered the logistics of roleplay. Chances are they only have like 15 minutes of time. Politely decline, and report them if you're on multiple characters and that phrase is just copy and pasted because that's the next category:
Spammer: The above message, but all of your alts receive that exact message in short order copy and pasted. Just report them, because that's against TOS.
Sales pitch: So you turn your head, and there's a ginormous paragraph detailing their idea. They mean well, because bad approachees more or less project as if this was the ideal approach. Realistically, if I can tell within 2 seconds I don't want someone, I don't want 2 more minutes of reading just to be sure. Regardless of how you feel in the moment, this is at the very least a person who has gone through some effort. If their first line is 'hi' but their second is this, that's still this. If all works out these people have a good shot at being decent partners.
Testing waters: Doesn't bring a scene, instead starts asking about you and your preferences. There's two types of these people, those who read profiles and those who don't. The former have a methodology to determine if they think you're a match, the latter just wants to preemptively cut off ways for you to reject them. The former can turn out great if you have the patience, the latter might just lead to no end of arguing why you should give them a chance, in which case be clear why you don't want to, don't be wishy washy and conjure up fake reasons. All persistence beyond that is a reportable offense.
Negotiator: Needs to know the reason behind every doubt, negotiates everything. You're not obliged to accept every argument. Realistically, if you were honest with your reasons why not, there will be no true way around it.
Alt char: Clearly the person you rejected but on another alt. Be honest for the reason of your rejection, if they don't know why they can feel like it was situational. If they're doing it to sidestep rejection tell them in no uncertain terms you do not want to play with them. After that it's a report.
Absolute chad: Polite and short open serving mostly to make the chat sound => why they approached you and what they're hoping to get. Pretty much the ideal approacher in most circumstances, even if you don't want them, you know immediately because they told you what they want. If this person doesn't further screw things up by being bitter about rejection, bless them. But this person will be a rarity and the reason is in the sequence I just named. "Why they approached you and what they're hoping to get" is kryptonite because that would actually reveal something about them that can be rejected, so most people's psychology instead replaces that line and they become the next thing:
Normie: Polite and short open serving mostly to make the chat sound => some weird question about a specific form of a specific kink. This person is basically just the virgin side of the virgin vs chad meme, they're just a bit socially awkward and try to be more polite by using questions instead of what might come off as demands. Talk with them and they'll probably lose the awkwardness.
Approachees:AFK person: Will eventually respond to you, don't spam them, try another day, or at least within some hours.
Ignore: Unfortunately indistinguishable from AFK person, but as they are technically on some border of the TOS (though it's not policed) there's no reason to treat them differently. Wouldn't that mean you'd repeatedly message someone ignoring you without ever knowing they don't want you, and that would annoy them? Wow, you've arrived at the logical conclusion of why a dumb inconsiderate action might not work out perfectly. Any irritation from this on their end is just karma, be considerate to good people, not bad people, but do not do anything that would harass the AFK person.
Asshole: "Fuck off" Unless you've egregiously gone against their preferences with your approach, this behavior is not welcome. Just report this person.
Asshat: "Your character is strange" This person is an asshole but entertains some delusion they aren't, so regardless of what you're saying or asking, they don't start by talking with you, but rather about you to setup some sort of conflict. Even if you can skillfully navigate around it, the real asshat never was in good faith and usually just gets more belligerent or trails off. Asshattery comes from a form of cowardice where they want to preserve a moral basis for their own arguments on approach and tell themselves at the end of the day that they were friendly, they can't tell you off because that would legitimize themselves being told off, so instead they're just hostile. Basically, brace yourself for the worst.
Ok: "ok" The approachee version of "hi". If you manage to put two questions into the same sentence, they'll manage to only answer one, and a second word in their reply is something of a rarity. No, they don't roleplay better than this.
Diva: "If you approach me with anything less than a fully written idea guessed from my profile alone without any input from me I will ignore you immediately" Burned by 'hi', but essentially equally inconsiderate. Produces sales pitchers when people follow their instructions. This is the true spiritual counterpart to 'hi' because both require you to do all the work at next to no usable input, but the diva is marginally better if their profile actually has enough workable information. It's worth probing if this person actually has the decency to work with you rather than just be a demands list sometimes.
PTSD: Large amounts of profile dedicated to rants about pet peeves and how other people have mistreated them. Their profile might read like the list you're reading probably, so maybe that says things about me. If talking to them is like you're paying for the misdeeds that other people have committed and they throw eggshells to walk around at every step, take this advice: Abuse perpetuates, if what they relay is real, this person is on the track to become a different version of what has created them and it's not your responsibility. Though a lot of the time, they're not actually traumatized or anything, but are well-informed in all the approacher stereotypes I've listed but never considered not being a toxic reactionary themselves - essentially a version of "I can't be gay because of how much I hate performatively hate gay" from high school kids. The ones who have managed to be well-adjusted will speak to you like a person without insinuating you're about to do bad things at every corner. If they aren't paranoid wrecks they can be great people underneath, so brace a bit but give a chance.
No: No reason, just no thanks. Chances are you screwed up somewhere, check prefs or whatever. But if you don't find anything, the absolute lack of information from that rejection can leave you dissatisfied or outright puzzled what the deal was. You can just ask, but if they don't reply after that leave them alone and at most try with another alt on another day. Yes, this makes you another alt from the approacher side, this is how they get produced. You know what to do if you don't want them.
Irregular schedule: Discusses with you every time, then just doesn't show up. At first, 90% of the time, IRL took precedent. Just see if you meet them again. They'll often tell you if it's chronic, for example, I might be this person to some people right now but I make it clear why. If someone doesn't show up it's usually not because of you, or out of some moral failing, they might have issues actually knowing how much they can play. Ask for a certain date or time, and understand not everyone can just have time when you do.
Absolute chad: Answers you if they're not AFK or busy => Works things out or lets you know immediately why they have to reject you in an honest fashion and names the reason so you don't linger with a feeling that it was situational. Again, rare, because most people are wishy washy and have to keep the doors open, so you get...
Ghost: Doesn't say no, works out a scene they don't really want, loses interest without saying anything, vanishes or stops replying so they can pretend they didn't just leave you hanging. They're why the testing waters players exist. Not malicious, again, usually just socially awkward, but you have every right to be upset. Not to be confused with irregular schedule, which are up-front about why and accept if you don't want to play with them based on that.
A lot of the time, socially lazy people who can't maintain normal connections IRL don't stop being socially lazy people online. They're only interested when fired up and obsessing over something. RP is like an internet argument to them, in one moment irrationally highly attention-occupying, forgotten about in the next. That's not just Eka's, you'll find a smattering and variations of the above anywhere.