the mood whiplash of going from

"in this anime the side characters won't shut up about how hot the mc is, and it's intended to be titillating"

to

"in this anime the side characters won't shut up about how hot the mc is, and it's intended to be horrifying"

so as someone whose currently most enduring character was a fill for two different want ads at once: yeah, I might have thoughts on this

when writing a want ad: my general pitch consists of some backstory for the character, specifically how they know my existing oc (the EOC), what their relationship is like with EOC, and some potential plot hooks that the want ad taker (the WAT) can pick up on. I like to strike a balance between "no direction whatsoever" and "practically pre-written app", because it's what I personally prefer, so I might suggest some directions the want could take but without them being a requirement. For instance, for an "arranged marriage" want that did end up getting taken, I specified that the dynamic would be toxic/hostile at first, but could eventually evolve into anything from "they break up and it's a huge scandal" to "they fall in love for real" to "orientation incompatible but they remain close friends" and left it up to the WAT which they'd prefer, because I'm genuinely happy to write any of those plots if they end up shaping up that way. I tend not to specify names, genders, face claims, etc. unless it's absolutely necessary (like "must be widely assumed to be cishet male" for my arranged marriage want), just because some people get weirdly territorial over faces and the like. I don't generally write shipping or parent/child plots, so most of my pitches are for some kind of friendship dynamic (allowing for other people's EOCs to slot in) or for sibling groups.

when taking a want ad: I go for ads that are of the same style as I like to write, which is to say, friend group/sibling dynamics where the want isn't a complete blank slate but also leaves room for the writer to put their own touches on the character. Which is to say, DO give me the "avengers inspired friend group" or "corrupt squad of assassin thief black ops" (please, let me pretend to have the ride or dies I never got in real life) but I've slowly come to place increasing importance on whether I vibe with the other writer(s). I like to kick in my writing partners' DMs/mentions with backstory workshop, silly headcanons, and off-screen vignettes, for instance, and if that's not how a person likes to engage with their fellow rpers, it's probably best I know that as soon as possible so I don't bother reading any of their want ads, regardless of how appealing they seem to be on the surface.

what other people seem to prefer: I notice that group ads tend to go faster than single ads, probably in large part because you get a ready-made group of people to plot with, as opposed to having your character's backstory only involve one other character and then have to go actively hunting for hooks with the other members. As far as single ads go, shipping ads seem to be the most taken, especially if you have a forum community that likes to pair people off/write people in pre-existing pairs. Beyond that, I haven't paid attention to whether open-ended or more detailed ads get taken more often.

so this is permission to post a wall of random gender thoughts, right?

As a child I was into masculine things because I thought that it would get me taken more seriously (was such a Mulan fankid, practically know the entire movie by heart at this point) but as an adult I realize I'm not actually a man and I don't want to be one. I get very aggravated when I get assumed to be male on the Internet and I'm not especially masculine but nor am I feminine.

However (thanks patriarchy) I still think if I could have done it all over I'd prefer to be amab instead of afab. I'm a nerd, men tend to be more accepted in nerdy hobbies/professions in general, and there isn't any especially feminine thing I like that it would be seen as unmasculine for a man to like. (maybe cats? do men who like cats still get stereotyped as feminine?) plus, there's just male privilege in general, the pay gap, the pink tax, doctors understanding/listening to men's health problems more than women's etc. the only thing I'd probably be sad about is not getting to get married to my husband, because he is straight.

To be fair, I don't really feel oppressed, harassed, or discriminated against for being female in my day-to-day. So I'm not exactly part of the in-group of angry feminists either. The worst I get to be is annoyed that women are perpetually sidelined in all the media genres I like.

On the other other hand even without the patriarchy I'd still probably want to get rid of my fem-assigned organs, I never want to birth biological children so those things are USELESS to me, all they do is cause me pain every month, I'd gladly donate them to a good cause if someone wanted them.

"ok have you considered nonbinary" I did, I discovered I really don't vibe with they/them pronouns, and all in all it doesn't give me enough "gender euphoria" (I still have no idea what the actual heck that is supposed to feel like, fwiw, because I sure don't get it from being female) to be worth my time to try to socially transition and get other people on board with it.

as someone who is... possibly not cisfemale, but close enough to identify as it because none of the other options fit right

I can promise you that hating boobs (and ovaries, and uteri) is not exclusively part of the trans experience

best wishes with your transition!

tfw the site you have all the muse for isn't the site that's alive and popping

Making eyes

Also to some extent this problem is self-correcting?

If you want to play an annoying overpowered twerp, but no one wants to thread with you, all the power you give them is essentially meaningless. (unless it's a site with heavy emphasis on open-invitation pvp, I guess, but there's a reason I don't play on sites of that type)

The class I'd want to be is ranged dps of some sort. However, my aim is trash (with both guns and bows) so that's right out. No melee classes for me because I hate getting injured, which is all well and good because I don't like tanking roles anyway. That pretty much leaves me with either wizard or Healer Classic. I don't care for elemental damage as a power fantasy theme and I'm a pretty okay support player, so healer it is. Mezzer could also work but those don't tend to be a required role in a dungeon-delving party.

As for my youneeq main-character ability, it's going to be some kind of exploit that gamifies the system. Think "third-person HUD" (so I can always see the locations of people around and behind me, as well as whether they are hostile or not) or "Interface reading" (knowing the "stats" of every enemy I encounter and what they are weak to). I'm particularly partial to the Hyperspace Arsenal. I love the adventure-game trope of carrying around tons of random crap that can be combined into unique items. I love the rogue-like potential for stealing and smuggling (no officer, there's nothing in my pockets, go ahead and check) and breaking the economy by repurposing everything that drops off an enemy into shop sales. Moreover, it gives me a level of betrayal insurance even above and beyond being a healer. "Yes, you can murder me and try to take my stuff (assuming it doesn't just poof off into the void forever), but I'm carrying 5000 gold pieces, several dozen suits of armor, and that one Artifact of Doom we found in the hell portal on floor 66. Good luck lugging all that crap around before someone else comes to rob it off you."

Why can't I channel my creative energy into shit that people will actually pay money for?

As gently as possible, I think you just answered your own question.

Especially as the forum rp community gets older, most people have jobs, school, or other responsibilities that make it so they can't spend extended hours at a time doing hobby stuff online. Additionally, I've noticed a lot of neurodivergency in the rp community, a common side effect of which is reduced or inconsistent energy level. All of this is to say that people who can lightning post 10+ times a day are few and far between, and among the few people I've seen who ever lightning post, the majority of them only do it with their favorite ship partner and nobody else.

If you want daily posting I would either (as has already been said) try to make connections with a lot of people, but understanding that people have pretty variable schedules so there's no guarantee that all of your thread partners won't have a bad day (or just go on vacation) all at the same time; or else specifically look for sites with high activity requirements which will naturally weed out the slow posters.

I sometimes look through ad sections but I pretty much go here or on animangads when I'm looking for new sites. I refuse to do rl rp and no other space is quite as thorough about differentiating animanga/illustrated and rl.

Heyyyy Old, I just turned 36... gonna be looking forward to that Alzheimer's research any day now

No, it sucks.

It was an extremely common baby name when I was growing up so I never got to be the only #MYNAME in school classes, it has a bunch of different spellings so even though I use the most common one people keep getting it wrong, and if you dig deep into the etymology it derives from a fictional character whose only notable contribution to the lore is cheating on her husband. So needless to say, I'm not a fan.