Do the admins starting characters have an affect of you joining?

[Sunny Flower 3]

As someone who just got back into forum RPing - This is quite interesting and not something not's crossed my mind when I joined a site. I generally look at the general activity and how the setting is set up rather than specific characters. I'm lucky enough to be on a site where literally everyone on the admin team are greedy (in a good way) for plotting when a member joins! 🙂 I also look at how the community acts which may take some time investment to figure out the general atmosphere of the community is. 

[Hades101 10]

As someone who writes primarily male and non-binary characters, if a site promotes itself as being LGBTQ friendly and extremely diverse, but I come on board to find 90% of the cast being female.. I'm not going to join. It's a matter of preference. While I do write female characters, I don't find myself writing with other female characters very often due to my own preferences. 

 

Suffice to say, if it's just an admin or a few people with dominantly female character counts, but the rest of the site itself is diverse as hell, then there's a better chance of me joining for sure. 

[Anonymous 234]

On 3/26/2021 at 6:36 AM, Hades101 said:

As someone who writes primarily male and non-binary characters, if a site promotes itself as being LGBTQ friendly and extremely diverse, but I come on board to find 90% of the cast being female.. I'm not going to join. It's a matter of preference. While I do write female characters, I don't find myself writing with other female characters very often due to my own preferences. 

 

I don't know why but I find this amusing. As a person that writes primarily female characters myself I find this statement to be a little contradictory. Just because the characters are "primarily female" how does that make it not LGBTQ+ friendly? Women can be equally gay/non-binary/bi as men. What association do you have with females that makes them so disgusting to you that you won't play against them?

Anonymous poster hash: cec65...b54

[Hades101 10]

Quote

Women can be equally gay/non-binary/bi as men. What association do you have with females that makes them so disgusting to you that you won't play against them?

 

I... think my point was missed? Or misunderstood. 

 

I also don't... understand the concept of men or women being non-binary? That... that seems very confusing as a statement to me because to me, as a non-binary person, men and women are different genders from Non-binary. 

And, to correct you, I never once stated that I "won't" write with characters that are female, in fact I said it simply wasn't my preference. I do in fact write with a multitude of female characters, be they cisgendered, trans women, or non-binary afab, or what may their label be, because all characters are beautiful and diverse. However, my preference leans strongly towards characters who present themselves in a more masculine appearance or manner. Females, of any kind, are not disgusting and I'm quite offended at your unfounded, and quite hostile accusation. 

I do not find female characters to be something to avoid and wish they didn't receive the stigma that they have. Due to the stigma they've gained out of an abhorrent response of society and the way women in real life are treated, I find even myself struggling to obtain decent stories for my own female, non-binary afab, transgendered women. It's a painful thing to experience. 

I have no association with female characters of any kind that has deterred me from wishing to write with them, but that I simply don't have a preference for interaction with them because of my own personal interests and desires in a story. And, when I say female characters, I generally mean cisgendered heterosexual females which was what I meant by my stating "females" and I should have not generalized. However, we are allowed to have preferences. We are allowed to enjoy some flavours more than others, and we're also allowed to not be interested in specific flavours. 

When I stated that there are sites out there that present 90% female, while claiming they are extremely diverse and LGBTQ+ friendly, I'm referencing sites that stick heavily to being cisgendered, white, heterosexual women and a measly 10% of that casting on those sites is characters of cisgendered heterosexual males, and I find myself put off because of the sheer fact that there simply isn't an audience on that site for what I'm hoping to find for stories for my own personal experiences and enjoyment in a story. 

Be that as it may, I apologize if my wording came off far too generalized and attacking, as that was not my intent. However, I will not apologize for my personal preferences, as no one should apologize for what they do and don't enjoy. 

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Hades101

[gimmemo 3]

This is such an interesting question and thought! I hadn't even thought about it at first! I haven't joined a new site in awhile but I feel like I honestly just look at the general activity and how the members seem to interact. :] But something definitely to keep in mind as members join my current site! Everyone has made extremely interesting and valid points. ❤️

Edited March 28, 2021 by gimmemo

[Anonymous 234]

18 hours ago, Hades101 said:

When I stated that there are sites out there that present 90% female, while claiming they are extremely diverse and LGBTQ+ friendly, I'm referencing sites that stick heavily to being cisgendered, white, heterosexual women and a measly 10% of that casting on those sites is characters of cisgendered heterosexual males, and I find myself put off because of the sheer fact that there simply isn't an audience on that site for what I'm hoping to find for stories for my own personal experiences and enjoyment in a story.

 

I think this is equally as abhorrent a statement as the previous. I find personally classifying as cis anything is equally as detrimental and sexist as someone demeaning a person for not being what you call "cis gendered".

 

Of course you're absolutely allowed your preferences everyone is. I'm equally allowed to disagree.

 

In my experience the sites I normally join that are dominated by male characters are on the opposite spectrum to what you just described. Instead of it being what you demean straight males to be "cis gendered heterosexuals" they are all cis gendered homosexual or secretly homosexual characters that wish to find the person willing to bring out that homosexuality in them. Which is, I think, why you find your version of sites so often or at all. Because there are people ALSO with a preference to be able to play a demeaned (read cis) gendered straight female.

 

I think that this in no way reflects directly on the admin but more on the end users, as this discussion is about, perception of the admins story development capability or what the end user perceives the site to embody.

 

The way you describe it an admin could have an equal amount of the demeaned (read cis) male and female characters with any level of sexual preference but if they stray more toward heterosexual you will avoid it. Which is your right. What I still don't get and what this thread is about is.... why? Per your last post its because you 'perceive" this to be a bad environment for you. Is that it? Nothing else about the site strikes you wrong except there are too many of a character type that you don't prefer?

 

Don't get me wrong. I've noped out of sites for less. I'm just trying to figure it out as to the core perception is.

 

I think I understand yours. If you feel you won't connect to a character because there aren't enough characters of your preferred (and as you stated) romantic preference, then the site isn't worth the time because you won't get what you are looking for in a roleplay writing partner. Is that an accurate statement?

Anonymous poster hash: cec65...b54

[Hades101 10]

Due to the accusation tonnage I'm perceiving in this conversation, I do not feel it is my place to continue or respond further. Fair thee well.  My apologies for wasting your time. 

Edited March 29, 2021 by Hades101

[Anonymous 234]

23 hours ago, Hades101 said:

Due to the accusation tonnage I'm perceiving in this conversation, I do not feel it is my place to continue or respond further. Fair thee well.  My apologies for wasting your time. 

 

I think you've misunderstood my frustration with the situation as anger directly toward you. I apologize for that as the you were the first person that, at least to me, exemplified the issue that I'm facing and did it in a way that I'm facing it.

 

I have an issue with any derogatory mention of gender, in fact don't even force end users to identify gender or sexual preference as I do see that as a negative way to influence an RP. I personally am uncomfortable playing a male homosexual character but have no issues playing a female homosexual. However, as you explained in your post, that deters you. Not because you can't play against any of my characters but you don't want to.

 

I am actually trying to understand but I hope you can understand the infuriating frustration to that because, you being deterred as a potential member means that you don't join, which in turn doesn't provide the opportunity for other members with that interest to see your characters and in turn join. Rinse, repeat. Its the literal catch 22 that I originally started this post for.

 

Basically, if I start an RP, despite my preferences. Despite what I prefer and will actively play. As an administrator I'm expected to either not play a lot of characters OR I'm expected to play every type of character that a potential player MAY want to interact with so that I show how eclectic I am as a writer and how inclusive I am despite my comfort preferences for playing a character. I can play a male homosexual character. I can do it well too. I just don't do well with those characters. I tend to ignore them or play them as NPCs which obviously doesn't work for what you described you want to see in your RP.

 

The shitty part, and I know I didn't say this in my last post..... But this isn't exclusive to your preference. If I play a character that a potential member wants to get involved with but that character already is in a relationship with someone else.... People get snotty about it. "Well I want to be involved with character XYZ... how can I break them up?"

 

My core question... my core frustration.... is why is the admin the only one that bears this burden? As a potential member that likes the site, you're not willing? You're not able? I'm trying to understand it.

 

**Note: I do find cis to be a derogatory word. I don't call a transgendered male to female woman a "trans" I call them a woman. I feel a woman that is born a woman should get the same respect. Calling them "cis gendered" is basically saying a woman born a woman is gross and is generally negative connotation. If we're all trying to be gender identity positive then other than calling a character what they identify as (male, female, non-binary etc) we're actually negging each other for our gender choices both IC and OOC and I don't personally agree with that.

Anonymous poster hash: cec65...b54

[Belle 53]

3 hours ago, Anonymous said:

The shitty part, and I know I didn't say this in my last post..... But this isn't exclusive to your preference. If I play a character that a potential member wants to get involved with but that character already is in a relationship with someone else.... People get snotty about it. "Well I want to be involved with character XYZ... how can I break them up?"

 

My core question... my core frustration.... is why is the admin the only one that bears this burden? As a potential member that likes the site, you're not willing? You're not able? I'm trying to understand it.

Anonymous poster hash: cec65...b54

 

I mean...at the end of the day, the admin is the representative of the site. In the beginning at least, before the site is fully established with a solid memberbase, the admin is the person a new member is most likely to be threading with. An admin with a limited cast can be off-putting for a couple of reasons - it might be that the potential member is looking for a specific kind of ship, or they might get the impression that the admin is the one looking for a particular kind of ship and because they're the admin, it'll be harder to say no to them.

 

Thankfully, RP has largely become a lot more diverse in the last few years in terms of what people feel able to play and the kind of characters that get threading opportunities, but for a long time the RPC - particularly in certain genres - was dominated by hot hetero white people and yaoi as fetish. I think it's important to bear in mind that it takes a lot of people deliberate consideration to break knee-jerk reactions built up over time in an environment that has hammered certain assumptions into them, and not everyone is engaging that skill when site browsing.

 

A few examples of my own lived experiences are as follows: male players who mainly play OP tough guy characters = reddit-obsessed incel creeps who only want to smut and will conflate my character with me, the person; female players who mainly play hetero women = want me to be their e-dick dispenser;  male players who mainly play hot female characters = get ready for posts full of narrative misogyny; female players who mainly play young, promiscuous homo boys = it's a fetish, often comes packaged with a thing for dubcon. Do those assumptions hold for all players? Absolutely not! Am I going to take a minute whilst site browsing to think, hey I better look into the admin's post history to see if they're actually a nuanced writer with a multitude of interests not immediately reflected in their cast? Honestly, probably not. There are hundreds of sites on offer and the sheer smorgasbord of choices out there lets players reject anything that isn't pinpoint perfect on first glance.

 

By all means, play what you enjoy playing, but just bear in mind that people may look at your predominantly-whatever cast and think you're only interested in threading out one type of plot. I'm not saying it's right or fair, or even that players do it consciously (lmao I fully expect to get @'d into oblivion for this unpopular opinion), but if you're looking for another explanation, this is the other side of "most potential members are looking for a male character of any sexuality, played by the admin, to ship with". 

[Hades101 10]

On 3/30/2021 at 12:15 AM, Anonymous said:

Quote

**Note: I do find cis to be a derogatory word. I don't call a transgendered male to female woman a "trans" I call them a woman. I feel a woman that is born a woman should get the same respect. Calling them "cis gendered" is basically saying a woman born a woman is gross and is generally negative connotation. If we're all trying to be gender identity positive then other than calling a character what they identify as (male, female, non-binary etc) we're actually negging each other for our gender choices both IC and OOC and I don't personally agree with that

I can understand this frustration, but as a non-binary person, I use cis gendered only as a means of identifying a specific set of gender. It is not an intended derogatory term, but instead an identifier for specific genders. I don't use it as a means of demeaning, but I understand that the frustration with it comes from how it most certainly has been used in negative connotation. There is nothing wrong with being any one gender, and I'm an advocate for people wanting to use a label that helps them the most. If a transgendered woman or man prefers only being identified as a woman, has not come out as transgendered, or has not relayed the information in any way a tall aside from their gender identifier being a woman or a man, then I'm going to address them exactly how they want to be addressed and not assume otherwise. It's not my place to assume, but identifiers help in a conversational context when referencing specific gender variants that need to be identified for the sake of context alone. 

As an admin to a site myself, I also understand your frustration of feeling obligated to play specific characters in order to boost your site. I disagree entirely that an admin should be required to play the parts of any type of character they do not feel comfortable with, have no connection with, or simply just don't care to play because it's not their cup of tea. I find that turns writing into a job instead of a hobby. An obligations instead of an escape. 

I want to personally thank you though for stating your discomforts, because in today's very politically correct world, it's very hard to even state these things and you are valid for being upset by how people are treated. 

I personally don't look specifically at an admin for playing, because admins are often bogged down with very heavy amounts of responsibilities. I admit I glossed over this with your original post, and I shouldn't have done that. 

To round up most of my point, I feel for you. I often play a demographic that also gets labeled with bullshit stereotypes. It's frustrating, and I wish it didn't happen. I think female characters, be they whatever underlying label of gender, get far too much stigma and hate. I certainly don't avoid them for any reason other than the fact that I don't see specific plot lines as very interesting, certain romantic settings aren't as interesting from one site or the other for me, and due to some very deeply rooted physical dysphoria I struggle greatly with fxf romances, but I am doing my very best to see myself through these struggles with careful attention and private hosting for such things. 

I hope you and your sites gain better attention, more members, more fun. 

If you'd like to discuss further in private, I'm more than happy to also continue further discussions. There is nothing wrong with the public discussion, I simply find that I may not be capable of providing the answer you're looking for in this article. 

[Mistress Of The Obvious 73]

I'll give my two cents. I liked @Hades101 comments. I've seen a lot of those offensive archetypes @Belle is talking about. I've been on sites that are women dominated where it felt like a good chunk of the male characters were there to be man meat. They would also faun about how attractive their playby was. You can imagine how well this would go over if the genders were reversed. I've had both men tell me how privately that won't join a site where they're forced to put pronouns for themselves when they know the majority of the members are women. They've had bad experiences. 

 

I can understand completely if someone non-binary or genderfluid wants to join a site, the first thing they're going to do is check out character profiles, the playbys used, and the genders of members. It's not personal. It's because of past bad experiences and fear. It's also to see if a site is heavily based on shipping. If I want to play someone trans or non-binary, let's face it I'm not going to get a lot traction with that character. Sadly, on a site where shipping the the main activity whether a character used to be a different gender matters. 

 

The best way to fight a lot of this is to not have a site where shipping is a big activity. Create events, factions, and plots centered on other things. It can be harder on a real life site, but it can be done. As far as feeling the burden of playing a bunch of different concepts, that's normal. Just do what you think you wan do well. There's also this crazy idea that to write someone gay, for example, that character must be from a western nation. One of my favorite characters is a Japanese lesbian who is a singer. It's very different to be Japanese and gay and Japanese-American and gay. I have a pretty wide international cast and have thought about creating a guide, since I think most people don't know where to start. 

 

Thank you, Anonymous, for noticing you were a little aggressive. I sadly understand why you would be anonymous for unpopular ideas or opinions. Hades, I would have felt attacked, you handled the situation well. Oddly, I think despite coming from different rp cultures, you're both agreeing a good 70% or so with each other. It's just certain terms that are causing the main conflict. As far as the cis and trans terminology, it's useful for those that don't fit as well as explain things (straight and gay), but it can also be othering. I'm not  sure what can be done about that or if anything.

 

To get the subject back on track, I agree with Belle, that yes what an admin plays does affect who might join. I also think if you aren't comfortable with writing certain concepts, but want members that live said concepts and those that are comfortable with writing those concepts, you can provide a solid environment. Those aren't always what you think. Some are obvious like adoptable concepts/wanteds, but on my character profile I have gender identity instead of gender or sex. I plan to include a note that trans-woman should be woman and to note the gender change in the biography. You can put down "We're LGBT+ Friendly/Positive" all you like, but so much have had bad experiences with sites that including myself (bisexual woman). Atmosphere, rules, and site culture can compensate for a lot. Also, if you aren't comfortable with concepts or identities in real life, don't force yourself to write them or state how friendly you are in an effort to gain members. Both you and those members won't be happy. 

[Morrigan 1,826]

On 3/30/2021 at 3:32 AM, Belle said:

"most potential members are looking for a male character of any sexuality, played by the admin, to ship with". 

I find this super sad to even consider true. But worse still... extremely true.... I am not sure how to feel about that.

[MegHanSolo 13]

My friends and I just opened a site, and this was something we absolutely agonized over - with some of us feeling the "dress to impress" burn more than others. I myself really struggled with the optics of being a site founder, and writing applications that were interesting, well rounded and diverse - but also equally instilled trust and inspired potential members.  Like many people I struggle with confidence in my creative pursuits. That, coupled with my own tendency to look at and over analyze moderator characters made writing applications (which is already pretty difficult) a stressful experience. On one hand, the responses in this thread so far have validating for this concern, although I still worry that I may not be doing my absolute best!

One of my co-admins said it best though: if you're considering this at all as a site creator, you're one step ahead of the game and are already acting with thoughtfulness and intention. 

All that said - as a member looking at  mod apps, my standards aren't supremely high. Diversity in moderator characters is an absolute plus (both in the playbys they choose, but also in character histories).  Sometimes I just look for how flexible and accessible they might be in play (did they write this character to play with prospective members, or just to ship, for example), and how well the mods themselves are navigating their lore (and frankly...I like apps that are fun to read and get me excited about joining a site). 

[Hysteria 56]

I've never based joining on a staff member's characters...but I have noticed that on a lot of boards people tend to make genders equal (and that by itself is understandable,) so staff members may pitch in with more males as a starting point because of that. Whether or not this is for any underlying reasoning goes beyond me though, I've never cared that much to begin with.

[Asher 1]

I almost always play canon sites, so my #1 frustration is seeing admins playing like 15 canon characters of import each, leaving only tertiary characters for their members. Yuck. Definitely makes me very, very hesitant to push on and join. Usually, it stops me cold.