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Venting about Furry RP
4 years ago
General
I've long been a fan of roleplaying, and especially as part of my furry fandom experience. But it seems like it's all died off now, and what used to be a large and thriving community of online roleplay through e-mail, forums and chats has sort of dwindled away.
I'm not sure if it's because it's all migrated to other services or places, like Discord and VR, or just because it's not a thing as much as it used to be. Or whether it's because roleplaying has now taken on a 'cringey' or 'bad' rep because of all the damn memes that go around about it, and that people don't take it seriously anymore as a result, and the instant reaction is tiresome 'OwO blablabla' jokes rather than anything actually constructive or interesting, if you ever dare to mention it - which is why I rarely do.
But I used to absolutely adore some of the role-play settings I'd come up with. Thunderbolt Black was a play-by-e-mail game I ran involving furry fighter pilots who were mercenaries in a post-world war three world. It went for ten years, and had a full plot, excellent character interactions and loads of action. And it just sort of... fizzled out.
I also ran a game called GEARs (in capitals as it was an acronym) which had a really in-depth setting I plotted out and wrote about to the point it might as well have been a wiki, and that got a lot of attention on an RP forum for a good few years too - but, people kept dropping out just as it was really starting to hit its' stride... which ended up burning me out on the setting.
And while it is possible to find people who want to roleplay, most of the time there's a lack of interest or motivation other than 'I want to hump your character(s)' which is like, great and all, but I'd kind of like something a bit more in-depth, motivated, captivating and with some kind of plot and engagement to it than 'AND THEN THEY FUCKED!' And some kind of drive, determination and energy to characters other than being a wall-fly, or a shrinking, timid violet or a rabid EDGY COOL fuckmonster. And having some kind of flair, energy, and interest in what you're actually writing, being descriptive and adding to the discussion of setting, plot, characters, would be nice rather than just 'ok' to anything that's said.
And for the love of everything, yes, I know that there's a high proportion of gay men in the fandom. And yes, that is a lovely and wonderful thing. But I'm very, very tired of being approached by them when I say I'm interested in RP and having to say 'sorry, no, neither me nor my character is gay, and I'm not interested'.
I'd love to get back into running and playing more text-based online RP's, through chat or forums, and with some actually involved and invested roleplayers - but it seems like there's no interest in anything much other than slice-of-life, which very much does not interest me, or suit my characters, or just plain screwing. And anyone who is already involved in RP is already doing it with their friends in some way, and isn't interested in new people.
And maybe it's my characters too. Because they're not whatever flavour of the month it is, and are more than vacuuous walking sex toys, and not 'omg so cute'.
I see plenty of other people with cool characters, cool backgrounds and stories... but not much interest in my own, sadly.
TBH, I think I'm just venting my disappointment at how things have changed, and frustration at not finding a way to participate at the moment.
I'm not sure if it's because it's all migrated to other services or places, like Discord and VR, or just because it's not a thing as much as it used to be. Or whether it's because roleplaying has now taken on a 'cringey' or 'bad' rep because of all the damn memes that go around about it, and that people don't take it seriously anymore as a result, and the instant reaction is tiresome 'OwO blablabla' jokes rather than anything actually constructive or interesting, if you ever dare to mention it - which is why I rarely do.
But I used to absolutely adore some of the role-play settings I'd come up with. Thunderbolt Black was a play-by-e-mail game I ran involving furry fighter pilots who were mercenaries in a post-world war three world. It went for ten years, and had a full plot, excellent character interactions and loads of action. And it just sort of... fizzled out.
I also ran a game called GEARs (in capitals as it was an acronym) which had a really in-depth setting I plotted out and wrote about to the point it might as well have been a wiki, and that got a lot of attention on an RP forum for a good few years too - but, people kept dropping out just as it was really starting to hit its' stride... which ended up burning me out on the setting.
And while it is possible to find people who want to roleplay, most of the time there's a lack of interest or motivation other than 'I want to hump your character(s)' which is like, great and all, but I'd kind of like something a bit more in-depth, motivated, captivating and with some kind of plot and engagement to it than 'AND THEN THEY FUCKED!' And some kind of drive, determination and energy to characters other than being a wall-fly, or a shrinking, timid violet or a rabid EDGY COOL fuckmonster. And having some kind of flair, energy, and interest in what you're actually writing, being descriptive and adding to the discussion of setting, plot, characters, would be nice rather than just 'ok' to anything that's said.
And for the love of everything, yes, I know that there's a high proportion of gay men in the fandom. And yes, that is a lovely and wonderful thing. But I'm very, very tired of being approached by them when I say I'm interested in RP and having to say 'sorry, no, neither me nor my character is gay, and I'm not interested'.
I'd love to get back into running and playing more text-based online RP's, through chat or forums, and with some actually involved and invested roleplayers - but it seems like there's no interest in anything much other than slice-of-life, which very much does not interest me, or suit my characters, or just plain screwing. And anyone who is already involved in RP is already doing it with their friends in some way, and isn't interested in new people.
And maybe it's my characters too. Because they're not whatever flavour of the month it is, and are more than vacuuous walking sex toys, and not 'omg so cute'.
I see plenty of other people with cool characters, cool backgrounds and stories... but not much interest in my own, sadly.
TBH, I think I'm just venting my disappointment at how things have changed, and frustration at not finding a way to participate at the moment.
Hope you're able to find a group or some people, though - it's always nice when you find someone you can do some quality writing with.
I'm not going to hold out any great hope, as it seems that, unfortunately, there's just not enough interest from anyone, or anyone willing to make the time/has the time to do so. Or again, lack of shared interests in the same kind of RPs, as well as writing styles.