Ok, so, back at the one and only AB RP board, the same that gave us That Guy and Finite Deus but also brought me together with the awesome people who formed the Flock and built swanmanes as we interpret them and who I still hang with online to this day. The player I'm about to talk about, who I shall call Derpia, is sadly in the former category. Derpia wasn't an asshole like That Guy, but she was pretty annoying. The type to complain about how bored she was in chat and to do things like "*licks*" at the other members...I know it's just chat but that makes loads of folks uncomfy, myself included. She seemed to have an undue need for attention, as evident by things like a tendency to suddenly spam photos of herself on flimsiest of excuses, fishing for compliments, etc. It was pretty awkward for everyone. We were a nice lot and everything, but the frequent unspoken demand to pander at random to someone's vanity is enough to wear on anyone's nerves. None of us were really sure what to do. I mean, she wasn't being mean to anyone or breaking any rules, she was just kinda needy and obnoxious.
I came up with a solution. I started responding by posting pics of myself whenever she did...or rather, pictures of rats and saying they were pics of me and how sexy I am and what a babe I am, etc. everyone else would chime in about what a hottie and a cutie I was. Clearly they enjoyed the rat pic technique. I mean, they got rat pics, how could they not? It never actually made her stop, but it meant that if we had to get spammed by her, we at least got spammed by cute rat pictures too. She actually even once wanted to use HERSELF as the PB (play-by, a celebrity or model who you choose to portray your character...which can make things hard for those of us who don't necessarily want to play people who look like models) for a character, but I talked her out of it. See, I had a very shallow character there, and if he had run into her, he would have made fun of her looks. I had no wish to RP out that cruelty when a real person would be hurt by it, regardless of if it would just be the character and not me. He also was not the only character like that at the board, so it wouldn't have been solved if I had just decided to never put them together; there'd still be a chance that the scenario would happen, and I did not want that shitstorm come to pass without at least trying to steer her away from it. And, knowing Derpia's pretty fragile temperament and tendency towards pouting and passive-aggression if things didn't go her way on something, I expect she'd throw a fit if another character so much as turned down the advances of the character who looked like her because WHAT DOESN'T HE THINK I'M PRETTY HUH and put the other player in a pretty awkward spot. Luckily she took my advice.
I tried to RP with her a few times, per her request, but she never responded to almost any threads that I started for us, despite always bugging other people for replies (and she'd bug me for instant replies even though hers took forever and I never said a word), and the one thread she did reply to was basically her copy-pasting my posts back to me of everything my char had just done and said and only actually typing a few lines or less of her char's response, which seldom gave me much to work with. Not an enjoyable time. Her main character was an alpha weresnake who was a bundle of fail and annoying in her own way, but honestly was the least bad of what she churned out and not really worth talking about unless you were there, in which case it's pretty funny to recall. This swan she submitted, on the other hand? Yeah, he's something else.
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