Oh, boy, a venting thread! Just what I needed 8D I see mate/parent begging has already been thoroughly tackled, so I'll hold off on that particular subject, even though it bothers me. Here are my rants in a convenient little list.
The Angst
Oh, dear God, the angst. Everywhere I go, there's always someone whining about how miserable they are. "Sorrowful howls", as mentioned before, are common, people sitting away from their group and refusing to speak. Hell, the one time I mentioned that I was feeling a bit down and sorry for not saying much to some friends I was talking to in local, I'm immediately met with "You couldn't possibly feel as badly as me/there is no way you can possibly comprehend the deep, dark pit of anguish that I have been thrown into and am thus informing you about via my pitch black wolf that cries tears of blood." More or less. Anyway, upon having someone DARE challenge their deep, dark, soul-wrenching self-pity sadness, these people generally become defensive and resort to insults. It's a sorry sight to behold.
Cliches
Like angst, it wasn't like seeing these took me by surprise at any rate. But I never expected cliches (or angst, I guess) to be so...rampant? Seriously, how many wolves named "Fate", "Agony", "Angel", etc. do we really need? Come on, people, be a little more original! Mess around with different words and letters to make up some really cool name! Use colors besides black and white, and for the love of God, the only eye color is not red! I guess my pet peeve of constantly seeing canon characters could go here, but as stated before, that's just a pet peeve. I doubt many other people care about people playing characters that aren't their own 8P
Bad RPing
Yup, not illiteracy, just flat-out bad writing by anyone's standards. Granted, I loathe illiteracy with a fiery passion that rivals the sun, but that's how some people rp, and I can't really force them to write any other way. No, today we'll be looking at powerplaying, godmoding, inconsistency, Mary-Sues and the people I like to call Speshul Snowflakes. More on that little name later, eh?
First of all, I'll lump powerplaying and godmoding together. Seeing as it looks like people have already covered this, I'll try to keep it short and sweet. Ripping off heads, dodging every attack (or just ignoring them), slicing necks open, it's all happened to us at least once. It's everywhere, it's annoying, only idiots do it, and really, it just shouldn't be going on. But, it is, and so I have to acknowledge it in my abnormally large rant here.
Now, inconsistency is something that really irritates me in FH, mostly in terms of a character's personality and/or history. We've all heard the most cliche tragic past ever, right? "So-and-so had their (usually female) heart broken, and now (s)he'll never love again." You know someone once told me this, and then tried to get me to change my character's (flirty) personality? It was kinda funny. Anyway, back to the point. I see these characters too often, but what bugs me is this: As soon as the rp starts, they immediately devote all their attention to the "coolest-looking" wolf/lion, and within a few minutes start to "fall in love" with them. Haha, so much for that history, right? Let's see how inconsistent the business side of my gun is, you hypocr-
MARY-SUES. Has this been mentioned yet? I don't know, I read a few posts, then skimmed the rest. Anyway, I'm sure we're all familiar with "Miss Perfect." You know, I've even seen a couple literate rpers with Mary-Sues. I was disappointed in them 8C So, anyway, this is the character that single-handedly brings down a stag large enough to feed the entire pack without getting a single scratch, who's always there just in time, etc. I feel like this has been briefed already. Or that someone will cover it much better than me, the one who's actually getting sick of writing this part, because this certain Paradox has already ranted about Mary-Sues so much that it's become tiring.
Last but not least, we have my "Speshul Snowflakes." Oooh, where to begin! These are those people who seem okay at first, usually. They're nice enough, joke around with the group before starting the rp, maybe even literate! And then the rp begins...and you realize just what a horrible mistake it was to allow this person to intrude. Usually, when deciding ranks, the Snowflake will demand the leader position, or something close to it. Even if they don't receive the rank, they will usually act as leader regardless. The Snowflake also must always be "the only" of something. Sometimes the rank will cover this, but other times they will demand that the group pay them special attention for something else, perhaps a history, disorder, etc. Once I saw a Snowflake randomly gain "wings and glowing eyes", then proclaim that they had been outcast from society due to it. If the Snowflake is denied the entire group's attention, at first they will try harder, perhaps trying to put themselves in danger. If all attempts fail, however, they will most certainly leave in favor of a different group that is willing to give them the attention they feel they deserve.
Well, then, I think that pretty much covers most of what irritates me in FH.
EDIT: Aha, wait, I just thought of something else.
IC in OOC
How could I have forgotten about this!? Like angst and cliches, it's everywhere! Now, when people sit around and say things like "Walks to water, stares at reflection" in local, that annoys me (did I mention I hate "action-rping"? Type out your sentences, people, it makes you seem intelligent). I can tolerate that sometimes, though. It's when people try to excuse rude behavior with "Oh, that's the way my character acts." Yeah, and I have a character who's hell-bent on destroying everything he judges to be "evil", but you don't find me going around and attacking random people. IC is IC, and OOC is OOC. I don't care if we're rping, and your character is a jerk. Actually, I think characters who are jerks and kinda funny when written well. But if I'm talking to you OOC, please don't respond IC. It's irritating, and just makes you look downright idiotic.
