Feeling bad about literate RP ads
(I ramble for a while here. There's a TL;DR if you don't feel like going through it.)
Just a bit of a vent here, but I don't like how some circles of RPing and ERPing have made it seem strange, pompous, elitist, etc, just for looking for stronger writing in a partner.
I don't usually make big demands from partners: Some of my best partners in the past have gone down to a paragraph in a post just because that's all the scene needed at the time. However, these were partners that have proven time and time again that they're willing to put in the work to make a longer response. These paragraph-long posts weren't weaker because they were shorter, they were just reacting appropriately to the scene at hand. Quantity doesn't equal quality, and this is a perfect example.
At this point, I've gotten a little more comfortable making my preferences known, even if I kind of hate sounding pompous about it. This is a hobby centered around writing, and the fact that I've been convinced to feel bad about wanting a certain standard of writing is a little bizarre to me when I think about it.
I'm not the kind of person to nitpick a person's post. If a partner can get basic grammar down, I'm content. We're both here for fun, not to craft a novel. I only just had the realization recently that I often feel quite bad about requesting that partners hit some kind of bar, whether it be the "literate" request or something like a paragraph minimum.
Which I hate using that as a measure. The quality of a writer isn't in the length of the response. There's much more to it, It just happens to be the easiest way to sort through lower-effort responses.
No partner did anything to make me write this vent, just in case anyone was wondering. The thought came to mind while writing up the first ad I've done in a while and I hated feeling like I was being excessively demanding when trying to outline my preferences in a partner. It's a writing hobby. Is it that crazy to want a certain amount of writing in the RP?
And yes, I know that there are people who enjoy more rapid posts because it feels more instant, kind of like a live interaction. But I often post or seek out GMing prompts. I don't think it's too surprising that the approach is rather different. I'm not an AI, I can't look at a couple of lines and intuit how they mean to interact with the area and characters in such a deep way that I create another post I'm happy with.
... I mean, I theoretically could. But doing that over and over is tiring and generally unrewarding.
And no, not everyone has this sentiment. I see plenty of posts that ask for literacy and whatnot. I've just seen disdain for this expressed before and it's made me cautious about my approach when looking for partners.
Welp, I'll call that rant finished. I'm curious to see whether Reddit will tear me apart for this opinion and push this account's measly karma score into negatives or if people just generally don't care. I don't mean to bash anyone, I know that there are different types of RPs and RPers (as acknowledged above), and those are just as valid. It can just be difficult to sort through people sometimes. The biggest reason I made this post was just to vent about feeling bad for putting preferences for literacy in an RP ad.
And hey, maybe some cool and interesting discussion will come from the post. Who knows?
TL;DR: I've heard people call the whole "looking for literate/X paragraph minimum" thing pompous/elitist and it's caused me some frustration.