Plenty of partner ads end with a few lines their writers are clearly tired of typing: please don’t ghost, no one-liners, don’t control my character. Read a few hundred ads and the same complaints keep coming back, which raises two questions. Which ones matter most? And how do you stay off someone’s list?
We counted. We read the newest partner ads on three large subreddits and six months of anketas from Russian-speaking Telegram channels, where most posts have a section for exactly this, called «Антипатии», or antipathies.
The short answer
The most common red flag isn’t about writing at all. It’s silence. In Russian anketas, 48% of antipathy lists named ignoring a partner or vanishing, three times as many as named short posts. In English ads, ghosting was the dealbreaker named most often, ahead of one-liners.
Neither group objects to people leaving, though. Nearly half of the Russian complaints are specifically about vanishing without a warning or a reason, and English ads keep asking for the same small thing: let me know. After silence, the Russian lists most often name unwanted sexual content, short or passive replies and rudeness. AI-written posts are a newer item in both languages.
Much of this can be screened out before the first message. In FictionCore, our app, reply pace, post length, OOC preferences and the writer’s age are ad fields you can filter by, and Hidden tags keep topics you don’t write out of your results.
The red flags, ranked
| Red flag | Russian anketas | English ads |
|---|---|---|
| Ignoring a partner or vanishing | 48% | 7% |
| Unwanted sexual content | 22% | Not counted |
| Short or one-line replies | 15% | 5% |
| Passive play: no ideas, only reactions | 14% | 2% |
| Rudeness | 11% | Under 1% |
| AI-written posts or AI images | 4% | 3% |
| Writing for someone else’s character | 3% | 1% |
Compare the order, not the numbers. Most Russian anketas follow a template with an antipathies field, and the Russian column counts the 302 that filled it in (two more just wrote “none”). English ads are free-form: fewer than 1% had a section headed “Dealbreakers” or “Limits”, so the English column counts all 1,267 ads, most of which name no dealbreaker at all. We also left adult ads out of the English sample, so it can’t show how often sexual content causes trouble there.
Beyond sexual content, 37% of the Russian lists rule out themes such as omegaverse, incest or graphic violence.
Silence is the red flag named most often
In the Russian lists, ignoring and vanishing came first by a wide margin: 145 of 302 antipathy lists named it. Ten used the idiom «уйти по-английски», to leave “the English way”, without a goodbye. Another 5% objected to a related move: deleting the chat or blocking a partner.
What people mind is not knowing. Of those 145 complaints, 67 said it’s vanishing without a warning, an explanation or a reason that bothers them. In the requirement sections, 16% ask partners to warn about delays.
English ads say the same in their own words. Ghosting came up in 87 ads, mostly to ask partners not to, and some described being ghosted before. Another 85 said real life comes first, 42 asked for a heads-up before a break, and 31 asked partners to say so if they lose interest, often adding “no hard feelings”. Together, one in ten ads raised absences or exits. Six even called themselves “ghost-friendly”, meaning they don’t mind if a partner drops the game without a word.
X shows the same gap from another side. In 576 public posts about text roleplay with human partners, published between 1 August and 19 October 2026, 12 complained about ghosting and 11 asked partners to respect pace and real life. Yet only 3 of the 118 writers who posted one-on-one ads there named a reply pace, and 1 a time zone. What ends a partnership rarely makes it into the ad. In FictionCore, our app, reply pace and timezone have fields of their own in the ad, so you can see them before you write a word.
So the fix costs one message. The Guide’s answer on what to say when you need more time suggests a short note that doesn’t promise a date you can’t keep. Its answer on leaving without explaining why says you don’t have to justify ending a game, and that if someone threatens or harasses you, you don’t owe them a goodbye at all.
Effort means giving your partner something to answer
Short posts are the red flag people expect, and they’re on the lists: 15% of the Russian ones and 5% of English ads. But passive play came up almost as often in the Russian lists, at 14%: characters that only react, and partners who bring no ideas and reply “whatever you want”.
English ads put it as a request: 8% ask partners to bring ideas or share the plotting, and 2% complain about carrying the story alone. In the Russian requirement sections, 18% ask for a real contribution to the plot.
A reply doesn’t need to be long to avoid this. It needs to respond to the last post, add something and leave an opening, the pattern the Guide lesson Write a post your partner can respond to teaches. How much to write is a separate question, and our study of post lengths covers it.
Write only your own character
Writing for someone else’s character came up less often than you might expect: in 3% of the Russian lists and 1% of English ads.
The labels vary. In many guides godmodding is the umbrella word for any unfair advantage: an invincible hero, an attack that always lands, or deciding what another character does. Powerplay is the narrower word for that last one, and the Guide’s glossary entry covers both. The behaviour behind them is clear enough: deciding what another writer’s character feels, says or suffers. If a reaction would move the scene along, the Guide’s advice on describing another character’s reaction is to ask first.
AI is the newest dealbreaker
33 English ads, or 3%, ruled out AI. Half of them simply said “no AI”; the rest named AI-written replies or AI-generated face claims, the pictures that show what a character looks like, in equal numbers. In the Russian lists, 4% named AI-written posts. On X, rejecting AI was the stance we saw most often: 20 posts by 16 writers objected to AI-written posts, AI art or AI-generated voices in roleplay, though a few pushed back against accusing fast writers of using it.
The share is small, but if AI writes or rewrites your posts or images, say so before the first post and check the community’s rules: some ban it outright. If you’re coming to human roleplay from chatbots, our guide to switching from AI to human partners covers what else changes.
Topics and behaviour are two different lists
Russian antipathy lists often mix two kinds of items in one line: topics someone won’t write, and behaviour they won’t put up with. Across the lists, 60% named at least one topic and 69% at least one behaviour; 39% did both. Sexual content was the most common single topic, at 22%, just ahead of paraphilias at 21% and graphic violence at 17%.
Keep the two apart in your own ad. A topic limit is a boundary for the story, best agreed before the scene starts, and the Guide lesson Boundaries and consent covers how. A behaviour limit tells a partner how you want to work together.
What partners ask for instead
- Talking out of character. 37% of English ads mentioned OOC chat or plotting together, which made it the most common request about how to write together.
- A first message with substance. 6% asked you to introduce yourself or bring an idea, and 6% hid a code word, emoji or question in the ad, such as your favourite animal, to check you’d read it all.
- Patience and a heads-up. 7% of English ads said real life comes first, and 3% asked for a heads-up before a break.
- Chemistry before a ship. On X, where many roleplayers run one account per character, 13 posts said a romance has to grow out of the story first, and 10 objected to people who follow or message a character only to pair it up.
- Grammar and length. 7% of English ads mentioned grammar or spelling. In the Russian requirement sections, грамотность, spelling and grammar, came up in 44%, and post length in 32%.
- An age floor. 38% of English ads set an age rule. Of the 460 that gave a minimum age, 56% said 18+, 23% said 21+, 11% said 20+ and 6% said 25+. Age was also the most common Russian requirement, at 55%, but there more than a third of the age rules with a number accepted players under 18.
Red flags that matter more than ghosting
Some problems are rarer than silence but matter more. Ages in ads can’t be checked, and more than a third of the Russian age rules with a number accept players under 18. Russian group ads are starker still: where a Telegram group ad states an age, three in four accept players under 18. If a partner might be under 18, keep romance and sexual content out, step away and tell the moderators: in many countries, including the UK and Russia, an adult’s sexual messages to a child under 16 are a crime. Pressure to move to a private app fast, or a request for photos, money or ID, is a red flag on its own. And if someone threatens or harasses you, save links and screenshots before you block them (never of sexual images involving a minor), because it’s harder to show what happened afterwards.
How to stay off someone’s list
- Say when you’re away, and when you’re done. One line covers it: “Busy week, probably no post before Sunday” or “I’ve lost the thread of this one. Thanks for writing it with me.”
- Leave something to answer. End on a question, a choice or a complication, not on your character’s thoughts alone.
- Write only your own character. Offer an action and let the other writer decide how theirs responds.
- Bring an idea now and then. A rumour, a stranger at the door, a twist. It shows you’re writing the story with your partner, not just reading it.
- Agree on topics before they appear. Especially sexual content, the most common topic limit in the Russian lists.
- Write your own posts. If AI writes or rewrites them, say so before you start.
- Read the whole ad and answer what it asks. Including the code word.
The wider roleplay etiquette of each platform, from Reddit to Discord, is covered separately.
How to write your own dealbreakers
- Keep it short. Three to five items get read; twenty don’t.
- Name behaviours, not types of people. “Deciding what my character feels” is clearer than “godmodders”.
- Split topics from behaviour. Two short lists are easier to scan than one long one.
- Say what you want instead. “Tell me if you lose interest, no hard feelings” sets a rule and invites a reply in one line.
For example:
Not for me: vanishing without a word, deciding how my character reacts, AI-written replies.
Topics I don’t write: romance, graphic injury.
What works: a heads-up when you’re busy, an idea now and then, OOC chat about where the story is going.
For the rest of the ad, our roleplay partner ad template has a version to copy.
FictionCore: dealbreakers you can see before the first message
FictionCore is our app for text roleplay: adult roleplayers use it to find partners and groups, share plots and build characters and worlds. The most common dealbreakers and requests from this study have matching ad fields and settings there, and you can filter by almost all of them:
- Ghosting. A reply pace field, from several a day to slower than a few a week, and an optional schedule note where writers can say when they usually reply and how they announce breaks. An ad stays on the board for 24 hours at most unless you repost it, so you’re less likely to message someone who stopped looking weeks ago.
- Age, the most common rule. An ad can state your age range and the youngest partner you’ll write with: 18+, 21+, 25+ or 30+. The app itself is for adults only.
- One-liners. The approximate post length and a writing sample from the profile show before you reply.
- OOC chat. An OOC preferences field runs from “Enjoy OOC chat” to “Mostly IC”.
- Topics you won’t write. Hidden tags keep plots and ads with tags you’ve chosen out of your results.
The ad template prompts you to describe the boundaries and OOC communication you’re looking for. You can block or report an account, and before anyone can publish or comment, they have to pass the Community Quiz on the app’s rules.
FictionCore is available on Google Play for Android. It doesn’t host the roleplay itself, so you continue on a service you both choose. No feature can make someone send that one-line message before they go quiet, but you’ll know what to expect from them up front.
How we counted
- English ads. We collected the 2,747 newest posts on r/RoleplayPartnerSearch, r/Roleplay and r/roleplaying, back to 10 September 2026; Reddit’s listing returns roughly the last thousand posts per community. We removed 1,146 reposts and near-copies of earlier ads, 152 ads looking for explicit content and 182 short or non-ad posts. That left 1,267 unique ads, the newest posted on 18 October.
- Russian anketas. We read 494 public posts from two Telegram channels for finding partners, published between 18 April and 18 October 2026, and kept 344 unique anketas. Of those, 304 had an antipathies section and 244 a section for partner requirements; we analysed each section on its own. These are the channels from our post-length study, read again for this question.
- Categories. Each red flag was matched by phrases in context: “one-liners” only when ruled out, “ghosting” only about people, not ghost stories. We read 8 to 14 random matches per category by hand. Most categories were right in all but one or two cases; categories where the hand check found too many wrong matches were left out.
- X posts. 576 public posts in English and Russian about text roleplay with human partners, published between 1 August and 19 October 2026 and found through topic searches. We read each one and coded its type and the norms it argued for; one post can carry several. It’s a sample of what search turns up, not a census of X.
- Privacy. We publish only aggregate counts, without quotes, usernames or channel names. The Telegram channels are open to all ages, which is one reason we don’t name them.
Questions roleplayers ask
What are red flags in a roleplay partner?
The ones named most often are going silent without a word, pushing sexual content you didn’t agree to, short or passive replies that give you nothing to answer, and rudeness. In our data, ignoring and vanishing topped the Russian antipathy lists at 48%, and ghosting was the most common dealbreaker in English ads.
What does ghosting mean in roleplay?
Ghosting means stopping replies without telling your partner, so they can’t tell whether you’re busy or gone. It was the dealbreaker English ads named most often. The fix is a short message saying you’re busy or stepping away.
How do I find a roleplay partner who won’t ghost?
Nobody can promise that, but your odds improve if you write to people who are looking right now and agree on pace before the first scene. On FictionCore, ads last 24 hours at most, reply pace has its own field, and a schedule note lets writers say up front how they announce breaks. In your first message, ask how your partner lets people know they’re busy.
Is it rude to leave a roleplay without explaining why?
You don’t owe an explanation, but a short message helps: “I won’t be continuing this one. Thanks for writing with me.” If the other person harasses or threatens you, you can leave without one.
What is godmodding in roleplay?
Usually any unfair advantage in a shared scene: an invincible character, attacks that always land, or writing another person’s character for them, such as deciding they’re hit, scared or convinced. That last one is also called powerplay. Communities use the words differently, so say which behaviour you mean. Our glossary of roleplay terms covers the rest of the shorthand.
What should I put in the dealbreakers section of my ad?
Three to five specific behaviours, written as behaviours rather than labels, plus a separate line for topics you won’t write. Add what you want instead, such as a heads-up before breaks.
Why do roleplay ads ask for a password or code word?
To check that you read the whole ad before replying. About 6% of the English ads we read hid a word, emoji or question for this, and some said they’d ignore messages without it.
Is using AI to write roleplay posts a red flag?
For some writers it’s a dealbreaker: 3% of the English ads and 4% of the Russian antipathy lists ruled it out. If AI writes or rewrites your posts, say so before you start.
Next time you’re about to go quiet on a roleplay, send the one line first.