Why do you use Toyhouse?

originally I joined because everyone else was using it. then I found it was easier to have my characters uploaded on here rather than something like da sta.sh. when I learned you can trade and sell characters, my bank account started to sob. now I use it (in hopes) of making friends, expanding my character's stories, and roleplaying. 

i adore the fact that you can set up profiles, it lets creativity bloom. honestly, I feel it's got a lot more good than bad.

This is a boring answer, but for storing my characters, selling and trading with others, and browsing the forums.

The thing I like most about toyhou.se is actually that I can not only store art of my characters, but also store information. I have a fairly large amount of characters so, naturally, it's a bit hard to remember all the trivia I have for them - since I have a really bad memory and attention span - when I actually get around to writing it down at least.

I don't personally utilize profile code so it's not like I couldn't really just do this in a notes app or something, but I don't like to clutter my notes too much, so toyhou.se is much more convenient for everything.

I used to use this site for storing characters. 

I then got addicted to creating ocs, wound up with over 500+ characters, really bad trauma happened, started to have stress issues (in general and just because I had no idea what to do with all of them and I WANTED to use all 500+ of them), the site became very, very hard to even look at without the stress coming back, and so I left and moved to Google Docs, which I prefer. Plus, I also got very, very sick of the stuff that was the result of the admin not doing...anything.

I'm very tempted to just have alts on here since, unlike Docs, TH gave me visuals for things. Such as seeing my characters with avatars (instead of text, making it easier to process things), having stats like how many characters you have, etc. The alts would be just to sort characters into groups without using one account, which led to my burnout.

I mostly just hop onto this site when I'm bored. I rarely check in on the forums. I saw this post and had to dump my thoughts here. Sorry if they are unwanted.

Edit: I forgot a thing. Another reason why I had to leave is because aggression, passive or otherwise, towards anything that might hint towards me is a trigger and it makes me feel unsafe and scared. Half of the users who share ocs here are that way. I have to avoid things like looking at characters, reading caards, and other things, just to not have a breakdown. So not only does using the site stress me, PEOPLE stress me. I accidentally had this happen while looking through the forms. I'm fine, I left before it progressed too much, but still. This site is barely safe for me. Or any site, for that matter. But this site especially.

I discovered the site through art fight last year, I didn't know what it was but people all seemed to have an account here. It wasn't easy trying to find invite codes when I didn't already know anyone here (and I still don't... Just me 😔). I love using it to keep all of the art of my characters in one place, it always felt weird and personal whenever I posted my art of them on social media but here it feels totally normal. And I adore seeing everyone else's too! The designs are so inspiring. I'm not a writer, so for me it's all about the visual aspect of owning characters and I love finding new artists to appreciate through them. :3

I originally got it a few years ago from G+ so I could have a place to store my characters in other than my brain, and occasionally I would talk to people, I think I really only still use it to see people’s art and characters and occasionally post on forums for fun

-Alex- Your story stands out because of how you address the issues with the community AND why do I feel the same way? Yeah, I also faced a lot of issues within the community and you are not alone with the amount of (STRESS) this site has (probably due to...one mod being active for an entire site) and I do agree that you need a long break from this site. The TH community sometimes,,,is more stressful compared to other socials for some reason and I hope you and your health will be better in the future, so take care! :0

I like hearing about all of your opinions everyone! All of them are interesting, so I am hoping to see more! :0

And to @///-Alex- : No worries, your thoughts here are valid and I honestly feel you, so don't think you are unwanted here, not everything is perfect! :")

i came here because a friend of mine was using it (to note, we're not friends anymore and they even have me blocked due to a falling out a few years ago) to store characters as a replacement for charahub - which, from what i remember, didn't have as many options to customize profiles as this place does and it doesn't feel so empty. nowadays, i'm trying to find some sort of interaction and a way to talk about my OCs but then i started to adopt characters and Oops. i don't regret it but i want to take advantage of the social aspect. it's just a bit hard on my end since social media rotted my brain and i crave the instant reply instead of the old habit of actually being patient for someone to respond to me.

dont remember why i joined tbh because i was inactive from 2017 until like 2019, but i like having a place to keep all my art. my uploads other places are super inconsistent lol. though i still have upwards of 50 old characters to upload cries

its also cool having people acknowledge my ocs since nobody rly seems to care about those elsewhere

OC storage and I missed using a forum instead of social media, I like the customization for character profiles and I'd like to share my profiles with people as well

I joined not too long after the site went up and was thrilled by the idea of a more reliable and flexible OC storage! At that time we only really had Charahub, but by then it had already gotten past its prime and was down more often than not (and would eventually end up closing altogether). I don't think people really talked about the forums back then; TH was pretty exclusively known as an oc storage site, at least in the experience of someone who didn't inhabit the circles of the original mods or weren't following them online. The fact the forums might be the real hook for some people to use the site is really fascinating, considering it was such a secondary feature when the site was discussed during its first years. 

Anyway yeah TH still is an oc storage site for me first and foremost! I doubt I'd use the forums much if I didn't host my ocs here.

I like to suffer.