Hahahahaha, ah, I relate to that immensely! At one point I counted over a hundred characters - a lot of them have completely fallen off these days, but there's still enough around that it's kinda hard to choose. A lot of my preferable characters are unicorns as well though, so it kinda makes adapting them that much more odd.
The D&D rules and stuff can definitely be pretty overwhelming to dive into initially. I ultimately found myself watching other people play in order to get a sense for it.

happy birthday!
sorry you had a bad experience previously. I remember making a really ignorant post about 12 years ago and being absolutely raked over the coals by adults.(when I was 14) The post was ignorant so I kinda deserved it, but these fully grown adults really laid into me. Other than that I cant say I've had any bad experiences myself.
What do you mean about "being silenced" ?