MUSH Marriages (IC)

Ganymede

I think we're actually pretty close to the same opinion, but are stating it different ways.

I agree with all three of your points. And I also agree with your summation. I don't plan my life around anyone online, and that's generally one of my lines. I do try to honor my commitments online when I can, but, of course, real life obligations come first, including to my partner.

But with that line in mind, I do try to arrange things OOCly when I can. With that boundary in mind. My IC partners are never going to take precedence over my RL friends, family, children, acquaintances, or activities.

Pandora

My only on-screen MUSH-marriage was on Firan, my character that loved someone else was thrust into marriage with her very young cousin that acted like a child which wasn't funny despite people making jokes about it. But he could be mature when he felt like it, as he explained ICly, which at least eliminated the skeevy aspects but it was fairly miserable for both participants ICly, even if the player was a sweet person for the most part & we both tried.

And then he allegedly killed my character.

All future married characters were married before I took them off the roster, was not going through that shit ever again.

mietze

Can vouch for @Ganymede on this one. If she is present in a group or with a tie to my PC I never worry about who she brings with her, even if it’s someone I’ve seen behave badly in the past. I know I just do not ever have to worry at all about ooc drama spillover, so it’s fine to relax and just enjoy play with whoever.

Darinelle

@ganymede said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

@darinelle

I think we're actually pretty close to the same opinion, but are stating it different ways.

I agree with all three of your points. And I also agree with your summation. I don't plan my life around anyone online, and that's generally one of my lines. I do try to honor my commitments online when I can, but, of course, real life obligations come first, including to my partner.

But with that line in mind, I do try to arrange things OOCly when I can. With that boundary in mind. My IC partners are never going to take precedence over my RL friends, family, children, acquaintances, or activities.

Yes, that. Exactly. Sane is good. Boundaries are good. OOC drama over IC shit is bad. IC drama is a-ok. That.

Thenomain

@wretched said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

@deadempire Yeah, run away from that person fast. There are a few of those people out there, toxic AF. I h ad one time where i was RPing with a person, and her IC boyfriend kept paging us both while we were in the scene trying to figure out what was going on. Paranoia and possession run deep with some people. It's mucho creepy.

Well, I mean, to be fair, Jack was an asshole.

Okay okay okay, you could be talking about almost any online dude with an IC girlfriend, but the point still stands: Jack was an asshole.

Wretched

@thenomain said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

@wretched said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

@deadempire Yeah, run away from that person fast. There are a few of those people out there, toxic AF. I h ad one time where i was RPing with a person, and her IC boyfriend kept paging us both while we were in the scene trying to figure out what was going on. Paranoia and possession run deep with some people. It's mucho creepy.

Well, I mean, to be fair, Jack was an asshole.

Okay okay okay, you could be talking about almost any online dude with an IC girlfriend, but the point still stands: Jack was an asshole.

I had actually briefly forgotten about Jack and that bullshit. but yer right, he is one of those too. There have been a handful of those over the years.

Me: Rping with A Female PC
Dude Female PC is 'dating': Hey what are you guys up to lol just curious winkysmile No big deal just innocently curious.
Me: Here we go again.

I'm usually tempted to send them some TS, but it's HUGE RED FLAGS all over.

Edit: I'm also 'that guy' and will immediately tell the person i am RPing with. Why is this dude paging me about what we are doing?

bored

I think there's probably two entirely different levels of things being discussed here, and speaking in hard absolutes for one unfortunately works badly for the other. No one sane supports creepy, OOC boundary violating, stalkerish behavior. But condemning all OOC communication about RP relationships isn't a great solution either.

I've absolutely had people invite me to do a pair app, create an alt, etc then ignore the RP between those characters in favor of other partners or play on other alts. While I don't have any position to demand they RP with me, I do have a right to ask, "Hey, what's up with this?" I invested a certain amount of effort on the understanding I'd get some RP out of it, and if that doesn't materialize, I'm not out of bounds to inquire (to clarify any possible miscommunication in either direction), and eventually even to ask "do you even still want this RP?" That's not a guilt trip, that's a serious question about how I'm apportioning my time.

This is really just a specific case of general 'RL vs game' stuff. Yes, it's more important that your house is on fire, or your kid is having a recital, etc. But at decreasing levels of RL importance, automatically prioritizing RL over a game is eventually disregard for the still very RL person waiting on RP. I'm pretty confident to say that it's rarely important that you run out and buy chocolate mousse when you've agreed to ST a scene for a bunch of people (to use an infamous and very real example), and if you do that, I'm going to call it out.

surreality

@tinuviel said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

With a few exceptions, I'd say that many of our number are rather hesitant on the confrontation front - however mild it might be. Are we misinterpreting things, are we being too sensitive, are we being childish, are we, are we... we aim the blame for our discomfort at ourselves.

@arkandel said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

I know, and it's why we keep getting drama. It's a direct effect of people perceiving this hesitation as weakness so they prey on it.

It is also amazing how many people will know this, and deliberately exploit it. It's not just preying on the unwillingness to speak up, but to gaslight the shit out of people when they do.

It is dazzlingly common and it's something we (collectively) need to get better about taking action about -- in resisting, reporting, and continuing to state our boundary as necessary.

Miss Demeanor

@wretched said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

@thenomain said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

@wretched said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

@deadempire Yeah, run away from that person fast. There are a few of those people out there, toxic AF. I h ad one time where i was RPing with a person, and her IC boyfriend kept paging us both while we were in the scene trying to figure out what was going on. Paranoia and possession run deep with some people. It's mucho creepy.

Well, I mean, to be fair, Jack was an asshole.

Okay okay okay, you could be talking about almost any online dude with an IC girlfriend, but the point still stands: Jack was an asshole.

I had actually briefly forgotten about Jack and that bullshit. but yer right, he is one of those too. There have been a handful of those over the years.

Me: Rping with A Female PC
Dude Female PC is 'dating': Hey what are you guys up to lol just curious winkysmile No big deal just innocently curious.
Me: Here we go again.

I'm usually tempted to send them some TS, but it's HUGE RED FLAGS all over.

Edit: I'm also 'that guy' and will immediately tell the person i am RPing with. Why is this dude paging me about what we are doing?

I want more people to be 'that guy' so I can immediately page the ICSO and tell them its done. If its not something I would tolerate from an RLSO, I damn sure won't from a fictional one!

Arkandel

I had a brief conversation last night in which I realized although it wasn't my intention to do so, I could have come off as blaming the victim in this thread.

Making your limits clear then defending them upfront is a solution to a problem and not its cause.

If some guy pitches a fit because you are playing with someone else or whatever, that is the problem. He is the problem.

Sure, there are steps one can take to preemptively address the issue or make sure it doesn't get too bad, but it's still that other person who is the problem, not the one who just goes out and roleplays whatever with whomever they choose, as is their right.

I just wanted to make that addentum.

thesuntsar

@wretched I played on a game where a player was doing this to every person playing with her ICSO. I have a hard time imagining being that insecure I'd need to page the shit out of my PC's SO's RP partners and them so that I could track their every movement. Just geez.

Auspice

@faceless said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

Shortest? Hopefully the one I'll get to play some day when I make my married-couple Sin-Eater concept.

Knowing this concept, I really wanna play it with you. It'd be hilarious.

Lotherio

@arkandel said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

could have come off as blaming the victim

Just want to further this, most likely not in a direction @Arkandel intended. I get the 'why is your IC-SO paging me' thing, but that is also putting some responsibility of the stalker/creeper SO on a potential victim in the situation (not is, but potentially).

I've been there on a few occasions. Once months down the road (after some IC incident involving IC-SOs), I received an @mail from someone saying they'd do their best to play with me even though I somehow stole their SO or something after, at the time they'd accused me of it and I pointed out I did nothing OOCly, didn't know what the deal was and finally told them to stop paging me with OOC drama. It was bizarre, but it had nothing to do with person filling in the shoes of the perceived 'stolen SO'. Another time I was in a private room with a friend, doing nothing, and a creeper type not only did the interruption thing, but instead they sent a coded puppet to repeatedly knock on the door until someone 'answered' it for the sole purpose of ICly delivering some message which could of just as easily been handed with @mail; using the time to pose the puppet in an NPC like format as if to eat up the time that was spent between my PC and their SO's PC. More came off as an attempt to interrupt whatever the puppeteer believed we were up to, which was nothing other than idling in a room and idle chat between OOC friends.

But its not necessarily the responsibility of the middle party to deal with it; they may be embarrassed or even ashamed that their IC-SO is doing it too (not are, may be, just I wouldn't try to put it on them to fix the situation by shifting blame). Taking time to ask them (middle party person I'm playing/idling with) what the deal is may come off wrong? Or they may think its cute/masculine or something on the IC-SO part, but could stand to hear a third party finds it intrusive too, just to know the grounds? I'd rather directly page the interrupter to just say 'I don't know you, we have never talked before, don't know why you feel the need to interject into this but its unwelcome'd'.

thesuntsar

@lotherio In my situation, I paged the person who was repeatedly page bombing me about their ICSO. After repeatedly telling them knock it off, I did ask the other person if they were aware this was happening. Because frankly, I'd want to know if my RP buddy was being weird and creepy to other people.

ThatGuyThere

@lotherio
I would mentioned it to the middle party, mainly to see their reaction, if it is a quick, I will handle it or an apology no worries. However if they think it is cute or start making excuses for it that tells me I need to avoid two people not one.
I don't want to victim blame but I also don't want to becoming the unwilling third point in a triangle.

Arkandel

@lotherio said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

Just want to further this, most likely not in a direction @Arkandel intended.

I mean I didn't want to make an one-size-fits-all attribution of blame so I picked the most generic model (one person gets jealous about their IC S.O.'s actions and disrupts them). But yes, there can be all kinds of scenarios and some are much more reasonable than others.

For instance if I played a half of a relationship which depended on the other party to make sense - a ghoul to a Vampire, a tight political alliance requiring both people to work as intended, etc - and my partner wasn't around 'enough' it'd be reasonable to have a conversation; maybe RL has been the issue, or they aren't enjoying the RP, or they are enjoying their alt more.

Whatever it is you can have a conversation, there's nothing wrong with that. But sending code puppets to knock on bedroom doors, fuck off with that.

Ganymede

@faceless said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

Shortest? Hopefully the one I'll get to play some day when I make my married-couple Sin-Eater concept.

I would love to play one-half of a Sin-Eater couple who interact like Jimmy and Alison Porter from Osborne's Look Back in Anger, and are lashed to Geists who are the dead versions of George and Martha from Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.

MagicGirl57

@ganymede The Geist Sphere is just so fucking amazing and full of potential for awesome, creepy-tastic storytelling. Sigh. I want a Geist marriage.

Thenomain

@ganymede

Frank Doyle: Who cares what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
Sadie Doyle: Unless Evil's carrying the martini tray, darling!
*ting!*