The day a simple roleplay request turned into a (mild?) nightmare

[Shades 676]

Obligatory disclaimer: I know I was probably way too nice and this may be partly my fault. But here it goes.

 

Shades, being the idiot she is, wanders off to a popular roleplaying community and presents a pitch:

 

"A Christian prince and a pagan princess get into an arranged marriage". She then offers a few suggestions, like: they can get married through a peace treaty between their peoples, or their countries may be at war and they meet not knowing who they are and end up falling for each other. You know, romance-y stuff.

 

I get a taker, because of course. 

 

Person asks me if it's okay that his is a German prince. Sure, I'm not the rp character police, my dude, roleplay whatever character makes you happy. Person then suggests my character is an African woman. Okay, I like making my own choices, but I roll with it. The culture is fascinating, and so is the religion, and I have been studying about it anyway. Let's do this.

 

"Okay. So my character is visiting your character's land and she's given to him as a gift". Excuse me?  No, we're not gonna do that.

 

"Okay, okay, so her family needs money and they sell her to him". I'm sorry, what? No, we're not doing that either.

 

Cut to very long email explaining to me why it was 'realistic' that my character would be sold as a slave with lots of material on history. (After I had already given the 'nope' on the idea. So I give up and say we're not a good fit, it's not gonna happen, have a nice life.

 

Of course, that only means I'm now getting guilt-trippy emails asking me 'not to ignore him at this moment' and 'what did he do wrong?'. So I patiently stupidly explain that I don't want my character to be treated as merchandise to be sold, all I want is a freaking marriage between equal partners.

 

"Okay, we can do that"

 

(Silence)

 

"Okay, you choose your character and mine. Please don't ignore me"

 

(More silence)

 

"Okay, we can do it the way you had originally pitched. An arranged marriage"

 

(Silence and block)

 

And this, kids, is how and why Shades no longer tries to roleplay with strangers. (And deleted her account in that community just in case)

 

Thank you if anyone read this convoluted mess, which transpired in less than 48 hours. 😄

[Garmr 106]

Sorry to hear that your story idea didn't work out the way you wanted.  Clearly the German-Prince Slave Owner had some personal fantasy he wanted to act out and didn't quite grasp that it isn't everyone's cup of tea. Glad you recognized the warning signs early, trusted your instincts, and took care of yourself.

 

However, I would encourage you not to write of strangers entirely. Some of us are very nice and worthy writing partners.

 

v/r,

G.

[Shades 676]

Just now, Garmr said:

Nice words

 

Thank you! And I know, some strangers are decent and don't bite, I guess. I'll just have to trust my gut even more and shut down the bad kind of stranger before it turns into a stressful situation. 😕 

[StormWolfe 557]

Writing with strangers can be fun and rewarding. I love bouncing ideas off new people at my sites and having ideas lobbed at me. However, I confess to being very wary when it comes to the romance end of the spectrum after having been burned one too many times. I had a long-time writing partner that I 'shipped characters with because we had the same view of romantic entanglements (i.e. that couldn't be the only thing we wrote, our characters had to get out there with others and get involved in other plots). Then, this writing partner left off RPing entirely.

 

Currently, my sites are woefully bereft of plot ideas and wanted requests - most of that takes place via PM or in Discord. I am taking a chance with my main western character and trying a romance with a new gal's school teacher. We'll see how that pans out.

 

@Shades, you did the right thing. I would have been suspicious of his agenda after the first contact. Like @Garmr stated, good on you for sticking to your guns and keeping it polite. It could have exploded on the site otherwise. You handled it well!

[Shades 676]

@Stormwolfe

Thank you! It's good to hear I haven't messed up too badly, because this is the kind of situation in which you start doubting your own perception very quickly. It was intensely uncomfortable (I'm not sure my discomfort translated well into the written word) and I have to confess I wanted to blow up on this person, but felt the no-drama approach would be the best one for both the setting and my sanity.

 

I wouldn't have wanted to leave behind a mess for the moderators to clean up.