Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread

SockMonkey

As far in game experiences, I hooked a char of mine with hers on a previous game because she didn’t seem crazy. In a later game she got upset a char I apped wasn’t ‘right’ for her char. Proceeded to passive aggressively hint at wanting me to make a character for hers because she “missed the connection we shared”.

Didn’t budge. When my char flirted with another char at (my mistake) a business her char owned, when she was not present, she complained to staff and directly paged me how her char would always know what happened in her business even if she wasn’t on game because “It’s her property” and tried to say how her char was going to find mine to bitch at him. Didn’t ask for a scene. Didn’t even ask me. Just said it was happening.

This was after throwing said char after mine in other scenes on game. I turned her down each time. Her whole thing was “The widow who secretly was a virgin and wanted to learn to make love” and it was weird.

I just avoided her at that point. No scenes and no Discord. She proceeded to start a smear campaign and rage to anyone who would listen.

KarmaBum

@SockMonkey said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

“The widow who secretly was a virgin and wanted to learn to make love” and it was weird.

i mean, with the right writing partner, that’s hot!

just macha is not that person :{

hellfrog

@SockMonkey said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

Didn’t budge. When my char flirted with another char at (my mistake) a business her char owned, when she was not present, she complained to staff and directly paged me how her char would always know what happened in her business even if she wasn’t on game because “It’s her property” and tried to say how her char was going to find mine to bitch at him. Didn’t ask for a scene. Didn’t even ask me. Just said it was happening.

wait, so this was the second char you made that wasn’t right for hers and thus had no connection to hers??

Testament

@SockMonkey

This is a big yikes.

Yikes

CuriousGamer

@SockMonkey said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

Her whole thing was “The widow who secretly was a virgin and wanted to learn to make love” and it was weird.

Sounds like she’s taking the Downton Abbey approach to marriage?

SockMonkey

@hellfrog No I had a char that was in a relationship with hers in another game. She honestly seemed fine there. The second game is where I apped, we realized who each other were and I thought it was a fun reconnection. Then, she said my apped char wasn’t ‘right’ for hers but still ended up trying to get with him anyways. That’s when the harassing behavior started.

SockMonkey

@KarmaBum Well also the character was a male escort. So he didn’t feel like he was the right person to help her with that. He’s like “You need someone who will appreciate that and who you don’t have to pay” but I think her whole approach was eventually him realizing he loved her? Or maybe her just becoming creepy attached to him. After the fact someone warned me she had an rp partner who was on game too and they constantly did jealousy style arcs. So definitely glad I noped out of that one.

Testament

I’m probably being paranoid, but now I’m wondering if someone who I’ve been I just started RPing with off and on a game I play on(not the one I run, mind)should be giving me red flags or not. Because they came on strong out of nowhere. And after reading this I’m like ‘okay what should I be watching out for’.

I’m probably reading too much into it, but I suppose now I’m a bit more aware.

CuriousGamer

@SockMonkey said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

@hellfrog No I had a char that was in a relationship with hers in another game. She honestly seemed fine there. The second game is where I apped, we realized who each other were and I thought it was a fun reconnection. Then, she said my apped char wasn’t ‘right’ for hers but still ended up trying to get with him anyways. That’s when the harassing behavior started.

She might have seemed fine because she was getting what she wanted at that time in the previous relationship/game.

crawfish

@Testament I recall complaining to someone else about a person’s creepy behavior; they pointed me to a thread with the same pattern and it was both validating and horrifying. And also the same creep.

SockMonkey

@CuriousGamer Yeah. It also just fell into a lot of my triggers from previous life experiences and I think with how quick it all escalated left me super shaken.

CuriousGamer

@Testament Harder to say without context. There’s a lot of people that come on too strong. And a lot of creepers. It may be a different creeper.

Testament

@crawfish For me, it’s not entirely the same behavior(but enough where I look at it more closely), and I have zero desire to see something that’s not there or start some kind of witch hunt or whatever. What might be is someone who simply plays a far more open character I could potentially read as something worse when it’s not that at all.

This could also just be my own hangup when a character comes onto to mine that, A, I don’t know the player. and B, when I’m not used to characters coming onto mine simply because I tend to play character that aren’t really romanceable.

@CuriousGamer And it may not be a creeper at all, and I’m just letting my own paranoia of players who I don’t know influencing me. Just trying to be careful. Suffice to say, I simply don’t know enough yet to make a determination.

ETA: Someone has spoken to me already and confirmed my situation is not Macha-related. It’s me being a paranoid asshole. Carry on.

CuriousGamer

@Testament So you bring up a good point here.

Does anyone have any solid tells for Macha? Things to look out for where one of her, or her set of people might be fishing for? Behaviors to look out for?

Pavel

@CuriousGamer said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

@Testament So you bring up a good point here.

Does anyone have any solid tells for Macha? Things to look out for where one of her, or her set of people might be fishing for? Behaviors to look out for?

While we’re talking about this, I do want to warn against assuming anyone with similar behaviours is Macha and announcing it to the world. It happens far, far too frequently in our little corner of the community, and it is best avoided.

Tez

@Testament said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

ETA: Someone has spoken to me already and confirmed my situation is not Macha-related. It’s being a paranoid asshole. Carry on.

I’m glad you were able to get it confirmed but this is also always something we need to be aware of as a community, I think. We do tend to flinch and wonder if someone is THAT PERSON.

But I mean I still flinch every time I see a certain name or PB, so who am I to throw stones?!

CuriousGamer

@Pavel That’s good advice. And you don’t want to tip off Macha. You should never assume someone is someone else. But behaviors to look out for and make you consider ‘could this be’ I could see as a positive.

Pax

IDK a lot about the wet mop in question, but what bums me out is how challenging it is to balance the “assume positive intentions” mindset that makes RPing with folks over the internet a lot smoother against the absolutely legitimate concern-edging-paranoia that the person you’re talking to is actually a corrosive manipulator, gaslighter, and abuser who is just waiting for their moment.

Sometimes that shit just takes a lot of spoons, man.

Testament

@Tez said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

@Testament said in Macha Awareness (And Unappreciation) thread:

ETA: Someone has spoken to me already and confirmed my situation is not Macha-related. It’s being a paranoid asshole. Carry on.

I’m glad you were able to get it confirmed but this is also always something we need to be aware of as a community, I think. We do tend to flinch and wonder if someone is THAT PERSON.

But I mean I still flinch every time I see a certain name or PB, so who am I to throw stones?!

This is why I was worried about saying anything at all inititally. I don’t want someone to get dragged who had nothing to do with it. So I pointedly did not name names or say even what the game was. There’s a couple folks who know where I play who reached out. So I’m glad it got taken care of.

But yes, generally I agree that I need to flinch a little less with “OH FUCK IS IT THAT PERSON???”

Roz

It’s funny, because 10 years ago I would not have said that I was worried about Macha sneaking in and manipulating people, because my experience of her is that her behavior was so obvious. And while she was a huge pain in the butt, I don’t think we saw her get aggressively creepy with someone over ship/romance stuff.

But actually it sounds like, not only has she not gotten better in the past ten years, she’s actually gotten worse.

Really sorry to the folks she’s been this new level of awful with.