#markaeus

Not long after I’d started playing TERA, he contacted me trying to arrange an IC alliance between our RP guilds. We were newly formed, and not really fleshed out, had only just put our info out there, so I was surprised by the offer. I tried to explain to him that we were still hashing things out, that I was just the co-lead, that we’d need to work out the IC details and it would have to be approved by my boyfriend’s character since he led the guild IC. Despite it, he continued to press me for an answer then and there, and I eventually satisfied him with a vague, “sure, we’ll see” so he would back off (a conversation I soon saw play out almost identically IC between his character and a character played by a friend of mine regarding a guild they were officer in). He then immediately asked where I was in game and brought his character to meet mine. It was a fairly normal RP scene of just meeting and exchanging pleasantries and introductions, but afterwards, he asked me OOC what my boundaries were as far as ERP, which I found odd since there was no insinuation of anything romantic/sexual about the encounter. I told him that I didn’t ERP, and he pressed me for details why and what I “considered” to be ERP. I answered, he seemed satisfied and claimed to respect my boundaries and that he would abide by them. He invited me to hang around his guild. I went to one of their IC meetings, and on the way there he messaged me telling me not to be “intimidated” by their size. I’d already pegged him as pretty arrogant at that point and thought he was talking shit, but I was taken aback by the amount of people there when I arrived. Since then I am sure some of my own FC gatherings would have dwarfed it, but it was my first RP event in an MMO, and it was an impressive amount of people for a single guild in such a small RP community. I didn’t know many people in the game and a few people from his guild were very friendly to me, so they became my social circle of sorts, with him in the middle, presumably gluing it together. He talked up the importance of himself and his guild to me, convinced me they were a pillar of the RP community, that he was beloved and people would do whatever he wanted, that he could send his guild after anyone who attacked him. I didn’t see the red flags at first, so I proceeded with the RP and whatever turns it took. The character I played was a power-hungry manipulator, so of course she was interested in taking advantage of his character, a wealthy “prince” who led a large group of soldiers and was bent on becoming the leader of an area and logically would have had a lot of martial and political power. She set about “seducing” him, but since the character is far from promiscuous, I use that term pretty loosely. No progress was made toward the guild alliance that led us to RP in the first place, and I’m fairly certain now that was just a ploy to meet my character. He metagamed his character learning my character’s deep, dark secret, but I brushed it off at first, until his character confronted mine and demanded she strip to prove she wasn’t dangerous or he would kill/arrest her (I will note his character was nearly twice the size of mine and he would frequently describe how big/powerful/strong his character was). She complied, and he basically emoted his character getting aroused and thinking she was some vile whore for “seducing” him like that by taking off her clothes when commanded to with threats. It was uncomfortable, but I wrote it all off as IC, just the character he was playing. He began to try to press me into ERP OOC despite my resistance, frequently bringing it up, asking why I wouldn’t, and “jokingly” whining when I declined. It wasn’t long before he wanted to RP again, and his character cornered mine in some remote part of the map, again pulling the “grr how dare you make me horny you whore you have to let me bang you now” routine. My character refused, so he instead offered to use his power to get her whatever she pleased if she would be his “mistress” and essentially let him fuck her how/when/wherever he wanted.  She refused again, and his character opted for some thinly veiled threats of blackmail and murder/arrest again, talking about how he could reveal her secret, what the authorities would do or what his guild could do to her if he sent them after her, talking about how strong he was and how easily he could overpower her, etc. She gave in but was visibly and obviously reluctant, unhappy, and uninterested. He began to go into what I had already told him I considered to be ERP, but I honestly just wanted to end the scene with minimal fuss, so I stupidly went with it. What followed was probably the worst and most uncomfortable ERP of my RP career (and mind you I haven’t ERPed much, but a good chunk of it has been pretty unpleasant). His character basically treated mine like a blow-up doll, tossing and ordering her around, emoting how rough/painful it was, how his character didn’t care for her comfort or pleasure, how there was no love/care involved, etc. (and also for whatever reason he took the liberty of deciding what my character’s pubic hair was like himself??). I have never RPed anything remotely of that variety before without my RP partner asking my OOC consent first and repeatedly checking in on my comfort, but all I got were messages about how hot my character was and requests to go into a Skype call. I wrapped up the scene ASAP, and very quickly decided I wanted to distance my character from his and avoid RPing with him again. Luckily, I found a pretty convenient and foolproof out for my character without having to retcon anything or endure his character’s wrath, but I didn’t want to cause problems with him OOC to avoid drama and potentially being cut off from his guild which at that point housed some good friends and RP buddies of mine, so I continued to associate with him OOC, if only when he messaged me. He acted like our RP never happened, continuing to go on about how his character was a shy and awkward “virgin” and “lawful good” despite his character having blackmailed and intimidated mine into reluctant sex, and I felt relieved in my decision to end the IC relations. But remaining cordial OOC became difficult to manage, because after the ERP, his OOC behavior changed drastically. He would constantly compliment me or my character on physical appearance. He flirted with me despite knowing I was in a serious, longterm, monogamous relationship, stated he had a crush on me, and would make comments about how he wished he’d met me “five years earlier” (before I met my boyfriend). He pressed me into getting onto cam with him despite my discomfort, and at one point in the Skype logs (despite wanting to cam frequently he would almost always only talk through text) he even noted how uncomfortable I looked and commanded me to relax instead of offering to end the Skype call. After making me promise not to get angry, he sent me a long declaration of his feelings for me (mostly just things about me he found sexually pleasing, or things he wanted to do with me sexually) and demanded I read it and respond while on cam with him so he could see my expression. When I thanked him for the flattery and politely declined, reminded him I was taken and uninterested and that it made me uncomfortable, he simply told me that he didn’t need reciprocation to feel the way he felt or express those feelings. He asked me if I thought he was sexually attractive and interrogated me if I gave vague answers, asked my bra size, repeatedly requested I grope my own breasts or show them to him on cam, and asked me to turn around and show him my legs and shake my ass for him, asked me to blow him “passionate kisses.” He told me he was staring at my breasts, and made sexual comments about my body when I would do something innocuous like shift positions or stand up. He asked me to LARP my characters trying to “seduce” his on cam. He wanted to do non-canon, AU type RP on Skype where my character was still available (she had moved on and found a real lover at this point). I told him if we did RP, there would be no ERP, and he once more “jokingly” whined and called me rude and demanded to know why. I told him my character wouldn’t be interested in sex like that again, and he tried to insist that my character was a “horny slut” and “crazy and over-emotional” despite me--at least I hope--never portraying her that way and describing her as everything the opposite. He continued to convey his delusional perspective of how their dynamic was so “fun” because of  how “inexperienced and awkward” his character was, how my character was some evil temptress whore, how we both knew that the ERP “was more than just sex” to him, when he had all but raped my character. When I wouldn’t budge, he tried to set one of his alts up with one of my alts instead. These advances continued on and on, the same things repeatedly. I had seen what happens when women reject men--even experienced it myself many times--and I was hesitant to outright give a strong “no” to anything for fear I might lose all my friends in his guild or face some sort of harassment. But I politely declined, I tried to give vague answers, I did my best to change the subject, I constantly brought up my boyfriend, sometimes I even got passive aggressive and snippy. None of it dissuaded him. He kept pushing and pushing despite my refusals and my obvious discomfort, asking me the same things over and over despite me already refusing numerous times in hopes that I would finally break down and agree like I foolishly had with the ERP. I know now I did a lot of it to myself. I should have been sterner. I should have put my comfort and happiness before the friendship of anyone who would turn against me over such a thing. I should have told him to fuck off and blocked him if I had to. But I was young, and sad, and insecure, and he had convinced me of his importance and belovedness and influence in the community and I didn’t have the knowledge to know it was mostly bullshit.  His guild turned against him, left and formed their own guild without him. He became pretty reclusive after that, and I had less reason to put up with him anymore. We had stopped talking almost entirely save for him occasionally popping up to ask me if I was still in a relationship OOC, or try to manipulate my character into sleeping with his again IC with some negging about how no one would ever love her and they deserved each other, or to ask me to show him my breasts for the hundredth time which was the final straw when I realized just how shitty he was and how I wanted nothing to do with him again. Between his random reappearances, I began to meet female players who told me their own stories disgustingly similar to mine. So that’s my story. In the end, I am lucky. My experience was not as bad as many women who have been his targets, if only because of my lack of willingness to indulge him in such things, even if I wasn’t as stern as I should have been. He has masturbated with unwilling participants in voice chat, convinced some women to cheat on their S.O.’s, so in the end, I had it easy, which may be the worst part to stomach. I am not the person that I was then. I have more wisdom and more confidence. To people like me now, he is harmless and little more than a nuisance. But to people like I was then and the women who had it even worse than I did, he is toxic and revolting. I am a smarter person for what happened and because of it I’ve met some amazing people like @its-the-val-pal, but in the end I am furious I was treated with such disrespect and even more angry with myself for allowing it to happen. He took advantage of a young person who was reluctant to hurt his feelings, hesitant to make enemies, and scared to lose friends and treated me like a slab of meat and a conquest to be won, and used my RP and the character I had poured so much thought and love into as a means to that end.