Relationships?

[ObsessedWithCats]

Something I've been wondering about in a mildly irritated but mostly light-hearted way, as an aromantic asexual this has apparently gone right over my head. So I thought I'd pose it as a topic of discussion to see what people think/know without constraining it to irritation or confusion versus amusement or thrilled-ness. How do romances and other intimate relationships happen in Cantr? Is there something invisible to me that people use to test a character's interest? I've never spotted an advance, and yet people seem to be snuggling and running off to their private rooms left, right and centre, sometimes within days of spawning. Do all of my characters radiate asexuality or are they just not actively bouncing back some signal? Is it much different for those who enter relationships very quickly versus those who slowly RP the characters getting to know one another.

Are the people running off at 20 years and 6 days old for intimate encounters people who stick around? Do they/some expand, or have you generally found that their lives will always revolve around those encounters and maintaining a situation that facilitates them? How do your characters feel about newspawns getting immediately into intimate relationships? Or intimate relationships at all?

In over 2000 summed days of alive character the nearest to an 'intimate' (judged by me as the point where I checked with PD that the other player was an adult) relationship I ever got was a character who wanted to take another into a back room and cut him with her kitchen knife until he cried and begged her to stop. She went off the idea when it started looking like he'd enjoy that.

So yeah. I'm confused, anyone want to explain or express matching confusion?

[Marian]

I think it's the same group of players in many cases, as far as the ones with characters whose lives seem to revolve about it. Just like any other character type in a game with so few players, they're going to wind up gravitating toward others with similar interests. Some towns are full of constant drama, because anyone who doesn't find that kind of thing enjoyable is going to get driven out or leave. Same goes for cybering.

And there is a lot of 'signaling' there, yes. Some of it eyerollingly transparent.

[*Wiro]

Marian and I have been playing a sexually active couple together. I just put out an ad on the radio.

[sherman]

Marian and I have been playing a sexually active couple together. I just put out an ad on the radio.

That does really work? Didn't seem to work as dating service though


Anyway, Marian said kinda how things work. Though relationship can be completely not sexual. Sometimes just similar interests draw you together or... Spending lot of time together (for example being only ones wake or sailing or something like that)

[ObsessedWithCats]

Hmmm, about what I expected (though the radio surprises me XD). I guess long-build-up romantic non-sexual relationships come about in similar ways to platonic ones with slight twists?

I once tried to mimic the flirting in a situation where it could be passed off as another cause if I ended up out of my depth, and the other guy promptly had a heart attack

[Father Brian]

I only have one, and it came about from the other character expressing a LOT of verbal interest. Most of the other flirting I've encountered was pretty repulsive - grabbing my female chars' asses despite being nearly a stranger seems to be pretty common, and for some strange reason doesn't seem to work.

[ObsessedWithCats]

O_o Wow, that's creepy. Not seen any of that, and even I'm not oblivious enough to mistake that for friendly >_<

Though to be fair for most of the time I played my female characters consisted of a young woman who either encountered only bears or (later on) had rather obviously taken down a few bears in her time and the distant second-in-command of a strongly female-led town.

[SekoETC]

One of my characters would kidnap people and a couple of them developed Stockholm syndrome and fell in love with him. Later he just sailed with people long enough until they got feelings for him.

Coventina used to be a prostitute before she became a town leader, so she had some customers, then she got all traumatized after one of them abused her and some people find traumatized characters irresistible. Her first girlfriend was Mya, who was played by one of these guys who are really into sex rp and do it on all their characters as far as I know. I don't think he plays anymore. He also played two of Coventina's male customers earlier. Again I'm not saying who it was. After Coventina got back from Omeo, she reconnected with Maveri, whom she had met when the latter was a newspawn, and they ended up in a long term relationship that stemmed from earlier friendship. Before this, Coventina was with Jamie, whom she met when she had gotten attacked by a dire wolf and was recovering in the hospital. (She doesn't consume large amounts of healing food at once unless it's in the middle of combat.) Jamie crawled into a cot with her and it developed from there. So it stemmed from Coventina being in a vulnerable state, which Jamie found attractive. As for Dacrum, Coventina received a threatening letter from Rau Naedell, so she assumed she was going to get killed and wanted to sleep with a man one last time before going to face her doom. They were already close friends, so he didn't turn her down when she asked. As the story unfolds, Coventina went to see the Rau and was so nervous that she fainted, so the Rau found her so pathetic she told her friends to take her home. As I've gathered, this story is still told to young Blackrocks as a joke.

The rest of my characters aren't public knowledge, but one used to be married because first he rescued a woman from an exploiter, that woman ended up dying soon after and he was so sad about it that another woman started comforting him and they soon ended up having sex. Later they got married and it went downhill from there. Eventually he stopped feeding her and she died. Then stuff happened that I can't really say or it would be really obvious which character I'm talking about, but later he found another woman and started sailing together with her. She was really nice, so he finally confessed his love for her and they had sex. Now she is only awake when I'm asleep, so they haven't been able to have sex in months.

Another character was really clueless as a newspawn and there was only one younger woman in his town, so he got interested in her and he awkwardly asked her is it normal if one's penis gets hard when looking at a woman. He thought there was something wrong with him. They ended up having sex and it was very awkward. She was like WTF when he ejaculated. She went traveling and he randomly ended up in the same location. At first it seemed they might end up in a relationship again but then she said she had lost her will to live, so he helped her commit suicide. After that he went traveling and ran into a nice woman, so he helped her around for a while. Then he said he wanted to build a better vehicle and left. After building his vehicle, he returned to her location and she was just about to leave. I think if he had arrived one day later, she would've been gone without a trace. They traveled together until they found a town to settle. They had a relationship for a while, which ended up in her sleeping too much. He wanted to commit suicide and Life Altering Stuff Happened, during which the woman starved to death. I could see she was hungry but decided not to let my character notice. Later he got a younger woman working for him in a non-sexual sense, found her on the radio. She developed affection towards him but was willing to wait until he was over the previous mate. It was so obvious she cared for him, but finally he was the first one to confess his love for her. I think they have only had sex once but it doesn't feel like it wasn't enough. It was just a magical moment when it happened.

The next one lived in a very sparsely populated region, so when he saw a woman for the first time in years, he was instantly smitten. They had instant chemistry and started chatting. I really liked their relationship, but apparently she didn't like it as much, since she chose to die. I just watched her starve and was really sad. I cried when she died. My character still hasn't found another love and still misses her after all these years.

The next one had her boyfriend spawn in the same town soon after she did. I can't exactly remember how they got close, maybe he said something about her eyes or hair or both. When they have sex, it's something wild but doesn't happen often. They used to have some sort of magic but it has died down some.

The next one is gay. He realized he had crush on his best friend after another gay guy showed up and he felt threatened by his presense. He had to confess his feelings before this newcomer could snatch up his friend, since the newcomer was really attractive. My character would've been ready to share, but the newcomer ended up dying soon after. Now no one seems to remember him anymore.

The next one doesn't really understand love but has still had sex once. Found it painful. She never said no because she cared for the man but it was still scary for her and she didn't understand what was happening.

The next one is asexual.

The next one has a crush on his friend, but she's with someone else. He's started starving himself because he knows it would never work out and he's probably just having a crush on an idealized image of her instead of the real her.

The next one had a crush on his town leader who's married, but has never let it show. This crush has kept him from showing interest in anyone else. To him she's like an angel and he could never see any flaws in her.

The other two are too young to have experienced anything sexual.

My Finnish characters are asexual.

[JosiahH]

One of my characters would kidnap people and a couple of them developed Stockholm syndrome and fell in love with him. Later he just sailed with people long enough until they got feelings for him.

Doctor Who?

[SekoETC]

I never thought of that. At least Doctor Who doesn't rape people.

[Father Brian]

BRB going to rename my pirate ship TARDIS and get myself a suit.

[sherman]

BRB going to rename my pirate ship TARDIS and get myself a suit.

Are you also getting to be an alien who can regenerate 12 times?

[Marian]

Marian and I have been playing a sexually active couple together. I just put out an ad on the radio.

This is all true. I'm Halifax and he's Raaj. Never had so much fun with a whip before.

[SekoETC]

There actually is a ship called TARDIS in Cantr and it used to be owned by a guy called John Smith, but he died and the ship just sits there.

[ObsessedWithCats]

That's quite a mix of interesting situations Seko, and not what I was expecting of Coventina's backstory at all. Sounds like a bit of a roller coaster to've played them all.

The Doctor Who parallel is a little alarming XD Always did think the doctor was a bit dodgy