devils-sources

[devils-sources]

"I think you secretly hate me."

We need to talk about something, chat.

Gonna be honest, for a long while, I wasn't sure how to approach this. I sat and thought on it for a long time, picked it apart over and over for the right wording, only to come back to it later and completely rewrite it.

I probably still didn't articulate things to the best level it could be articulated. But here it is anyway, with the hopes of helping other people who have also gone through this or may be going through this right now, and maybe on the very slim chance people who are guilty of this will learn to be better.

People can think or assume whatever they want about why this post exists or the goal of it. Ultimately the one and only true goal is because I want people to be better than some of them realistically are. I want to see people improve and thrive. I want to stop having to deal with these frustrating and completely avoidable situations where ego and insecurity ruins peoples' experiences, their trust, and their faith in relationships they have, have had (past tense), or could have in the RP space.

I've met easily over a thousand different people in my 20+ years of roleplaying. Some good. Some bad. Some of the best people, and some of the worst (and when I say "worst", I mean people who are now literally in prison).

But there's one breed of person that really manages to hold a special kind of frustration for me, whom I have met many times over the years. Maybe that's just a personal issue of mine, but I know its not unique to me either with the conversations I've had with other people and the damage these types leave in their wake. Considering the title of this post, it's not exactly hard to guess what that type of person is.

I thought long and hard about how to go about this, and I think the best way to approach it would be to tell a story. A true one.

Buckle in because its going to be a long one.

Most people around here won't know me from Jack, but on a different platform, I used to be kind of a big deal.

I ran a roleplay guild on a popular MMORPG for about five years straight. If you know anything about what it takes to run a guild, you know that's a pretty long run, especially for a roleplay guild specifically compared with other, more "gamey" types of guilds or pure social guilds.

Most roleplay guilds, even the big ones (when I say "big", some of these guilds had over 1,000 members), fizzled out after one, maybe two years at most. If they didn't, it was because they supplemented their member population from multiple different game sources, collected them in one big server, and then dragged people from one MMORPG to another to inflate their numbers. And I can tell you that those guilds had an absolutely atrocious reputation for toxicity and the most anal-retentive requirements for the "correct" way to roleplay there is.

Our guild never hit big numbers like that (and knowing what I do about the drama those guilds suffered, thank god we didn't), but we were active, and we were known, and we had a lot of "ally" guilds that we interacted with and who came to us.

I, personally, had a lot of other roleplayers both IC and OOC referred to me as "the guy to go to" for information and various issues in the RP community, including help sort out drama because I had both levelheadedness and, when it was needed, fire and tooth to stand up to the worst offenders of the community. To some degree, I still am, though less so since I retired from that game.

At one point, I confronted another guild lead about their treatment towards one of their members. I was civil and professional, but given my general knowledge and experience of... well, most people, I expected to get back a nasty, vitriolic response telling me to go fuck myself before blocking me from making any comeback reply, because that's the knee-jerk of how these things usually go.

Instead, the first line I instantly got back was "You deserve a Pulitzer Prize for how well this was laid out", followed by him immediately trying to correct course to fix things with the person I went to bat for (man I miss that guy actually, he was one of the few Real Ones).

I was constantly being introduced to various other important players in the roleplay sector who wanted to meet me and make alliances because of the weight of my reputation. People who you had to live under a rock not to have at least heard of them.

At one point, our guild was even involved in one of the biggest roleplay events that ever happened in this particular MMORPG. Ever.

A half-year long story campaign with major events happening every single day, with 4 completely separate communities that rarely ever intersect, and hundreds of members between them.

At the high points of this event we were involved in, we broke over 120 people online, roleplaying with each other at the same time, in real time, while uninvolved observers in Global chat talked about how awesome our event was, in a game where roleplayers are more often than not heckled and harassed maliciously instead of praised or admired.

Not 120 people total participating in the whole event. 120 people online at the same time. In the same space. Actively roleplaying in real time.

Let that sink in a moment.

Can you even imagine the amount of text scroll Hell and mental fortitude to keep up with everything happening during that sort of event?

And it was one of the best and most magical roleplay experiences of my life.

I doubt I'll ever get to live an experience like that one again, because its the type of community that only comes together once in a lifetime.

We weren't just random tag-along participants in this event either. Several event leaders for this campaign, most of which we had barely just met, kept wanting to work with us and our characters specifically, choosing our characters for fitting but extremely important keystone jobs that the rest of the event was delicately hinged upon being done right (and trust me, there were a lot of roleplayers whose characters did things wrong in ways that almost derailed the entire event several times, to everyone's frustrations).

All this backstory to say, I wasn't a small player or a nobody in this space, and in our 5 year run before I retired, while we never had hundreds of members at any one time, we collectively saw hundreds of members come and go over those 5 years.

As with all roleplay groups with a revolving door, you can imagine that this definitely came with its problems and drama, which I'll get into talking about here in a moment as it becomes more relevant to this story.

But first, I want to focus on one player we had in particular.

For the sake of simplicity, we'll call this player [A].

[A] really wasn't anything particularly special or disastrous, comparatively speaking. We'd had several people like [A] before, and both in the game and on other platforms and on tumblr, we've had people like [A] since.

[A] however perfectly represents a certain picture that's been painted many times for those of us who ran the group.

For one, [A] was one of those people who wore "neurodivergent" (autistic) on their sleeve in every conversation. If there was ever the possibility of bringing up how "neurodivergent and quirky" they were, [A] would take it 120% of the time and make it into their entire personality, like a broken record.

Like every other case of someone we've dealt with like [A], they started out the same exact way.

Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and extremely eager to participate. They would talk about how they adored our group so much, it was the best group they had ever joined. How we were the nicest people they've ever met, not like the people in their "other" groups they were no longer part of. Every single thing was under the lens of rose colored glasses for them, talking about how we were the BEST thing that had ever happened to them and they were so glad they joined.

The same old Honeymoon song and dance we've seen and heard many many times. And our first warning sign.

A warning sign that, although we recognized it, we ignored, and decided to give them a chance anyway and see if things would turn out differently. Just like we've done with every similar person like [A] before, and every similar person like [A] after.

Chances are, you've already guessed where this is going.

The thing about running group RPs for several years straight and seeing hundreds of people come and go is that you start to recognize certain patterns and types of people, and your ability to predict who will be a problem and who won't be, and even what specific type of problem they are, starts to become pretty damn good.

To the problem person who joined, they seldom ever understand why you approach things with them in a specific way. To them, this is the first time they've met "you". They don't know you've met 10 different versions of them before, that you've tried to approach the problems they specifically bring to your group in 10 different ways in the past. You've tried the direct communication route. You've tried the leave-it-alone route. You've tried the firm route. You've tried the gentle route. You've tried the "solve it yourself" route. You've tried the "let's collaborate together to fix this" route. You've tried the hard "I need you to do/not do this" declaration route. You've tried to subtle nudges in a certain direction to correct course route. You've explored basically every route there is to deal with such a specific type of person, because as the admin, that's your job. You know what the results of each type of route typically are.

Depending on the specific type of person we're dealing with, sometimes those 10 previous versions of a person point towards one conclusion and one conclusion only, which is that things are going to fall apart, no matter what you do. You hope that this time, they'll prove you wrong, you even want them to prove you wrong, but being honest, they rarely do.

I'm not talking about stereotyping based on arbitrary labels or categories here, and painting over every person of 'X' designation with a broad stroke.

I'm talking about behavioral pattern recognition, thin-slicing, and satisficing. What most people would simplify down to "gut feeling", "instinct", or a "6th sense", but recognized on a more conscious level through practice of paying attention to the "yellow" and "red" flags.

It's also not about treating someone as lesser or casting them out the moment someone isn't an automatic "green flag". One or two yellow flags can be safely ignored, even a potential red flag might be negligible depending on what it is, when its just one. Some things are also not a "flag" but a matter of personality differences. However, when the yellow and red flags keep stacking up, one after another, and multiple people besides just you notice, that becomes a different matter, and a lot of problem people put up a lot more yellow and red flags than they think they do. They don't even recognize that some of their behaviors may be a problem, because for them, that's just their default. They don't even think about it.

For people who their default state is "a bunch of problems", you can easily figure out how difficult that makes things for a group admin to deal with such a person, and how delicate a group admin has to be about picking and choosing which problems are severe enough and worthy of bringing to attention, and when to bring (or not bring) them up, and which ones should be left alone so as not to risk making the person feel like they're being constantly "picked on" just for breathing in the same space.

Just because a person in the group does or says something annoying for instance, it doesn't mean constantly bringing it up, otherwise sometimes you'll find yourself bringing up 20 different things that makes the person feel (justifiably) like they themselves and who they are is under attack (and often these people can't stomach even one unfavorable thing about them being brought up, never mind every single thing they do), which is going to make co-existing comfortably extremely hard, if not impossible, and creating a space where people can comfortably co-exist with each other -- even people they don't necessarily like or agree with -- should always be an admin's goal in a group environment, unless your goal is to make an echo-chamber (but I personally hate echo-chambers).

I wouldn't say things ever got "terrible". We had dealt with much, much worse and more explosive people than [A] before, including other people very similar to [A], who did much more far reaching damage.

Unfortunately, if you've ever ran a group for any significant amount of time, and dealt with an [A] of your own (or multiple [A]s), you probably understand well the feeling that you'd almost rather deal with someone obviously worse. The type of person who everyone can see is a jerk from a mile away because dealing with an obvious asshole is much more swift and easy than dealing with an insecure person with a fragile ego but "not that bad" behaviors that are -- at most -- kind of annoying, not bad enough to warrant action or removal, but constantly repeated and excused away.

It's not the annoying behaviors in themselves, however. I want to make that extremely crystal clear here. Annoyances and peeves are not the problem and on its own its easily tolerable and manageable.

No. Its the slow, frustrating, but predictable, inevitable build-up over time to what's eventually going to happen in this story.

[A] was the type of person who had a very short attention span and never really committed much to anything. They were also extremely sensitive to potential negativity, whether the negativity was actually there or not.

Normally I wouldn't care to point any of this out, but this is an extremely important detail to our story which shaped [A]'s actions and reactions.

Among the things [A] was incapable of committing to, one of them was characters. We averaged 2 - 3 dedicated days for group roleplay per week, and in the first month or so that [A] was with us, they switched and/or introduced new characters 4 different times, one every week.

In the lore of this particular MMO, there is a God of Mystery and Intrigue. The premise of our roleplay group was that they were a True Neutral cult worshiping this particular god, fronting as a slightly more high-brow "Mercenary" company that took jobs in monster hunting and bandit slaying in the public eye, but also espionage, information trading, theft, and assassination for more powerful political clients, which put them in good favor with a lot of people and let them amass no small amount of wealth and strategic territory.

In short, we went with a guild premise that would have its own unique flavor we were passionate about but was also flexible and versatile to accepting all manner of different types of characters without much prejudice or expectation that people had to play a specific way or make a specific type of character to be accepted in - with one minor exception.

As such, our group required people to play dedicated characters, because our group was very secretive and careful about who they allowed into the higher ranks. It would take time for any new characters, even if they were alts played by long-time members or even admins of the guild, to earn the group's trust enough to become a full-time member.

At this point we had been well-established for a long time, and all of this information was laid out for new members upon joining, including [A].

One day, not very long into joining, [A] announced wanting to make a fifth character. At the same time, we had another person who had been in the guild quite a bit longer (who we'll henceforth refer to as [B]).

[B] was better about managing their characters, but had been on a bit of a "new character" spree themselves lately. Just like [A], [B] posted in the channel that was meant for scheduling "new character introductions" that they wanted to bring in a new character.

As such, both [A] and [B] were equally informed, in direct reply to their public requests, they would be allowed to introduce a new character, but after "this" one, they were not allowed to make more new characters for a while until they dedicated some time to the ones they already had enough to move them up the ranks, because both of them had more than one character who were still part of the "New Recruits" / "Trial-Members" rank.

[B] had no problems with this at all and took it at face value for what it was.

[A], however, took this as a personal attack against just them specifically, privately decided that we had uniquely targeted [A] to deliberately "call them out for having too many characters" and publicly humiliate them (we hadn't ; [B] had gotten the exact same treatment, in public channels, despite being almost an admin-rank member), and immediately declared they had changed their mind and wouldn't be making a 5th character after all in a very passive-aggressive way. Even then, the problem wasn't that they had "too many" characters, the problem was that they were not taking any time to develop any of the 4 characters they already had before committing to more, and so were not making any progress in the guild.

Fast forward a little bit, [A] later came to me privately. They declared that they loved our group and were having so much fun that they were inspired to try running a guild of their own under a slightly different theme than our dark, edgy one, and they wanted to know all about my experience and advice for how to do it.

This is where I once again draw attention back to the fact that [A] was chronically non-committal towards most of their ideas. Today they would have a new shiny idea, and tomorrow they would abandon it for a different one.

And also the fact that they were extremely sensitive to even the tiniest perception of negativity, even where there was none.

I knew this already, and suspected it likely that they would have a lot of trouble running a guild (you'll read why in a moment), but I didn't shoot them down about it or tell them they couldn't.

I gave them lots of advice, about both the positive aspects of running a guild, and the negative ones. All of it was honest, good-faith advice, letting them know exactly what they were getting into.

They told me the premise of the guild they wanted to run, which was rather simple and straightforward as far as storylines went, but so straightforward and simple that they admitted they worried about being able to make fun events that would keep people sticking around for very long without getting bored and quitting the guild before long.

I helped them search up and learn relevant lore about the MMO world that would support their guild idea, talked them through a lot of half-finished ideas they weren't sure what to do with, and just generally tried to give them all the tools they would need to start things off, which they were grateful for.

Alongside this, though, I also gave them proper warning about the uglier side of running a guild. Full honesty. No bullshit.

I told them, as someone who has been on both sides, how roleplay guilds seem extremely fun when you're one of the members playing in the sandbox, but behind the scenes?

It is a MUCH different beast when you're the person actually trying to run the group. It takes a lot of dedication, sweat, commitment, and planning, and a lot of that effort will go completely unrewarded, or worse, punished. Often by people who complain constantly but contribute nothing to help fix anything they perceive as a problem.

Playing in a guild and running a guild were two completely different worlds.

As a guild leader, you are going to deal with all sorts of people, and in one way or another every single one of those people is going to bring you their problems and baggage, whether it be messaging you themselves or forcing you to step into a situation they caused/got dragged into.

The larger your group grows and more people it attracts, the more exponentially the problems you have to solve will also grow.

Drama in group atmospheres doesn't grow in equal tandem to the number of members you have or people involved in the drama (2 people causing 2x the drama, 3 people causing 3x the drama, etc).

The drama that happens when 4 people in your group get into it isn't twice as bad as when 2 people have drama, its more like 16 times worse. That's what I mean when I say that the drama gets exponentially worse with more people. It only takes a couple people to blow things up to an extremely chaotic level.

I've seen full-blown OOC wars break out between 5 or 6 entire guilds that went on for months or even years, because of the drama created by a very small handful of individuals.

Don't underestimate just how much drama even 2 people can cause.

And don't underestimate how much drama some people can cause "unintentionally", whether its because they're naive, stupid, vain, prideful, greedy, blatantly lying about their role in the drama, or even just gullible and being taken advantage of by someone else "on their side" who is far more malicious and manipulative than they perceive their "friend" to be.

Some people are very good and experienced at manipulating other people in the group into going against you or helping stir the pot, in very underhanded ways. And some people are very good at sewing doubt by name-dropping people who aren't even involved in anything just to spread more confusion and blow up tempers, just so they can sit back and laugh watching drama spiral out of control far beyond whatever it originally was.

And if you don't want to be another victim of their petty, destructive schemes, you're going to need to keep a level head through all of this and carefully untangle everything going on without getting sucked into playing into the drama yourself, and hope that the people already sucked into it don't take it out on you (more often than not, they will) for trying to solve it and determine who is at fault (and emotional, reactive people are largely irrational, so chances are you'll take more blame than is fair no matter how delicately you approach it).

A lot of the people who join your guild and then create drama will expect you to pick sides (theirs, preferably) no matter who or what is actually right or wrong, and because you're the admin, you never have the privilege of throwing your hands up and saying "I don't want to be involved". Its your job to fix it, whether you want to or not.

If you decide to just throw your hands up and quit? Hell, even just tell people "I can't deal with this today. We'll talk about it in a few days when I'm able to"? Well, you're not going to have much of a guild left to come back to. You're the admin. You're not allowed to "not get involved", take breaks, or even slow down and step back for a day or two to actually think through how to approach the situation ahead of taking action, because The Mob demands action right now, and only the actions they would personally take, or you're "not doing your job right" and you're a "bad admin".

You're going to get the lolicon pervert who wants to voice chat with you five minutes into joining your guild and won't shut up about how much they love tiny women while they make slurping sounds into their microphone (and they're not just a troll), and you're going to have to tell them upfront that you changed your mind on having them join because they make you and everyone else so god damn uncomfortable. And this is going to be the EASY "problem child" to deal with who just shrugs and goes on their way without a fuss.

You're going to get those people, MULTIPLE times, who promise you the world and sun and stars and how they're going to be the BEST member you've ever gotten your hands on, how they're going to single-handedly lift your group into greatness and popularity like no one has ever done for you before. Then they're going to dip out and ghost your whole group without a word to anyone two days later. Not for any particular reason, except their attention span is that short and they're nothing but hot air and false promises and bravado. Eventually you're going to get to a point where you say to yourself "I've heard this before and every other person who promised this never did a single thing", only to watch the newest Big Promiser do exactly the same, showboat and then immediately leave.

You're going to get that one person who wants to do all the things that blatantly contradict the group plot you have going or goes against what the group is for, and make it everyone else's fault that their characters or plot-lines aren't working out the way they want because they're trying to force a clearly square peg into a clearly round hole, like they guy who wants to roleplay slavery, sadistic torture, blood sacrifice, and evil demon worship when every character in your group is explicitly against that (they're not that kind of shady cult).

You're going to have the person who has characters inside your guild, but wants to constantly bring in "outside" characters who are part of their own different faction and storyline, who blatantly refuse to join your group in-character and want to turn your guild into being about their own separate plot-line of characters instead of making their own guild for it, and get mad when you don't scrap your whole guild storyline for their new shiny one that has nothing to do with your guild or theme (your group is about inland mercenaries, and they keep wanting to bring in their whole sea pirate band and their pirate leader who refuses to join your guild IC, when your guild is very secretive, and currently doing a storyline that requires a lot of secrecy, and has no IC reason to interact with or involve their pirate crew, and the pirate player has no ideas or justifications for why their pirate character would even be there or have any involvement in the current storyline). And its not that they don't have characters who are proper members of your guild who could be part of the Secret Storyline. They just don't want to play them.

You're going to get the honest to god pedophile who needs to be banned and reported to authorities, who's going to ban evade to go into every channel they can and spread around that you're a "transphobe" and a "Nazi" on public forums and community discords because they're mad you exposed them for grooming 14 year olds as a mid-20-something adult. And you're going to find out these people still somehow have enablers who think grooming real life children face to face is no big deal and you're just a sensitive snowflake because "everyone who plays this game should be over 18 so if people are too uncomfortable to play text games with another adult then that's their own stupid problem" and "flirting with minors isn't illegal".

You're going to get the person who causes major drama five incidents in a row and sends you death threats when you finally kick them out, while saying how your group can't possibly survive without them in it because they're the "only person dealing with the idiots" by picking public fights constantly.

You're going to get the person who tries to force-ship with you, the admin, and your leader character, because they quite literally think they are going to "sleep their way to the top" and become an actual OOC group admin that way using their character, despite having a real nasty personality OOC. And when that doesn't work because your character is already in a relationship, they try it with all the other leadership characters/members as well, and then cause OOC drama when it doesn't happen.

You're going to get the person who tells other people in the group to "eat shit and die" unprovoked the moment they start participating in chat channels when you just recruited them less than 24 hours ago because one of your guild members said something harmless but "cringe".

You're going to get the most extreme, aggressive Trump worshiper who went to a "Pray The Gay Away" camp and thinks they have a god-given right as a, direct quote, "former f**got degenerate" to openly discriminate against LGBT+ people, in a group full of primarily LGBT+ people.

You're going to have the person who joined your adventuring group have no interest in actually adventuring, and tries to convince your entire group to become a lesbian orgy smut tavern instead, as a 40 something man with a lesbian fetish, and then act like there's something wrong with your group when nobody wants that.

You're going to get the people who get into a heated argument about a FICTIONAL economy, and ignore your warnings to stop fighting, and have one of those people tell you that if they're going to be put in "time out" for causing drama, then next time they're going to escalate to a more extreme level of drama to "do a bit more damage" before that happens, and then rage at you how your group is stupid and dead anyway when you tell them there won't be a "next time" because you've decided based on their response they are not welcome back.

You're going to end up having to mediate drama where two sides of your group are both in the wrong and only one side is willing to own it, and the side that's not willing to own their part of the dispute is the side with the popular charismatic person. So you're going to have to make the hard choice of whether to only punish the unpopular person to satisfy the mob even though doing so would be intrinsically wrong and unfair, or ALSO punish the popular person who is equally wrong, and watch everything you've built up for months fall apart in one day for daring to not automatically side with the majority clique. And this is going to happen more than once, because people care more about popularity and favoritism than right and wrong.

You're going to have to deal with the person who joined only a week ago and ran one single short event -- an event your senior members have already been overseeing for months -- and have the new person tell you straight to your face that they've single-handedly done more for your RP group in one hour than your entire team has been doing for years, and how dare you and your shitty group not kiss the ground they're walking on for it as if they're the second coming of Jesus himself.

You're going to have a moment where you ask your group to help you with gathering in-game fictional money specifically for the purpose of building unique RP locations for events for the group, because you've been grinding currency all by yourself for months to the point of exhaustion to create fun event locations for everyone else. Just a small contribution of currency that literally takes minutes to earn, but if everyone pitches in together, it'll add up. And you're going to have that one person, who has been bragging nonstop about how much more rich they are than everyone else, openly tell you and everyone else they refuse to help fund guild projects and start saying you're a "dictator forcing people to pay taxes in a game". This will be the same person who previously declared they do "more for the guild than anyone else", despite doing fuck all nothing except give you constant attitude and gloat about stealing product from their real life job and watch their other co-workers get in trouble for the theft.

You're going to have people from another RP guild try to "secretly" infiltrate your RP group to spy on all your events for another guild and create drama to take your group apart from the inside, because guild espionage and sabotage was a thing in this game (I could write a whole post on its own about how absolutely bonkers the guild-to-guild espionage and spying was and the absolutely batshit web of drama and cross-guild OOC wars that came out of it).

You're going to get that person who you thought was wonderful for a few months, who went full Jekyll and Hyde raging psychopath on your whole group one day for no explainable reason, and maliciously starts targeting your uninvolved extended friend network with completely off-the-wall paranoid schizophrenic accusations when you don't even know how this crazy switch of theirs got triggered in the first place. And when those friends tell them to knock it off, they'll attack those people too.

And just when you thought Mr. Jekyll & Hyde couldn't get any worse, it's going to turn out they're friends with another completely unhinged, raging psycho, who also turns out to be a 26 year old man trying to romantically and maliciously stalk a 16 year old girl who is in your guild. And when you go to their guild leader about it and the harassment this 16 year old has suffered, their guild lead not only victim blames the 16 year old as "having problems" and therefore "being at fault for getting stalked and harassed", but they promote the guy who stalked her as the next new guild leader shortly afterwards when they leave the guild.

You'll have that person who constantly complains about how they can't get anywhere in the group rankings because their schedule and the guild schedule don't line up, so you'll find out when they're available, and change the schedule just for them so they can participate more. And that person will log into the game, and do things in the game at that scheduled time, but not with your guild. They still won't show up, will ignore your messages, and they'll still blame you saying your guild never tries to accommodate them so they can attend and participate in things or move up the ranks, despite that you've changed the group schedule three times trying to make something work for just this one person.

You're going to have to deal with a long term friend of yours deciding you're no longer friends, because a newer, grandiose Narcissistic person you allowed into the group, who has no real life responsibilities (no job, no school, no other hobbies or commitments, while you have a full time job and lots of other commitments) is apparently a "better" friend by having more free time and energy than you do. Despite this new person doing nothing but openly insulting your friend and everyone else in the group on a constant basis, encouraging people to hit/abuse their animals to "make them behave", constantly derailing group RP to complain and cause drama over every tiny inconvenience, and even criticizing/making fun of someone for crying about someone they knew IRL who was in the hospital dying, but that's fine because even negative attention is good so long as its more attention than you're giving.

And the reason why your long term friend decided that you're no longer friends? Not because you attacked the Narcissist ; not because you kicked them out ; not because you did literally anything to them. But because the Narcissist wanted to be promoted to the admin team, and you refused to ever do so because their behavior was already extremely toxic and power-trippy and abusive without adding "admin privileges" to it. And how dare you not give them a chance to be an admin and have more power over people in the group? Can't you see they REALLY REALLY want it? Maybe if you "just gave them more chances" and more power everything about their nasty behavior would magically get better!

You're going to have that creepy, lovebombing weirdo who joins and takes an obsessive interest in you, and only you, and you're going to talk to your regular members privately about reporting any weird or uncomfortable behavior towards them (but it turns out, you're the only person they're interested in, because you're the only cis man in the group and the guy is gay). And you're going to have every person in the group immediately jump to wanting to kick him out for being a creep. No chances. No discussion. No excuses. Get him out of there immediately, because he's a creepy man.

And then later, you're going to have a second lovebombing, creepy weirdo join (directly recruited by the Narcissist -- who only just newly met them and knows nothing about them) who does exactly the same exact things and worse, including against you, but have the same group that supported you last time turn against you because this time its a woman doing it and "she's not creepy or uncomfortable, just a little shy and anxious!", despite that she's actually behaved worse and far more invasive than the creepy man ever did, flat out telling you when you say in no unclear terms she was making you uncomfortable "too bad! I'm going to keep doing the thing that makes you uncomfortable anyway<3". And you refusing her attempted advances and lovebombing is going to cause everyone to label you the "asshole" and quit the group together all at once, after she and the Narcissist tried to ambush you out of nowhere together with guilt drama to make you feel bad about your boundaries in the middle of group fun time, because "women can't be creeps like men can". Your long-term friend is going to be one of the people who leaves with them, because they're the type of person whose friendship can be bought and don't see a problem with lovebombing. What could ever possibly be bad about FREE STUFF? Clearly there's something wrong with YOU for not wanting it.

You're going to have that one predatory person who you asked for their and others' honest input about a situation and how they think it should be handled, and have that one person very obviously lie to your face about their feelings on a situation despite multiple attempts to push them for the truth they refuse to give, pretending to have your back while passive aggressively talking bad to other people in the group behind your back. Then, when the situation is handled differently based on majority group input than how THEY would have done it, scream at you in public view of everyone how you're a terrible awful person who never wanted to hear how anyone else felt about it, just so they could pull a power trip against you knowing full well (because you said as much) that was the exact moment you were one straw away from breaking down, and you're so fucking exhausted by that point after weeks of dealing with this situation and being chipped down that you just let them tear into you without a fight, even as you can literally see your vision tunneling black with stress and start having a dissociative out-of-body experience.

And that list? Is not even HALF of the drama I've had to deal with as a group admin, for just ONE group I ran for years, never mind other RP groups I made or assisted running before and after that (trust me, the horror stories are endless).

Or all the times I assisted people with drama in other guilds and communities that weren't my own, dealing with outed pedos and raging abusive lunatics and people not treating their own guild members like people with lives and feelings that I then stepped in and advocated for, sometimes with good results and other times not.

If you're reading that thinking "Wow, that's a stupidly long list of really big scary drama that would make me hate humanity and want to kill myself!"

Congratulations! You'd be right!

Playing in an RP group and running an RP group are two COMPLETELY different realities, and running a group fucking SUCKS!

And it WILL destroy your mental health!

But don't worry, there's even more to this. Because on top of all that drama?

You are going to spend hours at a time trying to recruit and attract new people to your group. On average? You're going to spend 3 hours going to every single zone (about 40 of them!) in the game, and maybe 4 people will join.

Out of those 4 new people, only 1 will even participate enough to make it to a Meet & Greet. The other 3? You'll never even get to talk to them. They just joined on a fleeting whim and they're going to leave just as easily.

So at best, you're only going to ever see 25% of the people you actually managed to recruit into your guild. The other 75% will just lurk or go inactive or refuse to show up to anything even if they're around.

Of the 25% left? Only half of those will stick around. The other half will show up maybe 3 times and then you'll never see them again, no matter how hard you try to get them to show up. Some of them will have legitimate reasons, like schedule restrictions, but a lot will just be fickle and lazy.

And that's not a problem that was unique to our guild. That was just the situation in basically every RP guild in the game. I know because I frequently talked to other guild leads or joined joint-events between guilds, and just about all of them had the same exact problem. They ran the events, put in all kinds of work, and people just wouldn't show up. If they had 20 members, only 4 would ever participate.

And of those ~12% who actually participate long term, half of them are going to be vagrants who only joined your group because they got kicked out of or overstayed their welcome in another group, and those vagrants are always going to come with a sob story about how they were "wronged" in their other groups (drama that was actually their fault), and you are now going to have to moderate their drama until your group gets sick of them too, but not before they've already driven several other decent people out while you were trying to give them chances to fix their bad behaviors first.

Because the good members of your group? Didn't want to deal with that stress, so they dipped out while you were trying to be the "nice welcoming admin" who gives liberal chances and not the "mean power tripping admin" (which the problem vagrants will always try to make you feel like you are, no matter how nice you actually were), even at the expense of your own mental wellness and the wellness of the rest of your admin team trying to manage this one stupid person.

And depending on whatever group dynamics and politics you have going on at the time, you are going to have to make some tough decisions on who stays and who goes, and sometimes kicking out the person who legitimately needs to leave (and we rarely did ; most problem people left on their own as soon as they were expected to take responsibility for their behavior, even if the problem behavior was easily fixable) means other people you wanted to keep will follow, even if you didn't think they would or wanted them to stay.

And you're just going to have to live with that. Again and again and again.

Because its seldom ever about who is actually right or wrong in a situation. It's about social politics and tribalism.

Oh, and by the way, every problem any vagrant in the group ever has with you, the admin? They won't ever tell you. Because you're the admin. It doesn't actually matter if you're the nicest admin on the planet, just by being the group leader at the top by itself, your members won't come to you with problems or insecurities they have. Not if it involves you and them.

They'll tell everyone else except for you and try to get people "on their side" covertly (social politics, remember), and you'll hear about it second-hand from one of your friends who they talked to about you behind your back trying to turn them against you.

Don't think you can just approach them after you hear about it either and clear up whatever misunderstanding they have!

You're the admin. So they'll always hold back and give you placating non-answers because they're afraid of you. Not because you actually did anything, but because they believe you hold the power in the group (more power than you actually have), which automatically means you can't be trusted, and they'll attempt to take your power away and "even the playing field" by making secret allies with your other members and turn their new secret allies against you the moment you say anything even slightly objectionable by their perspective.

(There's this erroneous catch 22 idea people have about admins who have never actually had experience BEING an admin. That idea is that you are this huge, powerful figure who can do whatever you want because you have the tools to do things like ban people you don't like. The reality is that the true power belongs to whoever has the most social support behind them and whoever is the most popular, but because you are perceived as having "power", bad actors and vagrants who have enablers feel entitled to treat you in whatever ugly way they feel they're entitled to and if you ever were to respond back to them the same as they've treated you, or even in a nicer way than they've treated you, it's "proof" you're a "power tripping abusive admin". Not only have I had people treat me VERY abusively because of this logic that I'm the person of "power" so nothing they do to me is as bad as what I can do to them, I've seen other guild leaders be overthrown from and bullied out of their own guilds in straight up coup d'états by bad actors because of this. An admin really only has so much power as their members are willing to put up with them using. If you're nasty and power-tripping, the ultimate exercise in power is members will just leave and you'll be an admin of nothing, and trust me when I say there are people who weaponize this HEAVILY and DELIBERATELY. I even had Mr. Jekyl & Hyde say straight to my face that he would "split my guild down the middle and take whoever he wanted out of it with him just like he did with the other guild he joined". It didn't work out for him in my guild but suffice to say he'd done it successfully to many others.)

They might go to whoever is your second or third in command, including to talk badly about you and wax poetic about how they think they specifically are the most hated and victimized person in the whole group, even if you've never once felt or acted that way about them, but never to you directly.

I told [A] about all of this.

And I told them that I was more than happy to provide advice when they needed it, but that running a group is exhausting work.

Finding the right people to help you run it -- people who won't add more fuel to the drama fires and abuse their power -- is even harder.

(I was extremely selective about this, because I think being someone who does not escalate drama with their own attitude and ego should be a hard requirement of becoming an admin. I knew what it felt like to suffer under power-tripping admins who only promoted people based on who their friends were, not what their qualifications as admin material was. I didn't want to foster the same kind of nepotistic clique environment where favoritism came before what was objectively right -- if you were my friend but had poor admin qualities, you weren't getting promoted, end of story. In our 5 year run, I only ever promoted 4 people to admin positions in total because I expect a very high standard that most people never meet, even if I otherwise liked the person, and some people had the right personality qualities for it but weren't capable of dealing with that level of stress on the regular, understandably so. 2 of those 4 people only got promoted in the last few months of our guild's run, and I desperately wish they'd have joined our guild years earlier).

Physically, psychologically, emotionally -- hell, sometimes even financially exhausting.

And I told [A] honestly:

At some point, you're going to start to hate running your group, and wonder why you even tried with how truly awful some people are, or how fickle and unavailable other people are, and you're going to want to quit sometimes, and you're going to start to hate and distance yourself from people in general a little more than you used to for the sake of your sanity, because realistically you have to if you don't want to completely destroy yourself, and if [A]'s group started going downhill or becoming overwhelming, I wasn't going to be able to step in and help them rescue it or run their group for them, because I just didn't have the spoons for that when I was already running my own group and all the trouble it comes with.

Nothing more than a simple laying of honest boundaries about what I could and couldn't do ahead of them committing to something that's incredibly difficult for ANYONE to do successfully (because frankly, a lot of people are a lot of stupid, and as the admin, their stupid becomes your problem).

All of this was full, upfront, honest communication (which they asked for) so that they would know exactly what they were getting into and spare them from the absolute monster of stress running collaborative groups causes if that sounded like too much for them (which was very obvious to me more than they could realistically handle, but I never directly discouraged them, I just painted the picture of what goes on behind the scenes that nobody ever actually sees as "just a member" and let them decide their own limits).

You want to know the only singular thing they took away from everything I told them, good and bad?

"They said they won't run my group for me which wasn't what I asked so this must mean they hate me and want me gone."

Nothing else. Just that.

Which they didn't say to me.

Of course not. They went to one of my friends in the group, behind my back, and complained to them about how much I "hated" them.

Naturally, I went to them about this more directly, and reassured them that I did not in any way "hate" them or feel any sort of negativity that they thought I did towards them.

Did it matter that I did this? Did it change anything? Not really. They just got more upset that my friend tipped me off so I could, you know, actually fix it with proper direct communication.

Which is, frankly, why I don't like these sorts of people.

Because it doesn't matter what you say, they will always convince themselves that their insecurity is right. They will demand communication, but your communication won't mean a single thing, it will just be weaponized whenever the shit finally hits the fan.

It might not be today, or tomorrow, or next week, but eventually they will find whatever excuse they can concoct to "confirm" that they were right that you hated them all along.

I have yet to find a single exception to this rule with these types of people.

And frankly it is so. fucking. exhausting.

[A] didn't immediately leave our group, for the record. They lasted a little longer before eventually quitting.

As with all people of [A]'s type, it was over an extremely stupid, fixable reason.

We had been running an RP event for about a week or two, and I had spent a lot of time on building a super cool, unique location for us to roleplay in. I specifically planned out mini-events designed to give everyone else a chance to do something cool or meaningful with their characters, including [A], while I and my admin friend relegated our own characters to "background support", barely participating in the main events except to write out NPCs and obstacles for the others to overcome.

I thought the event was going well, and there were several things [A] got to do.

But [A] thought otherwise.

Did they come to me about it? Once again, of course not.

They went to one of my friends, and complained about how the event was all about us and having us do cool things but not them.

Which was weird to both me and my friend, because we had given them the main spotlight several times in this event, kept trying to encourage them to do more, while specifically holding our characters back so they wouldn't steal the show away from them.

We kept throwing hook after hook at them to make their character important to the event and provide opportunities for greater participation, both during action scenes and conversation scenes (not the first or last person we've dealt with this problem ; but that specific breed of non-participation is a discussion for a different post), but they rarely did anything with it, even when we OOCly communicated we were throwing them a hook.

Suffice to say, my friend confronted them directly (but politely) what the real issue was. Because we had explicitly designed this event with their participation in mind and getting to do cool things in line with what their character was supposed to be, making obstacles for their character to face explicitly based off of their character sheet, and they just... weren't doing anything with it.

Of their own volition.

If they wanted to do cool things, then they had to actually do something. Because nobody was blocking them from doing anything.

You can probably guess where this went.

"You guys just hate me."

Followed by their immediately leaving.

[A] hasn't been the first or last person to do this.

Remember that long-term friend I mentioned? The one who befriended the Narcissist? (Also, note; I don't call them a Narcissist because I don't like them. I call them a Narcissist because they fit the textbook clinical definition of a Narcissist, and it would take up way too much post space justifying why I call them one with all the long-term specific patterns. Just trust me when I say this person was an actual Narcissist, not just a "rude asshole I don't like". There was even a point myself and them openly discussed the possibility they might have a personality disorder, which they themselves agreed they might, but refused to see a therapist because they believed they were "above" needing therapy and that was for "other, crazy people" despite people in their life literally begging them to get professional help.)

Unfortunately, this friend of mine was also the "I think you secretly hate me" type.

We were friends for almost a decade. We roleplayed together, played video games and browser games together, migrated every platform together, they supported my hobbies like my art, and just were generally good to have around. Overwhelming, at times, because they were very high energy and I have an extremely low social battery. Not the smartest person, for sure. But they weren't ever needlessly cruel to anyone, never caused drama, they were funny as hell, and we never had any disagreements or fights, which I thought were all much more important qualities than being smart, so I really had no explicit complaints. Inconveniences or unknowingly tactless words, sometimes, but that's hardly a reason to end an otherwise good friendship. I generally liked them, but I honestly just could not always keep up with their level of energy (they were severely ADHD), which naturally meant that if I didn't respond to their 30 message a day of high energy spam or went quiet for a while, they started fearing the worst, but we always talked it out and I always reassured them they hadn't done anything wrong nor did I hate them.

When the Narcissist first came along, my friend wasn't the fondest of them, because frankly that person's personality was toxic and nasty, despite trying to play themselves off as "chirpy" and "nice". The type of person who made my friend silence/mute themselves in voice chats more often than not because of how hurtful the Narcissist was in talking over them and putting them down (which never once was the case in other voice calls with me and all of our other friends, but the Narcissist constantly made them shut down), and the complaints about this person's conduct was frequent and long-standing. However, the Narcissist was always constantly available (because hardly anyone else could stand them), and even negative attention is still attention.

The nail in the coffin wasn't really the Narcissist themselves though. It was them + a new person that the Narcissist had recruited to the group. The Lovebomber, with all the typical warning signs of one. Talking about moving in to live with people in the group she'd only met a week ago, constant fawning and compliments, constant gift-giving, even when people told her they didn't want gifts (especially not gifts involving real money) and that it made people uncomfortable, not to mention trying to force-ship, and making "similar" characters to other characters in the group repeatedly with the explicit goal of winning favor (for instance, she made a character similar to one of mine who was beloved by my best friends' character, and then threw that similar character at my best friends' character trying to instantly get them to latch onto this copycat. This happened 3 separate times just to my best friend alone ; we only knew the Lovebomber for a month before shit hit the fan).

Also, something else I need to inject here into this story is a specific red flag RP event that happened. The Lovebomber joined right as we started a major event, and on Day 1, she tried to force-ship her character with the Narcissist's character, which the Narcissist stated flat out they did not want to ship characters.

About one week into this large-scale event we ran, my character and the Narcissist's character got into an argument (this was common ; our characters didn't like each other).

In "defense" of the "man she loved" (the Narcissist's character), the Lovebomber had her own character straight up attempt to kill mine.

For a man her character met a week ago.

Not for attacking the Narcissist's character. But for mouthing off at him.

Mind you, my character during this event? Was a short, sickly, emaciated 17 year old, former street orphan and thief, former abuse victim, with a terminal heart condition who could literally panic himself to death, and an extremely obvious speech disability, who more commonly runs and hides behind other people the moment someone looks like a threat, and sometimes insults people (from afar) because he's scared of everyone. Not exactly a huge threat to even a common person.

The Narcissist's character was a physically abusive, 8 foot tall, overpowered, extremely muscular 40 year old Knight-turned-Vampire-Lord in full armor plate, who had at the very least attempted to physically assault or intimidate my character to "make him behave" on more than one occasion (which both of the Narcissist's two characters did ; you see the pattern with how the Narcissist OOCly condoned hitting animals to "make them behave"?). Other characters had to step between him and my character several times to defend my character from getting physically abused by him -- while the Narcissist constantly talked about how their own character was such a sympathetic victim that everyone "can't help but feel sorry for". And they genuinely believed this to be true (it wasn't ; their character was kind of a fucking dick, just like them. We only put up with them for so long because the first few months they'd acted fine and then suddenly shifted into their asshole behaviors after getting thrown out of their other group for nasty behavior and told to seek professional help, but we wanted to wait out a while to see if it was a temporary shift or not. It wasn't. It was just their true colors coming out once they got comfortable and no longer had a different group to act out her bad behaviors on, so we became the new outlet for her dysfunctions).

And then came the Lovebomber and her character, after only knowing all of us for a week, trying to straight up kill my character to "protect" the Narcissist's character from mine. Because they said a couple not nice things to him. In order to force-ship.

The Lovebomber also kept trying to get into my graces with forcing gifts onto me that I specifically said I didn't want. I got very good at finding ways to passively thwart her extremely pushy attempts to make me accept gifts anyway (with her flat out telling me "Too bad, I'm going to find ways to give you gifts anyway because I'm nice!"). Suffice to say, the better I got at blocking her from pushing whatever she wanted on me, the more frustrated she got, and the more she tried to strong-arm her way past my boundaries. Eventually her frustration at not being able to force her way onto me boiled over, and the guilt-trips and drama painting me as a bad person very soon came out into the open, after she'd only been with us for barely a month.

Not only did the nasty behaviors come out, the Lovebomber did it in such a way as to deliberately ambush and blind-side me with them in the middle of group fun time with no warning at all and tried to turn it into group drama.

Naturally, despite that only two weeks earlier the Narcissist and I had had a discussion about improving her behaviors, the Narcissist immediately leapt at the chance to team up on me and fall straight back into the exact behaviors we mutually agreed needed to stop.

I recognized their backhanded team-up tactics for what they were, trying to basically catch me unprepared to force whatever result they wanted, and told them I'd be stepping away and we'd talk about the situation in a few days when I was ready to talk and had time to think, which was another thing the Narcissist and I previously agreed on together was that when they became "too much" again we would call a time-out and pause all activities to cool off. The first time I actually implemented that like we agreed upon? Immediate hard ragequit from the guild.

Long story short, when the Narcissist and Lovebomber -- who were both flooding my friend with attention on the side -- got mad at me for exercising boundaries and left, so did my friend, citing the reason being that those two now showed them what "real" friendship was, and that I secretly hated them the entire time and was just too cowardly to tell them.

Which I never hated them, and I pointed out as much. Why in the Hell would I give 8 years of my life to someone I hated? That's just fucking stupid. There's only one thing in life I can't ever make up or earn back and that's time. Why would I waste it like that on people I don't like? Much less someone who had never once caused me problems? Utterly ridiculous.

Did it matter to them?

Of course not.

They were convinced they were right the entire time and I was just some diabolical coward who keeps around people I secretly hate for almost a decade, because I didn't go out of my way manipulating them into thinking I was someone that I wasn't like the Narc and the Lovebomber did. Frankly I didn't have the energy to try and manipulate them like that even if I'd wanted to.

Nothing was going to convince them otherwise. 8 years of friendship, gone just like that, over a narrative they decided on, that was never once true (with no small amount of whispering in their ear from the other two talking shit about me, I know for a fact).

(Also I've talked a lot of negatives here but we really had lots of good people in our guild too, some which stuck around for years without any problems, including people who were autistic or neurodivergent. And people who stopped going to the guild for legitimate reasons that had nothing to do with drama, like getting a more demanding job or losing a job, having to attend school/college, their computer broke down, medical changes, finding other RP guilds they liked more, quitting roleplay or the game entirely in general, et cetera. Do I regret running my guild? No. We had a whole lot of fun, genuinely, but because of the bad ones, I wouldn't do it again either.)

And this is where we get to the main point of this long tale.

This shit? Dictating how other people "secretly" feel and using it as justification to cut people off and hurt them?

It's not just exhausting. It's cruel. It's crushing.

And it seriously needs to stop. I'm tired of these fucking people and I'm tired of wasting my time on them just to get kicked into the dirt, for no damn reason.

I would legitimately rather deal with the bigots and the assholes and the creeps because at least when they eventually leave or get kicked out, nobody worth anything bats an eye about it and makes excuses for them.

Those people out there who do this:

You know that this is abuse, right?

This is downright abusive to do to people.

And I'm tired of people pretending like its not.

You are straight up an abuser, telling people your perception is more real than their reality, for doing shit like this. Whether you "intended" to be one or not.

Cut the crap with the "abusers are only ever uniquely 'bad' people separate from all other 'normal' people who deliberately sit and scheme how they're going to destroy other peoples' peace of mind for fun".

Are some of them? Sure. I could tell you some real horror stories about that that would make you question everything you think you know about reality real fucking hard. Anyone who genuinely believes "no one in the world wakes up and just chooses to be evil" is living in La La Land. They're rare -- extremely rare -- but let me assure you, such people actually exist. And no, its not "stigmatizing" or "dehumanizing" people either to acknowledge it. Be glad if you believe that hippy-dippy nonsense where "everyone has good inside them if you just give them the right chances!" because you've never met such a truly evil person and I genuinely hope you never do.

But your average garden variety abuser? A lot of them are just insufferable, wounded people that never properly confronted and healed some broken part of them, who genuinely believe they are always the victim, even when they're the perpetrator. That's exactly what allows them to continue doing what they're doing and never make meaningful change. Because they genuinely don't think they are or can be abusers, which absolves them of ever feeling conscious guilt.

Subconscious guilt though? That's where the vitriol really comes from. The cognitive dissonance of knowing, deep down, they are at least part of the problem, and they're afraid to confront that ugly fact because doing so would threaten their self-image of being "the nice one", so they mask it with victimhood.

And I'm sure there are some people out there who are going to try and point and find some sort of "Gotcha" to invalidate all of this just because it comes from me and their perception of who I am to reinforce that mask to protect themselves and their own fragile ego. In fact, I can just about guarantee it.

But guess fucking what? I'm not perfect, and I'm not afraid to admit it either. Most people who've gotten my nasty side deserved it (and I can have a real nasty side if you push all the right buttons, but that's also what's made me a great advocate in certain situations and part of why I was "the guy to go to" while everyone else just tucked tail and let abuse happen unchallenged, or even took the side of the abuser because they were more vocal and charming than the victim), but not all of them.

I've done shitty things before that weren't deserved. I've made mistakes.

All of us have.

And I own when I fuck up.

And I don't just own it when the victim card backfires and I'm losing public favor to try and salvage my reputation. I could, but then I'd just be being another disingenuous person who cares more about how they look than what they do, and I'd rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I am not. All that is is performative nonsense to stay in good with people, because being alone fucking sucks. But sometimes doing the right thing means being alone.

You know the absolute worst thing I've done?

The worst time I mistreated someone who didn't deserve it?

Was doing all the exact same stupid, shitty things as the people I've described in this post.

I convinced myself someone hated me who didn't, and I punished them for that by ending our friendship over my insecurities, instead of ending it over the truth.

Did I punish them out of evil or maliciousness or because I hated them or wanted to hurt them?

Of course not.

I was hurt.

I thought they had wronged me.

I thought they were lying to me about us being friends (and there was plenty of "evidence" supporting this theory that even the person I lashed out at agreed looked suspicious as fuck when I explained it to them, from IMs on their account completely breaking, to them repeatedly leaving groups the moment I showed up, and more for months, which genuinely turned out to be a series of unfortunate and poorly timed coincidences).

I lashed out against them because I was in pain (and because I was dealing with manipulative, nasty, abusive shit from other people at the same time in the same community, including being suicide baited as a means of control, which didn't help my mental state or my decision making, but that's neither here nor there. It doesn't justify how I behaved towards the one person who didn't deserve it).

I thought this person would just go "Yep, you're right! I hate you! You finally figured it out! Good job! Go away and stop talking to me now!"

Technically, our big fallout only lasted for a day. I apologized the next morning, profusely (word of advice, don't send bad feelings messages at night, ever. Just don't. Negative feelings and poor decisions always happen late at night for some fucking reason. Something about night time brings out the worst in people).

I bent over backwards trying to make things right again, we're technically still in extremely loose communication to this day, nearly a decade later, but I can tell you nothing was ever the same. And I don't blame that person for distancing themselves after that.

I've never blamed them for it.

I deserved it, because I jumped to conclusions in the worst possible way and I hurt them, even though I didn't really mean to, but that doesn't really matter in the end. What I intended and what I actually did were two separate things. They even (technically) forgave me for it, and tried to own half of the situation as their fault, but truthfully the fault is mine and honestly I don't really deserve their forgiveness.

The only thing they did "wrong" was not be as available as I thought they needed to be to "prove" we were actually friends, and the fact I hurt them like that still haunts me to this day. Its been almost a decade since that happened, and I've made a point not to do it to anyone else since, no matter how much I may fear other people might hate me (and trust me, its a fear I struggle with often! And I say that having dealt with people who did actually secretly hate me and didn't say it and narcissists who strung me along and then discarded me when I stopped being the shiny new toy!)

So I'm speaking from fucking experience here not just as the victim, but as the Once Upon A Time perpetrator in acting this way when I was young and stupid.

Stop doing this to people.

I don't really care what your excuses are. If you're "neurodivergent" or have "RSD" (so do I! You're still not excused.) or whatever "explanations" you have for mistreating people in this way.

You are, in fact, an abuser. Full stop.

No, I don't care that your echo-chamber of Yesman enabler friends who spend half their life on Twitter and TikTok participating in selectively "informed" outrage culture have to say about how "nice" of a person you are.

At that point? People have a right to hate you once you've treated them as such.

Does the person I hurt that way hate me? No. I can say that with confidence, after many long, long soul-searching discussions with them (because despite what some people think, communication is actually extremely important to me), they don't. But what friendship we had between us was still broken and lost, and there's nothing I can do to take back what was done. And they'd be within their rights to hate me if they did. Even if they don't hate me, I've still proven to them plenty of reasons why they don't want to actually be around me regularly and be emotionally close, even if all is forgiven.

And I have no one to blame but myself for that, no matter what other circumstances at the time influenced my decisions. I don't feel any "lesser" for admitting to that. The honest truth is I was a bad friend to them and that's my fault, and because I was a bad friend to them, I've worked hard to be a better friend to everyone who came after by not repeating the same mistake no matter what my insecurities say.

As a closing to all of this, I'm going to give some advice to anyone dealing with this type of constant "you hate me : ( " personality the moment everything isn't going perfect or you need any time for yourself where you're not explicitly catering to this sort of immature person.

Especially if the person goes around telling everyone except for you how much you "secretly" hate them.

Drop them.

Honestly.

As the person who has been dropped before for this exact thing.

Because I'm going to tell you, from experience. From dozens of experiences, actually.

You are never going to win with these people, unless they do the hard work of changing their own internal perspective and dealing with their own insecurities in a way that doesn't make it your responsibility to fix.

And 90% of them are never going to do that, they're going to put everything on you to "prove" you don't hate them, and continue to believe you do and look for any justification to say they were actually right about you anyway no matter how many sacrifices you make to keep them around.

(In the case of my friend who left with the Narc and the Lovebomber on a whim, I had actually made quite a few sacrifices to choose them over other people who tried to force me to choose. Popular people (another narcissist) who had the power to get me socially lynched and did so aggressively the moment I didn't abandon my friend for them, because I genuinely believed my friend was a better person than they turned out to be who would never do me dirty the way they did. More the fool me, I guess.)

You might delay their eventual leaving, but they will leave, and it'll be in a very petty, shitty way, and they will gaslight you and everyone they talk to about you that your reality and your actual feelings are "wrong" measured up against their insecurities and "mind reading" assumptions.

They have to, in order to continue to believe they are the victim and the one who doesn't ever have to change, because change takes more work than just blaming everyone else does, and facing the fact that they're actually maybe not as nice as they want to believe they are is uncomfortable.

And if they leave on their own? Decide to abandon you?

Let them.

It hurts. I get it. It fucking hurts like Hell. But don't chase them. Let them go and block them. Because you're not stopping them from leaving, especially if they've already abandoned you once before. Fool me once, fool me twice, as the saying goes. You're delaying it until they find their next excuse to point and screech how they've found "proof" you were a hateful liar all along.

They don't give a shit how their abandonment hurts you, or they wouldn't do it in the first place. The only person they care about is themselves, not you.

And some of them leave explicitly hoping to hurt you and "teach you a lesson" for "hurting them first".

Some of them leave to get you to chase them and beg them to come back, especially if their constant bombardments have made you step back to create some breathing room, because trying to Pull you didn't work, so they change tactics to Push, and most of them who play this Push Me Pull Me game with you will never honestly admit to your face that what they're actually trying to do is win back your attention in an extremely manipulative way.

And if you don't play into their game? That's "proof" they were right that you never once cared about them even if the reality is they meant to world to you, and its an opportunity to gain sympathy from everyone else who believes their self-victimizing lies, so either way, they win, so long as it gets them whatever attention and affirmation they were after, no matter where it comes from.

And there are going to be people who try to guilt trip you and make it about the other person more than you.

"OMG I can't believe you'd condone just abandoning people like that! Don't you know people have insecurities about abandonment and disabilities that make them act out in inappropriate ways and you're just making their fears and insecurities worse?! That's ableist OP!"

The only correct answer?

Fuck off.

All that is is a bunch of DARVO bullshit.

You don't get to weaponize abandonment yourself and then cry foul when other people get sick of it and drop you. If you want to cry about it, then practice what you preach and stop using abandonment as a weapon whenever its convenient for you. Otherwise all you are is a hypocritical, two-faced victim blamer.

Because guess what? There is no such thing as a disability so bad that it justifies abuse, and you are worth more than being someone's victim.

Not only that, but are you (the person being fed this line to make you feel bad) disabled as well? Because a lot of us fucking are, a lot of us also have abandonment issues, a lot of us are abuse survivors and bullying victims who've been conditioned to believe all of our relationships are fake and a lie, a lot of us live in constant fear that other people are going to prove our insecurities true (and boy, do the "you secretly hate me" people fucking prove it true), a lot of us fear people don't like us as much as they tell us they do, and putting up with abuse isn't going to make any of that better.

If that "poor little disabled person" won't put up with even less from you than you've put up with from them before they abandon you like yesterday's trash, even if you're ALSO a disabled person, also an abuse survivor, also a whatever-else that makes you vulnerable to abuse and rejection, why should you have to put up with shit from theirs? That's nothing more than a one-sided control tactic and abuser rhetoric.

Treat them with exactly as much respect as they treat you. Period.

The people who would call you a "monster" for dropping someone that makes you feel like you have to constantly fight to keep them are the same exact people who will feel justified in dropping you on a dime for the tiniest perceived slight, even if the thing you've done "wrong" doesn't even exist, and you can't keep fixing imaginary problems that don't exist. It's just going to drive you insane trying.

If people want you to stick around them? Then they should prove through action that your needs and pain matter and they're not going to turn your relationship with them into a weapon or a hostage to play Keep Away with to hurt you the moment it becomes convenient for them to do so.

(And btw, putting up distance or taking temporary breaks from people who are high maintenance or damaging to your mental health isn't that. People need breaks from each other, even in extremely close, healthy relationships. That's not abandonment, it's self-care, and temporary distance is an essential part of maintaining healthy relationships long-term. You want to ruin a relationship? Then force yourself into other peoples' space every time they take a temporary breather or go quiet to take care of themselves and make them feel like they're constantly being harassed and pressured to be on-call every time you demand attention as if you're their child and they're your parent who's obligated to come running every time you call for them. Even more so if you just put the person you're demanding attention from through a negative experience with you very recently. It's a great way to make people genuinely start to not like you because you are clearly showing you are an unhealthy person who doesn't respect anyone's energy or limits except your own. Whether or not you meet the criteria for a full-blown personality disorder, its extremely narcissistic to expect the same people you've hurt to immediately turn around and cater to taking care of your insecurities and emotional needs first when they haven't even had time or space to process and take care of their own mental and emotional needs yet.)

Such selfish people are not acting for love, no matter if they tell you they are or preach about how much they care about you. They're acting for control and dominance. Exactly like abusers do. They act in whatever manner allows them to be in control at all times, and if they're not in control, they throw a tantrum in order to regain the sense that they are.

This includes abandonment, which these types of people always fall back on and weaponize. They make up a non-existent "crime" you've committed to justify their attack on your persons, then leave you first before you can leave them, because that allows them to feel like they have control over you and the situation and hurt you all at the same time.

Its abuse.

Plain and simple.

End of story.

When in doubt, ignore the "explanations" and "excuses" people give. Pay attention to what they do, not how they try to justify it or switch the narrative to being about how you "caused" them to behave abusively. You are not responsible for how they behave, or even how they feel. Only they are.

There's a very big difference between discussing both sides of a problem fairly and blame-shifting.

One says "I take responsibility for what I did, I'm sorry, and I'll do better. Can we discuss things you could change too that would help make this a better relationship for everyone going forward?".

The other says "Yes, I did a bad thing I shouldn't have done, but its your fault I did it and its not fair for you to tell me to behave better when I think this is actually more your fault than mine".

If you would never put up with hurtful treatment from someone who was "albed", "neurotypical", or whatever other "privileged" designation you can think of, don't put up with it just because someone tells you they have a "disability" or whatever other arbitrary excuse or label they can come up with.

You don't owe that level of self-sacrifice to random acquaintances on the internet. That's the territory of caretakers who are legally responsible and compensated for that persons' well-being, not you who just comes to this website to escape from stress and gives your time and energy free of charge, so spend your time and energy wisely and don't waste it on leeches and emotional vampires who genuinely don't give a shit about you the moment you stop being their on-call caretaker.

Abuse is abuse. Period. And the only people who would try to tell you otherwise are abusers and abuse enablers, and you owe abusers nothing but a swift kick out the door.

You deserve better.

And if you're the self-victimized "people secretly hate me" person described here and you find offense at what I have to say, I have a very simple solution for you, as someone who has put in the work.

Change.

Be better.

Stop "explaining" away why what you're doing to your "terrible friends who secretly hate you" isn't that bad and the fault is everyone else's and look at your behaviors instead of always pointing to your "reasons".

Stop taking everything to some hyper-personal, attacking extreme where anything that's not blind sunshine and rainbows and echo-chamber agreement is some targeted hateful subtext affront on your very existence instead of just some inconsequential opinion or constructive criticism to learn from and improve.

Stop surrounding yourself with people who only ever agree with every single thing you say and believe, and abandon every person who sees things differently than you. Disagreements and different opinions aren't a death sentence, its a normal part of living in society, its essential to having genuinely healthy mature friends and not just fair-weather fakes who only like you when you're useful to supporting their world view unchallenged, and it's the only way you grow as a person and learn to be more secure about yourself is surrounding yourself with other people who are okay and entirely unthreatened with disagreeing and seeing things differently from you and still sticking around anyway. If they stop supporting you and threaten to kick you aside the moment you see things differently, then they are not your friends, point blank period, you are just a decorative accessory in the cult dedicated to their fragile ego.

Because that's the only way forward that benefits everyone in the end, including you.

And if you don't want to change and learn to stop making your insecurities everyone else's responsibility to fix except your own? More power to you.

But when another relationship falls apart because you decided you were a mind-reader who knows how people "secretly" feel and think better than they do, you have no one to blame but yourself, and they are well justified by that point to not like you when before they were, at the absolute worst, neutral towards you until you gave them active reason not to be.

[devils-sources]

You know, one time I read a fanfic and it triggered my psychosis, sent me into a month long episode THEN a whole year later I was on ao3 just mindlessly scrolling, I came across the fanfic title and it gave me a panic attack, but something compelled me to click it, i didn't read it but i did scroll through it, why? mental illness.

So like... ya

This is me responding to your old(?) post about someone else's fiction not being able to hurt you, this is probably just a me thing but mental illness makes you do things and react to things in insane ways that sometimes you cant control. I knew while reading that it was affecting me in some way, but I kept reading because well, I'm mentally ill, and then a month of my life dissapeared lol

I think I'm trying to make a point about something but I'm not sure

I did after the fact comment to the author and just kinda, told them about what happened, but I didn't harrassed them or something, -

-but when something does what this fanfiction did to me then you're basically obligated to let the creator know I think(they are a really good writer), I'm an adult and the fanfic was in the ballpark of something I would read and if like, 59% of it was taken out and it had a happy ending I would be fine but oh well

Oh boy, I'm starting to have a panic attack just typing this out holy hell anyways uh, I'm not disagreeing with you(?) but I am saying, don't be too quick to dismiss someone who says a piece of fiction fucked with them? idk sorry, have a good one

My friend, the fiction didn't harm you.

Your mental illness harmed you.

Random writers on the internet are not responsible for managing your mental illness for you.

You are responsible for managing your mental illness.

I knew while reading that it was affecting me in some way, but I kept reading because well, I'm mentally ill

This is self harm. You were engaging in self-harming behavior by continuing to read a fanfiction that you knew was triggering to you.

👉 You are responsible for managing your mental illness.

👉 Writers are not responsible for managing your mental illness for you.

And I hate to tell you this but messaging the author about it was absolutely harassing the author.

[devils-sources]

Don't take it out on others

A PSA addressing behavior that's often excused due to mental health.

We all have our issues, our bad days and bad periods, we have our problems and our frustrations, but despite all these thorns in our sides, it's never, ever okay to take it out on someone through passive aggressive behavior, name calling or any other rude approaches.

In these situations one has to address themselves, step back and breathe, find something to stimulate that part of yourself that's not doing well. Get some fresh air by opening a window to breathe, get a glass of water, lie on the floor for a hot minute and just relax. take a break, and ask someone if they can help you.

If you don't have someone you want to rely on or you're someone that doesn't want to bother anyone, write it down. Get it out somehow. but don't ever, ever think that it's okay to take it out on someone else, because it's not.

[devils-sources]

✿‧̥ your original character is important ! so much love and effort goes into crafting a character of your own creation. original characters are just as important as canon characters , don't let anyone convince you other wise. your original characters bring so much value and are wanted and loved here. please never stop writing them, never stop talking about them. don't let anyone discourage you from having an original character. thank you for sharing your character with us, thank you for allowing us to interact and write with them !

[devils-sources]

A Roleplayer's Guide To Disabling Reblogs

So something I've noticed again and again is people complaining about people reblogging posts that are not meant to be reblogged, such as individual headcanon posts about their muses, even when they explicitly ask people not to do so, or personal blogs reblogging threads they're not part of.

Luckily, tumblr's Beta Editor actually has a feature/option for this that's hard-baked in to the website! Its just that many people seem to be completely unaware this is even an option, but its very quick and easy to do.

You can do this with any post, a new/fresh one or a post you've already made in the past, but for simplicity's sake, I'm going to show how to do it with a fresh post.

Whether you're making a fresh post or editing an old one, you'll want to click on the gear icon in the top corner.

Once inside the post settings, you'll get a whole bunch of hidden settings/options, including the ability to turn off reblogs.

At first glance, our options are limited to "Anyone on Tumblr" or "No one".

However, you can also make a post only rebloggable for certain people as well.

So for instance, let's say that you have a roleplay thread with someone, and Personals keep coming in and reblogging your replies. In order to prevent this from happening, you would go into the post settings and change the reblog settings to "No One", and then @ tag your roleplay partner. This will allow the person you've tagged to reblog the post, but no one else will be able to reblog it!

You'll know its worked because your post's "Reblog" button will now be faded out and will prevent anyone (including you, the original poster) from reblogging the post unless they are directly tagged (and yes, you can tag yourself).

Now, you won't have to beg people to not reblog or delete reblogs for your headcanons, roleplay threads, and other writings!

Happy posting!

[devils-sources]

i'm the next act waiting in the wings. i'm an animal trapped in your hot car ; i am all the days that you choose to ignore...

[devils-sources]

"not all of these icons are 100x100"

"these are so out of order"

i know and i'm sorry. there're a few outliers for perspective sake, as well as being so out of order, but they'll be fixed when i post the compilation. when i was iconing, which i do one by one bc i never figured out the other way, and i also sharpen them by hand. and the pages sometimes get out of order when i'm editing them. it'll be more organized in the google files compilation, i promise.

[devils-sources]

rimbaud icons batch 6

all 100x100. like or reblog if using. i don't care if you edit them. credit is not necessary but appreciated. part 1. part 2. part 3. part 4. part 5.

[devils-sources]

rimbaud icons batch 5

all 100x100. like or reblog if using. i don't care if you edit them. credit is not necessary but appreciated. part 1. part 2. part 3. part 4.

[devils-sources]

eventually, when i'm done iconing rimbaud, i'm gonna make a google drive file and sort them. that way, you guys can have the choice to either download them via tumblr posts or through google drive.

[devils-sources]

what is force-shipping? (a PSA!)

what force-shipping IS:

guilting a partner into agreeing to a ship after initially declining the offer.

sending romantic or otherwise inappropriate (inappropriate because THEY SAID NO TO THE SHIP) memes despite them saying no.

writing a romantic or shippy starter/reply to a thread after they said no to the ship.

(listen this list will not end, let me finish this up with a very firm final remark:)

NOT RESPECTING YOUR PARTNER SAYING NO TO YOUR SHIP REQUEST.

what force-shipping is NOT:

asking your writing partners if they'd like to plot a romantic ship with you.

listen. forcing a ship is a conscious effort. if you're not able to respect your writing partners' decisions and choices when it comes to literal role play, then you need to step back and re-evaluate until you're able to do so.

BUT. you are NEVER forcing a ship simply by asking someone if they'd be interesting in shipping with you. it might be scary to ask. but once you respect their rules and boundaries, you're fine! there's never any harm in asking! just make sure you respect and honour their response, regardless of whether they say "yes", "no", or "maybe once we test their chemistry".

[devils-sources]

good idea: like other peoples' headcanons. enjoy the creative content your mutuals are making about their muse/s and show support and encouragement by interacting with their posts. this is such an awesome thing to do to ensure this hobby stays collaborative and creatively uplifting!

great idea: like other peoples' headcanons, then integrate those headcanons into your replies and threads with that person. did they say their muse is scared of spiders? have your muse mention that fear in your next reply to them. did they say their muse is allergic to raspberries? mention that. mention their eye color, their height, other details. add their headcanons to your replies. show them you see their posts and care about their muse/s beyond the basics. don't you love it when someone mentions something super specific about your muse? do the same for them

[devils-sources]

i wrote this on my rp blog, and now i'm writing it here:

if you don't reach out and plot or interact or say hi to people, you can't accuse them of having a clique. that's exactly like not applying for a job and then reacting when you notice other employees at the firm.

[devils-sources]

linkin park "from zero": lyric starters.

some minor adjustments have been made for it to make sense to be said in a roleplay context. have fun !

" i know you're waiting in the distance just like you always do. " " you're already pulling me in. " " you're already under my skin. " " i know exactly how this ends. " " i let you cut me open, just to watch me bleed. " " i gave up who i am for who you wanted me to be. " " i don't know why i'm hoping for what i won't receive. " " it's been decided how we lose. " " there's a fire under the altar. " "i keep on lying too. " " i only wanted to be part of something. " " you're too ignorant to fail. " " i can't look you in the eye. " " i can't even tell if you've been telling me a lie. " " you're acting like the truth and your opinion are identical. " " i knew you would burn it just to watch it burn. " " everything was perfect. " " it always made me nervous. " " i cut the bridge we're on. " " you cut the bridge we're on. " " i'll sabotage it all just to watch it fall. " " you'll sabotage it all just to watch it fall. " " i'm too gullible to win. " " i don't have a way to choose. " " i grew up thinking trying meant you never really lose. " " something in my head feels broken. " " i'm holding out, but the pressure keeps growing. " " you will always choose to watch it burn. " " we both know how the story ends. " " you can't win if your white flag's out when the war begins. " " today's gonna be the day you notice. " " i'm tired of explaining what the joke is. " " this is what you asked for. " " look what it's become. " " you should've bit your tongue. " " there's no turning back on this path once it's begun. " " you say you don't want what you can't resist. " " i'm trying to find my patience. " " you won't let me breathe. " " it's all a waste of time. " " i'm so tired of talking over each other. " " i wanna see your side. " " we don't have to be talking. " " let me out. " " set me free. " " i know all the secrets you keep. " " i won't be your casualty. " " i got too complacent. " " i was put through the paces, but i got left behind. " " you were put through the pace, but you got left behind. " " you drew the first blood. " " stop telling me you're something you're not. " " i can see the greed behind your eyes. " " you're hanging on a bareface lie. " " it's all the same to me. " " i know i can't stop it. " " i know i'm out of control. " " i was hanging by a thread. " " i'm beginning to realize you put me over the edge. " " your truth's not rigid. " " your rules aren't fair. " " it's too late for choosing sides. " " i can't hear myself think. " " stop yelling at me. " " i gave you a chance and i already regret it. " " i was trying so hard to be sympathetic. " " you don't get to make amends. " " you lie and lie like i was nothing. " " you pretend that you're spotless. " " we both know forgotten doesn't mean forgiven. " " i gave you everything i have. " " all you give me is your ugliness. " " you're not as honest as you act. " " you're just a devil with a god complex. " " i'm not the enemy you make me out to be. " " i'm so tired of wishful thinking. " " from now on, i don't need you. " " i say i hate you when i don't. " " it's hard to laugh when i'm the joke. " " i'm just taking a shot. " " maybe i'm just too eager. " " maybe i lost the plot. " " maybe the problem is mine. " " don't get too intimate. " " don't get too curious. " " i won't make excuses for the pain i caused us both. " " thank you for standing by me even though sometimes bad things take the place where good things go. "

[devils-sources]

"Explaining" vs "Excusing"; A Guide About How To Communicate The Right Way ((See also: How to apologize, and how NOT to))

For those of the tumblr RPC, its nothing unknown that there's a lot of breakdowns in communication, and a lot of this is chalked up to users commonly being some shade of Neurodivergent, whether someone has an Anxiety Disorder, Autism, or whatever other thing that they have.

A lot of drama occurs because of a collapse in communication, none more so than people not taking fair ownership of what is and isn't their fault.

And frequently enough to be a problem, people on this site like to fall back on pointing to their diagnosis as an excuse for their behavior, a get-out-of-jail-free card, while they (and enablers around them) falsely label it as "they were just explaining their behavior, not excusing it".

But I'm here to tell some of you, from experience, excusing your behavior is exactly what many of you are doing (no, simply saying "I'm not using it as an excuse" doesn't mean you're not using it as an excuse, even if you believe that to be true).

Mostly I make this post not only to help people, but because I've had two points of similar reference to draw from that make perfect foils for each other.

Two people who overstepped others' boundaries and acted in maladaptive ways that made their writing partners uncomfortable, two people who both had autism as a stated reasoning behind why they messed up, two people who had professional therapists to draw on, and two people who had vastly different approaches to how they wanted to communicate and solve their problems with others.

One of these people used their diagnosis as an excuse. The other used it as an explanation.

Henceforth, we'll simply refer to these two people as Person A (the Excuser) and Person B (the Explainer).

Person A

Bear in mind that the below is heavily summarized down to its most important parts to be easily understood without adding a bunch of additional context, because the actual discussion would otherwise be many pages longer and bogged down with a lot of Word Salad from Person [A]. The actual spirit of the discussion however remains the same, and the way things were worded and tone has not been changed, only streamlined.

At the end afterwards, I'll point out everything wrong with this exchange for those who didn't pick up on it themselves, and then we'll compare with the situation involving Person B, who explained their behavior, but didn't excuse it or shift blame.

Also keep in mind while reading Person A's replies that they are an unreliable narrator about events or what other people have said to them and everything they themselves say is told through a lens of protecting their self-image as believing themselves to be an inherently "nice person".

Person 1: We're here to talk about a few different things, but I want to start by saying this is about behaviors, which can be changed and fixed. Nobody's here to attack anyone's worth as a person or try to point fingers and call each other bad. Obviously we're here because we want to talk things out and resolve them to move forward into a better relationship. Also I think everyone understands that even if everything is fixed, people might still need time to become comfortable with each other again after everything that's happened.

Person A: If this has to do with that night or the guidelines, why isn't Person 3 here? I thought the guidelines was about what they did as well.

Person 1: That's correct, but the group guidelines issue is less about the guidelines that had to be made and more about what happened after in response to us posting them.

Person A: I see okay.

Person 1: The biggest thing that needs to be addressed first is I know you and Person 2 had a writing server together and after we posted the group guidelines, you deleted the server with Person 2 and all of their writing without saying anything about it to them, which really damaged Person 2's trust.

Person A: Oh, no, I didn't delete the server, its still there. I want to correct that first and why communication is so important to me.

Person 1: But you did remove them from the server?

Person A: I did yes but not for the reasons you might think.

Person 1: Go ahead and explain. That's why we're here. But removing them without even saying anything about it all this time still wasn't cool.

Person A: I understand and take responsibility. I should have communicated that better, but also it wasn't cool what you two did. When you posted those group guidelines, it triggered me due to a past incident where people in a different group would vague about me and one of the ways they did it was in group rules instead of communicate to me directly. It triggered a major autistic meltdown which was why I quit the server, was going to delete the server I had with Person 2 and run away, which is something I do and can't control because of my mental conditions. I only changed my mind and came back after you guys came to me and said I was welcome back and you wanted me around. I wanted to invite Person 2 back to our shared server but my trust was still off. I know Person 2 is dealing with a lot of stressful things right now but them going silent for so long really made me distrust them because of bad past experiences. I know when I asked if you'd heard from them that you told me they needed space right now but that doesn't work for me because I have to hear it from them directly because I can't read minds and I don't like silence because of my autism. So I didn't invite Person 2 back or talk about it [for over a month] because I needed them to talk to me first and say things I knew they weren't telling me. Nobody understands how hard it is for people like me to express any of this. It would be nice if everyone else tried to communicate as hard as I do but I can't control others. Which is why I ask for the entire honest truth because sugar-coated things do not work for me. I apologize if I hurt Person 2 but I'm also hurt and distrustful because of what you did, because I feel I do everything to make my friends happy and comfortable. I stay quiet when things I don't like happen and put myself aside but I need to set myself first and express when I'm bothered too.

Person 1: I'm thinking of how to address this still, but I want to point out you're not the only person in the group with autism or neurodivergence that has difficulties with communication and mood regulation, including Person 2. I know you're not deliberately trying to excuse things, but you still are using your diagnosis to excuse your behaviors.

Person A: I apologize. I was trying to explain, not excuse. I'll try to keep from using it as an excuse for the rest of the conversation.

Person 1: Its alright, it takes practice. But at the end of the day, actions are still choices we made.

Person 2: I think both of us were unintentionally triggered. I have a harder time stating upset feelings because I don't want to hurt anyone. I planned to talk about the server I got kicked from earlier than this, but then other drama happened before we could talk and I was anxious to talk after that. I'm aware past paranoia and anxiety is something I have to work on. I'd like to continue being friends. Its not uncommon for me to go quiet a lot because of low energy or health problems, and to step back so I can focus on self-care and bettering myself. I don't blame you for putting yourself first. I think some of it comes from misunderstanding and a lack of communication on my end, which I struggle with more than I used to after bad experiences, because not long ago with a different person if I said I needed space I'd be guilt-tripped and told I'm isolating myself and that I'm not allowed to do that, but I'm working on it. I don't expect you to be a mind reader. If I go quiet its nothing personal, I struggle to hold a conversation most days.

Person 1: I want to add, I appreciate you taking responsibility for your actions Person A and recognizing they weren't the best. I do want to point out "Yes, I did that, but you did this other thing that caused me to do that" is blame-shifting. I'm not denying that we made our own poor choices, which I obviously already addressed last time when the guidelines first went up that we were in the wrong for not doing things in a way that worked better for you even though we didn't think the group guidelines would trigger you. Plus I know trauma and triggers can make even the best of us make bad decisions that we regret later. I have my own problems that influence my behaviors negatively sometimes, but at the end of the day, we still made choices to behave in hurtful ways and have to own them regardless of this. I think that's important to recognize. That's why I bring up breaking the habit of hiding behind a diagnosis, because even if it legitimately makes things harder, a lot of people won't understand and it doesn't erase that they've been hurt, and if people hear "I can't help but do hurtful things and cross boundaries" then people will naturally put up distance to protect themselves. I'm glad we're communicating now though, including your side of things, because your hurt feelings need to be addressed too for us to move forward and fix the relationship. Respect and trust is a two way street and your feelings are important too.

Person A: I agree with you nobody should use their diagnosis as an excuse but Person 1 you sound like you're invalidating me right now. Being autistic doesn't just make things harder for me its who I am as a person, and I'm high level autistic so my thought process works very different from other neurodivergent people and even other autistics like me. I don't say I can't help it, rather that I can't control it. I acknowledge its my responsibility to calm myself down when I have a meltdown. When I said before that I apologize but you guys did that, it wasn't my intention to shift blame. I was merely trying to explain my actions. But I would never say an apology I don't mean. Sorry if it sounds like I'm hiding behind my autism but everyone's conditions are not the same. I'm taking responsibility for what I did but belittling it to a choice is very invalidating. Person 2, I know you've been through Hell and back. I want to keep being friends. I know you were going through a lot and I'm sorry my actions didn't reflect that. I'll try to be more considerate especially when you go quiet. I apologize if anything I said sounded like blame-shifting. I'll try my best not to hide behind my condition but it was only because you invalidated me that I did.

Person 1: Those are fair points and its within your rights to disagree. I don't expect us to agree all the time and I'm not going to pretend I know what living with autism is like. I just address it because its a common fallback people use to hand-wave away the harm that's come out of their behaviors. I'm not saying that's you but addressing it so we can all come to a true understanding, not to point fingers and invalidate anyone.

Person A: I agree but I can't speak for anyone else, only myself. People mistake autism as an illness. This is something I was born with, its not an illness I have but a disability. Autism is completely different from a mental illness, so when people ask me to explain my behavior its me using it as an explanation and a cause, not an excuse, because I am very empathetic and will take responsibility for the things I do. No matter the excuse it doesn't change that I still did something wrong. Excuses don't make sense to me because you still caused harm, so if I talk about my disability its an explanation not an excuse.

Person 1: Yeah that's exactly what I was trying to say about being responsible for actions, just worded a little differently.

Person A: Oh, sorry, then we both agree. Sorry for getting things off track.

Person 2: I know deleting the server wasn't done out of malicious intent at least, so that's cleared up. I don't know how to say this without using a past example and why it bothered me so bad, but when I realized the server was gone, I feared a similar reaction to what happened with a different person, who kicked me out of our writing server specifically to hurt me at one of my lowest points, and then ridiculed and made fun of me for being upset the server was gone. I didn't want to think you would do the same and I know now you wouldn't but that's why it took me so long to bring it up.

Person 1: I've also had similar happen with someone who got mad at me for something and deleted a whole writing server out of petty spite so I know how it feels and how hard it is not to jump to the same conclusion of malice when we've experienced it a few times before this.

Person A: I was never mad at you two. I always stick with the motto of treat others how you want to be treated and those other people treated you awful. I'm sorry I made you feel that way and made you think that about me, I'd never wish that on anyone. I care so much about our writing and muses. If you ever did anything to upset me, I'd tell you. I know I didn't back then but I should have. Or followed my own advice and said I needed time away. I don't know if it helps but I keep the server at the top of my list and go into it every day and read back on our writing but I felt like I messed things up so bad you'd never want to be close to me again and were just tolerating me and didn't want you to thinking I was clingy or weird so I never invited you back. If I'm honest I'm actually surprised that your thought process was that I'd do it to try and hurt you.

Person 1: Well objectively speaking, you are still a new person to us. We haven't known you for very long so we can't possibly know what your personal motivations are. That's something that we learn by being in contact over time.

Person 2: Its something I know I need help for but finding a therapist for online trauma in my area is very hard. I know the way I think isn't healthy a lot of the times, but I get scared that things are going to end up the same way they have in the past and it makes it harder for me to talk. There are times I haven't been equipped to help you, but I never thought of you as annoying, clingy, or weird. I struggle to talk sometimes and that's with everyone, not just you. Sometimes I also see a message and plan to answer it later but it slips my mind.

Person A: If it helps, I feel the same about re-living bad past experiences. Like when I ran away, it was a big response to that because that's what I always do. One small reminder of what happened and I completely disappear. I feel awful when I do but I never find the courage to go back. Making new friends is hard but I understand entirely. I promise I'd never treat you anything like how those people did. It's not in me to do that and I cherish you as a friend. I know how scary it is but I'll do my best to show in actions that I'm not going anywhere and I'd never hurt any of you like that.

Person 1: I think we've covered almost everything we need to about the writing server. Person 2 and I talked before and we think the best resolution moving forward would be to be re-added to the writing server and have server ownership transferred to them. That way if you ever had a meltdown you couldn't control in the future, it'd be impossible to even accidentally kick them out or delete the server on impulse and trigger their trauma. With that, Person 2 would have 100% guarantee the server can't be suddenly taken away from them if you have a bad day, which would help them feel comfortable again.

Person A: Well I already gave Person 2 all admin access when I invited them because its equally as much their server as it is mine, and next time if I freak out I can just leave and they can have it. I'll even turn off control buttons for myself so they don't have the fear of being removed.

Person 1: Admin access and ownership aren't the same things by the way. Ownership always overrides all other role / access privileges no matter what, and the server owner is incapable of leaving a server without passing ownership or deleting the server. Its hard-coded into discord.

Person A: Oh I didn't know that. If I do pass ownership, I just ask that I still get access to everything and I won't be controlled. That's happened to me before and it makes me feel not safe. I trust Person 2 won't do anything like that but it'd make me feel better hearing you say you won't.

Person 2: No, I wouldn't do that. In every server I own, I give them every right that a server owner would have.

Person 1: I can speak from experience that even if things blew up to a "friendship over" level, Person 2 has only ever saved the things they wanted to keep, transferred ownership to the other person, and left. They've never once kicked the other person out or taken the server away from them because they know how bad that feels.

Person A: Okay that makes me feel better, and now I know you wanted to talk about the movie night. I'm nervous because I feel my feelings towards Person 3 are very unfair because I would never want to control how other people ship. I promise its not out of jealousy. I know Person 2 and Person 3 kept trying to include me and I wanted to join but I didn't want to intrude so I kept my muse to themselves. I'm sorry if this came off as petty because I'd never dream of trying to control anyone or their ships, I was just uncomfortable with the vibes. I don't think I need to explain why, I told Person 2 about my own past incident.

Person 2: It was never my intention to leave you out. I'll always want to include you no matter what. It wasn't Person 3's intention to leave you out either. It was kind of a weird night for me because the movie we were watching triggered me so if there was anything I missed in terms of replies or anything its not because I meant to ignore you.

Person A: I already talked to Person 3 and they apologized. They said they can get a bit possessive but never on purpose and didn't mean to make me feel like a third wheel. They also apologized for copying me and that they do that when they're hyperfixated on things but we're okay now I think. I know you were trying to include me though but you should have told me you were uncomfortable with what we were watching and we could have switched to something else. I appreciate you trying to include me but it felt a bit… much. Usually I find it funny but it was bordering on those thin lines although not intentionally and it made me go into flight mode but me and Person 3 are okay now.

Person 1: So I actually wanted to address that and I know you talked things out with Person 3, but I think accusing Person 3 of copying you and making your things their own was unfair. Everything you brought up to them as copying, they were already doing separately on their own before seeing your ideas, some of those ideas before they ever even joined our group or started talking to any of us. So putting them on the spot that they were just copying you isn't fair. That's obviously for you and them to further discuss but I'm here to be a reality checker for all sides.

Person A: I'm aware and we talked about that. I know its impossible to never have similar ideas but it did feel like they were copying me even if it wasn't intentional. I'm trying to be better towards myself so I'm going to say some things did feel very copied or shifted into being their idea whenever I brought something up and I didn't say anything at first because I didn't want to make accusations but when it happens more than a few times its very noticeable and I never accuse anyone of anything if I'm not 100% sure. During that movie night they were doing it too where I brought up a recent AU I made this week like my character finds Person 2's character in another world and become friends because red string of fate and then they immediately turned it into about their muses being lovers in another world because of having red strings of fate. That made me feel bad because everyone is just trying to have fun but I take my muses very seriously and work hard to make my ideas unique but every time someone takes my ideas out of my hand and make it theirs. So I told myself I have to stop putting my own feelings aside and speak up when something's not okay and I know they didn't do it intentionally but I'm not going to allow myself to be okay with it. When it comes to something like this a person knows when they are being copied vs when something is just similar. If you or Person 2 were in my shoes then I'm sure you'd feel the same way so sorry if I sound rude but I told myself I'm not going to doubt myself about this. I'm not saying Person 3 is intentionally copying me, I'd never paint them as a bad person, I just think they did it as a genuine mistake of excitement.

Person 1: Your feelings about all of that are valid and Person 3 isn't upset with you, nor did they ask me to address it with you. However, I still feel you're being unfair towards them. I agree communicating and setting boundaries of what you're okay or not okay with is important. At the same time, its not that uncommon for people to end up with similar ideas frequently. I've had that happen to me as well where I made an idea in a group first and then someone else who made a similar idea afterwards accused me of copying them, so I know from experience it really doesn't feel good. I understand its a trauma response, but I notice that when I try to point out certain things to you, you tend to personalize them and get defensive, then turn the discussion into defending yourself instead of fully seeing what I'm talking about and fixing it. Does that make sense?

Person A: But I have been seeing your point of view this whole conversation. I didn't mean to make anything unfair and even said that I fought myself over whether I was wrong or mistaken or overthinking. I'm not trying to accuse anyone of anything but my feelings are important too. I'm not trying to sound defensive but what you said just now hurt my feelings. Maybe I am overthinking things and if I am then sorry.

Person 1: You do get a little defensive, which I understand comes from anxiety and past bullies. I'm not saying it to hurt your feelings or because I'm upset with you. Just trying to make you aware of it. Think of it the same as telling you your shoe is untied. I'm not telling you to make you feel bad, I'm telling you because I don't want you to trip and fall and get hurt. Does that make sense?

Person A: I'm going to be honest. My feelings feel very invalidated right now. I didn't come to this conclusion from nowhere or for attention or to make anyone feel bad, because my feelings felt bad too, and perhaps I am defensive right now but what you're saying really hurts like you're saying my feelings don't matter. When Person 2 spoke about feeling copied by someone outside our group, not a single doubt was there, but when I come out about feeling copied about something that's really important to me, its turned on me that I'm being delusional or uncaring or unfair when my feelings were the ones that were hurt. I don't want to sound like I'm guilt tripping but this isn't fair to me. Imagine saying "Hey this person is being mean to me" and someone says "No they're not and that's really rude and mean and unfair of you to accuse that person of doing that" when your feelings are hurt from something they did to you. This is why I say communication is important to me but when I try to communicate my feelings, this is the kind of reaction I'm scared of. Sorry but I'm suddenly not comfortable with this conversation because now I'm really hurt.

Person 1: I actually never took Person 2's side about the past speculation about being copied. I just chose not to take a chance on interacting with someone who has like 30 callouts about them. I have no idea if they copied Person 2's ideas or if they just coincidentally had the same ideas and I never said otherwise.

Person A: My point is you just completely invalidated my feelings. I understand you're not in my situation so you don't understand and have never been in the other person's shoes but that's not okay.

Person 1: That's a pretty big assumption to make about me honestly.

Person A: I don't understand how that's a big assumption to make. My feelings were hurt, my feelings have been hurting and it took a lot for me to express that. How am I supposed to feel like this is a safe place to express my feelings and communicate when my feelings get invalidated when I express them. How is that any sort of fair?

Person 1: I've been addressing your feelings from the very start of conversation and said repeatedly your feelings are valid. But others' feelings are also important. And your feelings and actions are not the same things. I've criticized your actions, not your feelings. Its a large assumption to say I've never been in someone else's shoes. You don't know what I have or haven't been through. You asked repeatedly for honest communication because sugar-coated things don't work for you. I've giving honest communication from my perspective. If you think my perspective is wrong then that's perfectly fine. You're not required to agree with me.

Person A: Well sorry I'm getting defensive but what you said hurt my feelings because you sound like you don't care how I felt and made me sound like a liar. I've been listening to everything you've been saying, but the one time I actually set myself first and consider my feelings instead of standing aside or having someone walk all over me, that's the kind of response I get. How do you think that would make someone feel?

Person 1: It might be a good time to take a break from this. We've been at this for a while and I'm sure that doesn't help with emotions running high. I'm sorry that your feelings were hurt though. It wasn't intentional.

Person A [In Person 3's private messages]: Why didn't you tell me you felt that way Person 3? I just finished talking with Person 1 and you could have just told me how you actually felt. I thought we were friends?

Person A [in group chat]: Well I'm not going to act like I'm okay with the things you said. I appreciate your apology but what you said felt like it spoke a lot of things on where we stand in this friendship and its not a good feeling. I know you're trying to stay professional but it really made this not feel like a safe space anymore. You made me feel like if I ever had a problem you'd prefer I keep it to myself and let myself stay hurt and continue being used as a rug. I know you probably weren't trying to but that's how it sounds and makes me feel like you don't care and I don't want our friendship to feel like I can't be safe around you. I know you apologized already but it feels like a bad place to leave things. Is there a resolution we can come up with for this?

Person 1: All I can really say is I'm sorry but if you don't want to forgive me then I'm not going to be upset about it. Forgiveness is more about the person being apologized to, not about me, so I'm not going to put any demands on you for what's best for you. Its not a matter of not caring about you but I already went into this leaving my personal feelings at the door knowing it could go good or bad.

Person A: I thought about it and forgive you if you really mean your apology. I understand leaving your emotions at the door to stay neutral. All I ask is next time if you drop something heavy on me, maybe be more gentle with me? I'm kind of extremely sensitive. It might also make me feel better if you actually tried to understand all sides. It felt very one-sided which is probably why I reacted so defensively because I felt like you were making me into a bad guy for my feelings. I do understand and listen to everything you say so please trust me when I say I do listen, sorry I made you feel like I don't or wasn't back there.

Person 1: Its all good. I realize I can come across the wrong way sometimes. I stand firm when I believe its important to be firm but I do understand and consider your feelings even if on my side it seems to you like I don't. Misunderstandings on both sides, but I don't hold any hard feelings about it, and I don't expect everyone to feel immediately okay without some time to process and recover. Hopefully things can go back to being more fun and relaxed soon after we put this all behind us.

Person A [In Person 3's private messages]: Hey Person 3, I deleted everything I sent because it felt pointless to have up. I just came to say if you can't be honest and upfront with me when I come to communicate with you then I can't be comfortable with you, because I don't appreciate you saying one thing and being understanding in front of me and then going back to another person saying something else. That's not okay and not right. I rely heavily on my friendships having trust and honesty and if you can't be honest with me then I can't be comfortable around you anymore. I still want to be friends and RP with you but I'm setting my boundary on this. Honesty and communication is important to me. That is all.

Person A [in group]: I hope I don't offend you but I also stand firm with things I need to be firm with. I'm forcing myself to stop being a people pleaser. Sorry if that makes me sound defensive but I'm learning from my therapist that being a people pleaser means my boundaries are going to have to be firmly stated and that was a way I was trying to firmly set my boundaries. I don't feel comfortable about them and you talking about what I discussed with them and if that happens again I can't be comfortable in the server anymore if people can't be honest with me when we talk, or what's the point of communication?

Person 1: I'm not offended but can you clarify what you mean about people not being honest? Because as far as I've been able to tell, everyone has been honest with you.

Person A: You and Person 2 have been honest, yes, but it seems pretty clear Person 3 hasn't been. I know they were probably trying to make me feel better but I don't appreciate that. It's a trigger for me. People will act one way in front of me and then a different way about me with each other. I don't appreciate them not being honest and telling you something different from what they told me.

Person 1: Can you spell out for me what they told you that's different from what they told me?

Person A: When I talked to them, they seemed completely understanding and apologized. I even asked how they felt about it. They explained sometimes they copied people out of excitement and we talked it out and ended the discussion on good terms. Which is why I was shocked when you guys talked about how it was unfair of me to feel that or say I was accusing them. I was giving them an opportunity to explain and correct me. Then they went quiet on me but I figured they went to work. I don't know if there was a miscommunication somewhere but they never gave me the impression they felt otherwise and even asked if they needed time to think or tell me how they really felt but they said they understood and don't have any resentment or that they were upset. If they felt the need to hide that from me then I feel awful but they were so quick and ready to talk fully so I didn't think anything of it.

Person 1: I did say up above that they told both me and Person 2 they weren't upset over it.

Person A: Okay but they said they weren't upset but they didn't tell me anything that matched with what you guys said.

Person 1: They told us what you two talked about, but they weren't upset. Person 2 and I were the ones who looked at it and thought that you accusing them of copying and stealing your ideas was unfair, because most of their ideas they had before you talked about having similar ideas. If anything, Person 3 was remorseful and felt bad for making you feel that way, so they took the blame even though they weren't copying you.

Person A: You and Person 2? …I see. You and Person 2 both came to the conclusion and agreed I was in the wrong and unfair though… okay thanks for telling me.

Person 1: Yeah. I do want to reiterate what I said at the start. This is about behaviors and nothing else. Not your worth as a person or pointing fingers and saying you're bad or anything like that. I just want to repeat that because I don't want you to feel like that's what this is about.

Person A: Right yeah of course I got it.

Additional note: Person A never once apologized to Person 3 about their accusatory private messages attacking Person 3's character or taking back the things they said after having their misunderstanding about how Person 3 felt clarified, which is one of the most telling parts of this entire situation. Person 2 also never got their writing back, and Person A ended their friendship with the entire group a day later in a very inflammatory way when everyone stepped back for self-care for a single day.

Guaranteed, some of you already caught the multiple problems in this exchange. For those that didn't, I'm going to point them out.

Immediately, we start off with confronting Person A about doing something hurtful without any communication, which Person A immediately retaliates with saying "how important communication is to them". Although its subtle and easy to miss, straight out of the gate, Person A is blame-shifting onto Person 2 that its their own fault they think the server was deleted, when they're the ones who kicked out Person 2 without any communication. Person A then goes on to excuse them doing so because they had an "autistic meltdown that they can't control". However, Person A had more than an entire month afterwards to communicate with Person 2 that the server was still there, and never did. It would be a completely different story if Person A had only kicked Person 2 out for a day or two while they calmed down and then let them know the server was still there and let them back in, but Person 1 and Person 2 had to bring up the server FIRST before it was ever discussed at all, more than a month afterwards. Additionally, when confronted about this fact, Person A once more blame-shifts that they didn't say anything because "they're waiting for Person 2 to say things they know Person 2 isn't telling them", implying Person 2's message silence has some sinister reason exclusively targeted at Person A behind it instead of Person 2 being overwhelmed with stress and taking care of themselves, and holding hostage the writing server as a passive-aggressive punishment for "not communicating enough". This is the first thing that makes their autism an Excuse, NOT an "Explanation".

Two more replies in, and once again we immediately fall into blame-shifting. "I did a bad thing which was hurtful, but it was your fault for triggering my autistic meltdown in the first place related to a past trauma you had nothing to do with, which I then punished you for with my actions but did nothing after the fact to fix once my meltdown was over". Once again, its the lack of action to correct for the damage they caused after the fact which makes this an excuse, not an explanation. Now, when given the chance to fix things, Person A's focus is still on casting blame for how they are the victim of everyone else's behavior, rather than working towards what they can do to fix their actions and actively try to repair the relationship.

Stating outright they "cannot control" their actions which hurt other people. Their immediate response is to tell the other people who were hurt that basically they cannot honestly expect Person A to not behave in hurtful ways, and expecting as much from them is unreasonable and unfair to Person A.

Person A acknowledges that they know Person 2 is dealing with hardship, but they demand as a "boundary of their disability" that someone else telling Person A on Person 2's behalf that they are not capable of talking to them right now (due to their own trauma and disabilities, in fact) is not good enough, and because they have decided that it's not good enough they will attempt to spam Person 2 with messages until they respond, when its been made clear Person 2 is not available to be talked to at that time. That is not a "boundary", that is entitlement towards crossing Person 2's boundary. When Person 2 lays a boundary that they are not open to being messaged, Person A does not get to create a boundary that Person 2 is required to message them specifically because "their autism makes them hate silence". You cannot create a "boundary" which explicitly functions to trespass on someone else's boundary. That's not how boundaries work. Once again, autism here is an excuse for their behavior, and an excuse to force themselves across other peoples' boundaries, rather than an explanation.

Instead of listening and adjusting when their blame-shifting is clearly spelled out to them, Person A falls back on trying to make themselves into a victim in the situation. They do so by trying to "explain" how they have a disability that is so uniquely worse than everyone else's disabilities in the group that makes it inherently unfair that we expect them to behave better than they're behaving. They deflect in no unclear terms that they think their autism is automatically many times worse than anyone else's autism or neurodivergence in the group, that other peoples' disabilities are not "real" disabilities like theirs is, and therefore us telling them to fix their hurtful and unproductive behavior is "invalidation". This is nothing more than a defensive tactic to shut down criticism and once again shift blame in an underhanded way that their behavior is actually everyone else's fault, while telling themselves that isn't what they're doing, in order to protect their ego and sense of self-worth, which they've convinced themselves is under attack instead of just talking about solutions of how to fix things. Once again, autism is an excuse, not an explanation, because they are using their autism as a shield against valid criticism, rather than actually trying to fix the problem at hand.

Once again, "I don't say I can't help it, I say I can't control it". This is just splitting hairs about wording, trying to make it sound like they are being reasonable by re-framing the same event with different language, when either way Person A is still communicating "other people cannot possibly expect my behaviors to change or be different than what they are", even if those actions are hurtful.

Frequent and repeated "Yes, but--" statements which immediately takes any argument given and flips it onto the other party as being the ones who are "actually" at fault (i.e. more blame shifting). "Sorry if it sounds like I'm hiding behind my autism, but--"; "I'm taking responsibility for what I did, but--"; "I'll try to not hide behind my condition, but--" etc.). Their "Yes, but--" statements are there to appear on the surface like they're being understanding and are complying as a false placation, while giving themselves subconscious permission to keep doing the hurtful things they do without guilt. Their hurtful actions are not actually a product of their autism, but a product of their internal attitude about how much of their behavior they are responsible for which they do not believe they have to actually fix because its "not their fault", which their constant "Yes, but--"ing reveals. Excuse, not explanation.

Person A talks about apologizing and taking responsibility, but they never actually do. They talk in circles about understanding they are responsible for themselves, but never actually do anything to show that they are. They obviously understand the concept of taking responsibility, but ACTUALLY taking responsibility is for other people to do, not them, because they believe everyone else is wrong and owes THEM apologies for "making them act out".

This includes the few, infrequent times they "apologize" throughout the discussion. A more gullible person would point to the various instances where they say "sorry" and "try" to apologize, but pay special attention to the context of most times they do so. They don't apologize just to apologize, they strategically "apologize" to take the heat off themselves ("I'm sorry I made you think I was that kind of person, I'm not like that", an apology centered around other peoples' perceptions of Person A and not actually about how people were hurt; "Maybe I am overthinking things and if I am then sorry", not actually a real apology but an appeasement strategy meant to make people back off from holding them responsible, which becomes clear from their hostile follow-up response when that doesn't work to instantly let them off the hook), or to be passive-aggressive ("sorry if I sound rude but--", about to justify their hurtful actions; "Well sorry for getting defensive but--"). All of this is further substantiated by the fact that Person A sought out Person 3 separately SPECIFICALLY to attack them and their character and cast hostile accusations at them, once again shifting blame to Person 3, which a person sorry for how they behaved would not do, much less twice in a row in the same hour. Once again, using autism as an excuse to behave badly and expect everyone else should just be fine with it, and if they're not fine with that its because they're "invalidating" Person A.

There's actually a ton more problems with how Person A handled the entire situation but for the sake of keeping this to being about the topic at hand, I'll refrain from further going full Psyche Eval and picking everything above apart. But in general, the entire exchange is very "Me, me, me" centric. Person A's largest concern throughout most of the discussion is defending the self-image they've built about themselves and "how much of a nice person they are, not like those other people". As soon as Person A is expected to take meaningful responsibility that isn't just hot-air "explanations" of why they're not actually at fault, Person A gets offended and redirects it into "but what about ME?". Even in the few instances where Person A appears to be understanding and empathetic, its framed from a very self-centered point of view where being empathetic only matters when they can personally relate it to themselves and what they gain, not what others have lost because of them.

As an additional note to all of the above, no, I do not think that Person A was consciously aware of or deliberately planned out to behave in such a toxic way. There's this myth that abusive people are all a bunch of deliberate, calculating, evil monsters separate from inherently "good" "normal people" who sit around laughing and maliciously planning out how to damage their relationship with other people, when more often they are unhealthy people who genuinely believe they are the ones being wronged when their behaviors are called into question, which allows them to continue to behave in unhealthy ways that hurt others. So long as they believe they are the victim, meaningful change can never occur because in their minds, only the "perpetrator" (always the other person) who's inflicted an ego injury on them should have to change, and so long as they view themselves as a victim they are incapable of viewing themselves as part of the problem. Thus, problem solving becomes an unfair and one-sided endeavor where the other people are expected to do all the work of "changing" while they should be allowed to continue as they are without alteration.

Person B

A notation before we begin. In this exchange, Person B actually did everything right and how communication and behavioral ownership should be. The Other Person obviously still responded negatively to this, but the Other Person was actually the one in the wrong here and I'll explain why afterwards.

Other Person: Alright, so you said you wanted to give me a month of space so you could work on yourself.

Person B: I did what I promised. I worked a lot on myself. I talked with my therapist and I think I have a pretty good understanding of what happened. I am willing to tell you about it if you want, though I might need to backtrack a bit to explain some things. Of course, none of what I reveal is there to excuse or some attempt to diminish your pain. It is just there as a way to explain what happened and hopefully it shows I changed. Or at least realized what exactly caused that screw up on my part.

Other Person: Go ahead.

Person B: Okay. If my memory is not wrong, I think I started acting badly towards you around the same time two things happened. The easy one first. Multiple real life events had me stressed out of my mind and more receptive to bad stuff happening. Now the more complicated thing, which I believe was the culprit behind my behavior towards you. When we first met, I had a friend who was very successful in real life. I put this friend on a pedestal, which led me to take advice from them to heart, which I realize in hindsight was all very bad advice. One of their advice was that a writer always has to be arrogant about their ideas, which I think I incorporated that advice subconsciously. Around the same time I started behaving badly towards you, me and this person had a massive falling out. It was really bad. They were always willing to trash talk and criticize others, but couldn't take any criticism themselves. They said some very hurtful things to me. I didn't realize it at the time, but this fallout caused me to regress. I reverted back to behaviors I had had around [Name]. Very nasty and cruel, bossy behaviors. I'm not entirely sure why but somehow my brain connected your writing style with [Name], and somehow in my mind I mixed up your character with theirs. Furthermore, [Name] had also led me to becoming incredibly insecure about my writing. However, my therapist helped me figure out that I was jealous about your writing and how easily certain things about writing your character came to you. I was jealous because it was a lot harder for me to make things make sense the way you do. I recognize that this is an incredibly dumb reason to be jealous over. But yeah, this is probably what happened. The stress of real life, coupled with my regression created a really bad mixture, which you, for lack of a better word, got the brunt of. Again, I'm aware this does not, nor should it excuse my behavior and the pain I caused you. It is on me for not having realized I was regressing due to [Person] hitting far too close to home (thanks [Name]). It is also on me that I did not deal with those emotions in a healthy way and on my own. To be honest, I didn't even think I could regress. I thought with how much time had passed between [Name] and [People] that I couldn't regress. However, after what happened and I looked a bit more closely, I immediately recognized the behavioral patterns. Actions I had hoped I would never take again. I was honestly terrified of somehow being a bad person. I'm not sure how to fix our situation, but I am willing to try. I've fixed some of my real life situations that were causing me stress, and talked with a lot of friends about what [Name] did to me. I know saying sorry won't fix this completely, and maybe this is nothing but hot air, coming from me. I just want you to know that should you let me keep being your friend, I will try to go at your pace more and be more open. I had thought I was already going at your pace, but I believe I didn't really do a good job with that.

Other Person: Its good you figured out why things happened, but it still feels as if you're shifting blame. You compare me to one of said people, and proceed to behave the way you would behave towards them. I'm my own person, and the fact I got washed over by a previous experience, which had NOTHING to do with me, has me QUITE flabbergasted. You need to let that go. It happened. It is done. That situation has passed. Move on. You already know how I feel about jealousy, so I am not going to comment on that. I understand that stress can influence you and whatnot, however, it still happened, and you lashed out. Now, since roughly a month has passed, what change have you implemented to fix this? Why should I trust that things are going to change? And, to add to that; how come after the time that has passed, you haven't been able to figure out how to fix this situation? Because, to be quite frank, that does leave a bitter taste in my mouth. All this what came out, combined with how I felt and how you behaved, I'm not so sure about our interaction. You don't know how to fix it, you already made a connection between [Name] and I, which caused you to lash out, and the jealousy thing might still be around. That's not healthy for either of us. So give me a good reason as to why we should continue our interaction? I am QUITE wary.

Person B: I understand. I have an idea on how to deal with the situation with [Name]. A friend suggested I should write a therapeutic story to deal with what happened. Get all those feelings out because clearly I buried them and didn't deal with them properly. I know you are not [Name]. I'm not trying to shift blame here, merely show you that I have finally recognized and understood where the problem came from, which in my eyes is quite important. I have also removed items which remind me of her in an attempt to further separate myself from her. I'm hoping with other real life stress behind me, my emotions can settle and I am no longer so strung up and on high alert. I recognize the situation currently is not healthy for either of us. I've already tried to give you space. I am trying to accommodate your wants and wishes better. I'm not expecting us to immediately go back to the way things were before all this. That is impossible and wouldn't be fair for either of us. I thought maybe we should start by just trying to talk more regularly with one another. Not with the intention to establish a roleplay but instead try to connect to one another again. If you want, I can remove the theme you made for me and get another one if that makes you more comfortable. I know that seeing something you made, which you may connect to something painful, can be quite challenging. I don't want to add to that. That is currently all I could suggest: that we try at your pace to establish a more comfortable repertoire with one another and see where to take things from there. Of course, I would hope that maybe this could eventually lead to us writing with one another again, but I feel we both need to work up to that again. If you want to do that of course.

Other Person: I don't mind you having my theme. You don't have to remove it. Again, its good you figured out where your issues stem from, but the comment "thanks [Name]" felt like you were blaming them. Hence why I said it feels like you're shifting blame here. Now what I'm wary of is that the moment I interact with you, it will go back to the same situation, which is once more one-sided. And to be honest, I still don't see any reason as to why we should go back to talking. You haven't given me any reason as to why we should talk again. You say you're trying to accommodate my wants and needs, but how? How are you doing that? So far, the only thing you have given me, which was part of the bargain, was giving me space. How ARE you going to accommodate me? How do you see that for yourself if we were to talk regularly?

Person B: I see. I meant the comment more in a sardonic way. I wasn't trying to claim that I hadn't done what I had done or that I am not at fault for it. Your fear is completely understandable. I too want to avoid that it becomes one-sided. I would want to try to ask you more questions about your own lore and world and also just your day and your hobbies. I've actually been very curious about your take on our fandom's lore. I didn't ask about it because of our current situation, but that would be what I would try to do. Ask you more questions and try to make it be more of a proper conversation. Even if it is just asking how you are handling your draft count and cheering you on if you finished something.

Other Person: I have been staring at this for a solid 20 minutes, and I just cannot figure out what to do with it. I appreciate that you came up with things to talk about my writing, but on the other hand, I do feel rather bitter about it. The thing is, I have been thinking about this now the entire time: trust has been broken. I have given you opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to correct your behavior, and you keep acting up. And, combined with it being unhealthy for you as well, since I seem to remind you of [Name]. I understand that you wanted to explain yourself as to where it came from, but letting me know that I somehow remind you of her, really just did it for me. I'm skeptical of you and your intentions. Are you seeking me out for me or for my character? Because for as long as you've known me, you don't know about my general interests, my hobbies, etc. You don't know my verses, you don't know my other muses. I just… don't know. With this talk, there is no clear solution, because both parties feel like they have to walk on eggshells and it feels forced. With all due respect, I don't feel like this is salvageable any longer. I can be civil, and I can be amicable in the server. Perhaps in the future there might be room to talk again, but as of right now, I'm done.

Person B: I understand and you are right. I broke your trust, and maybe indeed there is nothing that can be salvaged here anymore. Maybe there shouldn't as it clearly has developed into something unhealthy. You hit the nail on the head when you said this feels like we are both walking on eggshells. I'm sorry I broke your trust. I wish you the best for the future.

So what did Person B do right that Person A did wrong?

From the beginning, Person B approached the entire situation by first obtaining insight into what the problems with themself were, and then implemented strategies to deal with certain problems that influenced them into behaving badly without making it Other Person's responsibility to do so for them.

Person B identified that real life stressors were part of the cause, and so then spent the month resolving the real life stressors they had control over to reduce their stress levels.

They identified the fact that they had made an unintentional connection between a traumatic person in their past, and the person they were dealing with now. When they realized this subconscious connection led them to treat Other Person differently than they should, they took steps to talk to other people about this, and remove items from their life which continued to remind them of the past problematic person, and made a conscious effort to separate the past person from Other Person.

While they took the time to explain the triggers which caused their behaviors, they took ownership of the fact that their behaviors were not okay without making it Other Person's fault, and took actual tangible steps towards lifestyle changes that would hopefully resolve their bad behaviors and lead to a healthier relationship.

Additionally, the lifestyle changes Person B made in order to improve themselves were all changes that removed responsibility from Other Person. Everything that Person B did to fix the situation involved them taking on all the work and responsibility of fixing their internal attitudes and behaviors that were their own fault.

Although Person B says that they "thought they were going at Other Person's pace", never once do they actually blame Other Person for misunderstanding that they actually weren't going at the other person's pace, unlike the way that Person A blamed everyone else with constant justifications of "If you hadn't done X, then I wouldn't have done Y, which you caused".

Person B takes genuine responsibility not just with their words but with their actions, and even when Other Person is being largely unfair to them, Person B still doesn't lash out at them.

If Person B did everything right, then how come their exchange still ended badly?

The simplest answer is because the Other Person was a narcissist (there's months of supporting evidence behind this ; I'm not going to waste post space justifying why they are in fact a narcissist and not just an asshole) and never wanted a resolution to begin with (however, the fact that Other Person was a narcissist does not negate the fact that Person B was still acting badly and needed to fix their behaviors).

It wouldn't have actually mattered what Person B did or how many sacrifices they made to fix the relationship, because Other Person would have always moved the goal posts to make it impossible for them, with no compromise or desire to collaborate and have a relationship.

Other Person constantly demanded "what are you going to do to fix this situation?", when Person B had actually done quite a lot already to try and fix it in a very healthy, responsible, and respectful manner that any genuine person would appreciate. Person B had already addressed everything that was solely their responsibility to work on.

It was now at the point where, ideally, Person B and Other Person should have come together cooperatively to brainstorm and coordinate the next steps of how they planned to move forward together, or at least end things in a positive way which recognized how hard Person B was genuinely trying to improve and become healthier, even if they didn't wish to continue being friends.

The fact that Person B didn't know what else to do to remedy their relationship beyond what they had already done was actually not a failure on Person B, but a healthy sign that they wanted input from Other Person on what the best thing for their relationship to mend would be, as relationships take two or more people working together equally.

Other Person constantly throwing the ball back into Person B's court and demanding "how are you going to fix this?" without trying to collaborate an answer together was never a genuine question. It was blame-shifting and deliberate sabotage from the start, with a side of true invalidation ("You had other traumatic experiences? So what. I don't care. It happened. Get over it.").

(In the case of Other Person saying that Person B blame-shifted, this actually isn't the case. Their off-hand comment "thanks [Name]" was clearly a tongue-in-cheek joke meant to lightheartedly reinforce that Person B didn't blame Other Person for their maladaptive behaviors, but partially blamed [Name] for giving them trauma (fair) while still taking honest accountability for the actual actions Person B chose to take).

Regardless of how the Other Person responded, Person B perfectly encompasses how to explain behavior without excusing it.

The fact that it was wasted on a person of narcissistic character is unfortunate, but entirely out of their control. What matters is that Person B did everything they could with what they could control, taking ownership of their own behaviors and feelings (and yes, how you feel is your own responsibility) in a way that showed they genuinely cared about how their actions affected others, rather than just being hot air.

Some people would point and say that if Other Person was always going to react negatively anyway, then there was never a point to Person B putting in all that work to change for someone who wouldn't appreciate it.

Do not fall into this trap of thinking.

Because while it might not have mattered to Other Person, that's not the point. Person B still behaved in ways that are not okay to behave in any relationship, and self-improving means that Person B will be able to then go forward and have healthier relationships that actually matter with other people rather than accidentally abuse future friends and partners who don't deserve it because Person B never went through that process of self-improvement, even if it was for the wrong person.

The truth of the matter is that by Person B going through all of that work to change and become better, only for Other Person to continue to shoot them down anyway, they've still technically won, because they've become more self-aware and healthy as a person, while at the same time removing another genuinely unhealthy person from their orbit on terms that make it clear Other Person was not worth keeping around and will never improve or treat other people equally.

In the same vein that Person A ended the group friendship and removed themselves from the group, not because everyone else was being bad to them, but because just like Other Person, Person A believed that it was everyone else who should have to change for them while they themselves never did a thing to either fix the relationship in a genuine manner or take responsibility for the parts that were theirs to take responsibility for.

At that point, Person B genuinely can blame the Other Person for the relationship failing and absolve themselves of any fault, genuinely instead of only to protect their ego.

Genuine change and proper communication starts by leaving your ego at the door, and asking from the start "what part of this is genuinely my fault and my responsibility? What part of this situation can I control?"

The simple answer is your behaviors and your feelings are your own responsibility. No one else's. Just because you feel a certain way doesn't entitle you to treat people a certain way.

"My feelings are valid" doesn't mean "my feelings are never wrong and I must always act in accordance of how I feel". Sometimes feelings are completely stupid, and that goes for everyone.

What "my feelings are valid" means is you are allowed to feel whatever you feel and can't always control how you feel about something, that you shouldn't actively punish yourself for feeling a certain way even if the feeling itself is wrong, and you can't control how other people react even if you do everything right, but having a stupid feeling that's wrong shouldn't stop you from doing what's right. You can feel bad about something and still do the right thing when the right thing contradicts how you feel.

If more people approached every situation by being less like Person A and more like Person B, then a lot of problems with communication in the RPC would be fixed before they even began.

[devils-sources]

salut, my name is devil. i'm 25, i like cats, gaming, paris paloma & sleep token. i like to make icons & rp memes from time to time. i also run a few rp blogs here on tumblr dot hellsite.

icon requirements :

if you'd like to use icons i post here, i'd really appreciate if you could like or reblog them. credit isn't necessary but it's always appreciated. all of the icons that i post will be 100x100. i don't mind if you edit them in any shape, way, or form. the icons i make will always be free to use & will never put behind a paywall. but please don't say that you made them. i still put in time and effort into making & editing them.

posting schedule :

i don't have a set schedule for posting. like rp, i'm just doing this because i want to & it makes me happy.

what do you post here? :

i mostly post bungo stray dogs stuff since that's my hyperfixation, but there'll probably be a mix of other stuff here as well in the future. i guess we'll see.

anything else i should know ? :

no, not really. i just hope that you're having a good day. be sure to drink some water & take your medicine (if you take medicine) if you haven't already. thank you for stopping by.

[devils-sources]

stupid shit that i've said: a compilation (part 1)

" be yeeteth, sayeth the lord. " " oh, it'll be a sandwich. just not a gay one. " " HE LOOKS LIKE A LIZARD " " FUCK [stares at the ceiling] " " you're not dying, not in this house. it's like disney world where you're not allowed to be pronounced dead on the premises. and disney has the best lawyers ; don't fucking test me. " " we should watch [insert movie name]. but only the first one. the second one doesn't exist to me. " " i see how it is. shame me on main. " " WELL I'M NOT NORMAL I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT MY WIFE/HUSBAND DAILY OR I FUCKING LOSE MY MIND " " that is not my wife/husband. SHE/HE IS NOT EVEN REMOTELY ON THE SAME LEVEL " " my off-putting charm and emotional unavailability is what attracts the ladies. " " they match each other's freak. it's the only way that they work. " " can't believe galileo was a myth all along. " " he/she looks like a baked cheeto. " " you desecrated it like raiders on a holy temple. "