#ive had my insecurities regarding the now manager in training. mostly about what she thinks about me

[orcelito]

Honestly the store has come a long, long way since last January where we were legitimately going to hold a store-wide strike b4 the boss and then-manager panicked and started holding meetings with all of us to try to figure out what to do about it

It's still a workplace, but our current employees r in general much happier and content. + there's a better community in general. It's nice to know I had a part in making this happen.

[ohfiendangelical]

first of all, i want to clarify that this is not a callout post. it’s more of a personal catharsis thing — i don’t really have any ‘receipts’, though i do have numerous other witnesses and victims. ive been intentionally vague about this for about 5 years now, trying to keep the peace and avoid any unnecessary drama.

the story i originally gave when miranda and i parted ways was that we were simply incompatible; i implied that we were both good people who ultimately brought out the worst in each other. that is partially true — we were incompatible, and we did bring out the worst in each other. however, there’s a bit more to it than that.

i met miranda through the tumblr rpc in the early days of this particular blog. i was a young teenager. miranda was older than me, though also a teenager at the time; either a junior or senior in high school. she seemed sweet at the time, though shy and insecure. she also seemed sad a lot. we bonded over a love of the film moulin rouge and writing dark subject matter. we had our characters interact, and she quickly grew attached to both zero and i.

she quickly began to exibhit strange behavior. she would pressure me to do plots i wasn’t keen on and get extremely upset if i was hesitant. she was fiercely jealous and she would use her character, abra, to vent her personal grudges and vendettas against other writers and characters i interacted with. she accused a great deal of people in our circles of plagiarism (admittedly, there were a few cases of her suspicions proving to be true) and would bully them relentlessly, sometimes to the point of chasing them off the platform. she decided she didn’t like people seemingly at random and became hostile if i continued to speak to them.

she began to refer to me as her best friend within a few months of our knowing each other. i was not comfortable with this. i didn’t think i wanted to get very close to her, even if i had fun writing with her. however, she persisted relentlessly and pressured me into saying it back, and eventually i trained myself into believing it was true.

she forced the zero and abra ship. that may come as a surprise to people who knew us back then. i didn’t want to do it, but she would have a full-blown breakdown any time i said i didn’t see the two characters ending up together — so eventually i caved and engaged fully. this was another thing i had to learn to enjoy.

any time i made a decision for myself, she would be unhappy with me. this started out as rp- and character-based decisions only, but soon upgraded to any decision regarding real life as well. she didn’t like it when i came up with my own plot ideas and would fight with me. she didn’t like it if i talked to other writers, save for the few she deemed acceptable (until she inevitably had a falling out with them and i was not allowed to speak to them anymore). she didn’t like it if i wasn’t accessable 24/7. she became hostile if she found out i had plans or was not at my computer. she would become irritated if i talked about people in my life that she didn’t already know.

eventually, it got to the point where i rarely ever left my house, afraid of the reaction i would get. due to my mental health, i began to do homeschooling in the middle of my teen years (this was not related to her), which gave her unreserved access to me. i ended up losing contact with more than half my real-life friends. this lasted about 3 or 4 years — most of my formative teen years.

where i wasn’t allowed to have other friends, engage with other writers, have other ships, leave my house, or generally have any life experience, she was. if i brought up this contradiction i would be shamed and berated for being a bad friend. if i was worried about any of the decisions she was making — self-destructive habits, engaging with dangerous people in her real life, handling her money recklessly — i would be even further shamed. she kept me from her other friends, refusing to let me speak to any of them. she publicly played up her popularity with these friends, as well as her “fans” on her personal blog, while rarely ever mentioning me. if she wanted to prove a point, she would ignore me entirely to keep me in my place while championing and publicly lauding these other people. of course, if i spoke to almost anyone other than my few rp friends (which, again, were mostly selected by her whims), there would be absolute hell to pay.

she was fairly popular on her personal blog, and became regarded as an authority and critic on social issues. a great deal of her “hot takes” were extremely damaging, or not thoroughly researched. half the time she did not know what she was talking about. if anyone disagreed with her on anything — even mundane, small things that had nothing to do with social issues — they were deemed either racist or misogynistic or both. (miranda is a latinx woman, so she has had to deal with institutional racism. i want to make it clear she wasn’t a white girl crying racism — all of this is bad enough without misleading claims.) if she were informed she could not be an authority on the plight of demographics she did not fit into, she would throw a fit and talk in circles until she came up with something to make the other person, sometimes a member of the demographic she was representing falsely, appear in the wrong.

she had a great deal of internalized homophobia that offended me (i’m bisexual), and when i called her out on it, she grew highly emotional and guilted me relentlessly. i never brought it up again. after we parted ways, she came out as a lesbian. this was after years of her throwing a fit if i so much as said i’d kiss her in a playful context — though she sexted me once. she became distressed or annoyed if i ever mentioned it, which left me feeling rather dirty and used, especially since i was 17.

the body positively movement was gaining traction around this time, so she latched onto that, “reclaiming thickness”. the problem with that is that she was rather thin with slight curves. i, however, am heavyset — and was made to feel ugly by her for it while she also talked over me about thickness, fatphobia, and body shaming to further her own personal agenda. 

i underwent extreme personality changes with miranda controlling my life. i was an outgoing and confident teenager, if not a bit obnoxious, before i met her; now, to this day, i am rather reserved and shy. i have trouble befriending people. certain typing patterns make me anxious (miranda had a distinct textual tone when she was upset). my self esteem isn’t what it used to be. i have to triple check my own perceptions of things — even now, writing this, i have to wonder if everything really happened the way i remember it, or if i am just melodramatic and oversensitive.

i have countless horror stories, fragmented anecdotes. examples of her behavior.

she once claimed to have taken a bunch of pills in a suicide attempt, then immediately backtracked when i, worried sick, was preparing to call someone, saying that she threw them all up and was fine. she went to bed immediately after, making it clear she was irritated at me for responding to what i can only assume now were theatrics.

when the older boy i thought i was in love with molested me, and i — young, confused, and upset, with only a few hours having passed — considered speaking to him again, she berated me and threatened to cut all contact, saying that she “didn’t think she could be friends with someone who would do that”. (she also berated me when i expressed concern that she was still in contact with someone who abused her.)

a few months after my brother, who i loved more than anyone in the world, died unexpectedly, she expressed the news had upset her because she “knew it would change things between us” — in her mind, my grief took a backseat to the inconvenience of my attention being elsewhere.

when one of my friends expressed interest in one of my characters she was especially attached to, she came at me in violent hysterics, saying “HE’S MINE”, as though he were a real person. this fight escalated to literal life threatening perportions when my friend became hospitalized, the violent bullying and gaslighting from miranda being a factor.

when i began to hang out with my real life friends again once a week after years of isolation, she claimed that i didn’t care about our relationship and that we weren’t “working out”, and she may not want to be friends with me anymore.

i have a lot more, but i think we’ve gone dark enough for now.

i also want to bring up the way i behaved. the relationship did bring out the worst in me. i began to think like her in a lot of ways. there were times when i was cruel and manipulative and selfish. there were times when i was mean to other people. there were times when i would react to something in a melodramatic, irrational way when it didn’t have to be that way. i think that i became a really bad person for a while. there are still some habits that i’m trying to unlearn — like not saying what i mean and then getting upset with people for not knowing anyway, or being harshly critical and judgmental of those undeserving, or seeking out affection through ridiculously convoluted ways. i’m working on it. (honestly, i’m deathly afraid of turning into her.) a lot of it has been worked out of my system after five years, but there are relapses from time to time.

when i began to tell one of my friends about what i was experiencing, i slowly came to realize it wasn’t normal. i came to terms that it was abusive. eventually, i reached a point where i felt brave enough to disconnect. i told her that i couldn’t do it anymore, and then said goodbye. she tried every trick in the book into getting me to stay, but i managed.

i will still get the occasional message from her every six or so months that proves she hasn’t changed and has no intention of changing. the messages range from hostile to desperate to sad and asking for forgiveness.

based on what ive heard from other people, she’s only gotten worse.

there are currently 6 other people i can think of off the top of my head who also had traumatic experiences with miranda. and that’s just the few i know of.

so, there you go — that person i wrote with for years and years and seemed so happy with was basically keeping me hostage. i know that may come as a shock to some, and not to others. i hope anyone else who has been hurt by her is also brought some relief by the truth finally coming out: no, you weren’t crazy!

if anyone else would like to come forward, too, i’m always listening. it may help to talk about it.