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[xivanxiety]

My 5th FC (Approx Sept 2021-Jan 2022)

One might notice I skipped a number. My 4th FC was so short lived I'm not even sure it's worth writing about. But TLDR is, I had been toying with the idea of getting involved with this FC that my friend/in-game neighbor was going to be making. I intended on this being my character's alt FC, but decided to pursue it fully when Greed detonated my last FC. However, this FC was extremely short lived as not even a month after the other FC imploding, my friend/FC lead completely ghosted me and the FC. They deleted the Discord, blocked everyone everywhere, even on Discord and Twitter. At this point I was like "What the fuck is it with me and FCs???"

That was when I ran into Zach. I've mentioned him in a previous journal entry, he is the one who had friends who were in a thrupple with Tyler, and who's ex RP partner was the FC lead to an FC that Tyler also terrorized. Anyway, she'd since ended their RP partnership. This came as no surprise to me as she'd frequently vented to me about her gripes with him. I hadn't spoken to her in about a while. I do know that the last time I spoke to her, it was around the time the drama with Greed was beginning to pick up. This is important information. I can't remember if I ever gave her a name, but let's call her Yuna.

Zach confessed that he'd always admired my character from afar and wished to talk, but he was worried Yuna would read too much into it and think he was trying to flirt or his character's eyes were wandering, so he avoided it. He then confessed that he'd always thought my character was the prettiest of my clan that he'd ever seen, which did have me a tad bit worried because I'm sure Yuna would've hated to hear that, but I'll admit, it makes me proud of my character when people tell me she's the prettiest they'd ever seen. I'd say I agree, but I know everyone has their preferences, she just so happens to tick a number of boxes that draw a number of people in. So one can assume that from that point on, Zach kept in contact with me. And as we spoke we both shared our mutual exhaustion with FCs. I'd had shit luck, Yuna closed down their FC after years of Zach investing his time and energy in maintaining the workshop. We decided we'd make an FC together that was not supposed to be an FC. It was just an FC where we and anyone else could tuck themselves if they just wanted a space to idle, make a room, etc etc.

However, it wasn't long before Zach started to act distant. His responses to me were short, and he just overall seemed melancholy. I asked him if he could talk to me about it. Initially he resisted, but then opened up and confessed that he'd been feeling conflicted because Yuna had seen that he and I were in an FC together and had told him that I was only acting close to him to steal him from her, and if he didn't cut ties with me, she'd never RP with him again. He knew there were slim chances for them to RP anyway, but he didn't want to lose her as a friend. But also, he didn't want to lose the new friend he'd made who was giving him hope that he could find joy in the game once again. I told him I wasn't going to ask him to choose, but I understood if we needed to go our separate ways. I didn't want to burden him and I quite honestly didn't want to get pulled into more drama. Though I did ask what was triggering this, why did she think I was trying to steal him from her? He said that she told him that we had beef. I was able to provide receipts that contradicted what she told him. Our last interaction was nothing out of the ordinary. We'd never had any sort of argument. He said that she claimed that it all happened in-game so she didn't have receipts, which is not true, but it's my word against hers at this point. Luckily I had friends of his on my side. They told Zach that any friend worth the time would never deliver an ultimatum to him like she had, so it was obvious which one to choose. Before he made his decision, he asked me one thing, did Yuna ever say anything nice about him? I chose to be honest. I said no, she mostly vented to me about her gripes with him, but to be honest, all of her issues with him seemed like non-issues to me (and this remains to be the truth, ie. complaining about him afking at an RP event because he had to go help to his disabled sister). And since she was going to be petty, I decided to tell him about the time she ERP'd with Tyler when he was in their FC, which meant her character had cheated on his.

Zach told Yuna that he wasn't going to stop hanging out with me. And revealed everything he learned. She tried to spin the story and claimed that everything I told him was just proof that I was trying to turn him against her. But he corrected her and told her that he asked for it, and what he told her was all he knew. She continued to make me out to be the bad guy, claiming that what I'd said was unforgivable, likely in a pathetic attempt to turn Zach against me, as if being honest is worse than dishing out an ultimatum that requires cutting off a friend. She told him he could continue to be friends with me, but she would never speak to me again.

But that was not the end of her. Apparently she'd been stalking my twitter. One day she told Zach that I'd been passive aggressively tweeting about him and her. I asked for the tweet in question. I confirmed, no, it was not about either of them, it was just a tweet that I felt was a mood because of what I'd dealt with in the past. However, if the shoe fits, that's on her, not me. Zach got mad and said I shouldn't be tweeting stuff that people could misinterpret as directed at them, and he was growing tired of getting dragged into the middle of our feud. I reminded Zach that this was not our feud, this was all 100% Yuna. She was hardly a blip on my radar. I hadn't thought about her until he brought her up. I told him he should tell her to never bring me up again if she wishes to remain friends with him. And I do believe that is the last I heard of her. This wasn't before she went on a spree of doing the thing petty girls do on Discord servers where they spam screenshots after I post mine as a way of drawing attention away from me. She sure showed me.

Things went pretty okay for a moment. This was just before Endwalker was due to come out, and Zach was helping me with bucket list items. We did Eureka and the Baldesion Arsenal together and I finally got my Ozma mount. He asked me to help him kill off his character as he planned on switching to Viera when the new expansion launched. He told me to keep this secret as he knew it would piss off Yuna to learn that he had canonically killed his character, and it was at the hands of my character. Thinking back, I'm also pretty sure this must have been a fetish of his. It wasn't blatantly sexual in nature, but I think he found my characters actions to be attractive to put it politely. He even admitted to developing a thing for me, but neither was he interested in dating. And as a result, he decided to start spoiling me. Just before Endwalker, he bought me all of the parts to assemble a new keyboard, amongst other little items. He told me to put together an Amazon wishlist and he'd pick some things to get me. I asked if he was expecting anything in return, but he reassured me that he just liked spoiling those closest to him, and he felt I deserved it. He knew I wasn't in the best place financially, and some of these things I'd never be able to afford on my own. I won't go into detail of what all he bought me, but it was a lot.

It was quite short lived, though, as the holidays tend to take a toll on my mental health. I was not exactly rainbows and sunshine throughout December and January, my job was quite demanding that time of year, and I was miserable. Zach admitted in the past to not being able to handle negativity and admitted to distancing from friends who struggled with depression. And I was no exception. He started standing me up when we made plans to do things, which didn't make matters any better for him, the inability to communicate and follow through on plans is one of my pet peeves. I'd find myself waiting around for hours to hear back from him. When he was idling in town, he'd fake being afk when I approached him, etc etc. You get the point, he was avoiding me. I could tell, but I wanted him to communicate his issues or just say anything, so I put off being the one to initiate the conversation. And I'm sure as a result, my attitude toward him only got worse for him. Eventually he told me he just wanted distance because I'd become increasingly negative and it was taking a toll on his own mental health. Well, avoiding a person you were once attached at the hip with certainly doesn't help!

From there, we distanced from each other. On occasion he'd show up in my DMs trying to act flirty, such as Valentines Day and on my birthday. I think spending money on me and spoiling me also gave him great joy. But I never held him to his offers on either days. And from that point on, we drifted further apart. He sold the FC to a friend, and eventually swapped datacenters. And I joined my next FC.

[xivanxiety]

My 3rd FC (Approx March 2021-August 2021)

So around December 2020, I started throwing the bait out on finding new people to RP with in hopes I'd finally find the type of RP I was always seeking. I knew it was out there, I just needed to find the right people. I started by perusing people's carrds. I stumbled across one individual with a really clever page. It was designed to look like an old school Final Fantasy game. They even had a matching FC page. Based on the carrd design alone, I reached out to this person and commended them on their carrd design. They corrected me and informed me it wasn't a carrd template, they made it all by themselves. We got to talking and I asked about potentially RP. He seemed to really take a liking to my character and said he was excited for them to meet. I should've seen this as a red flag but he even went on to say "Who knows, maybe she'll even meet her future husband." I chose not to respond to that. He informed me that we wouldn't be able to for a time because he was busy working on his FC and had the holidays coming up. We spoke pretty frequently from that point on for a very short period of time, though by the end of December, he'd stopped responding to my messages. Lets call this guy Greed.

Then in early February I stumbled upon another cleverly designed carrd for a very charismatic looking character, this was Old Man's character. I immediately sent him a message, and luckily, he was just as enthused to RP with me. This time, this guy was more on top of things. He was ready to get things rolling. That was when I got a DM from Greed, "How come you're RPing with Old Man and not me???" It seemed to be in jest, at the time. Turns out Old Man and Greed were in the same FC. I did not realize this as I'd never taken an extensive look and Old Man was listed on the carrd as a different character. This interaction seemed to push Greed into talking to me again. However, he seemed to not take too kindly to Old Man and I RPing. One day he DM'd me asked what I was up to, I told him I had some RP planned. It appears he already knew I had RP planned with Old Man, however, he took up an issue with the fact that I didn't disclose who it was that I was RPing with. He appeared to also talk to Old Man about this concern, seemingly implying it was suspicious that I wasn't telling Greed exactly who I was RPing with, as if I was trying to hide something. Both of them brought this up to me, Greed far more aggressive and suspicious than Old Man. "You know that Old Man and I are in the same FC, did you think we wouldn't talk about it?" Old Man posed me the same question, why hide it? I explained to both of them that I wasn't trying to hide anything, there wasn't anything to hide, that's just how I always talk about people. I don't immediately go into details and disclose names. Old Man seemed to understand, but Greed seemed a little hesitant.

Fast forward about a month or so. Old Man and I have been RPing regularly, meanwhile, Greed has flaked on me twice. Old Man and my character's seem to click instantly and have a fun dynamic. We decided to go into a slow burn romance with our characters, meaning we were in essence RP partners, but our characters were a romance work in progress. And by me officially becoming Old Man's RP partner, he asked if I wanted to join his FC as well to get to know all of his and his character's friends. I happily agreed, but still, that anxiety regarding FCs lingered. Ironically, one of the officers of the FC, Lizzy, told me that they have zero bullshit tolerance, so if ever anyone gave me a problem, to let her know. And guess who the leader of the FC was? It was Greed. Things did not go so well right from the get go, coincidentally as Old Man and I entered our RP partnership, the day after, Greed sent me a DM saying that he no longer wished to write or associate with me because he did not wish to write with people who did not put forth any effort into their writing. I didn't know where the hell this came from, we'd never even written together before! But a panic began to swell inside of me. I knew he'd probably turn to Old Man, so I immediately went to him to tell him what had happened and what was said. Old Man offered to talk to Greed for me, because he really wanted to write with me and he really wanted me to be a part of the group. After some time, Greed spoke to me again stating he still didn't want to write with me, but for the sake of the FC, he'd tolerate my presence and would only interact with me in group settings. However, Greed seemed to eventually get over his qualms with me.

The next month, he'd entered his own RP partnership with a girl we will call Magenta. This struck me as odd because upon entering the FC and tagging along on group RPs, it appeared as though Greed's character was quite close to Lizzy's character to the point I could've sworn there was something going on between the two. Coincidentally, Lizzy appeared to have become upset over an RP suddenly coming to an end, an RP she'd spent months building up. It wasn't confirmed, but I do believe I'd connected some dots here.

Greed's attitude regarding me was quite the rollercoaster. It didn't take long for him to warm up to me again and even express interest in writing with me. However, he was always quick to flip the narrative and make me out to be a bad person. ie. he proposed that we do an RP where my character hires his as a bodyguard. Okay, cool, I can work with that. But the only time our schedules synced up even remotely was the weekends, so I asked him if he was free at all on the weekend so we could do our RP. He proceeded to say "You know weekends are my time with Magenta, so I don't know why you would be asking me. What exactly are you trying to do?" As if he was once again implying that I was up to no good by asking him to RP with me on the weekend. To me, it seemed like he was trying to paint a narrative where I was trying to step between him and Magenta. I wasn't! Were they honestly RPing all weekend long? I couldn't even get in an hour or two?

Then in the flip of a switch, he changed. After an FC event one evening, he sat in Gridania with me just chatting. I don't know how we got there, but there we were, just shooting the shit. Things escalated quickly from there. He confessed to me that he had been such a prick to me because he was jealous, he had been hoping I'd choose his character to be my character's partner, and along the way he realized it wasn't just my character, it was also me he had a thing for. He tried to ask me out on a date. I told him he hardly knew me, he should take some time to get to know me. I wanted us to be on good terms for the sake of everyone else in the FC, and I feared straight up rejecting him would backfire tremendously and he'd once again give everyone this false story, likely claiming I came onto him, and he rejected me. So I just rolled with it as we started hanging out more. I was a bit worried this meant he was hanging out with Magenta less, because I definitely wasn't trying to steal her RP partner from her, I kind of still had Old Man who was at this point struggling with burn out and would inevitably call off our writing partnerships as he took a break from the game. As our partnership came to a close, I was honestly burned out on the prospects of RP partnerships and writing romance and the amount of RP fuckbois I'd have to sift through. Luckily for me, this would be short lived. I'd say it was about 3 weeks of Greed being up my ass, constantly trying to sucker me into going on a date with him, feigning care and concern for me and even starting to call me pet names. When at another flip of a switch, seemingly out of nowhere, he decided to inform me he was no longer interested in me, no longer wished to pursue me, and asked if we could just be friends. Uh, yes? We weren't even dating to begin with?

I was glad to see it hadn't taken a toll on his RP partnership as his and Magenta's characters had recently gotten engaged, so at least I got out of that stage with minimal damage. The group noticed was that he'd started hanging out with another girl from the FC, Kimiko. Kimiko was Old Man's ex RP partner who he'd brought into the FC in hopes of helping her make more friends. She'd quickly entered another RP partnership with another member of the FC that I'll call The Janitor, who'd coincidentally noticed that Kimiko had become withdrawn and lacking enthusiasm for their roleplays as of late. It turns out that the two, Kimiko and Greed, had made alts together and had started RPing on said alts in secret. It was then revealed that the two had started dating OOC as well. Greed began engaging less and less with the FC and became a straight up asshole to me in DMs. And Kimiko only showed up to FC events if Greed was there as well. Meanwhile, Greed's tone with me had completely shifted yet again. He was rather cold toward me in private. The last time I spoke to him, I blatantly asked him if he had a problem with me. He said yes, because from what he had observed, all I ever did in the FC discord was talk about myself and never engaged with anyone, which is funny because that's exactly what he was guilty of. Not me. What is with FC leaders trying to gaslight me?

This was when my gut instincts began to kick in and the puzzle pieces began to fall into place. I started asking potentially involved individuals to see if my theories were correct. From a few conversations, this is the timeline I gathered:

December 2020:

When talking to Greed and looking at his carrd, I noticed a screenshot of his character with a girl. I asked if that was his partner, and he said no, she's just a childhood friend of his. This character belonged to Mia. Mia was Greed's RP partner he'd brought to XIV from Second Life. Apparently he RP'd on both platforms but decided to move to XIV full time and convinced her to join him. So while Greed was making jokes about my character possibly meeting her future husband, he was already in an RP partnership. According to Mia, Greed had told her that I had been barking up his tree trying to steal him from her. But then after meeting me, she knew there was no way that was true.

January 2021:

Greed called things off with Mia, but not for me. He actually left her to enter an RP partnership with Lizzy, the same officer who told me to come to her should I have any issues. He'd apparently already started building things up with his and Lizzy's characters storyline before he even ended things with Mia. Mia told me that he'd told her he needed to find a character who aligned better with his character's story. From a storywriting standpoint, I can kind of understand that, but this guy is clearly a serial monogamist when it comes to RP romance.

March 2021:

He then abruptly brought things to an end with Lizzy when he decided to enter an RP partnership with Magenta. This man had the audacity to be acting like a petty, jealous child this whole time in the span of 3 RP partnerships over my character and tried to convince Old Man that I was suspicious?

Back to the present.

I decided to reach out to Lizzy. Unfortunately, she initially did not take it well. She asked me what I expected her to do, since Greed was her friend. Whatever was going on between me and Greed should stay between the two of us. I could feel the anxiety rising inside me again. She was on his side, not mine. Not that I was expecting her to choose a side, I just wanted her to take note that there was a potential shitstorm coming and I strongly felt it would be a result of Greed's actions.

And then it came.

One morning, Magenta woke to a message from Greed stating that he wished to end the RP partnership. Others would wake to find that Magenta had left the FC discord, thus sparking concern. The Janitor also woke to a message from Kimiko saying that their characters needed to talk. The group did not approve of this relationship and how it was impacting the FC. Kimiko was poly, Greed was not, so surely this would not end well. Both he and Kimiko abruptly ended their RP partnerships to write with each other. Of course, Greed cited other reasons for ending it with Magenta which I feel was just another attempt at manipulating others to make them look bad when it was absolutely unnecessary. I understand wanting to only RP romance with your OOC character, but why not just say that? "First of all, I want to say I'm sorry, but now that I am in a relationship, I feel I need to be able to dedicate more time to my partner. So I feel it may be a bit inappropriate to be dedicating so much time RPing romance with someone else when I could be sharing this time with my partner who also wishes to RP with me. I hope you understand. I'd still like to be friends." See? Easy. Instead, Greed told Magenta and some others that Magenta was being clingy and exhausting, and treated him like he was her boyfriend (when Magenta claims it was the other way around conveniently until he started hanging out with Kimiko). About a month went by and the group could sense an impending doom on the FC, and so, they decided to invite all of the girls who Greed had victimized to their friend group server. Lizzy was already in this friend group server, but they proceeded to add me, Mia, and Magenta. Greed, who was a member of this friend group server as well, saw who'd just joined the server and immediately left, further confirming our suspicions. Around this time is also Lizzy pulled me, The Janitor, and Old Man into a private chat. My nerves were shot, worried I was going to be confronted as one of the shit stirrers, but no, I was greeted with an apology for not heeding my warning about Greed. She let the group vent their thoughts and feelings. She was long time friends with Greed and now an ex RP partner of his, The Janitor was also a friend of his and Kimiko's now ex RP partner, and Old Man was also a friend of Greed and probably the second closest friend Kimiko had in the FC.

Old Man and The Janitor decided they were going to try to reason with Kimiko. They were certain Greed was just going to do the same thing to her as he did the other girls, except this time it would be worse, this time the relationship was OOC. But it was too late. Greed had manipulated Kimiko into believing that he was the victim. Apparently Magenta had also reached out to Kimiko as they had also become good friends up until the point Kimiko started dating Greed. Kimiko repeated everything that was said to Greed. Where upon hearing what had been said, he basically imploded the FC. He deleted the FC discord server and removed everyone from the FC except for him and Kimiko. Both continued to play the victims. And I guess from Kimiko's perspective, that makes sense. But when you have a whole group of friends you've known longer than the guy you're dating telling you this won't end well, he has a history of being a serial monogamist, has lied about other people in order to make them the bad guy, and could potentially behave that way OOC as well, wouldn't you consider it even a little? I don't want to know the things he told her. I was told Kimiko was already not terribly fond of me since I was Old Man's next RP partner after having ended his partnership with her. Then she meets a guy claiming to have had a nasty history with me as well? I wasn't so quick to pity her. She was a grown woman in her 30s getting all wrapped up in a guy like a high schooler with her first boyfriend.

Their relationship lasted a bit longer than everyone anticipated, but it ended just how we expected. Apparently he met someone new and quickly broke things off with Kimiko.

I never understood why Greed had such beef with me amongst all of the other girls. I think it may be because I never expressed interest in our characters being a thing. It was a form of rejection, especially when he saw that I entered an RP partnership with Old Man when he'd met me first. Multiple people have told me that he would frequently gripe about me in DMs, making it painfully obvious he was jealous.

The FC never recovered, no one wanted to step up and reform the FC and I think the drama contributed to burn out for some folks. The friend group server is still active, though, and they still do things together. I remained friends with everyone, but it was time to move onto the next chapter.

[xivanxiety]

I don't belong in this club (Approx. Sept 2020-Feb 2021)

That song is a bop, and a mood. Also the kid with curly hair and glasses looks almost identical to one of my nephews.

I was first introduced to clubs when one evening, some friends and I were hanging outside their FC house when we noticed this guy driving around their ward. Eventually, he noticed us, hopped off of his mount and approached our group. He asked us if we were waiting for the club to open. We had no idea what he was talking about. He said that his friend told him there was a club in this ward. We knew of no such thing, because if there was a club in their ward, they'd know, they've been in this ward since it first opened.

We were bored so we decided to help this guy find this mystery club of his. We learned that it was in this ward... just on a different server. We went as far as to escort this guy to the club, and upon arriving, we decided to head in as well. It was an odd and fun first experience, I will admit. They had a link to an actual DJ who was streaming for the club, not just someone who was streaming a playlist. Honestly, the DJ is who kept drawing us back to clubs. Wherever this DJ was, we went. However, I quickly learned that clubs weren't as innocent and fun as they seemed.

I first made the mistake of walking into a club on my own one evening. I shit you not, I probably received about 8 tells within five minutes. I couldn't stay still anywhere without someone approaching me. I just wanted to support the DJ! I ended up booking it and headed outside. One of these individuals who DM'd me even followed me outside and continued to pester me, asking if I was looking for company. I just teleported away and went back to Balmung. And from that point on, I did not enter a club alone.

Eventually, my shitty RP partner returned to the game and dragged me even further into this scene in the XIV community, under the guise that he was introducing me to fellow roleplayers. I was invited to a Discord server that I'll call The Prima Donnas. They all owned a club or worked for a club. Individually, they were alright people. I'm not here to shit on them, however, as a collective, they turned out to be a very toxic group, and I've been quite frank with a number of these people as they've reached out to me. Throughout my whole time with this friend group, I was always the outsider, and I think a few of them knew that, they knew I was different from them. But I think that is what some of them admired about me. Despite how shitty my RP partner was and his ever-increasing reputation, I was quite likable.

Eventually, I found myself joing the Discord servers for about half a dozen clubs or so, the clubs my RP partner worked for and then the clubs that this group was associated with. I was quite well known for my gposing skills and for how pretty my character was. I could get into clubs before they opened, I was given VIP status just because I was me, it got to a point where people would greet me at almost any venue I went to just because they knew of me. The Prima Donnas often encouraged me to sell myself off at auction events because they knew my character would get some pretty high bids. I knew that I didn't need to offer NSFW services to enter an auction, but generally, that was what people expected from such events, so I never gave it a shot. I also wasn't too sure I wanted get in close proximity of a person who would pay gil for my time. The irony.

The community definitely didn't give me the best of vibes. Some of the people in The Prima Donnas were constantly involved in drama and also displayed catty nature. Some of them would look at people's screenshots and talk about how vain those individuals were for only taking screenshots of their own characters. I couldn't help but wonder, was this how they spoke about me when I wasn't around? I was pretty well known for my shots, and I too only took shots of my character. I brushed it off as jealousy. Besides, we're not obligated to offer our skills as a service.

However, one day, a guy approached me asking if he could commission me for some screenshots as he'd seen my work before and he was looking to update his carrd. I wasn't terribly familiar with him, he'd been around while I was hanging out with groups of people, but I'd never had a conversation with him or spoke to him one on one. But I enthusiastically agreed. I'll note, he was paying me in gil. Not actual cash. So the scheduled day rolled around and I got into a voice chat with the guy while I was working on his shots. Eventually, he struck up a conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with what we were doing. For context, my closest friend at this time was a guy named Angeal. Angeal was another popular member of the community, also known for his screenshots, and we were two peas. We weren't more than friends, but it seemed like a lot of people thought we were at the time. So at some point, the guy started talking "I could have sworn that you and Angeal were dating." He then went on to explain that he was at a beach party the night before and he saw Angeal acting pretty flirty with this one girl, and that at some point, Angeal left the party with said girl. Again, I was failing to understand why he was bringing this up, but it'd later make sense. I informed him that we were just friends, besides, Angeal was poly. After that gpose session, this guy made a few weak attempts at hanging out with me. He was in all of the same servers as me, but he'd always ask me if I could come and hang out with him in voice alone. I always refused, because again, it's not like I was close to him. He was barely a friend.

Some weeks pass by and some random person approaches Angeal and I. They knew neither one of us at all, however, they felt they needed to share some information with us. The guy who had commissioned me for screenshots had drunkenly confessed to approaching me for a commission because he'd been admiring me from afar for some time and wanted an excuse to get close to me and sabotage the relationship that Angeal and I were supposedly in. He was under the belief that we actually were dating, and had hoped by telling me this story about Angeal, that it would lead to a break up, thus allowing him to swoop in and steal me from Angeal. I was stunned. We'd never had a single conversation before the day he approached me for the commission. He was barely in my radar. He knew jack shit about me, nor Angeal. For all he may have known, Angeal and I could have been a couple IRL living together. And this guy, who'd never spoken to me at all, had the audacity to try and break up my supposed relationship for a chance? For a girl he didn't even know??? Do you have any idea how fucked up that is??? I felt so violated. Knowing that for a time, someone was watching me from within the figurative crowd, plotting to end bonds for their own selfish gain with zero regards to my feelings and my life. Angeal was just as disturbed and reported him to the club they both worked at. The guy was fired and banned from a few servers.

Things continued to go downhill from there. At this point, I was done with Tyler (my ex RP partner) and The Prima Donnas were becoming nothing but a source of stress. Angeal had approached me with interest in getting into RP. However, he was starting to behave increasingly flakey with me. Every time we made plans to RP, he'd stand me up, forget, or cancel on me. We were once attached at the hip, but he was beginning to sound more annoyed by my existence. Meanwhile, he was clearly starting to latch onto another girl in the group, Honey. And instead of talking to me and being honest, he instead told the group that I was pressuring him to RP with me (I'd ask him maybe once every two weeks). I caught word of this from another person in the group, which prompted me to approach Angeal, telling him that if he has an issue with me, he comes to me, it's not fair for him to vent to mutual friends. It makes me look bad, may turn the group against me, and not to mention, he was exaggerating the situation and making a whole lot of something out of nothing. Things didn't get better. Angeal didn't get along with one of the other girls in the server, Sunny. I'll admit, Sunny had her faults, she put too much pressure on the friend group, often relying on us for emotional support in ways many felt pushed their boundaries. But she also just straight up didn't like Angeal and would pick fights with him. Then there was Bunny, who was envious of all of us girls and the amount of attention we received. She was unhappy with her own RP partnership and her lack of success regarding her work at clubs. I vented to her about Angeal's changing attitude toward me, which she tried to ride off of claiming that he wasn't talking to her or hanging out with her either. Girl, you weren't even his best friend, RP partner, or romantic partner, stop making this about you. Bunny, being the same race/clan as me even once tried to see if she could get Tyler to go after her purely to spite her RP partner, but for some reason he never took the bait. Though, Honey and Tyler had ERP'd a number of times, so Honey was beginning to lose my respect. Her IRL husband played the game, but she was spending more time E/RPing with other men than spending time with him. I once listened in on him and her ex RP partner talking about how they were concerned about her, especially since she began hanging out with Angeal more. Her husband claimed she wasn't spending a whole lot of time with him or outside the game. She was up until the wee hours of the morning with Angeal.

My anxiety around Discord began to increase once more. I had to set myself to DND, Sunny and Bunny were both constantly DMing with their woes and gripes regarding the group and their own personal problems. There was a whole lot of drama that didn't involve me erupting as well. Clubs closing, club competition, people claiming they were quitting the game, I'd call their bluff, they'd snap back at me (all of these people still play, btw). I gave zero fucks at this point.

Eventually, I noticed the server just... died. People were still posting in the channels, however, the voice chats were empty except for Sunny who was waiting for people to show up. I was heading home from work one evening when Sunny sent me a screenshot of someone's Discord, it was Bunny's now ex RP partner, Chad, who also ran the Discord server. He'd briefly posted a screenshot of his screen in one of the channels only to immediately remove it. But not fast enough! Sunny snatched it right up. And in that screenshot you could see his Discord window, and in it was a private voice chat in the server called 'Sneakret Club' and in the voice chat was everyone but me and Sunny.

They must've known what Sunny was going to do because I had people, including Angeal, flooding my DMs defending themselves and trying to explain things. I was not kind to them. I wasn't the least bit surprised. What I haven't mention was that this wasn't the first time they did this. A bit back they were planning a map run, and there was one member in the server who they knew wouldn't agree with their drop rules, so instead of saying something as simple as "These are the rules, if you don't like it, well then, it's probably best to not tag along," they created a secret voice chat where they invited everyone except for that one individual. I voiced how ridiculous I thought it was that they felt the need to go about the steps of making a secret voice chat when they could simply tell them the rules. I doubt it'd hurt their feelings or upset them. This individual wasn't exactly sensitive. I also told them that if they found out, it could do more harm than had they just been honest up front. So, I reminded them of that instance, and what I told them. They ruined my trust. From that moment on, I would wonder, any time chat was dead... were they avoiding me? What were they saying behind my back? Because I knew what this was about. Angeal's tone then shifted and said that he is entitled to a safe space. Safe space from what?? I once again learned that he'd been talking shit about me again, claiming I was being clingy. I wasn't, he just wanted to spend all of his time with Honey and no one else.

Not a single person tried to get my side of his story. Not Chad, not Honey, not Bunny. They all happily went along with it until I found out. And so, if by some freak chance one of the people from this group is reading this and wondered why I left and distanced myself from all of you, this is why. Not a single person save for Sunny was a true friend. Honey continuously ERP'd with my RP partner fully knowing my frustrations. She could've been a homie and turned him down and told him to go write with his RP partner for once. Angeal lied about me to our mutual friends and threw me under the bus, and Bunny, fully knowing my frustrations and anxiety, selfishly went along with it because she just wanted to be one of the cool kids and was probably happy to learn that she'd made it into the 'sneakret club'.

This amongst many things put me off of the club scene entirely. Never ask me to go to a club with you.

Other Reasons Why

You know that individual I mentioned who followed me outside the club? Yeah well, that person would continue to follow me every time they saw me at a club, even if I was with other people. This went on for months.

There was also simply just too much catty behavior. A friend of mine had a gf who did not like me, she was convinced I was after her man despite us not being on speaking terms (she turned him against me for a period of time). And any time I posted a screenshot on any mutual server, she'd spam screenshots to bump mine away. He confirmed that she was indeed doing it on purpose.

There was a girl who was envious of me and it was really awkward. She had once upon a time been close friends with Angeal, and he was no longer interested in being friends and was trying to gradually distance from her. Looking back, he was probably doing to her what he did to me, however, girly was not taking the hint, so in some ways I did her a favor. Anyway, Angeal submitted himself to an auction. However, this same girl was winning the bid for him. All of the Prima Donnas put together a pool of gil for me to bid on him. I won the auction. Afterward, she started sending me tells informing me that she really wanted to win the auction. She was really hoping she'd be the one to win, and she'd have won if it wasn't for me. She just wanted some time with her friend as she hadn't gotten a chance to hang out with him in a long time. I simply told her "You shouldn't have to pay for your friend's time. If he wanted to hang out with you, he would." She then started DMing me on Discord badgering me with questions, asking stuff like "Are you two dating???" and just being all around nosy. I reported her to the people running the auction and they had a talk with her. Coincidentally, she soon fantasia'd her character to look suspiciously similar to mine. Same hair color, same eye color, same hair style, and freckles.

Meanwhile, Angeal had another girl hung up over him. He said he made the mistake of ERPing with her one time and ever since she'd follow him around to clubs. He said he knew she'd be especially jealous of me because our characters were of the same race and we had the same face and hair color, but were different clans. Sure enough, the next time we were in a club together, she spotted him talking to me and slipped into his DMs stating that she noticed that he replaced her with a less attractive version of her. She asked him not to forget about her. From that point on, this girl made it her personal goal to steal the attention of anyone I was speaking to. One friend stated that she'd sent them a tell "She's cute, but I'm cuter ;)" and another said that she was willing to let him and our other friend treat her like a spit roast. This girl had quite the following on social media, and it's funny that so many people adore her but I know how disgusting and petty she can be in private.

I had an acquaintance who ran a rather popular club. He often extended invites to his club which also operated as an FC. I told him I wasn't keen on the club scene anymore, so I was hesitant to get involved. He told me I didn't need to interact with the club side of things, they had channels specifically for just the FC. My internal logic was thinking "Yes, but where do you find your members? Your club" He said I could join the server as a member with little commitment, he just wanted to provide me a community to be a part of since he noticed I was running around without an FC. He told me they have zero drama tolerance and will not hesitate to remove people causing a problem, and to just let him know if anyone was causing trouble. Within minutes of posting a screenshot of my character in their screenshot channel, a guy slipped into my DMs and started trying to flirt with me, his first statement being that my character was cute, he then asked if I wanted to hang out in-game sometime because he wouldn't mind getting to know me better. His character looked like an absolute fuckboi. I DM'd my friend, who was also the leader of the FC, and told him that someone had already slipped into my DMs. I looked him up on Discord and saw that he'd just joined the FC that day. My friend responded stating that he encouraged guys to shoot their shot, and basically defended the guy, stating that he probably just genuinely wanted to get to know me. Bruh. This isn't a dating app!

Then much later on, about mid 2022, long after I'd left the club scene, I started RPing with this one guy. He brought me to the venue he worked at which was an adventurer's guild. After the venue closed, he and his friends were going to go venue hopping and invited me to tag along. I was fine with this as long as it wasn't a club, and he knew this, I was adamant. No clubs. Eventually, the group brought us to a club. I tried to be understanding. It was a completely different DC so maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Nope. It was the worst club I'd ever been to. People were openly ERPing on the dance floor. I sent him a tell informing him that I'd be leaving. My character would not canonically go to a club, much less one where people were fucking on the dance floor, so I couldn't be IC like everyone else was, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He then logged out on the spot, didn't say a damn thing to me. I sent him a DM on Discord asking if he was okay, and he then informed me he no longer wished to RP with me because he did not like that I was shaming him for going to clubs. He then blocked me. That was the last time I went to a club.

[xivanxiety]

My Second FC (Approx July 2020-Nov 2020)

This is the story of the second FC I joined. If the reader has been following my blog entries chronologically, this occurred during Tyler's hiatus period and a bit after his return.

After my first FC, I was definitely dealing with some mild form of trauma regarding FCs. I was deathly afraid of the idea of joining an FC. I didn't even join my friend group's FC for fear of it ruining the friendships I'd formed, like as if joining an FC would suddenly turn everyone against me, or someone would suddenly decide they didn't like me and make it their purpose in the game to push me away.

One day I was idling in Limsa Lominsa. For Balmung... Limsa is quite tame. It's not where the RPers hang out. However, I received a DM from some guy, I don't even remember what he said, but I musn't have found it terribly offensive because we got to talking and he expressed an interest in RPing sometime. It went well, our characters both had a knack for adventure and exploration. His FC also had a very interesting premise, which was quite fitting for my character. He encouraged me to join. I explained my reservations, however, it only made him try harder. He said he'd pay for my FC room, and I was welcome to leave at any time. If anything, I could simply use the FC as somewhere to go and idle. So, I took him up on his offer. He warned me that his FC was kind of dead due to a content lull, but he was planning on getting things rolling again and continue their group RPs.

Everything was going smoothly. Everyone else in the FC was chill, I liked the theme of the FC, how well the house was decorated, where it was located, and eventually, Joe asked me, should my RP partnership come to an end, could his character have a go at it. Everything was otherwise going okay, so I said sure. However, it wouldn't be long before it became quite apparent that Joe had taken a liking to me. We hung out in voice chat a lot and while I was single at this point, he quickly made it clear that anything more would just be a terrible idea.

One day he was showing off his anime figure collection to me, which consisted mostly of women, aka waifus. I had no strong opinion on it. I wasn't impressed, nor was I icked over it. It wasn't a huge collection, modest in size, so I wasn't exactly weirded out by it. I think I said something like "Oh nice" which sounds on brand with the way I speak. I was completely thrown off guard though when Joe asked "What? Are you jealous of my figures or something lol?" I reassured him I was not. He then asked me why I was suddenly giving him just one word responses. I pointed out that I wasn't, what I said was not a single word, and I only responded to him once, a single two-word response does not confirm a change in tone. He began pestering me about the figures supposedly bothering me, which I continued arguing back that I didn't give a shit about his figures. He then pointed out that my tone was definitely off. I confirm, yeah, now that he kept prodding me about supposedly being jealous of his anime waifus. He then started going off on me about how I need to just be honest right from the get go, especially when it's someone who cares about me. But the thing is, I wasn't bothered by the figures! I was bothered by his persistence and the notion of me being jealous over plastic anime girls owned by a guy that was honestly rapidly beginning to put me off. This quickly became a recurring interaction between us. I don't remember all of the incidents, but this guy was definitely a gaslighter. I even once told him that he was beginning to remind me of my ex (as one of the reasons why we wouldn't work), to which he told me I needed to stop comparing him to my exes (I only did it once), that I need to keep the past in the past or else I was going to self sabotage myself. I told him that our past experiences are what help us learn. I know what I do and don't want and I know what to look out for. He tried claiming that no one does that. That is not a normal way of thinking.

This guy was clearly insecure with himself. He had some sort of beef with the fact that most modded anatomy in the game was well endowed and would go on tangents about how unrealistic they were and how they set unrealistic expectations. This stuff got his blood boiling. Please, tell me you have a small dick without telling me you have a small dick. This guy had a legit complex over this. No one asked for these tangents, yet I had to witness a handful in the short period I knew this guy.

It wasn't long before he went on hiatus. He had some oh woe is me living situation where he had a messy roommate who honestly was nowhere near as bad as a lot of people I've seen. But apparently, it was so taxing on his mental state that he couldn't bear to play the game, and thus, he declared a hiatus. He also went silent on Discord.

A month or so go by and I notice that he's logged in and idling in front of the FC house. I run up to greet him and as soon as I close in on him, he logs out. I then DM'd him, with the intentions of being lighthearted, and say "Hope I didn't spook you!" He then responds with "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't guilt trip me for logging out. I just wanted to log into the game for once and hang out with my friends. I don't need you making me feel like shit for that! I don't need this right now!"

Dear lord. This was about the time that I decided I definitely needed to find a new FC. I couldn't deal with this guy. I liked all of the other members, but this guy was constantly projecting onto me and trying to manipulate me with every interaction. I'd only known him about 3 months at this point.

More time goes on, and the FC is a ghost town. Only 3 people tops signed in a day. This goes on for months. Eventually, I hit a point where I need change. I was wanting to end my current RP partnership, I wanted to leave the club community behind, and I needed to make more friends. I decided to DM Joe and ask what his plans were for the future of the FC. He responds with something like "No, I have no plans to come back to the game soon. No, I don't have any plans for the FC, and no, I don't care if you want to go find yourself a new FC. And lastly, no, I'm no longer interested in our characters being a thing." Thank god.

So, I added to my carrd that I was low-key on the lookout for an FC, but only if the FC was really convincing. At this point, I'd rather go without an FC or just float in this one while Joe was on hiatus than to risk joining another problematic FC. In this FC's defense, it was all Joe, not the members. I believe another month goes by and out of nowhere Joe sends me a DM "With your increasingly passive-aggressive behavior, it's become clear that your time with this FC has come to an end. I want you out of my FC by the end of the day, I really don't need this right now." Always with the I don't need this right now. I asked him where the fuck this was coming from because I hadn't spoken to him in weeks, so how and where the fuck was I being passive aggressive?! He said I was humiliating him by advertising that I was looking for a new FC in my Carrd. Boy, if you are on hiatus, why the hell are you looking at my Carrd? Especially after I came to you to talk about it, and you said you didn't care. Also, from the very beginning, I was told I could leave at any point. I noticed in our Discord chat, he had deleted portions of our previous conversation, most notably the bit where he said he didn't care if I went and looked for a new FC. Probably to make me look bad as he showed people our chat logs or so I couldn't use it against him.

And boy, I gave that guy one Hell of a verbal smackdown. He'd done nothing but gaslight me time and time again, always blaming everyone but himself for his problems, only to constantly throw out the line "I don't need this right now." Which I mockingly closed my tangent with. I wish I had a copy of what was said to him, but it certainly got his panties all in a bunch. I blocked him immediately after my last message. He then logged into an alt account and started DMing me there. I didn't bother reading anything he said, I just blocked him again. He started getting other FC members to DM me as well. I ignored those DMs.

But I made my exit. I cleaned up my FC room and left. I sent a few DMs to some of the members, asking if, despite how things ended up between me and Joe, if they still wanted to be friends. Most didn't respond, and those who did were suspicious of me, thinking I was trying to turn everyone against him.

It's been a few years now and from what I know, he's purged the FC twice. All of the people who were in the FC at that time are now in their own FC. He has also changed his character's name and appearance. I think this information speaks for itself.

[xivanxiety]

Pain in the Ass Turned Stalker (Part 2) (Approx March 2021 - Present)

In the last episode of Pain in the Ass, I spoke about an ex RP partner of mine who basically kept me at arm's length to hide the fact that he was a massive fucking creep. I ended our RP partnership around November. I think in the blog I wrote December, but after really thinking about it, I'm pretty sure it was November. Point being, I was done and I made it clear I wished to no longer write with him. But was that actually the end of him? Of course not.

Months go by and I am feeling hopeful for my RP future. In that time I met the exact type of RPers I'd always wanted to RP with. I had cut ties with the club scene RPers, met more immersive, lore-abiding RPers, found a chill RP partner and joined his FC where I made even more friends. It was great. The RP partnership didn't last as he was experiencing burnout, but that's okay. I stayed with the FC and friend group and we are still homies to this day. Spoiler: My time in this FC did not go without its own drama, another blog entry to come.

One day, I was sitting in voice chat with one of my FC mates, we were idling and people watching in the Quicksands when I noticed a guy standing practically up my ass. It's generally considered courteous to give other players some space unless you just accidentally stopped in the wrong spot or popped in on them. But if you're parking in the Quicksands, you generally don't hover. My FC mate even made a remark about it. I had coincidentally just mentioned Tyler (my ex RP partner) briefly when I noticed the guy hovering around me. He looked identical to his ERP alt, different name though.

The next day I was hanging out with some other FC mates in the Quicksands, again, shooting the shit when I noticed the same guy lurking nearby again. Unfortunately, my two FC mates had to leave, and as soon as the second of the pair logged out the lurker immediately targeted me. Now suspecting it really was him, I ran away and headed for a more secluded part of Ul'dah. I went to DM my FC mate about it and when I looked back at my screen, he was right there again, standing obnoxiously close to me. I was faking being afk, allowing my chair symbol to sit there while I stared at the screen. Eventually, he fucked off, but not after sending me a tell. He told me he'd taken a look at my carrd and wanted to know if I wanted to write together sometime. He described his character as a silver fox paladin from the same region as my character. I ignored the tell, looked him up in player search, read his search info, and sure enough, it was definitely him. He always wrote his search info in the same format. Not to mention, the way he spoke was rather unique, and one of the biggest indicators that it was him. ie. He often wrote in incomplete sentences where he never referred to himself, like normally you'd write "I read your Carrd, and I took an interest in your character." He'd say "Read your Carrd. Took an interest in your character." There were other identifying characteristics and habits of his that I would eventually use to identify him that I won't reveal here because people have already exposed some of the ways we identified him and he's since adapted.

Anyway, I digress. I searched for his character again and saw that he was either offline or no longer on Balmung, so I booked it for the Quicksands in search of a friend. This friend was of a race that Tyler absolutely despised, and why? Because he felt this race was easy street to ERP. These guys didn't have to work for it, girls just threw themselves at this race. So if he saw me talking to a guy of this race, it would surely ruffle his feathers.

It didn't take long before he hit me up in my tells again asking if we could RP sometime and see if our characters vibe. I decided to respond, and I quote from receipts: "Hm. I dunno, tbh. It says your character is a bartender and courtesan. And while I personally do not shame people for sex work, I am going to assume you work for clubs and brothels. I do not have positive experiences with that side of the community and it has left a sour taste in my mouth. I am a higher league of RPer so to speak."

He then logged off right on the spot. And as I am relaying what just happened to my friend, another character walks up and immediately starts bombarding me with tells asking if my character could tutor their BLM. I once again check the search info, and yep, it's him again. I also noticed that with both characters, when approaching me, they would target me and then my friend and then me again. I rejected him again, informing him that my character is of a completely different class and knows jack shit about Thaumaturgy. Besides, even if she did, you can't just willy nilly teach it, it's a forbidden art due to its destructive nature. So most lore and law abiding RPers would be like "Oh hell naw." Though truthfully, I don't care. If you want to RP a BLM go for it. I just wanted to gatekeep him. My friend then decided to aid me in triggering this douchebag. They walked up, /joy at him, targeted me, and we both teleported to his house. To which, Tyler said, "Have fun with your [friend's race]. Feel free to get in touch when you want actual storyline." Bitch please. He just showed me his house before we parted ways.

He then immediately started DMing me on Discord! These bits I have actual record of so I will be sharing the actual exchange:

Tyler: So here I am Tyler: Middle of a Clash match Tyler: And I get two different boops Tyler: Both from [brothel name here] members about meeting you Tyler: I've been summoned from the grave to ask one simple question Tyler: Did they hit on you? XD Me: They did not Me: Though one of them looked suspiciously identical to your character Tyler: Ah, you caught me Tyler: Dramatic Sigh Tyler: Was it Jake? XD Tyler: [someothercharacter] is my main til male viera hit the market Tyler: Gonna depend highly on lore Tyler: Sorry for trying to be lighthearted but that's not me Tyler: Only get on for Nier raids and Experts now Me: Btw I'm extremely perceptive. I saw you the other day when I was hanging out with my friend. Then I saw you again earlier when I was hanging out with some other friends Tyler: I'm just sort of shocked tbh Tyler: Do I really come across as that kind of person? You aren't the first person to accuse me either Me: I've seen some stupid shit in this game, and from you Me: I refuse to RP with people who are involved with the club scene in this game, that includes you Tyler: Lol if you need to meet the two of us together to ease your pain I will ask them to log Tyler: Idk what you think of me now but if you think I'm that kinda person well that's on you Tyler: I did have you as a sinfo for awhile not ngl that's kinda humourous XD Tyler: Anyhow get the feeling you've been holding onto some trust issues or whatever so I'll leave you given the accusations

This is where my receipt ends. I blocked him. The audacity to even lie about using my character's search info and likeness. But he was clearly gaslighting me here and trying to get under my skin.

Then in October I joined a Discord server with a friend of mine, we'll call him Zach, it belonged to a former FC mate of mine as well. Yeah, it was a club, but so far it seemed to keep itself separate from the Crystal club community. It was quite small. I mostly joined to tag along on a map run. He was friends with two other people who worked for this club, Lucy and Becky. They were close friends of his, the two of them being best friends, and their characters were also in a relationship. When I was reading the general chat in the Discord server I noticed that it was informing me that a few of the messages were being blocked. I looked at the collapsed messages and lo and behold... it's Tyler.

I immediately inform Zach that Tyler is a regular in that Discord server. He was familiar with my past regarding Tyler. He immediately demanded to know who it was. I pointed him out and... well, unfortunately, Tyler so happened to be the new addition to Lucy and Becky's thrupple. They'd opened their character's relationship and allowed Tyler's character in. Zach made sure to let the club owner know about this, along with Lucy and Becky. It wasn't long before Becky DM'd me asking if she could hear my experiences with him because she'd heard things from other people and was beginning to regret her decisions. I laid it all out for her, to which she said "I knew I should have listened to what people were saying." Meanwhile, Lucy had started coming to me as well to confide in me. She never wanted to do a thrupple with him, but she also didn't want to lose Becky. She relayed his problematic behaviors to me, such as the on-brand slut shaming and trying to force their characters into ERP. His writing had definitely gone downhill. It was atrocious. The dude was making a mockery out of the people he was writing with. Lucy's character was a lesbian, not physically attracted to men, so she never had any interest in ERPing with him. Not long after, Becky ghosted Tyler. She blocked him everywhere. Lucy didn't have the courage to straight up ghost him, so she just distanced from him as best as she could manage and hoped he'd disappear.

Around two months later, I posted my Carrd to another Discord server and in the early hours of the next morning, I received a DM from a lady named Betty. I was immediately suspicious because Betty had ticked off two of my major indicators that it was Tyler. Coincidentally I soon received a DM from Lucy in distress. She wanted to know if Tyler had ever tried to introduce me to friends of his, because he'd approached her mentioning he knew of this girl who was also into girls and wanted them to meet. I mentioned that he claimed to have recommended me to people before. She said she had RP'd with this chick a few times now, talking for about a week, and she was beginning to worry it was him as she hadn't heard a damn thing from him since. However, their writing was much better and they weren't behaving like a jackass. I asked for their Discord handle and character name. It was the same person who'd just DM'd me asking to RP. The same person with the red flags signaling it was Tyler. Lucy shared screenshots of their conversations. It was definitely him.

I'd had enough and I laid a verbal smackdown on him via his Betty account. I told Betty that I knew who he was and I knew what he was doing and from that moment on he was not allowed to contact me anywhere. Not on Discord, not in-game, or else I would report him for harassment because from this moment on, any form of contact is irrefutable harassment and stalking. I also wanted him to leave Lucy alone and if he didn't, I'd report him for that as well. I'd already reported him in-game and was told they'd keep the case open. If he contacted me in-game again, to respond to the ticket attached to the case and they'd address it.

He immediately DM'd Lucy on his other Discord account as himself and said he had no time to talk, Betty had supposedly already told him all of the details and now that he knew that Lucy associated with me, it was best they go their separate ways. He then told her to "Have fun with the drama queen," and blocked her.

Sadly this was not the end of it. As far as I know, he hasn't tried to make contact with me. If he ran into me in the game he'd try to taunt me via emotes, but wouldn't speak to me.

Since then...

I was informed that Tyler had found and started stalking Becky in another game, and had weaseled his way into RPing with her. She immediately blocked him.

I was hanging out in a group voice chat in another friend's Discord server when another chick, same race/clan as me and the owner of a brothel, started talking about some guy who was pestering her to enter an RP partnership with him. When she mentioned his name, I knew it was him. I then DM'd her letting her know that he had a past and a reputation and she should be careful with him. Of course, she didn't believe me. Instead she went to him to ask about it. Apparently he told her that he was surprised to hear such a thing coming from me. She then told me it was unwise of me to blindly DM someone who doesn't know me and spread lies about their friends. Why should she take my word over a friend? She then told me to stop letting him live in my head rent free. Okay, whatever. Ignore when a girl is trying to look out for another girl. Enjoy your stalker. It's no problem to me. I did offer to provide receipts but I wasn't that determined to convince her. Spoiler: He's no longer in her FC.

Tyler continued to target Lucy. She once again discovered him hiding away on another alt that he'd been RPing with her on. This time she put her foot down and told him to fuck off, herself.

I saw Tyler running around in-game one day and noticed he was sporting a familiar new FC tag. It was my friend's FC. I reached out to my friend with receipts, he forwarded them to his FC lead, and Tyler was soon removed from the FC.

Lucy had yet another run in with Tyler at a venue she worked at. He'd booked her and of course that didn't go well. In disguise, he sexually harassed her. She quickly figured out it was him and reported him to the venue owners and FC, which he'd recently joined. They immediately banned him. Of course he fed them lies, stating he just wanted to talk to her, claiming she'd ghosted him and he never understood why (she showed me the chat logs). But we all know that he first initially blocked her, made contact with her, she made it abundantly clear she did not want to speak with him, and blocked him.

And the most recent run-in with him was just a few months ago. He was found trying to slither his way into Lucy's personal Discord server, and unfortunately, was not caught before he'd ERP'd with some people. What exposed him? His garbage writing. An excerpt from one of the sessions was spread around and meme'd on. I got the joy of getting to read it out loud to my partner and shared it with some friends as well.

This dude is a fucking cockroach and he will never learn. I'm sure I'm rid of him, however, I'm worried it's not over for Lucy. However, I will continue to do what I can to warn people about him.

[xivanxiety]

The Biggest Pain in My Ass (Part 1) (Approx March 2020 - Nov 2020)

I'm not one for witch hunts, callouts, blasting, and warning people about others. It's usually not fair to the other parties as often there's two sides to the story and I've been a victim of this behavior as well. However, this guy is the one exception to that rule. If I know a friend or a friend of a friend is in close proximity to this scumbag, I will tell them to watch out for him, and I do have receipts and people to back me up. I and others have gotten him removed from FCs and banned from venues because this man is a genuine menace. But why and how did he earn such an honored position of being the one person in XIV that I will not hesitate to protect girls from?

Let's call this guy Tyler, everyone has known an asshat named Tyler. He was the first person to ever approach me for RP in XIV. This was just before I'd taken the plunge into Balmung. I decided to give RP a shot and posted my Carrd to an RP discord server, and within minutes I received a DM from a guy, Tyler, stating that he was interested in arranging an RP. He asked if we could meet at the izakaya venue he was working at. I agreed to meet him there.

When I arrived, there was a suspicious amount of girls who were of the same race and clan as me, all of which were emoting at him and trying to get his attention. I decided to make my character a wallflower. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind, I was beginning to think it was all some ploy to get people to the venue. The writing was atrocious filled with unnecessary purple pros and pick-me girls. I sent Tyler a tell informing him that I was just going to head out because this was not what I had in mind. He asked me to emote something at him that could cue them meeting again because he'd really like to RP with me sometime. I then had my character drop her journal with an 'if found, return to' note jotted inside of it.

Tyler then DM'd me to arrange a day where we could RP one on one and have our characters meet properly. And in that RP, his character was supposed to show up at my character's home to return the journal. Everything was going fine until he starting writing about his character staring at my character's chest. He then made an advance at her and tried grabbing at her chest. I was disturbed by the way things were escalating so I had my character reject him and brush his hand away, I also made sure to tell him OOC that no such interaction was going to be happening. He then tried to claim that there was no way I wasn't planning for something to happen when I invited him for a private RP and my character was wearing the Dalmascan Draped Top (it was my default glam at the time!). He then had his character grab at the cloth of her shirt, exposing her breast. I immediately brought the RP to a halt and put my foot down. He tried to play it off all cool like he had suddenly grown bored of the interaction and needed to leave, as if I hadn't brought the RP to an end. He also made sure to leave a little remark stating that my character was a waste of a [insert her race/clan here] because she does not follow the typical clan culture.

I went through the typical motions people go through after interactions like that, be it in real life or online. Did I lead him on? Did I give off the impression that I wanted that kind of RP?

Anyway. I moved on. I ended up leaving my FC, moved to Balmung, gained a stalker, and attracted a few other creeps, but I also made some awesome friends along the way. But then one day, I guess he spotted me in Ul'dah because he sent me a tell saying he wanted to apologize for how things had gone last time we RP'd, and he wanted to try again to make up for the last time. I accepted, I shouldn't have but he sounded genuine (at the time). And yeah, the second time around went much smoother. We continued RPing and eventually, I let our characters enter a romance. On paper, they were a good match. However, it wasn't long before he had to go on hiatus (or so he claimed).

I come from Tumblr and forum RP. I am used to RP communities where you have to wait days, weeks, Hell, sometimes even months for a continuation on your RP, so I didn't think much of it when he had to go a period without playing XIV. I did ask if we could do Discord RP, however, it even took him a long time simply to respond to me on Discord, I have my theories about this as well.

I will admit it was difficult, always having to make up stories about where her partner was and what he was doing. Creeps would pull the whole "Why is her man just leaving her on her own like that? If it were me I'd be by her side at all times," spiel. Gross. Though truthfully I was beginning to wonder if I should just give up and move on. I had just joined a new FC that sounded right up my character's alley and the FC lead had asked that if my RP partnership ended up failing, if his character could take a shot at wooing my character. That too is a whole other story.

Another month goes by and just as I'm about to give up, I run into Tyler. My friends and I had started dipping our toes into venues and clubs and one day I was with the squad just goofing off in a club when I took a look at my friend list and saw that not only was Tyler online, but he was on the same server, same housing district, but in a private chamber. I sent him a tell and asked if we were at the same venue. It took him a bit to respond, but he sounded surprised. Yet, he didn't do anything like ask me where I was, try to meet up with me, find me, etc. Later, Tyler sends me a tell and asks if we could meet at my apartment. He tells me he's back in the game and he feels we should really pick things up and get rolling on our RP. He also wanted to introduce me to a group of friends of his. I was glad to hear he was back and eager to get things going. Everything happened so fast. He added me to a Discord server with the stupidest of names, I won't expose it but in this case, I'll say it's the equivalent of The Prima Donnas. Everyone there was supposedly an RPer. But what I do know is they were all involved with clubs. Either they owned a club, or they worked at a club, including Tyler.

He proceeded to bring me to a slew of clubs, proudly introducing me as his RP partner to several people. Again I noticed a lot of his female friends in the game were of the same race and clan as my character. Everyone was quite friendly and welcoming. Tyler pulled me aside and said he needed my okay on something. He said he was going to be working for a club that was going to be opening up, however, anyone who worked for this club had to be willing to do sex work. I said I was not okay with that as we agreed upon entering our RP partnership that our characters were monogamous, he especially made sure that I knew that and would respect it. Not to mention, I didn't want to deal with petty, jealous clients who could not differentiate IC and OOC when I just wanted to write. Did he respect this? No. I asked him why he even asked me to begin with, and he tried spinning this on me claiming that he never said he was going to respect my wishes, he just wanted to know what I thought. He blatantly gaslit me here claiming he didn't say he wanted my permission, he wanted my opinion. And as a compromise he was going to make a new character to do the sex work with. Okay, sure, whatever.

I once again was in a space where I felt so out of place. This wasn't the type of RP I liked, and yet these people were warping my perception, making me think that this is what RP in XIV is like. I'd never played Second Life, but I feel like it was something like this. I think I will stop on that subject here because I feel I could do a whole other post on the club scene in XIV.

So did we ever pick up on our RP? Hardly. He was working at 4 different clubs at the same time and was quickly becoming quite flighty and avoidant. In Discord servers he was definitely possessive and boasting, he didn't like seeing people compliment my character. I was quickly becoming a well liked person in this corner of the community. People thought my character was so pretty, I was friendly and chill. I could gain access to clubs before they opened and met capacity. I was put on VIP lists for free just by being me. People told me they didn't blame him for being possessive as an RP partner because he'd snagged himself a quality person. However, those closest to us knew he was far from a worthy RP partner. A lot of these people took pity on me and often gave him shit for how little he was giving attention to writing with me in comparison to his time at venues.

I'd go a month or more between RP sessions with him, all of which he would try to turn into ERP. Meanwhile, he practically lived in venues, brothels, and clubs. He even tried to force my character onto her knees once and once again abruptly ended the RP session when I made it clear I wasn't looking to ERP. I should have run at that point, but this side of the community had me convinced that this was as good as it gets. He was spending more time on his alt than his main. I spoke to him about this numerous times mentioning that if this sex worker alt of his was essentially going to become his main, I didn't want my character tied down to an alt. I didn't want to waste my time. I gave him a choice to back out so he could go be the horndog he was. But each time he begged me to stay, claiming I was the best writing partner he'd ever had and he just wanted to be like me and he hoped that by being writing partners with me, his writing would improve. With our friend group giving him more and more shit over his lack of attention to our characters, he eventually distanced from them, claiming they were just looking to start drama, that what they thought shouldn't matter, all that matters was that we were content with our characters and the story. But little did he realize, I wasn't.

I had learned that this guy had quite a reputation.

First, I'd made a friend who was also of my race and clan and a sex worker who had been booked by him at her venue where he proceeded to slut shame her for being a sex worker, all the while still expecting her to do her job. He was banned from that venue as a result. This adds up as he'd always jokingly call the girls in the friend group server whores and sluts, but then in private would admit there was truth to it, and one of the reasons he liked me was because my character's story didn't involve sex work.

I'd also recently made another friend who I was RPing with a little here and there. She was, again... from my race and clan. I was venting to her about my headaches with my RP partner when she was like "Wait wait wait... is his Discord handle tylerisacreep#6969?" (not his actual handle) I confirmed, yes. And she responded with, "Oh Hell no, you need to get the Hell away from him." Apparently, he'd joined her FC (filled with girls from our race/clan) and had entered an RP partnership with one of the members but was also trying to turn RP sessions with any other female in the FC into ERP under the false claim that since his character was the villain of the story, it was in character for him to do that.

I had another friend whose friend was an ex RP partner of his. Again, same race/clan. Said he pulled the same bullshit on her, neglecting their RP and focusing more on brothels and clubs.

He'd told me recently that he quit working at one venue because the owner was barking up his tree trying to get him to enter a polyamorous relationship with her when he just wanted to be friends. This person was the owner of the venue where he supposedly had to be a sex worker to work there. This was not true, that was 100% optional. The whole premise of that club was to just embrace the fun and be a space where people could hang out, not a place looking to make money off of people's sex work. In fact, I was friends with the co-owner at this point, and he told me that actually, no. He had offered to help workers at the venue learn how to RP (since their focus wasn't RP, just a place to hang out), and everyone he worked with complained that he tried to turn every session into ERP. So, they fired him for sexual harassment.

That first day when he came back from hiatus? Well, first of all, he didn't just come back from hiatus. He hopped onto his main from an alt that he'd been playing around on for some time to show off to one of the girl in the same friend group he introduced me to. Guess which clan and race she was? Yep, the same as mine. They were ERPing when I first sent him a tell. And they'd ERP'd multiple times since, even as both of them knew I was becoming increasingly tired of him neglecting his main for his ERP alt. He even ditched me on several occasions to go ERP with other people. Yet the amount of times I got RP from him was less than a handful in 6 months.

It had become clear that this guy was irrefutably a creep. A pathological liar. Some fetishist for this race/clan. A fucking hypocrite who was clearly addicted to ERP but had the audacity to slut shame sex workers and made a strong point that he expected my character to remain faithful while his wasn't. I called him out on it. All of it. He blew up at me, acting appalled that I'd take other people's words over his. He pulled some sap story about how, yeah, he'd made mistakes in the past, but drama queens like these people kept resurfacing his past and wouldn't let him make up for it. I wasn't buying it. This guy had not one, not two, not three, not even four chances to change his ways, and clearly, he hadn't. This was late 2020 and I had dirt on him dating back to 2018. Every time we had a discussion, I made it clear to him, don't waste my time. It's just RP. It's just fiction. We didn't need to be in an RP partnership if he couldn't follow through with it. I told him his character was better off being polyamorous and bid him farewell, making sure he knew I never wished to write with him ever again.

My Theories

This dude assumes that RP = ERP. That or he thinks he can weasel his way into turning the RP into ERP. I think when I told him that the RP at the venue was not what I had in mind, he may have taken it as me wanting to RP with him alone, you know, for reasons. I wasn't.

He never went on hiatus. He was just hanging out on another character and another Discord account. I will touch on this in my next entry, but this guy has had to have spent hundreds of dollars on fantasia and name changes, subscriptions, and boosts. I kid you not, I have confirmed over a dozen characters from this guy on multiple accounts.

He had something going on, but I won't self-diagnose him here. One thing I do know is that this guy has an ERP addiction, and I do not pity him for it. He had his character force his character onto mine on more than one occasion and was never apologetic about it. He continuously slut shamed other women, and it doesn't end there. This is just part 1!

[xivanxiety]

The First Stalker (Approx March 2020 - March 2021)

Disclaimer: A presumptuous individual would like me to let anyone reading this know that neurotypical people are not evil and scary. And that this individual being on the Aut!st!c spectrum has absolutely nothing to do with his personality and behavior. You'd think that in the year 2024 most people on Tumblr dot com could come to such a conclusion, but just in case: Neurodivergent people are not evil and scary, especially people on the spectrum. Otherwise, I am not changing the wording in my story as I genuinely do not view Aut!sm in any form of negativity, much less evil and scary. However, my attitude toward any form of neurodivergence, being someone who is neurodivergent myself, is that our quirks and flaws can be influenced by our neurodivergence, no matter what it be. It can be beneficial and it can be detrimental. Do we need to be shamed for it? Nah. Can it be an explanation? Absolutely. Is it an excuse for how we treat others? Nope. I spent too much time accepting the abuse from someone who was neurodivergent, constantly excusing their behavior which was a result of their relationship with their mental health. Anyway, onto the story.

This guy was one of the first people I RP'd with on Balmung. This story will likely be short and sweet as it's your run-of-the-mill stalking tale. I have mixed feelings about this situation and individual, as they were quite self aware and otherwise a good person and probably didn't have any malicious intentions, but at the end of the day, what they were doing can be defined as stalking. They're a person on the spectrum, and as anyone familiar with Aut!sm, people on the spectrum (and 80HD) are prone to developing hyperfixations. Well... this guy had developed a hyperfixation directed toward my character. I had dabbled a tad bit in crimes, and now my character was a little more customized and how I wanted her to look and he genuinely believed that she was the most beautiful character he'd ever laid his eyes upon. But because of this infatuation with my character, I had to distance from him. Everywhere I went in the game, there he was. He just wanted to look at her. He'd just stand there, not talking to me, just... standing next to me in-game. He'd DM me occasionally telling me he just wanted to see her and flatter her.

I couldn't escape him. I'd go to the most obscure locations, and... eventually he'd show up. I put my foot down and told him that this was too much. He apologized and said he'd keep his distance. I kept him on my friends list so I could see if he was sticking to his word. However, the need was stronger than his will. He eventually told me he was going to need to unfriend me because he couldn't help himself, he needed to know where I was at all times and he just wanted to be near her. (Edit: This is where he explained to me that he is on the spectrum and why he was behaving the way he was). So, he unfriended me. I allowed him to keep talking to me on Discord.

This would be a recurring pattern for some time. I took pity on him because it was coming across as more of an addiction he couldn't help, and being familiar with hyperfixations, I knew his intentions weren't malicious. We'd go long periods without running into each other but then eventually he would spot me in the crowd or see me post in a mutual Discord server. And I'd foolishly hope maybe he'd moved on.

Nope! Every single time, right back at it. I once watched, pretending I was afk while he just stood there next to me targeting me in-game for 25 minutes and DM me about how pretty she was. It would appear he'd added me as a friend again. I once again had a talk with him about how he was crossing my boundaries. He was more than welcome to talk to me on Discord, however, constantly searching for me in-game was taking a toll on me. He respectfully backed off again.

I should have given up there and considered this guy a lost cause. More months passed and he once again spotted me in Ul'dah. He sent me a tell and asked me how I'd been and what I'd been up to. I relayed all that had been going on with me, which was a lot, and I will fill in those gasp, but the most crucial mistake I'd made was that I mentioned that I'd ended things with my RP partner. And what I also failed to mention, which in my defense it wasn't confirmed yet, but my character had already met someone else (I ended the RP partnership in December and started RPing with this person in Feb, and now it was March). At first it seemed all fine and dandy, he too was in an RP partnership. His character finally met someone. Only... a week later he sent me a tell, "Guess who's single now!" Immediate dread. I responded, "Guess who's off the market! My character met someone and they just made it official."

He did not take this well. He logged out and immediately the man started spiraling in my DMs on Discord. I'm talking dozens upon dozens of messages rapid fire going off in Discord. It took me awhile to gain the spoons to read it all, and oh boy. He started going on about how he was hoping I'd give him a chance to be my character's partner. He then started going on about how he was beginning to realize that those feelings weren't just for my character, but for me as well. He thought that he'd finally met someone who he had a true connection with. I saw nothing of the sort. I suppose if one is inexperienced, having a really supportive friend of your preferred sex might make one think such things, but not once did I ever consider him a potential partner. He was an excellent writer and I'd honestly recommend him to anyone looking for an RP partner. But we were on completely different pages. I let him down gently, telling him I simply didn't feel the same way. He was a good friend, but that's all I saw in him. He continued to spiral, filling my DMs that I quite frankly did not bother to read because I knew he was impulsively acting upon his emotions in the moment, and they were intensified by the fact that he was hyperfixating on my character.

I haven't spoken to him since, and he hasn't reached out to me. I hope he's found healthier things to focus on. I hope it's not a person or someone's character.

Potential Questions

How do you know that he was Aut!st!c and what does that have to do with anything?

I'm repeating what he said. He used it as an explanation when I approached him to talk about the issues I was having with him. If anything I feel bad because he admired me for not shaming him when he admitted he was on the spectrum and had developed a hyperfixation on my character. Otherwise, he was previously removed from communities for similar behavior. Often when people in towns saw me talking to him, they'd give me a heads up and try to warn me about him, but I wanted to give him a chance. Someone saw the first initial post of this entry and sent me a message telling me how ableist I was being for mentioning he was Aut!st!c and hyperfixated on my character as his behavior has absolutely nothing to do with him being Aut!st!c. These were his words. And there should be no shame in hyperfixation. It's an extremely common trait in people on the spectrum and with 80HD. I'd say 95% of the time it's perfectly fine, admirable even. But we cannot deny it can get unhealthy when it is directed at another person.

[xivanxiety]

The First & Worst FC (Approx June 2019 - May 2020)

As previously mentioned in my last blog entry, a long time RP friend reached out to me mentioning that he'd started playing XIV and had started an FC. And by started an FC, they'd just started. I was the fifth person to join this FC, so I was officially the first member. This FC eventually grew to consist of people from two different RP communities from two different platforms, so there was a lot of familiar and new faces for everyone. I will need to use names, so I will be naming some of the people in this story after the cast of Mean Girls. Anyway, back to the beginning:

I'm typically pretty shy with groups at first, I like to sit and observe and get a feel for the vibes, I'm also just a quiet person in group settings as other people tend to dominate the conversation. So making friends doesn't come quick for me... typically. However, it didn't take long for Janis to befriend me. I'd say we were pretty attached at the hip. She found a lot of joy in witnessing me go through the MSQ and hearing my reactions to all of the major plot points. She also helped me through a lot of dungeons, trials, etc.

One thing I will note is that Janis did warn me about one of the members in our FC, Regina. She told me that Regina was Aaron's (our FC lead, and my friend from Tumblr) best friend, she had feelings for him, and their characters from their RP community were in a romantic relationship, so she was quite protective of him (I think she meant possessive).

One day, our small group decided to go hang out in Mordona. It was me, Janis, Aaron, Regina, and Glen. We were just shooting the shit and taking screenshots while hanging out in voice. And then as we were sharing the shots we took, Regina blurts out "Katy, why are you staring at Aaron??" I was caught off guard by this, so I simply responded, "I'm... not?" She then hissed at me and said "You're looking at him in all of your screenshots!" I was actually targeting Janis who was standing behind me, so it looked like I was targeting Aaron. I told her "I don't know what to say, I wasn't targeting him." She then let out a deep breath and said "You know what? I just need to chill the fuck out." And left the voice chat. It would appear that either she caught herself in the moment, or someone privately DM'd her telling her to stop which wouldn't have surprised me given future incidents. However, I do believe from that moment on, I was Regina's public enemy #1.

I don't recall a single civil interaction between the two of us and I maintain to this day, I was definitely not an instigator.

Example #1: One day in voice chat, I was helping Janis with pronouncing Korean foods and words. I was talking to Janis but at some point Regina griped, "I know, Katy! I already study Korean so I don't need you teaching me!" Girl, I wasn't even talking to you!

Example 2: She was quick to assume or claim I was being antagonistic in Discord when I was simply engaging in discussion, she'd tell me to calm down and drop it. She was quick to disagree with me in any group chat and treated me like I was being aggressive and antagonistic. ie. I was stating that I wished the Valentione dresses came with petticoat layers in the design because otherwise, it makes no sense why they'd be so poofy. She got on me about complaining over nothing and said they looked fine the way they were. What is wrong with a little critique? I swear, I wasn't allowed to be critical of this game and Yoshi P even in the slightest.

Example 3: One day, another sprout in the FC asked in FC chat what materia they should use for SCH. Regina chimed in telling them not to worry about it, they're not at level cap, much less ready for raids. I asked if she could hypothetically answer the question because I was curious how similar it was to WoW, because a lot of the stats were quite similar and I was a healer main in WoW. Also, Regina was a SCH main at the time. She repeated, "I said not to worry about it!" I then went to Google and looked it up myself and repeated what a few sources online were saying. She responds with "LOL no!" and logged out. The other sprout thanked me for speaking up and answering their question because Regina was starting to scare them.

The final incident (for some time) occurred when I logged into the game one day and dove right into working on the MSQ. I was finally in Shadowbringers and I was eating up the story. Mind you, I was still very much so a sprout. I'd been doing almost nothing but MSQ since I started playing. I do believe this was about... August-ish after SHB came out. We had a new member in the FC, someone who wasn't from either RP communities so we especially wanted to make him feel welcomed. I was running into an issue where I couldn't get past a fight with a few NPCs and was playfully teasing myself in the FC chat. I then quickly realized it was because I hadn't repaired my gear in some time and some of it was broken. Rookie mistake, I know. Regina sees me talking in FC chat and tells me to just go buy some gear off of the market board. I tell her that's too expensive. She then barks back telling me "No it isn't" I then explain I am still leveling so I don't want to waste gil on gear I am going to either replace quickly or can get for free through the MSQ. She then appeared to get fed up and told me to just buy the damn armor. I then went onto explain that it wasn't for a need of armor, I just forgot to repair and now everything is fine. She took it as an opportunity to crack jokes at me and shame me for forgetting to repair my gear. I think she then went and looked me up on the Lodestone or something because then she continued, "WTF are you doing in lvl 82 armor when you're lvl 88?? Go buy higher level gear!" and once again the back and forth about her telling me to go buy armor continued, I told her that even though I'm lvl 88, I am in lvl 82 content (I started SHB at about lvl 86ish, the exact numbers are fuzzy). She continued essentially yelling at me in FC chat but then grew silent and then eventually logged off.

I was then informed by Janis that Regina has been complaining to her and Aaron about me in DMs and they were getting tired of it. Janis told Regina to stop coming to her with her complaints about me as we were friends. And apparently, Aaron had gotten onto her for making a scene in front of our new member and told her she needed to give me a chance or leave. She logged out, and wouldn't log back in for a long time.

The thing is, this character in the FC wasn't Regina's main. She had a main on a completely different DC and tbh, she hardly ever did any content with anyone in the FC except for when Aaron needed help. Otherwise, she'd log in, seemingly check if Aaron was online, maybe say a few things in FC chat, and then log out. She was mostly active in the Discord server.

And for some time, there was peace. We were building structure within the FC. I had become the 'HR' of the FC so to speak and I was also one of the house decorators, having used my own gil to furnish and decorate the place. I felt quite liked by the community. I helped run events and people often confided in me and seemed to feel comfortable coming to me with their issues with the FC. I genuinely liked being there for everyone and playing my part. That was not going to last and it all changed overnight.

I woke up one morning to find that Janis had stepped down as co-FC lead and had promoted Regina to co-lead. And Regina had gone through all of the roles and changed their permissions, and which one received the most lockouts? Mine. I was essentially demoted to just being a member. I couldn't do jack shit, I even lost the ability to drop furnishing items into the FC house. I was not happy and reached out to the admin chat in Discord stating that I couldn't even drop furniture when I was the one who was investing their gil in the furniture. Aaron wasn't happy as he hadn't authorized those changes, to which Regina replied "How was I supposed to know?? I've been gone for months!" Yes! Exactly! You weren't even active with us to begin with. You used your gil you got from your MSQ and level boosts to help pay for the FC, and that was that. She didn't know a damn thing about the community other than when she'd pop into the Discord server and boast about her achievements on her main.

Meanwhile, Janis had started to avoid me. I knew that running the FC was beginning to take a toll on her. She didn't like running an FC, she just wanted to play with her friends. I never got to confirm what her issue was with me, but she never spoke to me again. I do believe Regina had something to do with it because the timing was too coincidental. It became painfully awkward and uncomfortable for me being in the FC. Regina was on a power trip, Janis wasn't talking to me, and Aaron wasn't doing a damn thing to help. Janis and Aaron had been my closest friends. I was quite vocal to Aaron about my dislike for the changes to the FC and I was often the voice for other members who were too afraid to speak out because they too were afraid they'd become Regina's punching bag. We had these farming plots placed in the FC yard, but only Regina was allowed to use them. We were told not to mess with them. One day, one of the members saw that her crystals were ready to harvest, so they gathered them and mailed them to Regina. Her response? She threw a fit in FC chat, told us "Don't touch my stuff!" and removed all members abilities to harvest from the plots.

Meanwhile, Regina continued bullying me, always making passive remarks about me. Anytime I shared a screenshot, she would post 2-3, bumping my screenshot out of view. She always had snide remarks in response to anything I said. I once mentioned that my partner at the time had ordered us Jimmy Johns for dinner, and Regina proceeded to shame me in voice chat claiming I support a man who hunts wildlife in Africa... just because my partner bought me some Jimmy Johns. I had to set myself to DND and turn off notifications on my phone because just any sound related to Discord was giving me anxiety.

Then the Valentiones event came around, the one with the obstacle course you have to run with a partner. A friend of mine, Karen, joked that she and Aaron should run it together. Their characters canonically did not get along, so she thought it would be amusing, besides... it was a joke. Regina did not like this. She pitched yet another fit telling Karen absolutely not, and asked her how would she like it if Regina approached Karen's partner and asked him to run it with her? Regina was constantly forgetting one of the major rules (at that times). Our character's canons did not exist in the FC. There was too much overlappage and we didn't want to deal with petty jealousy. Basically, Aaron's character was actually in a romance with a few characters in the FC. Funny enough, my character was not one of them, and yet for some reason Regina was Hell bent on pushing me out. And this rule apparently did not apply to Regina because she just assumed that Aaron and her character were going to get married and assumed she was his partner in the game. However, over on Tumblr, Aaron's character was starting to eye mine in their story. So it kind of came to no surprise when Aaron decided, due to how Regina was behaving, he was not going to run the event first with her, and instead, asked me to run it with him. I saw no big deal in it, Regina already hated my guts, so I may as well, I otherwise didn't have anyone to run it with. In the moment, I hoped maybe he decided to run it with me because I was not behaving like a brat, but I kind of wonder if he did it to ruffle Regina's panties. Funny enough, Regina didn't have a damn thing to say about it. I assume Aaron had a word with her in private.

But things continued going downhill from there. I had extended an olive branch to Janis asking if we could just talk about why she wasn't talking to me. It was becoming painfully awkward and uncomfortable being in an FC where 2/3 of the people on top did not like me. People I considered friends were beginning to become questionable. Gretchen had once upon a time confided in me because she too felt Regina was on a power trip and she didn't like seeing someone who was so inactive suddenly in control of the FC, meanwhile, she too had been making all efforts to help the FC and felt like she wasn't appreciated. But even Gretchen was starting to hang out with Janis more and speaking to me less. My only two friends left were Karen and Damian, or so, that's how it felt at the time (there were definitely more people on my side in the end). They'd even arrange FC events in secret, definitely without my knowing. I'd be logged in only to check the FC roster to see that most of them were in a group together running maps or FATEs. No mention of it in FC chat or the Discord. But seeing as Janis was often involved in these runs, I was clearly being purposefully excluded, Karen as well. We found comradery in each other as the rejects of the FC. When Karen first joined the FC, Janis asked me to not RP with her as all she liked to do was ERP. She made it a point to say this to everyone she saw getting close to Karen. I took her suggestion with a grain of salt. Yeah, Karen had her flaws, but she was by far the least problematic in the end. This was when I began to wonder "Why the fuck am I still in this FC??"

That was when Karen, Damian, and I discovered it... Balmung. People in the FC had always badmouthed the server, stating it was filled with degenerates. And you definitely don't go to the Quicksands. Well, we wanted to see it for ourselves, so together we went to Balmung. We took a liking to people-watching in the Quicksands. Karen had a thing for a certain race, so she liked to try to chat them up, flatter them, etc etc, never anything serious. One day she spotted a fellow in the distance whose character design she really liked, like... really liked, but she was too shy to say anything. So, I offered to talk to him for her. I sent him a tell letting him know that my friend next to me liked his character design. He took the compliment in stride, but did not appear to take any interest in talking to Karen, but instead chose to talk to me. No, he didn't start hitting on me or anything creepy. In fact, he too was just there to people watch and see who sends him tells.

My time on Balmung encouraged me to start considering diving into RP in XIV. I was beginning to feel more comfortable with just going out on my own and expanding my social circle outside of the FC. Meanwhile, every time Karen and I were spotted on Balmung, people in the FC had things to say, there was a lot of slut shaming going on. I'd swiftly call people out on their hypocrisy because there's no way in Hell some of these people hadn't ERP'd. Aaron especially had art of his character and other people's characters in the act. So what is wrong with Karen, Damian, and I hanging out on Balmung??

Another mutual on Tumblr reached out to me and said I should make a character on their DC and join their FC. They were an RP FC and there was no pressure to make the character my main. So I started a second life on this other DC. It was there that I made one crucial change to my character: Her race. I'd kind of sped my way through character creation the first time around and wasn't 100% happy with her initial design. However, the race and clan I really wanted to be was the exact same as Regina. And I just knew if I changed my character, I'd never hear the end of it. But when I finally made her into what I truly wanted her to be, it was hard to go back to her original design. She was just so cute and my other FC absolutely adored her. They encouraged me to just bite the bullet and fantasia my main, who cares what Regina thought? That FC clearly no longer gave any shits about me. So I did. And sure enough, as soon as I posted a screenshot of my character in the Discord server, Regina had things to say. "Looks like I need to fantasia, one too many (race/clan) in this FC."

The more time went on, the less fucks I gave, and the more I distanced from this FC. I finally decided to have a talk with Aaron. I asked him if there was some issue that people had with me. He tried spinning it onto me and said "I don't know, it sounds more like it's you who has a problem with other people." I asked him to clarify what he meant by that. He then told me I need to be more careful about talking about others behind their backs. To this day I don't know what the fuck he was talking about, because everything I complained about in private to others I told to Aaron himself. I had no qualms about expressing my concerns to him. But I also posed the question, wouldn't that mean there's a great deal of hypocrisy going on then? I never vented to anyone who didn't verbally agree with me. I'm not the type to just dump onto someone without mutual expression of feeling the same way and without valid complaints. I never have problems with people unprovoked. I genuinely never had any issues with Regina in the beginning, it was she who had problems with me and I was beginning to believe that Regina had somehow flipped the narrative. So either way, he was allying with someone who had no issue acting two-faced, and does anyone really want to be friends with someone like that? I later learned that Gretchen had been repeating things I said to Aaron and Regina. I was officially done with this FC. I just needed to wait for a good opportunity and for Balmung to open up.

Meanwhile, I just spent most of my time on Balmung. One fateful day, I was sitting in the Quicksands when some guy started sending me tells. It quickly escalated (on his end) and the dude was asking desperately for my attention and was not taking no for an answer. The guy I'd spoken to for Karen noticed me and asked if I was having any issues. I told him that the other guy wouldn't leave me the fuck alone. He then told me to tell the guy that I needed to go meet with my friends. He then lead me to a different part of Ul'dah where there was a little group of people just sitting and chilling. They were friends and FC mates of his. They weren't RPers, just long time Balmung residents. They were the chillest group of people I'd ever met, and still to this day, remain some of the chillest people I know. They took me in and I began hanging out with them every day. My birthday came around and they showered me with gifts and celebrated with me.

I finally made the move not long after my birthday. Over night I abandoned my house, exited my FC room, said goodbye to anyone who happened to be online at the time, and transferred to Balmung.

Balmung was such a silly place, I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. Upon logging in after transferring, a little lalafell walked up and gave me a hug. I then stepped away from the aetheryte and stumbled upon two people who were in character. One of the characters appeared to be mute and was acting bashful toward my character, like he thought she was really cute, meanwhile his friend was expressing disapproval in me, shaking her head no at him and gesturing that he stop before approaching me and pointing as if telling me to walk away. They didn't really speak to me after that so I assume they were just goofing around. But it was quite the welcome to Balmung.

Aarson of course DM'd me the next day expressing his disappointment in me. He said he wasn't bothered by the fact that I left the FC, but why did I have to go to Balmung?

Years of friendship, dedicated writing partners, invested so much time and energy and gil into your FC, and that's what you have a problem with?

Thank you, next.

The Aftermath

So, I had another character in the FC who I forgot I'd left in there. And I logged in on that alt the day after I left to remove her and also say my goodbyes to people who I didn't get to say goodbye to. Regina was not aware of this. While I was logged into said character, Regina logged in and said in FC chat "Finally, I can breathe in my own FC!" Bitch please.

I'd learn over time that I had more allies in the FC than I initially thought. A number of people reached out and stayed in touch with me, including Gretchen who I ended up softblocking. Another member of the FC tipped me off and told me she was likely just in contact with me to give the FC leaders tea on what I was up to, probably hoping I'd be miserable on my own. I wasn't.

Sometime later, Damian and Karen ended up getting pulled into a voice call and was yelled at by Regina for continuing to associate with me, treating them as though they were guilty of some crime for fraternizing with the enemy. Aaron also sided with Regina on this matter. They then left the FC and went off and started their own.

I was also told that Regina was never physically active within the FC ever again, only in Discord. And Janis eventually took over her position as co-lead again.

Basically, anyone who was a friend of mine in the FC ended up leaving. Besides Gretchen. I named her Gretchen because of the pick-me nature of both individuals. Even Janis left the FC recently. Honestly, I feel as though Aaron was far more antagonist than most would've given him credit for. I think he found joy in how much Regina adored him and how possessive she was and how quick she was to bow down to him. He liked stirring the pot. The RP community that they all came from (I was in the minority from Tumblr) was almost cult like in my eyes. They all placed him on a pedestal and a lot of people develop crushes on him. I'm told he ended up getting together with someone else and married them in-game and of course everyone attended but Regina.

[xivanxiety]

How it all started

I am a lifelong Final Fantasy fan. My first exposure to Final Fantasy consisted of a 6-year-old me sneaking into my brother's bedroom popping FF6 into his Nintendo and carelessly playing over his save files.

Then when I was a little bit older came FF8, and then the rest is history. From that moment on, Squaresoft, now Square Enix, had a grip on me.

Another fact about me is that I love MMOs. I love games where I can play with other players, not necessarily against them. So I was excited when I learned about FF14 coming out. I played very briefly during 1.0 with an ex of mine, but he was stretching himself between several games, not to mention this relationship had some serious issues; he was allergic to playing games with his girlfriend. He could only play games with his bros, amongst other things, that's a whole other unrelated story. After that, I struggled with finding other people to play this specific game with, so I never touched it again.

Until Shadowbringers was about to come out. I was sitting in a D&D session with a group of friends, including the guy I was dating at the time, when our DM announced he was going to be trying out FF14, and said we should all play together. Another person in the group chimed in stating she was already playing so of course she was down. Me? I was excited because now I'd finally have other people to play with. I turned to my (then) boyfriend and said we should do it. He shrugged it off and said he'd already played through all of the expansions and he didn't feel like leveling another character.

The problem with this? We'd already been together for years. And not once did he mention an interest in playing FF14. He knew I loved the franchise and wanted someone to play the game with. I'd mentioned it before in the past. So how and why did he play through ARR and the two expansions?? We started dating just before Heavensward came out. This relationship had its problems, but I truly feel like that was the last nail in the coffin for me. I'd been struggling so hard to get him to spend time with me, to find games we could play together, and nothing enticed him and he stubbornly maintained that he would never play a game with me just as something to do with me. If he didn't want to play the game, he wasn't going to do it.

So I stopped trying. I decided, fuck it, I'm going to play anyway. I then reached out on my Tumblr blog asking if any mutuals were playing FF14. A long-time mutual and RP friend responded saying he just started playing and he made an FC, and I should totally join them.

So I did.

Potential questions:

How did your ex play FFXIV without you knowing?

Either it was a lie because he didn't want to play it, which is unlikely, he'd just say he wasn't interested. But my theory is... I had class and work during the day, and he worked afternoons and evenings, so I assume he played while I was in class and at work. There is a chance he didn't tell me because he didn't want me to be jealous, but also, I later learned that his online best friend is most likely the one who got him into playing, and I honestly couldn't stand that guy. But still! I'd been struggling to find things to do with him, I had nothing, and still he chose to play the game with his friend as opposed to me who he had no other games to play with. So it is all around a dealbreaker for me.

[xivanxiety]

Welcome to my blog!

As a form of therapy, and to perhaps show people that the common denominator is not always the cause, I thought I would chronicle the many experiences I've gone through during my time in FFXIV, which I do believe has given me social anxiety specifically for XIV. Hopefully, this blog will show everyone why, and thus everyone can learn and grow! If you like tea, or AITA content, feel free to read and judge for yourself. I will write this as factually based as I can from my perspective. Obviously, there's two sides to each coin, but I am no longer on speaking terms with most of these people, so what can you do?

All names are changed, races and classes may or may not be altered to increase the anonymity. If you think this is about you, there will be no way to confirm it so it's best to not assume and act upon any urges for retaliation that may be boiling up inside. We don't want that to backfire on you and it says more about you than it does me. I'll be turning off replies and reblogs for this reason. A lot of these stories are years old and my stances have little room to be swayed, so spare yourself the time and energy.