pengosolvent

Thank you for this reply, I just woke up and read over it and need some time to get my head on straight

I appreciate you taking the time

I think wanting your context to be included makes sense to me, and I feel that's important and honestly I prefer to understand others and their contexts, so I'll think over this and once I'm up and on my laptop, I'll probably make a more in depth reply to you and work on some edits. I do have some questions and thoughts, but I just woke up

My first thing without more indepth reply is I want to state I didn't mean to lie about your experiences in Flora (not saying to defend myself, but rather to express I didn't and don't want to act in bad faith) and I'm sorry for the distress the discrepancies I wrote may have caused, and I do want to update my post to be more inclusive of your context

(Currently, since ash knows more about the server around that period than I do and based on what you wrote to him on his post, he's going through logs to try to understand what you've expressed and try to bridge our understanding and your understanding)

I was genuinely in a lot of pain from how SSA treated me and Japhet, especially after they had acted like it was okay for you at the time to have hurt him, but I would rather update my understanding. I believe you when you express stuff about your abusive ex and SSA support group, I can definitely see that affecting how you've acted. I don't want to erase that or your intent or act like it had no role, because... Well, I used to act really harshly too and have an abusive ex too, and I can sympathize here.

Also, I talked to Japhet briefly about this and he wants to speak with you, though knows you're trying to avoid being triggered by things and doesn't want to hurt you. Are you alright with him messaging you? He has his own cohost now. It's okay if you would rather not.
(to specify, I know you said you would not directly approach Japhet, but I'm uncertain if that means 'I do not want to talk to Japhet at all'. I'm sorry if me asking is painful and I didn't grasp your meaning well)

Since you've expressed that this is highly triggering for you, I want to remind you you can always take a break, slow down, not read stuff, so on.
I am replying because I want to reply, am currently in a state where I feel able to try to be considerate, even if writing this stuff does take a bit of energy

"i did not intend "don't talk about me or you'll regret it" to be any sort of credible threat, i did not want to isolate him, and definitely had 0 intentions of doing so in the first place."
I'll believe you when you express not having this intent actively. Going forward here, I will be sharing how your words landed in me at the time and thus why I expressed your words as a threat.

The reason it felt to me like a threat was because your exact words were:
(bolding is mine, to highlight portions that stood out to me personally) "do not ever accuse me of the shit you did again. i understand that i came off as hurtful but you literally fucking attacked me.
if i find out from someone else that you are badmouthing me or using shit i told you against me in any way then *you're going to regret it.
enjoy your document. i dont care anymore."

To my understanding, Japhet had already been hurt by you (re: "come off as hurtful"... no, he was already hurt! even without intent to harm him on your part, he had already felt pain), and tried to express that he felt pain from how you were engaging. You had already (unknowingly) erased his experiences. For example, you would express things like he should instead be trying to rely on his parents/guardians... When... His abuse in his homelife directly came from his mother. He almost died at the hands of his mother multiple times...

The way you had spoken to him had hurt him and he, to my understanding, had been trying to be honest about this, and was trying to share that the way you spoke was hurting him at the time.

I understand you also went through abuse, and that being egged on by SSA was probably not great for your communication with Japhet. I also understand that you hadn't really wanted to talk to him on discord in the first place but agreed to it anyway. That makes me sad for you, because I can understand how that discomfort would feel really bad. I do feel and wish you had been more mindful of your comfort and not agreed to something you did not want to do, but I can understand it's a complicated situation and my intent in saying that is not to blame you.

To Japhet, he did not feel he had attacked you and this would have caused confusion and distress to him. I understand if you felt hurt or if you felt like he came at you with intent to harm you, I can imagine that being really scary... ESPECIALLY if you were surrounded by people who seemed willing to lie (doing weird multi-account sharing, people hunting zoophiles turning out to actually be into beast, so on), but genuinely, to my understanding, he did not ever have this intent in mind. He spoke to us very hopefully, about trying to communicate with you and SSA. At times he was hurt and spoke about pain from how you seemed to not consider his words, but he did not ever have intent to attack... And I don't mention this to try to erase how you felt pain at the time! I mention it to try to share where Japhet was mentally at this point, and what I also picked up from this.
He tried to take what you and SSA shared, and look into these things. He tried to share criticism and ask about and look into things, genuinely. We looked up a lot of logs, like... Relating to claims Rina made of Boxley saying or doing something? Sorry, it's been a while, but we couldn't find these logs... We found someone ELSE doing the thing Rina claimed I think? But that... wasn't Boxley and I think that person in particular wasn't even in the servers anymore?
We genuinely did try to take seriously what was relayed to us through Japhet, even if it was painful rhetoric at times.

Ash and I genuinely wanted to speak to you and try to grasp what was going on, we were emotionally preparing for that despite the aggressive harassment we had been receiving at the time. I'm sharing the above because I'm trying to lay out that... Japhet was taking you seriously to the point that Ash and I were respecting this and being willing to enter conversation in good faith.

So it is hard to feel, for us on our end, that he was "attacking" you. I am not saying that it didn't feel that way for you, but rather that we just could not connect to that context. We didn't have the pieces to see or feel that, because we genuinely saw Japhet as trying when communicating.
So when you expressed he "literally attacked" you, paired with you saying you "came off as hurtful", it felt a bit like... You were erasing that Japhet had already been in pain ("came off as hurtful" feels like... for me at least, it reads like saying you understand if your intent was misread? that you came off as hurtful when you didn't mean to hurt anyone? but my understanding was that Japhet was sharing you had already hurt him, not that you came off a certain way, but that pain was already had), and then expressing very concretely (saying "literally") that he attacked you, which... colors how his intent is? it dictates his intent? attacking someone, to me, holds intent to harm. so it felt like you were focusing on intent in ways that didn't touch you had already hurt him, and then laid intent on him that he wanted to hurt you.

And Japhet does not know what... counts as "badmouthing" you or using what you said "against you". Especially when... It seems like you took him speaking to you about pain as attacking you. So him... speaking was taken as an "attack", so could him just talking about his pain be taken as badmouthing or being against you?
We don't have logs because the discord chat was deleted and Japhet didn't save things, only shared screencaps occasionally if he was trying to share points with us really, so we can't even... see what was considered an attack? We can't try to see "Oh, yeah, Japhet said this thing that would sound really scary or hurtful even if he didn't intend for that. That sucks, that would really hurt to receive" because he didn't really expect you to do this and then delete the group chat.

And... lastly... your wording is "if i find out from someone else that you are badmouthing me or using shit i told you against me in any way then *you're going to regret it."

There is a direct focus on if you find out about Japhet talking, which links "you'll regret it" to you specifically? like, it makes a connection that feels like... "If I (edqey) find out, then I will do something that makes you regret it"

It does not feel like "if you talk about about this, you'll get hurt [by getting dragged further into SSA stuff]" or something? it feels directly linked to if YOU find out, then japhet will regret it, so Japhet has to fear a regret response from you, the consequences will come from you

So while I believe it is possible you didn't have intent to harm, it's also like... it really does feel like for some reason then, your words ended up linking consequences Japhet may receive, to you specifically... which then really felt like a threat wherein you were promising to take actions he would regret, should you find out he spoke about you

i say "for some reason" not to try to be like ... inducing doubt? like i know sometimes people can be like "oh, ho hum, i guess you said this for SOME MYSTERIOUS REASON then......" like passive aggressive?
but i don't feel upset or anything right now, i said that because i genuinely mean that and am trying to make room for whatever reasons may have influenced your words at the time... like, sometimes we say or do things that aren't perfectly aligned to our intent, and there are reasons for this, like, emotional clogs or struggles that end up affecting how we act (so, for example, you've expressed how you were struggling with abuse a lot)

"my reaction afterwards (with wanting to defend myself) wasn't attempting to hurt him, but to instead >defend< myself. whatever i was going to say would've looked like an attack against him anyway so I suppose its for the best that i was talked out of it and shamed."

I can understand this, wherein you would want to defend yourself, even if at the time it did not feel this way unfortunately.
I feel complicated over you saying it was maybe for the best that you were talked out of it and shamed... I wish you had instead been shown compassion. You can be talked out of something in ways where you are not outright shamed...
I don't feel that shame actually holds care for people. Shame, for me personally, feels like I did something nebulously wrong and I should feel bad... When... I feel it is much healthier to be shown compassion if others have the energy to do so. To express "I understand you want to defend yourself, but this might hurt Japhet, and honestly might hurt you too. What are your feelings right now? How did Japhet hurt you? What does it make you think of? Are there other ways to handle this? What do you want to get out of writing about this stuff publicly currently? Are there ways to achieve this differently? Are there ways to achieve a positive outcome? Ignoring all the complicated factors, what is it that you genuinely want out of this? What would actually help you feel safe?" so on.

Like... I am thinking about my callout towards glip... what i wanted was for them to understand that i was really hurt by their vent post. but people told me a callout was the way to go, when... I could have tried to message them. what i truly wanted was to feel like my pain mattered, but a callout... just... adds a lot more pain. I could have also just... worked on validating my own pain.
Had I done that, I would have noticed how awful Marl was earlier. I genuinely believe that had I taken the time to talk to ash about how I was hurt, I would have talked to them about how I was also hurt by Marl, and we could have worked together much earlier to connect over what Marl was doing being horrible and not okay at all. This could have prevented so many others getting hurt...

I guess it's like... actively trying to shame someone can be like trying to hurt them? At least, this is my experience from my own abusive ex, where she would not accept my apologies until she felt I felt ashamed and hated myself ...or, this is how I recall it. This relationship was complicated and I want to express some context in that she had EUPD and struggled with it, had an awful family life, and I was a teenager and also hurtful to her. I don't want to demonize her, I just want to express that the way she treated me for my apologies was really really damaging. It made me feel like when I do something hurtful, if I don't hate myself and feel shame, then I don't actually care about how I treated someone else... When... I can care without hating myself and feeling shame. I can feel sad and feel pain to have hurt someone else, and take actions to understand and listen and change... without... having to hate myself

So I feel sadness to hear it was for the best you were shamed. I DO think it is for the best you did not post something you later would feel bad about! but i don't feel like "its for the best i was shamed" is really... something you have to accept as part of the equation.
You can be glad you were convinced not to post it, without being glad of the methods used. Idk, maybe I am overstepping, but I wish there had been more kindness towards you. I'm glad you were able to focus on your own wellbeing afterwards though.

"(i do not have the spoons to go retrieve the tweets in question i am referring to, but they are on vera's hogwife twitter, whatever it's called.)"
Unfortunately, I don't... really know Vera, I don't really know twitter, and I don't really know about this? I know Ash is already talking more indepth to you in their replies about Vera stuff and is probably going to try to dig into that (as in, finding the hogwife twitter stuff) to understand more on it which then Ash will probably touch upon. I don't feel comfortable trying to touch this myself currently since I don't really know about the tweets. I feel sad that you were hurt though, and that it has scared you this much. Being scared of someone can really feel awful.
Edit: Ash has asked Vera and Vera looked over things, and feels that there are things ve would like to apologize about and would write a document in relation to this (so, not direct interaction with Vera like real-time messaging or something). Are you open to reading this? Vera expressed ve prefers to give you the choice of reading it if you feel like it and would ask Ash to read through first and vet that what was written isn't just hurtful/vitriolic.

I am glad for knowing more context about how you joined flora. I feel it feels sad that Jolly compared you to Vera while knowing that would hurt you. Ash has in the past compared my actions to Marl, to memories they would have of Marl and how Marl acted, and that hurt a lot... Ultimately however, for me (so, this is my personal experience and I don't feel you need to feel the same way), I accepted this because I did end up feeling like "Yeah, actually, this is pretty Marl-like and I don't WANT to be like Marl, so I need to think of what this means and how to change" and I felt Ash wasn't trying to say this to hurt me, but instead to go "This is why what you did hurts me, it feels like Marl patterns."

It makes sense to me (personally) that I would have Marl-Patterns considering I was hurt by Marl and apparently have the same personality disorder he claimed to have (and thus, some of our maladaptive behaviors may be similar at times)... But I feel like... With Jolly, it makes me sad because if people in that group were very hateful and lying a lot and actively trying to harm others, I could see being compared to Vera as something specifically meant to hurt you, instead of... A genuine attempt at trying to express something? I don't like when people weaponize someone else's trauma to try to hurt or control them... If this is what occurred, I'm sorry you experienced that.

re: the DMs on twitter
In relation to your DM with ash... I am reading the DM right now, and they did acknowledge your apology... They say they appreciate the fact you tried to apologize.

They later expressed "I'm really not comfortable talking to you beyond this because I'm really not comfortabele talking to people who make judgments about how far they think I've come as a person when they have never spoken to me outside of sending nasty remarks my way over a thing I didn't do." and you then express you will leave them alone.

I grasp if maybe you forgot this? I grasp if maybe at the time you didn't remember that they directly expressed they're not comfortable talking to you further.
It makes me a bit sad since... it's not really your decision to make, if it's okay now to talk to someone after they've said they don't feel comfortable talking further (while you hide your identity) because a lot of time has passed... I do think you've shown change there, considering that you actively expressed you wouldn't try to contact Japhet, but I do want to state that I could see why Ash would be hurt from this.

I guess, it is not a boundary in the sense of Ash saying "Do not talk to me ever again", but it is stating "I am not comfortable talking anymore with you past this point" which... Is something that, to me, is something I would try to respect had I been in your position.

I believe you if you say you didn't join with specific intent to bypass a boundary, it just had felt that way. I mean I think you're aware of that, since you do say:
"its kind of a mess of reasoning, tbh. nowhere in my infinite wisdom did i think about hurting glip, eevee, or ANYBODY involved."

I just do want to acknowledge that feeling of like... Yeah, it did feel thoughtless (in the sense that you did not think about certain aspects, not in the sense of like calling you stupid or something).

"i am not solely blaming my abuser but any attempts i made in therapy to get better was undermined by her by the time i came home from my appointments. i was stuck. either i stay there, or i go back to live with my parents, who were also abusive. it felt like a catch-22. since i've left her behind finally i have made leaps and bounds in healing and maturing (as commented on by said parents, go figure?) i'm.. still not perfect? nobody is? i had a lot of bad days, sometimes i have relapses, lapses in judgements, i still split on myself and others, i still put my foot in my mouth, i still have rsd. but i am doing so so so much better than i was before."

I am sad to hear about your abuser and the catch-22 with your parents. It makes me really sad. I don't even know what I can say, it's just incredibly dark stuff and I wish you hadn't gone through any of it.
I am glad that you are doing better. I definitely can understand that it's hard to grow even with therapy when the abuse is still active and present. It's like trying to empty a tub of water while the faucet is still on...

"my point is your story about how i got involved with floraverse is false. i'm not sure if you came up with it yourself or somebody told that to you but.. no?"

I had written in from my understanding of previous logs in flora... I can grasp that I would be missing portions if Vinnie ultimately invited you (since i didn't read all the logs in the server ever, and i assume some of those logs are DMs with Vinnie). I could see that feeling like... "Well, someone involved in Flora is okay with me being here."
I used to treat ash and others as more of a "hivemind", even in PMD-E when I was friends with them there. Like, if ash's friends told me something, i would assume ash agreed with them... so when Marl would try to engage with me, i figured things were okay because i assumed ash agreed with this and i trusted ash... when really marl just kept a lot of things hidden from ash and ash didnt know.

I can see a sort of similar thing here, wherein Vinnie is in flora and approving of you, and you could potentially feel that this approval would extend further than just Vinnie.

"what i did while in floraverse also seems to be taken out of context or twisted to extremes. (hare and i also talked about what happened and more or less made up before i cut them off as well for victim blaming glip and triggering me with their comments about glip's csa vent comic being faked because they're (hare) a real victim. which did NOT sit right with me and still doesn't.)"

I appreciate that you didn't stand for victim blaming and the claims glip was lying, and I appreciate that you sought out talking to Hare about what happened.

I recall that a while back Ash had shared, I believe, what Vinnie had said? Or things like you had ended up getting Vinnie removed from a lot of mutual servers or something...? It is likely this is where I received the feeling that you had pressured Vinnie into moving with you, a feeling of whatever Vinnie had expressed before and the intensity of some of your actions I had heard about.

I can believe that you felt Vinnie's offer was sincere and you had no intention of pressuring them but may have in ways you don't recall or weren't aware of at the time, and I can also believe that Vinnie did feel pressured but didn't really know how to express that. I do wish if Vinnie had felt pressured that they had actually expressed as much to you, that they could have felt safe to do so... But I grasp that this can also be difficult in the moment.

"...the thing is.. please, hold me accountable for things i actually did, i will admit to wrongdoing i did, but you seem to be operating on the assumptions that i was like this on purpose or had malicious intentions when that was not the case whatsoever and i'd really appreciate it if you either didn't talk about me like this at all or were more open into hearing my side of things."

I can understand my tone at points can come off as painting you as actively malicious... Though, I do want to say I don't think I felt that way. I don't want to discredit if my tone hurt though, because I do feel like I was not as considerate of you and your context as I could have been! I was angry at what I felt was a deep hypocrisy on SSA's part and how someone decided to be a creep and message Japhet with SSA offering him money, but when Japhet had been actively hurt by you (in a way that deeply hurt him and caused him to have a mental health episode), it seemed they didn't care and yet somehow still decided they were in a position to offer something as strenuous and complicated as giving him money to help him move away.

I guess the feeling was like... They mobilized when they incorrectly assumed Japhet lived with me, not remotely thinking about how the event involving you actually hurt Japhet a lot, and how it hurt Japhet that they went "Well, edqey didn't mean it as a threat."

I DO believe you when you say you didn't mean it as a threat, but Japhet experienced it in that way, and they didn't really care to bridge to his understanding remotely! I don't feel that they necessarily needed to bridge to him... But in that case, trying to offer him help is really hurtful! It ignores his feelings while trying to offer something. It felt to me like they were dismissing how badly this hurt Japhet (AND how serious Japhet's home life actually was) through immediately assuming he lived with me and a rando going "btw SSA wants you to know they are willing to give you money"
I mean... Japhet was luckily safe, but abusive homes are such dangerous situations to extricate someone from, acting with this many assumptions and this carelessly is really really no joke!!!

Like, if they dismiss his fear of a threat (he didn't know you, he didn't know why you reacted the way you did... So while you knew "I don't intend to hurt Japhet", he certainly didn't, especially after being told he would regret talking about you if you heard about that... I grasp that doesn't necessarily mean you had intent to threaten him, but that sort of language CAN often be used for threats unfortunately, and Japhet has encountered a lot of threatening language in the past (and active violence or harm)), how could they be nuanced enough to actually care to understand the deeply tangled abusive situation he was in? How could they be considerate enough of Japhet that they could actually care for him and his feelings when they already dismissed his feelings previously? I did not feel they could! Nor did Japhet!
And the cherry on top was hearing they thought he lived with me and that I was a danger to him when they did not even listen to him on his feelings in relation to you, and (my understanding, at the time) you had pressured someone to live with you in the past.

It felt almost comical in how backwards it was, if it wasn't so deeply painful.

Again, they did not have to try to see Japhet's perspective, but if they are trying to help Japhet get away from abuse, I feel they are deeply harmful to ignore his perspective.

I guess, ultimately I did treat you like a prop in my anger, and I don't want to do that, and I'm sorry. I just genuinely don't like how Japhet was treated (I appreciate that you apologize for this), and how SSA completely ignored that it was really inappropriate for them to offer money in this context.

Re: you calling me an idiot, I found the quote... I misremembered (and I know why I misremembered so I will get into that) so I apologize for that. I also apologize for the assumption of messages from your part (which is related).

Essentially, your wording held a lot of vitriol that mapped to anon asks I had been getting around the same time... But... One in particular mentioned the anon having looked up to me a lot and now having an art industry job, so I feel "Ah, actually then it might have been Hare since Hare worked in animation last we spoke."

This isn't to be like "Oh it was DEFINITELY Hare!" but rather...It makes sense to me that if you were connected to SSA and that server, that you might have similar talking points to them, and I would connect "Malt said XYZ thing, and these asks said really similar things too AND Malt actively said they would send hateful KYS messages to glip" and thus believe you had sent me those messages. If you did not send me any hateful messages, then I am glad for that.

I actually do want closure on what you said to me, but while reading it and writing feelings about it, it honestly still actively hurts A LOT, and I feel hesitant to share it with you, because of how deeply it cut me. I believe you wouldnt have the context for why it hurt so much, but I am not kidding when I say that the level of pain I felt was like cutting at my very being, because the remark you made was accidentally invalidating towards multiple parts of my identity and family history at once.

I am thinking over whether I want to share it or not, because I feel I need time and trust to talk about it, because if I do share it and it feels like you don't understand (in a way that discredits the experience, even if accidentally), I feel it would hurt a lot again. I hope this makes sense.