okay so before things get misconstrued, i have seen the post @pocmuzings posted and i have quite a lot to say at least to explain my side of the story. you guys can make the choice to believe me or not but everything on this post is the truth on my end. this is very long and i hope everyone takes the time to read it but it’s just a warning this is long.
first and foremost, you need to understand that i have never once in my entire life said the n word. i grew up in a household where i always knew the weight of that word and it’s heavy connotations my entire life; my mom, grandma and cousins always used the word despite being spanish because they were very racist and stereotyped the black community. i knew of that, i was young when they used the word (probably around elementary school age) and never spoke up because i was a child. however, i’ve always known it’s not the right word to say or is it my place to say it as a non-black poc. i’m unsure if the person sending the anon meant to say i was using the word or if it was my friend at the time in the post but i have never EVER said that word. i would never use that word, i’m not ignorant on it and have always known what it’s implications were.
secondly, the problematic friend in question was someone i knew in my real life. we went to high school together, we met through a mutual friend who looking back on it, that mutual friend sexually assaulted me at one point and BECAUSE of that incident and numerous other things that happened in that small friend group, i pulled away and found solace in this person. his name was cameron, he’s no longer in the rpc so i really don’t care about putting his name out there to help keep track while i write this out. to give more background on this, cameron wasn’t the kind of person i could simply “get rid of” like i could have if he’d been someone i met online. like i said, we went to high school together, we lived in the same town, we became INSEPERABLE-- i vacationed with him and his family on MULTIPLE occasions. my mom and his mom became friends, we spent holidays together, etc. this wasn’t someone i could write off. we met when i was around 15 years old and he was 17 and we stayed friends from me being 15 to around the age of me being 21... in fact, i believe our last outing together was my 21st birthday but that’s irrelevant. i am now 24. throughout the time that we were best friends, however, i got him into rping and we were in the rpc together for an extended period of time. cameron has always been extremely problematic and this was something i didn’t necessarily become aware of until later on in our friendship. we started rping together in american horror story roleplays which is where i first started and in general, those rp’s were very very problematic and dark; it was a completely different time in the rpc compared to now and i am 100% aware of that.
cameron became notorious for causing drama wherever he went. in the ahs rp we were in, something happened between my character and someone else’s, anon hate was sent to the gossip blog or w/e about my character and it got to the point where i, myself, was being told to kill myself through anon hate because of whatever ship drama was happening. i was 15 years old and people on the internet were telling me to kill myself. cameron stepped in, defended me in the only way he knew how, started drama with the admins for not doing anything to stop the stuff being sent to me or help me and we got kicked out of the group as the solution to their problem. from that moment on, cameron simply never stopped causing problems and i often found myself getting dragged into things with him because we were friends and i stuck up for him because he usually stuck up for me. at some point as i got a little older, maybe 17/18, i can’t remember, me and him joined this subplot rp that this person who sent in the anon was running. yes, cameron and i became friends with the person, she was the admin, things were fine for a while and eventually, things in the group started getting slow so cameron wanted to leave and me, being the person i was at the time, followed him because he was my best friend. i remained somewhat friends with the anon but i always felt like things were strained between us BECAUSE cameron was always up to something; whether it was causing problems in the anon’s various groups she joined or simply leaving because he got bored or just being a general bully, befriending people and manipulating them and being ugly and problematic and racist. i can’t remember the anon ever talking to me about being uncomfortable with his actions because it was years ago and i’ll admit that at the time, it wasn’t important to me because i thought things were fine because her problems with cameron weren’t ever explicitly told TO me. i will admit that from the ages of 15-18, whenever cameron started drama or was problematic or did shitty things, i blindly followed him and never spoke up. i didn’t speak up because i felt like he helped me and defended me and PROTECTED me from my assaulter in real life and all the anon hate i got from this group that i owed him my loyalty. again, please keep in mind, i’ve been friends with him since we were both in high school, he wasn’t someone i could simply write off or get rid of at the time.
i started realizing he wasn’t a good person when i got a little older. i decided to open up a group that was based off college kids and it was based off the college i currently attend, ucf--- genuinely i don’t remember the url of the group but @wonclerland was in it with me because we were friends. cameron joined, obviously and at the time that i was admining, he didn’t do much. people joined who i’d met through a previous rp and to be honest, that group of people and i were 100% a really stupid clique of mean people. they were really mean and petty and ugly and i never said anything to them or about what they said because i wanted to fit in and again, i admit to that. some girl joined the group who went by the name athena or it was her alias, i don’t really know but apparently, she had beef with that group of people who joined and they claimed she was racist but could never properly pull up proof to show me or whatever. as an admin, i was caught in the middle trying to hear every side of the story. cameron befriended athena and all hell broke loose. i ended up going to playlist live for a day and mistakenly, i had asked one of the people in the little clique of mine to run the main while i was gone for the day. in the span of the 8 hours i was gone, the clique had posted athena’s unfollow despite her not wanting to quit and blah blah blah. i shut down the group because i didn’t know what to do and it make me anxious and stressed. cameron and athena formed a group of friends FROM that group and started to go on the girl who posted the unfollow’s instagram and comment hateful, bodyshaming things. they went as far as editing a picture of the girl on photoshop to look like shrek. i saw this all unfold and realized what kind of person cameron was and decided to TRY to sever ties with him. multiple times after this, i attempted to call him out on his ugly behavior on the tail end of our friendship. we would get into really violent fights in person and he’d come to target where i worked at the time to scream at me and yell at me in person. i called him out for being racist and problematic and using the n word- in return, he took down an entire roleplay we worked on together because he made all the graphics and left the page empty and blank while i was at work and couldn’t do anything about it. him and his boyfriend would call me names, made fun of me when i confided in them and came out as bisexual and told me i was just looking for attention and many other fucking instances where i was made to feel like shit. every time i called him out about stuff he did or said at all, i had to deal with abuse from in person and because i didn’t know how to approach the situation or deal with it, i let him get away with treating other people in the rpc like trash.
cameron and i grew apart after he quit the rpc. he ran out of aliases to use to destroy groups and i was working on actively trying to get out of the wake of destruction him and the friend group that yes, i followed around, left behind. i put forth the effort to work on learning about racism more in depth, i went to therapy to deal with the assaults and stuff i was going through and i used writing to cope with it and found a solid group of people that were actually decent. i admit that i was part of the problem by not saying anything to cameron, i was terrified of him and losing the only friend i had in my real life at the time. i know what he did hurt a lot of people in the rpc, including now the anon, and i realize that my silence until much later was not of any help at all. my activism now isn’t performative--- i’ve tried so hard over the last few years to learn and educate myself on the blm movement and i’m still learning every day. my intentions and heart have never been malicious and i deeply apologize to you, oksi, if you read this because i know it’s you that sent that anon. i’m sorry that my silence and lack of maturity and balls to confront cameron hurt you and i’m sorry for being a part of the problem. i’m sorry to whoever knew me back then and saw the people i surrounded myself with and that i was so focused on fitting in and belonging to a group (even a really fucking shitty one) stop me from speaking up when it mattered the most. i wish that this had been addressed to me privately so i could’ve talked to her and heard her side of the story but i understand that she probably felt uncomfortable and unsafe given our past and who she used to associate me with. i do not and will not ever stand for racism, i’m working every single fucking day to learn and spread resources and educate myself and to not overstep my boundaries or talk over the black community because it’s NOT my place. i can’t speak for the other person mentioned in this post and i hope she comes forward if she feels inclined to and tell her side of the story but this is mine. holding myself accountable for being a part of the problem.
i’m sorry if any of this upset anyone and if this means i’m going to lose friendships or mutuals over this. i understand and it’s fine. i’m not looking to victimize myself at all and i’m admitting to the fact that i was complacent and silent and i’m really sorry. i’m not like that anymore and i’m always one of the first people to call horrible shit out, probably too much because i spent so much time NOT saying anything out of fear. and if you read any of this, thank you? i don’t know what this is going to do but i hope it helps shed light on my side of the story. again, oksi, i’m really fucking sorry- you don’t have to forgive me at all and i don’t expect you to but i hope you’ll at least hear this out and try to understand i’ve changed and i actively try every single day to be better than i used to be. thank you and sorry again.
