this is a full account (from my pov, at least) of the things that occurred between dec. 2017 - june 2018 because i need to hold myself accountable.
i created dan in dec. 2017, like very close to the new year, i canât remember exactly when his blog went live (the url was @/roseaetes or something very close, i canât recall the exact spelling). in jan 2018 (or maybe early feb. 2018) i did a revamp of his dossier / information pages, and posted some metas to the dash. nothing really new; pieces of information thatâd been part of his character since the beginning, just expanded upon. i was then vagued about on the dash by two separate people whose names i really canât remember -- they both wrote characters from the narnia series, one also wrote bucky barnes. the posts were very clearly aimed at me, because they were about jewish characters having tattoos -- which was a fact iâd only a few minutes earlier posted about, reminding people about tattoos that dan had. (i knew that tattoos were forbidden in judaism, but iâd. looked at it the same way some christian people look at it; because some think itâs not allowed while some do. it isnât my place to say either way, but i didnât see it that way at the time, which was wrong). this obviously caught my attention, and i messaged one of the people on discord apologizing to them for hurting them, saying that iâd correct it (by taking them away) and doing what i could to make it Better. they ended up blocking me on both tumblr and discord, which i understood. i made a post stating that dan no longer had tattoos but after a few days i ended up deleting him anyway because i felt i needed to reconsider some things and iâd bring him back when i felt it was âokay.â
a few weeks later, i messaged heavenly, because i knew they were jewish and so i wanted their opinion on the situation. i asked if they thought it was okay for me to bring back dan, and they expressed confusion as to why iâd deleted him in the first place. i explained the situation, and they made the point that i had to be respectful, which i agreed with. i said iâd already removed his tattoos, and that theyâd stay gone if i were to write him again. i did express some frustration at this because from his initial development some of the tattoos had been important aspects of his character -- but it was just some minor venting, i wasnât going to re-implement them into his character. heavenly suggested i make another non-jewish character and give them the tattoos but i dismissed it because i couldnât do that; they were tied to heavily to him. then i asked them why theyâd never said anything about it -- not because i expected them (or anyone else) to hold me accountable, i was just curious. maybe i was looking for justification, that it wasnât as big a deal as it felt. i was looking for comfort. heavenly then told me that they didnât know he was jewish, and that did hurt me -- i was using a jewish fc, i frequently spoke about how important his religion was, i implemented it in threads/conversations about him. iâd spoken to them about it. i was hurt, and my hurt got the better of me; i ended up deleting them from discord because i felt like maybe they never actually paid attention to anything iâd done -- i felt vastly unimportant, which is so fucking dramatic and dumb. i didnât realize it at the time but i was splitting on them, which i shouldâve recognized and overcame. i shouldnât have let my emotions get the best of me. i should have been bigger than i was, but i wasnât.
i did end up sending them an apology over tumblr for deleting them so unexpectedly - i said i wanted things to end on a more amicable note, because i still didnât want to be friends with them. i thought that thatâd be enough -- that it would be Okay so long as i apologized for ending things so abruptly.
a few months later, maybe two or three, i found out that iâd gotten namedropped by her. and heavenly, i did lie about this part when you and your friends (at the time) confronted me. i knew what the namedrop was about - but i just didnât want to deal with it. i was cowardly and i lied, pretending i didnât know what it was about. i didnât want the confrontation then. i wanted to just forget about it because iâd felt that it was unfair -- iâd felt like the interaction wasnât antisemitic at all. to me, all iâd done was block you, and that was so fucking ignorant of me.
after the namedrop, i ignored it, tried to pretend like it was done with. i felt horrible but i didnât know how to actually react -- i didnât know how to apologise. i wanted to defend myself to a certain degree, because like i said, i felt it was unfair -- but i didnât want to lose my friends. i valued my feelings over yours. that was fucking horrible. that was the worst thing i could do.
then in the summer, when heavenly had made a blog for elsa, they were on my dash frequently - we had some mutual friends, and i didnât feel too good about seeing them on my dash. iâd blacklisted their url but they still showed up in mutualsâ notes, and so i ended up blocking them, too. they were rightfully angry. it was after this that they confronted me, via a third party at the time - i dismissed it, because it was just a block and like before, i didnât know how to deal with it. i didnât know just how hurt they were, how much damage iâd done, how fucking disgusting my actions were. i used aave during that conversation as well -- although it was unknowingly, that was also supremely fucked, and i apologise again for that. two different people messaged me on their behalf and thatâs when it really hit me that it wasnât just a block. so i did end up sending heavenly another apology -- but i know it only felt faked and forced. i didnât do it for forgiveness, or to save my ass; i did it because i genuinely felt awful, and i still do.
this is a short version of everything that happened but it deserves to be out there. people deserve to know. i did horrible things. i hurt people. and iâve felt guilty about it for the longest time, and i think i always will. this isnât a plea for forgiveness - for the slate to be wiped clean - itâs because everyone deserves to know the full truth. and heavenly deserves to know that i lied to them. i wonât pretend itâs entirely selfless, though, because this is an attempt for me to be able to live with myself by coming clean with everything.
to everyone iâve hurt - iâm sorry. to heavenly, especially, i know iâll never be able to fully understand the pain iâve put you through. i know iâll never be able to make things better. i know that you are a wonderful person full of light who brings joy to your friends, and i hope you all the happiness and luck in the world. i hope your life is absolutely wonderful.
@barbietm @justicewithin












