beetcat - Today at 4:05 AM
I’m leaving cherubcord, and I think it’s a long time coming. I’ve been discovering lately that how conversationally awkward I am coupled with the way I go about conveying and developing stuff in group rp is killing not only my rp opportunities but also the casually friendly relationships I have with cherubcord, with a few specific members in particular. I have a bunch of stuff I want to get off my chest so I’m gonna do the rp part first and then the relationships part.

I will say with all the honesty and objective certainty I can gather that everyone who’s exhibited their writing on cherubcord so far is a good writer. And I either know I can’t, or think I can’t, judge my own work with the same amount of objectivity. I genuinely don’t know if I’m as good a rper as anyone else on this server. Sometimes I think I am but then I worry I’m actually bad and it’s just Dunning-Kruger Effect. I don’t know if that seems dumb or not but that’s where I am kinda.
So I overcompensate.

I first met you through a Voltron oc group chat. You were playing Mads and I was playing a green paladin named Tyr. For that rp that never happened I wrote like 8 pages of whatever the rp equivalent of copy is. This really intricate backstory that crams in a bunch of imagery and worldbuilding and ideas. Because I wanted to prove to you and to the chat that I was a good rper.

And I kept doing it. I needed—need my characters to be more unique and more engaging, and more interesting from the get-go. So I join group rps and propose weird ideas and ask a billion questions and try to think outside the box. And it comes off as really obnoxious and critical and self-important. I can tell that it does. And people...don’t like that, suprise suprise. I’ve been kicked out of chats twice for doing it. But not just that, which segways into the other thing I wanted to talk about.

You know when someone says or does something shitty or insensitive, but not a “ok I obviously need to block this person right the fuck now” kind of thing, but something that mildly colors your perceptions of them? And from then on you’re kind of wary of the things they do and say? And then they do something else that’s shitty or insensitive and you notice because you’re watching, you’re waiting for those moments because you want to validate how you feel about them. You want to have a reason to feel uncomfortable.
I am that person.

I misgendered someone, excuses are pointless. And I feel really bad about it, and I said sorry but looking at that apology after it’s been sent it doesn’t look genuine. I’m constantly saying things that are supposed to be sympathetic but the wording made them come off as condescending or just plain rude. And trying to apologize? It either sounds even worse or feels like I’m fishing for sympathy points.

I feel like, hell I know that people’s perceptions of me have changed because I keep fucking up. And it’s not though any fault of their own I think it’s perfectly fair to have those perceptions, perfectly acceptable to be wary. I’m saying that because it’s true not because I’m trying to be noble or something.
It feels like when you’re on ice and you slip, and you try to stop yourself from falling and so you catch yourself but you’re already off-balance and then you keep slipping and you keep slipping and you try to regain your footing but it just makes things worse. You’re consciously aware of how clumsy you are but everything you try to do to fix it just makes it worse and you don’t know why it keeps happening or how you can stop it.

I like being part of the community and I enjoy discussing  and cringing at bad ocs and sharing memes and art and inside jokes that literally don’t work anywhere else. But my presence on on the server makes people uncomfortable because of the things I’ve said. Multiple people have strongly implied that’s how they feel, and one person has told me to my face.

I know that because I’m leaving I will be reduced down to those perceptions that are colored by the missteps and the shitty things I’ve done. Is that fair? I don’t think it is but that’s because it’s me and that’s how anyone in my place feels I think. Either way I’ll just be another steeb. And while I don’t want to be seen that way, my alternative is trying to apologize which I know won’t come off as genuine, and stay on cherubcord which will continue to make people uncomfortable and make any apology I try to give seem even worse. The best thing for me to do is leave, because my own insecurities about people potentially  talking about me when I’m not around aren’t more important than the feelings of those I’ve hurt.
I’m not telling you all this because I want sympathy. Except on some level I guess I do? Just by talking about this and putting my thoughts into words and using emotionally loaded language because it’s emotional stuff means that on some level I do.   I need to get those emotions out so I can fix things and get out of an environment where I’m stuck in a cycle of fucking up and fucking up more when I try to fix it.

I’m gonna disconnect from anything with active Cherubcord members, and avoid connecting to y’all in the future where I can. Because I can say with certainty that doing anything else invalidates any apology I could give.

Thanks so much for everything Alex.

-Michelle (Beetcat)