I'm done with her.

I’ve held off on releasing this for so long because 1) I really like to make sure I’m not conveying the wrong message; 2) I’m still in the process of trying to forget all of this happened; I needed the time to recover and get back on track with the rest of my life; and 3) I’ve been afraid to release this as the person I am talking about rarely if ever talks about her personal life, so I didn’t want to get anything wrong on that end, either, but if anything does seem altered, I apologize in advance. So, I’ll get started right away with the gist of it:

I am no longer friends with Hana, or FatedBlossom as you might know her by. And I’ve been very quiet to her since last week because I wanted to see if she would notice my absence in her life. If she didn’t, it was probably better that way from the beginning. If she did… Well, I have a lot of explaining to do anyway, since only a few people really know what’s going on.

I’ve known Hana for several years and it’s only been up to this point (and another point in time, but I’ll talk about that later) that I’ve realized how she’s treated me over the years. It was incredibly unhealthy for me. I would literally lose sleep over her some days just to make sure she was alright. But she doesn’t seem to need that anymore. I encouraged her to stream more often, sure, but that may have been the extent of what I’ve really done for her. Emotionally, I likely did next to nothing. Yes, she would talk to me about the issues she has to deal with but there have been times (including now) where I’m not sure if they were legitimate or not. She may have said these things solely to rile me up and make me even more concerned about her. How could I not be, given everything that I know that she has gone through? But I don’t know if that is true anymore, either.

It basically all started when I visited Hana for her birthday. Everything seemed to be ok; her family treated me well and we got to do things together. However… we did a lot of things together that most friends really shouldn’t have; let’s just say that the moment I arrived, she suddenly became a friend with benefits. I would not like to talk about most of the stuff we did together. In fact, I think I regret doing those things the most as it seemed so weird of her to let me do them. I did my best not to hurt her or go too far, but… I feel terrible for giving in to the temptation. The tamer things included groping and French kissing… just to give you an idea of what staying over there was like for me. At that moment, it was actually quite… enjoyable. But those thoughts eventually turned into nightmares for me, as I could not stop thinking about that visit and I constantly missed having that feeling of her being there. I still think about it once in a while, but now much less than I used to. Until recently, it consumed me and it showed in my performance at school.

I’m sure you can see she treated me in a very particular way when I was there; it was clear that she wanted me to be happy then. I did have to drive a very long distance, after all… My initial plan was to simply be there as a friend. And really, that’s what it looked like to her parents… we didn’t do any of the intimate stuff in front of them, obviously. But from all of this, I thought she wanted to be with me. And really, for several years I wanted to be that person that could heal her pain and all the scars she’s had. It looked like I would actually be that person. Later when I returned home, she eventually messaged me saying that she didn’t want to be with me. She was still too traumatized by her ex to want to go any further with me. I decided from there to fall back a little bit and act as support for her in case she needed it. For a while I was able to talk with her daily. It probably did get annoying at first, but to me, it felt like the right thing to do. In one discussion, she even told me that she felt much happier around me than she did with her ex, despite still not wanting to be with me. As I slowly realize how much space she really needs from talking to me all the time, we gradually talked less and less. But eventually her odd stream schedule cut deep into my sleep schedule and I would stay awake up to the early mornings right before class sometimes just to make sure everything was going ok and everyone was happy to be there.

Months after the visit and during one of my streams, we get into a little bit of a fight when Tekken 7 season 2 was announced (yeah, of all things to start a fight over) because Jun Kazama wasn’t announced. Wanting to be real for just a second, I decided to call her out on this extreme devotion to the character and said it was an unhealthy obsession. Yes, Hana was able to cope with her depression because of Jun, but I think demanding people not to tell her about Tekken news and not wanting to play the game just because she wasn’t in it was a tad immature. It also became increasingly apparent to me that she also acted this way towards Leon from Resident Evil 2… I actually felt like throwing up over one of her edits of him. She might’ve seen this as incredibly offensive (especially since I knew how much they meant to her), but I’m actually not the only person who thinks she goes a little overboard with the character devotion. I probably don’t even know all the people who think that. Just food for thought.

This was also the same time she sends another long message saying that “I’ve changed for the worse” since the visit; by being there I was controlling every aspect of her life, seeming to look forward to another visit and still wanting to be with her. While some of that is partially true (I did want to see her again, though I promised my parents I wouldn't do such a thing until I graduated; and some part of me still wished she would change her mind), I took offense to the statement that I was controlling her. I didn’t think anything I did was wrong. I never forced her to do anything, I took a step back from where I used to be with regards to being close to her, and whenever she asked me for recommendations or what have you, I did my best to make sure that it wasn’t something she didn’t want to do.

Before, I would’ve waited as long as possible for her to recover from her past relationship (cue Captain America being the expert on waiting too long; step aside, Cap). But that night she made it very clear that she wants very little, if anything, to do with me. Unfollowed me on Twitter, even revoked my mod on her stream. If anyone ever asked, I said that I’m “taking a break from mod duties” to avoid any suspicion on her end. She still follows me on Twitch, she still lists me as an honourable mention on her Twitch profile, and I still have her on Facebook for some reason, but I don’t think that will last for long after posting this. Especially as I reveal more.

I said that I’ve known her for several years. Well… the first or second year (I don’t remember at this point; it’s pretty far back) that I met her, she also acted the same way towards Lu Xun as she did to Jun. To my knowledge, and a couple of people told me about this, she even made a fake account of him and made it look like she was dating the person who owned that account. The only other thing that made me feel better about the decision of leaving her was that around the same time, she was also chasing someone named Connor; that happened to be another fake account of one of the people who told me about the fake Lu Xun account. This was really far back when catfishing was a more common thing… people are better about it now, but still, YouTube was a hell of a community to be a part of.

Truth is, I may have known Hana for several years but I’ve only been on good terms with her for about half that time due to that disaster. Yet at the same time, both times I fell in love with her. And both times I realized that she is deeply rooted into her own world where these fictional characters really do exist to her (to clarify for those that don’t know, Lu Xun is a real historical figure, but Hana was specifically attracted to the Dynasty Warriors depiction of him). I came back to her a couple of years after in hopes that we have both grown from this embarrassment, but it’s clear that we haven’t. Real people are better off leaving her alone to her own devices. Her ex didn’t think so, I guess. I was also dumb enough to go against that not once, not even twice, but thrice (the actual 2nd time was from a year after we started talking again and she revealed she was dating, which I had to and did respect; however, that time I also assumed that she moved on from being stuck in her own universe). And a certain someone that regularly shows up in her stream might also think otherwise.

I won’t say who it is (though her other regulars might know who I’m referring to), but that person in particular seems to like what he hears from her just by the voice alone; as she started talking to him (yes, directly on stream) more often in the same way that she talked to me all those months ago when I visited her, I became less interested in her stream. I also realized something else; every playthrough of every game she plays is mostly the same. Especially the single player games like Tenchu and Resident Evil where she reacts the exact same way to every plot point and always has the same thing to say to characters that appear on screen or scenarios that occur between characters. She loves Leon and Rikimaru, hates Kagami, Tatsumaru, Ada, and William with a burning passion; she always remarks on Princess Kiku and Sherry being cute. At some point she will ramble on about Shadow Assassins being the worst Tenchu game and not wanting Capcom to kill off Leon because they’ve tried so hard to do that for some reason. After 6 months of her streaming consistently, it gets desensitizing and boring. When she started, I was basically the only other person in her stream. I didn’t mind watching her play and just listening to her talk, but it got repetitive and old after a while. Especially as newer people came by and she felt compelled to do it all over again for those that haven’t watched her yet. If you’re a regular, you don’t really miss anything by not tuning in. She might change it up occasionally, but at this point for me, it’s less about the content and more about the person that I thought I knew as one of my dearest friends (she doesn’t look at me in the same light, at least not anymore).

Despite all of what I’m saying, her stream is still growing; I’m not here to jeopardize that. I’m only here to address what happened between the two of us and my increasing disappointment of spending time with her. I don’t want to talk to her anymore, and I don’t think she even wants to bat an eye towards me. We’re both done with each other as far as I know. And it’s not like we don’t have better things to look forward to than seeing each other again. I’ve been beating myself up over the last 3 ½ months because of this craphole I’ve dug myself in, and I’m finally ready to move on. I’m sorry if I offended any fan or friend of hers, but she sweeps a lot of this under the rug. I’m willing to tell the truth. I’ll be waiting for her inevitable rebuttal and possibly countless threats to ask for more details. But I’m really tired and I don’t want to go on for longer than is necessary. If there’s anything I left out that you’re curious about, I’ll try to elaborate on it in DMs.

As for you, Ilhana… I’m sorry if all of this causes you trouble. I’m sorry if this is not what you expected or wanted from me at all. I don’t want any further malice to continue. But I also can’t find it in my heart anymore to continue this relationship. I feel like you’ve truly isolated me again and left me at a crossroads where I was forced to choose the same path as last time. All the things we experienced… even the first time, before we had met face to face… it felt real to me. But the past is the past. And for both our sakes, we shouldn’t dwell on it.

Edit: In the long message she sent me with regards to how I've changed for the worse, she also goes on about how I can sometimes go too far with my snarky remarks and my lack of restraint. It's a thing I've always tried to be better with, but cracks do slip through and I know that my sense of humour and brutal honesty isn't necessarily for everyone. However, it would be very clear to everyone if I actually meant to offend someone with my words; I generally try not to do that, but if it comes off that way, I do my best to stop. And the few people that react poorly to what I say are the reason I am quiet most of the time in real life. It seems there's never a right moment to say what you want to say because the wrong tone or word choice can throw someone off so easily. And indeed, several people including myself never found a good time to tell Hana about her unsettling behaviour when it came to characters. It's not an easy topic to discuss.