this sucks. look, i dont know. ive been struggling with having peripheral awareness of this situation for a while and i dont really know what to do or what i expect anyone else to have to say about it. if you follow me on private i trust you enough to talk about this and i guess i feel like maybe there's some folks who deserve to know. i feel like i'm caught between what someone wants, what i think is the best course of action, if i should still respect their privacy on my own judgement, and what's actually the responsible thing to do. i talked to someone about it last night and it seems like this is starting to make some slow shockwaves, so i guess i want to get my hand on the ball before it starts rolling away. this is popping off whether i want it to or not.

and please keep this to yourself unless you think it would help in any way to talk about it, use your better judgment

so uhh, remember rachel rocklin, softowl, she used to be around twitter. she worked at what pumpkin, the homestuck company, theyre doing that game now. she dated andrew hussie. she was a good friend of mine. she tried to get me a job there for a while when i was still unemployed in 2013 / early 2014. i went to her birthday party in 2015. at the end of the year she disappeared from social media. i heard murmurs from a few people that something bad had gone down involving homestuck. my initial assumption was some sort of crazy social media policy forced her to delete her accounts. when homestuck came back for its really bad ending in april 2016 i started sensing that something was up and tried dropping her a line on steam. a few weeks later she replied and we started talking and hanging out again.

i was able to piece together that there was a nasty breakup and she lost her job. we talked a lot and hung out sometimes. out of risk of making her uncomfortable, i kept it to myself. she's a good friend to me. i think talking to her has been a big reason my mood has improved. we play overwatch. in november i went to her apartment after the election for a day trip because the last thing i wanted was to be in my house with my family that week.

she's been pretty hurt about what happened, and her cat died in like, late april early may. bad times. but i didnt pick up on the full story until recently. i guess the official story they pushed about her being dismissed was that she was mean to her boss. here's what she said about it to me in january. i feel more comfortable using her words than potentially telephone-gaming this but i dont really feel great about any of it

uh i got dumped so andrew could date someone else, after he dumped me he repeatedly verbally abused me
told me i was "biasing and stealing" """"our"""" friends by crying on their shoulders about the shit he said to me (i later learned this is a common abuser tactic) and that i should a) not talk about the things he said to anyone b) not tell my friends anything about him/our relationship
so i felt guilty and said "OK" and didn't (so he got to tell them anything he wanted)
then the person he wanted to date didnt want to date him so he told me he thought we should get back together
and when i said no, he got REAL mean and verbally abusive again, shut me out over time, CUT OFF MY PHONE SERVICE since it was a phone/plan he gave me for christmas (leaving me without any kind of phone for more than a week)
demanded to be let in on my private twitter account so he could be sure i wasn't badmouthing him (and i did it because, in retrospect, hey he was abusive and i was scared!)
then got me fired for a catty remark i made on private twitter about cindy
which is hilarious because the nasty shit ive heard him say about her on a constant basis would fill several novels
oh and then five months later when poor kitten died
i asked my mom to email him to let him know because even though he's a piece of shit he deserves to know but i asked her to make it clear i did NOT want to discuss it
and instead of listening to any of that he emailed ME with a bunch of shit including about how we could "be friends again" but only if I could "learn to forgive and put the fraught past behind us"
lots of literally textbook abusive behavior and i used to say "he wasnt abusive, it was just some things he did" but i have since learned to say "abusive behavior means you are being abusive" soooooo...
that is the definiton of an abuser, one who perpetrates abusive behavior
anyway!!! all my "good" "friends" who watched this shit go down and heard about it are now "his" "friends" because he has the money and i was terrified and cowed into silence
so fuck em

another thing worth relating that she's told me is that he'd stalk the @ mentions on her ptwitter to determine when he was being talked about. so, cool.

she's really upset about the homestuck game, so this has been escalating. shes in a real bad way about this. recently she asked if it helped when i "made that post about that guy" referring to the shit that went down with me in 2014... i told her, fuck no it didn't, it spiralled out of control but i felt morally responsible to make it because of the money involved and the public nature of how it all exploded, and that i didn't really like her invoking that event in that way, but i emphasized that her situation is a lot different than mine and that if she wanted to do something i'd stand by her. she's unemployed, hurt, and very alone. she's afraid to talk about this because she thinks if she does they'll find another way to hurt her. she's been talking suicidally lately. i don't really know what to do.

i was dealing with this getting worse over the last weekend. on monday when i had that free day to myself in seattle she told me there was a break up with cohen (skullmandible on twitter). he's writing the homestuck game. she had made references to him a few times over the last year but i literally didn't know they had been dating until this week. later, she found out that he had been cheating on him with someone else, and had told that someone else that she was ok with it. it wasn't. she had all these birthday presents lined up for him that i really dont even know if she could afford (a fucking switch and the botw special edition is in there, my dude you fucked uppp) and so this already really tense situation just got way fucking worse.

now she's pissed. i told her i'd stand by her if she wanted to come forward, and i guess, she took this to mean something else. she gave me, andrew and cohen's alternative twitter accounts and wanted me to "make them feel unsafe" and leak them to homestucks. which is uhhhh, not what i fucking meant. im not cajoling some teenagers into a hate campaign and even if i wanted to what the fuck am i going to do to make that happen? when i told her that i wouldn't, she asked me to write a callout post for her. which, is fucking foolhardy, dilutes the message and intent, and also potentially steps on the toes and privacy of the OTHER person in this equation who cohen cheated with, who i understand also wants to talk about this but at a time when they are more ready to do so. if she wants to say her story, i will be with her, but if it's me saying it for her, that means nothing. that's not exposing some shitbags. just some nosy asshole making a terrible fucking judgment call. but she's not in the condition to talk about this herself.

i am not doing anything that will hurt her and i'm not doing anything that will hurt me either. this is a tough situation, but rachel wants outright messy retribution and is asking me to do it and she is getting very, very impatient with my refusal to do so. im not doing anything rash. i know where this fucking goes and this requires a much more delicate touch. it is... getting really tough to be supportive, and i hate to admit that. the way she wants this situation to end is instantaneous gratification and seeking that is going to make this worse. i'm not going to be party to that, but her condition and attitude is worrying me too.

so i don't know. is it irresponsible of me to keep this tight-lipped? is it irresponsible of me to even be talking about this privately? am i being spineless? selfish. i meant it when i said i'd support rachel. but this isn't a type of support i am willing to give and she should know that. she knows my shit, she literally invoked my shit. i'm not doing this again. i want her to see justice, i want this story out there, but none of this is the right thing to do.

nadia described this as a "hell nightmare situation." i don't fucking know!! again, i dont know that there's any advice you can give me! i dont know that talking about this is even the right fucking thing!!!! but i can't do this alone and i feel like at the very least i should post about this. i dont really ask anything of you except that, you've read this.

Please, please don't remind me about how many times i've been in situations like this. no funny comments about how many times i've put myself into this exact corner please. thanks.