A Clean Slate and Long Overdue Apologies

[Tina Valentine]

I am going to preface this by saying this… this is not a comeback post. I do not have the time at the moment to take on another roleplaying fed. (I know it’s THOTF season and I wanted to nip rumors of a surprise entry in the ass lol)


This is the proverbial “I fucked up” post where I admit that’s precisely what I had done over the years that I was part of this community. I am not going to go through wrong by wrong going all the way back to 2014 when I was part of IWC, this post would drag on far too long if I did. But I know that I had burned bridges and pissed off practically everyone in this community at some point or another and I am writing this to say that this is my apology for all of it and an attempt at a clean slate. Whatever happened in the past, I am over it. I don’t hold any grudges against anyone in this community anymore in spite of what may or may not have happened, what may or may not have been said. In truth, what drove me to fuck up as much as I did was so many insecurities that I had been carrying with me, both fedding wise and IRL wise, and that admittedly, I still do at times. Whether it was bitterness over certain matches over the years I held on to, whether it was angles involving my characters that I had issues with, whether it was jealousy of others (I won’t name drop anyone) because I could never be better than them or because I could never have the angle they were having… the entire root of it all is the fact that I have always been insecure with myself as a person and a writer in some form or another, I have made an awful habit out of taking it out on others even when I don’t realize I am doing so.

I’m turning 29 later this year. I am not getting any younger. I’m ‘living the dream’ with my own apartment these days, working full-time, making $16.50 an hour for an IT company and all that good stuff so over the last year or so, I’ve gotten the opportunity to know what real life and the real world really is. When I first became part of IWC in 2014, I was 23. I hadn’t experienced ANYTHING with what life was like. I was a college dropout with minimal job experience and someone whose future was working minimum wage in dead end retail or fast food. E-fedding was literally ALL I had at the time so whenever things would go wrong, it felt a lot more devastating than it had any right to be. I’ve always carried this insecurity that has made me be a complete dick to other people even though I don’t intend to be that way.

In essence, I’ve re-evaluated a lot of things. Yes, I still may be a competitive person when it comes to this game (aren’t we all?) but it’s still no excuse for the bridges I burned. It was no excuse for pulling Casey Holliday out of SCW or leaving UWA the way I did or leaving GCW last year in the fashion that I did. My downward spiral with this community… I can’t pinpoint the exact date when it started. I want to say MAYBE it was that Tina Valentine match with Vanilla Skyy like 4 years ago that I took forever to move past, I’m not 100% sure on that. It may have also been the tournament in UWA at the end of 2016 and how that went, but I realized the downward spiral was there early in 2017 after the Collision Course event in UWA and I never pulled myself out of that hole. My attitude toward this was completely terrible, with my attitude being “I’ll never win a world title in the Triad no matter what I do”. This is far and away the WRONG attitude to have about this entire game because while it IS a competitive hobby, it is supposed to be about the collaborative experience, not the glory. It is true that I was advised to reign in my word count around that time but I felt like that wasn’t going to change anything. In fact, since my departure, I have taken part in roleplay feds with word count limits ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 and I am finding this a LOT better for me which… considering my resistance to cutting back on my word count, is actually quite ironic. Anyway, back to the point. When I left UWA, that downward spiral e-fedding wise got even worse.

I clung on to GCW as if it was a safety net and I realize that as a staff member there, I treated certain situations with bookings of other people’s characters poorly and I essentially made it all about me (which, I admit was terribly wrong of me). It got to a point where I felt like nobody wanted me around (and maybe that was the case, who knows). Mentally, I was burned out by everything. I had suffered an anxiety attack 12 months ago and I actually had a psychological crisis for about two to three weeks after that and I admit that around that time (when I quit my old $10.50/hour retail job), I should have taken a hiatus from this game, but instead, I clung onto it as my escape. I was too deeply involved to want to let go of it, when I honestly should have, even for a while. Four weeks later, I found another job (my current one) which was a great relief… but this also happened with the caveat that I was the only one at home with a job. Rent had fallen behind by this point in late June (when the beginning of the end of my GCW run happened) and literally my entire first paycheck at this job went toward that rent.

Essentially, last summer, when things really went downhill for me in GCW, I was completely thrown into the fire with “adulting” with little to no prior experience with it… and the job that I have has a higher turnover rate than most jobs would have so I had the added stress of doing what I could to keep this job… which I have, luckily. When I left GCW and this community as a whole, I was in the beginning stages of an “adulting” crash course. There wasn’t a day that went by without me being stressed out and unfortunately, I took things out on people in the worst way when again… I should have taken a hiatus from this game as this was all going on for at least a few months. So, this brings us to today where I come to you all having survived that adulting crash course and being a better, more mature person. I am not using ANY of this as an excuse for why I acted the way I acted and why my rep around here is what it is. I admit that it is going to take a lot of work for me to reverse that rep. I’m merely trying to explain my own perspective and how much I’ve grown and changed since then and how certain real life periods in my life affected my behavior e-fedding wise. Of course, I am not using my real life as a crutch or as an excuse. It doesn’t change the fact that I’ve done what I’ve done.

I am deeply sorry for all the burned bridges and every single thing I have done to upset anyone and everyone in this community. I know the degree of forgiveness will vary among you all and I know that some people will be a steeper climb than others as far as that is concerned. At the end of the day, I fucked up in taking things in this game and in this community far too seriously and far too personally. I know I have frustrated and angered the lot of you over the years with some of the dumbest things I could ever do, stemming from the fact that I alone allowed my own personal insecurities to get to me. My intention was never to hurt, or to bring down anyone but I understand that at various times, this is exactly what I have done. As of this moment, and going forward, I hold no ill will toward anyone here. It is a clean slate. Roleplaying in SCW again is not something that is in my immediate future, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m turning 29 later this year. I have been in this game for 12 years now. I know I won’t be doing this forever and ideally, if and when the time comes where I do leave this game, I don’t want to leave it with any grudges whether it’s me against others or others against me. I need to, and I will, stop living in 2007 in this game when I was 16, an immature as fuck high school sophomore who thought he knew everything about the world and used e-fedding as a crutch for self-validation real life wasn’t giving me (especially during 2013-2016ish [2016ish was when my life began to change for the better] when I was honestly a miserable fuck in real life). I hope that going forward, the slate can be cleaned and these burned bridges can start over again. If you’ve read this far, thank you for hearing me out. It’s appreciated. I wish you all the best going forward and if I have to prove myself to everyone that my perspective has changed and that I have changed, I am definitely willing to do that. I know it’s an individual case-by-case thing with all of you and my inbox is open for anyone that wants to squash things individually.

I’m willing to put all of the past behind me and start over again, if you all are willing to have me around again even in just an OOC capacity.

Thanks.

JJ.

[thisisemerge]

Apology accepted. I took a lot of shit from you and was blamed for a lot of things so appreciate the gesture

However I'm not interested in any clean slate or the fact you 'dont hold a grudge' . SCW isn't my fed Olek will do what he chooses but you won't be coming anywhere near EMERGE.

[Simple77]

JJ,

I remember 2014 when I met you on twitter with Valentina Madison, and you were the guy who was being mistreated by the fed you were in at the time. I watched how you were treated, I agreed it was wrong, and I led to this place we call the Triad, with some of the best people I have ever met. These people helped bring me back from a stroke in 2016 that nearly killed me, to being a college graduate and so much more today.

These people are not my FRIENDS, they are my FAMILY.

I realize you are trying to making amends. It is seemingly sincere and commendable. I would like to talk to you more about that, and a lot of other things

littleredstorm@gmail.com

Please be in touch

Charlie

[Tina Valentine]

I have sent you an email, Charlie. Thanks.

[ThatWasley]

Far as I’m concerned, you making this big speech on the boards in public does nothing but paper over the cracks created by you in the first place. You want a clean slate? You should have contacted every person you pissed off personally before thinking of a blanket statement like this. You didn’t even mention people’s NAMES in your apology.

For me, this is the first and last time I’ll have anything to do with you. I’m glad life is treating you well but I won’t ever be happy to see you return to our circle in any capacity. Some bridges can’t be rebuilt and you’re lucky I even validated your account.

[Sienna Swann]

JJ,

I'm probably the main guy you had the biggest problem with and it had nothing to do with personalities or I treated you like shit, basically you disliked me because in this game you could never beat me. Is that a reason to talk bad about someone behind their back? Try to get others to feel the same way as you to justify your feelings? There are some people in this game who are who they are and will never change, they could care less if a truck ran over you or not, all they care about is winning and nothing else mattered.

You are one of those people.

I am the type of person who forgives, time heals all wounds. There are people in the game that I would never have anything to do with ever again. We had a stable, you had an OOC account that I found on Twitter where you bashed me almost every week, in all honesty I thought at times you were mentally ill because normal people do not act like this. It is a testament of how big an asshole you came across when someone like Wasley, Chris and Kas want nothing to do with you, three of the nicest people in the game who I have seen treat others even when they didn't warrant like family but you became the exception.

Honestly for me, life is too short, this here, I don't believe you will ever change, in time you will revert back to the same way you have been as you've shown it already in the past even in other feds. Like Wasley said, I'm happy that you are maturing and things are going better, you at least took the time to write this statement even if I agree with Wasley, this should have been something that for certain individuals you would have been better off reaching personally first before then posting this. I tried to help you out through this game, I tried to get you involved in story lines, I even tried to give you advice, at the end of the day you went behind my back and stabbed me more times than I could possibly imagine.

People talk, this is a pretty tight knit community, I may have had my share of arguments and rifts with certain others but at the end of the day there was always respect and support. I accept your apology and hope that you can find success in your new job, life, relationship and beat out those insecurities which have become your biggest enemies but you burned the bridges here man to the point they are not repairable and this community has already moved on past you.

Good luck in your future endeavors.

[Foreverzerov1]

i had no issue with ya...but everyone should apologize to me.

[Ace]

I tried being friendly with you but knowing me, it went both ways. Either way we had our issues but I don't hold grudges.

Everyone else here will get better with time and get over it, we all mature differently and they are still in their teens. If you never read this, well, life goes on. Be well.

[Cid]

I forgive you. I really enjoy VIHAAN and, to a lesser degree, Jordan Majors. So I'll let your behavior slide.