WTAF?
I know nobody ever looks at my website, so I can post here without fear.
I don't really know how to feel about this and I need some help processing it.
A few nights ago I was downright crying because I didn't know what to do. I care about this person a lot as a friend and this is so completely out of character, but it's real and it happened. I, as well as a few friends saw a video- a recording of VRChat RP involving sexual assault/CNC content- and it was posted publicly in a server where anyone age-verified could see it, including someone who has a history of being assaulted IRL. Not tucked away in some private channel. Not behind additional warnings. Just there, accessible to anyone who happened to be age-verified in the server.
Because VRChat RP is LARP, you don't expect to have to look for that type of stuff in trigger warnings because it's banned everywhere. Storytelling of that kind in LARPs is explicitly banned across the board. So it's absolutely insane to me that the response is just "it's RP so it doesn't matter." No. Absolutely not. That's the justification you give to someone when you genuinely don't give a fuck about them being a survivor, and it's complete bullshit. RP doesn't make it not harmful. RP doesn't make it okay to thrust that content onto people who never consented to seeing it.
I get CNC. I understand it. IRL, with your partner, in a private, consensual context? I get it. But this? This is fucking insane to me. I genuinely cannot comprehend the amount of deliberate steps it takes: to be asked to do this, to agree to it, to choose to put VR equipment on, to choose to request or accept an invite from that person, to set up the RECORDING software needed to capture it, to put on full body trackers, and to ACT IT OUT with your entire body for not 5, not 3, but THIRTY MINUTES, going through every motion- and not a single fucking thought crosses anyone's mind about whether posting it publicly in an RP server is appropriate? Turning it into a spectacle? Even with warnings slapped on it (in which, they were not extensive enough), I cannot mentally justify that chain of decisions. Each step was a choice. Each step was an opportunity to think "maybe this shouldn't be shared, maybe only briefly mentioned in rp" And yet.
And here's what makes this even worse: this type of content is a direct violation of Discord's Terms of Service. It's not some gray area- it's explicitly against the rules. It's also banned on Fansly and OnlyFans and generally any form of 18+ content creation platform you can think of. You literally cannot post CNC content on these platforms because it's too close to the content it's trying to echo. There's a reason for that. These platforms, which allow all manner of adult content, have specifically drawn the line at CNC because recorded CNC content, even between consenting adults, is visually and audibly indistinguishable from actual sexual assault. It shouldn't exist in shareable, recordable formats because there is no way for a viewer to verify consent, no way to distinguish it from documentation of a real crime. But somehow, in an RP server, the logic was "it's fine, it's just roleplay"? How does that make any sense? How is a VRChat recording of simulated sexual assault in a LARP environment where this type of storytelling is banned, regardless of if the LARP is online or not, somehow more acceptable than any other recording of the same content?
The server team had to make a huge public statement apologizing for this. They acknowledged they failed to consider the harm and triggering impact. They acknowledged that sexual violence isn't condoned and that consensual roleplay involving these themes doesn't belong in any public-facing spaces, including 18+ communities. They removed the content, spoke directly with the people involved, updated guidelines, implemented stricter rules, expanded moderation. They had to do all of this damage control because the harm was that significant and that widespread. No wonder such a massive statement was needed - anyone age-verified could see it regardless of whether they even had a character or participated in RP at all. Just being in the server was enough.
I removed this person from my server. I do not think a lot of us would really appreciate someone willing to produce and distribute that kind of content here- because that's really the biggest problem- the distribution of it. The people closest to me agreed when I informed them of what was going on, many of them getting angry. It's really hard doing that, removing someone, let alone considering stopping contact entirely, because this was someone I genuinely cared about as a friend. But I know there are different avenues for making amends that don't include my spaces, that can't include my spaces right now. I already did it, but fuck my life. How does anyone even make up for something like this? What does accountability even look like here?
But there are so many more layers to this that I'm processing. I'm scared - genuinely scared - that when the removal from my server and another server gets discovered, things will get aggressive. Either directed at me or at others, particularly the people who reported who are survivors that saw it, expecting something only mentioned only to get it full-visual. I'm worried about retaliation. I'm worried about lashing out. I'm worried about what happens when someone who made this kind of judgment call feels cornered or called out. Regardless of whether that aggression happens, consequences are coming either way, but I'm so upset about losing this friendship. This was supposedly a good, supportive friend. Someone I trusted. Someone I confided in. Someone I thought I knew.
And now I'm sitting here questioning every single interaction I've ever had with this person. I don't know if any interaction has been truthful or just a deflection or just an intent to get closer only to tear down later. I don't know what the intent was anymore behind anything. Every time I think about our friendship, I make a new connection, see a new pattern, remember a new moment that now feels different in retrospect. Was any of it real? Was I just being used? Was I being manipulated this whole time and I was too trusting to see it?
Like just the other day, this vent had to be made because of this person's behavior: "Please stop talking about [place] around me, especially about going to it. In passing was fine, but I genuinely think that every time it gets brought up it's like a slight against me, especially when it's done by people I really consider friends who I've already told about my situation. It used to be fine until people continuously talk about going to it knowing I can't join them to hang out, and it being the only place they hang out in VR other than RPs. It's genuinely shitty. It makes me feel like shit. There's purposeful exclusion happening."
Now I can't tell if that was thoughtless or deliberately hurtful. I can't tell if it was just social obliviousness or if it was intentional cruelty designed to make me feel left out and othered. That all of this was a deliberate and intentional thing to force me to separate from them rather than us, to make it on our terms, that this is a form of self-sabotage or something. And there's no trust left to give the benefit of the doubt anymore. There's no foundation to stand on when trying to interpret past behavior. Everything is suspect now. Everything could have been a red flag I missed.
Things like this create the strong urge to stage a fake persona death and just leave the community entirely. Just disappear. Let everyone think this persona is gone and start over somewhere else where none of this history exists. But there are people here who genuinely matter, people I love and care about, and they're still in the community. So I'm trapped in this awful middle ground where staying feels unsafe and exhausting and anxiety-inducing, but leaving feels like losing the good people who've done nothing wrong and don't deserve to be abandoned. And I'm just sitting here waiting for the reaction, waiting for the fallout, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that weight is on every single interaction now. Every time I'm in a server or in VR, there's this hypervigilance, this tension, this waiting.
And what really gets me- what makes me so angry and frustrated on top of everything else- is that there's no certainty about how it will impact things if all of a sudden the survivor decides to "forgive" and go back to this person even though promises were made otherwise. Even though there were statements about boundaries and about not accepting this behavior. It still wouldn't make any of this feel acceptable to me. It still wouldn't make what happened okay. And it genuinely bothers me to my core when I stand for something and take a strong opinionated stance about it, when I'm willing to burn bridges and lose friendships over my principles, but other people can't own up to the courage of their convictions. They leave me in that in-between space, standing alone while everyone else moves on.
This is a pattern I've experienced before and I'm so tired of it. I take a stand. I do the hard thing. I hold firm to my values even when it costs me friendships, community standing, social connections. And then other people waffle. Upset is expressed in the moment, boundaries are promised, "I'll never forgive this" is said with conviction, but then time passes and there's softening. There's reconciliation. There's forgiveness. There's "well maybe it wasn't that bad" or "people deserve second chances" or "I miss the friendship." And I'm left holding the line completely alone, looking "too harsh" or "unforgiving" or "unwilling to move on" by comparison. There's no going back because the bridge was already burned based on principle - I already removed this person from my spaces, I already made my stance clear, I already drew my line in the sand. There's no going forward because the collective action I expected and hoped for doesn't materialize - I'm not part of some unified front, I'm just the one person who "couldn't let it go." I feel stupid for being the "hard-ass." I feel isolated for having standards. And I wonder if I'm the problem for not being able to let it go, for not being able to soften my boundaries, for not being more forgiving.
But even if forgiveness happens elsewhere, even if the survivor decides to reconcile, even if the entire community moves on like nothing happened - that doesn't make any of this okay. That doesn't retroactively justify what was done. My feelings about this aren't dependent on whether other people maintain their boundaries. My anger and hurt and loss of trust aren't contingent on collective agreement. What happened violated community trust on a fundamental level. It broke my personal trust in someone I considered a close friend. It violated Discord's Terms of Service in a way that could have gotten the entire server deleted. And it revealed something about judgment and character that I can't unsee - the willingness to record and publicly share content that simulates sexual violence, the inability to recognize why that's harmful, the defensiveness when called out, the minimization of "it's just RP."
Even if everyone else moves on, that doesn't erase the multiple deliberate steps that were taken to create and share this content. It doesn't erase my right to my own boundaries and my own standards for who I keep in my spaces and my life. It doesn't make me wrong for being angry about this.
There's just this deep wish that people would match my integrity. That when someone says "this is unacceptable," there would be consistent treatment of it as unacceptable, not just when it's convenient or when emotions are running high or when it's easy. That people would follow through on their stated values instead of quietly walking them back when maintaining those boundaries becomes socially inconvenient. But I can't make anyone have courage of conviction. I can't force anyone to stand by their principles when it costs something. The only choice I have is deciding what I'm willing to live with - including the very real possibility of the loneliness of standing alone on this. Of being the only one who doesn't eventually forgive and forget. Of being the person who "made it a bigger deal than it needed to be."
And that's where I am. Angry. Frustrated. Grieving a friendship. Questioning everything. Scared of retaliation. Trapped between staying and leaving. Waiting to see if I'll be standing alone on this in a few weeks when everyone else has moved on. Wondering if my standards are too high or if everyone else's are too low. Not knowing how to feel.
I feel like I'm fair to feel this way.
Usually I'm right.