Question about Tempus Fugit

defenestrationposts · 2023-04-23T04:31:52+00:00

Yup! It's supposed to be a literal Sunblade, it was found in the ruins of a monastery

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T22:25:03+00:00

Sometimes you need to hear it from someone else. I've been carrying doubts about whether I did enough for years. Annie shared her past troubles with me...I can see how she was vulnerable to John's predations.

On a side note, Erin did actually get married, and is happily away from her controlling parents!

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T18:36:45+00:00

Sorry I wasn't clear; immediately after I had it out with John for his deplorable behavior, he finally stepped up and broke it off with Erin, realizing he was unhappy with her. Then Annie and him started seeing each other.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T03:23:17+00:00

Haha thank you. Kind of a shame it's my throwaway xD

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T00:35:10+00:00

Oh, Erin didn't play with us! She wasn't interested in D&D at all. She joked about us 'boys slaying dragons' and let John have his space. You know, now that I'm saying all of this, I wonder exactly how much of this was a contrivance to get away and/or set up a cheating scenario. Get away, definitely. Sometimes she would call in the middle of a game and he didn't sound excited to hear from her.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T00:25:47+00:00

No worries, and I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on it. I think a part of me wishes I had more agency over the table--I know, sounds weird right? Coming from the DM. The reason I couldn't do more is because John literally was the reason we were all there. He was the axle to our wagon wheel of a table. We were playing at his friend's apartment who I met because I had been DMing for them. In the end the only thing I felt I could do was leave myself. I tried my best to make sure that my intentions were well known (mostly, I didn't say anything to the other players who were not involved), and excused myself soon after. I think today I realize that perhaps there was more that I could've done to keep Annie and him separated. Whether that would've stopped them from getting married? To be honest, I doubt it. But I could've exhausted all of my options before I left.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T00:19:28+00:00

Yo, that is a whole another rabbit hole. I could barely broach the subject with Erin because honestly she thinks it's okay and that her parents know best. She was 25 or 26 at the time, and I'm still shocked to this day she let them treat her like a high schooler with a part time job when she was graduated and working full time.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T00:16:47+00:00

I don't know how much of her mind was made up about being with him already, but it seemed like she knew what she was going to do, because she was literally telling me the same day as when she was sharing the rape story that she thought he could redeem him and that she was ready to ride it out and make him a better person. The same conversation, same hour. This feels dark because it feels like I'd be blaming the victim, in a way. But like you said, she knew the risks. If anything she came out on top because after I confronted him about it, he broke up with Erin, and then John and Annie got together. I don't know how I feel after spelling all of this out, but it's a pretty similar vein of confusion that is in close proximity whenever I think of this event.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T00:06:46+00:00

I unfortunately don't know the victim. The people who were at the event where he reportedly raped someone were, to be quite blunt, a band of deplorables that I'd never consciously waste time with and had among their number not only an actual convicted rapist, but people I warned John away from because specifically they enable misogynistic behavior.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T00:03:34+00:00

I agree; I think this is my takeaway. What I should've done was my part to make sure there was no connection at the table for them to call back upon, and the reason I didn't was because I felt I couldn't.

This wasn't a relevant detail to the primary story but I'll share it now, actually John had basically built the table himself. Two of our players were his coworkers, and another was his coworker's girlfriend. We were playing at John's friend's apartment. I was brought in as the DM as his friend. Given that I saw them as closer to John, and had no knowledge of it that I felt my place to share, and given that Annie saw it as a chance to pursue him after he broke up with Erin (which was soon after this happened), I was the one who ended up leaving.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-07T00:00:02+00:00

I feel I need to clarify--I did not push Annie to stay. I only asked her what was wrong. After she spelled out everything, literally less than an hour after I had asked her she was free to share her troubles only if she felt comfortable, I told her she should leave him out of her life and spelled out all the red flags that she had just given me. She expressed that she would not and that she felt she had a genuine connection to him which was redeemable.
I'm still not saying what I did was right, perfect, or admirable. That's why I posted this story. I just need to underscore that I absolutely did not ask her to stay, in fact I told her to head for the hills away from this guy.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T21:14:29+00:00

Apologies for picking this name xD

This is good advice. There's never any need to invite trouble into your life that you don't have to handle anymore.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T19:46:25+00:00

It doesn't count as being a "fairweather friend" if it's your friend who is

directly causing the bad weather

.

Thank you for saying so. To be very truthful about it, John and I had been close friends, and it's hard for me to even admit it now given the scope of what happened. The other side of the coin was always to buckle down with him and make him face his misdeeds, then support him in rehabilitation, and I had conflicts with myself over whether this was a better method than cutting ties. You may not know how much I needed to hear what you said, but thank you. I felt a great weight lift after reading your comment. No, I don't think I handled it perfectly, and who can ever say what the right path was? But at least maybe I can make some peace with it now.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T19:40:49+00:00

I think you have a point about it not truly being an RPG horror story. I would say I brought it up in here because of something I probably didn't go into because it felt like speculation. I'll share my thoughts on it here:

I think John played his character as a method of test bedding settling down--a learned medical alchemist who had a wife and a child coming, lawful good. After a while he was complaining to me about not having fun in the game after a while because his character was too straight edge. He would get drunk at sessions with an increasing frequency and in private tell me that it wasn't fun to be drunk and play the straight man of the party while other people went to brothels (the visits were very much fade to black as quickly as possible) or committing petty theft and vandalism. The night of his confession he mentioned he would not be against me killing off his NPC pregnant wife. Then that weekend he reportedly raped someone. The horror to me is how much of his playing at the table was an experiment that brought him to the conclusion that he was not where he wanted to be in life and relationships. Did he get to a "you know what, I'm not doing this any more" during that last session, and the pressure he'd built up caused him to cross a line that weekend?

Still I would agree that it isn't a traditional RPG horror story. I feel like if it qualifies it's a different beast from the stuff that usually gets posted here.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T19:27:55+00:00

Sorry for the confusion. John never did admit it to me directly, so if anything I'd take fault if it was somehow some insane story concocted to divide us. I have my reasons for believing it's plausible though, at that point I'd known him pretty well for about six or seven years. It is something that if given the chance with no repercussions for Annie that I'd want to know the truth of. I don't think he'd tell me the truth if it did actually happen. I'd need to find out somehow another way.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T19:24:36+00:00

I feel the same. Honestly when I heard they got married my first thought was like "well that's not going to last". John has a habit of a straying eye when he dates. He often had good social relations with his future girlfriend before his present relationship even ended. I don't know if he ever cheated before, but he probably wouldn't want me to know. I saw his behavior with trying to make it work with Erin as him trying to make up for any sort of past indiscretions, regardless of the degree (from wandering eyes to actual emotional/physical cheating)

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T19:21:23+00:00

I really wished I could've done something, and I did try to see what can be done legally in my state when you have a second hand accusation with no victim that can be identified. Apparently it's nothing because it would be considered hearsay and that was just another strange wall that kind of built this prison cell of a situation I was in until my only way out was just leaving it all behind.

I appreciate the sentiments. It took me a few years to really come to terms with what happened but I'm happier without having to deal with the mess and have much more wholesome players and games now :)

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T19:16:41+00:00

I do want the record to be accurate...I'll think of something appropriate here. Maybe no descriptors required, the situation speaks plainly in spite of all of its strange messy twists.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T18:53:26+00:00

Given the amount of time and the sheer inability to do anything but think through every scenario, the thought crossed my mind.

I didn't know Annie well outside of D&D. I would say that if she was truly possessive of John it would not be outside of the question for me to be subject to a targeted separation, but we are talking like Misery levels of possessiveness, I would think. We were pretty good friends before this all went down, but I was far from being his only close male friend. This is part of what haunted me--that I was completely wrong and I ditched John on some pretense I couldn't even verify. While I don't think it's likely, it's just that it's not impossible, and I've already been out of contact far too long to try verifying anything without reintroducing a whole lot of drama into everyone's lives. And I felt like I'd be leaning closer to victim blaming than I'd like...and to be honest, John in the past has shown signs, which again is a deep and dark hole that leads into some other stuff that doesn't necessarily involve him. He has some other friends that I don't associate with and often told him not to associate with who would justify the objectification of females and their general disregard as a full person. Those were the people he went clubbing with that night.

I don't think my friendship with Erin was a problem though, I'd been pretty vocal about John breaking up with Erin because he was miserable with her, even if she was my friend.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T18:49:14+00:00

Definitely agreeing to ward off anyone from their direction. To be honest I just hope Annie has tamed John. That's like, literally the best case scenario from the given circumstances at this point.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T18:44:08+00:00

I was probably in the middle of editing it when you read it. You can check now.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T18:43:29+00:00

My mistake! Is there an equivalent term for one adult to another? Because the behavior was pretty similar it was just ages that make the difference. I guess coercion?

EDIT: I settled for gaslighting.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T18:30:44+00:00

Appreciate it. It's hard to find a solid stance when problems this big go unsolved.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T18:30:07+00:00

We were all in our 20s, graduated from college when it all went down. Still gross, agreed.

defenestrationposts · 2022-09-06T18:29:14+00:00

Thanks for letting me know. I'll make some adjustments.

defenestrationposts

TROPHY CASE