#and again has had several past instances of very dickish behavior

[coldgoldlazarus]

-Character A

-Aloof loner

-Hasn't been with party that long, hasn't had time to develop positively or get especially close to the party

-Tried to reboot her with a more friendly direction to account for that, it just didn't really feel natural or fun, and also another character's death immediately adjacent to that kinda forces her back into a bad headspace for a session anyway, before I can use it as a motivator to more naturally/gradually shift in the intended friendlier direction

-During that overall brief phase of negative mood, is rude in a minor way (sitting in a beanbag while wet on purpose) that comes off worse due to knowledge that neither she nor I had until after the fact. (Beanbag actually belongs to the party's youngest character, not the member she was actually trying to get under the skin of and who owned the house the beanbag was in) This is treated as high sin.

-Funeral for deceased party member is held. She wants to be the last one present at burial site, but don't want to impede on others' Big Moments, so I attempt to have her retreat to a more-than-respectful distance to let that work. DM continually interprets her distance as much closer than it's meant to be, and resists and eventually shuts down my attempts to clarify/correct that. End result is just hiding nearby, distracting from and overhearing the moments I was trying to avoid distracting from or overhearing.

-Finally, due to the out-of-character discussion of her whereabouts, other player characters refuse to budge specifically to foil her efforts to be the last one there, completely preventing her from getting the chance for any sort of similar moment as they had gotten, until she has to just give up on hiding and follow them back to the city; dogged to keep her with the group, and one further attempt to separate herself and double back is pointedly foiled.

-All she wanted was to use druid powers to make the grave site prettier, a slight bit of positive development that would ONLY COUNT if she was alone for it, and they'd only see the effects after passing back through later, otherwise given prior characterization it would just come across as making a (figurative and literal) show of caring. And it was foiled maliciously at every turn.

-Also OOC everyone hates her character and wants her to do a complete personality 180 that just wouldn't and couldn't make any sort of sense, otherwise her continued presence would apparently make everyone fucking miserable. Despite refusing her the chance to do literally anything to offset that in a way that would feel natural, and her overall vibes being much less combatitive 99% of the time than Character B's average.

-I point out this discrepancy and the answer boils down to "she just sucks, make her smile more and do it now"

-Internalize maybe she is a fundamentally bad character for the game, but still can't see any way to change her that would be fast enough for the rest of the party and that I would actually like playing. So decide fuck this and quit, have her just leave the party in-universe. And since making a new character wouldn't have made sense at the time due to other factors, out-of-universe retreat to a spectator position until I can feel better about playing again, and an opportunity to bring in someone new presents itself. (Neither has occurred yet.)

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Character B

-Edgy loner

-Has been with party for ages, has gotten closer, but still edgy loner with a long rap sheet of party-alienating moments

-Nearly kills an NPC important to another player character due to faulty/invomplete information, but is stopped for out-of-universe reasons at the last second

-Player who's character the NPC is relevant to is still kinda pissed, says she would be a bad character, if she had gone through with it. Rest of group isn't even upset over any of it

-Overall, this is a chance to kickstart further positive development and stuff, and treated as such by most of the group