#my apologies to everyone on every messageboard site because i was on all of them

[stratumgermanitivum]

WormmonABC

I've honestly wanted to tell this story for years, and for some reason I never did, but today seemed as good a day as any. It's very likely no one will care, and this post will sink into the abyss of tumblr. There's even less chance the one who should see it ever will. But it lives inside of me, waiting to be spoken.

About twenty years ago, when I was too young to legally (or emotionally) be on roleplaying message boards, I was on roleplaying message boards. I started out lying about my age on Neopets, and soon moved on to lying about my age on Proboards and the like, infesting fandoms like Sonic and Teen Titans with my particular neurodivergent brand of elementary school social skills.

This particular story took place in the Danny Phantom fandom. I logged on every single day after school to plop my not-even-tweenage butt into as many channels as I could, throwing my super special Mary-Sue into every thread, solving plot points in a single sentence like the awesome story-telling fifth/sixth grader I was. Everyone loved me.

(Narrator: They did not, in fact, love them).

One day I logged on to a message from another user. It's been decades and I no longer remember her name. It may have involved Phoenixes, but that could also have been any number of members I harassed befriended in my youth. For convenience, we will call her P.

P was the leader for one of the threads I had invaded. The other members had reached out to her in desperation. They were sick of my magic Mary-Sue, of my godmoding (I had not yet grasped the concept that roleplaying was not like writing stories, and not all the characters were mine to play with), of my inability to allow a plot to develop because I solved all problems immediately, and especially of my tendency to message them that the online users list had held their name for fifteen minutes now, why had they not yet replied to the RP thread?

P was, as gently and kindly as she could, informing me that I was no longer allowed to participate in the RP thread. The other users had had enough. I made everyone uncomfortable and unhappy, and I was no longer welcome.

I handled this with all the maturity an elementary school child could, by which I of course mean I argued with her furiously.

P said, "I want to tell you a story."

She told me the story of WormmonABC, a younger fan just like me, who had been so excited to find message boards, and who had shared all of my fun habits. For some reason, P's username escapes me, but I have never, ever forgotten WormmonABC.

WormmonABC, P said, had also one day been told she was no longer welcome. WormmonABC had also been devastated, had also fought and begged, and had also been denied. And then WormmonABC had grown up and become P, and she was so grateful to have had her nonsense stopped so she could learn from her mistakes, and one day I would be so grateful too, and she knew I'd be better and find a place in fandom where I was happy and so were the people who knew me.

I handled this exactly as well. I was a friendless neurodivergent child stuck in a horrible homelife, and these message boards were the only place I felt good, and I was terrified of losing them. I told her I would NOT be grateful. I told her she was a bully. I outed my age for the first time ever and told her she had made a child cry, and didn't she feel bad about that? I begged again to be allowed back.

P remained, patient, kind, and unyielding. I was not allowed back. I was wished luck. And then she stopped responding to me.

It's been twenty years, and I still think about P. It's been twenty years, and I wish I could tell her:

Thank you. And you were right. I started improving soon after that (although I did have a brief stint of 'making my own roleplaying board, with blackjack and hookers' first). I no longer made those same mistakes. I grew up. And I am so, so grateful, and I wish I could tell you face to face.

P will never see this. I get a fair bit of interaction on other sites, but tumblr is not my domain. This post will get one or two likes, and then fade into obscurity. But I had to say it. I had to get it out.

So if you were once a little girl called WormmonABC, if twenty years ago you were a member of a Danny Phantom roleplaying message board, and if you had to kindly but firmly tell a young, ungrateful child to fuck off (My username is lost to the depths of trauma-gapped childhood memory, but I may have been going by Kitkat at the time): That child grew up. They remember you. And they are sorry, and grateful, and you changed their life for the better.