I just want to second all of this, while also focusing a bit on the staff part:
I have a lot of mixed feelings on staff messages. They often come across considered to the point of losing authenticity, despite the palpable exhaustion from trying to show they care. I used
Fat4all as a dogwhistle in my intro post so anyone who clicked where I quoted his post would be taken to the Trans Awareness week thread from 2019. It's a thread I read while lurking that showed me how passionate this community was toward its members who were wronged or left behind. It's what made me actually want to join so I could add my voice when something like that happened.
However, I do think staff and Sophia deserve some benefit of the doubt. I've played a lot of Mafia/Werewolf and also grew up around manipulative people. Some things stick out to me as immediately revealing despite lacking the key to decipher what it was revealing. Enter these two posts by Black Chamber and Vestan:
This could be a very understanding and self-critical post that shows nothing but good intentions about a hard situation. It could also be seen as a way to manipulate others into believing that's true. Knowing what we do now I think the manipulation is obvious. However, I'll explain a bit more:
Black Chamber is mimicking the tone of a staff post, acknowledging and addressing his silence in a way that makes it seem logical. Enough to possibly gloss over the warzone rhetoric which is a major red flag. But what actually allows the red flag to be glossed over is vestan stepping in to both say he's had conversations with Black Chambers with the unspoken implication being that they've had discussions about CDPR's transphobia in private and associates his stance that Black Chamber is getting piled on based on those unseen conversations. He then tags Sophia and says to DM "us" to discuss whatever decision the staff come up with. Considering how exhausted staff is, especially with this game, this probably came off as a massive relief. It's a great mafia play as despite being very obvious, it's something you want to risk if it means one less thing to think about. And that allows them into the staffs good graces.
It's a human error. It's easy to see now, but in the moment it's easy to overlook
especially if you're going through things others don't understand that make you feel like you're not being heard. This is why listening is so important.
I hope people read between the lines here or I'm being too subtle about who I'm talking to and who they should apply that same benefit of the doubt to, because TransEra needs no reminder of something they go through daily in life and not just on a forum. (Although stress online also steeps into life and is unavoidable to everyone. That is undeniably real and I'm not trying to say staff's pain is less. Simply that if things get too stressful, you can always step down or take a break, even if that carries undeserving guilt from leaving a mess for others. You can't just stop being trans, even if you physically hide it. That's the thing about anyone queer. It doesn't stop for us.)
*breathes*
THANK FUCK MY POST WAS SAVED SINCE I IGNORED THE MANY WARNINGS MY PHONE WAS GOING TO DIE UNTIL IT DID YES I KNOW THE IRONY SHUDDUP
