Discord in two senses
Nov. 14th, 2025 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseI used to have a very dear online friend called Magda, who, tragically but not really unexpectedly, died a little under two years ago in her early twenties. She had been chronically ill and disabled all her life; but it would not be an exaggeration to say that she was the arts-based version of Stephen Hawking, because she was a genius. She had won the Polish School Olympics (a nationwide academic competition) several times in different subjects, though languages and linguistics were her first love. She spoke English so well that I was staggered when I discovered it wasn't her first language; indeed, her vocabulary was better than that of probably more than 95% of native speakers. We were writing a book together, and we understood each other so well that both of us knew that either one of us could create a character and the other one could then just automatically take it the way the first person intended it to go. I will never forget the time I sent her the latest chunk I'd written, and she got all excited because I knew the word "fewmets". I thought that was very funny. I mean... hang on, which of us exactly was the native speaker here?!
Magda was a stunningly good communicator in all respects, and she was also extraordinarily kind and thoughtful. She loved roleplaying, had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the games she played, and regularly spent hours online with new players (in the case of Shadowrun, I was one of them) helping them to tweak their character so that it was exactly what they wanted. With Shadowrun this was an especially impressive feat, because it has an entire bookshelf full of supplementary rule books; but Magda could still say, "Oh, you'd like your character to do X? There's this thing they can have which is in such a book, do you think that would work for you?"
She could pick up on everything instantly, with one exception; and that exception, on one occasion, caused a very large amount of angst. Magda, like me, was on the asexual spectrum; indeed, probably more so than I am. Consequently, she had no idea when anyone was falling for her; and, given what sort of person she was, it was only to be expected that someone would at some point.
We'll call him Kurt, which was not his name, but he was German. He and Magda had been getting on very well for a while, but what I didn't realise at the time was that he thought she was his girlfriend, whereas she thought he was her best friend. (I got on well with both of them, but I did tend to talk more to Magda than to Kurt.) So after a while he suggested he should come and visit her in Poland, and she was very happy about that.
Now Kurt wasn't exactly the most subtle individual on earth. So he showed up, and the first thing he did was to declare his undying love; unfortunately, the second thing he did was to accuse Magda's parents of not looking after her properly, and basically to go "let me take you away from all this". Magda's parents were actually looking after her just fine, and she had a very good relationship with them, so she asked him if he would please refrain from doing them down. Also, she made it clear she hadn't known about the whole undying love thing and she was, to say the least, disconcerted by it. Kurt then accused her of leading him on. She said she'd done nothing of the sort, because how could she if she hadn't realised how he felt? The whole thing turned into a massive argument, and eventually Kurt stormed back to the railway station.
At this point, they both had the same idea. Within literally five minutes of each other, this unhappy pair both hit me up on Discord, neither one aware that the other was doing the same thing; so I had to calm down two extremely upset people simultaneously. Thankfully I was able to do that to at least some extent (probably about as far as anyone could), plus managing to talk Kurt the rest of the way back to the station without killing either himself or anyone in Magda's house. Kurt eventually said he'd appreciate it if I never mentioned Magda's name to him again, and I said, fine, no problem. Magda, typically, reacted much more gently; she didn't really want to talk to Kurt again, but she didn't mind if anyone else mentioned him. By the end of it all I was on the ceiling, where I remained for the rest of the day; but I'd helped, and that was the main thing.
I still have no idea if he knows she died. He's not a bad bloke, just a bit abrupt; so I think he'd be at least a little sad if he did.
Magda was a stunningly good communicator in all respects, and she was also extraordinarily kind and thoughtful. She loved roleplaying, had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the games she played, and regularly spent hours online with new players (in the case of Shadowrun, I was one of them) helping them to tweak their character so that it was exactly what they wanted. With Shadowrun this was an especially impressive feat, because it has an entire bookshelf full of supplementary rule books; but Magda could still say, "Oh, you'd like your character to do X? There's this thing they can have which is in such a book, do you think that would work for you?"
She could pick up on everything instantly, with one exception; and that exception, on one occasion, caused a very large amount of angst. Magda, like me, was on the asexual spectrum; indeed, probably more so than I am. Consequently, she had no idea when anyone was falling for her; and, given what sort of person she was, it was only to be expected that someone would at some point.
We'll call him Kurt, which was not his name, but he was German. He and Magda had been getting on very well for a while, but what I didn't realise at the time was that he thought she was his girlfriend, whereas she thought he was her best friend. (I got on well with both of them, but I did tend to talk more to Magda than to Kurt.) So after a while he suggested he should come and visit her in Poland, and she was very happy about that.
Now Kurt wasn't exactly the most subtle individual on earth. So he showed up, and the first thing he did was to declare his undying love; unfortunately, the second thing he did was to accuse Magda's parents of not looking after her properly, and basically to go "let me take you away from all this". Magda's parents were actually looking after her just fine, and she had a very good relationship with them, so she asked him if he would please refrain from doing them down. Also, she made it clear she hadn't known about the whole undying love thing and she was, to say the least, disconcerted by it. Kurt then accused her of leading him on. She said she'd done nothing of the sort, because how could she if she hadn't realised how he felt? The whole thing turned into a massive argument, and eventually Kurt stormed back to the railway station.
At this point, they both had the same idea. Within literally five minutes of each other, this unhappy pair both hit me up on Discord, neither one aware that the other was doing the same thing; so I had to calm down two extremely upset people simultaneously. Thankfully I was able to do that to at least some extent (probably about as far as anyone could), plus managing to talk Kurt the rest of the way back to the station without killing either himself or anyone in Magda's house. Kurt eventually said he'd appreciate it if I never mentioned Magda's name to him again, and I said, fine, no problem. Magda, typically, reacted much more gently; she didn't really want to talk to Kurt again, but she didn't mind if anyone else mentioned him. By the end of it all I was on the ceiling, where I remained for the rest of the day; but I'd helped, and that was the main thing.
I still have no idea if he knows she died. He's not a bad bloke, just a bit abrupt; so I think he'd be at least a little sad if he did.
