Grief

Now, here’s the tea. My older brother (20M) is the ultimate Minecraft pro, always flexing his diamond armor and bragging about his redstone creations. But he also has a bad habit of griefing my builds and stealing my loot. We’ve never been the best of allies, he thinks I’m too noobish, and I think he’s a bit of a blockhead. So when Romeo passed away, I thought maybe he’d understand my pain. I mean, even if he didn’t care about my virtual dog, he could’ve at least respected my grief, right? Wrong.

Yesterday, I was mining in my virtual living room, reminiscing about the good times with Romeo, and tbh I was shedding some virtual tears. I thought I was alone in the server. Then my brother logged in, took one look at me, and started laughing like a Minecraft villain (think Herobrine vibes). He said things like: “you really crying over a virtual dog?” and “man up, it’s just a bunch of pixels.”

I tried to ignore him at first and asked him to stop griefing me, but that just seemed to make him more of a troll. He kept going, saying things like, “What’s next? You gonna build a shrine for him?” and even pretended to cry in a mocking way with his pixelated avatar.

I don’t know what came over me, but I snapped. I was hurt, angry, and just so fed up with his trolling. I remembered that not long ago, his favorite Minecraft server had shut down, and he’d been sulking ever since. So I looked him dead in the pixelated eyes and said, “at least my ‘just a bunch of pixels’ loved me, your server clearly didn’t love you enough to stay alive.”

He froze, completely silent. Then his character went red with embarrassment, and he rage-quit the server without saying a word.

Later on, our Minecraft parents heard about the drama (thanks to him, of course) and told me I was out of line. They said I should apologize because what I said was harsh. But here’s the thing, I don’t feel like I owe him an apology. He griefed me while I was grieving, dismissed my virtual feelings, and only stopped when I hit him where it hurt in the virtual world.

Now our Minecraft parents are pressuring me to “make things right” with him, but I don’t see why I should have to apologize when he was the one who started griefing me first. So, fellow gamers, AITA (Am I The Avatar)? Join our server for more drama, griefing, and epic showdowns!