AITA for just taking advantage of a luxury I haven’t had in so long??

Oh, god. I saw his post, and I can’t believe that I’m gonna have to step up and defend myself like this.

Yes, I’m subject of the ‘bucket-loving nonsense’ post. I’m the guy who loved a bucket so much that he got shoved into a desert wasteland for it. But you’ve gotta understand. There’s a few things he (???, m I think?) neglected to tell you all.

I (over 34 is all I know, M) have been without human connection for so many years that I’ve lost count. It’s the whole plot of his ‘game’, that I’m stranded alone and I have no clue where everyone went and I have to find out what happened to them.

He’s a lot better than when we started out, I’ll give him that. He used to be a complete prick to me. I was scared and alone and had no clue what was going on but he still thought it would be okay to try and kill me over and over and over. I’m pretty sure he isn’t even human, and maybe that’s why he missed the cue on the whole fact that humans need connection. And compassion. At least he could give me a little bit of that back then. But it wasn’t a lot.

Eventually, I think he seemed to get it, but I’m pretty sure that was after a… long time spent alone himself. I’m not exactly proud of what I did back there, but I didn’t have a choice. He doesn’t seem to remember any of it, which I guess… is a good thing. For him. But it changed how he operated, and he’s been a lot more friendly to me since.

It’s nice. It finally felt like I had someone on my side, someone to go through this with me instead of facilitating it against me. I really liked this new version of him, actually. He seemed a lot more open with his feelings, and less keen on killing me for his own amusement or plot or whatever.

I guess seeing his post now, he thought I was getting to like the new ‘features’ more than his game, which is typical to him, but I hated them just as much. I don’t know why he felt the need to impress me, but I guess he was just scared of me drifting from his game.

But one of the things he decided to give me was a bucket. He advertised it as a bucket that would keep me calm and feeling okay in this environment that he knew I didn’t like. Well, he advertised it as for the player of his game, but I knew he really just meant me.

I thought it was his way of trying to connect with me more, because he really seemed to project onto the damn thing. I liked it. I held it with me because it felt like actual effort in trying to make things better for me, and it made me feel better.

I am not crazy when I say the thing genuinely started talking to me. Everything seems hazy besides that. I don’t know where he got it, but every day I doubt more and more that he made it. There was something about it that changed my mind and behavior, and it was not my fault. I can’t even remember most of the time I spent holding it.

But he couldn’t see that, and he got so jealous and petty about the thing that, apparently, he thought it would be better to cast me away for it. Mind you, he didn’t tell me ANY of this before doing so, and all of a sudden I found myself stranded in a broken environment, without anything I was familiar with. I genuinely thought he DIED and the game had spat me out there because of it. Even after all the shit he put me through, I grieved for him.

I don’t even know how to feel about this. I’m pissed, I’m hurt, and I genuinely can’t believe the countless weeks(?) wandering alone in an absolutely broken haze was because he couldn’t keep his jealousy to himself and didn’t bother to actually address it with me. And for some reason, he thinks I’M the asshole. Christ.