AITA for locking an ex-friend out of a long-time gaming account?
[Context]
I (F16) had a friend, who we'll call V (F30s). We met on an online chat game, with the main focus being decorating rooms and playing mini-games with other players. She had been playing for well over ten years at that point, while I was still pretty new (about a year or two, in comparison). I had a pretty large friend group on that game, and when I met her, I kind of brought her into this group.
Several months (6+ ish) later, the group and I decided to create a knock-off room of some of the most popular rooms on the server. We had mostly all met in these popular rooms and just wanted one of our own for the friend group and others like us. This was largely my idea, along with my best friend, R (16M). R contributed the most in terms of financial support, and we both took on designing the room. Everyone else pitched in ideas, but were largely unhelpful in the grand scheme of things. V was the most unhelpful, as she would get pissy about small things that didnt go her way, even when she wasn't contributing to the creation of this room.
Eventually, the room was completed how R and I wanted it, with some input from the others. V did a 180 and was soooo happy with how everything turned out. Everything was back to normal with her.
Now, our room was not successful. We did not end up one of the popular ones. While a little disappointing, it was fine because we were still hanging out with our friends and having fun. About a month or two in, I got a message from R telling me to log on quick, bc the room was in disarray.
I logged in and people were telling me V had trashed it (all of us in the main group had complete access to the room, so could make changes as needed). While it wasn't "trashed" per se, it was a mess and it did take me a couple hours to fix everything.
Friends filled me in and told me V had apparently been secretly making her own room (another knock-off like ours, but worse) with a guy who had said some disgusting things about me, and several friends joined her in tarnishing ours before leaving to be with her.
This was an utter betrayal as I loved them all and had trusted them with something R and I worked very hard on for all of us. There was never any indication that V was unhappy with anything, as we spoke every day and she was always saying how much she loved our group and how we were definitely gonna be the most successful eventually and blah blah. I mean, I recognized that she was just saying what I wanted to hear, but still. I thought of her like a big sister.
[End Context]
A few days went by, and R and I were talking about everything that had happened. I was finally over the shock, and I was just angry. R said he wished there were some way we could get back at her. I remembered that V had given me her password months prior for an event she couldn't complete, and I had logged in and done it for her. I told him that she said it was the only password she'd ever used, since she was young, and I bet she hadn't changed it.
I was wrong, she HAD changed it, but she had also given me her email for the login information, so I tried the password on her email. I got in. So I changed her game password through her email and logged in.
She had been online, but this game would kick you off if someone else logged in while you were online, so I knew I had precious little time before she'd change the password back and I'd be kicked off.
So I went into her room, mass-banned everyone in there (including some of my former friends, one was the gross guy I hated), destroyed the room as much as possible, and then privated it so no one could enter (idk why I didn't just delete the room, wasn't thinking clearly ig). I then typed in as many censored words as I could so the auto-filter would flag her and get her account suspended.
Her account DID get suspended (and the game team was notorious for having the worst support ever. Once your account was suspended/banned, you almost never got it back), and I was auto-logged out. I logged back into my personal account, and R and I freaked out, just super giddy. V used an alt account to confront us, and ofc we denied having any involvement, but laughed at her anyways.
She did eventually (a month or two later) get her main account back, but before that she had lost all of her stuff, so she couldn't reopen her room. I was pretty satisfied with this, but some of the former friends who sided with her told me it had taken a toll on her mental health. I told them that all of their betrayals had taken a toll on MY mental health, so why should I be bothered, especially when I hadn't DONE anything (wink).
All in all, I felt justified, and she did eventually get her main account back, and I stopped playing not too long after that, but I'd still like to know what other people think.
AITA?
