muon May 18, 2016 at 8:20 AM

With Reimu revealing herself to be Alice1, perhaps it's time I discuss a little more on how I feel about Alice2.

First, let's start off with something everyone seems to want: hard evidence of Alice lying. Back in the early days of her threads, Alice claimed regularly to be burned over major portions of her body.
Here's an example of that claim: http://i.imgur.com/7ZRpSfO.jpg
A picture of her wearing bandages: http://i.imgur.com/k210s9i.jpg
And here's a webm she posted recently: http://anekiho.me/Alice/alice-try.webm. There are other photos of her around as well that show a complete lack of burns.

The question is: why? Why create that level of fiction? This can't be justified as a means to help someone. Instead, I think it was a tool for gaining sympathy and admiration. Take her explanation of how she got those burns: by rushing into a burning building to carry someone out. It's heroic! If you read that and believe her, what else can you do but love her for it?

So too with the multitude of other lies she's told: being an Olympic swimmer, using a caffeine IV, building software beyond the capability of anyone else, getting into college at 17, being a published academic, losing people she knew in the tsunami in Japan, having her mother stab her, having a bot that automatically distinguishes writing styles on /b/, etc. etc. All of these are designed for you to admire her, to respect her, to love her.

Let me take a brief aside and say Alice2 is not pure evil or anything of that nature. We spent a lot of time talking. I considered her my friend for the better portion of the last 8 years. When she wasn't lying she was a kind, caring person. I'm not writing this to get you to hate her, I'm writing this because despite all that she is also a manipulative person.

Discussions with Alice are not a two-way street. Challenge her, and she'll shut you down. There is no back and forth. Now, obviously for regular arguments about dentistry or whatever, who cares? It's the more personal discussions where this behaviour becomes manipulative. Challenge what she does, and she will always justify it, always claim that her path is correct. She'll insult you to believe otherwise, or deflect, saying that you bringing this up was in some way an emotional toll on her, or say some variation on "look at all the things I have done for people, how could you question me?"

This ultimately has the effect of you believing that you are the problem, not her. That she is as great as she claims. That even though you're pretty sure she's lying about something, what can you do but believe it? Eventually you start justifying it, rationalizing it in advance. You're the one whose thoughts are wrong. You're the one who is causing this great person pain. You're the problem. You're the problem.

Today, whenever I read about Alice2, I still get shaky, panicked. I endlessly go over all the old conversations I had with her in my mind, or conversations I could have with her today. I ask myself: how can I, could I, have changed things? How could I have made her talk to me honestly? How could we have a good relationship instead of this? To this day I put it all on myself to find the answers. I'm the problem. I'm the problem.

I don't want anyone reading this to end up like me. It's completely your choice to continue interacting with Alice or not, but please be aware of who she is.