Convince me not to....?

Delete if not allowed. Idk if this fully belongs here but it is ultimately roleplay related, sorry in advance for the length, and thank anyone who really does read all this. I'll try to leave a TLDR at the bottom but I do feel at least most of this context is important. I'm trying to condense as much as I can for brevity, so I'm sorry if anything is unclear.

I had an RP partner, for the sake of anonymity let's call him B.

B and I initially started with a Medieval world over discord, wrote for that one for the first few months, and then moved into writing additional stories for various sci-fi genres so we had variety depending on what we were both feeling. We built OC's for each of them, created the worlds and references with good plot points and longevity, and things were smooth sailing for a while. Of what ultimately ended up being about 6 different stories, I was only overseeing one server. This initially didn't bother me too much, while he could be a bit stubborn on his ideas and concepts, B was overall a very good and quality writer, who even managed to write really compelling posts on days he proclaimed he wasn't feeling the most confident in his work. I'd of course reassure him and do my best to compliment specific parts I knew he might feel were lacking. I won't pretend I never poked or prodded or maybe even started unintended arguments about my ideas, especially when he was more on the stubborn side, but overall we managed compromise very well, even if a lot of it was me letting him strong arm me into his ideas. This isn't necessarily a complaint, he was a phenomenal writer like I said, but was a consistency I noticed regardless of how much I let it bug me at the time, which really wasn't much. But I'd be lying if I said it didn't start to bug me more along the line. I did my best to address this reasonably, sometimes it did still unintentionally become an argument if I attempted to push back on his stubbornness, but sometimes there was sussession on either side, or at least some compromise.

We started gaming together when we weren't writing, or both needed time to think something up, or even just over a chat for the stories while we did. We would be there for each other on our off days and slowly became more friendly than just the acquainted writing partners, to the point I had really thought we were friends. Admittedly this made it hurt even more when things ended the way they did. Things were great when they were good, and we had loads of fun gaming and writing, but the arguments were rather ugly, especially when he would attempt to deflect certain behaviours or accountability for something (like shooting down or bulldozing my ideas or posts) but I was often swayed back with a well veiled apology and a promise he would make effort to change, sometimes he even did for a while. I'm a sucker for second chances, and thirds, and fourths, it seems.

I'll add the context that our disagreements weren't inherently an everyday thing, but were common enough that they did start to build up over time, even as we became more proper friends. But I did promise myself I wouldn't dwell too deeply on this part.

The first red flag should have been when he deleted all of our stories very suddenly (most of which we had been writing regularly for nearly three YEARS at this point), after I'd been less agreeable with having my concepts and ideas shot down. it had somewhat turned into bulldozing at this point, and I felt nearly more like a prompt for him to write a new post than an actual person with my own ideas, and after this argument got especially heated, I took a breather for a few weeks. neither of us really attempted to contact each other in this time, but it wasn't the first time by this point that we'd both stepped away to simmer for a while before returning, I'd written first halves of a few drafts for these stories while trying to articulate a plot he might like more, but I came back to discord one day to B having deleted all the servers he created, and left my own, but still kept me as a friend.

Naturally I was upset with him, and at first I was more or less trying to just express how genuinely upset this made me, because I had empathized before with him about how writing was one of the things that really gave me some level of spark, and developing those stories meant a lot for me. I'll admit, my emotions were a bit more ugly when he essentially tried to deflect responsibility by repeating that "I was drunk, what's done is done, there's no point in talking about it now." *I should emphasize that this type of deflection in particular had been a regular occurrence.* It actually enraged me, and I told him (sarcastically) thanks for treating me as a writing prompt and destroying all our hard work. I'd also mentioned that I didn't believe him when he tried to claim he did care about the stories he deleted, or me as a friend, because if he did it wouldn't have been so easy to toss me aside when I was no longer a yes man.

At first he gave a bullshit response that basically stood in as 'whatever', but after a few hours of silence deleted it and typed a more concise apology. It took me about a week to get back to him after that, as I'd just burnt myself out feeling like I was fighting a one sided battle.

He essentially tried to win back the chance to write together, a continuation of the stories from where we had left off. Don't ask me how this worked but I agreed, however with ground rules, namely that I didn't want to write or chat with him when he was drinking (also making clear this is more for me, as I already don't like thinking about substances too much while I'm in a rough spot, dependency thing) and that I would want to oversee the servers, but would do so fairly like I had the other story. He agreed, and we started work on the servers, and putting all our references and notes together, and wrote for a bit.

The fall of the final straw was when I read one of his newly added posts, and noticed it looked.... ***ominously*** familiar. I felt a form of what I can only really describe as deja vu while I read over the post, but brushed it off while I went up to read my own post alongside it, mostly to refresh on where I was in the scene and write something coherent. That was when it actually clicked. Screenshot both, read them side by side.... He stole my entire post and essentially just negated everything I wrote (we're multi-paragraph lit so we're talking a good chunk of work, time, and effort here) by taking what I wrote, rewriting his character where mine was, and reposting it as his own.

I'll be honest, my priorities may just be out of whack because it actually wasn't even the blatant plagiarism that bothered me at first, but the fact he had once again disregarded what I had put a good amount of time and effort into writing for his own idea of what he wanted to do. He responded pretty poorly, honestly, basically defending it at first claiming he had an idea for how his character would convery in the story and the plot, then deflecting it when I said that still didn't make it okay, and by this point I was *actually* mad about him stealing my post, and without even being particularly uncivil, told him it's not really appreciate or okay. He finally begrudgingly caves and deletes it, and things fall silent for about a week, with me occasionally messaging things like "Hope your day was well" to keep the conversation open. Call me Delulu but this somehow wasn't even a dealbreaker for me.

The ***hit*** of the final straw was how he responded after this whole ordeal. He pretty much just doubled down that it was somehow wrong of me to call him out on literally stealing my post line by line, and that I should be willing to be more flexible when writing with others. and I said "sorry, but no, you can't actually be telling me I need to be flexible about you taking my entire post" and, surprise, this just started an argument. More or less it was just me telling him that was wrong, and that if I did that to him, he would call me lazy, unoriginal, and a slew of other things, and him claiming I was ripping his head off over what he claimed to be a simple mistake, even though I said that wasn't really a mistake when he retconned and verbatim took my post.

This finishes off rather beautifully with him basically writing the most second end slop he can string together and passive-aggressively messaging me a "fucking sorry" while saying I shouldn't act "pretentious and snobby" pretending he needed my ideas to write. I told him he apparently did in this instance, enough to steal literally all of it, and after that I pretty much clocked out. I told him I'm done, booted him from the servers, and left all our other mutual servers. He tried to say the doors always open and that he wasn't in the best mood but would be fine working it out in the future, and I admitted I wasn't really interested if he was going to behave this way every time his bad behaviour was pointed out to him, and that I was tired of being treated like shit because he was in a bad mood. He seemingly couldn't help himself and included one more jab about how I wasn't any better, since I was "ripping his head off" for 'copying', to which I said he did, and then subsequently decided to tear down me and my work for calling him out on it, which was just an objectively shitty thing to do. I finished it off by saying "If my writing is so shit, then write with your damn self" and deleted him on everything.

It was so especially hurtful because I really thought we were friends. I would have never done something like that to him and expected at least the same in return. I think it only took him about half an hour to realize he was being a major prick, because shortly after I went no contact, he tried to add me back on discord, when I didn't accept he left a comment on my steam profile leaving a more concise, if short, apology and a thanks for everything. I deleted it from my profile a few days later.

All this was about a year ago. I have a tendency to let myself return to old friendships, regardless of whether they're toxic or not, and do find myself repeatedly thinking about it, especially when I think about the good times we had gaming, and occasionally writing when we actually both agreed and got amped up for it. Things left off so ugly that it's been a good enough deterrent thus far from reinitiating that friendship, but I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought back a few times this year and wondered what could have been, and if perhaps that ended up being the wake up call he needed to change and be more compromising.

Is it wrong to assume nothing has changed? Should I add him back and see what comes of it, or give up and move on? I'd be lying if I said he wasn't still a great writing partner at least most of the time, and I do miss our stories and the world building we did, even if I know they'll never be the same.

TL;DR: My RP partner and former friend deleted our 3 year old stories after an argument, and in spite of feigning change after apologies, rarely followed through. Ultimately copied my post verbatim and treated me poorly for pointing it out. I'm wondering if you guys feel people like this can or will change and if it's worth it to reach out and try to reconnect. It's hard to remember the good without the bad clouding it so heavily, but I'm also prone to giving people the benefit of the doubt and believing they can change. I can't tell if I need to be told to be compassionate, told to go to therapy, or bonked with a stick.