Have you ever blocked a player out of jealousy?

Warning: this is long 😅🩷

Personally, I only block people if they are rude, dishonest, or harassing me. But I’ve had a recent experience that left me wondering.

For context, I collect a small but very popular artist with a dedicated following. You can only quest their nepics, and despite the high demand, very few players are actively questing for them. About four months ago, when the first soundpass came out, I decided to take the time to quest and buy all of their nepics since no one else seemed to be doing it. Because I’m lucky if there’s even one nepic on the market a month, I’ve dedicated all my time and resources to questing these epics myself. This has taken weeks, thousands of songs, and hundreds of thousands of coins (just for merge quests). I’ve completed over 4,200 quests trying to pull their epics.

A month ago, I came across a player with one of the artist’s epics in their showcase, and their bio said “showcase up for swap, just ask.” For reference, this epic was a common. Only because they said their showcase was up for swaps, I asked if they were interested in swapping it for a rare Taylor Swift canvas (since most of their showcase was Taylor Swift). They politely declined, and that was the end of it.

A few weeks later, they pulled two more of the artist’s epics and added them to their showcase (I got a notification from them liking my comment on one of the songs after they pulled an epic). Based on their previous response, I didn’t ask them to swap. Then, one day, they listed one of the epics for swap with a message saying “more on my profile.” The epic they listed was an uncommon canvas. Since I wasn’t willing to swap any of my same-artist canvases, and they collected Olivia Rodrigo canvases, I offered them a rare Olivia Rodrigo canvas nepic in exchange. They again politely declined because they were looking for a same-artist swap for the canvas. No hard feelings. The only same-artist swap I was willing to make was for the third nepic in their showcase. If they hadn’t mentioned “more on my profile” and “showcase up for swap,” I never would’ve messaged them.

So I asked if they were interested in swapping the uncommon artist canvas in their showcase for another uncommon artist canvas (same artist swap), and they politely declined again, saying it wasn’t up for swap. That was fine, and we haven’t directly interacted since. No bad vibes. Just communication. I literally only asked about each epic once, and I only asked about swaps based on what they posted on their profile and on the market.

Yesterday, I posted a few of the artist’s nepics up for same-artist swap, referencing an organized folder with a guide I made for swapping this artist’s nepics (basically explaining which nepics I would swap for which). I made it clear that I would only do same-artist swaps, and multiple players collect this artist’s nepics (many of them are friends of mine 🩷). The post was not targeted towards anyone specifically. If you don’t want to swap something, there’s no pressure. You can just move on.

Fast forward to the last 24 hours: I accidentally pulled two more of the artist’s nepics (I wasn’t questing for them specifically, just got really lucky 🥺🩷😭🙏). I’ve never been so happy in my life on this app. I now own 22/47 of their nepics, and I still have my soundpass nepic left.

Now, the player I mentioned earlier had commented and liked comments on each of the songs for the nepics they pulled (which is how I knew they had pulled them). I pulled a nepic today of the artist’s brand-new song and commented on it as I always do, expressing my excitement. The player left a comment on the same song saying “looking for epic.” Just minutes after I pulled my epic and commented, their comment disappeared, and I was blocked by them (The canvas is broken, so I was on the page for a bit, seeing if it would fix). I can no longer view their profile or comments.

I genuinely don’t understand why they blocked me. I’ve had no bad interactions with them, and I haven’t directly spoken to them in days. It feels strange to be blocked after I pulled that epic. It’s especially weird since they can still see my profile and see the epics I own. The only logical answer seems to be jealousy? But if they check the questing leaderboard, they would see that I’ve completed thousands of quests to pull these epics. I’ve spent over a million coins on the artist’s nepics as well, and many of the nepics I’ve bought have been sitting on the market for days because no one else wanted them.

Would you block someone because you’re jealous of their nepics? I won’t lie: I 100% control the market because I’m the only player with most of the epics. But I’m not selling them. I pull them because I genuinely enjoy collecting them. Blocking someone for that feels a bit odd, especially when I’ve quested most of them myself.

And honestly, blocking me after I pulled the new song’s epic feels really weird. Every fan of the artist wants the nepic of the new song because it’s the new song... and I was going to pull it anyway, because of the soundpass. 😭 It was the last rare song I needed in the artist’s discography. Now, I get to pull an uncommon nepic from the soundpass too.