#discord servers that die within 1-2 years or that have too many users to actually use?

[cobaltscribe]

it’s so funny i currently follow 362 blogs but with how my dashboard is you’d think it to be only like. 6.

maybe 8 on a good day.

[kswhateverspace]

The Ruby and Christina Discord Drama

To my followers who have no idea what this is about, feel free to ignore this if you’d like. This is a long post showing everything that went down with the kicking of 3 members in a discord I’m a member and Admin of. I will share a bit, and then the rest will be under a cut. 

Jaye (hernameisjaye/ @reneesgoldsberry​) and I didn’t feel it necessary to address the kicks of the server publicly and just thought things would die down and people would move on. That doesn’t seem to be the case and so while I don’t want to give any attention to Krow (grimreich666), the continued attack of Dandybear has made this post necessary. On December 9th, 2020, 1 member was kicked from the discord. Michele (kerozenangel). She was kicked specifically because of this post she made

It was incredibly rude to all the writers in the discord and also @/everyone about it. The removal at this time was specifically to protect the mental well being of the writers who occupied the discord. In addition, for being continually antagonistic in discussions with other members.

Jaye and I are not big on public warnings in regards to someone’s character and the way one thinks. The only thing we correct is off topic discussion and only if it gets out of hand. Behind the scenes we talk a lot if certain members are acting up, and mentally keep track on how many instances are occurring, if behavior seems to be improving etc. You don’t see it, but when issues arise it is discussed, usually in length, and then we decide how to proceed. We also don’t publicly report when a complaint is sent to one of us about a member, but we have been sent them and they are taken into consideration.

On December 11th 2020, 2 members were kicked from the discord. Krow (grimreich666) and RVCBard (eshusplayground)

There is quite a bit to unpack here, but I am first going to address the tumblr post Krow made. I never planned on replying, just letting it go. But Krow continues to antagonize a member (dandybear) of the discord who had NO involvement in her removal from the Discord and it’s time all sides are put out for those who are not aware, or those who don’t have the full story to judge. I will be addressing the youtube video at the very end of this post.

I’m going to address the tumblr post in question in sections.

“So it has come to my attention that we cannot have a civil conversation in the Ruby and Chirstina Fandom. Nearly a month ago I gave up my own small Ruby and Chirstina Discord to join another manged by Kswhateverspace.”

Civil discussions are had all the time, what occurred began as a civil discussion until Krow made it personal by telling Jaye to learn her own black history. That was the reason for the kick. Personal attack. I will post screenshots of the entire encounter at the end. As for managed by me, I am just an admin, and did not start out that way. I offered to help organize the discord and tried to create events to make things a bit easier to navigate and more fun. I originally invited Krow to this discord after seeing people asking for links on tumblr to it.

No one was asked to give up any server, it was simply an open invitation.

“I thought that the community would be a good place to vibe with other members of the Ruby and Chirstina community. At first it was welcoming until I started writing my own Fan Fic for the Ruby and Chirstina ship. It had been users by the name of Dandybear and Agent Sheryl and a few others started to bury the work I posted and they would shade me, barely would I get comments on my work because they would fill the submission page with there personal conversations.Now I’ve written two novels professionally and I am working on a third and out of my 15 years of writing I can safely assess when somebody is trying to blackball or bury someone’s work because there work isn’t meeting up to snuff. And as for me I always supported their work because Christina and Ruby content benefits everyone, now I didn’t get into AO3 for the comments I did it because I love Chrisby.”

This is completely not true. There is a channel I created dedicated to posting work only, exactly to prevent the burying of work. Krow would actually break the rule from time to time of that channel, which is that it’s for links to works only, not discussion of said works. There is a separate channel to discuss. Despite the breaking of the rule, I never actually removed her creator role and instead just let it slide. Also, “Shading” never occurred.

“Yet it was only a week ago that me and a few others we noticed the mean girls clique right away as it consisted of Danybear, Frankie, Kswhateverspace and Agent Sheryl, who had came from my server to join.”

I want to address this on a personal level. I have literally spoken to Krow on a voice call, for 2 hours, with Frankie also in attendance, as well as Agent Sheryl. We had been doing the drop a random pin on the map game and it was a pretty fun time. Prior to this instance, I didn’t have the most favorable view of Krow as she tended to not have a filter when posting and I wasn’t always comfortable by what that was, however, I take my role as admin seriously, and in particular being a white woman in a predominantly black server, I never wished to step on anyone’s toes or out of line. Any worries or concerns I ever had or have, I always defer and clear with Jaye. After this game, I became more comfortable in general with her presence in the discord, but she continued to post fairly unfiltered views that would generally derail a discussion etc. and overall behavior within the discord did not make for a very comfortable place a lot of the time. I say this as myself, and from fellow members at the time of instances. I was at war with myself on this a lot of the time because I was the one who invited Krow, but no one can predict how people will be or mesh.

At this part of the post I will address Krow’s accusation that Dandybear “shaded her”. The screencap Krow uses at the end of her post.

In case it isn’t clear, You is a tv show and not literally @ Krow in case that’s what was thought.

“The egregious abuse of power there Admin and Owner Hernameisjaye is sickening; as her rampage all started on Thursday when Jaye went on a rant saying that Christina was racist. And to me and another black female members acknowledged her opinion but we disagreed with it as we had watched the show several times and understood the premise of the timeline within the Jim Crow Era. Not wanting to fight we had calmly stated our disagreement to her baseless claim and yet she still would not let up even after we have both took the high road as mature adults to leave the conversation.”

I will let screenshots of the entire discussion speak for themselves. I will preface the screenshots with the rules of the discord, which were last edited on December first.

I’ll speak on rule 6 here.

“In the event that we decide to kick/ban a specific user, that individual will receive a message from the admin team notifying them of the final decision.”

At then end of the day, Jaye and I decided to not inform those who were kicked the reason. It wouldn’t have changed the result and in all honesty, we were tired. If an issue wants to be taken up with that, it’s valid. However, no result would’ve been undone.

In most channels on the server, there are pinned messages about what a channel is for as well. This channel was always intended to be a difficult discussion channel, and those that enter are agreeing to engage in difficult discussions as it relates to the show. Krow broke rule 2 by making it personal. You can see the whole chain below. As for RVC, she made it clear she was no longer comfortable in the server and didn’t trust the admins, and decided to turn a situation that didn’t directly involve her to be about her.

After this, RVCBard was kicked. Throughout the life of the discord RVC was consistently combative and antagonistic towards members who’s views or opinions she didn’t agree with. Or if someone disagreed with her. It was an issue that would flare up often, but looked past because we wanted the server to be inclusive even at the detriment to the overall health of the server. We received multiple complaints from different members about RVC with the average complaint being that she made the user uncomfortable due to her approach to different discussions in varying channels. All of the above was taken into consideration that night, and was essentially the final straw.

And despite not being comfortable with approaching mods, she sent me the following after all this went down.

For clarification, I was not present at the time and woke up to multiple messages and had to catch up on my own. 

In the past, RVCBard had contacted me with an issue she saw in the server.

I talked it over with Jaye, and it was decided thirsting channels would be created to help address the problem. I show this as an example of good faith that when issues are brought to our attention, we look into it and do something about it if we’re able.

“It wasn’t long ago nearly 48 hours after I lost a family member that was dear to me that this mess ensued, I didnt carry my personal issues into conversation as I enjoy Christina and Ruby as a get away. Yet it is damn near sickening how an Admin can kick someone without warning because your losing an arguement. This isn’t an after-school special and it’s sad that this show that delivers it’s take on Black History and pain cannot be understood even by the simplest of minds, as they are too busy oversexualizing and insulting the Ruby and Chirstina Ship to understand that we see Christina and her flaws as well. I own 2 Discords myself and NEVER would I go out my way to make somebody feel uncomfortable like the way they did me.”

I was offline and asleep for the majority of this night. And this was the reaction to the news of her family member.

While the loss of her family member is tragic, and I sympathize with the loss, it is not a free pass. The kick happened because of hostility and personal attack. With a history of problematic behavior.

I wish to highlight this part from that paragraph

“as they are too busy oversexualizing and insulting the Ruby and Chirstina Ship”

I honestly have no idea who this is supposed to even be at. The entire discord is dedicated to Ruby and Christina. Oversexualizing? Really? Acknowledging Christina’s racism, in whatever form it presented itself in, is in fact seeing Christina and her flaws.

It is at this point I’d like to share the message Krow sent me after her removal and my response.

Now onto the video that was posted Jan 1st, 2021 that has resparked the drama. Which, the video is actually the worst offense done so far. I will address particularly awful points with timestamps that you can reference for yourself. Credit to @femeivor​ for helping with grabbing timestamps as I’ve stayed up incredibly late writing this all up.

To highlight the targeting that is going on in this video, I would first like to present the controversy surrounding LITTD chapter 5. Dandybear upon receiving valid criticism of her story replied with the following, which Krow decided to piggyback on.

With that shown, let's get onto the video titled “Dear AO3 Fanfic Writers”

1:41 - "there was this whole thing where they couldn't have a mature conversation as adults and decided to kick me and several other group members out for not feeling that way"

- If you’ve made it this far, you know how exaggerated this is.

2:10 - Says a couple of writers from the server are "abyssmal and you know it comes from their fucking area"

- Spoiler alert, at the end of this video she says her discord is a place to not be judged.

6:54 - huge rant about people having Christina be William in their fics even though that's canon compliant

- For this I shall simply copy and paste her own fic’s summary:

- When Ruby get's the chance of a lifetime to change her life working under Tic's strange yet introvert distant cousin Christina, she gets more than she bargained for. As Christina a well known lawyer struggles to free herself from her fathers abusive shadow after the death of her brother William and her elder brother Caleb; she seeks to gain control over the lodge her father has denied her as his only heir. Yet first Christina must clear her father and lodge members names a task that seems all to impossible under the watchful eye of her fathers righthand-man; yet such a task is proving itself to be difficult as she is taken by her new P.A. As Ruby finds out how to read the strange yet alluring Christina, a waiting William comes to make her dreams come true yet are all dreams true; yet she is sucked into into a world of wizards and dangerous turns. Can love come at such a time, or will the half-truths threaten to rip the two apart?

- I will also add here my OWN comment on said story

https://archiveofourown.org/comments/357964615

8:00 - straight up calling out Davenports, just not by name.

8:30 - says it's "disgusting" to have Christina spend a lot of time as William which is, again, canon compliant

11:00 - calls some fanfics "crap" and "torture porn for the soul"

11:14 - "I'm not trying to stifle creativity!"

- *stares into the camera like I’m in the Office *

11:33 - calls out a fic for including attempted rape when she has previously praised a fic that included CSA

11:50 - "you don't really understand these characters, you don't really understand her at all"

- Christina is not given some EPIC backstory in the show and literally no one knows that much about her. Only what we can perceive and deduce. Aka, tons of headcanons from everyone.

13:00 - now telling people what they should be writing instead

13:34 - mockingly calling out Dandybear again, this time with more than one fic

14:10 - once again telling people what they should be writing

14:30 - mocking people for writing smut then says “I don’t caaare - I mean I like that - I love smut….is that it?”

14:55 - "and I notice that some of you guys start out so great in your fics and then it goes down hill!"

- Is this encouragement or stifling creativity?

15:13 - calling out another fic

- I’m tired, are you tired?

15:33 - "Who the fuck writes this shit? Oh my fucking god! Are you guys just dumb? Are you guys stupid?"

16:00 - "Some of you wanna tag and say 'this is a Ruby and Christina Discord server [mocking noises] and if you don't agree with us we're gonna kick you out for no fucking reason!' You know? Shut the fuck up!"

- And if you’re THIS far, you very well know the reason and it definitely wasn’t NONE

16:16 - "you obviously don't know what Ruby and Christina mean to real fucking die hard fans"

- I personally love a classic gatekeep.

17:06 - "But for some of y'all to write these disturbing, disgusting fanfictions"

17:54 - calling writers racist for including racist characters in their fanfics for a show that included a lot of racism.

18:41 - says people are wasting her time because they're writing fics that she doesn't want to read.

18:49 - "This isn't for all fanfic writers. This is only for a couple of 'em. You know who the fuck some of y'all are. And shame on you for even doing this and writing this and trying to fucking push this kind of fanfic and this garbage off."

- If you’re gonna keep beating a dead horse and bringing up drama that you created again and again, start saying people’s names instead of hiding behind blanket statements.

19:07 - "And that's the whole problem why I decided to do Krows Korner. Because I'm so sick of these fandoms and even some of these professional writers running their ass around here, delivering garbage and people being a bunch of sheeple to say that this shit is the greatest shit ever. Honey, it's either you have dyslexia or a reading complex because I'm not really fucking seeing what you thought was so great about this fic." 

20:20 - "Join my Discord server if you wanna know the full, TRUE story about what happened at the other Discord server and how these people supposedly claim that they love Ruby and Christina but they support a racist fanfic writer who clearly does not understand about black relations, but lies and decides to be a dick every-damn-where"

- The clearest target at Dandybear herself is in this rant here. Which you can recall above from the screenshots I posted, that when confronted with valid criticism, aims to do better because we all have room for growth. Including racists characters can always be tough because they are uncomfortable characters as they are meant to be, but run the possibility of being too much. However they are not a direct reflection of an author’s view.

20:52 - "If you wanna join a fandom on Discord that doesn't judge you for liking what you like as Ruby and Christina, and even if we disagree, you know, still not have fear of being kicked out because you disagree, come join my shit. It's not even worth the headache, sweetie."

- Interesting take after making a whole video attacking writers/people you hate from your previous discord after you were removed for breaking rules aka personal attack. “doesn't judge you for liking what you like”

21:30 - "I don't care any fucking more. The drama is done, it's settled"

- Considering you have brought this drama up again, after your removal on the 11th of December 2020, I think you might still care.

21:33 - "I figure I would clear a record, basically, to what happened. And, you know, signify the issue that these motherfuckers is crazy. They're crazy as hell."

Everyone at the server had moved on and enjoyed the holidays, but this video has reopened a closed case due to the clear targeting of a writer who happens to be popular. Almost this whole video is an entire disguised attack towards her.

I sincerely hope this clears the air on everything that happened and continues to happen. You have the full story and can judge for yourself whether or not the kicks were justified. If you feel they weren’t, that’s fine and you can now join a new discord server of more like minded people. This continued targeting of Dandybear is unacceptable, and those of you in contact with Krow should not be allowing this to continue. Dandy is a real person like all of us, and if you have a valid criticism of her fic, you can do it in a rational manner. Or stop reading. Like every person ever has done in every fandom ever. Dandybear had no involvement whatsoever with the kicks of the server, they are simply a member and a writer in the fandom and this has gone too far.

If you feel like this server isn't the place for you anymore, I encourage you to find a new place to express yourself in the best way you'd like. We all came here to love Ruby and Christina and have a place to do so in an organized fashion. If you don't like the rules, or consider this place unsafe, I hope you find a community that aligns more with your interests and world view.