#taken from a message i posted in the community discord server rant channel

[fujobritta]

community has a lot of lessons to teach but one that i think has always resonated with me is this journey to not specifically accepting being average, but accepting that no one is better than anyone else . just this whole group of people who have some reason to believe theyre better than the people around them who have to come to terms with the fact that theyre just as bad as the people around them . and the character who struggles with this the most is jeff .

in beginner pottery, we see a flashback of jeff and his mother -- with her telling him that hes special and amazing . and because of this, he's so fragile about being worse than someone at something that he genuinely goes fucking insane over it . jeff has this crazy reluctance to accept that rich is just a great guy so bad that that he spends so much of his time researching pottery, trying to find some sort of thing that could make him go "ha HA!" at rich . and the only way he managed to get over it in this episode is by finally accepting that he isn't any better than anyone, imagining his mother now correcting herself and telling him that he is just a perfectly normal guy, who is good at some things and bad at others .

as someone who not only grew up as a gifted kid, but also a chinese person in a white-majority country, i had it drilled into my brain from a young age that i had to be special . im not a chinese standup comedian -- im not going to say that my parents never told me they were proud in me, because thats not true . in fact, its honestly the opposite . ever since i was a kid, i had to deal with being told that i was smarter or more talented; and thats really what drags you down, because now that the expectations in place for you are so high, when you realize that you arent actually much better, it hurts so much worse . thats what pushes you to stay up all night reading the entire encyclopedia of pottery and going crazy .

i think that learning to be average is harder than any acedemic stunt ive ever tried to pull . jeff went from being a lawyer who had italian faucets and got almond facial scrub shipped in from finland to a student at a community college with a study group consisting of a bunch of weird people . and his struggle throughout the entire series revolves around his superiority complex and his very slow acceptance that, yeah, he really is just as bad as all the people around him . despite taking three steps forward, then two steps back on his journey towards accepting mediocrity, in the end its alright -- because thats what change is about .

ive said this a million times but with every series theres characters that i kin that are dissimilar enough to me that i can actually like them . and then theres characters that i kin so hard that my dormant self hatred kicks in and i want to rip them into bits . jeff is the latter . i hate him so much

[emeraldskulblaka]

Regarding the whole Robert Hallow and the Holy Men incident: I have received a number of asks from anons attempting to explain what happened. I decided to publish them under a “read more” to avoid clogging up people’s dashes.

tl;dr: I feel like everyone overreacted. The whole situation hasn’t been handled sensibly and I can only repeat what I’ve said before: set and respect boundaries, especially when it comes to celebrities of any kind.

Make sure to check the reblog(s) for more, and do not send me any more asks concerning this whole issue. I'm not part of any Discord group and didn't ask to be involved in any of this.

The post responsible for my involvement (check notes) x

Previous asks: x x x

Ask #1

The tad/rhathm discords dont have the exact same mods but theyre all part of the mod/inner circle clique on the tad server and are 'high up' in their social circles. I've seen several occasions where they've pressured others not in the clique to delete tweets @'ing the band in incredibly innocuous things and actively discouraging people tweeting asking abt Ruin in the name of "joey has anxiety" "dont pressure the band" "respect what you get from them". And yet they were deep in Robert's dm's the whole time 🧐 and follow anyone related to the band on ig including Joey's sister?? I honestly can't say I'm surprised it came to this because they clearly thought they were exempt from whatever boundaries they over-enforced with everyone else irt communicating with the band and its members and got upset when those boundaries got put back in place. (Sorry for the rant lol it all just seems so shady).

Ah, thank you for the clarification regarding the mods! While I don’t think following people on Insta is inherently bad, it’s important to respect rules you expect others to follow as well, no double standards. And in general, artists need to know how to deal with pressure from fans. Obviously, fans should respect boundaries, but a certain degree of professionalism can and must be expected (especially from Joey, who is the biggest “celebrity” of all of them. So yes, don’t bully people, guys, and don’t talk over them.

Ask #2

Re -RH the mods for the Discords aren't the same [I am in both].

Re - the TAD discord 'gaslighting' a small number of fans were told off for trying to dm the band directly when changes were made on the discord -

The change was removing a cursed channel that made people uncomfortable

A group then kicked off that it wasn't fair they couldn't post what they wanted and the word gaslighting was thrown around.

I dont participate in either because of all this mess

Gaslighting seems to be people’s favourite word atm even though nobody knows what it actually means -.- yeah, it’s a mess.

Ask #3

I was in the rhathm server and what happened was at some point someone came to the mods with accusations of gaslighting and manipulation and abuse. The mods decided they were uncomfortable with him being there and kicked him out and decided to close the server. They put up a message (which he couldn’t see, he was gone by then) saying they were closing the server and said they wouldn’t give details on what happened based on respect for the victim and the victim’s safety. Then Robert posted the crying video. And then he posted another video where he publicly outed the full first and last name of the victim who was trying to remain anonymous. Which was taken down by instagram pretty quick because a bunch of people reported it because of that. Which is when he made the “my side of the story” post. An artist then came to forward in the discord with stuff about him taking advantage of and not paying artists the way he should. There wasn’t really hate in his insta comments and he didn’t have access to anything in the discord since before the message that it was closing went out. There wasn’t any hate for him before either, everyone in the discord loved him. So i don’t know if there was a lot of hate in his insta dms or something but probably not? I don’t know where he was seeing all the hate he talked about. No one was telling him to delete everything or to stop making music or stopping anyone from making another discord. He just went and deleted everything of his own accord. This was just the discord closing and he blew everything way out proportion imo. And yeah it does look kind of bad from outside the server because all anyone else has seen is that everything is deleted and maybe what Robert said about his side of the story and him crying. But unless the victim herself decides to come forward and publicly tell her side of the story, which she shouldn’t be forced to do, then that’s all there is really is for the moment. (he does have someone there with him btw, his fiancee, so he’s not alone if you’re concerned for him)

Oh damn, they really did overreact, huh? I wasn’t aware of the video in which they outed that person, but that’s horrible and extremely unprofessional. I didn’t see hate geared towards them anywhere either, that’s why I was so confused yesterday afternoon - it all seemed to come out of nowhere. So thank you for the input - I have no clue about anything, so I’ll leave it at that. And yeah, I noticed another person present in one of their Insta videos, so I wasn’t overly concerned ;)

[no-whump-on-main]

My Experiences and Safety Concerns on the Whumper Gathering and Niji  Discord Servers

      A content warning for this post: I am discussing a real case involving sexualization of a minor and predatory behavior by an adult. Please proceed with caution if you are sensitive to these issues. I remain as vague as I can be throughout the post while still accurately describing what happened and capturing the gravity of the situation.

     I want to start this out by saying I hate cancel culture. I hate it, I hate witch hunts, I hate call out posts, I hate bitching about people on the internet for no good reason.

     But I draw the line when there is a reason. I draw the line where other people, especially minors, are legitimately at risk.

     There have been many posts on the topic of the Whumper Gathering server. Two that explain the situation well are this one and this one. I won’t pick the server itself apart piece by piece here, as I only intend on sharing my own experience there and why I am so concerned for everyone still in the server, and for those who interact with its’ owner, Yume.

     I first joined the Whumper Gathering server in November of 2019. Back then, it was a welcoming place, serving as a hub of roleplay and character discussion. There were a few bumps along the road, but they were routine server issues that Yume handled delicately. Everything was fine. I made close friends there.

     The issues involving me began around the end of January. Yume approached me on the 31st asking if I’d like to be a moderator of the server. I accepted quickly, overjoyed to be a bigger part of the community that I loved so much.

     Unfortunately, that conversation was when everything started to go downhill. The first instance where I felt incredibly unnerved by Yume’s behavior toward me was when she asked this incredibly off-handed question right after I agreed to be a moderator:

     I am a minor. At the time that this conversation occurred, I was thirteen. Yume was completely aware of this, she knew it from my introduction in the server, yet she still somehow considered it appropriate to ask me a question with romantic implications.

     I was extremely confused and taken aback in the moment. I just laughed it off because I didn’t know what else to do.

     Yume’s conduct toward me did not stop or change after that. If anything, it worsened. After I made one joke in the server implying that I wanted to go to college to be a trophy wife, she gripped onto the name for months, and called me HER trophy wife hundreds of times despite the original joke having nothing to do with her. I was too afraid to call her out on how inappropriate it was for her to talk to me like that when she was an adult and I was, by every definition, a child. I tried to drop hints that I was uncomfortable, and while it isn’t her fault for not being able to read between my lines, even when I did finally gain the courage to flat out say I was uncomfortable, she completely brushed me off. A few examples of this behavior are below, the last being her excusing her behavior after I finally told her I didn’t want to be called her trophy wife. *Please note that the names and profile pictures of others involved in the conversations have been crossed out, because they did not consent to being involved with this post in any way, and did not do anything wrong.

    These are just a FEW examples. Again, I don’t want this to be a witch hunt, so I am only providing necessary examples and not leaving unnecessary screenshots to gawk at. Also, there is a 10 image limit per post and I’m trying to fit everything.

     More rather disturbing screenshots that go further than the “trophy wife” deal:

     The first: Completely unpromtedly implying/saying that she wanted to cuddle with me, at the time a 13 year old. I just wanted to talk about bringing my blanket to school.

     The second: Calling me the “titty police” and going on to talk about me in relation to breasts further. 

     This is just what happened in public chats.

     One of the scariest instances of her conduct toward me happened in a moderator chat. I do not have any screenshot evidence for this, because Yume deleted the entire moderator chat after people began to call her out for her behaviors, but I do have the word of the other former moderators who witnessed this happen.

     Soon after I was appointed as a moderator, we had a situation with a user making inappropriate sexual comments/requests in our roleplay channels. This person by all means could’ve been considered a predator. Yume quickly decided that this person needed to be addressed. There were 3 adult moderators at the time, as well as myself and another minor moderator. We all banded together to figure out a message to send to this person as an immediate warning to stop their behaviors.

     Everything went well until it came to who had to send the message. By now, only Yume and Kekune, Yume’s best friend, were online, along with myself. Yume immediately said that her anxiety was too bad to send it, and said it wasn’t a possibility. Kekune also counted herself out on the grounds of simply not wanting to. That left me, a minor, to go privately DM an adult who was breaking rules in an NSFW manner. I was clearly uncomfortable with the situation, but was pressured into it by both Yume and Kekune and guilted about Yume’s anxiety until I gave in.

     Later into my time as a staff member, when I was a promoted to a co-admin, Yume refused to turn off the “administrator” permission for my role. This meant that I could see all of the server’s NSFW channels. I immediately muted and collapsed them, and told her that I was uncomfortable even being able to view them, but she refused to change the permission for weeks because she preferred to just click administrator and it was anxiety inducing for her to do the permissions individually.

     Yume has also engaged in multiple explicit NSFW roleplays in main roleplay chats and refused to move them to a section where minors could not view them, but I will not elaborate because though I was there and witnessed it, it was not a personal matter to me.

     After I finally left the server in July, Yume proceeded to gossip about me privately with other adults and spread misinformation to the members in her server. I have had multiple adult acquaintances tell me they had to shut Yume down from ranting about me to them on many occasions, and rationally, I can assume there’s many more people Yume talked to about me who did not tell me. Below is a screenshot of Yume spreading blatant misinformation about me in the main chat of Whumper Gathering, saying I sent her hate anons when I could not have possibly done so, since she blocked me.

     Again, I want to reiterate this is the surface level of things. There have been many, many more instances of Yume behaving inappropriately toward me or speaking about me in an inappropriate way. 

     What makes this worse is Yume and some members of her new staff team’s responses.

     Yume adamantly denies any wrongdoing and mongers people around her to agree with her by guilting them with her anxiety, triggers, and sex repulsion. She repeatedly tries to use her asexuality to excuse her actions, or to say that she couldn’t possibly be a predator because of her trauma. She denies every aspect of this situation and blames me.

     She blatantly lies about stopping calling me her trophy wife, as the nickname usage did not stop until I left the server and had no further contact with her. She also completely makes up me implying all asexual people are predators. That never happened. She calls my statements contradictory and tries to explain away her actions, taking no personal responsibility for the situation. She tries to use her sex repulsion as an excuse, and does not own up to being at fault for any part of the situation.

     This is just one of her many, many “apologies”/public statements.

     I rejoined both Whumper Gathering and Niji in July with the intention of shedding light on how dangerous of a person Yume was. Niji was originally an RWBY fandom project, but quickly devolved into Yume’s side server and personal venting space.

     I was met with the support of many members, both in Niji and Whumper Gathering, but Yume’s new mod team (not any of the mods I worked with, there was a mass walk out shortly before I rejoined; this is a newly hired set) had some particularly disgusting responses to me. I was attacked, called a liar, and demeaned, particularly by Kekune. Kekune, who is also an adult, said extremely nasty things to me and completely defended Yume and her actions while also flat out attacking me. She blamed me for everything in relation to Yume while trying to garner support from other server members.

     As you can see, Kekune not only excuses Yume’s behavior, but lies about the facts of the situation, and blames me, the literal child in the situation, for every aspect and states that I should‘ve prevented myself from being sexualized by an adult. “She didn’t mean it like that” is just one of many excuses made during this conversation.

     This entire situation has been extremely emotionally and physically exhausting for me. I’ve put off making this post out of fear of backlash, but at this point, I am more concerned about general and minor safety of the whump community than about whatever hate I may receive. There are many, many other horrible behaviors and things Yume has done in the WG and Niji servers; these are just my own personal experiences, as I think the posts I linked above do plenty of explaining, and I don’t need to beat a dead horse.

     My message and point with sharing this is simple. Do Not Interact, particularly if you are a minor. If you are still in WG or Niji, leave. Yume is a dangerous individual, as are many of her mods.

     Yume has over a hundred side blogs. The ones I know she uses most are @/whump-dream and @/midian-alexandra. I urge EVERYONE, particularly minors, not to interact with her or either of her servers. It is not safe. You could end up gaslit, manipulated, and/or verbally abused. It’s not worth being there for entertainment or to “watch the drama.”

     All of the above words are mine and mine only. No one else edited this, or even saw it before I posted it publicly. You are welcome to reblog for signal boost if you’d like, but I ask that you please do not add any comments and message me privately with any concerns, because I do not want this to turn into a witch hunt or a flame war against Yume or her staff, and again, this post is 100% from me. Please be safe, friends. The whump community is meant to be safe and welcoming and individuals like this prevent that from being the case.

-Sara (nowhumponmain)

[faranae]

Rant Incoming

Those of you who have been here a while know me. I’d prefer to not say anything at all, or at the very least I encourage folks to do their own research when combative topics arise. However, I’m a literal mother and I can not have this sort of accusation just sitting out there without being addressed. Last time I had accusations like this thrown my way in a community I got doxxed over it despite the initial accuser admitting their mistake. People threatened my kid. This kind of thing can literally ruin lives if you let it.

If posting this gets me removed from the @ladystuck2020​ gift exchange then so be it, but I will not stand idly by while my character is called into question in a space where I cannot defend myself.  Edit: I’m contacting the event staff to be removed from the event. I was very excited to take part, but being removed from the community while also being expected to still take part in/draw art for the exchange is a bit... Ridiculous, really. 

I actually gained a fair number of followers from their Discord server today. That server has since thrown baseless accusations at me I feel like I should really defend myself against. I can’t clear things up in-server as my access has been removed. The last thing I need is some exchange of “Where’d Fara go? Oh, banned for being a p*do.” to happen out there and have someone actually believe it. Since most of today’s new folk seem to be from that server, I feel I really need to offer up my side of things. 

TL;DR: 

Said I thought an anime character was funny, got ganged up on and accused of being a p*dophile apologist because of it, now banned from event server (but not the event!) while the folks who started the trouble and egged it on are still kickin’. Yes, I’m aware that being accused of p*dophilia apologism over thinking an anime character is quirky sounds stupid. That’s because it is.  

That’s the post. If you’re on desktop, click through the readmore for details and logs if you care for my side of things. If not, I hope your day is going considerably better than mine and that it keeps bein’ awesome.

Be kind. :)

(Oh, and for all the Ladystuck folks who followed today? I’m not in the exchange any more but feel free to throw a prompt or two my way for funsies. I’ll happily draw for you!)

Whole post: 

More than a little concerned that I’ve been soft-banned from the @ladystuck2020​ event server after having serious accusations thrown at me and trying to defend myself. I didn’t even start the conversations in question, but since I was the eldest member of the group at the time apparently it was ban-worthy for myself and not the others (my age was repeatedly brought up by the mod informing me of the decision).

What led to the ban:

Group convo decided amongst themselves that because I think Mineta from BNHA is funny I’m a p*dophile/apologist; 

Saying said implications were serious and shouldn’t be thrown around so casually was apparently making the minors in the 13+ server feel unsafe, despite fighting my own anxiety attack at the time over having some pretty serious accusations thrown at me for no reason;

 As an adult, I “must be aware of the power dynamics at play and should not have continued engaging in the conversation after multiple people expressed discomfort”, despite trying multiple times to exit the conversation civilly before said accusations were thrown and only re-joining the conversation in an attempt to clear my name afterwards.

I stand by thinking BNHA is an interesting show that utilizes many pre-existing tropes, and just because I happen to like the little purple gremlin I did not deserve to have accusations/implications of p*dophilia thrown at me. You can like a character without condoning their flaws. I tried multiple times to back out of the conversation gracefully. 

Later on in the day, I’m contacted by a mod stating I’ve been soft-banned from the server for defending p*dophilia and sexualizing minors. The mod was kind enough to give me channel access long enough to backup the logs, at the very least, and after reading through them a few times I personally don’t see it. They’re below, if you have a second opinion or can give me some clarity here.

I’m admittedly a touch salty over having my character called into question, being accused of defending p*dophilia, and being called names repeatedly... As well as being the only one with action taken against them as far as I’m aware. Just checked. The users who were egging it on and namecalling/throwing baseless accusations at me all still have full access as of this writing. 

I’m not going to air usernames but I do want to put some context out there. Anyone still in the server can easily look them up and see what was said by whom, but I’m editing out the names and avatars of other parties because I’m not about that drama shit. All I want here is to put the log out there for anyone wondering why I’ve disappeared, and anyone following up on the accusations thrown at me in the chat.

Sorry again for the drama post, but again I say I really can’t just let an accusation like this stand.

Disclaimer: I am not American. 

I think this is the part where my take of “It’s a superhero outfit, which are known for copious amounts of spandex and latex, how can you blame one guy for an entire culture” might’ve been misconstrued as an intent to defend/sexualize minors? 

Every author or script writer who has ever written anything clearly problematic into their stories is, by extension, also problematic. /s

Also, I think this might be a case of the younger generation not knowing what pedophilia actually is. Again.

The chat then proceeded to talk about the invisibility character whose name I can’t remember because I don’t watch the show being naked at all times, which I did not comment on at all or interact with because even I think that shit’s whack. I, however, was still typing on the previous train of conversation: Some of boys in the class being shitlords. Yes I forgot Mineta’s name for a spell, don’t @ me. 

Fara attempts to leave the convo gracefully count: 2

I’m starting to think none of these people have seen any anime made before the 2010s, especially after the reaction to my pointing out that the Hot tub/hot spring trope has been a thing for decades. My point here is still pretty clearly “You can’t demonize this entire thing for using common practices”. This is a Homestuck server. Homestuck. Do you know how much problematic shit there is in Homestuck? 

Either way, I fully intended that to be my last message on the matter. 

Until someone decides to step forward and get outright hostile: 

Fara attempts to leave the convo gracefully count: 3

Aaaand then they bring out the P word. Let the mob mentality begin. 

It’s at this point where my anger finally overrides my anxiety, thank God:

Fara attempts to leave the convo gracefully count: 4

That’s it. That’s the logs. I get dogpiled and I’m the only one with action taken. 

I’m not even going to deny that I’m a bit salty, but really? How in the hell is this behaviour ever okay? And why am I the one getting shit on over it? 

Sigh.

/endrant