#too used to discord and it’s lack of read receipts

[codgod]

orz forgot that accepting message requests meant that the other person could tell that i’ve read their message so they just dmed me again asking if i was just gonna ignore them instead of deleting my tweets like. yeah that’s exactly what i’m gonna do

[witchcraftingboop]

Further Insight on Briar's Recent Discourse & Prim's Apparent Grooming of Younger, Newer Witches

It was suggested to me that instead of making one long post (which I was genuinely sorry for creating in the moment as well), that I should offer the second half in a separate one so that it is easier to share and harder to simply ignore as a wall of text.

Here is the link to the first half of the current JBird and Briar discourse floating around. I highly encourage everyone involved in the Witchblr community to review both posts and not just this final addition. 

Regarding Prim stirring the pot, I actually do have proof of that on my page somewhere if you wouldn't mind my sending it to you? The person I reblogged it from, Mahi, also received death threats from Prim when they were only 16 and Prim was 20 (I can't ask him to share that though because Prim has since used her following to drive him off of Tumblr and he's still fairly [and justifiably] sensitive about it.)

Regarding Briar's statements more specifically though, I can see where the confusion is coming from. After the "in France" part, she's just defining a relevant term (hence the use of "irrelevant details) and then giving an explanation of how she came to be so knowledgeable about that term/concept. I wouldn't say she's calling Prim's activism an "irrelevant detail," but pointing out how Prim uses it as a shield against backlash whenever another blog (not just tradcrafters) calls out her platform. I don't expect you to fully understand or see what I mean when I say that, of course. Because you are still new, and these are habits I've observed of hers from nearly a year of following their interactions. I would, however, like to point out that Briar doesn't say anything racist about Prim and does not once bring up her race. In fact, I think if you read her entire post and not just point 3 as Prim has it cropped out in all of her mentions of it, you would see more fully the depth and amount of frustration Briar is trying to express. Similarly, Briar never threatened to dox Prim. She has, in fact, repeatedly tried to point out that Prim should be protecting her online information and be more aware of how to stop others from finding out about her private life/situation. These statements, however, have since been warped by Prim and her followers to come off as a threat on her life. Briar's statements above aren't a threat of doxxing. She's never once posted Prim's personal information or told others to find it or use it in any way. She has, however, searched for Taglocks on Prim, something witches especially are known to look for. In that search she found more than she was even looking for, despite trying to tell Prim repeatedly to stop being so open online with the information she posts about herself. Doxxing though is not racist. It is something used by them, sure, but it is not inherently racist.

Additionally, Prim has raised money, sure, but I still have not seen any actual receipts as to her *actually* donating it to any public or private organizations. This, for me, is highly suspect. In reality, we still have no idea where that money is. Whereas with Briar, she took no money in for a couple days on her readings and instead merely asked that those requesting a reading first submit proof of donation to an organization linked in the post. She raised substantial money for the BLM movement, but no one seems to want to bring that up in all of their "she's a racist" discourse. Also, the observation that someone is misleading or gaslighting their following is not racist. Just because she said Prim was recently using her BLM reblogs & promotions to do it *this time* still does not make it racist. Questionable wording is just something the reader disagrees with, in my opinion, and should be addressed as such.

I'm not going to lie, I do feel a little frustrated at this point. I was really hoping to come to you and see that you had concrete proof to offer that Briar is a racist. I do understand that you have your own reasons for feeding into the assumptions and twisted outlooks already taken on Briar's words, but I don't have enough energy in me to fully swallow my tongue on this one. I really do hope that you at least consider what I've said here. I'm not sure what I can say at this point because all of the information I've read from you thus far has been purely conjecture or assumptions or just "not feeling right" about the wordings on a single post. A racist, from my perspective, is not something I would ever feel comfortable calling someone off of this lack of evidence.

I understand it is hard to separate preconceived notions from your mind when reading through the words of others, but I really do miss when you were more open to the words of others. If I could ask one thing of you, it'd be to please try to read Briar's post again but from the perspective of seeing it how it was meant to be: a witch who has been on the butt end of Prim's harassment for going on three years now. She is tired of the wild accusations and constantly having to defend herself, and even when she supplied her proof a couple years ago, no one wanted to hear her. She has, largely, given up on being heard, and now screams into what feels like a void when attacked.

Proof of Prim stirring the pot that I offered: An example of Prim actively seeking out the community and trying to stir the pot with an already dealt with situation that had passed over a year ago.

A direct source that I offered as further proof of what has occurred already: This is one from the account mentioned before who was directly involved with the previous discord server where the Trio incident took place a couple years back.

[A Reply.] I think, to be fair, I saw your comments on her previous posts through your main, and with how much aggression you packed into those messages, I don't necessarily blame her for deciding not to engage with your private messages. As I've said, she's very used to people attacking her like that, and in her mind, unfortunately, you've probably been added to the list of aggressive people ready to fling the blame at her rather than look at the situation as a whole. I do apologize for the way her post may have made you feel, but I think it's also important to remember the potentially aggressive things you left on her page (I'm not saying you meant to come off that way, but even I couldn't help but read that way). Also, regarding the ask, it's no small secret that the occultists of the tradcraft group are skilled and well-versed in hexes and curses. When reading her posts about how she may respond to further antagonism on Prim's part, I see a fully realized occultist wielding their most well kept and trained weapon: baneful magic. I'm sure Prim herself also understands that the "threat on her life" she's saying she's so afraid of, isn't a physical threat, but a metaphysical one. She has repeatedly and continually tried to drag these people through the mud, and now that they're refusing to just sit back and be canceled, she's afraid. She knows how strong their magic is, and they aren't shy about it 🤷‍♀️

[A Reply.] No, I completely understand where you're coming from. I, personally, have seen your willingness to talk things through, despite how aggressive you can come off at times in the things you say, so I think that's why I was genuinely so surprised to see your comments on some of her posts. But I do think her response and refusal to further directly engage with you is warranted and her right. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell who is genuinely open to talking and who is just trying to bait and add to the problem. And with how aggressive your comments were, 8 honestly think she most likely was responding from a place of "oh look another young Prim follower here to bait and berate me." I don't think she looks down on you for your age, but her views are likely a reflection of the fact that a lot of 18yos follow Prim and have openly harassed her without even asking for her input on the matter.

At this point, I would like to talk about the second half of the title of this particular post. Grooming. This is a very serious allegation against Prim that I have not spoken on previously because I had no proof that it was happening. With this person's permission, I would like to share how exactly they wound up fighting Prim's battles for her.

I will note: I am highly disgusted by what follows.

[A Reply.] Oh no! You cannot fault yourself for this! Prim is a known manipulator, and the fact that she was able to make you somehow think this is part of your being "gullible and naive" is just testament to the fact that she's gotten wayyy too good at what she does. This is in no way your fault or because of some fault within you. Practiced manipulators are cunning and dangerous even to the best of us. It was unfortunate that she chose you, but her twisting you around is in no way a bad reflection on you as a person!

I've chosen to include my reply to this person rather than our continued discussion because of how personal and involved our conversation turned. I've included it to show, as well, that grooming others to fight your battles is (though this should go without saying) NEVER OKAY. Prim has shown her true colors, in my opinion, and while I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt time and time again, I simply cannot permit myself to ignore the harm and damage she's inflicted on not only the tradcraft community, but also this innocent group of friends. A group who that has hitherto dedicated their time to sussing out predators, terfs, nazis, and racists. A group that should never have had to deal with being gaslit and manipulated by a well-known and respected blogger on this platform.

I cannot reiterate enough how sorry and deeply shocked I am at the information this person has brought to my attention. I am still stunned by Prim's activities and unable to fathom how many other potential individuals are out there being groomed to support and fight for her cause. I am sorry to the Witchblr community as a whole. I feel as if I have sat by and watched as Witchblr has been manipulated and am therefore complacent in the damage and needless hurt that has been allowed to spread throughout our community. I am just so very, very sorry.

I will be taking a couple days off of Tumblr because of this, as I feel as if I need space and time to think, but my inbox is always open and I am always available to speak with others on my return.

[egdocument]

About the EvaGeeks wiki and why you shouldn't trust it, concerning mainly one user.

On the subject of EvaGeeks: Let’s talk about the manipulation of information on the wiki, and perpetuated “nastiness” on the forums that has persisted for several years now. THIS IS A MIRROR OF THIS GOOGLE DOCS FILE. (My twitter post.) You can share this post or the original document freely, use parts of it, etc. I want this document to simply serve as a warning to new Eva fans and those less familiar with EvaGeeks and their history - as well as an update for people who haven’t seen the current state of it.

NOTE: If you can’t read any of these images, these are Imgur albums containing all of the notable ones: https://imgur.com/a/z2mGvvX https://imgur.com/a/oAgufc3

The intent of this document is not to “take down” the wiki or forum, obviously. The intent is simply to inform people of the dangers of trusting this site with their Eva info. It might be the best we have but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve it. I would actually love to see a more community cultivated version of the site with less biased information, but I fear that will never happen. The anxieties of any one (or many) individual(s), which have prevented consistent change until now are well justified, and it is not within reason to blame the outsiders for never bothering to correct the myriad of issues with the wiki. Please extend kindness to other Eva fans and approach sites like EvaGeeks with the appropriate scrutiny, if you aren’t already. We’re divided enough as it is.

Before I begin, I must state: All of the information presented is publicly available, either through main pages, chat logs or history. And yes, the link to join the Discord server and verify the information given in this is publicly available too. I will not link it myself, as I want to avoid any possible harassment of the users I speak about here. Harassment is NEVER the answer in any kind of conflict. This behaviour I don’t believe can go unchecked, but that doesn’t mean the consequences of it should be any kind of conflict towards any user. I will be naming them here so you are aware, but I really do have to advise you, as a reminder, DO NOT HARASS OR ENGAGE WITH THEM. The rule of thumb is that these issues are more systematic than you might think, and blaming or taking it out on a singular person or even a whole group is never justified. Targeted harassment, even with reason, especially never helps to remedy an issue, because it forces the person to double down on their behaviour and beliefs. Causing unnecessary pain to a person is never okay, and the ‘offences’ committed here aren’t deserving of it in the first place. Please also consider the feelings of the people who use the server and EvaGeeks site; not everyone is your "enemy" or your "target" (and frankly, no-one should be) and despite the feelings echoed in this document, EG is not a monolith of a singular opinion or belief.

The purpose of this document is to inform people of the ways EvaGeeks fails objectivity and has existed to push narratives and exclude outsiders for far too long. With new people coming into the Eva fandom (and there of course being others who have been around for quite a while but just aren't aware) I feel like now is the best time I could write this.

As for what prompted this, an anonymous member of the Discord server contacted me regarding the behaviour of one particular user they were concerned about. Said user had expressed considerable bias in the past and was admitting to making large edits to pages on the wiki very recently, and the person who contacted me felt unequipped to bring the issue to light themselves.

A decent amount of this document will be dedicated to presenting said user's contributions - while I feel someone always had to address the EvaGeeks Problem at large, it doesn't help that this user has essentially incriminated himself here to expose the problem in its entirety. 

There is quite a bit of pretense I must discuss before I get into the subject of the wiki pages themselves. I suggest you read all of it; the start of the wiki section will be in heading text if you’d like to skip to it. I’m sure information on the biased editing of wiki pages is privy to anyone who has used the server or the site itself, but at the server’s current status of 60 entire members, I know not everyone has, or is aware of what the problem actually is. Please note that the person who contacted me has requested anonymity and I will be complying. I will not include screenshots of their conversation with me, and anything I quote from them will be paraphrased so nobody can go full Sherlock and analyse their typing patterns. It sounds silly and it’s probably just paranoia, but they shared my concern here. Any conflict we can prevent is for the best. EvaGeeks, of course, has a culture very much promoting the idea that it’s the “number 1 source for all things Eva”, and for English speaking fans it definitely is - you’d be surprised the amount of people who still, after all these years, think this site is consistently reputable. For the sake of context, I’m going to assume that you are not all that familiar with the site’s history or nature, so I’m going to provide a little bit of information about it for those without any first-hand experience. The forums in particular cultivate a very join-us-or-get-out type community, where those who dare to go against the grain get incentivised to leave the site; they’ll claim this isn’t the case if asked and obviously the site is NOT a hivemind but that doesn’t mean it’s not insular. I can vouch for myself and many others who refuse to go in more than a few threads for fear of discussion turning particularly nasty. Even the server member who came to me about this has stated they feel it “might not be a hivemind but it sure feels that way.” Silencing dissent, even when officially-backed, is part of their culture. You don’t have to personally harass everyone who has an opposing thought to you for it to not feel acceptable, you just need to have a history of mocking those who do. If you want some previous, notable cases of “discussion turning nasty”, here’s some off the top of my head: 1. The AWL Incident - In which ADV VA of Rei and director of EoE dub, Amanda Winn-Lee, joined the forums for discussion and was promptly harassed by a user. Most of these messages have been deleted but you can view what remains of her post history here.  2. Recently brought to my attention: upon beginning translation of the Episode 24 drafts, EG forum user LiLi was subjected to incentive to leave, mostly in the form of homophobic disgust in replies to her thread or others they were mentioned in. Any information that goes against the cultivated narrative, even when it is literally officially licensed content, is only ever considered with a degree of reluctance. The fact these drafts co-exist with other pages concerned with this episode is almost a miracle. You can find plenty of repeat instances of the above if you want to (more to do with homophobia and misogyny than outward hostility, but honestly it’s the same thing.) A look at basically any EvaGeeks thread concerning pairings or the female characters will unearth a variety of awful comments from many other users, not that that would be surprising to anyone who has spent more than two minutes in the fandom. Now, of course, that’s very relevant to the topic at hand even if it doesn’t seem to be. The EG wiki and forum have quite a bit of overlap and circular influence on each other as you’ll see later if you aren’t already aware of it. For a short summary before we jump into things and analyse our subject of the day, this essentially means that anyone with an opinion or information the majority doesn’t like will never get in a position good enough to edit the wiki and keep the edits there. This has resulted in many articles filled with conjecture and fan speculation that serve to shut down other viewpoints, whether it’s intentional or not.

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ON THE TOPIC OF THE EVAGEEKS WIKI

The issue surrounding homophobia and downplaying of references to LGB content in Eva, through proxy of fan-dictated content control and translation is not a new one by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure you're all very well aware. It’s far from the only issue present in the fandom but it will be our subject of conversation today. Any ‘one instance’ of this persistent behaviour from Eva fans is never going to be enough to summarise how insurmountable it really is, though, so today I instead draw your attention to one user of the wiki who goes by the name of FelipeFritschF and his recent, frequent updates to pages concerning Nagisa Kaworu.

[TOPIC: FELIPEFRITSCHF]

I must reiterate here: although this document is mostly concerned with this user and will contain a number of receipts from various places, it is NOT supposed to function as a hit piece or inspire any kind of mob. Leave this guy the hell alone, just be aware that he’s the one making most of these changes and isn’t a particularly impartial party, to put things lightly.

Now, before we really get into things, it should be stated that the EvaGeeks wiki requires approval to get your edits there, as stated at the bottom of the homepage, here:

This means that anyone making consistent edits to the wiki has in fact been approved, and this isn’t the result of lack of maintenance.  

What you’ll find is that it is consistently Felipe making edits to the pages in question. Kaworu’s bio page, for example, is almost entirely edited by Felipe, which we can see from the “History” tab of the article.

This is barely half of his edits made in the last few days. Take a scroll through it yourself if you’re so inclined. This hilarious bit of waffle was added by Felipe a few days ago and since revised since by him, as shown here. 

(As an added bit of comedy, the man who decided to add in the Japanese in the first place apparently didn’t know the difference between 好意 (kindness, what Kaworu actually says) and 行為 (action). It’s been fixed since but I still think it’s quite funny.) Now, as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese knows, 好き is not actually a very ambiguous word at all. I think it goes without saying, though, and I’m not here to have an argument about translations with you all (for the record, Kanemitsu’s now scarily infamous translation of this scene is perfectly fine with me in a vacuum, it’s just literally everything else surrounding it that’s the problem. Also, regretfully, I will have to speak about this nonsense later when it becomes relevant.) I’m using this as an example instead, to show how utterly ridiculous this guy’s additions to these pages are. He’s not even making a point here. It keeps going past this excerpt, and I suggest you read the whole thing (Kaworu’s page is linked above.) The point of bringing this up - and when I eventually discuss the Netflix translation when it’s necessary - is not to complain about semantics, although I’d argue that’s what’s happening in these articles, honestly. It’s just helpful when proving the actual point of the editor being incredibly unreliable and biased in how he phrases and omits things.

On the page dedicated solely to Shinji and Kaworu’s relationship (which is basically identical to their section on Kaworu’s page as far as I can tell), we can see that Felipe has also edited this several times, and even credits himself with expanding the version on the Evangelion Fandom Wiki now copy and pasted back to EvaGeeks.

The kind of “discussion” (very much not discussion when added to a wiki page supposedly presented as factual information, is it, frankly?) would be fine if it was happening in the EvaGeeks forum itself (and happen does it ever, but that doesn’t change the inappropriateness of this particular behaviour.) What I find disturbing is that in the past few days, this user has gone out of his way to make some already worrying articles even worse, presumably in an attempt to silence discourse, or add more fuel to the flames, surrounding the new Netflix translation. He has a whole page on that one, too, one which is very up-to-date in some regards and not at all in others, despite only being added a few days before me compiling this information. Frankly, going through this whole page on its own is a huge waste of my time considering how BLATANT it is in its biases, but I’ll do it anyway. It IS only a Theory and Analysis page (which is essentially an EvaGeeks free-for-all), but I think it’s quite bothering that the site even allows Theory and Analysis pages that consider only one viewpoint and are written by one person. The forum, presumably, is connected to the site for a reason. 

I’m just going to link it here, for the sake of brevity. https://wiki.evageeks.org/Theory_and_Analysis:Kaworu%27s_lines_in_Episode_24 I suggest you read this before continuing. For a slight departure, the original theatrical Funimation dub of 3.0 is partially available for viewing online, although the audio is in cam quality so you may want headphones if you have plans to watch what’s there. The home media dub’s major changes are to issues with lore and localisation of jargon. While not directly mentioned in this article, it is implied from the subject that this is what it’s about; it’s been speculated that the very literal translation of Episode 24 in particular has come about due to Khara’s embarrassment with how Funimation’s theatrical dub of 3.0 handled Kaworu and Shinji’s relationship rather loosely. Despite these claims, every instance of the two sharing (honestly pretty awkward and unnecessary) flirtatious back-and-forths are still present in the home media version, barring an instance in the stargazing scene where Kaworu’s dialogue was translated even worse than it is in the final dub. If you don’t believe me, do the comparisons yourself. It may not be conclusive, but I think it puts mostly to death the rumour that “a Khara employee was there and saw how people laughed at the Kaworu and Shinji scenes and demanded it needed to be changed for the final release and now that’s being reflected on the new translation”, which is what it tends to boil down to. 

It also goes without saying that NO ONE PERSON is “the most qualified” (holy shit, is this entry not even bothering to hide how biased it is) to translate an entire TV show, let alone something like Evangelion. Let us not forget that Kanemitsu’s claims that he respects “ambiguity” are not even true to begin with. EvaGeeks itself is a shining example of Eva fans, of which Kanemitsu is one and this is even discussed in the article, not being impartial enough to be tasked with discussing Evangelion! (There is obviously issue with citing the ADV translation as a source of all truth; if you read further into the thread on my tweet [the kitchen scene in EoE], I provide extra context for those interested, which I am aware has been spread around Discord and other places without that context included. Of course, I’m not an unbiased source either as you can probably tell from my tweets nor am I claiming to be, so please feel free to discuss these things in other places if you want. I’ve just got the tweets I have on hand here. Sorry about that.) Next, the repeat claim that this is “Khara’s licensed translation and thus the most accurate version” is pretty obviously nonsense; I’m sure I don’t need to point out to the audience that Japanese companies meddling in localisation has ended poorly in the past, or that Khara uses questionable translations from the dubs of the Rebuild films on licensed merch from time-to-time, or that the translation was fairly obviously not overseen or even QA’d by anyone following Kanemitsu’s translation work judging from the myriad of grammatical errors, missing subtitles and overly literal, poor sounding phrasing present in the final work. (Do I need to source this? Just watch the damn thing.) It’s not even like the ways it was translated have been consistent through different versions on Netflix; some were translated from Kanemitsu’s English to other languages judging from the obvious mistakes being present in multiple tracks, and some were barely even translated at all - the Italian version, the dub of which is mysteriously now missing, was so bad people were commenting that it sounded like Shakespeare or that it was translated word for word from Japanese. I dunno about you, the reader, but something about “Khara only bothered to check very rigorously the English version for their specific requests with the translation” doesn’t sound like what really happened to me. It’s more like they’ve just sent a translator they have worked with before to work on a project of theirs. Apologies for engaging in speculation, but that’s all this whole article is anyway. It’s just something I noticed from skimming through the page, but I find it quite interesting that Felipe makes a blanket statement about the excerpts from Schizo and Prano “being wrongly attributed to Anno” and then the source he provides for that is just someone on the EvaGeeks forums saying the same thing with little proper sourcing, when that was never really the intent of their post anyway. An interview summary exists where Anno has stated he wrote both books himself, and if you haven’t seen it, here it is. It’s obviously flimsy at best, but Tokyo Otaku Mode is an officially licensed Evangelion distributor. If Felipe is going to parade around his love for the Very Official Khara Subtitles Of NGE he can at least extend the same gratitude to other forms of official information; I mean, frankly, this article is about as reputable as anything in the Netflix subtitles are.  Lastly, another thing I found quite interesting is his strange love for the ADV VHS subtitles. I really, really think this is obvious, but subtitles changed in later versions of the ADV release were changed because they were deemed incorrect. I don’t have sources for this so take it with an absolute grain of salt but I believe there’s even a commentary track on the Platinum release where the translator talks in depth about why she translated episode 24 as she did. It’s not exactly a better word than Kanemitsu’s, but if we’re considering translator’s word as law for whatever reason like Felipe is here, we might as well consider hers, too, right? Oh, and actually, have a look at the sources used on that article. Most of the sweeping statements he makes have absolutely no backing beyond what he’s piecing together from old and irrelevant interviews (when discussing the Netflix translation) as well as...linking Kanemitsu’s job history...I mean, sure, the guy is qualified, but do I really need to go over this again?

INTERMISSION: Speaking of sources, you might have noticed from perusing these articles yourself that EvaGeeks has a very low standard for sourcing to begin with, which is likely partially to blame for how things like these articles can even exist in their current forms in the first place. A site that doesn’t have such a lenient policy on sourcing, though, is Wikipedia. Felipe, of course, cannot stay within the confines of the fandom and has decided to have a go at providing some information to Kaworu’s actual Wikipedia page as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaworu_Nagisa&action=history Felipe is far less to blame for the state of Kaworu’s Wikipedia article, which is honestly pretty bad to begin with. There have been plenty of other people editing this one and the rather homophobic “Relationship with Shinji” part of the article has been present for a while before he started editing it. (The fact this article literally uses someone being explicitly homophobic as a source is not surprising for Eva fandom, but holy shit, am I disgusted every time I reopen this page. I'm not even going to bother figuring out who added that one.) I do wonder if his reasons for not desecrating this page the same way he has on EvaGeeks is because he knows it wouldn’t stay up for particularly long. Reminder that he is also the main editor of the same pages on the Evangelion Fandom Wiki, which is essentially a copy and paste of EvaGeeks. Of note is this little tidbit I found:

This is what Felipe then deleted, as this is apparently not relevant, despite literally being about Kaworu’s relationship with Shinji. I mean, I’m sure this could have been put in somewhere else and perhaps phrased a bit better, but why the hell would you outright delete that kind of information? It’s supposed to be a wiki, not your own personal opinion chamber. BTW, this is the thread post he links as a rebuttal to that person adding it, and it’s probably for the best it’s presented here with context: https://forum.evageeks.org/post/886380/NGE-Ep24-Script-First-and-Second-Drafts/#886380

He clearly thinks he has a point here, but I’m not sure what exactly he’s going for. Basically everything he’s saying is conjecture, and while I can kinda see where he’s coming from it sure does completely fail to address the intent as explained in this interview. “Read the whole interview” is very dismissive, especially when the interview in full doesn’t exactly contradict the initial point. It does say quite a bit, how he will disregard official information when his wiki articles themselves are full of nothing but rambling.

Here’s another relevant and quite funny Discord screenshot:

Felipe is making a pretty hypocritical statement here. I’m sure he does have a point - there’s probably been quite a bit of vandalism happening to these pages which isn’t exactly surprising (again, Eva fans are not often rational people, please be honest with ourselves). That being said, I think there’s a particular irony to the man who has written many very, very long paragraphs on the wiki pages he has control over trying to stop people from thinking there might be anything but “ambiguity” between a pair he doesn’t like.

In the case anyone reading has forgotten: the purpose of a wiki should be to provide unbiased information on the material it discusses. Obviously the repeating of “innocuous” statements about how “ambiguous” it all is, in the vain of EG’s now made fun of ‘we don’t know what he really meant by that’ and ‘why Kaworu is so intent for Shinji alone to have happiness remains a mystery’  are pretty obviously intended to downplay the very, very obvious “subtext” and leagues of official information provided.

It kinda goes without saying that WE CAN INFER THESE THINGS FROM THE ACTUAL INFORMATION ON THE WIKI, you don’t need to add a disclaimer to everything going “well we just don’t know what it means!” (even in instances when we do know what it means, but that’s almost besides the point). You don’t need to add in these statements, unless you’re trying to sway people into ignoring what's presented by the show. If you want people to draw their own conclusions, you are in fact capable of presenting information without commentary - in fact, that's kind of the whole point of a wiki. Yes, Eva is ambiguous at times, but talking down to people like they need this reminded to them constantly is an absolute waste of time and energy. It’s almost as if the editor has been trying to cultivate a narrative and has been getting away with it because you can’t really prove these statements are biased unless you do the research. (I mean, you can from context, but it certainly hasn’t done much to get them removed, has it?)

You can view the editing history of any given EvaGeeks article on their own pages if you want to see just how many times these things have been added in by Felipe. And obviously, no, it isn’t just his fault - there are other users, several, in fact, credited with the editing of these pages, many of the edits serving the same point as Felipe’s paragraphs on “ambiguity”. He’s just the most concrete example of a biased editor. Also, yes, I do recognise this has all happened within the few days post the release of Eva on Netflix and that it was likely prompted by that. But we know at least one of the mods is aware of it given how Felipe talks about it in the EvaGeeks Discord server. It’s also quite funny I’ve seen people linking these pages like they're some kind of "gotcha" in response to tweets discussing the new translation, as if they haven’t been invented out of thin air in the past few days.

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Now, frankly I’m sick of staring at EvaGeeks, and if you want any more information on these articles and others with instances of the same thing happening, you can have a look at it yourself.

Originally, this document contained far more screenshots from Felipe. My desire for this to not turn into a hit piece has lead me to remove a great deal of these messages. I do suggest, if you want to, you join the server and make your own conclusions. Even beyond what the member told me about I found myself agreeing with him fairly frequently when he was being reasonable - this doesn't change my concerns regarding the presentation of information on the wiki, though. The anonymous member was mostly concerned about this user having basically all the control over Kaworu's wiki articles, seeing as he has far too high of a stake in everything. Not all of these messages are inflammatory or even necessarily bad or wrong, but I find that to anyone privy to the “revelations” about the EvaGeeks Wiki here, they paint an interesting story, to say the least.

It’s starting to sound like he perhaps has just had some bad experiences. The following few messages are part of the same conversation.

I find it interesting how he flipflops from not understanding anything about the whole Eva Parallelism Theory Thing to suddenly being all for it when it concerns things not about the gay stuff.

Comments on how ‘manipulative’ Kaworu is

Because Kaworu is very pro instrumentality, and this definitely isn’t just a theory, I mean, it’s even talked about on the wiki, guys! (And I’m not even touching on the yes-men in this server.) Oh.

Oh no.

For the record, this page is clearly still under construction, and to point out any one thing about how bad it is would be essentially just poking a stick at a beehive. At least this one is so absolutely poorly phrased it’s doubtful anyone could mistake it for any kind of proper information. I also find it incredibly funny whenever pages on the wiki use the forum as a source. Relevant: Qmisato’s post on his defending of Shinji sexually assaulting Asuka: https://qmisato.tumblr.com/post/183082754484/yesterday-i-was-invited-to-evageeks-official

In response much later. I really can’t see it as being framed as “fun teenage romance”, also why is the word romance suddenly being used to talk about Asuka and Shinji after the whole debacle with Kaworu? He’s said before he doesn’t see Asuka and Shinji’s relationship as romantic, either (and GOOD! It’s not!)

(Also - it’s not sexual assault when Shinji tries to kiss Asuka in her sleep, but it IS when Kaworu does the exact same thing to Shinji? Make up your mind, dude.) Turning this sort of thing into Shipping Discourse is frankly not the right way to go about it, but it is perhaps notable that despite what Felipe says, he is in fact an Asushin shipper. (I don’t feel the need to post all these images in the document as its cluttered enough as it is.) At this point it’s rather adhom and I feel irrelevant but I do think it’s relevant that through all of Eva fandom, those who have the most issue “understanding” (more like accepting, I suppose) LGB subtext, are those who also are really attached to a fairly morally grey het pairing themselves. Again, seriously, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this and assuming the worst of someone because of the pairings they like isn’t my intent here, it’s more that I find this pattern has always been prevalent and it’s bothering me I’m seeing it STILL in 2019. ESPECIALLY from a wiki editor who inserts so much of that into his work on the site. 

  You’re probably sick of reading all of this (and I’m getting sick of writing it), so I’ll wrap up the part on Felipe quickly: Yes, I just dedicated several pages to screenshots of mostly innocuous (when considered out of context) stuff one guy had to say. I feel more obsessive than I’d like to admit, and frankly I have no business with this person. We’ve spoken twice on EvaGeeks threads if you can even call it speaking. This task was given to me by a member of the community who was concerned about his behaviour but didn’t want to publicise it themself and I feel a little out of my depth here. I at least hope we can come to the conclusion I wanted to here, that I fear may have been lost in this whole great mess of language - no one person should have THIS much sway over the state of a wiki that’s supposed to be impartial, especially when they have not been quiet with their biases in the first place, and it is the failure of everyone involved in the maintaining of the wiki itself that this sort of behaviour has been allowed in the first place. 

The guy can have whatever opinions and theories he wants, obviously. I don't give a shit; he's not even that bad compared to the grand majority of Eva fans to begin with. Don't think this document exists to "cancel" him or thoughtpolice, I truly, genuinely, do not care what is said inside this server anymore. It doesn't concern me. I mean, it's a fucking cartoon, for god's sake. This only becomes an issue when opinions are expressed on a wiki, for reasons I have reiterated many times now. EvaGeeks lacks the objectivity required to function as a wiki and I'm trying to make that clear. 

[ON THE TOPIC OF THE EVAGEEKS WIKI AND COMMUNITY IN GENERAL] As for who can edit the wiki and what they’re allowed to say: As you can see from the nature of people’s posts in this thread, you’re given access to do very specific things, and although I haven’t bothered going through the process myself (as I find it would be quite redundant, trying to fix such an inherently broken system), I’m guessing it’s very easy to get your edits reversed if you post anything they don’t like. Take that as conjecture of my own.

I have it in decent faith that the approval process involves whoever of the mod team is there at the time coming to an agreement based on people’s applications. Obviously this is a decent idea for a system, and I’m sure there are legitimate reasons as to why EG has to be locked down as much as it is; judging from the state of other fanon wikis I’ve seen there’s likely to be a decent amount of vandalism, especially in a fandom as passionate as Eva’s is. However, I think it’s fair to say that the complete restriction of updating these pages to those approved by a mod team who, while I’m sure are very reasonable people overall, certain individuals of which have displayed concerning behaviour and biases of their own in the server during my brief look around. I won’t be naming anyone in particular from the mod team as I don’t feel like I need to add any more targets of shame to this already horrifically negative document, but I have gotten the general impression (in case it needed confirmation, following the remaining of these specific changes on the wiki) that some mods, not all, aren’t the most nonpartisan individuals themselves. I do happen to be decent acquaintances with at least one of them so, again, please don’t consider this a personal attack.

My concern here plainly is that I don’t think a group of mods who have routinely failed to prevent events like the ones mentioned earlier, nor seem to have much of an issue with the myriad of examples of people being openly homophobic and misogynistic on their own forum are really in the position to be choosing who of the Privelleged Few get to control the Eva meta-narrative here. As I was writing this, I was alerted to the state of the primary Japanese Evangelion wiki as a source of cross referencing for what these things can look like if done right. If you take a moment to browse it, even if you don’t speak any Japanese and have to use an automatic translator it should be very obvious how something like this differs greatly from EvaGeeks. Kaworu’s page, for a relevant example, doesn’t have present any of the nonsense statements about ambiguity or overwritten descriptions of everything. The wiki respects the reader’s intelligence enough to know that it is, in fact, a wiki, and thus tries its best to be factual. His page is fairly decent in size and states things we know are fact rather than theory. There’s no attempt made to influence or confuse.

Oh, and just in case you think the mods aren’t actually active or present enough to know what Felipe is doing, his particularly awful page on Kaworu in episode 24 got a shoutout from the official Twitter account two days ago.  

If you are going to join the Discord server to verify things yourself* or do further digging, again, please be cautious of other users inside and do your best not to start anything. I am an occasional contributor to the forums and I’d prefer not to get my account flagged or to experience harassment myself, if any EvaGeeks members are still reading this document and disagree with my conclusions. I may not have posted much since I joined earlier this year, but despite everything I find the forums to be valuable for connecting with other fans and have enjoyed the positive feedback to my SIRP translation! Those who have spoken to me there have been very kind (including Felipe himself), and I must reiterate that this is not targeted at the whole site, or even at just Felipe. I simply believe there is more than enough evidence to suggest there have been consistent, systematic failures to recognise and correct the utter lack of objectivity present. I seriously don’t have any personal issues or beef with this guy, either. I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t someone else who came to me about it.

*It should be noted that the person who spoke to me has pointed out certain members have been concerned about outsiders joining and screenshotting the chat. They may remove the public link to join if this document were to cause a huge issue. I will leave the server following the publication of this document and I have no plans to join again. I can’t speak for those who may join of their own accord but I do hope people have heeded the disclaimer I made initially.

Thankyou to all the people who have extended their own kindness and support during the creation of this document, to the anonymous person who tipped me off and the lovely Eva analysts I know for offering their own experiences with EvaGeeks and further supplementary information. If this whole document reads like the product of a bad mental health day, I guess it is. Also yes I know how hilarious it is that I’ve spent all this time creating what essentially amounts to an EVAGEEKS CALLOUT POST but I mean. Someone had to say it. Why not make an utter buffoon of myself in the process?

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/stoking-the-fires-of-purification/

Stoking the Fires of Purification

Stoking the Fires of Purification

By A Gift from Gaia

We stoke the fires of purification before we move fully into the alignment that heralds the change point.

We are already seeing the power and energy building as the unconscious world begins to dismantle. Everything is now fully making sense, all is so very transparent.

Bear your gift of sacrifice to the Capricorn Council, the only sacrifice accepted is that of the beliefs, programs, attachments to the old ways to be removed and passed over as an offering to support the new. The sacrifice of our own, old, skin.

We are passing through the most highest of frequencies in this portal presenting.

Saturn, Pluto, Mercury, Sun and Ceres are before us, to their side there is Jupiter, Pholus and the South Node, holding the door open for those prepared to expand upon their release, assisting the preparation before each of us presents our truth, the core vibration we hold to then receive the stamp to pass or the refusal to enter.

We don’t get to fake it till we make it, only a fool would try We don’t get to think our way through, holding unconscious vibrations of truth and thinking our way into balance using spiritual beliefs will be crushing to those who try, a gift, of course, of learning which in time, when learnt will only then be fully received and the gratitude can flow.

It is simple, the Aquarian Age is becoming more powerful, more aligned and therefore Divine Detachment to the Piscean Age and all that we created within must be free to pass.

What appears to surface as I mentioned in the ramblings below in the earlier report is the shame and lack is rising, the acceptance for flaws and the denial of perfection which is highlighting the intensity of self judgement and non understanding as to how this all works, I feel many will be receiving the denial stamp in this conjunction, to experience its depths through the incoming decade.

Again, this is a huge contradiction in the spiritual arena specifically as they speak the words of love but hold the truth of judgement, however, this means this too shall pass, although from the human experience it will create a shattering experience that we all will surf collectively.

This is why the keys are now shared to assist in the detachment and to offer the view of the observer.

Mastery in perfection

Today, before the first main event of this year, we have two HUGE ones in 2020 that really pinpoint the transition in Ages, the first is exact tomorrow, the latter at the end of this year when Saturn and Jupiter conjunct to move into tropical Aquarius in December, today we have a grand trine a power of Divine energy a template of purification to burn through as the moon in Leo, is trine Mars in Sag also trine Chiron in Aries, all within the first few degrees of their current sign coordinates

The fire is lit, and this trine will stoke the fires to shake up, the areas where the old skin is still attached, if you choose, of course, the collective loves their free will to stay asleep.

This is some powerful healing energy, energy that combines the feelings but now brings forth the action required, not the action of old, the empowered action that remembers the importance of the choice and that for this portal it can only be conscious, from the most highest viewpoint that is following the road that the Divine is laying out before us, or in other words what you, your soul, your light is urging you, manifesting for you, to take with grace and acceptance.

We will hear the cages rattle We will hear the unconscious screams We will see the ego dancing with its death mask already in place We will feel the discord rise

So angels of light, we unplug from the presentation and we go deep within, and when it is recognised within each, we allow it disperse from there, we hold our fields in the highest of frequency, we experience nothing but conscious everything through our denial to play in the muddy pools of the unconscious.

And we allow any fear to be purified in the blessing that this trine offers

Taking off our muddy boots before each walks the red carpet to be Seen by the Capricorn Council.

January 2020 report https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3407097592695175&id=804821769589450

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[talesofsorrowandofruin]

A Dark and Heavy Weight

Author's Note: This was written for the moodboard prompt on the writeblr-monthly Discord. I couldn't work everything in, but I tried. And it went off in a pretty weird direction. (Why did my brain look at a moodboard that had nothing to do with ghosts and immediately decide it was inspiration for a ghost story?)

Stories are told of the house in the forest. Stories of ghosts, mysterious deaths, lights with no obvious source. No one knows when or how the stories started.

Well, two people do. But no one's asked us yet.

It began eighty years ago, with a boy lost in the woods.

~~~~

My mother warned me never to go into the woods. "There are no paths there," she said. "You'll get lost and never find your way out."

I'd never thought of going into the woods until she warned me not to. The very next day I sneaked out when she wasn't looking and ran to the forest. I would stay close to the edge, I thought. I wouldn't go in too deep. But when I turned to go back, I couldn't find my way out.

For hours I wandered around and around in circles. I tried to climb a tree and look around, but I only cut my hands. I tried to follow a stream's course, but I stumbled into a bog. I heard something moving, but it was only a fox. Everything looked the same. There wasn't a trace of a path anywhere.

And then I saw a light ahead.

When I drew nearer I realised it was from a house's window. A house built at the edge of the forest; the other side to the one my house was on.

I was considering whether or not to knock at the door and ask for directions when the door opened.

That was when I first saw him.

~~~~

It’s been so long that I forget what he said to me. Or did I speak to him first? However it happened, the next thing I remember is sitting in the house’s living room; the living room I sit in now, so many years later. He brought me a cup of tea and bandages for my hands. All the while he told me at length how stupid I’d been to walk through the forest without a map.

“Who are you?” he asked when he could think of nothing else to say.

“I’m Theodore,” I said. “I live in the village–” I pointed vaguely in the direction I thought I’d come from, “–over there.”

“I’m Alan,” he said. “I live here.”

At the time I didn’t think to ask why he lived alone – for there was no sign of any other person living in the house – miles away from everywhere.

~~~~

It was too late to go home that night. I stayed in the guest room, just down the hall from Alan’s bedroom. No ghosts came to disturb me then. There were no mysterious deaths, and not a single light except the moon. I slept soundly, disturbed only once by a sound of rustling paper.

Mice, I thought, and went back to sleep.

The next morning Alan showed me a path through the forest, back to the village. What I remember most about that walk is how the forest suddenly seemed much less sinister, and how the sunlight caught in Alan’s hair and seemed to turn it from brown to gold.

~~~~

Weeks passed before I saw Alan again. Our next meeting was at my aunt’s house. She had a guest, a very famous painter. The entire countryside found some excuse to visit my aunt while her guest was staying. When my mother and I went to see her the house was full of people I’d never seen before.

I’ve forgotten how it happened. My memory never was perfect, and the years have not made it any better. But I got lost in the crowd and found myself at the foot of the stairs. When I looked round I saw Alan walk out of the dining room.

He saw me a second after I saw him. He started. A look of surprise and guilt crossed his face. It was gone so quickly I’m still not sure if I only imagined it.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said with a smile.

The memory of that smile blots out the rest of the conversation.

But I remember that the next day, my aunt discovered a priceless antique vase had disappeared.

~~~~

After that meeting I started visiting Alan’s house regularly. I told my mother his house was closer than it really was so she wouldn’t worry. I never told her about the path through the forest.

Alan had a large assortment of curiosities from all over the world, and a never-ending collection of stories to go with them.

“This clock was made over five hundred years ago and has never needed repaired,” was one of his tall tales. Another was, “It’s said that mirror will show your future if you look in it at midnight.”

Once I did look in it at midnight. I saw only what I expected to see: myself as I was then, standing in Alan’s house. Looking back now, it did in fact show my future.

The house was – and still is – unlike anything else I’ve ever seen. There are two stairs down into the kitchen, and another two stairs up into the living room. There are no end of unexpected turns and corners. The bannister at the top of the stairs was very rotten – it’s long since broken now – and beneath it is the tiled floor. In a spare room is an old wooden chest with a very heavy lid. I try to avoid both bannister and chest nowadays.

Most of the house is two storeys tall. But above the living room and the master bedroom there’s a small, low room that’s not quite a third storey but also not an attic. It has a curiously-shaped oblong window above a low bench. It sticks in my mind more than anything else in the house, because it was where I first kissed Alan.

~~~~

I spent more time at his house than at my own. My mother shook her head and joked I might as well move in with him if we were to be so inseparable. So that’s what I did.

Dates blur together in my mind. Was it a week or two later that I found it? However long it was, I stumbled upon a pile of receipts at the back of a cupboard. They were receipts for the sale of antiques. One of them was for a vase that matched the description of the one my aunt had lost.

I would like to forget the argument that followed. We both said some very cruel things. It ended with me storming off into the woods.

Again I got lost. Again the light at the window led me back to the house.

For days we refused to speak to each other until finally Alan relented.

“I’ll buy the vase back,” he said.

“This is about more than the vase!” I protested. “You’ve stolen so many things!”

“It’s my job.” I can still hear how exasperated he sounded, as if he thought I was being very stupid. “I can’t just give it up, not even for you.”

The argument ended with some sort of truce. Alan wouldn’t steal from anyone I knew, and I would turn a blind eye to where his money came from.

He retrieved the vase he stole from my aunt. I didn’t ask if he bought it back or stole it.

~~~~

When did everything go wrong? Good question. I can’t point to an exact date or time no matter how hard I try. I can’t remember if there were warning signs before or if everything went to hell in a second.

What does stick in my memory is how loud the doorbell sounded when it rang one afternoon. I’ll never forget how pale Alan turned when he heard it.

“Stay here,” he said. We were both in the little attic-room, reading together on the bench. I remember how I tried to see who was at the door through the window. All I could see were the trees a short distance away. “I expect it’s an old… acquaintance. He said he might stop by.”

Something in his tone warned me this wasn’t a normal visit. I waited until he’d gone downstairs before I followed him.

I heard raised voices from the doorway. One was Alan’s. The other belonged to a stranger, a man I’d never seen before. I stood on the landing, hidden from below by the wall, and listened to what was said.

“You said you’d have them ready a week ago!” the stranger shouted.

“Acquiring them took longer than expected,” Alan said. “Stealing jewels isn’t my forte.”

Fury filled me at those words. I thought of all the things I was going to say to Alan when our unwanted guest left. I hardly noticed both Alan and the guest were walking across the room until they reached the stairs. I turned and fled into the spare room at the end of the hall – the room with the wooden chest.

So much happened afterwards that I can’t remember why I climbed into the chest. It must have looked like a good hiding place in case someone walked into the room. Or perhaps I wanted to listen without the risk of being seen. I don’t know. All I clearly remember is the click of the lid closing over my head.

Inside the chest the air was stale and all sounds were muffled. The faintest sound of angry shouting reached my ears, followed by a distant crash. After that the house was silent. My lungs burned from the lack of air. I tried to push the lid open.

It refused to move.

~~~~

Why is it that the things I wish I didn’t remember are the ones that stay with me forever? I pushed frantically at that lid. I screamed for help. I clawed at the wood until I had no strength left.

No one answered.

~~~~

Everyone has long since forgotten Alan and I. Our house is the setting for ghost stories or fairy tales. The truth has been lost beneath the stories. But in a way, the stories are true. There are ghosts. There are lights at that window; you can’t expect us to spend eternity in the dark, after all. And there were mysterious deaths, if you stretch the definition to include accidental suffocation and being pushed off the stairs.

My first few days after death are a blur of panic and confusion. My clearest memory is of Alan and I looking down at his body.

Alan shook his head and said, “I should have had those bannisters repaired.”

“You should have listened to me and given up stealing things,” I retorted. Or maybe I didn’t speak at all, and my mind added that remark afterwards. It was such a long time ago.

Eventually someone noticed we had disappeared. My mother and a group of other villagers came to investigate. There was an uproar when they discovered Alan’s body. It took them longer to find mine. A murder investigation began. Suddenly we had to share our house with an endless stream of detectives. But within a year they gave up. Not enough evidence, they said. Impossible to tell what happened.

We could have told them what happened. But no one can hear us now.

Years have passed, and almost no one visits our house. We’re alone here, with the lights and the antiques and the woods outside. If we want to we can leave and see how the rest of the world is doing. Being a ghost isn’t nearly as bad as I once would have thought.

Stories are told of the house in the forest.

We’re the only ones who know the stories are true.

[yoiauzine-receipts-blog]

The Yuri on Ice AU Zine was created and modded by Angela (@xintaowan on tumblr and twitter) and Vil (@cmdrrockhard on twitter) on March 2017. 

We are writing this post to address the mistreatment of the artists by the mods, the mods’ conduct, and the lack of proof of donation to the intended charity. 

Before we begin we want to let everyone know that we don’t want anyone to use this post to attack the mods in any way. We are just deeply annoyed, aggravated, and saddened that we were all treated this way and we wanted the public to finally learn about it.    

And since there are many new zines being created and in the works, we also hope this post can serve as a “what not to do” when organizing a zine project or any project. We want both clients and artists to be aware of how important it is for projects like this to be transparent and honest for the protection of all parties.

The Start

The zine ran smoothly up until pre-orders opened, with the exception of a few rude responses to asks sent to the zine's official blog. (More on that later). And that a charity had never been announced even when the project was nearing its end. 

Around when pre-orders were about to begin and all the artists were finishing up and turning in their works, one of the artists received a crushing email from the mods about their piece. The mods decided that their work wasn’t appealing enough to be in the zine, and they only chose them because they liked one certain style they drew in. (Which they did not specify to the artist upon acceptance to the zine.)  

They gave the artist five days to either fix the artwork or to start a completely new piece. Keep in mind that this zine is for charity, none of the artists are getting paid and our only compensation is the zine itself. We found this email to be more than harsh and even insulting. The artist was always on time with their WIPs and they never gotten critiqued on them and we know the mods saw them. 

The artist replied back apologetically and they tried to work on a new piece but they couldn’t do it in the time due to their full time job and other responsibilities. The artist sent back another email asking if they could use the picture they had originally submitted. 

The mods replied back with this, telling them that they would not be accepting their piece and that they believed 5 days was fair. They went as far as bullying them and their artwork, as well as kicking them out of the zine discord. 

Angela even publicly tweeted about their art, (without mentioning the artist’s name) and called it “half-assed”. 

The Artists’ Response

When the rest of the artists of the AU zine found out about what had happened to this artist, a private discord was made so we could discuss what was going to be done about the situation as well as to discuss the matters of the mod’s previous rude behavior on the tumblr, and lack of transparency as to which charity would receive the zine’s funds.

The artist received all positive feedback, encouragement, and solidarity from the rest of the zine’s participants. Some artists even wanted to pull their own pieces out of the zine to stand with them. In the end we decided that we would write the mods an email addressing all of this, even share screencaps of our conversation. We wanted this to be solved privately because we still wanted this zine to be a success.

Unfortunately, some people had told Angela that the artists were discussing this and at first Angela believed that the artist had contacted us themselves to “bother us” about letting them back in the zine.

Angela’s DMs

Our email in reply

The mods’ reply

The mods had apologized and let the artist back into the zine, however since then Angela believed that the artists formed together to create a “lynch mob” in order to attack her, which was never the case. We were even against public call outs from the very beginning. Nevertheless, an email was still written and given to Angela about what we were talking about and why. 

The mods did address some issues on the tumblr, like their rude behavior and the lack of a charity listed. The charity they wound up choosing was HopeforPaws a non-profit animal rescue. 

The Following Weeks

Angela since began vague tweeting from that point on about the AU zine artists, firmly believing that the artists were out to attack her, when all we wanted was to defend a fellow artist, ask for a charity, and address rude behavior.  

One | Two | Three and many others.

And here are some DMs Angela made to one of the artists on the zine. 

We all quietly put up with it, figuring that as long as the zines are printed, the customers and the artists receive them, and the charity receives its donation, then we could just ignore the whole thing.

The Zines & The Charity

Some time between these incidents we noticed that the AU zine discord had been deleted. 

We received an email on September 4th, regarding the zine bundles for the artists.  We learned that our copies were damaged and we would be getting new copies printed so we had to wait a short while for them to get made. 

On September 24th, we received another email saying our artist zines would be shipped the following week.

On October 17th, we received yet another email saying that the zines were shipped out that same day and every artist would receive an individual email with their tracking numbers. Except we never did. 

Many artists contacted the mods themselves for weeks and many did not receive a reply back. 

One | Two | Three

An artist contacted the mods and the mods claimed to have sent out the tracking numbers + pdfs to the artists already but the pdf file size was so large that it probably didn’t go through. But upon checking the tracking number, it shows that the zine was NOT sent out on Oct. 17 like they said they did, but rather on November 7th. 

After more artists contacted the mods, we received a very extensive email from Angela. We redacted a big chunk of information out of the first part to protect Angela’s personal privacy. 

Angela’s Email

While we understand that everyone may experience personal difficulties that will hinder them from working on other things, we believe that it’s still not an excuse for the poor treatment the artists received for trying to reach out to the mods, as well as the various lies we were told and negligence of this zine, even when she knew she was going to get found out. 

Vil was also a mod and she could have helped Angela with some of the burden or they could have found some help elsewhere if they felt too overwhelmed. if these issues were explained to the artists instead of hiding and lying about them we feel that the zine would have ran a lot more smoothly.  

A tweet was made on the AU zine twitter on November 15th, about how the amount raised for the charity was going to be posted at the end of that week but we have yet to see a receipt for it as of November 25th.

Zine Conditions

One of the artists received their zine today 11/25, in very poor condition. 

The Damaged Zine

The zine was packed in a bubble mailer with no additional bubblewrap protecting it nor any cardboard backing. The acrylics and the stickers were stuffed in the middle of the zine with no extra protection and stuck to the saddle stitching of the zine. The book itself arrived warped and creased. There wasn’t even an effort to pack the zines properly and it arrived damaged. It just adds onto our mistreatment.   

Step Sequence Zine

Angela also moderated the Step Sequence zine back in Late 2016 - Early 2017. 

One of our own AU zine artists had bought the Step Sequence zine around 5 months ago and never received their copy. They are currently unable to get in contact with the moderators of Step Sequence because the zine’s twitter, tumblr, and tictail store have all been recently deleted. 

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We will keep updating this blog as we get further information and as artists receive their zines.

As of right now, we are still not getting answers for any of our questions, and we feel like our hard work on the zine has gone unappreciated. We have tried to speak with Angela on multiple occasions in order to avoid making this public, but the problem has still not been solved and we have no reason to believe that it will be solved. We hope our honesty has given everyone an understanding of our situation. Thank you for reading.