Statement regarding Marisa the Magician (aka Marisa Kirisame)

[Kinsie]

This is my personal opinion and anyone is able to tell me I'm wrong. What I feel would be best is as follows:

• Rachel needs to step down from any moderation capacity. We are not telling her to leave Zdoom forever. We are telling her to stop engaging in a function that she is not suited for, and clearly causes her a lot of grief. A lot of people, which I'm sure includes herself, will enjoy great relief if she can be allowed to focus on things she is clearly skilled at. Webmaster stuff, development, all that stuff she has skills that have been consistently been of use to the community.

• Unban Marty and TTA. It's nonsense to pretend they are bad faith actors and will forever be a blight on the site. It'll also be a way to show you accept mistakes and are willing to build back those bridges.

• An actual apology on this issue would be great. Not something huge and well written. Just Rachael saying "Okay. I messed up. I sorry. I'll do my best to change" is enough. A lot of us are incensed by her unwillingness to accept any blame and deflecting the issue. This would show she has -some- ability to overcome that.

• Make Candice step down. A lot of us believe she is purely here due to nepotism and is not someone we consider a mature pillar of our community. Again, she doesn't have to leave permanently, but she definitely should not have been made a moderator. Instead, have an actual moderator recruiting campaign. Hold a vote. Actively engage your community on those matters, because many of us are convinced that the current moderator circle is entirely there on Rachael's behalf.

I am harder on some points and softer on others (I honestly still don't know who Candice is), but this is more or less where I stand.

[Eric_]

Which leads me to wonder how many people, in this thread or in #offtopic on Discord last night, have ever stopped to wonder how my staff and I feel about this.

Do you think that other communities didn't also have to find ways to deal with this? If a situation comes up and absolutely nobody on the moderator team is willing to deal with it appropriately, then you've critically failed to employ a well-balanced staff. You're so concerned about image - I'll echo Tapwave's sentiment on this - the image I've had of staff is that Rachael has employed a bunch of mindless goons to fight her battles and anyone in any position to stand against her is too demoralized to bother, or otherwise held back because she holds the site hostage. That's the image that's been painted for years now.

[wildweasel]

• Unban Marty and TTA.

Done:


[edit] Bans/timeouts have also been lifted for them on Discord.

[Rachael]

I'm sorry for screwing up with how I handled, TTA, Marty, and Marrub, in the lack of respect I have given to them in my attempts to handle the situation. I probably should have reached out to Marty directly as soon as I was aware that he was involved in this situation to try and find out what his concerns were, instead of calling for him to burn. (To be clear: I did mean that metaphorically at the time, I have never wished actual harm on anyone)

I know this isn't a good defense, but I was emotionally charged at the time, and at the time I really thought he was part of a smear campaign against someone who I thought was my friend. (And as I've come to learn later, I clearly was wrong, there)

[The Toxic Avenger]

Please read, as these are my thoughts on the matter (note: these are rather annoyed, but restrained)

Should the paste die:

---

Hi everyone, this is The Toxic Avenger here, or TTA for short. If you know me in other communities, I may be named Orochi or MorbidEngel as well.

As you all may know, there's been a *lot* of hubub around Zdoom, mainly due to the absolutely atrocious handling of the situation regarding Marisa Kirisame, otherwise known as Marisa the Magician. Long story short, in March, it was brought to light that she had a previous relationship with someone under the age of 18, and she had other tendencies that she's since shed herself of, but this still does not exonerate her. However, Zdoom's staff has generally been looking to sweep this under the rug, blame the accusers, and appear to want to protect her like she's a friend. Word of this got out via Marty's video, and all hell has been breaking loose. Trust in Zdoom's staff is at an all-time low, people are leaving, and the staff is....defending itself? However, there's nuances to this that are absolutely unacceptable.

The first of many, is their co-admin, Rachael. Firstly, she brought her friend Candice into the Fun Police server, and pretty much made her a mod everywhere she could out of nowhere under the pretense that we were to trust her at face value. One person did not, and she tried to use this as leverage to rope half of the Fun Police server into a "high level sit-down" where most of it was Rachael, Candice, Meleemario and Shiny Metacross dunking on this person, Nax, and it even felt like it was an attempt to turn Mifu and I against our own staff, which all four of the people I mentioned have transgressions that made them no better than the "big bads" they were pulling this over. Once she used an opening (which it appears to have changed Weasel for the worse, more on him in a bit), which caused an already large community fracture into a fissure. Had you even tried diplomacy and tried being open to critique rather than forcing your way with slitting throats and torching bridges, this may not have erupted into what it is now, but, c'est la vie I suppose. I did not bend to what they wanted in the "sit-down", and this apparently soured her opinion on me, which will come into play in a bit. I left Fun Police and the "sit-down" once Nax and and the other person were removed for illegitimate reasons (Nax having brought up concerns about how this was being handled).

The second, is Weasel, who I'm much more disappointed with than angry. Weasel was someone I considered a friend for a long time, but the changes I noticed over time since the Marisa situation are distressing. Much more distant, conflicted, and seems to be adopting a more "nothing personnel kid" persona as opposed to his pleasant, approachable personality, and is currently also defending the Zdoom position and even labeled things as a smear campaign. Weasel, you need to stop, look at yourself, look at your team, and ask yourself if this is worth defending? Zdoom's image is falling apart, and I've been reaching out in an attempt to try to get you to stop this, not make things worse. You're capable of much better than this, I know you are. You need to come clean about everyone's involvement, and stop taking the position of a rock fighting a raging river.

Now, you may have noticed, in the Zdoom thread regarding their stance on Marisa, Rachael says I and Marty were banned for "fanning flames", which is an absolute lie. I critiqued her. That's it. No aggression, no cut throat attitude, nothing. I admit I have little filter and will speak my mind right away, but the "official reason" she's used to permanently ban Marty and I (both of which have clean moderation histories) and ban me for a week from their Discord server are honestly, lies on her part. How do I know she did them? Because I was not banned before 7:15AM eastern standard time. Rachael, being in Europe, was awake at that time and took the opportunity to perform bans based on her own opinion of people, which, is a very bad image for an administrator, which is the last thing you want right now. Honestly, you need to step down if you can't moderate people without this needless aggression and if you feel the need to dish punishments out based on how much you hate someone. You can't try to turn other forum staffs against themselves. What I said about rather working with oldschool Metalhead, who was known for her intense aggression, still stands. This is coming dangerously close to the situation that happened with Carnevil back in 2011/2012 that caused Zandronum to be, and that's a horrible thing that should not be repeated. I've since been unbanned from their forums via Wildweasel.

On a personal note, this is giving me flashbacks to what happened when I was a moderator for a forum called "Mugen Fighters Guild" in 2020. There was an emotional abuser and catfisher within their walls, and because two admins and at least one fellow moderator hated some of the accusers and were friends with the accused, they told the accused she was under investigation, constantly blamed victims in private, and were completely unapproachable about the situation. I ended up walking out over that and the lead admin having a grudge against a user so bad that my words were twisted into a fake reason to permaban that user in 2018. This feels like an absolute repeat of this and this should never happen.

As for the other Zdoom staff, most of them are not innocent by proxy; nobody's truly spoken up, and the only one that's taken true accountability, or from what I've seen, as close as possible, is Caligari. This is unacceptable. If you want to be seen as a trustworthy staff in any capacity, all of you must take accountability. Will trust be regained overnight? No. But, it will be a start.

I feel like I've said my peace, and I bid you thanks for reading this and giving it thought.

-The Toxic Avenger, Zandronum co-administrator.

[Marrub]

I'm sorry for screwing up with how I handled, TTA, Marty, and Marrub, in the lack of respect I have given to them in my attempts to handle the situation.

Thanks? Thanks. That question mark isn't at you apologizing, I've just mostly kept to myself here, the most disrespect I've gotten has been behind my back, which I've come to expect (of anyone, not just you.)

[wildweasel]

The second, is Weasel, who I'm much more disappointed with than angry. Weasel was someone I considered a friend for a long time, but the changes I noticed over time since the Marisa situation are distressing. Much more distant, conflicted, and seems to be adopting a more "nothing personnel kid" persona as opposed to his pleasant, approachable personality,

Like I'm going to be pleasant and approachable when my entire staff are being harassed and thrown under the bus?

You need to come clean about everyone's involvement, and stop taking the position of a rock fighting a raging river.

I am coming clean! What the hell? Did I miss something?

[cyber_cool]

From my perspective, this should have ceased being a problem back in March, but it keeps coming back up.

Of course it would keep coming up. I kept asking around a certain Discord server, and many people shared the thought that any kind of evidence on this Marisa incident should not be public.
Which is a completely [censored word] approach. You think that you, staff members, should settle everything while regular users should not interfere.
But regular users make up the community. They are the volatile masses that have to know, that need to have an opinion about this. But you are keeping them in the dark, delaying the inevitable.

It's good that you directly admitted this hesitation to ban Marisa. But be more goddamn open to the people.
Why all of a sudden, like a month after, there is this huge forum thread? People will just keep discussing and arguing and throwing shit at each other until you eventually will just close the thread (like it happened before).


... Also, the fun police? I thought it was a sick joke but it seems to be real. Jesus Christ. I already had enough of talking about people behind their backs in HDest Discord server, but this is next level.

[User was warned for this post - reason: offensive neurodivergent r-word slur]

[NachtIntellect]

... Also, the fun police? I thought it was a sick joke but it seems to be real. Jesus Christ. I already had enough of talking about people behind their backs in HDest Discord server, but this is next level.

With respect the name is probably a joke targeted at themselves, a lot of moderators in a lot of instances including reddit get called the fun police, I see this more as a joke than an actual thing.

[kevansevans]

Why all of a sudden, like a month after, there is this huge forum thread?

We were in a lot of denial that the situation could be salvaged. We believed that Marisa would put out info in some capacity, speak for herself like she insisted she would, then let time heal the wounds. This never happened, and we grew sick of how she was treating us. Just a few days prior to this event, we thought we had our final discussion with each other, agreeing that we were done with the whole thing. None of us wanted to think about it anymore. Hands have been forced.

[XLightningStormL]

Forcing people's hands on situations they're not comfortable dealing with will never yield good results.

Which leads me to wonder how many people, in this thread or in #offtopic on Discord last night, have ever stopped to wonder how my staff and I feel about this. From my perspective, this should have ceased being a problem back in March, but it keeps coming back up. The reason I've even contributed to making this statement, this thread, is because I feel like my hand has been forced, and my staff and I are now backed into a corner. Realistically, most people are not going to just give up and lie down in a situation like that.

Maybe your team should have actually DONE SOMETHING productive regarding the situation instead of bending and burying the truth, using excuses to ban people, and ignoring the situation by hiding in your little circle jerks, and then CONSPIRING TO STRONG ARM OTHER COMMUNITIES TO ABSOLVE A NOW KNOWN GROOMER.

Your mod team has failed because it was essentially YOUR creation WW, you had essential dibs on running the site (apparently due to funding the forums, drdteam, etc) anyone you liked got a nice cozy platform to play internet dictator (aka Reddit moderator) based on how well they suck you off.

Grow up, admit you fucked up, and step down as moderator, the same goes for anybody else involved in attempting to cover up this incident (actually the whole mod team barring Cali and a couple of others should step down) whether to save face or hide your own skeletons (funny that actually, because where there is one groomer in power; there's a whole bunch too; and it Will now be inevitable when they are found out and Graf's empire collapses)

Fuck this community, and Fuck GZDoom, I'm not risking my image to be associated with a circle of groomers and their larper legal team, I'm outta here.

[Cardboard Marty]

I don't know if it's entirely appropriate to say "thanks for unbanning me", but I do appreciate it.

• Rachel needs to step down from any moderation capacity. We are not telling her to leave Zdoom forever. We are telling her to stop engaging in a function that she is not suited for, and clearly causes her a lot of grief. A lot of people, which I'm sure includes herself, will enjoy great relief if she can be allowed to focus on things she is clearly skilled at. Webmaster stuff, development, all that stuff she has skills that have been consistently been of use to the community.

• Unban Marty and TTA. It's nonsense to pretend they are bad faith actors and will forever be a blight on the site. It'll also be a way to show you accept mistakes and are willing to build back those bridges.

• An actual apology on this issue would be great. Not something huge and well written. Just Rachael saying "Okay. I messed up. I sorry. I'll do my best to change" is enough. A lot of us are incensed by her unwillingness to accept any blame and deflecting the issue. This would show she has -some- ability to overcome that.

• Make Candice step down. A lot of us believe she is purely here due to nepotism and is not someone we consider a mature pillar of our community. Again, she doesn't have to leave permanently, but she definitely should not have been made a moderator. Instead, have an actual moderator recruiting campaign. Hold a vote. Actively engage your community on those matters, because many of us are convinced that the current moderator circle is entirely there on Rachael's behalf.

I feel like this is the most logical course of action. I'm not interested in "unpersoning" or canceling the moderation team, but I echo these sentiments as a reasonable way to repair the community's trust in its leadership.

I know this isn't a good defense, but I was emotionally charged at the time, and at the time I really thought he was part of a smear campaign against someone who I thought was my friend. (And as I've come to learn later, I clearly was wrong, there)

I want you to know that I absolutely can understand your struggle (and by proxy the struggle of the moderation team) and I'm fortunate enough to have never been put in a position where I had to ban a friend, especially under the allegations that came up. I want to make it clear that I never thought anything about this situation was easy. Friends of mine are/were friends with Marisa, I've seen the heartbreak and depression due to the exposure of these events firsthand. I appreciate your apology and accept it if it's in earnest.

He "exhausted his options"? He said nothing to me after mid March and never once sought to ask me anything about the logs he showed in the video. Just put it all out there, and unfriended me on Discord at some point, which meant I had no option to speak privately with him. Not even an "is this true?"

This is going to come across as ugly, but I have no reason not to speak from the heart on this one. I was absolutely crestfallen after my initial interaction with you about this issue, because the tone I read from the conversation was one of indifference, especially when I came to you with the additional testimony/evidence. When I was made aware of the conversation going on in the Fun Police, that completely destroyed me. I had no reason to not believe its validity, we both know where it came from. It felt like you were actively working towards pursuing action against a predator and the comment you made regarding wanting accusers to burn hurt in the biggest way and in fact, hurt me more than any one single part of this. You have been my friend online for almost the entirety I've been online. You have informed so much of my upbringing. The fact that from what I can see, not once did you step up for me (or Marrub) and say "Hey, I've known this guy for a while, maybe we shouldn't be throwing pitchforks his way" spoke volumes enough for me. I don't know or care what pressure you were under to go along with the narrative at the time, but that betrayal of not just my trust, but the trust of the community, is something I don't think I can get over any time soon.

You will never know the hurt that I endured making this video and mentioning you. Every single second, I was hoping you would be the one to come out and put a stop to this. I didn't want to do it, but my alternatives were potentially bringing it up again with you (which Nax tried very cordially and failed, which resulted in his removal from the Fun Police server) and potentially becoming gossip bait for a backroom Discord server or put my faith in reputable people who I knew 100% carried my same moral convictions. The price I had to pay was not only my forum account and my access to the community, but a 20+ year friendship with a person who I looked up to.

I understand that getting this backlash is not pleasant to deal with, but ultimately that is the job that you signed up for. The actions you take (or don't take) have consequences. If you can't take the pressure or don't want to be in a position where you have to take the pressure? Leave.

I never asked you to trust me. You wanted an explanation - you got it.

And I am not demanding respect. I am saying if you do respect me, I'll respect you back. The people involved who got shown no respect, have themselves shown none, most of which were not even as a result of my own actions, but of their own.

I am also saying that if you don't want to respect me, that if you don't want to come at me in good faith about the situation, and if you've already made your mind up about me ----- there's the door. --->

You're right. I don't want to deal with this. And to be quite frank, you have no right to DEMAND of me that I do. I've given what I can, and nothing I do ever will be good enough for some people. That's too bad. It sucks. But frankly, I am too old to care, I am way *way* past the age of high school drama, especially with all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit that led up to this.

You get what you give. Sure, I got what I gave too. But - it's really just as simple as that. Don't like it? That's all you're getting.

I am not going to dogpile on this, especially after an apology has been made. However, I do want to share my opinion that I think this specific viewpoint has been a poison to the community and its growth. As a ghost observing the thread, I saw a frightful change in the people replying suddenly treading on eggshells because the weight of "if I don't like your response, you will be banned" was hanging over their heads. That's not okay. The community has every right to make demands of you. If you truly have come to the conclusion that nothing you do will be good enough, that you're too old to care, I sincerely think your best option is to leave. The community deserves someone who is passionate about its user base, its projects, and even its drama. It doesn't deserve indifference or ridicule. Your attitude should be an example that all users can aspire to, and that includes the moderation team. My punishment for speaking up was losing access to this forum and its community, but that was a small price to pay if it incited real change and growth.

I sincerely hope for the best.

[Rachael]

The fact that from what I can see, not once did you step up for me (or Marrub) and say "Hey, I've known this guy for a while, maybe we shouldn't be throwing pitchforks his way" spoke volumes enough for me. I don't know or care what pressure you were under to go along with the narrative at the time, but that betrayal of not just my trust, but the trust of the community, is something I don't think I can get over any time soon.

I'm going to step in here and say - yes - he did - several times, actually. He's actually spoken very highly of you, several times. He remembers the good things you've done together and the projects that you have collaborated on. He even said that you're willing to listen and adjust if anybody tells you that you've done something wrong.

[Cardboard Marty]

I'm going to step in here and say - yes - he did - several times, actually. He's actually spoken very highly of you, several times. He remembers the good things you've done together and the projects that you have collaborated on. He even said that you're willing to listen and adjust if anybody tells you that you've done something wrong.

Then on that note, I'm relieved and glad I was at least partially wrong about my viewpoint. I hope that with time, this will heal. As of right now however, the issue is bigger than me and a broken friendship, but thank you for clarifying.

We were in a lot of denial that the situation could be salvaged. We believed that Marisa would put out info in some capacity, speak for herself like she insisted she would, then let time heal the wounds. This never happened, and we grew sick of how she was treating us. Just a few days prior to this event, we thought we had our final discussion with each other, agreeing that we were done with the whole thing. None of us wanted to think about it anymore. Hands have been forced.

I understand that you guys hoped for the best. My issue is ultimately how the situation was handled and the malicious intent behind the scenes. You guys were STILL talking to her about this just a couple days ago? That's what I don't get. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you came to the conclusion you guys did, but why did it take over two months (or one month if you start counting from her initial ban) for everyone to come to the consensus that Marisa was dangerous? My problem lies with not only the time it took to come to this conclusion, but the fact that this is just the ONE instance we knew about. How many other people who are well-liked by the staff get protected like this? That is the trust that has been damaged by this situation.

[kevansevans]

My issue is ultimately how the situation was handled and the malicious intent behind the scenes. You guys were STILL talking to her about this just a couple days ago? That's what I don't get. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you came to the conclusion you guys did, but why did it take over two months (or one month if you start counting from her initial ban) for everyone to come to the consensus that Marisa was dangerous?

I should clarify, I personally was still on "good" terms with her until recent, but over the course of the month the thought of cutting ties slowly crept over me. My decision to separate was the nail in the coffin for everyone, rather than reality looming over us. She never demonstrated any of her negative aspects anywhere near me until it came to the recent boiling point, which was why I held out. It was quite an eye opener when others within the FP started admitting to her behavior, then it happening to me.

I will deny any malicious intent on my end, however. I'm not a fan of revenge tactics on moderation, and I did not influence, nor condone, the bans that have happened here today. I'm a third party that's sharing some of the responsibility, but ZDoom is not in my influence.