If you repeatedly allow people within your majority white fanbase to shut down any and all conversation regarding fans of color not wanting things to allow bigotry like racism to be in fandom spaces and enabling the people eager to rush to dismissing it as simply “internet drama”, you are hurting people of color. Full stop. Going silent, blocking, deleting comments asking for context as to what’s happening, shifting conversation and downplaying concerns by your fanbase who were willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, does not look great for you. Please do better.
And for those who are like “well there’s no proof that you were treated differently compared to others” here we go exhibit A: When a fan politely points out that the yetee poster had backwards hands, Adrienne responded immediately, directly and positively. She then makes an updated post saying the poster was fixed . No one was blocked.
As well as exhibit b: where a different fan made a post politely saying that there was missing pages in the artbook, compared to the digital artbook.
Adrienne once again responded immediately, without even needing to be @, thanked the person and explained directly to the fan saying she’d contact serenityforge to fix the issue at hand. An announcement was made and everyone who had missing pages got it mailed and there was complimentary merch. No one was blocked.
Compared to that same post advertising the poster made on tumblr when myself and others in the comments, the tags and RBs mentions the mirabelle keychain being sold alongside the poster had coloration issues it was ignored for a month straight. No response.
There was only an actual response when I made my post in March @ing her directly in a separate post (after waiting and assuming in good faith that maybe people’s concerns got lost in the notifs, since tumblr is notoriously glitchy especially because of this new update.)
To those wondering why I didn’t ask this privately, I had actually initially done so before regarding the mirror standee way back in 2024 while I was still in the isat discord as a moderator in the staff chat. I was told that it was just the lighting of the display photo and it would look more accurate in person/ that Adrienne would let yetee know directly if things were amiss. I trusted this and it still came out pale, and when my friends who received said pale merch contacted yetee via email it wasn’t really any real response back to help reconcile it. I let it slide thinking that maybe things would improve over time, that this is a smaller game dev and maybe their contract with yetee couldn’t allow changes to be made after it was created. I still gave everyone the benefit of the doubt and saw how kind and understanding Adrienne was to other fans informing her of printing errors that I thought it would be fine to inform her and everyone else as well.
I was unable to ask about this recent merch drop privately, because tumblr asks were not available and neither were DMs.
Adrienne makes a statement , some people in the notes were confused by the wording and started to make jokes, I clarify and explain that it was regarded to the misprint causing mirabelle skin to become lighter and it’s then and only then am I blocked, and my polite response clarifying the situation was removed entirely from people to see.
Many people have tried to ask why this was done or if it was an accident and asking for an answer and everyone who was concerned have as of now been ignored entirely. It’s bad optics.
Had Adrienne not blocked me on tumblr, bluesky, Instagram and everywhere else, I would’ve just taken her response as sincere when she said that she wanted to fix things. I outright said thank you, and in my original post nowhere did I blame Adrienne for the miscolor. I specifically cited yetee’s printers as the source of the issue.
But because of them doing that, and because a lot of the conversations of the situation is getting downplayed and dismissed by some of the official moderation in her games official discord has led me to lose faith in this being a simple miscommunication. This was just targeted.
I’m no longer making any posts regarding this situation, because I think I’ve made myself as clear in my intent as I can be. I am never buying anything from the dev or participating in this fandom again. The response to this was cruel and as much as I genuinely loved this game, the story, the characters and positive times I had with the community- I can’t overlook this either. I’ve had years of people downplaying racism happening to me and my loved ones, so seeing it repeated in a space I thought was safe was worse.
All that I ask is that people learn from this and do better. That actual sincere apologies are had, that actual changes are made without minorities getting retroactively punished and casted aside the minute fans in the community are not praising people doing the bare minimum. To treat each other kindly, to not let bigotry get dismissed and excused and to not throw poc under the bus. Thank you all for your time.
