#daaes

“Many fear change and will fight it with every fiber of their being. But sometimes, change is what they need the most. Sometimes, change is what sets them free.”

“Common ground is the start of all negotiations.”

"Fear makes men more dangerous than magic ever could".

I’ll be honest. When Cheyenne initially entered the picture and began joining streams, I wasn’t a huge fan. Personally, I didn’t feel as though her sense of humor complimented the rest of the LNC. I remember actually being petrified of the possibility of her becoming a regular, concerned that eventually, her abrasive personality might cause permanent changes.

My “worst fears” were realized when Ziegs left, and I jumped on the “it’s-all-Cheyenne’s-fault” bandwagon long before Ziegs officially cited Cheyenne as her reason for leaving. I’ll admit now that I never really gave much consideration to this situation from Cheyenne’s perspective (and I understand now how wrong I was, but I’m getting to that part.)

At this point, I basically boycotted all of Cry’s content, furious that he could let Cheyenne “get away with this.” I stopped watching his lets-plays, I stopped following the crew on social media, and I definitely stopped watching the streams, since I knew Cheyenne would still be present. Almost all of my friends within the fandom did the same.

Months passed, and I slowly began to acclimate to the idea of the new LNC. I tentatively began watching streams again, I picked up a couple lets-plays on games I was interested in, and I began following the #cryaotic tag for fanart and the like. It took another couple months to convince my friends to rejoin the fandom - to “give it one more chance.” The tension between crew members in-stream had appeared to me to have diminished, and for a while, I genuinely enjoyed being a part of the community again. Everyone seemed to be quite receptive of old members who were returning after the boycott that incited after Ziegs left the LNC. I honestly never gave much thought to the hate messages I saw in the #cryaotic tag that Cheyenne was still receiving over the whole incident.

Then Jund and Cheyenne had a breakdown in communication, fighting openly across social media platforms. Instantly, the community was in shambles. Everyone was scrambling to pick a side. Everyone was concerned that Cry refused to. I immediately backed Jund, seeing as Jund had been my favorite crew member for years and the only one I had never really stopped watching throughout my boycott of Cry’s content. Most of my friends in the community sided with me; some didn’t. I still haven’t heard a word from the ones who didn’t share my views to this day, despite repeated attempts at contacting them. (And for that matter, now that I’ve since switched stances on this, I haven’t heard from any of my friends who had sided with me in the first place.)

I again began boycotting any content that contained Cry, desperate - as I’m sure the whole community was - for him to make a decision and somehow deal with the fallout. He never really did. A lot of fans took matters into their own hands; some sent hate to Jund, but the majority of hate mail went directly to Cheyenne. At this point, I gave up. I resigned myself to the fact that the Cryaotic fandom would continue to decline and inevitably die out.

Months later (a couple weeks ago), I began watching Cry’s lets-plays again, I began watching streams again, and I continued to be amazed by the resiliency of the LNC community, who appeared to have bounced back yet again from the brink of disaster. However, this time, when I reappeared in Twitch chat, there was no welcome-back committee. As far as I could tell, there was no animosity between the crew members, but the animosity instead lay within the community itself. It was actually easier for me to pretend to be a new viewer than a seasoned veteran who’d been religiously following Cry’s streams on Twitch for five years and his lets-plays on YouTube for at least six. There seemed to be an air of distrust between old viewers that made it nearly impossible for anyone to work their way back into this community that used to be so welcoming.

I was angry for a while. I wanted to be welcomed back into the community that I’d felt most at home in for over five years. But I think, realistically, I shouldn’t have expected it. After all, the community had grown protective of Cry and Cheyenne due to the hate messages directed at them in the past year.

And I realize now that I was in the wrong.

Although I had never actively sent hate to any of the LNC, I had sat idly by and let my fellow Cry fans and even my closest friends send horrible messages to Cheyenne. So it makes sense that the community wouldn’t immediately welcome me back. In fact, I don’t think that they should. I was in the wrong, and I’m not so proud that I won’t admit to it.

So I want to apologize. I want to apologize to Cry, to Cheyenne, to all other members of the LNC, and to the Cryaotic community as a whole for not even trying to stay impartial and for not understanding my place as a viewer. I was wrong. I was wrong to turn my back on the community for so long. I was wrong to think that Cheyenne was a bad person. I was wrong to think that Cry should make his life decisions based on his viewers’ opinions.

For anyone who is still undecided on any of the aforementioned issues, that’s okay. If you like Cheyenne, that’s great. (Personally, in the last couple weeks, I decided after two years to finally give her a chance, and now - shocker - I actually really like her.) If you don’t like Cheyenne, that’s fine. (I didn’t like her for almost two years.) Believe me, I understand the frustration of realizing that the LNC is changing. I understand that, to an outsider, it’s easy to blame the newcomer, but the truth of it is that we don’t know the full story. We will never know the full story. That’s the reality of being a viewer. So whatever your opinion, I urge you not to send any more hate.

@daaes does not deserve your hate.

@cryaotic does not deserve your hate.

These are real-life human beings who are in a real-life relationship. They are not simply creating content for our entertainment; they are trying to build a life for themselves. It is not our place to advise them on their relationship. It is not our place to judge their relationship.

Should any more drama involving Cheyenne arise in the future (and it already has in the couple of days since I wrote this draft, and let me repeat in light of the recent accusations involving the age difference between Cry and Cheyenne: It is not our place to judge their relationship), I won’t criticize her, and I won’t stand by while others do either. I won’t boycott Cry’s content anymore. I can’t undo the damage I’ve done to my relationship with the Cryaotic community over the past year; all I can hope is that this public announcement/apology puts me on the right track to regain the trust I’ve lost and that someday, this community will be able to leave all the drama and accusations in the past, learn how to trust outsiders again, and welcome newcomers and returning viewers alike in the way that it always has.