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mal Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ - 22 - godspeed.

→ [SW-5657-5687-7674] • [carrd] • [diary] ←

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I would first like to acknowledge that it's been-- what? 2-ish years? I haven't been a Staff Member nor have I been active on PokéHeroes as a whole. No one probably cares much (if at all) anymore (and if they cared at all to begin with), but it seems like there's some understanding that I just "left the staff" and "left PH" when in reality I feel I was unfairy expelled after attempting to take an effort to be noticed and appreciated by other staff members. This has kind of been in the back of my mind to do for quite some time now, but why not now out of all times?

I would like to state beforehand that this is simply my truth, and, with that, everyone is entitled to their own truth, their own opinion, and everyone is able to form their own narrative based on what I as one person is saying. This is not intended to have readers form hatred of any kind towards any one or groups of persons, though my own feelings about certain people will be unapologetically blunt and how I see it. And, for reference, this all takes place towards the end of 2021.

I may be imagining things, but I do believe I already apologized to the Wiki Staff in our Discord Server? If I didn't, I’m sorry for seemingly abandoning you all.

My leaving of the staff team as Wiki Admin (which was later changed to Wiki Manager because I was already making Premium & Staff Banners after Abby retired from PokéHeroes and I suggested it to Riako; who I believed to be not only my online “boss”, but also a good friend of mine at the time; and at the end of the day he just uploaded whatever ZIP file I sent to him though; seems to have been changed back to Wiki Admin in my absence) was not at all my decision and was not discussed with me. Leaving PokéHeroes as a whole though, felt as a solution to most of my problems at the time.

There is/was a Staff Member Discord Server in which Wiki Staff was excluded from for such a long time (though former Staff Members could still be included in) even going as far as being told that we were not "real" staff members. On a tangent: I doubt the person who said this cares in the slightest, but if they're reading this; thank you for making all of my unpaid, volunteer work for the Wiki feel like it was for nothing and disregardable at the time. But finally after some sort of vote, we were all invited though we had our own server as well. In this Discord Server lied another Staff Member (who I won’t name by name) though when I called them out for saying something along the lines of “PokéHeroes isn’t for dating xD” despite their most notable contribution at the time to the site was literally copy & paste in sprite form of something and I said something like “DeviantArt isn’t for Art Theft xD” I got blocked by them on PokéHeroes & in this Discord Server once I joined– but that’s besides the point--I just wanted to add this to bring up later.

Later along the lines, Riako noticed some of the Staff Banners were off in terms of colors and patterns. He asked me to make all of the banners the same color and everything– whatever. As you may have noticed, the Staff Banners are typically composed of the corresponding Staff Member’s “Pokésonas” which were all individually sent to me for me to make their banner. I didn’t have all of the respective Pokésona Sprites saved on my computer. I also had just gotten a new computer without my (likely illegal) copy of Photoshop, which the bases for the banners were compatible with, on it– so I had installed a free trial of Photoshop and asked in the Staff Discord Server to send me their Pokésonas so I could properly update each banner.

I only got a handful of sprites sent. My trial of Photoshop had expired and I was paying for the continued copy of Photoshop weekly out of my own pocket. I was pissed. I recall making some sort of snarky comment in the Staff Server because at the time (and honestly, to this day) I could be extremely petty. There was some sort of staff voting going on for some event and/or contest that everyone could vote for, but at the same time ignore me.

I had planned on making bases of the Staff Members based on their title. Examples include: Smeargle “Artist” Banner & Porygon “Wiki Member” Banner and recalling it further, the snarky comment I made was something like “If you don't send me the sprite, your banner will be uploaded to the default banner I'm making.” To this I was answered with “If they already have banners, why do they need base ones instead?” even though I was asked to update all of the banners less than a month ago.

I felt disregarded. I felt I didn’t need to take this.

It wasn’t just the Staff Member who blocked me for calling them out on their plagiarism that ignored me. It wasn’t just “veteran” Staff Members who didn’t care if I was updating the banners because they sent theirs years ago that ignored me. It wasn’t just the new(er) Staff Members who had already sent me their sprites, even when some resent them to me, that ignored me.

It was probably about half of the Staff Members at the time who’d ignored me. It made me feel that the other Staff Members didn't respect my work though others could be praised for copying something they found on the internet and that I was underappreciated altogether.

Not thinking anything of it, I left the Discord Server out of spite.

I was messaged shortly after asking why I left the server and I answered that “i figured if i'm gonna be ignored or berated when i actually get noticed theres no point in me being there”. I would guess maybe no more than twelve hours later, I noticed that my Wiki Account was banned and subsequently I was removed from Staff.

I felt a mix of emotions: mostly bitterness, but also hurt, though at the same time… indifferent…
I had started a new job a couple of months ago, I constantly played video games with my friends, I had plans to go back to school, I was a moderator in an Ariana Grande fan server on Discord with over 30,000 members. I felt belittled, ignored and neglected as a Staff Member on PokéHeroes, but felt respected and valued elsewhere. I joined when I was 14. Now I’m 21? What can I show other than pretty collectable pixels that my time on PokéHeroes meant anything?

Nothing.
I left the Staff Server and was removed from Staff without any input in return. Why did I need to stay on the site that hasn’t seemed to have really appreciated me over the last half decade despite pouring endless time and real life money I made into it?

Host a giveaway? Why not get some sort of value of everything I worked for over the past 7 years? I monetized everything. I finally wanted to be on the ranklist for Most Pokédollars which was a goal of mine even when I was active on PokéHeroes.

I kept my one shiny that I cherished outside of PH since I was around 11-12. Later along the line, I had decided to auction it off in the Auction House. Why? Why not. I was just a bit away from making it on the ranklist, but I refused to spend even more of my own money on this site in the form of Nuggets to achieve my goal. I was quitting, what was the use?

Apparently, this pissed some people off about my decision. Even though at the time it felt I never really felt like I was their true “friend” (Now with a couple more years on me of “wisdom” or whatever, I can see that I maybe sort of could have been), mostly because they removed me from their PokéHeroes friendlist, seemingly defended the Staff Member from earlier who’d stolen someone’s original idea from DeviantArt, (amongst other things) they felt like it was some sort of betrayal.

I remember translating from another language some sort of feed that was something along the lines of “I'm pissed. way to sell off a gift.” even though the same mentioned “gift”, I funded for. All they had to do for me was hatch it. Then another feed in English went something like “*sighs in rich* uwu at least it has a good home now.” (Whatever. You were almost, if not past, the age of 30 when you had beef with me as a 15 year old because your feelings were hurt over something so trivial and also out-of-date.)

I left PokéHeroes. I sprinkled in here and there. To this day, over two years later, only Furret and Jaeger have bothered to contact me outside of PokéHeroes. All the other friendships I thought I had left with me when I quit the site.

Do I regret it? Not entirely. I mostly regret the way I handled things, but I don’t regret the lessons I learned growing up while being a part of the site.

I’ll be 24 next month. This year, I will have been dating my boyfriend for over two years; be in my second year of college after putting it off for so long; will have been a moderator of the Ariana Grande Discord Server for four years after we surpassed 50,000 members; be making “just as much as a first year teacher with a four year degree”... according to my mother at least; have been living out of the house for two years; be getting my own apartment; and, most importantly, be proud of myself and proud of who I've become. PokéHeroes was a fun distraction being a socially awkward, shy teenager. I enjoyed my time for the most part when I was here.

Even though I felt I wasn’t appreciated enough and certain groups had depictions of me that were maybe-somewhat-possibly me but not me, I wouldn’t have changed the learning and growth accompanied with my time here. PokéHeroes Roleplaying helped me find a love for writing, being on the Wiki Team helped me find a love for helping others, PokéHeroes users helped me find that maybe I’m not the problem and that I could also be as unapologetically myself as I needed to be.

If you made it this far, I appreciate you taking the time to read me seemingly rant.
As I said before, I hope our paths cross again in the future! Stay safe & see you soon. ♡

TL;DR: I never asked to step down, I was just salty that I was ignored and felt disrespected for what I would say as 7/8ths of my time as a Staff Member and now I’m a baddie b-b-baddie baddie pretty little risky baddie (stan IVE) that is speaking out about it because Shannen Doherty spoke out after 20+ years of leaving Charmed.

Edit: to anyone who possibly could have posted a feed similar to the sense of "'me me me me'" (and have later deleted it :3) im sorry that you're still so bitter about something and that you don't have the compassion to understand that this is how i felt about my entire experience on the site (that YOU also helped contribute to) and you lack the basic human attribute of something called "empathy"! yes this is a post basically about me and how i feel... it's almost like it's an argumentative essay in which you are required to write in the first person, something i expect someone 10+ years older than me should grasp the concept of? from what i recall you are very '"mimimimimi"' on boasting that you can speak 2-3 languages or something but this makes me feel like just by saying that that english is your weakest! let me say something in german that maybe you can understand a bit better... danke für nichts! erwachsen werden!