Testimony 1: The Floraverse community ruined my ability to make connections with people

Floraverse was, for me, my first ever foray into any sort of online community. Before I had joined, my exposure on the internet social-wise was being groomed by adults ever since I was a child in addition to having a terrible home life. The way I discovered Floraverse was through the nsfw spinoff, ForbiddenFlora. At the time, I would’ve been around twelve years old.

With the way my home life was, along with the grooming I was experiencing, stories and comics were how I coped. Letting my mind explore a reality that wasn’t my own.

Floraverse was near instantly a focus of my coping. This remained true, even if waning at times, for years. Thankfully, interacting with the community wasn’t something that happened until I was an adult. Otherwise I feel I would’ve been taken advantage of to an even further extent.

Due to this being my first real community, many of my social skills were shaped by it, which even still causes many issues. In that space, it always felt like walking on eggshells.

With the way scenes were set up, and with how yelling at folks was very common, it made me terrified of messing up. Triple-guessing every single interaction, no matter how small.

The server also encouraged people to be vulnerable with their trauma and feelings, to which I divulged plenty. While people in the space claim they aren’t therapists, it really seems like they enjoy playing that role. I know for sure that I’m not the only emotionally vulnerable young adult that was harmed by the way people perform and act in the community.

Encouraging using your trauma to create content for the rest of the server to see.

In addition, if you didn’t do that “correctly” you’re liable to be yelled at or labeled a problem.

Even now, I struggle being vulnerable with people for fear of them using that vulnerability against me. For them to look at my emotions and go “you aren’t allowed to feel that way here”.

While I now have a small group of supportive friends, the Floraverse community ruined my ability to make connections with people. I’m still trying to work through the mental trauma, anxiety, and fear that was instilled into me from that space. While typing this I’ve struggled with my words. Just saying all this, terrifies me for how the community may react.

I cannot properly express how much damage this community has caused me.

Testimony 2: The degradation we went through still has its effects now, after months

It’s taking me a lot of courage to go out and say this but… I am a minor that’s been being dog-piled by Glip and Pengo over having an alter of Andre… (If this is confusing, I’m someone with the potential of having Dissociative Identity Disorder, and having multiple people in one body is a fundamental part of this disorder. I didn’t chose for an introject of Andre to appear, here we are.) this happened way back in September before the whole crazy cult shit started happening but, jesus, I can tell how much this one event scarred us. I used to look up to Pengosolvent and I used to adore and be comforted by his music during time of abuse and I’m honestly heartbroken by what’s been happening. I remember Glip telling me how much they felt like a piece was “divorced” from them and pengo joined in to dig into me about how I needed to consider glip’s feelings and how I shouldn’t “kin” Andre— they fucking called my involuntary alter a KIN. And strangely enough, he even tried to comfort me after the whole mess… I guess the fawning that I did made the situation a lot less batshit than the other events I’ve heard of. Nevertheless, it was only after the whole event that I realized how batshit insane their behavior was… it was their usual shenanigans.

The degradation we went through still has its effects now, after months! We’ve left the server and never intend to join back. That encounter has been debilitating to my alter’s sense of self, self-worth, and identity to the point where we’re planning to rewrite the entirety of Floraverse just to spite Glip.. and to find my alter better comfort, something to separate from the hellhole that is Floraverse, both narratively and community-wise. I hate to admit it, but Floraverse is a special interest of mine.. so It’s very hard to have it escape my mind.

Overall, we just wanna be a warning to everyone, a warning to literally anybody, man, even people with mental disorders like mine aren’t safe from Glip at all.

Testimony 3: Floraverse made my anorexia worse after screaming at me for 5 hours

I haven’t really fully healed from the physical damage my deteriorating mental health caused from the treatment I recieved in the floraverse server, I’m anorexic and the way it works for me is that I tend to react to stressor by not eating as a compulsive method to ease anxiety and by the time I had my test I had already lost significant weight. I was unmedicated, deeply depressed and suffering from untreated anxiety and insomnia, as well as taking on a 10~ hour workday because of deadlines. having to come home to 5+ hours of being screamed at and being humiliated in front of an audience until a minor emotional breakdown pushed me to reveal traumatic experiences in the hopes that they would leave me alone and let me sleep drove me over the brink, not to mention the fact that I had to deal with nightmares for weeks after as a result of digging up said traumatic experiences in a dangerous environment. I haven’t yet regained the weight I lost and even though I’m medicated now anything related to the Eastar server is painful to recollect

Testimony 4: Glip's content warped my perception of sex

CW: Rape

Basically, my thing is that I was exposed to porn and NSFW spaces as a minor through Ash and Floraverse. So, I first discovered Ash as a Pokémon fan artist when i was like, 14, but I fortunately didn’t use DA that much so I wasn’t aware of PMDE, cuz I would have gotten sucked into that so hard. When I discovered PMDE, it was basically over and done with, but Ash had announced a new project, named Floraverse, and I was excited about it! Floraverse launched in 2013, when I was 16. I quickly became enamored with it. I checked in on the website and DA group every day. I recommended it to friends. I was super autistic about it.

And I followed Ash everywhere I could. I knew that Forbidden flora existed, and one day I found a link. I went to view some of the stuff, cuz I wanted to know the stories. I think they had censored versions, with like, flowers. But I eventually found the uncensored ones, because I was so curious and wanted more from it. The story I initially saw was Mismatched, it was my first experience with porn. It actually helped me better understand my own sexuality, which was nice, but seeing porn kinda made me want more of it, and I started looking for more of it. I ended up developing a bit of an addiction to it and a negative relationship with it. Then one day they made a mention of a new blog on tumblr, one for exploring gender identity and sexuality. I had been questioning my gender identity all my life, and I trusted Ash. They were my hero. So I went on that blog, read some of the asks. I would have been 17 at the time (just checked logs to make sure I had everything correct, lol) and I went on to it. The blog was Beleth’s toybox. There was some sexual asks, and I wasn’t comfortable with that, but i felt that the space was run by Ash, so it had to be safe, plus I was looking at porn so it might not have mattered too much. I got more comfortable with my trans-ness and with labeling myself as a furry, but it also eventually led me to looking into fetish stuff, and that led me to look for more kink oriented porn. With my poor body image mixing into that, and my past traumas, it really fucked me up.

This later contributed to my declining mental health, and in 2016, I was at rock bottom. I was failing in school, I hated my body, I was spending more time looking at porn than anything else. I wanted to die, and I had a plan. I can’t blame that all on Ash. My abysmal sense of self wasn’t their fault. But being exposed to porn through them, them making it so easy to access forbidden flora, and showing off more of the world I loved in it. That didn’t help It made some sort of complex or something. Later on it would add on to my sexual trauma specifically. With me sometimes viewing myself as an object only existing for the sexual pleasure of others. I was never directly attacked by them, but their decisions and desires to expose minors to pornography affected me both positively and negatively.

In middle school, when I was about 11, I was sexually harassed by another student, who told me he would rape me. Both this, and my first experience with porn being the comic Mismatched; involve rape. Back in 2020, when I was 22, I was raped. When it happened, at first, I didn’t understand what was happening, but then it hit me, a question: “am I being raped?” Which I knew the answer was “yes”

This next part, I haven’t told anyone until now. I’ve held it deep. It seems Ash’s porn comics and my harassment had an affect on me, as, in part due to the pain of the realization, I tried to look for a way to make the situation better. I remembered Mismatched specifically. How Quill or whatever his name was didn’t like what was happening at first but came to enjoy it. I hoped that that would happen with me, that I would come to enjoy the situation. It didn’t happen.

Ash’s comics… normalized that to me. Helped me bury the realization and try to hide from it for over two years. I would look back and think “he didn’t ask for consent, and I didn’t give it, but that’s normal. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Testimony 5: Pengosolvent, Phoebe, and Japhet took turns tearing into me for days. I almost acted out on one of my fantasies to kill myself.

This story comes from a user by the name of ‘bring-out-the-dead’ or Lucas. Who wished for their story to not be anonymous.

CW: Suicide, Sexual Abuse

When I first became active in the flora servers, I was extremely depressed. I had just recently escaped a situation where I had been physically and sexually abused for several years. I saw that the art pyramid rp was starting to take submissions, and I decided to join. I thought it would be a good way to start rebuilding myself, and maybe even make some new friends. The character I played was named Chrosocolla. She was a bit standoffish and reclusive, and came from a very similar situation to what I did. A lot of characters didn’t like her much, but a few did, and over the course of the rp she made a couple close friends. However, during the rp Glip got mad at me for how I was playing Chrosocolla. They said that they were scared of me, that they hated that Chrosocolla was irredeemable, amongst many other things. My first instinct was to apologize and promise to change because the way they made it sound, I thought I was turning into someone like my abusers. It was at this point that Glip’s character, Mesund, started to actively lash out at Chrosocolla. I thought that this was simply part of the rp, but I now recognize that this was Glip lashing out at me.

I should also mention that the art pyramid rp was all day every day for about 6 weeks straight. You basically had to give all your energy to this rp in order to participate the way you were supposed to. I was mentally and physically exhausted by the time it was over. Over the next few months, being in floraverse made my mental health decline more and more. My intrusive thoughts and suicidal idealization were at a level they hadn’t gotten to since I had lived with my abusers. I was constantly stuck in a toxic echochamber where everyone was extremely aggressive and constantly hurting eachother. It got to the point where I closed off emotionally and stopped being honest with my feelings, especially in march-may when Pengosolvent started becoming increasingly abusive towards me. He would constantly find reasons to be mad at me and then make it my responsibility to make him feel better. I also witnessed him do this to others.

This fed into my low self esteem and made me feel worthless. Sometimes when he’d start criticizing me, others would join in, specifically Phoebe and Japhet. Between June 30th-July 4th 2023, Pengosolvent, Phoebe, and Japhet took turns tearing into me because I said that I cared about Pengosolvent and they didn’t believe me. This went on for several days straight. I became actively suicidal during this time and almost acted out on one of my fantasies to kill myself. The only reason I didn’t succeed is because my step mom called me to do something and kept me busy for the rest of the day until I gave up. When I finally had the energy to be angry, I expressed how upset I was and Glip instantly blew me off and even compared me to Marl (you know, the guy who rapes dogs and kids) because I was upset at Japhet for talking behind my back.

I felt a lot of resentment and anger after all of this, and chose to leave. Everyone from that group basically acted like I didn’t exist after that. However several people have reached out to me, and it seems like they just keep finding new people to target for their abuse. The only screenshot I have is of something pengo said so that way I couldn’t gaslight myself.

Testimony 6: I wound up being put in the "conflict resolution channel"

So my experience with flora was thus:

Around… 2019, I had gotten in a really bad situation relationship wise with my ex, who was running their polycule at the time like a cult, used me to cheat on another partner [I’d learn that later] and in general was keeping me away from people for themselves, and took me in when I was deathly afraid of my parents and moved me to New York to live with them.

I fucked up a lot there and went back home, and 2020 was hellish for that year.

It was around that time I met a certain someone who now became a floraverse admin, and WE basically formed a group with someone else, because they seemed interested in it and wanted to do a group read.

As all that happened, we’d all join up in the Floraverse server, go along the process, and so on and so forth, just talking and doing well in eastar, doing private readings which turned into a group read/voice acting thing,

A lot of the time there was spent doing events, sometimes I would flub things or ruin things a little, got a light talking to, but there were plenty of times where I was ganged up on for no actual reason, and it always made me feel scared and confused every single time.

I remember how a scene was happening in Talsam, and while there was discussion, I was talking to another member at the time [someone who’s doing a lot better now] and the discussion got a bit confusing and I was starting to feel cornered, and glip jumped on to basically tell me off, and it got so bad my alter had to step in and basically keep us functioning while I curled up in a corner mentally

A lot of things after that was various community events, and then there was bashball, which was, as a certain someone pointed out, a way to purposefully call out Iz and Crona for their actions at the time against rina [and we all know how that went]

Of course, there was everything that happened with jolly. For the most part, I have forgiven them, as you’ve seen, but the whole situation was really nasty while it was happening. Glip yelled at me a lot that I needed to break them off, and I did for the most part, but as well, I would try to show care to Tem/Opa, and apparently that wasn’t the right thing to do. I wound up being put in the “conflict resolution channel”, and basically got berated for, again, not focusing on myself, not seeming to care about how others felt.

And in the end, I was removed because apparently I still was “supporting jolly”, cause I “apparently” knew when they had snuck back in and didn’t say anything [I didn’t, and apparently my inaction was criminal even though i was trying to focus on myself at the time.]

Besides that, I can’t really remember much else. A lot of Wishbone stuff happened, I got chewed out there for seemingly being unable to properly express “intent” of some sort, it was BS I didn’t care much about

A lot of the latter parts of my story happened around… early 2021/22? I can’t remember, it was miserable, I was in Oregon trying to save a failing relationship and move, and so it just all collapsed into a long time of being alone and by myself with only two partners there for me.

I’m certainly much better now, but I think I should share my story even if it’s a dense recollection of what happened, cause I genuinely don’t think anyone else should suffer like I have.

And if Glip does happen to read this, unless they’re actually willing to engage and address things without saying “oh it’s all your fault, I did nothing wrong”, then I hope they don’t bother to read.

Testimony 7: Glip will tear you apart and make you feel like the most useless and stupidest thing in existence

I left the Flora community because I got so fed up with how fucking toxic it is. Toxic as in people will gang up and straight up make you feel stupid and humiliate you in public channels, they’ll gossip about you after you leave, and Glip is just so incredibly narcissistic. If you don’t agree with something, Glip and others will tear you apart and make you feel like the most useless and stupidest thing in existence. I had mentioned that I liked something and I had so many people scream at me and tell me I’m wrong, and I felt my beliefs don’t matter. After I left, I switched to my other account to see what they were writing about me and oh my gosh it was so mean. These people are borderline cyberbullies. It almost felt like they were trying to convert me to agreeing with them. I’m so glad I’m gone and I feel so relieved after being there for about a year. I love the SFW comics but please, don’t join this community.

Testimony 8: I just wanted to reconnect with a former friend

It feels weird that I even have a connection with Floraverse at all to this day, but life is strange sometimes, isn’t it? For a very brief window in 2019, I joined the community on a wish and a prayer, on a desire to reconnect with a former friend. ([Redacted]).

I’m not blameless. I’d have to disclose, I was much, much more prone to clinginess and have been suffering through a relatively fragile social net. The person I viewed as my “closest friend” turned out to be a completely unrelated abuser after all.

In that irresponsibility, I tested [Redacted]’s barriers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I unintentionally retraumatized it with a continued focus on kink engagement above *all* else.

I wouldn’t be talking about this if I didn’t make the mistake of joining Floraverse primarily to follow [Redacted]. Sure, I did legitimately try to get interested in the world, I did actually think about attempts to make an OC for it. I did attempt to read as much of the comics that were provided as possible on the official website (none of the NSFW stuff IIRC), and at the time I likely was left with more questions than answers.

But since I did get in by briefly being a patron of Glitch and asking for the Discord, it wasn’t that long before [Redacted] wanted to push me into the “conflict-resolution” channel there. Or something.. The outcome there resembled a typical “scene”. Never being able to explain myself and trying to find the right words to do so, while [Redacted] and a few others in the server dogpiled on me for being a “stalker”.

From the start, I wanted this to be a private discussion, nowhere publicly. But I caved. I left with resentment and trauma, with the belief that Floraverse’s community ruined my relationship with. At the time, [Redacted] believed this to be me shifting blame.

5 years after the fact, I think I did a lot to sour the relationship with [Redacted], but I would not be surprised if the toxic “therapy cult” that is Floraverse might have poured gasoline on the relationship. I was a nobody who had maybe one-or-two connections in the community that weren’t [Redacted] and an awareness of Eevee’s own tech blog posts (quite a few breached containment and were circulated in the general software dev community).

The resolution never really sat well with me, and arguably made the clinginess worse towards [Redacted] worse. Even years after the fact, whenever [Redacted] comes up, it’s like it’s that breaking moment in 2019 again.

It took an intervention from a FV-unrelated mutual to keep the obsession from reocurring. Between then, things would spiral into a desire to apologies or even beg for forgiveness from it, but never really sure how to even do so without explosively setting it off. For both it and mine’s sakes, I hope we can leave this toxic catalyst behind us.

Testimony 9: I am worried about my friend

A while ago I reconnected with a friend, and it was great! The two of us started filling each other in, until they mentioned they befriended Glip, and it felt like the entire mood had changed. We started talking about Floraverse, — which, I’m not ashamed to mention I like to consume that media while separating it from the author — but I was still somewhat on edge. I told them (friend) that I did not want to have any association with a dogfucker / pedophile. I remember that we had some back and forth about it and we went relatively quiet for a few days.

After a few days, the whole thing was stewing in me, so I consulted in a different friend who helped me collect proof, and I sent them a message with your blog, KF, and other things in it because I wanted to affirm Glip was lying to them. They told me they didn’t want to look at KF (because, well lol) and they didn’t want to look at the blog because they ‘didn’t like the people there’, and then started talking about how Glip was good, that they were emotional, that they were just abused / misled by Marl and that was it despite me having evidence proving that they would act maliciously on their own volition. Then in came the Pinna stuff, and their argument was essentially they did nothing wrong because her partner is a sex offender. I remember I felt somewhat numb at the time so I just nodded it off but a day after I started feeling like I was. Bullshitted, lied to

Testimony 10: Former PMD-E Fan

The Pokemon mystery dungeon group was one of my first special interests. I was 15, a freshman in highschool when it first started. Mission 1 was a lot of fun! I was insecure about my art at the time and it was cool to be part of an art group that didn’t care that I wasn’t the best at art. Sneasels, were my favorite pokemon. After mission 2 ended, Glip started to post about a story I got really attached to, involving a sneasel who would later be named Rhodes, Shroomsworth the Breloom and PK the Kecleon. I was really bad at comic making , so I really liked the style of having one key illustration and a story in the description separated by parts.

But then, Glip said the rest of the story would be on Tumblr. Right towards the end! I wasn’t familiar with Tumblr, but I figured I should make an account so I could at least read the rest.

The rest of the story was porn. I didn’t really get it at the time, in fact I thought it was kinda gross! But I realized that Glip posted a lot more behind the scenes stuff on Tumblr not really on DeviantArt about Pokemon mystery dungeon explorers and man, I gotta stick around to read more content about my favorite characters.

The next secret story I would come across on Tumblr would be a story between Shroomsworth and Merlot the Lugia. In which Merlot would force Shroomsworth into a maid outfit and rape him to allow the merchant guild access to their goal.

The Shroomsworth/Pk story was whatever for me, but the Merlot/Shroomsworth story was so extreme, and it would be followed by a lot of extreme fetishistic commissions Glip would post on the same Tumblr blog I followed to get the super secret stories behind these characters I liked so much.

What ultimately happened was my baseline of sexual interest became that high level fetishistic content. It’s all I really knew!

These days, I’m largely repressed. It’s hard for me to be interested in normal smut because I started out so extreme, and I’m too grossed out by the stuff PMD-E groomed me on to even consider it.

I did remember something recently though, that happened to me when I was 16. I remembered it recently because I was watching nostalgic videos of an online MMO I used to play and saw this man’s ign, and the memory of what he did hit me like a truck. I was playing the game, and one of my guild members, someone I respected and knew I was 16 messaged me and started to talk extremely sexually with me. I was freaking out to my friend when it happened, and I’m glad I did because she was able to confirm to me that this did in fact happen when this repressed memory came back to me.

I didn’t want to disappoint this guy I respected, so I went along with his sexual advances. It was fine, I just emulated the things I read and saw in Glips PMD-E content, after all.

I can’t help but wonder how many kids were like me? How many kids did Glip unintentionally “teach” what to do in these scenarios?