ocean and adrienne's 'history' (or lack thereof)
hello! for those of you who might not know me, i'm brin. i was a moderator in the official isat server for a little over a year (from january 2024 to march 2025); me and ocean were the first two brought on after the first mods decided to grab some help. ocean is also my friend, and we speak very regularly.
by nature of my position i have quite a bit more context than the majority of people in the fandom. i cannot speak to anything adrienne is thinking here (nor will i speculate), and i am not going to give any private details, whether it is in private or otherwise. so don't ask for that please. :P but i can say that i've seen everything i'm going to be talking about here, and a lot more besides.
the reason i'm making this post is because i've seen a lot of people theorizing, especially after adrienne's vague reply, that ocean and adrienne might have some history that everyone else is just unaware of, with, often, the implication that ocean may have been negative towards adrienne in private. ocean is an incredibly kind, sweet person who's done nothing but care for this game and its fandom and it really sucks to see that xe are having to deal not only with suddenly being ripped from a fandom that she's given years and so much of her heart to, but being doubted by people who fully admit they do not have the whole story but all the same assume he must be in the wrong. i asked ocean if it'd be okay to clarify a few things (after all, i don't want to speak for her, of course), and i've been given permission.
in any case, here are the facts as i know them:
in march of 2022, ocean joined the isat server. it was much much smaller then, and adrienne was more active, so they spoke now and then in that capacity. (i wasn't there for this--i joined the server in nov 2023--but in the process of making my spreadsheet documenting everything adrienne had said about the game on social media, i saw all of adrienne's posts in the server, and ocean was frequently there at the same time as an active fan.) they didn't have any private interactions at this point.
in january of 2024, ocean is made a moderator; they continue to be a moderator from then until march of 2025. i know of three, and only three, DMs between them during this time period. all of them had to do with important moderation-related concerns and were worded politely. in the server mod chats they had the very occasional limited but professional interaction, including the one they've mentioned in 2024 in which we both notified her that the mirror picture standee's colors were off.
when ocean quit being a moderator in march 2025, xe also left the server. she isn't and wasn't discord friends with adrienne, and they didn't have any shared servers when ocean left, so after that point ocean had no private way of contacting adrienne other than the ones open to any fan.
adrienne usually has asks closed. not that ocean is the sort to send harassing asks anyway, but even if he was, mechanically it wouldn't really be an option.
ocean has publicly interacted with adrienne three times from then on: in february of this year, when the keychains were announced, ocean replied to the post (with an @ to adrienne) letting her know that mira's skin on the keychain seemed to be a bit too light. then, a couple days ago, as we know: ocean makes a post about the whitewashing issue, @ ing adrienne (in case tumblr had eaten the mention from february). adrienne makes a vaguely worded post on the matter; ocean reblogs from them, thanking her for talking to yetee and adding a link to xer original post for context because people were confused in the notes. to one person in particular saying they thought the post was a joke because isat is in grayscale, ocean clarified, and is blocked immediately thereafter.
as far as interactions go, that should be the extent of it. in terms of things that could, theoretically, be construed as negativity, ocean does and always has been vocal as a fan of color about issues of race and racism within the fandom (something that has been a big issue long prior to this point, and something which frankly imo is a labor they provided to the fandom that she shouldn't have needed to provide). on occasion, she would express feelings about things within the game that they wish were different--for example, that sif had been visibly nonwhite in the game, because as it stands the fandom draws him very white; or that their background as a person of color had not been spoken about as though it was optional.
none of these tagged adrienne in any capacity, and xe were in my opinion always very polite and understanding of adrienne's circumstances and feelings even speaking privately. other fans have spoken about the same issues and adrienne has expressed understanding and gratitude for them expressing their thoughts (for example, here). ocean was incredibly passionate about the game and about its characters of color and loved them dearly and was always very clear about that. other fans have also brought up whitewashing before (with no response) as well as other issues with merch (with a response) and there were no issues at this point.
again, i cannot and will not speculate on what adrienne's motivations were here--what posts of oceans they saw, what she thought of them, and her thoughts in any regard around this issue are all fully beyond my ability and right to say anything about. i just really needed people to know that there aren't huge sordid secrets here. ocean's a wonderful, brave, kind person who put her heart and soul and time and effort into this fandom and never had any idea that adrienne may have had any issues with anything xe were saying or doing--in my opinion, reasonably so; certainly no issues were ever communicated prior to this point in the limited interactions they had.
in any case. i very much understand the confusion and hurt here. it's not about me, but i'm pretty fucking poleaxed by this situation too. but i hope in all of this we can just be understanding of ocean's pain, being removed so suddenly and without warning from something he loved so much. your opinions on what adrienne did are your own, but please, please be certain to respect ocean in the process. the fact is that adrienne's blog isn't just their personal but also in stars and time's official mouthpiece, and the official blog removing xer access without any apparent rhyme or reason is something that is i think very reasonable for ocean to be hurt by even if you do not personally get it or think there is a reason from adrienne that you can accept. i am not at all saying in the midst of all this that anyone needs to think that adrienne is some cartoon villain here, and i do not want adrienne alone at the end of all this. optimally, i just would hope that she too can understand why what they did caused ocean pain and would be willing to apologize for that pain regardless of the reasoning behind it.
thank you for your time and understanding and kindness towards ocean in advance! because they really fucking deserve it right now
janainaart
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
ellievsbear
jbbartram-illu
