[on a -hopefully short- hiatus until further notice. due to the state of our mental health. apologies.] here to spread awareness. harassment toward individuals on any side will not be condoned nor tolerated.
Greetings and welcome to PN Confidential. You may address me as Field. I understand there may be some curiosity about the purpose of this platform, and I would like to provide some clarity.
Within the plural community, there is a widely known discord server called Plural Nest. While it presents itself as a supportive community, there have been instances of misconduct by staff members and the promotion of dangerous literary works. This blog has been created to raise awareness about these issues and provide a space for individuals who have experienced harm or mistreatment within PN to share their stories.
The motivation behind this initiative stems from the belief that a community as influential as PN carries a responsibility to uphold ethical standards, which we feel have not been adequately met. Our goal is to address concerns that have not been publicly acknowledged elsewhere. If you have encountered negative experiences within Plural Nest and wish to share them, whether anonymously or openly, we encourage you to do so. While evidence of misconduct is appreciated, all submissions will be assumed to be truthful unless proven otherwise. It is important to note that this platform is specifically for grievances related to the server's management and staff behavior, not for personal disputes that just so happened to occur within PN.
It is imperative to maintain a respectful and harassment-free environment. This blog is not intended for spreading animosity but rather for shedding light on problematic issues within PN and providing a voice to those who have been affected. If you do not support our mission, we respectfully request you disengage with our content.
We want to abundantly clarify that we fully support endogenic systems, and all kinds of plurals/systems. Our stance against one, specific pro endo server should not be misconstrued as holding anti endo beliefs. Any exclusionary rhetoric will not be accepted on this page.
Greetings. It has been a while-ish since our last post, however we are now back with quite a long one. Recently- a user who requested to stay anonymous has contacted us with quite a lot of concerning information regarding the behind the scenes and goings on of the plural nest staff team. This post is going to be recapping exactly what we have been told- with very slight formatting alterations for smoother reading.
Please keep in mind that while this post is incredibly long, our longest yet, I believe- it is imperative that you read through the entire thing thoroughly. Especially if you are either a current plural nest member, or are considering joining their server.
Content warning for the following:
Mentions of harassment
Dog piling
Staff misconduct
Predatory relationships/grooming
(Please bare in mind- everything in quotations was taken straight from the user who has informed us)
“ I think a fun place to start would be mentioning that the current owner, QR, never actually applied for staff and as far as I know, never actually passed through whatever vetting processes were in place at the time?
The previous owner, Bari, started acting... Really erratic in their last few months before handing off ownership, due to a lot of emotional stress around the owner *before them,* Polychrome, trying to beg to be let back into the community after being outed as an anti-endo, and trying to blame their bad behavior on a prolonged schizophrenic episode?
QR was a regular user at the time (and pretty new too, I think) and was mini-modding some sort of dispute in #ask-the-staff. Bari saw this, and instead of telling QR off for mini-moding, they... decided they were really impressed by QR's performance as a mini-mod that they just offered QR a position as a real mod on the spot, in front of the public. I'm not sure how QR rose to owner from there, but... Now you know!
I don't know a whole lot about the actual story behind Bari and Polychrome myself, but partner sys did just find the link to Poly's "apology" for their time as an anti-endo and the post where they blamed it on a mental health episode, if that's something that interests you. ”
So a while ago, I posted syscringe on here. On this account. And I want to say, well, I was wrong. On a lot of it. And that how I approached
“ Someone else we have a *lot* of criticisms of that I know is still current staff is aqua system. aqua system is also still currently staff in nest, and they were really regularly touted in the year or so after we stopped posting in the server as holding a pretty consistent "second-in-command" position in the staff. To my knowledge they're still in that position, and tbh their presence has been always been a lot of why I keep deciding Nest still isn't a home I can return to whenever I check to see if it's improved at all over the years.
I do not know if their views on things have improved in the three years since (I certainly *hope* they have, but... We don't actively go out seeking their posts anymore, for obvious reasons!) but I know shortly after they were elected to staff back in 2021, they used to post a *lot* of... Our friend group used to call it "sysmed light" takes. The one that stands out to me the most in my memory is that they believed that traumagenics were marginalized in the plural community by non-traumagenic voices, and they were constantly advocating for people to basically view traumagenics and non-traumagenics as two separate species that just happened to share the same community, rather than encouraging people to come together over our commonalities. I've also got a really CHOICE screenshot of them talking about how "yeah, medicalizing plurality is bad, but plurality is inseparable from DID/OSDD" which is a WILD FUCKING STATEMENT TO MAKE AS A HIGH RANKING MOD OF WHAT WAS THE LARGEST PLURAL DISCORD COMMUNITY AT THE TIME. They also *really, really* liked to talk about how they saw their plurality as a solely negative force in their life and something they feel ruined their future, which is. Also a cool view to have as someone so high-ranking in a community built upon solidarity and pride.
IMG ID: [A message from Shouto of Aqua System reading:
"I think a lot of it is yeah medicalizing all plurality is bad and no plurality is not inherently a bad thing HOWEVER plurality is inseparable from DID/OSDD and those ARE mental disorders and it's not harmful to acknowledge them as such
Not to mention non traumagenics tend to ignore how much trauma can mess and screw with your experience with plurality
We try to look at our plurality positively but it's still hard for me to act like being plural is something amazing and great when our system is traumagenic
plurality like any other neurodivergency such as autism needs to be treated as neutral: neither inherently bad nor good. It just is. For some it's pros outweigh the cons, for others the cons outweigh the pros"] - END ID
Aqua also really, *really* liked traumadumping in non-vent channels. We have a *really strong* memory of our partner system, during their time as a Nest mod, making an @everyone announcement reminding people that vents go in the vent channel, and literally an hour later aqua sys was posting REALLY HEAVY stuff about their exotrauma unprovoked in plural-discussion-1. This is kind of notable, because in a weird way staff accomodating for aqua's need to traumadump in public spaces is a large reason why #traumagenic-discussion exists? My partner system made me privy to a staff discussion where Aqua was. Bitching and moaning that there was a #parogenic-discussion channel, but not a #traumagenic-discussion one, and eventually they whined about it enough that the rest of the staff made it happen!
This is so WILDLY misguided because #parogenic-discussion wasn't created to be a Cool Treehouse for non-traumagenic systems (who... aren't all inherently parogenic, mind you,) it was created specifically to be a place to discuss the *process* of parogenesis, the difficulty and the psychological alchemy of creating a new headmate out of nothing. Pointing at that and going "but why can't traumagenics have one" is SUCH a wild false equivalence, because... If you want a space to talk about the process of traumagenesis, the actual ways in which traumagenic headmates are created, that's cool and valid, but... 90% of it is just going to be people talking about their trauma in a non-vent channel.
Guess what aqua immediately started using it for.
I know my partner sys pretty directly challenged staff on this once upon a time using exactly this argument, and got entirely shut down on the sole argument of "endogenics get their own channel, traumagenics should to." which. again. is not *exactly* how that story happened. ”
“ Which I guess leads me to my next fun story, which is my partner sys getting ganged up on and harassed by the entire rest of staff for... Knowing the history of why the server's staff was structured the way it was, and insisting that minors probably shouldn't be handling potentially volatile bad actors who could post gore and nsfw at them. Lemon and aqua were MAJOR violators in this story, and to my understanding they're *both* currently still nest staff *and* pretty highly ranked.
A long, long time ago, the interview you used to go through to get verified in the server wasn't run by a bot, but it was conducted by a real, live server member acting as a volunteer. It *was* really labor intensive, but it was also a really cool and refreshing experience, since you *immediately* got to have a fun conversation with a community member and have someone express interest in you as a person the moment you walked through the door.
These volunteers all had the "Helper" role, denoting that they were acting in an official capacity for Plural Nest, but were not Moderation Staff (who just had the "staff" role.) Since Helpers weren't expected to perform moderator duties other than passing off any problematic interviews to a *real* moderator, it was a position that was open to users of all ages, whereas staff was explicitly reserved for adults. At some point during the latter end of Bari's time as owner, after they started acting really erratically, there was a major turnover in staff, and all the new staff members were told that helpers were. A lesser tier of moderator, who were more focused on moderating chat and verifications in order to free up the Real Moderators for more pressing issues. Helpers, accordingly, *were* given the same permissions and as regular mods in the server's settings.
My partner system, who had been in nest for two years now and had talked to the old staff that created that system... Pretty clearly knew that was wrong, and were vocal about as much. They made a large argument that, with Nest being as high-profile of a server as it was, they get a *lot* of bad actors who sometimes post gore and nsfw, and make really violent threats towards staff when they don't get their way, and it was *wildly inappropriate* for minors to not only be willingly exposed to that, but *expected to moderate it.* This was not a hypothetical situation they were arguing, this was very much based on experiences *they* had to deal with during their time as staff, *as well as other staff* talking about how harrowing and traumatizing some of the things they were expected to moderate were to them, and then going "By the way my 14th birthday is coming up.”
Everyone was expressing at first that this was sensible and actually agreed that it was something they needed to work on. Aqua system made some wildly out of pocket comment that a lot of their headmates' exomemories as being literal child soldiers made them unable to see what was wrong with the situation, but they also eventually used the same excuse to decide that they were probably going to trigger themselves if they participated in the discussion further and respectfully bowed out. Everything was cool!
Up until about a week-ish later, when my partner system woke up to 6 pings and 500 unread messages in the staff channel basically calling for their head on a fucking pike.
Lemon collective (who, mind, was 13 at the time, just *Barely* above discord TOS age) and one other minor staff member (can't remember which, sorry) had made a post where they essentially went "Hey, we've been rolling this over in our head for the past few days, and we realized we don't actually agree with this ruling and feel like we are being infantilized, and that they didn't understand what changed to suddenly remove these responsibilities from their plate when they were just as capable of performing them before.” Mind... Lemon was one of the examples our partner system brought up when they were talking about other staff members openly commenting about how some of the things they were seeing was damaging to their mental health, so... that's cool.
Bari immediately threw our partner system under the bus, claiming that it was our psys' idea and all complaints should be aimed at them! Bari also made some WILDLY out of pocket comment claiming that our psys was using abuser tactics to get everyone to agree with them, and implying that psys' angle was "if you don't agree with me you're all inherently immoral and problematic”
and thus the mobbing began
Psys wakes up and sees this whole mess aimed entirely at them, and asked for a moment to backread the whole damn thing before saying anything. After taking it all in, they did eventually try arguing their point in good faith and continuing to stand by it, and tried to be empathetic with "I understand your frustration, I remember being 13 on the internet too and feeling like the stupid age gates were stupid age gates, but... I don't think it's appropriate for y'all to be interacting with bad actors posting death and rape threats” To which lemon retorted with something along the lines of "okay cool, still ageist," and. unironically hitting our partner system with a /neg tonetag.
A lot of other users were backing lemon in this fight out of nowhere as well, and going "Yeah, 13 year olds like you who are actively expressing this shit is harming them SHOULD still be allowed to interact with it! Yeah, psys IS being really rude and unprofessional and manipulative about it!” at which point psys' fronter at the time went "alright. the rest of the sys is probably going to be upset at me for this, but this is such a lost cause and they'll get it." and slapped that big fat "server leave" button. ”
“ Alright, one more story and I think I'm done for now. I don't want to go too in depth about this because A) I haven't. actually talked to the ex-mod affected by this, and B) I just kind of only know the general story beats anyway, but.
Back in 2021, there was a moderator and longtime community member, Abyssal Void, who got outed as being in a predatory adult-minor relationship. One of the other moderators had receipts *from the victim* that this was going on, and it's. Pretty hard to argue with a screenshot that says "don't tell anyone until you're an adult.” Reasonably, receipt-holding mod banned Abyssal on the goddamn spot.
The *entire* rest of staff jumps on receipt-holding mod for this, arguing that receipts mod shouldn't have acted without a discussion or a vote. Receipts mod very explicitly said at one point, "do y'all really want to have a multi-week discussion about an adult and a minor fucking before we do something about this" and *at least three mods said yes, unironically.*
receipts mod was also *denied the opportunity to share the receipts they gathered,* and bari even told receipts mod "hey, you should take a break. For a year. Because you're clearly not fit for mod duty right now” at which point receipts mod said "uh, no actually, i quit" and left server.
If I recall correctly this incident is actually what lead to nest getting *kicked off of plural hubs* back when that space was big and relevant to our community, because it was *so clear* this was a wild mishandling of a very active and dangerous situation. ”
All in all- as you can see, plural nest is a place to be avoided. The constant misconduct and mishandling of situations from staff- all that which has been mentioned in our other posts- and ESPECIALLY the final situation mentioned within this very post, regarding the groomer situation. Which I hope you are all aware- is very much potential lawsuit material, and definitely not some petty internet drama.
IMG ID: [An embed-message from HubBot. It lists Plural Nest as delisted from Plural Hub. The Delist Reasoning reads as follows:
"Due to consistent and recent reports of an unsafe environment, Plural Nest has been delisted, said staff even going so far as to reprimand a staff member for banning a groomer with proper evidence without referring to staff members, and (CW: CSA) asking for farther, more explicit evidence [of] sexual content with the minor, including the minor's identity."] - END ID
Heya! I don't exactly have evidence of this, but unless the PN mods have since tried to cover it up, we were in there for a while and witnessed a particularly upsetting and vitriolic conversation about dehumanizing abusers [with various people explaining how wrong that is, for obvious reasons notwithstanding that dehumanization of ANYone is wrong and helps perpetuate the cycle of violence that exists in our society to date, and all people have lives too, even the ones who have caused harm to others] -
Anyway, yeah. Some people spoke up against dehumanization and were met with... largely hostile responses. The mods did shut it down eventually and while I do remember a statement admonishing the clash being made, I failed to see any other actions towards participating users unless that took place behind the scenes, and the amount of time it took for the shutdown in the first place illustrates pure negligence on staff's part.
If anyone reading this is in PN, backread and keyword search around summer last year, you should find it. Please feel free to let us know if our information is inaccurate [ i know we're on anon but whatever, we'll work it out.]
The plural nest community, while with a few sparing redeeming qualities [not dehumanizing all members of that community!], has been toxic for a long time. ~3/10, do not recommend.
We vaguely remember a discussion taking place, but we were not directly involved in it. We only caught bits and pieces of the conversation.
However, given the server's history, we are not surprised by the situation in the slightest.
It is clear that the moderators did not adequately address the situation, which is disappointing but not unexpected.
Thank you for this ask and putting this out there. as this is absolutely something important to be known. And on a more personal note, we are genuinely sorry you had such an upsetting and disheartening experience within that server. It is unequivocally something we can sympathize with.
Hiya! This blog seems cool, I've been wanting to talk about that server for AAAGESSSSS!
We've had some really not great experiences with that place-- the mods were never there except for one or two 😔
We left after a couple of months of so, we could barely get a word in the general chats!
The mods were a little weird about our anxieties too- they were always kinda weird and condescending about them...
-🌹
We feel for your experiences, as it certainly reflects a lot of what we have seen or personally dealt with there. The staff hardly being active is an issue we have seen a few people bring up even before creating this blog.
And the condescension is definitely something I have both experienced, and observed from the PN mods first hand. Very unfortunate you had to deal with that- especially in regards to something as serious as your anxieties.
This is not syscourse, nor is it a parody of analysis of anti-endos, but this must be said.
Plural Nest is genuinely dangerous, as are its owner and moderators. There are many reasons why, from their belittling of members' vents/issues to unfair behavior against those with Cluster B Personality Disorders, but one example shines above them all.
During our time in that server, the mods often recommended a book by Bessel Van Der Kolk, a renowned psychiatrist from the Netherlands. You'll likely recognize its name, "The Body Keeps the Score", as many people uphold it as an amazing study of trauma and dissociative disorders, DID included.
Plural Nest's moderation team, QR (the owner) especially, frequently recommended this book, as stated themselves here:
For context, this is part of an explanation for certain opinions they hold on syscourse.
However, one will soon find, when researching this book on Google (and not limiting oneself to positive reviews), that this book is little more than stories of medical malpractice, written by someone who was key in enacting these tragedies.
Of course, one could argue that reviews never tell the entire story of a book. And while that's certainly true, the fact that 7 reviews say nearly identical things about the terrible contents of the book is no coincidence.
The book sympathizes with war criminals, as shown in this review by Reddit user @/TheLunarmartian:
As well as this Goodreads review by J.S. Lee:
And these reviews are from Chapter 1 alone.
There is much more I could say, but the fact that Plural Nest's moderators actively and heavily promote such a dangerous book to their users-- many of which are minors-- is concerning to the point of disgust.
Do not join their server if you've been considering it, and consider leaving if you're already there. This is only one example of Plural Nest's moderators' concerning behavior.
