Important! Final word on FireRat

As a note, this thread is open for discussion, in case of questions and whatnot. We want the community to voice their thoughts on this all, because it's pervaded the tenor of the community for a few months now. Having to deal with this still is exhausting for everyone, and we hope this is finally the end of it. We've learned a lot from this entire process, and we'll be having some internal talks on what we can do to improve our processes and make sure things like this don't slink around in the underbelly for so long without action.

I'll again extend an apology to those who have been hurt by this mess and the actions by FireRat and his defenders. We want this chapter to be fully closed, and grow from this. Part of that is unfortunately requiring a dredging of this issue up several times over. I speak for the staff when I say that we hope this is, finally, the end of it.

 

I befriended FireRat in 2016. I met him after I joined Team MickBae (later on known as Team Overload), as he was a fellow programmer on the project. We struck it off quickly, and we remained in touch for the next few years. He taught me how to program some things, in exchange I gave him some programming help for some projects he worked on. I later found out I never received credit for the things I helped make, which made me question his reasoning for staying in contact with me. Eventually, in 2019, I stopped talking to him as he had begun to act erratically and I was somewhat fed up with his bullshit.

When I found out about what he was doing at the beginning of the year, I broke down. I lost all motivation for my projects, and my time in the community felt invalidated. Even though I wasn't friends with him since 2019, the fact that I was in contact with him as a minor made me think of what could have happened. I tried blocking it out, keeping what happened in the back of my mind as it slowly crept up and started to harm my mental fortitude. However, the public release of his actions (Idk if this is the right way to say it) in September forced me to come to terms with reality and get over it. I think I can safely say that I've moved on from this debacle. However, I am unsure if I can fully achieve the drive I once had, or if I will continue to participate in this community. Only time will tell at this point...

 

This is going to be a controversial stance to take, but I'm going to have to disagree with the "the people who defend him are just as bad" idea.

Now obviously you can't knowingly and willingly defend such actions without basically saying you're okay with them (it's like if someone murdered an old lady and someone was like "well some people DESERVE to be murdered." Bad analogy but you get the idea) but the key word is "willingly". Clearly this person is a very manipulative individual. I wouldn't put it past him to have some sort of blackmail or control over people which is leading them to defend them or ignore their actions. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but it does happen. In fact I went through a very similar situation with a member of a community I moderate, she went by the name of Beta Angel, you've probably heard of her at this point. It wasn't to the extent of extreme things that FireRat has done, but it was a similar thing. Beta Angel basically had a complete hold over multiple people and held threats over their head if they fell out of line. Fear is a powerful thing.

I'm ranting at this point but just something to think about.

 

I haven't been keeping up with this situation very much (or the hacking scene in general) so forgive me if I'm missing some details on what exactly happened.
(((Also please keep in mind this will be in my usual scrambled writing style, I'm thinking as I write.)))

Well. That certainly explains why Firerat was banned earlier this year.
I wondered for a while what exactly happened and while it made things a bit confusing for someone like me who doesn't keep up to date on everything going on in the community, ultimately I think that yeah, waiting to post the receipts was probably a good thing. It's better than releasing scattered & incomplete evidence.

I can't give any evidence myself on Firerat's character, the furthest interaction I ever had was DMing him for MD programming advice and I let him know I was having internet issues so I'd have to ask for advice some other time. We never interacted again.
Probably the most notable thing that came from that was him saying something along the lines of "I'm a bit of a Renegade myself". My username at the time was Renegade, make of this what you will.
I think I'm pretty desensitized to violence, and I've heard every edgy joke under the sun, but the shit Firerat was saying in those screenshots genuinely sickens me to the point where I couldn't keep reading.

All being said, this post is getting very very long, so I think I'll cut it here.
If there's one last thing I can add? To Firerat and anyone like him? If you aren't going to seek serious psychological help then do the world a favour, go to Hell. The sooner the better. (Was contemplating whether I should post that last bit but I realized if people object to that statement, would I really be the one in the wrong?)

 

The shit around FireRat and his sympathizers pisses me right off. All of them need fucking help.
Not to nitpick, but was there more publicly ousted FireRat sympathizers?

 

I'm not as heavily involved in the community, but I can recall my few interactions with him in 2019 in a Discord server or two being a bit off to put it lightly. I heard something regarding this stuff a while back, but that's really all I've seen thus far.

Reading those screenshots, yeah fuck him. Those were some of the worst things I think I've ever read.

 

Just like Ruthless, I haven't been keeping up with the hacking scene these last months, but I do check on it sometimes.
But this time, I couldn't just see this thing and NOT comment about it. I can't just look at this and say "Oh, just another day in the hacking community... Back to making Sonic machinimas!", because I can't.

I'm speechless. He tells about wanting to torture any "teleiophiles (AKA Normal, decent people... Why the hell is this even a word?)" he sees in his way... So that means he basically wants to torture the entire human population ("Pedo freaks" and any kind of rapists doesn't count as humans), isn't it? Probably including his own parents and relatives as well?

I have two friends, one of them got raped by a sick fuck like him, and the other one almost had the same fate as them. And then HE comes out, saying that being a pedo is not wrong, and that WE are the "bad guys" when HE CLEARLY SUPPORTS RAPE AGAINST CHILDREN TO SATISFY HIS SICK DESIRES?
...
To be honest, I still support him about something... He should have the right to choose the way he wants to get executed. And no, no last meals for him.
I usually don't support violent behavior or suicide, but there are exceptions, y'know. I bet anyone here would kill him if granted the opportunity.


I think my rant got a bit too dark, but I HAD to spit it out this time. I wasn't actually caring about anything that was going on in the community because I was too busy working to grow my Youtube Channel, but as soon as I saw this post, and saw actual proof against him, I got disgusted. But not only disgusted, but I felt an actual blood lust against him.

Sorry for the long rant, I was boiling with anger when I wrote this.

tl;dr: After six months out bc YouTube stuff, I decide to check on SSRG like I always do, and I get absolutely enraged on FireRat when seeing actual proof against him, because why wouldn't I?

As for FireRat... If you had nothing to lose, why not use this gun to kill yourself, then? You'll be doing a favor to Earth as a whole. Plus, you'll be moving the economy because your family will have to buy a coffin, get you a place in the cemetery and stuff, and you'll be helping the working class on these cemeteries to get food on their table. It's a win-win situation! Just die.

And that's pretty much everything I had to say thank you very much and I hope there's nothing wrong with my "hee yee shitty edgy" ranting post, 'cause I might have gone a bit too far this time.

(For the staff: If there's anything wrong with my post, please tell me so I can edit it ASAP, or just take it down if needed, I'll understand. I'm also sorry for any inconveniences I might cause if any of these ends up being the case.)

PS: The .zip file is corrupted. It can be opened, but all the files inside are corrupted and cannot be opened.

 

Oh boy, that does give me the middle finger to him.

While, unexpectedly speaking to someone who works for E.K. over a silly argument (who I won't mention the name unless staff tells me to), FireRat bumped in and said this:



I have DM'ed Lazzie on Discord explaining the issue (which I won't get into full detail) and he will bring it up with the staff. To anyone asking if I replied to him. No. Obviously, the more you speak to him, the more he will find way to lure you into believing him. Take this as a warning to anyone, do not speak to EK and those who still work for him. If they say they don't work for him, they are literally making themselves feel insecure as they admit their stupid mistakes.

To FireRat and his companions, seriously, get your head out of an elephant's ass and go seek for psychological help before you mess up this community.

 

Jesus Christ, I've had a shitty night, but seeing this thread, I had to log back into this shit hole just one last time to have some fun.

I'm gonna be very blunt, FireRat doesn't have anything to blackmail anyone on. If he claims he does, he's full of crack shit. He literally is an unapologetic pedophile, and his friends are not being blackmailed to be ok with this, they are ok with it because they have their tiny brains shoved ten feet up their own assholes.

Eduardo Knuckles literally goes "FireRat being a pedo isn't the problem, it's you guys digging into his personal business."

Give me a fucking break. A fucking pedo is everyone's problem. You asshats reading this thread, and my post, I hope you remember this. You guys are the fucking worst. A pedo is a problem enough, but enabling him because your stupid tiny smooth brains think that having a sexual affinity towards children is just a personal preference, fuck you.

Also if I hear or read, "well, he doesn't want to fuck kids, he's just attracted to them, thus it's not sexual." It's still sexual, that's how attraction works you smooth brains. Jesus Christ. Romantic love doesn't somehow not involve sex, and even still, there's plenty of logs where he mentions wanting to fuck kids, so don't worry, he's still a fucking pedophile

Also lol, he thinks we went to stop him from being a game developer. Why the fuck do we care what a pedo wants to do? The only thing stopping you FireRat, because I know you'll read this thread, from being a game developer is your want to date and fuck kids.

Just in case I didn't make this clear enough.

FireRat wants to date and fuck kids.

If you don't think that's an issue, you're probably a kiddie diddler too. That's right, I fuckin said it. Fuck psych help, y'all need to get out of society, or go to fucking jail, either one works for me tbh.

But anyways, that's all I have to say. Fuck FireRat, fuck his friends, and fuck pedos.

 

Jesus fucking Christ, I'd never thought this would need to be made public, but I guess here we go :V
With that said, here's one more advice people should follow.

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, EVER, EVER TALK TO HIM

I speak from experience. Mistakes were made, and sadly, no one was around to warn me when I had made the one mistake of considering this guy a "friend". He has extensive capacity for manipulation and, as far as I can tell, no one is safe, especially especially especially underage users whom I was.

Do not go into it with curiosity. Do not go into it thinking to give him one chance. If you're young, you might severely underestimate what I'm saying.

Do not contact. Never. Ever.

Ever.

Spoiler: Details, potential trigger warning

I was fairly young when we started talking. It was around late 2016-early 2017. I was 13 back then.

Eventually he told me who he was, and how he felt about it. I'm disgusted at how I remember feeling sorry for him, talking about how oh-so-oppressed he was and how he was so unrightfully not accepted in society! ffs

What followed was something that I was later told was a form of child grooming...

In essence, he somehow made me convinced through manipulative talk that I was like him. I remember him taking random unrelated things about me, like my looks, height or social life and turning it into a "hey, that's a trait many of us share!" type of thing, as well as exploiting the fact that I was obviously underdeveloped in terms of attraction and sexuality. Thinking about this again is painful. Despite being in the middle of my post, this is the last thing I'm writing because I was holding off on it, and I feel sick to my stomach remembering these events, what was going on in my mind and in the chats.

Genuinely believing him made my emotional state completely miserable, and at one point I was consireding taking my own life, especially given I wasn't keen on talking about it and so there was no one to snap me out of it. Thanks to my real life best friend for pulling me out of that rut. I am lucky he was around, and even though he couldn't do what needed to be done as he was the same age as me, he at least was emotionally helpful.

It went on for years.

It wasn't until the beginning of 2020 till everything came public, I met a few people who also were affected and realized what really happened. What followed was a second wave of hell, and I am still not sure I'm over it, as I'm shaking as I'm writing this.

I really didn't want to make this public, but for everything that is good in this world, I hope that at least one person reads this and never repeats my mistake. I'm begging you to take this seriously. I want to save at least someone out there. Please follow my advice.

And part of the reason I climbed up from this is because FireRat had dissapeared for a while.

Not even if you're not underage. Being an adult doesn't mean you're not vulnerable to emotional manipulation. There are examples, but I won't call anyone out.

If there's nothing we can do to get this guy jailed and rid the world of his presence, at least I can do my best to warn people and to prevent what has happened to me from happening to everyone else, even if it comes at the expense of making this shit public.

A fair bit of time has passed. I'm fine now, if you're wondering. Mostly. I was lucky to have great friends who supported me when I realized what had happened. You people are the best and I love you with all my heart. I hope I can once return the favour.

tl;dr don't make the same mistake I did

 

And there it is. I was wondering why he publicly name-dropped you on Twitter with no context, and you've provided me the answer. Sorry to hear he groomed you my guy. I know it's probably not enough, but I believe you homie. The fact that he went out of his way to name drop you is crazy, but now I see why.

 

This entire situation is really fucked up. In my opinion for crimes like this FireRat should be removed from all services. I knew FireRat in the past, but I would never guess he's a pedo and sadist, who wants to torture others as a boss in future. In 2016-2019 if he had any chat with me, it was about hacking and his whining about SSRG members and staff, he never spoke to me about this shit (probably he was scared of me, because many times I've told him that I don't tolerate criminals, no matter how talented they are) There's no hope for people like him, he won't change and he will do the same in the future - SSRG did a good job banning him and warning others, because I wouldn't know it without it.

 

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

This dude's absolutely disgusting, how can he even assume that his ban was "unfair"??
To be fair, he had programmed some... Erm, nice stuff before. Too bad he couldn't hide his awful addiction (that shit would still suck if he somehow hid it, but yeah) and did what he did. Sick manipulative fuck.

I feel really sorry for all his victims and wish them all the best, I really hope they won't encounter anything like HIM afterwards. Stay strong, I'm pretty sure the community can handle FireRat's BS. He doesn't deserve to be a part of society, Sonic community included.

 

I feel sorry for those who interacted with this guy. When all this was revealed here on SSRG months ago, I couldn't believe that people were actually defending his actions. WTF is wrong with people?! I actually was thoroughly impressed with his work done in the community throughout the years, but now I can't look at his work without feeling disgusted. Likewise with EK, and anyone else who defends him. (I don't know of anyone off the top of my head though, but I'm sure if I figured out who else defended his actions I'd still be disgusted by them regardless.) Please tell me this guy got locked up and is far away from children.

 

I think I recognize that 2nd print, and I feel terrible that I didn't understand the context at the time, pretty disturbing honestly. The worst of it all is that 5/6 years ago I thought he was a nice person back when I meet in Sonic Games Dimension.

I still don't know how to react to that, honestly. I just feel so sorry for his victim. There is absolutely zero reasons to defend his acts. He should be in jail.

 

Anyone who defends a pedophile is just as much of an unforgivable sick fuck as the one they're defending. He should be locked up.