Official Statement Regarding Neoneko and My Future Plans

Disclaimer

Before I begin, I want to clarify that this statement is not intended to name specific individuals or "call out" anyone. Despite experiencing harassment, threats, and betrayal from certain individuals, I'm not interested in perpetuating drama. This statement is about my personal journey, my future, and the future of Neoneko.

I won't be providing "evidence" or "receipts", those who are genuinely concerned could find some of the information if they need to, but i suggest you don't. For those who have crossed legal boundaries, appropriate legal actions have been taken where needed through proper channels. I have no intention of discussing these matters publicly as my goal is to move forward with my life.

A note on language: This statement contains strong language that some may find offensive. If you're easily offended, perhaps this isn't for you. The internet can be a harsh place, but threatening someone over words is never acceptable. Let's all remember there's a real person behind every screen.

Legal Actions

Sadly, some situations have deteriorated to the point where I've had to take legal action against certain individuals, as mentioned in the disclaimer. For those who have crossed legal boundaries, appropriate actions have been taken through the proper channels. This is all I can disclose without potentially compromising ongoing legal matters.

This entire statement has been reviewed by my legal representation to ensure I'm not revealing too much information. However, I wanted to share as much as possible so people understand my current circumstances.

As stated in the disclaimer, this will be my only and final statement on these matters. Some issues discussed here involve truly disturbing situations that have significantly impacted my life.

The Current State of Neoneko

As many of you know, I currently serve as the Project Lead and primary developer for both the Cats Blender Plugin Unofficial and Avatar Toolkit. I work alongside 989onan, whose exceptional contributions to Avatar Toolkit have been invaluable. I want to express my sincere gratitude to 989 and apologize that I'll be gradually reducing my involvement with Neoneko projects.

For the past year and a half, I've dedicated countless hours to maintaining Cats Blender Plugin and developing Avatar Toolkit. Some days involved 8+ hours of fixing issues, implementing new features, and even completely rebuilding Avatar Toolkit's backend twice because I wasn't satisfied with my initial approach. Unfortunately, investing so much time without adequate return inevitably leads to burnout. When you add harassment, threats, and drama to that equation, it takes a significant toll on one's mental health.

Appreciation and Frustration

My greatest disappointment has been the general lack of appreciation for our work. I want to be clear: there are some wonderful individuals who have shown genuine support, offered help, answered community questions, made donations, and provided emotional support when I needed it. To those people: THANK YOU! You've been the reason I've continued this journey for as long as I have.

However, to everyone else: please don't take free resources for granted. Don't harass developers because a bug wasn't fixed quickly enough. Don't become angry when we ask you to read documentation before asking questions. We're providing these tools without compensation, dedicating significant personal time to their development. We have lives outside these projects and bills to pay. The world doesn't operate on free labor. I ask that you consider showing gratitude to those who develop the tools you rely on, rather than responding with entitlement or hostility.

On Harassment, Burnout, and Why I'm Stepping Back

I've mentioned harassment and threats and I want to be clear: I'm no stranger to difficult interactions. One of my previous job involved handling customer complaints where I received threats daily. I've always maintained strong boundaries between my offline and online life, rarely sharing identifying information beyond my first name. I've taken pride in keeping my real life separate from my online presence.

But everything changed on January 21st, 2025.

One of those threats became real. Law enforcement had to get involved after I discovered I was being stalked. At the time I didn't know exactly how this person found my address, but they did. Following their arrest, I took immediate steps to remove as much personal information about myself from the internet as possible. While you can never completely erase your digital footprint, I did everything within my power.

Later, I discovered the source of my address leak.

It came from someone I considered a friend. The betrayal was devastating. Their justification? Quote: "You stole Cats Blender Plugin and talked shit about the original developers." yea, don't beleive me, i fucking didn't as well, like this person doxed me because i had criticism of the original developers and because i was maintaining Cats, basically made no sense? Ironically, this same person actively uses Cats Unofficial.

Let me be absolutely clear: I didn't "steal" anything, I continued development on an abandoned plugin. Yes, I've been critical of the original developers who were still collecting money through Patreon despite no longer contributing to the project. I stand firmly by that criticism. I didn't steal the project; I kept it alive for the community and this is how I get repaid.

I have also received several threats over the last year and a half. This stems from my comments about the original Cats Developers and escalated when I took down the original Cats Patreon after hours of trying to get Patreon to act. The original Cats Patreon was taking money from users who did not know the plugin was abandoned.

Another wave of threats occurred when I started Rina's Blender Tools, which was meant to be a replacement for Cats. This is the primary reason I stopped that plugin, I was being harassed and threatened from numerous burner accounts.

From this point forward, everything has entered legal channels, so I cannot elaborate further. However, the harassment didn't stop there. I was forced to relocate and change my phone number due to intimidating calls and messages.

This will be the first and last time I speak publicly about this situation. I won't be commenting further, my focus is on moving forward.

Why I Stopped Creating VRChat NSFW Content

These experiences, combined with other issues I've mentioned, led to complete burnout. This is also why I stopped creating VRChat NSFW content.

To be frank: parts of the NSFW community can be incredibly toxic. Not everyone, of course there are wonderful, supportive people. But there's a vocal majority (Yes, in this space sadly it is a majority) that makes it nearly impossible to navigate that space peacefully. The moment I expressed interest in creating NSFW content, the harassment cycle began again with the same patterns.

My entry into the NSFW space technically began about a year ago while working for a cybersecurity firm (which unfortunately later closed down). Part of my role involved testing websites for vulnerabilities and security issues. During this work, I encountered a site called LewdTubers, a platform showcasing NSFW VRChat content creators. I appreciated the concept and decided to test it in good faith.

What I discovered was concerning:

• Passwords were being transmitted and stored in plain text, a major security vulnerability
• The password reset system sent new passwords directly in plain text rather than using a secure token based reset flow
• The site used Patreon for funding, which violated Patreon's terms of service at that time due to hosting NSFW content on a third-party platform
• Most alarmingly, there was no age verification system for models featured on the site, a potentially serious legal issue.

There was a lot more, but I'll spare you the details. I documented these findings thoroughly and shared them publicly in a detailed report.

To be fair, the main creators of the site didn't directly threaten me. One did publicly criticize me in a Discord server, but it didn't escalate beyond that. However, some of their supporters absolutely did harass and threaten me once I began creating in the NSFW space myself.

This experience shattered whatever motivation I had left.

The combination of the stalking incident, threats, betrayal from someone I trusted, persistent harassment, and general burnout has led me to resent something I once loved, VRChat and the creator community that previously inspired me.

I'm no longer willing to sacrifice my mental health. I hope this helps explain why I'm stepping back not just from these projects, but from VRChat and the content creation scene for it, both SFW and NSFW.

My Future with VR and VR Social Games

Due to everything that has happened, the harassment, threats, and complete burnout, I've made the difficult decision to hang up my VR headset for the foreseeable future.

I once loved VRChat and its community deeply. I was there even before the Ugandan Knuckles meme took over. With over 30,000 hours in the game (yes, I know that's a lot), I have countless memories of meeting new people, playing in the original Murder world, hanging out at The Great Pug, and enjoying shows at the original stage world whose name escapes me now. I remember when SDK2 was just amazing for content creation, and I was there when the client wasn't even on Steam yet. I've witnessed the evolution of the platform and met some truly amazing people along the way.

But all good things must come to an end. My experience with VRChat over the last two or three years has been hiding away in friends+ worlds because venturing into public instances meant facing harassment, racial slurs every few seconds, or screaming children who clearly shouldn't be on the platform but whose parents bought them a Quest. Oh, the original Quest...

Then there were the "friends" who would support you to your face but talk behind your back. And the people who told you about those friends talking behind your back? They were often doing the same thing. I can't count how many times I've quietly entered a world only to find supposed friends speaking poorly of me. It happened far too often.

And let's not forget those who spend every waking hour in VRChat, who have no life outside the virtual world and believe they're the most important people in existence. I used to be one of them, until I touched grass... Yes, the outside world can be intimidating, but for your own well-being, please get some fresh air occasionally. Trust me, you'll feel better.

So with all this in mind, along with everything else I've shared, it's no surprise that my final decision is to step away from this toxic environment.

You might ask, "Why not try ChilloutVR or Resonite instead?" Well, to be honest, I prefer Unity's workflow, so Resonite isn't really my cup of tea. I tried it but couldn't get into it. As for ChilloutVR, while they've made significant improvements recently and added necessary features, I've had negative experiences with not only parts of the community but also some of the developers. Don't misunderstand, there are good people there too, but I'm not prepared to risk more harassment.

The Future of Neoneko

I've made the difficult decision to step back from my role at Neoneko. This transition won't happen immediately but will occur gradually over the coming months. I'm looking for someone willing to take over as Project Lead and assume primary responsibility for the organization. This would involve transferring domains, website assets, GitHub repositories, and other resources to the new lead, while I shift to an advisory role. I won't disappear completely, I still want to contribute when I can and help improve our projects.

However, this transition won't begin until Avatar Toolkit reaches a more stable state. Currently, Avatar Toolkit is progressing better than anticipated. Alpha 3 is looking promising with working PMX importing and features that surpass those in Cats. I'm genuinely proud of where it stands. Despite my burnout, I'm committed to releasing Alpha 3 soon, followed by Alpha 4 to align with our plan for Blender 4.5 compatibility.

After Alpha 4, Avatar Toolkit will enter beta, focusing primarily on bug fixes and refinements. I plan for only two beta releases before Avatar Toolkit 1.0 is released, hopefully coinciding with Blender 5.0. By the time 1.0 launches, I intend to have stepped down as Project Lead. I hope someone will volunteer to take over by then, but if not, alternative arrangements will need to be made.

As for Cats Blender Plugin, once Avatar Toolkit 1.0 is released, Neoneko will maintain a version of Cats for Blender 4.5 for only 6 months to accommodate users hesitant to upgrade to Blender 5.0 immediately; after this transition period, Cats will no longer be maintained, as Avatar Toolkit will offer a superior alternative with improved speed, modern architecture, and equivalent or enhanced features across the board.

My Personal Future

As for my personal journey and future projects, I'm taking time to reassess my priorities and focus on projects that bring me joy rather than stress. One of the first is returning to content creation, but not in the VR social space.

I used to stream and did quite well in my "previous life" (before I came out as trans), and I used to make videos regularly. I loved it, it was a passion that was unfortunately extinguished by, you guessed it, VRChat. So I've decided to start again. My first stream will be happening in the next few days, so please consider following me:

I've also been exploring the idea of developing a game and have already created some prototypes, though I'm not 100% committed to this path yet. There's another project I'm working on as well, but I'm not ready to announce it just yet.

Additionally, I'll be redesigning my website to be more professional and less VRChat focused, as that's no longer my primary interest.

But the most important thing is that I need to address my mental health. As you might imagine, due to all the stress over the past year or so, my mental health has hit rock bottom. After some recent events in the UK (if you don't know, just search "transgender UK" and hundreds of news articles will appear), I found myself contemplating suicide. This is not a word I use lightly, and it was in this moment that I knew I had to make a change or risk doing something irreversible. This is why I'm making these changes now. I haven't hit this kind of low point in years, I've generally been good at maintaining my mental health, but recent events have been overwhelming. My mental health is my priority with these changes and for the people out there who think I should prioritize them over me, simply fuck you.

Lastly, thank you for reading this entire statement, There is so much more I want to say but just can't, this was a lot to get through! If you've made it to the end, congratulations. Seriously, well done.

- Rina

Return to Archive