#mentioned grooming

[corpseybun]

I like to think that even when William and Michael pretend to be normal-ish, try and pretend their relationship isn't absolutely vile, there's always a feeling of unease. They both feel how unbearable things can get when it's quiet, their mind running wild as they process what they're doing, realizing how absolutely depraved they both are.

It tends to creep into Michael's brain far faster than it does for William. Michael knows this isn't how everything was supposed to go. He knows damn well he was supposed to help the ghosts of his friends and family move on, and then die himself. But that didn't happen, and now him and his father are stuck together.

Michael's fears and anxiety get to him. He can't stop blaming himself. He was groomed his entire life, and he refuses to acknowledge that is what truly messed him up.

He hates himself for initiating the relationship again after decades of not seeing his father, after decades of thinking he'd gotten better. He hates himself for betraying any trust Cassidy had in him when she left William at his door before finally moving on, hell I'd even say he despises himself even more because he knowingly took advantage of a touch-starved traumatized fresh-out-of-hell William just so he could live out his fantasies of being fucked by him just one more time.

William told himself he'd run away after the first time they had sex, told himself he'd have one quick fuck and then ditch Michael so he could go live his new life to the fullest, but he couldn't help himself. The feeling of having his favorite fucktoy back was far too addicting.

It doesn't matter that he doesn't top anymore. It doesn't matter that he's putting aside his pride every time they get in bed. He knows he's won. He permanently ruined Michael to an extent he didn't even realize, and he relishes in that fact.

This wasn't supposed to happen, and they both know it.

[a-heart-of-kyber]

*slaps table*

Listen!

There is something super sweet and healing and hopeful about Gale, "I was groomed and still don't realize it and had 'sex' with the Goddess of Magic via mental/spiritual/astral projection regularly. Also, I'm kind of addicted to magic." Deciding to approach you first to flirt with "You being all sweaty after battle is so fucking hot."

Because it's Real. It's physical. Yeah, it's horny, but it's the realization that the mortal realm can be equal to the godly one, if not superior, despite it being different. Like, he's not Losing something by not being with a God and he can heal.

[hinamie]

binding vow

[kiwisandpearls]

“This fiction could be used to groom minors!”

I hate to break this to you but literally any type of fiction can be used to groom minors. Even “unproblematic” fiction.

[porcelaintoybox23]

One of the darkest aspects of atsv is how Gwen was groomed. When Jess and Miguel took her in, I got "vibes," so to speak. The trailers obviously didn't help, but those painted Miguel in a bad light, unlike Jess.

Gwen, a 15-16 year old, goes with these two in the heat of a tense moment. I don't think anyone had ill intentions, but that doesn't negate the results.

I was shocked when we learned that Gwen hadn't gone home in months. Jess and Miguel become her whole world and take on the roles of her parental figures. In this time, she has become emotionally dependent on them and their approval. Gwen is scared to disappoint them. She's threatened with being returned to her dimension with no support, a place where last anyone saw, her father was trying to arrest her for murder.

Jess uses Gwen's admiration and dependence to manipulate her. She knows Gwen fears letting her down. She goes from being smiley and supportive to blunt and cold.

Gwen is scared. Whether they intended to or not, Miguel and Jess essentially groomed and emotionally abused her. The second she justifiably makes a mistake or just acts like a normal teen who lacks interpersonal relationships, they send her home.

At any point did they try to help Gwen reconcile with her dad? What did they tell her so she'd be fine with her father dying?

I know the dictionary definition is more of a nsfw nature, but I do believe it can occur in just a manipulative manner. They took in a vulnerable child, manipulated her, and threw her out.

Her whole arc reads like a kid disowned for coming out.

Note: I'm a black woman. It's not my job to make you guys feel comfortable with a clearly uncomfortable topic. Complain to the studio who wrote the film. I no longer argue with people who assume the worst of my posts or misinterpret what I painstakingly try to clarify. I don't care. It's my post, and I shall delete and block whoever I want. I'm not the government.

Like it or not, Jess and Miguel, grown adults, take a child with them. They are responsible for her. That is how that works. POC aren't free from criticism. POC can be evil to white women. This is a fictional movie, bitch to the studio who made them the obvious bad guys.

Thank you 😊

[ghxst-system]

"The future is plural" movement from endos is CONCERNING

regardless of the fact they do not believe you require trauma to be a system (medically impossible) this proves they want to groom kids into identifying as endo and spread their medical misinformation further.

as well as causing real systems to believe they dont have it bad enough to be "traumagenic" (the only "genic you can be. this language is bullshit im just using these terms to explain their shit), preventing them from getting real help. they are WIDELY anti-recovery.

their misinformation has ALREADY endangered real systems medically as they have made professionals skeptical of a medically proven disorder, a disorder that is already very stigmatised.

outside of just endogenic misinformation, this statement leads to the idea that they want to traumatise kids to make more systems.

ENDOS ARE FUCKING DANGEROUS

[catboymoments]

Hunter “casually mentions fucked up things that happened in the Emperors Coven as silly anecdotes” Owl House would absolutely cope with humor postcanon don’t try and change my mind

“LUZ IT’S FUNNY. THE JOKE WAS FUNNY. ADMIT IT.”

“I’m leaving you here. GOODBYE.”

“YOU’RE SMILING!”

“I AM AND I HATE IT!!”

[lichenbug]

they drink together often

[afterthelambs]

I'm not sure if I believe the "Wakaba Isshiki did unethical experiments" theory in the fandom, but I do think this is the biggest proof of it in-game:

Because how the hell would she know that?

The first explanation is that she did experiments by sending people into palaces and then testing what happens to them if the palace collapses. Which is messed up for obvious reasons.

The second explanation is that she did NOT test it, meaning she was just making shit up. Which is funny but also would make her a terrible scientist. This explanation is less believable because everything else about her research is too accurate.

There's also a theory that Wakaba did unethical experiments on Akechi specifically. I'm not sure I believe that, since the evidence for it is pretty shallow (like the featherman game scientist experimenting on grey pigeon). But this scene is once again the biggest argument you could make for that theory. The researcher in the image above refers to palaces by their correct term 'palaces', which they say was based on Wakaba's research. But that's only something you would know with firsthand experience of the metaverse. And the only person they know who could access the metaverse was Akechi (that we know of, but i dont think Shido would rely only on Akechi if there were other options).

So yeah this scene is very sus. It's most likely the writers didn't think too deep about the implications. There's no way they wanted Futaba's mom to be sketchy, right? But even if it's not intentional, the scenes and their implications still exist. So in conclusion those theories make sense, I get it, and I don't blame anyone for headcanoning them and having fun. And tbh anyone involved with cognitive psience was portrayed as some degree of unethical (maruki for example), maybe this is just on-brand

[the-final-sif]

Dream's Response Summary

Dream posted a response to various accusations, covering just about everything ever because he was done with this shit. I've done my best to summarize it here, but I recommend going and watching his whole video. This is going to be extremely summarized for readability and I'm only going to cover stuff I consider serious so anything about speedrunning is getting skipped.

The tl:dr is: Dream never groomed anyone or had inappropriate contact with anyone underage, he provided proof that one accuser flat out lied, and the other ""accusation"" was from a third party who was never involved. The actual supposed victim released a statement that they were never groomed, nor a victim in any way, never was asked about someone sharing information about them, and wants everyone to shut the fuck up.

Police were never actually contacted, both twitter accounts were lying about doing so to make their claims seem real. Also the supposed snapchat video shown is a very obvious fake.

He covers Manatreed, the run down is the guy was a childhood best friend he grew up with and who was struggling with homelessness. Dream helped him, and never knew about the battery charge (Manatreed had lied to him about it). When Dream spoke to Manatreed's ex girlfriend, she was very clear she never wanted any of this publicly out there, that she was happy that Dream had been helping Manatreed and she wanted the best for him.

Dream still doesn't know exactly what happened with that situation, he has since lost contract with Manatreed, all he knows is he was trying to help a childhood friend and got lied to.

The first allegation from Oxy/Anastasia, he's extremely clear they only ever messaged in twitter dms and he disproves the claim about the texts/tik tok. He has a google voice number hooked up to his tik tok account for obvious reasons, and she was showing imessage texts. This is not possible, which means she was lying.

As part of this, Dream scrolls through his twitter dms and shows he responds to fans all the time and talks to people in his community from all over. He also shows how he's friends with and has hired people that were fans of his, including people like Foolish.

He discusses Amanda, the two of them messaged on instagram back when he was a much smaller creator. He showed/posted the transcript of the two of them talking about normal stuff. They had been messaging since 2020. He did attempt to post a complete transcript of those messages, but she had deleted some of her messages and he doesn't have a way to recover them.

Dream explains that Instagram has a "feature" where if you ever reply to someone, then you literally cannot remove their ability to message you without blocking them. Something I did not know about instagram and which is fucking wild.

Since he replied to her in 2020, that meant she could message him forever and her notifications would be constantly showing up for him. He attempted to delete her messages/her ability to message him back in 2021 and showed proof of this, but realized he couldn't. Dream also in doing so accidentally deleted the context to her messages that she was a fan and basically everything prior to 2021.

Since he didn't remember her (what with the prior messages deleted), she was dmnig him from her personal account without fan content on it and was talking about being a streamer, he assumed she was a smaller streamer he knew and was talking to her as such.

They were talking about music so he gave her his personal snapchat to talk and because he wanted to get some feedback on a new song he was working on. He wanted to send the song via snapchat so he could be reasonably sure it'd stay private.

Dream categorically denies any sexting with Amanda or sexual messaging at all, he goes through why she most likely did this (he had been ignoring her messages and made a new snapchat with only close friends). He also downloaded his own data (something Amanda refused to/failed to do), went through the snapchat logs and did see some messages, but never saw either of his supposed compliments to her.

Amanda claimed Dream deleted her dms and that's why she couldn't provide any of the evidence she claimed she had, but Dream showed those same DMs very clearly undeleted. The dms were never deleted and she lied as an excuse.

Amanda lied about going to the police. Dream had his lawyers file a bunch of requests, and track down the police station that she went to based on the photo. They filed every request possible for any information with this police station, and there was no record of Amanda visiting the station or any records relating to Dream whatsoever. So either she lied about filing anything, or she told a story such that the police filed literally no paperwork whatsoever about the situation. Not even a report.

Dream sent the police station a copy of his own drivers license and Amanda's information so they could contact him if anything did come up, and nothing ever did. Nothing was filed, nobody cared.

Dream got swatted several times as a result of online harassment, including his family, and the harassment was overwhelming and awful for him.

He addresses the gumball situation, he showed up to a birthday party for a friend, gumball's VA was there and kept getting aggressive with him. While on facetime with some friends, Cantu ended up hitting Dream to impress them. Dream was obviously put off by this, but at the end of the night people ended up ubering together and Dream ended up in an uber with Cantu. He thought it'd be fine since other people were involved.

Cantu dropped his phone out the window made the uber driver pull over to look for it and got in trouble with the police. The uber driver tried to talk to Cantu about handling the police in the future, and Cantu started calling the uber driver slurs and claiming the uber driver had "down syndrome".

Dream got involved, trying to defend the uber driver, and Cantu threatened to kill him and called him slurs. Later Cantu apologized and Dream wanted to forgive him. Only later, Cantu started spreading lies about him and calling him a pedophile, so Dream realized the apology wasn't sincere and called him out for his behavior.

The third party who had been filming all of this saw what Cantu was doing lying about Dream and trying to claim none of this happened. They reached out to Dream and gave him the actual video as proof of what happened. Cantu tried to threaten them out of sending Dream the video of what happened, but they ignored him and sent them anyways. Dream also had the uber driver in his video backing up what he said.

Finally, the Jamie Allegations

Jamie is a mutual friend of several people that Dream knew, she did not post the allegations, she was never contacted about any of this she made an explicit statement that she was never groomed or a victim in any way.

Dream and Jamie meet prior to Dream being a youtuber on bbh's minecraft server, they were both fans of Skeppy. Which is why Jamie was followed by Dream, Skeppy, Vurb and some other youtubers in their friend group.

Jamie is still active online and put out her own statement, the person in the screenshots never gave permission for any of this to be put out, and they are very clear that the messages were taken out of context and that the claims made are false. The person in the screens is clear Dream is not a groomer, they never accused him of that, and that the twitter account is lying.

The snapchat video shown is very obviously fake, because snapchat just magically opens itself, there's no finger or button use interacting with the screen.

The burner account never actually contacted the police, Dream records him calling to the department they claimed to contact, and the person answering is very clear they have no contact from this person.

The supposed recent document posted is a fake convo of someone using a fake twitter account to talk to "Jamie", Jamie did not talk to them and it's just fake.

All of this was incredibly damaging for Jamie, who had no idea what was going on, and was getting harassed/stalked/having her irls contact.

Dream has also faced waves of harassment over obviously fake allegations, people have just been taking them at face value. He also shows how easy it is to fake these things as I have done.

He's been swatted, harassed, his family has been swatted and harassed, he's been scared for his own safety several times. It's been awful for him, and all based on fake shit. He's not stepping back from minecraft, but he is stepping back from twitter and no longer engaging with people behaving this way.

Also his ping pong record was undefeated.

[messiahzzz]

i have been thinking a lot about mystra’s relationship with gale, how reducing her to “his ex” really is an understatement. she was and still is so much more than that. moreover, using the term “ex-girlfriend” in relation to her plainly feels wrong and diminishes the influence she has over him, as well as the role she played in his life since his childhood (and it also trivializes the abuse he suffered through her).

there are several instances where gale gets defensive when his companions mention or ask him abt mystra. he claims that their relationship was no less real even though most of their interactions were incorporeal.

we have already established that gale is an unreliable narrator in this particular case, still not having fully come to terms with the fact that he was groomed, manipulated and abused. he ping-pongs between bouts of realization (even in his romance), gaining clarity that he was merely used and eventually discarded and that mystra never truly cared for him, back to making light of his situation, idealizing her once again. realizing the extent of his trauma, that he is indeed a victim in this scenario, unlearning what he has been made to believe from a young age is a slow and painful journey. he is in the process of healing, but it takes time. time he deserves just like anyone else.

which makes me wonder what their relationship really looked like, once the lines between teacher, muse, and lover began to blur. i also feel like one of the reasons why part of the fandom still struggles to identify mystra as his abuser, is because she is a white woman who initially presents herself in a soft-spoken, benevolent manner… and well, the fact that gale himself is ambitious to a fault and a lil insane about the promise of power. he also briefly mentions "crossing mystra’s boundaries” when he confides in tav and tells them about his folly. (“i am, after all, the villain in this story.”) which led to a looooot of misinterpretations.

leaving the overall lore and mystra’s treatment of her other chosen aside — what we can discern from her interactions with gale in-game, is that mystra is civil as long as she remains in control and gale follows her demands, but as soon as there’s even a slight mention of challenging her power or defying her rule, she rather quickly changes her tone.

there is also one particular exchange between them that just won’t leave my head:

“you were many things to me, but never a threat. and never a savior."

even if we choose to blatantly ignore the fact that mystra is a deity, his goddess - there is no possible way that their relationship ever could have been equal by any mortal standards. the power imbalance that comes with her being his teacher and a symbol of his admiration, plus the sheer control she holds over him and his powers are simply too great. don’t even let me get started on how it is a common tactic of abusers to isolate their victims from any outside influences so they can exert full control over them. and how up to meeting tav and their merry band of misfits, every single soul he was close to was inevitably tied to mystra in one way or another. he briefly mentions his colleagues and then there’s elminster, also mystra’s chosen and former lover, and tara, who is a fine wizard in her own right. he spend so many years in service of her, dedicating his life to her, that now there is no one left he can truly call a friend. most of his little anecdotes and stories he tells are restricted to his childhood and university days, everything else was mystra.

evidently, ordering gale to detonate the orb is the most efficient course of action in her eyes. he is just as expendable as any other mortal, after all. maybe once significantly more useful given his status and the extent of his powers, but she doesn’t feel sorrow nor remorse for ordering him to end his life. his death is simply the most convenient means to an end.

another thing i would also like to briefly touch upon is the trigger/detonator itself. a dagger to the heart. it could have been literally anything else, a simple incantation. it is well within mystra’s power to stabilize the orb and also to remove it from his body entirely. but no, what she requires of gale is to stab himself. one might argue that it was simply a cinematic choice meant for a more dramatic effect, but it really leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. especially considering the fact that she is commonly known and referred to as a jealous goddess. it almost makes it seem like yet another form of punishment or mere pettiness. after his long period of isolation, gale is now surrounded by fellow humans. people he cares about, even perhaps people he might eventually consider good friends — which is enough of a reason for him to not want to die, to keep going and try to find another way, rather than to blindly follow mystra’s bidding. now there’s a group of people who support him and are genuinely invested in him staying alive. hmmm...

[shentheauthor]

PSA for kids on the internet:

I know a lot of y’all look at nsfw content. It’s not good to be in those spaces (because you’re intruding on adult spaces made for adults, by adults, and it’s uncomfortable), but that’s just how kids are sometimes (source: I did that as a kid). It’s inevitable.

The thing is, you should NOT be talking to adults about it. If you break the clear 18+ boundaries people set, that’s YOUR business, and you should NEVER be comfortable discussing sexual topics with adults. I’m being so serious.

It’s never, ever your fault if you’re groomed. The thing is, gross adults will take advantage of you if you make it clear that you are a minor exploring nsfw topics. They see that, and they think you’re an easy target.

As for adults who are uncomfortable with kids seeing their nsfw work, the best we can do is block ageless accounts and minors who announce that they are minors. That’s not enough. You need to keep yourself safe as much as we need to keep you safe.

I care about this stuff a lot. I narrowly dodged a lot of horrible experiences, and it still took me years to deconstruct the harmful things I started internalizing because I was unrestricted on the internet. I got lucky. I can’t say the same for a lot of other people.

Statistically, you will not get lucky if you are a child on the internet. Stay safe.

Also, grooming isn’t strictly for pedophiles. Grooming is when people foster an environment where a vulnerable party (ie children) gets comfortable with an inappropriate relationship. The exploitation doesn’t have to be sexual. It can be an ego thing, or for money, or any number of things. It’s hard to accept that the person you care about is a groomer, and it’s even harder when people fundamentally misunderstand the definition of grooming.

A child can groom another child. An adult can groom another adult. It’s about exploitation, not necessarily age.

Stay safe out there, guys. They don’t teach internet safety like they used to.

[garfieldstar]

when it comes to people discussing characters within warrior cats who've been affected by the sexism of the Erin's it always kind of perplexes me that people don't really discuss spottedleaf on the same level as other characters like squirrelflight or frecklewish. I know shes a background character with no plot relevance and dies within the 13 chapters of the first book of the series, but I still find it really hard to believe that a good chunk of the fandom still believes that spottedleaf's feelings towards firepaw were always meant to be romantic and not just a side recon to make fans of the series who shipped fire x spotted happy and also because they quite literally had nothing else to do with her character because shes a female background character who served no purpose to the plot so they could write anything they want about her and write it off as canon because they couldn't bother to write an actually personality for her besides "hot doctor woman who firepaw had a crush on". and the fact she got a side book about her being groomed by a man who's been pursuing her since she was a KIT, and yet people still swear up and down that shes a pedophile due to a half ass recon about a man she had no relationship with when she was alive just rubs me the wrong way

[shizukateal]

I understand the buzz over the new chainsaw man chapter because yeah, it is a big moment, development, deliberately meant to be shocking, etc. But if your reaction is like, genuine upset or disgust, or to be more precise the idea that Fujimoto "shouldn't have gone there" or that he crossed some line or whatever... like, you lost me. What about showing jizz onscreen of all things is any more unfiltered than the rest of the story? Wasn't it obvious from day 1 that something like this was going to happen eventually???? When has Fujimoto ever shied away from the fact that sex is kinda gross and visceral? What about this handjob is any worse than the myriad of times Denji and other characters were being groomed????? Btw I'm asexual.

[sc0moftheanimatiomindustry]

I am so immensely tired that people are STILL blaming Ang, one of Kyle's victims, and call her "just as bad" for coping with Invader Zim nsfw she kept on a PRIVATE account

now youtuber "saberspark" talked about the situation in an hour long video and did exactly that, he said "both of them are bad"

Kyle is a pedophile who was arrested for owning 600 child sexual abuse images. You CANT compare that to someone lewding Invader Zim characters, they don't exist!

But hey, apparently both Kyle and Saberspark were totally cool with posting this, yet Ang is the one who isn't a real victim and has to hide

He also defended an adult waiting to reciprocate a minor's crush until the minor "was at least 20"

[she-is-ovarit]

The man several years older than you who calls you "more mature than your own age" is grooming you. The man who says you are "special" or "unique" is grooming you. The man who calls you an "old soul" is grooming you.

These are grooming phrases.

The man several years older than you who keeps circling back to "Gosh, I can't believe you're real! But are you sure you want this? I'm so much older than you!" when you're cuddling or making out is grooming you. He is asking you that question during intimate moments as a way to unconsciously manipulate you into denial and perhaps get you to reassure whatever guilt he has, if he has any. Asking this while showering you with affection is an attempt to bait and coerce you into saying yes. Whether done unconsciously or consciously, he is fulfilling an emotional need you have for love or protection while at the same time getting you to say out loud to yourself and to him that you want this in order to work your brain into ignoring any bad gut feeling or doubt you have, then or in the future.

That is grooming behavior.

I understand that you might not want this to be true, and that you feel pulled to him. I understand it might feel more parental or brotherly than it does sexual or romantic. But this is how grooming works in many, many cases. The attachment or relationship fulfills a psychological need or wound you had from a parent or a sibling. His behaviors might very well be fatherly or brotherly, and then over time those little interactions blur into something else that you can't quite make sense of but that you like.

That magnetic, psychological pull you feel is not a sign of healthy attachment or a healthy relationship. You can be groomed as a child, you can be groomed as a teen, you can be groomed as a 20 year old.

And, yes, this goes for lesbians, bisexuals, gay men too. I speak with heterosexual situations in mind because there is a depressing, astounding pattern of heterosexual men grooming women and girls younger than them. But I have encountered plenty of gay men and lesbians in horrible codependent relationships that they feel simultaneously both trapped in and glued to.