quick tip for everyone here: +frag his post first, then downfrag it so its like you're doing it twice

In high school I was sexually assaulted 3 or 4 times by the same person. I'm uncertain about the exact number because my mind has since then been trying its best to suppress the memories.

I never told anyone. I was afraid nobody would take me serious. That no action would be taken if I'd tell people. That they'd jump to the person's defense.
To this day only a few people I know online know "something" happened. I never told anyone IRL. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I mention the amount.

The thing is my lack of actions made the person get away with it. And potentially it enabled them to find more victims. Perhaps I wasn't their first victim either. It's been 8 years but I wish I could go back and prevent that from happening.

It hurts to see the same happening in this scene too. I'm sorry Console and Uberchain. I knew as well, but kept quiet because I kept telling myself I wasn't in a position to do so and it was up to Uberchain to make that decision.
Even worse is I've heard about a victim of another assault who tried coming forward to people they trusted, but was met with denial and them jumping to the defense of the accused. Something that has been my personal nightmare for almost a decade.

I believe it is wrong to spread information about this without the consent of the victim. But coming from the perspective of one, it is difficult to accept something has to be/can be done. People like us need support from others to gather the courage to combat this behavior. Please do not downplay things when someone comes forward about being a victim.

To any other victims out there I'd like to say it is important you talk to others. Taking action against the abuser is a choice I won't make for you, but you're not in this alone. And if you take action maybe you can save future victims. These types of people do not change.

I wish I could go back in time so i could've told someone.

Perhaps the apparent insensibility is why this is getting downfragged but tbh this is likely the truth. People turn blind eyes to shit all the time to "avoid drama", sometimes even going as far as covering up for them. There are different degrees of severity, but it's unquestionable that all of these are bad moves. Inaction is not a virtue, quite the contrary. People are getting abused, it's time to hold your peers to higher standards. If you don't then you're a fucking coward.

I sympathize with you entirely. We all understand that is difficult to release this information-especially to those who haven’t experienced this type of mistreatment. These experiences are uniquely painful to the recipient, and have a tendency to remain in the back of the mind.

So I am truly, truly sorry.

What I hope is that this does not deter other victims from coming forward and sharing their experiences. So I just want to ask you all, please continue to keep sharing this information. Because, I know, it does make a difference to those who are still out there experiencing these things. Because, they are not alone. If you are a victim, or know someone who has been a victim, we urge you to contact others to help you process this situation.

the thing is it's harder than that because these situations can be so different.

you can make the argument either way but frankly if you're told something in confidence then if it comes out then that's a serious breach of trust and what you're doing may later save a victim, or it may not - but you're causing direct harm to the current victim, who may be dealing with it in their own way. Outing them as a victim can be really highly damaging because when this kind of thing happens your sense of self can be really knocked, and having everyone know can be further trauma. It's not the same for everyone but taking the reigns from the victim is highly disrespectful in my opinion.

then on the flip side you have that if it's a rumour of who the aggressor was, but you don't have it from the horses mouth, that's just hearsay and the rumours can often be completely different to whats happened, especially in a case where someone may have more influence and may be spreading a completely different version. in real life I knew someone who was spiked and assaulted and a popular person spread that some guy had been seen in the room, and it was a long time before anyone discovered the reality was that it was one of the popular persons friends all along and some innocent person took the flak for years.

inaction might not be a virtue, but is it a virtue to bring something to attention and cause new kinds of damages and potentially not even help in any way? The problem is these situations are really complex and there is no one flowchart or set of rules that you can follow in order to act in the right way.

what we can all do with 100% certainty is be as supportive as we can and make sure our minds are open when someone actually does come out with this kind of thing. the rumour mill has something going on, as tob wrote about, and it's heartbreaking and gross that it's being/been brushed away due to a lack of support.

People are being abused, it's becoming an issue that warrants higher scrutiny. It's time the community takes a hard look at itself and realizes how shameful this situation is. You have pedophiles and rapists in the higher echelons of the community and if that doesn't scream problematic then maybe you need to re-evaluate your priorities. The solution is exposure, even if the victim would disagree with that. The solution is ostracization. The people doing these things are respected members who others deposit trust into. If these people were robbed from their respect then this problem would be mitigated. It is your view that is flawed, because in your efforts to respect one victim or avoid drama, another person gets victimized. You need the drama, you need the cleanse. Furthermore, Tagg himself admitted that he feels somewhat responsible because he knew what kind of a person Dashner was and instead of taking the moral stand he took the bystander effect. Everyone in that position ought to feel shame for their inaction. It was not they who committed the crime, but they failed to uphold a moral duty. That is telling and I'm sure this will ruffle the feathers of a lot of people, but some uncomfortable truths have to be told. This systematic protectionism is responsible, at least indirectly, for abuse.

it's incredibly easy to take this standpoint when it's not you or your friends who'll be affected by information coming out

it takes a lot of trust to tell anyone about this sort of thing. breaking promises you make to someone about something so personal and going public is a great way to make sure no one ever speaks up

yes you have a moral duty to make sure more people don't get hurt but you also have a moral duty to not hurt your friend already in a fragile state. it's up to the victim to speak up

following this, it's incredibly important to watch the other perspective. it's also really easy to make the argument when you're looking through hindsight and you're thinking about all the ways that this could have been avoided.

but then say you go public with this information, without permission, and then you have a situation where the person commits suicide directly because you did that. This can and does happen. You're then going to be taking the moral view that the person who went public and exposed this was directly responsible for the death of a person. Just because tagg feels bad it doesn't necessarily mean going public is correct. He's not going to feel fine with the worst case scenario happening, just because he took the moral stand.

like don't get me wrong it's a massive deal and these people should be expunged from the community and high scrutiny is absolutely warranted. you're right there. The thing I take issue with is the idea that there is a 100% correct way to deal with this kind of thing. In this situation, maybe you're right, maybe you're not. I am not uberchain so I can't say what kind of effects the other route would have had, but the results of this kind of thing can be absolutely catastrophic. There's no way to be sure that the route in any given situation is the right one or will cause the least damage. even if you're right here, you can be wrong next time.

lmao cant even ask a question without getting some nerds angry lmfao

you are so funny pasko

It's sad that nowdays all you hear about comp community is the drama going on around it instead of actual comp games or anything comp in-game related.

God damn dashner sucks

mechacop for good

Console you have honestly been a pleasure to work with at i65, I have no words for how upset I am to know this has happened to you. I hope you realise that we are here for you and want you to continue being a part of this journey with us that is comp tf2. Im also so proud of you as you've done something that is so hard to do, coming forward and telling us about your experience with dashner. I only hope that we can help you as much as we can and that you come to other lan events in some capacity and continue with your contributions to tf2. And if you ever need someone to speak to about this if it all feels too much please do not hesitate to message me privately. I cannot imagine what you've been through but I wanna help if I can even if it's just knowing the offer is there.

If there is anything to be learnt from the past few months of this drama, it's that this scene needs a purge from top to bottom of all the manipulators and predators. fuck doing it so that tf2 can become an esport or whatever - do it because these people are manipulative scum who deserve nothing other than to live in misery for the rest of their lives.

I can imagine that it's hard for people that have gone through such horrid abuse to open up about it, but if there is any time to do it then that time is now while there is momentum - The sooner that these people are named and held accountable then the sooner tf2 is to becoming the wholesome and enjoyable scene it should be.

I feel like I should share some of my own eXperiences throughout the years with Dashner and take responsibility for my part in his rise in the scene. I'm busy today then flying to Atlanta, might be able to bust something out in the airports but the situation overall is still developing and news might necessitate delaying the "eXposition" article to cover other aspects of this scandal.

<3

If the victim does not speak up then you risk more people becoming victims. Support the victim in full, but they could help others by speaking up. If no one speaks up then it logically follows that anyone who's aware of the situation, previous victims included, is partially responsible for any abuses that follow. This is called enabling and should not be tolerated. To argue otherwise, no matter how compassionate it might seem to the victims, is to enable further abuse to new victims. It just so happens that this is exactly the case, we've gone past hypotheticals. Didn't work, try something else.

I never knew this guy, and frankly no matter how good his production work might have been, I don't ever want to know him. As a community we need to fix these patches together.

My mother was raped by her uncle as a child. She told people. She was informed that she was a liar, a bad person, a fraud. Her relationship with the rest of her family was irreparably and unjustly harmed because she tried to do the right thing.

He raped others. Even after she said something. Everything she went through was for nothing. That stupid bitch should've said something, huh?

The decision a victim has to make is not an easy one and it is not one you get to judge from your Gamer High Chair. You know it's not as simple as "if you had just said something this wouldn't have happened to someone else." Without indisputable evidence of wrongdoing, the victim has to take the huge risk of potentially being ostracized from the very community they're seeking to help and be helped by. Chances are good that they won't be believed, that the community will be split, and the victim is further fucking traumatized.

To speak up is to relive, in great detail, being raped. It is to be questioned and doubted at every turn. It is to have perceived inconsistencies called out and further explanations demanded of you. It is to potentially destroy relationships you have with people you love because they don't believe you. By speaking up, you are placing yourself under more scrutiny than the person you're accusing of fucking rape. And in the end, after all that pain, after all the bullshit and relived trauma, you might simply be discarded as lying trash. You may well have helped nobody, had your reputation tarnished, and the net result is that the victim is only further victimized.

It is not your place to demand these things. Kindly shut the fuck up.

That's precisely why we need to respect and support anyone who comes out to their fullest extent and give a good old asskicking to anyone who doesn't. Judging from the horrified and sympathetic reactions that the community undertakes every time this sort of thing comes up it's not unfeasible to think that we're that far away from that point, is it? You ought to defend the victim, that's the bloody fucking point. Now you want to keep quiet and allow more abuse to happen? I'm terribly sorry that in your mother's case this wasn't possible, it's inhumanly revolting that any criminal gets to go unpunished and worse: that the victim is attacked. But it is precisely because it is that inhumanly revolting that these abusers ought to be dealt with one way or another. Ideally by the police, through evidence, through the instruments of a nation's Law. Turns out that there's a history going on here, you have a literal rapist in your midst, or had until relatively recently. Console having the courage to speak up did more than anything else, because now the bastard's gone for good, hopefully. That you can't deny.

howd you get unbanned fuxx

For legal reasons I have decided to take down my post and all following posts.

Go fuck yourself.

Console, you are a heroic person for having the courage to do what you did. You ought to be admired. It takes considerable amount of strength to do what you did and at the end of the day it still poses a risk. Sympathy, compassion, all of these are things that I've always defended and will continue to defend. Not once have I claimed that it was easy or free of its consequences. Your courage should serve as an example to all others.

My issue is that there are a series of problems that extend beyond an abuser being abusive. It is unquestionable that if the atmosphere is one that tries to stigmatize the victim then this atmosphere needs to be cleansed at once. If the atmosphere punishes the victim then the victims won't speak out. If the victims do not speak out then the abuse remains and bad guys go unpunished. It is not that the victims should be forced to speak against their will, but rather given the support necessary to do so. Speaking up is important, but it cannot happen if the atmosphere does not allow for it.

At a deeper level you ought to understand that the correct thing to do - and precisely that is the path you chose to take - is to speak up.

At a deeper level you ought to understand that if you are afraid to speak up then burden is on the community to impose an atmosphere of respect and support.

If this doesn't happen, abuse persists. Do not massacre me out in public for speaking the truth, rather massacre your peers for contributing to the toxicity that imposes an atmosphere of fear. You cannot possibly disagree with this, to do so is to misguide frustration that should rightfully fall on the mechanisms which allowed for this to happen. The moral conclusions are clear: expose abusers, support the victims. If you disagree then this only further confirms my point: victims don't feel enough at ease.

I just want the abuse to end.

If we could just make people be accepting and trusting, we'd have the level of influence on individual people such that we'd be able to prevent them from fucking raping people.

It's a nice thought to "let's all get along and not create a toxic environment", and sure, I agree. Nothing wrong with that statement.

But when you try to act as if Uber or any other victim is fucking responsible in any way for rape, you have forfeited entirely the right to go on about this fantasy world of yours as if you're an honest participant in this conversation.

You are (terribly) hiding your true beliefs behind a poorly-constructed veneer of "well I just think everyone should be nice that's all"

Fuxx honest to god just disconnect your keyboard

Either you are being particularly obtuse or you have an inordinate lack of empathy. Coming forward takes an extraordinary amount of courage and normally lies at the end of a long and hard process of coming to terms with what has happened, especially when the attacker is someone that the victim trusted. I implore you to stop posting, blaming the victim for not speaking out sooner is abhorrent and actively discourages others who have remained quiet from coming forward.

For those who have been victims of sexual violence there are charities and support networks for you to speak about your experiences in a safe space.

I am not blaming any victim, nor was it ever my intention. Rather, I am pointing out a rather trivial logical conclusion. We must comprehend that if we can identify a bad guy then this ability should be used. The conundrum is when the victim refuses to identify the bad guy. All I'm saying is that in the process of supporting the victim you ought to encourage them to speak. If they are not speaking then you must, with extreme sympathy, figure out the reasons why and think of a way to solve that in a manner that respects the victim. This is in contrast to the idea that no efforts should be undertaken to try and get an identification. Do you agree with me on this?

very weird way about going about it

Perhaps my language could be better but my last post should clear everything up. The situation is understandably tense, I'm pretty revolted myself that people had to suffer. What's your opinion on my last post?