Smitten · @SmittenGFG
24th Jun 2020 from TwitLonger
The darker side to my story
The beautiful thing about this movement is that it's not only about justice it's about healing. It's about finally cleaning an old wound and not letting it hold any power over you any longer. It's about moving forward despite the pain that you have endured, despite the grief, the shame and anger. It's about being heard despite the years of silence and anguish. I would not have been able to come forward today without the bravery of those who came forward before me. I stand on their shoulders and in the wakes of their strength I can come forward.
DMBrandon is known to many for his hateful personality and despise for his community, treating many of his viewers, mods, friends and fellow content creators like garbage since at least 2013. My story is but another chapter in the book of people he has wronged.
March of 2013 my ex and I made a smite youtube channel, it took off pretty hard and gained a lot of attention from the community including Brandon. He came up to me after about a month and asked to get in a Skype call with me, and the only conversation that I can remember was him complaining about how shit everyone was at the game and how do I make them better. I told him that I teach people how to play, thats how you help the community's skill level overall. Over the next year I would get closer to Brandon and juice, very slowly. We had a lot of fun, lots of laughs everyone was really nice and accepting at the time.
The situation between my ex and I was getting worse. I had been feeling miserable and scared and had felt really alone for a while so I started to lean on the people around me even though I'm usually a very private person. I cracked one day and told severence, DM's first mate, about what was happening behind closed doors and we started to get really close. I needed someone to know what was happening to me because I needed out and I wasnt strong enough to do it without at least telling someone else about what I was struggling with. After a while sev and I started to have feelings for eachother. I was wrong for being disloyal to my ex. We were already broken before this happened and that whole situation with the ex is a much larger story that I'm not ready to discuss openly yet. I'm acknowledging it here as it is important to the story overall.
Through this time brandon would always be present in my life. We used to talk, play games, get in team speak with juice and just laugh. I was starting to develop my first group of friends in the industry that I felt like I could be myself around; i felt like i could relax. Launch was around the corner and there was a lot of pressure for me to go, but my ex was also part of the business and when I did the fundraising I miscalculated the amount to go pretty badly, I ended up not even having enough for even me. I was spazzing out because I had just screwed up my first fundraiser and then dm told me to meet him in voice comms, where he offered to pay for my entire trip as long as I didn't bring my husband. Those words -still- echo around in my brain. 'As long as you don't bring your husband'. This honestly should have been my first real flag and I should have abandoned ship right then and there, but I was so eager to be involved in a group and have close friends in the industry that I ignored my gut. He knew what I was going through in my personal life and he knew about Sev and I but that phrase still felt so sinister.
Fast forward to the first night of launch. I get there, hella nervous, meet everyone and when I met dm I asked where sev was and he said that he wasn't going to be there. I was really sad but decided to just focus on other friend groups. First day of games happens, brandon gets to yell penta kill, theres a lot of hype so there was a lot of drinking after the games. I was out with other content creators when I got a call from brandon. He said that I should come up to his room, he had fats and some other person there and they were hanging out. I told him I was out with friends so maybe we could hang out the next night. To which he replied "the offer is only good for tonight" this struck me as very odd. I kept going back and forth with him because it sounded like he was joking but he was getting subtlety more pushy about me coming over that night specifically.
So I did. Walked to his hotel, very drunk, went to his room and hung out with him and fats and we talked about the day, everything was fine. I complained to dm about sev not being there and was asking if he would fly him out or get him to come etc. After a couple of hours everyone in the room had passed out but dm and I. He laid down on the bed and held his arms out to me, almost like he wanted to hug? cuddle? This was so fucking strange, dm has such a rough exterior that he never ever struck me as the touchy feelie type. Immediately I was on edge a little bit. What was this about and what was he thinking this was? I eventually decided since I was dating his best friend and dm had a girlfriend that it would be fine to harmlessly cuddle. I used to work at ren faire and after a show all of the actors would cuddle in a pile on the ground so while it was strange coming from this man I thought it was perhaps something similar.
It wasn't. We were facing eachother and talking when he went under the covers and started giggling, I lifted it up and he reached out and started to touch my face. The hairs on my neck went up, he then leaned in and started kissing me. I pulled back and looked at him and said "what about severence, hes your friend and I care about him" dm kept trying to downplay what was going on in that moment, that it was nothing, he's just lonely and pumped from the exciting day etc. I tried to make it as clear as I politely could that I wasn't interested and laid down with my back facing him in the bed. He moved closer to me and wrapped his arms around me and started spooning and we fell asleep. I woke up in the morning and fats wasnt in the room, got my stuff and left. Dm tried ignoring me after the event, treating me like shit, absolutely zero attention from him and especially not positive. So i texted him and said that we couldn't just ignore what happened between us and that we needed to talk about it. He reluctantly replied and asked what I wanted. I asked why he did that even though I was with his friend, he kept deflecting and finally just stopped responding.
After this juice turned it's back on me, spread rumours about me to defame me and kept me away from certain circles and people by telling them untrue things and I've been sitting on this shit for 6 years. I didn't know what to do with what I had encountered so I've just sat in silence but no longer. Since reaching out to a couple of people I learned that I'm not alone. I learned that I was only a stepping stone in this man's psychological torment, I was but a test subject for a desire of his that I never consented to. We know we aren't the only ones to suffer at the hands of DM, we know there are other people out there that are afraid of what he will say or do if you told the truth. We aren't afraid any longer and hope that perhaps through our public actions that you might also find healing and peace by proxy.
tldr - Brandon Nance kissed me at the Smite launch tournament without consent or giving him the idea that I was interested in a relatioship like that. He had a girlfriend and I was involved with his best friend at the time and I have held onto this poisonous story for far too long. I'm ready to move forward and heal entirely from this.