My Defence

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As some of you might know, I haven’t been playing Dota for a while and have been out of the community for quite some time. Reading all about the accusations against other people - especially casters - on reddit, I was shocked seeing what happened to the community and what has been going on. When I first read about the sexual harassment accusation against myself though, my heart stopped completely right then and there. I have been debating whether or not to talk about this and defend myself all night. I have barely slept, I have barley eaten, my thoughts are just running wild.

I understand that the entire movement the dota scene is going through right now is crucial. Women should never feel like they are unsafe around men. I completely stand behind every woman who had to go through that. There is no excuse for sexual harassment and certainly not for rape.

That being said, I would like to start off by saying that I know I've acted in a manner that could easily make a lot of people uncomfortable. I own up to this. Everyone who knows me is aware of me being a flirty person. I have complimented people, made sexual jokes or advances. I would never deny that; and I do not believe that I have to apologize for being like that either. I do apologize for not recognizing some boundaries earlier and if anyone was hurt. If anyone ever felt uncomfortable, hurt, or even worse, scared or even harassed by this, then I definitely apologize profoundly for anything I have done. I could have definitely been more considerate and understanding if that was the case, and I am very sorry for that.

However I do not apologise to Ash.

This person has been immensely harassing me on and off over the past year and a half. She even went so far, that she posted our conversations (the parts that make her look good and me look bad) on facebook. On top of that, Ash even messaged my mother privately to tell her awful things about me. I was utterly shocked by the way she behaved. The reason I did not say or do anything against that back then, is because I simply did not care enough, and I did not want to put more fuel into the fire. I just wanted to leave it behind and move on. I wanted nothing to do with this person anymore.

Originally, I did not want to put any pictures or screenshots of past conversations online. This is because I believe that a certain amount of respect towards each others privacy should be kept not matter what. But I do believe, after everything Ash did (posting screenshots openly on facebook, contacting my own mother and now accusing me of sexual harassment), I should not respect her privacy either. Therefore, in my honest opinion, it is acceptable for me to share the following screenshots of our conversations since she is the one who started it off and obliterated any sense of privacy this issue could have.

I didn't bother to defend myself back then, I didn’t defend myself on her facebook page nor did I want to get the authority involved. But right now it seems to me that she's using this opportunity to keep doing it and I realised that if I don't defend myself, she will not stop . I also see no other way now but contacting a lawyer and pressing charges against her.

First of all, I would like to start with how we've met, at least my side of the story. I remember it pretty clearly, was feeling particularly lonely and depressed one day when I was going through some youtube videos and saw her comment about me. She seemed to like me so much, she said such nice things about me and it made me smile. So I decided to write her. Mind you, I was not by all means anyone important at any part of my dota "career". I was a nobody, so having someone talk like this about you online was not something that I saw often. It flattered me immensely.

We became friends quite quickly, she had just broken up with her ex so she wasn’t really ready for anything new; and I completely accepted that. Nevertheless we were still pretty flirty with each other. She thought the world of me and it was a breath of fresh air. We would hangout, talk all the time, watch anime together etc.

Something I would like to point out from the very beginning is, that she had reciprocated to all of my advances, and made sexual jokes and comments back and more, which you can see in a couple of following screenshots(proof). Sometimes, I took it more forward than I should have and I accept this critique from her. Thinking back to it right now, it was definitely wrong of me to do so. We were just having fun, it didn't have to be anything more than fun and friendly passtime for the both of us, and it wasn’t. Whereas at some point, I never thought about us becoming a thing anymore (and also accepting that), she still wanted to meet up. This is the second point I would like to address right now. Yes, I have asked her to come to Turkey to visit me and perhaps Japan if we (my friends and me) go on vacation. She did say a lot of the times that she wants to meet, wants to come, wants to visit (as the screenshots prove), it was by all means nothing one sided. I did not beg or force her into visiting, she wanted to as well.

Ash wrote on her twitter, that "He constantly asked me to go over to Turkey to visit him and even wanted to go on a holiday with some other streamers and me in Japan. I'm thankful none of that ever came to pass." Yes, I asked her to come over and go to holiday together, I am not denying that. But the way she phrases it just sheds an awful light on me that is not acceptable.
Furthermore, this is also the part that sticks out to me (because this is most likely why we ve drifted off as well). She makes it seem like she didn't want to do those things even tho she talked about them all the time. And at one of our last conversations, I told her that I'm not sure if I wanna invite her to Japan when she had brought it up, because I'd be too jealous of her, and thats when everything changed.

All the sexual jokes and flirting was fine up until that point, but then she started barely responding to me, saying no more than 2 lines for a while, and I knew something was off. Afterwards we had a conversation where she called me out for being too forward with her and I apologized for being too pushy, since it was indeed wrong of me to behave like that. But then I also realized something. I realized that she only used me to come to Japan to get close to the people I went there with. But when Japan was out of the question, so was I. It made me feel utterly used.

This was when I started noticing all the red flags. In our first conversations she kept saying that she is crazy, and that she would ruin my life and I should stay away from her. I thought it was just depression talking so I was just like "naaah, you’re great dont worry". She had blamed some other caster I will not name of harassing her without going into much detail as well. I was honestly expecting her to call them out and I am still wondering why she has not done it.

At one of our conversations about how she is an awful person she called me, and told me that she has a court hearing tomorrow and the reason is something I will keep to myself for now. I don't know why at that point I didn't just straight up ghosted her. I was understanding and supportive, people do messed up stuff in their past right? Wrong. Many times she has admitted to using sex to get what she wants "but thats not what she will do with me, not this time"(proof).
When you’re lonely and desperate you end up ignoring all the red flags. I had genuinely thought that we meant something to each other even if it wasn't romantic.

Anyways, I do not want to stray away too much from the topic at hand. This is also not me trying to take revenge on her or anything like that. This is just me wanting to point out that Ash is often not the person that she presents herself as. And you know what? This is actually totally fine. But it is not fine anymore when false accusations are being made against other people.

As I have pointed out before, I deeply apologize for everyone I have ever hurt in the past with my behaviour. I am not trying to paint myself as the most innocent person there is on this world. Everyone has their flaws, everyone fucks up at some point, and so did I. I do admit to taking things too far in some occasions in my past. I will certainly be more careful while interacting with any women in the future. I do apologize again for those who I have hurt that did not deserve it.
That being said, this false one sided narrative is not only confusing, but also very hurtful. Why does Ash accuse me of things, when she knows I have tons of screenshots to prove her narrative flawed, if not even wrong? To call her our on her lies? The narrative where she is completely innocent and didn’t say or do the things she has. Thats why I am very confused to see this post and that is also why I am upset that I am even forced to defend myself for things I have not done in the way she points it out.

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