My History with Remo.

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This is going to be long. I have so much to recount and remember, but it will be worth it. Also, as a pre-disclaimer, I don't have images of a lot of the earlier things transpiring as when I was younger, I'd delete my messages with Remo to avoid my parents possibly seeing them. I realize to some of you that proof is important, but... Remo is already banned from everything. He's done. I have nothing to gain here, my statement serves a different purpose than any payback or spite.

I'm here today to bring more of a spotlight to the relationship I formed during my earlier years in the Smash community with Javian "Remo" Mitchell. But before I start recounting everything, I need to make my purpose clear. While the relationship was clearly problematic, the choice to make this post is because my silence on these things have actually led to other minors or young adults going through much the same thing, so I'm viewing this as an apology of sorts, while also bringing attention to my specific experiences.

I joined the Smash community in late 2013. I was 14 at the time. I met a lot of amazing people in my first few tournaments, but I didn't get too active until Smash 4 came around. Being that I was very young, I didn't really have a way to get to events without my parents driving me, so I didn't really start coming to things that were more than 10-15 minutes away from my home, limiting my choice in tournaments despite Houston having plenty. What this essentially means is that my scope of the scene was really small when I first started playing. Eventually I gained a good group of trustworthy friends that knew their boundaries with me as a minor, who fostered my ability to play the game while keeping our interactions purely social and game-oriented. I'm still friends with these people to this day, but we've grown apart significantly. Why?

I met Remo when SFC moved into a small cellphone repair shop not too far away from my house, and you probably know how things went to some extent. He was friendly, he asked me who I mained, all this stuff. My age also definitely came up in conversation around this time, and I - like many people who met me during that time - got a very surprised reaction, being that I was only 15. A very community-oriented person, and I don't necessarily think it was disingenuous, but of course, our friendship and interaction doesn't really stop there.

I had a strong drive to compete back then, and SFC being the only weekly I could convince my parents to let me go to, I'd see the guy every week. Eventually, I began to carpool there with him because it was on the way and convenient. And to this point, I don't really see him as any more threatening than the other awesome people I formed friendships with through the game. I invited him inside my home and room one time for friendlies before driving to the tournament, even. You can draw your own conclusion about his agreeing to do this (my parents were not home, and he has stated several times that he is terrified of meeting them. He never did, and now he never will, I guess).

But throughout my time being his friend in these earliest years in the scene, nothing overly sexual happened, but we definitely grew closer. We hung out, we played friendlies a lot. I began building a dependency on Remo to drive me to weeklies or the big tournaments, to the point where I'd ask him first knowing full well that other, closer people would have much easier times taking me places. I don't know Houston's layout for shit, I don't have much of a sense of scale and distance, but just know that for most things, my house was extremely out of the way for Remo during these times, as he lived in Sugarland while I've lived in NW Houston my entire life. It almost never seemed to matter to him, though. And at the time, I figured we were just that cool, that close. I even gained a sponsorship through his company, Smash United. Remo paid for my entry fees to all SU weeklies and majors, and reimbursed me a certain amount of fees for OOC/OOS events, boosting my then unemployed financial dependency on him.

After a while, jumping like a year later, I was 16, going on 17. I had started going to his house over the weekends. On Fridays, he'd drive across Houston to get me, take me to his house, and we'd hang out until SFC Sunday.

But here's the thing: Remo is a borderline alcoholic. The guy, at least at the time, drank a ton. And when we'd hang out, so would I. Like a few others, I'm sure, my first time drinking hard liquor was in Remo's house. I viewed it as fun, exciting, and I felt like I was being treated as an adult. I thought that I was proof that people my age weren't all actually kids. I was mature. And I was assured of that verbally when Smashers my age that knew of my being there were turned down from joining us. "They're not like naps," essentially.

Now, at 20, I already have a severe liver enzyme problem because of just how fucking much I would drink. I got so drunk nearly every time I visited, sometimes a couple nights in a row. It was a nasty habit, it always has been. I'd been drinking at nearly every weekend event, and when Remo eventually moved much closer to me due to joining the OCM House, I'd drink when visiting on weeknights and sobering up before I went home, etc. etc. And that was essentially the jist of our friendship up to just the other day. With everything coming out, and especially about him, I just couldn't bear to keep myself silent.

Many people were victims to Remo. Many people I knew. People tried to expose these problematic friendships. I stayed my hand. I chose to be silent and therefore didn't give the attention necessary to remove Remo from the scene, and several other minors made habits of coming through to OCM, hanging with us all weekend, and drinking. As far as I know, I'm the only one this deep in, the only one at that time who could have the perspective on specific details that were brushed off as "he said, he said" basically. Over the last couple days, I've felt sick to my stomach knowing that this was going to come to a head. Sick with myself over not realizing my responsibility and opportunity to help other people my age and younger. I will be linking and retweeting all of their posts in a show of what I can do now in hindsight.


Remo often (and to this day) describes his 'type' as chubby hispanic men. And anyone who has seen me knows that I fit this bill exactly, as well as a few other guys who we associated with. But, like these other guys, Still, despite it being legal for me to have sexual encounters at this point, that mere fact doesn't invite or entitle anyone to anything from me. I felt that I was genuinely straight, and I felt I made that clear, or at least did my part to. As time went on, the flirting quit, and our friendship continued as normal, albeit with the occasional thirsty joke or comment. Remo was my best friend. He also happened to be gay. He also happened to have a huge thing for my specific body type. He also happened to drive me anywhere he could if I asked, and bought me food a lot. He let me drink. He let me smoke, when that became available. My teen years became a fucking mess.

But, I saw all of this as being to my benefit. I could get what I wanted, do what I wanted, and be who I was beginning to grow into. I became an adult, I began making my own decisions and seeing people. And Remo was very obviously jealous. He was my best friend. I vented to him about my emotions a lot. I vented to him about being in love. He vented to me about his feelings for me. I always shut them down.

But it was clear to me at some point that Remo's sex drive was a genuine problem. Not only toward me, either. I doubt any man or even woman (Remo eventually realized he was bisexual, but he definitely had a lean for men, even stating that he probably wouldn't DATE a woman) that spent any amount of quality time with him eventually was flirted with, to varying degrees of agressiveness.

His range of conversation pretty much is Smash and Sex, and he often bragged about his ability to perform oral sex better than any girl, by word of others, I guess. I always dismissed these comments, but under a certain amount of turmoil, intoxication, and loneliness, I ended up making a mistake.

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I'm going to be getting into specific events now. Any pertenant names included I have gotten explicit permission to include, and will provide proof of that.
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This incident I'm about to write about involves only me and Remo, and I have told literally no one else, ever. It was during a time where I honestly questioned my sexuality, mainly to myself.

I had spent another night at Remo's house like usual, and eventually just about conked out on the couch in his living room, drunk. Remo had gone to bed much earlier than me. I was still awake, though. I was browsing twitter or whatever, and in my drunken state I invited Remo into an empty room by text to perform oral sex on me. It took a while for him to get out of bed, but just as quickly as things started, I ended it. I just wasn't comfortable, and we both went back to bed.

I asked soon after for him to never bring it up again to anyone. However, he expressed a couple times after that he hoped it could happen again, that he'd get another chance. It's led to me being more adamant to myself that I'm wholy straight, and never wanting to embrace the thought of my sexuality again in part out of fear of it sparking more hope in him.

I bring this up due to laws about consenting while intoxicated (not that I should have been drinking in the first place), and because it's relevant to the next incident I'm about to write about.

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https://imgur.com/LHbLQsF - Consent from relevant party to be named in this section.

I was in a brief relationship with my current girlfriend for about less than a month, in the later half of 2018, (And due to recent false accusations I'll remind you I was 18 turning 19 in little more than a couple months) When that didn't work out, I decided to try and be more sexually open as I decided that my ingrained ideas of sex and love being mutually inclusive were dated and that I needed to grow out of it (A line of thinking Remo often preached to me. Despite my grown opinion on it being true, being openly sexual simply is not really who I am. I do not condone slutshaming in any regard, sex is what any one person makes of it).

Remo and I were then getting to be friends with Lyssa (@KyotoSSB) who happened to be open to the idea of the three of us getting together at Remo's place. From my perspective things were fine, but as I learned later, there were some pretty disgusting alterior motives behind the scenes. Lyssa revealed to me in person at a later date that Remo had been texting her during the time before the act began, when I had stepped out of the room. He asked her in pretty certain terms to coerce me into performing sex acts on/with him, under the guise that it would please her to watch. Saying things like "He's a little bi-curious," referring to the previous incident without specifics.
Lyssa never brought anything of the sort up during the time spent together, and our (or, I should say my) focus was entirely on her. He rather notedly kind of just sat back and watched a lot of the time, which I didn't think much of in the moment.

As things wound down, we eventually tried to go to sleep. This proved difficult, however, due to the fact that Remo had popped a sex performance pill that kicked in late and just could not get it down. He masturbated for several minutes, and repeatedly made attempts to grope a tired, now non-consenting Lyssa as she was in between us. I told him repeatedly to stop in Lyssa's stead because I could read the room, but it'd start up again in minutes. Eventually we all finally passed out and didn't discuss the encounter again until she showed me the texting that went on behind my back.

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I'm in a loving, happy relationship right now. I will have been going on two years this year. I want to address a change in Remo's behavior as this relationship began, split, and began again.

Before we dated, Remo had a very friendly and often sexually charged friendship with Kalise (@_PixlSugr). The extent of their actions together was mild flirting, sexting and the like.

I'd been very open about my feelings for her to him, and he listened to me express these feelings a lot before I got the courage to eventually ask her out. It didn't really matter to him, though. And I won't make any statements about the actions of two single, consenting adults, but I was often told that the things I felt were unrealistic, that Kalise wouldn't want to be in a relationship, etc. I was pressed by Remo to play Strip Smash with them despite my aversion to group sex, something they had talked about in a group that never really ended up manifesting.

So far, nothing had necessarily been morally wrong. While it was my wish for him to back off due to my feelings for her, I can't control anything or anyone if they're within their rights.

However, Kalise and I, as you all know, did end up in a relationship. And this is when I noticed a severe dive in the way her and I were treated. We were no longer mutual friends who could hang out and that he could try getting into sexual situations with, we were an exclusive couple. Anytime I mentioned something about her that made me happy, he would get very passive and short with me. He didn't feel the need to treat her or me with the same level of inherent kindness, and it showed. His behavior toward me as a single man and her as a single woman, was immensely colder as a couple.

And as I stated before, Kalise and I broke up not even a month into our first attempt dating. Immediately he was back on her, texting her at length in very sexually charged conversations. And to be honest, I will admit that I found out about this through very shameful peeping on his computer. I was emotionally broken and lonely, and self destructing. I had pleaded with him to for just once stay his hand and respect my emotional turmoil as who is supposed to be his best friend, his "Sonic to his Tails" as he frequently put it to me.

Remo has also shown this pattern of behavior with other women in the Houston Smash scene, including Lyssa and another woman.

https://imgur.com/zFUGZgT - In response to me inquiring about Remo's behavior during this woman's time being taken and single.

Now, as Smash Ultimate was nearing release, a Demo event opened in our City at the mall, and this demo happened to open the day after an SU major, so Kalise was in town. We were still broken up at this point, but we were housing with Remo, me on the couch and her in his room the night before said major. Kalise expressed to me that Remo had made unwanted advances on her during her time trying to sleep in his room that night despite her sleeping on the floor. He repeatedly poised the idea of them sleeping together instead, but she denied this. He ended up climbing next to her in the little cot on the floor, in his own room with his own bed. They talked for a while, and eventually he put his hand under her nightgown and pulled at her underwear, grinding against her all the while. She repeatedly told him no, and after a while of this he climbed back into his bed.

The next day, at the tournament, Kalise and I spent a lot of time together. We ended up rekindling our romance and and being very close all day. She opened up to me about what had happened that night, and that she didn't feel safe sleeping alone again, so I slept with her. I did this abruptly and unapologetically, he was under the impression I'd be sleeping out on the couch again and he seemed visibly annoyed.

And when we became officially a couple again, the same behavior as before resumed. Cold, short and distant at any mention of us as an item.

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In short, Remo was a grooming sex fiend who fucked up my mid teen years, convincing me that our friendship and the things therein were normal. I've fought tooth and nail for his innocence and contributions to the scene previously, and I realize now that he never deserved that loyalty. Again, my statement is less about me feeling the need to get payback or whatever, but moreso an acknowledgement of events and habits that I kept quiet about leading into the further abuse of the next group of minors coming into the scene, and to them, I can't apologize enough. My words and my testimony during previous attempts to out Remo would have prevented so much extra abuse.

If you read this far, I genuinely thank you. I hope my perspective offers something to the situation or inspires others who may still be hiding - from Remo or otherwise - to speak up. Even if you believe that a person in this situation is your friend, that they care about you, that they believe you to be that one in a million mature kid, you need to recognize now that it's bullshit. There's no excuse.

I will be linking all relevant posts relating to Remo underneath this one, and I encourage you if you have not already to go and read them.

Thank you.

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