nepeta, roxi, marie, amy, Roxas, and Vris · @forgottenCatnip
3rd Jul 2020 from TwitLonger
About V, or Vixen (cw grooming, pedophilia, manipulation)
Hi, I'm Nepeta. I recently posted a twitlonger to get some things off my chest. In that twitlonger, I talked about someone who I view as having groomed me. At the time, I didn't want to reveal my abusers because I didn't want it to appear as if I was shifting the blame, and I wanted (and still do) to take full responsibility for my actions. In the twitlonger, I referred to her as V, but I think I'm ready to tell people who she was, because more than anything, I almost feel an obligation to. I know I wasn't the only teenager she preyed on, and I have a feeling to this day she's preying on 18-19 year olds, because its technically legal to do so, since they are adults. I would also like to mention that I initially did my math wrong - at the time when I was 18, she was 25 years old. I believe she should be 30 years old now. Anyways, her smash tag, at least the one she was using when I knew her, was Vixen, a top player from Arizona, even power ranked there at one point. She went through several names in the time I knew her, including Crystal, Ruby, Lily, and I believe she's now going by Kaede. Additionally, I remember her telling me towards the end of our friendship she had been flirting with a 16 year old. I have no idea who that was, and even if I did I wouldn't want to disclose that. It's just extremely concerning, because at the time she was 28 years old, and wasn't showing any signs of being a better person, although she did make note that it was 'Probably better' if she stopped talking to her, of course I agreed, I told her she needed to stop. Below is what I had originally wrote about her in my first twitlonger. I'm not sure I'm comfortable sharing any more information at this point in time, but if anyone wants any evidence, especially TOs/Conduct panel folks, I am more than willing to provide it. I don't even know if she's still an active competitor in Melee but more than anything I'd like her to be banned, so what happened to me doesn't happen to anyone else, at least in the Smash community. As much as I hate to say it I don't believe she has the capacity to be better, although I really wish that were the case, and still hope it is.
In January of 2015 I was 18 years old, turning 19 in April. I don't remember why she had added me, although I think it was perhaps because we were in a group together for women and other gender minorities in Smash. I got a message from her, at the time a top level Melee player (Top 100 skill level, but not actually Top 100) on Facebook who was 28 at the time, awkwardly introducing herself. I'll be referring to her as V. I had just started taking Smash more seriously that year, after starting to enter tournaments in December 2013. So I looked up to her a lot - I couldn't believe I was talking to, flirting with, even, someone that had taken games and sets off of huge names, even top 10 players! I didn't really realize it at the time, but even from her first messages she was very affectionate and always trying to appear cutesy. For a long time I've thought of her as my groomer - I know, I wasn't a minor at the time, but it still feels like she was absolutely grooming me with the intention of getting me to talk about and do sexual things with her. I also notice, looking back at our messages now, she would very often lash out at me and then be extremely down on herself, often, or more accurately, always making me feel like I was the one at fault for whatever she had done. A lot of the details are fuzzy, but we stayed friends until late 2017, as time went on we drifted apart and started talking/flirting less and less. At that point I could no longer tolerate the fact that she was a loli/shotacon, and when I brought this up to her she broke down, and very passive aggressively, almost proudly, admitted to being a pedophile. I think that moment is when my eyes were opened - before then I hadn't really thought about our age gap much if at all. If anything, it just made things hotter for me. But I hadn't realized she was just using me the entire time - I think that conversation just brought a lot of old feelings back. So I blocked her, and we haven't talked since, nor have I checked on her to see if she's okay. It's not my concern, and why should it be, if I was never a concern to her?
I wanted to at least at a little onto this. Truth be told, I was feeling extremely frustrated and vindictive when I wrote that, because Facebook had practically forced me to read through all of our messages in order to find out when she first messaged me (unless I'm dumb and made myself go through all that for no reason haha 🥴) and I was just. Really mad, that she put me through all of that, the way she treated me, although I was scared more than anything, those last couple lines were very passive aggressive. I.. still do care about her, and I know she's a very fragile person, and I'm honestly really scared of what she'll do after this is posted. I'm really worried for her, and I hate that. She doesn't deserve my worry, or my pity, but I can't help it. More than anything though, I just want her to not hurt anyone else. Thank you so much for reading this. And if anything similar has happened to you, I'm so, so, so sorry. I know its hard to stay strong in these times, but just know that I believe you, and my DMs are always open. I'm not great at consoling people, nor am I a very stable person myself, but I'd like to think that I'm a good listener.