Accusations and Apologies

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I’m going to start this with a general statement.

Since I started writing this, multiple allegations have been brought up against me. Things from my past that have circulated in and around the Fire Emblem community--embarrassing logs, sexual conversations, stuff I am ashamed about and extremely remorseful for. Stuff that I shouldn’t in any good conscience let happen.

I knew this would come back to bite me in the end, and it’s time I lay in the bed I made.

I have flirted with girls. I have received pictures from them. Stuff like this is not something any content creator should do. When my channel started growing, I got involved with girls who were interested in me, and I should not have pursued them further. Only one of these interactions ended up with a relationship, one which lasted for 6 months and ended on good terms. The rest were mostly harmless flirts, though I understand that some of the interactions hurt people.
I apologize to anyone who I hurt. I apologize to my fanbase who trusted in me. I apologize to Goose who’s trust I broke. I apologize to the entire Fire Emblem community for not being a better person.

I own up to my toxic past behavior and take any responsibility for my actions. I will do whatever I can do better myself as a human being. I will seek help. I let you all down, and I’m sorry for that.

However, I would like to address the AN situation with Goose specifically.

This response is not something I deliver to discredit Goose or to downplay her experience, but given the gravity of her claims, even with everything else thrown at me, they are something I cannot in good conscience not comment on.

I am going to respond to Goose’s statements one by one. You may read the whole of it here: https://twitter.com/Goosaphone/status/1280883234226737155?s=20

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>“When I first started talking to him in 2016, he noticed my cosplay through Facebook. Immediately, I felt objectified since mostly everything he had to say was about my figure or physical appearance. He even offered to feature me on his channel at this point in time, but I declined. Normally, I either left him on read or replied with a brief “thank you” because he came off too strong for my taste, but I didn't think much of it.”

This is true. I did contact Goose back in 2016, and I’m not going to sugarcoat that our interactions were flirty on my end. I found her an attractive cosplayer and was upfront about that. Back then I did not really consider myself anything of a big YouTuber and I had little regard for how I came across to someone else.

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>“Mangs urged me to delete all records of our Facebook messages, but I feared the day would come where I would have to share my experiences, so I have screenshots for the purpose of making this statement as objective and accurate as possible. Mangs shared some screenshots of our recent DMs on Twitter to prove his concern for my mental health, but he hasn't always spoken to me so courteously.”

I did ask Goose to wipe our logs. Me and Goose have 3+ years of conversation logs, some where I’m drunk, some where I’m depressed, some where I speak crassly and make stupid jokes. Goose was a person I vented to, unfiltered, in complete confidence. Of course there’s going to be things in these logs I’m not proud of at all. When you talk to someone for 3 years straight, there’s going to be stuff in those talks you absolutely would not want people to see. I asked her to wipe our logs because I was embarrassed about some of the stuff I said, and with good reason.

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>“Coincidentally, Mangs found my Twitch channel when I was streaming FE7X. Recognizing me, he contacted me through Facebook again. We talked for a while and he seemed to have changed for the better. He offered to stream with me and then record FEH banner reviews shortly after. I was cautious because of how he communicated with me in the past, but after thinking it over, I agreed because a collaboration with Mangs would help my growth as a streamer.”

I was very upfront about why I wanted to collaborate with Goose, and I made this no secret. She was a pretty girl that would draw in eyeballs and also help me plug up gaps in my FEH knowledge. I also made it no secret that I was attracted to her.

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>“From then on, things started pretty innocently; he would solicit selfies of me quite frequently. At the time, I was dating someone else who was supportive of my friendship with Mangs because he knew it would help me grow as a streamer. This took place before I launched my Patreon, so his encouragement in the form of compliments on my looks were a boost to my self-esteem and felt good. Over time, I warmed up to him, even sharing my own sexual experiences because I was feeling more comfortable around him. However, this gradually escalated to a point where I felt it was getting inappropriate and I asked him to stop, which he did.”

I have always taken no for an answer. Goose and I often flirted back and forth throughout our relationship, throughout which, yes, I did ask her to send me selfies. She was very often happy to oblige. During all of our flirtation, I would always back down if she told me to stop. Never once did I force the conversation to keep going if she told me she was uncomfortable, nor did I pressure her into sending me pictures if she said she did not want to. Flirtation aside, Goose was a friend, and that relationship was one I respected.

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>“During our planning for Anime North, we decided to split a hotel room - a very normal thing to do at a con, right? I suggested the cheapest room option, which happened to be a single bed, not thinking I'd be put in any danger. As our plans progressed, some panelists like Pavise and Chaz didn't have a hotel situation solidified yet, so I told them there was space in our room. It's not abnormal for 4 or 5 people to dogpile into a cramped hotel room at cons, and I figured something like this would be the case. Mangs was not on board with this, claiming it was due to his introverted personality, and not because he wanted to be alone with me. https://i.imgur.com/2VYy6PX.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/lq4re0a.jpg "

Sleeping in a room with a gaggle of strangers has always terrified me. This was the first big con I’ve ever been to, and one an entire ocean away. My reasoning for not wanting to share a room with more than one other person stands firm here.

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>“Between planning and the con I received this string of drunk messages:
https://i.imgur.com/xvN7Y8i.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ryWCIYF.jpg “

This right here is why I wanted our logs wiped. 3 years of shit like this and there’s enough embarrassing shit to make a montage that would make anyone look bad. Again, Goose was a friend I messaged pretty often during our relationship. Sometimes drunk, sometimes curt, and very often without filter. If she cuts out every bad thing I’ve said over the course of 3 years and compiles them together, of course it’s gonna make me look bad.

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>"Initially, I found these messages really funny and so did my boyfriend at the time, because his persona was always presented as a silly, horny dude who loves big tits. After a while though, it dawned on me that this dude literally said he wanted to fuck my tits, and I was to share a bed with him. I expressed my personal safety concern directly to Mangs, to which he replied:
https://i.imgur.com/SmsV18V.png
'I will not touch you at Anime North.'
And so, I trusted him.
I think about this message a lot."

And I meant it.

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>"Saturday morning, I was changing into my Nino cosplay while Mangs was in the bathroom. Mangs came in while I was changing without knocking or anything when he knew I was changing. He didn't see anything explicit, though. This could have been an accident and changing into an armored cosplay takes quite a bit of time, so I gave Mangs the benefit of the doubt.
I remember this. I was just being oblivious and didn’t realize I should have knocked. As Goose suspects, this was an accident.
Saturday night, I ended up falling asleep drunk in Vanguard's room again. Chaz asked Mangs to just let me sleep, but he woke me up anyway to take me back to his room. Concerned by his behavior, Chaz, Lucky Crit and Vanguard pulled me aside to talk to me in private while Mangs waited outside the room for me. I didn't have to go with Mangs, but I did. I felt guilty about refusing him. So, I went back with him, trusting that he would stick to his word and not touch me.
I was legitimately concerned for Goose. She was drunk to the point of passing out, and in a room with people that, by her own admission, she wasn’t as familiar with as she was to me. Again, the reason Goose had wanted to stay with me specifically for this event was, going into AN, I was the person there who she knew the best.
Sunday morning, I woke up being violated. I felt his dick pressed against my body. He was kissing my hair, rubbing my back and groaning. I remember this vividly.
Paralyzed in shock, I laid there in confusion. I pretended to wake up normally and took a shower. The rest of the con, I acted as if nothing happened."

I’ll recant my side of the events. Not to discredit her, just to show my side of things.
That morning, hungover and still tired from the night of partying before, I woke up in the bed right next to Goose, almost in a spooning position. I had neither willingly nor intentionally placed myself like this, this is just how we’d woken up. I was slowly coming to, and I registered that Goose was in the process of waking up as well.

I remember laying my arm across her waist and putting my head on the pillow next to hers. I thought it a nice way to wake up, sharing a bed with an attractive girl I’d flirted back and forth with for a long time. I merely wanted to cuddle up to her, nothing more.
We laid like this for some time, anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, though time was difficult to measure--I was still in the process of waking up for most of it. I remember putting a hand on her back. My face was close to her head, and I remember our feet touched at one point. We were close together, but not so close as to be body-to-body.

I did not make any moves to escalate further to any sort of sexual activities.

I did not put my hands on her chest, butt, or groin area.

I did not attempt to kiss her in any way and I did not grab her or hold her still.

Though our heads were close together, I did not make any attempts to smell her hair.

And I did not press my groin up against her butt. I will reiterate: We were not body-to-body. My groin nor ANY part of my body touched her butt.

I experienced it as cuddling up in bed, something I’ve done with both male and female friends before--I didn’t see it as a big deal.
Once we had to get up and ready, we distanced ourselves from one another, said our good mornings, and went about getting dressed for the day. I didn’t think anything more of it, to me it was just a nice way to wake up.
Goose confronted me later, asking if I remembered what I did that morning. At first, I wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but then she described that she had experienced the events very differently from me. She told me that it made her feel unsafe and that she felt I had broken her trust. That my hands were all over her, that I had smelled her hair, that I’d made sounds. This was an account completely unfamiliar to me.

I didn’t initially know quite how to process what she had told me. At first I felt accused and a little offended, but once I had some time to reflect, I realized that Goose had found what happened between us that morning uncomfortable, and I apologized to her. Though I had meant absolutely no harm to her, she had experienced the event as unpleasant.

Neither my intentions nor the circumstances by which the situation came about should minimize how it made her feel, and rightly so.

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>"Receipts of Mangs' various conflicting accounts of this event ranging from a sex dream, to a “misread”, to being half asleep, to just wanting to cuddle with a girl he’s attracted to.
https://i.imgur.com/lNNDfV8.png (Sex dream about someone else.) "

This is true. As mentioned previously, Goose and I would talk frankly about sex and other. The con was filled with gorgeous cosplay girls. I remember having a sex dream. I was also sharing a bed with a very gorgeous girl that I was attracted to.

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>" https://i.imgur.com/kJVd6PW.png (Minimizing the event to touching my arm)"

I will admit, saying it was “nothing sexual” was a dumb way of explaining things. While we were having this conversation I was very scared. I should have worded myself better.

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>" https://i.imgur.com/6vjmtnU.jpg (Half-asleep, and the “lesson” he has learned from all this)"

It is not the only lesson to take away from this for sure. I did not mean this to come across as the only thing I regret.

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>" https://i.imgur.com/mE86EkS.jpg (Not remembering the events and shifting partial blame onto me.)"

I think the full context of this conversation is needed here: https://imgur.com/a/fxJCQCD. The way Goose depicts this screenshot is me “blaming her” for what happened at Anime North because she flirted with me. That’s not what I’m responding to at all. What I mean by crossing the line was that we both flirted back and forth while she was in a relationship, she crossed the line by doing so, and so did I. She was unhappy in her current relationship because her boyfriend didn’t compliment her enough, she got those compliments from me, and she often did it by sending me pictures. During my birthday she dressed up as a maid for me and took several pictures and sent them my way.

Now let me be VERY clear. I am not saying that because she flirted with me, she was guilty or “deserved” anything. I am just saying that in our relationship, the flirting absolutely went both ways. That doesn’t minimize anything on my behalf, I just wanted to clarify our dynamic.

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>" https://i.imgur.com/r9NnNqE.jpg (Misreading me sleeping as an opportunity to cuddle. A “lapse of judgment” implies consciousness.)"

I was half-asleep that morning when it happened. The lapse of judgement I am referring to her is my promise to not touch her, which I always intended to honor. That morning I realized I had broken my promise, and I was extremely remorseful for doing so.

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>"For context, the following conversation was around when the ProJared fiasco happened, and this was a joke. I don't recall him touching my boobs at all, but I was sleeping during part of this, so I can't confirm. I know it was a joke, but his dialogue here worried me.
https://i.imgur.com/x1MtLeY.png "

This was an absolutely tasteless joke that I’m utterly ashamed for even making, and that’s all it was, a joke. My humor with Goose in our private DM’s could turn very dark, we would joke and laugh about all sorts of things. If anything, that I would make such a joke to her should show you the trust that I had in her, but in retrospect, it was an absolutely disgusting joke and I regret ever making it.

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>" In the spring, Mangs purchased some adult content from me. The next morning, he said he had done this when he was excessively drunk and felt extremely guilty. This is when he asked that we both clear our DM history. The night he bought these photos, he said something that makes me question whether or not this was an accident, although he has pleaded to me during calls (as recent as this past week) to believe him that he would never do such a thing on purpose:
https://i.imgur.com/Rm1eEvs.png "

I was stupidly drunk that night. It was after a stream and I had been drinking excessive amounts of vodka. That statement was a drunk text, but it wasn’t a lie. I was madly attracted to Goose at the time, she was a girl I had flirted with on and off for years. Admitting that I wished we could have sex in that hotel-room while drunk was not in any way an admission that I would force myself on her, merely me stating my attraction to her.

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>"In addition to this, when we were walking around Toronto with Lucky Crit and Vanguard, I thought I felt a touch from behind on my butt. I remember looking over to Mangs, who was walking next to me, and he quickly looked away. Whether it was on accident or on purpose, I know what I felt. Vanguard witnessed this."

We were walking in close proximity on a very crowded sidewalk. I certainly did not make any moves to touch Gooses butt, but I can absolutely see myself having accidentally done so.

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>"Mangs offered to buy me a bra when we went to the mall with Vanguard before dropping him off at the airport, but I declined."

This was a joke, and the fact that I would even say such a thing in front of a third party should solidify that. We were in an underwear shop and Goose was picking up bras and holding them up close to her chest. I jokingly asked if she wanted one, I had no intentions of actually going through with it.

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.>"As we said our goodbyes, he hugged me and whispered in my ear, 'Come to Norway.'"

It was an emotional moment for me. I hugged the other person and expressed a desire to meet him again too. This was not a creepy “come have sex with me” statement, I was sad to leave my friends behind.

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>"Eventually, I worked up the courage to call and confront him seriously and firmly. I had always waffled a bit because I’m not a very confrontational person. I’m also afraid. He apologized to me despite claiming not to remember or intend any harm. I affirmed that whether or not it was conscious, his groping betrayed my trust and hurt me. He seemed genuinely remorseful, so I forgave him. Mangs made an effort to control himself, tried to bring our friendship back to normal, stopped any kind of sexual remarks, and dropped his Patreon subscription to $5 which doesn't include any lewd content. If he didn't placate my trauma like he did, I would've told my story sooner."

I was genuinely remorseful. That voice call we had was the first time Goose really made me aware of how my behavior can come across to her. We had some conversations prior where she sometimes brought up that I could get a little overbearing with her.

I would never willingly put Goose in a situation where she would feel uncomfortable. She was my friend and I treasure the friendship we had. I realize I made several horrible mistakes. I shouldn’t have wrapped my arm around her in bed. I shouldn’t have attempted to cuddle up to her, I shouldn’t have gotten close to her at all. I should have taken the initiative to distance myself from her the moment I woke up that close to her, and I have no problems apologizing for that. I’m sorry for not coming out with this story sooner, but I thought it only right to let Goose tell her side first--I don’t want to tell her story for her, that isn’t my place.

Goose and I remained friends after that incident. I thought we settled this issue internally between us a long time ago, but it came back. I’m not going to say Goose has no right to tell her story, she has every right to.
This was an uncomfortable incident, one that has made me reflect a lot on my past behavior and how things I perceive as nonchalant and pleasant can come across as uncomfortable to someone else. I’ve learned from this experience and the perspective Goose had given me.

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>"Mangs’ tone would switch from a supportive friend to a manipulator so quickly that it put me into denial about his intentions in consoling me. When I told him I was going to come forward with my side of the story, he angrily told me he refused to allow himself to be branded as a sexual assailant. I wanted to comply because I valued our friendship as well as his career. I am not someone who goes back on a promise. But my promise to be honest with myself going forward is more important than a promise to someone who abused me."

I never tried manipulating Goose into doing or saying anything, all I did was explain my side of the story to her.

I genuinely wanted to show support for Goose in coming forward with her story, as you can see here: https://imgur.com/a/LS6JMRe

If I thought I was guilty of sexual assault, encouraging the victim to speak up would be akin to career suicide. What I did was creepy, toxic and definitty crossed the line, but it was not sexual assault.

There was no “anger” in my voice when I said I would not identify with the classification of sexual assault. I do not wish to downplay Goose in any way, but when we had this conversation, Goose described the event as specifically NOT sexual assault: https://imgur.com/a/dRFR1Y1

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I would like to make a closing statement. My response to Goose is not in any way done to discredit her story. I’m telling my side of the events, which I think every person has a right to do. However, I own up to all the mistakes I’ve made. I am not calling Goose a liar. I do not condone anyone attacking her on my behalf. I do not want anyone to defend me, I will be taking a long time away to contemplate things.

I own up to all the stupid mistakes I’ve made in the past. I will not ask your forgiveness, but I promise that I will become a better person than I was. I’m sorry for the damage I caused to the community.

-Mangs

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