𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐎 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐎.

Like if Lucifer rescues Alastor next episode and Al gives Luci an interesting look Vox can't ignore.

Then season 4 went and butchered that. He’s now a brooding character who decided to run away and get stuck in the timeline because he’s emo that his love life failed. Acting exactly like how a person in early 20s would instead of acting like the 60 years old man he is.

His dynamics used to vary depending on which siblings he hangs out with. Remember Season 1 Five with Diego? Season 3 Five with Klaus? Season 3 Five with Viktor? Etc etc… then boom in season 4 it is as if those dynamics did not exist. Lmao.

Sorry i’m home from work now and not done yet another reason why I’m actually pissed off is that George is being treated so fucking badly that obviously people, me included, are going to feel fucking bad for him and hope he’s alright. He shouldn’t have anyone feeling bad for him as HE fucked up, however the reaction is SO FUCKING SEVERE and does not match up AT ALL to what happened that obviously people are going to be like ??? what the fuck.

Crazy ass death threats with tens of thousands of likes, doxxed to the moon and back, removed from Vidcon’s creator list, edited out of Nolan’s video and removed from the Feastable’s IG post, everyone and their mother “taking a stand” against him to make themselves look better, friends unfollowing and deleting any trace of him from their accounts. Like. You would think he did something way fucking worse than what he did. And that’s not even something we should be thinking about!!! Because what matters is that he hurt Caiti!!!! And yet he’s being treated worse than fucking Wilbur! and Illumina! and even PUNZ!!! who has worse fucking allegations against him.

Dream crying in Twitter space? he has emotions like the rest of you? he isn't a fucking robot, he has human flesh and bones, red blood coursing through his veins breathing in the same air WE ALL ARE BREATHING!

same goes for Punz

same goes for Wilbur

because they. are. humans. just. like. you.

I cried from his Twitter space on YouTube

Main Situation: Last week Wilbur Soot from Lovejoy was accused of having been abusive towards his ex girlfriend Shelby. Shelby is a live streamer and last week she did a livestream about the signs of knowing if you are in an abusive relationship. She never stated his name, but from details given people started assuming it was about Wilbur Soot. A few days later Wilbur confirmed that it was him in an apology tweet on his Twitter account. The abuse had to do with painful biting, and manipulation. 

    I want to start off by saying I do believe Shelby's story. I don't think Wilbur is innocent, but I do believe this situation isn't as black and white as people are claiming it to be. 

    Former fans after hearing the story started unfollowing Wilbur and Lovejoy and saying what a terrible man that Wilbur is, and vowing to never listen to or view any of his content ever again. He's not just a terrible man, he has to be evil too. I may be optimistic but I do think most people can change for the better if they truly want to. There are exceptions, but I truly believe that Wilbur can. The internet wants to just label him as evil and not give him any room to do that. The new thing is "guilty until proven innocent" and that's super harmful as I will go into in a different post. The way people are spreading hate in a us/them mentality is not a mature way of viewing/handling this situation and does more harm than good. Especially when it comes to death threats and doxing which have been received by both sides.

   Wilbur is someone who had a hard upbringing, and has brought up at different times his struggles with mental health. On screen or on stage you would never know this about him, because he has this mask of being confident, well spoken, and joyful. Through these details Wilbur has shared we know that touring took a lot out of him mentally and put him in a bad place, but that he was seeking therapy and is probably currently still seeing a therapist to try and get better. He's shared in the past that when he first blew up on the internet he used alcohol to cope because of how overwhelming it was that so many people were consuming his content. From Shelby's stream we also learned that his living space was dirty and unhygienic and that he would make excuses for it. The details for me paint the picture of a guy struggling badly with mental illness and having a hard time caring for himself and his home. Someone who can hardly take care of themselves should not have been in a relationship. This puts a lot on the other person.  It's different if he were stable and then then his mental health crashed in the middle of a longer relationship, but not if your too mentally ill to begin with. I do deeply feel sorry that Shelby had to experience that, as it truly shouldn't have happened. 

   I went to school for psychology and know quite a bit about different types of mental illnesses. I am by no means diagnosing Wilbur, but I do think he shows signs of someone with Boderline Personality Disorder. People with BPD self sabotage and will frequently end up pushing people away because they don't think they're good enough for them. (In this case maybe he wanted to act so bad so she would leave him, which is very unhealthy). People with BPD also go through depressive episodes and can act impulsively. Without therapy it is extremely hard to cope with this condition but with therapy you can make great strides in changing. I think like most mental illnesses you are aware of the fact you don't like the way you're acting you just have a hard time controlling it. For instance for me growing up with anxiety I knew most of my fears were completely irrational but that didn't stop them from overtaking my life and still feeling anxious. Wilbur has written some really deep lyrics on his new solo album Mammalian Sighing Reflex and I feel like it reflects that he doesn't like the way he is and feels guilty about those he's harmed through it. Maybe I'm giving this man too much credit, but like I said I do believe most people are capable of changing for the better. 

   Shelby stated she did the livestream as a way to help protect other victims of domestic violence and Wilbur Soot himself. He might still be dangerous to the public, it's really hard to know. I know after my own situation with being manipulated I was worried about the guy going after other younger women like he had with me. I didn't want anyone else have to be in that situation so I understand where Shelby is coming from. I also know that if the guy in my life had ever posted an apology, no matter how good it was, that I still wouldn't believe him and have a hard time forgiving him. Bold take but I think his apology was at least decent. Could it have been better, yeah, but could it have been a lot worse, also yes. In his apology he admits to being the person Shelby was talking about. He states that her feelings are valid, and that he wants people to hold him to higher accountability, and that he was sorry for any hurt he caused. Maybe he isnt, but it's hard to know. 

   We'll never know how other content creators truly feel about him except for the ones that made it obvious. Of course most content creators are going to jump on the bandwagon and agree that he's an evil man. If they don't then they'll lose their platform because of all the hate they'd get. I do believe some content creators will still hang out with Wilbur secretly or still even remain his friend. But we'll never know. 

   For the people who are posting different video evidences of Wilbur supposedly showing signs of being abusive in the past this is what is called confirmation bias. If you believe someone is abusive suddenly you can find details in the littlest things to confirm your thought process. A lot of the clips I've been seeing have been of normal everyday behavior or confirmed bits. I've seen people say that Wilbur must have bit down really hard to leave bruises. In some cases people bruise more easily than others. I know I have random bruises on my body from nothing. We can tell that what Wilbur did however was pretty painful due to have to use a safe word. Getting bitten usually hurts. I've been bitten by a 5 year old at work and can't imagine how it would feel to be bitten by a grown man who intentionally bit down hard.

This could be confirmation bias as well, but when looking at the lyrics in Mammalian Sighing Reflex and at the album art it seems to tell the story of a man (Wilbur) who really messed up in a relationship and is feeling the pain from that, and has a lot of regret due to knowing he was the cause of her pain. He poured so much of himself into the album it's like he's bleeding out in front of the audience with the amount of vulnerability.

Analyzing lyrics because why not, using lyrics from "Mammalian Sighing Reflex"

"I get so drunk I can barely see." If this album is related to his relationship with Shelby, which I think it probably is, then maybe he tried to cope with the relationship failing by using alcohol, or sabotaged the relationship through drinking.

"A lot of friends have left my life, escaping my tractor beam of woe" Having a mental illness can make it hard to maintain friendships. This could be because it makes you so self-focused on your problems, or that people get tired of hearing about your problems. If you constantly talk about how sad you are, some people are going to have a hard time dealing with that, or get burnt out from having to keep on cheering you up.

"Fuck my life, you cared when I was sick, no one ever gave a shit.....you fought this war one-sided and asked me what am I doing this for." These lyrics seem to speak about how in a past relationship (probably meaning with Shelby), that she cared that he was mentally ill/in a low point and wanted to help him get better. The fight to help him get better was one-sided due to Wilbur not helping to get himself better. If he would have helped her then they "could of stitched my mind together."

"Never been the one for romance, never thought that I'd get married. Never been the kind to give a shared life a second glance, selfish prose." In Shelby's livestream she talked about how her and Wilbur talked about the possibility of getting married and having kids until he backtracked and said that he wasn't that way and changed his mind.

The song "I Don't Think It Will Ever End" is how his mind seems to work in cycles. He'll be sad, because he feels sad he hides away for a bit, but then he feels silly for hiding himself so he forces himself to interact with people. But then when forcing himself to interact again he feels sad, which he says is not a good feeling when you're supposedly in a good phase. He says as self-sabotage he gets silly. Wilbur is known for telling a lot of jokes, and maybe this is a way he masks his true feelings. Also for Mammalian Sighing Reflex it says the songs were written by William Gold (his legal name) and performed by Wilbur Soot (his stage name). Wilbur is who the internet/fans see him as and William Gold is who he really is. Meaning the way we see him online is the extroverted, charismatic, likeable guy we know him as whereas William Gold is introverted, self-sabotaging, nerdy, and a deep thinker.

The more I read about people's reactions to the George situation the more angry I feel. George was being accused of sexual assault, and the consensus is "he fucked up and should have asked for consent."

My bold take is that I have little sympathy for Caiti. She is a woman who regrets flirting with George, which she has the right to. But her story really made it seem like George randomly started touching her inappropriately, forced her to drink more when she was already drunk, purposely preyed on her because she was 18, and followed her out of the room to the elevator.

None of these things happened. She was drunk beforehand and her friends that she went to Dreams room with wanted to play drinking games. George didn't randomly start touching her. They were sitting together on the couch playing a game with the rest of the group and mutually decided to start cuddling. Caiti got up multiple times and would always come back and cuddle with George. Over the hour of cuddling they were flirting with each other, playfighting etc. When cuddling George started with his hands on her hips above her clothes, and then after he assumed she was comfortable with what he was doing, given the previous signals of her laughing, smiling, and coming back to cuddle with him then he placed his hands on her waist under her clothes. He said he would slowly move them up after awhile. She didn't show any signs of being uncomfortable. She could have pushed his hand away or told him she was uncomfortable with that, but she didn't. She could of left if she felt uncomfortable or sat somewhere else, but she didn't. She also didn't have to walk with George to the elevator, but she did. She didn't have to keep in contact with him afterwards but again she did. It's no wonder why George was understandably confused, and assumed everyone had had a fun night that night, and was blindsided by these accusations. George said that he made a joke about the elevator being broken, but saw when she wasn't open to getting in the elevator with her then he backed off.

Her friends also knowingly put her this situation. They left her unattended while she was drunk in the hotel room with Dream and George and whoever else was left. Going to a drinking social at 18 is a risky situation in the first place, this is why in college I avoided frat parties because I knew what could potentially happen if I went.

George literally did not do anything wrong, and people are painting him as a monster. Now that Caiti did this stream he has lost a lot of his fanbase and friends for no reason, because God forbid you support George. If you support George you must hate woman, because he's evil. Like people have said this could have all been handled privately. Just simple communication like "hey I actually regret what happened at Vidcon, and I didn't actually like that you were cuddling me looking back" or something along those lines. If George is a decent person which it seems like he is he would say okay and apologize most likely, and they could have not had this nasty drama for no reason.

I believe there is non-verbal consent, and most people in that type of situation would rely on that more than verbal consent. They test things like George was doing and slowly progress things. He could have asked if she was okay with it, but she was showing all the signs over the 3 hours that she was. He's not making you stay if you get uncomfortable. Where non-verbal consent doesn't work is if George would have groped her after a half our of flirting. That would absolutely be wrong, and need to be apologized for.

George was defensive in his video because he needed to be. After being accused of all these things you didn't do, and Caiti leaving out details you would be defensive to. She made him out to look really bad. She blew the situation way out of proportion and George has to suffer due to this. I really think that George didn't need to post the extra apology tweet, that the livestream would of been enough to show that he had no malicious intentions and was sorry that Caiti felt strongly about what had happened.

The whole support victims things in this situation makes me upset as well. There were no victims because there was no sexual assault. Yet if you don't say I 100% support the victim then suddenly your evil and hate woman. Without there being a victim it seems dumb to put that but if you don't then you're follower count also takes a hit as a content creator. George didn't fuck up, he acted in a way most men would, and probably even in a more gentleman like way to be honest.

It also upset me as someone who has experienced very real sexual assault. The guy was 25 and I was 18. I didn't want anything sexual/romantic with him because I could see the age gap, and told him that. He invited me to his apartment which I thought would be innocent because I presented my boundaries, but then he started taking off my clothes and telling me I was okay with it over and over until I believed him and let it happen, while feeling really uncomfortable. My body language did not show any interest, just confusion. I remember answering "I don't know" when he asked for consent to touch me, but he would just keep asking until I said okay. He purposely preyed on the younger women because he knew they were easier to coerce and more vulnerable. Looking back I didn't really knew where I stood on hook up culture. He convinced me he could teach me a few things that I could use with my sexual partners in the future. Luckily it never progressed to him taking my virginity. He bragged about how many girls he had slept with, and how many he had took their virginity. I would have been just a number to him. I am so much more than just a number. (he did a lot of other sexual things with me after coercing me into saying okay. Stuff I can detail if you care to know. I remember saying out loud that I was glad that I still had my virginity and I'm glad he didn't take it afterall. Not purposely leaving out, but it was way more than Caiti had experienced with George. For my situation there was a high likelihood it would happen again to another girl like me, and I remember wanting to warn them. It's different because my attacker did have malicious intents even though he disguised it as me consenting.) Being in the mindset I am now I would have never let any of it happen, but I am much more in tune with my thoughts and opinions on things. I would have noticed all the red flags and I would have never put myself in a 1 on 1 situation with an older guy like that or any guy unless I were dating them.

With increasing regularity over the years, we've seen allegations about creators online, especially in progressive spaces, surface. With increasing regularity, we find ourselves, after an exhausting saga of condemning a supposedly guilty party and harassing them to hearts' content, being disproven by testimonial and evidence by the person we thought was an irredeemable horrible excuse for a human being. And every single time, I see people on the Internet go "how does this keep happening! how could we let this go on?"

We let this go on because a lapse in critical thinking has occurred. People allow those who have something to say so much benefit of the doubt that in many cases, you need not have evidence of anything actually happening. A word is enough. You're expected to just trust, and anything varying that is "apologism" of whatever the accusations pertain to. This is a bad thing . I cannot stress that enough. And it's something that disproportionately affects some of the most marginalised people in online spaces, trans women and people of colour.

A common refrain when this gets brought up is "but what motive would a victim have to lie?!". This is a good question. Here's some answers I've sourced from situations I've seen:

"Victim" believed that the accused persons ships were gross, and that this obviously meant they COULD have been a creep, so made up a story where they were to deplatform them

"Victim" was mad that the accused stopped texting back

"Victim" was trying to cover for her own abuse perpetrated against the accused

It's also important to remember that reactionaries LOVE to frame their opposition as pedophiles, groomers, abusers. This goes for reactionaries all along the political spectrum, too, not just conservatives. Conservatives, notably, are also very capable of disguising themselves as leftists and adopting the language of progressivism to make these claims and they're absolutely not above it, especially not when it comes to attempting to prove their points that poc and trans creators online are predators.

But it isn't just about outright fabrication. So often in online spaces, someone goes public with an uncomfortable situation that happened to them, and suddenly, they're at the helm of a witch hunt against their attacker. To be taken seriously, some people may exaggerate their stories. Some people might misremember details, or even just have a different experience of a situation to the accused.

I don't say this to invalidate victims. In fact, the exact opposite. I'm a victim of online grooming and sexual assault. I made this post to start some sort of conversation, at least. We don't do victims a service by going to war against their alleged abuser the second they go public. We don't do victims a service by believing bad faith claims founded on provably falsified or misconstrued evidence defended with the refrain of "believing victims". In an age where anyone can say ANYTHING online, we are not doing our due diligence by simply unquestioningly holding up all of these victims who come forward as the sole truth and authority on a situation that may have happened. In an online landscape like the one we currently inhabit, we cannot afford to do this. How many transfem content creators need to be wrongfully painted as groomers and pedophiles before later being cleared for you all to realise that this rhetoric is dangerous?

It was a shit apology. I'm not going over that. We can analyze it to death but it absolutely reads like the apology of someone who is now represented by some label's legal team. The only thing I'm thankful for is that he did not release text messages between him and Shelby in some attempt to distract people. She doesn't deserve that embarrassment.

But, I really hope you read this, I need you to stop treating this like a party. I need you to stop giving every CC that speaks up about this a hit post or hit tweet by liking it.

Almost none of these people liked a single post of Shelby's or uttered the words "I'm so sorry for what Shelby went through" They waited until it was safe to say something. They waited until they could write a "coming in with a steel chair reply." They waited until they knew it would look good.

They revealed that Wilbur has always been manipulative, a narcissist a bully and mean to his friends. They revealed they've always thought he was a bad person. They've revealed that they don't think he's taking accountability while they stayed silent.

And not just silent for a few days. Some of these people are saying they knew for better for weeks, months, years that he was a horrible person. And they said nothing. They let people spend time and money and energy on a community of a person they knew was dangerous and cruel and they said nothing.

They didn't need Shelby Shubble to come forward and say how bad of a person Wilbur Soot was. They didn't need Shelby's story, if they thought he was a bad person, to not appear in videos with him or be in a group channel with him or mention him on stream or tease content with him or be on Anvil Cards or follow him on all social media platforms.

But they did anyway because, to these content creators, it's better to be silent and let a bad person flourish than cause "drama" online.

These people do not give fuck. I need you all to please take this advice that none of these online creators are worth the time and energy you put into them. You don't know what else they're sitting on. You don't know what they've done. You are lying to yourself, right now, if you think Phil or Tommy or Tubbo or Jack or whoever your current fave is wouldn't have been fine saying nothing if Shelby hadn't spoke first. You're lying to yourself if you think whatever new smp or content creator group you're currently into doesn't have horrible shit that they're all choosing to ignore.

The amount of manipulation required by these content creators to maintain the devotion and investment of their communities is horrific.

You demand repentance from Wilbur but it's not us who need to be apologized to. Surely his actually in the music industry pr team will have him say something but that's not the most important thing. We don't know what Wilbur knows and we don't know what Shelby knows, this could be playing out in so many different ways that we don't know about.

I've also seen people angry that other ccs haven't unfollowed Wilbur on everything. How would you feel about your friend doing something like this? You'd want to help them through it, right? Abusers do terrible things, but behind that is poor mental health, a difficult upbringing, stress, bottled up emotions, and any other reason you could imagine. They need help. They aren't going to get it in isolation.

If you're expecting ccs to disassociate I don't think you want him to get better, you want to "hold him accountable" whatever that means; when he's deplatformed he can hurt more people and you won't have to hear about it because he's nobody anymore. They are people first, you can't expect them to do things that could potentially make the situation they're in (and likely wondering what to do with) worse for them and their friend who like I said needs help. If you cared about him healing and not hurting more people you'd realize healing doesn't happen in isolation.

There's no excuse for the things he did, that should go without saying. Abusers can heal and the first step to that is realizing you have a problem, I think he already has and if he hasn't this is sure to wake him up.