#8wing

Under a cut because it’s long and potentially triggering (content warnings for grooming, sexualizing minors, and sexual assault)

This is not a matter of minors lying about their ages to enter a space that’s been established at solely 18+. The cast is allowing minors into their server--the rules state that you must be 18+ or have parental permission to join; they are aware that some of the people in that server are under 18; dndads is not marked as 18+ on patreon; when Anthony was approached about a potentially dangerous situation regarding minors in the server, he said nothing to the effect of “wait, there shouldn’t be any minors here in the first place.”

CW: discussion of grooming (a bit more specifically than in previous posts of mine)

For context, these are the rules for the dndads patron server, at least as of October 4:

[ID: a discord message from Freddie:

In order to keep this a safe and welcoming community, we have some rules and guidelines everyone must follow.

If you need help or if anyone makes you uncomfortable (in chat or in DMs), the mods are here for you! You can ping them in the chat by using @/moderator, message the group using @/ModMail, or if you’d prefer to discuss a matter privately 1-on-1, you can also PM the community manager @/Ash or moderators directly.

Listen to the mods! They enforce the rules. Infractions are handled on a case-by-case basis. Breaking the rules will result in you being muted for a duration determined by severity and infraction history. 

We’ve enabled nicknamed editing on the server, so please feel free to append your preferred pronouns at the end of your username.

Always remember these basic guidelines:

This is an 18+ space. Per Patreon’s policy, you must be 18+ or have parental permission.

Keep conversation polite. NSFW content is not allowed!

Stay on topic! If you find yourself drifting off topic, move to another channel. When in doubt, go to #shoot-the-breeze or #shoot-the-breeze-2 /End ID]

You’ll note the policy against NSFW content, but damn, I don’t know what kind of world they live in where linking kink tests and writing erotica are SFW activities. Definitely wouldn’t fly at my job, I’ll tell you that. Anyway.

I’m not saying that everyone who’s ever discussed sex in the presence of a minor is a predator, or that these discussions are always, definitely a slippery slope to kids getting groomed. But I’m saying that when the cast says things like “Grant has never jerked off in that house” and “there’s so much sexual tension between Bella and Dr. Cullen” and “Glenn definitely looks through Nick’s porn history,” among other things; and when they then allow people to regularly discuss sex acts and share kink test results and erotica in their server (yes, even if it’s meant as a joke), they’re making it much easier for predators to approach minors, and much harder for those minors to then be able to tell when lines are being crossed. 

You know the saying about how you can boil a frog and it won’t hop out of the pot as long as you heat it up slowly? The server is getting uncomfortably warm, and it makes it that much easier for someone to turn it up a few degrees in private. It contributes to things like, for example, 9th grade me not pushing back when a then-20-year old made comments on all the “sexual tension” between me and one of my classmates (in response to me telling a story from when we were eleven). 

I believe that if a 14-year-old in a position like the one I was in said “hey, this person keeps asking invasive sexual questions and I’m uncomfortable,” the mods would do something (though whether it’d be handled well is still questionable), but I don’t feel confident that that hypothetical kid has a good reason to believe that’s the case. If I was in a similar situation, I can’t cite anything that would make me feel like I’d be supported and have my concerns addressed, or that would validate my discomfort with the situation, and I can actually point to a lot of things that send the opposite message. 

Because if that kid takes a look around the server and sees that plenty of adults here are bringing up sexual topics in this all-ages space anyway, that no one in charge is objecting to users sexually discussing 13-year-old characters, that Anthony considers “why, did the podcast make you nut” a perfectly acceptable thing to say unprompted . . . it doesn’t give a great impression that whoever they approach will take them seriously if they ask for help. It doesn’t give them a good basis for trusting their instinct that something is off with the way they’re being spoken to. That piece is vital, and it’s where the cast, community manager, and moderators have failed over and over and over. 

Simply saying “if anyone makes you uncomfortable (in chat or in DMs), the mods are here for you!” isn’t sufficient when it’s not coupled with a direct statement that adults approaching minors about sexual topics isn’t okay. It’s not cool for adults to be having explicit conversations with or around minors. There is no good reason for an adult to be asking or speculating about a minor’s sexual behaviors, or discussing their own sex life with minors, or sharing/discussing explicit media with them. Make that clear. It’s not the kid’s job to automatically know this; it’s your job to tell them. 

(Which isn’t to say that an action has to definitively cross that line in order for someone to express discomfort-- “these things aren’t okay, and if you’re unsure, you can reach out anyway” would be a good approach in my book, but the second part on its own isn’t enough.)

Right now, if a teen in the dndads server is being groomed, all of the responsibility is placed on this teen to:

Identify the fact that they’re uncomfortable (and then choose to examine that discomfort rather than immediately downplay it)

Articulate why this is bothering them

Convince themself (and, potentially, whoever they approach about it) that it’s a big enough deal to bring up at all

Speaking as someone who’s been there: it can be really fucking hard to do. But it’d be a hell of a lot easier if the cast said anything to the effect of “hey, adults shouldn’t be initiating this kind of conversation with you,” or if they made any effort to rein in the “spicier” conversations in the server. 

Adults detailing their kinks in the presence of kids isn’t cool, even if none of those kids say they’re uncomfortable. I need an indication that a single person managing the dndads patron server understands that and is taking it into account. 

Nobody wants to be the killjoy who says “hey, I’m not comfortable.” Especially not in an environment where there’s a pattern of such concerns getting dismissed and belittled. Double especially when the behavior is coming from some of the most influential members of the community. It’s not fair--and not safe--to foist all of that pressure onto an uncomfortable kid, and it’s absolutely crucial that the people with power get ahead of it and take on the responsibility of calling out and shutting down unacceptable behavior.

In order to be effective, “reach out if you’re uncomfortable” needs to also be coupled with an apology for the way they’ve been conducting themselves. Because if they don’t apologize for things like the examples I listed above, for the ways their content and actions have contributed to harmful ideas about consent and about sexualizing kids, for allowing the server to exist in this state for so long, then they’re implicitly saying either that those things were okay, or that they’re above those standards. Not a great look no matter how you slice it.

This is a live episode reaction, so they are listening together to the end of the episode where Darryl talks to Yeet. Some of the conversation is a little hard to follow as a result, since they’re reacting to something not shown in the chat, but I think you can follow the relevant parts.  This was in June, so in context the “beat Yeet” phrase was first brought up as a football cheer. 

No one woke up in the morning and went “today I will be furious over an inconsistent dad fact;” people started getting upset after the cast repeatedly made comments about fans’ engagement that were dismissive and hurtful.

Anger over the transcripts didn’t come out of nowhere; it came from the cast neglecting that project for an entire year, and then opting to fix it by hiring someone without even making an effort to communicate that update to the volunteers they burned out and ignored.

We weren’t angry at Anthony over the poor female representation until he spent months telling us he cared and wanted to be better while doing very very little in the way of actual improvement. 

And their failure to make even the slightest effort to not endanger the minors in their spaces (I won’t even say “to protect them,” the bar is in hell with “not endanger” because they have actively made things much easier for predators and still don’t give a shit) was always a big deal but it certainly doesn’t help their case that Anthony was directly approached about a very specific situation, offered help in mitigating it, and did absolutely nothing. 

Because, sorry to be blunt, but: prove it. 

Show me the part where they indicated that they understand that this matters and are working to fix it. Show me what they’ve done with their discord server that reflects an effort to prioritize safety and accountability. (I’ve already explained why what they’ve done so far doesn’t cut it). Show me where they apologized for letting people sexualize middle schoolers (link 2) and discuss their own kinks in front of kids, and where they made it clear that that’s not gonna fly anymore. Show me where Anthony owned up to making light of sexual assault and tried to correct any damage done by that. 

I feel pretty comfortable dropping the assumption of good intent when the best they’ve offered over 2.5 months (and counting) is a couple of deck chairs on the Titanic adjustments, without any actual accountability or improvement.

And look, I get it. I really admired these guys. I get that having a canonically mlm character and acknowledging nonbinary people and simply having a party that’s not comprised entirely of cishet white men are things that make us feel safe trusting this group to care. I get that a lot of this stuff doesn’t line up with the image they sold us, and I get that as a (former) fan, it’s hard to come to terms with that. 

(On that note, content warnings for this post: discussion of self-harm and a kid using a gun)

The categories they (supposedly) warn for are: profanity, violence, sexual content, drug/alcohol use, animal cruelty/animal death, violence towards children, self-harm/suicide, body horror, and gaslighting/emotional manipulation.

Unfortunately, these things still aren’t being warned for consistently. So, for instance, while there are currently (12/5/2020) no content warnings for episodes 35 and 36 on the official site, the Spotify descriptions contain warnings for “profanity, violence, sexual content, and violence towards children” and “profanity, sexual content, drug/alcohol use, violence towards children, and body horror,” respectively. (Screenshots under the cut). They don’t warn for discussion of self harm.

From episode 35:

Anthony: So Grant has this look of sheer surprise on his face. And he looks down at the wound as it's bleeding, and he goes— 

Grant: I-I felt that. I felt it, I actually felt it.

Darryl: Well, yeah, jeez, I can feel it from here. That looks horrible. Are you okay?

Anthony: He goes— 

Grant: No, it hurts and I don't like it, but it’s... that's something. I thought it would just be— I thought only Yeet would make me— but this did, but... I can't do that. I shouldn't. I don't want— I don’t like this feeling, so that’s... [tone becomes lighter, forced] Let's get in the game coach! Let's go do the game, coach!

Anthony: “You know what it's like when you're depressed and you can't feel anything at all, so even pain makes you feel like you're actually still alive, and that's a toxic negative thing? 

Grant: "Yeah. Yeah. It was. Ever since that I've kind of felt, or I guess not felt is sort of more of a thing, like I kind of just don't feel anything? All the time. Like I don't feel like I'm a person? 

But there are these little brief moments where something breaks through. Like when somebody hurts me or when I hurt somebody and I don't ... It's this weird thing where like my brain, I don't like doing them, but it's like the only thing that's like, “hey, you're still here!” And hurting somebody or killing somebody... it's bad. It's bad, right? It's bad. It's a thing we shouldn't want to do.

Yeet: "Yeah, you shouldn't want to. Sometimes we have to, but it's not a good thing.”

Grant: [trembling, near tears] Yeah, but it feels good to me in the moment, because it just makes this binary, like, “you're here, you're not here”. And if I could do that to somebody or if I get hurt, then it's like, “I'm here!” It's like this proof that I'm still here, and that I'm real. 

From episode 36:

As he runs up, he undoes his shoulder pads, and lets them fall off of his body. He runs and he tackles this huge ass spider hard.

Also, guns aren’t included on the list of what they warn for (imo they should be), but Paeden uses a gun in episode 47, so if you haven’t gotten there yet that’s a thing to be aware of.

Just, you know, be careful, look out for each other, and maybe keep relying on friends if you need content warnings so you don’t get blindsided.