I’m about to blow some serious holes in Lily’s bullshit FireRose excuse.
First, this doesn’t address you shipping a grown man and an underage girl. At all. If it is, then it’s you saying “oh they eventually dated anyways, so it doesn’t matter.” It does, actually, but moving on.
Here’s the thing. When did they supposedly date, Lily? You said Josh was 23, but it had to have been close to the time of yours and Josh’s falling out too, in June 2016 (just a month before he turned 24). Otherwise why would you have been friends at all with the guy blackmailing you.
Who was the person that abused you? Oh, I’m not saying. I know how the internet works.
So if they were dating mid-2016, and only lasted six months, the earliest they could have dated was January, and the latest December. So I’ll be generous and mark all of 2016 off.
Now, when exactly did you make those shipping jokes about InkRose and Josh again, Lily?
I have no witty continuation for this. This is just funny.
Well that can’t be right, that’s several months before yours and Josh’s falling out, are you saying Josh was dating a 17 year old and you were still friends with him after all that?
You know what. I’ll be even more generous. Maybe Josh was blackmailing you into silence and compliance. Maybe you were afraid to cut ties until he cut them first. Or maybe your time span was a bit off, it has been almost a decade.
Okay, yeah. That would fit…as long as that was the earliest you joked about shipping them. It was, wasn’t it? Right, Lily?
Right???
For those who don’t know, this is from How to Win at Bronies, a video Lily uploaded all the way back in 2014. March, 2014. It’s since been deleted, but you know how the internet goes—nothing really ever goes away…. Anyways.
Wanna know how old InkRose was then?
She was 15.
Lily was making jokes about locking a 21 year old man in a room with a 15 year old girl until they “made sweet, sweet love.”
If they had dated later, do you know what that would have made you, Lily? Compliant. You made grooming a fucking joke and want to act outraged and innocent when the guy you kept pushing onto an underage girl actually went with it? Fuck off. You’re delusional.
And if anyone wants to go “oh, how do you even know that’s Ink!?” This is what InkRose looked like in 2014.
Can we not be fucking stupid and woobify the actual predator, please?
What predator? Josh?
Literally how? InkRose has already said nothing happened. How are you going to talk over the person who Lily claimed was his victim’s actual words?
If Josh is guilty of anything, it’s enabling the mlp reviewer community to ship FireRose in the first place. Something all the reviewers were complacent in, including Lily. (But again, she went one step worse and shipped the actual people and not just their fictional pony selves.)
If you go through the tags, it’s clear Josh was uncomfortable with the ship, but didn’t have the resolve to deny his followers and shut it down. Eventually he pandered to it for community engagement, (again, something all the reviewers were guilty of) but he made sure it stuck to the pony versions and he made it clear he didn’t support any nsfw content being made.
Should he have handled it better than that? Yes. Absolutely. But being complacent with the fandom’s fictional depictions doesn’t make the dude a predator.
So, until any victims step forward, or some third party has actual fucking evidence besides them just saying it happened, stop getting aggressive that people feel sympathy for a guy getting harassed ten years after the fact over something that didn’t happen.
Regardless of Lily's involvement, he still acted incredibly inappropriately towards a minor. It's as simple as that. He would actively write or participate in scripts where InkRose flirted with him, teased a relationship himself, and was complicit in Lily's gross behavior. He is not innocent. Saying "but everyone did it" is a pathetic excuse. Acting like a separation between the "pony selves" and their "real selves" actually exists and somehow makes it better is beyond ridiculous. He was a grown fucking man, not some uwu shy kid. If he was really against it, he should have been able to stick up for not wanting to be shipped with a 15-17 year old and not, I don't know, teased the situation more. The "poor Josh" of it all is uncomfortable.
Mishandling your viewers and being a fucking idiot when it comes to pandering an unhealthy ship for clicks doesn’t make you a predator though.
It makes you stupid yes, and “everyone was doing it” isn’t an excuse. It’s the truth. Josh wasn’t solely behind every group script. Everyone was complacent. Ink’s apologized, idk if she’s the one that needed to, but I don’t follow everyone who use to be in that community, so someone else will have to tell me if anyone’s said anything else.
But look, if you think that’s still horrendous, that’s valid. Baiting the shit for the audience interaction isn’t that great a look.
But Lily was accusing him of actually dating an underage girl, and that will always be worse than breaking fandom mores. Only one of those will get you actual prison time, and the fact is, Ink said it didn’t happen, so he’s not an actual predator.
People expressing relief that the guy got away from an ex-friend who’s willing to lie about something serious like grooming isn’t woobying him. It’s a valid response.
