Captain Cadaver said:
Only if we live in a reality where the words "beyond credible accusations" instead mean "allegations without any hard evidence".
And to plenty of fans who DIDN'T request it. You conveniently left that key part out. And he didn't just "hug" them: he's reportedly grabbed and groped inappropriately/sexually as well. Among other things.
Oh but I know: "We weren't there, we didn't see it happen, all we have is the word of like, dozens and dozens of fans from across more than a decade+, who come from all over the country, who all don't know one another, and have all of ZERO reason or motivation to lie... but none of us were physically present to see it, so WHO KNOWS? He said/she said!"
Meanwhile, what followed the leaks were testimonies from Stephanie Nadoly and Chuck Huber that Sabat was committing sexual assault on female voice actors and threw Vic under the bus due to he and a lot of Funimation's staff not liking him.
Wait... so you DON'T accept the word of like a dozen different unconnected people confirming something that was already an OPEN SECRET among convention staff and fandom for nearly 20 years (to the point people had known about it for well over a decade and a half)... but you're PERFECTLY WILLING to fully 100% accept up front a SINGLE claim from two people (one of them who's general level of... lets say "mental caliber" is HIGHLY suspect) that just suddenly popped up for the very first time super-recently out of the clear blue?
...ok.
A far more concise story, given the major casting changes starting with DB Kai and Vic's strong Christian morality clashing with Sabat's ideology (reports even stating that Sabat said many anti-Christian remarks to Vic) and those of the rest of the company when considering their political leanings.
Lol... you think that the recasting of a couple of voices in Kai was part of some elaborate backstage conspiracy to cover for Sabat sexually harassing Stephanie Nadolny? And I suppose Linda Young as well, since she was also recast? And that Vic's firing is purely because both Sabat and FUNimation as a whole had it in for the guy all this time all along because Vic's such a "straight-laced Christian" and Sabat and FUNimation as a whole are all a bunch of godless heathen atheist liberals who simply hate Vic for having more conservative beliefs?
Never mind the fact that Chuck Huber, who's still gainfully employed at FUNimation last I checked, is apparently an even BIGGER religious fundie than Vic, and no one's calling him out for any sexual misdeeds or threatening his career. Or never mind the fact that if Vic was so seethingly hated personally by Sabat and by the company as a whole (from Fukanaga on down), they could have simply just FIRED the guy any time they liked ages and ages ago.
And you think that THAT is somehow the "more concise" and believable story than "Vic was overly handsy with young girls at conventions for many, many years and people kept quiet about it and tried to ignore/gloss over it simply so as not to 'rock the boat' as it were?
That's nonsense at its finest.
Reportedly" did so, as in having no solid evidence of him doing any of the serious allegations he was accused of.
TFS have some ties to Funimation's clique, given they're on good terms with Sabat, so to say their testimony is an honest one would be sceptical at best.
Oh, so TFS are ALSO in on the anti-Vic conspiracy plot too? I assume because his God-fearing Christian morals clashes so badly with their deviant, homosexual-tolerating lifestyles?
To review: We have Vic having his career destroyed over skewered charges that are very likely to be false and the most he can be solidly accused of (to the extent it became part of the trail when no better evidence could be found) was a joke, yet jokes of a more severe nature aren't held to the same standard.
More so, we have far more damning evidence of Sabat being the one actually sexually assaulting women within Funimation coming off the back of these leaks, yet Funimation desperately advocates the clear evidence doesn't exist whilst pointing blame at Vic.
There's indeed hypocrisy within all of this when it comes to objective evidence in the treatment of one's career.
Again, the word of countless dozens of unconnected, unrelated young girls from across DECADES (to the point where much of fandom, including guys who are only VAGUELY aware, at best, of anything that goes on with any of the FUNi cast, had been hearing about this since eons and eons long, long ago, decades pre-#MeToo, pre-Redpills and whatnot) all coming forward with a similar pattern of harassment sets off your bullshit alarm... but ONE CLAIM that just suddenly sprang up out of nowhere like what, a week ago now? That's 1000% air-tight right off the bat? To the point that it instantly reads as "elaborate backstage, anti-Christian conspiracy plot"?
Serious, honest question: don't you just see how ridiculous that sounds?
And finally with regards to the Jelly Bean joke: if Vic wasn't a serial sexual harasser and simply made that joke completely in a vacuum? No one would care. At all. In the slightest. By itself, devoid of context (now who's ignoring that?) it's a totally harmless and negligible bit of playful banter.
But within the context of Vic's long pattern of sexual harassment and moreover within the context of his harassing Monica Rial prior? That otherwise harmless joke takes on a TOTALLY different connotation entirely.
The leaked audio on the other hand? Just actors fucking around between takes. That's it. There's literally NO CONTEXT which would suddenly make that audio suddenly take on a more menacing air or malicious tone, shy maybe only of Schemmel somehow being revealed as a raging, virulently anti-gay homophobe (which he very well might be, I have no fucking clue nor do I particularly care at the moment, barring him committing some horrific anti-gay hate crime or something).
