everybody throwing the word grooming around so easily makes me feel ill like yes kiel is a...

this is actually smth i wanna be clarified of as well.

"grooming" refers to the process by which a perpetrator builds a relationship, trust, and emotional connection with a child (or sometimes a vulnerable adult) to manipulate, exploit, or abuse them sexually. it often involves tactics such as:

1.Gaining the trust of the child or their caregivers.
2.Offering gifts, attention, or affection to create an emotional bond.
3.Isolating the victim from their friends or family.
4.Gradually desensitizing the victim to inappropriate behavior.

alright, i think we can all agree that he ticks all of the above boxes the loophole here is that bro has been in love w asha and scheming since before a decade of his life and has continued till at present. so even though it wasn't the case before while they were still kids, it has evolved into grooming as kiel grew older since his tendencies basically has become worse and more inclined. this although gets downplayed bc of asha's personality, he's aloof and airheaded which makes it seem that he's not affected by it at all.

that's my two cents on this, pls feel free to correct me if i'm wrong in any way

Kiel has been very possessive and already planning on an preparing to marry asha when asha was a toddler and Kiel a teenager.

We also know that Kiel taught asha from as long as asha can remember some really weird nonsense rules such as the hand holding thing.

It ticks all the boxes of grooming and definitely is grooming since it's been going on ever since asha was a toddler. Kiel having been a teenager back then while asha was a toddler also definitely adds some power dynamics there too

Keil is 30, Asha is 24. First chapter confirmed ages. So unless teenager Idol time traveled to when Ashamed is 3 Keil would have been 9.

Teenager Keil* sorry autocorrect on my kindle sucks.

The scene I was referring to was when Asha was 7 and Kiel was 13

for those who replied, yes, i totally understand why you see it as so; my point was whilst kiel does display behaviours of manipulation and isolation, + with the power imbalance either by status and age, it is not grooming - unless of course later on the outcome is exploitative or abusive. so far what kiel is doing at most can be classified as, is the attempt of psychological manipulation. the progression of grooming is a complex topic, hence why when something is so easily deemed grooming makes me frown; above all, this is not to dismiss anyone’s personal experience or view points, this is simply how i have come to terms of understanding abuse in the forms of sexually, physically and emotionally (yet even this is complex as abuse often does not involve only one “method” of control)

Grooming is when a predator maliciously "teaches" a mentally vulnerable person, in this case a young child, specific things to make them behave towards a predator in a romantic or sexual way that they otherwise wouldn't have. The hand holding thing is proof that this is exactly what happened here.

I've read a fuckton of stories where people in the comments were screaming "grooming" and this one is the only one where I genuinely agree that yes it is indeed 100% grooming. Ik there's a lot of false alarms out there but this one ain't a false alarm at all.