trigger warnings: racism/fetishization/exoticization of poc/aapi individuals, fetishization of lgbtqia+ individuals, ableist portrayals of mental illness, statutory rape, incest, gaslighting, manipulation, ignoring boundaries, site content and idea theft
authors note: while we as a staff team normally do not condone “call out” posts, we feel that the information within needs to be shared with the greater roleplaying public to keep people safe from these situations and individuals. while the roleplay itself is now open and has been altered just enough to be slightly different, we felt that it was important to make the rpc community aware of not only the theft of their content but the actions of the users in many aspects. they are predatory and dangerous and we feel it is important to make the roleplay community aware.
this is a psa about the jcink post potter roleplay confringo and their staff team consisting of lizard/vonn (35, she/her, mst), gatr/bones (31, he/him, cst), kermit (27, she/her, est), and nox (30+, he/him, est). these are the current known names/aliases of the group, though they have been known to change them from site to site.
we were first introduced to this group of roleplayers when they joined our post-potter site, closure. quite quickly, it was apparent that the individuals were focused on shipping/creating 3-3-3 based content and plots. that is not the primary issue as our site has a rating of 3-3-3 and is a jcink premium roleplay. the real issue began, however, when it became clear that boundaries were being crossed, and attempts were made to force inappropriate plots upon members who have voiced discomfort regarding these encounters to various members of the staff. some examples of boundaries crossed and ignored are that the aforementioned individuals would continuously post in “seeker” (our site’s version of tinder) threads of characters with incompatible sexualities, and in several instances, gatr specifically posting in “seeker” threads of characters that his was related to, in what is believed to be an attempt to force incest plots.
on top of this, there was extreme fetishization of lgbtqia+ (specifically male identifying) characters that caused members to approach staff about how they were uncomfortable with how plots, threads, and so on were being handled on site with these characters. this also bled into the discord channel, where the individuals would constantly make sexual references to their characters reacting to everything in the general discussion and so on which led to general discomfort and awkwardness in the discord.
there were extremely graphic sexual threads which, again, having a 3-3-3 rating we allow, but it was targeting and fetishizing the lgbtqia+ community to an extreme that caused multiple people to contact staff in concern and extreme discomfort. furthermore, many of these plots and threads were rooted in stereotypes surrounding lgtbqia+ men that were being handled inappropriately by some writers who, to the best of our knowledge, do not identify as men. with these concerns being brought to our attention by our members, the staff was trying to figure out how to approach the situation when their actions escalated things even further into an unsafe territory for our members.
after a misunderstanding regarding face-claim ethnicity (and jewish characters), kermit approached another member of the roleplay who identifies as jewish before contacting the staff with her concerns. in light of the conversations included within the screenshots below, we believe this action to not only be a crossing of boundaries, but an attempt to supersede the staff and pit members against the staff before the concern would/could be brought up to the staff to handle. during these encounters, kermit furthermore twisted and misrepresented the words of a staff member from a different, previous conversation unrelated to this particular event, which we consider to have been a means to gaslight and manipulate the member they had approached, who voiced their discomfort and confusion to us as to why they were being targeted in this manner. the staff team spoke to kermit to discuss the inappropriate and invasive nature of their conversation with the second member of the site who has no authoritative presence on site, especially in light of a situation that was being handled by the staff team.
the situation finally came to a head when lizard created a character that was intended for a shameless-inspired family want ad. the character was meant to be inspired by the character of lip gallagher; however, after a lengthy discussion about all aspects of this character upon official reviewal of the application and shipper, the staff came to a general and final consensus that we would be unable to accept the character due to the combination of face claim (jeremy allen white) and backstory. it was felt, on the part of the staff team, that this character was a carbon copy of one from another fandom (lip gallagher), and as we are not a multi-fandom roleplay, we would require lizard to change either the faceclaim of her character, or make noticeable changes to the backstory of the character to distance him from lip gallagher before we could proceed with acceptance of the application. lizard was approached by a staff member with this information, and was offered suggestions on finding ways to differentiate the character from the source material of shameless, and/or help with finding alternate face-claims. lizards response was to abruptly leave the group, citing that she felt staff was beginning to “make demands that feel arbitrary and/or feel like they are making rules after the fact in response specifically to something i did.” shortly after lizard sent that message, the other aforementioned individuals also left the site.
it is important to note that we do not begrudge them for leaving. no member is obligated to stay on our site for any reason, and we understand that not everyone will enjoy a site or rules that are in place, and people are free to join and leave roleplays as they please. our concerns initially started to pile up after we began receiving multiple confessions and concerns from our members in hindsight about the inappropriate and frankly triggering content that was being perpetuated by the group of players that had left. the issue became unavoidable when we were informed by one of our current members that the group of players who had left were creating a new site using our site’s plotline and subplot ideas, recreating the characters they had created on our site, and furthermore attempting to “poach” our members, allegedly misrepresenting the events that had led them to the decision to leave in order to convince them to leave our site as well and to move their characters and plots from site to site. when it became clear that they were stealing ideas from our site (plot, subplots, and the concept of “seeker”) to create their own, we banned their ip addresses from our site.
not only have they recreated our site’s plotline and subplot ideas and with the most minor of alterations, they have also taken concepts that were unique and original to our site, as previously stated. for example, a big part of our timeline and site lore is the advancement of technology in the magical community and the creation of the app “seeker” (essentially tinder in the magical world) - this to our knowledge, was completely unique to our site, until they created “wixsper”. on their site they are continuing in their dangerous and extremely inappropriate character creation and plots. these characters are poorly handling situations such as incarceration of lgbtqia+ men and the fetishization thereof, statutory rape, and racist portrayals of characters of color.
they are engaging in underage and barely-legal characters participating in sexual threads (these threads are often violent and dangerous misrepresentations of the BDSM community and the young characters are often partnered with characters much older), perpetuating racist and extremely harmful stereotypes of aapi individuals, creating damaging and ableist plots based around negative and harmful stereotypes of mental health/bipolar disorder with no clear or adequate research, and so on. simply put: their site has been created in retaliation against ours, using our foundations of lore and ideas to further their harmful agenda and desire for inappropriate plots and characters. we find this behavior to be not only harmful, but unacceptable in an online community that is meant to be a hobby and source of enjoyment for all who engage in it.
screenshots can be found below:
our plot (first) vs their plot (second):
our subplots (first) vs their subplots (second):
“seeker” (our system) vs “wixsper” (their system):
inappropriate fetishization (aapi, lgbtqia+, incarcerated lgbtqia+ individuals, etc):
members uncomfortable with attempts at incest plots without discussion:
conversation with lizard about her shameless character:
conversation with kermit regarding targeting a jewish member:
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