@hogwartsmystory is a self-insert fanfiction penned by a pedophile who tried to fake his own death in order to dodge responsibility.
This blog is dedicated to exposing him for what he (and therefore Ethren Whitecross) truly is: a grown predator using the internet to harass someone he abused and exploited in order to validate his ego.
Callout
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Believing Survivors
Abusing Your Status
Justice for Survivors
Art Theft
What is Free Use?
Art Theft is Theft
FAQ
q: who is ethren?
a: ethren is the self-insert version of a man named ren, who engaged in a relationship with a minor starting when she was 13.
q: how old was ren when he started dating the survivor?
a: ren was 18; he claimed to be 21/22.
q: did he know how old she was?
a: ren knew how old she was while they were dating. it’s unclear if he knew beforehand, but he continued the relationship despite knowing she was under the age of consent.
q: did the survivor lie about how old she was?
a: she never lied to ren about her age. advanced scribes staff knew about her age and expressed disgust over their relationship, but never did anything to intervene or warn users.
q: how long did they date?
a: from some time in 2013 to the end of 2017. they possibly dated until the first or second quarter of 2018, when ren admitted to his behavior and faking his death. jill was 17 when their relationship officially ended.
q: did ren know what he was doing?
a: absolutely. he, in his own words, acknowledged that he “could get in a lot of trouble if people found out.” later, when staff expressed disgust and concern he blew them off by saying it “didn’t matter, because she’s the age of consent.” he claims to have worked with young children at the time. he even created a website to get around rules on mature content while recruiting users from sites made for children. COPPA was intentionally turned off on his website.
q: how many victims did he have?
a: at least four survivors were sexually exploited, and potentially many more. an entire community was preyed upon emotionally.
q: what is his fanfiction about?
a: his fanfiction is based on his character from the game “harry potter: hogwarts mystery.” he uses this fanfiction to write his relationship with the survivor in a way that validates his actions, and based his version of the character merula snyde to keep her in his stories.
q: who are you?
a: just a dude being a pal. just a pal being a guy. helping my friend where i can.
note: only genuine, good faith asks and support for the victim will be published. this isn’t an impartial blog and i have zero responsibility to entertain pedophile apologists. i couldn’t care less about what you have to say if you don’t believe survivors.
things happen. days go by. regardless of what we hope for the future, best laid plans remain just that, and people we hoped we could count on slink away like cowards into the background.
maybe this is a bad time for this. i honestly don’t know, because i haven’t spoken with jill in a long time.
i wish there was something more i could do. i wish that i could be physically present as some kind of comfort. i wish i that i’d heard back from people, wish that my calls and emails had ever been answered, even wish that maybe i’d gone to his doorstep and knocked his teeth out of his stupid fucking face myself.
it’s so, so frustrating to be powerless when people so awful seem to get away scott free, and the worst part is that, literally to this day, he’s STILL making her miserable every way he can, poking his head into her life and reminding her that no one can ever make him stop.
in these last two years, we’ve had three more people come forward who were affected by ren’s bullshit, and buttercup herself reach out personally.
ultimately, how frustrated i am can’t even compare to how she must feel.
some of my thoughts and feelings are very different than they used to be. i’m sure that over the last two years, ren’s been up to the same flavor of bullshit. i can’t help but wonder if there were people alienated, then, who are very different people now. two years feels like a blink to me, but it’s a long time for people who suffer.
some things, like how angry i am, are even stronger than they used to be.
where i am today is very different, but i haven’t forgotten. i haven’t gone anywhere. i know you. i know where you are. i don’t believe in a hell, but i do know that the world has a way of turning vipers on their own tails.
these are a lot of fancy words that, ultimately, mean very little. how i feel and what i think isn’t important in the scheme of things.
i probably will not be back here. i hope that my friend finds some peace in the quiet. eventually, even the biggest waves turn into tiny ripples, and, ultimately, fade into the backdrop.
Ask: Hopefully what's left of Ren and his supporters take advantage of the fact that you're not going to call him out anymore.
I'm assuming you mean you hope they don't take advantage. No... I don't think they'll be able to show their faces period pretty soon here. And, there won't be anything for them to take advantage of. Ren is (hopefully) never going to live a day in peace from here on out. Like I said, this isn't a witch hunt, it's something that we're handling legally behind the scenes, too. I'm not going away any time soon.
I hope that you find a better community in the next one.
Anon messages have temporarily been disabled while I prepare final posts and the callout for Ren's supporters. If you have questions, you can ask them off anon and request that your username not be shared. After final posts are sorted, we'll be stepping away. This blog will stay up, and I'll keep an eye on it to add any dumb shit Ren and his groupies send in to what's being handed to the police. We will not answer any more asks after final posts are finished.
Thanks for your support. Remember that Ren is out there having 13 year olds defend him and grooming kids and pretending to be 18. It's your responsibility as adult users to ensure that you don't enable him or allow him to keep wandering around the fandom exploiting minors. Make sure you're the kind of person who supports vulnerable people in your fandoms.
Hey there. Like I said, I'm gearing up to shut down this blog and get the final details in order. I'm also pretty busy with summer midterms. I'm not sure when the next posts will be up. Thanks for the patience.
So Ren is in my inbox again calling the actual child he abused and sexually exploited names. How nice.
Either that, or he’s doxxed his victim to his groupies.
I have a detailed response to a question asked about what happens next with Ren, but I’m waiting to post it until I’m sure it won’t interfere with the ongoing activity happening behind the scenes. Obviously, a lot of this stuff is very sensitive and it would be unwise to have the game plan out in the open, especially when he’s still in the process of abusing minors as I write this.
More later. I’ve been having some health issues that I don’t want to go into for privacy’s sake, and now that I’ve recovered I’m taking a break to rest and catch up on my studies. The next content posted here will likely come in the final days of us managing the account, so please don’t mind the quiet until everything is put together.
Has Ren reached out to the victim to ever try and fix things? It sounds like he only spoke of her to paint her as an abusive girlfriend but did he ever actually apologize to her?
No, he didn't. He gave a half-assed, roundabout apology when he got confronted for pretending to die, but he never took responsibility for what he did to her. He also never reached out to "explain his side" even though he's not blocked and he has the email for this account.
I deleted some old asks that felt superfluous, and reorganized the pinned post. I’m going to reconstruct the FAQ on a separate post, and work on getting the final supporters callout, the “why I’m still here” post, and a rewritten art theft post (I’m a dumbass and deleted it) up this week.
I want everyone to know that I’m not here because I like being here. As a survivor myself, it’s extremely exhausting to watch people take digs at someone who was sexually exploited as a child, and it’s exhausting to have people dragging me in my inbox. I’m here because it’s the right thing to do. I’m not shaming anyone, but if someone else was going to do it, they would have. I don’t get to give myself a break just because it’s hard or my feelings get hurt.
I’ll admit that when I wake up to asks in my inbox telling me to die or go eat shit because of how much of a big mean hypocrite I am, I get really tired of dealing with people in this fandom who have no intention to strike up a good-faith conversation. I want to remind everyone that my askbox is for good-faith questions or support for Jill only. Things meant to start a fight or slander either of us won’t be published, and the senders will be blocked.
I had someone ask, much more nicely, this morning to explain why I think using the avatar is the right thing to do, so I’m going to explain that under the cut. I’m also going to make a second post today to address why I’m still active and what my goals are here.
Fair Use is a United States Copyright law that “promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances.” Sometimes, original and copyrighted works can be used when they meet specific criteria, even when it would be otherwise illegal to use such work. You’ve probably heard of Fair Use on YouTube, because it’s often a point of contention between creators who reproduce works and copyright holders who issue claims and strikes against them.
In order for something to be protected under Fair Use, it needs to be scrutinized under four separate categories that courts determine constitute Fair Use in reproduced works:
Purpose and character of the use
Nature of the copyrighted work
Amount and substantiality of the portion used
Effect of the use upon the potential market
Let’s take a look at these categories one by one.
Purpose and Character of the Use
How the copyrighted material is being used is extremely important in determining the fair use of the reproduced work. If the work is being used to generate revenue, it is probably not protected under Fair Use. Usually, the copyrighted material must be being reproduced for non-profit purposes, though that is not the only factor in determination. Some uses generally protected are: journalism, parody, criticism or commentary, and education. Here are some examples of Purpose and Character in action:
A user sees a sketch someone on Twitter shared as a WIP for an upcoming commission. They decide to take that sketch and use it as a base for their own commission. This is not Fair Use.
A user creates an avatar and tells their followers that it cannot be used without their permission. Someone writes a blog story about the artists on Tumblr, and includes a screenshot of their identifying information, including their avatar. This is Fair Use.
Nature of the Copyrighted Work
What the copyrighted work is also matters. Factual works and nonfiction are the most likely materials to be covered under Fair Use, but the only thing exclusively not covered is an unpublished work like a private manuscript. Courts also disapprove of the use of commercially available materials; if it’s for sale, you have to buy it! This is the clause of fair use that gets creators like those at YouTube in a sticky situation, because the only real way to determine is something meets this criteria is to have it determined by a judge.
Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Used
How much of the copyrighted work is used is another point of Fair Use. This is another category that is hard to determine outside of a court, but it’s generally accepted in IP law that using only what you need is likely to be covered under the law. Using an entire picture or photograph is likely not covered, but using a low-resolution image or a thumbnail has been ruled in precedent cases as Fair Use. Using clips of a movie to summarize it is probably Fair Use, as is using some song lyrics or an excerpt from a book. The more transformative a reproduced work is (the more it has been changed) the more likely it is to qualify under this section. Here are some examples of Amount and Substantiality:
An artist decides that they like a piece of art on deviantArt, and downloads the piece to make their own. They reproduce the exact same scene with their own characters, changing the faces and colors of the characters in it. This is not Fair Use.
An artist decides that they like a pose from a photograph they saw on deviantArt. They download the piece, and use it as a reference for a pose in a piece that they are making. The end result is a completely new picture compared to the reference. This is Fair Use.
Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market
This is one of the easier determinants of Fair Use, and one of the most important ones. This clause of Fair Use comes down to what kind of access was originally available: if you could realistically purchase the work or the rights to the copyrighted work, then it is usually not covered under Fair Use. If using the work will damage the market for that particular work or reroute revenue for that work from the original copyright holder, then it is also probably not Fair Use. Here are some instances of Effect of Use:
A YouTuber makes a channel where they summarize movies for the public. They do not purchase the movies, and they use the main parts of the movie, sped up, to give users the full experience. People who watch their channel do it so that they will not have to purchase the movie themselves, thus depriving the original copyright holders of the revenue for the movie they’ve enjoyed. This is not Fair Use.
A YouTuber makes a channel where they summarize movies for the public. They purchase the movies and use some clips of main events in between commentary on the film. At the end, they leave the viewers wondering what the full movie is like, and they encourage users to go watch the movies for themselves, providing links to the original work. This is Fair Use.
Is the Blog’s Avatar Protected by Fair Use?
The only way to realistically know would be to go before a judge, but I believe so. The avatar in question is used to criticize prominent members of the community and educate users about what Ren did to his survivors [Purpose]. I only used Ethren’s face, because that is what Ren is known for, and transformed it as a thumbnail meant to convey that purpose [Amount]. I could not have purchased Ren’s cover photo, since it was not for sale, and neither could anyone else [Effect]. I believe since it was a publicly published work that was used to identify Ren and his characters, the clause of Nature is also met.
If you don’t agree that my use of the image is protected under Fair Use, or believe it is protected but is morally wrong, I understand your argument and you have every right to believe me a hypocrite. I don’t automatically believe that people who don’t believe I’m using Fair Use or who think I have morally ulterior motives are necessarily supporters of Ren; however, I do think that people who have supported someone who defends art thieves and people who continue to support them themselves have very little weight when discussing what is and what is not protected under copyright.
It’s completely understandable to have your own opinions. I encourage you to do so! IP law is incredibly complicated and it’s important to be educated both as art audiences and as artists. Art theft is wrong. Fair Use is important. Those things are sometimes at odds. What isn’t okay is sending death threats to people you don’t agree with. No one deserves to be harassed, abused, and told to “go die,” period. I’ve always believe that, and while Ren is a gross little narcissist monster, he doesn’t deserve death threats, either.
Btw Kyril and Ren could get 10+ in prison for exposing minors to nsfw stuff 💀💀 and there are motherfuckers out that still defend them
It depends on where they live and the specific content they showed, but it is most definitely a crime to subject minors to 18+ content. In general, you should never subject people to 18+ content without their consent, anyway. Some people don't want to see NSFW stuff.
I have been in the fandom for ages, and I remember being more than a little uncomfortable that Ren liked the series captive prince, with its themes of sex slavery and several instances of sexual assault, enough to rewrite it with his own characters. I just find that really disturbing because the book was just thinly veiled queer erotica (which I'm all for seeing, by the way, but not when it's surrounded with poorly handled sex slavery and a relationship between a slave and his owner). So yeah.
He tried to make an rp about child sex slavery, so yeah. Not surprised.
Whatever did happen to @hogwartsmystory? I did mention in my previous asks that I tried to view that blog after discovering yours and seeing the post about how Connor is now managing that blog because Ren's 'abusive ex' found out about his blog and sent her friends to attack him and stuff. When I did, however, the page kept loading. The blog's profile pic was blank as well. Did he delete/private it at the same time I tried to access it or something? If you don't know as well, it's okay. I just thought that you would know something.
Brothergrimm is a Ren supporter who had a pedo behavior with me and my friends in the past 😒 he was also a huge creep but thank god(but also sadly) he focus more his weird and pedo behavior on the hphm characters and peoples ocs.(he says alot of weird of people's minor ocs behind their back)
It surprises how nobody called him out for the stuff he did especially when he made his character impregnant a teenager/minor character(he didnt even age her up to make her pregnant 🤢🤢🤢 he said himself his oc got her pregnant when she was a minor) and this information its on his account 💀
Okay, this is obviously a bit different. I'm going to post this so folks can check it out themselves and stay away. Thanks for the heads up.
ren being a trans man is MIND BLOWING to me. cause i remember his """friends""" [aka, him under all his fake accounts] bullying me all the time for being openly trans. that internalized transphobia really jumped out huh. not sure if i honestly believe that or not, do we have any actual sources saying that or just more of his friends saying shit?
I waited kind of a while to post this because I wasn't sure if I should. Trans folks can be predators, too. Trans folks can be racist, homophobic, and transphobic, too. I think that it's a dangerous policy to assume that because someone is a certain thing, they can't be another; humans are extremely complex, and very few aspects of being a human are mutually exclusive. If Ren identifies as a trans man, then that's something we should respect. We can't question those things because they don't fit a preconceived notion of what "transness" is.
I definitely understand where you're coming from, but these are exactly the reasons why we have to be vigilant in these communities. Someone's identity and their outward beliefs and actions don't always align, and it's up to the people around someone to call them out when that's the case. Ren is trans. He's also a transphobe. Those things can both be true.
I hope your transition has been easier since then. Ren is a real piece of shit and his opinions have zero value, period, and no one deserves to be chastised for being themselves. It doesn't (and shouldn't) matter, but no--I didn't get that information from his friends or from him.
Also i saw someone saying about how you exposing Ren made them feel anxious and how this feels like a witch hunt because all he did is in the past now...like...Ren commited a CRIME this isnt a small mistake or anything like that!
This is the weirdest bullshit I've heard in a while.
It's not a witch hunt. It's a legal one, where the end goal is to drag Ren's ass to court and have him answer for his crimes. The posts here are a warning to the community so that they don't let it happen again. Everyone who sat there and let this predator hurt people in your community: shame on you. You've got the blood of children on your hands.
Witches don't exist. Pedophiles do, and Ren has always shown y'all that he was one.
Howdy. I kinda just caught up on some of the drama and normally I'd be anon but I've done left this stupid Fandom and everything behind it. But please do not stop calling these people out. The predatory actions are absolutely vile and everyone apart of it needs to be stopped ASAP. This is the exact reason why people who have endured abuse, assault, or even r*** are never taken seriously because the people abusing them aren't being called out and held accountable by their families and homies. It all leads to these scenarios. Think of the bigger picture.
Yeah, it sucks your friend is preying on minors and even manipulating people for their own enjoyment. But it sucks even more for the victims who had to endure that and no one believes them..coming from someone who has been on this end before.
As I stated in a previous post, I had a really rough time when I was younger with getting people to believe that I'd been assaulted on multiple occasions. People who protect predators are despicable in no uncertain terms, no matter what their rationale is. In my case, the evidence was literally buried by a judge, but most survivors have their stories suppressed and covered up by friends, acquaintances, and family. To this day I get gaslit by both adoptive and biological family members about what happened, even though I have the truth recorded in black and white court documents. Jill doesn't deserve that. No one does.
