Statement regarding Adam Koebel, Rollplay, and The Bombthreat EP
It feels a little overdramatic to say that I feel betrayed, but I cannot deny the existence of my emotions. For a majority of the last 6 years, I’ve been a member of the Mathsquad, an audience community of the now-former streamer and game master Adam Koebel. I was there even before the Discord server was set up, when the community met up through Teamspeak 3. I entered Adam’s audience through Rollplay, an ensemble-cast tabletop RPG show by JP “itmeJP” McDaniel. More specifically, through the spinoff Mirrorshades show, one that I got into because I was already a follower of Rollplay: Mirrorshades cast member Brooke “Dodger” Lawson. Dodger has my unending love and support both as a creator and as a person, but is otherwise unimportant to what this is about.
I had written The Bombthreat EP as a fan tribute to Rollplay: Mirrorshades, taking a great amount of inspiration from the show. The EP itself is titled after the play group’s in-character collective name. The player charcters’ names, as well as a fancy made-up title for Adam as game master, took front-and-centre prominence upon the EP’s cover art. Most of the tracks were titled after and written to evoke the player characters and their relationships, except for the last track, meant as an alternative end-credits theme to celebrate the spirit of Twitch.tv’s creators and community. They “bleed purple”, a Cruor Amethystine that flows through their veins.
I guess I only have myself to blame for putting my faith and trust in people who ended up not deserving of any of it.
During Rollplay: Far Verona season 2 episode 18, broadcast on 22nd March 2020, Adam, acting as game master, broke the trust of the players, the staff, and the show by shoehorning a player character’s rape into the final scene of the episode. This was without anyone’s prior knowledge, not even that of the character’s player Elspeth Eastman. She, as well as the rest of the cast, quit the show soon afterwards, forcing the wholesale cancellation of Rollplay: Far Verona. Elspeth released a video statement 12 days after, and Kotaku put out their own news article 4 days after that. Rollplay: Mirrorshades’ cast also included streamer and former professional Starcraft esports athlete Kaitlyn Fox, who was herself abused and sexually assaulted by a Rollplay staff member almost 5 years ago. She had a cease & desist served upon her to keep her quiet, but due to aforementioned events has started talking about it again, along with Adam’s complicity in all of it. Me and my musical work are now in an unacceptable and untenable position, thanks to The Bombthreat EP’s direct and lovingly-crafted references and homages to both Adam Koebel and the Rollplay brand. I am a Singaporean “covid refugee”, having been ripped from my studies and re-immigration effort in Canada and have to now seek work in Singapore; the current situation and what I must do will hamper my chances greatly. It gives me great pain and hardship to do this, especially since some of my proudest work lies on that record. I never once imagined that, two years ago, when I had put my blood, sweat, tears, heart, and soul into this record, that it would have to come down to this.
I cannot in good conscience continue to leave it up in its current state and continue to talk about it as a piece of work I am proud of. This will be how things are going forward, until I have figured out what else to do.
With immediate effect, I have pulled The Bombthreat EP from all online sales and streaming platforms. Take care of yourselves. Believe survivours. Black lives matter. 1312.
-- Vorian
