Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

Poland. Year 1990.

After the fall of communism in 1989, Poland transitions to democracy and a free market economy.  The economic state of the country is still in shambles, but there is a lot of hope for the future. For Polish people, 1980s were synonymous with violent political oppression and poverty. For Americans, 80s are a source of nostalgia for stuff like playing DnD or trying out cool NES games. The Iron Curtain was now gone and all that stuff started arriving to Poland too, but in the 90s. Too bad everyone was dirt poor though. The new and cool Western products were an object of fascination. After all, all of it was previously completely unobtainable.

Why on earth am I rambling about the economic state of 1990s Poland in a Hobby Drama write up? Because it's a backdrop from where the hero of our tale emerged.

1. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KATAN: POLISH TTRPG SCENE IN THE 90S

Kryształy Czasu (English: Crystals of Time) are a tabletop RPG system created by Artur Szyndler sometime in the 1980s - one of the very first Polish TTRPGs, in fact! According to Szyndler, the work started around 1984-1985, but the system was completed around 1990. Clearly his passion project, it was originally distributed in the form of floppy disks or in handwritten notebooks at fantasy fan meetups by the author himself. Later on in 1993, a revised version of the system was published by a Polish fantasy magazine Magia i Miecz, spreading it far and wide. 

How was the system? Well... According to an article I found, Crystals of Time were never really well regarded. Common criticisms included lack of proofreading, an absurdly inconsistent universe that regurgitates common fantasy tropes, lack of balancing, rules bloated with tons of unnecessary dice rolls, and insane random encounters/effects that could literally end the game on the spot (such as a side effect of a spell being able to erase the entire party of players from existence) and - most importantly - a characteristic, inept writing style. Put a pin in this last one. My brother - a hardcore TTRPG fan and a Game Master for many years - described it to me as "about as fun as filing tax documents" and that he "thought someone wrote it as a joke". Take that as you will, but I've never heard him say stuff like this about any other system.

However, it should be noted the system did have legitimate fans - its biggest strength was its accessibility (and the fact it was free). What other options were there? Back then you couldn't just walk into a store and buy a DnD manual. You couldn't even pirate it because no one owned a computer. The least you could count on was a barely readable photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of someone's DnD manual. In English. So good luck with decyphering all of that!  If you even know any English in the first place. So you're stuck here. You're stuck with Crystals of Time.

Author of the aforementioned article, Piotr Muszyński, writes that Crystals of Time garnered a lot of goodwill from the public at the time because it was a Polish product created in a time when they were automatically seen as lesser than the cool, shiny, Western stuff that just started to show up, so the system got some praise for the effort alone. And while CoT faded away with an advent of other imported TTRPGs such as Warhammer, DnD or Old World of Darkness, it still had a very small yet dedicated fanbase of nostalgic middle aged fantasy nerds. Crystals of Time were mostly forgotten... until they suddenly came back into the spotlight.

In the strangest way possible.

2. THE RETURN OF KATAN: A CROWDFUNDING SAGA

Poland. Year 2014.
Artur Szyndler starts a campaign on a crowdfunding website polakpotrafi.pl. Crystals of Time are back, baby! 

...This time, as a novel - titled Crystals of Time: Katan's Saga: Labyrinth of Death, part 1 and 2 (Kryształy Czasu: Saga o Katanie: Labirynt Śmierci, część 1 i 2). As a true fantasy epic, a new modern classic that will surely be discussed and analyzed for eons. The goal of the campaign was raising money for the creation of the first volume out of planned 13 entries (each split in 2 books) in Crystals of Time: Katan's Saga. The description of the campaign goes into detail about turning Crystals of Time into a franchise, which are unusually ambitious for a mostly forgotten TTRPG from the 90s. As Szyndler himself wrote: "as you can see, our foresight extends further than the astrologers are able to foresee" - and goddamn, he wasn't kidding. So, what was the goal? A mere 55 THOUSAND Polish złoty (~15000USD). A small price to pay for a literary masterpiece. And this is when people started getting skeptical.

As the wider internet learned of the campaign, they started noticing quite a lot of red flags. To release a book, you'd feasibly need a team of a couple people, like editor and beta readers. Crystals of Time: Katan's Saga boasted a team of nearly 40 PEOPLE(!!!), including 12 editors and 14 graphic designers. The campaign also had an official youtube channel, which posted a lot of trailers to drum up hype. The trailers are quite amateurish and consist mostly of recitations of very bad poetry about the island archipelagos of Ochria. And there's also a traditional dwarven funeral song, which is 22 minutes long. In case you need some cool tunes for your sex playlist.

It's not a secret that the author also had quite an ego. Take a look at what he had to say about the book!

"The scale of CoT. How many times do I have to say that the thing you knew up to this point was merely 1-5% of everything I came up with? Over 25 years ago, before Magia i Miecz, it was 3700 pages - including the universe. Some have seen these documents - a pile of 1,5m height. And now the scale of CoT is right before your eyes. And this is just the beginning...

"The last thing is what the beta readers said. You read this book for the first time for all the action. It's hard to stop reading - I promise. For the second time, you'll read the book to understand the world, because the information are scattered across many chapters. You cannot know everything without getting to some longer descriptions. For the third time, you'll be reading it for the schemes, mysteries and subplots. Decyphering it all is an essence of all 13 volumes. I don't recommend doing it during the first read. There is too much to comprehend. You must understand, this isn't a normal book."

"As I said from the start, this book will shock you with its ideas. The things that nowadays seem absurd will be soon throughly analyzed." 

"The writing style is what it is. You have to accept it, or not read at all. Sometimes the suspense will be jarring, but I will remain consistent."

"As some of you already noticed, the competition isn't resting and already started to create bad reviews for the book. A few of the sponsored "counter-articles" were already detected by you all. I didn't expect them to be so fast."

"Biggest assets of the first volume of Katan's Saga are the 25 vibrant characters of our party and their unbelievable experiences, as well as the plot of the novel rushing forward like a meteorite."

Artur Szyndler also stated that he hates writing descriptions of this universe that he's so proud of, so he'll put them in between chapters in the form of poetry. Or, as he calls it, a "rhymed prose". He also defiantly defended himself from doubters by stating that "if someone is looking for a beautiful writing style, they should go read Mickiewicz instead." Normally it would've been a little worrying to hear these things from the next literary sensation, buuuuuuuut.... Oh hey, look, this masterpiece will have exactly 700 different fantasy races and 25 main characters! And if you give Artur 20000 or 50000 złoty, he will make YOU into one of the protagonists of his book! It would be a shame not to take this golden opportunity and be forever immortalized in literature!
And then Szyndler uploaded a few chapters as samples to the campaign page. This is when the internet got their first taste of the book.

And oh boy, the result was not good.

3. HALF-FJORDS, HARMONY AND BAD POETRY: SZYNDLER'S LICENTIA POETICA

Before we dive into the endless void that is the book's plot, we should talk about how this thing is written.
Let's say this straight up: the book is a car crash and attracted bile fascination ever since the internet saw the sample chapters for the first time. Due to its clumsy, yet weirdly captivating writing style and absurd over-the-top plot, it frequently loops back into being the greatest unintentional parody you'll ever read. The book is full of word salad, grammatical and spelling errors and features a stream of consciousness-type narration, which was confirmed to be a result of Szyndler literally dictating the book to people who were writing it down for him. (Or, as haters referred it to as, "the transcript of a TTRPG campaign ran by the worst Dungeon Master in the entire school".)
The most characteristic Szyndler-isms include:

• Quotation marks in completely random places, such as calling a group of literal TITANS "a gathering of many unbelievably "tall" foes"  or phrases like  "His eyes almost "popped out of his skull"(...)"
• Szyndler's inexplicable obsession with describing things as "half-"something. Half-plates. Half-plane. Half-life. Half-mammal. Half-fjords...
• Describing things as "some sort of ___" or saying that things happened "probably", as if the narrator himself wasn't sure what he's talking about. Yet at the same time the book will state extremely specific numbers of things, such as revealing that a character twirled exactly 253 times during her dance, or thatsomeone is "one of the most important gods in over 126 455 pantheons".
• Ellipsis... showing up.... constantly...
• Whenever a problem in the plot has an easy solution, the characters immediately dismiss it because "it would disrupt the harmony". No, they don't elaborate. The harmony must be swinging wildly like a pendulum because they disrupt it like 3 times a page.
• Random creatures, places and things are always described as by their "essence". It's a frighteningly common occurence to read that our main characters  "passed by a powerful enemy, a seaweed existence born from essence of vitality and nothingness*"* and then we have to move on like it never happened*.*
• The ballads - long works of VERY questionable poetry that are stuck into the plot. They mostly detail geography, inhabitants and customs of lands and races who are completely unrelated to the story. In-universe, they are masterpieces created by the party's bard, and literally everyone constantly praises his genius and god-given talent. These go for dozens of pages at the time, so I hope you enjoy the worst rhymes ever concieved by man.
• The narration jumping wildly between different subplots with a subtelty and grace of a cocaine-fueled chimpanzee.
• Szyndler has ZERO sense of scale. It constantly leads to situations where the party will enter a room in a dungeon and have a random encounter with a thousand harpies or a million gargoyles. This isn't a problem limited to the novel either. In the equally clumsily written TTRPG, the capital city of the orc empire (with a population of a few millions) has a sole food source, which are... the fish from a local lake.
• Every single time someone casts a spell, the spell is mentioned to be "ancient", "forbidden", or "ancient and forbidden". Sometimes the spell's level is also stated. Characters also talk about their classes, levels and allignments all the time. I'm slightly disappointed we don't learn how much EXP they earn.
• A lot of characters in the book are based on the author's friends and, in one case, even the author himself. Often this fact is only cleverly disguised by spelling their names backwards (Kemot = Tomek, Skela = Aleks...).
• Crystals of Time universe has every single fantasy race, creature, spell, land and concept ever implemented in other fantasy stories. All of them. All of them at once. Which is a shame because some of Szyndler's ideas are quite interesting, but they get drowned out by this noise of unnecessary information and concepts. Nothing is presented and elaborated on, its only listed out somewhere and exists solely to bloat the book with MORE STUFF.
• The characters die and come back to life so frequently that you can risk a statement that Crystals of Time is the most pro-life book ever written.

As a fun little sidenote: Artur Szyndler also had a short stint as a politician. He ran in local elections in 2007, but didn't get a mandate. He was member of Prawo i Sprawiedliwość party. If you're a Polish citizen, you probably know where this is going. If you aren't a Polish citizen - if you ever heard anything about the political state in Poland during the last 8 years (such as a near total ban on abortion,etc)... Those were the guys in power. Which brings me to the final Szyndler-ism...

• Sexist and racist content! There isn't a single woman in this book that doesn't get naked. Female characters stripping and/or having sex with something/someone is a frequent solution to any problem the party faces. Szyndler seems to be weirdly fixated on putting subplots "just for women" in his book, with... really interesting results.

The situation wasn't exactly helped by these posts detailing Szyndler's quotes and opinions expressed during his convention panels. Highlights include the claim that the book with "feature subplots for men (battles, fights, duels, weapons) and women (romances, seduction, interior design, raising children)", or the fact that Szyndler likened RPG systems in which the GM does not calculate the result of the dice roll, but instead decides the effect to be a sign of fall of our civilization and *somehow* connected it to there being "Jihad in France". Take that, Matt Mercer!

Shockingly, the campaign did not reach its goal, therefore no money was gained. It raised over 7000zł (~1800USD), and had only 69 backers. And even though this money was supposedly needed to fund writing of the novel, the book, in all its 1400-page glory, inexplicably... came out anyway shortly after. In all its self-published, barely coherent, typo-ridden glory, of course. As a cherry on top, despite allegedly employing 14 graphic designers, all illustrations in the book have very small resolutions, leaving them very visibly pixelated in print.

Szyndler changed his mind about the goal, and the campaign was now supposed to be funding special "collectors editions" of his book all along, or something. Was the campaign intended to be a scam? I don't know, and I won't make a definitive statement. All I'm sure about is that he clearly had no idea what he was doing.

4. KATAN'S SAGA: HEY, WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS BOOK EVEN ABOUT?

I read the book three times and all I know is it's an ultimate test of reading comprehension. Summarizing the plot in short (or coherent) fashion is literally impossible, so instead I decided to go for a small collections of Greatest Hits - both in plot point and quotes form. Not really highlights, more like... uh, lowlights.

The main plot of the saga is centered around the hunt for an evil deity called NATAK the God Slayer. Natak pissed off all the gods so much that they decided to get rid of him for good - by travelling to his birthplace and killing him while he's weak. Two gods, Asteriusz the Great and Gorlam the Brave (2 of our 25 protagonists), travel to the land of Ochria 9000 years earlier, which - by complete coincidence - is also the time and birthplace of an orc named KATAN, future god-dictator who rules Ochria. Can you guess where this plot is going? Because Artur Szyndler thinks you don't, and seemingly sets it up as if it was a plot twist.

Unfortunately for us, Asteriusz and Gorlam are the two most unobservant morons that ever lived. The two eventually meet baby Katan, who is being cared for by an amnesiac priest of an unknown deity, who grants him an absurd amount of power to protect the kid. Once Katan is a toddler, he starts wielding two "half-plates" (weapons) called the God Slayers. At one point the priest starts a chant for Natak the God Slayer. At another, the priest literally says the obvious twist to Asteriusz and Gorlam's faces, but they "weren't listening", so I guess their CSI-level investigation will go on for the next 26 half-volumes. You'll catch that nefarious Natak one day, guys! I believe in you!

The actual plot of volume 1 is about a group of paladins, who decided to... stand in the middle of a forest and practice sword fighting right next to the Tree of Balance, which inevitably gets chopped down - which will cause the destruction of the world very soon, because "the harmony was disrupted". The world's only hope is now our party (and Asteriusz, and Gorlam, and Katan...), who have to travel to the Labyrinth of Death, a dungeon/eldritch location, to bring back a new magical sapling. The rest of the plot is just increasingly absurd random encounters on their way to the tree. It's like Dungeon Meshi, if Ryoko Kui consumed a lethal dose of LSD. 

The funniest part is that they end up accidentally destroying that new sapling as well, making their 1400-page long quest ultimately pointless.

***
Remember those sample chapters on the campaign page? Keep this in mind: this is how the book introduced itself to the world.
Hannah, originally introduced as a tough and heartless elven assassin, gets immediately brainwashed by Asteriusz to be his devotee, and essentially becomes the party's resident prostitute. She offers a dance to the leader of the mountain giants in exchange for letting the party through and what follows after is a roughly 10-page long sequence of Hannah stripping and breasting boobily all over the place. And it truly has to be read to be believed.

"Suddenly her thin body jumped into the air. Her hands, held high, were pretending to be a geyser. At almost one meter up in the air, the girl began her spin. And not a normal one.

(...)
Only her hands waved every time, like wings of an albatross. Some were sure the girl was really flying. They saw the dancing leaps into the air, all almost of four meter distance, combined with preserving the one meter height throughout their distance.
(...)
Snake movements of the spinning black mamba were reaching the higher parts of the elf's body. When they reached her buttocks, most of present men bit their lips. Paladins took off their helmets and stretched out their necks to see better. And they had a lot to look at. The chiseled muscles of her female butt, covered only by elastic black cloth, perfectly showing off her moves. Each of her buttocks not only shrunken, straightened or wiggled separately, but one could see a moving barrier between these two styles of dance.
(...)
Girl's perky breasts seemed like they don't want to submit to the snake movements. They tried to shiver, jump, and even flapped around to the sides.
(...)
The dance continued to mirror the movements of a snake running away from paladins.
(...)
Her breasts continued to land once to the left, then to the right, while still maintaining their perkiness.
(...)
Both legs changed their positions to the rhythm of the music. Their fast movements made noticing the change impossible. Once left, and then right leg, took turns on the ground while the other one waited, with a knee bent so hard her feet touched the buttock - just like a heron.
(...)
The spectators then realized two things. One was that the legs of the dancer were distracting everyone from the breasts, the second - that her tiny steps started shaping some sort of strange pattern. Only half of them recognized the point of this sequence and its meaning. From time to time, separated by one long "step", she was spelling out her name with the stomped drops of sweat. On the stone floor of the "chamber" you could see her name - Hannah."

And then our elven stripper Hannah starts spinning during her dance. She spins exactly 253 times until all her internal organs are crushed by the force. And then she dies. Don't worry, she gets better. Later in the book she gets married 3 times, to 3 guys, all of which are clones, all are named "Nameless", and are also the eldritch abominations ruling the Labyrinth of Death. The upside is that at least she's not at risk of mixing up any names in her polycule.

***

The party decides to adopt a pre-pubescent medusa princess named Mantisa, despite the fact that once she comes of age she will automatically turn evil, so they'll have to kill her anyway. And she can become evil at any time. It doesn't stop one of our paladins from marrying Mantisa the next day, and the two become a true power couple on the battlefield as well. And by that I mean that tan Arkadian is carring Mantisa on his back at all times during combat.

"Additionally, he [Arkadian] felt that during the more energetic movements that his helmet was touching her naked breasts"

Which he felt somehow. Through his helmet.

"The surprised demonic knight was baffled when Mantisa's nipples pierced into his helmet's visor. The moment of inattentiveness costed him a bit too much. The paladin cut into his demonic hands. (...) Tan Arkadian, pleased with the idea, praised his partner.

"Bravo! Your sight worked on him! Next time make sure to stare into his eyes longer, so that he pertrifies."

Mantisa decided not to correct the young knight."

It should be noted that Mantisa is pre-pubescent only as a Medusa, and is explicitly stated to be 18 - the same age as her husband. But later on the party walks into a trap that makes everyone 1 year younger. Except Mantisa, who got 4 years younger, due to her species' weird obsession with number 4. Arkadian briefly considers that their age gap might be weird now, to which she replies that they got married at 18, and "if someone is outraged by the physical love between a 14 and 17 year old, then it's their own problem". We thankfully don't have to ponder the ethics of... all *this*, because Arkadian decides to walk into the trap 3 more times, so that he can be the same age as his wife. And they say chivalry is dead!

Mantisa also has a quirky habit of murdering other female characters if they even breathe in Arkadian's direction. That includes murdering literal newborns. (Don't worry, they get better.) I think these might be the "subplots for women" that Szyndler hyped up.

***

During the very same fight with the demonic knight, a samurai/salamander woman named tan Sunin shows us her best moves as well.

"The knight, clinging to life, kept defending himself. (...) supernatural magic and endurance gave him a chance to survive longer, giving him an extra hour of life*. (...)* After two hours*, only this energy kept its master alive, stopping the bleeding and continuing the "fight". (...) When tan Tacjan fell to his knees, tan Sunin kept slicing. Obedient to the will of her race, the wrath of god and fate, that she was an instrument of. Only some time later,* after 3 hours of this strange execution, she took a little break and changed her weapon and a target of attack."

Biggest mystery is how the demonic knight did not die from boredom.

***

"It was just then tan Kemot realised he's actually naked, and his two long rods of manliness are celebrating the return of the arms just as joyously as he is."

Typical Crystals of Time experience: reading a page and suddenly getting slapped in the face with an unexpected sentence like this.

***

During one of the YouTube trailers we can see the list of 700 races appearing in this story. Those who were particularly eagle-eyed noticed that the list contains silverfish (pl: rybiki cukrowe), a completely normal species of bugs. It was a common belief that it was probably a prank from some staffer who snuck it into the list without Szyndler knowing. That is, until the book came out, and it turns out it contains a poem about a species of 3-meter tall, armoured silverfish living on the edge of space, who are singlehandedly saving the local economy by... locals gathering and eating their excrements. Which, I remind you, is all written as a POEM. When Szyndler wrote that "his book will surprise even the most hardened fantasy veterans", he wasn't fucking lying -  the man didn't even hesitate before writing a ballad about nutritional properties of space bug poop.

***

One of the paladins, a guy named tan Sahrac, is inexplicably revealed to be a legendary Mother of All Invasions, a 4-meter tall double-spider (a giant spider with another giant spider as a head), ruler of all spider races who ravage the land. He was just pretending to be a human, because he likes being a cool paladin, and it would be pretty hard to swordfight as a spider. Sahrac committed to the bit so hard that he also has a human wife, two kids, and makes it very clear he prefers to identify as male. He speaks with a lisp as well. Much later in the story he, while in spider form, lays a (somehow fertile) egg. It results in a daughter who is a new spider princess. (Baby spider kills Katan, but don't worry, he gets better.)

Incredibly progressive stuff from a man who used to be a member of a homophobic right wing political party. Most definitely not on purpose.

***

Speaking of strange gender-related content. Our paladins eventually discover that they've been followed by a 4-meter tall stone sphinx, who has the exact same face as Asteriusz the Great, for some reason. And that this sphinx was following them ALL ALONG, but was invisible.
The sphinx's name is Tifra, and she's actually female. She has Asteriusz's face because she's his #1 fan. She's also married to a paladin/giant tan Imar and pregnant with his baby, which they conceived via divine intervention. Because, I remind you, she's made out of stone.
I should note that tan Imar is the only black guy in this book, and coincidentally also the only one who speaks entirely in broken Polish. Funny how that works!

"A loud "Nooo!!!" escaped tan Imar's clenched jaws."

Tan Imar also has his Ventriloquism skill levelled up all they way to 99. 

His shock is understandable, because he just witnessed his pregnant sphinx wife have her fetus forcibly aborted on the battlefield by their archenemy. The fetus survived the abortion thanks to yet another divine intervention, and is now a half-giant half-necrosphinx. Thankfully, Asteriusz resurrects the ghost of Tifra as well. As he claims: "I will form her into a being in a shape of an angel. Because of the circumstances of her death she will look like a half-sphinx and half-snake". So, a half-giant half-necrosphinx, birthed by a ghost half-sphinx, half-snake, possibly also a half-angel? I hope my explanation clears everything up.

***

"Tytanical choir of a thousand Harpies in a "closed space" is able to seduce an entire army..."

They are in a dungeon. Which is composed of nothing but rooms. All of which are closed spaces. Because they are rooms. I can't believe I have to explain this.

***

Wonderful example of word salad very typical for this novel.

"Unfortunately, he chose an overwhelming number of very strong foes to attack us. Here we have mountain orcs, stone giants, lion-headed manticores, triple-headed chimeras, bigfooted gigols, sea harpies, demonic grasags, royal scorpids, black minotaurs and waddling anarchs. More so, from the "ceiling", straight on heads of the scorpids, fell down cave cyclopses, armored cobras, furry gargoyles, elephant dissolvers, tentacle-headed leafeaters and deep-sea octopusorians. It's incredibly bad news, because these monsters are typical for the Spider Archipelago."

Okay, we got 16 here. Only 684 races left to add to the story, I guess. (tag yourself, I'm the "ceiling")

***

Around halfway through the book, Gorlam the Brave gets separated from the party. During that time, he learns that they're walking into the trap - "an apocalyptic battle in the Gnome Chamber" - so Gorlam starts running to warn them in time. Gorlam runs through the Labyrinth of Death for... 164 PAGES. He finally arrives, much later in the book... and learns that the battle he wanted to warn them about already ended.

Gorlam and his pointless dungeon ultramarathon became a bit of a meme for people making fun of the book, so it became customary to ask: "Is Gorlam the Brave still running?" on every post about Crystals of Time.

***

More than once the party manages to bypass the challenges of the Labyrinth by performing "the Shuffling" (pl: przeszuflowanie)... which in normal speech means "get eaten by a monster, travel through its digestive system and exit through the anus". Our brave paladins are disturbingly fast and eager to suggest it as a solution. Some characters even recall the past horror of  - not shuffling - but being shuffled through...

***

"Their appearance was unique. Red, halftransparent jelly-like body showed an inner skeleton of a skeleton*. The teal eyes shined with their own light. Feet with long claws and four upper limbs were nothing compared to their pair of giant bat wings, which fossilized upper surfaces were as sharp as a guillotine".*

In case Polish speakers are wondering: the original says "szkielet kościotrupa". I'd like think this is a one-time mistake, but then I also found "reptile-shaped reptilions" (pl: "gadokształtni reptilioni")...

***

Undead paladin tan Lemoc and his brother, tan Tabakista, casually reveal that they were chased out of their homeland for "too humorous approach to life". What did they do? Together they snuck into dozens of undead women's sarcofagi each night, and raped and impregnated them while they were asleep. The entire party laughs. According to the book, the problem was only that the women's husbands "were more than insanely displeased" by this. Euphemism of the century right there. Szyndler has a real way with words.

***

Tan Abuk, our bard, who was hyped up as a poetic genius for the entire plot, turns out to be a royal rakshasa, a gigantic tiger demon with six hands, "a race insane when it comes to any arts, including the understanding of beauty and music". Turns out that they are fiends that destroy entire continents of anyone who dares to criticize their space bug poop ballads. In other words, Szyndler invented (more like borrowed) a race of demons whose only purpose is to genocide the haters.

A group of rakshasas is on their way to my house as we speak.

***

"Like all cyclopes, they specialize in boulder throwing. They do it excellently, as they are exceptionally strong, and their one eye makes their aim better."

Depth perception? What's that?

Szyndler's poetic license when it comes to laws of reality is truly baffling sometimes. He thinks that labor (poród) and post-partum period (połóg) are the same thing, because he uses them as synonyms - he wrote an entire sphinx abortion ballad about it. He also refers to pregnancy as "lasting over half a year" which is... very vague for a man who likes extremely specific numbers. At two different occassions our paladins have to escape a gigantic oven. They all easily survive because the bubbles of air inside their full-plate armors act as an insulation against the heat and they don't get hot at all.

***

You might have noticed that somehow I managed to not say a single word about Katan, THE GUY THE SAGA IS NAMED AFTER. That's because he's barely doing anything. He is a toddler by the time he joins the party, and despite his growth being accelerated with magic, he reaches mayyybe elementary school age at the end of the book. So he spends time throwing himself down the stairs, repeatedly, for fun.

At one point, Asteriusz the Great gets hit with a magical spinning "half-plate" weapon, called the God Killer, that Katan was wielding. It spins constantly, much like a buzzsaw, and is cutting into poor Asteriusz, but the party cast a looped Wave of Healing spell that keeps him alive and heals him instantly. Katan tries to get the half-plate out but can't, because it keeps cutting off his fingers (which grow back instantly thanks to the spell). But he's trying! Again, and again, and again, and again.... And that would basically be his entire contribution to the plot of this book.

In case you're wondering, the half-plate keep spinning inside Asteriusz... for exactly 135 pages (11 chapters). Is this "the plot rushing forward like a meteorite" that Szyndler mentioned? I bet.

***

At the end of the book our party makes it out of the Labyrinth of Death, but without the magical sapling they came there for in the first place. They're back to square one. And then we learn that "in this very moment, someone in Ochria stopped the flow of time...". And the book just ends. I shit you not, this is the last sentence. 1400 pages, and there's not even an ending!!!

5. THE SECOND DEATH OF KATAN: RECEPTION AND LEGACY

To say that the reception was not good would be an understatement. 

The book reportedly sold 3000 copies. The planned sequel(s) to the book were scrapped, even though previews were read at some cons (how I wish I could see them!). We can safely assume the big plans to translate the saga into English are also dead in the water. 

The book's main legacy was being a popular target of memes in fantasy/fandom circles. A very popular Facebook fanpage was created: Czytam Kryształy Czasu po raz pierwszy dla akcji (Reading Crystals of Time for the first time for all the action) - its name being a reference from a famous Szyndler quote posted above - whose main purpose was to liveblog reading the book and post particularly funny quotes from it. 

Artur Szyndler reacted to the mockery maturely, accused his detractors of being "middle-schoolers", and also claimed they were sent by rival fantasy writers looking to protect their own interests, whom he called "mercenaries". At one point he was a commenter on the Reading Crystals fanpage... and beefed even with his own fans. Turns out the OG CoT fans were not pleased - they were in fact quite skeptical and slightly annoyed with the announcement of the book. After all, this isn't a revival of a cult classic RPG system they were all begging for, and the fact that this book exists just made them a laughing stock.

If you speak Polish, and somehow became as fascinated with this book as I am, I highly recommend buying it. It's still out there. My copy has an autograph from Artur Szyndler inside, who wished me an "unforgettable reading experience". He was right, in a way. My highly annotated, highlighted copy is well loved, and a crown jewel of my collection of oddities. It brought me a lot of joy.

If you do NOT want to buy the closest thing humanity has to the Necronomicon, I can point you to an old series of my posts detailing the plot in excruciating detail. (Edit: now, due to popular demand, some of my posts have English versions!) I quote the original book a lot. I got roughly 75% through, before the essences of madness seeping out of the Labyrinth of Death made me quit. If you somehow make it through all my posts, I will personally congratulate you on your achievement. No, I won't pay for your therapy.

Last of all, this book has a page on TVTropes. Judging by the writing style, it was created and maintained by one person. If you are out there, TVTropes guy, and reading this, we are possibly the only true Crystalheads on this Earth. We have mutual trauma. I think we should shake hands.

6. AN EULOGY FOR KATAN: THE EPILOGUE

Just like The Room, Crystals of Time: Katan's Saga is a passion project of a wildly untalented man with a big ego, who crashed and burned. But while Tommy Wiseau (who's coincidentally also Polish) embraced his role as the villain and ultimately acknowledged his movie as a mastepiece of unintentional comedy, I don't think it would ever happen for Artur Szyndler, as it requires swallowing his pride first. He clearly thinks everyone else is at fault, and if they dare to laugh at his "half-fjords" or whatever, that means they're children, business rivals or are simply blind to the genius of his prose. There are no mistakes in his book. If you don't understand something, that means you don't know enough about the intricacies of CoT lore.

Back in the 90s, the staff of magazine Magia i Miecz - the same guys who were publishing the Crystals of Time TTRPG - turned on Szyndler in a very public way. They created a mocking caricature of Artur Szyndler, Paladin Arturius and published his "adventures" in their magazine. While the source of the conflict isn't publicly known, it was clear that the old fantasy fandom at large did not particularly like Szyndler even before his crowdfunding drama. Reading the adventures of Arturius struck me as quite childlish and uncalled for, even more so after I read the thread of Artur fighting with fans. I actually started feeling a little bad for him.

That is, until I kept doing research and found an interview with Szyndler from 2023 where he basically states that women are too dumb to comprehend the realistic genius of Crystals of Time, so they prefer simplified RPGs for morons where they can have fun, like DnD 5e. Goddammit, Artur. I was trying to be nice to you in the end, but alas, I am probably too dumb to grasp your genius after all. Godspeed. Never change.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

CONTENT WARNING: >!Sexual assault imagery and references (no, seriously)!<

Introduction

Transformers: Age of Extinction is a cinematic death knell. 

For sure, it made a whole lot of money: The second-highest box office toll of the Michael Bay Transformers film pentalogy, even. But this quick cash rush came at a dire reputational cost. The preceding movies had never enjoyed particularly good critical esteem, but Age of Extinction was a whole new low that turned off even normie cinemagoers. The results became evident as soon as the very next movie, The Last Knight, the intended launching point for a cinematic universe that instead wound up grossing just over half of the preceding movie and marking the definitive endpoint of Bay’s involvement with the series. From there a reboot, but still no dice in terms of recouping those old totals. The poison was deep, too deep. As I type this we are witnessing Transformers One, a critically acclaimed animated paradigm shift for the Autobots and Decepticons’ battles on the big screen struggle at the box office with the core fanbase and film commentators desperately trying to convince outsiders to give it a chance. Some of that was due to a notoriously bad set of trailers, but it’s also not a stretch to say that even a decade on the brand is still very much wounded at the theater. 

This is not a post about Age of Extinction. Any number of Youtubers can give you the lowdown on every conceivable way it fails as a film. I have nothing to add to that conversation. But if you dare to think this is Transformers’ low point, then you have no idea. Go back far enough, traveller, and you’ll find something much darker. A primordial force predating even the first Michael Bay movie, a subseries to make the likes of Transformers: Energon seem dignified by comparison. In fact, just think of the worst franchise slop of the past 10-15 years you have seen and I promise you this is far beneath it. Rise of Skywalker? Ghostbusters 2016? Child’s play, my friend. Child’s. Play.

A Brief Trek Through Binaltech

It’s 2003, the second and final year of Transformers: Armada’s run. But while that series absorbed the bulk of the attention of kids invested in the franchise at that time (and most of the money from their parents’ wallets), another less remembered toyline debuted the same year. Transformers: Alternators, also known as The Transformers: Binaltech in Japan, was a simple concept: New versions of pre-existing Autobot and Decepticon characters, now based on real-life licensed vehicles. Optimus Prime as a Dodge Ram SRT-10, Shockwave as a Mazda RX-8, even Grimlock set aside his usual t-rex alternate mode to become a Ford Mustang GT. And those are just some of the ones I can count on the median reader actually recognizing! All in all, it was a pretty cute idea. It also didn’t go particularly well. 

Right from the conceptual stages, there were problems. The plan was to give the G1 cast members upgraded versions of the vehicles they were originally based on, but many manufacturers refused to play ball. This most notably knocked out Autobot staples Jazz and Bumblebee, Porsche and Volkswagen respectively shooting down initial concepts due to not wanting to associate with so-called “war toys”. Getting enough brands who weren’t managed by comically risk-averse corporate fogeys on board to actually get a product line out the door turned out to be merely the beginning of the headaches, for distribution of the toys was its own mess. From TFWiki, my master source for 90% of this post: “Over the time of its original run, the Alternators line was particularly notorious for including toys that were extremely hard to find due to only shipping in one or two waves... ...whereas others shipped for multiple waves, despite having already been shelfwarmers (Swindle, in particular).” By 2005 Walmart dropped Alternators due to low sales, with Hasbro’s response being a new assortment later that year which didn’t sell either, prompting them to discontinue the line entirely. Binaltech seemingly fared marginally better - Its low sales cancellation came in early 2006, and before then a brief subline known as Binaltech Asterisk hit the market, three more Autobots releasing across Fall of 2005 each coming with little driver’s-seat-compatible figurines of girls based on female humans from past Japanese Transformers shows. Not the characters themselves, mind you, but weird semi-clones with slightly different names and designs: See this compared to this. Your guess is as good as mine. Unlike Alternators, Binaltech also had an actual story that tied itself into the decade-spanning epic that is the Japanese G1 continuity, albeit one only told within the instruction booklets of the toys themselves. This quaint little excuse plot, by the way, involves time travel and universe-hopping, including a connection to Beast Wars. No, I will not elaborate.

The big takeaway from all this is that in conjunction with Galaxy Force, the Japanese dub of Transformers: Cybertron underperforming (no concrete numbers, but the toyline ended 3 months early), the brand was in something of a slump in its home country. Filming for the movie that would ignite the franchise’s cultural renaissance was soon to begin, but with the final result over a year out Takara needed a fresh new idea to carry them through and regain some interest along the way. 

What I’ve just given you is the nuts-and-bolts business context of Japanese Transformers heading into 2006. This was even the year Takara merged with Tomy after an announcement in 2005, for whatever that’s worth. But make no mistake, dear reader: None of this suffices as a satisfying explanation for what is about to happen. The average toy company, when faced with a stumbling period for one of their flagship brands such as this, would try to gin interest back up with, at absolute worst, some dumb but ultimately harmless gimmick or a legacy product line for nostalgia baiting. Neither of these are what Takara did in 2006. Instead, they opted to make quite possibly the bleakest bet I’ve ever seen from an entertainment corporation of their size: That all the people who ever grew up loving the world of the Transformers, the people who had the gall to invest themselves in its characters and stories were actually a bunch of degenerate sexual deviants.

When All Hell’s Breaking Loose

On March 31st, 2006, online retailers were solicited a Binaltech Asterisk Convoy (Optimus Prime), alongside an announcement from Takara for something called “Transformers Atari”. Respondents were fairly excited, a mix of Binaltech diehards happy to see the line continue and speculation on Takara importing the Atari-made Transformers Armada game. In the midst of these impressions, TFW2005 user Nevermore made a strange observation.

“Kiss - Transformer Convoy x Melissa

Release August 2006 6500 yen

‘Kiss’? :huh”

The other forumgoers who took note of this cracked corny jokes about the 80s band of the same name. And then...

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/transformer-kiss-wha.97217/

https://forums.tformers.com/talk/forums/topic/45840-transformers-kiss-v/#comments

I am fairly confident that I have isolated April 3rd, 2006 as the precise date the Western fanbase became aware of Transformers: Kiss Players. While information about this radio drama was limited, they did get one key piece of information that would set the tone: It was about a girl kissing Transformers to give them special powers. If you take the time to browse the above threads, you’ll find that just this tidbit alone was enough to set off viscerally negative reactions among commenters. For what it’s worth, I think this was a major overreaction for how little info there was: Human-transformer romance was hardly a new concept by this point, and with only a threadbare plot summary to work off of the motives of the project couldn’t initially be parsed. It was very much possible, perhaps likely that this was a line targeted at girls. One poster even claimed the radio show got more female listeners than male, although no proof is offered.

I can’t tell you how long this cope theory lasted, but I imagine it was demolished the moment (DO NOT CLICK THE FOLLOWING THREE LINKS IN PUBLIC) pictures of the toys’ boxes made it online.

Ok, I think we need to back up a little here. What is all this, exactly? 

Kiss Players is a midquel set between the 1986 movie and Season 3 of the original cartoon. It turns out that after Galvatron was thrown into space at the end of the movie he ended up crash-landing smack dab in the middle of Tokyo, the impact obliterating the city. This event so thoroughly devastated human-Cybertronian revelations that it led to the establishment of the Earth Defense Command, a government agency committed to exterminating all Transformers on Earth. In addition, Rodimus Prime resigned out of shame for what he had done, giving up the Matrix of Leadership and reverting back to Hot Rod. Under normal circumstances recontextualizing the iconic ending of the ‘86 film in such an unbelievably dour way while undoing the arc of its main protagonist would’ve been in itself the fulcrum of immense controversy, a precursor to everything people hated about Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. Here though, it’s just the cherry on top. Anywho, the EDC completes their purge via an army of man-made Transformers known as Autoroopers, but they soon find out the impact scattered Galvatron’s Unicron-empowered cells into the atmosphere and now they’re merging with organic life and cars to create bio-mechanical monsters known as Legion (more on them in a bit). There’s a silver lining, though. Quoth TFWiki again: “This catastrophe also created the means to defend the world against the Legion—when Galvatron's cells came into contact with human beings, they also become able to fuse with other entities containing his cells by kissing them. With their Autoroopers being the perfect candidates for this "Parasitech" fusion process, the EDC began recruiting and training these "Kiss Players" as combat squads to battle the Legion.”

To say this premise is unfathomably broken and bizarre would be the understatement of the century. Keep in mind, later this very year another beloved Japanese franchise is going to debase itself, and within the wreckage people are going to spend over a decade clowning on this scene. Kiss Players is basically this moment but baked into the premise of the product line with female leads who look like children, plus panty shots. There’s even the “fun” bonus of one of the aforementioned leads being a younger Marissa Faireborn, a recurring character from G1 Season 3. This is the same as this. 

But y’know what? If you’ve dealt with enough weird ecchi shit and are sufficiently desensitized to it, you can argue this isn’t so bad. Still wildly inappropriate and completely out of step with anything done in official Transformers media before this point, but not true rock bottom I guess. It helps that like I said, the primary medium of telling the Kiss Players storyline was a radio drama, so there were no visuals besides the gross box art pieces.

At least, there wouldn’t have been if they didn’t make a tie-in manga. 

(Dengeki) Die(oh), Autobots!

Meet Yuki Ohshima, the man who wrote and illustrated this 3-chapter manga for the magazine Dengeki Daioh. Over the years he’s done art for many actual toys, even working on the long-running collector-oriented Masterpiece line. Regrettably, these manga chapters are the only thing anyone in the Western fandom remembers him for. 

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/new-kiss-players-manga-scans-at-fan-to-fan-nsfw.111038/

This thread is a true work of art. 11 pages of reactions that run the gamut from visceral disgust to demented laughter at the sheer insanity of the situation. While the link in the OP is long broken, I can give you an idea of what people were responding to with (DON’T CLICK THIS IN PUBLIC EITHER) the most infamous image of the comic. 

Remember those Legion fellas I mentioned earlier? Yup, that’s one of them. And no, your eyes are not deceiving you: That is a dick tongue. 

You know, I was gonna do a bit here where I used the Star Wars Intro Creator to make a “funny” montage of the most insane TFWiki descriptions of events in the manga and radio show. I was gonna have a paragraph conspiracizing about how Ohshima was scapegoated for this whole debacle. But y’know what? Looking at The Legion Page again, I don’t feel like it anymore. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is no exception. Nothing I can type will ever be able to convey the limit-breaking levels of cynicism and contempt that supercharged this whole sordid production better than The Legion Page. Takara top brass in 2006 looked at this and said to themselves: This is it. This is what our flagging brand needs. This is what those pathetic fanboys have truly craved all along, deep in their heart of hearts. This is not the worst visual in Kiss Players. I could’ve pulled out the kind of stuff that forces you to look up Fall of Cybertron or Prime or even live-action movie clips as a defense mechanism to remind yourself of what Transformers is supposed to look like. But it is absolutely the most evocative. Nobody can see any of this and ever forget it. 

Closing Out

Well, that was horrible! Bad time was had by all, I’m pooped. Before we wrap things up, I wanna make a couple final comments.

First off, you may have noticed I conspicuously failed to mention the Japanese fanbase’s reaction. To put it bluntly, I do not know the language and feel like relying on machine translation to comb through ancient blogs and forums won’t be very productive. All I have here is one final wiki quote, which you’ll just have to take at its word: “There were a number of people who claimed, amazingly, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with such a thing, and that everyone else simply wasn't understanding it was a "cultural thing"—"it" being... the enjoyment of sexual assault imagery, apparently. This, of course, is in defiance of the fact that many Japanese fans were themselves openly decrying Kiss Players, fearing that American fans would think that this was somehow accepted as "normal" in Japan.” It is worth noting that the second half of the line did stop doing a lot of the really bad stuff, so while perhaps somewhat embellished this doesn’t seem too far from the truth. That said, I still encourage readers to chip in additional information on this facet of the story if possible. 

As for legacy, this seems like the most open-and-shut “the embarrassed licenseholders immediately retconned it out of existence and strove to pretend it never happened” imaginable... But unbelievably enough, no. To this very day, the events of Kiss Players are still an untouched part of Japanese G1 canon, and its characters have shown up in stuff like Transformers Legends’ tie-in comic, another more successful bid at targeting nostalgic Japanese guys complete with its own seedy humor, albeit a fair bit more reasonable (They “only” put some of the female Autobots in provocative outfits!). Not as tiny cameos tucked in the page margins or the corner of one panel either, the two main girls besides Marissa got full-on adult timeskip designs and plot-relevant roles tying them even deeper into the lore. As for robots, the Autoroopers would be localized as “Autotrooper” and repurposed as generic Autobot grunts in various future projects, most notably Transformers Animated. In fact, just last year the Buzzworthy Bumblebee toyline released a figure of that show’s design, retooled off War for Cybertron: Siege Deluxe Class Ironhide. Look at the picture and you’ll see that an alternate head based on the original Kiss Players design was included! There’s also Glit, whose color scheme served as an inspiration for Shattered Glass Ravage (AU where Decepticons are good and vice-versa). Now, I don’t wanna hype any of this up too much: We’re fundamentally dealing with background cameos and obscure comics meant for hardcore superfans here, nothing more. Well, with one potential exception, which I showed you at the very beginning of this post. Age of Extinction has some shocking similarities with Kiss Players: It too involves humanity turning against Transformers after a city-decimating catastrophe, this time Dark of the Moon’s battle of Chicago. In both cases an evil organization makes their own Transformers to replace the originals - the corporation who does this in AoE is even called KSI. Both give Galvatron some degree of plot relevancy. There’s even a weird crass joke about dating an underaged girl! Coincidence? Honestly yeah, probably. Doesn’t make it any less hilarious to speculate if Michael Bay knows about this shit. 

Even nearly 20 years later, Kiss Players is still the derisive butt of jokes in the hardcore Transformers community, a built-in fandom shock jockey akin to Goatse. It has largely been kept in containment, Youtuber ComicTropes being the only semi-notable non-superfan who has really taken a look at it. Considering its content and relative obscurity, any sort of reputational rehabilitation or even an ironic cult following akin to All-Star Batman and Robin seems exceedingly unlikely. And yet, from time to time, it comes back in small ways. Just a couple years ago Karyuudo Fansubs actually took on the radio drama, doing their work on the whole thing. Perhaps it deserves to be forgotten, but somehow I just don’t think it will be.

I've been wanting to write about this debacle for ages, and I've been half-hoping that either someone else will get to it (didn't happen) or that the situation would reach a definitive conclusion before long (also didn't happen, more on this later). Since neither of those panned out, here I am with this hopefully not-completely-inadequate write-up about how a much-loved mobile game turned into a complete meme.

(This is my first hobby drama write-up, so if I've done something wrong, feel free to tell me.)

What is King's Raid?

King's Raid is a gacha game that was initially published in Thailand in September 2016. It was later bought by Korean company Vespa and then released in Korean and English in February 2017 before finally being released in Japan in March 2018.

For those who don't know, a gacha game is a live-service game that has lootbox mechanics where the player uses premium in-game currency (often bought with real money) to pull for either characters or items. While gacha mechanics are fundamentally equivalent to western lootbox mechanics, most people who play gacha games differentiate them from western live-service games by their anime aesthetic, and players also most often gamble for characters rather than items in these games. For reference, a popular gacha game is the megahit Genshin Impact.

While King's Raid's anime aesthetic was typical gacha, and its story was mostly generic "hero's journey" fantasy, it differentiated itself with its gambling mechanics. Namely, the player gambled solely for weapons, and all characters in the game could either be earned for free with enough daily logins or outright bought with premium in-game currency (which can also be earned for free in-game by doing certain daily tasks). In other words, as long as you invested time in the game, you could get your character of choice with no risk at all.

Another point in King's Raid's favor was the somewhat equal gender distribution on its roster. Now, this probably sounds ridiculous to those who weren't in the gacha space at the time, but back then, most gacha games in English featured predominantly female casts, with few if any male characters. (Off the top of my head, games released around the same time such as Girl's Frontline, Azur Lane, and Genshin Impact's predecessor Honkai Impact 3rd all had exclusively female rosters. In fact, even the whiff of adding playable male characters often sent players into a tizzy. That's not to say male-only roster games weren't being made, but they were often not being licensed globally -- just look at hugely popular Touken Ranbu, which debuted in Japan in 2015 but didn't receive an official English translation until 2021.) In fact, many gacha players might even argue that this uneven gender distribution is still an issue in today's gacha games. But, with King's Raid, it not only had a roster of both men and women (some of whom were even furries! if you're into that), it also featured equal opportunity fanservice for them. Want every single one of your characters in a swimsuit? You can do that! Want to dress all your characters in suits? You can do that too!

It's hard to state just how free-to-play friendly King's Raid was during its first few years to those who don't play gacha games, especially since it seemed to eschew a lot of the predatory gacha practices of the time -- some of which are still in place today! But needless to say, it was popular enough to earn it a top spot on app store charts and even netted it an anime adaptation in 2020.

Signs of Trouble

While there are disagreements about when the decline of King's Raid began, with some arguing that the growing power creep (harder to get weapons, increased grind, etc.) were the first warning signs, for the sake of not confusing the gacha uninitiated any further, I'll stick to talking about things that took place outside of the game.

In 2021, even with the aforementioned power creep, King's Raid was in a relatively good place, and the playerbase had mostly positive feelings towards the game. At this point, the anime adaptation had basically concluded, and while it was mediocrely reviewed, it did bring a slew of new people into the game. Meanwhile, the game itself was actually gearing up for the final chapter of its main story, which eventually dropped in May 2021. (Yes, a gacha game story that actually ended!) And while the playerbase also had mixed reactions to that, it was still nice to see these beloved characters' journeys come to an end.

Riding this hype, in March 2021, the developers posted their Q1 2021 plans for the game, including an announcement for a King's Raid 2, basically a completely new story set later in the same universe with new main characters, though still available on the same app as before. At the same time, they also announced a PC client, which ended up never materializing (what will soon become a trend for Vespa, as you'll see).

While they initially announced King's Raid 2 for the end of the year, it eventually became abundantly clear that they wouldn't be able to fulfill their promises. Despite numerous requests for more information on this second season, even just in-progress screenshots, Vespa continuously pushed off these requests, often showing just minor changes to current content instead.

Finally, in November 2021, Vespa announced what everyone in the community had been expecting: that King's Raid 2 would not be finished in time and would have to be delayed until sometime in 2022 -- later revealed to be June/July 2022.

At this point, the game hadn't received any new content in a while (those of you who play live-service games know this is a fairly clear indicator of something seriously wrong) and was going through endless holiday event reruns. Most people did not realize it was about to get a whole lot worse.

2022: Slow But Steady Decline

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of what happened in 2022, I just want to give some additional outside context. For much of King's Raid's run, it was Vespa's only game. However, in late 2021, Vespa released a new game Time Defenders in Japan, which eventually got a global release in April 2022. This game did extremely poorly, supposedly releasing in an extremely unfinished state, and ended service in September 2022. Some King's Raid fans attribute Vespa's split attention -- and the poor revenue Time Defenders generated -- with Vespa's eventual downfall, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

In retrospect, the release of Legendary Costumes (costumes that were sold for a limited time, in a limited quantity, and for a whopping ten times as much premium in-game currency than normal, always-available costumes) was a sign that Vespa was probably in dire financial straits, but since they continued to release updates reworking older content, dedicated fans still believed that Vespa was actually working on King's Raid 2, even as actual events, including reruns, trickled to nothing -- because why else would they fix old content if not to attract new players for their new upcoming content? Though it's also important to note that a lot of these content reworks were incredibly unpopular with the existing fanbase, to the point that many prematurely left over them, further adding to the game's decline.

For a time, the dev notes were almost entirely characterized by these content rework updates and costume additions before even those things finally stopped. In March 2022, the lead producer announced that all updates were going to be put on pause until Vespa finished development on King's Raid 2. They also, again, put off showing any actual in-development screenshots for this supposed sequel (which is looking more and more like vaporware by the second) and hinted at a balancing patch with season 2.

In April 2022, Vespa gave players their first glimpse of season 2, which was, wait for it, a logo. Yes, that's it. It wasn't until June 2022 that the playerbase would get something even remotely substantial -- character sheets for the main characters. Over the next two months, they'd upload seconds-long teaser trailers of shadowed models of these characters to try and pretend they're doing something, even as their announced (and already delayed) release date sailed right on by.

At this point, most of the community except for a few diehards had given up on King's Raid 2 ever materializing, especially as it's outright revealed in July 2022 that Vespa is in dire financial straits, with most of its employees getting laid off, including its main artist. However, as has become an unfortunate theme in this write-up, little did they know that it'd only get worse.

The Final Betrayal

Remember that balancing patch I mentioned earlier? Well, it's come back with a vengeance. In September 2022, the producer announced that they weren't going to wait until King's Raid 2 to implement the balancing patch -- no, they were going to "balance" the entire current hero roster. This update ultimately dropped in October, and hoo boy, it was not pretty.

There are numerous reddit threads about how awful this update was, but in short, it literally changed everything about how hero mechanics worked. Heroes now were no longer unique with their own abilities and powers; all heroes of the same type were now functionally the same exact unit. This absolutely killed all individuality each hero had, which had previously been a big selling point of this game. Added onto that, it also required the players to rebuild all their characters basically from scratch, since most previous upgrades had been unceremoniously changed or outright removed.

Needless to say, this was the final nail in the coffin for basically the entire playerbase. Even if King's Raid 2 did actually drop, none of them were going to be here for it. The game was effectively dead.

But Is It Really Dead?

After the nightmarish rebalancing patch, everyone thought that the end of King's Raid was only a matter of time. It now had effectively zero playerbase, and the only ones who still kept logging in were masochists who were too attached to their painstakingly obtained characters to do otherwise.

But then something absolutely mind-boggling happened: King's Raid never ended service.

Forgive me for jumping the gun there. Let's rewind time to March 2023 when Vespa finally seems to run out of money and announces that they were up for grabs on the open market. At this point, everyone thought that Vespa was just going to declare bankruptcy and that King's Raid would finally be put out of its misery. But then a devil's miracle happened: Vespa actually got bought! Or, rather, it seemed to have merged with some outside investment companies after getting some cash injections, eventually changing its name to Anic Inc. While it seemed that the servers went down briefly during this transition, within a few days, King's Raid was back up and running again under its new company name.

Yes, that's right, folks! You can still play King's Raid right this minute -- it's still on Google Play! The servers are still up! People can still create an account this very instant and play not-technically-dead King's Raid! (And, yes, I did redownload the game just to check that this was still true -- it is, and I still have all my stuff even.)

Owing to its perpetually undead status, King's Raid has now become a perennial meme among gacha gamers. In particular, anytime you see a gacha game announce end of service, you bet someone will be there pointing out that King's Raid has managed to outlive yet another game.

And so that's the story of the undead gacha game that just seems to continue limping along despite all expectations. If by the time you are reading this, it has finally been put to rest, please leave a comment below so we can date the historic moment and give it a moment of silence. Thank you, King's Raid, for teaching all of us that: hey, maybe an end-of-service announcement isn't the worst thing that can happen to a live-service game.

INTRODUCTION

The advent of the world wide web fueled many hobbyist pursuits. People from the MENA region were no different, their main hubs being forums spread all over the internet, all with their main points of attraction. Anime/Manga, Movies, TV shows, and yes, literary work. Which is our main topic for today.

INFLUENCES & BEGINNINGS

Real stories and oneshots:

All forums had their own subforums for written stories, some more robust than others. Early on, there was no differentiation between what was a real story, or what was pure fiction. Forum visitors didn’t really care much about it, though, so it continued on that way for a while. The posted stories tended to be short and contained in the OP (unless the poster deliberately trickled it through multiple posts in hopes for more engagements). There was no regulation of story sources, and no rewards for posters save for very short and unspecific replies.

Translation of romance novels:

The translation of Harlequin Romance novels by the company branch in Cyprus into Arabic brought their novels into a new audience, and soon enough Lebanese and Egyptian publishers raced to get their hands on publication rights, adjusting the novels and neutralizing some of the references this new audience would be confused and alienated by. Internet forums had the lion’s share with driving the interest, posting the novels serially in written form and then later on by scans. Some even established teams to purchase and translate the original copies and post them in the same serial manner at first, then by downloadable word files locked behind reply-wall, therefore driving more traffic into their forums.

TV shows and series:

While the translated novels did ignite an interest in written romance novels in online spaces at the time, it’s the local TV shows that built the beats of the stories written. Now extending beyond a few posts, these new stories, closer to the people’s hearts by their familiar settings and beats, quickly gained an audience that rivaled and then surpassed that of the translated novels reigning over the literary sub-forums back then.

Societal issues and daily life:

If I were to describe Arabic web romance novels with a few words, they would be serialized women’s fiction. Not only are the relevant subforums and their management populated by women, the stories always talk about the challenges women of the region experience. Some extend beyond women’s issues, though, and would discuss societal and political issues at length, and in such a raw way that raised awareness to many tragedies the region faced and is still facing.

KNOWN CONVENTIONS AND TROPES

Arabic romance novels as published online tend to be long, the TV shows influence contributing in them having something like a slice-of-life/telenovela feel (those were popular, too, I should note. The Lebanese also brought them to broadcasting channels with their dubs. My mom used to watch Rosalinda and all the other Thalia works). The novels would star many characters, most of them to be paired up in the most dramatic plot-lines possible. There were fandoms and hatedoms for many of them.

A few other known tropes/conventions:

• Second marriage and its complications
• Marriage to quell a blood feud between two rival clans (most of them having a sorta Enemies-to-Lovers plot-line)
• Family drama of all shades and forms
• Depictions of strong familial bonds and female friendships
• Not setting the stories in one particular country and writing the story in Modern Standard Arabic*****

*****This is one point I want to talk more about, because it’s an interesting one and a convention I personally followed on a number of occasions and still do.

Anyway, I think it’s interesting because it has a marketing and escapism aspects.

Marketing, because novels written in local dialects tend to mostly attract those of the same locality, while those written in MSA would provide a writer a bigger audience.

There are outliers, of course. Egyptians have one of the most recognizable and easiest dialects (since they have a massive media industry), so stories written in Egyptian dialect tend to have a more diverse audience than say, a Khaliji dialect. There’s also the case when the story is just that good that people would read on regardless, like the time I saw Egyptian women casually waxing poetry about a Qatari writer’s works on a Facebook post asking for recs, only for their comments to be supported by others of different nationalities.

So yes, MSA + Unspecific Location combo became quickly accepted, so common in frequency that it became a trope itself.

Escapism, because using MSA kinda masks where a writer is from. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the ongoing wars and instability wreaking through the MENA region. This is only my theory, but I think this choice some writers make in using MSA and setting the story somewhere unspecific gives a sense of comfortable distance for the writers and their audience who are unknowingly experiencing the same grief. It gives them the joy of pursuing their hobbies without having to mind the reality of their situation.

Sometimes I would be following a story and later realize a writer is from a country undergoing hardships from her apology for the lack of updates. I remember this particular Libyan writer, pen-named Bard al-Mashaa’er (Coldness of Feelings) that used to post novels with a steady schedule, until she began her latest story, her epic political romance Junoon al-Matar (Madness of the Rain). She was away for years, leaving her readers wondering and praying for her safety, only to recently make her return and continue on with her novel.

Some writers, though, don’t return.

AUDIENCE

Passionate and unrestrained. Readers wouldn’t shy away from their critiques, and would analyze each chapter with words and words of predictions and cheers, which writers fueled with rewarding the correct ones with a mention at the relevant chapter update. Later on and with the rise of social media, Facebook groups became a new host for their discussions, with each writer having her own group.

CURRENT STATE

The status of the Arabic romance web novels scene changed. Most popular forums fell off radar. Rewity forum, being one of the biggest surviving forums, continues to host new and updating novels to this day. The rest are either on social media or on Wattpad.

For a decent time now, publishers have picked up on the potential market for online-published novels, actively browsing the forums and Facebook groups in search for writers with a considerable following to publish their works traditionally. Some even get adapted to the live-screen.

FUTURE

I think it’s a hobby with a massive industry potential, especially with the appearance of companies like the Jordan-based Abjjad offering e-book reading services in exchange for a subscription. Maybe the next step would be an e-book publishing service capitalizing on it?

For now, it’s a beloved hobby partaken by many in the MENA region, done for the very passion of it. I know it’s accompanied me in my teenage years, and developed my interest in both reading and writing. It’s introduced me to many great writers, many interesting intricacies, and many valuable perspectives.

Thank you for reading.

Introduction

The video game industry is a challenging one to break into. It's an extremely demanding profession that requires a lot of time, money, and mental energy to succeed at. Over the course of the 30+ years of the industry's existence, many ambitious teams and projects came and went with various results. There are plenty of tales of smash success, comfortable mediocrity, and flops. It's the successes and flops that usually print themselves into the memory of gamers, and those stories carry over from one generation onto the next.

The story I will try to present here will fall into the latter categories.

The Beginning

We land in the Czech Republic, a tiny country in continental Europe, in 1997. After being mostly viewed as a niche enthusiast hobby from the end of communist rule until the early 1990s, the commercial success of several point-and-click games began the country's first steps toward stardom, which will arrive after the turn of the century. Our game fits under the point-and-click category as well. In the roughly 100k town of Ústí nad Labem, a tiny game company named TOP Galaxy is created. The guys from this studio don't have a lot of information available about them because they only released a single game. You will soon find out why. This group of ambitious developers gets to work almost immediately after formation.

Overly ambitious, perhaps?

TOP Galaxy had a big vision. It includes international distribution, several language localizations (including voice acting and subtitles), more than 20 hours of gameplay, and an blend of excellent 3D graphics and air-brushed (yes you read that right, air-brushed, not painted) 2D graphics. Due to factors we will discuss later, only two of these things would materialize. Now, a brief summary of the game's plot line.

The Plot

The game is set some time after 2020, when virtual reality on Earth was outlawed in 2003 due to its addictive nature. American journalist Jimmy Dix goes to a so-called "entertainment orbital station" named "DreamLand," built in 2016, and is researching the mystery of virtual reality players who supposedly go insane following a visit to the station. He travels to seven separate virtual environments (a laboratory, Frankenstein's castle, ancient Egypt, 1930s Chicago, 17th-century Macau, an airbase, and a jungle) in his effort to solve the mystery. For whatever reason, there are also cyborg monkeys used as cheap labour.

The Development

The aspirations of the young team would catch up with them at a breakneck speed. The 1998 deadline for the game's release quickly became impossible due to the game's increase in complexity; yet, strangely enough, the physical edition still bears the copyright year of 1998. Thus, the game was postponed. The development was also struck by other unknown problems, which likely led to the developers decreasing their ambitions. As a result, plans for an international release and localization were put on hold, but despite this, English subtitles and the main menu indicate that some localization work has already been done. One of the few last straws to this dreadful development cycle was the game's enormous size, which prevented it from fitting on two CDs, so the developer had to resort to three, further increasing the costs of development. The final number, you ask? After conversion and adjusting for inflation, the total cost was an colossal 847 thousand US dollars — at least for the time and nation's being. The game lacked any anti-piracy features, which made the situation even worse, as the game leaked before release. Although that wasn't the final nail in the coffin, this was one of the last ones.

The Release

Finally, the year 1999 arrives, marking the game's official release. The game's technical and visual aspects are praised in the reviews, which are largely mixed and most critique is sent towards the voice acting and snail - paced narrative. Remember the 20 hour playtime? Yep, that is one the reasons for it. The last nail for the coffin would arrive in the from of the retail price. 110 US dollars. While the exact number of copies sold is unknown, there are unconfirmed reports of 10,000 copies being produced for retail. The inability to secure a international publishing deal was just a finishing touch on the figurative coffin that is the commercial failure of the game, though "annihilation" might be a more accurate description. The team behind the game would follow up by closing its doors only a year later.

The Impact

The enormous failure of TOP Galaxy and Dreamland: Final Solution is quickly forgotten, as Hidden & Dangerous was released less than a year later, making the Czech video game industry globally known and setting the stage for many classics, such as Mafia, ARMA, Operation Flashpoint, UFO, Euro Truck Simulator, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, the smaller Amanita Design titles and plenty of others. The moral of the story? I am not sure about the entirety of it, but "don't bite off more than you can chew" might be among the lessons to learn from here.

For the curious, the game can be found here.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

You probably haven't heard of astrophysicist Michael H. Hart, but if you're into science fiction at all, you almost certainly have heard of what he's famous for. He's best known for his work on the Fermi Paradox, the question of why humanity has never contacted aliens, given that everything we know about the universe suggests that we should have come into contact with them by this point. Although the paradox named after Enrico Fermi, he essentially just brought it up in a casual conversation once, and Hart was the first to actually put together and publish a detailed mathematical analysis of the concept.

Nowadays, the Fermi Paradox is well-known both in scientific circles and within popular culture. Hart's work on it is enough to make him a reasonably important figure in the field of astrophysics, and a genuinely impressive person even if he were a complete dumbass in every field outside of physics.

Which is probably a good thing, because Michael Hart is a complete dumbass in every field outside of physics.

The 100

After publishing his influential 1975 paper on the Fermi paradox, Hart decided, like a lot of people who are really, really smart about one highly specific topic, that he must also be smart about everything else too. So in 1978, he published a book called "The 100", intended as a list of the 100 most influential people in history. He wasn't a historian, of course, but everyone knows that all those historians are just people who weren't smart enough to get into one of the hard sciences, and that any astrophysicist willing to descend amongst them like a God among mortals will clearly understand their work far better than they ever could. So who made it into his top ten?

Well, in tenth place is Albert Einstein. Fair enough, dude did a lot of sciencey stuff. He's a pretty big deal.

Ninth is Columbus. Yeah, I can see that, contact between Europe and the Americas is pretty historically important.

Eighth? Gutenberg, who invented the printing press. Yep, books are cool.

Seventh is Cai Lun, who invented paper. Good thing he did that or Gutenberg would have just been sitting around looking sad waiting for someone to find something he could stick in his printing press.

Sixth is Paul the Apostle, fifth is Confucius, fourth is Gautama Buddha. All major figures in their respective religions, makes sense.

Third is Jesus Christ. He would probably have been ranked higher, but Paul's role in spreading Christianity means he gets a big chunk of the credit. Basically, think of Paul the Apostle as the Ralph Nader to Jesus Christ's Al Gore as far as this book is concerned.

Second is Isaac Newton. And in first place as the most influential person in human history?

Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

The Reaction

Obviously, there was plenty of controversy over the very existence of such a book, something that Hart went out of his way to emphasize in the second edition, with exactly the level of humility you would expect from someone who decided to write the definitive guide to which historical figures are the most important: "Critics objected that Hart had the nerve not only to select who he thought were the most influential people in history, but also to rank them according to their importance. Needless to say, the critics were wrong".

As for my opinion? Even beyond the inherent silliness of ranking every historical figure by how influential they are, the list is kind of dumb. Why is Isaac Newton, a physicist whose work was theoretical rather than directly affecting the world, ranked so high when many other important thinkers didn't even crack the top 100? Why do the founders of religions get highly ranked based on what happens with their religions millennia after their deaths, while the founders of nations don't get a similar level of credit for the impact of their countries? If Jesus is responsible for everything Christianity has ever done, why isn't George Washington responsible for everything the USA has ever done?

But the main controversy was over his placement of Muhammad as #1, and even more so the act of placing anybody above Jesus Christ in terms of importance. (Keep in mind that this book was published only twelve years after the "bigger than Jesus" controversy led to mass record burnings and death threats against the Beatles.) This might lead you to suspect that Hart is just a Muslim biased in favor of his own prophet, but he's actually Jewish. This led to an enormous surge of popularity for Hart's book among Muslims--look, even non-Muslims recognize how awesome and great Muhammad is! Google his name and a good chunk of the results are from Islamic religious sites or Youtube videos talking about his placement of Muhammad as #1.

But of course, this is a list of the most influential figures in history, definitely not the best or most moral figures in history. Hart put Muhammad first because he had a significant impact, not because he necessarily thinks that it's a positive impact, or because he likes Muslims. So what does Hart actually think of Muslims?

Well, he hates 'em, along with pretty much every other group that isn't pure white Judeo-Christians. Surprise, turns out he's unbelievably racist! I've tricked you all. This isn't just book drama, it's also white supremacist infighting drama.

The Racist Bit

Between The 100 and his work on the Fermi Paradox, Hart had become reasonably famous by the mid-90s, enough that American Renaissance invited him to give speeches at a number of their conferences. If you're not familiar with American Renaissance, they're a white nationalist organization willing to just barely pretend they're not Nazis, at least most of the time. Hart, who you'll remember is Jewish, was apparently gullible enough to believe them. All went well for about a decade, with Hart giving rousing speeches on the necessity of turning a quarter of the USA into a whites-only utopia, apparently under the impression that the people he was talking to would let him in if that ever happened.

This worked out until the 2006 conference, when Hart brought along his friend Herschel Elias, a first-time guest who wasn't too sure about this whole white nationalist thing. Hart assured him that these people weren't Nazis, and that they had absolutely no hatred towards Jews, after which David Duke, former grand wizard of the KKK, stepped up to the stage and immediately proved him wrong with an anti-Semitic rant about "a power in the world that dominates our media, influences our government and that has led to the internal destruction of our will and our spirit".

Hart stood up, screamed that Duke was a "fucking Nazi", and ran out of the room. Duke's next words are unfortunately lost to history, but I'm guessing they were something along the lines of "no shit, Sherlock".

Afterwards, Hart organized his own conference dedicated to talking about the inferiority of every minority group except Jews, which seems to have had no real impact on anything, and with a poster that just screams "graphic design is my passion".

Although his work on the Fermi paradox is significant, Hart's various controversies mean that he's not particularly well-known or admired in the field of astrophysics, or even in science-fiction fandom, where the Fermi Paradox is a famous and popular trope. He's a classic example of someone who's unbelievably smart in an incredibly specific field, while simultaneously being too stupid to realize that the Grand Wizard of the KKK might be a bit anti-Semitic. Although the term "Fermi-Hart paradox" is occasionally used, it's unlikely to become popular any time soon. As for The 100, although it sold very well (60,000 copies by 1992 and probably many more by this point), it's not really taken seriously by anyone as a work of history, and its main legacy is taking up shelf space next to Guinness World Records and Ripley's Believe It or Not in hundreds of used book stores.

I cannot conceivably provide the full extent to what occurred, because it’s such a breathtakingly insane story of lying and manipulation that doesn’t seem possible due to the time required to maintain it. Regardless, I will do my best. Attached at the bottom is the original article which exposed the wrongdoings of Averra, as well as a video essay by the same author, which goes more in-depth into the investigation and drama. This is my personal recounting of everything at surface level, with information from other people who were personally involved, as someone who was fooled by his lies.

Background: What is NationStates, and What is Alcris?

NationStates (or NS) is a political simulation web game created in 2002 by author Max Barry, as an ad for his book Jennifer Government. He probably didn’t realize to what extent his game would become popular, however, as it’s persisted all these years and still has a thriving community - as of now, over 300,000 accounts, or nations, exist on NationStates.

People govern these nations, but they can also move their nation to communities called regions. Regions can consist of tens of thousands of nations, to single digits. These regions are basically like communities, with different themes, oftentimes with vastly different focuses on different aspects of the game. The vast majority of respected regions, however, all share one element - they almost always have some form of regional government.

Regional governments range in size, scope, and structure, but they’re usually made up of a dozen elected officials who decide how the region, or the community, is run. They establish constitutions, write and vote on laws, and maintain foreign relations and embassies with other regions. This aspect of NationStates can be called simulated government.

Alcris was one of these respected regional governments. Founded on April 6th, 2021, Alcris had, at its peak, 129 nations, as well as embassies, or relations, with upwards of 30 regions, including big names you might recognize if you play NationStates such as The South Pacific, Conch Kingdom, Forest, and others.

Alcris was supposedly founded by three childhood friends who grew up in Switzerland, named Averra, Wintermoore, and Gelenia, so it made sense that Alcris had a Swiss-style government, featuring a directorate and direct-democracy - while other regions had UK parliamentary or American presidential systems, Alcrisian government was centered around a singular executive council, called the governmental council.

Each member of this governmental council was tasked with controlling a different aspect of Alcris - the Foreign Affairs Councillor controlled relations with other regions and managed diplomats, the Security Councillor controlled moderation, the Council Chair organized voting, etcetera. They also voted on laws, called acts - while other legislative systems might need a simple majority, for an act to be passed in Alcris, it required all councillors to come to a consensus. If one councilor voted against the act, or if two abstained, the act would not pass.

Theoretically, this meant it would force the executive council to come to a consensus if any act were to be passed, meaning that any flawed legislation would have to be reworked to appeal to everyone. In reality, it was designed to benefit one man and maintain his control over the Alcrisian government, as he systematically lied and manipulated people for years, suppressing opposition, guilt-tripping and harassing anyone who criticized him, with an extensive network of alt-accounts who voted in his favor, occupied seats in government, and maintained his image.

Secession

On August 3rd, 2024 (so about 2 months ago, at the time of this writing), 14 people signed a secession document titled A New Dawn. The contents of the secession document started with the termination of a merger agreement which had happened a year earlier, and proclaimed the founding of a new government called New West Conifer, or NWC.

The document pointed to culture clash, disagreements in government, and failure by the Alcrisian government to preserve the culture of the New West Indies and Evergreen Conifer, the two regions which had been merged into Alcris as per the merger agreement.

Discontent had been brewing for months. It wasn’t until a channel in the previously locked New West Indies Discord server was opened, that talks about secession began to emerge. When the secession document was released, it was posted in the Alcris Discord server.

Immediately, Averra, one of the co-founders of Alcris, took action. He declared a state of emergency, and nearly 30 people, many of whom hadn’t publicly signed the document, were kicked from the server.

Now that the eventual outcome of this has been established, we’re going to start with what led to this.

The Alt-Accounts

As noted earlier, the secession of New West Conifer included the termination of a merger agreement between Alcris, and two other regions, the New West Indies and Evergreen Conifer (Evergreen Conifer was included as it had been merged into the New West Indies a while earlier).

The New West Indies had originally been in favor of the merger with Alcris due to concerns around the region’s longevity and activity. Before the merger, the NWI was suffering through a bout of inactivity, so the decision was made to merge with a region they had close relations, and even a dual-citizenship agreement with. That region would be Alcris.

But why did Alcris want to merge with other regions?

Besides the New West Indies and Evergreen Conifer, multiple other communities were merged into Alcris around the same time. Laraniem, and Mithra, two other regions, both agreed to merge with Alcris due to concerns with longevity and activity. The mergers, combined, doubled the Alcrisian citizenry, strengthening the preexisting Alcris community with new people.

Except there was no preexisting Alcris community.

The three original co-founders of Alcris, that being Averra, Wintermoore, and Gelenia, were the same people. Their nations were controlled by one person, using Averra as his main account. He possessed multiple Discord accounts for them, and as the sole founder masquerading as three, he had unlimited control over Alcris.

But that wasn’t the full extent of his alt-accounts, because the entirety of the Alcrisian citizenry were puppets. Averra possessed 35 alt-accounts, posing as different people. Alcris masqueraded as a lively community of multiple people, pursuing relations with other regions, before merging them into Alcris. He negotiated dual-citizenship agreements, and, in the case of the New West Indies, managed to vote in favor of secession with his own alt-accounts. He preyed on small regions suffering from inactivity, pressuring them into mergers. Because, without these mergers, there’d be no real people in Alcris. Averra somehow maintained this veil long enough to ensure the success of these mergers, bringing in new people who had no idea what they were getting into.

Corruption

With these 35 alt-accounts, Averra could rig every single election. Every single administration included at least two of his alts on the governmental council, and always himself. With two alt-accounts on the governmental council, he could block any legislation from passing simply by abstaining twice.

With such a large number of accounts voting fraudulently, it isn’t a surprise that Averra placed first every election - in fact, his vote count, alongside one of his other alts, was inflated by almost 400 percent.

There were three major political parties - the Progressives, the Moderates, and the Protectorates, although their names would differ over time. Averra utilized them to display a theater of competition in elections, fielding different candidates. In reality, all three political parties were controlled by him, and they fielded candidates that happened to be alt accounts, entering office only because he would vote for himself.

Opposition parties, made up of actual people, were suppressed. The first major opposition party was formed shortly after the New West Indies-Alcris merger, named the NAPP, made up of former members of the NWI.

Each political party had a supposedly private Discord channel so they could communicate. It just so happened that Averra owned the server and thus could see every channel. When he spotted NAPP members criticizing recent legislation he had written in their private channel, Averra proceeded to use one of his alt-accounts to apply for NAPP membership.

When the alt-account, named Hsui gained access to the channel, he accused NAPP members of personally hating Averra, before pinging Averra’s main account, inviting him into the channel.

The NAPP was dissolved shortly after, although further opposition parties would be formed by NAPP members in the future. All would be suppressed just like the NAPP. Averra would continuously hold a grudge against former NAPP members and went out of his way to make sure they never entered office. With his mass amount of his alt accounts, he utilized Alcris’ ranked choice voting to inflate the vote counts of himself and his alts, all while placing opposition candidates last on ballots submitted by his alts.

In a snap election on June 2024, a successor party to the NAPP, called the Science Team, fielded two candidates, who were both former NAPP members. Disregarding ballots submitted by Averra alt-accounts, both Science Team candidates would’ve won. Officially published results placed both of them in last place and second-to-last place.

Discontent

Besides lying and manipulating a bunch of people, members of the New West Indies had personal disagreements with Averra and his alternate personalities from the beginning, before the merger.

In one instance, Averra joined the NWI Discord server with his alt Wintermoore, under the guise of serving as a diplomat. In a public channel, he communicated to Wintermoore (so himself) in Swiss German, revealing that he had given Wintermoore a list of people to avoid in the server.

Obviously, NWI citizens called him out on this, because revealing such information in a public channel, especially in the discharge of diplomatic duties, was obviously intentionally inflammatory, and at a minimum a very rude gesture.

In instances where he came into disagreement with someone, he would oftentimes guilt trip them. This practice was even more evident later after the NWI-Alcris merger, where he would mention difficulties in his life such as depression, stories about how his family hated him, and more.

The NWI-Alcris merger agreement had one important clause: the flags of the NWI and Conifer would be culturally preserved. This came in the form of flag emojis on the Alcris Discord server, a very simple courtesy,

So when Averra removed the emojis from the Discord server, to create extra space for other emojis, the case was brought to court, citing the treaty and Alcris’ constitutional obligation to adhere to the treaty.

The case was presided over by Gelenia, one of Averra’s alts. The official opinion of the Court was that the treaty was vague and made no mention of specifically the preservation of emojis. Alcris’ obligations to preserve the culture of regions which had merged into it were very minimal and yet it failed in every aspect.

So first, Averra slighted NWI’s immigrant community as a whole, before carrying out an extensive harassment campaign on one of its former members.

Averra’s personal grudge against one of the former NAPP members, Sammy, came to an extreme. Any time Sammy would criticize his actions, his alts jumped to defend him, all while making comments against Sammy.t

Various incendiary comments, coming from a variety of different accounts, were made against his character.

In one instance, Averra faked another conversation with one of his alt-accounts, to generate more sympathy for himself. He created a fake scenario where he had a sister which happened to share her name with Sammy, while having the conversation in Swiss German, thus removing context from the conversation and making Sammy think that Averra was talking about him behind his back.

When Sammy reasonably confronted him about it, he used his alt-accounts to tell Sammy to “stop inserting himself into everything”. Averra’s first thought to respond to any criticism was to guilt trip.

Thus Always to Tyrants

And so secession happened. People were brought into a Discord server as the secession documented was being drafted, and an official date was set.

But all of this had happened without knowledge that Averra had been using alt-accounts to rig every part of Alcris. The disrespect brought upon members of the Alcrisian community was enough alone to make them leave, even without knowledge of the wider scope that had kept them powerless from fundamentally changing Alcris’ flaws.

So how did we find out?

It was pretty simple, and maybe sheer luck. There were suspicions months beforehand, from a variety of different people, but they were dismissed in private circles as being ridiculous. It wasn’t until someone personally observed Averra’s Discord account going offline, before one of his alt’s accounts went offline to send a message, before going offline followed in succession again by another alt going online to send a message, did it become abundantly clear that something was going on.

And in hindsight, how was this not realized earlier? Everything seemed so obvious - the alts all acted as an exclusionary clique, they had much less activity compared to real server members, they jumped to defend Averra, all voted the same way. It’s just inconceivable that one man would dedicate so much time to something so dumb.

But now we were sure without doubt. The allegations were made available in a private channel on the New West Conifer succession Discord. For a few short days, as its members awaited secession, people spent time collecting further evidence within Alcris’ Discord server, all the while talking about the absurdity of the situation.

Secession came. The secession document was posted in the Alcris server.

So now we have to discuss the fallout. As mentioned at the beginning, Averra immediately purged over 30 members from the Discord server, including many which hadn’t signed the document. People who were entirely uninvolved in the secession were purged.

Averra attempted to maintain a veil of normalcy. He declared a state of emergency, forming an emergency cabinet, all populated by his alts, except for one (until he managed to get new people to fulfill those positions).

But the allegations and evidence. were damning. An extensive investigation was organized in a substack post, detailing how idiosyncrasies in Averra’s speech patterns identified his alt accounts, how his accounts would log on at similar times, etcetera. As information about Alcris began to spread between other regions on NationStates, embassies with Alcris were closed en masse. Upon realizing just how damning the evidence was, he suppressed the evidence, banning the creator of the substack post, eventually responding half-heartedly. He made multiple attempts to address the allegations, all of which failed, alongside his attempt to suppress the evidence, all while guilt tripping the people who were left.

But it was obvious everything was falling apart. So he faked a mental breakdown, all while consoling himself with his alt accounts. What makes it funnier was that he slipped up, and accidentally responded to himself, telling himself that everything was ok, with his main account. He generated fake activity, faking conversations with his alts which previously were never online. He celebrated the departure of people he didn't like.

Seeking to start anew and repopulate Alcris, Averra made a decision. He began to delete loads upon loads of evidence, deleting channels from Alcris. Then he began to recruit, posting onto the subreddit for worldbuilding Discord server, the subreddit for worldbuilding itself, even going onto the subreddit passportporn, advertising the regional map for Alcris’ geopolitical roleplay that other people made.

It didn’t work. Today, Alcris’ region page on NationStates is password locked, and at under 20 nations, as his alt-accounts were deleted due to inactivity.

So Here We Are

The New West Indies/Evergreen Conifer, Mithra, and Laraniem were all originally different communities, all brought together into one place, all because Averra needed real people to populate a Discord server full of fake people.

We wouldn’t be here without him. I wouldn’t have met a ton of great people if none of this happened.

Averra got what he wanted: an engaging, loving community. He was just unable to control those people at will, like he could with his puppets. And so they left, and he’s left with nothing but the remains of what he orchestrated, while the people he duped move on.

New West Conifer is, two months in from secession, a thriving community, with a constitution and democratically elected regional government, with governmental transparency as a prime focus. There have been some troubles but it is ten times what Alcris was and ever could be.

Further Reading

The video essay (I highly encourage you watch this! It goes deep into the methods used to conclusively prove Averra’s alting, plus some information omitted from my post. My post was meant to provide a more personal look at the situation, this is something more serious): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RItD1vKUMWg&list=LL&index=21&t=1605s

The article: https://danyo.substack.com/p/the-averra-dossier-secretive-network

The secession document: https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=2538618

Regarding the cultural assets of the NWI and Conifer: https://danyo.substack.com/p/amicus-brief-on-nwi-conifer-cultural

And finally, Thanks to Danyo, as he granted me permission to use many of the graphs and evidence featured in his original substack document exposing Averra.

The world is full of infamously bad works of fiction. I don't mean fanfics like My Immortal or legolas by laura either; I mean original books that somehow made it to a publisher and ended up in printed and bound form, for unsuspecting readers to pick up. Some are bad on purpose, like Atlanta Nights. That trainwreck of a book was an elaborate troll campaign by a team of authors to expose a vanity publisher as just that. Or Naked Came the Stranger, a book created as “proof” that publishers will greenlight any slop that comes their way, because sex sells!

And then you get books that were not in fact satire. They are shamelessly, gloriously bad. Things like Theresa the Empress or the Maradonia saga, published by authors who legitimately thought they were penning masterpieces. Look, I'm not going to be harsh on them. I don't believe that talent is a fixed trait. Everyone who writes has the chance to be a good author if they study the components of a great work, put their heart into it, and are willing to find and correct the mistakes they make. I'll get a little more into this later, because I firmly believe that the author and story I talk about here had the potential to be great.

Back in the year 1970, nerds shared their fanfic and amateur novellas by means of meeting up at conventions or by mailing zines. God bless 60s women mailing their Spirk fanfics to each other – we owe modern fandom as we know it to them. One such zine was called OSFAN, the zine for the Ozark Science Fiction Association in St. Louis, Missouri.

Enter the main character of this story. No, not the protagonist, the author. His name was Jim Theis. In the late 60s, he was a starry-eyed teen who loved the Conan the Barbarian series, the codifer of the sword-and-sorcery genre of the age. Wanting to emulate the epic series, Theis wrote a short story, entitled it The Eye of Argon, and sent it off to be published to a zine. It was accepted, and it appeared in OSFAN-10.

The basic plot of Eye of Argon is as follows: Grignr the barbarian, freshly escaped from an altercation in the city of Crin, rides across the desert and fights off two enemy soldiers before arriving in the city of Gorzom. He wooes a prostitute, Carthena, at a tavern, but gets into a battle with hostile local soldiers. Following the fight, he's arrested and taken before the city's prince, who sentences him to the mines. He languishes in the dungeon and fights a giant rat while the evil Cult of Argon secretly prepares to sacrifice a young woman. Grignr escapes his captors and slips through the secret entrance that goes to the cult's lair. He slays the cultists and rescues the woman, who is revealed to be Carthena. He takes the gem known as the Eye of Argon as he and she escape the palace. Outside the palace, the gem turns into a slug monster, which Grignr narrowly defeats before it gives him a strange vision and disappears. Dazed, he takes Carthena back home with him to Ecordia.

Now you might say, “That sounds a little dull, but I wouldn't say it's the WORST thing I'd ever read.” Well, what put Eye of Argon on people's Hilariously Bad Books radar is that its prose is the most violently purple thing you've probably ever read. Allow me to share an excerpt.

The paunchy noble's sagging round face flushed suddenly pale, then pastily lit up to a lustrous cherry red radiance. His lips trembled with malicious rage, while emitting a muffled sibilant gibberish. His sagging flabs rolled like a tub of upset jelly, then compressed as he sucked in his gut in an attempt to conceal his softness. [chapter 2, pp 116 in my copy]

Prince Agaphim is fat, in case you haven't noticed.

That's how the novella is narrated, for seven chapters, at approximately 11,600 words total. This merciless battery of the thesaurus leads to phrases that are either redundant (“the stygian cloud of dark ebony”) or self-contradictory (how, exactly, does someone's face flush pale or pastily light up to cherry red?) The titular Eye isn't a ruby, mind you – it's a scarlet emerald! The armor and weapons wielded by characters change their form and culture of origin between scenes. For example, the blades that Argon's cultists hold are described as “poinards”, lightweight long daggers from Europe, in one scene; in another, they change into “scimitars”, which are West Asian/North African in origin. Agfand, Prince Agaphim's crooked advisor, somehow dies twice during the story (once in Chapter 2, then again in Chapter 7.5). On top of all this, there are plenty of spelling errors, dropped spaces, and misused or missing punctuation.

Most works of amateur fiction fade away into the sands of time, but not so for the Eye of Argon. Exactly how or when it began to circulate in nerd-dom is unknown, but the catalyst is believed to be when sci-fi author Thomas N. Scortia shared a copy to horror author Chelsea Quinn Yarbo. One way or another, the story found its way into the hands of sci-fi convention goers, who made a sport out of seeing how long someone could read it aloud without bursting into laughter. Some leveraged the mockery into a charity function, with donations being made to stop the reader from continuing their recitation.

The Eye of Argon received a printed edition in 1987 and then again in 1995, with the latter version being attributed to “G. Ecordian” instead of Jim Theis. This may be because the authorship of the story was called into question for a while. The widely-distributed copy did not credit Theis, leading some to believed that it was actually an elaborate piece of satire, possibly a group effort like Atlanta Nights. In a 2003 interview with Ansible UK, author David Langford claimed that Samuel R. Delany and some students at a Clarion workshop put together Eye of Argon as an exercise to see how intentionally bad of a work they could create.

That turned out to be completely false, so either Langford or Delany is full of it. Richard W. Zellich, who ran the Archon convention in the St. Louis area, maintined in Usenet posts from the early 1990s that Jim Theis was the true author. According to him, Theis was indeed a real person who attended the convention several times. Furthermore, in 1994, a fan named Richard Newsome provided his transcription of an interview with Theis in OSFAN-13 (which will be relevant again later.) This proved to be the smoking gun that proved Theis really did write the story.

Also for a time, the ending of Eye of Argon was considered lost. The publicly available copy was the Scortia-Yarbo edition, which cut off abruptly with Grignr attempting to excise the goo monster from his leg. This was because the ending was printed on the final page of Scortia's fanzine, which had fallen off the staples. From this copy all the others had sprung. So for thirty years, nobody knew how Grignr's deadly struggle with the slime monster had resolved. Finally, in 2005, the stars aligned and a librarian at Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library at Eastern New Mexico University discovered a treasure even greater than the many-fauceted scarlet emerald: a complete copy of OSFAN-10! This edition had the long-lost ending everyone had hoped for! The lucky librarian, Gene Bundy, sent the copy to Lee Weinstein, one of the people involved in the quest to prove Theis's authorship. The online edition of Eye of Argon eagerly added the lost ending to their website, and in 2006, Wildside Press published a complete edition on paperback. This appears to be the copy that pops up when you search for “Eye of Argon” on Google. For some reason, the cover art is just a photo of an acid pool in Yellowstone Park. It doesn't appear that the Theis estate gets royalties when copies of this edition are sold.

As for Jim Theis himself, he went on to pursue a degree in journalism, and he wrote one other fantasy short story, Son of Grafan. According to an interview with Hour 25 in 1984, Theis stated that the mockery he'd received for Eye of Argon had scared him away from writing any more works of fiction. Although he'd tragically been chased away from his dream, it seemed he lived a contented life nonetheless: he earned his journalism degree, presumably had a career in that field, got married, and had two children. Sadly, he passed away at only 48 in 2002, having had heart trouble. In his obituary, he's described as a beloved father, husband, and son. His family requested donations to the American Heart Association in his memory.

I am a firm Theis defender. He was 16 when he wrote the Eye of Argon. Were you a great novelist at 16? No, you weren't. Neither was I. When I look at Theis's story, I see my own early writing: underdeveloped characters, excessively florid prose, and somewhat simple plots that don't meaningfully reconnect with earlier events. The difference is that my writing was tossed up on Fanfiction.net and eventually deleted, or it still lingers on my Google drive and the assorted USB sticks around my house. Theis had the guts to send his off to be published in a fanzine. And it got accepted, so someone thought it was decent enough to show to the world. He didn't do anything wrong. He was a teenager who wrote a clunky story and got bullied for it. That's why I don't make fun of his work.

And in retrospect, is it really that bad? The characters are underdeveloped, but hell, they were made up by someone with an underdeveloped teenage brain. Grignr is impulsive and violent, but he still generally does the right thing, and he has moments where he loses and struggles. I've read books with far more insufferable, plot-armored characters. The worldbuilding is cliché, but at least there's an attempt at it. Gorzom seems to take cues from ancient Middle Eastern cultures, so at least it's not yet another medieval Europe with the serial numbers filed off. The plot is plain, but it has a plot. I've read works with less substance in that department. The pacing is decent, and although the narration is far too purple, exposition tends to be woven into the action naturally rather than awkwardly dropped in blocks. Plus, it does paint a vivid picture of what's going on. Apart from some minor orientalism going on, Eye of Argon lacks the racist elements endemic to contemporary fiction. Grignr is described as a redhead and is presumably white, but the other characters' races aren't actually specified. Carthena is sexualized to hell and back, but she is a named character who plays an active role in the plot, Grignr needs her help to escape, and she's not slut-shamed for having sexuality. It's made clear multiple times that her relationship with Grignr is consensual; the barbarian expresses disgust at how her autonomy was taken away by the prince, and her sexual assault at the hands of the cultists is depicted as the evil and bad thing that it is. She even has a kill count of two – it's her that slays Agaphim at the end! All things considered, not bad for 1970. Eye of Argon has far more misogynist, rapey books as its contemporaries. And the infamous prose, well, it's clearly modeled off the style of the narration in Conan. Are we really going to make fun of a teen for emulating his favorite author?

I will forever wonder what things would look like if Jim Theis had been encouraged and helped instead of mocked. It wasn't like he didn't recognize where the issues with the story lay. As early as three months after its initial publishing, Theis stated that “...Eye of Argon isn't great. I basically don't know much about structure or composition,” in an interview for OSFAN #13. He demonstrated a graciousness and self-awareness that even some adult authors lack. I believe that we could have gotten a damn good Eye of Argon series if people had given him a chance. At the very least, we could stop making unauthorized copies of his novella, to profit off of his embarrassment while his estate never receives any royalties for it.

Fortunately, I'm not alone in feeling this way. In 2018, a small-time author by the name of Geoff Bottone released a novella called Grignyr the Ecordian. According to him, it's a reimagining of Eye of Argon with the goal of making the well-crafted story that Jim Theis probably had in mind. Starting with a kindly dedication to Theis, Bottone's book keeps to the original story structure of Argon as much as possible, while expanding on the worldbuilding and character dynamics. I've read it, and it's pretty good. No spoilers, but Grignyr the Ecordian seems like a fresh take on his story that Theis would be proud of. The pacing is consistent and keeps the story moving, the changes that are made make sense, and it even gives a plot-relevant reason for Agfand dying twice. It takes Theis's original worldbuilding seriously and gives it the “Yes, and” treatment it deserves. If the story behind Eye of Argon has caught your interest, I highly recommend giving it a read.

Children of Ecordia, unite!

Also, if you want, you can donate to the American Heart Association in Mr. Theis's memory :) https://www.heart.org/?form=FUNELYZXFBW

https://www.fanac.org/fanzines/OSFAn/osfan_13_allen_1970.pdf

Scan of OSFAN #10: https://ansible.uk/misc/eyeargon.pdf

Jim Theis obituary: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/45128109/

HTML edition of the story for easy reading: https://ansible.uk/misc/eyeargon.html

https://mythcreants.com/blog/i-tried-to-praise-the-eye-of-argon-and-ended-up-with-these-lousy-writing-lessons/

https://search.worldcat.org/title/21801115

https://news.ansible.uk/a193.html

https://news.ansible.uk/a211.html

The Rise and Fall of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO)

Today we take a deep dive into the world of self-published fantasy books, the book blogger/reviewer community, and unpack all the drama that comes with starting your own awards for clout. This is the non-chronological history of SPFBO's slow descent into irrelevance as told through its biggest controversies.

What the Heck's a SPFBO?

The Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off or SPFBO (yes, it's blog off and not book off. No, you're not crazy for wondering. My proofreaders were surprised that wasn't just one of my many typos) is a yearly competition to highlight the work of self-published fantasy writers. Here's the mission statement:

The SPFBO exists to shine a light on self-published fantasy. It exists to find excellent books that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. It exists to help readers select, from the enormous range of options, books that have a better chance of entertaining them than a random choice, thereby increasing reader faith in finding a quality self-published read.

The contest first began in 2015 (then called The Great Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off) when author Mark Lawrence announced his intent to try to find the best self-published fantasy books. Here's how it works:

• Every year, 300 self-pub authors enter their books for the competition
• 10 blogs are tapped to be competition judges
• Books are divided among these blogs until each one has 30 books to review
• Each blog selects one book from their assigned reading to move on to the finalist stage
• Once all 10 finalist slots are filled, all teams give final ratings on all of the books
• The book with the highest average score at the end of this round wins the cleverly-named award: the Selfie Stick

At nearly ten years old, SPFBO has gone on to have a number of controversies over the years. I'm here to catalogue its slow descent into irrelevance after its explosive debut by talking about many of its ongoing issues through the lens of its biggest controversies.

Mark Lawrence

Let's start by talking about the SPFBO host, Mark Lawrence. Lawrence is an accomplished and popular fantasy author. If you're into fantasy books, you may know that his Broken Empire trilogy was a smash success when it came out in 2011. He's also a reliable and quick writer, currently projected to publish his 18th book in a span of 14 years when his most recent trilogy completes in 2025. The guy has had plenty of critical and commercial success as a traditionally published author including a few badass award wins. This raises the question: why would he want to start a contest to highlight self-published authors? He's objectively done about as well as anyone could hope in traditional publishing and, to the best of my research, has only ever self-published a couple books on Wattpad but the first of those projects, Gunlaw, began months after SPFBO was first announced. What's he got to do with self-pub?

The common understanding is that he's helping out self-published authors out of the goodness of his heart because they don't get enough respect. I am skeptical that's the full reason. A few things to know about how Lawrence runs SPFBO:

• Lawrence's involvement in the actual competition is minimal - all reading and judging is done by blog teams with Lawrence posting announcements and updates once a quarter or so
• Lawrence famously rarely reads any entries. In the nearly ten years this contest has run, I could only find evidence of him having read a handful of participants. It wasn't until this YouTube video in August 2022 that there was solid proof of him having actually read all of the winning SPFBO books. This is widely known too and being read by Lawrence is considered a big badge of distinction in the SPFBO community
• the competition is centered entirely around Lawerence's blog and he has responded negatively to suggestions of creating an official website or oversight committee for the awards

Lawrence doesn't seem like a guy who is sincerely interested in self-published fantasy. Rather, this seems to have an opportunistic element. The evidence is certainly all circumstantial but I'm struggling to think of any other award where it's an open question whether the guy giving you the award will read your award-winning book.

A relevant consideration here is that Mark Lawrence has a history of obnoxious self-promo. He has been banned by r/fantasywriters for flouting their rules (comment link and backup screenshot because Lawrence likes to delete his comments once he realizes they reflect poorly on him). He seems to be in a constant battle with the mods of r/Fantasy over his promo violations (comment link and backup screenshot) as seen in the frequent potshots he takes at their self-promo rules (comment link and backup screenshot) including this instance where he appears to have directly DMed a random user to ask them to post promo on his behalf (comment link and backup screenshot) because he knew it would get removed as promotional if he posted it. I mean, what else could "Posted with permission since self-promotion is not allowed" mean? So when I say "it seems like Lawrence's motives for running SPFBO don't seem entirely altruistic," that's not coming from nowhere. There is a record of him knowingly engaging in underhanded self-promo. Though to be fair, I get that publishers don't support their authors enough and that Lawrence's tenacity in promoting himself and hanging in there as an author is on some level very impressive.

Now a lot of this can be forgiven if Lawrence were better at running SPFBO but he is rather uninvolved in most of the contest. The blog teams do most of the actual work and are asked to have read nearly 40 books by the end of the SPFBO year. I'm a big reader, I usually average around 80 books a year and I can't imagine devoting half my hobby time to this endeavor but there are brave souls out there who do every year. Meanwhile, Lawrence has a tendency to abandon aspects of the competition when they start to take more work than expected. This can best be seen in one of SPFBO's biggest controversies: the AI cover fiasco. For years, SPFBO ran a best cover contest where a selection of good looking covers were uploaded for users and critics to vote on. In 2023 though, one of the winning covers was revealed to be AI generated which was explicitly against the rules of the contest and violated the self-report form authors had to fill out in order to enter the contest.

People were upset and there were ideas for how to revamp the contest so that such an issue would not repeat but Lawrence simply ended the cover contest completely. The cover contest was an immensely popular part of SPFBO and served to highlight that not all self-pub books have bad cover art but the moment it became more work than posting pictures for other people to vote on, he dropped it faster than Kendrick Lamar drops Drake diss tracks. There's no explanation as to why either. Lawrence didn't provide a reason in his announcement, he did not respond to requests for comments from the news orgs that reported the story, and our only hint as to why is a tweet hinting at his distaste for controversy and suggesting someone else not associated with SPFBO should run the contest instead.

All of this is worth bearing in mind as his leadership failures start to underscore and exacerbate SPFBO's systemic failures.

Edit: A commenter let me know there was some important context that I'd missed. Lawrence has a daughter with special needs who takes up a lot of his time and attention so some of the lack of effort in SPFBO I've been critical of can likley be attributed to him being a good caretaker of her.

Grimdark Supremacy

The oldest and dearest controversy in SPFBO history is that the contest has mainly been dominated by one specific fantasy subgenre: grimdark. For those who don't know, grimdark is an infamously hard to define subgenre with everyone disagreeing about what it is, how it's different from dark fantasy, and whether it's good or bad. For simplicity's sake, I'll say that grimdark tends to focus on nihilistic or cynical worlds where goodness itself feels like an impossibility but pinning it down past that is a fool's errand.

It's probably no surprise that the competition wound up so skewed towards grimdark. After all, being run through Mark Lawrence's blog, it probably attracted a fair portion of Mark Lawrence fans and Mark Lawrence is a grimdark author of considerable importance. His attempt at defining grimdark (because even the authors of this genre struggle to pin it down) lists his own debut novel, Prince of Thorns, as the 3rd most grimdark book of all time with a community-voted rating of 4.47 grimdark points out of 5 and an interview with Grimdark Magazine (GDM) describes him as

a key voice in grimdark fantasy since the release of Prince of Thorns in 2011. Lawrence engages heavily with the grimdark community as both an author and as founder of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off

I do find it telling that GDM considers running SPFBO to be evidence of engaging heavily with the grimdark community. It seems like an indirect acknowledgement that the contest is seen as being by and for grimdark writers. That perception has haunted the competition for years. Repeated complaints about SPFBO's seeming lack of openness to those other subgenres have flared up from time to time on social media and there have been both authors and judges who have participated with the intent of broadening the reading tastes of the SPFBO community.

When a non-grimdark book does win, it can get treated rather dismissively. To his credit, Lawrence has tried to be supportive of non grimdark winners but he's not very good at actually being supportive. Lawrence reviewed SPFBO 7 winner, Reign & Ruin, which is a fantasy romance. The review absolutely screams: I don't like this but feel obligated to support the winner of my competition.

It feels extremely unengaged in the the book. "I learned so much about clothes" and "The book's prose was good, as was its writing and also its descriptions" would feel-low effort in a middle school book report. It certainly doesn't feel like the type of review someone would write about a novel they personally bestowed an award upon. You can see how damningly faint the praise is when compared to something like his review for Senlin Ascends (a book which will come up again in a future section):

The imagination is unbound and intriguing. This has a strong Jack Vance, Dying Earth vibe, mixed in with overtones of Kafka, but it's also very much its own thing with hope and defiance to offset the cynicism.

That said, it would be unfair of me to not acknowledge that SPFBO has gotten better at this over time. SPFBO 9 finalists (the currently active SPFBO as of this writing) were broken down by one participating blog as having:

• 4 cozy reads
• 3 dark fantasy, with 1 being Grimdark
• 3 epic fantasy novels

Plus, in addition to Reign and Ruin's SPFBO 7 win, another romantic fantasy, Olivia Atwater's Small Miracles, won SPFBO 8. So it seems SPFBO is slowly diversifying. I'm not sure the jump from dark to epic is all that big but dark to cozy does feel like a real change and two romance winners in a row does feel promising.

Who Are Reviews For?

SPFBO has a recurring bout of infighting on the subject of reviewers and how they review entries. There's always one reviewer that is significantly more critical than the other reviewers. Who this person is changes from year to year but the person with the lowest overall ratings often gets flamed online by both SPFBO enthusiasts and authors for belittling the competition. It's such a known quantity that Lawrence has even addressed it directly in his blog over the years as have judges and participating authors. I won't mince words: bad reviews are an affront to the competition in many authors' eyes because they don't see it as a competition for quality. They see it as a chance for self-promo and anyone giving them bad scores is ruining the good vibes and community building or worse, not being a true ally to self-publishing. You may recognize this as being at odds with what most people would consider to be the point of a contest and SPFBO's own mission statement: to find excellent books.

Frankly, a lot of self-published novels are dreck and that dreck has only gotten worse thanks to AI. We all know this. The lack of a professional filter does mean that books which would never be given a commercial shot can find an audience (and that is great!) but it also means no quality control and a lot of resultant rubbish. That's why SPFBO is theoretically such a useful endeavor. Providing a quality filter for casual browsers who are open to reading good self-published books but can't find them on their own is a great service. But the trouble is that SPFBO is also buried in garbage entries. I would estimate that at least 1/3rd of entered books are unreadable and I'd be shocked if they were ever even in the same city as an editor, another 1/3rd are just regular bad, and then the remaining 1/3rd vary from mediocre to quite good. Even in the finalist stage, it's not uncommon to see books with average scores of 4, 5, or 6 out of 10 which would be unthinkably low in the finalist stage of just about any other competition.

This issue of wildly uneven quality is compounded by the fact that there tend to be two types of people who enter into the contest as judges. The first type is what I'd call the Cheerleader: someone who wants to support self-publishing and get it taken seriously as a format. The second type is what I'd call the Professional: a reviewer who sees their critiques as their art form and is most invested in putting good reviews out. Both types have their place in this competition and are good to have around but they often clash because the Cheerleader is very forgiving of obvious flaws while the Professional is very unforgiving of the same. So every year this leads to a fight between people who view themselves as supporting a maligned format and people who are interested in making sure they’re reading things that are actually good drags down the entire competition every year. The argument always goes "we need to build up self-pub as a real alternative to trad pub! Kicking self-pub author with bad reviews only helps Big Publishing" vs "we need to be honest about the quality and not treat self-pub with kids gloves. It may seem cruel but this is what it means to be taken seriously."

The Senlin Drama

I think this divide between Cheerleaders and Professionals can be traced back to the very first SPFBO controversy. I call it the Senlin Drama. 2016 was the second year SPFBO was ever run and one blogger, Jared Shurin of Pornokitsch, was torn between two finalist picks: Path of Flames by Phil Tucker or Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft (told you it'd be back). After much soul searching, Shurin opted to advance Path of Flames. What happened next was Mark Lawrence read a self-published fantasy book for the first time in his life. Okay, probably not in his life but this is the first time I can verify he actually read a SPFBO book. He was intrigued by Senlin Ascends, read it, loved it, and made it his mission to champion it. Ultimately, this led to Senlin Ascends getting a traditional publishing deal, critical acclaim, and setting his next series up for a six-figure book deal. This is pretty good so far. Isn't this what you want out of a self-pub competition? To unearth hidden gems?

Well, yes but then it took a bit of a weird turn. The rules of SPFBO were rewritten specifically to make up for Senlin Ascends having not made it to the finals. Mark Lawrence announced the Senlin Net in 2017, a rule where bloggers who wound up with two strong picks for finalist could send their second pick to another team to give that book another chance of making the finals. This is not a bad idea but the tone of the announcement is rather odd. Take a look:

In addition to the unavoidable flaws a system may be corrupt. Flaws cannot be avoided but corruption can. A system that allows room for corruption (unfairness) will attract accusations of foul play even if none is actually happening. Hence it is important to have rules that allow no room for it.

For the SPFBO it is better that we select a good book by a process that is not only fair but seen to be fair, than to select the best book by a process that has room for unfairness in it (even if none is actually present).

Please tuck away that tidbit about seeming to be fair being more important than being fair away for later. It will be important in a future section.

Senlin Ascends may not have made it to the finals, but the strength of the review convinced Lawrence to read it and then champion it all the way to a publishing deal. Bancroft may not have won but he is arguably SPFBO's biggest success story, showing the importance of good word of mouth and how great books do get overlooked by traditional publishers. Isn't that everything you'd want SPFBO to be even if Bancroft didn't take the prize? So why is the tone of this announcement acting like the competition is on the verge of becoming a corrupt institution?

Anything I could say on why would be speculation, unfortunately. What I can say concretely though is that this post has also semi rewritten history so that now Shurin is regularly belittled in hindsight for picking wrong even though the actual review makes it extremely clear how good the book was and did so in a way that was convincing enough to get it read by people who matter. The guy who got the ball rolling on how great the Books of Babel are is retroactively villainized for writing an effective review because he personally preferred a competing book by the slimmest of margins while being as open and honest about his process as possible.

You can see how this started the Cheerleader versus Professional trouble, right? Shurin was set on picking the book he felt was best, publicly agonized over his choice when presented with two books that he thought were great, and still gave a fantastic review to the book he didn’t choose. But he didn’t support the right book and Lawrence acting as if a grave injustice had been done gave a little more weight to the Cheearleader side. Shurin tried to be a Professional, was rebuked for not doing it to the liking of the host, and has been retroactively scorned for failing to Cheerlead Senlin Ascends like Lawrence did.

Now, that said, sometimes the Professionals are definitely assholes. For SPFBO 6, Mark Lawrence specifically recruited one of the top reviewers on Goodreads to participate in SPFBO. As of the time when I'm writing this up, Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies as she goes by on Goodreads is the fourth most followed GR reviewer in the US. That's objectively a pretty major get for a small competition that surely added a lot of legitimacy to the proceedings, right? Nope! Turns out Khanh was not a fan of self-published works, did not enjoy any of her time as a judge, wrote several extremely negative reviews (and yes, there's Mark Lawrence once again engaging in self-promo in the comments), and quit the competition before even finishing her slate of 30 which were redistributed to the other teams. Moreover, her clear disdain for self-published work quickly made every other judge miserable since most of them (both Cheerleader and Professional) do want to help out non-traditional authors.

Khanh was absolutely a bad fit for the contest and it's probably better for everyone (including her) that she left. This does highlight the failure of Lawrence's leadership though. In a bid to get a big name, he apparently didn't bother to find someone who cared about the contest at all and maybe wasn't even prepared for it as a concept. Khanh certainly made things worse with all the bad blood she generated but she never would have been there in the first place if she hadn't been actively recruited.

What Even is Fantasy Anyway?

One of the big rules of SPFBO is that the book has to be fantasy. There was some consternation among other types of spec fic about genre favoritism but now that there's an equivalent contest for sci-fi self-pub, most of those complaints have died away. And now that only fantasy is allowed and everyone agrees on that front, we have to ask: how does this competition define fantasy?

Perhaps looking at a successful finalist will help us understand what counts. Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin was a finalist for SPFBO 6 in 2020. It even went on to be acquired by spec fic powerhouse publisher Orbit for a traditional publishing deal. Combat Codes is basically as successful as a SPFBO book can be, which is all very interesting when you learn that Combat Codes is not fantasy in any way and should not have been eligible for SPFBO. You wouldn't know this from the review of the blogger who picked the book to be a finalist since the second line of the review reads "It blends fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, martial arts, and more."

A follow up review by a competing blog was quick to point out there were no fantasy elements and sure enough, when Orbit published the book there was no mention of fantasy anywhere in the press release. Even post publish, the top Goodreads review for the book expresses surprise and confusion that the book was ever labeled fantasy by anyone. So how the heck was this able to get to such an advanced stage of the competition if it breaks a major rule by not being fantasy?

Well, this is where we get back to Lawrence's leadership. You see the rule is that only fantasy is allowed but there's a tacit admission that the rule will not be enforced:

iv) It must be a fantasy book. (If you say it's fantasy then it is. But if it isn't really it won't get far.)

What a peculiar exemption and now provably untrue with at least one non-fantasy finalist. Behind the scenes sources that I am not at liberty to name have told me that Darwin did not realize that the competition was only limited to fantasy books when he entered and thought that his sci-fi was fine to compete. This caused a stir on the SPFBO judge Discord and many teams complained about having a sci-fi finalist. After enough of the judge bloggers complained, Lawrence reached out to Darwin who reclassified his book as fantasy for purposes of the competition so he could retain his finalist status because of course he would. The alternative would be self-disqualification after already reaching the top 10. Lawrence may as well have asked "Do you want to have a pizza party or do you want to kick yourself in the balls?" There is only one answer anyone would pick aside from maybe the cast of Jackass.

I want to be clear that I don't think Darwin necessarily did anything wrong here, at least initially. He entered a competition without knowing the full rules. That's a misunderstanding at worst. It should have been up to Lawrence to fix this but instead he turned the question to Darwin who was effectively asked to choose between lying about the content of his work or derailing his chance to achieve a lifelong dream. Would he have still been able to get enough notoriety to get a publishing deal if he'd self-DQ'd? Probably not. And yes, Darwin may have lied but I can't blame him for choosing how he chose. I think most people in that situation would choose the same way. This is why it reflects poorly on Lawrence's leadership that he handled it this way. He could have either finally opened up SPFBO to accept all spec fic or enforced the rules that his own bloggers were asking him to enforce but he opted out of doing anything.

Incest

No, not literal incest. Competitional incest. One thing about self-published authors that drive a lot of people up the wall is the constant self-promo and networks of backscratching. You'll be unsurprised to learn this extends to SPFBO which is absolutely rampant with questionable relationships between authors and judges. This is most obvious in how frequently judges and contestants hop back and forth between that dividing line. Let's take a hypothetical example:

• Year 1 - contestant enters the competition and becomes a finalist
• Year 2 - former contestant does not have a book out and decides to help out SPFBO by judging. They join the blog team that named them as a finalist in Year 1
• Year 3 - contestant now has a book out again and so re-enters the competition. If they get far enough, they will eventually be judged by the same team they worked with in Year 2

There's no provable quid pro quo happening as far as I can confirm in this example but it definitely has the appearance of impropriety. What I'm describing here is not a one off occurrence, it happens nearly every year to multiple teams. I get how it can happen innocently. Bloggers enjoy the added legitimacy that comes with having a finalist on their team and authors who want to support SPFBO like giving back but it really feels like there should be rules here to prevent this sort of thing.

For an extreme case, I would point to Sarah Chorn whose blog Bookworm Blues has been a SPFBO judge multiple times, she has also competed in SPFBO with her book Of Honey and Wildfires in SPFBO 6, has been a developmental editor for multiple SPFBO finalists before entry (it's unclear if she was editor and judge for the same people in the same year but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt for now), and is an editor of Grimdark Magazine. Chorn seems like a nice person so I don't want to give her grief and I beg anyone reading this to not harass her or her editing business (which I have taken care not to link) over what is currently only the potential appearance of impropriety. I simply want to highlight that this degree of involvement at every level of the competition is concerning even when done in good faith by nice people with the best of intentions. To make a comparison to a different award, imagine if a person could be on the Pulitzer Prize committee, a nominee for the prize, and the editor for multiple finalists in the span of a few years. It'd look pretty sketchy. Edit: Though as a comment on this post points out, it happens all the time in awards and specifically to the pulitzer.

Now this can be done in a way that is okay. For instance, author Devin Madson was a finalist in SPFBO 4 and a judge in SPFBO 8 with the Fantasy Inn, the blog that called out Combat Codes lack of fantasy status in an earlier section. While the folks at the Fantasy Inn are clearly fans of Madsons's, they were not judges the year she was a finalist and multiple years passed before she judged. Moreover, since then she hasn't re-entered the competition to the best of my knowledge. This is decently ethical even if I'm still not entirely comfortable with this arrangement.

Here's where we come back to that thing Lawrence said earlier about it being more important that the process is seen as fair than actually selecting the best book. Does that philosophy not apply here? Apparently it doesn't because to the best of my knowledge, Lawrence has never raised any concern or spoken on the fluid relationship between participant and judge before. This seems like one area where you really would want to make things seem as fair as possible but it feels like the overly friendly and insular nature of the community is seen as a perk to be enjoyed rather than a problem to be addressed.

Irrelevance

For many years, SPFBO was a potential path to traditional publishing success. A few big publishers kept their eyes on SPFBO and scooped up contestants who seemed promising. This includes but is not limited to Josiah Bancroft, Olivia Atwater, Devin Madson, Jonathan French, and more. However, while these books got great feedback from SPFBO, many went on to belly flop in traditional publishing. Grimdark Magazine had this to say about Michael R Fletcher's attempt at a trad pub career:

As Fletcher himself said, “By the end of the year, it appeared on over a dozen best-of-the-year lists, neck and neck with real books written by real authors.” Here at Grimdark Magazine, we loved it. However, despite all of this acclaim, it wasn’t selling well. Because of this, Harper Voyager passed on the sequel.

This became a common phenomenon. Edit: I've been corrected on this point. Fletcher started out trad pub and then moved to self-pub. I had the order of events backwards.

SPFBO success mostly did not translate to marketability. The competition which aimed to shine a spotlight on exceptional work was turning out to be an extremely niche competition where everyone who might be interested in the winners was already a SPFBO judge. That's not to say that there will never be another contestant to make the leap to trad pub but every year there are fewer and fewer SPFBO contestants making that leap. Even Orbit, once the great scooper of promising SPFBO titles, appears to have stopped.

In ten years, SPFBO has gained all the worst qualities of awards competitions and slowly lost all the valuable parts, if it ever had them to begin with. It's arcane, insular, full of overly cozy relationships between judges and contestants, hampered by ineffective yet self-important leadership, hobbled by severely limited notions of its own genre, and extremely hit or miss at vetting for quality. To this day, winning SPFBO is no guarantee that a book will be good. I could devote an entire section to mediocre and bad winners but I just don't think me talking about what a sexist slog The Grey Bastards is would be nearly as interesting as the drama that currently exists.

Can SPFBO be Saved?

Possibly but it's in bad need of reform. The contest clearly cannot continue on as it has been. Some changes I think would go a long way:

• Real leadership - someone with an active passion for finding good self-pub who will actually put effort in. Ideally a leadership council to handle serious responsibilities and a dedicated site for the sake of professionalism would help too. You can even see a better designed independent site put up by a former participant that puts Lawrence's blog to shame
• Better and enforceable rules - there's no point in having rules if you're not going to enforce them. It cheapens the contest that existing rules are not taken seriously internally.
• Better quality control - there needs to be a more serious effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. It's embarrassing to see 4.3 and 8.1 finalists sitting side by side in the final ratings.

Even if all these changes are made, it's possible that traditional publishing houses won't come back. That time may have passed permanently but a good faith effort to take SPFBO from a glorified clique back to a real competition would go a long way towards getting real interest back.

Conclusion

So now you know the whole history of SPFBO. I hope this deep dive into the petty world of blogging about self-published fantasy books was as enjoyable for you to read as it was for me to write and research.

Edit: After much feedback, I've rewritten several sections of the post to remove speculation and incorporate criticisms the first draft received. I hope this solves the issues people had with the initial write-up feeling one-sided.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

In late 2015, a massive indie RPG called Super Space Funeral 4 & Bubsy was released, to a mix of confusion and outrage. Why? Well, keep reading and you'll find out.

Content note: This story touches on discussions of transphobia, involves tasteless portrayals of fictional transgender characters, and contains some really bad words relating to sex work. I debated if this needs the heavy tag, but almost all of that stuff is aimed at fictional characters, not real people. Links that go to possibly heavy stuff are tagged, though, and I censored slurs in the quotes. If you'd rather something wholesome that's still related to the LGBT+ community, why not learn about Oceanspirit Dennis? Space Funeral 4 is kinda gross.

(0) Background information

People will occasionally remember Space Funeral 4 and ask what happened. Usually, they don't get an answer. Despite the massive waves it made at the time, discussion of the game has just… sort of vanished. Little information survives, except for inscrutable third-hand references.

Before we start, let's all agree to be adults about this, and let's not harass anyone involved in this story. Cool? Cool.

To my knowledge, there is no comprehensive write-up of those events. Most sources have been lost to bit rot or been intentionally destroyed, but I managed to track down enough material to put together a rough and superficial outline. How did it come to be? Why it was like that? Whence the backlash? Well, let's find out.

Okay, so, Bubsy the Bobcat is a videogame character from the "mascot platformer" era. He received two good games in the 90s, plus one more mediocre one, followed by the franchise- and company-killing mistake known as Bubsy 3D. There was a failed TV pilot in the mix as well. Making fun of Bubsy 3D is a tradition as old as YouTube - in the spirit of the 2010s, here's an Angry Video Game Nerd segment. This strange afterlife eventually lead to Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective - a well-received art-platformer from 2013. Fun fact: The word "Bubsy" will appear 147 times in this write-up.

RPG Maker is a nifty little piece of software that you can use to make JRPG-like games, without needing to know much about programming. It's not as powerful as more universal game engines (like Unity or Godot), but it also has a much lower barrier to entry. There's been a thriving community of RPGMaker developers for decades now, and occasionally that community produces a breakout hit. A few examples from the last 10 years include OneShot, LISA: The Painful, Fear & Hunger, and Omori.

Another famous RPGMaker game is Space Funeral, a 2010 art-game by Stephen "thecatamites" Gillmurphy.

(1) Space Funeral and Earth Birth (2010-2012)

Space Funeral is an arthouse classic, best understood as a commentary on fantasy tropes and faux-nostalgic retro games. It uses wildly clashing graphics, stolen pop songs, and absurdist writing to unique effect.

Stephen "thecatamites" Gillmurphy: It wasn’t so much about the sprites or art in particular of RPG Maker so much as a kind of classicist way of dealing with that stuff, which is like the idea that videogames reached their peak in the output of a few large companies in the 90s and ever since it’s all anyone can do to ape those things as closely as possible[.]

In the game, you explore a garish broken wasteland full of strange creatures. Your party consists of "Phillip," who is a perpetually sobbing bald man, and "Leg Horse," who is a gruesomely mutilated ex-human. (Don't worry, he's fine.) An intense atmosphere of dread hanging over it all, even with the surreal humour, and it turns out that the world is actually post-apocalyptic. An artist named MOON was exposed to the world's platonic ideals, couldn't handle their impossible and unreachable perfection, and decided to break the world apart to create room for art and self-expression. You kill her, and the world retvrns to normal - a generic fantasy kingdom made out of stock RPGMaker assets. Is this a good thing? Who knows! Roll credits.

MOON: Nothing could be created which was not a pathetic mockery of the objects of the city. The finest works paled in comparison. In the face of such beauty I felt corrupted, an animal. Our world meant nothing. We were all graceless, creatures of slime.

If you want to know more, here is a Let's Play, and here is a review. This sort of thing is like catnip for artists, and if something becomes popular among a community of creative types, and the creator is cool about things - well, you get fan works. The first big fangame was released in 2013 by DuckStapler, and it was called Earth Birth.

DuckStapler: A satanic ritual summons Phillip and the Leg Horse from their purified land of Space Funeral into the corrupt land of Earth Birth where the evil forces of Science threaten to overtake the good forces of superstition. Dracula tags along with our protagonists halfway through the game.

Earth Birth is longer than Space Funeral, and improves on that game in many ways. The combat is more interesting, for example. However, while the game is well-made, it doesn't have much of a vision of its own. That's fine and all, but it misses the point a bit - if there's any specific idea that Space Funeral really wanted you to engage with, it's that creativity and self-expression are more important than technical skill, and that imitation is a dead end. That's what messed MOON up so much!

(2) Super Space Funeral Deluxe (2012-2014)

One of the people active in the Space Funeral community was SqrlyJack - a webcomics artist, shitposter, animator, squirrel furry, and Michael Jackson superfan. Squirrel + Jack, see? Also a trans woman who wasn't yet out for most of the story, so don't be confused if sources use "he" or "they."

SqrlyJack began work on her own Space Funeral fangame in October 2012. (Archive) Super Space Funeral Deluxe was going to be a straightforward "16-bit" remake of Space Funeral - basically the same game, but with spruced-up graphics and some new content.

SqrlyJack: Also because I was planing on upgrading the graphics, I was going to downgrade the ending graphics. hahaha!

After the release of Earth Birth, SqrlyJack decided to take Space Funeral Deluxe into a different direction. New areas, new party members, and sexy furries in the form of "growlf sex workers." Dracula hangs out with them, in case you're wondering. You know, the vampire? He drinks the wine and he smokes the weed. (Archive)

SqrlyJack: Its like he gets worse and worse in each game

The title was changed to "Super Space Funeral 4: Deluxe Blood Red Edition," since this was going to be a proper sequel now. A demo came out in April 2014, and was received warmly. (Archive)

The demo spans from the beginning of the game in Scum Vullage to after the first dungeon. Even though it’s only the prolog and the first chapter of the game, it’s still quite a lot for a Space Funeral game. Enjoy the demo!

Note that it covers just the remake stuff, with very little new content.

(3) Enter the Bobcat (2014)

You may have been wondering where Bubsy comes in. Well, it's early 2014 now - Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective has released, and the character is back in the public consciousness. SqrlyJack starts Bubsyposting after watching a YouTube Poop. She immediately creates a Bubsy OC, who is a burned-out ex-celebrity, and, well… (Archive)

BUBSY MOTHER FUCKING BOBCAT!!!!!!!!!! Bubsy is life. Bubsy is love. (…) But now he spends his time in mediocrity as a depressed, drunken transvestite hooker. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO SUCH A BEAUTIFUL CREATURE??? (…) And the fairly recent fan game "Bubsy Visits the James Turrell Retrospective" is a fucking work of art, on par with the creepy, ugly, surreal, wackiness of Space Funeral. (…) But yea that's BUTTSY BOOBCAT, the drunkenist most depressinist transvestite prostitute bobcat in a shirt to hit the streets and THE GREATEST THING TO EVER BE BLESSED UPON OUR SOULS.

The gender transition idea comes from the fact that Bubsy 3D's voice actress also voiced Rouge the Bat. SqrlyJack really latches onto this idea.

SqrlyJack: And in Bubsy 3D, she just seems like a girl *poorly* trying to act male so she doesn’t get fired (For example, Rabbit from [Steam Powered Giraffe], after going through her transition, is used to her new voice and has trouble with her old voice, so I guess Bubsy here is an exaggeration of that, being a cartoon and all).

She goes all-in on this, even starting a second game project - a platformer called "The New Adventures of Bubsy," featuring everyone's favourite depressed bobcat. She also starts a Tumblr character blog to roleplay as New Bubsy, later renamed to "Modern Bubsy." That character becomes a whole thing. There's just so much lore here.

(4) Pivot to Bubsy (2014-2015)

A little later in 2014, "The New Adventures of Bubsy" was cancelled, and Modern Bubsy was added to Space Funeral 4 instead. (Archive)

SqrlyJack: I figured Bubsy will be the new guy. Also it’s the same “updated” Bubsy from my other game project.

giga-pichu: HELL YEAH

This isn't totally out of left field. Stephen "thecatamites" Gillmurphy, the creator of Space Funeral, was a bit of a Bubsyposter himself. The "& Bubsy" in "SF 4 & Bubsy" comes to mean Modern Bubsy specifically.

SqrlyJack: I’m using “Modern Bubsy” as the 4th party member in Space Funeral 4. SF4 will include the tale of Bubsy’s awful misadventures after Bubsy 3D. By the way, Bubsy had a sex change. Gotta have that token JRPG babe, and since this is Space Funeral, it might as well be unpleasant and comical.

The turn of the year is also when we start to see a lot of Modern Bubsy porn. Like, a lot of it. The whole thing tends to emphasize Bubsy's status as a burned-out ex-celebritiy, which usually means a ripped shirt and smeared makeup. If you truly absolutely must, the softcore picture "Boobsy lol" is a representative example.

[A picture of an otherwise naked Bubsy in a thong. Breasts are covered from behind by Phillip Spacefuneral's hands. She is sad. Content warning, but click here to see it.]

PlasticFantastic: Thanks for finally making something I feel a little guilty about faving. XD

Development of SF 4 went on, slow but steady. In mid-2015, the project even received an endorsement from Space Funeral creator Stephen "thecatamites" Gillmurphy himself, kinda. (Archive)

SqrlyJack: @thecatamites Can you believe there's gonna be another one? And Bubsy's the new party member???

thecatamites: @SqrlyJack as long as the franchise eventually outnumbers final fantasy i am happy

Spirits were high, and by the end of 2015, quite a lot of content had finished - about three quarters of the game. SqrlyJack was doing everything except the soundtrack by herself, without any beta testers, so she figured that now might be a good time to show off the added content. She set up a GameJolt page, and published a second demo.

And what a demo it was.

(5) The demo (2015-2016)

If you wish to experience the game for yourself, and I'm not saying you should, then you can still grab a copy from the Internet Archive. Takes 5-7 hours depending on your familiarity with JRPGs. You can also occasionally find Let's Plays on YouTube, like this one. Or just keep reading! That's also an option.

By accident, SqrlyJack had chosen the perfect release date. Demo 2 dropped a few weeks after Undertale and a few weeks before the re-release of the old Bubsy games on Steam, following a surprise Greenlight campaign. Space Funeral 4 sat at the exact intersection of those two trends, earning quite a lot of free attention and even some press coverage. Consider "Awaken to the Beautiful Nightmare World of Super Space Funeral 4 Deluxe Blood Red Version & Bubsy:"

Joel Couture: [I]t’s easy to get lost in their colorful worlds filled with monsters, lions, and muscle hedonists. And Bubsy. Yes, that Bubsy, (well, maybe not QUITE that Bubsy) thanks to developer and comic artist Squirrelly Jack. Squirrelly Jack has just released a demo of the fourth iteration of the series, [SF4], letting players overcome horrific, bloody monstrosities while living out their dream of dating Bubsy. Just… maybe don’t play it at work. Maybe.

Absolutely definitely don't.

So… what's going on here? Is the game actually good, then? Well… nnnno.

gungod6461: Played through this whole game aswell. Probably the worst game i've ever played. No clue how people left good reviews on the gamejolt.

Lineder: The creator here just uses it as a vehicle for, you know - inserting the repurposed bastardised Bubsy character and whatever… you know… fandom… jokes, memes they like, into a game that people cherish, and uh - [faux Southern accent] "I wanna have a piece of that Space Funeral pie, and it's gonna have my name on it, going forward, Space Funeral 4, Deluxe Blood Red version." Okay, so, your game is basically a version of vandalism. Let's draw some grafitti onto it. Because you're really cannibalising the first two games and then just drawing your own shit on top.

Whoopbones: why the hell does Leg horse have a MOUTH

SqrlyJack had been building her fanbase for a while now, and those people liked it. But reactions were… mixed overall. Most reviews were lost in the Content Purge, but as far as negative feedback goes, this post is fairly representative. Swears redacted for your convenience.

DestroyerOfBlocks: not only is it full of [hecking] bronies and furries but there is a [hecking] furry in your party and it is the authors [hecking] bubsy the bobcat pre op transgender oc with a giant [genitals] and [breasts]. (…) everything about this game is so completely veered off of what space funeral was (…)

theres a [bad] teleport maze which was [hecking] [genitals] because its a teleport maze with invisible enemies that you had to fight if you ran into because you couldnt flee from those forgets wasting my time (…) so congratulations the gameplay is [bad] too except unlike other space funerals there is more of an emphasis on it for some ungodly reason so it being [bad] is sort of an issue now.

instead of traveling through interesting areas you travel through [hecking] furry and brony villages that are a massive department from the traditional gory and unsanitized feel and are actively stated to be "the best place in space funeral" and its [hecking] awful why even make it space funeral. (…) this isnt bubsy therapy session this is [hecking] s p a c e f u n e r a l.

This was the mid-2010s - furries were the socially accepted punching bag of the Internet. There's some legitimate criticism of the gameplay mixed in, not just invective, but it's not very helpful. Do we have a less biased source, perhaps? Maybe someone who bothered to actually review the game in depth?

Let's skip forward to the end of 2016. This is when a big long review was posted to Tumblr, written by one SeaShelbby. I'll simply call it The Review from here on out, because it deserves Capital Letters. There's also a nine-hour stream to go with it, here and here, or spliced together here.

(6) Space Funeral 4: What's in it

If you're just here for the drama and not so much the context, feel free to skip to the next chapter. But here's the highlights from The Review.

Space Funeral 4 starts as a high-definition remake of Space Funeral 1, starring "Phillip" - a perpetually sobbing bald man - and "Leg Horse," a gruesomely mutilated creature. This is normal. After defeating the second boss, Blood Ghoul, you fall down a hole and the new content starts.

You visit Mt. Depression, an area that is generally praised by players, because it nails the Space Funeral "house style." It's weird, a little gross, and thematically resonant. Here, you recruit your third party member, Dracula the vampire. After fighting some neckbeard enemies, you come to a village of "fuzzies." (Anthropomorphic animals. They're furries.) This area then acts as the hub for the rest of the game, with the other areas branching off it. You access them one after another, by pouring Purple Drankk into a toilet, creating a portal. (Hence "toilet worlds.")

World 1, "Diabeetus," is based on a bit of internet culture ephemera. It dares ask the question the lamestream media will not: What if a My Little Pony "Dinky Donkey" said a swear? And was possibly ground up to make sugar in a factory run by Princess Celestia, because that was a thing in OFF? And what if those ponies were also Mexican? This follows then-relevant fan animation PONY.MOV almost beat-by-beat. I liked the art for Apocalypse Celestia, though. This is also where Bubsy joins the party, you help her investigate the factory and she sticks around. Her class is "Boobsy" and she gets moves like "Flash" and "Face Sit."

World 2, "Bakayarou," takes aim at anime tropes and Japanese games (specifically Pokémon). A lot of it just ends up mocking the Japanese. Professor Genki puts in an appearance, as do various salaryman and nerd scientists. There's a teleportation maze with invisible walls and respawning monsters. Not great! This is also where you get to date Bubsy, with a whole dialogue puzzle and everything, and change her class from "Boobsy" to "Your Waifu." The boss of the area is a pop tart.

World 3, "Funky Town," is a Blaxploitation slash Disco thing. Strong music theme. I have little to say on this area, because it's basically a long forest maze followed by an even longer maze with sliding block puzzles. Golden Sun got away with this sort of thing because of good pacing and puzzle design, which this game does not have. It's interesting to see furries "fuzzies" with afro haircuts, though.

What follows is a segment where the game threatens to become interesting. After defeating the greedy Sir Nose, the party is suddenly attacked by aliens - Woolies, from the Bubsy games. They're knocked out. You experience an extended flashback from Bubsy's perspective, showing her rise, fall, and gender transition. I'm actually going to link to a Let's Play of SF 4 here. NSFW, content warning. Bubsy defeats the aliens, rescues the rest of the party, and sail off. The demo ends at this point, cutting to credits and thanking the player.

You may have noticed that everything after Mt. Depression has basically nothing to do with Space Funeral. This was a common criticism, but the game also kind of fails if considered on its own merits, due to needlessly sadistic level design and repetitive combat. (And the intensively weird vibe around Bubsy. We'll circle back to this in a minute.)

(7) Social Media Doom Spiral (2016-2017)

After the stream was posted, SqrlyJack obviously showed up in the comments. Reaching out to SeaShelbby, who participated in the second part of the stream, they ended up having a relatively cordial chat.

SqrlyJack: lol no worries, sport. I know the game has flaws. It’s early access, so any issues you have are helpful. But if you’re the type to go on and on about social justice bs then we’ll have a… fun chat… ;3 Nice art tho!

(…)

SeaShelbby: I’ll be sure to cover everything (especially level design, because that’s where most of my personal complaints lie). It’s a fair review too - don’t worry, I do have some things I definitely would love to compliment you on.

SqrlyJack: I had a good feeling in my gut about you which is why you’re the only one I bothered to stalk. Figured you’d be the only one with actual constructive ideas. It was the main guy I thought was annoying so sqrly thinks you’re ok 👌

Foreshadowing is a literary technique that-

Actually, on that weird mention of "social justice bs" - let's jump back in the timeline and explore that. It's early 2016 again. The months after the demo's release are a time of ups and downs. SqrlyJack cashes in on her notoriety by selling Modern Bubsy posters and doing ads, which is actually well-received. (Archive, archive).

She also engages heavily on social media, gathering and re-posting discussions about the game and responding to people. This ends up involving perhaps a little too much friendliness towards certain questionable people on 4chan. Here's a thread archived from a 4chan archive. (Source contains bad language.)

VisualMaster: It's a headcanon that actually makes reasonable sense, it's what happens when you imagine how bad could a single atrocious game in the series could affect the mascot character, and what he's done in the decade that followed.

Sir_Gallonhead: Imagine seeing a semi-friend you have not seen in awhile turn to gay prostitution and drugs. Now imagine that no one cares because it is Bubsy. FUCKING FUCK

SqrlyJack: I like keeping tabs on how my work is spreading, and I am legitimately excited that /v/, for the most part, likes what I’m doing with Bubsy, even if it’s mostly for the NSFW byproduct of it all. That and I’m still shocked that a Bubsy headcanon could have this much impact.

… I said SqrlyJack "engages" on social media. But perhaps "posting through it" is more accurate? Because for the most part, SqrlyJack doesn't respond well if you don't like the game. Soon, she's actively seeking out the negative attention. As an example, consider this slapfight with some Roblox teen.

Description: Someone told me about a new Bubsy game. (…) i searched "Bubsy's New Adventure" because i thought that was the name. i was wrong.

SqrlyJack: “BUT MOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!! I HAVE TO GET ON TUMBLR TO OBSESSIVELY HATE ON THIS MEAN FURRY ARTIST WHO DRAWS NAUGHTY THINGS MY UNDERDEVELOPED MIND CAN’T COMPREHEND!!! AND UNBLOCK 4CHAN NOW SO I CAN POST EPIC MEMES!!!!!! SQRLYJACK IS THE BOOGIEMAN AND MODERN BUBSY HAS COOTIES!!!!!!!!! GIVE ME INTERNET, MOM!!!!!!!!!!!! BUY ME GAMES ON STEAM NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

tags: parenting should have a license, kids like this are why birth control exists, fucking obnoxious, just stop, it's like sitting next to a crying baby on an airplane

I should note that the video she's responding to has thirty-six views.

Many people express confusion over why this is a Space Funeral title at all, since it's much more concerned with imageboard culture. And, well, with Bubsy stuff - which attracted criticism itself. Yes, Bubsy eventually becomes a more serious character instead of a joke, but that only happens after like 5-8 hours of gameplay. The overwhelming majority of the experience is quite gross. SqrlyJack seemed to understand this problem, to a degree, though she was never able to resolve the contradiction.

mudkips-waffle-house: what are the reasons for people hating on trans-bubsy? Is there something about em that makes people angry?

SqrlyJack: Many things really! Some folks, usually the haters on Tumblr, see her as an offensive stereotype meant to make a mockery of trans people. Others, like the haters on 4chan, see her as forcing trans representation in an obnoxious attempt at being progressive. I also suspect a lot of these guys are probably angsty teens who are just trying to fit in. Furries and Bubsy are things they see other people hate on, so monkey see, monkey do.

Good observation, but the ever-more-agressive Posting really doesn't help her case. (I'm not gonna repost the anti-trans or anti-furry hate from 4chan, you can imagine what it looks like.) But again, ever since the creation of Modern Bubsy, there's been this ongoing issue where people think the character is hate art.

semerl: To the #Bubsy series’ hatedom, including those running the trans Bubsy blog: I’m sick of your shit.

SqrlyJack: [picture of a salt shaker]

The edgelord persona really bites her in the ass here, because it causes people to assume that she's posting in bad faith. It also doesn't help that she's actively seeking out Bubsy fan groups to pick fights. (Archive, archive)

JollyInLove: What is this shit?

SqrlyJack: Hey look, another toxic Bubsy fan on Deviant Art! Go on, flame more of my artwork so I can show the world how stupid you people are.

Where it gets dicey is with the topic of transmisogyny. Content note for the rest of this section, you can skip past it with this link. [ NEXT >>> ]

So, one of the first big conflicts here is with Bobby "Ponett" Schroeder, creator of the best lesbian furry game (as per Valens 2020), Super Lesbian Animal RPG. She voiced being uncomfortable with Modern Bubsy, due to the stereotypical portrayal (sex addict/messy makeup/constantly depressed/lots of focus on the genitals) and subtweeted about it. And oh boy that did not go well. Here and here is SqrlyJack's side of it.

Ponett: i blocked my first weasyl user!! how exciting. it was the person who draws that horrendously transmisogynistic shit with bubsy

SqrlyJack: Heh. It’s exactly what I expected - completely deranged. It’s all taken out of context of it being a washed-up Bubsy headcanon just to fit their SJW agenda, and all the points here are generally exaggerated or completely false (and ironically have some disturbing implications). (…) I do show that she is hung, but it's mostly to spite the people who bitch about her not having a vagina[.]

"Weasyl" is a furry art/social media website. Seven likes on the Tweet, posted 3h ago as per the screenshot, entire blog post as a response.

Here and here are some thoughts from Ponett, much later.

Ponett: like a year ago on twitter i said i saw some weird bubsy art that i thought was transmisogynistic, without actually naming them or “””””modern bubsy””””” or giving any real indication that it was their art i was talking about. but sure enough they saw the one single critical tweet, and since then they’ve repeatedly harassed me across multiple twitter accounts and tried to sic their followers on me for daring to say i didn’t like their art that one time[.] (…) they also constantly edit swastikas and shit all over the art of a friend of mine who had a similar run-in with them, because that’ll sure teach people they’re not a jackass

(The hateful edits were real and were made by SqrlyJack as part of a years-long spat with another online - uh, personality. Cuteosphere, specifically. Who it seems also had a closet full of skeletons, click that previous link if you absolutely must know more. Content note, again, applies.)

I think that criticism is fair. You can see why the art would make some people uncomfortable, right? It's not just the visible surgery scars, or the laser focus on the crotch region, or the perpetually smeared makeup, or the tons and tons of weird porn. It's just - look, in high-resolution closeups, SqrlyJack will go so far as to draw Bubsy with beard stubble. The vibe here is not good. You can tell why that causes people's "hate art" sensors to tingle, right?

Actually playing through SF 4, you can kiiiiind of tell where SqrlyJack was going with this. It's explicitly and textually not the transition that blows up her life. In fact, that's like the one positive thing that happens. It's the failure of Bubsy 3D and the resulting loss of employment and health insurance that's bad.

Things really were going to end well for Bubsy, with her saving her friends, turning her life around, and finding happiness or at least stability in the restored land of Space Funeral. (Archive).

SqrlyJack: A lil sketch of how I plan Modern Bubsy will look like when she turns her life around.

sunnysandcatofficial: She’s so precious and cute. <3 Love her piercing.

But this doesn't erase the fact that the game is drenched in sleaze, and that SqrlyJack really does draw a ton of porn with an intense focus on her surgery scars, smeared makeup, red eyes, and- well, I've gone over the list like five times, you know the drill by now.

At least this gave us a funny example of SqrlyJack drawing her enemies as the soyjaks. She did this quite a lot.

[a picture showing "The PC and idealistic adventures of SUPER TRANS LESBIAN BUBSY the Role Model Bobcat"]

SqrlyJack: Ok, so I thought it over and y’know, maybe they’re right. Maybe all this “Modern Bubsy” head canon stuff is grossly offensive (like it’s easily pretty much the new black face it’s so bad), so I went and fixed everything to be both completely safe and sterile while promoting wholesome, progressive values. (…) That’s much better, don’t you agree? You wish you were as progressive as I am. :^) Me… Me… Meeeeeeee… Mmmmmmmm… <3 Grrrrrr You win this round, Es Jay Dub’yuhs!

And of course she never calms down in response to criticism, she always immediately doubles down on whatever behaviour got her in trouble. (Archive)

[A galaxy brain meme regarding Bubsy fan-work. The final line with the biggest brain is labelled "wanting to succ the bobcat [very uncomfortable word for genitals]."]

As the year wears on, SqrlyJack casts herself as a lone crusader against an imaginary army of Social Justice Warriors. By October 2016, we get whole entire comics to own the SJWs epic style. (Archive)

Social Justice Strawman: You know who sure is a dick! Drawing his sinful you know what! He needs to mind his own business and let us publicly slander him in private!

SqrlyJack: Heh heh… whatever you say, buddy. Now if you'll excuse me, I have games to make.

She does take a moment to dunk on the transphobes too, here and there. (Like I'm pretty sure Cuteosphere is the one who starts that fight.) But there really is a lot of anti-SJW posting.

In spite of it all, work on SF 4 continued all throughout 2016.

[ NEXT >>> ]

It is early 2005 in Strahlsund, Germany . The Kastelruher Spatzen (Kastelruhe Sparrows) have just won their fifth Krone der Volksmusik (Folk Music Crown), Humankapital has been declared the Unwort des Jahres (Non-Word of the Year), and the readership of the Ostsee-Zeitung (Baltic Sea Newspaper) honours a man by the name of Claus-Peter Schoschies with the title of Sport-Ass von der Küste 2004 (Coastal Sports-Ace 2004) (Yes, Ass is German for Ace). He has beaten various popular Football Players, a remarkable feat for someone from an extremely fringe discipline: Orthodox Problem Chess. This year is the height of his career: He has played at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and has risen to the rank of Chairman of the regional sports club, honoured with the prestigious Bronze Needle. It's also the height of his career since it will come to a rather sudden, dishonourable end in early 2005. But first, a short explanation:

What is Problem Chess?

Problem Chess is the competitive solving of chess problems. While most chess players will have encountered chess problems along the lines of “Checkmate in two moves”, solving them competitively at tournaments is a fringe activity. Imagine a group of people sitting at a separate tables, looking at sheets of paper and scribbling down chess notations. Not the most exciting thing to view, but a true test of one’s capabilities as a player. International champions tend to be world-level in regular play as well. Eagle-eyed reader will not that I haven’t explained what Orthodox Problem Chess is. There is a reason for this.

A Doctor of Mathematics makes a curious discovery

Someone who is, apparently, an eagle-eyed reader is Dr. Olaf Teschke, who was born in the small town of Sassnitz, close to Stralsund. The Mathematician, who occasionally writes humoristic editorials for chessbase.de, is rather astounded at the Schoschies’ reader-awarded title. Blessed with the robust memory of a chess player, he remembers the Sport-Ass from the sidelines of a regional tourney. But he does not remember him for his remarkable capabilities. Rather, he remembers a player who is “on the level of a middling club player”.He might just be misremembering, of course. So, as any true academic, he decides to double-check.

Short research reveals that Schoschies plays in events organised by the OPCF (“Orthodox Problem Chess Foundation”). Successfully, placing between second and fourth on their European rankings.  This is interesting, since at the time, the German Champion of Problem Chess is Arno Zude, who, unlike Schoschies, is also a Grandmaster of regular Chess. Of course, these are the normal problem Chess rankings, not the elusive OPCF’s orthodox problem chess rankings, which can only be found in one place online: The archives of the Ostseezeitung. All articles detailing Schoschies’ victories also appear to be written by a Gernot Peter, independent chess correspondent. His articles manage to make the rather dull sport sound exciting, even flashy. Strange and stranger still. The again, it’s 2005 and not everything can be found online.

What can be found is an announcement for the next OPCF tourney. Just a date, no address. Teschke writes to the given E-Mail, politely asking where the tourney is held and if it’s possible to watch. Again, the newspaper articles make them sound quite exciting. Teschke does not receive an answer, but the next day, a new announcement appears in the Ostseezeitung, announcing the unfortunate cancellation of the Event. The OPCF must be quite elusive and small indeed.

Speaking of Events and Elusiveness

The OPCF has an impressive roster: A yearly Marathon Tournament in Dresden, a Group Tournament on the Canary Islands, and the yearly Bestenermittlung (Literally: Determination of the Best) in varying towns. Can’t find much about these online either, and at the Dresden Chess club no one knows about the supposedly 27 year old annual event. But let’s leave that aside and look at the most important Tournament, the Bestenermittlung. Schoschies recently placed second after the Russian Dr. Nikolai Garnejew. According to the newspaper articles, this Russian is his main rival. This year, he apparently only had surpassed Schoschies because “Schoschies had too much respect of my capabilities”. I would like to point out again that in Problem Chess, the players sit at separate tables and do not directly compete against each other. Beyond being a dangerous rival, Garnejew is also a unique last name. So unique that it can be found effectively nowhere else online. Perhaps a further look at the other participants is warranted: Impossible to find are equally strangely named regular competitors Ole Lars, Finland and Fridjow Hirsch, Munich. In fact, the Telephone Book lists not a single F.Hirsch in all of Munich. Not even the famous American player, Prof. Bill Farmer seems to exist, just a voice actor of the same name. Somewhat fittingly, he is most famous for being the voice of Goofy.

But what about the highlight of the OPCF’s events? The Demonstration at the Olympic Games? Well, no one else remembers it. In a response to a request by Dr. Teschke, the Committee even outright states that “no Chess Demonstration was held in 2004”. Yes, the unfortunate, but unsurprising truth is this: Schoschies has never played at the Olympics or any other major event, never won any notable prices beyond a Book coupon in the 80s, and Orthodox Problem Chess doesn’t and presumably will never exist. Teschke publishes all these findings online in March 2005. He dryly states that, unless this is proof for the existence of parallel universes, he has just unmasked a Fraudster. It’s not a good look for Schoschies, who had just raised about 6000€ for a visit to the Olympics that, again, never happened.

The Aftermath

Schoschies has faded back into obscurity, after failing to provide proof of the existence of Orthodox Problem Chess. His last statement is a claim that he’ll return the raised money. Whether he ever did so, I haven’t found out.

Teschke still teaches Mathematics at University and considers his involvement in the affair his “15 Minutes of fame”.

The Ostseezeitung owned up to their mistakes. The only article on their former darling that can still be found online details his fraud. Gernot Peter never wrote for them again, most likely on account of him not existing.

In the German chess community as a whole, this Drama is still fondly remembered to this day for its absurdity.

All in all, many people have garner false acclaim for non-existent sports titles throughout history, but this may be the only case where someone managed to do it with such a blatantly non-existent sport.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

It's me, and I know it's only been a week since my last post, but I do have a quite sizable stockpile of half-written hobbydrama posts so I could write this one quickly.

Note: this is kind of part 2 to my old lineage write-up. You don't read to read the first one to understand this, but I recommend you to read the first one.

Video games! If you haven't heard of them, they are games where you play on your computer, or console, or whatever electronics. One type of video games are MMORPGS, commonly called MMOs(although one might say that other smaller genres like MMOFPS are still MMOs but not MMORPGs), where you play as a character in a large multiplayer world.

South korean video game development is mostly done by 3 large companies, commonly refered to as the 3N, due to how all companies start with N. The 3N are: Nexon, Netmarble, and NC software. There's also Neowiz, which does also start with N but is much smaller and isn't commonly refered to as one of the 3N.(I just wanted to mention Neowiz because they made/published <Lies of P> and <Sanabi>, which I consider really good games. <Goodbye seoul> also looks very interesting.)

First, Nexon! The biggest of the 3N. Well known for <sudden attack>, a <counter strike> ripoff that's so bad it honestly deserves another writeup. And <Maplestory>, a game hillariously P2W it deserves at least 5 other series, and..you know what's going on. They also do have a ton of other games, and they are hillariously P2W. However, it is worth noting that recently, most likely due to F2P/P2Ws becoming less profitable, nexon did try other things like <blue archive> or <dave the diver> which were very successful, so I'd say it gets a 5/10, great potential. More on this later.

Next, Netmarble! They are more of a publisher than a developer, really. And they are really, really P2W. They made, uh, <special force 2>? Its, uh, a CoD if it had guns bought with real life money and had gun lootboxes and gun upgrades. Never played it really. And uh, <Modoo Marble>? Its like, an online version of monopoly, that's again, P2W. They put luck items on dice in monopoly so its more likely to get the number you want if you use a good dice. It's honestly amazing how far they go to make it p2w.

And finally, the main subject of this writeup, NC soft.

** NC soft **

NCsoft is well known for their biggest hit series, lineage, which is again, the focus of this post. The Lineage series was a wildly successful MMORPG, but it is hillarously P2W and grindy, with many lootboxes, microtransactions, and honestly, borderline scamming and gambling come into play. Many korean gamers don't even consider lineage a game worth playing, and even consider it the game that brought the downfall of the entire south korean gaming industry. The fans of lineage are mostly older people, who played it from the first game (which came out in 1998).

It was, still, an extremely successful and influential game, that even gave birth to an entire "genre" of games, called "Lineagelikes"

"Rougelikes" are a genre for games like <Rogue>, like <Dungeon crawl: Stone soup> or <Cataclysm: DDA>. There's also roguelites,like <darkest dungeon> or <enter the gungeon>, which are games with some elements of roguelikes, although the exact line betwen roguelikes and roguelites is confused a lot(and confusing the two is, honestly, my pet peeve). Metroidvanias are games like <metroid> or <castlevania>. Soulslike is a genre for games like <dark souls>, and similarly, lineagelikes are games like <lineage>. (although classifying these as a "genre" could be quite controversial, but like, whatever.)

Lineagelikes are very obviously MMORPGs, and rely on two basic principles: easy PvP, and Money above all.

First one, PvP means a player fighting another player in the game. PvPs aren't uncommon in MMORPGs and they are not bad, in fact they are amazing content when done well. The battleground system of <World of warceaft> and the battles and wars of <EVE online> are great examples. However, the thing with lineage is that PvP is encouraged to the point of borderline bullying. Usually in other games PvP is heavily limited to certain areas or situations. Not in the case for lineagelikes. In lineagelikes, PvP is easy and encouraged. This makes it easy for powerful players, and usually groups, to bully other players. Entirely taking over an area and making sure nobody except your group gets in is extremely common. Wars and battles over these is also common.

Now I'd like to say that again, unrestricted PvP itself isn't a bad thing. EVE online has relatively unrestricted PvP, with PvP being possible even in high-sec areas(but the space police will still avenge them if you do PvP there), and it's a nice feature of the game. However, the biggest problem is when it's combined with the second one:

Second, Money over all. Now generally there are 4 elements which decide who gets strong in a game. Time(which he spent in the game to collect items, level up, ect), Skill(being fast at clicking, knowing game systems, ect), luck(random elemts, lootboxes(ugh)), and money(real life money, spent as microtransactions). When I play and rate a game I always like to rate the importance of these 4 elements as Time=Skill>Luck>>Money. Time and skill being the most important part of being good, luck being an element that often does add some fun and unexpectedness to the game but is bad when its used excessively, and I hate microtransactions. Personally I'd rather quit a game than have to use them.

Now the thing about lineagelikes is that it goes Money>>luck>time>skill. Money buys the best items, often in the form of lootboxes or items for upgrading. Lootboxes and upgrading requires luck(upgrades have a chance of upgrading, and also has a chance of destroying the item), time is needed to level up, and skill is nearly unneeded as lineagelikes have auto-playing, which is that you click one button and the game basically plays itself, hunting nearby enemies and levelling up. Even if you do want to actually play the game and control the player, it doesn't change that much, and you will still lose to someone using better items on autoplay. In other competitive games-say <Starcraft> or <League of legends>, there's pro players who got famous due to their amazing skills and can win most people. In lineagelikes, there are no pro players, only "whales" who sunk a horrible amount of money into the game, and has the best items, and thus can win anyone in a fight.

So its pretty self explanatory how these work. It competes players against each other by PvP, and makes sure the only way to win in that competition is by spending real life money. And I dont mean a few dollars either, there's like a lot,lot of money involved here.

To cite a korean post about lineage M, a mobile version of the game: $32.99 gets you 1200 diamonds and a few other items. Apparently that's the materials to make one 3+ earring and 4 basic rings. That's bad, but not like horrible right? Except this is, quote, "minimal spending". On another post about lineage 2M, which is like lineage 2 but 2nd, there's a guide to spend money on the game, and there's cases on how to spend $200/$400/$700 in the game.(the dollars are roughly translated from won). And then there's top tier items, which due to lootboxes, microtransactions,and extrememly small percentages, is traded between users at tens of thousands of dollars, which was the subject of my old write up. It is worth, however, noting that not all lineagelikes are this expensive, and most games, especially ones that aren't the lineage francise and are developed by other comapnies, are cheaper. Personally I'd never do microtransactions even if it was a cent for stuff,but still.

There's also smaller predatory designs like making sure fights break out as much as possible, turning the whole game into a constantly evolving place and giving out stuff so that top spenders need to keep spending money to stay there, and so on. Honestly, it's impressive and there's whole korean youtube videos explaining how the game design of lineagelikes milk literally every cent and turn itself into a neverending slot machine where not playing means losing, and playing means sticking thousands of dollars into the game.

It is a well known fact ^[citation-needed] that the top 1% of players spend 97% the money. The actual amount of money the top players, often called "nuclear whales", spend in these games are horrifying, most likely spending over a few million won(a few thousand dollars) every months into the game. At this point this really isn't a game anymore, it's just gambling. And it's kind of no wonder why koreans used to be so against video game addiction, as the image of a video game addict wasn't someone in their room playing video games a lot, it was someone throwing millions into a video game and bankrupting themsevles.

** Lineagelikes: it's a genre! **

As much as most people hate lineagelikes, it is undeniable that it was an immense success and basically defined korean MMORPGs for a while. Not only NCsoft but other developers like nexon or netmarble used to jump in here, making tons of lineagelikes every year. Nexon's <AxE>, <V4>, and <The Kingdom of the Winds: Yeon> being examples. Of course, NCsoft, being the literal inventor of lineage, made the most lineagelikes. There's <lineage>, <lineage2>, <Lineage M>, <Lineage 2M>, <Lineage W> only in the lineage franchize. There's also <Lineage 2: Revolution>, which was published under by netmarble due to legal reasons. NCsoft also bought off or used their trademarks of other classic/older MMOs and made a second version of them as lineagelikes(despite the first one not being a lineagelike), like <Trickster M> or <Blade&Soul 2>.

The official sequel to Blade & Soul, Blade & Soul 2 is refined by the improved Windwalk feature and fancy skill combos, thereby shedding the clichés of typical action game battles. It has risen above the technical limitations of previous MMORPGs. With the Saga system that continues the epic narrative of the original and the breathtaking and beautiful oriental game world, Blade & Soul 2 newly presents a next-level standard in the game industry.

(I wasn't planning to add this quote here, but jeebus, they are delusional, no coincidence the game's acronym is bs)

These games did fail badly because the original players didn't like lineagelikes and felt like it was a completely new game with only the design being slightly remnisicent of their original game, and fans of lineagelikes prefered sticking to the lineage franchise. Othere companies also did something similar, with <HIT 2> and <Archeage War>, <Moonlight Sculptor: Dark Gamer>, and so on.

** ..and their present, and future **

Still, the good news is, lineagelikes are dying! I mean developers do keep making lineagelikes and shove it in the ever growing market of video games, but with steam being much more widespread in korea(this may be due to the boom of <PlayerUnknown: Battlegrounds>), and other games like <Overwatch> or <League of legends> becoming popular, no new player seems to really want to play lineagelikes, and the myth that microtransactions are an important part of video games has simply been debunked for most koreans(although people still do spend a lot on stuff like <girls frontline> or <Genshin impact> because,you know, apparently anime lootboxes are worth the money).

Recently, the korean video game industry are simply undergoing a crisis, and everyone expected it to. In 2021, Players were genuinely fed up with predatory practices in video games both korean and foreign games published in korea, and protested by sending trucks with messages written on their side, due to covid. Even a horse drivien carriage was involved at some point. I made a comment on hobby scuffles about it once, so consider reading that if you're interested.

Outside them, the generic formula of lineagelikes just aren't working anymore. New players abandon a new game when they hear it's a lineagelike. The "whales", people who spend a lot of money(and in a way, support the whole game financially), very often simply decided to not be a whale in the new lineagelike, or often even quit being whales. Lineagelikes are dying. Finally. And outside of lineagelikes, the formula of F2P P2W games, which most korean games followed even if it wasn't a lineagelike, is also dying.

The stocks of NCsoft has plummeted recently and they have been simply, not profitting.

According to financial information provider FnGuide, NCSoft’s expected sales for the second quarter are 386.4 billion won, a 12.2% decrease from the same period last year, with an estimated operating loss of 1.4 billion won. 

The 3N system itself is collasping, with krafton, the maker of PlayerUnknown:Battlegrounds (which, funnily, used to be a bunch of NCsoft devs who quit and made their own company), and Smilegate, developer of <Lost Ark>, becoming new big companies. These two and Kakaogames became the new 3N, also known as the SK2. It is worth noting that, however, nexon is still alive and very big. In 2021, the profits of these companies was nexon being #1, then krafton and smilegate.

Companies are moving on to try new genres and single player games. Nexon made, or published, many non-lineagelike and relatively or entirely non-P2W games like <Blue archive>, <The finals>, and <Dave the diver>. They were a general success and were greatly accepted. Neowiz made, or published <Lies of P> and <Sanabi>. Great games. Not made by the big companies, but <Stellar blade> was also a nice game developed by a sizeable korean company. Netmarble made <SOLO LEVELING: ARISE>, a single player game. It did have microtransactions and I won't say it's the best game, but it did have a commercial success. This doesn't mean lineagelikes aren't being made, but many companies seem to move on from lineagelikes and try other genres with varying levels of success.

... except NCsoft.

NCsoft simply sticked to making mostly lineagelikes, making more lineagelikes somehow expecting it will fix everything.

One internet user made a post- which is now considered a legendary post and achieved meme status- about how NCsoft games are like dogmeat. I don't mean the fallout dog, I mean literal canine meat.

Now it's kind of a stereotype that koreans eat dogmeat. Welllll back in the 1960s or something dogmeat was popular, most likely due to a lack of other meat. Then as time passed dogmeat became less popular, and currently it's something only a few very old people enjoy. Dogmeat is also very likely to be banned soon.

you know, NC soft is basically a dogmeat vendor.

foreigners hate it, and young people also hate it.

the only people who do like them are old people.

now nobody eats dogmeat everymore, so they need to start selling new stuff.

but they keep trying to sell dogmeat and try to appeal to foreigners and young people with menus like "chocolate dogmeat" or "sous vide dogmeat"

and that's why they fail

Which was, honestly, a quite apt metaphor, in my opinion. This was posed in 2021, about the time when <Trickster M>, <Blade&Soul 2>,and <lineage W> came out, and it quickly became a meme, and became even more popular when NCsoft released <Throne&Liberty>, another lineagelike, in 2023(and failed horribly). This was also about the time TangHuLus, which are like chinese candy apples on a stick, became popular in korea, so throne&Liberty quickly earned its nickname as a "dogmeat tanghulu". The meme keeps getting brought up whenever NCsoft releases a new lineagelike.

Recently NCsoft released <Hoyeon>. They said, "believe me, this time we're making those 3d cartoon rendering genshin impact-ish game, marketed towards new players, no lineagelike, believe me". Short story: It was a lineagelike. Long story: it had enough similarities to lineagelikes to make sure no new players would play it, but was different from lineagelikes enough to make sure no fan of lineagelikes would play it either. The game failed quickly with no less than 3000 people playing the game. Hoyeon earned the nickname of "dogmeat meatballs", simply due to the fact that the name of the development team manager's name could be read as meatball.

There are rumors from ex-developers that, the executives of NCsoft simply view lineagelikes as the peak of MMORPGs, and dream that one day, foreginers and the western video game industry will enjoy lineagelikes, and simply can't deviate from the basic formula of lineagelikes even if the employees want to, because the executives want lineagelikes and is in denial that they are failing. While NCsoft did also develop great games that aren't lineagelikes, like <Guild War> about 10 20 years ago, it is likely that they can't and won't make them anymore, favoring lineagelikes.

Technically they do still make non-lineagelike games once in a while, like <Battlecrush> but it was a failure. They do alsp say they are working on non-lineagelike games like "project M" and possibly <LLL>, but their release date or development progress is unclear.

In fact, when the developers themselves got fed up with the executives and left to make their own company, which happened various times, they made successful games such as <Blue archive>, <Goddess of victory: Nikke>, <Stellar blade>, and <PlayerUnknowns Balltegrounds>. The last one was one of the most famous games in the world for a while, so ncsoft really missed a golden opportunity there.

Something I just learned as I was writing these: NCsoft is also very likely developing <Horizon: Land of salvation>, a MMORPG based on the <horizon zero dawn>/<forbidden west> franchise. We will never know why sony let NCsoft make a game about their franchise. It is unknown if it will be a lineagelike, but considering ncsoft, many people worry heavily that it will, in fact, be a lineagelike. It's pretty likely that it'll be nicknamed "tallneck meat" or whatever when if comes out. If you're a fan of the horizon franchise and was excited about the rumored horizon zero dawn MMO, sorry bud, this ain't it.

NCsoft also is working on 'purple', which started as a launcher for their own games but, according to recent news, they are trying to make into their own global game platform, competing with stream. I'll say it again, they want to compete with steam. They started by putting up some other SIE(sony) games like <horizon forbidden west> or <Ratchet&Clank:Riftapart> on the purple platform. If any NCsoft employee is reading this for market research or whatever, I'd just like to say that I'd love to see you guys try fighting steam. Epic games had <Fortnite>, one of the most successful game in history, owned Unreal engine, one of the most advanced and widely used video game development engine on the planet, did a ton of exclusives and sales, made their platform appealing to devs even at the cost of profit, and even gave out free games on a weekly basis, and their epic games launcher barely put a dent in the absolute video game monopoly that is steam. Again, would love to see you guys try! I'm gonna stick to steam though.

** ... **

Korean video games are definitely going through a change, and mostly in a good way. There are some nice signs that maybe companies will pivot to making games that are actually fun to play and don't rely on the predatory practices of lineagelikes. Many are excited to see how they will evolve in the future. Maybe korea will finally get an indie game boom! Maybe korea will finally get a franchize that's as influential as <bioshock> or <metal gear>! However, one thing is pretty clear to me: lineagelikes are, a quickly decaying, dying relic of the past, and the faster people stop holding onto it, the better things will actually get for the future of korean video games.

Thank you for reading.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

Thumbnail

I was working on a writeup about a korean incident where people gathered up to watch a man build a tent, but I accidentally deleted it so I decided to write this one first.

But then I got distracted and abandoned it halfway for a year, then wrote it again.

--Introduction--

MMORPGs are a type of game where you join a virtual multiplayer world and do stuff. They are very often also called "MMOs", although techincally this may also includes other genres like MMOFPS.

By the early 2010s, MMORPGs in korea were slowly going stale. Most Korean MMORPGs were mostly inspired by <Lineage>- A game I once wrote a writeupabout- and while <Lineage> was a very successful MMORPG, the basic formula was going stale.

The player starts in a medieval europe inspired world. You choose from some basic classes like "archer" or "wizard". You only can use one type of weapon per class. You are introduced to the world(a bad god unleashed a bad army on our good kingdom blah blah blah everyone just skips this anyway blah blah). You use basic fighting skills to hunt monsters and later a field boss. You gain the experience from them and gain levels. You use the shiny trinklets to upgrade your weapon. Rinse and repeat 200 times. Also good weapons and better upgrade stuff can only be bough by cash.

This formula was going stale. Most korean players were playing other games like <League Of legends>-and later,<Overwatch> and <PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds>. To most players korean MMORPGs were considered outdated cashgrabs for old people.

Durango:Wildlands, also called <Durango> for short, was a mobile MMORPG game developed by Nexon. Now for most people who know about korean games would shudder at this name. Nexon is very well known for making very P2W(which means that you need to sink a lot of real-life money to excel in the game) games. A good example would be <Maplestory>, where everything from extra inventory slots, character customization items, and even world wide chat needs to be paid with real life money. (I wrote this part in 2023- I'd like to add that by 2024, nexon did make some nice games like <blue archive> or <dave the diver>.)

But Durango:Wildlands claimed to be different. And the result was different.

--Durango: Wildlands-- The basic setting of this game was that people from the modern world were randomly teleported into a fictional world, called Durango. This world was a place where islands from different timezones would appear and dissappear, and the islands were inhabited mostly by dinosaurs, and things from the modern world would often show up, with the human survivors having an about prehistoric-ish world. And before you ask, yes, you could ride the dinosaurs.

Durango had many differences from lineage-inspired MMORPGs, and many people considered it revolutionary.

-Unlike most MMORPGs, the game focused not only on combat, but also other features like building, farming and gathering. You were free to build things like boxes, houses, workbenches everywhere and you could claim territories in a town. You also could join a tribe and build a town together. You also could farm seeds. You could cook things for your tribe. It was even possible for you to enjoy the game without fighting a single enemy in the main game. Although.. You could say that this isn't unique to durango, as other games like <haven & hearth>, <runescape>, <eve online> also focuses on many interactions and often allows players to shape the world. Still, durango was the first major MMO in korea that does this.

-There was no class system. You did get to choose a job at the start of the game, but what it did was provide basic skills and was almost meaningless after the start of the game. You were advised to specialize in a skill tree like cooking, blacksmithing, melee combat, ect and especially advised to join a tribe with various specialities and get help from them in a skill you can't do but you were free to become a jack-of-all-trades type of character.

-the game was suprisingly not P2W. Of course things like instant crafting and cosmetics were bought by cash, but considering how often they just gave out cash(usually with a very wholesome message) and how it was a mobile, free-to-play game from a very P2W-friendly company, it was relatively anti-P2W, even to a very suspicious extent.

-The crafting system was very intresting. I'm still not sure why this system isn't more widely used in other video games. Say, you're playing a game, and you want to make a stone hammer. It may look like this:"craft stone hammer: requires 2 stone, 1 wood stick, 1 rope." But you may think: hey, can't I make a stone hammer with iron ore instead of normal stone? And can't I use these copper wires instead of rope? <Durango: Wildlands> used a quite novel attribute-based crafting system. You didn't need a specific type of rock to make the hammer, it only specified that it needed an item with a "hard" and "solid" attribute. So yes you could use iron ore, marble, and even chunks of meat, which would even change how the hammer is colored and the stats of the hammer.

This attribute system could further be used to create a more sophisticated crafting system. For example you could choose to carbonize the steel used in your sword, which would add a "firm" attribute to your steel ingot, and this attribute would give a buff on attacks when you make a sword with it. Or you could desulfurize the ingot instead, which would give it a "high density" attribute and give the finished item better durability.

Every item also had a level, and could have unique attributes randomly. Often you would randomly get a branch with a weak attribute. Or you could be lucky and find a wood branch with a rare attribute which would boost the stats of your tool when you use it to craft one.

This meant that

1. It was possible to make very weird items like "cake soup"(which became a meme, and later the developers held an event where they would cook one and eat it), "boiled bow"(this was actually a strategy because you could boil a lv40 bow in Lv60 water to get a Lv50 boiled bow), "steamed leather boot"(which was edible, and the developers said the point of the crafting system was to "let players eat a leather boot") or "steamed steamed raw fillet"(which was a very overpowered food item and was cooked in hundreds by a tribe's cook). One even created a wearable canned leather clothing.

2. Items were actually unique. A same wood stick, both on the highest level possible, could have very different values depending on its attributes. One with a rare attribute could be used to make very powerful weapon, and could be sold at a high price. And this also meant that weapons and tools could actually be unique instead of being the same copies made from the same items.

The basic progression would look like: you start, you build a small settlement with a bushfire and some boxes on your territory, maybe socialize with your neighbors, then you later move to a more spacious island, bulid a cozy home base with a house and stuff. Then you further progress down the game and reach the highest level, and join a tribe. Usually they would give out roles and you would get one. You could be tasked to specialize in attacking skills, and hunt animals and bring it to the tribe's territory, or you could be tasked with specializing in cooking skills and processing this meat to create food items. Or you could be tasked with specializing in crafting skills and crafting high level, effective items for the tribe to use(as I said earlier, items in this game is actually unique). You could be tasked to guard the tribe's territories on a special island where PVP is allowed, and you could build walls and turrets to defend it. Or you could not join a clan at all and do whatever you want.

This made the game a very unique experience, and the game won second prize in korea's 2018 game awards. But if it ended here, this would be a write-up for other subreddits. This is r/ hobbydrama, after all, and this isn't that type of story.

--Going Down..--

The first problem with this game is that it spent too much years in development. It was revealed in 2012, and was released in 2018. It was brewing for over 6~7 years, without a proper development goal. And it guzzled over 15 million dollars in development costs.

When it was finally ready, Nexon advertised the game a lot, including a reservation where you would reserve your ID to get an item later when the game gets released. This was to estimate how much people would play the game. But apparently they did a bad job at this, as they very, very underestimated the amount of players interested in this game.

What most players saw when they booted up the game with excitement was a loading screen that never ended. And then they were greeted with a screen that notified them of server maintenance. And this server meintenance went for hours.

Here's a timeline:

10:00 game opens. Game unplayable to most people due to lag and queue.

11:25~14:35 emergency maintenance 1. Nothing changes, still unplayable. "Durango:Wildlands" hits most searched on naver and daum, korea's search engine. Later "Durango wildlands error" also hits most searched phrase.

16:30~17:30 emergency maintenance 2. Still unplayable.

18:00~20:00 emergency maintenance 3. Nexon decides to ditch the ideal one-server system and build multiple servers.

22:30~day 2 01:30 emergency maintenance 4. New servers are made. Still umplayable.

This went on until 4 days had passed, over 6 emergency maintenance was done and the game was playable after an about 10,000-person queue and an hour of waiting. However, from my experience, it is very likely that this 10,000 people que is a placeholder and nobody really knows how much people were in queue. Between the people waiting, there were rumors that the small community of people who did get into the game were already advancing and "riding pteryodactyls" But even after this, it was still found out to be an laggy mess. Items being gone, too much players weighing down the server, items just disappearing, items not showing up, resources being depleted, and tons of errors. And there were a lot of people, ao much that according to a story people couldn't advance past the tutorial because the tutorial required you to collect items and craft an item, but the resource was already depleted due to too many people playing the game, and lag.

After a few days and more server maintenance, the game server issues was fixed to the point where people didn't need to get in a queue and could play the game. The lags and errors still happened, but it was mostly small and not critical.

Sort of a TMI, but a mildly interesting fact: when the server situation got better, people started compaining that the animals started getting fiece. Turns out, they were supposed to be fierce, it just was that they couldn't properly attack before the server issues got fixed. It really was a "wild lands" after all.

So the game was playable, but could it succeed?

--stealing, it's a crime--

The map of Durango: wildlands were split into islands, There were roughly three types of islands. First: 'lawless' islands where PvP is allowed and competition between clans are possible. Second: normal fields where you can hunt, gather, or whatever you want, but dissapears and reappears after a time period. Third: Towns, where you can claim land as long as you like, although it required constant refreshing to keep your land. And these towns were split into early game towns and late game towns, also called "cities". Towns and cities were filled up with settlements and people could buy land and build settlements on there, although if you refused to contantly refresh your land, you eventually lost ownership of your land and stuff you built there(this system was here most likely to stop large pieces of land being claimed by people who quit the game). But an interesting thing happened-large clans started taking more land than they should by buying land on the edges.

imagine a clan has access to 10 pieces of land. Line them up, and you get 10 pieces.

■■■■■■■■■■

But if you buy it like this,

■■■■

■□□■

■□□■

■■■■

While the only land you own is 10 black squares, people can't access the four white squares(□) if you also build a fence around it. And this is exactly what large clans did.

Buy only the edges of land, circle the thing with a fence. While you could freely destroy things and steal items from chests on unclaimed territory, you couldn't from bought ones, and you couldn't enter the sealed off areas, you couldn't destroy or steal from them while the clan also technically didn't own them and so didn't pay taxes for the land.

This caused a large stir. The game was very populated and while new islands were created to fit the playerbase area was still scarce. And there were areas that were just better than others, like ones next to rivers or the sea, as you could get water or catch fish from there, (although the items you could get from the claimable islands were lower quality items) (You could build a well, but it requires resources and a place to build it). So Players hated the clans who used this method, calling it the Tax evasion Meta. There even was rumors that an alliance of clans had sucessfully took over an entire island by barricading the shores.

But taxes isn't something one can just evade. Taxes are inevitable. Calling themselves the IRS meta(although a more direct translation would be the"public service meta"), some players started finding a way to enter the fence, steal everything from items to klins, workbences and houses, teleport to home. But how do we get in the fence in the first place? It's easy, as the game was still buggy.

The players discovered that, if you load the game, there's a short period in which the objects aren't loaded, and you can walk through things. The forums were overloaded with pictures of them walking into fences and taking them down. It was one of the best moments of the game honestly. Then the clans started using a different method, like building two fences or building houses as fences.

Once the IRS-meta guys got in, most of them are said to just take stuff or destroy their buildings/workbenches/and so on. But there are some reports of even more trolling, such as filling the space with 1x1 buildings(which are annoying to destroy), or fill your protoceratops's inventory with as much materials as you can and fill the empty space with roads(roads are slightly more annoying to destroy because it needs a few more clicks).

Much Later, the game admins stepped in and created a system where you could ride a hot air ballon, allowing people to just ride it over fences and easily negating the Tax evasion meta.

And people realized, you could scam and actually steal. If you send a friend invitation to another player, and he accepts it, and the player had allowed friends to take stuff, they could take stuff. Players soon found out that you could coerce naive players to accept their friend invitation, take their stuff, and run. Later people realized, due to an error, when you send an invitation inside their territory, the game doesn't even check if the other guy accepted and just allows you to take their stuff. the bug was later fixed, but still caused unrepaired damage. However, every crate still kept a log of who took its items, so it wasn't hard to find out who did take it. Soon clans made a blacklist of people and not accepted them.

Be user "HereComesOneJesus". The original names are in korean but I'll translate them to english. You find out that "Tyranno two chicken" took your 50 pieces of bread, destroyed the basket the bread was in, and left a feces item. So naturally, just like what every person would do, you scream in chat. For 8 hours straight. From 5 pm to 1 am, the player screamed in chat(pictured: HereComesOneJesus saying "why did you take my bread ㅡㅡ) about his bread. This part isn't really relevant, but still shoutout to herecomesonejesus, really.

Fraud over art was also a thing. In the game you could draw pixel art on billboards and gift it to others or use it as decoration, so people often used it as a way to earn currency. And fraud came up, often simply getting the money and not giving the art, or getting the art and not giving the money. There also was similar fraud over things like houses where a player promised to build a roof of zebra leather then built it out of straw. Quite a realistic depiction of reality if you ask me.

-- turns out, games die -- While the game had an initial surge of success, most of them didn't stick around for long. Many quit, simply due to the game not being fit for them, or due to the constant issues at launch. Updates being slow and having no major updates, and big competitors like <Black Desert> showing up, the game lost its players, while there were some players who sticked around and still played the game. This is normal- many games have a surge of players at start that quickly returns to normal levels. But for durango, it meant it also left behind huge swathes of land and ruins, once inhabited by players but lost ownership once they quit the game. In a sense this system stopped players from returning to the game, as when they do return their houses and every item they stored in their land are gone and they need to start over from whatever is in their inventory(and later on, the return-to-game pack that the devs game out). Laater the devs did add a function where you could have your own permanent place(private islands) where you could store stuff without having to worry about your ownership expiring, but it was too late.

Anyways Quickly a "scrapyard meta" became a thing, which were people going through ruins of players who quit, looking for loot. Every item in durango has an expiration date that makes the item either dissapear or become unusable after some time, even including houses and structures. Still, there were often items still usable, often some items were worth taking, fixing and reselling, and people often found funny items that nobody really knows why people made, which was slightly entertaining. Sadly I can't find any information or links left from this era, as the old internet cafe where people talked about this kind of stuff is currently repurposed to a cafe about travel or something and older posts are deleted.

Clans were spread too thinly over city islands, and often there were one or two clans on an islands. There was plans to reloacte most clans into one capital island, which was one of many city islands that had at least a sizable amount of clans, but it wasn't easy for most clans to move there, especially since large houses were hard to build but unable to be moved.

The game also kind of lacked a proper endgame, and once you got the best stuff it quickly became repetitive. Even if you did join a group of players, outside the occasional clan wars, players were often forced to simply grind hundreds of items for the clan, which wasn't really fun. While the crafting system was interesting, people quickly figured out the best food and simply mass produced them. "Steamed steamed raw fillet", one of the most meta food, quickly became a meme. Its stats were ok, it was easy to produce, so it was as easy as hunt one triceratops or whatever, then ask the clan's food guy to mass produce them.

As time passed, durango declined. The devs did add some events and major updates from time to time, but it wasn't able to get it to success again. Even a variety show TV series about the game was launched, but it didn't really help. Eventually the game's server was decided to be shut down in late 2019, roughly 2 years after the game's release. 7 years of development, 2 years of actual game. The server shutdown was most likely due to economic issues and the game simply not being profittable considering the expensive server costs and the unclear business model(where nobody really spent money on the game).

As the game neared its end, the devlopers added some content that finished all the story, and added some content such as a feature to take a wide screenshot of what you've built to allow players to take pictures of the game before it all ends, and added a feature to play music with other players. One of the last items the developers made was an apple tree, from the request of a player who cited the famous quote. A short ending video was also made.

After the last update everyone got a 'creative mode'-ish single player update after the servers officially shut down. The creative mode-ish single player is currently dysfunctional, but the apk still remains in a shared google drive.

The developers also sent their last message to the players.

people say things are beautiful because everything has an end. Even the greatest adventures would become dull if it happened every day. The adventures of durango has come to an end. With the end of the adventure, it is time to return to our everyday lives.

However, the last will of us developers is that, all the joy and anger you had in durango not get forgotten to dull everyday life, and that it would be remembered as great memories that would never be forgotten.

In order to help keep your valuable memories, your private island, and a creative island will be stored in your device. We are also planning to release a PC port of such functions.

We will return with a game that can last longer next time. We hope you would continue to support our endeavors.

-- not a servers shutdown, but an ending --

.. is what the developers said about the end of the game.

To this day, people have very varied opinions of durango. Some consider it a bad game that failed due to it not being fun at the first place, and deserved to fail. Some consider it a "good ingredient, inedible food"- that it did have nice ingredients like a simulated environment and interesting crafting, but followed a totally wrong recipe. Some still say the game was fun and, while it wasn't perfect, deserved better.

Nexon did announce a sequel to the game-currently named project DX at this stage(it's kind of common to name a game in development "project XX" in korea). Not much is known about the project, and when it will release is unclear.

Durango truly was an interesting game, definitely standing out from the korean video games of that stage. It wasn't a success, of course, but it was unique. On an era of bad games due to P2W and cookie cutter MMOs, it was a game that was suprisingly not P2W, although in a way that may have caused its downfall. Many still miss the game, and while many others moved on to games like <albion online> or <Last day of earth>(by the time this game ended, it was still alive), forums of durango is still quite alive, with people still missing the game even after 6 years has passed.

Recently MMOs itself are on the decline, with them being considered a dying genre and no real revolutionary new MMOs being made recently. MMOs became a relic of the past. MMOs are dying, yes, but that doesn't mean it was worthless. MMOs gave players an experience, of them being with others, either fighting or helping, which becomes a memory, even if it was bad. Durango was a huge flop, but if you were one of those who did enjoy the game, and spent the last minutes of the game with the players, possibly reading the long chat logs, maybe even reading one of my messages I typed into the long unending stream, maybe you still miss that game, just like me.

Thank you for reading.

Football is back! And so is my depression that my teams all suck. A couple months ago, I wrote a post about the heated rivalry between the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates. At the end, I mentioned that the same cities football teams had a similar explosion. I think it’s underselling it to call it an explosion. So sit back and enjoy the story of what lead up to and what happened in the 2015 AFC Wild Card Game.

TW: I do just want to add a tiny trigger warning. There will be videos of injuries if you’re squeamish.

#Here We Are Juggernaut

For those not familiar with the NFL, the Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the premier teams in the league. Not currently at this moment, but historically. The Steelers have 6 Super Bowl championships and are tied with the New England Patriots in wins. The Bengals on the other hand…have none. In fact, the Cincinnati Bengals went 30 years without even achieving a playoff win until they made the entire city of Cincinnati erupt in tears when they finally won in 2021. Just like their baseball counterparts, these 2 teams have a long and sordid rivalry with many, many years of contempt.

Back in 1970, the two football leagues, the NFL and the AFL, decided to merge into one big league. When they made the division, they decided to place the Steelers and the Bengals in the same division. The Bengals were an average team while the Steelers were pretty respectable. The first couple of years were evenly matched with the Steelers winning 5 of the 8 meetings.

But in the mid-70s, the Steelers started their dominance against the entire league. Their defense was given the nickname the “Steel Curtain” because of their shut-down defense. The Bengals were only able to score more than 17 points in 2 meetings over the next 6 seasons and lost 6 straight against the Steelers. Although, the 0-6 Bengals managed to blowout the Steelers 34-10 in 1979. But the Steelers would go on to win the Super Bowl that year.

The tides turned a bit though starting in 1980. The Bengals revamped their team and became legitimate contenders. They snapped the Steelers 18-game home winning streak and beat them in both games that year. This was the first season since 1971 that The Steelers missed the playoffs.

I’ll skip the next 20 years as it’s this over and over again. The Steelers are a better team and even though the Bengals turned into a dumpster fire in the 90s, they still managed to beat the Steelers sometimes. It wasn’t exactly a firecracker of a rivalry yet, but it wasn’t civil either.

#Everything Evil

After an abysmal 2-14 season, the Bengals hired Marvin Lewis, who had a Super Bowl win as the Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator. Although they weren’t a good team, they posted an 8-8 record and had a bright spot in their newly drafted quarterback Carson Palmer. Along with a generational talent in Chad Johnson at wide receiver, the Bengals looked poised to stand atop their division. But the Steelers just one year later drafted a quarterback that is most likely going to be elected to the Hall of Fame, Ben Roethlisberger. This is really where the rivalry started taking off.

The 2005 season saw both teams were fighting for 1st place in their division. When the 2 teams met on December 4th, Bengals WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh took a Terrible Towel (a yellow towel that is spun in the air by fans) and used it to wipe his cleats, which prompted boos to rain down from the Pittsburgh crowd.

And as fate would have it, the teams met up in the 2005 Wild Card game. This is not THE wild card game, but it is almost as brutal. For the first time in 15 years, the Bengals were in the playoffs. And hopes were high. This Bengals team looked different. Every player on this team was part of a well-oiled machine all lead by the Touchdown and Completion Percentage leader, Carson Palmer. But heartbreak would ensue for the city just 5 minutes into the game.

On the Bengals 2nd offensive play of the game, Palmer launched a ball for a 66 yard pass. But as the camera panned back, Palmer was on the ground in pain. What happened was Steelers player Kimo von Oelhoffen went very low on Palmer and rolled onto his leg, causing a season-ending knee injury. Even with Palmer out, the Bengals didn’t lay down and die. Their backup quarterback, Jon Kitna, was no slouch. But it wasn’t enough as the Bengals lost to the Steelers, who would end up winning the Super Bowl that year.

Von Oelhoffen publicly apologized for the hit, but Palmer said that he never received a direct apology but also wasn’t mad as he felt it was part of the game. That didn’t stop fans though. The name Kimo von Oelhoffen is hated throughout Cincinnati sports and brings up unpleasant memories. And although the hit wasn’t against the rules at the time, the NFL would later create a rule that required defenders to take every opportunity to avoid hitting the quarterback at or below the knees when they are in a defenseless position. This dynamic where the Steelers would do something against the Bengals which would then later be made a rule was a driving force in the rivalry between the teams.

#Blood Red Summer

After Palmer’s return, the Bengals didn’t falter in the regular season, but would never find success in the post season. But to make tensions even higher between the teams, there were some moments that stick in the heads of Cincinnati fans.

Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward blocks Keith Rivers and breaks his jaw. A rule, dubbed the Hines Ward rule, was put into effect the next season which banned Blindside Blocks.

Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier hits Giovanni Bernard in the head with the crown of his helmet which knocked out Bernard. It took a couple years but a rule was eventually added to ban this type of hit. Shazier coincidentally tried to do this same hit against the Bengals again a couple seasons later but ended up paralyzing himself.

And some things that didn’t create rules but were also catalysts.

Ex-Steelers Linebacker Joey Porter (we’ll talk about him more in a bit) jumped and assaulted a Bengals player, Levi Jones, in Las Vegas.

During a punt, Steelers player Terrence Garvin hit Bengals punter Kevin Huber with a blindside block and broke his jaw and fractured a vertebra. There was no flag on the play.

There are 2 more rules, but those are important to the story so I’ll save them. And I’m not saying the Bengals are exempt from this behavior (they didn’t have a great reputation for a while under Marvin Lewis), it was pretty one-sided. Bengals fans and players themselves were getting more and more heated as the years went on.

#Crossing the Frame

After some tensions in the Bengals organization, big players left the team. Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson were out, Chris Henry who was looking like a future HOF at one point tragically passed in the late 2000s after an accident, and the teams finished dead last in 2010. But in the 2011 draft, the Bengals picked up WR AJ Green and QB Andy Dalton. AJ Green immediately showed greatness and while Dalton wasn’t MVP material, he was enough to get the team to the playoffs. But for 4 straight years, they lost in the Wild Card game, frankly becoming a joke in the league. And although the Steelers hadn’t won a Super Bowl since 2008, they were still firmly a playoff team.

But 2015 was a new year for the Bengals, and it quickly showed. Jumping out to an impressive 7-0 start, which included beating the Steelers in Pittsburgh, the Bengals were top of the league. And although they obviously lost games, they finished a very impressive 12-4. But the real shocker was that Andy Dalton was looking like an MVP caliber quarterback. Even as a Dalton truther myself, this season from Dalton was above his usual performance. But as a Cincinnati fan, you always know never to get content with winning or success, because something always happens to make it come crashing down.

In the week 14 matchup against the Steelers, Dalton threw an interception and in the process of trying to tackle the runner, broke his thumb. Although the team around him was good, many knew the backup quarter A.J. McCarron, could not keep this teams Super Bowl hopes alive. The city didn’t lose hope though. They thought if McCarron could take them far enough into the playoff, Dalton could come back and lead them to their first championship. But now it’s time to talk about the 2015 Wild Card game. Where they would face the Pittsburgh Steelers.

#The Gutter

A couple notes before the game itself because we need some major players of the story to be introduced.

Adam Jones (Bengals) – Adam “Pacman” Jones was a cornerback that had a less than stellar off-field persona. I'll just link his Wikipedia page about legal issues because there are a couple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Jones_(American_football)#Legal_issues.

Vontaze Burfict (Bengals) – A linebacker that the Bengals signed in 2012. Although he had no off-field issues like Jones, Burfict incited a lot, I mean a lot, of controversy over his play style. He broke the player safety rules constantly, sometimes attempting to injure opposing players on purpose and injuring some on accident. In his career, he was suspended for a total of 22 games. As Bengals fans though, some of us didn’t care. We, at the time, saw it as justified for having to deal with the same level of play from the Steelers that never drew the same ire.

Antonio Brown (Steelers) – A wide receiver that is full on bananas. Brown was a generational talent but has a lot of issues that prevented him from continuing that success for a full career.

Joey Porter (Steelers) – A former player that was now a coach for the Steelers.

From the moment it was announced that it was a Bengals-Steelers matchup for the Wild Card game, everyone knew how this was going to go. It was not going to be a normal football game. There were going to be penalties and injuries galore. A rainy day in Cincinnati was the setting and it made the game a low scoring affair. The first eight drives ended in punts for both teams. After forcing a fumble, the Bengals immediately gave the ball back on an interception which gave the Steelers a chance for a field goal. But the fighting started earlier. In the first quarter, Bengals safety Reggie Nelson came into contact with Steelers assistant Mike Munchak after a running play. The two got tangled up and Munchak tugged Nelson’s dreads which prompted Nelson to push Munchak. Even as a Bengals homer, I can admit it does look a bit accidental, but I can’t give them the benefit of the doubt. Munchak got the Steelers a 15 yard penalty but his fine was later rescinded by the NFL.

There were some additional personal fouls from both teams, but the half ended with the Steelers up 6-0. On the opening drive of the 2nd half, the Bengals once again fumbled and the Steelers drew a penalty when their defender William Gay, excessively celebrated a touchdown which was called back. This drive ended in a field goal putting the Steelers up 9-0. The Steelers ended up getting a touchdown a couple drives later which put the game at 15-0. And then the Bengals committed another turnover, but not on a normal fumble. On the link posted earlier, Giovanni Bernard was knocked out by Ryan Shazier and fumbled the ball. To the shock and dismay of the home crowd, there was no penalty and the Steelers were given the ball. What made it worse was that Shazier continued to celebrate even as Bernard was unconscious on the field. Bernard had to leave the game.

On the last play of the 3rd quarter, Roethlisberger was sacked by Vontaze Burfict and had to leave the game. On his way out, some fans threw trash at him while others cheered. Beyond the realm of sports, Roethlisberger was accused twice of sexual assault but was not found liable in either case (which is a huge can of worms in itself). Along with the normal rivalry, this was a big reason why a lot of people did not like him, but the cheering an injury was beyond what many considered normal rivalry shenanigans.

The Bengals quickly recovered with Roethlisberger out of the game. They took a 16-15 lead with less than 2 minutes remaining in the game. Vontaze Burfict intercepted the ball and the game seemed to be over. But as it happened many times throughout the game, the Bengals fumbled the ball. The Steelers had the ball with time remaining. And the fans nightmares seemed to manifest as Ben Roethlisberger emerged from the locker room to reenter the game. They were easily driving down the field but the Bengals were not making it easy. Just 22 seconds remained in the game. And those 22 seconds felt like 10 years.

A pass was thrown to Antonio Brown. But Burfict came in and delivered a devastating hit to his head which caused him to fumble the ball. The coaching staff immediately rushed out to check on Brown as he was very obviously concussed. As he got up to leave the field, Burfict came over, put his hand on his shoulder, and said something to him. Most likely an apology but we don’t technically know. A Steelers personnel shoves Burfict off of him and then Joey Porter comes over to say something to Burfict. Now while Porter wasn’t exactly allowed on the field, the refs were not currently occupied with that and missed what should have been a penalty on Porter. It was unknown what exactly he said to Burfict, but this caused Adam Jones to explode and he put his hands on Porter. This caused another penalty on the Bengals which gave the Steelers a free 30 yards. After all was said and done, the Steelers kicked a field goal and won the game.

#Black Sunday

The reaction did not even need to wait a day. The outrage was immediate. Although both teams were unruly and out of control, the Bengals rightfully shouldered the brunt of the outrage. Mike Freeman called the game “one of the dirtiest and ugliest contests in the modern era of the sport.” The news was not just contained to the sports world. It was on mainstream cable news and as a Bengals fan, it was excruciating. We had already watched our team put on a masterclass choke job and now there was the ridicule and ire of the league.

As for the discipline, Burfict received a 3 game suspension, Jones was fined $28,000, Steelers guard Ramon Foster was fined $17,000, 2 Bengals defensive tackles were fined $8,600, Porter and Munchak were fined $10,000, but Munchak’s fine was later rescinded as the league thought his incident was accidental.

To add further insult to injury to Bengals fans, a rule was put in place that banned all coaches, except the head coach, from entering the field to check on an injured player and the VP of Officiating later stated that the first touchdown by the Steelers shouldn’t have been a touchdown. Who knows if it would have changed the game, but it was just another thing that made this game an absolute shit show.

#A Long Way Back

The rivalry is still hot, but that game was sort of the explosion point where many fans realized maybe we went a little too hard.

The Steelers continued their dominance, not posting a losing season even after Roethlisberger finally retired. No Super Bowl was won, but they were definitely atop the AFC North in the back half of the 2010s. Even without their HOF quarterback, the Steelers managed to finish 9-8 in 2022 and 10-7 in 2023, though they missed the playoffs both years.

After his 7 consecutive playoff loss, Marvin Lewis had no more fans in Cincinnati. He coached the Bengals for 3 more seasons before being fired. The Bengals also had another changing of the guard. Andy Dalton and AJ Green left the team before and after the 2020 season respectively as it was clear they were not the future current head coach, Zac Taylor, wanted. But things looked promising. The Bengals drafted quarterback Joe Burrow from LSU, who unfortunately got hurt in Week 14 after what looked like it could have been a Rookie of the Year performance. As I stated before though, in 2021 after added a new offensive weapon in Ja’Marr Chase, the Bengals broke their, and the city’s, 30 year playoff win drought. They even beat the one of, if not the favorites to win the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game but (unfortunately) lost the Super Bowl to the LA Rams.

The two teams will continue to see bad blood between them, but that 2015 Wild Card game is one that we should all look at as a lesson in what happens when a rivalry festers for too long.

Editors Note: I tried not to let my bias sneak in as I am obviously a Bengals fan, but I hope I you enjoyed what was probably one of the worst sports memories I have.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

Game development has changed. Games used to be static, what you picked up at Gamestop was it, any complaints or ideas saved for sequels and remakes. Then came the internet, Early Access and Open Betas, allowing developers to radically change the game over time.  While this can do things like breathing life into failed games, more often it allows companies to chase trends or go back on promises, sacrificing their game and community in the process.  It’s a latter case we’re here to talk about, with one of the most successful games to come out of Steam’s early access program, Ark: Survival Evolved.

Welcome to Jurrasic Ark

Ark: Survival Evolved, is an open world PvP/PvE  Sci-Fi survival game, in which you play as a Survivor, who for the sake of not truncating a beautiful, sprawling story, we’ll say has been dropped into a hellish scenario by cosmic circumstance and no clue what’s going on. 

Your goal is to survive on one of several Arks, developer-made maps based on ecosystems from multibiome islands to scorching deserts to radiated undergrounds. These are split into story Arks, which progress the game's story, and custom Arks, which are designed toward multiplayer and general free-play. In all of them, you survive by managing your physical condition, gaining levels so you can craft new objects, and taming/ battling a diverse array of (mostly) dinosaurs, which all have unique abilities. It’s well loved for two reasons. First the gameplay is a perfect middle ground between solo, story driven- survival games like Raft  and 7 days to die, PvP heavy games like Rust, and open creativity like Minecraft allowing for you to play pretty much however you want and still have a fulfilling, rich experience. The other reason is that it’s hard as shit. 

Under default conditions, Ark is a brutal slog.  Resource gathering, taming dinos, and building out your base all take a ton of time and effort, and all it takes is a surprise alpha or a player with the jump on you to set you back hours. Even  the lore was a laborious task to learn, but I’ll get to that later. Sure you could mess with the server rules and add mods to make things easier, but they never removed the ardor of the game, just made it feasible for an individual/someone on a schedule.  There was always a rush as you worked out solutions to problems,and transitioned from a caveman to Iron Man riding a lazer-shooting t-rex.

The Tek Tier

Tek represents the highest tier of items and ark, and were unique both in terms of style and mechanics. You get the ability to craft most things in Ark by purchasing engrams with skillpoints or finding blueprints in the wild.  However tek tools have Tekgrams, which are unlocked by defeating bosses. A surprising number of players don’t even know those bosses exist, much less fight them. Fighting bosses is a time intensive task, requiring you to delve into  lethal caves to get the artifacts to fight them along with killing the deadliest creatures on the ark. Then you have to breed, train, and equip an army of high level tames to fight them get them to all fit on the goddamn tiny ass staging platform and then actually fight the boss. Here’s a guide video but it doesn’t really encapsulate the time it takes to tame, breed, and find saddles, which serve as armor. 

Once you’ve beaten them, you then have to scour the island for the rare resources to craft the tek items, and then continuously fight the bosses to grind element, which the tek tools run on.  You also couldn’t use Tek items without having the Tekgram, meaning it was only available to those who put in the effort or learned how to cheese the boss of Aberration (spoilers)

Setting the stage

Over the course of 4 years Ark released four story maps, along with several  customs ones. Each one was more exciting than the last, introducing new creatures and biomes and expanding gameplay. They focused a lot more on expanding rather than fixing issues, so there were always bugs, but the quality of the game made it worthwhile. 

In 2018 they released the Extinction Story map,which many players thought was the end of Ark’s story mode. Not only did it wrap up the Survivor’s journey, the map serves as a sort of retirement location for players, providing multiple options for biomes, introducing creatures that provided quality of life improvements, and ways to grind for endgame resources that, while still laborious, were much more convenient. However while Ark was potentially winding down, Its developer, Studio Wildcard, was heating up. 

The popularity of Ark had exploded. Many youtubers have found their niche just playing Ark.  They were planning a star-studded Ark anime, and somehow, Vin Diesal had become one of the company's executive officers. There was still a problem however.  Ark was a success but it was also their only success. They had attempted a battle royale called survival of the fittest in the games engine, but they dropped it as soon as the playercount dipped. They announced a pirate MMO called Atlas in 2018, also using Arks engine, but it was as buggy as Ark with none of the charm and they abandoned it a year and a half later.  If they wanted to ensure the survival of the studio, they needed to draw in a wider audience and make some cash at the same time. And thus came Genesis. 

A New Genesis, but not a good genesis

If Extinction is Deathly Hollows, Genesis is Cursed Child. Released as two maps dubbed Part 1 and Part 2, it was a significant departure from the Ark the community had come to love. Instead of a continuous vast ecosystem, you instead had several smaller biomes you fast-traveled between. Instead of prioritizing base building and survival, you now undertook “missions” which gave you hexagons, a new ingame currency. You spent these hexagons at the Hexagon exchange for resources, which was run by HL-NA, who is a sentient spoiler. The story was also now in your face, with the map having the express goal of having you complete missions to fill the mission meter so you could take on the boss (Spoilers)>! Rockwell, who you apparently didn’t kill in Aberration.!< You also couldn’t build on much of the map, as they were marked as “mission zones”. 

Suffice to say it was not well recieved. At all. Along with the fact none of this is what players wanted, The mission structure didn’t work with Ark’s game engine and design. Some of the “easy missions” were impossible due to the system, random bugs, or requiring groups, and some missions labelled as difficult were a breeze thanks to bugs in the players favor.  HL-NA was also not well liked, as she was chock full of MCU-style quips,in particular when you died. Having this quipping in your ear while  watching 12 hours of progress  and your favorite vanish does not spark joy. Half of Ark is about basebuilding, so not being able to build was frustrating and confusing. The map offered an alternative  in a creature you could build a base on, but it was a rare spawn and came with its own challenges .  Most importantly, it completely removed the grind. 

Items that you would spend hours grinding to craft were available as rewards for missions, or the resources to make it were available for cheap. For example , black pearls are required for most tek items, and on most maps require you to go down to the depths of the ocean or kill the most powerful creatures on the map to obtain a handful. On Genesis, they’re 300 hexagons, with the cheapest missions paying out a thousand plus item drops. Even If the quest didn’t get you what you wanted, you could just get them from lootcrates! Because what does a survival game need but lootcrates? Part two of genesis made things worse, with the map being even more sparse, the missions more frustrating, and giving you essentially a full Tek suit, the ultimate weapon of ARK, in the opening cutscene. 

It was also obvious the developers were trying to funnel new players into these maps and away from everything else they’d built. When you start the game, the Genesis maps are at the top of the story map list, while the rest are in release order. If you used HLN-A in the earlier maps she would make remarks at that not only truncate/spoil  Ark’s lore,  but also feel like they’re urging the player to skip these maps and head to genesis while it’s still hundreds of hours away.  Even the steam page for Genesis is a spoiler. On opening, it starts a video of the opening cutscene, where HL-NA Tl;drs the entire story of love, sacrifice, and determination. I’ve linked it here, but I ask you instead to consider watching the  survival stories, a machinima of all the explorer notes for each map in order, or even play the game and find them! 

Admittedly soapboxing  here but I can’t undersell how good Arks’ story is and the way it’s given. Piece by piece uncovering the stories of  those who came before you, and what it means for you and the future as you struggle to survive a harsh world is potentially some of the greatest storytelling I’ve ever experienced. When every sound or sight is a sign that something else may be coming to kill you, and all that’s between you and death is your tames and your grit, the notes mean the world because they show you that someone else made it, and each note you find means you’re one step closer to reaching them. Watching them add cutscenes  to spoonfeed lore to people who likely don’t care about it, a character who also doesn’t seem to care about it (while also giving dialogue that presumes you’re on a PvP server), take an incredibly diverse cast and retroactively center the story on two characters, take someone who had an incredibly well done emotional storyline and Dieselfy him so Vinny can play him in Ark 2 isn’t something that a lot of folks talked about, but was my most grievous issue.

Piecing together the story while you explore the world is a blast, and you can use mods like universal note tracker to grab the ones you don’t find naturally. If it helps motivate you the story is woman lead, incredibly sapphic, and one of the main characters is voiced  by David Tennant, and without going into spoilers I think it’ll satisfy a particular... niche, of audiophiles. 

While the problems Genesis made  existed for every style of player (except for primal+ Island onlys), the severity varied. The heaviest damage was to PvP and Noobs.  Arks’ multiplayer works by “clustering'' a copy of each of the maps together, with players able to transfer things from one map to another, save for refined element, the power supply for Tek tools. This would serve as an equalizer, were it not for the fact players could still grind Tek items that didn’t require element to function in Genesis, along with a  plethora of mid to late game items that still amount to saving dozens of hours of grind. Sure you couldn’t power your pulse rifle but a rocket launcher works about as well for causing problems.  Not to mention many of the creatures added on these maps, such as the Magmasaur and the  Astrocetus were strong enough to singlehandedly  wipe bases. There was no longer a point in grinding because you could have endgame gear in a few hours, and no point building because your base could be annihilated in an instant. You would either have to give up or reach a level of meta that made it impossible for new players to play the game or for anyone to honestly have fun

Regular sever wipes couldn’t even solve the problem, because you were a quick hop over to Genesis away from rocket launchers, saddles you shouldn’t have for 70 levels, and powerful tames. As someone who played single-player without being on forums, this was how I found out about this mess. Someone did a “100 days to do X” videos in his own cluster, and you can watch him have Tek items in his hands in about 15 minutes. Unofficial servers could block transfer from those maps, but this made official servers somehow even worse. 

Evolution uncertain

When I started writing this  three years and a breakup a while ago,  things were up in the air Now I can say they’re much, much worse. 

While Genesis didn’t fuck up the playercount, it did fuck up the relationship between the playerbase and wildcard, and seemingly  Wildcards confidence about the future. Ark 2 was announced in 2020, a year before they released Part 2. As of writing it’s 2024 and Ark 2 has been delayed twice now, with nothing to show for it but the promise of “souls like combat” while also keeping the survival structure, and a cinematic trailer of Vin Diesal as Santiago (who is supposed to be a nerdy, semi-nonathletic hacker)  running around an Ark.  In retrospect It’s likely Genesis was supposed to serve as a beta for Ark 2, and the negative response showed Wildcard their working idea was not well received. 

The first thing they needed was to show they could still make a fun game. That was handled by Fjodur, a custom map based on norse mythos, and the resurrection of their battle royale, Survival of the Fittest, along with some new mechanics  and QOL updates. For a decent chunk of 2022, things were tenuous but okay. 

Until Ascended. 

Wildcard had been promising an Ark remaster in Unreal Engine 5 for a while, with a soft promise it’d be free for those who owned the original Ark. So when it was announced it would be  $40 on it’s own and $50 in a now non-existent bundle with Ark 2, it was universally recognized as a cash grab that nobody would take. It seems Wildcard did too, because they said when Ascended released, they would get rid of the official servers for Evolved. If you wanted to keep doing multiplayer PVP, you would either have to fork over the dough for the game or pay for an unofficial server... if you were on PC. On console, you lost access completely, and the only option was to buy Ascended . 

Did I mention it wouldn’t have the other maps on release, and you’d have to pay for them when/if they came out, and it was just as buggy as the original Ark? 

People thought it was an April fools joke. Players had thousands of hours in some of these servers, and with a $40 price tag and only one map available on release, it would take forever to get people to make the jump if they ever would. Not to mention they’d lose access to the wellspring of mods on PC, which for many were the reason the game was even feasable. For console players, they’d have to buy the game twice just to play with their friends again, all the while they’d have to wait to play on their favorite maps and deal with challenges knowing there’s a dino or tool that could fix their problems on an arbitrary timeline. They did eventually backtrack having to pay for the other maps, but players still had to wait half a year to get even even one of the maps. The other 4 story maps and 3 optional maps are still unavailable as of writing. 

As of writing, the total number of players on Evolved and Ascended ( and the tens of people playing survival of the fittest)  sum up to about half the playerbase right before the servers shut down. They’ve tried to tantalize people with offers of new creatures and updates, but nobody bites.  Scorched Earth was added in early 2024, and Aberration was added *checks notes* yesterday (September 2024 for the folks in the far future).

From Dino to Dodo

The long and short is things aren’t good. Half of their playrcount has disappeared, Fittest is dead again,  with a 24 hour peak of 30 people, and even without official servers people picked Evolved over Ascended on PC, save for the couple of weeks aftrer a new map comes out. All we know about Ark 2 with less than 6 months until the new “end of 2024” release date is Vin Diesal’s character has a daughter he’ll be trying to find , it’s third person, and several business-speak promises. After two delays, the Ark Anime has finally released on Paramount+, to mild applause. It took the heavily implied homosexuality and made it explicit, which was pretty dope. 

I can’t understate how much of a shame this is. Ark is the game I’ve put the most hours in, undertaking a solo journey to complete the story maps, and I’ve loved every second of it. That’s actually why this took so long, I wanted to write about Genesis with firsthand experience, but when I was getting to work on Extinction, a bug caused my game to crash whenever I tried to load the map. It would be one thing to lose my character, but in order to go further I’d have to reset the map, which includes deleting the tames on it, some of which I’ve had since I started playing. I spent weeks trying to find a workaround to no avail, it’s just one of the bugs that makes Ark what it is. Yet even now I still wanna get some friends together and drag them through the game, and finally see the finale, and maybe even Genesis for shits and giggles. For my old character, Grog. For Helio, Star, and Divine, my T-rexes who are stuck on Extinction. For Ogre, the Argentavis that flew me out of many, many terrible ideas For Talwar, 12-Gauge, and all the others I lost in my failed Alpha Broodmother fight. For the ridiculous amount of time I spent raising Therinazaurs, and my really cool shotgun. For the fact that the first thing I’ll do when I get my friends on is ask them to go into the redwood forest using the swamp as a shortcut,  and bet whether a kapro or a thyla kills them first. If only Extinction was the end.   

Note: Most of the primary sources of drama pertaining to this subfandom seems to be missing. I had to rely largely on comments on Derpibooru and Fimfiction to put this together. But enjoy!

What is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is an animated series that ran from 2010 to 2019 as the fourth generation of the My Little Pony franchise. It centered on, well, ponies, and their adventures and problem-solving using friendship.

An unexpected adult fanbase was spawned from this show, producing all sorts of fanmade content, including erotic content sometimes known as clop. A clopfic is erotic MLP fanfiction.

What is Fall of Equestria?

Fall of Equestria (Not to be confused with Fallout: Equestria) is a dark AU (alternate universe) anthro setting created by non_creepy_nickname (NCN for short) where Equestria has been overthrown by invading, misogynistic caribou and all the mares are enslaved. Using a corrupted version of the Crystal Heart, they brainwashed most Equestrians so that most stallions are now misogynistic like them, and most mares accept their new place as sex slaves.

Mares are classified into four collar types: red for the willing, black for the unwilling, purple for the "mentally broken" and silver for the unclassified. There is also a non-canon blue for "women of honor" and diplomats.

Female unicorns have their horns chopped off and female pegasi have their wings plucked and put into sleeves.

The Rise

The FoE AU started around April 2013. Around that time, the Fall of Equestria tumblr blog was created. It was a combination ask blog, fic blog and art blog. Run by NCN and others, it featured artwork that was often sexually explicit in nature. The blog got taken down several times in 2014 before they just gave up and relegated the stories to Fimfiction and the pictures to Derpibooru.

Anyone could write a FoE fic, but in order for it to be considered "canon", you needed to get permission from NCN. There were rules as well. These included:

1. The Caribou cannot lose and can never be challenged in any meaningful way. They also cannot be made to look bad.

2. All non-Caribou cannot show any greater ability over the Caribou.

3. No happy endings, and mares cannot escape sucessfully.

4. You can't question or disagree with NCN on the setting, else you risk getting ignored or banned.

Among others. I couldn't find a complete list of rules, and the known rules are paraphrased.

The Criticisms and Fall

From its very inception, FoE has been extremely contentious amongst bronies. Many see it trying way too hard to be "edgy" and with its dark themes of rape and mutilation, it's not hard to see why. Many people also considered it to be nothing more than trashy clopfic.

Even those who weren't bothered with the sex slavery aspect had issue with the setting. For example, there was little regard to any of the ramifications of removing the wings of all pegasi mares and stripping the unicorn mares of their magic. Equestria relies on weather manipulation for agriculture, and with half the weather workers removed from their job, that could result in mass starvation due to crop failure.

NCN kept trying to hand-wave the plot holes and setting issues, but I'm not even sure if people took him seriously even when the subfandom was at its peak.

One user pointed out that the Caribou society is far closer to sapient red deer and that if the FoE caribou were anything like real caribou, they'd swap gender roles every six months.

Another user commissioned an art piece where Applejack, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle get revenge on the Caribou and posted it on Derpibooru. NCN begged Derpibooru mods to either delete it or mark it as non-canon, and the user was forced to put a disclaimer saying that it was non-canon to the FoE verse.

One member of the FoE circle, Schorl Tourmaline, began writing a fic set in the FoE verse. Called "Bruised Apples", it centered on Big Mac--who was one of the few stallions not brainwashed--trying to comply with Caribou law while also trying to ensure that his sister Applejack stays compliant so that she isn't taken away from him. Schorl spent two years writing the fic, hyping it up and rallied her fans. Then on July 21 2016, she released two chapters that pulled the ultimate bait-and-switch: King Dainn gets attacked and killed by Big Mac and Applejack, then a revolution overturns the control of Equestria back to the ponies.

Schorl was promptly cheered on by most people, but she was shunned by NCN and his followers before her fic was declared noncanon and she was kicked out of the circle. That didn't dissuade her from writing multiple post-FoE fics.

Schorl Tourmaline wasn't the only one to write an anti-Caribou fic. Many others also wrote their own stories where the Caribou get their asses kicked and Equestria is returned to the ponies.

The Aftermath

These days, the FoE subfandom is mostly defunct. There's a small number of people who are interested in the setting and still making art and writing fics, but it'll never grow to the level of popularity that it once had. Anytime it's brought up in the MLP fandom these days, it's typically met with a negative response.

Thumbnail

Gee I haven't written anything about hobbydrama in years! This is one of the write ups that I had in my folder that I was going to post after the blackout, but I forgot to do so.

Note: sources and comics are mostly in korean. I put them in for the pictures and references, maybe you could use a web translator if you want to read them.

In south korea, webcomics are considered a very widespread hobby, although koreans prefer to call them "Webtoons". There are many legendary webcomics that shaped an era and was enjoyed by many people. However there is one webcomic, which was so famous, for being so bad. This is the story of Relatable.Jpg, broadly considered one of the worst naver webcomic.

Webcomics Korean webcomic are a bit different from webcomics from other countries. While american webcomics are usually posted on the author's own website, or a website made by a team of a few authors, most major korean webcomics are posted on large webcomic platform sites run by companies, where authors are hired and paid for making webcomics on a regular basis, usually weekly.

Many major webcomic platforms exist, with many IT companies having one. Kakao, who owns korea's largest messaging app, owns one. KT, an internet provider, also has one. Even a food delivery app has one.

However, the one best and paramount webcomic platform is Naver webtoons. If you've ever heard of webtoons, the site, webtoons is a site for non-koreans run by the Line Corporation, which has major ties to naver. Webtoons hosts translated korean comics on naver webtoons as well as some english original comics.

Naver Webtoons is the company that is at the top of all korean webcomics. It has hosted many great and legendary webcomics that shaped the entire history of korean webcomics, and it would be a challenge to find koreans who didn't watch a single webcomic from Naver webtoons in their teens, and many still do.

Being an artist for naver webtoons is the kind of job that children would write as their dream job, and something korean artists daydream about.

How can you become an artist for naver webtoons anyway? Naver webtoons has a "challenge webcomics" feature, also known as the "canvas" in line webtoons site. It's a feature where new amateur artists can host their comics free of charge, but without getting paid. If your webcomic posted here gets enough attention and the moderators of naver webtoons deem you worthy, your webcomic gets moved to "Best challenge webtoons", where your webcomic compete with other webcomics for fame and attention. If your webcomic is good enough, and if you're really lucky, congratulations, you are now hired by naver webtoons and your webcomics are now going on naver webtoons' main site.

This process is a long, hard struggle that, even as a pretty decent webcomic artist, often requires years, if not decades, and many aspiring webcomic makers never make it. It is a throne for only the best webcomics of the nation, after all. But is it?

Whose Idea was this??? In 2016 naver webtoons held a contest for webcomics. The prize? Getting instantly hired as a webcomic artist, without getting through any of the process I listed above. But, it was only open to artists with (nearly) zero former experience of making a webcomic. It was presented as a contest to find absolutely unique webcomics.

However, the contest had a few problems. First, the contest only ran for about 4 weeks, and requred three comic strips. It's worth reminding that korean webcomics usually aren't four-panel comics, usually the number of panels in a single strip go into a few dozen panels. Most artists, even working full time on a comic, upload comics once or twice a week. So excluding the time it takes to actually draw the comics, the contest gave the authors quite a short time to come up with the story and concept of the comic.

When the comics drawn for this contest was uploaded and shown to the public, people realized this was horribly low-quality. But a contest was a contest and the three winners were soon announced.

First comes, <Soldier RPG>. A man pissed by S.korea's conscription, realizing the war is the only reason he needs to be conscripted, singlehandedly sneaks into north korea to kill kim jong un, Doom-style. It was quite poorly accepted at first, but as the story kicked in and the weird sense of humor started to get refined the comic actually was pretty well accepted, later ending the whole series with a not-bad score. 8/10.

Second comes, <worry-toons>. A "humorous", slice-of-life webcomic about the author's daily stuggles. It failed. Very badly. The jokes landed flat, the art was below average. It abruptly stopped at 30 strips without any notice. 3/10

And the third one is what today's write-up is about.

Relatable.JPG Relatable.JPG is the third one. It's, from what you might expect from the title, relatable short comics. Sort of like, "isn't it really anxiety-inducing when you take a test and number 4 comes three timez haha" type humor.

Well as you can see, the first thing that's problematic is it's art style.

Wait, before you flak me, I'd like to point out that a good art style isn't necessary for a good comic. XKCD uses simple stickman-type figures, but the simple artstyle and the author's very nerdy humor makes XKCD one of my favorite webcomics. Homestuck, while I gave up reading it after a few front panels, is also another really popular webcomics that doesn't have the best art. The sound of your heart is one of korea's legendary naver webcomics that, in a korean idiom, "if you don't know it you're a north korean spy".(however the webcomic does rely heavily on references to korean culture and the translated version had much less success internationally), which again, doesn't have the best art style. In fact, in some cases, comedic webcomics may actually benefit from a weird, scribble-like art style. Kejang comics is a amateur webcomic that has one of the art styles of all times, but its surrealist and "haha random" humor went perfecly with the art style. It had quite a success and screenshots from the comics are used like emojis on DCinside, korea's 4chan. The comic even got a book! It's worth noting that the publisher of the book is literally named "sorry tree", with a description of , quote, "We make books that may make us sorry for the trees(which were cut down to make this book)."

However, the art style of Relatable.jpg was, well, not beautiful, and this definitely amplifed other problems. Maybe if the content was genuinely funny, people might have considered the art style unique and adding to the funny-ness of the comic. But it didn't.

The whole content, excluding the art, was the real problem. The problem was it was too generic and overused. Relatable humor comics were already being churned out by amateur webcomic authors as early as 2008, and there were already a ton of low-quality relatable webcomics. "Haha isn't it weird when our parents tell us to wake up saying it's 10:00 but it's acually 7:30 haha", "haha doesn't it suck when we eat a burger and all the contents drop out of the other side" "haha where does the eraser we drop go, they always disappear never to be seen again haha" "haha doesn't it suck when you pick a music you like but your friends don't seem to like it haha" stuff. There's an ancient korean site, naver boom, a precusor of naver webtoons, a portion of it was salvaged, and almost all comics on the front page were "relatable" webcomics. It is also worth noting how there are, right now, 670 challenge webcomics on naver webtoons whose title contain the word "relatable"(although some portion of it is probably mocking this webcomic. I'll explain it later). This format was considered pretty dead by the time, and this comic used exactly that.

often, the relatable stuff was already used in other webcomics. For example, ep.5 relied on three "haha isn't it really awkward when you tell your friend goodbye but the bus/train doesn't leave so you just need to stare at each other haha" jokes. This was already used in another webcomics, especially <The sound of your heart>, a really popular webcomic, so there were lots of controversies about the comic ripping off other webcomics.

However, from a purely outsiders perspective the webcomic wasn't that bad! The author used to write an almost similar webcomic somewhere else before it was posted on naver webtoons, and it was accepted quite well! He even got sponsored a tablet from a company for the webcomic, the comic even got translated into chinese, andgot a "not bad" score from the chinese readers. But for koreans who had already seen tons of "haha relatable" comic, and was expecting highest quality of comics since this is a comic on S.korea's top webcomic site, that authors get paid for, this was extremely dissappointing.

To make matters worse, Some people pointed out how this webcomic wasn't even qualified for the whole contest. Remeber how I just said how the author posted an almost similar webcomic somewhere else? That meant it didn't meet the "no prior webcomic experience" part of the whole competition.

haha doesn't it suck when you make a webcomic and get giga flaked haha

For pretty obvious reasons, this got a ton of criticism. In fact, this is one of the few hobbydrama stuff I have wrote/am planning to write on that I actually saw my IRL friends get mad about it back at the time.

Generally it was confusion that many other webcomics that actually had potential didn't get officially hired, or often took years to get hired, while this webcomic just made it to official hired webcomic in a matter of a few weeks in a flawed competition. Others were mad because the readers were pretty angry with a general decline of the quality of webcomics on the site even before this webcomic, and this webcomic was just the last straw. And it is, well, undeniable that many just jumped on the bandwagon of hating something many people hate.

Naver webcomics uses a 10-point system to rate comic strips, and the rate often fell down as far as 2. The comments were also very harsh, with people not only criticizing it very harshly. Some comments, translated with some artistic liberties:

I'm waiting for this dude to tell us to "draw it ourselves then" bc I'm sure I could draw better than this

I never thought it was a good idea to rate webcomics by the art style, but I think this is really a disgrace to other authors

thank you for uploading, now I can rate this a 1/10 and go to sleep

how to make the best spaghetti: 1.boil water, thoroughly wash the clams and gently boil the clams..(contines to elaborate spaghetti recipes)

Then there were uncertified reports of the author saying things like "You readers don't have a right to criticize me" or "I'm hired, others are just skillless authors that don't get hired", which hurt the entire public opinion even more. It is unknown if the author actually said that.

There also were tonns of other webcomics mocking the comic. Remember how naver webcomics has a seperate place for amateur webcomics? That place was filled with parodies of <Relatable.Jpg>, asking if they could be a webcomic artist now. Some had an even worse artstyle to mock it, some actually pulled out a drawing pen and mamaged to remake the series with a much better art style and actually acceptable comedy(can't find the link right now, sadly), most were just scribbly drawings mocking it.

However the webcomic, did really succeed at noise marketing. It gained massive views, probably from the what's-going-on-crowd watching the webcomic to see how bad the comic was. At some point, it even defeated some very popular and old korean webcomics in terms of pure views, even being ranked as the fourth daily webcomic. Considering how the first to third was one of the legendary webcomics, it basically reached the top of not-legendary webcomics. And considering the salary of webcomic artists are based not on the overall score but the number of views, some speculate the comic might have been a great short-term success.

Eventually even the hate died off, and the bad attention stopped. Relatable.jpg stopped at 108 strips, with the author never uploading any comic again.

For naver webtoons after the incident, while some new pretty good webcomics did pop up once in a while, webcomics one considered legendary either ending or being pulled out too long until it became boring, and with the quality of new webcomics being significantly worse, the overall quality of naver webtoons is definately tarnished from what it was in its prime.

Some even go far as to appoint Relatable.Jpg as the source of this problem, as this created a predecessor for lower quality webcomics to get approved and put up on naver.

To end this write up, let me just add my opinion.

while many people, including me, hated the comic at the time, may I say that I actually feel quite bad for the author? The comic definitely is low quality for naver webtoons, but it did have some success before it was put on naver.

I actually started writing this thinking it would be a fun writeup about how a poorly made webcomic that didn't meet standards was criticized, but after writing this it actually feels like this guy made a pretty successful amateur webcomic, miraculously won a (albeit flawed) contest that made him join the nation's top webcomics, to immediately realize his stuff was never the quality needed to reach there, leading to him getting criticized a lot and to never draw a comic again? Can we really criticize him this much for grabbing an opportunity that was given to him, although he didn't really deserve it skill-wise?

And, In my opinion, the man responsible for all this isn't the author, nor the readers, but the guy who should have been in charge of deciding which webcomic gets hired and which doesn't. Had he never run the flawed contest, and had done his job at quality control, the author maybe would have continued his hobby as an amateur webcomic artist without getting tangled in all this.

Thank you for reading.

EDIT: when I wrote this months ago this didnt exist, but a few months back naver webtoons did a event where thry contact retired webcomic artists to see what they were doing, and guess what, he was one of them. Apparently he tried to learn another drawing tool that isnt mspaint, and is kinda working on an animation. There's obviously some "why are you here" comments, but the comments are mostly "yooo hi, I hated you back then but its nice to see you again man"

EDIT2: a youtuber made a spanish video based on the post, which is honestly amazing, thank you.

Cryptozoology, or the study of animal science doesn't currently recognize, is obviously controversial. A lot of figures within it have received quite a few criticisms. But one man stands out as the most widely disliked figure: Jon Erik Beckjord or JEB. He was an American cryptozoologist known for some outlandish claims. There are some fun ones, like his theory that Nessie was using wormholes (which he claimed to have captured on tape). He also claimed to have caused the mothman sightings during an out of body experience! But he also clashed a lot with other people, earning the name "The Bad Boy of Bigfootry".

On early cryptozoology and especially bigfoot forums, Beckjord was known for arguing with people. A lot. He was known for making multiple sock puppet accounts to argue with people more. One person I talked to said that people thought he was one of JEB's alts just because he was from San Francisco, where JEB was based out of. Ray Gravel was so incensed by Beckjord that he published a lengthy multi page site of some of his comments. Many of the arguments revolved around Beckjord arguing that bigfoot was a supernatural creature while others like Ray believed it was simply an unknown primate. Here are a couple I found interesting.

JEB: NONE of you guys is a zoologist, nor an ecological zoologist.

Ray: neither are you. You are no more qualified than my cat.

Another conversation:

EB: no matter what, you cannot, and no one is ABLE to kill a sasquatch.

Ray: that's right, they're proven shape shifters. They've been known to change into cats, dogs, horse, owls, sparrows, baboons, snakes, candy bars, trees, bushes, sticks, books, stereos, cheese, yogurt, and throw rugs.

EB: They are not normal, and not prt of zoological system.

Ray: Erik, that's what everyone's starting to think about YOU.

A lawsuit threat:

JEB: Dear Ray Gavel:

My attorney took a look at your new website, and reminds me that I have an Internet business running separate from my museum, and that some people not in any way connected with the Bigfoot area might actually believe some of the defamatory material you have posted on your site.

Therefore, if you do not remove 100% this site, by 6 pm Sat. Pacific Time, he will move to suponea your server to get your personal address and he will arrange to deliver papers to you notifying you of a lawsuit for $100,000

I should remind you that Henry Franzoni and John Horrigan both had defamatory sites re myself, and both wisely terminated these sites once contacted by my attorney. Both sites that mentioned me are now dead.

Mr. Franzoni spent $2,500 on legal advice. Mr. Horrigan is very possibly in jail with the Needham,Mass. Police. The FBI is also investigating mr. Horrigan.

I sincerely advise you to follow my request. Immediately. Furthermore, if not done, in addition to the lawsuit, you will never in your lifetime rejoin the BF201 list, if the site does not disappear at once.

I say this in total, 100% sincerity. I suggest you not argue, for this is not negotiable in any manner. Signed,

Jon Erik Beckjord

Gravel would one-up Beckjord, responding that nothing he said about the man was illegal, saying he had freedom of speech to criticize him, and jokingly threatening him with a million dollar lawsuit of his own.

JEB would respond

**EB:**Freedom of speech, you moron, does not cover defamation of character and libel.

You are a deeply UN-educated man.
I file the papers Monday.
"The Beatings will stop when Morale Improves"

Gravel would fire back with "that's ok, my counter suit just went up another $500,000 because of this email. Hey, you're gonna make my lawyer a very rich man."

Beckjord's lowest moment would come during an expedition with Tara Hauki (She admitted that she's not the best at making a website, so this is my attempt to piece together what she wrote. I may have gotten some stuff wrong). Hauki claims that before and during the expedition tensions started to rise. JEB told her beforehand that her reputation had been tarnished because she talked to another bigfooter he disliked, Tom Biscardi. Hauki was also forced to mediate between JEB and his girlfriend Christine or "Chris" who were in a lengthy process of breaking up at the time. Chris and JEB would frequently scream at each other and Chris would often get drunk (and drive). Chris later drunkingly drove away from the expedition site after several arguments. After this Hauki asked for him to take her home, but Beckjord refused (also guilting her to stay by revealing that he had cancer).

Things would then get physical as Beckjord allegedly hit her in the head with a heavy flashlight during a discussion about the ethics of bigfoot. Then he began to record her as she screamed at him for doing so (seemingly to prove that she was acting crazy). Beckjord would also threaten to leave her in the woods alone, and threatened to call the cops on her claiming that she had hit him with a shovel. As JEB had all the camping supplies in the trailer they were in, he stopped her from eating. When she tried to get in through a side door he grabbed her and threw her to the ground.

Hauki was in a fairly remote area alone, so she left on foot to get the cops. That's when she saw Beckjord began to go though her stuff, so she ran back to stop him (she later claimed he had stolen some of her notes). He then maced her in the face. Beckjord began to walk around the camp with an axe, and threatened to not take her back unless she stopped writing in her journal. He would also leave half eaten food out in front of her while locking her outside the camper. She responded by throwing some of his bigfoot books and other trinkets into a lake Eventually he left, and she was 15 miles away from civilization. Thankfully one man gave her a lift for part of the route while another man (who was actually homeless) bought her some food.

JEB would deny the allegations and respond to some of her criticisms she later posted online with this:

Update: Now she calls me an “Internet Predator”. This is absurd. Those men want sex from young girls. Hauki is 50, looks 60, and you couldn’t pay me to have sex with her. Claims to be 45, but really is 50, claims to have been forced to walk (hike) out 15 miles when the real distance to the paved road is 3 miles, claims I repeatedly hit her when in fact she hit me with a shovel, claims her journal is accurate when it is just a litany of lies, claims to be a maniac, and this is actually true – manic-depressive psychosis – Bi-polar

He also allegedly told her friends that she was "half bigfoot, half alien", said she was half a foot taller than she was, and claimed that she had a crack pipe in her bag. Very graciously, Hauki would attribute some of his actions to him suffering from cancer which he would pass away from in 2008.

In the 1990s during the OJ Simpson murder trial Beckjord tried to sell a "ghost photo" of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman for half a million dollars. He tried to sell his services as an anti-terrorism consultant after 9/11, advocating for people to carry spam with them to throw at terrorists. Finally, according to Animals and Men after he died his "acolytes" stated that he was still alive and that his cancer was in remission. The founder of Fortean Times stated: "I wouldn’t put it beyond Beckjord to be dead and still want attention!"

This is one of the final things he posted to his website

My enemies will rejoice. It comes to us all. To some earlier; to some later. Like Rene Dahinden, I have advanced prostate cancer and it has advanced to the bones. I was warned on the Lummi Indian Reservation that if you see Bigfoot/Sasquatch too often, it is a sign they are taking you to them, to join them…Roger Patterson got the best Bigfoot movie of all time, 58 sec, and within four years passed on with Lymphatic cancer (Parkenson’s disease [?] ). Bob Titmus also suffered cancer and he had a number of very excellent sightings. He survived quite a long time but it got him in the end….Bob Gimlim has had four heart by-pass operations. His time, too, is limited….The ride, however, has been one hell of a ride, and I have met some fabulous people, and learned some incredible things. I’m 68, Dahinden was 70, Titmus was in his 80s. I’ve crammed in a life of 200 years into one life

Alongside this post he also tried to sell his copy of the Patterson Gimlin film for one million dollars

Further reading:

The Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology by Michael Newton

The Cryptid Archive Wiki

http://onelifeoneheart.pbworks.com/w/page/9391993/Tara%20Hauki%20and%20Jon-Erik%20Beckjord

https://web.archive.org/web/20011019130306/http://www.cgocable.net/~rgavel/index.html

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

As always, this thread is for discussing breaking drama in your hobbies, offtopic drama (Celebrity/Youtuber drama etc.), hobby talk and more.

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.

• Define any acronyms.

• Link and archive any sources.

• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.

• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Certain topics are banned from discussion to pre-empt unnecessary toxicity. The list can be found here. Please check that your post complies with these requirements before submitting!

Previous Scuffles can be found here

So, Ghostbusters. Back to the 80’s right?

Not quite. Our story here starts in 1975.

In the 70’s the idea of Saturday morning cartoons was well established, but the kid oriented weekend block also occasionally included some live action series among its animated brethren. In 1975, one of these was the Ghost Busters on CBS, a live action series starring two bumbling detectives and a gorilla who investigated paranormal events, full to the brim of slapstick and references to classic film (the two human main characters are “Spencer” and “Tracy” and the gorilla is “Kong”). It lasted 15 episodes, and while a modest ratings success (second in its timeslot, losing to the Shazam/ISIS hour) it did not get a second season and faded into obscurity.

Despite the earlier series lack of staying power, Columbia Pictures still had to pay a fee to Filmation to use the name for their unrelated smash hit 1984 classic staring Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Raimis and Ernie Hudson as the titular exterminator/collectors of paranormal apparitions of all kinds. And a smash hit the movie was, being the second highest grossing film of 1984, and at the time, the highest grossing comedy ever made.

And it was especially popular with kids (it’s quite common for adults rewatching to be surprised by how adult some of the humor was- it came out before the PG-13 rating existed and would easily make PG-13 today). And in the 80’s era of Wall Street and cocaine, what do you do with a property popular with kids? Well, one scenario at least, is you turn it into a Saturday morning cartoon. These were even bigger in the 80's than they had been in the 70’s- this was the era of He-Man, the original My Little Pony and Ninja Turtles, among dozens of other series supported by sales of toys, breakfast cereals and other merchandise. A very profitable opportunity indeed, especially since as an era, it wasn’t one burdened too much by “quality animation” or “artistic merit” (also not uncommon nowadays, rewatching your favorite 80’s cartoon and finding absolutely nothing of substance beyond your childhood nostalgia)- cheap, formulaic and easy to mass produce were the rule until almost the 90’s when Disney came onto the afternoon cartoon scene and became a significant challenger.

And it turned out, Columbia got beaten to the punch. The smash success of their film convinced Filmation, a studio well entranced in the TV cartoon biz (possibly second only to Hanna Barbera), to revive their nearly forgotten 1975 series as a cartoon as well, and capitalize on the confusion the identical name would cause. Premiering on September 8, 1986, and airing 65 episodes in daytime syndication over the next 4 months. Nearly universally always referred to as “Filmation’s Ghostbusters” in retrospect to differentiate, it was a flop (TV animation could be cheap enough that yes, a 65 episode series could still be considered a flop), but it did exactly what it was supposed to- confused the viewers as to whether or not it was related to the film. But it ended up being a double edged sword- namely, kids were confused and upset that the series contained none of their favorite characters, and they by and large did not continue to watch. There are even stories of accusations of racism for making Winston, the film character played by black actor Ernie Hudson, into a ape for the series. And most painfully for Filmation, this confusion hit them where it hurt the most- the toy sales!

Not that Columbia would admit defeat. On September 13, 1986, only five days after Filmation’s series began airing, Columbia’s premiered on ABC Saturday morning its own offering (animated by rival studio DIC), utilizing the title that was meant to guide kids watching also taking a swipe back at Filmation- the REAL Ghostbusters.

Despite the name, the animated series was not without it’s speed bumps among devoted franchise fans. Namely, while it contained all their favorite Ghostbusters from the movie, they didn’t look or sound anything like them. To avoid having to pay to use the actor’s likenesses, the animation team completely overhauled the character designs- behold, the poster in which Peter Venkman looks like Bill Murray probably wishes he did: and instead of having the actors voice their characters, the cast was instead filled with professional voice actors, including names like Maurice LaMarche, Frank Welker and Dave Coillier, making the resemblance to the movie characters even more distinct- even the uniforms weren’t quite the same! In terms of writing, many early episodes had plots that had multiple demographic appeal and humor more in line with the movie (the head writer in the first two season was J Michael Straczynski) though these were always toned down for the kids show time slot- primarily by removing the swearing and sexual innuendo. This slowly ended too, most notably after season 2, and the writing became far more typical of a Saturday morning cartoon, primarily as a result of ABC’s attempt to retool the show to be more successful- this also resulted in some changes to the character designs and personalities, and increase in focus on Slimer (eventually including him in the show title!). It sort of worked. The show continued on for several more seasons, but fans are quite critical of these later seasons

In spite of these controversies, the Real Ghostbusters ran for seven seasons, totally over 140 episodes, and produced two spinoffs: a series of shorts focused on Slimer and 1997’s Extreme Ghostbusters, as well as (most importantly in the studios minds) selling mountains of toys. The cartoon is reasonably well regarded among fans, though this affection is primarily restricted to the first two seasons (and bolstered by later interest in J Michael Straczynski’s early work). Filmations’ attempt to capitalize on their original use of the name can’t even say this (though I will admit, its theme song is also quite catchy).

That was hardly the end of the controversies that the franchise faced- including several attempts to get a third movie made, the 2016 gender-flipped remake and the two later reboot sequels, but as so ends what I can write about, being that I never even got around to watching Ghostbusters 2 (and one of these days, my brother might start speaking to me again!).

What’s On the Menu?

Someone on Twitter became the subject of an outrage. Roses are red, violets are blue; this is all obvious, I am boring you.

So, what happened? Did our person of interest say something insensitive when they were fifteen? Drink coffee in their backyard? Start fandom discourse? No, not quite. What actually started the whole fiasco was, if the title wasn’t any indication, chili. Yes, really. That bean and meat slop we all know and love would lead to threats, news articles, and over a month of trouble.

Feeling hungry yet?

Appetizer

Please note that a lot of the original tweets have since been deleted or lost to time, and sources are a bit scattered. I tried to piece everything back together as best as I could. I also refuse to refer to Twitter by its new name, after all it was still “Twitter” at the time, so expect that through the whole read.

As a precursor, here’s a visual of the infamous chili for you.

Order Up

On November 7th, 2022, a Twitter user known as “Chinchillazilla” would post a tweet about some college-aged men who had recently moved in next door. She was an artist and animal enthusiast, relatively known on some level, but not a celebrity or anything like that. She was just some person hanging out online, and boy was she about to get more than she bargained for. Chinchilla expressed concerns over her new neighbors in her tweet, as they’d been ordering quite a bit of food–mainly pizza. The only reason Chinchilla knew this was because she happened to see specific boxes in their outdoor garbage can. Not to mention, a few of their orders had shown up at her door by mistake.

She did not express any ill will toward these guys in her tweets, mind you, aside from a few joking remarks. Like any good neighbor, she decided that hospitality was the solution. She declared that she would make them a homemade dish, most likely a pot of chili. Six days after the initial tweet, the chili would come to be.

It’s important to add that for whatever reason, likely just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Chinchilla had already been a target in previous incidents. One particular person, known as ”DreadedJai”, had long-running beef with her and was fixated on accusing her of racism and transphobia. This individual has been known to start a lot of drama in general, under the guise of social justice. She has doxxed people and started smear campaigns. She and the crowd she runs with are known as the “PAWG Patrol”.

It was suspected that users who lurked in Kiwi Farms type spaces had ignited this backlash, and perhaps other incidents with Chinchilla and her personal circle. However, this has not been proven. Keep in mind that at least some of this controversy was legitimate, but its origins may not have been. Or maybe they were. Who knows, it’s a complicated mess.

If you are unfamiliar with Kiwi Farms and similar internet spaces, it is a website dedicated to the harassment and stalking of individuals that KF users deem worthy of their attention. This ranges anywhere from targeting LGBT people who simply exist, to people who truly are depraved and should be in prison. Regardless, KF users will stop at nothing whether their victim asked for it or not. They’ve caused suicides.

You be the judge on what may or may not be troll behavior. It can be tricky to tell the difference when we’re talking about Twitter of all things.

Perhaps you’d like to order a drink to get through the rest of this?

Dig In

Once Chinchilla had made her intentions to cook clear, people took notice. And when people on certain internet platforms take notice, you know that two things are likely: assumptions and exaggerations. Here are some responses that were given early on:

Imagine just minding your business and some neighbour starts to cook an entire meal for you out of sheer pity Time to reflect on some life choices

for the love of god, stop babying men. this is why they learn to take advantage of their wives. give them a cookbook and fuck off. encouraging women to cater to men like housewives.

Don’t feed them, if they never learned to cook for themselves that’s their issue

Well I don’t know about any of you, but I can feel my brain dissolving into soup. No, I won’t cook up my soupy skull meat for you, don’t worry.

Luckily, some people were kind and rational in their responses. Many pointed out that in other cultures, food-sharing is integral in society. Chinchilla held her head high as the debate ensued, and continued updating her story. She attempted to deliver the chili, but the neighbors wouldn’t answer their door. It was then stored in her freezer, and things escalated from there.

One particular user stated that “if some random WP” [white person] made them “the saddest little ground beef and vegetable dish” and didn’t ask first, they wouldn’t answer their door either. They went on and on about consent. Need I reiterate that this was about CHILI? A food that often resembles my cat’s barf (but sure tastes better), and it was being spoken about as if it were a topic of morality.

Another user replied to this person. User “B” made a bizarre comparison in their reply to not only wheelchair etiquette, but infantilization of the elderly. User “A” was more than pleased with this analogy. A did bring up decent points about dietary restrictions and Covid germs being risk factors for shared food, but it was immediately undermined by them continuing to drone on about poor boundaries. As if Chinchilla were some pervert prowling the neighborhood.

Somebody on tumblr made bold claims that Chinchilla was a racist, TERF, and stalker. Their argument twisted everything into people condoning the chili-giving with outdated 1950s values. Once more it was portrayed as our subject being the town creep. No sources to speak of were provided for these claims.

Ironically, actual TERFs were targeting Chinchilla at the very same time she was accused of being one. Some were spinning it into her being transgender, and attacking her for that assumption specifically. A user went so far as to say that semen was put into the meal. As far as any source shows, Chinchilla is a cisgender woman, and has never expressed bigotry toward anybody.

At one point someone else had made, get this, their own thread about the situation which totaled around forty-two tweets. So this person apparently wrote the equivalent of a large essay because of various hypotheticals, the main one being that Chinchilla didn’t consider that the neighbors might not have bowls.

Personally, I think it’s safe to assume that if you cook a whole dish for someone, then you’re also generous enough to share dinnerware if necessary. Nevermind that mugs, plates, and tupperware exist and people are bound to have at least something in their house to begin with. You can buy bowls at the dollar store if it’s such an issue.

Another accusation of ableism, specifically not accounting for the sensory struggles people with autism face, occurred. Turns out Chinchilla herself is autistic. My, how the tables turn.

Allegedly, another individual compared the chili-giving to incest, though only references to it remain. (EDIT: u/sloopster found the origin, which I was not lucky enough to find myself.)

Chinchilla eventually locked her twitter account so that only her followers could interact with and see her posts. People started dubbing the situation “Chiligate”. News sites even posted articles about the backlash; some were supportive of Chinchilla, while the Washington Post…well, wasn’t, necessarily. Reporter Emily Heil apparently failed to fully investigate the incident, and helped spread baseless claims to the public. She took it a step further and recruited some so-called experts on the matter, who really just insulted Chinchilla’s actions rather than offering anything useful. As with most of the responses, it relied too much on hypotheticals.

A few days before the article was posted, the chili was FINALLY delivered to the neighbors. Did the world end? No. As it turns out, people in the real world thrive off of community. The neighbors were reportedly happy with the gesture and even offered their own kindness in return. The article did not mention this.

Journalist Taylor Lorenz then got involved on twitter, and defended the person who made the 42-tweet-thread, claiming harassment was being directed their way. Lorenz also writes for The Washington Post, and insisted the article had no ill intentions. Sources for this are minimal and I’m not entirely sure what the whole conversation consisted of, but it certainly didn’t help the problem.

Chinchilla would deactivate and reactivate her account numerous times to respond to things or try to stave off the flames, but inevitably she left, and her inactive profile remained. It was bad enough that even after the main event died down, a few people were still engaging in abusive levels of harassment.

Remember Jai and rest of the PAWG Patrol? The abuse entailed at least one individual, likely Jai herself, messaging Chinchilla a video of a pig being shot (EDIT: Not just one, but evidently MULTIPLE videos of pigs being harmed were sent). Jai’s friends and followers were posting tweets with only emojis that had a vague but obvious message if you knew the context, such as “🍽️🐷”. Why pigs, anyway? Well, it turns out Chinchilla has a pet kunekune named Rufus, and would post about him before Chiligate occurred. Somebody even photoshopped Rufus’s image onto a package of bacon, and used it as their twitter header. They’d made threats toward Rufus before, but this time it was really bad.

What a mouthful.

Here’s the Bill

As it stands, Chinchilla remains on social media, but steers clear of Twitter. For a while, some harassers followed her to another site. Currently she seems to be okay in the grand scheme of it all, though understandably affected by everything almost two years later. Rufus seems to be doing fine too. Moral of the story: People can be awful, but love and care will prevail.

Don’t worry about tips, you’ve all suffered enough. Come back soon, and thanks for dining.

—

Sources:

vox.com

cheezburger.com

ebaumsworld.com

resetera.com

Zoos.

I'm pretty sure you know what these places are. They are defined by Wikipedia as “a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes.” I'm sure you could find Zoos that are excluded by this definition and non-Zoos that are included. But this is not a Hobby Drama about the definition of Zoo.

Zoos are traditionally thought of as something that if not exclusively for children, are very much a family activity. But, if there is one thing r/hobbydrama has taught me, it's that the Internet has an inexhaustible amount of adults unhealthily interested in things. (That's me, I'm the guy unhealthily interested in zoos.) 

Of course, Zoos are not just niche blog subjects, or a toy line forgotten by all but a hardcore few. They are a big deal out in the real world. American Zoos combined to over 183 Million visitors in 2018. Which is more than Disney World manages, although obviously there are a lot more zoos than there are Disney Worlds. (Although one quarter of Disney World is just a zoo with some rides…)

Most Zoos are some form of non-profit entity. Some are owned and operated by cities (Como Zoo in Saint Paul), states (Minnesota Zoo in Minnesota), and even the Federal Government (the National Zoo via the Smithsonian). Others are owned and operated by non-profits with very close links to the local community (Detroit Zoo in Detroit). So drama at the zoo is drama involving something held in trust for the people.

Zoos also have animals in them. Many of them cute. Some of them endangered. People like cute, endangered, animals. So if anything might happen the animals, well…that's a big deal too.

So when Zoo drama goes down, yes the forums talk about it. But it's also going to get picked up by the media. 

So, without further ado, here is the tale of how one of the most respected zoos in America went through the wringer, and lost a lot of respect along the way.

What Makes A Good Zoo? 

But first, let's talk about what makes a zoo respected in the first place. 

Zoos have always held themselves a bit above things like circuses in terms of animal care, but If you look back at old enough zoo photos, you will cringe and you will feel sad. Cages everywhere. Animals trapped on slabs of concrete. This is not a long gone issue either. 

Until 2007 they were keeping an Elephant in Alaska. And if you Google “Blackfish” you'll learn some terrible terrible things if you haven't already. 

Even leaving aside obvious abuse, there is a growing understanding that keeping certain animals well comes to mind takes a lot of time, manpower, space, and money. Elephants, Great Apes, and Dolphins, for example, are increasingly being chased out of small operations that lack resources to properly care for them. 

In this context, who watches the watchmen? 

In some cases, the Federal Government regulates Zoos. The Department of Agriculture has regulations relating to the care and upkeep of animals, under the Animals Welfare Act. The US Fish and Wildlife Service handles animals covered by the Endangered Species Act, including the international CITIES(Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) framework. The EPA has a hand, what with the dangers of invasive species and such. OSHA, also, regulates Zoos, although more on the employee side. Apparently large carnivorous animals can be considered “safety hazards” by the federal government. State agencies may add additional layers. 

However this is a fairly patchwork set up, hardly a comprehensive guide to running a zoo. Different acts and different agencies, none of whom see zoos as their number one focus. Meeting the bare minimum standard is not ideal for producing a good experience for guests or a friendly environment for animals. 

If, hypothetically, you were to buy a zoo like Matt Damon did in We Bought a Zoo and merely obeyed the above guidelines you could open a zoo. Or a wildlife sanctuary. But it would not necessarily be a good one. 

Think Tiger King. Or the sort of conditions that proceed a plucky child freeing the animals in a movie. These sorts of operations often have deep links to the illegal exotic pet trades, and have a generally poor record of health and safety for animals and humans alike. Among hardcore zoo people being labeled a “roadside zoo” is among the harshest criticisms imaginable. 

This is where the AZA comes in. The Association of Zoos & Aquariums is the big name you need to remember, when it comes to zoo accreditation.

The AZA, is, as the name suggests, an association of the top tier of zoos in the United States. They have their own set of standards. And not just for zoos in general. Many animals have their own Animal Care Manuals published by the AZA. For example the ACM for the Greater Roadrunner (meep meep) requires: https://assets.speakcdn.com/assets/2332/greater_roadrunner_care_manual_2016.pdf

• Limits on the temperature of their exhibit (between 40° and 100° F)
• Features their exhibit (must have places to perch, hide, and run)
• Recordkeeping of the birth, life, and death of every roadrunner in captivity. 
• Each bird must be identifiable 
• Nutritional Tables be followed
• Veterinary care 
• Any shared exhibits be restricted to a given list of other animals

And much more. And this is an animal that is neither endangered, nor a major attraction for zoos or concern of the public. 

There are even more stringent requirements for certain animals (elephants, dolphins) as well as animal ambassadors. Those are the animals that keepers might bring out for a show, or to pet, or to schools, or to lobby politicians. Since animal ambassadors are moved around a lot and face new environments, they often have a lot of stress. So there are additional requirements for them. More documentation, more costs because having compliant transportation is pricey, and to cap it all off all of the really eye-catching animals (apes, big cats) are not particularly viable to bring out as ambassadors.

Moving animals around in general is, as you might expect, something of a hassle both for the animals and for the zoos in question. But it happens all the time, via the animal exchange system. 

The AZA generally tried to avoid straight “cash for animals” exchanges. Instead they tend to utilize transfers between members. Sometimes these are just temporary transfers, “we're renovating, can you hold our rhinos for a bit,” or “can we borrow a male Zebra so we can breed our mares.” Others are more permanent swaps. A wolverine for one of your pumas to replace the lynx that died. Transfers can fill empty exhibits and free up overpopulated ones.

AZA rules require that “animals are not transferred to those not qualified to care for them properly”. Transfers to non-AZA members ARE allowed, but require due diligence, and support from AZA members familiar with the destination facility. AZA members are also supposed to take care in who they get their animals from, vetting them carefully to avoid creating demand for the illegal animal trade. 

Animal transfers are also managed by Species Survival Plans. These are, well, plans to help a species survive. Drawn up under AZA guidance, these SSPs look at current population, genetic outlook, breeding success and other factors. Animals under SSP are moved around in the hopes of a successful captive breeding program, often being loaned instead of fully transferred. There is a large degree of micromanagement in this process, but it has led to success. Successful reintroductions, like the California Condor and the Black Footed Ferret have their roots in AZA SSP breeding programs. Many big name animals have SSPs, elephants, komodo dragons, giraffes, hippos, and tigers for example. Not every animal with a SSP is actually part of the SSP program (see the tigers in Tiger King) but participation in the AZA and SSP is one of the few ways of getting these animals for a zoo.

Compliance with SSP and AZA requirements can be expensive and complicated. In the interests of ensuring animals have homes that are not going to get foreclosed soon, the AZA requires financial disclosure as well. Revenue, plans for a catastrophic decrease in revenue, leadership that is engaged with the conservation mission. One way of getting funding is AZA grants, including SSP program supports, which of course are only available for AZA members.

It's you're thinking “hey this is kinda like a cartel” you are not alone. The AZA has been criticized for keeping animal transfer lists behind a firewall, and questions have been raised about what happens to animals that are no longer “useful” for drawing visitorsor breeding cute babies. And SeaWorld was accredited when Blackfish was a thing. Certainly everyone has their gripes, from animal rights people to internet commentators.

There are other accreditation authorities for things like sanctuaries, who oppose captive breeding. Others find the AZA too micromanaging and restrictive, which led to the rise of the Zoological Association of America which has less stringent rules about public interactions with animals, for example and allows breeding for certain traits like white tigers.

This is not, however, a hobbydrama post about the AZA vs ZAA split or the time the Pittsburgh Zoo left the AZA over a spat about elephant handling. This is about the Columbus Zoo. 

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium

The Columbus Zoo was founded in 1927 by the publisher of the local paper, the Columbus Dispatch, and the Mayor. Inspired by the St. Louis Zoo they lobbied for city support. Although initially reluctant, land was eventually set aside by the city by the O'Shaughnessy Reservoir, where the Zoo still stands today.

The Columbus Zoo is not actually located in Columbus. Heck it's not in the same county as Columbus. And that's today, when Columbus has grown tremendously. Back in the day it was way out in the boonies. 

The Zoo was owned and operated by the city, and open for free to the public, until 1937 when it was slowly weaned off the public dole. It began to charge for admission, but even then it was financially unstable. In 1950 it was again taken over by the city, then spun off into an independent non-profit in 1970, although it still took money from the city until the late 80s. Nowadays public funding comes via a levy from Franklin County. Which notably is not the county that the Zoo is located in. Which means Franklin County residents get discounts, but not the Zoo's neighbors. 

In terms of collection the zoo was middle of the pack at best. The collection had grown since it was just some reindeer and some big cats. But it was hardly groundbreaking. Very much what people call an ‘ABC Zoo’ basic big name animals, not a lot of variety. 

The Columbus Zoo was not entirely without success for the first half century of its existence. In 1956 Colo was born. Colo was the first Gorilla born in captivity, a major step forward in captive breeding and conservation. She would later become the oldest Gorilla in captivity, living to see several great-grandchildren in her time, before dying peacefully of old age. Her family still makes up the bulk of the Troops in Columbus to this very day.

However in of presentation and animal care, the Zoo was lagging behind pretty badly by 1978 Many of the animals were still in cages, even as most Zoos moved towards moats as a means of animal containment. Not being AZA accredited was more common back in the day, but the zoo was still not AZA accredited. Attendance was low, costs high, and there was a general malaise that befit the era of Jimmy Carter. 

Enter Jungle Jack Hanna. 

Jack Hanna was working for the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens in 1978 when he was invited to become Director of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. He accepted in part because his daughter had leukemia, and he (correctly) thought the local children’s hospital would have the best chance of saving her life.

Heartwarming origins aside, Hanna quickly set about working to improve the Columbus Zoo. He transitioned the zoo to more modern enclosures and presentation, open spaces instead of cages. He worked to raise zookeeper morale. He personally picked up litter after hours. Hanna built connections with the local community, helping maintain public support for levies, and keeping donations and memberships up. By 1980, the Zoo was up to AZA accreditation standards.

Hanna was also a natural communicator. He spent a few years on local TV but quickly moved on to bigger and better things. He appeared regularly on Late Night TV, in particular Letterman, as well as other programs like Good Morning America. He almost always brought some sort of exotic, exciting animal to show off  In fact Hanna would become one of the most prominent conservation spokesmen in America, often being called in to national stations when animals hit the news. In 1992 he left his active role as director of the Columbus Zoo, and returned to Florida where he began producing shows like “Into the Wild” and “Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures” where he traveled the world educating about animals. If you were an Ohio based animal fanatic as a kid like I was, Jack Hanna was a Titan.

And yes, I suppose now is the time to come clean. I was born and raised in Central Ohio. I was a Zoo Kid. Which meant I was a Columbus Zoo Kid. We went every week until that stupid “school” thing got in the way. If you went to the Columbus Zoo in the early 2000s and had a bratty kid correct you about apes vs monkeys or what a mustelid was…sorry. So yeah, the Columbus Zoo is MY zoo. Just to state my conflict of interest up front. Hopefully the fact that I’m writing this at all shows I’m not going to give it a free pass. 

Even once Jack Hanna left, the Columbus Zoo went from strength to strength. Over the course of the 2000s it launched several major expansions in several different directions.

Acreage wise, it is one of the largest Zoos in the country, over 400 acres, with plenty of room still to expand. It has the world’s largest elephant building, making it one of those rare cold weather zoos that will likely keep them for the foreseeable future. It is one of the few zoos outside Florida to have manatees, participating in the recovery and release of manatees injured by boats. Bonobos and Gorillas AND Orangutans, getting them to 75-80% of the Great Apes depending on if you count humans. Less famous, but no less critical, animals were also houses. Mexican wolves, freshwater mussel preservation, a Reptile House maintaining a strong collection. 

The Zoo enjoyed, and still enjoys, a close working relationship with The Wilds. The Wilds is one of the largest conservation parks in the United States. While it does welcome visitors it is more a “safari park” than a zoo proper, although it is AZA accredited. Just down the road in Muskingum County. The Wilds is a valuable partner in terms of conservation and animal management, with much larger spaces than the zoo can provide.

Columbus also has some of the most dedicated presentation design of any zoo. It was a pioneer in dividing its exhibits into geographic religions, not just types of animals. a Congo River region, Australia and the Islands, Asia Quest featuring Tigers and Markhors, as well as the Heart of Africa expansion, which features an expansive fake Savannah alongside Lions and a Cheetah run event. Each of these regions has their own sign format, viewing area set up, and design aesthetics. The Orangutans live in what looks to be an abandoned temple. “Theming” is something you typically think of in terms of amusement parks, but is equally applicable in Columbus. 

Speaking of amusement parks in 2006 the Zoo bought the next-door Wyandot Lake Amusement Park off of a struggling Six Flags Entertainment, and began a major overhaul. Most of the dry land stuff was turned into Jungle Jack’s Landing, an area of the zoo that had rides instead of animals. The rides weren’t free, but admission to the zoo came with admission to Jungle Jack’s Landing. The rest of the old Wyandot Lake property is owned and operated as Zoombezi Bay water park, which is a separate admission, although there are cross promotions and discounts. It’s no Animal Kingdom or Busch Gardens, but then the Columbus Zoo is no Walt Disney Corporation or Anheuser-Busch either.

Yes, the Columbus Zoo was riding high, and indeed mighty. Well over a million visitors a year, a well loved institution locally. Jack Hanna came back to Columbus, although not in a formal leadership. When all those animals were released in Zanesville in 2011, the Zoo and Hanna were called in as experts. The Zoo enjoyed a good reputation outside Ohio as well, mind you. In 2009 it was USA Today’s top zoo in the country. In 2012 it was [Reader’s Choice] (https://web.archive.org/web/20100105161943/http://www.wrsol.com/usatravelguide/2009/02/top10zoosinamerica/) awarding that title. Not bad for a city that is traditionally the third wheel between Cleveland and Cincinnati (both of which have excellent zoos. So do Toledo and Akron actually. Ohio punches WELL above its weight in zoos).

In 2018, the Columbus Zoo even got it's own TV show: Secrets of the Zoo on National Geographic. Which made a minor celebrity out of zoo staff and spawned several spin offs.

Yes…everything was coming up Columbus.

The Fall

As an animal obsessed kid, I never really got why the Zoo was using all this land for a water park when they could have more zoo instead. This applied to other theme heavy areas, there’s a whole stretch of Asia Quest near the start that’s just conservation messaging without any animals at all. There were a few other things, like tearing down the (admittedly old and in need of replacement) Johnson Aquatic Center and replacing it with a splash park for kids. And later a 4D Theater. And don't even get me started on how they ruined the Southeast Asia boat ride by making it into a dinosaur thing. This attention to theming impresses visitors but can leave hardcore zoo people a little suspicious. Too much theme park, not enough zoo. (In terms of "hardcore zoo people" I typically draw from ZooChat, although I am refraining from linking anyone in particular because I am also drawing from myself.)

Where to start the story of the fall proper though? 

Well in 2014 the Zoo swing for the fences. Big time. It proposed a new permanent levy, hiking rates from .75 mills to 1.25 mills. It would more than double what some Franklin County residents were paying for the zoo. It was accompanied with ambitious plans for a downtown satellite location as well as a new hospital, a tram system, and renovations. It was bold, it was ambitious, it was expensive.

Why, Franklin County voters asked, are we being asked to pay more for a zoo we already like? And why are we the ones to foot the bill for something in Delaware County. For the first time, there was serious opposition to the zoo levy. Even the Koch Brothers’ anti-tax group got involved against the levy. In a year where school levies passed across the board, the zoo levy flopped, getting a measly 29% of the vote. 

Zoo CEO Tom Stalf would express disappointment, but pledged to carry on. Later events would suggest that it was probably for the best the zoo didn't get the money. And anyway they came back the next year with a more modest renewal levy that passed overwhelmingly. 

I would pin the moment as 2020, actually. And not for anything pandemic related actually. Well, not directly, it did get delayed a bit by COVID. 

Adventure Cove. 

Adventure Cove is/was the first animal exhibit you see upon entering the zoo, getting past the entrance village with maps and gift shops and stuff. It leads away from the rest of the zoo, towards Jungle Jack’s Landing and Zoombezi Bay. 

Unlike most other regions of the zoo it is not geographically themed to a particular region of the globe. This makes it stand out. There are three parts to Adventure Cove, plus the rebranded Jungle Jack's Landing rides. 

Part one are the Seals and Sealions. They live in big tanks. You can view them from eye level, you can view them from above, you can view them from an underwater tunnel. They have a amphitheater where they do shows with the Sealions. None of this is groundbreaking for a zoo, but it is hella fun. 

Part three is Stingray Bay. This is where you can pay and touch some stingrays, and maybe even some sharks. Also a zoo staple, and also a crowd pleaser. 

Part two, don't worry I didn't forget, is Jack Hanna’s Animal Encounters Village. It's got a few exhibits out front, lemurs, foxes. Then inside there are a series of exhibits for various creatures, themed around human spaces. Possum in the garden. Loris in the bedroom. A duck by a pier. There's no particular theming beyond that, no geographic or even division by type of animal. 

Animal Encounters quickly proved…controversial among hardcore zoo types. The enclosures were small, little room to roam. Some of the outdoor exhibits were some some grass, some sort of small shelter, some balls, and fencing/caging. The indoor ones were not all that elaborate either. And after the exit the Capybaras had a pretty small and plain enclosure as well. 

Adventure Cove was reasonably popular upon opening, although the lingering COVID issues made it hard to quantify it. However among Zooheads it was divisive, especially the Animal Encounters Village. 

Many criticized it as not being up to the high standards of the Columbus Zoo’s past expansions. Certainly it was a much smaller and much less expensive than prior big capital projects, such as Asia Quest or Heart of Africa. The theming was all over the place, and could be seen as both tacky and underwhelming. The idea of urban wildlife was undermined by not actually being wildlife found in urban Ohio.

At a non-theming level the habitats were small. The outdoor exhibits allowed close access but at the cost of using fencing and caging, because there was no space for ditches or other naturalistic separation measures. Indoors they were also small, without a lot of places to hide (which is considered a must have for almost every animal). The term “roadside” was thrown around by some, which as I mentioned above is extremely harsh for Zoos. 

There were of course defenders. They were swift to point out that nothing in the facilities actually suggested misconduct. The spaces were small because they were hosting small animals. You can look up the AZA requirements for animals, remember, and the exhibitions at least were in compliance. 

As for the theming, both in concept and execution, there was real merit. Not every Zoo expansion has to open up a whole new world of animals afterall. And there are certain animals in the zoo collection that would have been exclusively behind the scenes without this expansion. The zoo doesn’t have a lemur exhibit or South America section for example, which means the lemurs and capybaras can really only be on display here. And more zoo is always better zoo. 

Many of the animals not native to Ohio are animals that have settled into urban niches elsewhere in the world as well, and so the exhibition offers a chance to consider other perspectives and how something exotic in one place is not exotic somewhere else. There was a zoo I went to in Martinique that had raccoons as foreign animal, for example. 

So the Animal Encounters Village wasn't a universally acknowledged disaster, but it was the subject of Discourse(™). Something of a novelty for the Columbus Zoo. But this was very much inside baseball, zoo fans sniping at each other. For the general public and media, Animal Encounters Village and Adventure Cove in general were well regarded additions to the Columbus Zoo. 

Enter the Columbus Dispatch and The Conservation Game. 

The Conservation Game is an independent documentary realized in 2021 about the trade in exotic animals in the United States, and the horrible conditions that accompanies that trade. In particular it focuses on the animals used on local TV and late night. The cute cub the local anchor gets to meet. The penguin that comes out on Letterman. You know the type. 

And, well, it's pretty horrible. Since the AZA can be stingy about transporting and displaying animals, a lot of these animals came from roadside zoos. Bought by private collectors instead of reputable organizations, and then taken into TV by the celebrity guests. They are often then thrown back into the private zoo world, rather than being sent to a respectable locale.

Jack Hanna unfortunately emerges as one of the players in this tale. Cats he brought on TV wind up in disreputable locales that aren't even zoos. 

Jack Hanna’s family shortly thereafter announced he had dementia, and so could not comment on the documentary. He hasn't died yet, but he very much is out of the public eye. I don't think this was nefarious or anything. Dementia is a tragic thing and Hanna is old. Maybe the documentary forced their statement a little early, but this is not a cover up by the family.

However the problems for the Columbus Zoo did not end there, or even start there. The documentary called into question active relationships the Zoo had as part of its animal programs division, essentially the animal ambassadors. Turns out it acquired and gave animals in this program to vendors who were not AZA compliant. That is bad, and runs directly against AZA rules. Hanna freelancing is bad for the image of the zoo, but the Columbus Zoo was not directly involved. This, however was a stink in an important zoo department. 

Unusually this department was separate from the animal care division, reporting to the CFO and the President/CEO rather than the normal hierarchy of keepers. But don't worry I'm sure these are two fine and upstanding gentlemen who have only the best interests of the animals, zoo, and community in mind and…

You may remember the Columbus Dispatch from earlier in the write-up. The publisher back in the day had helped start the zoo up. Other than that, well, a fairly typical newspaper for a solidly sized city. Used to have competition from other papers, but new media squeezed them out, leaving the Dispatch as the last one standing. Bought by a media conglomerate, who has cut reporting budgets to the bone, relying on outside agencies like the AP to get stories, depriving local writers of opportunities and allowing local abuses of power to go unreported in service to their corporate….well now I'm going off topic a bit. 

Despite my, very valid, complaints the Dispatch still has investigative reporters who do good work. Good work like looking into, how, exactly the Columbus Zoo is spending its money. Or rather, how Zoo leadership is spending the Zoo's money. Spoiler alert: it's not at the Zoo!

Zoos are sometimes gifted properties unrelated to the zoo, presumably so they can then sell the property and use the proceeds to run the zoo, or expand the zoo onto them. Columbus Zoo officials were leasing these out to family members at below market rent.

The zoo has arrangements with Ohio State University and the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets. Ticketing deals, suites, marketing deals. And not just for sports. The Blue Jackets and Ohio State control the two biggest concert venues in Central Ohio, Nationwide Arena and the Schottenstein Center respectively. All of this is supposedly to build relations with donors and get the Zoo’s name out there. Hey look family members getting priority again.

Zoo officials used their zoo credit cars for golfing, vehicle purchases, and trips to Florida. When the World Series came to Cleveland, the CEO traded $10,000 worth of zoo ticket credit for tickets to the ballgames.

And, well, it just went on like this. Nor were these allegations mere rumors and hearsay. The State Auditor and State Attorney General both launched investigations into the zoo. The CFO has already pled guilty on 17 felony counts and been forced to repay some of what he stole. The CEO has also pled recently. This is in addition to settling lawsuits from the zoo. And the cases remain ongoing, new charges were filed earlier this year. At present the amount stolen falls at around $2.3 million over a decade.

So that is not a pretty picture. A one two punch of the animal ambassadors scandal and the financial scandal. Not a pretty combo in terms of the Columbus Zoo’s reputation at any level. Either among locals, zoo freaks, for the AZA. 

Because yes, the AZA was not pleased to find out about all this. The AZA has to re-accredit members every five years and wouldn’t you know it, Columbus was inspected in 2021. The AZA cited the financial issues as concerning, but seemed to zero in on the use of non-AZA suppliers for baby big cats, and for entertainment purposes as well. The Verdict: The Columbus Zoo was no longer accredited.

The zoo appealed this decision. They had cut ties with the offending vendors already, and we’ve never really gotten detail on if they were horrific farms or just non-AZA. Some of the ones in Conservation Game were the former, but those were the ones Hanna was using, not necessarily the ones Columbus was. And most animals brought out for tv are not from the zoo proper, it was hardly a secret that outsiders were being used in Columbus, or elsewhere. 

Plus, as you might have guessed, the executives involved in the scandal resigned. A former director was brought in temporarily, and then a new director was hired away from his then-current role as Director of the Texas State Aquarium. So, the zoo argued, it had fixed what needed to be fixed. There was no need to go unaccredited. Hence, the appeal. 

The AZA slapped them down. They acknowledged the improvements, and praised the good work of zoo staff on the ground, one of the better parts of the inspection report. But, they said, these were grave issues and they wanted to see long term compliance with AZA rules. Apply next year, they said.

Aftermath 

In the meantime the Zoo turned to the ZAA, the second string zoo accreditation organization. Not as prestigious as the AZA, but to be honest the Zoo needed some good headlines, and ‘zoo gets accreditation’ would be good enough for now. The ZAA obliged, although Columbus kept their eyes on the prize of reaccreditation with the AZA. 

There was some concern about SSP animals, like Okapis and Koalas. Would the zoo have these popular animals removed? Would new transfers cease? It turns out the answer was no. Given that moving animals is tricky SSP plans do have a grace period before animals under the SSP need to be transferred away. Both to allow for arrangements to be made and for the zoo in question to try and get certified again. So provided Columbus shaped up, things would be fine. But if things dragged out, problems would emerge that could prove serious threats to the zoo’s financial security. 

AZA disaccreditation and denial of appeal was a slap in the face, but not necessarily an unearned one. And remember, while Columbus may not be the most famous city in the country, the Columbus Zoo absolutely was a golden child of the AZA. Heck the AZA conference was scheduled there for the very next year. The AZA’s actions here were a clear sign that no one was above the law, and that they took animal ambassadors and financial management seriously. 

On the other hand, golden children do not remain in the doghouse for very long. Notably, the AZA did not reschedule or relocate their planned conference in Columbus. The speculation was that they fully anticipated Columbus returning to the fold when they reapplied the next year. They hosted the AZA conference. The speculation was right.

In terms of long term consequences for the Zoo, well, it’s too early to tell in some respects. It’s not topping any of the recent lists I’m seeing. But it’s still regarded by some as one of the ‘Big Four’ Zoos by some enthusiasts. Attendance has been crawling back since COVID. The fact that no animal the zoo actually possessed was the victim of maltreatment no doubt limited the backlash. The new zoo leadership seems ready, willing, and able to improve standards and keep up Columbus’ legacy of success. The beloved but aging North America region is getting an overhaul right now. 

But the scandal hasn’t gone away completely. New charges, plea deals, and sentences are still emerging from the corruption investigations. Restitution is being paid to the Zoo, but it does not necessarily equal the amount lost. Sponsors are also clawing back what they gave, and are not inclined to reinvest. And although a Franklin County report claims the County did not lose any money one wonders what will happen next levy season…