As requested on my last write-up, allow me to tell you the story of Clock Man, a mysterious unidentified animation remembered only through broken memories of childhood fear. The search for it was long and complicated with many dead ends, sowing a lot of doubt about its existence. And in the end, it was not only real, but right under everyone's noses the whole time.

Initial Report

On January 12th 2012, on bungie.net's off-topic forum titled The Flood, a named Commander Santa recounted a dreadful childhood memory of an animation he had watched. The post begins with the following introduction:

I am looking for a particular animated short that terrified me as a child. I've been looking on and off for it for nearly 4 years. Maybe it doesn't exsist. Maybe...nobody should ever find it. But if someone can - it's The Flood.

He goes on to describe his memory of the short:

This short animation was terrifying as a child. The scene is still burned into my mind (28 years later). It's of a young boy sleeping in his bed. Above his bed is a ticking clock. All the lights in the room are off and it is very dark. Suddenly the clock begins to slow down it's ticking and eventually it stops...on midnight. When the clock stops a Greenish/Bluish man climbs out of the clock. The boy wakes up just in time to see this man dressed in black grab him out of bed and kidnap him by carrying him through a window. The "Clock Man" takes the boy on some kind of terrifying adventure and brings him back to his bed before sunrise.

And if the post so far comes across to you as a tad dramatic, it only intensifies in his closing statement:

It's been a very long time since I've seen that short animation and it has haunted me for almost 30 years. I can't begin to tell you how happy I'd be to see it one more time before I pass away.

He was so determined to find this piece of media, in fact, that he promised a reward for anyone who could find it for him.

If by chance...someone was able to locate this terrifying child's animation and post it in this thread - there is a very good possibility that you will be handsomely rewarded in a PM from me.

This post intrigued quite a bit of people, wondering what the short could have contained that affected him so deeply, and what they could do to help. In particular, the comment about seeing the short before he passed away raised some alarm bells, with one user asking if that implied he was currently dying. But Commander Santa assured them:

No, but I'm strangely nostolgic tonight. I'd think about Clock Man sometimes at random. In junior high, high school, college...even sometimes now as a father. I just want to see Clock Man one more time. You never know when you are going to check out.

When asked if he thinks the animation is genuinely scary or if it just felt that way since he was a kid, he replied:

I'm not exactly sure. I remember feeling great terror whilst watching it. [...] I rember being scared for the boy and just wishing that Clock Man would take him home.

Santa would continue responding to questions, and periodically reminded people of his promise of a reward for finding the short to keep up morale. The overall story he recalled was that of a little boy being swept up by a man who jumped out of a clock, and taken to a series of scary places as the boy begged to go home. When Clock Man finally did take him home, he hopped back into the clock, and the boy's father came to check on him in the morning. The boy wanted to tell his father what happened, but he didn't or couldn't.

He mentioned other details such as the Clock Man having "a pointy(ish) hat" and "a rather bushy beard," as well as dark clothing and a cape. He also described the animation as "felt-like" stop motion, and - most crucially - he said that he saw it on Pinwheel, a show similar to Sesame Street that aired on Nickelodeon from 1977-1990. He further narrowed down the timeframe to somewhere between 1984 and 1987 during the morning hours, as he was sure he had watched it while home sick from kindergarten.

Despite the additional details, no one in the thread could find what he was looking for. Even after visualizing what he remembered, the scene wasn't ringing any bells with people. A few comments accused Commander Santa of being a troll, or compared his writing and descriptions to that of a creepypasta.

>I don't think it exists.

I'm sorry OP, I have to agree with this.

This seems like a scary story or a Slender Man in the making. Are you sure that show? I'm sure that if the show was real their should have at least SOMETHING, ANYTHING. If it was ever aired on TV it would've been noted.

It likely didn't help that Santa's descriptions of the feelings Clock Man filled him with sounded almost like a psychological horror, referring to the short as a dark secret he had been harboring and thinking about for decades, as well as a mention that the short had given him a phobia of being kidnapped.

I know I am not insane. This cartoon made me afraid of kidnappers until I was 16 years old. I want to see Clock Man and face him as an adult. We are so close...I know he's out there - he doesn't want to face me now that I've grown. He preys on children.

What likely helped even less was this rather Candle-Cove-esque description of Pinwheel:

Strangely, many people old enough to watch the show Pinwheel have commented that the show would put them in a dreamlike state when watching - some go as far to say they were "hypnotized" while watching and had hallucenations. Whether this is only a result of the memories being so old or something more sinister I cannot say. Although many have shared my fuzzy memory of Clock Man, others suggest that Clock Man is a result of being hypnotized by Pinwheel's allure.

But overall, Commander Santa was a well-established member of The Flood with a good reputation, so the comments distrusting him at this point were in the minority. Still, many speculated that Clock Man might have been a bad dream he'd had and was mistaking for reality, especially considering he watched it while sick. Or that he might be conflating multiple shows together in his memory.

Santa remained steadfast in his conviction that the short was real, even if he was misremembering details, as well as Pinwheel as the short's origin. A Pinwheel-based short that was ruled out early on was an episode of the Swedish cartoon Alfie Atkins, and non-Pinwheel cartoons that were ruled out included The Sandman, The Clock Store, Nutcracker Fantasy and the Davey and Goliath episode The Stopped Clock.

Investigation: The Flood

When The Flood struggled to find the short Commander Santa was looking for, many users recommended he try 4chan, due to their reputation for correctly identifying a wide variety of things with little information. After taking all of the information he had laid out to the /x/ board, he received one noteworthy reply:

Holy shit! I remember this fucking short!

It was like claymation with poorly made dolls and the animation was real stuttery and shit. It started with the kid's mom telling him goodnight and closing the door behind her after shutting off the light. Then the door slowly creeks open while a generic eerie wind sound blows and the camera cuts into the kids room at the foot of his bed. He struggles to open his eyes as they slowly droop and he eventually gives in and goes to sleep. Then it cuts up to the clock while the second hand slowly ticks to 12:00. When it hits it there's like a low bell ringing sound and the camera goes back to the foot of the kid's bed. The "Clock Man's" head peeks into the room like the clock were a window. Unlike what the OP's image shows, the Clock Man's head then recedes back and his arms comes out and pushes the clock open like a door, revealing a big dark hole behind the clock. Then Clock Man hops out of the hole and the kid wakes up and stares beady eyed at the Clock Man. Then the Clock Man starts doing like a weird Irish river-dance. Oh, and the Clock Man looks a little different from the picture. He was wearing like an all black turtleneck sweater and a black bowler hat. His skin was green and I don't really remember him having a beard but he did have a big toothy smile and two real big eyes with very tiny pupils.

I don't think I actually watched much after that. But I distinctly remember the Clock Man saying his name was "Benjamin" and he rung an elevator up to the kid's window.

Commander Santa was certain this user was thinking of the same short he was. Although he didn't remember the Clock Man being named Benjamin, and he was sure Clock Man had a beard, he claimed that everything else matched.

However, the biggest break in the case came on January 18th. A user by the name o0MrCheesy0o found a from March 6th 2004, in the Horror forum on a website called AnimationNation. Users were discussing cases of psychological horror in cartoons, and one particular comment on the thread, written by one Michael W. Howe, stood out.

There were a few segments on Nickelodeon's Pinwheel when I was younger that had some scary moments: [...]

[T]here was one based on this story of a little girl who lost her red shoes. so she asked a local wizard for hel (who could appear and disappear anywhere). He helped her, but told her she had to tell her mom. The little girl goes home and doesn't hoping the wizard would forget. But then the musicgets eerie as the narrator says 'But the Wizard...did not, forget.' And we see him appearing and disappearing along the house floors, till he suddenly pops out of her clock and steals her away, demanding to know why she didn't tell her mom. She makes up for it by sewing stars to put in the night sky, and the next day is returned home, and tells her mom the truth.

This description gave Santa a much stronger reaction than the 4chan post:

HOLY -blam!- -blam!-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS CLOCK MAN!!!!!!!!!! [...]

It wasn't a little boy (I probably imagined a boy as I was a young boy at the time) - but I can almost remember the story leading up to the bedroom scene now.

I'm tearing up - SERIOUSLY!...I'm shaking.

We are going to find Clock Man - TONIGHT

This discovery brought a wave of optimism across the thread. Many comments celebrated how it had brought members of The Flood together to help one man search for closure. Many were confident the short would soon be found. Those who were actively investigating the mystery moved away from clock-based keywords and instead searched for anything related to wizards and red shoes. The first, most obvious rule-out was The Wizard of Oz.

After that, users found that Hans Christian Andersen had written a story called The Red Shoes. The fairytale is centered around a vain and spoiled girl who wears a fancy pair of red shoes everywhere, even to church, until she is confronted by a bearded guard who curses the shoes to cause the girl to dance uncontrollably until it takes over her life, leading to the amputation of her legs and then her death. Some posited the idea that the Clock Man short might have been an adaptation of this tale. In particular, a company called Mel-O-Toons had made an of the story in 1960 - one with a less bleak ending, where instead of dying due to the dancing red shoes, the girl was rescued from them and came clean to her adopted mother, after which all was well.

Commander Santa had initially been confident that this was the short he had been looking for. It had almost everything. A little girl main character with red shoes, telling her mother a lie related to the shoes, finding herself in a scary situation that taught her a lesson, and ending with the girl telling her mother the truth. It was an animated short, and while it wasn't stop motion, the animation was cheap and choppy enough to believably be mistaken for stop motion in a hazy childhood memory.

But...I said it had almost everything. And the one thing it didn't have was pretty important.

It didn't have Clock Man.

Even though Christen Anderson's original tale features a bearded soldier as the catalyst for the conflict, no such character exists in the animation. The Red Shoes was soon after ruled out.

The next blow to morale came after Commander Santa purchased a large collection of bootleg Pinwheel episodes that had been compiled and put up for sale, and didn't find Clock Man on any of the episodes in the collection. Since Pinwheel is a rare show and largely lost media itself, having aired so long ago with no official home media release, this unofficial collection would have been the best chance Commander Santa had, and still he turned up empty-handed. He had also contacted former Nickelodeon staff asking for information, and was told that the shorts featured in Pinwheel were collected from a wide variety of international sources, with little to no documentation and no archive of the shorts to speak of. It was starting to set in that the short would be a tiny needle in a massive haystack.

It didn't help that the Clock Man thread on The Flood had grown immensely as the search dragged on, with a large amount of new users flooding (hah) into the conversation as the topic went more and more viral. This mass of newer users, who had little to no prior knowledge of Commander Santa and his reputation, expressed increasing amounts of skepticism toward him, and comments accusing him of being a troll and writing creepypasta became more common. Many pointed to the many dead ends the search had endured, as well as the melodramatic writing style Santa had a habit of using. From the perspective of these users, his somewhat flowery writing style and the way he seemed to portray the short as if it had deeply impacted his life, as well as the offhand comment describing Pinwheel as if it was some mind-altering experiment that put children in a hallucinogenic hypnosis state, had all the markings of a troll that was trying way too hard to scare others and create a spooky internet hoax.

There were a few curt accusations throughout the thread, but one particularly presumptive comment from Epicly Uber seemed to catch Santa's attention:

I think OP is trolling, I was cool at first but now I think the nutcracker fantasy opening is as close as we're ever going to get, I think the nutcracker fantasy is it and OP figured out the popularity of this thread and is now abusing it, basically making everybody search for something that has already been found.
OP I'm calling you out for taking everybody for fools, I want proof that you actually ordered DVD's.

And Santa responded:

Unfortunately, many people have been calling me a troll. I cannot offer any 'proof' I am not. [...] If people don't want to help anymore, I can't blame them. This has been insanely frustrating. [...]

Before, I wanted to find Clock Man to put my childhood demon to rest

Now, if I don't find Clock Man I will forever be remembered as a troll. I've been on B.net since 2004 "Legendary Santa" no longer exsists. I don't want people to think of me as some piece of trash that would do all of this for attention. But if I don't find Clock Man - not only will he still haunt me... but he'll have made me feel like a fool.

All of this attention seemed to become too much for Commander Santa. As January turned over into February, his responses and contributions to the thread slowed, before he stopped commenting completely. After a few days of worry and speculation as to what happened to him, user Epic Is Uber claimed to have messaged him on Xbox Live, and that Commander Santa explained he had decided to leave the thread until he found Clock Man.

A now deleted Flood thread appears to confirm this. In addition to updating and tying up loose leads, Commander Santa makes his proclamation:

I have exiled myself from you all as I have not been able to find the elusive Clockman as of yet. Many, MANY people have helped in the search.As of yet, I have nothing to bring you. [...]

A few Floodians have sent me messages on XBox Live - asking me if I was still alive. I have been stripped of my Mythic Status, disgraced among my fellow Floodians, and too ashamed to return.

In my mind, i'll return someday - on a figurative white horse, carrying Clock man's head on a stick, but in reality, the search is at a standstill. It's taken a few drinks to get up the courage to come back and speak my peace, but I respect this site too much to return without proof of my childhood nemisis. I'm logging off now, hopefully not for the final time from b.net - but if it turns out to be...

THank you to everyone who has ever been on this site. For better or for worse, it has had an impact on my life.

This post brought a wave of devastation to the thread. Some were upset that Commander Santa was made to feel like he couldn't show his face around the search team, and pleaded with him to come back. Others were angry at his absence - activity in the thread had a tendency to slow down when he wasn't online and responding to comments, so his decision to stay off the thread was predicted to kill discussion and, consequently, the search. Those who doubted Commander Santa's authenticity were claiming victory, asserting that he had been a fraud all along and that Clock Man didn't exist, and he left because he realized he couldn't keep up the lie anymore. The dying thread, with its dwindling activity and lack of new leads, turned to infighting between users and memes about how Commander Santa finally fell victim to Clock Man.

Despite frequent thread bumps and a continuous string of comments throughout the years, nothing of note was suggested, and no new information was dug up. The search had grown stagnant, and without Commander Santa's help, interest in finding the short, and faith in its existence, seemed to fade away.

Investigation: Lost Media Wiki Forums

In 2016, a new wave of interest in finding Clock Man swept the internet when the helm was taken up by the lost media community. The Lost Media Wiki founder, known as Dycaite, created a new on the Lost Media Wiki forums (this thread had been accidentally deleted in 2020 and today exists only as ). He expressed a personal interest in finding the short, as the search and descriptions of it reminded him of Cracks (aka "Crack Master"), a similar child-scaring short from Sesame Street that had been a popular lost media case years prior. He created a page dedicated to Clock Man on the wiki to compile known information from Commander Santa's posts, and then a thread on the forums to boost the search and document his personal search efforts. He had managed to contact multiple people who had either watched the short or worked on Pinwheel, and shared his findings in the thread.

His first contact was Michael W. Howe, and he asked if he could provide a thorough recount of his memories of the short. He also sent along Commander Santa's comic rendition of the Clock Man abduction scene and asked if it rang any bells. Howe responded, stating that the comic was similar to what happened in the cartoon, and gave a more detailed rundown of what he remembered. He described the short starting out with a little girl being given red shoes by her mother, and warned not to lose them. But after playing outside, she ends up losing them, and when she can't find them, she asks a local wizard for help. The wizard gives her a new pair, but instructs her to tell her mother. The girl decides not to tell, hoping the wizard would forget about the deal. That night, as the girl is in bed with a pendulum clock above her, the wizard is seen entering her house and phasing in and out as he ascends the stairs, while an eerie-sounding narrator states, "But the wizard did not forget." Back in the bedroom, the girl watches in horror as the pendulum clock stops and turns into a window, which the wizard flies out of and carries her back to his house. As penance for not coming clean to her mother, the girl is instructed to knit stars for the night sky, after which she is returned home. In the morning, she admits to her mother what happened, and her mother forgives her as the wizard watches them, smiling.

He went on to describe the animation as "stop-motion paper animation, like they laid the characters on the backgrounds and moved them around."

This summary had intrigued Dycaite, and it inspired him to try and get in contact with former crew members who had worked on Pinwheel. His first successful contact was Michael Karp, a former writer. Karp expressed vague familiarity with the short, and speculated it aired during season 1 of Pinwheel while he was brought on during season 2. He also gave Dycaite the email of his colleague, Tippi Fortune, thinking she might have more information to share.

This correspondence thoroughly convinced Dycaite that Clock Man was a real thing that existed and not just a creepypasta, as had been a fairly popular opinion by that time. And when he managed to get in touch with Tippi Fortune, she gave him more information to work with. While she admitted to having no memory of the short, she mentioned that all animated shorts for Pinwheel were acquired from Coe Films, a company that collected shorts from the UK, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe to sell to cable companies as interstitial programming. However since then, most major networks had started producing their own material, and the market for such shorts died. As such, Coe Films went defunct and she couldn't find the contact information for anyone who worked there. But she forwarded Dycaite's email to everyone she knew who might have something to share. But despite Fortune's help and enthusiasm, none of her contacts got back to Dycaite.

Dycaite then managed to reach out to Commander Santa with everything he had found, including Howe's detailed summary. Commander Santa confirmed that Howe's account matches his own memories, so finding Howe's wizard short would hopefully also mean finding Clock Man.

Dycaite hit a dead end around this point, so he opened the floor to the wider community to help with the search. In addition to the thread and wiki page, a friend of Dycaite's, Bedhead Bernie, made an summarizing known information and spread it around online. The two also posted their own summations to YouTube of the search so far - Dycaite posted a recounting his investigations, and Bedhead Bernie posted a similar as well as an he did with Commander Santa.

These efforts attracted the wider lost media community, who was enticed by descriptions of the short. Some users decided to chase the Coe Films lead, contacting anyone who was associated with the company and searching for an archive of the shorts they acquired. Though this would be a daunting task, as Coe Films was thought to have upwards of 2,500 shorts. Others tried to look for as many episodes of Pinwheel as they could to see if Clock Man was featured in any of them, and others still compiled as many alleged accounts of people who had watched the short as they could. Many discussions attempting to narrow down leads focused on speculations around Clock Man's country of origin, and if it was an adaptation of a preexisting story or European fairytale - everything from a Danish adaptation of The Red Shoes to a German adaptation of Rumpelstiltskin to an Irish short in which the wizard was actually a leprechaun were all pitched as possible leads.

While the brute-force nature of the search wasn't ideal, the sentiment that Clock Man was real was pretty unanimous within the thread, and so the search efforts kept up throughout 2016 and into 2017. While users on The Flood had been more or less beholden to Commander Santa's word as well as his activity within the thread, the lost media community was more decentralized and independent, determined to solve the mystery with or without further help from Commander Santa or Dycaite. This plus the community being entirely centered around looking for mysterious media, and having intuition around obscure internet searches and contacting relevant people, likely gave users the confidence that they would eventually find Clock Man once and for all.

The Discovery

The date is December 11, 2017. It has been a year and a half since Dycaite started the thread on the Lost Media Wiki Forums, and nearly 6 years since Commander Santa's post on The Flood.

While most of the thread spent months attempting to find Clock Man by searching for rare Pinwheel episodes or brainstorming the precise story the short was based on, some were more focused in searching through online databases and library catalogues using a series of keywords. One user by the name of Nitratenerd took this approach, and at one point searched for the term "the wizard" on WorldCat. After sifting through 3-4 pages of results, he found a YouTube link, and the accompanying description caught his attention. When he clicked on the link and watched the video, he was struck with excitement, and confidence that he had found the Clock Man short. He was quick to share his find in the forums:

Guys. GUYS

I think I found it. Holy crap.

Can everyone else take a look at this:

It has everything that was described. The clock and all. Although its in Russian, the worldcat listing says: The story of a little girl who is taught the importance of telling the truth by the local wizard. For primary grades.

RIGHT?!?!

This is clearly the original, the english dub might be available at the Brooklyn Public Library, near me. Can someone send this to Commander Santa and Micheal Howe?!?! Dycaite are you seeing this?!!’

My heart is beating at a thousand beats a minute. Please check it out.

While the short was not in English, it matched up with Commander Santa's and especially Michael W. Howe's recollections almost perfectly. There was the stop motion paper animation. The girl. The missing clothing. The wizard with a black beard, dark clothing and a pointy hat. The creation of stars for the night sky.

And most importantly, there was the wizard jumping out of a clock to sweep the girl away.

The reaction on the forums was pretty unanimous - this was the short Commander Santa had been haunted by since he was a sick child in 1984. Clock Man had been found.

Upon further research, it was found that the short was called O parádivé Sally (roughly translated to "About Dressy Sally") and was created in 1976 by Art and Animation (AAA) Studio in Czechoslovakia. It was an adaptation of a story of the same name by Jan Vladislav.

It was also found that the short was first posted to the Czech video site uloz.to in 2014, and went completely unnoticed by Commander Santa or any searchers on The Flood. 3 years later on September 22nd 2017, it was posted to YouTube and went unnoticed by the lost media community for a few months, until someone happened to find the right keywords on the right archive to find it. This turn of events would later lead to Clock Man being commonly used as the de facto example of long lost media searches ending with the media being discovered on YouTube.

While most were confident the search was more or less finished, there was still more closure to be had. Many were awaiting Commander Santa's reaction to the short and, most crucially, the discovery of an English dub. The Czech (not Russian) version Nitratenerd found would more than likely not be the version Commander Santa and Michael W. Howe would have seen on Pinwheel. Only when an English version was found would the search be considered officially over.

The former would come about 10 days later, when Dycaite gave the update everyone had been anticipating - Commander Santa confirmed that O parádivé Sally was the Clock Man short he had been searching for. In addition, he seemed to make good on his promise of a reward for the find.

Well guys, something truly incredible has just happened.

Santa got back to me about the short and HAS CONFIRMED that O Paradive Sally IS INDEED CLOCK MAN!

But here is where things get truly incredible... Santa has pledged to donate *$1,000* to the LMW!!! [...]

Santa, if you happen to come across this post, thank you. Thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart. I have never been graced with such generosity and it is truly an incredible feeling.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

This was incredible news, and motivated people to find the English dub of the short - the true version Commander Santa had seen. The first lead came from AAA Studio themselves, who stated that the short was sold to The Learning Corporation of America in 1978 - this almost certainly would have been the company who dubbed the short into English. However, AAA Studio was not aware of much beyond that. Because O parádivé Sally was made in a Soviet-occupied, communist Czechoslovakia, the original creators had no knowledge of what became of the short once it was exported overseas.

Upon further digging, some listings were found on old archives that indicated an English dub did exist under the title Sally. But from here, the investigation ran in circles for a few weeks - there was a lot of confusion over who exactly owned the short, or Pinwheel for that matter, and which libraries were likely to own copies. The investigation also appeared to split between the forum thread and a Google doc, which attempted to make information easier to search through, but also spread the already dwindling search team thinner.

But then, on January 11th 2018 - exactly one month after the short was first found - Dycaite announced that the English version had been found. He provided a link to an upload both on uloz.to and Vimeo (both of which no longer work, but has since been by AAA Studio). He credited a user named Tomysshadow and an entity called A/V Geeks for the find.

Users on the thread were ecstatic over the find, having finally gotten to see what scared Commander Santa so badly as a child. In particular, one user marveled over the line "But the wizard did not forget," recollected exactly by Michael W. Howe.

Amid this excitement, Tomysshadow explained how he had found the footage, courtesy of A/V Geeks.

Not having any luck with the library listings on Worldcat, I knew it was unlikely that the film was going to be found via a library listing. The problem is, I didn't really know where else you'd go about finding a 16mm film reel anywhere. I decided I wanted to ask an expert. Perhaps someone who had collected many films before would know where to find these kinds of things.

I had been searching Google for the terms "Learning Corporation of America" and "Kratky Film" together in the hopes of finding more resources. I noticed that LCA had licensed more films from Kratky than just Sally. They also had a series of animated films featuring a character only known as Mole. Mole and the Bulldozer, Mole and the Painter, Mole and the Rocket, etc. I was able to find the LCA versions of these films online, uploaded to the Internet Archive by an uploader known as A/V Geeks.

I found out that A/V Geeks has a website. There is also an organization they work with called AFANA, which preserves educational films. I figured these would be perfect candidates to ask where these films are. I didn't tell anyone about this because I didn't think it'd be anything eventful. I was thinking long-term: I was only emailing them because I wanted to learn where such films may be found and how they managed to collect so many films over the years. A/V Geeks has over 25 000 films preserved, and they've uploaded many of them to the Internet Archive for public viewing.

So when I explained my case I was surprised to hear back from them saying they had a film called Sally by LCA. Two days later and without any prompting, they just went ahead and recorded and uploaded it and sent it to me in an email. They were a pleasure to work with.

With the short and its English version now found, the story was now clear through the haze of foggy childhood memories. The story follows a girl named Sally, who is given a pair of yellow gloves by her mother, and cautioned not to lose them. But she loses one of the gloves while playing outside, and when she can't find it anywhere, she hesitantly asks for help from the wizard (who in the English version is called Mr. Kadabra). The wizard gives her the missing glove, but instructs her to tell her mother what happened. Sally returns home and doesn't tell her mother, breaking her promise with the wizard. And so the wizard visits her at night, jumping out of the clock above her bed and whisking her away to his house. As punishment for disobeying him, he instructs her to crochet stars for the night sky. Once the sky is illuminated with the stars, the wizard takes Sally home, hopping back into her clock after putting her to bed. In the morning, she admits to her mother what had happened, making the wizard proud.

Some in the thread believed the search hadn't been fully completed, as there was still the mystery of which episode of Pinwheel the Sally short had aired on. To this day, it hasn't been found, and some wonder if the short even aired on Pinwheel in the first place. Sure, many users remember having watched it on Pinwheel, but since the companies that owned it were known to sell shorts as interstitials, some floated the idea that the short may have played during commercial breaks in Pinwheel time slots, leading to the false memory of them featuring in an episode of the show. But until more Pinwheel episodes are found, this is only speculation. And for most people, finding Clock Man itself was enough to end the search.

Case Closed

The story of Clock Man would go on to be known as one of the most famous in lost media history. The fact that it took years to find gave plenty of time for it to build intrigue. Its early descriptions resembling those of a lost episode creepypasta made the short all the more compelling once evidence of its existence began to build up. This search also became the de facto example of lost media being found on YouTube, hidden in plain sight.

Clock Man also sits alongside other popular lost media cases such as Cracks and Episode 847 of Sesame Street - media that people remember having frightened them as kids, and the discovery of which helped not only to preserve media, but to bring people closure and put their unsettling childhood memories to rest.

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also has an affiliated Discord server, which you can join here:

And who would imagine such a peaceful, serene hobby would have such bad actors?

tl;dr: Online tea discord admins get ousted for being racist, sexist, and homophobic. Whistleblower gets banned, admin resigns, and then starts a "no woke people" tea server immediately after resignation

THE SETTING AND CAST

CommuniTEA (CT): A happy-go-lucky tea discord server that exploded in popularity over COVID. This led to many growing pains, including the presence of...

LiquidProust (LP): Runs LiquidProust on Etsy, a tea shop that "sources" various tea from the internet. Ex-Mormon with a passion for community-building and casting a wide net, often to a fault. Overshares, although the verdict is still out on whether his video missives are pathos-laden marketing language to hype up his tea or simply avenues to vent about being six figures in debt because of his business practices. Posts rather unhinged videos on Instagram to sell tea, such as treating them "like drugs" and .

The Red Snoot: A self-identifying "Christian" and a moderator of CommuniTEA. Well, you'll learn quite a bit about him, as the rest of this post is mostly centered around his antics.

THE BACKSTORY OF LIQUID PROUST.

Based on our previous description, you might get the sense that LiquidProust's personality did not quite mesh well with people in CommuniTEA trying to have genuine discussions about their favorite drink. Despite being a vendor that cared about community growth, his brash nature and quantity of infractions/complaints proved to be too great a toll. .

THE BACKSTORY OF THE RED SNOOT.

It's an unwritten law that a true hobby space is incomplete without an authority figure who's secretly a bigot, and CommuniTEA was not exempt from this fate. During a discussion on mental health, The Red Snoot told an openly LGBTQ+ member of the community that (1) he would burn in hell, and (2) that he needed to get conversion therapy to avoid this fate. Of course, this self-proclaimed "Christian" claims it was done out of love from his heart, but of course, the server assessed it on different terms.

This act led to the as a position of authority in the server; .

Key takeaways from his crashout:

1. He regrets sharing the article--but of course, only after the community backlash proved to be too great.

2. He points out that "Administrators make decisions without Moderator actions". This is of course, fair critique, but this is quite relevant for the main part of the drama.

And so, we bid The Red Snoot adieu from CommuniTEA...

THE JOINING OF FORCES

The Red Snoot, of course, could not stand without having some sort of authority over the tea community. He then started messaging LiquidProust, and eventually joined the "LiquidProust Discord" (LPCord), and transformed it from a vendor specific discord into a "general community" one, calling it "The Tea Table" (TTT), with The Red Snoot and LiquidProust now co-admining the Discord.

THE WELCOMING COMMUNITY (NOT)

TTT started rather well, serving as a more casual alternative to CT -- especially while CT was still going through its growing pains with moderation that tried to balance the varying expertise of its users. The chill atmosphere and lax moderation led to, of course, very interesting characters here and there, such as:

1. A known scammer named JayFromHK: he ran a shop but eventually decided fulfilling orders was optional and scammed people out of thousands of dollars. He also stole tea from a purported "storage service"

2. PuerhJunky, a nazi sympathizer and genuinely unhinged conspiracy theorist. His beliefs include but are not limited to COVID antivax, space denialism, and antisemitism.

LiquidProust, in his infinite intellect and compassion for community outliers, decided to permit this behavior: .

This led to many emboldend members parading their views, such as some transphobic views that LP has told everyone to "respect".

To the surprise of no one, this led to many members of the community leaving and moderators resigning from positions of power. This cleared the board for the remaining mod team, who were now more accepting of bigoted and backwards beliefs.

This "old guard" of moderators quite enjoy , being utterly tone-deaf despite the objectification bothering . Of course, they profess innocence due to "being girl dads" and they'd fight the people being weird around women them despite being the very ones making those comments. Besides their coded misogyny, this group has a host of other troubling comments such as claiming and so on.

INTRODUCING: SPICE

The server surprisingly continued to grow. As the moderators were rather checked out of the community, the server needed more moderators. A few became moderators, including spice, a new member of the community. He has been into tea for only a few months, but his passion clearly spoke through as he was selected. He was buying teas from LiquidProust, complimenting the teas, and so on.

Spice was a very beloved member of the community, who went out of their way to make people feel welcome, spend a lot of time talking to new users, send a lot of tea to people getting into tea. As a very kind genuine user, he was often quite recognized. As a moderator, he was a very welcome member of the community and was a massive improvement to the moderator team, along with many of the new moderators that

THE MELTDOWN

The peace didn't last long, as the mod channel was apparently filled with quite a bit of "locker room talk" -- orientalism, sexism, and a lot of dogwhistle language. . suddenly banning Spice from the server without consulting with other moderators. Ignoring all the riots in the discord, of course, LiquidProust decides to show how woke he is by claiming he is fine and understands because .

. From whether it be (JayFromHK) , but of course, given the opportunity for statement, and show no remorse, while being an active member of . Oops. Apparently it took hours of the new mod team fighting LP and Snoot to get Jay eventually banned.

It doesn't help that Snoot also attempted to override moderator decisions when taking down a sales post where someone was trying to sell . Also, amusingly, tried to make the mods who made the decision apologize to the person. Do you remember

This, combined with Snoot's homphobic past gets revealed at the same time. The revelation did not go well with many people leaving and starting a splinter tea community as many people are rightfully upset that they dont want administrators that were bigots. , only after the entirity of the newly appointed moderator team steps down from their positions in protest.

If this was the end, this wouldn't even be a good post! Snoot does not want to give up power, and , that is "Not woke" and "Oligarchical", and of course . . Rumors have it that he thinks he was persecuted for being Christian. .

The splinter server is now quite active and trying to rebuild the community. What will happen to the Tea Table, LiquidProust, and everyone else? I guess we will find out on the next episode.

Model Ship World is a website at least 20 years old 100% dedicated to being a forum for ship model builders and has at least 20,000 members. It's a place where builders post "build logs" of their projects in which every step of the construction can be documented with photos and text and it contains subheadings for all related aspects of the ancient hobby.

Recently (last winter) they suffered a catastrophic data loss in which all of the user provided content including all 20 years of build logs were erased by hackers, and there WAS NO BACKUP with which to restore anything, they went back to year zero. members started re-submitting their old material and the website slowly got back on it's feet. A few months later the real drama began: It emerged that Model Ship World (hereafter "MSW") was owned by the Nautical Research Guild (The NRG) but run by just two personalities, and about a month or so ago these two personalities announced that they were splitting off from MSW to make an IDENTICAL rival website indistinguishable from MSW and calling it Dry Dock Modeler (DDM). THAT'S the drama. The new website is exactly the same as the old one and uses the same web templates and architecture and format, it looks exactly like MSW. Even the rules for members is the identical text cut and pasted from the first website.

A couple of weeks ago this story broke on reddit on a model building subreddit. The first post from the Original Poster just asked "what is going on" and then within the first day, a newly created reddit account APPARENTLY from Drydock Modeler gave a convoluted explanation of why they felt the world needed a new carbon copy version of an existing website, but very few of the points they raised appeared to really explain the need for a new website. For instance they claimed the MSW and the NRG required fees from the users in order to access the content on their websites and that their new website would be 100% free. Which is fine except that there WERE NO FEES on MSW and never had been. It costs money to join the NRG but you did not need to be an NRG member to fully enjoy everything on MSW. (The NRG was the pre-internet group you joined to get their physical newsletter and which provided about 70 years of hobby related content you had to subscribe to get copies of, if you wanted to see it)

The opening of this topic of the new website sparked a flurry of branching reply comments in which MUCH TEA was spilled. Some replying ALSO had day-old reddit accounts and must have been NRG members or disgruntled MSW members. Within two days whoever had created that new reddit account that was speaking up for the new website deleted all of its posts so there now remains no public explanation from the makers of the new website. Weeks later there is still no explanation explaining why the new website was created and even more surprising, neither of the two websites acknowledge what has happened and there is no discussion about the split on either site. Clearly the inside story concerns who did what to whom on the old website but nobody outside reddit is discussing the split.

and are the two websites involved.

Hi, everyone, it’s ToErrDivine again. Today I’m looking at the Nixon Newell/Miranda Alize AEW drama of 2025, because I thought it deserved a write up and I honestly can’t recall if anyone talked about it here at the time. There’s going to be a lot of background info first, so please feel free to skip the first bit if you already know about it. (I still talk way too much, sorry.) I’d also like to thank for all his help and for making this writeup much better and more comprehensive than it was before, I really appreciate it.

What is professional wrestling?

Professional wrestling is a form of entertainment that combines acting, gymnastics and combat sports, wherein the practitioners act out a story focused around pre-scripted wrestling matches. In essence, they play their characters and the characters punch each other repeatedly for a variety of reasons (some examples: ‘I want to be the very best like no one ever was’, ‘I hate you and want you to fuck off and die’, ‘You’re standing in the way of my goal’, ‘I want to find out which one of us is better’, ‘I want to make a name for myself here’, etc, etc). Wrestling is intended to look as real as possible without anyone sustaining the kind of damage they would if the moves were real (in theory), which enables wrestlers to throw in flashier moves and stunts that nobody would ever actually do in a fight but look fucking sick to an audience. It also involves a lot of frankly ridiculous characters, storylines and motivations that you’re not supposed to take seriously- just sit back and enjoy.

How does career progression work for wrestlers?

Imagine a pyramid diagram with three levels. The lowest and biggest tier is called ‘Independent Promotions’. These are wrestling promotions all around the world who are, for the most part... I don't know if there's a tier below 'minor league', but they're that. Minuscule league. Tiny league, even. They for the most part operate only in one area (say, one city or county/state), and the majority of the wrestlers who work for them are from the surrounding area, with the occasional person from another state or city coming in. The indies are where most wrestlers will learn their trade and hone their skills over time, but they don’t pay much if at all; most wrestlers have day jobs. Depending on where they’re located, independent wrestlers who make a big name for themselves and/or can afford it will often travel overseas, appearing in other promotions and learning even more from the wrestlers they meet there, in the hope of becoming a big, established name and getting a good reputation.

Following on from that, the second, middle tier is called ‘Minor Leagues’. This tier consists of wrestling promotions who are big enough to have their own TV shows, but they’re not the biggest promotions out there. The minor leagues are making considerably more money than the indies, enough to be able to sign wrestlers to actual contracts, but most of the wrestlers who do sign will continue appearing on indie shows because, well, why wouldn’t they? They want publicity and more money as much as the next person. Examples of minor league promotions (in America) include Total Nonstop Action (TNA), Major League Wrestling (MLW), Ring of Honor (ROH, and before 2022), and the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA. No, not that one).

Finally, you have the top tier, ‘Major Leagues’ (not to be confused with MLW… they wish). The major leagues are the biggest wrestling promotions in the world. They have TV shows airing multiple times a week; they hold and televise live shows on a regular basis; they occasionally hold live shows around the world; they have dozens if not hundreds of wrestlers signed to exclusive contracts; and they pay enough that their employees don’t need to work other shows or jobs, though they still do sometimes. This is the smallest tier, mainly because you need a fuckton of money to do what these promotions do, and they only exist in a few countries. Examples include World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE, America), All Elite Wrestling (AEW, America), New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW or New Japan, Japan), World Wonder Ring Stardom (Stardom, Japan), Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA, Mexico) and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL, Mexico).

So, theoretically, a new young star would start off in their local independent scene, keep working their way up and honing their skills until they get big enough to appear in the minor leagues, after which they might then progress to the major leagues, though many are picked up by the major leagues and bypass the minor leagues altogether. The thing is, it doesn’t always quite work out in practice for three big reasons: one, there are a fuckton of independent wrestlers out there, and the major leagues are spoiled for choice when it comes to potential new employees. Plenty of people who are genuinely star quality get passed over for a variety of reasons ranging from valid to stupid- that’s just how it is. Honestly, it does take skill, but there's also a lot of luck involved.

Two, even if you do get into the major leagues, you’re constantly competing with dozens of others to show off your skills, demonstrate your ability and be able to adjust to rapidly-changing circumstances. Most of your coworkers can do what you do, so you need to be memorable and make the crowd love you- and even then, plenty of wrestlers have been cut from the major leagues simply because they never really made that connection with the audience, or they were overshadowed by others. As cruel as it might seem, being good isn’t enough- you need to be great. It’s also generally a good idea to be humble and grateful for any and all opportunities you’re given and to not have an ego, because there really aren’t that many wrestlers who are irreplaceable. (Keep that in mind for later.)

And three, this kind of career progression is only a given if you happen to live in America, Japan or Mexico. If you don’t live in a country where the big promotions are or where the wrestling scene is big enough that you can make wrestling your full-time job, then you either have to accept this and be a wrestler on the side, or go overseas to a country with a bigger scene to try to build your name and/or make it your full-time job. (Many indie wrestlers go wrestle in Japan for a short time as a sort of rite of passage, especially in Britain.) It sucks and it’s unfair, but that’s just how it is.

So, hypothetically, let’s say that you’re a major league wrestler in America who gets cut, but you want to keep wrestling, either full-time or as your main job. What do you do? Well, before 2019, they generally either signed with a promotion in the minor leagues, allowing them to keep wrestling at a prominent level, returned to the indies, both, or went overseas, usually to Japan. After 2019, this was all still there, but there was another option. See, until 2019, there was only one promotion in the major leagues in America, so let’s take a look at how that all worked.

Who are the major league promotions in America?

The first is the biggest wrestling promotion in the world, (formerly the World Wrestling Federation/WWF). You’ve heard of WWE; even if you don’t know anything about wrestling, I guarantee you’ve heard of it. I’m not going to give a full rundown because it would take too long and most of it wouldn’t be relevant, so instead, I’ll give you the salient points:

-WWE was owned for about four decades by . Under his ownership, WWE transformed how the wrestling business in America worked and grew to become a giant that would take down all competitors.

-Some of those competitors folded, some stayed active but were simply dwarfed by WWE, and some were absorbed into WWE. Also, WWE would do their level best to acquire the best wrestlers available, whether they had room for them or not; some were acquired just to stop them from wrestling anywhere else, and never actually did much in WWE.

-In 2010, WWE created NXT, a reality TV show where members of Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW) would compete to become full members of the WWE roster with guidance from experienced wrestlers. FCW was WWE’s developmental brand, where newly-signed wrestlers would go to work on things like the character they’ll play and (in most cases) their new wrestling name, and hone their skills to fit with WWE’s style. (Some of them learn to wrestle from scratch, as WWE often recruits experienced athletes who are not wrestlers.) In 2012, WWE decided to combine the two by folding FCW, cancelling the NXT TV show and making NXT the new developmental brand. The weekly TV show still aired, but now it focused entirely on the rookie wrestlers, giving them a much bigger opportunity to build themselves up and make a connection with the fans before eventually graduating to WWE’s main roster. 

-(Important digression: While WWE was owned by Vince McMahon, NXT was produced and overseen by his son in law, Triple H, and Vince didn’t get involved. As a result, NXT grew and flourished, becoming really, really good and quite different from the rest of WWE. As the years passed, NXT gained a ton of acclaim, especially when a lot of wrestlers graduated from NXT to the main roster and were immediately booked terribly and given awful characters. called NXT ‘the closest thing wrestling has to an Ivy League School’, and he’s right; a lot of wrestlers become full-blown stars in NXT before they even get to the main roster, and some main roster wrestlers even ask to return to NXT to work on their skills and characters, it’s that good.)

-Between NXT and the main roster, WWE employs a lot of people. The end result is that while WWE doesn’t qualify as a monopoly, as there’s plenty of other promotions out there, it became a behemoth that sat so far above the competition that nobody else could claim to be anywhere near it. After WWE bought out their long-time rival company WCW in 2001, their best competitor was TNA, but a whole lot of bad decisions and bad management (which could probably have a bunch of writeups by themselves) led to TNA losing most of its prominence and reputation by the 2010’s. TNA is still around, but it’s nowhere near as big as it ever was, and while it might have claimed to be the second biggest promotion in America until 2019, it’s sitting so far below WWE that it may as well be in another country.

-So, for a long time, people who left WWE for whatever reason didn’t have much of a choice if they wanted to stay on a similar level, and they were generally ‘go to Japan/Mexico’ (OK if you were good with living in another country where English isn’t the main language) or ‘go to TNA’ (OK if you’re good with being in a company that can be charitably described as a clusterfuck. Seriously, TNA could have a whole series of posts just by itself). But that being said…

-…for about four decades, Vince McMahon ruled WWE with a very hands-on approach, and everyone in it (well, nearly everyone- as previously mentioned, Vince didn’t get involved with NXT, so the people there were safe) had to put up with their jobs being dictated by a man who is , an , and who perpetrated and covered up a large number of crimes, . WWE was and is the destination for wrestlers, but it came with a lot of caveats, and the people working there were dealing with a lot.

And then 2019 came around, and everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked Tony Khan threw his hat in the ring.

What is AEW?

, or AEW for short, is a professional wrestling company founded in 2019, owned by and situated in Jacksonville, Florida. (Obligatory Jason Mendoza reference goes here. In fact, Tony’s father Shahid owns the Jacksonville Jaguars.) It’s the second-biggest wrestling promotion in the world behind WWE. Now, when I say that, I need to make it clear that AEW is big, but it’s not really on WWE’s level. It is, however, much bigger than TNA, MLW, NWA and any other promotion that’s fighting for third place. Like WWE, AEW is on television multiple times a week, like WWE, AEW has its own developmental brand, Ring of Honor (Tony Khan bought it in 2022), and like WWE, AEW has become a powerhouse, employing some of the best wrestlers in the world. In other words, while it’s definitely competition, it’s not going to overthrow, outdo or consume WWE any time soon.

One thing that I need to emphasise, though, is one of AEW’s most notable qualities: it has nothing to do with WWE, structurally. It was founded by Tony Khan and four wrestlers (Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks), and nobody in the McMahon family has ever been involved with it. In short, it’s a completely different company with a completely different approach to wrestling, and it gave wrestlers who didn’t want to wrestle for WWE somewhere to go where they didn’t have to work with, deal with and put up with Vince McMahon’s bullshit (until 2022- we’ll get to that later).

Something important that I need to mention is that if a wrestler leaves WWE, there’s a pretty low chance that they’ll ever return unless they’re one of the bigger names or unless they become big after leaving. AEW gave a lot of ex-WWE wrestlers a place to go, and there are a lot of ex-WWE wrestlers who became stars in AEW after being minor players at best in WWE, and could theoretically return to WWE as much bigger names than they were when they started there. In fact, one of them was Cody Rhodes, who managed to build his name up enough that he would return to WWE in 2022 as a bigger name than he’d been before he’d left, and would go on to become one of their most prominent names.

Having established all that…

What is a jobber?

, also known as ‘enhancement talent’, are basically the lowest tier of wrestlers. The term comes from the phrase ‘doing the job’- that is, your job is to go out there and lose to make your opponent look good. Jobbers usually wind up having short matches where they get some token offence in and then lose unceremoniously. They also wind up in ‘squash matches’, where they get beaten very quickly and often get no offence in.

Being a jobber serves multiple purposes: it makes the big names look good, it allows rookies to hone their skills and get more experience, it lets up and comers show their skills and get the attention of the fans, and it lets newcomers pay their dues, among others. Upon arriving in a big promotion, most wrestlers (unless they’re big names) will be jobbers for a while, or at the very least won’t be involved in major storylines. (This is also true of most new wrestlers, once they’ve reached the level of actually appearing on shows.) Many of AEW’s big names worked their way up from being jobbers- Megan Bayne, Harley Cameron, Kyle Fletcher, Swerve Strickland, Willow Nightingale, the list goes on. There’s nothing unremarkable or shameful about it.

Who are Nixon Newell and Miranda Alize?

(born 15^th November 1994) is a Welsh wrestler. She played multiple sports as a child and teenager and was aiming for a place on the Welsh under-16s football team when she suffered a severe knee injury that cost her the place. When she turned 16, she gave up football and planned to go on hiatus from sports, but instead started training as a professional wrestler. 

Newell started wrestling in 2013. Initially alternating between the names ‘Nixon’ and ‘Nixon Newell’ before settling on the latter, she spent the next several years making a name for herself in various promotions across Britain, and also spent some time wrestling in Japan. Becoming respected and well-liked in the field, she signed a contract with WWE in 2017 and was due to appear in the inaugural Mae Young Classic, a multi-night all-female tournament. 

…unfortunately, the key word there is was, because Newell had a freak accident at training and tore her ACL, taking her out of the tournament before it even began. After recovering, Newell appeared on a number of NXT house shows (live, non-televised and non-recorded shows that NXT puts on in various places around Florida, allowing their rookies to get more experience and develop their characters) under her real name, and then would officially debut in NXT under her new name, Tegan Nox, in the 2018 Mae Young Classic. She defeated her first-round opponent, Zatara, her second-round opponent, Nicole Matthews, and then was defeated by her quarter-final opponent, Rhea Ripley, by referee stoppage…

…because she’d suffered another knee injury. Specifically, she managed to tear her ACL, MCL, LCL, both menisci, fractured her tibia and dislocated her kneecap, all in her left leg.

If you need to pause here and cringe, shudder or loudly exclaim ‘Jesus Christ!’, I really don’t blame you, it’s horrible.

If you are a wrestler, the blunt and grim truth is that you are risking serious injuries every time you have a match. People have accidents, there are falls and slips, miscommunications, moves go wrong, props don’t work as intended, the list goes on. For the most part, the risk is minimal, but most wrestlers will be seriously injured at least once at some point in their career. However, there is a very unfortunate category of wrestlers who are very injury-prone, and Newell is widely considered to be in that category. Being injury-prone (or thought to be injury-prone, even if you just got unlucky with timing) is a massive red flag to wrestling promoters and bookers.

See, while injury-prone wrestlers tend to get a lot of audience support due to being underdogs by default, they don’t really make good candidates for ongoing storylines because you cannot assume that they won’t get injured and the storyline won’t get derailed as a result. Because wrestling storylines tend to take place over months, even years, you need the wrestlers involved to be healthy for that time. If someone gets injured, you can salvage the storyline somewhat, but it won’t be the same. For instance, if Wrestler A was going to stand up against the tyrannous evil of Wrestler B, but then gets injured, you can sub in A’s best friend Wrestler C to heroically take up the fight on A’s behalf and take B down, but the fans won’t be getting the climactic A/B title match that the story was designed to lead up to, and will wistfully ponder ‘What if?’ for years afterwards on . But I digress.

Newell would return to NXT in 2019, and made her debut in NXT UK (long story, and probably worth a writeup of its own) that same year. Her career went pretty well after that, with Newell appearing on NXT regularly, making a couple of appearances on SmackDown, and getting several title shots…

…and then she unfortunately tore her ACL again, and that point her reputation as injury-prone was basically cemented.

In June 2021, Newell returned in triplicate- she had an appearance on an NXT PPV, did a dark match on Raw, and made her official main roster debut on SmackDown. She would spend the rest of 2021 wrestling on SmackDown until the 2021 WWE Draft resulted in her being sent to Raw… and then she without ever appearing on the show.

At this point, I want to take a quick pause to say that WWE has a habit of , and quite a lot of the time, their choices make no goddamn sense. Sometimes it’s people who’ve been around for a while and have stagnated, or who haven’t improved, but there’s also quite a number of instances where they abruptly sacked people who were doing quite well, or who were about to start something new- like Newell. WWE stated that the releases were due to budget cuts, but Newell disagreed. , she said that she believes she was fired because she doesn’t fit the look WWE wants in their female wrestlers. 

OK, so, the thing is, there’s a lot of things I could say here, about the plausibility of that statement, the possible reasons for Newell getting cut, and the way WWE treats their female wrestlers, among others. But that has nothing to do with the drama, so I’m going to move on. (If anyone’s wondering why I’m spending so much time talking about Newell’s backstory, trust me, there is a reason behind this and I will get there.)

Anyway, Newell stepped out of the spotlight for the rest of 2021 and most of 2022. But something important happened in mid-2022: Vince McMahon retired and Triple H took over as the main force behind WWE. And the new boss decided to make some changes, like bringing back a whole bunch of wrestlers who’d been released, and one of them was Newell (who he likely felt hadn’t been given a fair chance), who made her return in December 2022. Newell would have a pretty unremarkable run in WWE for a couple of years, and was released for the second time in November 2024. I don’t know why, but what I’ve seen of fan opinions is largely divided between ‘she had a reputation as injury-prone that haunted her and she wrestled in a way that was safer for her but didn’t look good as a result’ and ‘she never had a distinctive character, didn’t stand out and wasn’t doing anything that other wrestlers didn’t do’. (See previous comments.)

Newell eventually returned to the indies after her release (she was injured in a car crash a few days after being released), stating that she felt that she was nearing the end of her wrestling career and intended to retire at the end of 2026, but was keen to keep wrestling in the meantime. However, despite having that NXT and WWE prestige, she didn’t get a lot of bookings, which she commented on . (Fan consensus is divided between ‘her reputation for injuries made people not want to take a chance on her’ and ‘she was asking for way too much money’.) In that same interview, she disputed the idea that she was injury-prone, rightly pointing out that she hadn’t been injured in some time, and expressed an interest in wrestling in AEW. And somewhere in that time, she met…

(born May 26, 1994) is an American wrestler. Debuting in 2014, she started out using the names ‘Miranda’ and ‘Miranda Salinas’ before settling on ‘Miranda Alize’ (‘ah-lih-ZAY’). Over the course of her career before now, she wrestled for a lot of independent promotions, including SHIMMER, Rise, Stardom and Ring of Honor (both before and after it was bought by Tony Khan). She also had a couple of minor appearances as enhancement talent in WWE, TNA and AEW. In short, she was one of many, many indie wrestlers who had built a solid name for themselves in their area and could potentially be picked up by a major promotion in the future, but weren’t particular standouts.

(I realise that this is incredibly short in contrast to how much I wrote about Newell, but before all this happened I’d never heard of Alize and I couldn’t find out that much about her. Sorry.)

Anyway, somewhere in the last year or so, Newell and Alize met, fell in love and became a couple. And in October 2025, they were invited to appear on AEW as a tag team- their big break. (In theory.)

The big break…?

We now go to the 25^th of October, 2025. On that night’s episode of AEW Collision, Alize and Newell wherein established tag team TayJay (Tay Melo and Anna Jay) talked about having been selected to compete in the tournament to determine the inaugural women’s tag team champions and insulted a number of newly-formed teams who’d entered the tournament. Cue Newell and Alize, who cut in on the promo and basically went ‘We think we’re hot shit and we want a fight’; TayJay weren’t impressed but were happy to accept their challenge. A very typical backstage scene, happens all the time.

So, here’s the thing: enhancement talent appear all the time, but enhancement talent do not usually get promos or backstage scenes where they establish themselves as actual characters and not cannon fodder. Most of the time, they don’t get entrances shown, and sometimes they don’t even get their names announced! (Seriously, Megan Bayne back when she started out in AEW, and she’s now one of the AEW Tag Team Champions!) So Alize and Newell starting off with an actual promo and the promise of a future match was really, really good! Sure, they’d probably be losing a lot for a while, but it’s a hell of a lot more than most new people start with.

Cue next week’s Collision: Alize and Newell get a match against the new team of Marina Shafir and Megan Bayne, with the underlying story being that Shafir and Bayne are a totally new team who need to learn to work with each other after Shafir volunteered to substitute for Penelope Ford, Bayne’s injured tag partner. Again, Newell and Alize got an entrance and their names announced, and they put up a pretty good showing, characterising themselves as confident, capable newcomers who wanted opportunities and weren’t afraid to go after Bayne (who’s one of the biggest and strongest women on the roster and is characterised as an unstoppable, possibly literally-divine force) or Shafir (who’s trained in MMA and is a founding member of AEW’s resident BDSM cult). I mean, yeah, they lost and it wasn’t a perfect match, but it wasn’t a complete squash, at least. (You can see the highlights of the match ) Basically, everything was looking bright for them, as long as there weren’t any roadblocks, like someone getting injured, or an unforeseeable disaster, or someone doing something really goddamn stupid…

The drama (or, ‘They did something really goddamn stupid’):

We now go to the week after that- the 8^th of November. In theory, Newell and Alize were going to have their match with TayJay on Collision that night, but they didn’t. Instead, it was reported that Newell and Alize had walked out on the show earlier that day, and AEW found last-second replacements in independent wrestlers and , both of whom had appeared for AEW before. The show went on without an issue, but fans everywhere were understandably wondering what the hell had happened. Here’s a summary:

-During the show, fans post tweets wondering why Alize and Newell aren’t in the match and criticising their previous loss to Shafir and Bayne. Newell and Alize , and Alize adds ‘We have SOOOOOOOO much to say’ [sic].

-Pro Wrestling Insider that Alize and Newell walked out because they didn’t want to lose the match and objected to the short amount of time (three minutes) that had been allotted for it. (If anyone wants to make a Three Minute Warning reference, this is your cue.)

-Newell ‘Not everything you read is true’ but doesn’t actually explain what she means.

-Fightful Select Newell and Alize disputed PWI’s report on their Twitch stream, saying that they were fine with losing, but did object to the amount of time and wanted more time. According to , the two of them decided that three minutes wouldn’t make anyone in the match look good, so they had a respectful conversation about it with the producers. They were told that they weren’t getting any more time and that it was fine if they wanted to leave, so they decided that the situation wasn’t working for them and that they would give the time to people who needed it more and left. However, they emphasised that it wasn’t an angry walkout and that other people backstage agreed that they deserved more time.

If other people agreed with them backstage, they sure as hell didn’t online. Instead, Alize and Newell copped a lot of backlash, with a ton of fans and wrestlers calling them unprofessional and - essentially, the rebuttal was that would have been to take the three minutes and do such a good job that the fans demand more of you and the producers want to give you more time, or at least do the match and then cut ties instead of leaving everyone in the lurch. Instead, by walking out, they just made themselves look like . (Meanwhile, Hyan and Maya World were universally praised for their professionalism and for stepping in at short notice.)

In addition to this, Fightful Select reported that there was bad blood on all sides after the tag match on the 1^st- Newell that Megan Bayne hadn’t sold (that is, acted out the impact of the moves in a way that established the opponent’s strength) for Newell and Alize. Meanwhile, an AEW source allegedly told Fightful that the look of frustration and anger on Bayne’s face during the match was real, as Newell and Alize had sandbagged (went limp instead of cooperating with a move, making it much harder to perform and potentially dangerous) where Bayne suplexed them both at the same time. The sandbagging alone earned Newell and Alize a lot of disdain, but given that Bayne and Shafir were being set up as a ‘terrifying unstoppable force’ kind of team, complaining about the lack of selling reinforced the general belief that Alize and Newell were suffering from greatly overinflated egos and misplaced belief in their own importance.

Like, it’s one thing to feel that the match needs more time; I’m sure plenty of wrestlers have asked if it was possible to get more time before. It’s another thing to decide that what you’ve been given isn’t going to make you ‘look good’ and walk out, when you are… *checks notes* a former WWE wrestler with a bad reputation (possibly undeserved, but the fact remains that it’s there) for getting injured a lot, who was in the Fed for several years and yet notably never held a single title; and an indie wrestler who’s been around for a while and wrestled in a lot of places, but who most people have never heard of, and the two of you have only had one match in AEW before now and aren’t signed.

There are very few circumstances where the majority would agree that walking out of a show is justified, and this sure as hell isn’t one of them. Instead, the majority agreed that it was a display of ridiculous, borderline-narcissistic egotism that was completely unwarranted and undeserved, in a situation where almost everyone could see that such a display would only end terribly for them. Or, to put it bluntly, they had no brand or reputation to protect, no prestige and no leverage, and with their walking out, they’d neatly destroyed any real chance they’d had of building a career in AEW for no benefit and a huge detriment, over something that nobody else would have objected to.

Where are they now?

It’s been over six months, and the contrast is… interesting.

Nixon Newell and Miranda Alize have continued wrestling on the indies, both in singles and as a tag team called ‘Violent Romance’. (Presumably nobody told them just how bad that name sounds.) They did get some new fans and some notoriety from the whole thing, but nothing like what an actual AEW career would have got them. Alize copped a lot of flack for allegedly being into MAGA despite being a queer Hispanic woman (no, I don’t get it either) but took place in a WWE tryout As far as I’m aware, Newell still intends to . Fan opinions haven’t sweetened on them, with the general consensus still being that they destroyed a real chance of getting signed through egotism and stupidity. Other than that, they recently got engaged, so good for them, I guess.

Hyan and Maya World were officially signed to AEW in December 2025. They have since made multiple appearances in AEW and Ring of Honor, both as a tag team and in singles competition, including unsuccessfully challenging for the tag titles in April this year. Most notably, Maya was asked to fill in for Sareee (yes, three e’s, I promise it’s not a typo) in AEW’s Owen Hart Memorial Cup women’s tournament after the latter was injured. She defeated Skye Blue in the first round (nothing against Maya, but as the author is a big Triangle of Madness fan, I will refrain from commenting further), and had a huge upset win against Athena in the second round. She went on to face Mercedes Moné (formerly Sasha Banks in WWE) in the final match of the tournament on AEW’s Forbidden Door event, where they had a match that went for nearly 25 minutes (Maya’s longest singles match in AEW to date) and was widely agreed to be excellent and a star-making performance for Maya. And on today's episode of AEW Dynamite, Hyan and Maya teamed up with Willow Nightingale to take on Mercedes, Megan Bayne and Lena Kross (aka the only two-time winner of the Owen Hart Cup ever, male or female, and the AEW Tag Team champions) in the main event of the show.

Just shows what humility and not letting your ego run wild will do for you, huh.

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If you’ve never heard of Suikoden, don’t worry. For a long time, Konami, the company that developed and published the series, pretended it hadn't heard of it either.

Originally released in 1995 for the PlayStation, Suikoden was Konami’s answer to the golden age of JRPGs. While contemporaries like Final Fantasy became household names, Suikoden built up an intensely devoted, borderline cult-like following thanks to its mature political storytelling, sprawling casts of 108 recruitable characters per game, and a shared world for nearly every entry. Let’s not talk about later entires set in other worlds though. I’m sure Konami would like you to forget about them too. 

After the last game released in 2012, the franchise entered purgatory: not forgotten by its fans, but entirely abandoned by its corporate parents.

If you wanted to look up the hyper-specific recruitment requirements for an obscure star, find the attack pattern of a turn-based boss, or read translated lore from an artbook that never left Japan, there was no official database waiting for you. There were only fans. And those fans started building archives.

What followed was a twenty-year, multi-platform cold war of pure pedantry, clashing community egos, and translation disputes that might even put a JRPG villain to shame. But probably not. A good number of them are pretty shameless.

Act I: The Archival Trifecta and the Balance of Power

By the late 2000s, the English-speaking Suikoden community relied on three completely different pillars of fan preservation.

Suikosource (Est. 2001): Less of a modern wiki and more of a digital time capsule. It has the distinct energy of a fansite that peaked during the Bush administration and just... stopped. While it boasts a massive hoard of raw walkthroughs and ancient forum threads, navigating it can be an exercise in nostalgic frustration. For instance, clicking the "Characters" tab clumsily dumps you onto the profile of the very first alphabetical character ("Abizboah" - a literal giant kraken) because of a stubborn UI layout, forcing you to manually fight your way out of alphabetical purgatory just to find the human character you actually wanted.

Suikox: A digital encyclopedia that traded Suikosource's rigid spreadsheet approach for pure narrative flair. It famously blended translated Japanese lore with early-2000s forum energy, meaning official historical entries were occasionally derailed by the webmaster ranting about structural engineering flaws in fictional fortresses or complaining that a fantasy village sounded like a toilet manufacturer. Though Suikox would eventually fade into obscurity as Gensopedia rose, its enigmatic owner Vextor, a figure who floated through the community under a dozen different aliases, remained deeply embedded in the community's inner circle.

Gensopedia (Est. 2008): The formal, academic contender of the trio. Gensopedia positioned itself as the definitive encyclopedia of the fandom. Run by an admin named Day, it was designed to meticulously catalog every rune, war, and kingdom. It featured grand portal hubs and an authoritative layout, even if it routinely vanished and changed web hosts whenever server bills came due. Backed by Day’s reputation as a fluent speaker of Japanese, fans accepted the site's pages as absolute, unassailable fact. But underneath it all, the wiki was a walled garden that sat on a massive, unchecked backlog of early-2000s legacy typos and rough Japanese readings for over a decade.

The 108 Stars of "Wait, Who?"

But let’s pause for a moment here and look at the sheer tonal absurdity of the franchise itself. The actual games routinely demand that you pause a grim, high-stakes geopolitical narrative about the devastating cost of military occupation to engage in:

• An intense, judged by a panel of hyper-biased recruits from your own army.

• Playing a literal mini-game of with a giant wooden mallet just to secure a piece of mole-themed equipment.

• Marching across a war-torn continent to personally draft an entire village of literal beavers, a dancer, a three-piece acoustic band, or a local child whose sole tactical contribution to your grand military front is standing outside the front gate to loudly shout the name of your castle every time you walk past it. All because the developers needed to fill a cosmic middle-management quota of 108 people.

It is inherently difficult to maintain a posture of elite prestige when the fate of a war-torn continent hinges on you.

Around the same time Gensopedia was established, a new challenger appeared: a community wiki hosted on Wikia (later rebranded as Fandom).

Depending on who you ask, Fandom is either an invaluable repository of fan knowledge or a corporate monument to intrusive autoplay videos, broken mobile layouts, and predatory data collection. The Suikoden Fandom wiki inherited that structural baggage immediately, but it also inherited a well-earned reputation for being a total mess.

Shortly after its launch, people noticed that some of the text was, to put it nicely, carbon copies of text published on Suikosource and Gensopedia. A previous editor had simply copy-pasted massive entire pages of text to make the new wiki quickly.

By 2016, the Fandom wiki's remaining users realized they were a laughingstock. The community on Facebook was openly warning newcomers: "Never trust any information on the Suikoden Wikia, as most of it is made up, stolen from other sources, fan speculation or unsourced."

Stung by the criticism, a tiny handful of volunteers launched "Operation: Rewrite!" to purge the stolen text. But their public discussion boards reveal a chaotic, well-meaning comedy of errors. The primary writers at the time were largely non-native English speakers, meaning they were fighting a massive uphill battle to rebuild a database from scratch while openly begging visitors to fix their syntax ("If there was an error on my grammar I hope the reader would correct it hehehe...").

Worse, the team was entirely shorthanded and working off pure guesswork. Editors deleted entire chunks of lore just to avoid copy-paste claims ("better than being a carbon copy XD"), while others suggested watching random YouTube clips for info. One volunteer promised to help just as soon as they could buy the game for ten Euros, while another trying to fix the Suikoden Tierkreis pages hit an incredible roadblock: "When I tried to edit the character page... my brain got blank ahahahahaha... ummmm, I forgot the story."

Unsurprisingly, this desperate, understaffed salvage operation didn't win over the fandom elites. For fifteen years, the community settled into a rigid split: the independent alliance of Gensopedia and Suikosource was universally recommended as the definitive source, while the Fandom wiki was dismissed as a grammatically broken, copycat wasteland.

The catch was that few everyday users were actually cross-referencing the information on either side against the original Japanese guidebooks and materials. The community operated entirely on social trust: they assumed Gensopedia's material was inherently flawless because of its pristine, academic reputation, and that the Fandom wiki was suspect based on its messy history.

But really, a parallel irony was at play. While the Fandom wiki was out in the open trying to run an encyclopedia off of faded memories and YouTube clips, Gensopedia's authoritative database contained legacy translation errors that had been sitting on the server since the early 2010s. This fragile illusion of absolute authority was bound to shatter the moment someone finally decided to pull up the raw source material. All it needed was a catalyst, and it got one in 2021, when Gensopedia's administration announced an ambitious project that would put their linguistic credentials under a public microscope.

Act II: The Two-Month Miracle and the DeepL Controversy

The fifteen-year status quo disintegrated in early 2021. For nearly a decade, English-speaking Suikoden fans had been haunted by the existence of Gensō Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki (Woven Web of a Century). Released in 2012 for the PlayStation Portable, it was the final true RPG in the franchise, and Konami had left it completely stranded in Japan. For nine years, playing it required either a high-level command of Japanese or a willingness to stumble blindly through menus with an import guidebook on your lap.

Then, Day announced an ambitious community project: a volunteer team had been assembled to completely translate and patch the game into English. Backed by prominent contributors from the Suikoden Revival Movement, the project was immediately embraced as the definitive community effort.

But a massive, branching, JRPG script contains hundreds of thousands of characters laden with complex yakuwarigo (highly stylized role language). For human volunteers to manually translate, edit, and localize a script of that magnitude from a blank page in mere months is a logistical impossibility.

Enter a persistent community critic named kansaiviolet, who began publicly auditing the team's updates across forums and social media. Virtually anytime the game, the translation project, or Gensopedia was mentioned across public threads, kansaiviolet would promptly appear. The mention of the patch acted as an unintentional summoning circle; this single user would materialize instantly, not to submit formal quality-assurance tickets, but to publicly litigate the team's linguistic credentials. Treating a volunteer passion project like a Watergate-level coverup, kansaiviolet haunted public forums like a spectral prosecutor.

Digging through the net, kansaiviolet found a chat from in a public Discord where Day casually admitted that her Japanese skills were. Just ten days later, stating that the massive, 40-plus-hour JRPG script was already 100% translated. By April it was said to be

(side note - the script is said to be 220,000 words and 25,000 lines of dialogue spread across 21,000 pointers. The website for the patch only lists one translator)

Then in August, the team of the project's custom translation backend. The tool featured a hardcoded multi-column layout displaying the Original Japanese, a visual text-box preview, a glossary, and a central column labeled

This Pre-Translation was generated by feeding the raw Japanese script directly through the DeepL translation engine. For kansaiviolet this was the smoking gun, and the critic spammed every related Reddit thread to ensure no user missed it.

Almost every time kansaiviolet posted, the project coordinator buerviper would step in to state that the critic was wrong, and that the translation was genuine, done by several people who speak Japanese fluently.

, project coordinator buerviper dropped what appeared to be an absolute, airtight denial:

"This translation is genuine from beginning to end... There is not a single trace of the recently released Deepl translation in the game... Source: I'm also working on this."

Then, exactly three minutes later, on the very same Reddit post, buerviper returned to the keyboard to offer a highly specific structural update on the team's workflow:

"The Deepl tab in the translation program was used by the non-Japanese speakers in the team to help, for the simple fact that correcting an already written text is much faster than writing a new text... In the end, only roughly 15 % (if even) of the script were run through deepl..."

The panic didn't stop there. Just six minutes later,, buerviper returned for a third time to try and put the fire out, further qualifying the DeepL usage while openly pleading with the hostile thread for constructive feedback:

"As said elsewhere, this is not based on Deepl at all... A rough deepl translation was made by the non-Japanese speakers of the team to... help the team in translating every day sentences (like 'Hi! How are you?')... Please point out the mistakes in the screenshots, we're very happy to correct them!"

For anyone tracking the metadata in real-time, the defense had gone from "zero machine translation" to “DeepL exists in the backend, but it was only used for basic sentences as a treat” to "the machine only translated the greetings" in under ten minutes. To the critics waiting in the wings, this shift in such a short time span was the ultimate admission of guilt.

"It’s Not a Bug, It’s Localization!"

During all of this, kansaiviolet began conducting line-by-line audits of official preview screenshots, running the original Japanese text through DeepL to see how closely it matched the patch.

had two entire sentences that matched the DeepL perfectly (“To this place where the books forbidden by Ionia lie. Now I know what action I must take.").

Another of a quite narcissistic character (and I mean that in the Suikoden sense of the word) showed sentences that were, and appeared to be simple synonym swaps.

As preview screenshots circulated, line-by-line audits of the script sparked debates over where "localization" ends and "mistranslation" begins.

Defenders of the game pointed out that changes were due to space limits. So, kansaiviolet pulled examples, and even fired back with letter counts. 

A standard line about a character gaining weight was entirely rewritten into a bizarre non-sequitur about helping someone's "stink." (A a year later confirmed it was a deliberate choice to alter the text because she felt the original script's joke was too rude.)

Even the opening song lyrics were not spared, and the critic flagged a line where the team translated nōto (notebook) as 'mouth' (confusing it with nodo, throat).

The funniest part of all of this was the glaring typographical error in a major map location: the long-established "Tios Fortress" had been translated as "Dios Fortress", a basic misreading of the katakana ティ (Ti) for ディ (Di). (Side note: It wasn't until October 2022, long after the drama had boiled over, that Day finally acknowledged the blunder on her: "sorry I messed up Dios and Tios, y'all!" The error was finally fixed on the Gensopedia website, but not on the patch.)

In response to the growing technical critiques, the team pointed to the involvement of veteran community native speaker Vextor who had vetted the script, commenting that the English text was actually an improvement over the "bland" original Japanese.

The Year-Long Trench War

Because the criticism was delivered via hostile forum threads rather than polite feedback tickets, the translation team completely dug in their heels. Rather than quietly making the one-letter fix, defenders dismissed the audits entirely, pulling out every classic fan-translation shield in the book, reminding critics that the patch was FREE, suggesting they play the game instead of analyzing screenshots*.*

By the time the patch finally launched in October, what had begun as a rigorous, months-long linguistic audit by kansaiviolet had hardened into an unyielding public standoff. When the patch dropped, the critic openly admitted they wouldn't be downloading or playing the final product, relying instead on a frantic week of harvesting screenshots from Twitter and YouTube in order to continue their public audits of the script.

This public method of critique created a stubborn stalemate where both sides actively sabotaged any chance of a better patch. kansaiviolet didn't send a polite DM. They most certainly didn't offer to help QA a game people had waited ten years for. They wanted theater. They were less interested in a good translation and far more interested in executing a linguistic trial in public.

Because the criticism came via hostile Reddit call-outs, the dev team basically plugged their ears and ignored it as best they could. Of course, this meant that valid corrections were lost in the crossfire of the community feud.

As the translation project neared its October release, the pressure on Day finally reached a breaking point. On September 18, 2021, Day announced that,.

While the ongoing drama with kansaiviolet had increased the frequency of public scrutiny, revealed a. For over a year (dating back to the 2020 announcement of the spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicle), she had been targeted by a who’s who of toxic internet trolls, ranging from old fansite rivals to genuine transphobes.

Between the Reddit dogpiling and a year of personal attacks, the joy was entirely sucked out of the project. Deciding that a twenty-year-old internet cold war wasn't worth her mental well-being, Day stepped back from the community.

The patch released, casual fans happily played through the game (some completely oblivious to the linguistic bloodbath that preceded it). The final entry in a long-dead JRPG series was finally released, leaving behind a functional English patch. 

Act III: Enter the Sniper and the 569-Tweet Siege

The fan patch officially launched in October 2021, but the illusion of absolute accuracy had already fractured. Lurking in the background was a dedicated anonymous Twitter account under the handle VieleWegeCo (Sieg). The handle itself was an inside reference: in Suikoden Tierkreis, the heroes fight a faction called "The Order of the One True Way." The fan-accepted name for the rebellion is the "Viele Wege Company" (Many Ways Company). He decided that instead of simply submitting wiki edits, the most effective response to translation typos was to launch a dedicated, multi-year Twitter account featuring over 500 tweets exhaustively documenting as many errors as possible on the site.

, Sieg laid out his account's true mission statement to his single follower:

"Why did I make this account? To document the mistakes on Gensopedia. To show that Day has been lying to everyone this entire time. To help people wake up and see the truth."

Day after day, Sieg posted public screenshots of live Gensopedia entries and patch updates, cross-referencing them against official Japanese guidebooks and manuals. To the outside observer, it was a rigorous data check. To the volunteer team on the receiving end, It was just a suffocating, passive-aggressive nightmare for the devs. Sieg didn't just audit the text; he attacked their web design, accused them of using pirated game files, and routinely mocked the translation workflow, tweeting, "Nice copy and paste from the DeepL... Your 'translations' have only gotten better because these programs have improved."

The Archival Editing Dispute

To be fair to the original archive, maintaining a wiki for a sprawling franchise is a staggering task for unpaid volunteer labor. In any database of that scale, legacy errors are completely inevitable.

Throughout these public skirmishes, defenders frequently lobbed a standard defense at the critics: "Registration is open. If it's wrong, just log on and edit the wiki yourself." And technically, they were right. At this particular point in time, anyone could create an account to edit Gensopedia. In previous years, the wiki was closed. And even after it was opened, the site's own about page admits that the "amount of control and editing done by its administrator" actively stifled outside contributions, driving away potential editors and leaving a massive backlog of unverified legacy errors in a vacuum.

The critics had their reasons, and Sieg said . Knowing that the wiki's leadership historically maintained a tight grip on the content, and had a reputation for overriding or reverting corrections, the critics seemingly decided that traditional wiki editing was out and that public platforms like Reddit and Twitter were in. 

Sieg approached the entries on Gensopedia with no mercy, treating basic automated pipeline glitches and ancient formatting typos as evidence of an intentional, disingenuous fraud. According to Sieg, the site's translation process had historically taken computer-generated errors from scanned guidebooks and translated the resulting gibberish literally into English prose.

By cross-referencing the wiki against raw Japanese guidebooks, Sieg unleashed a relentless stream of screenshots. To the average onlooker, Sieg wasn't trying to improve a database; he was treating everything as evidence of a grand, malicious fraud.

For example, on a page for a manga, the Japanese characters for "Futch" (a major, recurring character in the series) were misread by OCR, inventing a non-existent hero named

The iconic nickname for the first game’s protagonist, "Bocchan" (Young Master), was mangled by a machine translator into the gibberish "," while the franchise's foundational lore concept, "Stars of Destiny," was entirely omitted and rewritten as "stars resting."

Running beneath the medieval fantasy town of Two River City was a modern municipal transit system () instead of monster-infested sewers

The wiki literally lists the kanji for Earth/Dirt (土) instead of Water (水) on the page. Sieg, being Sieg, couldn't just fix it, he tweeted screenshots (of course screenshots) with a caption dripping with sarcasm: "Sorry, the kanji for water is not 土. It is 水. Try again."

The account was relentless in what it saw as errors in the Woven Web patch. A standard Japanese idiom meaning "don't look at me like I killed your parent" was rewritten into a joke about a "deadbeat dad.", stating she wanted to punch up a script she felt was bland.

The Collapse of the Fortress

Sieg didn't just stick to old wiki pages, either; he ran real-time snarky examinations of the game's dialogue. Every single interface compromise or creative localization choice was immediately logged as a failure of basic comprehension. When the team translated a menu option for "Reset" as "Start," Sieg instantly, "How in the world did you even get start from that word? Oh... right... you don't speak Japanese." Even creative dialogue polishes, like rewriting a standard joke about a character gaining weight into a bizarre non-sequitur about helping someone's "stink", were meticulously documented and weaponized.

By December 2021, the psychological toll of this unending public cross-examination proved completely unsustainable. Broken by the combined onslaught of kansaiviolet’s hostile Reddit threads, Sieg’s months-long Twitter execution, and a separate, repulsive wave of targeted transphobic harassment from bad-faith actors hiding in the wings, Day chose to prioritize her well-being over the fandom, taking the entire Gensopedia archive offline 

While critics pointed out that Day had a history of pulling her sites down during arguments, the rest of the fandom was devastated to see years of community history vanish overnight. The immediate backlash turned squarely on the critics. To the average fan, kansaiviolet and Sieg weren't helpful whistleblowers fixing the wiki; they were just a pair of toxic, mean-spirited bullies who used translation pedantry to harass a long-time volunteer out of the community. In their obsession with absolute accuracy, the critics had essentially ruined the fandom's favorite resource over minor typos. With the site gone, Sieg's account went silent, and the dispute appeared to be over. 

But it wasn't. Sieg was merely waiting for the old guard to let their guard down.

Act IV: The Resurrection and the Modern Status Quo

Like any good JRPG faction feud, a server shutdown is rarely permanent. Once the immediate friction died down, Gensopedia quietly returned online under the same domain in 2022. Behind her restored digital walls, Day began publishing lengthy development blog posts explaining her localization choices and translation philosophy.

Naturally, Sieg took these updates as a personal invitation to double down. 

The Return of the Auditor

While normal human beings would have moved on with their lives after the 2021 patch launch, Sieg harbored a multi-year grudge. Returning to Twitter with a vengeance, Sieg unleashed hundreds of comparison tweets stretching all the way into 2026, demonstrating the terrifying, single-minded dedication of someone who simply refused to log off and touch grass.

Looking at the newly restored wiki, Sieg discovered that legacy errors like the "Two River Subway," "Tsutte-kun," and the Earth/Water rune swap were still completely live. But Sieg wasn’t content with auditing the wiki pages only, he began forensically dissecting the localization project blog posts.

In February 2025, Day published an essay discussing how she chose distinct English synonyms for the game's various map locations to avoid repetitive phrasing. Sieg immediately launched a multi-tweet siege over minor geographical vocabulary:

When Day casually remarked in her blog that three in-game locations were all heiya (平野 - plains) in the original script, Sieg pulled up the raw data to prove the developers had actually used heigen (平原)., including the Oxnard Plain and the Pannonian Plain, just to prove Day had mixed up her flat-land kanji.

In the same post, Day explained that she translated three different wooded locations as a "Woods," a "Forest," and a "Grove" to reflect their visual tree density in the game. Sieg furiously countered that because the original Japanese text used the exact same kanji for forest (mori / 森) across all three, altering the wording was a betrayal of the text. Sieg even began analyzing individual world-map pixels to argue that the "Grove" actually had more digital trees on its icon than the "Forest."

Sieg wasn't trying to make the database better; he was running a highly fixated digital surveillance campaign long after the rest of the world had stopped caring, determined to extract a public surrender over the dictionary definition of a clearing.

The Platform Ironies

Then 2025 and 2026 hit, and the franchise suddenly came back from the dead with the official HD Remasters (released 2025) and the announcement of Star Leap (coming 2026 maybe). This is where the hypocrisy got hilarious. 

Day had migrated over to the platform Bluesky, where she routinely retweeted anti-AI sentiments, positioning herself as a . Meanwhile the official corporate localization of the upcoming game, Suikoden Star Leap, as "a machine/AI translation anyway."

Sieg immediately pounced on the apparent contradiction. Sieg also dropped links pairing Gensopedia's merchandise entries directly with matching product listings from Japanese online , in an attempt to prove the wiki was stealing photos from .

During a project to preserve a defunct, physical Suikoden trading card game, Day uploaded digital scans and text translations of the cards to Gensopedia. Sieg began obsessively comparing these against raw photographs of the cards from online auction listings and resellers.

To make low-resolution web images look clearer for the database,. Another Twitter user ran some of the wiki's uploaded images through OpenAI’s own detection tools,.

Meanwhile, the site hosted the raw text of these cards alongside the images. Sieg with the same exhaustive, hyper-fixated skills as a tax auditor out for blood, gleefully posting any wrong kana he found.

The Permanent Gridlock of Fandom Psychology

If a newcomer arrives on the Suikoden subreddit today asking where to look up information, the response from the community remains completely uniform: "Use Gensopedia or Suikosource. Avoid the Fandom wiki."

On the surface, the reasons given are entirely practical: Fandom’s intrusive mobile ads and its legacy reputation for uncredited copy-pasting. But beneath those threads lies a bizarre psychological barrier. Even when presented with direct, unassailable screenshots of a modern "subway system" running through a fantasy medieval sewer, the broader community largely reacts with total apathy.

To the average fan, institutional longevity beats factual verification every single time. Gensopedia has been the baseline of the community for nearly two decades. Therefore, the errors either don't exist, are dismissed as minor formatting quirks, or simply don't matter as long as the site helps them finish a playthrough. The relentless documentation provided by an outside critic, no matter how mathematically precise, is easily tuned out because it challenges a foundational pillar of the community's identity.

This has left the fandom in a state of permanent, tragicomic gridlock.

Despite the fact that Gensopedia is technically an open archive where anyone can create an account and hit "edit," the community's deep-seated polarization has entirely frozen the pool of contributors. Today, the wiki is being edited almost single-handedly by its embattled admin, Day. Safe inside an insular echo chamber, the site's administration has completely dug in. Over the past year, rather than correcting the massive backlog of reported errors, Sieg has noted that Day has introduced a wave of brand-new errors, transforming previously correct location names and romaji into incorrect versions, and uploading trading card data riddled with raw OCR artifacts and AI-hallucinated kanji.

On the flip side, Sieg remains content to operate entirely as a hostile sniper from behind an anonymous Twitter account. Armed with a staggering backlog of over 500 comparison tweets, he has chosen to weaponize his immense data logs to score online points and demand a public surrender, rather than ever actually clicking the "edit" button to fix the database himself.

So that's where things stand. We have a critic who would literally rather write 500 tweets than ever click 'edit,' and an admin who is actively blasting old trading cards through an AI upscaler rather than admit a single typo. The whole wiki is locked in a massive, petty Cold War, and almost every error Sieg pointed out is still sitting there live on the site today.

There are 108 Stars of Destiny in the lore of Suikoden, assembled to fight a grand, sweeping war for the future of a continent. Rather than cute squirrels and whacky mini-games, fans are left with a defensive administration locked in a standoff against a critic who would rather log screenshots than click edit.

In late June, 2026, I acquired the original Released in 2003, it was the first figure of the series’ main antagonist, and after 23 years, I finally got my hands on one after missing my chance as a kid.

I had initially intended to just write about the original set, his concurrent appearance in the movie, and the issues surrounding the original prototype, as detailed in Scuffles thread comment, but then I realised that it actually fit quite neatly into the wider narrative of Makuta’s constant evolution throughout the series, shaped by backstage issues, questionable leadership, and bad toy design, details that we were never meant to know about but were only revealed through unintended leaks.

Part 1: The Rise of Bionicle and the Birth of Makuta

Our story begins in the late 90s, with a man named Christian Faber. Faber worked for a Danish company called Advance, a branding and marketing agency that worked with Lego to provide those things for their toys. He’s an incredibly creative and enthusiastic man, who also frequently says completely bonkers things, it’s kinda great. At the time, he had been in hospital due to a benign brain tumour, and found himself envisioning his medication as pill-shaped capsules containing tiny warriors that would fight off his illnesses, and this was the idea that would grow into Bionicle.

The word “Bionicle” doesn’t actually refer to any of the characters, it’s a contraction of “Biological Chronicle,” because it’s actually, secretly, the story of a body. The central god-figure of the series, Mata Nui, is actually an , whose body contains most of the setting, with the main characters being his cells. The was essentially a mask over his dormant face- images of it showed the distorted outline of his head and shoulders below, and locations on it were named after the Maori words for facial features- Mount Ihu is his nose, the Mangai volcano is his mouth, Naho Bay is his eye, etcetera. Lego’s… blatant appropriation of the Maori language is a post unto itself, and a topic for another time.

Makuta, the character at the centre of this writeup, is effectively an allegory for that same brain tumour that started it all, albeit in a much more aggressive form. Essentially, he’s a cancer.

As Faber started to refine this idea, things weren’t going great for Lego. By 1999, they were in dire financial straits, losing ground to the resurgent videogame industry and damaging themselves with failed theme after failed theme. The acquisition of Star Wars just about kept the lights on, but only just, because Lucasfilm was taking a hefty cut. Lego needed their own Star Wars, and they decided to take a chance on Bionicle.

The story of Bionicle would be told through the eyes of the characters that served as Mata Nui’s cells, who were largely unaware of the true nature of their world. They told the history of Mata Nui and Makuta as a legend, describing how Mata Nui had given them a paradise island to live on, but his brother, Makuta, grew envious of the honours Mata Nui received and cast him into eternal sleep. He had then corrupted the Rahi, the animal life of the island, with infected masks, setting them against the people. It was up to the , to defeat Makuta and awaken Mata Nui.

And then things almost immediately went wrong!

Bionicle’s story was conveyed through an ambitious multimedia project. The story of the Toa would be told through the PC game, Bionicle: The Legend of Mata Nui, while short stories featuring them would be told through comics published by DC and written by a man named Greg Farshtey (He’s going to be very important later). A prequel game, Tales of the Tohunga Quest for the Toa would be released on the Game Boy Advance, showing a Matoran villager named travelling around the island to summon the Toa to its shores, and a browser-based game released on chapters on the Bionicle website, simply titled Mata Nui Online Game (henceforth “MNOG”) would also star Takua and follow him on a sidequest around the island while the Toa had their adventures. Finally, there would be a feature film that would tell at least some of the story.

Except… only the comics, Quest for the Toa, and MNOG released. The film quickly became bogged down in development hell, as pretty much every studio were unwilling to make a movie about these weird robots, and wanted to centre the film on a live-action human child being isekai’d into the Bionicle universe. This was a non-starter for Lego, one of the strict rules of the setting was that there were no humans at all.

The PC game also ended up in a similar situation, going through multiple iterations and builds before eventually being cancelled in 2002. And this in turn threw all of the attention onto MNOG. See, MNOG wasn’t meant to be a big deal. It debatably wasn’t even meant to be a proper part of the story, its purpose was solely to allow kids to explore the island of Mata Nui themselves, to immerse themselves in it and interact with the villagers and the Toa. But with The Legend of Mata Nui failing to materialise, and the comics being short and disjointed with only four issues, MNOG became the primary vehicle for 2001’s story, and this probably played a huge role in what made Bionicle stand out so much, turning the Toa from just robot superheroes into larger-than-life figures, only briefly glimpsed, almost never speaking, just appearing, doing something cool, and then disappearing as quickly as they came.

And so, with the movie stuck in the starting gate and the PC game dead in the water, Lego pivoted, embracing MNOG as the primary vehicle of Bionicle’s first arc, and requesting its developers, Templar Studios, add another chapter that would show the Toa’s confrontation with Makuta. They did so, and fans were treated to their first look at the series’ main villain.

As Bionicle had been developed, so had Makuta. His first evolution came at the hands of Alastair Swinnerton, a freelance author who had co-created the story of Bionicle alongside Faber, Bob Thompson (who will also be important later), and Martin Anderson, who was primarily a set designer. Swinnerton did not envision Makuta as something that could be built as a set (something I’m sure Lego weren’t enthused about), but as something more allegorical.

Swinnerton’s Makuta had evolved over time. Starting out as three beings, taking the form of a cobra, a tiger, and a hawk, he then became a chimera of all three, then a whirling vortex of disconnected parts that could take any form, with those same animals listed as examples, and then finally, just the vortex. Makuta embodied the destructive aspect of playing with Lego, the inherent need to break a set or creation apart to make something new out of it, a necessary counterpart to the creative aspect embodied by Mata Nui. His vortex of parts was the pile of pieces that all Lego models are built from and eventually return to.

Appearing properly for the first time in MNOG’s final chapter, Makuta initially appears in the form of a , and began delivering the first of many dramatic monologues, He then transformed into his , and was seemingly defeated by the Toa combining the elemental powers.

This version of the character, often termed as “Eldritch Makuta” due to the appearance of his “true form” and his amoral nature, struck a chord with much of the fandom, and is widely beloved, even over some of the later revisions made to the character.

But even still, it wouldn’t stand forever. More would be done with Makuta as Bionicle continued onwards, and Lego weren’t about to let the main villain of their toy franchise be without a toy. As the series progressed on through 2002 and into 2003, the movie finally found a home with Creative Capers and Miramax, and Lego acted accordingly. The film would focus on the arrival of a seventh Toa, destined to defeat Makuta and pave the way for Mata Nui’s revival. And as Lego and Advance’s marketing machines began to hype up the Toa of Light, they published The Official Guide to Bionicle through Scholastic, which stated that the Toa had only seen a small part of Makuta’s true nature, and more would be revealed soon…

Part 2: The Movie Villain

In 2003, the first Bionicle books were released. Cathy Hapka was hired to write the first three, Tale of the Toa (which told the events of 2001 from the perspective of the Toa, filling the void left by the loss of the PC game), Beware the Bohrok (which did the same for the 2002 story), and Makuta’s Revenge (which told the first half of 2003’s story). Despite featuring in the title, Makuta himself did not appear in Makuta’s Revenge beyond an opening monologue, and in actuality, had little to no input on the plot of the arc- the villains are an automatic failsafe triggered in response to the defeat of the previous year’s antagonists.

Still, this brief scene provided a momentary look at the character that Makuta was shifting into. The initial wave of books was intended to fill out the gaps in the story and give a recap of the lore up until then, ahead of the movie’s release, and as such, Hapka’s portrayal of the characters lines up rather neatly with the movie. Indeed, she would also write the movie’s novelisation. And that means it’s time to talk some more about Bob Thompson.

Bob Thompson was the original head of the creative team behind Bionicle, and served as executive producer for the three movies. Described by scriptwriter Henry Gilroy as “the George Lucas of Lego,” Thompson was the one steering the ship for the first half of the toyline. He had a particular focus on visual media, and a grand plan that he referred to as “The Seven Books of Bionicle,” and the movies would be the first real look at his vision.

Thompson and Hapka’s portrayal of Makuta is a very different beast to Swinnerton’s eldritch, allegorical entity. Makuta is very much a physical being, he has a huge, heavily armoured body, a deep, booming voice provided by Lee Tockar, and spooky shadow powers. Gone is the infected Kanohi Hau, Great Mask of Shielding, a corrupted symbol of Mata Nui that represented Makuta in 2001. Instead, he now dons the which had a His characterisation had shifted dramatically too. Makuta now spoke of Mata Nui’s slumber as preservation, and seemed duty-bound to maintain it at all costs.

2003 would also see an escalation in his battles with the Matoran. Where he had merely brainwashed the Rahi and awakened the Bohrok early, 2003 would see Makuta unleash the , the mid-sized sets of the Summer 2003 wave, described as the “Sons of Makuta,” his direct subordinates and created from his very being, and wielding “evil” powers like Fear, Anger, Hunger, Disintegration, Fragmentation (explosions), and Poison.

And then, in July of 2003, the very first set of Two months later, he would be joined on shelves by the first Bionicle movie, Mask of Light.

Mask of Light continues the trend established in Hapka’s books. Makuta says a lot of ominous and vague things that hint toward the possibility that he’s actually a well-intentioned extremist, that he genuinely believes he is protecting Mata Nui by keeping him asleep, and that perhaps it’s the Mask of Shadows that has corrupted him. At the end of the film, Takanuva, the Toa of Light, pulls off the mask, and two are momentarily fused into a being referred to as All the grime and rust is washed off Makuta’s body, revealing pristine metal underneath, and the fusion declares that light has revealed Mata Nui’s true desires, and he must be awakened. Takutanuva is shortly destroyed after opening the door to the room where Mata Nui can be revived, and Takanuva is resurrected, with Makuta’s fate left uncertain.

Bob Thompson would later go on to say that he envisioned there being no truly evil beings in Bionicle, and that even Makuta would eventually be revealed to be not such a bad guy deep down. Of course, nothing is ever simple with Bionicle, and the course would divert heavily just two years later, leaving what Thompson intended largely unknown and Makuta’s lines in the movie as a strange attempt to manipulate Takanuva. And it wasn’t the only thing that was strange and difficult to explain. There was also Makuta’s design.

Part 3: The Prototype

Despite the set being made to tie in with the movie, his appearance in Mask of Light looked... , something even more visible in his While some of the broad strokes are the same, there's a lot that's different. Especially the most prominent feature of the design, his mask. While the set version has a dramatically pointed shape with long, angular eyeholes, the is flatter and squarer, and also worse.

Questions about this weird discrepancy would be asked and speculated over for years, with the most prominent answer being that the movie design was based on an older look that the set had diverged from during development, but the questions persisted until somewhere around 2020, when a showed up on Ebay. While none of the community purchased it, and exactly who now owns the prototype Makuta remains unknown, staring intently at the images started to clear things up.

See, Mask of Light featured characters from across the first three years of Bionicle, but whereas the toys from 2001-2002 were able to be adapted mostly accurately, the 2003 sets weren't ready yet when the movie entered production, and so the Matoran, Rahkshi, Takanuva, and yes, Makuta were based on prototypes of their toys.

The most obvious thing was the mask- the pile of parts included a , the Legendary Mask of Time and , that had mostly been painted black. And people started to realise that the movie Kraahkan bore a striking resemblance to a a , the Great Mask of Strength, with the Pakari forming the top of the head and the Vahi forming the face. And sure enough,

Anyway, as you might imagine, seeing a partially-assembled prototype set quickly got the community abuzz, and it wasn't long before the prototype had been reverse-engineered and built, allowing fans to finally have a semi-official set of the movie design. The prototype was huge, towering over the final set, and featured a much larger amount of articulation in his legs, as well as individually articulated fingers. Of course, it wasn't all perfect, and we soon started to get an understanding of why things had changed so much between the prototype and the final toy.

First off, the pile of parts contained . The upper one, circled in blue bears more of a resemblance to the movie design, with a pair of conjoined Toa Mata hand pieces forming the shin of Makuta's presumably devil-inspired goat legs. But as any who attempted to build this particular look will attest, and demonstrated neatly in , these joints just weren't strong enough. The Mata hand part was designed for 1999's Slizers/Throwbots and had an inherently loose socket joint. It's a very weird part, and it was never going to be strong enough to hold up the weight of the giant model it was serving as a knee and ankle for. And thus, the lower one, circled in green, hews closer to the set, a much shorter design that only has a joint at the hip, ensuring greater stability at the cost of articulation.

Yes, this is essentially a transitional form between the prototype and the final set. We have Bionicle toys evolving before our eyes.

Still, that wasn't the only leg-related woe. See, the second leg design still had a problem- The legs were attached by the , a piece also known as the “Voodoo Ball.”

It’s called that because it was initially created for the first draft of Bionicle, called… “The Boneheads of Voodoo Island.” Or “Doo Heads” for short. Yeah. In case you thought the whole thing with the cultural appropriation wasn’t bad enough.

Whereas the play pattern for early Bionicle revolved around knocking each character’s mask off (before kids complained about the masks falling off too easily and getting lost, and Lego made all masks from late 2003 onwards use an axle connection instead), “Boneheads” was supposed to feature decapitation as the core of its “game” aspects. The Technic balljoint was initially designed to serve as the neck… and thus it had a deliberately weak connection to more easily facilitate this.

The part continued to be used after its intended purpose was cancelled, presumably because while Bionicle’s target audience of six-year-old boys would probably love robots that decapitate each other, their parents sure as hell wouldn’t, and this resulted in a lot of Bionicle (and other Lego theme) builds throughout 2001-2005 having the loose ball joint part, until 2006 saw the introduction of the Lord and Saviour of Bionicle fans everywhere: , which had a properly sturdy connection that ensured much greater stability.

The result of this, however, is that while the second prototype’s legs weren’t floppy and incapable of supporting his weight any more… they did still fall off a lot.

Now, if these were the only problems, then that would be alright. Alternatives exist, and Brickthumb's video also demonstrates a means of adding additional structural support to the joints to allow them to hold up the set. But it wasn't. And the second problem is likely what led to the heavy redesigning of the entire torso.

See, some of those pieces in the Ebay photo are outright broken. And one of them is The broken one in the set is red, this one's grey, same piece, don't worry about it. It's one part of the three-piece assembly that makes up Makuta's chest and thighs (or his entire leg on the second prototype and the final set), as well as the neck and back armour of the Rahkshi. On the prototype, the balljoint at the end of the one in Makuta's chest connects to a normal Technic socket joint, which is in turn attached to an early version of the 2003 , which makes up Makuta's waist. On the final set, that balljoint isn't connected to anything, and just hangs in front of Makuta's midsection. And there's a very good reason for that.

The way the prototype's torso is built stresses the Rahkshi piece. It flexes it, and the part isn't particularly thick, and it's made of hard ABS plastic, not the softer stuff used for weapons and masks. I think it's more than likely that the reason the one in the Ebay photos is broken is that it snapped after being stressed too much. In the Lego community, assemblies that damage the parts are called "Illegal techniques," and while they do occasionally show up in sets, it's generally not considered a good thing to put your Lego parts at the risk of breaking. For some, intentionally damaging a part with scissors, clippers, fire, etc. is actually more acceptable than a build that stresses and will eventually damage or outright break a piece.

Nevertheless, prototype Makuta remains a popular build, with instructions for the and those for the , and other fans have attempted to build him in such a way that he doesn’t stress the chest part.

Part 4: Makuta Eats People

2004 would see Bionicle begin its flashback arc. With the (possible) reveal of Mata Nui (possibly) nixed from the movie, Mask of Light instead ended with the reveal of a location called the “City of the Great Spirit,” which wise old man and mentor Turaga Vakama referred to as his home. Tales of the Masks, the final 2003 book and the first to be written by Greg Farshtey, featured all six of the Turaga deciding that the Toa, now transformed into the deserved to know the truth about what they’d been hiding. It also features Toa Gali discovering a carving of six more Toa, one whom bears a strange resemblance to Turaga Nokama, and Gali, Tahu, and Kopaka finding another carving of the Toa fighting a monstrous chimeric Rahi, which reappears, only for Vakama himself to defeat it by using its memory of his voice to drive it into a rage, implying that he too was one of the strange Toa. The final 2003 comic, also penned by Farshtey, would see Vakama declare it outright: On the eve of the return journey to the city, now revealed to be called Metru Nui, he would decide that the Toa must know everything, and told them that they were not the first Toa.

For a little context, prior to 2003, the Matoran, Turaga, and Toa were presented as more-or-less three separate species. Maybe a Turaga and a Matoran were kind of the same thing, but they were still largely separate. Mask of Light threw that for a loop with Takua’s transformation into Takanuva, indicating that actually, Matoran and Toa were the same species after all. This was followed by the reveal that the six that would headline 2004’s story were the Turaga themselves in their younger days. That was why a mostly-immortal species of biomechanical cyborgs could be “old,” the Turaga weren’t actually any older than the rest of the characters, they were just frail and withered because they’d given up almost all of their power.

2004’s storyline had a different vibe entirely to what had come before. Whereas 2001-2003 had been set on a tropical island paradise menaced by, essentially, an evil demigod sorcerer, 2004’s Metru Nui was a kid-friendly cyberpunk dystopia, a city of endless work presided over by the shady and mysterious , and protected by the . The villain sets were with fun powers like “hijacking your eyes to spy on you,” “brainwashing you into being their agent,” and “temporary lobotomy.” Templar Studios made Matoran were vanishing, and in the midst of it all were six rookie Toa trying to learn how to be heroes without getting themselves arrested.

So where does Makuta factor into all of this? Well, as the second movie, Legends of Metru Nui reveals, it turns out that he’s behind everything. He had abducted Turaga Dume and shapeshifted into his form, using his power to turn the Vahki against the population. He unleashed the evil plant that served as the Toa Metru’s starter villain to force the Matoran into the centre of the city, so that he could more easily have the Vahki capture them. He sent to capture Toa Lhikan and pursue the Toa Metru, whom he had declared to be traitors using Dume’s authority. He then had all of the Matoran sealed inside spherical pods that would drain their power and erase their memories, so that he could use the Mask of Time, that he had commissioned Vakama to create prior to his transformation, to accelerate the process and awaken them as their saviour and new Great Spirit.

Revealing his identity to the Toa Metru and now-Turaga Lhikan, the movie furthered the idea that Makuta wasn’t wholly evil by having Lhikan declare that he’d been “sworn to protect the Matoran,” making it clear that while he wasn’t anyone’s favourite person, he had largely been on the side of good until that moment. Makuta then proceeds to cast Mata Nui into sleep, this is the moment that the backstory legend talked about, triggering a massive earthquake called the Great Cataclysm, because Mata Nui is a big robot and he just fell over. The Toa quickly decide to take as many Matoran as they can and evacuate the ruined city, only for Makuta to start transforming out of his Dume disguise, which he does by consuming his mercenary minions and Dume’s pet bird, fusing the broken pieces of their bodies into a gigantic, monstrous form.

While Bionicle had featured combination models that were the result of characters fusing in the first three years, 2004 saw Lego mostly pivot to using the combination models to represent new characters, but they made sure to give the fusion idea This form was labelled “Ultimate Dume” to try and avoid spoiling that he was actually a new form of Makuta. In the movie he just looks like , which is certainly much less cool (and wouldn’t fit with a later plot point), but it is an overall cleaner design.

Unfortunately, Legends of Metru Nui wouldn’t quite stick the landing with Makuta. All that up there that he pulled off is pretty good (though a lot of is heavily abridged in the film version and more apparent through Farshtey’s books), but the final battle of the movie mostly consists of Vakama tricking him into hitting himself in the face with progressively bigger rocks, until finally he hits himself with a really big rock and pancakes himself to a wall, whereupon the Toa Metru use their powers to seal him in a crystalline prison.

2005 and its movie, Web of Shadows, would then follow up on this, Makuta telepathically summoning his lieutenants and and their army of to the ruins of Metru Nui as a contingency, and after a lot of , Roodaka successfully frees Makuta from his prison, and the Toa take the rest of the Matoran to the island of Mata Nui, bring the flashback mostly full circle.

But this also brought an end to Bob Thompson and the Seven Books of Bionicle. As said before,Thompson’s main focus was visual media, and that was about to mostly dry up. Lego were not intending to make more movies after Web of Shadows, there was no TV show in sight, and the videogames had been a mess. Despite releasing four console games, only two of them were actually part of the story, a trend that would not improve. Dozens of browser games had been released, but only two of those would be canon as well, and that trend would get even worse. And so, with Bionicle’s story material pivoting almost entirely to the comics (written by Greg Farshtey) and the books (written by Greg Farshtey), Thompson parted ways with Lego, doing so during the development of Web of Shadows, though he did continue to help with its production as an external contractor.

Surely, though, his collaborators would be able to continue the Seven Books, right? Well… not exactly. See, Bob Thompson went to the same school of storytelling that led to Marvel Studios giving actors movie scripts so heavily redacted that they don’t know who their character is talking to or what’s happening in the scene, or Scott Cawthon giving the new Five Nights at Freddy’s developers a bunch of vague lore mystery boxes instead of a plan, resulting in their big splash game having an incoherent plot with a boss that wasn’t supposed to exist. He didn’t tell anybody what his plans were.

And so, when Thompson left, neither Greg Farshtey, nor anyone else actually knew where the plotlines he’d been seeding were headed. All that remained of Thompson’s plans was the story treatment for a Toa Lhikan origin movie.

Part 5: The Magnaleak

In 2024, Christian Faber teamed up with Lego Youtuber and man with too much money Duckbricks to release a bunch of internal development documents relating to Bionicle. They decided to do this in parts to get as much attention as possiblenot overwhelm the fanbase with too much material. Within days of this happening, Lego took notice of what was happening and told them both to maybe stop leaking internal development documents actually.

While the vast majority of the material seems to have remained hidden, what did get out has not been deleted, and among them was the original story treatment for the film that became Web of Shadows.

See, the thing about 2005’s storyline was that it wasn’t as clean as I presented it up there. Legends of Metru Nui actually brought the story mostly full-circle, with only Makuta’s escape from his imprisonment being unanswered. But Lego didn’t want the Metru Nui assets to go to waste, and so 2005’s storyline was actually an interquel inserted into the scene transition between the penultimate and final scenes of Legends of Metru Nui.

But before that, the plan had initially been for 2005 to focus on the origin story of Toa Lhikan and Nidhiki, the big green crab guy that Makuta ate in 2004, who was actually a mutated fallen Toa and a former teammate of Lhikan’s.

Almost 20 years after Thompson bowed out of the franchise, we finally got a bit more information about what his plans were regarding Makuta. The film would've seen Lhikan, Nidhiki, and their Toa team travel to another city that Makuta had taken over (which doesn’t necessarily fit with Lhikan being shocked that Makuta had betrayed them in 2004, but ehhh, it was an early draft). There, they would've discovered that Makuta had turned everything into grey mechanical perfection, and the Matoran into unthinking drones. Lhikan and his Toa team would face Makuta, referred to as “Makuta Primus” in the treatment and able to split himself into more Makuta (and trust me, we’re going to get to that), Nidhiki would betray the others and become a crab, and Lhikan would be solidified as a hero.

The film characterised Makuta as a rogue element of the Great Spirit Robot’s function, stripping away the individuality and free will of the populace in the name of efficiency, in service to whatever entities had created the robot in the first place.

Ultimately, the movie was never made. Lego elected not to flash even further back, and instead to reuse Metru Nui as a setting, and tell another story with the Toa Metru. This backstory for Lhikan and Nidhiki was also changed dramatically. And with Bob Thompson’s exit, the content and direction of Bionicle’s narrative would be largely decided by Greg Farshtey, who had his own ideas.

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Note: the two major sources I have used for this write-up are two documentaries. , and a transcribed . Therefore if there’s any wonky phrasing, please be aware that I looked high and low to no avail to find a proper translation for the Dutch documentary, but I couldn’t find one.

Part 1 , but to quickly recap: In the 1960s to 70s, the James Bond movies were produced by two men: Albert R Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. In 1968, they faced an unprecedented crisis when Sean Connery quit the role of 007 (he was being stalked by journalists and fans) and they needed to find a replacement.

After finding the perfect actor to play 007, how do you find *another* one?

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – The hunt for Bond

The first five Bond movies were all edited by one man...Peter Hunt. He did such a good job, that Cubby and Harry offered him the directors chair for the sixth movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (OHMSS).

OHMSS is a weird but tragic story.

Bond is searching for his main nemesis, Blofeld. At the same time, he rescues a girl, Tracy, from committing suicide. Her father tries to browbeat him into marrying her, but Bond refuses.

Bond tracks Blofeld down to Switzerland. In order to defeat his nemesis, he goes undercover, disguising himself as ‘Sir Hilary Bray’. Entering Blofeld’s mountaintop fortress, Piz Gloria, he quickly discover his bat shit insane plot to take over the world.

I am just going to copy and paste this part of the plot from , because it describes it far better than I ever will:

Bond learns that Blofeld has apparently been curing a group of young British and Irish women of their allergies to food and livestock. In truth, Blofeld and his aide, Irma Bunt, have been brainwashing them into carrying biological warfare agents back to Britain and Ireland to destroy the agricultural economy, upon which post–Second World War Britain depends.

Yep. Blofeld is hypnotising a group of young women into becoming disease carriers.

Upon discovery, Bond escapes Piz Gloria. Using magic tectonic powers, Blofeld causes an avalanche, which Bond avoids, but the effort weakens him.

All of a sudden, Tracy appears and saves his life. Because of this, Bond falls in love with her. He proposes marriage and Tracy accepts.

With the help of some big guns and armoured helicopters, Bond returns to Piz Gloria and destroys it. Blofeld escapes via bobsled.

Despite his extremely dangerous and vengeful archenemy still being on the run, Bond decides to marry Tracy. While driving away from the wedding, Blofeld ambushes them with a gun.

Bond survives. Tracy is killed. Bond is sad and swears vengeance- which he will get in the next book.

So, unlike many other Bond novels, OHMSS is unique in that Bond falls in love, gets married, and almost settles down.

This means that whoever plays Bond in the OHMSS movie would have to show a lot of range: joy, anger, love, and heatbreak.

George Lazenby - The Second Bond

In their search for the second 007, the producers and director tested a lot of actors. A lot. of them. They cast the Bond Girl easily- the lovely, incredible, absolutely amazing Diana Rigg (RIP).

But one day, . For chocolate. The main star was an Australian named George Lazenby. He reminded Peter Hunt of Sean Connery-- he had the same physique and sex appeal. And so, Lazenby was invited to audition for the role of 007.

At the time, Lazenby was working as a cars salesman and male model in London. He had zero acting experience. Zilch. Nada. But he wasn’t broke, he was a male model, earning a year.

But Lazenby was smart, and decided to seize the opportunity and do whatever he could to win the role.

, he went to Sean Connery’s tailor and got a suit- fortunately, they gave him one that Sean himself had left behind. Then he went to Sean’s barber and got a 007-style haircut.

So, he looked the part. Perfectly.

He first saw Harry Saltzman, and :

So we went to his office across the street and there I was asked what my life story was. And I told him that I could ski and car racing, that I was a karate expert and all those other things that James Bond was.”

Lazenby had skied and he had a sports car, but everything was said with that. It was all bluff. His film and stage experiences were also one big bluff story. “I said I had acted in China and New Zealand. It was difficult to control.” In reality, Lazenby only has experience as a model and can be seen in one advertising video by Fry Chocolate Cream.

Afterwards, Lazenby to Peter Hunt.

Peter told him:

”I’ll tell you what. You stick to your story, and I’ll make you the next James Bond.”

*Ominous noises*

Peter helped him become more Bond-like, teaching him to walk like “Prince Charles” and giving him elocution lessons to lessen his very thick Australian accent.

Lazenby also met Diana Rigg. And they got on. At first.

*More ominous noises*

But Lazenby still had to impress Harry and Cubby. Which he did. By a stuntman in the face and breaking his nose.

He then told them the truth, but they still cast him as 007, offering him . At the time the press highlighted Lazenby’s inexperience with such as "Australian Non-Actor Chosen to Play James Bond" and "He Traded In Auto Selling for 007 Job".

In contrast, Lazenby was :

OHMSS – The movie

The OHMSS movie is a relatively faithful adaptation. There are some minor changes- plot points are moved around and there is a lot more action- but by far the biggest change is the character of Tracy. She has more agency and a larger role in the plot. There also more scenes between her and Bond, making their romance more believable.

She’s also directly involved in the action and has several badass moments. In a car chase, she’s the one driving while Bond is a passenger, and in sharp contrast to book!Bond’s belief that women are terrible drivers, she proceeds to out drive a whole bunch of men. She’s also involved in the ski chase, and does a commendable job keeping up with Bond. Unfortunately, this time around, Blofeld’s tectonic powers actually work, and in a tired cliché, Tracy is captured while Bond escapes. However, this lets her have an with Blofeld, so all is good.

Hunt intended the film to be a :

Hunt has very clear in mind where he wants to go with his Bond film. “I wanted it to be a different Bond movie than the other. It was my movie, not anyone else's. The story of Fleming was so beautiful.”

Hunt believes that the Bond film formula is going over the top. In the previous films, the decors were too extravagant and the humor and the tricks were too prominent. Hunt makes a decision that, in addition to the new actor as Bond, means a second deviation in the Bond film formula. He decides to follow the book of Fleming as faithfully as possible with the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. “During the entire film adaptation, I had a paperback copy of the book in my back pocket. I had the book full of notes and was very tenacious in my loyalty to Fleming’s story.”

Filming begins – and so does trouble.

Now, the story of the filming troubles of OHMSS is a mixed bag- a he said, she said, situation. Lazenby and the film-makers have equally praised, and criticised one another. It’s worth mentioning that Lazenby reportedly with some of the people on set- his co-star Telly Savalas, some of the crew, and the stuntmen.

Very few facts are a 100% certain. But I will present them as best I can using the sources I have found.

Cubby visited the set in Switzerland in November 1968, and found the atmosphere . Tensions were running high- :

Finding Piz Gloria is a great happiness for Hunt, but otherwise the recordings of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service are not going so well. The weather is causing trouble. It's cold, but for the first time in forty years, the snow stays out around the Christmas of 1969. Because this has to be waited for, Hunt is soon behind schedule. Recordings of James-Bond films have generally taken up a very long six-month period. Eventually, the recordings are completed 58 days later than planned. Furthermore, the thin air around Piz Gloria causes many problems and accidents in the stuntmen.

Cubby’s wife, Dana Broccoli, had a solution- she came to the set and .

The party went well, lifting everyone’s spirits. But one person was absent...George Lazenby.

And then...he arrived.

This is what Dana alleges happened:

“So I went up to him and said, ‘George, come on. Come here and sit with us.’ ‘Alright’, he said. But he was very quiet. And I said to him, ‘George, why are you angry? What’s wrong?’. He said, ‘Well, I did not get an invitation to this party’. And I said, ‘George, it was on the call sheet, it was in the lifts. Everyone knew it.’ He said, ‘But I’m the star.’ So I laughed because I never heard anyone say that before.

Well Cubby did not think it was funny and he said to him, ‘You’re not a star because you say you’re a star. You’re not a star because I say you’re a star. You’re a star when the public calls you a star and we have yet to see that.

Lazenby also caused other issues on set. Because of , the insurance company for OHMSS wouldn’t let him ski. But he did. And was caught- by Cubby, no less- and got in trouble again.

Lazenby gave his own view of :

Lazenby sits with the Bond squad in Switzerland for months for the filming and it soon turns out that there is a big difference of insight about directing. Lazenby expects that as an inexperienced actor he will be heavily coached, but that turns out to be disappointing, according to his own words. Lazenby has always claimed that he was not directed by Peter Hunt at all and that he did not even speak to him during the 9 months of filming. “I have experienced the collaboration with Hunt as unhappy. He never spoke to me. Everything Peter said to me went through the assistant. That situation existed throughout the film. He told everyone to stay away from me. Peter thought the more I was alone, the better I would be as James Bond. That was his theory. I have to praise him for that, because the result is good.”

Hunt :

Although, according to Hunt, there were indeed many conflicts on the set, according to him, it is absolutely not true that he did not speak to Lazenby. “I had faith in Lazenby, otherwise I wouldn’t have worked with him. I knew he could act and I think he's a good Bond, too. Every director has his methods, but I certainly spoke to him. I do think that the change from the outback in Australia to the distinguished world of filmmaking was too big for him. Moreover, Lazenby was a bit of a strange figure, I always called for him to be more protected.” Hunt believes that Lazenby should be mainly trained in dealing with the press.

One group who loved the discord on set was the international paparazzi.

Just like with Connery, theyLazenby during the filming of OHMSS. They constantly compared him to Sean Connery, and in interviews, constantly asked him about how he compared to Sean Connery.

They also ran a negative press campaign against him, alleging he was with his co-stars on on set. , while they were interviewing him in the canteen before a romantic scene with Diana Rigg, she called out “I’m having garlic for lunch George. I hope you are.” The press ran with this, stating that Rigg disliked him.

Hunt that there were a few moments of discontent between them but nothing permanent, while Lazenby stated that he and Rigg were friends.

Lazenby also another one of his co-stars, Bernard Lee, who played M. While they were filming in Portugal, he chased Lee around on a horse, and Lee ran into a rosebush, badly scratching his leg. Lazenby apologised, but the incident further fractured his relationship with Cubby.

In 1970, Rigg in a British newspaper, the Daily Sketch, stating:

Dear George,

The film has opened and is, I hear, making a great deal of money at the box office. This means you have been accepted by the public, which bodes well for your future career. Why, then, do you persist in dwelling on your petty grievances?

I’m tired of reading those paranoid statements to the Press wherein you were solely surrounded by hostile people. I agree that by the end of the film most of the crew were hostile, but only because of your extreme behaviour.

Why else would your dresser threaten to hand in his notice? Why else would three chauffeurs leave you within a week? Why else was one member of the unit restrained from striking you after one inexcusable and crude outburst against one of the girls in the film?

Remember once telling me you valued honesty greatly and that I was “if nothing else, honest”? Perhaps you would prefer not to. But, let’s get some of those highly-coloured incidents between us straightened out truthfully.

NO, GEORGE, I did not eat garlic on purpose. Why would I? To ruin an important scene for both of us? That is not what acting together means. And if you recollect, on discovering what I’d done, I apologised and took every precaution – sprays, pills, etc.

NO, GEORGE, I was not, as you said, guzzling champagne in some warm bar when we had the row. I was attempting to back the Cougar car on a very icy road. You were telling me what to do - and since you know more about cars than I, you had every right.

But the manner of telling me - abusively with threats to “Bash my ---- face in” - was hardly the best way. I felt ill, unable to fight back on that level - and I cried.

Later, some weeks later, you apologised. But the damage was done.

Neither do I think it was entirely truthful of you to suggest I was keeping the crew waiting. This was your particular pleasure and it is to their everlasting credit that they treated you throughout with patience and consideration.

Even the cameramen took it in his stride when, after only a few weeks of filming, you began telling him what to do. He was a gentleman – remember George?

Yes, I did talk to the crew rather than you. Quite simply I preferred their company. And as to Peter Hunt, the director, not once did he lose his temper under the constant provocation of your storming off the set, turning up late and sulking.

As far as money is concerned, George, let’s face it: £22,000 for your first film – with perks thrown in – cannot be a hardship. Few would consider it so.

And concerning your relations with the producers, I know little except that they found it impossible to meet your demands for more money, bigger chauffeur-driven cars, grander apartments, etc.

I do know, too, that the producers are both men capable of generosity, and I was present on one occasion when “Cubby” Broccoli spontaneously gave you - off his wrist - a gold watch you had admired.

It is against all my principles and beliefs in the work we as actors do to fight at all – let alone openly and crudely as you have been doing.

However, your injustices and blatant distortions to the Press have finally forced me to speak.

It is all in the past now, George. The people concerned have been prepared to forget – why can’t you?

I’ll say no more.

Yours faithfully,

Diana Rigg

Lazenby fired back a day later, publishing a rebuttal in the same paper:

Dearest Diana,

I cannot understand what you have written, but I am trying to answer it in the most honest way.

I have dwelt on my “petty” grievances because they may have been petty to you at the time because you have been in the business for 15 years. But I am just a beginner.

My grievances and my “paranoid statements to the Press,” as you put it, are all part of somebody trying desperately to co-operate and become a good actor. I am, as you know, a raw recruit to show business.

We all make mistakes, and I know I’ve made mine, as there are in every film. And that includes my dresser. But at the end of the film we’re all good mates.

The chauffeurs? The one I had in London, Ernie Freeman, I took to Portugal to film. Because he was a stranger there he stayed as my guest more than anything. My second chauffeur was a bullfighter who drove like a lunatic. And, if I die young I’d rather drive myself.

The third chauffeur was not outside a restaurant one night. A girl friend and I left and found no car, but there was a rowdy mob of fishermen sending me up as James Bond.

The only thing I could do was to walk into the centre of them, rather than let them descend on me. What would you do, darling, if you left with your boy friend, Philip Saville, and found a jeering mob and no car?

I was frightened, to be honest, and I shook the ringleader’s hand. Then the car arrived. I took the tension out on the chauffeur and that was wrong, I admit. But he won, because I walked home.

I don’t remember any outburst worth speaking of that would get someone uptight enough to want to have a go. I’m sure we had slight disagreements, but they are past and forgotten.

I never said you had garlic on purpose, although it was unfortunate you did. Darling, I’ve seen you drink champagne for breakfast. I have it, too, but it’s not exactly my scene. Give me apple juice any day.

OK, so I said things about your driving but you don’t think I was right.

The film crew I respected. If I can always get a crew like that I will be very happy. They kept me from going insane.

The cameraman I could go on and on about. A great guy, Michael Reed. He was a gentleman.

You will laugh, Diana about the money scene. But I would have accepted nothing for the part because I wanted to become an actor. It was the greatest screen test of all times.

The watch!! I admired Cubby’s watch at the Variety Club Ball, and Cubby said he would get me one.

Anyway, another actor had bought one and I mentioned that Cubby was going to give me one. And, two hours later Cubby, being the generous man that he is, handed his over.

Obviously the word went down the line. I was very embarrassed and tried to give it back but he insisted that his wife wanted me to have it.

I am sorry you brought that up. But what knocks me out the most is that you said it was against your principles and beliefs to bring other people into a fight.

I am sorry it worked out this way, but there is a statement that a bigger man than I am has made recently. He puts it in a nutshell: “War is over if you want it.”

Peace.

George.

The Aftermath

In December 1969, at the premiere of OHMSS, Lazenby a decidedly un-007like beard and long hair.

The day before, he had on the Late Night Show with Johnny Carson and made a stunning announcement...he was quitting the role of James Bond after only one movie. Cubby and Harry, who had been watching the broadcast, were enraged, fearing that Lazenby’s decision could hurt OHMSS’s box office. They also hated his new appearance and tried, to no avail, to to shave it all off. They took his resignation and ‘’, claiming that they had let him go.

Lazenby turned down the 7 film contract, losing one of the biggest roles in cinema, all because his agent, Ronan O'Rahilly, that Bond would be out of the fashion by the 1970s.

Now, OHMSS, wasn’t a flop. It made money, just not . It only grossed half of what the previous Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, had made. , reviews were mixed, with most criticising Lazenby’s performance. United Artists, then distributors of the Bond movies, with the financial performance of OHMSS and blamed Lazenby.

Over the years, Lazenby has been very candid about his experience filming OHMSS and the publicity storm that happened after the premiere. In February 1970, he had a with the BBC, where he said that he was acting ‘uptight’ on set due to his inexperience, and reiterated that Hunt had always been too busy to help him. He also repeated his that Diana Rigg had been drinking before they had filmed the car racing scene and that he had lectured her about it. He then that he felt Bond should’ve been gentler, more humane in the movie, versus the rigid characterisation that the director and producers wanted. This included inserting ‘pop music’ into the film to make it lighter. He also the crew, stating that if not for them, he would’ve gone ‘insane’. His final claim was that he’d his own tour around the USA to promote the movie, because due to his beard, he’d been cut from the official tour it as the producers had wanted him to look like 007.

After the premiere, Cubby Lazenby, stating that he’d given a good performance even if he wasn’t the best actor, although he found his attitude ‘annoying’, and that he was arrogant and had a lack of respect for the Bond character. By 1978, he was more , saying casting Lazenby had been his ‘worst mistake’, calling him ‘very arrogant’ and that he hadn’t worked well with the cast and crew. Sean Connery came to Lazenby’s defence, saying Cubby was actually the arrogant one.

Lazenby :

“It hasn't been easy, trying to climb back .... I admit I acted stupidly. It went to my head, everything that was happening to me. But remember, it was my first film .... Now what I've got to do is live down my past; convince people I'm not the same person who made a fool of himself all those years ago. I know I can do it. All I need is the chance.”

By 1978, he wasn’t doing so well. All his films had flopped. He spent all his Bond money, experienced two mental breakdowns, and become an alcoholic. For the next couple of years, he bounced around Hong Kong, Australia and finally moved to Hollywood, where he achieved a modest success, but nothing high profile like OHMSS.

Epilogue – a modern day retrospective

As the years went on, OHMSS’s reputation grew and the critical consensus shifted. Now, many agree ever made. It has several high profile fans, including and .

Over the years, Lazenby has conducted a lot of interviews about OHMSS. He has said that he had a lot of before he accepted the role of 007, and that heand then he would’ve completed his contract and done all seven.

In 2012, he was :

He tells Entertainment Weekly magazine, "They offered me millions under the table to do another one, but I thought James Bond was over. Easy Rider was the number one movie. Everyone was smoking marijuana, and that was the furthest thing from a James Bond movie. So I didn't sign the contract.

"I was badly treated after that. They (producers) told the press that I was difficult to handle, so it was hard to find work."

And Lazenby insists his portrayal of 007 in 1969 was the most believable, adding, "It's the only film that treats him like a human being. He's not a robot killer like the latest Bond... When I did it, it had more heart. There's no heart to the new Bond."

In 2019, on the of OHMSS, Diana Rigg weighed in:

“I could never understand why George behaved as he did,” Rigg said, “because he was given such a glorious opportunity and he threw it all away. I’m sorry for him, if you really want to know. At some stage, it just went to his head.”

Both Lazenby and Rigg say they haven’t seen the movie in years. Nor are they in touch. “I don’t think one way or the other about Diana,” Lazenby said.

"Oh goodness, no, he wouldn’t come near me!” Rigg said.

She died the next year. Peter Hunt died in 2002. Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman both died in the 90s.

But George Lazenby is still alive.

In 2017, he participated in a documentary about his life called ‘’, in which he reflected on his time as 007 and the lasting impact the role had on his career. Although, he also used the opportunity to all the women he had seduced in the 1960s.

Lazenby claims he was subsequently blacklisted by the industry, becoming the movie world’s equivalent of a one-hit-wonder. He agreed to participate in the documentary, directed by Josh Greenhaum, to set the record straight. “I haven’t talked about it much lately – in the last, say, 20 years – but I did want the truth to be out there,” he says. “Word got around that I was difficult to handle. They said that was the reason I didn’t do another Bond, but that wasn’t the truth.”

In 2022, Lazenby for allegedly making homophobic, and ‘creepy’ remarks towards women, during an interview for a tour around Australia called ‘the Music of James Bond’. Although he apologised, he was booted off the tour. Some have disputed what he said, claiming he was likely just repeating old stories, but again, this seems to be a he said-she said situation.

In 2024, Lazenby from acting and all public appearances.

In 2025, his ex-wife he had been diagnosed with dementia and that she was looking after him.

Lazenby was only the second actor to play 007, but by no means the last.

After OHMSS, Sean Connery briefly returned to the role of 007 in Diamonds are Forever, before the hunt for a new Bond began all over again, but that’s a story for another time.

Thanks for reading.

Content warning: mentions of death threats

Intro

If you have a morbid fascination with watching internet fandoms light themselves on fire over media intended for preschoolers, this just might be the story for you. This story primarily involves an internet community with a fairly simple goal - one whose conclusion is dangled over their head just out of reach for years, that is until they look beyond the carrot and notice who's holding the stick.

Lost Media

The lost media community is an online community of amateur sleuths whose goal is to research, document, and hopefully find and archive lost media.

The precise definition of what constitutes lost media differs depending on who you ask, and is a highly debated subject within the community. Some define lost media strictly as media that used to be publicly available but isn't anymore, whether due to being lost to the sands of time, or intentionally censored/hidden from the public. Examples of this include silent-era films (most of which are thought to be permanently gone due to the fragile and flammable nature of early film reels), and instances such as episode 847 of Sesame Street, which featured the Wicked Witch of the West and was pulled from airing due to the character scaring kids.

Others believe that other types of rare or mysterious media also counts, such as unidentified media, which is media that may be publicly available but is too obscure to find through traditional internet searches. An example of this would be O parádivé Sally, also known by its community nickname "Clock Man" - an obscure animated short that for many years was unknown and remembered primarily for a scene in which a bearded man jumps out of a clock and carries away a child.

Relevant to this story, another subset of media to commonly fall under the lost media umbrella is unreleased media - media that was never meant to be publicly available in the first place. This includes things such as early builds of video games, music demos, unaired TV show pilots and production material from movies (such as the "I Feel Good" Shrek test animation).

No matter the precise definition, the mission statement of the community is to find lost and rare media and post it to the Internet Archive for public viewing and preservation. Many in the community believe that media preservation is important, as it helps preserve culture and history - even trivial media like obscure cartoons or commercials are deemed valuable and worthy of being saved. It's common for members of the community to be openly hostile to the concept of hoarding or "gatekeeping" media, particularly in cases of third-party collectors obtaining rare media and keeping it to themselves to retain its value.

Me and My Friends

The Backyardigans is an American 3D-animated show that aired on Nickelodeon from 2004 to 2013. It follows a cast of anthropomorphic animal characters as they use their imaginations to go on grand adventures in their shared backyard. It is a show that is nostalgic to a lot of Gen Z Americans, so any new information about its history or development was bound to catch a lot of attention and intrigue.

In 2012, a YouTube channel by the name of avavideos1 posted a they uncovered which was originally created by the staff at Nickelodeon Studios Florida back in 2000, for the studio's 10th anniversary. It consists of a montage of show clips and behind-the-scenes footage which was filmed at the studio. At around the 3:32 mark, there is a 3-second clip featuring the Backyardigans characters - already noteworthy as the show wouldn't come out for another 4 years, but the style is also wildly different from the final show. Rather than 3D animation, the clip is live-action, with the characters portrayed as full-body costumes. The title at this point was also unfinalized, as the clip is labeled Me and My Friends Pilot.

The Search Begins

Due to the discovery of an unavailable piece of media, and the media being connected to a popular show from many people's childhoods, lost media enthusiasts were eager to learn more about it. Some initial research led users to the Backyardigans Wiki, which had already started compiling information about its production, and was the sole source of much of the initial search efforts. From this page, it was revealed that the Me and My Friends pilot was filmed back in 1998 and pitched to Nickelodeon, and was rejected in favor of Dora the Explorer. But in 2001, the idea was reworked into a second pilot, where the name was changed to The Backyardigans, was animated in CGI and more closely resembled the final show. Some photos from Yvette Helin Studio, the company that made the costumes for Me and My Friends, were also uncovered, which showed some photos of the as well as puppets for , which were evidently in the pilot but didn't make it to the final show.

The First Signs of Trouble

Lost media YouTuber LSuperSonicQ compiled all of this information in a video he posted to his channel in 2017, which became widely popular within the community, putting many new eyes onto the pilot's existence. However, shortly after the video was uploaded, it was taken down by YouTube, and LSSQ's channel was issued a copyright strike. A day later, he received an email from someone claiming to be a lawyer. According to the lawyer, one of his viewers had watched the video, and this had inspired them to track down the name and email of a former crew member who worked on the second animated pilot. This individual then sent the crew member a death threat for not releasing the pilot online, causing them fear and upset. LSSQ was spooked by this incident and quickly deleted the video to be rid of the copyright strike, and explained to his followers what had happened. He later posted an unlisted of the original video with any mentions of the CGI pilot removed.

This incident brought the search for Me and My Friends to a halt, as some lone wolf threatening a former Nickelodeon employee likely burned a lot of bridges before they could be built. It's generally accepted in the community that if you're going to try and contact people involved in a piece of media's production to ask for information, there's some strict etiquette to adhere to. Let one person be the one to contact them, be cordial and professional, be polite and understanding if they can't help you, and stop emailing them if they've given all that they can. Without these guidelines, it's very easy for even well-meaning users to effectively spam and harass people who are just trying to do their jobs, and can cut the community off from people who might be able to help them with their search. A crew member being sent a death threat by a troll might as well have put the entire community on a blacklist, with anyone who could be of help being warned away from interacting with the community.

A on the Lost Media Wiki Forums indicates there was some conflict over whether the search should even continue, and some speculation that the incident jeopardized searches for other Nickelodeon lost media. LSSQ also with his feeling like some were blaming him for the incident and influencing other users' behavior due to the popularity of his videos.

I kinda just want to say that my channel isn't (and was never intended to be) a hub of active search parties- that's what this website is for. Just because I make a video of something doesn't mean I'm trying to tell people to go out on a massive manhunt and search for it. I make videos for entertainment sake and if anyone wants to participate in a search from that point on that's their own business.

The Search Revival

Despite the determination of some to not let the search die, it largely went quiet for the next few years. But in 2020, a new lost media YouTuber by the name of SewerReviewer made (volume warning at around 1:23) on the subject. He summarized the search thus far, and mentioned several people connected to the pilot that he had contacted, with no luck. This video also became very popular, and introduced a new round of people to the search, to the point of revitalizing it. A public Discord server dedicated to the Me and My Friends search was flooded with new users, eager for news and updates.

This second wind of popularity led to to split off into their own private Discord server, which they dubbed Lostcast. Here, they went over all the information they currently had and brainstormed new search ideas. They had decided to conduct a focused search for Me and My Friends privately, partially to block out the extraneous discussion and unverified rumors spreading throughout the public server, and partially to keep any contact information of potential leads private to avoid another death threat incident.

The first person of interest to contact the private server was a user known as JenPen, who claimed to have acquired some valuable information about the pilot. They posted a never-before-seen production photo as proof, known as the elusive "pink frog photo." This photo depicted what appeared to be a pink frog puppet alongside one of the meerkats, and may have been yet another character from the pilot that was then unknown to the search team. However, JenPen very soon after deleted the photo, claiming they didn't have permission to share it, and asked the other server members not to. This didn't seem too suspicious - it had happened a few times that lost media was leaked to the internet by someone with internal access, and it was often done in a cryptic or convoluted way to try and prevent the leak from being traced back to them. Still, this was the first piece of material related to the pilot that had been uncovered in years, so a Lostcast member by the name of Mr. Bones drew the photo from memory, with the hope it might be useful in the future.

Due to this find, JenPen was invited into the private server, and there they revealed something else - they had found a crew member by the name of John Paul, who used to have a public Twitter account and email, and sent him a message. They provided a screenshot of their email correspondence, in which Paul provided some information about the pilot, but stated he didn't have a copy of it. His name was new to the search team, but seeing as he didn't have any information on where to find the pilot, he could safely be ruled out.

Soon after this correspondence, JenPen mysteriously stopped responding to messages and left the server, never to be seen again.

But hope persevered, as another Lostcast member managed to find the personal email of the head of Yvette Helin Studios. They sent an email asking for information, and the owner replied with a large collection of new production photos. These photos depicted the actors in various states of dress in the costumes, from , to and standing on different parts of the set with , and sometimes . These new photos were exciting to the search team, as they showed more of what the set looked like, and gave a few more clues as to what the pilot's storyline might have been.

This new collection of content was shared in on LSSQ's channel, then added to the gallery on the Lost Media Wiki article for Me and My Friends. Some older comments on this livestream express confidence that the pilot was very close to being found. Although LSSQ himself makes a comment that the search has played out in a very unusual way, with its start-and-stop nature of a lot of progress being made all at once followed by months to years of no activity, as well as a lot of confusion over which crew members have and haven't already been contacted.

In a bid for more leads, Lostcast reached out to the admins of the Backyardigans Wiki - after all, they seemed to have searched for the pilot the longest, so if anyone would have any important information, it would be them. Two admins responded, giving a list of names and stating all of them had already been contacted and didn't have much information to share. Any new names the admins mentioned were immediately added to a list of people to rule out and not contact - again, the etiquette of the lost media community is to never contact people who have already provided any information they could or would, because it would be rude to continue to bother them about it.

The wiki admins also that not only had they been searching for the pilot the longest, its existence was discovered sort of by accident, by one user known as Sandra:

Sandra was doing research on a 2008 live show of The Backyardigans, which Yvette Helin designed...Sandra went to Yvette's website looking for info on the 2008 show, and she discovered the M&MF pictures...At the time, the pictures were just labeled "Me & My Friends Pilot" with no mention of Backyardigans...We googled it, and there were barely any results...Fortunately, we found Rick Lyon's site, which dated it to 1998...From that point, we knew it was the first-ever pilot, and we were able to piece together an article about M&MF for the wiki...A few years later, our article's info was copied over to the Lost Media Wiki, and the rest is history.

While initial conversations with the wiki admins seemed promising, the relationship gradually soured over time. The admins grew slower in their responses to Lostcast members' messages, and any new mentions of potential contacts were automatically met with claims that the wiki admins had already reached out to them. This led to Lostcast feeling as though the admins were giving them the cold shoulder, and they speculated that the admins didn't trust them enough to share much information with them. Or that perhaps they thought the lost media community was "stealing their thunder," given the comment about the Lost Media Wiki "copying" the Me and My Friends article from the Backyardigans Wiki. Either way, communication with them eventually ended on a sour note.

A Crack In the Search (and Facade)

Unbeknownst to the users of Lostcast, a lone individual from the public discord server under the name BerLostMedia had been conducting his own search for the pilot independently. Because he was not part of Lostcast, he was not aware of their do-not-contact list, and so he went ahead and sent inquiries to any new names he found on his own. He managed to reach out to Mark Delvecchio, an illustrator who had created the original designs for the Backyardigans characters as seen in Me and My Friends. Delvecchio provided his own personal photos from the set of the pilot, showing of the , as well as an infamously "liminal space" coded of the set in ominously low lighting. Ber posted these findings to Discord, and they soon made their way to the Lostcast server. Upon learning of their source, it struck the Lostcast members with confusion - Mark Delvecchio was on the list of contacts that had already been ruled out, as he allegedly didn't have anything to share. If this was the case, why was he able and willing to provide brand new material to Ber?

This led the search team to reconsider their list of discarded contacts. A few years had passed between the time they had been ruled out, and when Ber contacted Delvecchio. Perhaps some old leads could be recontacted to see if they had come across anything in the meantime. The first lead they pursued was Laura Kingsley, the director of the Me and My Friends pilot. They found her LinkedIn and sent her a message, asking for information on the pilot and if she had a copy. Her response read as follows:

No plot, really. A premise. For the pilot, it was the concept that if you are "waiting" and doing nothing, it feels like things take forever. But if you get involved with other things, the time passes and you enjoy your time. Geared towards small children.

There is just the pilot but nothing I can share. Hopefully you'll stumble upon it somewhere someday. It was a really sweet, and charming little show. Thanks for your interest. take care.

Some Lostcast members were disappointed that Kingsley seemed to turn down their request to share the pilot before they could even ask it. Still, this was an incredible piece of insight regardless, especially because not even the Backyardigans Wiki so much as mentioned a plot synopsis on their page.

The next blow came when Ber contacted Hiro Tanaka - an engineer who had worked on the pilot, and another name that Lostcast had thought they'd ruled out - and he recommended reaching out to his colleague, Michael Reilly. When Ber posted this name publicly, it sent shockwaves throughout the Lostcast server - Michael Reilly was on the list of known contacts, but under a completely different first name. Every mention on both the Backyardigans Wiki and subsequent lists of known crew members had his name listed as Thomas Reilly. This strange discrepancy came as a shock to the search team, and led some to wonder how a group as knowledgeable, strict and thorough as the wiki admins had allowed an incorrect name to be posted to their page.

Days after this discovery, the Me and My Friends page on the Backyardigans Wiki was found to have been updated by a user. This was significant as the admins had kept the page locked, so no one could make edits to it without their approval. This user, known as Oggy, quietly made two edits - one correcting Reilly's name, and the other adding a brand new production photo to the gallery. The discovery that they had more content that nobody in the search team had seen before led Lostcast to add them to their server, to see if they had any other material they could help with. Oggy claimed the new photo came from a storyboard artist they had contacted, and provided a screenshot of their email correspondence with said artist. Other than this, they didn't say much else.

But Lostcast had another lead on the table, so they contacted Reilly and asked for information. Reilly responded and revealed with photographic evidence that he possessed a VHS copy of the pilot, as well as a second VHS containing rehearsal footage. He came across in initial emails as very friendly and forthcoming with information, and even expressed interest in digitizing and releasing the tape. This was beyond exciting to the search team - after several years of trying to find this pilot, and only getting an occasional handful of production photos and at least one confirmation of a crew member having a copy and choosing not to share it, they might finally get actual footage of the actual pilot.

In his next email, however, he mentioned that he was going to ask his old boss if he could release the tape. This formed a pit in the stomachs of the search team, as any superior would likely tell him no. Nickelodeon, and its parent company Paramount, are notoriously protective of their IP - they are incredibly liberal with copyright takedowns of their work that was commercially released, even if it's no longer airing. Unreleased content such as pitch pilots tend to be under even greater lock and key.

This fear was further realized when Reilly stopped responding to emails altogether - no updates or confirmation on whether he was able to release the pilot or not, he completely ghosted the search team.

LSSQ on the forums:

The tape guy wasn't post production but he did work directly on the pilot. In one of his earliest emails, he mentioned wanting to ask his old boss for permission to release it. I'm guessing his old boss was a former Nickelodeon executive and told him not to, which is why he stopped emailing us completely.

However, there was an underlying suspicion that if this were the case, Reilly would have let them know that he couldn't release it, as he had initially been very communicative and enthusiastic about the prospect. To get radio silence despite multiple follow-up emails led to discussions within the Lostcast team that they might have had something similar to the death threat incident, where an outsider sabotaged their correspondence by making the lost media community look bad in such a way that Reilly was compelled to cut all contact with them.

There was also a greater level of distrust with some of their contacts, particularly JenPen and Oggy, as their unwillingness to share their finds with the wider community led to the that they deliberately baited the search team with new material to be let into their spaces, wherein they spied on the activity in Lostcast's private server and leaked information shared there. Due to similar caginess coming from the wiki admins, stemming from their frustration with the lost media community getting in on the search, it was speculated that they might have all been working together to try and sabotage the lost media community's search efforts. But this was all just conjecture, and there was plenty of room for other factors making the search for the pilot so difficult.

The Smoking Gun

After the disappointment of losing contact with the singular person who was known to have a copy of the pilot and a willingness to release it, leads once again dried up. All the search team could do was backtrack through all the information they already had, looking for anything that might have been missed. Lostcast members started with going through the edit history of the Me and My Friends page on the Backyardigans Wiki, to figure out when certain crew members were added, and what order information was discovered and posted in.

BerLostMedia did this on his own as well, but he took an additional approach. Since the wiki admins claimed that their information was copied over to the Lost Media Wiki, he decided to check its edit history as well, to build a more complete timeline of information.

And then, in doing so, a devastating piece of information was brought to the surface. Ber discovered that the Lost Media Wiki page for Me and My Friends had been temporarily deleted in 2016, with a log of who deleted it and their stated reason. The page was found to have been deleted by one of the admins of the Backyardigans Wiki, and their reasoning read as follows:

The admins at The Backyardigans Wiki all have a copy. Most content on this page is false, and it is appearing in search results in place of our own work.

This revelation came as a massive shock to the search team, as it implied that the Backyardigans Wiki admins had already found the pilot, at least as early as 2016 - before most lost media enthusiasts even knew about its existence - and they were hiding it from the public. This already would have been irritating to the lost media community due to their anti-hoarding stance, but the revelation that they were in possession of the pilot basically the entire time the lost media search existed came across as insidious to the search team. They had been in correspondence with the admins, who were communicative with leads they had supposedly chased and ruled out. If they actually had the pilot by that point, that just meant they were lying about being in the middle of their own investigation. And elements like supposedly dead leads being revisited and providing new information, and Michael Reilly's incorrect first name, would indicate the admins were spreading purposefully wrong information to lead the search team on a wild goose chase to keep them from finding another copy.

Several bits of information and frustrations that surfaced throughout the search were called into question. The search team harkened back to the copyright strike and message from a lawyer that LSSQ had gotten, and speculated that the copyright strike was frivolous (famously not hard to do on YouTube) and that the "lawyer" was actually a sockpuppet of the admins in an early attempt to quash the budding search. Whether this is substantiated or not, the email was generally regarded as a troll rather than an actual lawyer pursuing legal action, as the supposed lawyer had contacted LSSQ using a standard Gmail account, while lawyers typically use custom domains using their firm name. It also didn't make sense to them that a YouTuber could be found liable for influencing an individual to threaten someone whose name and contact info were not mentioned or alluded to in the video itself.

JenPen, the user who briefly shared the "pink frog photo" and claimed to get some information about the pilot from John Paul (including a supposed screenshot of their email correspondence), was now met with skepticism after Ber reached out to Paul himself and was told that he did work at Nickelodeon Studios Florida, but not on the Me and My Friends pilot, contradicting what was written in JenPen's email. Similarly, the storyboard artist that Oggy claimed to have spoken to and gotten a photo from was called into question, and they found that the address attached to the email was fake. When the artist's actual email was found and contacted, he responded that he didn't have anything to share, so the photo wouldn't have come from him.

These discoveries led to a stronger conviction that these two were spy accounts for the wiki admins to keep up with the search team, especially since Oggy was added to the Lostcast server days after Michael Reilly's real name and contact info was found, and he was still in the server when Reilly stopped responding to the search team's inquiries about the pilot. This led to suspicions that Oggy or someone they were affiliated with had sent Reilly an email designed to discourage him from talking to the search team (though this appears to be unconfirmed).

Many of the wiki admin's claims of contacting specific crew members with no luck had already been called into question when one of them did end up having a lot of information and photos, and another had a different name. But while before it was suspected that they simply didn't want to work with the lost media community and didn't trust them with their information, the discovery of the Lost Media Wiki edit had steered the narrative toward the idea that the admins wanted to be the only ones who possessed the pilot, and that they were bitter that their research into the pilot was overshadowed by that of the lost media community.

All this information was shared in a video uploaded by , which sent the wider community into disarray. This revelation led to a lot of anger among the wider community, with many users flooding into the Me and My Friends page on Backyardigans Wiki and vandalizing it with comments calling the admins gatekeepers and liars. There are roughly 500 edits logged on the , and the majority of them are these troll edits.

This led to a on the Lost Media Wiki Forums about the whole ordeal. Most were angry at the prospect that the admins had not only hoarded a highly sought after piece of media, but also obfuscated such information to retain their sole ownership of it. There were, however, people who were upset with how some members of the community acted in response to LSSQ's video by harassing the admins and defiling their page, with suggesting some blame on LSSQ's part for sharing what amounts to theories and conjecture with conviction to his large audience, who likely made the fallout more of a shitshow than it needed to be.

Here's a hot take:

I get why people have a problem with the concept of hoarding, but regardless I think that [the] point still stands.

This behavior and the method of contact was poorly chosen and needs to be ceased.
Combatting who may either be innocent or gluttonous with aggressive offers and pleas might make things worse than what the theory originally intended.

These users may not in actuality be part of any major point of Lost Media discussion, and could be, oh I don't know, random Reddit users.
Wherever this activity came from, I think that LSSQ should've said something at the very beginning about his stance on this theory, and whether or not he is intending on the manpower of his views for research.

Regardless of who was to blame for what behavior, the entire search had collapsed. There were no more crew members to contact, and the only known copies of the pilot were being fiercely protected. The only option left was simply to wait, to see if the admins would relent and share the pilot, or if someone would take notice of the demand and leak it from another source.

It's Finally Over

In June 2025, roughly 6 months after the revelation of the admins hoarding the pilot, a popular lost media Twitter account known as Lost Media Busters made a post dedicated to Me and My Friends, posting some of the production photos alongside some text wishing for it to be found. Soon after, this account was DMed by an anonymous user known as P, who claimed to have the pilot via backdoor access to Paramount's servers. To quell any skepticism of P being a troll, they sent LMB a few screenshots of the pilot. This proved they had it without a doubt - until then, the only material from Me and My Friends that had ever been dug up (besides the initial 3-second clip) was a slew of behind-the-scenes shots. This was the first taste of any footage from the actual pilot itself.

P offered to send LMB the pilot, and LMB enthusiastically agreed. When LMB received the video file, they began downloading it. But suddenly, P rescinded the file mid-download. They then explained that they had been warned against sending it by other members of their community, as doing so would catch Paramount's attention, and cause them to tighten security that could deprive them of their access to Paramount's servers.

This news was a blow to morale, but nothing new that hadn't already happened several times in the search's history. If nothing else, the screenshots that P shared, as well as the small fragment LMB had recovered from the incomplete download, were still cherished, as it was the only look into the actual pilot that had surfaced since the initial 3-second clip.

However, any disappointment from the incident was short-lived. On June 26 2025 - 8 years after LSSQ's initial video on the subject, 13 years after the initial 3-second clip was discovered and 14 years after the first documentation of it on the Backyardigans Wiki - the full Me and My Friends pilot was leaked onto 4chan by an anonymous user. The video download was accompanied by the text:

fuck you BYwiki

happy brat summer, love PUNGAS

Given the timing of the post, there was some speculation as to the identity of the leaker, whether it was P or one of the wiki admins going rogue. Regardless, members of the lost media community were enthralled with the find, and were quick to download copies of the pilot for preservation. Me and My Friends was officially found media.

After news of the leak spread, one of the wiki admins with Lostcast to tell their side of the story. They confirmed many of the accusations made against them in LSSQ's video, that they had purposefully led the search team astray to continue to hoard the pilot. But they also claimed they were being compelled to do so - that an older admin, known as K, had been the one to obtain the pilot (as well as loads of other unreleased Backyardigans-related material) through an unauthorized breach of Nickelodeon's digital archive. K had distributed the pilot to the other admins, but warned them not to share it publicly. This had initially been an act of caution, as K had obtained the pilot through illegal means. But over time, a sense of power and control had taken root, and K had continuously bullied the other admins into keeping quiet about the pilot, and even a suggestion toward sharing it was met with a swarm of angry messages and doxxing threats.

Even years back I thought the harmless/non-sensitive stuff [...] should be released to the public. I have old emails to prove this too. But other admins would beg me not to share stuff from there, for various reasons, some valid and others a little crazy, but it was all within the realm of fandom drama.

Not wanting to rock the boat and upset these people, I didn't upload anything at first. Eventually [Sandra] gave me the OK to release bits and pieces of things (HD episodes, high-res character artwork) against M and the Sheehans wishes, but not the pilot or production material. Even mentioning uploading the pilot caused certain people to fly into a rage, as if this file was a prized possession or something. Some of the other admins had my personal phone number and other details [...]

As for the pilot itself, I was still genuinely interested in finding production photos plus bonus footage, so I continued to reach out to crew members myself. This is where the photo from [Oggy] (actually one of these ex-users under a new name) came from, as I shared it with them. But certain people went to great lengths to interfere with MY search, as well as the newer searches led by the Lost Media Wiki [...]

The Aftermath

The discovery of the Me and My Friends pilot was met with a lot of mixed emotions. Some were excited that it was finally uncovered after so many years of searching. Many Lostcast members remained friends afterwards, and believe they wouldn't have been so close if not for the search.

There was also despair for the ungraceful way the search had ended, with many wishing the pilot could have been acquired in a more cordial and legal way than through a 4chan leak.

But for the most part, the pilot itself appears to have been overshadowed by the drama that had overtaken the search. There had been instances before of lost media being hoarded, and sometimes involved hoarders trolling the community or offering to sell the media to them at an exorbitant price. But the hoarding of Me and My Friends went beyond basking in exclusivity and into the territory of actively messing with any efforts that threatened that exclusivity. LSSQ stated that he would have been fine if the wiki admins had admitted upfront that they had a copy of the pilot but weren't interested in sharing it - what upset him was not the hoarding, but the way they made it a point to interfere with any effort by the lost media community to find their own copy. This manipulation was, for him and many others, what made Me and My Friends the worst lost media search in the community's history.

It was all the more baffling (yet arguably not so surprising) that all of this effort had been in service of a pilot to a preschool TV show. Quoth SewerReviewer at the start of YouTuber BlameItOnJorge's retrospective on the search:

It's so stupid. It's so dumb. Why The Backyardigans? I don't get it.

Jorge concludes the video by stating that if the wiki admins had quietly released the pilot publicly back when they found it, there would never have been a search to find it, it simply would have been online and few would have questioned where it came from. Or if the admins had decided to simply ignore the search team, the search would have either continued without them or petered out the way many long searches do. But in their efforts to quash anyone else's access to the pilot, they had Streisand-Effect-ed their way into creating a lost media search team that only grew larger and more fervent the longer the search went on, thus sealing their fate of losing control over the situation.

Many lost media searches drag on so long that they are remembered more for the search than the media itself. But Me and My Friends might be one of the few instances of the media's discovery being met less with excitement and more with exhausted conviction. It is a piece of found media celebrated less for its content and history, and more as a cathartic conclusion to a decade-long power trip.

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No franchise lasts forever. Just see the decline of Superhero movies.

Nowadays, Hollywood is always chasing the next fad, the next big idea, the next moneymaker. They’re even for ideas. God help us all.

But some franchises...don’t die. Some franchises keep re-inventing themselves, changing with the times, re-casting the main role once an actor is too old, and as a consequence, yielding bigger and bigger profits and cultural resonance.

The name is Bond. James Bond.

Who**, or rather, what is James Bond?**

James Bond is the brainchild of one man, Ian Fleming (1908-1964).

Ian Fleming was unsurprisingly, , and he had a .

He was born into a wealthy family. His father died in World War I. He was sent to snobby schools- first Eton, where he was kicked out for fooling around with women, and then the , Sandhurst, where he was kicked out for contracting gonorrhoea. Afterwards, he was sent to , and then returned to take (and fail) the . By 1939, he was , briefly becoming a journalist, and then a stockbroker in London.

And then World War 2 happened, and young Ian Fleming - in the British Royal Navy.

Espionage. Propaganda. Sleeping with inumerable women.

Fleming charmed his way into beds and up the ranks of the Navy. He was promoted to commander and took part . The most was with Ann Charteris- he was sleeping with her while she was married to her first two husbands.

And then the war ended.

By 1952, Fleming had returned to journalism and moved to Jamaica. Ann divorced her second husband and married him, quickly becoming pregnant. She later gave birth to a son called Caspar.

Either because , or was , Fleming decided to write a series of spy novels. Drawing on his war time experiences, he created the character of James Bond, named (who came to hate his connection to 007). Bond a womaniser, a commander in the Royal Navy, who had been kicked out of Eton for sleeping around-

Wait a minute.

This sounds familiar.

Is James Bond an Ian Fleming self-insert?

.

Fleming based Bond on himself, his brother Peter who was a secret agent extraordinaire, and a bunch of intelligence personnel he had known during the war. But, from Bond’s backstory, you can probably guess who the biggest inspiration was.

Fleming quickly achieved fame and success. By the early 1960s, he had written and . The books into a series of successful movies by Albert R Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman (more on this in a moment).

Unfortunately, Fleming had also given Bond one of his major flaws- a love of smoking.

Fleming and drank copiously. In 1961, he suffered a heart attack, which did not slow down his writing. But on 11 August 1964, he suffered a second heart attack and died the following day.

Quick aside: Bond is problematic

Fleming was a man of his time- meaning he held views that would be considered abhorrent today. This is reflected in his Bond novels, which are full of racism and sexism. To give a few examples:

• In Goldfinger, a lesbian, Pussy Galore, is ‘cured’ after sleeping with bond.

• Also in Goldfinger, Koreans are called “rather lower than apes in the mammalian hierarchy”.

• In Live and Let Die, black people are frequently called slurs, and they are portrayed as either criminals, or overtly servile to white people. Fleming the relationship between Bond and Quarrel, a fisherman from Jamaica, as "that of a Scots laird with his head stalker; authority was unspoken and there was no room for servility".

• In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, homosexuality is called a “stubborn disability”.

• Examples of sexist language include: From Russia with Love: “All women want to be swept off their feet. In their dreams they long to be slung over a man’s shoulder and taken into a cave and raped.” From Casino Royale: “These blithering women who thought they could do a man’s work. Why the hell couldn’t they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men’s work to the men.” And from Goldfinger: “Four women in a car he (Bond) regarded as the highest danger potential, and two women as nearly as lethal. Women together cannot keep silent in a car, and when women talk they have to look into each other’s faces. An exchange of words is not enough. They have to see the other person’s expression, perhaps in order to read behind the other’s words or to analyse the reaction to their own.”.

All quotes sourced from . Warning for slurs and other problematic language.

To reiterate, back in the 1950s-60s, these views were seen as perfectly normal. In 2023, the Bond books were re-edited to most of the problematic language.

The movies are also problematic in their own way. The sexism is much more casual, and most of the overt racism has been removed. In the early Connery films, some sex scene have been called “rapey”- the infamous Pussy Galore barn scene in Goldfinger, and the steam room scene in Thunderball. There are also several instances of yellowface in Dr No and You Only Live Twice.

Even with all their problematic elements, the movies and books are considered classics in the spy genre for a reason. They invented many plot points and elements that are now considered cliches.

Now *finally* onto the drama!

Sean Connery – The first Bond

In the 1960s, the Bond movies were two businessmen, Albert R Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman.

They cast a little known actor, Sean Connery- literally *little* known as Broccoli in a film called ‘Darby O’Gill and the *little* people’ which convinced him of Connery’s acting ability and sex appeal- to play the first 007.

The casting choice was inspired. Connery proved to be great in the role. Bond made him famous. But in 1964, with the release of Goldfinger, the franchise achieved , making him a bonafide super star.

You Only Live Twice, or YOLT

The plot of YOLT is stupid. Very stupid. Evil bald man uses a spaceship to hijack other spaceships belonging to the USA and Russia. British intelligence realises he is in Japan. They send Bond. After beating up some people (including ) and sleeping with a bunch of women, Bond tracks down the evil bald man to his . He foils his evil scheme, but the evil bald man escapes.

Other drama that happened on set:

• After they had finished scouting locations in Japan, the production team, consisting of the producers, director, set designer, and second-unit director, were all due to fly out on the same plane. However they missed their flight due to the opportunity to see a ninja training film. Unbeknownst to them, this was a stroke of luck. The plane into Mt Fuji, leaving no survivors.

• While casting the role of the only Japanese girl in the film, they went through many actresses in Japan and , Mie Hama and Akiko Wakabayashi. Both of them were brought to England to learn English, which Hama struggled with. The director, decided to tell Hama that the role would go to Wakabayashi. Upon hearing the news, Hama reportedly to jump out of a window. The director a new part for her in the movie, with less dialogue. However, she was still dubbed over by a British actress. The part about her threatening to jump out of a window may have been connocted by Gilbert- I can find no secondary source

• Karin Dor, who played Helga Brandt, was almost by a falling set light during filming.

• While the crew were filming at a remote fishing village, the police checkpoints on roads to deter fans and journalists. Undeterred, they the village in boats to get around the blockades, stressing out the crew.

• , an aerial photographer, was filming one of the helicopter battles when one of his feet was by a passing helicopter. This also damaged the helicopter he was in, but fortunately, the pilot was able to land . Doubly fortunate for Jordan, was staying nearby, and they reattached his foot. Jordan was sent back to London, where his foot later . Despite this, he continued working and even worked .

• The film also aged poorly due to Sean Connery yellowface to appear Japanese. The story justification is also flimsy. He has to go “undercover” as a Japanese fisherman to get closer to the villains evil volcano lair. In fact, the ridiculousness of the plot meant YOLT could easily be parodied, most famously by the Austin Powers movies.

• Connery also reportedly pissed off the Japanese public by “Japanese women are just not sexy,” because wearing the traditional kimono apparently “hides their figures” in a press interview. The awkward comment was blamed on a translation error. He also got in trouble for dressing too casually and not wearing his Bond toupee in interviews (yes- he apparentlywhen playing Bond.)

• There’s also some questionable lines in the movie. At one point Bond asks “” and Tiger Tanaka says “”.

• When the crew were filming on the volcano set, they set off pyrotechnics to stimulate it exploding. Unfortunately, this Blofeld’s cat and it fled. The cat was missing for days, until it was found huddling in the girders of the roof.

YOLT was also Connery’s fifth Bond movie, and the final one in his current contract. By 1965, he was reportedly . Playing 007 had become stale for him and he wanted to move on to newer things. Even worse, during filming of YOLT, paparazzi and fans were following him everywhere- mobbed the film set, photographers him into a public bathroom, and he was by a stalker. In the end, the incursions got so bad that the police had to be called . The film-makers also had to hire to protect the set and Connery.

Another issue was money. Connery felt :

>Connery was also vocal about his displeasure with his salary, which amounted to $750,000 plus 25% of merchandising profits. He made it publicly known that he would only return to the franchise for a sixth film if Bond rights owners Eon Productions paid him a million dollars plus a percentage of the film’s gross.

This fractured his relationship with the producers, so Connery refused to renew his contract and quit the role.

, some journalists thought this might be the end of 007...

Saltzman and Broccoli suddenly faced an acute dilemma: after finding the perfect actor to play 007, how do you find *another* one?

We will find out...in my next post.

Thanks for reading!

Hey everyone. Deja vu. It looks like lightning just struck twice in Dallas.

Within a few months, two completely separate six-figure stashes of highly restricted, uncut trading card sheets—spanning Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic: The Gathering, and Disney’s Lorcana—have flooded the uncut sheet market.

If you aren't familiar with the original Dallas Dumpster Heist, here is the quick TL;DR: A couple of months ago, a man we’ll call "C" became an instant legend when he pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, uncut sheets, test prints, and blisters straight out of a Dallas dumpster. He sold it all for pennies and faked insane stories, and his mother completely crashed out on the uncut sheet community. Ultimately, most of the sheets were returned for free, though somewhere between $20k–$100k in individual cards had already been sold. (You can read the full write-up here:.

You’d think that was a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly. It wasn't. Now, a massive flood of MTG and Lorcana sheets has surfaced in the exact same city. Here is what is going down in the TCG community now.

The Grail Stash Surfaces

To understand why this is crazy, you need a little background on MTG uncut sheets. Out of the "Big Three" (Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and MTG), Magic sheets are generally the easiest to come across. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) gives them out casually at tournaments or charity auctions. Even these "common" legitimate sheets fetch hundreds of dollars, while vintage grail sheets can push six figures.

Here is the catch: The sheets WotC gives away are properly printed, finalized product.They do not hand out misprinted uncut sheets as tournament prizes. At any given time, there are maybe 50 MTG sheets total listed on eBay, making them fairly niche and rare.

On May 13, 2026, a massive MTG stash surfaced in the uncut sheet collectors' Facebook group, consisting of a few hundred uncut sheets printed between 2020 and 2025. Many of these are misprints, test prints, showcase sheets, and highly sought-after sets like Lord of the Rings. It is truly a mountain of modern grails for a subset of collectors.

Just like the Yu-Gi-Oh! dumpster heist, dumping these hyper-rare sheets onto the market all at once is one of the worst ways to maximize their value—unless your goal is to liquidate them ASAP.

Collectors immediately started scooping them up, but it was silently understood that this collection wasn't obtained legitimately. WotC doesn't hand out test prints. Plus, the seller was also moving Disney Lorcana sheets, which currently have no legitimate path to public ownership. Because of the sheer quantity and nature of the sheets, it was obvious these were pulled off the production or discard line.

The Stars Align

So, where is all this unreleased TCG product coming from?

The sheets allegedly came from an employee at the Cartamundi printing facility in Dallas, who "gifted" this massive stack to a guy we’ll call "L." Just like the guy who found the Yu-Gi-Oh! sheets in the dumpster, L seemed completely clueless about the absolute goldmine he was sitting on. He immediately started posting pictures, trying to offload them all at once.

This is where the stars align for another chaotic twist. During the original Yu-Gi-Oh! dumpster heist, our first guy, C, had tried to sell his uncut sheets to a local Dallas card shop. Fast forward to early May: at that exact same card shop, we introduce "B."

B was judging a Magic tournament at the shop when a player told him someone in the area was trying to sell a massive stack of uncut sheets. B went to check it out and ended up acquiring around 60 of these full-size MTG and Lorcana sheets. (As of this writing, he has sold all 60 of them for between $200 and $6,000 USD each). Another buyer, who happened to be in town dealing for a local card show, scooped up the remaining sheets and reportedly sent them to an auction house. We will have to wait and see if they actually end up at auction.

How did a random employee walk out the front door with hundreds of uncut sheets? According to the story B shared in the Facebook group, he was told that Cartamundi was disassembling some of their massive industrial printing presses. The employee claimed these printers have an "internal catch mechanism" where sheets can get stuck or jammed during production over time. He supposedly asked his manager if he could keep the sheets they pulled out during the teardown, and the manager just said, "Sure."

My thoughts: The idea that hundreds of pristine, uncut sheets were just chilling in an internal drip tray for years without getting shredded, crumpled, or soaked in machine oil is wild. If anything, they were pulled from an external reject pile, a storage room, or someone was quietly taking product home. Also, a printing facility manager casually saying, "Yeah, sure, go ahead and walk out with a massive stack of unreleased, licensed intellectual property" is insane. Walking out with that many uncut sheets is not an easy task.

Cartamundi & WotC Shrug It Off

Because the whole situation felt incredibly sketchy, B claims he personally called Cartamundi corporate to verify the story, speaking directly with multiple people at both the corporate and facility levels.

Their response? Cartamundi confirmed there is no active investigation into these sheets. They essentially gave him the all-clear, telling him that if it happened the way the employee claimed, it is what it is, and he is totally free to keep and sell them.

The admin of the Uncut Sheet Facebook group also reportedly spoke with a contact at Wizards of the Coast. Here is the exact quote from the WotC employee:

"This has been a most interesting situation we have been following! At this time we have not asked for the sheets back. Currently we are more interested in attempting to understand what happened and not creating any unnecessary community speculation while we sort through the facts."

Wizards handled this with way more chill than when they famously sent literal Pinkertons to a guy's house for accidentally breaking a street release date. They probably remember the massive community backlash from that PR disaster and just want this story to quietly go away.

Here is a video of the uncut sheet group trolling WotC and showing off some of the sheets: []

To celebrate the absolute absurdity of the situation—and as a token of thanks to the community—B even gave away a blank uncut sheet for free to a member of the Facebook group. Worth $200 - $300 IMO.

Naturally, the original guy who sold the sheets to B is now upset. Now that the sheets are officially marked as "safe to purchase" by the manufacturers, they're predictably worth more and easier to sell. He’s arguing he didn't actually sell all of them to B and wants them back, or a larger cut of the profits. Rumor has it he’s also upset about potential consequences for the "employee" friend who gifted them to him in the first place.

The Return of "C" (The Original Dallas Dumpster King)

You can't have a Texas uncut sheet leak without our original protagonist, C.

Seeing the attention and cash B has been pulling for the MTG/Lorcana sheets in the uncut sheet group, C completely crashed out. He was actively popping off in the same collector group, trying to convince everyone that the new MTG sheets are fake and that his dumpster haul was the only authentic leak.

Some exact quotes from C’s recent text meltdowns:

"I know your people are not really falling for them fake ass sheets"

"Because before i put what i found on the market there were virtually no sheets to be found now there are sheets for everything from f******* North Pole and Santa Claus and his helpers and f******* dragon Ball z and etc etc what i figure happened all the people that were counterfeiting cards in the first place are now counterfeiting sheets but it's obvious what's real and what's no"

Meanwhile, "J"—the local Dallas guy who bought a ton of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! sheets from C and then willingly returned them to the printing company for no compensation—left a comment regarding C's current financial state:

"The craziest part of it all is that he has already blown through 100% of the money he got from selling the sheets. And yes he spent it on exactly what you would guess lol."

There is a ton more crashing out from C across the board, but you get the general vibe.

Final Thoughts

Right around the exact same time a guy is pulling hundreds of Yu-Gi-Oh! sheets out of a dumpster, an employee at a separate Texas facility is walking out the front door with hundreds of MTG and Lorcana grails because his manager supposedly didn't care.

Texas is just the Wild West of trading card games right now.

It makes you realize that the people working at these printing facilities must have access to some of the craziest, most legendary TCG products in existence—not just full sheets, but insane, one-of-a-kind misprints. One of the greatest TCG collections is probably sitting in the home of a factory worker who knows they can't safely sell any of it for a decade. Honestly, he and his buddies are probably reading these exact threads and laughing.

If you want to look through the massive archive of receipts, screenshots, and drama starting from late March up through May 23rd, it can be found here: .

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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. If you have a question, try to include as much detail as possible.

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

• If your particular drama has concluded at least 2 weeks ago, consider making a full post instead of a Scuffles comment. We also welcome reposting of long-form Scuffles posts and/or series with multiple updates.

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

For easy access to past and present Scuffles, bookmark or type it in your address bar to access the current Scuffles thread, or to see all Scuffles threads from newest to oldest. And if you prefer Old Reddit, just type old. beforehand. Thanks to for setting this up!

also has an affiliated Discord server, which you can join here:

Background

Soccer, or football as the entire world excluding America knows it as, is the most popular sport worldwide. Every year, the Ballon D’Or award is presented by France Magazine to top players from the mens’ and women’s game from the past season . The organization also awards several smaller, position-specific awards, like the Yashin trophy for goalkeepers, the Gerd Muller trophy for the highest goal-scoring player (usually a striker), the Socrates Award for humanitarian work, and the Kopa trophy for young players. Awards for the Team Of The Year and the best coach are also presented . While the men’s award has been voted on since 1956, the women’s trophy was only first awarded in 2018, reflecting a growing interest and investment in the women’s game The Ballon D’Or is considered the most prestigious individual award in soccer, and winning one could be the pinnacle of a player’s career. 

The award is voted on through a two-step process. Initially, journalists from France Football work to organize a short-list of players with the top performances in previous seasons. Then, one journalist from the top one hundred FIFA-ranked nations ranks their top ten players from this shortlist. For every number one vote, a player gets 15 points, for a number 2 vote, the player would get 12 points, 10 points for a third-place vote, and so on and so forth. The player with the top number of points is crowned the winner. These judges are told to take three categories into account: individual performances, team performances, and fair play  Well, that’s how voting for the men’s Ballon D’Or works. The women’s award works similarly in the first step, and the categories are the same, but only the top 50 nations have journalists vote for the award . 

The Big Players (no pun intended)

First, a little on how this all works. Football players play for a club, considered their day job and responsible for their salary, for most of the year. In addition, countries have a team that plays for them on an international level for a few weeks per year. The team’s coach selects the top players of this country’s nationality, and these players work together to qualify for and play in major international tournaments. Think of this like the Olympics: top athletes representing their countries and competing together for pride and glory. When I name players, I will mention their club first, followed by their country. 

Europe’s top clubs play in the Uefa Champion’s League (UCL) or Uefa Women’s Champion’s League (UWCL) as well as in domestic competitions. These competitions are made up of the top teams across multiple domestic leagues in Europe, and winning is considered one of club soccer’s greatest honors. 

Now, on to our key players. Alessia Russo is a striker who plays for Arsenal and England . Aitana Bonmatí is a midfielder who plays for Barcelona and Spain . Mariona Caldentey is a midfielder who plays for Arsenal and Spain . Hannah Hampton is a goalkeeper who plays for Chelsea and England . Chloe Kelly is a winger for Arsenal and England . Aitana and Mariona wear their first names on their kits, and so I will refer to them as such throughout the remainder of this post. All of these women are nominated for the Ballon D’Or Feminin. 

The Big Night

It’s evening in Paris. Soccer royalty from all over the world have flown in to celebrate the occasion, and, they all hope, to receive an award. Among them are all of our key players. Russo, Mariona, Kelly and their teammates at Arsenal take home the award for Women’s Club of the Year . Hampton wins the women’s Yashin trophy . The clock slowly ticks down as players and fans await the announcement of the night’s big winners. 

Finally, it’s time. The Ballon D’Or winners are announced and presented with their awards. Ousmane Dembélé (Paris Saint Germain, France) wins the men’s award, and Aitana Bonmatí wins the women’s  . It’s Aitana’s third win in a row, and she proudly holds up three fingers along with her award . Mariona wins second place, and Russo third. 

Dembélé’s award is widely viewed as fully deserved. Dembélé won the Champion’s League, Europe’s most prestigious football competition, with Paris Saint Germain, in the season being considered, as well as their league title and a domestic cup. Additionally, France made an easy head start towards comfortably qualifying for the World Cup . Aitana’s, however, was seen as a… less clean decision. Although she is widely acknowledged as one of the best players in the world technically, looking at the prior season reveals a slightly different picture…

The Season Itself 

Barcelona’s women’s team comfortably won Liga F, Spain’s domestic competition, in 2025 . This was highly unsurprising, as Barcelona reigns supreme over the league and has for many years. The team that acts as their closest competitors was only founded in 2020. In fact, they did not lose a single game that season . In this dominant position for multiple seasons on end, they effortlessly qualified for the UWCL, and breezed through the knockout rounds to reach the final. There, they met Arsenal, a team from London that had to go through a playoff process even to make it into the UWCL in the first place. Fueled by Alessia Russo, who won the Golden Boot in England’s domestic women’s league, and Caldentey, the new signing from Barcelona who elevated Arsenal to an entire new level, they managed to make it to the final and the Goliath of Barcelona after a long, difficult and comeback-filled road . It would take too long to list their contributions, but just know that they were each absolutely essential to Arsenal’s success. 

Barcelona were heavy favorites before the game. They had won the prior two years and were looking for a three-peat. Barcelona led Arsenal in possession, shots, shots on target, and corners. But Arsenal managed to pull off the unthinkable, scoring a crucial goal in the 74th minute. Aitana made six shots, the most of any Barcelona player, but the Arsenal defence and goalkeeper stayed strong. The score read 1-nil to Arsenal at the final whistle, and the team lifted their first Champion’s League trophy in eighteen years . Russo and Mariona were crucial in the run up to the final, and Arsenal fans embraced the duo as heroes. Barcelona came in second; something quite unfamiliar for them. This team is used to winning everything, all the time. 

Arsenal players celebrate, but they have a quick turnaround before one of those international tournaments I mentioned earlier. The Women’s European Championships (Euros or WEuros) are just around the corner. Many of Arsenal’s players are called up to play for their countries . Just about the entirety of the Spain squad is Barcelona players, with one notable exception: Mariona is called up too . 

Spain coasts through their group to reach the knockout rounds, despite missing Aitana due to a bout of viral meningitis . The holders England, having lost to France in their first match of the tournament, places second in their group, but still reaches the knockout rounds, with Russo tied as the tournament’s assist leader. Then, they face Sweden in the quarterfinals, and go 2-nil down. It appears that their road to defending their title ends there. 

Until Chloe Kelly is subbed on, that is. She secured her shin pads, decorated with from her wedding and of her dogs, and leapt onto the pitch with a hop-skip-and a jump and a grin. And it paid off. Kelly immediately set up an assist. 2-1. Her second assist came 103 seconds later, and forced extra time . An agonizing penalty shootout later, when players take turns attempting to score one on one against the opposition goalkeeper, and England are through to the semifinals against Italy . Meanwhile, Spain comfortably beat Switzerland to advance to the semifinals against Germany . 

In their semifinal game, again, England go down. And, again, Kelly saves the day. After 6 minutes of stoppage time, England are 1-nil down. England score a miraculous goal, assisted by Kelly, putting the game through to extra time. At 117 minutes, England is awarded a penalty, and Kelly steps up to take it. Initially, the Italian goalkeeper saves the shot, but it rebounds right back to Kelly, who buries it for good. England are through to the final .

Spain, meanwhile, faced Germany in their semifinal. The game was deadlocked nil-nil until the 113th minute of extra time, when Aitana got a shot past Germany’s formidable keeper. The score ended nil-1 to Spain. The semi-final was set: England would face Spain to declare the champion of Europe . 

Mariona scored in the 25th minute, leaving England down 1-nil. However, and this is getting to be a theme at this point, Kelly came on after the break. She provided Russo an assist in the 57th minute to level the score. Neither team was able to break through after this, and the game went to extra time, and then penalties . 

Russo had been substituted at this point, but all of our other key players participated in this penalty shootout. It’s 1-1 when Mariona’s penalty is saved by Hampton. An England player is then able to make her shot, and it’s Aitana’s turn. She steps up to the spot and…

Saved! Hannah Hampton safely bats her shot to the side . 

England’s next penalty is saved, and Spain’s next one is missed. Both teams have now taken four shots, and the penalty score stands 2-1. One more successful shot, and England are champions. The next player in line steps up. 

It’s Chloe Kelly. She buries her shot deep into the net. The ball reaches 68 mph/110 kph. It’s faster than any recorded shot in the Premier League, England’s top-flight league for men, that season . England are crowned champions. Aitana Bonmatí wins the Player of the Tournament award, but you can’t say she looks happy about it .In addition, her post-match interview clearly indicated her upset at the defeat. “I don't have much emotion left to be honest. I have emptied myself of emotion. We are all exhausted. I have to say sorry, because it was my fault in the end, but I was not able to score it [the penalty]. Congratulations to our opponents. In my opinion we were superior in the match, [but] on some occasions, that's not enough in football,” she said . 

So, that brings us back to Ballon D’Or night. And, just to recap. Russo’s team beat Aitana’s head to head in finals, twice. In the Euro final, the two goalscorers were Russo and Caldentey. Aitana’s penalty was saved by another nominee, and the tournament-wide antics of yet another nominee were essential to securing a massive tournament win for her country. It was unlikely that Kelly was actually going to get high in the rankings, for reasons I plan to detail in another write-up, and Hampton had her honors on the night. However, after looking at all of this, fans had to wonder how Bonmatí ended up above both Russo and Caldentey in the rankings. 

Were the Ballon D’Or Feminin voters swayed by Aitana’s past success? Were they voting on her technical prowess alone without accounting for team success? Did they just not actually watch the Euros or the Champion’s League final? I will never know. But, to this day, it keeps me up at night. 

Disclaimer: any and all mistakes and typos are my own. I am in no way actually involved in this drama, but I do have a fan perspective that comes with bias.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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. If you have a question, try to include as much detail as possible.

• 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.

• If your particular drama has concluded at least 2 weeks ago, consider making a full post instead of a Scuffles comment. We also welcome reposting of long-form Scuffles posts and/or series with multiple updates.

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

For easy access to past and present Scuffles, bookmark or type it in your address bar to access the current Scuffles thread, or to see all Scuffles threads from newest to oldest. And if you prefer Old Reddit, just type old. beforehand. Thanks to for setting this up!

also has an affiliated Discord server, which you can join here:

Let’s go for a walk.

Middlesbrough is a town in the north of England. We find ourselves 17 miles away, upstream along the River Tees, at Rockliffe Park. As well as a golf course and a cricket club, the site hosts Middlesbrough’s training ground. We stroll along a road from the five-star hotel to the golf course’s clubhouse. A hundred yards away are the two training pitches that the football club use. We stop, leaning on a metal farm gate. A sign attached reads “Private Property - authorised personnel only”. We have a clear view of the training pitches. Next to us stands a large but unassuming pine tree.

This is the story of how that tree became famous in English football.

Introduction

The Championship is English football’s second highest league. Twenty four teams play each other home and away over a season in the vain hope of being promoted to the Premier League. The top two teams are promoted automatically, with teams in positions 3 to 6 competing in a mini-tournament at the end of the season. Third plays sixth and fourth plays fifth across a two legged semi final (the lower ranked team hosting the first, the higher ranked team hosting the second) before the two winning teams compete in the playoff final.

This final is often referred to as the “most valuable game in the world”, as the winning team stand to gain around £200m in additional revenue - mostly from the rich TV money paid to Premier League clubs, but also prize money, and parachute payments too. Even if the promoted club are immediately relegated back to the Championship at the end of the following season - which happens often, such is the disparity of wealth between the two divisions - they receive these parachute payments over the next few years to soften the blow.

It is somewhat understandable, then, that clubs who find themselves in the Championship playoffs will do almost anything to succeed, given the riches that await them. Not all of these things stick to the laws of the game.

The Championship’s final day of league fixtures confirmed the playoff participants. A win for Ed Sheeran’s Ipswich saw them hold off Millwall to finish second and be promoted automatically behind champions Frank Lampard’s Coventry; Millwall’s own win saw them hold off Southampton (who beat Preston) and Middlesbrough (who drew at Hollywood’s Wrexham) to finish third. Southampton and Boro finished with the same number of points but, due to a better difference between goals scored and conceded over the season, Southampton finished above Middlesbrough so would have home advantage for the important second leg of the playoff semi final games. Hull City’s win over Norwich saw them leapfrog Wrexham to finish sixth and take the final playoff berth - facing Millwall, first in Hull then in south-east London.

Those fixtures all took place on Saturday 2nd May, all games kicking off at the same time, to maximise drama uphold sporting integrity - if two teams knew that a particular result would guarantee them both a favourable outcome, they may stick to that . The sides then had a few days off to prepare/recover, before the semi finals started with Hull and Millwall playing out a drab goalless draw.

(I’m going to be honest here, the Hull/Millwall side of the draw is not where the fun is. Hull won the second leg at the Den 2-0 the following Monday and went through to the final. That’s all you need to know about those two teams until we meet them again later on.)

From a View to a Will

The fun came on Thursday 7th May. While street parties were held in parts of the UK and Canada to celebrate the birthdays of Will Ospreay, Kevin Owens and the late Owen Hart, Middlesbrough players trained ahead of Saturday’s first leg at home to Southampton. Only, they weren’t alone. A sharp-eyed player happened to notice a lone , almost imperceptibly camouflaged by a pine tree near the entrance.

Now, you may have seen that link but not clicked on it, wary of losing around an hour to a “Where’s Wally” situation of trying to find a spy, perhaps wearing a ghillie suit or other, blending into the background. Please click on the link and marvel at the levels of deception that John Le Carre or Ian Fleming could only dream about.

Will Salt, an analyst intern for Southampton, took the long route to work that day. After leaving home dressed in club gear, instead of a relatively short commute, he made a 290 mile detour and found himself at Rockliffe Park. After travelling that sort of distance, a break was needed, so he parked at the golf club and bought a coffee (paying by card) before going for a walk to stretch his legs - the same walk I invited you on at the start of this piece.

Working for a football club, it’s not unreasonable that he would have an interest in the beautiful game, so it made sense that he would watch the nearby training sessions while drinking his coffee. It appears to have piqued his interest, as he pointed his mobile at the session. The in-ear headphones he wore suggested that he was live-streaming the training while on a video call - who can say.

A quick thinking Middlesbrough photographer captured him in the act, before a different staff member approached Salt. (It’s safe to assume the conversation started with the word “oi!” and got worse from there.) Salt refused to identify himself, deleted some content from his phone, and then ran away - changing his clothes in the golf club toilets before leaving the site.

Middlesbrough staff matched their photo with one of Salt on the Southampton website, verified it with the card payment records (always use cash when committing corporate espionage, folks, avoid a paper trail) and raised merry hell with the Football League (EFL), complaining about being spied upon. The following day, Friday May 8th, shortly before Hull and Millwall drew their first leg, the EFL formally charged Southampton with spying; the Saints claimed that the hapless intern was nothing to do with them, and anyway he hadn’t recorded, shared or looked at any footage anyway.

Interlude I

We will pause here to jump back in time around seven years, to January 2019. The world was a different place. A former reality TV star was US President. MPs were losing confidence in the UK Prime Minister. Gillingham had won only one game in their last five (well, I guess some things don’t change). Leeds and Derby were vying for top spot in the Championship when a suspicious man was spotted at Derby’s training ground. When asked about it, Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa hinted that it might possibly have been an authorised act, by replying "It's true there was someone from Leeds United. The responsibility for this lies with me. I'm responsible." The EFL picked up on the subtle yet cunning subtext to Bielsa’s remarks and commenced an investigation. Bielsa complied fully with the investigation, holding an hour long press conference in which he stated that he had employed the practice in other countries for much of his coaching career, and revealed that covert analysis of opposition training sessions had been carried out before each of Leeds’ competitive fixtures under him.

The EFL concluded their investigation a month later, having presumably spent most of that time trying to work out which rule he was in breach of, eventually settling on Regulation 3.4, which requires clubs to act towards each other with the utmost good faith. They fined the club £200,000, which Bielsa paid out of his own pocket (before, presumably, swaggering backwards out of the room with two middle fingers raised). The EFL, suddenly aware that they didn’t actually have a rule in place against spying on the opposition in the lead up to a game, promptly put a rule in place against spying on the opposition in the lead up to a game.

This information appeared not to have reached every club.

South by Southampton

With the charge hanging over them, Southampton and Middlesbrough also played out a first leg 0-0 draw, at Middlesbrough’s Riverside stadium. The Boro boss, Kim Hellberg, accused Southampton of trying to cheat, and stated that “every club in the Championship should be angry” - at which point other clubs began to consider the possibility of contemplating the idea of pondering whether they, too, had been spied on by Southampton. Certainly new light was shed on midfielder Flynn Downes’ quote, when Southampton boss Tonda Eckert became permanent manager in December after a month as interim boss, that “[h]is attention to detail is unreal. Literally every little thing, he just gives you. It makes it so easy. You go out on a Saturday and you know what you’re doing, "

The second leg took place on the evening of Tuesday 12th May. Earlier that day Southampton requested more time to conduct an internal review, presumably involving a large quantity of paper shredders and the memory erasing device from the Men In Black movies. They had not, at any point, denied the allegation of spying. (Earlier in the season several clubs received lighter punishments for collaborating with other, non-spy-related, disciplinary investigations, which perhaps explains their decision.) The game itself had an extra edge to it, due to the allegations. Fans took the opportunity to wind up their equivalent on the opposing side, dressing in camouflage, , and in one case using .

Middlesbrough took an early lead, giving the EFL disciplinary board a chance to mop their fevered brows with relief, before Southampton equalised just before halftime - which saw Southampton captain Taylor Harwood-Bellis celebrate by also making a binocular gesture to the Boro fans. Southampton went on to win the game after extra time, to set up a winner-takes-all-£200m clash with Hull City on May 23rd. Not even Ipswich and relegated Oxford piping up with a “yeah, we reckon they spied on us too” could put a dampener on things.

Interlude II: From Canada, with love

We now hop across the channel to France, and backwards in time by about two years. France is hosting the Olympic Games, and the women’s tournament is three days from kicking off, with a game between Canada and New Zealand. New Zealand are training when they became aware of a droning sound above them. This droning sound turned out to be a drone. They reported it to police, who traced it to the operator, an analyst for Canadian Soccer. He immediately fessed up (probably by saying “it’s a fair cop, eh”) and admitted having also done it a few days prior as well. Canada Soccer sent him, a coach who was also in on it, and head coach Bev Priestman home to think about what they’d done.

Despite the disciplinary measures they put in place for their employees, Canada Soccer claimed that the footage was for “motivational and promotional video purposes”, and that the staff member had not been inappropriate. FIFA and the International Olympic Committee - both fine, upstanding institutions who have never ever acted improperly ever ever ever - acted swiftly to dock six points from the Canadian team. They won all three games in their group and progressed in 2nd place, losing on penalties to Germany in the quarter finals.

Bev Priestman was suspended from football for a year and fired by Canada. Her next (and, at time of writing, current) job is managing Wellington Phoenix, a New Zealand based football club featuring a number of the players spied upon (presumably part of her successful interview was her detailed knowledge of the players). Another member of the squad, Rebekah Stott, was able to confirm the analyst’s drone was the same as the one hovering over the training, because her hobby is drones and she recognised it from the sound. (.)

Saints and sinners

Southampton put their 37,000 ticket allocation for the final on sale on 15th May, eight days before the final, and they were quickly snapped up by their fans. Trains and hotels - presumably with an option to cancel - were booked, despite the kick-off time not being confirmed. That same day Middlesbrough called for Southampton to be kicked out of the playoffs, with an independent hearing set for Tuesday 19th May.

The situation was unprecedented. Literally - no precedent had been set, as this was the first time a team had been charged under rule 127, brought in after the incident in Interlude I. Football fans around the country were on tenterhooks, not just the fans of Southampton and Middlesbrough as to which team will be competing, or Hull to find out which team they’d be playing, but fans of other teams who just enjoyed the sheer drama of it all. (With a big club, Spurs, circling the drain and threatened by relegation from the Premier League, some fans - oh, alright, me wanting to wind up my Spurs-supporting friends - suggested that both Hull and Boro should get promoted automatically, with four teams being relegated from the Prem.)

The weekend saw speculation as to the possible punishment. A fine would need to be astronomical to deter other teams from doing the same, given the size of the prize on offer (£200m, don’t forget). A points deduction for next season would be difficult to sort out - if Southampton did get promoted, it would need to be administered by a different sporting body (the Premier League, who tend to take a hands off approach to punishments suggested by the EFL) or deferred until the next time Southampton played in the Football League again, which could be decades. A points deduction retrospectively applied to this season would cause chaos, as the final table would change and playoff matches needed to be replayed. At the very least, the order of the Southampton/Middlesbrough games would swap, and possibly worse - an eight point deduction would mean Millwall/Southampton and Boro/Hull semi finals, and ten points or more off would mean Southampton dropped out of the playoffs entirely, with Millwall now playing Wrexham and Boro vs Hull. This would certainly delay the final, intruding on preparations for the World Cup, and recalling players from holidays (almost certainly being taken on the same beach as Denmark were ).

Interlude III: Tinker Tailor Soldier...Cheerleader?

Football is not the only sport to have been hit with a spying controversy. Around the turn of the millennium, in the often-unrecognised sport of cheerleading, the Rancho Carne Toros from a well-to-do high school in San Diego were aiming to win their sixth consecutive championship at nationals in Florida, when the new captain was alerted to previous misdeeds. The outgoing captain had allegedly lifted their routines wholesale from a underfunded school around 120 miles away. As the plagiarised squad, the East Compton Clovers, had never before been able to raise the funds to compete, nobody had noticed the similarities until a transfer student to Rancho Carne, one of the few to have faith in the new captain, brought it to her attention.

Thankfully, this had a happy ending – the Toros, after a brief sidebar with an off-the-shelf routine that was used by several other competing squads at regionals – devised a new routine, coming in second to the Clovers who had received charitable funding from a talk-show host.

SMERSHampton

Tuesday, 19th May. Four days before the playoff final is set to take place. Families across the country were settling down to catch the last round of Pointless when the EFL dropped their . As punishment for spying on Middlesbrough, Southampton would be expelled from the playoffs, to replaced by Middlesbrough; for spying on Ipswich and Oxford, they would additionally start the next season with a 4 point deficit. Southampton, as to be expected, appealed the decision; due to the brief turnaround it was heard the following day. While it was being heard the club’s chief executive put out a wonderfully petulant and hard-done-by in which they drew parallels with the Leeds decision (which, as you’ll remember, was a breach of a different rule), points deductions for Luton and Derby in seasons gone by (for entering administration, a completely separate contraventions) and fines/punishments levied at Everton and Chelsea (again for unrelated contraventions, and additionally handed out by a separate body to EFL). Dummies were very much spat out and toys thrown out of prams by the south coast club.

The independent commission found against Southampton, rejecting their appeal. They noted that Eckert had authorised the spying (which, really, added credence to Downes’ words in December), that the club had attempted to mislead the commission, and that sporting advantage is separate from sporting success - it didn’t make a blind bit of difference that they lost to Oxford, drew with Ipswich and needed extra time to overcome Boro, they still shouldn’t’ve done it!

In all this, there was still a football match to play. Hull had to alter their gameplan at short notice to face a different opponent - rumours that Southampton offered them a detailed dossier on Middlesbrough they just found lying around turned out to be internet scuttlebutt - and Boro now had to sell 37,000 tickets to fans who were frantically booking trains and hotels.

In the end, the off pitch drama overshadowed the match itself. Hull won 1-0 after a goal three minutes from the end of a hot, sweltering match, bringing an end to a playoff campaign memorable for other events. The tree itself has entered the footballing meme hall of fame, alongside [Chris Wood](, , and .

I've been getting back into Webkinz lately, and after being in the community for some time, I started catching glimpses of the drama, in a sort of "Finally old enough to learn the family lore" sort of way. The first rabbit hole I came across is something known as Kiwigate.

Background

Webkinz is an online virtual pet game released in 2005 by the Canadian company Ganz, with the primary gimmick being that you buy a stuffed animal from a retail store, which comes with a code you can input into the website to unlock a virtual version of that animal. You can feed and take care of your pet, decorate their room, play games and complete daily activities. Its popularity peaked during the mid to late 2000s, but the game is still active to this day.

During the game's early years, you had to buy a physical plush and redeem the code it came with to access the game, which would grant you membership for the next year. If your membership expired, you would be locked out of your account until you bought another plush. But in 2012, the game switched to a freemium model, allowing access to limited features in the game for free, with more content available through the "Full" and "Deluxe" membership tiers. New users could also make an account without a pet code, being provided with one free pet upon signing up.

Then a few years later in 2018, Ganz introduced a way to adopt additional pets for free. This is done by , which are obtainable primarily through playing games in the arcade. If you rack up an impressive score in a game, there's a chance you'll receive a medallion for a random species of pet, and if you collect a certain number of medallions for a specific pet, you can adopt it. However, this usually takes a long time, as you can only collect up to about 10 medallions per day, each medallion is assigned to a certain species at random, and each species requires anywhere from 50-250 medallions depending on its rarity.

However, every year during April, Ganz holds a Webkinz anniversary event where they distribute large amounts of medallions geared toward a specific pet. The way this is typically done is that every day of the month, players are able to a day by clicking on them whenever they float across the screen. Usually the event pet of choice will require 100 medallions, so players can get the pet if they log in and collect every medallion for 20 days out of the month if they have Deluxe membership, or 25 days for everyone else. However, they also have a failsafe for people who can't log in that often: upon logging in on April 29th - Webkinz anniversary day - a gift box will be added to the player's dock, and when opened, it will grant the player an extra 25 medallions toward the pet.

The Drama

Back in 2021, the April event pet was the kiwi bird. Webkinz hosted the aforementioned daily medallion distributions followed by the 25 pack on Webkinz day. However, something was different about this year's Webkinz Day gift box. Upon opening the box and collecting the prizes, players noticed the box did not disappear from their inventories, and could be clicked and dragged back out again for duplicate prizes. Interesting, maybe this is some sort of prize bonus. And hey, I got 50 medallions rather than 25, I won't complain.

But then players realized they could open the box again. And again. The same prizes, over and over, and there was no indication of when it was supposed to end. Most players quickly caught on that this was a , and they were not supposed to get more than one gift box. Some players grew worried that they might get banned, especially those who they were exploiting a glitch at first, and hunkered down to wait until the glitch was fixed.

However, other players decided to take full advantage, continuously opening the box and racking up thousands of medallions. Some adopted as many kiwis as they could to create . Others used the medallion exchange system (a feature where you can trade in 10 medallions of one pet for one generic "AnyPet" medallion to put towards whichever pet you want) to collect enough medallions to redeem other pets.

Aftermath

As one can imagine, the website quickly went down for maintenance, and the glitch was fixed when it came back online. for exploiting the glitch. Some got their accounts with a warning. had excess medallions removed from their account.

In the wake of the banning spree and subsequent appeals, discourse rose from the ashes, namely around if players should have been banned for what happened. While the comments I could find indicated that players were mostly banned for purposefully exploiting the glitch rather than players who used the glitched box a few times by accident, some comments argued that even those who took advantage should be left alone, and that they shouldn't be punished for what was ultimately Ganz's poor coding. argued that banning accounts that players have invested a lot of money into might have lost Ganz a lot of paying customers for the sake of "being petty" or "proving a point." declared they would boycott by cancelling their membership until all accounts involved were unbanned. In contrast, stated that those who had gotten banned had made the decision to exploit the glitch and were simply facing the expected consequences for their actions.

Despite the anger of some over the bans, the dust settled relatively quickly. The glitch was only active for a few hours before being corrected, so most players were likely unaffected. A few stray posts asked for updates on bans (with expressing concern for their account years after the fact), and the incident inspired a about other interesting glitches in the game. Beyond this, the "Kiwigate" incident seems to have been largely forgotten, remembered only through the accounts of users who were active at the time, and explained to newbies as a funny anecdote from Webkinz past.

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Trigger warning for discussion of drugs and sexual assault.

This year, RGG Studios dropped Yakuza: Kiwami 3, a remake of Yakuza 3, which originally released in 2009. The controversy surrounds the inclusion of actor Teruyuki Kagawa, Following the news of Kagawa's casting in the game, images and interviews resurfaced of him Despite protests from fans and petitions to have him removed, Kagawa was kept in the game, which has led to debates over RGG's past removals of actors from the games for drug related incidents, and the series' self-contradictory treatment of sexual assault.

NOTE: While a lot of people refer to the series as Yakuza, following the release of the seventh game the franchise was retitled to "Like a Dragon" to closer match the translation of the Japanese title, Ryu Ga Gotoku. Yakuza will henceforth be shortened down to "RGG" throughout this post, but any mention of the games prior to 7 will still have "Yakuza" in their title. Sorry if that's confusing.

Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku/Like A Dragon/Like a What Now

Yakuza, developed and published for the PS2 in 2005 by Sega, follows the adventures of the legendary yakuza Kazuma Kiryu and his arrest after taking the fall for a crime committed by his best friend. The series is mainly about Kiryu living the life of a civilian and being dragged back into the criminal underworld of the red light district of Tokyo, with the series switching protagonists in the seventh game to give him a much needed break.

RGG didn't actually gain much traction with western audiences until the release of Yakuza 0, a prequel game that also brought more platforms to the previously Playstation exclusive series. Now, it's been popularized internationally by streamers, memes, and the general wackiness of the series.

Past VA Controversies

When it comes to voice actors, all of the games in the RGG series generally have really good voice casts and celebrity cameos. Starting with Yakuza 0, the series leaned really hard into having recognizable face capture actors in the games to draw in more Japanese audiences who would recognize the recurring drama actors in the game. To name a few, "Beat Takeshi" Kitano, Hitoshi Ozawa, Takuya Kimura, and soon even Bunta Sugawara (through the consent of his family) have made appearances in the series. The series is starting to include internationally recognizable figures too, like Snoop Dogg, Danny Trejo, and Samoa Joe.

While actors will sometimes disappear from the series due to high appearance fees or conflicting schedules, there are two known cases of characters being removed for their actors being involved with drugs. Pierre Taki, who appeared in the spin-off series Judgement, and Hiroki Narimiya, who played Yakuza 4 protagonist Masayoshi Tanimura, were both replaced by different actors in rereleases due to their scandals. In the case of Pierre Taki, who was caught with possession of cocaine, Narimiya, who voiced and provided facial likeness for Tanimura, was only replaced in the remaster of Yakuza 4 and the original games still have his voice acting. but notably the entire incident was false and Narimiya was never in possession of any drugs. He still went on to leave the entertainment industry and RGG never went back on their replacement of him from the series, and as a whole his character, Tanimura, has never made a return outside of small mentions from characters in newer games. Pierre Taki and Narimiya have, in recent years, returned to the entertainment industry for small roles and gigs.

The only other major incident involving an actor in a RGG game that I know of is the case of Toru Furuya, who played Bryce Fairchild in Infinite Wealth and left the industryFuruya has also not been removed from the games.

Suffice it to say that Japan and East Asia as a whole have had a lengthy history of extremely strict punishments for possession of drugs stemming back to World War II and US influence on banning drug usage and distribution. While substance abuse and glorification of drug culture is undeniably bad, one has to wonder how can get you a heavier fine than

The Character, the Actor, and the Incident

Goh Hamazaki, now played by Kagawa, is one of the antagonists of Yakuza 3 and an overall sleazeball of a man with a (once) rather unique face and voice. He's shown throughout the game to be disgusting and even stabs Kiryu in the ending of the game, but later goes through a redemption arc in Yakuza 4 when he sacrifices himself to help protagonists Kiryu and Saejima. In many's eyes, this solidified a series mainstay theme that those who commit crimes, no matter how bad, should be given the opportunity to redeem themselves starting from rock bottom.

It should be noted that a small part of the discussion around events also surrounds RGG's unnecessary recasting of characters with recognizable designs and voices in favor of more "generic" looking face capture recasts. That is not to say that any of the actors are bad, but rather that the original designs managed to convey more personality and storytelling but were replaced with actors who appeared and sounded very different.

Kagawa himself had a respectable number of acting credits and awards as both a kabuki and drama actor, and prior to the incident coming to light in 2022 had a good amount of commercial and television appearances, including a major role in the drama Hanzawa Naoki.

The timeline of the incident:

July 2019: Kagawa visits a bar in Ginza, where he assaults two women. Kagawa is heavily intoxicated. The first victim, who appears in the photographs where her hair is being grabbed, states that he forcibly sniffed her neck and armpit despite her protests, and she did not resist out of fear that he would become violent or target another hostess. The second victim was forcibly kissed, had her bra removed, and was groped.

August 2022: Daily Shincho, a weekly news magazine,

Kagawa later gives an apology on THE TIME, the morning news program he hosts on Fridays. It is noted that and his agency later had to clarify online

September 2022: Kagawa is removed from several collaborations, Kagawa is not removed from his role on the TBS drama Roppongi Class despite calls for a recast.

December 2022: , but She reports having PTSD from the incident, and states that "Mr. Kagawa apologized to Ms. Mirei (second woman) and said that she had received 'understanding and forgiveness', but there are still no words of apology to me."

The article also includes statements from NHK party representative Higashitani Yoshikazu and actor Umezawa Tomio about Kagawa's

Kagawa returns to acting, starring in a kabuki play under his stage name Ichikawa Chūsha IX. Roleless, a film that he starred in, is also released in Japanese theaters in November.

He and his ex-wife divorced in 2016.

Aftermath

and Kagawa did not face any jail time or legal punishments for his actions.

Kagawa withdrew from the limelight and refrained from commenting on the lawsuit. After 4 years, he returned to acting with the a leading role in the TV drama Sai: Disaster and the announcement of the recasting of Hamazaki in

This was met with extreme disapproval from international fans of the series once the details of his previous assault cases are resurfaced. the hashtag #REMOVEKAGAWA topped on several social media platforms, and game director Ryosuke Horii commented on the decision to cast Kagawa, without actually commenting on the drama.

Both Japanese and international fans used the #REMOVEKAGAWA tag to try and bring more attention to protests, which did have some effects on marketing releases: the English Sega Youtube channel released a video with interviews from the cast while silently removing Kagawa's section that was present on the JP channel's upload. Surprisingly, comments were kept on, and nearly all of them note that his absence appears as a sort of guilty admission from RGG Studios. (It should also be noted that a few other interviews were also cut out, but Kagawa's seemed to be the most obvious exclusion.)

Over on Instagram, #REMOVEKAGAWA comments under the official RGG Studio and RGG West accounts were being limited and deleted as damage control by the company. Horii also updated his bio to state that he would block anyone who left RGG-content focused Youtubers and made videos criticizing RGG Studio's actions, with SnowiestAngeman noting that were addressed quickly and with more sincerity than any of their """responses""" to #REMOVEKAGAWA. , and while many Japanese fans also rallied to the cause, it ultimately did not change the outcome of the game release.

Obviously, the petition and fan protests did not do anything to get Kagawa recasted and the entire incident sort of disappeared following the release of the game. Many players boycotted Kiwami 3 and called for others to do the same, but with the , it seems that RGG Studios is doing just fine regardless of the Kiwami 3 drama.

Kiwami 3 ended up recieving mixed reviews and decent sales, with better sales in Japan due to most of the concerns over Kagawa's casting coming from the Western fanbase.

The following are the main arguments posed by RGG fans:

It was predictable from the start that the company would not do anything to remove Kagawa, as the scandal was already out of the public attention by the time of Kiwami 3's announcement and was most likely already known by RGG Studios during the casting decision for Hamazaki. Ultimately the incident ended up being a blip in RGG's timeline and merely goes to show societal prioritization of inexcusable crimes and handling of controversies, failures to safeguard women and nightlife workers from abuse, as well as how easily money and fame can allow someone to escape prosecution.

Prologue

If you are into video games, the Fighting genre will not be unknown to you. The genre where you play a character, often shirtless if be a male, fighting against another character and win if you deplete their health bar before they do yours. In the Fighting game community, it is often considered as creating art with your punches and kicks being the paint and your opponent’s body the canvas. The Street Fighter series is widely considered to be the best known for creating these art exhibitions.
The very first Street Fighter, released in 1987, was a decent enough success to birth a sequel in 1991, Street Fighter II. To say this game was a mega-hit would be an understatement. It revolutionized the arcade industry and played a major role in home console sales (ignoring the fact that you only fight in one actual street in the entire game). Its success was so grand that its developer Capcom would instead of merely creating sequels, spawn revisions and updates of Street Fighter II to maintain its longevity. As of this writing, there are seven official versions of Street Fighter II with many more counterfeit versions wandering about in the gaming universe.

Street Fighter II would open the gates for Capcom to create all kinds of fighting games. We would be getting spin-off series in the form of Street Fighter Alpha, getting spooky with a monster mash in Darkstalkers and scoring a licensing deal with Marvel for X-Men and other Marvel heroes fighting games, even resulting in crossover games like X-Men VS Street Fighter. While Capcom would go mad with their fighting mayhem, they stayed clear from a true Street Fighter sequel. Or so we were to believe.
In the darkest caverns of the Capcom offices, many a years were spent developing Street Fighter III. It would have graphics like the world has never seen, hard-hitting gameplay and an impactful roster to usher in a new era. The final part was the key. After the several revisions of Street Fighter II, every player got bored of playing the same old cast led by the Japanese karate white gi red bandana wearing Ryu, and his rival red gi wearing blond haired Ken. It was time for a new face to lead a new generation. And that face would belong to Alex.

: an incredible tall muscly wrestler yet with small waist, from the streets of New York with beautiful long wavy blond hair, red face paint under his eyes, green overalls with the straps down because he can, shirtless as is tradition but with red devilman-like stripes at his broad shoulders and a red bandana just like Ryu but bigger! Badassery incarnate. Raised and trained by his adopted father Tom and Tom’s daughter Patricia, Alex would face off against a red and blue-skinned cult leader named Gill for injuring Tom. Alex would be the new poster boy for the sequel to the most successful fighting game at that time. And with Alex at the helm Street Fighter III would become an even greater success by selling a mere 1000 arcade units in Japan.

Street Fighter III: New Generation

Ha . Let’s dial back a little bit. This is the story of Alex but his story cannot be told without the tale of how Street Fighter III truly came to be. Capcom in the 90s was running wild on fightermania. Around 1994, a mysterious all-new fighting game was green-lit for development which main purpose was to highlight their new CPS-3 arcade hardware, which supported higher color count for the 2D sprites Capcom used for their fighting games (also the reason why the boss in Street Fighter III has red/blue skin, as it was a new feature of the arcade hardware to show sprites that no longer be mirrored). While the exact dates are lost to the sands of time, we can be certain that Alex was created during this early development. The new game was meant to quickly appeal to western audiences, mostly the US market and what was hot and fighting-like in the mid 90s? .
From late 1996 till early 2001 there was the Monday night wars, where two wrestling promotions, World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation, were broadcasting their weekly shows head-to-head for ratings. Capcom designers took inspiration from this and thus it was decided that the lead character for their new game should be an American wrestler. Process on this new game was slow and troublesome and at some point management felt it needed more recognition to be marketable, so it got redesigned to be Street Fighter III. Alex and the rest of misfits remained as part of the roster but Ryu and Ken were added to play it safe. Alex however would still be the lead character because reasons, despite the lead character no longer needed to be an American wrestler as Street Fighter was already an established popular series in the US.

Street Fighter III: New Generation would launch on February 28 1997, about six years after the launch of Street Fighter II, to an absolute poor reception. Many factors played into this. To start, this was the 90s brah and 3D graphics were all the rage. Capcom stuck to what they knew and relied on 2D graphics in their traditional Street Fighter games but just around that same time Tekken 3 was released in arcades with stunning rocking 3D graphics (for it’s time) and stole the cake. Nobody back then cared about 2D graphics, no matter how greatly animated they were. Speaking of which, the hardware needed to run Street Fighter III was too advanced to port to current home consoles so that also was a huge hit to Street Fighter III sales. And then there was the roster. While fans were very keen on seeing new faces, they didn’t want to see their favorite characters been stripped away completely. Having only Ryu and Ken present was unacceptable. And as for Alex? He may look cool but played slow and difficult. He had no fancy fireballs or dragonpunches, his super attacks were weak and was overall not beginner friendly. While his presentation was not the main reason for the failure of Street Fighter III, it certainly didn’t help and with him being the poster boy of this new game, he was at the front of the dismay.  

Despite the failed launch, Capcom still created two revisions of Street Fighter III; Second Impact and 3^rd Strike. Both were much better received than New Generation but were still nowhere close to the success that Street Fighter II was. Did things get better for Alex though? Not really. While Street Fighter III 3^rd Strike went on to become a cult classic, created and seen today as one of the best 2D Fighting games of all time, it wasn’t thanks to Alex. He was judged as low tier and would almost never be used in tournaments, unless you wanted to make it difficult for yourself.

Life after Street Fighter III

From the original Street Fighter III roster there are some that as of this writing, would never be featured again but that was not the case for Alex. He would get more opportunities though be it unusual and even unfortunate ones. In the early 2000s Capcom would dip their toes into the 3D world with developing Capcom Fighting All-Stars, and Alex would be part of that roster. But that game got cancelled. The original 2D sprites of Alex would later be re-used along with many other capcom creations in Capcom Fighting Evolution, but that game was so badly received it almost stopped Capcom from ever creating a new fighting game all together. And finally, Alex would get featured in Tatsunoko vs Capcom, a crossover fighting game that seemed way too Japanese for the west to truly make an impact.
Interesting though; at EVO 2010 (Evolution Championship series), the biggest annual fighting game event, the 1^st place for Tatsunoko vs Capcom was won by a player using Megaman Zero and Alex. Granted, Zero did most of the lifting but that means technically the character Alex has an EVO 1^st place trophy on his resume.

Capcom would eventually give Street Fighter another shot with Street Fighter IV in 2008. Learned from the mistakes of Street Fighter III, the game was fully 3D and featured the eight original characters of Street Fighter II along with their respective four boss characters. Nobody from the Street Fighter III cast was present. At first. Street Fighter IV became a massive hit and daresay revived the fighting game genre. This also became the first time for Capcom to add new characters to the game by use of downloadable content. Through DLC, eventually seven characters from Street Fighter III made their appearance in Street Fighter IV. Alex was not one of them. Alex was left out of Street Fighter IV’s success, as if he was a bad omen. The only mention of Alex would be as a DLC skin for the wrestler King in the crossover game Street Fighter X Tekken (which has it own ), along with being featured on an out of bound billboard in one of the stages, possibly as a joke towards whatever fans Alex had.

Street Fighter V

Calling Alex a bad omen would be far too harsh. It seems however almost too much of a coincidence that the fifth installment of Street Fighter, after following the massive success that was Street Fighter IV, would have a very rocky launch in 2016 whilst the game does include the return of the beefcake better known as Alex. That is, as a background character. Alex did obtain by this point a cult following of sorts and him being merely present in one of the background stages of Street Fighter V felt like another slap to the beautiful faces of the respected cultists. But they didn’t need to mourn for long, as Alex was released as a on March 30, 2016. His new look was questionable, with fans pointing out his banana-like hair and his legs standing opposite the direction they should be facing. This wasn’t a bug, it was a feature. Gameplay-wise Alex got some new skills complimentary to the Street Fighter V style but he still wasn’t a top tier player. Alex did gain fans, one person in particular known as the highly talented wrestler . Kenny Omega would use one of Alex’s catch phrases in matches (“You can’t escape!”, ironic because Alex would say that during one of his ‘super arts’ in Street Fighter III which you most certainly could escape from) and Kenny named one of his signature moves the ‘V-trigger’ after a skill in Street Fighter V.

In the lore timeline, Street Fighter V came after Street Fighter IV but before Street Fighter III and Capcom would release on July 1, 2016 a story mode where the events would tie in towards the start of Street Fighter III. This would be the moment for Alex where his character gained development and how he ended up becoming the badass main guy of the 3^rd installment. But no, Alex was barely present in the story mode. He was briefly featured in a wrestling match and later again when he mistook the Street Fighter II Indian veteran Dhalsim for a mugger, because Alex is from New York. Capcom gave us back Alex but decided that his uneventful reign as Street Fighter III’s poster boy was something best left collecting dust in a filing cabinet.

Street Fighter V would get a wealth of new characters, updates, modes and transformed from a badly launched fighting game into one of the best Street Fighter games ever. And Capcom wrapped things up with an unusual, final update in 2021. Capcom released an all-new character, a MMA-style fighter named Luke.
The community didn’t really know what to make of Luke. He appeared quite unoriginal and his moves had a similar vibe to those of Ryu and Ken (Fireball, Dragon punch and Hurricane kick) but more… westernized. He was rather strong to play, thus a popular choice to pick up. It seemed like Capcom tried to really want you to like Luke. Feeling familiar yet new, not Eastern but Western. Powerful, easy to pick up. Why? Well because Luke wasn’t really a ‘new’ character, but a ‘guest’ character from the future.

It all came together when was revealed. Ryu, the classic main guy versus Luke, the new new up-and-comer. The Alex project failed but the idea of a new poster boy for a new street fighter was attempted once again. By presenting Luke first as a DLC character in Street Fighter V, the community could warm up to him. Luke would be the main poster boy for Street Fighter 6. And the community was… tepid for it. Street Fighter 6 would be released worldwide after a huge marketing campaign on June 2 2023 to a great reception. Luke was mainly used as the coach for new players and it did result in him being a popular character (his move-set was also the default setting when creating your avatar in the ‘world tour’ mode, sneaky) but still not at the height of the original eight world warriors of Street Fighter II. And what about Alex? Nothing. He was not part of the sixth entry.

Street Fighter 6’s season 3

By 2023 the whole of the fighting genre was used to the concept of season passes. The time of unlocking new characters was behind us all. If you want new characters, you’d have to wait and pay for them. Capcom provided in Street Fighter 6 four new characters per season pass, one for each season of the year. It became very standard for fans to speculate whose favorite would join the roster next, and cry when their specific favorite would not be revealed. But Capcom threw a curveball into the speculations by adding two guest characters from their once rival company SNK to the season 2 pass, opening the possibility for many more characters to be added outside the standard Street Fighter universe. Any chances for the mediocre Alex to return were, unlike his shoulders, slim.

On June 7 2025 a . Kenny would throughout a dream sequence cosplay as the four new characters that were going to be added to Street Fighter 6 and one of them was, indeed, Alex. It was a very surreal approach but a welcoming one. The presentation ended with artwork of the new joiners; Sagat, C.Viper, Alex and Ingrid (Ingrid was part of the roster of the canceled Capcom All-Star game) and fans noticed something peculiar about Alex right away. He didn’t have the banana-hair like in Street Fighter V nor his traditional look of Street Fighter III. Sporting a black vest, black trousers and a black beanie, he came across as edgy. Almost like a bad guy, or as they say in the wrestling world, a heel. Fans speculated that Capcom might be going in a new direction with Alex. In the wrestling world it is a typical trope for success. Wrestlers who were always the nice guy, or a baby-face, would be considered boring and dull. Until they switch gears and show a meaner side of themselves and address their frustrations, making they feel more real and entertaining. It happened to Hulk Hogan who in the 80s would tell you to say your prayers and eat your vitamins, to becoming the leader of the bad guy group New World Order in the 90s. It happened to Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson who was a dull smiling rookie, till he did a promo about the ‘Die Rocky die’ signs in the crowd and showed his true charisma. It even happened recently with Roman Reigns, who was booed like crazy as a good guy until he turned himself into the Tribal Chief and became a ruthless champion for 1316 days. It was a theory that made perfect sense for Alex. Alex was received as a joke while in the street fighter lore, he’s the main champion for defeating Gill. He’s being ignored despite his efforts. He needed to be acknowledged and being nice didn’t achieve any acknowledgment. So being bad might.

Fans speculation was all justified when the was revealed on January 9 2026. Alex fought in a wrestling match with absolute brutality whiles the crowd was booing like crazy, to which Alex simply said to ‘shut up!’ (what a heel!). The hype became real. And the hype became even bigger with a on January 21 2026. Alex was giving a whole new arsenal of awesome looking moves, along with a new song by JAM project, a popular anison band, titled ‘’. Kenny Omega did , immortalizing his own signature moves. Alex was presented as cocky and strong (and his legs were standing the correct way!), with a special line being said “I’m used to being hated”. Capcom went all the way with Alex. But there was also a prominent detail in the gameplay trailer that fans instantly caught: the opponents of Alex. In the gameplay trailer Alex was fighting (and destroying) Ryu, and Luke. His rival poster boys. The message was clear. Alex is back and he’s coming for the title of thé world warrior of Street Fighter.

March 17^th, the launch of Alex in Street Fighter 6

The man with no allies named Alex became a playable character on March 17^th 2026 and within less than 24 hours of his release, we got that which is the driving force for creating this post: Drama.

What caused drama around Alex? Did his release crash the game? No. Was Alex too overpowered and broken to play? No. Was he too weak? No. Did he come with an additional price tag of 150 dollars? No. The drama came from Alex’s story in Street Fighter 6. We did in fact not get the imagined promise of heel Alex reclaiming his title as poster boy from Luke or Ryu. His whole heel persona was merely seen ‘as his job’. He was a bad guy in the wrestling ring, but outside he was a good guy. Mayhaps ‘too good’ in the eyes of the fighting community. Playing through the arcade mode and getting Alex’s ending reveals that Alex has married Patricia, the daughter of his adopted father Tom, and they’re expecting a baby. This appeared very out of character for Alex, but playing through the World Tour mode reveals more. When your avatar engages with Alex, he reveals more of his backstory and eventually mentions that Tom is the cousin of Alex’s mother, thus making Alex and Patricia second cousins. You could even unlock special artwork showing Alex & Patricia’s relationship throughout the years, showing Alex as a kid holding baby Patricia to him as a grown giant in a suit holding his tiny bride Patricia. Whiles Alex’s being from New York where it is legal to marry your second cousin, this story leant too deep into incestuous and grooming behavior.

This did not sit well with fans and the moment Alex was released so did memes and jokes about his storyline with the most recurring one being that Alex is actually not from New York but from Alabama or Shelbyville. Youtubers would have a field day with creating reaction videos around this drama and (a popular youtuber in the fighting game community) would go on to downright call it ‘character assassination’. In a rather surprising move, Street Fighter 6 director Takayuki Nakayama just a week after the drama was born. Capcom would revise text passages in the story of Alex and released a developer’s column called ‘’ in an attempt to explain that Alex and Patrica did not grow up as close siblings, hoping to remove the grooming allegations. Fans did not accept it. The revised text passages also did very little to fix anything. The most noticeable one was Tom being no longer a cousin to Alex’s mother but “He's a distant relative of my mom or something”. Fans just wanted the whole family relationship to be simply dropped but Capcom did no such thing. Thus, Alex from Alabama was here to stay.

But what about the actual gaming side of Alex? Most fighting game players, especially the pro players, don’t care about any lore. What’s important is how Alex plays. Every character in Street Fighter 6 gets a difficulty level, and Alex was given ‘Hard’. This is due to the complexity of his new ‘stance’ which allows for several mix-up attacks and keeps his opponents guessing but at the risk of putting himself vulnerable as you can’t block in this stance. He also had barely any reversals so once an opponent could keep the pressure on Alex, there was very little Alex could do. Long story short, Alex had great offense but terrible defense. His complexity made him anything but suitable for newcomers and now with his cringeworthy story, his chances of being seen as a poster boy were non-existent.

Aftermath

Drama goes as quickly as it comes and any focus that was on Alex eventually shifted over on 3 April 2026 to the trailer of the next character following his release, , as the community was in doubt if they were ready for this magical fourth wall-breaking anime-girl of a 1000 years old. And later drama was shifted again on 24 May 2026, now toward Tekken 8 with their announcement of adding Yujiro Hanma to their roster, a controversial villain from the Baki franchise.

Alex was not forgotten though. Whenever Capcom mentioned Alex on their social media, whether it be a birthday or a new DLC outfit, there always be remarks in the comment sections mocking Alex for his life choices or how Capcom ‘massacred their boy’. It remains a mystery why Capcom handled Alex the way they did from the very start in 1997 all the way to this point. Alex was placed into an impossible position from the moment he was created and much like they would say in wrestling, he was ‘booked horribly’ ever since. The future of Alex is in a void. The community is certain we will see Street Fighter 7 and more one day but after the damage that Alex has endured it’s unlikely that Alex will be an absolute in those games. The biggest mystery will forever be as to why Capcom hyped him up as greatly as they did in Street Fighter 6 only to pull the rug from under him the moment he was released, as fans were now less likely to purchase the fighter thus causing no boost in DLC sales. Alas, there was potential in the character Alex thanks to his unique look and grappling fighting style but in the end, he got ‘jobbed out’.

In April of 2014, Japanese idol group HKT48 gave a heart-wrenching performance of a new song, . The song, written for the occasion, is saying goodbye to and , two of over a dozen AKB Group members suddenly transferred to other groups throughout Japan. This move was devastating to the members, the fans, and the group as a whole. Before we begin, I’ll give a primer:

Terminology

AKB48: AKB48 is an idol group founded in 2005 by Akimoto Yasushi. The concept was “idols you can meet”, with a theater where they perform every day. AKB48 has a large number of members as each theater performance is conducted by a team of 16 members, and there are multiple teams alternating on different days. Akimoto Yasushi writes the lyrics for all of the songs for AKB48 and its sister groups. Members are added in numbered generations. AKB48 struggled to gain mainstream success until 2010, and then dominated the music charts and popular culture for much of the decade.

Sister Group: AKB48 has sister groups throughout Japan and Asia. Each sister group has their own members, their own teams, their own theater, their own stages, and their own singles. The sister groups in Japan are currently SKE48 (Sakae, Nagoya) founded in 2008, NMB48 (Namba, Osaka) founded in 2010, HKT48 (Hakata, Fukuoka) founded in 2011, NGT48 (Niigata, Niigata) founded in 2015, and STU48 (Setouchi region) founded in 2017. For clarity, I’ll use AKB Group to refer to AKB48 and its sister groups as a whole.

Teams: The members of each group are divided into teams, with the classic AKB48 teams being Team A, Team K, and Team B, with Team 4 added later. The teams perform their own setlists, known as stages. A member’s team are the members who they perform with on a near-daily basis at the theater, and singles usually had team-specific B-sides. The sister groups are also divided into teams: SKE48’s Team S, KII, and E; NMB48’s Team N, M, and BII; HKT48’s Team H, KIV, and TII; and NGT48’s NIII and G. Each team has a Captain (“Leader” for SKE48) and later a Vice-Captain as well. Some of the groups have now disbanded some or all of these teams.

Theater: the AKB48 theater is a tiny venue on the 8th floor of Akihabara’s Don Quijote, a discount supermarket chain. It has 6 rows of benches and standing room in the back, with a total capacity of 250 people. There are also two massive pillars that block the stage for most of the audience. AKB48 has been performing there almost uninterrupted since December 2005. They’ve performed roughly 7000 shows there at time of writing. Each sister group has their own theater with its own quirks, but they’re generally around the same size as the AKB48 theater.

Senbatsu: the members chosen to participate in a single. While the size of the senbatsu varies, it’s generally around 16 members. Considering AKB48 (including its sister groups) can have hundreds of members, it’s often seen as the ultimate goal of many members to enter into the senbatsu. It features members who are the most popular, or are being pushed by management to become popular. Usually, AKB48 singles were a kind of “all star” lineup with the top members of each sister group being selected (the sister group’s singles would feature a lineup of just their own members) alongside the top AKB48 members. The frontwoman for the single is called the center.

Graduation: when a member leaves the group, it’s typically a graduation. They announce graduation publicly, then graduate a few months later. They have a graduation performance at the theater as their last activity. Sometimes members withdraw or are terminated, which is not considered a graduation. This has only happened a handful of times. Members choose on their own when they want to graduate.

Note: Things have changed a lot since 2020, so this is mostly dealing with AKB Group pre-2020.

AKB48’s Teams

AKB48 teams initially corresponded to the generations of members joining. Team A was the 1st Generation, Team K the 2nd Generation, and Team B the 3rd Generation. From the 4th generation onwards, members started as kenkyuusei (literally “research students”, or trainees) who performed together until they were individually promoted into a team. Each team had their own identity: Team A were traditional idols, Team K were athletic and energetic, and Team B were pure and cute. Kenkyuusei were promoted based on need (since members could graduate at any time) and fit within the team.

Team 4 was added later, initially created in 2011. AKB had many kenkyuusei who were ready to be promoted, but there weren’t enough spots on the three teams. So they created a new team, Team 4, for newly-promoted kenkyuusei. It was disbanded a year later and the members were distributed to the original three teams. Then, in 2013, it was recreated. This time, it was led by Minegishi Minami, the 1st generation member who was demoted to kenkyuusei after her head-shaving scandal (which I wrote about ). It consisted of the kenkyuusei that she joined and mentored, creating a famously strong bond. This time, Team 4 was here to stay.

AKB48 members are often fiercely loyal to their team. Their team is who they’ll be performing at the theater with and who they practice every day with. Theater stages are unique to the team, and often they contain songs specifically about the team: why they’re the best team, the struggles they face, their love for each other, their determination, and so on. Some of these songs, like Team A’s , Team K’s , and Team B’s , are signature songs for the team and emotional cornerstones for the members. One way to look at it is that AKB48 is more like several smaller performance groups (teams) that happen to come together for a single. The sister groups have their own teams with their own storied history, just like AKB.

Sister Groups

AKB48 is often called Japan’s national idol group. The sister groups are more like regional idol groups. The sister group members are typically locals of the region, they appear on local TV, they mostly do local events, and their fanbase is usually based in the area. They still have had a lot of success (but not to the level of AKB) and their top members became extremely popular nationwide. There was also a sense of rivalry with AKB, with the want to overtake the top group.

Shuffles

In the middle of an AKB concert in August of 2009, theater manager Togasaki Tomonobu suddenly appeared on stage. He announced something shocking: that the members of AKB48 would be reorganized into different teams, right then and there. The members had no idea this was coming or was even something on the table. Some members stayed in their original team, but many members–even those who had previously been integral to the team–were switched to a different team. The members were heartbroken, either going to new teams or having their beloved teammates leave them. From then on, there would be Shuffles every few years, typically without any prior warning. The sister groups also conducted their own Shuffles every so often. Why shuffle them? It’s speculated that it was to even-out the popular members for each team or to help maintain the team identity.

The 2014 Request Hour Concert

In early 2014, AKB48 was performing its yearly Request Hour concert, a 5-day concert in which their top 200 songs selected by fans were performed. At the end of Day 4, suddenly a message started playing on screen. It read “Emergency Notice”, followed by “The Grand Shuffle has been decided”. It showed why the shuffle was apparently needed: intercut between images of member graduations were comments from fans, in particular that Team K was in trouble due to a slew of graduations. They announced that the Grand Shuffle would be taking place in one month, on February 24th. It also called it the AKB Group Grand Shuffle, meaning that not only would AKB48 be shuffled, but the sister groups would be as well. Even just the announcement of a shuffle was to members.

Backstage, many of the members were crying. Minegishi Minami, Captain of AKB48’s Team 4, comforted her young teammates, with whom she had created a strong bond. Matsui Rena, Leader of SKE48’s Team E, gave a speech to the SKE48 members, telling them that she would always support their dream. Afterwards, Rena walked to the elevator, and once the doors closed and she was out of sight of her teammates, broke down in tears herself. You can watch all of this take place .

The Grand Shuffle would be worse than any of them imagined. Not only would members be shuffled to new teams, they were going to be shuffled across the country into different sister groups.

The 2014 Grand Shuffle

The day of the Shuffle came. Before the event, the members were tense. They ate together, and one member referred to it as their last supper. The members entered into the concert hall, sitting in sections divided by team, with each team wearing a different costume. They announced the new teams, going group-by-group, team-by-team, and member-by-member. As each member is called, they take the stage with their new team. They start with AKB48, first Team A, then Team K, then Team B, and finally Team 4. By the time they’re announcing Team 4, there are many AKB members left. As they get to the end of the list, the remaining members seem to simultaneously get what it means that their name hasn’t been called by the end of the last AKB team. They’re no longer AKB48 members, but to be transferred to one of the sister groups across the country. After AKB comes the announcement of SKE, then NMB, then HKT.

The only remaining Team 4 member, , starts openly weeping in her chair. Staff members come by her side and take her just outside of the hall. There she sits, yelling “yada!” (“I don’t want to!”) over and over while they hold her. The three remaining Team A members, , , and , hold hands and cry together. Iwata Karen is announced to be part of SKE48’s Team S. Sato Sumire is announced to be part of SKE48’s Team E. As the team’s Leader is giving a speech, Sumire collapses on stage. Her (now former) Team A teammates rush to her side, pick her up, and eventually take her backstage. She starts hyperventilating as Karen sits next to her, crying. Eventually she calms down and tells the staff, “I can’t do this anymore.” Kikuchi Ayaka is announced to be part of NMB48’s Team N. She cries as it is announced, and then slowly walks on stage, her steps heavy. You can watch all of this . Eventually, Yurina returns to the hall and is transferred to SKE48’s Team KII.

From AKB48, 9 members were transferred to sister groups. Besides the ones mentioned above, four Team B members were transferred: Yamauchi Suzuran to SKE48’s Team S, Oba Mina to SKE48’s Team KII, Fujie Reina to NMB48’s Team M, and Umeda Ayaka and Ichikawa Miori to NMB48’s Team BII. In addition, Team K’s Chikano Rina was transferred overseas to JKT48 (Jakarta, Indonesia).

The sister group members were not spared. HKT48’s Nakanishi Chiyori and Tani Marika (from the song at the opening of this post) were transferred to AKB48’s Team B and SKE48’s Team E, respectively. SKE48’s Kizaki Yurina was transferred to AKB48’s Team 4. NMB48’s Ogasawara Mayu was transferred to AKB48’s Team B. In addition, two members of JKT48 were transferred to AKB48’s Team B: Takajo Aki and Nozawa Rena.

Along with the transfers, the Grand Shuffle announced dozens of concurrencies, members who would be part of multiple teams at once. Many of the top sister group members became concurrent AKB48 members. They are considered members of both teams at the same time. However, they mostly stay with their current team and perform occasionally with their new team at the theater, alongside appearances at concerts and in singles.

The Backlash

The members obviously hated the transfers, both the members leaving their home and the members now without a beloved comrade. Several members took to their blogs and social media to express their discontent. There was also a massive fan backlash. The whole point of AKB Group is “idols you can meet” who perform every day at a theater close-by. How can you meet your favorite member if she’s been moved halfway across the country? Sister group fans were furious that the issue was with AKB48 (that Team K needed help) and the sister groups were being involved. Some of the sister groups had just had their own shuffles recently, and now they were being shuffled again.

The move has many potential downsides for the members being transferred. The members spend years of their teens and 20s together with their teammates and groupmates, and now are being transferred into a group of people they barely know. Their activities outside of the group would be affected, and any entertainment connections they’ve made might be meaningless in a new market. There’s a good chance their fans won’t follow them to a new group. For many, it would be like starting over.

The management was heavily criticized. There seemed to be no care taken in ensuring the transfers go well. The members (some of whom were minors) and their families were not consulted. They had no idea what was coming, and it was all announced publicly. Some of the members had commitments that kept them where they were, such as school for underage members or family-related issues.

The Results

Management gave the members 2 days to object to their transfer. Two members did: Team 4’s Takashima Yurina and Team A’s Iwata Karen. Their transfers were cancelled and they returned to their original teams. Team A’s Kikuchi Ayaka announced graduation instead of transferring. The other members transferred to their new groups a month after the announcement.

Perhaps the transfer the fans lamented the most was NMB48’s Ogasawara Mayu going to AKB48. Mayu was a 1st Generation member of NMB, was popular with fans and beloved by her groupmates, and was a senbatsu member for every NMB single, often with a prominent position. She also fit in with NMB perfectly. NMB is run by Yoshimoto Kogyo, Japan’s top comedian talent agency. NMB has a reputation for comedy, and Mayu was probably their funniest member. While a constant senbatsu member in NMB, she never once made the AKB senbatsu.

Transferring HKT48’s Nakanishi Chiyori and Tani Marika was seen as cruel. They had a connection beyond the group: they had been best friends since childhood. Chiyori joined with HKT48’s 1st Generation, and after Chiyori joined Marika decided to apply for the 2nd Generation. And now they were both being transferred to different places. They were also both the “mood makers” of the group, the type of person to cheer people up backstage.

There were some successes. Some of the members transferred to sister groups became senbatsu members of their new group’s singles, even though they rarely (or never) made the senbatsu in their original group. Some of them became Captains or Vice-Captains and became beloved senpai of their new group.

However, the downsides were immense. Besides what I mentioned above, the most criticized aspect was the concurrency system. Team K brought in the top members of the sister groups on a concurrency basis. However, this was just a crutch. Most of the top members of Team K had graduated, and instead of developing homegrown talent, they essentially brought top members from other groups on a part-time basis. It did nothing to solve their issue and just delayed a real solution. Inability to foster new talent after the legendary original members is probably the biggest problem AKB as a whole had. A year later, AKB48 had another Shuffle and cancelled most of the concurrencies.

The question is: why did they do this? There has been a lot of speculation, and many fans believe that it was to create drama for the sake of drama. I believe this was at least part of the motivation for the Grand Shuffle, or motivation for the way it was conducted.

Many fans cite the 2014 Grand Shuffle as the worst blunder that AKB Group ever made. It was bad for the members, the fans, and the group as a whole. It is often listed as one of the reasons that AKB Group started to lose steam in the mid-to-late 2010s.

Sources (Japanese):

Source Footage:

AKB48 Documentary: The Time Has Come

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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Have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy 14? With an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of a Realm Reborn and the award winning Heavensward, and thrilling Stormblood expansions up to level 70 for free with no restrictions on play time?

You might've seen this copypasta floating around your gaming circles at some point. Today’s drama does, in fact, take place in the critically acclaimed MMORPG (actually, the trial is up to 80 now and includes the award-winning Shadowbringers expansion too!) and is possibly one of the most ridiculous stunts I’ve ever seen: the real-world billboard advertising a virtual beach party.

First Impressions

Let me give a bit more background info. Final Fantasy XIV (14) is an MMO in the FF series, taking place in its own independent continuity and having an extremely generous free trial. With the wide variety of content available and accessibility, FFXIV has several dedicated groups in its playerbase. There's the casual players who are in it for the story, hardcore raiders who stick around for the savage and unreal content, the marketboard monopolists, and the roleplayers. Thanks to the and "glamour is endgame" philosophy, RPers have an excellent array of options to make dress-up dolls to play with as they please in FFXIV. It also helps that there's a proper housing system, which lets you buy a plot of land that other players can visit at any time. Players can use these houses as guild halls, taverns, dollhouses, or... nightclubs.

The Company You Keep

RPers who run a tavern or cafe will generally escape the negative reputation RPers have among the playerbase. That honor goes to the nightclubbers. There are a few reasons that people have animosity towards the RP side of things, which I'll detail a bit below.

1. The spammers

If you enter any city/hub or the party finder, you will inevitably be greeted with messages advertising yet another nightclub event. Nightclubbers have been known to pay sprouts (new players) in-game currency to run between cities and copy-paste the same ad in the shout (global area) chat. They will also use ASCII and other tricks that bypass accounts' chat blacklists. People have made their distaste for this loud and clear. More annoying is when these ad runners will directly approach people asking them to participate, which leads into my next point.

2. The gooners

I'm going to dispel a bit of a notion here - gooning is not exclusive to the RP sphere, and RPers are not the sole perpetrators of sexpest behavior. However, many of the shout ads will explicitly mention NSFW or 18+, sometimes going so far as to mention their "courtesans" which will do ERP (erotic/sex RP) for in-game currency. RPers are also no strangers to approaching randoms about 18+ roleplay, sometimes in conjunction with nightclubs. A lot of houses will build a bedroom or straight up sex dungeon for RP purposes. Again, I want to reiterate that a lot of this reputation is as a result of this behavior all being lumped in together with the annoying nightclubs. Most RPers are very aware of issues of consent, and plenty of venues will shut down ERP entirely if they see it. Keyword being *if*.

3. The modbeasts

Mods are technically against the ToS of FFXIV, and GMs (game masters) can and will enforce bans if they deem it necessary. Usually though, client-side mods that only affect emotes or outfits will fly under the radar unless people make a big spectacle of it. There are mods which allow for mod sharing with a code, which many venues will host. Anyone without these mods and codes, crucially, cannot see the mods. RPers are assumed to be the target audience for heavy modding, which is characterized as sloppily made/stolen assets, out of place, and NSFW. Mods are able to manipulate other people's characters, which have led to a couple notable incidents of nightclubbers using them to troll or annoy other players. The general consensus though is that modded characters barely resemble the unmodded game, and both modders and vanilla players have started a number of petty arguments over it. This one is kind of stupid.

4. They don't play the game

This argument is kind of a nothingburger, but for thoroughness I'll cover it anyways. A lot of activity in these nightclubs is people showing up with their characters, hitting a dance emote, and going AFK, or maybe watching the DJ's Twitch stream on another monitor. It is very commonly assumed that the people who do this don't engage in crafting/gathering, pay attention to the story, or do raiding, and have just paid for level skips to use the game as an IMVU alternative or stick to free trial accounts. Again, this is kind of stupid. Let people do whatever they want with the game, it's harmless.

I’ll readily admit some of this enmity is just petty. The first two points are the main issues people have with the RP crowd, but generally everyone sticks to their own lanes (except the ad runners). RPers have hosted community events like in-game stageplays, murder mysteries, and photo venues for all to join and players from all crowds have politely and respectfully engaged. Nightclubbers know about their reputation and just want to do their thing. Surely they wouldn't pull anything crazy, right? Like an obnoxious advertisement for an 18+ club featuring modded content and risking permanent account bans for anyone involved, affirming every gripe people have with them?

An Offer You Can Refuse

In July of 2022, the people of Austin, Texas, USA noticed a advertising a "summer bash" at Rain Nightclub. The billboard featured two 3d avatars, 3 Twitch links, and a Discord invite link. The astute among you may have noticed a few minor issues with this billboard. It is probably worse than you realize.

Yes, the Final Fantasy roleplay nightclub had in fact paid for digital billboards with more to come, and decided to use the Final Fantasy logo, a bunnygirl with a modded hairstyle, and a datamined/leaked swimsuit gear and Square Enix copyright disclaimer. Just as the cherry on top, Rain’s website and Discord advertised NSFW content and ERP. I shouldn't have to explain all the reasons why this is a terrible idea, right?. So of course, the Rain Nightclub hosts and the DJs immediately took them down, taking responsibility for their shortsightedness and apologizing to the community for putting them at risk of not only account bans but legal trouble.

Yeah no they and dismissed everyone as haters. This only worsened the community response, who began and trolling. Members of the Rain Discord were just as shocked as everyone else to see the billboard, and over the fallout. At some point, Rain members made a post to the Asmongold subreddit and managed to get the nightclub owner on his Twitch stream for an interview. (It should be noted that even though Asmongold wasn't overtly political at this time, some of the FFXIV community had soured on him for the way he'd engaged with the game/community, so this really did not help). One of the featured DJs claimed Rain had gotten, inviting yet further ridicule.

This resulted in a game of telephone which accidentally confirmed people's speculations that the billboards cost $12,000 (they did not). The nightclub had done an LGBTQ charity fundraiser for pride month, so this got turned into "oh my god, these idiots pulled a massive scam for an illegal billboard." Trolls started joining the Discord and impersonating mods, which managed to fool some people into thinking they were. News outlets began reporting on the story, only stoking fears that GMs were going to begin banning anyone and everyone involved and issuing C&Ds to mod creators again.

Now, this did mostly simmer down. Rain that they had only paid $160 for a couple days on digital billboards, and were able to provide proof of the charity donations from their fundraiser. They took down the Texas billboards, and canceled the planned ones in California. But, they were quick to clarify,. 

Tales from the Calamity

The day of the event arrives. Unsuspecting players log onto the Balmung server. The trolls, tourists, and partygoers have ramped up their efforts sevenfold, and. Stupid as it was, the billboard had worked. People showed up to pregame, to the point where people's devices were unable to render all the characters. The beach was crowded with everyone in their finest swimsuit glamours, on the Twitch streams for the other thousand plus who were unable to join the instance. Sure, there were trolls, but it was mostly just people having a good time! The DJs played proper sets on Twitch, the club owners ran giveaways, and overall people just with the community.

You could argue that people blew things up and made a mountain out of a hedgemole, or you could argue that the backlash prevented a serious crackdown from Square Enix. They’re certainly no stranger to sending cease and desist letters, and crack down much harder on public-facing mod usage, such as on Twitch. They probably would not have taken too kindly to billboards with a “© Square Enix” slapped on the corner. Rain taking down the billboards as quickly as they did from the backlash probably prevented any legal action from Square, and no one involved received in-game bans either, despite the undeniable ToS violation. 

Surveying the Damage

For something that blew up as big as this incident did, it had the potential to go way, way more wrong. Trolls were congesting the server every day and obstructing the housing ward with big mounts and flashy abilities. Several people took it on themselves to write reports to the GMs, bragging about it on socials. There was constant fighting on every which corner of the internet about ToS, legality, the ethics of ERP, modding, and whatever you could think of. 

At the same time, it was extremely funny. The stunt was so ridiculous most people couldn’t help but laugh at it. Even SEGA got in on the fun, buying a, Discord link and all. This is probably one of if not the biggest roleplay events that has happened in FFXIV. The very generous wink wink nudge nudge free trial made the party easily accessible to people outside the community and birthed dozens of lovely alts with names such as “Cease-and desyst” and “Balmung Billboard”, which have doubtlessly remained active throughout the past 4 years. Square Enix could have cracked down super hard on these shenanigans if they wanted. The GMs, however, let it all slide. The community, for the most part, was having fun and bringing in new friendships. And in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about? The billboard incident remains one of the goofiest notes in MMO and Final Fantasy history, and I for one am happy to laugh thinking back on it. 

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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Introduction

Once upon a time, Bushiroad ran a game called Love Live: School Idol Festival. It was a huge success. Love Live was one of those rare idol anime that broke from its native Japan and became a hit internationally. So the president of Bushiroad looked at his success, and had a dream. What if they had their own original Love Live? And thus BanG Dream! was born. Though it's totally not an idol series. See, these cute girls play in a band. Totally different.

At first, they only had one band, Poppin'Party, and it wasn't that famous, getting lost in the crowd of the multiple other cute anime girl series out there. Then the mobile game happened in 2017. If Love Live SIF taught people anything, it's that a mobile game is an accessible way of onboarding new fans. They introduced four new bands, and one of them in particular drew a lot of attention: Roselia, the symphonic metal band (not the Pokémon). People ate up Aina Aiba's (Yukina) deep voice and fantasy inspired lyrics, which stood out from the stereotypical perky idol crowd. There are a lot of people who got into the franchise specifically for Roselia. They even got their own opening in the second season of the anime due to their popularity.

Though there were many other bands introduced over the years, another major turning point for the franchise was the anime It's MyGO!!!!!, which took a turn towards a more melancholy tone, more flawed characters, and a greater focus on anxiety and overcoming interpersonal conflict. It was very positively received, even receiving the 2023 Good word-of-mouth meant the franchise onboarded a wave of new fans. It definitely helped that it made mental health a central theme, like Bocchi the Rock! before it, and Girls Band Cry after (incidentally, made by many members of the Love Live anime staff). So a lot of people were excited for the future of girls' band anime, and for MyGO's sequel, Ave Mujica. I mean, they dropped a dark stage play and as a final episode preview.

tl'dr: And it's the last opening that's the subject of this thread.

The Die is Cast - Introducing Sakiko Togawa

Now here's where the drama begins. Sakiko, a major character introduced in MyGO, became hugely divisive within the fandom. She's the cause of the entire anime's conflict for breaking up her band, CRYCHIC, for reasons that are only explained at the very end of the show, which left one of the protagonists, Tomori Takamatsu, such an anxious mess. Throughout, she shows up occasionally, being stubbornly cold, distant, and refusing to explain or apologize for any of her actions. However, the flashbacks reveal she was a much kinder person in the past and encouraged Tomori to turn her notes into lyrics. Even in the present day, there's a pivotal scene where her mere presence cures Tomori's stage fright. So their relationship is pretty complex, but with such limited screentime, people didn't have much to go on yet. So fans were split as to whether she was the devil or a tragic heroine that just needs to be understood. Most characters in cute girls doing cute things anime tend to be flawed in ways that are still ultimately crowd-pleasing, and Sakiko well oversteps those boundaries. Fittingly, she resembles a certain romantic novel protagonist archetype.

Despite the controversy, I'd argue Sakiko would go on to be the face of modern BanG Dream! Social media sites are chock full of fanart and memes of her. One of the reasons is because her Oblivionis stage persona is fantastical enough to fit well with crossovers such as and But another reason, well, as another Reddit user put it, . But she's also the face of the schism that started developing during MyGO and would crack further with Ave Mujica. Because what if this girl, both loved and loathed by the fandom, became the main character? Like Shadow the Hedgehog getting his own game?

Many pre-existing fans were unhappy that so many new fans were coming only for MyGO and Ave Mujica while ignoring and dismissing the rest of the series for not being dramatic enough for them, and the split was solidified when these two bands got their own dedicated mobile game, Our Notes, separate from the existing Girls Band Party. It's reminiscent of the schism that started with Puella Magi Madoka Magica where many new fans would enter the magical girl fandom disregarding everything that came before it, only exemplified by magical girl shows generally turning towards psychological horror for a long time after that (for the most part, the two sides seem to have reconciled). But that's not the only fracture Ave Mujica would cause.

Intermission - Ave Mujica: The Band

It's no secret as to why Ave Mujica got a lot of buzz in the fandom. Like Roselia before them, fantasy metal is the way to the hearts of many anime fans. But while Roselia's songs are generally inspiring songs of heroism, Ave Mujica is darker. More gothic. (tw: blood), and their lyrics are distorted cries of mental suffering. It's reminiscent of anti-idol groups such as that use their music to explore darker mental health issues, and not something you see in most other girls' music franchises. Love Live certainly wouldn't dare. The closest they ever got was the rival group Saint Snow with their Linkin Park inspired lyrics, and even they didn't go this far since they're otherwise just the typical hypercompetitive rival archetype.

So the stage is set. Five badass women working together to put on stage plays and write powerful songs of mental anguish. Sounds like a great premise for an anime, right?

Now what if I told you that's not what the show is about?

Ave Mujica: The Anime - "Subverting Expectations"

Ave Mujica came out to sharply divided reactions. Many review sites were about its portrayal of and it has attracted a significant cult following with tons of fanart pouring into the BanG Dream! subreddit on a regular basis. There's even a thread which even reached the series director.

However, the (16:20 as of this writing, and even the most popular positive review has a laundry list of flaws) and the clearly has a grudge against the series (again, as of this writing). Many of the detractors were MyGO fans who were disappointed by the fast, rushed pace of the series compared to the slower, more methodic buildup of MyGO, and the huge focus on extreme character drama. But a lot of the positive MAL reviews express admiration that the franchise would take such huge risks. There was a point in Episode 7 where the arguments got so heated And it hasn't even reached the most controversial part of the show yet.

It's hard to describe the Ave Mujica experience without spoilers, but the simplest way I can think of is that it rips apart the mystique behind the band and leaves behind a bunch of vulnerable girls with severe maladaptive coping mechanisms. The actual band only has insert songs for Episodes 1, 10, and 13. Also, while MyGO and Girls Band Cry may be emotional and dramatic, at their heart, they are still about girls finding their voice through music. There is no such solace in Ave Mujica. There's a significant anti-escapist undertone to the whole thing.

A good example is the aforementioned DID character: Mutsumi, the long-suffering loyal friend and henchwoman of Sakiko who was used and exploited by many of the other characters and the audience due to her extreme passivity. After she collapses on stage, audiences and even some of her band mates treat her as this fascinating actress and want to see her imitate that "performance." This frustrates Sakiko, whose meticulous plans for the band fall apart as it degenerates into a circus sideshow while her bandmade, social media influencer Nyamu, insists on continuing the sideshow for cheap views. Eventually Sakiko yells at Mutsumi for not taking her side against Nyamu, which leads her alter Mortis, to take over, put on a veneer of confidence, and get back at Sakiko by calling her out for her shitty behaviour. But instead of being a cool avenger figure, Mortis is still a scared, childish teenager who merely acts confident and imitates the behaviour of those around her, and because she can't play the guitar unlike Mutsumi, the band collapses, to her horror, in only four episodes. The rest of her arc is her passive and active personas fighting each other, as Mutsumi wants to make up while Mortis is deeply hurt and angry by Sakiko's treatment of her (and everyone else, but she blames Sakiko the most), and later on, wants to justify her existence as Mutsumi's protector once the latter reconciles with Sakiko.

A lot of people were happy that for once, they could see DID treated sympathetically and not villainized, and many with dissociative identity have claimed they could see themselves in her. But for others, the arc was overly melodramatic and took up too much screentime, as it doesn't get (sort of) resolved until episode 10 where the two alters reconcile. It's a messy fandom situation because it does revolve around an honest attempt to portray a long neglected and stereotyped marginalized identity.

As for Sakiko herself, she's built up as this talented upcoming artist who's dedicated to her craft and wants to put on the best show possible, even if it means exerting strict control over her band members. This is because she uses the stage as an escape from her horrible family life where she's stuck parenting an alcoholic, deadbeat dad, and the cruel way she broke up her old band was because that took over her entire time and she didn't want them to get involved. Basically, "She's an asshole, but she has a horrible family life so people sympathize with her." People either demanded apologies for people hating her or continued resenting her because they believed her bad situation doesn't make up for her behaviour. But it doesn't stop there. Initially, the band has a kayfabe where they perform in masks and don't reveal their true identities. One of her bandmates, Nyamu, gets frustrated by her controlling nature and decides to dramatically unmask them without consent, arguing that this helped them get more popular, and not caring that this led to Mutsumi becoming incredibly stressed by the pressure. As mentioned before, this leads to a death spiral where the band stops performing music and instead becomes this circus freak show where audiences come to see what outrageous stunt is going to happen on stage next. The band collapses due to infighting, and for three episodes, Sakiko loses the will to do anything. She lets herself become controlled by her evil grandfather, and rapidly degenerates into a broken girl who tries to shut out everything and everyone until the intervention of former MyGO members force her to take responsibility for her behaviour, including making amends with Mutsumi despite her immense anger towards her, and participating in CRYCHIC one last time so everyone can finally move on.

Surprisingly, that last part is the Episode 7 controversy. People were annoyed that her problems were basically solved by MyGO (it's actually more complicated than that), or that the performance was intentionally bad because the characters involved let their emotions take over, or because they thought CRYCHIC was a dead horse brought back for cheap drama (despite the context of it being their curtain call). To be honest, I'm a bit perplexed that something so mild stirred up so much anger, but Hobby Drama is what it is.

In summary, the anime literally unmasks the power fantasy behind the band, causing everyone to deteriorate without it to fall back on, and leading another band member, Umiri, to reform it, not to find healing, but to fill a void. In her case, she was introduced as this professional lone wolf, but in reality, she got traumatized by her band walking out on her as a child, so she took on 30 bands to avoid commitment. But that led her to be accused of being untrustworthy, so she wanted to bring back Ave Mujica because she finally found a place to belong to and wanted to prove she could be trusted. People made fun of her for "losing aura," either affectionately or derogatorily because of this.

And that's part of the controversy. The show consistently denies the audience the satisfaction of being able to imagine Ave Mujica's members as cooler versions of themselves, ruining a lot of people's headcanons. On the flip side, this is why the show attracted such a dedicated following: people really related to these flawed, messy girls whose narrative left them more emotionally and psychologically exposed than is comfortable for the norm, and are glad they could see something so honest. It's understandable that people watched a band anime for the music, and instead getting psychological drama with barely any music isn't what they signed up for. But it's also a very different take from the usual "finding healing through music" plot that many found a breath of fresh air and even healing in its own way.

For better or for worse, all this is what sets the anime apart from its peers, and it's either brilliant or a betrayal depending on who you talk to. It stretches the limits on how one defines a band anime, and only time will tell how much influence it will have on the trajectory of the genre as a whole. Will the genre continue down the darker path like Madoka? Or will this be some weird one-off experiment that breaks too many rules and angered too many fans for other producers' comfort?

Director Kodai Kakimoto but the team decided to stick to their vision.

The Moment That Broke The Shippers Of A Certain Pair

Finally, there's one particular revelation in the last few episodes that attracted a huge uproar in the fandom. The minimal spoiler version: But if you're curious, Uika is one of Sakiko's long-time friends and for the longest time, probably the only person that makes her feel at ease throughout both series, Later on in Ave Mujica, she becomes increasingly, unhealthily obsessed with her. Then Episode 11 drops a startling revelation: she's Sakiko's grandfather's daughter given birth by an affair he had with a maid. Which makes her Sakiko's aunt. Despite being similar age. Also, her real name is Hatsune and she stole her sister Uika's identity because Uika wanted to be an idol and played with Sakiko a lot, Hatsune wanted to be loved and not just hidden away as an unwanted child, and becoming an idol was a path to be loved and to be close to Sakiko who confused her for Uika once. Sakiko's reaction to this whole reveal is to rescue her and cut off her family once and for all because she was done with their bullshit.

Suffice to say, fans of the pair were outraged and even spammed the director and head writer Ayana Yuniko with angry, abusive tweets. Others were willing to roll with it or , pointing out that this twist is not something unusual for gothic horror or ancient tragedies. Some people thought it was too much for suspension of disbelief. Others thought it made sense in context. Still others pointed out the huge can of loose end worms this opens up, in both positive and negative ways. Will they be able to adequately deal with this in the Our Notes mobile game for instance?

Suffice to say, Ave Mujica has taken everyone on a wild ride. One thing I will add is that this is not fetishized or objectified, but treated pretty solemnly in-universe. Make of that what you will.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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. If you have a question, try to include as much detail as possible.

• 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.

• If your particular drama has concluded at least 2 weeks ago, consider making a full post instead of a Scuffles comment. We also welcome reposting of long-form Scuffles posts and/or series with multiple updates.

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

For easy access to past and present Scuffles, bookmark or type it in your address bar to access the current Scuffles thread, or to see all Scuffles threads from newest to oldest. And if you prefer Old Reddit, just type old. beforehand. Thanks to for setting this up!

also has an affiliated Discord server, which you can join here:

I am a member at a ski club that had the most bizarre thing happened in March. I tried posting before but we had not hit the 14 day rule. I think we are well past that now. I hope skiing counts as a hobby because I have no where else to post. I was not there so most of this has come to me second or third hand from people who were there.

On March 9 all the members of the club received an email saying that the club was investigating an “incident” from the Ladies Day event the previous Friday.

Ladies day is an annual day at the club for women members and is loosely a fundraising event. Mostly it is an excuse for people to take the day off work and get drunk on a Friday. People ski in the morning, there is a race, a costume contest, and there are vendors selling everything from ski wear to skin care in the afternoon. There are prizes, games, and it usually ends with a pretty epic dance party with a DJ. The club is not closed for Ladies Day but it is generally known that you should not go to the event unless you have a ticket.

The day was already a bit tense because some dudes were lingering at the club and making women feel uncomfortable during the bikini ski (exactly what it sounds like - women went down the hill in bathing suits and bikinis). But otherwise the event seemed to go fine.

Until… someone killed the lights in the club house and three people showed up in serial killer masks with plastic chef’s knives and started banging on the windows. Later we found out that it was two men (members at the club that are supposedly in their 30s) and one of their sons who was only 14. They were filming on their phones presumably to get a reaction. From the photos Ive seen it was not immediately clear the knives were plastic. One of the knives had “blood” on it.

There were a couple hundred people at this event and the club house is enormous so not everyone reacted. People near the windows however, did freak out. This lead to an ‘alleged’ a confrontation in the parking lot between the drunk women and the men.

At one point when the lights were off (it was day time though so it wasnt actually that dark) a male vendor came into the club house and someone mistook him for one of the masked men and punched and or slapped him in the face (its unclear reports vary). Police were obviously called. The woman apparently has been charged but that is the last we heard about it.

Naturally rumors started to fly. People saying it was a stunt coordinated by the ladies day committee for ‘fun’, saying that one of the men was actually an employee/member of the club, wild stuff.

The club was investigating but of course was being tight lipped. So people do what people do best…they turned to facebook. The club has a facebook group where people mostly post looking for lost things, offering services, sometimes commenting on the snow conditions. The facebook group is members only and you have to prove you are a member to join (think proving your badge number and them cross referencing). In someone’s infinite wisdom the admin’s allow you to post anonymously and obviously the group became a blood bath. There is too much to report but the basic tenants of the posts are:

- How could we possibly let these folks get away with showing up with knives pretending they were going to hurt people?

- What is the club doing about this?

- Why do we have no transparency on what is happening and who these guys are?

- Why do we think women are delicate little flowers who cannot handle three men with weapons? WHERE IS YOUR SENSE OF WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT?

- This is a witch hunt and it must end!!

- Everyone is too sensitive these days!!

- Various accusations of are you even a member (insert do you even go here meme) and I have been a member longer than you have been ALIVE!

A petition was started (and went no where) demanding accountability from the club.

Two weeks ago we got a message from the president saying the matter had been investigated and “resolved” and we were asked not to gossip about it. Which is a bit rich IMO. This kicked off another round of facebook posts about transparency and responses of no one can take a joke anymore.

Picture this: you’re me on November 30th, 2025. Finals week is a bitch, and you have a project to present tomorrow. So, as usual, you click over to Youtube to find lofi music or some video essay to play in the background while you finish up the presentation’s visuals.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a video thumbnail: “Tetro Danganronpa Blue Chapter 3 Full Audio”. It’s a long video. Huh!, you think. Chapter 3 has only just started releasing. Tetro is popular enough for fans to make fake clickbaity episodes? Wow. You ignore it and go about your day.

A day later, it’s December 1st. You’ve just finished your presentation, and you’re looking to wind down, so you scroll through Youtube again. Out of the corner of your eye, you spot a thumbnail: “Tetro Danganronpa Blue Chapter 4 Full Audio”. You sit up in your chair. The view count is oddly high, and it’s premiering right now. You click on it.

It’s real.

Oh no, you think. The curse must have struck again.

WHAT IS DANGANRONPA?

If you’re an edgy teenager or young adult, you’ve heard of Danganronpa. It’s a Japanese visual novel series, each game having the premise of 16 teenagers with extraordinary talents being stuck in a killing game in which they must kill another classmate and get away with it in order to escape. The first game, Trigger Happy Havoc, released in 2010, with a small English fanbase carried by a written fan translation on the forum Something Awful. The series gained more traction in the west after the official English translation of the first 2 games released in 2014. However, it REALLY took off in 2020, likely due to a combination of COVID and the third game’s recent release. It was especially popular among teenagers and young adults, who were drawn to its colorful characters and dark content. It especially dominated the cosplay community. So yeah. It was huge.

FAN PROJECTS

Danganronpa had the perfect formula for fanmade killing games. Its general format (16 students, each with a specific extraordinary talent, killing each other over the course of 6 chapters), was replicable, and the whole ‘talent’ system practically begged people to make their own killing games, often referred to as “fangans”, with their own casts of original characters. And they did!

There are countless fanfictions, fan roleplays, fan video series, and fan games. Well, started ones, at least. Because here lies the problem:

It’s actually really hard to make a full Danganronpa story.

Remember: you need at least 5 compelling mysteries, and you need to develop a cast of 16 characters. And these games are loooooong. So, thus began the fangan curse: the vast, vast majority of fangans never get completed. It’s become a meme in the community by this point. Hell, I even tried and failed to complete a fangan. The story goes like this: Someone wants to make a fangan, typically a fan game. They design their cast of 16 characters and excitedly search for voice actors on Casting Call Club. Voice actors audition and are selected, then the project goes nowhere. It’s a tale as old as time. And even when promising fangans do manage to release a chapter or two, most fizzle out due to internal issues.

So when a fangan actually does get completed, it’s a huge deal. Enter Tetro Danganronpa: PINK.

TETRO DANGANRONPA PINK

Tetro Danganronpa: PINK (which I’ll just refer to as Pink going forward) was done in a pretty untapped format for fangans: an audio drama. Here’s how it worked: installments of the series were released on Youtube in short episodes, each usually only a few minutes long. The episodes were fully voice acted, with minimal but stylish visuals that mostly just displayed captions and character portraits to indicate who was speaking. Each Friday, an in-game day was covered, with the release of 6 or so episodes scattered throughout the day.

This project succeeded for a variety of reasons:

1. Von Babbitt, the creator, did most of the work by herself. She was the sole writer and as well as the main editor. The only work that was mostly outsourced was the voice acting. Although this is a lot of work for one person, yes, managing a project team can be a nightmare. By doing the bulk of the work herself, she was able to keep a steady workflow.

2. The script was completed and all of the audio was recorded before the series started releasing. This was HUGE. Although visual and audio editing is obviously a huge undertaking, the audio’s completion massively cut down the work that needed to be done between episode releases.

3. The format was pretty minimal. Though there was a ton of voice acting, the visuals were pretty minimal; once the sprites and general graphic design format were laid out, Von didn’t really need to create many new assets during the series’ run. Once everything was set up, the project could just hit the ground running.

4. Weekly releases. You know how fanbases for TV shows tend to be more active when episodes release weekly rather than all at once? This is because weekly releases keep people engaged with a steady stream of new content, fostering discussion and the creation of fan theories. This steady release schedule worked wonderfully in Pink’s favor, especially in an ocean of fangans with yearly updates if fans were lucky enough to get any at all.

So yeah. This series was successful. The voice actors, many of whom were active in fan spaces, art, and weekly release schedule attracted a loyal fanbase that quickly brought Tetro massive popularity in fangan spaces. And that’s not all. You see, Pink started on July 26th, 2024 and ended on May 2nd, 2025. A fangan not only being completed, but finishing within one year? That was unheard of.

So when the sequel started releasing, people were hyped.

The Tetro series was always conceptualized as a trilogy: Pink, Blue, and White. Blue started releasing on August 1st, 2025, to massive popularity. However, on November 29th, 2025, shit hit the fan.

THE LEADUP

Let’s back up a bit. Although things exploded in late November, tensions had been brewing for a while before then. Now, something I want to mention right now for context is that Von had some (if not all) staff members (including VAs) for Blue and White sign . So, if you’re wondering why any of them stayed silent about any of this, that’s why. Okay, now onto the timeline.

On May 6th, 2025, Twitter user burnie468484 a lengthy accusing Von of tracing and passing AI art off as her own. Later, on September 11th, an AI art allegation was created by Twitter user gonefishing235, as well. Now, the use of AI art at all is generally seen as a huge taboo in fan spaces like these, with Von herself even outwardly condemning it. However, the major grievance here was that Von had allegedly scammed people by using AI for art commissions through which she had made hundreds of dollars. Though these documents gained a bit of attention, it was generally dismissed, as many fans and VAs came to Von’s defense and refuted the claims.

During mid October, the AI art allegations began to gain a bit more traction on Twitter. One involved individual was Keluminary, who didn’t directly work on Tetro, but is roommates with one of the VAs and friends with a few others. Remember him; he’ll be important later. Though more AI art evidence was being circulated, the main grievance here was that Von ran Tetro as a volunteer-based fan project and thus didn’t pay any of the VAs (some of whom were underaged, more on that later) or other staff members (editors, moderators, etc) despite asking for and receiving through Ko-fi from Tetro fans. These Twitter users urged fans to donate to the VAs instead of Von.

On October 29th, the entire character death order for Blue was on Twitter by an anonymous account. Now, the prevailing theory is that this person is one of Von’s exes who had recently been cancelled in the fangan community for grooming minors. An “I’ll take you down with me” sort of situation. However, since this theory has not been proven, I won’t state their name here, as they’re otherwise irrelevant to the drama. This leak didn’t initially gain a lot of traction, as there was no real proof to back it up.

On November 29th, the entire White character list was leaked. The oldest source of the leak I can find is that seems to imply that Keluminary was the leaker. Keluminary clarified that he , implying that one of the staff members violated their NDA to privately leak the cast list, and Keluminary was the one who spread it around. Many people believe that the initial leaker was the same anonymous person who leaked the Blue death order, but again, this hasn’t been confirmed. Regardless, this White leak gained a lot more traction than the Blue leak, as this one had actual art assets tied to it, giving it more credibility. The AI art allegations had been growing steadily by this point, so people opposed to Von used the chaos from the White leaks to blow the lid on this entire situation.

DISASTER

The Tetro fan community descended into chaos. The AI art allegations finally started to catch on, causing more people to go back and see if there was anything else shady that Von had allegedly done. And find they did. There’s a laundry list of allegations, so to keep things comprehensible, I’ll put them in a nice bulleted list.

• GROOMING A MINOR: Von, who is currently 23, had allegedly sent sexually suggestive messages to a then 17 year old when Von was 20, then waited until they were 18 to send a picture of her cleavage to them. () ()

• TRACING + AI ART: The tracing and AI art allegations were strengthened by , posted by Twitter user WallahiHumbugg, that heavily indicated that Von had used NovelAI for art requests in the past. Von has also using AI before. Again, the major grievance here was that Von had scammed people, earning hundreds of dollars through AI-generated art commissions.

• WRITING CRITICISMS: Around this time, some plot details for Blue were . And they were. Uh. Something. You see, the series had always been pretty dark, with many of the murder motives including blatant torture, for example. However, the leaks were considered gratuitously torture-porny (and fetishistic, some argued) even by the fans’ standards. For reference, one of the leaked motives included fingernails being ripped out, shock therapy, cannibalism, and a lobotomy. Remember, all of this was fully voiced. Also keep in mind that some of the VAs were minors at the time of recording, and none of the VAs were warned beforehand about just how dark the story would get/the content they would be expected to record. Other criticisms of Von’s writing had been circulating for a while, especially regarding her mistreatment of female characters as well as ableism (some fans took issue with how almost (if not) every single disabled character had their disability used against them then died horribly).

• UNPAID LABOR: I already explained this above, but Von didn’t pay any staff members yet directly asked for and earned money through Ko-fi from Tetro fans. Von also briefly sold official Tetro merch (mentioned and ), and allegedly earned upwards of 4 thousand dollars from Tetro in total, calculated .

• STAFF MISTREATMENT: Once they were sure that their NDAs were rendered obsolete (due to Tetro’s cancellation), many VAs came out to detail unprofessionalism on Von’s part. One particular accusation was towards the more popular/well-established VAs. More examples are given in a by Youtuber Lechgang.

• NSFW WEIRDNESS: Von of a Pink character to their VA, PancakeKING, unprompted. She also sexually suggestive audio content of a 17-year-old character she voiced in Pink on her Ko-fi. She generally has a bit of a history of being weird about her 17-year-old characters, detailed and .

• ALT ACCOUNTS: Since at least 2020, Von has allegedly run a ton of alt accounts which she has used to romantically pursue and/or harass people. She used many in the official Tetro Discord server, acting as mods, personal friends, and test audiences. She also previously ran a discord called in which she claimed users could interact with advanced AI bots, all of whom were just . Beyond this, she ran a of , as well.

• BULLYING: There are allegations of bullying dating back before Tetro, as well. () (), () (), ()

There are more allegations, but these were the main ones I could find.

THE AFTERMATH

On November 30th, Von unceremoniously put the series on an indefinite hiatus in a now deleted . She then the staff Discord server and abandoned all of her public accounts.

Many of the VAs were pissed, as hours of their unsaved work (that some had wished to put in their voice reels) had suddenly been deleted without warning. Luckily, one of the Blue VAs, Felix Wiscan, managed to the audio for the entirety of Blue from Tetro’s test audiences, who had had the audio downloaded. Felix then uploaded all of it to their , giving the fans a bit of closure.

More art for Blue was leaked, and although a few details about White’s outlined plot* were given by the White VAs, we’ll likely never know the planned death order or major plot beats. Many of the White VAs were devastated by the cancellation in general, as many were new VAs who were overjoyed to be part of such a popular project with an active fanbase.

As for the fan community: Some fans are moving on, directing their attention to other fangans. Speaking of which, many fangans that had adopted the Tetro audio drama format were renamed to remove references to Tetro. As for the fans who stayed: Many fan artists have redrawn Blue’s sprites, allowing people to use those instead of the original AI-generated assets for Blue fan works.

*^{Some sources say that White had only been written or recorded up to halfway through the Chapter 1’s investigation, but one of the VAs mentioned recording 60+ hours of audio for their character, so we don’t really know exactly how far along in development White was before its cancellation.}

And that’s how things sat for a while. Until…

VON’S STATEMENT

On February 3rd, 2026, after two months of radio silence, Von posted one final on Twitter before deleting her account the next day.

In it, she thanks everyone for their support, apologizes for being impulsive and manipulative, and admits that she isn’t in a great mental state. She doesn’t address any specific allegations, but does say that she didn’t retain any earnings from Tetro, as all of the funds went back into supporting the project. She states that she’s going to try to move on, and that she may write again one day in the far-off future. She ends her statement by expressing that she’s sorry for how things ended and that she wishes everyone well.

It. Uh. Was not received well, to say the least.

People dragged her for not actually specifically addressing the allegations, and some doubted her claims that she really walked away with no money. It generally just left a bad taste in people’s mouths.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it. I mostly just feel sorry for the staff members and victims of all of this.

This goes without saying, but please don’t try to track Von down and send hate. I’m not endorsing any witch hunts. I instead urge any of that attention to instead be directed towards supporting the VAs. Twitter user pakutheta has compiled a of their VAs’ socials if you wish to support them.

Thanks for reading.

For archival reasons, I’ve also created image galleries and of screenshots of every xcancel link provided above. Furthermore, Youtuber mahimeghan has also compiled a of evidence, as well. Special thanks to for posting some of these allegations in a Scuffles thread a while back!

EDIT: Clarified that the NDAs were voided (and thus the VAs/staff members could speak up) around when Tetro was cancelled.

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Introduction: An Abridged History of Webcomics

Webcomics are a fascinating medium to me. Like Web3, much of the modern landscape of webcomics is now dominated by rather sanitized mainstream romance and power fantasies on sites like Webtoon. However, if you know where to look, there is still a good portion out there that represents what the medium started out as: showcasing the best of what raw, unfiltered creativity can deliver. I’d argue that there are two waves of indie webcomic scenes: the old age, which started at the dawn of the internet and continued into the late 2000s and early 2010s, and the golden age, which ran from the early to mid 2010s into early 2020s. Let’s start with the old age first. Many, but not all, of the most popular and monetarily successful comics from this time were slice of life, comedy, absurdist, and/or autobiographical works (often fandom and or gaming related) that functioned more like newspaper comic strips in format and narrative continuity. Many of the creators from this era often ended up in the professional comics industry, like Ryan North of fame. Stories like , , , , , , , , and are some famous examples from this age of webcomics. You may notice if you read some of these comics that many of the characters in these comics are white men, and much of the humor involving race and sexuality could be rather…dated. This was indicative of the creators who were there at the time: (often white and male) computer nerds either really into fandom or gaming. Not to mention that this time period was famous for anti-gay and racist mentalities (ex. using gay as a slur).

Of course, there were exceptions. Many a successful long form comic was created at this time, and still continue int the present day. In addition, many of them were more likely to feature characters of color, queer people, and otherwise marginalized folks. Examples of these include , , , , , and . Other examples include comics from older collectives such as (the oldest one that's still around IIRC).

As the Internet grew with the rise of social media, more people gained access to it (and webcomics) than ever before. This influx of creators led to a golden age of webcomics, a time where webcomics were the ultimate form of expression without mainstream censorship. Many, but not all, of these creators were queer and/or racial/ethnic minorities, dissatisfied with the current state of mainstream media and representation, and decided to create their own stories that reflected their experiences. Comics that represent these include anything from (which along with several creators *), as well as select comics from Smackjeeves and other smaller websites such as (whose creator also deserves their own write up, lol).

*I recommend checking out , which consists of several former Hiveworks artists that formed their own organization.

David Willis and his numerous webcomics are particularly interesting in the webcomics space, precisely because they span the entirety of the old and golden ages of webcomics, and often embody both.* Many of his older works, like , , and , are all emblematic of the old guard styles of comics-often newspaper strip slice of life and wacky comedy/sci fi adventures. However, even early on, Willis was already writing complex narratives, character development, and marginalized representation into his works, and these all get better as his works move through the golden age of webcomics. One of the most important character of many of these works, Walky, is biracial and multifaceted, portrayed as a buffoon hiding a surprisingly competent and even heroic personality. But it’s Willis’ newest and arguably most popular comic, Dumbing of Age, that’s the subject of today’s write up.

* Similar comics that straddle this line, or improve significantly in terms of representation include and .

A Brief Explanation of a Very Complex Comic

(DoA) is a semi-autobiographical coming of age story set in an alternate timeline Indiana University. The story centers around a dormitory hall of freshman attending their first semester of college, and all the wacky hijinks that result from it. Though the cast is absolutely massive, the main two characters at the center of it all are Joyce Brown and Dorothy Keener. Joyce, who is loosely based on a younger David Willis, is a white fundamentalist Christian girl who is ignorant but surprisingly kind and tolerant (even if she thinks you’ll burn in hell for your sins). Her conservative ideals and sheltered worldview are challenged when she begins college at the IU. Her best friend, Dorothy, is a white Type A pre-law student liberal atheist who is gunning to transfer to Yale (and dumps her boyfriend on the first day of college to do so) and become president of the United States. Though she is more “worldly” than Joyce, and is often the one to give her advice and support, her aspirations and worldviews are challenged just as much as Joyce’s are. Included in the mix are Sarah, Joyce’s grumpy heart-of-gold roommate, Walky, the perpetual slacker and man child that managed to capture Dorothy’s perfectionist heart, Becky, Joyce’s childhood bestie and fellow fundie who later comes out as a lesbian, Amber, basically female Walky with a literal superhero complex, and so many more.

DoA has got the classic hallmarks of a golden age webcomic: longer narratives and complex character development being the most notable. In particular, DoA tackles heavy topics such as religious indoctrination, homophobia and misogyny with a deft hand. This makes sense, as David Willis is writing the comic from their own experience as a formerly fundamentalist queer person. However, DoA still borrows heavily from the old age of webcomics aesthetic through its strict newspaper comic strip format, and decidedly mid 2000s to early 2010s fashion (see the cast page for copious Ugg, skinny jean, and flannel usage), politics (ex. White liberal feminism), and humor (the misogyny played for laughs is…painful at times). This contrast between the modern and sobering topics DoA portrays vs. the sometimes offensive or dated aesthetic it borrows from to make that point may be part of the reason it has generated so much controversy over the years. Particularly in its portrayal of relationships.

Relationships in Dumbing of Age

There is an entire volume of DoA that is called My Peer Group's Smoochy Chart is Basically Now an Ouroboros, and that pretty much describes the relationships in this comic.

For the sake of brevity, we’re going to be focusing on a handful of relationships that have occurred between the subjects of today’s controversy: Joyce and Dorothy.

Joyce's Relationships

For a sexually repressed Christian fundamentalist that considers pre-marital sex a sin, Joyce has had quite the dating repertoire.

Her first date was with Joe, a serial womanizer at the time who only agreed to the date to try and . As you can imagine, this didn’t go well for . She later goes on to Ethan, though to her credit, after she realizes how messed up it is.

She remains single for the rest of the first semester (with one incident we’ll discuss later), but begins to build when she needs support after her familial life begins to fall apart. By the beginning of the next semester, they are surprisingly solid friends, walking to class with their friends and attending figure drawing sessions together. As an artist, the figure drawing sessions are some of my favorite scenes of them.

They eventually become an official couple when and they started dating up until the tear gas wedding incident. It was one of the most realistic portrayal of a sexually repressed former Christian dating that I’ve seen, and I really appreciated how respectful Joe was of Joyce’s boundaries. At the same time, they still had banter and .

Dorothy's Relationships

Much more experienced than Joyce by pure number of partners, and continues to have some over the course of the comic. Her first relationship with her high school sweetheart, Danny, ends abruptly when she dumps him after the first day of college to focus on getting into Yale and disliking that he followed her to IU. Despite her focus on studies and transferring to Yale, she eventually ends up casually dating Walky, her opposite in every way-an immature jokester and slacker who coasts through college.

Their relationship, while , has some pretty fundamental flaws: namely that Walky never feels good enough for Dorothy (as evidenced by the dialogue in the previous examples), and Dorothy, while well meaning, makes that clear by * trying to in an almost motherly way, , and being about the status of their relationship, issues that continues in her later relationship with Joyce (we will get to their relationship a bit later). They end up breaking up and getting back together multiple times over the course of the first and second semester, with the “off” periods getting longer as Dorothy begins to crash out from multiple other events happening in her life (two kidnappings, rejecting a Yale acceptance, and having her dreams of being president crushed) but they finally get back together before the events of the titular tear gas wedding incident.

* To be fair, Walky was .

Dorothy and Joyce: Despite the copious amounts of M/F pairings Dorothy and Joyce had been a part of over the years (real time, not comic book time) there HAS been a metric fuck ton of simmering sapphic tension being slowly built up over the course of several years. While some of this can be attributed to Dorothy guiding Joyce through the world as a sort of mentor figure, the declarations of love for each other at different points in the comic (including some where it’s ), of one another’s partners and willingness to forgo friends, partners, and even to be with each other. For God’s sakes, they literally in their Gender Studies class at one point, with Joyce pushing aside Dorothy’s actual boyfriend to be Dorothy’s “wife.” It becomes so obvious that their latent gayness becomes a .

However, this ship starts to get…stranger after the second semester of the comic. After Joyce and Joe become a couple, Dorothy, who had already not been doing well, becomes * over their relationship and possessive over Joyce. This begins to toe the line of cheating in a series of scenes, such as when she sends Joyce and is later called out for it by Joe (scene starts ), after which Dorothy crashes out over not being able to have Joyce as a partner. There also this delightful scenes where Joyce and Dorothy go drinking and Joyce asks Dorothy if she can , as well as this scene where the two of them . But by far the most egregious example is when, in an attempt to prevent Joyce from having sex with Joe, Dorothy teaches her how to masturbate using the vibrations of a washing machine in the shared dorm laundry room…while they’re holding hands (scene starts , NSFW warning).

* For context: In this example, Dorothy views Joe taking Joyce on a date as Joyce being kidnapped in a previous arc. Extremely normal stuff!

The one thing I’d like to note about both Joyce and Dorothy’s approach to relationships is how much they try to justify or fix them based on their own definitions of morality and pure selfishness. In that regard, Joyce’s relationships are often morally fraught, whether it’s dating a closeted gay man because being homosexual is , or being okay with breaking up relationships (or being part and parcel to it) as long as it benefits herself, someone she cares about, or is morally correct in (aka validates the idea of “true love”). Dorothy is much less overt in this, but her repeated attempts to try and mold her partners to be more and worldly , as well as her outright when he’s going through a rough patch with his partner at the time, are good examples of this phenomenon. While these less-than ideal traits have been downplayed in the comic due to the sheer number of assholes running rampant in the comic (including but not limited to bigots, an actual rapist, a violently homophobic kidnapper, and ANOTHER violent kidnapper trying to dodge child support), they will become a major problem later.

The funny thing about all of this is that initially, many in the DoA fandom, including myself, did actually like Dorothy and Joyce together as a concept. They spent a lot of time together (around 790 strips so far!), helped each other grow as people, and had a camaraderie that as one commentor put it, was similar to Leslie Knope and Ann from Parks and Rec (whether that comparison holds up is up to you, as I’ve never watched the show). And man, . Even when they started to edge closer and closer to cheating territory* despite having semi-decent partners that liked them, many still wanted them to get together eventually, either just not under the aforementioned circumstances, or wanted to explore the messiness with the appropriate gravitas that it would require.

* This just straight up ends up being later and it's supposed to be cute. Lol.

And Willis is clearly capable of crafting such storylines-just look at one of the previous sapphic relationships in DoA, between Billie (a former cheerleader and alcoholic freshman) and Ruth (her also alcoholic RA). It literally started out , lol. While the ship generated lots of controversy due to the unlikability of both characters, its toxicity, and its power imbalance, it still had its . And this was, in my opinion, partially because the consequences of such a relationship were written so clearly within and outside their relationship. The repeat struggles against alcoholism affected (). And when they were eventually , Ruth got , and while she kept her job (after her grandfather chewed her out) Billie was . They even eventually broke up later on pretty much due to the toxicity (scene starts ) . If Willis could pull off such an excellent depiction of a toxic relationship with side characters, he could definitely do it for the main characters.

Little did the fandom know how much that monkey’s paw would curl.

The Tear Gas Wedding Incident

We must now move to Volume 15, Chapter 4-The Only Exception. This chapter mainly revolves around an anti-genocide protest and encampment loosely based on the pro-Palestine protests at IU in 2024. Joyce’s sister, Jocelyne, who has come to participate in the protest, gets discovered on the news by their dad. Joyce decides to go find Jocelyne at the protest to warn her, and Dorothy comes with her so she won’t be alone. Once they arrive, they find out that the protest has been declared unlawful by the university, and their window of time to find Jocelyne quickly narrows. As they find Jocelyne and prepare to leave, Dorothy has an epiphany about how Institutions And Laws Can Be Bad Actually, and spurred on by how she feels she can never have Joyce, decides to join the protest and risk getting arrested so she has something to fight for. She is talked down from this by Joyce via…. And thus the two white girls that had partners already make out right in the middle of an anti-genocide protest for a brown country in the middle of a tear gas cloud.

Don’t worry, the optics get worse from here.

The Immediate Aftermath

Two things happen in quick succession from here, which I will list below:

1. Everybody starts acting unbelievably out of character.

When Dorothy and Joyce’s friend group learn about the cheating, barely anybody that has ties to their boyfriends is proportionally upset. Most people treat the pairing as and even call it sweet (Billie, one of the perpetual grumps of the comic, calling them feels wrong on so many levels). Most how their boyfriends feel at all, either being sarcastic or saying quickly enough. Not even their boyfriends are all that upset! While Walky is at first, he quickly begins to gets over it once one of his former love interests gets pushed in front of him narratively. Joe, on the other hand…he goes from a reformed fuckboy with issues with cheating due to his dad’s cheating on his mom, to being totally okay with Joyce hooking up with Dorothy because * and even as a way to keep Joyce in his life. He is generally the entire time afterwards, even when she’s being to him. It’s extremely jarring to see after the respectful conversations around consent and boundaries the both of them had.

* I could be wrong, but I don’t consider being a request for Dorothy to hook up with his girlfriend

On the other hand, the people who do have a problem with the cheating are portrayed as either being strawmen (the one instance of the bisexual cheaters trope being invoked with Joyce and Dorothy is done in a rather ) or villainous in some way. Sarah, Joyce’s roommate, is a particularly egregious example of this. She is one of two people that immediately and directly , and even attempts to (despite them historically despising each other). While often abrasive and reclusive, she has repeatedly shown to be kind to the people she cares about and generally accepting of others for their sexuality and gender. So it is particularly interesting that after she calls them out, she is written as insensitive and potentially upon their first encounter post her coming out, and then portrayed as for being upset that Joyce cheated on Joe and Jocelyne is seemingly okay with it. Seeing such a drastic villianization of a Black character with traits she did not appear to hold before is…suspect at best.

Meanwhile, the people that are greatly affected by the cheating...have little to nothing to actually do with the affair. When Becky, Joyce’s childhood friend, finds out that the two of them got together, she gets extremely upset and depressed that her former crush had not in fact rejected her for being gay, but . This, of all things, causes her to (which she has held through being rejected by her entire fundie community for being gay, being kidnapped twice by her dad to bring her home and convert or kill her, and watching one of her friends and her own mother literally die in front of her) . It also causes her to as Dina finds out Becky's still not over Joyce and that she is essentially . And of course, this is what makes Joyce and Dorothy upset enough and try to make things right…by trying to get them to and . Wonderful.

Not to mention that Dorothy and Joyce become very different after they become a couple as well. While both have displayed selfish tendencies before, this trait gets turned up to 11 after their coupling, to the point that Dorothy openly remarks that she’s worried she's . To her point, Dorothy's tendencies to criticize her partner's choices and try and fix her partners come out in full force, with her , , and trying to get her to . This, combined with her previous trauma around protecting Joyce manifesting in , has made some readers question if she is even attracted to Joyce or just trauma bonding to her. (I personally think both are possible at the same time.) However, Joyce is by far the worse of the two, acting rather and/or in several strips and being suddenly very okay with and having it and . It is rather jarring to see after we've witnessed so much character growth from her over the duration of this comic.

2. The sudden and poor introduction of a anti genocide protest arc

To be fair, DoA has had its share of controversial political arcs, but most of them have either been helmed by side characters or have little bearing on the actual plot. This storyline, however, is the first to reference that happened on IU's campus , and although the country affected by the genocide is named Bulmeria, the resemblances (Muslim students upset about the genocide, encampments, police tear gassing and beating the protestors, fencing the encampment) are uncanny. In the leftist communities that this arc revolves around (and the ones that Willis and much of DoA fandom are a part of), when you’re at a protest you generally want to give space to the issue at hand and the people who are affected by it. However, this is rather dramatically averted when Joyce and Dorothy’s kiss becomes the school newspaper headline about the protest rather than the, y’know, GENOCIDE that’s happening. For Christ’s sake, Dorothy’s teacher calls them a *. These two oblivious ass white girls become the face of a movement that neither of them actually cared about until they ended up at a protest for it. While Joyce doesn’t really care about the optics, pretty much saying so to a ,** Dorothy does, and spends a good chunk of her time trying to either awkwardly absolve her white guilt or repeatedly insert herself into an activist movement, also out of guilt. It’s pretty gross, and while Willis has tried to make amends by elevating a Muslim side character, Asma, to main character status (never mind that her two defining traits as of now and …and I guess liking bowling), it will forever be a stain on the comic’s storyline…well, as long as Dorothy tries to make her activist era happen.

* To be fair, Dorothy is uncomfortable with this realization, but her subsequent white guilt arc really do not endear me to her or the story's side.

** According to the alt text in the strip "Shame", the narrative is siding with Raidah on this one, but considering that Raidah is a known villain in comic and the comments are turned off, I have my doubts about the seriousness of this claim. Also, she was the only Muslim character in the comic with more than a handful of speaking lines until Asma was introduced, so take that as you will.

The Fandom Reacts: Paladins Vs. Sickos

You may have noticed that I’ve been relatively quiet about the state of the fandom throughout this entire arc. And it’s because there is so much to unpack that I wanted to make sure I devoted an entire section to it after I explained the events of the comic in full. Buckle up, cause it’s gonna be an adventure.

The relationship between DoA’s fandom to DoA itself is like many other online indie comics communities-creative and diverse, but also deeply personal and sometimes parasocial. I've seen excellent character analyses, personal accounts giving context to storylines, and people genuinely building community with each other. Many of these fans have been following Willis‘s work since his previous webcomic, Shortpacked, with some having been around for even longer. And of course, they are quick to support Willis and DoA financially-the DoA print book Kickstarters are always fully funded, and Willis' Patreon currently makes about . At the same time, because the comic delves into intense issues at times, arguments are quick to break out. One such instance is with a storyline involving a dispute between two characters, Carla (a trans woman and prankster) and Mary (religious fanatic and general asshole-Joyce's evil twin essentially), which led to Mary misgendering Carla. Readers had intense debates about who was in the right to the point that . This sort of behavior is not uncommon in many webcomic circles, but in a fandom as big as DoA's, it is magnified and made visible to a wider degree. And this behavior would only increase during and after the tear gas wedding incident.

If you take a look at that Dorothy and Joyce first kissed on, you can see that there’s about 2000 comments below, far more than pretty much any other page has had before or since. This was probably bolstered by the fact that the day this page was released, Willis put up a poll on the website that asked people if they were sickos (people that like the ship because it is messy/don’t care about the mess), or paladins (people that disliked the cheating for any reason). I believe the poll was split relatively evenly but don’t quote me on it.

If you browse the comments, you can see this ratio reflected there, though most of the negative comments are at the bottom of the page.

Here is a sampling:

[presses a button on my soundboard] “IT’S NOT CALLED SMARTING OF AGE NOW IS IT”

I love how the pink tear gas creates sapphic shoujo bubbles. (Author’s note: Dear sweet Jesus)

[the tear gas] also look like cherry blossoms blooming from the barren winter tree. its sending me insane let me tell you (Author’s note: never mind, this is worse)

I feel bad for Joe and Walky. I feel like they’ve both been through enough, and they’re both trying so hard, and all that is just…not worth remembering. That gives me a shitty feeling. Like yeah I get the appeal and the chemistry here, but I just feel down right now.

And then [Dorothy and Joyce] kiss again. So they realize what they are doing but they decide screw [it] and keep going anyway.

I would say if anything this makes what they are doing even worse. This wasn’t just a momentary lapse of judgement, but they actually considered their actions, considered the people they are going to hurt, and decided to do it anyway. This is selfish behavior.

Reply: God forbid women behave suboptimally

as a muslim (relatively) this storyline has been balls but as a bisexual oh my god. sickos stay winning !!!

Reply: I don’t care who tries to say ‘cheating sometimes happens, it’s exploratory, etc’ shut the fuck up. I’m a queer person (bi) and I’ve never cheated, nor felt compelled to cheat on my partners over the years.

Cheating points to a character flaw in the cheater. Point blank.

I’d be legitimately upset if everyone’s just kind of cool with this. What’s the point of over-the-top relationship drama if everyone’s a mature and understanding adult about it…I want every single relationship in the entire comic in flames

this comic is so shit, i’m like a battered wife who keeps coming back even though it never gets any better. bye yall

honestly as a queer person, i don’t agree with giving “special leeway” with what counts as cheating. I think some grace should be granted, especially for situations of “oh shit I just figured out what I’m feeling” but it IS still cheating. That said, I’m living for this development so I don’t even care. XD

And possibly my favorite comment of all:*

I think there can be a problem with writing flawed characters if you don’t have it presented as a flaw with real consequences.

If you have a sexist character… that is a flaw. But if it isn’t critiqued then the story is just promoting sexism. And if that critique doesn’t have narrative consequences then it is just lampshading.

Consider the Big Bang Theory. Frequently the main characters are very sexist. They often get called out for “being sexist” but without any narrative consequence.

Will we see Joyce face repercussions for choosing to cheat? Probably to some extent but right now the visual framing of this seems to focus on the “romance” and “passion” rather than the dishonesty.

Oh my sweet summer child. You had no idea how right you were.

* Since this has caused some confusion, I highlighted this comment because it references narrative consequences, NOT moral ones. I’m not advocating that Dorothy and Joyce HAVE to be punished for cheating Scarlet Letter style, just that there should be some changes in story because of the fallout. Thank you for your time.

As time passed, and the demands of “paladins” for consequences in-comic were not addressed, the comments got more and more heated. To keep the criticism contained, a long time commentator called Dot created a “Hater Containment Thread” for people to vent their criticism in. These were often derided by “sickos” commenters for being too negative, and eventually these threads were discontinued when one night, it was the first comment that Willis saw on the newest page, and he publicly commented his displeasure at the sight.

This removal of the hater containment thread coincided nearly with commenters allegedly began to be or having their . As a result, many moved to the subreddit to share their view points. The subreddit, which had been pretty quiet up until this arc, was now receiving thousands of visitors a week. Post range from to revisions of comic pages affectionately called or , to people trying to keep the positivity alive by and that they liked. Occasionally, people from the comment section would butt in to criticize the behavior of the commenters on Reddit (though their comments were often downvoted so much that they would be hidden from view). This was not completely unjustified at times: DoA and Willis have become increasingly due to the latter’s comic jumping the shark after the first arc ended and the author reacting to criticism in a similar fashion to Willis (this will be explained more in the next section). While the criticism used as an example here mainly focused on the era of Tatsuya that was not a Nazi/TERF, and was much more nuanced than many other comments regarding Willis and Tatsuya, comparing somebody to a Nazi is a pretty bold statement and has some unfortunate implications, regardless of how you feel about Willis. And to be fair, the subreddit, while significantly less censorious than the comments section of the comic site, still has people actively correcting posters in the comments, warning against hyberbolic complaints or actively psychoanalyzing Willis. It's not a perfect system by any means, but it is a lot more open and honest than what has gone on in the DoA comments section so far.

(Continued in the comments, please read on below this post!)

EDIT 5/6/26: Fixed some of the introduction and bits of the DoA lore based on commenter's feedback. Thank you to , , , , and for your feedback!

EDIT 5/8/26: More edits to the DoA lore. Thanks to on the DoA subreddit for their feedback!

EDIT 5/10/26: Edits to the DoA subreddit lore.

This post is the final part of a 4-part series. See Part 1 . See Part 2 . See Part 3 .

I hadn't intended to keep anyone waiting this long for the the 4th installment. As I've mentioned previously, I lost some of the data I intended to use for this post in a hard drive crash, I may yet be able to recover it, but that isn't a given, so I'll just proceed with what I have. This post is likely to be short and to the point.

One of the things John Tarnowski, AKA Juan Andres Tarnowski, RPGPundit, Swami Anand Nisarg, Kasimir Urbanski, etc. loves to brag about is the fact that he has gotten "rich" from sales of the RPGs he has written. As with his claims that he had a heavy hand in the design of D&D 5E, this is likely a lie. We know this because Tarnowski himself has said so.

In 2015, Tarnowski was asking the students of his "Mystery School" Swami grift to Later that year, he was soliciting funds to pay for roof repairs, explaining in the comments that he didn't even have home insurance, as it was "" But in 2016, he was bragging about being ""

In 2020, Tarno was having - , which begs the question, what did he do with the money he got the first time? Is this his version of the grandmother who keeps dying? A few months later, he would need donations to buy . Don't despair, though, by the following year, he'd be "," because he was once again "making a very successful living." Man, this guy's life is a rollercoaster!

Tarnowski also hates to buy things. Here he is soliciting the members of his forum to provide free maps for a game he planned to publish and sell! He even busted out the old, "" chestnut, lol.

he spends a lot of time , as well. See, he claims it's an honor to have him review your RPG book, but , for... reasons. I have several more example of this, but it's relatively minor and boring compared to the rest of it.

The missing screenshots were further examples of Tarno crying broke, while alternately claiming to be ballin'. Nothing different than what I've posted above, but more of it. My favorite was one where he claimed that every month, he had to decide what to do without.

By his own admission, his home does not have central air conditioning or heating. And from the many photos he himself has posted on his publicly viewable blog and various social media sites, it also doesn't appear to have any. He has also claimed to have a , but pictures he has posted of (not to mention Google Maps) prove that this is a lie.

My own opinion is that John is neither as poor or as rich as he alternately claims. He has had one game go "Platinum" on drivetherurpg, which means it sold 1000+ copies. But that took ten years. I'm too lazy to do the math on that or any of Tarno's other products, some of which have sold hundreds of copies, but the info is out there. Knowing what I know about drivethru's fees, and seeing that Tarno's products are mostly either very inexpensive or merely okay sellers, I feel very confident that he's not nearly as "rich and famous" as he claims. At least not from his games. It is likely that he makes as much, if not more, from his "Swami" grift. It also helps that the cost of living in Montevideo, Uruguay is pretty low.

I will conclude this series as I started it: by stating that John Tarnowski, the RPGPundit, is a liar and a fraud. And, let's face it, a bit of a prick besides.

And finally, thank you, dear reader, for your patience.

The Evil Dragon DILF Honeypot: The Hard Magnus Bans

The year is 2012, but barely. Korean MMO MapleStory has just released a major content update to its American server, and it is a big one. A new class, new items, and a new endgame dungeon. Players swarm into the new zone, eager to see the new land of space dragon knights. A hundred new dragon knights are made, and as most of the players engage with the new splashy warrior, the endgame raid players are looking towards the castle at the end of the zone, ready to try their hands at getting the newest, most powerful gear available.

They don’t know that they are walking right into a trap, and that the only way out is to lose. And they will. They will lose again and again, and as long as they lose, everything is fine.

This is the story of Hard Magnus, the impossible boss, and the players who were stupid enough to beat it.

Before we begin, however, I want to make a note about sourcing. Despite this event being only about fifteen years ago and during a fairly popular era of the game, primary sources have been surprisingly difficult to find after multiple forum purges and website refactors. I have endeavored to find as many primary sources as possible to help bulk out my memories on this event, but some details are simply lost to time. I would like to shout out the YouTuber , whose detailed and have become a major source for this write up.

What is MapleStory?

MapleStory is a Korean MMO currently produced by Nexon. It was officially released in Korea in 2003, with other servers opening across the world from 2005 (for the North American release, known as GMS) to 2007. MapleStory is best described as a 2D platform-based monster grinding game, and it plays very differently than most Western MMOs like World of Warcraft.

Particularly during this era, MapleStory was far more about leveling up and fighting monsters than the sort of dungeon- and instanced-based content of Western MMOs. While multiplayer and top end raid content did exist, for most players, the game was mostly played by killing enemies over and over again, training on whatever could be feasibly taken down in a few attacks. The level cap has always been extraordinarily high, and particularly during this era, very little content actually approached the cap. The goal was to always have something to grind towards, rather than the Western MMO “level to a cap and do expansion specific raids.” At its best, MapleStory is a game that focuses on simple loops and watching numbers increment in satisfactory ways. At its worst, MapleStory is a Skinner box in pretty sprite art.

Given its nature as a very repetitive game with simple movement and low PC requirements, MapleStory has always been plagued with bots. The game released with a focus on being lightweight and easy to install on even fairly mediocre hardware, and given that it was released in 2003, by 2012 nearly any computer could run the game. Combine the fact that it was easy to run with a few other “quirky” design choices that can create massive resource sinks for even basic equipment (looking at you, scrolling), and there was always a large bot presence across the game, from low level gold farming to high level boss hackers farming drops from endgame content.

The Tempest Approaches

Releasing in late 2012, the Tempest Update was a major release for the GMS server. Like most content, this update was largely a port of content originally developed in Korea over the previous months and years. The Tempest Update would introduce an entire mirror world to the main setting of MapleStory, and I will level with you, this is about when I checked out of even attempting to understand the lore of the game. I was just excited there were dragon people.

One of these really cool dragon people was our main NPC character, Magnus. Magnus is a commander in the army of the Black Mage, MapleStory’s myth arc villain for the majority of its lifespan, before defecting to another powerful evil character. His characterization isn’t exactly complex, and he serves as the villainous commander of the evil troops in the Heliseum region with a penchant for backstabbing so severe that even the other villains got annoyed. , a human knight with black dragon horns and wings, and was certainly appreciated by certain segments of the community (and I, frankly, do not blame them).

Magnus served as the final challenge introduced in the newly released zones, and upon release, became the new hardest fight to clear in the game. And for a few short weeks, Magnus served another purpose: Magnus was there to kill bots.

Magnus, like other high-end content before him, can be challenged on multiple difficulty settings: Easy, Normal, and Hard. Each mode offers increasingly useful and powerful rewards, including best-in-slot gear (gear powerful enough that no other item can surpass it, like the best cloak or pendant). Higher difficulties would include more attacks, more aggressive AI, and a ballooning health total that mandated aggressive play to deal enough damage before the timer ticked to zero. While Easy and Normal could drop some interesting stuff, the real prizes were all locked to the Hard mode drop table. Endgame players would hop in, expecting a challenging fight that could give them the new best items in the game. There was, however, a problem: Hard Magnus was completely impossible to beat.

Hard Magnus was unkillable. But he was unkillable in some important and subtle ways. He did not have an arbitrary HP threshold he couldn’t go below, and the developers didn’t pull an Absolute Virtue from Final Fantasy and protect him at all costs. They had math on their side. No party could put out enough damage within the time limit to beat him, even if they were able to survive his onslaught. No player would be able to do it for months, in fact, as until the next patch upped the damage cap, there was no possible way that the players would be able to kill him.

Exactly as planned.

I Want to Smash Hard Magnus

As Tempest released to GMS, there were a lot of events, most of them tied to the new zone in one way or another. Endgame players had their eyes on the Magnus raids, and on that shiny, shiny new gear. And it seemed that Nexon was giving them the green light to attempt it. In fact, they had their own name for the early Magnus rewards: the Smashing Magnus Event. For the first month after release, the first team that could defeat Magnus on Hard Mode in each server would receive a unique and special title: The One Who Spearheaded Magnus [sic] Defeat, an extremely powerful stat boost that would be proudly shown to all players you happened to walk by. Eagerly, players rushed in to try and take him down, and one by one, every fair player was completely obliterated.

That isn’t to say that Magnus wasn’t killed. By using various cheats, several cheating players were able to kill him, only to receive a message that read “Congratulations for defeating Magnus! Your victory has been recorded.” as the boss rained down his drops for the party to pick up. Efficient cheaters were able to get his defeat down to about three minutes in relatively short order, and the drop rates for his rare gear were fairly generous. As the items trickled out into circulation, players awaited the announcement of which team had killed Hard Magnus first.

They received a very different communication from the developers.

The Trap Snaps Shut

On January 4th, a few weeks after the patch, was made through the official website:

“On January 3, 2013, we have permanently banned numerous players hacking the hard mode of the game boss, Magnus, as well as their party members. We will continue to crack down on abusers to ensure we maintain a fun and fair playing field for all [players].”

The ban wave had been pretty brutal. After waiting long enough that they’d catch more than just a few hackers, Nexon had banned a swathe of everyone that was connected to the account. This meant it was not only the actual attacking characters, but also all of the item mules (accounts dedicated to offloading the resources and trading them while the hacker farmed the boss before the exploit was patched) and even players who were not using illicit cheats themselves but were running the fight with people who were (as the exploits were obvious and there is no matchmaker, these people were probably paying for the chance to score drops if they weren’t in on the scheme).

While I can’t find any direct posts or discussions about this due to link rot and how fragmented the playerbase was, I do remember that the net was even broader than reported. Players who purchased the drops which had been trickling into the market had a good chance of being banned as well as part of the sting operation outright, instead of just getting the items removed. While many were buying the items with real world cash off-client (against ToS), this definitely caught people who were merely clueless and spending their in-game currency. Some commentators (notably, Togain, whose research has been immensely helpful), noted that this downstream damage was avoidable by just removing the drops from the impossible boss, but given that would likely have meant that the trap only worked on a fraction of the number of bots it caught as there would have been no reason to run at that particular brick wall, a more sensible solution is likely just having removed the items instead of banning for anyone removed from the raid by a certain number of steps. Either way, Nexon didn’t take it, but the actual number of innocent bans appears to be pretty low as most players who were high enough level to equip the gear were pretty suspicious of the sources already.

Consequences

Hacking bosses had gotten prevalent enough that it was satisfying to see them kicked down a peg. There were some downstream effects, like the banned players starting new accounts and making some of the farming spots unusable for like a week via bot floods that the tools did not stop well, but the event has largely gone down in fandom lore as a time the developers let people happily turn themselves in for the chance at a title that was never actually in the files to begin with.

Many high-level players clowned on the hackers pretty heavily. The fact that Hard Magnus was impossible to kill was subtle to the uneducated player, but to someone who, for instance, watched KMS content guides about content months in advance, the fact that this boss would be impossible for weeks was stone obvious. Any serious raid group was still working on Dark Empress Cygnus, the previous hardest boss, and would wait until the damage cap rework to even attempt Hard Magnus.

It was about this time that I drifted away from MapleStory. I had never gotten to the endgame content, and I was playing more and better games, now. But for a brief winter, I watched blatant cheaters feed themselves into a wood chipper. And truly, what more could you ask for?

Edit: fixed a link and corrected a typo.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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

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For easy access to past and present Scuffles, bookmark or type it in your address bar to access the current Scuffles thread, or to see all Scuffles threads from newest to oldest. And if you prefer Old Reddit, just type old. beforehand. Thanks yo for setting this up!

also has an affiliated Discord server, which you can join here:

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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. If you have a question, try to include as much detail as possible.

• 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.

• If your particular drama has concluded at least 2 weeks ago, consider making a full post instead of a Scuffles comment. We also welcome reposting of long-form Scuffles posts and/or series with multiple updates.

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

For easy access to past and present Scuffles, bookmark or type it in your address bar to access the current Scuffles thread, or to see all Scuffles threads from newest to oldest. And if you prefer Old Reddit, just type old. beforehand. Thanks yo for setting this up!

also has an affiliated Discord server, which you can join here:

Intro

Let me take you to a era of change in the chinese webnovel translation scene. The year is 2017 and the primordial chaos has settled from it's beginnings in 2014-2015. Many of the early hits have been fully translated ( a tall task when a 500 chapter webnovel is considered light reading), and the translators are looking for new things. It's no longer just wordpress sites with one story. It's become a viable career to do full time translations of Chinese webnovels. The usual was 1~2 free chapters per day ,with patreon allowing advanced access to chapters with some tiers costing 100+ dollars, or more daily chapters for all for 60$ per chapter(often it was bar in the sidebar showing the progress to the next chapter) . As well as ads from people checking your site multiple times per day.

So what was being translated? Webnovels are a broad category and it contains all genres, but the niche of this community is fantasy, specifically Xianxia, Wuxia & Xuanhuan. Wuxia is martial arts fiction. You still get superhuman like destroying walls, killing a hundred people in combat but on the lowerscale. Xianxia is Immortal cultivation. Heavily drawing from Daoisam you get people who improve themselves to the level of gods. Xuanhuan is simmilar to Xianxia but with a bit more of a western flavour. Now this is all in general, the distinctions and peculiarities can be a whole essay.

The participants:

On one side we have Wuxiaworld's owner RWX also known as Ren. Contrary to the name, Wuxiaworld is more famous for it's Xianxia. Hell it's roots are a Xuanhuan novel "Coiling Dragon" which Ren started posting on the site in 2014. As the story's popularity grew it inspired other people to start translating as well. Those other translators either didn't want to deal with hosting their site, or saw an opportunity for their story to gain more popularity by going to a big website joined Wuxiaworld. That is how a hobby translator site became a translation company.

Qidian International: as it's name implies it's the international branch of the Chinese site Qidian. Started in 2002 it was acquiered by Shanda in 2004 and was later acquired by Tencent in 2015 and merged into Yuewen it is a website to post stories onto (think of it like Royal Road). As the premier site, most of the stories translated were taken from Qidian. Having seen how profitable it was to translate their works they came in to capitalize on the trend.

The Battlefield:

As I said in the intro the early days were chaos. First you had to find the site of the story you wanted to read, then if it was ever dropped you had to find it again. That is if it was ever translated in the first place. The way I found about this genre was reading a manhua and one person posted a comment about the novel. As it happened to Manga, it happened here. Aggregators started to appear. The one that won out in the end was Novel Updates (NU in continuation). NU unlike most aggregator sites directly linked the website which translated the novel and didn't steal the work. And you had to add yourself to it. Although this slightly reduced the traffic for popular sites it allowed many people to find out about smaller stories just by checking on NU. Novel Updates has it's forum as well, Novel Updates Forum (NUF).

The Battle:

Having prospered and survived this niche hobby was starting to become a lot harder to under radar. Those fammiliar with fantraslations of manga know what happens when the Eye of Sauron gaze of the IP holder finds you. Still Ren was smart enough and established a contract to allow them to translate the novels.

Then one day Qidian International posts on NUF with an request / ultimatum for all those translated novels to be hosted on Qidian International from now on. Also they call out Wuxiaworld for hosting 11 other novels which are unauthorized on their site(a collaboration with Gravity Tales, another translation group).

Ren makes a post of his own on NUF calling out QI. His opinion was the licensing fee was so they could post on WW and continue their operation. He also alleges that the reason why they've done this is to steal traffic from WW and kill it.

The Aftermath

The community instantly decided Qidian International was in the wrong. Wuxiaworld was the grassroots friend who they've known for years. While Qidian International was a big foreign company that came in to cash in the trend and strip the community for all it's worth.

Things got frosty between the two companies and Wuxiaworld lost access to Qidian's novels which was really tough as most of the popular chinese novels came from there. They later mended relationships and Wuxiaworld is translating their novels again. Ren sold the company in 2023 to Kakao.

The name Qidian International became extremly toxic. Whenever it was posted anywhere you would have a person shitting on it. So they rebranded and became Webnovel. com . It's still up and running today.

Sources:

Wuxiaworld :

Qidian International:

Novelupdates posts: QI post :

RWX response:

Thank you for reading. There is also more drama related to Wuxiaworld and QI but that this short one already took a couple of hours of typing out and revising. This was my first ever hobby drama post and I hope you enjoyed it.

The Background: The Grail of Cardboard

I have been collecting and selling trading card games for many years, specializing specifically in uncut sheets. This story primarily follows Yu-Gi-Oh!, however, a variety of different card games were "found."

For those outside the hobby, full uncut sheets of holographic Yu-Gi-Oh! cards are considered the ultimate grails. They are massive, easily damaged, and highly restricted corporate property. Typically, these are only given out as rare tournament prizes (usually cut into smaller sections, though full-size sheets exist). A single full-sized, pristine uncut sheet can easily fetch $3,000 or more. Vintage uncut sheets have sold for millions of dollars.

The Discovery

Enter our protagonist: "C." C is a roughly 40-year-old, blue-collar trailer park caucasian. His most noticeable features are a large "5150" face tattoo and flaming eyebrows. Last month, C unearthed the absolute motherlode. He claims to have found hundreds of uncut sheets, test prints, and rare cards in a commercial dumpster near the Cartamundi printing facility in Dallas, Texas. This is one of the facilities that prints Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in the states.

If you legally found a $500,000 stash of collector grails, some would drip-feed the market. Sell one or two a week for the next decade and quietly retire.

Not C. He wanted cash immediately. He started mass-listing everything at a fraction of its true value using his real, public Facebook, eBay, TikTok, raffles, etc. His sales posts were pure chaos: he would take a photo of one sheet for sale while casually showing dozens more of the exact same hyper-rare sheets stacked like firewood in the background.

No one could have won or bought the sheer amount of uncut sheets C had. The community immediately suspected theft. The main argument was physics: these are large and fragile; pulling hundreds of them out of the trash—some in pristine condition—without damage is bizarre. This made others speculate it was an inside job. Maybe someone at the printing facility purposely placed the rare collectibles in a dumpster, handling them gently so they could be "found" later.

The Timeline of Chaos

3/27/26 - The Chaotic Liquidation C continues dumping his inventory. He took stacks to local Dallas card shops. Some owners bought them; others immediately recognized them as stolen corporate assets and threatened to call Konami. Meanwhile, C is making tens of thousands of dollars online, but is simultaneously messaging buyers who are offering him six figures to ask if they can spot him gas money, while threatening people that he is "not one to be messed with."

3/29/26 - The Streisand Effect This is where the story derails. A private Facebook group for high-end uncut sheet collectors started tracking C's unhinged sales methods. The group admin posted a short compilation video documenting the sheer volume of sheets hitting the market. The video was very neutral and honestly probably brought a ton of traffic to C's online sales.

3/30/26 - Mom Crashes Out C's 60-year-old mother joins the Uncut Sheet Facebook group and completely crashes out. She writes a massive, furious post demanding the video be taken down because it exposes her son’s "past history" (his criminal record).

Before her post, nobody was talking about his record. Because of her post, the entire group immediately looked up his public records, discovering a rap sheet involving theft. The mother and son duo then spent the next few days in the comments, fighting with some collectors and agreeing with others, completely fueling the fire.

3/31/26 - The "Informally Official" Loophole C posts a series of seemingly tweaked-out comments in the uncut sheet group, claiming that the Dallas police had shown up at his motel room demanding to know who he was selling to. He proceeds to take to his own Facebook page to announce his new legal strategy. Here he claims that the only—quote, "official informally", end quote—legal way to get rid of the sheets is to raffle them off on a site based in the UK.

4/1/26 - April Fools' Day C changes the story he claimed the Dallas police never showed up and its "all about publicity now." The community fully embraces the chaos and absurdity. The group pivots to treating him ironically as a savior. Members are remixing the Yu-Gi-Oh! theme song to "It's time to S-S-S-Steal!" and writing anthems praising the "Hero of the Dumpster" for liberating cardboard from corporate greed.

4/4/26 (Morning) - Expanding the Empire C started selling basketball cards, too. The printing facility produces a wide variety of IPs.

4/4/26 (Evening) - Calling Out Corporate C crashes out in the uncut sheet group again. These are exact quotes:

• Carrier Chaos: He was buying USPS labels but dropping the packages off at the wrong carriers (FedEx/UPS).

• Negligent Packing: $1,000+ uncut sheets were being shipped folded like garbage movie posters. A 10-year-old would show more care for high-end cardboard.

• The Response: His latest justification for the shipping failures? "That serves why nobody else will be getting s** through eBay."* Later that day, C has a change of heart and simply makes a new eBay account.

4/6/26 - BOGO Grails C is once again mad at eBay and removes his listings. He starts offering BOGO (Buy One Get One) on a bunch of high-end misprint Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, which may also include uncut sheets, but his post is still confusing. He also found more uncut sheets and singles for Minecraft, Marvel, and Basketball. Everything is Pick up in Dallas, TX only. Later, he leaves a comment in the group saying, "No it's all sold."

4/7/26 - The Return They are, in fact, not sold. He is just doing local pickup now.

I actually received some of these sheets myself, and they were packaged even worse than I could have expected. I offered to send them back, but he sent me a full refund and told me to just keep them, he didn't actually say anything, he just refunded through ebay. Even in their heavily damaged condition, these would have easily been 5 figures before all this happened and he let me keep them. This has completely changed my opinion of C even if it was a mistake, he is a legend, this is the best gift I have ever received.

Final Thoughts

Believe it or not, the general consensus is that he truly did find all these collectibles in a dumpster. One of C’s buddies might be tossing them on the inside, but it's starting to seem more likely that these printing facilities are just extremely careless.

Regardless, Konami does not seem to care, as C has been able to offload this product for over a month now. The price of these high-end sheets has dropped dramatically. Some sheets that were once worth $5k+ are now selling for $500 USD, but overall there has been solid demand. I think most of the dumpster finds have been liquidated; it's been weeks since any new posts.

No large Yu-Gi-Oh! content creators have covered this story. I speculate it's because it diminishes the value of their own collections. It is something to think about when investing in cardboard: that TCG card you're paying hundreds of dollars for may legitimately have come from a dumpster. The people in charge of protecting their IP legitimately might not care. The content creators pushing a narrative most likely have knowledge that you don't.

Personally, this has discouraged me from collecting anything modern. You're only one guy dumpster diving away from crashing your whole collection. Granted I personally lucked out and probably broke even after the 'gift.'

Overall, C got in way over his head. He sold all these for a fraction of what he could have made. He's terrible at online sales, and he can be rude and volatile. But at the end of the day, the dude went dumpster diving and made over six figures. It's a come-up story.

PS this is not an isolated incident, the Uncut sheet FB group covered a very similar story of a guy named "T" who found a bunch of misprint Evolving Skies test print sheets. In 2023 a guy found a massive haul of MTG cards and boosters in a landfill in Texas. Guy in Iowa found a bunch of Pokemon Trick or trade uncut sheets from a destruction facility most likely in Iowa.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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. If you have a question, try to include as much detail as possible.

• 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.

• If your particular drama has concluded at least 2 weeks ago, consider making a full post instead of a Scuffles comment. We also welcome reposting of long-form Scuffles posts and/or series with multiple updates.

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

For easy access to past and present Scuffles, bookmark or type it in your address bar to access the current Scuffles thread, or to see all Scuffles threads from newest to oldest. And if you prefer Old Reddit, just type old. beforehand. Thanks yo for setting this up!

also has an affiliated Discord server, which you can join here:

The Rise (and Complicated Adolescence) of Royal Road

Folks, strap up, we're in for a long ride. It has been an eternity since I've made such a write-up, the previous one being The Rise & Fall of Wuxia World, 3 years ago, and I felt like we were at a turning point and Royal Road was mature enough for its own story. So ladies and gentlemen, come with me on the path of the Royal Road.

The Beginnings

Royal Road's founding story is inseparable from one Korean light novel and a very specific, deeply nerdy act of homage.

The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, written by Heesung Nam and published in 2007, is set inside a virtual-reality MMORPG called, critically, Royal Road. In the novel, Royal Road is a game with one central promise: the first player to unite all continents under one banner becomes Emperor. The platform's name is therefore lifted directly from the fictional game world, a deliberate act of cultural tribute. And what a choice it was, because LMS is one of the first, if not the first true fusion fantasy/munchkin novel ever written. Almost every single trope baked into Korean, Japanese and Western web fiction today traces its lineage back to it, knowingly or not. (SAO deserves its own paragraph, but that's a story for another day.)

The name itself carries extra weight in Korean culture. The "royal road" historically referred to the path leading to the palace of ancient rulers, a road only the ruler could walk, upon which no subject was permitted to watch him pass. In this sense, a "Royal Roader" is someone who ascends to the top on their very first attempt: the classic, untested underdog. LMS's protagonist Weed embodies this completely, a poverty-stricken youth who claws his way to the pinnacle of an in-game social hierarchy through nothing but effort and stubborn willpower. Ring a bell? Yes, you've read this protagonist approximately four hundred times since then.

Around 2013–2014, a fan-translation team began working on LMS and hosted their chapters on what we might call Royal Road Legends 1.0, a forum-based site at royalroadl.com. The L stood for Legends. You're welcome.

Here's where it gets interesting though. Inspired by the world-building and systemic logic of LMS, members of the translation community started writing their own stories in that same universe. Fanfiction at first. Then, slowly, they realized the underlying framework,  quantified progression, stat sheets, leveling systems, game-like interfaces,  could be abstracted, divorced from LMS entirely, and applied to any original setting they wanted.

Royal Road was therefore born from three forces colliding: a fan-translation community's passion for Korean web fiction, the latent desire of that same community to write original work in the same sandbox, and the infrastructure of a forum that gave both a home. No corporate plan. No profit motive. Just enthusiasts stumbling into something bigger than themselves.

The Evolution

As any reader of a good progression fantasy story knows, every protagonist needs to level up sooner or later. Royal Road did not escape this rule.

In 2013, the platform is a translation site first, a writing forum second. The site architecture is barely a site, more like a modified WordPress blog with delusions of grandeur. Ratings run on a cookie-based system so easily manipulated it's almost charming in retrospect. Funding? Pure community donations. A sidebar literally begging for server costs. The origin story of a million beloved things.

By 2014, original fiction has quietly eclipsed translation content in community energy. Writers experimenting in LitRPG and portal fantasy find the existing readership is a perfect audience. The translation work gets retired entirely. Fan translations, out. Original works, in. A fundamental reorientation of what the platform even is.

Then between 2015 and 2017, the site migrates from royalroadl.com to royalroad.com, drops the L, and signals it's done being a footnote to someone else's story. Major fictions like Mother of Learning accumulate massive readership. The platform starts getting seriously discussed in genre circles on Reddit as the best English-language home for Western LitRPG. Advanced filtering, boolean search, proper tag systems, a real five-star review architecture,  the infrastructure of a real platform appears. The user base expands well beyond anime fans into traditional fantasy, hard sci-fi, and LitRPG readers.

By 2018 to 2020, Royal Road stops being just a publishing venue and starts being a talent pipeline. "Pirateaba" and The Wandering Inn set new benchmarks for what a webnovel can accomplish commercially. Premium subscriptions, advertising, formal content policies. The site is growing up, whether it wants to or not.

And then COVID. Locked-down audiences seeking long-form serialized fiction. Locked-down writers with newfound time. The Patreon monetization pipeline reaches its peak efficiency. By 2022, cumulative views across all fictions hit approximately 960 million. The platform benefits from a global pandemic the way a library benefits from a power outage.

By 2025, cumulative views have reached 4.2 billion,  a fourfold increase in just three years. Some 2,500 new first chapters are being posted every single month. The platform is at an all-time high in raw activity. And this is precisely when things begin to go sideways.

The Numbers (Who Doesn't Love a Good Stat Sheet?)

To understand what Royal Road actually is in 2025, you need to look at what the numbers say. And the numbers are, to put it plainly, staggering.

Traffic sits somewhere between 14 million and 55 million total visits per month,  the spread depending on which analytics aggregator you trust, with Semrush reporting upwards of 55.99 million. It sits firmly among the top 5,000 websites globally. Average visit duration exceeds 26 minutes. Users view over 5 pages per session. These are not people idly clicking around. These are people reading.

Approximately 70% male, dominant age cohort 18–30. Geographically, about 42–45% American traffic, followed by the UK, Canada, Germany, Brazil, and Australia. This demographic profile shapes everything about the platform's genre culture,  the dominance of male-lead narratives, the relative underperformance of romance, the obsession with power systems. You are not surprised.

Over 117,000 fiction IDs have been assigned. The live count is likely somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000, but here comes the important caveat: the vast, overwhelming majority of them are abandoned. The platform's relevance is sustained almost entirely by the roughly 15% of stories that are either ongoing or completed. The remainder is a graveyard of ambition.

The top 1% of authors were earning just under $8,000 USD per month as of 2025, slightly down from $8,556 in 2022, but still a viable professional income. The global web novel market? Projected at $7.8 billion in 2025 and $22.4 billion by 2034. This is not a niche hobby. This is an industry.

One small but crucial technical note, and please remember this: Royal Road's view counts are uniquely fragile. When an author stubs chapters for Amazon Kindle Unlimited exclusivity, the accumulated lifetime views for those chapters are permanently erased. Azarinth Healer once had over 58.6 million views. After stubbing, it displays 2 million. Keep this in mind when you look at any story's numbers and assume you understand its history.

The Rivals (Not Marvel)

Any good protagonist needs worthy antagonists. Royal Road has several.

, backed by Tencent, running on an exclusive contract model and a payment system its own readers describe as hostile. Author contracts widely criticized as one-sided. Documented cases of authors being unable to remove their own work. And yet, raw traffic that dwarfs Royal Road, major platform exclusives, and enough money to secure top-tier titles like Shadow Slave. The comparison is simple: Webnovel wants to own your story. Royal Road wants nothing to do with it.

Scribble Hub is essentially Royal Road's more relaxed, less judgmental younger sibling. Less traffic, a more forgiving critical culture, no meaningful cap on adult content. Many authors cross-post to both simultaneously. Neither enforces exclusivity, so why not.

Wattpad has 90 million global users, making it a statistical behemoth and a near-total non-competitor. The overlap in audience is basically zero. Wattpad's ecosystem is YA, romance, fanfiction, werewolves, and billionaires. A progression fantasy novel posted to Wattpad will quietly disappear into the void. They're different planets orbiting different stars.

Royal Road's genuine competitive moat is a combination of things: a meritocratic discovery system, a demonstrated pipeline from free serialization to Amazon publishing, an author-retains-all-IP policy, and a critical community whose harshness paradoxically functions as a quality signal. High risk. High reward. Harder to crack, but the traction means something when you do.

How the System Works

Content policy first: Royal Road tries not to censor when possible but operates with real standards. Authors must include content warnings and flag profanity, sexual content, disturbing content, or graphic violence. Sexual content is permitted but cannot constitute the dominant substance of a story,  a meaningful distinction from Scribble Hub. The platform has rules, and they are enforced.

On intellectual property: authors retain ownership of their work. Full stop. Royal Road claims no license over commercial exploitation. Stub it for Amazon, sell it to a publisher, license the audiobook,  the platform has no say and wants none. This is not a minor detail. This is the whole ballgame for serious authors.

The rating system runs on a five-star scale, weighted for volume. A story with 500 ratings at 4.5 stars outranks a story with 5 ratings at 5.0. A negative review from an early high-reputation community member can do measurable damage to a story's first impression. The critical culture here is real.

And then there is the Rising Stars list,  the single most strategically important discovery tool for new authors. It ranks by recent follower growth and engagement velocity. It is not one list but sixteen: one main page and fifteen genre-specific ones. The main Rising Stars page is functionally the Fantasy/Adventure/Action list,  96% of the Fantasy genre list appears on the main page, while for Horror that overlap drops to 4%. The exact algorithm is deliberately withheld. No story in a tracked 14-month dataset stayed on the main list longer than 6 weeks. The median tenure was exactly 3 weeks. A flash of relevance. Make it count or disappear.

The Business of Royal Road

Royal Road earns money through display advertising for non-premium users, premium subscription fees, and Amazon Associates affiliate commissions on book links. It does not charge authors to publish, does not take a cut of Patreon earnings, and requires no contracts. This model is, by the standards of the industry, almost aggressively author-friendly.

The dominant monetization model for successful authors is the advance chapter Patreon,  simple mechanics: publish chapters free on Royal Road, offer Patreon subscribers access to a backlog of advance chapters, typically 5 to 30 chapters ahead of public release. As of 2025, the median Patron value for established fictions is $1.62 per patron per month, down significantly from $4.77 in 2022. That decline reflects a more competitive market with more authors offering cheaper tiers. The top earners are still making a real living, however. The middle class of authors, well, that's a more complicated conversation.

The second major financial pathway is the Amazon KDP pipeline, also known as stubbing. A story with strong engagement on Royal Road has demonstrated market fit. Authors who reach that threshold typically move to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. KDP Select requires exclusivity, which means stubbing the Royal Road version, replacing chapter content with a teaser and a purchase link. This is extremely common. Many of the highest-quality historical stories on Royal Road now exist only as empty shells where the full content used to be. You will discover this at 2am when you're 400 chapters deep. Condolences in advance.

The Wandering Inn surpassed 12 million words and was picked up for audio production. Studios actively monitor top Royal Road properties for adaptation potential. From the perspective of a literary agent or acquisitions editor, Royal Road is a pre-validated data source. A story with 50,000 followers, 4.8 stars from 2,000 ratings, and 200+ Patreon patrons is not a cold submission from obscurity. It is a proof-of-concept product launch with measurable audience metrics attached.

The Blind Spots

No system is perfect. Royal Road's flaws are as interesting as its strengths.

Genre hegemony is the single most defining cultural fact about the platform. If you combine all LitRPG subgenres under the "Progression Fantasy" umbrella,  LitRPG, cultivation, time loops, portal fantasy, stories with strong magic-system focus,  you have described essentially the entire top of the catalogue. Fantasy, Adventure, Action, and Magic are the Big Four by views and patron count. Everything else exists at a measurable distance behind them. A romance author, a literary fiction writer, a thriller author will find Royal Road actively hostile to discoverability,  not because the audience hates those genres, but because the entire discovery infrastructure is calibrated around "stats go up, protagonist grows stronger." Non-conforming authors often describe feeling invisible. Because they largely are.

Review bombing is a genuine, documented pathology. Coordinated one-star campaigns,  sometimes by competing authors, sometimes by ideologically motivated reader groups,  are a persistent feature of the ecosystem. The structural incentive remains: ratings drive discoverability, so bombing a competitor costs nothing and potentially pays off. The platform has flagging systems. They help. They don't solve the problem.

Beyond bombing, the Royal Road critical culture is simply harsher than most web fiction platforms. The community reputation is that RR is for semi-professional writers, not beginners. A new author posting genuinely rough work can expect direct, often brutal criticism. Paradoxically, this is also a quality mechanism,  the same harshness that deters weak writers means that a genuine Royal Road following carries real credibility. The cruelty is, in its way, a feature.

Royal Road readers are bingers. They often will not touch a story until it has at least 100 pages or 30 chapters in the backlog. Launching with nothing is essentially a non-strategy. The platform unintentionally selects for authors who operate with the discipline of a professional serialist. Which is either a beautiful filter or a brutal one, depending on where you stand.

And then there is the hiatus problem. A significant proportion of the catalogue is on indefinite hiatus,  abandoned after 5 chapters, 50 chapters, or 500 chapters with no announcement and no explanation. The platform is kept relevant by the 15% of stories that are ongoing or completed; the remainder is effectively a monument to unfinished ambition. Many experienced Royal Road readers explicitly refuse to follow any ongoing story until it is complete. The community has an informal culture of grief around beloved stories that go on "hiatus", a word everyone understands as a euphemism for something more permanent. You know the feeling. We all know the feeling.

Closing Thoughts

Royal Road is not Wuxia World. It was never a translation platform that got acquired and hollowed out. Its trajectory has been the opposite: a hobbyist forum that grew, without a corporate owner or an exit strategy, into one of the most significant talent pipelines in genre fiction. The IP rights stay with the authors. The contracts don't exist. The readers are brutal, the competition is real, and the graveyard of abandoned stories is vast.

But the stories that survive it mean something. That's the deal Royal Road offers, and a remarkable number of writers have taken it.

To meditate.

Offered by yours truly,

Sources: Royal Road platform data, Semrush/Similarweb analytics, Chapter Chronicles community analysis, Medium author earnings surveys, DataIntelo market reports, and an embarrassing number of hours spent on the site itself.

 EDIT: Some precisions by the very helpful

• RoyalRoad had the "L" because they couldn't get the domain name without it. It was changed in 2018 (not 2015-2017) because that was when they were finally able to acquire the domain name from the person who had it. Wing, the founder and owner, had always wanted it to be without the "L".

• There are currently 118K fics on the site. There are over 160K fiction IDs on the site,. There are also currently fewer than 12.5K fictions tagged Ongoing on the site. There are currently fewer than 7.7K fictions tagged for Completed. That means there are fewer than 25K fictions active or completed on the site, out of 118K fics still on it, and 160K+ fics total ever being on it.

• Views are not permanently deleted if an author stubs their work. The views on deleted chapters aren't included in a fiction's view count, which is true, but they're not permanently deleted. If the fiction is restored, the views are still there. So if an author with a fiction which has 100 chapters, and exactly 1,000 views on each chapter, deletes 10 chapters, the view count goes from 100K down to 90K. If they then restore those chapters, the view count returns to 100K.

Back with another one. If you've ever wondered what happens when a volunteer-run Star Trek roleplay community finally runs out of patience with a captain who's been causing problems for years, buckle up. This is the story of the USS Athena, its captain, her husband, and the slow-motion train wreck that ended with half a crew rage-quitting into the void of space.

Reminder (though you've probably already read one of my posts before): StarBase 118 (SB118) is a long-running Star Trek play-by-email (PBEM) roleplay community. Members write collaborative fiction as Starfleet officers aboard various ships, each commanded by a "Captain" who is a volunteer player who has worked their way up through the ranks, and each captain has their own First Officer (second-in-command, typically Lieutenant Commanders or Commanders). Captains and above sit on the Captains Council, a body of active ship commanders who advise on fleet matters and handle certain administrative duties. Above this council, all captains also sit on the Executive Council (EC), the small group of senior members who run the whole operation.

It's a hobby. People do this for fun. Nobody gets paid. And yet, as with all things humans organize themselves around for free, it generated drama.

Using character names of those involved.

Today's players (this occurred circa 2017)

Captain Selene Faranfey: CO of the USS Athena

Alexander Bishop: Faranfey's IRL husband, playing the Athena's Chief Medical Officer.

Nugra: Who Faranfey relied on heavily.

The Executive Council: The governing body of SB118, including but not limited to Wolf (the fleet founder), Renos, Quinn Reynolds, and Roshanara Rahman.

The Athena crew, including but not limited to: Frank Hawkins, an FO (First Officer), Sabrina Holly (an ex-FO), Saavei (a junior player).

Cmdr. Brell: Command candidate caught in the middle.

TLDR: Bishop ate a lot of ensigns.

Bishop - Faranfey's husband - had apparently been a problem on the Athena for a long time. According to multiple exit interviews from players who left the ship, he would:

• Power-sim: Essentially godmoding in the collaborative fiction, making his character implausibly dominant in scenes

• Maliciously sim against other players: Writing scenes specifically designed to make other characters look bad or foolish

• Use private information against other players: At one point apparently bringing up a mental health issue that had been shared privately and using it to bully and humiliate a fellow player

The crucial issue wasn't just that Bishop was a bad actor. It was that Faranfey, as CO, seemingly did nothing about it - and when pressed, adopted a "that's just what he's like" attitude that normalized the behavior entirely.

There were complaints about Bishop going back to his very first interactions with new players - including at least one incident flagged during the Academy training process before he even formally joined the ship. Faranfey saw these complaints and did nothing substantive.

FO concerns

Separate from the Bishop situation - and in some ways just as damaging structurally - was Faranfey's relationship with Nugra. She had elevated him to a position of informal authority that significantly exceeded his actual rank and role. Hawkins, , noted that Nugra and Faranfey communicated constantly (including via private voice chat sessions) while Hawkins himself, as the actual First Officer, was routinely left out of the loop. He only found out what was going on if he specifically asked - or happened to be free when both had one of their mumble sessions.

This matters because the FO position in 118 is explicitly a mentorship and leadership development role. Faranfey was supposed to be preparing her FOs for their own eventual command. Instead she was bypassing her FO entirely to run the ship through a back channel with a player who had no formal authority to hold that role.

It gets more pointed: during the inquiry, Faranfey admitted that during one time-sensitive shipboard situation, rather than handling it herself or going through her FO, she had asked Nugra to respond on her behalf. The EC found this not only implausible - Nugra's actual reply in the relevant thread told Hawkins to contact Faranfey directly, which flatly contradicted her story - but also inappropriate even if taken at face value. A captain asking a non-FO crew member to handle command communications on her behalf, without even following up with her own message afterward, is not how command is supposed to work.

The EC's view was that Faranfey had, whether intentionally or not, created a situation where Nugra felt he had more actual power in running the ship than the FO did - and that this had directly contributed to the burnout and departure of multiple First Officers.

This, specifically, is what had initially alerted EC to a problem on Athena. Faranfey burned through First Officers at an alarming rate (, plus . Stardates are in-game year, month, .day. So 202604.17 would be today's stardate, for example).

Faranfey had a pattern of:

• Appointing FOs who weren't ready for the role

• Giving them inadequate guidance while routing real information and decisions through Nugra instead

• Letting them flounder — sometimes in situations Bishop was actively making worse

• When they inevitably burned out or left, treating them as the problem

Hawkins was the most recent and most documented case, but he wasn't the only one. The EC noted that the revolving FO door was a red flag that, in retrospect, should have triggered intervention much earlier.

The Inquiry

By mid-2017, the EC had received enough complaints - and enough exit interview evidence - that they decided to do something unusual: rather than discipline Faranfey quietly behind closed doors, they opened a formal hearing on the EC forum, visible to all captains, where she would be asked direct questions and expected to give frank answers.

The EC was concerned about the toxic atmosphere on the Athena, the behavior of a specific crew member, and a deteriorating relationship between Faranfey and the council itself.

The inquiry ran through August. Faranfey quietly offloaded her Captains' Council Magistrate duties onto Nugra - the person whose outsized informal influence on the Athena was itself one of the things being investigated. Whether this was tone-deaf or calculated is left as an exercise for the reader. It later emerged that Faranfey had also used her Magistrate position itself improperly: during a Captains' Council discussion about the Ash'lie species on the fleet's Intelligent Lifeform Index, she had refused to provide the requested options and then failed to vote, deliberately preventing quorum from being reached - apparently to protect the interests of a player on her own crew (her IRL daughter(!)) rather than acting as the objective facilitator the role required.

Two specific incidents crystallized the EC's case against Faranfey beyond just "bad management."

• The Hawkins Transfer: When Hawkins transferred from the Athena to another ship, Faranfey told the receiving CO essentially nothing about the issues that had been happening. She later claimed in the inquiry that everything had moved too fast to pass along relevant context. The EC found this unconvincing - and noted that even if taken at face value, it meant Faranfey had deliberately withheld information that would have helped her successor captain support Hawkins properly.

• The Sabrina Holly Incident: During the inquiry, Faranfey claimed that a player named Sabrina Holly (one of her previous FOs) had left the Athena because of Hawkins. But the roster removal form Faranfey herself had filed at the time told a completely different story - citing real-life stress, Holly's difficulty adjusting after being moved out of the FO position, and an upcoming school schedule. There was no mention of Hawkins whatsoever. Faranfey had either lied when she filed the original form, or was lying now in the inquiry to redirect blame onto Hawkins and away from Bishop. Either way, one of those accounts was false, and it was Faranfey's own paperwork that proved it.

In early September, (some of them listed in link). After extensive deliberation, they voted unanimously to remove Faranfey from command. The formal charges under their Constitution included:

• Failure to act on a disciplinary matter (allowing Bishop to continue abusing crew members)

• Intentional deceit (the Hawkins transfer concealment)

• Intentional deceit (the Sabrina Holly contradiction)

• Public breaks with discipline (venting about the EC to junior members, having broken her confidentiality oath by discussing EC matters with Nugra, Hawkins, and her husband)

• Conduct unbecoming (using her Magistrate position to benefit her own crew member rather than acting as an objective facilitator)

Wolf later compared the EC's approach to bank regulators executing a "bank failure" plan: move fast, act decisively, and minimize the window for the outgoing party to do damage on the way out.

It did not go smoothly.

Boycott

On October 4, 2017, Faranfey was formally removed from command. The EC had intended to keep the disciplinary action confidential - standard practice - but almost immediately, , filling in the gaps with his own assumptions and characterizations. He accused the EC of manufacturing a narrative because Faranfey simply hadn't gotten along with them personally.

The result: roughly half the Athena crew retired from the fleet in protest.

The EC was forced to abandon their confidentiality approach and publish the full disciplinary file to the Captains' Council to set the record straight.

She accused the EC of having decided to remove her back in November 2016 and running the inquiry as theater. She said she'd known from the moment Brell's command nomination appeared that she was a "placeholder captain." She claimed the fleet was dying because the EC was killing it - that members were only there to write with their friends and the EC kept getting in the way of that. And she announced that she and her friends had realized they didn't need SB118 to keep writing together, effectively confirming the splinter group was already forming.

Aftermath

Cmdr. Brell took command of the Athena and attempted to rebuild with a significantly depleted crew. Roughly half of the Athena's players would file for retirement (primarily thanks to Faranfey and Bishop). Though given a rocky start, they managed to maintain command for about two years according to their game bio (though they moved everyone away from USS Athena).

The EC opened internal discussions about reforming their command-level disciplinary process, acknowledging it wasn't working well.

Bishop later showed up at an unrelated online RPG event and, without naming SB118, described a fleet where "leadership could essentially run vendettas through a compliant multi-person board" - a thinly veiled reference that did not go unnoticed by those in the know.

Wolf admitted publicly that during the height of his conflicts with Faranfey, he had seriously considered leaving the community he had founded.

Rahman noted in internal discussions that the Faranfey situation had prompted her to think hard about whether the EC's composition should be changed to consist only of active captains - a structural reform idea that the drama had put back on the table.

Nugra remains in StarBase 118 and is a valued member today.

According to previous Athena players who returned to SB118, Faranfey, along with those who left SB118 with her, where they would publish pieces within their own set universe. This supposedly didn't last very long. In addition, she also incidentally joined an MLM (though no information on this specifically).

Live long and prosper, I guess.

When you think of a LAN party, you probably think of that one photo from the early noughties of a guy duct-taped to the ceiling playing Counter-Strike 1.6 on a CRT monitor. I think most people associate it with a bygone era. In the nineties, id Software's "Unholy Trinity" - Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake - firmly established the first-person shooter as a cornerstone of PC gaming, at a time when networked multiplayer was itself becoming a thing. Back then, the fast reaction times required by shooters could not be supported over the Internet in the way it is today - the ping was just too high. The only way for players to compete meaningfully was to come together physically and play over a local area network. Initially it was computer science departments on university campuses. By the late nineties, however, commercial enterprises were starting to appear which specialised in hosting BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) LAN events. In the United Kingdom, one such company was Multiplay UK Ltd., founded by Craig "Wizzo" Fletcher.

In 1999, Multiplay teamed up with British Telecom's Wireplay to host "Insomnia 99" at the old Graven Hill Ministry of Defence site in Bicester, Oxfordshire. With approximately 300 attendees, it quickly established itself as the biggest LAN event in the UK. Multiplay wanted to continue running the event, but BT insisted on ownership of the "Insomnia" name, so Multiplay instead euphemistically called their next event "i2", the second event in what was commonly referred to as the "iSeries", which subsequently ran three times a year over a long Thursday to Monday weekend. Over the next decade, the iSeries became known as the UK's premier LAN event, even as the technology evolved to make LANs less essential for competitive play. Multiplay relocated the event to its long-term home at the Newbury Racecourse, nurturing a loyal community. People now attended more for the social experience, taking part in legendary events like the "World Famous Pub Quiz" and sometimes making lifelong friends at the bar. Separate sub-communities began to emerge, especially with the release of Team Fortress 2 in 2007, a game which long had its own little corner of the LAN hall.

By 2013, the iSeries, which now was able to reclaim its original name of Insomnia, had relocated to the much larger Telford International Centre, and was running a substantial gaming expo in parallel to its LAN party. Following the success of Minecon in Paris in 2012, which Multiplay helped to run behind the scenes, Multiplay sought to cash in on the huge demand for a Minecraft-related event in Great Britain, and they launched the "Minecraft Expo UK" as a part of Insomnia 49. This was controversial amongst the old-school LAN crowd, especially the volunteers who felt overwhelmed by the event's growth. With big YouTubers such as the Yogscast invited, the "day visitor" non-LAN audience exploded. For i51 Insomnia had relocated to the Ricoh Arena in Coventry, and by i56 in 2015 they had relocated again to the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham, one of the largest convention spaces in the UK.

By the time the "UK's Biggest Gaming Festival" held its first event at the NEC, Wizzo had sold Multiplay to the UK games retailer GAME (basically the British version of Gamestop). Multiplay's server-hosting wing was later sold off to Unity in 2017, and the event-hosting side was rebranded as Player One Events (P1E). Perceptions of the event by attendees almost immediately went downhill. Hotels around the NEC, which was right next door to Birmingham Airport, came at a huge premium, and the tickets for the event itself were slowly becoming more expensive. Moreover, with the NEC's catering company Amadeus holding a monopoly over food and beverages, prices went sky-high, and soon there were stories of gamers smuggling bottles of liquor into the event inside their PC cases. NEC security were inconsistent: they were zealous in trying to catch alcohol being smuggled in, but were lax in checking security tags on PCs being checked out at the end of the weekend.

I should say that Insomnia's core LAN community team, led by GeoSnipe, tried really hard to improve the LAN offering during this time. There was a big range of tournaments on offer, ranging from hardcore to casual. The engagement from the community team was great, and I can say that as someone who was attending the LAN at that time. However, as it perhaps inevitably turned out, the cost of using one of the UK's biggest convention centres didn't just affect the punters. The cost of floor space in the expo hall also went through the roof. PC component and peripheral manufacturers were out, replaced by stalls selling what can only be described as tat: Funko Pops, cheap merchandise, and in one notorious case, quite dubious-looking anime body-pillows, in full view of the many children who were attending Insomnia as day punters. By 2019, whilst the event remained the largest LAN event in the UK, morale amongst regular attendees was low. It was rumoured that the event had been running at a loss for years and that the end was imminent. I remember one long-time attendee from the early noughties earnestly saying that it would be his last Insomnia.

The next event was scheduled for Easter 2020, and as coronavirus spread out of control in the UK a few weeks before opening day, Insomnia 66 was cancelled, as was i67 that August. There was radio silence from Player 1 Events. GAME (now itself owned by SportsDirect boss Mike Ashley) clearly wasn't interested in running the event again. In May 2021, it was announced that Wizzo, in conjunction with venture capital firm Supernova Capital headed by Paul Wedgewood, would be buying Insomnia from GAME, and that Wizzo would be returning as CEO. At this point, the future of Insomnia felt bright, and the first few events back at the NEC after lockdown certainly felt positive. The old forums were even relaunched. But prices were still rising and, at least in my own group, interest was waning. Insomnia had a triumphant return with i68 in April 2022, but all the old problems with the NEC were still there.

I attended every Insomnia between i49 and i71. After i70, it was announced that i71 would not be taking place at the traditional August bank holiday slot, but would take place two weeks later in September, requiring attendees to take an additional day off work, a widely condemned decision. I skipped i72 the following Easter because nobody else I knew was going, but I planned to attend i73 that August.

Insomnia did not announce its cancellation well. As its official social media went dark, we had to hear directly from former employees that Player 1 Events was going insolvent and that Insomnia was no more. The writing had been on the wall though. Community LAN chief GeoSnipe and the head of esports Kharne had both been made redundant the previous year, replaced with contractors for i72 who clearly didn't know the event as well. Wizzo himself was forced out by executives who thought they knew better. In May 2024, there was a cascade of reports that employees had been let go without warning. Worse still, contractors and prize winners from i72 hadn't been paid. When the bankruptcy administrators came in, a list of the main creditors emerged. Some of the larger ones included the tax collector His Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the NEC venue, and Runescape developer Jagex, who had been planning a significant presence at i73. However, by far the biggest creditor was Player 1 Events' own parent company - itself only the first in a chain of Supernova Capital subsidiaries eventually leading back to Paul Wedgewood. Through the magic of limited liability, Wedgewood himself wouldn't owe a penny.

Throughout much of the UK gaming scene, especially on the esports side, there was a sense of despair. There was nothing like Insomnia. Sure, other LANs existed, but there was nothing like Insomnia which had managed to marry a large-scale LAN party with a more general gaming expo. But it wasn't over. The most immediate candidate to pick up the torch was the UK's second-biggest BYOC event, EPIC.LAN, based out of Kettering, Northamptonshire. Then, soon after Player 1 Events went into administration, former employees GeoSnipe and Kharne founded Lancraft Events Ltd., which would bring a new event, Enclave, to the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes. When P1E's warehouse stock was auctioned off, Lancraft snapped up many of the network switches and cables that they had once used as Insomnia staff. Epic and Enclave were by some measures a step down compared to the sheer spectacle of Insomnia, going from about 1500 attendees to about 500. But Enclave 1, held over Insomnia's traditional Easter weekend slot in April 2025, went off without a hitch. It proved that there was a future for UK LANs without Insomnia.

So you can imagine the surprise when, in May 2025, Insomnia's official social media started posting again, apparently from beyond the grave. Comments were immediately asked about contractors from i72 who hadn't been paid. Others, I must admit, were excited, although this might have come from a place of nostalgia. In August, Insomnia announced a change of venue. i74, due for April 2026, would take place at the Staffordshire County Showground. For attendees who had been accustomed to the amenities of the NEC, this was a joke. The venue was practically in the middle of nowhere, with no hotels or supermarkets on site. The much-reduced floorspace of the hall that had been hired was also noted. And yet, the organisers had the temerity to charge the highest amount that had ever been asked for for a BYOC LAN event in the UK: £150.

That's not all. i74 was set to have a number of "VIP" options. These included, quite ludicrously, the option of a private portaloo for the price of £95 Great British pounds sterling. I should be clear here: UK LANs, including Insomnia, had long included some form of camping as a way of offering attendees a cheaper option for those who couldn't afford a hotel; in the noughties it was actually the main option. I used that option myself back in the day when I was a student. But nobody taking the budget option of camping at LAN is going to rent a private portaloo, especially when the LAN hall is open 24 hours and you can just use the toilets in there, a 5-10 minute walk away. It stank of the kind of cash-grab that Supernova had become notorious for. And that was before the cosplay charge.

Since the pivot towards a broader gaming scene at i49 in 2013, cosplayers had slowly built up their own corner of Insomnia, aided in part by the fact that Insomnia's cosplay competitions were actually a lot more friendly than those you would find at events like Comic Con. Insomnia's cosplay scene were therefore dismayed to discover that they would have to pay an additional £15 charge to access Insomnia's dedicated cosplay area. They objected to this because photographs of cosplayers were frequently used in Insomnia's own advertising, whether they consented or not, and without any compensation. An enormous backlash on Insomnia's social media eventually led to a humiliating public retraction, when it was stated that cosplayers wouldn't be charged extra after all. It was a fair decision, but it left a sour taste in everybody's mouth.

But at this point in time, by most measures, Insomnia was charging the most of the three main LANs in the UK, whilst arguably offering the least. Enclave was a pure back-to-basics LAN experience in a premium location, with a hotel and numerous eateries on-site. Epic was slightly more remote, relying on camping and an indoor communal sleeping area, but had many of the social highlights that gamers had come to expect, such as a pub quiz and karaoke. Insomnia had neither of those things, and yet was charging more than both.

Suspicion that Insomnia was nothing more than a re-animated corpse were proven correct on the 3rd of March 2026, when they announced that Insomnia 74 was cancelled. Full refunds were offered. They claimed that market conditions meant that they were unable to get the sponsorships to make Insomnia possible. This might be true, to an extent. But I would not immediately blame general market conditions. Insomnia had been a tarnished brand ever since they left Jagex and others in the lurch in 2024. It shouldn't be surprising that nobody wanted to partner with them. On the consumer side, also, the trust had been shot to pieces. After the announcement of Insomnia's re-cancellation, fans of both Enclave and Epic promoted their respective events in Insomnia's Discord server.

The overwhelming feeling in the UK LAN community is that the failure of i74 to take place was inevitable. Enclave and Epic have both offered discounts to what is believed to have been a small number of Insomnia ticket holders. Meanwhile the legendary Dreamhack, a Swedish event which is an esports staple but which has long since shed its BYOC roots, made its debut at the Birmingham NEC a few weeks ago, attracting another segment of Insomnia's audience. Insomnia founder Wizzo, after some hesitation, has now publicly said that he supports his old friends at Enclave and that he never intended on attending the re-animated Insomnia. Nonetheless, many of Insomnia's attendees from my generation miss the huge spectacle of ten years ago. Looking back, I don't think anything like Insomnia in its golden age is ever coming back to the UK - the economics of 2026 just don't support something like that. But smaller events are thriving, and perhaps that's where the future is for the UK LAN scene: more intimate, less corporate, and ultimately closer to the community.

SOURCES

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“Resurrecting the club from its ashes as, say, 'Wimbledon Town' would be not in the wider interests of football."

Introduction

Football’s roots in England are as a working class sport. Clubs generally began as amateur sides in the 19th century, before gradually evolving into the corporate behemoths you see today. Unlike their counterparts across the pond in the different sport of the same name, football clubs don’t tend to move from the locality in which they were formed, staying local to their fanbase. Only Arsenal moving across London, and Manchester United moving across Manchester, are notable permanent moves – both of which took place before World War 1. (I’m not counting Barnet or West Ham moving to adjacent boroughs, and have already covered – which referenced Brighton’s brief tenancy at the .)

Residents of the planned and built after the Second World War didn’t have a pre-existing local team, so created their own, to varying degrees of success. Stevenage and Crawley, for instance, both had teams claw their way out of the non-league pyramid to the lower reaches of the Football League where they currently reside. The largest of the new towns, Milton Keynes, created Milton Keynes City, but among their various incarnations they never reached such heights, bouncing around the doldrums of the non-league game.

The Football League had allowed teams to temporarily move outside their patch, where there were good reasons and on the proviso that the club would return. No-one would have believed, in the early years of the 21st century, that it would be allowed again. But businessmen in Milton Keynes regarded other places that were home to Football League clubs with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew the plans to change this.

(Milton Keynes formally became a city in 2022. Despite this, the non-league team chose to optimistically call themselves Milton Keynes City in 1974. The narrative jumping between “City” for that football club and “town” for the place itself will not be the most confusing variance in nomenclature in this piece.)

Wimbledon

One of the most successful sides to enter the Football League after being promoted from non-league is Wimbledon. Formed in the 1880s – so, around eighty years before Milton Keynes itself, let alone Milton Keynes City – and based in south London, the club made national headlines with a strong FA Cup run in the mid 1970s, beating top flight Burnley away from home before holding champions Leeds to a draw, losing the replay at nearby Selhurst Park 1-0. Winning the Southern League three years running put up a strong case for election to the Football League in 1977, and they replaced Workington.

The team bounced between the third and fourth division for a bit after promotion. A potential move to Milton Keynes was mooted in 1980, rather than redeveloping their Plough Lane ground (which was still very much a non-league ground), but this petered out as the Wimbledon chairman at the time could not see the team getting attendances any larger than they were already getting, and the town fluttered its eyelashes at Luton Town instead. Wimbledon clicked into gear, being promoted three times in four seasons, to the top flight – where they would remain for 14 years, as the First Division rebranded to the Premier League we all know today.

The Wombles (the club took their nickname from the popular children's ) won silverware in that time too, denying First Division Champions Liverpool a double by winning the FA Cup in 1988. Shortly after this win the club’s directors announced plans to build a new all-seater stadium in Merton, the borough that the side called home. These plans came to nothing, and the site later became a public park. Following the release of the Taylor Report requiring all top-flight football grounds to be all-seater (Plough Lane was 80% terracing, so would have required large scale redevelopment to meet these standards), in 1991 Wimbledon announced a temporary ground-share with Crystal Palace. Selhurst Park is only six miles away from Plough Lane, so this wasn’t as bad a journey as Maidstone’s 20 miles to Dartford, or the 75 mile journey Brighton fans would later take to Gillingham.

On The Move

This temporary move fast became permanent, despite the best efforts of Wimbledon’s new owner Sam Hammam. An attempt to redevelop the nearby greyhound stadium (further along Plough Lane, the road that gave the name to the old football ground) went nowhere when the local borough council refused to allow planning permission for a supermarket on the site of the old ground - a sale which would have financed the greyhound stadium’s redevelopment. Hammam expanded the search to other boroughs nearby in south London, and then in the mid 90s, even further afield.

A four year campaign was waged to attempt to move the club to Dublin, backed by the Premier League (who saw a new market to expand into) and Irish residents (who could drive to see Premier League football rather than fly). Protests from the Irish Football League, the Football Association of Ireland, and a large number of Wimbledon fans – including half a dozen leading protesters who threatened to set up a new local non-League club – meant that the prospect of moving the club to another country was dead in the water.

(For more about the potential move to Dublin, is a fantastic piece from the Irish site Balls Remembers)

Enter MK - Milton Keynes and the Inter MK Group

But what about within England? Milton Keynes were a town without a team, the largest in England without league representation (except Wakefield, which is rugby focused and has several other league teams nearby), and Wimbledon were a team without a home. A large development was being planned for the southern area of Milton Keynes, near Bletchley, featuring an IKEA, a large hypermarket, hotel and conference facilities, and a 30,000 seater stadium.

The puzzle was, who would play there? Milton Keynes City were playing in the eighth tier, and attracting crowds that could easily be accommodated by a decent sized bus. Anyone who wanted to see league football could easily go to nearby Luton, Northampton or (at the time) Rushden & Diamonds. If there really was a desire for a local team, surely Milton Keynes City would have a larger following?

The consortium behind the development, Inter MK Group, decided it was easier to move an existing club than build one up over time. They fluttered their eyelashes at Luton in 2000, whose owners were interested but the fans opposed it. The Football League sent a letter stating that all clubs must stay in their own area and that idea never got off the ground. Inter MK turned their attention to London clubs Crystal Palace, Barnet and QPR, but none were interested. (Barnet would eventually move to a neighbouring borough in 2013, due to issues with the lease and development of their Underhill Stadium.)

Wimbledon were the subject of several advances over the 2000-2001 season, having been relegated from the Premier League and dealing with the drop in income as a result. Inter MK offered them the new stadium at the start of the year, to be rebuffed; then QPR, also in financial difficulties, proposed a of the sides. Fans of both clubs quickly made their unhappiness known and the plans were abandoned in May 2001.

The move takes shape

Inter MK then reoffered their ground to Wimbledon, whose owners were now more receptive to a move – they were subsidising the club for around £6m a year to prevent liquidation and wanted to stop, or at least reduce this. Over the summer of 2001 the Wimbledon owners and Inter MK moved from casually glancing at each other from across the bar to making plans to move in together in the very near future. The move was announced nine days before the start of the 2001-02 season, and managed to unite deep breath the Football League, the Football Association, the local council of where the club currently played, a large proportion of the national football media, 150 Members of Parliament (MPs) across parties, the Wimbledon fanbase, and a significant number of fans of other football teams, who put aside the usual squabbles to condemn the idea of moving a club. After all, if this went through, it set a dangerous precedent – nothing would stop unscrupulous owners from moving their team from unattractive but storied locations to affluent, upwardly mobile places instead.

The fans launched an immediate boycott of club merchandise and the official matchday programme, starting their own alternate instead to run in competition. Two weeks after the move was announced, it was rejected by the Football League. The Wimbledon chairman, Charles Koppel, only had one possible reasonable response - “we fully accept the League’s decision and will instead switch our efforts to trying to return Wimbledon home to Merton.”

Of course, he never said that. Koppel decried the decision as “deficient and unlawful” and doubled down. The Football League chief executive stated that allowing a move would “destroy what football is about”. The Football Association (FA) put together a panel to consider if Koppel had the right to appeal the decision. Inter MK demonstrated exactly how committed they were to Wimbledon by briefing the press that even if the appeal was unsuccessful, the stadium “would be open to any club”.

The FA’s panel decided that the League’s decision had been made not on the case put forth, but instead on an unwillingness to be flexible – it hadn’t happened before, therefore it should not be allowed to happen. The League were forced to re-examine the proposals, and promptly kicked the can to the FA to decide instead. The FA appointed an independent commission to decide in the first week of May 2002.

(While all this was going on in the background, Wimbledon achieved a respectable 9th place finish in the Championship, England’s second tier of football. They finished eight places behind champions Manchester City, who were promoted to the Premier League; Wimbledon were three more wins in a 46 game season away from being involved in the promotion picture themselves. They finished one point and one place above housemates Crystal Palace, in the league above current Premier League teams Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth. Bournemouth were actually relegated at the end of that season down to the fourth tier, along with Wrexham. The footballing pyramid is a wonderful thing!)

Koppel did his best to rush the commission into making a decision, citing the club’s perilous financial state, and the FA set a deadline of the end of May for the “full and binding” verdict. Both sides made their cases – Inter MK promised to keep the club’s traditions, history, colours, name, strip and stadium design. The head of the Wimbledon Independent Supporters Association (WISA), who had campaigned successfully against moving the club to Dublin, put forth the overwhelmingly negative views of the fans – that the move was no different to the club entering liquidation, and that either would see an attempt by the fans to start the club again at the bottom of the football pyramid, attempting to rise up the league, like Wimbledon had traditionally done before, and Inter MK decided not to do with the existing Milton Keynes clubs.

The commission concluded that the only feasible option would be to allow the move. They also commented that “resurrecting the club from its ashes as, say, 'Wimbledon Town' would be not in the wider interests of football."

The FA, perhaps belatedly realising that the “full and binding” verdict would apply even if it didn’t go their way, expressed that it was still against the move (while, presumably, bandaging up the bullet holes in their proverbial feet). Everyone was against the move except, unsurprisingly, Charles Koppel, Inter MK, and Milton Keynes council who now had a new but slightly tarnished football club to play with. Wimbledon quickly became nicknamed Franchise FC among other fans.

A group of Wimbledon fans set up their own club, AFC Wimbledon, to start in non-league football – seven levels below their former club. After well attended open trials and a ground share in a neighbouring borough about five miles from Plough Lane, the majority of Wimbledon’s fans upped sticks to defiantly support the resurrected club.

(At this point we have two Wimbledons in play. Wimbledon FC are about to move to Milton Keynes; AFC Wimbledon have just formed and play at Kingstonian. For a vague sense of clarity, I will refer to the former as “Milton Keynes Dons” or “MK Dons” for reasons which will become clear, and the latter as “AFC Wimbledon”.)

Delays and boycotts

MK Dons wanted to move to the town immediately, but it would’ve been tricky to play at Inter MK stadium, it still being a building site at the time. The club started the 2002-3 season in the familiar surroundings of Selhurst Park, hoping to move to Milton Keynes by Christmas and lodge in a converted hockey stadium. (Hockey in the UK is played outdoors on pitches with J shaped sticks, rather than the more familiar ice hockey in North America, played in arenas or furtively in hotel rooms/cottages/apartment buildings)

The attendance for the first game of the season was officially given as 2,476 - including stewards, press, ball-boys, players, and optimism - of whom 1,808 were from Gillingham. Even going by the official figures that gave a total of 668 MK Dons supporters in the stadium, with significant speculation from the media that only half that total actually crossed the picket lines outside.

Later that season MK Dons would set a new post war record lowest attendance for a team in the top two tiers of English football, when 849 saw Rotherham United come to town. That 849 included season ticket holders who hadn't turned up; 211 Rotherham supporters; roughly 200 complimentary tickets given to players' friends and relatives; and the members of Wimbledon's junior teams, who mostly spent the match watching a Champions League game on the television in the bar. When you throw in a larger than average press contingent, who were there, overwhelmingly, to mock, that 849 total did not leave a lot of paying Wimbledon supporters. In fact, there was so little public interest, the catering manager at Selhurst Park had ordered only 12 pies.

Despite the lack of fans, the team finished 10th in the Championship that season but, due to the lack of support, promptly entered administration because of financial struggles. Any player who could command a transfer fee was sold, usually for a pittance, and the following season, the team’s first in Milton Keynes, at the temporarily converted National Hockey Stadium, was marked by relegation. The team finished 24th out of 24 teams, twenty-two points from safety.

The side started the following season, 2004-5, somewhat refreshed. A new company, Milton Keynes Dons Ltd, purchased the assets of The Wimbledon Football Club Ltd, took the team out of administration and received the team's place in the Football League One. The team formally changed names from Wimbledon to Milton Keynes Dons. Two years later MK Dons would officially consider itself a new club, formed in 2004 and relinquishing any claims to Wimbledon’s traditions, history, colours, name, strip and stadium design. These would be handed back to the London Borough of Merton in 2006; many fans consider AFC Wimbledon to be the spiritual successor of the original club. (For context of how young MK Dons really are, the “temporary” stand at Gillingham’s ground predates MK Dons’ entire existence.)

Over the last two decades MK Dons have largely remained in League One, the third tier of English football, with brief one-season forays higher or lower. At time of writing they are in contention for promotion back to League One from League Two, where they have been since relegation in 2023. MK Dons’ average attendance in the town (now city) has been around 8,600 – for context, the average League One attendance last year was a shade over 10,000 per game.

A phoenix from the ashes

And what of AFC Wimbledon? In their first season, they averaged 3,500 people per game, larger than the 2,800 home fans supporting MK Dons in their final season at Selhurst Park, and obliterating attendance records for the ninth tier in which they found themselves playing. (Southall, one of their opponents, had an average gate of 14.) Despite this, they could only finish third in their maiden season. Having got their house in order the club would be promoted in each of the next two seasons, setting a UK record for games unbeaten after going 78 games without defeat. The club would go on to achieve five promotions in nine seasons, returning to the Football League for the 2011-12 season.

AFC Wimbledon would repeat history by groundsharing with another London side - Kingstonian, in south west London. In 2003, after Kingstonian entered administration, AFC Wimbledon took ownership of the ground, Kingsmeadow, to ensure that both teams could continue to play there - for a bit, anyway. To fund their eventual return to Merton by building a new Plough Lane stadium in 2020 – on the site of the old greyhound stadium – Wimbledon sold Kingsmeadow to Chelsea to use for their women’s and reserve teams, leaving Kingstonian homeless and ground-sharing with other clubs. Ironically, they are now sharing with another team playing in Merton.

AFC Wimbledon and MK Dons have played each other eighteen times since they came into being, with the latter winning eight games to the former’s five. Fans are split as to whether to consider it a proper rivalry or not – some still maintain anger over the perceived theft of their club, others simply refuse to acknowledge MK Dons as a team at all. AFC Wimbledon did get into hot water by referring to the visiting club as “Milton Keynes”, dropping the Dons suffix, whenever they’d host – after a sharp rap on the proverbial knuckles from the Football League they have since stopped this.

Aftermath

It’s possible that over time, as memories fade, the rivalry and animosity will sink into irrelevance. (Mind you, given that some Spurs fans still call Arsenal as “Woolwich” or “Dial Square” – referring back over 100 years – it’s not likely.) Certainly no chairman has tried to move a side since – although, with the possibility of league games being played abroad being mooted every few years, it’s not inconceivable it’ll happen in my lifetime. Shahid Khan seems to be all in on the idea of moving the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team to London, which may open a door to moving football teams that had been somewhat forbidden in most Brits’ minds. Indeed, in the women’s top flight (the WSL), five of the eleven teams with a male equivalent play in what only the most generous could describe as their patch, so some football fans are inured to seeing a home away from home.

The MK Dons move was, at the time, about as popular as the Colts moving to Indianapolis, or the A’s moving to Vegas. (Particularly in the case of the latter, as both sides had to play a season or two in a stadium not suitable for their level/sport.) From an outside perspective, I think it galvanised a fanbase and revitalised their support - I don’t think Wimbledon in the original incarnation would ever have built a new Plough Lane stadium and returned to the borough without the lightning rod event to rally behind. Conversely, if MK Dons went out of business, I wouldn’t have the same level of sympathy for the fans that I did for those who supported Bury, who currently support Sheffield Wednesday, or for Morecambe fans over the summer - I have items of clothing older than MK Dons which have much more history. I see them as a team who bought their league place, rather than earning it properly by winning games and rising up the leagues - like Wimbledon did.

Twice.

Further reading/bibliography:

You guys seemed to like the last one, so here's some more. This happened circa 2022.

StarBase 118 is a Play-By-Email (PBEM) RPG community built around Star Trek. Players create characters, go through an 'academy,' get assigned into crews aboard various fictional starships and space stations, and collaboratively write stories together. Think of it like a massive, organized, multi-crew collaborative fan fiction project. It's got its own ranking system, academy training, commanding officers - the whole nine yards.

In late 2022, a new player - Cedric Lenners (real name, because he posts about this using his real name on a public website, which becomes relevant here) - completed the academy training and was assigned to a ship to play. Shortly after Cedric arrived, one of the existing players got curious about their new crewmate. Cedric had mentioned in his bio that he had an interesting background in sciences and professional poker, so this player thought they'd Google him. Instead of finding poker tournament results, they immediately found articles Cedric had written for a website that the Southern Poverty Law Center had identified as a hate group. His most recent piece at the time was - specifically praising the country's criminalization of homosexuality and explicitly arguing that LGBTQ+ rights aren't "real" human rights issues.

The captain was notified immediately.

A Masterclass in Giving Someone Enough Rope

Rather than immediately booting Cedric, the captain sent him a careful, measured message. He confirmed the articles were Cedric's, explained that StarBase 118 had many LGBTQ+ players and characters, described the community's inclusivity practices, and essentially asked: Can you actually play nicely with others here, given what you've publicly written?

He said he had LGBTQ+ friends and family (his uncle is "married" - his scare quotes - to another man). He said he could separate his real-life views from his character. He said he was a proud conservative who admired Thomas Sowell. He characterized LGBTQ+ ideology as "anti-scientific" and based on "completely false premises." He said he'd be fine as long as nobody tried to "impose their views" on him.

The captain wrote back again, clarifying LGBTQ+ players simply existing in the community and writing their characters was not a political statement or an imposition, and that he needed Cedric's acknowledgment that he wouldn't approach players about their character choices or bring his outside views into the group.

Cedric said said he was fine with preferred pronouns (though he noted he himself wouldn't choose one because "answering a question like that is accepting its premises"). He said he'd played gay characters before in his 30 years of roleplaying. He compared LGBTQ+ acceptance to children being allowed to change their gender at 14, framing both as examples of "political opinions" he'd politely decline to debate. He signed off cheerfully suggesting he might even play an LGBTQ+ character himself someday!

The internal staff discussion is where things get particularly illuminating. There's generally three points of escalation - ship, Captain's Council (CC), Executive Council (EC). Most of this discussion happened on the ship, which was shared to the rest of us on CC.

One ship staff member wrote a detailed message noting that Cedric's presence was fundamentally unsafe for vulnerable members, particularly younger players exploring their queer identity. He also flagged that Cedric had already made some uncomfortable comments in-game, including repeated suggestions about "alternative therapies" like massages for the crew that, in context, were raising some eyebrows. He ultimately rescinded his offer to mentor Cedric, saying he didn't want to subject himself to having "a landmine in our midst."

Another staff member (who is non-binary and aromantic) said simply: "Someone who holds those opinions and finds reasons to justify keeping those opinions isn't someone I feel safe around." They noted the "I have LGBTQ friends."

A third staff member struck a more cautious note, pointing out that they couldn't just remove someone for actions outside the group... except, the captain noted, they actually could, because the Terms of Service had been updated just two months prior specifically to address this kind of situation! The new clause stated that if the organization became aware of a player's behavior in other venues that violated their community guidelines or compromised their belief that the player could follow those guidelines, they reserved the right to take disciplinary action.

The decision was made. Cedric was removed from the lists and the Discord.

Went about as well as you'd expect.

Cedric did not take this quietly. He sent a mass email to numerous recipients - other players, his academy trainers, people who had welcomed him -

The captain sent a message to everyone Cedric had emailed advising them not to engage and to block him.

About two weeks later, His chief editor had published an article he'd written about the whole experience - on the same SPLC-designated hate group website where this all started.

The article (translated from Spanish via Google) was something. TLDR:

• He describes StarBase 118 as evidence that "woke ideology is advancing more and more every day, not only in politics, education, business, but now also in the universe of online games."

• He compares being removed from a Star Trek roleplaying game to being bullied at age 13 for having a different diet than his classmates, which caused him to fail all his classes and have to change schools.

• He invokes the yellow star: "It is like a 'yellow star' for being special and not acceptable to frequent the majority of the community" - framing it as something he was, in fact, flattered by.

• He accuses StarBase 118 of being like the Tal Shiar - the Romulan secret police - for "repressing or eliminating any current of thought contrary to official thought." He helpfully links to the Tal Shiar's Memory Alpha page, which is genuinely committed to the bit.

• He closes with a warning to parents about "ideological colonization" in online games "disguising itself as neutrality," and signs off affirming that IFamNews is "pro-life and pro-family."

One community observer noted with some amusement that the article's view counter appeared wildly inflated and that the website had essentially no social media engagement whatsoever - their incredibly niche personal blog got more interaction. She suggested they should thank Cedric for the free promotion.

Another observer pointed out the deep irony of someone invoking IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations - a core Vulcan philosophy in Star Trek) while arguing against the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people.

And someone else noted that, for a person writing on a hate group's website, he really couldn't spell "fascist."

On the decision itself: Near-universal support. One captain said Several captains noted that Cedric had essentially proven the captain's instincts correct with his own increasingly hostile responses.

What happened next?

There was talk about "where do we draw the line": This got genuinely nuanced. One captain raised some hard hypotheticals - what if you found out a current, well-regarded member had said horrible things on other platforms? What if a member was a registered sex offender? What if someone had voted for a candidate you found hateful?

The consensus that emerged was careful: discipline should be based on what people have done, not what you fear they might do. Kicking people out for voting for particular political candidates would be mob mentality. The Cedric case was clearer because he had publicly, under his own name, written articles on a platform designated as a hate group - the content was explicit, the connection was direct, and multiple existing members had said it made them feel unsafe.

On future policy: the engaging captain suggested making it clearer during the signup process - when players agree to the Terms of Service - that the community's inclusivity commitments extend to OOC behavior and that hate speech in external venues can be grounds for removal.

One captain offered an interesting procedural suggestion: rather than full expulsion from the fleet immediately, consider the option of removing someone from their specific ship first and then presenting the case to the wider Captains Council, giving more COs a say and keeping the process within established constitutional procedures.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

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

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

• If your particular drama has concluded at least 2 weeks ago, consider making a full post instead of a Scuffles comment. We also welcome reposting of long-form Scuffles posts and/or series with multiple updates.

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also has an affiliated Discord server, which you can join here:

Let me introduce you to Starbase 118.

Starbase 118 is a PBEM Star Trek roleplaying community that has been running continuously since 1994. If you've never heard of PBEM RPGs: players write collaborative fiction via email, each contributing their character's part of an ongoing story. Think of it like a giant shared novel, written a few paragraphs at a time, by a rotating cast of contributors from around the world. 118 runs multiple "ships" (each a separate crew with their own ongoing missions) all set within a shared Star Trek universe. This isn't a casual Discord server with a Star Trek theme. It has its own constitution, its own ranks and promotions, its own awards, its own wiki, and its own governing body called the Executive Council, or EC, with a secondary governing body called the Captain's Council (CC - which I was on lol). It functions more like a small organization than a fandom community, and it has been doing so for thirty years. People take it crazy seriously - people get promoted through ranks, and they are generally addressed by said rank. People have been doing it since before some of its current members were born.

Last year, we were told that two of our prominent members had left within a day of each other after a statement to the Captains Council (CC). There seems to be a massive disagreement about how and why they left, though.

The Setup

A few months before any of this kicks off, one of the captains (Niac - character name) pushes through a new pilot program to create a membership class for players who participate 'administratively' in the community but aren't actively writing missions. This causes a long conversation where people disagree about who should be allowed in the program, if the program should even be a thing, etc. The CC finally votes on it. The consensus: admin-only members should face a one-year time limit before they're required to return to active play or take a formal leave.

Worth noting: at the time our story begins, this program is still in its pilot phase. It doesn't even have a designated leader yet. File that away. We'll come back to it.

Vataix

Vataix has been part of 118's EC for many years. He's one of the fleet's most senior members, and the EC, even in their later statement about his departure, acknowledges he made a significant positive impact on the community's policies and culture. By all accounts he's been, until recently, a well-regarded figure.

Tensions start building in the leadership spaces. The EC's account describes a shift in Vataix's behavior - apparently acting without consulting the council, being accusatory in public and private, intimidating staff members to the point where people start retreating from leadership channels rather than risk running into him. They say they tried informal conversations, that he took a brief self-imposed break and returned with apologies, but that things kept escalating. I'd personally not seen any of that, but whatever. I did witness him step in to correct Niac's error counting votes for a Commander's promotion (promotions again!) which would have prevented a valid promotion from going through if it had stood.

The EC votes to act. They remove Vataix from his leadership roles for six months.

Then they announce it to the Captains Council as Vataix "stepping away from his leadership responsibilities." They call it a temporary leave. They say it is not a disciplinary action, and that they hope it will allow for restorative conversations down the line.

I mentioned . Article VIII outlines -- inquiry, notification of the charged party, an opportunity to respond. From what I can tell, and from what i've asked around, none of this happened. Vataix received no formal warning. He wasn't told he could petition for reconsideration. He wasn't told it was disciplinary action at all. As far as he knew, he was taking an involuntary break.

The execution is also, let's say, hasty. In their rush to revoke Vataix's access to fleet systems, the EC only manages to remove about 25% of it, leaving him connected to outer forums and Discord while cut off from leadership spaces. I was told later he still had admin access over Facebook and X accounts and alerted EC to that when he too realized.

Anyway, he finds out it was actually a suspension - not an involuntary break - when the

Blake & three words

We need to rewind a little.

Weeks earlier, Niac - EC member, architect of the pilot program - is involved in a promotion vote for a fleet member. He was the CC Magistrate, which means he ran the votes at the time. He decided to count abstentions as votes against yes, a reading of procedure that would have blocked the promotion entirely. Blake pushes back and sends him five private messages. Niac files a complaint with the EC.

For comparison: around the same time, the EC also receives a complaint about Niac. He had spent several minutes cornering a CC member in a channel over a discussion that happened on the forums. The EC was, by their own internal account, hesitant to even contact him about it - because 'it might upset him'. The resulting intervention was an informal chat on Discord with one of his friends.

Blake's intervention is less informal. The EC reaches out and reminds her to keep her communications polite. Blake acknowledges it and agrees to be more careful.

Then Vataix is suspended.

So, the night before it happens, Vataix tells Blake he's had a good conversation with Rouiancet - a senior EC member. Rouiancet was sympathetic, Vataix says. Blake had been the one to encourage Vataix to reach out to him in the first place. She goes to sleep feeling reasonably okay about things.

She wakes up to find the entire EC, Rouiancet included, has signed off on Vataix's removal.

She sends Rouiancet a private message - three words: "Et tu, Brutus?"

The EC sends Blake a formal email. They later describe it to the CC as a short, friendly message asking her to keep things polite and consider returning to simming, or something along those lines. Here is what that email actually says:

"Any further conduct unbecoming of a member of our staff will be met with disciplinary action immediately. We do not want it to get to this point and wish to send the message as clearly as possible: this behavior must stop."

The email also invokes the pilot program - Niac's pilot program, the one still in its pilot phase, the one without a leader - and informs Blake that since she has been serving administratively without active simming for longer than a year, she must either return to simming or request a leave of absence - this is despite the pilot program not grandfathering existing leaves? A lot of confusion on this one.

She had, incidentally, already made arrangements to return to active simming before any of this happened - she'd contacted Niac to arrange her return to the Amity crew to fill in for Vataix (because he was set to guest play a character, and then was suddenly removed, so she was going to do it for him... but was hit with this). She changes those plans upon receiving the EC's email.

The Exit

Blake's response to the EC is long. She explains the three-word message. She asks Rouiancet directly whether he is really surprised she felt betrayed, given that she was the one who encouraged Vataix to trust him. She notes that the pilot program being used against her hadn't even properly started yet.

Then, at the end of the email:

"I hope your writing remains stellar. I hope your missions are all wonderful and fulfilling, your stories immersive and extraordinary. I wish your past, present, and emerging writers all the best creativity and strength they can muster. I wish the best possible outcomes for all upcoming leaders in the fleet, and the greatest sims for those who've been at it for years. I wish for the wonderful collaboration had here to continue at its best. I hope you seek out the stars, and find the unity you feel you've lost. I wish you all the best."

She files for retirement.

The EC's later statement to the CC describes Blake as having

I'm very confused by this statement, since but ??

The statement also mentions that Blake relayed a family member's comment - that they hoped she told the EC to "get fucked" - and frames it as her doubling down on hostility.

Vataix files for retirement the following day, citing Blake's departure and accusing the EC of having weaponized the admin policy against her. The EC, in their statement, denies this.

The conclusion

The EC releases a formal statement to the Captains Council (I linked that earlier). It is long and carefully worded. It walks through their account of events, acknowledges Vataix and Blake's contributions, and expresses genuine sadness at how things ended. It recommends that if anyone outside the CC asks about Vataix and Blake, CC members should say only that the two are deeply missed and stepped away for personal reasons.

I mean... I guess that's personal?

Months later, a member (most definitely Blake?) Given that we in 118 are chronically online, we found it and it spread across the community. That went about as well as you'd expect.

There should be a law forbidding anything from happening on a first of April. Make a decision in any sort of way? You'll have to explain how no, this isn't a trick. Leak information about the upcoming Pokemon game? Nobody will believe you, mate, good bit of fun though. Be born on a first of April? My goodness, be ready to come across thousands of remarks and jabs, subtly hinting at how your entire existence is a bad joke.

Alas, the world isn't fair, and things happen when they shouldn't.

Take the first of April 2017. Artists, writers and authors worldwide are sipping at their glass of Chardonnay, feet safely bundled in brown loafers, their mahogany desk spotless and pristine before them. On one corner of the desk, a luxury pen, black as the night. The walls of the room disappear behind an imposing library, a library that - just like the artist sitting comfortably - exudes pure class.

In short, a Saturday as usual.

Almost.

The phone rings, and the terrible news drops. Bob Dylan finally received his Nobel Prize for literature in a private ceremony. And in that moment, one half of the artists are , thinking about the other half currently and forgetting to enjoy their Chardonnay.

It's a bad joke, they think, has to be.

But let's turn the clock back and do some world-building first. I hear authors love that.

Disclaimer: I will ask many questions in this write-up. I will answer exactly none of them.

The . If you're a living, breathing being, you heard of them. If not, you're an abomination from beyond the feeble veil keeping our world and sanity together, and my audience is a lot more varied than I expected.

Once upon a time there was a Swedish man called . He invented dynamite. Then he got another explosive idea and decided to use his fortune postmortem to establish a ceremony awarding those who have done things "for the greatest benefit of humanity."

The first awards happened in 1901, and there were five categories, as requested by Nobel: medicine, chemistry, physics, peace, and literature. A sixth category would come along decades later: economic science.

Interestingly, Alfred insisted Norway was to be the country awarding the Piece Prize, not Sweden. He didn't explain why, but experts suspect it had to do with Norway's reputation at the time for diplomacy and negotiation. Nobel was also very fond of Norwegian writers and minds, which might have influenced his decision further.

The process in an nutshell: Professionals in their respective fields are mandated all around the world to make up a list of names eligible, so as to ensure everyone on this globe has a fair shot. Then a committee of experts convene behind closed doors to debate who's to win. The closed door part will become important later.

If you win, you get a , money, and what is widely considered the greatest prize you can possibly get in your field, as long as it's covered in the six categories.

• Laureates for Physics, Chemistry and Economic Sciences prizes are selected by the

• Peace laureates are selected by the .

• For Medicine, it's the Nobel Assembly of the .

• And finally, the committee for Literature is based at the .

The presentation of the awards is traditionally done during the official ceremony on the 10 of December, day Alfred Nobel died. Winners are always individuals (up to three of them), except in the case of the Peace Prize which can be awarded to organizations. , a group representing the survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which works towards the abolition of Nuclear weaponry, received the prize in 2024.

Note I say traditionally, as exceptions exist. The first of April being rather far from December, it's one of them.

The Norwegian part of the December ceremony happens at the since 1990 with the presence of the Royal family, while the Swedish part has almost always been done at the , the Stockholm Concert Hall, and the King of Sweden personally hands over the medal. Then they .

There is also the Nobel Lecture, where each laureate has to give a speech about a subject related to the reason they got the prize. Usually, it's done in the week leading up the ceremony, but there is some leeway there too.

In the blue corner, weighing 10 grammy awards and then some.

He stands in his corner, discreet. A man, a singer, an artist. , born 1941 as Robert Zimmerman, and one of the best-selling musicians of all times,

If you're living and breathing, you heard a song of his somewhere. Otherwise you're deaf. A mainstay for decades, he has long broken out of the confines of a single music genre to either expand the genre or visit another. Inspired by Folk and , he was part of the American , picked up and Rock'n'Roll elements much to the shock of the more traditionalist Folk crowd along the way, went further and further into Rock experimentation to land the revolutionary in 1965, which was listed twice as number 1 in 2004 and 2010 by Rolling Stone's (the magazine) 500 greatest songs of all time.

From the 1970 onward he kept on , experimenting, trying and singing. And he didn't stop. . . He's 84 now. He's had a long career. He went from cultural icon to be seen as back to a lyrical genius. He's done it all.

And if you didn't hear his songs on the radio, they have been extensively featured in movies.

, the song was composed for the movie and became one of Dylan's greatest hits.

(Spoilers for Pat Garett and Billy The Kid and The Royal Tenenbaums)

These are just a couple examples in a sea of them. And when it isn't Dylan singing, it's a cover by someone else.

He isn't only a musician, but also a social and cultural icon, especially for the 1960's American counterculture movement. In a time of mounting protest against the Vietnam War and calls for more individual freedom and respect, Dylan - himself inspired by , a singer heavy on anti-fascistic themes - found an audience eager for protest songs with social and political commentaries.

From :

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times, they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'

It's not hard to see how it could resonate with a youth wanting to break away from the mold they felt society, politics and their parents made for them.

From :

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip
My toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels
To be wandering
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancin' spell my way

Heavier on symbolism, the Tambourine Man is either a symbol of freedom and breaking away from the chains of society, or an appeal to try out LSD as some other people believe. It was the 60's after all.

The music aficionados among you know it takes a high amount of skill to mix social commentary, poetry, metaphors, melody and sounds without it becoming an utter mess. And according to many critics, not least of all the jury of the Nobel Prize 2016, Bob Dylan was excellent at it.

With a prolific output, Bob Dylan also got a wealth of prizes. Among other accolades, he got an Oscar and a Golden Globe for the best original song for the movie Wonder Boys, a shitload of Grammy nominations, at least 10 wins and he's in the Rock'n'Roll hall of fame.

All this to say; he is a legend in the field of music, and his songwriting skills are considered by some to be among the best.

The artistic world in the 16th of October 2016 is a beautiful place. If you make a decent living out of it and aren't suffering from others making out of it at the expense of others, or because you ruffled the wrong person's feathers, or are one of the many, many people trying to make good art only to never get a cent out of it. Good times.

Think about a quiet afternoon, you're sitting on a comfortable sofa, a plaid on your knees, rain pours outside but you are safe and warm in the heart of your home. You're reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra so you can quote it and deny the accusations you only got the quotes from the internet. Because you're a person of wealth and taste, or at least taste.

But in the serene center of your universe, an ember of exhilaration flares. Soon. Soon, the laureate for the Nobel Prize of Literature will be revealed. The wise are currently debating behind closed doors, fiery speeches meet witty rebukes. Deep introspection collide with artistic sensibilities.

Soon...

You fire up your tablet, find an open channel (you're also a techie). The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Sara Danius walks in, begins her speech in loud and clear Swedish (you're also bilingual). After a short introduction and a struggle to get the bloody envelope open, a name drops.

Bob Dylan.

A long, frozen silence connects thousands of artists and critics across the globe as the information dawns. Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize of Literature “.” Neurons dangle alone in the caverns of naysayers' minds, struggling to make sense of the information. To hammer the point home, Danius repeats the announcement in loud and clear French (you're also a polyglot). Yep, she names Bob Dylan again.

Obviously Bob Dylan writes, in a sense. He writes his own lyrics, that's a writer, he writes, there's a written word, ink on paper, the usual.

Then, a spark connects two lonely neurons and the million dollar question drops: Is that Literature with a capital L?

Cue smart people plugging their ears in preparation for the discordant screeching about to erupt on the internet and beyond.

And boy did it erupt.

, best known for the amazing book Trainspotting (read it), later adapted into a with Ewan McGregor (watch it), set the tone by tweeting:

I'm a Dylan fan, but this is an ill conceived nostalgia award wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies.

, another author who wrote several issues of the Wonder Woman comic and who I know through 90 minutes, a book about the aftermath of a school shooting (read it), tweeted:

I’m happy for Bob Dylan. But does this mean I can win a Grammy?

Painter and Writer wrote on twitter:

Bob Dylan winning a Nobel in Literature is like Mrs Fields being awarded 3 Michelin stars

For the non-American in the audience, Mrs Fields is a website where you can order cookies delivered. I have never tasted them and thus cannot say if they deserve the stars or not.

And journalist went:

This feels like the lamest Nobel win since they gave it to Obama for not being Bush

And these are the measured responses by public figures. You can bet the anonymous crowd went wilder with it.

Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale (read it) has a particular take in .

(Atwood) I think it’s very strategically placed when… so think of it: US election and everything that’s going on there; a US countercultural figure from the ’60s is selected. So that is the message. I would say that it’s playing off the US election.

(journalist) You think it was intended to send a message to the electorate?

(Atwood) Do I know? But these things are often political in the broad sense of the term. So choosing a person from that time and that place who would have had that message, I would say, is sending a very broad message, which is not in support of mob rule.

Keep in mind the announcement was made before the American election when Trump was on the rise.

But while critics abounded, so did supporters.

The man-who-isn't-Bush Obama Dylan for his win.

Mick Jagger, the proverbial Rolling Stone (the rock band), tweeted:

Congratulations Bob for getting the Nobel prize. What an achievement!

Novelist , stated:

We live in a time of great lyricist-songwriters — Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits — but Dylan towers over everyone. His words have been an inspiration to me ever since I first heard a Dylan album at school, and I am delighted by his Nobel win. The frontiers of literature keep widening, and it’s exciting that the Nobel prize recognises that. I intend to spend the day playing “Mr. Tambourine Man,” ’'Love Minus Zero/ No Limit,” ’'Like a Rolling Stone,” ’'Idiot Wind,” ’'Jokerman,” ’'Tangled Up In Blue” and “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.”

Master of horror Stephen King tweeted:

I am ecstatic that Bob Dylan has won the Nobel. A great and good thing in a season of sleaze and sadness

From prolific author :

Asked about Nobel for Dylan: inspired & original choice. his haunting music & lyrics have always seemed, in the deepest sense, “literary”

As you can see, it was a controversial and polarizing decision. There are a of , and Dylan's .

If you boil all of it down though, it appears not many of the critics see Dylan as fundamentally unskilled ( compare him negatively to poets, but I found preciously few). Rather, it's the perceived absurdity of him receiving a prize that's usually for book-writers.

Which leads us to the main crux of the issue.

Heck, let's go one step further. What is the nature of literature? What are its boundaries?

Let's ask Merriam-Webster to start with:

writings in prose or verse

especially : writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest

Seems clear-cut enough, and this would include songs without issue. But recognizes right away that the definition is adapted with the times.

The 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary considers literature to be “writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” The 19th-century critic Walter Pater referred to “the matter of imaginative or artistic literature” as a “transcript, not of mere fact, but of fact in its infinitely varied forms.”

And to add a caveat:

Literature is a form of human expression. But not everything expressed in words—even when organized and written down—is counted as literature. Those writings that are primarily informative—technical, scholarly, journalistic—would be excluded from the rank of literature by most, though not all, critics. Certain forms of writing, however, are universally regarded as belonging to literature as an art. Individual attempts within these forms are said to succeed if they possess something called artistic merit and to fail if they do not. The nature of artistic merit is less easy to define than to recognize.

Some forms of writings tend to be naturally excluded, while the merit necessary to be considered part of Literature with a capital L is hard to pinpoint.

More importantly, words, like societies, do not remain in a petrified state. Their meaning changes, and for language it's the use that makes the rule, not the other way around. It doesn't matter if someone tells you the definition of a word as envisioned in the 20th century when the common usage refers to something else entirely.

That alone makes finding the boundaries of literature a difficult task. Still, by most definitions I found, it's broad enough for song lyrics to fit in, or at least not be excluded.

So let's flip the problem around.

So far, has been given to authors who wrote books, essays, novels, short stories, dramas... in short, works that rely on words and words alone. There's no soundtrack to accompany you and rarely any pictures. Either the text lifts you from your seat and drags you to worlds beyond, or it doesn't. Either it resonates emotionally, or you remain cold. But whatever it does, it has to do it through words only.

Songs are different.

There are lyrics, the written component. But there is also the rhythm, the beat, the tempo. A slow ballad or a rocky feast will influence how and when the words are sung. That the words are sung, instead of read, is in itself a difference. And that's not mentioning the variety of instruments to be chosen from.

When you hold a book in your hand, the only tool it has to convince you is the words on paper.

When you listen to a song, the words are but one tool among many to have you vibrate.

Now, under that lens, even if we consider lyrics to be literature, isn't the prize reductive? Songs have a variety of aspects to them, from rhythm to genre to instruments, and instead of contemplating it as a whole, we reduce them solely to the written component.

And if the literature prize doesn't reduce songs to the written component... then virtually anything with words in it could be argued to belong to literature. Shakespeare wrote mostly for theater, a format that allows for more than words. There are actors, gestures, expressions, music. Yet few would argue Shakespeare didn't produce literature.

Music prizes at least have the promise to consider a song in its entirety, but a literature prize?

We could verge further away from literature into music and ask which are the primary elements of a song. Is it the words, or is it the music around these words? If you, dear reader, consider the words secondary to the other musical aspects, then the greatest literature prize in the world has been given to an artist who uses writing as a secondary aspect of his songs.

Size in itself is an issue. Bob Dylan made some short songs, and some longer ones lasting over five minutes.

That's still not a fraction of the words a of a book can offer, and I suppose that, by volume alone, a book will offer more pages to be analyzed and dissected than a song will. Should that matter in a literature prize? Obviously, the size of the material alone isn't indicative of quality, but an argument can be made there's only so much written quality to be crammed inside a song, while there's more place to expand it in a book.

Perhaps sticking to books is too narrow, and the Nobel committee is right to expand the scope.

But perhaps going further than books dilutes the prize.

I could go on, but as you can infer from the army of questions I asked and the dearth of answers, it's an unending debate that gets restarted each time another article about Dylan's Nobel Prize crops up, and I don't want this to turn into a dry essay either.

Rather, in the absence of a clear-cut answer, I want you to ask yourself what Literature truly is, if songs are a part of it, and if a songwriter can and should receive a Nobel prize of literature. Because if thinkers and critics alike can't come to an agreement, you'll have to find your own answers to these questions.

The debate didn't stay on the purely artistic. It was also an occasion for critics to point out the perceived failings of the Nobel committee itself.

They do have a history of controversy after all. , national security advisor during the Vietnam Battle Royal, received the 1973 Peace Nobel prize. And while he did a lot for the between USA and USSR, he also approved Cambodian bombing campaigns and , which consisted in the intimidation and assassination of left-wing figures in South America.

The very existence of the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences is , as it wasn't originally envisioned by Nobel. According to the article linked:

The greatest irony is that this fact is mentioned even on the Nobel Prize website, which states, “The prize in economic sciences is not a Nobel Prize.”

(I can't find it myself so it might have been deleted from the official website since)

And if we're talking about art, the Literature prize isn't a stranger to controversies. Legendary French writer and philosopher refused the 1964 Nobel prize. A decade later, he pointed out in an (translated):

Why would fifty old men who write bad books crown me? It's the readers to tell me what I'm worth, not these men.

Just like Atwood, he suspected a form of political prize rather than a merit-based one. Sartre, ever the firebrand, hated the idea of being 'condoned by the establishment.' In his mind, accepting such a prize was a betrayal of everything he stood for.

Translated:

Almost every person that wrote against the leading class has been offered, at some point, the kiss of death. It means giving them money, honors, or more subtle things so they would let go a little.

In other outstanding issues, Nobels, as celebrating global human achievements, have been noted for their over-representation of old white men.

Up until 2019, medicine Nobel Prize laureates were women, 5,5%. In physics, it's 3 women out of 213. From the linked article:

All the attention given to women that year prompted Winston Morgan, a researcher at the University of East London, to check whether any Black scientist had ever won a Nobel Prize for science.

He couldn't find one.

Asked about the racial diversity of winners, including whether any Black scientist had ever won in the sciences, a representative of the Nobel organizations replied: "We do not have that kind of statistics."

As a result, point out that the Nobel prizes, instead of encouraging and celebrating worldwide human skill, art and intelligence

These issues are made worse by the complete secrecy of Nobel deliberations.

I wasn't kidding when I wrote behind closed doors in the paragraph presenting the Nobel Prize, secrecy is the name of the game when it comes to nominations. We know that a list of names is provided by people who are experts in their fields. Academicians, professors, scientists, previous winners and so on submit the names of those they deem worthy.

But what comes after? Nothing. It's meant to avoid political influence, lobbying or public pressure that could happen with immediate disclosure. In the same vein, how the wise and great debate and decide who gets to win or not is mostly unknown. We know reports are made for each candidate, but how they are used happens once again in total seclusion.

Perhaps the greatest representative of this love for discretion is the 50-years clause. No information about nominations can be disclosed before 50 years have passed (bar the usual leaks). Aka, we'll known all about the selection of 2025 in 2075. Some of us will at any rate, some other readers will be dead by then. Once the 50 years are passed? You can find all about nominations in the .

As can be expected, this secrecy is hotly debated.

Sure, it allows one to act without fear of repercussions and protects privacy, but it is also contradictory to the modern era we live in where transparency has become a rallying cry. Transparency in this case would mean the possibility for you and I to observe how the process goes in real time, or at least close enough to real time, to see if things are going smoothly. After all, negotiations behind closed doors could well be done with friendly favors and under-the-table deals. We don't know, ergo anything could happen.

Would Henry Kissinger have won the prize had people heard he was a candidate? Perhaps the backlash would have stopped the jury.

Yet at the same time, this would mean a loss of impartiality and public pressure upon the jury.

It's, again, a thorny issue with no clear-cut answer. But with mounting questions about diversity and representation, the secrecy becomes less and less welcome.

Adding fuel to the fire is Bob Dylan's reaction.

Or rather, his . From the article:

Ever since the Swedish Academy announced Bob Dylan as this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 2016 over a week ago, there have been numerous attempts to contact the singer to formally notify him of the prestigious prize.

So far, however, the singer has made no personal comment – in spite of having performed in front of thousands of fans on the eve of the announcement of the prize in Las Vegas.

couple of days ago the only sign so far of the singer finally acknowledging the prize appeared on a website of Dylan’s collected lyrics in the form of a statement, declaring that Bob Dylan is this year’s laureate, but on Friday morning the statement had mysteriously disappeared from the page.

Naturally, even members of the Swedish Academy had something to say about it. Take author Per Wästberg:

– I think it’s fair to say that his reaction so far has been rude and arrogant. He (Dylan) is who he is

He (Dylan) seems to be a very grumpy and reluctant man

We will sit back and wait. He will either show up, in which case he will be welcomed. Or else he won’t show up – and in that case we will arrange something else during the banquet. Either way – he is still a laureate.

Good times for everyone involved. But perhaps this silence had nothing to do with arrogance, and everything to do with surprise, or even shock.

Heck, he didn't even show up in person on the 10 of December 2016. Instead, written by Bob Dylan. I suppose the beginning explains rather well why someone would be stunned into silence.

If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I’d have about the same odds as standing on the moon.

Nonetheless, his lack of reaction is trivial in the grand scheme of things. I'm fairly certain that, had Dylan been a 'classic' book author, most people wouldn't have reacted as harshly to a long period of silence.

And peculiar reactions aren't a first for the Nobels. I mentioned Jean-Paul Sartre above, but the crown has to go to Doris , Nobel Litterature Prize winner in 2007. . Watch it, it's beautiful.

The Nobel organization stuck to its decision. Haters and critics, welp, kept hating and criticizing.

And so it is that, after an excruciating silence and a damning absence on the 10th of December 2016, Bob Dylan in person and about $900.000 in Swedish crowns.

On the first of April 2017.

They picked the best date possible.

And on the fourth of June 2017, he gave .

It starts with:

When I first received this Nobel Prize for Literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature.

Naturally, some folks found the lecture to be yet he shouldn't have gotten the award.

The lecture would have turned out to be a fascinating piece, had he not summarised each of these books in painstaking detail, peppered with his signature flourishes, street talk and the endearing colloquialism that make his songs so distinct. A truly literary mind would have found a more sophisticated form to stitch these thoughts together, instead of rambling on about the plots of these riches of world literature.

So, internet business as usual. Even now, a decade later, there are still written pieces cropping up from time to time, either in favor or against Dylan's win.

With all this said though, I found by compiling articles that there seems to be some sort of incomprehension surrounding the Nobel prize. Or several.

Please keep in mind this last part is more subjective and is born from personal observation, so take it with a bigger pinch of salt than usual.

Take this article from the

The academy does not celebrate great books; it consecrates great writers, compiling not a canon but a pantheon, not a reading list but a roster of immortals.

The Swedish Academy is not here to tell you what writers you might like. Greatness is not the same as popularity. It may even be the opposite of popularity. Great books are many times not the books you read for pleasure.

It's a simple aim, greatness. To crown the best, brightest, greatest. Nobels aren't meant to play politics or make statements, only recognize the heights reached, irrelevant of sales or the lack of sales.

Bob Dylan (if we assume music is eligible for Literature) won not because he sold an untold amount of albums, but because he had the raw skill, passion, drive to write lyrics that inspired a generation.

Fair enough.

However, it gets complicated when you consider the , among which is this one: Attention to unknown masters.

A growing number within the Academy wanted to call attention to important but unnoticed writers and literatures, thus giving the world audience masterpieces they would otherwise miss, and at the same time, giving an important writer due attention.

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TW: references to homophobia, racism, and drug overdose.

Let’s Be Bad: A Self-Indulgent Prologue

It began innocently enough. I had just gotten back from my first real Broadway musical, Hadestown, and I decided to search through good ol’ YouTube to see if I could find others to check out. After searching a bit, I came across a video from several years ago: “”, from the NBC TV show Smash. How interesting, a musical show my TV Guide-loving self didn’t know about, and that one guy who shows up in those Falsettos clips is in it? Let’s take a look. 

Three weeks, thirty-two episodes, and an uncomfortably large crush on Christian Borle later, I stand before you a changed woman. And not entirely for the better. I can’t say that Smash is the most cursed TV series, nor even the most drama-filled musical TV series (that will always go to Glee). But it is, certainly, a fascinating trainwreck mess that features two failed attempts, dozens of Broadway guest stars, and yet another mangled adaptation of the life of Marilyn Monroe. Without further ado, let’s Smash forward.

History Is Made At Night: A Smidgen of Context

Musicals and TV have had a long, somewhat complicated history. Sure, musical numbers have been a from its inception; early shows like The Monkees and The Partridge Family had their share of original music, and occasional musical numbers surfaced constantly in sitcoms, animated TV shows, and the like. But for non-diagetic, musical-structured shows? The occasional Buffy or Scrubs episode aside, there wasn’t much. Early attempts either sank like rocks (Cop Rock, aka Gritty Police Procedural: The Musical!), or were critically acclaimed but had a more niche audience (, a six-season NBC series centering teens at an arts high school). In 2009, however, a scrappy little musical show exploded into public stardom. Sadly it was not my beloved *Flight of the Conchords—*it was Glee. Glee combined a jukebox musical structure with big, soapy high school plots and memorable characters that caught critical and audience attention. Its pilot episode does great, with over 9 million viewers; its second episode, aired months later, does even better, with 12.65 million viewers. It’s clear audiences are ready for musical television, provided it’s packaged the right way.

And for a curious Stephen Spielberg and some hungry executives, that seemed like a very attractive proposition.

Let Me Be Your Star: Steven Gets His Friends to Join Smash

It’s . As Glee picks up steam, famous film director Steven Spielberg calls up Bob Greenblatt, the current chairman of Showtime, with a concept for a show: a workplace drama about the people who make musicals, featuring a new, potentially-marketable show being “created” every season. Greenblatt, a theater producer in his spare time, is immediately hyped, and a deal is made in days. He calls in experienced producers, who in turn bring in songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman of Hairspray fame to handle the score. For the “workplace drama” side of the show, they call upon Theresa Rebeck, a playwright, TV writer, executive producer of two different Law and Order spinoffs, and cowriter of Harriet the Spy and… Catwoman? It’s a mixed record, but certainly not without promise. Rebeck has never been a showrunner before, but surely she has the experience to pull it off.

When Greenblatt becomes executive of NBC in 2010, he takes the show with it, giving it a potentially broader audience on network TV (as opposed to Showtime’s cable). The gang decide on the topic of the first fictional musical: Bombshell, a biopic of Marilyn Monroe in the vein of Rocketman. Speilberg's plan is, initially, to do all original songs, but he's fairly hands-off from this point forward, and network TV writing limitations leave them time crunched. So the team decides to play it halfsies—every episode will feature a song or two from Bombshell, and one or two pop music covers. Usually the former are diegetic (performed in-universe), and the latter are non-diegetic (performed by the characters to express emotions), except that the Bombshell songs often use “dream theater” techniques where you see sets and costumes that don’t exist… yeah, it’s a musical, just go with it. With the concept and structure created, the show goes ahead to development.

Fade In On A Girl: Smash’s Pilot

Smash centers two best friends and musical writing partners: book writer Julia, played by Deborah Messing (Will and Grace, The Starter Wife, lotsa theater), and music and lyrics writer Tom, played by Christian Borle (then known for Legally Blonde and Peter and the Starcatcher, now for a ton of stuff, including Hazbin TV Man). The pilot centers around their initial conception of Bombshell, a musical about Marilyn Monroe, and auditions for the lead actress. Two major candidates emerge. The first is Karen, a nice girl from Iowa with little experience, played by American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee; the second is Ivy, an experienced but somewhat messy chorus singer and protege of Tom’s, played by Broadway vet Megan Hilty. Also in the mix is Derek (Jack Davenport, of Coupling and Pirates of the Caribbean fame, giving a performance far too good for his character), a sleazy director who creeps on all his female stars but is dragged into the project for his amazing incredible talent. He’s also Tom’s rival, because

Now, you may notice that Katherine McPhee is the odd woman out here, as her claim to fame is as a pop singer, not an actress or musical theater performer. As much as I’m a skeptic towards pigeonholing non-musical actors in musicals, I have to admit: she’s a bit out of her depth. Right off the bat, the show tries to establish both singers as embodying different parts of Marilyn Monroe’s real-life personality, with Karen being the innocent-but-sexy Norma Jean type and Ivy being the mature, confident Marilyn type. The problem is that Hilty is flawlessly pulling off Marilyn’s campy side, and McPhee isn’t quite hitting “charming ingenue”. She sings well, but she’s singing in much more of a “pop” style than musical theater, and she’s notably weaker at acting the part than Hilty. That’s not the end of the world—Karen herself is still learning and growing. The problem is that the show tries to pretend she’s a total natural. Karen and Ivy are constantly depicted as, objectively, being equals; it’s a big competition for who’s gonna be the lead role. Down the line, this will lead to frustrating scenes where everyone stares slack-jawed at Karen as she performs a mediocre pop cover, or is so distractingly great in the ensemble that she takes attention away from Ivy, or triggers Derek into insane imagination spots where

But this is just the pilot, and the pilot is very well-received, thanks to a tight focus and Shaiman and Wittman’s original songs (see: , a beautifully shot and sung duet between the prospective Marilyns). Smash’s first episode gets 11.44 million viewers, and critical reviews are positive. And that’s a good thing, because NBC desperately wants this show to succeed. The network is slowly crawling its way out of its 2010 ratings nadir, and it wants to use Smash to make a big leap for the coveted 18-34 demographic, or the “Glee For Adults” crowd. The show’s slot on Mondays at 10 PM, just after The Voice, gives it the best possible odds at success, which it will need to make up for its $7.5 million pilot and $3.5 million normal episode budget. Smash gets a massive where it’s given its own special scene in a musical number, alongside NBC contemporaries Parks and Rec, The Office, 30 Rock, and Community, complete with Alec Baldwin announcing it as “”. (Be warned that the three minute mark will involve a Donald Trumpscare.) 

This is as good as it will ever get for Smash.

The Critics Aren’t In Your Pocket (They’re Having Sex With Your Father): Smash’s Reception and Behind The Scenes Controversy

The reason behind Smash’s decline seems pretty simple: the writing just isn’t up to snuff. While most of the musical moments in Smash are well-received, the character’s storylines aren’t catching people’s attention at best, and actively being annoying at worst. We have the following:

1. Julia trying to adopt a baby from China with her husband and badly-acted teen son, but getting distracted by not working on writing and… having an affair with her gross dancer ex (Will Chase). Who also has a wife and kid. Fun, not a slog at all.

2. Karen’s boyfriend having a long and out of place political subplot, by the end of which he’s done a total 180, become a jerk, and slept with Ivy for revenge. As the show’s only Indian cast member, he gets a vaguely racist Bollywood number.

3. The play’s producer Eileen (Anjelica Huston, having a great time) going on money-seeking adventures and shacking up with a crime boss after her bigshot ex-husband takes everything in the divorce.

4. Ellis, Tom’s assistant, being a weaselly snitch for the first part of the show, then becoming eeeeevil because he’s one of those eeeeevil ambitious bisexuals. (By which I mean he feels like a stereotype from the 1940s). You’d think that this would be entertaining, but it’s not. He just lurks around in corners for most of the show and then poisons Uma Thurmon with peanuts.

5. Derek sucking. He seduces Ivy, then messes with her and pits Karen against her whenever she complains about his dickish behavior. Then, when Uma Thurman shows up as a third potential Marilyn, he seduces her, too. Despite his Marilyn Monroe fetish nearly tanking the entire musical several times, we are supposed to think he’s a jerk with a heart of gold because… he’s British? Americans like Simon Cowell?

6. Ivy spiralling into a pill addiction, partially from Derek and partially from her superstar mother (Bernadette Peters) showing her up constantly.

7. Tom dividing his time between being Ivy and Julia’s therapist and fumbling like six different guys, except for dancer Sam (Leslie Odom Jr.), whose major traits are sports and The Lord. We also learn about his and Derek’s past as former friends before Derek’s ~betrayal~. Tragically, this does not lead to a toxic enemies-to-lovers storyline. I’m only half joking.

8. All of this being executed poorly, with stop-and-start pacing, mostly unlikable characters, and a lot of strained Marilyn Monroe metaphors. (What better way to ?)

Social media responds poorly. Hate comments flood in from Twitter, mocking the unhinged plots and Debra Messing’s increasingly large scarves. Bad reviews drop weekly and articles are written about “”, apparently then a new term. The ratings have dropped to 5.96 million by the finale, with barely any end-of-season hype. It wins one Emmy for best choreography. “Let Me Be Your Star” loses to “It’s Not Just For Gays Anymore” from the last year’s Tonys.

Meanwhile, the show falls apart behind the scenes. Rebeck is publicly fired before Season 1 even ends. A , published by Kate Arthur after the end of the show’s first season, uses half a dozen “anonymous sources” to paint a gruesome picture of Rebeck’s leadership. Rebeck, Arthur claims, is a dictatorial figure, refusing to take suggestions from writers and driving off the saintishly-portrayed showrunner, David Marshall Grant. She denies any assistance on her scripts and chooses pet characters that she refuses to challenge and grow--particularly Julia, whom Rebeck insists can do no wrong and seems to identify with a bit too much. Most egregiously, she’s behind the biggest problem viewers identified--the over-adulation of Karen.

Take the Karen/Bar Mitzvah scene, for instance. "The original idea was she goes, she doesn't know what the hell she's doing, she's never met a Jew, she doesn't know anything," said a source who worked on that episode. "The joke was going to be on her. It was going to be kind of a disaster, but she was going to come out kind of ahead because somebody liked her voice. But they wouldn't let us have her at all be even a comic disaster. She's triumphant! There's no conflict there.

Years later, Rebeck publishes a book of essays, wherein she presents: misogynistic pressure from the network executives, and constant undermining of her authority.

There was… an architectural problem in the power structure above me. How to “manage up” was never very clear. Mr. Spielberg is an enormous force and a great storyteller. He and the head of the network both believed that they were in charge…they seemed to think that I was some kind of factotum, or typewriter even. No matter how polite I was, it rocked everyone to the core when the typewriter talked back.

Was it gender based? It sure felt like it. The power structure included ten men and one woman, and, in spite of all their second- guessing and wrangling, the show was terrific until they fired the woman in charge.I was explicitly told, during my firing, that the show was “too important to the network,” and so they were taking it out of my hands. The person they gave it to had virtually no credentials and no experience in the theater. His television credits were nowhere near as comprehensive as mine. The show died under his watch. Two years later, another network gave him another show to run. Meanwhile, I was still being told that I was unemployable because everyone knew that I was a lunatic.

So who are we to believe? It is accurate to say that Smash’s flaws are not entirely Rebeck’s fault. For one, not every bad choice was hers. In particular, Spielberg’s few hands-on decisions were not his finest; he apparently was not fond of fan favorite Megan Hilty, and was the biggest, and perhaps only, fan of Ellis. A few of the writing criticisms are also a little off. There are a few fun character dynamics and barbs traded (see the quote in the title of this section). And If Julia is a self-insert, she isn’t a very flattering one; the show seems fully aware that she’s breaking her family apart and hurting others. On the other hand, most viewers of the show would hardly call Rebeck’s contributions “terrific”; many of its worst-received elements, like the constant Karen glazing and inconsistent tone, are from episodes credited solely to her, and she admits that she loves to rewrite her team’s scripts.

(A fun footnote: A few months after Arthur’s initial Smash article, Rebeck replies with a petty l, which Arthur then publishes with her own passive-aggressive contributions.)

Rebeck is right about one thing: her replacement, Gossip Girl producer Josh Safran, does little to improve the show’s fortunes in its second season. As Bombshell gets stuck in development, Karen stumbles upon an entirely new songwriting team: Jimmy (Jeremy Jordan) and Kyle (Andy Mientus), two scrappy upstarts who decide to create an edgy competitor musical, entitled Hit List. While its pop material fits Karen’s talents better (half of Bombshell ends up involved in-story, it’s bizarre), it doesn’t get the same interest from Broadway fans as Bombshell. In addition to variations on the above plotlines, the following new plot points are introduced:

1. Jimmy has a romantic subplot with Karen. McPhee is still one of the weaker actors on the show. Jordan is giving a career worst performance as Jimmy, a petulant asshole who has a dark crime past and constantly sabotages himself and Kyle at every chance he gets. You can guess how audiences respond to this dynamic duo.

2. Derek gets sued for sexual harassment! And it destroys his career! Greatest plotline in television history, shame it’s ruined by him getting a “happy ending” with poor Ivy for some ungodly reason.

3. A subtle writing shift to sitcom-level miscommunications (hi Julia and Tom), every character explaining their exact motivations in big syrupy monologues, and show production timelines that are even shorter and more baffling than those in the first season. At least now it’s more tonally consistent?

4. Spoilers for the most controversial plot twist: Kyle gets hit by a car and dies while singing Jeff Buckley. (Not before cheating on his boyfriend with Tom, of course, because God forbid I like one character in this show.) The cast stages a special songs-only show for him, in an homage to the show the real-life cast of Rent held for Johnathan Larson when he passed away on opening night. Only in Rent’s case Larson was the songwriter, while in this case Kyle was the book writer, so instead of a heartfelt tribute, it comes off as a passive-aggressive choice to cut all of his contributions. Doesn’t help that half of Jimmy’s Tony acceptance speech in his honor gets derailed towards Karen.

5. Various unsatisfying romance subplots. As critic and hate-fan of the show Rachel Shukert put it:

“So that’s how Smash ends. Tom is alone, and the four women have all wound up with three criminals and one emotionally deranged stalker. Sounds about right to me.”

Ratings continue falling. The show is moved from airing next to The Voice to an unappealing slot on Tuesdays; when its ratings tank further, it’s moved to an even worse slot on Saturdays. On May 26, 2013, Smash is finally cancelled, wrapping itself up with only 2.3 million viewers for its two-part second season finale. It concludes with everyone winning Tonys and one last duet between friends at last.

Rewrite This Story: Smash Goes To Broadway

Despite (or perhaps because of) its general absurdity and ramshackle production, Smash does succeed in gaining a cult following, thanks in no small part to the popularity of the Shaiman-Wittman score for Bombshell. In 2015, the cast puts on a live performance of the songs from Bombshell for charity; it sells out in fifteen minutes. It’s to much acclaim. Even the less popular Hit List gets a few rounds on the stage. Actors and producers speak fondly of their lost show, and its soundtrack continues to make the rounds in rehearsal books and revues. Above all, Smash fans mourn its lost potential and wonder what could have been if it was… well… better. Or, better still, if Bombshell was released as its own big, glitzy Broadway show.

Greenblatt hasn’t given up hope. he addresses the show’s continued following, and points to future directions:

"You may not have seen the last of ‘Smash’ yet. I think the next incarnation will be on stage."

In May 2020, his promise reemerges: . Fans buzz with excitement— will Bombshell finally get the big showbiz treatment its songs deserve?

Well, no. Bombshell, as presented in the series, would be almost impossible to perform; almost all the songs are sung by the Marilyn actress, with multiple dance-heavy uptempo belters sequenced one after the other. Shaiman and Wittman wrote the songs around a TV format, where you could have a big emotional number every week for the climax of an episode. That’s less sustainable for one actress eight nights a week. So, Smash decides to go back to its first premise—the making-of story of Bombshell, with a workplace dramedy and revolving Marilyns. And with some significant storyline changes.

This seems like a laudable goal at first glance. It’s not like anybody watched Smash the show for its magnificent plotting. However, many fans did develop some affection for a few of the characters and the Ivy/Karen rivalry. And, fans realize quickly, they’re not getting their beloved cast back. Julia and Tom are now Tracey and Jerry, a married couple, and Jerry is a jerk with alcoholism. Derek is now Nigel, a camp gay director who actually cares about consent and age gaps. The biggest changes come to the Marilyn actresses. The entire Karen vs. Ivy plot is toned down, as the directors think the female-focused rivalry premise is a little dated (though ). Karen is now Ivy’s best friend and understudy, with only a few songs to herself in the entire show. A third Marilyn is added for one song to add drama instead.

Instead of a rivalry, what do we get? A vague, messy comedy. Most of the conflict is centered around Ivy, now an established Broadway diva, getting way too invested in the character of Marilyn Monroe, hiring a method acting coach and taking benzos to get “in character”. In the original workshop version, first performed in 2022, the arc culminates in , and the Bombshell musical gets retooled as The Ivy Lynn Story to great acclaim. Baffled test audiences , so by the time the show gets to previews in 2024, Ivy lives and overcomes her problems. The new ending sees Bombshell flop, but in the last scene the creative team decides to create a musical about their work, entitled… Smash. Very cute.

Smash the real-world musical opens on Broadway on April 10th, 2025. It’s played with a very light, silly tone, which is a reasonable approach, but the laughs don’t land very well with the audience. The book, written by two sixty-something Broadway vets (Rick Elise and Bob Martin), makes the terrible decision to try to be “hip” in spots. Enjoy . Still, the songs are still there—that gives the show a major selling point, right? Not when they’re . Several iconic numbers from the show are never sung in full, and “Let Me Be Your Star” never appears in its famous Ivy-Karen duet arrangement. In getting rid of its two petty divas, Smash unfortunately seems to have forgotten to add things its fans would like. Or things newcomers would like. 

So will Smash be a smash? One of the ads says, “If you love the TV series, it’s exactly what you want. And if you didn’t, we’ve changed everything." (.)

The cursed show closes on June 22nd, 2025, after 83 performances. Its greatest indignity is that, literally in the theater across the street, another Stephen Spielberg-produced musical about two petty divas is thriving. Death Becomes Her, an adaptation of the 1992 Meryl Streep / Goldie Hawn body horror camp classic, spends its 2025 receiving excellent reviews and churning in ticket sales (it’s as of 2026). And who’s taking on the role of Madeleine, one of our villainous leads? Megan Hilty, of course. In the end, Ivy Lynn always wins.

Don’t Forget Me: Where Did Everybody End Up?

Despite setbacks, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s career was really ruined by Smash. Rebeck seems to have landed on her feet in theater, continuing to write plays that attract such famous actors as David Harbour, Bill Pullman, and Danny Devito. Megan Hilty, Christian Borle, and Leslie Odom, Jr. continue to thrive in their respective careers. Deborah Messing and Katherine McPhee have… done political things I probably shouldn’t discuss. Jack Davenport is free of trying to fill the chasm between Smash’s perception of Derek’s coolness and the actual Derek’s lameness. Even , our ever-hated Ellis, seems to be doing just fine. All is well.

There’s some works of media that are just made to be fanfic fixers—too bad to be recommendable, but with enough good elements that you just want to rescue them. This is why, while I can’t speak for the musical (it was closed, and my very legal slime tutorial searches were being unhelpful), I became fond of Smash the show after a while. Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad. Large chunks are nigh-unwatchable unless you slam the “skip” button through ten minutes an episode. And yet? There’s little moments of magic sprinkled all through it. I had a lot of fun enjoying the various musical numbers, or laughing at Julia’s disastrous life, or chanting “fight, fight, fight” every time Tom and Derek started snipping at each other, or even tearing up a little bit when (sadly not available with video). I’ll let :

“I make it no secret that Smash is one of the greatest loves of my life. It’s one of the greatest things that ever happened to me, and not because… of all the superficial things. It bought some of the most beautiful people into my life. So many people, on camera and off camera, that I miss terribly. I look back on those years so fondly, even though it was really hard. I loved every second of it. And I would give anything to get it back, just like all these amazing Smash fans, I am right there with you. So, the second anything moves forward, I’m right there with you.”
 
So… third try in 2037, anyone?

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Disclaimer: I was in person at this particular event, and I will mostly showcase my experience. This disaster has been documented as well by  just in case.

Last December was the end of the yearly series of Bandai Card Games events for the European continent. To celebrate this, an event was held in the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Like the year before in Utrecht, this was a new Bandai Card Games Fest, a huge macro-event in which all their card games (One Piece, Digimon, Dragon Ball, and the newly released Gundam) could celebrate their European Finals with players from all over the continent.

As I said before, this is nothing new. Bandai has been doing these huge “end-of-year” events for a while. However, just a few months prior, we had received reports from the  in September that indicated that it had been a disaster with plenty of mismanagement issues, from long lines, to a lack of promo cards, to even players who couldn’t even get to play in tournaments! Would Bandai improve by December with its European counterpart?

I’m writing a post here, so no.

Let’s divide this event into its three days. As a Digimon Card Game player, I will mostly showcase my experience (and that of my friends) about this particular event from the perspective of a Digimon player. This may not cover some of the issues with games such as One Piece or Gundam… But we do have quite a unique ending as Digimon players.

Day 1: Early troubles and delays

Friday was the start of this huge event with the “Last Chance Qualifiers” (or LCQ for short) for anyone who hadn’t got a regional invite from Bandai by placing in the top 16 of a regional tournament during this past year. The start of this event was  It did not start, however, until 12:00. This was an issue across all of Bandai’s games. This meant that all LCQ tournaments would finish two hours later than expected.

While One Piece players got an apology by allowing an increase in players who would qualify for the finals due to this delay, this wasn’t the case for Digimon or other Bandai games (which they only allowed the best 16 players to qualify for the Finals). One Piece is Bandai’s best-performing card game, but even then, many players felt it was unfair that only one game got such an apology, even though everyone suffered the consequences of their mismanagement. 

At 15:00, the venue was supposed to open up for players who wanted to register for the finals the following day. I arrived at the venue at around 15:45 since I was flying in from elsewhere. Nobody who wasn’t participating in the LCQ had entered the venue yet, and the lines hadn’t moved at all. Only at around 16:00 did movement start to happen.

Why would people want to enter the venue if they weren’t going to play in the LCQ? There were no other events aside from the LCQ, but there was a special retail store that sold unique items. These items would only be available at the Bandai Card Games Fest in Düsseldorf (in European regions). They couldn’t be found anywhere else, and as you may have surmised, a lot of people wanted to get their hands on these items (some of them purely just for reselling them later on).

There were lines, for sure, but the first of these lines came due to the access to the area around the shop being completely blocked. Players couldn’t enter the main area of the venue even after registering. Half an hour later, they finally opened up the doors, and then we were greeted with a flood of players gunning for the shop (us included). We were then greeted by a two-hour queue to get our card albums and special mats. We were only allowed to buy items from the game we were participating in, a measure to discourage scalpers that would sadly be dropped by the second day.

All in all, lots of lines and delays for a first day. This was supposed to be a calm day with a smaller number of people, yet there were delays in both tournaments and registration, and the shop’s queue moved at a glacial pace.

Day 2: The Finals (the calm day)

I arrived at the venue with my friends at 7:30. The venue was supposed to open at 8:00, and we wanted to be among the first to get to the shop to buy some of the exclusive products for our friends who couldn’t make it to Düsseldorf. We arrived, and we got into a completely disorganized queue that wasn’t divided in any way, shape, or form. We waited and waited. The venue didn’t open at 8:00. It didn’t open at 8:15, nor at 8:30. It opened at 9:30, the expected time for the tournament’s actual start.

Mind you, this was December in Düsseldorf. It was freezing. The crowd didn’t get rowdy, but everyone was clearly a bit angry about the situation. While we waited, members of the staff went around telling us that the delay was caused by “security issues”, but our belongings weren’t checked once we entered the venue. 

When we got in, players were supposed to receive their “Bandai Card Games Passport”, a collection of promos for every game that also wouldn’t be found in any other normal tournament. While staff tried to hand out as many as possible, some players didn’t get their passports because they didn’t notice the staff, or the staff didn’t notice them, as a large volume of players were entering the venue at the same time. When these unfortunate players came back later for their passports, they were told that the staff didn’t have any left.

In any case, after entering the venue again, many rushed to the store, but just like the day before, the lines were long and moved at a glacial pace. If the venue had opened at 8 as it was expected, there would have been enough time for a fair number of players to get something else at this shop, but due to all the delays, players could only stay in the shop’s queue for about 45 minutes before they were called to their tables for the Finals’ start.

The tournament itself ran perfectly fine. No major hiccups regarding round delays or any other major issues. I placed poorly in it (240th out of 300 or so players), but hey, we can’t all be winners. There were side-events happening simultaneously, but nothing major happened in them. All in all, nothing major.

The Digimon presence at the event was still rather poor. While One Piece had a giant mural that they were hoping to complete, Digimon only got some “giant cards” with which to pose with. There were supposed to be stands to play the upcoming demo, but these stands didn’t work until Sunday, which was rather disappointing.

Day 3: The cherry on top

Since the shop had clearly been a point of contention for many players during the previous days, the staff decided to handle it differently for the last day of the event. Players would be able to enter a lottery to enter the shop at different periods of time (for example, 11:00 to 12:00). If you got in, congratulations, you could line up in the queue and buy your last few wares. Sadly, the best cards for Digimon players had already been scalped by the One Piece playerbase.

Now… None of my friends got into the Digimon finals. Only the top 16 players could get in. Understandable. We were, however, very much interested in playing the 3v3 side event with other Spanish players too. This was a mainstay of side events at Digimon tournaments that allowed for variety and a way of playing that was not that common. So, we went to the venue to register ourselves for this tournament that was supposed to start at 15:00. We were also interested in watching the “news segment” at 13:30 that would likely reveal new cards.

There was no 3v3 tournament. They had canceled it.

Official reason? “There weren’t enough players interested in such an event”. The reason we were told by one of the members of the staff who confided in us? “Yeah, this has been a shitshow of an event, and we want to wrap up quickly, and the event takes place way too late”.

So, we pretty much had only gone to the venue just to watch the news segment and the Digimon finals. We had lunch, and we sat down for the Digimon news segment at 13:30… And then they streamed the Dragon Ball finals. Not only was this not according to schedule, but this match went on for about an hour and a half. Finals had no timer, which meant that the game went on and stalled for a looooooooong time.

In the meantime… China also had a similar event at the very same time, and the brand-new cards that were supposed to be shown were also shown there and had leaked through Discord and other ways. So, the surprises that we were supposed to get weren’t really that interesting. Also, we had been waiting for quite a while, and it was 15:00 by now, so we were very, very bored.

Did we get the Digimon finals after this news segment (as was originally promised)? NOPE. The Gundam finals came next. They were quicker than the Dragon Ball guys, but by the time that we had our Digimon finals, they were almost three hours behind schedule.

So, the finals happened between YuXoh and his  deck, an anti-meta strategy based around punishing playing Digimon by effects, and Marc’s, a combo deck that had an incredibly devastating payoff but had the disadvantage of having poor consistency. Both players were already qualified for the World Finals by reaching the European Finals. Still, in the end, Marc’s Imperialdramon won after pulling off some lucky plays using , a rather uncommon card to see in many builds. Very lucky!

So, yeah, in the middle of the game, very quickly, Marc got a Dragon Mode ACE from his trash and put it in his hand. Nobody noticed it at the moment since it was rather sneaky, but the event was taped so everyone caught it on a rewatch the next day. This was the cherry on top. Not only was the event severely mismanaged, but the winner was a cheater. And apparently, he had also been cheating at the top 16 games, as shown 

Thankfully, this story has a good ending. Bandai caught wind of this irregularity and, after an investigation, . This cheating scandal is also a bit perplexing because Marc was already on route to participating in Japan’s Finals, so cheating in front of a camera was likely the worst thing he could have attempted to do.

So, yeah, the overall consensus was that the event was heavily mismanaged, with plenty of irregularities, scheduling problems, delays, and a cheater on top of everything to leave an extremely sour note to end on. Several other players told me that the previous finals in Utrecht weren’t so disastrous, even when they had a larger volume of players due to them not being invite-only.

I haven't heard a lot of discontent from the American nationals that happened later in February, so I guess that Bandai has stepped up its management, but this will be an infamous event that Bandai will have to work hard to fix its reputation when it comes to event management moving forward.

Prologue

Ok, let’s tell a story together, you and I. It takes more than the teller to tell, a listener has to listen, and visualize. It’s like directing a movie. I say the stuff, you hear it, then you make the visual.

A good visual can elevate any story. Visuals are important, because they build a mood. A mystique. And mystique builds image. And image is a shockingly important thing. People work so hard to make them, even though at the end of the day they aren’t real, and then they protect them with their lives. Some people get hurt to protect an image. Some lose their pride, not the image of their pride, but their real pride.

Some people, when they work so hard their entire lives to cultivate an image, they give it away. They give it to a child or a friend. Or someone they respect.

But this façade- this image- isn’t something you can just take on and off like a mask. You can’t hand over your own image- your legacy- to people like a physical object. Like an article of clothing.

Wait, hang on, shit. You totally can. You absolutely can. You 100% can. Not only that, it happens quite a few times in this story.

That’s a perfect metaphor for this story, damn it, why didn’t I realize that a few sentences ago? Ok, we’ll go with that. Keep up, keep up.

But here’s the story. I do the words, you do the image in your head. You good?

Scene Open. We’re in Tijuana, Mexico. If you’re from Mexico, you might have an idea what that looks like. If you’re not, just do what everyone does, and imagine a normal place, but . Don’t worry about the fact that that’s super problematic, Hollywood gets away with it all the time. Look, there are far worse people saying far worse things about Mexican culture right now, you’ll be forgiven for imagining the dirt that the media tells you to imagine.

Anyway, in this place that has the image of a dusty, arid desert, but in ,  we close in on a gymnasium. Someplace gritty, like a boxing gym.

A man of importance enters the gym, as we turn our attention to the doorway. It opens, light shines in behind him, as said light billows over his stocky, full frame and the mask that covers his entire head.

His name is . Though not the biggest star, his footsteps carry a gravity to them, and everyone in the gym stops what they’re doing to look, for just a second, as he enters. His accomplishments are known in both Tijuana and neighboring California, and he is well respected as a man of this art. This art that he teaches, at the gym that he founded.

He looks around, as prospects line up in front of him. Young men from the area, some athletes, some fresh off the street, all hoping to receive his guidance. They wanted to be like Rey Misterio. To fight like him. Perhaps to wear a mask like his, and embody the image, of a steadfast character that transgresses the realities of a culture that historically struggles with stability. Perhaps some would want to simply embody his swagger instead, his long and wild hair, his ability to make arenas explode with merely his words, before he even throws a single punch.

Perhaps they saw this man fly, and wanted to fly like he did.

Under the mask, his eyes display a stern iron, covered in a fatherly kindness. He walks in front of the young men, eyeing them up and down, perhaps making a comment every now and then, positive or negative. Sizing them up.

And when I say young, I do mean young. Their art is one that you must begin training for at a very young age. It was not at all uncommon for him to see students in their early teens, people who had not yet become actual men, hoping that his guidance could allow them to be something more than a man.

He passes these men, these teenagers. Then stops.

Do whatever you need to do in your head to make it clear that this is a comedic moment. Maybe he does a double take. Maybe whatever music you were imagining had a weird record-scratch effect, you know, for a joke. Maybe Misterio raises an eyebrow and looks at the imaginary camera, with a gesture of, “Really?”.

Misterio has to look down, and crane his neck. This one, this tiny one, isn’t even a teenager.

This kid is trying to start training for Lucha Libre, one of the most dangerous forms of one of the most dangerous sports in the world, at .

Misterio pauses for a second, then moves on. Perhaps the visual of this all was just a bit much for him, but he knows the kid is good for it. The child, his own nephew, was already far more hard working, studious, dedicated, and straight up brilliant than adults three or four times his age. Misterio was not in the business of training people he did not believe in. And he believed in, and loved, his nephew dearly. And yet.

He pauses.

He thinks, perhaps, that hopefully that kid would grow taller at some point. I mean, this is a sport of titans. The kid needs some size if he really wants to accomplish great things, surely.

Writer’s Note

Welcome to Short Man, Long Shadow. This writeup, as a whole, is a bit of an odd story to tell in its entirety, because it deals quite a bit with the ideas of chasing legacy, and the consequences thereof.  So to tell the story in a way that is easy to digest, this writeup is divided into three parts.

This Part, Part 1, is actually a Hobby History. While there is some drama here (we’ll get to it, I promise), Part 1 is more about the accomplishments of a single man over a single career, a career that is still ongoing no less. But it is important to understand these accomplishments in their entirety, because they set the stage for different Dramas that came later.   

Instead of being a direct chronology, Parts 2 and 3 each tell about a separate Drama that came about as a direct result of Part 1. Though I would prefer that people read all three parts, it will be entirely possible to read Parts 1+2 as a complete story, and Parts 1+3 as a different, also complete story.

So for those who complain that the tone of this First Part is perhaps not “scandalous” enough, you are entirely correct. That’s sort of the point. Be patient, you’ll get all the nonsense you can handle in Parts 2 and 3.

But for now, let’s return to what we were talking about before.

Let’s get back to Lucha.

What is Lucha Libre?

(lit. “Freestyle Wrestling”)  is a unique regional style  of that developed primarily in Mexico, in the 1930’s and 1940’s. I’ve already given an exhaustive explanation of what Professional Wrestling is and how it “works” , so I’ll only repeat the key points here.

Professional (“Pro”) Wrestling is a hybrid performing-art-and-sport, where two or more people (“Wrestlers”) perform a choreographed match. The winners and losers of these “fights” are completely predetermined, and the quality of the entertainment comes from how well these wrestles can work together to tell the story. It is not a matter of simply hitting or body slamming each other, wrestlers must sacrifice their bodies, risk their safety, protect each other, and mutually tell a story that audiences can get behind, using solely their physicality.

Pro Wrestling as a whole rapidly gained world-wide prominence as a popular form of entertainment because of this unique combination- storytelling and physicality. Pro Wrestling would become so popular that it would take root in various hotspots around the world- America, the UK, Japan, and Mexico, namely, where it would warp into very different forms to fit the local culture.

In Mexico in particular, Pro Wrestling would rapidly transform into Lucha Libre by the 1930’s, with . Though the earliest roots of the Lucha style trace back to the work of wrestler , the wider culture and character of Lucha would only solidify with the founding of the (Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre, lit. “Mexican Freestyle Wrestling Enterprise”). EMLL was the first National-scale organization dedicated to promoting Lucha Libre as a unique, mass-media, cultural art form, and its founding is widely recognized as the flashpoint where Lucha Libre actually began to become an institution. When “Pro Wrestlers” morphed to “Luchadors”.  Many of the storytelling conventions that would define Lucha Libre would originate in EMLL.

For example, while Pro Wrestling around the world had a fairly standard archetype for the “Good Guy” character (“Babyface”) and the “Bad Guy” character (“Heel”), both covered , Lucha Libre would warp these definitions to fit the stories that Mexican culture wanted to tell. Instead of Babyfaces and Heels, Lucha Libre has

Elsewhere, Babyfaces were wrestlers who used strength above all else, being hulking mountains of muscle, charging angrily like a natural disaster towards evil. Technicos, on the other hand, were stoic, calm in nature. They used extremely complicated, technical, and acrobatic techniques to fight for justice within the rules, no matter how angry they got. They would fight, they would grapple, and most importantly- they would fly.

Similarly, where Heels outside of Mexico were sneaky cowards, always trying to game the system to get their way. But in Lucha Libre, Rudos were very similar to the foreign concept of the Babyface- uncontrollable, brute-force engines of rage, blatantly fighting outside the system against their enemies.

Lucha Libre, notoriously, lacks a space between these two concepts. There is Technico and there is Rudo. You cannot be both. Almost all matches are Technico vs Rudo. The Technico will always, ALWAYS, fight fairly and justly, and will always end up as an underdog, suffering under an inadequate rule system and administration that can never handle the rough and cheating ways of the Rudo. While the Technico always wins in the long term storytelling, it is always an uphill battle, because the Rudo will always have systematic corruption on their side.

There’s probably an interesting social statement there, but I’m too tired living in the reality that statement speaks to to comment on it.

Within this story framework in the 1930’s, EMLL and Lucha would import their absolute, most important storytelling device.

“Mascaras”.

The Lizard and the Hummingbird

It is 1989. Nephew of Rey Misterio, , is about to wrestle his first match as a true Professional Wrestler. But not just that, he was a proud practitioner of Lucha Libre. A Luchador.

He had started training at 9 years old. He was now 14. Despite not being old enough to drive under Mexican law at the time, he was about to enter a Lucha Libre ring in Tijuana to perform in front of a raucous crowd of grown men.

Oscar himself was, perhaps, not grown at the time. He was still quite short, both by the standards of Luchadors and Men in general. But one was not permitted to wrestle in Lucha Libre without having proven, through trial and risk, some degree of aptitude. Everyone who worked with Oscar could see that, for what Oscar lacked in height, he FAR made up for in ability.

This is why he was not simply wrestling as Oscar Rubio. He had been granted the right by the industry to take on a different, larger image. Beyond a character, he had been permitted to wear a mask, assume a mantle, and perform as a true, Masked Luchador.

Under his green mask, Oscar was not Oscar when he wrestled. He was La Lagartija Verde (lit. “The Green Lizard”). Despite his young age, this debut period would go well, and soon La Lagartija Verde would be in local demand.

Within a year, due to his rising local celebrity, La Lagartija Verde would morph into a more appropriate image. In a reflection of his wrestling style- incredibly quick, crisp, exacting, acrobatic- La Lagartija Verde would trade his green mask for a  more bird-like one, becoming El Colibri (“The Hummingbird”). Lizards don’t fly, but Hummingbirds certainly do. And El Colibri flew.

It was rapidly, rapidly becoming clear to everyone involved that this young luchador was something special. So he would not remain El Colibri for very long.

In 1992, his uncle, Rey Misterio, would decide to give his full backing to El Colibri as a rising star. And he did so by making an almost parental sacrifice, giving El Colibri the most that a Luchador could possibly give.

What is a Mascara, and why are they Sacred in Lucha Libre?

The Mascara (lit. “Mask”) is the most famous form of the . While some wrestlers, internationally, from time to time,  the proper Mascara is almost entirely synonymous with Lucha Libre.

When the EMLL began their Lucha boom period in the 30’s, they played host to a visiting wrestler from America, . Due to a combination of personal whims, contract issues, and other silly coincidences, Mackey performed in Mexico under a newly constructed type of face mask, under the name “Masked Marvel”. This was meant to be a one-off series of appearances, but Mexican Audiences so immediately and fervently resonated with the idea of Wrestlers wearing masks that it was more or less instantly a staple of Lucha Libre from then on.

It is not likely that Cyclone Mackey knew this before he wrestled under a mask, but Mexico and Meso-America as a whole has a long, LONG history of masks being used for both combat and ceremonial purposes. The concept of the “Masked Wrestler”, purely by accident, traced back to cultural symbols rooted in the , resonating so strongly with the Mexican public that it was perhaps inexplicable even at the time. But EMLL, sensing a phenomenon on their hands, capitalized.

Technicos would wear masks. Rudos would wear masks. Masks would take many shapes, colors, designs, hues, aesthetics. They allowed wrestlers to portray characters far wilder and removed from reality than the archetypes they had had to work with before.

And audiences loved them, the men and the masks both. Mascaras would become a massive financial tentpole for lucha libre on the whole, acting (easily) as the most beloved and profitable form of Lucha Libre merchandise to this day, even almost 100 years later. Mascaras would become so beloved, that they would warp the entire culture of Lucha Libre around them.

For one, the mask began to symbolize, in one single tangible object, the entirety of its wrestler’s being. All their power and charisma. All their accomplishments and failures. It would all be “stored”, more or less, in a wrestler’s mask. To have an entire character’s essence held in one single prop is an EXTREMELY useful storytelling device, so of course it would find much use in Lucha Libre for the decades to come.

Interestingly, despite lucha libre as a whole being about fighting, one of the most interesting uses of the mask in lucha libre would be for a surprisingly wholesome cause. 

Masks ran in the family.

The Birth of Rey Mysterio, Jr.

In 1992, Rey Misterio formally gave his mask to his nephew, wrestling at the time as El Colibri.

I cannot overstate how huge of an act, a sacrifice, this is for a luchador. While families and lineages are nothing new to Pro Wrestling (the family being a VERY current example), it takes on a new dimension in Lucha Libre.

When a luchador of the older generation give a luchador of the younger generation his mask, he is not simply giving a stamp of approval. The elder luchador gives the younger everything associated with that mask. The character, the accomplishments. The heritage. The status. The elder is saying to the younger, “This is everything I have ever done in the sport. I give it to you. If this art treats you coldly,  I will even give you the metaphorical skin off my face if it keeps you warm”.

And in doing so, the elder luchador loses something. They publicly announce to the world that they are no longer the future, nor even the present. When Rey Misterio gave El Colibri his mask, it was a public declaration that he was no longer THE Rey Misterio, singular. Everything that the character of Rey Misterio had, he had passed on.

The bonds that are established when this happens, both in storyline and in real life, arguably rise above mere familial connections. While most masks are passed within bloodline families, when a mask is passed along from people unrelated (a teacher and a student, for example), it is culturally considered equivalent to full on adoption.

The recipients of these masks often take on a name honoring their elder. There is an accepted formula for this kind of thing. (lit. “The Son of the Saint”) is the literal youngest son of lucha icon .   is the son of .  Etc., etc.

Thus Rey Misterio (the uncle) gave way to the now 17 year old Rey Misterio Jr, who shed the lizard and hummingbird masks that brought him to this point.

Writer’s Note on Names

Okay, this has the potential to get confusing, so I need a section to clarify this as explicitly as possible.

Rey Misterio Jr., the nephew, and subject of the rest of this writeup, would within a few years change his name to “Rey Mysterio Jr.”, with a Y instead of an I. Legend is that he saw this misspelling on some bootleg t-shirts of himself, liked it, and made the name change on a whim.

Rey Misterio, the uncle, would change his name to “Rey Misterio, Sr.”, to differentiate himself from his nephew. He would also keep the I in his name, instead of the Y.

From THIS POINT FORWARD, even though it is not technically chronologically accurate, we will be referring to the nephew with the Y name, and the uncle with the I name. This is both for your sanity and mine.

Thank you for reading this far. We’ll now get back to Rey Mysterio becoming the greatest Luchador of all time.

Rey Mysterio Jr. became the greatest Luchador of All Time

Within 10 years of receiving his mask and name from his uncle, Rey Mysterio Jr. would become, arguably, the greatest luchador of all time.

I said “arguably” because that is an extremely controversial statement. Lucha Libre traditionalists will argue, not entirely incorrectly, that the greatest and most successful luchador of all time was the previously mentioned El Santo. El Santo was a titan of the sport, who reigned on top for decades. He was such a fixture of Mexican culture, that there was an entire , and starring him,  where he would fight Vampires, Kung Fu Masters, Mummies, Aliens, and basically everything else you could put in a film. El Santo was so huge, that even DISNEY had to borrow some El Santo clout to .

Yet myself, and many modern fans, and a majority of current wrestlers world wide, will argue that Rey Mysterio. Jr did far more to elevate Lucha Libre to the international fame that it currently has.

Almost immediately after receiving his mask, Mysterio Jr. would wrestle across a wide range of organizations in both Mexico and America- , (formerly EMLL), , and . He would work a truly wild schedule, wrestling almost nonstop matches against almost a truly staggering array of active wrestlers at the time.

I feel weird that I haven’t linked any match footage up to this point. So let me remedy that.

Mysterio wrestling fellow luchador (and training partner) Psicosis at ECW.

Mysterio wrestling future legend Chris Jericho in WCW.

wrestling Juvetud “His Own Worst Enemy” Guerrera in AAA.

Mysterio wrestled critically and commercially acclaimed matches around the world, non-stop, for almost ten years, and helped to solidify Lucha Libre as not only a force within the wider Pro Wrestling ecosystem, but as an international symbol of Mexican culture.

I can tell you that Rey Mysterio Jr. is a great luchador, and I can throw match footage at you all day, but it’s a little harder to explain why he’s the “greatest” in a clear cut way.

See, don’t get me wrong, at the time, Mysterio was absolutely the greatest at doing the wrestling itself. He was the fastest and most coordinated. He had a firm grasp on audience psychology, being able to use his small height to tell consistently resonant underdog stories in the ring. But in fairness- a lot of wrestlers at the time could do that. While Rey Mysterio. Jr was the best, he wasn’t the best by some insurmountable margin, and plenty of other luchadors at the time could approach his level.

Furthermore, I can’t in good faith say that Rey Mysterio. Jr invented all the techniques of modern lucha libre, because he most assuredly didn’t. He popularized and innovated a lot of existing moves- , , - but he openly admits he invented none of them, he only adapted them. Even the one move that he is credited for inventing- - is openly acknowledged, .

So why do people say he’s the best?

Quite simply, Mysterio was the best because he used his technical brilliance, and the shockingly humble quality of his personal character, to bridge the gap between Pro Wrestling and Lucha Libre.

Why are Pro Wrestling and Lucha Libre different?

As previously mentioned, both Pro Wrestling and Lucha Libre are, fundamentally, performances of pre-determined stories. Fights where the winners and losers are scripted out. The performers are not trying to seriously hurt each other, they are cooperating to tell a shared story.

But the exact methodology in which wrestlers and luchadors maintain their safety, and perform their techniques, is actually quite different.

It’s all about how they fall down. See, the (very real) damage that Pro Wrestlers take to their bodies over the course of their careers does not come from their “opponents”, but from simply falling down to the ground. You can fake punching and kicking, but you can not fake gravity, and wrestlers find themselves on the wrong side of gravity a lot. A human body can only take falling down only so much before taking serious damage, and both wrestlers and luchadors fall down dozens of times a night, several nights a week, possibly for decades.

So both disciplines have developed unique methods to make falling down less damaging. Note that I do not say less “painful”- both Pro Wrestling and Lucha Libre are extremely painful, no matter what. But with training, you can mitigate (but not eliminate) the damage they do to your body.

Outside of Lucha Libre, Pro Wrestlers favor a series of techniques called “” to fall down. When you “take a bump”, you fall in a certain way to make sure that as much of your body’s surface area as possible makes contact with the ground as you fall. On a cognitive level, this is far, FAR more painful then just falling normally. However, it diffuses the force of the fall across a wider area of your body. In practice, you’re trading doing moderate to heavy damage to one part of your body, to doing merely minor to moderate damage to almost all of your body.

Lucha Libre, on the other hand, prefers the technique of “”, or the “Rolling Bump”. When a luchador falls down, instead of maximizing the surface area that hits the ground, they minimize it. This allows impact to focus on a part of the body that can take more immediate punishment- an area heavy in fat or muscle, for example. However, instead of letting that damage occur fully, luchadors then IMMEDIATELY roll, spin, twist, or do some other motion to move with the impact, more or less diffusing the impact completely.

The difference between the Bump philosophy and the Roll philosophy seems minor, but the fundamental question of “How do we not die from falling down?” actually is the foundation off of which both Pro Wrestling and Lucha Libre are built. So when those foundations are different, literally everything that follows is different. The differences in rhythm, style, and technique only grow wider from there.

As an example, here is a basic technique, the “Armdrag”,   Here is the . Even without me explaining it to you, you can see that this is two completely different types of physical, performing languages.

Bonus, Not So Fun Fact: These differences contribute to the differences in longevity between wrestlers and luchadors. Luchadors tend to have a much longer in-ring career than pro wrestlers on average, because rolling accumulates much less damage to the body over time than bumping. However, rolling is also far more difficult and risky than bumping, so luchadors have a tragically higher rate of suffering career- or life- ending accidents during matches.

These small differences resulted in two wrestling cultures, amongst performers, that were entirely separated. And before Rey Mysterio Jr. came along, there really was not a ton of high level crossover between Pro Wrestling and Lucha Libre. Previous attempts at that sort of thing would fizzle out due to both technical and cultural differences, with some efforts even being laughable ().

Rey Mysterio. Jr found ways to close that gap almost completely.

The Man who Bridged Culture

From a very young age, Mysterio Jr. looked up to his uncle, Misterio Sr., for more than his in-ring ability. Misterio Sr. actually was one of the first luchadors to compete simultaneously in Mexico (Tijuana) and America (SoCal). Mysterio Sr. was that had widened between Pro Wrestling and Lucha Libre.

It is clear to see that when Mysterio Sr. trained his nephew, he taught him how to make this sort of adaptation. It is equally clear that Mysterio Jr. would treat this as only a starting point.

Mysterio Jr. would IMMEDIATELY, early in his career, tailor his move set in small ways that would allow it to gel well with wrestlers of any style, in any environment. He would slow down or change the rhythm of certain moves to allow the non-luchadors to receive the moves by bumping instead of rolling. He would learn to receive and react to moves and techniques performed by non-luchadors, and would actually portray those moves properly, taking the effort to learn how to properly look hurt.

If this sound like Mysterio Jr. did a lot of work to make sure his opponents were safe, a lot of work to make sure his opponents look good, that’s because it IS. Within the industry, I can’t find any credible wrestler saying a single bad thing about working with Rey Mysterio, Jr, because he would move heaven and earth to give as much, creatively, to his opponents in the ring as possible- even when those opponents were scripted to lose! Not only inside the ring, but outside the ring as well.

A lot of my inferences into the psyche of Rey Mysterio Jr. here come from his long interview with wrestling journalist Chris Van Vilet, which you can watch in its entirety . Throughout this hour-long interview, Mysterio displays a shocking humility, almost uncharacteristic for a Luchador or Pro Wrestler as ludicrously accomplished as he is. Unlike certain…… ….. Mysterio takes as little credit for his success for himself as humanly possible, and has a wide, WIDE list of other wrestlers whom he praises for their contributions to his career.

But if you feel bad about Rey not praising himself, that’s fine, because every other wrestler he’s ever worked with . Rey Mysterio Jr. is now known as someone who made everyone he worked with better, as an opponent, a mentor, and a teacher.

THIS is why I, and many others, argue that Rey Mysterio Jr. is the greatest luchador of all time. He was not simply the best within Lucha Libre, like El Santo was. He was the best within Lucha Libre, and elevated Lucha Libre internationally as a whole. Luchadors now wrestle around the world- in America, Japan, Europe, everywhere- because of framework and schema that Rey Mysterio Jr. built. He was, and is absolutely beloved for this accomplishment.

None of this saved him from that one time he was forced to destroy his own legacy, though.

That Drama I Promised You Earlier

It is 1999. Rey Mysterio Jr. has established himself as an internationally beloved superstar, but for now, he is more or less stuck in the mid-card of WCW.

WCW, as one of the two biggest Pro Wrestling organizations in the world at the time (competing with the ), was a place where both wrestlers and luchadors could go to get big money contracts. But it was also, notoriously, a managerial trainwreck. WCW is most remembered today from going to the #1 company, financially, in Pro Wrestling in 1996, to completely bankrupt, insolvent, and dissolved in 2001, a dramatic fall that was somehow incredibly slow and incredibly fast at the same time.

Rey Mysterio Jr. was making good money in WCW, but he was certainly not being treated well. At the time, he was the biggest name in . This was sort of like a show-within-a-show within WCW, where wrestlers under 225 lbs would have their own storylines and rivalries. Unlike the modern day, this was completely distinct from the Heavyweight (above 225 lbs) wrestling that would occur. Whereas nowadays it is common for main event stars to straddle the line between Heavyweight and Cruiserweight, in late 90’s WCW, you were either a giant in the main event, or you were a curtain-opener in the Cruiserweight Division.

So while Mysterio Jr. and the Cruiserweights were tremendously popular with audiences, they would never be promoted as actual “stars” within WCW. That right was reserved for the “big boys”, the Heavyweights. One would think that a company would want to promote their more popular stars to, you know, make money off of that popularity.

But this was WCW, which was NOTORIOUS for having those same Heavyweights being extremely politically connected to the people writing (“booking”) the actual show. For example, , who held the reigns on all of WCW’s writing for a fair amount of time, was extremely close with Kevin Nash (himself), multiple time WCW Heavyweight Champion, and “Main Character” of WCW for years. Nash was also very close with WCW executive and booker , and the two of them very much had a bromance with………. Sigh………..

So the five-foot-six-inch tall Mysterio Jr., despite lighting the world on fire, never had a chance in WCW. But he was there because it was where he could get a spotlight for Lucha Libre in America, and the money for his family wasn’t bad either.

But, in 1999, Kevin Nash and Eric Bischoff made the decision (for reasons which remain inexplicable in retrospect) for Mysterio Jr. to do something that would risk his entire career. Buried in the overcomplicated factional storylines that were occurring in WCW at the time, they pressured Mysterio to participate in a match…… where for no good reason, he would gamble his mask, and thus his own (and his uncle’s ) legacy.

Lucha de Apuestas

Nash and Bischoff thought that a luchador being unmasked in the ring would be an “interesting” or “funny” thing, but in Lucha Libre, it is the most serious plot point imaginable.

“Lucha de Apuestas” (lit. “Wager Matches”) are the most deadly serious matches in Lucha Libre. The moment that the Mascaras became a beloved commonality in Lucha Libre in the 1930’s, symbolic of character and achievement, was almost the exact same moment that Lucha Libre bookers and writers realized the drama that could occur when those same Mascaras were lost.

In Lucha Libre, when the feud between two characters (a technico and a rudo) could not be settled by mere fighting, they would formally enter a Lucha de Apuestas. In this match, each luchador would formally wager their mask. This pledge was binding, and whoever would lose the mask, no matter HOW the match was one or lost, was then bound to formally remove their mask, sit humiliated in front of the live crowd, announce their full name, and their place of birth.

(Note: Wrestlers who do not wrestle masked, or who had lost a match previously, are allowed to enter a Lucha de Apuestas by wagering their hair. This is considered slightly less of a big deal than wagering a mask, but is still a big deal nonetheless. Wagering your career, i.e. a forced retirement, is also allowed, but is considered far less important than a Mask or Hair wager.)

In-storyline, to win a Lucha de Apuestas is one of the highest honors achievable. You have wagered your own legacy against that of your foe, and you have won, and you have stripped them of all that they have ever accomplished. If they received their mask from family, you win that family’s honor and accomplishments as well. Some luchadores have made their reputation through winning valuable mascaras in high stakes Luchas de Apuestas, notably the currently 63-year-old (yet still wrestling!) .

On the other hand, to lose a Lucha de Apuestas is an almost insurmountable shame. It is an open secret that many luchadores who were planning to leave the industry agree to lose a Lucha de Apuestas “on the way out”, essentially killing their character, and allowing the winner some prestige as they stay in the industry. But for wrestlers with established careers, who keep going, it is genuinely- both in and out of storyline- an incredible blow to their career. You can’t just bounce back from formally losing your mask. Crowds would have no reason to take you seriously.

What’s more, before some of you ask, “Why not just put the mask back on?”, there’s actually a good reason; it might be straight up ILLEGAL. As a government-recognized part of Mexican cultural heritage, Lucha Libre is actually regulated by a , the same one that regulates Boxing within the country.

The finality of a Lucha de Apuestas is a huge part of its marketing appeal, in the same way that the presence of a certified Championship is important for the marketing of a Champion Boxing match. So, similar to State Athletic bodies, Lucha Regulators have a vested interest in making sure that the wagers made in Luchas de Apuestas are enforced. If you lose your mask in a match, it is gone. The legacy is gone. You can wrestle without it, but you do not put it back on, or you do not get legally sanctioned to perform, and no promoter (in theory) would touch you.

So when Nash and Bischoff forced Mysterio Jr. to wager his mask in WCW, even though it was not wagered for something remotely equivalent (the opposing wager was the hair of WCW character ), it was an enforceable Lucha de Apuestas, at least where Mexico was concerned. For the record, when I say Nash and Bischoff forced him, they DID force him.

“”- Rey Mysterio

Despite the fact that he was popular, as a non-Heavyweight, it was made clear to Mysterio Jr. that if he did not go along with the match, there would be terrible consequences. We can infer that he would have probably been fired on the spot. So, as the team player that he was, he did it.

Downfall

Rey Mysterio Jr. would never see traction again in WCW. Without the mask, even though they tried to rebrand him as a “Giant Killer”, he just…. had clearly lost his spark. Fans lost their support. He would remain a “supporting character” until WCW went bankrupt in 2001.

Another Note on Names

Remember earlier when I clarified the whole thing between Rey Misterio Sr. and Rey Mysterio Jr.? Remember that bit where I said calling Mysterio Jr.  “Mysterio” with a Y was perhaps not chronologically correct at the time? And have you noticed that despite calling him “Mysterio Jr.” the whole time, that quote from the last section was just attributed to “Rey Mysterio”, without a Jr.?

I promise you this is all very, VERY important.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

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World of Warcraft's Race for World First is a hot mess of an event. It's got its fair share of , , , you name it. Even when everything is running smoothly, however, it's still prone to and .

In August of 2025, however, we had what was, in my opinion, the single best Race in the event's history. There was a shockingly blatant cheating scandal at the start, but what followed was of the most tense and tight race there has ever been. Sit down and grab a drink as I take you through Manaforge Omega, the closest Race in WoW's history.

Background

Released in 2004, the MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW) is one of the most successful videogames of all time. Players create characters to do battle in the fictional world of Azeroth, a kitchen-sink fantasy setting where players fight dragons, gods, lovecraftian horrors, and each other. The game is heavily multiplayer focused, with pretty much all of the most difficult content in the game requiring a coordinated group of players to participate in. One of the most popular activities in World of Warcraft is raiding.

A raid, in simplest terms, is a mega-dungeon consisting of a series of bosses that are designed to be tackled by groups of ~20 players. There’s a variety of difficulties of raid, the highest of which is called Mythic - Mythic raids are nightmarishly hard, and are only even attempted by hardcore players, who generally put hundreds of hours over many months just to clear a single Mythic raid. Raiders typically organize into Guilds, groups of players who work together over months to complete the raid.

The Race for World First (RWF) has been an unofficial event in World of Warcraft since 2018 (actually since the game’s launch, but 2018 is when Guilds started streaming). Whenever a new raid is released, members of the top raiding guilds will take time off work to play World of Warcraft 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week, to rush through the new raid to try and be the very first guild to complete it on Mythic difficulty. Each race generally lasts 1-2 weeks.

A number of Guilds compete in the RWF, but the top two teams for years have been Echo and Liquid. All you really need to know about these guilds is that Echo is based in Europe and led by Scripe, while Liquid is based in the US and led by Max. As a result, the fanbase that follows the race is divided large across geographic lines, with European fans cheering for Echo while US fans cheer for Liquid.

The latest RWF took place in August of 2025, in the final raid of The War Within expansion: Manaforge Omega. While the Race itself was legitimately incredible, it kicked off with one of the funniest and most blatant bits of cheating I've ever seen in the event.

Day 1 Ban

"Hopeful" is the handle of an elite mage player. Hopeful started his RWF career on Instant Dollars, the second-best North American team, then was recruited by Echo, who he played for during Liberation of Undermine in March of 2025.

After Liberation of Undermine, he jumped ship and joined Team Liquid. This is all pretty normal stuff - the RWF community is small and players leave or get poached all the time. Hopeful being NA-based probably makes Team Liquid more appealing to him anyway, if for no other reason than they raid on NA times so he doesn’t have to basically become nocturnal like he did playing for Echo.

Fast forward to August 12th, the first day the new raid, Manaforge Omega, becomes available. Everyone logs in, ready to start the nightmare that is Split Raiding in order to gear their characters up, and Hopeful, a few seconds after logging in, suddenly gets logged back out. A message pops up. “This World of Warcraft account has been temporarily suspended. The suspension expires in 183 days.” It's the opening day of the race, one of Liquid’s players just has been banned for 6 months.

What the Hell Happened?

World of Warcraft has a lot of rules, but most of them are, frankly, pretty lax, with first offenses rarely being met with more than a warning. If you call someone a racial slur, you usually just lose access to in-game chat for a few days. If you have an offensive character name, they just make you change it. Exploiting usually just results in losing the benefits from the exploit, maybe getting suspended for a week if it’s really egregious. Even things that probably should be against the rules, like split raiding or character boosting, are actually allowed (mostly because Blizzard can’t figure out an enforceable way to ban them). However, every serious player knows that there are a few things that will get you banned with extreme prejudice if you’re caught. These include:

• Real Money Transactions - accepting payment in real, legal tender for things in game

• Botting - having a program play the game for you

• Account Sharing - having multiple humans play on a single account. One person can have multiple accounts, but one account can’t have multiple people.

• Hacking - altering the game’s code or accessing administrator tools

So, what crime did Hopeful commit? .

TL;DW: During the previous race, after Echo (his team at the time) had finished, one of Hopeful’s friends on Instant Dollars (his old guild) had their computer crap out on them. They lived nearby, so Hopeful offered to let them come over and play on his computer. However, they kept complaining about the unfamiliar setup and repeatedly asked Hopeful if he would just play the character for them, which he eventually did. As such, Hopeful was piloting this other player’s character when they killed the last boss of that raid, coming in 5th overall in the Race.

This is extremely blatant account sharing. Hopeful’s account was banned for 6 months, and Instant Dollar’s lost their 5th-place finish, getting knocked way down the leaderboard as the kill against the final boss was considered invalid thanks to the account sharing. Max, the raid leader for Liquid, put it pretty succinctly when talking about the ban after finding out. . If you’ve ever watched Max, he’s generally a very chill and friendly person, and is always looking out for his raiders - for him to blast someone on his team so directly, you know it’s pretty bad. (That said, Max clearly has a sense of humor about it - if you watch the video, his tone is more of someone making fun of a buddy than it is sincerely trying to insult an employee).

Was It Sabotage?

The timing of the ban is pretty notable, coming in on the first day of the race. The account sharing had occurred five months earlier, so why did the punishment take so long to land? Blizzard claimed they had just recently learned about it and so issued the punishment as soon as was appropriate. If this is true, then how did they just now find out about it?

If you’re conspiratorially minded, there’s an obvious answer: Echo told them. Hopeful was in Echo at the time, they apparently were aware that he’d done it. If Echo wanted to hurt their chief competitor, waiting to report account sharing for one of Liquid’s players until right before the next race would be a decent way to do it.

From the same clip linked earlier, Max at least is pretty dismissive of that idea, saying he doubts Echo would do something that petty, but that didn’t stop the fandom from running wild with the theory. How else do you explain the timing of the ban? Well, there actually is another explanation: Blizzard is lying.

Say you’re Blizzard and you find out that someone cheated during the RWF and account shared. How do you punish them? Sure you can ban them, but these players are degenerates, they’ll just make a new account and be race-ready in no time. If you really want it to hurt, rather than banning when it happened, you sit on the information and then issue the ban right when the race starts, to create meaningful consequences. Blizzard said they’d just learned about it, but it’s possible they really did time the ban to do real damage to Hopeful’s performance. That said, the timing could have been worse - if they’d waited a few days and banned Hopeful after he’d already been geared up, that would have potentially devastated both his performance and Liquid as a whole.

Liquid fans point out that this version is also unfair to Liquid, since Hopeful was playing for Echo (and Instant Dollars) at the time he account shared while the punishment mostly hurts Liquid, though, reminder, Blizzard doesn't officially endorse the Race for World First beyond a couple Twitter posts each time it comes around, so they can kind of shrug that off as irrelevant.

Funny thing is, even with the timing of the ban, it wound up not being that big a deal. After Liquid confirmed with Blizzard that it was okay, Hopeful made a new account and, within 24 hours, had 4 new characters max level and geared, ready to start raiding. Just to really drive this home, he went from “brand new account” to “the best gear you can possibly have” across four characters in a single day. Even with an enormous amount of help from his guild, paying real money for all the in-game boosts Blizzard sells and being carried by other characters to get gear and max level, that is an insane accomplishment.

Also, quick sidenote for anyone curious about ban evasion: Blizzard doesn’t generally ban people, mostly because, unless you’re an influencer like Hopeful, it’s basically impossible for Blizzard to connect a World of Warcraft account to a specific human being. If they were to ban Hopeful specifically, that would basically be them making a special exception to their normal policy, which would be pretty shitty, so it’s consistent with their rules that he be allowed to make a new account.

At the end of the day, the actual impact on the ban on the race was relatively minor. Liquid had a slightly tougher time doing split raiding since Hopeful wasn't available to help at first, and Hopeful was a bit less geared than he otherwise would have been, but it’s hard to say it really hurt them all too bad.

The Fractillus Debacle

Fast forward a few days - the initial round of split raiding is done (if you're curious about split raiding, you can read more about it in my ) and the top Guilds step into Mythic. Liquid gets a head start thanks to differences in regional patch times, and so as usual takes an early lead and blasts through the first few bosses. They run into difficulty on boss #4, however, who's tuned extremely tightly and requires several days to progress and kill.

Boss #5 isn't easy either but goes down fairly quick. It's boss #6, Fractillus, where the race really gets interesting. Fractillus is, on the surface, a fairly simple boss with one complicated mechanic. I've put an in-depth explanation for the nerds in the audience in the quote box below, you can skip it if you don't care about the specifics of the mechanic (although you might have an easier time understanding a as it's kind of hard to visualize from text alone).

The boss arena is divided into six "lanes". Over the course of the fight, the boss will target several players and then send a crystalline wall down whichever lane they are standing in. The walls remain after being sent, and will stack up. If any lane gets 6 total walls, the boss enrages and kills the raid. To prevent this, the boss will sometimes target players with a knockback that sends them crashing into the walls in whichever lane they're standing in, breaking them. There are different types of walls that have different (harmful) effects when broken, with the nastiest being the dreaded "Mythic wall", which does a lot of damage and applies a stacking debuff causing all future mythic wall breaks to deal even more damage. The walls come out faster than the knockbacks to remove them so the room will inevitably fill up, eventually causing a wipe even if you position the walls and knockbacks perfectly.

This entire "wall" mechanic is, fundamentally, a puzzle. How do you get the most possible time on the boss while minimizing the number of Mythic walls you have to break? The boss does the same pattern every time so you can come up with a single solution, determining exactly where each wall and knockback should be placed to optimize performance, that you then repeat on every attempt. You can even program in-game reminders to tell players exactly where to stand and when, removing all mental load during the fight itself. This means that, while the fight is conceptually complicated, execution is actually very straightforward...as long as the solution you come up with for the walls is a good one (that's foreshadowing).

TL;DR There's a puzzle that needs to be solved as part of the Fractillus fight.

Liquid gets to Fractillus first and hits a metaphorical wall (as well as several literal ones, repeatedly). The boss has a lot of health and they basically need everyone to survive the whole fight in order to deal enough damage before the boss's timer runs out, but he is dealing so much damage that they just can't keep people alive. Liquid even consider swapping out a damage dealer for a healer to help survive the wall breaks, but then they have even less damage.

A day later, Echo arrives on Fractillus...and kills it. Quickly. They catapult into the lead, taking a full day less to progress Fractillus than it took Liquid. How on Earth did they do that?

Liquid watch the stream VOD of Echo's attempt, they notice something: Echo's solution to the puzzle is different from theirs. Different, and much, much better. More in depth explanation:

Liquid's solution required them to break a total of 6 Mythic walls over the course of the fight, and remember that each wall broken makes all future breaks deal more damage. However, Echo found a different pattern of wall placement and breaks, one which gave them the exact same amount of total time on the fight but which only broke 5 walls instead of 6. As a result, they effectively skipped the single most punishing wave of incoming damage that kept killing Liquid.

This is a massive screwup on the part of Liquid. The puzzle wasn't simple by any stretch, but they are a huge organization with a ton of analysts and support staff who aren't even directly playing the game whose only job is to solve things like this, and somehow despite all of that they landed on a suboptimal solution that cost them nearly a day of progression. In interviews both during and after the race, Max (the Liquid raidleader) repeatedly laments this error - apparently the strategy Echo used was even one that someone at Liquid had also found but somehow the winning solution got lost in the strategic shuffle. Max repeatedly refers to the screwup as a "wakeup call" that they need to make changes to how they handle behind-the-scenes strategizing and analysis to make sure they never miss something that obvious again.

Photo Finish

Liquid manages to retake the lead on the 7th and penultimate boss of the raid, Nexus King. Not much to talk about here - it's a great, tight fight and Echo kills it just a few hours after Liquid (owing largely to differing stream schedules), so the guilds are more or less tied going into Dimensius, the raid's final boss. Whoever kills Dimensius first wins.

Now one thing I want to make clear out of the gate: Dimensius is awesome. It's this enormous void lord that fills up the room in the first and third phase, but becomes the size of a city in the second phase and you have to fly around it dodging asteroids it flings at you. It's legitimately one of the coolest and most fun raid bosses I've ever encountered, an all-time great.

It's also very watchable. As a spectator in the race, some bosses are easier to follow than others, and Dimensius is very easy for even casual fans to watch and understand what's going on. This makes the progression one of the most fun viewing experiences I've ever had in years of watching the Race.

Not only that, but Dimensius is tuned extremely well, which is to say it's about as hard as it could possibly be without being literally impossible. As the guilds are progressing the first phase, plenty of viewers think the first phase can't be beaten...until it is. Then on the second phase folks think surely, surely this simply can't be done...and then the guilds do it. Liquid and Echo are neck and neck, pushing the boss lower and lower as the hours and days tick by.

Finally, after days of progression and hundreds of attempts, they're on the third and final phase, pumping damage into the boss as the room gradually shrinks around them, black holes spinning and threatening instant death for any character who misteps by a single pixel. Liquid get the boss to 50% health in the final phase. Echo to 20%. Liquid to 10%. Echo to 7%. The two guilds raid at different times so they keep passing the lead back and forth as one will go to sleep, giving the other time to pull ahead.

It's August 24th (25th in Europe) and both Guilds are below 10%. Neither has had a clean pull without avoidable deaths, which means the boss is almost certainly going to die as soon as someone does. Echo are at the end of the raid day, they've been playing for 14 hours and are exhausted. If they go to sleep, however, there is a very real likelihood that Liquid will kill the boss before they wake so.

They decide to do the unthinkable - they extend their raid night. They push on past their exhaustion because they know this is their only chance of winning, an incredibly risky move because the more tired you are the worse you play, and they need to play perfectly in order to have a chance at killing the boss. Still, they have to try.

Liquid starts to flag, having a number of early wipes to stupid mistakes. Echo, somehow, manages to tighten up their play at the same time, wiping at 2%.

Liquid rally, getting back into P3 and have their best pull yet, 6%. Any pull from either Guild could be the last one at this point.

Then, Echo have the best pull of the Race. They are playing flawlessly, no one is dying to avoidable damage, they're pushing the boss lower and lower...and lower....and wipe. When the dust settles,the boss is sitting on 0.3% health. That's....nothing. That's tiny. It's basically dead. That's one or two players staying alive for just a few more seconds.

Echo isn't done. Two pulls later, another pull that just barely doesn't finish the boss, this time 0.5%. They are on the brink of passing out but somehow they are consistently pushing the boss to the very edge of defeat.

Liquid have long ago stopped keeping track of what Echo is doing, they don't know about these pulls because they can't afford any distraction from their own gameplay. They have several more good pulls below 10%.

There's no more discussion. No joking around or friendly ribbing. Both teams are exhausted, having done nothing for the past two weeks but play World of Warcraft. I'm sitting at my desk with Liquid and Echo's streams open, one on each monitor, looking back and forth between the two as they make attempt after attempt after attempt. Whenever a Guild reaches the last phase in this 10+ minute long fight, my heart starts pounding.

And then, finally, it's over.

(headphone users, beware)

There has never been a Race anywhere near as close as Manaforge Omega. The finish was incredible, the stuff of legends, I can't properly convey how nervous I was watching the two streams on that final day. For Echo to come so close, twice, only for Liquid to pull a rabbit out of their hat and leap from 6% to killing the boss at the last moment...it was incredible. just adds to the feeling - he legitimately feels bad for Echo for coming so incredibly close. The whole thing happened six months ago and I'm getting goosebumps just remembering it.

As soon as Echo learned that Liquid had won, they logged off and went to sleep, and would quickly kill the boss the following day, earning them second place.

Closing Thoughts

The Race for World First is goofy. It's a crazy nonsensical mess that is mostly boring punctuated by moments of drama or hilarity, and it's hard to know in advance when the interesting parts are coming. Nonetheless, it's one of my favorite esports, there's just something so engaging about these huge teams working together to achieve something so beautifully pointless and yet meaningful.

Manaforge Omega was the pinnacle of that, it was is everything I could possibly ask for in a Race for World First - rule breaking, bans, strategic blunders, and a fantastically close finish. Both leading up to and following the race, there was a huge amount of attention paid to the fact that Liquid "swept" the War Within expansion (winning all three Races across its duration), but to me, Manaforge Omega proved that Liquid's domination is not a certainty, they won by the absolute thinnest of margins.

The next Race starts in a few weeks, the first of the latest expansion, Midnight. It's going to be a bit of a weird one - the raid is broken up into three smaller raids, and no one is quite sure how that will impact the format of the Race, but it should be interesting. This writeup took me six months to get around to finishing so I can't say if or when I'll get to a writeup for the next one (assuming it's writeup-worthy, which it probably will be), but I'm glad I could get this out before the next one started.

Thanks for reading.

Doctor Shubalove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Duck: The Oozora Subaru Story 

This is a pretty light, controversy-free story about how a VTuber from one of the biggest VTubing agencies out there surrendered to the will of the internet and embraced her characterization as a duck.

What Is A VTuber?
I’m sure most folks know by now, but a VTuber is someone who streams content using a virtual avatar instead of their face.  Their content is as varied as any other streamer- music, video games, chats, what have you.

What is Hololive?
Hololive is the name for the organization that manages a large group of VTubers based primarily in Japan, but also with talent-an industry term for VTubers- in other countries.  Hololive has a branch for Indonesia as well as an English branch that draws upon English-speaking talent from around the world.  They’re a part of a company called Cover, and the genesis of Hololive is actually fairly interesting- Cover was a tech company that developed the VTubing software Hololive uses, and their foray into the entertainment business was almost accidental, but that’s a story for another time.  Cover now employs dozens of VTubers, many of whom have millions of subscribers, and their presence in the VTuber industry can’t be overstated.

What is a Duck?
“Duck” is the common name for waterfowl in the family Anatidae.  Ducks are generally smaller than swans or geese…OK, I’ll stop.

Who is Subaru?
Oozora Subaru (herein just Subaru, her given name), is the virtual character utilized by…well, I don’t know who.  And that’s OK!  While many fans have figured out the identities of many members of Hololive, it’s generally considered extremely crass to bring it up directly, since many VTubers use their digital avatars as a way to preserve their privacy and insulate themselves from various issues that come from being a public figure on the internet.  

In most cases, a VTuber’s “past life” so to speak is sussed out because they were previously involved in some sort of public-facing entertainment.  That’s not the case with Subaru.  She had very little knowledge of internet culture and streaming.  She wasn’t much of an otaku.  In fact, she auditioned because she needed a job.  .  Despite her lack of experience, Cover liked what they saw of her and Subaru started streaming on September 16, 2018.  

Subaru has gone on to have a very successful career with Hololive.  She has more than 1.5 million youtube subscribers, and is one of the company’s most frequent participants in collaboration events and special streams.  It’s very common to see her acting in “Holo no Graffiti”, a collection of 3D animated shorts featuring Hololive actors and written by writers that I assume are doing copious amounts of drugs.  In my opinion, Subaru is one of the best “straight men” of all time.  Not even among Hololive or vtubers, she’s up there with Bud Abbot in terms of her comedic timing and ability to react to the insanity of the wide variety of “Costellos” she works with.  

Subaru once did an exchange program in Canada- and in a continuation of her rather atrocious luck, the family she stayed with was messy- as in, “making out in front of a guest” kind of messy-( ) .  But it means that Subaru speaks a decent amount of English when she interacts with Hololive English members- see this clip for a fun example- ( ).  When she does “Free Chat” streams, ones that are just talking rather than any type of gaming or singing, she’ll include short summaries of what she’s talking about in English.  

Despite having almost no background or interest in entertainment, Subaru has proven herself to be an exceptionally talented & beloved performer and one of the most popular members of Hololive.

But Why Is She a Duck?
VTubers, especially Hololive VTubers, are very frequently themed around an animal or mystical creature.  Gawr Gura, for example, probably the most-subscribed VTuber on Youtube, was shark-themed, and the pair of Inugami Korone and Nekomata Okayu are a dog-girl and cat-girl respectively.  Subaru, however, was not originally associated with any animal.  Here’s what it says on her on Hololive’s website: “"'Sup! I'm Oozora Subaru from hololive 2nd Generation!"

The manager of an MMA team and an e-sports club. A bright and cheerful girl full of spirit, she can interact with anyone and everyone without hesitation. She's currently working hard on her own pro-gamer skills.

Another day of giving everything I've got as a manager!!!!!!!!!!!” 

That would all change, however, on December 30, 2018….

Subaru is normally a very high-energy kind of person.  If you take a listen to these two clips, you can hear what kind of a voice she normally uses when streaming:

This is not a style traditionally associated with ASMR.

On December 30, 2018, Subaru had an ASMR stream.  ASMR is something that has been streamed by many different Hololive talents, and a few of them are ASMR specialists.  Since this was Subaru’s first ASMR stream, she reached out to one of them, Yuzuki Choco, who gave her some advice about the basics.  

So she sat down to do her stream and produced a…rather unique experience.  Look, just watch the clip above.  It uses audio directly pulled from the stream in question.  Subaru’s chat immediately described her voice as akin to that of Donald Duck.  And that was it.  From then on, Subaru would be a duck, whether she liked it or not.

Subaru ended up embracing the meme fairly quickly.  A month later, on January 31, 2019, she joined her colleague Roboco-san in a 3D stream using an avatar that would very quickly become her mascot- an all-white duck wearing her red-and-white striped baseball cap.

The onomatopoeia in Japanese for duck noises, "Shuba shuba shuba", quickly became associated with Subaru () Edit: has pointed out that "shuba shuba shuba" is just a thing Subaru said, rather than onomatopoeia. I stand corrected!

By April 2019, she would make an appearance as “Subaru Duck” in a now-defunct Hololive website.  

One of the most well-known associations of Subaru and ducks is a short looped animation of Subaru and her duck mascot dancing to “Hey Ya” by Outkast-( ) is one of the most viewed videos of the animation, but I don’t know if it’s the original or not.  

On August 20th, 2023, Subaru would officially debut as part of “Holotori” (“tori”, or 鳥, translates to “bird”), a collective of bird-themed Hololive members.  The song they put out extensively incorporates choreography from the above “Hey Ya” animation ( )

Subaru has more or less come to terms with the fact that she was ADBC- Assigned Duck By Chat.  Many of her outfits incorporate ducks or duck themes, she has the option of streaming with a duck on her head ( ), and her mascot is one of several mascot costumes worn at HoloFes, the company’s annual fan convention. ()

Despite this, Subaru maintains that, while she is indeed associated with ducks, she is still, in fact, not Duck. ()

I write because I feel a compulsion. Sometimes it is because a subject is fun and I want to share it. Other times it is because my imagination runs over and I have to get it out.

Fittingly, I write today to pay my respects to the man who may be responsible for my imagination going wild.

This is about a very specific era of French-Belgian comics. It's about a magazine, who would see artists shape their legends through it. It's about one person who, among legends in the field, achieved mythical status. It's about another well-known person, if perhaps less so, who shaped my sense of humor more than anyone else.

It's about a lot of things. But mostly, it's about funny drawings.

Franco-Belgian comics, also called Bandes dessinées in French and shortened BD, are a pretty big sub-group of the ‘comic’ genre in general. third biggest behind American comic and Japanese Manga.

Up until the Second World War, comics in western Europe were, with few , essentially imported from America. It's only after the war that a specific identity evolved, thanks in large part to four magazines.

• , born in 1938. At first, local creations would share their place with American heroics, and the war would cause plenty of problems of its own. Between captured and wounded authors, paper shortage and censoring due to , it had a convoluted start. It's in 1946, period of rebirth after a prohibition, that Spirou found its place. While it continued publishing American series, it also saw the beginnings of some authors and stories that would mark BD for decades to come. himself from the very first issues of the magazine, but also by in 1947, and the in 1958 by .

• , also born in 1946, named after one of the earliest Franco-Belgian comic success and one of the few being pre-war, themselves, created in 1929 by . In these pages, by started in 1957, and began in 1977 by .

These two magazines are Belgian, to complete the quartet, two more must be mentioned, hailing from France.

• Vaillant, created in 1945, an interesting mix of comics and communist youth movement with hints of catholic youth movement. Renamed in 1969, it went full-on with Franco-Belgian comics and earn most of its success in the seventies.

• And finally, in 1959.

Pilote, being a latecomer had obviously no influence on the art and medium in the early years, but the three other publications came at the right time. People were eager for distractions in the post-war period, there was a gap in national comics waiting to be filled, and printed press was about to experience its glory days. BDs would be pre-published in these magazines to see how well the audience reacted before being turned into full albums (how comic books are called in French), not unlike how it’s done with manga in Japan.

To top it off, the competition between publications would encourage them to stay on their toes and keep on improving.

It's in this bubbling cauldron of creativity that the identity of the Franco-Belgian comic was born.

Which begs the question, just what is Franco-Belgian comic exactly?

As it turns out, it has a lot to do with geography and economics.

As Arnaud Pirotte wrote in (translated):

“Different publishing houses from Wallonia (Southern Belgium) or Brussels would impose rules for their published authors from the fifties onward. Namely, a French standard for commercial reasons (…) uniforms and signalization shields adopt hexagonal criteria…” For example, all references to Belgium disappear from the colored re-publications of Tintin.

The Hexagon here refers to the shape of and is often used as a substitute.

But back to the main point, Franco-Belgian comics were shaped to appeal to the geographical zones of France, francophone Belgium, and francophone Switzerland, as the three shared a similar creative and commercial context. As the quote above shows, economic behavior would quickly erase regionalism to have an easier time marketing it. Thus, while individual artists will have their own style, good luck guessing which country they are from based on their works alone. Some remained, but things like local slang was off the table.

French and Swiss artists would work for Belgian publishers who would in turn publish in France and Switzerland, vice-versa and round and round it goes, you get the idea. Hergé, the father of Tintin was Belgian, the two fathers of are French, and have Swiss parents.

While it's mostly Western Europe, BD has exported itself to other countries over time, most notably Spain and South America, where artists would in turn adopt and adapt the style and codes for their own creation. One of the most well-known example from abroad stems from Argentina in the form of by , about a little girl way too smart for her parents or the world around her, which I heavily recommend.

Is the difference between comics, mangas and BD purely commercial? Well, obviously not. Just like manga and American comics can both have super-hero stories, it's the way they are told and drawn that is vastly different.

The easiest distinction is perhaps in the format. The gold-standard in BD is the 46 page, hard-cover album, artfully demonstrated by . These albums of Tintin and Asterix have the number of pages and the dimensions of about 99% of BD production for I don't know how many decades and remains the standard to this day.

It does make for a very neat and for collectors.

And what about art?

Compare of a Superman comic with of Blacksad, one of the very best thing that ever came of Spain which I also recommend.

Superman has full page pictures of the hero, doesn't mind showing characters of different scales without demarcations between them, has a free-form way of introducing panels. It has an impact, it's spectacular, and fittingly imposing for a being like Superman. Blacksad has a very clear demarcation between vignettes and they are of equal heights, facilitating the fluidity of for the reader immensely, thus ensuring story-telling remains as smooth as possible.

Keep in mind, these is just one example in a Sea of production. You'll find Franco-Belgian comics having more fun with their vignettes, just like some American comics will ensure story-telling remains smooth above all, but I found both panels to be a good visual example.

On the topic of superheroes... Superman, Spider-man, the X-men, and who knows how many more something-man or woman. Empowered people, flying everywhere and capable of feats of great strength. There's plenty of them in America, but in western Europe? I mean, Asterix is a hero and has some '', but he's hardly fitting the definition of superhero. is another hero devoid of anything super, and even those with a couple powers don't fit the definition of superhero. They are mostly non-existent in western Europe for the longest time, until someone finally decided to spoof them.

There's some more to be said on a meta-sense. Spider-man and Batman had many authors and artists. Over the decades, there have been an untold amount of runs under different names. In BD, a character is rarely separated from the creator. About the only time it happens is when there's lots of money to be made for one, and the author is six feet under or burned out. And even then, it's far from a given. Asterix is one of them, but collectors will prioritize the original works, and if there's an artist mentioned in a conversation it's almost always the original one. Creator and character are inseparable.

Some would say art style is more diverse in BD, at the same time, the 46 page format leads to a very traditional form of story-telling with limiting rules.

Please note that the differences I'm mentioning were more prevalent two or three decades back. Today, art comes from everywhere, is quickly translated and in turn influences artists, lessening local peculiarities.

Another important point is in how the media was viewed, which in turn likely shaped how artist would work on it. America had a comics code, whereas BD didn’t. While BD was originally targeted at children, it could transition to more adult content during the sixties without much issue.

In the same vein, even when BD was targeting children, there was little to no social stigma about reading and collecting them, which I read American comics could suffer from - American readers can correct me on this. Here, BD has long been called the ninth art, and from personal memory I'm pretty certain I have never once stepped foot in a friend's house without there being a shelf or a library part full of BDs on prominent display that both children and adults read. At the start of the seventies, politicians and known figures had no qualms admitting they had Asterix on their nightstand.

So much for context. Comics, whether European, American, or Japanese, tell stories, so does this write-up, and for that we need protagonists.

Our first protagonist is , born 1926 in France to a Polish Jewish family. When he was two, his part of the family moved to Argentina, which avoided them a lot of war related troubles, unlike the part that stayed behind. His father died of a stroke before René reached 20, forcing him to find a job. After a short stint as an accountant, he becomes an illustrator at an advertising company, natural follow-up for a kid who spent a lot of time drawing.

He goes back to France to serve his military service post-war, and returns to New York right afterwards to, as he says, “work with Walt Disney, but Walt Disney didn’t know about it.”

Nobody does in fact. He goes around publishers and editors with his many drawings but remains be jobless for over a year and a half, depending on his mother to survive. In 1948, he finds work for another advertising agency, where he meets a certain , who some of you may know as the madlad who founded , a legendary American mainstay. With Kurtzman, René manages to get a small number of kid books published. But the real treasure, as always, is the friends he made along the way. Namely, with the money made he takes a trip to France where he learns of a Belgian dude living in the Connecticut. Jijé, who introduces him to Morris, creator of Lucky Luke. And that’s perhaps where Goscinny’s career truly began.

Because Jijé isn't just a good friend introducing his protégé to important figures in the field, he is also a mentor, teaching Goscinny many drawing tricks, and more importantly, recognizing that Goscinny’s true talent doesn't so much lie in drawing as it does in his humor, timing for jokes, and talent with words.

He pens a couple more books before the firm he works at opens an antenna in Paris for him to handle, bringing him back to France in 1951. There, he meets Albert Uderzo. Of all the fortuitous meetings one could have that defines an art, this might be the Alpha and Omega of Franco-Belgian comic.

Because after some time nurturing their friendship with a couple projects, they did two things in 1959. One helped further define western European comics for the next years, it is the creation of Pilote magazine. The other thing is the equivalent in BD to what Michael Jackson’s Thriller is for the world of music. Through the first issue of Pilote, readers meet two characters for the first time, in a story created by Goscinny and drawn by Uderzo: .

The success is immediate, if not exactly a flood either. It takes a couple albums, up until 1965, when is sold at over 100.000 copies. From there, it soars, each album breaks the previous record, sells 1,2 million copies only two years later, and the next albums will beat that record again.

Asterix combines the of Uderzo and Goscinny's of humor. Mixing invented stories and historical accurate moments or landmarks, with the occasional caricature of a politician, friend, or known figure, both children and adults can find their fun.

Asterix is also an invitation to travel, with many albums having our protagonists visit other countries, gently poking fun at their habits without ever antagonizing them. The latter point isn't innocuous, was enjoyed by Corsicans, the folks inhabiting the on the South of France. While the movie out in 2004 was pulled from widescreens in Corsica for depicting them as either craven or gun-totting asses. Morality: don’t mock Corsicans. Someone did that once, Napoleon took offense, the rest is bloody history.

But back to Pilote. The situation is dire. The magazine loses money and struggles to find an artistic direction. Sometimes it publishes BD, sometimes it's interviews of singers and movie stars, sometimes it's pages about the culture in vogue during the sixties, a musical current that dropped text in favor of beat and rhythm inspired from English tunes.

But exclusivity on interviews is expensive and not sustainable, something needs to be done.

An emergency meeting with the publisher takes place in 1963, and Goscinny becomes editor-in-chief with a colleague named Charlier. They have full artistic control over the magazine, decide which artist works or doesn’t work for them. And the first action is groundbreaking.

Goscinny and Charlier make Bandes Dessinées go from a medium destined to children to a medium also destined to teenagers. This means wittier, smarter pages and gags, more creative freedom in subjects tackled. They also drop the social and cultural aspect, focusing purely on comics.

With no equivalent to the American Comic code, there is no reason not to follow the grown-up kids to where they have gone. Goscinny also nearly doubles the salary of artists working with him, allowing to poach any artist working for the competition.

And Goscinny can allow himself to do whatever he wants, because he brings Asterix to the table, who on his own pulls a massive captive audience. Investors and owners are fine with giving Goscinny free reigns if it means Asterix remains in the pages of Pilote.

And the success follows.

journalist, explains it as such (translated):

“Goscinny knew to detect, help and push personalities to the surface and have them accepted by the public. [...] Pilote didn’t follow trends; they were the avant-garde. Before, Bandes Déssinées was a codified genre, with stories of scouts, cow-boys, army men and automobile pilots. Goscinny and Pilote opened up the horizon with in 1963 or in 1965, these were radical novelty.”

Valerian and Laureline remains a witty and interesting comic even if a movie adaptation did its best to murder them.

Through these actions, Pilote begins to snowball into a juggernaut that will dominate the landscape for the decade to come.

Incidentally, it’s in that period Goscinny meets another artist, Marcel Gottlieb, our second protagonist.

(if that ain’t a name destined for greatness, nothing is) is born in 1934, in Paris. Like Goscinny, he soon begins to draw, his canvas often being the walls of the family home, which pisses off Regina, his mom. His dad Ervin sees an artist in the making. How supportive he would have been later in his career no one would ever know, for Ervin was arrested and deported by the Germans. Marcel’s mom succeeds in hiding her son and daughter by smuggling them to a secluded farm, where the owners gives board and room to Jewish kids in exchange for money. It saves Marcel and his little sister, but they would never see their father again, who dies in a concentration camp in 1945, six months before the end of the war.

After the storms of WWII have blown over, Regina meets her son and daughter again for the first time in years. Marcel often recounted the moment, vividly remembering what it looked like when Regina gave a huge hug after years of not seeing him.

He remembers it all the better because Regina hugs the wrong kid.

Marcel later credits this moment as essential in shaping his own sense of humor.

With the war over and a love for goofing off, he finds a job as a letterer, aka the person who fills the dialogue panels or writes onomatopoeia. This is a good training for his .

In 1962, he gets a post at Vaillant, and starts one of his early series, . Like Goscinny, he begins with a series aimed at kids, but his style quickly matures with more wordplays and jokes that fit a teenager audience better, for this he needs a new character. , an impassible dog who can feels anger, sadness and joy in the most subdued manner and keeps the same facial expression and deadpan delivery.

With some experience under the belt and eager for more, Marcel Gottlieb (pen-name Gotlib) asks to see the leadership of Pilote, and gets to meet Goscinny and show him a story. Interested, the latter feels Gotlib is still a little green around the ears, and proposes a deal: . With Goscinny at the scenario and Gotlib at the drawing board. Goscinny is particularly interested because Gotlib is showing a rather rare satirical style, not unlike what René enjoys when he reads MAD. As it turns out, both are fan of the American magazine.

Under his rule, Gotlib learns about his own strength and weaknesses, gets over his early disappointments, he describes how much he disliked his early work for Pilote, but with encouragement he goes on.

It's not hard to see a form of parental projection in there. For Gotlib, who suffers from bouts of depression and anxiety, drawing is also a form of therapy, and Goscinny symbolically takes the place of the father he never had. Gotlib is also a workaholic, drawing during his off-hours, drawing when on vacation, drawing all the damn time.

After a fruitful collaboration, Goscinny finds Gotlib ready for his first solo-project in 1968, the . There's another reason: the dwindling time Goscinny has since Asterix took off. Up until now, he was penning scenarios for , Lucky Luke, Dingodossier, and then some. It is too much to handle.

With the Rubrique, Gotlib comes into his art. He leaves the Will Elder-adjacent style he had with and gets closer to . His characters become much more detailed and sometimes absurd in and speech, just like his story-telling becomes heavier in word and weirdness. Here is , the first and only true French Superhero, stopping a suicide attempt by a French noodle producer. Our totally-not-biased superhero then goes on to save the French noodle by (in total impartiality) in his secret lab, and then writes an article so groundbreaking it . Gotlib's stories generally have a calm beginning only to go into .

Satire and spoofs are also a favorite tool of his, from that make the joy of children and the , to his own life, to classic tales. He often takes an old story and wrenched it dry for everything it has, up to and including lambasting the brothers Grim for being on the cusp of inventing the running gag decades in advance and a money-cow with Little Thumb, they merely had to milk the 'kids find their way back after being lost by their parents over and over again' for what it was worth.

He likes to call it an icy and sophisticated humor.

At the same time, he doesn't fear requiring some brainpower from his readers. His stories are so full of puns left and right, often mixing written and drawn joke, you will be forgiven for missing some. On a personal note, I rediscovered the Rubrique-à-Brac as an adult after having the books on the nightstand as a kid. I realized I missed half the jokes because many, many of them made more sense to an adult. Then I reread them again years later, and realized even adult me missed quite a few.

His style is easily recognizable., for he hates colorizing unless someone does it for him. Almost or surroundings, unless he is discussing the very idea of surroundings, to keep the attention on the main action and speech. However, to avoid a large emptiness of white, he creates , often doing it’s own thing on the side. That ladybug becomes his , alongside Isaac Newton getting the laws of gravity proved several times over through liberal application of .

Previously, I said how the 46 pages format and the clear delimitation between vignettes could be seen as limiting. Gotlib enjoyed pushing limits, I have no picture on hand, but stories with characters breaking borders to travel between vignettes isn't rare. Incidentally, that rule-breaking ended up being both on point for the sixties, and a source of conflict.

Sales of Pilote are up and will be for years. Gotlib fights with bouts of depression but, rather rare for his time, goes to therapy for it. He also sees the birth of his first child, in 1969, which leads him to more contemplative stories, like a two-pager about a boy and a goat on a remote farm, only to point out at the end this is his memory of a birthday during the war and he hopes his daughter will have better memories.

Goscinny gains the approval and love of many a student under his wing, creating a crew of phenomenal artists helping one another reach new heights. Goscinny also fightst for the status of the writer, he gets the name of the album's writer written next to the artist, which wasn’t a given back then, and also gets their names on contracts, granting them royalties.

New blood, new talents, new series. Lots happening, lots changing, these are the glory days.

Except…

Trouble brews.

While Charlier and Goscinny’s vision brings Pilote center stage, their absolute control over the magazine’s direction rifles a lot of feathers. Gébé and Reiser, two authors who worked for the defunct magazine, join the team, but Goscinny finds their style too weird for his readers and sticks them to writing scenarios instead of drawing. Barrier-busting works out as long as it is a barrier Goscinny and Charlier are fine busting. Avant-garde is their vision of avant-garde, otherwise it's a definitive no. And while it was accepted among early artists and newcomers who were proud to be part of the Pilote team and learned a lot, once they found their footing and began to have albums of their own, the all-powerful words of the two bosses start to feel less and less justified. The mentor-pupil relationship becomes strained, the man who once helped BD explore new horizons is now stifling creativity.

And then, rolls around, kickstarted by students but joined by just about everyone else with a grudge. It is a period of general protest in France, massive strike, and questioning. Old institutions are no longer accepted, buildings are occupied, the economy is paralyzed. It's a whole subject of its own, but suffice to say, it is a massive backlash against authority, patriarchal systems, consumerism, capitalism, and whatnot.

It is a bad time to look like someone who handles a firm with an iron fist.

In June of the same year, Goscinny is summoned to a Parisian pub.

There’s one chair on his side of the table, he sits alone. On the other side, about twenty people, some of them part of Pilote. Others, members of the autonomous syndicate for newspaper artists. It’s a tribunal of the people, the negative sort. Goscinny is shot down as a ‘suppôt du patronat’, a henchman and servant of the higher powers of capitalism, a vestige of old times and a drain on artistic creation. People he thought to be friends, despite disagreements, turn into the most vocal and caustic critic. They can't stand how he's limiting them to what he believes BD should stand for or not, and how he leads the magazine in an all-powerful fashion.

For all intends and purpose, it is a putsch, or an attempt to, by shaming Goscinny into letting go of his post.

While it fails, Goscinny is wounded by the attack and it weighs heavily on his mind, in no small part due to some of the critics being artists and pals he himself helped launch. The illusion of peace and prosperity is broken. Well, the illusion of peace for sure, prosperity is still there and very tangible.

Despite a work atmosphere that has taken a dive, Goscinny and Charlier remain at the helm and do try to modify the journal to fit a changing society.

Translated from Patrick Gaumer once more:

“After Mai 68, Goscinny stopped publishing most long-running series, too marked by the past, and turned to a newer generation.”

Notably, the news take space within the pages once again, with current happenings illustrated by old guard or talented newcomers. Stranger people come in with weirder ideas like Mandryka and his . Asterix himself lives with the times and prepares to compete at the just as the Winter Olympics in Grenoble are about to start.

is made by Hal, the computer from 2001 Space Odyssey. , a rare woman in a world dominated by bespectacled smoking men, comes in with a feminist strip named . A master among master named Jean Giraud alias comes along too.

Sales are going up despite turbulence, is often considered a way for Goscinny and Uderzo to settle debts with the artists who opposed them in the Mai 68 period.

But it is in the year 1972 that the old world of Pilote definitely implodes.

See, despite difficulties and conflict, Pilote has managed in over a decade to build a team of artists who, through thick and thin, consider themselves a bunch of friends.

Alas, the widening scope and novelty in Pilote feels insufficient to some. It starts with Mandryka having a story of the masked cucumber refused by Goscinny. He proposes to Gotlib and Brétécher to publish it elsewhere, the idea ends up becoming a magazine, , and the success of what was supposed to be a joke encourages others to look beyond Pilote and be more receptive to seeking fortunes elsewhere.

Goscinny sees L'écho as a betrayal, and the group is splintered for good.

It isn't the only departure. Reiser, an ancient employee of Hara-Kiri, is still pissed at having been ignored for so long because he disturbed Goscinny’s artistic sensibilities, and leaves with Cabu for a competing journal.

At the same time, some journalists see Pilote as stale and mostly there to milk cash. Goscinny is also personally attacked through critics of Asterix who argue the character is an ultra-nationalist, a racist with negative views of women and a bad representative of the average Frenchman.

Even if the critics today have mostly been accepted as largely overblown today, the damage was done, and L’écho des Savannes was the final blow.

Perhaps the most tragic part is that, despite obvious tensions, even the people who left bitter had no shortage of respect for Goscinny who had taught them so much.

This is Gotlib wrote to Goscinny when he showed him the first issue of L'Echo des Savannes (translated):

Here is your quarterly rag.

Hate me.

But I want to tell you that this is your fault. You always were a bad magazine director.

Had you been a good director, you would have pestered me for the first deviation of my little ladybug.

Had you been a good director, you would have done that gesture long ago (picture of man who isn't listening) and I would never have gotten where I am now.

Had you been a good director, you never would have told me “Do it Gotlib, do what you want to do,” and I wouldn’t have gotten where I am now.

Had you been a good director, you wouldn’t have accepted everything from me with closed eyes, even when you didn’t completely agree with me and I felt it. And I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today.

Had you been a good director, you would have avoided being too good for me, just as people sure of themselves tell you now.

And I wouldn’t have gotten where I am today.

I would still deliver my weekly ladybugs with the same punctuality. I wouldn't be causing any trouble, like every normal person.

But here it is, you were a bad director. You do not castrate people working for you and that is your weakness, believe my experience.

You pushed me to do vulgar things and I hate you.

----------------

You are the best magazine director there is and you have my infinite appreciation and friendship, even if I get my wrist slapped for the “Echo”, and I am infinitely bothered that you feel this is a betrayal and I can no longer satisfy you.

With all my affection.

Gotlib.

In the same vein, Mandryka, the very man who gave the push to create the Echo, would later say this (translated):

Everything that wasn't conform was accepted. the magazine (Pilote) reunited the best artists and they did what they wanted.

But respect on its own simply wasn't enough.