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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/maglag40k on 2024-01-30 01:44:26.

This place has seen several Fire Emblem Heroes stories told, so I decided to talk about one that doesn't seem to have been discussed yet.

What is Fire Emblem (Heroes)?

Fire Emblem Heroes (FEH) is a gacha game based on the titular Fire Emblem franchise from Nintendo. Gameplay is turn-based tactics where you control a team of Heroes from the Fire Emblem games (plus some OCs). Although Fire Emblem is usually a relatively niche franchise in the Nintendo consoles, the mobile version has proven quite popular and has been going for 7 years now. May or may not have a story besides an excuse to have your favorite hero in a swimsuit that may or may not count as heavy armor.

Tiers are Non-Negotiable

Now humans being humans, players quickly started discussing which units were stronger and more worth investing in FEH, in particular for PvP modes, and thus creating tier lists. One of the most popular ones became the gamepress version, offering a nice visual presentation, detailed analysis mixed with humor, useful stat details and build suggestions. Now although people agreed it wasn't perfect, it was generally accepted it gave a nice overview of which units were stronger and which were weaker, with tier 1 units in particular being all big threats that could easily sweep enemy teams on their own and were popular picks in PvP. You may also notice that the titular Laslow is sitting at said tier 1.

Powercreep Problem

Remember how FEH has been going for 7 years? Well a problem with that is in order to sell new units, each new batch of heroes is stronger than the last. Actually every year units just get more base stats. But not only that, they get better weapons and skills. There was already talk about Fallen Edelgard being drastically better than everything that came before, but let's just say powercreep has running more and more rampart. One unit will arrive to be the very best at their job only to be rendered completely obsolete in a matter of months.

Although plenty could be said about the powercreep issues in FEH, this post is primarly about the gamepress tier list. And thing is the tier list was simply becoming more and more "new unit beats all old units". Now technically FEH allows you to inherit the new uber skills of the latest units to old ones, but since the new units have better personal weapons (which cannot be inherited) plus just bigger raw stats, the new unit still ended up being strictly better. Thus old units inevitably just fell down the tiers, becoming less and less relevant over time. But there was an exception to the rule, a final hope for old units to compete with new ones and climb back to the upper tiers.

Refinement Revolution

Introduced in version 2.0, Refinement is a mechanic that allows you to upgrade weapons, and comes in two main versions. First for most "generic" weapons that can be inherited by any hero and just grants some extra stats. But then some old Heroes are picked every month so they can get a special custom upgrade to their personal weapons (plus a personal weapon if they didn't have one yet). Those custom upgrades can be significantly better than just a few extra stats, often with multiple abilities, and although they're very hit-or-miss in terms of efficiency, most being misses, sometimes when the stars aligned just right, an old hero got a really awesome weapon Refinement that could keep up with the current powercreep if they also inherited the latest top tier skills. The biggest example may be Brave Hector, who went from basically another spear armor to one of the top tier units in the game for quite a bit of time with a combination of a great Refine with the fancy new Save skills.

Thus every time it is announced that an old Hero is getting a new Refinement, there's quite a bit of hope and copium that it'll be the next Brave Hector that can climb back to Tier 1 (2 or 3 could also be satisfactory if you were always a bottom tier unit).

It's Laslow time!

Now Laslow had been one of those bottom tier units since the start of the game, just a 3*-4* with a generic weapon, when he finally got his Refine, where he got what's usually known in Fire Emblem as the "brave" effect, aka the unit makes double attacks, and both while initiating or countering (basic Brave weapons in FEH usually only doubled attacks when initiating) thus great for both offense and defense. And then gamepress jumped Laslow right into tier 1. But as you may notice from the comments, players were going WTF?

Main reason was that there were already quite a bit of other dual-phase brave weapon Heroes, often with better effects or some other sort of advantage (like Palla who was a flier and her weapon also had Canto 2 allowing her to fly out of most enemy's reach right away after attacking, amazing for hit-and-run, yet only tier 2). Newer heroes with better stats and other very nice perks, yet sharing the same tier or lower.

Gamepress main justification was that with enough support, including inheriting the latest rare super-skills like Godlike Reflexes and focusing on buffing his Speed (which was needed since Godlike Reflexes only works if you're faster than your opponent, and new speedy units are FAST), Laslow could keep up with the best Heroes. Thing is that yeah, if you throw enough support units, even bottom tier trash can perform well. But if you just used the newest hero, they would perform even better. And case in point FEH had just announced M!Shez as a new speedy sword Hero with a dual-phase Brave Weapon. M!Shez was virtually better at everything that Laslow could do. M!Shez just didn't make it into the tier list that time since he had just arrived to the game and gamepress usually takes some time for analysis before adding completely new heroes to their monthly tier list update. But there was simply no way that they could both be tier 1. Gamepress was accused of favoritism, in particular since one of their main members, Zeshado, was well known as a pretty big Laslow fan.

Gamepress under pressure

The controversy with Tier 1 Laslow was so big that Gamepress actually released a direct reply in just a few days, that seem to have been removed since then from their site, but here's a copy. Zeshado himself made a video about his side of the story, which alas seems have been set to private, although the thread discussing it it's still there. Anyway they basically said that they may've overrated Laslow a bit and that the tier list would get some massive revisions, including a new Tier 1***+***. And a couple of months later we finally got a preview of the new tiers, with Laslow dropped to Tier 3. And remember M!Shez? The Hero that was virtually better than Laslow at everything? Tier 2, yeah.

But that list never made it to the official position in gamepress.

Instead we got this. Long story short, gamepress threw their hands in air and decided that trying to maintain a tier list for FEH was just too much unpaid work (and I can't really blame them for that). No more tier lists, no more build suggestions, they've since then basically moved to just updating the stats of new units.

Aftermath

Laslowsweep was still a running joke one year later and can still get a chuckle in FEH discussions, in particular since he remained virtually non-existant in the actual meta before, during and after the controversy. Be it Aether Raids, Arena, Summoner Duels, etc, basic Laslow with his refine and Godlike Reflexes may as well have never existed. Never an unit had been placed in Tier 1 yet been so irrelevant to the meta.

Yet Laslow is still and forever tier 1 as far as Gamepress latest tier list linked at the start cares. Gamepress literally prefered to end everything there rather than actually drop Laslow down, despite promising an hotfix at least and having actually drafted a new list (that doesn't seem to be available at their site anymore). And that's the story or how one hero killed a tier list by being so bad.

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/johndw2015 on 2024-01-29 18:49:14.

Warning for slight mentions of violence/pedophilia and general ick

The Many Tales of the Shatters Discord

As we all know, Discord can be home to both some of the most interesting and simultaneously low stakes drama apart from possibly RP forums, although both platforms do seem to have many similar traits and ideals going on. Likewise, video game communities in general, especially of the MMORPG variety, also tend to be hotspots for both pointless and intense drama themselves. Combining both in a pot would obviously spawn an unholy writeup in and of itself, but the ingredient X that makes me want to really catalog some of the brain-numbing tales of a pixel-based gaming discord? Yes, that would be the internet authority gained by being a Discord Moderator™. While this is the point in time that I usually would say grab a snack and drink, it really isn’t the best kind of phrase to use as this writeup is going to be more of a 9 course meal due to the many similar, but not exactly concurrent or even directly related dramatic situations, instead of one big course. Think of a music festival; different bands and performances at different times just with the same stage.

A quick disclaimer as well, I was very involved in this community so while I will be trying to be as unbiased as I can, the majority of these tales are from my viewpoint and there are always two sides of the story. Furthermore, to preserve privacy, I will be using placeholder names in sections and censoring names in screenshots. It’s easy to find out who said what, especially if you are part of this community, but let’s respect the privacy of everyone for the sake of this writeup and keep these tales for what they are, entertainment. If you know any of these people or want to do any digging about who said what, nobody can stop you, but I will be keeping it to myself as should you.

Realm of the Mad God

Some background information to start with; what is the Shatters Discord and what is RoTMG? A quick summary would be that it is a “raiding” Discord server for the roguelike game Realm of the Mad God, and I’ll break down all this terminology so that the average internet user can understand, and even comprehend the degeneracy I’ll be describing.

Realm of the Mad God of a 8-bit style, bullet-hell MMORPG, where you take your character in a world called a realm, where you must defeat monsters and bosses in order to face down the “final boss” Oryx, who has 3 different fights of increasing difficulty. Death in the game is permanent, with your character and the items held being gone forever on death. You do have the ability to have multiple characters at a time, and a vault to save valuable items, and upward progression is determined by maxing out a character's stats through potions and higher tier gear, both obtained through completing dungeons. There are many other factors to learn, but key ones to know would be that stat increase potions only affect the character they are used on; progress starts from 0 upon death; with there being 8 stats to farm, hence the terms 0/8 to 8/8. The only other way to permanently increase stats would be to complete certain end-game dungeons using an 8/8 character, with one called the Shatters being the one in question today. This information is obviously a gross oversimplification of the game and how to play, but it should help you understand the many bites of drama in question.

The Shatters

As one of the very first endgame dungeons, The Shatters was originally designed by a player on the Wildshadow Forums (The original developer of RotMG), and was for a long time, one of the most difficult dungeons during that time period. It should be noted however though that this version of the dungeon was easily cheesed, and players of RotMG know that once the game transferred hands to the current owner, DECA Games, many of the content updates featured reworks of many original dungeons as the overall skill level of the players rose alongside new items and classes available to play. Keep this in mind when the terms “Old Shatts” and “New Shatts” are mentioned, as the old version was objectively broken, easily cheesed, and fairly boring compared to the reworked dungeon. Despite this, many veterans, such as myself, have fond memories of the old version.

The Shatters Discord

The Shatters Discord, created in late 2018, follows the format that most RotMG raiding discords for this game do and while other servers may vary slightly, I will specifically describe the hierarchy of this server for clarity's sake. The Owner of the server appoints Admins, who then appoint both a Moderation team and a Raid Leading Team. The Raid Leading branch of the server Consists of Head R(aid) L(eaders), Veteran RLs, RLs, and Almost RLs; users who want to try their hand at leading raids are Trial RLs. With HRLs being the most senior with the most authority and (supposed) experience, Raid Leaders will start a discord voice call that other players join and give callouts for the rest of the players to safely beat the dungeon boss(s), and collect their loot in an organized, efficient manner that is generally not seen in the general game, and is far safer for players learning a new dungeon. The ease of this is due to DECA allowing players to purchase “keys” to certain dungeons for real money, both serving as a way for discord servers to host private dungeon raids, and as a cash cow for DECA themselves. On the moderation side, are the Officers, Securities, and Helpers. These people generally “verify” users, forcing you to link a username to a discord account to help prevent bot spam, and make sure the users in the current dungeon are also in the raid’s voice call. It should be said that nobody gets paid for any of these positions, but drama brews easily when terminally online people get any kind of perceived authority, so on to some tales from the crypt.

Staff Meetings from Hell, European Style

One thing to note that is pretty common among any large player base video game, is the ebb and flow of active players, which is very noticeable in games that have a large population specifically in one country or region. RotMG, at least based on Steam’s player tracking database, is one where there is a spike in players in the evening when players in the North America region play, and a spike in the morning where the European players get online, which of course from my perspective. Anyhow, Shatters Discord was, and is largely based in the US time zones, with another smaller faction that plays during European peak times, creating a bit of two waves of raids that would happen, however the server would always be far more active when the US players got online just due to basic lack of raid leaders in a european based time zone.

Staff meetings also were a thing, and generally would be used to discuss upcoming game events, changes to promotions, new staff rules, and general housekeeping matters pertaining to people involved; this sets the stage for our next course of drama, which also happens to be the first one that I happened to be involved in, so it's very near and dear to my heart, especially due to the absurdity of it all.

A certain Raid Leader by the (fake) name of B lived over in Europe, forgive me for not remembering the exact country, but he was very outspoken about the lack of Euro RL’s and would continually ask for changes to be made for it easier for Euro based RLs to be accepted. It really wasn’t a bad suggestion, as it was tough for him in general to get feedback for his runs due to the lack of online higher staff members, but the fact of the matter is trying to push through a change, no matter how beneficial it could be, does not work if you come across as abrasive about it, and B was very, very passionate regarding this issue. And so, when the next staff meeting in question happened, the issue was again brought up, and dismissed; the crux of the issue was really that the people who wanted to be a raid leader in the timezone in question simply did not have the chops, and the admins were firmly against a specific euro raid leader role. In all fairness to the server, the application process for staff roles was very thought-out and effective in weeding out people who wanted the role just for power's sake and the admins and members who designed it knew this. So when the immovable object of “my way or the highway” upper staff meets the unstoppable force of a determined European boy, what happens? Why, a over two and a half hour voice call of back and forth nonsense that I was told boiled down to “You’re wrong and I’m right” from both sides.. After the dust settled, B eventually stepped from his post and started a new RotMG raiding server; which was moderately successful for a period of time before being nuked by another admin for the fun of it. Ah, the circle of life.

The Drunk Bus

A relatively drama free section, but important for the next one, would be the inception and quick downfall of what the staff members at the time called the Shatters Drunk Bus. As the majority of the staff members at the time were college students in the 21-25 ...

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1ae1cpw/video_games_the_many_tales_of_the_shatters_discord/

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/TheNanoChronicles on 2024-01-29 19:58:47.

Continued from part one

Trigger warnings: child abuse, assault, predators, racism, fetishes, ableism, terrorism, bombings, and just plain abuse. This will also include brief mentions of religion.

It wasn't just kids that were abused.

The board threads went down a few rabbit holes, but it was a testimony on the 28th of November that started the next fire. This came from an ML, and spoke of a situation a decade before.

In 2012 (might have been 2011) I had an adult participant explain the explicit omegaverse erotica that she was writing to a 14 year old. She then left her laptop open to go and get a drink, with the instruction “i’m not telling you to read it, but I’m not not telling you that, and if I just leave my laptop open and you happen to see it, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” The teenager approached me before NaNo the next year and told me about this. She said that it made her extremely uncomfortable and that the adult participant had spent a lot of time telling her how clever she (the teen) was, how she was more mature than other teens, and how other adults just didn’t understand. Which is all classic grooming. The teen asked if this person was going to be at events that year, because she didn’t want to see her again. I contacted HQ with this, and asked if they would back me up if I told this person that they were no longer welcome at our events. The response I got was that not only would they not back me up, I was not allowed to ban this person from our events because they had to be held in a public space and be open to anyone who wanted to come and write. the teenager never came to another in-person event. The adult in question came back, and that year groomed and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old who she met at our events. I didn’t learn about this until several months afterwards. I once again contacted HQ, and was told that I still couldn’t ask her to stay away from our region because the incident took place after our event and we weren’t allowed to ban people based on behaviour outside the scope of our events I then posed the question: If the abusive ex of one of our wrimos turned up at an event, with the apparent intent to write with us, could I ask them to leave? Once again the answer was no, unless there was evidence of a police report, or the ex became abusive during the event. It was heavily implied that the victim ought to leave if they were uncomfortable. I had no training in how to handle this kind of thing, and I received the opposite of support. Having heard stories from other MLs I am convinced that the only reason I was not removed from the position is that I chose not to fight them.

The ML spoke more about trainings regarding racism.

It’s been videos (I think 2 were workshops, but they were only run in US timezones so the rest of us just had to watch the videos and read transcripts) which have so far been exclusively on a US-centric approach to race and racism. One of the first 2 was run by a white person with a… questionable background… And [Director of Community Engagement]’s response to that being raised as an issue boiled down to “we have some MLs who won’t listen if it’s a black person”. Honestly, if you can’t handle being taught about racial issues by a person of that race, maybe you shouldn’t be in a position of power? We have the ML Agreement (which, until very recently, forbade MLs from criticising NaNoWriMo in any way. So recently that [Director of Community Engagement] used that clause to remove at least one ML in the last year without knowing/remembering that they took that out).

The discussion quickly pivoted to the treatment of MLs, and to the ML discord server. This was considered unofficial, but needed to get in touch with the Director of Community Engagement, who oversaw the MLs. The user who broke the news about Mod X gave a summary of the problems there:

A ML was banned from the ML discord for suspicion of "leaking information shared in the ML discord with non-MLs". I've seen the (frankly a bit baffling) accusation by MLs (both on and off the main discord) that I have ulterior motives in bringing light to the issues facing the NaNoWriMo organization, so I'll reiterate - again - that l'm only one of a very large group of users over multiple offsite platforms who have been documenting these issues. The only reason I'm fairly visible in this situation is because it was decided my twitter platform was the best chance to bring wider attention to the issues in a way HQ would listen to (since efforts here on the forums were being shut down, silenced or obfuscated). I want to note that it's extremely concerning that the default in the ML discord is to focus on "someone leaking information or sneaking into our server" rather than address the systemic problems that have led to so many MLs feeling like they need to seek outside help for their treatment by the ML community. Not to mention the harm of indulging that paranoia when energy would be better focused on strategies to address the crisis facing the NaNo community. The main ML discord has obtained a list of users on NaNoWriMo discord servers that allow open criticism of HQ, and is kicking any ML who appears on the member list of the dissenting servers.

However, it seems that only two MLs were kicked for being in a dissenting server.

The kicked ML explained:

I was kicked out for supposedly sharing screenshots from the ML discord with other people. I only know this, because when I said "hey, I can't find the ml discord any more" another ML went 'holy shit, that was you?' and told me what was being said about me. They also told me that what I had supposedly done was not against the rules at the time. [server admin] changed the rules after she kicked me out for "breaking" them.

There was another ML testimony that deserves its own section and we’ll get to in a second, but a response to it brought a new and horrifying light on the actions of the Director of Community Engagement.

I’ve mentioned I was co-ML 2018, 2019, and 2020. My region had no ML for 2021 because my previous co-ML and I protested how [Director of Community Engagement] treated me. So. I am autistic as fuck. I am also physically disabled, and legally blind. We were promised access to the new 2019 forums months before NaNo, since we were MLs. I got access two weeks before NaNo. Two weeks, for my blind, autistic ass to figure out these very non-intuitive forums before time to kick things off. Clearly, this was not really a possibility for me. Because, again, autistic and blind. So my co-ML and I decided that I would handle all the online-but-offsite things (Facebook and the discord server I’d set up the year before) while he handled in-person and on-site things. This worked out great for us; our region was well taken care of between the two of us. I put so much love and care into my region’s discord server when I created it in 2018 (I had unexpectedly moved a few hours from my region in October, so the three of us co-MLs for that year worked out together what I would do to still hold my end of things up). I was cheering people on on the daily, running daily virtual write-ins for anyone who wanted to pop in and write with me. Any time my co-ML had a physical write-in, I scheduled a virtual one for the same time for anyone who couldn’t go in person for whatever reason, and a co-ML would connect on their device so that the in-person and the virtual participants could talk to each other before time to write. For the 16th, I scheduled a full 24 hours virtual write-in that people could pop in and out of as they wanted to try to double up their word counts (I ran it the full 24 hours myself and then went to bed afterwards). I was even able to run some of the virtual write-ins from the hospital. I had so many people thank me for it, because they lived too far to make it in person easily, or they worked nights, or they were disabled, or they were immunocompromised so couldn’t go in person. Since that worked so well, I also did it for 2019, except even more because I loved my region and I love my people. I love cheering people on. I love helping them figure out a sticky problem in their project. I love just celebrating that they wrote, whether they wrote a full 50k or not, they tried this impossible thing and they did their best and that’s what NaNo is about. I worked my ass off in 2019 to make up for the fact that I couldn’t deal with the new site. Because, once again, I am autistic and blind. But also, before I move on to 2020, let’s talk about some of the gaslighting bullshit that HQ fed us. And yes, it was gaslighting I do not use that term lightly. There was no validator. We were promised there would be a validator. We tell our regions “don’t worry, we’ve been promised there’ll be a validator, it should be ready in a few days”. Then HQ says “oh, sorry, it’ll be a little longer, you’ll have it by the end of the month, though, we super promise”. So we tell our regions, “sorry, it’s not going to be a couple days but they promise we’ll have it by the end of the month”. HQ was still telling us to tell our regions that the validator would be there by the end of the month even after HQ had decided there would be no fucking validator, not even by the end of ...

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/TheNanoChronicles on 2024-01-29 19:54:56.

[Mods, added forum citations. Hopefully all is good now!]

Trigger warnings: child abuse, assault, predators, racism, fetishes, ableism, terrorism, bombings, and just plain abuse. This will also include brief mentions of religion.

Terms used in the Nanowrimo community:

Nanowrimo: national novel writing month: a writing challenge to write 50k words in November. This is also used to refer to the organisation, a Californian 501c3 that the challenge originates from, with a website and a forum. However the challenge can be done without the organisation. Often called ‘nano’ for short. Young Writers’ Program: a Nanowrimo run platform aimed at people under 18. A separate site with classrooms and its own separate forum. The forum is for people aged 13-18. Often called ‘YWP’ for short. Municipal Liasions: community organisers responsible for one region. This could be a city or a country depending on size and population. They help organise local events and mod their regional forums. Municipal Liasions are not paid. There are several hundreds of them. Often called ‘MLs’ for short. Christian Teens Together: a group on the main Nanowrimo forums, and the largest group on the forums. Despite the name the group is not entirely composed of Christians or teens, however that is where the group originates. The majority of the group are minors. Often called ‘CTT’ for short. Random Thoughts and Exclamations: the main thread of the YWP forums, basically a general. Often called ‘RTAE’ for short. Prior to the meltdown, Nanowrimo had around 15 salaried staff. These are collectively referred to as HQ. However, they also have several forum moderators. These receive a $100 check at the end of the year, but are mostly considered volunteers. These mods have no involvement in the main site. However, some staff that worked on the forums were salaried and had main site involvement and so will be considered part of HQ unless stated later on.

Scam sponsorships.

In December 2022, a group of Nanowrimo users raised concerns about a pair of vanity publishers that had sponsored the Nanowrimo challenge. (A vanity publisher or vanity press is a publisher where the author pays the costs and surrenders a large portion of the rights to their work.) Nanowrimo had promoted discounts for these publishers, Inkitt and Manuscripts, to winners of its challenge. Staff and mods suspended and muted multiple accounts who raised the initial concerns, but eventually allowed a forum thread discussing concerns to remain. One of the affected users explained the concerns as follows:

Now that I’ve been unbanned, I will try to keep the last 24 hours of thoughts…concise. Inkitt should NEVER have been accepted as a NaNoWriMo sponsor. They have changed business models every few years, and every business model has involved using up the first pub rights of any author who submits, WHICH IS A BIG DEAL, and promising them sketchy ‘prizes’ or ‘contracts’ in return. People who have given them a try also say that getting their content removed is a nightmare and they had to threaten legal action. These are just the starting points. There are blog posts about them from many authors dating back to at least 2016, including my own, that are easily discoverable by searching “Inkitt scam.” None of this should ever have happened. That said, it happened. And the mods panicked, and I went and wrote a whole new blog (which I will update soon to reflect NaNo’s better handling of things today) to warn people away from Inkitt because I wasn’t allowed to do so on the forums. And because I have some audience and writer friends, that got around, and Victoria Strauss got involved, and eventually we got here.

The following day, the Executive Director responded to the concerns with this message:

I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and feedback, and want to start with an apology that our vetting process hasn’t met the high values we place on our community care. It shouldn’t have come to this (like so many of you said), but now that it has, we’re taking it as a learning moment to improve our sponsorship processes and find ways to dig deeper into an evaluation of a company. We’ve also ended the sponsorship with Inkitt and Manuscripts. Currently, the vetting process involves talking to writers, editors, or those working in the writing/publishing “ecosystem,” and then interviewing the potential companies. We often have a long-term relationship with a company and work with them year-over-year, but as the writing/publishing landscape changes so dramatically every year, we often find out about new companies and reach out to them or they reach out to us. We will do a more thorough evaluation of these processes and policies as part of our 2023 planning process to see what changes we need to make. Our goal will be to ensure our policies are in line with our organizational values, and to make sure the process is more transparent. For example, we’re discussing how we can ensure that a wider range of community and trusted industry voices are heard in this process, and on that note, we have already asked Victoria Strauss from Writer Beware to act as a consultant. We’re really pleased that she’s generously agreed to this, as this is her area of expertise and her ethical standards are admirably high. Also, she’s been passionately committed to analyzing products and services for writers for so long. We’ll also be sure to consult the resources you’ve already named, such as the various forum threads where you all have been sharing your experiences with companies. Thank you again for raising your concerns. We take your feedback very seriously and center it in our plans to care for the community. I’m not just saying that—this has been a valuable learning moment to help us do a better job of vetting sponsors more thoroughly. Your voices are the most important thing we consider when making decisions—not sponsors, but you. I’m sorry that it hasn’t always felt like that in the past, and hope that we can make sure it does in the future. Like you, we think NaNoWriMo should be a place where writers can come for trusted resources. We’re disappointed in ourselves that we lost that trust, and we hope to regain it. I invite you to send on feedback at any time to .

While Inkitt and Manuscripts were removed as sponsors, it recently emerged that Inkitt was a major donor for Nanowrimo. Some users were beginning to feel that Nanowrimo was protecting their own interests over the interests of their users, which only got worse when new allegations came out the following year.

Inaction against predators.

In May 2023, a group of users raised allegations about a moderator of Christian Teens Together. The allegations were that this moderator was luring minors onto a fetish site they ran. The allegations were sent to the Executive Director and the Director of Programs, but no actions were taken after a month. An FBI report had already been filed, but the fetish site was being scrubbed, suggesting that the staff there had been tipped off after the allegations. The group built a new case and after public pressure, got the moderator removed for violations of the forum Code of Conduct after they started threatening the group and the Nanowrimo organisation offsite. This moderator could be a whole post on their own, and has used sockpuppet accounts to lurk on the forums and has commented on the situation on their tumblr. They are often referred to as Mod X, and will be referred to as such in this essay.

In June, a thread on moderation was opened, and a discussion began about the culture of CTT, where it became clear that Mod X had isolated the group and emotionally abused them. It was also revealed that the CTT had a ‘three strikes and shutdown’ system for a group with over a thousand members. One user explained the problem as follows:

How the CTT members were given only three strikes for over one thousand people is, frankly, appalling and obscene. I can understand treating them as a group; if you give them all three strikes, that’s over three thousand strikes. But they need more than three. But even with that, hanging that last strike over their head for over six months is unacceptable, and yes, I said it before and I’ll say it again, it is emotionally abusive to tell them that one more strike and they’re getting shut down for over six months. Never knowing who’s going to make the mistake that gets them shut down or when, and worrying about when someone messes up. Worrying that they’re going to be one that messes up and is blamed by the group. Terrified of reporting things because what if that report is the reason their community is shut down?

[More](https://forums.nanowrimo.org/t/nanowrimo-forum-mod-drama-is-nothing-new-a-story-from-nanowrimo-history-the-mod-that-...

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Tokyono on 2024-01-29 16:35:52.

The results are:

Best Hobby Drama writeup

u/thesusiephone for [Dolls, Barbie] The Short Yet Fabulous Life of Earring Magic Ken

Best Hobby History writeup

u/GhanjRho for [Tabletop Games/Warhammer 40k]The Kroot Conga Line; it pays to read the rulebook.

Best Author

u/Iguankick

Best Comment

u/overdrafts for their comment recounting the history of r/counting.

Best Series

u/beary_neutral for their scuffles series documenting Zeb Wells' Amazing Spider-Man (2023) comics run. All links in this comment.

I will be handing out the prizes within the next few hours. Thanks for all nominations!

Here is the link to the latest Town Hall

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/hawkshaw1024 on 2024-01-29 14:57:24.

Original Title: [Game Development/Forum Culture] This city calls me Oceanspirit Dennis: A story in which dozens of indie devs make 50 games over 5 years, trying to mock a teenage anime, but accidentally creating a gay icon in the process

Alright, so. You might be familiar with the story of Joe_Cracker and the Light of Courage. This was a sprawling, chaotic, and incoherent series of fan(?) movies, created to make fun of the guy who wrote the script.

I have a similar story for you today. It deals with one Oceanspirit Dennis, mighty pirate. He's the protagonist of a sprawling, chaotic, and incoherent series of fan(?) games, created to make fun of a forum user with an intense anime obsession. Then things went weird.

Before we start, three quick disclaimers:

• This story happened more than a decade ago, and everyone has long since moved on. Don't heckle any of the people involved in this, alright?
• My post is full of rude words for reproductive anatomy. Sorry.
• Along the way, this story blends into some homophobia-by-implication and gay male misogyny around the edges. So be warned. It never gets particularly heavy and the ending is nice, though.

Finally, I'm very sorry for the length of this post. I hope it's at least halfway readable. At least nobody's going to accuse me of "low-effort" posts.

(0): So what's an AGS, anyway? (1997)

Today's story takes place on the Adventure Game Studio forums. I've written about the community before, but in short: AGS is a free game engine, intended primarily to let you make point-and-click adventure games, but flexible and powerful enough to support all kinds of project. It's not as powerful as Godot or Unity, or as popular as RPGMaker, but it has its charms. There were a few breakout hits that made it outside the adventure gaming bubble, like Cart Life or the Chzo Mythos.

AGS also has a number of community resources, including official web forums. They aren't as active as they used to be, but back in the early 2010s, they were a genuine hotspot for discussing indie games.

So what's the community like? Well, this is an obsolete medium, dedicated to the discussion of an obscure game engine, which is used to make games in a dead genre. This was all true in 2010 as well. In short: These people are passionate weirdos, and I mean this as a compliment.

(1): The Pub Master Quest saga (2009)

Now, one thing that happens in creative spaces (especially game-related ones) is that people just sort of... wander in. All sorts of people, at that. Many people experience the Divine Urge to Create, but don't have the skill-set required to do so. Or much in the way of social graces.

In August of 2009, one such user appeared on the AGS forums. He went through a few different names, but I'll call him "Studio3" here, because I don't want this thread to pollute search results for the other nicknames. (He's still active under some of the other nicknames he used.) Studio3 made his introduction by starting a series of nearly incomprehensible threads, usually announcing game projects of some kind. Here's a small selection.

Pub Master Quest:

Studio3: the game takes place in a pub with a boy named dave(currently useing my voice) he want to become a pubmaster some day but he must take on a lot of task (p.s. game will have a lot of updates as time goes on if ags let's me the update will come out then the old game will have 5 days on shelvs then (#) deleted :'(

Darth Mandarb: Please read the forum rules.

Pub Master Quest 2

Studio3: For some time now I have been working on pmq1 gold hits now I have made up my mine to start on part 2 but I don't want it to be a demo so I am going to make it into 3-4 chapters frist off since my game was really ff.xiii I will be making chap 1:ifrit's crystal + and the game will be in a ps1 ff7-9 like world so I am making the players 3d like.

Snake: Shouldn't you have learned something from the first time?

Neku's New Trip (Chapter 2)

Studio3: it has been a year & i thought that i was never gonna make any more chapters but i found a way to work it out. sorry...well this game takes place a year later in a world were the towns & city's from the first chap of nnt have become corrupt files and can only be restored by going to the M.C.P2 in the core tower. it falls way off from the first nnt or twewy , but the story will make since as to why it does later on in the game.

Darth Mandarb: I'm not sure why "my computer crashed" feels like a good reason for not posting properly. Especially since you've now posted 5 more times in this thread without making the needed updates to the original post/screenshots.

We could keep going, but you get the idea. Recurring themes included pubs, Square Enix mashups, a unique approach to posting, and not meeting the screenshot requirements for a Games in Production thread.

Now, the AGS forums have always been reluctant to actually ban people. People who were Bad at Posting were simply yelled at and told to shape up. Studio3 seemed to be immune to social shaming tactics, but he never crossed the line into outright troll territory, so this stand-off continued for several months.

(2): The RPG template incident (2010)

Eventually, through sheer trial and error, our hero managed to create a thread that complied with forum rules. In it, he requested help with an RPG template project, which was then available for download on the official AGS website.

Studio3: um...hey guy's i was thinking about put a type of rpg in one of my games but the coding is difficult because the example code is for a older version of ags & i cant work with it, now what i will do is make templet of the game & post it up for download but if you are interested let me no..cause i don't have the spair time to really do make this but i really do need the help

See? That's an actual question, and everything up to the first comma is actually coherent. I remember trying to use that template myself, and... yeah, the project just didn't work.

People tried to explain this, and pointed out that AGS wasn't really the best engine for RPGs. Yeah, you could use it, but why not consider RPGMaker? You really should consider RPGMaker.

Darth Mandarb: I second (third/fourth) the RPGMaker option. Not only is it a far superior program to AGS, it's vastly more simple to use. Also, I know you'll find a happy home on their forums as well. The people there are far nicer than the people here on the AGS boards. For example; when you completely ignore their rules, they don't care! When you repeatedly ask for help and then totally disregard every bit of advice that is offered, they love it! When you are told not to do something (12 times) and then do it anyway (over and over and over...), they laugh and pat you on the back!

Darth Mandarb, incidentally, won a Lifetime Achievement Award for his moderation work.

Studio3 would thank the other users for their advice, but decided to tough it out with AGS for now, to the delight of everyone.

Studio3: I'll even make a small game with ags to show my version FF.XIII

Atelier: No. You have a twisted obsession with Square Enix and Final Fantasy. Plan your own, original game.

Studio3: That is some what true but If I come up with a game then 3 year's later decide this is going know then I change the name but keep the name! - there for proving that I did make my own game I just changed the name (ah-ha take that! |:]

Atelier: I. Didn't. Understand. A. Word.

He also shared some concept art for his games, apparently trying to explain the connection between Final Fantasy 13 and Pub Master Quest.

Studio3: here is the 2005 vs 2009 version of Dave(main & first character)

The image is gone, but it showed a male character from Final Fantasy 13 (I'm not gonna look up his name) next to the protagonist of some entry in the PubMaster Quest saga. They looked exactly the same but with different hair, and the PMQ character was named "Dave." This finally broke the users.

Snake: The only thing I have a problem with is his signature and his inability to type and take advice and actually use it. I think it's perfectly plausible tha...

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/EnclavedMicrostate on 2024-01-29 05:01:36.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

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

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.
• Define any acronyms.
• Link and archive any sources.
• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.
• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Hogwarts Legacy discussion is still banned.

Last week's Scuffles can be found here

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Euclideian_Jesuit on 2024-01-25 23:09:29.

Carnevale is fast approaching: next week, on Sunday, there will be this year’s first float parade. This years’ is particularly important, however, because it will also be the 150th time the Carnevale di Viareggio has been celebrated.

While I am far from what is called a “carnevalaro” (that is, somebody treating the Carnevale as the only worthy event in town), I still think it’s a pretty cool event that is scarcely known outside of Italy… and also one fraught with controversies.

And I am going to start with an event that could pique the interest of outsiders, and also is easy to document (normally I would tell the tale of “Yatches vs. Confetti Debate”, but very little documentation of it exists, so…).

So, without anymore delay, let us start!

What Even Is “Carnevale di Viareggio”?

In the event you don’t know, “Carnevale” is the general term referring to the five weeks preceding Lent, also known “Those 40 days where practicing Catholics abstain from meat and something they love before Easter”, and the basis for both the New Orleans and the Rio de Janeiro’s celebrations. It usually is capped off by Fat Tuesday, but officially it ends only on Ash Wednesday on the following week.

What makes Viareggio’s Carnevale celebration special is that, every Sunday of these weeks, and on Fat Thursday, Friday and Tuesday there’s a parade of very elaborate floats made of papier-mâché– often, but not always, themed after political satire, with the occasional attempt at high art– down the promenade, spanning for nearly 1,5km (0,94 miles, for the ones using Imperial units). Said parade started as a bunch of very decorated carriages strolling down the town’s seaside road in 1873, but over time it got increasingly complex, with the first instance of such a parade in a form recognizable as the one of the modern day happening in 1921, when the very first “Carnevale song”, Su Una Coppa di Champagna, was composed, accompanied by a choreography on (what turned out to be) the winning float. The only interruptions were in the 1942-1945 time period, when WW2 put a halt to the tradition (and, even then, the Buffalo Soldier 92nd Division’s soldiers were outright requested to start from Viareggio first in clearning the beach from mines for this exact reason), and in 2021, due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Nowadays, every Fat Thursday the parade is broadcast live on RAI (the national TV broadcaster), and each year it attracts between 500k and 600k visitors. These floats are made by teams of constructors (traditionally papier-mâché over a wood-metal structure, but in recent times styrofoam and the like has been allowed, too), called carristi, who work on them for three to six months each year, and are divided in three categories, from highest to lowest: carri di prima categoria, carri di seconda categoria, and mascherate singole, with people not registered as carristi usually doing simpler things, like joining a neighbourhood’s group on small dancing stages with some unobstrusive but colorful decorations, or just organasing themselves with small ungraded productions on their own. Each category, on top of that, vyies for a prize, assigned by a jury composed by the Fondazione Carnevale’s members (that is to say, the organisers) and selected “important” citizens of the town, for the most elaborate and interesting float of each category.

The method through which one climbs the categories are not unlike how sports teams climb scoreboards, but their exact functioning is not important for our tale: what matters here is, carri di prima categoria are both taken as THE symbol of Carnevale di Viareggio, winning the competition for them is a Big Deal, and winners are also the ones who get a cash prize if they get the jury’s favour. As you can imagine, this can have some interesting effects.

A Quick Premise

Before the drama’s tale starts, I’m going to need you to make a little mental exercise.

Picture this: you’re a carrista in the late Seventies-early Eighties. You’ve probably started working on floats since you were a strapping young man that narrowly escaped being drafted in WW2, taught by artisans who treated going to the nearby town of Camaiore “a whole-day journey”, that genuinely hated people from Lucca (instead of later semi-affectionate rivalry), and spoke exclusively in Viareggio’s dialect; or, if you started later, you’ve seen only other people from Viareggio work on floats, from the planning phase to the actual parade, passing through the construction itself, with the most exotic person in the team being a Florentine guy.

You’ve been in contests with other people just like you for decades, people who you might have shared a day job with or, if you were lucky enough to not need that, had a beer with and chatted to during the off times. If a new name pops up, it’s going to belong to somebody who, at the very least, hails from Versilia– that is to say, the sub-region you live in– and even working with women doesn’t bother you.

Then, one day, a half-French guy and his fully French lover (not even wife!) arrive in 1980. They start off doing mascherate singole, small things, isolated figures that basically compete for a pat in the back on the newspaper, nothing major. But he speaks in a French accent and doesn’t know the dialect well, and she can barely string together a sentence in Standard Italian, and due to this at first they mostly stay in their studio, assembling and creating while having little contact with you. Weird, but manageable, right?

Then the guy makes an instant jump to seconda categoria. At first, he doesn’t even qualify. Then, he almost wins 1982’s contest for that category with Il Trionfo della Legge Del Menga, a float that you consider a mess technically for breaking the rule of “scenery, main mask, garnishing”, by having a lot of single masks surrounding a big one, and, worst of all, contains in its title a word that’s Milanese in origin. But, surely, this is a fluke, right?

The next year, with I Quattro Mori, he outright wins again, this time with a float that’s utterly incomprehensible to you, but has a theme adored by the Fondazione. The next year, he wins again, and, the year after that, he gets on the podium. You get your hopes up for one year, but then, he finally wins the coveted prize, and in doing so breaks the winning streak of somebody you consider an untouchable idol, a man you strive to emulate or work under.

So, what do you do?

You flip your goddamn shit.

But what are the facts?

Gilbert LeBigre was born in Florence from a Florentine mother and a French father. However, for the longest time, he actually lived in Paris, working as a scenographer, going to Viareggio only in 1980, when, allegedly, his rediscovery of an old photo depicting his mom on Viareggio’s beach while she’s pregnant with him convinces Gilbert that, actually, he isn’t destined to spend his life in Paris. So, together Elodie Lebigre (neé Elodie Roger), and encouraged by Silvano Avanzini and Raffaella Giunta’s teachings in float-making, he moved to Viareggio and partecipated in that season’s Carnevale with Inquinamento o Vita (“Pollution or Life”), a bunch of themed masks that didn’t run in the contest due to the feeling it was a “prototype. The next year, he, together with a “hireling”, organised a masked group called Le Colonne dell’Avvenire, but it still was left out of the course due to a bureaucratic error. In 1982, the LeBigre-Roger couple creates the first participating float, Il Trionfo della Legge del Menga (“The Triumph of Cock’s Law”, note the term menga is not standard Italian nor Tuscan, but Lombard): for a relative newcomer, it’s a smashing success, arriving in second place, but the more traditionalist circles grumble about menga, some arguing it should’ve been enough to disqualify the float, though such concerns are ultimately ignored by the jury.

I Quattro Mori is the following year’s float, and it’s the first time LeBigre wins a prize… but it also caused uproar, because of its abstractness and disconnect from all other floats, which were more politically pertinent and had clear themes (also, the reference to the city of Livorno was not appreciated). While the critics’ complaints were hushed by him making Il Sogno di Fellini, the following year’s winner, the underlying attitude towards Lebigre never went away, not helped by his alleged reluctance to take part in the events of the carristi, at least, if Avanzini wasn’t involved as well.

Futuro Prossimo Venturo was the third victory in a row for Lebigre. People like Giovanni Lazzarini (the husband of the daughter of Burlamacco’s designer, that is, Umberto Bonetti, and an accomplished carrista and jury member at alternate times) and the Galli brother (Arnaldo, Renato and Giorgio, who were considered the epitome of Carnevale in Viareggio, and the most respected in their craft) were by now spreading vicious rumors about his commitment to the craft and his skills, and minor carristi were more than willing to listen to them, which in turn enabled a climate of shunning within...

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/RemnantEvil on 2024-01-24 09:38:30.

I’ve done long-winded posts in the Hobby Scuffles threads, both to encourage recognition of what is a pretty fascinating sport and as an outlet for a renewed interest in what took up a pretty big part of my childhood. I was prompted by recent unusual happenings in the sport – the controversial stumping of Bairstow in the ’23 Ashes – to then do a run of snippet stories with some women’s cricket, the penultimate Ashes match, its anticlimax, then the final match, one of the greatest batting performances in history, and the greatest comeback in World Cup history.

The laws of cricket are obtuse and mysterious at the best of times, so I cannot invest an entire tome to explaining specifics. If you have questions in the comments, I will answer them there – I’m at the character limit as is. And since there are three types of cricket, ranging from “an evening” to “five full days of competition”, there are so many dry spots where nothing of interest happens, so I’m going for a medley of tales about inarguably the best country at the sport, over the century that the country has even existed in its present form.

There are 12 nations that play cricket on the international stage, with a few more on the periphery (e.g. the Netherlands). International cricket is only going to really be mentioned in the context of these 12 - Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, and Zimbabwe. You could pare it down even further to remove countries that are rarely competitive.

There’s also domestic cricket and club cricket. Domestic is obviously dependent on the country; in Australia, it’s called the Sheffield Shield and is an interstate competition. The Shield is a solid proving ground for talent where players for the Australian side earn their spurs. Club cricket, sometimes called grade cricket, is just the amateur stuff that anyone from six-year-olds to over-age clubs play.

To start, before getting into some poor behaviour, do yourselves a favour and watch the Bluey episode ‘Cricket’. For reference, “Six and out” is a backyard cricket staple; if you hit the ball over the fence, it’s worth six runs but you’re also out. That discourages people belting the tennis ball, because someone has to go knock on the neighbours’ door to ask for the ball back, or a parent has to lob a child over the fence to get the sneaky return. (My godmother shared a back fence with the Waugh family, so it was always funny to have to go knock on the door of Mrs Waugh to ask for our ball back. You’ll hear the Waugh name later.)

‘Cricket’ was voted the country’s favourite episode of Bluey, a show already dear to our hearts.

I suppose I’ll start with a downer, and one of the staples of sledging – “Same old Aussies, always cheating.”

O Brother, Where Art Thou Morals?

This is the underarm bowling incident of 1981. It’s considered one of the worst displays of sportsmanship in the history of cricket, and if not the worst, then a top five contender.

The year is (obviously) 1981, and Australia’s playing the third of three one-day internationals against our cousins from New Zealand. ODIs are 50-over games, although obviously the game can end sooner if the batting team loses all ten wickets. Australia batted first and set a total of 235.

With the series tied 1-1, this would mean a rematch is played. There are a number of ways to solve inconclusive matches or series, but these days, a series would just end at 1-1.

You can find videos of the incident on YouTube, but I can give the breakdown. We reach the last delivery of the game – and it’s Trevor Chappell bowling. Trevor’s brother is Greg, the Australian captain. The New Zealanders scored some runs this over, but also lost two wickets. They are 8/229 –that’s eight wickets down, 229 runs scored. Since you couldn’t lose two wickets in a single delivery, victory by claiming wickets is off the table for Australia. That leaves only one option, which is to prevent New Zealand scoring six runs off the last delivery to tie the game. A win for NZ is possible but unlikely – either a no ball or a wide is an extra run to New Zealand, plus the delivery must be bowled again, so New Zealand could get the extra and score a six.

If you haven’t brushed up on any of the old posts, you might have caught a clue in the Bluey episode: six runs is hitting the ball over the boundary without the ball touching the ground between your bat and the boundary. This might give you some clue where this all leads.

Greg goes over to talk to his brother. This is not uncommon; captains will converse with bowlers often to figure out what type of delivery would work best and whether fielders need to be repositioned. In this scenario, there isn’t really much to discuss since anything less than a six is a win for Australia.

Greg points at the ground. We cannot hear their conversation – a modern development since 1981 includes microphones in the stumps for broadcasters to use – but it’s clear that the people on the pitch understand what’s happening. The two umpires have a brief chat… Then Greg walks away from Trevor to take his position in the field. The New Zealand batter, Brian McKechnie, is no longer holding his bat, which is weird. The Australian wicket-keeper has his arms crossed. Apparently, when a bowler changes his delivery style, he informs the umpire and batter, which is evidently what occurred and wasn’t captured on camera.

To tell you how unsporting this was, the wicket-keeper is seen telling Trevor not to do it. Even though it would be an easy win, he wants nothing to do with this behaviour. McKechnie picks up his bat, finally, and takes his place. And… sure enough, Trevor rolls the ball along the ground. McKechnie blocks, then throws his bat away.

Two things to consider: firstly, it is physically impossible to hit a ball that’s on the ground with enough power, at enough of an angle, that it will get off the ground and clear the boundary without touching the ground; secondly, this was an entirely legal delivery. The batters walk off, briefly pausing for the wicket-keeper to catch up and offer handshakes – both as the custom for the conclusion of the game, and likely as a conciliatory gesture.

The kiwi captain goes out to speak to the umpires, but there’s nothing they can do. Interestingly, there are some domestic tournaments where there is a rule against rolling the ball along the pitch, and the kiwi captain had played in one, but that rule was not enforced in this international match.

Australian commentators were quick to pile on. Bill Lawry said in the moment, a rather understated, “This is possibly a little disappointing.” Richie Benaud, the golden voice of Australian cricket, said, “I think it was a disgraceful performance […] and I think it should never be permitted to happen again.” He summed it up as “one of the worst things I have ever seen on a cricket field.”

I don’t wish to understate Richie Benaud’s significance here. He passed away eight years ago, and cricket fans still dress up as him. Though he was a cricketer in the ‘50s, achieving milestones as the first player to reach 200 Test wickets and 2,000 runs, he is most fondly remembered as the voice of cricket, hence tributes to him are not as a cricketer, but as the man with the microphone.

The incident naturally resulted in a rule change, much like if you tried to let your dog play basketball – one would think it’s not something you need to rule against.

Interesting fact: Ian Chappell, the third brother, holds the record for the first six ever hit in ODI cricket. I’m telling you, cricket lore runs deep.

McKechnie says he holds no grudge, while Greg would recover his esteem before retiring in ’84. He’s spoken of the incident with regret, but it was not severe enough to end his career and he would seek roles in coaching and commentary after retiring from the game.

Trevor never quite achieved much in cricket relative to his brother, and seems to mostly have played domestic cricket. Though he was following the direction of both captain and older brother, much of the stink fell on Trevor, and he’s the one who ultimately rolled the delivery. He doesn’t speak about it very often and seems to be quite ashamed of it, and certainly it has to be one of those awful things that one does that unfortunately becomes their albatross.

Had this happened in the 2010s or 2020s, Australia would never live it down. Fortunately, it comes from a quaint time in the game where men dressed like bad porn parod...

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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/EnclavedMicrostate on 2024-01-22 05:01:20.

Welcome back to Hobby Scuffles!

Please read the Hobby Scuffles guidelines here before posting!

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

Reminders:

• Don’t be vague, and include context.
• Define any acronyms.
• Link and archive any sources.
• Ctrl+F or use an offsite search to see if someone's posted about the topic already.
• Keep discussions civil. This post is monitored by your mod team.

Hogwarts Legacy discussion is still banned.

Last week's Scuffles can be found here