... It’s time to talk.
Nearly 3 years ago, an event happened in the brony fandom that shook it to the core: Mr. Zak Kayes, known publicly as ToonKriticY2K, was outed as a pedophile by various sources (Notably infamous brony figure “Vida”). This is not going to be a follow-up to that story, since it’d be beating a dead Grogar at this point. The details of what happened are all out there, and I highly recommend you watch videos to be informed so as to avoid this sorta thing for the future. Zak has made numerous attempts to weasel his way into the fandom, but those attempts are in vain. During that time, he was a part of a Dungeons & Dragons group, run with the help of other members of what’s known as the “Brony Analysis Community.” Since there was a large supply of episodes that were now tainted with him, the team struggled to figure out a proper answer: Some fans argued that they should just scrap the whole thing and start over, failing to recognize that D&D games are long, expansive stories with twists and turns, and starting over would make things difficult. Other fans were able to separate the art from the artist and were okay with the series continuing since Dungeon Master Joshua Burner was planning on killing off Zak’s character (you could argue that the timing was incredibly coincidential and lucky). Even more fans wanted to continue the series but couldn’t stand listening to Zak’s voice. And then, there was me. I didn’t really care too much about the D&D, but I wanted to try and alleviate tensions within a relatively chill fandom. I knew this wasn’t my place, but I always wanted to help. Some people were angry with the situation and didn’t seem to listen to the reasoning. The victims that came out all wanted things differently: Shiloh Connor (known as “Patchwork Heart”) wanted the entire series scrapped and was put on a pedestal for the anti-D&D crowd. SEGASister (whose boyfriend, Zachary Weiner, (“Voice of Reason”) was in the D&D Session) was all for the series staying up and was also put on a pedestal for the pro-D&D crowd. Mimikage was vocal that both sides were idiots and that the whole thing was stupid, and was often stereotyped as the neutral party. There are more victims who chose not to be public, but their opinions on the series varied. For the sake of simplicity, I don’t want to ignore them, but if they wish to come forward and give their thoughts from a time long since past, I’m always available to talk. I proposed a simple idea; to edit out the voice of Zak for a simple TTS program. IIRC, it was in the comments of one of the D&D videos with one of the anti-D&D members. I posted the idea, then made a really quick video of me editing out Zak’s dialogue with a simple TTS program. I wasn’t going for “robotic,” but I did find one for free that worked pretty well. I got the first one up relatively quickly (mostly because the audio glitched, and every time I tried to make a cut it’d remove about 10% of the audio. Some people liked it, and I decided to continue. My videos didn’t come from any malicious intent; they weren’t monetized (and neither is my channel). The goal was to provide an alternative to the people that wanted it or were unhappy with what the D&D group did. I was able to pull this off at the time because it was summer and I had nothing to do; work was cutting my hours each week, my friends lived too far away, and I just wanted something to pass the time. I only had a couple of rules that I’d imposed on both myself and any viewers: 1. I was very strict on finding a TTS program that had realistic-sounding voices so as to not make the character sound like a robot. I recall describing that as “removing his humanity.” 2. I was very clearly against what I called “weaponizing” my videos, which was primarily the act of using my videos to attack Josh and the other members because “some White guy from Minnesota did your job better than you” 3. I tried not to shamelessly plug my content unless someone was being incredibly rigid, which happened early on. And now, the reason why the videos stopped. The long and short of it is; I got tired, and it turned into a fruitless endeavor. Doing the same thing every day, 7 days a week, for 5 months, gets tiring. I got a new job and started my second year at college. I also noticed that the videos weren’t going to be noticed, because the controversy drove people’s attention, and trying to alleviate it only makes things worse. However, that’s not where the story ends: Tomorrow is the first day of August 2020. The world has been changed by a virus and I have a bit more time to myself now. If people are still interested or see a desire, I will continue working on the edited Brony D&D series, with the intention of continuing from where I left off. I hope you all have a good evening. Mr. C. Johnson.
