In Memoriam of a Fan Work

Subject: In Memoriam of a Fan Work
Author: Thoth
Posted on: 2021-07-30 00:59:10 UTC

(Warning, there may be some NSFW content in some links here)

I joined the PPC in... my sophomore year of highschool, wasn't it? Sophomore or Junior. It's hard to remember. This... starts before that.

It was the Freshman year of highschool. I didn't have many friends, back then. I don't make friends easily. And some Junior one table away was talking to me because I'd just sworn at my terrible school Chromebook, which had an overzealous webfilter (and would only get worse as the years went by...). But it turns out we had more in common then a mutual frustration over web filtering, and we bonded over a mutual love of fantasy, science fiction, and gaming. That junior happened to be 'Plith. You might have seen her around (under her full username)—she posts infrequently. 'Plith was the first friend I made in highschool, and she was the one who connected me to the other people who would help get me through the next four years.

We introduced each other to a lot of stuff. I dragged 'Plith in here, 'Plith pushed me into my first game of BattleTech (it was on paper, with one unit per player—I solemnly swore never to play BattleTech ever again and then absolutely broke that rule), I, in turn, introduced 'Plith to Gundam through the medium of episodes of Gundam Wing, and 'Plith currently knows more about Gundam than I've forgotten.

And 'Plith was the one who introduced me to Warhammer 40k. I was worn down over about a year on that, but eventually I caved. Warhammer is one of the things that held our modest group of friends together—we all had our own things we were into, and our own likes and dislikes, but 40k was something we could all talk about over lunch. However, my introduction to 40k wasn't a Horus Heresy novel, it wasn't an attempt to actually play the game, it wasn't Cain, or Gaunt's Ghosts, or any of that. The very first piece of 40k-related content I remember seeing was... well, this.

Yes, my entrance into the dizzying mess that is the world of 40k was... not an official work by Games Workshop. It was a surreal, meme-laden work of parody by Bruva Alfabusa and his merry band of collaborators (once, long ago, known as The Alfa Legion, when they were younger and less dignifed) known as If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device, or TTS. If you're a Warhammer fan, TTS... probably needs no introduction. Even if you're not, I've brought it up a lot. Inside of that fandom it's a genuine phenomenon, with new episodes (when they do release—the production schedule is legendarily glacial) scoring 1.5 to 2 million views and spinoff side content boasting respectable figures. I'm sure there are warhammer fans who don't care about TTS, but every time a new episode releases, every 40k fan I know jumps up in excitement. Back in highschool, on the rare occasions a new TTS episode dropped, we'd immediately want to talk about it, share our favorite jokes. Sometimes we'd play it over lunch to get other friends who hadn't had the time to see it yet caught up. Whenever a new episode drops now, it makes the rounds amongst every warhammer fan I know, and many I don't—/r/grimdank always springs into action to extract the best memes from the new episode so they can be overused into oblivion, like all the other memes.

But what made TTS so special... wasn't really the fandom in-jokes, or the other jokes, or even the Jojo's references. It was the story, and it was watching that story become a story. TTS began its life as a series of... well, dumb edgy meme videos, poking fun at both the over the top grimness of the setting and the things fans happened to find distasteful about 40k at the time—the very first episode takes shots at Ultramarine favoritism, no surprises there. Those episodes were tiny, only five minutes or so. They were just... silly videos to make 40k fans laugh, and maybe nod along at some of the more meta criticisms. But as it continued, ambitions spiraled and the show just... rose and rose in quality. The characters, initially more or less just one-note gags, started to get a little more substance. The writing staff got more fastidious in knowing 40k lore, not just for the purpose of writing gags, but to write a comedic take on the setting that still made sense as a story in the context of what was already there. By the time I arrived on the scene, TTS was a genuine, character-driven comedy that could generally provide a humorous take, satirize 40k, provide at least a few hilariously memorable moments every episode, and still advance an actual, ongoing plot with interactions between a huge cast of characters all over the galaxy. And it's only risen to new heights as it's gone on, complete with epic battes, ambiguously diagetic musical diplomacy, YuGiOh, existentialism, dad jokes, the draining effects of self deprecating humor, the ill-advised booping of snoots, and an awful lot of Adorable. Spin-offs like Bro Trip and the TTScast have given the crew opportunities to stretch their creative legs with different characters and less animation-intensive formats, to hilarious results (the TTScast's well-deserved sporking of the notoriously awful first ever 40k novel, Inquisitor, was a particular highlight. And it was all done entirely in character.) They're even started a tabletop roleplay series, Warhams, which I hear is quite good, on top of the WHFRP special. And of course they've taken Paradox's money and gone off and made a Stellaris special too, which is also outstanding (Paradox has a uniquely strong instinct for knowing who exactly to sponsor for content based on their games). But through all of that, the best part was the story, and the characters. I was invested. And I still am.

But, thanks to Games Workshop's recent change in stance on fan content (namely, an explicit prohibition on fan animation)... it is not to be. Alfa has a family to provide for. He can't work under the sword of damocles, knowing at any minute it could all just... vanish.

So, as of today, TTS is officially on hiatus. Hiatus, because hopefully GW will see reason eventually, and also because... well, the team does want to see this through. If GW really genuinely will not back down, the team fully intends to provide fans with some kind of resolution as best the can. Think something along the lines of Epistle 3—ie, removing all the copyrighted parts of a blatant continuation of a story for legal reasons to give fans something, even if they'll never get something official. (...Right, yeah, that link has Half-Life spoilers. If you're not a Half-Life fan you might not know that). But for now, once TTS episode 30 parts 1 and 2 (of a total of three parts) release on youtube in a few days... that's it.

Alfa and co are off to find fandoms to work in that are more creator-friendly, and I wish them all the best—I'll certainly watch whatever they put out, because they've long since proven that their work deserves that. They're a talented crew.

Maybe it's not right to call this a memoriam. TTS will continue eventually, in some form. The people behind it will do more work, and are experimenting with neat new ideas. That's exciting. But... well, I wanted to do something. This is a series that has meant a lot to me over the years. More than most fan works. More than most works, period. It got me into a fandom. It connected me to the people around me. And... oh god. Technically, TTS introduced me to my warhammer faction. By extension, TTS gave me my username. I... literally wouldn't be "thoth" without it.

I want to be angry. That would be easier. But really I'm just... kind of sad.

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In Memoriam of a Fan Work by Thoth on 2021-07-30 00:59:10 UTC

Not unrelated: petition to end creative monopolies by Neshomeh on 2021-08-04 22:10:09 UTC Reply

This comes by way of FightForTheFuture.org and I believe it is very, very relevant to our broader interests:

https://www.endcreativemonopolies.com/

Because what good is creativity if it can't be shared freely and inspire more creativity?

~Neshomeh
Aw, no. Games Workshop, why? by Neshomeh on 2021-07-30 14:49:51 UTC Reply

I said this in Alfa's comments section:

This series helped me get invested in the 40k universe. It made me interested to see where the official storyline will go, for comparison. I will never [frelling] understand why large companies feel so threatened by fanworks. Where's the data that says this hurts their bottom line?

I'm subscribed, the bell is rung, and I'm here to see what happens next. I enjoy your comedy even when I don't get the references. I'm sure I'll keep enjoying it.

Gotta feed that algorithm.

And I'm serious: where's the data? Does anyone have studies about this? I wanna see them. And if our instinct is right that fandom is good for companies, I have half a mind to go tell GW as much (very nicely, I promise).

~Neshomeh

So, if you want to do that... by Thoth on 2021-07-30 16:32:43 UTC Reply

https://complaints.games-workshop.com/.

Please do not mention Alfa by name, that'd probably make it more likely the channel gets yanked.

As to why... there are a few reasons. I've heard some speculation from different places, but the big obvious reason is that GW wants to start producing video content and they want to charge us monthly to watch it.

Now, nevermind that this is... historically not a good idea (single-IP streaming services are by and large unsuccessful and the ever-increasing competition for the limited amount of money people have to spend monthly makes trying to enter the space without a fairly large value proposition in terms of content extremely ill-advised, especially for a company that already makes products marked up to premium prices that fans are frequently a little on edge about paying), it seems like GW has effectively decided thst fan content is competition and thus needs to be eliminated. It's hard to say whether this is actually their position, but the timing here is suspicious. Now, I would vehemently disagree with that stance, especially with something like TTS, but at the root of this, I think GW wants to make sure something like Astartes can never happen again—despite the glacial production schedule of multiple years of incremental release for a single 13-minute short, the fact is that Astartes was essentially professional-quality animation made by a fan. I'd argue that that doesn't really compete with any kind of official streaming platform anyways—the production time to actual frames of animation ratio on Astartes is so, so low, too low to compete with streaming content released on a regular, TV-production-ish schedule. And the thing is, the person who made Astartes got hired by GW to come help develop official content.

The other issue is... well, money. Fan animation, unlike fan fiction, can make money, and the instant money starts to change hands your fair use protections start to evaporate—it's much much easier to defend a work as fair use when nobody is financially gaining from it (and fair use is... honestly a lot less iron-clad then people tend to think. It can be very shaky, and its boundaries are largely decided by case law, so it's hard to know for sure if you're protected unless you win in court—by which point it is far, far too late). This is why patreons from people like Alfa, Something Witty Entertainment, Project Mouthwash, and LittleKuriboh are structured the way they are (abridgers are really the closest analogue to what Alfa does, although their heavy reliance on the original animation arguably makes their position more fraught)—if you sell access to content created with IPs that you don't own, it's dangerous. However, if you structure things so that it is a donation, not a purchase of some form of anything, and by donating you gain access to perks that aren't technically covered by the IP, it's harder to sue them (although many of these offer add-free download access to their content, which is... a little bit dangerous. Just less so than selling any and all access). And of course if you pay Alfa every month... That's money you're not using to buy warhammer models (although the fact that I continue consider giving Alfa money if I can spare any indicates that for at least a portion of the audience, that money really wouldn't go to them either way).

It's honestly easy to make a legal case against fan animation—moreso than any other fan content, because of the monetization and because it can more easily directly compete with official works then pretty much any other sort of content out there (although, again, I'd argue they fill different niches and really don't compete as directly as GW might think). I don't necessarily think, however, that commercial endeavors by fans always harm the rights holder—many rights holders actually allow it if they're in the loop and get some money for it, but I'm not even entirely convinced that's necessary. Hell, if GW straight-up said "yeah, you can accept donations and we won't try to sue you" (which... isn't actually illegal, just toeing right up against the line), there are actually opportunities that open up to them, some of which they can even take without looking like despicable human beings. They can provide publication for fan works or opportunities for creators who want to go official from inside of that space—you hired the Astartes creator, give other people who have proven themselves opportunities to official through hiring or contracting. People like Valve have been doing this for decades: it has proven profitable to varying degrees, and perilous to ignore, lest a friendlier company give your fans an offer—but if you close the door by making your works inhospitable to fan content, you won't get more hires, because those people won't be in your fandom anymore. Hell, if you okay donations, let people donate to fan creators who have reached a certain level of success and applied for it through your website, GW: you can take a cut analogous to patreon, you don't get access to actual content revenue streams like AdSense but also thus do not assume as much risk for fan content (you can't get sued as easily for profiting off of, say, references to Disney's IP if you only take a cut of donations...), and fan creators get the advertising of being on GW's website without actually taking a hit to the amount they get every month from an extra cut—nobody loses here.

There are ways to make this work, is what I'm saying, if you're willing to expand beyond the view of "I OWN this, it is MINE, nobody else get something from MY work, whether it be money, acclaim, or popularity."