Hey y'all!
It's time for your Fantendo History lesson - PART 6!
This time, we won't talk about OC but the Fantendo Founder and Unten creator, Plumber (t∣b∣c). As the wiki is celebrating its 15th anniversary, it was fitting to know how does it feels about that!
Coral: Hey Plumber! Big fan here, few years ago I really dove into the history of Fantendo and I found it fascinating. I wrote my own Fantendo History Course lol, would you like to see it?
P: Of course.
C: Link to the Fantendo History Doc
Plumber: Yes, there are a few things I’d like to clarify. My MarioWiki user page was just Plumber, not The Plumber. Although I do like that name. It came from Mario being a Plumber. I’ve never worked in plumbing, but I did go to work in US politics a bit. So I’ve still dealt with a lot of shi-er, nonsense *laughs*
It was a nice time. Before Web 2.0, the culture of web sites were more unique. The MarioWiki community in 2007 was quite a special, close-knit one. I was happy the same would later happen to Fantendo, but when I founded it I thought the wiki would be dead within a few months. This is because earlier there was a server outage at the MarioWiki, referred to back then as the Wiki Drought. So the user base flocked to a parody of MarioWiki inspired by Uncyclopedia’s parody of Wikipedia: the UnMarioWiki, but it soon died out when the MarioWiki servers came back online. However this Wiki Drought period sparked an artistic culture of creativity rarely seen at wikis at the time, of storytelling and Game Boy Advance-style sprite comics. Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga base sprites were especially popular, and I edited a Waluigi-style M&L sprite to create the avatar I’ve used ever since. My dear old friend Arend, who would later become influential in Fantendo, was the one who first created a 3D model of my look.
I loved making sprite comics, even though it took hours. At first these comics were very simple and involved users, but they grew to become more complex, with original characters and wiki lore. There was not many people moderating back in those days, so occasionally a troll would do a lot of damage to the wiki. Many of those trolls became sprite comic villains, such as Willy on Wheels or JakeBastille. Eventually I would make a dramatic series Troll Tragedies, with many of those villains involved and a comedic Dadaist series, Monty Mole’s Flying Fax Machine. This culture of creativity was foundational to Fantendo, because the early user base was entirely from the Mario Wiki. It stirred my creative juices and I began to wonder, what if we had a wiki to create Nintendo fan-fiction more generally? I found out there was a site Wikia, a sister site to Wikipedia, where such a thing was possible and the rest is history.
Coral: *gif of Daffy Duck taking notes* Please continue!
Plumber: Sure. Well, Fantendo was my idea of course, but there were a few people who were foundational in getting it off the ground. I already mentioned Arend, another was Shroobario. Shroob was Brazilian and actually learned English via the Fantendo and MarioWiki IRC chat, which was on DarkMyst servers in those days. Arend was Dutch and bot would become Sysops at Fantendo, along with the Swedish Smiddle and Australian Pokemon DP. Unlike the MarioWiki, the Fantendo staff was always very international in character. And as we grew up, many of us realized we were queer as well. *laughs*
But I want to go back a bit and highlight two people in particular who are largely forgotten today, but were crucial to the success of the site. Xzelion and Max2 were the most effective advocates to staff member Angela Beasley of Wikia (now Fandom of course) to create Fantendo and served as the initial sysops alongside me. This was incredibly important because the first six months of a website really decide if it can survive or not.
C: Man I didn’t know about that.
P: Max2 Xzelion, Arend and Smiddle were the first users we had. Well, aside from my brother and I of course.
C: Honestly the first 5 years are so hard to recollect lol.
P: Glad to be of service. I’m a historian by trade, although a career as a historian faces long odds since the 2008 Great Recession. I do green energy and environment work instead. But I do love learning about history, which is always more interesting and wacky than fiction. You should present some history during the anniversary, you’re really passionate about it and history is very important!
C: Ok sounds like a great idea! So let’s get back to the early history of Fantendo then!
P: Sure! Well Max2 and Xzelion were very helpful at first, but they became inactive over time. That’s where users like Arend and Shroobario came in. Arend was there from the start and was always very helpful, as was Smiddle. You see, Xzelion, also known as Sooner034, would later become a MarioWiki Bureaucrat and so would become inactive on Fantendo and very active on the MarioWiki, with the reverse being true for me. We were the best of friends at this time, and he kept trying to promote me on the MarioWiki but I didn’t want it.
C: Why not?
P: Well, I created Fantendo mostly so I could make my own Nintendo fanon, but because most of my time was taken by administrating a baby wiki, I didn’t ever get to do that much. 😂 But I’ve been working on a Pokémon fanon for over a year and I’ll drop that today. Fifteen years is a big number after all! There are some ways we could’ve gone in a wildly different direction, as well.
C: Tell me.
P: After a year and half, the wiki started to pick up new users and run itself more and so I was mostly just the admin for the IRC chat. By 2009, I was also quite busy with school. But in 2010 there was an idea amongst the non-Wikia Nintendo Wikis to found what is now NIWA.
C: What is NIWA?
P: NIWA is the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance. You can see more at niwanetwork.org. I believe it was initially an alliance proposed by Bulbapedia to Steve, founder of the MarioWiki.
C: Oh, I understand now.
P: Yeah. It’s basically just saying on every home page, “hey these are other Nintendo wikis! Click them, not Fandom!” Fantendo nearly joined as an inaugural member of NIWA in 2010. It would’ve meant a separation from Wikia, however. This would’ve given us more control but was riskier because the site would probably grow a lot more slowly. At the time we were still quite small. But it seemed adventurous and I was initially for it, but many in the community were hesitant. At that time, Angela Beasley was still a good point of contact for Wikia issues. Basically, NIWA was a reaction to the growing dominance of Wikia within the fandom space — and of course now they’ve renamed themselves Fandom to underline this.
C: Wow! We would have been in the same platform as MarioWiki and Bulbapedia is big. But why didn’t it happen?
P: Per NIWA’s terms we would’ve needed to end our relationship with Wikia and many didn’t want that. As I’m sure you know, it’s usually not good to override the majority of the community’s wishes 🤣
C: Oh yes I know haha! it would have been for the best, now Fandom is hard to use for Fantendo’s needs and there are so many ads!
P: Maybe so! But I think if we’d done that we might be much smaller today, sticking with Wikia was a good idea probably. Yet at the time I was in favor of NIWA! But looking back, we might’ve grown more the way we are now. Fandom might have tried to absorb us back. They did finally succeed in merging Zeldapedia into Zelda Wiki, which now left Zelda Wiki awkwardly in NIWA. I actually put out an application to join NIWA while remaining a part of Fandom based on this precedent, but who knows what NIWA will think. It’s a great way to boost community engagement across wikis, although Fandom is fantastic in this too of course. I also like that there are Spanish and French Fantendo now, that wouldn’t be possible without Fandom. It especially makes me happy as a Latinx person.
C: Thank you for sharing that. What happened after your decision not join NIWA?
P: Well after 2011 I was busy with school, history in my spare time, RL friends and dating, but continued to go into the Fantendo chat. But at the end of 2013 and for most of 2014 I nearly died from a disease similar to COVID. During that time I stopped administering the chat, and some chaos reigned for a bit. I was pretty physically healthy again by the end of 2014, but didn’t fully recover until 2017. By then Fantendo was running itself and I was busy getting two masters degrees at once (do not recommend lol) so I’ve mostly lurked from then on. Mentally I was quite shook by the experience but I also got a good dose of post-traumatic growth, which was invaluable. That’s why at the start of the pandemic I edited the Main Menu of the site, or home page, to emphasize covid precautions. Get vaccinated and boosted, everyone!
C: Yes, definitely take COVID seriously! Sorry to hear about your illness but I’m glad you are okay now!
P: So am I *laughs*
C: On a lighter note, just from my curiosity because I’m also working on Fissure 2022 lol how did you imagine the end of your game?
P: The fissure was supposed to happen halfway through the game. Totally changing the world map. At the climax of the game, you would go to the Doomulus Starship orbiting it. And fight Doomulus 1-8 until fighting Doomulus 9/Grime. The rest is kinda hazy due to my chemo brain! But I’m fine now!
C: Happy to hear it! I like that, the Fissure at the middle instead of the end, it’s a good idea!
P: Yea that was always the intention. But I didn’t write the second half of the story 😂 So people got the wrong idea, my bad!
C: Anything else about Fissure?
P: Actually there was going to be 9 games with each one being the final boss, but I couldn’t even finish Fissure lol. So those original plans never took off.
C: That’s very mysterious! What would be the other eight Doomuli?
P: Well Doomulus Prime is Doomulus One actually, so that’s already revealed. There was going to be infighting between Doomulus Nine and Prime, and Doomulus Nine eventually would overthrow Prime and rename himself Doomulus Grime. I think I was influenced by Transformers in the naming here *laughs*
C: What were the original intended designs of the Doomuli 9?
P: They were all going to be robots or cyborgs. The original design for 9 is a lot like the article now except his head looks like Mecha Ridley, more like General Grievous or a generic Star Wars droid. You know, the one from one of my favorite memes, “well, I guess I’m in charge now.”
C: Lol. It’s great to talk to the creator themself! I feel like a reporter right now haha
P: It’s a pleasure! And that’s because you are! You are doing a great job, might I add.
C: Thanks! Any new character you didn’t have the time to introduce but you would have wished to?
P: For Fissure? 🤔… I would say the other Doomuli, especially Seven and Eight. Seven and Eight were going to try to overthrow Nine, in reference to the children’s joke “why was six afraid of seven?” They were also going to be the top 3 strongest, with the higher numbers being stronger. Doomulus Prime was the exception to this rule though. There was also going to be a more serious spin-off hero who took down some Doomuli hundreds of years after Unten but I never even gave that character a name!
C: Is there anything you’d like to say about Unten?
P: I created Unten to match the Cyan/Black CSS but I believe that’s widely known.
C: Oh I didn’t know haha.
P: At the time I was best friends with a MarioWiki user, HK-47 aka Sadaharu. He promoted a dark skin for Wikis to conserve energy and not hurt the eyes as much. That’s why Fantendo has a dark skin, actually.
C: Wow, I had no idea!
P: Yes, he and I were both Directors of The ‘Shroom if you’ve ever read that MarioWiki online paper. I did not delegate nearly enough as I should have in that role, but I am proud of creating the tradition of elections to positions. I’d seen a lot of kids get corrupted by having a small amount of power in a wiki and elections were my way of countering that.
Getting back to Unten, the lore of Unten’s spread enough over the years that I don’t really want to go back to mess with it now. Unten was my creation but they belong to all of Fantendo now. One of the original possible names for Fantendo was Untendo, and Unten’s name comes from that. Most importantly, Unten’s pronouns are he/they/she so they can someone everyone can relate to.
C: I love that.
P: So do I! My pronouns are they/he so this is important to me as a genderqueer person.
C: That’s wonderful! Yeah it’s true that Fantendo is a safe place to explore our identity. Which is surprising when you think about it.
P: My friend researches fandoms and she says people who make fanon are usually 🏳️🌈 in some way.
C: Maybe because of the need to express one’s self through fanon. It would make sense actually looking at it like that.
P: Yes, exactly! According to her lesbians were the first to do Sherlock Holmes fan fiction. There is a sense of control and freedom in your own life that society did not necessarily provide back then, and in many places did not do that now.
In the past the fans who would grow up to future content creators, like JJ Abrams with Star Wars and Star Trek, would usually be cis heteronormative men. But now things are changing. For example, my brother is trans and he currently designs games for Microsoft. I am very proud of him. He worked on Kingdom Hearts III and the Last of Us II.
C: This is amazing! 🏳️🌈
P: We’re best friends! He was never active on Fantendo though.
C: 15 years man! How do you feel about that?
P: Well, 15 years ago I was traveling abroad while Max2 and Xzelion advocated for a Fantendo to Angela of Wikia. The Wiki started out with pretty much just the three of us. Arend and Smiddle grew the community and it kept growing from there! Now we’re quite a sizable slice of Fandom! But I am still traveling *laughs*
C: Any advice to our users as you’ve gotten older?
P: If you’re old enough you should always vote if you live in a democracy! I’ve lived in Beijing before, where people are terrified of the government but they cannot express their opinions for fear of persecution. We take many freedoms for granted, but we are also doing our best. Keep being optimistic, because there is nothing gained from pessimism or worrying too much but bad vibes. Also eat and sleep at the same time regularly, those are crucial for happiness.
C: Thanks for the input! So we are getting close to ending the interview 😊 what would be your last message to the Fantendo community?
P: Don’t be too hard on yourself — hold everyone to the same standard you hold yourself. If you are feeling down, never give up hope! Good times will come, new friends are always around the corner. Believe in your dreams and follow them — I believe in you!
That's all guys, I hope the interview was a fun read for you all! Happy 15th Birthday Fantendo!! I let you with how it all began it was on April 2007 on the MarioWiki some users received this blunt invitation:
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