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Slash attempts to keep the community so busy with site events and new releases that they don't realize just how poorly the site is run. Most events revolve around trying to fine as many of a given item as possible. In the beginning they make them suitably difficult to find, followed by most of the userbase complaining that they can't spend their entire lives searching for [[Internetz]] items in order to pretend like they have real lives outside of Aywas. Slash inevitably gives in and makes the item appear constantly. These items are then turned in for rewards. Anything worth having costs so many of these items that they are actually impossible to get without buying / bribing more of these items from other users (which means that only artists and mods have the leverage to ever get them).
Slash attempts to keep the community so busy with site events and new releases that they don't realize just how poorly the site is run. Most events revolve around trying to fine as many of a given item as possible. In the beginning they make them suitably difficult to find, followed by most of the userbase complaining that they can't spend their entire lives searching for [[Internetz]] items in order to pretend like they have real lives outside of Aywas. Slash inevitably gives in and makes the item appear constantly. These items are then turned in for rewards. Anything worth having costs so many of these items that they are actually impossible to get without buying / bribing more of these items from other users (which means that only artists and mods have the leverage to ever get them).
Want to know even more about the individuals that make up this great community? Check out [http://lolaywas.tumblr.com/ LOLAYWAS] which is filled with [retarded|awesome] quotes from Aywas members.
You are expected to try and make the sexiest pet on the site and then brag about it to others because you totally earned it. The site also updates every month with several new pets that you can purchase via – you guessed it - real money! Because it’s totally worth paying $10 for a tiny pixilated furfag on the internet.
The site was founded by Slash, an indecisive faggot, late in 2009 because all of the other virtual pet sites were "too boring". Slash demonstrated her superior decision-making ability when she revealed that she hired Qwayzar, a coder, paying $5000 to code Aywas. IN ADVANCE. Stroke of sheer genius there. Qwayzar coded minor shifts so that everything could function with HIS framework. He then grew bored of Slash's bitching and lack of originality and quit, saying it was because he wanted to “work for himself”. It is also painfully apparent that Qwayzar’s work was sub-par, being quoted as worth no more than $15. It was soon discovered that fixing his sloppy coding would cost approximately $5000. Because of this botched birth, the site came out horribly disfigured, and the site staff tried to Jew as much money as they can out of the users in order to pay for the corrective surgery, which honestly isn't much of an improvement.
However, now that the site has been released as version three, Slash constantly has the coding team (havng hired an actual company this time instead of some tech school drop-out working on ways to make Aywas more like Facebook istead of fixing glaring usage problems that have been around for several months. This includes several promises to make the site faster, which usually results in Gateway Errors every two clicks and never actually generates any speed. This is okay for the gaming section, at least, since any time a user actually does something quickly, Aywas throws a Captcha at them, obviously assuming that Aywas users have spent too much money on their Sparkledogs to afford anything other than dial up.
There are several Aywas species that resemble real life animals. For example, “gael” instead of fish, and “melo” instead of cat-dog-thing. These totally original species have blossomed to a total of more than seventy, ripping off everything from Pokemon to Neopets to the real world. Nothing is actually that original, which Slash tries to make up with quantity. To make things even more confusing, these pets require a variety of different items to create and/or breed them. Despite the fact that this clusterfuck is a site-created hazard, any user daring to get confused and breed pets with the wrong item will not have that item returned to them (unless they're friends with Slash, of course).
A majority of these creatures are found by exploring the world and catching them with virtual equipment. Of course, none of these are worth anything, since the site makes them rediculously easy to collect. Other species are so special that you can only get them through lucky “zaps”, random potions and items, through chance (i.e. chancing to be a friend of an admin), or by purchasing expensive custom items.
One feature with real possibility, and the real reason most users play this site instead of Wajas, is the ability to completely customize your pet. However, like everything else on the site, users must pay depending on the breed, the percentage of edits, and Skitty's mood. And this is only to create the pet. First you have to buy the art, which is not provided by the site, and thereby makes decent artists nearly invincible. Due to the user to artist ratio, well-drawn pets can cost anywhere from $20-$200 (with the most expensive piece of art going for over $400). As a result, it costs anywhere most users entire paycheck to get a single unique pet.
To further draw in new users, these pets are actually breedable. The theory is amazing: breed pets A & B and get new pets with design elements of each. They've even outlawed lazy breeding known as overlaying. Of course, in reality, nothing is ever that perfect. Due to the minuscule payrate, Aywas has no way to attract the good artists, meaning that breedings - arguably the most complex feature on the site - are handled by second-rate scribblers and egotists that may talk a good game, but can't art for shit. This has led to increased amounts of displeasure from the userbase as more and more breedings clog up the plumbing, and the drowning artists shit out a barely acceptable babbys with a minimal amount of effort, in the shortest amount of time. 'Shortest amount of time' meaning about four months. The complaints over the long wait and varying quality resulted in Slash allowing users to submit their own breeding predictions, further making artists indespensible site gods that can get away with just about anything short of shitting directly on Slash's chest and then banging her mother and selling the tapes on eBay.
It is worth mentioning that users are not allowed to submit hybrid (i.e. more expensive) pet predictions unless they buy another expensive item (yes, this site charges you to save the staff time and effort). Even then, this item is often ignored if the user takes "too long" (a couple weeks, compared to the site's four months). At this point they intentionally produce poor-quality offspring, though it's hard to tell with the shit the hybrid artists have been producing. Whereas these breedings were once the only way to receive gorgeous art from the site, all the good artists left when they realized that they could make more money selling designs on the marketplace, with the added plus that they are no longer working for Slash, these $50-$75 babies are now some of the laziest, ugliest, most horrible pieces of crap on the site... and that's including mutants.
Those users who still want a surprise when receiving their custom offspring occassionally still risk using the site staff for their breedings. The surprise usually comes when they receive their new pixel pets with stray lines, poor edits, and bad coloration (experts estimate that only about 10% of all site-produced babies are actually decent-looking). Should the user want to complain about the poor edits, the site maintains a thread in which to post maimed babies. Of course, this thread is hardly ever open due to the massive amount of complaints. If a user actually does manage to post, they are most often dismissed by Frey who says that she thinks they are perfectly alright, or the problems are blamed on the user for either providing a shitty .psd, or not sending one in at all (though it's a well-known fact that even if a user has sent in a .psd, the artists commonly delete them for absolutely no reason).
Key People (and pretty much anyone that delivers Teh Lulz)
Slash is such a guy.
Slash – Known for begging for money ever since she wasted it all on shit coding. Slash’s gender is widely Slash likes NO ONE. known to be female, though she insists on being called male because it makes her sound more SRS. Debates are
often waged on whether or not to call Slash male or female. Pictures confirm that Slash is both female and a beaner. Slash also uses Aywas as her own personal kingdom and will ban members for no reason at all, or let her friends get away with murder. Aywas is basically a giant masturbatory shrine to her ttly originalfag-tastic RP characters, and is an excuse to have art drawn of them.
Fun facts about Slash include:
Slash does not like animals, but created a pet site because they are popular and generate a lot of money.
She only wants a fennec fox because they turn heads. Better than a fucking chihuahua.
When her ball pythons didn't get enough attention, Slash bought a kitten for more attention.
Slash hates people and can't stand talking ot them. She doesn't like Aywas, she just likes money.
The main reason she claims to be male is to create confusion, inspire respect through intimidation, and laugh her ass off over user debates.
Hm, wonder where our donations are going...
Spends massive amounts of Aywas-generated money on character-art. Makes 10's of thousands of dollars a month, but still claims not to be able to pay staff.
Claims to have ultra-conservative viewpoints that are in no way mirrored in the way she role-plays her faggy characers.
BeeJay's true face. SRSLY.
BeeJay/BJ - Known for being the PMSing bitch of the site due to being rude, impatient and abrupt. In 2010 BJ finally got sick of Slash's bullshit and left her position as second-in-command. She still remains above the rules, despite no longer being a staff member, as she gets to make passive aggressive comments about people and break shop rules without punishment. If you point this out to her, you are somehow the bad guy. She's also recently moved in to share a lair with Airr/Basil/Charm (see below), who she has previously called a spoiled brat. Interesting.
Frey - Frey is big on playing the favorites game. In instances where a friend of hers is in an argument with someone else, the friend will always come out on top... even if said friend is very obviously in the wrong. In one instance, Chunkio agreed to a breeding with one very clear rule stating that if she wanted to breed with that pet, she would offer one of the two offspring to the owner at a reasonable price. She got first pick, but would have to offer one pet. When the babies came in, Chunkio decided that she wanted to keep both. The bred pet's owner reminded her of the rules, at which point Chunkio threw a bitch-fit claiming that she hadn't understood the rules (despite saying that she had read, understood, and accepted them prior to the breeding, and admitting that she understood again when she asked to keep both despite the rules), and proceeded to curse out the other user. Despite the fact that she didn't curse back, Chunkio reported her. The situation ended up being taken to Frey who, surprise-surprise, sided with Chunkio - her friend - against the other user whom Frey was well-known to dislike. Chunkio was told to keep the offspring while the other user was warned despite having very clear rules. Feeding Frey's huge ego is her position as head of the breeding department. This means that when people she doesn't like find blatant errors on their customs, she claims that it's not (and could never be) a staff mistake and that she likes it, so the user should too. According to Frey, users should pay $23-$75 to get ugly pixel pets with glaring problems and be happy about it... because she said so.
Airr - Likes to add herself into ED articles. Was a popular user and great artist; however, she left because she was busted abusing her breeding privileges, and came back under the name of "Basil". It was rumored that she finally got tired of the Slash's idiocy, but she probably started that herself.
Airr / Charm / Basil Despite claiming otherwise, these cave-mates / friends are probably all the same person. See above.
Mokitty - Mokitty is well-known for her bizarre custom creations. Likely she was made a moderator because Slash wanted access to all of her art before it could be sold elsewhere. Ever since Mo became a mod her custom creations have become nonexistent. Perhaps she now feels popular enough that she doesn't have to pump out thousands of /b/-inspired creatures that were really never all that funny in the first place.
WyrGecko - Well-known as keeping a lair full of Every. Single. Aywa. on the market. Despite her collection, her taste in customs is disgusting, consisting of nothing other than neon-green critters reminiscent of Nickelodeon's Slime.
Skitty - Once known as both a nice and fair user, once she took on her modship she went batshit insane. Shity has the OH-SO-IMPORTANT job of deciding which crystal a custom will use, and thus how much it will cost to make. But don't worry, as long as you are lodged safely up her ass you can get away with ANYTHING! The more she likes you, the more you can edit the stock lineart and still keep it in 'bronze crystal (or 'we-raep-your-wallet-less') range. Members such as Ryou are well-known for getting heavily modded pets as bronze. There have even been situations where pets with the same exact lineart will be gaged as different crystals, depending on who submitted them.
Zebby - Despite not being a mod, Zebby is well-known for her love of orange. She is so well-liked by the mods that Slash created an orange day in honor of her, in which a variety of orange pets were released in her name (obviously Slash doesn't play favorites or anything, right?). She keeps a public blog badmouthing various users of Aywas, for which she is never punished.
graymare - Being colorblind doesn't keep graymare from lording over breeding predictions. The current theory is that she auto-denies 75% of all babbies... Unless you're her BFFE. See more on this hag below.
Brianna - #268, not to be confused with others of the same name. This snitty artist posted a well-read rant complaining about how artists make so much money off of pet premades featuring very little difference between them (such as the rampant use of hue-sliding). Less than a week later, her sales thread features exactly that: a bunch of expensive, crappy pets with no difference aside from color. Next, she decided to fix her reputation by copying popular Aywas artists such as Youko and Kitt with near-traces. After getting a stern talking-to from the mods, she then adds insult to injury by promising to sell a limited amount of these pets, and then proceeding to do the exact opposite and THEN taking commissions for the same lines. The mods became sooooooo angry with her that she was hired as a BC breeding artist. Everyone was then surprised that she produces low-quality babies with the bare minimum for edits and, if the breeder is lucky enough to get two, near-twins.
Eri & Dew - Eri has consistently been well liked. At the end of 2011, a site wide cheer arose when Slash stated that she would be taking some time off during which time Eri would be in control. The only complaints have come from those benefiting from Slash's rampant favoritism.
Pooooor Havok
Havok - Is so far up Slash's ass that she is currently only seen as a couple of toes sticking out the admin's rectum. One of the site's most obvious brown-nosers, Havok immediately starts to BAW should someone say anything that even remotely disagrees with "her" (i.e. Slash's) opinion. She also claims to be 'psychotic' and 'insane', which might be true except that every time she types up another sordid rant about her life, it sounds like something out of a bad episode of Law & Order: SVU. Because, clearly, someone who is recovering from having her daughter murdered, a 'false' pregnancy, a divorce (they were married for a month, at most), black mold, assaults by drug dealers, and various other traumas should DEFINITELY be spending their time on a virtual pet site. Oh, and she has 'multiple personalities'. Despite slathering her personal life all over the forums, she inevitably goes into bitch mode and has threads locked in which her maturity, logic, and choices are questioned.
Havok, please remove yourself from Slash's anus immediately
Community
The word that best describes Aywas’ community would be “fucked”. However, ask anyone and they will tell you that it is the kindest group of people they have ever met. This seems to be a group hallucination, allowing otherwise sane people to put up with Slash's BS when they would normally GTFO. On one hand, the mods consist of a clique of elitist, self-serving, holier-than-though furfags that only have their positions of power because they've sucked so much of Slash's e-peen that they wouldn't know a good business decision if it fucked them in the ass. On the other, the user base is filled with whiny, entitled, drama-whores that can’t live a single day without Aywas. This is the perfect combination for a major dishing of teh [lulz].
Slash attempts to keep the community so busy with site events and new releases that they don't realize just how poorly the site is run. Most events revolve around trying to fine as many of a given item as possible. In the beginning they make them suitably difficult to find, followed by most of the userbase complaining that they can't spend their entire lives searching for Internetz items in order to pretend like they have real lives outside of Aywas. Slash inevitably gives in and makes the item appear constantly. These items are then turned in for rewards. Anything worth having costs so many of these items that they are actually impossible to get without buying / bribing more of these items from other users (which means that only artists and mods have the leverage to ever get them).
Want to know even more about the individuals that make up this great community? Check out LOLAYWAS which is filled with [retarded|awesome] quotes from Aywas members.
Breeding
This is the main focus for most Aywas users. Breeding is one of the best ways to make money in the failing Aywas economy. In most cases, decently bred Aywas can sell for up to double the amount the item used to breed them. Of course, this whole process starts with real cash, so in the end, it's very hard to make it monetarily on the site without "donating" money. What are you donating to, you ask? Well, about 2% goes to running the site and paying Slash's friends, and the rest goes directly to Slash herself so that she can afford important things to flesh out the world of Aywas... like fanart of her original_characters.
Hybrids
Hybrids are meant to be the most speshulest pets on the site. Well, other than Xaocs and silvers and anything owned or favored by Slash. Once prized by players, there have been so many different types of lineart released, and the quality of art has decreased so much, that it is rare to make back the amount of money spent on creating them.
To further degrade the value of hybrids, on May 2, 2010, Slash declared that the genetics of the Aywas world dictated that hybrids would now have a mere 10% chance of inheriting the paid edits from their parents. Forever more, users were to spend $75 on a hybrid with no edits... and like it. This added extra drama as players were still complaining about the chance of the new rule of only receiving one hybrid per breeding, where it was once reasonable to expect two.
“
There has been some concern with how people are expecting edits on hybrid offspring to pass over from two edited parents. The sheer fact that people expect this is something that needs to stop, as it was intended to be a rare occurrence for babies. Edits are a privilege. All hybrid artists have been informed of this and now I am informing all of you that the chance for hybrids to have edits is now 10%.
„
—Slash's initial news post, God Forbid she lose out on a few extra dollars. Silly users. Why should you expect anything for $75?
Frey, realizing that Slash is an incompetent bitch, tried to convince Slash out of this ridiculous plan. After a day of digging her heals in, Slash raised the percentage up to 20% with the promise of flipping a coin, rolling dice, or using some other arcane and trivial method to give people the possibility of multiple line art edits. Finally Frey concluded this issue with the following statement:
“
More discussion has prompted that we're going to allow a better compromise for how edits on hybrids are handled now. We're hoping this ends up sounding fairer in the end. We are going to let [that's not condescending at all] you have edits 50% of the time when you breed using a Breeding Coin, which is similar to now. However, to push our agenda of non-edited hybrids, any breeding where the two parents are non-edited will have a slightly higher chance of getting an extra offspring. We are also putting the limit at edits on hybrid offspring at 25%.
„
—Frey
A few days later, most of these decisions were repealed and new rules, which were exactly like the old ones, were placed.
There had also been drama over the recent slump in hybrid quality. While reworking the rules, safeguards were created to assure that people would not being paying $75 for simple overlays (considered a curse word on Aywas). Ironically, the word “overlay” refers to anything a user doesn’t like about their offspring. Due to the poor quality of some delivered hybrids, several artists were put on probation. The admins neglected to explain who was behind these atrocities. Furthermore it was revealed that Slash has been looking for outside artists to recolor the pets at a whopping rate of $2 per pet. Where does the remaining $73 go?
As of August 2011, the quality of hybrids is at an all time low with no hint that things may change, or that stricter rules will be placed on site-produced artwork. They've even made it impossible to complain by locking the breeding error thread, leaving users with no way to have their botched hybrids fixed, and no hope of selling them for anywhere near the price paid to create them.
Sometime ago, Slash decided to completely fuck up the pets. However, he promised that the sacred melo, the most popular pet, would never fall victim to such drastic changes. But by the end of August 2010, Slash asked the website if they wanted a revamp. The majority of the user base responded no to his proposal but he then followed up with a cluster of empty promises until enough of the ignorant n00bs were persuaded.
When the new and 'improved' artwork of the melo was revealed, it was ultimately labeled as terrible by the users and they began to regret their choice of letting Slash tamper with the most beloved pet on the website. Despite numerous complaints, polls and suggestions, Slash ignored all of them because it doesn’t matter what the users think once Slash sets his mind on something. After all, Slash is the most important user on the site, dontchaknow?
This finally ended by early September when the “perfect” melo was unveiled. Those that were still unhappy had to suck it, but if they wanted the old line art then they could simply just throw more money at Slash to get it.
Over the following year, many of the other original pets were reworked onto new and improved art. It wasn't until they got to the orimi that the shitstorm that had been brewing turned into a shit hurricaine. There were arguments over whether the art should be changed completely or only minorly; if majority ruled, or if only 70% was needed; and why anyone really even gave a fuck. Finally Slash said "Fuck this shit!" and declared that they were abandoning the overhaul they'd spent over a year of time and effort on. Instead, users could make a pet with any site-produced line art, including the original art work. The catch? Old artwork and new artwork could no longer be bred together by a site artist (though she would allow users to pay the almight artists to make predicts for these breedings). This, she swore, would speed up site breedings as hybrid artists would no longer be tied up completeing the old x new artwork. Months later, however, breedings were not only as slow as ever, but hybrids looked more hdeous than ever.
Little has been seen of any of the alternate orimi lineart since the original wankfest, proving just how big of a deal it was. In fact, most people use the same artwork they would have been using either way, in most cases being the new art (the melo being exempt from this rule since the new version was butt ugly). The most popular breeds remain anything that can be edited into something completely unrecognizable as the original.f
How to Be Popular on Aywas
There are a variety of ways to become popular on Aywas. If you repeat these steps correctly, you will become a mod in no time!
Own over_9000 Silver Species, meaning that you provide the art to create a completely useless pet that can only breed with others of its kind (unless you want to spend $50). Each of these is absolutely unique, and is absolutely not a copy of something found on DeviantArt.
Agree with anything and everything that Slash says, even if it is completely inane and makes no sense according to Aywas ToS.
Wet your panties (because, let's face it, there are no real men on Aywas) and squee whenever something new comes out, even if it's just another shallowly disguised way for Slash to fap over her characters, a blatant attempt at fishing money out of the users' pockets, and even though there are more important things for the coders / mods to work on.
When not sucking up to Slash, spend your time sending gifts of art and expensive pets to the other mods.
Make sure to fill your lair with designs from only the most capable artists on the site. Some of the best include, but are not limited to: Youko, Springdragon, Fairy, Magnus Vale, Imay, Dew, Yoolee, osiem, Pumpuli, Skitty, and Balu.
Make friends with the above mentioned artists so that they give you free art.
Watch Doctor Who.
Have a fursona. Commission artists to create pets that look like your fursona in every popular Aywa species.
Own a low digit account number. Four digits at least, but the lower the better. Meaningful numbers (i.e. 69, 666, 100, etc.) will make you even more amazing.
Make unique profiles for every pet you own. Bonus points for excessive code and profiles covered in commissions of your pet in humanoid or anthro form. The sexier the better.
Be an artist. Give Slash free art.
Have a lair partner (or two).
RAEGquit at least once a week. Write about it in Rants beforehand and then "allow" others to talk you out of leaving by telling you how amazing you are, and how the site would be lost without you. Bonus points if Slash or a moderator begs you to stay.
Have no money irl. "Work" for the millions of customs in your lair. Complain about how you can't afford a car / the gas to go job hunting.
Have amazingly limited HA (human avatar) items. Only give these out to artists and/or mods, and sell one for an insane amount of money.
Own exotic animals irl. Extra points if you own a fennec fox or a ball python. Extra bonus points for working with horses/wolves/dinosaurs and/or rehabilitation animals.
Be FTM dating another FTM so that you can gay while you gay. Scrimp and save up for the transition while ranting about how broke you are, but always have a disaster -- such as the release of a new hybrid species -- strike just as you are about to have enough...
Bannination
When playing Aywas, always remember one thing: this site is Slash's personal sandbox and she can, and will, do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. This includes banning those she doesn't like, even if they don't do anything wrong. She'll even ban people for doing things off Aywas.com, as was the case of a user known as Guillermo (who was allowed back onto the site only after much drama and BAAAWing).
Other users perma-banned include Dember, who got into various tiffs with Slash and other moderators due to... GASP... being differently opinionated and daring to speak her mind. In the end, Dember was 'nailed' for bribery. Of course, this bribery merely consisted of asking a site artist -- Miss Mally -- if she could provide a couple of .psds for pets Dember already owned. This occurred during an instance where Miss Mally had already given Dember five hybrid .psds. Oddly, when asked about a sixth .psd for a BC-bred hybrid -- a pet Dember owned, mind you -- Miss Mally refused, stating that she could get in trouble. Dember asked for the file one more time and then dropped it. For some malicious reason (possibly hoping for a USD raise, or because her head is wedged so far up Frey's -- who admitted that she was after ANY excuse to ban Dember -- ass), Miss Mally then doctored the chat logs to make it look like Dember had tried to bribe her with various currencies (including USD and pet designs). In reality, Dember had refunded her 5 GP from an earlier purchase in thanks for her help. A refund that Slash confirmed was perfectly acceptable, mind you. Despite having the real conversation logged, Slash shrugged it off it a he-said-she-said and banned Dember.
Then there's Messy. This user was banned for supposedly abusing resources using a glitch, harboring a past perma-banned user on her account, and circumventing the ToS. Messy has said that that any abuse was either a mistake or a misunderstanding, and genuinely does not seem to know what this part of her conviction refers to. After being informed of her possible bannination, and sending in her explanation, there was no word for over a week until she was suddenly perma-banned, without ever having received a response from Slash or any of the staff via e-mail. Messy has been a long time user and made a small fortune producing beautiful designs, there seems to be no reason for her to abuse site resources.
Point out obvious flaws in the system, such as how the entire game is focused on inside jokes between Slash and her BFFEs.
Be a fantastic artist and refuse to work for or sell to Slash and/or Aywas.
Refuse to sell a pet to Slash that she wants. She will then ban you and take the pet anyway.
Have your own opinion. Make sure that this opinion is at odds with everyone elses'.
Copyright
Obviously not based on Gaia.
Copyright is a huge issue on Aywas, as it should be. Since the site allows users to submit their own user-created pets, as well as user-created items, there is a huge possibility that people are referencing copyrighted material, or just downright copying it. In an attempt to stop users from using copyrighted material, the administration has created a forum esspecially for this issue. Sounds great, right? Yeah, well, it would be, except that it takes admins 5-6 years to judge anything placed there. Even better, users items don't have a forum at all. Of course, just like every other section of this site, those users that devote 90% of their time to rimming anyone in charge can get away with murder.
Events
Jan. 2011 - Mini Scavenger Hunt
Guess the first one didn't cause enough BAWWWWW, don't worry though! It's back! And with 100% moar tasks based around site wealth! Totally fair, amirite? Right! Especially if you're on Team YoDa. Last Scavenger Hunt YoDa came out on top, no surprise there right? They totally won fair and square and ended up with more points than even possible, and, just as we all predicted, insisted Slash had added wrong. Of course Slash believed their honest word. But this time, the task list seems as if it were made just for YoDa. And it probably was if BJ saw it three days before the hunt started, like last year.
Jan. 2011 - Introduction of the Bronze Crystal
Skitty ruled this bronze... because it's TTLY under 30%
This handy item was introduced halfway through the Scavenger Hunt and allows a user to pay $15 to make a custom with 30% or less edits. This crystal is lodged safely between metal (0% edits) and blue (50%), and is soooo inexpensive that all members can buy a bajillion of them! This has led numerous members to throw up tons and tons and tons of their pets, asking Skitty "ARE ANY OF THEZE BRONZE?!?!" Unfortunately, depending on how much Skitty likes the owner, it doesn't seem to matter what percentage they really are... To her they will always be bronze.
June 5, 2011 - Baby Day
Baby Day is yet another site [con|event] created around one of Slash's cronies, Dana. You see, poor Dana suffers from PCOS, which is a reproductive problem that makes it difficult to get pregnant. Determined, she went through all sorts of medical hullabaloo and finally conceived. All fine and dandy. Even creating an event to celebrate her good luck is great. Sure, it indicates obvious favoritism (Slash claimed that Baby Day was for all parents and soon-to-be-parents, but we're not that stupid), but new events are generally well-received. In and of itself, Baby wouldn't have been raeg worthy...except for one thing. In the news post for Baby Day, Slash reveals that though Dana had finally gotten pregnant, "there [were] financial problems in her life that... make[ing] her and her husband's life tough." Due to this, Slash devised a way to trick users into donating in order to purchase a custom-creation item for new line art of ugly chibified versions of normal pets.
According to the news post, each item cost "$25.00 via PayPal" and "half of the proceeds [were]... given to Dana... and half... to the Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Association, Inc.". Does anyone else see a problem here? No? Well, there's the fact that Slash supports pregnancy in adults too poor to actually afford children. Not only does she support it, but she forced the site users to do the same by sponsoring this event. If you don't want to donate to an adult who gets pregnant without being able to afford the outcome, but you still want that item? Too bad! You can't decide to donate the entire $25 to charity - whether you like it or not, you're giving money to someone who is too damned poor to have a child without monetary help, let alone take care of the child once it's born! What do you want to bet that all the tax paying members end up donating more money, once their family ends up on public assistance? So ladies, if you want Slash's favor just get pregnant when you can't afford to! You can count on a site-wide fundraising effort dedicated to you and your fetus.
July. 2011 - Large Scavenger Hunt, Year 2
Apparently, Aywas' staff has the memory of a goldfish, because the newest Scav Hunt was just as big of a dramafest as the last three. Huge surprise there. As usual, all of the mods and admins were huddled onto a few teams along with the rest of the popular kids and artists. Upset that these teams always seem to win, grumbling of unfairness spread throughout the rest of Aywas. Every time a user dare suggests that a mod-team has even a minor advantage (whether physical or perceptive), the entire Aywas staff cries prejudice.
In one drama-filled thread, a [[troll] dared to suggest that moderators no longer be allowed to create mod-sodden teams in order to prevent advantages, as well as forcing integration between users and moderators. The mods were outraged, as though the OP were suggesting slavery. Faced with her racism against "non-colored" users, Frey (#90) claimed that asking moderators to split up into multiple teams was "limiting" the mods (i.e. preventing them from winning) while mod Mauri (#1010) yowled that the mere suggestion of such a rule would take "the fun out of the game" while simultaneously stealing her freedom. Zephy (#215) re-defined the subject of the conversation as: "[mods] shouldn't be allowed to play with their friends because they post in different colors than regular members, so instead we'll force them to play a game, that's supposed to be fun, with people they don't know/don't like." Obviously, mods find the regular users of Aywas so repugnant that they'd rather become an hero than form a team with them.
Despite the mods' continual argument and whining that they NEVAR EVAR get any perks and they are just lowly volunteers, rumor says otherwise. According to one user, popular member Airr (#404) gave up her modship because she felt that she and her fellow mods were given far too many advantages over the regular user base, and were generally showered with favoritism by the almight Slash. Furthermore, a furfag noticed that mod and well-known Deviantartlet posted a snippet on [1] hinting that she and others had been given hints about the contents of 2011's to-do list, including the 25-page, lined and half-toned comic. No one was surprised when Skitty (#543) was the only person able to finish this insane task within the one week time lot.
Other buttfuck insane tasks that no one could have finished without knowing about them ahead of time:
Over 165,000 written words (including one 75k and one 50k fanfiction)
A stone carving
Develop the game mechanics for a trading card game for Aywas... includ[ing] the rules, and a description of what the cards in the first series (40-60 cards)
Program a system where two linearts can be uploaded, and the script computes the percentage difference between them.
Program a script that alllows you to try on all the different HA items (there are Over 9000, dressing a model. All the items must be included, if possible.
Design an anime based off Aywas. Create it a poster and an episode guide ([[at_least_100|at least 100).
Create a five minute animated short regarding something Aywas related, with fully colored backgrounds and shaded characters. Think animated/anime style. It must not be sketchy.
Create an aywas-related piece of art with stained glass.
Create a fursuit outfit based off of an Aywas pet... must include a head or mask, gloves.., shoes.., and tail...
Construct a table-sized train layout based off the Ay Island using model train layout supplies (i.e. spend lots of money)
Write a 10-12 page essay about what the various people of the Aywas regions eat.
Create an outline - including beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and ending for each book - for a seven-book series about something Aywas related. Each book outline must be at least 10 pages long.
Summer 2011 - Forced abortions by graymare
The bitchiest bitch
Breeding is a major part of the Aywas economy. In the beginning, all breedings were handled by site staff, taking anywhere from four to six months to complete. Eventually, Slash allowed users to provide their own breeding predictions, acting as though it were some great favor and not a blatant attempt to save money. This move managed to speed breedings up by an impressive two to three days. Regardless, users were pleased to have some say in what thy received and, as the site artists' production quality plummeted due to Slash's refusal to pay enough to attract any real talent, people were just pleased to avoid using them at all. The user base has become so desperate that they even willing to provide four predictions each time, despite the fact that the typical breeding only produces two offspring. Things were going well until late 2011 when Slash realized that she hadn't done anything asinine to provoke or antagonize the user base in a while. In response, the moderators in charge of predictions were told to be more strict about babies allowed to go through. Drunk with heightened power, graymare began denying babies at random rather than simply checking that babies are a fair mixture of their parents with appropriate color schemes and a reasonable amount of edits. For example, on one breeding graymare claimed that one predict "had too much white" despite the fact that one of the parents had an entirely white base and the other was similarly pale. When users started to complain, graymare responded: "every time you make a rant I will take one day longer." Now, rather than speeding up the breeding process, creating predicts is an excruciating process in which the artist is forced to correct and re-correct their work until they catch graymare in a good mood.
Summer 2011 - Gold Paintbrushes
In a rare burst of genius, Slash added Gold Paintbrushes to the site. For $36 or $40 (depending on Account Status), users could buy this item. It could then be used to commission art from any willing artist on the site. The artist could then sent their Paint Brushes to Slash for $15 each (sent via PayPal). Due to the ToS, users are prevented from paying artists with cash outright, so this became a huge motivation for all those needing extra income. Suddenly new artists started popping up, and users were finally able to buy decent art without being popular or having an artist as a BFFE. Everyone loved the item. However, two months later Slash gave everyone the middle finger by discontinuing the item, claiming that she was losing too much money. This from the person who admitted to making 10's of thousands of dollars a month off the site. Let's do some simple math, shall we? $36 -$15 = $21. So, even at the cheaper price, Slash still makes a profit of $21. Sure, a small percentage of users are able to make enough in game cash to purchase a Paintbrush, but given some time any intelligent person knows that it would have leveled out. So, instead of taking a temporary hit (one that couldn't have been that hurtful), Slash yet again removes a favorite feature that may have served to really help her user base in favor of lining her own pockets. (Ooo, but lookie... February 3 2012 they reappeared... for a week)
December 2011 - Enter PBC
On December 11, 2011 Aywas took a major step toward suicide by introducing the Platinum Breeding Coin (or PBC). For a mere 85 GP, this highly coveted item allows a user to take two pets — ANY TWO PETS — and create a third, brand-spanking new pet that is meant to be a combination of its "parents." However, since these offspring are created by a dozen different artists of varying styles and skill levels, more often than not the babies look absolutely nothing like either parent. This is largely due to the fact that the artists are given free reign to do whatever the fuck they want. Submit two chickens with the exact same line art? Get a feathered raptor! Luckily, these things are only available two weeks out of the year, meaning that people can only create about a bazillion one-of-a-kind pets a year.
January 26, 2012, Animated Pets introduced.
After the introduction of the PBC, and after the last remaining hope of keeping the site even vaguely coherent, Slash realized that the only way to make more money is to release even more ridiculous rewards. And what could be more special than pets that TWITCH?! That's right folks. As of late January, Slash decided to test the waters with animated pets by VengefulSpirits who, oddly enough, is a decent artist when it comes to non-animated work (animated to her... is sliding pieces up and down or side to side). Still, Slash rolled out the red carpet with a few examples of highly-pixelized, sprite-type art that twitch and convulse feebly, as though finally giving in to a slow and painful death. Not just anyone can bribe their way into ownership, however. To receive one of these suffering beauties, a user must either be BFFEs with Slash or win a public (read: rigged) raffle to have their favorite character mangled into an anemic, constantly blinking version of itself. But who cares what it looks like when they're rare and you get one and others don't, nah nah nah nah nah. It has become clear that Slash's business plan is as simple as: "RELEASE ALL THE THINGS! EVEN THE HALF-FINISHED, GIMPY, WE'VE-DECIDED-THIS-WAS-A-BAD-IDEA THINGS! RELEASE THEM FOR EXTREMELY HIGH AMOUNTS OF MONEY! THE MORE I RELEASE, THE MORE CONFUSED THEY'LL BE, AND THE MORE THEY'LL BE FORCED TO BUY JUST TO KEEP UP!" And guess what folks… It's working!
So funny hahahaha!
