To the Toilet and Back Again: ToonKriticY2K Hypes Up False Sexual Harassment Claims To Ban Anons from BABScon

The infamous hat rests in its natural habitat.

UPDATE: All charges against the anons listed below have been dropped since the article was published.  The anons have made apologies to FiauraTheTankGirl for any misunderstandings that occurred between them.  The racism charges were also dropped by the person who had signed that complaint as they did not actually witness the event first hand.  The sexual harassment complaint was never actually filed, but the person who made the complaint has already publicly withdrawn their complaint (as detailed within the article).  We hope BABScon will also refrain from placing any ban longer than what was already imposed upon them.

This is the story of a hat and its brief journey from the inflated head of the “analcyst” known as ToonKriticY2K (aka CarToonZ) to the depths of a hotel toilet at BABScon 2017 and how a lie about sexual harassment got the badges of the three anons involved pulled, who now face the possibility of being unofficially blackballed for life from all pony conventions.  For “borrowing” a hat.  A fucking hat.

The Foreplay

Pro tip: It’s not art

ToonKritic is the analcyst known for stealing money and for participating in the infamous orgy of BronyCon 2015 involving a plushie owned by Minty Root being rubbed on his genitals.  While Minty has long since moved on from this unseemly incident, it surely was in part the source of plans that began cropping up in disparate groups to steal ToonKritic’s hat and perform similar atrocities upon it.  I personally witnessed three separate and independent plans evolve to accomplish just such a feat in the months leading up to BABScon 2017.  Whether or not any of them would succeed and deliver the keks, we all had our doubts.

ToonKriticY2K “apologizes” to Minty

The Theft

ToonKritic on the left and CarToonZ, his alter ego, on the right

Then, on the afternoon of Saturday, April 15, 2017, a number of anons found themselves in the Button’s Arcade game room to vote for the Autism King and Queen of the convention or some shit.  Within they found a certain red-hatted individual Smashin’ with his bros (non-sexually this time).  His head was bare, and the object of their desire sat unattended on a nearby chair.

TK’s favorite time

Two of these intrepid anons, who we shall name Meatball and Noodles, seized this golden opportunity and made their memes become reality.  Noodles gently filched the hat off the chair and nonchalantly handed it to Meatball, who hid it in his voluminous clothing.  The two then exited and walked briskly towards the elevator.  I witnessed this fleeing as I awaited another event at the con, not knowing at the time the reason for it.  It appeared their crime went completely unwitnessed.

They then met up with another anon and fellow conspirator, whom we shall name Dago, for a brief celebratory photoshoot of their booty.  The worst thing they were able to do to the hat during this brief period was to place it in a hotel room toilet.  Since the water level of the toilets was so low, the hat never quite touched the water, though.

Artist rendition of the three anons

As word about the missing hat spread and the search intensified, the anons decided it would be best to hide it in impartial territory and sought another anon completely unaware of the events that were now afoot, whom’st we shall name WhiteBread.  With the hat now safely stowed, an excited Meatball headed to the convention floor to brag about his exploits.

The Return

Never forgetti

As is often the case, though, loose lips sink ships.  Meatball told me of his exploits, and this was the first time I knew his operation had succeeded.  Word eventually spread to yet another anon, this one a grill, whom’st’ve we shall name Marinara, who learned that her boyfriend, Salmon, knew the person that took the hat.

On her way to the bathroom for a quick dab, Marinara ran into an angry and distraught ToonKritic, who now had somehow obtained a detailed description of our heroes, Meatball and Noodles.  When Marinara admitted her boyfriend knew who took the hat, ToonKritic threatened to ban him using his superpowers if she did not extract the hat’s whereabouts.

Frightened by the prospect of losing her shmoopy-doopy sweetie-weetie pony pie for the duration of the convention, she was able to convince him to sing like a birb.  Now knowing Meatball’s true identity, Marinara confronted him and offered to act as mediator for the return of the hat in order to ensure that nobody involved would be held culpable.  Meatball was frightened to the point of shaking and stuttering as he approached me asking for contact details for WhiteBread to make sure he could return the hat ASAP.

Meatball was followed to WhiteBread’s room by Marinara and Salmon.  The three of them met up with Noodles, Dago, and WhiteBread, who had the hat hidden in a bag, in a hotel hallway.  They handed it over to Marinara.  Worried about my friends, I left the event a few minutes early and arrived in the hallway in time to witness Marinara walking away with the bag.

The five of us — Meatball, Noodles, Dago, WhiteBread, and I — watched from above and witnessed Marinara returning the hat to ToonKritic.  The two spoke briefly and Marinara later told me that he was trying to talk her into going to convention security to give up the names of the thieves, but she demurred as she did not want to get anyone in trouble.  As Marinara walked away, we watched ToonKritic angrily stalk into the security office to spill some salt.

The “Harassment”

More than nine hours after these events I was preparing for my last panel of the convention with my stand-in co-host Dago.  As we were setting up, we were informed that Queen Quake would be crashing the panel.

In case you don’t know, because we sure didn’t at the time, Queen Quake is a character in the convention soap opera that is acted out during opening and closing ceremonies and is played by an executive member of the convention staff who goes by the name of Fiaura.  I guess she was crashing random panels throughout the con to help get votes or something.

The audience drifted in as our panel started.  I recall there were a total of five people in the audience, and Meatball and Noodles were two of them.  In other words, only those bored out of their minds or lost showed up.  As the panel began, Fiaura came in and sat down at the table, immediately removing her “crown.”  We then spoke with her out of character about the background events that had occurred at both BABScon 2016 and 2017.

Fiaura takes off the hat

About halfway through the panel, Dago brought up the hat incident from earlier in the day, and unprovoked Fiaura states, “I’m not gonna ask what horrible, awful thing you did to that hat, I’m just gonna ask that you respectfully take it out back and put a bullet in it.”  After further banter about ToonKritic, and it becoming known he was holding a panel at the moment in the adjoining room, she then yells into her microphone, this time in character as Queen Quake, “ToonKritic dear, you’re not worthy of red and black.  Get in here and prove your worth, you slimy worm, and we might tell you what happened to the hat […] ToonKritic, come out to play.”

Fiaura condones murder and rape

Another member of the panel suggested that he was planning to “crash” ToonKritic’s panel after this one was finished (which likely would’ve consisted of him just entering the room, scowling, then leaving, knowing him).  Immediately, Fiaura volunteers, “I am scheduled to crash the last 15 minutes [of ToonKritic’s panel].”  Running with this idea, Dago suggested she go into the panel and say something along the lines of, “I know what happened to your hat,” and then just dropping it, leaving ToonKritic to wonder what actually happened.

Fiaura took this idea and ran with it, creating her own extemporaneous script, which she practiced at our panel in character: “ToonKritic dear, I know what happened to your hat while it was missing, and I will tell you right now, that atrocity is far beyond anything I have done in the last two thousand years.  Celestia herself is going to walk in and go, ‘That’s interesting.’”

Fiaura decides to crash ToonKritic’s panel

The topic moves away from ToonKritic, and for the remainder of the panel we mostly avoided talking about him.  Before we knew it, Fiaura once again dons her crown and announces, “I think we need to go next door.”

Fiaura announces it’s time to crash

We then followed her next door and watched as she delivered the lines she had earlier written and rehearsed almost verbatim.  Most of us then left, including Meatball, leaving Noodles and Dago behind.

The Lies

ToonKritic pictured with his lover

Eyewitness accounts from his panel reported that, after we left, ToonKritic told Fiaura that sexual favors were demanded of Marinara by the thieves for the hat’s return, specifically this appears to be the first time the accusation was stated publicly that someone demanded they “see her titties” and that she pay $20.

In the face of this hearsay, a lie promulgated by ToonKritic, Fiaura understandable became upset and began threatening to file lawsuits if the panel we had earlier recorded with her was ever made public.  She knew she had stepped in it with what she had said at the panel, and perhaps was worried about her tenuous position as an executive member of convention staff.  So she lied to the executive staff and told them that we forced her to harass ToonKritic and to bring up the hat as she crashed his panel.

As the night wore on, convention staff reportedly began searching for one of my fellow panelists, Owen, who had no connection whatsoever to the hat drama.  One anon, who was mistaken for him, reported he was approached by staff and was told they were looking for Owen because he “might be in trouble.”  This search was apparently later abandoned and, when asked about it later, convention staff refused to elaborate on why they were seeking Owen.

Jade, convention chair, doesn’t know why Owen was on FLARE’s (security team) list

The Bannening

Scruffy is here to stop the fun

Sometime after 2:30am Sunday morning, convention staff, convention security, and hotel security showed up outside the room registered to Dago and Noodles.  The occupants of the room, which at this time included Meatball, blearily answered the door and were coerced into calling Dago multiple times to get him to come back to the room.  Meatball was told by the staff that they were looking for him and then took his badge, with no reason given, and ordered him to return to his own room, as if he were a fucking child.

Once Dago and Noodles returned, they were informed their badges were being revoked as well and were asked to surrender them immediately.  When asked why they were being revoked, the staff stated that all the facts were not yet known and they could ask for a complete explanation the next morning.  Dago complied with the request to turn over his badge.

Initially, Noodles refused to hand over his badge.  He was informed that if he did not hand it over the convention would permanently ban him and, because he was not a registered guest, he would have his badge forcefully taken from him.  Once Dago was able to prove to the staff that Noodles was indeed a registered guest of the room, he was given the new option of either complying and returning the badge immediately and facing a single year ban or to keep the badge and face a permanent ban from the convention.  With no real alternative, Noodles reluctantly agreed.

Do you have zee papers?  Mmmmm?

Amid the growing rumor that convention and hotel staff were looking for the other panelist, Owen, we spent a nearly sleepless night waiting for the gestapo to knock in our hotel room doors and demand we surrender zee papers.

On Sunday morning, Dago showed up at the security office to receive the details and explanation of why he was being banned.  What he got instead was the vague reason that he said racist things at a panel with no specifics.  When pressed, the security staff told him their investigation was ongoing and to check back later.

Is This Real Life?

Queen Quake

With nothing better to do, Noodles and Dago went to the fitness center in the hotel to get swole.  On their way back from sweaty gay gym time, they were accosted by Fiaura in the public hotel hallway and she demanded of them, “Why are you still here?  You need to make arrangements to find another hotel ASAP.  Didn’t you get the letters?,” whereupon she contacted security to report their presence.

Security clarified they still had the right to use the common areas of the hotel, but now Noodles and Dago were even more motivated to find out just what the actual fuck was going on.  The messages being sent to them as to why they were banned and the extent of the ban were conflicting and vague.  So they spent quite a bit of time running around just outside convention space, searching for the very busy Jade Haybuck, the chair of the convention, hoping for a precise and final explanation.

They finally found her at the Gopher Hole, a gay furry dance club within the convention center.  She told them the newest reason they were banned was because they pressured convention staff (supposedly Fiaura) to crash ToonKritic’s panel and to harass him about the hat incident.  They were also informed their ban was due to other charges of sexual harassment and saying racist things at a panel.  Though they asked for further specifics, none were forthcoming, and all they had was a half explanation.

The Actual Happening

At this point, there were about two hours left in the convention, and they decided to stop fighting and let the convention staff anally rape them without a fair and full explanation.  As the day wore on, we began to hear more and more frequently the rumor that ToonKritic had begun spreading at his panel the night before, that the hat thieves had demanded of Marinara to “see her tits” in order to arrange the return of the hat.  Sometimes this rumor would be simplified to merely demanding “sexual favors.”

In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, as I packed up on Monday I sat down with Marinara to get her side of the story.  She expressed frustration at the rumor, which DustyKatt had been heard to repeat frequently.  She couldn’t believe the rumor was still alive and expressed a desire to squash it because it was simply not true.

Marinara then sent a message to the @HorseNewsMLP Twitter account denying the charges of sexual harassment occurred, a message which she later shared publicly:

Marinara denies the sexual harassment charges

Some convention staff, who wished to remain anonymous, reached out and confirmed the reasons for the ban listed above, though the true reason the ban was implemented were the accusations of Fiaura.  These anons also informed me that the racist statements our heroes allegedly made occurred during the Queen Quake Holds Court panel.  I questioned the three b& and learned that they did indeed attend the panel, but they pointed out the racist remarks were being made by a blonde haired individual wearing a Make Equestria Great Again hat, and that it was not them.

Later that same day, in a public Discord chat, Sonya, the head of the Harmonious Elements board which runs BABScon, stated that these three were responsible for “harassment of [the con’s] own staff members” and that “if these guys [get] blackballed from every pony con on earth, they’ll fucking deserve it.”  She then stated that the convention chair “wants blood” and that “a lot of us agree […] make no mistake, other pony cons will be told.”

NO MORE PONY CONVENTIONS FOR YOU

Thus the theft and return of the hat had morphed from missing a single day of the convention into a potential ban from all other pony cons forever, all without the testimony of either Marinara or the panelists on the panel where much of this occurred.

On the same server where Sonya made her bold declarations, I informed her that she did not have the full story, that ToonKritic’s sexual harassment story was an outright lie, and that the statements by Fiaura that she was forced to harass ToonKritic were not true and that there existed video evidence which would be provided if she requested it.  I have yet to receive any such request or reply from her, but have provided the evidence anyway.

I try to give Sonya evidence they are missing

My second, more recent request for more information where I provide a link to the video

The Aftermath

As of now, the three banned anons still have not received any specific explanation on why they were banned and whether this was a ban from BABScon 2017 or a lifetime ban or if they will indeed be “blackballed from every pony con on earth.”  Only one of the accused has even been asked to give an official statement on what happened.  I also have not yet officially been contacted by anyone at the convention to discuss these events, even though I was a panelist at the panel in question and witnessed many of these events firsthand, some of which I actually recorded.

I have heard from Jade, the chair of BABScon 2017, who stated, “The official reason from BABS why badges were pulled was due to actions at ToonKritic’s panel.”  What's funny about this statement is that I was present during the entire time one of the banned individuals, Meatball, was at ToonKritic’s panel.  He never said or did anything.  In fact, I recorded that brief moment and can prove he did nothing at the panel for which he should be banned.  From what I understand, Noodles and Dago didn’t say or do anything at the panel after we left, though I have only eyewitness accounts as evidence.

Yet another official reason for the ban

I’d like to end with a few final words:

Dago: “I will not be returning to Babscon after the way we were treated at the convention.”  For the record, Dago wanted me to mention he was a Canterlot Pony Sponsor badge holder.
Meatball: “I was freaking out because other people could have gotten punished.  I didn’t mean for it to go beyond Noodles and I.  We also kinda ruined the con for the Toon cosplayer as well.  I knew what could have happened and pretty much accepted it when my badge got pulled.  Drama sucks, my brain hurts.”
Sonya: “[ToonKritic] won’t be making any more [Community Guest] appearances at BABS, tho.  I’ll see to that.”

Parting words of Harmonious Elements board president

It’s really quite shameful the way this situation was handled.  BABScon, Sonya, Jade, and Fiaura have an opportunity here to apologize for the way this matter was handled and to promise they will at least question outrageous accusations of this sort in the future in order to find out the truth before wholeheartedly believing them and knocking on people’s doors at 3am making threats and demanding badges.

TL;DR: ToonKritic’s hat was stolen by three anons and he lied about sexual favors being demanded of the mediator who arranged the hat’s return.  Fiaura, as Queen Quake, of her own volition crashed a panel then lied and blamed the anons who stole the hat for coercing her to harass him.  She further propagated these lies and added some of her own and the two succeeded in getting the three anons banned.  They now face the possibility of being unofficially blackballed from all future pony conventions, with no evidence being requested of them and without being told exactly what they allegedly did, thus they are not able to defend themselves.

UPDATE 1: Jade, the former chair of BABScon 2017, has gotten back to us with her statement:

The three anons stand by their claim to have never seen Marinara’s boobs.  All the other anons mentioned so far, as well as eyewitness accounts, remain unchanged.  But I really appreciate Jade looking into this in a professional and civil manner and hope that this latest shit storm passes leaving us all stronger.

UPDATE 2: As more anons have come forward, we have learned that the story given by Marinara may have been less than truthful.  As originally stated above, based on Marinara’s testimony, Fiaura was understandably upset by events and this may have precipitated her claim that she was coerced to harass ToonKritic.  We will continue to research and publish a follow-up article when more is known.