The below post is what would have normally gone on my Patreon, which I’m no longer using. I’ll probably retrofit old updates with the posts I wrote for them too, unfortunately this is a bit more work than simply copying and pasting something.
This post will not blank out spoilers, so make sure to watch the show first if you care about that. Instead what will be spoilered is stuff that goes a bit into behind the scenes “what could have been” territory.
I think it’s safe to say that Fuck the Police was a huge success. Not only was the show itself fun but we also raised 100 Euros for Black Lives Matter Aid Funds. Which I matched, so it’s more like 200 Euros. Big thanks to everyone who donated, spread the world or simply watched and enjoyed.
I don’t think anyone is doubting that I actually donated the money so here is a certificate.
Well, there goes my luxury budget for the month… but honestly? This is more important.
220 Dollars amounts to very slightly less than 200 Euros, I didn’t properly convert it, but I like to think that this has been made up by what I gave for itch.io’s Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality which by the way, is still a thing you can get as of right now.
I stayed clear of running fundraisers so far because I felt that a lot of people respond to stuff like this with cynicism, alleging that someone just wants to look good by doing something and so on. I’ve seen it happen. There’s also the fact that I’m pretty small fry and wasn’t confident in actually raising any meaningful amount. I don’t normally like to use my show as a political platform either (which isn’t to say OHPW is apolitical, nothing is) but in times like these, I think it’s important to have a stance and represent it. The protests sparked by centuries of oppression going on right now may end up being one of the most important events of our lifetime, after all. And I’m glad we reached our goal here.
As for the show itself? I’m really happy with how it turned out. One thing that was immediately different (aside from the giant progress bar for our fundraiser, gotta keep that front and center) was the absence of the match timer. Which I had to mod out myself using the Unity Asset Bundle Extractor to replace the in-game files with completely blank versions. Weirdly, the numbers and the colon were in two different archives. This is something I wanted to do for a while. And there’s a mod that removes the entire UI, but that, unfortunately, includes the pinfall-, count-out and down-count numbers which I want to keep. Essentially I felt the timer got brought up too much in matches, especially if they went long. I also think not knowing exactly how long a match is until the actual post-match screen reveals it makes us judge the match less on that and more on what it actually is. I think it helped. There was no “It’s short/long BUT fun” and more “It’s short/long AND fun”
The following info has already been shared in the discord but it is stuff that would have normally gone on Patreon if I still maintained that. First, All the Young Devils are on excursion now. And when they come back their movesets and behaviour will be informed by who they faced. However, they are all different people, so they might take a lesson learned from facing someone and interpret it differently than one of the others did. There’s also the X-Factor of them going somewhere and learning there. Here’s who they faced before taking off into the world.
Hank Muscles:
Weeb Weaver
Manic Misanthrope
Palpatine
Tara McFly:
Harley Havik
Grace Thoruson
Nawt a Robutt
Sexton Thicc:
(Palpatine) (happened during the 4 on 4 tag match in Episode 36)
Vacation Skeleton
Steve Dirt
Additionally, each of them named a favorite wrestler way back on Episode 36 when they first showed up. For Hank it’s none other than Freddie Hope who trained all three of the Young Devils. Tara is a fan of Kushida, though she believed Back in the Future was a fictional movie for a long time. And Sexton admired Rikishi’s willingness to use his ass for the good of mankind but also 1-2-3 kids sheer heart. I have not actually worked on anyone’s return-persona yet. But I have a solid idea regarding some of them.
Up next is the fact that we have a bit of a roster problem. We had 77 people but I cut it down. Essentially I removed some characters by people who no longer seem to follow the shows (But, c’mon, I can never remove Vacation Skeleton.) There were also some characters that I wouldn’t describe as original. Such as Mr. Shakedown for example, that I’ll reserve the right to keep some of those. There’s also characters I put a lot of myself into, such as Fomore who underwent quite the change since their original debut. I’ll never claim ownership of the character or the concept but I’ll keep people like this as well. That said… I actually lowered the roster to 65 people. Oh, plus the 3 Young Devils. And oh… there’s Pig Destroyer who I only wanted to use for the one match, but it was so good I decided to keep him. That puts us to… oh, nice.
I’ll also take some time to talk about my favorite mod and how I used it in this episode. Extended Movelists. It’s a versatile tool that, in simple terms, allows people to give wrestlers more moves than there are moveslots (by putting multiple moves in one slot). Most people use this for variety. To have maybe one punch and then one slightly different punch. Or a move variation. Such as having a powerbomb and a tiger bomb in the same slot. However, I use it mainly to add storytelling to matches. The outcomes still are not predetermined but I see nothing wrong to nudge the actors in a match a certain way. Here’s what I did to Flamander. I’ll spoiler it because we’re “shooting” here and this is behind the scenes info that, if this were real wrestling, would be reported by them “dirtsheets”
Flamander doesn’t normally have a grounded Dragon Screw, I set the standing Dragon Screw -> grounded Dragon Screw up specifically so it could mirror Grace. There would have also been a chance of him doing the modified Single Leg Boston Crab he tapped to in the tournament match against Grace. I set that move to happen only if Grace’s spirit is incredibly low, meaning if Flamander had done it he would have (most likely) won with it.
Now, as you can tell this did not come to pass. Had Flamander won the match it might not even necessarily have happened that way. I still find it important to make things happen as organically as possible so I’ll never force a specific finish like this. But if it had happened it would have been a nice bit of storytelling.
Oh boy, this post is getting rather long. But there’s one more thing. I added the last three matches on the card to my highlights.
Pig Destroyer vs. Thunder - Wow, I never thought it’d go that long. I’ll be honest, Pig Destroyer was supposed to be a one-time special attraction for this match specifically, which is why I tested matches to see who he meshed with. Thunder was the choice here, but I didn’t know it’d pay off like this. It went stupid long and somehow didn’t get boring. I think Pig Destroyer might be sticking around after all. In terms of wrestling, this made both winner and loser look strong too.
Vacation Skeleton vs. Spitbal - It’s all the finish baybee! That’s what elevates it, despite a lack of Spring Break and Going on Vacation this is the quintessential VS match because they won a title match… via count-out… again! Which means they don’t win the title… again. At this point, it’s gotta be on purpose.
Flamander vs. Grace - Grace had it a bit rough. She started out actually losing a lot and then during the Hellfire Tournament 2020 suddenly beat everybody, beat high profile opponents too, beat Flamander to win it. Then moved on to defeat her best Friend for the Hellweight Title, her first defense was against Suzan Blades, the inaugural Hellweight champ and one of the strongest human beings in OHPW. And now comes Flamander again, a legend in his own right, though he never held the title. Grace beating Flamander again proves beyond doubt that none of this was a fluke and this is where she belongs. This also built on their previous match. Somewhat. Grace kept working Flamander’s leg but he was having none of it, even briefly targeting her legs. But in the end, it turned into a slam fest and we finished with the Saving Grace.
Also, Grace is currently on a 12 Match winning streak and hasn’t lost a match this year at all. To put it into perspective, in the grand scheme of things she has 18 wins and 17 losses with a 51.43% win rate.
As said, I’ll be retrofitting previous update posts with the former Patreon extra posts. There isn’t one for some episodes and I stopped doing them for some time (now they are more of a when I feel it kind of deal.) but there’s a lot of stuff I wrote over the runtime of OHPW. It was all written at the time, though. Maybe I’ll edit in corrections (without altering the original) where it turns out I was wrong or something. I dunno.