Who: Kael Tiger, Furry Artist and creator of Far Beyond the World VN.
What: possible candidate for a dramacow.
Why: creating toxic community, attacking people who have any kind of criticism of his work, plagiarism of another visual novel.
I believe we might have, after Klace and Jasonafex, another lolcow furry visual novelist. Meet Kael, a furry artist, who is working on a furry visual novel called Far Beyond the World, that is quickly becoming very popular in furry community and whose author is quickly becoming very hated in the same community.
https://twitter.com/Kael_Tiger?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
https://echoesofarcane.itch.io/farbeyondtheworld
There are three main reasons why I think we should take a closer look at Kael:
1. Plagiarism
From the beginning of this visual novel, there were some people who accused Kael of not only being heavily inspired by an already existing visual novel, called Adastra, which itself would not be a bad thing, but some people accused him of plain plagiarism. Now Kael admits he loves Adastra a lot and admits it influences him in his work, but at the same time goes into rage when someone only mentions some kind of resemblance between these two visual novels. One former fan and patron brings this up:
So it seems Kael likes to talk how his own visual novel is influenced by Adastra, yet when someone else mentions it, Kael gets very defensive. Maybe because that is a valid point and Kael is afraid it might tarnish his reputation as a creative visual novelist. Lets continue with something big, something that shows how immature Kael is in his defence. I think the screenshot below will explain a lot:
This is true, I was part of that discussion on u18chan before it was taken down. There were many people comparing these two visual novels. At the same time, Kael must have knew about it, because there were some hardcore FBtW fans who defended Kael. Now I do not know if Kael sent them to u18chan or if they contacted him, one thing is sure, he knew about this discussion and went crazy on his discord, claiming there are trolls and haters from u18chan attacking him, sending him death threats etc. According to Kael, this post on u18chan started "avalanche of hate on me":
There was actually someone on FBtW discord who asked the same question as that one that was posted on u18chan. And Kael reacted the way any other mature being would, by banning said person, and here you can see the reactions of his fans, or rather "yes men". The toxic community is slowly forming:
Yes, all very mature responses, and this is just the beginning. Kael is on his way for a huge meltdown...
Have you noticed how Kael sees this whole situation? "If you hate this VN, this community and me personally..." Nowhere on u18chan/youtube/discord were people attacking Kael personally, simply because we do not even know who Kael is. What was discussed a lot were the similarities between FBtW and Adastra. Yet for Kael, "attack" on his precious visual novel is an attack on him and even his community. That is quite the stretch. But it works, Kael is building his own little army of fans, who will do as he commands and think as he thinks. Lets continue with some examples why people say FBtW is ripping off Adastra. Now it would be best if you played both Adastra and FBtW, but I cannot demand from you to suffer so much, so I will help:
The characters + story:
- in both VN, we have the main protagonist who is a human kidnapped into another world. In Adastra you are kidnapped by a wolf from an advanced civilisation, in FBtW you are kinda forced/birthed into this new world and found by a wolf from medieval tribe
- both protagonists are young males, kinda blank and dumbfounded all the time, who get info vomited on them all the time
- in both VN, the wolves are the main romantic interests and they both speak a language you can understand, in Adastra thanks to advanced technology and in FBtW thanks to, well, magic I guess (the MC can understand every language, spoken or written).
- the main love interests are goofy muscular wolves who have good intentions and see you as their path/help in their mission/life, but they both do stupid things, but those stupid things are done with good intentions
- in both VN there is this grumpy sidekick, who uses "it" when referring to you, and just sees you as a thing (but both are good deep down)
- in both VN there is this elder who is the leader, he is stoic and wise and is choosing between the main love interest and the sidekick for his succession
- in both VN, the main love interests and the sidekicks are brothers/considering themselves to be brothers
- in both VN there is a good female, helpful and kind, who treats you good
- in both VN the is a scheming servant, beware him, he has the upper hand
- in both VN you become a servant of the main love interest, you take care of him and his needs
- in both VN the main romantic interest is talking about his customs and culture, and the MC is slowly getting to know it, understand it
Pictures, first from Adastra, then from FBtW, compare them:
Those are just the pics of the main love interests, there are other pics that would show the clear similarities, but I think this is enough for now. Because there are far worse reasons for Kael to become the lolcow.
2. Attacking people who criticize his visual novel
Of course, Kael was very whiny and salty about people not liking his visual novel even before. I guess all this stress and drama was slowly and steadily building up and escalated into this one message from Kael, that for many furries, sealed their opinion about him:
The guy he talks about is a youtuber with a channel called Deckerlink.
https://www.youtube.com/user/deckerlink He is a youtuber who has already played a lot of furry visual novels, and he is always honest and gives his opinion whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. He was critical about some visual novels before, so Kael cannot claim he is some kind of hater or troll who specifically hates only his visual novel. And Deckerlink is not even that critical about this VN. You can watch him playing this VN in these two videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxWtsfwh_Nk&ab_channel=Deckerlink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex6C5BVU_Sk&t=49s&ab_channel=Deckerlink
He is only uncomfortable with some words used in the VN (muscular, black wolf etc.) and finds some things a little cliche (blood magic, Moon brothers etc.), but overall it is nothing horrible or personal against Kael, only against his work. Anyone mature would roll their eyes and move on. Sadly, not Kael. He just gets his blood pressure all the way up and goes instantlly whining on FBtW discord, which is public and can be viewed by anyone, to his band of "yes men". And the meltdown is here. What was a simple youtuber not liking some aspects of the VN turns into a horror story (according to Kael and his minions):
Kael again thinks that a simple critique of his work means a direct attack on him. Some fans want to calm down the whole situation, but many support the outrage and demand to have the videos taken down and give Deckerlink a strike.
And then Kael goes totally nuts:
Kael starts acting like some kind of king deciding what to do with that one mean peasant who dared to insult his majesty. Then goes paranoid thinking Deckerlink is the reason why u18chan will start another "war" against him and his VN.
The fact is that yes, I posted a question on u18chan, in good faith, in which I asked what everyone thinks about the complaints Deckerlink made in his videos. I was simply curious, and there were actually both replies that agreed with Deckerlink and that were against him. A normal conversation that thanks to Kael turned into a heated argument, you will see how. You can watch some of that discussion in this video that includes many other crazy things from Kael and those found on u18chan (that is now taken down).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sox_CXxkagA&t=1694s&ab_channel=Spillingfacts
Kael then goes into this "I am a better person" again and straigt up lies to his fans and himself, by claiming he does not mind criticism, yet all this drama started because people dared to criticize his VN. He is also very full of himself:
There are other crazy ramblings from him about how amazing he is and how those who criticize him are trolls and haters, And of course his fans are fueling the flames with their crazy comments, they all attack u18chan and youtube and just anyone really, it is one big circlejerk, until Kael finally snaps and does this crazy thing:
Yes, Kael does send this message to Deckerlink, and so begins the end of Kael and his VN for many fans, because most of them will stand with Deckerlink. He of course responds to the message in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6kkp4kmNS4&t=995s&ab_channel=Deckerlink He respects the demand, but is firmly against the behaviour of Kael and his personal attacks against himself from which one is how he belches in his mick during his videos, which is true, and I am not a big fan of such things as well, but the fact is Deckerlink has stomach problems, possibly even cancer, so he does not belch just for funz, but because of his health problems. It is funny how Kael, who is against personal attacks against his own majesty, has no problem personally attacking some random small youtuber.
Interesting are the comments below the video Deckerlink posted, all supporting him over Kael. At the same time all the fans on FBtW discord are supporting Kael, so here is that. Two teams very created. And here we arrive at the final reason.
3. Toxic community
From the first and second points you could see that Kael with his whiny and drama behaviour creates a pretty toxic community in which he is the "better person" and above any and all criticism. You will hardly find anyone on the discord who goes against even the smallest thing in the VN. There were people who wanted for the grumpy sidekick to be romancable, a normal thing in every VN, it happens always, fans demanding someone to be romancable. Kael took it personally, again and made a scene out of it.
And there are many other ex-fans who claim how toxic the community became and is now basically an echo chamber. Exactly what Kael wants from his "yes men".
If you want to see it on your own just go on the FBtW discord and write something critical. The fans will destroy you, and Kael will ban you.
https://echoesofarcane.itch.io/farbeyondtheworld/devlog/177556/fbtw-discord-server-launched
Well I think this is all from me. I know there are far worse people on the internet, so I am not sure Kael even is a lolcow. He is not as bad as Klace or Jasonafex. But I think this is just the beginning, more people will find out about him and the drama with Deckerlink. There are even other youtubers who decided to cancel their playthrough of this VN, for example Naoky Cooper, a Spanish furry youtuber. So who knows what will happen next, but I think we will see more drama and more crazy things. Sorry for mistakes in advance, it is my first post here. Thanks for any feedback.