Stone - The Foundation
It all starts here
Originally, this post was going to be about Terkoiz's character FLLFFL.
I changed my mind.
Due to something extraordinary that I was able to take a part in, I decided I wanted to talk about someone else instead. Someone even more important than Terkoiz. Someone more important than anyone else in the community. In fact, I am comfortable and confident in saying that every single thing in the stick community can be traced back to this one man. To this one rock that became the foundation for everything that would follow.
So who is he already?
Stone
Travis Steven, aka "Stone".
I mentioned him before in my preceding post about the creation of RHG. He was the man who created RockHardAnims and in doing so kicked off an entire legacy of internet animation. But it wasn't that simple, something that big never is.
Before going any further, I would like to link to Sopple's article on the FluidAnims-Stickpage merger. It tells the true story of what happened behind and during the merge and answers many questions about Stone's whereabouts and current situation. I was going to have this information in this post too, but she beat me to it.
You may find some information overlaps between us, but that's because we're using the same primary source. Namely an exclusive interview we had with Stone himself.
That was the extraordinary thing in case you were wondering.
Doing Stone things
In 2005 at the age of fifteen, Stone created RockHardAnims as a passion project. It was his website to show off animation made by him and his friends, and along the way the Rock Hard Gladiator system was created. But the major thing to note is that Stone considered himself an animator, one of the best among his peers in fact. However, very quickly, his perceptions shifted presumably as he grew more familiar with the wider animation community on the internet. Before the end of the year the ambitious, yet lofty goal of being "the best animator" vanished.
But Stone had another strength. He was a PHENOMENAL manager. And all that exposure meant he had access to plenty of unrecognized talent. Not the least of which was a young boy, just eleven years old, quietly posting his animations on Stick Figure Death Theater (sfdt.com, url now defunct) with very little support.
That boy was Philips Lacanlale.
Aka Terkoiz.
After seeing Terkoiz's animation "Mutationism", Stone knew he had struck absolute gold. He would introduce him to RockHardAnims and hype up his image on the site itself. This would be the very first of a strategy Stone would make ample use of: Find an underappreciated animator, get people aware of their existence, watch their popularity skyrocket, and let that popularity encourage them to continue animating.
Not once did it fail him. But we'll get back to that.
Now suddenly everything was different. Stone was no longer just an animator, he was a community builder. RockHardAnims was no longer a place to show off, but a place to learn and grow.
And thus the stage was set for the rest of his legacy.
In 2006 RockHardAnims ran into financial problems. It turned out the hosting and domain were quite expensive and their steep costs had been slamming the site. Of course, fifteen year old Stone didn't have the means to pay it off nor the knowledge of how to transfer the domain, so instead he took it as an opportunity to shut it down and create a new website in its place.
That website would be FluidAnims, the website that Stone stuck with for six years. Throughout the late 2000's, FluidAnims enjoyed enormous success. Users and animators dipping into the thousands, some of the highest quality stick animation (and animation in general) on the internet, and a lively active community through the forums.
Though Stone would still animate, he would do it less frequently than some of his contemporaries. Curiously, after the switch to FluidAnims, he would not participate in RHG often, with only a single full battle and a single speedbattle (officially) under his belt all the way to the end of the system.
No, his biggest influence on the site was inspiring others by proposing unique and creative ideas for them to try, igniting the fire so to speak. One of his ideas was inspired by The Grape Battle of ShiftLimits, an early mass collab made in his absence featuring multiple people all animating on the same constantly circulating file. The result was a beautiful chaotic mess featuring people's characters popping in and out of action with only a few seconds per person to create a thirty second long action sequence.
The incredibly unique style of the collab stirred Stone to try something like that, but bigger. Instead of sticks popping in and out, what if everyone's characters all stayed moving on screen at once on one giant canvas? It would be like watching a dozen animations at once. The idea was met with skepticism, but also great enthusiasm, and eventually from this idea the Dual Death Course was born.
Stone's remarkable talent for being able to generate excitement in people cannot be overstated. For a few years Stone left the website, which resulted in a relative lull in activity and passion. FA wasn't doing poorly by any means, but it was very clear something was missing. When Stone came back in 2008, the community did the closest thing it could to throwing a party. It made the very first Comeback Collab, one of the all-time classic collabs, even to this day.
Stone was a people person, helping elevate others almost from the very start. He created the environment, brought people in, encouraged new ideas and productivity, and stuck by it every step of the way. Nowhere is this better exemplified than by the people who benefited from his presence and influence either directly or indirectly.
Stone's insane influence
Remember how I said everything can be traced back to Stone in some way?
I do mean everything.
Terkoiz, while one of the most notable, is not the only person Stone decided to shine a spotlight on. Not even close. This is an article primarily about Stone himself so I'll keep it brief, but some of the people he helped break into popularity is staggering given their status in the present day.
The name "Geo" won't ring any bells to anyone not interested in old-school RHG, but he was the creator of the fairly popular character Mr. Pix. Geo even got to do a joint animation with Terkoiz himself, even if it fell through in the end. Geo hasn't released any large animation projects for years but his cinematography skills have landed him job opportunities.
If you're slightly familiar with the old days of RHG, then chances are that you'll at least recognize the name Jomm. His animations were some of the more popular of the time and featured very tight action. These days he is an inhouse member of Hyun's Dojo and has continued to make animation, stick and otherwise.
Speaking of Hyun's Dojo, Stone even spurred the growth of its very founder, Hyun himself. In the interview, he specifically cited Drunken Stick as the animation that convinced him that Hyun was a person very worth investing into and even landed him a deal with Riot Games. If you're reading this, chances are you know how that investment turned out.
But even when he wasn't singling good animators out, Stone was inspiring people to take up animation and hone their skills. This may seem obvious, I just spent the last section explaining how good he was at that, but there's a very notable example I want to point out. You see, among the many, many people inspired by his actions and animations was a young man in 2006 who saw Stone's work and decided to make his own stick figure projects.
That man's name was Alan Becker.
But even though the stick community was his home, Stone's influence extended out beyond that. His decision to run sidebar ads (one of the first website owners to do so, believe it or not) led to lots of advertisement from the aforementioned Riot Games for their new game League of Legends since they were one of the first companies to make sidebar ads.
Naturally, with so little variation in advertisements, many FluidAnims users started playing League of Legends. Some people played because they were genuinely interested, others played to meet (other) animators. One of those people in both camps was former League of Legends player Dyrus.
I know at this point it sounds like a joke being extended way too long, but I promise you that these are Stone's words, not mine. I would not print this if I did not have certainty that what he said is true. He truly did reach out to all kinds of people. In fact, it earned him the nickname "Papa Stone".
But even with so many connections, many of these (particularly the latter three) would take many, many years to take off and reach a point where their success yielded rewards more tangible than thousands of views and internet popularity. The investments very quickly paid off in terms of skill, but careers were a long game, and time was starting to run out...
Turning point
By 2012, things were staring to change.
The FluidAnims community was big as ever, but there was a problem: The people were getting older.
It had been seven years since the opening of RockHardAnims and Stone, already well into adulthood by that point, was forced to start to asking himself serious questions. Where would the (often adolescent) animators go once they grew up and needed money? What would they do to pay the bills? FluidAnims was a popular site, but all it offered was internet fame (and a site-exclusive currency) and Stone didn't have the finances to support them himself.
His people needed financial opportunities, and they needed them fast.
Enter Crazy Jay.
Crazy Jay was the owner of a site called Stickpage, and ran it very differently to how Stone ran his website. Jay took a much more "business" approach instead of building a community. What he would do was reach out to various animators he liked and offer them petty cash offers from fifty to one hundred dollars for a sponsorship. He would offer more than that to big series, but these deals were very rare. While the animator would have to add the now-infamous Stickpage bumper into their animation, they would get their animation featured on the site along with the money he offered.
But to make a long story short, that would mark the end of Stone's involvement in the community for years entirely due to reasons out of his control.
The future
So what does the future hold for Papa Stone?
I was lucky enough to be there when he discussed during the interview some of the ideas he has for the future, both near and far. Even all these years later, even with his job at Average Ape Studios, he's just as into the community as he ever was.
For the sake of confidentiality, I will not be revealing any of what he told us. It just wouldn't be fair to anyone to spoil the surprise. But rest assured, he's got plans. Some of which you'll be seeing very soon.
Parting words
First of all, I wanted to make this article about both Stone and his RHG character Andre, but this ended up becoming way bigger than I expected and adding the Andre segment would make it way too long. So I'm going to make a separate article all about Andre instead. I do feel like it's deserved too, the interview with Stone shed a lot of light on Andre's creation and he turned out to be a character with a very interesting history.
But that aside, it's crazy to think how big of an impact Stone had. It's crazy to think about how much of the creations I loved and continue to love owe something to him. One man with excellent art and social skills spawned not only a community but a true subculture.
And one of the things Stone told us was that his biggest goal was to create something that would extend far beyond himself, something that would outlive him. Something that would expand upon itself as new people came in and added onto it out of love. He pointed out the moment, the specific moment, he knew he had accomplished this goal.
February 15, 2009. FLLFFL vs Terantula premiered on FluidAnims. FLLFFL, Alfa for short, broke free of Terantula's tentacles and dove for him, attacking him with everything he had once he landed. Cutting, slashing, clubbing, he gave him no chance to recover. Then, with an upwards slash, he planted his weapon in the ground, caught Terantula midair, and shoved his face into the purple flame shooting from the hilt of his sword.
The camera zoomed in on Alfa.
There was the magic.
I'd like to leave on a quote from the man himself. He said it only a few times during the interview, but it stuck with me the most out of anything he said.
"Nobody thinks they matter. Everybody does."
Thank you, Travis.
If you're interested in supporting Stone's content, he has a YouTube channel as well as Twitter and Patreon accounts.
Thanks for reading, and Rock On.
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