It has come to the point where I need to make some statements.  I have not come up with a great way to do this, so I am just going to come out with them.  This is long and probably involves some needless rambling as I struggle to say this, but if you want to know why I haven’t updated lately and what is going to change, please give this a look.  I have highlighted the major points in red, if you want to skim.
 

First point – I am not Lemmy Koopa, of the Mushroom Kingdom.

This will surely not come as a shock to many of you, but this is the first time I have officially said this.  I am now doing so because by stepping back and admitting to being a regular person, it means that I cannot be expected to know everything about what takes place in the games and why.  I’m allowed to have opinions and preferences, and I’m allowed to be mistaken.  The fact that I’ve made a mistake brings me to the second point I need to make.
 

Second point – Bowser Jr. is an additional child of Bowser, and is not Ludwig.

When Super Mario Sunshine came out and Bowser Jr. was introduced, I hated the idea that an eighth Koopaling had been created who replaced the original 7.  In a way I felt threatened by the idea; how could I suddenly admit to the existence of an eighth Koopaling, when while posing as Lemmy, I should have known all along that he existed?  And if I admitted his presence, I would have had to make certain changes to the site.  One troubling aspect would be that Junior would have to be added as a choice in Lemmy’s Leaders; but how would I make it fair to him, given that all the other choices had a few years headstart?

For all these reasons, I took to calling Junior a graphically ambiguous interpretation of Ludwig, or in some other games I said he was one of the other Koopalings.  I made this claim up and it never had any basis in fact.  To be honest, I came to believe what I had made up as truth.  I felt that it did make sense that Nintendo wouldn’t use all seven Koopalings in a new game, and rather than use just one of the familiar ones, they used a generic one but had the originals in mind.  I still want to believe I was not that far off the mark.  Over the years, each game in which Junior appeared without any of the other Koopalings served to solidify my claim that he could be one of the original 7.  The game Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga also helped.  With the original Koopalings reappearing in that game, it proved that Nintendo still knew who they were; and the fact that we could see the original Koopalings in a game without Junior even after he was introduced made my claim of him being Ludwig seem even more possible.

This came to an end, however, with the recent release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii.  A great game in most other aspects, this game has caused me a lot of trouble because it does include both the original Koopalings and Junior.  It pretty much guarantees that Junior is not Ludwig or any of the others.  I could make something up about Ludwig cloning himself or whatever you can think of, but there’s no reason why anyone should believe such a claim.  Before, while certainly not everyone agreed with me about Junior, at least what I said came across as something that was possible.  Now, though, it is too much of a stretch, and I will openly say that I was wrong, I made that claim up because that’s what I preferred, and that Junior is an additional child of Bowser and ought to be treated as such by the fandom, even though the originals will always be my favorites.
 

Third point – My enthusiasm for Lemmy’s Land, and ability to do what is needed to improve the site, are considerably diminished from what they once were, so changes need to be made.

I think this is the hardest thing for me to say.  I still love the site.  It means a lot to me and I think it is an important part of the online Mario fandom.  But it has its share of problems, and it is incredibly large.  I have a laundry list of tasks that I would like to do to improve things, but the list is so long and I have so little time available for projects like those that it’s hard to even think about tackling any of them.

There are a lot of good times involved in seeing the great submissions as well as having fun exchanges with tourists.  But there are also a lot of repetitive things to be done behind the scenes that can get annoying.  I can have a lot of fun with tourists, but then there are times when a submission will “not be what I am looking for”, and I have to make the tough and unpleasant choice of sending some negative comments or ignoring it entirely.  Oftentimes I’m so busy that my responses amount to little more than a yes or a no, which isn’t too fun for anyone.  All this, and for various reasons that I’m not going to get into, I often do feel inclined to spend less time online.  Or at least less time doing structured things.  Watching dumb videos on Youtube is still ok if I need to let my brain rot for a few minutes, but sometimes reading more submissions isn’t as appealing as it used to be.

You probably noticed that I have missed a few updates.  This is not a sign that the site is closing.  Honestly I just needed a break.  I don’t know the last time I’ve been away from the site for more than two, maybe three days.  That’s also part of the reason why the site can be draining.  Actually I only meant to be away a day or two while I curled up with Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, but then I didn’t feel like going back online for a little bit.  Each day I stayed away also made me even a little more reluctant to come back because I knew the Emails would be piling up, and usually I feel compelled to handle submissions when I see them.  If I don’t see them, no problem, but when I do… This is also why it is hard for me to take a break, because everything piles up in my absence and I figure that whatever rest I get while away will be wasted once I come back and have to do everything I would have had to anyway.

Rest assured, I *am* coming back.  But this has been a much needed break I am taking, and I feel like it’s at the point where I need to admit my feelings on the matter.
 

Based on the three points above, there are going to be some immediate and eventual changes.

I am still going by the name Lemmy Koopa.  I still expect to be called Lemmy Koopa.  That is the name I like to go by, and I similarly respect the preferred name of all tourists to the site.  Some of you think you know my real name, and I am going to continue not to say if that is my name or not, and I will not answer to that name.  I am still Lemmy, yet, I am no longer unabashedly claiming to be that same character you’ve seen from Mario 3 and NSMBW.  I am no longer to be expected to know all things about the behind the scenes of the games – even if it is in large part just myself that has had this expectation – so I am allowed to have my own preferences even if they are baseless, and I am allowed to be mistaken and change what I’ve said in the past.  Tourists have always been able to take or leave what they want from the games, and I am now extending that to myself as well.

I will also put it out there at this time that I am not a professional editor or anything like that.  I have also struggled lately with what I should or not post, and why.  I have tried to be reasonably objective, but at the end of the day the decision on whether or not to post submissions often is going to come down to whether or not I liked it.  If I feel like the submission isn’t fun enough or I didn’t enjoy it enough – and with so many submissions on the site, a lot of new ones just aren’t original enough or don’t grab me as “needing” to be posted – then it will be my choice not to post it just for that reason.  It’s going to be more like, a submission needs to give me a good reason to post it, as opposed to lately when it’s been, where I've posted things unless they have a particular reason not to do so.  I want to be convinced by fun content, because this site needs to be fun!

The fact that I am now admitting Bowser Junior exists unto himself means some changes to the site have to be made.  Some of these are the same changes I would have had to make when Sunshine came out, while others are things I’ve made worse for myself since then.  Lemmy’s Leaders still has to be revised… somehow.  The timeline in Morton’s Basics must be revised because the placement of a lot of the games was based on which games have all the Koopalings and which have “Baby Ludwig”.  Now that doesn’t hold true anymore.  Some questions in Wendy’s Phonebooth need to be updated, and so on.  These changes need to be made. They will be made.  I don’t know when that will be.  It’s taken long enough just to write this, considering NSMBW came out a month ago already and I knew the cast before that.  But yes, this is coming.  When I get to it and feel like it.

And then, there’s the site moving forward.  I still want to run the site.  I still want to do it indefinitely.  Lemmy’s Land is not a ticking time bomb.  But at this point, I do feel that I need to reprioritize it against other things that I like.  Lemmy’s Land has become such a large and regular part of my life that it has become too regimented.  I’ve known that I’m going to update every Saturday.  I’ve known that every day I’m going to edit at least a certain number of submissions or pages even if I don’t feel like it or would rather do something else.

For my sanity moving forward, I think this is what is going to have to change.  I’m still expecting to update more or less weekly, but I am not going to force myself to do it every single Saturday.  On any particular day, if I’d rather be doing something else rather than go through submissions, then that is what I am going to do.  I will not hold myself to a daily quota or a fixed turnaround time.  I still expect to give every submission a chance, but to speed things up I may be quicker in passing up submissions that are not what I am looking for, and I will not force myself to respond to them.  The bottom line is, whereas Lemmy’s Land has often been treated as my first priority, now it is going to have to fit in with other things I want to do.

This will mean that authors will not get a response as quickly, and I may not accept or post as much.  It is too bad that these changes have to be made, but I think the reality is that this is what is going to allow me to continue running the site in the best possible manner.  I think this change will improve my personal situation, and I also hope it will improve the site in the long run.  For months I have done nothing but process submissions and do basic maintenance.  I have not done any of the special projects on my list that would improve the site more generally. I’m hoping that running the site on a more relaxed schedule will restore my interest as well as give me some extra time, and I will again be motivated like before to make the site shine.
 

Lemmy’s Land was started in 1998 as a simple fan site.  Mostly I just made it because my sister started her own site, and I wanted to do it too.  I never thought that 11 years later, the site would still be here and serving a major role in the Mario series’ online presence.  Some of you may not be able to remember a time when this site did not exist.  It has, for the most part, been a pleasure for me to build this and to experience all that goes along with it, and I thank everyone who has visited and contributed.

It has been difficult for me to write these things that change some of my longest held policies and traditions from the site.  The past few months have been rough, but I hope that these changes will make for a reinvigorated webmaster, and eventually, an even better site.

Thank you.
 

After having posted this statement, I expect to start getting back on track.  I had hundreds of Emails when I last checked so I doubt I’ll have caught up by the next scheduled update, 12/26.  That means I will have to decide between updating with just what I have gotten up to, or skipping one more update and waiting until I am caught up.  I’m not sure which route I’m going to go, but know that I am working on an update to occur soon.
 

**UPDATE: Emails Missing**

So I go back into my Email box after a long absence to discover, my box automatically deletes incoming messages that have not been looked at for a week.  Having never been away this long, I had no idea this would happen.

This means that if you Emailed me from about Friday the 11th through Sunday the 13th, I did not get it.  I have gone through all my other Emails and responded to everything that I'm going to, so if you didn't get a response from me, that may mean I didn't get your message and you should resend it.

Go back to my main page.