So, having spent years mocking Billy Mitchell(Billy) and then suffering a humiliating defeat in court against him – followed by declaring bankruptcy and having to deal with an audience who feel betrayed Karl Jobst(Karl) decided to press Start to continue and launched a lawsuit against Billy in Florida.1Jobst v. Mitchell, 0:26-cv-60997, (S.D. Fla.)
Of course, since Karl is bankrupt, he’s filing this pro se, meaning after losing a law suit in Australia2Mitchell v Jobst [2025] QDC 41 where he had the best representation that Notch’s money could buy – he is no proceeding without a lawyer in a foreign legal system.
This is not something I would recommend. But, so far Karl seems to have spent $405 US (~$567 Australian) on this so… I guess he’s not taking advice on it. For some reason it makes me think of Llamas with Hats. If you know, you know. If you don’t… you can go watch it I guess?
So, let’s have a look at Karl’s complaint, whether it’s got legs and what the scope of possible outcomes are. The complaint and the exhibit are a mess, so I’m going to try to structure them in a more familiar method and skip going over the entire background.
By now it’s a fact of history that eventually, Justin LaNasa(LaNasa) came to a confidential settlement with Wizards of the Coast(WotC) over the lawsuit he started over trade marks he poached for culture war nonsense and profit.1TSR LLC v. Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2:21-cv-01705, (W.D. Wash.), [nuTSR v. WotC] Document #66, 29 May 2024 This effectively ended his crusade to try to usurp the history to the table top role-playing game(TTRPG) hobby as well as Dungeons & Dragons(D&D).
I think its worth examining the final outcome in order to understand how absurd it was, how many lies it required to keep the campaign going, and how much waste it resulted in for a wet fart of an ending.
The settlement means there’s not really any fascinating statements on trade marks, since we never got to an actual trial and hence a decision by the courts.
Before we commence, I want to clarify that I will not be naming LaNasa’s counsel during these proceedings as – based off what I can see – she was simply doing her job. While I find some of the decisions questionable, based on the rest of the nuTSR ordeal I think she was just doing the best she could.
We’ve seen what she was working with, and a fundamental pillar of law in a free society is even terrible people deserve competent representation. There’s also good odds that she helped him realize he needed to settle.
So, some things are happening regarding Neil Gaiman (Gaiman) – the formerly beloved fantasy author whose reputation when up in flames when multiple women came forward with stories of coercion into sexual and physical abuse.
One of these women, Scarlett Pavlovich, (Pavlovich) had initially been introduced to him by Amanda Palmer, (Palmer) and was employed by the couple as a nanny. In addition to supplying a truly horrifying story involving physical abuse with a belt, being assaulted in front of the child and non-consensual urine-play – she has sued Gaiman in the US.1Pavlovich, Scarlett v. Gaiman, Neil, 3:25-cv-00078, (W.D. Wis.)
Currently the case against Gaiman is on appeal after the judge dismissed it without prejudice – essentially claiming that the first course of action should be to try to sue Gaiman in New Zealand.2Scarlett Pavlovich v. Neil Gaiman, 25-2754, (7th Cir.) I have opinions on this ruling, but was waiting to see how it played out – but then a plot twist occurred.
I don’t think I need to explain that the contents of the Substack are bad. It couldn’t be anything but. It complains sources are too vague, or too long – but then the “short reads” are pages upon pages (I picked one at random and it’s more then 3,600 words) and that what they really needed was 46 pages of private messages (because those definitely confirm what happened in real life).6 “Neil Gaiman Is Innocent: Introduction”, above n 3 Technopathology “Neil Gaiman Is Innocent: Contents 2026” (11 July 2025, updated frequently) Substack <technopathology.substack.com> Many of them are clearly desperation and grasping for any straw they think will generate sympathy.
The above is roughly 1,000 words of analysing the professional headshot that Vulture chose for an article and inventing ways that its racist – while using similar headshots on the same blog and making similar decisions regarding the other parties they report on.7Technopathology “Neil Gaiman Is Innocent: Racial Hoaxes and Antisemitic Tropes” (8 August 2025) <technopathology.substack.com> Also, this Substack was started in April 2025 so they should know about the issues there.8Shane Burley “How Deep Does Substack’s Far-Right Problem Run, Really?” (21 June 2024) Ink Stick Media <inkstickmedia.com>
Going over them point by point would be a Sisphean task for even the most passionate and manic investigator. I think everything worth saying about it in general, has already been said by the amazing D’Angelo.9 D’Angelo (@d-angelo) “neil gaiman is back and creepier than ever” (5 February 2026) YouTube <www.youtube.com>
So instead, I want to just examine how far this plea of consent would go in New Zealand – whether there’s a realistic basis that Gaiman would engage with proceedings taking place in New Zealand, and what legal issues might influence his decision to or not to.
Disclaimer: I have a law degree in New Zealand, but I’m not (yet) a lawyer and more importantly I’m not your lawyer. This is a purely amateur analysis. None of this is personal legal advice and you must not rely upon it as such. And please, please, please, do not tell me about any crimes you may have committed.
Also I believe the women who raised the allegations against Gaiman.
Diana Sterling Jones “Revealed: Neil Gaiman’s Anonymous Substack Defender is an Activist Monk” (5 February 2026) Shooting The Messenger <shootingthemessenger.blog>
6
“Neil Gaiman Is Innocent: Introduction”, above n 3 Technopathology “Neil Gaiman Is Innocent: Contents 2026” (11 July 2025, updated frequently) Substack <technopathology.substack.com>
7
Technopathology “Neil Gaiman Is Innocent: Racial Hoaxes and Antisemitic Tropes” (8 August 2025) <technopathology.substack.com>
8
Shane Burley “How Deep Does Substack’s Far-Right Problem Run, Really?” (21 June 2024) Ink Stick Media <inkstickmedia.com>
9
D’Angelo (@d-angelo) “neil gaiman is back and creepier than ever” (5 February 2026) YouTube <www.youtube.com>
This one technically started after the on case against Tenkar,1Lanasa v. Stiene, 1:22-cv-05686, (E.D.N.Y) but was resolved quicker due to the appeal,2Lanasa v. Stiene, 24-1325, (2d Cir.) so I’m covering it first. We’re on the home stretch, I promise you.
Back on 10 March 2023, I was contacted over Facebook, then phone, by NetSafe to let me know that Justin LaNasa (LaNasa) had lodged a complaint about me and they were following process as they were required to do.
On 30 January 2024, LaNasa filed his follow up with Netsafe, and it was immediately put before Judge P R Rzepecky made a decision on the papers to take no immediate action but to refer the matter to a NetSafe technician (as LaNasa indicated it might involve an order to a hosting service), and then proceed with a case management conference and a half-day hearing.
On 12 April 2024 my wife told me there was someone was here to see me, quite confused why someone wearing a stab proof vest with a notice that it was recording on bodycam was there to deliver a giant parcel of documents to me.
I accepted service from a confused bailiff, who was grateful that I understood what it was about. She had been tasked with serving me over 110 pages, and was mostly screenshots without context, with the front cover being written in Lower LaNasian and Netsafe’s summary buried in the documentation.
They say that a man who represents himself in court has a fool for a client, so with God as my witness I immediately made a declaration.
Now, I wasn’t a lawyer that the time I received this – but I was a law student so I treated this as a kind of unofficial extra credit job. So, in the spirit of making this a robust analysis, as would be expected of a law student, I’ll be using the CLEO method.
So, let’s talk about that time I got served by the courts over some blog posts and bunch of comments on Facebook (many of which I didn’t even make).
Justin LaNasa (LaNasa) had taken out multiple lapsed trademarks, and was claiming his new company TSR LLC was the divine heir to them, and was now having to throw money into a bottomless pit due to having taken Wizards of the Coast to court over it.1TSR LLC v. Wizards of the Coast LLC, 2:21-cv-01705, (W.D. Wash.)
This was, not sustainable given that is its products were generally bad and it’s convention failed to generate any buzz for obvious reasons. 16 months in, Justin had clearly noticed it wasn’t going great – hence the numerous meltdowns.2 Kim Wincen “Dungeon Crawl, TSR Cons & Meltdowns” (9 January 2026) A gentleman with opinions <blog.wincenworks.com>
So naturally, in May of 2023, he decided TSR LLC should just go bankrupt, and it was very funny. Yes, normally bankruptcies are tragic and heart breaking but this one was very funny. Bankruptcy was filed for on 8 June 2023.3TSR, LLC, 23-01577, (Bankr. E.D.N.C.)
The first area of hilarity was Stephen Erin Dinehart IV, (Dinehart) of GiantLands infamy, immediately jumped into try to blame Wizards of the Coast for nuTSR putting themselves into bankruptcy.4 Stephen Erin Dinehart IV (8 June 2023) Wonderfilled Facebook <now deleted>
It should be noted that the courts never had to decide who owned TSR, but the answer is Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary (not a Doing Business As) of Hasbro.
LaNasa himself chose to amplify this message, but decided to make no effort in doing so – leaving it open to speculation if he’d agreed with Dinehart – a man who he’d previous branded a traitor and put on his haters list – should basically resume his old job as nuTSR’s public relations.
Tell me you want to be the premier law firm for TTRPGs without telling me you want to be the premier law firm for TTRPGs.
Azora Law is, according to a publication in the Washington State Bar News – June 2021, it is “one of Seattle’s oldest virtual law firms”.4 Brian Lewis “Three Big Developments in Soft IP Law” Washington State Bar News (Washington US, June 2021) at 30 This seems to be the singular instance of it claiming to be a virtual law firm, which is an odd claim since if they’re all in Seattle and they have a registered office address… that means they just let staff work from home if they want? Pretty sure that was the standard in mid 2021.
Unless they also had a presence in the Metaverse at some stage.
My name is Kim. I am not a lawyer, certainly not a US lawyer specializing in copyright and most importantly I am not your lawyer. I am a law graduate in New Zealand who has a passion for role-playing games, and you should not consider anything I post to be legal advice (or take legal advice from blogs or social media posts in general). Also please, understand – absolutely nothing you say to me falls under lawyer-client privilege – especially if you do it in the comments.
Content Warning: This matter does contain discussions of suicide, particularly suicide in relation to bullying and difficult relationships with peers. If that’s a topic that is very personal to you, while this does discuss defamation law, it’s unlikely that anything in this is going to be worth reading this for. Please take care of you and use your discretion.
YouTuber Karl Jobst has made many and numerous videos about the lawsuit brought against him by Billy Mitchell – many of them full of bravado and mocking Billy’s claims regarding the lawsuit. So, when Karl lost the case on 1 April 2025, it went worse than the usual bad news on April Fool’s Day.1Mitchell v Jobst [2025] QDC 41 District Court Judge KC Barlow went into detail all the aspects he found relevant in this 118 page judgement.
On 18 April 2025, Karl released his video explaining his side of the story – I and many other people were very unimpressed.4 Karl Jobst I Lost (18 April 2025, YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1XBqeAQ3nI I, in particular, was unimpressed since despite Karl apparently having spent a fortune on lawyers and been discussing this for years – he didn’t seem to understand basic concepts of law. He also seemed to downplay his own involvement in people believing this was a lawsuit about cheating at video games, and not about an allegation of using spurious lawsuits to bully someone to a point where they committed suicide.
My name is Kim, I’m not a lawyer but a law student in New Zealand who was born and raised in Queensland, Australia. Most importantly I’m not your lawyer and I’m not speaking for anyone but myself here. Please don’t interpret blog posts as personal legal advice, ever.
I’d like to talk about defamation, how it works when it escalates to an Australian court, what went wrong for Karl and how it fits into this overall situation. I will however, be adding extra information where I think it’s relevant to understanding the parties and the events.
Though I’d like to be clear, I’m going to try to avoid speculating about conversations or the relationship between Karl and his counsel – as while I understand that its terribly fun to do from a gossip perspetive, it’s not productive for genuine understanding and all of it is tied up in strict confidence. Also, we can see what they were working with:5 geniusdude69 Fuck the lawyers I paid for with YOUR money (4 April 2025, Reddit) https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedrama/comments/1jqs49z/fuck_the_lawyers_i_paid_for_with_your_money/
First a disclaimer, my name is Kim, I’m not a lawyer – more importantly I’m not your lawyer and I am not a lawyer in the United States of America. Nothing following it to be taken as personal legal advice, it certainly does not form a lawyer-client relationship and please do not take legal advice off random bloggers.
So, a lot of people have been posting screenshots of the new Terms of Service (“XTos”) on X nee Twitter (“Xitter”), but I haven’t seen many people doing much of an analysis into what they actually mean. So I decided to look into it before 15 November 2024, when all these changes take effect.
While some of the changes have been, on the surface, a little alarming most of it is fairly banal when taken in isolation. When looked at a whole, it paints a rather grim picture for the platform, those who continue to make use of it, and the those who are not on there but are directly impacted by the activities there.
It’s bad, but to truly understand how bad, we need to have a good look at everything and see the overall picture that it paints.
Throughout out the TSR Saga, there have been many reporting on it – doing varying avenues and degree of investigating. One of those was the proprietor of the Tenkar’s Tavern web presence… who we’ll refer to as Tenkar (who is an old D&D character of his, of course).
Background
Tenkar is a long time player of D&D who has a general interest in role-playing games, which he primarily expresses through his website, Tenkar’s Tavern and the connected YouTube Channel. He is also a former Internal Affairs officer with the New York Police Department and a big advocate for OSR. He also (like everyone) injects his politics and his personal opinions in there, but for the most part here’s what you need to know:
Tenkar did a lot of videos covering the various mistruths and questionable claims of the nuTSR crowd, sometimes with accompanying blog posts writing things up and linking to relevant information.
Tenkar has a lot of opinions on old school games styles, often making videos to discuss the idea of playing now vs then, talking about the principles of OSRIC, etc.
Tenkar also made a consistent effort over the years to expose people trying to grift or otherwise exploit the nostalgia for old school gaming. Ken Whitman, for example, has featured frequently and generally in an unflattering manner since at least as far back as October 2014.1 Tenkar A WTF are They Thinking!?! Kickstarter – Castles & Crusades: Blacktooth Ridge (T.V. Pilot) (3 October 2014) <www.tenkarstavern.com>
Tenkar is wary of the pitfalls of commentary, and takes steps to prepare his receipts and evidence in advance – and to always show the material he’s using to substantiate his opinions.
Tenkar’s long involvement with the hobby, conventions and the history of the hobby have made him quite well networked within the niche hobby.
Naturally this did not bode well for Justin LaNasa, the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum or the nuTSR crowd in general.
Giancola’s image he uses to illustrate the copying.
For reasons that are unclear to me… there seems to be a trend to claim a lawsuit is in the works and that Wizards of the Coast will lose because… some hands look like other hands. So, briefly let’s look at the causes of action that people think are available… and how that’ll go.
At this time, I can’t find any evidence of an actual lawsuit. Anyway, my name is Kim, I’m a law student in New Zealand – I’m not a lawyer, certainly not a US Copyright lawyer and most importantly I am not your lawyer. None of this is legal advice and please, do not take legal advice off blogs or assume you have a confidence relationship like lawyer-client with the a blogger.
