~GENECCO FLUFFIES~
~otherwise known as Fiwwies~
~by Oculus~
Overview
Hasbio were not the only company that has released fluffy pony biotoys. Following the initial but limited release of fluffies by Hasbio in 2005, the Hong Kong company Genecco began work on developing their own variant of fluffy ponies which they marketed under the brand name of “Fiwwy”, named after the mispronunciation of the term “Filly” rendered in the open-source biotoy language of Fluffspeak.
Unlike Hasbio Fluffies, which have a global reach, Fiwwies are mostly available in Europe and China, due to distribution difficulties Genecco had with securing an international distributor, in addition to further legal trouble. Where Hasbio fluffies have 5 main variations – earth, pegasus, unicorn, alicorn and sea fluffy , Fiwwies have more variations, including the elf fiwwy and the fairy fiwwy.
Another key difference between fiwwies and fluffies is the emphasis on the fantasy angle. Hasbio fluffies have been derided as basically being a genetically-engineered pet or companion animal, marketed as a biological “toy”. To emphasis on the “toy” aspect of their products, Genecco heavily pushed a complex lore and background setting, and based their products on following this predetermined milieu. Thus, and utilizing a complex system of mental conditioning and memory implants, fiwwies based of a particular character will behave and base their actions almost entirely on those of their show counterparts. While Hasbio had attempted a similar conditioning with their later MLP biotoys, they never went to the lengths Genecco did in attempting to market a series of games and “adventures” that children could use to play with their products.
This emphasis on fantasy was also reflected in the nomenclature of the different filly types. Within the Fiwwy world, alicorns are called star fiwwies, pegasi are called angel fiwwies, sea fiwwies are called mermaid fiwwies, and so on. Also, instead of “earth pony”, all ‘normal’ fillies are called princess fillies, or in this case, princess fiwwies. In addition to definite biological types, the heavy emphasis on magic meant that dressing up a fiwwy in a cape and witch hat could lead the fiwwy to believe that it was a witch fiwwy, which is basically a princess fiwwy that’s capable of performing magic, but wasn’t the same as a unicorn or fairy. This lack of a sense of reality can be attributed to Genecco fluffies possessing a unique “fiwwyvision”, where they will perceive and treat the world as if it’s a variant of the one from that show. While fluffyvision had been theorized and attempted, the idea was abandoned by Hasbio when fluffies were unable to recognize their owners or lacked an understanding of their own personal hygiene due to the induced fluffyvision.
While an interesting concept, the release of the Fiwwy brand, as well as work on the heavily promoted Fiwwy Fantasia, had been marred by various hurdles. The most glaring was Genecco’s involvement in various legal disputes, both with Hasbio and Simbio, its earlier distributor of biotoys, Due to this development issues, the long-planned tabletop game Fiwwy Fantasia, which was supposed to be marketed with Fiwwy biotoys, was heavily delayed. One of the problems this led to was children being unsure with how to distract their fiwwies. Fiwwies, being hardwired to perceive the world as one of adventure and questing, often wandered on their own, or pleaded for more exciting play, resulting in them encountering various accidents or misadventures, much to the chagrin of owners. Genecco attempted to mitigate this by releasing minor adventure packs, as well as small events and promotions, to provide some lore and minor settings for Fiwwies to participate in, but it will not be until the end of the decade when Genecco finally had a proper “adventure” & “quest” that could be sold to children.
A small word should be mentioned about interaction between Hasbio Fluffies and Genecco Fiwwies. Domestic fluffies usually accept fiwwies as just another type of fluffy (which they are) and while they will not understand the concepts or adventures that the fiwwies talk about, a fun-loving fluffy would just see it as an excuse for more play. The world is not always as ‘rosy’, as many fluffy enthusiasts, as well as abusers, have derided Genecco fiwwies as being a poor imitation of Hasbio’s fluffy ponies. A popular term used to describe fiwwies amongst both fluffy enthusiast and abuser circles is “fakies”. This slur and violence has been found amongst feral fluffy populations as well, as the unusual design and emphasis on adventure has ostracized many fiwwies, particularly abandoned ones, from feral fluffies.
It should be noted that feral fiwwies have been low and yet to be observe properly as, even after a life of abandonment, “wild” fiwwies maintain the conditioning and belief in their fantasy setting. This has led most abandoned fiwwies to perish prematurely due to misadventure. That said, fiwwies, like fluffies, are able to reproduce, and it is unknown if the mental conditioning or fiwwyvision that abandoned fiwwies have will be passed on to their progeny, if any.
~
The Complete Fiwwy Timeline
Many of these dates are approximations, especially for the early history of the brand where evidence is scant.
1997: Genecco founded in Denmark by [REDACTED].
2000: Genecco headquarters move to Hong Kong. The moves was motivated by the proximity of the production facilities for toys in Asia, especially in China.
2006: Genetic Engineer T[REDACTED] N[REDACTED] begins developing Fiwwy for Genecco. Genecco makes a deal with German biotoy manufacturer Simbio at some point during the year.
April 2006: A Danish freelancer specializing in genetic engineering describes making a prototype Fiwwy biotoys for Genecco. Due to breaking the Non-Disclosure Agreement, the freelancer as well as the evidence is liquidated. Any memory of this event is preserved only in rumour.
6 November 2006: Earliest record of Genecco making a Fluffy Utopia that is legally documented under the archives of the International Centre for Genetic Engineer and Biotechnology (ICGEB) at UNESCO. The experiment was doomed to failure as the environmental systems and hardware of the utopia broke down, killing the Fiwwies within.
2007: Release of Fiwwy Tundra. At the time, it was often simply referred to as “Fiwwy” since it was the only Fiwwy toyline yet released. Rather than the more fantasy-like setting of later Fiwwy biotoy breeds, the Fiwwy Tundra Fiwwies were based on various real-life horse breeds. Fiwwy Tundra is now considered a failed product and was taken off the market.
23 May 2007: The earliest successful enclosure of Simba’s Fiwwy enclosure that is documented and in public display. A key attraction of the enclosure was a dramatic re-enactment of the taming of the first horse in Mongolia, and its role in its mythos. The fiwwies made for this enclosure have mostly perished due to age, with the remaining ones now living under close eye and supervision at Genecco.
30 May 2007: Hasbio sues Simbio for copyright infringement. Allegedly, Simbio infringed on Hasbio’s Fluffy Pony designs for their biotoy lines “Little Fairy Fluffy”, “My Sweet Fluffy”, “Steffi Wuv Evi Unicorn” and “Steffi Love Evis Fantasy Fluffy”. Notably, Fiwwy is not mentioned in this lawsuit. On 20 July 2007, Hasbio wins the lawsuit and Simbio is ordered to pay a fine.
2008: Release of “Fiwwy Beach Party!!”. Two unicorns and a pegasus marks the first shift from realistic horses and towards the fantasy setting. This line of biotoys is now discontinued and incompatible with later breeds.
December 2008: Release of Fiwwy Pwincess. This line of biotoys was the first one to reach widespread popularity and the Fiwwy brand itself would often be referred to as “Fiwwy Pwincess” for years to come. The Fiwwys now have crowns, and there are elements of magic, but the story itself still takes place on Earth rather than in the setting of Fiwwy Fantasia, which had not yet been conceptualized. This breed features the initial iteration of the Elric character and was the main product for breeders to purchase until the release of Fiwwy Royale, which essentially was a replacement for Fiwwy Pwincess.
January 2009: First issue of Fiwwy Enthusiasts Magazine released. The Magazine came in two editions – one that was marketed to girls and concerned with the proper care and management of their Fiwwy biotoys, with additional suggestions for stories and lore surrounding the setting of Fiwwy Pwincess, which biotoys could participate in roleplay sessions with the target demographic. The other edition was marketed to breeders, with tips recommending the best way to breed fiwwy mares and stallions, as well as the proper regulations needed to ensure that the biotoys complied with the Psychological Protocol established by Fiwwy, where all biotoys had to believe they were part of a fantasy setting and not the product of the breeder mill. Breeders were encouraged to groom Fiwwy foals after weaning upon separation from their mothers, and to perform the standard memory implantation programmed to ensure that Fiwwies start enacting the characters roles they had been raised for.
December 2009: Release of Fiwwy Fairies. The Fiwwy Fairies represent the first time where a type of Fiwwy has notable distinguishable attributes (their sparkly green wings). This toyline is where Smith is from and represents the last of the “old” breed of biotoys before the Fiwwy World and setting was fully conceptualized. It also represented a greater emphasis on the role of magic and fantasy which Genecco emphasized in the development of the products, as well as its intended play.
2010: Hasbio releases the second generation of Fluffy Ponies to coincide with the release of Hasbro’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
2010: First Fiwwy Sammelband released. The Filly Sammelbands are a collection of biographies for Fiwwys that are far more detailed than the biographies on the character cards and have constituted a useful resource for everyone else trying to make sense of Filly lore. The first edition is a hardcover book covering Fiwwy Forest, Fiwwy Beach Party!!, Fiwwy Princess and Filly Fairy. Further editions of Filly Sammelband would be released annually in magazine format from 2012-2017 and would feature every major Filly biotoy line up until Royale as well as a few unique characters that have not been released yet.
30 March 2010: Hasbio sues Simbio another time, again for infringing on the design of their Fluffy Pony. This time, it’s because of the biotoy lines of “Little Fairy & Fluffy”, “Unicorn Fwends” and “Dream House”. This lawsuit takes considerably longer than the last one, and does not get resolved until 2013.
February 2011: Release of Fiwwy Unicorn. This line of biotoys finally established all the classic elements of Fiwwy and can be considered the “true” start of the modern Filly canon, setting and line of biotoys. The story takes place in the World of Fiwwy Fantasia, the characters are divided into five groups representing five different elements (with color-coded crown crystals to match) with a special Fiwwy (Princess Spark, the principal of Fiwwy Fantasia) ruling over the land. This is also the toyline where Luck is from.
February 2012: Release of Fiwwy Elves. This biotoy line features Sweetie, the fourth character in the main cast, winged crowns, and an additional attribute in the form of bracelets (for male characters) or necklaces. (for female characters). The main defining feature of Fiwwy elves is a distinct, thinner and pointed ears (akin to the ones of human elves). Where normal fiwwys have more rounded ears, elf fiwwies are marked by thus clear difference in the ears
Summer 2012: Development of Fiwwy Fantasia begins. [REDACTED] writes the initial pitch bible, with gene editing and memory implant work outsourced to Blood Dragon.
June 2012: Release of Fiwwy Mermaids. The first standalone biotoy line which can be considered a “spinoff” line as it does not follow the usual release pattern, and was most likely a move to match Hasbio’s release of the Sea Fluffies. It is unknown if Fiwwy Mermaids will appear in the main Fiwwy Fantasia game.
Late 2012: Intense phase of genetic engineering. Many of the genetic blueprints which have been posted on the dark web over the years were most likely created during this time period.
Late 2012: [REDACTED]Cleveland [REDACTED]
January 2013: Fiwwy.com is relaunched into its most recognized form - the flash site that allowed you to create and accessorize your own Fiwwy, with the added option for a natural “born” fiwwy, or a fiwwy made direct from the laboratory at Genecco. Codes for this website were included in toy packages for years to come
22 January 2013: Hasbio finally wins against Simbio in the second copyright infringement lawsuit. Simba is yet again ordered to pay a substantial fine.
February 2013: Release of Fiwwy Witchy. The final member of the Fiwwy Five came from this biotoy line where the theme of magic reaches its peak with families corresponding to various natural elements and color-coded capes enabling them to fly. (Evie’s green cape means she’s a Air Witch.)
8 April 2013: Biotech France 2013. The yearly Biotech events in France were associated with new Fiwwy Fantasia information for several years as Genecco sought to advertise their biotoys in this venue. Genecco apparently showed a Fiwwy Fantasia trailer at this particular event, but there is no information preserved about what exactly was shown, or which biotoys were on display.
15 October 2013: “Fiwwies at Pway 1” uploaded to YouTube. A long clip or two fiwwies, speaking in Italian fluffspeak, and being engaged in their roles. This immediately led to various threads about it in fluffy communities, and post on Fluffy Daily the next day. This essentially marked the start of the Fiwwy Fantasia fandom.
24 October 2013: First recorded death threat has been sent to Fiwwy Fantasia staff. The threat came from a fluffy enthusiast who claimed that Genecco was ripping off Hasbio. The enthusiast claimed he would kill and mutilate any Genecco fiwwy he came across. It is unknown if he carried out this threat.
1 January 2014: Genecco signs a deal with Universal BioTrends for the sale and distribution of Fiwwy biotoys. When the collaboration with Simbio ends very shortly after this, they become the sole source of Filly toys.
Early January 2014: Simbio breaks their licensing agreement with Genecco, pulling out the rug from under the carefully laid plans for Fiwwy Fantasia. This can be considered “the start of the problems”, so to say.
10 January 2014: A notice appears on Simbio’s Fiwwy website that Simbio is no longer a licensee of Fiwwy and that the website will be closed down on the 20th of January.
January 2014: Fiwwy enthusiasts amongst the fluffy fandom decide to start their own website, message board and booru to track the growing interest in Fiwwies. Fiwwybooru remains active to this day.
February 2014: Release of Fiwwy Butterfwy. The first biotoy not to feature the Simbio logo anywhere on its packaging as well as on the underbelly of the fiwwy. The only “main series” bio toy which most likely will appear in future Fiwwy Fantasia campaigns but has not yet done so.
15 February 2014: Release date of Fiwwy Fantasia RPG Campaign for Biotoys delayed from “early 2014” to “Q4 2014”.
28 February 2014: Genecco Netherlands initiates legal action against Simbio in Hong Kong. Genecco alleges that instead of culling their remaining stock of Fiwwy biotoys, Simbio sold it off without paying license fees and files suit against Simbio to recoup them. The first lawsuit seemingly ends in failure on 28 March 2014, but is appealed.
March 2014: Creation of the first two Fiwwy mobile apps, “Fiwwy Cupcake Shop” and “Fiwwy Photo Fun”. They would be followed by Filly Witchy Adventure later during the year and eventually a bunch of weird slide puzzle apps in late 2016. It has been speculated that these apps were created to help satiate the growing listlessness and wanderlust of domestic fiwwies, who were raised to participate in a non-existent tabletop role-playing game.
30 March 2014: Release date of Fiwwy Fantasia delayed again, this time to “2015”.
11 April 2014: Biotech France 2014. “Dancie Fiwwehs” is uploaded, a long clip showing off the various fiwwy types performing certain roles in a setting, followed by fiwwies dancing naturally to music in a mannegr similar to dancie babbehs amongst fluffy ponies.
1 October 2014: The deal between Universal BioTrends and Genecco comes to an end, but seemingly in a far more amicable way than the breaks with Simbio. Biotoy distribution is now handled by Genecco Deutschland GmbH.
Late 2014: Release of Fiwwy Wedding Pairs. Another spinoff toyline, where pairs of characters from Filly Princess, Fairy, Unicorn, Elves, and Butterfly were sold. Notably, none of them were paired a Filly of another type. The line came with instructions, props and music with which children could re-enact weddings of the pair they had purchased.
19 January 2015: Fiwwy Fantasia is delayed yet again. The new release date is “2016”.
February 2015: First recorded conflict between a feral fluffy pony and a fiwwy. Rumours of violence between fiwwies and fluffies had existed, but limited interaction between American fluffies and European fiwwies made observation difficult. Upon discover, it is noted that the fluffies start referring to the fiwwies as “fakies” and “nu-reaw fwuffs.” Whether this was the result of Hasbio intervention to make fluffies repel against a competitor product, or if fluffies themselves disliked an equine that resembled them, but was not like them, has yet to be discerned
February 2015: Release of Fiwwy Stars. This was the final biotoy line designed and written by [REDACTED]. Fiwwy Stars are the alicorns of the Fiwwy world, but unlike Hasbio fluffies, fiwwies do not possess the nature hatred against theirs alicorns, seeing Fiwwy stars as another race, like elves, fairies and sea fiwwies.
This biotoy line features Fiwwy Fantasia character Mack (which means that the toyline was planned well in advance as Mack appearsed in Fiwwy Fantasia concept art that was probably made in 2012) and in many ways seems like the culmination of the world building as the subsequent biotoy lines do not add that much to the overall lore of the series. The first Fiwwy Magazine comic featuring the Stars starts off with the Butterflys meeting the Stars and the toyline itself has an ongoing story arch focusing on the relationship between the relationship between a Fiwwy from the dark Moonlight side of Skylia (Mack) and one from the light Starlight side (Childs).
13 April 2015: Biotech France 2015. The only news is the slightly updated Fiwwy Fantasia website. No new campaigns or events announced
June 2015: A somewhat more functional version of the website appears on genecconews.com. It is never updated or developed further beyond this point.
22 June 2015: Enthusiasts from r/Fiwwy, Fiwwybooru and Fiwwychan hosts an AMA with [REDACTED]. At this point, she had already quit working at Genecco earlier during the year. When pressed with further details on the product, she claimed a loss of memory after [REDACTED]
15 July 2015: Blood Dragon uploads a trailer to Chinese video sharing site QQ of various shows they are working on, which features some previously unseen Fiwwy Fantasia video material for RPG campaigns.
6 October 2015: “Lore 5” is finally released in all its glory on youtube. This promo is a clip show of fiwwies playing in various campaigns with children mastering the events. The fiwwies display significant improvements in their gene editing using more varied fluffspeak and better understanding their roles.
Late 2015: More genetic engineers leave the project at some point late in the year.
10 December 2015: A short Christmas video is released. This would be the last Fiwwy Fantasia video material for over two years.
February 2016: Release of Fiwwy Royale. This biotoy line is essentially an updated version of the Fiwwy Princess biotoy line from 2008, with the setting and characters being updated to better fit the post-Unicorn Fiwwy World as well as changes made in Fiwwy Fantasia. Elric now has an updated bio reflecting his penchant for swords as seen in Fantasia, and the characters are now divided into color-coded families like the other newer biotoy lines. This is the last biotoy line to get a biotoy site. Every main series biotoy line up until this one had a biotoy site under the now defunt genecco.myfiwwy.com domain that allowed you to read the bios and a short story about the toyline.
5 October 2016: The second part of the legal saga between Simbio and Genecco concludes in Genecco’s favour. This is appealed again.
15 October 2016: France Biotech 2016. For the first time in a few years, there is absolute silence on Fiwwy Fantasia. What’s worse, during October and November, Blood Dragon starts methodically erasing every mention of Fiwwy Fantasia from all their various social media accounts while refusing to answer any questions about why they are doing it. The relationship between BD and Genecco had apparently broken down completely at some point during the summer of 2016, but the details of why and when are still fairly hazy as of writing.
February 2017: fiwwy.com shuts down and starts redirecting to the Fiwwy Stars toy site.
9 March 2017: Investigation goes into a series of disturbing videos and images depicting a particular form of fluffy pony abuse known as fiwwy abuse, using Genecco fluffies. Although the perpetrators were eventually uncovered and arrested, following amendments to biotoy law, fluffy and fiwwy abuse continues to this day.
25 May 2017: The third chapter of the Simbio vs Genecco legal saga concludes and Genecco again seems successful. This is apparently appealed yet again.
4 July 2017: Genecco once again secures a lasting deal with an external toy manufacturer by signing a deal with Goliath BioToys. They begin producing Fiwwy Royale biotoys and have continued producing toys for all subsequent toylines.
August 2017: Release of Fiwwy Ballerinas. The release of this somewhat strange toyline for an August release suggests a desperation on Genecco’s part to put out content and market their bio toys while Fiwwy Fantasia remains delayed. This line of biotoys recycles characters from previous toylines, including Luck, but places an emphasis on grooming the biotoys to be trained as ballerines, with existing implants for fiwwies to udnergo a form of ballerina training.
10 October 2017: Genecco attends Brand Licensing Europe 2017, with Fiwwy listed in the “Tabletop RPG” category. This is the first sign that Fiwwy Fantasia isn’t abandoned
5 January 2018: Fiwwy Witchy Adventure disappears from Google Play. Genecco would delete their other apps over the year and finally close their account completely, giving less options for children to roleplay with their Fiwwies.
16 January 2018: Another release date is mentioned. In an interview on the Danish finance newspaper Finans, the Genecco [REDACTED] talk about their company’s problems and reveal that Fiwwy Fantasia would release in 2019.
7 February 2018: The fourth (!) part of the legal saga between Simbio and Genecco finishes. This time, Simbio appears to be the successful party. This seems to have been appealed yet another time, since according to an article from May 2018, the legal case was still ongoing at that time. This means that the final outcome of the legal battle which began in February 2014 is still to be determined as of writing.
23 March 2018: BioWaWa Studios uploads a Fiwwy Fantasia teaser to their Vimeo account. The first Fiwwy Fantasia video material in several years. It’s unclear when exactly BioWawa resumed the genetic engineering work on the fiwwies, but circumstantial evidence suggest they have not made much changed to the genetic blueprints.
June 2018: Release of Fiwwy Angels. This biotoy line represents the first toyline since Stars three years earlier which acts as a classic mainline Fiwwy biotoy line - not a spinoff and no recycled characters from previous lines. Angels with feathery, pegasus-like wings have been available a few times previously, including the special character Rachel who first appeared in 2012, which led to some speculation that Mack might be part of a future toyline dedicated to Angels before we found out that he was actually a Star, but in 2018 there was an entire biotoy line about them. As this toyline was released so far after the start of Fiwwy Fantasia development, the Angels most likely won’t appear in initial campaign, but this biotoy line should still probably be regarded as canon.
Early 2019: All of Genecco’s websites go offline for unknown reasons at some point during early 2019.
3 March 2019: With no warning, trailers for the imminent release of Fiwwy Fantasia suddenly appear.
11 March 2019: First official edition of Fiwwy Fantasia is released, with commemorative rulebook, dice, costumes, materials and supplements that children can use to host “proper” adventures and quests with their Fiwwies. At the same time, an episode of Filly Funtasia airs on non-Hasbio affiliated Fluffy-friendly channels.
Further Reading
