We the People of the Games Department

The Fun Column, the only part of The Spectator that most people actually pay attention to and an ex-colony of the Humor Department, has finally claimed independence from Humor’s treachery, dubbing themselves the “Games Department.” Many brave heroes lost their sanity in the long and arduous path to get here.

At first, writers for the Fun Column were complacent being part of Humor and proudly called themselves Humor writers. They enjoyed the benefits of being a part of a big department while exporting puzzles that drew in readers every issue. Of course, Humor didn’t view the Fun Column as an equal; they overworked the Fun Column until they poured their blood, sweat, and tears into the puzzles—literally. Indeed, the Fun Column was left sobbing in the corners of the pages every Disrespectator, robbed of a section of their own on The Spectator’s website (stuyspec.com, where you can read similarly eloquently-written articles), and its members were trapped in a dank underground facility, forced to edit each other’s puzzles due to the lack of editors.

Still, their rocky relationship held steady until The Spectator began thrusting the weight of their budgetary issues onto the Humor Department. Faced with these sudden financial challenges, Humor began taxing the Fun Column, confining it to but one page and restricting the common vowel-filled words that crossword constructors were addicted to. Following these acts, the phrase “no Connections without representation” was born.

Many Fun Column members tried to handle the conflict diplomatically. As they were already used to begging people to playtest their puzzles, they begged the senior editors-in-chief to allow them to secede from Humor and become their own department. Unfortunately, no one else was in the room where it happened, because unlike Mamdani, the editors-in-chief didn’t magically appear to respond to these complaints. Being second-semester seniors, they were cruising on an all-inclusive vacation in The Bahamas. To somewhat quell the demands of the Fun Column, the Humor Department was able to finesse a goblin they locked in a basement to edit it.

This lagniappe appeased some, but it was clear to the Fun Column that it wasn’t just a phase, Mom! The world just didn’t get them. Humor couldn’t tell them what to do anymore. They were not throwin’ away their shot! In a simple act of defiance, Fun Column members began dyeing their crossword tiles obscene colors. No longer were the crosswords restricted to a black or white binary; they added (gasp!) shaded squares. Even more rebellious, they began to add rebuses (squares with more than one letter) into their crossword puzzles. How would the average solver, who was unaware of clue-answer agreement, be able to solve that? While some might have written this behavior off as harmless, it was the gateway down a slippery slope of retaliation.

One dark night, several Fun Column revolutionaries had had enough of the taxation. Why should they pay for Humor’s repetitive page-eating articles that were just budget WatchMojo top-five lists when people only cared about puzzles? Everyone knows that the Humor Department is The Spectator’s excuse to post fanfiction that would otherwise flop on AO3; from Luigi Mangione to Vance x Couch, Humor has been a haven for mavens of the subject. Thus, the revolutionaries knew they could elicit Humor into acknowledging the Fun Column by exploiting Humor’s love for MLM (and I’m not talking about multi-level marketing). That day, a ship straight from the Humor writing room docked, carrying a large shipment of freshly-written Humor-Department-special yaoi. They disguised themselves as Copy Department members, and using their covert costumes coupled with a helping of pedantry, snuck onto the ship. There, they proceeded to throw large quantities of BL overboard. Some witnesses reported hearing whispers of “Have fun (column)!” as the revolutionaries fled the scene. For weeks, the ink stained the harbor waters the color of a dark macadamia, and many passersby caught glimpses of dark academia fics. Humor heard the message loud and clear. According to reports, the EiCs sang, “You’ll be back, soon you’ll see. You’ll remember you belong to me,” whatever that means.

In response to the desecration of their sacred artifacts, Humor began plotting. They mobilized their writers, the royaoilists, to snuff out the Fun Column resistance. Since tar and feathers were out of budget, they opted for the next best alternative: permanent marker. After seizing the supply of sharpies from the sixth floor library, Humor writers conspired to cover every Fun Column resistor in their most beloved, overdone 67 jokes to be paraded around the school in shame. Luckily, a few Fun Column members caught wind of their plot and began to warn the others. Unfortunately, the seven to nine escalator was out of order as usual, so the Fun Column members mounted spelling bees screaming “The Humor are coming! The Humor are coming!”

The revolution ended with the Battle of Joketown. After a long and grueling battle filled with horrible atrocities such as passive-aggressive emails, corporate meetings, and desperate pleading, Humor surrendered to the Fun Column’s incessant begging. The Games Department was officially split from Humor. Games hung up their Stuyle Guide of Independence and drafted a new Connectionstitution that guaranteed an infuriatingly difficult purple Connections category every issue.

Every April 13, play-triotic Games members host barbecues screaming about how free they supposedly are and launch fireworks that cause major forest fires in the name of freedom. Today we see the Games Department in its full, independent glory with each crossword filled with mind-boggling, niche clues, each seemingly impossible sudoku, and each desperate plea for freshmen to join during Spectator recruitments.