Richard

Richard, or, specifically, Richard Watterson (Playermodel + NPC's), is a now-deleted GMOD addon that was retrieved (with some difficulty) by The Meme Lord and restored.
== The Richlore'd ==
Richard began as any other GMOD NPC/Playermodel, just another addon to add to the chaos partaken by Mike Kachowski, The Snazzmaster, and Meme Lord. Richard originated when he was uploaded to the workshop on April 12, 2022, around 8:12PM. Meme Lord wouldn't find Richard until at least April 15 that year, where he quickly downloaded it out of the sheer oddness at the fact that Gumball Watterson's father was available to play, as Gumball/Darwin and other TAWOG characters weren't on the workshop in any sort of functional position. It was during that same day where it was learned of Richard's incredible power:
Richard had the power to end worlds.
In other words, he crashed the game instantly if he was killed. Nothing like this had been found on the workshop, and besides the fact that it was Gumball's father of all things that had the ability to do it, it was fairly obvious that the creator did not intend this to happen. Thus this made the addon far, far funnier. How anybody could mess up a lua (turns out it was the physics) file so badly that it would instantly crash the game? Richard became a sort of nuclear deterrent after discovering this. "Oh, you're gonna shoot me?" (Spawns a Richard NPC in front of myself) Oh, you're gonna try to roadkill me? (Spawns Richard); you get the gist. The tradition of ending the GMOD sessions every night had once again shifted, and Richard became yet another way to do this, albeit only being used to end the night seldomly, Mechagodzilla was still the go-to.
Richard would be enjoyed up until May 5, 2022, when Memebers would get a little fried out of GMOD and take a lengthy break. This would end up being a mistake, as none of them thought to backup their addons, Richard was, sometime during that same month, removed from the workshop. Its unknown if the creator took it down due to the crashing issue, or if Steam took it down because it crashed games(This goes against their workshop rules). Nobody would notice Richard was gone for quite a while, until...
== The Risearch ==
On October 17, 2022, Meme Lord was slowly getting back into GMOD again, and was adding things to the collection when he realized he couldn't find Richard. He informed Mike Kachowski and The Snazzmaster of this, but they didn't know any better than he did. Meme Lord panicked and did a search in the Council to see if the addon was ever shared, and sure enough, it was. Meme Lord checked the link and confirmed the worst: Richard was gone. Thankfully, Discord doesn't update embeds over time, and thus the link sent of Richard's steam page still had the thumbnail and around 80% of the name included. Using this limited info, Meme Lord started a very broad search for Richard, reverse image searching the thumbnail, checking the webarchive for the workshop itself, and finally caving in and asking the internet at large for Richard, thus starting what Meme Lord would dub the "Richard Campaign". Meme Lord was making little progress, as the biggest hinderance to his hunt was the fact that nobody could remember who the creator was. Thus Meme Lord commented on every TAWOG-related addon in the workshop in hopes of getting at least a clue, but alas, he found nothing.
Surprisingly, the hunt gained some traction, other users commenting on addons in the workshop as well. Meme Lord was beginning to lose hope, seeing the chances that anybody had a copy of the addon unlikely, as he learned Steam will automatically remove the addon from your files if its removed from the workshop. Worse yet, the one active gmod workshop archive had decided to cease operations just before April, so Richard wouldn't be included. Other archives of deleted addons didn't have it as well. Things only got worse as Meme Lord thought he found the creator not once, but twice, emailing both personally only to receive disappointing answers back. Even after a week of hunting, Meme Lord's only evidence that the addon existed was his screenshot of the embed, and a gif uploaded randomly by a user on May 9, showing a Richard NPC fighting the player alongside some random FNAF characters. (Yeah, Meme Lord asked him, too.) 
Things finally took a turn for the better in late October when Meme Lord re-discovered the model used for Richard on SketchFab. Coincidently, the uploader didn't allow downloads, and also had some other Gumball addons uploaded. Meme Lord was certain he found his creator, as he had given up on relying on a salvaged copy and would rather ask the creator themselves. Meme Lord had also looked into every video game containing Gumball ever made, and didn't find a single one with Richard as a 3D character, and thus concluded the model must have been custom made by this SketchFab user. All the pieces seemed to fit into place, Meme Lord asking the user on 2 pages, and even making a Youtube video to promote the hunt. 
Until...Meme Lord had realized he missed a game. Meme Lord had a memory of discussing the NPC with Mike Kachowski back in April, and something vaguely about a racing game. Despite knowing that he had checked every Gumball/Gumball crossover game on the Gumball wiki, Meme Lord did a simple google search for a cartoon network racing game, and sure enough, he found it: "Formula Cartoon All-Stars". Richard was there, on the first image, sitting in his own little go-kart. Meme Lord eventually learned the reason he couldn't find this earlier was due to the fact that for some reason it only existed on the Clarence Wiki (?), but regardless, now that it was known what game Richard was from, this would narrow down the search further. Meme Lord found the actual downloadable model from models-resource, and thus, once again, thought he found the creator, going off of the only person to comment on Richard who also coincidently had Gumball addons on the workshop, only to be incorrect again. Meme Lord now had the model though, and was re-energized to hunt again. He browsed the workshop at large once again, but this time, for anybody who had uploaded models from that same game. It was here, where he found a user who had happened to have their Discord public on their steam page...
== The Locating of Richard ==
Gus. Not his steam username, but his real name, being Gustavo. (His real username won't be shared for obvious reasons). Meme Lord messaged him on Discord as he had not one, not two, but 12 models uploaded from that same game. Sure enough, it was him. His english was poor, as he was from Chile, but he quickly said "yes" to the question, and stated he would "remake" it, though he didn't further elaborate. Meme Lord was still suspicious if it was him, as Gus wasn't answering any of the questions normally and seemed more inclined to randomly say "Ok" and "yes", until he sent his server link. Meme Lord joined this server and happily confirmed the creator was Gus after finding the same embed sent by Gus himself paired with the message that he had 'brought it back' from back in April. 
Despite Meme Lord trying his best to explain to Gus what he wanted, Gus didn't really seem to be aware of where he was or how to speak any sort of understandable English, though he tried. After investigating his server and his workshop further, Meme Lord found that Gus wasn't the man he thought he was, and had a history of simply stealing other's work and smashing it together, being a manchild in general, and not really knowing how to do much in gmod himself and simply piggybacking off of others work. Nearly every single one of his 200+ addons being broken or outright unplayable, it became clear why Richard did what he did best. On his server, Gus didn't seem to be able to understand what any of the 100 members were ever saying, and there was not a single eligible conversation in the history of that server's existence. Gus was far more inclined to randomly state how he liked We Baby Bears or Hotel Transylvania then anything else.
Meme Lord then figured the best course of action would be to ask one of Gus's "friends", and found The American in the server. Meme Lord asked The American to ask Gus for the addon, but The American received similar results. Meme Lord was running out of ideas, Mike Kachowski assisting with some Spanish translated messages Meme Lord could send to try to get Gus to understand. Despite all of this, Gus never responded with any sort of confirmation that he knew what was going on. Meme Lord was starting to give up, and went back to asking people he knew had worked with Gus if they had happened to work on the model. Finally, 6 days after joining the server, Meme Lord decided the best approach was the direct one, and asked Gus in full spanish for exactly what he needed, trying to be as specific as possible, with screenshots indicating the file. Gus finally understood and sent the files on November 7, 2022, at 3:58 PM. 
Now that Richard has returned, the chaos ensued, Meme Lord compiling and making an unlisted version of the exact addon, and to everyone's joy, it worked just as it did before. Richard is thus back in the mix, to be used as the ultimate weapon for the remainder of eternity.
== The Legacy of Richard ==
Richard has been used effectively since his return, and has been used to crash basically every gmod session since then. It was on November 7, 2023, when Meme Lord had the terrible idea to crash the game with Richard on every single map that was in the Meme Council workshop collection in one night. Mike Kachowski agreed, but soon grew miserable as the charade took nearly 4 hours. Regardless, they were successful, with only 2 accidental misfire crashes. The results were compiled into a ceremonial anniversary video by Meme Lord.
Category:Interdimensional Beings
Category:Memes
Category:Meme Council Lore
Category:Meme Council Meme Fuel
Category:Richard Lore
Category:2022