Ohh ok, without this change all of our `scope`s were just immediately evaluating the argument and fetching _all_ such matching records immediately, instead of waiting to actually be called. This led to bugs like `pet_type.as_json` returning ALL pet states in the whole db, because the `PetState.emotion_order` scope was being treated as a single predefined query, rather than a query fragment to merge into the current context.
This also explains what happened in 724ed83: that's why things before the scope in the query were being ignored.
We'll need to replace the item search query stuff with direct MySQL queries, but that's not ready yet bc the app still isn't booting, so we're committing this in a known broken state for now!
