Hi, I'm TerminusEst13. You might know me on the internet as TerminusEst13. I've made a few projects. And I've handled positive and negative reception to a lot of my projects.
A while back, I stepped away from the Doom community, outside of a few outlets.
I'm not going to claim to be a paragon of moral virtue. That's because, well, I'm not! I grew up on 4chan, trawled 8chan for a good while, and I've said (and done) some pretty naughty things. But during my time here, I've tried to promote a message of creativity. Making things is fun, making things can be *easy*. Creativity can be really rewarding, and people should embrace mistakes and flaws.
And even now, I still think it can be! But boy howdy, have I learned a lot about community collaboration since then.
This isn't just about Marisa, and you keep making it about Marisa. There's a lot that happened with Marisa. But there's more to it. It's about how MODERATORS WILL NEVER HELP YOU. ONLY TRUST YOUR FISTS.
I'm not going to mince words. This community has scarred me.
People have thrown death threats at me because of my work. People have attempted to publicly campaign against me. People have given me shit because I've taken steps to remove myself from community bullshit. And moderative response has frequently been apathetic at best, because of a long-standing desire to not want to rock the boat by banning contributors.
Now, I'm not going to say I don't deserve any of the flak I've gotten--like I said, I've been naughty sometimes. Sometimes I just danced too close to the flames and got burned. The tipping point, however, was when sexual boundaries were crossed.
One person kept calling me "cutie", being openly affectionate with me in public, she would try to flirt with me on Twitch, even after I asked her to stop, and even would post on Twitter drawings of my avatar that they would fire a heart gun at. (It was Marisa)
Another person would coerce me into drawing porn for him. He would talk at great length about how much he wants to do handholding with my chars, that he wants to do gentle lovey-dovey things with my chars, and tell me about how wonderful it would be to feel the warm touch of a woman and how lonely he was and etc etc (It was SmashBroPlusB)
When I tried to contact mods, one response burned into my mind was (paraphrased) "oh, they're just horny and they like you". I was told I should be flattered, and if it really bothered me that I should step aside and let other people get the spotlight.
Now I don't have any caps or logs to corroborate this. Take this with a mountain of fucking salt. Both of them have since deleted their Twitters, and any conversations with the mod team have been lost to the aether. But you know what? If you want me to step aside, I'm fine with that. I have my stream and my friend group. I want to be creative, first and foremost, and I don't need you for that. I've cut myself off and I do my own thing now.
There's a strange idea among moderation that action can only be taken if someone demonstrates clearly, without any wiggle room, that they are being malicious.
It's more simple than that. If someone breaks the rules, you punish them. Punishing someone for breaking the rules does not have to be a declaration that they are a true villain, it is an acknowledgement that you broke the rules! Moderative action cannot wait for true villains to rear their heads, because very few people are true villains. Even as someone whose optimism was tested on a nearly daily basis, you would be hard-pressed for me to point out people who are evil and cannot change.
Fandom is a wonderful thing, but also a terrifying thing. "I like thing, too!" is a great way to meet people, but it's not a good foundation for establishing a long-term social circle. Mass amounts of people are not healthy to constantly deal with, and being a fan of someone's work is not the same as being a friend to someone.
Being a content creator/developer in recent years feels more and more like a thankless job, and my ethos has certainly gotten REAL fucking tested more often than not, lately. But still, I've never stopped smiling. Creativity deserves to be celebrated, and fledgling modders deserve to be supported. Cringe culture isn't dead, it's an aesthetic.
And I still hold true to it. Making things CAN be fun.
It's just not always.