My response to Costume Clash is down because Larrynachos is a dick.
THIS is why I don't collaborate with strangers lol.
Very convenient for her that she didn't keep the chat logs. It's almost as if I was a completely reasonable human being and she spun out on me and she knows it. I couldn't screenshot in time but I'm pretty sure she called me a libtard before she gave me the boot lol.
You’re darned right I removed the game. I would have unpublished the game entirely to get it off the front page, except she felt the need to be the owner of the project. As to why I did it, after our exchange on discord (see below) I no longer felt she deserved to have her name on a project she had little to no involvement in besides recruiting myself and the artists. Contrary to her “director” credit, she brought forth very few ideas, insights, or feedback for the duration of development, only popping her head into the discord to remind us that she was a part of this project. Splenectomy gets full credit for the initial idea of a battler with costume-based abilities, and I took that idea and ran with it. We’d had basically the whole concept drafted overnight with zero input from Theta. She has no right to claim ownership of the project or reupload it. It pains me to see the artists getting caught in the crossfire, and I’m more than happy to re-release the game with the members who actually contributed. Or not, tbh this project was a fun personal challenge and all the knowledge and experience I’ve acquired will stay with me regardless of what happens to the game.
Discord drama:
I awoke to messages from Theta in the Costume Clash discord, who expressed her concerns about my responses to the reviews. She said I was too harsh. Something about "you should strive to make something you're proud of instead of chasing personal glory"? There were other things she said I can’t recall, basically her implying that I'm somehow bullying these users because I'm incapable of handling criticism, and that it's better to take the high road.
I went through the reviews to see where I'd gotten too aggressive, But there were only 3 that could be considered rude, and if you look at them I think it's a pretty flimsy argument.
Review 1
Review 2
Review 3
Still half asleep, my initial response was an attempt to clarify what she was talking about, during this I reiterated that for each critical costume clash review, I explained the bug that was occurring (there was a particularly nasty bug I couldn't quite squash that was reliably triggered on a user's first playthrough due to how I managed the unlocks system), and for other issues I asked them to elaborate, and in most cases I pushed updates to fix the bugs.
Then after waking up fully and having another look at the messages and my review responses, I pointed out the paradoxical nature of her statements, with her saying I should make something I’m proud of but I’m not allowed to defend it from criticism. Why would I not defend something I’m proud of? I stated that I have just as much a right to criticize them as they have to criticize me, and restated that I don’t believe I overstepped in any of my responses.
She interpreted my response as an attack and got more and more aggressive in her replies, and with each message it seemed to indicate that she either didn’t or chose not to understand my initial response.
I can’t remember much from the tail end of the conversation, at some point she told me I was being an asshole, I again reiterated that I didn’t believe I’d behaved rudely then she began to ask me stuff like “who gets to decide what is rude, you? You’re the grand arbiter in this situation?”. I said that a professional demeanor is neither enforced nor expected in Newgrounds, which she misinterpreted as “professionals don’t use newgrounds”. She asked me if “people like me were the reason why XXXX left” (I don’t remember the name). She quickly began to dig the trenches of a narrative while placing herself atop some sort of intellectual pedestal, escalating from “your responses were rude” to “you’re a delusional narcissist who lashes out at anyone who dares criticize your content” (read this in the facetious psychicpebbles voice lol).
(Now she's apparently trying to frame me as some sort of alt-right wannabe alpha male??? Why's she bringing up the fact that I'm white?)
At one point, she LITERALLY said “I’m trying to psychoanalyze you to figure out *why people like you think like that*” to which, beginning to lose my temper, I called her an “overzealous psych major” (I know, it’s basically the N word). She continued to rage on, trying to educate ME on how I think. Her responses seemed to completely disregard everything I’d been saying, so I told her to scroll up and re-read what I’d written, to which she responded by calling me a libtard and kicking me from the channel. So I then removed the latest build from the project.
There’s a lot more nuance to this discussion that’s being missed, but unfortunately she wiped the chat logs from discord so there’s little hope for my full vindication.
But at the end of the day, none of this matters. The world turns, unchanged. I don’t anticipate this “drama” escalating any further. I’ve said my piece, and until she presents the full context in the form of complete, unedited screenshots, it’s ALL hearsay, even what I’ve written here today.
I implore you to make your own informed decisions regarding these events. Actually, fuck that. I implore you to not give a shit and continue living your life without expending energy on such a superfluous occurrence. Life’s too short. Drink some water, go outside, and ask yourself how you’re going to contribute to the universe today.
And to Theta, since I'm blocked: Screw you for making me take an undeserved chunk out of the precious time I have on this earth to respond to your self-righteous wittering. You can front like you're an innocent person who's nothing but enthusiastic and supportive, but today you revealed your true self to me. I hope you take some time to look inward and reflect on who you are vs who you pretend to be, and strive to be a kind person genuinely, not just when it benefits you.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm more than grateful for the people who choose to support me and engage with my content, but in the grand scheme of things I don't really care about public perception. I'm imperfect and so is my art and I won't pretend otherwise, but while I'm in a perpetual cycle of learning and self improvement, I'm under no obligation to conform to your standards or expectations, and I'm well within my rights to respond as I see fit.
Christ, I'm over here spending my day off writing a 5 paragraph essay like I just got outed as a groomer or something when I should be playing minecraft with my mom right now.
I feel bad for wasting a front page post on this, so here's a link to the news post that got pushed off the front page when I posted mine. It's a neat collab for artists with a theme based on those little plastic capsule figures from our childhood!