cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/38887473
So maybe some of you have seen the recent ROM hack come out, by the developer of Pokémon Emerald Seaglass, called Pokémon Lazarus. This one has a far larger scale to everything, it's quite clear that it is a massive undertaking for a sole dev, and most of the community is loving it.
Well, some aren't behaving well. There's been some petty, disgusting feedback from a (as ever) vocal minority. Those who are homophobic, bigots, who are mocking design decisions and the sound (which Nemo, the dev, has created from scratch), some who hate seeing a pride flag.
Anyway, Nemo has decided after this bullshit to step back from the public and stop interacting. We've seen this again and again with developers. And it's getting SO damned exhausting:
With that said, I’ll be taking a step back from the community for a bit. I’ll post bug-fixing and new feature patches to the Development Discord server, but I don’t plan on posting anywhere else for a while. If I go on to develop a new project (which I do have planned!), it will likely be in secret until close to release, if I choose to release it at all. With everything going on in my life (Master’s program, work, real world commitments, etc etc), I guess I’m just not prepared to also handle the bad side of attention on the internet.
Especially in the Pokemon community. There is such a large openly queer part of it. These are games that push being yourself, finding what makes you happy. Hell, it's even up there with New Vegas as a playful "egg cracker" with the big question of "Are you a boy or a girl?"
It's a community that has publicly came out and defended that side, that has so many openly LGBT content creators. It's sad to see the hate still buried underneath it all.