I’m all for, in general, discouraging a lot of the ‘mature’ and ‘edgy’ content in a lot of projects. Partially because reading that stuff often comes off as something I’d see on fanfiction.net, partially because it’s usually not written well, and majorly because of the visual inconsistency of Fire Emblem, as stated in the OP.
However, banning or blocking these hacks is a violently incorrect action to take. I don’t support that at all. I’m still pretty annoyed that, in 2020, we had something like 4 hacks banned for being edgy.
If a hack is edgy, or it uses a whole bunch of rape jokes, or some other crap… who cares? Ignore it. If you feel deeply offended by the content, then by all means, vent with proper, constructive criticism. 99% of the people who make these hacks with these over the top edgelords are underage kids; people who either don’t have a grasp on refined society and proper writing/storytelling, OR kids who want to use hacks to rebel against authority in some way.
They think they’re cool. They’re not, and we know they’re not, but so what? Everyone’s first project is a stinker. Maybe some people dropped out of their mothers with golden hair and eyes filled with the light of creation, but I strongly doubt that’s the case. My first two or three projects were all bad, and those are the ones I never posted publicly. My next two or three were also pretty bad, but a step up in overall quality, thanks to some constructive and even some not-so-constructive criticism.
And now? Years later, after failing many times, I’ve become an accomplished author. I would not be where I was if I had started out in the modern hacking climate, where extremely edgy hacks could get your project banned. By allowing my fangames to exist, as bad as they were, while providing criticism, I learned not only what was acceptable in the community, but what was unacceptable, too.
Here’s a fun fact: The Fire Emblem community is small. Even the modern scene, which is ten or twenty times bigger than it was just five years ago; it’s still incredibly tiny. FEU isn’t even a blip on the radar at this point. Only the really hardcore fans come here.
The people who come here are often young people who have little social experience, are incredibly awkward, and socially stunted. I know; I was one of those people. Still am, depending on the day of the week. These people don’t have the proper boundaries built up in their minds. By shutting them down and berating them, you are not teaching them anything useful, you are not improving them as creators or as people, and you are only hurting them in the long run. Maybe some people don’t care, but I do, and from conversations I’ve had behind the scenes, so do others as well.
This is not a post directed solely at the mods or admins. It takes a community to come together on a subject like this. Some of you may recall, several years ago, there was a particularly big thread that got a lot of traction on SF. It was written by the now-admin of FEU, Camtech.
For context: At that time, 2013, the community had a big problem on its hands. New people would sometimes post projects and ‘steal’ artwork from well-known forum members. You’ll notice I put ‘steal’ in quotations. That’s not because the act was not stealing, but because these new fangame creators were often children and had no idea that what they were doing was immoral.
So what would happen was, people would see some new hack from SkippyDoodles14 titled “Edgelord’s Big Adventure with Big Boobied Bimbos” or whatever, and upon looking at the screenshots- GASP! A stolen mug! So, people would get together and dogpile the new person to various degrees, insulting them, saying they were a thief and needed to remove those mugs right this instant, etc.
And what happened? The person left the community, never to be seen again. Camtech and other people saw this was messed up, so he finally sat down and wrote the thread, and the rest was history. We do not do that anymore, as far as I know. Now, when a new person joins with stolen artwork, we gently let them know that their project really ought to have free to use art in it instead, and hey, here’s a repo with F2U assets, why not use those instead of those mugs you liked from TLP?
…
We need that moment again. Here, now. But this time, it should be towards people who make edgy content.
When you see someone making a hack with rape jokes, with edgy political humor, with some other thing that you consider vile… stop! Breathe. Take a moment to consider this person’s situation. Then, start by opening up a dialogue, informing them the ways their content disturbs you.
Yes, some people have done that already, and that’s great. But from what I’ve seen, a lot of people didn’t. Some of you (and you know who you are) instead did everything in your power to shut the content down and get it banned. Good job; you succeeded. Now that person left, that person who had a lot of creative drive but wasn’t yet mature enough to channel it properly. A few years from now, they’ll probably go to some other community, a more welcoming and helpful one where they won’t get stomped for being an idiot teenager, like all of us were at some point.
And who knows? Maybe by then, their creativity will have evolved, as will their more problematic views. Too bad, though. They won’t be making FE content.
Not unless we make a change in how we treat those people.
