1mo ago

Popular Female Skyrim Modder Has Abandoned Her Work Due to Daily Harrassment

www.gamesradar.com "It makes me sick": Skyrim modder with 475,000 downloads, fed up with "daily harassment," abandons modding after "thousands of hours" of work on what she calls "the most advanced follower to ever exist"

Their departure has sparked another conversation about how the modding scene looks after its own

"It makes me sick": Skyrim modder with 475,000 downloads, fed up with "daily harassment," abandons modding after "thousands of hours" of work on what she calls "the most advanced follower to ever exist"

I think gamers as a whole, though specifically those in niche communities, need to take a long and hard look at themselves. We should celebrate the volunteers that create wonderful content for us, generally with no financial gain. Instead, commonly, there are communities that criticize and tear down every little thing they can think of. They even went as far as to doxx the poor woman. We need to be better, and we need to hold these kind of toxic trolls accountable. Especially those of us who are men, we have a responsibility to call out other men who mistreat women in the gaming industry, or gaming in general.

*Edit: I apologize if I insinuated that all gamers are guilty of this kind of behavior, that was not my intention at all. My sentiment is that many of us do not think about this kind of thing, and less are willing to speak out against their friends. We need to be better about that as a whole. I appreciate you as a person if you are already of this mindset.

133 comments

The only interaction I've ever had with authors of mods and such was sending them thanks for their hard work. Sad.

Good for her for making the right decision for her own wellbeing. Too many sad little fucks on the Internet who spend all their time harassing others. Pathetic existence.

I don't want you to feel like you're getting it from all sides but...
I apologize if I insinuated that all gamers are guilty of this kind of behavior, that was not my intention at all
You really gotta ignore those "not all gamers" type of posters. They are literally adding nothing to the conversation. If you are a normal person who doesn't harass women only, then you should also be a normal person who doesn't take offense when the community as a whole is criticized.
- I always hate these kinds of responses. Let me just go to the extreme, would you say the same if someone made broad negative generalizations about a race?
  
  no? how do you even think there's a parallel there? gamer isn't a race. there's nothing essential about gaming. the parallel would be making generalizations about football fans. not a race.
  
  If you're a woman keep your drinks covered around men. Responding not all men is pointless even tho I'm a man and I don't think women should be afraid of me but I get it that they could be and the person that could help change this the most is me and men not women.
  And again this is a pointless tangent to the original statement.
  
  Ah yes, the gamer race. I wish I could show this message to Adolph Reed.
  
  If you are not part of the problem - it should not offend you, so that generalization is ok, because tbh a lot of us need to stop and think.
  
  To be fair, I assumed people would understand I don't mean gamers as a whole are like this. I think we all have a responsibility, but I also think the majority of gamers (at least in my age group) are reasonable and show respect.
  I see where you're going with negative generalizations on race, but it's a completely different ball field. I could probably think of many reasons why, but my main argument is that the general group of "gamers" have never had to face any real existential adversity. No one ever put us in chains, stole our children, etc. on the basis that we play games.
  
  This comment made my eyes roll out of my head.
  
  Sad you're being down voted for this. Generalizing a whole group like this is not OK and your point about race is completely valid. People saying things like "ah yes, gamer race" either can't read or comprehend.

I don't understand people who "demand" things from volunteers. Open source devs, modders, and still recently content creators are/were treated like public service workers, by some.
Imagine if we went around treating artists as if they were obligated to please each of us individually with their every piece? I'm very happy to see this attitude improve with streaming and youtube, where creators are more and more met with care and support when they have to step away for a bit or retire entirely.
It sadly seems like this modder was eventually putting in tremendous effort, in a vain attempt to please absolutely everyone using her mods. But that isn't a good reason to work for free.
Any work I do for free, is something I do because I want to, but this modder explicitly says she did work she didn't want to do in order to please fans. And I can't help but ask, why? (I know why, but someone should have cared enough to show her she is allowed to just say no, and do whatever she prefers.)
The blurb about her doing music is how you're SUPPOSED to feel doing something for fun. I'm happy that she found her way to something that makes her feel that way.
- it doesnt even have to be a mod, just free. See what happened with AetherSX2(android ps2 emulator) and how a bunch of people kept pestering a dev till he basiclaly quit working on it on mobile because they ask for a lot for something that was literally free.
  
  You ever see steam discussions for early access games? Jesus fucking Christ people are entitled as shit.
- People do this with artists too. Especially the moment you offer anything in the way of free commissions for a specific community and such.
  Many forums had gfx threads, where members who enjoy putting together banners and such would offer to make something for those who asked. A good friend of mine ran one in a certain game's forum for a while and the absolute entitlement in which some of those people acted (in regards to speed and nitpicking about minor things) was disgusting. It was maybe 1 in 25 people but it soured the whole thing for her, understandably so. The moment you give people a little finger wrt their requests, one of those people will take the whole hand. The same likely applies to modding.
  And I'm sure being a woman doing gaming stuff isn't helping because there's way too much sexism in gaming culture, even though there are also a lot of subcommunities that are super welcoming to everyone.
  
  The moment you give people a little finger wrt their requests, one of those people will take the whole hand. The same likely applies to modding.
  I suppose that depends on which finger.

This is the sexism that we saw come out during the election. We thought the country was getting better but they were just quietly simmering but connecting online.
I said that with an American slanted focus but sadly it’s worldwide too.
- We thought the country was getting better
  Who the hell thought the country was getting better? No one I know. This is the same weak basket of deplorables excuse the DNC used for Hillary Clinton’s loss. Because they’ll blame anyone but themselves for their failures.
  The Democrats fail because they’ve embraced grinding neoliberalism for an entire generation, because they abandoned the working class long ago. The DNC crushed Sanders—twice—because even a little social safety net, as a treat, is a bridge too far for them. Why the Democratic Party CANNOT and WILL NOT be Reformed
  
  I said that with an American slanted focus but sadly it’s worldwide too.
  Fascism isn’t on the rise in the US in particular and the West in general for no reason. The cause is ever-worsening neoliberalism, which is monopoly capitalism in decay. I wrote about this two months ago, but I’ll spare everyone the copypasta and just link to it.
  
  I did, for one
- This is where my brain went, too. Even looking at this Lemmy thread. 6 of the 10 most upvoted top level comments (including THE most upvoted) are "not meee", "not alllll men", defensive crap or "well she should have just..." and "even men have to deal with it toooo" like damn. We ARE fucked.
  
  It's almost like people ignore men's issues and scapegoat them at every opportunity for the sake of women.
  If men had said they picked the bear it would have been framed as misogyny.
  Case in point. Some dude just got murdered by the cops cuz the home invader was a woman and the cops saw a man fighting a woman and shot the man by default.
  Men will never ever get the benefit of the doubt, but when we try to demand it we are just crybabies.

"I poured many years of my life into this, just to feel empty. In quitting, I have found my real passion, and have been obsessively working on music. I've even released my first ever album, SPIDERWEB PRINCESS, which is filled with my darkest, most genuine feelings from all of my experiences. Nothing I've ever done has ever been so meaningful to me. I have so much of myself to share with the world, and I'd much rather be remembered for something I actually enjoy."
Apparently her new passion is music. SPIDERWEB PRINCESS
- Thank you for showing me this, she rocks.
  
  Yeah it's pretty neat.

Welcome to the world of making software for random people, almost certainly made worse by she being a woman.
As others pointed out, most people do appreciate it, but they tend to be silent about it, whilst a small minority are demanding little whinny removed (in a non-gendered way) who think they're owed service and some are even trolls.
To those reading this, I suggest when you get something you like for free you at least give some feedback that you liked it and, if the person has some kind of sponsoring scheme going on and you really like it, consider contributing, if only to incentivise more of the same.
Those on the other side are people too and they will appreciate it.
- Welcome to the world of making software for random people, almost certainly made worse by she being a woman.
  I first read this and thought you were saying the software was almost certainly made worse and got all indignant then parsed it a second time and relaxed

People are asses sometimes, but whenever these conversations come up, I wonder: What do you even want from us? How are random people on the internet supposed to hold random anonymous trolls on the internet “accountable?” You can call them asses, but so? What if they don’t care? They’re anonymous. You could get mods to ban them, but if it’s a free service they can always make another anonymous account. It’s even more confusing in the context of something like an online game as opposed to a forum. What are you supposed to do about someone being an ass when you’ve probably never seen them before and probably won’t see them again?
- I mean, call them asses. Maybe they don't care, maybe they do, but we keep the problem relevant by being vocal against this kind of thing. To not do anything at all is to encourage trolls.
  
  The prevailing wisdom for dealing with trolls in the past has been report, block, and move on. You never know if someone is going to thrive on that kind of conflict and a whole lot of motherfuckers love it.
  I'm not saying it's right or wrong because honestly I don't know. I'm just sad they're running off people contributing to their community and mad that they're sexually harassing people.
  
  The phrase is "don't feed the trolls", not the contrary.
- Some people probably know them in real life. Like, you might have a friend who's like "Yeah this [slur] wouldn't update her mod so i posted [hateful thing] on her insta". You could talk to them. People listen to their in-group more than randoms online.
  But then again, the worst sort of people probably mostly have the worst sort of friends, and reinforce their bad behavior.
- People are not assholes just because they're anonymous. They're assholes because they're sociopaths. The Internet still is the refuge for isolation and escapism. I don't think that will change, but maybe those people will be happier in the future.

now before anyone gets misled by some of the reddit threads gamesradar linked to, some quotes from the relevant reddit thread:
I worked extensively on most of her mods. In the period immediately following the Daegon 2.0 controversy, I tracked down several recurring trolls (people here might remember them as cycling through Reddit usernames like "SeranasStankPussy" and other such things) as originating from literal Kiwifarms.
She made a female follower mod called Daegon. It was a suggestive follower with sexy voice and looks, and "bratty princess" personality.
There was an idea about developing romance option for the follower. The fans were so excited about it. However she ended up adding a bodyguard character as Daegon's romantic partner instead of opening the options to player. Daegon also had a major backstory rewrite, which was deemed as straying too far from TES lore. Fans felt betrayed. The backlash was so fervently hostile that anything the author posted always received downvotes and she was demeaned/harassed for posting anything (something like "you dare to show your face here?"), even when it's not related to Daegon.
At the time, she removed the old version and people leaked her discord server chat, which was very hostile and demeaning to the people complaining.
Basically: the mod author developed and people on her discord developed a para-social relationship and it went as expected. You can search this sub for that whole thing
There's more details on her discord (as usual):
my photos get passed around on skyrim servers, im called a slut and removed, and for what?
gamesradar linked to a few of the threads that got overwhelmed with trolls, who amplified how she blocked users (some of which inappropriately) from her mod pages and claimed she encouraged her fans to doxx people based on a single out-of-context screenshot of a random discord fan.
- Sounds like the exact kind of entitled, whiny man babies i was expecting.
- Christ, humanity at its best.
- This is a both sides suck here for me.
  I read a few of the reddit threads and there were legitimate criticisms that the follower started out cringey and edgy but a lore-friendly bratty elf and then after some big update the follower was turned into an over-the-top melodramatic edgy super evil non-lore-friendly entity (vampire demon dragon princess from another reality that is more powerful than any of the gods of TES) who now had a boyfriend equally evil with many voice lines about how much the two of them were horny for each other, and like to burn down inns full of people for fun.
  There were some cringey guys upset they were being cucked, too many gamers in general are obsessed about the possibility of being cucked by some pixels and are ridiculously fragile about it.
  But the mod author lashed out at both the trolls and people caught in the crossfire, the community became more upset, just an angry cycle. People asked about being able to download the old version before the changes since the mod author hid the older version - Nexus doesn't allow mod authors to delete their work anymore so people's mod lists don't break but they for some stupid reason allow mod authors to hide older versions from users which can only be accessed by having the right link and it is a pain to get. Eventually the mod author releases the older version again as its own mod. But at this point the community hates them because of an image showing someome on the mod author's discord talking about doxxing anyone who upset the mod author which the author offered gleeful support of.
  There was a guy in the thread (ZootAllures9111) who said he helped develop and code the mod (you quoted him in your comment) and he said that practically all criticisms were trolls from kiwifarms, and that the person who wanted to doxx others on the discord was just being silly and edgy and only disingenuous people would take their silly edginess at face value. Also that they won't play "this game with you" when asked how the mod author responded to this person wanting to doxx people because (CW:transphobia) the only image you need to look at is some random troll on a website called kiwifarms complaining about being a third wheel to two horny NPCs in the mod and something about being a cuck and that other followers don't need sex to sell basically. Then when someone in the reddit thread asks why they keep posting and deleting their same comment with someone else chiming in confirming they also noticed this, the guy offers a reasonable explanation about network issues and then says, "I remember you from the comment sections of our mods now by the way, you are exactly as disingenous as I thought yesterday and you're not gonna get anywhere pretending otherwise." Which the innocent guy replies, "You should maybe take a break because you’re getting paranoid now. I’ve never used your mod, have no intention to, and the first time I’ve heard of all this drama was when this thread came up."
  Why mention this? Because I think it is shitty to "joke" about doxxing people and defend this "joking" and call everyone speaking out a troll from kiwifarm and I can see why the community doesn't like the direction the author took and how annoying it is to not be able to go back to an older version of the mod. And I've read the threads, they were not overwhelmed with trolls unless you think people who criticize a mod author are always trolls. But I also think it is shitty and unacceptable how much harassment the author got. They are not the first author to get harassed off of Skyrim modding, even Vilja's author was chased off for IMO stupid reasons. The Skyrim modding community is full of assholes, both mod authors and users alike. It used to be routine how many mod authors would lose their shit and delete their mods.
  
  i get that there's valid criticism, but the amount of bad was incongruent with the amount of vitriol in that era that were so demanding
  the mod author lashed out at both the trolls and people caught in the crossfire
  where tho
  it is shitty to "joke" about doxxing people
  definitely, but none of us have seen the context. i've been having trouble finding the discord server, and it'd be great if you could find it and the context
  they were not overwhelmed with trolls
  that's how they read, especially when you compare their comments to the reddit post i linked. not even the sympathy for a person who leaves explains the difference to me
- I had once respectfully provided feedback to that mod author because their female companion character (Daegon) was the worst kind of Mary Sue and complained nonstop. Author banned me from all their forums because they couldn't accept valid criticism.

IMO the vast majority of people that use community mods are pretty thankful and just enjoy them despite any issues the mod has so long as overall it works well. They just play and keep their mouths shut.
There are a few that offer real and constructive criticism.
And the rest are the vocal trolls that just hate on everything. Unfortunately if they aren't "fucking your mother last night" on whatever game chat you might be on they're busy trashing on the "unplayable" game they've spent 500 hours playing in the last several months or on the forums berating the modders' efforts. They're just hateful people and hating on women in general is par for the course, if one dares participating in gaming they're just another target for their shitty incel behavior.
- If you’re assumed to be a male, the trolls attack you if you don’t carry them. Fine, move on.
  If they find out you’re female, they attack you just for existing. You can move on but It is relentless.
  There is a difference in gaming experience when it comes to trolls.
  
  I wasn’t debating that at all.
- I think the gaming community being made of socially awkward, isolated and unemployed people doesn't help the scenario. But I think there is light at the end of the tunnel.

This isn't even about gaming, necessarily.
Girls who code are rare. There are probably more AFAB coders at my work than those who identify as female. And a hell of a lot more men.
And I'm in a progressive city in a progressive state.
I work in IT, and I think there is one woman out of 50 employees on my corner of the org chart, and that's the CIO's admin assistant.
I'm certain it's culture, and it doesn't just go for programming, it goes for almost all of STEM. There was a recent "Stuff You Should Know" episode about toy chemistry sets, and they made it a point to talk about the marketing, and how it always was with boys, for boys. My son, 8 year old kid, says "that's just wrong! Girls can do all that stuff!". He's got it figured out.
- As a welder, I've had a female coworker ONCE in 15 years working in the industry. My current work doesn't even have a bathroom for women in the same building as most of the workers. If we did hire a female welder, she'd have to walk across the parking lot to the administration building to actually use a women's bathroom.
- There are probably more AFAB coders at my work than those who identify as female.
  Did you get this backwards?
  
  No...but I am being hyperbolic. I definitely interface with more transmasc and nonbinary coders than I do with cisgender female coders. This may also be because, again, cultural reasons.
  There certainly are more cisgender female coders, but they are still a minority group by a big amount, and they tend to not draw much attention to themselves.

This broad dynamic isn't new and it isn't unique either to gaming or to men. Every single creative volunteer community on the net is filled with assholes and drama llamas, of any and all genders. It's just the nature of the thing. You see the same things over and over with game modding, cracking, romhacking, emulation, manga scanlation, anime fansubbing, vocaloid production, mmd modeling, fanfic, fanart, and so on and on.
People often (generally?) are willing to invest the time and energy into whatever it is that they're going to post online at least in large part because they crave the attention they hope it will bring, and specifically, they want to be lauded for their talent and skill.
And that often runs up against the fact that an awful lot of the responses they're going to get are going to come from self-absorbed and entitled assholes removed because they don't like whatever it is that they're getting for free, and think they have to be accommodated.
And very often, the response from the creator, unsurprisingly really, is to effectively (or even literally) say, "Fine then - fuck you all. I'm done."
And 'round and 'round it goes, and has from the start, and likely will never stop. It's just an unfortunate but pretty much inevitable clash between a personality type that's likely to create and share something online for free and a personality type that's likely to comment on something somebody else created and shared with them for free.
- I don't disagree with you but I feel that it is important to recognize and call out the misogyny element in this story. The gaming community has a pervasive sexism problem that's normalized, and that part is unique in that it all comes from men.
  I have only ever played three games online. The first was Final Fantasy XI, and I was part of a group/guild with nice people. It was fun!
  The next was Team Fortress 2 because my husband wanted me to play with him. The vitriol and misogyny hurled at me over voice chat after two matches made me never play again.
  The last was Destiny, and I turned off voice chat completely.
  
  but I feel that it is important to recognize and call out the misogyny element in this story
  I don't.
  I think that countering misogyny with misandry is rather obviously a losing strategy.

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.
- A rather astute observation found in an unlikely place, and one of my favorite move lines of all times.
- Agent K
  Michael Scott

"gamers as a whole"
leave me out of this i didnt do anything.
- The sentiment is that we all have a responsibility to hold our community accountable for this type of behavior.
  You can disagree, it is likely a matter of philosophy. I feel a responsibility to try to put more positive influence to the world, and to call out harmful actions. Not everyone does, that is fine too, albeit a little sad.
  
  Lol you're getting downvoted for having a rational viewpoint and wanting something you care about and enjoy to be safe for other humans to enjoy it too.
  How fucking dare you
  
  "Our community" feels a bit monolithic. It's like saying "film watchers" or "readers". Lumping anyone that plays video games regularly into a single social group feels unhelpfully reductive.
  
  we all have a responsibility to hold our community accountable for this type of behavior.
  Much like the "teach men not to rape" sentiment, the ones that will listen weren't the problem in the first place. If the people that need to be called out were reasonable, they wouldn't need to be called out, they don't see what they're doing as wrong. So we're just screaming into the void.
  
  i don't disagree, call out the [HYPERLINK BLOCKED] for being [ALONE ON A LATE NIGHT], but please word it better.
  there is that better?
- I'm not a gamer. I play games, but I'm not a Gamerᵀᴹ. I noped out of the "community" a long time ago.
  I'm a little curious where she's getting the harassment from. If it's from twitter, I don't know what to tell her. It's designed to amplify hate and anxiety. If it's from lan parties or irl shit, yeah, I haven't experienced it, but I have seen that to a degree.
  edit: Wait. Is the "harassment" coming from needy fans asking her to tweak her work for their liking? That's a little different from what I assumed this was about. I'm not going to side with the community nagging her for tweaks, but if she's creating this for herself, she needs to disengage from those types. If she's creating these mods, putting them out online and expecting only positive comments, I don't know what to tell her. This is something all big modders and have to deal with.
  
  The article glosses over the sexual harassment until the end. She says that pictures of her were distributed on discord and mentions the daily harassment and sexualization from the community.
- I've been a great fan of gaming for my entire long life. But I don't play online games any more, because so many gamers are toxic. Obviously there are good individuals and some good outposts, but taken as a whole it is a toxic community.
- i didnt do anything.
  Exactly. Hence why the assholes get away with driving good people out. Maybe if people stood up and told the trolls to STFU and instead defended these people they wouldn't be forced out of the community.
  
  Blame me for something someone else did why dont you.
  blame me for not forming a lynch mob why dont you.
  blame me for not knowing this ws even happening.
  people wonder why other people check out from communities and just go "oh" when they hear this shit is happening.
  again.
  leave me out of this ,i didnt do anything.

Man, gaming communities are so fucking toxic.
- I put wheels on my car which are a cheap copy of a very popular wheel because they were $500 not $2000 and I dont race. Every car meet someone has to comment that Im running "fakes" and try to give me a hard time about it. Yeah, Ive got a mortgage and a kid. Fuck off with your Supreme snapback ass hypebeast bullshit. I'm building the car I can afford.
  People are toxic, even communities who preach peace and love as their doctrine have people who will whip out the moral-cock ruler and start shit over who is more peaceful and loving.
- I agree. !nomanssky@lemmy.world is a pleasant exception.
  
  I didn't know they're here. I only go to reddit for the coordinates exchange sub. Thanks!
  
  Now I want to start playing NMS, I've had it in my backlog for a while

Stuff like this is why I don't tell people I game. The Gamer Stink is real and I don't want to be guilty by association. Seriously, go touch grass. The things that you're denigrating someone else for are pixels and code on a computer. Find some way to not be garbage humans.
Her music is interesting. Hope she ends up happier

Gam*rs need reeducation.
- Is gamer a swear word now too?
  
  Always has been 😎

I think gaming is too mainstream like television/movie viewers to lump it into some type of niche group/activity these days. Especially with the increased communication and connectivity that the internet provides that brings all sorts of wanted and unwanted people together.
I'm someone who enjoys gaming, and when I play games like The Finals these days I disable chat/voice because most people are assholes. Game previously didn't have chat and enabling that turned it from what felt like a wholesome community because I wasn't exposed to their thoughts to it breaking the illusion when they were able to express themselves.
I think this is more a more broad societal issue and a worrying one of being shown what people truly think. Even a minority is a huge amount when the population is billions, so a lot of damage can be done. Games is just another avenue they choose to be toxic in along side other vehicles provided to communicate their thoughts.

i’m sorry that you have to deal with the outfall of this, OP. gamers are notoriously the most overly sensitive group to generalize, even when they’re meant to think “i recognize that this is pointing out bad apples in my community”. instead, they immediately start defending themselves as if you specifically named them
the sane response is to go “wow that is awful. the gaming community does indeed contain some terrible people, i am glad to be one of the good ones and will distance myself from this behavior”
- the sane response is to go “wow that is awful. the gaming community does indeed contain some terrible people, i am glad to be one of the good ones and will distance myself from this behavior”
  I'd say the saner response is none at all. This seems like a pretty niche community issue somewhere on the internet involving at most <100 people. I doubt anyone here is closer then 3 degrees of separation from anyone involved. Why would you expect any of the outsiders here to "take a stand," based on incomplete information?
  
  Yes, but how many of these niche communities are there? Hell, lemmy itself is a niche community and everybody here should take a stand against this sort of stuff occurring here.

Incels/"gamers" harassing a woman - shocker.

Reading the article, this is a typical case of burnout. It's happening to every artist, content creator, modder, foss developer, etc. On the long term we all have to find a balance or we won't last long. And tbh, just learn to ignore the trolls and focus on the positive things and your passion or they will win. You can't take them seriously. It seems the person in the article has already found herself another passion project and could throw away the suffocating chains of responsibilty and something she did not enjoy anymore and move on. I think instances like these really show us we are all just humans and we should appreciate the things we are given.

It is bad enough having gamers online foaming at the mouth like you just stabbed their mom when you make a mistake in a group.

the boob jiggle physics are genuinely ridiculous on this mod, i just watched the preview. gamers are brain broken

After reading the article, I'm not entirely on her side, most people don't want to be cucked in a videogame since it probably brings up bad memories. The mod didn't release like that, she kept going in that direction and people voiced their disdain.

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