I wasn’t going to say more to or about this person. They are either continuously trolling and really committing to the bit after being blocked, or they’re genuine and believe the scenarios they’ve made up in their head.
I haven’t been super active in Horizon fandom lately for many reasons, but it’s not out of lack of love or interest in the franchise. (Confusion and disappointment in certain executive decisions, sure, but no lack of love for what is out there.) Despite my distance, I am enormously proud of what we accomplished with Focus On the Heart, and refuse to let our work be associated with libellous claims.
As the Narrative Lead, I was involved in production from the beginning. I sent out the call on Tumblr three years ago almost to the day to recruit people. I tagged many of the major ships at the time, including Aloy x Avad, to spread the reach.
Ten ships had volunteers. When we decided to close to submissions so that we could actually get started on the game, only eight had viable teams to move forward. The two that were cut were both WLW, and were cut because they either didn’t have writers or artists to complete a team. Neither included Avad, again because nobody volunteered to write or draw for him. We’ve said over and over that FOTH is volunteer-made; if no one volunteered, it obviously did not get made.
And this was three years ago. The game was released two years ago. It’s finished. It’s complete. Answer keys have been released and it’s done. Being upset that your favourite ship isn’t included in a two-year-old, free, fan-made game is valid, but continually posting absolutely false claims that the reason that ship is not in the game because we claim to “hate Avad” is not. This is sickening and childish behaviour.
The people who worked on FOTH are also all entitled to their own opinions on characters. But regardless of personal feelings toward characters or ships, the vision of FOTH was bigger than squicks or icks or NOTPs. Because of that, we were able to create something amazing and unprecedented, and I feel sad for them that they are unable to see that because they’ve made up their own version of what’s true.
As for “mocking and humiliating” Aloy/Avad shippers… This person commented directly on my friend’s FOTH positive-commentary post to be angry about no Avad, reblogged & commented on a FOTH post to do the same, and sent a hostile ask to FOTH’s Tumblr claiming that we dislike Avad and that he causes hostility. I responded kindly but firmly to the FOTH ask, and when the claims not only continued but doubled down, I responded less kindly on my personal blog to their comments and reblog. Not a single person is mocking Avad, Aloy/Avad shippers for liking them, or the Aloy/Avad ship itself. Responses are proportionate to the unwarranted hostility we received on posts WE made that this person actively chose to comment on.
The volunteers at Focus On the Heart poured their own hearts and souls into their routes. Our goal was to share what we love about our respective ship in an interactive game that immerses players into the story. To those who don’t ship one of the included pairings but wanted to get all the collectibles, we also hoped to show them a little of what we loved about Aloy’s dynamic with the character. Positive responses to the game show we succeeded. You can do that without actively bringing other ships and shippers down.
If this person wants to spend the next year building their own game and make their own assets from scratch like we did, more power to them. But this behaviour and attitude is absolutely the wrong way to go about it.
So, let me make this clear: No one on the FOTH team was vehemently against an Aloy/Avad route. Not once did FOTH ever say Avad was banned and not allowed to be included, nor did we ever mock the idea of him being potentially involved. We did not block or refuse or chase away anyone who expressed interest in a route for him, when in fact, no one came forward to volunteer for a route. And this blog pictured above is in no way affiliated with the actual Focus On the Heart fangame.
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