ToxicHolyGrenade

To Whom It May Deeply Concern,

I write to you not with courtesy, nor diplomacy, but with a blazing fire of indignation and righteous fury over the suffocating, authoritarian, and frankly disgusting actions of your organization. Collective Shout - an entity that masquerades as a moral guardian - has become nothing short of a censorship machine, functioning under a warped, puritanical crusade to erase anything that doesn't fit your rigid and Cherry-picked version of "appropriate" content. Your behavior is not that of a benevolent protector of society, but that of an ideological inquisition seeking to annihilate freedom of expression wherever it dares to show a shred of originality, edge, or nuance.

Let me be unequivocal - your group has no moral high ground. You do not represent "all women." You do not speak for society. And you most certainly do not speak for the millions of us who value artistic liberty, diverse storytelling, and the personal responsibility to choose what media we consume. You are not a grassroots watchdog. You are a self-appointed, unelected censorship lobby, whose behavior reeks of the same Orwellian overreach one might expect from repressive regimes.

Let’s get right to it. Your efforts to pressure Valve (Steam) and indie platforms like Itch.io into delisting and banning games - particularly ones that explore adult themes, anime-styled art, edgy humor, sexuality, or uncomfortable subject matter - are not only anti-consumer, but blatantly authoritarian. You paint all creators with the same broad brush, declaring their content harmful or exploitative, while ignoring context, nuance, genre, intent, and even satire.

Worse yet, you treat adults as if they are infants incapable of making their own decisions, demanding companies act as your moral police. You Cherry-pick games out of thousands, often misrepresenting them, weaponizing outrage, and demanding total erasure from the public sphere - not regulation, but outright obliteration.

This is not advocacy. This is ideological fascism dressed in progressive drag.

You’ve reduced a complex, multifaceted cultural medium like video games - a legitimate form of art - to a battlefield for your performative outrage and virtue signaling. Your idea of helping women or protecting children apparently includes silencing artists, crushing small developers, and bulldozing consumer agency into the dirt.

And don't even get me started on your hypocrisy. You rally against fictional content while staying suspiciously silent on real-world abuses that aren’t politically convenient or ideologically aligned. You have no issue rallying your digital pitchforks against harmless visual novels or fan-made indie games, but where is your energy when it comes to holding major corporations accountable for systemic exploitation in media, fashion, or advertising?

You see, your activism is selective, convenient, and ideologically filtered. You only care when it serves your brand. You don't protect people; you curate narratives. And you dare to insult the intelligence and autonomy of every free-thinking adult in the process.

I speak as a centrist, someone who believes in balance - in protecting the vulnerable without infantilizing society or handing over our civil liberties to mobs of moral puritans. I also speak from a mildly conservative perspective when I say: enough is enough.

You are not the solution. You are part of the problem.

You’re not just silencing perverse or extreme content (which already has laws and community moderation in place). You’re silencing weirdness, art, criticism, uncomfortable stories, and mature themes, and you're doing so under the false pretense that you are "protecting" people. The truth is, you don't trust people to think for themselves. And what’s worse - you don't want to.

And what do you think happens when organizations like yours suppress, stifle, and silence under the guise of righteousness? You drive people underground. You create resentment. You provoke backlash. You feed the very anti-feminist and anti-progressive sentiments you claim to oppose.

Congratulations. You’ve helped burn the bridge to discourse and torched it in self-congratulatory flames.

In the heart of justice and the restoration of creative freedom, I call upon your moronic organization - or any platforms you have influenced through coercion - to reverse and revoke every single action taken against affected games and developers. This includes but is not limited to: restoring delisted games, reinstating wrongfully banned creators, and issuing public apologies to the individuals and small studios you’ve dragged through the mud. The damage you've caused - reputational, financial, emotional - is not something that should be swept under the rug. You owe the global indie development community a reckoning. You must repair what you’ve broken, admit the overreach, and stand down from policing artistic expression that falls outside your moral doctrine. Otherwise, history will remember your group as a blight on creative culture - a bitter footnote in the timeline of digital censorship, authoritarian activism, and social overreach.

You are free to hold your values. But you are not free to enforce them on others under threats, manipulation, or corporate pressure. We didn’t elect you. We didn’t ask for your judgment. We don’t want your crusade.

Stop harassing game platforms.

Stop treating artists as criminals.

Stop silencing those who don't think like you.

And above all else, stop pretending you’re doing this for anyone’s benefit but your own self-righteous vanity.

Because if you continue on this course, rest assured - a cultural pushback will come. You are already being viewed by many not as protectors, but as moral tyrants. And history does not remember tyrants fondly.

You have every right to exist. But you do not have the right to dictate what the rest of us can see, play, create, or enjoy.

Stay out of our libraries. Stay out of our hard drives. And for the love of liberty, stay out of our lives.

Sincerely and unapologetically,

A Centrist Who's Had Enough

To Whom It May Deeply Concern,

I write to you not with courtesy, nor diplomacy, but with a blazing fire of indignation and righteous fury over the suffocating, authoritarian, and frankly disgusting actions of your organization. Collective Shout - an entity that masquerades as a moral guardian - has become nothing short of a censorship machine, functioning under a warped, puritanical crusade to erase anything that doesn't fit your rigid and Cherry-picked version of "appropriate" content. Your behavior is not that of a benevolent protector of society, but that of an ideological inquisition seeking to annihilate freedom of expression wherever it dares to show a shred of originality, edge, or nuance.

Let me be unequivocal - your group has no moral high ground. You do not represent "all women." You do not speak for society. And you most certainly do not speak for the millions of us who value artistic liberty, diverse storytelling, and the personal responsibility to choose what media we consume. You are not a grassroots watchdog. You are a self-appointed, unelected censorship lobby, whose behavior reeks of the same Orwellian overreach one might expect from repressive regimes.

Let’s get right to it. Your efforts to pressure Valve (Steam) and indie platforms like Itch.io into delisting and banning games - particularly ones that explore adult themes, anime-styled art, edgy humor, sexuality, or uncomfortable subject matter - are not only anti-consumer, but blatantly authoritarian. You paint all creators with the same broad brush, declaring their content harmful or exploitative, while ignoring context, nuance, genre, intent, and even satire.

Worse yet, you treat adults as if they are infants incapable of making their own decisions, demanding companies act as your moral police. You Cherry-pick games out of thousands, often misrepresenting them, weaponizing outrage, and demanding total erasure from the public sphere - not regulation, but outright obliteration.

This is not advocacy. This is ideological fascism dressed in progressive drag.

You’ve reduced a complex, multifaceted cultural medium like video games - a legitimate form of art - to a battlefield for your performative outrage and virtue signaling. Your idea of helping women or protecting children apparently includes silencing artists, crushing small developers, and bulldozing consumer agency into the dirt.

And don't even get me started on your hypocrisy. You rally against fictional content while staying suspiciously silent on real-world abuses that aren’t politically convenient or ideologically aligned. You have no issue rallying your digital pitchforks against harmless visual novels or fan-made indie games, but where is your energy when it comes to holding major corporations accountable for systemic exploitation in media, fashion, or advertising?

You see, your activism is selective, convenient, and ideologically filtered. You only care when it serves your brand. You don't protect people; you curate narratives. And you dare to insult the intelligence and autonomy of every free-thinking adult in the process.

I speak as a centrist, someone who believes in balance - in protecting the vulnerable without infantilizing society or handing over our civil liberties to mobs of moral puritans. I also speak from a mildly conservative perspective when I say: enough is enough.

You are not the solution. You are part of the problem.

You’re not just silencing perverse or extreme content (which already has laws and community moderation in place). You’re silencing weirdness, art, criticism, uncomfortable stories, and mature themes, and you're doing so under the false pretense that you are "protecting" people. The truth is, you don't trust people to think for themselves. And what’s worse - you don't want to.

And what do you think happens when organizations like yours suppress, stifle, and silence under the guise of righteousness? You drive people underground. You create resentment. You provoke backlash. You feed the very anti-feminist and anti-progressive sentiments you claim to oppose.

Congratulations. You’ve helped burn the bridge to discourse and torched it in self-congratulatory flames.

In the heart of justice and the restoration of creative freedom, I call upon your moronic organization - or any platforms you have influenced through coercion - to reverse and revoke every single action taken against affected games and developers. This includes but is not limited to: restoring delisted games, reinstating wrongfully banned creators, and issuing public apologies to the individuals and small studios you’ve dragged through the mud. The damage you've caused - reputational, financial, emotional - is not something that should be swept under the rug. You owe the global indie development community a reckoning. You must repair what you’ve broken, admit the overreach, and stand down from policing artistic expression that falls outside your moral doctrine. Otherwise, history will remember your group as a blight on creative culture - a bitter footnote in the timeline of digital censorship, authoritarian activism, and social overreach.

You are free to hold your values. But you are not free to enforce them on others under threats, manipulation, or corporate pressure. We didn’t elect you. We didn’t ask for your judgment. We don’t want your crusade.

Stop harassing game platforms.

Stop treating artists as criminals.

Stop silencing those who don't think like you.

And above all else, stop pretending you’re doing this for anyone’s benefit but your own self-righteous vanity.

Because if you continue on this course, rest assured - a cultural pushback will come. You are already being viewed by many not as protectors, but as moral tyrants. And history does not remember tyrants fondly.

You have every right to exist. But you do not have the right to dictate what the rest of us can see, play, create, or enjoy.

Stay out of our libraries. Stay out of our hard drives. And for the love of liberty, stay out of our lives.

Sincerely and unapologetically,

A Centrist Who's Had Enough

Introduction: A Deeply Personal Reflection

https://web.archive.org/web/20250120175142/https://www.deviantart.com/toxicholygrenade2/journal/TheInvertedShadow-Expose-Log-1147844192 (Read this whole rant here before giving this post a read.)

I am writing this not out of malice, nor as an attempt to seek vindication for myself, but rather as a deeply personal, regretful, and blunt reflection on the state of the Garry’s Mod and Source Filmmaker machinima communities. I do not tar everyone with the same brush because there are indeed good and decent individuals in both parties. However, the toxicity, cynicism, elitism, and unchecked corruption that have pervaded these communities for years are undeniable and cannot go unaddressed any longer.

At the core of this message, I am extending my grievances not only to the TF2 Freakologists, TheInvertedShadow, TurkishPhantom, and GmodViolet, but also to the community leaders and members who have allowed these issues to fester unchecked. The reality is simple: the blood is on your hands. You let the toxicity, bigotry (misopedism, homophobia, racism, etc.), elitism, sensationalism, and abuse of power spread like wildfire. And when people were harmed by it? You did nothing.

In the case of Chris Roche/Shadow himself, he also recently encouraged users to steal an OC of Tyler’s as well. However, I will reiterate, Tyler Wilson is a pure evil scumbag who MUST be put behind bars, no question about it, but Shadow has once again, proven that he is no better than the people he swore to stand up against. What that tells me, is that Shadow is a sheer double-hypocrite, and anytime he gets challenged or confronted, he point blank denies virtually any wrongdoing he has done. It also tells me, that the Gmod and SFM machinima communities have lingering extremism that have failed to be punished, which is why I am motivated on making this post. What really angers me about this, is that Chris has the temerity to say, that anytime he speaks out, he doesn’t want to “witch-hunt” people like myself and Tyler, among other individuals, since “that’s not how he raised this community of his.” Fat chance Chris, your own actions I have seen dictate otherwise. You encouraged stealing OCs with Tyler’s own OC. Again, Tyler is a monster of course, and I am in no way saying that he is a saint, VERY far from it. But because of your cancerous, egotistical sense of self, you wanted to go out of your way to take very extreme measures that will make you and others into the same sort of assholes you swore to not TOLERATE from within. And I don’t want you to turn around and say that it is justified and only against a bad person, it’s a BULLSHIT fucking argument. You shouldn’t do it at all Shadow. It’s wrong. What I find really ironic, is that DarkHerobrine tried to steal YOUR characters from you and claim them as his own, such as your own TF2 persona out of spite. You take issue with people doing that to your OCs and other’s, but in your infinite wisdom, you have NO problem about doing THE SAME THING yourself. The double-standards are a major problem, and all that does, is encourage more and more toxicity, despite you proclaiming that your community isn’t. As for all the people who are in allegiance with TheInvertedShadow, you are all at fault too. You all have a responsibility of making sure Shadow and others personally, does not cross a line and not encourage extreme and toxic measures within any community he has fostered. This is all your fault, and you should hang your heads in shame. As for you Chris Roche, Shadow, or whatever you want to call yourself, you are NOT fit, to be a gmodder, you are NOT fit, to be a community maker, and you are NOT fit, to lead the community by example. If you still want to argue otherwise, as well as cry and whinge like a sensationalist, entitled brat like you always do when you get caught red handed, you are deluding yourself. You are a disgrace to gmodders everywhere, and if I am a community leader, I would have you thrown out and brand you as a pariah, because it’s what you deserve. The blood is all on your hands. Here’s the image of what Shadow had done, in case those reading this don’t believe me.

With that rant over however, let me make one thing abundantly clear: I do not absolve myself of my past mistakes. I have been bitter, reactionary, and volatile at times. I have said and done things I am not proud of, and for that, I take full responsibility. But at the same time, this community played a role in pushing me down that path, and I am far from the only one who has suffered because of it.

ADDRESSING TURKISHPHANTOM’S ACTIONS

I will start off with this comment Turk wrote to ne over a month ago.

“I dont know GmodViolet whatsoever, although I can sort of recognize the other people you mentioned. Half of them are no longer apart of the community as a whole aside from cleanup duty on their own Wiki. Mind you I emphasize; THEIR wiki. THEY created it, and ultimately have control over it. It’s just how it is. If I recall correctly I think you joined with an OC that was very powerful. This is a divisive topic but I can understand your response to them not accepting it. The Gmod community has for a very long time had a great standing issue for power creep characters and anything that isn’t “”“original””".

This leaves alot of elitism and bias in the community and the major players dictate what is and isnt worth interacting with. Usually if you have the talent to create extremely good screenshots or machinima, you can circumvent their bias, but they will usually always fun police things you make. I think this mentality is, infact, incorrect. I think people shouldn’t be so uptight about power levels and originality as long as you can interact and function in the community fine enough. The entire point of a community is to engage with people of like minded content and to make friends.

Your lashing out, however, if I can remember correctly, was extremely stubborn and you refused to back down as you do now still to this day until things get too much. I remember when your mom got involved and many other times when things would go over your head. When you feel wronged you want to set the record straight and youll bite and gnash your way to do it. This behavior has chased away a great many people from wanting to interact with you. They see it as childish, forced, and volatile. I don’t know what your time on the platform would have been like without the headstrong responses towards people over the years but it seemed like you’ve always had an issue fitting in as a whole.

Many gmodders I know personally have moved away from the idea of TF2 freaks and the like as a whole in order to do their own content and branch off. I think they share a similar opinion you do that they do not enjoy people policing what is and isn’t okay and would rather engage with people who aren’t greatly negative. I know Shadow knows Kugawattan personally, but I don’t. I have seen Kugawattan be an elitist shithead constantly. He’s a B-Rate Gmodder who ran with what little fame he had and it went to his head. I do genuinely think that as a whole the community should just rely on what is fun as opposed to what should/shouldn’t be ruled into existence. There’s nothing wrong with having “What If” scenarios. It’s not going to hurt anyone. And I think they forgot or did not care about that as time went by.

Ultimately the people in charge of the TF2 Freak wiki are no longer major players in the Gmod/SFM community anymore anyways. Youtube and Deviantart and Discord have lead to many new faces not held back by the bias’ and restrictions imposed by the original team to create wonderful and fascinating things. Those people though from what I have seen you have also tended to drive away from your behavior, the few journals and things i’ve read on here. You may not have ill intentions but I think the way you behave and react chases people away. You need to learn how to socialize better especially if you have any social barriers or mental health issues.

The people who like Shadow don’t hate you blindly. They’ve read everything you’ve posted. They do not agree with many of the points you make and hate that you represent negative press when everyone is trying to get by. We all have much larger much more important things to deal with with our lives and you trying to make Shadows life hell impresses no one. He’s worked hard to get where he is which is something you need to understand is more than you have done in this community as a whole. Your time here has genuinely only caused strife. You were poisoned by a group of elitists to become a negative aspect of the community. People just want to be left alone and you need to figure that out. This all started with Kugawattan, let it just be about him. But this fandom as a whole is barely as big as it once was, atleast the way it used to be. Just pack it in and focus on yourself. Stop getting into fights. Or else no one will want to interact with you."

It is important to address TurkishPhantom’s own misconduct before proceeding further.

You weaponized my real identity against me, threatened me directly, and opened the door to potential harassment against my family and girlfriend. This was not just an attack against me personally, but an attempt to expose my loved ones to unnecessary danger and vitriol. And worst of all: you even BLACKMAILED me into deleting the journal made against you and Shadow. While you later deleted those comments, the fact remains that you were willing to stoop to that level in the first place. That is not something that can simply be brushed aside. It was reckless, unhinged, and a clear example of how deep the toxicity of this community runs. What does not surprise me either, is that you made a disgusting slur relating to homosexual individuals. There is no way I am a homophobe at all either, but you had the audacity to do the exact same thing yourself. And finally, I am not a pedophile, and to go even a step further, I consistently reported a guy by the name of Phaeton1995 for generating most child character art that would be very sexual in nature, and called him out for it. All of this, is why I went out of my way to report you to DeviantArt without you even knowing, and you were banned for all these things, and rightly so. Now, do you understand where you people are screwing up?

In fairness, you later made a more measured response, and I will acknowledge that. There were truths in your response, but it is also crucial that I address those truths from my own perspective and offer the full context of how this community - especially the TF2 Freakshow circle - poisoned my mindset and pushed me to a bitter, hateful state.

THE SIX TRUTHS AND THE REALITY BEHIND THEM

The TF2 Freak & GMod Community Has Been in a Steady Decline Yes, TF2 Freaks and machinima content are still being made, but the overall community is in decline. Why? Because of the very elitism and toxicity that many of its leaders upheld. The refusal to allow fresh talent and new ideas crippled creativity and drove people away.

My Past Volatility Was a Reaction to Community Mistreatment I acknowledge my past anger and volatility. But let’s not ignore why it developed in the first place. I was mocked, belittled, and rejected for years. Instead of guiding or mentoring people like me, the community fostered hostility, ridicule, and gatekeeping.

The Community Never Allowed Me Room for Redemption Other creators with past conflicts were allowed to grow and improve. I was not. The community never let go of past mistakes, regardless of how much I changed.

Kugawattan’s Actions Contributed to the Community’s Decline This is undeniable. Kugawattan was toxic, elitist, and manipulative. He played a key role in fostering a hostile, gatekept environment that ultimately damaged the TF2 Freak community. His behavior was ignored and excused for far too long, as well as his greedy persona on his very streams no less.

The TF2 Freak Community’s Corrupt Culture Led to Its Own Collapse The TF2 Freakshow group disbanded for a reason: it was unsustainable. The corruption, in-fighting, and exclusionary attitudes ensured its own demise.

My Pain Is Real, and I Am Not the Only One Who Has Suffered What I feel is not just bitterness - it is grief. Grief for what the community could have been but never was. Grief for the wasted potential and lost friendships.

A FINAL, BRUTAL TRUTH TO THE COMMUNITY LEADERS

You have failed the community.

You allowed elitism and corruption to go unchallenged. You fostered an environment where certain people were untouchable, while others were blacklisted permanently. You let the TF2 Freak community rot from the inside, turning a space that should have been built on creativity into a toxic battlefield.

You let misopedism, homophobia, racism, and bigotry generally, to flourish. You let sensationalism and drama dictate the culture. You allowed double standards and favoritism to run rampant. And when confronted with these realities, you refused to change.

I am not saying I am innocent, but I am saying that the blood is on your hands just as much as mine.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

If there is one thing I have learned, it is this:

We ALL need to be better.

We need to start addressing grievances in a fair, unbiased manner.

We need to oppose the toxicity, bigotry, and elitism that ruined this community.

We need to challenge the corruption and make an example of those who perpetuate it.

We need to give people room to grow and improve rather than permanently writing them off.

We need to rebuild, rather than tear down.

If we cannot do these things, then we have failed - not just as a community, but as a society.

I do not expect to be forgiven, nor do I expect my words to change everything overnight. But at the very least, I will not stay silent any longer…

UPDATE 19/04/2025

TurkishPhantom has recently went on damage control and tried to attack me yet again. Let my replies to him do all the talking, because all I will do, is just repeat myself...

UPDATE 06/06/2025

TheInvertedShadow had lately doubled down and has literally become more unhinged than before.

He went from OC theft, to straight up creating hate art against Tyler Wilson on X, formerly Twitter. He also had the brass neck, to lecture about OC stealing to Tyler himself, but yet Chris, being the double-hypocritical, narcissistic, ignorant fool he is, has done the same exact thing himself.

What that tells me, is that he does not have the right mindset to be a community leader, let alone membership. He’s emotional, unhinged, egotistical, morally bankrupt, overly sensitive, sensationalistic, and arrogant in every sense of the word. Yet what pisses me off, is that those insignificant minnows of his, are being a bunch of Hyenas in relishing in the extremity of how Shadow is handling the situation. If you are among that lot, especially looking directly at you Chris Roche, you deserve nothing but shame in further tainting the image of the Gmod and SFM communities. Tyler is an evil person, that is clear as crystal, but that in no way condones the extremism on your and Shadow’s part, as well as encouraging all this.

Let’s be real, if both individuals stealing from each other is the case here, then the cops will have to arrest both of you, no matter what the other side feels, and that’s what happens. Theft is a criminal offense, full stop, end of story. To put it this way however, is it normal for any person’s stuff (regardless of specialty) to be stolen, especially characters? No. Is it normal for a famous person’s stuff to be stolen, of course not. So how on Earth should it be any different on evil people? That only tells me, that you are bringing yourselves to the exact same level as the people you swore to call out and take down. That’s what it all boils down to, and it is insultingly delusional to think otherwise.

Now, let me send this open message to the world, and the internet as a gmodding community member, on the behalf of the victims of Tyler Wilson, on the behalf of good aligned community members who are rightfully against and cut ties with Shadow for good reason (like those unsubscribing from him), and those who are against Kugawattan, we are DEEPLY sorry. We are stuck with a bunch of cynical individuals who cannot tell right from wrong, and have been consistently cracking the monumental image of this community in almost every turn. We are still doing what we can to ostracize these individuals from fame wherever possible and yet take their creations with them, and I do hope that comes along somehow when people start to get fed up with all the destructive toxicity festering, but this requires a more collective and co-operative effort from people who feel the same way I do, and heal the community from inside and out, otherwise we may lose everything that we hold so dearly. A SHAMEFUL era in gaming community history. SHAMEFUL...

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