This is my story, and I know it is the story of quite a few others as well.

I am going to be honest. When I saw this comic, I choked up and my eyes got tears in them almost instantly, and the description sealed the deal. This made me cry, because everything that I was and am today in and to this community is right here before my eyes in the form of an immensely powerful comic and description, and the words of comfort I wish so much I had back then, I finally get to see, today...and I don’t want to spam this with my little sob story, this comic has just stirred up so many memories and thoughts in me that I feel that it’s probably about time I share this.

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I discovered the Endless Forest game back in 2010. I was a socially awkward and rather derpy little 12-year-old at the time. My Aspergers made it quite difficult to properly socialize with others outside of my siblings and my mom and my anxiety made me constantly paranoid of the kids that did try to reach out to me every once and awhile since through elementary and middle school, I was shunned and bullied for my inability to be...well, normal, back when I thought normal was a thing (then again, when you see a middle-school kid who would rather communicate with dog growls and barks and whimpers rather than words, and even occasionally tried running on all fours, I guess normal would be a thing to be compared to).

And so, I depended on whatever comforts I could find on the internet to try getting that thrill and joy people get from having friends to hang out with in the offline world. I was not very good at expressing myself verbally or socializing that way, but I had grown in my typing skills and depended on it as my means of communication with outside people.

With the continuously escalating drama between my parents also biting at me, The Endless Forest was somewhat of a therapy thing to me when I discovered it. A peaceful, beautiful experience at the time. I got to play a deer sphinx[?] (I don’t know, furry animals with human faces were my obsession at the time haha) and be in an environment where there were no words even available to judge me, and I could play with magic and nature and deer, my three most favorite things in the world back then. I played it for a very long time until I got brave and moved on to Feral Heart being my main game of choice so that I could use my typing skills to play amongst other people who liked RPing as I did (outside of DeviantArt of course). Even so, I would pop into the Forest every once and awhile to experience the serene and carefree environment
(at least...it was that way, back then.)

A couple years passed, and I had eventually lost my muse in the game as other things caught my interests and curiosities, like the RP groups I discovered on DeviantArt, though I would occasionally admire artwork based on the game. And then...I discovered them.

Their artwork was gorgeous, the storytelling beyond admirable, I loved it...and it made my heart skip a beat that all this was in the same world as the game I sought comfort from in the past. I realized from their art that there was actually an entire community of these visual storytellers who also played the game.

I wanted to be a part of that amazing beauty they created, and the love and admiration they received in it.

I was heart-poundingly inspired and overjoyed that I could perhaps join this amazing artist and storyteller in their magical world they worked within. So, unsurprisingly, I gave the character I made a couple traits that were also seen on their character(s). I then bashfully noted the person asking them permission to use the character I had created since I was inspired by them. Although they did not say I ripped off one of their characters, they did tell me the character I made looked too much like a character they would make, so I was not allowed to use it.

I forgot which I did first, but I remember there were two rather bipolar reactions that I had. One of them was a rebellious denial, a claim that after looking at the characters a bit more and comparing them, I did not see them as identical and would use them anyway. The other reaction was a possibly overdramatic apology for my copying of their design style (at the time, this artist was still my art inspiration, so I was quick to submission). Either way, I never ended up using the design at all, and eventually deleted the image altogether.

Time went by, and after my shaking stopped at the realization I had disappointed them and already ruined my chance of being their friend, _{(I was an overly sensitive yet somewhat stubborn coward, though I guess that didn’t change much)} I decided I would give making a character for the Endless Forest community another go before I went to join the site. This time, I decided to simply make a deer with the colors of a barn owl, and a few thin white feathers on the shoulders for some extra something. I felt pretty confident I was okay now, so I submitted her to the DeviantART TEF group to test the waters.

It didn’t take too much time before someone unfamiliar came to me, claiming that my barn-owl deer was a direct ripoff of my art inspiration's newest character. This time, I did not submit to these claims...at least not as fast as I did the last time. When I was shown the character that the one I created was “ripped from,” I was shocked at how...nothing alike they really were, even though I was scared at first I would have to go back and try again in making a character. My character and theirs shared one singular thing in common: feathers on the shoulders. Absolutely nothing else was similar whatsoever, so I responded that I did not think they looked alike and that I would use the character, anyways.

At that moment, the artist that I had admired so much, and their friends with them, knew it was now in their power to make sure I regretted that decision.

I was rather heartbroken at the warning. My art inspiration came to me, telling me that if I dared to join the Endless Forest community, they would make sure I was met with trouble. My chest was tight, but a part of me thought they were bluffing. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

With a burst of confidence to guide me, I went onto the community website, registered (since I didn’t remember the password or email password of the account I used a few years before), and instantly discovered the excitement of CSS bios. I was greatly confused at first, but after playing around I managed to please myself with some edits done to a free template I found. So then, I put up my owl doe (I think her name was Aini’ Taiga if I remember correctly).

I almost got a heart attack when I came back to find my art inspiration, which I was quick to discover was practically the goddess of the community, had commented a giant wall of text and a few images picking not only at my owl deer and her shoulders, but also at the old “rip-off” that I had deleted on DeviantArt, which creeped me out a bit since I was unsure how they got the image if I had deleted it. This also added to my newfound paranoia of the person, and to the mixture of feelings I had for them...I still liked them, but I was scared of them at the same time.

That night, with both that and real-life drama overwhelming me, I broke down in my mother’s bathroom _{(she and I shared the same room at the time, since dad kept disappearing and was coming home less and less and I felt mom was comforted by having a presence to fall asleep with...plus I was still uncomfortable with sleeping alone in my own room heh)} When my mom came to comfort me, I opened up to her about the TEF artist I admired and how they had started claiming I was a thief of their designs and how they threatened to make my stay in the community I joined a bad experience, and how scared and confused I was about it all.

Mom immediately demanded she see for herself, and it took a while to keep her from flaming the person after she saw what had been commented on my character’s bio _{(My mom is really supportive, I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am to her for everything)}.

The next morning, I deleted the bio and went on with my day, but as more days went by, I realized school was even more different than usual in experience. In my usual isolated state, I could not stop thinking of my art inspiration and her friends, and the fear I was growing in them. I was constantly getting moments where cold sweats would appear, and my heart would start pounding. I would get sick in my gut, and my visits to the bathroom grew more and more frequent. Yes, this TEF community experience was getting to me both mentally and physically. I was genuinely paranoid, and although I know that sounds ridiculous, I also have to remember that this was during a time where the internet was my great escape from reality; the place where even though there were occasional trolls, I could find comfort where my interests lie, and with the artist I admired most at the time going out of their way to, rather aggressively, get in the path of that...it really scared me back then, especially since I felt so alone in the situation and was not only getting pushed down by them but by their friends and a few of their fans as well.

Now I will be honest, I made many dumb mistakes and made really bad decisions during my early times on the community, especially. The first major mistake I made was taking entire codes from existing, commissioned bios _{(I don’t remember how exactly I figure out how, but I somehow found out how)} and editing them around thinking it could pass. Someone instantly let me know what I had done was wrong, and that people actually paid for certain codes and formations and such, and suggested I used free templates instead. I went back to free templates and learned certain codes to pretty it up better than the old one I had done for my owl-deer. This experience was much different than the character-design issue, as I did not have people constantly biting me about it after I made the change and therefore did not add itself to my troubled mental state.

I also constantly bumped ancient blogs and my own blogs. I would bump almost all my blogs at once if it even went to the bottom of the Tracker page. I still probably bump too much, but man was I an idiotic kid with it back then. I was craving positive attention, and I showed that the wrong way. XD

Anyways, since I was more than once attacked due to my owl deer, through emails, DeviantArt notes, and the occasional comment that made me delete things and repost them, I decided I couldn't take the constant fear of being bashed about Aini every time I posted something related to her, so I decided I would change her design. I changed her over and over, but couldn’t find a design I was content with. I was content with one for a while, where she was a flower deer of sorts, but my muse eventually died for that, too. I made other characters, but none of them ever truly stuck with me.

Now during my time on the community, though some memories are blurry, I came to realize I was not the only one with this issue. It comforted me in the fact I might not be being attacked just because there was something wrong with me, there were multiple people with this same issue from the same people...but I was also sad, because here come these adored, respected people who were looked up to who were picking at people for little design things. Now, the fact these people were the most adored and popular in all of the community made things even more difficult, and probably also made it so a little part of me still wanted to gain their approval.

I was once called a retard by that artist I was once so deeply inspired by, after sending them a kind comment on one of their images on DeviantArt.
I once wished them good health when I saw they were getting sick on their personal updates blog on TEFc, and I was replied to with an email saying how I had wronged then too badly and my wrongdoings had consequences, and so I was never and would never be welcomed by them.

Now in their defense, I should have probably just never tried reaching out to them, but a year or two had passed since the design drama and I thought they had moved on, plus I still really liked their art and ideas...so I made that foolish decision and got my heart torn in two from it. I was not mad at them, but I was devastated at how disliked I was because of their strong grudge against me. I blocked them on DeviantArt to help prevent me from commenting on their art again, but it didn’t stop me from admiring her art from afar.

Their fans and friends, which was most of the community, came to follow in their footsteps in their dislike for me. Even after I eventually made a new account for a fresh start, my blogs were mostly ignored when people realized who I was except for a few very kindly people I knew, and this is still the case today _{(or maybe that’s just my anxiety talking)}.

Quite a few other really beautifully talented artists on TEFc, that I had never even spoken to before, blocked me on DeviantArt so I could never express to them how I liked their art. I felt like a shunned pit bull dog that had accidentally nipped someone once the wrong way when still quite a small and inexperienced puppy, and would now always be a hated criminal because of it, and nothing would ever change that; not even time, itself.

I went in and out of my activity on the community site as a couple more years went by with what was supposed to be my fresh start, especially after shocking things about certain family dramas were revealed, and my parents divorced; leaving my mom alone with the four of us, and deeply depressed. Her depression was contagious, and I lost a lot of my muse for the community and even art in some cases. The loneliness I had learned from my bad reputation, except for the few kindly acquaintances I met, really didn’t help. A traumatic incident with my best friend, Ginger [emergency kitten] also added itself to the acid that was eating away at my heart and mind at the time, and finally I made a blog that I was leaving the site, with a little blunt reminder of one of the main reasons why I was leaving, but I did have a little “maybe” that I would return.

A year and some moons passed, and I rejoined the community. Almost none of the few people who actually showed they liked me and wanted to be a part of my life on the site were still there, but I had a new confidence I could rebuild myself to the community, especially since the people I feared the most were no longer active. Fortunately, things were calmer for me, especially since my life had calmed in the time I was gone and I had matured since my last visit. Unfortunately, I was quick to realize I was not going to have much luck in being noticed, as I was still ignored-ish. I know my past reputation and situations might have ruined my image for this community, forever. My mistakes have made it so that though I no longer live in constant fear of being sent flame-emails, notes, comments and the like, I have the fear I will always just be...a ghost, or an irritating child to the eyes of those who still haunt this place since those times.

I don’t know what I am to this community, anymore...or what I’ll be in the future. I know it is just me still lingering on my scars, but I feel that if it wasn’t for those mistakes I made, or the reputation I was given, maybe, just maybe, I could have better hope in being...or at least feeling...more welcome, here.

But I have hope now that maybe things can, and will get better.