Category: hacking scene

solidification is a prolific creator of fan-made achievements across different game genres and especially in the world of Final Fantasy mods. He is also the developer of the upcoming Fiesta job randomizer of FFV Central. You can follow solidification’s set-making journey here.

February 21, 2026

I have various issues with various players and developers for RetroAchievements. I expect many of them also have issues with me, maybe some are in the same group as those I have issues with, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. We can’t please everyone, nor do we need to. But with two exceptions, those people I have issues with are just eye-rolls, minor inconveniences or disturbances that just get a groan from me at the worst, and my life moves on. Exactly how I would expect I am to some.

Ripping on someone’s behavior and/or actions is pretty normal. We expect it. Sometimes it’s in jest, sometimes it’s very serious. The dev-chat is certainly full of a lot stuff. And so is the gaming channel and the general channel. If someone acts like a moron, however it is you define “moronic,” you call them a moron. Nothing egregiously wrong, there.

Now, taking a quick aside, I used to teach high school mathematics. Specifically, I taught a lot of students who had questionable mathematics instruction and/or questionable home lives. I certainly had my share of brilliant students, but objectively speaking (as in, based on U.S.A. nationwide standards such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test or the American College Testing exam), they were, unfortunately, only “high” for their own area. They would only be moderately above average elsewhere. And I had my share of students who absolutely did not care about mathematics and “knew” they would “never use it, so what’s the point?”

And I had plenty of students who were generally good students, good at learning, willing to learn, and only lacked ability. My B students, essentially. …And, finally, I had my students who wanted to be good, but their backgrounds and/or home lives were just going to never see them through. They tried, but maybe they only made low Bs on their best days and were C students otherwise.

Ultimately, though, I treated all my students as those who, at the very least, wanted to do well in school. Or well enough. Whatever their motivations, I was there to instruct them. And if they wanted to do their best, I was going to support them in every way I could.

I certainly teased my students from time to time. About their attitudes, their personalities, their hobbies. Some were okay with it. Some weren’t. Such is life.

But never. Never. Never did I look at at student doing whatever they could, no matter how much they struggled, to improve themselves, to learn something, to get a little better, to improve their standing, and take a shit on it. In front of them, behind their backs–doesn’t matter, I never did this.

Because that is a line in the sand I have drawn. I know the pain of being told I am not competent or capable or hard-working enough. I remember when mathematics was intensely difficult for me, and it took, of all things, a random English Literature course on the Romantic period when I was a senior in my undergraduate years for mathematics to actually click with me.

Now I’m a leading expert in artificial intelligence and a senior scientific technical manager for all things computer vision and image processing related for the United States Government (one of a very, very precious few).

Never in my life have I woken up one day suddenly able to know or be better at a technical skill or some technical knowledge that I wasn’t apt with the day before. Nobody is capable of this. For anything technical, we all start somewhere, and we get better by trying and by learning. Sometimes we fail, sometimes we don’t. But we improve. Technical prowess is a step-by-step process. Some things in some areas will come more quickly to some people than other things or other areas to that same person or the same thing in the same area to a different person. We all learn differently at different speeds.

The important thing is that we learn. No matter how many times we fail, or how much of a struggle it is, there is something powerful in continuing to try, something clever in “tenacity.”

That’s why, with absolutely zero respect: $%&* you, TimeCrush. For you to observe someone trying their hardest at building achievements for their very first set, and you to shit all over them? At your age? $%&* you.

What ever were your motivations? Don’t like me? Some Mean Girls nonsense where by shitting on me you might garner more favor with others because this was during a time when I was highly combative? Someone hurt you when you were younger?

Doesn’t matter. You’re not a teenager nor a child (though you clearly have some growing up to do): $%&* you.

You, and people like you, in all walks of life, are why otherwise good people will give things up. And as the, at the time, lead of the playtest team? The only thing that made sense as I went through those messages where you shat on me and called my logic “abhorrent” was one thing: someone who doesn’t know me is trying so hard to validate his own existence that this is clearly someone who has never amounted to anything.

And yes, I realize the irony of amounting to something over a backdrop of imaginary internet point hobbyism.

You, TimeCrush, are what I consider an “enemy.” Not my enemy specifically. Just an enemy. Someone who is undeserving of any kindness or respect because you, for whatever nonsensical reason, at your age, in a life where you never once woke up and were magically able to do something technical (just like the rest of us), thought it was fitting to shit on someone’s attempts at trying to understand something.

You didn’t shit on my personality. You didn’t shit on anything else I’d done on the forums or in my playthroughs of whatever I was doing, things that are really common and aren’t really important. You shat all over my attempt at figuring something out so I could contribute to a place that, while I had my problems with some aspects of it, I thought was pretty fun overall.

You are, without a doubt, a loser. A real loser. You may have some favor with some people on RetroAchievements or whatever other Discord serveres you might be a part of. But you are worthless scum. At the end of the day, you have amounted to nothing, having made no significant mark on anything in your life. I don’t know you personally, and I know this to be true, because drifters like you are all exactly the same.

It is amusing that knowing that you are at your age you will never improve, either, but that’s also tragic. You could be better, but you won’t. Because people with that specific type of personality never see fit to self-improve, as that type of personality is tangential to Crab Mentality (also called the “crab-bucket effect,” wherein if you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket or tub, if one gets the idea to climb out, the others will automatically pull it back down. It’s a reflection of shitty people who dislike others succeeding where they believe they cannot). Especially at your age.

But still, $%&* you.

I am aware of your “apology,” too. You don’t apologize for who you were or how you acted–you apologize only for saying your thoughts out loud, that it was unprofessional.

I have a better word for your apology: “abhorrent.”

So, here I am, fixing broken ass sets, and, the team willing, going to be joining the Code Reviewers upon the next possibility (and fully accepting if I’m rejected, especially after this), and soon I’ll be working on my own hacks (something to learn; back to the learning, always learning, a concept probably too difficult for you).

And there you are. Nowhere different.

So there’s only one thing left to say: $%&* you, $%&ing loser $%& piece of $%&* useless scum $%&hole waste of space lmao eat %&$ you worthless idiot go to hell

To all junior developers: never let anyone, and I mean anyone (dev, overlord, other players) be the reason you quit pursuing development. If you continue, good. If you don’t, also good, so long as it’s your choice and not the result of some asshole like TimeCrush trying to shit all over your efforts.

Because I promise you: people like TimeCrush are actually more rare than you think; they just are more pronounced. And they will never accomplish an ounce of what you can. The most they can ever hope for is to curry favor with people in better positions than themselves.

-solidification (if it wasn’t obvious)

Original Link: https://pastebin.com/3ksPBb9y

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