Cosigning and highlighting this entire post.
Hi, I don't really make my presence actively known in the community these days, but I was a full-fledged member of STJr and active face of development between early 2015 and mid 2018, and continued doing sometimes intense behind-the-scenes work both to push the game to release and give some postlaunch support.
I don't like tooting my own horn, because EVERYTHING in this world is a collaboration and auteurs are fake, but there is a staggering amount of my donated time, effort, and energy in the 5-year difference between SRB2's 2.1 and 2.2 releases and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.
I stepped back from being public-facing in 2018 because of harassment, legitimised by Mystic's vocal, public arguments that he would not, and did not want anyone else to, moderate this, and Rob and Prime*'s failure to respond to this in a sane way. (Which is why I'm glad to see the back of them, but that is quite literally another topic.) But I did return to working on the game on the side because I believed in the project that had survived two decades, and I believed in the community that sheperded it before I joined and would ideally sheperd it long after I was gone - and it brings me great joy that this was correct. I've described SRB2 as one of the great glimmering jewels of the Sonic fanwork scene, and it is a source of pride to have contributed to it.
I personally didn't continue to work as part of/alongside Sonic Team Junior because I'd achieved everything I was looking for with SRB2 2.2: I was a link in the chain of a truly amazing legacy project, and made my mark on it. But I am one of the few who didn't continue - many of the fantastic and prolific people who I collaborated with, and those who I have strong confidence in their creative potential, are stewarding the project as we speak. They are more than capable of taking the projects to new heights, and I look forward to seeing the fruits of their labour.
In my specific case, I brought the intensity of my energy to Kart Krew Dev, and the "Dr. Robotnik's Ring Racers" project. Many of that team had also busted their asses to make SRB2 2.2 the best it could be, and those who hadn't are incredible and impressive on their own merits. I am beyond proud of those who I worked with and what we did together. Public response has been intense, but we made exactly the game we wanted to.
So yeah. While people have been added to both teams, the people that did the actual hard work of building 2.2 are still around in one way or another. Nobody who's expressed hatred for Krew or the present state of STJr are honouring us with this basically meaningless distinction.
*fun side note. Prime once told me that he'd been personally modifying other people's posts on the message board to "fix their capitalisation". I think that's pretty emblematic of the caliber of material he brought to the table.
