Even if a creator is a bad person it's still okay to like their work. People need to mind their own business.
Honestly it's not really that sort of situation. I'll actively defend Steven Moffat here.
There was a huge hate movement for him back in the early 2010s - which, in retrospect, formed largely because he was running 2 of the superwholock shows at once, one of which went through extremely long hiatuses* and the other of which was functionally an adaptation of an already well regarded show**, making him subject to a sort of double ire in the eyes of a lot of fandom people. Notably, his co-showrunner, Mark Gatiss, is rarely mentioned and much of his work is still attributed to Moffat (and yes, this includes that Hbomberguy video. Several of "Steven Moffat's bad writing choices" were not actually written by him, they were Gatiss.)
People caricatured the dude into a sort of malicious, arrogant figure who hated women and was deliberately mismanaging these shows to spite fans, to the point where people who never watched them believe this via cultural osmosis. It became very common to take quotes from him out of context to make them look bad***, to cite him as an example of a showrunner who hated his fans, someone who sabotaged his own work just to get at said fans, someone who was too arrogant to take criticism, despite all of this being basically a collective "headcanon" about the guy formed on tumblr. Some if it got especially terrible, like lying about sexual assault (I don't mean people accused him of sexual assault and I think they're making it up, I mean people would say things like "many of his actresses have accused him of sexual assault on set" when no such accusations exist in the first place. This gets passed around en masse and is, in my opinion, absolutely rancid.)
On top of that a ton of the criticism directed at the shows themselves is, personally, just terrible media criticism. So much of it came from assuming a very hostile intent from the writer and just refusing to engage with the text at all past that.
Like some really common threads you see with critique of this writer's work, especially in regards to Doctor Who since that's the one I'm most familiar with:
A general belief that his lead characters were meant to be ever perfect self inserts, and so therefore when they act shitty or arrogant or flawed in any way, that's both reflective of the author and something the show wants you to view as positive or aspirational.
An overarching thesis that his characters are "too important" in the narrative due to the writer's arrogance and self obsession (even though this is a very deliberate theme that's stated several times)
A lot of focus on the writer personally "attacking" the fans or making choices primarily out of spite.
A tendency to treat the show being different to what it's adapting as inherently bad and hostile towards the original.
Just generally very little consideration and engagement with the themes, intent, etc. of the shows
This one's a little more nebulous and doesn't apply to all critique but a lot of it, especially recently, is clearly by people who haven't seen the show in like 10 years and their opinion is largely formed secondhand through like, "discourse nostalgia". Which. you know. bad.
I think these are just weird and nonsensical ways to engage with a work of fiction. I also think it's really sad to see the show boiled down to this because that era of who is, in my opinion, very thematically rich and unique among similar shows, and I'm disappointed that it's often dismissed in such a paltry way.
This isn't to say people aren't allowed to critique Steven Moffat or anything, but the context in which he basically became The Devil™ to a large portion of fandom and is still remembered in a poor light is very tied to this perfect storm of fan culture and I just don't agree with a ton of it.
* I'm sure most people have seen the way long running shows and hiatuses will cause people to fall out with a show, with some former fans turning around and joining a sort of "anti fandom" for it while it's still airing. That happened with both these shows.
** Doctor Who will change it's entire writing staff, crew, and cast every few years, and with that comes a change in style, tone, theme - the old show basically ends and is replaced by a new show under the same title. As Steven Moffat's era was the first of these handovers for the majority of audiences, you can imagine this wasn't a well loved move for many fans.
*** I know for a fact most people have not sought out the sources for a lot of these quotes to check that they read the same in context because 1) most of them were deleted years ago and are very difficult to find now and 2) many of them do actually make sense in the context of their respective interviews
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i was thinking about how i wished leverage had a birthday episode for some of the characters cause that would be sweet, but then i realised something and basically…. okay here’s my thoughts in quotes form, just for fun
hardison: so when’s your birthday? i could plan something for us and the team to do and-
parker: i dont know
hardison: you don’t know… your own birthday?
parker: no, how would i know? pshh, cmon, you’re telling me you remember EXACTLY when you were born? watch this - hey, eliot, do you know your exact birth date?
eliot, innocently passing by, who was canonically anonymously dropped off at a hospital as an infant: no, how would i know?
parker: that’s what i said!
hardison: excuse me?? what is going on right now
sophie, walking into the apartment: whats wrong?
hardison: parker and eliot- well, okay, when’s your birthday? i just have to prove something.
sophie: …….july 12th
hardison: why did you pause? wait, is that your birthday or sophie devereaux’s birthday?
sophie: ………… (guilty silence)
parker: see, no one knows their real birthday! haha you’re so weird sometimes, hardison
hardison:
hardison: what the fuck guys
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pls elaborate on the not-so friends with benefits w aki 🤞🏻
aki never intended for things to turn out this way.
your relationship at work was supposed to be kept strictly professional. you work in different departments, so normally you wouldn't see each other often. but aki somehow finds an excuse to come talk to you every day. when everyone in the division goes out for drinks, aki is the one sitting next to you, hand in yours once he's a little too drunk to dwell on the consequences. he takes you home with his arm linked around yours and his jacket draped on your shoulders so you won't get cold.
and outside of work, it's just sex, nothing special. it made sense at the time. you're the only one aki trusts, and you feel the same way. neither of you have plans to get close to anyone else. it's fine to indulge in each other, isn't it? that's the way it was supposed to be.
but aki has a hard time following through with the just friends part. how in the world can he keep things simple between you two when he's fallen for you from the beginning?
maybe you think you're friends. it's not like you've discussed it. but you've always known how lonely devil hunting has made him, maybe you think aki is just using you to chase away some of that feeling, to get a taste of something sweeter. you couldn't be more wrong. aki comes back to you every time. he promises this is it after another night with you, but it's never the last. he can't rid of this need to be close to you. he'll fuck you like he can't let go, and he'll stay the night to hold you for as long as he can, even though it'll never be enough.
he knows your relationship is complicated. that's okay. he doesn't need anything more. he can't have anything more, not when this is the life he's chosen. at least with this, he can pretend. when his limbs are tangled with yours on his mattress, your fingertips digging into the scars on his back as you whine his name into his ear, aki can at least fool himself into thinking the two of you mean something.
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