Hi Koka!
I've also been playing Minecraft since 2011. Happy late 15 year anniversary! I'm 24, and the game has also followed me through a large part of my life, and continues to do so!
I'm curious as to what you mean about the act of imagining remaining free - from what I know, there's not anything jeopardizing that possibility, and Minecraft is constantly adding more tools for add-on and data pack developers to create things more freely. If anything, it's become more encouraged to imagine things for the game!
As for your mod loader of choice, I'd recommend swapping to NeoForge if you're starting to get into it, or even if you've been doing it for a while. I have developed mods on Fabric and Forge, and NeoForge has much better documentation, support, and overall code quality.
Nice to meet you!
