Grieving Friendships

For as much as I know now that the friendships I had were doomed to fail, one of us messes up, or we just grew away from each other, or if we argued and couldn't move through it, I still grieve for the people I've lost contact with. I had them closely as friends. I loved them despite anything else. Not a romantic love obviously, but a love like being happy they were around. Smiling at seeing them online and feeling like I mattered and knowing they did. 

Maybe because it's almost 2am and I've been trying to get this baby to sleep but I miss all of you. From the friends I met online back in 2002 to the friends I made through Twitch in the 2020s, I remember the start and end of our times together and they play back like social failures in my mind.

I've taken a few steps back from letting people get close. I'm careful and weary. I even feel a little distrustful at time. In no way am I feeling like people are replaceable or that the people in my life right now are unwanted. Vilet always says my analogies are bad but in the most awful way--and it's relating to gaming--I feel like I want to play with my old games. The new games are fun and I enjoy them but my heart is still in the past. I want to spend time with those people. I want to have conversations that we didn't get to have. I want to apologize and I want to forgive. But like many of these old games, once you go back to try them you find you've outgrown them and they're maybe not what you remember or want anymore. Not in a way of betterment over them but that the chasm is too wide to meet in the middle, to meet where we're both at. There's a disconnect and I know that if I tried we'd have a week or less of conversations before moving back on with the lives we created post-friendship.

I miss them. I mourn their friendships. I wish I could go back and talk to them. A lot of them, i didn't get to tell them how much they meant to me. I didn't think I needed to because I thought they knew because I knew. But I kept that to myself for whatever reason. I loved and love you. You still mean something to me.

Bebé

 I don't even know how to explain how happy I am being a father. I never thought I'd get this far. It's like when you get a tool that makes you wonder how you functioned without it before it; or 8RAM to 32RAM. I don't know. I just can't imagine our life without him anymore or how we--Vilet and I--were happy (I know how we were happy, but this is so much more). 

From the beginning of having a torturous time watching the birth happen, to being scared during a C-section, and then just getting to hear his cry and hold him right there. I feel full of emotion just remembering. Those whole days and nights at the hospital, ordering room service and watching TV while we tried so hard to figure things out. And then getting home, wondering how they let two silly geese have a baby.

We were so excited with every single step. Him turning his head, reaching for toys, cooing, laughing, grabbing toys and actually holding on, actually playing. It just never ends, or it feels like it. And he's such a good baby, and Vilet is such a good mom.

[Not to side-track, but I remember my old best friend when she had her baby. Her husband told her how awful of a job she was doing, and I can't even imagine. Parents beat themselves up enough as it is, but the person who is supposed to be in this together with them doing it. I can't.]

I enjoy putting him to bed, or when he wakes up and just needs a snuggle. He koalas onto me and immediately goes to sleep. He makes me feel like I'm funny when he laughs at almost everything I do. And lately, just seeing how he looks at food and wants to slam his head into whatever we're eating.

I can definitely wait for the future. I don't wish for things to be different anymore. I just want to enjoy how life is now. I have a lil family.

 Also he's just so cute. Like what the heck. We can barely go outside without him getting a compliment.

 But it's been 6 months. I love him to pieces. He's the best. 

On Streaming

I posted about this a while ago on Bluesky, but I feel that there's so much to unpack. While streaming has given me an outlet and eased some discomfort regarding being perceived and simply heard in general, it's such a drain.

I've always wanted to be someone's number 2, their sidekick--not the one in the spotlight but the one shining it.

When I made a Discord group, it took so much mental energy to do it and I felt uncomfortable. I was doing more than I was already comfortable doing by streaming so much. Adding a discord group felt like there wasn't much separation or downtime between me being "on" and having a break even though my group was quiet. I felt a ton of guilt and relief disbanding it.

Back to actually streaming.

I have a hard time just getting people out of my space or keeping a boundary of rules for what I want my channel to be. I see streams like Karkalla, Leniasiren, and Lilialive and I envy their ability to keep their stance and remove people they don't want or stop dialog.

I get stuck in this semi-people pleasing mindset where I allow too much sometimes rather than stop it.

Also, the burnout is real. I never played games as much as I did last year and most of this year. The last time was as a teenager with Halo. I get so gamed out despite loving them, and I can't concentrate on gaming when I'm talking. This happens even in non story games when I play with Vilet. Not that skill is needed when streaming. I just can't get as immersed and struggle with silence in social settings--hence the bad jokes.

So yeah, it's been a learning experience. I would love to be confident enough to make clips without getting the ick from my own voice when I watch things back.

I do plan on posting on Tiktok to get my art out there because I do actually enjoy art streams (body allowing) when I can set them up.

Anyway. Thanks for reading! I'll be back soon enough.

MMOs

I've been watching Idyl and other YouTubers talk about MMOs and it really has me reminiscing and wanting a good, community centric MMO with a focus on getting players to connect.

To me, MMOs that I've played recently haven't been landing. I know gaming and social interactions have evolved so much since the 2000s but I feel like it's just so much harder to make friends in MMOs. Where you used to be dropped into slow progression worlds where nothing felt hurried--you were just living in this virtual space, and now it feels quick and streamlined.

I make this comparison a lot (and I like both games): Morrowind to Skyrim. In Morrowind, you have to get to know the world if you're going to get through the game. Quests are given (and you have to read a bunch) but you're not given a marker to guide your way. Despite it being a smaller map, it feels full. It feels like adventure. Skyrim is great but I can't remember much of it aside from: Stormcloaks vs Imperials; dragon shouts and draugr tombs. Both are good games but Morrowind brought me into its world. I want an MMO to do that.

I think that the closest to being sucked into a world was Astonia 3. Small population, no idea how big the game was, but that game was great. Close second was a game that I'm still trying to remember the name of. It might have been a random MMO but maybe not? 2D isometric medieval fantastic. Old. Lots of reading. It made me really curious as to what was out there because of leveled areas. Same with Runescape, Jade Dynasty and Dark Eden.

Maybe I haven't gone too far into games like Guild Wars 2 and FF14 to see the type of progression they truly have. I get too bored of the quest types to get far despite them being fun for a while.

Like I've mentioned it past posts, I just miss meeting new friends in games. Sea of Thieves was the last game I made friends in--back in 2018-19.

But hey, maybe it's a me-problem and not an issue with the games at all! I have a tendency to be anti-social that I'm trying to break.

Old Man Yells At Clouds (Sea of Thieves)

Oh, Sea of Thieves. I started playing during the initial beta (or alpha, wherever they only had one type of quest?) and was immediately drawn to it. I crewed up with randoms and we did our one quest over and over again on different islands. At the time, I was only typing for communication, which felt comfortable as I wasn't yet feeling confident enough to talk to these strangers. Then release came, along with all it's new quests and items--and players. And streamers.

The first real group that I consistently played with was great. I lucked out with having fun teammates. Despite all of our differences, we just clicked as a team. We played for months before we finished all the content the game had and they all went to their separate games. I stayed, hoping to find new players to interact with and help out.

There was this huge boom in the SOT streaming community with one particular streamer who did his own in-game game show with quizzes and different styles of games to play for prizes. I offered my help to set these games up and acquire loot to give away to contestants. Shortly after, two others would join me and the three of us became friends. Yay.

At the time, SOT partnered streamers influenced the game so much and I didn't notice until later that the game started to feel catered to streamers (with things like streamers complaining about players and literally getting them banned, or gameplay changes that would help them make content). Slowly, it started to feel, to me, like it was turning real players into props for viewer entertainment and it didn't sit right. Some people just wanted to play and have fun, not be exploited for views and laughs.

Back to the game show. There was internal drama that led to the host quitting and leaving the game altogether after a few months. It was strange and people took things so weirdly seriously to the point of harassment accusations, and a whole lot of jealousy regarding who is getting views or who is streaming at what time. It was so toxic and I just wanted to play my silly pirate game, but now I was being associated with people that others didn't like and getting recognition online and in-game. I didn't like it.

I took a break from the game and remained friends with the two players for a while until I had a falling out with one of them (I called him out privately for cheating on his girlfriend who he wanted me to be friends with. Blegh.) which lead to all him and his friends disparaging me on Discord and mocking my anxiety and depression. That was fun.

At this point, I just wanted to play my game again and I removed all my Twitch followers and Xbox friends (except family and close friends unrelated to the game) to just get a clean slate.

But I fell for it again. Ran into players who were streaming and I became part of their friend group. They turned out to be making racist remarks around me and I hightailed it out of there shortly after bringing it up to the streamer/friend. She even scolded me for not bringing people I knew who had higher viewer counts into her stream to up her numbers. Then that happened again with another group. Same scenario. [Side note: I don't know what it is about SOT but I've never encounted so many racists and bullies hiding behind "it's a pirate game" in my life, and I spent a lot of it in Halo 3 lobbies. I even had a group of 4 telling me that it's a white people game and to uninstall.] I then just uninstalled and left the game for good until just this year picking it up to play a few Tall Tales with friends.

I genuinely enjoy this game, and I miss it, but jeez. Either I'm extremely unlucky or that's just how the game was from 2020 to like 2023.

Not everyone has the same experience with a social game. Even friends now have told me how much they hated the harassment in that game in particular, while others have praised the community--streamers and otherwise.

Games and Loneliness

I feel like I default to trying to make friends in game or through Twitch. Because of my pretty bad social anxiety, making real life friends always felt extremely difficult, so making online friends my go-to. All the way back to 2002 or 03 with Astonia 3 (which was my first MMO) and then Runescape, where I made so many good friends that made going through my teenage life bearable. Even now, trying to make friends on Twitch and Elder Scrolls Online--or even Sea of Thieves a few years ago--making online friends feel comfortable.

Every now and then, I just feel socialized out and neglect friendships (unless the friend is very persistent--which one Astonia 3 friend still is, or Vilet, my parter and mama to bebé Ghost), which feels awful. It turns into a repetitive loop of finding people and losing them because of my lack of social battery or awkwardness.

Lately, since streaming has gone on the backburner, I've been trying to find friends to play and chat with again. It hasn't gone the best but I am pretty limited in how much time I can put into it at the moment.

I just really miss the first year of Sea of Thieves' release back in 2018. So many encounters, so many friends. It was the last time I felt like I was part of an actual community of gamers. That dissipated as streaming the game became more popular and, suddenly, the game was about using people for content rather than fun. But I stayed for a few good friends I made--same as what happened in Runescape in 2008. Bored of game but enjoying the company.

I have been considering reinstalling SoT and joining random crews. Just to see what happens. Will that happen, I don't know, but man was early Sea of Thieves great. [While I want to side track into a rant about how I feel some streamers ruin some open multiplayer games, I won't just yet. Maybe I'll work on that post over vacation at the in-laws.]

Anyway. I miss making friends. I miss talking to people. Some people feel more approachable than others despite considering them friends, but it's also my lack of knowing what to say. I romanticize The Guild and so so so wish I could get that type of friend group--one that shares love for a game and I can find them online and just hang out.

If you got this far, thanks for reading.

I Haven't Done This In A While

 

So--I used to use this old blog from 2010 to around 2015. By the end, I was hardly posting, but it was a place for me to post my art, my writing, and just about myself. So I'm going to try that again--as I miss doing that. Also, now my life is so different than back then: I have a partner who I've been with for 12 years (yep, I see some overlap and a big reason for not posting as much); we have a son who is almost 5 months old; and we live in a different state.

As life has changed, I've tried to hold on to so many things but they've fallen through the cracks as my priorities have shifted. Just the other day, I saw a video where someone soldered an old Xbox 360 adapter to fix it--and I used to do that, too, I thought to myself! From tinkering with old electronics to just trying new art mediums, I just experimented more back then to find my interests. I miss that. I still do it on a small scale, like learning to felt and trying water-coloring, but not the the same extent--and I know why that is.

So writing here is just a way to clear my mind and share my thoughts on things (games, books, parenting woes/not woes, you know, things) now that I'm not streaming as much (twitch.tv/theghostgalleon), it's not for anyone but myself. I'll try to keep up with this but I might not. Who knows? It sounds fun again. I'm just experimenting.