Wanted to mention you, but you've shown no questions nor grievances. It's nice to see you again, even if I can't remember fuck all. Glad you're still doing art. And I saw at one point that you listened to Ozric. Here I thought I was the only one.

I don't know if I'd say creepy. But it stayed on my mind for a long time afterwards. Down in the city of Victoria a couple years ago, I was passing through one of the streets that was sort of homeless/street performer territory the seaside. I caught this rubby kind of guy watching me from a bench. Made eye contact. I passed by and he said that he knew me. I asked him how or from where.

He asked how old I was and I said I was in my twenties. He just kind of laughed, said I was much older than that. I sat down on the bench with him and talked about a lot of stuff. Guy was a drifter with a mini-van parked alongside the shoreline where they still allowed homeless or travelling folk to park at night. Lot of different stories on him.

I guess what always really struck me was the eye contact. Looked at me like he was looking through me. I notice in many cities, people don't make eye contact. And if you see a homeless bum or a begger, eye contact's the worst thing you can do.

I was thinking about something last night Verb. I don't expect anybody here to trust me or to even treat me as I was considering the magnitude of what I did. But I'd like you to ponder something for me. My significant other was an audiophile. She taught me everything that I know about music, and how to use it to create a miniature high without taking drugs. You lose yourself in the music but your emotions blend into it. And you use that bind as a tool of raw expression to create art by impulse without thinking.

My SO died when I was twenty. It took me six years to utter a single word to anybody about her loss. And I was only able to do it after I created this piece of work. The very first piece of artwork I ever truly created Verb.


I don't know of your ability to read into artwork. But it was one of the toughest things I'd ever done. I went straight to the core of the pain I carried, all the way to the bottom of it, and I pulled this out. Just a fraction of what I felt when I knew that she was gone. But that pain ties itself to the rest of the shit I carried in me.

You can question my actions, you can question what I say, but I think, Verb, no matter what, I could not create this if I were a normal person. If I didn't carry this pain, and these events in my history, this wouldn't manifest itself. As well as being one of the only hobbies I have left, I am using my art to quantify and discover things about myself. With every one that I make, I sit back and I study it, and then I understand what it is and a bit more of whom I am.

I don't expect trust but I won't turn away from what I know is true. I'm fucked deeply, and I'm trying to fix it.

I wish you’d timed the fake death a few months earlier/later, but glad to see you’re alive regardless.

I wish I'd never done it all. I know your name and I know that it's got pleasant connotation to it, but I don't have any real concrete instances of conversations in memory. How did I hurt you?(apart from the obvious)

Quote from: E on December 12, 2020, 10:28:53 PM

Quote from: DAS B00T x2 on December 12, 2020, 01:10:13 PM

Quote from: E on December 12, 2020, 05:27:14 AM

Not a good way to do it, but it worked, I guess. If I had no other options, would've done it again. I'd owe Verbatim an apology though. "I" talked to him a fair bit before being deceased. Fact was, Quiet had my account logins. Did all the writing for me. He needed some company too. I wasn't there all the time for him since I was trying to help cover his medical expenses. No Tru, not good, nor interesting.

So wait

Would it mean that a fair bit of my interactions with you was actually with him?

Decent chance, yes. The man was a master mimic both in writing and voice acting. Could've been a voice actor. Probably helped that he knew me so well though. As I told Verb though. I know I'm missing shit. I could try to verify whom was whom for you, but I don't know to what extent.

nah, you good man. Though I am a little curious, which of you guys was it that wrote that last batch of PM's to everyone?

I would imagine that would've been me, but Quiet might've spliced some things in. He and I talked quite a bit about the various people that I did want to say something to. I'd've wanted to say some sort of goodbyes before I pulled the plug. Along with the various written messages distributed afterwards by Quiet. He took a lot of unnecessary effort to try and tie ends up the best he could before he took his own bow out.

Even though I didn't have cancer, I do have my own medical conditions. Under hyper stress and exhaustion my heart weakens extremely, and slows everything down quite a bit. Declining mental health combined with the fact that I was both hyper stressed and exhausted made me a shambling mess on both fronts.

Quote from: E on December 12, 2020, 05:27:14 AM

Not a good way to do it, but it worked, I guess. If I had no other options, would've done it again. I'd owe Verbatim an apology though. "I" talked to him a fair bit before being deceased. Fact was, Quiet had my account logins. Did all the writing for me. He needed some company too. I wasn't there all the time for him since I was trying to help cover his medical expenses. No Tru, not good, nor interesting.

So wait

Would it mean that a fair bit of my interactions with you was actually with him?

Decent chance, yes. The man was a master mimic both in writing and voice acting. Could've been a voice actor. Probably helped that he knew me so well though. As I told Verb though. I know I'm missing shit. I could try to verify whom was whom for you, but I don't know to what extent.

Sorry I took so long. Got stuck at the hospital. Have to bear with me on this one, because there's going to be a lot of subject bouncing. I'll try to condense it. I want to clarify. These aren't excuses to justify things. They're perspectives to show you why those three years matter to your life.

The first reason why those three years still mean something Ender, is this. Think with me in hypotheticals and certainties. The first certain thing was this. I was going to mentally collapse, no matter what I did. The second, was that my friend, Quiet, was going to die. The last straw that snapped me in two. The third certainty was that I was going to leave here. I had to beat my dependency on the internet, which had become my last and only crutch, which fed all my internal bullshit. So one way or another, I was going to leave.

Had I ghosted, I would have left everybody asking questions. I've been ghosted. I know how much not knowing eats you. Result? Pain. I could try and say my goodbyes, but that would have caused a level of pain too. "Hey guys, I've mentally gone off the deep end and I have no intent of surviving, k thanks bye." More pain.

There was no scenario were nobody got hurt. But I needed a scenario strong enough to push me away from the internet. Quiet surmised that we use death as a blocker. I'd feel guilty in doing it, but guilt would keep me at bay for a long time while I attempted to sort my shit out. So, essentially Ender, I would've caused you three years of some kind of pain no matter what I did.

Onto another perspective then. I had a significant other, Ender. A gaming buddy. Met her when I was fourteen. I knew her until I was twenty. She was killed by a drunk driver. She was my equal. Imagine me, but better than I am. Less damaged, more optimistic. We helped each other out mentally quite a bit. When she died, my entire world went dark. I was, and still am half a person without her. And I internalized all of that pain, and never spoke a word of it for years to anybody.

However. If I got a document signed by god himself telling me that if I lit myself on fire and jumped into an oil pit, I could bring her back, or any of my other friends for that matter, I'd do it. If I had to re live every single bad day of my life over and over again just to see her smile, one more time, I'd do it Ender. What I'm trying to get at is this.

All of my bad days played their part in writing portions of how my future turned out. I had to go through the bad days, and the good days to meet that person whom I loved so deeply. So I'd like you to think. I caused you a shit ton of bad days, yes. But who did they lead you to? Is it not fair to assume that those bad days played their part in who you're involved with now? It's not a justification, but a simple fact. Those bad days determined on some level how things played out. You have in your life what I no longer have, in a small part because I made the fuckup that I did.

Thirdly, Ender. Life is damage. We can't avoid it no matter how hard we try. But it's what we do with that damage that counts. The greatest trick I ever learned was this. Invert the negative emotional response caused by damage. You hear people say to themselves all the time "I'll never get married." Many hold true. Because when we become damaged, our brain is temporarily more elastic than usual. As we reform and pull ourselves together, we think of new ideas and they become like cement in our otherwise inflexible mind.

Invert the negative response into a positive one and you can get blown apart again and again, and come out a better, stronger person each time. I know that there's some stuff you can't walk away from, naturally. But for the most part, you can. And that's exactly what you did. You went through your shit. You made it this far. And you didn't come out fucked up like I did.

Fourth, Ender. I might not have died. But the fact is, in your life, you are going to lose people. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but it will come. None of us can avoid it. Your experience with my "death" was as real as any other. So the next time when you take a hit like that, you'll be able to weather it better because of it.

When I got back to this province Ender, I had been here for only about six months when my sister's husband died of a heart attack. She called me at six in the morning. I drove at two hundred kph to catch that fucking ambulance. And I was there with my sister for every step of the way. And I'm still here, helping her through the biggest pain of her life, because I myself carry that pain.

All those people I lost? I'd do it again if it meant that I could weather the death of my brother in law like I did. I didn't buckle or break like I would have in the past. I did what needed to be done. I was the person that needed to be there for my sister because of all those deaths I have behind me. In their own way, all of that shit prepared me.

Your experience with my death brought valid emotions. And some day Ender, you'll have those emotions visit you again, because nobody can dodge death. And you'll be strong enough to weather it in part because of what you experienced with me.

And fifth. You would've mourned for me, no doubt, like a lot of others. When I left Quiet's grave I had no intention of living. I had every intent to die. And out and about in my travels, I did. I blew myself apart mentally, and I fought for years to pull myself back together the best I could. Best I can seem to do is half a person.

I'm emotionally vacant save for a few emotional responses. The very strongest ones I have left. I've been working on trying to get them back. No luck yet. You can hardly call me alive unless my sense of humor is at play or my compassion for others is functioning. For everything else, I'm cold and distant, almost mechanical. I have no care about what happens to me, I have no fear response. What's still keeping me moving are two things.

I made a promise to my significant other after I tried to blow my head off with a shotgun. That I'd never sink so low again. I'd never bend nor break again. And the promise that I made to my brother in law as I took his wedding ring off on the operating table. That I'd protect my sister and niece until I die. That they won't get all the shit I had to go through in my life. That's the job, and nothing else matters.

I've had to change those parameters and take better care of myself. Try to have some fun or hobbies in my life, claw my way back to normalcy inch by inch. But I won't lie to you and tell you that I'm a fully "alive" person. I can't fool myself and pretend that. I'm still fixing myself.

In any case Ender. Those years you spent mattered. They lead you to somebody you care about. They gave you strength and definition, identity. The ability to overcome damage. You almost failed, but you didn't, and you're here now because of that.

Quote from: E on December 12, 2020, 11:34:59 AM

Quote from: Ender on December 12, 2020, 10:52:31 AM

"I probably fucked a lot of people up"  is probably the only real thing you've said

Only major lie I've ever told in my life was the one I told here. The state I was in, even then it wasn't justifiable. You don't have to believe anything that I say. But when I say that I was fucked up inside, I mean it. And with all of my tendencies being what they were, that I'm solitary, or that I had miles of armour on me that didn't want to let people in, and that I had all of these mental cycles that I was trapped in. I had to fix it. So I left absolutely everything and I started from zero because in that state that was the only way out that I could see other than trying to kill myself again.

Doesn't make it right, and I'll likely pay for that as long as I'm alive. Apologies can't undo the damage done. I'll be the one that'll have to carry that. Any of you here can and will go about your lives regardless of whether or not I'm in the picture. The only difference now is that all the cards are on the table and out in the open.

All I can ask you is a question. Would you rather live in ignorance to something, or know the truth in its entirety, no matter what it was?

It should go without saying, but I definitely wouldn't have wanted the other option to be your actual death. Of course in glad you're actually alive, and I do prefer knowing.

But I don't know if I can just make myself happy enough about it to overshadow the three years of grief, and the upset of learning it's for nothing

Don't go there. It wasn't three years of nothing. What you felt was valid and real in it's own way. When I get back, I'll tell you why it's not for nothing.

Interesting way to leave, I’ll say

Poor way to leave. Could've done it better. Could've just walked off. But I admittedly didn't have the strength to, since the internet, and by extension here, became sort of a dependant crutch to me. But it caught me in depressive spirals, since all the shit I kept inside tried to bleed out from time to time.

Quiet was the one that had the cancer. And he had a warped sense of humor worse than mine. He suggested that we swap stories. I'd "die," take my bow out, and then have a reason strong enough to disconnect myself entirely, get out and about and fix myself. I didn't particularily agree at the time even if I was collapsing mentally. But I could see the reasoning behind it. The delay in death from cancer would also give me time to say my goodbyes and work the nerve up to pull that plug.

I wouldn't come back to make an alt account if I blocked all my pathways and dropped myself into a moral bind. As far as personal irl friends went, Quiet knew the depth of how fucked I was inside. He spent the last of his lifespan trying to cover my sorry ass and to try and get me some fucking help.

Not a good way to do it, but it worked, I guess. If I had no other options, would've done it again. I'd owe Verbatim an apology though. "I" talked to him a fair bit before being deceased. Fact was, Quiet had my account logins. Did all the writing for me. He needed some company too. I wasn't there all the time for him since I was trying to help cover his medical expenses. No Tru, not good, nor interesting.

Even if it might've been neccessary. Biggest mistake I made in my life on the morals department. I probably fucked a lot of people up badly.

Glad to hear you are still alive.

I earnestly don't know how to respond to that. But I do know that I can't actually really put into words how much it means to see or recognize some names here, even after all this time. As I've told some others. I've lost a lot of people. That there's names here, that there's people here that are alive and (relatively well). It's just...really, really damn nice. I'm trying to recall your name, but I can't bring anything up. I just don't recognize it. I'm sorry in that instance. But thank you for that.

I suppose since it's all out in the open now I may as well just ask here instead of privately; what was the motivation for constructing the narrative of "visiting Sandtrap's grave" when you could've easily just left it at a more generic friend and/or loved one? Mind you, I'm still trying to figure out how to feel about all this.

Before I started my roadtrip, Quiet was the last personal friend of mine to die. I stayed with him through all of it. He didn't die peacefully. He died in fucking agony. And his family was shit too. They didn't want him either. So I did the same thing that I did with my travelling companion, Sarah. I took his ashes to my property, I put down a rock marker for his grave, and I scattered them on the wind.

I mentally imploded after that. I told my family that I needed to just go. And I did. The reason for the narrative is because when I went back there, in a strange way, it was like visiting my own grave. It felt that way for all of my friends. Like a part of me died with them. Quiet especially, because he was a childhood friend. He was like a copy of me, just with his own quirks and fuckups. Sentimental, maybe. Somebody else died when I left that grave. I abandoned every single thing that I was, cut every single tie, and headed out with the intent of dying.

Sorry to bog you down with what will probably be a lot more words. But I've been reflective lately. It's been a really odd couple of days. Somebody else here asked me a question privately which I answered in earnest, but it kind of got a ball rolling a bit. I've just been replaying the events of the last five years over in my head.

What started my batch of nomadic travelling was just mental collapse. I was fighting not to kill myself, fighting the urge to want to die. So I just kind of moved forwards on autopilot for a long time. I did a combination of job hopping and petty thievery to sustain myself. Hopped trains, hitchhiked, and walked. The friend whose ashes I scattered to sea. I met her on the other coastline. I started my journey there. We traveled together through the main provinces of Canada, from British Columbia to Ontario, where she overdosed and died. I couldn't save her. Her family had disowned her. They didn't want her even after authorities contacted them. So I fought through all the legal bullshit and got her ashes for two thousand dollars and two months of absolute fucking insanity working the jobs to pay for it.

I pushed through to quebec and scattered her ashes to sea. Got fucked by the hells angels and the rural quebecers at the trainyard. I walked the entirety of the way back to british columbia. I survived at least three canadian winters in a tent. I spent two of them with my friend. She was a talented street performer. Hippie type deal. I met many more people along the road too. Really, too many to write about. I took shit jobs, and learned basic carpentry and painting, sold myself as a private contractor. I had a lot of bad days. But I had good days too.

Being able to travel with nothing other than what you improvise, even under the threat of starvation because you're constantly broke, was in it's own way very simple. You pull up somewhere nice, and you just...hang out. Explore, take in the sights, meet people, an then go on your way when you're ready.

When I made it back to the british columbia coastline, I stayed for a year and worked my ass off. I bought a truck and a truck camper, saved up some cash, and then decided it was time to go. I drove out to Saskatchewan to pay my respects to my friend's gravesite. I was debating on whether or not to stay, but then the covid bullshit showed up and the borders locked down. As much as I'd like to travel some more, I do have responsibilities here that I won't ever abandon though. My travelling is likely at an end.

You're likely going to ask who I was before I started that five year walkabout. It's a simple answer that's going to trigger a fuck ton of emotions and questions. The honest truth is that I never expected to survive what happened to me, or to make it through my shit, and I never expected to find myself back here. But with recent events over the past few days, I ask myself what kind of person would I like to be? I value absolute honesty. You remember Sandtrap? I'm what's left of that person, at least. Lifetime ago it seems.

I didn't initially want to do this here, but rather than track people down one by one, if there's questions or statements, they can be asked here or in private. I imagine there's a metric fuck ton of catching up to be had. And even though I find apologies hollow since they dispose of guilt rather than fix a shitty act, there's people here I should rightfully apologize to.

Quote from: alphy on December 10, 2020, 10:53:51 AM

the weapons and armor do like really good

wasnt the game originally supposed to come out a few weeks ago?

it's crazy to think it still wont be released for almost an entire year

The game never existed in the first place. The demo we saw was some shitty fan fiction project.

Hey man, MC and Brohammer gay smut fanfics is where it's at. That one where Chief uses his grappling hook is fuckin' lit.

HL:Alyx should get some kind of nod at least. It really pushed the fold on smoothing out things for VR and showing what a properly designed VR game could be.

Quote from: E on December 09, 2020, 10:57:05 PM

Quote from: maverick on December 09, 2020, 10:50:31 PM

lol what

Baseless conjecture on my part. Gotta find some way to pass the time before I get drowsy.

I don’t have an agenda and I’m not really sure what you meant. I just think it’s in a good position to skyrocket in the next several years, like other big tech companies have.

But if you’re wanting to stay away from it because it’s gained meme status then that’s fair.

I'm not really in the ballpark to take risks just yet. I'm composing my profile into two segments. Low risk investments that have proven to be stable for long periods of time, or have been able to tank market crashes. When that base is built up and I have some leeway, then I'll start deciding on taking a look at moves with higher risk.

My theory about all the stock market horror stories you hear is that some people played their hands stupidly. The biggest mistake an investor can make is getting the mentality that they'll be rich overnight. What wins you the stock market is playing the long game. Memes definitely aren't long game.