I was looking at my photobucket and was reminded at where I have been on the net.   I can remember all the way back when I was 12!  Btw for those who don't know I am 27 now.

I started on a popular retail anime site called Tokyo Pop and from there was shown a small anime chat site called Anime_Chat.  I spent from age 12 to age 15 on Anime_Chat it was a great home to me.  Going from age 15 to age 16 I was on the popular mmorpg called Ragnarok Online (RO).  At one point a friend on there introduced me to a private server he was on and I got addicted to that private server.  I even became a GM (Game Master) for a year on that until the owner could no longer host the game and had to shut down.

For a half a year at age 16 I looked for another private server and came to one called XRO.  There I became quite popular and it took me another half a year to become a GM there too.  I became great friends with the owner and when he wanted to recode the game I had him join up with the owner of the previous server I was on.  We totaly redid the game with character species, sub classes, bounty hunter jobs, new towns, housing system, and new dungeons.  It was quite fun to do this!  This lasted until I was 18.  The owner there then lost his computer to a raging father....

Then I found a new game called Mabinogi that was not yet released in the USA.  I joined a guild in the chinese server that had a wonderful english patch for the game.  Yet again becoming very famouse I married the most powerful player in the chinese server which was an english guildsmen.  This lasted until the launch of the English version of Mabinogi.  We did try to migrate to the english version but once it got infected with bots and spammers we all quit the game one by one.  This was around when I was 22 where my computer ended up getting peed on by my old cat and I didn't have a computer until the beginning of 2010.

When I got on I had no friends that I knew online quite lonely I must say.  But I found a little fan made game of the anime series .hack//sign so I joined that.  I loved the community and for over a year I was on that until the owner went mentally insain and stole all the donations and fired all of his staff.  (Lol just a week ago it was shut down).   Once I had to quit that I found vizzed here.


Now that I revealed my internet history how about you all do the same?!

Well, mine isn't quite as lengthy as yours... Or maybe it's longer, but the timeline isn't. My Internet history starts when I was probably 10 and I saw that my computer had Microsoft Frontpage installed on it. I made a crappy little website for a (rather poorly drawn) graphic novel that I was drawing with a friend of mine. I didn't have a scanner or a digital camera at the time, save for my Game Boy Camera, which didn't connect to the computer anyway, so I had to try redrawing everything in MS Paint. It didn't go well... I also didn't know how to get the webpage I made on my computer onto the Internet, so that was a real bummer. I later found a free hosting company and I was able to get my site up there, but I couldn't figure out why my images wouldn't show up when viewed from the web, even though I had uploaded them. (It was because I had direct links to the files on my computer...But C:WindowsMicrosoft%20Frontpageffsite was a legitimate folder!)

1998-2002ish: The Early Years and Online Games.

I eventually got a Yahoo! Mail account, and all that that comes with. I had IM, access to chatrooms, and, best of all, Yahoo! Games. I was found lurking the Yahoo! Chess rooms quite often, and actually got a pretty good rating on their ladder! I still have it, and I no longer play on Yahoo because I'm not as good as I used to be. I met various friends that I kept for a few years on Yahoo, one of them eventually leading into a three year internet relationship. It was destined to fail, though, we were both thirteen (And consequently, sixteen when we broke up) and she was in Washing state, I in Florida. It was impossible, and good of it, we're still friends but totally incompatible. We hardly even talk anymore--So don't worry about it, KG.

Some time later, one of my uncles told me he was into designing websites, and had even made one for his collectibles business. He gave me a book that I used to learn HTML, and around the same time I learned of Geocities, which was by then owned by Yahoo. I started my first real website which pretty much just contained links to other sites I liked and some stolen anime artwork that I thought looked neat. For years I worked on this stupid site with no real purpose, except linking to friend's sites and what not. It was not good.

Around the same time, I discovered a neat online game called the Alien Adoption Agency. It was this really weird game that was basically just raising this alien... I don't really remember much about it, except that I got super involved in it for a few months. I was also sort of an unscrupulous player, tricking people into giving me their passwords so I could steal their items and money... What a jerk. At some point the server went down for a couple weeks, and the owner changed the layout of a lot of things during that time. I just couldn't get into it.

One day, I did a search for free online games. Now, as we all know, this can be a very dangerous search term, and I probably got my share of viruses from it, but I was probably 12 or something at the time, so it didn't really matter to me. I found various MUDs--which were still popular at the time--that I didn't much care for, and one very interesting game, Well of Souls. I bummed around that game, and it's sister game Arcadia for about a year before losing interest. In the years that followed, I would always have Well of Souls and Arcadia installed, and I'd pop into the games occasionally, but I never really got all that into it.

When it came to pass that my younger sister was introduced to Neopets. Now, I looked at this game and thought it was completely lame. I had real pets, why would I want some kind of crazy griffon like creature that I have to feed? But then I saw her playing some of the games on the site and got hooked myself. I actually had quite the good business of buying and selling codestones, and eventually made over a million neopoints. I no longer remember how I did it, but I suspect it had something to do with stealing. You see, I went back to my old habits from AlienAA, and turned my Geocities site into one claiming to be from a disgruntled ex-neopets employee. I told everyone that I knew of a super secret coding exploit that could get them thousands of Neopoints and codestones and everything they wanted if they just left their username and password on my guestbook. The crazy thing is that it actually worked! At one point I went so far as to completely copy the Neopets layout, and if you clicked any links it just took you to a page saying you weren't logged in. Looking back, it was all very unprofessional looking, but what's surprising is that a friend of mine had the same scam going, but his was just some black text on a white background saying in so many words, "free neopoints". The grammar was terrible and the spelling sucked, and he still raked in way more passwords than I ever did.

I eventually stopped my terrible dealings and became an upstanding member of the Neopian society, even donating Neopoints and codestones to new players, sort of as a way of retribution I guess. I even joined a guild and became one of the top-ranking officials in it, basically being in charge of the guild store. Oh and what a guild it was! In case anyone is wondering, it was called the Green Sand Guild, and we... Collected bottles of green sand. Your ranking in the member list was actually determined by how many bottles of green sand you had in your shop... But it was more the people that made it fun! The owner was actually quite proficient in PHP and made a bunch of games for it and it had it's own points system which could be used to buy items from the "shop" at a discount, and could even be traded in to the owner for Neopoints. Eventually she disappeared from the internet, and everyone lost interest in the guild... No longer a thief, and without a guild to impress, I sort of lost interest in playing for years...

2002ish-2003ish: In which our hero discovers message boards and web comics.

Now is the part where my history actually starts to get exciting. For you see, whilst I was in my guild on Neopets, I met quite a few friends that only used AIM for communication, and then came my introduction to the multiple IM protocols on the Internet. I signed up for what was then still an MSN account for MSN messenger, kept my Yahoo account, and got an AIM name. I actually had to have a friend set it up for me, since for some reason I kept getting booted out of the set-up process. That's my why AIM name is EVILAnm. He said it's because I'm an "evil a**--Never Mind." Eventually my computer became so terrible that this became my primary means of communication, so I have a certain affinity for it. Especially because prior to AIM Triton, AIM was the only chat program that never crashed on me.

So back to the interesting part... I somehow discovered the magic of emulators, and was really big into Super NES emulation, though I never really joined any communities for it. But, during that time, for some reason, I got huge into Metroid. For about a year, it was my favorite video game, and I went to that new-fangled Google machine and did a search for some Metroid related websites. I found Metroid DB, which was then hosted on GameSpy or IGN or something like that, and it had a link to a silly little Metroid sprite comic called Planet Zebeth. It is actually still running to this day, though I no longer read it. But, what's important is that it finally got me into Web Comics! Now, this comic had a sub-forum on a message board that is still around but never has any posts these days, but back in 2002-2003 it was a really active, booming place. It was not the first message board I had ever joined, but it was the first one I actually posted at. I loved it. Looking back, I can see that I was quite a n00b, but at least I tried to spell correctly, and tried to be a good member. I kind of get the impression that I wasn't well like, though, but I don't blame anyone. I wouldn't like me if I met my 14-year-old self either. I had a few sprite comics at the time that were truly awful. The first was supposed to be a tie-in with Planet Zebeth starring Mario and Mega Man for some reason. I didn't even really like Mega Man at the time, but it was kind of stylish to put him in web comics I guess. Another sprite comic I made was based on the Super NES game "Troddlers", which is sort of like Lemmings. Me and a friend stayed up all night playing it once and for some reason thought it would make a good comic strip--It didn't. I eventually quit the comic business for good. The forum eventually made a sister site that was sort of like BuzzComix (Does anyone here even remember that?). There were a lot of comics that I liked reading from that, and if anyone has read any of these, I would be surprised: I read Screw these Comics, Planet Zebeth, For Pete's Sake, and my favorite was for years Minimalist Stick Figure Theatre. It was a pretty absurd and elitist comic, and only like six people read it. I only became friends with one of them, but we'll get to that in a little bit.

Anyway, there were some server issues, the database was deleted and a lot of internets drama occurred. Lots of members leaving, fights, and what not. I thought it was lame, so I left. I floated around from various sites for a while, never really becoming finding anything I liked too much, but I read a lot of web comics at the time, more popular ones that those I just mentioned.

2003-2004

Now I was in my sophomore year of high school, and a pretty awkward guy when my parents told me we'd be moving to a different state. This is important because when we moved, my parents didn't want me going to the high school where we lived because it was a really bad neighborhood. So my social life pretty much disappeared and my few spatterings of friends on the Internet were all I had. I became a very boring person, and this would be about when my Inernets girlfriend that I mentioned earlier broke up with me.

October 2004: The Rom-Source Saga

So I didn't go to school, didn't have a job, and didn't do anything at all except watch TechTV. But my friend from Minimalist Stick Figure Theatre convinced me to join Xanga... Got what an annoying little wanker I was at that time. I had like two friends from that site that I never talked to. It was actually a pretty bleak time in my life, but then my friend from AlienAA and Neopets showed me a site where I could get GBA ROMs called Rom-Source.com (Now romsource.us). At the time, Visual Boy Advance had just come out (I think), so ROMs were pretty hard to come by, but this site had them all! It had a system sort of similar to Vizzed, in that you needed site currency (Called Gil) to download ROMs. But you actually got to download them, instead of just renting them.

Around the time I joined, the site got an IRC channel, and since I was in there all day, I eventually became an operator in there, and then a global on the forum, and finally an admin. I felt like I was pretty hot zebra, and I was on the site all day, every day. The IRC was never very popular, with only about 4-6 active users in it, but it was still a lot of fun for me. I made a lot of good friends during this time, and enjoyed the site very much.

But, as with all sites, some drama occurred because there were a lot of admins and globals who were inactive, and one of the other admins decided to just prune a lot of them. This caused a huge backlash in the community, but we actually didn't loose that many members at the time. I decided to step down as an admin, but kept Ops in the IRC channel. I sort of stopped posting and eventually moved back down to Florida to live with my grandfather. I didn't have stable internet access, so the IRC sort of died during this time. I'm not exactly sure how long I lived with him, probably around six to eight months, before my mom decided that she didn't like living a state away from me, so I moved back in with them and got a job. I went right back into posting at Rom-Source, and found to my horror...

Sometime in 2005...

The IRC channel was gone! The original owner lost interest due to inactivity, and eventually the whole thing died out, so I moved it to a new server and became the owner. Consequently, I took on a much more active role in the development of the channel, eventually putting in a bot. I learned a lot of mIRC code and put a lot of custom content into the bot, including little trivia games, the ability to search Google, and even to pick up on certain words and have funny duped conversations. I named it Umi-San and gave him personality, and then I coded a similar bot for a friend, named Roll-Chan. He didn't do much to her, but I coded a little bit of a love-hate relationship between the two, and we'd stage arguments between them. The IRC got much more popular during this time. We also had little competitions between the users to see who would type the most over the course of the week and what not. There were no stakes in it, just boasting rights. The last stats update I ever did is still on the web somewhere, and I look at it and read the quotes from it occasionally.

One of my best friends from Rom-Source, called CJ, was big into Bob and George, and was convinced that he wanted a web comic based on his adventures in the forums and IRC. You see, for some ungodly reason, we treated Rom-Source as a city... I don't know, it was weird. Anyway, since I was actually good at making sprite comics (Just bad at writing) we decided to team up and make a web comic for everyone to read! It was sort of funny, but sort of bad. The original comics that I made are still in his Photobucket or my Photobucket somewhere...

Eventually there was some more drama on the site, and I sort of became disenheartened by it I was totally done with everyone and everything there and started looking for a new forum. I eventually settled into the Club Nintendo forums as Nylar, but I didn't stay there long before the call of Rom-Source brought me back.

April 2005: The Protoman Homepage, KG, And More Rom-Source Stuff

In any case, because he was so into Bob and George, he was also into Mega Man in general--Or maybe it was the other way around. In any case, he found a site which hosted that old Mega Man cartoon to watch. Called The Protoman Homepage, it featured a very small site with a lot of video game music, and the Mega Man cartoon, and most of all, a forum. I joined, and met a bunch of friends, one of them being KG! We became firm friends added each other on MSN almost instantly. She will tell you we met on Mega Man the Legend, another forum we were both on around the same time, but I know it was really on MSN, and the first time I ever saw her post was on The Protoman Homepage, because I wasn't even a member of Mega Man the Legend yet!

However it happened, it was a very important moment in time for me--though I wouldn't realize it until years later. The Protman Homepage was actually a small forum, with probably a core of 10 active posters, and probably 20-30 sporadic posters to add in filler. But those ten of us were fiercely loyal to the site, and an extremely tight-knit group. For such a small forum, it exploded with activity for almost a year.

At the same time Rom-Source had more drama now, and fewer members. There was also a lot of legal pressure on the site because if its ROM hosting. It kept getting cease and desists and servers kept dropping the site, deleting backups and knocking it around. It went from Rom-source.com, to rom-source.us, to romsource.net, and finally to where it resides now at romsource.us. But it would sometimes be months between when it was taken down and put back up. The IRC went strong for a while, but eventually due to Facebook and MSN and the lack of a main site to tie it together, everyone lost interest. Umi-San and Roll-Chan were quietly buried, and life rolled on...

I invited a few friends to the Protoman Homepage, and for a time it was actually quite a booming little ecosystem. But then Capcom sent a cease and desist for the cartoons, and the site was down for about a month. When it came back, those ten core members came back to posting up a storm, but we had lost pretty much everyone else. It didn't really matter to us, though. We just kept posting as if nothing had ever happened, but without the draw of the cartoons, new members were few and far between--mostly referrals from other forums.

CJ, who I mentioned earlier as having been wanting to make a comic, decided to open his own forum on InvisionFree for his comic. He got someone else to sprite it because I was totally done with it, and this site was pretty barren for a couple months until...

2005-2006: Protoman's Drama and the birth of the CJF Network

There was a huge mess at the Protoman Homepage. I don't really want to get into it, but that core of ten users split. It was a very rough time because for the ten of us, we didn't really have any sort of social life, and the Protoman Homepage was actually like a family. But the betrayal from it ended up destroying the site. Everyone who was there at the time stopped posting. the site was (And has been ever since) dead.

Somehow, a couple of the core users from the Protoman Homepage made it to CJ's forum. He even got a few of the other members that weren't as crucial to the forum, and some new faces. It was actually a pretty decent little community springing up. A few other members started posting their own sprite comics, and their stories, and the site was changed to the CJ and Friends Network. I was starting college around this time, and had no interest in making friends other than those I already knew on my little web site. I was an admin on this site, because I was the only person there who had any knowledge of... Well anything. I didn't know much PHP but you don't really need to on InvisionFree, but I did know my way around HTML and CSS, so I was pretty much the web-master of the site. I had actually used some sort of trickery to make the posts where he put his comic look like an actual website. Sort of. It was pretty interesting though, I don’t know. But there was one other admin that I just could not get along with. We bumped heads on a nigh constant basis, but we always stayed civil until one RP... I don’t know why, but tensions flared there for a while... But we got over it.

Then, the worst thing that could ever happen did... CJ started posting at a different forum. He even went so far as to stop posting on his forum, and invited everyone to his new place. This wouldn't have been so bad, but the other forum was based around a Sonic sprite comic. Sonic fans...

2006-2007: 4Chan and EchoNet... The Bane of my Existence

Before I get into the terrible things that happened, first let me say that on November 29th, 2006 I asked KG to go Internets-steady with me. It was wonderful! But that's another whole story...

This new site that CJ had been going to was called EchoWorld, and it was mostly a bunch of British 12 year olds, but it was much more active that the CJF Network forums, so everyone sort of migrated over there. I did not get along with anyone here. I also started reading and posting on 4chan a lot, and was sort of a dick. There was another RP headed up by the admin I didn’t get along with and... It was the biggest flame-war I’d ever been involved in. Nearly everyone stayed out of it, but those who did get involved did so because the other guy poisoned their minds against me. I became a really terrible troll, with a constant 100% warn level that I wore as a badge of honor. Nobody at the site liked me, and even a few friends I’d had since back at Rom-Source stopped talking to me. It was pretty terrible, and eventually I got banned for a while. For the first time ever, I had been banned from a forum, but I didn’t care, I had 4chan.

That didn’t last long, though. After that whole Fox expose on 4chan and the flood of new script kiddies it brought, I came to loathe the site, and chans in general.

Since CJF had more users than EchoWorld, there was eventually an agreement to make all of the admins and mods from CJF into the same on EchoWorld, and to rename the site EchoNet. All of the admins and users didn’t really know how to do it, so CJ asked me if I could help. Not having any forums to go to, I agreed and joined the forum again. I left my old account as banned because I had gotten a pretty bad reputation, and if everyone saw that I was an admin, it would not be a good thing, especially with members unsure about the whole merger thing.

I was now known as the “Secret Administrator” and tasked with merging member profiles, adding together post-counts and changing registration dates to match whichever was earlier and what-not. I created new images for the site and eventually regained the trust of the users. After some time I unbanned my original account and let everyone know who I was, and went back to being just a regular member. I was some-what grudgingly accepted and I continued to post for a time.

My computer broke sometime in 2007, and I pretty much dropped off the face of the Internet for three years. I still posted on Echonet through the use of my parent’s computer and at school, but not as much as I had previously. But then I did something that I still regret to this day...

The Destruction of EchoNet and the Reason I Have No Friends ~or~ How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

To this day, only myself and two other people know how I got CJ’s password, and I will never tell anyone else because it would betray the person who gave it to me, and destroy his friendship with CJ. But I was given his password through a rather strange series of events, and took over his account on EchoNet. I swiftly changed his login credentials and account settings so that he could not regain his account, and I proceeded to wreak havoc. I deleted every forum and every post in the forum, banning most of the users, and opened a new forum to discuss my hostile takeover.

The users were outraged, and eventually CJ DID get his account back, and IP banned me from the site. Of course, something like that wouldn’t stop me, and I kept joining the site under false names and and getting to know the member base, only to reveal that it was actually me! I eventually told them that they would have to defeat my eight robot masters and I would leave them alone. Of course, my plan was always to have them beat my robot masters (Which were really just alt-accounts I had) and then I would do one last, truly awful thing to the site, and leave them alone forever. It was all a huge joke to me. But I destroyed this community. They had to keep moving around because I would continually find their new hiding spot, begin posting and wreck everything for them. It got so bad that they eventually made it so difficult to find the site and to register a new account that people just stopped coming. They kept trying until 2010, and even though I had long since stopped following the site and causing trouble, they kept the same policies of secrecy and the difficulty of registering that the community just collapsed. I’ve tried to make amends with them for years, but most of the users won’t even talk to me any more.

Present Day...

Between 2008 and 2010, I didn’t get on the Internet a lot. I actually didn’t do much of anything. I had lost my job, was out of school, and me and KG lived with first my parents, then hers. We didn’t have jobs or a good computer. Mine was broken, hers was ancient and a chore to use, and I only had a netbook that was kind of a pain to use. Between 2009 and 2010 KG and I had finally moved out on our own and I had a job at an outgoing call center. She didn’t, though, so we didn’t have a lot of money, and thus no Internet. But we did live near someone who didn’t secure their wi-fi, and on some days we could get a pretty good connection. Still, since my name was dirt with everyone I knew, I didn’t really go to any sites that often, except a few chans that I didn’t much care for.

Eventually, I got a better job, we moved into a cheaper place, and we were able to afford a stable Internet connection. I still didn’t go to any forums, but a few of my old friends started talking to me through email and Facebook again. They kept me blocked on instant messangers (Even still) but we were talking, and that was what mattered. One of them bought me Team Fortress and I started playing that with him and a few of his friends. But still no forum to occupy my time.

I joined the in October 2010, so obviously I didn’t have any access to the Internet whilst in basic combat training, or advanced individual training. When I got out, and was sent to my duty station, I got my computer set up just how I liked it, and started playing computer games more with the two friends who would talk to me. One of them was Sonic Generations, which has a lot of glitches in the PC version. I was searching for solutions to the controller problems when I found a link to Vizzed. I noticed it was running acmlmboard--a software I actually really like for forums, and saw it was pretty active. Nobody here knew me, and I was able to start fresh.

And now you know. Vizzed has filled a void in my social life that has been empty since I made a mistake back in 2007. Thank you, every one of you. Thank you.

*clap clap clap*

A touching story, Lazlo Falconi:
I hadn't even known all that much about your history, and certainly not in that much detail.

But, if I may, my turn.




In Which I Have No Friends
I was born into a family of five. A Father who cared for all and kept his children safe a sheltered, a Mother who never really seemed to care all that much, an overbearing older Brother who often bullied me (we get along much better now as adults), a middle-child Sister who I cared for much more in later years, especially when she had a daughter, and then, the oft-called "Baby of the family";

Me.

Now, I was not a social person to begin with. Even today, when I have most of the intricacies of socializing figured out, it's not something that really appeals to me. Back as a child, when books, TV shows and video games were amazing, but people were always mean to me, I kept to myself pretty much all the time. I had an unfortunate combination of Tourette's Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Verbal and physical tics, combined with poor focus on school led to many bullies, jerks, jocks and just plain nasty people.

This started in kindergarten, and continued until high school.

My parents had a farm in the country, a fair distance from town, so at least at home I was safe from the majority of bullies. My Brother was still not very kind, my Sister and Mother ambivalent at best, but there were books, there was a forest outside, an IBM Aptiva in the basement, and I had a hearty imagination.

Speaking of that Aptiva; Oh, the joys that old machine has given me. Countless DOS games did I play. Master of Orion, Descent, Wing Commander, Liero, Civilization, One Must Fall, my god, too many to count... And many things did I write. That computer sustained me through many dark times.
Rest in peace, my dear old friend. I still love and miss you.






In Which I Discover the Internet
So you can imagine, then, what joy there was to be had when my parents finally got internet when I was in grade 9. (in 2003, mind) Quite late in the game compared to many, but the joys of Gamefaqs alone was quite great. I couldn't do much else on the Internet, as it was Dial Up. The fastest it ever went was a whopping 3 kilobytes per second. Just before that, though, my parents sprung for a new computer. Pathetic even for its day, it was still Windows XP.
Some of the older hands among us may remember Windows 3.1, and DOS. Imagine, if you will, using only those two operating systems for near on ten years, and then first seeing Windows XP. The shock and awe was amazing. Oh, dat start menu.

I soon out about emulation. Searching for information on them, I came across a site by the name of Emureactor. It's gone through several owners since, I think it's down these days, but for the first time, I met kindred spirits.

See, my home town was largely a farming town. That my high school had a computer lab was amazing. Fellow people that liked and enjoyed video games were nonexistant. (to my perspective, at least) But here on the Internet, there were many like me! Outcasts, nerds, friendly people... Oh, the joys! I didn't truly connect with more than a few, but I was a liked and respected member of the community. Some of the strange posting habits I had (such as, when referring to the Genesis game Gunstar Heroes, I would spell it in all caps) caught on with others, and times were.... Looking up!

One among them I clicked well with. His name was Galda, and since I was Canadian, and he lived in Alaska, we had a kindship that many of the primarily European members didn't. We both knew the harshness of winter all too well, and through that (and some very similar tastes in games), we bonded into close friends. I know not where he is these days.

Curious to learn more about this here Internet, and with Emureactor still being a fairly slow forum, I took to the search engines. I had taken a liking to the Megaman games, and searched around for my favourite character from that series; Protoman.

I found a place named The Protoman Homepage.






In Which I Make Friends, In More Ways Than One.
I joined the forum that was on there not long after it was first made. Being one of the first five people who signed up on the place that stuck around, not counting the Administrator, I became very active there.

But I wanted it to be more active.

And so I... I created people. People who signed up on the forum, who said they were friends of mine from school. I had none, in truth, so these people I made seemed like a nice fantasy.

I... Got carried away with them. I started with one by the name of Broom, who was a calm, collected and nice guy with a penchant for reversing words. After a while, I introduced a girlfriend for him, Kary, whom was a strong-willed and bodied gal with quite a temper and was a long-time friend of mine. Soon after was.... sigh.... Kagemitsu, a mute guy, impeccably nice and friend to all. Then there was Lacus, a poor girl living with abusive parents who took solace with my company and the friends I had. After her parents essentially disowned her, she was adopted into my family as a little sister.

There were a few others I introduced over time, but those were the ones that featured most prominently. (though Kary's little sister Iris came up a little)

Right amongst the middle of this, along came a Lazlo Falconi. Not long after, along came a KG. We all became fast friends.

After a few months of posting on the Protoman Homepage (hereafter referred to as TPH) forum with these people, and talking as them on MSN, I brought in another. By the name of Minion, he was a young 12 year old boy with a liking to archiving things. Writing down information into a small databank he always had on him and referencing it constantly. Personality wise, he wasn't the most interesting, but I devoted a whole paragraph to him mainly for the fact that he's the only one of those personalities that I tap into at times; in that he's a regular character in a story setting that I use fairly often. (but does this paragraph slight Lacus, who had by far the most emotional weight amongst them all?)

For a few months, this carried on 'nicely'. This fantasy I'd made was beginning to feel real to me, and I was becoming to love these people and the way they interacted with everyone on TPH. With a simple switch of a font colour on MSN, I could go from talking as one person to another, having whole back and forth conversations with 'myself', and the members of TPH, through many did I talk to on MSN, watching haplessly, often in laughter.

But I realized it couldn't go on forever. I didn't want to hurt and offend these very real people who I talked to across the Internet. They were the only friends I had, and I didn't want them to dislike me, oust me, or anything of that sort, once it was inevitably revealed that these people who were my 'IRL friends' weren't even actual existing people.

So, I first said that Broom, who was a year older than me, graduated and got a job in a distant town. Poor Kary, who had to live so far away from her one and only. But, we dealt. We 'lived on'.

But then.... I killed Kagemitsu.






In Which I Make Mistakes
The friend who never said a word, was our dearest friend, the nicest of them all, and... I had him fall down a flight of stairs.

Ye gods, I regret that...

But, we dealt. We 'lived' on.

Some time later, summer came along. School was out for most, but due to my slipping grades, I had been signed up for summer school. How was I to explain not having anyone around for many hours at a time...?

Solution! We all went camping for a month, to return on weekends!
Oh, and we had a camp site beside someone who had satellite internet, that he let us use when he wasn't. He was still working, so during the day times, he didn't let us use it. (hence why I was gone while at summer school), and during the nights and mornings all was well.

I have no idea why, but I introduced another. By the name of Faris, she was on a camping trip with her friends. Being interested in computers but not having one, she found my troupe with their Gameboys and laptops and other sumsuch. We became fast friends, and she soon preferred us over the friends she came with.

....But then I killed Lacus.

In respects to Mr. Falconi, I shall make this one brief.

There was a river by our campsite, and a small cliff right beside it that was excellent for diving. While Kary and myself were fearless in our dives off it, Lacus was hesitant. Then, she tried it.... And landed in a shallow region.

She did not make it to a hospital.

I regret it doing that so much...






In Which My Downfall Began
But, we dealt. We 'lived on'.

The real friends I had, the ones on the other side of the silicon layer, helped me to feel better. The creations I'd made began feeling so real that a loss of Lacus made me feel very sad. (in those days, KG in particular made me feel better. I never did give proper thanks...)

Having a new 'friend' around eased our pains as well. Faris proved popular on both sides of reality, getting along with many.

Oh, but how silly I was. Too late had I realized that I had been trying to suppress this part of me. I was tired of lying, making stories that people believed were real. I knew I would end up hurting people, and in my young mind, I was trying to end the facade as harmlessly as possible.

Oh, the follies of youth.

I must apologize, again, to Mr. Falconi. He and 'Faris' had grown... close.

And then I killed Faris.

An ex of hers from school found her on the street and raped her. She fled to my home, where she felt safe. Not long after, we found she was pregnant. The rage 'we' felt for this 'bastard' was overwhelming.

Then, weeks or so later, he found her again, and this time killed her.

At this point, I wasn't fooling anybody.

An inquisition of sorts was made against me by the denizens of TPH. The people that were my very real friends suspected my every word. After days of being questioned and grilled, I confessed.

I made a new thread on TPH, and bore my sins to the people. Many weren't shocked, many were, a surprising many still spoke to me after. But many still didn't.

I lost many friends that day, whom of which I still miss. Trigger, a prominent denizen of TPH, had grown rather close to Kary and Lacus. He was a hilarious man, and I miss his wit)

I had also lost a fantasy of which I... sickly enjoyed. Not the killing parts, but the happiness that seemed real after a time with Kary, Broom, Lacus, Minion, Faris.... I had wished they were real with all my heart in those days. But suddenly, in one fell swoop, they were gone.


But, I dealt. I lived on.






Stay tuned for Part 2 of Argus' Swift's overly emotional retrospectives, coming soon!

Argus Swift : I want you to know this is internet history not life history ok.  You don't have to edit your post, but please read the full description of the thread before posting.

Lol @ life story.
=p
I have no idea how you 2 know exactly what and when you started using sites.
I guess around 2004 i started using youtube, but i had no pc so i only used it at friends or when my mum wasnt using her laptop (rare)
2007 i bought a ps3 on launch, which was great because finally i could use the internet whenever i wanted.
I started playing miniclip games the next year and just visiting random sites otherwise.
In about 09 i then started using addicting games,and switched to hotmail from aol.
Then for the better part of a year i had no net as our fail providers failed to connect our new house so we switched to orange.
In the random years after i started using facebook, last year i signed up to vizzed and i switched from hotmail to gmail.
The end.

(2007-2008)Old forum I modded ---> (2009- current)Vizzed

Youtube, google, and all that stuff goes in between but since almost everyone uses them I'll just mention the honorable

But, yeah, those are the only two I can remember

I'm sure there was other stuff, but that's what comes to mind.

RequiemHaunt : I understand why you would say that, but knowing Argus (he's kind of like me) the events in the real life have always had a pretty direct connection with the events of our online identities. That's the sort of thing that happens when you are a reclusive shut-in loner loser nerdlinger. Erm... No offense, Swift, I was talking about myself.

RequiemHaunt : That has a lot to do with his Internet history. It defined the sites he went to and the internet friends he made. Does it really matter it's not exactly like yours? Let him post what he feels is relevant.

RequiemHaunt : I did read the thread; beginning to end, before posting. I thought that a small dose of reality will give context and spice to the 'virtual'.

Lazlo Falconi : KG: Thanks guys. =)


PART 2 IN PROGRESS.....

Ok what ever I just didn't see much internet history lol.  I'll just leave this thread for the fishies.  Have fun you all~   

I have a er, long - short story, depends on what your story is about, compared to all of yours probably.

In the beginning...
About September of 2010, it wasn't too long after I switched from dialup to cable. Now I can go around the internet more and watch youtube videos, etc. I started to watch some LPs and play some games on my PS2 and such, and I started to wonder, "Hey, I wonder if I could make LPs? Maybe I can commentate on some." So I did, I regged an account on youtube right here: http://youtube.com/user/pacman1755 and that began the age of Pacman1755 in the internet.

I later made my first ever video or LP if you will that was called Let's play the game: the game part 1 (first walkthrough). It wasn't the best since I used a Karaoke microphone instead an official microphone for a computer later on. No audio, I was a noob of the internet with no real subscribers or anything, then I met user NANOShorts and he helped me a lot in my early stages of my career on youtube and eventually...became my first subscriber ever, and he pretty much became my mentor.


The Introduction of Vizzed
Around December of 2010 I found this site called vizzed.com and I started playing the RGR as a guest for a bit. On December 12th, 2010, I decided to make my FIRST account on vizzed right here. I started to play a lot of RGR, not really paying attention to the forum or the RTR, but once I regged, I did notice a chat room, I never went to a chat room before at all, so I went there. I met user hnnn, who later became my first friend on the board, then I later met DarkHyren, legacyme3, alexanyways, jmc1097, crazycatpup, the_casualty, SunFlowerGaming, MegaRevolution1, dkmec20, Galacta, and so many more friends on the board. Sadly, nearly 50% of my first friends turned to the inactive side, the left the board side, or even the permabanned side! That's probably the negative side of the forum, but later I started my way up the board on February with this as my first post and later my "official" introduction thread

In May of 2011, was the doomed day of Vizzed board, a lot of user's profiles were deleted...including mine. So I reregged, and started all. over. again. After I hit 1000 posts even. That really sucked for me, that took me 3 months to get it, but it was no real loss since when I started over, it took me only 28 days to get back to where I was again.

My Exploration to beyond the boarders
At times like this, I got bored with the board (no pun intended) and started searching for more interesting boards, so I went hunting. I have found Xeogaming forums, pokefarm, the Jul forums, Facebook, Twitter, and probably the bigger discovery, the ICG forums.

The ICG forums I was most active in. Status today: It died.

Jul Forums I was...eh, not really that active in. Status: Was banned for losing my password, but later getting unbanned and not active.

Pokefarm I only joined for the farms, not the forum itself. Status: Inactive

Xeogaming forums I am rarely on. Status today: Inactive.

My Reign as RGR Staff
At August of 2011, which was my best year of vizzed, this month, I became a VCS winnner, and I became an official RGR Staff member, for reviewing games. It took me 8 or 9 months to get there, I am finally there, I was so happy...but I had no idea what was in store for me later in the month. Around the end of the month about the 28th, I got fired from the job and banned for 3 days for plagiarism. I had some help with Wikipedia and forgot to put them as a credit. The month turned from good to bad, like that.

Present Day
Today, I am feeling fine on where I am right now, and I have applied to get another staff position about 5 months later. As Local Moderator. I had some good sides and some bad sides as well, we have met some new faces, and I ranked in on the Vizzed Awards 2011 for numberous titles, only for 3rd place

To put it as this: I am happy with what I have right now, with my friends by my side both in real life, and in vizzed. I couldn't ask for anything else.

I have a relatively short internet history, since I've never really been big on spending my time on the internet as opposed to actively playing sports or playing video games. But lately I've gotten more into spending a lot of time online.

It all started posting stuff on ESPN comment sections. We would have a lot of fun comments going back and forth with witty jokes that had essentially nothing to do with the topic at hand. It was a great way to waste time.

Next I moved on to my first forum. It was the forums on Xbox.com. I spent a substantial amount of time trying to help other people with problems that they had after someone had done the same for me. I felt it was only fair for me to give back to the community after I had received that kind of help, especially since their customer support is known for being terrible. It was a lot of fun to waste time helping people on there and talking about various games in the other sections of the forum as well. It was the first website that I spent more than 5 hours in one day on.

After that I moved on to Yahoo Answers. It was pretty much the same kind of thing. Most of the time I spent on there was either making joke questions or joke answers. Occasionally I would seriously answer questions in the Religion section as well as in the Homework section (particularly math).

Then I stumbled upon Vizzed. I had been playing a lot of Tecmo Super Bowl 3 on my computer during my downtime in my freshman year at college, but then I reset my hard drive because my computer had been cluttered by all kinds of programs and it was just easier than hand selecting what to uninstall. I wanted to play all my ROMs again, especially TSB, but I didn't want to redownload them all. So I did some google searches and, as I said, stumbled on this site. At first I was really suspicious; the idea of having to download something to play games didn't sit too well with me. It seemed like something that could very well have been illegal or malicious. So I went back to Yahoo Answers and saw that everyone who asked about the site was told that it was safe. I went ahead and took my chances, and certainly don't regret. While I haven't been a very active poster in one plus year of being a member, reading other people's posts and playing games has entertained me for many hours.

Finally, I became a forum member on the Project Zomboid website. I post about as regularly there as I do here, again spending most of my time reading what others have to say. I enjoy the level of interaction between the developers and the consumers. And I like how they're expanding the ability to mod the game well before its planned release date, and how they're helping the community understand how modding will work and what will be possible.

I won't bother talking about social websites, like Facebook, because those have never been very important to me.

AAAAAND NOW.... PART 2!!





In Which I Find Love
We last left off with the conclusion of a great turmoil.

What I didn't mention was that I had found a wonderful girl. Or, I should say, KG did, and then brought her to TPH.

Within a few conversations, we had hit it off wonderfully. Her and I chatted as if we'd known each other for years. I'd had many female e-friends before, but THIS gal was somethin' else. Even though, looking at the grand scheme, we didn't share all that many things in common, but our personalities meshed ever-so-wonderfully.

After a very short time (looking back as an adult, yeesh), we began dating. I was the happiest man in the world.

....However, this all happened about a month before the inquisition. So you can imagine, then, how she felt once that big grand mess was revealed.

Not well.

We split ways, and she moved on to other people. I.... didn't. For three years afterwards, I still loved her. Thoughts of her when I was sad calmed me, and we remained friends, so even just conversations with her were heartening. At some points along the line, I tried to fool myself by thinking I liked a different girl, but that never stuck. Less than a week after my thoughts and heart would simply return to her.

But I digress.





In Which Migrations Occurs
I stayed on TPH after the Inquisition. Posts still occured, and times weren't all that bad, but the original spark that had been there previously was just gone. It didn't feel like the home and safe haven it had before. At least, not to me. My guilty conscience is likely to blame for that.
Thankfully, though, not long after all that hullabaloo did a new member join TPH; by the name of CJ.

He seemed a cool guy. RP'd in every post and didn't afraid of anything. I seemed to get along with him, and times looked up. (If I recall right, a few other members from the Romsource place Lazlo mentioned had headed over to here as well. I could be wrong, though)
Then, CJ said that he was starting up his own forum. This seemed like good timing; a chance to 'start fresh', so to say. Even though a large portion of the CJ and Friends Network (hereafter referred to as CJF) were immigrants from TPH, it still felt good. I didn't feel as bad about my past disgressions here.

Plus, there was one other benefit to CJF that TPH never had. CJF had been built from the ground up as a place to showcase the creations of its users. Large and regular contributions were given prominent links around the banner, to allow easy access to them.

There was also a very well-used RP board.

This was a period of time that my quality of writing swelled. I wrote many stories, I showcased them on CJF. Many RP's were started, and I participated in nearly all of them with great gusto. Looking at the writing I had made when I first joined CJF and when that place had run its course, my writing was of much higher caliber than before.

I suppose I should find CJ and thank him for those opportunities. It honestly did really help me.

While I don't think I made all that many new friends at CJF, it certainly cemented old ones. The times had there were a happy one indeed. After a while, it hardly seemed like I had ever made false identities at all.

Good times...





 
...I can't seem to keep a steady train of thought tonight.

Part 3 to come...

Actually, if Requiem says that posts are not what the thread was made to be like, then continuing to post as such can be considered spam posting. Requiem made the thread, so she has the only say in what the topic is. Rules say that when you post in a thread, you must post pertaining to the topic of the thread. So stick to what requiem said is the meaning of the thread, and don't tell her not to tell others what to post here. It is her thread, so she has the right to do so.

You know what? Before Vizzed, my Internet history was very, very limited. Before Vizzed, I only ever used Youtube just to watch videos.

The first time I really started getting addicted towards the computer was when I discovered this site (the name slips my mind right now, will edit in later) to play 8-bit games. This was about 3 years ago, and it was the first time I actually played an 8-bit game. Actually, I probably started playing these games when I was a kid, but the only memories I have of ever playing one was a cartridge (probably broken) of Super Mario Bros. 2, the American version, that I still own today. Anyways, my first 8-bit game was the original Mega Man. And it was hard, but awesome. Now I can clear it on one life easily. =3 Anyways, I started playing the entire NES collection of Mega Man games, then Mario, Castlevania, etc.

But the thing is, I wanted to play the old Pokemon games. The website had them, but for some reason there was no sound, and you couldn't even save. So I did some searching on Google, typing in "play pokemon blue." It was at that moment when I noticed Vizzed. The z's in the name was enough to convince me to click on it. That was in October 2009. I discovered the RGR, and hung around as a guest for a while. I was planning on making an account, and was in the process of doing so until I parents found out about this site. They looked at the memberlist, and as soon as they saw people whose age was over 25 (thanks a lot geeo ), they refused to let me. They even went as far as to install a friggin camera to keep me from doing so. So nearly 6 months went by with me just playing as a guest.

In March 2010. I FINALLY convinced my parents that I could handle this site and that it wasn't filled to the brink with scams and pedobears. I made my account, and the rest was history. I've been here ever since, only disappearing for at most a month due to crap internet. Aside from Vizzed, Youtube, and that other website, I haven't really been anywhere else. I did join a forum or two launched by some other users on here, but those didn't fare well to my knowledge. Certain awesome members here introduced me to some other sites, usually either disgusting, weird, or just plain awesome. But hey, I'm not complaining anymore. I've managed to keep a good hold on school, getting good grades while being as active as I possibly can. I've done a lot of things either, serving as RGR Staff twice (three times? I can't remember ) and becoming a mod twice (thank my crap Internet for causing me to lose that awesome job). I've competed in VCSs, finally winning one in October 2010 after missing the April one and being unable to compete the entire way in the July one due to my Internet. That was definitely one of my most awesome moments here on Vizzed. Although it wasn't as satisfying, I won another VCS in July last year. It was all fun while it lasted, and I certainly won't forget the post wars I had with some people. All in all, it's just another part of Vizzed that keeps me here. And with this Tour de Vizzed thing going on, that makes things even more awesome here. And now I currently sit as one of the Elite, which is awesome because of how exclusive it is. Hey, I wouldn't mind being an Elite forever. I've also was addicted to rising up the rankings in post count back in the day. Braving through the setbacks that threw me off for a while, I went as far as to being the #4 poster on Vizzed at one point until the whole Post EXP thing bumped me all the way down to 20. But I'm climbing those ranks fast again thanks to my motivation to get back up to at least the top 10 and making longer, more though out posts. Of course, I still don't mind having a post war with some of the members around here. I love this website to death, and I definitely won't be leaving any time soon. You know, unless my Internet has something to say about it. :3

So, that's pretty much my Internet life. Not much to it compared to everyone else that's been here.

Well I have been on a few websites recently, starting with facebook. I stayed on there for at least 25 minutes or longer cause I didn't have anything else to do during the day. Next, I was on this website called whosdatedwho, a website about celebrities and their relationships with other people. I only go on that website when i'm extremely bored or something. Then I got on Youtube as well, listening to songs and watching videos of course, I go to Youtube more than I go to every other website. And finally I ended up on Vizzed cause this is where I end up by the end of the night to chat and or post.

These are some very interesting stories, if I might say. It's really interesting to learn about people's Internet stories. I'll share mine for fun, and be as brief as I can.

Okay... I started on dial up when I was in Jr.. High... around 2002? Ish? At first I only logged on to do homework, and my parents were very protective. It was just when people were starting to learn about online predators and stuff, so I had to be extra cautious. That didn't stop me, but I was still careful. I started on neopets! Such a cute little site with cute little characters. I didn't take care of my pets at all, and got more interested in the message boards, specifically the role play ones. I didn't know what it was, so I investigated and found it to be like collaborative writing, and it sounded like a lot of fun. I joined in, and got hooked. Eventually I met a friend who I have lost touch with. She asked if I had MSN, and I didn't, so I downloaded it so that she and I could rp over im, and she was the one who introduced me to a movie called Newsies.

Well, about this time, I was hanging out with my cousin a lot online. He was sort of a nerd, and I was becoming one. We were active on a forum, but I was barely there. He eventually made his own and a few of us migrated to it, I couldn't tell you what it was called anymore. We would hang out, and rp mostly. Eventually I wanted to find friends outside of my cousin, and at this time I was a big final fantasy fan, so I figured I'd search for that. I found some final fantasy forums (that's all I remember of it really... I swear it was called ffnet or something like that). Here I made all sorts of new friends! I became a sort of "Yuna" figure on the site, if that means anything to you all. So it was here that I really started to build a base of MSN friends. There is only one that I still have on my msn list and he's usually far too busy to talk to me, I haven't spoken to him in ages. But one of them was notorious for taking everyone on his IM list who was online at once, and putting them into mass chat. It was here I met KG.

She was spouting something about a forum that she spent a lot of time on. We added each other on MSN, and she said "come to this forum! It's fun!" Next thing I knew I was a member on the Protoman Homepage forums. Well, if you've read through Laz's or Swift's posts you can read all the details of what occurred there. I won't regal you with the same story. I was well known for rarely posting, but when I made it count. Once again, more MSN friends joined the ever growing list. While I was on the site I gained a boyfriend as well. (I lived far from my school, being a transfer between two small towns, so having a boyfriend at all was an amazing concept to me.) He was wonderful, and looking back on it now, I think I probably could have treated him better, but that's another story.  Eventually we all began to go our separate ways, including my boyfriend and I breaking up.

In high school I returned to my first love, role play. I became an admin on a site solely based on the role play of Newsies. The site is now, I believe 6 years old, and is still active, despite a few dry spells. You gotta admit, that's semi impressive. Also in high school I started talking with my current boyfriend online (true we went to the same school, but we started really talking online, so it counts!), and we have been dating for 5 years now, and are very much in love.

All this time I continued using MSN, and also downloaded AIM, Skype, Yahoo, Steam, and finally (thank goodness) Trillian, mostly using these things to talk to rp friends, and other people I'd met over the years. Of course I had or have a myspace, a facebook, a youtube account, and eventually I even got a tumblr. I'm also a member on the Rooster Teeth website (and am a huge fan of their pod casts and red vs. Blue series). I wrote a few pieces of fanfiction, and joined a few other role play sites that came and went.  Recently I had started talking more and more to old friends. They sent me here, and so far, I have no complaints. This place seems like a great site, with lots of interests, information, and some great people. I don't regret a second of it.

Oh boy, where do I start? I'll probably end up writing a book, haha, just kidding. Well, I've been on the internet for as long as I can remember. I believe I was 14, but I can't be positive on that one. I do remember, I unfortunately met my first online stalker on the net when I was 14. I have that posted somewhere on this board about stalkers I've had. Anyway, long story short, he was 40, pretending to be a 15 year old boy. Things escalated, and he ended up finding out where I lived and stalked me for a good year before we finally moved away. After that, I was leery for a long time to even attempt making friends on the internet. I would often have my Mother sitting right next to me, in fear of someone doing the same thing to me. Back then, they didn't really have as much computer protection you can get now, so it was very easy for anyone to access information. Heck, the internet was just becoming known and barely anyone had it. The only reason we did was because my Mom had her own business and we were able to afford it. Anyway, that's when I first started going on the internet. The years after all of that are kind of a blur. So that sort of just leads to coming to Vizzed. I can't really remember when I first started posting on message boards, but I know Vizzed is the only one I've actually stuck with.

PART 3 OF THE EXCITING ADVENTURES CONTINUE!!!


You heard right, Vizzed citizens! Argus here with another rant!






In Which I Must Change Homes
CJF was a good forum with a lot of great people. The fun times that I had there aren't ever going to be replaced by anything else. It all holds a special place in my heart, especially considering my state of mind during it. It came after a 'cataclysm', for lack of a better word, which went great leagues towards making me a wiser person, yet it came around while I still had some youthful ignorance and optimism. Those facts combined with the right mix of people who really got into what the others were doing and supporting them with kind and encouraging words made for a place that began to feel like home for a while.

So imagine my surprise, then, when the proprieter of the place, CJ, started posting less and less. He made a thread recommending another forum; some place called EchoWorld. I took a glance at it before, saw a whole bunch of Sonic pictures and banners, assumed the worst, and stayed away.

At this time, I had graduated from high school. My god, the relief! Do the older folks among you reading this remember the glee to be had that day? When you finally got home from school... For the last time? I remember it. I enjoyed it a full day before I got a job in another town a moved out, all within a week of graduating. There are many personal reasons for my haste, but that's a tale for another day.

So, for these next parts of the story, I very infrequently was on the internet, as I had none at my home then, and had to go to the local library for short bursts of activity every day.







In Which I Am Pleasently Surprised
A few weeks passed. CJ really wasn't posting on his own place. So, I took to that EchWorld place he had mentioned, and signed up as a different moniker than my usual. (not a mention of the word swift to be found!) My original intention was to make fun of him under a different name, troll him a bit, have some fun...

I didn't expect to start getting into the place. A whole bunch of hardcore NEW Sonic fans of almost the most annoying kind, and yet I started... Getting along with them! Not hugely, mind. I was still the older, cynical gruff guy among them, but they started respecting me, and I started liking some. In fact, after a bit, they made me a mod for my no-nonsense nature.

I'm not 100% sure how long that lasted. A bunch of stuff was happening in my real life, moving around, trying desperately to find a job... It's all kind of a haze.

Though, around this time, the merger between EchoWorld and the then-nearly-dead CJF was taking place. I had little to do with the merger, but it DID bring my near-astronomical post count from CJF combined with my fairly large one froim EchoWorld together. Not sure why I was proud of that, but still.

Though, the place didn't hold all that much for me anymore. It was always more of a port in a storm for me than a place that felt like home. The people were nice, if naive, and it felt good enough to be there, but... Again, it lacked that spark that made a place feel like home.

So I set sail for greener pastures.






In Which I Discover Greener Pastures
A webcomic that I had been reading a that time was Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire. While the recent arcs in that comic haven't been all that outstanding in the slightest, I do remember a fair bit of the beginning chapters fondly.

Well, I saw that a forum for it had opened up, ran by fans. So! I joined up!



Now THIS was more like it. Everyone was kind and nice, there was humour, there were many different personalities running around, different nationalities... That spark of home was there from the beginning.

I loved it, I loved the people there, and all was well. Like CJ before me, I was strongly favouring the new home than my previous place.

Unlike CJ, I told none of them about it.

No no, this was MY sanctuary. And I was enjoying the heck out of it.

Well, at some point along the passage here, the old admin of the place stepped down, meaning that it was time for a new hand to take his place. Votes were had, and the new admin was given sovereignty.

Cue the drama!

It got... Kinda bad there. This person wasn't really meant to be a leader. Arguments were being had all over, rules changes were being implemented to fix things, it made things worse... It spiraled out of control pretty quickly.

So, one of the more frustrated of the members made his own forum.

With pirates!

And less rules!






In Which My Lifestyle Changes
More real life stuff: I was having a hard time keeping a regular job after high school. Dumb mistakes that stupid young'uns make, immaturity, moving around all over to try and find a new job... It wasn't a very stable time in my life.

So a friend got me a job at where she works. It was a gamble on her part, but I'm eternally thankful for her. For very nearly two years, I worked a job I enjoyed, with people I like, and who liked me back. I had a place, and I was appreciated.

But anyways.

The forum I was at during the earlier portion of this time at the new job was at the Dread Pirate's Den. Pirate themed, few rules, an admin who left the rules well enough alone and only enforced when absolutely needed, and a general feel of... Nice.

Though, I'm not sure why, but I didn't stay there too long.

I think the reason I didn't stay long was the onset of.... A REAL LIFE.

I was going to a friend's place in another town every weekend, I had a friend in the town I lived in, and, well, I was playing a lot more video games than before. I just didn't go to forums all that much anymore.

This wasn't helped any when I had to suddenly find a new place to live; the previous landlord said I was good and all, but his sister wanted a place to live. So, out I went. Month and a half of notice. =/

I ended up needing to be kinda hasty in the next place I lived. So, all I could find was a place that was more expensive, smaller, and not near as pleasant to live in. Any port in a storm, though....

Well, this place didn't have internet.

For about eight months, I wasn't really seen.... Anywhere.

Then, I moved to the big city of Edmonton! (where I currently reside)

INTERNET!! My god, it was glorious. I returned in full form to the Pirate Den, in which time I found that the main Dominic Deegan forum was under new management, and was doing much better.

And then I lost my job.







PART 4 IN THIS AMAZING TRILOGY TO COME AFTER THESE WORDS FROM OUR SPONSORS.