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Post by Damien on Mar 10, 2018 18:29:08 GMT -5
In 2008 I made my last post on these boards. Ten years ago I left a huge part of my world behind. An old song, which I rediscovered a few days ago, reminded me of that time in my life and brought me back here. (This time imperfect by AFI, for those interested.) I was so happy to see that there were a few posts from this year when I logged in. Happy to see that this community, this family, still exists in some form.
When I logged out for the last time a decade ago I was 19 years old, a heavy drinker and semi-professional weed smoker. I had no ambitions or goals. I write this as a grown man, a father to an amazing little girl. Engaged to my partner of seven years. I have a job, I have friends. I have goals and ambitions. I no longer drink besides special occasions, nor do I still hold the record for the most blunts smoked through a nostril. I have had a lot of fun reading through old posts and topics the past few days. I didn't realise how terribly I have missed this place and those who helped make it what it is.
To those of you who are still around: Where has life taken you in the last decade? Who were you ten years ago and who are you now?
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Post by ch00beh on Mar 10, 2018 21:31:28 GMT -5
ten years ago i was a butt
today i am still a butt but have come to accept it
ps. congrats on living your best life, that is always good to hear
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Post by Loogs on Mar 11, 2018 3:44:47 GMT -5
Well, for starters, I went from drawing like this: to drawing like this: and all that is largely thanks to a grueling 5-year art school grind that ended just last year with me getting a BFA in comic art. (If you like that Good Shit you see here, you can visit my website and hey while you're at it read my cool comic I launched a couple months ago) I've been able to recover and maintain my mental health well enough for years now to live a relatively content, functional life, so I guess you could say I've (mostly) mellowed out now. I live with my cool boyfriend of 3 years now and I'm just trying to get my art career off the ground when I'm not being a pizza boy hey also I came out as trans and have been on testosterone for like 4 or 5 months now?? ya that sure is a thing (cool) (Good) I think that's it??? still a dingus tho oh and we have a discord server where we all hang out, if you want an invite let me know and I'll PM you one
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Post by Beelzebibble on Mar 11, 2018 10:33:15 GMT -5
I think 2008 was just about the first year I started to figure out how to be a little less of a huge dweeb. As choobs can tell you, there hasn't been a lot of progress.
Thanks for catching us up, man! We were all really curious to see you popping up again. I had a pet theory that you'd been replaced by a Russian hacker. Still not totally convinced but will roll with it.
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Post by Yoshimitsu on Mar 11, 2018 14:06:41 GMT -5
I went from kinda gay to Ultra Gay™
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Post by Krazy Glue on Mar 13, 2018 11:37:22 GMT -5
I qualified as an osteomyologist, opened my own clinic, had an aneurysm, lost 2ish years of memory,had stem cell therapy, then had a heart attack 2 days after my 28th birthday (totally ruined my holiday). Now i live a very quiet life with my girlfriend of a year, 3 cats and an australian shepherd, I still have my own clinic but i work drastically fewer hours than I used to, mostly by choice. Good to hear you've cleaned up your vices, for me, time spent working in a pub severely put me off drinking, and now my medication stops me from drinking too much anyway. Of course my biggest question to you will be, in those 10 years, did you play much Pokemon?
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Post by Beelzebibble on Mar 13, 2018 20:52:58 GMT -5
had an aneurysm, lost 2ish years of memory Oh no! But you still remember about the game, right?
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Post by Krazy Glue on Mar 20, 2018 2:53:59 GMT -5
technically, I had a hot streak?
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Post by Lady Kara on Mar 27, 2018 19:38:00 GMT -5
Prepare your ass for a long freakin' novel on how I am currently... though I honestly tried my best to keep it as short as possible.
Me in 2008: Was still passionately into RPing but not that great at such things like worldbuilding and other fun technical stuff, and pursuing other interests was making it harder to come on here as frequently as I'd wanted to. As for some of those other interests = Became intensely more into cosplay and con-culture and was beginning to become quite wellknown on the local con scene with a decent reputation as an overly passionate low-budget cosplayer (as in, I'm able to make stuff look cool without spending a lot of money on it), and was the start of making a lot of friends throughout many con adventures that were to come. My job sucked major ass (was a cashier for a local Burger King), but I put up with the crap because I was stupid back then and didn't realize what a toxic hell lay ahead of me.
Me in 2018: Still love RPing but sadly haven't had much privacy to do it (my family annoyingly hogs our 2 computers for long hours and make it hard for anyone to be creative while online), however I've become more into worldbuilding stuff and trying my best to detail things about the various places and fantasy races/species that I've created over the years. As for my life as a cosplayer/congoer, I'm now sadly a sort of social pariah... thanks to a nightmare that happened to one of my closest best friends 5 years ago. Some assholes who supported a con run by a LITERAL con artist (which thankfully is now out of business; called "NewCon PDX", btw) hated my favorite convention (AkiCon) and wanted to find any way to shut them down (WTF; pretty much jr. high school level rivalry bullshit). They 1st tried posting hateful things about how the con was run, making big public posts about accidents that happened at con (mostly not the con's fault, but these asses tried hard to make it look that way), and other weird crud. Anyway, 5 years ago this one popular-girl bitch who hated my friend posted his mugshot from back when he was WRONGFULLY imprisoned over a weird legal technicality when his girlfriend's dad falsely accused him of being a pedophile (it was proved untrue, but this was in Arizona where the legal system is TOTAL TRASH). The people who hated AkiCon saw this info, and since my friend was both a member of convention staff AND a guest for the con that year (he'd been trying to become a badass otaku-gamer DJ), they viewed him as their perfect scapegoat to take down the con with. They posted 'warnings' about my friend on the con's forums, saying stuff about how could a con allow a pedo to be a staffer and guest, and other lame stuff that everyone on staff laughed off since it was so WTF. Then the 2nd night of con, this one gal waited until after the rave (at 3am, btw, when my friend was very exhausted as well as his security officers, a.k.a. me and another best friend) and was being super nice and helping us carry all the DJ equipment back to my friend's hotel room. We all honestly thought she was a great gal, and when she pulled this BS story about her roomies being "too drunk to let her back into their room" and wanting to spend the night in my friend's room, we stupidly had no red flags flying over it. When my bud got ready for bed and was naked in the bathroom, this crazy girl came in and tried to freakin' MOUNT him in there. Scared the hell out of him, but since he'd just broken up with his girlfriend over crap during con, he kinda went with it... especially since he was so dead tired that it was hard to think clearly. They didn't have sex - the girl was just being a horny weirdo. Anyways, nothing bad happened during the next day aside from the girl sending my friend texts about how "great" the night before was and how much she "super enjoyed" it. My friend thought it was creepy af and kept ignoring her. That night, all hell broke loose when police showed up to arrest my friend over charges of RAPE given to them by the girl and multiple of her friends. He then calmly told them everything that'd happened the night before, and showed them the freaky texts from that girl. Also gave them other details that further proved that she MADE THE WHOLE DAMN THING UP, and the charges were instantly dropped after reviewing all the evidence. So what'd this psycho and her friends do? Had her make a video a month later, posted it on YouTube, and it was so full of absurd lies that it still makes me cringe at how many people in the cosplay community (and abroad) believe all of it. Including a journalist who wrote a viral news article that painted my friend as a smiling rapist-pedo who drugs girls at cons, using all of the false info posted on social media and talking to ex-coworkers of his when he was a manager at a Taco Bell (so dumb - of course they made him sound like a creep, because he was the one who often got them in trouble for not doing their jobs; he had some pretty lame coworkers). The video and news article created utter chaos in the community, and whoever defended my friend and tried to tell people the truth were called liars and rape apologists. In just 48 hours after the video had gone viral... I lost close to 80 friends, and was sent multiple death threats (some from people who created fake FB accounts that were deleted after a few days so I couldn't report them to police). Was stalked to & from work for a few days by a staffer of another local con (KumoriCon) who'd wanted to use me to find my friend, had a mental breakdown that made me physically ill for a while, and now I suffer from anxiety and other issues as a result. As for my friend... he lost both his regular job & dream job along with his freedom, his mother and home were threatened by people wanting to do lynch-mob tactics via posting his home address online, and he had to move out of the state until he can find a lawyer brave enough to take on the ton of character defamation/libel and hate crime material (because he has Asperger Syndrome) this mess is composed of. SO... Amid all of that insanity, I was numb to the fact that I was being abused by my boss at BK and kept on letting him do horrible things that I should've immediately reported his ass for. Especially the fact that he'd threaten to fire me & my coworkers if we ever revealed the illegal things he was getting away with at our store and should've been fired over. We became a sort of family through shared pain, and though it was a huge relief to us when our store was closed down in 2015 (our boss unfortunately being the only one promised a job at another store, since he was so good at butt-kissing and lying), we were sad to part ways and I often wonder how everyone is doing. Since then, I've been unemployed and greatly hoping to get another job but am being very cautious of where I apply - desperately not wanting to go through a similar kind of hell again. Can't do anything about how toxic the local cosplay community has become as a result of my friend's nightmare polluting their minds against anyone who acts extra socially awkward, but I sure as hell am not letting it ruin my enjoying cosplay and having fun with what decent friends I have left.
~~~ As a result of all I've been through, it makes me forever thankful that AE still exists and thrives - because here I feel happily normal and can reminisce about the old days when life was semi drama-free and less depressing (even if I haven't posted much on here in ages, myself, due to being busy/depressed). Ya could say I'm in the crappy "middle arc" of my life story before it changes for the better, and I do fondly hope that the worst is behind me. Sorry for my giant wordbarf earlier, but wanted to show how drasticly things have changed for me in 10 years. As for you, a very warm welcome back to the board and immensely glad to hear of how much your life has turned around... Rock on, dude... (>w<)~b
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Post by V101 on Mar 29, 2018 10:28:03 GMT -5
oooo
2008: I was in college, severely depressed and frequently suicidal, spent a lot of time drinking alone, worked a series of terrible minimum-wage jobs, played in a bunch of shitty bands, drank a pot of coffee a day, biked everywhere
2018: I still live in this stupid town, finally managed to get medicated so I am not quite so depressed, started a booking agency, put on an annual music festival, go on tour a lot, have put out several records, v happy in a five-year relationship, I have a cute dog, cut back on coffee a bit and don't bike anywhere because I've gotten hit by cars three different times
idk, bleak? I am pretty happy with my life tho. I get nostalgic about online RPing a lot but I have never been a good writer so I generally expend that energy through DMing my all-ladiez D&D group.
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