Today marks 10 years since I joined this website, which is kinda ridiculous to think about. Where that time went, I don't know. A lot has happened in my life since then, but at the same time it feels like nothing happened at all.
Anyone remember my first avatar? 
I joined right around E3 2014, so it makes sense that it was this... Guardians of the Galaxy hadn't come out to change my life yet! Since then I've used -checks records- 31 different Rocket avatars, not including special variants for holidays and such. And that's without even getting into the Fox and Paddington phases, but anyhow.
I think my favorite avatars that I've had were these (I can't pick one between them):
*ahem* Anyway, that was a bit self-indulgent. I suppose this thread's existence is, it's just me talking about myself. But there are things I genuinely wanna say to y'all about here, where to start...
Well, I'm posting this thread as a sort of "soft goodbye", if you will. You know how users here would post threads saying they're leaving the site, and saying goodbye to everyone? I'm not doing that, because well, it's kinda silly to me, my account will always be here and I can always come back whenever I want to. But the truth is, I've been getting more and more inactive here in recent years, and in recent months I've barely come here at all.
I've also been losing the energy to host the Greatest Games Event every year, something I've already mentioned to one or two people. We're late enough into 2024 that I don't want to burden someone else with it, but this year's the 15th event and it'll be the last one I host. If anyone wants to keep it going after that, I'd be happy to share all the know-how and resources from the many years of doing it.
There's something else I also felt like telling, but I'll keep it short so to avoid things getting a bit too heavy here. Last year, I met a different online community, full of people who were as obsessed with Guardians of the Galaxy as I was, and through my experiences over there, I rediscovered my sexuality - I used to believe myself asexual, now I identify as gay, hence the signature I've been using since. I then got into an online relationship, which was beautiful until it wasn't. Now I'm going through my first break-up. It's been 3 weeks, but holy shit I wasn't ready for how much it'd hurt. And how it's led me into my worst emotional crisis as I find myself questioning.. basically my entire life.
The thing is, I'm a 29-year-old who's just going through his first break-up, has never had a job, is still living with his parents and brings in no income. I went to college for a few years, but I dropped out. My life has gone absolutely nowhere in all of my adulthood, and I just don't see how I can fix it. I don't have the confidence or the social aptitude or the willingness to try and get a job, I played all of my cards into dedicating myself to music-making and hopefully making a living through that, but I've barely made any music in years because my motivation's died out completely. I feel like I was building up a hole inside my heart for years without realizing it, and when it got big enough to consume me, I tried to fill it in with other people's love - but they're all gone. That community I got into, my ex-boyfriend, everyone else, everyone left me. I suppose I have this place, but this doesn't feel like home anymore, because VGC is a site for shallow game talk and I've changed from being a shallow happy person, to a deeply broken mess.
Anyway.
That did get pretty heavy, I'm sorry about that.
I hope you're all doing fine, and that the community in this site continues to... exist for as long as possible. If anyone has interest in continuing the Greatest Games Event, please reach out, I'd love to see it continue too, but ideally as a participant rather than as a host. My life situation clearly allows me all the time in the world to work on this, but that doesn't mean that work doesn't get tiring - in truth, last year I really felt like I was going through the motions, and I started almost mixing things up in my head, between 2022 and 2023.
I remember back when I joined, I used to think about how'd it feel when I was a long-time user here, it almost felt like there was a reputation associated with that, but I'm not sure, is there? Maybe there was, and it got lost somewhere along the way, as the community shrinked more and more. Anyway, 10 years yay! I hope the next 10 years of my life go better than the last.
Think that's all I wanted to say, see y'all around.
