jesus. no, not egocentric - just half-serious and a little hyperbolic. more than thinking "oh god she's dead" i was hoping anyone knew if she was okay or happy at all.
with that said, ryan's predictably sarcastic post is still on the dumb side. also, fairly reductive; this community was never primarily about game making, or even video games in general. there were a lot of people for whom gw was a place they came, and stayed, because it offered something they couldn't find elsewhere. there was no shortage of people around in the past who viewed gw as a bastion of identification, or as a sanctuary of sorts. it shouldn't be all that difficult to understand that for kids who couldn't seem to connect with the people around them, at school or wherever else, and were dealing with the loneliness and alienation this comes with, a place like gw, that was welcoming and full of people like them with the same interests or perspectives or whatever, might have seemed like something of a haven. call it just a videogame forum if you want, but recognize that this is you intentionally diminishing what it was for the sake of your boring one-liner. videogame forum or not, it was a community, home to many people who couldn't seem to find one elsewhere, with all the significance that entails.
so no, not actually nailbiting over whether or not she's dead, but in all honesty i wouldn't have been surprised if she was when i made this topic. to reiterate, this isn't about her leaving gw, per se. when i knew her, she was depressed and clearly extremely lonely. and again, had a notgood home/school life. she told me she multiple times she didn't really have any friends or anyone to talk to at all in her life aside from gw people. this is what bothered me. given our conversations, the strange way in which they unfolded, the way she responded to her own problems, and her disquieting, highly emotional attachment to a series of one-dimensional anime characters, it didn't take much hindsight for me to see that she was struggling, and in need of help, professional or otherwise. thinking about all this, and about what it means gw might have meant to her, yes, it does trouble me what we might have inadvertently taken from her when we drove her out. i wouldn't want to take that from anybody, let alone someone like her. there is a lot of value in that. i think sometimes it is the only line keeping people from drifting off. this is why i worried for her.
"yeah calling bullshit on that. this has been the nicest community i know"
yeah, no, he's right. i spent enough time here and enough time in THOSE CIRCLES to know that it's completely true. past a certain point the most recognizable thing about this place was the level of cruelty and cannibalism present. being abrasive and insulting rather than friendly and welcoming was a point of pride, even. its tendency towards insularity and habit of being highly resistant to new blood with new ideas was in part, i think, what led to its decline.
anyway, this is dumb. i didn't want to start an argument or resurface old worthless drama, i just wanted to know if anyone knew what became of her. so far chef seems to be the only one who's spoken to or heard from her in the past 3 years, and that's sort of promising. thanks, i guess.
