This Last Month, SGDQ, and The Future

So, where to begin.

To start off, I'll preface this by saying I'm not very good at articulating my deeper thoughts and feelings. They just don't translate very well to words. People who know me personally probably notice that I stumble over my words and don't organize my thoughts very well when I try to talk about serious-ish stuff like this. Still, I'm giving it a shot, so bare with me. If you do actually read the whole thing, massive kudos to you my friend. Cool, lets get into this.

The Month Break

So, I guess I've been on a break of sorts since 2:46 in 1.5 Beginner, and it's gone on for about a month now. If you asked me why I took the break, I probably couldn't give you a good answer. I can think of a couple of possible reasons, which I'll explain, but honestly I don't 100% know why I went on this break. First reason I can think of is I wanted to prepare myself for a 2:45 grind, and so I wanted to give myself some mental time off before going back at it. Second reason is I started becoming fed up with chat, for various dumb reasons. It's almost like I was tired of my chat, where I'd get a question and I wouldn't answer it honestly and give a sarcastic response, or I'd act offended or some bullshit like that. Somehow I thought streaming RS would fix this, but that just ended up making it worse. Third reason I can think of is I was just straight addicted to RuneScape for a month. It could honestly be a combination of these 3, or a completely different reason altogether.

The most interesting and depressing part about all of this was that I thought this break would end up with me feeling happier by the end, since I got to play a game I wanted to for awhile without worrying about speedrunning or chat or anything. However, by the end of it all, I was incredibly depressed. I didn't want to leave my viewers hanging, so I tried streaming various things along with RS that I thought would be decently entertaining, but it seemed like it was never enough. People coming in asking about my return to running a KH game never stopped, I would get it everyday, and it would still hurt. I'm fully aware that people have associated me with being a "KH guy" so it's only natural they want to see me playing KH. I'm not confused why people asked when/if I was coming back, that part makes sense. But the pain was still there, and it still hurt. People even made a note to say stuff like "I only give good streamers shit when they start streaming RuneScape", and multiple people at SGDQ told me they were tired of RS. I went into SGDQ lost and confused, wondering what to do with speedrunning, streaming, pretty much everything.

SGDQ 2015

I made a point to myself and my friends to not let me play RuneScape while I was here, I needed to reassure myself I actually liked speedrunning at SGDQ before I decided anything else.

Beyond worrying about that, SGDQ was pretty fantastic. I still think AGDQ was better because a huge chunk of the community was there, and we got to show off KH2FM and show the speedrunning world that KH was alive and kicking, but SGDQ was still incredibly fun. I met some fans, met a good chunk of the Tropical Freeze community, and of course I got to hang out with the KH Crew. Shoutouts to Spike, Rizz, Hobz, Aceuhhh, Dax, Adam, KHeartz, Gedrith, Ghoul, Newby, Kruncha, EnKay, Chunka, and anyone else I forgot for being cool and accepting dudes. I think after talking to fans at SGDQ, you realize from their perspective why they get curious and ask questions that I thought were annoying and bothersome, and I started realizing just how dumb I was about the whole thing. I got to do runs, go out drinking a couple times, go to the Mall of America, play Melee, watch some runs, go out for late night food runs, etc etc. SGDQ definitely helped me figure out what I wanted. I still wanted speedrunning bad, and I know that walking away from it now would just be a waste of talent and effort at this point. However, something was still bugging me throughout the marathon. It felt kinda shitty that I wasn't able to contribute to SGDQ, via commentary or running anything. I was able to support my friends who were running, and that felt great. People should know at this point that, I didn't have many friends as a kid, so the friends I do have now are genuine and precious, and I want them to know that I care. However, I felt empty still. I felt like a bystander, and I wanted to do more.

I also was constantly troubled by thinking about the future of my channel, and that question haunted me all the way to the end of the marathon. Even if I were to come back, will I be able to handle my chat. I've said this a couple of times; I feel like my chat is on the cusp between a very chill and inclusive chat, and a large anonymous, somewhat cancerous chat. Even after all this time, I still don't know which direction I wanted to go or what goals I had. I also didn't how to deal with my chat, and moderate/conversate with it well. I have moments where I'm very chill, don't talk much, and just do my runs/practice, and then instantly I switch to having moments where I'm outspoken, call people out, shit on BBS, get mad, etc. People have actually told me in chat that they followed me for being that loud, outspoken person, and that really worries me. It's almost like I don't know who the real me is on stream anymore, and I don't know who the real me is.

The Future

After all was said and done, I had talked to a lot of my friends, had a lot of fun, got some advice, felt incredibly sad before I got on the charter bus to take me to the airport. I started thinking about writing a paste like this, which would involve the first 2 bits I've already written and would end off with me being very confused and depressed and still trying to figure out how to handle things. Then I got on the plane and collected my thoughts. I swear that plane ride was exactly what I needed. I wish I wrote down everything I was thinking, because at this point I'm dead tired and kinda just attempting to piece together what I remember. I thought about all the things that bothered me over this past month, and then I thought about the entire last year of my life leading up to the end of summer break. I said to myself about a year ago that this last year (summer 2014 - summer 2015) would be my "defining year", where I would figure out what kind of person I am and what I would do with society. To the people that do know how my last 2 semesters of college went, I'm embarrassed to say the least about what I've done. I now know what kind of person I am, and how all of my past experiences in life have lead to who/what I am now. I understand my strengths, my values in life, my weaknesses and faults, my dreams, my habits, a lot of things.

Now it's time to fix a lot of that. Apologies in advance, this is going to get a bit ambiguous. It's also going to be cheesy as fuck, but that's just who I am, and it's time I embraced that part of me. I think I finally have set myself some short term goals, some long term goals, and I'm ready to write down what matters most to me in life, what I believe in most, and then live up to what that kind of person is and what actions they would take. I know what the best version of me should be, and it's time I started working towards that person, little by little, day by day. I took this last year to see what kind of person I am, and I've made a little progress, but not nearly as much as I wanted. This year will be different.

I'm coming back to KH speedrunning (shocker!). I'm gonna go hard. I won't be streaming RS much anymore unless I'm finishing a grind or something. I also won't stream Melee as much, but it might still be there. I'm going to push myself harder than ever before, every day. I'm going to break some boundaries. I'm going to interact with my chat better. I'm going to go back to where I believed people in my chat genuinely asked questions because they were curious, not to troll/annoy. I will still continue to make new friendships and solidify the ones I already have. I will still try to create an inclusive chat environment. I will continue to attempt to be a likeable and friendly guy. I will understand that I can't please everyone by acting a certain way, and that I should just be who I am and let the people chose if they want to stay or go. I'm going to give the people what they want. I'm going to give myself what I want, too. I'll try to balance both of these things, too. I'm going to improve my channel to the best of my abilities. I'm also going to integrate this dedicated mindset to my schoolwork. I noticed last year that when I was slacking off in school, it allowed me to slack off in speedrunning, too, even if I had more free time. And if I'm not doing all of these things, re-post this paste and make me own up to it. This won't be just another minimal improvement year. I will meet these goals, or I will come close. I refuse to come up short.

I'd watch out for me, this year. :P