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Old Friends

I remember when I joined this site back in like '08. I was new to the internet and I was way too socially awkward to actually know what was embarrassing or not redface But I did know a few things. One, anime was by far the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Two, I loved to write. And three, I loved to pretend to be other people sweatdrop I should probably save that convo for another day. Anyway, I made my first forum post during the halloween event, someone was playing some type of flirty demon and I played one back rolleyes It was not a great writing style, but I could tell it was fun. So, I did what a lot of people did. I tried to roleplay in the middle of rally and towns! And, something amazing managed to happen over time. People started to talk to me, they weaved interesting stories with me. We roleplayed our own characters, characters we loved, just random adventures in the moment! Oh man, when I discovered guilds, that's when the floodgates opened lol Before I knew it, I had so many friends that I talked to every day. It was the first time that had ever happened to me before. I had one group of friends, that I consistently spoke with everyday. I simply know them as Kyoko, Kari/Rin, Toby and Death. We made multiple guilds, all just for our own roleplays. The writing was...painfully bad xp But I think, I miss the fact that I felt like I wasn't alone. That there were people like me who weren't judging me for being just a little awkward and odd crying

I did however, manage to make a friend here that meant something more to me. We met in rally, not too long after I joined. I don't remember how the conversation started, or what it was about. Probably naruto sweatdrop But it ended with us adding each other as friends. I'd talk to him every single day, for years after years. He's older than me by a bit, so I looked up to him. We'd roleplay all the time, just going to the second room of rally, hiding in the top most corner and just typed back and forth. We added each other on skype and continued that. I remember one roleplay in particular. It was in the forums and years after we had met, so we knew each other very well. It was a left 4 dead themed roleplay, and we got quite a few people joining in. I liked where the story was going, though my character was just cringe, and I still wish we could have all continued it emo I still stayed friends with him after we both began to log in less. We messaged on skype everyday. He stood by my side whenever I was dealing with ridiculous amounts of abuse and domestic violence. Even when that abuser tried to tear us apart. I saw him like a father I never got to have, and he stayed that way no matter what. We stayed best friends for over 13 years and yet we never met each other in real life...
Until 2020 came around whee See, in real life, I had just recently moved in with my husband for about a year by then. We were living in an apartment, and just so happened to be in the same state as my friend. The only problem? He lived on the completely opposite end of this giant state. We figured, it would be impossible for stuff to line up just right for us to meet. Until we found out, one of his cousins lived like 20 minutes away or so. So, we both joked for a while that, "Hey, next time you visit your cousin, you should come see me." And that joke went on for a while. A while until my birthday rolled around that year. It just so happened that he got to visit his cousin on that exact weekend, and I just so happened to have some spare money for an uber. So, this plan rolled out in about a week or so. I had known this man for 13 years and I was finally going to meet him in person as the best damn birthday gift of my life! When I tell you that I screamed when I first saw him, I am not even kidding. There were tears! There were hugs! There was an accumulation of 13 years worth of friendship and love and support finally coming to a head. It felt like I was seeing a family member after the longest time. I'm actually 100% sure I cried. At one point we both sat there just thinking about how all of this happened all because of one website, where we just so happened to both be complete nerds at the same time, just...existed. And I can't even find the words to describe how happy I am about that.

In the end, this simple website has helped me through life and let me make friends from across the entire globe. I miss so many of them, ones I didn't even mention here. And to all the friends that logged off and never came back? I miss you guys. I wish I could find you all and just check in on you one last time. What stuff do you like now? Do you still watch anime? Would we still be friends if we knew each other now? I still hope that one day we'll find each other again somehow and at least get to catch up.

Until next time,

Alice