Big Empty
- Posted by mariteaux on February 17th, 2020 filed in Technologizing
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VDU’s guides have all been converted and ported over. Just got the tools left to port. Have a look:
I’m really rather eager to get this done at this point. Not just to get it done, but because the tedium of it has given me a lot of idle time to think about how messy it all really was in operation. I never considered myself an arrogant person, but looking back at it now, it certainly feels that way. I thought I, alone, singularly, was the soul in that swirling din who gave a fuck about anything. I sparred constantly with people, not the least of which was Jax. Over fucking tab sizes, of all things.
Not a week ago, I accidentally stumbled across mention of me on func from a few years ago, and it’s been sticking with me ever since. The right dickhead who wrote it eventually got his wish of me leaving the scene, but the stuff he said was pretty much dead on. Didn’t see it that way at the time, but all the stuff about biting newcomers in the TrenchBroom Discord and what have you, it was true, and I just never realized it until now. Really respect NewHouse at the moment for having opinions as strong as mine and yet leaving them and just mapping. I should’ve done more of that.
Hell, it carried over into Neocities. I had this weird martyr complex about wanting to help people, and then when they inevitably didn’t get something, I’d blow up. Had me with Districts and with Tesserae and probably still does a little bit. Just such a spastic about everything. I like to think I’ve mellowed out some now, but digging this deep into all these old files and chatlogs has kicked up a lot of shop dust.
I guess it just sucks because I didn’t realize it at the time. I was sure I wasn’t being arrogant because I constantly called VDU a “we” project. I wanted it to not just be me getting the credit. But, same time, I overlooked how I thought I knew better, how I talked like I knew better. Maybe it was one of those paradoxical things where I mentally knew I didn’t know everything, but I didn’t know it emotionally. You know that moment of clarity that hits you and makes you wanna change? That’s what I’m referring to.
I probably couldn’t go back to the Quake scene at this point, and I’m too busy to devote a month to making a standalone release anyway. Just leaves me with this kinda icky melancholy about how being 17 was spent for me arguing with people on the internet. It’s not a good look. Lost me a few friends in the process.
At least the good stuff I accomplished with VDU survives. Hopefully that’ll be what lives on and gets remembered about this mess and I can just avoid reminders from now on.
