Eggbug Memorial Rotator 2: That One Person

Originally Posted 12/19/24

Table of Contents

Submissions

Munchin and Musing 2: That One Person

by Moose

Intro

When I came up with the prompt for this issue, I of course thought "how would I answer this prompt?". This was hard for me for a few reasons. The first being, as my girlfriend can attest to, that my memory is bad. I've not been diagnosed with anything in particular, however it just seems like I have a hard time remembering certain things. This being one of those moments where I'm sure there's been someone out there who has done a little gesture that has meant a lot to me, but what was it? When was it? What was the story behind it?

As I thought and pondered this, I was led to a second issue: I could think of 2 moments in particular. Which one was I to choose? They both were pretty different from each other, and neither would be particularly long stories. So, what I ended up deciding to do, was talk about both:

Story 1: I care

I never dated anyone until either late High School or right after Community College (I forget which). This was not by choice. I had always wanted to date someone, but could not find anyone who was interested in dating me back. When I looked around at friends in relationships, and thought about how they did it, it seemed to come down to two things. Some of my friends in relationships were much more physically attractive than I was. While I wasn't terribly overweight back then (even though I felt it), a lot of my friends who were in relationships were simply just in better shape. I also had friends who were in worse shape than I was in relationships, but those friends seemed to be funnier than me. Had better personalities than me.

So to me this left two options: either get more in shape, or get a better personality. I thought my personality was sort of fine as is - obviously there's always things to improve, but I had friends which to me meant people didn't find me completely annoying. So that left getting in shape, which is what I slowly began working on.

Throughout all of this though, I would talk to friends in relationships, or friends in general, about my desire to be in a relationship, but having terrible luck. They'd often offer words of encouragement, which was very nice of them, however there was always part of me that felt "It's nice of you to say that, but seemingly no one who's in the dating field and I'm attracted to seems to think the same".

Honestly it now reminds me of a scene from Gravity Falls, where one character (Soos) is talking about needing to find a date and how he's having issues. Grunkle Stan tells him that he doesn't feel like his chances are very good, and so he either needs to get rich or lie about being rich. Wendy pipes up and says to not listen to Stan, as Soos is a great guy with a steady job. Grunkle Stan turns to Wendy and goes "Would you date him?", to which Wendy sort of shrinks behind a magazine and goes "oh, would you... look at that".

I want to clarify here I never felt like it was up to my friends to date me, just that their words sort of translated in my head to "Yeah, I'm sure someone else will find you amazing... just not me".

One of my friends who often tried to cheer me up about this, one day she called to setup a time where we could hang out. I had recently gone on a date, had been really hopeful about it, and the person turned out to be uninterested. I was pretty bummed about this, and so my friend wanted to hang out to cheer me up. The plan was I'd go over to her house to just have dinner and chat. It was around late fall early winter if I remember correctly, because it was getting dark early.

We were trying to figure out a good time to hang out, and I suggested a time and she replied "Oh that's after dark, it's more dangerous to drive then" (Or something along those lines). I said "Oh I don't care about that, I'll be fine" to which she replied, very sternly "I care though. I care Steven".

This sort of took me aback at the time. I had never had anyone express that level of care to me before - that they didn't even want me driving at night because of how worried it made them. I don't think she knows this, but her saying that really helped carry me through some dark times. Living at home was tough for me, and I often felt like no one cared about me. When I felt like that though, I was then able to tell myself "Jess cares".

Story 2: Mountainside Meeting

One thing I like to do (Though I couldn't tell you the last time I did it) is to go hiking. It was often something I did with friends, and I usually practiced videography or photography. This time though I was going solo.

This happened while in college. I was studying to become a Math Teacher, and was going to school in Northern New York. One day I decided I wanted to hike Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain. I planned a day/ time to go and... was delayed. Getting ready took longer than expected, and I happened to end up talking to a few of my roommates for a while.

I eventually did leave though, got to the mountain, and hiked up it. It was a pretty standard hike all the way up. It did show me though just how out of shape I had gotten while in college. By the time I reached the top, I was panting and out of breath, and took to sitting on the steps of a fire tower to cool down, catch my breath, and enjoy the view.

As I was sitting there, admiring nature, I heard something coming out of the woods. I turned to look and it was a man jogging up the mountain. Once he reached the top, he just flopped down on the ground, and was heavy breathing. I don't think he noticed me until I offered him a drink of my water.

We begun talking and it turned out he was a science teacher (I believe) at one of the local grade schools. As we chatted, he offered that if I ever wanted extra time shadowing teachers, to reach out to him and he'd put me in contact with the schools math teachers.

I want to pause here to just point out how amazing it was I ran into this guy. Of course, had I left when I actually wanted to, I wouldn't have run into him. Had I been faster or slower on my ascent, I would not have met him. Had it not rained the day before, forcing the man to run on the day I met him rather than the day before like he originally planned, I would not have met him. Yet everything came together so I would meet that man at the top of that mountain.

I took him up on his offer and ended up shadowing some math teachers a time or two. It was incredible the first time I went to do it, because they had organized a schedule for my entire day for me! To rotate between teachers, learn different teaching styles, etc!

It honestly was a great time, and I'm glad I jumped on the opportunity. Unfortunately I ended up dropping out of the teaching program, due in large part to the complexity of the math program. It's just always stuck with me how unlikely that meeting was, and how everything had to perfectly align to make it happen. Life is wild sometimes.

Where to find me:

The best place to find me is on my website. You can see other posts I've made, some tech tutorials, and a bunch of other stuff!

Thanks for reading,
- Moose

An Ode to Joy (in Bad Times)

by Calliope

"That One Person," huh? Well, let's set aside my parents, shall we? They would count, but this wouldn't be very interesting.

It could be Pamela H., my high school English teacher. Or Jack H. (no relation), my high school theater advisor. But let's go with Greg G. (no relation), my band director. I spent the most time with him.

I was miserable in high school. I'm sure that comes as a shock, I know. But a *lot* of the ways in which I was miserable were on me, not really my circumstances. I know *now* that I was and am neurodivergent, queer, clinically anxious and depressed, and just sort of weird. But I didn't know that then. And I'm not saying it was right for assholes to treat me poorly. What I mean to say is that some of the circumstances I felt badly about weren't because people hated me. So for instance, I think the girls I had crushes on were weirded out that I wasn't acting like a boy about it -- no shit, right? I'm not that. I also hadn't had infodumping beaten out of me yet, so people were scared I'd get excited about something. Again, these are all things that should be ok to be happening, I wish I'd gotten more support than I did, but also I understand that the straights and the neurotypicals didn't know what to do with me.

What I mean to say is, there wasn't a hell of a lot the teachers could do to help -- though to be clear, most of them didn't do what they *were* able to do, either. And that will come up again soon.

Band is weird. You may know that. You may have an idea of it. But it's fucking weird. It does the same thing to you that doing sports long-term does -- you spend long hours at something that isn't really school, eating into time you could be pursuing other hobbies or just having a social life. It's hard work, it's competitive. And in contrast to sports, it also has a class period, or it did in my school. So every semester, there was one class I just didn't get to choose: I was in band.

However, it carries almost none of the bonuses that sports do in US schools. Nobody gives a shit if you're in the band unless they, too, are in the band. So band kids tend to end up sticking together. You know each other better (haha, for better or for worse) than most anyone else in the school. And you're all trying to do this *thing*, this thing you care about, even if maybe you don't all care about it in the same way.

I shouldn't have been playing saxophone. I got frustrated with it early and never realized it until the past few years. I played percussion during marching band to save my knees from the marching, and I should have focused on that, switched to it year-round.

Anyway, what about Greg G. Remember him? My second band director. The less said about my first band director the better. He was an asshole. Here's a band kid joke for you: of course he was, he was a trumpet player. All I'll tell you about him is that he did the outreach workshop that convinced me to get into band at all, for which I'm grateful. And he thought all he needed to do to teach me to play percussion keyboards was show me how to figure out the notes on the keyboard -- which is to say, he showed me nothing about the technique of playing, so I sounded like shit for two years and knew it. He can go fuck himself for that, as well as some other things.

So he fucked off to who knows where, and we got Greg G., a fresh graduate from the nearby college that had a very good music program. He was a percussionist. He was into classic rock, and jazz, and Frank Zappa. He wore his facial hair like Zappa's. He smoked out back with the students, which sort of precluded getting them in trouble for it.

And he made the band room a *place* for us. I'll tell you more of a story in a moment, but he did a lot of things for us. He gave us idle days where we could bring cds and play them in his sound system. He played his own music, introducing me to Jethro Tull, one of my favorite bands. He gave us some choice over the music we played. He encouraged us to write music, to do creative stuff outside of music. He let us play Magic the Gathering when the school sort of unofficially but sternly banned it. He taught the gen-ed music class easily, casually, knowing people didn't really care but also that *everyone* listens to music, and that classical music -- what the curriculum actually wanted them to be doing -- is in advertisements and Looney Tune cartoons, so he showed us those. We played Led Zeppelin and Yes my senior year. One of our last full rehearsals, I played the final notes to "Time and a Word" on the vibraphone. I'd been taught -- by Greg G. -- how to actually play, and my notes rang out really well, over silence, and the clouds opened up to pour video game godrays onto me and nothing else. The conductor, my friend Sarah, interrupted practice by crying. Getting emotional about these sorts of things were ok in our band; Greg G. knew these things matter, even if they're small.

He didn't lionize high school, like a coach might, but he knew those years would matter to us, one way or the other. And he wanted them to matter for good reasons, as much as he could do it.

He had foibles too, of course. He was somewhat publicly impatient with the usual high school drama bullshit. But then again, I chose not to try to get into teaching high school for a *reason* so I get it.

So I promised you a story. My senior year, I was falsely accused of threatening to bring a gun to school. It was just a few years after Columbine, so that was in everyone's heads, but unlike now, it wasn't so common that the school just had a plan in place. So things got weird. I was summoned to the principal's office -- a feckless shithead who'd taken the office just that year, after our former principal, who was widely liked, died in a car accident. This shithead was both unofficially chewing me out while also trying to sweep it under the rug. For an asshole like him it must have been awkward for one of the best students in the graduating class to be accused in this way.

However, and insofar as the accusers' parents didn't know me, I actually approve of this, after the school didn't do anything to me, or *say* anything even, the parents went to the cops. My town being kind of Mayberry, my dad was friends with most of the cops, and they warned him about it all and he was able to bring me voluntarily in for a meeting instead of, like, a warrant being issued or some shit.

So it all got kind of pushed sideways -- I admitted to suicidal ideation and they made me see a therapist, and I stopped riding the bus.

I'm telling you that to tell you this: I was pretty angry, as you might imagine. And I wrote a poem, and obviously it was dreadful, just a plain bad poem, called "Witch Hunt." And I was in that school after hours all the time, no questions asked, because I was in band. So during a break in practice I ran around and taped copies up all over the place, unsigned.

How many people were actually writing poetry in that school? My graduating class was 104. I was called into the office the next day. The, again very unofficial, warning I got was that it could be construed as threatening, and given what had just happened I didn't want to court that. They took all the copies down, of course.

Greg G., my band director, asked for a copy, and he put it up on the damned whiteboard. I think, a year after I graduated when I visited, it was still up, on the corkboard next to the whiteboard.

Well, I graduated valedictorian, and I read a poem I wrote that had nothing to do with graduation because the office had vetoed my first speech, which was frankly a psychedelic prose poem about moving forward in life from the point of view of Odin. And Greg G. was there too, because the band always played during graduation. He sang lyrics from "Land Down Under" during the lulls in the rehearsal, and waiting in line to actually graduate, us band kids sang it to one another from our various places. I played drum beats on my knees along with the classic processional, to jazz it up.

And here's something cringe, that makes me feel things still. Greg G. also used to make VHS cassettes of photo reels, mostly from our annual spring break trip the band took. The year I graduated, he set the pictures to Green Day's "Good Riddance". I couldn't listen to that song for years without getting unbearably sad. And he also went out of his way to ask for as many pictures of *me* as he could get his hands on, because I'd commented that there wouldn't be any I didn't take myself. I think my copy was destroyed by time and the damp in my basement.

I lost contact with all the band kids except one, and I hope he's reading this. I mean I'll probably send it to him. I lost contact with Greg G. too, and I'm probably going to break down and try to contact him eventually, because Jack H. I mentioned him earlier, he died. I did get to tell him how much he meant to me before it happened. But I need to do that one more time, at least.

I'm over word count here. But I should say what Greg G. did. That is to say, I should write a proper conclusion. I chose writing, not music, though back then I was seriously considering music as my major. Greg G., though, is the person who showed me that yes, even adults can care, and care deeply, about art and music and all the things that make life worth living. The fact that I'm online here, writing (sometimes) about literature and games and anime and all this shit, all this *useless* stuff, ^{^1} is down to having that haven in the back of the building, that big room in a building of tiny rooms, where Jamie E. tried to teach me to dance, and I talked to Adam B. about whether Zeppelin was writing about Lovecraft as well as Tolkien, and I saw an adult encouraging us all to do that. May the gods bless you, Greg G.. Because they blessed me *with* you.

[^1]: "The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. [...] All art is quite useless."

On the Importance of Words

by a vaudeville ghost

I think nineteen was a fairly pivotal age for a lot of people, but there's pivotal, and there's pivotal. For me, I had just escaped the cult of fundamental Christianity only a few years prior; I'd moved into the basement of a deconsecrated chapel, in a windowless room with exposed drywall that had once served as a dressing room for the theater troupe that once used the upstairs, and bore all of the sharpied messages from actors past (as well as, courtesy of one of my housemates, Nietzsche's parable of the madman, from which the famous "God is dead" quote derives). The world was full of possibilities, of infinite potential; but also, as fundamentalism will teach all too well, there is so, so much cruelty out there. Enough to break the young heart.

At the time I was sort of but not really seeing a girl who lived about an hour and a half away by the long dull desert freeways, and as only the very young can be I was absolutely enamored with her. And as we were talking one night I was talking about how I thought of myself as a cynic, for some reason. (Who knows why? I was a former gifted child who was barely out of high school and had just cast off an oppressive religion; every thought I had felt like a profound revelation.) I don't remember much about the actual conversation, but she asked me some question, and I replied that I ultimately believed that humans have infinite potential, or something to that end. And she told me, "Then you're not a cynic."

This, to me, was earth-shattering. This was that moment in the climax of an Ace Attorney game where the ghost of Mia Fey appears and reminds Phoenix why he is out here fighting the impossible fight. The cynic has no faith in humanity, but despite everything, how could I not love humans? We are capable of so much, have produced so much beauty, have strived to make things better even in the darkest, most hopeless of times. I would gladly accept accusations of being jaded, world-weary, pessimistic, but never cynical. Cynicism surrenders before the fight.

I realized even at the time that this almost certainly meant nothing to her, of course--if nothing else, the distinction is academic--but I will always be grateful for that. We have long since drifted apart but this, at least, will always stay with me.

It taught me something, too. Philip K. Dick once said:

There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you. If you're lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of getting the first.

He is right, I think. But the power is not in the words themselves; they only provide clarity, cut through the illusions that we surround ourselves with, leaving our truest selves exposed for that briefest of moments. And if you are lucky you will find something there that sharpens your convictions.

If you liked this essay, you can find more like it at the writer's website, the vaudeville ghost house. If you didn't like it, you can also find things unlike it there, so you really can't lose.

The Sweetest, Nicest, Boy

by Michelle

Intro:

This is my first time writing a submission. I would probably never do something like this, but my boyfriend is the host this month. So, I sat down one morning with a cup of coffee and my happy lamp. That one person. I mulled this over for quite a while. I thought of many people who have affected me. For better or worse those people did shape me into who I am today. Though none of the stories felt right.

I really wanted to write about my most perfect boyfriend, but I worried that would be too cliche. Too predictable. I continued to rack my brain, I read Steven's submission, I thought some more. I could not come up with any other answer. The truth is, I look up to and admire him more than anyone else in my life. In the last year, my life has changed drastically, in ways I could have never imagined. The constant in all of that, Steven. He did change my life.

A bit of background:

I have tried to summarize my childhood and early adulthood many times. I keep deleting and retyping. I don't know how to explain it all in a succinct way, while also only sharing what feels comfortable. I don't really know how to do it, but the book "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" changed my life.

Fresh out of college, I applied to jobs all over the country. Though ultimately ended up in Central Vermont. I was so proud of the life I was building! My parents seemed to take it as a betrayal. I was constantly soothing their anxieties, at the cost of my own sanity. At the time though, I happily did it. They're my family right? What am I gonna do, family is everything!

Meeting Steven

I met Steven/Moose very shortly after moving. We met on Match, started chatting and agreed to a date the next day. I didn't want to go. But I had no good excuse. There were no red flags. So I begrudgingly got ready and went on this date.

Almost immediately I felt comfortable and safe with him. He checked in with me every step of the way, making sure I was comfortable. I even got in a car with him and invited him to sleep over at my place the first night we met! (Of note you probably should not do this. I got very lucky, but there is potential for bad. Trust your gut.) Within a week I knew I was going to marry him.

He is the most kindest, sweetest boy ever. He is the most emotionally mature and regulated person I know, let alone a man?? He is literally perfect. He is my first boyfriend. Up until that point in my life, no one had been so patient, kind or respectful to me. He has never raised his voice or yelled at me. Never called me a name in the heat of an argument. He is safe and predictable in all the best ways.

The Moment

One night a few months into our relationship, we were lying in bed. I was doing a few things on my laptop. I needed my dad's help, so I called him. I don't recall the exact details, but I do know he yelled at me. He was mean and made me feel incredibly small.

When I got off the phone I started laughing in disbelief, then quickly sobbing. Steven held me and reassured me that my dad was out of line. At the time I probably defended my dad. As we lay there that night, a thought crossed my mind. "If Steven talked to me like that, I would kick him to the curb. Why should I let my dad speak to me that way?" That thought changed my outlook completely.

The Aftermath

I'd love to tell you I immediately started putting up boundaries with my parents, and not accepting their mistreatment. Truth is it was two long years of trying to work with my parents. I tried a lot of things, including family therapy, but ultimately went no contact.

Steven was by my side every step of the way. He supported me, he listened to me and he guided me. He never forced me or pushed me to do or say anything. He even gave me the space to make my own mistakes. (If you ask him this killed him, but sometimes you gotta learn the hard way). He listened to my angry rants, held me as I sobbed and reassured me this would all be worth it. One night I was catatonic on the couch, he took me on the scariest walk of my life. It was freezing rain and there was like ½ inch of ice covering everything outside. Don't tell him but it is one of my favorite memories of that time.

I don't want to give Steven ALL the credit. I do think eventually I would have untangled from my family's messed up web (I can see his face in my mind when he reads this, and it is one of skepticism). I do believe meeting him was a catalyst. I would not have been able to be as strong as I was without him. I don't think I'll ever be able to truly express my gratitude.

Summary

One of Steven's most used sayings is "let me be clear." So let me be clear, we do not have a perfect relationship. I don't think such a thing exists. We do have a deep mutual love and respect for one another. We work every day to be better versions of ourselves in our relationship.

You don't have to live a life where people yell at you or are mean to you. I know now how I expect to be treated. I won't accept anything less. I didn't know this kind of peace was possible. I never have to be abused or bullied again. I hope everyone feels this way one day. I hope everyone finds their sweetest, nicest partner who makes them feel safe, comfortable and loved. I hope everyone finds a Steven.

That one Person

by Celine

There's a rather powerful simplicity to the words that we choose to grip onto in our lives. A short, direct message can often become a mantra or reinforcing sentiment without the person even realizing what they have given us. My one person is an incredibly random one that once gave me a mantra that shifted my reality for the better.

During the bitter end of a toxic relationship, I was spiraling as to how I got into yet another terrible situation. But more importantly, what should I do about it? I was with this guy for some time, and cared about him for even longer. Could I really throw things away? Was I even deserving of better? These thoughts were spinning in my head when my boyfriend's step dad offered some words of advice. He was always around as he owned the restaurant in front of my boyfriend's house, and was the designated driver to every concert I went to with my boyfriend's family. He was always kind, and I could tell he was very good for my boyfriend's mother and they were incredibly happy. Safe to say, he was a genuine person who I viewed as trustworthy and someone to look up to.

He reached out after a fight I had with my boyfriend while he was around to hear everything. He mentioned that he noticed the two of us having some real problems, and that it wasn't okay what I was going through. He also apologized on behalf of my boyfriend as well as my boyfriend's mother as they had treated me harshly recently which he also was around to see. While all of this was validating, it wasn't the mantra. What he said next was simple, to the point, and life altering. He told me that "nothing changes if nothing changes" and I should remember that when I need to see changes in my life. I am responsible for seeking out and making those changes. After that brief conversation, I started to see the unproductive cycles I was already falling into at a young age. Seeking out men who were no good for me and perpetuating that toxicity in my life that mirrored what I lived through in my childhood. Settling into a situation that will hurt me just for the sake of feeling like I had someone, and that what I had was good enough. These were patterns that many people who grew up as I did often repeat because they are trapped in their traumas and can't see a way out. This one statement changed all of that for me.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still dated a few more people who were not good for me after this. Growth isn't instantaneous. However, when I started seeing things take a turn for the worse, I would remember that saying. Nothing changes if nothing changes. So, I would ask myself if this partner, situation, or experience was what I wanted the rest of my life to look like. If the answer was no, I knew it was up to me to make the change necessary to get on the right path. I left those partners because I knew there was no happy future with them. I changed career paths in college because I knew I wanted to do something else. I started to develop boundaries with those who took advantage because I knew I deserved better. Slowly but surely, I ended up with a career I excel at, a fiance who treats me extremely well and whom I love dearly, and grew into someone I'm proud to say I've put a lot of work into and have come out feeling like a better version of me each time I've made changes. While I am far from done making positive changes in my life, I always look back to that one moment, with that one person, who said that one thing. That gave me the perspective I needed to break the cycle I was in and run towards the life I always pictured and wanted so badly as a kid. I've seen many others who grew up in a similar situation as me and could not break out of what they were used to. They remain trapped in their fears, surrounded by people and choices that leech them of happiness. I always wonder if I would have done the same had I not had that one person. While he is a stranger to me now, what he gave me in his advice will always remain a core belief in how I live my life. I think that kind of power coming from such few words is awe inspiring, and I'm so grateful that I got to experience it firsthand. So cheers to my one person, wherever he may be.

Two Flavors of High School Nerds

by Iro

(Written during November 2024 for the Eggbug Memorial Rotator)

How grand it would be to be able to point to a single person who said the right thing to me at the right moment during my childhood, changing my life forever. Alas. I suppose I'll have to settle for people I remember.

A couple guys I knew in high school tend to crop back up in my thoughts from time to time, where I go "oh yeah, that guy" and look back (mostly) fondly upon those days. As far as I recall, they never interacted with *each other*, and yet they're somewhat connected in my brain.

For the sake of storytelling and anonymity, let's call these two people Seth and Alex. Like most people I knew in high school, they knew my older brother, who was a very popular senior when I was a freshman. They were both juniors at the time. I never saw either after high school and I wouldn't say I learned any real life lessons from them, but I was an impressionable teen and looked up to them. They shaped some of my tastes in media and therefore the trajectory of my life. That counts, right?

I first met Seth when I went to fetch my brother after school and they were playing Mario Kart DS together. He was the son of one of the teachers, a former Soviet physicist who taught calculus and the other high-level math courses. Mr. L was infamous around school for being a bit of a hardass; if you were ever late he would make you dance the Macarena up in front of the class.

Seth was pretty thin and frail, suffering from multiple life-threatening chronic illnesses. He lived near a local landfill (no, not that landfill) and I suspect that had an effect. I'd like to think had a more agreeable relationship with him than my brother did because I was not constantly proselytizing to him with empty promises of faith healing, but I was pretty annoying back then. We used to regularly chat online at least.

Alex played the same instrument as me during my brief stint in marching band. I would to this day describe him as an asshole. Is it gauche to say that someone had light school shooter vibes? He was pretty quiet with everyone else but surprisingly outspoken and loudmouthed when I hung out with him. I guess he would've probably just started throwing hands if he got really pissed.

At some point Alex declared out loud that I was to be his protege. He'd buy me food at away field shows and tolerated me watching when he'd play video games. He would sometimes say things in an exaggerated Japanese accent because he genuinely thought it sounded cooler (he was lily white). If Alex had owned a trenchcoat, he would have worn one; instead he wore denim jackets.

Seth and Alex were the only two people I could talk to about certain things. Even with how widespread the internet has become, I think it can still be difficult to find people who share your interests. Rather, people who share your interests to roughly the same degree, people who are the same kind of nerd as you.

The more specific something gets, the more hardcore the fans get, and I don't feel as though I'm particularly hardcore about much. I definitely wasn't back in high school, plus I liked weird Japanese stuff instead of American Idol or Chuck. I enjoyed Halo at the time, but I didn't enjoy it to the extent that I could keep up a conversation with The Halo Guy. I could find people who watched Naruto, but nobody else in school was playing Contact on the Nintendo DS.

Alex had an appreciation for stuff that was slightly offbeat at the time. He loved Boktai to the point where he imported the manga so that he could finally get good quality scans. He played a lot of Monster Hunter on PSP and made it look like the most boring game in the universe because he would just stand at the other side of the arena and plink at the monster from far away with Heavy Bowgun. I consequently never touched Monster Hunter until 2024.

He used to give me build advice for Mega Man Battle Network and Pokemon, like making me a really cool Knight Soul / Tomahawk Soul chip folder in Battle Network 5 that was great at pinning enemies in tight quarters and blasting them with short-range multi-hit attacks. He taught me about IVs and EVs, concepts that nobody who wishes to truly enjoy Pokemon should ever learn about.

Aside, because I cannot help myself: in Pokemon games, each Pokemon (even among the same species) has a unique spread of IVs, or Individual Values, that range from 0 to 31 for each stat. By the time a given 'mon hits the level cap, each stat will have a number of extra points equal to its IV value; in a competitive setting, this can be the difference between life and death. EVs (Effort Values) are rewarded for defeating other Pokemon, with every 4 EVs leading to an additional point in a given stat. A Pokemon can only accumulate 510 EVs total, so you're usually looking at some kind of 252/252/4 spread, maybe slightly different depending on the exact kind of role you're considering for that given Pokemon.

These values are largely opaque, though newer games have made them more visible and more easily manipulated. Back then, if you want to play optimally, it was time to bust out the spreadsheets, track your EVs, and chain-breed until you had eugenicized your perfect little Pokemon for something like a plus-minus 5% difference. This is now information I will never forget.

On Mondays, the marching band had to play at school football games, and it was often simply more efficient to hang out for another three hours rather than go all the way home and then back, so we'd just sit around and talk. Alex would squat on top of a concrete parking bumper and sort of stream-of-consciousness detail his ideal Final Fantasy game, which now that I think about it is weirdly similar to 2022's Stranger of Paradise on the mechanical end. For whatever reason, Alex loved the dragoon class specifically and would take the time to pose as if he was holding a spear behind him, with a hypothetical cape billowing in the wind. He did this entire thing enough times that I remember him doing it.

"Or," he'd say, "I'd use a whip." He always followed up with an exaggerated whip sound and accompanying groan of pain, pointedly imitating That Scene in the second episode of Roots. He did this entire whip bit at least once a day for most of the time I knew him. To my memory, Alex never actually said the n-word out loud, but he sure did make a lot of super racist "jokes". Like I said: an asshole. His supposed protege sure learned what not to say.

The last time I saw him was when he stopped his car in the middle of the road to shout hi at my brother when we were walking to In-N-Out one day. No clue what happened to him after that, and he happened to have the same name as a famous person, so I can't exactly Google him or anything. I hope he became less racist.

Seth was more chill, or perhaps simply had less energy. Once, I messaged Seth on Google Talk (yeah) to tell him that I'd finished Fire Emblem (in modern parlance, FE7 aka "The Blazing Blade") on the GBA. He asked me whom I'd given Afa's Drops, an item with the description: "gives a little treat to the unit that uses it". His reaction when I told him was some flavor of bafflement mixed with confusion, and after he explained my folly the conversation turned to him complaining about how beating the Black Knight in FE: Path of Radiance was basically down to pure luck.

Aside, because I cannot help myself: in Fire Emblem games, each character/unit has a unique spread of stat growth rates. When a character levels up, the game checks their growth rates and determines whether any given stat goes up or not. For example, if a unit has a 70% growth in Speed (really good), then that's the chance that stat increases on a level up. This has always been a contentious random element; nobody likes getting an unlucky empty level. On the other hand, if you got lucky, units that were meant to be lacking in certain ways could end up as comically powerful all-rounders.

Afa's Drops were a late-game one-time-use item that increased a given unit's growth rates by 5% across the board. Using them on a unit like Lyn, who was already approaching (perhaps even at) the level cap, was simply inefficient; there wouldn't be time enough to reap the benefits. This is now information I will never forget.

Seth ran a Super Mario fansite, back when people did such things. It had a quiz for every single Mario game that you could take to earn points that you could then spend on unlocking new features of the site. Every month he would run a poll about which character from wider pop culture should have a showdown with which Nintendo character (I'm talking like some "Yoda vs Link" type shit), and then he'd write a little fanfic of the battle.

The website had a forum with maybe... three to five active users? The memories are fuzzy, but there was a roleplay thread with a bizarre mishmash of Mario, LoTR, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, and more. It had a homebrew magic system with spell charges and an element triangle, but no dice were ever rolled.

Seth played some paladin/Lord guy who had a phoenix familiar with an elvish name from LoTR and some kind of legendary blade that definitely ended in -calibur but I cannot for the life of me remember what it started with. I, being roughly At That Age, had some kind of DARKNESS-using ninja-like edgelord character. There was a third person who played a stoic, time-manipulating wizard... who was a talking Yoshi. He had a spell called Chaos Flare. It was goofy.

It was also the first real creative writing I ever did, a pure round robin freeform improv. Whoever posted next simply took what was there and ran with it, with the unspoken rule that you couldn't control another person's character other than for basic blocking or scene transitions. At least once I got scolded for ruining Seth's plans for an epic lighthouse dungeon by not putting in enough puzzles or traps (he improvised an inscription explaining that the traps would all disappear for the Chosen Hero). Eventually the Yoshi guy just stopped posting entirely and Seth tried to reboot the thread. It didn't go anywhere.

When I was a junior in high school, my brother was living at the college dorm. He'd bus back for the weekend a couple times a month. During winter break, my parents and I went on vacation for a week. When we got back, my brother was sitting on the couch playing Smash Bros by himself. What was he doing home on a random Thursday?

"A friend drove me up so I could go to Seth's funeral," he said. "I got to be a pallbearer and everything. I had to find my old white gloves from band."

Like I said: never saw either of them after high school.

When I think back, I remember these two before most of the people my own age. I remember the two guys who each showed me both how to be and how not to be a high school nerd. Thanks, guys.

You can find me at Bluesky or on my website Obsidian Moonshine.

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