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Group: Members
Posts: 4
Member No.: 1,403
Joined: July 1, 2005
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/cli ... 67-2642879
This message is intended as an explanation for those ZZT partisans present as guests of the dmzx site. This will be a concise summary of my experience with ZZT right from the beginning (in 1998, when I was just turned fifteen), when the archetype ZZT.org was in its full glory. Back then I was playing such masterpieces as ‘Daymare’, and still getting off on the nostalgia of Codered, having first played it at the age of thirteen.
This is not meant as an obligatory apology for my insurgencies, nor is it meant as a further perpetuation of rebellion. The time has come for me to move on, get a life, and make good providence for the future. I am now in full time higher education, which may explain my absence from the Zed-2 domain, and the resulting ceasefire, if a little vague.
This is not an invitation for Scorch to resume old flame wars; for ZZT serfs or associates or both, to analyse and criticize my semantic methods; nor is it generally a continuation of the elaborate jocularity of my previous conduct. You deserve to know why I made my original O-space mistake and why I showed general disdain for the community. I deserve to inform you that I did surprisingly have an intermediate interest in ZZT, despite the fact that I never discussed it much, nor made much contribution to the stocks.
The following is absolutely the truth:
The Beginning
It all started, despite popular misconception, about seven years ago. Remember that ancient place known as ZZT.org? Well, I was there. I was fifteen at the time; I remember learning about HTML, having zero GCSEs under my belt, and generally being a lazy-ass lout with little prospect for the future. Living with my parents was an absolute nightmare, since their narcissistic, anti masturbatory, anti homosexual views were dire. My mother had taught me from a very early age to be ‘embarrassed’ about sexuality and exploration by making those little references and comments, which children unfortunately associate with embarrassment and shame. Being the rebel I am, I had to leave home and fend for myself. This was difficult; I was poor, could not afford a computer, and so had no access to the Internet (yes there were libraries, but that was hardly the same). In the following gap between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, I attempted a music production G NVQ and failed due to sociological hang-ups about the process of the college environment. Namely, one of the lecturers was a lazy shithead who was hardly ever around when the pupils needed him, and made it his mission to throw us in at the deep end. Imagine being in this awesome soundproofed studio with an Akai 3000 and various 1U 19inch outboards to play with, but not knowing how anything works. I got fed up with that very quickly and left. The next course I tried was G NVQ Information Technology. I was tricked into this by my parents. They tried to say that I had intrinsic programming for a specific career type, which was ‘Systems Administration’ for massive scale networks. Fuck that.
Eventually I got a flat in which I could have access to the Internet. As well as looking at vast quantities of Asian porn, in my spare time, I got active again in playing with my ZZT. The absence of ZZT.org was mysterious. But I soon found Zed-2. This would have to have been around 2002. So it was four years between leaving home and losing access to the Internet, and finding Zed-2. For some fucked up reason I got this idea about making a site called ospace.co.uk; but I couldn’t get the domain to work with perl, so I had to settle for o-space.com. But the reason for wanting to create a rival to Zed-2 was absolutely stupid. Incredibly, in fact. It was that the users forum accounts were not associated to uploading their games. The games had to be uploaded and checked by a staff member; this meant that anybody could upload a game under any name. In retrospect, I was a bit of a prick for having such a hang-up about that; I would appreciate it if you could avoid flaming me for this; I’ve already admitted that it was stupid.
The Rise of the Risible O-space
It’s really quite ridiculous how much time I spent on O-space, how much of my patron’s money I spent in building it, when you look at the results. About twenty people bothered to sign up, and the site was heavily flawed. I only have myself to blame for this; how could I expect a bunch of loyal people to simply walk over to my site and use it. I must have been deluded. No, I ‘was’ deluded. If I remember rightly, the first post I ever made was ‘Fuck you Z2 fuckers’. Looking back, that was a pretty stupid thing to do. I mean come on, not even the most zealous, pious net-farers would forgive one for that. It is an offence punishable by eternal hatred and mockery, and rightly so! I think we all remember only too well how bad things got from then on; I made it my mission to write the most ridiculous posts, in order that I might disrupt the public order of the forum causing widespread disarray, with a view to causing rebellion. This backfired; the Z2 inhabitants were very loyal; and so they should have been. I do believe Moonpie was ostracized for so much as being indifferent; though correct me If I’m wrong.
The Internet Persona
The ‘others’ (namely Lifesummer, Redmage, Boxtop, DarbyJ [sic], Combuster, Scorch, and Develin) will undoubtedly – in their megalomaniacal ways – plot to destroy your glorious Sodom of dickgirls and furryism for all eternity. I, however, have decided that this little rebellion is futile. (For all I care you can extinguish them painfully.) You may accept, or you may not; I don’t really care anymore. Considering my public order disruptions of the past, you have every right to monumentally hate me. However, I feel that much of the hate stems from a distaste of my personal views; I have in the past accused the 11/9 victims of being lazy-ass surrender monkeys who deserved to die (this was I believe satirized in Dos’ MRWAIF game); I now concede – in retrospect – that it was a highly idiotic comment to make. I also believe that my sociological beliefs are a cause of concern. Well, we all have our special little belief complexes that keep anxiety at bay; we all think we have the perfect formulas to make the world a better place; but we grow out of it. We learn that we are fallible, and meagre in the scale of things. Don’t take my sociological beliefs to heart; they actually help me remain sane in this twisted little world. I’m sure you won’t object to me ‘remaining sane’, if I can.
The Present
I can, of course, never be certain, but I believe now at the age of twenty-two, I have my life organised in the right way. I am reading English at the soon to be independent University College. I don’t claim to have faith in my ability to do well; but it’s all a learning process anyway. I have developed my music production skills in the amateur direction; I’ve taken up photography and taken such amateurish silhouettes as the following—
I’ve developed my taste in music so much so that I have developed a hunger for travel. As soon as I can, I want to start travelling Europe, to hear the weird and exotic music of different cultures (Boards of Canada may be art techno, but it’s hardly culture). I’ve taken up writing, too; I’m sure you all know of the impending <s>doom</s> Frivolity Nostalgia Date-rape novel (I only have Nadir to thank for that title; he’s a real hero), which is sure to be utterly controversial, to the extent of being mocked on Newsnight. I wish! I’ve also considered taking up fencing and archery, since they offer it at my HE dept.
Ando has pointed out that it seems mysterious that I have been absent from Z2 for over six months now; well you can be sure that I’m always there in spirit; you can almost hear the distant cackle of a madman if you try. But really, I can’t be bothered to go there anymore, and soon the workload for my degree is going to paralyse me into an eternal slumber, so much so that you’ll never see me again. Some of you may be aware that my live journal is deleted, and that I have a journal under the guise jstopard; that’s actually my real name. The journal isn’t really for you guys, and I’ve considered making it private; it’s for a select few people to keep up to date on what I’m doing.
The Future
Where do we go from here? Well I do formally announce the end of my ZZT interest. It seems obvious that I’m never going to make a finished game. And now that I’m in talks with Julius O’Riordan about playing my music, I don’t really have time for much else. Unless a ZZTer specifically asks me to keep coming back, you’re not likely to see me again, as I’m going to start a new journal, so as to finally end communications with you all. Frankly, I’ve had enough of the vicious abuse, and I feel I have a right to abjure you all. I’ve made my apologies and explanations. I’m not claiming to deserve any form of respect from any of you; I mean let’s face it: what I did was pretty damn stupid. So this is it, people. The end of Tyrannous. That name will now dissolve into the abyss; I shall go on as Stopard, the real me. This is it! Here I go.
This post has been edited by tyrannous on Jul 4 2005, 02:07 AM
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This was posted by Tyrannous on DMZX.
