10 years

I've been planning for some time, to make this post. I started thinking about it about 2 years ago, and was hoping that I would remember that it exists. Thankfully I have, so here we are.

I don't spend a lot of time lurking or posting anymore, (work, gamedev, just moving on in general) but the CSTSF was an important part of my late teens. It was really my only social outlet to the outside world. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, and it was honestly a miracle that we even had internet where we lived. I didn't associate with anyone outside of family before 2011, and that's honestly crazy looking back. I've made some very interesting posts in the mid 2010s including, but not limited to, removing my mods from the forums because of a fucking anti-swear filter that was implemented for a day; and being so off the rails, that some people thought I was honest-to-God trolling most if not all the time.

But anyways, it's not any great secret that I was a big, if not pivotal part of the modding community for many years. You've all seen my NPC hacking guide; you've seen how I created, handed over, and then got banned from the modding discord, many know of the tradition of Modfest, that I started back in 2017; and I now revile to all, that I was the one behind "BlargoDX666", "Scuttlebug Jamboree", and "Cold Fever" by the user under the name "Your Undoing".

I've certainly put my work in over the years, and I'm glad to have contributed so much over the years, in fact, I think I'm *still* the user with the most amount of Doukutsu assembler hacks in existence, and it could very well stay that way forever with the shift over to CSE2 for more egregious modifications of the game now.

Ever since the beginning I was kinda a silly guy. I was trying to have fun, learning as much as I could

To say I only did positive things to the forums, would be a great misrepresentation of how things actually were. I spent a lot of my time on the internet, terrorizing threads with my incredibly misplaced comments, injection of religion, and very cringe replies (I especially used ellipses and double/triple line breaks a lot for absolutely no reason) And of course about 2016-2019 I had it out with quite a few members that I will not name. It's something I'm not proud of.

Similar to Matt, Noxid, and Gir, I'm making indie games now. You can check them out at https://teamcoral.xyz I occasionally make blog posts, and tell people that TideWalkers will eventually come out (lie) so you can see me there probably.


It's been a wild ride, these 10 years, lots has changed, and I'm sure a lot more will in the next 10. Thank you for having me CSTSF, thank you for tolerating me all these year.




I wish to give special thanks to -

Enlight - We were damn good friends back in the day. You were my first real friend. I know that in recent times, we haven't seen eye to eye on a lot, but I will never forget the times we shared on skype, steam chat, and running the modding discord together. I know I've said and done things I regret, and I'm not looking to repair what cannot be done, but I absolutely wish you the best in your life, wherever you go.

Seasons of Destiny - OORRRRRDDDEEAALLL PILLLLLAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! But seriously, thank you so much for helping make the original demo of TideWalkers, you really were a gifted modder, and your mods like shipwreck will always be among the best of CS mods.

GiR - I know I was barely anything above an idiot child extremist back then, but I always thought you were cool.

Noxid - I'm better now, I promise Not perfect, and life is about cointinual improvement, but I'm miles above 2013 me.

As well as:

• Aar
• TPcool
• Dunc
• Slither/Doors/Lunar/Cat/Coffee
• Clownmacy
• Zxin
• Slightly Intelligent Monkey
• Cyber
• Piston
• Rarebeeph
• Polaris
• Hax4ever/Jade
• Serri
• Thomas Xin
• Brayconn
• Coldcallerloppy
• Kiseff
• Dabaski
• HaydenStudios
• X-Calibar

You've all left a mark on my life that carved me into who I am today, and no matter how much or little you think you have done, I will cherish you being a part of my life. Thank you.


shoutouts to "PROGRESS" "hey polar" and "97% of gay tigers won't support gun abortions"

 

Differences aside, you were quite the influence over the community. I remember back around Modcon 2016 especially, when you and Thomas Xin flew in ASM, it had some modders make a challenge on how good you could make a mod with minimal or no ASM at all, even if it got toxic at some parts. I wish you luck on gamedev. Sue Story demo 3 when

 

Differences aside, you were quite the influence over the community. I remember back around Modcon 2016 especially, when you and Thomas Xin flew in ASM, it had some modders make a challenge on how good you could make a mod with minimal or no ASM at all, even if it got toxic at some parts. I wish you luck on gamedev. Sue Story demo 3 when

You know, about a year ago, I was like. "It would be funny to go back and finish Sue's story and release it on the 10th" but I played it, and realized that I am now a completely different person, I am no longer the person who could make Sue's story anything like the original version that I had planned. It was a strange moment to realize that.

Also I'm glad to see you again. It's kinda poetic that after all the bickering we've had, you feel a lot more like an old friend, than an adversary.

 

while i have not interacted much with you myself, i'm glad you were here to do a lot of heavy lifting for the modding community, ASM or not
as for me, i caught myself looking up to you and your tutorials, mostly because i wanted to be a help to the ASM part of the modding too, i just didn't have what you had : P

it's really sweet to see that you stuck around for such a long time, and i hope you keep dropping by every now and then

 

while i have not interacted much with you myself, i'm glad you were here to do a lot of heavy lifting for the modding community, ASM or not
as for me, i caught myself looking up to you and your tutorials, mostly because i wanted to be a help to the ASM part of the modding too, i just didn't have what you had : P

it's really sweet to see that you stuck around for such a long time, and i hope you keep dropping by every now and then

To quote myself in my open source mods thread. "I AM HERE TO HELP ALL THE PEOPLE!"

I plan to drop in every once in a while, I have for the last 3 or 4 years and I don't really see that changing. I should eventually check out some more mods that have come out though. I haven't been keeping up on that very much.

 

It's kinda poetic that after all the bickering we've had, you feel a lot more like an old friend, than an adversary.

If there is one last thing that I should complain to you about. <BUY and <VAR are incompatible with each other. That is all. I've tried fixing it, idk if I ever shared it, but I'm not working on TSC+ anymore. Kinda had to take on the role of ASM hacker for a bit, cuz everyone else was using CSE2.

 

Oh, hey BLink! It's so cool to see when there's a spark of activity here again, and some folks that I remember talking with as a teenager will pop back on and I can just see through the way that they post that they've changed and matured. I took a like into you pretty early on in your membership here, even if it was very obvious very early on that you had a lot of quirks. And although some of your past behavior was at times tone-deaf, overzealous, immature, and naive, I still stand by my prior conviction that people like Noxid, GIR, Doors, Hiino, and others were waaaaaay harder on you than they needed to be. They really just added a lot of fuel to the fire that didn't need to be there, even though it was pretty amusing. I guess my opinion on that drama is going to be biased, since I shared (and to this day still believe in) a lot of the conservative Christian values that you expressed at the time, and the way that some of those users ridiculed you reminded me of a lot of the ways that I was unfairly attacked on these forums prior to that.

Speaking of your religious upbringing, I was lurking one of those threads a few years ago, and it was extremely interesting when I noticed at one point that you mentioned you were a Messianic Jew. I was not familiar at all with that tradition back in the day when we were in high school, but when I was in college, I had a professor who was a Messianic Jew, and I visited his synagogue once, and learned a lot about the Messianic Jewish beliefs and culture, and how essentially it's culturally Jewish but theologically Christian, and how families in that religious tradition have a tendency to have much more stringent dogma than what I was raised with. And so then a couple years after that, I re-read that old thread where you said you were a Messianic Jew, and then it clicked for me and I better understood where you were coming from. Out of curiosity, how have your religious and political beliefs evolved? Obviously you've at least gained more perspective and learned how to express yourself in a way that doesn't so quickly draw ire from those who believe differently, and I'm just curious to know to what extent that's driven by a change in values and to what extent that's driven by a change in how you live out and express those values.

In any case, I always appreciated your support and praise for the work that I did, and your contribution to the modding community really made a huge impact. I always enjoyed talking with you and considered you a good friend. Some people found it hard to get along with you, but I always found you to be fun to talk to and easy to get along with. I hope you're living your best life now.

 

If there is one last thing that I should complain to you about. <BUY and <VAR are incompatible with each other. That is all. I've tried fixing it, idk if I ever shared it, but I'm not working on TSC+ anymore. Kinda had to take on the role of ASM hacker for a bit, cuz everyone else was using CSE2.

I'm pretty sure that it's just an address, or variable conflict. iirc <VAR takes up some free ram, and <BUY takes up the same ram. idk it's been like 5 years since I last touched it, but it's a simple address change, I'm sure if you poke around with it for a short while it will revel itself to you, you're smart and can do it!

A lot of text.

Yo, Haden, I knew that you were going to be on the first page of replies.

Umm, yes people could have been a bit less harsh on me, but I really was an agent of getting under peoples skin lol. I'm a lot more afflicted by the behaviour of some members with the initial split of the discords in 2017, than any actual posts criticizing my actions.

Well, to put it simply, I just got back from passover at my brothers. We all still take the kosher and torah things pretty seriously, even after dad passed away in late 2021. I would say things haven't evolved that much over the past 10 years. I think I learned a lot more about how people deserve the abilty to practice whatever they want without interference though. Just because people do things I may not like, doesn't mean that I should be provocative towards them, and they shouldn't be the same towards me. Basically I can get along with people of different beliefs now, that's what has changed the most for me. I'm a lot more open and tolerant than I use to be.

Thank you, I really did want to see people have more tools, and resources than I did back in 2013. I wanted to continue to build people together through the creative work of modding, and it seems that it's working just fine. I stop by and attempt to update the ultimate modding guides so they stay up to date, since that's still my tourch to carry.

I am certianly living as best as I can. It's not in a place I especially want to be, I'm living in an appartment by myself, and I'm still broke, and I still have no wife (I still have never even gone on a date :sob: ) but I'm running dad's contruction company, and we're out of debt as of this year, so I hope things will get going places financially. For game dev stuff, I swear TideWalkers will happen, it's just been a lot going through other things the past year.

It's good to hear from you, and I hope you also have been well.


P.S. the new text editor for the forums is REALLY short, I now have to type things up in vim and copy/paste into it it's so bad.

 

Glad to see you've mellowed out a bit! I've done a bit of mellowing out myself, and while I don't come to the forums all that often anymore, it's nice to hear about the impact this place has left on people.

Glad to hear that things are looking up for you!
Me and Jade have had a few delays when it comes to working on our game as well, me having to pay off a big ol medical bill through art comms preventing me from working on Harpy Star nearly as much as I'd like to be, so it's somewhat comforting to hear that we aren't the only people from the community going through some hardships.

I hope the best for you in your future endeavors!

 

Haven't been on these forums in a long time but I started lurking a little bit recently.
It always gives me pause when I see that some of the people who used to be super active were last online a few years ago. But I'm glad to see that some of the old regulars are still around and that some of the "alumni" still come around to their old stomping grounds and that things have generally been on an upturn for everyone. I wish you luck with your indie games and everything else going on in your life as of late, and thanks for your numerous contributions to the modding community here!

 

Glad to see you've mellowed out a bit! I've done a bit of mellowing out myself, and while I don't come to the forums all that often anymore, it's nice to hear about the impact this place has left on people.

Glad to hear that things are looking up for you!
Me and Jade have had a few delays when it comes to working on our game as well, me having to pay off a big ol medical bill through art comms preventing me from working on Harpy Star nearly as much as I'd like to be, so it's somewhat comforting to hear that we aren't the only people from the community going through some hardships.

I hope the best for you in your future endeavors!

View attachment 8932

Hey thanks Bio. I've done some lurking on the xyspoon twitter, and it's looking pretty good so far. You know game dev takes a lot of time, and real life eats up as much as it can.

You also have the best!

Spoiler

you din't draw that pic just for me did you?

Haven't been on these forums in a long time but I started lurking a little bit recently.
It always gives me pause when I see that some of the people who used to be super active were last online a few years ago. But I'm glad to see that some of the old regulars are still around and that some of the "alumni" still come around to their old stomping grounds and that things have generally been on an upturn for everyone. I wish you luck with your indie games and everything else going on in your life as of late, and thanks for your numerous contributions to the modding community here!

Oh hey it's the other Link.

You're welcome, I always wanted to leave the community a better place than when I joined, and I guess I have, so yay!

 

Oh boy, BLink, TLink, and FDLink in the same thread?

 

Hey man I just have to ask if you grew past your weird opinions about LGBT pride or if that's still a hangup for you for some reason.

 

Hey man I just have to ask if you grew past your weird opinions about LGBT pride or if that's still a hangup for you for some reason.

Hey polar.

It looks like everyone is holding their breath (I see Enlight and Bray lurking pretty closely especially), so let's rip the band-aid off.

The answer I have isn't all that eventful really. It's a straight and simple "no". I think a lot of my weird opinions came from a lot of fence sitting. I wanted to please my religious beliefs, and the discord that I ran simultaneously. The fence sitting came from not having any social outlet outside of the CSTSF, and I was legitimately afraid for quite some time, between 2017-2020 that I would say something that would be considered unacceptable, and alienating. I cared a lot about my image in that I was just a nice guy to nice people, and that I didn't have to take a side in an increasingly politicized landscape. Even now, with pronouns becoming a hot topic, language itself has changed to where you *have* to be on one side or the other. You can't really just refer to BLink as BLink without saying he/him/his at some point.

Without social pressure, a leading role in management, and me building a more diverse group of friends; I'm not bound by external factors that keep me from expressing what I believe any longer, and I am enough of a man now, to actually say things and not backpedal, worm my way out, or have childish fantasies that I can please everyone all the time.

I want to be very clear, I think everyone has an absolute, God-given right to be the individual they want to be. I do not have any sort of right to infringe on other people happiness whatsoever. Just because my God would consider some lifestyles "sinful" does not mean I cannot co-exist with others, in fact for your bible lesson today, I will disclose that Jesus spent a lot of time with sinners. Everyone, no matter walk of life, deserves a baseline of respect, the respect you give to anyone. I have the right to think freely, and I have the right to practice my religion. It would be hypocritical to then say that you cannot do the same.

With all this said, I'm not going to pretend that gender dysphoria is something that should be socially approved of. I know it's insane to think what 99%+ of the population did only 10 years ago, but I'm just a bit old fashioned. I don't think less of anyone who has gender dysphoria; I honest to god want to be able to be friends with everyone, I want to help people who want help (as you've seen with my assembly tutorials, videos ect) but this is really something, where I have to draw a line. To call people by their preferred pronouns, instead of relaying the truth of their biological self back to them, is a disservice that I can no longer, in good faith, continue doing, knowing that I'm not only betraying my God's teachings, but also leading people down the pipeline to extreme suicide rates.

If this makes me shunned forever by certain types of people, (and I'm incredibly certain it will), I now comfortably rest in the belief that it is simply against God's will that be around them to begin with. If the "tolerant" cannot tolerate intellectual difference, then It's probably not a place for me.

I would have preferred to not have this happen, but embedding political and religious beliefs into every day life now through pronouns, has forced me to no longer be silent about what I think on the matter. If I'm canceled for this, shunned, whatever, then better sooner than later, it is now in God's hands.

 

To call people by their preferred pronouns, instead of relaying the truth of their biological self back to them, is a disservice that I can no longer, in good faith, continue doing, knowing that I'm not only betraying my God's teachings, but also leading people down the pipeline to extreme suicide rates.

Oh no, please don't refer to me as she/her, that would only validate me as a person that you respect and make you look like a pariah to your """god""".

EDIT: Okay, because I'm sure you'll very likely just ignore that snark, mods won't so I'm just going to include this just in case. So literally what's the whole schtick on pronouns? I never understand how people perceive pronoun usage as this ultimate sin against His teachings. It's all hogwash. They've been a part of our every day language for how long, 700 years? Unless some minority of people are deciding to go Yivo , and are making their voices heard, then we have absolutely nothing to worry about. People just use this weak argument for why they shouldn't treat people in lgbt+ as people. You do you, but this ain't it.

 

Incredibly disappointed to hear that your capacity for basic respect falls short of your capacity for "tolerance".

 

Hey polar.

It looks like everyone is holding their breath (I see Enlight and Bray lurking pretty closely especially), so let's rip the band-aid off.

The answer I have isn't all that eventful really. It's a straight and simple "no". I think a lot of my weird opinions came from a lot of fence sitting. I wanted to please my religious beliefs, and the discord that I ran simultaneously. The fence sitting came from not having any social outlet outside of the CSTSF, and I was legitimately afraid for quite some time, between 2017-2020 that I would say something that would be considered unacceptable, and alienating. I cared a lot about my image in that I was just a nice guy to nice people, and that I didn't have to take a side in an increasingly politicized landscape. Even now, with pronouns becoming a hot topic, language itself has changed to where you *have* to be on one side or the other. You can't really just refer to BLink as BLink without saying he/him/his at some point.

Without social pressure, a leading role in management, and me building a more diverse group of friends; I'm not bound by external factors that keep me from expressing what I believe any longer, and I am enough of a man now, to actually say things and not backpedal, worm my way out, or have childish fantasies that I can please everyone all the time.

I want to be very clear, I think everyone has an absolute, God-given right to be the individual they want to be. I do not have any sort of right to infringe on other people happiness whatsoever. Just because my God would consider some lifestyles "sinful" does not mean I cannot co-exist with others, in fact for your bible lesson today, I will disclose that Jesus spent a lot of time with sinners. Everyone, no matter walk of life, deserves a baseline of respect, the respect you give to anyone. I have the right to think freely, and I have the right to practice my religion. It would be hypocritical to then say that you cannot do the same.

With all this said, I'm not going to pretend that gender dysphoria is something that should be socially approved of. I know it's insane to think what 99%+ of the population did only 10 years ago, but I'm just a bit old fashioned. I don't think less of anyone who has gender dysphoria; I honest to god want to be able to be friends with everyone, I want to help people who want help (as you've seen with my assembly tutorials, videos ect) but this is really something, where I have to draw a line. To call people by their preferred pronouns, instead of relaying the truth of their biological self back to them, is a disservice that I can no longer, in good faith, continue doing, knowing that I'm not only betraying my God's teachings, but also leading people down the pipeline to extreme suicide rates.

If this makes me shunned forever by certain types of people, (and I'm incredibly certain it will), I now comfortably rest in the belief that it is simply against God's will that be around them to begin with. If the "tolerant" cannot tolerate intellectual difference, then It's probably not a place for me.

I would have preferred to not have this happen, but embedding political and religious beliefs into every day life now through pronouns, has forced me to no longer be silent about what I think on the matter. If I'm canceled for this, shunned, whatever, then better sooner than later, it is now in God's hands.

Alright fucking listen man. You don't get what the hell you're talking about. God did not make a fucking mistake with Trans People. God made us all in his image, right? So this is part of that. I've seen it described as, "Trans people exist for the same reason God created Wheat instead of Bread, and Grapes instead of Wine; So that we could share in that act of creation." Theologically your position is completely unsound beyond regurgitating unsubstantiated catholic church anti-lgbt mentalities that you claim to be seperate from now. And scientifically you're also incorrect. Gender Dysphoria is proven fucking science, and you DECIDING to invalidate the fact that seeing a man in the mirror makes me want to kms does not make you smart, it doesn't make you a hero, it doesn't help anyone, it's just another stupid-ass wedge people like you bludgeon us because you can't sleep at night imagining that the way you've acted thus far is 'wrong'.

Citing high suicide rates is fucking rich man, like I'm a little bit in disbelief at the sheer audacity. You tell us that we are lying, that the feelings inside our head and bodies aren't real, you repeat this, you deny us when we tell you you're wrong, you overwrite us with your idea of how people are, and yet you have the gall to joke about suicide rates like they aren't caused by external factors such as abuse by people like you.

What's the game plan of disapproving of my dysphoria? Does it make it go away? Does it make it stop hurting? You really must think it's fake if you think it's ever going to fucking leave my head. It's who I AM, it's CORE to me. Nevermind the fact that if being a man could possibly ever feasibly make me happy, I WOULD'VE BEEN HAPPY FOR THOSE FIRST 23 YEARS TO BEGIN WITH.

God teaches us to love everyone. If you deny my personhood, you don't love me. You lack compassion for a state of being that you cannot understand. And I'm praying you can come to your senses. God loves me too, Blink. That means he loves who I am.

 

I never intended to log back into this website but I wanted to show back up to express that I'm as displeased with you as everyone else BLink. I agree wholeheartedly with what Polar said, and I'm morose worried that you've fallen for narratives being pushed by other people that want to otherise the queer community at large and are currently just focusing on transgender people for the ease of attacking a group that is barely harder to understand than previous groups they tried the same tactic with such as homosexuals or gender-non-conforming people.
You should really read up on the history of this, read up on the book burning in Nazi Germany, look at the historical existence of these peoples throughout not only western civilization but American Indigenous civilization, look at the countless transgender people who have been burned alive in the past decade as a result of this rhetoric.
We're not your enemy, but there are people in the world that want you to believe we are, because it makes it easier for them to guide you into actions that ultimately will be used to oppress you as well, as once these politicians and media figures have gathered support via hate against one group and "cleansed" them from the population, they'll move on to the next group, and the next.
I get it's unpleasent to come back only to be met with a wall of hate after you express your feelings, I get it, I've been there, but you need to understand that where you are stems from a deeper problem, you're being used as fuel in a battle you don't know is being fought against you.

 

Well that went places