g' posting #43929772 in honor of HL's anniversary
i talk about him and how important he is to me so much that it feels silly to say no one understands it. but it also feels true.
i found the franchise in summer 2012, leading me to find him. at the time i was as casual of a fan as i could be for being 11 to 12 and undiagnosed with autism. then i hit middle school. everything got bad from then on. depression became crippling and hit me daily, not realizing it was chronic. the bullying started and it made me feel like i meant nothing. grades werent as good as i wanted them to be because i just couldn't manage it. adhd was really bad and i could barely handle it. it was all too much. my brain scrambled to find an escape and i hadn't even realized it at the time that thats what was happening. i was trying to find something to ground myself and make me feel like i was worth even breathing. that escape was that franchise. not just that. it was him.
i always was a fan of a creepier and darker side of things, so when i saw him, and how strange and eerie he was, i needed to know more. i went looking for all his sightings, paid close attention to the cutscene. i listened to what he said, how he said them, what he did while saying them. i rewatched them again and again. i pieced together what i could. i tried lining it all up with everything that was known. i looked up all the meanings of every word he used, looked into how he was written, how he was conceived, how he was animated. i tried picturing how the other characters saw him. i looked up how he was perceived by the fanbase.
i searched every little nook and cranny that existed that had anything to do with him at all. until i one day realized i was obsessed with him. obsessed and in love.
i didn't just want to know everything about him on a surface or design level, i wanted to know him personally. i tried thinking of what would he be like if he was real. what was his personality actually like? what were things he enjoyed doing outside of his "work"? did he have things he casually liked and disliked? did he have a favorite color, food, place to relax, piece of clothing, fashion sense?
i thought of him non-stop. at school, at home, while going places with family. while doing homework, eating, dreaming. i watched countless g.mod and mach.ini.ma series that centered around him or even just had him in it, with many of those creators names still fresh in my mind, having a huge fondness for them.
i just wanted to be surrounded by him. by his imagery, his essence, his existence. every single little thing. and that has never changed.
i have other f/os that i love. some of them i havent thought much of in a while, others im fully smitten by. but at the end of the day, truly, none of them compare to him. they have special places IN my heart, but G' is always the one who HOLDS my whole heart and soul. i dont think theres ever going to be another out there that could capture my love as much as he has, no matter how hard they try. i could even attempt to make my own lover and he still wouldn't amount to G'. no one can. other than my irl bf of course. and even he knows how strong of a bond i have with G', and that it'd take so, so, SO much if someone were to try and pry him from me.
do i know he's not real? of course. do i know that, even if he was real, he wouldnt even remotely look my way and just see me as another entity that exists in the background? absolutely. does it hurt saying that? 100%. but that doesnt stop me from being devoted to him. i truly would do so much for him. i'd take the place of every hire, i'd go along with any assignment, i'd abandon everyone and everything—i wouldn't care. i would be dangerously loyal to him and its a part of me that i cant hide away from. because even with the fact that he's not real, and he might never care for me if he was, i cant deny that it does feel as though we were meant to find each other, even if by means of being in a different universe and dimension. that, and he saved me. for that, i feel a need to repay him.
i love him and i will never apologize for it.