my son he is sick

not even in the way that i see people say these sorts of things about the dream smp, either. sure, yes, the experience was very similar. we were there to see the origin point of a turn of modern culture, in a way that few other experiences of the 2010s and 2020s could probably ever compare to.

but it just doesn't feel the same to me. i'm not sure why. both servers have a notable chunk of their history missing, lost media wise. both servers did that whole change the game thing. but it's still different.

it's different in a way i may never know how to put to words. in a way that might just eat me alive when it all comes down to it, the more that i learn about who i am as a person as i grow. as we all grow. it shaped me in a way that no other minecraft-based narrative has ever shaped me. in a way that no other multimedia work has ever shaped me.

i could sit here for hours typing up the "maybe it was (x)"es of the members. of the streams, of the bits, the friendships. the fandom, the culture on and offline. of it all. seriously. i mean that. hours. that's how bad it is. there were people who spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours on the server itself, six years ago today, who weren't as affected as myself and others were.

maybe that's what it all is, in the end. maybe it's the paradox of just how absurd its impact was. in the moment and after, years after.