june gloom

Something occurred to me.

I've been in this community since perhaps 1999 or early 2000 -- back when there was barely even a forum (as I recall, it behaved a lot like Slashdot.) I'm not sure what my first wad was -- probably one of the early KZDoom maps? I had just gotten Doom 2 and was looking for new maps. I'm not 100% sure when I joined, I just know it was after the 5 Years event and before Darkening 2 came out.

But I realized -- and I've probably realized this several times over the years -- that while I might be in the community, I don't really feel of the community. I've always been a rather surface-level Doomer -- after /newstuff stopped really being a thing I rarely played anything more than maybe 3-4 of what gets shown on Cacowards. For all the time I spend thinking about games like Doom I sure don't play them very much, huh? I'm literally only recently just getting around to playing Plutonia 2.

The point is that I often feel like I just don't belong here, or anywhere. What I want out of Doom rarely seems to be what other people want out of Doom; what I want out of video games in general rarely seems to be what other people want out of video games in general. Honestly, nobody seems to want what I want, period. Every day the world makes a little less sense to me. Every day I feel a little more alienated from other people. I rarely seem to last in Doom community Discords because I always feel like I'm just an intruder. Or something happens and I make a fool out of myself and leave.

When I started this I meant to write something about how nobody seems to make the kind of Doom (or anything really) maps I really like anymore -- freewheeling atmospheric adventures full of dead ends and weird shit (even though I know that's not really true, it feels true and feelings don't care about facts) but the more I thought about it the more I felt like that the problem isn't just the Doom community, it's everywhere and everything. I just don't belong anywhere. I don't fit in. I will never fit in. I'll always be on the outside looking in. Everything I try to do I feel like an interloper. From communities for a 30-year-old shooter that I love to fighting games to being fucking trans -- I'm just not meant to be here. I'm doing my best to be more active in the community -- I even started a review blog for Christ's sake -- and yet I just don't know if I'm ever going to shake this feeling.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I think I just needed to get this out. Thanks for reading.