In a sense this is a reboot. I haven’t posted in a month. I don’t believe in punishing oneself for not keeping up with something like this. I know it’s ADHD, so I try to allow myself that space. Going to leave it at that since this is starting to feel like a pity party.

Right, last time I was active I had meant to post about MMOs.

For god knows how long I have been obsessed with the idea of being an online world. From roleplaying online via message boards to playing actual MMOs – the whole concept was fascinating. Characters in the Matrix had their own call signs, IDs, self images on the net. This was the same, to me. Still is.

I played many, many years of MMOs and still find myself fascinated by games that mimic the experience. Specifically thinking of .hack//G.U. Last Recode.

I picked up Last Recode knowing next to nothing about the franchise. I became interested after some friends were sharing info on this remaster/remake. Having played through the first game, I think I would have enjoyed it more when it released, but it was a fun experience either way. The “desktop” portions did some heavy lifting to create immersion for the player. It felt like an actual desktop space. The forums felt alive and real. The “fan art” was genuinely fun and even hilarious at times.

It also felt very specific to that era, when we’d add custom banners to our forum signature and collect WinAMP skins.

That said – I’m still enamored with fictional internet spaces. I’m not a fan of Isekais, but Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth? Summer Wars? Dennou Coil gets a pass, and depictions of the net in Ghost in the Shell (Stand Alone Complex specifically) comes to mind as well. I never tried pinning down the specifics, but something about it

Maybe it’s comforting in a time when social media is a cesspool – the same comfort offered by blogging. The fictional net spaces being more hopeful, more civil somehow. Maybe it’s the retro-futuristic depiction of the world and internet that has me obsessed. Post Y2K futures through the lens of cleanly designed non existent interfaces.

It’s probably both and then some.