Thank You and Good Night!
Posted by: Yuzihax
Date: 2020-07-31 23:11:05
What doesn't, and perhaps never will, sound right is the fact that this is going to be the last one I ever make. To say the site's closure feels a little like a punch to the gut after 13 (admittedly not-exactly-consecutive) years of calling this place my internet home would be an understatement, but I'd also be preaching to the choir. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's posts waxing nostalgic about their time in this community, and I'll spoil things a little bit now and say that this post won't be any different.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure when my interest in Pokemon glitches really solidified, but I was interested pretty early on. I remember a few friends of mine in elementary school talking about "secret Pokemon" and "secret towns" in the original games, a concept that the young me was incredibly quick to jump on. I remember seeing MissingNo. for the first time, and taking a few timid first steps through glitch city. It endlessly fascinated me, and for the next few years, I was completely hooked. This only deepened with the discovery of TRsRockin later on, and I would spend a lot of time on my terrible, terrible dial-up internet connection reading and re-reading every glitch section on that website I could.
After YouTube started getting popular, I'd found a few videos from folks manipulating the games through VBA's memory viewer, and it was from there that I took my first few steps into this community. I opened a YouTube channel and spent a lot of time recording videos of memory viewer stuff, and later opened my own terrible, terrible glitch forum. Not too long after that, folks from this community found it, and Abwayax generously agreed to advertise it on the front page of GCL. I registered here not long after, and aside from a few stretches of time, this community has been my internet home and a decent-sized part of my life ever since.
I don't use the term "internet home" lightly, either. I was newly 13 when I registered my account here in 2007, and at 26 I can say that this website has been a part of quite literally half of my entire life. Honestly, it isn't entirely unreasonable to say that I, at least in part, grew up here! I mean, let's just say I don't have the 9th most time online out of over 2,000 users for nothing, haha! Glitch City Laboratories was really always something of a sanctuary for me in my younger years; I didn't have the best childhood and didn't exactly thrive socially, but as long as I could shitpost on the forums and kick back with my buds on #glitchcity at the end of the day (and every single second of the weekend!), everything would be okay, y'know? There's all sorts of fond memories that live on in my heart; the entirety of the Don Watermeleon arc, the laundry list of terrible, terrible in-jokes and "memes" the IRC channel had, the nights spent messing around on Gikopoi with the IRC crew, downloading garbage in the forum shop, playing the arcade games, and every other fun (mis)adventure between all the days of wall-to-wall shitposting.
One particularly strong memory that sticks out to me was during yet-another late night chat session sometime in 2007, where I wondered if the site would still be around in ten years. If everyone there would still be around, and if we'd all still be friends. At 13, I couldn't be sure that the friendships I'd made, or if the site that allowed me to have them, would last through the years. I don't remember what the responses were, but I do know what the answer ultimately turned out to be. While some of those friendships have unfortunately faded over time (though I'm sure there could be some reconnections someday!), the remaining ones and the site itself endured. Until this year, at least. Still one hell of a good run.
Here at the end, I'm so very glad I decided to come back, and I'm even gladder still that I was able to give such a major part of my life something that at least somewhat resembles a proper sendoff. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who helped make this community what it is, was, and will go on to be. Thank you to all the friends I've made over the years, past and present, for everything. And, of course, thank you for listening, if you're reading this!
It's never easy to say goodbye to Glitch City Laboratories. Trust me, considering I have a total of like three hundred angsty teenage goodbye threads and an actual, later three year absence to my (user)name, I would know. But when it's finally time, it's finally time. Catch y'all at GCRI, and most importantly:
Goodbye, Glitch City Laboratories!
[right]YOU'RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT.[/right]