i was in a clan with you ross
like, before pony days
that much I know for sure,
believe born2relax was in it too, with his buddy uhhm.... fuckkkkk . t
tark!v? fuckkk. that's gunna bother me, i was like, write at the edge of the name, but that's not it at all
trkb !? think it started with a t, then had some kinda sharp edge to it that didn't make sense to me in english, and maybe a round letter at the end that felt out of place. something that I thought it was kinda an ugly in-game name, or at least a little bland, and was like hard to build a reputation on this game with, because I'd played with him many times but still was surprised every time that he was such a good player, because I'd always forget who he was when I'd see him in public, would just assume he's another casual player, and he rarely ever typed anything, but he was pretty much a package deal with born2relax back then. I actually thought it was kinda cool after he explained that his name meant he was the 2nd best Turkish player, born2relax was trkA, but by that point he had already asked for help coming up with a new name.
His original one just didn't have the star quality that aNgeL` or luminaire or reflex or Fucker did
which is funny because looking back now, one of my all-time fav name + clantag is -HaZe- | LiViN' CeTo!! |
but, that's who was always with borno even back then, whatever his name was before we somehow came up with LiViN CeTo!!
I was there for that one too, (forgive me if anything is jumbled, but I just keep adding random things I remember) i see us in west like, by the window outside office, we'd been fighting east <--> west earlier but it turned into just friendly afk typing, me climbing out on the ledge and coming back in, trying to think of cool names for legit like, hours.
most likely w/ prod, me and him did things like that often. but it was one of those late night 2v2's with borno vs. probably me & prod, maybe me & rocket or ibi
oh fuck rocket was also in that old like, noob wannabe clan too. it was before we started -=]vK[=- with paaHto* (the first time), before .sD` I'm pretty sure too.
ahhh and FreeStyle` [Eiber] was in that 1st clan too, I know because 3v. was my 3rd clan with him, I was the one who vouched for him to hokie, which is why he was legit the very FIRST member, right before rexel and sm@gmata, then hok picked up Mr. Face and out|<ast.
that was his big recruit
he swore that was going really swing things, Outy was going to attract some good euro talent
but I just didn't see it yet
yet overnight he woke up with a k@tana in his arsenal,
in the form of a sleeper pick we'd come to know and love as -={The Egg}=- $p!tfire
so overnight we went from,
me and hok dreaming up the 3v. tag right after Yoshi and abu and prod and nick and ta|on and jojo all got off one by one and went to bed. tbh jaron mighta still been there with us that very first night when it was just me and hok in main
the very next day we had a site up:
3v. |Hokie|
3v. |prodigy| *Co-Ldr
3v. |out|<ast.| *Co-Ldr
3v. |abu| *Co-Ldr
3v. |FreeStyle`|
3v. |ReXeL|
3v. |smagm@ta|
3v. |Mr. Face|
3v. |yoshimitsu|
3v. |MuSh|
3v. | ta|on |
3v. |ph34r|
3v. |outy|
ADAM? wtf totally just remember a period of |BoM| days I hadn't thought about
ten?
3v. |shifty|
3v. |ExEcuToR| -TRIAL-
then over the next week we picked up Odi.
didn't we have another sniper besides Mr. Face?
but we definitely picked up m4th and Le ShuTTy in those first few weeks,
but our big hotshot recruit/VIP who played with us often early on, that really started making teams like -HaZe- take us seriously, ironically enough, was: 3v. | A ngeL` |
lol i remember I had such a chip on my shoulder, cuz me and hok, we formed this clan together. And immediately I got put outside the fence. Told I wasn't in. Which was fine, cuz I was never once discouraged for a second, it just drove me to become a better player... That was when I really started training with hok every free moment I had, if we weren't playing the game, we were talking about the game on MSN or in vent. But I remember telling hokie, after listening to him bitch about angel for years, to now he's sucking AngeL's dick to keep him happy
and just letting him walk right in and wear the tag I came up with, while I was either a trial or kicked out and clanless, depending on what day it was and how desperately hok needed a 5th.
So I just remember like, really feeling like a jealous ex girlfriend, knew I couldn't be mad because angel really was one of the best players in the game at the time, but I just told hok... mark my words. One day when you have a really good war, vs. -HaZe- or whoever's best, you're not gunna take angel over me...
hok: sry to break it to you, but I'm always going to take johan over you. he's better
exe: nope. one day I'll be the first teammate you ask to war, the one you trust most
hok: hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
hok: stfu nerd
hok: you're not even in 3v. yet
hok: tens better than you wit 200 ping
_________________________________________________________________________________
In that time period, the game felt so alive, everyone had so much interest in being the best, there was such a strong, established hierarchy with the great clans and players like -HaZe- and cC. and -=OG=- so it just really was the perfect thing like,
when your world IRL sucks,
when you're just a kid,
totally powerless in whatever situation you're stuck in,
when you wake up most nights,
with hands around your neck
suffocating you
knees pinning your arms behind your head
never allowing you another breath unless you buck him off
a LITERAL fight for your life
and like a weird episode of Mr. Robot from the 90's
the lights come on
parents standing over you
and it's always just
"hay!"
quit horsing around, both of you.
and everyone else continues acting like
like you live in the perfect suburban middleclass dream childhood
and the only thing that would ever come of it
was when they'd see the DEEP scratch marks on my attacker's arms, shoulders, back, neck, face
just, a regular thing in our childhood
my dad would always hold me down in the tub and cut my nails
"my talons"
i used to call them, because they were my only defense
without them I'd feel naked
because I knew at some point when I least expected it, he was going to pounce again.
I'd tell literally every person who ever mentioned my brother
exactly who he was
but like a twisted episode of Mr. Robot
everyone would just laugh and minimize the violence
just turn down the volume on screams
because they weren't the one locked in the trunk being tortured for 12 years straight.
he was 3 feet away when I went to sleep,
he was there when I woke up,
he was there when I went to school,
he was there when I went to practice,
he was there when I went to my sister's games,
he was there when my parents would leave and put him "in charge,"
he was there when I'd stay inside
he was there when I'd go outside
his favorite activity in life was hurting me.
even when I'd finally found a place of my own
the online gaming world
a place where he couldn't touch me
where he wasn't faster, stronger, older, more experienced
a place where I was truly better than him
well of course he followed me there too
he'd play under my name after, pretending that he was too lazy
that that was "nerd shit" he didn't care about
but he piggy backed off my reputation all the time, he knew it opened doors in the Red Fac world
that the good clans would often ask me to VIP for them so they could 4v4 or 5v5 instead of 3v3
or my own clanmates would come online and he could play a pcw as me
the thing was tho, my brother has always been a dick
he doesn't give a fuck about people if there's no benefit in it for him
so my closest friends in the game, anyone i interacted with often
could tell it was me just by my voice, the way I write
but like, when asked
my brother would always lie and say it's me
then just not type much,
keep it short and simple but always the way I would spell things
"ye"
"ur good"
"nah"
"mhm"
"i kno"
"aight"
but like, it'd happen legit every day that at some point, he'd come over when I was on the good comp
and smack me in the side of the head
and say, "GET up."
so, being tired of him ruining my reputation, by being an asshole on my name, plus he never played up to my standard
I finally got the idea to make my name really hard to reproduce
I was known as "dejaVu" by everyone in the Red Faction world
was the 0 ping owner of the biggest, most popular serv in the game,
{DeMoN} HomeBase T1 dedicated clan server
which became -iCe- dedicated T1 -32-person Clan server -iCe- when I started that clan.
```déJà::Vú_ was the name I'd wear, tried to make it unique so if he tried to recreate it off memory, something would just look wrong to my closest mates
and in those moments when he was shoving me off the pC, i'd race to open the console and change the name to "deja's bro"
but still, for 2 years from like 1999-2001 he'd been refusing to stop playing under my name, and it was to the point that before anyone talked to me, they'd always ask if it's the real dejaVu or the older brother
so when I was starting a new clan with my friend m4ver!ck, who in my opinion, was the best player in the game at the time,
I came up with the -iCe- tag because I thought it looked cool, and mav decided to change his name
to -iCe-cold (with no space)
while
I chose the name - i C e- s p L ! t__
and it seemed like every few weeks
I'd have a different way of $pelling it, just to make it look cool, and add a detail that only I would be able to recreate perfectly, otherwise it'd just look off to the ppl that played with me every day
but I felt like I'd finally found my home
online was the only place where I knew anyone
that didn't know my older brother in real life and fall for his charm where he always makes people want to impress him
even teachers
adults
but I finally had friends who didn't look up to him too
who weren't afraid of him
or respected him
or wanted his approval
people who knew both of us
and for the first time in my life, they actually chose me.
whether every person I ever knew even knew, they all made a choice
... but that meant the world to me
to finally have someone in my corner
wasn't just me against the world
they know who they are
they know I always saw them as my real family
so in the game,
it was the perfect escape
the one place where I could change my world
where I could be the best in the world at something
not like,
best book by a kid
or best soccer player for a 10 year old
but like, truly, the best with a mouse and a comp. out of the whole world of 6 billion people
where if you work hard enough,
it can be the one place where you don't have to run
and maybe someday that skill will actually be worth something tangible
maybe it'll mean freedom
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
but back to that old noob clan (that was actually pro in the future)
pretty sure it was like me,
ExEcuToR
born2relax
r0cket+
(ceto)
ap0calypso
freeStyle`
br0kenarm (WAS 100% IN HIS CLAN WHEN HIS ARM WAS ACTUALLY BROKEN!! lmao i remember that day when he changed his name to that as an excuse in case he sucked... but he didn't suck at all back then) when I think of that, I think of the east cubby on the right side ... it's kinda like I consciously took a fairplay screenshot of like, my perspective when I was spectating him and what I was thinking that moment, and I can slip back into that moment in time and see what I saw and thought again, when I think about whatever key totem pieces brought me there. Can't remember for the life of me tho what his name was BEFORE that... wasn't xzi yet)
we only had like 7-8 members so we rarely played a war, speedi or someone you wouldn't expect was leader, but we were all really good and hungry for wars, we just didn't have experience. Between all of us we hadn't played 2 dozen wars in our lifetime yet.
it didn't last long, maybe a week or 2, perhaps 3.
but i think it was before you changed your name to xXxkiLLaxXx,
or maybe I'm thinking of the moment you changed it by shortening it from that to .:XiLLaX:.. or whatever, I can see the server tho that afternoon, purely, mp_shop, we were both on blue team, there were a few others talking with us, other like, "big names" now that were just another name back then, silently playing in the background,
Edited by executor, 08 March 2021 - 02:08 PM.