*wins the Wall of Text Award this year*When I was around 14 or 15 years old, I was at my neighbour's place with a friend of his who had brought over Final Fantasy VII. We looked at it for a short time as he showed off various parts of it, but it was a single player game and he was already at Kalm or Nibelheim or something, and we wanted to play multiplayer games and didn't understand the storyline (nor could we with just a few minutes of him showing it off). We moved on to other games like Need for Speed shortly after that, and I never really thought about Final Fantasy VII again.
When I was 16 years old, I was renting various games from the local video store and at some point I would see Final Fantasy VII. I rented it, and played it. I really enjoyed it. I found that a friend of mine also enjoyed Final Fantasy, and we would on occasion search the internet and find decent sites which had decent information we could use. We also looked into the other Final Fantasy games. One of the few sites we came across, particularly when searching for ROMs, was Eyes on Final Fantasy. We both joined the forums in August 2000. This was to begin a major turning point in my life.
I first lurked around the FFV forum in particular, and soon learned that this forum was linked with other forums. I quickly learned how forums operate. I didn't really post. I would read posts by Gilgamesh, Coach, Kawaii Ryűkishi, NeX, Dr Unne, Cid and Big Ogre Umaro. It was a neat place.
When I finally began posting, I made them very few and far between at first, sticking with the FFV forum. Then I would appear in General Chat. At my 14th post, I decided to rebel against a certain system that was in place at EoFF. All new members had a chocobo avatar, and were titled 'Chocobo'. At 15 posts, I believe they became a Level 10 White Mage, or something similar. Their avatar would automatically change. I didn't like this - I loved the Chocobo avatar and found all future avatars up to 1,000 posts (Immortal rank) to look ugly. I requested this change so people like myself could keep their chocobo avatar. The request was considered and carried out by Cid and his staff. From then on, leveling up meant you had access to more avatars, but a change was not forced.
From that point, I started posting more and more often. I sent my first Private Message to a lovely lady called Lilly Rinoa Landois. The first person to refer to me as BoB was Coach, if I remember right, and NeX and Cid soon mentioned me, too, and I was starting to feel pretty accepted. The evenings when I would chat would tend to be quiet, although sometimes a member or two would be on to post with. The chatroom didn't exist yet, or it was in it's infancy and when I did go it was dead. One or the other. I did, however, spend much of my school time going through the threads and ensuring I had posted in pretty much every single one of them (of the games I had played). I would post a lot in Eyes on Each Other, and met a girl under the username of Thorn there in October 2000 who I flirted with momentarily, although that story will be continued much later. One thing worth noting is that she sent me an email saying I had helped her through a rough time, so that was nice - for the first time in memory people were contacting me privately to let me know that my posts were appreciated and helpful.
Soon enough, though, a member called Robb would register at EoFF, making a thread with my username as a thread title. He was Australian, and naturally he took the piss in this thread, making fun of me for being a New Zealander. Soon, he would ask for a chat username (or he just got it off my profile - I forget which) and we would start chatting on Yahoo! Messenger - this was November 2000. Soon enough it was Robb, Wishing Star and Sapphire all chatting amongst each other. A new member of EoFF posted a thread in EoEO asking for friends at EoFF. We found it sweet, so we invited this Squally Leonharty chap to our little gang. Ashi and Danni were soon in the group, too. However, it was Emma (Wishing Star) that took most of my interest. She would soon become my first online girlfriend in December, 2000.
I'm fairly certain it was shortly after this happened that we finally discovered the #eoff chatroom could be active during the hours we were online. Most of our little gang's chat was still done in Y!M, but it was still a cool way to get to know other people. Danni, Robb, Ashi, Squally and myself were often in there at this point, chatting with the likes of Scottie, Kishi, BOU, Snizz and Chickencha. #bar was set up by Robb, a place we could chat without any EoFF authorities controlling us.Rinoabella and Jewels, the first New Zealanders aside from Raven and Calliope (both friends from offline) that I would get to know.
I would phonecall people from the forums a lot, too. And I mean a lot of them! By 2001, I imagine I had already phoned around 20 different EoFFers at some point or another. Since Rinoabella and Jewels were in the same city as me, we eventually decided through our phonecalls that we should meet up. I was also in my last year of high school, and my Mum lived in the UK (where Emma lived), so with this along with a few other reasons (scholastic enthusiasm at an all time low, enjoying full time work, the want to see my mum, etc) I decided to move to the UK.
Emma was a fairly jealous girl at just 15 years old, so it was at this point that the idea of a guy moving from overseas along with the idea of him meeting some girl he's close to from EoFF started to cause bother in our relationship. After a lot of on-again, off-again, we finally ended the relationship after seven months, and that was the end of that. I still wanted to move to Scotland, though, so continued to plan for this. Over the next year or so, I would meet Jewels and Sakura Yume three or four times, and Rinoabella once. It was great fun on every occasion, so yay for that. I still remember how nervous I was meeting Jewels and Sakura Yume the first time, my hands were shaking a lot. Same with Rinoabella.
It was in July 2001 Emma and I officially ended things and it was in July 2001 that I happen to go online and see a name I hadn't seen in a very long time - Thorn! One of the first members I held a discussion with in EoFF. I sent her a PM immediately asking if she remembered who I was, and asking where she had been, etc. Soon enough we would be chatting regularly and it turned out she still had the thread we first got to know each other in saved on her hard drive, which I found really cool, a little blast from the past I could read over. Sometime in 2001, I created the EoFF Map with the helps of Britt, Skye-chan, Umi Butterfly, Ally and a few other people. In November 2001, I had something like a four day online relationship with Ashi at which point we quickly decided that we were better off as friends.
In December 2001, I hosted the Ciddies, the revamped version of the EoFF Awards complete with nominations and revelations. I would continue to do so for the next six years, and then again after that around once every two Ciddies. In the first ever Ciddies, I also won my first ever Ciddies (I'd never won an EoFF Award) - Best Spammer, Most Productive Member and Most Likely To Be The Next Cid's Knight. Later that month I would start up a small, restricted offshoot forum for friends of mine from EoFF called Something?, which few people probably remember but it did manage to kick off a bunch of in-jokes at the time.
In January 2002, I started my second online relationship with Thorn, who I suppose I should simply name as Stef by now.
For some reason, and I think it was around December 2001 to January 2002, I started getting hair sent to me. Now, there is a reason for this. It may not be reasonable, but it's a reason. There was a thread at EoFF about favourite smells, and I said mine is that of a girl's hair just after it's been washed. People questioned who has the best, and I jokingly put up my address stating that I could only know if people sent me their hair, just after it was washed. I never expected anyone to do it, but they did. So I started getting hair in the mail. I continued to encourage it only because I thought it hilarious, and to be honest, I still do. Creepy but hilarious.
On 25th February, 2002, I was Knighted at Eyes on Final Fantasy by Britt after getting the thumbs up by Cid. It turned out that they would have Knighted me much earlier but they were under the impression that I would not have internet access once I arrived in Edinburgh. I remember being Knighted quite well - I was in a net café chatting with Britt. He told me to go onto the forums and scroll a little down, so I did, but was confused. He told me to scroll down a bit more. I did, but still nothing. He told me off for being so literal and told me to scroll all the way down to the last forum, and there sat a forum titled 'Staff Forum'. I was stunned, and speechless. It meant a huge amount to me, and Britt literally had to remind me to breathe. It's strange how something that must seem so trivial to most people can have such an impact on me, but it did.
Inerestingly for me, it was around this time that Cid was chatting with me. I don't remember if it was exactly this time, but he would go on about this new girl he met during these chats. I only mention this because he would go on to marry this girl he was chatting to me about, and I found that really sweet.
In April 2002, I moved to Scotland. I met Wyllius, which was pretty crazy, because it was Wyllius. I think I got Mum to register in May, too, although she had to re-register eventually due to the terrible idea of pruning posts/members back in the day.
Onward to the start of 2003, I travelled to California and spent time with a lot of peope: ShlupQuack, ButThePoncho, TheAbominatrix, Cid, Cid's Wife and Nino Brown. That was just a day! But more notably the rest of my time was spent with Stefanie, the first online girlfriend that I had managed to actually meet up with. While it was an incredible, happy time, a month or two afterwards the relationship ended.
I became a recluse at this point, stepping down from staff and leaving EoFF (although I still logged in from time to time) in favour of a new forum I had set up based on a world that I had been creating - Aiyon. Aiyon was important in my EoFF life for a few reasons. Firstly, it was the only time I had spent away from EoFF for more than a week, and it allowed me to get my head back together. Secondly, I got to know a lot of EoFFers a hell of a lot better through Aiyon than I ever did at EoFF, including my now best friend Dan. Also, Mandy. I met her at Aiyon and after a while we started a relationship. It was at this time I returned to EoFF and thankfully from my end was accepted back onto staff.
It was around April 2003 when I started a push on Site Staff. Roogle, Spatvark, BOU and myself were the first people to really kick into gear on Site Staff, and it went pretty well overall. It's moved on a very long way, died and reinvented itself since we all started out, but prior to the push it was completely dead so I like to think I did something good for EoFF then. In fact, sod it, I know I did.
Mandy lived in Germany, although she travelled to see me once and I to her twice. It was over in a very dramatic way in just a few months, and after that I allowed myself to really focus on EoFF once more. I built up some very solid friendships at this time, through both Aiyon and EoFF. Dan and I started up #bar again at some point around this time, which had died some time ago. I won my first of six Best Member Ciddies in December 2003, which always made me proud and happy in a horribly narcissistic way. There was a small possibility that another EoFFer, Tenderness, would become my flatmate after my Mum moved out, however that never happened in the end. I did manage to meet up with her, though.
I can't remember when it was in 2003 that I sort of unveiled some drama involving one of the administrators of EoFF and effectively forced him into resignation. It was late 2003 when I helped Daryl start up The Basement, which was to take care of the sexual discussion needs that many more mature members of EoFF were having at the time. It was pretty successful, I have to say. Another thing I discovered while checking out LJ is that this was around the time my use of the Writer's Corner seemed to reach a halt.
In November the same year, I created LJ Forums. Which isn't really do do with EoFF, but 90% of the members were EoFFers, so yeah. Also, I can't remember when I first got involved with the Gamer's Alliance, but I know this is the first time that I can find any evidence of such involvement.
2004 was oddly quiet for me at EoFF - or at least, in terms of major changes. I think it was a period of consistent growth, and I like to put at least a little of that down to myself. Something Awful made fun of us so I joined their forums and they were really delighted with how well we took it (most places get upset, we were celebrating with humility). In July, I met The Man with Tenderness. One month later, met a truly fantastic and amazing man who I am happy to call my bro, boyfriend, or whatever the hell he wants me to call him. Incredible times occurred. Oh, and for those who can't figure it out, that man is Dan, aka DK.
I broke my hand late in 2004 but did the Ciddies anyway with just one hand, and it remains one of the best Ciddies ever in my head because of that circumstance. It made it more challenging, and probably stressful at the time, but it was also a whole lot of fun and people were in great spirits throughout.Right at the end of the year, I started thinking up an EoFF book which would detail the history of EoFF and other such things. This never came to fruition, however it directly lead to the EoFF Wiki, which was initially just a place we intended to gather information for the book. So there's another thing added to EoFF, I guess.
It's at this point that I am realising I'm going to have to cut this shorter by not going through all my LJ entries, because I've spent pretty much all day going through them (for better or worse) to remember what was going on up 'til the point I fell for Sarah (Shorty). So that brings me to 2005. We had an online relationship but it ended pretty badly. Like with all my ex-girlfriends I inevitably got back on good terms with her and she's a friend I consider to be amongst my best now.
Anyway, while I was in that relationship, a lot of new girls joined EoFF and regularly chatted in #eoff: Faris, Resha, MsTiffie (aka Lenna), Shauna and - most notably for me - smittenkitten. The latter would constantly message me while I was with Sarah, and Sarah would tease me with "she liiiiiiiiiikes you!"
I am happy to say I was heavily involved in the Monumental Breakdown in Staff Protocol, although it was tricky at the time, it is in retrospect probably the most elaborate and well played prank I will have ever played part in.
In August of 2005, I had a few people over at my place - Squally Leonharty, Lenna and the wonderful Dan. We had a great time, overall. Shortly afterwards Lenna moved in with me, and although that didn't last too long before things got terrible and I had to request she leave, it was a life experience and we have since patched things up and are on good terms now.
I paid for #eoff to move from ffchat to it's own server in 2005, too. Mostly because of jerkfaces like WildRaubtier. Shame he moved over with us. What a jerky jerk jerkface. (<3)
In early 2006, I decided it was time I met up with a couple of new people that were nearer to me. Shauna and smittenkitten (Danielle, the girl who constantly messaged me when I was with Sarah) arranged to meet me in Glasgow, however Shauna never made it for some reason I forget (we would later meet up on a few occasions anyway, yay). So Danielle and I met up anyway, and when it comes to us two it's been constant ever since - not a day has gone by I haven't talked with her on the phone, on Skype or in person, and long may that continue.
Danielle would also be one of four people who would come stay with me in August of 2006 - the others being Rory (Brian the Pink Shark), Elly (Chaos) and Dan, who was at this point my best friend without doubt - sadly it would be the last time I saw him in person.Hopefully we fix that sooner rather than later.
In 2007, Danielle moved in with me. And I'm going to speed things up now, because I'm getting super tired. Jess, Levian and Psychotic spent over a week with Danielle and myself in 2008. Levian would return in 2009.
I don't remember when I was made Administrator. That was cool.
In April 2012, I proposed to Danielle, and we will be wed on 2013. My best man will be DK, my groomsman will be Levian and my grooswoman will be Calliope if she can make it. Other guests will hopefully include Shorty, Rantz, Zeldy, Psychotic, Shauna, Brian the Pink Shark and probably more.
Must've taken you a long time to remember all that stuff.
Anyway, started having AWESOME HALO FUNTIEMS with Paul and Steve, even if I died more than anything, it was still great hanging with them and having a blast. They gave me something to look forward to! Died off when I didn't have a mic for a while and then got busy moving because my parents lost their house and I was still living at home. 
Been on leave from work for a little over a month now, so I have lots of time, that is, till Peter shows up 
Originally Posted by Levian
