This is for the Edge community:

After all these years, you all deserve some love. I have stacked up in my head some things y’all have been very wrong on - Prometheus, L.A. Noire being two obvious recent bits - but mostly you have stood by old Paul here when I’ve been going through bad times. You have befriended me through the Facebook or the Twitter or Skype. I had chats with Google and Childintime early on. You were great guys. And Darthjim! before his rant about pink shirts attracting fags kind of pegged him as a strange cult head. But he was a good guy regardless, and I’m sorry that I’m not strong enough to keep on going and not care about it. I’m sensitive. This is my problem.

Folks have rarely had me as the front out fellow, except where I made it necessary. I’m not a stand up guy in real life, day to day. I’m generally a coward. I have taken the easy bit, not wanting to get into knife fights with lunatics no matter how hilarious the idea of my sucking on their father’s cock is. Here’s the bit: I have had good friends who have been taken down by this shit. And I almost was. Again: Coward, on old Muggins. So when I have overreacted to language put out to rankle me, or to suggest “Hey Paul, you’re a bit too self-serious brah, chill a bit!” I have reacted bad.

Instances of this are partly from Kow & Gonzo who poked and prodded me, especially when I was being forthright and particular about the nonsense contained within the DO NOT DRAW MOHAMMAD jam. That was noise directed by zealot psychotics who threatened violence, but I can see how the reaction could be seen as an assault on some fellows and women for no other reason than “Hey I was born into this, why am I figure of hate all of a sudden?”

As an Irish fellow, we have had some measure of the victimhood jazz, excuses of our backwardness put against the Imperial oppressors. Well, jeez, if Britain would not have been terrible shits maybe we would not have allowed the Catholic Church to rape our children, or to put women on the bottom or to act as if anecdotes about good priests better hard statistics and generation’s of weird violence and abuse. This is what we are are hopefully now coming to terms with. I love Ireland for many reasons.

Joyce and Flann O’Brien (“Woe be on him that eats the bog” is the best damn satire of this country’s good points + bad points that can rightly be created) and my uncle from Wexford, and my best friend from Dublin and my best friend from Meath. And everything I have written fiction wise, has hopefully accounted for these good points. I am not just a bitter old wretch, but a sort who hopes for this country to represent better the progressive energy that is apparent for any fully brained sorts. Coopers Green can hopefully back me up on this point.

I know that a hammering of Gay Rights, or Women’s Rights can be tiresome in a context of social media. That hammering without joy or without entertainment, and certainly without any real life action to back it up, can be Jesus Wept a whole thing of pathetic energy. As with the Civil Rights bit with the African American, the Hispanic or Native American, I kind of hope that it is simply a reflection that I’m willing to stand up a bit on these points that matter over all, and which do not directly impact me.

Getting into specifics of you guys and what has happened recently, I just want to say that I have a whole mess of love for you. As Bugul, or Muggins, or Chet, or Paul (that’s my name yo), it has been my privilege to know you all. Recently ADKM had a bit of words for Tempy on Twitter and it bothered me, as it was directed at his supposed EMO “Hissy Fit” expressions. Now, I figured, seeing as ADKM was not exactly innocent all these years in unreasonable or irrational emotional responses to scenarios that it was a bit rich for him to be taking old Tempy to task for falling short of his entertaining tweet quota.

Tempy is my friend, and I do not think it’s cool to be acting as if he was his mother or father, or best friend, when by his own admission he was a subscriber to a channel he sometimes found amusing or interesting. If Tempy has some bother or pressure, that is important to me. I do not want to be flippant or uncaring with him, as he has been there for me when I have similar genuine real life bother.

This along with the bother with Fenton’s friend seemed like an incredible cold and cynical reading of what the internet is for us lot as a group, in its excuses. ADKM, if you talk to people who matter to you like this, well man, that’s a bad sign, and maybe you want to look at that instead of weird deflections and a continuation of the cycle? I never had a grudge with you brother, or any problem and I felt that Unlikely’s specific problem as it regarded the REGSTOCK bit was way, way too harsh. And I don’t want to be putting you down, but Jesus you seemingly don’t care for such emotional considerations as genuine as they are, so I guess I’ll leave this here to sink.  

Google and Gonzo have bothered me at times for their pretenses around this forum thang not mattering. They don’t believe that, and it is not fair or good to introduce this as an excuse to some hurtful instance. Personally, I don’t figure that faggot should be thrown around to prove a point to me or to the ether, especially when the people doing it are so fucking decent and aware of the problems that kind of shit causes (Lawro, Gonzo, Kow in particular.) Fine, it’s the case that we can only do what we have done. We are not aiming for anything more meaningful. Oh this is the cycle of activitiy. Expectation suggests we are terrible arses for expecting better, but at one point, at 26 years old and having very few real world friends, I was kind of hoping that at some stage my internet pals would step in and be stand up sorts.

(Facewon, Skerret and Some Guy are great friends from the the Australia I have made, and even when they have humoured me (and I have feigned not being aware of said humouring) I have enjoyed all the chats guys. Temps, naturally, Childintime we’ve had our great chats. Mod, you’re a good old sort and I’d very much like one day to have a nice friendly pint with ya. Olimite, on that music trip I hope you keep hooking me up brah. Reg, you’re so right about Nic Cage. Coops, we need to pint.)
 
G-Man, you have been the heart of this place for a long time, and as some sorts have suggested - get that goddamn lonely gamer thread into book form! You have some good writing chops brother, and some great anecdotes. Brooks, I know your mystique and contrary bit is TM all up in this lousy bitch, but I would one day appreciate a verbal communication. Soon To Be Innocent Fun has spawned some good times and no fooling. Dark Soldier, you're about as right as you can get on horror and that. And The House of the Devil is certainly one of the best bits of horror creation stuff as is available.

I’ll leave this here not as a call to attention, but as a fairly unusual bit of honest communication on my part. There is no crisis here, but fuck me, we’re better than this. Maybe this is a precious request for an avoidance of the next cycle of mean spirited defensive arsery, but so be it.

I’m Paul, I’m a real human being and I’m not perfect but I have done what I can.