*Year One

Jiggly_333 · (This post was last modified: 06-12-2018, 10:52 AM by bovovovo.)

So recently I've been thinking about the past. It's not hard to do when you're sitting around in a stationary present with a murky future ahead. Recently I wrote about old league stuff and it's been getting me thinking. Dermott's been on me about writing my wiki article on the Chicago Blues/Palm Beach Solar Bears, but I just read @kckolbe's piece in PBE and I remembered some introspective pieces I read when I first joined the SHL. I've decided, fuck it, what better to do than talk about myself for an ungodly amount of time. I just paid for my equipment so this isn't really a cash grab. I just feel like there's some people I'd like to call out and thank for helping me, in the simple ways that they have.

See, I joined this league fresh out of high school. I had a final radio show going that summer that was really my only thing to do beside sit around and wait for college. Well, that and my writing gig, but I’ll get to that later. I knew I was going to community college because I literally only applied to two schools and the actual one (Northern Illinois University) rejected me.

I think that my introduction to this league was much different than most people's. I didn't see a post on Reddit. In fact, I actively avoid Reddit. I heard about it from @Aenir who I know originally from a soccer forum and then went on to play FIFA with. I remember his first few pitches being "Hey, wanna join my football league?" to which I constantly responded with "I don't care." Until one day he explained it to me in the perfect way: It's basically just a mix of Madden and DnD. Now, I have never actually played DnD, but he caught me at just the right time where I was starting to really try to understand and get into it. And I've always been into creating story lines for my players whenever I created them in things like Madden or FIFA, so the idea of talking about them came naturally. So I joined. And created Leroy Jenkins.

At this point I'm debating talking about how and why I created my character, because that's clearly recorded history for any of you willing to look it up. Hell, the best place to find it is to look back in the days when we were paid to ask questions at pressers (and the pressers weren't worth half). So I'll spare you that and just say that I had really thought my character through, at least in my head. But draft day comes along and I'm not going anywhere. I suddenly feel a panic:

"Am I not good enough? These people seem to know each other and I barely even know the one person I do. I guess I'm just not a part of the cool kids."

And then, I pull out the smartest dumb knee-jerk reaction I ever made and PM'd the first person to be nice to me on the site and humbly ask to be drafted. That user was @Grapehead, the first GM of the Orange County Otters. He said that he honestly didn't know what he was doing in this draft and was glad to pick someone like me up. From that day on, I was an Otter for life.

As I said, I was just waiting to go to college. In fact, I'm pretty sure I joined the league at one of the most vulnerable moments of my life, at least emotionally. I pretty much understood what I wanted out of life. I haven't changed that much since then when it comes to that. I wanted to continue sports-writing and maybe get into creative writing as well. I figured that something like this pace would help, since I would be writing creatively about sports. But it was a time where I was about to go into a whole load of isolation. Those people I knew in high school weren't there. I'm horrible at texting people, so I never really contacted anyone. Hell, you guys know how I talk about how badly I want a girlfriend, I have a girl's number in my phone to this day of someone who said to text her if I ever wanted to talk, and I have never done anything about it.

I'm saying this here now because this is what I was. I'm still basically the same: Over-sharing as hell. And with this league becoming a major part of my life, it would become very closely tangled with my life outside, seeing as there wouldn't be much happening out there except going to classes, walking the halls between the classes, and the 2 hour commutes there and back. When I did those, if you remember, "Jiggly's Depressing Thoughts of the Night", it was because I was feeling so isolated. How funny that I can have all these people here telling me it's okay, but all I really needed was an actual physical hug to make me feel any better.

Anyway, we can pick up with that stuff later. Back to the league, which almost as soon as I was drafted by the Otters I came across three very important people to me in this league: @Shaka, @Jbearly, and most importantly @timeconsumer. Most of you guys came in to a world fully formed, with either the Outlaws or the Otters at the top. I remember that around this time last year, the OC Otters were in peril. They'd drafted three QBs and they all had very strong opinions and personalities. Grape didn't want to deal with this shit and said that he didn't know football very well anyways so he left. That left a hole in the top of management. JBear and I instantly began campaigning for the position (not knowing that it was just the HO we had to convince, not the entire league). I wanted to prove to myself that I could be a leader, someone who could actually stand on top and make good rational decisions. After watching my favorite soccer team continue their song and dance about how they're "working on a plan", I wanted to be the kind of person who would be honest about faults and open the forum to others to help try to fix them. But I was new to this shit, and so was JBear, so the HO decided to compromise: Shaka would take the "Reigns" for the rest of the season, all the while training JBear and I under him the duties of a sim league GM.

From that point on, we started to solve problems for the team. The dynasty that is now in place still owes great credit to Shaka, JBear, and I. But not just us, but TC, who became an even greater mentor when it came to the sim and just the general idea of being a GM. As I understand it, he was new too, but he was more than ready to sink his time into this and for that, I am truly grateful. I can never say enough about how much that TC has done for the league, for the Otters, and for me. As I said, I was very isolated irl, I needed friends and JBear and TC were that for me.

From the moment that I joined, it was very apparent that I wanted to play for a team in Chicago. If no one else was going to make it, I was going to put it there myself. When JBear and I received full command of the ship, we considered relocation, but soon realized it was waaay too early for that. Plus, people actually liked the design and I sort of agreed. But I still wanted more. Baller (the original league commish and owner for you noobs) announced that there was going to be expansion and it was almost as if JBear nodded at me, knowing that I was gone the moment I got approved.

I created the Chicago Sting. They were named after a defunct NASL soccer team and I had worked closely with enigmatic (old user, victim of the Keygan mass retirement) to try to get a good looking logo. Whoopsie, my proposal failed. Instead it went to HFFO and adam (or something like that, I forgot and my computer's kind of running slow, so I'm not gonna check). I refused to truly let my team die, but I remained with the Otters. Biding my time. Then came that one time I was accused of tampering.

For those of you new here: Apparently the people who created this league had seen a long past of tampering accusations, as abundant as contemporary multi allegations. So it had been seen as a joke, much like multis, to accuse people of tampering. This was not a joke, but a threat. You may notice that I haven't tagged HFFO in because he is the asshole that did it. I can say without a doubt he is the worst person I've met in this league. This is just the beginning of it. At this point, Shaka was still involved with the team. We had made a trade to allow a certain running back (sorry for not mentioning you too much @`xdave2456`. Still love you and the Hot Sauce Committee) to not go to LVL, so there was technically a hole at the RB position in terms of speed. Shaka was friends with another guy who happened to be interested in coming to OCO, because his friend was GM. HFFO didn’t like that and while he was already trying to get us to trade a player (who albeit, wasn’t technically even under contract with us) for a seemingly meaningless draft pick, he decided to bring up “evidence” “proving” that we were tampering with his RB, who had basically just told him that he wasn’t coming to LVL and would instead be looking at options elsewhere. Of course Shaka, JBear, and I were furious and I demanded an investigation to be done to prove our innocence and well… You can check out the rest of what happened somewhere in here mixed in with a bunch of gifs of Emilia Clarke. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled with being accused of things I was already cleared of not doing.

So I was doing all of this while at the same time, I went from being a grader, a very thankless job (hi person grading this and probably not reading it), to a lateral career move with being a PBP person. This was before we were doing streams and it was all typed, complete with gifs. I, the .gif Queen (although not yet dubbed that), would of course be an excellent choice for the job. So I did a few random games, then I was asked to do the Awards Show, starting a long tradition that continues to this day. I also, began working on something called “The Prospect Games”. As the sole announcer of that, (until the final game when Baller changed it up without telling me), I got a close look at a bunch of players. Then i also just so happened to spot a fight between two members and attempted to mediate it. While it didn’t completely go as planned, I hope that I did smooth things over well enough to create way for a relationship better than what they appeared to start with (Am I right, @Ben? Please tell me I’m right). This started my unofficial job as the “HR Department”.

Yeah, so that last thing was about the many jobs I held while I was mega-active, but what started my downfall? Well, that Prospect Game I mentioned before apparently wasn’t enough and Noble (pre-fall) had convinced Baller to make moves to create a lower league, similar to the SMJHL in the SHL. His idea varied about where it would be, but they knew they were creating a minor league. They needed GMs. Baller contacted me first. The actual conversation is apparently lost in the ether, as it was on Discord and it’s apparently been deleted. But the first idea that he gave me was that the DSFL (not yet named anything) would be in Europe. He gave me right of first refusal over where I wanted to place my team. I thought, well I guess I’ll go for the sister city of Chicago, Birmingham, or perhaps somewhere like Warsaw, Dortmund, or even just flat out London (for the British girls). But, they decided to keep it in North America and I was getting my Chicago team. Yes, you’re over 2000 words in and we’re only to about S3. Don’t worry, I think it might get quicker soon. (Note from Future Jiggly, it doesn’t)

I called up the only other person I knew outside of the league other than Aenir, @Muford, and brought him on as my new Co-GM. We had planned to go ahead with a team with marketing based around the Blues Brothers, while I would try to ensure that as much Chicago culture was packed into whatever I officially released. Our logo, which literally just looked like a wheel, is actually the “Municipal Device of Chicago”. But I explain that elsewhere, I think. Somewhere. But we had just made the first DSFL team, as many soon followed.

Suddenly, I was lost. I had gotten what I wanted. I made a Chicago team, but I didn’t really feel anything about it. This was the beginning of a really shitty time for me in the league and later irl. The isolation at college was beginning to set in. The Fire were actually good and were closing in on a playoff spot for the first time in years and I was the one covering it all; but all it did was make me anxious. Not in an excitement way, but in a dreading way. Something that would come later to haunt me. But looking at the timeline, there’s something else I should mention before moving forward.

Look at my avi. That wonderful woman is named Annie Clark, otherwise known as St. Vincent, is the reason why I’m making music, and sim leagues are the reason why I started listening to her. I guess I might have eventually started listening to her naturally, but the discord was how I found her stuff. Her better stuff. I’d been listening to Andrew Bird at the time and found a nice collab between he and Annie. Good shit, it’s called “Lusitania”. Anyway, I also found her collab with David Byrne, the front man of Talking Heads, and enjoyed it as well. But I’d heard stuff from her recent album and didn’t think I was into it. Until I was posting something of her and Byrne and someone linked to a video of “Cruel”. I wasn’t completely hooked yet, but I was a few clicks away to this, which changed my life.

And sticking on the subject of music, I guess since I’m here, I’d like to also mention that my year here has been significant with my creation of a potential music career. It started with uploading some sound files for @princekyle and hearing “Oh hey, that was actually pretty decent.” At some point I pulled together all of my courage to release an album of those recordings and You people actually seemed to like it. That was the point that I had cut myself out of the league discord, but I could talk about that in a bit. I then took that positive reaction to making a new album completely from scratch, and then that one happened. Basically, this sim league has given me a platform, or at least the illusion of a platform, to let me be brave enough to do this. And now I’m working on another one (although this one might take a bit longer). So if you haven’t checked it out, please do. If you can spare the cash, maybe buy it? And if you can’t the second one is on Spotify.

Anyway, self-promo over. Back to the DSFL. Muford and I were wholly unprepared for the first draft and we winged it. Bad idea. We ended up with basically no actives. Except for @ExemplaryChad and maybe @OwlStrike13. But that one was iffy. Then Muford was called up to the big time by the Sabercats and I was left with trying to find a new Co before our first season ever started. So I went on a search and found @RedCydranth.

Full disclosure, I love the guy. I fired him out of that love, I guess. As I’d explained it, we were too alike. Maybe I was over-dramatic at the time due to the whole possible depression thing, but I stand by my decision and hope that he gets another GM job again. Or maybe I don’t, it’s horrible being a GM. When I decided to create my “Alexandra Jones” character, he was right behind me with making his own female character. His time in Chicago was about the same as mine: filled with periods of confusion, apathy, and panic. Or maybe he had a better time than me, because I know that that was what I was feeling. We won out our first season with the most ridiculous utilization of randomized algorithms! Then we were promptly crushed in our next season after continuing to not do enough with scouting and contacting prospects. The other GMs in the DSFL were getting angry.

Around this time I did two different things: First, I left the league Discord chat after an exceptionally depressing comment and decided that I should probably spend some time away. Then I went on to retire Leroy Jenkins. I realized that he was never really going to go anywhere, especially with the way the league was going. Plus, because I was still in the shadow government with the Otters, I knew we needed a new CB soon. This all came from that sense of dread that I had mentioned before involving soccer. I let it control my life and emotions and it ended with me going completely emotionally off the hook and losing my job (don’t worry, it didn’t pay well anyway and now everyone hates the place). This is probably my lowest moment. All the while throughout this time I was dealing with trying to figure out what exactly I was doing with my Blues team and getting taken on by the other DSFL GMs.

I’d like to stop and shout out two people who helped me a lot mentally and emotionally: @Bzerkap and @4D Chess. They were great to talk to and helped me push on past the bad emotions. At least enough to hit them and move on when it came to writing music. They also helped with that too. So I just wanted to say good on them. And thank you.

Now this sort of shit went on for a couple seasons, at some point trading out Red for @PoloPro, who I had signed as a waiver pick and then drafted in the first round. He came in with a whole lot of enthusiasm and when it came time that HFFO (the villain of the story) brought up the idea of contracting the league, I knew that he’d be fine. But my team wouldn’t be. During my team in the DSFL GM chat it was my only contact with NSFL people, outside of the Otters LR. And while not everyone was an asshole, there were a couple who insisted on being assholes to me, specifically HFFO. He’d call me out for no reason, constantly belittle me, and would call for my resignation weekly. The dude made hell even more like hell. There were times that I was considering just dumping all sim leagues just because of him and the constant shit he threw at me and got others to throw at me. When he suggested that my team be contracted to a bot team, I fought for different ways to try to keep the Chicago Blues alive. But the battle was lost before it began. Everyone basically agreed I was a shit GM. Thus spawned the meme, I guess.

Then I was offered an option to go somewhere else. I made a deal with @124715 to come on as the new Co-GM of the Kansas City Coyotes, as long as they were then the Chicago Coyotes. At this point, I had already known that I was going to end up being removed at some point. I was just trying to delay it as long as possible while setting up something of a legacy in the form of a team to stay in Chicago. Booter had moved the Blues to Palm Beach. I needed to do something to keep football in Chicago. It’s a virtual league, yes, but it mattered to me. Something about always feeling forgotten even though we’re the third biggest market in America.

But there was backlash. Everyone was confused about what had happened. There was no real plan for the re-brand and it all collapsed in public opinion. Just one season in, I had been outed by the DSFL Commish as needing to leave. While I was on my way to one of my first soccer events in months, I got a PM saying that I was fired. I had already been planning to step down, preferably at the end of that season; but I guess something needed to be done. So I did. I resigned and essentially retired from leadership roles. I had failed myself and cemented my place as one of the worst GMs in NSFL history.

I’m not going to end it there. That’s a fucking downer. I wanted to talk about how much I loved all of you. And I do. When it came to the Chicago team, it’s a simple case of “You don’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.” I needed to step back and focus on me. I needed the help of friends in this league to try to get myself together. I’m not going to say that I’m a perfect person now or even that I feel complete. What I have learned from my year in this league is that shit doesn’t always work out and that people aren’t always the best; but that doesn’t matter. You keep moving on. And if you keep moving and you keep doing what you need to do, you may not actually get anywhere; but you’ll probably feel a whole lot better about it.

When I look at what I was doing when I began in this league and what I’m doing now… honestly there’s no real difference. I’m still sitting around at home waiting for classes to start up again. But I guess that change is more subtle. I’m listening to different music that I wouldn’t have found without the outlet of the music channel in the discords. I’m writing longer and longer pieces. There’s a Chicago Fire game tomorrow that I’m not thinking about at all. I’m planning on going upstairs and trying out the new guitar I got after I’m done writing.

All of these subtle changes in my life have made me a slightly happier person. Without the NSFL, I don’t know how I would’ve coped with my first year of college. Genuinely, I can’t think of how I would’ve handled myself without having the people I met on here helping me out. Even if you didn’t know you were helping me or didn’t mean to help me, thank you.

I love you all and I can’t wait for another year of this shit.

-Jiggly OCO

/

-Leroy Jenkins OCO

-Tegan Atwell CHI_Blues

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-Alexandra Jones CHI_Blues

/

Code:
I read it as 3,948. Possibly slightly lower, but around there.

iamslm22 · 06-05-2018, 01:33 PM

We have certainly had our differences, but I'm glad you're still around jiggly. You're a good dude. I feel partly responsible as commish for allowing that kind of a toxic environment, I should've handled things better.