About Me
I'm a streamer on Twitch.tv, where I play a variety of games, from Stardew Valley to Elite Dangerous, and even Minecraft. I'm the B in LGBTQIA+, and I have been cultivating a friendly and inclusive community online since 2015, when I started producing Youtube videos using a Dell Inspiron 15-3521 laptop, an old set of Samsung earbuds, and a TV tray table on my (at the time) girlfriend's couch in her tiny apartment.
My Past
I grew up on a farm in Missouri most of my life, but I always had a love of computers and technology, which lead me to want to be a computer programmer for my career after high school. Unfortunately, there was very little resources for that in the rural area I grew up in, so I decided that since my grades weren't the best, (thanks, ADHD) the best way to get training and experience (as well as free college money) was to join the Marine Corps. My recruiter was your stereotypical recruiter, promising me the moon, but being vague as to the actual details. I took the ASVAB and scored an overall 88 points and finished a full hour before everyone else, meaning I could get an algebra waiver for Computer Programming, or so I thought. I signed up for computer programming, but was slotted into the broad category of "Communications Technology". I thought that after boot camp I was gonna be sent to Virginia to learn programming. Boy howdy, was I wrong. One month into boot camp, 9/11 happened. And then I graduated boot camp and got sent to 29 Palms, California for Comm School. I got put through one of the newer courses there, the Ground Communications Organizational Repairer course. I learned to repair telephones, switchboards, and radio systems as well as build field expedient radio antennas using nothing more than some phone wire, a plastic MRE spoon, and a tree. I was eventually assigned to 8th Comm Battalion, Service Company, EM Platoon.
The War
January 9th, 2003. The day after my 20th birthday. I loaded up on a bus with my pack and seabag, not knowing where I was going, the war in Afghanistan already started, and rumbles of rumors that Iraq was helping the Taliban or Al-Queda or whoever Bin-Laden was in charge of at the time (memory around that time is fuzzy, thanks PTSD.) by preparing to give them WMDs they had. Plot twist, there were no WMDs. (Sure was a whole heck of a lot of oil, tho. And we had a Texas oil man for a president at the time... hmmm.) I was "volun-told" that I would be a messman and help out cooks at chowhalls on base about 3 months before that because volunteers to be messmen were requested by 2nd MHQ, who was above 8th Comm in the grand command structure. Turns out, I was being sent to help the cooks on ship and in Kuwait for OEF. I was on the USS Kearsarge on the way there, and on the way back when my rotation was done in June of 2003. In between then, in March, we invaded Iraq. Not long after that, I witnessed a SCUD get detonated directly above my camp by a Patriot missile and was one of the first ones to scream "Gas, gas, gas!". Ask me sometime on stream to tell that story. I'll tell what I can remember. I returned home with PTSD and stress induced asthma or at least breathing problems thanks to the ship exhaust, spilled jet fuel fumes on ship, the fine dust sand and the burn pits near our camps. I made the mistake of thinking that getting married to my girlfriend of the time would have been a good idea. It was not. We were married for a year before we ended the marriage. I started the process of being medically separated due to my breathing problems, but that didn't work out.
After The Marines
I got out the Marines in January 2005. I got an OTH thanks to behavioral problems from undiagnosed PTSD. The signs were there, but my leadership just said "Shit marine, kick him out, pain is weakness leaving the body, oohrah." So I went back home, bounced from job to job, sometimes living with family, sometimes homeless, dealing with my PTSD as best I could. I met my second wife after I returned to Missouri from a 9 month stint as a mostly homeless person in Oregon. We were married for almost 7 years, had 2 kids, a boy and a girl, and got divorced in 2013 due to, you guessed it, my PTSD (Didn't help that she cheated on me 3 times, but that's a different story.).
Meeting Lyrium, Freelancing Content Creation
I met the love of my life, my current and last wife, Lyriumbiotic, online. I was lucky, she had decided to increase her search radius and found my profile. She thought I was cute, and had nerdy references in my profile, so she messaged me. That was her first mistake, because soon after that we were talking until the sun came up, sharing our interests, talking about everything, and falling for each other. We would play Unturned together (I would protect her from the zombies, she would pick flowers.), talk nerdy stuff together, and after a good bit of talking online, we agreed that she would come out to visit me for our first actual date. I think the whole thing went well, because in September of 2014, I moved in with her. She has been a beacon for me, helping me with my PTSD, supporting me in my decision to at first be a Youtuber, and then, when the famous "Paul brother films in Japanese suicide forest" event caused me to lose my YouTube partnership (they moved the goalposts and I didn't meet the new requirements), my attempt at being a Twitch Affiliate (Been a Twitch Affiliate since June of 2018), and anything else I decide to do creatively, including my Tiktok channel. I have returned the favor by encouraging her in anything creative she has put her mind to, from arts and crafts, to finishing her first novel, Sugar, Spice and Everything Magic (Which, at time of this writing, is still being edited.).