This is my first public post in... well, a very long while. But... there are still a few people who read this journal, whom I no longer have friended, who I thought should at least be able to see this and know that it's on my mind. For those who don't know what this is about...

Zabet, one of the four founders of More Than Toast Productions, an AMV editing group whose forums I spent just a little over five years of my life posting on, has died.

I didn't know her well. We weren't close. I got the sense that, in point of fact, she found me kind of annoying... and frankly, who on MTT didn't? I was young, opinionated, and, quite frankly, stupid, or at least more stupid than I am now. But... whatever she thought of me... she was there, she was a part of it, an important and intrinsic part of a place whose experiences and events are an important and intrinsic part of the person I've become. And now... that person is gone.

When I found out, last night, I went back to the hard drive on my old PC and looked through my video archives, and found a copy of one of the videos Zabet edited, using the song "Blackbird" by The Beatles, and footage from "Now And Then, Here And There." It was always one of my favorite AMVs from the MTT files... and watching it, knowing the person who created such a beautiful, moving thing was gone from the world... I cried, for the first time in a very, very long time indeed. Those of you who know me well know how rare it is for me to do that, and how much it must have affected me for that to happen. For the first moment, even after the group disbanded, even after the forums rebooted, even after all that... I felt that MTT was truly over. And... even as I write this, knowing that a part of my past, a person, a name, a creator of great and beautiful things is dead, I am crying.

I realize that my words likely mean less than nothing, so long after the fact and from someone so distant from the person in question. But know, if nothing else, that I miss her too, and that my thoughts are with all of you. I only hope that in this time of loss, my words and sympathy are of some small comfort.

"blackbird," by Zabet