This post is perhaps a tad bit late, but here it goes!

On July 2nd, 2026, those of us in the MMO blogging sphere (maybe blogging more generally, even) lost a powerful voice when Belghast, the organizer of Blaugust and long-time writer of Tales of the Aggronaut, passed away due to complications from chemotherapy.

In truth, I didn’t know Bel particularly well. It’s weird to contemplate knowing so much about a person but not really knowing them, you know? We talked a few times in comments via our blogs and sometimes cross-referenced each other’s posts, and obviously in his role as the organizer behind Blaugust I interacted with him a few times, but I don’t know that I can say Bel was more than an acquaintance, and yet I know so much about him through his writing. I wanted to talk about his role in this blog’s success, modeling what good blogging looks like, and how some posts of his that bucked all the boring blog advice that people generally spit out really shaped my view on blogging, life, and what I write, especially going forward after Bel’s last year of posts.

Firstly on my list, I think I owe Belghast more than a little thanks for the promotion and connection that Blaugust gave me, which was instrumental to growing the blog (my first Rainbow Badge Blaugust year was the most successful year on the blog to date, in fact) and the connections which put me into contact and social interaction with people all around the world at a time of social isolation and personal isolation. In many ways, those connections were invaluable and difficult to express adequate thanks for – because of the people met through Blaugust, I had more well-wishes when I came down with COVID in 2022 from the United Kingdom than I had from my own parents (which is not a topic we’ll talk about further here for now haha), so I can say that I found a lot through that social aspect.

Secondly, I think it should be said that Belghast was an exceptional believer in and advocate for blogging. Bel practiced what he preached frequently, because he was one of the most consistent and prolific bloggers and content creators more generally I’ve ever seen. He had nearly daily posts for an exceptionally long time, even nearly always posting every other day during his final year of life, which, if you aren’t familiar, probably doesn’t sound too crazy until you know that his last year of life included the unexpected death of his wife and the diagnosis of the cancer whose treatment complications ultimately claimed his life. Even when he would self-admit to not having much to say, he made a point of writing anyways, always finding the post. Maybe he had just played a little Path of Exile or done something routine, but he still made a point of writing about it, finding the story, and making it engaging and worth a look. His posts and their consistency, along the consistency of writers like Wilhelm Arcturus and Bhagpuss, defined my view of what consistency and dedication to blogging look like.

On the topic of believing in blogging, Belghast was dedicated to the format so much that he was involved at least twice in the foundation of movements designed to recruit and celebrate bloggers. Blaugust is something we’ve already discussed in the context of this post, but it was a later effort after projects like the Newbie Blogger Initiative. Bel was consistently welcoming of and encouraging to new bloggers, even as the form has been judged to be dead by some. In a space where some people can be overly protective or judgmental of what is worthy of writing, Bel always, universally, welcomed new writers and encouraged them to write about whatever made sense to them. Doing the work of starting a blog and writing a post can be hard enough, and finding a space where that is encouraged is harder than you might think!

Lastly, this is going to get a little bit personal, but I think with time to process and think it over, I particularly admire the characteristics shown in Bel’s last year of posts.

Belghast had an incredibly difficult final year, even just looking in from the outside. Any single ordeal he dealt with would have put me off of writing for weeks, months, or years. Hell, I don’t write here when I’m enjoying my topical foci and have things to say! If, god forbid, my wife died unexpectedly, there is a microscopically small chance I’m writing anything online or even personally for a long time, and the same would be true if I was reeling from a cancer diagnosis or suffering the aftershock from chemotherapy, and yet for much of that final year, while dealing with all of that combined, Belghast was posting regularly, apologizing for gaps, and remaining present and engaged online. It takes a certain kind of determination and strength to feel so strongly about sharing your journey and being engaged with the friends and community you made online that you would be willing, much less able, to post through all of that.

More than that, though, I think there was a certain optimism and desire to live that I saw in that final year of posting that I really, deeply admire and respect. Not only was Bel posting through that last year and sharing stories of his gaming time and hobbies, but he was sharing life stories, stories of picking up the pieces and moving forward despite the challenges he was facing. He shared his whole process with chemotherapy, including the process and feelings of being on a GLP-1 drug for weight loss to aid the treatment. He shared the feelings he felt losing his wife, an experience I hope I never have to come to understand firsthand. Through all of those things though, he also shared hope for the future and the process he was taking to build it. He was meeting potential partners, always talking about the process of his cancer diagnosis through the lens of overcoming it and moving beyond it – there was always a note of hope, a focus on the future. I think in the circumstances of that last year, it would be easy to give in to despair and no one would have blamed him for dong so – but he seemingly believed in moving forward, and more than that, took concrete action to shift outcomes in his favor. What was so shocking about the news of his death wasn’t just that it happened at all, but that it came within a day of what is now his final post, where the introduction briefly touches on the effects of his chemotherapy as almost a footnote – it wasn’t going well in the moment he wrote that post, but there was almost a surety it would resolve, a plan for how he would proceed and he shared it with all of us, because of course he did.

As I write this, I’m only 10 years younger than Bel was at his passing, so not a huge difference, and while I would say I’ve grown more mentally and emotionally resilient in some ways as I have grown older, I don’t think I can even imagine myself in his shoes, dealing with all of that and still finding the resolve to write, to share, to even just participate in life to anywhere near the level he did. I don’t think I would find that resolve and determination even with 10 more years of life experience added on to what I’ve already lived! Last year at the end of July, I got the worst health news I’ve ever gotten in my life, and even with the positive outlook that situation could have (and has had thus far, thankfully!), it took me until the end of last year to share anything about it here. Most of my friends, outside of those I am close to in real life, know nothing of what news I got outside of a vague idea, because sharing that kind of news is tough, takes vulnerability and a certain willingness that I wasn’t sure I would find. As a teaser, I plan to celebrate the one-year anniversary of that news by talking about it more and directly, but it took me the majority of the last 12 months to even muster the courage to think about sharing more, and it also kind of required me reaching the point where I felt confident in my future to even want to share it. My experience was nowhere near as drastic or awful as what Bel went through, and so I find unending respect for the courage it took to not just share his news, but to share it in the darkness of uncertainty and to still have hope that it would get better, to be putting the work into making it better through what he could control. And obviously, I don’t know what he went through privately, but he shared so extensively of his experience in public that I could feel the gut punches but also the optimism present in his outlook, that through it all, he wanted more life and was looking for how to get that in whatever ways he could.

I think something that still feels weird about this internet age is that there are dozens of people I have known through games, blogging, or online connectivity who have likely passed away, friends on a list that will never log in again, guildmates whose names will remain forever grey, and I don’t think we have great ways to handle that yet. I didn’t really know Belghast, and it’s easy in part right now posthumously to say that I wish that was different, that maybe I would have parked an alt in his FFXIV free company or tried to convince him to tank a Mythic Plus run on his warrior in WoW, but it’s common in the moment to lose sight of that and to think everyone on the internet is forever young and constantly going to be there, to delay from today because the chance will be there later until suddenly, it isn’t. I’m 40, not that old by any real measure of time, and yet I’ve found myself more acutely aware of how fragile and precious life can be through the experiences of this last year. In some ways, I think the thing I feel I am learning in response to this news is that it’s worth taking the time to hang out and get to know people better before that option is gone, even just online, in whatever form that may take. And sure, in real life, we can feel that, we have centuries of social ideals around how that works, but online it’s just…different, you know? Most of my life, video games were things that you played locally in single-player and friend lists were things in instant messenger apps that corresponded to real people I knew from school or work, but that’s so different now. Most of the people I would call friends aren’t even people I’ve met in person, and some, I don’t even know their real names! I learned Belghast’s real name at the same time most of us in the Blaugust Discord did – when his obituary was posted – and even using it in this post feels like it would be weird, like an obnoxious wrestling fan using a performer’s real name when discussing the art.

Belghast deserves thanks from me for providing an environment where my blog could thrive alongside so many others, as he did for over a decade through his various blogging projects and the platform he built. And I think that I will be participating in Blaugust again for the first time in 3 years, so hopefully, I will be writing much more frequently in the immediate future!