Family game night is never fun. No one wants to be there, yet the worst anyone does is grumble about it. Why is this?

What our household called these was "forced family fun night." These Friday evenings never ended with the completion of a game, just hurt feelings. Alister and Ulysses would slink upstairs at the first hint of game night, and one of the youngest three was always in a bad mood. For myself, I'd either be all for it, or mysteriously appear in the upstairs loft with the other two. Eventually, after the parents chased down all of us, we'd decide which game to play. Regardless of the choice, there was never universal agreement, and games ended with unhappy players finding excuses to stop playing. Often, when one side was losing, a member of their team would rage quit. This left the remaining teams unbalanced, and forced the end of game night. Game night would often be overshadowed by sports or Girl Scouts, and eventually fizzled out completely as schedules got more complicated.

Though I'll never fully understand the intention of game nights, the first time was at least interesting. We only pulled out board games when someone was over, and so doing it with just us was refreshing. 

When quarantine started, it was decided to do game night again. This was mostly because all the sibling's extracurriculars were now canceled. Family fun night was the same as before, except this time, the game didn't end when it was put away. Feelings carried over when there wasn't time to relieve them. Mutual respect and politeness were replaced by annoyance and anger. Teasing increased, which meant that the victim would take it out on someone else. Thoughtful responses turned to snappy answers. Overall, my family felt farther apart than when we didn't talk at all. We stopped doing game night, and even started avoiding contact with each other.

But a few months into the stay-at-home order, this relationship changed. It started with Alister wanting to play Terraria. Since it costs money, and I had bought it previously, he asked for me to sign in. I was on the verge of saying no, as I didn't like the thought of a 13 year old with my identity. But on second thought, I didn't care. If someone messed with my account, he'd be held responsible. So I did it for him. This triumphant success caught the attention of Percival, the youngest brother, and therefore also asked. After all this talk of it, I too re-download Terraria. Who knew this mobile game would be the start of a reconciliation.

For example, we have this moment where we're all stuck fighting a boss called Fishron. They both join my world. We try multiple plans, and still can't finish him. The whole day passes without progress. We hear the signal for dinner, and walk down feeling slightly disheartened. During the meal, we discuss it. As we sit diagonals to each other, our talk of Fishron intersects others and eventually becomes the talk of the table. Dad chimes in, pretending to know what it's about, and even the sisters seem intrigued. 

Afterwards, Theodosia, the youngest sister, downloads Terraria. The others weren't as interested, but the four of us were enough. I helped Theodosia build a new world, and understand the fundamentals of the game. After about three months, I beat the game, alone. I thought it was unfair to give them the post Moon Lord loot, but they wanted it, so whatever. We still had fun trying on hard mode, or even ways to beat multiple bosses at once.

Nowadays, we don't talk anymore. Theodosia is still playing Terraria, while the rest of us have moved on. Percival has gotten back into Apex Legends, Josephine is doing Animal Crossing, Milo watches Youtube. Overall, these had no effect on relationships that I could see. There was no, "...and then we all made up and became best friends," moment. I think this will be just one of the things that we'll remember years later.