After giving me a brief, thirty-minute crash course of the logistical life of being a gnome, Ryon went to play with his fancy level 60 friends and left me in the baby starting area alone, an innocent level 1, to be killed over and over by virtual spiders and boars. (Classic sibling behavior.)
Thinking back on that introductory experience, I can never blame anyone for saying, “I don’t get video games, they’re too intimidating.” They can be. VERY. And unfortunately, chances are that an anonymous teen gamer on the other side of your monitor will respond to appeals for help with, “It’s easy. Get with it or get out, asscrack.” There’s no easy way of getting into the hobby even if you WANT in, so a lot of people, especially girls, give up. The learning curve is too steep to climb.
But don’t worry. I climbed it. The hard way.
Over the next months, I played a few hours a day, but TERRIBLY. I didn’t know I had special skills to kill things faster, so I did the basic “STAB” attack over and over. It took upwards of two minutes to kill each creature. It should have taken ten seconds. And I died a lot. It was not fun. I got frustrated and finally typed to my brother.
“Sorry, but I think I’m done with the game. It’s too hard.”
“What? Twelve-year-olds play this game, what’s too hard about it?”
“It takes too long to kill things. My mouse finger hurts.”
“Did you not level your talent tree? Are you using Sinister Strike followed by Eviscerate?”
“YOU’RE SPEAKING GNOMISH TO ME!!! I’M MAD AT YOU! HELP ME PLAY PLEASE!”
“Okay. Fine. God.”
That night we started brand-new characters together. Gnomes again, of course. My new character was named Keeblerette, and I put tall, white, penile-inspired hair on her. Something I regretted instantly. It was not, at the time, reversible.
Ryon created a warrior girl named Mochi with pink Princess Leia buns, and we were ready to rock the virtual world together!
We advanced our characters to the max level after about two months of playing. We played and played and played, a few hours every night, and I used all the right buttons my brother taught me, and it was awesome. Chatting with each other in the game was so fun, like texting while driving. Except not dangerous and illegal.
“Let’s go to the swamp area.”
“No, let’s do the undead area first! Watch me blow up this slime monster!”
“Wow, so much goo. Dance in it!”
No dungeon could defeat us, no monster best us. Actually, that’s not true, we died about five million times each, but we were stronger together than on our own. (*After school speciaaaal!*)
All the exuberance and sense of purpose rubbed off on my real life. I started walking around feeling . . . happy. A casting director was rude to me, and I thought, Gosh, she probably had a bad day, rather than dry-heave sobbing in the car afterward. A part of Hollywood-defeated Felicia Day was “fixed” by my double life as a tiny little penis-haired gnome. Getting the opportunity to know Ryon as an adult through playing the game together was a huge part of that. And why I fell in love with the game so much. It felt empowering to prioritize our time together, rather than living at the beck and call of acting appointments. Even if it was just, “Let’s kill that skeleton boss tonight!,” it felt like I belonged somewhere with him. Finally.
Before you say, “Wow, this chick is on a nerd plane of existence I can’t relate to” <slams her into a locker>, the thing about a computer game character is that a part of you BECOMES that character in an alternative world. That little gnome Keeblerette was an emotional projection of myself. A creature/person who was more powerful, more organized and living in a world where there were exact parameters to becoming successful. “Kill forty wyverns, get points that make you stronger. Check!”
When we graduate from childhood into adulthood, we’re thrown into this confusing, Cthulhu-like miasma of life, filled with social and career problems, all with branching choices and no correct answers. Sometimes gaming feels like going back to that simple kid world. Real-life Felicia wasn’t getting more successful, but I could channel my frustration into making Keeblerette an A-list celebrity warlock, thank you very much!
During those hours of playing, I befriended a lot of the other members of my brother’s guild, just like with my old pirate crew. And even though they could all theoretically disappear on a dime, it was comforting to start up the computer after a day of feeling like an idiot because I had to pretend to drive a car by steering with a fake prop steering wheel, extolling the “Amazing Honda handling!” at a commercial audition. It felt like I could endure any lack of fulfillment in my career as long as I knew my “friends” were online to play with when I got home.
6/7 16:51:26.790 Keeblerette has come online.
6/7 16:52:18.553 YoMamaz: Oh yeah, new helm timez!
6/7 16:52:27.803 YoMamaz: Hey Keeb!
6/7 16:52:41.752 Mochi: Yo Keeb.
6/7 16:52:57.504 Spitball: Keeb wassup?!
6/7 16:53:01.110 Spitball: Finally we can get some fun started!
It was like Cheers. But where absolutely no one knew your name.
[?My Professionally Destructive Gaming Career?]