Sound a little boring? Sad? Well, strap in because I am not just Maxine Peters, ace basement cataloger. Unbeknownst to those who know me in “real life,” I am a warrior. As Maximus_Damage, I am a fighter in the eternal battle of good versus evil, a vanguard against might makes right, a last bastion against … well, you get the picture. I am, and have been for the last eight years, an avid player of the massive multiplayer online role-playing game League of Magecraft. What I love so passionately about Magecraft is that I get to be, from behind my computer screen, tough, sassy, strong, and fierce. I get to tap into a part of myself I never let out offline. Have fun, complete epic quests, and make friends along the way.
It’s not that I don’t have “real” friends here in Green Valley, I do. But they know me as a buttoned-up cataloger who works in the library basement. The perpetual wallflower at the few Friday night jam sessions I venture out to at the community center. The woman who overindulges at Daisy’s Nut House and who often gets runs in her stockings and has lipstick on her teeth. Offline Max’s idea of fun is hosting monthly book club meetings for three friends—two of whom also work at the library—or sipping wine and watching a Hallmark Christmas movie. In June.
Online Max? She tells Alexa to slam on Black Veil Brides, sticks her hair up in a messy bun, and logs in to a fantasy world of mages, demons, knights, and warriors. She throws on her armor, picks up that ginormous sword, and kicks major ass. I’ve earned a bit of a reputation in the game as a badass of epic proportions that you do not want to cross weapons with. I’m also a leader of sorts, as an officer in the largest and best guild on the continent. See, Magecraft isn’t only a game, it’s a vast social network that connects people from around the entire world, organized into guilds—associations of players committed to helping each other build friendships and reach both peak fun and potential in the game.
And this year, several of my fellow guild members, aka guildies, are descending upon Green Valley like a plague of locusts.
Okay, scratch that. I did invite them, after all. It all happened so fast; some of the officers suggested a meetup offline for folks in the South after the success of a Midwestern gathering. After a lot of hemming and hawing over the location, I suggested my little town in autumn with all its riotous colors. And what do you know, it turns out no one else wanted to organize the thing anyway. So the invitations went out, and before I knew it, I was arranging activities and accommodation for a gaggle of geeks for four entire days.
This is how I wound up standing in the airport in Knoxville holding a sign with their names: “Deathdrop, Carebear, Nedris, and Wrath.” So perhaps I used the word gaggle a little liberally. To both my consternation and relief, after a dozen RSVPs, people began to drop out of the gathering one by one. Some had family obligations, couldn’t get time off work, or perhaps they couldn’t face their crippling social anxiety to meet in meatspace. We were down to five, including me, the others all due to arrive within the next two hours.
I paced the terminal feeling a bit like an alien in blue jeans, red Converse, and a tight red T-shirt that read “Got Geek?” with illustrations from Firefly, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones. I never wore clothes like this in public, preferring to hide under a lumpy cardigan and an ankle-length skirt or something else that screamed frumpy business casual. The truth is, I had fretted for weeks over what to wear during the gathering. Did I show them the Maxine Peters who yawned her way through life in Green Valley, or did I embrace my inner extrovert and present myself how I had always wanted to be seen? During a night in which wine may or may not have played a big part, boxes from the back corner of my closet were dug out and jeans, T-shirts, tank tops, and sneakers I hadn’t seen since college were unearthed. The extrovert screaming inside me begging to be let free won, and I was going to let myself be seen. Not only in jeans, but socially, through the activities and events I had planned around town. For the first time in a decade, I was going to cut loose in public, not only in my gaming room.
Not since I was fresh out of my library and information studies master’s program—almost ten years ago—have I been my truest self offline. The main reason being that I was assaulted by a pair of Iron Wraiths one evening as I was fixing a flat by the side of the road. The Iron Wraiths were Green Valley’s local biker gang-slash-menace, and most of the members were unhinged in one way or another. That night left me in the hospital with my jaw wired shut, unable to talk. Even after I healed, I didn’t talk very much. I didn’t feel like it. But online? I could speak fine with my fingers. And in gaming, a newer hobby of mine at the time, I had discovered that beating up on virtual bad guys gave me a sense of satisfaction, helpless as I was to do much about the actual bad guys in the picture. The official story was that I didn’t get a good look at their faces, and that’s how I’d wanted it. I didn’t want retribution against me or my mom if I had pressed charges. I didn’t want to be looking over my shoulder all the time. The Wraiths were not known for being kind to their enemies. They could all go to
