Boyz and their toyz

"Imma boy. I have rockets. I play Call of Dummy. No: Call of Doodoo. No: sommat like that. Anyway! Today's challenge is to get headshots, but I don't care. Imma gonna get high score, cause Imma boy, and I have rockets!"

*sigh* Um, no.

`phfina with her big, long purple thing?



Yeah, I meant needler rifle, too, but that's another story ... hm-hm-hm. Where was I? (Girls get ... 'distracted' ... by 'things')

Oh, yeah: `phfina with her needler rifle, and her non-death-spree (great job, there killer-boy! And how many suicides was that with your big-old rocket launcher, compensating for your little willy?), well, let's just say I walked away with another win. Again.

Boyz. @_~

Carried

Okay...this.

So, it's just a bunch of numbers to you the outsider, so, as a gracious favor to you, little `phfina in her black shawl (and black eye, again, don't ask) will provide interpretation for you.

Okay, so I go into the hopper, ready to drive a vehicle, so somebody will gun for me, so I can get a shiny new driver assist ribbon, but here we go into condemned ... no vehicles. Great.

*sigh*

Well, just tough it out.

And what transpired before my eyes? Two of my teammates were around my rank, so I thought, finally I wouldn't have to carry the whole damn team (which I rarely do, ... my friends, who are boyz, are killahs to da Max). But no, I see boyz being boyz, rushing right in, and dying. All the time. We were behind, by like, 10 points at one point in the game, and I was leading my team in score, in fact: twice that of the second player.

At the end of the game, well, in the last minute, we pull ahead and win.

I look at the leaderboard, and saw what you see.

What do you see?

Well, kills are kills, right? Wrong. K-D is actually important. It tells you how many times you killed, but also how many times you died. My k-d was higher than anybody elses...friend, or foe.

But when you add up the k-d's... my k-d was higher than my team. My whole team. My k-d was higher, in fact, than both teams combined!

Why?

Boyz being boyz.

"YARRRRG! I'm a boy! So I'm going to rush straight in and punch the other guy, 'cause I'm a boy!"

The kill distance for all my teammates were all averaging less than 10 meters. Their death distance were all at least double that.

My kill distance, contra-whateverly, was at least double my death distance.

And the weapons they used? My teammates? Every single one of them?

Their fists.

They have all these beautiful ranged weapons where they can like, shoot from a distance? Or shoot mid-ranged? No. It's like they put all these things aside. "I don't need no stinking rifle! I'm a BOY! CHAARRRRRGGGEEE!!!"

And got shot full of holes, the final hole being in their cranium.

Me, I'm a girl. I watch. From a distance. I watch boyz charging at each other, I pick up my scoped rifle, and I shoot them. I shoot them all. The enemies, that is.

When a boy charges toward me? What's my instinctive reaction? "CHHHAARRRRGGEEE!!!!"?

No, it's back-up, shoot, back-up, shoot, back-up, shoot, back-up, shoot, kill.

I'm a girl. I'm smaller. Only an idiot would charge in and go toe-to-toe with "HULK SMASH!"

I was, unfortunately, matched up with five idiots.

And I carried their asses to the win.

What did I get for that? Gratitude? "Oh, `phfina, thank you for carrying our sorry n00b asses to the win!"?

Nah. I waited. And I waited. And I checked the stats, ... and I told them, exactly, what idiots they all were, and how.

I did get some feedback. "You on the rag?"

"Just off, thanks," was my reply, "But what's your excuse for that piss-poor performance? None! Learn to fight like a girl!"

Now, I don't want to leave you the impression that I'm all anti-boy. ... I'm MOSTLY anti-boy.

But some boys make being boyz ... work. Take Grim or Max or Gulch for example. They are boyz. They are really boyz. They charge right in there.

But the thing is, they don't do it stupidly. They have mad skilz, yo! They come in with better weapons, or with surprise, or under cover, or after the fire fight has already started, so they walk away from a three-dog fight the winners, time after time.

Fine. Works for them, and great, glad they are on my team.

Me? I'm a girl. So I'll just hide in my little hidey hole and snipe and get headshot after headshot, game after game. ONE day Imma gonna get an unfriggenbelievable. I already have two perfections. Two. Boyz? With you charging in there, how many perfections do you have? More importantly: are you helping the team? Yes? Keep doing that. But are you hurting the team. Stop it. Stop what you're doing, and do something different, something better.

You know: assess, evaluate, learn! Is that too much to ask of you boyz? No, it's not. You just have to set aside your manly pride and admit what you're doing isn't working and watch other players and see what's working for them, then learn, try that, fail, try again, and help the team, right?

Is that so hard?

`phfina and her boyz

So.

So Saga said ... something. Something like, 'let's be friends.'

Something that sounded to me, in my soul like I'm dying.

So.

So for two weeks now, she hasn't written me. Maybe she thinks about me. Maybe she doesn't. Maybe she thought she'd think about me, but then 'life goes on,' and she doesn't think about me for two days, and praying at night, and reflecting on her day, she realizes she hasn't thought me for two days, and then dies, a little, inside, realizing she hasn't thought about me for two days, meaning to write, wanting to write, but what to write, 'I miss you'? 'It hurts, missing you'? ...

... 'I love you'?

Or maybe I'm writing about me, not about her. And maybe she and I are so much alike, each in our own way, that writing about my loss of her is writing about her loss of me.

I don't know.

So.

So, I've been keeping busy.

No, not writing. Because writing requires a couple things: like honesty, like clairvoyance. Meaning 'clair' and 'voyance.' 'Seeing' 'clearly' ... and to see clearly, you have to look, and to look, and to see, you have to say what is, and what isn't, and you can't wallow, when you say what is, and what isn't.

Like me, what is ... and mostly: what isn't.

I'm ... not.

I'm not anything. I'm nothing. And without Saga, this emptiness, this nothingness, this ... me... hurts. She saw me for what I was and what I wasn't and laughed at my silliness, and scolded my nihilism, and gave me a reason to go on living, for a year, to have my heart beat so painfully hard, to have my toes curl until my (tiny) feet cramped, with the anticipation of getting an email from her, and reading what it says. What did it say? Didn't matter, it killed me every time. Every single time.

And I haven't received an email from my friend, now, for two weeks now.

She's moved on.

I'm left behind: a pair of jeans and sneaks on the side of an abandoned road, not even a ghost to eat the bitter despair of her regrets, and what did I do, besides nothing to ever deserve her and everything in my power to lose her.

"`phfina, why aren't you writing?"

Yeah, I just SO LOVE this self-examination! Thanks for encouraging me. Yeah, it hurts like hell, thanks for caring so much about wanting to read what I write, and not giving a shit how I feel writing it, like I've said over and over again, but does anybody ever listen? No.

I may as well go a buy a gun and shoot myself in the head. If that doesn't kill me, at least all my worries will be gone with the free lobotomy. Happy-happy, joy-joy. Then it won't matter if people listen to me or they don't.

So.

So, I've been online, playing Halo. Why? Why not. My brothers do, and I can kick their asses. Or at least throw it down.

Let me tell you something about girls playing Halo.

Hm. Wrong start? Let me tell you something about boyz playing Halo.

You know the male gender? Yes, you do.

I didn't, however. I mean, I 'knew' ... like in the Biblical sense, the male gender ... you know: Nelson, and ... others.

'I haven't been fucked like that since grade school!' was the line from Fight Club that Saga introduced herself to me, reading one of my chapters. And I responded to her review with 'well, I have.'

Well, I have.

Anything to get Daddy back. See, Daddy? I'm not a queer, right?

Anyway. So I had this rather limited and limiting view of boyz. You know: them, the enemy, and me, the victim.

(You can say I have a rather limiting view of myself, but I can answer, 'shut the fuck up.' Thank you very much)

But a girl, playing Halo?

Let me tell you a little bit about this girl named 'phfina' playing Halo. See, I have two brother who've played Halo since even before it came out, one of them is one of the best players in the world.

I have some good training.

So, my 'BPR' ('Battle Proficiency Rating') is in the 90th percentile. It doesn't mean that in 10 battle I come out the winner 9 of them. No. But I do tend to pick my battles, instead of them picking me, so it's more likely if you see me in your reticle, and I see you (usually I see you, and you don't see me), you're dead.

Because boyz? This is how boyz fight: 'ARRRG! CHARGE!' and they all go at each other, toe-to-toe.

This is how phfina fights. She picks a hidden perch, and she waits. She waits for the boyz to run out into the open straight at each other, and she picks them off with headshots, one by one, as they ignore her, clubbing each other to death.

One fight, I picked up the sniper rifle, climbed a cliff overlooking the entire battlefield, and picked off boyz, one by one. Until they noticed, and came at me in force. So I jumped down from the cliff (banana-roll, phfina!) ran for about 50 meters, turned around, and sniped the boyz taking ineffective pot-shots at me with their magnums.

Some boyz, understandably, don't like this.

That is: a girl who dies the least and kills the most in fight after fight after fight. Girls aren't supposed to fight back, and especially aren't supposed to win fights. That's a rule, or something.

So, there are several reactions from boyz.

A common one, when the do kill me (which is often: boyz are boyz, so they charge and overwhelm me, and bang, I'm dead), then stand over my corpse, 'teabagging' me, and screaming, 'Get back into the kitchen, bitch!'

This has happened more times than I care to remember or to recount.

And, yes, I let them know, by killing them back, after the respawn, and NOT teabagging them, and sending them a message about their behavior.

You know what teabagging is? It's rape. A guy kills a girl, then he humps her corpse. I mean, what? Was that guy unloved as a child? Is that they only way he can get any?

I send them feedback, and a very carefully, and strongly worded, message as to what their behavior means about their character.

That's one type of boy.

But boyz, I have found, can be complex.

Some come right back at me, unrepentant, mouthing profanities.

Those are reported.

Some come back, and say, 'Hey, we're not jerks!'

And I'm like, 'yeah, right.'

But some actually aren't jerks ... they're just boyz, being boyz. And they endeavor to amend their ways, and prove themselves to me.

And I give them a second chance.

So I have three friends on my friend list that are boyz that I called jerks, but came right back at me and asked for a second chance.

I can call out shit, ... and I can forgive.

Other boyz, I go toe-to-toe with, and, sister, they are better than me. WAY better than me. One of those boyz, 'MAD DEZINEZ' he stayed off, and shot me, better than I shot him. So I messaged him after the game, saying he was better, even though he annoyed the hell out of me, how he would shoot, then fade, then shoot, and kill.

And he messaged back, 'I only go after the best players on the other team, and you're really good.'

We've been friends for a while now. And he puts up with my shit, with good grace, which is rather amazing to me.

Another boy, GRAVITY, is the number one player in the world in the game type 'Invasion' (my favorite type. It has everything: a goal, vehicles, tactics, teamwork, everything). You play against his team, you die: it's that simple. Why? He's not that good. He is, but he's not like some I've faced, who, at DMR distance become a blur, hopping from foot to foot, making headshots very difficult, or who, at close range, evade, and turn and twist, so you're dizzy trying to melee them, but you just hit air when they snap the back of your neck. No, he's not like that, he simply plays well and plays with a team that plays well, game after game.

Well, I fangirled him. 'My brother, geophf, told me you're the best invasion player in the world!' And he gave me a '^^' back. And then, one time, our team beat his, and I squeed and did a happy dance, and PMed him right away, and he friended me.

So I have the best invasion player in the world on my friend list. So there's that.

So there's those type of boyz, the ones on my friend list. Good: better than me, but nice to me.

"`phfina always gets at least a killing spree every game."
"Nice snipes"
"A girl that kicks ass at Halo ... I think I'm in love!"

And are still boyz: "faggot assed motherfucker!" (after I said I'm a 'faggot' and don't like that language)
"You have to be mean to girls, 'cause they leave you if you're nice" (um, what? You're obviously seeing the wrong kind of girls if they leave you the opinion you have to be mean to girls, because you pull that shit on me ...)

and all that.

Then there are the third type of boyz who are better than me: Halo gods.

There is a rank called 'Inheritor' as in 'inherit the earth,' but they are not meek at all, oh, no!

They get teased a lot before a battle: "Hey, buddy, how much you pay for that rank?"

They don't deign to laugh in return: "You messing with me, punk?"

And then, in the battle, ... it's like, there is water, and they are walking on it, as the rest of us drown. They move into a fracas, and kill everyone fighting each other, and walk away, unscathed. They run halfway across the field, a blur of motion, to single you out, and take you out with ease. They stand off, and snipe, and snipe, and snipe, and every shot is an impossible headshot if it were you on the sniper rifle. And the end score is them, 25, and the next closest person is like 12 ... not even close. And post-game, they don't even bother to set you down, they just go to the next battle, to kick more n00bs ... behinds.

Those kinds of boyz, I have no dealings with. They kill me, over, and over, and over again, and could care less, cause I ... my level of skill isn't worth their notice, and when I do kill them, I'm like WOOT! and they respawn, and kill me, just because I'm in their sights, not because they want revenge or give a fig that I was one of the very few people able to land a killing shot on them.

Those are the kinds of boyz I meet on line, some nice, some not, and some don't bother to care about 'nice.'

The girls? Across the spectrum. You've already seen how one girl fights in me, but other girls, like lilred and I Love Decline, they'll kill you, kill you dead.

But there aren't that many girls online, so I have to hang with the boyz. It's been educational, realizing I have a rather one-dimensional view of boyz, and with good reason, for most of them: jerks and assholes to a 'T'. But not all boyz are like most boyz, some are kind, and caring, and have families or consideration or both, and have mad skilz, too, and tactics, and dedication, and ... friendship.

And it's been two days, now, that I haven't thought of Saga, that I haven't ached, checking my email, and not seeing a message from her, because I've forgotten, after two weeks, what it feels like to receive a message from her.

And that hurts.

It hurts a lot.