The Forge

People often ask me about things i do and say. When i mention my gallbladder removal, they ask You had your gallbladder removed? When i mention Audrey, they ask Who's Audrey? When i mention Jack and Jill, they don't laugh. And the solution to all of these has been fairly simplistic: "Oh, yeah. I guess you should read my blog."

An issue has always arisen, however, when the topic of the Fragdolls has come up, since no blog on that topic has existed. Quite often a conversation is sparked by the rather straightforward slogan on an otherwise black shirt: I play with Dolls. Suddenly i'm bombarded with questioning. My orientation often comes into doubt. So i turn around and gesture towards the logo along the collar line. Still, mention of the Fragdolls historically raises more eyebrows than recognition.

So when some friends and i were in the local Rite Aid yesterday, and jokingly thumbing through some magazines, i was astonished to hear Josh say "Look at this one---the 'Fragdolls' !" I indicated familiarity and curiosity waxed. To be sure, the cover shot of Ashley (aka Jinx FD) is enough to make most at least take interest in the latest from PCGamer magazine's output: PCXL. My ability to say "yeah, i know her" surprised my comrades and i feel it's time to explain my history with this amazing crew and their equally awesome following once and for all, so as to avoid shock on the part of magazine browsers and query among shirt examiners from now on.

It began back in December of 2004, whereabouts Electronic Gaming Monthly ran an article on a new marketing team just recently assembled by game company Ubisoft. It's fair to assume that most readers of that particular issue were stunned when they opened to a two-page spread adorned with beautiful women. Jaws continued to succomb to gravity as those readers began to realize that these women--then Rhoulette, Jinx, Brookelyn, Seppuku, Valkyrie, Katscratch and Eekers--were FPS masters with a penchant for boomstick abuse (domination with a shotgun or other such weapon, for the technologically-disinclined).

Not long after reading the article and browsing the Fragdoll site, i was a member on the Ubisoft message boards. My name was Genesis11, the same as my gamertag on xbox live (first book, first chapter, first verse, naturally). It seems like quite a while ago that i got into huge message board brawls with characters like Flames Shadow and Shadowskull. In fact much of my earlier memories on the message boards involve a lot of flaming and flame-baiting. I began to notice more prominent members of the community (which had existed a little bit before August of that year), but it would be a while before i found any particular niche.

One of the most drastic changes i had to make when i joined the FD community was to become familiar with a program called Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. Predating contemporaries like AIM and Jabber, IRC is basically a global network of chatrooms on various servers. There are IRC rooms for everything. I daresay there are even knitting chatrooms. Anyhow, IRC is a bit different from other forms of communication for a myriad reasons. Most striking is your ability to have ANY name that isn't already being used on the server, and to be able to change names as often as you wish. Thus it is very easy to impersonate one another, although of course the primary reason for this freedom is to alert others to your status simply by switching from, say, "Genesis11" to "Genesis11|sleeping."

Due to the unprecedented level of anonymity presented by IRC (i know there are whois functions but it's easy to block that), people tend to be a bit more aggressive. And so, despite how volatile the forums seemed back then, they were more like an elementary school playground compared to the IRC room. IRC is where cliques still seem to exist: those who are friends in real life, or have become great friends via the Internet, tend to be less accepting of outsiders. At the very least, they have less patience (as, of course, in the real world). I imagine IRC was my first glimpse at what college and my future would be like, a world where people would hate you if you annoyed them or else accept you on your admirable traits, unlike the fantasy created by a self-esteem driven school bureaucracy that tells children they're all amazing no matter what they're like.

Enter me, a fifteen-year old with no notion of self-control or tact. Boyish charm was about as common in me as slugs in a salt mine. Throw in an environment centered around seven beautiful, talented women, and there's bound to be controversy. Well i was still impressing myself with how much information could be easily accessed on the Internet, and when a Google search told me the name and workplace of Eekers, i was clever enough to brag about my discovery. Some annoyed and disinterested person called me a stalker.

The thing about bullies is that they won't go after you over and over unless you make it fun for them. This last part is the key, because as much as you'll be left alone if you do your best to feign apathy, you'll be targeted for crying. And cry i did, in a digital sense. Taking far too much offense from what would probably have ended right there, i launched into a battle against what i would soon find to be an entire community. I also made the humorous mistake of joining the message boards of the small radio station where Eekers worked, something i'll never be able to rationalize. Suddenly it appeared that i truly was stalkerish, and i became public enemy number one.

Eekers and Jinx finally decided it was time to shake me up a little, perhaps knock some sense into me or at the very least rid the community of the nuisance. Along came Borfase, NotASenator, Frobino, and a couple others. Loaded with profanity and leaving all tact in their forgotten past, these figures will go down in my history as perhaps the cruelest and yet most hilarious bunch i've ever been pitted against. Shake me up they did, and i'll always regret the decisions i made in that dreadful seven month period between joining the community and their entrance into my life.

One day i discovered that someone had pretended to be me in the chatroom. Apparently i said some pretty terrible stuff, because Jinx banned me from the room. I inquired as to why and was eventually met with a rather angry and intense reply. Despite my claims of innocence, i was to stay out of the chatroom. It was time for Genesis to leave.

But not yet time for me to leave. Intrigued by the concept that the world was against me, I created a second alias--Jaded Cross (someone supposedly Christian, sick of what was going on around me) and remained on the forums. While my presence on the site was incognito, i recognized that most action really took place in the chatroom i wasn't able to get into. So i queried IRC for a list of those in the room and decided to test my luck by sending a message to a guy named CRM3000. To my great luck (and to his credit), Chris was willing to speak to me despite my history. Over several weeks, he began to convey to me the importance of holding my tongue a bit. He also showed me how a lot of people in IRC, while perhaps over-the-top, are often kidding despite how horrendous and convincing they may be. Sarcasm, as it were, is the name of the game.

There was still a matter of great concern hanging over me, however. See, back in February i'd found out that the Fragdolls would be in Seattle for the 2005 Penny Arcade eXpo, and since i desparately wanted to meet them i convinced mom to take the cross-country trek for a few days in what is apparently a very rainy city. But what fun would it be if everyone hated me? I would be wasting my money by going to spend a few days avoiding people for sanity's sake. So i decided to ask Chris to find out for me what the general opinion of me was.

After some time he told me that people didn't really hate me. Borfase and co had done their job well on me but most people really just didn't care. Eventually i was allowed back into IRC, where i would soon learn to wield sarcasm for survival. The following week was PAX.

I'm tempted to say that August 25th through 29th were among the best days of my life. The convention itself lasted the 26th through 28th. On the first day, a Friday, i was a bit bewildered by the sheer scale of the event. Three floors teemed with people of all shapes, sizes, and (unfortunately) scents. Among the attendents were Princess Peach and Master Chief, as well as various Star Wars characters and the occasional druid. We were a varied crowd, to be sure; yet everyone had one thing in common: games. Thousands of us, in one place, to celebrate our love of video games and the gaming culture. And somewhere in the crowd were people i'd actually talked with before, people whose opinions on me i was still fairly unsure of. But i was in Bellevue, and determined to make the most of it.

I made it through friday without really meeting anyone i knew. I remembered that the group from the boards had been planning on eating at one of two restaurants in the area, but was unsure of which one. On a whim my mother and i headed for one of them and were ushered into a side area, where we sat alone. I soon became aware of a large gathering nearby, a group with faces i slowly began to recognize. Finally someone came over and asked if i was Genesis. Yes, i was. Would i like to eat with them? Sure i would.

My mother and i ended up at the end of the table, sitting next to, of all people, NotASenator (NAS, from now on). I admit i was terrified but my fears were pointless. It became apparent in short order that he really had nothing against me and would soon become the person i talked to most while in Seattle. The only other thing i recall about that meal was that Phu was moving his chest at will, one peck at a time, which was greatly entertaining to most of us for some reason.

The following day my spirits were a bit brighter, partly because it was my sixteenth birthday. Mom and i went out in search of breakfast. The funny thing about streets in the Seattle area is how they are mostly numerical, differing only by the compass direction attached. Thus, while we were in search for a road in the easterly direction, it was actually in the west (something to this effect, i've forgotten the exact bearings). The point is, we got lost and ended up pulling into an empty parking lot near a small strip mall to figure out where we were. As my mom puzzled over the map, a lone figure emerged from the nearby grocer and turned in our direction. As it grew closer, i could tell it was a woman. And as she grew closer, i became awestruck. It was Brooke.

Brooke and JB had recently moved to this area, i recalled, so this must be somewhat close to home since she was walking. The irony of my location at that point in time still makes me laugh. As she neared, i rolled down the window. I'm not sure what i planned to say, but thankfully it wasn't up to me to initiate the conversation: "Are you Genesis?!" When i indicated i was, she laughed. Apparently she'd heard i'd showed up the night before, right after she left (i can confirm this, as i saw her and Gus--of Red Vs Blue fame-- with some others, leaving as we walked in), and was sorry she'd missed me. She was just bringing back some medicine for JB, who had come down with a cold or something like it and was waiting at home for relief. We said goodbyes and as she left my mom and i just laughed at how random the whole thing had been.

The exhbition floor was open that day and the Fragdolls were demo-ing the new Rainbow Six game (Lockdown), as well as showing preview videos for games like Far Cry: Instincts Predator and the upcoming Splinter Cell. The setup was spectacular in that room: tons of game developers, card and comic companies, even Microsoft and the Army were there. And in the back-right part of the showroom floor was the Ubisoft section. Eight televisions were set up, four on one side and four to their backs. The women were taking turns on one side of the table and walk-ups could try their hand against the 'Dolls on the other. The game, as i said, was Lockdown. It looked fun, so i sat down and gave it a whirl. After being brutalized once, i decided to try again. Three other guys i'll never see again sat down beside me and we were ready to get destroyed. That's when one of the Ubisoft managers came over and said if we could win, we'd each get a free copy of Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike, which had come out maybe a month ago.

I think they were told to take it easy on us, because somehow the four of us pulled out a victory on a game we'd never played before. They handed us copies of the game, and as i looked at the green case in my hands i realized it'd be so much better signed. I walked across and they were more than happy to sign:






Brookelyn was nearby and she freaked out that i hadn't mentioned it was my birthday earlier. She asked my size and then grabbed a t-shirt from a box and tossed it to me. On the front, in bold letters, was the expression "I play with Dolls." Aside from actually being there in Seattle for my birthday, that was the coolest present i received that year. Well the day played out well and my mom and i went out to celebrate my birthday for dinner. As we were finishing up Chris called to say they were out at a Mexican place nearby, so we headed over there and had chips and water while chatting with, among others, NAS and Sk8. I think it was at this point that NAS asked if we might be able to give him a ride back to his hotel, which was adjacent to ours anyway. Our rental car was a nifty PT Cruiser, and despite how i still think those cars are hideous i must admit it was a very comfortable vehicle to spend those days in. *Though it is my own history, i'm not an expert on it. We may have taken NAS home the next night, but rest assured we did in fact take him home on one occassion.*

Day 3 was fun as well (did you expect differently?) but the highlight for me was definitely the dinner. *If you remember the name of the rustic restaurant with the rubber-band powered fans and log-cabin ambience, please post it here.* It's here that i truly got to appreciate the various personalities of (in the order their pictures appear in my photobucket) Calistah, Juiceman and Ladyfly, Toofy, Stonelance, (again) Chris, BCA and his mother, Mike (aka theEXPOzay), and crowd favorite Curtis (aka The Streetwise Professor, aka SWP, aka SWooP) who incidentally climbed a tree and did the Chinese numbers trick, which i have on video. The food was amazing, but perhaps more amazing was the questionably gay waiter--haha, that reminds me--who promised us a dessert they didn't have and then proceeded to give us three free desserts they did, just so we'd not hate him.

As for what i was reminded of, the waiter at the restaurant where mom and i ate my birthday dinner at was certainly homosexual, as he was practically hitting on me whilst ignoring the attractive ladies in the next booth who were also his customers.

Dinner on that third night marked the bittersweet closing time of my Seattle trip, but certainly not the end of my Fragdoll history. For months after i was a well-accepted member of the community, an international group with good intentions and plenty of love to go around. We're not an overly serious bunch despite how we like to fling insults at one another, and as for gamers i've not met a more diverse and enjoyable group.

An interesting chapter in the FD saga is the advent of Hammer_and_Anvil, a pro gaming group that managed to get pretty close with the Dolls despite the initial apprehension many of us had. This was mainly, i think, due to the newest members, Calyber and Psyche, who had been chosen to replace Eekers and Katscratch (each pursuing a new calling in the gaming industry) in the first "Casting Call" event. But it wasn't long before most of us (at least i) felt comfortable with the newcomers. Many a game of GRAW occupied my spring and summer nights and days as Calyber, Psyche, Hobbez, Ballistic (i think that had numerals in it but w/e) and others practiced for MLG tournaments and (thankfully) let me in on them. I can't say i'm really all that good at GRAW but since i was playing with pros i certainly got better. I learned strategy (read:spawn camping in the pro leagues; sorry if you hate camping) as well as how to predict where an enemy was most likely to be, rather than waiting til he was shooting at me before chucking a grenade.

School and other things made me fall away from the community for awhile, but in the meantime i've kept in touch with another good friend i made in the Fragdoll community, Michael Ubaldi. A driving force of the clan i joined--the 13th Dragoons, which is a funny name if you know your Brit history--Mike is one of the most educated and articulated people i've ever encountered. His blog-- www.figureconcord.com/ublog --is intensely written but entertaining nonetheless. He has a healthy concern for current events but also writes on random goings-on, and his photography has been known to grace my desktop for weeks at a time (as it does now on my macbook). Recently i ordered an album from him. I won't go into the history of The Concord, for he does a pretty good job of that on the official site, but as i've been listening to it even while writing this blog i feel qualified to heartily recommend you order it too.

And so, when Josh pointed out Ashley's photo on PCXL, with a cover story of "The Frag Dolls: The World's Hottest Gamers," i had to drop the absurd 10 dollars and change to get my own copy. After all, wouldn't you do the same if your friend were on the cover?