I have an actual fan word in the works [huzzah!], but this is juts a random blurb of...randomness.
I have read plenty, plenty of essays, journals, and comics to get the gist of being a female gamer. I see stamps on DA on the declaration of being a gamer with boobs. I've heard the horror stories of being rejected in online games because one is female.
Honestly? It's all so cliché.
What's that? I'm wrong? We all have different experiences, and this is mine. So let me speak.
I'm the youngest of three kids, with my two older siblings being brothers. I grew up with an NES [yeah, old school original!] in the house, later graduating to the PS, PS2, XBox, GameCube, and 360 with the dashings of the GameBoy Pocket, Color, Advance, and DS. We've essentially been in the major part of gaming ever since I can remember.
Growing up, all my friends were guys, mainly due to the fact that the street I lived on had mostly male children. We would discuss and roleplay various cartoons and books, and get together after school to watch Fox Kids [now THOSE are the good ol' days] and Toonami. We'd battle with action figures and whack each other with squirt guns and play swords, rounding out the day with soccer matches and obstacle courses. On the weekends, we'd gather and eat lunch in-between matches on the PlayStation. Man, that was a great childhood.
I moved to my current location in fourth grade. And you want to know what? The friends I made - all girls - loved video games as well. But these were not tomboys. By chance, these girls - who loved shopping, make up, and talking about boys - were into anime and video games, just like me. We'd duke it out on the N64 and PS2 while watching Zoids and Rurouni Kenshin, giggling about crushes and squeeling over cute things.
In middle school, I met my best friend (Aiyanna) by one very simple word:
"Aha!"
It was in sixth grade, during math class, in the midst of a chapter review page. She and I sat next to each other, and in the murmured silence of the room, I managed to overhear her. Flabbergasted, I quickly replied.
"You sound like a video game character!"
"The Professor from Spyro 2?!"
"Yeah!"
And every female friend I've ever made has somehow been into video games. But really, what breaks the mold is that every guy friend I've ever made has never had a second thought about us being girl gamers. I can easily talk with them about games and systems. They have never made any mention or demeaning notion about female gamers.
I know a lot of people will call me lucky and the whole thing coincidental, but it's a little hard to really call it that, given how many people this involves. Just saying...
Edit: So in the backroom, I was looking at my stuff when I suddenly noticed this:
