Me, In a Nutshell

So, a megalomaniac and a sumo wrestler walk into a bar...

I've only written for two characters of consequence in my stay in this game. Granted, during my time as a fedhead I've written for countless more, but the only two I've consistently handled, of my own creation, are Steven Caldera and Kimbusa. And on the surface, it would seem like they're as opposite as can be.

And that's the way it was intended, too. I'd handled Caldera for 2-3 years when I created Kimbusa. Caldera at the time was the same power-mad puppeteer he is today, if on a slightly smaller scale. When I created Kimbusa, I thought I'd try something a little different. So I went from a suit-wearing, manipulative genius to a straight-forward, colossal sumo wrestler.

But, as anyone who has ever read Mick Foley's books will tell you, the best characters are those that closely resemble the person portraying them. And in that way, Caldera and Kimbusa reveal the same aspect of my personality from two different perspectives.

Caldera loves the spotlight, he craves it and thrives in it. Kimbusa actively shies away from it; he hates it with all his being and, in fact, is the only thing preventing him from completely dominating. Caldera is fearless and ruthless; Kimbusa is ruthless but fearful. Caldera, fit, young and handsome, is everything society wants in a man; Kimbusa is everything they fear and despise.

And yet, as the characters have evolved, they've developed some interesting common threads, which were entirely unintentional. Both characters are extremely isolated, cut off from normal human contacts by their intense desires for power. Kimbusa wants the world to see his full potential, but the spotlight continues to push him down. Caldera, in his wild and relentless drive for greatness refuses to allow anyone to get close to him, for fear that anyone might cost him the slightest gain.

Now, I am not a sumo wrestler, nor am I a media billionaire. Caldera is certainly closer to what I aspire to be than Kimbusa. But if Caldera is my outward self, Kimbusa is the personification of what lies beneath.

Why do I confess this here? How does this relate to e-wrestling at large?

Well, it's because I think a large percentage of e-fedders can relate to this. Maybe your characters don't reflect you as precisely as mine do, but I'd wager that there's at least a tiny bit of you in your character. Unlike pro wrestling, e-fedders have absolute control to handle whatever character they want in any way they want. That freedom is telling, and you can probably tell a thing or two about a person by the character they handle.

But the psychology isn't important. The point here is that we all have some connection to our characters. Perhaps you're the sort that changes characters often, constantly looking for that right person to carry on with, but I'd still guess that you could find a common thread in all of them. And that means we all have an investment in this creation of ours, the game we call e-wrestling.

I had a conversation recently with Andrew, handler of Rich Rollins, that was rather telling. He gave me high praise of a match I'd written involving Rollins, pointing out how precisely I'd written the character, and I replied that, having known Rollins almost as long as Andrew has, I feel pretty well equipped to write him. And it's the truth; our characters take on a life of their own, just as Caldera and Kimbusa have evolved almost independently of my conscious influence.

That's why there's still life in this game, because there's a little bit of each and every one of us invested in it. Anyone who handles a character in this game has made that emotional commitment, deposited a little bit of themselves into the community. And that won't go away so easily. The people who didn't make that investment, they're the ones that have gone. But where the numbers have depleted, the truly committed people have risen up and become a majority.

Obviously, this isn't meant to be a jab at anyone who has quit or changed characters. Eventually real life takes precedent and the investment is better spent elsewhere. I'm certainly not trying to claim that this game deserves someone's whole emotional attention. But the point is, it's there. A large percentage of us have a vested interest in what happens to the characters we have created, because there's some part of us tied to that person's fate. In a way, we have created a very real world populated by real people, and it's that world I hope we can begin to illustrate.

As long as that emotional investment is there, this game won't just up and fizzle. True, the enthusiasm might have waned a bit, but that doesn't mean it can't come back. In talking with the majority of the community I find that there is still great passion for the game. It's simply becomes important for us to find new ways of challenging and inspiring one another to continue down exciting new avenues of creativity.

So this game isn't just about a bunch of kids pretending to wrestle on their computers. We have lives, we have responsibilities, and we have diversifying interests. But we also have little bits of ourselves still active in this game, and regardless of what you might think of the game, that fact makes it clear that this game will continue as long as we want it to.