This is a post that is preserved from the Homecoming forums.
My City of Heroes Story
I won’t go through my whole history, but I’ll sum up. I was a Navy brat that never had a real home, who was raised as a latchkey kid. My parents weren’t a father and mother (one I never knew, and the other was largely absent), but rather Mr. Rogers and Lady Aberlin. I learned what was right and wrong from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sailor Moon, the Toxic Crusaders, and many, many others. From those “weird” shows, I learned that this “weird” kid wasn’t so weird, and indeed, could become something extraordinary. The amazing powers were cool, but the things that stuck with me (even though these weren’t traditional “superheroes”) were the concepts of compassion, justice, Bushido, honor. I learned that the strong should care for the weak, that those with power to do good, MUST. I learned from my media morality messengers that people can still do great things in the world, even when they are “weird” or unacceptable to the masses. I learned that I was not alone.
Now, with that out of the way, how does this relate to City of Heroes? Well, through some miracle of life, I managed to get through college and graduated with a degree.
In Computer Information Systems.
Immediately after Y2K, when thousands of developers were laid off since their work was no longer necessary.
In a tri-college town where dozens of students were graduating each year with degrees in my same field.
I had also screwed myself by not specializing, instead taking a little bit of networking, a little bit of programming, a little bit of electronic engineering. I had made myself a “jack of all trades, master of none”, and had screwed myself to every job because there was always someone else that was more of an expert in that area than I was. So, I delivered pizzas and worked in the Geek Squad in a Best Buy (with a BACHELOR’S in CIS). It went this way for over a year with no hope in sight of jumping into the tech career that I wanted. A life with no meaning. I got depressed. I got bored and lonely, as I was no longer surrounded by fellow students that were forced to interact with me. I got dark and considered ending my failure of a life.
Then, like a ray of sunshine into the darkness, came City of Heroes. It was an escape. It was a purpose. It gave me the chance to be a HERO! To emulate (at least virtually), all those weirdo fictional heroes that I had looked up to when I was a kid. I took me away from my depressing life and gave me hope of better things to come. But it wasn’t just the game. This world was filled with an entire COMMUNITY of people who, just like me, were inspired by many of the same media stories that I was. They, too, learned the same lessons of right and wrong, justice and compassion, that I had learned from books, movies, and TV shows. And they weren’t afraid to live out those fantasies, those morality plays, in a digital world where they could be the heroes that they always wanted to be. I had found, not just an escape from the drudgery of a depressing life, but a HOME. A place where I could be myself and be the best me that I could be. The me that I couldn’t be in the real world.
The City of Heroes community, and especially forum, helped me navigate a rough real-life road. When I got prematurely married, divorced, moved away from everyone and everything that I knew, and started a new life hundreds of miles away from it all. When I got to my new physical home and discovered that I didn’t KNOW how to relate to people outside of preconceived roles and forced situations, the City of Heroes community was there for me, offering comfort and support. When I went to counseling to try to determine the cause of my “issues”, and was diagnosed with high functioning autism, the City of Heroes community was still there for me, showing me that what matters isn’t who you ARE, but who you choose to BE.
I’ve spent the better part of the last decade working through my issues, learning how to pass for “normal” amongst neurotypicals, but I always relied on the City of Heroes community as my crutch, my way to get through the rough times. Their support helped me to finally get my first job in the tech industry a decade after my graduation, find the love of my life who accepts me for who I am, and start my own family. And then, after all the community had given me, it then disappeared, evaporated into the wind. The community was taken from me, from us, unceremoniously. Thankfully, at the time, I had largely moved on into the “real world”, but a part of me always yearned for a return back to a world of heroes and villains, where I had a chance to be something greater than I am, and where there were old names and “faces” that I knew as friends. I got by my loss a bit with a small subset of the greater CoH Community, the Paragon Unleashed forums that I had started years ago, but it was a pale echo of the previous, vibrant, community. Good people there, by the way.
And then… this happened. Leandro’s “secret server” got revealed. But that was just the spark that re-ignited the fire. With his generous and brave release of the source code, the community seemingly came back from the dead, and with full force. I had my digital home back again. And, more importantly, I now have another chance to give back to the community, to the people, that had already given me so much.
So, here I am, force fields in one hand and lightning in the other, ready to step up and provide whatever I can, so that the other “weird” kids like I used to be, have a chance to find their own purpose, their own meaning, and their own home. It was taken from us once before. Never again. And that’s why whenever I see either a new, or old face, appear on these forums, my answer will always be the same: “Welcome Home”.
So, thank you. Thank you to the amazing and fantastic community of heroes that helped me through my young adult life and saved me time and time again from both myself and the harsh, cruel world. Thank you to the dozens of volunteers, the coders and GMs, community reps and good old regular forum posters that fill this reinvigorated community with a sense of life, a sense of hope, and a sense of purpose. To everyone here, I say thank you all. And, once again…
Welcome Home.