Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-30771515-20170331084453

I'm back, baby. Here is a snippet of one of the few stories I've been working on (three actually, and one is a collab with Banned in CP), let me know what y'all think and feel free comment on things I need to work on.   

I Shouldn't Have Bought That Mic

I'm the type of person who gets too competitive when it comes to an activity that can result in bringing me a sense of pride and accomplishment. Basically, anything that concludes with there being someone in first place. Ever since I was a boy, I have always strived to be the very best at the various things my friends and I would engage in. Whether it would be a spelling test or a soccer game, I would always apply extra effort to be on the top of the food chain. My competitive drive carried itself with me even onto my teenage years, but with every year it would become a little more aggressive. When I was introduced to competitive gaming, I felt like a toddler during Christmas. Going against people from all over the world in a battle of wits and reflexes? And you can communicate with them using headsets? A fucking dream come true. At first, I was the quiet, "I will speak using my skill" type of guy online. After but after I started getting a little cocky, I bought myself a headset to taunt and mock the people I would beat. The greatest mistake I've ever made in my life. This is the event that changed my life forever.

I was about seventeen or eighteen years old during the peak during my competitive gaming phase. Well honestly, it was more of a miniature addiction. Anyways, it started off with games that couldn't utilize the internet, like Mario Kart and the original Super Smash Bros. a bunch of years ago. Soon after that, I picked up on games like Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. I would usually be satisfied demolishing my friends and family, but after the Xbox 360 and PS3 were released, I hopped on the online gaming wave with Call of Duty. Now, I remember beasting (being very talented) on games like Halo 5 and Gears of War 4 during my gaming phase peak. But the story I'm about to tell you has to do with Halo. I will never play that game again for as long as I live.

I was always the aggressive, "shit-talking" gamer. I bought my first microphone headset the same day I bought my console, since I knew my big mouth would be satisfied with mocking various people online. It didn't matter whether I killed someone or someone killed me, I always had to throw in an offensive remark to taunt whoever was in the match. Sometimes I would even cross the line, relying on racial jokes and extreme profanity to satisfy what people called my "gamer rage". In my opinion, the insults and yelling would be a way of calming my nerves down to keep my wits sharp, yet people would always talk back. Whether it was a twelve year-old from Wisconsin who happened to play his brother's console or a forty year-old Japanese game freak, they always had something to say to the loudest, most obnoxious person in the match. Me.

My offensive rant of slandering continued on for about a year until it happened. I remember clearly that it was around Thanksgiving, since Halo was having a special Turkey Day sale of their bundles of armor and weaponry. It was just and ordinary day of smashing on people from every nook and crannie of this here planet. I never usually play team matches since I always get mad how horrible the people I get stuck with play, so I'm more of a free-for-all kind of gamer. It was about one in the morning when I was online, and I was getting either first or second place in every match for about 7 matches now. My name-calling and taunts received the ordinary replies from annoyed players or even people who were just like me. It was about the eighth match when a new player joined out of the blue. I will never forget his gamertag, it has been seared into my brain and my deepest darkest fears until the day my heart stops beating. "trenchcoattim? Fucking nerds these days." I first thought to myself that it was nobody else but a lonely social outcast who soothes his woes in the world of online gaming, but I was so fucking wrong. 