Right now, I can see that he has a peaceful smile that oddly complements his face, and red eyes that are both human and pitch-black. He removes his hat, takes out a stopwatch, and vanishes once more while I blink. I keep blinking, but he's not there. Am I already dead? If so, what do I do? I turn back to sleep in hopes of waking up to the sound of my mother knocking on my door. If I see the Top Hat Man again, I will keep writing entries in my journal about him.

In the middle of the night, I wake up to take a big ♥♥♥♥. I wash my hands like a good American and get ready to go back to bed when I see someone is below, close to the windows. I brush it off because I'm exhausted and make sure nobody is there. I return to my room and open my eyes to sleep when I hear something outside. I glance out the window, thinking it's my neighbor who smokes outside at night. I notice a man by the tree who is around 6'5" tall and has a top hat on. I leap at the sight of it, blink, and he's gone. I glance around, blink once more, and he gets closer. The man in the top hat now glances up and smiles in the middle of the street.

wo'ah, earf, birming'am, fish n' chips... long ago, the fou' nations live togedah in ah'mony. then ev'ryfing changed when the IRA attacked.... only the avatah, mastah of all fou' elements could stop 'em but when the queen needed 'im most, 'e vanished. 100 yea's passed and me bruv and i found the new avatah. a fish n' chips bendah named aang. although 'is chipbendin' skills ah great, 'e still 'as a lo' to lea'n 'fore 'e's ready to save anyone m8.

They picked a fight against a group that's already grown desensitized to their strategies and methods. Who enjoy the battle of attrition they've threatened us with. Who take it as a challange when they tell us we no longer matter. Our obsession with proving we can after being told we can't is so deeply ingrained from years of dealing with big brothers/sisters and friends laughing at how pathetic we used to be that proving you people wrong has become a very real need; a honed reflex.

Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature. We love a challange. The worst thing you did in all of this was to challange us. You're not special, you're not original, you're not the first; this is just another boss fight.

Do these people have any idea how many controllers have been smashed, systems over heated, disks and carts destroyed 8n frustration? All to latter be referred to as bragging rights?

These people honestly think this is a battle they can win? They take our media? We're already building a new one without them. They take our devs? Gamers aren't shy about throwing their money else where, or even making the games our selves. They think calling us racist, mysoginistic, rape apologists is going to change us? We've been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ head set.

They targeted gamers.

Gamers.

We're a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. Over, and over, and over all for nothing more than a little digital token saying we did.

We'll punish our selfs doing things others would consider torture, because we think it's fun.

We'll spend most if not all of our free time min maxing the stats of a fictional character all to draw out a single extra point of damage per second.

Many of us have made careers out of doing just these things: slogging through the grind, all day, the same quests over and over, hundreds of times to the point where we know evety little detail such that some have attained such gamer nirvana that they can literally play these games blindfolded.