With the upcoming Valentines’ Day I have thought of many things that I could write this month. How could I relate it to Tibia and Tibians in a way that it has not already been done? These are questions that I always ask myself before writing these lines. Today I wanted to talk about how we, Tibian Girls, can defend ourselves and how we even support each other even if we don’t even know each other. Beyond friendship and love, for us there is gender, which we share and which we know so well, the vulnerabilities and strengths we know, which makes us sensitive to perceive and assist another TibiaGirl, perhaps when they needed it most.

In our community men tend to perceive us as weak, gold diggers, inexperienced, easy, dramatic and many other disqualifying adjectives to diminish the place that every day, with facts, we have been claiming and positioning ourselves, demonstrating the opposite. I’m not going to lie to you, there are many women who cooperate or are part of the bullying and make men think that this gives them some «validation» when treating us the way they treat us, but I won’t talk about that in depth today. Today we will talk about the interesting phenomenon that occurs when women show solidarity, are shocked, and oppose when another is being abused or attacked, it doesn’t matter if you are one of those who bully, speak ill, are toxic, without a doubt you have been in a situation in which someone’s insults or actions were too much to you and you decided not to participate, that small moment of good sense in some turns into taking decisive action to defend a girl who could be a total stranger.

Without a doubt, we all put ourselves in the place of the girl being attacked and we can feel it and that leads us to the part of solidarity, raise your hand those who have not been victims of comments about their physical appearance, their private life, their personality and even your social stratum, raise your hand who has not been dismembered and attacked ad nauseam by people who have not even spoken to you once. It is that correlativity that brings together all the «Toxic» and non-toxic women in-game in a sort of series of labels that follows us wherever we go and that is part of the way in which society itself sees women, for which is almost our responsibility to break with labels of this type and formulate new ways of relating to each other even from enmity.

This week we had the opportunity to witness a situation in which the Luminera TibiaGirls, especially Kim Toxica, stood in solidarity with two of the girls from their community who were being attacked and, from her leadership position in the server lobbied to stop wrong attitudes from various members of the community she manages, creating a safe place and supportive environment for other women on her server, as well as setting a precedent for other servers and women. Kym Cortes, one of the victims of the attacks, let us know about the situation and how Kim immediately took action to defend her and Lizzy Queen from malicious comments from people who play there that went too far, causing damage to the morale of those involved. Lady Marions, another girl from the community, joined Kim in protest about the bullying behaviour. I know I started this article with a title that sounds almost like a tutorial, but what better way to show you how to use your position to generate impact and change so that tomorrow you are not the victim of those attacks, union and friendship are easy to get. Be willing to «tank» attacks to another woman you probably don’t know, not so much, be willing to get rid of pejorative terms and knowing how to say NO and ENOUGH when necessary is what is unfortunately out of common denominator. This is what will determine how different you are from other girls and how much you are willing to do to revolutionize and cause change in your community.

If you were attacked, raise your hand, if you were injured and insulted, raise your hand, but if you are a woman, a partner and a Tibian, do like Toxic Kim and Lady Marions, raise your voice! carry out actions, manifest yourself, complain, bother, argue. Do not allow anyone to take your place, to help spread the respect for other women is to create respect for yourself. It’s okay to gossip and talk things lightly, those are mistakes that anyone can do, but from your trenches, for the love and friendship that unites you with many others, help create a safer Tibia for women, stand up when necessary and defend your position, point out those who go too far, condemn those who think and feel untouchable. For you and for all of us…

Thanks to Luminera Girls: Kim Toxica, Kym Cortes Lady Marions and Lizzy Queen for being an inspiration for this article and for so many of us in-game.

Happy Valentines’ Day

Hail TG