An Open Letter To The SMITE Community

To the community I love,

I have had this letter in my head since September, when a rumor broke that this may be the last year of the SMITE Pro League. Since then, I have written a few drafts of this letter, but none of them felt quite right. I struggled to know exactly what I wanted, and needed, to say. I still don’t quite know for sure.

This isn’t the version I thought I would put out into the world, but it is the one I think I needed to write. This will be a thank-you to the community that has shaped so much of my life, and a love letter to a game that has given me so much more than I ever imagined possible. It is also a reflection on who I am, what I have been through and what I am going through, and, I suppose, how that fits into the last ten years I have spent with all of you. I admit it will be self-indulgent and meandering. If you somehow read all of it, you have my sincerest gratitude. 

And to that end, let me begin by thanking you—the readers. You all have meant the world to me. To see you all read what I have to say, and to help me give a voice to this wonderful story that is competitive SMITE—it has been humbling and overwhelming. It is very likely this will be the last thing that I write for The Long Lane, at least for this season. I think it is coming full circle in a way; The Long Lane was never about me, it was always about enjoying this incredible game with all of you. This letter, though, I admit, will be about me. 

On Saturday, my partner broke up with me. I don’t have a good account for why it happened and I don’t think I will ever fully understand it. This relationship being my first since my divorce, I desperately wanted it to be more than it ever had a chance to be. I never felt steady or secure, and I think it probably exacerbated my depression more than I could admit at the time. That, I think, partially explains my absence over the last six months. I was going the fuck through it in a weird and confusing way that I didn’t quite understand.

I do know that what is left now is heartbreak. I also know that someday—probably someday soon—this will be a small heartbreak. A little thing I could fit in my palm. Right now, it feels really fucking big, and I can’t quite get my arms around it. I have spent the last 72-hours tripping over myself in grief, but I have also spent a lot of time meditating on grief and loss over the last two years. My therapist told me that loss is about change; there will be no more good-morning I-love-yous. No more waking up to 12-hour discord calls we left running all night because we would sooner fall asleep than hang up on each other. My days are going to look really different than they have for much of the last year, and that will always pull at some seemingly foundational part of you and rip it into pieces. But at the end of the day, it was a seven-month relationship. It has weight, but it doesn’t quite have gravity. In the grand scheme of things, it is something I will survive more or less in tact.

This letter is about grief more broadly, and how I have come to know grief in this “season” of my life, so-to-speak. It is not always the same as a breakup, but all loss holds a familiar shape. My divorce felt very different, but it was still fundamentally similar. Something I had grown used to, something that had become such a part of myself I could practically feel it in my bones, suddenly was ripped away from me. With this breakup, it happened all at once. With my divorce, it happened a thousand little times, each time tearing another piece of me away. 

But okay, this is supposed to be about SMITE. What does grief have to do with anything? Well, this community has lost a lot in these last three years, too. Long-time fan-favorite players have stepped away from the game to do other things. Aggro, one of the voices of this great game, left the commentary booth to work in game design. Auverin, SMITE’s beloved brand manager (and someone who helped make The Long Lane possible), left the company. Dolson, himself the author of some of SMITE’s most iconic calls, also left the casting team. BaRRaCCuDDa, one of the first champions in SMITE, retired mid-season. And two years ago, we unexpectedly lost John Finch who meant so much to so many people in this community. We have been grieving a thousand different things, big, small, and soul-crushing.

And we will lose the SPL, too. Maybe not after this year, or maybe not for another ten years. I will say that another anonymous source claiming to be a coach in the SPL reached out to me to confirm that the rumors are true, though admittedly I have nothing to corroborate this. When I first read the rumor, however, I cried. From my perspective, the writing has been somewhat on the wall. SMITE, as beautiful and fun and frustrating as it is, is a game in decline. And all good things, in their own time, must come to an end, be it a marriage, a relationship, or a really fun fucking game. 

But SMITE, of course, is so much more to so many of us than just a fun game. I consider my time in SMITE to be something of a personal victory. Part of the emotional abuse I suffered during my marriage was centered on SMITE—keeping me from the friends I had made, shaming me for playing, demanding that I not watch it, telling me I was a loser for wanting to spend even small amounts of time with the game. When I started The Long Lane, I expressed to my therapist that I was worried it would become a distraction and that a game wasn’t something on which I should focus my time and energy. She told me, point blank, that I shouldn’t think of SMITE as just a silly game. She could not have been more right. SMITE is and has always been a community and a home to me, and for a long time I participated on the sidelines. The Long Lane was my way of doing more, of contributing and giving back to this community that has made me feel so welcome. 

And while The Long Lane is quite far from the biggest thing to happen in SMITE, I have still been blown away by how many people have enjoyed my work and tuned in every single time I published something. SMITE has been home to so many incredible people, and it has been humbling that somehow I became the person to tell their stories to so many of you. I never thought I would find such a place in this community. For a long time, I thought making it to masters would be my ultimate goal in this game, and while I achieved that this season, it is abundantly clear that The Long Lane is much more of a crowning achievement. Ultimately, this project reflects the things I value about this game and its community far more than a purple rank ever could. I only wish I could have started sooner, or that I could have taken better care of myself so that I could have been more present these past few months. To all of you who read every interview, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. To those of you who argued with me on every power-rankings post, you legitimately made this worth doing. To the players and parents and SMITE fans who met me at Worlds and told me my work meant something to them, I cannot begin to tell you how much those experiences mean to me. Thank you. Thank you. 

Someday, we will all play our last SMITE game. I don’t think that day is close. Not yet. But it feels pointedly closer now than it has in past seasons. I know that I still have hours and hours of fun, frustration, and friendships still waiting for me on SMITE. This game has outlasted so much of the heartbreak I have experienced in my life, and it is something to which I am not prepared to say goodbye. 

I have spent much of the last two years thinking about healing—when it happens, where, and how. I have learned that healing is complicated, messy, and all-too-often incomplete. As a pure esports story, “The Chase” with CaptainTwig is probably the best interview I have written. But as something bigger than esports, “The Push” with BaRRaCCuDDa will always be my favorite. I think that piece helped me work through my own grief while I was still in the thick of it. When I am someday grieving the loss of this community, I will go back to that interview and it will remind me then of what it reminds me now, what I need to be reminded of—that healing isn’t about getting back to the way things were, it’s about getting to what is next in as much of one piece as you can. I am trying to do that now.

I want to thank some of you directly. To Auverin: you commented on my first interview to let me know you thought it was quality work. You spent the next several months helping me make more content and facilitating more interviews, as well as just making me feel as though this work had value and mattered. I will forever be grateful to you, and I want you to know things haven’t quite felt the same since you’ve been gone. I hope you are reading this, but either way, I will be sure to hug you and thank you in person in Arlington this weekend. Maybe I can buy you a drink. I certainly owe you one.

To Bryan, Jacob, Samuel, Nate, and all of the other members of Under Fire, you all gave me a home in this game when I was a weird depressed high school kid who couldn’t figure out who she was. Our countless hours of goofing off will always be among my fondest memories. 

To Jacob in particular, you have always been there for me. You were the first interviewee I had for The Long Lane, and you helped make this goofy dream a reality. You shared your life publicly and openly in a way that was engaging, vulnerable, and, importantly, entertaining. You set the tone for the format and showed me that SMITE fans were interested. You did all of that just because we played on a team together close to 9 years ago. I will always appreciate your friendship.

To Chambers, you are one of the best friends I have in this world. That this game somehow brought us together really is a small miracle. You have been there for me through all kinds of things, both good and bad. Beyond that, we just understand each other. I can’t tell you what a gift that is. I am so, so glad to know you. You are also the best support I have ever played with, and you have just ruined solo-queue for me forever. Thank you for being my ranked partner. 

To the rest of you, I love all of you. Thank you for reading this rambling letter that I wrote in the midst of feeling all of the feelings. There are only so many ways to say this community is incredible and something truly special. The SMITE World Championship is this weekend, and unfortunately I won’t be feeling 100% yet. But I will be there. I will be clapping and cheering and celebrating along with the rest of you. It’s going to be a hell of a time. God knows I could really fucking use that. And next year, if they have Worlds, I will be there too. I’m looking forward to it.

With a heart full of gratitude,

Erin