I never know how to start these things (pfft, like I’ve written so many spotlights about myself LOL) so here we go! Hi, I’m Kassidy but most of you know me as Kas or kasper, VALOR Gaming’s newest Community Moderator at this time. I’ve lived in the great state of Texas all my life, even though my end goal is to move to the northern states. Gaming is something I have done my whole life but never quite at this level!
Throughout my childhood there were many ups and downs. My family has gone from living comfortably to being homeless and back to living comfortably. I grew up being the biggest Mama’s girl known to man. My mother and I were inseparable! If I was slightly sick or just didn’t seem like I wanted to go to school, she would call in for me and we would go to the dollar movie theatre and watch movies all day. We took a summer trip to Louisiana and fed the alligators McDonald’s french fries! Most other summers, I spent my time up my mom’s butt and helping her feed the racehorses, even at 4 o’clock in the morning.
…it was where my love for music blossomed into my first major life obsession.
As I got older I got heavily into music of all kinds. It started with radio stations I would flip through and hear random music that I would find interesting. Eventually I found the classical music station and fell in LOVE. By the time sixth grade started I decided to join my school district’s music workshop, and it was where my love for music blossomed into my first major life obsession. I scored highest and ended up dedicating my music career to clarinet and bass clarinet. My directors fostered natural talent and drive to do better into a fearsome player. Out of all the competitions I participated in I never placed lower than fourth. That fourth place stung, I strived to never place lower than that again. After getting a few years under my belt, I ended up joining my school’s marching band! I grew to love marching band and all the competitions. It was one of the highlights of my high school experience by far, there were always new people to meet and friends to make!
After graduating high school my dad ended up getting diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. I spent a lot of time bonding with my dad then ultimately ended up making the decision to move in with him and get my first job to help him with paying bills. I spent a few years working at a small and large animal veterinarian clinic. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and spent a long time learning more about animals. I learned how to do blood draws, I.V. catheters, and even x-rays on cats, dogs, and horses. I got to help deliver baby horses and help take care of the babies first steps. There were many days where things felt tough, there were long sad days that we had bad outcomes and just barely got through the day. While it was an extremely tough line of work it was hands down the most rewarding job I have ever had to this day.
My earliest memories of gaming come from childhood; my mom, dad, sister and I shared a GameCube and mainly played Mario Kart together. Eventually as the years went by we upgraded to a Wii where we battled in all games like the Wii Sports Resorts games. With time passing and the days feeling shorter as I grew older, my family moved away from the family game times. I ended up getting an Xbox and playing through games solo like Dragon Age, Fable, Castle Crashers, CoD, Halo and others. As I started making my own money and had nothing too important to spend it on. I started upgrading the few gaming consoles I had. I bought myself a brand new Xbox, laptop, and all the accessories for both. A few months later I got my sister a fancy Nintendo switch. We all started gaming more and more together.
As I got busier and busier with work and spent less time at home my sister and I would play games together through our phones. We ended up diving into prop hunt, board like games (monopoly/clue), and our most played game PUBG mobile. Our dad ended up downloading PUBG mobile and playing with us while we had our respective lunch breaks. Our dad ended up taking a huge liking to the concept of PUBG and I let him know that it was downloaded on the Xbox at home. After work I made it home to find this gamer grinding out PUBG games death after death. Eventually death after death turned into second place after second place. This man made it his mission to get first place, he yearned for that Winner Winner Chicken Dinner screen. As he got more invested into the game we would spend Sundays doing family game times again. It mainly consisted of watching our dad play PUBG but it was super exciting whether he was last place or second place.
One day we were cooking, playing some music, and getting things set up for a small house party. We put up the final touches and all took a seat in the living room. The match was intense, you could see the sweat on my dad as it came down to the final 20… 15… 10… the final 5. You could feel the tension rising as it came down to the final 2. My dad vs one internet stranger. All of the sudden the shots were exchanged and BOOM . Winner Winner Chicken Dinner flashed across the screen. The whole family and friends got hype and celebrated, an absolute core memory. As my dad’s condition worsened I joined him in going to his treatments. We had a blast doing ‘Crazy Picture Day’ during his treatments every two weeks. My work ended up getting short staffed and I started working seven days a week. I was super exhausted and overworked but it was worth it to keep helping my dad financially. I was lucky to have my sister next door to my dad and I. While I worked, she stayed with him, keeping him company through some tough times. He ended up getting worse and worse. I called into work and met them all at the hospital. It was a tough time and the doctors ended up sending our dad home on hospice. It was a rough battle at home, our father held on as long as he could. Day five of hospice he took his last breath.
We were devastated. We didn’t know what to do. We had lost our father. My sister got through some of the tough times with the help of husband and daughter. I had a hard time trying to cope with things. I wasn’t sure how to pick up where I left off. What would I do? Do I just continue life how I was? I was lost. I ended up turning on the Xbox one day, I was still on a leave of absence from work and I was bored and alone at home. When everything loaded and booted up I saw the profile picture wasn’t mine, I went to swap profiles and realized that KancerKilla was still logged on. I teared up and decided it wasn’t the day to play a game. It took a long time… but eventually I still did not boot the Xbox up. Instead, I bought a PC and started my journey of online gaming. The Xbox still remains in the same place he left it till this day.
I started looking into different things to get my mental health back on track. I ended up joining a TTRPG game, specifically Pathfinder First Edition. I joined and had a fantastic time playing my first D20 TTRPG game. I eventually downloaded Overwatch 2, which became my gaming obsession for the longest time. I went back to work and focused on finding myself. With time and games things started looking up. I made some online friends and I started getting into more games. One friend suggested I try World of Warcraft. I bought the game and got started. I had no MMO experience and did not realize what the heck I was signing myself up for. Season 3 of Dragonflight was ending. I tried playing a druid and then a hunter… Uhhhhhhh… Sorry for any readers out there– I HATED both classes. I did not enjoy anything about them and I could not figure the game out. I tried so hard but was ultimately overwhelmed and lost in the game. I ended up scrapping the thought of playing WoW and went back to Overwatch.
A month or so later a friend reached out again. She said to stop worrying about everyone pulling me into end game content. She encouraged me to create a character– any race, any class, and any spec. Whatever I wanted to play, she would help me learn, level, and take me around the world of Azeroth to show me easter eggs and do transmog runs. We had a great time as we created Evokers together. I went into the Preservation spec and started having an amazing time. I found the whole concept of the character and the abilities intriguing. Season 4 of Dragonflight rolls around and a few friends informed me about VALOR. They brought me into the guild assuring me it was a place for all skill levels and there were so many people to run any type of content with.
Time passed and I started noticing how amazing the community was and I started getting the drive to want to do more.
I ended up falling in love with raid. I couldn’t stand keys to begin with, but slowly worked at them and learned the mechanics. I eventually trialed for VALOR Silver and VALOR Diamond. I made both teams even while sucking at the game! Luckily, the team leads recognized my potential despite my obvious inexperience with MMOs. They helped shape me and learn everything I could including not to stand in fire! (Though they did ensure I get the achievement for it.) I started joining Community Raid and meeting more and more VALOR people. I was terrified to push keys even being on a key team. I was nervous of all the times I died in silly mechanics. A few VALOR friends decided it was time to break the ice. They threw me into keys I was not ok with doing! We ended up timing the keys and doing just fine, they helped grow my confidence and helped foster the mission statement behind VALOR. It meant so much to me both as a new player and a new member of VALOR.
Time passed and I started noticing how amazing the community was and I started getting the drive to want to do more. I wanted to help foster the environment that helped me learn and dive into content in a safe, fun, and inclusive way. I applied for Community Moderator. It took a little bit of time but I got the job and started doing some backend work for VALOR. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in VALOR, and I’m super excited to see where I go next in this amazing community!
Kasper has been a great asset to the VALOR community. she came in and rocked it! She is super friendly and inviting to all members of the community. No matter the game or time of day she is always down to play games (Even if she steals Aces in Valorant) and be a listening ear to anyone who needs it.
