Before I published This Gaymer’s Story, I’d never quite put out there the major instances of all the homophobia I have experienced. Bits and pieces to friends, but it was largely something that was only known to myself. As someone who refuses to be classified as just a victim, there was something in me loathe to put all of that information in a public space, but I felt it was important for a few reasons.

Before I get into that, it might be useful to outline the order of events: I was in Fulda, Germany, having just left Berlin, and preparing to move to Tennessee to live with one of my best friends from college. News of the Blizzcon event caught my attention, and after it was posted on GayGamer, I promoted it to other sites, including Rock, Paper, Shotgun. They wrote up the occurrence, and I happened to read the comments. What I read fueled such a level of bile in my throat that I felt the need to spew out a post explaining why straight men were not the ones capable of ‘reclaiming’ faggot as an insult that supposedly removed gay men from the equation, nor dictating who could be offended by it. It grew a bit while writing. As Walker himself noted in the comments, the fact that the comments occurred showed a prime example of why homophobia still is an issue in games. At that point, it honestly stopped being just about Blizzard or Blizzcon, which is why I first posted it on Vorpal Bunny Ranch. It was about the community that comprises gaming.

So, I hesitated in posting, but felt it was necessary. I was opening my personal story, and was also quite cognizant that I may well be verbally attacked for posting such, but that I was in a position to be able to take the brunt of those attacks in whatever form they came. In fact, in the past two months my posting has dropped off a bit, largely because of an international move and figuring out I feel about the entire affair, but not because I have felt particularly unwelcome (gamers, you can keep saying these things and it serves to irritate me, but won’t get me to stay away).

A few hours after posting my story, I received an email from Kirk Hamilton: Stephen Totilo had read my post and apparently mentioned it to Kirk. Their next step was asking me to repost it to Kotaku. Shortly after that Tami Baribeau from The Border House also contacted me, asking to repost it there. While I am a staff writer for the latter, the former presented a curious opportunity for me: it would put the story in the exact place where I felt it could reach people who might not have thought of it in such terms.

As should be apparent, I am not opposed to being confrontational. I have been fortunate in my life that I have always been sociable in a way that I never failed at finding friends (despite how caustic I can appear at times online, I’d like to think I have a certain charm about me in person), which has led to constantly having a core support network. This in turn meant I felt empowered to come out of the closet, become an activist, and generally suffer whatever was slung in my direction. That is not to say it hasn’t been difficult, or painful, but it allowed me a level of defiance that I do not recommend for everyone based on their own circumstances.

Therefore, I chatted with Kirk via IM and arranged for This Gaymer’s Story to be published on Kotaku that evening. Some trepidation entered my mind: that week was supposed to be my down week between Germany and my return to the U.S. On the other hand, I felt that mixture of audacity and carefree attitude that commonly happens in liminal phases of one’s life.

I knew what to expect in some regard: tl;dr. Threats via email. Comments picking apart individual points of my story, seeking to ignore the larger picture I was painting. Straight men selectively quoting Louis C.K.’s ‘faggot’ sketch (and failing to link to a later point in his career: this poker game with some of his peers, one of whom is gay). I even predicted, and was correct, that some people would try to verify the facts of my molestation case in Clarksville (which I found both tiring and amusing, largely because I was a minor and my name was never used).

What I did not expect was all the people emailing me to thank me, or sharing their own stories. Those were the ones that wrecked me, in truth. Reading about other peoples’ pain only further drove home how my story was just one in many, in just the games industry alone. After all, in my own life I have known all manner of people, and in particular LGBT persons (what I get for volunteering at LGBT centers), who have had much worse lives than mine. Which is to say I was confused that some people made the argument that I was saying my life was the worst! No, it wasn’t, and I’m quite aware of this fact.

Of course, I am also quite aware that I opened myself to be ridiculed. As many reported, on WoW predominant sites I was seen as annoying and trying to ruin peoples’ fun. The thing is, I am okay with that last part, particularly if someone considers the use of faggot to be a requirement for their fun. Predictably, here was where entered discussions about having thin skins and just needing to deal with it. As I’d stated already, having a thick skin is something I tend to have. Of course, just because one has a resistance to some manner of jackassery, that does not mean one enjoys being poked and prodded with insults and predictable arguments.

No, you see, I would call someone who has a thick skin and allows people to constantly test the limits of it — without doing anything — apathetic, completely desensitized, or afraid. One accusation in particular that caught my eye was saying I was just putting my life out there for attention, which I feel is actually perfectly true. Generally speaking, in order to make a point, it is required to have peoples’ attention.

What I did was not just for myself, however, but to get a conversation rolling in the opposite direction of where I was seeing it headed. The truth is, I rather doubt I’d ever be able to convince everyone of my point of view. I have never been quite so idealistic. My method is to give people a voice, an example, a point of reference. Eventually, what I would like to see is enough voices in opposition so that faggot is not erroneously ‘reclaimed’ as ‘just an insult that has nothing to do with gay people.’

Of course, the argument against such (despite addressing it, people felt they still had the right of it and my attempts are futile) tends to be that language changes, mutates, and that one is unable to stop such. Which is a convenient excuse isn’t it? To assume that a societal change cannot be stopped? We could probably have a good conversation about fate when it comes to that. However, I feel it probably says quite a bit about the feelings of powerlessness some people have in thinking they can effect change. And a person by their lonesome? That might be difficult, but it isn’t about doing it alone.

It is about reporting those instances of people using such words when you see it come across your screen in an MMO. If you have the patience and ability, it is about confronting them on various voice chats and telling them to knock off their behavior, letting them know such is not welcome, nor will it be harbored. Boys may be boys, but that does not mean boys need be assholes in public. While some may be perfectly willing to say it is inevitable and we are asking for change, I tend to believe it is change that can be effected, and it requires this discussion right here to let others know it is okay to stand up against any language that seeks to denigrate someone for who they are, whether that be related to their sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, disabilities, or any such things that make just one part of our identities.

However, in the first Dragon Age there is a hint that it could have happened. If pursuing a romance with Zevran, and also one other person (with my first character, it was Morrigan),  he will have similar dialog to anyone else in the instance of following a dual-romance: you need to break it off with them or me. How he phrases it is very different however, as he pins the blame on the other party, as they would be too jealous and just muck up the entire process.

Fanart of Zevran by *sandara. He is fighting three Darkspawn.

(The above lovely fanart done by *sandara.)

It would seem that Morrigan might be open to such, but despite her free-spirit ways, she does admit to a certain sense of possessiveness. If one continues on a path with her and goes through the epilogue, and later Witch Hunt, she will discuss further her views of love, and come across as someone who has kept people distant to save herself. Early Morrigan views love as a weakness that makes people susceptible to all sorts of silly behavior and means they will compromise.

Zevran? He was born in a whore house, is perfectly willing to engage in threesomes, and talks about sex at a great length. While this has drawn various criticisms to him, he is very much a Lothario. I have written about him thrice so far: once looking at his construction as a character, another with the romance I had with him, and the other time as a representation of a bisexual male character. Depending on whom you ask, he’s a stereotype of what one should expect from a male same-sex romance option, or someone whose construction fits rather well.

The fact that he is also open to polyamory and queer in some sense of that word is also not that large a surprise. Again, depending on the queer friends you have, you’ll encounter various mindsets, and two schools of thought are that LGBT people are capable of the exact same relationship constructs; on the other hand, there is the thought that they are able to break free from a system and explore alternative options.

Zevran just so happens to be stuck in a game world, where unless an intrepid modder does some work, he cannot have that poly relationship with the Warden and whomever else the Warden may desire. If the player did such, it would also bring up the question of what form of a relationship would it be? A triangle where everyone is together? A V, with the Warden being the crux of that particular relationship?

Dragon Age 2 did take the step to allow characters to interact with themselves and to have lives that did not necessarily revolve around Hawke. If a romance is pursued with neither Isabela or Fenris, they pursue a relationship, which seems to be mostly sexual, by themselves. Again, considering Isabela, it would seem that a  polyamorous relationship model could possibly have been open to her, but we are denied the option due to the system in place.

Therefore, we are now at a step where BioWare has given us options of characters who could likely be in a poly relationship on some level, but the system and toolset in place are not supporting it as yet. Then again, the argument could be made that systems tend to resemble our own, and while poly relationships have existed throughout history in one form or another, as the main set of relationships, they’ve rarely been highlighted as desirable in modern times.

The question would then become how does one create a system that supports poly relationships on a level, and how would that change the writing? Instead of writing a simply linear romance that could end up in couple of ways (here I am thinking of the hardened paths one can take with certain characters like Leliana or Alistair), there would have to be that option and the option to allow for either the romance to acknowledge another path being taken, or somehow merge the romances together. In terms of the systems we’ve seen thus far, I imagine a V shape would be the most likely (and this is assuming that the first step would be a poly relationship that is just three people).

FAGGOT is a dirty word

I made the mistake. The mistake I warn others of not doing. I read the comments. In case you haven’t heard, Blizzard made a rather poor decision in its choice of how to close BlizzCon. The comments are as to be expected. Largely predicated on academic reasons or “my gay friends/I’m gay/I’m straight and it doesn’t offend me.”

Let’s make this personal.

It starts around the age I was nine. I realized I liked boys. My first crush was in the PASS program with me (Program for Academically Superior Students), and I could not get him out of my head. Nothing sexual, but just imagining hugging him, marrying him, etc.

Then middle school began. I had always been a rather odd one in whatever society I found myself. At first it was my German accent, then my not being masculine enough by American standards, then my lack of interest in sports, my general nerdery, my intelligence, my liking games, etc. It also became getting called fag or gay every week through middle school. It became administrators taking me aside and telling me I was odd. It became teachers sitting down with my mother and telling her they were worried I was ‘immoral,’ which was code for not fitting into mainstream thought and probably queer.

During this time, from the time I was ten until I was almost fifteen, I was also being raped and molested almost every other week. I’ll let you do the math, but suffice it to say, I began having serious questions about myself, my sexuality, and guilting myself for sometimes enjoying the physical pleasure even while my mind loathed everything that was happening to me. I was also coming to terms with being gay.

But! Molestor/rapist was caught! Yay! He was out of my life (not really, he only exited my life this past year when I learned he was dead and no longer stalking me on social networks)!

I began coming out to friends at this point, when I had just entered high school. Not many, but here and there. It was also at this time that I had to deal with a court process that would drag on for five years. Five years of being threatened by the DA of Clarksville, TN, being told because of my age, I wasn’t quite as important to this case (rapist had raped other children), and various juries of varying sorts looking at me like I was a freak. To this day I am more likely to be triggered by reading stories of juries being judgmental toward victims than I am towards rape itself (which is my experience, and not to be ascribed to others). This time is known as when Denis really hated himself, thought himself a whore, had both the FBI and Clarksville Sheriff’s office tell him he was dirty, and was being tested for STIs along with HIV/AIDS, because he didn’t have enough to deal with being a gay teenager.

During this time I also dealt with school administrators, this time high school, calling my mother about ‘concerns.’ Then there was my father finding out about this and threatening to disown me if I ever ended up being gay (while my mother let me know fiercely that she was a fruit fly when she was young, and I would always be supported). Don’t forget the constant yelling down various hallways, “FAG! QUEER! HOMO!” Also, passing cars. I have dealt with passing cars calling me various anti-gay slurs since I was fourteen.

Thankfully, I never experienced any immediate physical threats during high school. This was likely partly due to the fact that once I stopped being raped all the time, I got very angry. Very, very angry. People generally thought I was crazy and that to involve themselves in an altercation with me would result in me not having any qualms about hurting them quite a bit.

Therefore, when college came around, I was grateful for the chance to leave Clarksville, TN. I would get to be in a liberal place! I might have a boyfriend! I might not have to be worried about being openly gay! If that was the case, I’m still not sure why I chose Wabash College (answer: scholarship money for creative writing and academics).

What resulted at Wabash was immediately being out and once again hearing the usual: “FAG! QUEER! HOMO!” Y’know, the usual. This was my rebellious phase. I yelled back, I gave the middle finger, I and a friend printed off bumper stickers that stated, “FAGGOT is a dirty word” and plastered them all over campus. Yet every time I put that sticker on my door? It was taken down.

Apparently I was a faggot, but daring to confront that language was not something I was allowed to do. Instead, some kind chaps decided to write FAGGOT in permanent marker on my door. Because I was visiting with a friend at Oberlin, I was not there that weekend, and by the time I came back, my good friends, and my RA, made sure the offending evidence was gone from my door, having sanded it off. Every time I now entered my room I saw a sanded off portion of the door, reminding me what some people thought of me and my personal space.

That still didn’t stop the harassing phone calls at 2 AM, though. Now, however, I typically only ever heard faggot, queer, or homo muttered under peoples’ breaths. It was understood I was confrontational. It was understood I was not going away.

Graduation was an amusing affair, largely because I had no idea what was in my future. I was off to Chicago and I finally thought I would have the life I dreamed of: a steady boyfriend, dating options, and being accepted. Come to find out, as a gay gamer who was generally nerdy, I wasn’t exactly popular in the gay community. Oh well, I shrugged, maybe I’ll find a group of gaymers somewhere. Over the years I slowly did—that or gay people who didn’t ostracize me for liking games.

Unfortunately, it was during this time that I was also coming home one evening and one of those passing cars happened by. “FAGGOT! QUEER! HOMO!” My response was a rather tired middle finger and shrug. Their response was to quickly turn around their car, jump out, and beat me into the sidewalk. I wasn’t seriously injured, though I did have a concussion, and still have scars on my hands and knees.

Whereas faggot was a word that annoyed me before, now it became very, incredibly emotional. Thinking on that night is still painful. I had built an armor of anger strong enough that the words only kept adding plate after plate, scale after scale, chain after chain. Words followed by that action suddenly turned all of that to nothing.

What was the point of this story?

Dear fellow gamers, I am tired of explaining this to you. I wrote this out so that you can stop saying I am seeking special treatment. I wrote this out so that you could connect it to an actual experience, not some academic exercise of “this is now a general insult.” You do not get to claim the insult so that you can go use it however you wish. Let me repeat: you do not get to reclaim this word that way. The assumption that language changes is one trotted out by people who get to make those changes, which is typically people in power, or those privileged. I am not letting you change that word on me.

Society has used that word on me since I was eleven years old in New Providence Middle School. Society allowed that word to be thrown at my back while I walked the halls of both Northwest and Clarksville High Schools. Society encouraged those college men who decided I could not reclaim it, but they could smear it on my door. Society gave strength to and encouraged those men who jumped out of a car and beat me for my sexuality.

When you say I am asking people to be too politically correct, I hear, “I want to keep kicking you, raping you, and subjecting you to painful court processes that go nowhere, and you’re not allowed to ask me to stop.”

Because, if you think I am oversensitive, I dearly hope you never go through a fraction of what I have. Otherwise, you might find that your skin isn’t so much thick, as it has been largely untested. I am still here. I have been suicidal, but I am still here, ready to raise a middle finger, yell, and demand that I not be subhuman.

Faggot is a dirty word.

Metal Gear Solid's box art for the PlayStation. It has the name of the game over the forehead of the shadowy face of Solid Snake.

Over the weekend I started, and finished, Metal Gear Solid. I feel I should preface this with the fact that I’ve known about this series for quite some time and have some basic knowledge of it—enough to know it is intricate and says a lot of things people really like, as well as to know I am only aware of the tip of the iceberg. From my time with roommates in college to my time in Chicago, I have been on the periphery of one roommate who almost always seemed to be replaying Metal Gear Solid 3, and heard eggs frying in a pan and a little girl singing in Metal Gear Solid 4 at least twice as two separate roommates played through it in the other room.

So, going into the first game was a rather different experience. I had been primarily under the impression this was a stealth game series, and in many ways this game is. Going up against multiple opponents is suicide. Snake is painted as a soldier who is extraordinary, but even he has his human limits. He may be genetically altered (not sure on the full story, only operating on what I know from playing the first game—I ask you not to spoil it for me), but even human genes have their limits to some degree. Therefore, like many stealth games, you have quite a few limits, and outright combat is not really probable in your chances for survival (though probably not impossible).

That being said, it doesn’t quite work in this game. I found the controls to be a bit finicky. Reading the manual, I know pressing a directional button while grabbing an enemy would throw him, but even when I did not, half the time the guards would fall through my hands, rather than be held while I was going to attempt to choke them. It left me avoiding combat whenever I could, and later sneaking behind enemies and just shooting them with my silenced pistol. This is not necessarily a problem, but left me frustrated in the early portions of the game—it felt the game was inconsistent and I could not trust it. Perhaps that was the goal, though my gut instinct says no.

Instead, the game really shone for me during the boss fights. While I find the cutscene generally not my preferred method of information delivery in a game, Kojima is rather known for the ridiculous lengths of his. What resulted was it felt like a different flavor of the play experience in Shadow of the Colossus: focused so much on these boss encounters with the world in between forming the feel of the environment and my place in it. The codec transmissions would be the extra flavor that weave a more wordy story than SotC had, however—the trade off of roaming an open, desolate world would be a world with distinct other people who have their own personalities and specialties.

So, instead, it felt like I was entering a Western, ready to engage in a  duel. Considering each of these bosses was a personality unto his or herself, it really felt like a clash of personalities in which you were able to know your opponent. Raven’s stature along with spirituality made for a curious blend when he was using these very man-made weapons to try and kill you. Sniper Wolf’s expertise with her weapon of choice led a calm sense of superiority which was only confirmed in the cutscenes. Psycho Mantis was perhaps the most unique fight, and seemed the most psychotic of your opponents; in order to defeat him easily, you have to actually physically change the way you input your controls.

Therefore, while the game deals with the macro conflict of nuclear proliferation and use, the micro conflicts are what steer it along and remind us that behind the macro conflicts of the world are human beings who make these decisions. It is not so much the nuclear weapon that is a threat as it is the person who would be willing to use it. There will always be a means to destruction, the question is who will use it, and for what goal.

Considering how each person has an organization to which they are beholden (even if it is a terrorist group), and how even those organizations are not infallible—after all, Snake is betrayed by his own government—even the group, or the nation, are held together by a group of people whose loyalties are in question, whose motives are not always clear, and who are not so easily labeled friend or foe. Snake’s world is one where all the people aid him, even the ones he kills, because they provide him with some form of perspective—something he has been receiving via codec transmissions since the start of the game. And even those people, who have been helping him since the beginning, are betraying him in various forms.

Other points that caught my attention were that in the end it was revealed Liquid Snake was the dominant gene experiment, while Snake was recessive. I was under the (perhaps erroneous) impression that blonde hair was recessive, but Kris Ligman assured me that Snake dyes his hair. Which makes me wonder about Snake himself. I will likely write another post, purely about this singular game, about how Snake’s sexuality is presented. Largely because he goes through a similar action hero sexuality shift, where he is seen as a womanizer until he isn’t, when he somehow falls for Meryl (around the time she is wounded, which creates a whole power dynamic about saving the princess niece of your superior), who ends up humanizing him a bit. I know Meryl shows up later, so I will keep an eye out on that in future games.

In fact, knowing bits and pieces about the rest of the series, I am curious to see what will change, what will be further explored, and if any of these themes will be later subverted or changed (as I imagine they might in such a series that deals with political issues).

Which means writing has generally been less than prolific in all sources, but here’s what I have for you.

• Over at GayGamer, I looked at Aunti Pixelante’s game Defend the Land, which acts as a political piece arguing against Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival trans-exclusion.
• Then, when Phone Story released, I also managed to grab it in the App Store before it was pulled. Here are my impressions of it.
• Over at The Border House, I posted a short bit about Techland’s Dead Island snafu with the ‘feminist whore’ code in the debug version.
• Then concluded the Half-Life 2 posts I started here a while back, examining how Gordon Freeman is an example of the silent ally.
• Then, working with Erik Hanson over at Gamers With Jobs, I started off a new series about playing Pokémon, but in drag.

No idea where October will find me. Have a few freelance bits and bobs up in the air. I also get the feeling I should play Gears of War 3, as in the last week, due to my previous posts about the series, I’ve had a resurgence in traffic to those posts.

Meanwhile, this video rather captures how I feel about producing content for blogs at times:

Cerberus is a shadow organization. As was hinted at in Mass Effect 2, each operating team is its own cell, so that one tendril has no idea what the other is doing. The only one who has a massive overview is the Illusive Man, though various of his closer workers can surmise more truths, particularly as they are often sent to communicate between these various tendrils. At the end of the third book, Retribution, it is hinted that the organization suffers major losses, though Shepard has finished her business with the organization for now.

What this made me think of is the stark contrast of the open-galaxy exploration in the first Mass Effect versus its sequel. I’ve already made known my thoughts on how the level design disguises well the fact that Shepard is essentially walking down one long corridor after another, with each battle scene making its presence known with carefully placed barriers and chokeholds. Yet the game is often treated as a critical darling for its whole, which indicates we do not have as much problem with hallway gameplay as we do with how it communicates to us and what we get out of it.

What I would argue is that the bent of the first and second game is vastly different. The first game sets out to get us to know the universe. Since it is the player’s first interaction with the world, the general feel that you can explore at your own pace, and take your time, gives a sense of wanting the player to explore what has already been mapped, but to make it personally known. Shepard has more knowledge than we, but she is still not as well-versed as other species, indicating humanity’s relative newness to the entire intergalactic community. The first game is about giving us a sense of what this universe is about and how we fit into it.

The second is decidedly not. Its design features the aforementioned hallways (which, admittedly, have more variance in appearance than most of the locales of the first game), a set of conditions that force your hand into certain missions, and a feeling of being on someone else’s time table. Which makes sense given that Shepard is working for Cerberus. She is not given autonomy, even if the Illusive Man keeps harping on about how Shepard had to be as she was before, and given enough slack on the leash so her activities are not hampered. Which is where our decisions come into play, though we are manipulated via the game’s progression as much as we are by Cerberus itself.

What I find endlessly fascinating is how the fiction that is being created has a lot of second-guessing. For the most part, the novels manage to skirt around what Shepard is doing and has done, as her actions are surrounded by a certain sense of mythic awe and skepticism. Having her work for Cerberus also grants her a shield from the eyes of most of the other people in the galaxy. All any reader of the novels who hasn’t played the games would really know is Shepard is a hero who is off doing heroic things, but the details are hazy.

For quite some time BioWare has been asking that question: how does one define a hero? What this question is not asking is how one becomes a hero, but rather what happens after the fact. Regardless of what Shepard has done with Cerberus, she has focused the Reapers on humanity, defeated Saren, and become the first human Spectre. What they set up in the first game is someone who was given a free pass by the council to deal with threats facing the greater galactic survival (note, I do not say good, as Spectres are not so easily defined as ‘good’ heroes).

However, in the first game, Shepard is a huge icon: first human Spectre, in the council’s employ, representing humanity’s strengths. It makes sense that she would be given freedom to explore, express herself, and find her place. The second game is not about that. The death at the beginning makes even her resurrection a topic of myth and incredulity. Everything after is naturally given a much more streamlined and closed-off feel.

Shepard is being led in Mass Effect 2, and the final decision she makes is the one that sets her free from that obligation in one way or the other. Which is why the Arrival DLC is somewhat confusing: it aligns Shepard more closely with Cerberus in that her actions set her up to be a scapegoat in order to bring about accountability for the tension between batarians and humans. Again, Shepard is a pawn on the chessboard of Alliance politics, as she was in the beginning of Mass Effect, when she was only going on their missions and confined to the Citadel.

Shepard is making key decisions, but she is never her own woman completely. She is constantly being used by one organization or another, and her fight against the Reapers is beset by the problem she faces herself: that of being a larger-than-life concept. At the same time, she is able to work within the organizations to achieve her goals, but the question is at what cost? The trial that awaits her on Earth is likely only one piece of that equation.

Therefore, the first game is exploring the rise of the hero. The second is how the hero has lost control of not only her own image, but of her own future. Given the way the games communicate how we interact with them, it seems to make a lot of sense in that regard. Which only makes me wonder if the third is Shepard as the rallying leader, a whole new role for her that builds on what she has done previously. This is Shepard’s résumé.

At the same time, Shepard’s own limits mimic our own. As I’ve also written, despite the fact that there are choices to be made, the game is not wholly open-ended. What is being asked of me is how I interpret the actions Shepard takes. Every limit Shepard faces is another one that is translated to me. Being an icon and hero of Shepard’s magnitude can be as hampering as it is freeing.

Meanwhile, three pieces of writing I found noteworthy, and you may as well:

• I want to interview more people, as I find it an interesting endeavor. Interviewing drag queens who game, for instance, allows for a lot of fun.
• Choice of Games let me catch an early peek at Choice of Intrigues, which is their sequel to Choice of Romance (and only the second in a planned trilogy). My review is here. Largely it’s a look at how the game functions as a reflection on our own society, but then I played two same-sex romances. There’s something further in the works on that title, however.
• Then there’s my step back into writing for The Border House, with a post about the Politics of Game Hair, particularly natural hair. I know from the technical side the argument will be that there’s still a lot of work to be done in general. I get that, I understand. But unless someone points this out, I fear it would be all too easily ignored.

Beyond that, you can now add me to Circles on Google+, which I’ve been using to post all manner of short-form thoughts.

Articles on which I’m working include:

BioWare has become known for the choices it presents its players. Are you going to be a Jedi or Sith? Open Palm or Closed Fist? Paragon or Renegade? However, with Dragon Age, the choices were slightly more varied, and did not plot you on an overall either/or scale. Unfortunately, this led to some quests being approached in a manner to game the system and receive the ‘best’ result. What seems to have happened is BioWare questioning how players make decisions and how to tinker with their own formula.

In particular, this appeared to have happened quite frequently with the Redcliffe quest, where one has to make the choice of how to deal with Connor. As David Gaider points out in a post on the BSN, this meant many would just look up how to ‘Save Everyone’ and take that route, thereby bypassing any actual decision making. This led to a different view of how to accomplish certain goals in the game, and in a forum thread, Gaider talks about the murder of Leandra:

If you’re of the opinion that every story should have an outcome that the player can directly control– I’m not going to argue with you. Not everyone is going to like that sort of tale, and certainly I think there’s a limited amount of that you can really do inside a game. But this is the sort of thinking that led to the “Save Everyone” option in the Redcliffe Quest, which ultimately became the quest option that everyone thought was the only “real” solution even though it was the least dramatic. I don’t really intend to do that again, and I’m not about to re-write it simply because some people feel uncomfortable about it.

Redgren Hawke holding the Frankensteined corpse of his mother, Leandra.

In general, I agree with Gaider about the fact that sometimes things can be outside of the player’s control, though it needs to be handled differently. Apparently, according to Gaider, the original quest had an option to save Leandra, but when people were presented with the option, they felt they had to save her, rather than it being an option.

When Anders blows up the Chantry, thereby forcing action upon the player? I see it less about Hawke changing the world, so much as Hawke taking command of the situation. You’re still making decisions, just not the ones we have come to expect. The big, moral decisions are supposed to be made by us, after all, right? Otherwise we’re just railroading the character, right?

While it is a form of railroading, it is one that I assert can be useful. In the case of Anders’s bomb in the Chantry, it paints a picture whereby Hawke is not the only important character in the world of Kirkwall, which makes the fact that she’s become a legend all the more intriguing (and speaks to politics, image, and Hawke’s own privilege). If all the big decisions are made by the Champion, all we’ve done is provide the typical empowerment fantasy, whereby the player is the only character worth anything in the world. Everyone else is just a tool to use as Hawke’s ends may require. I, for one, was glad that my companions such as Isabela and Anders had their own goals, quests, and were not just waiting quietly for me to direct the course of their lives.

The Chantry of Kirkwall being blown up, emitting a red light.

However, it is important to note that in Dragon Age 2, these big decisions are never presented as Hawke making decisions without your input–it is the intervention of other characters that forces you to make decisions on how to proceed. Mass Effect 2: Arrival does not use such a tactic, rather using the railroading technique to force your Shepard to make a decision. What results is that regardless of a Shepard’s approach to things, the decision is always the same, and ends up with Shepard ready to face trial upon return to Earth.

It’s easy to see why they made this decision: it forebodes an uncomfortable situation for Shepard in Mass Effect 3. At the same time, it also does something the rest of Mass Effect 2 did not: force a decision upon me by wresting control away from my Shepard. In technical effect, it’s much the same as happened continually in Dragon Age 2, but the way it is handled, by making Shepard the locus of that action, is much different. Rather than roleplaying a character and feeling I am having an effect on the universe the game is portraying, I am being told some of my decisions simply do not matter because Shepard and I will part ways on whether to save a planet with Batarians or to destroy them to hinder the Reapers.

Naturally, the setup was such that Shepard only really had one choice to make which would make sense with what was planned. While it can be argued that it was necessary for Shepard to make that decision, at the same time, the setup itself was subject to change. In an effort to tell a compelling story and set up Mass Effect 3, what has happened is I’ve become distant from one of my Shepards. This is not a case where I can decide how I will react to Isabela and Anders and determine if I can forgive them, but one where I am distanced from the very character I have been playing, and whom I have been encouraged to inhabit.

Ronia Shepard standing in front of a panel displaying the population she will sacrifice.

In theatrical productions, it can be the case where I may play a role with a character who makes decisions I do not quite understand at first, but whose decisions help me build a character. I have argued that I often see the act of playing a game as rehearsal (and am coming to the decision that it includes a fusion of such with performance), but games are an extension of such thought, and when I meaningfully inhabit a role that is predicated on making decisions, it seems forceful to make a difficult decision for me. It distances me from the avatar I am theoretically controlling, which may well be the desired result.

With a scripted character, the decisions made become a matter of figuring out why the character did such, whereas the way Mass Effect 2 had previously approached such critical plot points was one where I questioned which motivations struck me most. Actions easily define a character, and when made by an NPC, they help write that character as much as, if not more than, the dialog. The difference is between losing control of the trajectory of the plot and losing control of the character I am supposed to be playing. The former allows an in-game response, while the latter shifts that focus to the player’s response.

My own experience with Wabash still leaves me confused. At times I’ve contemplated writing a small book about it, largely focused on how Wabash both defined and challenged me as a genderqueer-identified gay male.

My first experience with Wabash was a brochure that gave me the typical spiel about the college, trumpeting facts and statistics for which I had no comparison other than the other brochures that cluttered my mailbox. Coming from a family where my parents were educated in Germany, I pretty much waded into the information that was being thrown at me by myself. What struck me about this particular brochure is the back had the mail-in card and asked a question: “When I come to Wabash I will be: (check either boy or man). When I leave Wabash I will be: (check either boy or man).” In a tongue-in-cheek manner I checked both as boy and sent it off.

When Wabash finally did send me the application, I recall taking it to school with me and sitting with my group of friends who were bedecked in black eyeliner and t-shirts that proudly displayed names like the Misfits, Tool, and Nine Inch Nails. I was never known as straight at this particular school, so we all had a good guffaw at the notion of myself attending an all-male college whose brochure was full of men who would be more prone to wearing Abercrombie & Fitch and other such labels.

At the same time, I applied to every college where I didn’t have to pay an admissions fee. My living situation at that time was such that I was without electricity, had no phone (at one point Wabash wanted to call me, so I gave them the number of a payphone near my house, and waited by it at the prearranged time), and my family was always one accident away from eviction and the homelessness that would entail. I wanted to go to college, and was encouraged to do so by teachers and counselors who never acknowledged my situation openly, even if they danced around it. This also meant I applied to every and any scholarship I could find: Wabash has quite a few to which I sent off materials. One of those was for creative writing and, to my surprise, it received a response.

What resulted is Wabash College offering to fly me out to Indiana and to stay with them for a Fine Arts Weekend, where I would read aloud some of my writing, attend a few classes, and stay with another Fine Arts Fellow. It was an offer I didn’t feel I could refuse. The weekend was as confusing as I’ve previously claimed my whole experience to be.

While meeting people around the fraternity in which I was staying, many topics were broached: my interests, in what I was involved, in what I thought I would major, my high school, and if I had a girlfriend. One thing I refused to reveal was my sexuality, even though I knew it would be a ‘thing’ were I to attend.

In the same fraternity in which I was staying was another Fine Arts Scholarship applicant, though for music. As often happens at Wabash, that weekend featured a rather raucous party atmosphere, where the main attractions were to be alcohol and women. As I wasn’t really interested in either, I mostly stayed to myself and used someone’s computer to catch up on my email and such (something I did rarely then, and mostly at Clarksville’s public library). The other scholarship applicant came in to talk to me, and his very first question? “Are you gay or something?”

In complete opposition to this party atmosphere in which I felt uncomfortable, were the professors. From Abbott’s tour of the Fine Arts building, to the interview I had with Professors Castro and Hudson, and then the classes in which I sat, I was given the impression that the academics I would be presented would be exponentially more rigorous than the classes I was taking in high school, where I never took homework home, and easily participated in multiple extracurricular activities (as much to be involved as to stay away from home). I wanted to be challenged in that way.

In the end, I did receive scholarships and grants enough that my loans were not really that much. Wabash became, in my mind, the only college I could attend and not plunge myself into severe debt. With a hope that it would spell something new, I sent off my materials to acknowledge I would be attending, and spent that last summer torn between excitement and a quiet dread.

Over my four years at Wabash, I learned quite a bit. The lessons I learned foremost were how to educate myself, and how to question both that education as well as my surroundings. While the culture the Wabash professors seemed to want to press was to question and critically address topics, the feeling I received from a majority of the student body was one of just wishing I would be more normal and be quiet for once. I spent my time there constructing an identity that was not me.

I was not unaccustomed to putting on masks. The one I happened to put on at Wabash was one of being completely brazen, and daring people to question me. I put myself out there as much to question others’ beliefs, as to make myself a target and gather attention to the fact that there were other experiences. In many ways, it felt like a playing field where I could test how far I could push buttons and make people change their views.

Had I not attended Wabash, I doubt I would have become as outspoken as I have on certain topics. I would not have learned to check my own privilege as regards race when I did; this was a topic I forced myself to acknowledge when speaking with close friends who were participating in their own activism as regards race (I still recall some of my earliest conversations, and cringe when I think of what ignorant words came out of my mouth). It’s not as likely that I would have taken up my Gender Studies area of concentration. I would not have started writing about videogames when I did. There are many things Wabash introduced to me both in and outside the classroom.

Yet, when I left Wabash, I was completely lost. I had no idea how to function as myself, but almost completely as a caricature of a human being. I knew how to be an actor, how to be an activist, and how to be a spectacle demanding attention. I knew how to be openly gay at an all-male college. I also knew how to be male in sex, but not in gender in such an environment. All of this was mixed with the fact that I was nowhere near my family, and felt a deep sense of loneliness (which is not to say I was alone, I had very close friends with whom I still talk regularly). There was so much time spent wanting to make other people question their own beliefs, that I had not firmly established my own. By the time I walked away with my diploma, my hair both black and blonde in splotches, a rose clenched between my teeth (they were given us to give our mothers, though mine could not attend), I only had the vaguest ideas of who I was.

For quite some time I’ve acknowledged that Wabash gave me the voice I have, and that it stoked my passion for desiring to be critical. At the same time, I realize that as an all-male institution, if it wishes to remain such and not crumble into complete irrelevance, it needs to embrace a culture of questioning, as Abbott discusses during the embedded Chapel talk.

In my circle of friends there were people who were not-white, trans, gay, bi, and many other identifications besides. Wabash was stuck in between two environments: an academic body that seemed to encourage diversity against a predominantly white, straight, cis, able-bodied, and middle-class student body that did not want to question their own behavior, let alone how to accept something ‘other.’

Being all-male is one matter. Expecting everyone to conform to one type of male experience is completely another (especially when it typically engages in rhetoric and behavior that treats women as both objects and Other).

Without further ado, this month brought you:

• I was rather proud of this series, examining the queer characters in Dragon Age: Origins: Hespith & Branka, Herren & Wade, Leliana, Zevran Arainai, and then the miscellaneous instances.

• This interview was conducted a while ago, but then publishing was delayed for various reasons. Regardless, my interview with Tale of Tales is finally up (P.S. I love talking to devs and creative types in the industry)!

• I reviewed the Facebook game Dragon Age: Legends, which claims to be the first ‘real’ Facebook game. Not entirely sure of the validity of that claim, and I do wonder at introducing such high levels of difficulty into a more casual-oriented space. The mixture is jarring.

• Wrote a spoiler-ridden inclusivity review of Dragon Age 2, not really touching on anything in depth. Have seen it passed about here and there, so was glad to see that.

• Then I wrote a piece defending the decision to have all the romances in the game be open to either sex.

• There was a brief break to put up this piece on Sander Cohen, for which I had the wonderful opportunity of talking with Ken Levine (it was rather surreal to be discussing it with him over a phone when it was 21.00 here, but during business hours in the U.S.).

• Then there was David Gaider’s much-lauded defense against a ‘straight male gamer.’

• Originally, I didn’t want to post about this, but saw a few sites reporting it as gay gamers wanting Gaider’s dismissal from BioWare, rather than A gay gamer (allegedly), so wrote that GayGamer did not share those views.

• It delights me when a company will direct us to their games that are providing avenues of inclusiveness, which is what Lucent Heart did concerning their poll to include same-sex relationships (relationships have an in-game bonus).

• Wrote this review of Mass Effect 2′s latest piece of DLC. Have a post brewing in my head comparing its decision-making process to Dragon Age 2, and why I didn’t like the railroading as much in the DLC.

So, hopefully I’ll have some posts up during the course of the next few weeks both here and other places. Really, need to push myself to write more for The Border House.