Today is a great day because I posthumously won an argument. The argument took place around five years ago and concerned women, specifically lady writers. Back then I played that one sword and sorcery MMO along with everybody else and ran with a crew of misfits.
We communicated by yelling into microphones about dots and meet times, but mostly we yelled about any game that wasn't the one we were playing. And that was ok because we were all passionate about games, and vented our frustrations to each other so we wouldn't drive our significant others crazy because they enjoyed games as well, but found the way we cared about them a bit obsessive. Ey, to each their own.
My favorite sparring partner was a lady Mage. She had the writing bug just like me, so while other people were yelling about graphics and AOE radius we were yelling about game storytelling and game journalism. It got to the point we were insta-muted by the team whenever a game was reviewed, which suited us just fine because we both thought our opinions shit didn't stink.
We also enjoyed pulling cards, the only problem being the most powerful cards in our decks canceled each other out. I had the black card, as in if I found myself on the losing end of an argument I would say, "well that is because (Game reviewer, Company, Forum post, Online player/Community, Subway sandwich artist) don't know shit about the black experience!"
And that volley was always returned with, "Really? Cry me a river Rodney King! Do you have any idea what it is like being a girl gamer? How much shit we take on a daily basis? Answer: No you don't, so how about you shut your damn black ass pity party mouth."
We frequently found ourselves in this stalemate, and agreed to find out who was most marginalized once and for all by adding up all the times I got called a nigger and all of the times she got called a cunt, with fag being 0.5 points as we were both called that as well on a regular basis.
The rules, voice communication response only allowed through questions and only initiate statements pertinent to the game being played, no instigation to pad scores, and the highest number declared winner.
The numbers climbed so high so fast we both got bummed out and stopped playing. Although at the time of stoppage my score was higher, I see that as an off the books win. As a result of the competition we both decided to only type to strangers, and only voice communicate with people on our friends list. Just easier that way.
On the topic of women in gaming journalism her patron saint was a blogger named pixelvixen707. She held pixelvixen high due to her uncompromising and progressive insights on the female experience in gaming. At first I couldn't stand pixel vixens style, I thought she was pandering, chose style elements and angles that sucked, and ripped off Leigh Alexander without the courtesy of a reach around, which was a combo attack.
The Mage hated Leigh Alaxander more for her visibility than her writing. She believed any chick writers that wanted to be seen were only seeking the approval they never got from their fathers, and were using lonely gamer guys for a free meal. But I came around to pixelvixens prose, and was forced to begrudgingly admit that she was the best all around game writer at the time, female or not.
Well cut to today and guess what I find while poking around Kotaku. Hey Mage, it's a dude, pixelvixen is a dude. Don't know if it's a black dude or not, which would be better, but knowing he was a dude writing under a pen name is good enough for now. How does that feel? I mean it's the same empowering words, but.. it's... a... Dude. I am walking on sunshine, where is your god now? Haven't talked to you in a while, hope everything is going well.
