Let Me Tell You About My OC(s): Tabletop RPGs as Disempowerment Fantasies

Let Me Tell You About My OC(s): Tabletop RPGs as Disempowerment Fantasies

Late last year, I suddenly felt like I needed a break. Not a little one, either—I felt overwhelmed with responsibility for everything from taking care of my pets and family to texting friends to ask when everybody was available for our next D&D session.

All this happened alongside discussions in therapy about my intense need to be strong and capable and weather the world without asking for help. It’s a story I’d told myself and everybody else since I was a kid—that I was responsible for my own wellbeing and if I felt like I needed assistance, I was wrong and should just become stronger. You can imagine that, after 33 years, this story’s gotten a little old. (more…)

The Visceral Voyeurism of Horror Playthroughs and Silent Hill

The Visceral Voyeurism of Horror Playthroughs and Silent Hill

While having terrible nerve pain in my neck and back in October, I was stuck for a whole week sitting up on bedrest. This was when I picked up watching playthroughs of the Silent Hill series. It was Halloween season after all, so what better time to visit a series I had been meaning to consume since I was a teenager? The only exposure I’d had to the series was the occasional Pyramid Head and Bubble Nurse cosplayers wandering the hallways of various anime conventions, obligatory fanart, and casual mentions of the movies, most of which were received by fans with mixed reactions. I knew I had my hands full when deciding to visit the story and lore of Silent Hill, a series with eight main titles and several spinoffs, but I started with the one that was and still is the most highly praised of them all: Silent Hill 2. (more…)

On Silent Protagonists: The Case of Persona 5’s Joker

On Silent Protagonists: The Case of Persona 5’s Joker

I should begin by saying this is not an ode to silent protagonists. If anything, I’d like to argue that for a strong narrative-driven game, a silent protagonist is actually a detriment. How does one hook a story on a main character who has no or limited personality? In this essay, I will… argue that Joker, the silent protagonist in Persona 5/Royal, had no right to be silent.

Spoilers abound for Persona 5 Royal. (more…)

Red Dead Redemption 2’s In-Game Journal is an Underrated Mechanic

Red Dead Redemption 2’s In-Game Journal is an Underrated Mechanic

I was a reluctant latecomer to Red Dead Redemption 2. Before my husband insisted that I play it, I was certain I wouldn’t like it—I’d been disappointed by recent critical darlings in the AAA sphere, I’m always hesitant about Rockstar games (I conveniently forget how much I enjoyed the first Red Dead game as well as L.A. Noire and Bully, though their labor practices are still terrible), and who has time for a 60+ hour game, anyway? (more…)

The Thing I Miss Most from Conventions Is Shitty Wrestling Games

The Thing I Miss Most from Conventions Is Shitty Wrestling Games

There are lots of things I like about conventions, but none of them are as important as shitty wrestling games. Specifically, shitty wrestling games at PAX. Even more specifically, League of Heels, a… thing that is very difficult to describe. Your favorite figures of the gaming industry (critics, commentators, journalists, developers, and so on) dress in wild costumes and step into wrestling heel personas. After some 45 minutes of introductions, lore, and trash-talk (this is not an exaggeration), the remaining minutes of panel time consist of an extremely rushed elimination tournament where those heel personas duke it out in a terrible wrestling video game. Sometimes hot dogs are thrown. Sometimes a fog machine and/or confetti cannon sets off a smoke alarm. It’s pure and utter chaos. (more…)

Wooing Leah: Cleaning and Domesticity in Stardew Valley and Real Life

Wooing Leah: Cleaning and Domesticity in Stardew Valley and Real Life

About a week after we returned from our honeymoon, my cute new husband took it upon himself to install a dozen hooks above the oven. Upon these hooks, we would hang our pans and coffee mugs, and also our hopes and dreams. We had spent the last year apathetic about our messy nest, unable to do much of anything, much less something so ambitious as hanging cup hooks. We’d watched spills on our two-degree-tilted counter drip slowly from sink to floor over the course of hours. We’d accumulated mournful cabinets overflowing with plastic takeout containers that we could not bear to recycle. But now, there could be cup hooks! (more…)