So, there has been a game that was released recently. A highly-anticipated game about wizarding and such based on the books by the transphobe, JKR. I’ve seen all the movies and read all the books because Alan Rickman. Simple. I saw him in the first movie and instantly fell in lust. I then watched everything else I could find with him in it. I read the books just because. They’re…fine. At least the first three are. Then she got famous and decided she didn’t need to listen to anyone. The rest of the books, especially the last two are excruciating. They are terrible. And that’s just a literary comment. That’s not taking into account her very negative attitudes towards fat people, her casual racism, and, of course, her transphobia.
She is a terrible person. And she’s not a great writer. She happened to be in the right place at the right time, and she got young people reading again. I’ll give that to her. But I would not give a single dime to her any longer. Not that I ever did. I did not buy the books, I don’t think. Anyway, fuck JKR is what I’m saying.
In the gaming community, there’s a debate about whether you can buy the game guilt-free. For me personally, I don’t think there is. Yes, it’s hard to buy anything guilt-free in a rampant capitalistic sociecy, but she’s flagrantly awful. I know there are plenty of people who grew up with her books being a refuge. Thee are plenty of queer people who are conflicted about this. For me, I can’t get past how terrible she is in…well, everything. Fat people are bad. People of different races are weird unless they act like white people. Bad people deserve to be tortured and killed. Gay people need to keep it a secret. Slavery is good. Anyone with a conscience is bad. And, of course, gender roles need to be very rigid and upheld.
When the new game came out, I knew that there were going to be a slew of people who were going to be eager to defend the game. I saw it in the RKG Discord. People who would probably consider themselves allies were hemming and hawing over the gam efor many reasons. James Stephanie Sterling has a very good video about it in which she says that if you buy the game, you might not be a transphobe, but you’re certainly not trustworthy.
It’s funny because the person most defending the game was a game developer who is also a very vocal vegan. Well, she was a vegan. Then wasn’t. Now is again. And she’s very strident about it and sees no gray area in it. Eating meat is bad and murder. Being a vegan is good. Which is her right, but she can’t see that maybe trans people would feel the same about JKR. Not all, obviously, as trans people are not a monolith, but I would wager most trans people would agree that JKR herself is a transphobe (regardless of how they feel about the books).
But no. She insisted on nuance there, mostly becasue she identified with the developers. Who, by the way, already got paid for their part in the game. They’re probably not making a profit off each game, so buying or not buying the game itself will not affect the developers (on a micro level, anyway. On a macro level, probably, but that’s not what I want to talk about right now).
I agree with Stephanie in that people want to consume the game guilt-free. They don’t want to feel bad about it–and, well, that’s too bad for them. It’s pretty egregious for them to not want to be judged by trans people on top of getting to play the game. That’s not how that works. You can play whatever you want, of course, but no one has to give a stamp of approval.
This is something Stephanie mentions which I feel to my bones. Allies are the worst. We expect our haters to, well, hate us. It’s right there in the name. So, yeah, Tucker Carlson sucks, but he’s being predictible when he goes off on a racist tangent or an anti-trans diatribe. Allies, on the other hand, we expect them to be, well, fucking allies! If we tell them, hey, this is hurtful. Could you not do that? We expect them to at least listen.
I would much prefer someone say, “I’m going to play the transphobic game because I want to play it” rather than someone trying to excuse why they’re playing it or, worse yet, wringing their hands and asking for absolution. Play it or don’t play it, but don’t expect your trans friends to say it’s ok.
But that isn’t what I want to talk about, despite me wasting several hundred words on it. I did write a whole other post on it, which you can read here. I wanted to mention a quirky little game I’ve been playing that I was following on Steam, but had forgotten about. Aoife streamed it in a lo-fi stream on the same day as the other game was released, along with a Just Giving donation page to Mermaids, a UK-based charity for trans youth and gender-diverse youth. I love that Eurogamer is so vocal about supporting the LGBTQ+ communtity, and it’s in part because Aoife and Zoe are both bi. I included the video above.
So. The game is called Witchy Life Story and it’s by Sundew Studios. You are the titular witch, and you can be any gender you want (or no gender). The pronouns include no pronouns, which made me really happy. The customization is nice and I was able to make my character fat like me. With long black hair and cat-eye glasses. I wrote about this before, but I wanted to give my quick impression of the game, even though I think I’m close to the end.
The basic premise is that I am a young witch-in-training from a very illustrious and prominent witching family. I am a rebel and have caused many explosions. My family is exasperated with me and wants to disown me. My gran sends me to a litlle village to help with the flower festival. I have a crow familial named Ramsey who keeps me in check. There are six people you get to know, and they range in age, gender, race, and personalities. Oh, there’s also a shop and a shopkeep, but you don’t really get to know her.
Your mission is to make potions and such for the village members with their varying problems. This is a simple little crafting game that is never taxing. I also have to tend to my garden, which is simple as well. I bring the potions and such to the villagers, and I get to know them better through our dialogues. I can usually choose one of three things to say, and they go from slighly sarcastic to very sarcastic. You can date three of the villagers, one male, one female, and one nonbinary. Which is nice! It’s weird, though, because my character is 18. I think of my character as older than that, but it doesn’t really matter.
I like the gentle rhythm of the game and how it doesn’t push me. It’s cozy and relaxing, while also being sweet and earnest. I will probably play it again to see if it matters which lines of dialogue you choose. I recommend it heartily for anyone who wantns a cozy witch/dating simulator.