Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: gate-keeping

Streaming is not for me, part three

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I’m writing another post about streaming becasue why not? In the last post, I allowed myself to be distracted by the new FromSoft trailer because how the hell could I not be?! Funnily, I’m stlil not going as hard into it as I did with the last trailer, albeit a month late.

I’m a weirdo in that I don’t like to read/watch other people’s lore that much because I prefer to come up with my own. At least not before going into the thing. Watching any FromSoft trailer ahead of time is so dangerous because tehy show everything–and I mean everything. For Dark Souls III, they had the last boss on the box art.

The thing is, though, that you won’t know what any of the trailer means before you actually play the game. Krupa said this to Rory and Gav before they started the game–he could tell them exactly what was going to happen, and it would mean nothing to them. He’s right. However, if you want to go in completely unspoiled, you will most certainly not want to watch any of the trailers. They show EVERYTHING, and I mean everything. This was another thing Krupa said to the other two about the story trailer for the base game–and it was why he refused to show it to them. I watched it after watching that exchange, and he was so right about  how much it revealed. I don’t remember watching it at the time, and I probably didn’t because I wanted to be fresh. I did watch this one because…well, I just wanted to watch it. Probably because I was robbed of the full joy of the last trailer.

I haven’t gotten deep into the depths of this trailer beacuse I don’t want to make myself sick of it before the DLC even drops

Anyway. I was talking about how a small, but very vocal minority of the RKG community are gate-keeping as hard as they can, and how I feel the boys are absorbing some of it to a certain extent.

I want to make it clear that I love Retry. I have been a fan since their Prepare To Try days, and I aprreciate that they are fairly toxic-free. I know that sounds damning with faint praise, but it’s really hard to find on YouTube, especially in the FromSoft community. When I dip into other FromSoft content creator chats,I leave within a few seconds. They are just so gross af toxic, I feel as if I need a shower after dipping a toe in.


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Why I will never stream a FromSoft game, part two

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In yesterday’s post, I was talking about gate-keeping in gaming communities. Oh, not directly, but it was there. I was talking about the second series of Retry Elden Ring for RKG and how there is a small, but very vocal sub-section of the community who just want to bitch about how RORY IZ PLAYIN’ GAEM RONG!!?#$%! It’s in every community, I know, and it’s much less prevalent in this community than in any other I’ve dipped a toe in. And by this community, I mean the RKG community, not the FromSoft community at large. The latter is a toxic hellhole.

By the way. I woke up to a message from Ian that included the story-trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, one month before the release date. I will include it down below. And, man. I was so stoked and hyped. The first trailer dropped three months ago the day my personal tragedy happened (well, that day and the day after), so I was not in the headspace or the heartspace to appreciate it. Now, even though I am still dealing with the tragedy, I can fully appreciate the new trailer.

Which, by the way, is fucking fire. Both literally and figuratively. From does not miss when it comes to their trailers, and this is no exception. There are a million things to dissect. It says everything, and it says nothing at all. And, of course, taking it in tandem with the first means that we can just go off on it. The RKG Discord Elden Ring channel has been busy today in a way it hasn’t since the release of the last trailer.

I have two characters ready to go, one who is my first character and the other who is my wildly OP strength character. I will probably play the DLC with both, but it’s a question of successive or concurrent runs.

Anyway. Back to what I was musing about.

No. Wait. Can I just say that FromSoft’s trailers are just masterpieces. They say so much, and yet, they say nothing at all. Even having had played the base game several times for hundreds of hours, even having had watched the first trailer dozens of times as well, I still have little idea what the DLC is going to be about. I mean, I know the basics, of course (Mesmer, flames, etc.), but other than that, there is just so much room for speculation. And to notice details you hadn’t seen before.


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FromSoft and me, part whatever (six)

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Back with more chatter about FromSoft games, difficulty, and me. In the last post, I wrote about whether or not I had imposter syndrome when it came to these games. A friend on the RKG Discord suggested this, and Ian has said something similar. Well, not exactly. He has argued that I am the exact target demo for the games. Miyazaki has said that he wants players to feel the struggle, but to ultimately overcome.

There is a debate that has raged in the FromSoft community (at large), which I doubt will ever be settled. One side believes that Miyazaki loves the player and wants them to do well. He is encouraging them to overcome the obstacles he’s placed in their way. Then, he’s happy and proud when they do.

In other words, he’s like a proud papa. That’s the one side of the argument.

The other side maintained that Miyazaki hated the palyer and wanted them to be miserable. To be honest, there was a lot of evidence on this side–mainly, everything in all of the games. Plus the fact thta the environments were grim and depressing. There was little joy to be found, and the NPC most people consider the best and most joyful lost his mind in the last third of the game.

Side note: I understand why people are so into Solaire (that NPC). I get why he inspires passion. In a world that is unrelentingly bleak, he is an almost literal ray of sunshine. He does the iconic ‘Praise the Sun’ emote, which I’ve shortened to ‘Praise it!’.

Here’s the thing, though. For me, he’s just….fine. But there is a tendency in these games to have the male NPCs that people care about be these bluff, useless dudes. To be fair, Solaire can hold his own in a fight–if you can actually get him in. But Siegmeyeris a total waste of space (as adorable as he may be)–not that you can summon him in a fight.

But even though Solaire is fine in a fight, he mostly runs arond looking for his sun and getting increasingly depressed when he can’t find it. I relate to that, but it just doesn’t hit me hard.

Anyway. My hot take is that Miyazaki is supremely indifferent to the player. He doesn’t love them; he doesn’t hate them. He doesn’t care about them one whit. He has created these exquisite worlds that are teeming with life.

One thing that caught people off-guard in the game was that the NPCs move. They don’t stay where you met them, and they have their own agendas. If you did not catch them when you saw them, well, you might not see them again for quite some time.


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FromSoft games and me, part five

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I have been talking about FromSoft games and whether they are for me or not. In yesterday’s post, I rambled about how I feel I’m reaching the top of my ability to play the games. I will not play a Sekiro sequel (though I highly doubt there will be one), and I’m worried about Elden Ring‘s DLC. I was saying to a friend from the RKG Discord that I feel demoralized by the guys in the Discord because they are so much better at the games than I am. She pointed out that from the outside, it seems that I have a similar ease playing the games. Her suggestion was that it was imposter’s syndrome. Which….maybe?

I like to think I have a good assessment of my abilities. I know what I’m good at (writing), what I’m decent at (Taiji and now Bagua, especially learning the forms), and what I’m shit at (doing chores and being an adult). Am I hard on myself? Probably a bit, but I don’t see any reason to sugarcoat things.If I’m not good at something, why pretend I am? The same is true of driving. I am a terrible driver. I was before my medical crisis, and I’m even more so now. It’s funny beaucse anywhere between 60-80% of people think they’re better-than-average drivers. Obviously, this is impossible, but it’s a fairly consistent statistic across most things.

Many people know about the Dunning-Kruger Effect in which people who are bad at things don’t know how bad they are.

Side note: the secondary phenomenon that Dunning and Kruger found was that people who are really good at something vastly underestimate how much better they are than their peers.

Both of them stem from the same base, by the way. The fact that we all live our own lives and can’t truly know what someone else thinks/feels/experiences. For those of us who are on the outside, empathy can be easier because we have to face the fact that we are different on the daily. That’s not always the case, but it’s not as much of a surprise when something we like or are good at is not embraced by the gen pop.

If you are raised as a cis het white man, then you are considered to be the norm. Everything is geared for you, ranging from games to music to movies. It’s amusing in a bleak way (if not also infuriating) how guys whine about representation in pop culture and ‘woke’ ‘PC’ culture gone mad. I don’t have the stats, but I would bet that at least three-quarters of pop culture has a white male protagonist–especially games.


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Get your gate-keeping out of my games

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Recently, in the RKG group, there was a post by a guy (gender relevant) which stated that it may be an unpopular opinion, but you cannot say you truly beat Bloodborne unless you do the Chalice Dungeons and beat all the bosses (paraphrasing). I posted my opinion which basically is who the fuck cares? I was more diplomatic than that, but it’s what it boils down to. I hate gate-keeping in…well, anything, but I notice it most often in things I care about, naturally.

First of all, just fucking state your opinion. That’s tangential to my rant, but it irks me when someone starts anything with ‘this may be unpopular’. Own your shit! Who cares if it’s unpopular or not? Of course, I might be particularly cynical in this instance because all of my opinions are unpopular. Well, not all, but many of them. In addition, my whole lifestyle is unpopular in one way or another, so I’ve become inured to it. In addition, it has a whiff of excuse giving in the beginning. Kind of like, ‘I’m not racist, but’ blah, blah, blah.

Again, that’s just a side note to the real irritation–men who unilaterally decide the markers that make someone a TRUE whatever fan. I later tweeted on Twitter that while I loved the Souls games, I hated this aspect of ‘the community’.

Side note: I love the Souls games with the intent to replay them. I love Sekiro, but it broke me. I intellectually thought Bloodborne was a good game, but I didn’t love it. I would replay it if it were on the PC, but I don’t like playing on the PS4. I would replay Sekiro until the cows came home if I could co-op. I understand why I can’t, but I’m not willing to spend ten hours on bird daddy or the last boss once again. So when I’m talking about the community, I mean the FromSoft community in general.

Anyway, I know the gate-keeping thing isn’t specific to FromSoft games, but there’s something about this kind of game that brings out the extreme toxic masculinity. I think it’s because the games are difficult to begin with, so if you play them, it’s easy to get an attitude about it. I will say beating a FromSoft boss is unlike any other feeling, especially after hours of failing against the same boss. There is a dopamine hit unlike any other, and it’s why I continue to play the games.

Part of my disgust is because who gets to be the keeper of the gate and why? Historically, it has been men. Mostly white straight cis dudes who hang every part of their identity on their knowledge of a certain thing. It’s a way to keep people out, and it’s similar to a ‘no girls allowed’ sign. It’s a way to make someone feel better about himself.


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