But What About Second Breakfast?

I play video games, make history jokes, and cook with way too much butter.

[2ndbreakfasts]

It's been years since the Marian Hawke left Sebastian Vael during the destruction of the Kirkwall. Now, as Prince of Starkhaven, Sebastian must come to terms with the fact that princes, even heartbroken ones, are not destined for chastity.

A Princess for Starkhaven is a little something I wrote because I was not pleased with the whole “chaste marriage” nonsense with Sebastian’s romance arc in Dragon Age 2. It’s been a while since I’ve done any writing that isn’t academic or work-related, so I’m a bit rusty.

[bysaestyl]

cause there's no salvation for a bad girl

[2ndbreakfasts]

seen on rebloggy.com/mine

[coffee-for-closers]

You think I’m not a  g o d d e s s ?

[2ndbreakfasts]

seen on rebloggy.com/art

[totalspiffage]

This is the “lamppost” conversation in Alistair’s romance, virgin warden, english accent. IF this goes over well, I’ll look into doing others,maybe get a male warden voice in on this fun too. I just want a real voice for the Warden, you know?

As I cannot dub the Warden and have no knowledge of mods to even attempt the massive task (alas, I have a mac), I thought I’d indulge myself and edit a quick scene together. I apologize for the shoddy game audio, I’ll look harder for a better sounding video to rip from next time haha.

Dubbed Warden tag!

[2ndbreakfasts]

Omg this F!Warden dub is perfection

[fatally-procrastinating-deactiv]

Welcome Home

King Alistair gets the reunion he’s been waiting for. 

Alistair glared at the missive from the Orlesian court before setting it in the growing pile meant for the Inquisition. He’d had more than enough of the ‘hospitality’ from the court during their last talks: at least the masks burned nicely.

With a groan, he smacked his head onto the desk. Facing a horde of darkspawn would’ve been preferable to this endless stack of messages and treaties and boring dinner parties. He buried his head into his arms; his dreams would bring her closer to him again—if only for a moment.

Drifting between dreams and reality, his eye twitched when someone knocked on the door. The sounds of running feet and shouted orders were keeping him from her.

“Go away!”

He glowered when he heard the click of the door opening. Didn’t the whole point of being ‘King’ mean that he got to tell people what to do?

“I said,” he snarled, head lifting from the desk, “to go awa—”

He blinked then rubbed his eyes and looked again.

Her hair hung several inches lower, a new scar marked the left side of her jaw, but it was her: his warden. His wife. She wore a scout’s uniform; her boots were caked in mud and her hair was scrunched and wet from rain.

Her smile nearly stopped his heart.

Keep reading

[2ndbreakfasts]

My Tumblr will probably turn into a Dragon Age appreciation blog and I don’t care

[fatally-procrastinating-deactiv]

LI Dragon Age dads sleeping with their kid(s)

Alistair

Alistair always sleeps with both arms around his child because even in his sleep, Alistair can’t fully believe that he and his beloved warden actually managed to have such a healthy, beautiful child together. He kiss the child’s head before falling asleep and again after waking up. To Alistair, his child is far more precious than any throne could ever be. 

Zevran 

Zevran sings in his sleep when his child is close. Old Antivan lullabies that are little more than whispered memories from his own childhood. He holds them to his chest, savoring the warmth and marveling at the strength of life in such a tiny body. Zevran is rarely more at ease than he is with his child. 

Fenris

Fenris doesn’t sleep. He watches his children vigilantly, a part of him constantly afraid that they will be hurt or need their nightmares chased away. He brushes the hair from their faces, reading them stories, and murmuring prayers in every language that he knows. Whatever happens, he will keep them safe. 

Anders

Anders curls himself around his child, arms and legs becoming a barrier to the outside world as he holds his child close. He always checks to ensure his child is comfortable and close and safe before closing his eyes. Even then, his slumber is shallow and alert. No one will ever take his child away from him. 

Sebastian 

Sebastian never expected to have a child of his own but after becoming Prince of Starkhaven, he knew he needed an heir. Seeing his little one as a gift from the Maker, Sebastian treats his child with a kind of reverence, sleeping at his child’s side with a gentle hand on the child’s belly so Sebastian can feel the small chest rising and falling with every breath. 

Cullen

Cullen sleeps flat on his back with his children splayed across his stomach using him as a giant pillow. He mumbles their names as he sleeps, his hands constantly searching them out to ensure they’re still there. He wakes them up with kisses and tickles, enjoying their high-pitched squeals of laughter. The nightmares come less often when his children are near. 

Iron Bull

Bull is quiet when he sleeps: his calm a sharp contrast to the wrestling and rough-housing he usually enjoys with his children. He keeps his arms loose around them, wanting them close but also wanting to give them freedom to move as they please. He smiles at every snore. It’s moments like these that make him glad to be Tal-Vashoth. 

Dorian

Dorian always makes sure that his adopted child is tucked in close to his chest or set in the crook of his neck when Dorian sleeps. He wants them to feel his heartbeat, to feel the love that he can’t yet convey to them in words. They will know nothing but love from him. 

Blackwall

Blackwall tries to sleep but never quite manages it. He always has to keep an eye on his sleeping child, still unable to believe that he has one. He tucks blankets around the small body and kisses all along the soft curls on their head. He will make sure they lead a better life than he ever could. 

Solas

Solas doesn’t so much sleep as doze. Sleeping pulls him into the Fade and he prefers to feel the heartbeat and listen to the soft, steady breathing of his child. He traces the outline of his child’s ear, murmuring in ancient elven about things lost past. In these small intimate moments, with no one else around to hear, he can finally speak the truth.  

[fatally-procrastinating-deactiv]

(Mom version)

[2ndbreakfasts]

Writing prompt: "If I died today, I'd regret having not..."

If I died today, I’d regret having not taken the time to worship the planes of your face, or the comforting lilt of your voice, or the stubborn softness of your belly. I’d regret letting go of you the last time we held each other. I’d regret not getting lost together in cities we can’t pronounce. I’d regret not telling you all of my light truths and dark secrets, especially the one I would have saved for after our wedding. I'd regret not knowing the simple pleasure of falling asleep next to you at night and waking up with your arms around my waist while the sunlight streams through yellow curtains. I’d regret not having the Siberian husky we always dreamed about, or the children who would have inherited our shared affinity for the fantastical, which brought us together all those years ago. But perhaps most of all, I’d regret not telling you that I loved you today, I loved you yesterday, and I would have loved you every day, for the rest of my days. 

[colien]

    ‘I am in fact a Hobbit in all but size.’

Happy Birthday J.R.R. Tolkien!

[moosekleenex]

[copperbadge]

The inspirational post I didn’t know I wanted. 

[lahionline]

Lahi Presents: Seriously Trivial

Next on “How to Get Away With Debt”

Source: National Park Service. “Harry S. Truman National Historic Site.” American Presidents. Accessed January 5, 2014. http://www.nps.gov/…/travel/presidents/harry_truman_nhs.html.

Submitted by: Anonymous

Do you have interesting historical trivia? Send it here! http://www.bit.ly/LAHI1415SeriouslyTrivial

Visit our website: http://lahionline.tumblr.com

[2ndbreakfasts]

Yan ang tunay na abangers.

[2ndbreakfasts]

Papers, Please: How A Game About Paperwork Made Me Not Hate Paperwork

If there's one thing that will unite the human race, it will probably be our shared hatred of paperwork. I hate paperwork. I hate applying for documents at different places with different pick-up times. I hate scrambling for certificates at the last minute because of one typo. My last year consisted of doing somersaults over bureaucratic red tape just to get my scholarship approved or my subjects credited.

So logically, a game that consists largely of going through paperwork is just the game for me, right?

Right. Surprisingly right.

Papers, Please is a 2013 puzzle game for the PC by indie game developer Lucas Pope. I took on the role of an immigration inspector in 1982 at the border of Arstotzka, a fictitious communist dystopia, and its neighbor Kolechia, with whom it has just made peace after a six-year war. Based on travel documents and crude databases, I decided whom to let into Arstotzka, whom to detain, and whom to turn away.

On the surface, it doesn't sound very exciting. Pope even admitted that "[i]t's hard to describe the game and make it sound fun." Yet the game has sold over 500,000 copies and has won numerous accolades.

The great thing about Papers, Please is that despite its seemingly dull premise, it provides an engaging, thoughtful, and emotional experience.To explain how I could love a game that I'm supposed to hate, I will talk about how different forces and elements interact in the game.

Papers, Please is a largely experimental game. If you go to a big game publisher like Rockstar Games and tell them "I want to make a game about immigration paperwork," they'd probably show you the door. This is because big companies want to make sure that their investments pay off. Games like the Grand Theft Auto series aren't cheap to make, so it's unsurprising that they rely on time-tested tropes and formulas to pander to their target audience of young White males. They spend millions making these games, and they want to make sure they make those millions back and then some.

But Papers, Please was not an expensive game to make. Pope bought a few pieces of software and developed the game by himself over the course of nine months. He had no publishers to please. He didn't need to make an overwhelmingly popular game to gain back the capital he invested. He could experiment with this premise as he pleased. Papers, Please "wasn't a game that [he] was making in order for it to be popular." 

While Papers, Please does feature some pixel-art violence and nudity, it doesn't rely on them to draw players in. If you removed both, you'd still get a great game. Instead, it explores the emotionally and morally taxing duties of an immigration officer.

At the start of each new work day, I was given a set of instructions: only allow Arstotzka citizens, only let foreigners with valid entry tickets in, etc. Those with expired, forged, or incomplete documents are not allowed into Arstotzka. If I let someone pass when they shouldn't or denied someone entry when they should be allowed, I got pink citations. If I incurred too many citations, my pay was reduced.

Salary isn't just a score tracker in this game. It becomes essential for the game's family sublpot. In addition to my duties as an immigration officer, I also had to deal with daily expenses like food, rent, heating, and medicine for my wife, son, mother-in-law, and uncle. As I was only paid 5 credits for each entrant I inspected within the time limit, these amenities ate up my daily salary. I couldn't afford heating, food, and medicine all at once, so my family was cold, hungry, and sick for the most part.

The only way I could afford to take care of my family was to resort to accepting bribes. One national from Kolechia offered me 10 credits if I allowed him to smuggle contraband into the country. One border patrol officer offered to give me 5 credits for every two people I had detained (and given that it's set in a communist dystopia, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect the worst of detention methods). A mysterious organization called EZIC offered me an outrageous sum if I helped them overthrow Arstotzka's leaders. In real life I abhor corruption in any shape or form, but Papers, Please made me willing (desperate, even) to accept bribes because refusing to do so would endanger my family. Over and over again, I had to ask myself, "Which is the most important: my family, my integrity, or Arstotzka's security?" It made me think that perhaps the real-life problem of corruption (at least, among low-ranking workers) isn't as black and white as it seems. 

Bribery isn't the only moral dilemma that Papers, Please throws at you. It also explores the issue of duty and obedience to authority when your conscience tells you to do otherwise. At one point, a man asked me to allow his wife to enter the country even if she didn't have a proper entry ticket. One woman asked me to deny a certain man entry even if he had the right documents because she feared that he would force her into a brothel. Another man begged me to let him into the country because he would be killed in his native Antegria. Do I separate the man and his wife? Do I let the human trafficker in? Do I forfeit this man's life by denying him entry? Answering yes to these questions is painful because it would be an affront to my conscience. Answering no means my pay will be reduced, putting my family's welfare at risk. This moral dilemma reflects the emotional paradox that many border patrol officers in the U.S. encounter.

Racial profiling becomes another important political issue in the game. Certain news events, like terrorist attacks or reports of immigrants stealing jobs, will prompt more immigration restrictions. When Kolechians are suspected of instigating terrorist attacks, I'm told to search all Kolechians at the border. I couldn't help but be reminded of the post-911 Islamophobia that Muslims have to face, especially while traveling. If I failed to search them, surprise, surprise! Another damned citation, and another cold, hungry night for my family.

However, this is where my experience differs. My main motivation for searching Kolechians was not fear of terrorism, but out of concern for my family's well-being. Somehow, I doubt that the case is the same for real-life law enforcers who inordinately harass people of color.

I'm still in the process of finishing the game; there are 20 possible endings, and each playthrough of the game takes around four hours. But all in all, Papers, Please is a very engaging, thoughtful game that forced me to think about my preconceived notions of morality. Perhaps the moral high ground is realizing that sometimes there is no moral high ground—that in this complex world, the distinction between right and wrong is not always clear-cut. Instead, it becomes a question of what you can live with.

[2ndbreakfasts]

And Now For Something Completely DifFURRYnt: A Look Inside FurryMUCK

furry \ˈfər-ē\ noun

1. A fan of anthropomorphic animal characters

2. The anthropomorphic animal character itself

(Empires by Kacey Miyagami)

Let's face it. Furries get a bad rap. When I told one of my friends that I was thinking of writing about furries, his said, "Goddamn furries. Goddamn them. I mean, its [sic] weird as fuck." Of course, I only told him afterward that I was one of those goddamned furries. Thanks to mainstream media like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, MTV, American Dad, and Something Awful, everyone seems to think that all furries are depraved, sex-starved weirdos who like to do the dirty in fursuits.

(Will you? by Gen Whitmore)

Of course, these furries constitute a small minority. This post aims to move away from the furry stereotype to see the furry subculture for what it really is, and I'll be doing that by looking at FurryMUCK, the biggest and longest-running non-combat MUD (multi-user domain). Many furries were introduced to the fandom through online MUDs like FurryMUCK, myself included.

(FurryMUCK, launched through Trebuchet Tk client)

FurryMUCK started in 1990 when Drew Maxwell wanted to find a way to unite the "original" furry fandom (who communicated through emails, snailmail, and fanzines) with the high-speed role-playing MUD crowd. Now, it houses several thousands of fursonas (furry personas), with around 400 players logging in every night. On FurryMUCK, people create different fursonas, build virtual houses, interact with other furries—all in text. Think of it as Second Life, but text-based and with anthropomorphic animals.

(My kitchen in my home on FurryMUCK.)

There are multiple forces at work in FurryMUCK. I will discuss three: the user, the virtual community, and groups with various interests. I will discuss the first two separately while the third will be interwoven with the two.

The User

Because FurryMUCK is entirely text-based, the fursona (or fursonas) you create is determined only by the limits of your language. Fursona descriptions can be as rich or as subtle as the player wants. Because of its instantaneous role-play element, it becomes a unique tool for creating new identities that are otherwise impossible to explore in the real "meat-based" world. I've encountered fursonas of every size, color, species, age, sexual orientation, and gender affiliation on FurryMUCK. I've even encountered some unconventional animal mixes, like winged wolves, dragon-foxes, and chakats.

Meet my own fursona, Nimueh:

With Nimueh, I restate certain parts about my meat-based identity (20 years old, 5 feet tall, hourglass) while completely rewriting other parts (gray wolf, gray eyes, steampunk).

Players devote themselves to their fursonas in varying degrees. Some, like myself, are content with text descriptions and casual dialogue. Others are so devoted that they commission reference sheets (which specify body shape, fur patterns, tail length, etc.) based on their fursona's textual description. These can go for as low as $10 for the really crude ones to $300 for the really detailed ones. Players will then give their reference sheets to artists who will use them as a basis to paint or draw elaborate pictures of their fursonas. Most artists will refuse commissions without reference sheets. Players often link to images of their fursona in their character descriptions or by using the @image command. Players can recommend furry artists to other players, ask for recommendations, and share links to their art in public spaces on FurryMUCK. These artists also frequent real-life furry conventions and release art/comic books on their personal sites. Furry artists certainly have an economic interest in FurryMUCK.

The Virtual Community

What goes on within a virtual community is determined by real-life cultural and political contexts because the people who are participating in the virtual community belong to those contexts.

FurryMUCK is a virtual community in which different people interact with each other through their fursonas. However, these fursonas are still controlled by real, meat-based people. Most furries and FurryMUCK players are concentrated in North America, so their conversations are laden with references to North American popular culture and politics. In my three years on FurryMUCK, I've yet to see more than two other Asians, let alone players from other ethnicities.

In addition to this, most non-North American players cannot participate in the virtual community because of time zones. Everything that happens on FurryMUCK happens in real time. My boyfriend in Calgary logs on at his 12 PM while I log on at my 2 AM; on FurryMUCK, we're logged on at the same time. Because most players are concentrated in specific time zone, people who live in other time zones (say, in Asia) will find themselves with no one to talk to when they log on, unless they drastically alter their sleeping patterns. I can't log on as much as I'd like because I'll have to log in at an ungodly hour if I want people to talk to.

Language is another limit. Because FurryMUCK was conceived in North America and is populated by mostly North Americans, the dominant language is English. Unlike other virtual communities where the interface languages can be switched, there is no such option for FurryMUCK. This limits the capacity of a non-English speaker to participate in the virtual community.

Players immerse themselves in the furry virtual community role-play to varying degrees. Some players are comfortable with slipping in and out of character, often discussing real-life happenings with each other through their furry characters, such as being called away from their computer by their boss or the weather or current movies. Other players are very strict with remaining in character, and will insist on appending OOC (out-of-character) to all of their out-of-character statements, and that other players do the same.

Adherence to IC/OOC is often determined not just by the player, but by his location within FurryMUCK. For instance, role-play in the West Corner of the Park is more lenient and casual, while my boyfriend's role-play on his spaceship The Wingfoot is very serious and technical.

Let's end with another nice picture so it's not all white text on black.

(Dragon Dance by Kacey Miyagami)

[lahionline]

"The soldiers were all riveted"

Lahi Presents: Seriously Trivial

Source: Jones, Jacqueline. Created Equal. Revised/Expanded ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education, 2010.

Submitted by: Anonymous

Do you have interesting historical trivia? Send it here!http://www.bit.ly/LAHI1415SeriouslyTrivial

[lahionline]

Because sometimes, coffee is not enough.  Lahi Presents: Seriously Trivial Source: Kring, Ann M. Abnormal Psychology. Revised/Expanded ed. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.  Submitted by: Anonymous Do you have interesting historical trivia? Send it here!http://www.bit.ly/LAHI1415SeriouslyTrivial

[lahionline]

Lahi Presents: Seriously Trivial

Source: Miyagi Prefecture Government. “Ports of Miyagi.” Accessed August 19, 2014.http://www.pref.miyagi.jp/uploaded/attachment/202236.pdf

Submitted by: Micah Perez

Do you have interesting historical trivia? Send it here!http://www.bit.ly/LAHI1415SeriouslyTrivial

[2ndbreakfasts]

Sasha 2: Digital Boogaloo

For me, one of the most interesting issues in digital media studies is the question of digital identity. Real life identity is already a big enough problem for existential philosophical bigwigs, and then you throw in digital identity. Where does real life identity end and digital identity begin? Are they completely separate, or do they flow into each other?We all have that one friend who's a completely different person online. Let's see if I'm that friend.

My online identity is spread over many websites. Let's start with the most prominent one: Facebook.

One look at my Facebook page will tell you a lot of things about my identity, whether implicitly or explicitly. The "About" section explicitly mentions what university I attend, what course I'm taking, the city I live in, and my relationship status. The photos I post are suggestive of certain experiences, like a vacation at the beach or an overdue reunion with old friends. The posts that I share and the pages I like give you an idea of what I like: if you scroll down, you'll find that I love random historical trivia, dogs, and Dungeons and Dragons because I post about them. Even my Facebook URL suggests something about my identity: I like Game of Thrones, 90s pop bands, and terrible puns.

My Twitter page will say mostly the same thing.

The "About Me" summarizes parts of my identity, whether they be real-life (gamer) or idealized (zombie apocalypse scholar). My frequent tweets and retweets to my sisters suggests my close relationship with them, as well as the playful immaturity that colors most of our interactions. My Twitter handle suggests a penchant for either The Lord of the Rings or breakfasts (spoiler: both are true).

My Steam page shows the gamer aspect of my identity.

This aspect is crucial, as I spend perhaps 1/3-1/2 of my online time playing games on Steam. It doesn't only show the games I own, but the games in which I've invested the most time and work.

My Pinterest page is where things start to deviate more towards the idealized than the actual.

There's a certain "future" aspect to the things you pin on Pinterest: You pin recipes you want to try out next Christmas, places you want to visit some day, outfit combinations you'd like to try, and even wedding dress ideas when you're not even engaged. You can see all of that on my PInterest: unless I state it explicitly ("My go-to recipe for scones. . ." etc.), all of these images are ideals and wishes that have yet to be fulfilled.

However, there is one aspect of my identity that is impossible to be realized in real life and as such can only be realized online: my furry identity.

This is one aspect I rarely discuss with people outside the furry community, because most people outside the community have a negative impression furries. In reality, furries are not as strange as you might think. Furries are basically animal personas that people create to interact with other furries in MUCKs (text-based online virtual words). Depending on how much a person identifies with their fursona, they might create elaborate text descriptions or even commission artists to draw their characters. Personally, I made the decision to make a fursona (mine is a grey wolf named Nimueh) because I liked the idea of having soft fur, soft ears, and a soft tail—things I can never achieve in real life.

My digital identity is one that is multifaceted and is the sum of numerous aspects. As such, I think a majority of my online identity is a truthful representation of myself; my identity doesn't change much when I log off. However, there are certain imagined aspects of my online identity that have not been or cannot be realized in real life.

[2ndbreakfasts]

"You're Not A Real Gamer": The Fake Gamer, the Gamer Girl, and Other Nonsense

I’ve played and loved a lot of video games from a lot of different genres: from turn-based strategy like Jagged Alliance 2 to first-person shooters like Black and Left4Dead to action RPGs like Dragon Age: Origins. But for every game I have played, there are hundreds—thousands, even—of other games that I’ve never heard of, let alone played. Yet I don’t see this as an earth-shattering, unforgivable transgression, because (1) more often than not, I have stuff that needs to be done, (2) I can’t afford to buy all the video games I’d like to play, and (3) some games just don’t appeal to me (like games set in outer space). I still consider myself a gamer.

Suppose that one day, I happen to enter an online discussion as a girl with a bunch of guys who also love video games. The conversation moves to a game I’ve never played—maybe Pokemon or Star Craft—so I voice my ignorance. What might be their response?

If you haven’t played it, then you’re not a real gamer.

You probably don’t even really like video games.

I bet you’re doing it for the attention.

You’re one of those Gamer Girls, aren’t you?

Go back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich.

Years of slaying darkspawn, overthrowing the evil dictator Deidrianna, and thinking with portals—all invalidated because I didn’t play a few games.

After all, isn’t that why all girls play video games—to get guys to notice and validate them?

Over the past two decades, more and more women have been playing and loving video games. From a paltry 3% in 1989, female gamers comprised 47% of the game-playing population in 2012. That’s practically half! Yet certain members of the male half seem intent on keeping the female half out of the MMORPG and in the kitchen.

The amount of backlash that women face as a result of their participation in the video game industry is astounding. Anita Sarkeesian of Tropes Vs. Women in Video Games fame has received countless rape and death threats on all of her social media platforms. A petition on Change.org tried to get Carolyn Petit fired from Gamespot after she commented on Grand Theft Auto V’s misogynistic portrayal of women. Countless women have stories of their knowledge and skill in video games being questioned so much so that a whole blog called Fat, Ugly or Slutty is devoted to them. Despite comprising almost half of all gamers, it seems like women are regarded as outsiders who will never be “real” gamers.

Enter the “Fake Gamer” and the “Gamer Girl.” These two pejorative terms describe how female gamers are perceived in the gaming community. Although they might sound similar and are indeed related, I will use them to describe the two distinct models I’ve observed. I’m not saying that all female gamers can be categorized according to these models. Far from it, in fact. What I am saying is that when it comes to criticizing women who play video games, these two models arise.

The first model, the Fake Gamer, can be illustrated by the example I gave in the first part of this blog post. The Fake Gamer is an ordinary woman who enjoys playing video games as much as any gamer. She might even be a devoted fan of certain games, like Assassin’s Creed or the Bioshock series. But any video game knowledge or skill she possesses is no match for that of her male counterpart. No, that shit’s too mainstream. He might challenge her to validate her knowledge of the game and if she doesn’t know this tiny, obscure detail, then OH MY GOD WHAT A POSER SEND HER BACK TO THE KITCHEN BROJOS BEFORE SHOJOS

 The Gamer Girl is a slightly different story. Unlike the Fake Gamer label, which is used exclusively by men, Gamer Girl is used by both men and women to refer to a particular subset of female gamers. Like the Fake Gamer, she might also enjoy playing video games and demonstrate a high degree of knowledge on the games she loves. The key difference behind the Gamer Girl and the Fake Gamer is the motive for gaming. The Fake Gamer plays for fun; the Gamer Girl plays to get noticed by men. The Gamer Girl realizes that gaming is a boys’ club, and will do whatever she can to infiltrate it. This might include posing suggestively with a console controller or spontaneous declarations of her love for video games or cosplaying video game characters. The Gamer Girl feels the need to stress the fact that she’s a girl who plays video games to distinguish herself from other women. This can breed hostility with other women who play video games, who make it a point to separate themselves from Gamer Girls: “I’m not a Gamer Girl, I’m a girl who games.“ 

The root of these two models can be found in what social psychologists call ingroup-outgroup bias. We define ourselves in terms of social groupings. These groupings are determined by shared, often arbitrary characteristics: we might be of the same nationality, support the same sports teams, or have the same hobbies. Anyone who shares these characteristics forms our ingroup, while everyone who doesn’t forms our outgroup. We will defend the members of our ingroup because they give us the self-esteem and support we need, and decry any outside interlopers.

Now let’s apply that to the video game community. A certain portion of male gamers feel that their ingroup of "real” gamers is being threatened the outgroup of female gamers, so they denounce them as “fake” gamers whenever they intrude in the male-dominated space of video games.

Ingroup-outgroup bias can also explain the Gamer Girl model. Female gamers push Gamer Girls into the outgroup because they feel that their motivations (playing for fun vs. playing for attention) are different. Because Gamer Girls don’t get the support the need from other female gamers, they will try to find a new ingroup by way of male gamers.

These two models can lead to undesirable consequences. One of the most well-known pictures that poke fun at Gamer Girls is of a girl named Courtney, often coupled with the caption “Yes, I play video games.” Unsurprisingly, the photo was met with nerdrage as male and female gamers alike denounced her as a “fake gamer girl.”

As it turns out, Courtney took the picture as a joke for her boyfriend, who at that time was so in love with his PS3 that she decided to express her own love for her XBox. In reality, she’s been playing video games since she was 3 years old, and unlike the Gamer Girl label that other gamers decided to force on her, she doesn’t feel the need “spout to everyone that [she’s] a gamer.”

People weren’t aware of these facts, yet they still saw fit to pass judgement on her:

“I was honestly baffled by how many assumptions everyone could come up with about who I was based off of one photo. Apparently I’m a slutty bitch who borrows her brother’s Xbox to take photos in an attempt to seduce the men of the internet by feigning interest in gaming.”

I’m not denying that some people really do play video games for attention. It’s definitely not impossible. But I think the same can be said for every hobby; why fixate on Gamer Girls?

I’m also certain that not all male gamers view female gamers as either Fake Gamers or Gamer Girls. I have the good fortune of having many male gamer friends who simply see me as a fellow gamer whenever we play video games together; my gender has no bearing on my skill, and as such is of no consequence.

Does anyone really have the right to wear the Gamer Inquisitor’s badge and decide who’s a “real” gamer? To paraphrase the Youtuber albinwonderland, you can own every video game in the world, but you don’t have the right to decide who can enjoy them. No one has that right. Names like “real gamer” and “fake gamer” only serve to divide a community that should be playing together and enjoying video games together.

I have a revolutionary idea: let’s all just be gamers.

Now pass me that controller.