In which I respect Princess Peach

I just got back from a holiday in Spain and I was intending to put up some pictures of my time there. I was going to revel in images on sunshine and delight. However, on my day off I decided to spend some time watching YouTube videos and saw Anita Sarkeesian's new video in her tropes vs. women series, and it left me itching to tell the Internet my opinions. So rather than talking about Spain I wanted to respond to it here.




Anita Sarkeesian is a YouTuber, a popular culture critic and a feminist. She ran a successful kickstarter to fund a series of videos analysing tropes of women in video games.
During her Kickstarter campaign she recieved abuse from people who felt that her tropes vs. women series was somehow a threat to them. In a sad sentence I can say that she received the kind of torrent of hatred that is typical for women who loudly express opinions on what is often pereceived as a male-only topic or space. (See Caroline Criado Perez or Janelle Asseline)

However, I feel that there is a situation where those criticising her tend to be those who want to continue to heap abuse or who are unable to engage with her work without opening the gates to agression towards her, either from themselves or from commenters who feel that any problems in her work, are justification for hatred.

But the truth is, the videos bother me. I want to respond to just a couple of things. I don't make YouTube videos, so I'm going to keep this as short as possible, but I would love to discuss it more with you if you're interested.

My key problem is that her video game series has each video making a point and then seeking out examples that back it up. Where examples don't back up her point she tends to dismiss them as somehow not important. I found this a bit frustrating and frankly inaccurate in her Damsels in Distress video in particular.

Her point in this video is that the Damsel in Distress motif  reduced women to be motivations for male characters, rather than women with agency. She backs this up in particular with Princess Peach's repeated kidnapping plot device. However, she talks about Peach not being a playable character, then says 'except in...' and lists a few games from the Party series, oh and maybe a few other games: the Mario Kart, Mario Party, Super Smash Brothers, Sports etc games. But Anita then dismisses these as not the 'core' games. At 8.10 Anita says, 'Mario Madness... is the only game in which she is a playable character' She also ignores the Paper Mario games in which Peach is a playable character AND in a story game. This is a very selective look at evidence - recognising that there are some counter points and then dismissing them all as irrelevant, and not looking any further into Peach's overall role within the Mario universe. 

Anita should be able to make the points she wants too with accurate evidence.

Another example of selective evidence is in her most recent video. Dragon Age is used as an example of a game with the trope of sexual-objectification-background-women. However, Anita dismisses the fact that men are also available as prostitutes in the game as 'not being the same'. She then ignores everything else about Dragon Age. In my opinion, women have a lot of power in that game, including sexual power rather than sexual submission. They exist in every role the men can. Dragon Age can be criticised, but picking out one scene of prostitution in it as pandering to straight-male fantasy labels the game in a way that is simply inaccurate. 

So much of what she is talking about is really a problem in games. I found myself unable to play through Prince of Persia because of the camera focus on women's body parts and overall objectification. But just because she might be making a true point doesn't mean I think she is doing it well.

I also dislike the way a swell of positive women in games are ignored to make her points. More so than that, I think she emphasises the weakness of women in games. When she sees Peach as passive regardless of her position as a respected ruler of a land, her special powers and her courage in the face of trial, Anita is in fact reducing Peach to nothing more than a stereotyped damsel rather than allowing her to be an interesting female character in her own right. In Paper Mario 2 Peach is kidnapped, but not rescued by Mario. She gets up on her own after disaster strikes and explores her prison for a way out before joining the party as an essential member of the puzzle-solving team.

So, dwelling in each video on these negative portrayals without talking about Portal or Dragon Age or Chrono Trigger or Neverwinter and their positive aspects, actually seems to put women further out of gaming rather than inviting them in. As I wish her prominence was doing. I would have liked her to praise Paper Mario 2 and point more people in it's direction than demanding that Peach put on some dungarees before she can gain respect. 

Finally, what I would also like to see in her videos is more interaction with other games or women in the games industry. It would be particularly interesting to hear from designers and developers and advertisers involved in the process. It's amazing what you can get if you ask, and I think that would a really interesting documentary which would also bring a platform and a voice to other people who's views are worth hearing.

I'd also like to recommend this response which I think stays calm and rational throughout and raises a lot of good points, not just about her work, but also delves into why the negative response to it. I thought it was pretty interesting.

And to just finish off I'll leave you with a picture of me by the sea, as a hint of my next blog to come. 

Do you play many video games? Do you watch the tropes vs women series? What are your thoughts on them? 

In which I can be a spy, a singer and a swordswoman

 

I've missed blogging. I've just come back from holiday and sitting down to do a blog post and read some blogs feels really refreshing. I've missed you guys! 

It was a lovely holiday break. I went to Indiecon, a gaming convention, with a bunch of friends and did much of the same things that took place one whole year ago when we went before. The event takes place in a holiday resort full of fake log cabin chalets all booked up by the gamers. I played so many role play games, although this time with a little less dice and a little more acting, having got more into the Fiasco type, and a great game called the Marquis is Dead; if you do play indie table-top RPGs I recommend them. Over the days there I played an eighties ghost, a Renaissance duellist and singer, a Medieval Russian spy, a 1930s Nazi-fighting Egyptologist, a Viking beserker and, very briefly (in a freakishly twee game), a cat. There were three full days of gaming, although also a few opportunities to skip the games and go to the sea. It was beautifully relaxing, no Internet, no phone signal. Just time for games and drinking and a lot of hilarity -including my first go at Cards Against Humanity.

I didn't actually take any photos of the games this time. I didn't really want to be carrying my camera around all the time. Plus as most of what makes them fun is in speech and acting, it's very hard to capture and share the moment. I did find time to at least do one outfit shoot on the beach when we went down to watch the sunset. It was a small break in a lot of rain and a rather cloudy sunset in truth, but even when the weather was horrible it was a really good time.

Quite happy with my picture-postcard shot

A very well-used umbrella and some very muddy new boots.

In which there are my most beautiful games

I've made a lot of posts in the past about Playmobil and Lego, but what about the other toys I own.

Since Andy and I met we've loved playing board games together. We used to take our scrabble set down to the beach or play canasta on a picnic table at the caste when we were at university. We also had a few more of the unusual board games: Killer Bunnies and Order of the Stick, for example. As time went on we've collected more and more games. Then when we moved here we became part of a board games club, increasing our collection all the more as we were introduced to everyone else's favourites.

So we do have a lot of games now. In fact our game collection looks something like this:

The drawers have smaller games, and packs of cards. The Lego bricks have Magic the Gathering cards. Oh and the left bottom draw of the set? That's just full of dice! 

What I really love though about the wider world of gaming is the detail in some of the pieces available.There are the most gorgeous playing pieces, beautifully painted boards, unusually faced dice and well designed cards, even amazing storage boxes. So even setting the game out feels like working with art. In this post I'd like to show you my favourite games, in terms of the pieces themselves.

1. Quarriors

As you may be able to see here the box that the game comes in is a patterned tin that matches the design on one of the dice you can use in the game. It wins hands down for best packaging. Then you play the game using some cards (not shown), velvety dice bags, and a fantastic mix of unusual dice. It has beautiful texture. The game is competitive, involving collecting dice from a central pool. Dice can be monsters, spells or the money to buy more dice. You then use your dice to collect points towards winning. There's a nice amount of strategy in it, but it's not overly complicated either.

2. Elder Sign 

Elder Sign is a Lovecraftian inspired co-operative game. You play together to go through a bizarre museum, defeating monsters within and gathering the tools necessary to ultimately defeat the beast from the other world who is trying to devour you all. It comes with a LOT of pieces. There's a clock, little footprint clue tokens, interesting dice and a weird set of monsters. This is one of my favourites games. I like having something less competitive for a change and I love the artwork.

3. Twenty Fives

This is no Fantasy Flight or boardgamegeek game. It's from Past Times, a British shop that sells fake antiques and is on the way to going bust. Despite that, I've had this game since I was a kid and I love it. The game will be far more familiar to you under the title of Ludo. It is very much the same, with the difference being that you play with shells rather than dice. This allows for some unusual bonuses. You count how many upturned shells land for your move, but if all land flat down, no mouths showing you get to move twenty-five. The shells just feel lovely in your hand and make a nice clackety noise as they tumble.

4. Carcassonne

This game is a little more well known than the others and for a very good reason. It's fantastic. If there is anything here I would recommend freely, it would be this one. So much so it has been a Christmas present for many people! The pieces are intricately drawn and the wooden figures are solid and friendly. The gameplay involves drawing pieces randomly and fitting them together to form a map, claiming bits of castle, road and land with your tiny people. It's a competitive game, but not aggressive. The game encourages you to help each other, and the beauty of a finished map of Carcassonne makes it always chilled out.

5. Descent

This game is a cheeky addition as I have only played it once since getting it. The game is huge and heavy. You may get some idea by looking at the size of the box. I only got out a tiny selection of the pieces. It is very basically the game of Dungeons and Dragons (or any other dungeon crawl type game) played out without the role-playing aspect. You have tiny warriors who move through dungeons built out of jigsaw pieces. You roll dice to fight monsters. It is co-operative, except one person has to control the monsters. The game hasn't thrilled us as much but I think it calls for a large group. It does however, have a fantastic dragon piece.

Also, we got all but one of the games listed here for our wedding, so thank you guys! You know who you are. We love our collections and all the evenings of fun it gives us.
Do you play board games? Do you have any favourites I should know about? Do you also treasure pretty playing pieces?

In which there are even more wedding pictures

So the post about the wedding were dwindling away, and real life has very much returned to my world. However, there are still left over bit and pieces that we have to do. Get new passports, change our names on everything, and of course make the photo album. Our photographers were utterly amazing and sent us 1300 photos! It's more than we ever imagined there would be, but  they are amazing. We wrestled it down to 200 for the album after going through them over and over. I thought today would be nice to share a tiny snippet more of the top selection. Last time we only had the sneak preview, so I am going to share a few more of the moments that you didn't see. Especially the cake. Because if you do read this blog a lot you might remember the posts about the cake-making and testing or how to make an origami bouquet. You might remember my wedding planning montage so now you can see all those final bits of making, happening in the real world

Wedding rings, in the box Andy used to propose to me with.

So that's what the boy were doing in the morning.

I wrote a little love letter to Andy to be read on the morning of, and delivered to him in this little tin.

Shoes! With hearts on them!

Me, reading from Now We Are Six at our first ceremony.

Jumping right to the second ceremony.

Parents.

Apparently I really like pictures of shoes

I love this picture! I love it so much it's going to be the cover for the wedding album.

Pimms. Mmm.

We had some giant games.

And a giant parachute.

There was in fact a bit of a games theme.

Kingdom Hearts themed centrepieces, which took forever to make. I do love Kingdom Hearts.

The guestbook. Also a lot of work. I layered origami paper over each other on the page behind, then cut out our names and the date with a craft knife. Then glued together.

It's the cakes! Exactly what you've been waiting for I am sure. Aren't they just the best? My mum made these!

There was dancing

and briefly sushi. People ate that so fast I barely managed any myself.

And more dancing!

So there we have it. As I said, that's down from 1300 so I'm not showing it all and perhaps my choices were a little odd. However, I hope you are interested/amused/entertained/confused by the things you have seen.