Farewell Geralt! Hello Geralt! Jammie Points!

Last Wednesday was an emotional stream. I finished Witcher 1. So many people told me to not even play it and it turned out to be one of my favorite games. I am one of those empathetic types that cries at stories - movies, books, games. I easily get immersed in the fictional universe and attached to the characters. I never want the stories to end and so always feel a sense of sadness at finales. This happened with the Witcher - even though I know there are two more games in the series for me to play.

As it happens, the ending of Witcher 1 also got more intense than earlier parts of the game and so I was displaying emotions other than sadness as well - as seen in the clip below.

Testing Boundaries Part 1: A post on Streaming

This is normally where a Witcher Wednesday post goes, but this week I am going to focus on streaming rather than the game I was streaming. Furthermore, this post is going to be short because I have final grades to enter. Also, I suspect I will gather more data on boundary testing as I slowly grow my community and therefore will have more to say on it later. In other words, this will probably become another series of posts. 

What do I mean by boundary testing? I mean knowing the limits of what people can say about me, my stream, or what kind of humor is acceptable in this space. That this occurred was of no surprise to me at all. I expected this to happen eventually, and as it happened, the first 2 times were in the same week. This was also, maybe a little bit my fault since I have not yet posted chat rules on my channel - and these are common enough in Twitch at this point as to be expected. Also unsurprising was that both of these cases involved men.

We Are Playing Witcher: Pronoun Usage (Part 2)

Last month I made a post about the various pronouns I use while playing or talking about games in I am Geralt: Pronoun Usage (Part 1). This is the 2nd installment of that series in which I will be focusing on my use of "we" - when meaning me and chat - in terms of Irving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life which I also mentioned in the 1st post. In particular, I will be looking at the performative nature of this use and how this performance seems to fail just as often as not. And in case the phrase "everyday life" in the title here didn't tip you off, I will be taking some liberties - or more accurately, I will be using this work in an unconventional manner. Of course, it was published in the 1950s so it's not like it was written for analysis of Twitch or The Witcher.

OK, enough with the heavy intro. I mentioned talking about failure, so let's start the death counter!

How I feel after silent streams.

Punching Up the Patriarchy - I don't care if you laugh, I amuse myself

I resemble this teacher.

I would like to start this post with a disclaimer: I am not a comedian. This shouldn't be a big surprise to anyone. I am not very funny - to most people. I am that dorky lecturer that will drop jokes and references that none of the teenagers in front of me gets. "That's ok, I amuse myself," is the cue I follow jokes with so that the students know it won't be on the test (I mean if I gave tests, but that's another post).

To a certain extent, I also approach streams this way. This is not to say that I don't want to entertain my viewers, I do, but I want to enjoy myself first - or I won't continue to stream anyway. Playing The Witcher is great for me because I absolutely love this game (seriously, I haven't had this much fun playing a game since I had an actual raiding guild in WoW many years ago) and the extreme and obvious masculine point of view of the game allows for one of my favorite past-times - satirically behaving stereotypically macho.

This is not a new pass time for me. I noticed early in life, being raised in a fairly traditional Catholic household, that being a girl in America was not the best character creation roll I could've made (certainly by no means the least privileged, but that is also a topic for another day) and even as an elementary school kid, I remember pushing against the gender roles adults were trying to enculturate me into. At first, this was mostly born of frustration, but as I got older and I learned those boundaries and expectations better, I also learned that I am both amused by and feel empowered when I subvert such cultural expectations with this sort of satirical role-play.


I am Geralt. Sometimes this is because I immerse myself in that role while playing, but other times it is because I am playing at being a comically toxic version of Geralt. And, of course, nowhere am I more likely to start playing at being, rather than being, Geralt than when it comes to the sex cards.

Level Up to Domination - why do some feel the need to dominate?

I made it to level 20 in the last Witcher Wednesday stream and for the first time I feel like a high-level character. The difference in emotional reaction from now compared with previous levels is that I engaged in fights in which I dominated my opponent. I don't mean I easily won - I had that before when I returned to the swamps outside Vizima and took on Drowners. No, to dominate an opponent is different, it is not to kill them and be done - it is to kill them in a manner that leaves no doubt I was going to do anything other than win this battle. My opponent never had a chance. This is the type of kill that leaves a message (if anyone in the game world were coming around to clean up my carnage that is).

I am Geralt and you should not fuck with me.

I had very mixed reactions to the game that night, both positive and negative. Something about the session stuck with me, but I wasn't sure what it was in that moment. As is often the case I was exhausted after stream - my brain was done for the day. The next day I awoke with a single question in my head - why do men people some feel the need to dominate?

When Immersion Goes Bad

This week's post is going to be shorter than usual. Before the end of the post, you will understand why.

Immersion is wonderful. I find it so easy to become immersed in media that sometimes I wonder if it is perhaps easier for me than the average person. I am the type of person who will get so into a book that if someone tries to talk to me it takes a moment for me to register where I am. I cry at movies and lose myself in stories and games. My imagination often runs wild. In response to a debate about the "magic circle" at the Meaningful Play conference one year, I told a room full of people I have my own private magic circle around me most of the time.

I love this about myself and more often than not, it's great. Occasionally though, it causes problems.

I am Geralt: Pronoun Usage (Part 1)

I am Geralt. I am not always Geralt, but sometimes I am. I have hinted at this in previous Witcher Wednesday posts:

This is not the way I see myself-as-Geralt

I slept with the witch Abigail. I did it in a moment of empowerment. I did it to spite the villagers and the game. I did it because I liked her.

I am Geralt and I see myself as Geralt in a certain way. I am Geralt and I had a very real emotional reaction to Abigail and the villagers outside of Vizima - a reaction that was born of being both Geralt and a woman raised in America.

Backseat Gaming, Save Scumming, and Cheating: On the Gray Nature of Morality and Shared Experiences

I know that title sounds philosophical, but don't worry, I am still riding the Witcher train - in case the jargon didn't tip you off. 

This week I did something that I rarely do in any games - I reloaded the game to an earlier save point because I didn't like what happened. For the uninitiated, this is called save scumming. That I rarely do this is not a judgment on those who partake, it is simply a matter of preference. My sense of curiosity likes to follow the thread of choices I make and how they affect the game. If the game is good, I will replay it to see where the other choices lead. Also, save scumming feels like cheating. to me. Intellectually speaking, I don't consider it cheating, but emotionally it feels like it is. So, why did I do it then?

Well, for the 2nd time in the game so far (the first was Coleman) I needed information from an NPC who wouldn't give it to me.  This is not the way I see myself-as-Geralt, as needing anyone, but here we were, being told to "shove off" by a messenger in the Hairy Bear Inn.

In an ironic twist, I've been told in chat to save scum. This is called backseat gaming which is not considered cheating but is even more taboo than save scumming. 

Learn about my Sins, Witcher ...

I slept with the witch Abigail. I did it in a moment of empowerment. I did it to spite the villagers and the game. I did it because I liked her. 

Abigail

I finally finished up the outskirts of Vizima this past week. I killed the beast, the end of the major questline in the area, and I helped Abigail, one of the main people in that questline. The beast itself was rather disappointing, to be honest, so I will be focusing on Abigail instead. 

Abigail is a single woman living in her own house in the outskirts. She is an alchemist. She supports herself by selling potions to the villagers (for better or worse). She is pretty, but more or less looks and dresses like all the other women in town. Her home looks neat and orderly. She even takes in the orphan Alvin. 

Does this sound familiar? It should, historically, these types of women were accused of witchcraft. In the game, Abigail is an actual witch (she does not hide this) and other than the reality of her witchcraft, her story falls in line with depictions of historical witches in the physical world. 

And what did we learn about saving the game....?

Save often. Save before every battle. Save now.

"I know this before."

Sometimes all the theory in the world won't save me from myself. I learned that (again) the hard way last Sunday when I completely bombed in Witcher, making mistakes that I know not to make. The worst? I played for a little over 2 hours without saving and then died in a crypt I entered knowingly underprepared. Of course none of this was helped by the fact that my entire plan for playing through the games was basically doomed from the get-go, but more on that after that break. In the meantime, here's some eye-candy to make everyone feel better.

I Was Almost OK with this Sex Scene...

The first sex scene in The Witcher is effectively in the tutorial. Given what I have heard about this game (it's sexist, misogynistic, clunky, and skippable) I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I had assumed all the nookie would wait until Geralt's training wheels were off, but I suppose he needs practice at this too.

Here's the context for those who haven't played the game before. The Witcher is an action RPG. The player is Geralt of Rivia and the opening cut scene establishes that he lost his memory from a battle injury. (Because this is an RPG and I am more accustomed to using first-person vocabulary in these types of games I will be doing so for the rest of this post.) The scene shows my being taken to a castle by friendly NPC and it is in the castle that I can first take control of Geralt. I know at this point that I am a witcher, that this castle is a place that trains witchers, and that witchers are ostracized magical fighters.

The sex comes after the break ;)

Introducing Witcher Wednesdays

I can't believe... my last post was 4 years ago. Not sure I should've acknowledged that.  It's fine! I am back and will be starting with a series of posts called Witcher Wednesdays (other topics will be slowly introduced between now and the start of Fall semester).

What are Witcher Wednesdays? On Sundays, I will be playing through the Witcher games (starting with the first one) on Twitch and then posting my thoughts and analysis on those sessions here on Wednesdays.

Why Witcher? There is no denying it, we all love the Witcher series in some form or another, whether it's the books, the Netflix series, or the games. As a gamer, I naturally started with the games, though I missed 1 & 2 when they were released and didn't have the time or funds for 3 when it was released. So I actually first got sucked in by watching other people playing on Twitch. Later I would binge-watch the tv series with my roommate and loved it (or Henry Cavill as the Witcher) so much I was sad when it was over. Reading the books is definitely on my list, but that one will take a while. In the meantime, enjoy this little teaser.

So, I start this week - or I did start. I started Witcher 1 last Sunday and will post my first blog on that play session tomorrow. If you'd like to participate in making game decisions you can join me Sundays 1 - 4 PM (central time) on my channel GamerAnthro. If you can't make Sundays, you can watch the video archives here.