#but I shouldn’t have to put up with abusive entitled nerds.

[vorthosjay]

Oath of the Gatekeep

In my recent call for article requests, there was one in particular that merited some real follow-up on. @hopelessly-vorthosian posed the following:

I sometimes hear talk about Vorthos gatekeeping. Could you expand on that? How can more recent Vorthoses prevent becoming gatekeepers in the future?

That’s a really good question, and something I’ve wanted to tackle for a while.

Gatekeeper of Malakir by Jason Felix

What is Gatekeeping?

The most useful definition for gatekeeping I found was on Urban Dictionary:

When someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity.

So what does this actually mean, in a practical sense? I haven’t really talked explicitly about gatekeeping here, but a major reason why I started writing Vorthos articles was to avoid that gatekeeper mentality. To make things as accessible as possible. When I was first exploring Magic’s lore, many (not all, but even a handful feel like a lot) of the old timers were… less than friendly to new blood. The Mending had just happened and the popular derisive term of the day was ‘Bradywalker’, for the new kind of planeswalkers that had just become the status quo. If you weren’t a veteran of the Phyrexian Invasion, you weren’t a real vorthos.

So why is this such a bad thing? After all, if you were really in to a thing, you’d consume as much of it as you could, right? Well, my early interactions kept me from engaging in older Magic lore for a long time, and I focused pretty much exclusively on post-Mending stuff because I was so put off by that attitude, and it felt like if I didn’t read every old novel my opinion wouldn’t matter, anyway. Their gatekeeping actually pushed me away from the things they prized. If I’m honest with myself, a lot of my impressions of the older lore are still colored by their attitudes. I’m sure it’s the same with a lot of other people, both when it comes to playing the game and catching up with the lore. There has been plenty of discussion about how gatekeeping is a problem for the game itself, I’m just focusing on the lore, here.

Gatekeeping is self-defeating. It creates a culture of elitism, where the real fans (however they define it) are the true inheritors of the lore, and everyone else is a pretender. It also almost always ends in a culture of entitlement, where they believe they’re more deserving than others because they’ve been around longer, or have dedicated themselves more. Except, alienating an audience that could help keep what you love alive is just counterproductive.

Vorthos Gatekeeping

The Magic community is especially susceptible to gatekeeping for a wide variety of reasons. Nerds are by no means the only people who act like gatekeepers, but there’s something about the nerd or gamer identity that has a real resentment toward outsiders getting involved in interests that were once exclusive. It’s why women have to face “Oh, did your boyfriend bring you?” at Magic events, as if they couldn’t really be interested in Magic. And it only takes a handful of those Gatekeepers to create a toxic environment.

The other issue is that gatekeepers aren’t bad people, and they frequently don’t mean to be gatekeepers. I’ll be the first to say that I’ve been guilty of gatekeeping people in the past. Not necessarily for Magic, but for other interests. So how can we avoid it?

There Is No Wrong Way To Vorthos

I actually talked about this a bit way back in Magic Lore 100: Jargon, but it bears repeating here:

The term Vorthos came about with the article Snack Time with Vorthos. It was followed up on in Melvin and Vorthos and then Vorthos and Mel.

Essentially, a Vorthos is anyone who cares about the story, art, flavor, or lore. There is no wrong way to Vorthos! If you only want to follow the story through the pivotal moment cards, that’s okay. If you want to dedicate yourself to the minutia of every article, that’s okay too. If you love the artwork and want to rave about it, but don’t care all that much about the specifics of the story, that’s also okay.

Ant Tessitore breaks down this concept even further in his excellent article Vorthos 2015.

Someone who hasn’t read every Magic Story ever is not less of a Vorthos than someone who has. Someone who just loves the art and pays only a modest attention to the story is still a Vorthos. There is no wrong way to enjoy Magic, and when someone wants to engage in their interests, be supportive, not detracting. Even if their preferred way to vorthos is incessant color pie questions (I realize I’m a jerk on this front).

Be Supportive

No one should have to endure abuse to enjoy something they like, and most people simply won’t. A bad experience or two and they’re done engaging (and who could blame them?). This one of the major reasons I started writing vorthos content, because no one should just be told “Read the Wiki” when they have a simple question (note: I direct people to the wiki sometimes, but always to the appropriate page).

It also means that you shouldn’t be ‘Well, Actually’-ing people all the time. People are allowed to be wrong. It’s perfectly fine to correct people, but the way you do it matters. Last year, I commissioned my friend Jorge Velez (@kaigetsudo) to create this Planar Rangers design for a T-Shirt campaign. It’s awesome, right? Except, 90% of the comments I heard about it were “Where’s Liliana?”. The Vorthos community has a lot of passionate artists, cosplayers, and fanfiction writers that help keep it vibrant and alive. But when all you can say about them is how they’re not 100% canon, you again discourage people from engaging.

Be Conscious Of Your Words

This point is twofold. If you’re correcting someone, make sure you’re wording yourself to be understood. Starting off with “That’s wrong!” is obviously a red flag, but it can be hard to understand intent over the internet. Be clear with your words, small things like excessive punctuation and the lack of “I” statements can give someone a very different impression than what you mean.

It also means that you need to be careful what you’re saying, in general. It only takes a few people to give the impression a forum or website is toxic. If someone wants to engage but half the posts they find are you talking about how Doug Beyer personally broke into your home and kicked your dog, they’re not going to.

Learn To Let Go

This one is probably the hardest for people to change, but also the most important. “Bradywalker” and “Jacetus League” were cute the first couple months following their introduction. They’re significantly less so two or more years later. It’s okay if something changes in a way that doesn’t really appeal to you. It’s okay to voice your displeasure. But it’s not okay to harp on it for years, especially when you’d be better served moving on. If all you have to say is that Wizards is spitting on the graves of your ancestors, rather than sticking with it because of the sunken costs of your own time and nostalgia, consider just moving on.

This was by no means a comprehensive essay about gatekeeping in the Magic community, but I hope it gives everyone an introduction to what gatekeeping means in the Magic community. 

[life-in-a-labrynth]

listening to final fantasy music on loop and crying because i lost her she wasn’t who i thought she was

got to do what i agreed to do with my therapist and see both sides of her, i vacillate between despairing about how she was such a wonderful person and what a heinous cunt she was. the way she treated me. she’s just a person, a full person, with strengths and flaws, but it takes a special kind of cunt to treat her boyfriend like garbage and emotionally abuse him and gaslight him and think the worst of him.

this was all triggered by me happening to catch a youtube clip of Batman: Arkham Asylum. I thought about how she recommended the game to me, then thought I might play, then grimaced to know that I wouldn’t be able to play it without thinking of her and getting completely depressed. I want to try but I don’t know, whatever, does it make a difference?

And before or after or around the same time I began listening to final fantasy music, knowing it would depress me, not caring, because Ahead On Our Way is a gorgeous song, the flute and the violins and it’s so peaceful and even angelic, then the title song which is nothing more than an arpeggio crawling to different keys but I don’t give a single fuck because it draws me in and soothes me until it makes me want to die.

I can’t have it all, I just want a gorgeous girl who loves Final Fantasy and Batman and video games and nerdy things and is sweet and lovely and supports me, I don’t care how fucking dumb and pathetic it sounds to write that out, it’s so cliched and superficial to say “omg i want muh nerdy princess” but fuck you, this is my place, I’ll write out whatever brain droppings I can to exorcise my demons, no one knows about this and thank god for that, this doesn’t even need to be online, I don’t know why I’m putting it online.

I don’t really care about that though, sorry, it was just a snap insecurity that I can’t help, I’m really not fat and ugly and gross and sweaty and bald and awkward like your stereotypical nerd, I’m actually really good looking and work out and have a good job and a house and by most accounts and am successful but I’m so fucking lonely and alone.

Got to be picky but not entitled and not pathetic but why not just admit to what I am? It hurts to make myself vulnerable and confess these things, such things would be torn apart and mocked and ridiculed on online communities like reddit and 4chan and somethingawful

Being vulnerable and honest hurts, you open yourself up to be lambasted, I feel so unsafe now, I tell myself how I shouldn’t have been honest about this or that to her, maybe resolve to not be honest in the future

seriously at this point I just need to hide myself, it’s the only way to not be alone, and it fucking sucks because I’m an oversharer and I want to be honest and vulnerable and share who I am but it’s just not viable, I’ve been hurt too many times, I’m fucking 36 1/2, I can’t fucking be alone forever, I’m almost at the hill, gonna be over the hill, I’m fit and I exercise and I take fairly good care of myself, but I’m still on the decline, I’m sorry for this, I don’t want to be this way

I just wish I met someone and fell in love around 30ish, you know, old enough so that both of us know ourselves and our “growth” has decelerated, no surprises, high school sweethearts rarely work out for a reason, you both need to be seasoned and have experience and branched out and know who you are.

Sorry for the rant and the lecture and anything else I mean it doesn’t matter, this is just for an audience of me, so why am I so insecure, whoever might have ever seen this will just keep scrolling, I know I sure as fuck would.

Anway, so I guess if ideally I’d have fallen in love and gotten married at 30ish, I’m only a little past that, so I guess that’s good, but I’m getting old and the women around me are getting old and aren’t very attractive anymore, maybe that’s just the ones that aren’t taken, I feel horrible being superficial but everyone needs physical attraction, don’t lie and say you don’t.

It’s getting harder to find attractive women but maybe that’s fine but anyway btw I was 34 when I met her and she left me when I was 35 but the point is I was at that 30ish range, SHE SHOULD HAVE FUCKING BEEN THE ONE, WHY DID SHE LEAVE ME IT HAVE TO FAIL, okay that feel better to say. Takes the blame off of me, I guess, and I’ll still do the circling around the drain idea that it was my fault and I’m as dumb and awkward as she, in so many words, told me I was. But I know it’s not true, it’s getting easier to admit that

but i still get so fucking angry and upset and i wanted so bad for it to work out and i just nail myself over and over about how i should have done this or that differently and maybe she’d still be around and i just want to sob out to the universe and beg for another chance

i hate it. i hate feeling this way. i better step away from the computer now, maybe i can go play some video games (no, oh god no) for a while and take my mind off it, get some beer, dear god i wish so badly i met another gamer geek who was intellectual and beautiful, it just hurts so bad that she was seemingly so perfect and turned out to be a horrible cunt, can’t i just have the good parts, and maybe the bad parts can be something different because no one is perfect, i can deal with other flaws just please love me, please god just love me and stay with me and don’t break my heart and don’t leave me, i’m so fucking lonely