#i imagine sims modders feel similarly

[bookerdwitt]

i plike to play gamkes. and suffer consequences of course

[drtanner]

As a disabled person who, under normal circumstances, spends fully one quarter (25%) of his limited time on this earth grappling with the fucking DWP in order to maintain the only income I have (six months out of every two years, approximately, because every time they get to reassess me they take the opportunity to cut off my benefits, forcing me to appeal their decision, which takes a long time!!), I feel qualified to speak on this issue! Having a million hoops to jump through every two years when my benefits come up for review does not help me!

It does not help me maintain my independence as a disabled person and it certainly does not help my health! And I can guarantee that any other disabled person who has to do similarly will tell you exactly the same. I'm sure any of us would be delighted to let a few "fakers" claim benefit if it meant that we were all treated like human beings and not like fucking criminals who are guilty until proven innocent.

HOWEVER. Whatever your position on this matter may be, let's ask ourselves why someone would want to fake disability to claim benefit or gain other accommodations. Given that the majority of disability accommodations are wholly useless to abled people (if you actually need those accommodations, you are disabled, it turns out!), what most people are talking about when they talk about "fakers" is folks who are trying to avoid work. Why would someone want to do that?

It's a well known fact that humans love to work. Take a look anywhere on the internet and you'll see tons of people doing mountains of work for absolutely zero profit, and sometimes even at significant cost to themselves! AO3 is just chock full of unpaid work that people have done because they wanted to. Sims modders and Minecraft players have likewise built up enormous banks of work, spending their own energy and their own time to do so. Tumblr is full of art and writing and everything else, mountains of work that people have done just to share with others. Humans just fucking love to work! They cannot fucking stand to sit around and do nothing; you only have to recall the myriad complaints from people who were stuck at home all the time during the pandemic to know that. So why would some folks try to fake disability in order to avoid working, if people love to work so much? What's going on here?

Well, no doubt you're already gearing up to tell me that writing fic and making art and modding video games isn't really work, those are just things people do for fun! That's not the same as real work, which is a job that you go to every day and get paid for! Whilst it may be true that those things are seldom the same as the kind of work you do at your regular job, though, they are work. They all take time, effort and skill, and they are work, whether you like the sound of it or not. They are work. The difference between the wordsmiths on AO3 and you at your job, though, is that the folks on AO3 are doing the work that they actually want to do, whereas you, on the other hand, are being exploited by the capitalist class into doing work that you hate and are largely unrewarded for. That's the kind of work that sees people sincerely wishing for a way out, the kind of work that encourages folk to "fake" disability in order to dodge it.

So now that we understand the difference, we can start to gain an understanding of the real problem here, which is also the "problem" that some folks see with Universal Basic Income when they claim that nobody will ever work again if the threat of homelessness and starvation isn't constantly looming over them. What they really mean is that nobody will ever allow themselves to be exploited again, which presents a problem for the capitalist ruling class. That's a story for another day, though. Ask me about UBI anytime. ( b ._.)b

Ultimately, people love to work. They need meaningful things to do that make them feel rewarded and fulfilled. So let's imagine someone actually does manage to Cheat The System™ and fake their way into receiving disability benefit, and they just sit at home and do fuck all for six months. If that happens, if someone manages to wriggle their way out of their obligation to exploitative work and they just fall off the face of the fucking earth for half a year or a year or two years or however many years, they needed a fucking break! They needed a fucking break and this was the only way they could fucking get one because the system we live in didn't allow them enough rest to be happy and healthy! It really is as simple as that.

I genuinely do not believe in laziness. If someone is trying to avoid work or they're trying to avoid responsibility or anything else, there is a fucking reason. If they were happy and healthy and had all of their needs met, they would be working. I will not be listening to any other opinions on this topic.

People want to work. What they do not want is for their work to be exploited, and I'm perfectly happy for someone who can't see any other way out of their exploitation to hop onto my little boat with me and rest a while. That it would make my little boat easier for me to live on too would just be the cherry on top.

i would rather help 100000 fakers than make life harder for a single disabled person

[strikxen-essays]

Refusing Skyrim’s Happiness Scripts: The Issue of False-Inclusion and Gay Marriage in Skyrim

Refusing Skyrim’s Happiness Scripts: The Issue of False-Inclusion and Gay Marriage in Skyrim’

Essay by Kristen Hartley

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (colloquially referred to as just Skyrim) is a game that was released by Bethesda Game Studios in 2011 and was a game that was highly lauded for it’s open world aspects and the ability to be married to an NPC (non-player character) of the same sex. Indeed, Bethesda had been considered very progressive for its inclusion of gay marriage into the game. However, this inclusion is very surface level, and many queer theorists have questioned the merits of gay marriage as a civil rights goal due to the way that it privileges certain groups over others (Ruti 13). It’s a false inclusion and aims to pacify civil rights movements by erasing key parts of it. Skyrim is a game that maintains the illusion of free choice and inclusivity, but hidden limitations show what the game attempts to normalize and what it attempts to erase.

Introduction, Skyrim and Queer Theory

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is an open-world RPG or role playing game that places you in the shoes of the Dragonborn, a person who has the voice of dragons, and tasks you with saving Skyrim from the threat of dragons who have suddenly ravaged the land. The open-world aspect of the game is heavily emphasized. As soon as the tutorial ends, the player is greeted with a wide open mountain, hinting at the broad open world  they are about to experience. It invokes openness and limitless possibilities. However, the game is filled with various limitations, humorously illustrated in the opening cutscene where the player is literally bound and imprisoned, unable to do anything but look around within the confines of captivity. These limitations are important to analyze through the lense of queer theory because it illuminates why those limitations are problematic.   

Queer theorists doesn’t solely talk about sexuality and the LGBT community. Queer Theory is about rejecting binaries and social systems, structures, and norms. According to queer theorist Mari Ruti, “‘queerness’ comes to encompass anyone with a troubled, wounding, or antagonistic relationship to social processes of normativization” (33). Through normativization, those who aren’t normalized are erased. This comes to mean people who don’t fit within the narrow window of normativity that has been standardized by society. People of color, transgender people, and others, are marginalized and frequently erased from the narrative.

Happiness Scripts and Questlines

In Mari Ruti’s book, she discusses how dominant happiness scripts attribute to the normativization of privileged perspectives. A happiness script is a way that dominant society has detailed how to find happiness.  “Our societies happiness scripts direct us to a very particular vision of the good life, blocking other possible visions so that large swaths of life are deemed either undesirable or untenable before we even get a chance to imagine what it would be like to pursue them,” (Ruti 18). These scripts include marriage, the nuclear family, and home ownership. Most people have been conditioned to believe that these things will lead to their happiness.

Happiness scripts are pervasive in video games; they’re realized in the goals or objectives. Skyrim is filled with objectives, questlines that are picked up automatically as the player interacts with the world. It’s impossible to avoid them because just picking up items, talking to certain NPCs, or just walking through some areas can trigger a quest to be added to the quest journal. It’s important to know about how the mechanics influence the ways players think and normalize parts of the world around them. This is an issue discussed in the keynote “SimCities and SimCrisises” presented by Paolo Pedercini. Sim City is a game where you try to build a thriving and successful city, but therein lies the issue. What’s the definition of a thriving and successful city? When Pedercini tried playing the game building their own dream city, one with lots of green areas and public transportation, their virtual citizens suffered (Pedercini 13-15). The game was designed with a particular view of what a perfect city looks like, the game’s designers made that choice. In games like Sim City and Skyrim, goals and objectives are used to direct player to a certain way of thinking and conceptualizing the real world.

Gay Marriage and False-Inclusion

Skyrim, because it’s such an open game with lots of different quest lines has several of these happiness scripts. These range from saving Skyrim from dragons, becoming the head of the thieves guild, becoming the thane of a city, and so on. One of these scripts is echoed in society today: the marriage script. This script starts the way most do, a quest objective. This is obtained either by talking to the proselytizing Marmal and asking him about marriage and buying an Amulet of Mara, or discovering one such amulet throughout the world. Once the player has obtained an Amulet of Mara, they gain the ability to get married to certain NPCs. The marriable NPCs are varied in backgrounds, from strong warriors to polite socialites.  Once married, however, the player’s spouse acts in the same way, they move into your home and become a domestic spouse that never leaves home. The mechanics of Skyrim encourage getting married in this way. The player’s spouse will make meals for the player that have certain advantages and will give you a steady stream of income from a store they run. Even if both parties are male or both are female, this is the traditional marriage that the player takes part in. This feature, the ability to get married regardless of gender, is a feature that many game magazines have said “is to be applauded” (Plunkett 1). But many queer critics may look at this game and see all the ways that by proclaiming this game to be very inclusive, one is erasing those who aren’t included.  

Queer Theory’s critique of gay marriage isn’t against equal rights, but instead see the ways that gay marriage gives few a way into an already corrupt system. “Queer critics of gay marriage see marriage as the rotten foundation of a thoroughly rotten system,” (Ruti 16). Believing that happiness can be achieved through the heteronormative, patriarchal institution of marriage is “cruel optimism”, or as Ruti put it, “when something we desire is in reality an impediment to our flourishing” (16). Additionally, throwing one’s hopes into gay marriage conveniently glosses over “the fact that some people will never attain the American Dream,” (16). By constraining players to such a narrow view of marriage, it constrains them to a similarly narrow view of love and how to love. One such group that is excluded by this marriage value are polyamorous people. There is no way to be in a relationship with more than one NPC, there isn’t even any divorce. Morbidly pointed out by lots of game guides, the only way out of a marriage is to kill your spouse (“Marriage Partners - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Wiki Guide”). This kind of love is not allowed to take up space in this game because of the narrow way that marriage was programed. So if patriarchal marriage is the only one that is given space, one has to wonder how that affects the ways that players think about and conceptualize how love works.

More damning is the way transgender and gender nonconforming people are excluded from taking up any space at all. A common way to interact with the game is to make one’s avatar reflect themself so that they can more fully immerse themselves in the story. When creating one’s character, the player is presented with a number of sliders to customize their character with, the very first one being “sex”. This is a false-slider however, and functions more as a switch because the only two options are a “male” character model (slider on the left) or a “female” character model (slider on the right). This gives the illusion of a spectrum of sex and gender, but in actuality it’s treated as if both were a dichotomy. Biological sex is not synonymous with gender, but Skyrim treats the two as if they are interchangable. If you choose the “male” character model, you will be addressed with he/him pronouns, and if you choose the “female” model, instead other characters will address you with she/her pronouns. There is no way to change this in the normal base game, and so by locking certain bodies to certain pronouns, the game inevitably makes a statement about cisnormativity and the invisibility of transgender and gender nonconforming people. This means that there are entire groups of people who are unable to insert themselves into the game because their existence is denied space. One transgender woman that I spoke to online, user name Artemis Gannon, spoke about her experiences with gender expression and how she had to interact with character creation to make her feel comfortable. “So I played male characters. But never played Elves or Humans. Only Argonians. For whom our standard definitions of masculine and feminine appearance are borderline meaningless. Argonians were the only ones in the game where it could be hard to identify if a clothed model was male or female,” (Artemis Gannon). Argonians are a playable race in the game that are reptilian in nature. While she was still trying to figure out how she wanted to identify, very masculine expressions were uncomfortable, and was forced to play with characters that are less humanoid just to feel comfortable. Unfortunately, this isn’t only a problem with Skyrim, rather cisnormativity finds its way into several games.

“Opting Out” of the Script, or How Modders Defy the Norms

Even though Skyrim was coded with limitations that prevent players from expressing themselves, there are several ways that a community of players have come together to “opt out” of those happiness scripts and have created their own. Skyrim has a very rich and thriving modding community. “Mod” is short for modification, and it is used when someone codes something into the game. There are all kinds of mods that change the game in subtle to very noticeable ways. These can range from aesthetic mods that change the available hairstyles or increase the amount of blood that pours to the ground when you kill an enemy to humorous mods that change all the dragons to cartoon trains or all the spiders to Spiderman. Though many mods are made for the sake of a joke or to improve visuals, many people utilize mods to make space for themselves and their identities in the game. Many members of this modding community have discussed ways to fix the unrealistic and constrained marriage system in Skyrim, and reclaim space for themselves. One example of this reclaiming of space is the “Change Pronouns” Mod posted on NexusMods by user GoesOnGhost. In their description they say, “Let's your dovahkin be trans. [...] I created this mod because I wanted to extend the amount of body types your character could have without it be restricted to the assigned gender of the character,” (GoesOnGhost). They go on to talk about the technical limitations, and how they had to do some complicated coding in order to divorce bodies from pronouns. It was a struggle, but they were able to make space for themselves. Another example is called the “Marriage Mod - To Have And To Hold” adopted and developed by user AuroraPhoenix44. This mod allows for the player to marry up to 11 other NPCs. Though it doesn’t fix the issues inherent with marriage and the incredibly narrow and traditional view of marriage that occurs in Skyrim, it does erase the compulsory monogamy, and allow for more open expressions of love and sexuality. In playing Skyrim, I, too, ran into issues with romantic expression. In the game, there are only 28 romanceable women, and I quickly found out that it wasn’t possible to romance this one companion you meet while playing the Thieves Guild questline, Karliah. I was surprised because she didn’t have another romantic partner, and she was a Follower—a character that can join you on your many adventures, these characters are usually romanceable. Though I’m no programer and don’t know the first thing about coding, I was able to go into the Skyrim modding community and find a like-minded modder. This was the mod called “Lonely Karliah” made by user Ilhelahve. Mods have been a invaluable way for many players of Skyrim to express themselves within the limited scope that Bethesda Game Studios intended.

Conclusions

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a game that has been followed and played for nearly 7 years and across 6 different platforms. It’s a fun game and has deserved nearly all the praise that it’s received on nearly every game review. And, admittedly, the inclusion of gay marriage is something that hasn’t been available in most other games. Only recently have game designers decided to make games more inclusive with the addition of various romance options and gender expression. Skyrim was part of the movement that has pushed for more inclusion. The issue isn’t that Skyrim is inherently problematic and shouldn’t be played. The issue arises when people believe that Skyrim has reached the height of inclusion, and that the work of inclusion in video games is complete. There are several issues with the ways that marriage is portrayed in popular media and the way that some in the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement have idolized marriage as the ultimate goal for equal rights. It’s a flawed happiness script whose origins are in systemic patriarchy and heteronormativity. The goal of many queer critics is to “opt out” of these happiness scripts and to discover how they truly wish to express themselves divorced from the oppressive institutions of patriarchy and cis-heteronormativity. Through modding, many members of the Skyrim community have carved out space for themselves, how they want to play, and how they want to express themselves with gender and sexuality.

Works Cited

Artemis Gannon. “Making Characters in Skyrim As a Closeted Transgender Woman.” Personal Interview 17 May 2019.

AuroraPhoenix44. “Marriage Mod - To Have And To Hold.” Nexus Mods :: Skyrim Special Edition, www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/8589.

GoesOnGhost. “Change Pronouns.” Nexus Mods :: Skyrim, www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/74680/.

Ilhelahve. “Lonely Karliah.” Nexus Mods :: Skyrim Special Edition, www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/6354?tab=description.

“Marriage Partners - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Wiki Guide.” IGN, www.ign.com/wikis/the-elder-scrolls-5-skyrim/Marriage_Partners#Want_a_divorce.3F.

Pedercini, Paolo. “SimCities and SimCrisises.” International City Gaming Conference. International City Gaming Conference, 2017, Rotterdam.

Plunkett, Luke. “Skyrim Lets You Get Married (Including Gay Marriages).” Kotaku Australia, Kotaku Australia, 25 Aug. 2011, www.kotaku.com.au/2011/08/skyrim-lets-you-get-married-including-gay-marriages/.

Ruti, Mari. “Queer Theory and the Ethics of Opting Out.” The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects, Columbia University Press, 2017, pp. 13–44.