Speeddrinking Undertale helped me understand my gender better

I am a trans woman, and I am also a speedner. Both of these things may seem disconnected, but playing video games fast has really helped me think about the ways that I perform gender.

Video games are unique in the sense that they allow us to “become” other people. When we play games, we don’t usually see someone to show a scene – we can actively participate in scenarios, get experiences that may be outside our criteria. But when I say that Gatimaan helped me understand my gender, I’m not talking about identifying fictional characters or using character makers.

About two years ago, one day, when I decided to try my hand at high speed. I started with Undertale Because I had an old laptop at the time, I needed a game that did not require much computational power.

If you know anything about speedrunning, then you know that choosing the game is not the only decision. You also need to choose a category, which basically acts as a set of rules that define the parameters of what is allowed or required to complete a run. Because there have been many major patches to do Undertrail, Which version of the game do I want to play as well. I selected the neutral category (UndertaleVersion of any%) and 1.02+ version of the game, which meant that a typical run for a new player was only one hour. And, as an added benefit, there were not many tricks to learn – although I was still bargaining more than I initially thought!

Somewhat unusually, i had never played Undertale Before running it in any capacity. I’d heard about it a lot, though. The Laws of Movement Changed Completely Undertale Regarding the lovable characters of the quirky, self-reflective RPGs, I was told that this was something that did not involve character, morality, exploration, or plot. Instead, it involved practicing frame- and pixel-perfect glits, resetting repeatedly and (and more), grinding for good results, screaming in frustration when I played for the 100th time at “personal best” speed. Will soften up, and celebrate when I finally hit my goals after months of failure.

Through this process (and through engagement with other queer video game players, peers, and scholars) I realized a game, any game, is just as much software and hardware as it is the rules we bring. . We can apply new and unique rules to a game and in the process, craft what is essentially a completely different experience. This insight was important in understanding my gender perspective.

I have what I would generously call an uneasy relationship with masculinity. As it is to say that I had known for a long time that something was “off”, but I never needed a concept or language to take concrete action in relation to those feelings. I did not come out as a transgender until about a year and a half ago. A few months later, I started transitioning medically and socially. The speedtringer didn’t cause me to do trans, or anything like that silly, but the lesson I was taught about the rules of video games provided an outline of how I could apply the rules of gender and how I did, Or more importantly No, Want to follow them.

In the same way that SpeedRunner redefines video game rules, I seriously considered the rules I was unknowingly following. In video games, in life, there are often invisible structures that we do not realize. Scroll through the comments section about any video on YouTube and you will see all kinds of claims that the runner is cheating or not playing the game right.

But are the rules, in fact, being broken?

The game is clearly the perfect way to play that speedrunner transgender, whether it includes ideas such as “don’t have the idea to clip out of bounds” or “you shouldn’t skip the essential part of the narrative.” The “proper” ways to play video games (as well as many players and designers) try to determine the proper ways to interact with the game, but Speedrunner ignores those demands. The game, for Speedrunner, is whatever the community says it is. They take the prescribed rules, and say: “No thanks. They are not for me. I am going to play differently. “

This framing of the gameplay happened concurrently with another feeling: I desperately wanted to play Gender Differently also. The invisible rules of gender were not working for me. All the while, from small interactions with strangers to dating and relationships, I consciously had to force myself “to be a man”. Performing was getting very tiring. The rules of manhood work for many, but for me, manhood is a dress or a shell that I forced myself to wear. It is difficult to describe in words, but manhood never seemed natural. Despite feeling deeply that things should be different, I still felt compelled to follow the rules of gender, whether it was to give a firm handshake, wear a shirt, tie, care about football , Or simply present in a masculine body.

At some level, we all know the rules of gender. They become more apparent when we break them. These rules determine what clothes we wear, how we speak, how we move, how we are about to desire, and who we can love. They are imposed on us before we were born and are a key component in shaping who we are.

But why should I follow them? If I can change the rules of the game to make a different kind of game to play, then I can’t even say “no thanks” to these rules of gender, if they don’t work for me?

The short answer is: I absolutely can. If I don’t work with those rules, then I don’t have to play with the standard set of rules. It was a fleeting one for me, and the fast-paced insistence on self-defined rules helped reinforce it.

But what makes the rules of high speed different from the rules of the original game? While moving categories, such as gender norms, are usually already set when we achieve them, they are still very malleable. The categories can shift to meet the needs of the community, either by modifying the old outdated rules or adding new categories to meet the interests of the community. Rules change as communities change.

for example, Undertrail ‘The s speedrun community recently discovered a major skip they had been searching for for years: the Mad Dummy skip, which essentially skipped an entire fight. The thing is, it does not work on all operating systems. So the community has, through a vote, decided to allow patches that modify the game’s files enabling skips on all OSs. With this change in the rules, the game itself has changed. It is not necessarily something you buy and download, and more people can participate through this redirection. Mobility communities understand that if what we are given does not fit how we want to play, we can change it.

And if, say, masculinity or femininity does not work for you, then it is possible to play with a different set of rules and redefine what we want to begin with.

At the same time, I want to acknowledge that we cannot step outside the “standard rules” altogether. I was never a part of it Undertale The dynamic community proper, although everyone I have ever interacted with was lovely to me. I was only a tourist passing through the path of other sports which I am much better at and with which my community ties are stronger. Like the act of transition, it was a starting point for me that opened me up to new experiences. The way i used to walk Undertale Having dynamically defined categories by a large community, I do not have the power to completely change any of the rules on a large scale. Taking hormones and transitioning does not misunderstand gender norms, instead the wrong glits show how we should play video games.

Like accusations of playing the game incorrectly on YouTube videos, trans people unfortunately receive a similar pushback with more serious implications. Trans people are very often told that they are not performing gender correctly or are not actually their gender, leading to harassment and lack of institutional or structural support. All the while, many do not have the resources or support to secure the rules if they want to. Clearly, standard rules amount to a lot.

Nevertheless, I find it motivating that on a collective scale, through cooperation and mutual support, we can make positive changes. A completed run is not a one-man job. It is the work of many people in a community who share information, test strategies, and work together to improve a run. One person to express himself authentically is the work of countless people who have come before, as well as those who continue to support him, even though he may not always feel the same.

With that success comes a lot of inevitable failure. I fail more than succeed in relation to both speed and my gender transition. I am well-versed with the ways I want to see, voice, or step in whatever way I want (whether I needed Caring for these things is another story). In many ways, immobility has prepared me to endure repeated failure for a certain kind of patience, or at least the painfully slow process of infection. Infection is often depicted as a sudden talk, such as a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis, but actually reaching your goal is very slow, as if it happens at a fast pace.

Completing my first run for me Undertale, I was required to practice different tricks like Punch Card Exploit (PCE), which is required to perform catkin skips and incorrect warps, among other tricks. Performing a PCE requires a very quick series, while being located in a pixel-specific location. On top of that, for some tricks, if you are not fast enough, the game will soften and you will have to start from the beginning of the game. Building muscle memory to perform PCE consistently, in addition to memorizing all positions over weeks of practice.

It was an absolute slogan. I messed up hundreds and hundreds of times, starting over and over again. And that was all before I actually started running the game!

When I find myself lying on a hard table while a woman in a mask cuts hair from my face or looks in the mirror to see what the hormones desire? Their damn Already, I am reminded of the painful, incremental improvements to SpeedRunning, and how good it feels to be successful for the first time. And the beautiful thing is, success can mean what we want! I have not come from far to get a peak time Undertale Categories, but I have to define success for myself, whether it is simply completing a run or daring to walk down the street wearing a dress for the first time.