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nataandreev · 4 years

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Fragments from “Sister Outsider” Essays & Speeches by Audre Lorde

“Sister Outsider” was probably one of the most soul-fucking-searching book I ever read in my life. It made me question what I stand for so many times, that it made me sick to my stomach. I realized that I am not that good at this self-reflective-shit.

That my efforts of doing better are not anywhere close to where they should be. Audre Lorde taught me through her works that I got a lot of work to do. Like a lot. Her truth cuts deep. She has no mercy and her opinions are raw. They are hard to swallow. There were moments when I had to pause, because I wasn’t fully understanding it and weird enought I finished to read it today, February 18, 2020, on her birthday. Audre would’ve turn today 86 yo. Here are just a few fragments from the book, but, please, if you can read the whole thing.

Biography:

Audre Lorde is an American writer, feminist, womanist, librarian, and civil rights activist. As a poet, she is best known for technical mastery and emotional expression, as well as her poems that express anger and outrage at civil and social injustices she observed throughout her life. Her poems and prose largely deal with issues related to civil rights, feminism, lesbianism, illness and disability, and the exploration of black female identity via Wikipedia.

⁃ Poetry Is Not a Luxury

We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not. The white fathers told us: I think therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us-the poet-whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free. ⁃ The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. Kept around as unavoidable adjuncts or pleasant pastimes, feelings were expected to kneel to thought as women were expect to kneel to men. But women have survived. As poets. And there are no new pains. We have felt them all already. We have hidden that fact in the same place where we have hidden our power. They surface in our dreams, and it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. In becoming forcibly and essentially aware of my mortality, and of what I wished and wanted for my life, however short it might be, priorities and omissions became strongly etched in a merciless light, and what I most regretted were my silences. And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength. “Tell them about how you’re never really a whole person if you remain silent, because there’s always that one little piece inside you that wants to be spoken out, and if you keep ignoring it, it gets madder and madder and hotter, and if you don’t speak it out one day it will punch you in the mouth from the inside.” Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid. ⁃ Scratching the Surface: Some Notes on Barriers to Women and Loving The above forms of human blindness (racism, sexism, heterosexism and homophobia) stem from the same root - an inability to recognize the notion of difference as a dynamic human force, one which is enriching rather than threatening to define self, when there are shared goals. This kind of action is a prevalent error among oppressed peoples. It is based upon the false notion that there is only a limited and particular amount of freedom that must be divided up between us, with the largest and juiciest pieces of liberty going as spoils to the victor or the strongest. So instead of joining together to fight for more, we quarrel between ourselves for a larger slice of the one pie. ⁃ Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power* In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of oppressed that can provide energy for change. The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once we experienced it, we know we can aspire. The principal horror of any system which defines the good in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, or which defines human need to the exclusion of the psychic and emotional components of that need - the principal horror of such a s system is that it robs our work of its erotic value, it’s erotic power and life appeal and fulfillment. Such a system reduces work to a travesty of necessities, a duty by which we earn bread or oblivion for ourselves and those we love. But this is tantamount to blinding a painter and then telling her to improve her work, and to enjoy the act of painting. It is not only next to impossible, it is also profoundly cruel. That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage , nor god , nor an afterlife. ⁃ Sexism: An American Disease in Blackface Black feminism is not white feminism in blackface. Black women have particular and legitimate issues which affect our lives as Black women, and addressing those issues does not make us any less Black. Now I am sure there are still some Black men who marry white women because they feel a white woman can better fit the model of “femininity” set forth in this country. As Black women and men, we cannot hope to begin dialogue by denying the oppressive nature of male privilege. And if Black makes choose to assume that privilege for whatever reason- raping,brutalizing, and killing Black women- then ignoring these acts of Black male oppression within our communities can only serve our destroyers. One oppression does not justify another. As people, we most certainly must work together. It would be shortsighted to believe that Black men alone are to blame for the above situations in a society dominated by white male privilege. But the Black male consciousness must be raised to the realization that sexism and woman-hating are critically dysfunctional to his liberation as Black man because they arise out of the same constellation that engenders racism and homophobia. ⁃ Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist’s Response Men who are afraid to feel must keep women around to do their feeling for them while dismissing us for the same supposedly “inferior “ capacity to feel deeply. But in this way also, men deny themselves their own essential humanity, becoming trapped in dependency and fear. “The next time you come in here crying ...,” and I suddenly caught myself in horror. This is the way we allow the destruction of our sons to begin in the name of protection and to ease our own pain. My son get beaten up? I was about to demand that he buy that first lesson in the corruption of power, that might makes right I could hear my cell beginning to perpetuate the age old distortions about what strength and ready bravery really are. It is hard for our children to believe that we are not only potent as it is for us to know it, as parents. But that knowledge is necessary as the first step in the reassessment of power as something other than might, age, privilege, or the lack of fear. It is important to step for a boy, whose societal destruction begins when he’s forced to believe that he can only be strong if he doesn’t feel, or if he wins. ⁃ An interview: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich They were very streetwise, but they had done very little work with themselves as Black women. They had done it only in relation to, against, whitey. The enemy was always outside. I did that course in the same way I did all the others, which was learning as I went along, asking the hard questions, not knowing what was coming next. The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. And then, just possibly, hopefully, it goes home, or on. I knew, as I had always known, that the only way you can head people off from using who you are against you is to be honest and open first, to talk about yourself before they talk about you. It wasn’t even courage. Speaking up was a protective mechanism for myself. The Black mother who is the poet exists in everyone of us. Now when males or patriarchal thinkers (whether male or a female) reject a combination, then we are truncated. Rationality is not necessary. It serves the chaos of knowledge. It serves feeling. It servers to get from this place to that place. But if you don’t honor those places, then the road is meaningless. Because we cannot fight old power in old power terms only. The only way we can do it is by creating another whole structure that touches every aspect of our existence, at the same time as we are resisting. There are different choices facing Black and white women in life, certain specifically different pitfalls surrounding us because of our experiences, our color. Not only are some of the problems that face us dissimilate, but some of the entrapments in the weapons used to neutralizers are not the same. I wish we could explore this more , about you and me, but also in general. I think it needs to be talked about, written about it: the differences in alternatives or choices we are offered as black and white women. There is a danger of seeing it in an all or nothing way. I think it’s very complex thing done what women are constantly offer choices or the appearance of choices but also real choices that are undeniable. We don’t always perceive the difference between the two. But documentation does not help one perceive. At best it only analyzes the perception that at worst, it provides a screen by which to avoid concentrating on the court revelation, following it down to how it feels. Again, knowledge and understanding. They can function in concert, but they don’t replace each other. But I am not rejecting your need for documentation. I can document the road to Abomey for you, and true, you might not get there without that information. I can respect what you are saying. But once you get there, only you know why, what you came for, as you search for it and perhaps find it. So at certain stages that request documentation as a blinder, a questioning of my perceptions. Someone once said to me that I hadn’t documented the goddess in Africa, the woman bond that moves throughout The Black Unicorn. I had to laugh. I am a poet, not a historian. I’ve shared my knowledge, I hope. Now you go documented it, if you, if you wish. I was holding back because I had not asked myself the question: “Why is women loving women so frightening to black men unless they want to assume the white male position?” It was a question of how much I could bear, and of not realizing I could bear more than I thought I could at the time. It was also a question of how could I use that perception other than just in rage or destruction. What understanding begins to do is to make knowledge available for use, and that’s the urgency, that’s the push , that’s the drive. That you had to understand what you knew and also make it available to others. ⁃ Master’s Tools For women, the need and desire to nurture each other is not pathological but redemptive, and it is within that knowledge that our real power is rediscovered. It is this real connection which is so feared by a patriarchal world. Only within a patriarchal structure is maternity the only social power open to women. Interdependency between women is the way to a freedom which allows the I to be, not in order to be used, but in order to be creative. This is the difference between the passive be and the active being. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support. If white American feminist theory need not deal with the difference in oppressions, then how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean your houses and tend your children while you attend conferences on feminist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of color? What is the theory behind racist feminism. The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower. In academic feminist circles, the answer to these questions is often, “We did not know who to ask.” But that is the same evasion of responsibility, the same cop-out, that keeps Black women’s art out of women’s exhibitions, Black women’s work out of most feminist publications except for the occasional “Special Third World Women’s Issue,” and Black women’s texts off your reading lists. But as Adrienne Rich pointed out in a recent talk, white feminists have educated themselves about such an enormous amount over the past ten years, how come you haven’t also educated yourselves about Black women and the difference between us-white and Black-when it is key to our survival as a movement? Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master’s concerns. Now we hear that it is the task of women of Color to educate white women-in the face of tremendous resistance-as to our existence, our differences, our relative roles in our joint survival. This is a diversion of energies and a tragical repetition of racist patriarchal thought. Simone de Beauvoir once said: “It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting.” Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives there. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices. ⁃ Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. Too often , we pour the energy needed for recognizing and exploring difference into pretending those differences are insourmountable barriers, or that they do you not exist at all. The results in a voluntary isolation or false and treacherous connections. Either way, we did not develop tools for using human difference as a springboard for a creative change within our lives. We speak not of human difference but if human deviance. By and large within the women’s movement today, white women focus upon their oppression as women and ignore differences of race, sexual preference, class, and age. There is a pretense to a homogeneity of experience covered by the world sisterhood that does not in fact exist. Unacknowledged class differences rob women of each other’s energy and creative insight. By ignoring the past, we are encouraged to repeat its mistakes. The “generation gap” is an important social tool for any repressive society. If the younger members of a community view the older members as contemptible or suspect or excess, they will never be able to join hands and examine the living memories of the community nor ask the all important question, “Why?” This gives rise to a historical amnesia that keeps us working to invent the wheel every time we have to go to the store for bread. Ignoring the differences of race between women and the implications of those differences presents the most serious threat to the mobilization of women’s joint power. As white women ignore their built-in privilege of whiteness and define and woman in terms of their own experience alone then women of color become “other,” the outsider whose experience and tradition is too “alien” to comprehend. Refusing to recognize differences makes it impossible to see the different problems and pitfalls facing us as women. The tokenism that is sometimes extended to us is not an invitation to join power; our racial “otherness” is a visible reality that makes that quite clear. For white women there is a wider range of pretended choices and rewards for identifying with patriarchical power and its tools. Today, with the defeat of ERA, the tightening economy, and increased conservatism It is easier once again for white women to believe the dangerous fantasy that if you are good enough pretty enough sweet enough quite enough teach the children to behave hate the right people and married the right man then you will be allowed to coexist with patriarchy in relative peace at least until a man needs your job or the neighborhood rapist happens along and true unless one lives in loves in the trenches it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is senseless. Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shut down in the street and you turn your backs up on the reasons why they’re dying. Within black communities where racism is a living reality, differences among us often seem dangerous and suspect. The need for unity is often misnamed as a need for homogeneity, and a black feminist vision mistaken for betrayal of our common interests as people. Because of the continuous battle against a racial erasure the black women and black men share, some black women still refused to recognize that we are also opressed as women and that sexual hostility against black women as practiced not only by the white racist society but implemented within our black communities as well. It is a disease striking the heart of black nation of hood and silence will not make it disappear. Exacerbated by racism and the pressures of powerlessness, violence against black women and children often becomes a standard within our communities, one by which manliness can be measured. But this woman-hating acts are rarely discussed as crimes against black women. “As long as male domination exists, rape will exist. Only women revolting and men made conscience of their responsibility to fight sexism can collectively stop rape.” - Kalamu ya Salaam, a black male writer Black women who once insisted that lesbianism was a white woman’s problem now insist that black lesbians are a threat to black nationhood, are consorting with the enemy, are basically on un-black. These accusations, coming from the very women to whom we look for deep and real understanding, have served to keep many black lesbians in hiding, caught between the racism of white women and the homophobia of their sisters. What are the particular details within each of our lives that can be scrutinized and altered to help bring about change? How do we redefine difference for all women? It is not our differences which separate women, but our reluctance to recognize those differences and to deal effectively with the distortion which have resulted from the ignoring and misnaming of those differences. All of us have had to learn to live or work Or coexist with men from our fathers on. We have recognized and negotiated this differences, even when this recognition only continued the old dominant/subordinate mode of human relationship, where the oppressed must recognize the masters’ difference in order to survive. But our future survival predicated upon our ability to relate within equality. As women we must root our internalize patterns of oppression within ourselves if we are to move beyond the most superficial aspects of social change. Now we must recognize differences among women who are our equals, neither inferior nor superior, and devise ways to each to others’ difference to enrich our visions and our joint struggles. ⁃ The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures. ⁃ Learning from the 60s When we disagreed with one another about the solution to a particular problem, we were often far more vicious to each other than to the originators of our common problem. We forget that the necessary ingredients needed to make the past work for the future is our energy in the present, metabolizing one into the other. Continuity does not happen automatically, nor is it a passive process. That is how I learned that if I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive. My poetry, my life, my work, my energies for struggle were not acceptable unless I pretended to match somebody’s else’s norm. I learned that not only couldn’t I succeed at that game, but the energy needed for that masquerade would be lost to my work. We are functioning under government ready to repeat in El Salvador and Nicaragua the tragedy of Vietnam, a government which stands on the wrong side of every single battle for liberation taking place upon this globe. Decisions to cut aid for the terminally eel, for the elderly, for dependent children, for food stamps, even school lunches, are being made by men with full stomachs who live in comfortable houses with two cars and umpteen tax shelters. None of them go hungry to bed at night. Recently, it was suggested that senior citizens be hired to work in atomic plants because they’re close to the end of their lives anyway. Revolution is not a one time event. It is becoming always vigilant for the smallest opportunity to make a genuine change in established, outgrown responses; for instants, it is learning to address each other’s difference with respect. You do not have to be me in order for us to fight alongside each other.I do not have to be you to recognize that they were Warriors are the same.what we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future it with the particular strength of our individual identities dot and the other in an order to do this, we must allow each other our differences at the same time as we recognize our sameness. ⁃ Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred and Anger It is easier to deal with the external manifestations of racism and sexism then it is to deal with the results of those distortions internalized within our consciousness of ourselves and one another. Anger - a passion of displeasure that may be excessive or misplaced but not necessarily harmful. Hatred - and emotional habit or attitude of mine in which aversion is coupled with ill will. Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does. Growing up, metabolizing hatred like a daily bread. Because I’m black, because I’m a woman, because I’m not black enough, because I am not some particular fantasy of a woman, because I AM. On such a consistent diet one can eventually come to value the hatred of one’s enemies more than one values the love of friends, for that hatred becomes the source of anger, and anger as a powerful fuel. Anger is useful to help clarify our differences, but in the long run, strength that is bred by anger alone as a blind fours which cannot create the future. It can only demolish the past. Such strength does not focus upon what lies ahead, but up on what lies behind, upon what created it - hatred. And hatred is a deathwish for the hated, not to a lifewish for anything else. For example: At this point in time, were racism to be totally eradicated from those middle range relationships between black women and white women, those relationships might become deeper, but they would still never satisfy our particular black woman’s need for one another, given our shared knowledge and traditions and history. There are two very different struggles involved here. One is the war against racism in white people, and the other is the need for black women to confront and wade through the racist constructs underlying our deprivation of each other. and this battles are not at all the same. Most of the black women I know think I cry too much, or that I am to public about it. I’ve been told that crying makes me seem soft and therefore of little consequence. As if our softness has to be the price we pay out for power, rather than simply the one that’s paid most easily and most often. “Don’t trust white people because they mean us no good and don’t trust anyone darker than you because they are hearts are as black as their faces.” (And where did that leave me, the darkest one?) it is painful even now to write it down. How many messages like that come down to all of us, and in how many different voices, how many different ways? And how can we expunge these messages from our consciousness without first recognizing what it was they were saying, and how destructive they were? When there is no connection at all between people, then anger is a way of bringing them closer together, of making contact. but when there is a great deal of connectedness that is problematic or threatening or acknowledged, then anger is a way of keeping people separate and putting distance between us. That’s because we sometimes rise to each other‘s defense against outsiders, we do not need to look at devaluation and dismissal among ourselves. Support against outsider is very different from cherishing each other. We refused to give up the artificial distances between us, or to examine all real differences for creative exchange. I am too different for us to communicate. Meaning, I must establish myself as not you. And the road to anger is paid with our unexpressed fear of each other’s judgment. ⁃ Grenada Revisited: An Interim Report This short, undeclared, and cynical weren’t against Granada is not a new direction for American foreign policy. It is merely a blatant example of 160 year old course of action called the Monroe doctrine. In its name America has invaded small Caribbean and Central American countries over and over again since 1823, cloaking this invasion is under a variety of names. 38 such invasion secured prior to 1917 before the Soviet Union even existed. I am only a relative. I must listen long and hard and ponder the implications of what I have heard, or be guilty of the same quick arrogance of the US government in believing their external solutions to Granados future.

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cyl2-moved · 5 years

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alright so i didn’t really agree with what tier lists were saying about certain fgo servants so i made my own one ! you’re welcome to disagree, of course, but this is what i think should make up the fgo five star tier list

S: makes any team better, 100% desirable, meta breaking

A: well built and capable of carrying a team

B: good team addition and plays well/good for one specific purpose

C: ok tier, they’re just fine tbh, deservant of 5 star status but on thin ice

D: straight up should’ve been a 4 star

EX: servants that i’ve heard of only in legend

*note: this is for the na server as of january 2019, i could honestly give less of a shit about jp

**note: berserkers gain a bit of fluidity because their one purpose is to kill and any zerk that can do that is good (< that’s all zerks btw)

***note: all 5 stars are worth levelling up, they’re all really good. don’t burn them please

****note: i don’t claim to know everything about fgo, this list isn’t the gospel

S TIER:

MERLIN (caster): ok y’all saw this one coming but basically merlin is fucking amazing. he can really fit on any team set up he wants to and he’s a prime example of what a good caster should be. i don’t think i need to explain this entry. moving on.

JEANNE D’ARC ALTER (avenger): jalter is probably the best buster based servant you can summon in the na server right now and was a complete powerhouse until merlin showed up. if you want a reliable servant that can do just about anything without fail i suggest her if you ever get lucky enough to summon her

FIRST HASSAN (assassin): normally gramps isn’t listed with these two, but if you’ve ever used him chances are you can atleast somewhat see where i’m coming from here. this man is a BEAST, his singularity track record should be proof of that (y’know, because he stole the show in a whole ass two of them). he can’t fit into any team like the first two but he can destroy like nobody’s fucking business. summon him if you get the chance

A TIER:

MIYAMOTO MUSASHI (saber): musashi is a saber focused in single target buster damage, and her skills and np allow her to go above with this focus. at the moment i’d say she’s probably the best saber available because her np, skills, and deck match so well. \

NERO BRIDE (saber): i forgot her and i’m only just now adding her in so whoops but basically she’s one of the only arts sabers that’s actually good and has a good and spammable np.

GILGAMESH (archer): he’s an anti army buster focus who has a noble phantasm that only six servants in the game so far aren’t weak to. he’s kind of a lancer pincushion but just don’t send him out into battles with lancers. there you go.

ISHTAR (archer): ishtar doesn’t have the same np effect as gil but other than that she’s a fairly good replacement for him, not to mention she has a slightly higher hp value than him

BRYNHILDR (lancer): brynhildr would probably be lower on this list if it weren’t for her sparse availability and trait that affects most male and some female servants in the game. she’s probably the best lancer in the game because of those two reasons, but all lancers are safe bets tbh

OZYMANDIAS (rider): ozymandias is amazing at spamming buster cards and has a particularly great np, great for boss battles. also he’s hot

QUETZALCOATL (rider): basically the same as ozy here except with a more specifically buster deck. also she’s hot

ZHUGE LIANG (caster): a lot of people categorize him with merlin and to those people i have to ask: have you ever played this game? waver comes close, but don’t act like people didn’t throw him to the side the exact moment merlin came out. open your eyes you absolute fools

XUANZANG SANZANG (caster): this one has a twinge of personal bias but seeing as she’s a caster but has the highest atk of all of my servants atm. also she’s hot, but she’s one of the only casters in the game right now that’s somewhat buster based and can make a buster brave chain which her np (which is kinda rare for casters). she can fit into really any team composition without too much issue and has a rather high survivability rate

JACK THE RIPPER (assassin): contrary to brynhildr, jack got higher on this list almost specifically because of her availability. she’s a really good assassin that’s rather easy to get (well, considering she’s a five star). the one bane i can think of is that she’s not very team compatible, but she’ll do just fine regardless. get her going with quick chains and she will absolutely obliterate

CU CHULAINN ALTER (berserker): just wanna start out by saying he’s still one of the most powerful berserkers in the jp server. AND he’s easily available. do i really fucking have to say anything else? (protection from arrows lol)

MINAMOTO NO RAIKOU (berserker): mom’s deck is set up a bit differently from other berserkers’, having more arts and quick card than most of them. does that stop her from utterly obliterating everything in her path? nope, not at all, in fact, it only helps. her quick and arts card charge her buster np, which is a wave clear that RAINS crit stars, that only help her kill more later. conclusion: she’s an absolute goddess

JEANNE D’ARC (ruler): jeanne d’arc only really made it to this part of the list because you can get her really easily and she’s absolutely amazing on arts stall teams. as well and good as this is, though, she only really reaches her good points in her final ascension and is kind of hard to use before this. i wouldn’t suggest using her if you’re a starter player, heads up

B TIER:

OKITA SOUJI (saber): okita was placed lower on this list than i’d like her to be but because of her quick based status i kinda had to. there’s going to be a lot of this going on especially later in the list, but quick servants don’t see the light of day until skadi comes around, which is going to be mid 2020 for us na players unless fgo gets destroyed before then. the only servant that really got away with the quick niche was jack because she’s self sustaining if she needs to be, but okita’s deck doesn’t really let her do that. despite this, okita’s still amazing, and i highly suggest rolling for her

ARTORIA ARCHER (archer): summer artoria serves as an amazing arts archer that does wonders with her single target arts np that brings up her np gauge up almost immediately after it’s done, meaning you can spam her np whenever. she’s pretty great for arts team and not very versatile elsewhere, but you’re in for a treat when you use her

SCATHACH (lancer): OF COURSE scathach was going to be fairly high on this list, she’s one of the best lancers to date. her quick deck brought her down a bit here, but she’s a reliable servant that can fit into any team composition with little issue and has a powerful np. what else could you want

ARTORIA LANCER (lancer): honestly lartoria is high on the list for flexing and little else, but she serves as a powerful buster servant that has a pretty good wave clear np. the rest of the reason she’s up here is personal bias and i’m not scared to admit that, also she’s on a horse

TAMAMO LANCER (lancer): lanmamo is a kinda surprising servant tbh, she doubles in buster and quick and does amazing in both and has an especially high hp stat, something i wouldn’t expect from a quick/buster decked servant. honestly, you really can’t go wrong with summer servants tbh, they’re all really good

QUEEN MEDB (rider): i’m SICK of people shitting on medb. she’s fucking great. she’s a buster main that’s a crit star sponge and has a fairly good single target np. bring her into a caster boss battle and she will fuck the life out of the opponent, i guarantee it

TAMAMO NO MAE (caster): mikon is an amazing caster who sadly doesn’t really hold up to those in the higher tiers, but has skills that work great for any team and is practically the god of any arts stall team you ever might think of making. also she’s hot

LEONARDO DA VINCI (caster): da vinci doesn’t really hold up to tamamo, but i still think she deserves a spot in this tier. she has a pretty varied deck that can fit in with really any team and has a pretty powerful wave clear np. she’s a great caster, no doubt, but in a point in time when this game is practically dominated by merlin, she really doesn’t hold up as much as the others

CLEOPATRA (assassin): cleo is an exceptionally good buster based assassin with an anti army np which is really effective. she makes for a fairly good farming servant and can hold out for a while in boss battles as well

SAKATA KINTOKI (berserker): sakata has gotten strangely a bad rep from the fandom but is overhyped by the game, which is weird to me, but whatever. he’s probably the most powerful berserker atk wise, but can only really survive for three turns before dying no matter what you do. as far as servants go, he’s not as good as the game hypes him up to be and he’s not as bad as the fanbase makes him out to be.

AMAKUSA SHIROU (ruler): amakusa really only got up here because he’s one of the only four extra class five stars in the game right now, and as a servant he’s okay. he’d be a lot worse if he were a normal unit that had a class disadvantage that was common, but since he’s practically untouchable as a ruler he gets a spot up here

C TIER:

ARTORIA (saber): artoria has a rather bad reputation among tier lists because of her basic deck, basic np, shit skills … but her blandness only makes her increasingly compatible with other team setups. you can really stick her anywhere and she’ll do fine, and if she’s set up right she can become a really good servant. y’all are just lazy and mean

MORDRED (saber): mordred got kind of the same treatment as her dad but with more buster and slightly better skills, so if this tier list had a lot more specific tiers mordred would probably be above her. however, this isn’t, i’m too lazy for that. mordred is really just a slightly more atk based artoria

ARJUNA (archer): arjuna’s good, no doubt, but his competition out of the five star archer pool is hard to match up with. he’s definitely the best archer in the story mode gacha, but as an arts archer that can’t spam his np as artoria archer, he’s a bit dead in the water

ORION (archer): orion has the same problems as arjuna but with an added fuck you because of that extra quick card. if you have her i hope you have fun beating the absolute shit out of gawain

KARNA (lancer): karna’s an amazing buster servant, but the lancer pool is just really fucking good. he excels in buster but got that quick fuck you just like orion. i don’t really have much to say tbh, he’s good

ENKIDU (lancer): enkidu excels in quicks and didn’t pussy out like orion and karna, and if this were the non-merlin era he’d be higher on this list. sadly, since arts is dominating, he’ll have to wait a bit, but soon ...

FRANCIS DRAKE (rider): i really like francis, i do, but compared to the other riders she’s really just a farming servant. she can be a good main rider if you really want her to be but her np is almost made for farming. her np is the exact example of a farming np. next

ILLYA VON EINZBERN (caster): news flash but she’s not really as good as everyone hyped her up to be. she has a bit of a confusing deck (why does she have one buster card but a buster np!?!) and no clear niche so like … is her fame only because of that anime she’s in or what. chloe’s better

SHUTEN DOUJI (assassin): shuten has an arts based deck that doesn’t really fit her as an assassin and doesn’t have a very powerful np but otherwise is a good and reliable servant. She can just about survive anything and has been the cause of many of my clutches. thanks shuten

VLAD III (berserker): vlad excels in arts teams and is an amazing arts unit, but he would’ve shined if he was released later. because he was the first five star berserker released and non limited (unlike sakata) he defied a standard for berserkers before berserker standards were even set, and it didn’t come out well

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (berserker): florence honestly would’ve been better if she wasn’t released at the same time as cu alter, who’s a goddamn beast, and if her concept wasn’t so mismatched. her deck and skillset is kinda weirdly put together and doesn’t flow as well as raikou’s. she’s wasted potential, really.

D TIER:

ALTERA (saber): honestly i think people hype up altera too much, she’s good but could easily be replaced by a four star imo. at her best she’s just an artoria remake sorry

NIKOLA TESLA (archer): his deck and skill set and np are fine? he just really doesn’t have a proper use. he fits into any team but in a way in which that team has to kinda carry him and he’s ugly. that’s all

MYSTERIOUS HEROINE X (assassin): mhx is a good assassin, especially since there are only a few you can really choose from, but she’s more of a trophy than anything. it’s cool to have her, and again, she’s fine, but she doesn’t really match up to the other assassins in the game, especially jack, who’s more easily accessible and self sufficient. also it doesn’t make sense why she’s an assassin if she’s a saber killer (just be an archer!!!!) but w/e

EDMOND DANTES (avenger): let me explain first. please. ok, so edmond is good by most standards, especially because he’s an extra class which means he’s basically untouchable by most everyone except for bb when she rears her ugly head in may. but what sucks about him is that he was released as sort of a avengers test before jalter? idk how to really explain it, but he’s significantly worse than jalter because they wanted to see how an avenger would hold up. not only does he not hold up to the only servant in his class by a long shot, he has the quick curse and looks exactly the fuck like komaeda. he really took that l

EX TIER:

RYOUJI SHIKI (saber): fgo seems to really like her but the fanbase seems to think she;s ok at best but i’ve never seen her ever in supports in my nine months of playing this game. does she even really exist? idk. her character desc says you’re likely to never see her and i’m starting to think that’s true

ISKANDER (rider): alright i KNOW you exist and everyone loves you but i’ve never seen you either. what the ufck. where are you

anyways that’s it this took way longer than it should’ve i’m going to bed

#fgo #fate grand order #long post #sorry mobile users :(

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ladymalstroem · 7 years

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On Bioware games and female players

Expanding on that last bioware post regarding Anthem being a co-op game.

One big aspect of this whole thing that I sadly think is going to be neglected in the more mainstream gaming press is how this potentially affects the female playerbase. Keep in mind that the following is based on anecdotes and personal observations, but this is just a blog post on tumblr, so take it with a grain of salt I guess. Under a cut because holy shit this got long.

I’ve been on Tumblr since 2011, and it’s become very clear to me that Bioware games are hugely popular with women. We’re not the core audience (only about 18% played female Shepard in the ME trilogy), but we’re a significant part of it. I’ve seen several women of all ages initially get into gaming through Bioware, from teenagers to mothers in their 40′s and 50′s. In a male dominated industry and community where gameplay skill and owning the hardware is required to take part, in order to get women to play your game it is crucial that you actively invite them. David Gaider’s GDC talk from a few years back is a great take on how Bioware did so through narrative and design choices. Something as simple as letting you play as a woman goes a long way, and then expanding upon it like bioware has done (through letting you play as different sexualities with different romance options, letting you customize your appearance, having storylines that focus on characters and interpersonal problems in a fantasy or sci-fi setting, etc) makes the invitation even clearer.

Added to that, while old-school tactical RPGs may have felt inaccessible to new players, the more stripped down cinematic action-RPG genre that Bioware developed with their newer titles is forgiving enough for someone who hasn’t built up decades of gaming literacy, something that often applies to women as we’ve historically been excluded from the gaming community as a whole.

The third aspect of this is the single player focus. Single player allows you to play at your own pace and learn as you go. You can explore the mechanics and story as much or as little as you like, you can prioritize the things that interest you and ignore the things that don’t. You never have an obligation to anyone else to perform well or keep up the pace. The gaming community has long had a problem with how female players are treated, and many women prefer to stay completely away from multiplayer for this reason. Even in MP games that make an effort to invite us, like Overwatch, you constantly see women who are afraid to talk in comms because they don’t want to be harassed. I’ve been in a pretty big discord server for female gamers for a while now, and you see this sentiment all the time. Statistically we have less experience, and therefore less confidence in our abilities. Even though many women enjoy MP and will play it often, many consider SP to be a less stressfull experience, somewhere they can escape to and play safely in.

For me, as an ESL kid growing up, I didn’t realise how powerful a story-driven game could be until I became a little older and learned english. I had my fun with games before that, but it was when I picked up Jade Empire at 13 that I really got spellbound by a game from the first time. I was lucky, in that I had a dad and older brother who introduced me to games and were supportive of me pursuing it as a hobby. A lot of women come into it later, because they never had something like that growing up, back when games were exclusively marketed towards boys.

Bioware has been a unique voice in the AAA industry in terms of representing women, LGBT people and people of color. They’ve had to face a lot of bullshit accusations for it, and sometimes their effort to please hasn’t resulted in the best situations, but nonetheless their games resonate strongly with women. Women are largely the ones taking active part in the creative fandom, the ones who spend countless hours writing fanfic and drawing fanart for the games, coordinating community events, the ones who will replay the games over and over because there are no other experiences out there like them.

This isn’t to say that women won’t enjoy Anthem, or are too frail to seek out experiences where we’re not the target audience, but many of us have a deep attatchment to the kind of specific character-driven single player RPGs that Bioware is known for. With Mass Effect on ice and the Montreal team severely downsized, that’s one of their SP franchises down. We can’t know for certain anymore that Bioware will continue to produce the kind of SP experiences that gained them its large female fanbase in the first place.

Anthem being a multiplayer game may alienate a lot of RPG fans, not just women. But women may have even more reason to feel like they’re losing something important to them, given Bioware’s role in introducing so many of us to gaming in the first place, telling us that our preferences and tastes matter in an industry where we’re often ridiculed and ignored. Maybe Bioware wants to move in a different direction genre-wise, or maybe EA wants some of that Destiny cash, and none of us really have a right to say that they can’t do what they want. But the fact that so many are speaking up in near mourning over this is a testament to how invested we are in Bioware’s games. We can find similar games in the indie scene, of course. But that still puts us on the fringes of the bigger gaming industry, whereas Bioware as a triple-A developer would typically put us and our wishes front and centre, without shame or judgement. They made massive progress in including us as a wanted and respected demographic in gaming, but this shift towards multiplayer feels like they, as so many other developers, are now going for the common denominator audience to make some long term money instead of continuing in their carefully built up niche.

I hope Anthem turns out to be good because I don’t want Bioware to downsize even more. I’ll be watching the development with cautious optimism, because I might be totally wrong about the game’s focus and story (and I really hope I am). These are just my thoughts after having seen what little there is of Anthem so far.

#bioware #mass effect #anthem

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