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[So, after some sober reflection, I realized that I said some things in this post that I would prefer a public audience not know about me. Alors consider this an official redaction. Don't worry, future reader, you're not missing out on anything particularly illuminating, and if any espritdecalmar canonistas are absolutely salivating over the prospect of official squidlore, feel free to message me and we can talk.]
From its Kickstarter inception, Beast has been criticized on multiple fronts, for a number of reasons. I am not writing here to defend them all. I cannot. This is a futile and foolish endeavor. The reasons for liking or disliking a work are often multitudinous and personal, and I am no Truman Capote. I would, however, like to examine one particular blandishment contra the gameline, one which I feel has been treated unfairly within the context that it has been received. I am, of course, speaking of Beasts as a metaphor for marginalized communities.
The Begotten have special needs that run counter to those of mortals. To be a Beast means to inflict fear, pain, suffering, garmonbozia on the humans surrounding one's domicile. This cannot be avoided in a game of B:TP except in special circumstances, and even then, that is more of a matter of passing the buck onto another creature of the night, putting a new pressure onto the Masquerade, the Siskur-Dah, the what-have-you. Beasts need monsters. They empower them, of course, but yet also, without them, they must resort to sowing terror. This is why the Begotten, je crois, are so obsessed with the concept of family, of supernatural family, family that isn't of direct blood, but of secret, sympathetic ties. Family that is, to borrow a nauseating term, "fam."
[This is also redacted. Sorry rememberists. Oh hey check out Axolotl by The Veils. That's a dope ass song.]
The criticism of Beast as a game about marginalized peoples is an understandable one: You play as a person who is forced to live apart from the majority, who is hunted down by those who think they know best, who reinforce a narrative of heroism versus the monsters of the dark. It would be palatable if not for the fear angle. Monsterhearts (by Avery Adler, a game I wholeheartedly implore you, dear reader, to at least examine en passant) accomplishes this angle with elegance and panache, wearing as it does its carotid vessel on its sleeve. The problem, or the criticism, here, as mentioned, is that Beasts must commit ostensibly immoral acts in order to survive. Hence the point of contention, hence, once again, queer people, ethnic minorities, the disabled, being reduced to the category of irredeemable monster.
I believe this to be a fair and understandable criticism, one that at least deserves some examination. There is too much of a history of minorities' equation with monstrosity not to squint one's eyes and wonder in suspicion at the underlying motivations of such a narrative. Aye, but therein lies the rub, for Beast is a game whose whole elevator pitch is that the narrative has been flipped on its head, and all the blood is rushing to the wrong body parts.
There is a short webseries called The Outs, released in 2012. It is about some gay people living Brooklyn. Despite my continued stance that New York Cityites are some of the most provincial urban-hicks on the planet, there are plenty of salient, emotionally fulfilling moments in the show. I am particularly drawn to a scene in which the protagonist's boss, a rather flamboyant homosexual from one of the two Carolinas (it's been a while since I've watched) claims, in increasing fervor, that he wishes more people were homophobic, in the sense that he wishes more homophobes were literally afraid of gays rather than merely hating them, wishing them harm, etc. Causing fear in someone means having power over them.
I am sure you are all familiar (some probably much too familiar) with the shooting that recently took place in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Among the horror of this attack, quite a number of absurdities can be counted. For one, the shooter came from Australia to carry out a massacre in New Zealand. There is also the fact that he had a manifesto in which he expresses dismay at the invasion of European lands by those who come from places once deemed the Third World, despite the fact that, as one can surmise, New Zealand is quite the distance from Europe, and, in fact, as far as land taken by the English goes, has one of the more equitable relationships between colonizer and colonizee. One cannot also discount the most absurd aspect of the whole ordeal, that the shooter literally said "Subscribe to PewDiePie" before opening fire, which is probably the greatest material argument for the non-existence of God in our current times.
There is a reason, I believe, why the majority of the Heroes in the core book for Beast have a right-wing bent; ever since Columbine, this is the sort of violence in which we all truly live in fear. I used to teach on a university campus; I used to have anxiety dreams about a shooter barging into the classroom, what I would be forced to do. I also used to agonize over whether to reveal to my students my sexuality, for somewhat related reasons (with the exception maybe of that woman who really didn't like Mondays, most mass shooters seem to be on the conservative side of the political spectrum).
Beasts hurt people, and, like Bojack Horseman, have to live with that damage. That's why they collectively cling to the idea of teaching Lessons. Whether that justifies their actions or not is really up to the reader/player to decide. Heroes have already decided which side of history they're on. This is not to say that Beast is necessarily a leftist political exercise (I once came up with a radical feminist Hero who was convinced that all Beasts were responsible for the patriarchy, and I think she worked quite well for what I needed her to be), but I think the current climate has been an ideal breeding ground for what Beast is, for what Beast wants to be.
I'm not a monster, but there are people who think I am one. And I'm one of the more privileged types, at that. I can't speak for the vast majority of marginalized, threatened peoples, but I can speak from my own experience, and what I think Beast is getting at, in its own, perhaps problematic way, is that when you try to live your life in a manner that runs counter to the dominant narrative, there will always be people who will hate you for it. But Beast also says that there's power in that. It's perverse, maybe, but I actually [oh fuck this part is definitely getting redacted] I don't know, and also I don't care. I recall back when Beast was first previewed with a snippet of short fiction, someone criticized the game's concept as a bully revenge fantasy, but that's certainly short-sighted. Plenty of people are bullied who don't turn into school shooters, and that's not what Beast is about. I think Beast, contrary to what its detractors claim, operates at its best when one embraces the metaphor of the marginalized. This doesn't have to be a one-for-one correspondence, the Begotten don't have to be Muslim or trans or Chicano in order to serve its themes, but when it comes to the idea of Family, and that in sub-optimal situations one has to ally oneself with those with whom one has very little in common beyond a tenuous shared identity, powerful stories can be told.
From its Kickstarter inception, Beast has been criticized on multiple fronts, for a number of reasons. I am not writing here to defend them all. I cannot. This is a futile and foolish endeavor. The reasons for liking or disliking a work are often multitudinous and personal, and I am no Truman Capote. I would, however, like to examine one particular blandishment contra the gameline, one which I feel has been treated unfairly within the context that it has been received. I am, of course, speaking of Beasts as a metaphor for marginalized communities.
The Begotten have special needs that run counter to those of mortals. To be a Beast means to inflict fear, pain, suffering, garmonbozia on the humans surrounding one's domicile. This cannot be avoided in a game of B:TP except in special circumstances, and even then, that is more of a matter of passing the buck onto another creature of the night, putting a new pressure onto the Masquerade, the Siskur-Dah, the what-have-you. Beasts need monsters. They empower them, of course, but yet also, without them, they must resort to sowing terror. This is why the Begotten, je crois, are so obsessed with the concept of family, of supernatural family, family that isn't of direct blood, but of secret, sympathetic ties. Family that is, to borrow a nauseating term, "fam."
[This is also redacted. Sorry rememberists. Oh hey check out Axolotl by The Veils. That's a dope ass song.]
The criticism of Beast as a game about marginalized peoples is an understandable one: You play as a person who is forced to live apart from the majority, who is hunted down by those who think they know best, who reinforce a narrative of heroism versus the monsters of the dark. It would be palatable if not for the fear angle. Monsterhearts (by Avery Adler, a game I wholeheartedly implore you, dear reader, to at least examine en passant) accomplishes this angle with elegance and panache, wearing as it does its carotid vessel on its sleeve. The problem, or the criticism, here, as mentioned, is that Beasts must commit ostensibly immoral acts in order to survive. Hence the point of contention, hence, once again, queer people, ethnic minorities, the disabled, being reduced to the category of irredeemable monster.
I believe this to be a fair and understandable criticism, one that at least deserves some examination. There is too much of a history of minorities' equation with monstrosity not to squint one's eyes and wonder in suspicion at the underlying motivations of such a narrative. Aye, but therein lies the rub, for Beast is a game whose whole elevator pitch is that the narrative has been flipped on its head, and all the blood is rushing to the wrong body parts.
There is a short webseries called The Outs, released in 2012. It is about some gay people living Brooklyn. Despite my continued stance that New York Cityites are some of the most provincial urban-hicks on the planet, there are plenty of salient, emotionally fulfilling moments in the show. I am particularly drawn to a scene in which the protagonist's boss, a rather flamboyant homosexual from one of the two Carolinas (it's been a while since I've watched) claims, in increasing fervor, that he wishes more people were homophobic, in the sense that he wishes more homophobes were literally afraid of gays rather than merely hating them, wishing them harm, etc. Causing fear in someone means having power over them.
I am sure you are all familiar (some probably much too familiar) with the shooting that recently took place in a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. Among the horror of this attack, quite a number of absurdities can be counted. For one, the shooter came from Australia to carry out a massacre in New Zealand. There is also the fact that he had a manifesto in which he expresses dismay at the invasion of European lands by those who come from places once deemed the Third World, despite the fact that, as one can surmise, New Zealand is quite the distance from Europe, and, in fact, as far as land taken by the English goes, has one of the more equitable relationships between colonizer and colonizee. One cannot also discount the most absurd aspect of the whole ordeal, that the shooter literally said "Subscribe to PewDiePie" before opening fire, which is probably the greatest material argument for the non-existence of God in our current times.
There is a reason, I believe, why the majority of the Heroes in the core book for Beast have a right-wing bent; ever since Columbine, this is the sort of violence in which we all truly live in fear. I used to teach on a university campus; I used to have anxiety dreams about a shooter barging into the classroom, what I would be forced to do. I also used to agonize over whether to reveal to my students my sexuality, for somewhat related reasons (with the exception maybe of that woman who really didn't like Mondays, most mass shooters seem to be on the conservative side of the political spectrum).
Beasts hurt people, and, like Bojack Horseman, have to live with that damage. That's why they collectively cling to the idea of teaching Lessons. Whether that justifies their actions or not is really up to the reader/player to decide. Heroes have already decided which side of history they're on. This is not to say that Beast is necessarily a leftist political exercise (I once came up with a radical feminist Hero who was convinced that all Beasts were responsible for the patriarchy, and I think she worked quite well for what I needed her to be), but I think the current climate has been an ideal breeding ground for what Beast is, for what Beast wants to be.
I'm not a monster, but there are people who think I am one. And I'm one of the more privileged types, at that. I can't speak for the vast majority of marginalized, threatened peoples, but I can speak from my own experience, and what I think Beast is getting at, in its own, perhaps problematic way, is that when you try to live your life in a manner that runs counter to the dominant narrative, there will always be people who will hate you for it. But Beast also says that there's power in that. It's perverse, maybe, but I actually [oh fuck this part is definitely getting redacted] I don't know, and also I don't care. I recall back when Beast was first previewed with a snippet of short fiction, someone criticized the game's concept as a bully revenge fantasy, but that's certainly short-sighted. Plenty of people are bullied who don't turn into school shooters, and that's not what Beast is about. I think Beast, contrary to what its detractors claim, operates at its best when one embraces the metaphor of the marginalized. This doesn't have to be a one-for-one correspondence, the Begotten don't have to be Muslim or trans or Chicano in order to serve its themes, but when it comes to the idea of Family, and that in sub-optimal situations one has to ally oneself with those with whom one has very little in common beyond a tenuous shared identity, powerful stories can be told.
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