Today on Street Fighter
Some eighth-rate Ryu couldn’t read or block to save his life. He yelled at me over the mic the entire match saying, “Dude, you just lost all respect from me. Quit playing like an asshole.”
Here’s a list of things he had never heard of:
- Throw techs
- Frame traps
- Safe jumps
- Guy, a character who’s existed in fighting games for 23 years
After he ragequit he sent me a Steam invite, which I accepted because I was mad and I wanted to tell him how much of a baby he was. He then left a comment on my wall saying, “dude has no respect. -rep”, and blocked me immediately afterwards. Hey, at least he can say he knows how to block!
I’m really upset about it. I’m not upset because he ragequit, and not because he spent all of his energy in the match by verbally abusing me instead of focusing on playing. What upset me was his resolution to refer to me as a dude. Seriously, what the fuck? My profile name was “marina”. How do you construe that to be a male name? Do people really think that my username is a reference to boats? Gamer boys are idiots and should learn manners before touching controllers.
Like, I understand what I’m getting into. This is ranked Street Fighter IV on PC. Most of the game’s players are veterans who just absolutely tank my rank, and I switch between characters almost on a daily basis, so I can imagine that it comes as a surprise to people that my low score is not actually indicative of my skill and experience in fighting games. However, if you’re seriously coming up to me with a garbage Ryu and E. Ryu, and expecting me to have no idea what either of those characters do, then you’re a buffoon. I’m so fucking mad! Just tech my throws and stop jumping you fucking idiot! Every time he jumped he would grunt into the mic as if he wasn’t expecting to eat the fourth standing roundhouse in a row! God damn it!
Maybe I shouldn’t be so fragile. Someone misgendering me shouldn’t make my blood boil. It does, though. I’m playing this stupid decade-old game because I hate myself and because nothing gets my brain pumping dopamine better than fighting games. I’m going through a lot of emotional issues right now, namely depression and anxiety. Okay, so that’s basically “always”, but fighting games are supposed to help me unwind. Zoning out with some buttons is a genuinely cathartic experience until I realize that a real persons exists on the other end of the connection.
Men in fighting games will be terrible for a very, very long time. They’re the kind of people who let me log onto fightcade to immediately see this:
I will never be able to use my mic in online games. I will usually get called one or both of two particular slurs. Men who play fighting games love to mock people like me. Some of the best Guilty Gear players in the US are trans women. That gives me so much inspiration. It’s incredibly uplifting. But there can never just be a good thing in a community without a large portion of it getting fucked over.
My greatest hope is that someday, processing power and development resources can host game AI indistinguishable from humans, so that I never have to delve into the grimy shit caverns again.
