AustLit

'Videogames commonly represent dominant identities as a default: white, male, cisgender, heterosexual, and able-bodied. But with greater acceptance of game texts as artefacts worthy of analysis, and increased accessibility of game-tools so that marginalised creators can use the medium to tell their story, diversity in games has been increasing. Discussions around this resulting diversity often highlight whether a depiction is ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, which does not allow creators or consumers to consider identity in a nuanced way. This paper proposes six categories that can be used as lenses for examining representations when writing and analysing videogame texts: central and incidental; explicit and implicit; and fixed and player-centric. By using examples of the ways my creative output represents queerness within games, and comparing these to other existing texts, this paper demonstrates how nuanced narratives can be produced at the intersections of these categories, and how this framework can be used across multiple mediums to increase and diversify representation.'  (Publication abstract)

'Fairy tales rely on conventions that perpetuate heteropatriarchal ideals, which makes this an apt genre for deliberate modification to better represent queer perspectives. This article surveys queer reimaginings of the fairy tale published between 1997 and 2010, identifying several problems with representations of queerness and sexuality in existing literature. This canon often works to distance and marginalise those who do not fit the dominant stereotype of a monosexual identity. Further, the frequent depiction of explicit sexual acts, violent and unhealthy relationships, and inappropriate language has worked to exclude young adult audiences. In this article, I identify a growing but still relatively small field of new queer fairy tale literature directed at young adults since 2015: texts that tend to posit the importance of self-identification. Nuanced representations of queer characters in recent young adult fiction make space for the lived experiences of queer youth and have the potential to influence future queer reimaginings of fairy tales, as well as to challenge heteropatriarchal conventions in other genres.' (Publication abstract)

'In game studies, ‘agency’ is typically defined in terms of the ‘choices’ or ‘freedom’ granted to the player, which prioritises the influence of ludology on player engagement while discounting the impact of narratology (Tanenbaum & Tanenbaum 2010: 11). Alternative approaches to agency in games are under-theorised but equally important. This paper explores how player agency extends beyond in-game choices to their individual understanding and interpretation of a text, and how this form of player agency is equally evident in creative writing texts and other narrative mediums. Furthermore, this paper considers the understandings of ‘character agency’ that have been established in traditional creative writing and considers how this form of agency can influence our understanding of narrative in games. Character agency – and the autonomy of characters that it implies – engages an audience in the motivations of characters they (seemingly) do not control, and practitioners should consider how player agency intersects with the agency of non-player-characters (NPCs) if we are to understand the multi-faceted relationships audiences have with game narratives. This paper explores the ways game studies can engage with a broader consideration of agency, and how narrative is improved by the intersection of these approaches.' (Publication abstract)