STOP SAYING GATE

 

I’ve been on a crusade for a long time now, since the moment I realized the error of my own ways not a few short years ago. Not all holy wars are worth waging, but for this one I will die crucified upon my hill, flayed open for all to see. It is today I finally put pen to paper in hopes to draw you to my ranks, to fight against the horrors of convoluted Weiss terminology, and hopefully make the community a better place for all players, new and old. 

For the love of Christ in cancels above, will you please stop calling this climax “Gate”?

You all know what it does. It’s the red climax trigger that salvages a character when revealed off a trigger check. Its been a staple of the game since its inception, appearing in even the earliest sets like DC, P3, and Little Busters. Its official name is “Comeback”, and unless your name is Connor Pelham, that word has never once left your lips in the context of this game. Instead, it’s been colloquially referred to by the community by not one, but two different terms: “Door” and “Gate”. The reason for the double terminology isn’t exactly clear, but people from all different parts of the world, online or otherwise, likely looked at the trigger icon and came to one of those conclusions. While I might personally knee-jerk call this little picture a “door”, I can see a universe where someone might think that it’s an open “gate”. However, this introduces a little bit of a problem; there’s another climax trigger that’s also called “Gate”, this time officially.

You know, the one that salvages a climax from your waiting room, not a character? The one that’s a completely different color and effect from the one people also call “door”, also uniquely having a soul trigger? Some people also call this one “pants”, or even “arc”. Yeah, that one. 

Well, easy fix! We wouldn’t want an official term clashing with our community one, especially for something as important as a climax trigger, so we’ll agree as a community to refer to Comeback trigger as “Door” and Gate trigger as “Gate”, “Pants”, “Arc” or whatever, so that there isn’t a naming conflict. Simple solution, right?

WRONG.

Enter the stupidest, longest-running terminology debate to unfortunately grace our community. There are still people out there who staunchly insist that we need to keep calling Comeback trigger “Gate”, with a litany of reasons that never address the core issue of there being a literal term overlap. I’m going to quickly run through the few, simple reasons why you should immediately stop using the word “Gate” for the red, character-salvaging climax trigger, and use the easy, unique “Door” instead.

1. It adds unnecessary confusion to an already confusing game

Weiss is hard to learn, hard to teach, and hard to improve at. Being assaulted with a billion different necessary community terms doesn’t make these things any easier. Learning the colloquialism for a trigger as one name, then going out of the area and having everyone call it something else adds confusion to a game that’s already confusing. If you just use “Door” for the Comeback trigger, it doesn’t matter what someone decides to call blue “Gate”, because there’s no possible overlap in the community and official terms. 

2. Make the game easier to learn and talk about, not harder!

This riffs on the first point pretty closely, but it’s still something I want to call out. As Weiss gets more and more popular with titles like hololive, RWBY, and the newly announced ATLA bringing people into the game in droves, it’s important to make things as consistent and digestible as possible for these newer folks. When there’s a stupid terminology war happening while people are trying to get help, it doesn’t help anyone involved. A new player coming into a Discord asking about how to improve their “8 Gate Seven Deadly Sins” deck shouldn’t have to prodded to answer if they are talking about “red or blue Gate”. Everyone should instantly know they’re talking about blue Gate.

3. Well ackshully Carmen, blue “Gate” trigger is newer than red “Ga…”

Stop being a boomer. That was like in 2013 with Prillya or some shit. It’s 2022. If you can get used to Bushiroad changing the refresh rule like they did a few weeks ago so fast, you can start calling the Comeback trigger “Door” quickly too. 🙂

STOP SAYING GATE FOR DOOR

I’ve been pretty harsh here to “red Gate” users but I don’t mean any ill will; this is just something I’ve noticed while traversing WS social media and thought that it needed to be addressed. With how much Weiss stands to grow in the coming years, moving towards clearer and more consistent terms would be a great step forward. The Door crusades couldn’t be easier to join, just start using it yourself!

- Carmen (@Beanwolf)

P.S. I’ll make good on my promise too: if I can go a whole week without someone using “red Gate,” for the Comeback trigger, I’ll start using “Fukaziroh” for level 1+ Chiyuris.