Something important to remember is that even though the intention with games like that is to identify with the character you’re creating people don’t often play games as they are intended (if they did would modding games be as popular as it is?). So the argument framed in the 4th panel, despite it being framed as invalid or shaky is actually a valid argument because if people are using mechanics in ways that aren’t intended, then it’s only natural this would be one of them. Let’s face it, not everyone identifies with the characters in the game and they may want to satiate their attraction rather than to identify as the character, this is a common sentiment in 3rd person games where the character is being looked at from the outside, AKA a perspective that isn’t you.
Another thing about this is aesthetics, because people can like things that are seen as feminine without actually being girls, people like this who identify as male are femboys, and they are valid as they identify. Unfortunately most games out there which have the courtesy to offer the luxury of character creation, don’t offer gender-nonconformity as well. So this is another reason to violate intended use case. So 2 and 3 are very much valid use cases.
All in all this isn’t the worst thing but I’m not really a fan. There’s many reasons someone can use avatars in games that are different from their own sex and gender, the way this is framed makes it seem like it automatically means that you must be trans. In addition this mentality is a double standard since it obviously never applied to the many female gamers before gender selection was implemented as widely as it is now, I mean them playing as a boy doesn’t make them a boy now does it.
Also the attitude of “oh ho ho that’s not very cis of you” does not come across as respecting the egg prime directive very much, but also at the same time doesn’t come across as outright disrespecting it.
Like I said in an earlier comment, I interpret these comics as less about egging other people, and more about a person interrogating their own denial. Not everyone who plays as a girl is secretly a girl(I played as a guy growing up, and still ended up being a girl). It’s a reflection of the excuses she used herself. Many people genuinely do play as girls just to stare at them, but for transbians like Paxiti, it wasn’t justabout ogling hot women.
Part of why Pas doesn’t post anymore is that people assumed she was making comics that speak to some Universal Trans ExperienceTM. All she ever did was post comics that were true to her own experience. There is no one way to experience any sort of social identity, yet we often assume just that. This exactly what Audre Lorde critiqued in civil rights movements, and why intersectionality is so important. This is Paxiti’s truth, not a truth for everyone on earth.
That is very true, there is no one universal experience. I didn’t have a way of knowing for sure what the author’s intent was since on it’s own it could go either way and I have seen other people post messages that legitimately do claim to impose gender expectations on people in that kind of way. It’s good to know that she didn’t mean it that way, though it also is very sad that so many people continued to misinterpret her to the point that she had to stop posting.
Something important to remember is that even though the intention with games like that is to identify with the character you’re creating people don’t often play games as they are intended (if they did would modding games be as popular as it is?). So the argument framed in the 4th panel, despite it being framed as invalid or shaky is actually a valid argument because if people are using mechanics in ways that aren’t intended, then it’s only natural this would be one of them. Let’s face it, not everyone identifies with the characters in the game and they may want to satiate their attraction rather than to identify as the character, this is a common sentiment in 3rd person games where the character is being looked at from the outside, AKA a perspective that isn’t you.
Another thing about this is aesthetics, because people can like things that are seen as feminine without actually being girls, people like this who identify as male are femboys, and they are valid as they identify. Unfortunately most games out there which have the courtesy to offer the luxury of character creation, don’t offer gender-nonconformity as well. So this is another reason to violate intended use case. So 2 and 3 are very much valid use cases.
All in all this isn’t the worst thing but I’m not really a fan. There’s many reasons someone can use avatars in games that are different from their own sex and gender, the way this is framed makes it seem like it automatically means that you must be trans. In addition this mentality is a double standard since it obviously never applied to the many female gamers before gender selection was implemented as widely as it is now, I mean them playing as a boy doesn’t make them a boy now does it. Also the attitude of “oh ho ho that’s not very cis of you” does not come across as respecting the egg prime directive very much, but also at the same time doesn’t come across as outright disrespecting it.
Like I said in an earlier comment, I interpret these comics as less about egging other people, and more about a person interrogating their own denial. Not everyone who plays as a girl is secretly a girl(I played as a guy growing up, and still ended up being a girl). It’s a reflection of the excuses she used herself. Many people genuinely do play as girls just to stare at them, but for transbians like Paxiti, it wasn’t justabout ogling hot women.
Part of why Pas doesn’t post anymore is that people assumed she was making comics that speak to some Universal Trans ExperienceTM. All she ever did was post comics that were true to her own experience. There is no one way to experience any sort of social identity, yet we often assume just that. This exactly what Audre Lorde critiqued in civil rights movements, and why intersectionality is so important. This is Paxiti’s truth, not a truth for everyone on earth.
That is very true, there is no one universal experience. I didn’t have a way of knowing for sure what the author’s intent was since on it’s own it could go either way and I have seen other people post messages that legitimately do claim to impose gender expectations on people in that kind of way. It’s good to know that she didn’t mean it that way, though it also is very sad that so many people continued to misinterpret her to the point that she had to stop posting.