trashbang

it's suzy

@trashbang

there she is

— hitscanner apologist ⚡
— tired trans woman ⚧️☣
— not always grumpy, she just looks like that 💀
— level/environment designer 🔨
— Current work: Skin Deep (at Blendo Games) 🐈

📍 Adelaide, Australia

Private page (for friends): @garbagegrenade

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trashbang
@trashbang

Even as a closeted trans woman who (disingenuously) used the excuse myself, I never really got the whole argument of "if I have to stare at my character's ass for 1000 hours, it better be a woman!!!". The character is you, dude. For as long as you willingly engage with the fiction, that is your ass.

Like, sure, I think my FFXIV character is attractive, but she's also me. I can't objectify me. A third-person perspective doesn't just... nullify that sense of stepping into someone's shoes. It's an abstraction you look past. Video games have always had abstractions to look past. It's not gonna stop me wincing when I eat a mean tankbuster.

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garak
@garak

I think this comes down to how much you identify with your character, which is an under-acknowledged but deep divide in how players approach games. Some players view their characters as puppets they control, rather than roles they inhabit. For myself, I think I actually shift between those depending on whether the game world feels "real" (in a narrative sense) vs "cartoony," and that changes both my gameplay decisions (choosing justice vs being an amoral trickster), as well as how I customize my character.

Some people just don't get into the game in the same way. Like I think some players have to separate the setting out of their mind when they need to focus on the mechanics. I'm sure there's a whole PhD thesis someone other than me could write on it.

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Osmose
@Osmose

Yeah, my WoL is definitely not me, she's more like my OC. There is a hard-to-describe feeling of me-ness when I'm actively controlling her (which is partly because it is me from the perspective of other human players) but my WoL is solidly a different person from me in my head and my feelings when good or bad things happen to her narratively feel very much like deep empathy for another person.

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