I also enjoyed Jay's "Kiriko no PT" at one point lol it reminded me of the PT demo. which wasn't a good thing. that shit was terrifying lol

I love that anime

It's so weird though. Just call them by their hero's gender. Who cares who's actually playing them?

@@clonkex are you asking a genuine question?

@@sethescope It's rhetorical, but I'm being genuine. I'd also like to point out that it makes zero difference whether you're trans or not. I play a lot of Zarya and Ana and I'm male. Why on earth would I care if the opposing team referred to my character's gender even though it's not my own? It's so silly. I know they're not talking about my gender so we're straight back to the (rhetorical) question of "who cares?"

@@clonkex oh my god KZfaq ate my whole response to this, I'm so tilted lol unfortunately I'm going to have to rewrite it and it's not going to be as comprehensive as the first draft but I'll do my best. it actually might have eaten the second attempt too. please let me know if you don't see either and I'll try to get back to you eventually lol

@@clonkex I always ask if someone is being genuine because I don't have the time, energy, or desire to discuss trans issues with assholes lol but you don't seem like an asshole so I will do my best to explain. warning: this will involve vulnerability and honesty on my part. I don't expect you to suddenly change your mind, but I do ask that you react with respect. I can appreciate that this seems like a strange thing to care about when your experience with being a man has been different than mine. hopefully some insight into my experience will shed some light. first of all, I know people are referring to the characters I'm playing for the most part (99% of people seem to think a Mercy player must be a woman though which is fucked up for so many reasons on so many levels that I won't go into). I understand why people do it. but intent does not outweigh or erase the impact that our actions have on each other. if someone punches you in the face on accident, they still punched you in the face and it still hurt. knowing it was on accident would most likely change how you react to the situation, but your face still hurts. for me, the way people refer to me when I play a certain character isn't some isolated, in game thing for me as it is for you. for me, it's connected to a lifetime of trauma and pain, and it's actually inseparable. being forced to live as a gender that isn't right for you is hell on earth. I was unhappy on some level every second of every single day for the first 27 years of my life, and it has only been in the last six months to a year that my interactions with the world outside of my most trusted friends are finally consistent and low stress because my voice has changed and I had top surgery which means my chest is finally flat. I pass as a man now for the first time in my life. it's fucking amazing, dude. I don't know the best way to describe the experience so that someone who isn't trans will appreciate the level of suffering involved. I'm not sure how familiar you are with trans stuff. growing up in a society like ours with such a fucked up understanding of gender and bodies and that punishes people in so many ways for not complying when you are by definition unable to follow the rules -- it's trauma. it's a traumatic experience. it was hell even before I had the language to understand what was wrong. I didn't know trans people existed until i was a teenager, and I wasn't in an emotionally safe environment to even begin to consider I might be trans until college. I wasn't able to admit I might be a man until I was 26. admitting it wouldn't have been safe until then, much less trying to actually live as myself or trying to get people to refer to me differently. the idea of people referring to me as a woman, using she/her pronouns, makes me viscerally sick. It sends me on the road towards a panic attack. it's like someone is trying to drag me back to a prison that I only just escaped from. I didn't know how bad it was until I was free, and I don't want to go back, I don't want to be reminded of it. I actually have nightmares about being misgendered. this kind of thing is actually harder on me now than it was before. because surgery is prohibitively expensive and insurance wasn't required to cover it in my state at the time (insurance is not required to cover it in most states, so it can be upwards of $10,000 and not every state has tons of surgeons who perform it), passing never seemed possible. but now it is, it's happening, and it's so precious to me. and this kind of thing undermines that in a sense. because people are referring to the character, but I'm the one playing the character, so they are referring to me. so people use the wrong pronouns for me, and that alone is fucking miserable. I hate it. it makes me want to claw my skin off if I think too hard about it. I'm not exaggerating. it's that bad. I am genuinely glad this doesn't affect you the way it affects me. I wouldn't wish these varying levels of distress and agony on anyone. But hopefully this at least helps you understand why someone might feel differently than you do and why it might matter that someone like Emongg refers to people neutrally.