Same. I gravitate towards female avatars for the most part, usually because I just like looking at them more.

Sometimes it's more game specific. Mass Effect, for example, the stock fem Shep is just the canonical version of the character in my head. Had a cooler and more relatable face design. And perhaps most importantly, default masc Shep just really looks like every dudebro I've ever disliked in person.

Yeah, everyone's got their preferences, fo sho.

It's not reinforcing that idea. For the author of the comic, she played as women in games and later discovered she was one. You can play as whatever character you want to play as and it doesn't have to say anything about you.

I always played as girls and women in games when I had the choice. I also gravitated towards books with female protagonists. Like the author of the above comic, I also ended up discovering my womanhood and transitioning. This community, egg_irl, is for trans people. Nominally for memes to do with things we did before we came out that now make sense to us after the fact.

Not to disagree with your general point, but the example you used kind of sucks. When neither of the options looks anything like you (or how you might want to look), and when they play differently, it's not really analogous to games where you make a purely cosmetic choice between male and female characters.

The funny part is that I didn't actually play female characters when I was younger. I'd go for longer hair and androgynous features, but I thought I had to make my character look how I looked at the time. I was honestly resistant to ever playing as a woman, because I thought I should only play as my AGAB.

The fact that I didn't play femme before made me doubt myself for the longest time. I didn't have The Signs^TM^, so I was just faking it. Turned out that my inability to recognize my own emotions was to blame. I feel gender dysphoria as exceptional discomfort and unhappiness with no obvious source. I felt like I didn't belong, but had no idea that being a girl could fix that for me. I only rarely connected the dots on what upset me and didn't get a hint at the larger picture till I was an adult.

Even though I didn't experience the comic, it did touch on why I didn't play as a girl: imagined judgement. The friend probably doesn't mean anything by his comment, with Paxiti only imagining him calling her an egg. It could even be that the friend isn't a person, but a reflection of how she imagines society will judge her.

In truth, dudes love riffing on their friends for not conforming like that, not because they think anything of it, but because they don't. It took me years to understand that there was usually no hidden meaning and you're just supposed to act like it's meaningless as well. If you take it to heart, then they find it weird. I feel comforted when I talk openly about my feelings, but male dominated social groups often find that scary. It's not universal, but in larger groups, it becomes nearly impossible to have personal conversations.

Games where I wanna project myself on the character I make the character look like me (or at least how I imagine myself).

But some games, especially MMOs, I like to make my character look wacky or attention grabbing.

I'm in agreement, I'm not a fan of this implication it really feels like it's just enforcing gender stereotypes for no good reason. People should be able to play whatever character they find most appealing to them, whether that be functionally, aesthetically, or even sexual attractiveness.

Seriously, video games are one of the perfect mediums, we can play them how we want and make what we want out of them. This idea enforces an extremely restrictive perspective on a medium which ultimately is much more adaptive than any other form of narrative medium. Stop trying to attribute a deeper meaning to people using the assets and code in these make believe worlds the way they see fit as opposed to the way that was indended, or the way that YOU think it SHOULD be. (that last part was directed towards OP and people who believe the message of this post.)

I get mad at games where they have separate clothes for male and female characters.

She is a woman though.

If it's a 3rd person game, your character's ass is always there right in the center of the screen...

If Devs put that much effort in making games visually appealing, I should be able to choose the character that I find the most visually appealing to go with it. It shouldn't be that controversial.

Listen, we play in third person. What's front and center on your screen the entire time you're playing?

It's posturing. Guys gotta prove they have the not-gays.

Now your getting it 😜

Big muscly men in manly outfits with aren't all bad to look at 😋

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 Experience^TM^. 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.