Two ogres block the player's access to the gender-changing coffin.

“The Pursuer” shows up shortly after you change your gender

What could from software possibly have meant by this

@VegaHarmonia the gender change coffin is available at the very start of the game, immediately after character creation, but the ogres are an impassable obstacle unless you are a veteran player at the very start of the game, leading to you needing to progress further in the game and become stronger in order to return later and get to it

@toast Just like real life

@VegaHarmonia @toast and many people just see the challenge, fuck them up anyway and then change their gender just because they can

Just like uh uh

@MiaWinter @VegaHarmonia it does sadly fall apart past that point
(many players do it without knowing what the tuna is going on and discover things about themselves like 15h later; the actual reason it's in the game is also funny)

@MiaWinter @toast Me

@toast @MiaWinter Tuna

@toast @VegaHarmonia the one instance where gamers got to truly experience gender dysphoria when they took their clothes off at a random points and were confused why they had tits

@MiaWinter @toast I could fight the ogres bare handed irl and win

@toast @VegaHarmonia I remember seeing a German Youtuber play DS2 and had that happen to him

And I was like "heh"

Then I bought the game

5 years later I took my first dose of estrogen

@MiaWinter @toast I think the strongest spurious correlation for me starting HRT is learning APL

@toast @MiaWinter Also wait what’s the actual reason lol

@VegaHarmonia @toast @MiaWinter Would you believe me if I told you that one key moment to have my gender brainworms waking up was a discussion about the MP4 standard?

@cinnamon @toast @VegaHarmonia cute

@cinnamon @toast @MiaWinter Seems normal enough

@cinnamon @MiaWinter @toast @VegaHarmonia please explain because that sounds fascinating

@kasdeya @toast @VegaHarmonia @MiaWinter Well… A trans girl showed to me how MPEG 4 was overengineered and found some slides showing that it even had support for embedded 3D model streaming.

One of the companies pushing for that support back in the day was Linden Labs (Second Life). That reminded to me (around 2022 or 2023), in the most “long forgotten ADHD task” way that I had a Second Life account dormant since 2007. I had created that account with a female avatar, “because if I was going to have a second life, why not as a girl, something I had been curious about since I was a teenager”.

That’s when I restarted using Second Life, but this time aware about the true meaning of what I was doing

To be fair with myself, in 2007 I didn’t even know that people could be trans. Go figure. Knowing that things exist can change the way you interpret life. And knowing the right person that opens your eyes can change you even more