“How’s the new game, Harry?” I asked. “Any good?”

  Harry groaned. “It’s fine, I guess,” he said. “But — the devs have gone woke! There’s fucking pronouns now!”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s too bad. I was really looking forward to it.”

  “I mean, it’s a good game otherwise, but it really breaks the immersion, ya know? Like, I’m a man! I don’t need this whole ‘my pronouns are dumb/ass’ thing.”

  “Mmm,” I replied.

  “And the worst part is you can’t download mods to remove it! The big modding sites will just remove it, and I don’t trust those other sketchy sites.”

  “I mean, the rest of the game’s good, right?”

  “Well, yeah,” Harry said. “I’ve only done the tutorial so far, but that was pretty fun. I still think I’ll return the game in protest of this woke nonsense though!”

  Online math quizzes are so fun!

  Said no one ever.

  Ugh.

  I cracked open my minifridge, pulling out a beer. I took a long sip, grimacing at the bitter taste.

  Well, at least I finished my homework for tonight. I closed out of the tab and minimised my browser. The Steam page for the game I’d been talking about with Harry earlier greeted me.

  I’ll be honest, I didn’t fully get Harry’s obsession with ‘woke nonsense’ or whatever. A game is a game, simple as.

  I sipped my beer.

  I’d been really looking forward to this game. Would be a shame to not get it just because you could choose pronouns, whatever that meant.

  I purchased the game, wincing at the forty dolr price tag, and started the fifteen gigabyte download. Over my crappy internet, that was going to take over half an hour — enough time for me to go to the corner store, grab some snacks and have a shower. Perfect!

  My hair still damp from the shower, I sat back down in my expensive ergonomic gaming chair. The game had finished downloading during my shower. I ripped open a bag of fmin hot cheetos, then clicked the green py button. I had to accept some license agreement, then the game booted up.

  After sitting through some logos and a fshing lights warning, I was greeted by the main menu. The game had this cool cyberpunk aesthetic, with a picture of this badass goth chick with a metal arm taking up half the screen. I felt a strange twist in my gut at the sight of her, but I ignored it and clicked py.

  I was greeted by a multiple minute opening cinematic, which I half paid attention to as I started on my cheetos. I cracked open an energy drink to help fuel the gaming session, which was sure to st well into the night. It was the weekend, after all. I didn’t have anywhere to be tomorrow.

  Once the cutscene finished, I was greeted by the character customization screen.

  Oh, that would be what my friend was talking about. I didn’t see the big deal, it was just a drop down menu with the default option being belled ‘he/him’. That seemed normal enough, I suppose. I was expecting it to be a bigger deal than it actually was.

  I focused on the character itself. There were a few temptes to draw from. Most of the guy temptes were some variant of big hulking and muscur. Didn’t exactly feel right. I clicked on one and was greeted by massive pecs and an eight pack and- fuck, I could feel my skin crawling just looking at the model.

  I looked through the guy options that weren’t that. There were a few. There was a tall and slender option, but clicking on that felt weird and uncomfortable too.

  Ah, fuck it. No one would know if I pyed as a girl character, right? Besides, if I had to stare at my character’s ass for the entire pythrough, I’d rather it be a girl’s.

  I clicked on one of the girl options and — nope, way too much boob, that was just objectifyingly obscene. Could I- yes, I could reduce the size. And give her more clothes.

  I reduced her boob size from bigger than her head to something much more reasonable. I may be attracted to women, but there was something about the way video games often portrayed women that made me feel strangely gross. I swapped the clothing option from ‘basically a bikini’ to a cute blue tunic dress. Great!

  I changed the hair colour from a neutral brown to a more vibrant red — matched my own hair colour, actually, but not length. The eyes were already a pretty blue colour, and I liked it and left them like that. My eyes were blue too — except, whenever I looked in the mirror, they always seemed dull and lifeless to me.

  Up next: weapons!

  I cycled through the melee options before settling on a cool looking katana with a pink handle. Next I started cycling through ranged options. I decided the girl I had created seemed like a double pistol type of gal, so I selected that.

  The default makeup she had on looked fine to me, but I was curious what other options there were and — oh wow, I could get her piercings? That seemed cool to me.

  Let’s see, definitely get her a cute nose stud, I loved those on girls. I mean, I’d never been able to work up the courage to tell a girl with one that I thought it looked cool, but still. The default earrings looked fine, so I left them as is.

  With that done, I started pying with the height a bit. The default height had her being comically short, so I adjusted things until she was a bit taller at five feet and five inches — one inch taller than the national average for women, actually.

  Lastly, name and pronouns.

  Well, I was pying as a girl, so it made sense to select the option belled ‘she/her’, right? I mean, that had to be an option, obviously.

  I clicked on the drop down menu and-

  Whoa.

  That’s a lot of options.

  What on earth is ‘ze/zer’ or ‘e/em’?

  ‘She/they????’ Two options?

  I mean, ‘she/they’ sounded cool to me, and this girl I was creating gave off cool vibes, soooo…

  I selected ‘she/they’, ignoring the weird fluttering in my chest.

  Now for a name!

  I already had an option, obviously. This wasn’t my first time pying as a girl in a video game, of course. All guys did it at some point. It’s only normal to be curious.

  I typed out my name choice and clicked ok.

  Welcome, Lilith

  Harry was right, this game was fun.

  The tutorial started as soon as I finished with character customization. It was completely comprehensive as well. It expined all the basic movements I could do — walking, running, crouching, jumping, etc. The animations were also incredible. I liked just idly making Lillith do sshes with her katana through the air, appreciating the fluidity of her movements.

  Once I was done with the tutorial, I was given my first quest — I needed to rescue some hostages that had been kidnapped by a terrorist group and were being held in an abandoned factory on the other side of the city. Obviously, I accepted it.

  But first, I needed to pee.

  I paused the game, getting up from my chair and stretching a bit. I grabbed my empty energy drink can, dumping it in my recycling bin on the way to the bathroom. I unzipped my khaki shorts, and slipped my boxers down, letting out a sigh as I emptied my bdder. I turned to wash my hands, then stopped short.

  Something was off about my reflection. I gave my mirror a confused look, trying to figure out what was different.

  Something was weird with my face. I just couldn’t put a finger on it. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew something had changed.

  Maybe I was just going crazy. I started washing my hands, looking away from my reflection. I wiped my hands off on my towel, then rushed back to my desk to continue gaming. Those hostages weren’t going to save themselves, after all!

  Of course, my character needed to get to the abandoned factory first. Fortunately, Lilith had this cool looking motorcycle that she hopped on to drive over.

  On the way there, my phone buzzed with a notification. I paused the game again and checked to see who it was from. It was Harry.

  I opened up the message.

  XxChained_RebelxX: dude, ur actually pying it? It’s all woke and shit!

  I started typing out a reply.

  Lord.L: what? It’s fun. Don’t tell me you actually returned it

  XxChained_RebelxX: well…. No

  Lord.L: exactly

  Lord.L: and you’re pying it too! You little shit

  XxChained_RebelxX: guilty

  XxChained_RebelxX: it is fun

  Lord.L: dumbass

  I unpaused the game and once again focused on Lillith.

  gayannabeth