Proud Pixels - Final Fantasy XIV, Knights, Catgirls And Being Non-Bunnary

I don’t usually do much personal writing, so please bear with me as I ramble.

I’ve always felt different. Growing up, I was told I was a “boy.” I never understood what that meant. Why was I a boy? Because I was born a certain way? I didn’t feel like one. I didn’t question it too much though. I just went along with what people told me.

I suppose this is all quite common to hear when asking gender nonconforming people their stories.

Anyway, I never really thought much of it. Everyone practiced changing their voice when they were alone, right? Everyone had another name that they’d like to be called, right? Everyone had a vague discomfort with who they were at all times, right?

Okay, that last one might be true.

Still, I always felt strange being put into the box of “boy.” Other people told me that that’s where I fit, where I belonged, but I never quite believed it. More than that though, I never questioned it too much because asking myself those questions got uncomfortable quickly.

Until one summer in my early 20s.

I lived alone that summer. My roommates had all moved out, my partner was on the other side of the Atlantic, and I had all the time in the world to myself. So I installed Final Fantasy XIV. Upon reaching the character creator, I made a catgirl (as many, many others have done). Almost immediately, I felt ashamed. What am I doing? I’m a “man,” I should make a character that reflects that. I reset the character creator and I made the most white-bread boring-ass generic protagonist I could. I made it to level 17 before falling off. I had no connection to this character; I didn’t care about him. Why?

The answer, dear reader, I would hope is obvious.

That character wasn’t “me.”

Plenty of people play FFXIV as a character, as someone they are not, and that’s great! Roleplaying is a great and fun thing to do, but I had never cared much for it. I pretended to be someone I’m not in real life all the time, why would I want to do that in a game?

I put FFXIV down for a few years.

After that summer, I talked with my partner about how I felt. That I didn’t think I was “male.” She was incredibly supportive, and I started to feel comfortable experimenting. I went by they/them pronouns, I grew out my hair, I painted my nails.

I reinstalled FFXIV.

This time, when I created a new character, I went back to the catgirl, or Miqo’te, as they’re called. I picked long, pink hair for her, I gave her brown eyes, and when the name prompt appeared, I named her “Jenna.”

My name.

Well, one of them, anyway.

I immediately felt more comfortable as her. I met people who knew me only as “Jenna,” who accepted me as I was. Over time, I changed Jenna’s look. I gave her dark hair, like mine. I gave her glasses, like mine. I experimented with giving her short hair for a little bit, but went back to longer hair soon after. In-game, I was just…me. I talked like I would normally talk, made friends like I normally would.

I felt safe.

Sure, there are some people who parrot the tired and worn-out MMO joke of “Everyone you meet is actually a guy,” but those people are few and far between, much more rare than in any other online community, in my experience. By and large, FFXIV players accept others as they are, and are happy to switch the name and pronouns they call someone. It’s still a scary experience to put yourself out there (even right now, writing this), and to try new things, but in FFXIV, it felt safer than real-life. And it is. Maybe some of that is thanks to the very convenient “blacklist” button that makes it easy to ignore people, but I’ve not had to use it much.

Through playing as Jenna, I realized I didn’t want to just be a “girl” either. Sure, it’s fun being a cute catgirl, but I felt something was missing. So I did what millions of MMO players have done.

I made an alt.

Plenty of people in MMOs make alternate characters, but in FFXIV, they feel like a special case. Most MMOs only let you pick one class for your character, and if you want to play as any of the other classes, you need to make a new character. In FFXIV, any character can easily play all of the classes, switching from one to another at the press of a button. In this way, alts in FFXIV feel more personal.

Anyway, this alt was tall. Really tall. I named them “Ace,” and declared them “nonbunnary” on account of the rabbit ears. I started with “he/him” in their character description and liked it. Soon I changed it to “they/them.” I liked that too. 

Just as much as I liked being called “she/her” as Jenna.

I came to realize that gender doesn’t matter to me, or rather, I’m not really one or the other. The distinction doesn’t matter. I’m both, I’m neither; either way, the result is the same.

I’m not cis.

I put a little of myself into each of these characters, and I love them. While thinking about it one day, I realized that because these characters are me, through some weird transitive property of self-love, I love who I am.

I’m Jon.

I’m Jenna.

I’m Ace.

I love Jenna.

I love Ace.

I love myself.