Noëlle the 8-Bit🏳️🌈🎄
I saw elsewhere - perhaps Twitter - a criticism of the #cyberpunk idea, reflected in Cyberpunk 2077, that the unaltered human body is somehow sacred, and that augmenting it is profane. The criticism noted that this was, at its core, transphobic.
The critic then turned the idea on its head into a trans-positive cyberpunk that eschewed "humanity" in favor of "essence". Maybe one person's essence is complete when they're born; maybe another's essence is lacking until they augment themselves.
@noelle Idunno if you've read much of William Gibson (who more or less invented cyberpunk) but I would argue he has all kinds of trans-positive messages in his work. I don't feel like he ever got judgmental about people modifying their bodies or their ways of being in the world.
But the more popular cyberpunk derivatives (including and especially games like Cyberpunk and Shadowrun) are kind of problematic because the game mechanics usually include "essence" that is reduced with modification
@dickmandrake @noelle I totally get the "game balance" reasons for the rules, but it does seem to imply that modifying your body somehow "offends the universe" or something along those lines, as though the Powers That Be are drastically opposed to modifying the meat boxes we're born in. I wish I were smarter, there's probably a lot of academic work that could be done in analyzing role-playing game mechanics for subtext and stuff!
@emerican @noelle I feel #Shadowrun's concept of "essence" is primarily to balance out augmentations so that players are forced to sacrifice something (i.e. efficient spellcasting). Of course, if their playstyle doesn't involve casting magic at all, they're free to knock themselves out.