#I say genderbend; but you can also interpret this for the original. I don’t mind (^_-)

[anuyuri]

【SHOW-HOST DESIGN】

Ray Humanisation Design Notes

[venusdebotticelli]

hi! I’m sure you mean well, but (referring to the recent ed post) could you not tag art of trans interpretations of characters as rule 63? It’s not a “genderbend,” there’s not actually any design changes to the character and they’re very much the same as their canon gender.

Hi, I know exactly what you mean, anon, and I just wanna start by saying that you are absolutely right and Rule 63 is really not an adequate tag for trans fan creations of characters because yes, indeed, canon!ed is a boy and a trans ed is still a boy too, exactly the same gender. 

That being said, there is a reason why I still use that tag for trans fanworks, however inaccurate, and it’s mostly for archival reasons, but not only because of it. 

As someone who isn’t cis myself, and who has only been properly thinking about and exploring my own gender for the past few years, any fanwork that deals explicitly with the gender of a character in a way that canon doesn’t has always been fascinating to me, and I’ve always wanted to keep a collection of that on my blog in an easily searchable tag. 

I started using the tag “Rule 63″ mostly because of its ambiguity. Both the terms “genderbend” and “genderswap” sound horrifying to me, and I absolutely did not want those to be my tags for it. For “Rule 63″, I know the original source of it has terrible wording along the lines of “opposite sex” or whatever bullshit, but I’ve seen the explanation of it reworded enough times that, in my personal experience, it’s actually more uncommon to see the original wording connected to it. In the fannish circles I’ve seen it most used in (which admittedly are probably schewed towards my own preferences anyway), it’s usually used as shorthand for any kind of play with a character’s given gender presentation or sex characteristics or anything else along those lines. But anyway, not to derail from the point, I adopted it as my tag because unlike terms like “genderswap”, it doesn’t straight up tell you the meaning you should abscribe to it, but instead your understanding of it depends on other context cues--which is very much how I relate to my own gender, in a “fuck concrete labels and make of it what you will” sort of way. 

When I started using it, it was 100% for fanworks that took amab characters and portrayed them as afab instead, or the other way around, for the simple reason that I’d simply never seen anything other than that. But then one day I came accross trans and nonbinary and genderqueer fanworks and I lost my fucking mind because it was??? the most amazing thing?????? I’d ever seen in my life???????? 😍😍😍 And I wanted to keep them in the same tag as the other fanworks, because they please me and fulfill me in the exact same way, so the ambiguity of “rule 63″ served me just fine, even if I am aware it’s not really always the most accurate.

Now, that said, if I am aware of its shortcomings, why don’t I just stop making excuses and change it to something like “Fandom Gender Exploration” or “Fandom Gender Play” or anything more accurate? Apart from my general allergy to well-defined labels, I also happen to have thousands of posts in that tag, and xkit’s tag replacer function has literally never worked properly for me, which would mean doing it by hand, and I’m just never gonna do 😬

Anyway, I know this answer is verbose as fuck, but I do realise that this entire thought process is not exactly something that can be implied within my casual use of the tag, and it has probably been years since I actually discussed this on my blog, so I hope you don’t mind I take this ask as a chance to talk about this at length again 😅

Because you are right, trans men ARE men, no caveats about it, it’s not a different gender as in canon. But within my own adhd-fueled convoluted mess of a tagging system, that’s the tag it falls under, and I will keep this post pinned at the top of my blog for a while as a disclaimer, because I really do not want to be disrespectful towards trans people, and as I am gonna keep making use of the tag for my own personal reasons, it does deserve an explanation. 

[thessaliah]

What are favorite and least favorite portrayal of Servants in Fate?

Uhh, there’s a lot?  I’ll assume with portrayals, you mean how legends or historical backgrounds were adapted and reinvented and if I like them?  Keep in mind there are a lot I like and a lot I’m lukewarm I don’t mention here. Some get me more passionate than others. 

Favorites (in no particular order).- Arturia, Merlin and most Round Table. You can tell that Nasu adores Arthuriana stuff and knows it deeply to come out with twists that make sense. Arturia and Mordred are one of the few genderbends who aren’t inherently lazy in Type Moon (unlike others made to just cash in Arturia’s design popularity and get no effort to explain why nobody thought they were women or ignored this - note, this doesn’t mean I dislike them, because I’m fond of Nero and the rest too, but it’s a strike down when you want to talk about this subject). Camelot is, to date, my favorite thing Nasu wrote next to Garden of Avalon because he has such grasp in these characters to make them unique, flawed and tragic. He isn’t afraid to make his female characters here in the wrong, something I deeply appreciate because makes them more sympathetic. The Lion-King was a gift. Yes, sure sometimes isn’t perfect (the characterization switch of Saber Alter from cooly angry tyrant to kuudere), but he usually takes a great care about their portrayal in a serious manner.- Oda siblings, Nobunaga and Nobuyuki:  Guda Guda 2 was so good to turn Nobunaga from a joke character to a serious one with layers, she along with Arturia and her son, became the third serious genderbent, where she suffered the consequences of being a woman and it explains her ascension to power as damyo through Nobuyuki’s sacrifice who she found out later, in the event, never rebelled against her but was trying to expose her detractors and with his sacrifice, he was showing nobody should defy his sister. They hurt my heart.- Solomon: He’s a departure of the Judeo-Christian Solomon, but because a lot of him seems taken off the Islamic version (where he’s literally the world most perfect ruler ever, literally Godsent to build an ideal kingdom which would only last as he lived). He follows Nasu’s most complex king character of the recent years (I like Nero but she lacks ‘something’ for me to see her as a ruler character) to stand next to Arturia and classics, addressing old Fate questions about rulership, humanity, and heroism. I appreciate that, just like Arturia, Nasu obviously knew what he was doing and only adapted his background to Nasuverse to keep it creative but fresh.- Asterios: This is how you write a classic mythological monster and keep him sympathetic without erasing what he was, just give an explanation, and not try to portray the hero who slain him as a ‘loser’.  Theseus was the first one who saw Asterios as a human being in his short published backstory and tried to comfort him when he died. - Leonardo Da Vinci: Her portrayal isn’t perfect, but it’s refreshing to see old theories come to life about Da Vinci (homosexuality, transsexuality). Da Vinci has the honor of being one of the few characters who actually has a love life that doesn’t involve sucking up to the main character or their love interest in life, goals that don’t involve the main character as the center of their lives, and has an exploration of her issues with loneliness and isolated she feels without involving the main character in her interlude (it’s a monologue). In other words, she’s allowed to be more than just Servant arm candy which is rare for a FGO original.- Florence Nightingale: I absolutely love Nightingale portrayal as Berserker, not so much without ME (we see her in Dantes event), but this asexual, aromantic, completely madwoman, in a good and bad sense, who is focused, intense and eloquent when she wants, intimidating men and women with her one-track mind mission to heal and purify, shows a bit how war takes the sanity of even the most saintly of people and yet they still remain themselves to the core.- Edmond Dantes: Nasu told everyone to watch Gankutsuou one day and said “come up with a Count of Monte Cristo who is nothing like that one”, and they did it. They did it and managed to make him iconic in portrayal too, without the stigma of having to compete with the Gonzo show classic. Against all odds, like poor publicity, limited event, Daganrompa design, he became one of FGO’s most popular originals, because they explored his entire personality and issues in a character-focused event, plus his backstory fits in with Nasuverse, expanding on the character without erasing any of his classic elements.- Most Victoriana characters: Sherlock Holmes, James Moriarty, Frankenstein,  Nursery Rhyme, Jekyll&Hyde, Helena, etc. I’m putting them in the same bag because they got a creative twist for Nasuverse characterization that was well handled, IMO, and were changed for setting purposes and to explore a concept rather than pander a fetish.- Lobo: Great adaptation and portrayal. A literal wolf got more development and introspection than the majority of Epic of Remnants appearing characters. This will never cease to be funny.- Tomoe Gozen: I don’t care much about her character, but gets a honorable mention because they actually keep her true to her legend and background instead of removing it to make her a pure sword waifu who loves the protagonist as they did with a number of characters.

Least favorite (controversial talk and triggers ahead):- Sherezade: I can’t even bring myself to explain how much they botched her and how much I absolutely loathe her. Any other characters in this list annoy me or irk me at very worst, but this one makes me angry. Her entire character is so offensive I can’t articulate it now or this would become far too long. She was one of my favorite childhood heroines, so it makes me extra salty. Let’s just say that they took one of world’s most memorable feminism icons as a nerves of steel creative woman who earned her happy ending and got everything in life to portray her as a mix of broken coward (and a joke after Agartha) full of misandry and internalized misogyny, who kidnapped and brainwashed people, including women, to be murderers and rapists to live her twisted fantasy, but wait, she was ‘cured’ by a good man’s spinning rainbow giant drill while she was told her purpose in life was to make babies. And her happy ending was the result of that man’s wish. Yes, she could have been a take of a broken pedestal who actually overcame her issues and became heroic after a growing up process (even if I disliked that interpretation), but instead of that, she was saved by boy Fergus, and this action is even referred on her profile: her happy ending has resulted of his wish. This is a thing that happened. I have no words to say how utterly crushed I feel regarding her. How they destroyed the core of her character appeal, twisted it and didn’t even allowed her the agency to earn her happy ending.- Altera: Or how to take a fairly interesting warlord and historical figure, remove everything that makes him Attila the Hun to pretend a bland robotic alien weapon waifu was him, even though all her struggle and ‘arc’ isn’t even focused on it, it just becomes an excuse to make her a Servant. Imagine if Arturia’s struggle in Fate wasn’t about her King Arthur related stuff and Camelot fall but about “oh my I’m a dragon hybrid who sided with humans in the end of the age of mystery, Shirou!”, something Nasu could have done since it’s also an aspect of her character, but had the good sense to focus on the fact she’s bloody King Arthur. That her arc is a literally a rehash of “robotic waifu becomes a person, goes against her program” which was already done by Sakura and BB (and Arc a decade before them) masterfully not so long ago, in Fate/Extra CCC, but they were actually well written (in comparison to Extella) so it makes her look extra bad. She was also inserted into the story out nowhere, just like this Velber thing which it’s not even mentioned once in all Extra (the Beasts were, ironically!) and stole the spotlight of characters who were your allies and Servants before, like Gilgamesh and Archer. When Sakura and Gilgamesh got added in CCC, Nasu never removed the focus on the three originals, rather he worked to give everyone their own routes. Extella was a reminder of those fanfics that retcon previously established canon to warp the plot focused on a new OC Mary Sue character who is more special than others with the entire plot orbiting around them, and you can’t escape this. Fortunately, she underperformed so badly as a main heroine of Fate in Japan that Nasu might think twice about pulling this again.- Medusa: I have a hate/love thing with Medusa, because as a character on her own, she started ok, beyond the gross sexual assault thing they never acknowledge as bad and irks me (but this is common in most female characters of TM, and some male ones like Shiki). I like her in FHA, her relationship and devotion to Sakura. However, yeah, she’s Medusa my all-time favorite Greek figure whom I adored since I was a child and her portrayal as a version of Medusa leaves a lot to be desired: removing her sexual relationship with Poseidon (which some versions involve rape, but in most of them they were lovers) to make her ‘pure’ and then portray her as ‘seductive’ was the worst decision Nasu could take in FHA when she was meant to parallel with Sakura’s domestic and sexual abuse, in FSN, so the character became kind of confusing to me. It just feels her character was overwritten to appeal purity-waifu lovers and twisted a bit. Her design (the BDSM outfit) is just ridiculous too. I can’t forgive there weren’t snakes, but with the appearance of Gorgon, this is salvaged that a bit (enemy gorgon is better looking than the playable one too, fff). Gorgon is what I wanted Medusa to be, but sadly that kitty-hood wearing “Ana” comes along with Gorgon (with her dog collar!). I don’t hate her, I have some kind of complicated relationship because my standards for Medusa are higher than usual and her character got overwritten as much as Gilgamesh with the years so it gets confusing (but without giving the attention Gilgamesh got too, so makes it harder to grasp what Nasu is doing now). The Perseus-bashing stuff also get me because, like Medusa’s portrayal, isn’t consistent. See, Medusa was originally Perseus, Nasu just genderbent him in FSN because he needed more girls. Their personalities are extremely alike based on what we see him in Prototype and he’s called like Shinji in FHA when he wasn’t at all (just to make her more sympathetic than the hero who actually killed her was ‘bad’ See why Asterios is a good example and why Medusa isn’t about how to handle this, it’s like she was a test run, IMO)? But in leaked FGO lines reveals Medusa is fine with Perseus now, except for Gorgon who wants to kill him, but she wants to kill everyone even the protagonist. This “characterization marches on” makes it all muddy and confusing. Gilgamesh has a similar problem, but I wasn’t attached to him, so I don’t care much.-Artemis (and Orion): Does this need an explanation?-Fionn and most Irish heroes, but Fionn is the main offender: From a mix of Irish King Arthur and Merlin in legends to a complete joke character whose entire kit and powers get stolen by you know who. Fionn is a disgrace to his legendary counterpart. Diarmuid was ok in Zero (not in FGO tho), Cu is fine (and even gets his noncon old habits called out in FHA!), Medb is one of the few female villains who don’t get whitewashed (though she loses a lot of layers of her mythical counterpart), the rest is… eh. -Kiyohime: Not the worst offender, but becomes a proof how the obsession with “pure” waifu-ideal for insecure otaku ruins a potentially interesting character and makes her super gross and problematic without owning up what she is by the fandom and, sometimes, canon. In legend, Kiyohime was a scorned woman whose lover, a monk Anchin, abandoned her after he regretted their relationship (which includes sex, several times). That’s the thing: they were in a relationship with a promise to stick together and he dumps her and runs off. She becomes enraged by his actions that become a serpent who chases him, but she was the one wronged, even if his death was extreme, it portrays her as a tragic character who lost it after a real betrayal. What does FGO does? Oh boy, FGO Kiyohime is just a crazy stalker creepy yandere who killed a monk (who was gay, by the way) who rejected her when she nightcrawled to his room (in case this gets lost in translation, google what is “nightcrawling” to get the extra disgusting implication), but because she insisted as the creepy obsessive woman she is, he promised her to meet her again to get her off his neck and escape, even though he had already made clear he wasn’t into her (or women) at all. She gets offended when he, the victim, runs away, chases and kills him. Now imagine if Kiyohime was a creepy stalker guy who slipped into a lesbian nun’s room when she sleeps to demand sex and a relationship and she tells him to sod off, but he doesn’t get the memo and chases after she escapes and burns her to death when she’s hiding because he was jilted. Now you get why her character is beyond gross. I shouldn’t even need to genderflip the story, but it seems some fans are too easily mislead by a cute waifu antics teehee. It’s fine to like her as long as you’re aware of her a problematic character and not a “cinnamon roll”. She rubs me wrong because it’s obviously an attempt to cash in with yandere-fans by twisting a story of a scorned woman who is lost in grief and anger which causes a tragedy. But it seems that otaku would take a gay man-burning crazy stalker over a nonvirgin. On the other hand, I REALLY love her design. It feels like a complete and absolutely tragedy of a waste character because I love her VA, her Art and classy design (summer and normal version) and NP, but the change made to her character was really appalling. -Beowulf: I don’t have strong feelings about him, but he’s one of the most world-famous heroes and yet he’s a footnote whose appearances consist on lose the fight to some of Nasu’s favorites (Li Shu Wen and Martha). He feels less than a character and more “That guy Nasu uses to show off how tough his favorites are in a fist fight”. Also his design sucks, his art is good but I just dislike the ‘modern’ look unless you’re going all hammy about it like Kintoki.-Caligula: He’s not a character, he’s just Nero’s accessory and blind worshipper for no reason. If they bothered to keep up with his historical background, he’ll be more into his horse and Iskandar, and, maybe, Iskandar’s horse. He has no real personality beyond NERO NERO NERO. Kind of a shame because his design is ok, and he is potentially interesting as a gross unhinged emperor.-Siegfried: Siegfried is… a good boy, but he became an unfunny joke that I can’t longer take seriously as a character thanks to FGO. He’s in serious need of a makeover. Introducing Kiemhild and Hagen could be a good start, he’s savagable, just not so fond of what he is now.-Elizabeth Bathory-Carmilla: Not so much that I dislike them as characters, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way the one that should be an older woman with a torture fetish is portrayed as a dragon idol while Carmilla, the one immortalized as a young girl by Le Fanu, is the older woman. If they switched designs, and made Carmilla a catgirl instead of a dragon girl, preferably, but I don’t mind them at all, just this kind of irks me because they kind of switched their usual thing? It’s not dislike, just confusion.- Mephistopheles:  Or let’s take a famous devil in a classic to make him a murderous clown. What could go wrong? What’s even the point of this character, really? I love his artist and his VA, but this takes the cake of the most wasted character in FGO and has zero to do with his portrayal. I mean, I get the adaptation about homunculus stuff, but it was kind of too jarring switch because none of his traits are like Mephistopheles, like AT ALL. Erik was kind of wasted and made a bishie cosplaying Freddy Krueger, but at least he keeps the Christine stuff and a mask, to say “Oh right this is the Phantom of the Opera.” Nothing about Mephistopheles makes me think “This is Mephistopheles!” It’s like Nasu and his boys were talking about character concepts and one was “Hey, guys, I just rented It, and I want to add an evil clown in FGO!”, “Sounds great, but who can be? We can’t just steal Pennywise, he’s copyrighted.” “I know, let’s make him Mephistopheles!” “Why?” “Er, it sounds like how a devilish clown would call himself” and boom. Something like that.

[radfemfionn-blog]

On Genderbending

Hi, everyone! So, my computer’s charger is broken, and I only have 40%, so, I won’t be posting much for a while. But, I recently found out that now genderbending is considered transphobic, and I wanted to give my own perspective, as a trans person. So, without further ado… here’s why genderbending is not transphobic.  

So, many of you may think that this is a very trivial topic to ‘argue’ over, and I agree: in the grand scheme of things, it is trivial. But, nevertheless, I feel that it is important to address, considering that the origin of genderbending, and may I say, genderbending culture, stems from sexism and lack of female representation. For those of you who may be unaware, genderbending is when a writer or artist (more often an artist) takes male characters and depicts them as if they were female instead. This is the most common form of genderbending, but it should be noted it can be done in the opposite way, and has been. The reason this was so popular was due to the lack of female representation, and so, women and girls took characters they loved and looked up to, and re-imagined them as women, creating the representation they lacked and desired (and deserve). This practice was very popular in the earlier 2010s, but has since fizzled out do to recent accusations of the practice being transphobic. In this analysis I will be arguing against the common points for why genderbending is transphobic. 

I.

they assume every character is cis by default 

I think we all know where this is going… Being transgender is not common. A study which was published in 2011 stated that only .03 percent of the population are transgender, and while that is not the most recent estimates, it is highly unlikely that that number has increased by a significant amount. So, with the knowledge that being transgender is very rare, we can then logically assume that most people we encounter in our lives are ‘cis’. Now, with this in mind, is it then wrong to assume that characters, which are typically based on people’s perception of the world, that perception being that almost all people in the world are ‘cis’, would by default also be ‘cis’? I don’t think so. Now, I am not saying characters can’t or haven’t been trans in the past, nor that they won’t be in the future, merely that unless it is stated, it is not transphobic to assume they are, in fact, ‘cis’.    

II.

99.9% of the time nonbinary identities are ignored and the only two genders used are male and female

I can concede that yes. It is very rare for ‘nonbinary’ identities to be used in genderbends. However, when we become aware of why the need for genderbending arose, we can understand that the reason nonbinary identites are not represented is because the writing and art of genderbent characters is done, in the majority, by women who want to see the characters they look up to more like themselves. This doesn’t mean that these women are transphobic, just how it wouldn’t be sexist for a nonbinary person to create a nonbinary-genderbend. 

III.

they imply that in order for someone to be a certain gender, their body has to change to fit it (i.e., a character can’t go from male to female without having wider hips and breasts)

Now, this is an interesting one, because there certainly are women out there who have slim hips and flat chests, and men with wider hips and a more feminine physique, but even then, they have a different body type because being female is fundamentally, biologically different than being male. And, while I agree you don’t have to have a certain body type to be any ‘gender’, you do in order to be either of the two sexes, which is what genderbending at it’s core is about. It’s about changing biologically male characters (generally, as it can and has been done in the opposite way) into biologically female characters. 

IV.

they imply physical characteristics = gender

As I stated above, in the majority of cases, physical characteristics do equal ‘gender’. You can not expect people to change their perception, which is based on facts to accommodate a tiny fraction of the population. Does this mean I think people shouldn’t be kind to trans people and accommodate their pronouns, for example? No, absolutely not. But, what I do mean is that physical characteristics do equal sex, or ‘gender’, which is not transphobic, otherwise transgender people wouldn’t transition or experience what makes them transgender in the first place: sex dysphoria.

V. 

all of the above are examples of cissexism, which perpetuates the marginalization and erasure of trans people

The thing is, genderbending doesn’t perpetuate ‘the marginalization and erasure of trans people’. That’s like saying the existence of female characters, or ‘cis’ characters erases and marginalises trans people, which is obviously not the case, and the argument can be made that headcanoning (a headcanon is a fan theory) a masculine female character, or a gender non-conforming female character is trans, thus further marginalising and earsing butch and gnc women. You see what I mean? It’s absurd to say a certain interpretation of a character somehow causes the oppression of an entire group.

VI.

genderbending makes many people who identify as trans and nonbinary uncomfortable.

I would never deliberately want to make someone uncomfortable, but this argument can literally be applied to anyone and any group out there. For example, an all male cast in the majority of media can make women deeply uncomfortable, but does this mean all-male casts need to be banned full-out on the basis of being sexist? Of course not, that would be ludicrous. What you’re really saying with this is that females make you uncomfortable, and that ‘cis’ depictions make you insecure because of your sex dysphoria, which I do sympathise with. But it is not women’s or anyone’s job to validate you, but your own, and it is unfair to tell young women to stop creating art and fiction which gives them the representation they deserve, especially when they are told if they want representation they have to make it for themselves, because it makes you uncomfortable. If you don’t like it, don’t read it, don’t search for it, don’t reblog that type of art. Simple as that.  

VII.

generally presents as a toxic ideology that when one’s genitalia changes, so does one’s entire gender identity, completely disregarding the individual’s original identity for the sake of equating genitalia to gender.

This goes back to two points I discussed earlier: female representation, and, sex dysphoria/transitioning. If it was truly ‘toxic’ that one’s genitalia equals their ‘gender’ (in this context I mean the supposed ‘feeling’ of being male or female, not gender roles), then sex dysphoria and transitioning wouldn’t exist, thusly, trans people wouldn’t exist. I think it is far more transphobic to erase trans people’s sex dysphoria than it is for females to make art representing themselves. Which leads me to reiterate my next point: for the majority of females, their sex aligns with their ‘gender’ so when they want to see male characters more like themselves, that typically also means in their body type and shape, which should not be discouraged, as female bodies are beautiful and should be celebrated. 

VIII.

things to consider as an alternative to “genderbending”: trans headcanons

I have nothing against trans!headcanons, as it helps people cope and feel more connected to themselves. But, just how trans people deserve this, so do women. And, as I stated before, it can be considered sexist to headcanon a gnc character as trans, so should trans headcanons also be banned? You can’t have your cake and eat it.  

In conclusion, I am not saying women can not relate to male characters without changing them into females first, nor vice-versa. But what I am saying is that it’s not transphobic for artists, particularly female artists, to interpret and put forth interpretations into the world of male characters as if they were biologically female, just how it is not sexist for trans people to headcanon gnc characters as trans. As long as we all respect eachother, do not force our headcanons and interpretations as fact, and can acknowledge that gnc characters can be gnc without being trans, there’s no issue.

Blogs from which quotes are from:

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