#xenobladechronicles

Tamamo: dominating the conversation.

Nia: calculating her next move.

thinking back to the whole discourse of people wanting Shiver from Splatoon to be enby but Nintendo deconfirming it... this happens a lot

people see a character that they want to be lgbtq+ and label them as such based on superficial aspects

shiver has some masculine aspects, her face is a little more defined and immediately people assume this means the character must be enby?

isn't that a tad sexist and assuming though?

women with more masculine aspects are allowed to exist in fiction, and to deny that in favor of misgendering a character because you want them to fit your notion of what they are isn't really a good look

not to mention, non-binary people are also expressed in a multitude of ways, it doesn't always have to be a matter of breaking conventions of established gender roles and situating somewhere in the middle

this goes beyond shiver as i see this happen with tons of characters, especially popular nintendo ones

is Noah from Xenoblade Chronicles 3 a trans-man because he expresses emotions and has tender moments or is that just a character having emotions. the suggestion becomes especially questionable when you consider that noah is practically near guaranteed cis in the story, however i won't spoil why in case that's a caution

the same holds true of Nia from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and how she's labelled as trans by the community despite her identity never really being called into question, and the plot instead revolving around her grievance with misdeeds and fear of being forsaken for the crimes she committed, which I'll avoid spoiling once again

a final character i'd like to address is more on the grounds of a joke, but still important, Shuichi Saihara from Danganronpa V3, and how because he has a curly ahoge he must thereby be trans because it's a design focus of female characters in the game, and not just that he could have curly hair

granted that last one is played for laughs but it does show a focus of how quickly people are to label characters under a set umbrella

and it leads into my next question...

aren't those... low standards?

look at actually confirmed trans people in fiction, like Celeste from... Celeste, she has subtext, aspects of her character are well written, and it's easy to cap off with full on confirmation and her struggle with identity

yet compare this with the superficial desires people have out of popular and unmeaning characters by big name companies that don't care about you

listen if you have headcanons, you can enjoy those, but please be aware of when you're throwing money at those companies who could easily fund a trans charity for years and not leave an ant's scratch in their wallet

representation isn't just about sticking a label onto a character and calling it a day. representation is about helping people feel seen in a world that may not desire or directly value your existence

even if we said those aforementioned characters fit under their respective labels, what good would it actually do? none of them share the core experiences of what it means to be those labels, nor do they express anything largely meaningful outside of the established safety of what a company deems is acceptable, and would soon disregard these minority groups if it meant turning up a quick buck

Happy 9th birthday Xenoblade Chronicles X!!!!

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