would you disregard official canon just to fit your agenda?

[BenJepheneT]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1260704413741658112

why are people like this

 

[Sabruness]

Why? Because some people are super edgy merchants of offended RAEG who need to peddle shit to their equally edgy followers to feel validated about being wankers. whenever there is an interest or a cause, there will always be extremist wankers who throw tantrums when people dont kowtow and suck at the teat of their narrow-minded exclusionary elitist group-think.

In the process, they usually do quite a bit of damage to whatever cause they're supposed to be supporting.

 

[Moonpearl]

... Disregarding the politics encoded in this post.

If you mean, "would I participate in fanon or alternative interpretations to get more out of a piece of media?" Then of course. Fans who don't are missing out.

 

[LilithFairen]

Doesn't Naoto's Shadow make some quip about an "operation" in allusion to transexuality?

Also, Persona 4 is a game with a character who worries about how he's perceived by others because he stereotypes interests he has as "gay".

 

[Nakakure]

Sigh

 

[weakwithwords]

Content creators can't do something more basic like geniuses right. (e.g. Death Note) You expect them to do better with something significantly more complex like gender and sexual identity?

Let's go a giant step backward. They can't even get something easily researchable like chess right.

When they're not being lazy coupled with flimsy excuses like time constraint, then it's hidden agendas.

 

[BenJepheneT]

... Disregarding the politics encoded in this post.

If you mean, "would I participate in fanon or alternative interpretations to get more out of a piece of media?" Then of course. Fans who don't are missing out.

That is totally fine. Headcanon is a thing. But this is different. This isn't even another ballpark; this is on another planet.

This guy here is stating that the developers themselves don't know what they're doing with their own canon, and thus disregarding their own work because it didn't fit with what they see as correct.

So what is canon now? Said guy's headcanon. Why? Because, according to them, it's correct.

I don't fucking understand. I understand not liking one part of the character and seeing it as a flaw you don't like. I don't understand taking the whole character and claiming it your fan fic interpretation as the character as OFFICIALLY CANON.

Also, Persona 4 is a game with a character who worries about how he's perceived by others because he stereotypes interests he has as "gay".

I don't know much about gender politics but looking at it from a normal perspective, doesn't this immediately conform to gender roles? I'm not well versed with the transgender community but isn't this one of the things they're pushing NOT to be done?

Content creators can't do something more basic like geniuses right. (e.g. Death Note) You expect them to do better with something significantly more complex like gender and sexual identity?

Let's go a giant step backward. They can't even get something easily researchable like chess right.

When they're not being lazy coupled with flimsy excuses like time constraint, then it's hidden agendas.

This is a whole 'nother topic but yeah, Zootopia made me feel this way. Beastars too, to some degree.

 

[Moonpearl]

That is totally fine. Headcanon is a thing. But this is different. This isn't even another ballpark; this is on another planet.

This guy here is stating that the developers themselves don't know what they're doing with their own canon, and thus disregarding their own work because it didn't fit with what they see as correct.

So what is canon now? Said guy's headcanon. Why? Because, according to them, it's correct.

I don't fucking understand. I understand not liking one part of the character and seeing it as a flaw you don't like. I don't understand taking the whole character and claiming it your fan fic interpretation as the character as OFFICIALLY CANON.

I've picked up so-called "BL" that were definitely just trans hetero stories written by authors who wanted to jack off to trans women but didn't know the first thing about them.

It's very common that Japanese creators, especially, will mess up trans people because they know nothing but stereotypes and prejudice. Very common for them to write "gay comical crossdressers" which are obviously mislabelled trans characters.

Basically, don't assume that the author knows what they've written. They can be very dumb.

I don't know much about gender politics but looking at it from a normal perspective, doesn't this immediately conform to gender roles? I'm not well versed with the transgender community but isn't this one of the things they're pushing NOT to be done?

Different character. Nothing to do with the would-be trans character. Has to do with Japanese gender roles.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Basically, don't assume that the author knows what they've written. They can be very dumb.

But this time they do. They (for Naoto's case) knew exactly what they're doing. Naoto's looked down for her gender in his job, so she dresses up like a guy to get confidence. Her story arc is basically her gaining confidence to do her job no matter what the police department sees of her. There's nothing about finding her true gender; just a story about self-confidence.

And why can't they just write "gay comical crossdresser"? Even in real like there are handful of male who crossdress and would still very much like to stay male. Crossdressing and trans are two very different things. They may share same factors but they're like apples and TV appliances. The former is a hobby while the latter is literal identity. Just because one shares similar traits doesn't mean they immediately correlate.

Different character. Nothing to do with the would-be trans character. Has to do with Japanese gender roles.

That's the thing. There's shoving in how they're literally trans when there's nothing to do with it.

 

[Sabruness]

That is totally fine. Headcanon is a thing. But this is different. This isn't even another ballpark; this is on another planet.

This guy here is stating that the developers themselves don't know what they're doing with their own canon, and thus disregarding their own work because it didn't fit with what they see as correct.

So what is canon now? Said guy's headcanon. Why? Because, according to them, it's correct.

I don't fucking understand. I understand not liking one part of the character and seeing it as a flaw you don't like. I don't understand taking the whole character and claiming it your fan fic interpretation as the character as OFFICIALLY CANON.

There will always be self-important wankers who think their headcanon trumps the official canon created by the developers. I think they struggle to comprehend anything outside their own views.

 

[Moonpearl]

But this time they do. They (for Naoto's case) knew exactly what they're doing. Naoto's looked down for her gender in his job, so she dresses up like a guy to get confidence. Her story arc is basically her gaining confidence to do her job no matter what the police department sees of her. There's nothing about finding her true gender; just a story about self-confidence.

And why can't they just write "gay comical crossdresser"? Even in real like there are handful of male who crossdress and would still very much like to stay male. Crossdressing and trans are two very different things. They may share same factors but they're like apples and TV appliances. The former is a hobby while the latter is literal identity. Just because one shares similar traits doesn't mean they immediately correlate.


That's the thing. There's shoving in how they're literally trans when there's nothing to do with it.

Nobody's shoving anything. Look, as an author, you sometimes aim to write one thing and end up writing something totally different. Ever tried to write a horror and somehow ended up with a comical romance? Creation is strange.

I, too, have accidentally written transgender character many times who were supposed to be complicated explorations of grand themes. I set out to test the boundaries, to examine gender roles, to do many other great things...! But it's easy to go too far in the wrong direction once you start working with gender. My trans friend often has to stop me and say, "That's just an ordinary trans person, Moonpearl."
And she's right. Tough titties. "Accidental trans character" is a normal and very common thing when you write focused on gender, and you just have to have the balls as an author to accept it and celebrate your accidental achievement.

Also, the "crossdressers" I'm referring to are people who ask to called and treated as women. They straight up state they're trans women, but authors will continue to say they're gay crossdressers, because authors are people and people are stupid.

 

[AliceShiki]

I don't know the characters in question, so I can't comment on it, but...

I can say that I only disregard canon when the canon disregards itself... Like when Dragon Ball Super was made. I don't consider it canon because it has a ton of inconsistencies with the original Dragon Ball series, even if Toriyama himself calls Super as canon.

Or how I disregard the Wonderswan Digimon games as canon because they make 0 sense within the Digimon Adventure Universe... But again, the creators labeled it as canon anyways, and the final word is theirs, not mine.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Nobody's shoving anything. Look, as an author, you sometimes aim to write one thing and end up writing something totally different. Ever tried to write a horror and somehow ended up with a comical romance? Creation is strange.

I, too, have accidentally written transgender character many times who were supposed to be complicated explorations of grand themes. I set out to test the boundaries, to examine gender roles, to do many other great things...! But it's easy to go too far in the wrong direction once you start working with gender. My trans friend often has to stop me and say, "That's just an ordinary trans person, Moonpearl."
And she's right. Tough titties. "Accidental trans character" is a normal and very common thing when you write focused on gender, and you just have to have the balls as an author to accept it and celebrate your accidental achievement.

Also, the "crossdressers" I'm referring to are people who ask to called and treated as women. They straight up state they're trans women, but authors will continue to say they're gay crossdressers, because authors are people and people are stupid.

But there's no transgender people in question. That's the issue. It's people claiming someone to be transgender even when they aren't. And when people try to disprove it with literal source material they lash out the -phobes and the -isms because apparently, if it don't suit their politics, it ain't right. This isn't about authors not knowing what they're writing. The authors know damn well what they're doing. And people can tell what they're doing and could say that yes, whatever the author was thinking of doing makes sense. I'm talking about people claiming something to be A when in reality it's really just B.

And yes, I've read what you've written, and yes, there are people who write overly comical caricatures of gay crossdresser to the point where they're transgender no matter which angle you look at it. But this ain't it. The possibility is there, but it isn't found in here.

And people are using that ^ reasoning as an excuse to claim both characters as something they aren't, all because it suited their world view and politics.

 

[DrakeSebastian]

Why should it matter if people view things differently than an author intended to? While only the author can truly say what they intended that does not stop people from interpreting things differently and finding new meaning. Unintended or not.

In fact, I would argue that it is important there are different interpretations and ideas. That is what makes stories so great. People can experience vastly different things while enjoying a story because of who they are and what they have experienced in their life. Trying to box people into accepting one ‘vision’ of something is not something I would ever aspire to achieve while writing my stories.

For me, words on their own are meaningless symbols on a page. What makes words so powerful is not the denotation of the words themselves, but of what the reader interprets from the story. This idea can be extended to all forms of art. Art is meaningless without interpretation. And it will never be the same from person to person.

 

[Vaerama]

I mean, if you continue the game without completing Naoto’s social link (which is statistically the least often completed due to time it arrives and relative difficulty of the social link), then there’s not a lot more relating to her gender, but around 7-8ish (of ‘ten’) there’s certainly dialogue relating to it. So it isn’t wholly abandoned after the shadow is put down, it’s only ‘mostly’ abandoned.

As far as I know, in the Japanese version, Naoto pretty much always uses masculine form(s?) of the world ‘I’. That isn’t to say other female characters don’t do this on occasion for myriad reasons, because they do, but there’s even a line in the ‘romance’ relating to the character’s insecurity on the matter (in English this is a question of ‘pitch’ in voice tone instead), which makes it seem as if Naoto went from trying to be a boy to trying to be a girl, and feels awkward still about ‘just being themselves’ even in the romance ending.

Naoto’s character arc is just enough parts messy and seemingly subtle that I can see how a person might think they’re transgendered. My ex certainly thought that way. I didn’t, though I adored the shadow’s intensity. That’s certainly a transgendered enough aspect to have kept people guessing, and it was a joy to see.

It’s inherently ‘dangerous’ to write a complex character throughout changing circumstances. People will grab on to what they relate to, and when the character’s actions/stated intent no longer fit with that: it’s not impossible for a person to feel that they’ve been personally attacked.

There’s a reason most television and animated/game characters are very ‘safe’ and ‘samey’. Granted, that reason is ‘it’s easier and it’s already been proven to market well’, but backlash and boycott-heavy subjects don’t enthuse publishers.

TLDR: the author’s canon isn’t any more valid an experience than a reader’s headcanon, at least until they’re trying to push their headcanon upon people who disagree with it. Backlash towards Atlus for not seizing the ‘full potential’ of one aspect is just silly: its far better in social terms than >no< representation at all, and it absolutely paves the way for further ‘mainstream’ transgendered representation.

 

[Ral]

Huh. I never thought a discussion about Death of the Author would come here.

 

[AliceShiki]

I mean, if you continue the game without completing Naoto’s social link (which is statistically the least often completed due to time it arrives and relative difficulty of the social link), then there’s not a lot more relating to her gender, but around 7-8ish (of ‘ten’) there’s certainly dialogue relating to it. So it isn’t wholly abandoned after the shadow is put down, it’s only ‘mostly’ abandoned.

As far as I know, in the Japanese version, Naoto pretty much always uses masculine form(s?) of the world ‘I’. That isn’t to say other female characters don’t do this on occasion for myriad reasons, because they do, but there’s even a line in the ‘romance’ relating to the character’s insecurity on the matter (in English this is a question of ‘pitch’ in voice tone instead), which makes it seem as if Naoto went from trying to be a boy to trying to be a girl, and feels awkward still about ‘just being themselves’ even in the romance ending.

Naoto’s character arc is just enough parts messy and seemingly subtle that I can see how a person might think they’re transgendered. My ex certainly thought that way. I didn’t, though I adored the shadow’s intensity. That’s certainly a transgendered enough aspect to have kept people guessing, and it was a joy to see.

It’s inherently ‘dangerous’ to write a complex character throughout changing circumstances. People will grab on to what they relate to, and when the character’s actions/stated intent no longer fit with that: it’s not impossible for a person to feel that they’ve been personally attacked.

There’s a reason most television and animated/game characters are very ‘safe’ and ‘samey’. Granted, that reason is ‘it’s easier and it’s already been proven to market well’, but backlash and boycott-heavy subjects don’t enthuse publishers.

TLDR: the author’s canon isn’t any more valid an experience than a reader’s headcanon, at least until they’re trying to push their headcanon upon people who disagree with it. Backlash towards Atlus for not seizing the ‘full potential’ of one aspect is just silly: its far better in social terms than >no< representation at all, and it absolutely paves the way for further ‘mainstream’ transgendered representation.

Glad to see your perspective on the issue! It clears things up a lot! \(^^)/

 

[Alverost]

If just looking at the argument of fancanon Vs headcanon, I feel like there should be a fair amount of respect given to the two. However, respect should be a two-way street. I've seen fans bash on the creator/author simply because they don't agree with what the creator decided to go with which is rather sad to see.

I think the main issue here is the fan's perception of the intended content and whether if the claims made by the fan were done with intended disregard for the actual content or by how they just perceived the content. The former is just someone twisting existing content for propaganda but the latter is just a display of perception over the content.

 

[Kldran]

I find it mildly funny to see suggestions of Chihiro as trans. Chihiro's behavior isn't anything like a girl in a guy's body. If anything, I think him being a representation of the reverse would make more sense to me. He wants the courage to dress and act like a man, but lacks it.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I think the main issue here is the fan's perception of the intended content and whether if the claims made by the fan were done with intended disregard for the actual content or by how they just perceived the content. The former is just someone twisting existing content for propaganda but the latter is just a display of perception over the content.

they're openly stating both Chihiro and Naoto as transgender by following that tweet with the same drawing but the textbox says "We are TRANS" when the source material itself stated otherwise

so yeah, it's safe to say it's the former