u/Beginning-Spare-7689

i would be lying if i said that i was not tempted to join these messy debates/conflicts myself considering chara is one of my favorite characters of all time(to the point where i lurk this subreddit sometimes); hell i even had a rant i wrote a few months ago should i ever come to that, but considering it is too long winded and there’s already been TWO posts for the past few days, i opted on a more “passive” and “different” way to gain perspective on the topic rather than send the nuke and hope it does not become a dumpster fire.

i will say this: in my first discovery of the game in middle school i believed chara was female, in my second discovery last year i opted that chara was nonbinary and that polite corrections should be normalized; in my current state i still see chara as nonbinary but a fair bit masc leaning i could say but now i am much more conflicted, nonetheless i grew just a bit more accepting of other interpretations and i never found worth in engaging until now anyways.

however; what i will say is that although the people on the enby side of the debate have gone too far a few times beyond simple correction; to say they have no point entirely and that there is not a genuine problem in the amount of “proof” it takes to have a nonbinary character regularly recognized is quite egregious. “its just fiction” would convince me more if people actually consistently and reliably gendered enby people in real life correctly without instantly/eventually disregarding it(such as one artist i follow who uses ‘it/its’ yet gets misgendered in their comments constantly); it would also convince me more if the default for any character that does not use he/him or she/her is to gender them in any discussion no matter the authorial intent. GENDERBENDS EXIST; I KNOW THAT, but for males or females its treated as an au for fun while for enbies its most of the time just appearing as glossing over.

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to help illustrate my point, i have this testimony regarding someone and the struggle to have their ocs referred correctly:

"I've made a majority of my characters use they/them when I came out as nonbinary because that's what I was comfortable with. However almost all of them get referred to with she/her because "it's what I am irl", it's not even true and it's a defense given to me by people that I came out to.

It's literally so bad that of my all characters that I wanted to be nonbinary, 5 became demigender and 1 became pangender. The only characters that didn't get changed is a DnD character constantly called a girl (despite having 0 confirmed birth gender and physically appearing COMPLETELY gender neutral), and a cat character constantly confused for a guy (this one is slightly more fair, but also less. There was a previous character that was a similar role that was a guy that used he/him, but that character got scrapped because the person that made it was causing problems with people and was kicked from the project that the character was in. The new character is agender and uses they/them, but people assume it's a redesign of the old character I guess given that sometimes they use the old character name when talking about the new character)

Idk, maybe I'm overreacting over a bunch of fictional characters, but I specifically changed them because they were a way that I was using to figure out my identity, and people just ignored who the characters were and just used what they were used to, even if it was wrong and hurt someone"

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from there, one just has to wonder: is it really fair or a good thing in fandoms, but society in general for nonbinary confirmation that is not in your face from the start to be scrutinized? are we really going to die on the hill that in general, “he/him”(which can be used by girls/enbies), “she/her”(which can be used by boys/enbies) are instantaneous and unanimous proof while “they/them”(or even “it/its” as seen by my recalling of that artist) not only requires the pronoun but also 99TB of evidence? cant “they/them” just be considered the default nonbinary pronoun(elevated to the same status as “he/him” or “she/her”) in media despite its many other uses and other options entirely? there’s neopronouns too but that is another can of worms in itself.

if its too in your face or confirmed explicitly its instantly considered “woke lefty dei garbage” and hatebombed to oblivion; if its not enough in your view or even just confirmed implicitly its just “up to interpretation/unassigned”

reiterating: i am not claiming or asserting that chara’s case is like kris’s and is truly and unequivocally nonbinary even if i think that would be the best outcome for the game and the fanbase. i am just saying that this concern can come from a solid and found place regardless if people of either party can be nasty or excessive for it, and that real genuine transphobes(enbyphobes in particular) still pollute the community even if there’s been many less weighted accusations.

well with this, comes my main question: IF say toby fox(or any other developer) truly intended for chara(or any other enby character) be nonbinary full stop: what approach do you consider efficient enough to consider that legitimate?

and what are your thoughts on this perspective in general? would confirmation in general affect the fandom positively(cementing representation; expelling all the true transphobes from the community due to “woke bullshit”), or would it actually affect the fandom negatively(fully alienating those who saw chara as masc or fem and invalidating all their contributions to the fandom up to that point)?

i hope as clear of an understanding of my position as possible, and for this post’s sake i will remain civil as long as you are.

EDIT: I ONLY PICKED THE LAST OPTION TO SEE THE RESULTS; NOTHING MORE

EDIT 2: the first option is simply shorthand for, “what we have is proof enough of chara being nonbinary”, not “their gender should be accepted as ambiguous”; as the point of this poll is hypotheticals on how toby “should” confirm chara as enby IF he truly wanted to in the first place

EDIT 3: 55(we have enough proof)-45(needs more proof) ratio by vote 100, one transphobic comment but that got caught by the automod soo…. eh.

EDIT 4: reply notifications disabled, i will leave this open but did this solely to prevent flooding my feed; whether i send any more responses is up to my discretion; regardless these results have been enlightening enough and i still stand by casting this aside as quickly as i picked it up

EDIT 5: anddddd that’s enough results to satisfy me i shall leave this post behind now after the last few responses. i shall as promised leave this debate behind for good; i thank everyone who has given me their valuable inputs so i may truly know the spread of stance in the future (minus the two confirmed enbyphobes that commented here, go eat a dick =v)

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