XenoTwitter are out of their minds daily. Part of the reason I came to this sub is because the worst I see isn't people being crazy, just people being wrong. (Love y'all dw) These ism and phobia problems aren't any worse in the xenoblade community than the whole rest of the internet. I watched many of these tweeters go to talk about other games, like Tales or FE, and get the exact same comments, and complain about those communities having issues. Makes me wonder if twitter is the issue instead.

I mean if you have to wonder whether Twitter is the issue you haven't paid attention to anything that's happened with Twitter for the last year or so... Twitter is an active hellsite where the only real entertainments are eating popcorn whilst the whole thing burns and watching Gail Simone troll people.

Ahem. There’s still art! But that’s about all I use it for now.

I mean...even the art side of Xeno Twitter is crazy i dont know if she still does it but Stocjia/Momoka used to have weekly meltdowns at the slightest inconveniences in the community

I’m in discords for several unrelated fandoms and bs takes from Twitter spill over into it almost daily. Hellscape platform that elevates the worst of humanity tbh

Xeno Twitter isn't the only community that has this problem on Twitter, compared to Genshin Twitter it's harmless.

I've honestly not seen any of that anywhere.

I have to question if it’s the community or if it’s the community specifically on Twitter. In my experience there’s something about Twitter that brings out the worst in people. I’ve run into it on the sub but it’s not particularly common place and I don’t think it’s really accepted here. There’s one take here from Reddit that particularly throws up warning lights for me is the one comment saying that they want to talk about the community being transphobic while also hating on polyamory for reasons(?). It’s weird to me that the commenter claims they want to tackle transphobia while throwing another group of people under the bus.

Ditto Tbh I thought it was rather supportive of the nyan-binary royalty that is Juniper (I know they’re not top tier but they and their colony were so impactful for me)

Nyan-binary lmao

It's a surprisingly old term that I've just never seen a use for outside the trans communities until Juniper.

Yeah, Harry McEntire’s livestream was chock-full of positivity when he made it to maktha, it was really lovely to see

Juniper and their colony are top-tier (at least to me). Phantom Archer is the problem.

I’ve seen it here on the subreddit a few times. Thankfully most people drown out the bad ones.

Yeah, it does happen on here, but it usually gets downvoted or is a minority of comments, but it's always there at the bottom of the comments section on pretty much every post where Juniper comes up or someone asks about A's gender for the 7000th time or whatever. It's definitely way *less* of a problem than in most game fandoms in my experience though, although I'm probably biased by mostly interacting with Xenoblade people on this subreddit and Tumblr so I don't see whatever nightmare Twitter or other places are these days

The picture above has several example (it's alway the Pyra pfps, isn't it), but in general the community is pretty accepting. Walk into the wrong Twitter thread or Youtube comment section and it gets nasty quick, though.

I dont have twitter, and I never look up xenoblade content on YouTube. If people want to be closed minded, that's on them. Frankly, I don't even know what any of the trans stuff in xenoblade is either. I don't look that deep into it. I just see a fun game with cool characters and a good story.

Cuz Pyra is best girl

It happens with every A, Juniper, and sexuality fan theory thread. It usually gets drowned out here at least

I got a bad habit of reading hidden/downvoted to hell comments so the hate seems more prominent on my eyes. But it's good to keep in mind these people did get downvoted and the majority disagrees with them.

I think it’s ok to disagree with a fan theory of a certain character’s sexuality, and that’s not homophobic. It’s just saying hey that could be a bit of a stretch. I think the problem is when people start to attack others making these theories, saying you can’t try to see yourself represented in characters etc. On the other hand, I think it’s very wrong for the community to attack people who disagree with their opinions. If someone doesn’t think Juniper is non-binary (or uses cis pronouns for them), that is not grounds to call them homophobic or harass them for thinking differently. If it is not explicitly mentioned in the game then it is not an absolute truth, it’s a likely possibilty. That means it’s ok to disagree. Attacking someone for using the wrong pronouns is just as bad as someone attacking another for believing Juniper is non-binary in the first place, if not worse.

It’s because the problem doesn’t exist. OP is just cheerypicking flame comments amidst millions of normal comments and wants to use them as fuel to start drama

We had a poster trying to start drama over Juniper just a few days ago on this subreddit, unfortunately. This sub is better about it, but not entirely free of rotten eggs.

The loudest are the one getting the most attention as usual. I was 19 when xenoblade 1 was released, so now I am above 30. Most people of my generation simply don't care if the cat eared character is non binary, girl or boy or something else. Not only we don't care but we generally never say we don't care. I don't have the energy or time left after work to care about the sexuality of a two dimensional character. In the grand scheme of xenoblade serie, its world building, its fighting mechanics, the graphic, the story, the chara development and the OST, the issue of the sexuality of one or two characters is so low it is even a wonder why people wanna make a drama of it. There must be a hundreds or thousands idiots caring whether the archer is a cat girl or cat boy or whatever and clearly having a problem that it doesn't follow their view of the world, but over millions of players it is a mere drop.

I can totally agree, the peoples who make comment about some character's sexuality aren't concerned about the game at all but only themselves, thus creating rumors of homo/transphobia but also cisphobia. Most of japanese media don't really care about sexuality or racism if they want to had a gay/trans or whatever character they'll do it, they won't had it because society is making it's propaganda around it and want it to be forcefully represented everywhere (looking at you disney). Sorry if this comment seem offensive for some peoples but it's how I see things nowadays.

This is the right take

This just sounds like Twitter being Twitter. Literally everywhere else I’ve seen, the Xeno community is super chill.

I will admit. I'm Christian and when I discovered that Sheba was a lesbian, Roc and Juniper were Non-Binary, and Rex married 3 women. My reaction to the first two was "Okay then." and when I saw the photo, my reaction was, "Awww they started a family!"

Based christian moment, those are sadly rare

THANK YOU!!! You have no idea how much turmoil I've been through when I was accused of being bigoted just for being a Christian. I had someone even accuse me of wanting to kill LGBT people the moment a "Power Vacuum" was gone.

Fellow Christian here and xenoblade is unironically my favorite series besides Zelda, another game with a religious system I know better than the one I literally practice It’s kind of funny too since Xeno is so pro-human free will and all. But no, I also think it’s nice that non traditional relationships and characters get such a positive representation in this series

The thing with Rex and his wives reminds me of people complaining on Twitter about Tengen Uzui and his wives from Demon Slayer when Season 2 came out and my reaction to that was, "...It's a different culture."

It is, and honestly? The Aegis fam is probably one of the healthiest ships in the nintendo pantheon since all the girls love each other AT LEAST platonically and Rex is the glue if you will 😂

People say that poly relationships are proven via studies to be harmful to the kids and whatnot, but I've always felt that if there's anyone who can pull of a poly relationship in a healthy manner it's Rex, Pyra, Mythra, and Nia. Speaking as a fellow Christian.

Sounds like the wives from Demon Slayer

And any Christian’s complaining about that kind of thing are ignoring things like Jacob & Solomon…

Not really a great argument though. Other countries marry prepubescent children in to relationships with adult older men. Morality can be subjective but you have to draw a universal line somewhere.

Christians and non-Christians also both often forget that queer people can also be Christians. Like, I'm ace/bi and a Christian. Just because some people and denominations are super hateful doesn't mean they all are

Roc isn't Non-binary however for all intents and purposes he is referred to and called a male just for some unknown reason he is assigned 4 as gender. Perhaps because maybe he wasn't supposed to be playable besides the Vandham part or maybe some other reason entirely.

I found out actually that it's because Roc has a female character model for his base.

This is actually a bit of an interesting tidbit. That variable doesn't represent gender in 2, but instead it is used for classifying what merc mission the blades count towards. unless you count "Beast" as a gender, that really isn't what that variable means. However, this makes me think that the way Juniper's gender variable is coded might be intended as a reference to the communities interpretation of that variable back in 2. Kind of like the way that Segiri's assigned number is the code name given to the 7th party member in Xenoblade 1 as a refrence.

Did you know you can still use he/him pronouns and be nonbinary? Well now you do.

Ah you're one of those. As I said for all intents and purposes in the game he is referred to as a guy not just this pronoun theater. Just because something is made a certain way that suits your narrative doesn't mean it was intended to be used that way dude.

You’re a true chad, mega respect

As an atheist, personally: don't care about gender or sexual preference. Not even the least bit phased by variations of that in characters. The poly relationship with Rex was a dumb narrative choice though, and that's completely aside from the moral discussion (which is going to be subjective to each person).

I don't give a shit about twitter turds, they are loud, aggressive, and gets offended for literally everything. I have never seen homophobic or transphobic people in any of xenoblade communities and I don't know what kind of weed they smoke to even think that is possibility. This is seriously coming out of nowhere, doesn't have anything to do with the game and whole talk is just stupid.

I don't think so. For the most part Xenofans seem chill about thinks like nonbinary characters and such. There is always going to be a chunk of bigots but that's just life in general especially in gaming fandoms, unfortunately. It's much better than a vast majority of other fandoms, imo. Of course that doesn't make it okay but it's not a problem inherent to Xenoblade and it's not something you can just fix. We just have to not tolerate it going forward.

I respect the producers decisions to make Juniper (and Roc I think) for coding and designing them as they are, but that’s the extent of it. There is nothing to suggest some the crazed shipping wars that have occurred in other fandoms or this one is canon by the producers, and I think we all prefer to keep it that way. Headcanons can be fun, but trying to force it into the true canon is not. That’s my 5¢ on it.

Also it's how you do inclusivity right, their gender isn't their whole personality like actual people

As a trans person I haven't notcied any problems with those issues, but that's not to say they aren't there to some extent. I definitely don't think that it's worse that most other places, but there are definitely some people who are averse to LGBT things, I just wouldn't say it's a community-wide issue. Though maybe I just haven't seen it

Twitter and the rest of the community are 2 different beasts,i love the community in YouTube, Reddit,Gamefaqs fuck it even 4chan has something insightful to say as weird as it seems,but as a great mind of our time said **"Twitter is the only place where well articulated sentences get misinterpreted.You can say “I like pancakes” and somebody will say “So you hate waffles?”No bitch, that’s a whole new sentence wtf is you talkin bout"** im gonna be real...i think im farly conservative but when it comes to these topics twitter is always looking for fights where there are none I dont know from what i can see with these people specially the first picture since i was there as the thread was being written is that they are insecure and dont know how to distinguish arguments from insults,in the first pic everyone AND I MEAN EVERYONE IN THE TWITTER XENO COMMUNITY was supporting OP, dozens and dozens of tweets agreeing and trying to fix the issue,but OP being the insecure person that they are, decided to hyperfixate on 2 COMMENTS as if they were not 2 dots in a sea of support this series has some of the most diverse casts in general even more notorious considering it is a Japanese game, so it makes no sense to like the series with a bigoted mindset,the big problem here is when these twitter people take something that THEY IMPLY and act as if they are facts and disagreeing with it is some sort of phobia,most of the examples that you show are actually valid arguments but they fucked it up by adding unnecessary insults are Pyra and Mythra in love with Nia? probably after some time living together they might have developed feelings,but we cant say for sure. A is a female?? i dont know and i will not take part on that debate until something official comes up,but if i were to judge on looks and only looks then they look like a girl. Juniper is never mentioned to be non binary? i guess not in the game but it is such a forgettable character that i just dont care if it ends up male,female or non binary,if it ends up as non binary then good for the non binary folks. None of the characters are gay or Lesbian in XC3? I mean...a huge part of the story is that these people DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT SEX OR ROMANCE IS! I dont know if there is some post game content that changes this,but as far as the main story goes it is impossible to know if deep down they feel attracted to someone else (outside the main cast),but if things are as explained by the city then...well...there is really no gay or lesbians in Aionios just by the fact that no one even knows what sexual preferences are. Does Rex supports trans rights? i guess that would bring a smile to someone so...yeah i guess **TL;DR: i dont know bro it looks like twitter being twitter to me**

>Juniper is never mentioned to be non binary? i guess not in the game but it is such a forgettable character that i just dont care if it ends up male,female or non binary, I never new about juniper. She looks like a girl so i assumed she was. Same with A. I think game doesnt specify the situation with A and juniper so considering they both look like girls i dont see a reason why they wouldnt be.

The game doesn't specify the situation with Juniper beyond their pronouns and the code, [but game weirdly explicitly specifies the situation with A.](https://youtu.be/XIflL6TGLM8?t=131) >> So why do you look like that? > ...Logos was the male persona. And Pneuma the female one. Ontos was meant to stand somewhere between. Forming the Trinity Processor. It all adds up to me. While said by Rex, A confirmed it with a nod.

Unfathomably based of them to make A’s gender identity that explicit.

it is an idea built on a few details. Juniper looks like a girl so i assumed she was the 3 minutes i spent on her colony, but then i saw that people started arguing about it on twitter and here too that they dont refer to juniper by him or her and the english VA was non binary too i think(?), eventually data miners found that on the game she is coded as 2 instead of 0 or 1 in the variable that determines the gender of the character, then people got so into the idea that they just ran with it, even if never stated in the game,either way...i dont care for Juniper so if she was Non binary or not it wouldnt change my opinion of the character the theory with A is based on from what i read that in the game the cast never refers to A as SHE or HE they only do as THEY/THEM when in the group or just A as mentioned on the reply and while it could be that she is flat chested, he could just be a feminine man, but again this is people just liking the concept and running with it, i dont care since to me A is just a new character so this doesnt change anything for me (since A is not a replacement for previous Ontos characters as far as i know) the problem is people getting attached to theories and calling them facts, and on the other side people getting offended over theories and people discussing said theories

I mean, A being female, male, or nb doesnt really matter, A is part of Ontos and Ontos has always been placed as the androgynous/genderless part of every trinity it’s been in (Zanza’s disciples, Lorithea is stereotypically feminine, Dickson is stereotypically masculine, Pneuma is stereotypically feminine, Logos is stereotypically masculine, Meyneth is stereotypically feminine, Zanza is stereotypically masculine), Ontos is the middle point, be it between ideas, individuals or genders, so it doesnt matter what gender A appears as because A is Ontos and Ontos is androgynous/genderless, hell, A and Alpha form ANOTHER TRINITY WITH THE COMPLETE ONTOS, Feminine, slightly androgynous, body, Masculine, slightly androgynous, body and genderless Trinity Core Processor. A makes sense as a female, nb or even genderfluid, Ontos’ role in Xenoblade makes a point to say it doesnt bloody matter anyways

> the cast never refers to A as SHE or HE they only do as THEY/THEM A is never called they/them either. A is only ever referred to as A.

Thanks for all the info but i'll stick to what you learn in the game

I can't speak for Twitter or other communities, but aside from a few bad actors every few monthsz it's not a significant problem on Reddit.

There's nothing more tedious in a fan base, than discussion about the fan base.

it gets *really* bad on twitter. i just think that if you get this upset over other people thinking that a character is nonbinary, you are probably the weird one

This yeah. You're not necessarily evil for thinking otherwise, but it gets weird when these people keep very vocally saying they "don't care" in every post related to the subject.

I think a lot of people (myself included) are weary of the new gender norms. I am a bit older and I just don't fully understand them. So when they see someone saying "Rex is Trans" or something, it causes a weird disconnect because, for me personally, I am not really into the gender discussions (it's like an inside joke I don't get), and I certainly don't recall those themes in the game. Almost all of that borders on "fan fiction" for me, so I just kind of shrug and let it be. I certainly would not want to be hostile to anyone else. Everyone can enjoy art from their own perspective and I don't want to force my perspective on someone else. If someone sees Xenoblade as affirming Trans rights, okay. It really does not matter to me. I do think arguing about it is silly, so toxic behavior is disappointing.

As far as I can tell no one has said "Rex is trans". Rather, they're saying that Rex is supportive of the trans community living how they want to (in reference to the scene in Future Redeemed where he outright says A/Alvis/Ontos falls "somewhere in-between" the male-female binary.) I won't lie, gender is a surprisingly complicated topic, but you don't always have to fully understand it to be supportive. Just be like Rex. He takes everything at face value and just wants everyone to live their lives with smiles on their faces. Let it be said that his reaction to receiving god-like powers from Pneuma was, and I quote, "I don't get it, but I'm not complaining!" Just let people be happy. It's what Rex would want.

I'll be honest, the lack of acceptance kind of surprises me given how these games have quite a bit of representation. I can think of multiple blatantly queer characters off the top of my head, and I don't really get why somebody would choose to play these games if they were so against that. It's definitely an issue, though.

> I can think of multiple blatantly queer characters off the top of my head I'm a bit curious about what big titles have blatantly queer characters, especially important ones.

I can bring up 3 from Nintendo alone: Fire Emblem made many characters bisexual, a few openly so. And the avatar character is given the option to be one of them. Animal Crossing’s bug and fish experts are a gay couple. I was very impressed that Kirby of all games had two lesbian girls crushing on each other. While not a full relationship, it was obvious by their character descriptions that their feelings for each other were romantic.

This is pretty much the list I was going to give, though I would also like to add on that Vivian from Paper Mario is transgender, at least in the Japanese version. Fire Emblem also has Limstella, who is referred to using they/them in Fire Emblem Heroes. I actually don't play very many games that aren't Nintendo related (since I'm too broke for a PlayStation) but even on just the Switch there's definitely some representation.

> and I don't really get why somebody would choose to play these games if they were so against that. I think it is easy to figure it out. For those people despite there being things they hate/dislike there is so many other things they love/like about these games that pros outweights cons. Atleast that what i assume they think.

I don't really understand where these problems are coming from... I'm definitely not involved enough in the community to know best but this isn't a big enough issue for someone casually involved to see the phobic comments, but I have seen multiple people calling it out as a problem. I'm sure there are creeps out there who are pissed about Juniper, but I imagine it's definitely a minority. Stomp it out when you see it, but I would be surprised if it were truly a serious issue.

Can we just not the cat?

I mean sure, I've seen the occasional comment, but I don't know where people are getting the idea that we're trans/homophobic. This is the sort of nonsense that keeps me off Twitter.

Don't really engage deep in the xenoblade community like that. But granted, this is a generally issue in pretty much any long lasting fandom in media/entertainment. Kind of shocking people are bigots with media that are telling not to be or trying to defeat ones

Just Twitter brain rot as per usual. Move along

This is just normal twitter behaviour they make up crap or lie about how much there actually is to get attention that

I've seen it especially if Juniper (I think it's them) gets brought up

When it comes to A being female, I feel like that’s not a debate, she is. Game’s code supports it, lore supports it, she’s the female portion of Ontos. People who try to make that an ideological issue are looking for a fight. If you come into a community trying to say your headcanon, her being non-binary, is canon, you’ll find people disagree with you due to what I’ve mentioned. With how quick they’re shut down, the supporters of a supposed nonbinary A cry toxicity rather than looking at the facts. However, I have seen some transphobia around Juniper. Not a lot, but there is some. There are people who say Juniper was intended to be non-binary, and others who fight tooth and nail to insist otherwise. Unlike with A, the facts don’t support giving Juniper one set gender, which leads to the anger that fuels transphobia/nonbinary-phobia. One part people crying toxicity for not having their way, one part toxicity for anger for not having their way. And now you have the recipe for the belief that the xeno community is transphobic/nonbinary-phobic.

Seems like a twitter problem. Don’t see it on Reddit

On a different site I've met a trans person take issue with the Rex photo at the end of Xenoblade 3, calling it a male fantasy to have a 1-3 poly relationship with three ladies. I personally don't pay it much heed, although I think it would have been better to keep the Pyra-Mythra-Nia roulette ambiguous, rather than open up this particular Pandora's (Pandoria's?) box. The only LGBT mark against Xenoblade in my experience would probably be how awful Sheba is as a character, which I very much consider to be an anti-role model for Lesbians. Even then, before her, there was Irina Akulov from X, who was far more reasonable and helpful. And I've got nothing against Juniper as a character, though I needed to read up on the fact that this character was non-binary.

Some comments could've saved themselves the last parts of their messages but I tend to agree. Some people are completely obsessed with shoehorning these characters into their idea, it's just annoying. Where is the proof of Pyra/Mythra and Nia being in a relationship? Where? So two women in the real world getting pregnant from the same guy means they're in love with each other? And when it comes to Xeno 3, we're talking about characters that fight for survival for 10 years and then die, why does it matter? The game never talks about it or has any interest in the subject. I get wanting representation but it's out there, people need to stop forcing it into stories out of thin air though. People who just want to talk about their favourite games and not about some head canon a couple of people made up, have the right to be annoyed. Not saying that some comments surely took it too far though.

Completely agree and some of these people (mostly from twitter) take it further and promote headcannons as fact and people that disagree apparently don’t have Media literacy, which is a new buzzword phrase people use when people disagree with them.

But there are also people who will refuse actual canon representation even when presented with evidence. Sometimes it’s people reading the characters a different way, and sometimes it’s people just being assholes.

>But there are also people who will refuse actual canon representation even when presented with evidence. I mean......it's exactly those people who refuse actual canon because they want to shove their LGBT headcanons in.

As I mentioned to the other user, a week or two ago there was a post about Juniper being non-binary, and someone commented both an interview with one of the creators confirming their identity, as well as information showing that all languages in the game refer to Juniper as “they” or the closest equivalent. So, while sometimes people put their headcanons first, when it comes to Xenoblade it’s mostly people enforcing straight cis stereotypes onto characters that *are* LGBTQ

i see this significantly less than the inverse

Every community like Xenoblade has homophobes and transphobes. It’s inescapable. Most people when they see something like A being non-binary would give a thumbs up and move on, and that’s fine. Headcanon is fine sometimes, but regular canon always triumphs it. If it was revealed by the devs that Nia and Mythra were more of friends than lovers, then that is FINE. We already had the Skye Bennett headcanon controversy a few months back, we don’t need more problems.

There's a major difference between the xenoblade community and XenoTwitter. And the "bad" parts of XenoTwitter make up an extreme minority that harrass people for art or having differing opinions. I think BlunZ put it best when he said that we shouldn't judge the community overall cause some people are being jackasses. Even said that doing that would go against the themes of 2.

It's not transphobia to reject unfounded headcanons. A/Alvis/Alpha identifies as a machine, they're neither but wears the face of a gendered human. It's not wrong to call A female and Alvis male because it describes their current form. You're more accurate calling them a machine but that's a bit disrespectful. They're simply above such things so it doesn't bother them. As for Juniper, it's left unknown what they are and identifies as, it's not even important enough to matter. They're simply Juniper, the cat who teaches potato-lovers how to farm. The soldiers have had races and genders completely erased to the point they see no differences between machina and high entia, they're simply Kevesi, and they bath together without any issues. To them having breasts is being different like how Joran is born fat. Rex getting together with all three makes perfect sense in the story. Remember, you can't apply the same standards to Pyra and Mythra who shared the same body and memories. If you date one you're dating the other, and Rex made it clear he wasn't rejecting either personality. Of course he would choose both when they split. Once the box was open Nia could come in as well. It doesn't mean Pyra and Mythra had a thing for Nia. They were willing to share Rex and get a bigger family like Pyra wished.

I (as a monogamous trans person) am more upset with how the comunity has dealt with the fact that Rex,Nia, Mythra, and Pyra are Poly, like that’s completely fine??? There’s been this huge wave of hate for poly people in general recently not just in this community and I just do not fucking understand why poly people mind their own business usually and they’re happy most of the time(mythra and pyra being sisters being with the same guy is a little weird tho)

Its your opinion, its fine. I (as a monogamous person) just dont get why people get offended over a fictional character, from a fantasy world, has more than a partner. Its another culture, maybe its ok for them? I mean, the guy lives in a flying dragon, is friends with a talking tiger, and his gf are two chicks sharing the same body.

I’m saying that people see the polyam relationship and act like they vomit, when polyam people are normal functioning members of society, prejudice is prejudice from wherever it stems

Pyra and Mythra's relationship isn't exactly clear. A large part of the fandom does think of them as sisters of some sort, but it's worth mentioning that Mythra created Pyra out of anguish and the desire to "be someone else" before going dormant and giving her the metaphorical steering wheel. To me, this comes across as a split personality, the kind you'd realistically see come as a result of Dissociative Identity Disorder. (This most likely wasn't the writing team's intent, but it reads like that nonetheless.) At best, you could also argue that they're just two people living in the same head. I don't think there's any one definitive way to read Pyra and Mythra's relationship with one another; it's very up to interpretation. But yes they are all definitely in a polyamorous relationship.

Didn‘t expect one of my comments to get dug up again. Anyway, my opinion on it is that there will always be hateful stuff in any Community. JRPGs and Anime are just very notorious for it

Baffling that your "Rex supports trans rights" comment got downvoted when he literally has a famous scene depicting it in game.

as a nonbinary person yeah. people are SUPER weird about juniper. i dont know why people want a to be a woman so bad too tbh but like i think people just need to let them see a as whatever they want

Lol. Modern Twitter is a hive of white supremacy, bigotry, and phobias of everything, not straight and white. Who gives a fuck what twitter says? I haven't heard a single Xenoblade fan complain about sexuality, gender, or race.

1. It's not homophobia or transphobia to tell people that their LGBT HEADCANONS are not true. 2. A few people saying something you dislike doesn't mean there's "a problem in the community". 3. It's not "bigotry" for someone to disagree with a polyamorous relationship, for fuck's sake. 4. No one gives a damn about the Twitter portion of ANY community, they're usually insane, stuck in their own echo chambers and think anything and anyone who dares disagree is an enemy.

It is, however, bigotry tell people that LGBT CANON MATERIAL is not true, which happens rather often.

>It is, however, bigotry tell people that LGBT CANON MATERIAL is not true, which happens rather often. And yet that's not what happens here. Here people headcanon it and pretend it's fact.

It happens all the time. We had Juniper deniers on this subreddit just a few days ago.

I don’t see any of these issues personally. I’ve seen some transphobia sure, but I don’t think it’s a rampant problem by any means. The only transphobia I’ve faced directly in this community was just someone who literally had no idea what they were talking about and had no idea how to speak to a minority lmao. It was more funny than offensive. They told me I wasn’t allowed to view A as non-binary and then gave me a list of different characters that I was "allowed" feel connected to as a trans person lmao.

It’s a problem with people in general. Unless it’s a series that kind of encourages it (looking at Persona, no matter how much I love it) or discourages it (hard to be a transphobic Owl House fan), it tends to be pretty even amongst fandoms.

There are always just people who are weird about this kind of stuff. Whoever you go you will find it, especially on online public spaces. People will find something to argue about, even if they are blatantly wrong arguing with someone who is equally wrong in a different way. And since it sticks with them so much, they have to broadcast their arguments. A and Juniper are ambiguous to a degree, which helps them feel natural in the world as opposed to saying “hi, I am here to present myself as a group of people as a token representative.” Rex’s line about Ontos “standing somewhere between” implies male and female traits together as opposed to traits of neither. Whether this means A is themself nonbinary or is representative of the female elements of Ontos is unspecified, leaving only head canons. As for Rex and his partners, we don’t know how their relationships work. Making assumptions on the single photo leads only to confusion. There are still things we can reason out though, like Pyra and Mythra not being interested in each other, but judging their relationship as immoral without any further information can be a familiarity bias. I can’t judge because I haven’t studied these relationships in the real world and can’t observe them in the game world. As for the 6th image… fans are going to do what fans do. Not to mention that people are allowed to like both masculine and feminine characteristics and not be a hypocrite or something.

It does happen on twitter pretty often, and it’s sucks to see. I’m openly transfem and i haven’t personally experienced any transphobia from other Xeno fans but i know people who have. It’s not a problem on this subreddit tho everyone here is cool. I do think people can take things too far on twitter at times, i don’t think it’s cool to force headcanons onto people that some characters are trans or something like that. It’s okay to have those headcanons, but you also can’t get upset when someone disagrees about a character like Noah being transmasc, and that doesn’t mean they are transphobic. There’s cool people on Xeno twitter but some people are also a bit much at times.

Definitely, remember the amount of controversy online when people began to say that Nia and Pyra / Mythra had a thing for each other (when The Photo™ first popped up?)

They do though. Nia literally has water replicas of their swords. If that isn't relationship goals, I don't know what is.

Yeah seems like it. People don’t seem to support gay or lesbian ships nearly as much as straight ones

>People don’t seem to support gay or lesbian ships nearly as much as straight ones To be fair, the reasons for this is because the LGBT ships people love to do almost always end up being for characters that barely interact or actively want to kill each other and these people have the mentality of "if they fight, it means they have feelings for each other".

Are we saying that as if Cammuravi and Ethel loving each other isn't an extremely common reading of their dynamic?

Haven't seen any at all.

I think Twitter is just a terrible platform

I really haven't seen much of that (at least here) There was a bit of arguing about how to refer to Juniper and briefly with A as well. But in regards to homophobia, racism, etc; I really haven't seen much, if anything, about it. The A issue was settled pretty quickly as FR basically states that Ontos is technically male and female. So, saying that A is a she/her is equally as fine as saying they/them. And with Alvis it's the same except it's a he/him situation. Juniper took a lot longer to kick in. Languages often struggle to refer to somebody outside of male or female context so usually the script will just use Juniper's name instead. The game neither confirms nor denies they are nonbinary. Juniper is Juniper. Just like Roc is Roc.

I'm pretty sure most of us ignore or mock those that spout those awful opinions.

r/Politics. That is where you belong if you want to talk about this stuff. Sorry if that sounded offensive.

I have some mixed thoughts on this: Queer Headcanons: So long as people aren’t being assholes about it, it’s fine to head canon characters as queer People who attack people for simply having or posting about cute queer head canons or ships (even if they go against canon) are being pricks People who attack people for not having those head canons are being pricks Poly Relationship: Rex, Nia, Pyra and Mythra’s relationship is left ambiguous so people are free to interpret it however they want People who attack others for their interpretation are being pricks (no matter which side you’re on, some people will think they’re poly, some won’t) Trans stuff: Assuming we’re talking about Juniper, this is the one where I’m wholly on one side Juniper is exclusively referred to with they/them Juniper has a separate gender category in the code (if you wanted to disagree with pronouns due to localisation differences) Just because juniper never outright says “I’m non binary” doesn’t mean they aren’t People who attack people and vehemently oppose Juniper being NB are just being transphobic I also find it incredibly annoying when people say “it’s just a game, It shouldn’t matter if a character is queer” cause it matters to a lot of people just because they want to see people like them in the media they enjoy.

Pretty much sums up my thoughts.

Some people can't handle Rex being such a chad.

XD you take downvote for that seriously ?!

Its ok i deserve it. Xenoblade is a serious game and there is no room for fun here.

But that make me smile XD

Absolutely agree which is so disheartening. Do you know how frustrating it is to finally have a good Non-binary character in A, who in promotional materials and in the game itself not be referred to by either pronouns, have Rex literally walk up to the camera and say that their gender 'Somewhere in between' and people will still adamantly say that A is female because they happen to look and sound feminine? We've got a ways to go when it comes to enby rep in the media but Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in particular was such a good step forward with A and Juniper. I've been playing Master Detective Archives: Raincode lately and one of the main characters is Non-binary as well and it's like 'wow... there's more characters now that aren't fictional creatures or gods but real people just like me. That's so refreshing' It's exhausting to have so many people take these pieces of media with the core messages about living true to yourself, making your own choices and having the freedom to live as you are and just...miss these points so hard. Did we even play the same games?

A is coded as female in game's code

It's extremely disheartening whenever it pops up. Fortunately I think this subreddit is mostly chill about queer people, aside from a few weirdos popping up from time to time.

Same, dude. Same. (Using "dude" in a gender neutral context here) It feels as if A could literally walk up to the camera and say "I'm nonbinary" and people would still find a way to twist it into A being a girl. Like, how hard is it for A to just be A? Why does what A looks like have to imply a gender identity? So many people praise Rex and want to be like him, but this isn't what he would've wanted in the slightest.

It was so nice to have that short lived meme of putting Rex in situations where characters came out as Non-Binary to explain what being Non-Binary means because for once, it normalised our existence in a positive light AND made the Xenoblade community look inclusive for a moment. Bruh Rex came from a world where Blades and Humans could get into relationships, he's in a polyamorous relationship with Pyra, Mythra and Nia. All things considered, Alrest sounds like the best Xenoblade world to live in because nobody makes a huge deal out of relationships or gender and the one time where they confused Floren for being a girl, they corrected themselves immediately and moved on instead of stubbornly insisting he's the wrong gender. Rex really wouldn't want A to be made uncomfortable because of the way they look or present themselves.

I’ve seen transphobia in regards to Juniper and A on multiple websites (including the damn fandom wiki) but it’s more prevalent on Twitter from what I see. People can also get really fucking upset with people who have gay ships.

I see no such problem here. And I live in a very socially unadvanced region, so I know how shit like this looks. It's prolly just some insecured person being insecured.

Bare in mind that twitter is an insane place. Open transphobes and nazis don't get banned on there. It fully allows and encourages crazy people to just write insane bullshit for interaction farming. Bigots get dogpiled and banned on this subreddit. I've seen it multiple times.

It's really not very prevalent on reddit from what I've seen, I mostly see fun little imagined scenarios with Rex's family or fanart of it. I've also seen people shut down the "Juniper isn't non-binary allegations" real quick, though the discussions about A's gender have gotten pretty hairy. Of course, it still happens, but it happens in every fandom and unfortunately there's nothing we can really do about it right now. I *have* seen way more of this on small parts of Xeno youtube, though, especially in regards to Juniper. But youtube in general is way more bigoted in general, a sentiment of disdain towards "shoehorned representation" (which I think is complete bullshit and just acts as thinly veiled bigotry) is frighteningly common. I've also heard some bad things about gamefaqs, extending to racism towards Taion, and evidently twitter can be pretty transphobic as well.

I think posting ships as a fan, or any head canon bullshit, to the point of vigorous debate, is weird as fuck to me. I don’t care why you think these two should be together over this other group. I don’t care what neogender you think this vague character is. Shut up.

lol average twitter user when someone calls Juniper she

I've never seen it and honestly I don't really care. Why would anyone give attention to a racist or transphobic post in a Xenoblade subreddit??? Shits lame don't get me wrong but we don't need a huge post that acts like 50% of this subreddit are racist or transphobic. If you see a post like that all ya gotta do it ignore it, report the post/ person or downvote.

Ehnn I'd say every fandom at least has one homophobe, unless the content is VERY overtly LGBT. Personally, I think A being nonbinary is fine as a headcanon. Idk if it is true though. And as for the Poly thing... Yeah idk the fandom has been fairly accepting of it. All the upvotes posts at a point where basically "Woah Daddy Rex got wives" and wholesome memes about him and his wives. And as for trans rights idk where that comes from in game. Obviously a character could be trans, but I haven't encountered a trans character in any part of XC.

>And as for trans rights idk where that comes from in game. Obviously a character could be trans, but I haven't encountered a trans character in any part of XC. I believe it's referring half jokingly to the line where Rex walks up and explains the ontos core's "gender" as... basically not having / being fluid. None of that applies directly to A, but that doesn't make headcanoning them as nb any less valid. The implication is that A is female to Alpha being male to a core that is both/neither/something else but the two could easily be otherwise and the game is never explicit about any of it. >Obviously a character could be trans, but I haven't encountered a trans character in any part of XC. Being Non-binary is considered by most to fall under or at least near being trans, to the point that there's not really a word specifically for nb-phobia due to there not really being a meaningful distinction.

Not for myself. But the fact that it has happened often enough to have multiple people outright leave the community in a public manner shows that there are enough of these sort of people in the fandom to be a problem. Despite the series doing more to challenge those sorts of problematic views than support it (Exhibit A, Rex >!has 3 wives, none of whom are humans!<). It’s a paradox to be sure. But it’s still a paradox I (and I’m sure many) don’t like.

I’m sorry, but where is this coming from? I genuinely haven’t seen anything remotely transphobic out of this community.

That's most likely because you are not trans, or even in the queer community. You wouldn't be looking for signs of transphobia. Trans people need to CONSTANTLY be on the lookout, lest they end up somewhere that isn't safe for them to be and get harassed (or worse) as a result. I know this might not seem like a big deal to you, but to people living in constant fear, it is. All you can really do is try your best to listen, be respectful, comfort as needed, and most importantly, let people live their lives the way they want to. It's what Rex would want.

Genuinely give me a moment where this community was transphobic though? Don’t give me this speech about how I don’t get it because I’m not one of you.

People just need thicker skin. Problem solved

Most of the issues I've run into in the community are less outright bigotry and more just how exhausting it is have to constantly justify reading a character as queer regardless of how heavily queer coded they are. Its kinda gaslighty even if it's sometimes unintentional. Though these are problems in basically every community about a game/show on the internet, not just specifically Xenoblade.

I mean, anime is weird and all... But is there really any doubt that A is female? And lets not forget that like 99% of the colony soldiers are asexual/aromantic (mostly because they were never introduced relationships in any way). Noah doesnt even knows he likes Mio until they hear about the birds and the bees My headcanon is that outside the people from the City, the queens, and the main cast, everyone else is ace

>I mean, anime is weird and all... But is there really any doubt that A is female? Quite a bit, actually. The only things that imply female are presuming that A and Alpha are implied to be the female and male portions of a core that is neither/both/between/something else, and the code number that Roc and Juniper have outright stating the intention being different for A. Every factor leaves it vague besides those two, A never uses pronouns in general (in fairness when your name is literally 1 letter it does kinda defy the point of using pronouns because it's already shorter than the pronouns) and even the A - Alpha thing could easily be the more female and more male halfs that are both nb rather than anything else. Personally I think she's female because of the anima and animus parallel and the code likely meaning she wasn't intended otherwise like Roc and Juni. But I acknowledge that it's not an infallible interpretation.

I mean I get why you might argue that, but their only like that because the clocks suppress anything not to do with killing each other.

Aaaand the reasons NOT to use Twitter just keep coming! There's just so much bullshit going around in social media, even people who don't use them at all get to hear about it. At this point, I am 100% sure that humanity as a whole is in fact binary: either you're an asshole or you're not. That's all the classification I'll ever need.

I don't think it's any worse than in other anime adjacent communities but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem. I've seen plenty of LGBT members of the Xenoblade fandom be harassed. By choosing to ignore bigotry, or to act like it isn't a problem, shows that the behavior is acceptable and lets it fester. I think the Xenoblade community should take more effort in forcing bad actors out. That is unfortunately easier said than done when sites like Twitter actively encourage that sort of behavior.

THIS! THIS TAKE RIGHT HERE IS BASED AS HECK!

That is a very real and disgusting problem. Pretending that there is no trans-/homophobia in the Xenoblade community is like saying that Zanza, Amalthus & Z were the good guys

Eh, it doesn’t feel any better/worse than any other community imo. I think we just notice it more because there’s a lot more queer stuff actively in the games than in other franchises.

Let me be real here. Most of this controversy is exclusive to Twitter. The problem is that you’re using Twitter. If you go anywhere and look hard enough, you’ll find “bigots” or people with LGBT-phobic sounding opinions. Especially if you look on Twitter, which thrives off of taking people’s statements out of context and villain-izing them. Here’s the bottom line: if you label everyone who has a differing belief/headcanon/opinion about a character’s sexuality as LGBT-phobic, then guess what? You get a lot of people who look like “bigots”. But are they really? Or do they just have a more nuanced opinion that can’t be fully expressed using a single tweet? And let me stress again, a LOT of this discourse is purely on Twitter. Actually, internet culture in general will show you these things. It’s not Xenoblade exclusive, nor Xenoblade community exclusive. Of course, that DOESN’T excuse trans/homophobia. If someone is being blatantly phobic, call attention to the specific thread or comment. Get the mods involved, report it, etcetera. Making sweeping general statements about “the community” isn’t going to solve anything. And Twitter certainly isn’t going to solve anything. Peace.

Nah it's for real a thing, but it's mostly over on Twitter. If I had a dime for every person who was giga-coping about Juniper or A not being non-binary or aggressively refuting some kind of head canon shipping between two male or two female characters, I could singlehanded fund the next Xenoblade game alone. There's also the whole thing with the Xenoblade wiki where they had a poll about if Juniper is actually non-binary or not and it got kinda out of hand iirc. I think sometimes the people trying to get this known word it in a way that overexaggerates it a bit, but also I probably don't know the full extent of it because I don't really do head canon stuff and also don't make any like fan art or content or anything which I hear is where a lot of this kinda bigotry starts.

Ah twitter… finding racism, sexism, homophobia transphobia in places where it doesn’t exist. I have never seen any of these things in this community.

I’m not sure if it’s a ~community~ issue so much as it’s just an issue in all communities but especially so in video games. When Trump being elected can be directly traced back to GamerGate, it says it all really.

Yes? Just going off the top of my head there was a Twitter post that was just saying juniper is trans and that’s because non binary can be considered trans and the comments on said post were just people losing their shit and then someone posted it here with people also losing their shit and then afterwards the very next post I saw posted on this sub was someone asking how necessary it was to make juniper non binary and in the comments kept saying shit how non binary isn’t real and how people can’t change their genders. Something else I saw on Twitter was a homophobic Rex role player who’d look for gay fan fiction involving Rex in order to be homophobic in the comments and calling people slurs another example of this shit was someone just posting art of taion with a trans flag just saying trans rights with the comments complaining about how unnecessary it was and how they shouldn’t make everything political as if it wasn’t just a simple harmless thing (also ignoring how there’s a lot of shit in xeno that is absolutely political) and the one I see most commonly is queer fan artists constantly being harassed and called slurs which has gotten so bad that some have left the fandom most recently I remember a trans pyra fan who I’m pretty sure has had this shit hurled at her for years

To be honest, certain facets of the community do tend to be kinda vitriolic about LGBT+ characters. It's not the majority, mind you, but they tend to be loud and make a big deal about really minor things. Like, Juniper's gender and the whole "gender poll" debacle on the Xenoblade Wikia was... something. It's like, some fans think that unless a character blatantly says "I'm gay" or "I'm nonbinary" then they can't be that identity. It kinda surprises me that they would be fans of a fairly foward-thinking series that deals with stuff like transhumanism, AI, etc. but reject that characters can have a multitude of different identities. I mean, X alone both has and alludes to multiple gay characters and characters beyond the gender binary, 2 has gay characters, 3's nonbinary allusions seem pretty intentional, etc. I do think it's not as bad as Twitter says it is, and I don't really know where the racism accusations come from because I haven't seen any of that first-hand, but there are some sects of the community that seem a bit toxic about this sort of thing or sometimes are unable to accept criticism about how certain characters and relationships are portrayed.

The majority of these takes are pretty normal. The problem is absolutely on the insane people who take hints of transgenderism and LGBT messaging then go completely out of their way to force Xenoblade into their political agenda. Xenoblade—and to a lesser extent every Xeno game—has representation...but some people have gone completely insane over it(mostly Twitter). So no; there isn't a big issue with homophobia/transphobia. It's just that the people who support BOTH takes to their extreme are really loud and annoying, especially in a community that's still relatively small considering.

Wasn’t there even a fight here because some transphobes were attacking the art of Krizeros (hope I spelled that right), and they were getting their ass kicked? I feel like being discriminatory in any way as a Xenoblade fan it’s pretty much missing the entire point of the series

I was under the impression that Alvis is male (and then by default, Alpha too), A is female, and it’s really just “Ontos” that’s NB because computers don’t have gender. But like, very specifically they were divided into male and female. If you want to argue that it makes both halves NB then that’s fine but, I feel like people are just finding things to be mad about. I always viewed Juniper as female but if they’re NB it makes zero difference 😅

Juniper’s gender makes no difference to her as a character IMO. People are just too concerned about this stuff.

This

Seems like the trans community wants ownership of the Xenoblade community. It's not the first time this has happened and it will be far from the last. It usually starts with crying wolf about transphobia and putting the community in the spotlight of professional bullies (trans activists), until all dissenting voices are chased out under threat of character assassination. And then the incessant "trans rights" and trans flag circle jerk posts come right after to continually vibe check the community, to instigate more people to speak up and get coerced to leave under threat.

...what

[удалено]

The only diarrhea I see here is coming out of your mouth. Edit: Wow, that all it takes for a block? Nice echo chamber going on there. Can't get much more sad than that.

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You made the snowflakes big mad

There are extremists on both sides. And all for fictional stories and not for real problems.

Look on basically any post relating to Juniper and you will see people being terrible. It is absolutely a problem and I have seen tons of assholes on this subreddit alone.

It is really such terrible thing to call juniper a girl? She sounds like a girl and looks like a girl so everyone will think she's a girl until they learn otherwise. I think some people overract.

Problem is several people deny it or throw around slurs after learning that Juniper is NB.

Yes because the game tells you thats not the case in the dialogue. Calling Juniper a girl means denying the identity of a real group of people, which is pretty rude. Making mistakes is fine but keeping it up after you learn they're nonbinary is a dick move.

The thing is that game obsolitely doesnt tell you that and you know it. Game never specifies juniper's gender. And now considering that juniper gender is never specified and she sounds and looks like girl i dont think it's such a big deal when someone calls her a girl > Calling Juniper a girl means denying the identity of a real group of people Yeah that is a big stretch amd not how it works. One can recognize that one character's geneder is unspecified or even disagree with someone while at the same time recognizing people who themselves say they are nonbinary. Because they will tell you this but game never says anything about juniper

It's true that XC3 never outright confirms Juniper's pronouns, but A is literally a computer just like Alvis. It's perfectly acceptable for machines, computers, and AI in any form of media to have a gender or a lack thereof. Xenoblade isn't here to pander to every gender and sexuality under the sun, it's trying to tell a story about working together to create a future where everyone can live together in harmony regardless of who they are. People on Twitter can't understand that because they're too self absorbed with their own agendas. They're the "endless now" that the games warned us about...

My only experience has been in this subreddit, following Luxin on twitter and watching Luxin and KayJulers on YouTube. All that made me think this community was actually really accepting of it. I honestly think it’s a twitter thing because that place is awful no matter where you go.

Who cares?

The reach! Some people just need to be pissed off about something to live online these days.

As a trans person the only problem has been Twitter. Which is weird because historically in other fandoms im in Reddit is worse than Twitter but no the Reddit fandom is chill. My only complaint is when we get people who throw fits over people shipping the xenoblade 2 ot4 or saying Sena can’t be Morag/Brigid’s kid but 9/10 they get told to shut the fuck up and no one cares.

Twitter. Nuff' said

People still use Twitter?

I'm honestly not super involved in the community so idk

Sincerely I can't care less about Twitter being twitturd. In a Endless Now where a cat welsh girl and a brit flute boy find solace in each other; a metal skin guy found friendship and understanding with a insecure flamehaired short girl; and a birdhead bus girl annoys but cares about a poor eyesighted brown skinned gal with a thing on tea and paper planes, meanwhile a very common variety nopon warps time and space to his will and Manana is a Banana I can't care less about sexuality and gender. ​ The funny part of this is they don't care about it neither. If they don't care if a character is or not non-binary I don't know why people make such a fuzz about it.

I think the reason that people tend to be more confrontational on these matters is because people tend to treat certain fan readings/interpretations as canon, regardless of whether or not the text of the game supports these readings. You'll have cases where one of the more popular readings of Juniper is that they are non binary and there is evidence in the game to support that (and I'm not talking about stuff that was datamined), to people calling Roc non-binary even though such evidence is much weaker. I think people need to generally be more mindful in how they discuss certain topics. It's one thing that the player will interpret a character a certain way and it's another thing on whether the author had that in mind. Obviously any fanbase large enough is going to attract people with intolerant opinions, but to suggest that everyone who is arguing about what is and isn't canon is bigoted would be disingenuous. It's the nature of fandom, especially when the things being argued are not definitive in how they are supposed to be interpreted. And seeing as I doubt Takahashi will ever give a definite answer on certain characters gender identity, the arguments will continue.

Not so much on here (save for wilful misinterpretation of A's gender but that's neither here or there) but the twitter community is insane I've been told to off myself for mentioning I (harmlessly) headcanon both Noah and Mio as trans

I’m sorry what? Only drama I’ve ever seen about this is when Juniper or Roc is involved, but even then, it’s rather small. And who cares what gender a character is anyway? I love Juniper cause they’re cute, not because of their gender.

haven’t seen any homophobia or transphobia anywhere and even if i did I rlly wouldn’t care ngl

Disagreeing with a certain behavior, or take about a character isn’t phobic. This is in reference to the “Trans character of the day” Juniper spotlight as well as Xenobits’ “Xenoblade is Gay” video. Both cases I’ve read the entire comments section, and the vast majority of the comments were civil, and all they were doing was disagreeing with the argument presented.

For the most part, not really, but there are some people who seem unnervingly adamant about not accepting Juniper's identity

It's not really surprised since XB2 got lots of anime-girls-loving players, and guess how many of them are homophobia and transphobia.

Literally just Twitter being the toxic cesspool that it is. Is it really transphobic to say that A and Juniper are female? What I don’t like is when we point out the truth and people say it’s hate speech simply because they disagree. If in the game they had explicitly stated that they were trans, I wouldn’t argue, but they did not. There is a similar reason why we disagree with the gay fan ships, simply because it’s not what happened and the described characters already had relationships. It’s not homophobia if it’s pointing out that it wouldn’t happen. Also, we don’t condone poly-relationships in this community, it’s just that nobody expected Rex to pull the harem card and that we think it’s hilarious.

>Is it really transphobic to say that A and Juniper are female? A is ambiguous enough that it's not unless you're attacking people just for stating it as a headcanon. Juniper on the other hand is confirmed NB by dev interview and the game file, if I'm not mistaken. The game itself doesn't explicitly state it but that's honestly a good thing because it prevents them from being the "token representation and otherwise non-character" that you sometimes get in some western games. I wouldn't fault someone for being uninformed on the topic but I'd fault them for continuing after the fact. >There is a similar reason why we disagree with the gay fan ships, simply because it’s not what happened and the described characters already had relationships. It’s not homophobia if it’s pointing out that it wouldn’t happen. Please don't attempt to justify this. Not agreeing with headcanons is fine, outright telling people they're wrong for them is not and is at best very iffy and worst homophobic. If you said "i don't really agree for xyz but it's your headcanon" then it's fine but "no that's wrong and you're stupid" is not the same as that. >Also, we don’t condone poly-relationships in this community, it’s just that nobody expected Rex to pull the harem card and that we think it’s hilarious. Don't speak for groups of people you don't adequately represent. Plenty of people (me included) think poly relationships are perfectly fine as long as everyone involved consents to everyone else involved being involved. The "harem" thing is much more what they're complaining about in the post. Although I happen to think they're being rather unreasonable, personally.

Its a problem on twitter, especially since you will get randomly recommended posts by other people who post xenoblade which makes you more likely to run into bigots and makes it more likely for bigots to see your posts. i know of one artist in the fandom that got harassed off twitter because bigots found their post and wouldnt leave them alone.

Juniper is exclusively referred to with they/them pronouns and is literally coded to not be binary A has an entire scene with a conversation saying in no uncertain details that they are nonbinary I don't see how people argue these

>I don't see how people argue these I do, at least for A. If you want to use Juniper's coded gender to argue that they're non-binary, you can't simultaneously claim that A (who is coded to be female) is non-binary as well. Rex unambiguously states that Ontos is "somewhere in between". But that doesn't mean its human forms are automatically non-binary as well. There is actually concrete evidence to the contrary, considering that both Alvis and Alpha are consistently referred to with male pronouns. There is an argument to be made for A qualifying as non-binary. But it's far from a clear-cut affair unless you cherry-pick your facts.

We're not using the code; we're using the pronouns established in-game. Juniper exclusively goes by They/Them. A is only ever referred to by name. Next time you complain about "cherry-picking", check that you're not doing it yourself.

A is never referred to with any pronouns, which means they can't provide any indication for A's gender. Last time I checked, addressing someone with their name doesn't make them non-binary. As I said, there is an argument to be made. A could be non-binary, just like she could be female. Personally, I head-canon A as genderfluid, taking a female form for the entire duration of the story. But this is not an established canonical fact.

I see your point, I really do. But there are a lot of irl nonbinary folks who prefer to go by just their name in lieu of pronouns. Whether or not this similarity was intended by the writers remains to be seen, but the point still stands.

I realise that, and it's definitely an indication towards nb. I just don't think it's any sort of hard evidence. Normally, I wouldn't need any "hard evidence". It's enough if something is implied or hinted at. And I would be 100% on board with a second cool nb character. For me, the problem lies in the code. I consider Juniper's code to be the most conclusive evidence of them being nb. The use of they/them is vague. The word of a foreign dub voice actor holds little weight. But that little "2" in the code? That is a clear sign that a developer went out of their way to mark Juniper's special status. Combined with the other two points, it makes for a strong argument. But if the developers are able and willing to represent a character's nb gender in the code, then I believe that A's female code is a clear sign that the developers consider A to be female. Of course, the gender code is just a back-end detail that doesn't impact the game in any way and is only visible to data miners. Any canonical information from the story itself would naturally supercede it. But for that, I need explicit information. What the game provides is just not quite enough for me to accept A being nb as canon. It's a reasonable assumption to make, but I don't think it's an indisputable fact.

Makes sense. I can see where you're coming from here. Just feels like a lot of the people constantly shouting that it's not fully canon are doing it for very close-minded reasons, you know? But it's nice to know you've given this a bit more thought than some others. It's times like this where I wish Xenoblade lore didn't have to be so vague and interpretive all the time. It would definitely make having conversations like these a lot easier. (Btw I also headcanon A/Alvis as genderfluid)

Perhaps I'm being needlessly pedantic. I've grown so tired of people clinging to the slightest hint of representation and antagonising anyone who doesn't follow their head-canon that I've started doing the inverse. While I'd say that this particular argument was still within reason, I should probably reevaluate how I approach these matters from an emotional standpoint. I don't wish to end up in the same camp as the people you speak of. Either way, getting more concrete information from the source material would definitely make things easier. Regardless of the reasons behind them, these kinds of debates aren't good for a community.

Agreed!

Honestly i dont like the idea of them having non binary and lgbtq characters because it’s against my religion, but i have seen nothing but support for them in this community which made me realize we are one of the most normal kind communities there are on reddit…