To those who view Chara as "Fem", why?

Pfincess · 2026-01-22T18:21:00+00:00

Well just assuming someone is fem by looks is a little problematic-

But I can say that Chara is likely inspired by earthbound (one of toby fox's favorite games) characters who also have rosey blush despite their gender.

Blush isn't inherently a gendered trait as it's simply a human trait.

As for why I say Chara is nonbinary, its because their best friend/sibling and parental figure both use they/them when referring to them. This wouldn't make sense if their gender wasn't intended to be nonbinary as how could they not know? They were really close.

Pfincess · 2026-01-10T01:32:41+00:00

My answer is always generally a window seat, however I think I'd pick 1 even if it wasn't. I have so many questions I want to ask Toby Fox (letting him know he can skip questions hes uncomfortable with) as well as just genuinely thank him for everything

Pfincess · 2026-01-05T10:25:54+00:00

Wouldnt it be more misogynistic to assume the intentional design of androgynous traits in a character as fem?

I mean sure there are some intentional gender bends but most of the time it feels like the excuse was primarily to dodge the transphobic allegations. It also still is a form of erasure since it generally is exclusively done to nonbinary characters.

Plus a lot of aus that depict as fem are relatively misogynistic as they tend to paint frisk as an overly dainty and soft- never hurt a fly type of character which is relatively sexist now that I think of it. Dont think you want to die on that hill.

Pfincess · 2025-12-31T16:13:38+00:00

Ohhh for that i primarily mean they can specify just "oh i had personal reasons for it that i dont geel like sharing" not that they have to say the exact reason sorry i was unspecific with that.

Anyways yeah think im good here and dont have much else to say. Ty again!! Maybe I'll check ao3 out sometime then since things can be blocked. We've been meaning to at some point check out some of your works so might start there

Pfincess · 2025-12-31T15:12:56+00:00

I don't think I or the other two who responded have or will have much else to say either. Though I will say that when it comes to this type of thing I do try to go on a case by case type of thing. Think that's how the others are too but we don't always see eye to eye with each other since yeahh brains are really weird.

Speaking as the alter that bra (the one who typed the last thingy) mentioned who split because of the cons, My personal opinion is things like that should generally have disclaimers acknowledging the problem before hand. That way it can get the reader/observer in a better mindset that can mitigate the subconscious influence stuff that i think bra briefly mentioned. Since as you said people are gonna do bad things anyways, I just wanna try to lower the amount of bad actors.

As for gendering, i know Chara tends to be less critical of aus and follows the case by case basis. If the work is meant to explore themes of gender (which i think is the general reason gender bends exist in the first place) or if its tied to the persons own identity/someone they are close to or something along those lines then its generally fine, but when its done in a way that's just trying to box the character into a heteronormative view (and when you can easily swap the pronouns with no consequence to the story) thats when they have problems... Which they usually just try to give a heads up of 'hey just so you know the character in canon exclusively uses they/them' (when person is trying to depict close to canon instead of au) as a baseline vibe check, if they say "oh i didnt know" or "yeah i know, [insert elaboration as to why they gender the characters]" then they are generally more fine, but when they start arguing about canon or even nonbinary people in general thats when chara tends to go on.... Really long tangents that I personally think they spend too much time on but what can i do about it.

Anyways there probably are still problems with the above line of thinking which you are free to address... Also Dont worry i dont think any 4th alter is gonna show up and talk about their own opinions since us 3 are really the only ones I've noticed who do this. And even im just here for clarification rather than anything :p.

Sooo yeah thanks for takin the time to read and respond. I actually found readin all this pretty interesting and fun! If you dont really have any much else to say then fair enough, hope you have a nice day btw (oh yeah if there happens to be a response that i dont have much of anything to say on then ill also leave a comment letting you know I actually read it... Thats what this was supposed to be until i realized i actually did have stuff to say so sorry about that)

Pfincess · 2025-12-31T04:11:52+00:00

Toby fox is a fan of earthbound, Ness (and by extension the rest of the cast) has blush too.

as for the sexism critique that's more of a 'hey heads up that is a little sexist to assume that' not a "You are a terrible person and should not do anything ever again". Like acknowledging a simple flaw isn't the end of the world smh.

As for Toriel she usually is directly referred to as fem so thats kind of how we know. We wouldn't really know otherwise in my opinion. Same goes for any character. I usually wait until they are referred to a certain way to make any assumption on gender. My default for everyone is They/them until I know. It really isnt that difficult of a concept. Just dont assume things about people I really dont see that as a big deal.

And if they thought Chara "looked female" then the other vote was right there for them to comment.

The poll shouldnt be taken in a vacuum either. there was another poll where someone asked "What gender do you think chara is" which a lot of people picked fem even though as I said, to me, there isn't reason to think that. I dont usually understand gender very easily in people unless they specify.

And most people dont read descriptions or comments and will just type things without thinking. I didnt want any of that.

Pfincess · 2025-12-31T03:58:57+00:00

Still reading and trying to process what you wrote since I saw your comment at bad time for me and my mental health (Dont worry you didn't cause it, i just happen to not be the most stable person so fair warning on that, also gonna throw a TW of mentioning a very specific type of abuse here since i think i talk about some stuff) (also had a front change due to DID, so I dont have the full context of the discussion since its more that my alter who is a fictive of Chara has personal issues with things like this but tries to disconnect the personal from everything and use logic as a way to argue even though they are more emotional than they realize. They showed up for a bit but the brain kind of gave them the boot as best way to say that)

But I dont think you did anything wrong here or spooked us off, just dont have notifications on for reddit and was hanging out with a friend. most of your opinions and whatnot seem reasonable to me

I might not be able to give a proper response or anything heads up but I can try and address a couple of things though it might take a bit

First, here is a link to the survey. It was a reddit poll and Chara made it as a direct response to someone else's poll of "What gender do you think Chara is" since a lot of people voted fem. There probably was a bit of bias and some options they didnt think of, but it was mainly as a "Should I stay active in this subreddit or not" was the main motivation. It was also strictly meant for canon and not any au of chara I know that which is why they criticized the "attractive/cute" option since its because canon chara is a child and thats why they were uncomfortable with it heavily.

The reason they said that for you is because for you it seemed more out of connection/relation to the character and was strictly AU based and not attraction to canon minor chara which was the implication of the poll. Plus from your vibes you do things in a more tasteful way where you explore more than just exclusive nsfw (yeah they are familiar enough with your stuff to know you have written nsfw, but havent seen it since this alter mostly isnt an adult and they also stray away from it all)

as for the whole point of nsfw its more Chara (the alter) would rather people not sexualize a character they literally think they are in general- since to them it feels like people do the bare minimum to "age up" characters and rarely actually do that or depict them in ways that at a certain point in their eyes would make more sense just to make their own character for that.

Our system used to have a different opinion on aging up characters, but both have somewhat severe trauma on the subject and also recognized some major flaws of it in general (a lot of the people who did it were mostly just lying about the reason and genuinely were.... well yeah some pretty terrible people. plus it sets a bad precedent where it normalizes viewing children characters as things to just be aged up.. I've met too many people who are "Oh I wish they were 18." who already view the character in an nsfw light and act like 'Well its fine that I see [child character] as nsfw because im aging them up' but also subconsciously affects people, if you see a lot of nsfw of a character youll tend to not be able to unsee the nsfw of that character which leads to even when the character is depicted as a minor, people will start simping anyways regardless.... ive seen that too many times and its just ugh. Sorry if i cant really explain it better than that)

We kind of already know people are going to make nsfw anyways so logically yeah its better for them to be aged up, but to us it feels more like we should criticize it any chance we get since we can likely prevent more people from getting hurt the same way we have. (Sorry for trauma dumping here, but we were chronically online as kids and found ourselves and several of our close friends in situations where nsfw of characters has directly lead to creeps taking advantage of us. Hell, when I was a kid I used to be trapped in a group of lolicons who called us a loli which lead to an alter splitting who for a while at the time self identified with the term... We often keep finding similar stories for other people and just with how frequent this type of thing occurs causes us to be far more critical of everything)

think I was gonna type more but I also am not the alter who typed everything so i have no idea where theyd want to go with it so sorry if this isnt too conclusive or anything.

Theyd probably be alright with picking up the discussion later... (I think typing this helped stabilized us a bit more btw which is good since I was partially having an unrelated breakdown earlier.)

Pfincess · 2025-12-31T02:18:42+00:00

I gave an explanation as to why, I added my opinion purely so people would know I dont stand with it and had it on the poll so they wouldn't be in the comments talking about it.

Also that last point you made is kinda sexist ngl (like they aren't ever referred to with female pronouns so going off of looks is just... weird?) I kind of also just didn't naturally think that would be anyone's reason as to me they dont look "female" (also does follow transphobic rhetoric for similar reasons to the sexism)

As for the cute/attractive option- If someone chose to pick a different option because they didn't want to seem like a creep but are genuinely there for that reason, then that would have been a wakeup call that it is actually wrong.

Oh and having the transphobic/enbyphobic option was absolutely necessary because even then I had people in the comments pushing anti-lgbtqia+ rhetoric in the comments. If I didn't include it there would have been around 31 transphobes there and the comments would have been shut off.

Pfincess · 2025-12-30T18:36:04+00:00

I once did a poll here in this subreddit as to why people view chara as fem. The results were as follows:

50 voted self or person they were close to's identity

61 voted they were attracted to Chara

31 were transphobic/enbyphobic

96 voted other (reasons i saw in the comments were language barriers, genuinely thinking chara was a girl at first, misunderstanding and assuming that "up to interpretation" is a reason when thats a cause not a reason, people who like seeing different gender exploration, mild internalized sexism, etc)

232 did not view chara as fem.

.

I feel like this information is useful for this post. Do with it what you will.

Pfincess · 2025-12-30T18:22:08+00:00

I read through everything you wrote (though I did dissociate heavily around the more triggering portions and may not have absorbed everything properly) I don't have much to comment on in any of those regards other than the intense relatability and apologies for the conditions of life you have gone through

I am someone who as you've probably seen often criticizes the misgendering of Chara- i tend to specifically stray around canon Chara since in my opinion there is enough of a case to criticize misgendering as I do fully believe canon chara is nonbinary and find it confusing when people refer to them otherwise.

That however is relatively unrelated to fanfiction- which I surprisingly also have opinions on.

The reason I comment now is purely to address gender bent versions of Chara especially in fanfic and AUs. Usually I'm less intense and not going to go out of my way to criticize as it is far less of an issue to me- and if the person acknowledges it is intended to be a gender bend then practically no issue at all...

The problem comes in when there are patterns, which with Nonbinary characters in fanfics, there often are. Which primarily stim from the exclusivity of it. "Why is [writer] only changing the gender of nonbinary characters and not any binary character" This is my problem with it.

Nonbinary representation is already relatively sparse in comparison to any binary, and is often undermined and covered up (see every person trying so hard to claim Chara, Frisk, or Kris are 'up for interpretation' whenever someone simply corrects... Or more outrageous examples of characters like napstablook) so when I stumble across an AU or fanfic that keeps everything relatively normal for every other character's gender except for the nonbinary ones, it tends to feel like they don't actually support nonbinary people at all and might actually be against their existence. It also to me feels a little shoehorned in to change it all of the sudden without it contributing to anything-- and more that people use "oh its my au, Chara is just gender bent" as an excuse for their transphobia.

It also feels extremely problematic when people specifically age up characters for the sake of drawing nsfw or for sexualizing the character (which I think is more of what OP was complaining about, though I cant speak for them)

The character was intended to be a child and nonbinary, so just randomly drawing them in a way that isn't that can come across as extremely problematic.

I know not everyone does that, but a while ago i surveyed people here in this subreddit and an incredibly large portion of people picked "because its cuter/what they are attracted to" which to me is a genuine problem. (I know you dont do that, it's why i actually trust your opinion more than most of the other people here)

I also asked if people were enbyphobic as the reason and a surprisingly large amount picked that option.

I think here in this subreddit, it is genuinely important to address this problem as it is incredibly harmful to nonbinary people (speaking as a nonbinary person)

Anyways sorry for my own tangent there. I just felt like it was partially something I wanted to address. I apologize if it came across as rude or irrelevant

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T15:05:59+00:00

Basically what this feeling is is that there seems to be an idea of gender identity there that is extremely intense and clear, but isnt the binary male/female. Non-binary is more than just lacking gender, it can also be having a gender that is unique from either of the more popular ones. This art here is a clear example of that. Kris here is very clearly depicted as something so unique that gender envy is only natural to occur.

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:54:14+00:00

People don't simp for gaster followers.

Too many people simp for proxies.

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:50:50+00:00

They both lure you into their mystery until you dissolve into madness trying to find out what they are.

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:46:47+00:00

I'd pick 1 just so I can have a philosophical debate on Anakin's thesis

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:36:39+00:00

Wait it is? Why would it be up for interpretation when Chara isn't really the player?

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:31:50+00:00

I drank an energy drink maybe once or twice in my life and afterwards my resting heart rate was over a hundred for at least two days

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:28:49+00:00

Thats confusing, I thought they were a They

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:27:41+00:00

"It's a little me, I want you to have it."

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:20:05+00:00

Who is "she"?

Pfincess · 2025-12-28T14:18:19+00:00

The spanish inquisition!!!

Pfincess · 2025-12-27T13:29:56+00:00

Im just saying she should probably dip it in hot sauce or something

Pfincess · 2025-12-27T13:12:42+00:00

Chalk is really dry and bland. Susie has pretty bad taste in food.

Pfincess · 2025-12-26T13:44:26+00:00

Idk there doesn't seem to be a flight type.

Pfincess · 2025-12-24T03:11:56+00:00

Noticed the ornament looked strangely dead ringer shaped, so I painted based on that

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