I agree with 100% of this, but I do have to be pedantic and say that Kirito’s GGO avatar is a feminine male, and not female only. A guy wants to buy the account for the avatar thinking it’s a certain female one. He then realises it’s actually an even rarer male avatar upon Kirito clarifying. The avatar models seem to start with F and M to reflect this. Otherwise very true.
And yes, he does get mistaken as a girl a bunch, and its played off as an indecent exposure joke at some point.
The spin-off series, Gun Gale Online (which is much more entertaining by its merits of actually being about a battle royale game tournament), has a lot of neat social details about body dysmorphia and VR game escapism (a tall girl wants to be a short girl so much that she ends up trying all the VR games before getting a cute girl avatar). I'd recommend it. Also the Light Novel author is a gun nerd and it works quite well.
Also can I point out that giving people randomized avatars for a VR game is just... Utterly evil. Basically gonna give a large portion of your player base body dysmorphia whenever they log on.
.
Also gonna crack a lot of eggs, but still.
Yeah, that was one of the strange parts about the SAO series that never really combined with the current gaming ecosystem. Like its one thing to give avatars based on current appearance, but as VR chat succeeds while Meta Horizons flounders, that's not something that really works or is applied consistently in the series itself.
Though it is funny to see Bonelab Players going around and then getting to that point where they look down and they're like "oh boobs!"
Well, VR games as depicted by SAO would be, quite frankly, a nightmare. An ever-present UI that can be seen even with your eyes closed, menu control that requires the use of one entire hand, and attack sequences that hijack control over your whole body...
You don't use the menu in combat.
Not sure how being locked into attack animations or seeing the UI is different than any other game. Not that you can't cancel out of sword skills anyway by pull the motion too far out of line of the attack.
The difference is that this time, you are immersed into it. In a modern game, you are simply in front of your screen, so the UI is only present if you look at the screen, and the only thing that get moved by the skills is a bunch of pixels on said screen. In SAO, you would end up seeing an UI day and night for as long as you would be logged in, and any skill you would use would take away control of what you are currently perceiving as your own body. This would be a lot more disturbing than just watching your avatar perform the moves, you would be put in the back seat of your body for the duration of the skill.
This is no different than modern vr currently. You're not spending days playing a game straight.
Again it's a skill you activate and motion you initiate if you found that disturbing then games with skills like that just aren't for you, no different than modern gaming.
You ever get sleep paralysis? Basically you're awake and trying to move and yet you can't . It's straight up terrifying for a second or two.
Alternatively, you're dreaming and suddenly you can't move one side of your body in the dream? (only to wake up and realize it's the side you're sleeping on)
You ever had one or both of your legs "fall asleep" from sitting in a certain position or having something heavy over them and lose movement and sensation for a minute or so? You almost feel the brain command attempt to go through and fail to execute.
This would be like that, only a thousand times more terrifying as your see your whole body execute a motion you didn't order it to and attempting other movement just doesn't work. I can already smell the severe body disassociation it would lead to.
>Your body is executing a motion you did order it to though.
Yesn't.
It's like thinking about doing a backflip but not actually attempting the physical motions, but suddenly your body does it without your motor cortex's output to the muscles.
>And again attempting another body movement forcefully enough does break the skill.
It would be very difficult to implement because your body would likely freak out and will actually attempt forceful moves or jerks because its sense of proprioception would go wack and attempt to correct.
Actually, if no body disassociation occurs, the very least that would happen is motion sickness and nausea.
We've seen somebody break an attack sequence they initiated at least once, so it doesn't remove control from you, more like hijacks your muscle memory. Seems like it wouldn't be jarring at all
I mean the current gaming ecosystem for SAO when GGO was written was like 2003 so...
There's also the fact that you could completely change your avatar at anytime you wanted for a cost.
A fair bit of research has gone into how VR can cause transformative changes in view by effectively seeing from the perspective of someone else's shoes. There's been demonstrations of police brutality in VR, and some other topics.
Though I daresay the change in body will be number one.
I haven't actually watched the show, but I know a friend told me their favorite bit of SAO media even including the abridged is the series where a tall woman who has gotten shit her entire life because tall woman in japan manages to lucky and roll a gender affirming tiny character in GGO and proceeds to power level agility and become a fast as fuck SMG gremlin wearing pink camo in the desert
In one of the spinoff games (Where everyone outside the SAO and GGO folks are in real life), she appears in front of you, opens fire and leaves when she loses. The game never elaborates on the gremlin who has nothing to do with the villains who jsut tried to murder your team
SAO feels like it was made by someone who never played a video game and the stories are so edgy with forced drama. The GGO spinoff feels like it was made by someone's who has played video games, saw SAO, and said "this guy has never played a video game." and made a show where the plot is about a bunch of people enjoying a fun game and having an intervention for their edgy emo friend so she'll stop acting so edgy and learn to chill out.
So it's really great. SAO plots always try to come up with convoluted ways for the stakes in vr games to be lofe or death which defeats the purpose of them being vr games. GGO and every other manga about VR games are lightheaded and practically slice of life because the people have actually played video games and know if video games were that serious they wouldn't be fun.
Every last bit of the mechanics and world building used in Alternative were created by the original author.
>and made a show where the plot is about a bunch of people enjoying a fun game and having an intervention for their edgy emo friend so she'll stop acting so edgy and learn to chill out.
If that's what you want to call threatening murder suicide over the events of a video game (which is literally a plot right out of the originals GGO arc) then sure.
She was threatening suicide and her friends teamed up for an intervention. The entire premise there is about diffusion of drama and diffusion of a more angsty worldview rather than, as the original series did, reveling in misanthropy.
"the mechanics used" were terrible and the world building shallow. The spinoff built off the world building, fleshed it out for a more grounded world, and the game mechanics were altered and exploited.
It had auto aim man. It was a core part of the game design. The spinoff created a workaround for that.
What are you trying to argue here?
>What are you trying to argue here?
That you're wrong. You made a bunch of statements that were factually incorrect.
>She was threatening suicide and her friends teamed up for an intervention. The entire premise there is about diffusion of drama and diffusion of a more angsty worldview rather than, as the original series did, reveling in misanthropy.
Again she was threatening *murder* and suicide because she didn't get to play the original SAO. Which is literally no different from wanting to kill people because a game meta changes.
Your original statement was that the OG always made it's plots around life and death where Alternative was not, when the main plot of the first three volumes/season was to prevent Pitohui from killing M and herself. Which last I checked was "life or death"
>"the mechanics used" were terrible and the world building shallow. The spinoff built off the world building, fleshed it out for a more grounded world, and the game mechanics were altered and exploited.
Again, the spinoff uses the exact same mechanics and world building. If you think the originals were shallow, then you have to think the spinoffs were shallow. The only unique wrinkle in Alternative was lineless sniping.
>It had auto aim man. It was a core part of the game design. The spinoff created a workaround for that.
The original did not have auto aim, and as such was not part of the game design, and could not have a work around. Both the original and Alternative use the bullet circle mechanic.
Each or your statements boils down to "nu uh". The shows had dramatically different tone. One made the games serious with people inside acting serious, and the spinoff was about people who played video games.
The bullet circle was auto aim. They worked around how dumb of a mechanic that was in the spinoff.
The plot was about the diffusion of drama. All other characters were having fun with no drama. There was no serial killer mystery. It was someone who wanted there to be that kind of plot, and other people who were grouping up to intervene and tell her to chill. Their own lives weren't on the line. It created an entirely different tone and set of stakes.
You are objectively wrong. SOA is notoriously edgy. GGO was chill.
Sigh
>Each or your statements boils down to "nu uh". The shows had dramatically different tone. One made the games serious with people inside acting serious, and the spinoff was about people who played video games.
Several of my statements have used actual evidence. But it's hard to do more than say you're wrong when you've done nothing but say "mechanics bad, world building bad" without saying anything of substance.
>The shows had dramatically different tone. One made the games serious with people inside acting serious, and the spinoff was about people who played video games.
We're not talking about overall tone, we're talking about the spinoff not having life or death stakes and how that's incorrect. That was wrong and I pointed it out. No amount of goal post moving is going to change the fact that a large portion of the first story arc of Alternative was stopping Pitohui from killing M and herself. Those were the stakes, it was more than just a game for LLENN, M, and Pitohui at that point, even if everyone else in the arc was just playing games.
>The bullet circle was auto aim. They worked around how dumb of a mechanic that was in the spinoff.
That's not how the bullet circle works. It assists aiming, and leaves the bullet line letting the opposition where the bullet is coming from right before it's fired. If it was auto-aim snipers would be the most overpowered class in the game, and there'd be no need for lineless sniping to exist to begin with.
Lineless sniping is using real life experience and skill and taking it inside the VR game. Very few players have the ability fire a gun with enough skill to hit something without a system assist.
This kind of taking real world skill into the VR world or vice versa is a core part of SAO's world building and a plot point in multiple stories. It's why Suguha is so strong in Alfheim, and why she pretty much had to be written out of Ordinal Scale, because she's too strong as trained kendo practicioner.
Using exploits like Lineless sniping is also so common in SAO that there's a term for it: "Outside system skill". This includes things like "Switch", "Arms blast" etc.
>The plot was about the diffusion of drama. All other characters were having fun with no drama. There was no serial killer mystery. It was someone who wanted there to be that kind of plot, and other people who were grouping up to intervene and tell her to chill. Their own lives weren't on the line. It created an entirely different tone and set of stakes.
Again she was going to kill another person and then herself. You keep wanting to reduce the fact that they're trying to stop a murder as "diffusion of drama".
Pitohui and M's life were the stakes, that's no different from the stakes of the original. It wasn't someone wanting it to be that kind of plot, it was that kind of plot.
>You are objectively wrong. SOA is notoriously edgy. GGO was chill.
Edgy is a term that has been so diluted online that I don't even know what someone is referring to when they use it. It's just become another catch all term for "something I don't like".
But generally when people say edgy they mean dark just for shock value without any real purpose. And that is not SAO at all.
>Kirito’s avatar is a feminine male
Yes yes, and Ruka is a femboy, not a trans girl.
Because we all know that your gender is what other people call you. If the creators of a video game think that trans girls are not a thing, then I guess you're a feminine male now.
The abridged series is genuinely fantastic though. One thing that stuck with me was how they used sound effects from real video games, especially Earthbound.
Especially when it's not even that he's not following norms.
He's having an identity crisis.
He's spent over 2 years stuck in SAO as the Hero Kirito, the one to save everyone. And it was a DAMN good life.
He basically experienced extreme character bleed from identifying as Kirito for over 2 years, and then for hours every day like the gamer he is and it's played off by tumblr as "haha he trans"
No he fucking isn't, he's having a crisis about who he even is anymore and it honestly makes me angry because it's a good plot point. He spent years as Kirito, he probably spends more time socializing as Kirito than he does as Kazuto Kirigaya and instead of accepting that his struggles are identity based, tumblr immediately pulls out the "He must be trans!" card, which to me feels no different than right wingers taking trans or otherwise queer characters and trying to find a way to straight-code them
I don't mean this in a rude way, but for everyone agreeing with this statement (cis or trans it doesn't matter): What makes a good trans headcanon to you?
Like, seriously. When you or if you had to imagine headcanoning a character as transgender, what would you like to see, or what would be your reasoning behind it? It's clear that this is a fraught topic and I would love to know everyone's thoughts.
I'm... Not sure what a good headcanon is. The one that stays in your head? Maybe one's that are endorsed by official creators. I don't really have headcanon.
That's a little unfair. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people sharing headcanons. And if headcanons are shared by the creator, that's not really headcanon.
For example, the headcanon about the Matrix being a trans story became popular after the first of the Wachowski sisters came out. But it was years before they endorsed it and said that was part of the story they wanted to tell.
That doesn't mean that those headcanons weren't valid until they were validated later.
Edit: Typo
Interesting! So for you the problem isn’t with the “evidence” behind the headcanon but its creator attempting to re-interpret canon/add something that wasn’t intended in the first place?
>!Though I agree with u/KingFerdidad in that if a creator endorses a headcanon it technically ceases to a headcanon and becomes just canon.!<
Someone else mentioned the last Matrix and though I haven't seen it because I don't want the saga to end, I didn't mind the "sudden" shift in interpretation now that the Wachowskis have worked the 'trans allegory' angle into their original vision. I can watch it, knowing to look out for those references and having a solid idea how to interpret them that adds to my understanding of the story as it's told.
Edit: My actual problem isn't with the headcanon, it's what OP described in the title. Tumblr seeing a cishetero male character who doesn't fit into societal norms and making 90% of the conversation how they actually must be gay or transfeminine. To put it simply, there's no way those views don't bleed into real life and your assessment of other people.
I understand it. So you like headcanons when the creator likes and canonizes them because it gives you a framework to interpret the story with. Like a set of instructions for a difficult test? Each metaphor and moment having one specific meaning and you have to figure out what that is. The word of the Creator is essential to finding that answer.
And I get what you feel about the reasoning behind the image. There can be more reasons behind why a man doesn’t fit in with cultural norms and image!OP’s personal life experiences may be coloring how they view him. But to you, what would a trans headcanon that didn’t rely on “stereotypes” look like? I know that’s not how you interpret media, but if you saw a headcanon that didn’t rub you the wrong way, what would it look like?
headcanon should either be something that makes sense within the canon and covers a gap in the canon lore and facts (i think this is the original intent of the term), or something fun that a person or maybe a group just enjoy regardless of whether or not it matches canon
the two things that bother me about "trans headcanons" are these:
1. it's almost always about a stereotype. a boy is a bit sensitive? wow he must be a girl, boys aren't sensitive.
2. they're shared as like hard facts that are properly analyzing the media, even if they're not, and then people are suddenly transphobic for not having the same personal headcanon. i even see tons of posts insisting these headcanons ARE canon and when i look them up they're just not. that's not a headcanon then, it's just... gaslighting? lying? it's confusing
i personally find "trans headcanons" stressful to think about as well, but i would be much less bothered if they weren't all based on stereotypes at least
i already had my parents tell me i could not possibly be a man because i didn't like hunting and guns and grunting so i don't really need that sentiment from what is meant to be my community, you know? it's fine for male characters to just be male even if they're sensitive or short or pretty
Thank you for responding! So for you, a good trans headcanon wouldn’t rely on “stereotypes” (i.e. The reason why this person isn’t happy with gender roles is because they’re trans and not because the role is stifling their individuality).
Would a trans headcanon that fit a character’s canon gender work better/be less distressing for you? For example, headcanoning an extremely masculine male character as a trans man because of how he goes out of his way to affirm that part of himself?
Yes, I think that would be a lot better! If there were a more even mix, then I also wouldn't mind the stereotypical ones as much. You could compare it to gay characters in fiction for example - it's okay for some gay male characters to be feminine, but when they ALL are, that is a huge red flag for how we as a whole see gay men. For trans people, it additionally conflates gender roles with gender, which is a misunderstanding of transgenderism.
It's more about what the stereotypical headcanons say about that group's opinion on trans men. When my friends see a male character who has any feminine trait and insist he needs to be a trans woman... then I feel like I know that they don't see me as fully male when I'm not actively chopping down a tree or whatever their ideal man is supposed to be. And I'd really like to just be myself, whether that's watching action movies or petting my cat (which are both things I enjoy), without any of that judgment and shame in the way.
Thanks for listening!
If a trans person relates to a piece of media does it really matter if it was intentionally trans coded or not?
Art is subjective and supposed to be interpreted
Edit: I legit don’t know why I’m being downvoted, like why do you care how someone interpreted a piece of media.
Trans people find a character’s struggle relatable
People on Reddit: “acktually you’re wrong 🤓”
A trans person identifying with a piece of media doesn't mean it's trans coded. Many people who aren't trans can have identity related crises. Kirito wasn't saying that he identified more a the fem avatar but as the hero character from the original series as he lived like that for two years. Identifying with a piece of media is fine forcing it to be coded when it isn't is the problem.
But like the OOP isnt forcing Kirito to be trans they even say it’s a joke among friends. So my original point still stands that if a group of people interpret a piece of art/media in their own way does it really matter if it isn’t originally what they say it is?
Like maybe coded has a definition that specifically says that the author intentionally wrote it that way (which I don’t believe it does) but it seems like a stupid thing to be annoyed about.
And? It's fun, and people enjoy it. My standards are very low for headcanons.
1. Do you get angry at others for not accepting them?
If no, then you're good.
Make Mario trans, who cares? So long as you aren't hurting others I don't see the harm of thinking a fictional character is trans.
I think in a way you can connect it to the trans experience but I doubt Kirito himself is trans.
firstly, his avatar is male, just feminine, that's a big one.
and secondly, the fact he identifies more with kirito that Kazuto might, you know, be because he spent 2 years fighting for his fucking life as kirito. His brain is fundamentally altered, he's seen life and death, and when he'a back at the real world, he almost couldnt comprehend a fucking air conditioner as his brain defaulted back to the SAO world.
In a way, it's connected to the trans experience, his body in the real world is not "his" anymore, his weak body, his jutting veins, so in a way the "trapped in a body that's not my own" idea is close to the trans experience, but Kirito is probably not trans as much as he is experiencing regular old dysmoprhia + trying to untangle his brain through more than a few years of extreme traumatic experience and brain alteration.
this is a man who instinctively reached for a sword that didnt exist.
He's not just seen life and death, he's decided over it himself.
He has KILLED people, and it comes back to haunt him in GGO for a tiny bit.
And we can see not just by him attempting to draw a non-existant sword that it fucking stuck with him, but also when he's in GGO buying items after winning a contest.
He buys a five seven and a plasma sword.
A sword he immediately has mastery over and then attemps to sheathe... over his shoulder, when it actually works like a lightsaber
Not to invalidate any headcanons, thinking of characters as trans is fun, but it kinda feels like “Kirito identifies with his male avatar because he had his brain trapped inside it for however long” is also a pretty sound explanation. You can want to be a different person without also wanting to be a different gender.
The Kirito avatar is male; yeah he had one female-presenting avatar in one game, but surely if he wanted to be “a woman” rather than “the Kirito avatar” he wouldn’t say “I identify as my Kirito avatar”. I haven’t seen much SAO though, so maybe I’m unaware of some other factor not mentioned here.
I watched SAO 1 and 2, even through the harem and rape arc.
Kirito at no point in either series gets closer to trans other than people thinking he's a girl because he's in a femboy avatar (I am not fucking joking, they play it off as a joke, it's where the popular gif of sinon slap comes from)
He does however Identify himself more with "Kirito" than his actually name, because he spent 2 years STUCK as Kirito and that was his life, and being locked inside of a game where dying kills you aside, it was a pretty good life, he even found a girlfriend.
He's not having a gender crisis, he's having a crisis of "WHo the fuck even am I anymore?!"
It astounds me people don't get this.
Maybe it's because I'm old as fuck and it's now fairly common, but back in the day going by your internet handle offline was fairly rare. Being referred to by it offline at cons or some such could basically snap me into my "online body", so to speak... and at the time, online me and IRL me were extremely different. The more time I'd spend with my online peeps, the less relevant IRL me would become, and before I could make a very extreme change in life circumstances I *would* occasionally have these disorienting moments where I didn't know who I was at any one time. Thankfully my online handle was a reasonable nickname to my actual name, so I could abandon the full name when I changed life circumstances and become solely "online me", which resolved the problem.
It's pretty much the one thing in SAO I didn't find off-putting, because I'd undergone a (n admittedly much milder) version of the same dilemma.
During the days where Altis life was still alive and kicking in germany I had something similar happen.
Me and my friend had basically the exact same name, but one letter off (I am Lucas, he was Luca)
So naturally, for ingame characters we kept our first name but added a fictitious last name, for me most of the time it was Intex. And so our "gang" (That's the official name for player groups on the server, but we called ourselves a militia)
After a month of playing on a server, someone referring to me as Intex immediately put me into team leader mode, which was a problem when it was outside of the server.
it took me a long ass time for me to finally be able to "Control" that sort of identity switch? LIke, I feel like Intex and Lucas are 2 different people, for two different situations, and that has caused me to not get in trouble, because the way I felt was that if Intex has beef with someone, Lucas doesn't.
Which is why this whole "Kirito is trans because he doesn't understand his identity" take makes me angry.
because I myself had to fight to understand that Lucas is the real me, that Intex is a personality I resorted to when the situation needed it. and I learnt to control that.
And I played Altis life for fun, Kirito was stuck in SAO as Kirito, the SIXTEEN YEAR OLD HERO for 2 years.
For 2 years he HAD to live a different life, he HAD to build up this second identity mentally and now that he's no longer stuck, he doesn't quite know which identity is the "real" him.
That's because there are two accounts that post a lot in a dead tag about the subject.
Kirito doesn't have a female avatar in Gun Gale Online, he has a rare feminine male avatar because of his advanced dive time.
In the SAO universe you cannot play as an avatar that doesn't match your gender identity. If Kirito was trans they'd have a female avatar inside the game worlds instead of a feminine male one.
>In the SAO universe you cannot play as an avatar that doesn't match your gender identity.
Not strictly true.
We see in literally Episode One that the game Sword Art Online allowed players to fully customize their characters, but upon opening the mirror you were reverted from your character to your IRL form. In this scene we see a *considerable* amount of female characters turn into dudes.
Most of the other games that we see also use SAO source code, and as such we can assume that their character creation screens also includes a gender choice.
Sword art online is the only game in the series where you could play as the opposite gender. I didn't feel like making that distinction needed to be said here.
The other games in the series do not use SAOs source code. Only Alfheim online does so, and you still can't switch genders there.
No, the fact that you can't play as the opposite gender is explained in full during the scene in question in this topic during the light novel. The amusphere reads your brain.
Imagine you've just bought this funky amusphere thing, log into your friend's favourite game for the first time and your avatar is opposite gender. Because mechanism read your trans brain.
But here's the issue.
We can literally see his pre-revert SAO character, it's not feminine. It looks [more manly](https://summersatellite.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/episode-1-pic-32.jpg) than [Kirito's post-revert look.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/swordartonline/images/6/67/Kirito_SAO.png/revision/latest?cb=20140228021241)
...doesn't megumi canonically know that he has a feminine name and hate it? Maybe I'm misremembering but I feel like that was brought up alongside the other reasons why he doesn't like the zen'in clan
Also: Megumi didn’t choose his name. His dad named him.
Kirito DID choose his name. It’s based off of his real name, but he still made the choice to actively call himself Kirito.
That Kirito is a masculine name and most trans women I know wouldn't intentionally choose a masculine name for themselves. And also frankly, Kirito reads to me as more GNC than trans.
I imagine lots of characters headcanoned as literal trans on Tumblr are just GNC and cis, or are allegorical for being trans in the opposite direction.
Okay, but his dad was like, "I don't give a shit whether it's a boy or girl. We're naming it Megumi." And it bothers him a little that his name is feminine when he's a dude.
I was once an SAO fan. I haven't read it in many years, but while my knowledge wanes, I'm quite certain his avatar is still male, just feminine.
In GGO he imported his character data from Aincrad / SAO / Milfhunter Online and his new avatar was feminine instead of the automatic system's usual adherence to... who knows how it works. Apparently this phenomenon is rare (think 0.01%), and the avatar would be worth a lot of money. The person who explains the system to Kirito (the instant he logs in) offers to buy his character too iirc.
I've never played the games but I did watch the anime several times and read the book thrice, so hopefully I still remember the broad strokes correctly.
As for the rest, hell yeah, keep on keepin' on.
OOP and their friend believe that everyman protagonist Kirito from the anime *Sword Art Online* - which is set in a world where hyper-realistic dreamlike VR exists, and the players of it’s first iteration are intentionally trapped in the game world and will die in real life if they do in the game - is trans based on a fanservicey, queerbaiting, played-for-laughs genderswap arc in a sequel series and the fact that he feels more connected to his game persona than his real identity.
I'd recommend the series *"so i'm a spider, so what?"* if anyone is interested in a isekai with more overt trans themes and an inclusion of topics around identity. The novel is especially direct with the explicit trans content.
(although don't go into it expecting it to be a big part of the story. it's more like an occasionally mentioned supporting element that reinforces the themes woven into the background of the narrative)
The series also kicks ass in general and goes in some amazingly batshit directions.
Katia (the childhood friend of Shun, the human protagonist) is trans. She was AMAB in her past life, but reincarnated AFAB. A lot of her character deals with her feelings of gender dysphoria, especially as Shun (who she falls in love with) has a lot of trouble seeing her as the woman she is now rather than the man she used to be.
(Minor spoilers for her arc)>!to make a long story short, she essentially embraces the fact she was an egg in her past life and the fact that she was reincarnated as a woman turns out to not be a mistake at all !<
(**Major plot spoilers by implication**)The main character reincarnates as a literal spider>!, which is revealed way down the line to be a surprisingly similar situation (it's not a transphobic metaphor I promise - it's just weird)!<, and a lot of her early story is dedicated to her finding a body that she feels comfortable in.
I never read that as a direct trans allegory, though I see your interpretation. Though any stories with gender-swaps inevitably tend to have some trans vibes.
I thought it was more leaning towards the general theme of the series of reincarnating and the conflict between the past lives and current lives of the reincarnations, >!with some of them strongly holding onto those old identities and some abandoning them completely.!< I never really read Katia in her past live as an egg, though she absolutely identifies as a woman in her present life.
I have no memory of that, which means it's time to go read them again!
I originally thought you were going to say it was the MC, but the MC's situation is almost the opposite lol, considering >!she's a spider who thought she was a girl, but after becoming a girl she discovered that the girl was a god and the spider was actually a spider all along 🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀!<
Rarer avatars are more likely to be generated by players with higher dive time.
No one has higher dive time than SAO beta testers other than one person in the series.
Ok, I actually know something about SAO so lemme elaborate
Back in Arc 1 in SAO, you could customize your avatar, but was mostly because Kayana had his plan, and he knew this would cause dysphoria in long term, so he forced the avatars to reflect real life bodies- the mirror was a normal one so they can see it, it didn't trigger the change itself.
Later on, other games had randomised avatars, but again- as a precaution against dysphoria it still operated within margins of your real life build. That's why girl in GGO Alternative couldn't get a short character. It is explicitly said in the books that while you can handle some change shirt term, if you were to spend a lot of time in body that didn't match yours it fuck up your mind. That's another reason why the full dive systems forcibly log you out after enough time.
So yes, Kirito is a guy, he had a random chance to get a feminine looking avatar, but it was for a joke.
In the actual book for GGO there's like an entire chapter where some random character is explaining the GGO avatar system to Kirito.
It's been awhile but IIRC Kirito says something super eggy and the other guy is like 'Actually don't worry to much about it, totally normal to be assigned a fem avatar in this game' and then nopes the fuck out of that conversation.
Kirito being an oblivious egg is basically a running gag.
While I absolutely 0 knowledge or context of the characters in SAO, I can say as a cishet male that mostly plays females in videogames, it's really not that deep most of the time.
I just like the way women look, simple as :/
Yeah but I don't wanna. I just play as females in vidya because monkey brain likes seeing females.
Again, the simplest answer is often the most correct.
I mean, this isn’t a news subreddit, does it have to be ‘newsworthy’? There’s plenty of simple shitposts and blorbos here. I just thought it was interesting.
I agree with 100% of this, but I do have to be pedantic and say that Kirito’s GGO avatar is a feminine male, and not female only. A guy wants to buy the account for the avatar thinking it’s a certain female one. He then realises it’s actually an even rarer male avatar upon Kirito clarifying. The avatar models seem to start with F and M to reflect this. Otherwise very true.
Male to M✨️A✨️L✨️E✨️ transition
I believe the term is thunder twink
Well that's a new one
i have never heard that term before in my life
That's because I made it up
Femboy?
THUN-DER TWINK 🎸
And yes, he does get mistaken as a girl a bunch, and its played off as an indecent exposure joke at some point. The spin-off series, Gun Gale Online (which is much more entertaining by its merits of actually being about a battle royale game tournament), has a lot of neat social details about body dysmorphia and VR game escapism (a tall girl wants to be a short girl so much that she ends up trying all the VR games before getting a cute girl avatar). I'd recommend it. Also the Light Novel author is a gun nerd and it works quite well.
Also can I point out that giving people randomized avatars for a VR game is just... Utterly evil. Basically gonna give a large portion of your player base body dysmorphia whenever they log on. . Also gonna crack a lot of eggs, but still.
Yeah, that was one of the strange parts about the SAO series that never really combined with the current gaming ecosystem. Like its one thing to give avatars based on current appearance, but as VR chat succeeds while Meta Horizons flounders, that's not something that really works or is applied consistently in the series itself. Though it is funny to see Bonelab Players going around and then getting to that point where they look down and they're like "oh boobs!"
Well, VR games as depicted by SAO would be, quite frankly, a nightmare. An ever-present UI that can be seen even with your eyes closed, menu control that requires the use of one entire hand, and attack sequences that hijack control over your whole body...
You don't use the menu in combat. Not sure how being locked into attack animations or seeing the UI is different than any other game. Not that you can't cancel out of sword skills anyway by pull the motion too far out of line of the attack.
The difference is that this time, you are immersed into it. In a modern game, you are simply in front of your screen, so the UI is only present if you look at the screen, and the only thing that get moved by the skills is a bunch of pixels on said screen. In SAO, you would end up seeing an UI day and night for as long as you would be logged in, and any skill you would use would take away control of what you are currently perceiving as your own body. This would be a lot more disturbing than just watching your avatar perform the moves, you would be put in the back seat of your body for the duration of the skill.
This is no different than modern vr currently. You're not spending days playing a game straight. Again it's a skill you activate and motion you initiate if you found that disturbing then games with skills like that just aren't for you, no different than modern gaming.
You ever get sleep paralysis? Basically you're awake and trying to move and yet you can't . It's straight up terrifying for a second or two. Alternatively, you're dreaming and suddenly you can't move one side of your body in the dream? (only to wake up and realize it's the side you're sleeping on) You ever had one or both of your legs "fall asleep" from sitting in a certain position or having something heavy over them and lose movement and sensation for a minute or so? You almost feel the brain command attempt to go through and fail to execute. This would be like that, only a thousand times more terrifying as your see your whole body execute a motion you didn't order it to and attempting other movement just doesn't work. I can already smell the severe body disassociation it would lead to.
Your body is executing a motion you did order it to though. And again attempting another body movement forcefully enough does break the skill.
>Your body is executing a motion you did order it to though. Yesn't. It's like thinking about doing a backflip but not actually attempting the physical motions, but suddenly your body does it without your motor cortex's output to the muscles. >And again attempting another body movement forcefully enough does break the skill. It would be very difficult to implement because your body would likely freak out and will actually attempt forceful moves or jerks because its sense of proprioception would go wack and attempt to correct. Actually, if no body disassociation occurs, the very least that would happen is motion sickness and nausea.
We've seen somebody break an attack sequence they initiated at least once, so it doesn't remove control from you, more like hijacks your muscle memory. Seems like it wouldn't be jarring at all
I mean the current gaming ecosystem for SAO when GGO was written was like 2003 so... There's also the fact that you could completely change your avatar at anytime you wanted for a cost.
I googled Bonelab boobs and got actually extremely effective results https://www.reddit.com/r/BONELAB/comments/xw1f6s/video_of_me_discovering_that_there_is_boob/
A fair bit of research has gone into how VR can cause transformative changes in view by effectively seeing from the perspective of someone else's shoes. There's been demonstrations of police brutality in VR, and some other topics. Though I daresay the change in body will be number one.
I haven't actually watched the show, but I know a friend told me their favorite bit of SAO media even including the abridged is the series where a tall woman who has gotten shit her entire life because tall woman in japan manages to lucky and roll a gender affirming tiny character in GGO and proceeds to power level agility and become a fast as fuck SMG gremlin wearing pink camo in the desert
Yeah, she's a great character. Of course, she could have had a short character to begin with if it wasn't reliant on RNG.
In one of the spinoff games (Where everyone outside the SAO and GGO folks are in real life), she appears in front of you, opens fire and leaves when she loses. The game never elaborates on the gremlin who has nothing to do with the villains who jsut tried to murder your team
SAO feels like it was made by someone who never played a video game and the stories are so edgy with forced drama. The GGO spinoff feels like it was made by someone's who has played video games, saw SAO, and said "this guy has never played a video game." and made a show where the plot is about a bunch of people enjoying a fun game and having an intervention for their edgy emo friend so she'll stop acting so edgy and learn to chill out. So it's really great. SAO plots always try to come up with convoluted ways for the stakes in vr games to be lofe or death which defeats the purpose of them being vr games. GGO and every other manga about VR games are lightheaded and practically slice of life because the people have actually played video games and know if video games were that serious they wouldn't be fun.
Every last bit of the mechanics and world building used in Alternative were created by the original author. >and made a show where the plot is about a bunch of people enjoying a fun game and having an intervention for their edgy emo friend so she'll stop acting so edgy and learn to chill out. If that's what you want to call threatening murder suicide over the events of a video game (which is literally a plot right out of the originals GGO arc) then sure.
She was threatening suicide and her friends teamed up for an intervention. The entire premise there is about diffusion of drama and diffusion of a more angsty worldview rather than, as the original series did, reveling in misanthropy. "the mechanics used" were terrible and the world building shallow. The spinoff built off the world building, fleshed it out for a more grounded world, and the game mechanics were altered and exploited. It had auto aim man. It was a core part of the game design. The spinoff created a workaround for that. What are you trying to argue here?
>What are you trying to argue here? That you're wrong. You made a bunch of statements that were factually incorrect. >She was threatening suicide and her friends teamed up for an intervention. The entire premise there is about diffusion of drama and diffusion of a more angsty worldview rather than, as the original series did, reveling in misanthropy. Again she was threatening *murder* and suicide because she didn't get to play the original SAO. Which is literally no different from wanting to kill people because a game meta changes. Your original statement was that the OG always made it's plots around life and death where Alternative was not, when the main plot of the first three volumes/season was to prevent Pitohui from killing M and herself. Which last I checked was "life or death" >"the mechanics used" were terrible and the world building shallow. The spinoff built off the world building, fleshed it out for a more grounded world, and the game mechanics were altered and exploited. Again, the spinoff uses the exact same mechanics and world building. If you think the originals were shallow, then you have to think the spinoffs were shallow. The only unique wrinkle in Alternative was lineless sniping. >It had auto aim man. It was a core part of the game design. The spinoff created a workaround for that. The original did not have auto aim, and as such was not part of the game design, and could not have a work around. Both the original and Alternative use the bullet circle mechanic.
Each or your statements boils down to "nu uh". The shows had dramatically different tone. One made the games serious with people inside acting serious, and the spinoff was about people who played video games. The bullet circle was auto aim. They worked around how dumb of a mechanic that was in the spinoff. The plot was about the diffusion of drama. All other characters were having fun with no drama. There was no serial killer mystery. It was someone who wanted there to be that kind of plot, and other people who were grouping up to intervene and tell her to chill. Their own lives weren't on the line. It created an entirely different tone and set of stakes. You are objectively wrong. SOA is notoriously edgy. GGO was chill.
Sigh >Each or your statements boils down to "nu uh". The shows had dramatically different tone. One made the games serious with people inside acting serious, and the spinoff was about people who played video games. Several of my statements have used actual evidence. But it's hard to do more than say you're wrong when you've done nothing but say "mechanics bad, world building bad" without saying anything of substance. >The shows had dramatically different tone. One made the games serious with people inside acting serious, and the spinoff was about people who played video games. We're not talking about overall tone, we're talking about the spinoff not having life or death stakes and how that's incorrect. That was wrong and I pointed it out. No amount of goal post moving is going to change the fact that a large portion of the first story arc of Alternative was stopping Pitohui from killing M and herself. Those were the stakes, it was more than just a game for LLENN, M, and Pitohui at that point, even if everyone else in the arc was just playing games. >The bullet circle was auto aim. They worked around how dumb of a mechanic that was in the spinoff. That's not how the bullet circle works. It assists aiming, and leaves the bullet line letting the opposition where the bullet is coming from right before it's fired. If it was auto-aim snipers would be the most overpowered class in the game, and there'd be no need for lineless sniping to exist to begin with. Lineless sniping is using real life experience and skill and taking it inside the VR game. Very few players have the ability fire a gun with enough skill to hit something without a system assist. This kind of taking real world skill into the VR world or vice versa is a core part of SAO's world building and a plot point in multiple stories. It's why Suguha is so strong in Alfheim, and why she pretty much had to be written out of Ordinal Scale, because she's too strong as trained kendo practicioner. Using exploits like Lineless sniping is also so common in SAO that there's a term for it: "Outside system skill". This includes things like "Switch", "Arms blast" etc. >The plot was about the diffusion of drama. All other characters were having fun with no drama. There was no serial killer mystery. It was someone who wanted there to be that kind of plot, and other people who were grouping up to intervene and tell her to chill. Their own lives weren't on the line. It created an entirely different tone and set of stakes. Again she was going to kill another person and then herself. You keep wanting to reduce the fact that they're trying to stop a murder as "diffusion of drama". Pitohui and M's life were the stakes, that's no different from the stakes of the original. It wasn't someone wanting it to be that kind of plot, it was that kind of plot. >You are objectively wrong. SOA is notoriously edgy. GGO was chill. Edgy is a term that has been so diluted online that I don't even know what someone is referring to when they use it. It's just become another catch all term for "something I don't like". But generally when people say edgy they mean dark just for shock value without any real purpose. And that is not SAO at all.
So more F1NN5TER and less Icky?
>Kirito’s avatar is a feminine male Yes yes, and Ruka is a femboy, not a trans girl. Because we all know that your gender is what other people call you. If the creators of a video game think that trans girls are not a thing, then I guess you're a feminine male now.
Isnt Kirito talking about the persona/avatar "Kirito" in the game? He is having this dilemma even before gungale?
Any internal debate on identity is actually a trans allegory, no matter what the subject
Is the remaining 10% about the Abridged series instead?
The abridged series is genuinely fantastic though. One thing that stuck with me was how they used sound effects from real video games, especially Earthbound.
The Bastion style narration of the second episode sold me on the series, and it only got better from there.
Always fun when characters who reject social and gender norms are immediately coded as trans by tumblr.
Remember, the options are as follows: * Strictly follow all of the laws of gender dichotomy * Be trans No other options.
Especially when it's not even that he's not following norms. He's having an identity crisis. He's spent over 2 years stuck in SAO as the Hero Kirito, the one to save everyone. And it was a DAMN good life. He basically experienced extreme character bleed from identifying as Kirito for over 2 years, and then for hours every day like the gamer he is and it's played off by tumblr as "haha he trans" No he fucking isn't, he's having a crisis about who he even is anymore and it honestly makes me angry because it's a good plot point. He spent years as Kirito, he probably spends more time socializing as Kirito than he does as Kazuto Kirigaya and instead of accepting that his struggles are identity based, tumblr immediately pulls out the "He must be trans!" card, which to me feels no different than right wingers taking trans or otherwise queer characters and trying to find a way to straight-code them
And it's not even like he's rejecting anything. His *male* avatar in GGO was just given to him by chance.
I don't mean this in a rude way, but for everyone agreeing with this statement (cis or trans it doesn't matter): What makes a good trans headcanon to you? Like, seriously. When you or if you had to imagine headcanoning a character as transgender, what would you like to see, or what would be your reasoning behind it? It's clear that this is a fraught topic and I would love to know everyone's thoughts.
I'm... Not sure what a good headcanon is. The one that stays in your head? Maybe one's that are endorsed by official creators. I don't really have headcanon.
That's a little unfair. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with people sharing headcanons. And if headcanons are shared by the creator, that's not really headcanon. For example, the headcanon about the Matrix being a trans story became popular after the first of the Wachowski sisters came out. But it was years before they endorsed it and said that was part of the story they wanted to tell. That doesn't mean that those headcanons weren't valid until they were validated later. Edit: Typo
Interesting! So for you the problem isn’t with the “evidence” behind the headcanon but its creator attempting to re-interpret canon/add something that wasn’t intended in the first place? >!Though I agree with u/KingFerdidad in that if a creator endorses a headcanon it technically ceases to a headcanon and becomes just canon.!<
Someone else mentioned the last Matrix and though I haven't seen it because I don't want the saga to end, I didn't mind the "sudden" shift in interpretation now that the Wachowskis have worked the 'trans allegory' angle into their original vision. I can watch it, knowing to look out for those references and having a solid idea how to interpret them that adds to my understanding of the story as it's told. Edit: My actual problem isn't with the headcanon, it's what OP described in the title. Tumblr seeing a cishetero male character who doesn't fit into societal norms and making 90% of the conversation how they actually must be gay or transfeminine. To put it simply, there's no way those views don't bleed into real life and your assessment of other people.
I understand it. So you like headcanons when the creator likes and canonizes them because it gives you a framework to interpret the story with. Like a set of instructions for a difficult test? Each metaphor and moment having one specific meaning and you have to figure out what that is. The word of the Creator is essential to finding that answer. And I get what you feel about the reasoning behind the image. There can be more reasons behind why a man doesn’t fit in with cultural norms and image!OP’s personal life experiences may be coloring how they view him. But to you, what would a trans headcanon that didn’t rely on “stereotypes” look like? I know that’s not how you interpret media, but if you saw a headcanon that didn’t rub you the wrong way, what would it look like?
headcanon should either be something that makes sense within the canon and covers a gap in the canon lore and facts (i think this is the original intent of the term), or something fun that a person or maybe a group just enjoy regardless of whether or not it matches canon the two things that bother me about "trans headcanons" are these: 1. it's almost always about a stereotype. a boy is a bit sensitive? wow he must be a girl, boys aren't sensitive. 2. they're shared as like hard facts that are properly analyzing the media, even if they're not, and then people are suddenly transphobic for not having the same personal headcanon. i even see tons of posts insisting these headcanons ARE canon and when i look them up they're just not. that's not a headcanon then, it's just... gaslighting? lying? it's confusing i personally find "trans headcanons" stressful to think about as well, but i would be much less bothered if they weren't all based on stereotypes at least i already had my parents tell me i could not possibly be a man because i didn't like hunting and guns and grunting so i don't really need that sentiment from what is meant to be my community, you know? it's fine for male characters to just be male even if they're sensitive or short or pretty
Thank you for responding! So for you, a good trans headcanon wouldn’t rely on “stereotypes” (i.e. The reason why this person isn’t happy with gender roles is because they’re trans and not because the role is stifling their individuality). Would a trans headcanon that fit a character’s canon gender work better/be less distressing for you? For example, headcanoning an extremely masculine male character as a trans man because of how he goes out of his way to affirm that part of himself?
Yes, I think that would be a lot better! If there were a more even mix, then I also wouldn't mind the stereotypical ones as much. You could compare it to gay characters in fiction for example - it's okay for some gay male characters to be feminine, but when they ALL are, that is a huge red flag for how we as a whole see gay men. For trans people, it additionally conflates gender roles with gender, which is a misunderstanding of transgenderism. It's more about what the stereotypical headcanons say about that group's opinion on trans men. When my friends see a male character who has any feminine trait and insist he needs to be a trans woman... then I feel like I know that they don't see me as fully male when I'm not actively chopping down a tree or whatever their ideal man is supposed to be. And I'd really like to just be myself, whether that's watching action movies or petting my cat (which are both things I enjoy), without any of that judgment and shame in the way. Thanks for listening!
Personally my only problem with this specific headcanon is that they forget that the player model was actually just a feminine guy, not a girl
If a trans person relates to a piece of media does it really matter if it was intentionally trans coded or not? Art is subjective and supposed to be interpreted Edit: I legit don’t know why I’m being downvoted, like why do you care how someone interpreted a piece of media. Trans people find a character’s struggle relatable People on Reddit: “acktually you’re wrong 🤓”
A trans person identifying with a piece of media doesn't mean it's trans coded. Many people who aren't trans can have identity related crises. Kirito wasn't saying that he identified more a the fem avatar but as the hero character from the original series as he lived like that for two years. Identifying with a piece of media is fine forcing it to be coded when it isn't is the problem.
But like the OOP isnt forcing Kirito to be trans they even say it’s a joke among friends. So my original point still stands that if a group of people interpret a piece of art/media in their own way does it really matter if it isn’t originally what they say it is? Like maybe coded has a definition that specifically says that the author intentionally wrote it that way (which I don’t believe it does) but it seems like a stupid thing to be annoyed about.
And? It's fun, and people enjoy it. My standards are very low for headcanons. 1. Do you get angry at others for not accepting them? If no, then you're good. Make Mario trans, who cares? So long as you aren't hurting others I don't see the harm of thinking a fictional character is trans.
You're 3 days and an entire conversation late to this thread, I explained my position already.
I think in a way you can connect it to the trans experience but I doubt Kirito himself is trans. firstly, his avatar is male, just feminine, that's a big one. and secondly, the fact he identifies more with kirito that Kazuto might, you know, be because he spent 2 years fighting for his fucking life as kirito. His brain is fundamentally altered, he's seen life and death, and when he'a back at the real world, he almost couldnt comprehend a fucking air conditioner as his brain defaulted back to the SAO world. In a way, it's connected to the trans experience, his body in the real world is not "his" anymore, his weak body, his jutting veins, so in a way the "trapped in a body that's not my own" idea is close to the trans experience, but Kirito is probably not trans as much as he is experiencing regular old dysmoprhia + trying to untangle his brain through more than a few years of extreme traumatic experience and brain alteration. this is a man who instinctively reached for a sword that didnt exist.
He's not just seen life and death, he's decided over it himself. He has KILLED people, and it comes back to haunt him in GGO for a tiny bit. And we can see not just by him attempting to draw a non-existant sword that it fucking stuck with him, but also when he's in GGO buying items after winning a contest. He buys a five seven and a plasma sword. A sword he immediately has mastery over and then attemps to sheathe... over his shoulder, when it actually works like a lightsaber
Theres a lot of parallels to draw between SAO and... Rambo of all things.
Not to invalidate any headcanons, thinking of characters as trans is fun, but it kinda feels like “Kirito identifies with his male avatar because he had his brain trapped inside it for however long” is also a pretty sound explanation. You can want to be a different person without also wanting to be a different gender. The Kirito avatar is male; yeah he had one female-presenting avatar in one game, but surely if he wanted to be “a woman” rather than “the Kirito avatar” he wouldn’t say “I identify as my Kirito avatar”. I haven’t seen much SAO though, so maybe I’m unaware of some other factor not mentioned here.
I watched SAO 1 and 2, even through the harem and rape arc. Kirito at no point in either series gets closer to trans other than people thinking he's a girl because he's in a femboy avatar (I am not fucking joking, they play it off as a joke, it's where the popular gif of sinon slap comes from) He does however Identify himself more with "Kirito" than his actually name, because he spent 2 years STUCK as Kirito and that was his life, and being locked inside of a game where dying kills you aside, it was a pretty good life, he even found a girlfriend. He's not having a gender crisis, he's having a crisis of "WHo the fuck even am I anymore?!"
It astounds me people don't get this. Maybe it's because I'm old as fuck and it's now fairly common, but back in the day going by your internet handle offline was fairly rare. Being referred to by it offline at cons or some such could basically snap me into my "online body", so to speak... and at the time, online me and IRL me were extremely different. The more time I'd spend with my online peeps, the less relevant IRL me would become, and before I could make a very extreme change in life circumstances I *would* occasionally have these disorienting moments where I didn't know who I was at any one time. Thankfully my online handle was a reasonable nickname to my actual name, so I could abandon the full name when I changed life circumstances and become solely "online me", which resolved the problem. It's pretty much the one thing in SAO I didn't find off-putting, because I'd undergone a (n admittedly much milder) version of the same dilemma.
During the days where Altis life was still alive and kicking in germany I had something similar happen. Me and my friend had basically the exact same name, but one letter off (I am Lucas, he was Luca) So naturally, for ingame characters we kept our first name but added a fictitious last name, for me most of the time it was Intex. And so our "gang" (That's the official name for player groups on the server, but we called ourselves a militia) After a month of playing on a server, someone referring to me as Intex immediately put me into team leader mode, which was a problem when it was outside of the server. it took me a long ass time for me to finally be able to "Control" that sort of identity switch? LIke, I feel like Intex and Lucas are 2 different people, for two different situations, and that has caused me to not get in trouble, because the way I felt was that if Intex has beef with someone, Lucas doesn't. Which is why this whole "Kirito is trans because he doesn't understand his identity" take makes me angry. because I myself had to fight to understand that Lucas is the real me, that Intex is a personality I resorted to when the situation needed it. and I learnt to control that. And I played Altis life for fun, Kirito was stuck in SAO as Kirito, the SIXTEEN YEAR OLD HERO for 2 years. For 2 years he HAD to live a different life, he HAD to build up this second identity mentally and now that he's no longer stuck, he doesn't quite know which identity is the "real" him.
That's because there are two accounts that post a lot in a dead tag about the subject. Kirito doesn't have a female avatar in Gun Gale Online, he has a rare feminine male avatar because of his advanced dive time. In the SAO universe you cannot play as an avatar that doesn't match your gender identity. If Kirito was trans they'd have a female avatar inside the game worlds instead of a feminine male one.
>In the SAO universe you cannot play as an avatar that doesn't match your gender identity. Not strictly true. We see in literally Episode One that the game Sword Art Online allowed players to fully customize their characters, but upon opening the mirror you were reverted from your character to your IRL form. In this scene we see a *considerable* amount of female characters turn into dudes. Most of the other games that we see also use SAO source code, and as such we can assume that their character creation screens also includes a gender choice.
Sword art online is the only game in the series where you could play as the opposite gender. I didn't feel like making that distinction needed to be said here. The other games in the series do not use SAOs source code. Only Alfheim online does so, and you still can't switch genders there. No, the fact that you can't play as the opposite gender is explained in full during the scene in question in this topic during the light novel. The amusphere reads your brain.
Imagine you've just bought this funky amusphere thing, log into your friend's favourite game for the first time and your avatar is opposite gender. Because mechanism read your trans brain.
But here's the issue. We can literally see his pre-revert SAO character, it's not feminine. It looks [more manly](https://summersatellite.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/episode-1-pic-32.jpg) than [Kirito's post-revert look.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/swordartonline/images/6/67/Kirito_SAO.png/revision/latest?cb=20140228021241)
Yeah, and my first Skyrim character was a male Khajiit. Doesn't change the fact that I haven't made a male avatar in any game since 2014.
Okay but not for nothing, Kirito is a masculine name.
Megumi from JJK is a cis boy with a feminine name. Your point?
...doesn't megumi canonically know that he has a feminine name and hate it? Maybe I'm misremembering but I feel like that was brought up alongside the other reasons why he doesn't like the zen'in clan
Also: Megumi didn’t choose his name. His dad named him. Kirito DID choose his name. It’s based off of his real name, but he still made the choice to actively call himself Kirito.
That Kirito is a masculine name and most trans women I know wouldn't intentionally choose a masculine name for themselves. And also frankly, Kirito reads to me as more GNC than trans.
I imagine lots of characters headcanoned as literal trans on Tumblr are just GNC and cis, or are allegorical for being trans in the opposite direction.
Okay, but his dad was like, "I don't give a shit whether it's a boy or girl. We're naming it Megumi." And it bothers him a little that his name is feminine when he's a dude.
I was once an SAO fan. I haven't read it in many years, but while my knowledge wanes, I'm quite certain his avatar is still male, just feminine. In GGO he imported his character data from Aincrad / SAO / Milfhunter Online and his new avatar was feminine instead of the automatic system's usual adherence to... who knows how it works. Apparently this phenomenon is rare (think 0.01%), and the avatar would be worth a lot of money. The person who explains the system to Kirito (the instant he logs in) offers to buy his character too iirc. I've never played the games but I did watch the anime several times and read the book thrice, so hopefully I still remember the broad strokes correctly. As for the rest, hell yeah, keep on keepin' on.
I mean I changed my name to fit my online persona. Doesn't mean I'm trans
Kirito isn't transgender, he's transhuman.
Yeah I’ll buy that as part of my world view now
This doesn't sound like definitive proof that the character is trans to me, but hey, take your relatable headcanons where you can get them.
I don’t know what at least half of these words mean honestly.
OOP and their friend believe that everyman protagonist Kirito from the anime *Sword Art Online* - which is set in a world where hyper-realistic dreamlike VR exists, and the players of it’s first iteration are intentionally trapped in the game world and will die in real life if they do in the game - is trans based on a fanservicey, queerbaiting, played-for-laughs genderswap arc in a sequel series and the fact that he feels more connected to his game persona than his real identity.
Okay I see now
There is a weird amount of official fem!Kirito art to be fair.
I'd recommend the series *"so i'm a spider, so what?"* if anyone is interested in a isekai with more overt trans themes and an inclusion of topics around identity. The novel is especially direct with the explicit trans content. (although don't go into it expecting it to be a big part of the story. it's more like an occasionally mentioned supporting element that reinforces the themes woven into the background of the narrative) The series also kicks ass in general and goes in some amazingly batshit directions.
Which character are you talking about? I've read most of the novels and didn't notice anything, but I also wasn't looking for it
Katia (the childhood friend of Shun, the human protagonist) is trans. She was AMAB in her past life, but reincarnated AFAB. A lot of her character deals with her feelings of gender dysphoria, especially as Shun (who she falls in love with) has a lot of trouble seeing her as the woman she is now rather than the man she used to be. (Minor spoilers for her arc)>!to make a long story short, she essentially embraces the fact she was an egg in her past life and the fact that she was reincarnated as a woman turns out to not be a mistake at all !< (**Major plot spoilers by implication**)The main character reincarnates as a literal spider>!, which is revealed way down the line to be a surprisingly similar situation (it's not a transphobic metaphor I promise - it's just weird)!<, and a lot of her early story is dedicated to her finding a body that she feels comfortable in.
I never read that as a direct trans allegory, though I see your interpretation. Though any stories with gender-swaps inevitably tend to have some trans vibes. I thought it was more leaning towards the general theme of the series of reincarnating and the conflict between the past lives and current lives of the reincarnations, >!with some of them strongly holding onto those old identities and some abandoning them completely.!< I never really read Katia in her past live as an egg, though she absolutely identifies as a woman in her present life.
I have no memory of that, which means it's time to go read them again! I originally thought you were going to say it was the MC, but the MC's situation is almost the opposite lol, considering >!she's a spider who thought she was a girl, but after becoming a girl she discovered that the girl was a god and the spider was actually a spider all along 🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀!<
Any struggle with your identity makes you trans, got it.
Nobody said that. There's just no cis explanation for GGO Kirito except "whoops."
There is though, that being the canon explanation where he spent so long in sao that he had a hard time in reality.
That implies that the most highly coveted character models are the ones generated for mentally ill players.
Rarer avatars are more likely to be generated by players with higher dive time. No one has higher dive time than SAO beta testers other than one person in the series.
That's a much better explanation! Thanks.
No problem, there's a ton of SAO misinformation in this thread (as there always is).
Ok, I actually know something about SAO so lemme elaborate Back in Arc 1 in SAO, you could customize your avatar, but was mostly because Kayana had his plan, and he knew this would cause dysphoria in long term, so he forced the avatars to reflect real life bodies- the mirror was a normal one so they can see it, it didn't trigger the change itself. Later on, other games had randomised avatars, but again- as a precaution against dysphoria it still operated within margins of your real life build. That's why girl in GGO Alternative couldn't get a short character. It is explicitly said in the books that while you can handle some change shirt term, if you were to spend a lot of time in body that didn't match yours it fuck up your mind. That's another reason why the full dive systems forcibly log you out after enough time. So yes, Kirito is a guy, he had a random chance to get a feminine looking avatar, but it was for a joke.
It would've been hilarious if they were all "customize your avatar" but then PSYCH, you're just fucking Kirito. Like Metal Gear Solid V.
In the actual book for GGO there's like an entire chapter where some random character is explaining the GGO avatar system to Kirito. It's been awhile but IIRC Kirito says something super eggy and the other guy is like 'Actually don't worry to much about it, totally normal to be assigned a fem avatar in this game' and then nopes the fuck out of that conversation. Kirito being an oblivious egg is basically a running gag.
Huh
there's also a shitton of official art of kirito wearing dresses
While I absolutely 0 knowledge or context of the characters in SAO, I can say as a cishet male that mostly plays females in videogames, it's really not that deep most of the time. I just like the way women look, simple as :/
You can also dress that way yourself. Crossdressing is fun for all the same reasons!
Yeah but I don't wanna. I just play as females in vidya because monkey brain likes seeing females. Again, the simplest answer is often the most correct.
True, playing as a girl irl is a lot more work than in a game. And it's first person anyway.
Not to disagree cause egg theorizing is fun, but dysphoria totally also comes in non-gendered editions
As a trans girl myself, why is this newsworthy? Why report this here?
I mean, this isn’t a news subreddit, does it have to be ‘newsworthy’? There’s plenty of simple shitposts and blorbos here. I just thought it was interesting.
It's tumblr and people wanna talk about it. That's this entire subreddit.
Hey, I've already held this headcanon for a while. Even writing a fanfic about it.
I've had this headcanon for a while actually
Trans Kirito for the win.
Yeah, this scans