fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6439 ]

[ SECRET POST #6439 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6439 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Harley Quinn]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #920.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I feel weird about this because I don't mind Haruka-is-nonbinary headcanons in the slightest, but I am curious as to where the "confirmed-by-creator" myth came from. There's an often very badly translated line from the manga (and now Crystal) that some people choose to interpret as suggesting she is nb (or more accurately, bigender) which should read like this this, but as far as the creator's concerned she's said very much the opposite.

"All of the Sailor Scouts are girls." "Haruka is a girl."

"...in this case it is (a love) between two girls." "Haruka is a tomboy"

As there seemed to be quite a few people active in the thread yesterday, I'm very curious where you heard that Naoko Takeuchi had said this. Is this new?

Honestly, without seeing the actual Japanese text, it's impossible to say because unfortunately there are a lot of "translators" who translate things with a bias towards their opinion/ship/what have you even if that bias does not exist in the original text.

Oh, agreed, which is why I don't mind Haruka-as-nb headcanons at all. There's no issue with people reading into that one line of the manga more than perhaps the creator intended, I was just asking because I've now spent a while searching for quotes from Takeuchi "confirming" Haruka is nb, since it came up quite a few times in the thread and people seemed very confident about. That would be news to me (and this is one of my OG fandoms I used to follow pretty closely).

Her saying Haruka is both male and female was something the fandom knew about as early as there was an English fandom, in the 90s. Way before anyone was pushing "my headcanons are canon" or nonbinary representation.

She could have changed her mind or never had a Strong opinion on Haruka not being fully a girl, but it is rather suspicious that the first link ayrt gave has only an English translation of what she allegedly said. I speak Japanese, so I'd love to find what that quote was originally when I have more time to search for it.

Kay so some quick Googlings in Japanese give no indication of any statements Takeuchi made about Haruka's gender, so it's possible all those "translations" are just made up including the one that was known in English in the 90s. So I suppose without that, the simplest explanation is that Haruka is a girl, as official sources that aren't Takeuchi herself list.

Although it is worth noting that in one of my fandoms, a female presenting character says outright that her female form is purely cosmetic and human genders don't apply to her (she is a human who was raised to believe she's a god/spirit) but the official fanbooks list her gender as "female," and in that case I defer to what she says in canon rather than some writers forgetting they made a character identify as nonbinary, because she looks and is biologically female.

^ Both those previous comments were SA, by the way

It's also possible those sources that say her gender is female are treating sex and gender as one and the same. So even if there was some statement about her being both male and female, those sources on her gender being female could just be the answer to the "Ok, but what's in her pants tho" question that gets asked about nonbinary people way too often.

You can find scans of the full text of the interview with Takeuchi in question here.

"All the Sailor Scouts are girls," Takeuchi said firmly. "Haruka has always been a girl and always will be."

There's no corresponding Japanese script because this is an English-language article, based on an official Japanese -> English interpreted interview, but I see absolutely no reason that either the author of this article or the professional interpreter hired by Comic Con would lie about or misrepresent this, nor did anyone by my recollection when this interview was first published in the 90s.

On the other hand, "author confirmed" Haruka-as-nonbinary increasingly appears to have been something the fandom invented, as I can't find anything about it except speculation based on that one sentence from the manga, including in Japanese. Everything regarding Haruka's gender in Japanese is fanblog speculation too. Again, I don't mind this interpretation, but if anyone can find where this originated, I would be grateful. There honestly appears to be some revisionist history going on as I was active in the fandom online in the 90s too and I have no recollection of this being either a popular headcanon or supposedly official.

Her saying Haruka is both male and female was something the fandom knew about as early as there was an English fandom, in the 90s.

Is it? Are there any links to this? Because I've also been in the fandom since the 90s, and I also speak Japanese.

All I can find is the one manga line - which isn't from Takeuchi/official WoG, it's from Michiru - that actually translates to Haruka having both masculine and feminine qualities, not definitively nonbinary. And Takeuchi herself has said what I linked above.

I'm of the same opinion as you. I'm pretty sure Haruka's just the old-fashioned tomboy and that nothing's been said otherwise. I also don't mind the head-canons with her being non-binary and stuff but I've never seen or heard anything that makes that canon.

You can't have an "opinion" about what a creator said about their own character. Either they said it, or they didn't. Believe without evidence that Takeuchi MEANT Haruka to be completely female, but she still said what she said.

What did she "say" though? I could only find the links above, where she says the opposite: Haruka is a girl, and a tomboy. Do you have any links to where Takeuchi herself says Haruka is nonbinary? That's what I'm asking for.

Yes, you CAN believe something if like in this case, it's a language (and in parts a cultural background) that's notoriously open to interpretation where gendered terms are concerned. You also BELIEVE that what was said means Haruka is NOT meant to be 100% female which is your interpretation/wishful thinking, not a real fact.

This seems super important to you that this character cannot be NB, why?

You really need to practice your reading comprehension cause this ain't it.

I get that this is fs and you're probably trying to get a rise, but why does it seem that way? I said I don't mind that headcanon at all (in fact I think it's pretty plausible for manga!Haruka, at least) but there was a chorus of people yesterdat claiming the creator had confirmed this for a fandom whose canon/meta I know extremely well, and I've never heard that? It's natural to be curious.

Now there's crickets, which is even more curious tbh.

DA

I must admit I'm not surprised there are crickets on this front.

I mean I thought it was entirely possible that Takeuchi had made some new/recent statement about it now that people are generally more aware of gender diversity. It would have been news to me, but cool to know! There is absolutely nothing wrong with nb!Haruka (and Takeuchi confirming that she is a girl does not mean Haruka cannot also identify as a man i.e., be bigender).

But let's just say I've been around too long in too many fandoms to accept "it happened in the 90s" and/or "in the original Japanese" claims without a source, because a) I was there back then too, and b) I know how easy it is to try to pass off a headcanon as canon this way to a newer/younger/(more credulous) audience, particularly with popular fanon. If it is something they would already like to believe (as I'm sure a gender diverse person would, Haruka is awesome), they aren't going to check to see if it's actually true.

New to this thread Anon

One of the most confusing parts of Japanese culture is how they portray people on stage, and in fiction, especially with regards to gender identity.

If a mangaka wanted to have a popular all-ages manga, they would like to have fans portray the characters in their tales. Extremely popular mangas are often seen in semiprofessional stage concerts and drama reviews.

Gender segregated drama troops have been popular in Japan for centuries. Haruka could be an aspiring actress, or at least be described as a male impersonator personality type.

What a weird ass response.

Because she's a woman who relates to the character and thinks people will start thinking she's NB if the character is NB. Perhaps it's because she's cis that she doesn't realize she has what she wants already, that real life is not fandom and in real life very few people think any AFAB person, no matter their gender or gender presentation, is anything other than a woman.

Aw man, I was kinda hoping people could be normal about this.

Leave your creative writing exercises on reddit, will you.

da but when people claim that things are canon they should be able to point to the actual canon source to back them up? This is just Fandom 101.

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[ SECRET POST #6439 ]

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