How Do You Make Non-Binary Characters?

Hey! So! I recognize that this video is potentially going to be controversial, and I want to make it clear upfront that this video is meant to be supportive of non-binary people and non-binary characters in games. If that is a problem for you, then this is not the video or channel for you. If you have criticisms of how I handled the topic, especially if you're non-binary yourself, I'm happy to hear them but just ask that you remember that this video is genuinely coming from a place of good intentions and if I make a mistake it's out of incompetence rather than malice. I did do research on the subject and did consult with non-binary friends both before making the video and on the script itself, but I also know I'm not non-binary and might make mistakes.

Anyways, ty for reading, enjoy, and happy Pride!

Chapters:

0:00 - Introduction
2:04 - Part 1: Where Do You Start?
5:38 - Part 2: Defining The Undefinable
12:35 - Part 3: The Most Obvious Options
18:18 - Part 4: What Is Non-Binary Then?
25:03 - Conclusion

Credits:

[cobaltobject]

Shoutout to Testament from Guilty Gear, i think they're a good example of an nb character design that prioritizes a unified, personality-fitting aesthetic over a perfect balance of gender signifiers.

[thefrysh]

the most frustrating thing about enby representation is that an enby really CAN look like anything, but to an audience of mostly binary people, it takes a very specific look and design aesthetic before they'd "accept" that character to actually be non-binary. So it often ends up a lose-lose game where you either have a narrow pool of design elements to define non-binary characters that a playerbase will accept as non-binary, or you break away from those "molds" to have more varied non-binary designs, at the expense of the playerbase at large not regarding them as non-binary and just defaulting to calling them a man or a woman.
Unfortunately devs and designers tend to lean towards the former option, which just serves to underrepresent enbies like myself who don't present androgynously. In my opinion, the most effective way to challenge this approach would be to just create larger pools of enby characters of varied design choices, and reshape people's perception of enbies through mass exposure. Sadly that means it's a bit of a waiting game for such characters to actually BE created and released, but its gotta start somewhere

[thecheck]

Meanwhile, you have me deciding to play a nonbinary character in Baldur's Gate, staring at the screen for 10 minutes and deciding "ah yes. Purple."

[backmusician]

One interesting aspect of non binary characters is how some non explicit nonbinary characters are treated. A lot of the times people just chooses a gender for them (rimuru in that slime isekai anime) or say things like “[character]’s gender is [character]!” while treating explicitly nonbinary characters with more bigoted comments.

People treat Frisk/Kris from Undertale/Deltarune as nonbinary a lot of the times even when they dont realize it (me at first)because they don’t dont get advertise as such in official media. We know they are nonbinary because they are referred to with only they/them or neutral labels and wears clothes from everywhere on the gender spectrum. On the other hand, Venture who is advertised as explicitly nonbinary is treated with much more hostility even though in story or gameplay they arent shouting “im nonbinary!” at the top of their lungs either. People don’t care about their impact in game, just how they’re advertised. You could say this is a result of different player bases and it definitely is, but people generally werent being bigots towards Frisk/Kris especially when Undertale had a larger audience.

Often i get the same treatment as a somewhat androgynous presenting nonbinary person, where they most of the time just chooses a set of pronouns for me. Since I’m someone who doesnt care for pronouns and uses any, I dont bother pointing out the fact that I’m nonbinary and in such dont get treated with hostility even if i know they hold bigoted views. I dont know what the point im trying to make is, but it’s just an interesting thing i see often in media that is reflected IRL.

Great video btw, i really enjoyed watching it!

[greyves_]

I will say, as an archaeologist character, Venture is eerily well-designed in that they look and act exactly like every single queer archaeology student I met during my anthro degree.

[ZekeFreek]

My first thought when they revealed Venture was that a lot of their design was also driven by a desire to reduce obvious labeling and for better or worse one of the best ways to do that is to aim for a neutral middle ground on the quote unquote spectrum. Venture is a mix and match of masculine and feminine traits specifically so no obnoxious commenters can be "right" about them.

I think this is also why they expressly didn't tell us anything about their personal history, we don't know what Venture was assigned at birth and even their real name, Sloan Cameron is literally two unisex names just to drive the point home. Their character is drenched in ambiguity so that there are no obvious signs a hater could point to in order to go "AHA! They're an X! I've solved the puzzle! I've exposed the TRUTH!". Everything from their clothing, their style and their purposely androgynous voice is meant to not give LGBT-phobes anything to latch onto. You must accept their identity or you just don't have an argument.

This is obviously quite limiting in terms of character design, but that more reflects where culture is at more than it does anything on the part of the designers. And for the record, I think they made it work, they always do, T4 are kind of masters at this sort of thing. But it's kind of a one time trick, you know, if they start making more NB characters with this exact ethos, that's gonna create a stereotype that might not be appreciated.

But for now, given all the challenges, I think they nailed it.

[fantipop]

i do wish you would have touched on an issue i personally have with nb representation in media and games recently is that it seems to heavily skew towards AFAB/slightly femme presenting characters, mostly due to that being the easiest for the average person to comprehend. which makes sense, it seems like there are more afab people irl who are comfortable with being queer due to societal pressures, as it's hard for amab/masc people to be outwardly queer, or to even think about whether they're queer or not.

nothing wrong with being a femme presenting nb OBVIOUSLY, and i love clove for example but if every nb character that gets designed is going to be afab i feel like they're kind of tiptoeing around instead of actually experimenting with more interesting representations of gender.

bloodhound is sick though.

great vid as always :D

[jinsoulsscalp]

I think it’s a funny coincidence that both if the games released an nb character around the same time. And what makes it even better is that they’re both still so different in personality and style. Not just some stereotypical nb person/character. To me that very much makes me feel like they actually cared about bringing this type of representation and not just to “please” the lgbtq community

[Lightcoresrule]

I can already feel the low-key seething rage from viv as he started creeping up a sasha sprite while talking about enigmatic enby characters 🤣🤣
Considering how he made a whole section about them in the inescapable video

[silly_catty]

It reminds me of aro and ace rep. People just dont know how to interct with those concepts because they are seen as basic human things. Trying tp make characters that are defined by a lack of something, rather than a substitition is a pretty difficult thing for most creators to understand.

[MerukHolland]

In general, I really like Venture as nonbinary representation, but there is something about them that I feel does fall into the pitfalls of making a nonbinary character. From presentation to voice lines, Venture feels young, to the point I thought they were a teenager. It feels like that in an effort to make them more androgynous, Venture's designers, whether inadvertently or intentionally, gave them a personality that teeters into childish territory. I certainly don't think that's a bad thing nor do I think it makes for bad nonbinary representation, but it does ring the "Let's keep an eye on this" bell in my head. Like young and flighty nonbinary characters might become cliche real fast.

[birdiebancha]

When I saw this video title I honestly teared up, I've felt like non-binary people have been left behind by a lot of the community but it's great to see acknowledgement that we're still here

[BigLipBarbie]

This video was a really fun watch as an enby who does a lot of gender-related self-reflection. I'm so glad you pointed out that gender neutral does not necessarily make something nonbinary! One of the main issues with explaining non-binary identity to people is that even the word itself is about what we AREN'T and not what we ARE and that can be incredibly freeing but also incredibly difficult for people to understand if they haven't given gender much thought beyond the binary. So while it makes sense for people to automatically jump to the conclusion that nonbinary = androgyny, gender neutrality, and lack of gendered identifiers I'm genuinely happy more people are talking about how this is not the case.

I think this standard oftentimes even stifiles other enbies and makes them wonder if it's ok to be feminine or masculine to a hyper degree (hyperfeminine enby who went through an androgynous era here) when the whole point is to just not gaf!! Great video!!

[medea]

You nailed the difficulties in depicting nonbinary appearances in media, the example of explaining colors to someone who sees in a different spectrum really clarifies it further. You didn't touch on this that much, but, another problem that makes it really hard for those that can't see in a broader spectrum, are the character's voices.

I can't say for sure for fl4k and Bloodhound, but from my experience, people identify and place alot of gender signifiers in the other enbies' voices. I believe that the majority of their misgendering (when not on purpose/or some other reason) comes from that (Definitely Clove)? When their voices are the tiniest smidge higher or lower, they automatically place them on either end of their gender spectrum.

anyway i love your videos :3

[mayuwu]

I think a simple and actionable thing that character designers can do to help make better nonbinary characters is that if there isn't a lot of NB characters in media to look back to, why not go straight to the source? Go find and follow NB artists and see how they draw themselves or their OCs! Observe how NB people dress and present themselves in real life! Who cares if they aren't from some big company or the product of a design team, there's so many amazing characters and people to draw inspiration from sitting there on some nb's tumblr or twitter or instagram page!!

Of course that isn't quite as simple as it might be for other things because being nobinary is so broad, but even casting a wide net and exposing yourself to all kinds of nonbinary people will go a long way in broadening your horizons over time!! And in the shorter term, you can find these people and character designs and pull from the ones that feel like they suit your character best and play in the space from there!

I was kinda thinking "Just make a character who's nonbinary." the whole time and am validated that it was said in the video. Perhaps being in the queer community for the last 4-5 years and much of my character designs being OC's and TTRPG characters, I've developed a pretty good intuition for this being exposed to a lot of nonbinary people and I've had a lot of practice immersing myself in and empathizing with a character even if they're unlike me and doing/designing things from their perspective, and it's just occuring to me that maybe this isn't a normal thing to expect of most people, , , , lmao 😅

Also wanna give a quick shoutout to Raine from The Owl House, love them so much!! They're a great character to draw inspiration from :3

[aqua__owo]

Loved this video! As a non-binary, specifically agender, person I liked how you basically spent most of the video explaining that in order to make a non-binary character and better understand non-binary people one has to detach themselves from the gender binary in the first place. AKA if you are making a non-binary character, do not view them through a binary lens. Also that non-binary is a broad identity, and thus can look like many different things. Overall, great video!

[abrawolf]

I just wanna take a second to talk about valorants kayo rq. So hes a robot that goes by he/him pro nouns. He has no genetials or genetics so he has no sex, but he does have consciousness and therefore identifyes with a gender. Theres a theory that his conciousness is the mind of a character who died pre valorant but that foesnt really matter for this since it isnt confirmed and doesn't change the situation much at all.
I wanna mention this because people were up in arms about clove being nonbinary, misgendring them, and just being all around assholes. But like, where is this with kayo? Shouldnt people use they/them or it/its for hum since hes a robot without a sex since theyre so willing to do it with clove? When kayo released i didnt realize he had pronouns, so going off of the fact that hes a robot i was using they them until someone corrected me.
It really shows the stupidity of a philosophy when those who hold it cant follow their own rules, people are so willing to misgender a game character who is supposed to be a person but wont do it for the robot, they dont even think twice.

[Mockingdragon]

Hermes in Stray Gods is canonically nonbinary trans-masculine, and voiced by NB actor Erika Ishii which is even better. And it was a brilliant choice for them. But it's also relatively easy to miss. They're just quietly referred to with they/them pronouns by everyone in the cast, as well as Grace's journal. It's not a big deal, there's no declaring of pronouns. It's just there. And an optional conversation:

I'm the God of messengers, bay-bee! Travelers, doorways, any kind of transition really. The old Hermes said the transition part made even more sense for me. Which is, y'know, extra cool, right?

It's so thematically awesome and I love them, and they're starring in the upcoming DLC.

[shevmo]

Non-binary here cheering for the allyship of this video. Means a lot.

[erraticrasmus]

Still yet to watch the video but before I wanna add that I think Apex has the best trans representation in any big video game thus far. First they had Bloodhound and were the first to have a nonbinary character just... be. They dont really talk about how Bloodhound is nonbinary and I like that tbh, they're just a hunter rather than a nonbinary hunter.

Apex is also the first big game that Im aware of that has the blls to introduce a binary trans character in Catalyst and I will forever love them for that. Catalyst herself does reference being trans a little but only in passing (has a few equippable voice lines about it and an intro line makes a little reference to it). Alike Bloodhound, it feels like shes a character more than just representation. Like how Bloodhound is a hunter before being nonbinary, Catalyst is a witch before being trans and most of her character references that more than anything, though being trans is still a big part of her identity.

Anyways big up Apex Legends it's lgbtq+ representation is great