Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-26397825-20150719111502/@comment-25555436-20150725024447

Shadow at Morning wrote:

As to the canon/fanon distinction, I don't see a useful difference. One making fanart of a genderbent character is an application of R63, just as a creator deciding to adapt a character and in the process change their gender is. Both are adaptations of a source material, and that alteration is the salient aspect, not their canonicity. ....Dude that's the fucking reason they are different.

R63: Fanart involving a opposite-sex version of X character. Sure, it's refered as such but technically speaking it's not the actual trope, just people using it to informally describe it, in the same way people call homosexuals "gay", or when someone calls a sword a "blade".

Gender Bender: When it's actually canon, when it happens In-Universe, not when done by a fucking fan with some rare fetish.

Think about it, the difference may be small but it's still a fucking difference that sets them appart. What's the difference between a Zebra and a Horse? The Zebra have stripes, nothing more. That small, simple difference is enough to classify them as different animals.

If the creator includes a character of X gender based on someone who was of Y gender, it's not fucking R63, nor Gender-bending.If the creator makes a character that changes from male to female In-Universe through magic or something, it's not fucking R63 but Genderbending.  If some random artist with nothing to do or gain makes fanart of a female Abraham Linlcon, it's fucking R63.

Got it fucking memorized? The whole deciding aspect, the only deciding aspect, it's whether it happens in a fictional work or not. Genderbending is a trope, a device used when telling a story. Rule 63 is an internet term used to refer to specific kinds of fanart. Got that memorized?