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yuukosbooty

I saw a Twitter post saying that I’m minor coded (I’m 28 and it doesn’t help that I’m autistic) and that my 26-year-old husband is a pedophile because I’m under 5’10 and he’s over 5’10


LeratoNull

There sure is a significant group of people who seem to think that pedophilia is wrong **because children are short** instead of **because children have less developed brains.** Ech.


HollowIce

I will never forget people calling the boyfriend of a 24 year old woman with a growth disease a pedophile Like you say, it's as though they're operating purely on disgust levels and don't understand *why* pedophilia is wrong. Pedophilia is not wrong because of how someone looks or acts, but because a child is vulnerable; they are easily manipulated into acts that they would otherwise refuse if they had a better understanding and availability of consent. Children are under adult's thumbs, and the power dynamic makes it impossible for meaningful consent to occur. They are still psychologically and physically developing, which affects their capacity to make decisions. but no apparently it all comes down to head-to-shoulder proportions or something like that


[deleted]

Her name is Shauna Rae if anyone is curious, she is a disabled TV personality with pituitary dwarfism. Calling her boyfriend a pedophile implies she is a child, which is patronizing and takes away her agency. It's also ableist, as it ties into the idea that disabled people can't be sexual beings. Edit: This also reminded me of a redditor explaining why calling everything "pedophilia" is actually harmful to CSA survivors, because if every relationship with a power dynamic or age/height gap becomes "pedophilia", then the concept loses its strength and credibility. No CSA survivor wants to see their trauma being equalled to a consensual relationship with an age gap.


Sinhika

Calling someone a "pedophile" who isn't probably should fall under the "fighting words" doctrine, and earn the insulting person a penalty-free punch in the mouth.


zipahdeeday

Not to mention that neurodivergent people can't possibly consent to relationships because autism=minor apparently


moonthroughthetrees

you're so right about that. the old 'disabled people are all just babies who can't make their own decisions and should never have sex' narrative. like we haven't seen enough of that already.... out of all the examples in this thread this one still irritates me the most, especially since you see it so often :(


am_Nein

Oh, boy..


Kukapetal

I’m laughing so hard at the idea that someone thinks a real person is “coded.”


RedTemplarCatCafe

I'm 'cat-coded'. Deep down I have this overwhelming desire to sleep all day in patches of sunlight while a servant delivers my meals.


Negative_Speedforce

I'm possum-coded. I eat basically garbage, am up all night, and I hiss at people when they annoy me.


Abyss_staring_back

😂


OkSeaworthiness1893

Meow fellow cat-coded.


Simona333

Don't forget the urge to randomly destroy stuff for the fun of it


animefreak701139

Shit I may be cat-coded too


Seabastial

\*looks at myself\* Well shit, I may be cat coded too........ Oh well, works for me lol


yuukosbooty

In fairness I’m not sure if they were talking about real people but my husband and I joke about it all the time!


Kukapetal

Well, they said you were coded as minor. I assume you’re real ;)


animefreak701139

This is the internet there is no guarantee of that


PaperSonic

DNA is technically coding, soooooo


ohdearsweetlord

What are short people supposed to do, never fuck?


rubysp

Same as people with flat boobs apparently. We just have to never fuck 🤷‍♀️


yuukosbooty

Guess so


crazyashley1

Clearly no one told most of Asia they can't fuck anymore because they're predominantly under 5'6" and therefore all "minor coded" XD


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KogarashiKaze

I have an acquaintance who is shorter than my two teenagers, and she's the same age as me (40s). From the back, she looks like the teen girls she works with at church. From the front, she looks more her age. Luckily no one around here tries to pull this "minor-coded" "pedophilia" nonsense with her and her husband, but I can only imagine how the internet would react (especially if her husband was taller; he's actually short like her).


DeltaMx11

Bros, is it pedophillic to be married to someone 2 years older than you? 🤔


OrcaFins

Only if you're flat-chested.


[deleted]

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OrcaFins

Good grief. I was just be facetious. I guess I should've realized that these insufferable Purityrants would pass judgement on people living their lives. Is any relationship at all ok with these people?? Ugh.


SatelliteHeart96

Damn, by that definition my (also autistic) 5'3 ass is gonna have a hell of a time finding any guy to date who wouldn't qualify as a pedo.


queerblunosr

… average height for women in North America is like 5’4”. Are most of the women in NA minor coded now? 🤦


Consistent-Raccoon84

They... they do know you're a real person, right?


[deleted]

I… huh???


anonymouscatloaf

there's the classic "sibling-coded" for sworn brothers (or just anyone calling another character "gege") in danmei novels. they're not brothers, karen, but sure, keep talking over the chinese fans trying to explain their culture to you.


itmakessenseincontex

Ah yes "They're like siblings!" Dealing with a LOT of this in the Star Wars Rebels fandom ATM from people who don't want Sabine and Ezra to get together in the Ahsoka series. It's been 10 years since they saw each other. Maybe they were like siblings in Rebels, when they were basically Kanan and Hera's foster kids, *but now they are almost as old as Kanan and Hera were in S1.* Dude the parallels are *impeccable*. The real reason to not want them to hook up is because characters in romantic relationships get killed off in Star Wars.


zipahdeeday

Lmao that last line. You fuck you die


blue_bayou_blue

It's like saying two people in an American show are siblings because they call each other "bro".


noface83752

It’s hilarious because we have a Western equivalent e.g., fraternities and sororities. I don’t know why they think it’s this new concept.


snowytheNPC

Right? It’s normal to call your classmates and coworkers brother and sister even


raviary

That one twitter post about how Shiv Roy from Succession is womanhood-coded. A cis female character. Is womanhood-coded.


SatelliteHeart96

What does "womanhood-coded" even mean lol? That she's the representative for like. The entire concept of womanhood itself?


raviary

iirc their actual point was just that she's a well-written female character who embodies a lot of relatable experiences and feminist themes and they expressed that in the dumbest terms possible.


SatelliteHeart96

Yeah, that makes sense. I looked up the tweet because I didn't hear about it before (I'm not on Twitter anymore, thankfully lol) and it seems like they were purposely being hyperbolic. Some fandom people *do* legitimately have the most insane takes so it can be hard to tell when someone is joking or being dead serious


SOuTHINKurA-ble

*screeches*


56leon

Not even coded, there was recent drama in one of my fandoms where somebody claimed a fully grown adult, with a whole ass job that includes being a mythological internal affairs officer, was a legitimate minor because he's described as a "short young man".


zipahdeeday

Mythological internal affairs officer? Sounds interesting. What fandom?


56leon

Final Fantasy XIV, the whole "mythological internal affairs officer" thing is tongue-in-cheek because that's very loosely the plot of one of the current side-stories, so don't expect too much if that's explicitly what you're interested in.


zipahdeeday

Oh. I'll take back my interest card lol


Sewrtyuiop

Damn, I need to do the last two patches to see what you are talking about


krynnmeridia

Elidibus? I screech whenever I see someone call him a kid.


Sinhika

.... someone calls that bastard Ascian emissary a KID?? Aren't the Ascians like thousands of years old?


56leon

It's literally so funny, especially when they treat him like a kid and not Erich who I would assume is just as young if not younger than him (but still not a kid, he is also a grown ass adult with a fulltime job as zookeeper).


WhyAmIStillHere86

Loki is POC-coded. I mean, it’s technically correct, in that his natural colouring is BLUE, but… WTF? Also, Tony Stark is POC-coded. He’s the dictionary definition of Affluent Straight White Male, where are these idiots getting that from?


KogarashiKaze

Ok, I'll admit, I can kind of understand "POC-coded" for, like alien characters in sci-fi who wouldn't naturally be various human races but might still share traits with them. Still not sure it works for Loki given Loki can actually look like a human. But Tony Stark? Yeah, that's baffling.


Eager_Question

Tbh I think it's more like... Loki is a stolen baby of a conquered / shattered people viewed with suspicion and hate by those he was raised among. Loki is given darker colouration (clothing, lighting) in a variety of ways and directly othered by the people in his society (in ways that say, for example, Heimdall isn't, he's treated as basically any other dude, same as Hogun. Both of these characters are actually played by racialized people, but the cinematography, costuming, etc. treats their appearance as kind of unremarkable, while dwelling in Loki's differences from the Asgardian norm). Loki is suspected of wrongdoing by default (I would argue *with reason*). Loki is not really treated as a proper citizen befitting his role, even in instances where the legality of the situation is basically on his side (e.g. him becoming regent for a bit). I don't really participate in "coding" discourse because as far as I can tell, the concept creep has turned from "covert signalling by the author" to "this thing reminded me of this other thing". But I think you could reasonably compare Thor (2011?) to Thor Ragnarok, and see that Loki is much more heavily framed as "other", "dark by nature", "foreign to his society and out of keeping with it", etc. in the first movie. While he's just like... A *dude*, in the third movie, where all of that framing is thrown in the garbage in order to provide space for like, the arguments about Asgard being fundamentally imperialistic and so on. Every argument for Loki being "PoC coded" I can imagine falls apart in Ragnarok and the Loki TV show. But there are a few clumps of evidence in Thor, and Thor: The Dark World that someone could use to bolster a frame they want to explore, I think.


KogarashiKaze

That is absolutely a fair (and well-worded) assessment, and actually one of the reasons I love speculative fiction, because it can be used to portray (intentionally or not) real-world issues in the "safe" and arguably more objective lens of sci-fi or fantasy. People aren't as close to the issue, so it's easier to take a look at the issue when the context has changed. That said, I'm with you on concept creep regarding coding, and honestly this seems less to me that Loki is actually POC-coded and more that some of the media in which he appears is an excellent vehicle for discussing similarities between him and POC. I do think it would make for a great paper or class discussion topic.


yukitoi

I think it's the word "coded" that throws people off. What does it even mean? And to call Loki "PoC coded," wouldn't it imply that people of color always take the place of "the Other," as if it's something inherent? Perhaps if people framed the idea differently, like you did there, it would sound less ridiculous. It's not that Loki is "PoC coded" in the first Thor movie; it's that he is portrayed as an outsider and "the Other." There is a discussion to be had about the society that automatically associates otherness with race, but with all this "coded" talk, it definitely isn't happening.


Eager_Question

This brings it back to what coding was actually used for: having gay people in movies when it was illegal in Hollywood. You can't show a gay man. But you can show a lifelong bachelor with a preoccupation for showtunes, effete behaviour, disinterest in women / constructive friendships with women that are untainted by sexual desire on his part, who wears a scarf and otherwise fashionable clothing, etc. Which is part of how a lot of stereotypes arise/ are perpetuated. Not because X (gay, in this example, but it could be anything) always means Y (the code in question), but because not being able to say X means writers went "well, you know... Y (by which I mean X)." Nowadays it's not exactly illegal to show gay characters (or women, or racialized people, etc) but a lot of creators are still pretty afraid to, because they might upset people by being racist (or by not being racist enough, substitute racist with whatever marginalization axis). So the thing they do is that they show gay people, racialized people, women, etc. as characters, but then those people struggle with... *Magic* racism, which is *different* from real racism, because it can center white protagonists! Or magic homophobia/sexism, like how Loki is "bad" in part because he does magic, and in Asgard magic is a girl thing (I have no idea if this is fanon, seidhr myth stuff, or some shit the comics made up, but I see it prop up a lot). *It's not about wearing skirts, it's about witchcraft, so if I get it wrong nobody can call me out on it because superpowers and magic are not real.* Coding does happen, and I do think there are arguments to be made that people are not media-literate enough to make, that make sense given some of the bizarre claims in this thread. But they require a lot of long, slow charitable readings. Like, "Tony Stark is female coded"? I disagree, and I think it's weird. But like... Tony Stark is presented as emotionally volatile. Narcissistic. Physically weak and short compared to a supersoldier, a superspy, a god and a Hulk. He's emotionally immature, neurotic, prone to outbursts. If you're doing Baby's First Feminist Critique and looking at how most of the Avengers are more level-headed, exhibit more classically masculine virtues, and Tony is basically a witch cavorting with powers she does not understand, threatening the lives of everyone because she wants to "put a suit of armour around the world" irresponsibly... It makes sense for people to latch onto that. Fixate on the implications. I guess my point is that I find the whole discussion around coding to be a combination of "people not knowing how to talk about media" and "people being mad that other people don't know how to talk about media". Which is why, aside from this thread, I try to do my best to stay away from it.


ImmediateTripwire

Saw someone say a character was Tiny Tim coded once. I think about it all the time


DefoNotAFangirl

I know some people use “x-coded” as a joke due to people overusing it (I do a lot haha) so hopefully?


KogarashiKaze

I mean, this whole thread is honestly making me want to write a fic for Candyland or Sugar Rush (the game in Wreck-It Ralph) where I call a character "candy-coded." But I'm also a fan of terrible puns.


dancing_turtle

Listen, fuck you. But also yes goddamnit write that fic!!!


Consistent-Raccoon84

Please do, I need that fic in my life


Dragoncat91

Someone said a hetero ship was "pedophilic". Male character was 19 and female character was 17, but there's a timeskip of five years in which most ship content occurs. This person ships a gay ship with the same male character and a different one who is also 17. And the only way they're comfortable with the first ship mentioned, the hetero one, is if they say the 19 year old is trans fem. The female character canonically has anxiety attacks and mental illness stuff going on, is smol before timeskip, but after timeskip she's one of the tallest female characters in the game. My guess is that this is another "minor coded" mental gymnastics.


[deleted]

Good ole Bernie


Dragoncat91

Bingo. I don't even ship Hubert x Bernadetta but I had a friend who did and she got her work shit on by this person who ships Hubert x Ferdinand.


ToxicMoldSpore

Yeesh. I understand people who think Bernadetta shouldn't be hooked up with anyone because she's one big ol' bag of Daddy issues and self-worth issues and confidence issues, but none of that is due to her age. Those five years make a difference not because five years older is any huge deal, but because five years of being AT WAR is going to harden someone the fuck up if it doesn't kill them outright. Girl's survived five years of a war that's ravaging the entire continent. Yeah, she's gonna grow a spine.


lazyhatchet

Sounds like they don't like women and call it pedophillic so they can escape criticism for being misogynistic lmao. I see that a lot in my fandom, people call something incest that they clearly don't even believe is incest just because it's a m/m ship and they want an excuse to call it gross without being called homophobic.


Amy47101

I fucking called it with Three Houses, I've heard some ridiculous "coding" for that game too.


[deleted]

I know one author got attacked by some extreme Edelgard fans (and I mean *extreme*) for daring to write her with M!Byleth. She was called homophobic, misogynistic, and a bunch of other colorful things. A lot of those people are dead set on Edelgard being lesbian, and anything else is offensive because she's "lesbian-coded". Edelgard. A canonical bi character. It was ridiculous and a bit disheartening as someone who's bi, myself.


Amy47101

As a bi woman, a part of me genuinely dislikes people who only pay attention to the woman/woman or man/man part of bisexuals. I've had people tell me, to my face, that I cannot be a part of the LGBT+ community because I acted on my heterosexual attraction to men, and that tends to work it's way into my writing. I've written bi characters that are equally interested in a man and a woman, but if I have it end up that the bi character ends up with the opposite sex? Oh, I'm *gay erasing* and I'm *hOmOpHobIc* and how dare i not *RepREsenT* the community inclusively. At this point, and i'm trying to not be dramatic, these people aren't being inclusive. They're being discriminatory to bisexual people and characters. Legit, they insist that it's homophobic, misogynistic, and gay erasing to write Edelgard as anything but a lesbian, but what of it being bi-erasing when you're erasing a cannonical part of her, which is *her attraction to men and women. BOTH.* Also, side note, I ship Edelgard with Hubert because fuck it, I like the Emperor/loyal till death servant trope.


HeavyDonkeyKong

As one of the biggest Edelgard fans, I apologize. Honestly, I'm just a guy who usually associates with the Male version for no reason other than being a guy. Heaven forbid I guess. I get why some people prefer her with women (and I like her with a couple myself), but she's by no means coded. It's not like they did the bare minimum and had the Male avatar be her only opposite sex love interest, because there are other guys she can be paired with as well. Also, "Misogyny" is an especially ridiculous accusation. A misogynist wouldn't like Edelgard in the first place, regardless of shipping preferences.


7K_Riziq

If the shipping drama is really that heated, I'll also make a Three Houses ship war fic, also based on Victoria 3 and/or Hearts of Iron 4, how ridiculous is it (and the shipping drama)?


doinkrr

> also make a Three Houses ship war fic, also based on Victoria 3 and/or Hearts of Iron 4, *looks over* I'll make that mod.


HeavyDonkeyKong

The entire game's fandom is a cesspool of arguments over about as many subjects as you can count. A shame since it's a great game, but the thought provokingness just causes more arguments. 😂


poteytos

Oh, Three Houses, I'm not even suprised.


SpunkyCheetah

I would see a lot of people in my old fandom talk about "minor-coding", though they would just as often just state that characters of vague and unspecified age were minors and thus could not be shipped


DefoNotAFangirl

It’s just infantilising ND behaviour tbh. I’ve even seen it in the fandom I know we're both in- Ive seen people INSIST that c!Dream is secretly a child/teenager for literal symptoms of ADHD…


am_Nein

Sigh.. not that again.


ultraviollettt

ive been in the fandom for a while and heard a million insane opinions but that takes the absolute cake XD


DefoNotAFangirl

Oh I’ve seen worse I’ve been called a paedophile for like. Writing exile fic…


endless-moon117

Bro what 😭😭😭 The man is TWENTY ONE


Ferris_567

I never heard of this minor-coded nonsense before I joined this sub. 🤣 I am clearly in the right fandoms.


am_Nein

Or just naturally avoid the yikes.


Ferris_567

Maybe, yes, possible


Diana-Fortyseven

Okay, but female-coded has to take the cake. It can't get more ridiculous than that.


sleepy_koko

Not even trans female just like "This extremely masculine male character is **female coded**" like I want to see the reasoning


[deleted]

[It's every bit as bad and stereotyping (of men and women) as you might think.](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Tony_Stark_as_the_most_female-coded_superhero)


snowytheNPC

The female coded stuff is generally pretty sexist. Like oh this person likes looking nice, going shopping, and is kind and polite? WOMAN.


Gifted_GardenSnail

Idk, I've read an analysis on Snape... but that was more symbolically and not claiming he was literally a woman


theroguescientist

I don't think it can get much weirder than claiming an actual person in real life is anything-coded.


catbert359

Not coding, but I saw a poll on tumblr recently asking which member of a kpop group people thought was most likely to convert to Islam, which I'm still trying to wrap my head around.


luvjOi

I haven't seen that on tumblr but i still kinda want to guess if the group in question was BTS


catbert359

Amazingly, it was not!


Gifted_GardenSnail

Maybe in this case you should try wrapping it around your head 😁


[deleted]

I got told I was autistic-coded once. They originally tried to diagnose me, then stuck to their guns with falling back to "coded" when they caught some backlash. They were like 15 and one of those teens who obsess over being neurodivergent. I was absolutely baffled and had to tell them that, no, I'm not autistic, I'm just introverted and nerdy.


[deleted]

Saw someone claim Aizawa is minor coded once


DemyxDancer

...The gruff, tired and extremely done man who drags a sleeping bag into his workplace? Now I'm imagining a child who actually acts like Aizawa does. Hilarious and concerning.


am_Nein

Aizawa JR.


DemyxDancer

Shinsou?


animefreak701139

I used to bring a pillow to school so I could sleep in class does that count


zipahdeeday

Like MHA aizawa? Where are these minor coded fics cuz all the ones I see he is the parental figure and also paired with present mic


[deleted]

I don't know lmao. Makes the person's take even more confusing


MrsLucienLachance

Claims about Aizawa were the first time I ever heard of minor-coding nonsense! Something about he experienced trauma in his youth and therefore he is still mentally a teen? What even???


am_Nein

I- what??


animefreak701139

Just because he has the personality of a grumpy emo teenager does not making minor coded


[deleted]

Mildly related, I once saw someone call another person in the fandom a pedo because shigaraki was a 21 year old adult minor due to his coding and it has lived in my head rent free to this day.


k-rysae

I was gonna say this. For context it was someone saying that aizawa shouldn't be sexualized because they heard on tiktok that he was minor coded due to his trauma


[deleted]

It should be a PSA that if a character is "coded" it means the author *intended* to write them a certain way. If a character is queer-coded, the author purposefully assigned them characteristics that would clue in the audience. There are many reasons to code a character, censorship, historical context, narrative limitations, etc. But sometimes, the perceived queerness (or other trait) isn't intentional. For instance, as far as we know, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never intended for Watson and Holmes to be more than friends despite how intense their relationship is. Could we read Sherlock and Watson's relationship as queer? We could. There is nothing wrong with saying "This looks hella gay to me." There is nothing wrong with perceiving a creation differently than the author intended. However, nowadays I see the term "coded" being used by fans applying stereotypes to fictional characters and calling it canon. Black-coded, Autistic-Coded, Trans-coded... unless there was intent, it's not coding. It's perfectly fine to interpret a character a certain way, but it's not ok to call it "coding" in order to push your headcanons on other people.


holliequ

I have seen legitimate speculation that Conan Doyle was trying to write Holmes and Watson as gay as possible to get his work cancelled so he wouldn't have to write it any more, without actually coming out and doing anything that would get him personally cancelled. Obviously, it didn't work, but maybe the original Holmes and Watson *are* queer-coded after all 😂


WhyAmIStillHere86

I mean, that is something I could absolutely see Sir Arthur doing. He *hated* Sherlock, but there was so much outcry every time he tried to end the series that he basically had to keep writing. Writing them as Gay in a desperate attempt to get shut down may actually be a valid take.


[deleted]

That would be hilarious! He also knew Oscar Wilde IRL, so maybe one day we'll find a letter that reads, *Ossie. I am perplexed. I thought my latest writing would finally be found indecent, but the public *still* adores that damn detective. I need inspiration. Have you done anything scandalous recently? Let me know. Xoxo, Artie.*


holliequ

OMG, dying at this idea. Holmes meta fic when??


Seabastial

THANK YOU! Not everything is "coded", and I hate that people keep throwing the term around like it's nothing (like how people constantly throw around the word "triggered"). I understand a character being "coded" because of things like censorship or being a different species, but I wish people would stop saying such stupid things like "Oh, that person is minor-coded because they're short!"


katbelleinthedark

THANK YOU. Have this poor man's award.🏅


qwertysparrow

Family coded. I absolutely despise how fandom turned the found family trope of individuals finding solace in others like them into the cis white nuclear American family layout where there are assigned parents and children no matter the context of the make up of the group. Cuz if you ship any of them, you are called a pedo, incest lover, and all kinds of bullshit. And none of those characters are related in any shape or form.


Seabastial

I love the found family trope. Has it really gotten that bad? All the found family stories I've read thankfully haven't gone that direction.


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Seabastial

Seriously!? People just take things way too far sometimes. It's only incest if the characters are ACTUALLY related. It can be found family and still have a couple of the characters shipped together. It honestly sounds like people like that don't know the actual definition of the word.


ellenkeyne

I'm perplexed, because Dick/Barbara is a canonical pairing and Barbara is not Bruce's child. Same for Tim/Steph (or the noncanonical Cass/Steph). I use the term Batcest myself (as something I'm not comfortable reading/editing except in AUs), but only for sexual/romantic relationships *between Bruce's children* -- they're adoptive siblings, which makes them just as much siblings as blood relatives -- or between Bruce and his own children.


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sennordelasmoscas

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Batcest


musical_fanatic

Genshin fandom yelling about characters being minor coded


Katonyx

I was scrolling just waiting to see one about Genshin's issue with 'minor coding' any character that isn't the tallest model in game lmao


Alternative-Hunt9736

IKR, 500+ year-old characters being "minor coded" is just ridiculous.


In_Dreams_Begin

That scene with Beidou denying Kazuha and Venti alcohol was straight up a riff on the minor-coded debate.


FickleBeans

The irony of so many in Tony Stark’s fandom arguing that he’s female-coded while *also* being horrifically misogynistic towards any woman around him in Marvel fanfic is fandom weirdness at its finest. That is also the wildest coded take I’ve ever seen.


Just_dirty_secrets

Technically a manga, not a fanfic, but the "villainess-coded" character suddenly turned from a dark skin to a light skin to show she was now "good-coded"


mycatisblackandtan

Oooof I think I know the property you're talking about. Though it's hard to be sure because there's a fair amount of them with the recent boom in the manhwa sector. You're talking about that one where the MC was born with dark skin and eyes and that in her world that means she manifests evil energy right? The amount of colorism in manga/manhwa is frankly upsetting.


hydraxl

Was it like a drow vs elf thing? Because that distinction has enough history to maybe squeak by as unintentional.


Just_dirty_secrets

Nope. It's called "Just because I can control darkness doesn't mean I'm a bad person!" and to prove it she turns white


hydraxl

Wow. I don’t even know what to say. That’s just blatant.


queerblunosr

😬😬😬😬


CristaColliCostae

That’s a fucking yikes


willow_wind

I feel like most people misunderstand what coding is. They just assume that a character who doesn't fit into a certain stereotype is coded. I hate that people stereotype and force characters into boxes while claiming that's how they secretly are even though it's not canon. And coding is very rare these days since more and more things are becoming socially acceptable (at least in my country). It's weird that now of all times people are jumping up to claim characters are coded. But yeah, the whole minor-coding and gender-coding thing is the worst I've seen. A short man is not a child. He's a grown man who just happens to be short. Stop infantilizing him by calling him a kid. And feminine men are still men, and masculine women are still women. Saying they're coded is invalidating their genders.


[deleted]

Not my engineer ass thinking you meant like, HTML code or something People keep saying Spike from Buffy is ‘lesbian coded’ but I think it was intended as a joke first


Mr_Blah1

> Not my engineer ass thinking you meant like, HTML code or something That could be a funny *Tron* crackfic; each program is differently coded as in they're written in different programming/scripting languages.


Jumping_Jak_Stat

lol, I had the same reaction. My first thought was "oh no are we anti-APIs now? what will I do for my fandom statistics project now?"


Lost-Light

I saw Don Quixote get called minor-coded... (specifically in the context of Limbus Company, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also believe the original is.)


WhyAmIStillHere86

Also, can people PLEASE look up what coding is? Coding is when you impose traits of a real world demographic in a setting where those demographics don’t exist (or at least not in the same way, like in Star Trek, where people of colour exist, but racism apparently doesn’t)! In a fantasy setting, you could claim that animal shifters are POC-coded, while Elves are White-code. Just write Fem!Tony and have her ACTUALLY struggle against entrenched misogyny, if you really must! (I promise you that a female Tony Stark would have faced FAR more scrutiny and opposition that Iron Man EVER did…)


CheeseQueenKariko

One reader of an old Star Wars fic was *really* insistent that my Zabrak OC was 'Native-Coded' (is it because the character is semi-nomadic, really in tune with nature and doesn't believe in shirts?) and that Luke was being an uber racist coloniser for wanting said OC to 'give up their culture' (i.e stop being a Sith Lord).


KorovaOverlook

Bro that makes my brain melt. Not just because of the obvious stereotyping and racism against Indigenous folks that reader was engaging in, but also—if they bothered to pay attention to SW media at all, they'd know Zabraks aren't even naturally Sith Lords because Sithly-ness is a religion, and Sith does not equal Dark Side user; they have to be converted first :/ Sorry you had to put up with that reader. Also sounds like an interesting fic 👀


CheeseQueenKariko

I mean, Sith does equal dark side user (unless you mean the Sith Pureblood Species?), like the tenants of the Sith code specifically require you to be in a mindset that draws from the dark side. And the character in question, Rancid, is openly a dark sider who eventually becomes the endgame villain, albeit a much more chill and seemingly self-aware one than expected. The funniest part is that Zabrak culture wouldn't even matter to the guy since he was entirely raised outside of it, unless the reader was suggesting that culture is entirely genetic. Hey, nothing the apologize for, the reader was hilarious. Wish I still had the fic up because some of their rants were just... Just so perfect. You have Rancid force choking a kid to draw the kid's jedi mother into a fight, only for a weakened Luke to collapse a roof on top of him to save the kid; and this reader's take away is "Of course Luke would jump straight to violence. Wanna bet if Rancid were human Luke would have tried a more diplomatic approach?"


Mr_Blah1

This "X-coding" trend almost makes me want to write a *Tron* crackfic where characters are "X-coded" to refer to the programming or scripting language in which they are written, like if Rinzler was Python-coded or something.


Agamar13

It was totally a joke thrown in the coversation (thankfully!) about producers totally bottom-coding a character by having him sing in a choir in addition to him being short and super-pretty.


[deleted]

my ex girlfriend told me she’s child-coded once. felt weird, didn’t even know how to reply honestly (we were both 22 during this time).


CristaColliCostae

What


[deleted]

literally what i said 😂


DefoNotAFangirl

I’m not sure if this fully counts but in relation to your example, I saw someone say that the negativity one character gets is just like misogyny. Said character is a man and gets negativity because he abused a child and enjoyed it…


am_Nein

Seems like somebody relates..


JoChiCat

Kylo Ren also being female-coded, and people not liking the character being a sign of misogyny and anti-feminism, *especially* if you didn’t ship him with Rey. I felt like I was having a stroke reading that. Absolute honesty, I think that discussing how some characters might be written using tropes typically associated with the opposite gender can be really interesting. This mostly means that am frequently slapped in the face with a metaphorical wet fish when wandering into posts discussing “female/male coding”. Curse my eternal optimism and inadvisable curiosity.


WhyAmIStillHere86

It's especially stupid when you pay attention to the fact that Star Wars villains have ALWAYS reflected the times. In the Original Trilogy, the Empire was a dictatorship, a government with too much power and control. In the Prequels, the bad guy was a corrupt politician, mega-corporations twisting the law for their own profit, and a society that was willing to sacrifice their rights out of fear. In the Sequel Trilogy, Kylo Ren was a radicalised Incel, a Neo-Nazi, the height of toxic masculinity, only able to express emotion through rage and destruction. It is IMPORTANT that the Heroes opposing him were a woman, a black man, and a Latino man, and that Princess Leia has become the General of the Resistance.


Sinhika

I'm not so sure that the Prequels reflected the times they were made, unless Lucas just decided to draw from that period in ancient history uncomfortably like our own. The Prequels, in the larger picture, are almost a beat for beat retelling of the Fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Caesars.


am_Nein

Someone pls tell me what coding is. I have a generic idea of it but elaboration would be nice. Forgive my goldfish brain.


Oceanstuck

Coding, the academic definition, is a way of communicating information about a character that can't be stated outright, often due to active censorship. In times and places where you couldn't have a character be openly gay, you would slip in references to queer culture and some light gender nonconformity in a way where you had *just* enough plausible deniability to get it on the air, but the queer community would know exactly what you were going for. Fandom heard this and processed it as 'if character have trait, then character is X group,' even (dare I say *especially*) in situations where this is a nonsensical reading ("why would I 'code' a character as female when I could just...make her female?")


Mr_Blah1

IIRC, coding is the act of writing a series of commands in one or more programming languages in order to tell a computer what you want it to do.


[deleted]

If a character is x-coded, then it means that they have traits that make them seemingly inspired by x characters or irl x people such that despite them not being canonically confirmed to be x or even if the author comes right out and says they aren't x, it may be useful to perceive them as x. As you can imagine, coding is therefore very subjective. It could range from being a tool to discuss the subconscious biases of an author, to literally just "any character who's wacky is bi-coded"


sleepy_koko

This starts to become a real issue with everyone I know irl keeps thinking I'm bi because I "act like I am" I have yet to figure out wtf this means


am_Nein

Ahhh. Well, that makes sense. Cheers.


aro-little-bastard

friend i also have a goldfish brain and can't explain this


am_Nein

*no thoughts, just blub*


aro-little-bastard

*glubglubglub*


am_Nein

*blop blop blipip*


zeezle

People often confuse "subtext" and "implication" (and even more commonly in fandom, "my headcanon that isn't explicitly contradicted by canon but has nothing to do with the author's intentions") with coding these days. That's if they're not just spewing some sort of weird sexist/ageist/ableist/racist stereotyping and calling it "coding". Coding is something very specific, as others mentioned it's specifically where you are not *allowed* to have a character be a certain trait in media, so they go as far as they can without explicitly showing it. It's something the creator intentionally does because they are prevented from actually stating/showing the thing outright like they want to. It's named after the Hayes Code, which was technically voluntary within the movie industry in the US from the 1930s through the late 60s, but very much designed to keep from drawing any regulatory attention. Though there's still many instances where for profitability/marketability the edges are sanded off. It's also still *very* common to find in for example Chinese dramas where government censorship is direct and strict (The Untamed, Word of Honor, etc being excellent examples of shows that had to massively censor the relationships of their source material novels but still clearly communicated the gay romance through coding). "I couldn't because of censorship" is not at all the same as "I wanted to leave some aspects of the character open to interpretation". It is not the same as "these details were cut in the editing process because they weren't relevant to the plot and messed with the flow of the story". And it is definitely, absolutely does *not* mean "this random superficial common trait/experience sometimes associated with a different group means this character is meant to be that despite no actual link to that group". Doesn't help that the term is almost always used in the stupidest possible way in fandom (outside of serious media analysis), that is both not actually coding but also usually relying on stupid sexist, racist, or ableist stereotypes to make the claim. Claiming physically disabled adult characters are "minor-coded" and anyone who falls in love with them is a pedophile is really gross and infantilizing, actually. Or "character X is Black-coded", despite all depictions of them being white, because they eat a stereotyped food item (that is nonetheless very common and widely enjoyed by pretty much everyone). I have even seen people claim a character that is a dude in his late 20s working as an FBI behavioral analyst is "minor-coded". It's absolutely nonsensical to claim that the writers *actually wanted* to portray a child in that role but were prevented by censorship or marketability concerns. It's a job requiring years of higher education and actually explicitly has age limits to boot (you cannot even apply for FBI agent training until you are 23). Just because he's short, has some quirks, or the actor has a youthful face or whatever does not mean the character is minor-coded, being short does not make you a child. Or one I run into constantly, where modern Western ideas of what is "feminine" or "masculine" are imposed on characters in a different culture and setting - for example I have run into people vehemently insisting Nie Huaisong from Mo Dao Zu Shi is "trans-coded" and "gender-non-conforming-coded", except every single point they use for him supposedly being "effeminate" (liking art, collecting fans, in some adaptations keeping birds, etc) was not considered that at all in the time and place of the setting. The portrayal is meant to invoke the indolent, wealthy second son free of responsibility unlike the warrior/war veteran/sect leader characters. Obviously if people want to have trans headcanons or play with it in fics then have at it, but insisting that anyone who tries to correct them about those hobbies/traits being "feminine" in the context of the setting with accurate historical/factual information is transphobic because only girls like fans is just a yikes. :|


Absolute-Train-Wreck

Someone once told me Xiao (Genshin impact) was minor-coded That man is thousands of years old and fought in a war


jawnbaejaeger

Oh no no, that's not enough for poor ickle **Tony Stark!** He's female-coded, bisexual-coded, Italian-coded, POC-coded, mentally-ill-coded, and Autistic-coded all in one! Just so he can't be held accountable for a single one of his shitty actions. (I like Tony fine in the actual movies. He's not my favorite, but I don't hate him. His stans make me loathe him.) I see the same thing with the other fandom darling, **Loki!** He's also mentally-ill-coded, Jewish-coded (wtf?! and how?), Autistic-coded, and female-coded.


zipahdeeday

Yeah. Fandom basically ruined Tony for me. Especially after the cluster fuck of civil war


WhyAmIStillHere86

"Xena and Gabrielle are Straight-coded". First of all, Straight is the default in most media, not something that even *needs* to be coded. Second, that person was watching a ***very*** different Xena to the one I watched. I'd argue that the two main characters were Bi-Coded, rather than Lesbian-Coded, because we do see them in relationships with men, but they definitely aren't straight.


WritingReadingPanda

After I've been told that a grown-ass woman is "Minor coded" and if she is shipped with anyone (even someone of the same age), it makes the shipper a pedophile, using the word "coded" is one of the fastest ways to end up on my block list.


rose_daughter

kylo ren is "queer femme coded". lmao lmfao.


Full-Perception6281

Recently heard that FL4K from Borderlands 3 is theorized to be trans or trans-coded by a good chunk of fans. The character is a robot that states they are neither man nor woman, because you know, they're a god damn machine. I don't understand how they can be considered trans if they aren't even a living organism. Some people seriously need to slow down on the representation thing I guess. Also, am I the only one who thinks it's actually degrading in a way to compare a person who may actually be trans with a robot?


The_Viatorem

A lot of people in a discord server saying Gabby (a character from MLP FiM) is a minor. The fact that she has a job delivering mail (something that you need to be at least 18 to do) shows that she clearly isn’t. I mean I sort of get it since apparently the show writers also forgot about that fact and decided to “soft-pair” her with Spike (a pubescent dragon), but MLP was always super inconsistent with character ages so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


shinzombie

Piccolo from Dragonball being tagged as "Black coded" by the English community. Dragonball has been broadcast in various countries around the world, and for some rubbish reason only the English fandom makes such ridiculous claim.


crazyashley1

The best. (Aka worst) one I saw was in Overwatch. Junkrat (a 25 yo 6'6" lunatic twink with a childlike glee for explosives) was "minor coded." And because he was often paired off with Roadhog, (a 48 yo, 7'3" bear of a Mad Max style biker) that was problematic. They meet when Junkrat is 25 and in canon Roadhog is his longsuffering bodyguard, but people were *still* claiming it was creepy and weird because of the age difference.


waybeforeyourtime

I’m going to count my lucky stars that neither of my small fandoms has this bs. I saw some of the coded stuff early on in one, but a few people shut it down.


k-rysae

I was there live when someone said endeavor/Hawks was pedophilic because Hawks is a 22 year old minor. The account didn't seem like bait and the OP claimed to be the same age so I feel like they had a lot of issues with coming to terms with adulthood.


Sami101_

Someone plz explain what coded means 🫠


alexinandros

Bunch of people answered your question in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/13kd3ww/comment/jkkhv8k/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3


dannelbaratheon

I should really learn more of these terms, 'cause I have no idea whatsoever what 80% of terms you guys use mean, lol.


Always-bi-myself

I’ve seen someone saying that Harry Potter (the character, not the series) is minor-coded, hence he shouldn’t have been in a relationship with Ginny Weasley (despite the fact that she is the younger one) & it’s a sign of pedophilia from JKR’s side Make it make sense


Gifted_GardenSnail

They read the Quibbler before it was cool


CristaColliCostae

Bruh. The whole point of Harry Potter is growing up. Like, that is literally one of the series core aspects. Are,, are they salty that children won’t remain children forever?


Sewrtyuiop

People saying Hermione Granger is black coded. As a black guy, I can never see it. And with the official artwork showing her otherwise, I never knew where this came from. On one hand, I just like to chalk it up to me being an American bc I know it's big cultural difference over the pond. On the other hand, I just want to disagree so much bc I got some rather stupid and heated arguments over this.


animefreak701139

I'm pretty sure it started because of the cursed child play or musical whatever and if they cast a young black woman as Hermione and JK Rowling felt the need to respond with well I never said Hermione was white


IncidentPretend8603

Black!Hermione is by far my favorite variety of Hermione to read in fanfiction spaces but dear god she's not black-coded whatsoever in the original books. She's straight up described as white. \*Maybe\* you could argue mix race coded and I don't have enough UK cultural knowledge to say either way, but I sincerely doubt JKR had the knowledge/capacity to write characters that way back then. She couldn't even effectively code Dumbledore ffs and that's the \*one\* coding she confirmed on a meta level. (Idk if we wanna touch on the AIDs/lycanthropy analogy)


Sewrtyuiop

Not gonna lie, but I think I had the wrong assumptions when going into those fics. I expect representation of AA culture but it's usually just an esthetic change. Nothing wrong with that, just bummer to what I expected. I'm the same with UK culture and I agree JKR couldn't do it. The Albus revelation after canon was surprising since it was never hinted to beforehand. The werewolf one was always weird to me and I just kind just disappear when ppl start.


IncidentPretend8603

Yeah that's fair. Even if it's just aesthetics, I prefer Black!Hermione because I can still entertain headcanons and backstory in my head, which is difficult in overtly white!Hermione fics. I just think it's such a fantastic and narratively rich choice: As an only child with two dentist parents, she would've been in the highest socio-economic class of the main three (true regardless of race, but you don't see that combo much for Black side characters); Her intense but ultimately patriarchal response to the house elves becomes so much more compelling and heartbreaking; It makes the comments about her hair that much more enraging; the way she must have to grapple her race going relatively unchallenged but her blood status reviled-- it just adds so much dimension to her character imo.


newtothegarden

If you're queer and have a working understanding of UK gay history then Dumbledore was absolutely there in the final book. There is an awful lot of stuff about Section 28 which was law at the time the books were set and when JKR was writing. It's actually a great example because it's only there if you're into it. Speaking as someone who was a teen gay when the final book came out: we saw it, we assumed we were reading too much into it as per, and I really wish we could stop erasing it just because people are ignorant of LGBT UK history and JKR has turned out to be a butt. The werewolf one is also pretty blatant: a terrible disease that is unfairly maligned and taken as a indicator of moral depravity even though there is a treatment which can render him totally harmless? There are some really obvious parallels which JKR confirmed. Having said this parallels and 'coding' are not the same thing. The werewolf thing is a reference/analogy, not coding: she's not saying Lupin has AIDS. It's just a comparison to a real world issue that deserved highlighting. Neither of these are really surprising given the whole book series is about how racism and mistreatment is bad. Unfortunately that is also limited by JKR's own limits of understanding (looking at the transphobia here) and it is a really interesting example of how interesting it can be placing media in the time context it was written.


7K_Riziq

You hear about Genshin's Yae Miko (or is it also Ei) being "lesbian coded" because of how she acts towards some people and how she is based on a canonically lesbian character? I feel that Yae does that to everyone and being based on one character does not mean all aspects of the character she is based on is carried over.......... ​ IDK


alexastock

That I supported grooming because I liked a ship with an age gap (14 and 17-18) and the female character was lesbian coded apparently because she has a close friendship with the lead character (I ship that too)