#astolfo is non-binary

[king-k-ripple]

[pumpomulos]

[oct2pus]

Gonna delete the post because apparently the writer did admit they wrote Astolfo as nonbinary.

[avicebro]

fate fandom poll results! (higher res, since tumblr has crunched it)

these are the big patterns i noticed. if you want some more commentary on the numbers, come and join me in the read more:

I first want to reiterate that I did this as a way to see if I was in a bubble. By the end of the poll, it received 93 results. A lot of these responses did come from tumblr and twitter (thank you friend for posting onto your twitter), and so, the demographic that is being polled is biased. Please keep this in mind.

Overall Age/Satisfaction:

Overall, more neutral or people upset with the fandom.

Older fandom - these numbers also do align with the perception that fate fandom grew in size with the pandemic

Shoutout to the 1 person who said they were in the fandom for over 15 years. I'm saluting you

Shouldn't have been surprised there were zero 20+ years responses, but hey, yk, if you don't put it there.

Gender:

I also did this because I wanted to know how gender of characters played into whether a character had 'nice' or 'rude' fans.

Note: I put any characters that have gender ambiguous or gender: unknown in the non-binary section. So this does mean that characters like Astolfo, Caeneus and D'Eon are in this section. While the general fandom may not see some of these as non-binary, it's easier than doing a big asterisk. I'd love to run another poll examining the way trans and non-binary characters are viewed by the fandom, but that's for another time.

Thus, my method was: I read the response, and for each character listed, I sorted them into one of the 3 gender options and tallied it as a point. So, for example, if someone said Avicebron, Medea and QSH, then that would be one point for male, one for female, and one for non-binary. Groups, unless they are specifically one gender, were not counted, however I did keep them in mind (see: later on).

If someone specified popularity, I tallied that as well. For the 'nice' fans, there were only nice comments about 'low rarity/less popular' characters, with the opposite being true for rude fans and popular ones. Hence their bars.

I also included the 'none' section, as there was a non-zero amount of people answering with none, for both.

Male characters' fans are perceived to be kinder 1.8 times more than fans of female characters

On the other hand, female characters' fans are perceived to be meaner 1.7 times more than male characters

Specifically, some stated that they do not trust 'male fans' of some characters

Some gender non-confirming and/or non-binary servants (like Astolfo, Mordred) also have a similar rule, aka "do not trust male fans"

Younger characters like Taisui and Voyager often have 'nice' fans, while younger female characters have 'rude' fans

In the future, it would be interesting to take data on gender to see the main demographics answering these

As I am trying to remain as unbiased with this data presentation as possible, I will just leave the data here. Again, if I redid this poll I'd ask for gender metrics, and maybe try and spread it to reddit spaces for less polling bias.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

When looking at specific characters, I sorted through the responses and counted how often certain characters appeared while accounting for repetition. Simple as that.

Top 10 Characters Associated with 'Nice' Fans:

Arjuna (16)

Dantes (10)

Gilgamesh (10)

Voyager (9)

Diarmuid (6)

Cu Chulainn (5)

Enkidu (5)

Ashiya Douman (5)

Oberon (5)

Mandricardo (5)

Couple extra things to note:

groups mentioned often: GUDAGUDA, KOTRT, Hindu Servants

Kintoki mentioned rather often, too

People highlighted that they like seeing people talking about characters that are less known/less popular.

Avicebron did appear on the top 10, however I have excluded him from the list as it is likely due to polling bias. Thanks, though.

Besides Enkidu and Ashiya Douman, the top 10 list is dominated by male characters.

Top 10 Characters Associated with 'Rude' Fans:

Morgan (20)

Artoria (15)

Cu Chulainn (13)

Melusine (12)

Rin (12)

Astolfo (11)

Jalter (11)

Gilgamesh (11)

Arjuna (10)

Castoria (9)

Couple extra things to note:

As mentioned before, some replies were 'Saberface fans', 'Prillya fans' or 'male fans of x'

People highlighted disliking fans of 'popular characters', some specifically stating their dislike stemming from fans pushing a 'need to roll' mentality upon the fandom.

Male Ritsuka appears more frequently as 'rude' versus female Ritsuka.

'Rude' fans are often associated with being fans of non-FGO properties (namely: Prillya and F/SN).

People who show up on both top 10s: Arjuna, Cu, Gilgamesh.

There are also some less popular characters who were highlighted more often as being 'rude'. However, considering the fact that these characters likely do not have that many fans, I have not included them in the data. That being said, if you wish to DM me about them I'll share. I just do not want to drag anyone, you know.

What's Next?

Maybe in a year, I'd like to re-do this poll. Namely to see if the overall satisfaction changes. But, there's there's a few things I'd like to add to the questions next time:

Gender and Maybe Sexuality Preferences

As mentioned above, I think actually taking data on the gender of the participants would be helpful. Further, sexuality would help understand the data. I do not think it's a big leap to suggest that this poll is low on responses from male fans, specifically straight men. But I would like to have the actual data, and not just a hypothesis.

"Which character's haters do you find rude?" question

As my friend pointed out, as well as some of the responses - some of the haters of a character are ruder than their actual fans. I think this would be interesting, too.

Branching the poll out so it catches more attention from the other side of the TM fandom.

While I would like to keep this predominantly to the tumblr and twitter side of the fandom, it's clear that the results tend to veer on the side that is more FGO-focused. I'd like to get some more data from those who don't play FGO or focus their time on non-FGO property.

Post it to other places.

This was a fun trial run! Maybe I could run a separate poll next year, so there's two: one shared only to tumblr, and one to twitter/reddit. I am, at the end of the day, someone who loves data and would love to compare and contrast fandom perception.

Have an option to share characters who's mind you've been changed on.

Sometimes, it really just takes one person to change your mind on a character. I'd like to highlight that.

I believe? That's everything? I tried my best to be as unbiased as possible in presenting the facts. In a reblog of this post, I'll share my further (biased) thoughts at a later time.

I'm curious to see what you guys think! Did this make sense for you? Are you maybe surprised? Ultimately, thank you for responding to my silly lil poll, and I hope that these numbers don't make anyone upset.

Adet

[valkyrievanessa]

it is kinda wild to me about how the internet completly changed how people see Astolfo, the one from the fate franchise (apocrypha, extella and fgo), because both characters are so different that is really weird and sad to be honest, because i kinda like Astolfo from the franchise, and i kinda hate this version that internet (mostly men online) created.

Astolfo in the franchise is a goofy person, impulsive, energetic, that enjoys dressing with woman clothes because he likes to be cute, he think farts are really funny and can laugh about just everything. He is loyal to the people he likes, he is one of the twelve paladins, and despite being this weird goofball of a person, he will put his life in danger to help the ones he really likes. He is fun to read/watch, he is far to be the strongest of the paladins but he will still fight monsters like Tametomo if he needs to do it with a smile on his face. So, pretty much he is a really likable character and i do like him (and he don't care about his gender, you could say that he is non binary and would actually not be wrong)

Now, the internet perception of Astolfo is far more simple, he is a femboy and loves sex... that's it, there is nothing more to it, it's just that. He is also worshiped by the most misoginistic and transphobic pieces of shit that i ever saw on the internet.

The internet version of the character is the common perception about him by the way, i enjoyed the character but years on the internet completly distorted the character in my mind (even if i not activelly consume or like femboy stuff) until i read Traum in fgo, i kinda started to hate astolfo as the time passed until i read Traum, this chapter made me remember that astolfo is nothing like the one i keep seeing online for years, made me remember that i actually liked the character.

[np5enkidu]

I’m not saying people don’t unjustly dislike Enkidu, but imo there’s a reason they typically only have the effeminate/nonbinary men have explicitly homosexual scenes. Like, they’ll almost never have Fergus or Black Bart be bisexual without it being the punchline of a joke for example.

explicitly homosexual is a strong choice of words here. personally, i think a lot of story elements in fate stories that you might be referring to, are not explicitly romantic or sexual and are left up to interpretation (ie gilgamesh & enkidu or sieg & astolfo).

but it is true that male sexuality in FGO servants exists mostly as a joke which isn't great. but i don't think there's a vast difference between how the non-binary/gnc (but read as men) characters are treated (outside of v-day scenes where they're taken a tad more seriously) in these stories simply because the sexuality doesn't come up for characters unless it is a joke.

[ironmyrmidon]

I might argue that there's a difference between non-binary and uncertain.

The only reason to believe Astolfo is transmasc is if you're just not very familiar with one of those words.

@beagalltach God okay so I am actually somewhat familiar with this because back like a few years ago when F/GO released Astolfo it suddenly became Very Cool and Popular for nonbinary Fate fans to completely ignore all the signs of Astolfo being a transfem in Apocrypha, including the fact that Astolfo was a pretty clear trap archetype character, to loudly shout over trans women that Astolfo was definitely nonbinary now because F/GO listed her gender as ???. I'm fairly certain I got blocked by like versegm because of this.

But if they're starting to claim that Astolfo is transmasc I might actually blow a gasket. Literally zero evidence for that in the text what so ever.

[eternalkfbeat]

Do people actually think Astolfo is non binary despite the FATE series, the creators of it, and Astolfo himself confirming multiple times that he's a man?

[dyspraxicenby]

Today I found out that THIS...

low-quality screenshot people on Reddit love to circulate about Astolfo from Fate being a man when anyone else claims otherwise is 100% an edit of a completely different line of dialogue!

THIS...

is the original line of dialogue taken from Fate/EXTELLA LINK! It happens to be the only instance of Astolfo saying “Of course” directly to Charlemange or anyone else for that matter!!

It probably doesn’t take a genius to point out that the first screenshot is an edit because honestly, it looks so distorted, and has always been suspiciously impossible to find a higher-res version of, but I’m glad to have finally “debunked” this.

[solarzilla]

Some Non binary servants

[1minnim]

Genie: thank you for freeing me from my lamp, I will grant you one wish as gratitude

Me: I wanna look like astolfo

Genie: what?

Me: I wanna look like astolfo minus the weird anime anatomy. I wanna look like a femboy.

Genie: you sure you don’t want power or wealth or something?

Me: nope. Femboy time. Maybe I could even be a crab

Genie: what is wrong with you mortals nowadays

[scrumptioustravelerfairy]

If I had to explain my gender, I’d say I’m sort of like when an anime character is made to be a binary gender in the dub, but there’s definitely something else going on there. It’s like that

[iloveyoutotype-moonandback]

Okay so I'm unclear on how it is in the original Japanese (from what I understand, pronouns operate differently in Japanese than they do in English, and aren't quite as linked with gender) but at this point a lot of it comes down to interpretation. Typically it gets translated as he/him, and those are the pronouns I tend to use for him, but it's important to keep in mind that English translations don't always capture these things well. Often characters whose genders are left ambiguous originally will just get tacked with the binary pronouns of he or her instead of just they. This isn't necessarily the case with Astolfo, at least as far as I know, but there are other factors that make his gender kinda unclear. See, often he's interpreted as a femboy, and there's solid evidence for that since he self-identifies as a man at multiple points. But also the gender section on his servant profile is just scratched out in some of the games so you could also make a case for non-binary. I saw someone saying that there's an indication that he could be transfem based on a few lines from the Fate Apocrypha light novel, but tbh I don't know the details about that and I'd need someone who's actually read the light novels to comment on that.

A lot of this just has to do with the fact that Astolfo appears in multiple pieces of Fate media ranging from games to light novels to anime, all with different writers. Inevitably the character is treated a little differently in each one (and at that, sometimes treated very poorly unfortunately) so in the overarching franchise, the entire thing is left muddy. If you wanted to use textual evidence, you could go back and forth with people all day about it.

So like, personally I use he/him for Astolfo but at this point you can get away with using they/them or she/her and could make a case for it. He's been claimed by trans people collectively at this point anyway, so idk it's whatever you prefer I guess. Astolfo is LGBTQ+ all at once as far as I'm concerned.

legit question, i've seen people online say both or that it is intentionally left ambiguous, but what pronouns do they actually use in fate?

[annalee-thecrazyqueen]

Astolfo and their groom, Sieg. Since it's time of the year, here you go, June wedding for #PrideMonth !! #FGO   

 I think Siegstolfo is my favourite LGBT+ ship in FGO? 

 Sorry for not drawing June Bride yet, let me celebrate 2020's Pride Month first.

[dkettchen]

wait could Fate Apocrypha be the first thing I’ve ever watched that passed the non-binary bechdel test??? ... *tries to remember literally every nb character I’ve ever laid eyes on and if there was a thing with two named ones talking to each other abt smth other than binaries among them* o.o

[princettegil]

Astolfo pride cheebs!