Rule 63, commonly referred to as genderbend, is an Internet meme that states that, as a rule, "for every character there is a gender swapped version of that character". It is one of the "Rules of the Internet" that began in 2006 as a Netiquette guide on 4chan and were eventually expanded upon by including deliberately mocking rules, of which Rule 63 is an example.
Origin
Prior to the creation of Rule 63,
was popularized in video games in the 1990s by one of the moves of
Darkstalkers character Demitri Maximoff, a
vampire. Called Midnight Bliss, it involves him approaching his opponent while holding a rose. If successful, he turns them into a helpless
Virginity and drains them of their blood, which affects their life energy in-game.
This meant that female versions of all the game's male characters had to be created, as well as those of
Street Fighter and
SNK characters when
included Maximoff. These female interpretations became popular and resulted in large amounts of fan art, as well as prompting art of gender-swaps of other male and female characters.
Rule 63 was created in mid-2007 as an addition to the humorous "Rules of the Internet", originally created around the end of 2006 on 4chan.
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"for every given male character, there is a female version of that character", and
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"for every given female character, there is a male version of that character".
The trope, originally seen primarily unofficially, later became more widely disseminated in popular culture, with critics stating that it had been "recognized by Hollywood".
Usage
Rule 63 is commonly used as a term to refer to gender-swapped interpretations of existing characters in
Fan labor, such as
fan art,
fan fiction and
cosplay,
and is particularly pervasive in the anime and manga community, where communities sprang up built around romantic gender-swap relationships.
It also often overlaps with the creation of
moe anthropomorphic female versions of non-human, male characters. A well-known example of this is
Bowsette, a female version of the
Mario antagonist Bowser that became one of the most popular Internet memes of 2018.
This term, however, was also used by critics to refer to official characters who are gender-swapped versions of older characters or fictional beings, such as Number Six from
Battlestar Galactica being a "sexy female" version of a
Cylons Centurion,
and the female main cast of the 2016 reboot of
Ghostbusters.
The creation of Rule 63 cosplays such as gender-swapped has been cited as popular among female cosplayers as giving them the ability to portray roles beyond socially approved gendered scripts.
Examples
In film and television
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Adventure Time received a spin-off series entitled , based on the eponymous episode of the original show, which features Fionna Campbell and Cake, gender-swapped versions of Finn and Jake as main characters, as well as genderbent versions of other characters that feature in later episodes.
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The 2016 Ghostbusters reboot featured a cast of female leads that was called "proof of Rule 63", with similarities noted between each team member and one of the original male team members. It was called an official acknowledgement of what was formerly an unofficial, fan-driven phenomenon.
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In an episode of The Loud House titled One of the Boys, Lincoln has a dream of traveling to an alternate dimension where all his sisters are male. Near the end of the episode, he travels to another dimension where he is female. A picture of him and a female version of Clyde, his best friend, can be seen in "her" room.
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In an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, season 4, episode 10, titled "If Boys Were Girls", Lois pictures Reese, Malcolm, and Dewey as girls, named Renee, Mallory, and Daisy, respectively. Francis is also a girl named Frances, with Christopher Kennedy Masterson in drag.
In video games
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In the Mario series, the fan-made Bowsette is a female version of the male antagonist Bowser, created through the use of the Super Crown, a power-up that imparts the appearance and abilities of Princess Peach on its user. Nintendo's official clarification is that the item is only usable by Toadette, and the creation of Bowsette is "technically impossible".
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In Shovel Knight, a "Body Swap Mode" (originally called "Gender Swap") was added after it was funded as a Kickstarter goal, allowing the player to change the secondary sex characteristics of every major character in the game (and, independently, their pronouns) via the settings menu. The developers endeavored to maintain parity with the original character designs by only making their swapped version as gendered as the original, as well as matching their existing personality and gameplay.
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In the Zelda series, the character Linkle was created by Nintendo as an alternate-universe gender-swap of the typical main character, Link, but she does not possess his powers, and is instead a normal girl who Dual wield a pair of .
See also
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Rule 34 – another Internet rule
External links
