Talk:Flower/@comment-43985317-20191001103637/@comment-53539-20200221120847

Weren't VY1 and VY2 not characters? Like they're just voices (male and female vocals)? 🤔

I stated that.

Also, making a trans vocaloid character doesn't mean that only trans people will buy it. I mean I'm cis and would buy it if I like the voice. Same with female characters. Female producers do buy a female vocal even if they're not the target audience.

Your problem is getting others to buy it, in fact from experience people who want that thing actually aren't the ones going to buy it. Female producers buy things because for example, Miku is popular.

In fact popular things get bought because their popular, as hard as that is to grasp. You've got product A and Product B, A being popular and B being unpopular. Take for example Airpods, there are other, better headphones even wireless but because of the name they sell and even the better stuff doesn't sell as well because of the lack of the name. So a trans Vocaloid will work if it becomes popular, in the meanwhile it is hit or miss for cultural discriminational reasons.

the worst case scenario is its unpopular, thus it will have a backlash on future Vocaloids. See Kaito V1.

The main issue with Merli is the lack of uniqueness in her voice. I mean it's very similar to Meiko in my opinion so I'm not surprised if she's forgotten. Same with Kokone. Like she is very similar to Megpoid I think.

There was a knee-jerk reaction at the time "Vocaloids are not the same!" from the same fans who praised her for her skin. I was there in the fandom at the time and it was not a pretty era. Vocaloid fans were treating every Vocaloid like a special snowflake and no other Vocaloid could sound the same, etc. Fastforward to V4 and their saying "yes... Actually... They can sound alike", so this is not the problem. Also people liked she had a deeper tone in the west over her sister. Lapis actually did fairly well early on in V3, but lost traction later on. V3 overloaded the market and after 2014 Vocaloid began to see a decline so... Not helpful their company also is inactive now.

Representation is good, but in the end, it's the vocals that matter. Like if they like the vocal, the vocaloid can still stay relevant, but if the vocal is "something done before" or "bad" like they say, the vocaloid is gonna be forgotten.

I'm grateful for representation that Merli gave, but it's not enough to stay popular. :(

And yet we're discussing trans vocaloids. If the voice was all that mattered we'd not be discussing it. Its because sadly because of the fact that the human species is a sexually diamorphic species there are traits even in the human vocal more likely to appear in one gender then the other. So when you buy a Vocaloid, you expect certain traits to be present in that vocal. You don't buy a opera singer thats female and expect a good bass and you don't buy a male vocal thats a adult mature male and expect it to do easy soprano.

How would a trans sound like exactly anyway considering the meaning of the word "transgender".

"denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex."

Well... Fine... But you still have male or female traits physically. Even if you are born with a "Y" chromosome you still end up with female vocal traits.

Flower has a "Androgynous" vocal, meaning she has a vocal that sits between male and female vocal traits, but that falls into genderless more then trans. This has been my ultimate issue I have with this entire "I head canon her as trans" argument because of all the gender states to be in, I honestly don't think you can fully and correctly efficiently cover it. We have Len and Ryu who have female vocalists but are male vocals, but their vocals were made to sound male and both represent stages of life where supposedly puberty hasn't separated the genders yet (Len's a late bloomer to be honest). But how would Len identify as a female when all he ever has been himself is said to be male? You have also Iroha, but while Iroha's provider is a special case... Iroha herself is another female vocal. And her vocal is meant to sound female. Someone once said put both a male and female vocal in... But this too doesn't reflect things accurately because to make it work you need two different people unless your lucky enough to grab a woman about to go through the change in real life. In fact this is the only way I see a trans working... Because the male to female dis a lot harder to work backwards from.

None of the current vocals embody the kind of ideals that really the trans representation wants. You need really a female with a bass vocal or a male with a soprano vocal. Basically, you need a vocaloid that can invert expectations. Flower can't do this. She was identified as female and has a vocal that can fit with a female vocal trait class, even if it can also fit into a male. In fact to be honest... I'd argue she more fairly represents gender less then transgender.

I mean with "flower=trans", I can for one at least argue myself the flaws of this popular headcanon and argue what I think would be a better Vocaloid to represnt a trans then flower if it happened. This is more then people who want flower to be a trans actually do with her character... And in 2020 with 3 releases in Vocaloid and now a talk... We shouldn't see people struggling to cope with flower being female. And they didn't when it was the V3 release either. The whole issue is because their doing the mistake of stereotyping V4 flower, yet these are the same SJW fans at times who don't like that I point out the flaw of their arguments.

To me, the flower= trans fans are some of the most hypocritical fans that exist in Vocaloid, because trying to look like they are wishing her to be trans... They discriminate for female. Again, discrimination is a two way thing and I find this all baffling because I would have no problems with accepting a trans Vocaloid... But people have trouble with a non-trans Vocaloid. I was the one saying Leon and Lola were black before the article was found saying they voiced by black singers and arguing blond Leon was a poor representation, because I could read the word "soul singer" and there were many in the fandom who couldn't. To me, a Vocaloid is a Vocaloid, its just this boring headcanon that has no substance for flower and does nothing for her I've ever had an issue with. Its no different to the people who just draw Miku with a spring onion and think this is creative in 2020.

I was there when at VOCALOID Otaku forums people spun it from their reaction to the V4 boxart and it was the wrong stereotype. And this has not lost momentum ever since.