Rule 63

Prior to the creation of Rule 63, gender flipping 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 maiden 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 SNK vs. Capcom 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. It lists two statements: • "for every given male character, there is a female version of that character", and • "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 fanworks, 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. 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 Cylon Centurion, and the female main cast of the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters. Certain characters with inherent gender fluidity, however, are said to work better than others. Such gender-bending cosplay, which allows the cosplayer to choose what behavior enhances the performance, can be contrasted with crossplay, which completely immerses the cosplayer in the codes of another gender. == Examples ==

In film and television • Adventure Time received a spin-off series entitled Fionna and Cake, based on the eponymous episode of the original show, which features Fionna 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. • 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. • 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. • 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-wields a pair of crossbows. Made playable in Hyrule Warriors Legends, The character Sheik, who Princess Zelda has the ability to transform into in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, has been called the most iconic example of female-to-male gender-swapping in gaming, although Sheik has both male and female characteristics. == See also ==