Floria Tosca ([info]floriatosca) wrote,
@ 2009-05-01 21:51:00
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Current mood: nerdy
Current music:Cherry Lips - Garbage
Entry tags:fandom

On writing genderswap
So, if it's an "always been a girl/guy AU" not a "hey, how did these get here?/where the heck are my boobs?!" scenario, how do you handle the character's altered gender expression? Of course, since they're the same people, they'd keep the same interests, but having stereotypically masculine or feminine hobbies doesn't necessarily translate into one's overall butch or femme-ness (I've known more than one conventionally manly guy who was interested in both cooking and textile crafts.)
So, if you're writing an AU version of a very manly Even The Guys Want Him action hero, do you make her a badass hot butch girl or badass, glamorous and feminine in a hard-edged sort of way (sort of a grown-up version of the Tall, Dark and Bishoujo aesthetic, although she might not fit the physical stereotype)?
An odd thing if you go with the butch option is that a really manly girl has a different relationship to societal gender stereotypes than a really manly guy does, which may be of interest to queer theorists and femslashers out there.


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[info]tiamatschild
2009-05-02 03:05 pm UTC (link)
It's such an interesting question! I've been working out a Prince of Tennis 'all the tennis players always were women' au, and the way it falls out is intriguing. I mean, Momoshiro winds up trying really, really hard (and mostly failing) to be a hyper feminine girly girl (mostly failing because she is loud and definitely an alpha personality, and also actually takes tennis extremely seriously, and about all she's got right is the 'boys are pretty' and 'frilly short skirts!'), while Echizen is still determinedly considering herself a "kid" and ignoring the whole issue - which she can get away with, mostly, because she's a late bloomer and looks like she's about eight, anyhow. (Kawamura is very feminine in a neatly dressed, 'ever gentle and low' sort of fashion, so it surprises people when it turns out that she has excellent shoulder definition and fetches and carries even the heaviest things for her father and is also completely impossible to intimidate. Which is not mentioning the results of tennis rackets. Fuji is smiley and cheerful and sort of disturbing and considers bras a waste of time. Just on that edge of butch.)

It's one of those interesting things, especially if you want to keep the relationships fairly intact. Particularly since you're right, there's all the social gender aspects - I think it's kind of fun to try to keep people's place on the social gender continum roughly the same, if possible. So a character who, as a guy, is proud of his masculinity, is, as a girl, proud of her femininity. And people who just kind of wish it'd all go away still just kind of wish it'd all go away.

Speaking personally.

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THIS IS JUST WHAT I THINK, IGNORE IT IF YOU WANT TO
[info]firefly99
2009-05-02 04:35 pm UTC (link)
Okay, I'm going to look at your icon, and take a wild guess at what character you mean.

I think the most important thing is to keep the feel of the character similar to the way they feel in canon, and work butch/femme back from that. Man!Snake is charismatic and sexy rather than handsome and pretty - he's good looking, but that's second to his sense of presence. His woman self would feel the same way to the other characters. That said, there's nothing androgynous about his canon self (even though he does claim to be a fan of women's figure skating) so making her an ultra-butch woman wouldn't be the answer. Just as Man!Snake's effortless masculinity is alluring to the other characters, Woman!Snake's effortless femininity would be alluring.

Of course, she'd still have to be muscular. Not saying she'd be ridiculously steroidal - even though Man!Snake is big, he's not HUGE because that wouldn't help him sneak around - but I don't think massive tits, while a definite symbol of femininity, is going to be the best way to express it. I'd keep her feminine, but don't be scared to give her masculine physical traits where appropriate, just like Shinkawa wasn't afraid to give Man!Snake long eyelashes, long legs, curvy thighs and an unusually large butt for a man of his body type.

tl;dr LESS EVA, MORE THE BOSS.

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[info]nerem
2009-05-02 09:04 pm UTC (link)
I finally got moved, so it's good to see you again!

... unfortunately, the two above me already answered it, but we can discuss more when I see you Sunday night.

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[info]hyel
2009-05-06 12:14 pm UTC (link)
Oh, wait, so, do you mean writing fic about, say, Frodo, but make it so Frodo's always been a lady hobbit mentally and physically? Then I guess you could do just about anything with it - whatever feels right or you feel like, from making her a crossdresser (like a variation of the "Frodo was secretly a girl all along" scenario) to writing, well, just Frodo in a dress, basically, or even subtly changing his personality based on the different imprints she would have received from hobbit society, her awareness of being a contrast to the male hobbits.

Or did you mean "ZING! You now have the mentality of a girl!" type of genderswap? That'd be interesting - and challenging - to write! Rumiko Takahashi did it once, and it turned out Ataru with a female mind is a gentle, wilting sort of horny lesbian.

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