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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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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