[ SECRET POST #6889 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6889 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[Radiolight]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 34 secrets from Secret Submission Post #984.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

To me it depends: sometimes, where the setting itself is highly unrealistic and gender hasn't had a measureable effect on the characters' lives and you can do a straight 1-for-1, I'm cool with it, I can even enjoy it provided both characters in a ship have been swapped and what was once Excellent Yaoi is now Excellent Yuri (I'm thinking things like Dante/Vergil, where the fact that they're half-demons matters 1000% more than their gender re: characterization, as does how they each relate to their family tragedy, neither of which would change if they were women, as this was situational, and personality-wise: older sisters are likewise expected to be more mature/responsible than their younger sisters, there's nothing that stigmatizes girls who like books or poetry or violins or Japanese culture any more than there is for boys, so there's your Vergil, younger sisters get away with pestering their older sisters to death and their parents do nothing too, lots of young women love to drink and party, and yes, part of Dante's canon past is being a approached by older, predatory strangers at a young age because of his lifestyle, who do take advantage of him, which would be the standard objection to "but girls and partying are different!" so there's your Dante, wholly intact).

In a highly realistic setting where gender profoundly affects the character's life and story, though, I can see it being a put-off if it was done poorly for sure. You'd have to have a strong grasp of how that works and what you're doing with it. E.g., in the case where part of character's personality or development is - implicitly or explicitly - a commentary on or struggle with hegemonic masculinity, you'd have to have a very butch woman to achieve the same arc. One who very much also buys into said masculine ideals. You can't just substitute in your standard "woman" archetype. And that kinda defeats the purpose of the id-stroking wish fulfillment that is the purpose of a lot of these genderswaps - you have to acknowledge that the character isn't "you" and making them your gender doesn't make them more "you" or even necessarily more "woman" (as archetype) than it did before. And worse, if you plan on changing nothing, in a scenario/character where that would change quite a lot, that's just plain bad writing.

(As an example for the above it is hugely important that Gon and Killua are boys in their own setting; even though there's no sign hanging above them or line of text stating "these characters are written to interrogate shounen tropes for boy heroes that would be meaningless if they were girls", that is indeed that the author is doing with them, on top of the fact that Killua's complex relationship with his mother/sister/brothers and externalized misogyny take on a completely different character if Killua's a girl as well, and Gon's character arc is razor sharp deconstruction of the "heroic" masculine norms regarding the use of violence and domination vs "villainous" kind. You could do it. You could even do it well, but you'd have to have a very strong and nuanced grasp of what internalized misogyny looks like and how it functions in she!Killua's case (nlog-on-steroids), as well as butch culture and how it intersects with hegemonic masculinity in she!Gon's case, because that's the only way you could possibly wrangle out the same characterization for Gon, an extreme tomboy who grew up in the woods and doesn't change her clothes and sees no issues with the use of violence to solve problems so long as it is "just". But if given the LOL TITS AND DRESSES NOW treatment it's a disaster.)

But other times it can be extremely intriguing, and make a character even more interesting, like the Bobby the Vampire Slayer above, although that would certainly be a different character. A petite blond dude cheerleader is not going to have lived the same life with the same glowing social approval as a petite blonde girl cheerleader, that's just a fact. But that might be what makes it interesting! There's nothing saying that, although they'd certainly be different, you like both Buffy and Bobby.