fannish love from a flower of sin
I’m not against gender bending or androgyny in canon characters. I’m far from against portraying characters as having an ambiguous sexuality. One thing that does irk me in a way is gender switch fic and such. Some of it is done for pure crack purposes, which can give you a laugh, like a female Kenpachi fanart that I saw once (that chick was fierce!). But some people love doing this kind of thing regularly and in a serious way, which is fine, too. Far be it from me to pee in anybody’s fandom cup of coffee. However, it does give me the sense that you’re cheating in a way, so to speak, for the sake of your heteronormativity.
Don’t like yaoi but want to ship two male characters together? No problem! Just make one a girl and you can fap to your heart’s delight. Don’t let that pesky extra penis get in the way of a pairing you love, just make it more ‘normal’. And this kind of thing doesn’t just happen in fanworks, but also in canon. The new version of Battlestar Gallactica, I’m looking at you. How many male characters did they make female for the sake of possible het relationships?
Then some people, which is even more annoying, use gender switch as a way of Mary Sue-ing themselves into a fic. I’ve had the unfortunate experience of giving a gender switch fic a chance on more than one occasion to find it to be a self-insert disaster.
I don’t get people who feel a need to change a character’s gender in order to enjoy a fic. I get that some people have a fetish for this. But other people seem to do it for psychological reasons, so they’re not a ‘yaoi shipper.’ And the thing is, changing a character’s gender changes the character itself to some extent. I hear you arguing. Yes, it does. In our society, and most societies in which fandoms occur, males and females are treated differently. Some fandom universes emulate the real world. In some, females are almost on equal par with men. In others, females are seen as less. It depends on the anime/manga you’re talking about. But even if it’s a universe where gender roles are like the modern day world, a character being born a female instead of a male is going to affect that person. That person is likely going to have a different upbringing than the male form would have had, being taught to behave in ways different than their canon male character would have been. Remember that assertiveness and aggression isn’t something that is encouraged in girls, so if this is an important part of the character in question, it would be affected. Hell, let’s just say it: we still live in a world where beauty in women is encouraged over intelligence. The character may have even been steered away from certain life goals growing up just by the fact of being born female. So I don’t agree with some who say ‘this character is exactly the same, it just doesn’t have a penis anymore.’
And if ‘the penis’ is supposedly such a minor part of the character, why not just leave him male?
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Posted on: Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Posted in: Anime & Manga, Fan Works, Musings
Tags: confessions & lamentations, fan fic
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