Genderbending Meta
Nov. 1st, 2005 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Meta and navel gazing.
I'll go briefly into my short history of my experience with genderbending fic. I encountered it in a number of fandoms, but the fic that really made me like the idea of genderbending and made me want to play with the idea myself was Saiyuki fic. In a nutshell, we have the character Gojyo, who is kind of a ho, good looking, and has issues that he drowns them in sex, and as a girl he'd, well, he'd be Shane from L Word. We also have the character Sanzo, who's so beautiful he spent his whole life being mistaken for female and looked at like a piece of meat and raging at the world because why should he have to go through this? Other guys don't have to go through this. Sanzo is actually less fucked up as a girl than he is as a boy.
He'd be less fucked up, and he'd probaby have more sex.
Conclusion: genderbending = shiny happy place of joy and non-fucked-up-ness and porn, and then more porn.
Which brings me to my SGA fic. There are a number of reasons I chose Rodney to turn into a woman for my fic, but mainly they all boil down to him being the candidate who could provide the largest amount of porn with the smallest amount of angst. Rodney is forced into extremely uncomfortable/outrageous/surreal/terrifying situations on a nearly constant basis, and while he may get extremely (hilariously) vocally upset, he's not likely to have a breakdown. And he doesn't get laid too often, so given the opportunity, he's not likely to say no.
What terrifies Rodney most is a loss of control and a female body, while unfamiliar, is still relatively under his control. Rodney is apparently hypoglycemic, or at least enough of a hypochondriac that he thinks he is, so it's not like fluctuating body chemistry is a new and horrible thing to him. The period would not be that big of a deal. Additionally, Rodney is far too convinced of his own genius to doubt for more than a minute that he'd be able to turn himself back the way he was, assuming he had access to the technology that switched his gender in the first place.
When I wrote about Rodney looking at himself in the mirror, I wrote it keeping in mind that as far as Rodney was concerned, this was not his body. He was not looking at it as if it were his body. He was looking at it like, "Hey, there's a naked woman in the mirror. I would totally do her." Because Rodney as a girl is hot and even if she weren't, Rodney (as previously mentioned) doesn't get laid too often. His standards are not that high. And, really Rodney's appearance just is not a big deal to him. All of his self-confidence is buried in his intelligence. He's certainly not going to worry about his looks in a body that isn't even his.
Of course, certain things would freak him out, and he would throw random tantrums, as he does, and he would get over them pretty quickly, as he does, and that's why we love Rodney. He never ceases to entertain. He doesn't take shit from anyone on anything ever, so he's not likely to curl in on himself if people say not nice things about him. He's more likely to extremely (hilariously) vocally bitch them out.
I had a few people give me feedback for the first part of my fic saying they loved how my Rodney was still the same after he changed genders, which confused me until I twigged to the fact that people think of the term girl!Rodney in this fandom much the same way people think of the term sexgod!Draco in HP. Which is to say, girl!Rodney is thought of as a persona with Rodney's face, rather than an actual experiment in how Rodney McKay would act if he were turned into a woman under a particular set of circumstances.
I did not choose to turn John into a woman because I know if I tried to write John as a woman, the fic would end up focusing on angst, rather than porn, and a type of angst I am not particularly good with.
There are a lot of aspects of John's personality that strike me as stereotypically female. When he is having an argument he is more likely to use passive aggression than active aggression. He often relies on his charm and his looks to get people's attention with overt flirting. He argues by appealing to people's emotions rather than to their logic. He has maternal instincts like whoa. This is interesting to me because at the same time, John Sheppard does not come across as feminine at all. He is all of these things and he is still very much a guy. He defies stereotypes without requiring some sort of justification for doing so -- we simply accept him for who he is.
The fact that he's scorchingly hot doesn't hurt.
But take, for example, the way he shows his intelligence, or rather, doesn't show it. He's incredibly smart, but he hides behind a dumb jock facade. He acts this way (I assume) because he is military and his motivation is to fit in with the rest of the military. If a woman introduced herself by saying, "I like football and ferris wheels" we'd be calling her a ditz. If a woman were hiding her intelligence, we would assume her motivation was not to fit in with the jocks, but rather to avoid intimidating them.
If John were a woman, fandom would make assumptions about him that we don't make because he is not a woman. Or rather, the fandom would conclude that the writers were making assumptions about "women in general" in writing John. Offensive assumptions. The fact that John is a man is, well, interesting. I honestly believe John is the product of a bunch of male geeks getting in a room and trying to envision the perfect man and, being heterosexual, instead envisioning the perfect woman and then giving her a cock. I'd call it subversive if I weren't so sure the writers were doing it completely on accident.
I mean, think about it. If it were on purpose? So subversive.
Really, I don't care why John is the way he is. I don't think about that when I'm writing fic about him. I just enjoy him for being an interesting, three dimensional character with his own set of issues, etc.
However, if I were to turn John into a woman in a fic, I would inevitably reach the point where he tried to go on an offworld mission and use his usual negotiating methods and whomever he was negotiating with would most likely not take him seriously at all because he'd be the "hot ditzy chick carrying an incongruously big gun" and that's just really depressing. That's why Kristen Kreuk hates playing Lana Lang on Smallville. Whatever depth her character might have goes unexplored on the show, and she ends up being nothing more than a pin-up. If John got turned into a woman, it really would be kind of traumatizing for him because at some point he'd have an epiphany.
He'd have an epiphany about who he is, about the way the the military and men in power treat women, about his personality in a woman's body, and that epiphany would hurt. It would be the equivalent of the teenaged boy standing in the gym showers in his midwestern school thinking, "Crap, I'm a fag" (which, as we all know, John also had to go through) and I ... I can't hurt him like that. It breaks my brain a little.
And it completely messes with my whole concept of genderbending as a shiny happy place of joy and non-fucked-up-ness and porn, and then more porn.
Reading genderbending fic in this fandom, for me, anyway, is kind of like that one beer commercial. I think it was Millers. You know, the one that goes like:
Guy 1: I love this beer!
Guy 2: Hey, me too!
Guy 1: Yes, the taste is great.
Guy 2: I like the smoothness.
Guy 1: ... but, the taste.
Guy 2: ... no, the smoothness.
Guy 1: ... ?
Guy 2: ... ???
In other news, still have 500 wds to go on pt. 2 of the fic. Should get back to that.
I'll go briefly into my short history of my experience with genderbending fic. I encountered it in a number of fandoms, but the fic that really made me like the idea of genderbending and made me want to play with the idea myself was Saiyuki fic. In a nutshell, we have the character Gojyo, who is kind of a ho, good looking, and has issues that he drowns them in sex, and as a girl he'd, well, he'd be Shane from L Word. We also have the character Sanzo, who's so beautiful he spent his whole life being mistaken for female and looked at like a piece of meat and raging at the world because why should he have to go through this? Other guys don't have to go through this. Sanzo is actually less fucked up as a girl than he is as a boy.
He'd be less fucked up, and he'd probaby have more sex.
Conclusion: genderbending = shiny happy place of joy and non-fucked-up-ness and porn, and then more porn.
Which brings me to my SGA fic. There are a number of reasons I chose Rodney to turn into a woman for my fic, but mainly they all boil down to him being the candidate who could provide the largest amount of porn with the smallest amount of angst. Rodney is forced into extremely uncomfortable/outrageous/surreal/terrifying situations on a nearly constant basis, and while he may get extremely (hilariously) vocally upset, he's not likely to have a breakdown. And he doesn't get laid too often, so given the opportunity, he's not likely to say no.
What terrifies Rodney most is a loss of control and a female body, while unfamiliar, is still relatively under his control. Rodney is apparently hypoglycemic, or at least enough of a hypochondriac that he thinks he is, so it's not like fluctuating body chemistry is a new and horrible thing to him. The period would not be that big of a deal. Additionally, Rodney is far too convinced of his own genius to doubt for more than a minute that he'd be able to turn himself back the way he was, assuming he had access to the technology that switched his gender in the first place.
When I wrote about Rodney looking at himself in the mirror, I wrote it keeping in mind that as far as Rodney was concerned, this was not his body. He was not looking at it as if it were his body. He was looking at it like, "Hey, there's a naked woman in the mirror. I would totally do her." Because Rodney as a girl is hot and even if she weren't, Rodney (as previously mentioned) doesn't get laid too often. His standards are not that high. And, really Rodney's appearance just is not a big deal to him. All of his self-confidence is buried in his intelligence. He's certainly not going to worry about his looks in a body that isn't even his.
Of course, certain things would freak him out, and he would throw random tantrums, as he does, and he would get over them pretty quickly, as he does, and that's why we love Rodney. He never ceases to entertain. He doesn't take shit from anyone on anything ever, so he's not likely to curl in on himself if people say not nice things about him. He's more likely to extremely (hilariously) vocally bitch them out.
I had a few people give me feedback for the first part of my fic saying they loved how my Rodney was still the same after he changed genders, which confused me until I twigged to the fact that people think of the term girl!Rodney in this fandom much the same way people think of the term sexgod!Draco in HP. Which is to say, girl!Rodney is thought of as a persona with Rodney's face, rather than an actual experiment in how Rodney McKay would act if he were turned into a woman under a particular set of circumstances.
I did not choose to turn John into a woman because I know if I tried to write John as a woman, the fic would end up focusing on angst, rather than porn, and a type of angst I am not particularly good with.
There are a lot of aspects of John's personality that strike me as stereotypically female. When he is having an argument he is more likely to use passive aggression than active aggression. He often relies on his charm and his looks to get people's attention with overt flirting. He argues by appealing to people's emotions rather than to their logic. He has maternal instincts like whoa. This is interesting to me because at the same time, John Sheppard does not come across as feminine at all. He is all of these things and he is still very much a guy. He defies stereotypes without requiring some sort of justification for doing so -- we simply accept him for who he is.
The fact that he's scorchingly hot doesn't hurt.
But take, for example, the way he shows his intelligence, or rather, doesn't show it. He's incredibly smart, but he hides behind a dumb jock facade. He acts this way (I assume) because he is military and his motivation is to fit in with the rest of the military. If a woman introduced herself by saying, "I like football and ferris wheels" we'd be calling her a ditz. If a woman were hiding her intelligence, we would assume her motivation was not to fit in with the jocks, but rather to avoid intimidating them.
If John were a woman, fandom would make assumptions about him that we don't make because he is not a woman. Or rather, the fandom would conclude that the writers were making assumptions about "women in general" in writing John. Offensive assumptions. The fact that John is a man is, well, interesting. I honestly believe John is the product of a bunch of male geeks getting in a room and trying to envision the perfect man and, being heterosexual, instead envisioning the perfect woman and then giving her a cock. I'd call it subversive if I weren't so sure the writers were doing it completely on accident.
I mean, think about it. If it were on purpose? So subversive.
Really, I don't care why John is the way he is. I don't think about that when I'm writing fic about him. I just enjoy him for being an interesting, three dimensional character with his own set of issues, etc.
However, if I were to turn John into a woman in a fic, I would inevitably reach the point where he tried to go on an offworld mission and use his usual negotiating methods and whomever he was negotiating with would most likely not take him seriously at all because he'd be the "hot ditzy chick carrying an incongruously big gun" and that's just really depressing. That's why Kristen Kreuk hates playing Lana Lang on Smallville. Whatever depth her character might have goes unexplored on the show, and she ends up being nothing more than a pin-up. If John got turned into a woman, it really would be kind of traumatizing for him because at some point he'd have an epiphany.
He'd have an epiphany about who he is, about the way the the military and men in power treat women, about his personality in a woman's body, and that epiphany would hurt. It would be the equivalent of the teenaged boy standing in the gym showers in his midwestern school thinking, "Crap, I'm a fag" (which, as we all know, John also had to go through) and I ... I can't hurt him like that. It breaks my brain a little.
And it completely messes with my whole concept of genderbending as a shiny happy place of joy and non-fucked-up-ness and porn, and then more porn.
Reading genderbending fic in this fandom, for me, anyway, is kind of like that one beer commercial. I think it was Millers. You know, the one that goes like:
Guy 1: I love this beer!
Guy 2: Hey, me too!
Guy 1: Yes, the taste is great.
Guy 2: I like the smoothness.
Guy 1: ... but, the taste.
Guy 2: ... no, the smoothness.
Guy 1: ... ?
Guy 2: ... ???
In other news, still have 500 wds to go on pt. 2 of the fic. Should get back to that.
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Date: 2005-11-01 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-12 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-12 09:25 pm (UTC)=D
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Date: 2005-11-01 08:16 pm (UTC)Often the writer takes the option that biology is destiny, and has the character discover all kinds of personality changes with the introduction of new hormones. I am glad that you did not.
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Date: 2005-11-12 09:43 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're liking the fic! Next part will be going up soon.
:)
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Date: 2005-11-01 08:24 pm (UTC)On the other hand, I'd had similar thoughts about the female-ness of Rodney - in that, as a woman, he would be a psycho-bitch drama queen who whined like a girl all the time. Naturally, this is because he is a psycho-bitch drama queen who whines like a girl all the time - but as a female, he would fit another unpleasant stereotype. On the other hand, your observations are also accurate, and I'm enjoying the fic :)
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Date: 2005-11-02 10:36 am (UTC)However, in your gender*switch* scenario, that's not really relevant. Because the response he gets from strangers probably won't change much (mildly amused contempt, mostly, isn't it?) and his colleagues are used to that. So he won't get the difference in response that girl!John would. I think.
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:24 pm (UTC)But I do find the idea of transforming whole casts to be fascinating. My friend was also talking about how a female Rodney (not a genderswitched, but an actual female Rodney) should be played by Margaret Cho, which I *love.*
=D
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Date: 2005-11-12 09:45 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're enjoying the fic!
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Date: 2005-11-01 09:23 pm (UTC)Also, keyword for this icon is 'seagulls'. =D
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Date: 2005-11-08 10:51 am (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/permetaform/311477.html
It might or might not indicate that the writers knew *exactly* what they were doing with John Sheppard...
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Date: 2005-11-01 09:52 pm (UTC)Also, how does Rodney's character and his friendship reflect and compliment these qualities in John, since he seems to be a bit more male in his qualities?
. . . I should probably go to class.
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:04 pm (UTC)Of course, I can't argue conclusively one way or the other, but my general impression of John is of a generally stereotypically female personality in a male body.
I couldn't really say how Rodney helps bounce off these qualities, though it's an interesting question you bring up. I know I like the two of them together because they feel like the two halves of my own brain. I haven't really looked at their relationship from a gendered angle before.
Hee! And yes! Don't let all your time get sucked away on LJ.
:P
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Date: 2005-11-01 10:12 pm (UTC)I was just recently thinking about John's aproach to power for a fic I'm writing and how it is a lot more female then male (or maybe more the kind of power that females would prefer to weild) but without making him any less male. The way he gets Ronon to stay? And that scene in Aurora where he's all 'I'd be so grateful *bats eyelashes*' at the first mate/wraith before he knows she's a wraith, just to name a few examples.
it's very cool, especially since it's mostly effective
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:06 pm (UTC)<3
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Date: 2005-11-01 10:20 pm (UTC)Poor Kavanaugh.
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:07 pm (UTC)Poor Kavanagh indeed.
XD
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Date: 2005-11-02 12:59 am (UTC)Spot-on.
Hah. I love that -- and yes, you may very well be onto something there...
Really like your conclusion that a genderswitched John would come to very painful, very personal conclusions about the world he lives in; a few of the stories I collected in my post actually touch upon this issue, if none of them in -depth, of course -- they aren't really drama pieces.
Can't wait for more. & :-)
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:10 pm (UTC):)
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Date: 2005-11-12 11:37 pm (UTC)Gah, tell me about it. I'm still recovering from certain responses of certain people to both Buffy and Sydney Bristow; the former baffle and anger me on a fundamental level.
Just a few hours ago I was talking to an ljfriend from the US who visited me in my home city here in Germany -- we discussed female TV characters and fannish reactions. Now, although I've always adored AtS and am now in love with SGA, my fave shows tend to have female leads -- BtVS, Alias, VM, Farscape, arguably The X-Files -- so this is an intriguing theory.
but
Dude -- I am TMIing you, but that sounds a lot more like me than any description of Aeryn Sun or even Buffy Summers ever could. I'm not saying all (or any) of the above items are inherently female characteristics, just that some fans are very quick to notice flaws like that, and take offence, for various reasons, not all of them based on the mere character on screen.
What I'm saying, in a somewhat long-winded fashion -- maybe it's the other way 'round? Maybe Buffy, Aeryn, Scully, Veronica, or Sydney, while feminine in key aspects, still come across as very male in all the "good" ways?
Of course, that would go well with John coming across as very female in all the good ways while still retaining masculine aspects deemed positive...
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Date: 2005-11-02 03:50 am (UTC)Wow! Seriously on to something here.
Oddly enough, I've read a lot (well a few very well written) fanfics that really push the idea of John's maternal instincts.
I wonder where that comes from and why I buy it so readily?
I genuinely intrigued by this.
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:16 pm (UTC)I wonder where that comes from and why I buy it so readily?
Heeee! I think the place it's most noticeable is in, like, "Lost Boys" when he's talking to Ford and says, "You don't have to prove anything to anybody, Lieutenant," only the way he says it, it sounds like he should be saying 'baby' instead of 'Lieutenant.' The way he is protective of his team and of the people on Atlantis comes across very much as mama bear protecting her cubs. Not to say that it has to be interpreted that way, but it can be.
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Date: 2005-11-03 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-12 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 01:42 am (UTC)And I can't wait for part 2!
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 03:05 am (UTC)Now, as at the moment I can't quite remember if I read yer fic or not, I'm gonna go catch that chap. *nods and waves* Ta.
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-12 10:37 pm (UTC);-)
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Date: 2005-11-07 05:46 am (UTC)He doesn't take shit from anyone on anything ever, so he's not likely to curl in on himself if people say not nice things about him. He's more likely to extremely (hilariously) vocally bitch them out.
::heartheart:: It's one of the reasons I love his character. It's so frustrating to meet people who actually hate him. They just don't understand because they're obviously not watching enough. *is speaking of her immediate family*
I honestly believe John is the product of a bunch of male geeks getting in a room and trying to envision the perfect man and, being heterosexual, instead envisioning the perfect woman and then giving her a cock.
OMG you are so right! LOL!! And I can't wait for more Girl!Rodney :D
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:40 pm (UTC)::clings happily to my corner of fandom::
More girl Rodney is coming soon!
genderbender
Date: 2005-11-07 03:50 pm (UTC)Re: genderbender
Date: 2005-11-12 10:42 pm (UTC)omg I hate you right now
Date: 2005-11-08 01:18 pm (UTC)All your pimping and espousing the porn bounced off of me like... like things that bounce. But you throw Shane in? *is tempted* I... fuck. Is it January yet? *pines*
I can see the place where girl!John is not the angsty picture you drew above, but I can just as easily see this place. The fag in the showers thing makes *sense*.
Was I one of the people who were all happy you had not changed Rodney? I'm so used to authors girlifying characters when they genderbend that I'm excited to see how well you've retained Rodney. "OMG YAY! It's Rodney!" and etc.
Re: omg I hate you right now
Date: 2005-11-12 10:52 pm (UTC)http://pics.livejournal.com/permetaform/pic/0000g0gr
http://pics.livejournal.com/permetaform/pic/000qx0y8 (order is L-R Hakkai, Goku, Gojyo, Sanzo)
http://pics.livejournal.com/permetaform/pic/0000wch3
(Gojyo & Hakkai)
XD
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Date: 2005-11-09 12:49 am (UTC)Best explanation of John *ever*.
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Date: 2005-11-12 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-29 10:41 am (UTC)I have to say though, I always thought part of his attitude, and part of his playing dumb was a 'pretty boy' thing. He can't hide the looks, but people are a lot more tolerant if you are pretty but dumb, or smart but unattractive. Both just pisses them off.
oh yeah
Date: 2006-03-24 07:22 pm (UTC)You know, I never liked straight (heh) up gender-bending fic before SGA. The closest I came was reading body-swapping fic in the x-files - and although some of that kink was about figuring out the new mechanics, most of it was about the opportunity that it gave the characters to touch the body they had been lusting after while still maintaining the obstacles to intimacy that made the realtionship interesting.
There is something completely different in exploring what the sense of ownership over a new body that is still yours (the character's).
I like what you said about the way that Rodney's investment in his brain, and ongoing self-monitoring of medical issues, would mean that the body shift would just be a different kind of deal for him. Not a mind-bender, really, because it wouldn't affect his mind.
I also love and totally agree with the things you said about John - both the "accidentally subversive" stuff from the writers, and the way his sense of self would be seriously turned upside down by the way the world around him would treat him in his new form.
I think also, because John is in the military, and there is a huge degree of mandated physical fitness that's a basic part of his life, it's not just his scorching hotness that would make the transtion weird for him. There's also the reality of becoming realtively physically weaker, and of loosing parts of himself that he has concentrated on. (Not just his dick - although I am sure that that would be a thing too - rather things like the length of his stride when he runs, the ways his muscles have been shaped by crunches, the push-ups he does every morning....mmmm. John. Push Ups.
I can't wait to read your fic when it is done!