Musings that have been floating around in my brain for the past several months re: fic and changing bodies and identity and gender and how that plays out in different fandoms
( Read more... )
Your linking to iambickilometer's post was allll confusing because I know both you and him IRL, but both of these posts are about fandom. Agh. Worlds collide!
Yep, very brain-explody. I'm good! I don't see E and G as often as I'd like to, but we do still hang out occasionally-- they're up further north than is conveniently driveable for me.
Ooh, thank you very much for the link! I love how this post has turned into recs.
See, that makes sense to me, and I would love more body/sex-swap stories to explore that sense of discomfort and displacement more. And since you talk about the mind-body relationship being one of the themes, I definitely need to check out that web comic.
I might be going in circles, but I guess that's the major point of being trans, where the perception of self doesn't match up with the physical reality, and how does what's going on with the physical body affect what's going on with one's mind/personality development/perception of the world.
Thank you! ♥ And how are you doing, how's life up north? ♥
Are you in any way surprised that I hit comment limit again with such a topic?kegomMarch 27 2011, 20:48:31 UTC
I read Iambickilometer's post too, some time ago, and it really opened my eyes to some stuff that seems rather poorly thought out. (Of course I'm sure there're exceptions, but so far I haven't seen any.) I did use to wonder about stuff like sex-swapped people immediately deciding to try out their new body by having sex with it, but of course, since I'm asexual, that was something I was bound to notice. But I never really thought about the fact that any cis-gendered person would be bound to feel horribly uncomfortable in an opposite-sex body, even though the thought of waking up in a man's body without knowing when I might change back is pretty horrifying to me when I really think about it.
I think suspension of disbelief can be kept up quite well, if there's enough basis for the acceptance of the opposite-sex appearance and if the gender of the person that's changed isn't changed as well. If the characters are Arashi (or V6), for example (wasn't your fic the one where the whole of JE were changed and Arashi went home to have an orgy
( ... )
Btw, if you're curious, TV Tropes have a nice page with good and not-so-good examples for Gender Bender, with links to some very nice "laws" of sex-swaps that can be found in pretty much all media. (They do, btw, address the "gender" issue on that page, but skirt it by just giving the disclaimer that they work with the "old" definition of gender. I guess it would be too complicated to change the page's title when basically everyone knows such stories as "gender bender" or "gender swap", even if it's not quite correct.) They also have a page about "the mind is a plaything of the body", which is a trope that might actually allow authors to (more or less valiantly) do the kinds of changes in personality... though I guess they'd have to know the trope first, which I somehow doubt with some of those fanfiction authors. ^^"
I really enjoyed the gender-identity stuff in this Sherlock story I read recently: Equivalence by introductory. I don't think you've watched Sherlock? But the story is mainly about a minor character who gets basically no development onscreen, so you don't really need to have seen it; you can get by just with knowing that it's a version of the Sherlock Holmes stories set in modern-day London. (You could probably get by with even less than that, honestly.) The companion story by another author, linked in that entry, was also lovely. They're wonderful and make me all warm and fuzzy inside. ♥
Ooh, I'll have to check that out. I still haven't watched any Sherlock, though I did read that one trans Sherlock story that I talked to you about (did you link it to me? I think I found it via someone else and you were going to link to me. The one with the not!mpreg.)
Comments 9
Reply
Reply
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
See, that makes sense to me, and I would love more body/sex-swap stories to explore that sense of discomfort and displacement more. And since you talk about the mind-body relationship being one of the themes, I definitely need to check out that web comic.
I might be going in circles, but I guess that's the major point of being trans, where the perception of self doesn't match up with the physical reality, and how does what's going on with the physical body affect what's going on with one's mind/personality development/perception of the world.
Thank you! ♥ And how are you doing, how's life up north? ♥
Reply
I think suspension of disbelief can be kept up quite well, if there's enough basis for the acceptance of the opposite-sex appearance and if the gender of the person that's changed isn't changed as well. If the characters are Arashi (or V6), for example (wasn't your fic the one where the whole of JE were changed and Arashi went home to have an orgy ( ... )
Reply
They also have a page about "the mind is a plaything of the body", which is a trope that might actually allow authors to (more or less valiantly) do the kinds of changes in personality... though I guess they'd have to know the trope first, which I somehow doubt with some of those fanfiction authors. ^^"
Reply
I really enjoyed the gender-identity stuff in this Sherlock story I read recently: Equivalence by introductory. I don't think you've watched Sherlock? But the story is mainly about a minor character who gets basically no development onscreen, so you don't really need to have seen it; you can get by just with knowing that it's a version of the Sherlock Holmes stories set in modern-day London. (You could probably get by with even less than that, honestly.) The companion story by another author, linked in that entry, was also lovely. They're wonderful and make me all warm and fuzzy inside. ♥
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment