(( gender and sexual identity roles in roleplay ))
S-so, um. I just posted about 5600 words on the sexuality and gender roles of everyone I have ever played in CFUD over here in CFO. Y-yay srs polls? 8D
I thought it might be best to also paste that essay in its entirety here, as one unit. So this will be basically the same thing you're getting in that link, just . . . together, for my own future reference.
I'm so masochistic.
In general, I do worry about gender when it comes to playing men, which is why I don't often do it. Playing guys doesn't come naturally to me. Add in the fact that the two guys I've played have been 1. adults and 2. very sexual beings, and I have to put more thought into their voices. Shigure ended up being impossible for me for a lot of reasons, but I'm sure that contributed. I don't really feel like I fail with Greed (I HOPE?!), but he is my hardest character to play.
Overall though I worry more about voice in general than gender. If I have someone's voice down, the gender aspect will be a part of that, unless the character was ambiguously written ANYWAY, in which case I feel that's a more important IC aspect to focus on than "do they sound female?" For example, I know that Tomo is not really looked at as "a girl" by most of the campers. XD; This isn't something I do consciously, but it is something I feel is right for her. It's not actually commented upon in canon that Tomo is kinda . . . male-seeming, and she does have moments of femininity, but she does come off as the least "girly" of the main cast, so that's how she sounds in camp. Again I don't consciously play her as a tomboy. I just play her as she is in canon. Hopefully. :D
And if she comes off as a tomboy, if Greed comes off as male, if Mutsumi came off as very girly, that's something that's an aspect of the way the characters were written in canon, and not a conscious choice I made. But yeah, with Greed, there is some undefinable BLOCK there between my voice and his and I do my best to work with it and hope he doesn't come across as "A man that is being played by a woman who has played 80% women in this game." XD If he is, I do hope someone will call me on it.
I probably won't go into detail for everyone. I'll start generally: OOCly I am bisexual with a female leaning. It's. Not that I find it difficult to play straight characters at all; it's that I have difficulty believing characters to be 100% straight. Or 100% gay, for that matter. XD In that sense, yes, there is some sexuality projection that goes on. If I app a character I truly believe to be completely straight, I don't have an issue with playing it that way. Asuna, for example, the only character I've EVER played that I REALLY thought would probably never be sexually attracted to a girl--despite the fact that I've written yuri fanfiction of her, and ship her with 3 or 4 other girls from Negima!. XD Playing her, she was straight. That was just how she read to me, from day one.
But on the other hand, there's someone like Greed, who has LESS canon subtext with those of the same sex than Asuna does, and yet I felt that playing him as completely straight would actually be somewhat OOC. So when I "decide" a character's sexuality . . . sometimes it's a conscious decision (Greed), sometimes it just happens in the course of play (Chisame), and sometimes it's something I've believed about a character for as long as I've "known" them (Tomo).
And it doesn't always have anything to do with who they're attracted to in canon. This is probably because I almost never PLAY characters with established patterns of attraction or canon love interests. Even when I do--Eva, for example--I don't believe that just because a character never explicitly says "I'm bi" in canon means they're completely straight. I don't think there's any reason to think that. There are other factors to consider, such as canon circumstances, target audience, and the like.
Things I factor into a character's sexuality and how I portray it--yes, canon attractions and love interests are a big part of it. Like, it'd be very very stupid to try playing Greed as gay, because WHAT. XD His attraction to women is canon, and I won't discount canon. But I consider other things as well, like the universe the canon is set in, subtext, other aspects of that character that could imprint upon sexuality, etc.
Greed's still the best example here. In canon, we only see him express attraction to women. And I could play him as being straight. I sort of planned on it, actually. But when you think about it, Greed's 200 years old, he's hedonistic, he's manipulative, he has very very loyal male subordinates who call him "my Master," he likes sex A LOT, and his character is based on the fact that he WANTS EVERYTHING. So while a strictly textual reading of him would lead me to play him as straight, when I took all of that into account, I just couldn't IMAGINE the guy not having ever had sex with a man. It's not a matter of 'shipping him with any guys in camp, or my inner yaoi fangirl coming out. XD It's that while he is only shown manipulating women sexually, the rest of his character is such that I believe it's very likely that he would and has enjoyed sex with men as well. So I said "to Hell with it, he's bi."
So far I've played . . .
Chisame, who has no explicit canon sexuality but has het subtext, as bi (male-leaning);
Makie, who has no explicit canon sexuality but has het subtext, as PEOPLE-SEXUAL but also somewhat pre-sexual (bi-curious on the above poll);
Shigure, who has explicit canon het and gay canon subtext, as bi (female-leaning);
Evangeline, who has explicit canon het and unique life circumstances, as bi;
Asuna, who has explicit canon het, as straight;
Mutsumi, who has explicit canon bisexuality, as bi;
Tomo, who has canon gay subtext, as bi;
Chao, who has no canon sexual text OR subtext, as personally asexual but willing to use sexuality against either gender;
Greed, who has explicit canon het and unique life circumstances, as bi (female-leaning);
and Miyako, who has no canon sexuality, as mostly asexual but ultimately bi-curious (in the poll).
Chisame I've essayed on a lot. None of it has changed. My choice of her sexuality was probably the most arbitrary of any of my characters; when I apped her, she had no canon text or subtext at ALL, she was my first character, she was thrown into things quickly, she was the sort of character who's kind of easily taken advantage of in bad circumstances like camp, etc. She's attentionsexual, and I've gone on about that before. Chisame in canon isn't attracted to anyone--even her thing for Negi is still very subtextual and doesn't really have to be read that way. Her sexuality in camp came about through circumstances, mostly. She's weak to kindness and flattery and attention, and the people who gave her this attention were female, and persistent. She fell in love with one of them. She's not a very sexual person, and while she IS a bit more immediately attracted to men, she's attracted to both genders physically, on a rather low level. She doesn't do a lot of looking, so it pretty much depends on the person, not the gender.
That all came about because of her canon traits of being self-conscious and insecure about her appearance. So Chisame being bi isn't canon, but the personality that led to her attentionsexuality is, and camp circumstances got her involved with a woman rather than a man. Chisame is one of my characters where I didn't put her into camp with an idea of her preference in mind, and it just kinda worked out that way.
Makie was sort of interesting. In canon, Makie isn't really--she has her thing for Negi, she thinks he's awesome and cute and cool, and it's not exactly clear how much of that is romantic or sexual and how much is sisterly and GOD Negima is a confusing canon to play from sometimes. XD; Everything in Negima is VERY ambiguous. There are people who argue that the Setsuna -> Konoka thing is platonic, and the sad thing is, you CAN argue it, despite how heavy the "subtext" is. Makie's textual thing for Negi is very, you can argue it either way. Whether that's het text, or subtext, or nothing much at all.
What we do know about her is that she's very shameless, very friendly, doesn't have physical boundaries, is a very touchy person, loves everyone. When playing her, that's the kind of thing I took into account, rather than "Makie has ______ feelings for Negi, she is never shown to ________ with a girl or any other guy," etc. She struck me as the kind of character where she wasn't exactly serious about sex or romance or physicality yet, she was just playing around and being friendly and happy, but if she liked someone, their gender wouldn't even really register to her. Because that's the kind of person she is. She LOVES PEOPLE. She loves to touch people. So Makie ended up being bisexual or at least bicurious, but I might almost label her as pansexual or something instead, like Sora is. I just don't think she'd think about it at all.
Oh, and. Chisame has changed her views on sexuality in the sense that she . . . was pretty much asexual before camp. And camp changed this FAST and it was confusing and she was totally lost and humiliated, and then she slowly came to terms with it, so yeah, of all my characters she's done the most growth sexually. So far.
Makie and Shigure, camp didn't change anything.
. . . Shigure was difficult. He was one of those characters where popular fandom opinion is that he's gay or bi and such, because of his whole thing with Ayame and the jokes he makes about Kyou and Yuki and such, as well as the general situation of all the Jyuunishi, but the more I played him, the more I was kinda like "No, this is what I was thinking, but I really feel like he might be straight." I ended up settling on bi with female-leaning, because his canon subtext--yeah, it's heavy. But it's also done in a way that's not serious. Do I think he's really attracted to Ayame? No. I think they might have experimented in the past, and I don't think Shigure has anything AGAINST experimenting in the present with other men. But I don't think he likes men as much as fandom writes. I don't think it's a serious thing for him. He's attracted to men sometimes and will mess around with them and, yeah. It's EASIER to mess around with men, because of the curse. And Shigure likes him some sex. So he is bi. But the more I played him, I was just like "I don't like the way this is working out, his sexuality is confusing me--it's as shielded and ambiguous and false as everything else about him." It ended up being that a large part of his bisexuality was a front. A way to get intimacy without worrying about the curse . . . and without getting emotionally close to the person, because that kind of thing is reserved for Akito. And some of it was and is a way to make people uncomfortable, like his joking with Ayame.
I couldn't call Shigure straight because yeah he can and had fucked guys and enjoyed it and did find them attractive. But his main attraction lies with women, and anything else was pretty much self-serving and a way to amuse himself while still keeping the other person at arm's length, by sheer design of the relationship.
. . . I'm not sure what the point of that mini-essay was. XD; UH, SHIGURE WAS BI WITH FEMALE LEANINGS, I could have just said that. I think he was one instance where I went into playing him with one idea, a more fanon-y idea, one more influenced by my personal tastes and kinks, and came out of it greatly sobered and maybe kinda disturbed. Which is generally the case with anyone who, uh, gets to know Shigure as a character. 8D I've never regretted dropping him, alone of my six drops.
Evangeline. I've essayed on this a lot. Eva has canon het, and I say "unique life circumstances" because--she's over 1000 years old, she's evil, manipulative, lived on the fringes of society, is in a strange physical/hormonal situation, is a type of demon that's traditionally associated with sex . . . her sexuality was very interesting. XD; As with Greed, it was a circumstance where even though she has no explicit canon interest in women, I found it difficult to believe that anyone in her circumstances, having lived her kind of life--a thousand years as a mage in a world full of sex magic who survived by manipulating others and has a penchant for female servants dressed as maids--I found it impossible to believe that she had never had sex with a woman. XD
Is this my own personal bias coming in? Maybe. Fandom has different opinions. There are people who believe Eva's not really sexual at all/is virginal, and I find it hard to swallow, but there's an argument to be made. It's Negima! and everything is ambiguous. Eva being bi is just, it seemed like the most logical choice to me, and it's something I've read into her character ever since I was first introduced to her in volume 3. There is no text, but there is subtext, and beyond that, there's the sheer fact of what she IS and what her life has been like. So I played her as fully bisexual, despite the fact that no she is never shown coming on to a woman in canon (although there is non-official art done by an assistant of Akamatsu's that, uh, well) and I doubt she ever will be.
Asuna was straight. That was just--actually, considering my track record so far ("There's no canon and never will be but I think it's very possible based on this and this and this!"), and the fanfiction I've written, and my Negima! yuri ships, this was something of a surprise even to me. XD I think the reason it worked out that way is that Asuna's the only character I've ever played who has an established "type" and is given multiple instances of attraction to men in the manga, and does not have extenuating life circumstances the way Greed and Eva do. We KNOW what Asuna likes in a man. It comes up more than once. She doesn't really get any yuri subtext. She's just--very straight. And while my personal belief generally is that most people have the capacity to be attracted to either gender depending on circumstances, and while it's possible that Asuna may have been someday (and I think that if she were, she'd be like Makie, she wouldn't even question it and would be totally cool with it and open-minded and happy), it never came up.
So while I don't judge my characters' sexualities based on explicit canon alone, AS WE HAVE SEEN, in Asuna I had a case where she was a very ordinary teenage girl and the canon for her is a lot more extensive, and this probably contributed to the way I played her. I play everyone as pretty much open, and had I ever suddenly found Asuna being attracted to a girl in camp, I would have gone with it. But I doubt it ever would have happened.
Mutsumi's bisexuality is the most canon of anyone I've played. I would say it's pretty much totally canon, 100% obvious and out there. As with anything Akamatsu, it CAN be argued. But she kisses both Naru and Keitaro on the lips multiple times, she is set to go all the way with Naru while dressed as Keitaro, comes onto Naru very strongly while drunk, and she tells Naru at one point that she loves them both the same way. I would call her attraction to women canon. She doesn't comment on it flat-out, the way Mitsune does, and the way she states that she's attracted to Keitaro. But does she really have to? XD Mutsumi's bisexuality I never questioned, never had to think about. It's there in the manga. There isn't much to essay on. This is about as canon as Akamatsu gets with lesbianism.
Chao was strange. She's probably the least sexual Negima character, expect for those who have only gotten like 6 lines (HI ZAZIE). It's not her purpose in the series. We don't see her being attracted to anyone. She has relationships of--possibly some tenderness with Hakase and Ku Fei, but I don't really read them as sexual. Chao is . . . she's sociopathic and removed in a lot of ways. I can't and couldn't ever imagine her in a relationship. She has no interest in it; she's asexual. Or rather, she's not interested in people. I don't argue that she has no hormones, because she's an ordinary teenage girl in some ways and I'm sure she does. She's wanked before, etc. But she has no interest in experiencing that with another person.
But she's also manipulative and I have no doubt she would be willing to USE her sexuality to her benefit. If she could get someone on her side by seducing them, she would, and she would go all the way through with it, and she wouldn't hate it or anything. No matter what gender they were. So again, in canon she has no sexuality but her personality and her manipulative streak are such that I could call her . . . like, "functionally bisexual." She's sexual, just not for pleasure. It's all business. We see in the manga that she's willing to go to great lengths to get her way, she has a cold and analytical and scientific mind with little shame or care for others, and I think it follows from that that she'd have no problem using someone sexually to her benefit, so that's how I played her. She didn't exactly have any canon to go on.
Not that I, you know, DID play her. XD; OOPS.
And to catch up before I move on, none of Eva, Asuna, Mutsumi or Chao changed their sexuality or their views on sexuality in camp at all. 8D
Greed I think I pretty much covered earlier. Bi with female leanings, I explained why. He's like Eva in that I extrapolate his sexuality from his life circumstances and the sheer fact of what he is, not from canon. He has no canon gay. But I think the fact that he's Greed makes up for it. XD Yes he prefers women but he is Greed, he wants everything, he is manipulative, he has bitches, he LOVES SEX, he loves power and control, and yes he will fuck a man even though we never see him do it or even allude to doing it in the manga itself. I don't think that matters.
Miyako has been the hardest, actually. I spent awhile trying to decide her sexuality when it came up IC in that poll, which I ended up copping out of. Miyako isn't presented as sexual at all in PPD!. PPD! is a strange series in that there are JOKES about sexuality and relationships, there is random fanservice and cheesecake and lesbian pin-up shots and such, but there . . . are no real relationships. Kanchou/Ichijou and Nanjou -> Inugami are as canon as we get. So in one sense Miyako is presented as a sexual being, because she's presented in fanservice contexts sometimes, there's the +1 yuri joke, etc. And in another sense she's presented as a totally asexual being because she never shows interest in anyone of either gender sexually or romantically, or even in the concept of a relationship.
So there's no way to tell whether Miyako likes boys or girls. But I'm also reluctant to say she's asexual, because she's a normal teenage girl with normal hormones, no angst, no strange circumstances or weird past, she is shown in evocative outfits and poses, and so on. But yeah no real canon to go on except for the throwaway joke about being gay for Rokugou in that one episode. In fact Miyako probably has the LEAST canon to go on of anyone in that cast. And the series is over, so I don't have to worry about getting new info . . . or hope for it.
So my choice for Miyako is totally arbitrary, which is WHY I'm having trouble with it. XD; I was going to play her as straight, just as a novelty, because hello I have no straight characters! But I'm reluctant to do that, and the reason in this case is the canon itself. Miyako comes from a canon that is CHOCK FULL OF GAY SUBTEXT and gay jokes are made about her. As such, she has more gay subtext than het subtext, even if it's just one scene. I would feel strange making her completely straight because I'd be like " . . . Why? There's NO EVIDENCE." But there's no evidence for her liking girls either. It's just one throwaway joke and--yeah. XD
So I end up defaulting to bisexual again, which makes me worry about sexuality projection and, yeah. XD; Miyako's the only character I've played where not only does she not get a sexuality in canon, there are also no hints, and no character circumstances/personality traits/history that would lead me to believe that THIS is how she would react to someone sexually. It's 100% my choice, and that's actually very difficult to play.
For now, she's asexual, because I just don't foresee her becoming interested in anyone anytime soon. But she's asexual in the same sense as Chao was--not that she's without hormones, because she's not, although her level of them is VERY low. Just that she's not interested in relationships or sex. She has other things to focus on. She's a healthy girl, she's just . . . yeah. Doesn't care.
In the poll I put bicurious, because I think--I think she's MOSTLY straight but sometimes looks at girls kinda and she's nervous and embarrassed about it and not at all comfortable with that. This is just how I'm playing her right now. I think her sexuality is really something that will be shaped by camp, because right now she doesn't have much of one either in canon or in my mind, and I'm okay with that. It just makes things like this difficult to answer. XD Miyako's sexuality is still a bit beyond me. I'm not used to having such free reign with it, and I want to do it well and realistically, while at the same time--not really doing it at all, because it's not what Miyako is about, and I have my doubts that I'll EVER play with it. It should be an open issue, but not a focus. Only time will tell!
Tomo. Yeah. Azumanga Daioh is a strange case. There's no canon romance or sex at all, especially in the manga. Well, there's Kaorin -> Sakaki, and I've seen people argue that as platonic but uhhhhh, what? (I was pretty damn annoyed at the way ADV worded some liner notes about that, actually.) There are some random dates for Yukari and Nyamo in the anime version, and there's Kimura's perving, and yeah.
In this very very platonic series where no one has a love interest at all, Tomo is the most sexually presented of the girls, which I kinda find hilarious. XD And it was always something I liked about her. Because it's funny to have these deliberately sexually drawn characters like Yomi, Kagura, and especially Sakaki, and to have none of them ever make a sexual comment or advance in the entire series . . . and then you have flat-chested immature ridiculous Tomo who does things like beg her teachers to tell her about their sex lives and what sex is like, and talk about wanting to look sexy, and make penis jokes, and call people hookers, and have dreams about people being sexually attracted to her, and so on. She is the only character who brings it up, and she does so repeatedly. Once in awhile I get worried that her dirty mind is getting OOC, and then I go reread canon and usually I end up finding that she's even sleazier than I've been playing her. XD;
But when it comes to her actual sexuality. AD has no male characters her age. They just--they exist but only to throw out the occasional one-line gag. None have names or personalities. And Tomo does not make sexual comments about men, ever. We never hear her call one hot or express desire to have a boyfriend or anything.
Anything sexual that Tomo does that's directed at a PERSON in canon is . . . directed at a girl. This includes MANY, MAAANY comments on her friends' figures, the occasional eyerake, her fangirling of Fujiko, bedninjaing Sakaki, and other stuff that's less explicit like--there's a bit in one ep where she's talking about how she wants to buy a sexy bikini for a trip so she can look hot, but the trip she's going on only involves other girls seeing her in it so you're kind of like "What?" XD
But despite all that, I actually never read Tomo as being a lesbian. In part this is because, like I said, her series simply does not have men IN it. She doesn't perv on guys, because there are no guys to perv on. And everything she does do is also easy to read as being non-sexual. You can make a strong case for all of her stuff about Kagura's breasts and such being simple jealousy or lack of shame. And I think some of it is. But I also think it's pretty clear that uh, she looks at other girls. A whole lot. Whether it's comparative or not, she asks them about their bodies, she teases them about their bodies, she stares at their bodies, and she's very touchy with women in general (I was rereading the manga the other day and I've actually been underestimating just how much and how intimately Tomo touches people, hahaha).
So ever since I first read AD years and years ago, Tomo has been bisexual in my mind, possibly with a strong female leaning. You just--I would find it impossible to PLAY her as straight because, damn, come on. XD I COULD play her as a lesbian. But this is sort of where camp interaction starts taking over. Playing Tomo . . . she clicks more with boys. This confused me a lot at first, because in canon, every single one of her friends is female (again, because the CAST is female). She has no problem talking to boys, because we see her do it more than once, and she treats them no differently. So it's not that she's shy around them--I never had an issue with worrying about that. It was just strange that she kept clicking with them so immediately, and getting emotionally invested in them, and so on.
It felt natural, so I didn't worry about it. It was just something I noticed. I think this goes back to the first question of playing with gender roles in CFUD--Tomo is someone who doesn't really have one. I think I've said before that she doesn't identify closely as female, or male. She's just Tomo and she is awesome and knows it omg. BEYOND ALL GENDER 8D But in some ways she gets on better with guys, because their lifestyle is more similar to hers. I mean, Tomo is a "girl," stereotypically speaking, in some ways. Speaking in generalizations here lol. But yes she likes shopping and karaoke and sleepovers with friends and such. But in other very generalized ways, she's the most masculine in her class. She is physical, full of machismo, not easily affected emotionally, more interested in sex than romance, etc.
THESE ARE ALL STEREOTYPES YES AND NO OFFENSE IS MEANT TO ANYONE. XD; I don't actually believe that guys should act one way and girls another, or anything like that. But these are characters, fictional creations without complex or shifting internal and societal pressures, and when one is drawn in a certain way, I think it bears mentioning.
Anyway--WHY IS THIS SO LONG, I AM OFF TRACK. What I mean to say is that Tomo, despite her canon physical attraction (or so I read it) to women, got along better with men for various reasons, and started getting attached to some of them. And considering her pretty much asexual canon, and the rest of her character . . . to me, Tomo is really someone who would need to be GOOD friends with someone before becoming seriously attracted to them. In her canon her good friends were all girls. In camp this wasn't the case. Oops.
But actually, when I apped her, I wasn't planning on playing with Tomo's sexuality or romance at all. If you read like--her first three posts or so, she's very asexual. There are instances when she doesn't catch onto REALLY OBVIOUS innuendo and such. After a few posts, this started feeling OOC to me, because of how she acts about sex in canon. So I adjusted it quickly. Tomo was no longer an asexual character, which meant I had to deal with her physical attractions, which I'd been ignoring up to that point. I knew she was bisexual, but Tomo herself had never really thought about it. She assumed she was straight and you know, all that checking out and wanting to touch girls and thinking about it sometimes was just. Stuff. Meaningless. 8D
So yeah after prodding from Chizuru and Norma Tomo realized she was bi and started dealing with that, and I've moved her slowly from "really uncomfortable and embarrassed about it" to "having dealt with it and doesn't think much of it now, and likes girls openly." Hopefully this was a realistic progression. XD; She is still embarrassed to reveal it to anyone she knew BEFORE camp, like Yukari or Osaka. Camp is "safe" for that kind of thing, home was not. But she's dealing.
. . . And I was still planning on playing Tomo as romantically disinterested. Like, looks at guys, looks at girls, but just isn't INTO anyone beyond saying "lol he's hot." In that sense she was my asexual character. That lasted about three months. 8D And then one day I was threading la la laaaa and I was just suddenly like "Man it's nice having a character with no romantic entanglements! Ha ha HA! . . . Shit, she has a really big crush on Sano, doesn't she?" That took me by surprise and kinda bothered me. XD I wasn't--planning on that happening. With Tomo and ANYONE. Ever. So I sort of ignored it for like a week and then was like "Wow this isn't going away, what the hell" and that's how Tomo as a character with an actual sexual drive and romantic interest was born. 8D
I list Tomo as "bi" up in the poll, with no leaning one way or the other, but that's not quite accurate. What it really is is "Bi with a physical female lean and an emotional male lean." She's more attracted to the bodies of women and to the personalities of men. I attribute this to the fact that Tomo is kinda in love with herself. |D See? It makes sense.
So yeah. Tomo's sexuality is something I had in mind when I apped her, because of canon subtext and just the way I've ALWAYS read her character, but it's also something that's developed over time in camp, probably the most so of any character of mine except maybe Chisame. It's also NOT something I planned on playing with, but circumstances led to it becoming a part of her character.
As for whether HER views on sexuality have changed, yeah, definitely. She went from being sorta closeted and denial-ful to being open and cool with it and not even really thinking about it anymore, except for as it directly relates to her life at home, which is still an area that makes her very uncomfortable. "Will Yukarin make fun of me? DID I have a crush on Kagura? Yomi?" And so on. But her sexuality in general is something that she worries about people from home finding out about. Like, she has no issues telling a stranger that she sleeps in bed with Sano, but she is not going to tell Osaka that and would rather Osaka not find out, if possible. It's weird to her, because the two worlds are very separate in her mind.
And for the two I haven't covered yet, Greed's views on sexuality have not changed lol and Miyako hasn't been here long enough yet, but I suspect they will in the future.
* * *
>DDD As a super-secret bonus for those of you who read it all, and read it here instead of on CFO, here's the original log of me freaking out with Ari in PM back in April over Tomo stuff. 8D
Session Start: Sat Apr 08 17:29:25 2006
Ari do your characters ever do stupid things that YOU DON'T WANT TO GET INVOLVED IN, BUT THEY'RE IDIOTS AND ARGH XD
What happened? XD
And yes.
XD Oh god it's not just me whut. XD . . . Nothing happened, and. It's not something that will affect anything really but Tomo is being an idiot ahahah. XD;
. . . TOMO UR NOT SUPPOSED TO. LIKE PEOPLE. . . . THAT WAY. ._.
...what happened?
I just never planned on having Tomo crush on anyone and she kinda does. It's not conscious or a big deal but it's still like "argh go away."
...who?
I MUST KNOW
Norma? XD
._.
NO XD
...Sano?
. . . um. Sano.
>.>
.............HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
ITS THE SCAR
SH-SHUT UP XD
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
...well if I had girl characyers.
They'd crush on Sano too.
IT HURTS SO BAD, ARI
I DIDN'T PLAN IT OR WANT IT T^T
but then she was like <3.
IT HAPPENED
WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION
EXACTLY
XD And it's so bad because it's SANO wtf. AND TOMO. But. wow she likes him a whole lot.
hahahahahaha
Did you tell Sano? XD
No. XD HE SHOULD NEVER KNOW.
I WONT SQUEAL THEN
I DON'T WANT HIM TO WORRY I'M GONNA PURSUE IT XD
even though he can prolly already tell.
Hahahahaha maybe XD
every noogie is sekrit love for u Sano ._.
And then Hakkai was like "well you're not going to want to hear this but they're adorable" and I was like *SHOOTS*
hahahahahahaha
otp
* Ari WRITES FIC
XD I KEEL U
I thought it might be best to also paste that essay in its entirety here, as one unit. So this will be basically the same thing you're getting in that link, just . . . together, for my own future reference.
I'm so masochistic.
In general, I do worry about gender when it comes to playing men, which is why I don't often do it. Playing guys doesn't come naturally to me. Add in the fact that the two guys I've played have been 1. adults and 2. very sexual beings, and I have to put more thought into their voices. Shigure ended up being impossible for me for a lot of reasons, but I'm sure that contributed. I don't really feel like I fail with Greed (I HOPE?!), but he is my hardest character to play.
Overall though I worry more about voice in general than gender. If I have someone's voice down, the gender aspect will be a part of that, unless the character was ambiguously written ANYWAY, in which case I feel that's a more important IC aspect to focus on than "do they sound female?" For example, I know that Tomo is not really looked at as "a girl" by most of the campers. XD; This isn't something I do consciously, but it is something I feel is right for her. It's not actually commented upon in canon that Tomo is kinda . . . male-seeming, and she does have moments of femininity, but she does come off as the least "girly" of the main cast, so that's how she sounds in camp. Again I don't consciously play her as a tomboy. I just play her as she is in canon. Hopefully. :D
And if she comes off as a tomboy, if Greed comes off as male, if Mutsumi came off as very girly, that's something that's an aspect of the way the characters were written in canon, and not a conscious choice I made. But yeah, with Greed, there is some undefinable BLOCK there between my voice and his and I do my best to work with it and hope he doesn't come across as "A man that is being played by a woman who has played 80% women in this game." XD If he is, I do hope someone will call me on it.
I probably won't go into detail for everyone. I'll start generally: OOCly I am bisexual with a female leaning. It's. Not that I find it difficult to play straight characters at all; it's that I have difficulty believing characters to be 100% straight. Or 100% gay, for that matter. XD In that sense, yes, there is some sexuality projection that goes on. If I app a character I truly believe to be completely straight, I don't have an issue with playing it that way. Asuna, for example, the only character I've EVER played that I REALLY thought would probably never be sexually attracted to a girl--despite the fact that I've written yuri fanfiction of her, and ship her with 3 or 4 other girls from Negima!. XD Playing her, she was straight. That was just how she read to me, from day one.
But on the other hand, there's someone like Greed, who has LESS canon subtext with those of the same sex than Asuna does, and yet I felt that playing him as completely straight would actually be somewhat OOC. So when I "decide" a character's sexuality . . . sometimes it's a conscious decision (Greed), sometimes it just happens in the course of play (Chisame), and sometimes it's something I've believed about a character for as long as I've "known" them (Tomo).
And it doesn't always have anything to do with who they're attracted to in canon. This is probably because I almost never PLAY characters with established patterns of attraction or canon love interests. Even when I do--Eva, for example--I don't believe that just because a character never explicitly says "I'm bi" in canon means they're completely straight. I don't think there's any reason to think that. There are other factors to consider, such as canon circumstances, target audience, and the like.
Things I factor into a character's sexuality and how I portray it--yes, canon attractions and love interests are a big part of it. Like, it'd be very very stupid to try playing Greed as gay, because WHAT. XD His attraction to women is canon, and I won't discount canon. But I consider other things as well, like the universe the canon is set in, subtext, other aspects of that character that could imprint upon sexuality, etc.
Greed's still the best example here. In canon, we only see him express attraction to women. And I could play him as being straight. I sort of planned on it, actually. But when you think about it, Greed's 200 years old, he's hedonistic, he's manipulative, he has very very loyal male subordinates who call him "my Master," he likes sex A LOT, and his character is based on the fact that he WANTS EVERYTHING. So while a strictly textual reading of him would lead me to play him as straight, when I took all of that into account, I just couldn't IMAGINE the guy not having ever had sex with a man. It's not a matter of 'shipping him with any guys in camp, or my inner yaoi fangirl coming out. XD It's that while he is only shown manipulating women sexually, the rest of his character is such that I believe it's very likely that he would and has enjoyed sex with men as well. So I said "to Hell with it, he's bi."
So far I've played . . .
Chisame, who has no explicit canon sexuality but has het subtext, as bi (male-leaning);
Makie, who has no explicit canon sexuality but has het subtext, as PEOPLE-SEXUAL but also somewhat pre-sexual (bi-curious on the above poll);
Shigure, who has explicit canon het and gay canon subtext, as bi (female-leaning);
Evangeline, who has explicit canon het and unique life circumstances, as bi;
Asuna, who has explicit canon het, as straight;
Mutsumi, who has explicit canon bisexuality, as bi;
Tomo, who has canon gay subtext, as bi;
Chao, who has no canon sexual text OR subtext, as personally asexual but willing to use sexuality against either gender;
Greed, who has explicit canon het and unique life circumstances, as bi (female-leaning);
and Miyako, who has no canon sexuality, as mostly asexual but ultimately bi-curious (in the poll).
Chisame I've essayed on a lot. None of it has changed. My choice of her sexuality was probably the most arbitrary of any of my characters; when I apped her, she had no canon text or subtext at ALL, she was my first character, she was thrown into things quickly, she was the sort of character who's kind of easily taken advantage of in bad circumstances like camp, etc. She's attentionsexual, and I've gone on about that before. Chisame in canon isn't attracted to anyone--even her thing for Negi is still very subtextual and doesn't really have to be read that way. Her sexuality in camp came about through circumstances, mostly. She's weak to kindness and flattery and attention, and the people who gave her this attention were female, and persistent. She fell in love with one of them. She's not a very sexual person, and while she IS a bit more immediately attracted to men, she's attracted to both genders physically, on a rather low level. She doesn't do a lot of looking, so it pretty much depends on the person, not the gender.
That all came about because of her canon traits of being self-conscious and insecure about her appearance. So Chisame being bi isn't canon, but the personality that led to her attentionsexuality is, and camp circumstances got her involved with a woman rather than a man. Chisame is one of my characters where I didn't put her into camp with an idea of her preference in mind, and it just kinda worked out that way.
Makie was sort of interesting. In canon, Makie isn't really--she has her thing for Negi, she thinks he's awesome and cute and cool, and it's not exactly clear how much of that is romantic or sexual and how much is sisterly and GOD Negima is a confusing canon to play from sometimes. XD; Everything in Negima is VERY ambiguous. There are people who argue that the Setsuna -> Konoka thing is platonic, and the sad thing is, you CAN argue it, despite how heavy the "subtext" is. Makie's textual thing for Negi is very, you can argue it either way. Whether that's het text, or subtext, or nothing much at all.
What we do know about her is that she's very shameless, very friendly, doesn't have physical boundaries, is a very touchy person, loves everyone. When playing her, that's the kind of thing I took into account, rather than "Makie has ______ feelings for Negi, she is never shown to ________ with a girl or any other guy," etc. She struck me as the kind of character where she wasn't exactly serious about sex or romance or physicality yet, she was just playing around and being friendly and happy, but if she liked someone, their gender wouldn't even really register to her. Because that's the kind of person she is. She LOVES PEOPLE. She loves to touch people. So Makie ended up being bisexual or at least bicurious, but I might almost label her as pansexual or something instead, like Sora is. I just don't think she'd think about it at all.
Oh, and. Chisame has changed her views on sexuality in the sense that she . . . was pretty much asexual before camp. And camp changed this FAST and it was confusing and she was totally lost and humiliated, and then she slowly came to terms with it, so yeah, of all my characters she's done the most growth sexually. So far.
Makie and Shigure, camp didn't change anything.
. . . Shigure was difficult. He was one of those characters where popular fandom opinion is that he's gay or bi and such, because of his whole thing with Ayame and the jokes he makes about Kyou and Yuki and such, as well as the general situation of all the Jyuunishi, but the more I played him, the more I was kinda like "No, this is what I was thinking, but I really feel like he might be straight." I ended up settling on bi with female-leaning, because his canon subtext--yeah, it's heavy. But it's also done in a way that's not serious. Do I think he's really attracted to Ayame? No. I think they might have experimented in the past, and I don't think Shigure has anything AGAINST experimenting in the present with other men. But I don't think he likes men as much as fandom writes. I don't think it's a serious thing for him. He's attracted to men sometimes and will mess around with them and, yeah. It's EASIER to mess around with men, because of the curse. And Shigure likes him some sex. So he is bi. But the more I played him, I was just like "I don't like the way this is working out, his sexuality is confusing me--it's as shielded and ambiguous and false as everything else about him." It ended up being that a large part of his bisexuality was a front. A way to get intimacy without worrying about the curse . . . and without getting emotionally close to the person, because that kind of thing is reserved for Akito. And some of it was and is a way to make people uncomfortable, like his joking with Ayame.
I couldn't call Shigure straight because yeah he can and had fucked guys and enjoyed it and did find them attractive. But his main attraction lies with women, and anything else was pretty much self-serving and a way to amuse himself while still keeping the other person at arm's length, by sheer design of the relationship.
. . . I'm not sure what the point of that mini-essay was. XD; UH, SHIGURE WAS BI WITH FEMALE LEANINGS, I could have just said that. I think he was one instance where I went into playing him with one idea, a more fanon-y idea, one more influenced by my personal tastes and kinks, and came out of it greatly sobered and maybe kinda disturbed. Which is generally the case with anyone who, uh, gets to know Shigure as a character. 8D I've never regretted dropping him, alone of my six drops.
Evangeline. I've essayed on this a lot. Eva has canon het, and I say "unique life circumstances" because--she's over 1000 years old, she's evil, manipulative, lived on the fringes of society, is in a strange physical/hormonal situation, is a type of demon that's traditionally associated with sex . . . her sexuality was very interesting. XD; As with Greed, it was a circumstance where even though she has no explicit canon interest in women, I found it difficult to believe that anyone in her circumstances, having lived her kind of life--a thousand years as a mage in a world full of sex magic who survived by manipulating others and has a penchant for female servants dressed as maids--I found it impossible to believe that she had never had sex with a woman. XD
Is this my own personal bias coming in? Maybe. Fandom has different opinions. There are people who believe Eva's not really sexual at all/is virginal, and I find it hard to swallow, but there's an argument to be made. It's Negima! and everything is ambiguous. Eva being bi is just, it seemed like the most logical choice to me, and it's something I've read into her character ever since I was first introduced to her in volume 3. There is no text, but there is subtext, and beyond that, there's the sheer fact of what she IS and what her life has been like. So I played her as fully bisexual, despite the fact that no she is never shown coming on to a woman in canon (although there is non-official art done by an assistant of Akamatsu's that, uh, well) and I doubt she ever will be.
Asuna was straight. That was just--actually, considering my track record so far ("There's no canon and never will be but I think it's very possible based on this and this and this!"), and the fanfiction I've written, and my Negima! yuri ships, this was something of a surprise even to me. XD I think the reason it worked out that way is that Asuna's the only character I've ever played who has an established "type" and is given multiple instances of attraction to men in the manga, and does not have extenuating life circumstances the way Greed and Eva do. We KNOW what Asuna likes in a man. It comes up more than once. She doesn't really get any yuri subtext. She's just--very straight. And while my personal belief generally is that most people have the capacity to be attracted to either gender depending on circumstances, and while it's possible that Asuna may have been someday (and I think that if she were, she'd be like Makie, she wouldn't even question it and would be totally cool with it and open-minded and happy), it never came up.
So while I don't judge my characters' sexualities based on explicit canon alone, AS WE HAVE SEEN, in Asuna I had a case where she was a very ordinary teenage girl and the canon for her is a lot more extensive, and this probably contributed to the way I played her. I play everyone as pretty much open, and had I ever suddenly found Asuna being attracted to a girl in camp, I would have gone with it. But I doubt it ever would have happened.
Mutsumi's bisexuality is the most canon of anyone I've played. I would say it's pretty much totally canon, 100% obvious and out there. As with anything Akamatsu, it CAN be argued. But she kisses both Naru and Keitaro on the lips multiple times, she is set to go all the way with Naru while dressed as Keitaro, comes onto Naru very strongly while drunk, and she tells Naru at one point that she loves them both the same way. I would call her attraction to women canon. She doesn't comment on it flat-out, the way Mitsune does, and the way she states that she's attracted to Keitaro. But does she really have to? XD Mutsumi's bisexuality I never questioned, never had to think about. It's there in the manga. There isn't much to essay on. This is about as canon as Akamatsu gets with lesbianism.
Chao was strange. She's probably the least sexual Negima character, expect for those who have only gotten like 6 lines (HI ZAZIE). It's not her purpose in the series. We don't see her being attracted to anyone. She has relationships of--possibly some tenderness with Hakase and Ku Fei, but I don't really read them as sexual. Chao is . . . she's sociopathic and removed in a lot of ways. I can't and couldn't ever imagine her in a relationship. She has no interest in it; she's asexual. Or rather, she's not interested in people. I don't argue that she has no hormones, because she's an ordinary teenage girl in some ways and I'm sure she does. She's wanked before, etc. But she has no interest in experiencing that with another person.
But she's also manipulative and I have no doubt she would be willing to USE her sexuality to her benefit. If she could get someone on her side by seducing them, she would, and she would go all the way through with it, and she wouldn't hate it or anything. No matter what gender they were. So again, in canon she has no sexuality but her personality and her manipulative streak are such that I could call her . . . like, "functionally bisexual." She's sexual, just not for pleasure. It's all business. We see in the manga that she's willing to go to great lengths to get her way, she has a cold and analytical and scientific mind with little shame or care for others, and I think it follows from that that she'd have no problem using someone sexually to her benefit, so that's how I played her. She didn't exactly have any canon to go on.
Not that I, you know, DID play her. XD; OOPS.
And to catch up before I move on, none of Eva, Asuna, Mutsumi or Chao changed their sexuality or their views on sexuality in camp at all. 8D
Greed I think I pretty much covered earlier. Bi with female leanings, I explained why. He's like Eva in that I extrapolate his sexuality from his life circumstances and the sheer fact of what he is, not from canon. He has no canon gay. But I think the fact that he's Greed makes up for it. XD Yes he prefers women but he is Greed, he wants everything, he is manipulative, he has bitches, he LOVES SEX, he loves power and control, and yes he will fuck a man even though we never see him do it or even allude to doing it in the manga itself. I don't think that matters.
Miyako has been the hardest, actually. I spent awhile trying to decide her sexuality when it came up IC in that poll, which I ended up copping out of. Miyako isn't presented as sexual at all in PPD!. PPD! is a strange series in that there are JOKES about sexuality and relationships, there is random fanservice and cheesecake and lesbian pin-up shots and such, but there . . . are no real relationships. Kanchou/Ichijou and Nanjou -> Inugami are as canon as we get. So in one sense Miyako is presented as a sexual being, because she's presented in fanservice contexts sometimes, there's the +1 yuri joke, etc. And in another sense she's presented as a totally asexual being because she never shows interest in anyone of either gender sexually or romantically, or even in the concept of a relationship.
So there's no way to tell whether Miyako likes boys or girls. But I'm also reluctant to say she's asexual, because she's a normal teenage girl with normal hormones, no angst, no strange circumstances or weird past, she is shown in evocative outfits and poses, and so on. But yeah no real canon to go on except for the throwaway joke about being gay for Rokugou in that one episode. In fact Miyako probably has the LEAST canon to go on of anyone in that cast. And the series is over, so I don't have to worry about getting new info . . . or hope for it.
So my choice for Miyako is totally arbitrary, which is WHY I'm having trouble with it. XD; I was going to play her as straight, just as a novelty, because hello I have no straight characters! But I'm reluctant to do that, and the reason in this case is the canon itself. Miyako comes from a canon that is CHOCK FULL OF GAY SUBTEXT and gay jokes are made about her. As such, she has more gay subtext than het subtext, even if it's just one scene. I would feel strange making her completely straight because I'd be like " . . . Why? There's NO EVIDENCE." But there's no evidence for her liking girls either. It's just one throwaway joke and--yeah. XD
So I end up defaulting to bisexual again, which makes me worry about sexuality projection and, yeah. XD; Miyako's the only character I've played where not only does she not get a sexuality in canon, there are also no hints, and no character circumstances/personality traits/history that would lead me to believe that THIS is how she would react to someone sexually. It's 100% my choice, and that's actually very difficult to play.
For now, she's asexual, because I just don't foresee her becoming interested in anyone anytime soon. But she's asexual in the same sense as Chao was--not that she's without hormones, because she's not, although her level of them is VERY low. Just that she's not interested in relationships or sex. She has other things to focus on. She's a healthy girl, she's just . . . yeah. Doesn't care.
In the poll I put bicurious, because I think--I think she's MOSTLY straight but sometimes looks at girls kinda and she's nervous and embarrassed about it and not at all comfortable with that. This is just how I'm playing her right now. I think her sexuality is really something that will be shaped by camp, because right now she doesn't have much of one either in canon or in my mind, and I'm okay with that. It just makes things like this difficult to answer. XD Miyako's sexuality is still a bit beyond me. I'm not used to having such free reign with it, and I want to do it well and realistically, while at the same time--not really doing it at all, because it's not what Miyako is about, and I have my doubts that I'll EVER play with it. It should be an open issue, but not a focus. Only time will tell!
Tomo. Yeah. Azumanga Daioh is a strange case. There's no canon romance or sex at all, especially in the manga. Well, there's Kaorin -> Sakaki, and I've seen people argue that as platonic but uhhhhh, what? (I was pretty damn annoyed at the way ADV worded some liner notes about that, actually.) There are some random dates for Yukari and Nyamo in the anime version, and there's Kimura's perving, and yeah.
In this very very platonic series where no one has a love interest at all, Tomo is the most sexually presented of the girls, which I kinda find hilarious. XD And it was always something I liked about her. Because it's funny to have these deliberately sexually drawn characters like Yomi, Kagura, and especially Sakaki, and to have none of them ever make a sexual comment or advance in the entire series . . . and then you have flat-chested immature ridiculous Tomo who does things like beg her teachers to tell her about their sex lives and what sex is like, and talk about wanting to look sexy, and make penis jokes, and call people hookers, and have dreams about people being sexually attracted to her, and so on. She is the only character who brings it up, and she does so repeatedly. Once in awhile I get worried that her dirty mind is getting OOC, and then I go reread canon and usually I end up finding that she's even sleazier than I've been playing her. XD;
But when it comes to her actual sexuality. AD has no male characters her age. They just--they exist but only to throw out the occasional one-line gag. None have names or personalities. And Tomo does not make sexual comments about men, ever. We never hear her call one hot or express desire to have a boyfriend or anything.
Anything sexual that Tomo does that's directed at a PERSON in canon is . . . directed at a girl. This includes MANY, MAAANY comments on her friends' figures, the occasional eyerake, her fangirling of Fujiko, bedninjaing Sakaki, and other stuff that's less explicit like--there's a bit in one ep where she's talking about how she wants to buy a sexy bikini for a trip so she can look hot, but the trip she's going on only involves other girls seeing her in it so you're kind of like "What?" XD
But despite all that, I actually never read Tomo as being a lesbian. In part this is because, like I said, her series simply does not have men IN it. She doesn't perv on guys, because there are no guys to perv on. And everything she does do is also easy to read as being non-sexual. You can make a strong case for all of her stuff about Kagura's breasts and such being simple jealousy or lack of shame. And I think some of it is. But I also think it's pretty clear that uh, she looks at other girls. A whole lot. Whether it's comparative or not, she asks them about their bodies, she teases them about their bodies, she stares at their bodies, and she's very touchy with women in general (I was rereading the manga the other day and I've actually been underestimating just how much and how intimately Tomo touches people, hahaha).
So ever since I first read AD years and years ago, Tomo has been bisexual in my mind, possibly with a strong female leaning. You just--I would find it impossible to PLAY her as straight because, damn, come on. XD I COULD play her as a lesbian. But this is sort of where camp interaction starts taking over. Playing Tomo . . . she clicks more with boys. This confused me a lot at first, because in canon, every single one of her friends is female (again, because the CAST is female). She has no problem talking to boys, because we see her do it more than once, and she treats them no differently. So it's not that she's shy around them--I never had an issue with worrying about that. It was just strange that she kept clicking with them so immediately, and getting emotionally invested in them, and so on.
It felt natural, so I didn't worry about it. It was just something I noticed. I think this goes back to the first question of playing with gender roles in CFUD--Tomo is someone who doesn't really have one. I think I've said before that she doesn't identify closely as female, or male. She's just Tomo and she is awesome and knows it omg. BEYOND ALL GENDER 8D But in some ways she gets on better with guys, because their lifestyle is more similar to hers. I mean, Tomo is a "girl," stereotypically speaking, in some ways. Speaking in generalizations here lol. But yes she likes shopping and karaoke and sleepovers with friends and such. But in other very generalized ways, she's the most masculine in her class. She is physical, full of machismo, not easily affected emotionally, more interested in sex than romance, etc.
THESE ARE ALL STEREOTYPES YES AND NO OFFENSE IS MEANT TO ANYONE. XD; I don't actually believe that guys should act one way and girls another, or anything like that. But these are characters, fictional creations without complex or shifting internal and societal pressures, and when one is drawn in a certain way, I think it bears mentioning.
Anyway--WHY IS THIS SO LONG, I AM OFF TRACK. What I mean to say is that Tomo, despite her canon physical attraction (or so I read it) to women, got along better with men for various reasons, and started getting attached to some of them. And considering her pretty much asexual canon, and the rest of her character . . . to me, Tomo is really someone who would need to be GOOD friends with someone before becoming seriously attracted to them. In her canon her good friends were all girls. In camp this wasn't the case. Oops.
But actually, when I apped her, I wasn't planning on playing with Tomo's sexuality or romance at all. If you read like--her first three posts or so, she's very asexual. There are instances when she doesn't catch onto REALLY OBVIOUS innuendo and such. After a few posts, this started feeling OOC to me, because of how she acts about sex in canon. So I adjusted it quickly. Tomo was no longer an asexual character, which meant I had to deal with her physical attractions, which I'd been ignoring up to that point. I knew she was bisexual, but Tomo herself had never really thought about it. She assumed she was straight and you know, all that checking out and wanting to touch girls and thinking about it sometimes was just. Stuff. Meaningless. 8D
So yeah after prodding from Chizuru and Norma Tomo realized she was bi and started dealing with that, and I've moved her slowly from "really uncomfortable and embarrassed about it" to "having dealt with it and doesn't think much of it now, and likes girls openly." Hopefully this was a realistic progression. XD; She is still embarrassed to reveal it to anyone she knew BEFORE camp, like Yukari or Osaka. Camp is "safe" for that kind of thing, home was not. But she's dealing.
. . . And I was still planning on playing Tomo as romantically disinterested. Like, looks at guys, looks at girls, but just isn't INTO anyone beyond saying "lol he's hot." In that sense she was my asexual character. That lasted about three months. 8D And then one day I was threading la la laaaa and I was just suddenly like "Man it's nice having a character with no romantic entanglements! Ha ha HA! . . . Shit, she has a really big crush on Sano, doesn't she?" That took me by surprise and kinda bothered me. XD I wasn't--planning on that happening. With Tomo and ANYONE. Ever. So I sort of ignored it for like a week and then was like "Wow this isn't going away, what the hell" and that's how Tomo as a character with an actual sexual drive and romantic interest was born. 8D
I list Tomo as "bi" up in the poll, with no leaning one way or the other, but that's not quite accurate. What it really is is "Bi with a physical female lean and an emotional male lean." She's more attracted to the bodies of women and to the personalities of men. I attribute this to the fact that Tomo is kinda in love with herself. |D See? It makes sense.
So yeah. Tomo's sexuality is something I had in mind when I apped her, because of canon subtext and just the way I've ALWAYS read her character, but it's also something that's developed over time in camp, probably the most so of any character of mine except maybe Chisame. It's also NOT something I planned on playing with, but circumstances led to it becoming a part of her character.
As for whether HER views on sexuality have changed, yeah, definitely. She went from being sorta closeted and denial-ful to being open and cool with it and not even really thinking about it anymore, except for as it directly relates to her life at home, which is still an area that makes her very uncomfortable. "Will Yukarin make fun of me? DID I have a crush on Kagura? Yomi?" And so on. But her sexuality in general is something that she worries about people from home finding out about. Like, she has no issues telling a stranger that she sleeps in bed with Sano, but she is not going to tell Osaka that and would rather Osaka not find out, if possible. It's weird to her, because the two worlds are very separate in her mind.
And for the two I haven't covered yet, Greed's views on sexuality have not changed lol and Miyako hasn't been here long enough yet, but I suspect they will in the future.
* * *
>DDD As a super-secret bonus for those of you who read it all, and read it here instead of on CFO, here's the original log of me freaking out with Ari in PM back in April over Tomo stuff. 8D
Session Start: Sat Apr 08 17:29:25 2006
Ari do your characters ever do stupid things that YOU DON'T WANT TO GET INVOLVED IN, BUT THEY'RE IDIOTS AND ARGH XD
What happened? XD
And yes.
XD Oh god it's not just me whut. XD . . . Nothing happened, and. It's not something that will affect anything really but Tomo is being an idiot ahahah. XD;
. . . TOMO UR NOT SUPPOSED TO. LIKE PEOPLE. . . . THAT WAY. ._.
...what happened?
I just never planned on having Tomo crush on anyone and she kinda does. It's not conscious or a big deal but it's still like "argh go away."
...who?
I MUST KNOW
Norma? XD
._.
NO XD
...Sano?
. . . um. Sano.
>.>
.............HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
ITS THE SCAR
SH-SHUT UP XD
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
...well if I had girl characyers.
They'd crush on Sano too.
IT HURTS SO BAD, ARI
I DIDN'T PLAN IT OR WANT IT T^T
but then she was like <3.
IT HAPPENED
WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION
EXACTLY
XD And it's so bad because it's SANO wtf. AND TOMO. But. wow she likes him a whole lot.
hahahahahaha
Did you tell Sano? XD
No. XD HE SHOULD NEVER KNOW.
I WONT SQUEAL THEN
I DON'T WANT HIM TO WORRY I'M GONNA PURSUE IT XD
even though he can prolly already tell.
Hahahahaha maybe XD
every noogie is sekrit love for u Sano ._.
And then Hakkai was like "well you're not going to want to hear this but they're adorable" and I was like *SHOOTS*
hahahahahahaha
otp
* Ari WRITES FIC
XD I KEEL U