(no subject)

[playingdoctor]

So, here's the story. I have been allowed in one of my class ("Play", discussing performance theory, including issues of identity performance etc) to use CFUD as my primary text for my final paper. This is super cool and I want to do it.

I would also really like your help gathering general camper statistics so I'm not just assuming things.

My paper is gonna be on performative gender roles in the (ungendered? need to find some sources on this) realm of the internet, with a focus through RP.

First, some general statistic stuff. 'Someone who doesn't fit easily into a binary gender structure' would include people like, oh, Ranma, the Wraeththu, and probably Marius (although, I understand, PCness, the phrasing could be different but, ah, I mean by 'binary gender structure' that 'Male Sex goes along with Male Gender' and 'Female Sex goes along with Female Gender'. Obviously it doesn't always work like this, hence the other options. The 'none of the above' option is for transgendered, gender queer, etc etc players or audience... again, I could list them all individually, and I don't want to offend anyone by 'lumping them together' but LJ polls are fairly limited and if you're comfortable discussing it I would, as mentioned, prefer specificity in the comments or email. I can be emailed at harukami[at]gmail[dot]com.)

[Poll #710687]


Other than that, if you could comment to me (or email, if you're not comfortable sharing, but comments are preferred) regarding the following, I'd be very interested in hearing:

Please talk to me about your experiences reading and/or performing gender roles in CFUD. Do you (or do you not) feel it's important to portray gender realistically -- ie, so people will read a post and can say "A guy could believably say that' or 'a girl could believably say that', or does that not matter? More or less than other aspects of ICness? Have you genderswitched your character at any point? If so, what criteria did you use for changes in behaviour, if any? Has your character (or the player, of course) changed his or her views on gender via interactions with other characters? And many other things -- you don't need to answer those specifically, and if you think of other aspects of gender you'd like to talk about, please do. I just wanted to ask a few questions to get discussion started if possible.

Thanks so much if you fill this out. It's a lot of help!

Comments

[loves-trees.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about playing female characters is that I don't really ever find myself worrying about gender-- though I do worry about how I'm portraying sexuality, which is an offshoot of that, I guess. I worry more about ICness than that, though.

Uh... I'll definitely think of more, since it's morning and I have the video games a-playin', but just to mention, I haven't genderswitched either, though it might be fun at some point, and I also wanted to mention that this is in actual fact my first time in an LJ-based RPG playing female characters. ♥

Also, I should probably babble in these comments about Mori's reaction to Ueki's genderswitch, note to self.

(Also? I love you for starting this discussion. EEE. ♥ Watch me stalk the comments.)

[loves-trees.livejournal.com]

Okay, time for more. First of all, since Tomo's comment reminded me, the bodyswitch with Robert-- that I guess technically counts as genderswitch, but I really didn't focus too much on that aspect. Whenever Mori said, "I don't like being a boy," it was really, "I don't like having other people treat me differently, being Robert kinda sucks, nobody reacts to me as me, and Rinko-chan freaked out when I hugged her," which is... mostly more Robert-specific than boy-specific, in her mind, at least. (Let's face it, turning into the boy your best female friend has an unrequited, awkward crush on? Not fun!) And the best part about that was that Ueki didn't treat her any differently-- just Robert-in-Mori's-body.

There were some other fun aspects to that, but again, not having to do with gender, so let's move along.

Mori has a similar aspect to Chisame, in that she has more "masculine," (less formal, etc) speech patterns that are really hard to translate into English. More than that, in Japanese, most of the time she uses the more gender neutral "watashi," but in critical moments of personal failure, switches to "atashi," an aspect I find fascinating but again can't play with at camp. I generally translate her speech patterns into the way she treats all strangers the same, has no problems bossing people around, etc.

Definitely the hardest aspect for me was, "can I play a straight girl?" and I still don't know if I'm pulling it off, since Law of Ueki is a goofy shounen series where Mori is given little to no overt sexuality... but that doesn't mean that she has none. I tend to focus on her Ueki fixation because it's easier for me as a player not to have to deal with, "what other types would she be attracted to?" It helps that we see her again at fifteen and she hasn't spontaneously developed either a boyfriend or said overt sexuality. I wouldn't worry about this, except... well, as for the gender aspect, most of the girls in manga I read do tend to have their boy-crazy moments or blatant crushes. I don't think I would have been able to pull off Rinko, for example... because her crush is canon, it is dealt with, whereas with Mori I can just rely on the interactions themselves and let her deny it all the way, if that makes any sense. I still worry about her interactions with other guys that she doesn't have a canon basis for, but... I try not to.

Norma, in that aspect, is a lot easier despite her overt sexuality, or because of it. Norma flirts, matchmakes, all that silly goofy stuff typically attributed to girls, but she's such a strong character in herself that I can just work on instinct. Agh, none of this makes any sense, does it?

I guess what I'm saying is that for both characters, unlike in my experiences with other RPGs (where I played characters that I had to give at least some backstory myself and thus DID worry about whether they were appropriately masculine by their society's rules), I can set that aside and focus on the characters.

As for Mori's reaction to Ueki's genderswitch, uh. Yeah. There was a lot of freaking out about that, because it was Ueki and she recognized that, but at the same time, female friend instead of male friend, and, with friends, she does give girls honorifics, she'll be more cutesy at them, that sort of thing. With guys she's generally more businesslike, with Ueki, she'll go above and beyond all of that, and with the added weirdness of having your crush change genders? That was really fun to play with. He changed back quickly enough that Mori didn't really have to think about it, but it's in the back of her mind and may have, in some small way, influenced the way she reacts to people at camp.

....god that made no sense and is mostly irrelevant. Note how I reply anyway. If I think of anything else, I'll share! ...again! |D

[the-wildcat.livejournal.com]

YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE TO TALK.

I'm female and have played 7 females and 1 male. My male character was by far the hardest and least enjoyable to play, but I don't know if there's an actual correlation there--I mean, there's so much else about Shigure that makes him difficult. XD;

When I was playing him, I was so paranoid about getting his INCREDIBLY COMPLICATED CHARACTER wrong that I didn't do much thinking along the lines of "Is this something a man would do?" At least, not consciously. I think it was there in the back of my mind, though. I worried about his sexuality and ICness a hell of a lot, but all of these things were intertwined. Worrying about whether Sohma Shigure would do _______ was more a part of my playing than worrying about whether a man would do _________. I suppose in a way--if I'd done something with him that was IC but not realistic gender-wise, I'd consider that a failing of his original character, and not on my own part.

For whatever reason, he was absolutely impossible to play, and I haven't played a man since.

Playing females--as Mori said, I don't worry about gender too much, although I do worry about sexuality. I worry about keeping them IC, for the most part.

One thing that's difficult is that I know that in the original Japanese, Chisame has very masculine speech patterns, and I find that I have no idea how to portray this in English. First of all, I didn't know this fact until I'd been playing her for like 6 months, heh. And after I found out, I was at a loss as to how to make her come off as masculine and rude. This might also be a Japanese/English issue, because I've also never seen a translation, official or otherwise, that really captures that about her voice. It's a speech pattern thing, and I feel like I SHOULD be able to portray it, but it doesn't come across. And so I gave up on it. I like to think my Chisame is still IC, but this is an aspect of her character that I can't portray as I should, I guess.

But it's not a problem with Tomo. Most characters at CFUD will say, I think, that Tomo doesn't register as female on their radars, and this is pretty much exactly how it should be. XD I've never had a problem with it--it's an aspect of her character and so, again, if I'm being IC, the semi-tomboy personality will take care of itself, or so I hope. It doesn't occur to me when I'm commenting. On the other hand, I can Tomo on autopilot for hours--not something I can do with all of my characters. So actually, there's not much that DOES occur to me when I'm playing her. XD

Evangeline's gender and sexuality are so twisted and fucked up because of what she is that whether or not she sounds female is usually the last thing on my mind, and Chao is possibly the least sexualized character in Negima! (surprisingly), so. . . . Really, with my female characters, I never think of it, because I'm female and they're female. Especially when it comes to my current characters.

With Asuna, it was marginally more on my mind, probably because--Asuna didn't have a "hook" of ICness. You know, I can generally give myself a mental checklist. "Tomo is energetic, careless, egotistical, dirty-minded, check check check. Okay, I'm IC." Asuna's a very three-dimensional character, the most so that I've played, and while she wasn't difficult to jump into, there was more conscious effort there wrt "Am I playing a realistic person? Am I playing a realistic 15-year-old girl?" Because in canon, she IS so realistic. And so in a way, asking myself "Is Asuna realistic here?" was a way of asking if she was IC. This isn't something I can do with Tomo, or Chao, or Eva. So--yes, with her, it was something I thought about. Because to me, she's a very real person. Her femininity is very unlike mine. I would say it popped into my head in a way it hasn't with any other character.

This is probably already over the limit. MORE FORTHCOMING.

[the-wildcat.livejournal.com]

Moreso than wondering about my characters' own gender identities and portrayals, I wonder about their gender relations. This is sort of--there's a question here that's possibly unique to me in this game, in that I've played seven girls and EVERY SINGLE ONE has come from a series in which they NEVER interact regularily with more than one male. And yet here in camp, men outnumber women. So I have Tomo, who is seen speaking with a male her age only once in her entire canon, and she comes to camp and--all her friends are male. I've asked myself this about many of my characters, but Tomo most of all. I have to extend their interactions with one guy and make that apply to the entire gender. SHOULD they treat men and women differently? Because realistically speaking, they would. I don't know if ANY 15-year-old girl treats their male peers exactly the same as their female peers. But it keeps coming out that way anyway, for me. Maybe not with Chisame exactly. There are slight differences there. But with the others, there is none. That might not be entirely realistic, and I worry about it sometimes, but I do think it's IC, I base these reactions off of canon.

I guess what I'm saying is that, again, I worry more about ICness and canon limitations here than what a "real" girl might do if they were in a camp surrounded by men.

Genderswitching I've never done. Chisame's bodyswitched with males twice; in both cases, she ended up kissing another man and sort of cheating on Chizuru. This isn't something I do consciously. XD I'm not like "Oh Chisame has a penis now let's make her go for the guys." Although ICly, she HAS blamed that for those occurrences, but it's untrue, and I don't deliberately play it that way. Still--fact remains that she's two for two when it comes to having a dick = infidelity.

I didn't consciously play her differently in either case.

Hmm, what else? I know I'll think of more. |D There's so much more I could say about sexual identity and maybe I'll essay about it now that it's on my mind, but I'm not sure how useful it'd be to your essay, so!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_superdork_/]

Sorry -- clicked before I thought to sign in as a me account.

This was the girl_starfish Kon, although I know Mikke is also a girl.

Anyway, my thoughts:

I have high standards for myself as a writer, and this carries over into RP (oh, how posh I sound). When I first started playing Kon, I worried a lot over whether he sounded enough like a teenage guy -- I also worried that he didn't sound American enough, or immature enough -- he's American, male, sixteen, none of which I myself am! I'm also not really up on pop culture, which makes things difficult. As I got a handle on Kon and played him more frequently, I worried less about it -- until he got into a relationship with Buffy. Then I worried whether he was too hormone-driven, not driven enough -- again, once I'd been the relationship a while, I think I got a good balance going. I still worry about it occasionally, but more in terms of 'they've been a couple over six months. how can we keep this fresh and interesting?' rather than 'is this realistic?'

Minagawa, gender was an issue again, one because he's an older male, two, because his canon is rather vague. Minagawa is short and delicate looking, and has appeared in a very middle-aged-woman kind of yukata a few times in the manga, although in a parody story. It's rather hard to describe his voice, but from the one drama CD I listened to, I got the impression that he's a very feminine guy, giving his co-workers cute nicknames and flirting with the new guy. He's confident in himself, and can be cruel, harsh, even very scary when he feels like it. Most of his co-workers are a little scared of him. The way I see it Minagawa's not afraid to bend social norms, and acts like he feels like acting. How that fits in traditional gender roles is hard to say. In camp, he's flirted with a few male counsellors, but nothing really serious. I think it's because there's a big element of theatricality in him -- he never really lets anyone close. He's very difficult to play, much more than any of my other characters.

Finally, I have had no worries playing Clark even though he is a 16 year old male! Perhaps I've had lots of practice. Perhaps it's because I grew up on a farm. Perhaps it's because I can watch Smallville rather than read it.

Of all my characters, Kon's the only to have gender switched. This was as part of a special plot -- Kon being immune to most of the camp diseases, he had to find some red kryptonite first. He turned into Supergirl, so it was a bodyswitch as well as a gender switch. He was delighted, spent a lot of time checking himself out, and only started to try to change back once Buffy expressed woe and he realised it was difficult to hug her with his boobs in the way. Figuring that most superhero changes wear off after a battle with a villain involving a life-altering realisation, Kon staged a battle with Molly, and got his ass handed to him, until he realised he needed to ignore his 'jiggling' if he wanted to fight. Realising that boobs could be a burden, Kon got his act together, 'defeated' Molly and changed back into himself. The realisation wore off, although recently, when Buffy transformed into Supergirl, Kon was less than impressed -- deepening relationship > teenage hormones, apparently.

I leave it to Mikke to address the Super-dyke incident.

[classprotector.livejournal.com]

And, y'know, since I was involved in that and I'm not sure how much it came across how little it was about gender for Buffy, Kon's Supergirl thing was for Buffy mainly an issue of "what the fuck, Kon, there's kryptonite and that could kill you and you need to STOP BEING DISTRACTED BY YOUR BOOBS." Although that was one of her main sources of confusion later, since he was pretty happy to check out Supergirl's boobs when they were on him and very very weirded out when they were on her.

[touch-sensitive.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I've never really considered the performances on CFUD based on the gender issue. For the most part, my main concern is that the voice they use is the voice of the character. Some male characters are doomed from their stories to sound and behave in a more typically "female" manner - just as there are some female characters who tend to take on more masculine characteristics in their speech and play. When I'm playing, when I'm reading, when I'm apping or voting, my main concern is that the character's voice is right for them. I find it much more disturbing for a character to break their set pattern of behavior or play than it is to worry about whether a guy might concievably have said something or not.

I have genderswitched Kazahaya in a manner of speaking. A manner of speaking because he turned into his sister, and not himself as a female. This did change how he reacted to things because of his emotions towards her. He was more careful about what he said and how he reacted to things, but I don't believe he took on any feminine traits during the incident.

Hm... A few months back, there was the IC OOC-Fanfiction thread in which the characters took on the stereotyped personalities that is found in the fanfiction about them. In that thread, Kazahaya reacted in a different perhaps more female manner to many things - weeping, clinging, etc. The things he said and the way in which he said them were difficult to write or read later due to the out of charcter feel to them.

As for playing a Wraeththu, Caeru is physically and emotionally a blend of the male and female in one flesh. He tends to lean towards the feminine aspects more than the masculine, but the does have a tendancy to go with either.

When it comes down to it, the characters themselves determine their voice more than any conscious concerns about whether or not their vocalized gender is appropriate. If a character is being played correctly, there should be no concern about whether a typical guy would say something because it's the specific voice of the character saying it.

...

If you have more questions, I don't mind answering them. Just ask.

[yuumama.livejournal.com]

ICness has always been the important part for me, but much more with Atsuko. Canonly, she thinks more highly of girls than boys, but that's it. Tot just doesn't care.

Genderswitching hasn't been a problem, either - because I'm BORING. It's trying to remain in-character that kills me.

[dreamofhumanity.livejournal.com]

Gender hasn't really ever influenced the way I play any characters besides biological characteristics. I tend to concentrate more on personality than anything else.

I believe gender roles are very difficult to interpret over the internet simply because it's such a non-traditional way to express such a thing. For example; let's say I defer to a male authority in real life at a job, or at school. That need would disappear in this sort of setting, so the line between genders become blurred.

[reyflection.livejournal.com]

I think portraying gender is more or less important depending on the character. Some characters are defined so much by other qualities that whether they come across as "a guy" or "a girl" ceases to be overly important, especially because we tend to define those qualities in rather narrow ways. I also think the source material is important. One of my characters (Emilio ^_^) is from a boys' love manga, so the way male characters are written in his canon tends be more feminized to begin with. To be honest, I don't give the matter of whether or not my male characters are male enough too much thought because I'm rather used to my fandom outlets being mostly oriented towards girls. This is partly laziness and partly peer-focus.

Actually, I find it more difficult to play a female character than to play male characters. (Whether or not the male characters seem male is another issue). I am one of those lame, stupid yaoi fangirls who identifies more with gay men than with other women. =)

I genderswitched both Lunamaria and Rey, but in both cases I had them retain their own personalities (aside from a tendency to want to clean other people's cabins for Rey, because.. maid!) but merely change "parts." Moreover, Lunamaria purposely genderswitched to try it out. I don't think it gave her very much insight into what it was really like to be male, though. Rey has not benefitted at all from genderswitching into a woman but then again, he can't even identify that much with other people who aren't clooones.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_superdork_/]

clooones.

[classprotector.livejournal.com]

I put Threepio down for no gender, even though I'm not sure how accurate that is. Because, well. He's a robot. And it's early.

And none of my characters have genderswitched recently enough for me to remember what I was thinking or did with it.

So, taking this into account, I usually consider Chase to be my only male character. And, well, Threepio is just special. I don't usually worry about "is this something a guy would say" or "is this something a girl would say," I just worry about "is this something this character would say." And I sometimes worry I'm writing Chase as too similar to Buffy, but with more dudes added, but I never really connected that with gender so much as just being so much more used to writing Buffy.

Chase is also my only character who really arguably cares that much about gender at this point. After being in camp so long, Anne is relatively used to being around guys and doesn't think about it. Chase, of course, has his canon thing about gay. Which is actually for me a lot harder to play in a camp where he interacts with real gay people. When Karolina comes out, Chase sort of goes "...wait whut?" and everyone else goes "Chase you're the dumbest person ever to live everyone else noticed this last season." But then Karolina leaves and Chase keeps calling stuff gay with no actual corelation to it being gay--that is, love triangles, etc. So I actually read it as Chase being big on slang instead of actually homophobic, although gay characters (of both genders) make him uncomfortable until he gets distracted, forgets, and doesn't notice again.

I have no idea if that really answered the question.

[great-demonlord.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, I don't believe I consider the gender of my character very often, and I think to a large extend this is because he's so ambiguously sexed anyway it doesn't really matter if I come across as "girly" or "boyish". In canon, he certainly has character traits which could likely be labelled as both masculine and feminine in Western terms. But he is, essentially, conforming more to Korean Shojo standards of light BL uke-ness than any concept of gender. It should also be remembered that his masculinity is linked to Asian stereotypes and expectations rather than Western ones, and even then these conceptions are firmly tied to the genre from which his character derives. (If you're wondering why I'm blathering on about this, it's because I'm an anthropologist and identity construction is one of my academic interests. I'll shut up now. XD) Anyway, because Raenef is so girly, I don't see there being any point in gender-switching him. In terms of keeping IC, I find his age, life-experience and attitude much more important to defining his character.

One random thing that interests me, and I don't know if this relates to what you're studying at all but i'll mention it anyway, is the ambiguity of sex of players. Who knows which players are male or female unless we know them personally? And even then I might refer to a player as a "he" even though I know they're a "she" just because their character is male. I think it's interesting.

[reyflection.livejournal.com]

Anyway, because Raenef is so girly, I don't see there being any point in gender-switching him.

Because then he will have boobs. =D that's why I genderswitched Rey! His personality was the same but +BOOBS!

[toiletseat-girl.livejournal.com]

Count me in as another female playing a female character only.

I've attempted to write apps for male characters before, but I've always wound up throwing them away because no matter how much I try, it always reads "female" to me. This next part will be rather Too Much Information about my personal life, but it likely explains why I can't write males.

I think this is largely because I'm very female-identified, I was raised primarily by my mother, my aunt, and my grandmother, the boys in school all seemed rather stupid and more interested in holding spitting contests than reading or thinking, and I didn't have a stable good male influence until I met my stepfather when I was 12. To this day, I don't understand how men think and almost all of my male friends are either happily married, much older than I am, much younger than I am, or not interested in women. And while I consider men to be attractive, I can't imagine myself wanting to be in a serious relationship with one. As a result, I don't think that I could ever play a male character and have it be believable because I simply do not understand men.

This is also largely why I haven't genderswitched George yet. The opportunities for hilarity with her name would be great, especially while meeting new campers, but I'm rather afraid that too much of my own self would bleed through in play. This is something I'd prefer to avoid.

Playing George is both incredibly easy and incredibly difficult. I know her canon backwards and forwards and I have a tremendous amount of love and respect for her character and I want to do her justice.

One thing that amazes me is that many of her close friendships tend to be with men. In fact, if you asked me to list the five people George considers most important to her, they'd be Hakkai, Rikuou, Gojyo, Ikkaku, and Megan. Only one woman among them. Her only other close female friendships are with Buffy and Cher, but her male friends (or at least those she considers friends) also include Kon, Cal, Sanzo, Kabuto, Kio, Oscar, Ari, Simon, and Lupin.

And, yes, she's currently dating Xander, but this is an odd situation where he cares more about her than she does about him and she knows it. While she does care for him deeply as a friend, there isn't the same sort of "spark" she felt with Rikuou, Ikkaku, or Naruto.

This could be because there seems to be more male characters in her age group than there are female characters and I'll admit that the age of the other character does have an impact on how I play with them. George is an eighteen year old girl. She's not going to talk to a thirteen year old the same way she would a sixteen year old or a twenty year old. Expecting anything else would be absurd on both a canon level and a realism level.

However, many of her friendships with men include an element of flirtation. Part of this is because the girl does have many issues with insecurity already, so the positive validation of guys flirting with her is quite an ego boost, especially because (in her mind) the men she flirts with are all so much cooler and more interesting and more powerful. She likes to think that she's on the same level as they are.

Also, she was so badly burned by the situation with Naruto, she feels the need to have the facts that yes, she's attractive, yes, she's interesting, yes, she's worthy of male attention reinforced as much as possible.

More to come shortly since I seem to have gone over the character limit for comments. Whoops!

[parasol-hero.livejournal.com]

Oh, same thing for Ros, all her close friendships are with men, too!

[toiletseat-girl.livejournal.com]

My terribly long character essay, part two!

I have, on occasion, had George flirt with the idea of bisexuality, most notably with Phedre and a genderswitched Rikuou. I do believe that I have a decent canon excuse for it with the intense friendship she formed with Charlotte in the first season (really, was it just me or did they seem to have very good chemistry? too bad Charlotte was more interested in George's father because George and Charlotte would've been a very cute couple) and especially Betty. George was absolutely heartbroken when Betty left, her early resentment of Daisy seemed to be partially just because she wasn't Betty (and stealing George's apartment certainly didn't help matters), and she continued to wear Betty's ring throughout the series.

I'm not entirely sure how much help I've been, but if you have any other questions (and I don't wind up doing a follow-up comment once I've had more time to think about this), please let me know. Obviously, I love to talk. ~_^

[wave_report.livejournal.com]

I suppose I don't really have anything helpful to say, being a female with only female characters, but... here goes anyway. Playing only girls isn't something I did on purpose because I didn't think I could play male characters- it's just that the two characters that I wanted to play were female, if that makes any sense. I didn't choose them because of their gender, is what I'm trying to say.

When I am playing (or writing) male characters that aren't mine, I worry more about whether they're in character than whether they're masculine enough. I do worry about it when playing/writing original characters, though- there's a sort of "oh God, I'm female, how can I know how men actually think?" feeling. But that's beside the point.

I did genderswitch Hana once, but I didn't really do much with that, and I didn't change her personality at all.

[harukami]

One of the issues in construction of gender performance is that we do it on a day to day basis -- actions we take, things we say, the little things we put forward (or hold back) about ourselves -- same as any other identity performance, of course, just that there's more criticism written on gender performance than a lot of things. So, your experiences as a female with female characters is, in fact, still really useful. :) Thanks!

[youllgoblind.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think it's important to keep a certain mindset if you are playing someone of the opposite sex, though it isn't as pronounced with CFUD's humorous, dialogue-driven nature as other RPs (and even moreso fan/fiction). Still, gender is so intrinsic to most people (either in how it is flaunted or ignored by the character) that I think it is impossible to ignore a character's gender and sexuality when RPing him--if you are trying to keep IC. So it might end up that you really don't have to try too hard to be "manly" or "womanly" because you're working on being "IC-y."

Something I have noticed (that may or may not be useful for your paper) is that the stories/fandoms that people get into often are mainly populated by characters of the opposite sex, especially in anime/manga titles. Thus you probably get more guys ficcing or RPing girls in sailor suits than the flat token male love interest, and probably more girls ficcing/RPing tennis boys than their two-dimensional female fans.

Another thing...I think that RPers make more of an effort to sound like the opposite sex depending on the audience for that RP log. What I mean (since I don't quite get that last sentence and I wrote it) is that if say, two girls-playing-guys are doing a private yaoi OOC log, then they probably aren't going to put as much care into accurately sounding like two guys having sex (uh, not literally..) than if the same two girls-playing-guys are writing interaction on the main comm, where you're going to get a wider audience that may involve actual men who aren't yaoi fangirls, you know?

Of course, it bears saying that sex and gender roles are different in different cultures--how I am expected to act as an American woman is much different than if I were Japanese. Accordingly, the things that will seem "wrong" or overly stereotypical for a guy RPing a western female character may not be for an eastern female character. (Now, this may have to do with flat characterization in canon...but that's perhaps straying from the point.)

As for my own (admittedly meager) experiences in CFUD, Brock has never genderswitched, partially because I'm not exactly certain how he would react both IC and as a red-blooded male. That said, he has met (and hit on) guys who were genderswitched. I tried thinking of a typical American guy reaction (read: grossed out on the verge of homophobic), but I'm fairly certain that said reactions were tempered by my own personal beliefs and desires to keep some IC relationships (and also for lame attempts at humor) Other than that, I feel like I am weak at playing up the girl-crazy aspect of Brock's personality, but more because I personally am not as outgoing about hitting on folks than because of trouble getting in touch with my masculine side. I think it helped that most of my life I was around guys or kinda butchy women. I identify with--and RP or fic--mostly males, and actually sometimes worry if my female characters are female enough... D:

[patria-ou-mort.livejournal.com]

Ahahah, oh, gender and play.

I general, the biggest conscious role gender plays for me is in picking a character -- I honestly cannot remember the last time I RPed a female character anywhere (...four years ago... perhaps...?). I actually actively avoid choosing female characters, to the point of having almost sort of a moral dilemma with the next character that I want to app ("I think that I would like to play this character." *wrings hands* "But... but I don't do female!") Which is all kind of funny, give that I'm, y'know, female myself. Whenever I'm doing any writing sort of activity, though, I always feel a lot more comfortable coming from a male point of view. I feel that it is important to write gender realistically, but that worrying too much about it doesn't help you.

That being said, Enjolras (& Co.) does have a pretty gendered worldview, more than any character whom I've played outside of the Les Mis fandom, and I suppose that a character would have to include himself in his own worldview (i.e. "I relate to you, a [insert gender here], as a man."). I find myself fearing that I am overplaying that aspect of him, but then I review my canon and am reminded, wait, that's right. Early nineteenth century Europe is just a lot more openly gendered than a lot of the worlds from which the other characters come -- men do these things, women do these things. The state of women is one of issues at work in Les Misérables.

As for Enjolras specifically, he socializes exclusively with men in canon, and that actually has been happening at Camp, without me consciously trying for it. When I was working on a relationship list a while ago (...it will be finished... sometime...), I had four basic categories: Might Call You a Friend in a Year or Two, Would Like to Get to Know You Better, Met but Don't Really Care About, and Haven't Met but Know About (the last category being for... forces of nature or camp establishments such as Excel, Tomo, Itachi, etc., people you'd just notice). (And all right, Stan had his own category. XD ) The first two categories were almost exclusively male, the two exceptions being Megan and Rosalyn. And I think that Rosalyn is the only female he views in... I don't want to say an equal sense, because he doesn't view Megan as an unequal, but he thinks of Megan in a more familial sense (and occasionally as "Marius's girlfriend," shhhh) and Rosalyn in more of a comradely sense.

The main characterization problem that I have with Enjolras could be viewed as a gender issue. Enjolras is a lot more direct and forceful than the characters that I've played in the past, who tended toward a more "feminine" approach. This is more of a personality issue, though (both his and mine). I actually should pay more attention to this, as, thinking about it, there might even be a little overcompensation involved -- Enjolras is quite specifically a pretty boy in a canon when not all of the boys are automatically pretty. XD

I have gender-switched Enjolras once, but it was pretty much purely on a physical level -- I didn't change his personality. I just wanted to annoy him.

As for me in Real Life, I would say that I'm female but gender-flexible, if mostly in my mind rather than externally. And there's been some gender-angst in the past, but I've gotten over it. XD Not enough to quite be a "None of the above," but enough that I feel I should qualify my poll response.

If there's anything else, feel free to ask.

[patria-ou-mort.livejournal.com]

Also, more. Ahaha.

I find myself having to balance the voice of the character and the voice of my canon. In other words, Enjolras doesn't speak the way I would write a "real" guy as speaking -- I try to make him speak something along the lines of how Victor Hugo writes, because one of the things I wanted to do with this character is have a very different sort of voice from what we see in most of CFUD. So there's the funny situation of striving for ICness, of which I consider gender to be a large part, but not necessarily striving for reality.

...I'm not sure whether this makes it easier or harder for me. XD

[ishidork.livejournal.com]

I'm a female who primarily plays male characters -- ratio of 6:1 here. I agree with what others have said previously re: focusing on character traits/motivations/IC-ness/voice/etc. being more important than that, but I also know that I, myself, have serious difficulty playing female characters. For me, my problem is that I tend to Mary Sue them. I dunno if it's internalized feminism or what, but when I play a woman, I feel bad if I play up their flaws or let anything particularly bad happen to them. The men? I can laugh at. I can send them off and let them make IC mistakes and enjoy watching the consequences play out. With women? Not so much. That's the primary reason why I play male characters more than female characters.

Sexuality is also something I think about a lot. I am a lesbian who is fond of slash (though not necessarily the male body, if that makes any sense), so I tend to play guys who are either straight (playing to my own preference for women) or are in a relationship with another man. What I don't often play are men who identify as being homosexual. Ishida's a good example here; his relationship with Heine totally snuck up on him and turned over his previous identity as being straight (which included him having a crush on Orihime). Jacen and Sorata are both in that stage of "think they're straight but could possibly tilt the other way in the proper conditions," although that's far less likely to happen due to canon love interests/inclinations. Mal's the odd one out of the four, but -- that'd take a lot of elaboration and I'm not sure it'd be relevant. XD Tell me if you want me to talk more about it.

I have genderswapped both Ishida and Mal. Ishida really didn't act any different about it. His only irritations were with how other people reacted to him, such as Chizuru, uh, noticing him and Heine falling all to pieces about it. (And he was rather less than sympathetic to Heine's reaction. "You're making me question my sexuality! DDD:" "Now you know how I felt. >(") Mal was slightly more shaken up by his, although this was partially due to the fact that Roy was Inara at the time, thus making things all kinds of complicated. Honestly, when I think about genderswapping, it's more about how I think the characters would react to it -- and whether I can find an appropriately amusing setup to play with (such as Mal taking an FMA face to counter Roy's Inara).

[loves-trees.livejournal.com]

Re: your first paragraph in particular, I was actually really, really surprised that this isn't a problem for me-- and in some respects, it may actually be. So I would like to add a huge "word" to that.

Part 1!

[octopedingenue]

I am very aware of gender when I play both my characters (Hiro and Yaone), but it's been more as an aspect of their overall personality than as something I try to stay true to when playing. I don't ask myself "Is this something a 12-year-old boy could say?", I ask "Is this something Hiro could say?", because Hiro doesn't always act, speak, or think like a 12-year-old boy--for instance, I've made no real effort to dumb down Hiro's vocabulary and perception from my own, even though I'm a 21-year-old college senior, because Hiro is very smart and has had to grow up too fast in many ways.

I have never genderswitched Hiro, mostly because I've yet to hit upon an age-appropriate girl I like with enough snarky personality similarities that changing Hiro into her would be a hilarious "OMGYES" experience. I hope to genderswitch him someday, because Kisa/Hiro femslash!, but I don't plan to do it often enough to abuse it. Hiro's penchant has been for changing into inanimate objects, not catching camp diseases. I may have genderswitched Yaone if you count turning her for a day into tiny plastic Lego Snape for a day as genderswitching, but it did not affect her personality at all.

Some of my biggest gender issues actually came as I was deciding whether to app a second character and which character to app. I decided I wanted to app a girl, and because I feel like the gender ratio of campers is heavily skewed toward boys, and because I wanted to play a character significantly different from Hiro in multiple ways so that I could have fun doing new things with this character Hiro couldn't do, and so that I wouldn't get them confused while playing them and either mix them up or get bored playing too-similar characters. Hiro is blunt, aggressive, cynical, antisocial, not in possession of any significant fighting ability, and just on the cusp of adolescence; Yaone is polite, sweet, self-effacing, friendly, a capable fighter, and visibly sexually mature if not actually sexually active. I can put Hiro into conflict without godmodding because he has very little actual power; I can put Yaone into conflict without godmodding because she is courteous enough to try to resolve it. But Hiro and Yaone are also similar in significant ways that resonate with me and attracted me to them as characters: they both are far more concerned with the emotional well-being of other people than they are of their own and are willing to sacrifice much of their own well-being for that happiness of others, are fiercely protective of the people they love, try to rely too much on their own strength, have suffered great emotional trauma they should never have had to experience, have low opinions of themselves and their worth, and are actively working to change themselves into better, stronger people.

Part 2!

[octopedingenue]

I could do a whole essay on Hiro's Furuba cast interactions, both in canon (Tohru!) and in CFUD, but in CFUD specifically Hiro has been most greatly affected by his interactions with Elphaba Thropp from "Wicked". Their relationship started entirely by chance, but Elphaba-mun and I have continued to develop it as we've realized how surprisingly strongly the characters spark together. Elphaba is in many ways the older, female version of Hiro, and they've had many similar life experiences that shaped their personalities, in particular having someone they love get hurt specifically because of them. Hiro sees Elphaba as an equal, as someone around whom he can let down his guard, and as someone he wants to protect, because he's not as bitter and unoptimistic as she is yet--Elphaba combines some of the worst traits of self-imposed martyrdom of both Hiro and his cousin Rin, and he can tell Elphaba is hurting herself badly.

Yaone and Hiro are both characterized with what superficially appear to be stereotypically strong female and male traits, respectively. Hiro is arrogant and condescending when he's not overprotective of the women in his life to the point of paranoia; Yaone is a "good girl", subservient and sweet and prone to fluttering her hands in cutesy dismay and in wearing skimpy clothing. But there's more to them than that. Hiro's personality has less to do with being a boy than it does with being an abused child: he's overprotective because he's been helpless to prevent or even to talk about real acts of physical and emotional violence against people he loves, and he's bitchy and secretive and cynical as a defense because he's seen little good come from trusting people or being optimistic. Later in the series, when a lot of Hiro's emotional baggage has been lightened and he's grown up a lot, he's still condescending and imperious--but he's much more good-natured about it, and far more easygoing and gentle in general. Meanwhile, Yaone is not aggressive, but neither is she weak or passive, even when she falters (she's only human, so to speak). You can only push her so far before you find out that behind her kindness there is a core of steel, and friend or foe, she will fuck your shit up if you get in the way of what she wants. Go off to wallow in your own angsty headspace about your worthlessness, losing precious Kougaiji-sama-saving time in the process? Yaone will slap you and tell you to get the fuck over yourself and your shonen self-loathing crap. She stares down the scariest bastard in the series and completely fearlessly vows to bite his dick off if he tries to rape her. She's strong without hard, sweet without being a pushover, and she is always, always feminine. And all of this last paragraph has been "character analysis" rather than "RP analysis", but this is all stuff I keep very much in mind as I play them.

[rockgoddesslave.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna draw from writing/experience with other RPs as well, simply because those are where I formed this opinion. If that skews it, then feel free to ignore.

I think it's incredibly important that, if you play a male, the character comes across as a male. Yes, there are stereotypes, and yes, there are culture differences, and some characters don't even conform to their stereotypical gender roles unless you pull them really far out of character. So, gender might have to come after characterization, but...

Typically, men just have a different 'voice.' In my experience, men're both harder and easier to play. They're harder because I have to stop and reread whatever I have just done, just to be sure that I'm not putting too many feminine phrases into it.
For example (Key aside, because holy shit) most men do not make pet names for anyone outside their immediate family. They don't use words like 'charming' unless they are gay. This is, of course, Western stereotypes, but it's something I've noticed. Men usually have completely different ways of saying and describing things, with fewer adjectives that come from a more limited available pool of vocabulary. This isn't to say that they may not have a large vocabulary (Hell, look at Shakespeare) but that they don't have a large spoken vocabulary. Men have a tendency to get right to the point of things, which may be why they have a harder time following the speech patterns of women.
On the other hand, women have a greater spoken vocabulary, with more adjectives, many of which have overlapping meanings. A woman is more likely to point out the semantics of a sentence. A man might say "I checked in on him," meaning that he glanced in and saw the one he's speaking of, while a woman'll comment that she 'looked in on him,' because in her mind, the word 'checked' implies that she actively did something in order to 'check,' while 'looked' has a more passive implication. Women also tend to use their larger spoken vocabulary and their tendency towards semantics even more when discussing important things, so as to save confusion. They also depend a little more on vocal tones. This may be a reason men and women have a harder time understanding each other.
This is something I keep in mind when playing male characters, even Key to an extent, because even though he DOES have an impressive vocabulary and DOES use pet names on everything, he still has a tendency to be a fairly direct person. He doesn't talk the way a female talks, not quite. He has a greater tendency towards analogies than most people, male or female, but he doesn't actually skirt around an issue usually like a female would. If he wants to know something, he may attempt to be delicate about it, but in a masculine, "So...I heard you got your ass kicked," type way, as opposed to a feminine, "So...is there anything you want to talk about?" type way.
Key...has not been genderswitched and...may in the future, but besides some 'LOOK I HAVE BOOBS AND YOU CAN STILL SEE MY ASS' moments, I don't foresee any changes in thinking, because he's been raised and socialized as a male, meaning that a temporary change in body will not affect the way his mind works, at least not to a great enough extent to change behavior.

All that being said, ICness and gender roles go hand in hand. You can't really have one without the other. The differences between masculine!Key and feminine!Key would be subtle, but it would bother me to play Key feminine, because for all his vocabulary and whatnot, he is male. He has the territorial nature (watch him with Excel and any danger), the alpha male syndrome (liek whoa, Ilpala and him are too similar in this regard) and the tendency to get to the point quickly, if through insanely difficult to understand phrasing. It's all part of his character, and really can't be regarded seperately. So, it's not so much that gender roles are more or less important, but that they are equally important, because a feminine-sounding Ichigo would be just as OOC as a masculine-sounding Ichigo who emo'd and cut himself.

All this being said, I actually have a harder time playing female characters, because, as my RL friends have pointed out to me, I 'think like a guy.' Take that how you will.

[rockgoddesslave.livejournal.com]

Also, I hate the character limit, because I was all of 37 characters over, and kept thinking of more little things as I reread to cut down.

[honor-amongst.livejournal.com]

This is interesting... Honestly, I tend more towards male characters simply because I'm an anime fan. As odd as that sounds. There are a handfull of exceptions to this, but for the most part, I don't LIKE the type of female characters that Eastern media really likes (... I tend towards antagonists above all else, where as females are usually supporting or problemsolving roles in anime) Out of some hundred anime or so that I honestly like from start to end, there are only three exceptions I'd consider apping off the top of my head... but for the most part my choices will always be male.

I think I do consider gender and mindset while rping... I think it does make a difference in some characters. Yeah, I might be stereotyping in some ways, as I do subscribe to the idea that guys just handle some problems and situations just differently on a basic level than women do. Might be a nature or nurture thing, I have NO idea, but me being an old tomboy, guys were my only friends until high school... And some years later I still don't understand women.

I really take it as a compliment when someone says they're surprised to find out I'm female.

Ayame's easy, since he's whatever he feels like being! Omnisexual indeed! Mostly he flirts with anyone and anything who will flirt back... but he doesn't do it with /intent/ either. It's all really play.

Kurama's hard because I see him as a pretty boy, evil, mischievious, but not effeminant at all.

Nishi's assexual. He enjoys people's reactions more than is healthy (and other things too dark to play with in camp)

Moses... pure... stupid... shounen retard.

... This may not help at all, but what came to mind! Ask anything! Happy to answer!

[rokudaimeyo.livejournal.com]

>_> ...I want to see the rest of that cap your icon came from.

[hawkofendymion.livejournal.com]

Mwu's definitely harder for me to play than Fllay is but it's a matter of personality moreso than gender. While I do worry that I'm inadvertantly putting a feminine spin on his voice, it's not something I actively consider while playing him, or that I worry long on after the fact.

That isn't to say my concerns about how I'm playing Mwu don't have basis in his gender, however. I remember being a self-important, spoiled and, yeah, oblivious 15-year-old girl and feel I can comfortably draw from personal experience while playing Fllay. I simply lack the insight to do the same while dealing with Mwu, so I am second guessing myself more with him. Still, his age has proven to be a greater obstacle than his gender.

Neither of them thinks any differently of either gender. I do tend to have Fllay interact with males more often though, because I have issues when it comes to dealing with other girls and struggle with figuring out how to play her off of overtly feminine characters. That problem is thankfully non-existent with Mwu though I still fail at bringing him out. I don't anticipate either character changing their perspectives either; in the end, they're from a very gender-equal world and I don't think it registers with them.

As far as their sexuality goes, it's not a big issue with me. Mwu's got a flirtatious side to him, but he never goes far with it and it's nothing more significant than him being friendly. He's devoted to Murrue, dammit! Fllay is a very physical person and I do bring that side of her out when I can. It's just that she doesn't have many close guy friends here, so my opportunities to play that side of her are rather limited. XD

Hmm. I guess that's just my rambly way of saying that adequately representing personality is at the forefront of my concern and not how effectively I'm portraying their genders. It's easier for me to play Fllay, but that's not entirely because she's a girl and Mwu isn't; I simply have a better understanding of her perspective.

[latrine-orderly.livejournal.com]

I think if anyone "does not fit easily into a binary gender structure," it's James, am I right? .........but if I'm not, I'll change my vote. XD

ANYWAY. It's hard to tell, because I am playing Excel and she's my main character and I love her and obsess over her... but I almost never play female characters and I tend not to like playing female characters. It's not because I'm not comfortable playing female characters - it's because I tend not to like female characters.

I never worry about "would a guy/girl believably say that" when I'm RPing, though once again, it's hard to tell with the characters I've chosen in CFUD. I worry about what the character would say and leave it at that.

I have genderswitched both Excel and Ilpala. I never found the genderswitch that interesting, but I did it for Excel mostly to mock the people who were WHINING about genderswitches. She was just amused to be able to pee standing up. As for Ilpala, I only switched him because I thought it'd be hilarious to make an icon of Integra pulling the rope. Excel did use her genderswitch as an excuse to hit on Fred, but that was mostly not having an Il Palazzo in camp to mack on. ^^;;

...overall, I'd say camp sexuality is more interesting than gender, characters and players. It is WEIRD to be in a heterosexual minority, heh.

[latrine-orderly.livejournal.com]

Something about sexuality. Anime Excel is blatantly bisexual, but manga Excel is prudish and Ilpasexual. I play it more anime because that's easier and funnier, but I constantly regret it, because I'm not the least bit comfortable playing a bisexual female. She's not THAT bisexual, anyway... D:

But MEANWHILE, I gleefully play El Sexy Shepherd - who hits on ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE, and constantly hints that he's been PEDOPHILIN', BESTIALISIN', and just about any other sort of sexual thingy you can do.

SO I GUESS YOU CAN INTERPRET THAT HOWEVER YOU WILL.

[boy-and-crow.livejournal.com]

Hmm, first on playing characters. I'm female but I'm more interested in playing male characters, for two reasons. For one thing, even in a canon which has a female character I love, there's usually a male character that seems to have a... well, perhaps not so much a stronger personality, but one that appeals to me, or I'd enjoy playing with more. The other, connected reason, is that a female character for some reason usually has to be really interesting, something about their personality catching my eye right off the bat.

Anyway, that's not the point. So at the moment, I'm mainly playing Marius, a trannie who literally punches out people who call him a girl, and Seymour, who's a little boy who acts (and looks) more like a little religion-rabid Ping-Pong-ball.

Marius is a bit difficult to play, but definitely a lot of fun. I don't worry about using "masculine," or even "feminine" voice patterns or phrases, because this is the character who can be extremely polite and well-spoken and then just throw out slang-sounding stuff. All I really think about is, "Would Marius say this?" If I'm not sure, I try to think about all the personality and background that canon gives him, and see if I can bring canon and the given line/reaction together in my brain. For example, I don't worry about what a "guy" would do in this relationship, or what a "guy-but-seekritly-a-girl" would do, because that's not the point. The point is, how does Marius deal with people like (or even similar to) this in his canon? If that kind of person's NOT in his canon, I still have to consider how Marius deals with other people, but I'm then given a bit of room to play around.

I guess what my whole point in that last paragraph is, is I don't think "what would a this-gendered-person do," but instead "what would, or might, Marius do?"

Same, to a lesser degree, with Seymour. I figured out how I'm gonna play him, so it's a lot easier now, and I'll explain. Seymour is, strictly speaking, a little boy. How little, I dunno. I'm playing him as 13 years old, almost 14 (which is a...bit of a scary thought o_o)). But I don't ever, ever think "What would a 13-year-old-boy do in this situation?" Instead, I think, "What would Seymour do?" Which mostly leads to flailing uber-religious reactions, flailing confused reactions (he does get tricked by the Devil several times without realizing it at first, and in canon, the Devil ain't subtle), occasional surprising good will and kindness, and, every once in a while, ogling a pretty girl. XD

As for genderswitch... well, Seymour hasn't experienced it, and for the good reason that it would hurt his little brain and I'm not feeling up for that yet. XD Even Marius has not genderswitched, per se. He turned into Collin Sri'vastra from Friendly Hostility, who looks surprisingly like him as a physical male, but this was not a true genderswitch in that it left him with some of Collin's more bizzare personality traits, like the urge to become dictator of a small country, and being sexually/impulsively attractive to guys instead of girls--more specifically, a guy that had been his friend for a while and he really does care about. Hi Enjolras! :D Both of which disappeared when he got his own body back, and which won't show up when he actually genderswitched for real.

If anyone he knows/is close to genderswitched, Seymour will probably flail around a bit for... oh, about two panels worth of time? XD And then he'll get over it surprisingly quickly, and/or be a bit distracted if it's a guy who's turned into a girl. Marius, on the other hand, knows better than to deal with a person according to what gender their body is. He'll treat them pretty much the same, adjusted of course by if the genderswitch is causing them to act differently.

As for levels of realism, Marius I try to keep more "real-world" oriented, and as you have probably noticed, I think of Seymour as continuing to act and react like he's still in a three-panel comic strip, which can cause some strange selective-memory things and have him, a very flaily character by nature, get over some things surprisingly quickly.

[vegan-megan.livejournal.com]

I guess what my whole point in that last paragraph is, is I don't think "what would a this-gendered-person do," but instead "what would, or might, Marius do?"

Which is totally justified because, as I read his canon, he's not the one who is confused or has problems with being transgendered at this point of his life, but usually the other people.

See Megan's Big Paragraph of Confusion below XD

[overacting.livejournal.com]

Been reading the replies and this has been really enlightening.

Personally, I think I get a way with a lot of little niuances playing Oscar, seeing as he is, canoncially, very metrosexual and overly dramatic. I think that sort of allows me to bend a little bit of the gender roles in this case (as what brock said about girls and their speech patterns). I think sometimes when I look back and re-red some of the interactions I've had with other players, I would sort of cringe and wonder "well, would he actually say this?" and for the most part, I do think he could.

I think it's a lot more difficult to analyze Oscar, seeing as he really is more of a comic relief character and his personality IS a bit of an exagerration, if anything. But with that, I do think that it's more of a matter of "would he say that" than "is he manly enough when he says that?" because his personality allows for such feminized actions at times. It's weird because at times, I do think that Oscar tends to be a lot more feminine than Myself. XDD

I did genderswitch Oscar early on in the game, moreso as a band-wagon type thing. For the most part, I sort of focused on the part that it was a learning experience and something he could 'study a role' for. And for the shock value.

And I'm going to totally steal ayame's wording and consider Oscar at the moment, Omnisexual. XD
I'd really like to think I get away with a lot of things that I make assumptions for, simply because he's not a major character and his personality doesn't really get that fleshed out in the manga.

[rokudaimeyo.livejournal.com]

Hey, this is cool! I love seeing other people's thoughts on this stuff.

Trying to keep Naruto in character is important to me, but I really want people to look at him and say, 'My god, what a boy, ugh' as well. I try to have him respond in ways I think a male would, or do things a male would, such as sit with his legs sprawled open if the situation merits noticing things like that, because that's what boys do. He isn't even a remotely femmy character, and it makes me cringe whenever I see him drawn or written that way. I played Quatre Winner in a previous roleplay, who has to be one of the most feminized characters in animedom, and my goal there was to have him recognized as male, and not a girl with a dick, so I think some of that has carried over to CFUD. ^^;;

That being said.. my boy genderswaps at will canonically, and he enjoys it. He's very familiar and comfortable with the female body. I hate it. Because I realized the first time I had him do it - to Miroku - that I FAIL at flirting and being coy and girly. I feel as if I go overboard with him, even if he's doing it on purpose. I kind of suspect it's probably not going overboard, because when he does it at 12, he's damn good at it (and where the hell did he learn that?!), but. It's my insecurities coming into play, I guess, so he'll be boy-type far, far more than girl-type for camp purposes. I'm much more comfortable playing him as a dirty, messy ninja boy.

I can't see myself ever playing a female character - I've just had too many personal issues with myself and others of that gender to enjoy playing one, I think. I was brought up to be a tomboy, I hung out with mostly boys, I've picked up a lot of their characteristics (see the sitting with legs sprawled thing - don't ever try to get me in a dress. XD)

As far as sexuality goes, Naruto identifies as straight right now (that will change to Bi as he gets older, thanks Neji :-p). The thing with Sasuke confuses the hell out of him, but at present that's the only male in camp he has an attraction to, while he finds plenty of the girls pretty. However, for the most part, he doesn't think much about sex and sexuality, and is generally pretty thrown when it comes up in conversation, particularly when someone flirts with him (aside from Sasuke, because he knows sex and Sasuke tend to have fun, explosive reactions, so he brings it up a lot) This is very much me leaking into Naruto's personality, because I'm pretty much the same way - I just don't think about sex and sexuality IRL, and when it comes up, it makes me squirm. As such, because CFUD is supposed to be my fun time, I am avoiding things that make me squirm, and poor Naruto has to deal with it.

There are some playing exceptions to that, though, such as how he acts with Sakura, and he would probably flirt with Ino if she were older. HOWEVER, and this is something I've thought about a lot, I think this is very much a possibility because I am comfortable with their muns and/or there's canon basis for it. I knew Ino-mun casually before CFUD, and with her playing Neji as well, I've spent a lot of time interacting with her in and out of character. That's made me *far* more likely to be ok with any kind of flirting/relationship between our characters. I just am not very comfortable doing that sort of thing if I don't know the mun halfway decently. I'm scared to death I'd make Naruto too pushy, or hit some kind of trauma button for the mun, or just plain come off as some kind of weirdo.

[the-one-king.livejournal.com]

Oh man, it really drives me up the wall to see femme!Naruto also. When I read the manga he comes across as very masculine and it's part of his appeal for me. I think you do a great job playing it.

Also, man, make me remember my old GW days.... Quatre really did get screwed over in fandom in that respect, oi. o_o

[father-complex.livejournal.com]

Don't know if what I'm going to ramble about is what you're looking for, but here goes:

I'm a girl and I've technically been in camp as 4 different male characters that have been varying degrees as "manly". (One of the characters I dropped almost immediately, so we won't discuss him).

Kurono Kei: This was a situation where I was a character who could not possibly have been straighter, and it was definitely hard for me to play. I'm not a very experienced writer, and I'm also quite straight. Therefore it was very difficult for me to make him the perverted, red-blooded, 17 year old he needed to be. I got to where I just didn't feel like I had it in me. I did gender switch him at one point, but even that was hard. The character was such a guy that I sort of sucked at really dealing with it. I never really considered it a problem with playing gender, but really in hindsight it probably was on some level -- at least with Kei. Also, the character was not very well spoken, meaning that I couldn't hide his masculinity behind big words and charm. It could be said that the overwhelming male-ness of the character was ultimately why I had to give up on him.

Leon Kennedy: Short lived character, but it still merits mention. At the first possible opportunity, I made him gay. I don't know that I did it on purpose, but I think was just looking to feel more at home with Leon than I was with Kei. I think maybe making him attracted to guys was as easy way to do that. Because of that change, I was able to give myself a lot of leeway, and the character was easy to play in that respect. There were problems, but not ones that matter for your study.

Lex Luthor: Although I'm fairly new to it, this is clearly the character I was meant to play. Although I play him straight (at the moment), his political minded "voice" is fairly ambiguous. His intentions are also ambiguous, and don't really require a gender. Although he's clearly an alpha male in many respects, and I've done a fair amount a flirting with him, it's easier because I think he speaks in a very similar manner to me -- regardless of gender. Or, maybe, my writing has just gotten better.

My last comment is more general: I pick male characters because I'm attracted to them. I watch them and go "Oh my god. There're awesome, and so HOT!" -- and it becomes someone I want to play. The girls, obviously, don't really have that effect on me. It's a strange mindset where I like living vicariously through someone I'd be attracted to. To play being sexy.

Feel free to ask questions, and I hope this is what you were looking for ^_^

Megan

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

Female player playing both genders here.

I play RPGs since quite a time, real life pen&paper and various online RPGs andI can't say I have a preference of playing only men or only women. If I have a good feeling for the character I don't really mind if it's a he or a she. In case of Megan I noticed that most of her close friends are guys, which was more of a coincidence than planned but as this is in canon a definite fact (until Lily comes along she is the only strong female character in her canon) I'm rather pleased with the outcome. She tends to either look down on other girls or see them as rivals, so it is not very easy to make friends with a girl with her as she is either condescending or bitchy. George remains her only close female friend, all other campers she would see as close to her are men (Marius, Obi-Wan, Rikuou, Enjolras etc.). Megan likes being in control and so she often will flirt playfully, without any comittment, enjoying the control she has over the situation - and the guy involved.

I'd say Marius has changed her view of gender like nothing else. She will often state that the feelings she starts to develop for him confuse her. She understands the sex-ain't-gender concept in an abstract way, that's why the fact that Marius doesn't see himself as female didn't shock her, but she never had to deal with it on a personal level before. So the late revelation was what shocked her because Megan honestly doesn't know if she had developed her feelings would she have known about Marius being transgendered from the start. She doesn't know if she she can really accept gender as a social concept, like she did in theory before and feels like a bloody hypocrite because she has this doubts. Right now she has reached the status that it doesn't really matter, all that matters is that she started to develop those feelings for Marius as a person and that this Marius is still there. If she can cope with him having a female body is a thing she still has to work out. Talking with him about his period, for example, really threw her off, but she knows if this is going to be a serious thing, she can't just ignore his body.

This whole thing was also a very difficult thing to sort out for me as player because I had to pinpoint a point of view for Megan here that has no canon basis at all and of course had to get to think about genderroles myself. I have worked out this thought process for her and hope it is believable as this topic is really one of the most complicated I can think of, especially if feelings are involved.