Memes!

[selenak]

Am stuck with the Multiverse story and convinced the recipient will hate it. Alas.

So, meme time. Firstly, kangeiko tagged me to do this:

List five things that get you excited/happy/enthusiastic about life, in no real order, and tag 5 folks to do it.

Travelling. I dig travelling, which is fortunate since I have to do a lot of it professionally, but I really love it. Both the new and old sights to see and the process itself. I could live out of suitcases for months. In fact, I did that once or twice.

A new book by an author I love. (Same goes for new episodes of shows, so I won't cheat and list them extra.) Both the prospect of reading it and the smell of a new book. I tend to sniff and breathe it in.

Writing, if I feel I really captured a character or situation. It's an electric feeling.

Sitting next to a fire (in a fireplace, natch), in winter. It feels good and it appeals to my inner romantic each time.

Feedback. No matter whether in writing, verbally, or sensing an emotional response from an audience. It makes me hyper.

And I tag: honorh, andrastewhite, londonkds, kathyh, and altariel1.
***

Secondly, andrastewhite, after ordering me to slap her if they remake Farscape in twenty or thirty years and she whines about Crais being female, came up with a fun new meme:

If they remake your show twenty years after the original, which character should they genderswap
for the update?

Now I have several shows, but one which I think could bear no sequel but could be something amazing in a re-imagining a la BSG 2003 - i.e. the basic concept is taken up but spun in a new direction - would be Blake's 7. So, bracing myself for outcries of protest: I'd swap Avon and Gan.. Making Avon female would undoubtedly incur the ire of Blake/Avon 'shippers, but the femslashers would be over the moon if she retained the same kind of relationship with Servalan in season 3 and 4. A female Avon would also get much more heat for the way he treats Vila, because "what a bitch" is rarely spoken in as admiring terms as "what a bastard", but then again, having the cynical no-nonsense character who really doesn't have a heart of gold, with a gift for witty and sometimes extremely cruel one liners, and a hidden obsessive streak be female could do interesting things to gender assumptions.

As for Gan: he basically was the gentle strong giant (though I've read at least one fanfic where it turns out he got that inhibitor because he was really a serial killer, and the "my woman got raped by a Federation guard" story was just a lie), and thus not coincidentally the first character to be killed off. But if the Hagrid of the B7verse was female, then again we'd have some interesting twists, and not just a strike for tall robust women everywhere. Gan is Vila's protector during those one and a half seasons he's around; would Vila relate differently to a female Gan? Would Blake and Avon? Or Jenna and Cally? Female characters who are good at fighting tend to come with fiery tempers on tv; how would a strong but essentically placid woman fare?

***

Thirdly: kernezelda: IT WORKS! You remain a goddess. I bow in gratitude.

Comments

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Male Delenn, like s/he was supposed to be. And then to keep the gender balance, female G'kar. Maybe female Londo as well, although that would require a major overhaul of Centauri society.

(And Morden's already almost female in my warped little brain.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Male Delenn and female G'Kar could totally work within the B5 universe as we know it, but as you say, female Londo would need very different Centauri society. Female Vir, otoh, would not (except for becoming Emperor at the end) - andrastewhite pulled off a very credible Vira AU.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Female characters who are good at fighting tend to come with fiery tempers on tv; how would a strong but essentically placid woman fare?

I think we've seen that; it's Cally, and also Zhaan to some extent. Sadly, the answer was "not well, and all but forgotten and turned into a platitude-spouting den mother". Oh well. Time to go work on the "Cally's 7" site a bit more.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Good point about Cally and Zhaan and the curse of earth mothers waiting. You know, Delenn in Babylon 5 was a calm character, but then Delenn wasn't a warrior. She was a politician; different thing altogether.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Delenn was also religious caste, wasn't she? That sort of makes sense for characters like Delenn and Zhaan; I find it a bit cliche to have calm monky-types, and I was actually rather pleased when Zhaan got violent or struggled to be calm, or whatever, but given that it's generally an explicit goal of religious life, it's a sensible sort of cliche, unlike the fiery fighter sort.

Poor Cally. I did always hope her problems were the result of, well, that late '70s marginalization of women that happened to all the women on B7, but when very similar character development happens to Zhaan, I think there's an inability to write for calm, placid women who would kick your ass five ways to Friday and then go home for a nice cup of tea and a spot of meditation. Which is odd, because they can write men that way, what with the samurai type and the strong-and-silent type. It's as though the inclination for violence is seen as independent of personality in men, but dependent on personality in women.

Here's one, sort of. What about Cathy Gale on the Avengers? It's been a while, but I always remembered her as a rather more serious, intent, leather-clad judo-wielding Avengers girl. Definitely not the bon vivant Emma Peel was, more of a serious academic, really... acerbic, but no real temper, and fairly proper (minus the penchant for leather and going undercover in motorcycle gangs). (Oh, classic Avengers, is there anything you didn't do best and first?) :)

[kangeiko]

Ooooh, fun! *bounce*

I wanna do a couple for these, but as I'm on a Firefly kick at the moment, I'm gonna do that one first. In all honesty, I'd genderswap Jayne, which brings me to a slight tangent of female-heavy casts (or, rather, the perception thereof). Currently, Firely looks about 50/50 or slightly female-heavy to me, which is, of course, a socially constructed optical illusion, as we have a 5 male/4 female split. Making Jayne female would change the dynamic of the show some more, I think, but, then, Joss is the guy who could pull that off as Buffy worked and played with the perceived imbalance.

So, female Jayne - suddenly, supporting family back home becomes less a breadwinner role and more of a caregiving role, which immediately makes Jayne softer, despite the fact that she's a merc. She'd move into the role of Tart With A Heart pretty damn quick unless we have someone like, oh, Joss Whedon on the helm. Oh, look. Isn't that good.

A female Jayne's ballsiness would be thrice underlined, as Jayne is a straightforward person. The fun on Ariel would, obviously, be even more shocking as a woman who betrays you after getting to know you (vs Saffron, who never bothered) is still inexplicable. Her dislike of helpless River would also be different, as Jayne is older than most of the characters and you would expect a maternal role from her. (LIke hell.)

In short, she'd be crude, very sexual, straight-forward and earthy, and could prolly drink Mal under the table. And although the danger remains of a stereotype, I think that Joss could prolly pull it off, and give us a nice counterpart to Zoe's quiet competence.

The other fandom I was thinking of was Alias, with a genderswapped Sloane. It would make Alias more or less exclusively dominated by evil Overladies, true, but it would change the dynamic of the Sloane/Jack relationship. Which could only mean more Sloane/Jack time. Which, come on, is a fantastic thing. (Yes, I'm shallow. What of it?)

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

I would love to see genderswapped Jayne!

[kangeiko]

wouldn't it totally rock? *g* I'm really, really tempted to give it a try in the next few months.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Female Jayne would be fascinating! And good lord, but female Sloane would really mean a Sloane/Jack/Irina triangle from the start.*g* (Irina and Sloane could still have had a fling, just to figure out what the other is up to, though of course the child issue would need some tweaking; maybe female Sloane thinks the child she had died, but it really got spirited away and she doesn't find out until late season 2? Also, who'd be the father - her husband Edgar or Jack...?

[kangeiko]

And good lord, but female Sloane would really mean a Sloane/Jack/Irina triangle from the start.*g*

It's like it was meant to be...

(Irina and Sloane could still have had a fling, just to figure out what the other is up to, though of course the child issue would need some tweaking; maybe female Sloane thinks the child she had died, but it really got spirited away and she doesn't find out until late season 2?

Well, all you need is for her to have been imprisoned for some time and then have the baby taken away after birth... and then Elena can make off with it.

Also, who'd be the father - her husband Edgar or Jack...?

Well, if elena makes off with the kid, i'm thinking that it'd likely be Jack's. and that changes the derevko dynamic somewhat, i'm thinking. after all, why would elena make off with the kid if it wasn't special in some way?

and jack's indignation that sloane bedded his wife would be a little, er, amusing, if he'd bedded sloane himself...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

and jack's indignation that sloane bedded his wife would be a little, er, amusing, if he'd bedded sloane himself...

One would suspect the true cause of the indignation being that he wasn't asked to join at once.*g*

[kangeiko]

Now that's officially the weirdest threesome ever. *wide eyes*

[kangeiko]

Also, I need to commiserate on Multiverse. My story hates me and is running away at a high speed. Why is it that these things never write themselves? *sulk*

[kernezelda]

When I wrote B7 back in the nineties, I once speculated that Avon was Servalan's gender-manipulated clone.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Well, they do have fashion sense and ruthlessness in common.*g*

[mogigraphia.livejournal.com]

Avon needs to be male to keep my interest, and Servalan female. Gan as a gentle nurturing male (whatever his history) was a nice gender role reversal at the time, so making him female seems a bit much to me too.

Tarrant would make a fine female character though, and I could really enjoy a female Travis.

Alternatively, as B7 had plenty of supposedly strong female characters, simply letting the pre-existent females wear flat shoes and sports bras would help. ;)

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

I think that if you genderswapped Avon, you would have to genderswap Vila or your show will not be successful because the Avon character would be *hated.* Guys would perceive her as the cocktease who looks down on nerds (in the sense of socially subdominant, not in the sense of smart), is contemptuous of them, but also leads them on (Avon's taking Vila along to Space City in *Gambit*, for instance, would not be seen as a moment of friendship, but as a condescension), while women would hate her for being so mean to poor, sweet Vila. Make Vila a woman *also*, and we can find Avon's sarcastic put-downs and belittlements funny and still accept the moments of friendship and trust we see. Plus, the idea of Vila as a somewhat plain, insecure, needy woman who is aware that she's being used for her skills and goes along with it anyway because any friend is better than no friend... I don't think we've seen that character in SF fandom yet. Women are always gorgeous, or at least supposed to be, and if girls are insecure because the text tells us they're plain, the people around them are actually supposed to love them and exist to reassure them that even plain girls can be loved. A woman who has no social power (that is, she's not that attractive, matching Vila's low social class and somewhat passive-aggressive personality), who has a skill that makes her useful, and the main characters do in fact use her for it... that'd be interesting.

I think, though, Avon would need to be an explicitly out bisexual, because with Servalan you don't want *subtext* UST, you want it maintext. And who knows, in ten years maybe we'll be able to have explicitly out lesbians and bisexuals (it may take twenty for the out gay men and bisexual men, sadly. :-( ) And I wouldn't want to make Servalan male, it would ruin the character.

As for my own genderswap ideas... TOS has actually kind of been done, badly. Enterprise was a self-conscious update of TOS, with the mostly-male, having-one-token-of-each-minority cast that hardly even pretends to be an ensemble show, and they made the Vulcan first/science officer a woman. However, T'Pol is *sooo* not Spock. Personally, I think TOS would have been much more interesting to update with *Kirk* as the genderswap, and go where they wouldn't with Janeway -- Janeway is pretty Kirkian, but to really be Jane T., you gotta be a slut. :-)

If I were updating TNG, all I'd do to the main cast would be to make Troi a benevolent manipulator with real power, give Crusher a much stronger personality, and keep Tasha Yar. I'd also genderswap Wesley on the grounds that fans are much more sympathetic to a nerdy girl who saves the day and knows everything (Willow, much?) But the genderswap I would totally want to see in that universe would be Q. I like trickster females even more than trickster males, and someone with the body language of Six (getting in the main character's face, using sex as a weapon, being extremely physical as well as arrogant) would be fantastic as Q. Also, it would make the subtext between Picard and Q explicit, thus removing the temptation to plaster "NO, I'M HETEROSEXUAL! REALLY! SEE MY WIFE?" all over Q's forehead.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I think that if you genderswapped Avon, you would have to genderswap Vila or your show will not be successful because the Avon character would be *hated.*

Oh, I know. That was part of where I was going because it's the double standard in the viewers which annoys me - a woman behaving exactly as Avon did would be hated. As a hated Avon would lead to early cancellation, yes, one would probably have to coddle the viewers in their attitudes.

A woman who has no social power (that is, she's not that attractive, matching Vila's low social class and somewhat passive-aggressive personality), who has a skill that makes her useful, and the main characters do in fact use her for it... that'd be interesting.

It would. It would also be important to find an actress who actually can look plain. Incidentally, I have the ugly suspicion that a female Vila would be accused of being whiny and a throwback to sexism whenever she'd show her insecure, needy side, because again, what is looked at as adorable in men is not so in women.

I think, though, Avon would need to be an explicitly out bisexual, because with Servalan you don't want *subtext* UST, you want it maintext.

Agreed. Any Avon, male or female, needs maintext UST with Servalan (who must remain female, yes). Oh, and Blake.*g*

And who knows, in ten years maybe we'll be able to have explicitly out lesbians and bisexuals

Err, Jossverse? Willow and Tara, and over at Firefly, Inara takes female clients as well as male ones? (On screen.) Also, Farscape with Chiana as explicitly bisexual. But these examples are still the exception rather than the rule, true.

But the genderswap I would totally want to see in that universe would be Q. I like trickster females even more than trickster males, and someone with the body language of Six (getting in the main character's face, using sex as a weapon, being extremely physical as well as arrogant) would be fantastic as Q.

Absolutely, that would be great. (Sidenote: I think Tricia Helfer surprised many people as Six, because she does far more than just look sexy.)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I think making Avon female would be wonderful for all the reasons you cite. I never fancied him anyway (it's Vila for me of course) but then the new Starbuck is the sexiest character on BSG so one's gender preferences can be undermined. :-)

Re female Gan, I actually have an unwritten AU in which one of the major characters is a tall, very robust OFC who literally picks Vila up (off the floor after someone flattens him in a spaceport bar). Must get round to writing that...

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

The idea of genderswapping ALL of Firefly is pretty amusing to me -- except for Wash & Zoe of course, who essentially are already genderswapped. And I don't suppose you could have a boy Saffron, anymore than you could have a boy-Lilah, since they both primarily operate in reaction to the male power structure. I suppose you could argue that Tracey IS a boy Saffron; though Tracey's particularly male method of getting by on his charms (who? me? *I* did something to screw you over?) while Saffron's is particularly female. Now She-Mal/He-Inara? How would that go down.

Being more serious, I doubt that you can really do this with a Joss show, since they're so conscious about playing with gender norms from the outset. (Though there are exceptions -- it's hard for me to imagine a show in which Illyria inhabits a male host -- throughout lit, the bodies of dead male lovers just dont' get fetishized in the same way that dead beautiful maidens do -- and I don't think that's something the writers were particularly conscious of).

But my original intent was just to comment on the Starbuck thing and admit I don't get it. Admittedly, I've never seen the original show, but I understand there are plenty of major changes -- why is "Starbuck's a woman???" the only one that people seem to be up in arms about? I mean, they made Boomer a Cylon. The miniseries ended on the implication that the entire Mission-to-search-for-Earth was a fraud. What is it about girl-Starbuck that raised so many hackles?

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Re: Firefly - I really like kangeikos suggestion above about making Jayne female, and the consequences she lists.

Now She-Mal/He-Inara? How would that go down.

Amazingly, pretty much the same in terms of storytelling, though She-Mal insulting He-Inara for being a whore would not come across as insulting in the same way to the audience, due to lingering "a man who has a lot of sex with a lot of different women is a player, a woman is..." prejudice in the audience.

What is it about girl-Starbuck that raised so many hackles?

I think it was a combination of boy-Starbuck having been the most popular character on the show and the idea that this was a kind of bland PC thing. Now once the miniseries was out, you'd think everyone would have calmed down at least in regards to the later objection, but hey...

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Amazingly, pretty much the same in terms of storytelling, though She-Mal insulting He-Inara for being a whore would not come across as insulting in the same way to the audience, due to lingering "a man who has a lot of sex with a lot of different women is a player, a woman is..." prejudice in the audience.

Though at the same time, male prostitution tends to be portrayed as something more sordid, degenerate, unmanly, etc. . .a woman who sells her body is just doing what she's "supposed" to be doing(using her body in the service of male property rights --heavy ironic quotes of course) by slightly other means, while a man is subordinating himself in an unmasculine way.

And on the subject of double-standards, and segue-ing to that other space show, I was amused on rewatching KLG 1 to note that Apollo doesn't call Starbuck a slut but accuses her of not being able to keep her pants zipped -- which is the sort of thing a guy says to another guy. Final note, it's a little hard to fathom the idea that anyone could see Kara Thrace as a sop to the PC crowd; though I imagine those objections have mostly been made by those who never bothered to watch the new show.

What is it about girl-Starbuck that raised so many hackles?

I think it was a combination of boy-Starbuck having been the most popular character on the show and the idea that this was a kind of bland PC thing. Now once the miniseries was out, you'd think everyone would have calmed down at least in regards to the later objection, but hey...

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

and glory be, it would never happen, but how about some she-hobbits setting out on a quest?