Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-96.246.94.80-20140213225713/@comment-10860529-20140302162800

I'm totally okay/pretty neutral about the inclusion of guy OCs and and male canon characters in general, to be honest. On one hand, I can see why there's less development in both canon and fan characters of the male variety, since the line is pretty obviously aimed at girls. On the other? I like to see equal development in any character of all genders. Maybe it's just my inner writer wanting every single detail to be fleshed out, but it would be nice. The fandom as a whole is an untamed beast, however. Kind of hard to tell it what to do and not do.

96.246.94.80 wrote:

As for genderbent OCs, do you find it hard to make them like the opposite-sex parent? It was a little tricky for some of them. My Donkey Skin OC was probably the hardest to do it with - his emphasis is on the cake-baking that Donkey Skin does in the second half of the story, since other aspects of the character seemed too hard to pull off on a boy. His design was easy, though - I gave him a masculine outfit while keeping the donkey skin. I also made his hair more masculine, though it's still considered long (just not long like a girl).

Definitely an interesting question! Of my own OCs, the gender ratio is balanced except for one or two extra females. Three of them happen to be the opposite sex at their fairy tale parent, while with two of them their parent's gender depends on what version of the story is told. I've actually had a pretty easy time making OCs of the opposite sex as their parent, but I think that it's because the part their parents play are either androgynous, or their gender is the opposite of their supposed gender expression? Maybe I just have a weird taste in fairy tales. :P

For example, with Cynthea Mallard, The Ugly Duckling is referred as a he throughout the narrative, and is even used as a plot point (his mother points out that it matters less that he's ugly since he's male, and the old woman he temporarily stays with mistakes him for an adult female duck, ext). However, the theme of beauty is often stereotyped as being a solely female matter, and unfortunately society holds ridiculously high expectations/a narrow definition of what "beauty" is when it's honestly quite subjective. Thus why it wasn't too hard for me, and perhaps why all Ugly Duckling offspring so far seem to be girls. I have the feeling that ugliness/beauty may have been slightly more balanced in society gender-wise back when Andersen wrote it, but I may be wrong.

Another one would be Cora Chopper. I feel like I'm bogging down this thread with self-talk but eh. *-* The Tin Woodman (or Tin Man as most know him) longs for a heart even though he's already displays kindness, empathy, and happens to be particularly emotional (pretty sure he cried more than once in the first book). Heck, in the sequels he's even described as a "dandy" (a guy who cares a lot about their personal appearance), and at one point I even saw "girlish" as a descriptor for him (in the third book I think, keep in mind this was written in the early 1900s - Baum was pretty ahead of his time in terms of gender expression).

Again, mainly traits associated/stereotyped as feminine. Although oddly enough, Cora's appearance isn't all particularly feminine in itself. Not to say she's a tomboy though (I mean she makes her own jewelry which I guess is girlish, but eh - I say she's neutral in gender expression, with her sister filly more of the girliness gap). Might bring up the others in later posts, just to save you from my wordiness.

Anyways, I'm actually really curious about how the show will handle its portrayal of male students with female fairy tale parents. They've yet to show any from what I know, but Alistair Wonderland has been trademarked so hopefully he appears in one of the episodes soon. I think that the key to making a student OC whose parent's gender is opposite of their child's would be to either to try and subvert certain assumptions about the sexes, or find a loophole in how genders are percieved when it comes to the subjects of their stories. Random example would be that while women, especially mothers, are assumed to be good cooks, high-ranking chefs are usually prtrayed as men both in fiction and unfortunately hold that position more often in real life.