AU girl!Zoro notes for an RP event
Sneaking online at lunchtime to throw up this quick post of character notes for an AU event at luceti. This is a bit incoherent and sketchy and mostly for my rp buddies, but anyone's welcome to say what they think!
So I'm going with genderbending for this AU. Girl!Zoro is from a universe where the Straw Hats (and possibly some other people) are and always have been the opposite sex. Key persons such as Gold Roger and Hawk-eyes Mihawk are not switched. Neither, I've decided, is anyone else in Zoro's background. Her sensei is still a man, and her rival and sensei's daughter Kuina was still that-a daughter.
Zoro's history, personality, and abilities are much the same as in canon. No, really, Zoro and her choices and actions would pretty much not differ at all. >_> With a few slight adjustments, more mental than anything else. Along with being Kuina's childhood rival and desperately wanting to defeat her, Zoro admired and probably even hero-worshipped her to an extent as a role model, another take-no-bullshit girl going after the same goal. After Zoro lost their 2001st duel, hearing Kuina bitterly denounce their training and efforts as useless and their shared dream of becoming the strongest swordsperson in the world as impossible (given that they were both female) was a cruel shock.
Zoro immediately and vehemently argued back against this, as she had never been concerned about gender and impossibility. Something along the lines of “Don't you-you who's always beating me, you who are my goal-don't you say that to me!” It rather loses the element of “I will defeat you because of my skill rather than because of your gender”, and instead becomes more “You're my goal, I want to beat you because you're the best here, not because you're the only other girl doing this, and I will not beat you because you just give up-and we'll both kick the asses of anyone who thinks our dream isn't possible and show them.” She brings Kuina around and they make the same promise as in canon, and when Kuina dies the next day, it's just as devastating for this Zoro. Her dream is as much about proving to Kuina that it's possible for them as it is about their promise and her own inborn ambition. As such, she definitely gets...irritable if someone implies that it's not.
The other, probably more obvious difference that stands out to me is that this Zoro is more brash, aware of, and contemptuous about things to do with sexuality. This is due to her experiences as a girl fighting in a man's arena, and, well. A teenage girl traveling alone, and constantly engaging the seedier, more vicious parts of society in her quest to become the Strongest? Growing ever more infamous as a pirate hunter who's showing up all the big strong men? Yeah, she's had plenty of aggressive, oftentimes outright malicious guys trying not-good things. Luckily she's still basically 100x More Badass Than Everyone and Totally Uninterested, so she generally cuts up and crushes those types beneath her boot before they can do more than talk big and vulgar. She's had her fair share of uncomfortable, infuriating moments, though nothing worse than that.
But yeah, anyway, she's a lot more consciously aware of that kind of thing, and doesn't react to even the most innocent, platonic flirting with any amount of friendliness. (Exceptions made with much ill-grace for Robin(o) and Nami(zou), once she figures out that they're always just teasing.) Further, her natural overprotective streak definitely extends to her female crewmates in this sense. The Straw Hats have some very attractive women, and among them some pretty innocent, naïve women (coughUsoppandLuffykocough). Skeezebags (or non-skeezebags, Zoro isn't picky >_>) hitting on them are either (somewhat) subtly intimidated away or just outright crushed, depending. She's not loud about it, though, it's still in the same somewhat faux-distant, 'I'm just doing this because I want to' kind of way that she does most things.
She's just as blunt, fight-loving, clear-eyed, generally Strong and Silent, booze-loving, nap-happy, direction-impaired, grumpy-tempered, calm, and overall Zoro as ever. Aside from it being her baseline personality to not give a damn about unimportant things, she's come to find it somewhat amusing, how consternated people get when she's crude and man-ish. That combined with her necessary greater awareness of the existence of sexuality-even if she's still not interested in it herself-means she tends to make rather more vulgar references than guy!Zoro. She's got marginally less upper body strength-not that most people would notice-and is much more quick on her feet than guy!Zoro, and her fighting style is adjusted accordingly. ...Possibly her weakness to small, cute things is a little more apparent and in the open in this version. :Da
...Nothing else comes immediately to mind, I may add more to this if other things occur. Thoughts? Disagreements? Additions? Quibbles? I'm open to input. /o/
So I'm going with genderbending for this AU. Girl!Zoro is from a universe where the Straw Hats (and possibly some other people) are and always have been the opposite sex. Key persons such as Gold Roger and Hawk-eyes Mihawk are not switched. Neither, I've decided, is anyone else in Zoro's background. Her sensei is still a man, and her rival and sensei's daughter Kuina was still that-a daughter.
Zoro's history, personality, and abilities are much the same as in canon. No, really, Zoro and her choices and actions would pretty much not differ at all. >_> With a few slight adjustments, more mental than anything else. Along with being Kuina's childhood rival and desperately wanting to defeat her, Zoro admired and probably even hero-worshipped her to an extent as a role model, another take-no-bullshit girl going after the same goal. After Zoro lost their 2001st duel, hearing Kuina bitterly denounce their training and efforts as useless and their shared dream of becoming the strongest swordsperson in the world as impossible (given that they were both female) was a cruel shock.
Zoro immediately and vehemently argued back against this, as she had never been concerned about gender and impossibility. Something along the lines of “Don't you-you who's always beating me, you who are my goal-don't you say that to me!” It rather loses the element of “I will defeat you because of my skill rather than because of your gender”, and instead becomes more “You're my goal, I want to beat you because you're the best here, not because you're the only other girl doing this, and I will not beat you because you just give up-and we'll both kick the asses of anyone who thinks our dream isn't possible and show them.” She brings Kuina around and they make the same promise as in canon, and when Kuina dies the next day, it's just as devastating for this Zoro. Her dream is as much about proving to Kuina that it's possible for them as it is about their promise and her own inborn ambition. As such, she definitely gets...irritable if someone implies that it's not.
The other, probably more obvious difference that stands out to me is that this Zoro is more brash, aware of, and contemptuous about things to do with sexuality. This is due to her experiences as a girl fighting in a man's arena, and, well. A teenage girl traveling alone, and constantly engaging the seedier, more vicious parts of society in her quest to become the Strongest? Growing ever more infamous as a pirate hunter who's showing up all the big strong men? Yeah, she's had plenty of aggressive, oftentimes outright malicious guys trying not-good things. Luckily she's still basically 100x More Badass Than Everyone and Totally Uninterested, so she generally cuts up and crushes those types beneath her boot before they can do more than talk big and vulgar. She's had her fair share of uncomfortable, infuriating moments, though nothing worse than that.
But yeah, anyway, she's a lot more consciously aware of that kind of thing, and doesn't react to even the most innocent, platonic flirting with any amount of friendliness. (Exceptions made with much ill-grace for Robin(o) and Nami(zou), once she figures out that they're always just teasing.) Further, her natural overprotective streak definitely extends to her female crewmates in this sense. The Straw Hats have some very attractive women, and among them some pretty innocent, naïve women (coughUsoppandLuffykocough). Skeezebags (or non-skeezebags, Zoro isn't picky >_>) hitting on them are either (somewhat) subtly intimidated away or just outright crushed, depending. She's not loud about it, though, it's still in the same somewhat faux-distant, 'I'm just doing this because I want to' kind of way that she does most things.
She's just as blunt, fight-loving, clear-eyed, generally Strong and Silent, booze-loving, nap-happy, direction-impaired, grumpy-tempered, calm, and overall Zoro as ever. Aside from it being her baseline personality to not give a damn about unimportant things, she's come to find it somewhat amusing, how consternated people get when she's crude and man-ish. That combined with her necessary greater awareness of the existence of sexuality-even if she's still not interested in it herself-means she tends to make rather more vulgar references than guy!Zoro. She's got marginally less upper body strength-not that most people would notice-and is much more quick on her feet than guy!Zoro, and her fighting style is adjusted accordingly. ...Possibly her weakness to small, cute things is a little more apparent and in the open in this version. :Da
...Nothing else comes immediately to mind, I may add more to this if other things occur. Thoughts? Disagreements? Additions? Quibbles? I'm open to input. /o/