Fic Dilemma

[beatrice_otter]

I'm signing up for femmeremix, a remix ficathon for female-focused fics, and realized that if I wrote one more Vorkosiverse fic with a woman in an important role, I could add the Vorkosigan fandom to my signup. And, thinking, I got a REALLY awesome idea for a genderswapped Aarl, which I now have to write. And then I realized "but genderswap doesn't count for signup purposes," but I'm going to write it anyway because it's such a cool idea.

And then I realized, "but wait, if I say instead that Aral died in Mad Yuri's massacre and his unnamed sister survived instead, that would qualify!"

Brilliant solution. Only problem being she is so firmly GIRL!ARAL in my head that I don't know if it would work.

Her backstory: canon!Aral married Ges' sister in an arranged marriage. Given an arranged marriage, wouldn't girl!Aral likely be married to a man from the same family? OMG, SHE WOULD HAVE MARRIED GES HERSELF! Except Ges would not treat a wife like an equal the way he treated canon!Aral, so he abused her, and given Aral's temper, she killed him, and now lives in semi-disgrace down in the Vorkosigan district. That is where the story starts.

Now, the main things that she has in common with Aral are a) brilliant tactician, except used socially instead of militarily, b) that infamous temper, and c) bisexuality. And sure, I can say that the sister had all of those too, but ... isn't that kinda denying the sister's individuality?

Sigh.

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

The issue, for me, is that I've read a few too many fics where EVERYONE IS GAY. Which. Uh. Look, statistically, that just does not happen outside of self-selecting environments. I can buy a very high percentage, but ... not everyone, particularly not on Barrayar where heteronormativity is so strong.

Two isn't everyone, I know.

[archangelbeth]

There is that.

Were it me, I'd probably be torn between going "heck with it" and...
A: just presuming that the universe has a certain requirement from a character and the survivor gets to do that. If little Aral-in-that-timeline had survived, he'd have been more het than not. Or...

B: picking something different. Asexual, Kinsey-flipping, etc., or depending on the story, just leave it ambiguous.

Or C, as bookblather alludes to above: assume some of it is societal, and something in the family upbringing (they did have Betan relatives!) means all the siblings would've been open to the potential of having same-gender relationships, even if their primary attraction was opposite-gender. (Which is kind of a Kinsey-flip thing, but more taken in stride than as a surprise. Betans!)

(...which I tried to do with a protagonist once -- give him a societal acceptance of certain kinds of experiences -- and he wound up being much more bi than I'd thought he was at the beginning. The perils of running black-box character emulation in one's head. *wry*)

Meh, it's all "what I'd do." Can't tell what would work for you! Don't want to be pushy (the idea is interesting to play with!), either, so I do apologize if I'm coming off that way.

[beatrice_otter]

Thank you for commenting! I've actually already written and posted the story.

[archangelbeth]

As I now see!

*facepalm*

I have it waiting to be read! (Too much distractions.)

[beatrice_otter]

Hey, I know how that goes!