HELLO sorry for the sudden ask but I love your art very dearly. I’ve been having genderbend one piece brainworms for almost the past year and I love everything you put out.
I notice you draw a lot but. Do you have anything to say about how things would change in this hypothetical alternate universe. The concept of an all male Amazon Lily is very interesting to me… I’m very interested in hearing anything you have to say
Hiii! Thank you for the engagement on my posts! The Girl piece brainrot is real!
Anyways, I’m so excited by your question because making so many of these genderbends has really got me thinking on how the circumstances of a character can change them, personality wise and appearance wise. And I’ll say, I’ve been doing a lot of conceptual research for Masc Boa, more so than any other genderbend I’ve done so far.
So, I Hope you don’t mind me ranting:
So, to start off with the concept of an All-male Amazon Lily, I had to examine how the Kuja--as a culture—functioned. First, they live in relative isolation from the rest of the world, which means they are not beholden to rigid gender expectations, which eliminates the pressure of having to perform a certain standard of femininity. They are also a warrior culture that values strength in both the physical sense, but also in resolve. I think an Amazon lily with a male population would function with a less strict definition of what manhood is. They would also share some similarities to the romans or spartans, since having strength be a cultural aspect would only be exacerbated with an all-male population. That’s gist of what I’ve come up with so far, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this too.
On how I approach a male Boa Hancock, I had to get into who Boa is as a character and how her past and her current circumstances influence how she presents herself. Boa comes off as cold and intimidating and emotionally impenetrable; we know that most of it is a façade to protect herself from getting taken advantage of and protect Amazon lily. And Like I said previously, Amazon Lily has a flexible idea on femininity, so as a child, Boa wasn’t aware of her vulnerable position as a woman until she was abducted, which warped her idea of her identity.
This goes for Masc! Boa too. He views of masculinity and identity get distorted by his trauma. He realizes how cruel the world can be. They both internalize the cause of their trauma as being they’re own fault (even though its not) which feeds into the façades they construct to maintain control over their own identity and body. In my interpretation of Masc! Boa, His façade is one of hypermasculinity, which means taking on a more aggressive and cold personality and having an aversion to emotional vulnerability. I try to convey these aspects within the design:
I tweak the color palatte, where I eliminate any pinks and lean into light and dark reds, to give a more powerful, domineering and regal look. I originally drew him with longer hair but opted for a cropped undercut to really push his façade of hypermasculinity. And to add, I kept him completely hairless except his goatee on purpose. I think his lack of ability to grow body hair anywhere else would-be subtle cue to his insecurities.
Anyway, thank you for coming to my ted-talk. I’m so glad I can gush about this because I have notes upon notes of this stuff. Please tell me what you think, I’ll take any opportunity to gush about Girl Piece.
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