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Extended Thoughts on: Lula Nettleby/Luther Nettleby, Esq.
4 years ago
General
This was a fun character to write! I had the good fortune to be commissioned again by OccamsSword, who was previously responsible for the Charlie Pelletier character (one of my all-time favourites!), and it was great to work with a pre-existing character again, or at least one with some lore behind it already! But there was something else different about this character: the gender change.
I... don't think I've written an FtM before Lula Nettleby. Yes, I've written characters and stories that have women gain dicks, but that's not what I'm talking about with FtM. I've also written some women to femboy transformations, but the characters in them still present as female and are also fucking horrible please don't read those. This is the first time I've written about a very girly girl, turning into a very manly man.
I used to not like FtM, usually because when it happened in roleplaying, sex usually followed. Of course, now I know why I didn't like that part of the FtM, and with sex off the table, I've... really started to like it! Gender is identity, after all, and identity play is kinda sorta my thing. You might've noticed; I bring it up almost as much as I bring up my asexuality and my horrible writing skills lmao #negativeselftalk It doesn't hurt that, as I began writing this character, a couple of really good FtM stories came out. Basically, it was the perfect time for me to get into female to male.
And here's another thing that I found really interesting about writing this character: I could relate to them more. I guess in hindsight that's incredibly obvious; I'm cis male IRL, so a story involving the final form being male is something I'm gonna have a lot more experience with. But I also like and do things that are in contrast to '''masculinity''', so I could add bits of that into the character. I personally think the true 'sea change' for Lula turning into Luther is not any scene of aggression, or any of the manly bits; it's the scene where Lula forces themselves to stop appearing so upset, and gets mad at themselves for crying. That's... a situation I've been in with 'the boys', and it was personal enough that it was... almost hard to write? I honestly was unsure if I wanted to add it, since it feels so sad. But then Lula grows fur and starts drooling and gets handcuffed to a pole in a kinky gameshow, and I've avoided having to tackle gender issues once again. Hooray!
Jeez, skirting around an issue with flippant bravado so I don't have to deal with my emotions... I really am a man, eh? Whatevs, time for trivia:
- Name time first, as usual. Since this was a pre-existing character, I didn't come up with Lula or Luther Nettleby... but I did come up with the Esquire at the end! It's a title that... doesn't really mean much nowadays, at least in the UK. But it sounds fancy!
- That said, there is a difference between a US Esquire and a UK Esquire, so I had to find out where both Nettleby's live. And OccamsSword, being awesome, provided me with not only that (UK for both), but their counties and their accents! And me, being not as awesome, barely used that information in the character itself. Whoops.
- Lula's claims at the beginning are, unsurprisingly, very wrong, though some parts are... slightly accurate? Jiang-shi do move around by jumping, and the “paper around their heads” are talismans, words of power that are similar to what golems have. Keep in mind, all of this might be wrong, too. But I'm pretty sure golems aren't nocturnal. Maybe.
- As for the monsters she references, the elf is Stella Sutherford, the tauren is Dexter Feiselberg, and the lamia is Jenny and Janny Talbot. Are Jenny and Janny actually a lamia? I don't know, and neither does Lula.
- The alp that Lula assumes she's turning into is a Monster Girl Encyclopdia monster, tomboyish succubi who used to be gay men that had crushes on their straight friends, and I am not comfortable getting into the implications of that, so I'll instead talk about the dramatic irony. Lula is right that they're “boyish looking demons”, but she conveniently forgets that their transformation includes a gender change.
- That “Slaughter of '17” rumour? Turns out that actually happened! ...In the game, I mean. I don't think it happened in real life, though I haven't watched Family Feud in ages. My first commission, Lucas Robertson, was also a ferocious werewolf and ended in a really gory way that my commissioner fortunately rejected. Unfortunately, every so often that ending sneaks its way into the online game, cuz I'm a dummy and haven't deleted the file like I really should. That means you might have played it! My sincerest apologies. So when it came time for Lula, I couldn't help but reference it, strongly implying that Lula was gonna turn into Lucas' mate.
- There was just one problem: Lucas Robertson was a player character, and Lula Nettleby is a computer character. That means that you could pit werewolf against werewolf, and then Lula would reference a transformation that shouldn't happen (yet). So I had to make it just vague enough that it didn't outwardly say who the Slaughter of '17 was about, but... c'mon. It's a violent werewolf, one that happened to be released in 2017. We're obviously talking about Lucas, unless he's the one playing. Otherwise, we'll put it on Clarke and Claire or some shit.
- This, of course, wasn't an issue for Dr. Magnum, the computer character I referred to in the whole handcuff thing.
- Hey, did you know that the feminine pronoun for his is her... and the feminine pronoun for him is also her? Did you also know that Transformania Time can't tell the difference between changing her to his and changing her to him?? So that means, if you were writing an FtM character, you'd have to look through every single pronoun and rewrite it so the game doesn't devolve into caveman speak?! ...I don't know anyone like that, but I bet they'd be VERY annoyed with that situation. Just a wild hunch.
My question: ...I can't think of one. Maybe I'll redirect you to my last question... yeah, answer that one.
Roit cheese an' choccy, innit guv?!
yoshielder
I... don't think I've written an FtM before Lula Nettleby. Yes, I've written characters and stories that have women gain dicks, but that's not what I'm talking about with FtM. I've also written some women to femboy transformations, but the characters in them still present as female and are also fucking horrible please don't read those. This is the first time I've written about a very girly girl, turning into a very manly man.
I used to not like FtM, usually because when it happened in roleplaying, sex usually followed. Of course, now I know why I didn't like that part of the FtM, and with sex off the table, I've... really started to like it! Gender is identity, after all, and identity play is kinda sorta my thing. You might've noticed; I bring it up almost as much as I bring up my asexuality and my horrible writing skills lmao #negativeselftalk It doesn't hurt that, as I began writing this character, a couple of really good FtM stories came out. Basically, it was the perfect time for me to get into female to male.
And here's another thing that I found really interesting about writing this character: I could relate to them more. I guess in hindsight that's incredibly obvious; I'm cis male IRL, so a story involving the final form being male is something I'm gonna have a lot more experience with. But I also like and do things that are in contrast to '''masculinity''', so I could add bits of that into the character. I personally think the true 'sea change' for Lula turning into Luther is not any scene of aggression, or any of the manly bits; it's the scene where Lula forces themselves to stop appearing so upset, and gets mad at themselves for crying. That's... a situation I've been in with 'the boys', and it was personal enough that it was... almost hard to write? I honestly was unsure if I wanted to add it, since it feels so sad. But then Lula grows fur and starts drooling and gets handcuffed to a pole in a kinky gameshow, and I've avoided having to tackle gender issues once again. Hooray!
Jeez, skirting around an issue with flippant bravado so I don't have to deal with my emotions... I really am a man, eh? Whatevs, time for trivia:
- Name time first, as usual. Since this was a pre-existing character, I didn't come up with Lula or Luther Nettleby... but I did come up with the Esquire at the end! It's a title that... doesn't really mean much nowadays, at least in the UK. But it sounds fancy!
- That said, there is a difference between a US Esquire and a UK Esquire, so I had to find out where both Nettleby's live. And OccamsSword, being awesome, provided me with not only that (UK for both), but their counties and their accents! And me, being not as awesome, barely used that information in the character itself. Whoops.
- Lula's claims at the beginning are, unsurprisingly, very wrong, though some parts are... slightly accurate? Jiang-shi do move around by jumping, and the “paper around their heads” are talismans, words of power that are similar to what golems have. Keep in mind, all of this might be wrong, too. But I'm pretty sure golems aren't nocturnal. Maybe.
- As for the monsters she references, the elf is Stella Sutherford, the tauren is Dexter Feiselberg, and the lamia is Jenny and Janny Talbot. Are Jenny and Janny actually a lamia? I don't know, and neither does Lula.
- The alp that Lula assumes she's turning into is a Monster Girl Encyclopdia monster, tomboyish succubi who used to be gay men that had crushes on their straight friends, and I am not comfortable getting into the implications of that, so I'll instead talk about the dramatic irony. Lula is right that they're “boyish looking demons”, but she conveniently forgets that their transformation includes a gender change.
- That “Slaughter of '17” rumour? Turns out that actually happened! ...In the game, I mean. I don't think it happened in real life, though I haven't watched Family Feud in ages. My first commission, Lucas Robertson, was also a ferocious werewolf and ended in a really gory way that my commissioner fortunately rejected. Unfortunately, every so often that ending sneaks its way into the online game, cuz I'm a dummy and haven't deleted the file like I really should. That means you might have played it! My sincerest apologies. So when it came time for Lula, I couldn't help but reference it, strongly implying that Lula was gonna turn into Lucas' mate.
- There was just one problem: Lucas Robertson was a player character, and Lula Nettleby is a computer character. That means that you could pit werewolf against werewolf, and then Lula would reference a transformation that shouldn't happen (yet). So I had to make it just vague enough that it didn't outwardly say who the Slaughter of '17 was about, but... c'mon. It's a violent werewolf, one that happened to be released in 2017. We're obviously talking about Lucas, unless he's the one playing. Otherwise, we'll put it on Clarke and Claire or some shit.
- This, of course, wasn't an issue for Dr. Magnum, the computer character I referred to in the whole handcuff thing.
- Hey, did you know that the feminine pronoun for his is her... and the feminine pronoun for him is also her? Did you also know that Transformania Time can't tell the difference between changing her to his and changing her to him?? So that means, if you were writing an FtM character, you'd have to look through every single pronoun and rewrite it so the game doesn't devolve into caveman speak?! ...I don't know anyone like that, but I bet they'd be VERY annoyed with that situation. Just a wild hunch.
My question: ...I can't think of one. Maybe I'll redirect you to my last question... yeah, answer that one.
Roit cheese an' choccy, innit guv?!
yoshielder
