WORLDBUILDING: Pokémon Indigo League (and likely other seasons also) rewritten if Ash was a girl

[DigitalGen6]

Title says it all. I was thinking what if Ash was a girl, and his journey was rewritten or something (I would probably keep the Pikachu thing in; I’m writing an offline fanfic about Ash’s journey if he was a girl and I’m keeping it in there, along with letting him just get Charizard and not all three of the starters). Possibly the other seasons will be done as well! (And my ideas are bad so I wanna hear your superior ideas!)

Team:
Pikachu (yes)
Charizard (imo best starter but I like Venusaur and blastoise too but idk)
Vileplume (I wanna keep the type balance that existed in most of his teams)
Seadra (might evolve into Kingdra if I ever get around to also making a Johto rewrite; this has the same reason as Vileplume)
Wigglytuff (he’ll probably catch the Jigglypuff that sings or something)
Nidoqueen (idk)

Also, hopefully this Ash will like perfume so he won’t get booted out of the perfume shop and the Gym

 

[Nitro Indigo]

How would Ash being a girl change the plot? Obviously, she wouldn't have to crossdress to get into Celadon Gym, but what else? Who would treat her differently than in canon?

 

[PainterFight]

Yeah, turning Ash into a girl seemed unnecessary...

 

[DigitalGen6]

Uh, this is literally a rewrite idea I had, and of course she wouldn’t have to crossdress to get in Celadon Gym.
PLUS this is an AU where a lot of stuff is the same but also different (Fanfiction is here)

 

[Welkamo]

* deep breath *

So I'm a queer writer who likes exploring gender in their works, and I (personally) find genderbends/"what if character was Y gender"/"what if character was born as Z"/ etc. etc. etc. to be fascinating to write. It's a great way to explore character and themes and other really cool things.

That being said, how you write a genderbend of Ash is going to depend on a few factors:

1. How prevalent are sexism and gender norms in your fic's world?

I've seen interpretations of the Pokémon world everywhere from a very sexist to a very egalitarian society. No one interpretation is the "right" or "wrong" interpretation, though depending on the themes you want to explore, it might be good to explore where things stand in your fic society.

For example, let's take a spectrum of scenarios:

Scenario one: Only boys are allowed to be Trainers, only girls are allowed to be Coordinators.

Scenario two: Boys and girls can be either Trainers or Coordinators, but there are social pressures and/or systemic barriers that make it so that boys are mostly Trainers and girls are mostly Coordinators.

Scenario three: Boys and girls can be either Trainer or Coordinators, and there's no pressure to be one or the other based on your gender.

In the case of Ashley, let's say that she wants to be a Trainer more than anything, but we put her in scenario two. Maybe we spin the first episode so that rather than being late and taking the only starter left, Ashley is begrudgingly given the hardest Pokémon to train—Pikachu—in the hopes that it will discourage her from following her dreams, but she persists onwards, because Ashley (and male!Ash) never gives up. What other barriers will Ashley have to face?

Of course, maybe you go where Scenario three, where boys and girls are equal and free to do whatever they want. That's also a valid approach!

2. How does gender affect the character's relationship with others?

A lot of this is going to depend on headcanon and personal interpretation, especially in terms of romance. For example, if you see Ash and Misty's dynamic in the original series as the Totally Scientific "that phase where boys and girls believe in cooties" phase (I swear there are more technical terms for the phases from "kids play with kids regardless of gender" to "kids start to hang out in same-gender groups" to "screw gender, it's just a construct anyway", and we could argue how much of this is or isn't heteronormativity/gender norms, but that's a topic for another day), how does that dynamic change with Ashley? How does the dynamic change with the rest of Ashley's companions, acquaintances, rivals, and enemies?

TLDR Genderbends can be a cool way of exploring the weirdness of gender

 

[BlueGreenRival]

It seems like you would kind of need to change the character to be what you want it to be... Unless you just gender swap him as-is, in which case she ends up just being kind of a tomboy?

Ash being a boy, was probably because they didn't really expect the whole thing to be such a phenomenon and presumed it would mainly be boys who would be into it. Making some mons cute was probably to juxtapose them with the stronger more evolved mons and it happened to attract more girls to the series. Not that guys don't love a cute animal too, we all had a stuffed animal growing up right?

But the basic premise is about catching monsters and making them fight. That sounds like it was a stereotypical kid boy fantasy right there. "I wanna own a Dragon and dominate every other kid out there by being smarter and tougher, he's gonna have the hottest fireball and we're gonna beat everyone until we're the best!". Also they made the game and the manga first, and in those the main is a boy... Ash was based on Red and his first pokemon is Poliwag there, boys are known to go out in swampy areas to catch those and frogs and other gross stuff like bugs (all the bug catchers are guys pretty much iirc etc.

I think gender-swapping would just have Ashley as a tomboy and not much changed beyond that imo, but I'd be interested to hear some ideas as to how you plan to rewrite him.

 

[DigitalGen6]

Concept is abandoned lol, might make her girly with a tomboy streak or somewhere between girly and tomboy lmao
(I didn’t even know what I was doing when I first wrote this, keep in mind)
(And just wait until the Unova saga, her outfit kinda gives off in-the-middle vibes to me)

 

[mastermind lissi]

Ok so I have this old ish Fic that needs so much rewriting but it’s basically this girl ashley (there’s no other acceptable name lol) Whos a normal person in the real world who doesn’t care much for Pokémon but has a friend That’s really into it

so one day Ashley gets bored and finally decides to watch the anime off some pirate site

sketchy pirate site sucks her into the anime and she replaces ash

its a good concept ig but oh arceus the amount of fricking plot holes and inconsistency and general need of a rewrite is just… ough I can’t even read it anymore lol

I started with x and y too before I watched the anime so even more plot holes….

i should rewrite it lol

 

[DigitalGen6]

Ok so I have this old ish Fic that needs so much rewriting but it’s basically this girl ashley (there’s no other acceptable name lol) Whos a normal person in the real world who doesn’t care much for Pokémon but has a friend That’s really into it

so one day Ashley gets bored and finally decides to watch the anime off some pirate site

sketchy pirate site sucks her into the anime and she replaces ash

its a good concept ig but oh arceus the amount of fricking plot holes and inconsistency and general need of a rewrite is just… ough I can’t even read it anymore lol

I started with x and y too before I watched the anime so even more plot holes….

i should rewrite it lol

That makes two of us lol