Respect a Woman

""You're a Soon Dairy.""

Respect A Woman is the name of the LJ Community for a shared Left 4 Dead fanfic Universe by (amongst others, including anyone who wants to join in) Zarla and Jazaaboo. Disappointed with the level of sexualisation usually involved in Rule 63/Genderswap art, Zarla designed two realistic pre-infection Special Infected, intended to be the male version's distaff counterparts. Hunter is a short, active, East Asian Genki Girl, while Smoker is a tall, whip-thin Deadpan Snarker. They meet when Hunter accidentally breaks Smoker's window and Smoker makes her work off the cost of a new one. This oddest of odd couples soon develops a firm friendship.

Then the zombie apocalypse hits. In the original storyline (since they were created as zombies to begin with), Hunter becomes infected by one of her parkour friends and infects Smoker in turn. However, over time another storyline began to take traction where the two of them proved to be immune to the virus, and not knowing what else to do, Hunter and Smoker searched for rescue and tried to survive. They meet Charger, a serious woman who knows her animals and applies her skills to predicting the actions of the zombies, and Jockey, a relatively young girl with what one might charitably describe as perception problems. These last two were designed by Jazaaboo.

The shared universe also includes storylines where the outbreak never happened, along with a Cowboy Universe and...

The one thing that never changes is the characters.


 * Action Girl: The main cast might have no practical combat experience (except maybe Charger) and they're all woefully unprepared for what happened, but they can look after themselves. For the most part.
 * Action Survivor: Smoker, Hunter, and Jockey at first, although Charger teaches them how to use guns and survive.
 * Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Smoker and Hunter may fight, but it never seems to last very long.
 * Badass: One of Charger's entrances has her decapitating a Hunter and saving Hunter from a Smoker in a matter of seconds without blinking twice.
 * Battle Couple
 * Beautiful All Along: Subverted. Smoker cleans up pretty nice, but both she and Hunter consider it far more effort than it's worth.
 * Bi the Way: Hunter.
 * Break the Cutie: Poor Jockey.
 * Catgirl: Not literally, but Hunter has some very catlike traits aside from her cat-eared hoodie, such as her reaction to thunder.
 * Cat Smile: Hunter pulls them off a lot in Shimeji form.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Very often, Jockey will completely veer off into her own head and insist that everything is fine and there is no zombie apocalypse, that loved ones are not in fact dead, but still alive and waiting for them somewhere, etc.
 * Combat Pragmatist: The main four are no strangers to doing what it takes to win a fight.
 * Curse of the Ancients: Smoker's preferred exclamations run something along the lines of "Jeezum Crow!"
 * Cute Bruiser: Hunter prefers melee weapons, and is probably the strongest member along with Charger.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Smoker. Hunter also enjoys sarcasm, but to a lesser degree.
 * Deer in the Headlights: Warlock, a male survivor based on the Witch, suffers heavily from this. As he was already a tightly wound ball of anxiety during the preinfection days, you can imagine how this plays out in general when the infection hits.
 * Does Not Like Men: Smoker doesn't like anybody much, but all of the men in her life are basically slimeballs.
 * Expressive Shirt: Hunter's cat-eared hoodie tends to move on its own, depending on Hunter's mood.
 * Feminine Women Can Cook: Subverted with Smoker - she tends to act and appear rather masculine (to the point where people get to thinking...), but she can still cook just fine (although according to Hunter, it may be a bit of an acquired taste). However, her laziness means that she tends to only cook when Hunter's around or if her team convinces her to make something.
 * Four-Girl Ensemble
 * Genki Girl: Hunter is constantly active, related to her interest in Parkour.
 * Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: Invoked for laughs at how unrealistic many fantasies about Girls Love works, including Self Fanservice and the whole "lesbians will totally make an exception for me!" idea.
 * Happily Married: Charger was, before the apocalypse.
 * Hidden Depths: Smoker and Jockey are great lovers of music, from the Midnight Riders to showtunes. Hunter, naturally, teases Smoker mercilessly for this. On the other hand, Hunter herself likes some rather embarrassing music...
 * Hot Chick in a Badass Suit: Hunter really liked how Smoker looked in a suit.
 * Huge Girl, Tiny Other Girl: Hunter and Smoker, natch.
 * Subverted in that Hunter, seemingly a tiny thing, is much heavier than Smoker, as her regular parkour regimen has turned her into almost solid muscle.
 * The Hyena: Like her infected counterpart, Jockey reacts to almost everything with laughter, even when it's not appropriate.
 * If It's You It's Okay: The tone of Smoker and Hunter's relationship.
 * Jerkass: Griffin, Smoker's egotistic co-worker.
 * Lethal Chef: Hunter. "I tried to boil an egg once and I burned it."
 * Loners Are Freaks: Subverted with Smoker; while she prefers to be alone, it's never presented as any kind of character flaw or something that has to be fixed.
 * Luminescent Blush: Smoker in any sexual situation, and she hates it. Hunter of course mocks her for it.
 * Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Again subverted, as Hunter actually likes Smoker for her introvertedness, and has no desire at all to change her.
 * Mistaken for Gay: Played with. Hunter is bi, and Smoker genuinely doesn't consider herself to be gay, but people tend to make assumptions... which may or may not be true...
 * Nakama
 * No Sense of Personal Space: Hunter, although this comes from her origins as a zombie that tore people apart with her bare hands.
 * Occidental Otaku: Holy crap Foxie.
 * One Head Taller: Smoker with... almost everyone, men and women alike. Also comes from her zombie origins, as Smokers are taller than all other infected.
 * One of the Boys: All of Hunter's friends were guys, until they all turned into zombies anyway.
 * Le Parkour: Hunter has several running buddies for this, and tends to practice all the time, even in public and on people. This hobby led to their meeting in the first place.
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Hunter and Smoker, as well as Jockey and Charger.
 * Sassy Black Woman: Subverted with Charger, who's the calmest and most level-headed of the four to the point where Hunter wonders if she had her sense of humor removed.
 * Scars Are Forever: Charger has a large scar across her face from an encounter with a crocodile.
 * Smoking Is Cool: While Smoker might have the right attitude for it, she's physically the weakest of their team.
 * Straw Misogynist: A couple of minor antagonists.
 * Team Mom: While not exactly lampshaded, Charger does state once that the only children she has are the three in her team. This position is later supported by her reaction to Hunter being attacked. She was also known (before the apocalypse) for charging to the defense of her employees if they were in danger, causing them to give her the nickname "Mother Elephant". Her protectiveness and anger when roused is also a reference to her zombie origins - as an infected, she charges to the defense of other zombies, and won't let her victim go until she or they're dead.
 * Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Smoker does NOT like Jockey most of the time.
 * Tsundere: As the above quote suggests, Smoker is extremely Tsundere, Hunter is one too to a lesser extent.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: Hunter and Smoker. "I'm stealing your wallet." "That'll be a neat trick after I snap your neck."
 * Widow Woman: Charger's husband died when the apocalypse hit.
 * The Woobie: Jockey due to her upbeay attitude and general happiness, is usually the one who gets hit the hardest when "things go sour".
 * This also applies to the man!Witch character Warlock, even when he isn't infected.
 * Zombie Apocalypse: Part of the default setting.