Okay this is again me obsessed with lesbian Devil's Minion. I had written I have lots of thought about Armand's gender presentation and her way of comforming or not comforming through the century.
I want you that it's long and there is lots of projection going on lmao.
Sorry if it took me a while to answer but I have an exam some days ago so I didn't have time/energy to think too much about fandom.
So my vision of Armand's gender presentation and issues and journey:
I just think that as a Venetian Renaissance girlTM she may have been preassured to dress and act and behave in a certain manner. Just as in canon Armand was groomed to be the perfect imagine of the Renaissance young man but like +100. And imho her relationship with gender would change if the boys in the Palazzo remain boys or if we all change them to be girls. In the first case, I can see her resenting more the rigid gender role of their time, because of the fact that others boys were more free than Armand, and skeaking out with Riccardo&Co to go running on the streets dressed as a paige. In the second case, maybe there is less resentement and more "what if we don't try dressing as young men to go in that tavern/fairy" etc.
Regardless of that, I can also see all the people around Armand (Marius in primis but not only) to take the whole objectification+"oh you just look like a doll/such a beautiful girl/pretty face" up to 100 if Armand was a girl. Imagine all the canon objectification Armand face in TVA+ the doll treatment that Claudia received in IWTV (the first book)- that's more or less how I think it would have been for a version of Armand who is a girl during the Renaissance. I imagine she would not be called a cherub but a young nynph, which is. Ick. And I imagine that, like in canon Armand had an ambiguous reaction to being called beautiful, that would be true even more in this au.
I can see him (her idk) trying to present more masculine to try to avoid objectification (which is ironic giving canon) and idk wanting to distance herself from the idea of a Renaissance painting.
I think during the cult years Armand would have not presented either masculine, andronynous or feminine- just long chastizing black dresses and unkept hair. This is also a some sort of way to distance herself from her apparent physical beauty that is the thing that, as a mortal, people always focused on when looking at her.
Then- the theatre years. I see the theatre years as years of experimentation in term of gender presentation because well, I'm a theatre person lmao. I can see Armand, in the rare time he enters the stage, playing a male role (again the projection lmao).
And then- after Louis burn down the theatre. The Modern Age TM.
I can see Armand experimenting with gener presentation and finding a sort of androgynous persona and allure while still with Louis, because I think it was the beginning of last century, during La Belle Epoque etc, that the imagine of women with short hair or occasionally in trousers started become more popular.
I can see Armand cutting their hair every evening like Gabrielle in canon, in modern time, or Claudia in the movie, even if for different reasons.
Then the 70s/80s happens and Armand is BLOWN AWAY. By all the nuances and variety and freedom of expression in underground scene and culture that she discover through Daniel. (Also lesbian).
Daniel is like, 100% butch lesbian, and we know from canon Armand does consider Daniel as the guide to the modern world.
I think in this au Armand, with all her past baggage, would find Daniel's way to express herself very freeing.
I can see Armand becoming less and less gender conforming in modern time, maybe even wanting to change pronouns in the 00s, maybe not, but otherwise being very fascinated for multiple reasons by the new freedom and the concept of gender as something who trascend physical bodies.
