Basic Trope: One guy is masculine and the other is feminine.
- Straight:
- Mike is a buff craftsman who values his independence. Steve is a slender teacher who reveres his commitment.
- Mike wears pumped up masculine clothing and loves sports while his brother Steve wears fairly feminine form-fitting style clothing and prefers sewing and music.
- Exaggerated:
- Mike is a quiet mechanical engineer with competitive and status-seeking tendencies, while Steve is a talkative gardener with a complacent demeanor.
- Mike is so masculine, he borders on Testosterone Poisoning, while Steve is 100% purely feminine. Furthermore, Steve hates masculine hobbies with a burning passion, and Mike hates feminine hobbies with a burning passion too.
- Downplayed:
- Mike is on the rugby team while Steve is on the cheerleading squad.
- Mike is The Charmer and Steve is Silk Hiding Steel.
- Tomgirl and Girly Boy: Mike is a fairy feminine guy, who, although loves sewing, clothing, fashion, caring for his hair, and dancing, art, cooking, and gymnastics, and is more feminine than a typical man, nonetheless still has some standards and has some masculine qualities and interests, while Steve is a very feminine guy, to the point of being "girly".
- Extreme Macho Manly Man and Moderate Manly Man: Mike is very macho to the point of being extremely "manly", while Steve is a moderate manly man, who while engages in sports and working out, he also doesn't mind some feminine activities such as cooking and sewing.
- Moderate Manly Man and Girly Boy: Mike is mostly manly, but has a few feminine interests, while Steve has only feminine interests.
- Brash Man and Emotionally Open Man: Neither Mike nor Steve have feminine interests, but Mike is either The Stoic or Hot-Blooded while Steve feels a wide range of emotions and is open to express them.
- Tomgirl and Extreme Macho Manly Man: Steve is mostly feminine, but also has a heart of a baritone, stoic, muscles are meaningless martial artist, while Mike has only Masculine interests.
- Girly Boy Steve and Extreme Macho Manly Man Mike are polar opposites in different ways.
- Tomgirl Steve and Moderate Manly Man Mike are gender-neutral in different ways.
- Justified:
- Mike comes from a family that values traditional gender roles whereas Steve comes from a more progressive family.
- Mike comes from a tribe of honoring barbarians full of hotblooded martial artists, while Steve comes from a noble martial pacifist family that abhors "hyper stereotypes" and respects each other no matter masculine or feminine.
- Conversely, Mike comes from a military family in a supportive country, while Steve comes from a rich urban family in a peaceful breezing city.
- Mike is talented at traditionally masculine activities, and this is why he engages in them. In contrast, Steve is talented at traditionally feminine activities.
- Inverted: Both of them are either exactly Feminine or equally Manly.
- Gender Inverted: Tomboy and Girly Girl.
- Subverted: Mike is a muscular and stoic painter while Steve is a skinny and cheerful hunter.
- Double Subverted: ... Then they switch activities on a whim and end up enjoying their new ones more.
- Parodied: Mike is a big orc warrior who kills monsters with his bare hands just for fun while Steve is a mystic elf with a secret crossdressing fetish.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Mike and Steve keep switching bodies throughout the story.
- Different writers switch Steve and Mike between the roles of Sensitive Guy and Manly Man.
- Steve is a Sensitive Guy with a Manly Streak while Mike is a Manly Man with a Sensitive Guy Streak.
- Averted:
- Every guy in the story is manly.
- The boys are not differentiated by their masculinity/femininity.
- Enforced:
- The producers wanted to appeal to a wide range of boys, so they included male characters with different tastes.
- The writer/executive producer wanted to showcase two different types of men.
- Lampshaded: "They're not much alike."
- Invoked:
- Mike and Steve go to a Renaissance faire dressed as a knight and a prince.
- It's part of their Good Cop/Bad Cop act.
- Exploited: Mike convinces Steve to kiss so that Felicity will leave him alone. Felicity accepts the situation.
- Defied: ???
- Discussed:???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied:
- Mike barbecues a steak while Steve outlines a novel.
- Mike takes on basketball while Steve takes on sewing.
- Deconstructed: Mike and Steve are so different that they struggle to get along.
- Reconstructed: ... But their skills are complementary enough that they commit to working together.
Back to Sensitive Guy and Manly Man, bro.
