What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

so while I’m in the mood for ranting about stuff

it occurred to me the other day that perhaps one of the reasons why there’s so much m/m slash out there, and so little femslash, has to do with it being fundamentally radical to write women in non-romantic roles while transferring the burden of romance to men alone

like, yes: a huge part of the problem is that a lot of us ship based on preexisting character chemistry, and when you have so many narratives that either fail the bechdel test entirely or pass it only by the skin of their teeth - and when female characters are already at a premium - then, yeah, you’re going to have an inherently fewer number of f/f pairings, because the guys are more numerous, talk to each other more, and therefore have more canonical opportunities to develop the kind of chemistry you want to explore in fanfic

and yes, there’s also the issue of straight women sexually fetishising gay men, which neatly ties in to the patriarchal cultural baggage we’re all immersed in that tells us men’s stories (and especially white men’s stories) are inherently more important anyway, which issues can intersect in some profoundly complex and fucked-up ways

but, like, after so many years of watching movies where you just KNOW the only reason they put in a female character at all was so the guy has someone to win at the end, thereby demonstrating his Manly Prowess, the idea of writing stories where that entire dynamic is flipped and subverted - where the men are constantly falling in love with each other while the women go off and have their own adventures, or otherwise just exist in the narrative sans romantic pressure - is fucking revolutionary, and you will not convince me otherwise

which isn’t to say that we don’t still need more femslash, or that I think there’s something inherently problematic about it as a concept - we need more female characters, and more queer ladies, period - but I do love that, whereas women’s actions within a narrative, and especially in relation to men, are invariably viewed through a sexual/romantic lens elsewhere, slash overwhelmingly applies that imperative to male interactions instead, with interesting results

  1. celestialily reblogged this from fozmeadows
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  6. solitarelee reblogged this from fozmeadows and added:
    Gosh, I just wish there were more fics with female characters even like… IN them. It’s amusing to me to see a lady take...
  7. randomstuffthatinterestsmee reblogged this from fozmeadows
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  9. somanystories-solittletime reblogged this from fozmeadows and added:
    That would be great if the female characters weren’t then ignored in the majority of fics.
  10. varethinsilico reblogged this from fozmeadows
  11. varethinsilico said: thank you for putting into words something that i’ve thought for some time and been unable to articulate.
  12. scribofelidae reblogged this from fozmeadows
  13. jennlyons reblogged this from fozmeadows and added:
    This is something that I’ve thought a lot about myself, and I think you raise some terrific point. I also think that m/m...
  14. fozmeadows posted this