I am a bitter Fantasy fan (now with recs)

[mothwing]

I have been reading Fantasy written by English and American authors ever since I was fourteen. It is my favourite genre, and most of my favourite books are Fantasy books. This genre was my cure for sadness, loneliness, and boredom ever since I discovered it. And even though I love that genre and spend quite an amount of time defending its literary

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[chasingtides]

In fandom, I've managed to find myself a bunch of meta writing feminists/queer analysts and I like to think we're a pretty good lot. (And can write fic with good female characters.) However, I'm the first to admit that we're hardly the majority (especially since I'm in the Torchwood and Supernatural fandoms where... it's crazy).

I'm a Neil Gaiman fan and I like to think that he writes good female characters. (A lot of his stuff is male-centric, but he has some freaking bad ass women - like Door and Hunter in Neverwhere who are more badass than any of the women or Laura and Bilquis and the Zoryas in American Gods. Coraline, I think, is an awesome female protagonist for a kids' book. Consider that when they made the movie, they felt they had to add in a boy character - he wasn't in the book.)

[mothwing]

My RL friends are, for the most part, interested in gender and queer criticism and also write fic, so I usually get my discussion fix there, but going from a discussion on gender politics in fandom and fanfic into regular discussions can be pretty depressing.

I never finished American Gods because I never got interested enough in the main character to get hooked, but I did like Coraline a lot.

[chasingtides]

If you're looking for strong female characters, then, I strongly recommend Neverwhere. There is a hero - of sorts - but the women are very much the driving force of the entire story. (Gah, I love both Door and Hunter.)

I'm big on posting meta - and whenever I post one on gender/sexuality/etc, someone comes along and tries to cause trouble. It's depressing, but it's also not always fandom related. (I have one on bisexuality in genre fiction - one person ended up deleting all of her comments - and even though I posted it nearly a year ago, I'm still getting people responding with inflammatory comments. It's... well, that one is, apparently, shown around and on the fandom wiki, so people see it, but I try to look at it as "I'm making people think. At least I know I'm making them think." It doesn't always make me feel better but at least I try.)

[mothwing]

Oh, I know where you're coming from. A friend and I spent the best part of two months arguing with a few other lit students about how sexism affects JKR's universe - their stance being that there is no sexism in HP and that male privilege does not exist. Fun times, and who would have guessed I'd be having the same discussion only a month later, though on a different forum?
I have yet to see any fandom that does react with frothy-mouthed denial when confronted with gender/sexuality/race/etc. related fail in their fandom.

Also - can you link to that meta post? I'm curious. :)

[chasingtides]

The Story of My (non)Existence

There's a heavy focus (toward the end of the meta) on Dean Winchester's sexuality toward the end of the fourth season of Supernatural, but I did try to cover a great deal more than that. (I hold, now, more than ever that he is, in fact, not straight, especially given his focus on "sexy" men, but I still meet with "omg he sleeps with women! he is straight!")

[mothwing]

Thanks for sharing, I can't read it right now because I want some time, but I'm looking forward to it.