Link to meta on homoerotic subtext.

[evadne_fenn]

bookshop: "i know you care for him as much as i do."

But we can have all the hints that the characters are gay that we want! Look how progressive we are! Look how many gay-friendly words we use: "metrosexual!" "bromance!" "subtext!" And I AM SICK OF IT. I WANT THE REAL DEAL.

We don't have gay main characters. Oh, we get them as sidekicks. We get them

Comments

[chickenpattysan]

I like this post.

I think it's interesting to look at how internet fandom has grown since I started writing fanfiction in 2002. Technology has definitely impacted the numbers. But you're right. We're still being dismissed as "fangirls."

[write_light]

you don't always fall in love with the person your genre demands that you fall in love with You've been in grad school too long. Please tell me you meant "gender".

In other news, I loved your post and your meta.

[evadne_fenn]

lolololol, no, I really did mean "genre." Would it help if I said I've been reading sixteenth century romance like nonstop for weeks? No? Oh, my god, I have to get out of grad school.

[pynelyf]

And when I read "genre" it seemed perfectly logical to me (hell, that's all what the Musidorus/Pamela angst is about in Old Arcadia and why pastoral is the genre which at first makes it possible then impossible and then possible again. I'll stop babbling now.)...only when the possibility of "gender" was pointed out did the skew in my (and your) perspective become apparent.