Where I Will Be This Weekend

[lydamorehouse]

FRIDAY

6: 00 pm The Queering of Good Omens. The second season of Good Omens had an explosion of canonically queer characters and couples. There were lesbians, nonbinary demons, and queer side characters galore. Yet our mains, Crowley and Aziraphale, couldn't seem to get it together, despite "the kiss." As we prepare for the Second Coming, let's talk about the good and the bad of the second season. Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer, Don Kaiser

9:45 pm Lesbian Space Opera: A Reading and Q&A by Lyda Morehouse. Lyda Morehouse has signed a deal for a new lesbian space opera trilogy. Come and join her for a reading and discussion about the forthcoming first novel in the trilogy.


SATURDAY

1:45 pm Yaoi and Yuri, the 2023 Edition. This panel is becoming a staple of ConFABulous, so it's time to move beyond 101 definitions of this manga genre. What's new (or new to you) and fun this year? There may be some discussion of manhwa and manhua (as well as anime and dongha,) but we're sticking with 2-D for this conversation. Lyda Morehouse, Jason Tucker


7:00 Dance in the Neon-Pixelated Dark: A Thirsty Sword Lesbians Cyberpunk Homebrew. A rogue artificial intelligence that has escaped its corporate masters into the dark and rain-spattered streets of Neo-Toyko’s Akihabara’s “Electric Town.” A sleek, sexy agent of MegaCorp offers the thirsty lesbians gathered at the Potable Pussy Coffee Shop a hard-to-resist bounty to return this rebellious robot. Will they accept? If so, will they be able to find this runaway android before the machine-hating Luddite Cult gets their hands on it? Thirsty Sword Lesbians RPG. Simple rules will be taught. Up to 7 players.
GM: Lyda Morehouse.

SUNDAY

3:30 pm Writing for RPGs. What are some best practices when designing adventures or sourcebooks for tabletop RPGs, either for publication or for your own gaming group? Discussion topics may include sources of inspiration, research and preparation, game balance, and having fun! James Satter, John Everett Till, Lyda Morehouse

5:00 pm Why Do Queer Women Write so Much M/M? This phenomenon has been true since the first Spock/Kirk slash was penned in the late 1960s. But this fan fiction trend has been mainstreamed lately with books like Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit, T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Hope, and an entire romance m/m genre (https://www.goodreads.com/genres/m-m-romance). Why aren't these queer and straight ladies writing F/F? Where are the male, gay authors? What are some concerns about this trend--are we being mainstreamed right into heteronormativity? Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer, Lauren Crabtree

Comments

[kore]

The second season of Good Omens had an explosion of canonically queer characters and couples. There were lesbians, nonbinary demons, and queer side characters galore. Yet our mains, Crowley and Aziraphale, couldn't seem to get it together, despite "the kiss."

THANK
YOU

GOD that fucking bugged me, and made me feel like the skeleton at the feast with everyone else celebrating "Canon now!" and The Kiss and everthing. And I was just like....they're broken up! Horribly! And it's a cliffhanger! Not a feelgood thing for me!

Lyda Morehouse has signed a deal for a new lesbian space opera trilogy

NICE! I am looking forward to pre-ordering!

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, I had a lot of issues with Good Omens 2. I kind of felt that my sense of disappointment around Aziraphale and Crowley's break-up was that the lesbian couple ALSO doesn't get together (which was a fine and responsible life choice, but STILL.) AND YET Michael and Beelzebub (who, though I imagined Beelzebub as non-binary, the actor is clearly AFAB) got to get together with no repercussions, or, IMHO, not particularly well earned in terms of story. It felt like it was "queer" but rewarded only "the straights" (or straight-appearing.)

[kore]

SHAKE HANDS because that is OMFG exactly how I felt, and then I got people yelling at me for thinking season one was shippy when it was "queerbaiting" and then I was ignoring the actual shippiness and canon happy of S2??

I imagined Beelzebub as non-binary, the actor is clearly AFAB

My unhappiness with the recasting had very little to do with the actor, yeah, and almost completely how they restyled the character to be more femme, while setting up a romantic relationship with a man.* And not to be That Person but I do think Beelzebub is supposed to be NB, but in both seasons was played by straight cis actresses. And there's so many more trans and NB and queer actors being given roles now! Aghghghg.


*I did not appreciate the ooh-what-a-great-big-tonker-he's-got scene at the beginning either, I really just didn't

[lydamorehouse]

*I did not appreciate the ooh-what-a-great-big-tonker-he's-got scene at the beginning either, I really just didn't

Oh, god. I forgot that part. Blurgh.

[sabotabby]

5:00 pm Why Do Queer Women Write so Much M/M? This phenomenon has been true since the first Spock/Kirk slash was penned in the late 1960s. But this fan fiction trend has been mainstreamed lately with books like Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit, T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Hope, and an entire romance m/m genre (https://www.goodreads.com/genres/m-m-romance). Why aren't these queer and straight ladies writing F/F? Where are the male, gay authors? What are some concerns about this trend--are we being mainstreamed right into heteronormativity? Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer, Lauren Crabtree

I am interested in knowing the answer to this as well.

(I still don't know how I feel about Good Omens. On the one hand, it had a bunch of things I should like, including heartbreaking slow burn. On the other, it felt unsatisfying in ways that I can't put my finger on.

[kore]

(Your icon!)

I think for me it was the plot....it didn't have the structure supplied by the book and it felt super slowed down, as they say of the comics storylines (I don't remember what the word is for that right now, de- something). But I didn't like the Beezelbub re-casting and I cannot stand Jonathan Hamm, so maybe this season was just never going to be for me.

Neither lead lesbian character felt filled out, either -- Nina was the Coffeeshop Owner and Maggie was the Record Store Owner (and, as thousands of people have pointed out already, she surely has the only struggling record store in London??), and I really wanted to see their slow burn romance, and we did not get that, at all! (Then I got hit with the "It's so good to see lesbians who are just good friends!" and "Not every close relationship has to include sex!" nonsense. Like, no, the show is making a big deal these are LESBIAN characters, they are OUT lesbians, Queer Rep without a lot of actual queerness in it isn't that great either. ....picky picky picky)

(And you know, DTWOF just had a big fancy Audible full-cast adaptation with queer actresses, this summer! Leigh Silverman directed it! Madeleine George adapted it! They got Roxane Gay and Carrie Brownstein and JANE LYNCH to star in it! And what was fandom's reaction to that? ....well. Anyway. Cutting THIS off in the bud)

[sabotabby]

A-men to all of this, yes.

[lydamorehouse]

How funny, I am reading these comments in order, and Kore just enumerated the problems that I had just said in response to the first post. I also had of "this is gay in NAME, but not queer in spirit" sense from the whole production.

I also HATED the kiss. It was not the kind of kiss I wanted to see between these two. Not just because it was clearly nonconsensual, but more because of Aziraphile's response to it. He looked, honestly, surprised and a bit horrified, and I was like, "How? How are you surprised? This is the SECOND time your 'best friend' has asked you to run away with him to the place, we now know, was the first place he clapped eyes on you. Like, it's been a million billion years. Come out a little bit, Aziraphile!"

And I guess this is slow burn? But, come on.

Anyway, I, too, could go on, but I won't.

[kore]

I also HATED the kiss. It was not the kind of kiss I wanted to see between these two. Not just because it was clearly nonconsensual, but more because of Aziraphile's response to it. He looked, honestly, surprised and a bit horrified, and I was like, "How? How are you surprised? This is the SECOND time your 'best friend' has asked you to run away with him to the place, we now know, was the first place he clapped eyes on you. Like, it's been a million billion years. Come out a little bit, Aziraphile!"

Yes, this, THIS! THIS was absolutely my reaction.

And I know part of it is I don't particularly like slooooowwww burn (I'm the weirdo who actually likes established relationships, lol, like they had in....all of S1?), I hate crushing romantic breakups, and I LOATHE cliffhangers (the last two combined are like my kryptonite). And I didn't like losing the plot structure from the book with....whatever they thought they were doing with some conspiracy plot that only started up in like the last two episodes. So all of that is just Not For Me, and that's fine, if disappointing. It just annoys me when people are going "Finally, some good fucking queer rep!" and I'm just like....nooo, no I don't think so.

sigh. I can just cherish season 1 and ignore what came after that, that's also part of fandom too! LOL.

[sabotabby]

I guess maybe the lesbians didn't seem really gay, even though like, dancing around each other and neither one wanting to make the first move is the most lesbian thing ever. But it was also like, hey, here are two women, and everyone is saying that they are attracted to each other, but nothing about their interactions suggest that they're attracted to each other. They just have to be because they're the only two lesbians in the story.

I liked that the kiss was as awkward as it was. It kind of hit my queer longing button. But I guess also I feel a certain way about stories that are about queer coming out with no homophobia. Like they were afraid to name the fear, which doesn't make sense because no one is homophobic in their universe.

The first season just felt way more queer somehow even though they didn't kiss.

[kore]

Yeah, I thought Maggie was (adorably) crushing on Nina from the start, but Nina didn't seem to have much of any feelings about her at all, and it REALLY annoyed me that Gaiman was like "oh we didn't want to specify the gender of her partner." Like, okay, that is....nice in a privileged white guy kind of way I guess? And while they were going for Crowley-and-Aziraphale-but-FF, Tennant and Sheen played it like two guys who deeply cared about each other and were turned on or at least deeply appreciative at several points. And they have that very long history. It felt like Nina was actually belittling Maggie a lot of the time, not just being Grumpy to her Sunshine partner. They felt like foils, or NPCs, not people. (And I really don't like the "let's manipulate these two people into love," I just don't.)

The first season just felt way more queer somehow even though they didn't kiss.

This! This!! How the fuck did that even happen?

t;dr I guess this season lived and died by its tropes, and if people were thirsty for the tropes (centuries of pining, delayed kiss + horrible breakup, cliffhanger, lovers now on opposite sides) it was great, but if those tropes squick you, there wasn't really much of anything else since the entire plot was basically fanfic. I guess for me it falls into that weird Uncanny Valley territory where pro writers try to do fanfic, or may be just influenced by fanfic, and it just....does not work. Plus there was this weird....not-queer feeling all through it, at least for me. IDK.

[sabotabby]

I even like all those tropes! But they were clumsily done. Aziraphale/Crowley works for me because the actors have chemistry and we get a sense of the history and weight behind the characters. The lesbians just didn't have that. They will probably turn out to be God and Lucifer or some such but ehhhh we don't need that.

I don't know what was giving the not-queer vibes but like. They were there.

[lydamorehouse]

Have either of you seen Gaiman's Sandman? I don't want to say this is a Gaiman problem, but there were a lot of canonically queer characters in Sandman, too, but somehow without heat. (The hottest parts were actually when Dream was captured?)

At any rate, I fully agree with all of this. I think Kore is on to something with the whole "when pro/mainstream writers try to do the fan fic vibe" idea. Because, this kind of fucked up Sherlock too?

[sabotabby]

I did, but I don't think it's a Gaiman problem, because I didn't feel like that about the comics. And TV Sandman felt a lot queerer than GO2, though I think a lot of that was more from Dream himself being Other than from the canon queer characters.

At any rate, I fully agree with all of this. I think Kore is on to something with the whole "when pro/mainstream writers try to do the fan fic vibe" idea. Because, this kind of fucked up Sherlock too?

Agreed 100%. I guess I'd just rather them not. There's a not dissimilar problem with even straight TV/film serial writers trying to do any kind of relationship, but it's especially bad when their ideas have come from fanfic without knowing why it works in fanfic.

[kore]

While I'm at it let me just kvetch that Atomic Blonde (2017) got nominated for Yuletide this year....WITHOUT the scorching hot canon F/F -- did I say CANON? -- relationship in it which desperately needs fix-it fic, and oh, just for shits and giggles, want to guess what the race of the erased female character was? (....oh well I'm going to get to see Sofia Boutella in Zack Snyder's Not-A-Star-Wars-Movie anyway. Of course, apparently she's going to be "a former member of the Imperium who rallies warriors from across the galaxy to fight against the corrupt Mother World (sic)" and it looks like her love interest will be Wonder-Bread Man Charlie Hunnam, but it looks pretty.)

(....I don't even fucking like Zack Snyder. Woe. And now I've fucked up my hand typing when I shouldn't, so at leats I'll be quiet!)

[sabotabby]

I did enjoy Atomic Blonde, but...why would you nominate that and not put the F/F ship in?

[kore]

Nooo fucken idea, especially since that movie CRIES OUT for fixit-fic (I may have written one! Myself! Maybe).

[lydamorehouse]

I really, really wish you had been on this panel, Kore.

1. You could have talked about this and NOT wrecked your wrist, and...

2. being the only person shouting "WHY IS F/F NOT HOT TO MORE PEOPLE?" made me, as the sole lesbian on the panel, seem almost a bit TERF-y, you know? Like, maybe TERF-y isn't right, but more that I started to feel weird that I kept saying things like, "Okay, sure, yes, there aren't a lot of representations of women you might want to ship in the various fandoms, but even when there ARE, few people write this. Why??" and I felt like I was getting some side-eye for not being more excited about hot m/m pairings (which I also am? But I proposed this panel to question the lack of f/f as a counterpoint.)

Also, to be fair, this is a tough question to examine, in general, broad terms, since (and this is where I was like, yes, okay, I need to shut up) many folks do come to some realizations about their transness or masc-ness by reading m/m.

[kore]

AWW that's so sweet! Sadly I have agoraphobia and also totally hate crowds, so conventions and me are unmixy things. (I loved the idea of virtual cons! Those seeemed really fun.)

being the only person shouting "WHY IS F/F NOT HOT TO MORE PEOPLE?" made me, as the sole lesbian on the panel, seem almost a bit TERF-y, you know? Like, maybe TERF-y isn't right, but more that I started to feel weird that I kept saying things like, "Okay, sure, yes, there aren't a lot of representations of women you might want to ship in the various fandoms, but even when there ARE, few people write this. Why??"

Oh, ghod yeah, and I actually totally understand both sides, because growing up in the late seventies and early eighties there were WAY more books and plays and movies available by queer male writers, at least the ones that I could find (this was obviously pre-internet too) and I was actually just reading this interview with a woman who came out later in life as bi, talking about how as a teenager she felt much more comfortable and accepted in queer spaces even though she identified as straight for a long time.

But really there's SO MUCH more stuff out there now with queer women! Or just women in general! It's not like original Star Trek where yeah, the Deep Meaningful actual relationships were between the guys and we had one regular woman cast member and Yeoman Janice Rand. Black Widow was the only woman in Avengers in 2012, but we just had an actual Black Widow movie! It was SO disappointing to hear from so many people that "yeah, but it's too late," "it doesn't count because she's dead" (tell that to all the Tony Stark fans, omg), "I would have been excited about this five/ten/twenty years ago," &c &c. I mean, I really understand the frustration and burnout and feeling that often we're scrambling for crumbs. Top Gun 2 came out nearly forty years after the original and yeah, was a giant hit, that's still the water we're swimming in. But there's so much more out there now too.

[minnehaha]

How fun that you get to spend a panel with Jason. He's a good guy.

K. [does not know what M/M is]

[xochiquetzl]

male/male (as opposed to F/F--female/female) Gay male romance, IOW.

[minnehaha]

Yeah, I left my house and was driving someplace and that is what occurred to me. I'm slow, sometimes.

K.

[xochiquetzl]

:00 pm Why Do Queer Women Write so Much M/M? This phenomenon has been true since the first Spock/Kirk slash was penned in the late 1960s. But this fan fiction trend has been mainstreamed lately with books like Everina Maxwell's Winter's Orbit, T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Hope, and an entire romance m/m genre (https://www.goodreads.com/genres/m-m-romance). Why aren't these queer and straight ladies writing F/F? Where are the male, gay authors? What are some concerns about this trend--are we being mainstreamed right into heteronormativity? Lyda Morehouse, Naomi Kritzer, Lauren Crabtree

Fanfic? Because there is often a single poorly written woman who seems to be there for the lead man to flirt with, and then there's the lead man's male bestie with whom he has a healthy adult friendship. I know which relationship I want to see more of! And why not more F/F? Probably because of the tendency of many ensemble casts to have the single token woman. Whom would I ship her with? Some of the fandoms I know with a healthy F/F following ship the token lady with someone who isn't even in the credits, but is a frequently recurring character. Of course, there are also fandoms like Xena and Supergirl, but...

Original fic? The tropes are hungry. :( If all the fiction and media you consume has ensemble casts with a single token woman...

[xochiquetzl]

Best, most diverse canon ships: Sense8.

Best het canon ships: Leverage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O1y9AdnFmw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEUQ9bRqqPc

[lydamorehouse]

I think "the tropes are hungry" is kind of also part of what I wanted to examine. Like, why are these tropes SO HUNGRY (or thirsty, as the case may be.)

[xochiquetzl]

Has anyone talked about traditional children's publishing saying that little boys won't read books with girl main characters, and the effect that has on little girls? You're in the process of developing your imagination and all your fictional role models are Not Like You.

I mean, surely it's been discussed. I've heard it discussed as regards to ethnicity.

When little girls DO get role models, it's "I fell asleep and turned into a beautiful corpse until a man kissed me" or "I fell in love with a literal monster but I CAN SAVE HIM."

I know that it took ME some time to enjoy het fic (kind of ironic based on how we met lol) because if it's same sex, you don't have all that yucky gender-based power dynamic baggage to deal with. Which, if that's the case, you'd think that people would be writing F/F right and left! but no. SapphFic :D is underserved and has a hungry and passionate community.

I do think, based on fandom, that many or most of the folks writing M/M are straight and bi ladies, but that's not universal.

[hrj]

"Why Do Queer Women Write so Much M/M?"

On an exceedingly anecdotal basis, the answers I've gotten when I asked authors this question have been along the following lines:

"I have a hard time imagining women doing interesting things."
"I feel much more anxious about writing f/f relationships than writing m/m ones."
"F/f doesn't sell, while m/m sells gangbusters."

And, of course, for fan fiction there's "Too few shows with even one interesting female character, much less two."

[lydamorehouse]

We kind of touched on a couple of these on the panel, particularly "I feel more anxious writing F/F than M/M" in terms of internalized sexism. One of the other panelists had a great insight which is, in addition to being blocked a lot by our own body issues when employing the female gaze, when you are a woman/socialized female being a man can seem like the ultimate "other" in many ways, but also an "other" we feel we have permission to explore, including sexually.

The last one you listed is the question/comment that I am MOST interested in exploring. Like, why? Why aren't f/f stories having a heyday? Is it just literal sexism? Is it that since so many readers of fiction are cis, straight women two hot guys banging each other (either in fic or OF) is ALWAYS going to out sell/be more popular than anything that appeals to mostly bi-/lesbian/queer women and cis, straight men?

[hrj]

There are some additional factors for certain segments of the market. A large chunk of the f/f popular fiction field emerged out of a "by us, for us" approach within the lesbian community that saw the establishment of lesbian/women's presses at a time when nobody else would publish the material. And along with that is something of an "ugh/yuck" response to the idea of people outside that community (and especially men) reading f/f fiction for titillation. So many (though far from all) authors who consider themselves "lesfic authors" have had an active disinterest in expanding their readership outside the self-defined lesbian community. (And similarly, there is resistance to embracing the f/f writing of authors who are perceived as not being part of that community.)

These are all very fraught issues with long histories and an unfortunate overlap with TERFism. The mood has been changing within the last decade or more, with writers of f/f fiction being more excited to expand their readership and fewer social barriers to f/f fiction written by men.

All that is far from the only factor in the relative popularity of f/f versus m/m, but it's something that isn't always apparent to the casual observer.

[lydamorehouse]

For real. I don't know as much about that as you do, but I was alive for all the Broad Strokes Books stuff and the very unwelcoming to folx "wimmin" run bookstores of the 1990s.

[xochiquetzl]

I totally agree with everything except point three.

I don't know about the actual numbers, but in my experience F/F is wildly underserved and has passionate and devoted and STARVING fans.

[Edit] Er. Gideon the Ninth, anyone? that did okay. I mean. It's not explicit, but it IS enemies-to-lovers romance (FIGHT ME).

[kore]

The TLT books are great examples of work with a really queer sensibility (and queer characters) selling like hotcakes! That is a great point.

(I was bummed Nona the Ninth didn't win the Hugo. I know it was deeply divisive, and no probably does not stand on its own ((like other nominees didn't!)) but I love each book in that series more and more, and Nona is now my favourite.)

[xochiquetzl]

Me, too. Anxiously awaiting Alecto, but yeah. So much F/F, SO MUCH QUEER, I love them!

[kore]

I hope she doesn't break my heart re Gideon and Harrow. I don't THINK she will, but....I really don't want them doing that ultimate-union thing like (SPOILER). Also:

To which a voice on the opposite side of the shore was raised, exceeding wroth, and Alecto heard it shout in a very great shout: Get in line, thou big slut.

[hrj]

I think it's lovely that major presses are showing a willingness not only to publish books with lesbian characters but to actually include that fact in their publicity campaigns. (I still remember how, when Elizabeth Bear's Karen Memory came out, you had to rely on the whisper network to learn that the main character is a lesbian and gets partner and HEA as a central part of the plot.)

But the vast majority of current f/f genre fiction is being published by small presses and indie authors, and those books aren't getting the sales or the promotion or the audience reception that m/m books do. And even within major publisher releases, there are clear differences. Where is the mainstream f/f romance that's gotten the visibility and adulation (and screen adapation) of Red, White, and Royal Blue?

I love that there are things like the Locked Tomb series, and Tasha Suri's marvelous Burning Kingdoms series, and C.L. Clarke's Magic of the Lost series. But big presses have gone through phases of supporting queer fiction before and then changed their minds. And the small press/indie books get lost in the shadows of those bright lights, even as they provide vastly more (and often better) representation than the best-sellers do.

Sorry, just a small press f/f author feeling grumpy over here.

[hrj]

And by the way, I'm loving this extended conversation! Almost like back in LJ days!

[lydamorehouse]

Agreed!

(This is, in part, why I haven't posted much else this week!)