28 femslash questions

[queenslayerbee]

I borrowed these from luckyzukky

1) First time you encoutered canon femslash

Well, I was a Xena fan from early childhood, so xD. I watched episodes as they were shown on tv, so I've never actually watched it the whole thing, and I should definitely remedy that.

2) First times you encountered femslash shipping

Circa 11 years old, when I first started lurking in the Buffyverse fandom.

3) Is femslash the main part of your fandom life?

Fandom-wise it might be more balanced, if only because in what's been my main fandom for over a year now (and most active fandom ever), aka DC comics, my best beloved characters happens to be a guy. I post and love a lot of het ships too (rn the ratio on my ao3 fics is 45 F/F, 42 F/M, I just looked lol).

Femslash is however extremely dominant in my original fiction. I write about women first and foremost, about the relationships between them, of any all of types, and if there's romance, it's 99% guaranteed to be F/F. I might utterly fall in love with (admittedly very few) male characters created by OTHER people (primary examples being Jason Todd or Black Sails' John Silver), but my personal creativity is extremely biased towards women LMAO.

4) Have you already started a canon just because you knew there would be femslash shipping opportunities?

Nah, not really. Sometimes a femslash ship reblogged on tumblr caught my eye, yes, but I need more than that to give a canon a try. Especially because my shipping preferences rarely are aligned with that of the rest of the fandom. I even made an ask meme about it once: give me a popular F/F ship, and I'll tell you which antagonistic F/F alternative I vastly prefer xDD

5) Canon, subtext, or make-everything-work-by-yourself ships?

It definitely depends, though I'd say most of my femslash ships are probably on the subtext territory first, canon second. In general, I need a canon push to become interested in a ship, with some exceptions. I like it when characters are important to each other, one way or another!

6) A femslash ship you feel like you're alone in shipping

I know there were a few other shippers around, but Rosita Bustillos/Waverly Earp (which I named Rosewaves on tumblr) definitely fits. Especially because it seems people shipped it as like... a nice rarepair to multiship alongside Waverly's canon relationship, and I could NOT care less for that one LMAO. I was ALL about Rosewaves, and I would've paid real money to see it be the show's ship instead of Wayhaugh.

7) Did you see a change in femslash fandom since the time you started fandom?

I didn't see as much of this... defanged, toothless, out-of-convenience-only femslash shipping when I started. Because homophobia xD, but also the trends in fandom misogyny. Before it was all about WHAT A BITCH the female characters in question were for getting in the way of my slash ship/being the object of interest of the guy EYE find hot/not being a perfect fluffer/whatever.

Now instead of insulting and bashing the woman, because that would make them Look Bad, it's all about how she's the BESTIE, the fujoshi, and sometimes, how ACTUALLY!!! she's a lesbian (even when she's shown no hint of it and often her life revolves around men in a way I'd find insulting for a lesbian character, tbqh)!!! ew how can you ship her with MEN who are UNWORTHY of her!! Nonono, let's pair her with this other woman (often someone she wouldn't be interested in in a million years, but okay) and put them in the background, being generic as fuck.

BUT. I don't really consider this as part of The Femslash Fandom, because again, this is Convenience Shipping and nothing that actually puts the care into the characters involved.

8) Some femslash poly ships? What are your opinions about f/f/m poly?

One of my longest original WIPs will involve a F/F/F triangle/messy triad, so there's that xD

In fandom I rarely seem to go for it? In general I ship things 1-on-1, it's how I like it lol, that kind of... claustrophobia. The few polyships I've been REALLY into (like Jason/Mia/Tim at the moment) were F/F/M or F/M/M.

I think in part it's because in general I prefer Triangulation Drama TM in my femslash over the classic Let's Solve Things With Polyshipping. If there's a set-up with more than two female characters with sexual an emotional tension between them, I'm more likely to want them to fight about it lol. Tbf that's also semi-present in my other poly configurations but. I REALLY want F/F conflict lol.

9) Do you feel like shipping femslash is different from shipping slash, het or other? How?

It's different in the sense that you better get used to be a minority in fandom and all that it entails LOL. Otherwise you'll be endlessly frustrated.

10) Favourites tropes for femslash ships?

One of my favourite things is older/younger woman configurations where the older one sees ~her younger self in the other and that configures how the relationship takes form (resentment? Protectiveness?). In general, "mirror" characters pair really well in F/F imo.

11) Fluff, humor, angst, or smut?

Angst is my area of expertise, though I definitely mix in the others. A little flavour makes the angst even sadder xD

12) Are there some m/m or m/f ships that you love genderswapped as f/f?

I'm not much for genderswapping, but I have done it once: a Pepper/Tony fic. Except it's based on the fact that Marvel *did* create a continuity where Tony was a woman. Generally speaking, if a given male character was genderswapped from the start, I would've probably liked them MORE lol, given my usual patterns, but the times I *really* like a male character... I like them as is and their gender and how they interact with it is usually a feature of it, not a bug, because it happens to be interesting on its own. 

13) Did you already write original femslash? If so, what was it about? If not, what would it be about if you did? If you would never, why?

Nothing complete that I've shared (well, some in an old writeblr, but that was deleted), but as I said, this is my primary interest in original fiction. Some of the examples in my original stories, for your amusement:

• stylish butch former pirate/princess + messy former assassin have a ons and then end up in the same space ship.
• powerful witch + her codependent best friend + a third woman who becomes enamoured with the first before everything goes sideways and has a hate/hate realtionship with the second before they slowly fall for each other.
• immortal scholar + the also immortal woman who's in unrequited love with her and wants her to kill her.
• secretary of a hardboiled detective that actually does the job and can hear echoes of the dead + the femme fatale who seduced her and used her + the sob-sister serious journalist wannabe investigating them.
• newest victim of a serial abuser + his former flame he still pines for. 
• doomed woman with little time to live + the butch princess she's obsessed with ever since she was kind to her once. 
• theatre diva with a dwindling career + the femmish literal angel who wants to become her.
• whatever the fuck is going with all the women in Underground Elysium which includes: the dictator, her ever-faithful guard, her human maid she regards as little more than a pet but gets horny for her vampire bites, the tyrant's rival who hates her for that one time she mutilated her, the rival's daughter who she groomed to beat the dictator, and a couple more others.
• many, MANY more lol.

14) Favorite femslash ship of all times

I couldn't pick just one, but I just finished reading Gideon the Ninth and Griddlehark has me on a chokehold at the moment. I need to finish the other two books before I allow it to consume me, though. I don't want spoilers or misinterpretations on my part xD

15) A guilty pleasure

N/A.

16) A fandom where I have so many femslash ships

DC comics is definitely high on the list, even if 1.) I think ultimately I have more het ones, or at least they're pretty level, and 2.) given how many women I love there, and how many possible combinations there are, it's very unsurprising.

17) A femslash pairing I like on principle without even being in the fandom

I have yet to start Interview with The Vampire, but I think I'll like Claudia and Madeleine.

18) A character I headcanon as lesbian/wlw without having big ships with her

Quite a few, probably, but the first one that came to my mind was Mary Winchester from Supernatural. I ship her with a few characters, but it's more lowkey than my desire to indulge in HOW FUCKED UP it'd be if she was a lesbian.

19) Rec day! Canon or fics, as long as it's femslash! Or even shippable!

• In Pursuit of Perfection by Camilla Andrew. Doomed, unbalanced femslash pair between an ambitious imperatrice and her too loyal warrior. Its sequels, though they have a central F/M ship, offer plenty of F/F possibilities, including an exes pair turned complicated best friends that mirrors this one.
• DEFINITELY check out The Locked Tomb because the F/F possibilities there are off-the-charts. Griddlehart has my heart but Ianthe/Corona broke my brain negl. 
• Red by resnullius-bells. Camilla/Laura ficlet with a Snow White/Sleeping Beauty vibe.
• I do love Carmilla as a novel as well LOL.

There's so much more but I'm drawing a blank here, guys xD. Some books/films/etc. I'm gonna recommend for femslash shpping, canon or not, Just Because: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Marjorie Liu's Monstress, Nikita, Person of Interest, Dangerous Liaisons, Judd Winick's Outsiders (2003), Paper Girls (comic and show, even cancelled as it is), The Handmaiden, Black Swan, Black Sails (the dyke drama in this one is SO important), or Killjoys.

20) Do you like your femslash homophobia-free?

If it's a secondary-world that pulls it off well, I welcome it. If it's our world? At this point I want to shout BRING IN THE HOMOPHOBIA ñalskfjaf. Well-done, of course, but I think that certain attitudes about it are less about wanting an homophobia-free world than about like... having trouble with any conflict more difficult than who takes the last orange home in the supermarket, and with wanting the straight characters to Look Good.

21) Thoughts about lesbian tragedy and bad endings?

Given how history has evolved there's obviously issues present, but... I think queer authors especially need room to freely want what they want to write. I'm a lesbian who loves writing about lesbians, and I love a good tragedy.

22) Thoughts about (purely fictional!) lesbian unhealthy relationships?

They are amazing and we should all support them wholeheartedly.

23) Historical, fantasy or sci-fi? (or, if none of the above, what and why?)

Love all of it and more.

24) A time where a canon really surprised you, in a good (and femslash) way

I'm gonna go with Black Sails and Max/Eleanor. I expected to outright dislike it, and yet I absolutely love everything about it.

25) A time where a canon really disappointed you (in a femslash or lack of femslash way)

Too many to count lol. I'm picking Wynonna Earp for the absolutely mid toothless main ship.

26) What do you love the most, and what do you love the least, about femslash fans?

They're passionate and committed to something that, lbr, gives little reward lol.

As for what I like least... the very few times a femslash ship happens to be MASSIVE? They're just as awful as every other fanbase of a juggernaut ship. Absolutely no difference, and equal ammounts of racism each and every time.

27) Very last time you encountered canon femslash. Was it a surprise or were you looking for it?

Again, I just read Gideon the Ninth, a novel from a series openly marketed as "dyke drama" xD

28) Now answer the important question about femslash I've forgotten to ask.

You didn't forget, but I'm taking this as an opportunity to link to all my F/F fics LOL.

Comments

[luckyzukky]

Now instead of insulting and bashing the woman, because that would make them Look Bad, it's all about how she's the BESTIE, the fujoshi, and sometimes, how ACTUALLY!!! she's a lesbian (even when she's shown no hint of it and often her life revolves around men in a way I'd find insulting for a lesbian character, tbqh)!!! ew how can you ship her with MEN who are UNWORTHY of her!! Nonono, let's pair her with this other woman (often someone she wouldn't be interested in in a million years, but okay) and put them in the background, being generic as fuck.

fuckin PREACH!!!!!! UGH i'm so sick of fandom just pairing the women they've shoved to the background in favor of their slash ships and going oh these are the mom figures or the angry better than men type or they're so fluffy and happy and in love and i'm like. my god none of these people see value in female characters they are nothing but props and background fodder to these people!!!! it's endlessly frustrating!!!!! like damn at least 20 years ago fandom seemed a bit more honest when they just called a female character a bitch

One of my longest original WIPs will involve a F/F/F triangle/messy triad, so there's that xD

I LOVE MESS

I think in part it's because in general I prefer Triangulation Drama TM in my femslash over the classic Let's Solve Things With Polyshipping. If there's a set-up with more than two female characters with sexual an emotional tension between them, I'm more likely to want them to fight about it lol.

YES you hit the nail on the head!!!!!!! it's about the interpersonal conflict and drama there.... you ever think about steph/cass/rose because they slot in perfectly here

thank you for such wonderful answers i am going to go through all of your F/F fic this morning hahahah

[queenslayerbee]

It's always extremely obvious and transparent. I WOULD prefer if they were honest and just insulted them, tbh.

Just to offer one example: one of my favourite DC characters is Mia Dearden, Speedy II. I ship her with my favourite character, Jason Todd (I enjoy messiness in femslash too xD). This ship receives an unbelievable ammount of hate for something six of us likes lmao, in part for shipping nonsense and in part due to... audience projection on Mia that's incompatible with the reality of her character. Some of this hate manifests in people portraying Mia (while otherwise very shallowly engaging with her character and actively sanitising a lot of it) as Obviously A Lesbian, Can't You See It, Stupid?!?

First of all, the author responsible for most of Mia's arcs loves his queer subtext, and yet there's nothing with Mia, so. Headcanons and fanon are one thing, but at least don't insult my intelligence!! Sorry to say this guys, but based on canon? It's very clear Mia is a heterobasic girl (affectionate) whose closest and most prioritised relationships are nearly all with men, who has questionable taste in but very real attraction towards them, and who likely has an easier time socialising with men than she does with women, who at a very formative time in her life were, in a very precarious and material way, Her Competition. What about any of that says lesbian to you?

And, ffs, if you WANT to write about her being a lesbian, explore what would that mean for a girl like this!! For someone who's gone for the trauma SHE has gone through!! Not just in a "let's pair Mia up with this age-appropriate girl so we don't have to think about her crushing on older men or being paired with anti-heroes and bad boys and Questionable Choices (her type)" LOL.

The problem with Steph/Cass/Rose is that when it comes down to it, I don't actually ship Cass that much with either of them LMAO. I like Stephcass as failexes, and I'm starting to think of Cassrose, but mostly I just see them as a very messy one night stand waiting to happen añlsdkjasf.

Steph-Babs-Cass, though... especially on the context of Steph's Batgirl run... that's one triangle that I'd go crazy for lol, even if I don't see it as a straightforward/requited thing. I've also delved a bit into Kara-Steph-Cass in some WIPs, because I interpret StephKara as platonic only BUT in a way that definitely makes Cass feel Things about their relationship, especially vis a vis Stephcass disastrous own friendship.

(also añsldkfjasf. I'm glad canon never actually Went There with Timcass, and if it had I would read that relationship as comphet as fuck in all directions, but The Steph of It All between them would've been insanely good, if it'd been written well. By that point nothing rewarding Steph was written well though, so it's a moot point).

LOL. Most of it are short drabbles so at least it'll be quick ^^U

[luckyzukky]

yeah i love mia! she charmed me in green arrow 2001 <333 i think the fandom is very weird about her relationship to jason and how often it is perceived because it's very much regarded in this weird all or nothing context where there is zero middle ground for either of them. i don't know how to explain it? i definitely feel their history together is quite uncomfortable given that jason kidnaps and threatens a teenage trafficking victim, but well, when i and most people on tumblr frame it like that, it often falls back into that all or nothing mindset of good/bad. and to be clear it is quite bad on paper when laid out like that. it's an extremely sensitive subject! but i think through a lens of exploring WHY jason did this and how mia would interpret it independent of the lens we often read her with as a result of her background (but crucially not completely lacking that context, because to disregard her background is to throw away massive understanding of her character) there is a lot that could be found, but it is such an uncomfortable subject for so many people that i think it leads most to write it off the way they do as something that can only be bad.

for me, jason/mia is not my thing because of those discomforts, but i try to be as objective as possible, and i can see the appeal in it! and i definitely understand you when people would rather pair mia with any girl imaginable despite little to no possible chemistry instead of exploring her existing relationships, not only romantic. i mean sure i like certain mia crack/rare pairs as much as the next person (steph/mia seems super fun!) but i feel when people pair mia with other girls it is less out of genuine interest and more to feel a certain way about a character as complex as mia. also btw YES i love mia's probably fucked up relationship to others and especially men and any exploration of that is

stephcass as failexes YESSS you get it!!! i appreciate this interpretation greatly as a lover of mess. cassrose are absolutely the worst messy angry one night stand about to happen lol they are horrible but also perfect for each other

stephkara omg you get AROUND!!!! i love this one!!!!! steph's batgirl run made me love this pairing even if most of what i know about kara comes from her pre-crisis 80s run hahah. also regarding timcass, as someone whose favorite comic ever is batgirl 2000, i absolutely see the subtext there. i feel like the writers kinda seeded it before cass was solidified as a member of the wayne family (crucially distinct from the bat family of course) and then once she did become a part of it in the eyes of editorial and fans alike they kinda just let that one go, which was for the best, but if things ever turned out different in canon, my god these two would've been a fucking MESS to explore in the wake of war games. i mean look at the MATERIAL we have in the fresh blood arc!!! the scene where tim and cass argue over batman ugh... and the possible comphet involved too. ugh i've always thought about exploring these two in an AU despite my personal hang-ups. maybe someday!

[queenslayerbee]

Some things that people always ignore in that context are 1.) Jason is, at most, a year older than Mia. It might be as little as mere months (Mia turned 17 over a year before this encounter, and it was around that time that pre-War Games comics established Jason's 18th birthday). That, IMO, matters, but people always talk about this or Titans Tower (Tim is like two years younger than Jason) as if Jason was Teen Titans Deathstroke beefing with kids lol, and not a *peer*.

People also frame their confrontation as Jason MOCKING Mia's past and... I can't even wrap my mind around that. We've SEEN villains doing that with Mia, but Jason? Jason simply listed the facts, from a perspective of "and I RELATE to you because of this". EVEN if you don't think Jason too suffered CSA (and I think Winick was very unsubtle here with that subtext), he IS a victim of severe traumas, and THAT'S how he's approaching that conversation. Obviously he's doing it in an extreme assholish way LOL, but that doesn't stop the fact that he's approaching Mia's trauma with empathy and not scorn or discomfort. ETA: if anything, I think this says nothing good of the way people perceive victims of sexual abuse; as if it's something inherently shameful and perpetually taboo, you know?

I feel like a lot of people's opinion on this scene relies on ignoring who Mia is. Because Mia openly and often talks about her trauma. She WANTS to discuss it, to clear it up, to use it. Mia isn't at all uncomfortable with what Jason says about it here, and I feel a lot of people project their own feelings on her.

I also think that a lot of people infantilise her because like... lbr, Jason's attack was a regular Tuesday to Mia. She doesn't have a single cut. Compare that to, say, that time Doctor Light (who definitely mocked *and* sexualised her trauma!) almost killed her at home, after attacking her not-empty school and killing several classmates.

Stephcass to me wouldn't manage to last, and there's a set of canon relationship I think the same about too (Dickbabs, for example), where I VASTLY prefer them as exes. Cassrose as Cass's first post-breakup hookup might be in the cards for my WIPs ñadklfjasf. Cass WILL get around A LOT in that fic (AnissaGrace also had a breakup -temporary, in their case- so the dyke drama will be epic).

I define StephKara as Bosom Buddies and like to develop them on that front.

Literally every female bat has been linked romantically to at least one of the men, and it's definitely An Issue, so ultimately I prefer that TimCass didn't happen (especially when you add the racist undertones of Cass's corruption arc). BUT done right, it would've been epically messy LMAO. Otherwise, I headcanon Cass pretty solidly as a lesbian, and Tim as a... Kinsey 5, let's say xD (I also lowkey ship MiaTim. and JayMiaTim. I like mess, as I said LOL). AND you know Barbara and Bruce would've been FUCKING DELIGHTED about Tim and Cass dating each other, instead of getting involved with the likes of Steph or Kon añlsdkfasf. They would've been comphet x100.

[luckyzukky]

YEAHHH YEAH. you get it!!! there's such a lack of nuance in this conversation precisely because so many people refuse to confront their discomfort and pre-existing biases over mia and jason, who both are very emotionally loaded characters and thus hugely appeal projection-wise for many (especially jason; mia pales in comparison to the sheer number of jason fans who project onto him and have never heard of the second speedy except maybe in a jason/roy harper context). also the doctor light stuff damn you see even i forgot about that!!! shows how little people bring it up in fandom maybe. like that was a lot closer to what people see the jason mia encounter as in fandom than what it actually is and yet i never see it mentioned, damn. you're very right about mia herself being honest and open about her trauma - i think yeah it's such a heavy subject that people don't want to think realistically about a character like her and what is actually written on the page about her, so they put her into a box of "victim" and nothing else, and it's disrespectful to her character and writers like kevin smith and judd winick who wrote her the way they did.

yesss ex relationships <333 dickbabs are forever messy perpetually divorced exes to me. also rose being cass' rebound hookup MY GOD YOUR MIND!!!!! i encourage this!!!!! anissa/grace UGH i love them so much god if you set this in pre-boot outsiders cass era the dyke drama would be fucking glorious

yeah exactly re: tim/cass. it's for the best it didn't happen and that cass was settled in the way she was over time (well, except for the parts like the shit parts of batgirl 2008, which is most of it, evil cass arc, cass getting shipped off to hong kong during reborn era for racist reasons.... honestly most of the way she was settled into the bat-family which in other words was totally happenstance and against dan didio's wishes. fuck that guy btw)... but MAN the potential for mess there, god. also mia/tim!!! i think i had a fleeting thought of them when i was reading teen titans 2003. that'd be fun to explore! but yeah cass AND tim would be comphet the likes of which we have never seen before

[queenslayerbee]

Yes, exactly! They are two of my favourite characters, and I love how they're foils of each other (like, Winick wrote Mia like that On Purpose! The Robin who died and the Speedy who lived! etc. etc.). So it often frustrates me how much nonsense there's around it LOL. Idc that much when people misunderstand or malign Jason -I will argue against bad faith arguments, sure, but it's something I bitch about in the moment and then forget as soon as I talk about my buddies or other people about Actual Good Jason Takes xDD. Meanwhile, Mia is a much more minor character, and I feel a lot of her so-called fans are very, very uncomfortable with who she actually is, which is a pity.

(sidenote. As someone who doesn't care for reboot Jayroy much -though admittedly lowkey ships them prereboot lol-: I see Mia used as a weapon against its shippers way too often and it pisses me off when she's reduced to that. I also think it fundamentally misunderstands Roy as a person LOL. "Roy would hate Jason for what he did to Mia!!" Roy would think that's two teenagers fighting in a parking lot AND he's one of the most notoriously forgiving people in all of DC... that man doesn't hold grudges. The ONE (1) he does, and I firmly believe is temporary, is actually against Mia ñaldkfjasf).

Everything I write is Pre-Reboot! I don't really touch other comic continuities LOL. This fic with Cass at the centre is from a Futurish Canon series I've been thinking about for a while. It all started inspired by a Rebirth comic that briefly portrayed Damian as Inevitably Becoming Batman (and in so, Inevitably Becoming Evol Batman). I hate that kind of deterministic portrayal of him lol, so I started to think about how I'd write Damian having to (temporarily!) step in as Batman. From that, more fics followed: a couple focusing on a preboot version of Duke of my own (heavily featuring Jason), one with Dick and Dick/Helena, one with Steph and a lot of Steph & Kara... all with lots of messy relationships not just between the Bats but other characters, really expanding on the DCU and how *I'd* like to picture things going forward after the 2011 reboot.

And one of them, inspired by an ask I got in tumblr, is about an Outsiders team lead by Anissa and Cass. Both fresh out of a breakup, so that's fun xD. Grace is also in the team (AnissaGrace WILL get back together!! But it'll be messy in the meantime); Rose and probably Eddie will be there; Helena or Roy will help in an irregular capacity, but actually, thanks to my mutuals I love the idea of including JADE in the team lol, trying the Hero thing. On the Gotham/more Cass-centric side of things it'll also feature Onyx and my own version of Kate Kane (stiched together from various canons, my own imaginings, and some hints from a Devin Grayson interview about the Batwoman run she never got to run).

That fic is going to be Cass's slut era, btw. No doubt about it xD. Rose is only the beginning...

I have my misgivings about some parts in Batgirl 2000 (basically, I love a lot of the story beats but I would've written it MUCH differently. Especially everything regarding Shiva. I have very strong opinions about it). But everything afterwards sucks SO much lmao.

I shipped Mia/Tim after seeing them sparring in Teen Titans 2003! It's such a fun scene, they're clearly having a good time xD. And I already shipped both characters with Jason a lot, so it developed in an interesting direction. MiaTim is also fun in imagining how like... they'd probably get together in a fwb set-up thinking of the other as a Normal and Appropriate Romantic Choice (unlike their usual ones xD) and then eventually discover they're both freaks xDD

[charlottenewtons]

Now instead of insulting and bashing the woman, because that would make them Look Bad, it's all about how she's the BESTIE, the fujoshi, and sometimes, how ACTUALLY!!! she's a lesbian (even when she's shown no hint of it and often her life revolves around men in a way I'd find insulting for a lesbian character, tbqh)!!! ew how can you ship her with MEN who are UNWORTHY of her!! Nonono, let's pair her with this other woman (often someone she wouldn't be interested in in a million years, but okay) and put them in the background, being generic as fuck.

It's amazing that no matter what fandom you're in this will be a thing. I actually miss the time when slash shippers just openly hated female characters. It wasn't nice but at least it was honest.

One of my favourite things is older/younger woman configurations where the older one sees ~her younger self in the other and that configures how the relationship takes form (resentment? Protectiveness?). In general, "mirror" characters pair really well in F/F imo.

Yesss some of my favourite F/F ships are mirror characters.

I also see I am really going to have to start those Locked Tomb books at some point.

[queenslayerbee]

Ideally, slash fans would just ignore their beloathed female characters and focus on their own thing without trying to convince people they're Actually Super Feminists About It. Instead, I feel like we have to choose between the likes of old school SPN fandom misogyny, where they would just call Jo/Bela/Ruby/whoever misogynistic slurs and spew vitriol against them, or the new wave of SPN fandom misogyny, where I've had to encounter THREE separate fic summaries that portray Meg as Castiel's literal pet (twice as his cat, once as his goat, IIRC). I want OUT.

I definitely enjoyed it, though I know some people find it to be an acquired taste lol. I want to read the other two books ASAP, so I can get answers and await the fourth with the rest of the fans. I liked the main, enemies-to-???-its-complicated relationship, but I'm also not so low-key obsessed with Ianthe/Coronabeth (the twincest vibes between them are Something).

[charlottenewtons]

A lot of fandom friends love them, I just tend to bounce hard off fantasy books. Actual interesting and messy lesbian characters are a strong pull though.

[queenslayerbee]

Fantasy it's a tricky genre for me too; on paper I love it, but often end up modern examples very repetitive and... homogeneous? In a way that really doesn't work for me. In this case it helped that Gideon the Ninth is pretty much doing its own thing LOL. And pretty much every woman is queer (in every sense) and messy as fuck xD