Sam Ledroit

I encourage anyone who sees this to share it around and discuss it with others as much as possible. These danmei writers who do so much for us are being imprisoned and publicly humiliated and we all need to be in solidarity with them.

Being a danmei author in China has always been dangerous but so many of these women continue to write to make a living and to express themselves through their stories. The least we can do for them is to make sure people know what's happening to them and say out loud that we don't agree with it.

Spotlight series #2

Pride month is drawing to a close and I am certainly late on giving my own recommendations for books with Queer themes. This year, my recs are focusing on books that deal with intersecting identities and having a romance arc/HEA is not a requirement. This is far from an exhaustive list and I plan to give more recs exploring Queer themes through a variety of lens soon

A YA tackling themes of grief and a Bi/Pan lead whose identity is explicit but never labelled:

On the Wings of la Noche by Vanessa L. Torres

At night, high schooler Noche transforms into a Lechuza, an owl who guides the souls of the dead to the afterlife. But the only soul she’s been unable to guide is the soul of her girlfriend, Dante, who died last year. Trapped in her grief, she meets Jax, a new kid in town who helps her move on and deep her other relationships.

*cools ur dashboard down*

Cus when I look for fandom related stuff like 90% of the fan art and the fanfiction and the meta, zines, comics, etc. Like 90% of the shit that I’ve seen is created by women & girls.

And all that stuff take’s a lot of work and research and critical analysis and staring at reference photos for hours.

Female fandom is creative. Females create fanart, cosplay, fanwritings. Female fandom ALTERS canon, for the simple reason that canon does not serve female fandom. In order for it to fit the ‘outsider’ (female, queer, POC), the canon must be attacked and rebuilt, and that takes creation.

“Male” fandom devalues this contribution to fandom, because it is not the ‘right’ kind of fandom. “Girls only cosplay for attention, they’re not REAL fans!” “Fanfiction is full of stupid Mary Sues, girls only do it so they can make out with the main character!” “I, a male artist, have done this pin-up work and can put it in my portfolio! You, a female artist, have drawn stupid fanart, and it’s not appropriate to use as a professional reference!”

In the mind of people who decry the ‘fake geek girl,’ this fandom is not as worthy. It damages, or in their mind, destroys the canon. What is the point of memorizing every possible romantic entanglement of heterosexual white Danny Rand if someone turns around and creates a fanwork depicting him as a bisexual female of Asian descent (thus subverting Rand’s creepy ‘white savior’ origins)? When Danny Rand becomes Dani Rand, their power is lessened. What is important to them ceases to be the focus of the discussion. Creation and curatorship can work in tandom, but typically, in fandom, they are on opposite poles.

i think the keepers-of-the-canon thing comes easily to het males because they’re the ones mostly represented by the canon. they don’t look at the current state of things and go “but where am i in this?” because they’re front and center.

but when you look at something like, say, steven universe, suddenly they’re going “why aren’t there any male gems, what would a male gem be like” and making up male gemsonas. i don’t blame anyone who sees this as kind of diaper baby tantrum behavior, because like, guys, you have damn near every other sci-fi cartoon, let women have this one. but at the same time, i think it’s just a normal human instinct, to look at a story and try to see yourself in it. and if you’re not there, to try to imagine how you could be.

as is, since most properties are still made mostly by men, for men, and about men, and curators enshrine and protect canon rather than deconstruct and transform it, obviously most curators are men.