Linkspam: On Tragic Queerness in SFF and The Politics of Presence

[davidgillon]

Storify of Foz Meadows tweeting what she called a rant, but which I call eminently good sense, and which I've been trying to put into practise this afternoon.

On Tragic Queerness in SFF

TLDR: Stop killing your gay characters
Slightly Longer TLDR: If you're writing queer characters while straight, for god's sake read some queer fanfic where being queer is normal.

So, given the backburner WIP has a lesbian couple as protagonists,  I went to Foz's tumblr, where she has a list of favourite fanfic, and I've started reading.

I 'm not sure it makes all the points Foz wanted, but I really enjoyed this MCU piece about all the Captain America films that got made before his reappearance, and what happens when Cap and Bucky find out about them:

Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain America on Film

And I also found this on Foz's blog: The Politics of Presence, which has some very wise things to say on the necessity of having diverse characters in your novel.

Comments

[cloudsinvenice]

I really like the point about needing to reboot our ideas based on fic that centralises lgbt characters and viewpoints - and the great thing about fic is that it's freely available. It's not like this is something nobody has a way to find out about, so that helps to lower the entry barrier for people who want to improve this aspect of our writing.

[davidgillon]

Yes, it struck me as a really good point. I'm busy blogging about the SF Signal 'We're all disabled' fiasco again and it's a pity there's not a similar archive of disability fiction to point people at. I'm having to teach people about Models of Disability instead!