Fan Stuff Blog. 18+. Please do not follow if you are a minor. Author of The Tyrant, the Fairy, and the Au Pair and In Dishonor Of. Buy me a ko-fi to support my in work audio drama "The Mark of the Tulip": https://ko-fi.com/griseldagimpel.
Married to calextheneko. White, bi, pronouns are she/her. I am a legal adult. 🌌👁🥩🌀
Use the "Go Away Griselda Gimpel" tag for posts about my IPs that you don't want me to see.
This is my official commissions post for charity fan fiction for the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.
Here's how it works. You contact me either through a DM here on tumblr or through a DM on Discord, where I am also griseldagimpel. If I have you blocked here on tumblr, you can still commission me via Discord. I block on tumblr for all sorts of reasons (often silly or trivial), but I don't have anyone blocked on Discord currently. (No, I probably don't remember why I blocked you.)
Commissions are in the form of a donation to https://www.pcrf.net/. Talk to me before donating.
Fandoms I'll generally write for can be found here. If you have a fandom not on this list, you're welcome to ask, but I can't write for a fandom I don't know.
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If you are a minor, you may only commission G or PG-13 works from me.
Rate is 1 cent per word up to 10,000 words.
Please have a prompt in mind, especially if you are looking for a longer work.
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I don’t know if anyone who follows me is listening to The Harbingers podcast (you should! it’s excellent!), but I feel the need to write out a theory I’ve got about what happened in Boston and what we might learn in the season finale. I don’t necessarily want to be proven right, because it’s a very dark take on a character I like a lot despite all her mistakes and mess. But I think it’s plausible.
Here’s my thinking:
-One of the questions episode 15 left us with is whether Eckerberg is still alive. I think it’s very plausible that he’s dead. In order to survive, he would have had to travel more than 5.75 miles from the epicenter with less than 15 minutes warning. That’s doable if he promptly got in a car as opposed to trying to evacuate people as he was asked to do, but, crucially, he was only told he needed to get away one city block. I couldn’t find any of the frame story conversations with Skinner refering to Eckerberg in the present tense.
-Amy has been chafing at being under Eckerberg’s thumb for years. For all her mental magic, she couldn’t do anything significant to him directly. He had too much money and too much leverage over her, and the limitations of her magic mean that anything other than the most subtle of manipulations could get noticed.
-Adam claims to have no idea who wrote the part of the spell that specified the distance for the area to be sent to the moon. When Adam was busy teleporting Andrea to Japan, Amy kept working without him paying close attention to what she was writing. The written spell got teleported away with the rest of Boston.
-When Adam was casting the big spell to send the damaged reactor to the moon, Amy told him to hurry immediately before he got to the part of the spell specifying the distance. Being rushed and flustered would make it much more likely that Adam wouldn’t be thinking about the subtle difference between the two words for distance units. He’d have to concentrate just to read the spell as written, no capacity leftover to second-guess the words written by someone whose expertise he trusts.
-A billion dollars is, according to Leverage creator John Rogers, the socio-economic equivalent of a loose nuke. Eckerberg had hundreds of billions of dollars. Depending on how you feel about the trolley problem (and how much you feel those loose nukes are aimed at you personally), you might decide that setting off one magical nuke in one major US city might be worth it to disarm all those socio-economic nukes permanently.
-Adam is trying to minimize the perception of Amy’s involvement in the Boston incident in order to protect her. This could just be generalized protectiveness, or it could be because he knows she was the one who introduced the incorrect word to make the spell so devastating, and he doesn’t want her to face the fallout for her mistake.
-It may not have been a mistake.
-I don’t think she had anything to do with the initial explosion— there were too many people she genuinely cared about in that room, and the Doomscroller found evidence to implicate Donahue. But Amy has a record of recklessly impulsive behavior and seizing opportunities.
-The Harbinger myth that opens ep. 15 is about a legendary figure whose magic razed multiple cities to the ground in order to kill the person who did him wrong. The myth was not about an accident.
tl;dr I think Amy may have purposefully extended the range of the spell in order to kill Eckerberg, even though it meant sacrificing the population of Boston.
She chose to write Hyrio instead of Pyrio, distracted Adam in the middle of the spell so he wouldn't catch the issue until too late, and boom! Jerome Eckerberg became the first billionaire on the moon.
In conclusion, I leave you with this quote from episode 1:
ADAM BLACKWELL: So we’re gonna eat the rich?
AMY STIRLING: Just the seven richest. That’s all I’m asking. Let’s eat those seven people and feed the world.
Hmm...I think if Amy was willing to do that, she'd be willing to control Eckerberg into updating his will to leave all his money to reputable charities and then taking up a hobby of autoerotic asphyxiation that whoops! goes fatal.
Just, if Amy wanted to divorce Eckerberg of his money and do away with him without anyone being suspicious, that's the easiest thing in the world for her to do, and there are a hundred ways she could do it without harming anyone else. She could have him walk into traffic or drunkenly fall overboard while on his yatch or have an accident while sky diving or skiing.
The issue is that Amy's not the type to commit cold blooded murder.
The issue I see with any of the potential ways that Amy might have more directly used her powers to off Eckerberg (and only Eckerberg) is that he knew the sorts of things she could do with her powers. That knowledge would not have given him any direct resistance to being controlled into walking into traffic etc. However, if he had half a brain he could have established directives so that if he died due to reckless, self-destructive, or otherwise uncharacteristic behavior shortly after interacting with her, his lawyers would publicly release documentation about how she got the ring from him and any other information they had to make her look suspicious. Probably it wouldn't amount to anything that would hold up in a criminal trial, but enough to destroy her reputation. He could also have put in place limits to prevent himself from making significant financial or legal decisions near a meeting with her. The smart thing to do would be to make very sure she knew about all this because an ounce of prevention of one's own death is worth a pound of posthumous revenge.
My understanding is that while she can put thoughts into people's heads without them noticing, if it's something too different from their usual thought patterns then when she is no longer actively maintaining control they are likely to realize that they were manipulated. Therefore delayed release self-destructive thoughts probably wouldn't work.
I don't actually regard my theory of Amy doing mass moon murder on purpose in order to kill Eckerberg as the most likely thing that might be revealed on the podcast. It is obviously an EXTREMELY dark direction for her character. But I do think that it's one potential explanation of what has happened on the show up through ep. 15, and sometimes I enjoy speculating about fictional women's wrongs.
Here's the thing, though: Amy can read Eckerberg's mind, which means she'd know of any precautions he'd set up. And it would be difficult for there to be a precaution that Eckerberg could set up that Eckerberg couldn't undo [due to Amy mind-controlling him]. Any Rube Goldberg situation he managed that successfully prevented Amy from divorcing him from his money would also greatly hinder Eckerberg himself.
Like, she knows all his passwords. He could set it up so that he can't do any financial transactions without, I don't know, a biometric scan AND set it up so that this can't be undone is less than a week (which is longer than Amy can stay awake and thus longer than she can keep him under her control), but that would mean that Eckerberg would have a really hard time using his money anytime he actually wanted to. Like he wouldn't be able to cut someone a check or do a wire transfer or anything like that.
Which, looking at Amy and Eckerberg's conversation from Episode 8:
AMY STIRLING: It’s a bad thing because you used her. You used both of us.
JEROME ECKERBERG: And you haven’t used me? Remind me: who footed the bill for your first shows? Who paid for your publicist, for that first big profile of you in In Depth? Hmm? We all use each other. To great benefit.
AMY STIRLING: I… I just don’t like feeling like a piece on a chess board. That’s all.
JEROME ECKERBERG: We’re all pieces on chess boards, Ms. Stirling. Only now... we’re on the winning side.
She is absolutely spending his money. As she should.
Aliens: Wow you guys sure are completely normal and not at all indescribably horny.
NASA *beating the alien fuckers with a broom*: Yep. Just a completely normal species. no inappropriate lusting for extraterrestrial booty here, no sir.
If you're a trans man/transmasc falling to the trap that transfems are your enemy 🫵 DON'T. Transfems are our friends and sisters/siblings in arms and generalization of an entire demographic due to one or two of them hating your identity is the wrong way to go about it. You also need to remember it's really easy to just open a blog or send an anon and claim you're a transfem and that all of your transfems friends hate transmascs. Stop listening to what some bigots on the internet say and make friends with transfems and you'll see believing they all suck is a pitfall trap that only lead you to dark places. Don't trust anyone that claims you're only safe with people that share your identity.
Literally all transfems I've met loved transmascs (specially because I was the first one they met) and we easily swapped tips and talked about being trans together with no issue. This divide is totally fabricated. Stop falling for it. Support your trans sisters and listen to their lives experiences NOW.
I have two fan fiction offers for this charity auction. It works like Fandom Trumps Hate. The money goes directly to the charity, and I write a fan fiction as 'thank you' to the donor.
Offer #1 for the following fandoms:
The Magnus Archives Expanded Universe (The Magnus Archives, The Magnus Protocol, Sheeple Chase)
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
Ooh yes this is a very good flag, and is something I may be guilty of sometimes.
I think there are useful conversations about M/M being written by women (and F/F being written by men) especially in the context of the romance publishing ecosystem often shutting queer men out of the M/M romance space in favor of female authors and in the context of some women in fandom using their gender as a shield against criticism about some trends in slash fiction, and about F/F being written by men in the context of the history of fetishization by men of lesbians in pornography.
But totally agree that when talking about just the fiction itself we should focus on what is being written rather than who is writing it.
The M/M romance space is overwhelmingly populated by female authors, and throughout the years queer men have talked about feeling unwelcome in the space, being told that their voices were unwelcome in romance publishing spaces about queer men, etc. I can't speak to whether agents/publishers are prioritizing female authors or if it's more the broader marketing/influencer/published media ecosystem as a whole prioritizing female authors.
I can only speak to what I've seen some queer male authors saying, so if anyone has firsthand experience on this, please chime in.
In terms of professional publishing I think it’s probably going to be more useful to look at the identities of GATEKEEPERS (agents, editors). If all your editors are cis, straight (white) women, they’re going to unconsciously prefer books that are written to appeal to their tastes in men rather than necessarily prioritizing people with experience in m/m real-life encounters. This is a real problem but I think discussing author identities is a little bit of a red herring. The authors as individuals don’t create the problem, it’s the aggregate effect of having a limited diversity of gatekeepers in the industry
I agree that a lot of it is a gatekeeper thing (though I would also include book influencers as gatekeepers to who gets talked about), but also I think you can discuss author identities (in aggregate) without saying that that is the source of the problem.
"The published M/M romance space is dominated by cis white female authors" is a fact that can be useful to talk about both in and out of the context of some queer male authors feeling unwelcome in the space, without saying "those female authors are actively the reason for that exclusion."
I don't think we can talk about the lack of diversity in the published romance space without talking, for example, about the prevalence across romance novelists of cis straight white stay-at-home wives/mothers with husbands who make enough money for their family to live in a single income.
The publishing industry in general rewards people who have a lot of time and don't rely on publishing for their income, because it is really hard to make a living purely by being a novelist. This, consequently, rewards 1) (white) men with some amount of money who have women in their lives who take care of their household so they can spend time on writing and 2) (white) women who do not need/have a career outside of their home because they are independently wealthy or are married to someone who makes enough for them to do well on a single income.
This is obviously not saying that every author is like this, and things like self-publishing have changed this a little, but the demographics of authors and, relatedly, the characters/stories those authors tend to write, isn't just a red herring in these conversations.
I want to poke at something gently, and again, you know more about the romance publishing industry than I do. This bit:
""The published M/M romance space is dominated by cis white female authors" is a fact that can be useful to talk about both in and out of the context of some queer male authors feeling unwelcome in the space"
Are these cis white female authors all straight, or are some of them also queer? Are these queer male authors not cis? Are they not white?
And what is it that makes these queer male authors feel unwelcome?
Some of the cis white female authors are queer, some of the queer male authors are cis, some of them are white and some of them are nkt.
What does that change about my point?
(I would argue nothing, because I intentionally did not exclude any of those possibilities when writing that sentence, because I know all of those things are true.)
This reddit post cites some of the rhetoric used against men in the M/M romance space, such as "queer romance is for women by women" and "romance is for women and [queer] men are a guest here. This blog post talks a bit about this phenomenon in the context of the scandal of a female author essentially pretending to be a man to sell M/M romance. This talks about the backlash some male romance novelists face.
In terms of what it changes about your post: if it were the case that the straight female authors were all white and queer male authors weren't, I'd be suspicious that the gatekeepers were engaging in racial discrimination. But obviously white queer male authors aren't being discriminated against for their race!
The first link (the reddit post) puts the focus on behavior, rather than identity. It isn't the gender makeup of the space that is the issue but the behavior of those in the space.
I'm leery about the second link (the blog post) and the third link (what I could read of it, which was only the first few paragraphs.) Feeling"betrayed" about the gender of the author is an attitude that is absolutely going to be Hell for trans authors whose first avenue of transition might very well be the pen name they write under.
Romance novelists are predominantly women -> romance fans view the romance space as being for women by women and that men are just guests -> some queer male authors feel unwelcome.
The identity of the predominant group of authors is directly relevant to that conversation.
Romance novelists are predominantly women -> some romance fans feel betrayed by authors they learn are men and so stop buying/recommending their books -> some queer male authors are shut out of/feel unwelcome in the romance space.
The identity of the predominant group of authors is again directly relevant to that conversation.
We also historically have seen Women of Color shut out of the industry! And trans women! I just didn't mention that because I was talking about something else.
(The white part was more relevant to "in and out of the context of some queer male authors feeling unwelcome in the space" but I didn't bother to make two separate sentences splitting out which parts were specifically relevant to the queer male author part.)
All of this is about behavior--of fans, of the industry as a whole--but that behavior is in the context of mostromance authors being cis white women. Which makes the identity of the authors relevant to the conversation even if the authors are not directly at fault.
There is a trend in other spaces (like programming) where spaces end up heavily female when they are seen as unimportant. Then, when the perception changes (programming is important after all), the trend is for women to be discriminated against and pushed out of those spaces.
Keeping the focus on behavior will hopefully help avoid any solution being "women need to be excluded from this space because men have deemed it worthy".
The solution to queer men being made to feel unwelcome should never be "women need to go away".
(I don't think we're in disagreement here. Just teasing out my thoughts.)
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
Ooh yes this is a very good flag, and is something I may be guilty of sometimes.
I think there are useful conversations about M/M being written by women (and F/F being written by men) especially in the context of the romance publishing ecosystem often shutting queer men out of the M/M romance space in favor of female authors and in the context of some women in fandom using their gender as a shield against criticism about some trends in slash fiction, and about F/F being written by men in the context of the history of fetishization by men of lesbians in pornography.
But totally agree that when talking about just the fiction itself we should focus on what is being written rather than who is writing it.
The M/M romance space is overwhelmingly populated by female authors, and throughout the years queer men have talked about feeling unwelcome in the space, being told that their voices were unwelcome in romance publishing spaces about queer men, etc. I can't speak to whether agents/publishers are prioritizing female authors or if it's more the broader marketing/influencer/published media ecosystem as a whole prioritizing female authors.
I can only speak to what I've seen some queer male authors saying, so if anyone has firsthand experience on this, please chime in.
In terms of professional publishing I think it’s probably going to be more useful to look at the identities of GATEKEEPERS (agents, editors). If all your editors are cis, straight (white) women, they’re going to unconsciously prefer books that are written to appeal to their tastes in men rather than necessarily prioritizing people with experience in m/m real-life encounters. This is a real problem but I think discussing author identities is a little bit of a red herring. The authors as individuals don’t create the problem, it’s the aggregate effect of having a limited diversity of gatekeepers in the industry
I agree that a lot of it is a gatekeeper thing (though I would also include book influencers as gatekeepers to who gets talked about), but also I think you can discuss author identities (in aggregate) without saying that that is the source of the problem.
"The published M/M romance space is dominated by cis white female authors" is a fact that can be useful to talk about both in and out of the context of some queer male authors feeling unwelcome in the space, without saying "those female authors are actively the reason for that exclusion."
I don't think we can talk about the lack of diversity in the published romance space without talking, for example, about the prevalence across romance novelists of cis straight white stay-at-home wives/mothers with husbands who make enough money for their family to live in a single income.
The publishing industry in general rewards people who have a lot of time and don't rely on publishing for their income, because it is really hard to make a living purely by being a novelist. This, consequently, rewards 1) (white) men with some amount of money who have women in their lives who take care of their household so they can spend time on writing and 2) (white) women who do not need/have a career outside of their home because they are independently wealthy or are married to someone who makes enough for them to do well on a single income.
This is obviously not saying that every author is like this, and things like self-publishing have changed this a little, but the demographics of authors and, relatedly, the characters/stories those authors tend to write, isn't just a red herring in these conversations.
I want to poke at something gently, and again, you know more about the romance publishing industry than I do. This bit:
""The published M/M romance space is dominated by cis white female authors" is a fact that can be useful to talk about both in and out of the context of some queer male authors feeling unwelcome in the space"
Are these cis white female authors all straight, or are some of them also queer? Are these queer male authors not cis? Are they not white?
And what is it that makes these queer male authors feel unwelcome?
Some of the cis white female authors are queer, some of the queer male authors are cis, some of them are white and some of them are nkt.
What does that change about my point?
(I would argue nothing, because I intentionally did not exclude any of those possibilities when writing that sentence, because I know all of those things are true.)
This reddit post cites some of the rhetoric used against men in the M/M romance space, such as "queer romance is for women by women" and "romance is for women and [queer] men are a guest here. This blog post talks a bit about this phenomenon in the context of the scandal of a female author essentially pretending to be a man to sell M/M romance. This talks about the backlash some male romance novelists face.
In terms of what it changes about your post: if it were the case that the straight female authors were all white and queer male authors weren't, I'd be suspicious that the gatekeepers were engaging in racial discrimination. But obviously white queer male authors aren't being discriminated against for their race!
The first link (the reddit post) puts the focus on behavior, rather than identity. It isn't the gender makeup of the space that is the issue but the behavior of those in the space.
I'm leery about the second link (the blog post) and the third link (what I could read of it, which was only the first few paragraphs.) Feeling"betrayed" about the gender of the author is an attitude that is absolutely going to be Hell for trans authors whose first avenue of transition might very well be the pen name they write under.
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
Ooh yes this is a very good flag, and is something I may be guilty of sometimes.
I think there are useful conversations about M/M being written by women (and F/F being written by men) especially in the context of the romance publishing ecosystem often shutting queer men out of the M/M romance space in favor of female authors and in the context of some women in fandom using their gender as a shield against criticism about some trends in slash fiction, and about F/F being written by men in the context of the history of fetishization by men of lesbians in pornography.
But totally agree that when talking about just the fiction itself we should focus on what is being written rather than who is writing it.
The M/M romance space is overwhelmingly populated by female authors, and throughout the years queer men have talked about feeling unwelcome in the space, being told that their voices were unwelcome in romance publishing spaces about queer men, etc. I can't speak to whether agents/publishers are prioritizing female authors or if it's more the broader marketing/influencer/published media ecosystem as a whole prioritizing female authors.
I can only speak to what I've seen some queer male authors saying, so if anyone has firsthand experience on this, please chime in.
In terms of professional publishing I think it’s probably going to be more useful to look at the identities of GATEKEEPERS (agents, editors). If all your editors are cis, straight (white) women, they’re going to unconsciously prefer books that are written to appeal to their tastes in men rather than necessarily prioritizing people with experience in m/m real-life encounters. This is a real problem but I think discussing author identities is a little bit of a red herring. The authors as individuals don’t create the problem, it’s the aggregate effect of having a limited diversity of gatekeepers in the industry
Like I mentioned elsewhere in the tags, the audio drama scene has no shortage of M/M fiction created by men (of a variety of sexual orientations), so it's definitely not the case that men are uninterested in writing M/M.
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
Ooh yes this is a very good flag, and is something I may be guilty of sometimes.
I think there are useful conversations about M/M being written by women (and F/F being written by men) especially in the context of the romance publishing ecosystem often shutting queer men out of the M/M romance space in favor of female authors and in the context of some women in fandom using their gender as a shield against criticism about some trends in slash fiction, and about F/F being written by men in the context of the history of fetishization by men of lesbians in pornography.
But totally agree that when talking about just the fiction itself we should focus on what is being written rather than who is writing it.
The M/M romance space is overwhelmingly populated by female authors, and throughout the years queer men have talked about feeling unwelcome in the space, being told that their voices were unwelcome in romance publishing spaces about queer men, etc. I can't speak to whether agents/publishers are prioritizing female authors or if it's more the broader marketing/influencer/published media ecosystem as a whole prioritizing female authors.
I can only speak to what I've seen some queer male authors saying, so if anyone has firsthand experience on this, please chime in.
In terms of professional publishing I think it’s probably going to be more useful to look at the identities of GATEKEEPERS (agents, editors). If all your editors are cis, straight (white) women, they’re going to unconsciously prefer books that are written to appeal to their tastes in men rather than necessarily prioritizing people with experience in m/m real-life encounters. This is a real problem but I think discussing author identities is a little bit of a red herring. The authors as individuals don’t create the problem, it’s the aggregate effect of having a limited diversity of gatekeepers in the industry
I agree that a lot of it is a gatekeeper thing (though I would also include book influencers as gatekeepers to who gets talked about), but also I think you can discuss author identities (in aggregate) without saying that that is the source of the problem.
"The published M/M romance space is dominated by cis white female authors" is a fact that can be useful to talk about both in and out of the context of some queer male authors feeling unwelcome in the space, without saying "those female authors are actively the reason for that exclusion."
I don't think we can talk about the lack of diversity in the published romance space without talking, for example, about the prevalence across romance novelists of cis straight white stay-at-home wives/mothers with husbands who make enough money for their family to live in a single income.
The publishing industry in general rewards people who have a lot of time and don't rely on publishing for their income, because it is really hard to make a living purely by being a novelist. This, consequently, rewards 1) (white) men with some amount of money who have women in their lives who take care of their household so they can spend time on writing and 2) (white) women who do not need/have a career outside of their home because they are independently wealthy or are married to someone who makes enough for them to do well on a single income.
This is obviously not saying that every author is like this, and things like self-publishing have changed this a little, but the demographics of authors and, relatedly, the characters/stories those authors tend to write, isn't just a red herring in these conversations.
I want to poke at something gently, and again, you know more about the romance publishing industry than I do. This bit:
""The published M/M romance space is dominated by cis white female authors" is a fact that can be useful to talk about both in and out of the context of some queer male authors feeling unwelcome in the space"
Are these cis white female authors all straight, or are some of them also queer? Are these queer male authors not cis? Are they not white?
And what is it that makes these queer male authors feel unwelcome?
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
Ooh yes this is a very good flag, and is something I may be guilty of sometimes.
I think there are useful conversations about M/M being written by women (and F/F being written by men) especially in the context of the romance publishing ecosystem often shutting queer men out of the M/M romance space in favor of female authors and in the context of some women in fandom using their gender as a shield against criticism about some trends in slash fiction, and about F/F being written by men in the context of the history of fetishization by men of lesbians in pornography.
But totally agree that when talking about just the fiction itself we should focus on what is being written rather than who is writing it.
The M/M romance space is overwhelmingly populated by female authors, and throughout the years queer men have talked about feeling unwelcome in the space, being told that their voices were unwelcome in romance publishing spaces about queer men, etc. I can't speak to whether agents/publishers are prioritizing female authors or if it's more the broader marketing/influencer/published media ecosystem as a whole prioritizing female authors.
I can only speak to what I've seen some queer male authors saying, so if anyone has firsthand experience on this, please chime in.
In terms of professional publishing I think it’s probably going to be more useful to look at the identities of GATEKEEPERS (agents, editors). If all your editors are cis, straight (white) women, they’re going to unconsciously prefer books that are written to appeal to their tastes in men rather than necessarily prioritizing people with experience in m/m real-life encounters. This is a real problem but I think discussing author identities is a little bit of a red herring. The authors as individuals don’t create the problem, it’s the aggregate effect of having a limited diversity of gatekeepers in the industry
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
"Queer men are being discriminated against in m/m romance spaces! <- Oh, that's awful. Homophobia and discrimination are not cool.
"There are too many women in this space!" <- You, uh, might want to check your misogyny, actually. Something being made by women doesn't make it intrinsically inferior. The mere fact that a space has a lot of women shouldn't make you uncomfortable.
That's the value of focusing on behavior over identity.
This is the same issue with social clubs that advertise themselves as open only to "women" or "women and femmes" or "women and non-binary people".
Set standards of behavior. Enforce those standards. Don't try to police identity.
If you want to only associate with women (or whatever), identity the specific individuals you want to associate with and associate with them specifically. There's nothing wrong with that. But the moment you extend the invitation to the general public, putting restrictions based on identity isn't going to lead anywhere good.
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
"Queer men are being discriminated against in m/m romance spaces! <- Oh, that's awful. Homophobia and discrimination are not cool.
"There are too many women in this space!" <- You, uh, might want to check your misogyny, actually. Something being made by women doesn't make it intrinsically inferior. The mere fact that a space has a lot of women shouldn't make you uncomfortable.
That's the value of focusing on behavior over identity.
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
Ooh yes this is a very good flag, and is something I may be guilty of sometimes.
I think there are useful conversations about M/M being written by women (and F/F being written by men) especially in the context of the romance publishing ecosystem often shutting queer men out of the M/M romance space in favor of female authors and in the context of some women in fandom using their gender as a shield against criticism about some trends in slash fiction, and about F/F being written by men in the context of the history of fetishization by men of lesbians in pornography.
But totally agree that when talking about just the fiction itself we should focus on what is being written rather than who is writing it.
Not related to anything recent, but I wish when people critically discussed trends in m/m fiction (like the adherence to strict heteronormative gender roles) they didn't use "written by women" and "written by men" as shorthands for "written badly" and "written well". That irks me because it centers the issue with who is doing the writing rather than what is being written.
