Like seriously, why drive people away just because you're pissed that others exist? Reddit really doesn't HAVE to be so insular and boring.

I recently read The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie and I loved it so much! I was hoping maybe there would be someone here who could recommend me another book that has a trans main character and is fantasy. I'd prefer trans male or nonbinary since that's more relatable to me, but fem would be great also!

Though I'd like books that aren't tragedies, there is already enough hatred towards us in real life so I'd love a story that isn't just suffering for any queer characters on the basis of being queer

Thank you in advance!

EDIT: Thank you all so much for your recommendations! I've definitely got a lot of great suggestions to check out here, and I'm very appreciative!

I was worried when I posted this yesterday morning that it would be bombarded with hate and downvoted into oblivion, but with very few exceptions, you have all been lovely 🩵

As someone from a place where queerphobia isn’t openly rampant (mostly internalized and hinted at in society), I consider myself pretty lucky and sheltered. I've never really encountered outright discrimination, and until recently, I hadn't fully grasped how prevalent and impactful it still is in the world today. It's surreal to me that it actually manifests, and I rarely think about how big of a problem it remains, even in places like the internet, which is my main source of international sentiment.

Recently, I made a post on this subreddit asking for wlw media recommendations. The upvote-to-comment ratio and the upvote-to-downvote ratio on the comments themselves were a huge wake-up call. I had assumed that with the progression of society and literacy (especially in a subreddit like this), the issue of discrimination wouldn’t be so pronounced. While I received comprehensive responses (for which I'm extremely grateful) and encountered no outright queerphobia, I was reminded of a recent post on systemic downvoting that many people might have seen trending on controversial topics. This phenomenon rings especially true in cases like these.

One thing that stood out to me and that I wanted to address is a comment on my post listing some authors. The response was completely in line with the intention of my post, but it was at the very bottom with a -4 karma (not a lot, but it’s the principle of downvoting that got me thinking). Despite being perfectly valid, the comment received negative reception, and my post (I'm aware of karma fuzzing) received 7 upvotes excluding mine and 5 downvotes (last I checked). It seems like people throw aside reddiquette in favor of personal opinion. It really stood out to me that despite my post being so insignificant among the dozens of other new posts, some people still deemed it worthy of negative engagement.

edit: i get its not a lot a big deal. 4 is nothing, and posts like these are everywhere. but like i said, it’s the principle behind it regarding small posts like this one, despite it being small still getting downvoted. id love to discuss queer fiction with people in this sub, but it’s just irritating when it can’t reach the intended audience because some angry redditor wants to display their personal opinion in the way they can.

I'm not posting this for the purpose of seeking pity or attention; I'm aware that many similar things have been said on a daily basis. This is more of a rant than anything else. I'm pretty bummed by the reality of things here. Personally, it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s surely demoralizing to entire communities out there who are just doing normal things.

And before anyone attacks me for my post, my response is the same as everyone else's.
Well, just search for recommendations! There are tons of posts asking for the same thing
Less meaningful things have been said without meeting such reception. Just like the post mentioned, I wouldn’t want to feed into the notion that posts like these don’t deserve representation. Anyhow, it’s easier to pose the question myself for people who are actually able to answer with more recent information, although I do get the sentiment.

further edit: downvoting is because it doesn’t contribute to the main purpose of the sub! well, in the content of this post itself, i agree it can get exhausting to see the same discussion over and over again in different packaging every single day, especially if you’re a casual sub lurker looking for actual fantasy content. however, there are many posts asking for queer recs, even if it’s romance that get downvoted. if you don’t like queer romance, or oh man, another complaint… then simply don’t engage. it sucks when people who want to have actual, sub-related discussions are met with so much resistance, to the effect of saying these connverdations aren’t worthy of having.

hopefully my final edit, also to address comments. i’ve noticed the downvote button basically being used as a dislike button, which is totally normal. in the context of my post, and to address the most upvotes comments, firstly thank you for the replies. and yes, it’s not that big of a deal; compared to the discriminatory acts out there, this is nothing. ‘it’s just a downvote, for god’s sake, stop reading so much into it!’ to which i will wholeheartedly agree, yes, it is just a downvote. but that doesn’t make the principle in question any less real.

one thing (new?) i can put out there that i know people have been doing, but im going to say anyways: if you’re not a fan, simply don’t engage. but it would be very meaningful and impactful if everyone were to take the tiniest effort to just upvote related posts. not even posts like these; support minorities by helping their posts gain traction. you don’t need to comment. just upvote the post, be it a book discussion thread, a book review, or yet another request for book recommendations, no matter how similar they may be to dozens out there. basically, a small action goes a long way.

And in summary, yes, queerphobia, and by extension, discrimination of minorities, are still very real, and I hope things will turn around eventually. For now, I'm grateful for the community who are receptive, especially to the people who took the time to reply with media recommendations! I have a ton of new media to consume and I'm excited. Thank you if you read all the way through, and happy Pride!

another edit: huge thank you to the mods for having to mod another one of these posts. if you’re still in denial about this, please read the embedded post on systemic downvoting. hope this speaks for itself; notice which the most upvoted and downvoted comments are, how my replies to several comments are heavily downvoted, and that the mods had to step in, deactivate the karma count, and delete a bunch of comments. you’ll also notice that the mods warnings themselves are in the negatives. treat this as a social experiment to reinforce that this is very much a problem.

Hope i don't get labelled a sexist because i know how easy it is throw the word around, but I'll just portray my experience and ask my question.

I only started reading books less than 2 years ago, and i wasn't involved in any reading communities and don't even know people irl who read to discuss stuff with. So i pretty much got in without any biases. I mostly read books without knowing the author or paying much attention to their name. But after reading more than a 100 books since then, i feel like i haven't enjoyed books written by women as much (in general). Not too sure exactly why, i think maybe the often flowery/romantic is part of it ? prose and I've maybe slightly more emphasis on romance. Also the close character interactions are well written generally (however as stated too flowery and emotional for me) but the "badass" especially when a male character is involved sometimes feel a bit cringy. I feel like all the flowery emotional bits might work well in female POVs, but i found it more annoying when its the same for male POVs as well.

So my question is, do women find books by men way too crude/ unemotional especially is it's from a female POV.

and for the men, anyone else feels the same way i do ? or am i just weird and a misogynistic sexist pig who is subconsciously influenced and controlled by the patriarchy lol ?

I chose this sub because 90% of the books i read are fantasy books. so i want the opinion of those more familiar with the genre

Edit: What i got from this thread was this:

-Many of the female authored books i read were YA, and most YA books i liked were by one or two of my favourite male author. So there is a good chance i just don't like YA.

-Female writers (in general) write character focused books, and do characters well, but generally maybe not as strong in terms of plot or world building and vice versa for men. Since i like the magic, plot and world building more than characters I've found books by men more appealing in general

-I got loads of recommendations to books i might like, thanks for the recommendations!

-I might be partially subconsciously biased to some degree, so I'm kind of a sexist misogynist. sorry women, i always try not to be but i guess i was corrupted a bit by the system.

-Men in general, and myself obviously aren't that into romance and being too emotional?, so romance kinda puts me off.

In light of today’s disastrous decision by the US Supreme Court,* what works of fantasy do you feel have addressed the topic of abortion in a mature and sensitive way?

I’ll go with Half A War by Joe Abercrombie. During the denouement, one of the POV characters finds out that she’s pregnant after a one-night stand. Between her political responsibilities and her personal desires, she decides she’s not in a place to raise a child and chooses to terminate the pregnancy. No muss, no fuss, no drama, no judgment - just a young woman exercising her bodily autonomy in the way that she feels is right.

*This is not the place to get into the legal weeds but the majority’s reasoning is some bullshit. If you’re also pissed off about this assault on the rights of women and everyone else who can get pregnant, I strongly encourage you to donate to your local abortion fund.

If you have been on this sub a while, you already know that systematic downvoting of queer content is a problem on this subreddit. Many a post has been made about this already like this one or this one or this one. But for those of you that haven't been here as long, I want to make sure everyone knows that this is an issue, especially as we enter Pride Month in about a week from now which typically means an increase of LGBTQ posts. These posts will face more backlash than other non-LGBTQ posts of the same type. I want to give an overview of what this backlash looks like and address some arguments I've seen people bring up in the past about this in one place. I also would like to give a couple suggestions about what we can do about this and give people some tips about how to have a more queer friendly experience on this sub.

For all the queer people and allies reading this, I know this isn't a super lighthearted topic, so I understand if you'd rather skip it. I tried to section this essay so that if you want to skip the depressing evidence of a problem that you probably already knows exists and skip me arguing with positions I've seen other people take, you can do so. Hopefully, the sections at the end about suggestions to combat some of this stuff and my quick tips to engage with the more queer friendly parts of the subreddit can still be useful for you!

What is systematic downvoting on r/Fantasy?

Posts related to LGBTQ content are downvoted more than similar non-LGBTQ related posts. Sometime last year, I saw a post talking about systematic downvoting on r/fantasy. Over last summer, I decided to look into this further. During the month of June last year, 7 out of the 10 most controversial posts were LGBTQ related, they were

1. Books with Trans/Non-binary Romances

• 3. LGBTQ In Fantasy

• 4. PRIDE MONTH GIVE AWAY

• 5. high fantasy books featuring queer men?

• 6. Is Priory of the Orange Tree a Queernorm Book? My Collected Thoughts on the Matter

• 9. Queer female protagonist

• 10. SFF centering queer joy

There were 16 LGBTQ related posts during June, to the best of my knowledge. 11 of them were in the 10 most controversial the week that they were posted, and 8 of them were in the 20 most controversial for the month of June. I suspect the same thing will probably happen this year, but I guess we'll see.

But this isn't an event that is isolated to Pride Month. Do you know what the all time most controversial post on r/fantasy is right now? Surely it's a truly divisive topic, the hottest of hot takes? No, it's a post from 2 months ago titled "Today is Trans Day of Visibility! Share your favorite Trans Books and Trans Characters!"

This also isn't isolated to recommendation requests. Two of the posts in my list (PRIDE MONTH GIVE AWAY and Is Priory of the Orange Tree a Queernorm Book? My Collected Thoughts on the Matter) were not recommendation requests. I've noticed that bingo reviews often also show a pattern, where wrap up posts that have a LGBTQ theme are often downvoted more than non-themed wrap ups or wrap ups that have different types of themes.

In addition, when the r/fantasy 2023 Top LGBTQIA+ Books List came out, the organizers helpfully listed out the upvote percentages on each of r/fantasy's polls for the last five years or so, which is pretty telling:

• 2021 Top Novels: 99% upvoted

• 2023 Top Novels: 98% upvoted

• 2023 Top Novellas: 98% upvoted

• Top Novels/Series of the Decade (2020 thread): 98% upvoted

• Top Books you Finished in 2019: 98% upvoted

• 2023 Top Self-Published Novels: 97% upvoted

• 2022 Top Self-Published Novels: 96% upvoted

• Non-Western Speculative Fiction (2022): 92% upvoted

• Top Female Authored Series/Books (2018): 83% upvoted

• Top LGBTQIA+ Books (2020 thread): 66% upvoted

• Top LGBTQIA+ Books (2023 thread): 63% upvoted

These aren't recommendation requests. I cannot think of any explanation for this repeated pattern of behavior besides queerphobia.

But why is this a problem? Controversial is measuring the downvote to upvote ratio, so posts don't get in the most controversial list unless they get a lot of downvotes. But why are downvotes bad? Some people basically use downvotes as a dislike button, but this isn't how reddit (the company) sees it. The redditquette article says

[Don't] Downvote an otherwise acceptable post because you don't personally like it. Think before you downvote and take a moment to ensure you're downvoting someone because they are not contributing to the community dialogue or discussion.

Even more clearly, another official article says:

Upvotes show that redditors think content is positively contributing to a community or the site as a whole. Downvotes mean redditors think that content should never see the light of day. [bolding added for emphasis]

I know this isn't how everyone views the downvote button, but it doesn't really matter how you view it. It matters how the reddit algorithm views it (more details here). And when you downvote queer content on r/fantasy, you are telling the algorithm that queer content does not belong here and no one—not me, not you, not queer people on r/fantasy —should be able to see it. And the reddit algorithm listens to downvotes, so it will take posts off the front page of r/fantasy sooner so people don't see it and will recommend it to less people. In addition, this clearly sends a message to queer people, that other r/fantasy users think queerness is unwelcome on r/fantasy.

What other types of queerphobia/bigotry happen on r/fantasy?

In addition to systematic downvoting of LGBTQ posts, there's also systematic downvoting of comments on LGBTQ posts. It's not uncommon to see a bunch of useful comments that answer the OP sitting at 0 or less in these posts. That's because at least one redditor went through and downvoted each and every helpful comment on that thread. Once again, this is done again to make people feel unwelcome and discourage people from commenting on queer posts. In addition, this has a tendency to bury helpful comments on the bottom of threads where they are less likely to be seen, and comments can be hidden if downvoted enough.

There have also been homophobic comments on r/fantasy. These are typically deleted pretty quickly by the mods (and I want to thank all the mods for that). Frequently though, queer people who are the first to answer these posts are the first people to see these comments and have to report them. Again, the aim is to make those queer people feel unwelcome. Because these get deleted, casual users think they don't exist. But if you see a trail of [removed] comments at the bottom of an LGBTQ post, there's a good chance that's what was there, especially if there's a comment from the mod team about rule 1 violations under it. For example, take the 7 different removed comment chains at the bottom of a post asking for kids fantasy books with queer representation.

Because the mods will remove bigoted comments, bigots will sometimes harass queer posters directly. For example, I know queer people have been sent unsolicited Reddit Care messages, which are basically a circular way of saying "I think you should be suicidal" aka "go kill yourself". I've been sent one of these before for a post I made on this subreddit (non-LGBT related but progressive) despite, you know, not being suicidal. Thankfully, it's possible to report these and block them from being sent to you in the future, as this helpful post points out. Hateful DMs also happen sometimes:

Edit: please stop sending me LGBTQ+ hate in my messages, I am NOT reading them at all just reporting you and going to block you so if your intention is to try and condemn me to feel “better” about yourself to a simpleton online go to therapy and stop spreading hate.

This is an actual quote from a post that was politely asking for LGBTQ recommendations. You might think that being able to report or block the people who send these would mean this doesn't affect really anyone. On the contrary, the entire goal is to make queer feel unwelcome talking about their experiences or asking for recs because they don't want to face that harassment. Do you think that the person who got hateful DMs is going to want to ask for queer recommendations on r/fantasy again? Even though they got lots of helpful answers, if they don't want to deal with harassment, probably not.

This last one is more subtle, but I've also seen people tell people to go to a different subreddit for queer recs (like r/QueerSFF or r/fantasyromance or r/MM_RomanceBooks) instead of asking on r/fantasy, often without giving time for members of this subreddit to give recommendations. This just gives people the impression that this sub is not the right place to ask for queer recs—which feeds into the all of the stuff I talk about above by making queer people feel unwelcome. Unlike pretty much everything else I talk about, I think people are trying to be helpful/allies when they do this, they just don't always think about how this changes the culture of r/fantasy to be less inclusive. As much as those other subs are good places to check out, please at least allow members of r/fantasy to have time to give recs or give some recs yourself before telling people about other subreddits that might be good additional resources. It would be even better if you can emphasize that both subs are correct places to ask for queer recs or give more context than just listing a subreddit and saying go there.

I also want to highlight the identities that are more frequently targeted. There's a pretty clear pattern of trans and nonbinary representation being hit the hardest if you look at the most controversial examples I brought up above. I've also seen evidence for this in my anecdotal experience with this sub. Trans/nonbinary posts are way more likely to get people downvoting every comment on them, and even in general LGBTQ posts, my comments that specifically mention trans representation in a book will get downvoted more than comments that don't specifically mention trans representation. For example, I've described a book as having a lesbian or a trans woman character in it (this character has both identities), and if I took the trans woman route the comment was more likely to be downvoted.

I want to acknowledge that systematic downvoting isn't just something unique to LGBTQ posts, posts about POC (people of color)/representation of various races or ethnicities are frequently targeted as well. Any post that comes across as being too strongly feminist or too pro fantasy romance gets hit. Posts about fat representation/body positivity and/or complain about fatphobia in a book rarely go over well with this sub. Anything too progressive in general is targeted.

For all of you thinking: What are you talking about? There's no systematic downvoting! and other arguments

I've seen all of these positions being taken in previous threads, although I'm rewording then rather than quote exactly. I want to have a single post where I can address all of these at once. I tried my best to represent other people's positions fairly and avoid strawmanning.

I just downvote LGBTQ recommendation requests because they are repeated too often/are too general/are too specific:

I'm going to talk about all of these issues one at a time. So starting with addressing the "too repeated" take: Despite what the people who constantly rec Gideon the Ninth for every single LGBTQ post might have you think, you can't just recommend the same set of queer books for every single LGBTQ rec request. A post asking for "Adult Queer Horror with a Concrete Conclusion to the Story" is different than one asking for "SFF centering queer joy". Neither request is very commonly asked or easily searchable. Both ended up on the top 10 most controversial lists for their week (placed 5th and 6th respectively, and the queer horror post was also competing against all the posts made later that week being downvoted after r/fantasy's API protest ended, so making 6th place is actually pretty impressive). In addition, even though sometimes posts have similarly worded titles, it's often easy to read a couple of paragraphs of the request and realize the OP was actually asking for something specific. If you view every LGBTQ rec request as being too similar/the same, maybe think about why you think that's the case? Are people literally asking for the exact same type of book and same type of queer representation? Or do you just lump all queer posts/books together as something you don't like or don't find relevant to you? Because at the end of the day, even specific recommendation requests that no one has asked before are being downvoted.

There's also problems with just expecting people to use the search button: it's often difficult to find anything that fits what you are specifically looking for, like I pointed out in the previous paragraph. In addition, old posts are frequently out of date (especially for queer books, where recent releases are really important because there's much less of a backlog). I've seen posts asking for recent queer releases (obviously something that old posts can't help you with) rise to the top of controversial, which yet again makes me think that some people are using this as an excuse.

A lot of people also have problems with these rec requests being "too specific", but often queer people and cis straight people have different ideas as what qualifies as being too specific. For example, a neurodivergent trans person of color might seem way too specific if you have none of these identities, but there are people who do have all of these identities or who have friends who have all of these identities. Think about the implications saying this has, that some people have too specific identities to be considered "normal" or worthy of seeing themselves represented in a book. If you mostly read books by popular straight white male epic fantasy authors, these types of requests will probably seem oddly specific. If you read a lot of indie queer books and books by authors of color and diverse books in general, this isn't actually oddly specific. So maybe, instead of downvoting, consider allowing the people who read diverse books regularly to answer even if you cannot.

Honestly, if a request is really bothering you that much by being too specific or general, report it for breaking rule 3 so that the poster is at least directed to go to the daily recs thread where people might actually be able to help them. Downvoting so no one sees it is honestly worse than just directing people to places where users who are happy to help with all sorts of requests can give recs. This also gives the mods a chance to weigh in, so if they think certain types of posts are being reported unfairly, they can ignore those.

But at the end of the day, both the too specific and too general arguments just seem like excuses to me. Systematic targeting does not happen for any other recommendation requests (besides the occasional ones about other progressive topics), regardless of how specific or general they are. You want to know how many in the 20 most controversial in June last year were non-LGBTQ related recommendation requests? One. That's it. This issue isn't that these posts are too specific/too general, otherwise we'd see this pattern with lots of different recommendation requests. No, the problem is that these posts are queer.

But all these points don't really matter in the end. If you paid attention during my first section, you'll notice that I mention a lot of posts that are disproportionally downvoted that aren't even recommendation requests. So the flimsy excuse of "oh, it's just repetitive or too specific rec requests being downvoted" really doesn't hold up when non-recommendation request posts are also being downvoted at a disproportionate rate.

It's just bots

People on previous threads were openly admitting to downvoting LGBT posts (usually with an excuse I address elsewhere on this post). So, no, it's not just bots. This also wouldn't explain the homophobic comments or DM/reddit cares harassment. I have no doubt that bots play a role, but regular human homophobes and transphobes absolutely exist on r/fantasy.

This isn't to dismiss the problem of bots, by the way. If you can think of a way to prove the existence of bots, report them, or solve this problem, I'd love to hear it. But I'm going to be focusing on human users for the rest of this essay.

It's actually your fault for upvoting them. If you didn't upvote, they wouldn't be controversial.

Yeah, sorry, I guess we should just let all LGBTQ related posts get downvoted into obliteration so that no one can talk about queer books/s. But seriously, the fact that these are upvoted means that people find them useful, it's just queerphobic people who make it harder for everyone else to access them.

I'm not homophobic, I just don't want to see that type of content/It's just dumb internet points, who cares

Ok, so I already addressed most of this in the paragraph starting with "But why is this a problem?" But the TL;DR version is that by systematically downvoting, you are telling the reddit algorithm that you don't think posts about queer people deserve a place in this subreddit. You are actively taking steps to ensure that this is the case. Even if you don't actively hate queer people, you are making the lives of the queer people on this subreddit worse. You are doing something queerphobic by contributing to this problem, whether you mean to or not.

Why complain? I don't see homophobia and/or this sub is way better than it used to be/better than most subreddits, so just be happy about what you have.

It is better than what it once was, as far as I can tell (look into The Kindness Wars retrospective, if you're curious). But there's still lots of room for improvement. This site only improved because people were willing to talk about these things and make progress. I think this sub can be a better place, and I want to help get it there. This post is part of the effort to make things better.

Are you trying to control what kinds of books I'm allowed to read/recommend? Or what posts I engage with/upvote/downvote? How dare you!

No. I am asking you not to make life harder for everyone else by downvoting LGBTQ content. You don't have to listen. I also don't particularly care what kinds of posts you engage with or what kinds of books you read. If you systematically downvote LGBTQ posts (meaning you downvote them regularly, especially when you don't do this for similar types of posts that aren't LGBTQ related), then, yes, I will consider you to be queerphobic or at least to doing queerphobic things. If you are offended by what I think, please remember that I can't control your actions, but you can't control what I think of your actions.

I downvote because choosing books based off of sexuality/gender is wrong. It should purely be about merit.

I can understand this POV a little, because I didn't use to get the whole "representation" thing myself at first. But then there was the first time I read a book with a character who shared my sexuality (even if I didn't recognize it at the time). And it was so reassuring to see in this book that I didn't have to follow the heteronormative expectations of finding an opposite gender partner in order to have a fulfilling life or a "happily ever after" unlike pretty much all of the other characters I've read at the time. I could be as interesting or awesome as that character. That has meaning, amd I'm sure other people could elaborate more on the significance of representation if you look. This is something you never really realize the importance of until you realize it's been missing your entire life.

Even though I look for them regularly, I don't only read books with characters who share a sexuality with me. I'd be missing a lot of great books if I did! But besides that, I also like to read about people who have different perspectives than me, a character with a different sexuality, one who's transgender, one that has a different racial identity, one who's disabled or neurodivergent. I like to learn more about these identities and about the struggles of people who have these. I like to build empathy. I also like reading diverse protagonists for a similar reason that I like to read books with a variety of different settings, it would be boring having every fantasy book being set in pseudo medieval Europe and it would be boring to have every fantasy book have the same demographic profile for their main character. You don't have to agree with me, but I do ask you to not hinder my ability to find these posts by downvoting them.

Representation often exists on more than a surface level. There's certain stories you can't tell with just straight cisgender characters. I'll give the example of The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez, where there's commentary about two men learning to overcome socially taught aggression and grow closer in a way that's so much more meaningful to gay men. There's also some really good meta commentary about representation. This is a book that can't be told with any other type of character than gay men. You can't neatly separate out the representation from the rest of what makes this book so good. Queer people have different experience in life than straight people and we have a different worldview. We often want to see that represented.

That doesn't mean that every book with a queer protagonist is about sex or gender, some just happen to casually have a protagonist with a particular identity, which can also be valuable and empowering. Even if you don't want to see any type of queer representation personally, please don't hinder our ability to find these books.

Suggestions to combat some of this

If you see a homophobic/transphobic/queerphobic comment or post on r/fantasy, that's a rule one violation. Report it to the mods! They take this kind of thing very seriously, and unlike downvotes, they can and will do something about it. Also, you don't need to give people the benefit of the doubt or wait until they are using slurs before reporting them. Some bigots will phrase things politely, that doesn't make their ideas any less bigoted. Report it and let the mods decide.

If you want to be a supportive ally, consider upvoting any LGBTQ post you see, or at least not downvoting it. Other people are downvoting it more or less for you anyway. I hope I explained why downvoting is harmful enough in previous sections of this essay. We can overpower the people who are downvoting if enough of us upvote, especially people who vote early because they sort by new. This is honestly the best (and simplest) way to help.

If you normally sort by hot, consider sorting by controversial and skimming about once a week to find any LGBT posts you missed (this works depressingly well). You might have to scroll by the occasional annoying hot take, but honestly, it's worth it to find the queer posts that you missed, imo. In order to sort by controversial on desktop, just sort by top with the correct time frame and change the part of the URL that says "top" to "controversial". Otherwise, you can also sort by new, which also typically works better at showing queer posts.

Please don't stop making posts and comments about queer topics on r/fantasy. I do understand if you feel like you need to or if you want to leave the sub after seeing some of this, I don't blame you at all. But I also don't want the bigots win by pushing us out.

If you have other suggestions, I'd love to hear about them in the comments. Just try not to suggest things that would result in this subreddit being over-moderated. That's not fair to the mods (they have enough work already), and it's not fair to other users who would not enjoy an over-moderated sub. Also, ideas that are impossible with how reddit is set up are not going to be very practical either.

How to maximize having a queer-friendly r/fantasy experience

So, you might be reading all of this and thinking that it's not worth it to engage with r/fantasy at all. Obviously, I don't feel that way, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed here long enough to notice many of these trends, much less make this post! I want to give some tips that I've found helpful in creating a more LGBTQ friendly experience on this subreddit/some good parts of the sub to visit.

• Tuesday weekly review threads, Friday social threads, and the monthly review threads: I frequently review books with LGBT representation in the Tuesday threads and have never faced backlash for it here. The same has been true for lots of other reviewers that I've seen on all three types of posts. So if you want to review LGBTQ books or read reviews of LGBTQ books, these are a good place to start looking. Friday social comments in particular are sorted randomly and votes are hidden, so these threads in particular can't be easily targeted by systematic downvoting.

• Daily Recommendation Requests and Simple Questions Thread: if you want to get a few solid LGBT recommendations, this is the place to ask. Your post will probably not get as much attention as a popular rec request that makes it onto the front page of the subreddit, but the recs tend to be more thoughtful on average (you probably won't get a random person recommending Malazan or another popular series inappropriately too, which is nice). This post also automatically sorts comments by new, so downvotes don't effect it much.

• Book clubs: The book clubs on here regularly read books with LGBTQ representation, so that can be a great way of discussing queer books with other redditors. I would be remiss to not give Beyond Binaries, the dedicated LGBTQ book club, shout out. I've been participating in it for almost every book we've read, and we've had some great discussions. The pick for June is Dionysus in Wisconsin by E.H. Lupton, if you want to join in.

• r/fantasy Bingo: Fantasy bingo is a reading challenge put out by this sub. You can find more information about in the sidebar, if you're not familiar with it. I've mentioned that LGBTQ bingo wrap up posts are still downvoted, but the actual content in them is really good in general and can be a great way of finding queer representation. Bingo normally has at least one dedicated LGBTQ themed square (although not this year, sadly), so most people who've done bingo tend to be more queer-friendly in general. Some people also do LGBTQ themed bingo cards—ones where all the books in them have some sort of queer representation or are written by queer authors.

• Sorting by new instead of hot: I've mentioned this in the previous section, but it could use repeating. This is a great way to make sure you tend to see queer rec requests as they come up, so the downvotes don't have any affect on what you see.

• Overall, I've found a lot of the regulars of the sub to be great people who are very queer friendly, so all this advice is aimed at making sure you are aware of the parts of the subreddit that regulars tend to congregate in more (because they won't tend to be dominating in the nth popular "I don't like [x popular series]" thread, I'll tell you that much). If you see a thread dominated by people with reading champion flairs—that indicates they have completed at least one bingo card with at least 25 different authors on it and are more likely to be regulars of the sub—these threads tend to be more productive and welcoming on average than on threads dominated by non-flared people in my opinion.

• I also want to shout out the related subreddit r/QueerSFF! It's not always super active, but it's a great way to avoid dealing with any of the stuff I talked about in the first two sections.

Other remarks

So, why am I writing this essay? Well, first of all, I want to give queer people and allies some heads up so they know if their posts about queer topics are being downvoted at a really high rate on this sub, this is why. I also would like to give some tips to them about how to have a better experience on this subreddit. I want to be open about this problem for any newcomers to this subreddit who aren't aware that it's happening and give some suggestions about what we can do to improve this situation. Honestly, if I can convince even a couple people to upvote queer threads so they don't get knocked off the front page quite as fast, or people who would have otherwise downvoted to instead ignore them, I'll consider that a win.

Ok, so I'm aware that people are probably going to start a lot of arguments in the comments (probably at least some of which will be from people who didn't read the entire essay and are arguing about something I already addressed). If you would like to provide me and others with a break so I'm not constantly flooded with this, feel free to shout out your favorite LGBTQ author, book, or post on this subreddit (bonus points for trans/nonbinary rep because they face an even more extreme level of backlash and bonus points for indie/self published books because they don't get a lot of attention.) Here's also to hoping the mods don't have to lock the comments due to queerphobia!

Finally, I want to shoutout to all the people who comment, upvote, and engage with queer content on this subreddit. I want to particularly thank the mods who have to remove all the queerphobic comments/posts, all the people who report these before it becomes a giant mess, and all the people who have taken the time to make this subreddit a kinder and more queer-friendly place. This sub has come a long way, and I hope together we can continue to make it a better and more welcoming place. Also, thank you to anyone who read all of this very long post. I hope that even if you disagree with me, I gave you something to consider.

Edit: 

Now that comments are locked, I have some concluding thoughts:

First of all, thanks to the mods for their hard work moderating the comments. I’m honestly happy and a bit surprised it remained open as long as it did, considering how many posts had to be removed. I know it was not easy for the mods to deal with, so I’m very appreciative for the time for productive discussion that some people were able to have in the comments.

Brief corrections and add ons: 

I did end up getting one person sending me hate over chat and one person sending me a reddit cares message (both of whom I reported). This is not to mention the trolls in the comments, some of whom were insulting me. This doesn't bother me, but consider this additional evidence to the points about harassment in my essay.

I’m not going to list the usernames of the people who pointed the following three things out in the comments on the off chance that trolls would follow and start harassing them, but they know who they are and I thank them.

• I should have used “systemic” instead of “systematic” in the title, that’s my bad.

• I should have been clearer when I explained the most controversial trends in June. Out of the 16 queer posts in June, 8 were in the 20 most controversial for that month. In addition, 11 out of those 16 posts were in the 10 most controversial for the individual week that they were originally posted on. Those 11 posts were not all posted in the same week in June. 

• The fact that large queer focused threads are often locked on r/fantasy because of the actions of trolls is another sign of queerphobia on this subreddit and another way that discussion of queer topics is limited on this subreddit. I do not blame the mods for this, but rather the trolls that make locking the comment section necessary.

Also, thanks to the people in the comments who were being supportive. You are what makes this community so great despite it all and why it’s worth fighting the uphill battle to make r/fantasy even better. 

Finally, at a 57% upvote rate, this is now the most controversial post of all time on r/fantasy! On one hand, it sucks that it’s controversial to even bring this issue up. On the other hand, at least there’s an explanation up about this problem and what can be done about it anytime people sort by controversial. I'll take that silver lining.

Edit 2:

It’s now July, we’ve made through all of Pride Month, so I wanted to include another update for anyone who finds this post through sorting by controversial for large periods of time. At least in part due to this post, there’s been members of this sub who took an active roll to post more LGBTQ content than last year! Again, there was backlash (sorting by most controversial during June of this year, 20 out of the 25 most controversial posts were LGBTQ related, including literally all of the 10 most controversial), but this didn’t stop people from posting and commenting. I want to especially highlight the Pride Month series of posts that combined recommendations with discussion about queer topics. These posts were often downvoted (there was a 57% downvote ratio on average if you don’t consider the Beyond Binary book club posts and I’ve seen evidence of people systematically downvoting every comment in many of these posts), but since the intro/index for all of these posts were sticked by the mods, people who sorted by hot still had a chance to be exposed to these topics. Overall, these posts generated so much amazing discussion and recommendations, I wanted to leave a link to the index for people in the future to look through and be reminded that yes, there are members of the r/fantasy community who are willing to make this place more welcoming to queer people one post at a time.

So, this is murky water for a straight cis man to wade into, but this has been bothering me, so I'm just gonna put it out there, and hope that I am not taking up space belonging to the groups I'm trying to be an ally of. But if I am taking up space that I shouldn't, please let me know!

Also, while I'm here, and using this space, I also want you guys to look at this excellent post about feminist fantasy by u/Arette. I love talking about this stuff with my friends and thinking about it on my own, and I still had a lot to learn from it, and took a lot of recommendations from it.

Last thing before we get started: please don't play a drinking game where you take a shot every time I use the word "patriarchy."

Introduction

I am finding that I am gaining an increasing distaste for patriarchal fantasy stories. To be clear, I am not speaking of stories like The Calculating Stars or The Once and Future Witches which have patriarchal societies but directly challenge them—these are feminist stories, and feminist SFF is one of my favorite subgenres out there. Nor am I speaking of stories like The Sword of Kaigen which have patriarchal societies and don't challenge them, but focus very much on the experience of someone living under the thumb of the patriarchy.

I'm speaking here of patriarchies that go unchallenged, or aren't challenged in particularly revolutionary ways, or aren't focused on the experiences of those oppressed by patriarchies. In other words, I'm talking about stories where patriarchy is nothing more than set dressing, and stories which reinforce patriarchal ideas. And this bothers me, because patriarchy fucking sucks. Not only because there are ways that straight cis men are negatively affected by the patriarchy (i.e. it's harder for us to show our feelings, have close friendships with other men, etc.), but because I do not like seeing the perpetuation of a system that has hurt more than 50% of the population (not just women, but anyone who isn't a straight cis man), which includes loads of my friends and family.

This is all obvious, of course. Most men that I've met will claim to be feminists and repeat the same ideas, and yet will continue uncritically reading stories that overtly or covertly perpetuate the patriarchy anyway, like The Wheel of Time (yes I'm going to die on this hill) and Mistborn and The Dresden Files and more. And look, I'm not saying don't read these series, because I literally love all three of these examples (and at least for WoT and Dresden, they started in an older era even if they both continued into the modern era—not a great excuse, but at least it's a bit more understandable). But the fact that we as a community basically never engage with the fact that a large volume of the stuff we read and love perpetuates patriarchy really bothers me, because it's almost like we accept this as a fact of the genre without considering if there might be another way forward.

Anyway, instead of rambling, I'm going to try to organize this a little bit. First, I'm going to dig into the types of patriarchal fantasy stories that I see often, even to this day. Then I'm going to dig into why I love post-patriarchal and feminist fantasy. And then finally I'm going to dig into two big recommendations for you guys.

Please Read This Disclaimer It's Very Important Thank You

Note: I need to reiterate again—you can like any fantasy series that I criticize here! And indeed, the examples I'm bringing up are books/series that I like, or even love. But it's also possible to enjoy something while still being critical of this aspect of it.

The Three Types of Patriarchal Fantasy

The main ways that I see patriarchal fantasy taking form are one of the following:

1. Overt Patriarchy That Isn't Overtly Challenged: In other words, a story that has a patriarchy, and might have great female characters in it, but where the story does not seek to strongly challenge the patriarchal institutions and just accepts them as part of the world that we live in. This sends a message of patriarchy being normal and not being an abusive and oppressive system, and as a result the story reinforces the patriarchal systems of our own world.

   1. An example is Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Look—I LOVE Mistborn, but it's got a patriarchal society where it really doesn't need one. Patriarchy in that story does not add anything beyond an extra struggle for the female characters, but neither Era 1 nor Era 2 attempts to overturn the system, and Era 1 does not even engage deeply with the struggle. I would personally argue that Era 2 doesn't really either, because even though one of its female characters, Marasi, chafes against the patriarchal system, she isn't given much screen time, and it feels very superficial. (Though, of course, if you connected with her struggle, I won't fault you for that—and nor would it be my place. Just when thinking of it in comparison to The Calculating Stars, it feels almost tokenized to me.)

2. May or May Not Have Patriarchy, but Definitely Has a Male Gaze: As anybody who reads The Dresden Files knows, the male gaze is a pretty big problem in fantasy literature written by men. There are so many stories written by men where it seems that every time a woman walks onscreen, we are suddenly paying all kinds of close attention to her looks, her body (especially her breasts), etc. If the woman is into other women, it's often worse, because sometimes these stories will fetishize sapphic relationships. Same with achillean (m/m) relationships, actually, though to a lesser extent. This really sucks, and not only because this kind of depiction of women is disgusting—I really don't like that THIS is the depiction that men have in stories, because it's reinforcing that men are this way, that they have to be this way because this is how nature made us, and we can't change. No. I can't relate to that, and that's terrible, and it reinforces patriarchy. And imo if you're writing a story that is meant to challenge the patriarchy, or is post-patriarchal (i.e. perfectly egalitarian or matriarchal), and yet has male gaze-y stuff, you are undermining the very goal you are striving for.

   1. Besides The Dresden Files, where this is obvious, an example would be A Song of Ice and Fire. Now this is a story I thought a long time about, because while ASOIAF has one of the more oppressive patriarchies I've seen, it also is very carefully constructed to include a lot of women, and indeed the female characters of ASOIAF are very good. And specifically Cersei and Sansa's stories are ALL about what the experience of being a woman under the patriarchy is, very much in the same vein as something like The Sword of Kaigen, and I like that Martin engaged with that aspect of this conversation in a critical way. What I don't like is that there is a persistent male gaze across his work, and that women are often described in sexual ways—especially Daenerys, where it's even more deeply problematic for a number of somewhat spoilery reasons. It's even more egregious in the show. So, good female characters, and decent engagement with ideas, but absolutely terrible on the male gaze, which undermines the work done on the female characters in the first place.

   2. Also, The Powder Mage trilogy, and its sequel trilogy, has a post-patriarchal perfectly egalitarian world, and yet its main female character (who has viewpoints in the second trilogy) is naked onscreen twice (once in each series), and her sex life gets wayyy too much focus in the narrative, which isn't the case for any of the male characters. I love the series, but this is definitely a problem.

   3. It's a problem that I have tons of examples coming to mind right now. Lightbringer, Stardust, Wheel of Time…

3. May or May Not Have Patriarchy, but Reinforces the Gender Divide: Also known as the gender essentialist worldview. Basically, any story that emphasizes the differences between men and women, whether or not there is actually a patriarchy in the story, is a patriarchal story in my opinion. The reason for this is that any oppressive system is trying to construct an us vs. them mentality, and create divisions between the two, and patriarchy succeeds at this by defining men and women as fundamentally separate and different entities, and if they are fundamentally different then we can begin engaging with the question of which is superior, because obviously they cannot exist together on the same level, duh (sarcasm). This is a fallacy, of course, because men and women are really not all that different, but our modern society does not really seem to believe that, and so we get a lot of stories that work to push that agenda. Plus, there's another level to this fallacy, because reinforcing the gender divide sets up gender as a false binary that doesn't exist, because gender is a spectrum with many identities on it, and human beings can't just be sorted into one category or another.

   1. And here I get to talk about The Wheel of Time! While there are a lot of patriarchy issues with The Wheel of Time, I'll just bring up one: the fact that men and women use different halves of the magic, and that each has a different nature, actually reinforces patriarchal themes (even if women are in power). Crazy, right? By using the magic and the worldbuilding itself to divide men and women into separate categories, even if this world elevates women above men, it more covertly and subtly justifies our world elevating men over women. Because if they are that separate, then how could they possibly exist together in harmony?

Now look. Many of these stories are still being written, and they don't need to flip on a dime just because they fail in this one aspect. Nor do I even hate them—I'm LOVING reading through The Wheel of Time, I LOVE the Powder Mage trilogies, I LOVE The Dresden Files, and I LOVE Mistborn. They're fantastic stories, and rightfully deserve the praise they get. But they do all also reinforce patriarchal themes in their own ways.

So, what stories would I like instead?

The Two Types of Anti-Patriarchal Fantasy

1. Feminist Fantasy: I won't go into this too much, other than to say that there is actually this amazing post by u/Arette that digs deeper into it which EVERYONE should go read! Seriously, this is probably where my Stabby vote is going, and if this post blows up, this is what I want everyone to look at.

   1. I will say, I do love feminist fantasy, because as much as I don't like to see people struggle against oppressive systems, I do love stories about people overcoming oppressive systems in some way or another, and feminist fantasy—like The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, The Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang, and The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow—does this extremely well.

2. Post-Patriarchal Fantasy: This is specifically the type of fantasy that I've been thinking about recently. I define post-patriarchal fantasy as any form of fantasy that does not have a patriarchy and does not stop to think about it—just treats it as normal. It can have male or female protagonists, but the important factor is that the story does not overtly or covertly reinforce the patriarchy, and specifically doesn't engage with those ideas. Personally, I feel that this is the field of fantasy that has really been lacking in the genre, and it's what I want a lot more of, because particularly with egalitarian societies, I feel like stories that establish a baseline of equality as normal without needing to interrogate the idea will subtly perpetuate the OPPOSITE of patriarchal fantasy, which is that men and women are equal and can exist together in all sorts of relationships, not just romantic/sexual ones, and moreover that gender and sexuality are spectrums with many identities on them and that that is just a normal thing to know about.

   1. I'm going to go more into two recommendations of post-patriarchal fantasy below, but briefly, you guys should also read A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, because it's got women in power without worrying about it, and a story about a girl who does NOT have to navigate a patriarchal world. Plus, it's cute, and fun, and hilarious, and one of the best stories I've read so far this year.

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

This book has made its rounds on this sub, but I'm going to give it a push from a different direction. While yes, this book is genius in its use of viewpoint, expert in its delivery of exposition, masterful in its execution of characters, and awe-inspiring in its scope, magic, and plot, one of the things I noticed that nudged even higher on my list of favorite books I've read is that it's a post-patriarchal egalitarian society.

One of the issues with a patriarchal society is that it's not just going to oppress women. I've been implying this not very subtly throughout this post, but the issue with a patriarchy is that it also seeks to oppress variants in sexuality and gender. One of the things great about The Bone Shard Daughter is that in establishing a perfectly legal and normalized egalitarian system, without any questions of inheritance or anything like that, the story is free to have gay characters, and free to have men and women who behave in ways that are not very traditionally masculine or feminine. My favorite character, Jovis, is a much more empathetic man than I often read in fantasy, which I liked because it's more the kind of thing I relate to and what I want to be, for example, and Phalue's homosexuality is not even questioned—it's just a fact! And honestly, the fact that I have to PRAISE a story for something this simple, especially in fantasy which can create any type of world that it wants to, is not a good thing.

Anyway, besides all of this, there are a lot of great reasons to read this story. It's got a really unique magic system that is not a hard magic system (not totally soft either, sort of in between); it's got amazing characters and one of the nicest and cleanest heroic arcs I've ever read; and somehow manages to have a lot of tension without being overly violent or dark. And it's a super easy read—I flew through the pages because the prose is clear without being boring, and the story almost never stops for exposition.

City of Lies by Sam Hawke

This book probably has my favorite fantasy world, because not only do we see an egalitarian society, but depending on how close you look at the story, there is actually a sociological explanation for how this egalitarian society developed—but at the same time, because the story doesn't engage directly with the concept of egalitarianism, it's a post-patriarchal story, so you get to have your cake and eat it too.

Ah, let me explain. So this world has a unique family structure that I've never seen before in speculative fiction. Instead of following our world's conventional route of falling in love, getting married, having kids, and raising a family with your lover/partner—this world emphasizes different relationships. People still have lovers outside the family, but the central relationship emphasized here is that of the sibling relationship. Families are constructed of women who have children from various lovers (making this a matrilineal society), but raise them within their families, usually with their brothers, or with their uncles (mother's brother). The most important relationship you can have is that with your brother and sister, as they are your real partner for life. As a result, romantic relationships (which are outside the family, because incest is gross) tend to be more short-term, because people aren't really looking for long-term fulfillment or partnership, as they are getting that from within the family itself.

I emailed the author and talked to her about this, and one thing that she discovered while making this society is that if you remove marriage from society, patriarchy kind of vanishes without much of a trace. And indeed, you can feel that in this story, because not only are men and women completely equal without question, but variant sexualities and gender identities are completely normalized too.

And here's the thing—all of this is stuff that you have to figure out. There's no individual piece of exposition that teaches you this, so you really have to think about it. Because at the end of the day, this is not a book about it's incredibly rich and fascinating society, it's a book about a murder mystery inside of a siege, engaging with themes of classism and elitism and political intrigue and more.

(Book 2 does engage more with the society constructed, though, because there are visitors to the city from patriarchal societies, so that might be classified as feminist fantasy.)

Conclusion

If you have read through this whole damn post, I'm fucking impressed. I really went on and on and on here, because I've been thinking a LOT about this. What I want to end on is why fantasy resists moving on from the patriarchy, and I think it comes down to this thing that Brandon Sanderson has said:

"You do have to do new things. I think that fantasy needs a lot more originality. However, not every aspect of the story needs to be completely new. Blend the familiar and the strange—the new and the archetypal. Sometimes it's best to rely on the work that has come before. Sometimes you need to cast it aside."*

I am coming to the rather unnerving conclusion that the reason why patriarchy has stuck around this long is because it is by far the familiar option to writers. Not only because it's what fantasy has had for a long while, but because it might be what writers are starting to consider normal themselves. The idea that patriarchal will be familiar and easier to latch onto for an audience should bother everyone, if you ask me.

Also, there's the secondary idea that patriarchy is "historically accurate", which…no. Fantasy isn't historical fiction (except for historical fantasy, but that's several more levels of complicated that is for another time). Mistborn isn't a story about 18th century Europe lol, it's a story about a fantasy world that pulls some aspects from 18th century Europe but also builds much of its own world.

If you ask me, we should these days be treating patriarchy in fantasy like the last part of that quote. In other words, it's time to cast patriarchy aside.

---

(I just want to say, I know this is gonna create a lot of controversy, and I'm sorry to the mods in advance for the work they might have to do here. I do hope there is some good discussion, though!)

Edit: *It might be weird to quote an author whose defining fantasy epic relies so heavily on a patriarchal society and gender roles, but the quote does really work for what I was going for!

I enjoy coming here, but that enjoyment is soured every time I see a post asking for recommendations for books that are either written by authors of, or strongly feature characters of, a particular race, gender or sexuality, and it's at 60% or less upvotes. I don't know where these are coming from, as I rarely see any nastiness or bigotry in the comments themselves, but it is consistent and pervasive (and recommendation posts that don't mention these things are not affected nearly as much).

If I sort by controversial for the past month, fully 8 out of the first 10 results fall into these categories. I know that karma doesn't really matter very much in the grand scheme of things, but I do feel that this makes the community feel unwelcoming and in contradiction of its own Rule 1.

I'd love to get some mod input on this phenomenon. I understand that this sort of thing can be difficult to combat, but it feels very targeted and consistent. Is it possible that we are being brigaded from somewhere? If nothing else, I hope that this post has raised awareness of this problem and would appreciate it if others join me in upvoting such posts to counteract the nastiness. Nobody should be made to feel unwelcome for seeking out representation in their fiction.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. :)

I've just finished M. L. Wang's "Blood Over Bright Haven" for my book club, and I have thoughts.

The book is a twist-heavy, self-contained fantasy story with mild romance elements. The story grapples with themes of colonisation, racialisation, gender inequality, and hierarchy in general. Oppression is at the heart of the story the book is trying to tell, and the character's relations are steeped in these oppressive power relations, against the backdrop of a Sanderson-inspired hard magic system.

This is heavy material to sculpt into a fantasy story, and the author's ability is not equal to her ambition. I commend any attempt at telling a story with these themes in our current climate, but this book errs badly and often, and with a confidence that renders some passages genuinely embarrassing.

The opening chapter is the worst of the lot, and it was bad enough that I found myself cackling.

"You know we're not running from oblivion, Thomil. We're running towards hope."

This line, found on page 3, let me know what I was in for. The character who says this line is a young mother who is promptly killed in a horrific way to further the story of her brother, one of the book's main characters. In fact, the fictional racial minority, the Kwen, are all depicted this way; saintly, passive, perfect victims. Respectful towards women, wise, in beautiful harmony with nature, none of the Kwen are truly allowed to be characters in their own right, with perhaps the exception of our viewpoint protagonist, Thomil, and his niece, Carra.

Carra alone is allowed moments of anger and impulsivity, but on the whole, the central tragedy of the Kwen is undercut by their perfect moral integrity, even as an oppressed underclass. We never see a starving Kwen so much as steal a loaf of bread in this book, because that would be a level of nuance our author feels ill-equipped to tackle.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. After the opening chapter, where Thomil and Cara become the solve survivors of their clan, barely making it to the city of Tiran, we jump into the future to see our true protagonist; Sciona. Gifted, driven, egotistical, selfish; Sciona is built to be an interesting protagonist, and at times the story executes on the premise, but they are few and far between.

Tiran society is extremely sexist, with only one woman being allowed to take the high mage entrance exam every ten years or so. Sciona is one such woman, and she feels the weight of the hope of all women mages on her shoulders. Sciona's grapples with sexism are a key part of the book, and one of its key failings; sexism in Blood Over Bright Haven is supposedly institutional, but we never get to see it like that; we see deliberate sexist acts by intentionally sexist men.

When Sciona inevitably succeeds in her exam and becomes the first woman high mage in history, almost all of her troubles come from a particular villainous colleague who bullies and belittles her for explicitly sexist reasons, accusing her of having somehow slept her way through the process.

The heavy-handedness of this sexism is almost insidious in its messaging; in Blood Over Bright Haven, physicians enthusiastically tell our main character that they intend to lobotomise her and to destroy her personality and obliterate the person that she truly is. Would-be protectors brutalise the main character, whose singular genius allows her to cut through each obstacle like a hot knife through butter. The reality of sexism is far more pervasive and far more insidious, and this book, about a woman pioneer in a male-dominated field, has nothing to say about how actual problems women in STEM and women in business should be navigated. When one rears its head (a colleague asks her to join his team, so he can take credit for her work), she merely rises above it by being so brilliant she outdoes a team of men with many more resources and years of experience. A young woman reading this book who finds herself in a similar situation isn't being shown tools she can use to work through these problems; she's being told "be perfect, and they simply won't bother you."

The book is at its best when the author really lets Sciona be an egotistical so-and-so. Scenes where a young girl asks Sciona to sign her magic school books, only to have Sciona struggle not to assign college-level texts to the ten year old, are genuinely funny. Some of the books' best moments are in the middle third, when Thomil returns to the story as Sciona's unlikely lab assistant, and she is forced to grapple with the insidious racism against his people that she has internalised whole-heartedly. Sciona is allowed to be truly cringe-worthily racist towards her only friend in the world, and these scenes do a great job showcasing behaviour readers can learn from.

But the author sometimes struggles to condemn Sciona's worse behaviour. In the opening chapters of the book, Sciona starves herself, as "Hunger had a way of focusing Sciona on days...when she needed to be at the top of her game," and "[She] performs better on an empty stomach." This eating-disorder adjacent behaviour jumped out to me immediately as elements that the story had better address if it were going to include at all, and shockingly Sciona's self-starvation never comes up again after she successfully uses it to achieve the top-score in the high mage exam's history.

This is something that no editor would have let slide. The industry, tragically, has done away with developmental editors; major publishers pay for proof-reading and little else. I didn't notice any grammatical issues or spelling errors in my copy of Blood Over Bright Haven, but the chapter-to-chapter execution of the story was catastrophically bad.

The temporal editing was truly awful; many revelations would happen in a single day, simply because the author lacked the confidence in managing time through her prose to spool them out over a more natural time span. There is a time gap of fifteen years (though we don't know it) between the first two chapters, which is fine, and a few days between the second and third, but four chapters then take place within a 24-hour timespan.

In that timespan, Sciona attends her first day on the job, meets her ruthlessly sexist and idiotic coworkers, is the victim of a practical joke which throws her into contact with Thomil, forms a foundational partnership with Thomil, encounters one of the sexists again, creates a bet with him as to which one of them will win at an upcoming presentation, decides to teach Thomil magic, explains the magic system to him (and to us), then goes for a drink with Thomil, where their burgeoning romance begins in earnest, before he takes a drunken Sciona back to her lab, where she wakes up just in time to teach him a whole lot more about magic, and set the seeds for the settings twists.

The book has a stop-and-start pace where the author skips forwards abruptly and then seems terrified to repeat the leap, bogging us down with multiple chapters in the same day that make the book run as pleasantly as an 18-wheeler in gridlock traffic.

It's amazing how much time the book finds to waste; once Sciona uncovers the settings' major twist (that the magic system is powered by the extraction of energy from living things, often including the racialised minority of the Kwen), she tries multiple times to relay this information to the others in her society despite Thomil's insistence that they simply do not care for the Kwen, who they have designated as sub-human.

The reader who is paying attention has cottoned on to the fact that magic is murder in this book from the embarrassingly unsubtle attempt at foreshadowing on page 20, so to see Sciona struggle to come to terms with this fact, or the obvious implications about who in her world must know it, again and again, over and over...it's just a painful waste of time. Not as painful as the interminable subplot where Sciona's beloved aunt attempts to have her lobotomised, and Sciona threatens suicide to the physician to force him to have a conversation with her for the sole purpose of shoehorning in Eat-Pray-Love level affirmations about using negative emotional energy to take charge of your life and solve your problems.

An editor reading for quality and not just grammar and spelling would have caught these pacing mistakes a mile away. They would have perhaps advised against the SA scene, which exists mostly to give the heroic love interest a heroic rescue opportunity. They could have cautioned against lines like "We're not running from oblivion, we're running towards hope" and "'I'm not your glory," Sciona realized aloud. "I'm your penance."'

The book isn't without merit. Again, Sciona realising that despite battling (a somewhat cartoonish) sexism all her life, she is as bigoted as the men who belittled her...that works. Some of the jokes land, and there are plenty of scenes that work well, more than well, even, in isolation. But this book needed to have a professional look over it with a reader's eye, to catch these glaring flaws and smooth out the unfortunate rough edges. It's a shame the publishing industry has largely done without them.

It strikes me how common it was for authors in decades past to thank their editor personally in the foreword; the books I've read in the past five years, even the rather great ones, credit instead writing groups or advanced readers. The vital work that takes a first draft and makes it great is either being done by unpaid volunteers, or it isn't being done at all. Blood Over Bright Haven has too many bright spots to be a first draft, but its published form certainly shouldn't have been its final draft.

The bones of a rather good novel exist within it, if only the chaff could have been magically siphoned away, like the flesh of so many of the novel's lifeless characters.

Maybe it's just me not looking in the right locations but I am struggling to find more diverse and LGBTQ+ fantasy recommendations! So I would love your recommendations <3

I have read and mostly enjoyed:

- every TJ Klune book (love their writing)
- Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
- Captive Prince (not really a big fan)
- Shape a Dragons breath by Moniquill Blackgoose
- Priory of the Orange Tree (LOVED) by Samantha Shannon
- Song of Achilles
- Cemetery Boys
- Legends and Lattes
- A Marvelous Light and the other books
- Six of Crows (not a fan at all, sorry not sorry)

Maybe it just feels like I read them all and can't find anymore. I love high-fantasy, romantasy, magical realism, anything under the spectrum of fantasy really :).

It's impossible to be a part of any kind of fantasy discourse without hearing Brandon Sanderson's name come up. Not just in conversations about books, but about D&D and video games. After seeing his name crop up dozens of times in different places over the past few months, I finally decided to check out Mistborn, one of his earlier novels, to get some first-hand experience with his stuff.

Going in, I knew both the common criticisms of his work - that it's written more to a Young Adult level and is focused more on plot than prose - and also the common praise - of his dense worldbuilding and detailed magic systems.

I made the decision to drop it today after reading 170 pages and reaching the end of Part One (of Five). The best way I can describe it is "a novelisation of a video game that doesn't exist".

The writing is very simple, bordering on basic. In 170 pages there was barely an attempt at any kind of simile or metaphor (beyond "the falling ash looked like black snowflakes") or any imagery beyond the most basic descriptions. I got no sense of what the city or the world looked like, beyond ash falling like snow and the eponymous mists at night.

Almost all dialogue is expository, and when it isn't, it's anachronistic quips. Character backstories are just plainly told to us in narration, rather than being revealed naturally. The same points are told to us over and over again. I get the sense an editor did very little to the first draft of this book. There's a fine line between restating something enough times for an audience to grasp it, and repeating yourself to the point of redundancy.

There were a few typos and some questionable punctuation, but nothing too egregious on that front. His frequent use of italics and ellipses for emphasis in narration gave it a very fanfiction-y feel. Conversations are largely just back-and-forth exchanges of "he said, she said, he said".

So the actual writing is perfunctory at best, and I expected that going in. That leaves the story itself to do the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, I just wasn't able to enjoy that either. The character archetypes are so broad. We have the snarky self-insert protagonist who lectures every other character on the rules of the world and is always right, all the time. We have the timid peasant girl who is immediately revealed to be a secret half-blood noble with the biggest magical potential of anyone and who (crucially) doesn't need to play by society's rules, which makes her super special even if she doesn't believe it. Perhaps when this book was written, in a world before Divergent, these weren't such overdone tropes, so I can't be too hard on Sanderson for that, but reading them as a 40-year old man in 2025 can't help but elicit an eye roll and a lack of investment.

Beyond that, every character (at least in the pages I read) were basic templates: all villains were slave owners who couldn't go two minutes without beating a woman or thinking about raping one, and the other good guys differ only in their single magic power but otherwise all speak in the same voice. Special mention to the posh guy, who still sounds the same as everyone else but starts every sentence with "my good man" so you know he's posh!

And finally, we have a couple of chapters devoted entirely to the magic system. This is the part that really makes it feel like a video game adaptation to me. The concept of imbibing and burning different metals to activate different powers is a genuinely cool one, but the gamey, proper-noun way in which it's described really took me out of the story. Even D&D novels, which are based on an actual turn-based game with detailed combat rules, don't describe their magic in such strict, bullet-pointed terms. It makes magic feel much less magical. It's cleverly thought out, no doubt, but it really felt like reading a tabletop game rulebook, and that's just not something I find immersive or interesting in fiction.

My intention was to read the entire novel to get to the much-vaunted third-act "Sanderlanche" where he pulls all the plot threads together, but a line at the end of Part One where Vin says "she wants to see what happens next" made me realise that I, in fact, have no interest whatsoever in finding out what happens next, and that I have a bookshelf full of books to read instead of 500 more pages of this.

I'm glad that I read what I did: it gave me a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of Sanderson as a writer. Unfortunately, his weaknesses vastly overpower his strengths for me. It feels like he'd be better off writing the lore and rules for a video game or tabletop game than novels.

Perhaps there is a more interesting story than the basic "ragtag good guys vs. evil empire" premise as the book develops, but the total lack of artistry in the writing made me unable to press on. Evocative description and well-done dialogue are the delivery methods for a good story: if those elements aren't executed well, then it's impossible for me to get invested even if the underlying ideas are interesting. It'd be like listening to music that was well-composed but had amateurish production.

I have no intention to start any arguments with Sanderson's many fans here! I just thought I'd share my thoughts as it was an interesting and worthwhile experiment for me, even if I didn't end up enjoying it or seeing any reason to continue.

(I also have no intention to read any later Sanderson books; my bookshelf is too rammed with other authors to consider a second attempt at an author whose style I feel I just fundamentally don't vibe with.)

Thanks for reading!

About two years ago, or maybe three, time is unforgiving and cruel, I made a post where I endeavored to have people share their favorite trans characters in fantasy stories! This post, uh, became the number one most controversial post on the subreddit for a while! So, uh, diversity win! Or something!

The Soapbox Part

Before I get into the bulk of the post I want to speak to the allies of us trans folk, times are tough, and they're going to get tougher, especially here in America where the fear of things like concentration camps and secret police taking out those expressing themselves are not a conspiracy theory, but real actual things happening right now. As a queer person with an executive function disorder, being told by real members of the presidential cabinet that I deserve to be stripped of my medications and sent to work camps, or, straight up sent to jail for being a groomer, or a pedophile, or whatever they want to label us this week for being queer... it's scary.

If you're able, support Trans charities, like the Trevor Project or others. Hold your hand out to the community, and it will be held. Some day, I'd like for things like Days of Visibility to not be necessary, for being trans or gay or anything to be just as normal, just as fundamentally accepted, as breathing, everywhere. But for the time being, it's important to uplift our queer siblings, and all too important for our allies to do the same.

THE ACTUAL POST NOW

We're here. We've been here. We've been playing tabletop roleplaying games, and writing stories, and creating art, and being a part of the genre since the very beginning. So, just today, let's share. I'd like to hear everyone's favorite trans characters in fantasy! But not just them, but the authors, the creators, the artists and writers who create them! Tell me about them!

Last time, I talked about Cheery Littlebottom, one of my favorite Discworld characters, but Discworld has a lot of other queer folk too! There's Doris, a Golem who presents Femme when the default is either 'it' or 'he'. I'd mention characters from Monstrous Regiment, which has the most explicit human trans character in the series, but it's a bit of a spoiler, and a 'if you know you know' type of deal.

The creators of Smile For Me, released a Surreal (and VERY TRANSGENDER) Point and Click game about the nature of Gods and Worship, 'Great God Grove' this past year, too! Go give it a play.

After that, why not look through some of the queer fantasy subreddits! They could definitely use a few more followers and a lot more activity. They lean much heavier into the indie side of things, so if you're getting sick of seeing 'Malazan' as the top comment of every single post here! Might be a good change of pace.

So, I’ve noticed a trend, and honestly it’s fascinating to me, and makes me really sad for the way we speak to and about people who share our hobby with us.

Any time something doesn’t feel “mature” enough for us “we call it YA.”

Y’all. We’re reading books about dragons and wizards that trace their roots to fairy tails. We’re all a bunch of big kids living in our fantasy worlds. Let people like what they want to like without acting like somebody is less than for liking the same childish stuff that we all like, just with different prose.

I finished it yesterday and at first I was enjoying it and ignored a lot of things. But now that I have had time to reflect, there are some serious things that I can't move past.

Spoilers Ahead

The way Pax goes from terrifying nemesis to literally giving him a bear hug? What?

I can't remember the specific character's name, but the one that almost assaulted a girl, and got lashings for it. Darrow's solution to this horrific act is to then get lashed himself and have this "bro" moment where he literally calls him "brother"? This dude is a predator and you're really going to just let it go like that? And consider him a brother?

Also the fact that despite the years of education and training these Golds have received, this kid from the mines is going to somehow score better, fight better, and be some sort of genius?

Do not get me started on all the gory, bloodydamn, gorydamn that I had to read.

There is so much flawed with this. Again, it feels so juvenile to think this uneducated kid is going to be the one to rise and lead all of these aristocratic people.

The more I dwell on it, the less I even want to read the second one.

I've noticed recently, especially in the last few days people critiquing certain books they don't like, and proclaiming statements of objectively bad books.

The whole point of fantasy is that almost anything can happen! Just like the fantasy we read and love, the fantasy community is a found family of broad interests.

Fantasy can be 200 pages long or it can be 2000 pages long! It can be slow paced or fast. Character or plot driven, even both sometimes!

It's really disappointing to see people descend into tribalism. Particularly with Sanderson's books recently, people making hyperbolic objective statements which are simply ridiculous and dismiss the enjoyment and love of the many fans who DO appreciate the longer style of his works.

I find Fourth Wing to be very much against my own tastes, however I would never claim it to be a bad book, or say its rubbish because it was too short and fantasy shouldn't be that short.

Can we all remember that what one person thinks is bad writing or doesn't enjoy, is another's preferred style.

Critique and criticism is of course important and much valued, but when people are digging into their own opinions and trying to force them on others it becomes too much.

Just because YOU think a book could be cut down a lot, doesn't make it right or fair to treat people like idiots for not agreeing.

Everyone is a critic and we all have different tastes, none of which is superior to the other

Let's just enjoy celebrating fantasy together

I’ve had chills for about an hour straight and I don’t know what to do with myself lmaooooo

I am doing the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Summer Reading Challenge. (Linked so you can see the card.)

I'd like to get a few fantasy books in there where I can. Specifically, I'm looking for fantasy book recommendations that fit the following:

• Non-Religious Main Character

• Religious Satire

• Religious Dystopia

• Book Was/Is Considered Blasphemous (against any religion)

• Non-Religious Author

To make it one step harder, I'm NOT looking for LitRPG, Romantasy, or Urban fantasy.

I will, though, read any age range, any era of publication, any length, and any tone from cozy to grimdark.

I KNOW it’s been done to death but for me it’s a guilty pleasure and I kind of feel like shit for loving it. The reason being is that it’s been done to death but I love it so much because it places so much emphasis on the main protagonist and it raises anxiety from within them and fear of getting things wrong and letting the world down. Or failing to live up to it. Being the chosen one feels very high stakes you know?

Makes the protagonist feel important which ik ik ik that’s been said A LOT! But I just love how important it feels. It’s an all or nothing kind of deal and the protagonist wrestles with the fact that the fate of the world is in their own hands and we read about and hear their internal thoughts and anxieties about that as if you were the chosen one of a fantasy world I highly doubt you’d be confident in it! :).

I’ve been trying to think as to why I love Harry Potter so much and after a lot of thinking I’ve boiled it down to three things:

1. Harry Potter being the chosen one and having to defeat the dark lord or Voldemort because he was fated to as a baby and is connected to the villain(that’s the big part! Being connected to the villain! Because it kind of feels like fate or a yin and yang type of thing you know?) :).

2. The story progresses and ages with the Audience slowly. So by books 1-3 it’s a magic school adventure. But by books 6-7 it’s a high stakes war story.

3. The horcrux hunt. Being on the run whilst monstrous villains hunt you down while you try to find the horcruxes is amazing and fun! It’s thrilling and terrifying at the same time as you don’t know whether or not the main villain or his goons will pop out of nowhere to try and capture and kill you! :).

I just finished the 5th book today and I need to vent.

tldr: How the women of the book are written and how sexist it is at its core is throwing me out of the story. And it's such a shame as I do enjoy the story but at times the writing around women annoys me so much. I know the book is technically progressive as it has women included much more than other books from its time period, but honestly, I don't know if it is better or worse than its contemporaries that just didn't try to write women.

Longer rant and question at the end:

The WoT has been on my TBR list for a long time. I read the first book some years past and felt it was fine, but not good enough to warrant a 14+ book commitment. However, as the series kept being praised and referenced by my friends and other fantasy lovers, I knew one day I would need to give it a go. And so I started a few months ago and I can see why it gets so much love from the community. The plot, the characters, the world building, it is all great. It is obviously written with passion.

But how sexist the book is at times and how the women are written is honestly making me need to take a break from the series now.

There are a few points I would like to raise

First is just how the One power is gendered between male and female. At first I found the dichotomy strange but it didn't bother me much, so I just enjoyed the story. Even the fact that the male halve is something you must fight and seize while the female halve is something you submit to I could accept without much issue. I just chalked this up to the time the story was written and thought to myself that the story itself is actually quite progressive for its time. But now in the 5th book, all of a sudden it is canonized that women and Saidar are just weaker than men. Just out of the blue, women are weaker. This I found jarring and unnecessary and made me start to question other things related to how progressive the books actually are.

The second point is for a story that is supposedly progressive, with a world that is in a large part matriarchal, there are an awfully few women leaders aside from the Aes Sedai, and they are another can of worms I will touch on in the next point. Morgase is the best example here, she is the only female ruler we get to meet (I don't count Berelain), she is described as a strong willed and fair ruler that most people admire. However almost almost immediately she is turned into a puppet for one of the forsaken. In almost all other cases the rulers, nobles and emissaries are men. Even the Aiel are ruled by men, the women seem to have 3 roles. Wise ones, roof mistresses and spear maidens. This is the most equal society we meet but even here the chiefs are always men and the women seem to only affect things from the shadows of men.

The next point is just how mean all women are. Almost without exception all women are portrayed as petty, secretive and vindictive. The worst of these are the Aes Sedai, the idea of them was sold to me as progressive. They were meant to be the wise old teacher that appears in a lot of fantasy, but this time they are women! This was intriguing but as the series goes on they just come across as entitled, blind fools that wont listen to anyone. Especially the way they treated Siuan Sanche after she returned stilled just amazed me.

The characterisation of the Aes Sedai is nothing like the wise wizards from older fantasy novels. They are more written like vindictive schemers that want to rule the world from the shadows, rather than guides to heroes. And there is nothing wrong with that, it is even interesting most of the time. The problem for me is that it comes across as some kind of natural tendency of women in this world (see the wise ones and the women's circle for other examples.)

And of course all women in their innermost thoughts seem to agree that men are just wool-headed fools that can't be trusted (The men are just as bad in this regard to women).

The last issue I have is simply the fact that every single woman that we get a PoV from in the book pines about a man. In almost every chapter they must mention or wonder about the man they want to marry or comment about other men as possible suiters. It's infuriating. Especially as the PoV chapter for men doesn't have nearly the same amount of these thoughts and questions.

Even Morgase during the last chapter of book 5, after all she has endured as a puppet and all the troubles she must face going forward spends a good chunk of the chapter discussing men and admiring one of them, despite claiming having no interest in men at the moment. Just why did this part need to be included at the end of the book.

Thanks for reading I needed to get that off my chest as it is all I have been thinking of for the second half of the book.

I have a question I would like to hear your opinion on: Does the writing of women get better going forward in the series, is it worth continuing?

Edit:

Thanks for all your responses, unfortunately I cant reply to all of them but ill try to add some answers here.

The point about men being stronger channelers than women comes directly from Azmodean when he is teaching Rand to channel. This is then further confirmed by Moghedien later in the book when she is telling Nynaeve that they will die because of how much stronger Rahvin and Rand are then she is. In Moghediens mind fighting them is hopeless. Though some comments have pointed out that what he said is not necessarily true and that intrigues me and is in part what I had hoped to hear with this post.

I'm looking for fantasy books with transfem and/or lesbian protagonists, preferably written by transfem/lesbian authors

I prefer stories with a bit more of a "nobledark" tone, which don't shy away from dark subject matter but also have protagonists who are genuinely good people and are able to change their world for the better, no matter how much the odds are against them

That being said, I'll take almost anything, I'm not picky

I need to read a larger variety of books featuring trans characters, but the first one that comes to mind for me is of course, Cheery (Or Cheri, with the way people spell on the Disc nobody's going to notice) Littlebottom! The leader of the Female Dwarf movement in Ankh Morpork in the Discworld Series.

I'm tired of seeing black women described as food like chocolate or mocha. There's better ways to do it. Specifically in fantasy, It's also annoying where a book tries to justify the existence of anyone not a white man. Black people just exist. Queer people just exist. I've seen people say a book took them out of the story or was too political because a character was black and because the woman warrior just so happened to have a wife. If you can belive the stoic warrior can slay a dragon with a magic it shouldn't take you out of the story that the warrior is a black person.

I got the idea for this thread from /r/whitepeoplewritingpoc and /r/menwritingwomen.

i’m obsessed with the idea of faerie fantasy, and am currently in the middle of a court of mist and fury. i am DESPERATELY searching for a book/series that has the same energy and style of fantasy world (with elves/magic) but queer. drop recs (with a small blurb would be appreciated!!!) ty ♡

Fantasy is a genre has always been dominated by straight dudes, but since around the 90s there's been a lot more female protagonists, hell even lesbian protagonists, so there's more diversity now

I'm writing a story myself and needed a second love interest for my protagonist. It makes the most sense to use his dorm mate for that, but it gave me pause. That would make him bisexual, and now that I think about it, I've never read a fantasy story with a bisexual male protagonist.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 isn't exactly fantasy, but there's a lot of overlap between the fan bases. The backlash against the Henry-Hans romance makes me a bit hesitant. It seems that even now, people don't really have an appetite for this stuff, at least for bisexual men. The bi women are a lot more palatable, I'm guessing. Honestly I'm reluctant because all the harassment the Henry-Hans romance incited.

Is there a fantasy protagonist that's bisexual? Daenerys doesn't count (she seems to use Irri out of convenience rather than attraction) nor Cersei/Astarion (not main characters).

EDIT: I am NOT talking about romantasy. I'm talking about fantasy that just has a bisexual protagonist, the romantic exploits being a C plot at most