The Raygun Romance Will Be a Male Fantasy

I have said many things regarding the Raygun Romance I have in the works. One thing I mentioned was the reason I filled the setting with deflector technology. In summary, the purpose of it is to make scantily dressed heroines in my story workable, reducing the need for power loaders, Varia suits, and tactical gear.

But scant dress is only part of the equation.

Merely having a heroine in a skimpy outfit is not enough. If she’s still snarking at her teammates, ignoring any romantic possibilities with men, and acting sociopathically, it doesn’t matter what she’s wearing — she still fits the approved feminist paradigm (see: Harley Quinn.) Instead, I actually write the protagonist to feel like a fantasy. This Twitter thread explains what I’m going for pretty well (archive here:)

I have a theory, and it’s that filmmakers and writers are scared of writing a girl who feels like a fantasy, or a “manic pixie dream girl”

You can’t write a fantastical or unrealistic relationship from a boy’s perspective, that’s sexist.

— Demiface (@SirDemiface) July 14, 2020

While much attention is given to some progressive critics’ objections to sexy heroines, the above is the real dividing line. The heroine of my Raygun Romance isn’t merely a woman in scant clothing, but one whose relationship with her boyfriend isn’t some train wreck full of abuse or neglect, but a highly fulfilling one where the protag is happy to be with her guy. This approach is not new, even in the modern day, so I can’t claim to be original here. Nonetheless, it is an approach I want to encourage, because I believe that adventure fiction of all kinds is better when there is a good romantic relationship in it.

It’s even better when there is a clear distinction between male and female. Modern creative works — sometimes even the Japanese stuff — try to erase this distinction as much as possible, and it goes hand in hand with the attack on romance aimed at men (romance aimed at women is doing fine.) In my story, I go farther than merely putting my protag in a womanly outfit — I make the dominant military force of the story’s world wear distinct, gender-specific uniforms that deliberately eschew current-day functional aesthetic norms, since the in-story deflector technology makes such norms much less important. The romantic cannot merely be in a handful of characters, but part and parcel of the story’s entire world.

I can’t wait to share this with everyone when it’s ready.