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What are some examples of "girl" stories that aren't cringe pandering softcore-relationship-porn wish fulfillment only (lame) women find appealing?
That isn't a leading question, it's an honest one, I'm sure they exist. But the people who write those don't get jobs at Disney. A lot of these girl stories seem to be made completely independent of everything that's been learned about basic storytelling structure, like they've been made up from scratch instead of being built on a foundation of previous works.
I Think the only woman author I've read extensively is the Dragonriders of Pern books by Anne McCaffrey, which was back in high school. While I remember those having female protagonists, they did heavily feature men, many of whom were genuinely loved by the author and characters in-universe (the master harper), for being men. There was the full spectrum of heroes and villains of whatever gender. I suppose some of the male characters had realistically male flaws that stuff written for dudes would normally leave out, almost like the author had, you know, known men in real life. But in McCaffrey is very obviously some kind of spergy horse girl, and wasn't writing to be in line with 2020s corporate intersectional feminism.
Oh and Harry Potter. Those are at least competently written, and are generally appealing to everyone without pandering to one gender or another.
Girl Genius perhaps. Though there is a romantic subplot, the main female character explicitly chooses the well-being of her people/land over and above romance.
I would not count Girl Genius as a girl story. It isn't aimed at a female audience, at least I don't think it is.
The writers are a husband-wife pair (I think they said the wife is mostly responsible for the story, the husband mostly responsible for the art), the title literally has "Girl" in the name, and the main character is a woman.
That said, it does have the old-style male adventure feel. Sometimes as parody, sometimes seriously.
I think we can say it has broad-spectrum appeal. I went to their Facebook page and looked at the names of the people who liked the latest comic page, it seemed about 50/50 male-female split.
I guess it all depends on what a "girl" story is. If girl story is only defined as a story that men avoid then of course we won't find any "examples of "girl" stories that aren't cringe pandering softcore-relationship-porn wish fulfillment only (lame) women find appealing"
Next morning edit:
I almost didn't suggest Girl Genius out of fear that it was one of the cringe pandering stories. It has a love triangle where the main character is pursued by a heir-to-the-empire and a boy with a past that haunts him. And the boys are terrible simps, totally head over heels for the main character. And also surprisingly chaste/respectful, averting their eyes and blushing if they see Agatha in her (Victorian-style) underwear.
It has a lost society of Amazon women warriors. It's kind of a Princess Diaries plot, "ordinary women finds out she's secretly a lost princess and must learn how to fit in with her new society" type thing.
I would argue that it's very much a female story, even if the females reading it are the ones making up the "39% of physical science degrees awarded in the US."
I wish they’d bring out more of the novels. I love the writing but the art doesn’t really do it for me.
Yeah, the art is busy. And shiny. When I first read it I mostly just looked at the dialogue bubbles, which was worth it on its own. Then once I caught up to the present, I took the time to look through the new comic pages as they were released, one at a time, and started picking up on the visual gags.
I wouldn't say it's my favorite art style, but I started to parse it better after exposure, then went back and reread it. It almost conflicts with the story. If you try to soak in the art, the story slows to a crawl (which is fine on a re-read, less fine for a suspenseful visual novel like this is.)
People don't always realize, art in GG changes noticeably during its run.
Some context. In comic book industry it is(/was) quite common that the artist is responsible for "art" (pencil line-drawings), but black ink is done by the inker, and other colors are added by the colorist. Last two are/were viewed assistant role. In The Dark Knight Returns, drawing is credited to Frank Miller (who most people have heard of), inks are by Klaus Janson and colors by Lynn Varley who are less known. I think the division of labor was product of the 20th century color print technology, all the tasks were bit different skillsets. There always has been 'auteurs' who wanted control over all aspects of product, and with digital indie publishing it has became more common, but division of tasks was industry standard practice for pumping out comics product quickly.
How is this relevant to Girl Genius? Phil Foglio started his illustrator career in the old industry (born in 1950s, genuine member of boomer generation), I guess that is how he is used to work. Today the colorist is Cheyenne Wright. Additionally, Mr Foglio's style for GG today has quite faint line art, and he embraces a comic book style with bubble heads and round eyes (which is not perhaps most artistic, but it is his style and enables him to draw one page in day). Most of the work that makes it look semi-realistic is with color, shadows and textures. Consequently color and ink has huge impact on the visuals, in the way it doesn't for more 'flat' art like Garfield. First volume available on the web has muted colors, which were a later addition to original black-white publication (you can see it was originally BW, there is so much black ink). Then subsequently they brought in a colorist, who did very colorful, shiny neon lighted color-work. (in-story explanation that it represents main character's inner world expanding as her superpowers "break through". I think when people complain about GG art, it is this period, unless they can't stand Foglio's rubbery faces at all). After couple of volumes the colorist changed, to Mr Wright and I think it is better.
About the story aspect, I believe the Foglio's are true believers in sex-positive feminism. (Look up XXXenophile). Many elements in the stories do tick the GIRLPOWERR box. (Nearly every female character in the series is excellent superstrong martial arts fighter, justified by magitech). I agree it doesn't fail the way some other more pushy products fail. First reason is the romance, about that later. Secondly, they are boomers, perhaps it helps them stay somewhat grounded. Their takes are often informed by their feminist takes, but they are still also interested in telling compelling stories and interesting characters, not stories about characters who are feminist ideal stereotypes and nothing else.
First it is important, the main protagonists' romantic subplot is not really subplot, the romance plot(s) very much are main drivers of all story archs. Most of sidekicks have their romantic subplots, too. It just that "for boys", the main action on screen is mystery-action-adventure, not the romantic elements. Very shonen anime, frankly. Romance is often background cause of the situations that come to be. The reason why it works, it is pracically always a cishet romance, so it must involve male characters. And they do write male characters competent, interesting, different personalities, with varying amount of masculine traits, with pursuits and challenges that have story weight of their own, not only about their interest in heroine but then interact with her.
I suspect they think they're feminists. Joshua Norton thought he was emperor of the United States.
As far as I can tell they're fandom carnies.
Kaja looks like one of those women who Doesn't Count as far as the People Whose Opinions Matter are concerned, like most autistic "feminists" who think principles trump social skills and status. Occasionally useful, always disposable.
The writing is too "sex pest" to earn remembered approval in real life and too heterosexual to thrive outside it. (I see there's already been drama of the expected variety.)
I would file it under the same category as any "comic-book woman with green eyes, red hair, and Amazonian physique" thing. Even if the protagonist doesn't look the part. She's burlesque enough.
Girl Genius was well-enough regarded in the Hugo set that they had to actively refuse nominations into the start of the Sad Puppies era, and they're still pretty well-regarded among the tumblr set, modulo a few (not wrong!) complaints about the comic's pacing. I'd like to say they've been grandfathered in, but I'd said the same for Lackey and was proven wrong, so I'll guess it's more that even if they're not faster than the bears, they're at least faster than the other guys.
((Fair on the het bit; especially given the fandom, it is unusual that the closest thing to an in-universe mention of a gay pairing in Girl Genius has been joking references to Othar/Gil. There was one M/M bit in one of the old XXXenophile, but it was actively less erotic than one where a guy's brain had been transplanted into a dog. Given conventions of the convention circuits of the 1990s (where there was a much stricter wall between gay and straight than today) and the amount of F/F the series had, I was never sure whether this was just down to the Foglio's audience, but it probably does point to Kaja not being a fujoshi.))
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