My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! has quickly become renowned as something of a bisexual power fantasy. Its protagonist, Catarina Claes, is transported to a fantasy world in which she finds herself at the centre of a multi-gender love triangle—or perhaps love octagon is the better term—and the series treats this perfectly matter-of-factly.
Never does the narrative, or any of the characters, bat an eye at the fact that girls and boys fall for Catarina (and that, even if she can’t quite put a name to her feelings, Catarina herself seems equally flustered by attention from both). In fact, the way characters interact, background details, and the general framing of the narrative all add up to make the world of Villainess itself seem oddly, and refreshingly, queer-friendly.
In speculative fiction, there is still an ongoing convention that fantasy worlds that take inspiration and aesthetics from history must include real-world prejudices or erase certain groups entirely in the name of a certain vision of “historical accuracy.” The truth is, fantasy world-building is a chance for writers to play with convention and provide escape from those prejudices, and imagine a world of their own making where they do not exist. At a glance, the setting of Villainess could be such a place.
The Afictionado 