Fem Thoughts

Femslash Mini Meta fest was an utter fail this year. And I'm still not in a place where I could do it, so I purpose Comment Meta. And let's have it cover all things female and fannish. However you define those.

How it works

1. Post a meta topic in a top level comment. Use the subject line for the meta subject and expand as you want in the body of the comment. Or don't.

2. Repeat Step 1 for as many meta ideas as you have.

3. Comment on other meta topics.


It's kinda like a kink meme, only with meta. Feel free to browse the mini meta tag for ideas.

This is meant to be about as low pressure as it comes. Feel free to write on your own journal/Tumblr/blog and link back here. Respond with as little or as much as you want. This post will remain open indefinitely, so please track it if that makes things easier for you.

Pairing the Spares: Femslashing When There's Only Two Female Characters




Got a prompt? Leave it here.

There seems to be slight confusion about this and I guess I didn't make it very clear. The discussion prompts (posted on Mondays) are taken from the mini meta fests prompt lists. The Monday discussion prompt is then picked pretty much at random.

( Full prompt list )

This is mainly so I don't have to come up with a discussion prompt all on my lonesome. If you have a prompt feel free to leave a comment. They don't need to be femslash, just female friendly.

Edit: Remember this is a prompt post only! If you see something you desperately want to respond to you have two options. Option 1 (and my favorite): Make a new post to the community and lay out your thoughts. Option 2: Wait for me to use it as a discussion topic. Option 1 is clearly the better one, but you can wait if you want.

I'm going to attempt to post these on a regular basis. Either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly based on how much activity there is. Discussion prompts will be taken randomly from the mini-meta prompt posts.



Genderswapping AUs, etc. Genderswapping has a reputation of being a way to "avoid the gay" in male-dominated fandoms, by switching one character's gender to allow for a romance. Is there good lesbian genderswap out there?

This is a prompt post! Please only leave prompts here. If you see something you want to respond to make a new post to the community.

For those who don't know: Mini meta is like regular meta, only mini. The aim isn't to end up with thousands of words of meta, but somewhere around 300 words. (Although if you get inspired and write thousands of words no one will complain and similarly if you only have 100 words in you for the topic that is fine as well.) This, hopefully, creates much less pressure and allows more people to post what is on their minds without worrying about it being the most perfect thing ever.

Rules will be the same as last year.

1. Submit topics you want to see meta about. These can be anything so long as it relates to femslash. They will be listed at the bottom of this post for everyone to see.
   
   Sample prompts from last year:
   
   
   • OT3s: Are there any awesome OT3s out there? Are any of them all from the same canon? Can you still call is femslash if one of the three is a man?
     
   • Femmeslash and asexuality - tell me about how you see this. What would femmeslash with one or more asexual partner look like? How would you write it?
     
   • No pithy prompt, but I'd love to see a discussion of sexuality-how we conceptualize it for characters, write it in, leave it out...fluid or fixed. Is it too often assumed in femslash that the characters are lesbians, closet lesbians and not bi, poly, etc.?
     
   
   
   
2. Write meta about the topics. Don't worry if someone else has already written about a topic you wanted to write about, multiple posts about the same topic are encouraged. You can even write mini meta in response to someone else's meta.
   
   You can post directly to fem_thoughts or you can post to your journal and link us.
   
   
3. Discuss the meta!
   
   
4. Show off your meta and get other people to come discuss it! Or possibly do this step first and tell people about the fest. Whichever works really.
   

Submit your prompts to this post and I'll add them to the list. Feel free to re-use from previous years. There's no limit on the number of prompts you can submit.

I lost track of time and I'm posting this a bit late so go ahead and start posting whenever you find something you want to write about. Let's call the end date of the fest May 31st so you've got a bit over a month.

PROMPT POST ONLY! IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU WANT TO RESPOND TO PLEASE MAKE A NEW POST TO THE COMMUNITY!

Prompt List

• Butch identified/fan-assigned butch identity - what does it mean for characters, a story?
  
• I'd love to see asexual lesbians in fandom revisited. Most fandom asexuals I can think of are male.
  
• What about genderqueer lesbians? Do any fandoms even have this?
  
• Genderswapping AUs, etc. Genderswapping has a reputation of being a way to "avoid the gay" in male-dominated fandoms, by switching one character's gender to allow for a romance. Is there good lesbian genderswap out there?
  
• Lovers in a dangerous time: What's your approach to writing femslash in times and places that are notoriously unfriendly for f/f relationships, especially historical settings?
  
• How popular (or influential) is RPFS, anyway? And particularly, amongst female artists (in the male slash example I used, the case would be amongst authors, or even editors, publishers, etc.) Also, I'm more interested and curious about the RPFS of female public figures pre-20th century. But really, any time period will do.
  
• femslash and intersectionality - race, class, ethnicity, disability etc.
  
• femslash and kink
  
• femslash involving older characters
  
• I'd love to read about experiences with femslash podfic as a reader and/or a listener.
  
• I would love to hear your thoughts on the revisited topic of actively bisexual female characters or F/F/M threesomes in erotic fiction. I guess mostly from a reader's point of view. The story has femslash but it also has het... does it work for you? Or for the sake of reading comfortably as femslash and thus being called femslash some walls should be maintained?
  
• Have you ever chosen a fandom for it's femslash potential? Which fandoms / pairings?