fem_thoughts | Comment Meta

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Comment Meta

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.

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I have...a lot of time on my hands right now if you want something betaed that way this summer!

Both of these. YESSSSSSS!

I love AUs too...and AU crossovers!

But you're right, they do seem to have less of an audience. :(

We should do an AU mini meme at

femslash_kink at some point! Or maybe I'll do one at my journal...

I. Love. That. Fic.

And I so agree with you here. Crack! It's so under-appreciated!

I don't mind it at all! I will say that most of my Twitter posts are reposts of anything I put on Pinterest. There are only so many social media sites I can handle.

I think the thing to do for 616 is to get all of the femslashers fixed on one book (like Fearless Defenders, or X Men, or even Captain Marvel) so that people who have no intention of following the larger comics universe (Age of Ultron, I fundamentally do not care, even though the issues for the books I follow were good) can keep up.

But I don't know how we'd get everybody to agree on one.

I'm a bitter old fandom queen, and these epithet-using kids can get off my damn fannish lawn. I have also been in fandom for more than fifteen years, somewhere between fifteen and twenty, honestly, and people have been using epithets for almost that long. I think they first started getting on my nerves in BtVS? "The red-haired hacker." "The blonde Slayer." ARGH. I won't even read fics with more than one epithet in them. Writers get one chance, and then I'm gone.

As to said-bookisms, well, I admit to being guilty of throwing those in every now and again myself, so I don't hate them so much. Well, unless they're used every other sentence, in which case I back-button hard. Also if someone uses a said-bookism for something that's an expression, not a way of saying things. "That's because I'm smarter than you," smirked Elizabeth. She didn't smirk that! She said it!

Um. You may have noticed that I'm cranky. At least I own it?

I think that a lot of people see writing as a way to win friends and influence people, not to mention become a BNF. Which I get! But the problem with having a fabulous idea that you desperately need to get out there is that good writing takes time, and work, and practice. If you're not willing to put your best foot forward, that's on you, but I think that you'll be forever lost in a morass of mediocrity if you don't want to perfect your craft.

I owe fandom and fans so much for helping me to hone my writing, but it makes me a little sad to post a fic and not get into a huge comment thread about character motivation, or ramifications, or just generally all the fun things that come with writing.

By the way, I have no idea how I haven't added you before now, but I plan to tonight. I think we've been in tangential fandom circles for quite a while.

She's a really amazing beta! Take her up on it if you get a chance!

Yeah, I was working on one for a while, but then SURPRISE SURGERY and all the fun that came from that meant I had to cut back on a whole lot. And I think my co-mod got bit by life. And I know there were other femslash big bangs, but low participation plus mods getting busy? It's bad for big bangs, totally.

I didn't know about audiofemme until just now! /joins

Just in time :D We're about the launch our annual f/f fest.

Fearless Defenders would be a good book to try and get people to read. The art is a bit hit or miss, but it's very open to new readers. I'll I knew was that I liked what I'd seen of Valkyrie in Secret Avengers and now it's one of my favorite books. So far it seems to have a lot going for it. Angsty backstories, canon femslash, lots of ladies, Hippolyta. (I love Hippolyta so much. I love her arrogance and her superiority and how she's going to end up so damn protective of everyone.)

It seems like a good book to jump in with. Especially if you don't care about what else is going on in 616. What is Age of Ultron even about? Why should I care? Can we be done with events now?

Everything about this is true! Right down to the sparkly hearts.

Diana: Aw, you were worried.
Peter: Well, not about you. I was worried about what you would do to him.

DIANA FOR PRESIDENT.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone be like "You! Regardless of your past history of fannish interests, go check out this femslashy canon and produce activity for it!"

???

Like is this a response to femslash-celebrating events or... idk... people complaining about the scarcity of f/f? One's positive and one's negative but I don't think either is a directed "push".

What makes a canon easier to get into?

NO. NO, IT ISN'T.

/kneels, weeps, etc.

It's fairly well-regarded -- as in, most fellow fans that I've personally interacted with have expressed positive opinions about it and acknowledge that they had chemistry and a good relationship -- but there's not much fannish activity surrounding it, compared to Ahiru's canonical romance.

If we're talking Princess Tutu, though, it doesn't stop at Ahirue -- there was that shy artist girl who was obsessed with Rue, right?

Fucked-up loyalty stories: queen and councillor, lady and knight, deity and devotee, unto death, etc. And skew. Skew is great. "Not of this world", going through hell and clawing their way into something that's only a happy ending from their point of view.

<3

I remember the first fandom in which I started reading femslash -- actually, I think it was even the first fandom in which I even discovered there was such a thing as femslash, and I believe the number of out and vocal bisexual fen in the fandom-corner I stumbled into was what allowed me to admit to myself that yeah, not so straight. So even though it's ignominious and has a fair well deserved bad rep, I can't entirely distance myself from Baby's First Megafandom, Hetalia. (It was also, of course, the site of Baby's First F/F Fic.)

Thus your conclusion is entirely warranted ;) Not only the fic, but even just being vocal about GSM identities in fandom, and anyone who whinges about "don't shove it in my face" can go eat lint-scrapings.

I'm really not sure why "transfic" is a sexuality or pairing category, but uh.

I still know people who largely participate in shipping m/m or f/f, one or the other, but certainly there are plenty of folks whose interests aren't divided along those lines. I don't know that it's really a then vs. now thing, though. It was much the same for me five years ago, only with much fewer f/f exclusives (and more -- that is to say, any -- m/f exclusives). And that difference I attribute to the specific individuals I've sought out as fannish friends and acquaintances, not so much to the evolution of capital-F Fandom.

Yeah, sorry, I mean "transfic" as a genre, like gen or slash are genres, in which characters who aren't canonically trans are made trans in the story - so not as a sexuality category, but like slash in the way that slash often makes queer characters who aren't canonically queer.

I wish I could remember! I think maybe Star Trek: The Next Generation? (I had to go back and type that out, because I didn't know for sure if everyone knew what TNG stood for. Or ST:TNG.) I used to browse the archives of alt.tv.star-trek.creative looking for Crusher/Troi. But it could just as easily have been X-Files femslash. Early XF, when there were no significant non-related women on the show for Scully to sleep with other than Mulder's ex from that one ep, which I don't think anyone ever did anyway. It was all crossovers.

This was before any canon about Haruka and Michiru was available in English

oh i remember watching the english dub with my brother on Cartoon Network in high school. whenever Haruka and Michiru showed up on the screen we'd just turn to each other and go "they're gay, right?" "cousins." my ass. i don't know who they thought they were fooling!

lol, Haruka/Michiru inspiring "the talk" sounds hilarious. :)

i'm not entirely familiar with Hetalia, but it sounds cool from the descriptions I've read. i think fic is a safe place for people to explore their sexuality and be exposed to new ideas, not just about femslash, but all kinds of sexuality. and as hard as it is sometimes to find well-written femslash, it's even harder for kids to get their hands on canons that have positive portrayals of queer characters. i think it's getting better- and technologies like kindle and amazon probably make it easier to read lgbt friendly books without your parents knowing than it was in my day. but there's something subversive and different that happens when beloved characters from familiar stories are portrayed as queer in fic.

ah, X-Files fandom and the lack of anyone to slash Scully with. ;) your post reminds me of how fandom was much more insular back in the day. as hard as it is now to find good femslash, it was a lot harder then. and if you were the one person who wrote one of a handful of femslash stories *everyone* in that fandom would know it was you. and depending on how open and accepting your fandom was of slash and femslash, you could really be sticking your neck out there by creating that kind of fanwork. nowadays, i don't even worry about getting flamed for writing femslash. but that might be different on places like tumblr, which seem more flame-y.

I do remember my first femslash fic, although the title escapes me. The Disney cartoon Gargoyles was my first online fandom 10ish years ago and I distinctly remember a Demona/Elisa fic being the first smutfic I ever read. I recall the fandom being heavy on the het and femslash; it wasn't until I moved on to Harry Potter that dudeslash became a common sight for me.

The pairing did definitely open my eyes to the joys of non-canon ships, but I can't say it was as informative as your experience!

A women-centric recs comm sounds like an awesome idea and I'd be happy to help if you want.

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Comment Meta

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Re: Grammar, Critique, Betas

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Re: You Never Forget Your First Femslash Fic

Re: You Never Forget Your First Femslash Fic

Re: You Never Forget Your First Femslash Fic

Re: You Never Forget Your First Femslash Fic

Re: You Never Forget Your First Femslash Fic

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