amaresu (
amaresu) wrote in
fem_thoughts2013-06-04 11:14 pm
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Entry tags:
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.
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.
Orphan Black and the Bechdel Test
How is this show so amazing? And where can I get some icons?
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I put off watching the show for a while because I was wibbling on whether or not it would actually be good...but holy crap is it good!
I think a huge part of it is that Tatiana Maslany is so freaking talented. I totally forget that one person is playing each of the clones. Props goes to the wardrobe and hair/makeup team for doing some of it (I mean, the differences in hairdos between all of the clones definitely gives a lot of information about how different they are)...but overall, the subtle differences in her acting all of them just make them completely different people. I don't think Anna Torv ever got enough credit for that with doing Olivia and alt!Liv. But Orphan Black is just another level.
Also, I love that each of the clones is a representation of the different places women can be. They're not cookie cutter. Allison is a little comical as the housewife from the burbs, but she's not a caricature. She's not a character we're supposed to laugh at and feel nothing for. Her family is at stake, and so is the life she's comfortable in. Sarah may be a character that has troubles, but she has such a strong sense of loyalty to her friends and family. Cosima...is my fav. Hands down. But she's not a token lesbian. She's an incredibly smart, capable scientist who happens to be a lesbian, nbd. And Helena...oh man, it's tough for me to talk about Helena because she's been so extremely victimized. She's so badass, but I sympathize with her at the same time.
I think what I'm getting at in all that rambling is that even though this show is about clones, these clones are women we can all identify with in some way. They are just so real compared to other women on tv. And I really appreciate that, especially from a sic-fi show. I love that this show has women enjoying sex, using sex, and being frank about sex; that it has women being smart and resourceful and badass; that it shows us two different kinds of mothers who care for their families in different ways; that it it has LGBT characters that are actual people and not tokens. I love that it's about women who WILL NOT be controlled, will not be property...women who will take control of their own lives and destinies.
It's just so good.
And as an aside, I love that Felix and Allison have this odd couple thing going on. I hope that continues.
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(at least the LJ Orphan Black comm is useful for that. =D)
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oops I've made a few as well, but have tons of caps I plan on making good use of in the future ;)
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Once Upon a Time: Love/Hate relationship
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I don't want the Game of Fairy Tales, where it's all darkity-dark and grim (pun intended) and Snow and Charming's wedding turns into a bloodbath. I'm actually quite fond of a happily ever after, or at least an ending that's happy and doesn't have rose-colored glasses. I don't want Queer as Fairy Tales either, where everyone is gay. But would it be so wrong for Mulan to wake Aurora up with a kiss? Or for Rumple to have hated Cora because he fell in love with Henry, Sr.? Or something, anyway.
It's just. There's so much potential for weird, different, unusual storylines, and an exploration of magic as something other than "you must PAY A PRICE for it" blah blah blah. Been there, done that, watched Willow's descent into evil from it, you know?
But my high hopes were dashed by a lot of the conventionality of the story. And also, I know you like Rumple, but honestly, even if he's a fascinating character, I'm hoping that they make him a little more interesting to me. I just don't have much interest in the particular route they're going on this Sympathy for the Devil storyline.
Also, Regina: She went evil because she's a Poor Little Rich Girl who got abused by her parents (don't get me started on parents who will not/cannot intervene on abuse, even if it's because they're abused themselves) and grew up to perpetuate the cycle of abuse? And because she's been Rumple's pawn this whole time? Oh, no, really? Couldn't Regina be gloriously evil because she wants to be? And if you want to redeem her, couldn't you make it be for her, not for external forces like Henry, Jr.?
I just want to hand them all four seasons of Farscape, and then tell them to watch the series and take particular note of Crais, Scorpius, and Grayza's characterization, because that's how you redeem a villain. (And you don't necessarily make them any less villainous.)
I want this show to be so much more, and it's capable of it. (Also, I want all the Aurora/Mulan ever. On screen, even.)
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Oh and can we also talk about how the whole Emma/Henry Jr./Regina thing perpetuates the whole bio family is superior to adopted family shtick?
i have seen some really out of proportion hateful things on tumblr bashing the Emma/Regina shippers. I'm not really invested one way or another, but it irks me because I *know* if Regina was a dude or if Emma and Regina BOTH were dudes, it would be the most popular ship ever.
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Yes, the more the merrier.
femnism in Top of the Lake
(Top of the Lake comes with a trigger warning for basically everything, including sexual assault, including assault involving children).
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Despite my ambivalence about the last scene, I thought the series as a whole was just so thoughtfully conceived and I love that the other 6 hours and 55 minutes of the series would stand up to his sort of analysis too. So much non-campy trope subversion. Robin gets saved by Johnno a couple of times, but in the end, she's the one who saves everyone else! She's the one driving the plot! Which you'd think would be a given in any other cop show, but which seems to happen so rarely on those few occasions when there are cop shows with female leads. Robin being the one motivated by her rape to go out and Do Heroic Things. Robin being the one who doesn't care about the incest thing (which, was that undone at the end there or not? I didn't catch Al's line about it). Johnno constantly being injured and needing to be cared for. GJ, the somehow most and least guru-ish guru ever (I'll admit, it took most of the series for GJ to grow on me). Tui and her rifle. Tui giving birth by herself. Tui and her rifle again. But rooted in this world with such pervasive violence against the people who are always the most vulnerable to it: the commune women, the women who work for Matt, the "troubled" coffee shop kids (with the two we see the most being a PoC, Tui, and a gay kid, Jamie), really, all of the kids and all of the adult characters when they were kids.
I feel like normally when we talk about subverting gender roles it's in big, action-y things, and it's never very serious. The female action hero can save the day because she's an action hero and everyone knows that the situations aren't real. Or it's all about the comedy. Or she's an anti-hero, and then we're generally not subverting anything at all. So I loved how quiet and realistic (for tv versions of realistic) this series was.
And Robin throwing that dart into the guy's chest was mildly awesome.
I feel like I could go on for pages and pages about every character and every scene, but then I'd never, ever get to bed.
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In defense of Bella Swan
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Word Choices in Smut
Vulva, cunt, pussy, vagina, slit, entrance, wet, moist, damp, breasts, boobs, tits... okay, you get the picture. Which words do you use? Do you use the same words no matter what, or do you like to vary it depending on the fandom, pairing, characters, or even mood you're writing? Ever swear you wouldn't use a term but then use it because it seemed right for that particular moment? When it comes to penises, it seems like fandom has pretty much embraced cock a a go-to term... do we have or are we trending toward any generally-accepted, widely-used terms? Is that something you'd even want, or do you kind of enjoy the debates and the search for the right word?
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Vagina, cunt, pussy, breasts, tits, wet, damp, moist, slit, lips...all words that are awesome. I like that there's not one go to. I like that pussy has a different feeling from vagina has a different feeling from count. I think that's part of the beauty of the different words.
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femslash production
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I always have a dozen or so vid ideas in the queue (some of them are femslash!), and I know things like that really affect what gets priority.
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Mixed Messages in "The Fall"?
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Defiance and Sex
Which, I'm enjoying just the many, many, casual ways that the show is showing queer characters. I would like them to have some of the main characters being queer, but so many background characters are just casually shown. They could do a lot more here, but what they are doing is more than most shows would.
Oh, and the recent revelation that polygamy is not only perfectly normal it's just as normal for a women to have multiple husbands as it is for a man to have multiple wives.
This show is doing many interesting things and almost all of them are in the background and just accepted as part of the way the world is.
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However, maybe you haven't seen the most recent episode, but it looks like a couple of major characters are queer. This is totally thrilling to me. However, I worry a little bit about whether it's being done to show diversity or to be true to the characters or just for titillation... as the characters are two hot women.
Spoilers for that episode (1x8 "Goodbye Blue Sky"): So it seems to me that it's a perfect extension of the characters for Stahma and Kenya to both be attracted to women. For Kenya, it's possible that it is a simple business transaction to have sex with Stahma, but I don't think so: she actively but gently seduces Stahma, and earlier in the episode has refused a job that she feels wouldn't be appropriate. I really love the brief courtship the two of them have, actually. Stahma is originally there for a completely different reason, but I suspect she's been curious about the Need/Want for a while, especially knowing her husband visits, and has been looking for an excuse to visit it. She doesn't immediately storm out when Kenya upsets her; she stays long enough to get stuck in there hiding from the razor rain. And Kenya doesn't seem to have gone into the conversation with the aim of seducing Stahma, just getting to know her better, and it turns to that topic slowly and subtly.
Stahma is a really fascinating Lady Macbeth-type character. Her husband, Datak, is the biggest power in the Defiance underworld, but Stahma is the one with the ambition and smarts to get him greater power, like the spot she finagles for him on the town council. She's obviously stifled by her culture's patriarchal view of male and female roles in life--even if she's not consciously aware of it (which I love so much). But she knows the way to get power, and also to be happy, with her husband and her son. She encourages her son's marriage to a human girl both for the power it will gain them and, I think, because she wants to see him happy. But she's not entirely happy, and Kenya sees that, which Datak never could. Maybe it's just because she's an outsider, maybe it's because she's a human and sees men and women as more equal, and maybe it's also because she's a woman. I doubt Stahma would have spoken so frankly to a man, even if he was the friendly and sweet proprietor of the local brothel. She seems to be a little bit afraid of men, even Datak, though she knows how to handle them--men in her culture have always had the power, and she can't see the world any differently, though maybe she'll learn to now.
::pokes brain:: Where did that all come from, brain? I think I miss English class.
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Lord of the Rings: Female Characters
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Why are they so underused in fandom? I'm not in LotR fandom, so I wouldn't know.
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Femslash Fandom Migration
For that matter, can anyone trace the path of femslash fandom migrations? I know many Xena shippers went to West Wing and Buffy, and some on to Sam/Janet in SG1, but I lost track of them after that.
Where are people looking for the next big femslash fandom?
Where do femslashers go when their pairing dies or their show ends?
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Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash
I tend to be fond of AMTDI and its various iterations, like Magic Made Them Do it. I'm aware of the extreme dubiousness of the consent involved, but it hits my fandom kinks hard and so I go there anyway.
There's also soulbonding. The world needs more femslash soulbonding fic, don't you think?
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...I wish there was more undercover marriage fic in femslash. Sigh. I am going to have to be the change I want to see in the world (my life, so hard).
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F/F in anime/manga
Anime/manga with canon f/f pairings:
Sailor Moon. Haruka and Michiru are up there with Xena and Gabrielle in terms of classic f/f pairings.
Loveless. Yamato and Kouya only appear in one volume of the manga/a few episodes of the series, but they are so awesome.
Revolutionary Girl Utena. Juri/Shiori is quite canon, though tragic. The main pairing in fandom is Anthy/Utena, which has heavy subtext, even if it never quite croesses the lines into canon.
Tetragrammaton Labyrinth. Not a manga for everyone. For one thing, while Angela is Really 700 Years Old, she looks twelve, and the mangaka has an unnerving habit of drawing her naked. This could definitely be a squicky one for some. I enjoy it despite the icky bits. I may just be desperate.
Voiceless. Sweet little story. Unfortunately, there's only 1 volume available in English, and it appears that it will remain that way. I haven't checked for fan translations.
First Love Sisters. Another sweet story. Despite the name, there is no incest. Rather, both sisters are going through first love. Another one that seems doomed to never see a full English language release.
Strawberry Panic. Girls love in a super fancy boarding school. The manga is partially available in English. I'm not sure if the light novels have been completely released or not.
In case you're seeing a pattern here, Seven Seas bought up a lot of f/f titles which then fell through. I don't know whether they couldn't get licensing for future volumes, or if sales were low, or what.
Others to consider:
Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Some pretty intense subtext between Homura and Madoka, and Sayaka and Kyoko.
Venus Versus Virus. I haven't kept up with this one, but there was definitely subtext between Sumire and Lucia. However, when I dropped off Sumire was getting something of romance arc with a boy, but I don't know what happened with that.
Maria-sama Ga Miteru (Maria Watches Over Us). I'm not clear on whether this series has canon f/f of just a lot of subtext, but it's one off the classics. (That I, uh, have yet to watch.)
Noir. Lots of subtext between Mireille and Kiriki. Any who denies the canon status of (one-sided) Chloe/Kirika is fooling themselves, in my not so humble opinion. (Chloe kisses Kirika. What more do you need?)
So, feel free recommend others, or discuss the ones I've listed here.
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There are some excellent yuri shows which as far as I know don't have much in term of fandom, such as Aoi Hana and Sasameki Koto. There's Simoun, with elements of genderfuckery. And Kannazuki no Miko which I do not like at all, but some people do. Nanoha is on the same line of borderline canon as Madoka, I think.
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Avengers: Natasha/Maria
I am reading a bunch of Avengers these days, and although Maria Hill and Natasha Romanov have hardly any appearances when they are on screen together, I have been looking for more fic pairing them.
I just really see sparks flying between the two of them and I think they would have a lot of interesting things to say to each other.
Anybody else love them? Any recs?
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And I think there also were some recs here.
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The women of White Collar squee fest
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I don't watch White Collar. Too many dudes for me. But I would be highly interested and grateful if, amidst the squee, there could be ladycentric White Collar fic recs.
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Grammar, Critique, Betas
Have we reached a point following the Just Be Nice kerfuffles where we cannot point out minor errors in reviews etc? Will those days ever come back? I miss people who would tell me when I made a typo; I'm not talking flaming, but wondering whether concrit has been buried by the like/kudos buttons.
And are betas out of style now? Is this another thing brought to us by the immediacy of tumblr - people who write-and-post being more accessible and more prevalent?
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Commas and passive voice also seem to be the things that people just don't learn how to fix. I've given up on fixing them for people, because who has that kind of time? I can't tell you, though, how many times I've betaread for someone, sent them a general description of comma use, fixed the first two or three (or half dozen) errors, and then linked them to a university's writing guides on grammar, only to get their next story with just as many errors as their last. (If you're reading this and I've done this to you, which is entirely possible, I'm sure you've already accepted that I'm a very particular person and have moved on to other betareaders. I'm fine with that.)
Just Be Nice kerfuffles can kiss my ass. I wish I were kidding, because I really do love being nice to people, but I also interpret "just be nice" a little differently. It is nice to tell me when I have made a mistake, thereby giving me the opportunity to fix it. It is nice to let me know what I have done wrong, so I don't find a typo five years later and become convinced that all of fandom has spent the last five years sniggering at my inability to type "the" instead of "teh" five percent of the time. Also, it is nice to want to help someone to become a better writer, and, frankly, it's about time we started divorcing the idea of constructive criticism from bitchy posts railing against bad fic. They are two different things, and bitchy posts don't suddenly make concrit not okay.
I don't have the time to beta and concrit as much as I would like, but I miss it. I come from a time and place in fandom where betareading involved long hours of line-by-line work. It wasn't just copyediting, but it was also a back and forth dialogue with the person you were betareading for about the meaning of the story, the motivations of the characters, the details of who is reading what, or listening to what, or the implications of your plot on the characters' lives three years past the end of your story. I miss that kind of in-depth work. It was more like editing than anything.
The problem with that kind of in-depth beta is that it's hard, lately, to find people even willing to take the time to read a fic and chat a little about it. I have friends I've given up on, because every time I ask them to read a story and give me general plot feedback, they "accidentally" get kicked from gchat. (The first few times I believe it, but after that, I don't happen to be that gullible.) I want back and forth, and friends who will give me that kind of critique in exchange for my in depth critique.
I'd come up with kind of a summation, but I have to run off and pick up the kidlet from day care. I'm sure I've soapboxed enough, though.
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The limits of "encouraging" femslash
I love getting recommendations for femslashy sources and femslash friendly fannish spaces. Femslash and femslashers are in the minority in fandom and it can be lonely sometimes, it makes sense for us to stick together and help each other out. Sharing the femslashy squee is super fun, too.
But I don't see much point in trying very hard to push other people into femslashy canons, or into creating femslash for canons they're into in an unfemslashy way, or to push themselves to create more femslash in general if they don't feel super enthusiastic about it. Encouraging people to push a little outside their comfort zone, sure, but personally I don't have a lot of choice about what I feel fannish or creatively inspired about and I get the feeling most other fans don't either.
Femslashiness in a canon and/or fandom is a major draw for me, so advertising femslashiness is more likely to make me want to try it out, but it's definitely not sufficient to guarantee my attention. And I find the assumption that people work that way annoying given that most of ""femslash fandom"" (eg live action femslash fandom) actively avoids the massive collection of video game/comic/anime etc fandoms with canon ff and lots of femslashers. Which is fair enough, you can't make yourself like video games/comics/anime, but alas I also can't make myself like The Devil Wears Prada. And even within the types of fandoms I tend to be drawn towards I can't make myself like, say, fShep/Liara even though it's the major canon f/f ship for Mass Effect.
I feel a certain solidarity with fellow femslashers and am more open minded about checking out f/f ships that don't jump out at me than f/m and m/m ships, but femslashiness does not define me as a fan. I prefer canon ships, and ensemble casts with lots of women, and speculative fiction, which means I'd rather read Dragon Age het or even slash than RPF femslash. And poking at the popular femslash fandoms on the AO3 there are lots I "should" like based on my general preferences but just...don't. That's just the way fannishness works.
So I guess I feel like pushing people towards femslash and femslashy canons (rather than just making it easier to get into) is a losing game for all concerned.
Do other people feel similarly? Or do you like being pushed to make more femslash/get into more femslashy sources etc when you wouldn't naturally? Have you had success pushing other people? Am I just misreading this talk of "pushing" and all you guys mean is "squeeing in an infectious manner"? Because I am totally down with squeeing in an infectious manner :D
Re: The limits of "encouraging" femslash
There are definitely some huge cultural divides in different parts of f/f fandom that I don't think we can or maybe even should break all the way down, but I've gotten into media through its fandoms before and look forward to doing it again.
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changing fannish boundaries
Because I don't personally identify with anything called "femslash fandom," but I do write/vid a good amount of femslash, mixed up with everything else. And I really like it that way, I like that I can do femslash one day and boyslash another and I'll get the same people commenting on both stories/vids/posts, no big deal.
Re: changing fannish boundaries
This is totally anecdotal and based on a period of my life when my memory is pretty shaky, so I could also be remembering wrong? But I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a connection between fandom migration to new platforms and changes in fannish culture.
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You Never Forget Your First Femslash Fic
I ask this because I *do* remember the first femslash fic I ever read. It was called Hermione's Heart, and featured Hermione crushing on McGonagall but ending up with girl jock!Cho. I was pleased to discover you can still find it online. And ten years later- it's actually still really good! This story was actually really important to me when I read it as a high schooler. I was raised very conservatively (I had a lot of interalized homophobia) and the story helped me understand that girls loving other girls wasn't something unnatural or scary...but very attractive to me. In fact, i realized that some of the feelings I was having for a friend of mine mirrored those of the girls in the story.
So there you go. We never know what effect our stories have on other people. Write some femslash, help some kid come out of the closet. ;)
Re: You Never Forget Your First Femslash Fic
A few specific plots I remember from those days:
--Rei and Makoto (I think?) discover they've each been writing about their secret feelings for the other
--Michiru takes Haruka home to meet her family as a "friend", only to have their real relationship found out by her obnoxious-but-ultimately-supportive brother
--Princess Rei has angsty sex with a nervous Princess Serenity right before the latter's wedding
And plenty of ensemble fics where Haruka/Michiru was a taken-for-granted part of the team dynamic. (The team-babysitting one where 3-year-old Chibi-Usa walks in on the couple, and a frantic Minako has to try and give her The Talk, was priceless.)
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