Comment Meta

[amaresu]

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.

Comments

Orphan Black and the Bechdel Test

[amaresu]

How is this show so amazing? And where can I get some icons?

Re: Orphan Black and the Bechdel Test

[cleo]

+1 re icons!

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.

Re: Orphan Black and the Bechdel Test

[lyssie]

Someone posted some icons over here and also here oh, and here

(at least the LJ Orphan Black comm is useful for that. =D)

Re: Orphan Black and the Bechdel Test

[goodbyebird]

Some superb icons here and here!

oops I've made a few as well, but have tons of caps I plan on making good use of in the future ;)

Re: Orphan Black and the Bechdel Test

[belacqua]

Orphan Black is my favorite thing at the moment. Also, there are some great OB icons here. :)

Once Upon a Time: Love/Hate relationship

[cleo]

I love that OUaT has so many awesome women in it. But the show frustrates me to no end with it's conventional love/good conquer evil/scorned women become baddies/everyone who is anyone is straight tropes.

Re: Once Upon a Time: Love/Hate relationship

[havocthecat]

Yes! I thought OUaT was going to be a deconstruction of fairy tale tropes, or maybe of Disney tropes specifically, and it's turned into the same thing it purports to deconstruct. (Mind you, I have about fifteen eps sitting on my DVR waiting for me to get up the heart to delve into them. So I'm not caught up, even if I'm fairly spoiled.)

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.)

Re: Once Upon a Time: Love/Hate relationship

[kmo]

I really wanted to like this show. I really did. But I gave up on it about six episodes in when i realized there was going probably a) not be any queer content and b) no consistent writing of Regina's character. I love an evil queen. I love that the actresses that play Emma and Regina have unintentional off the charts chemistry. But those things weren't enough to keep me hanging around.

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.

[metanewsmods]

Hi, can we link this at metanews?

[amaresu]

Yes, the more the merrier.

femnism in Top of the Lake

[chaila]

I watched and loved Top of the Lake and see lots of feminist themes in it, but I'm finding it hard to find a place to discuss it. Anyone else watch? What did you think of the way the show dealt with gender issues and its multiple female characters (especially Robin and Tui)? (If anyone wants to tie its rugged sort of setting to the rugged feminism of Winter's Bone, I would not be averse, but that is a super specific topic so feel free to ignore. :D)

(Top of the Lake comes with a trigger warning for basically everything, including sexual assault, including assault involving children).

*spoilers* Re: femnism in Top of the Lake

[twtd]

Okay, yes, wow. So many things going on that I don't even really know where to start, but I thought the series was excellent. I don't know if it would have held my attention on a weekly basis, but watching all of it at once really worked. And I agree, it has all of the feminist themes. Though... I'm uncertain how I feel about the very end, when GJ walks off and tells Tui that her son is her real teacher. On one hand, I think that's absolutely in line with the reality of the series, with the kind frank truth telling that GJ does throughout the series, with what Tui needs to hear, and because (though I'm not a parent) I'm pretty sure that almost all parents learn a lot from their children. On the other hand, I don't love that the series ends with message that Motherhood is the ultimate teacher. That Tui's child is a boy adds another layer to my ambivalence, because I feel like in one sense, it's a very hopeful thing: Tui, Robin, and particularly Johnno are all going to be determined to prevent this child from perpetuating the cycle of patriarchal violence. But again, it leads me back to this discomfort with the message that being the Mother of a Son (fathered by No One, with Tui not even knowing how she got pregnant, if we want to go down a Biblical/Religious path) will be Tui's Real Teacher.

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.

In defense of Bella Swan

[chaila]

You know you want to! Pretty please!

Re: In defense of Bella Swan

[lyssie]

I have no meta, I just always find Kristen Stewart entertaining. Or maybe I'm just shallow? idk. I sort of wonder if Bella can be read a latter-day Snow White allegory, but with all her wits about her until the prince's kiss awakens her into the world of magic that is hers by right.

It has been an exceedingly long work week, and I haven't actually read or seen any Twilight aside from the first movie and I was bored and doing other things

Word Choices in Smut

[sarken]

All right -- let's do this. *g*

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?

Re: Word Choices in Smut

[cleo]

I write in third person limited most of the time, and while I tend to use the same words, I try to use what would fit for the character whose head I'm in. While I usually wouldn't use cunt or tits (because they're words I personally don't prefer), if the character I'm writing thinks of them that way, that's what I go for. But I feel like few (if any, I don't know) women think of other women's clits as pearls or vaginas as blossoming flowers.

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.

femslash production

[kiki_miserychic]

I've long been wondering why there's not as many femslash vids and other fanworks. Obviously it's a numbers game, but what would increase the production of femslash? I'm primarily a vidder and I wonder what would compel more the making of more femslash vids. Is it the lack of content from which to vid? The addition of sometimes needing to manipulate footage to create a femslash vid? The perceived lack of audience for a femslash vid? I'm sure it's a question that's been raised many places, many times.

Re: femslash production

[frayadjacent]

I'm curious to know what kinds of things people have tried in the past and if they've been (at least temporarily) successful at encouraging more femslash? Like a femslash vid exchange or challenge of some sort? I know you tried to do a femslash vidshow at VVC this year, and it didn't work out. What other things have been attempted in the past, that folk know of? Have they worked?

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.

Mixed Messages in "The Fall"?

[kmo]

There's already been a thread on "Top of the Lake"- I thought we might want to discuss the other mystery series headed by a female lead (and also currently available on Netflix). They make a good comparison- because both center on female investigators and crimes of sexual abuse against women. But as amazing as Gillian Anderson is as sexy, competent, take no prisoners D.S. Gisbon, there is something super creepy going on with the way I think violence against women is eroticized in this story. I really think the (male) creator wants to have it both ways, with the obviously feminist heroine and then these women as victims of a sadistic serial killer. And I'm torn about whether i will watch series 2 because of it. Thoughts?

Re: Mixed Messages in "The Fall"?

[tree]

for me the horror of the crimes outweighs the eroticisation. (i think i just made that word up.) i feel like the narrative is showing us how the assaults and murders are erotic for the killer, but the audience also experiences the horror and terror of the victim, as well as the stark aftermath. to me there's a careful balance there, particularly as it's juxtaposed by stella's overt and explicitly consensual sex/uality where she's the one on top and in control. that both stella and paula have such compassion for the victims, maybe even tenderness, also adds to the weight of the narrative that these are heinous not sexy crimes. to paul these women are a means whereas to stella -- and i think the narrative overall -- they're people.

Defiance and Sex

[amaresu]

Is anyone else watching Defiance? This amazing show with a prostitute as a regular and her place of business NeedWant being a main setting? I love the way the show presents Kenya as a legitimate business woman running a legitimate business. A business that caters to both men and women. And is a good bar on top of everything else and people like the Town Council hang out there.

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.

Re: Defiance and Sex

[clare_dragonfly]

I was thrilled when Defiance showed a female customer at the Need/Want having seen a female prostitute--and it's treated as though it's perfectly normal. I have been a little frustrated in that it seems like alternative sexualities are normal, but not taken seriously in that none of the main characters are included in that so it's just background. Especially, see Nolan's dismissal of Amanda's interest in polygamy as her having been burned by love and now no longer interested in it.

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.

Lord of the Rings: Female Characters

[tamsin]

How they're awesome and why they're so underused in fandom.

Re: Lord of the Rings: Female Characters

[havocthecat]

Why are they so underused in fandom? I'm not in LotR fandom, so I wouldn't know.

Femslash Fandom Migration

[havocthecat]

As far as I can tell, most of the SG1 and SGA femslashers moved to Legend of the Seeker fandom. Where did they all go after that series was cancelled too soon?

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?

Re: Femslash Fandom Migration

[cleo]

Oh, this is such a good question. And I think the answer depends on the show sometimes. Also, I think hype can have a lot to do with it. Someone starts hardcore pushing a fandom and their friends get into it etc. etc. That's how I ended up watching Once Upon a Time (albeit, very late). It seemed like EVERYONE was talking about it.

Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[havocthecat]

Everyone has their favorite fandom tropes. What are your favorites when applied to femslash? Do you have a pairing or a type you prefer them with?

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?

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[tellitslant]

AMTDI is alive and well in Warehouse 13, where the A stands for artifacts. I'm the same way - the potential for dubcon needs to be acknowledged by the author, but as long as that happens then it's one of my go-tos. I think I like it for the same reasons I like the 'huddling for warmth'/'undercover marriage' types - those are less forceful, but they follow the same routes of getting Our Chosen Pairing to a place where they can't hide or ignore those feeeeelings any longer!

...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).

F/F in anime/manga

[veleda_k]

I'm so out of date with anime and manga releases that it's not funny, but I thought I'd start up a thread for us anime fans. Feel free to recommend anime/manga with f/f content/subtext. Here's a tiny list to get us started.

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.

Re: F/F in anime/manga

[salinea]

Maria-sama does have a bit of canon f/f, though it's limited to a flashback episode, mostly, the rest of it being the heavy subtext.

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.

Avengers: Natasha/Maria

[princessofgeeks]

Hi! Saw this rec'd by havocthecat. Thank you!

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?

Re: Avengers: Natasha/Maria

[tamsin]

If you're up for Maria/Pepper/Natasha, I really enjoyed Women's Weapons.

And I think there also were some recs here.

The women of White Collar squee fest

[veleda_k]

The women of White Collar. Discuss why they are awesome.

Re: The women of White Collar squee fest

[havocthecat]

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.

Grammar, Critique, Betas

[tellitslant]

While I admit that I'm more sensitive to grammatical errors than many (marking undergrad essays will do that - though I'm sure that won't save me from making at least one error in this post), I've found a dramatic upswing lately in the number of fics that I have to backbutton out of because the commas, dear god, won't someone please think of the commas. Also, best recent malapropism I've read: blue colour workers. So these are things that having another set of eyes would largely fix.

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?

Re: Grammar, Critique, Betas

[havocthecat]

Commas. Good God, commas. The bane of my betareading existence. (Yes, I know that's a sentence fragment, but it's for emphasis.) No, seriously, commas are one of the things that drive me the most nuts about fic, but which people seem to screw up terribly, terribly badly. I also hate passive voice, too many adverbs, subject-verb agreement, consistent tenses, redundant description, and overused ellipses. (In fact, if the ellipsis were banned from fanfic, I think I might throw a party.)

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.

The limits of "encouraging" femslash

[alias_sqbr]

I have some nebulous thoughts inspired by other threads (including what seem to be some unspoken assumptions about our priorities), let's see if I can articulate them...

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

[cantarina]

For me, it's definitely more a way of enabling "squeeing in an infectious manner" than pushing, because like you said, this stuff can't be forced. That said, I might have actually watched LotS while it was airing if it had had a bigger presence in my comms and on my reading list/flist?

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.

changing fannish boundaries

[thingswithwings]

I've been in online fandom for 17 years, and I've really noticed changing boundaries over that time, in a lot of ways, but particularly in terms of people who identify as "slashers" vs "femslashers" vs "het shippers" etc. Maybe this is just because of my personal trajectory through a narrow subset of fandoms? But I feel like nowadays you're much more likely to find people who write/vid/read/podfic various sexualities and pairings and groupings. It used to be that any given fan I knew was pretty likely to be JUST doing m/m, or JUST doing f/f, or JUST doing f/m, or JUST doing kinky f/m, etc., but over the last . . . five years? I feel like I know tons of people who do absolutely everything, boyslash femslash transfic het poly threesomes and so on. Does this match up with other peoples' experiences? Is it just that I've found friends who are better suited to me? Or am I projecting my own experience onto others?

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

[cantarina]

I feel like online fandom used to be more about smaller, more specialized communities? (I don't know if the JetC community could flourish now quite like it did fifteen years ago.) LJ allowed for a really interesting mixing of people that maybe seemed less common in mailing list fandom?

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.

You Never Forget Your First Femslash Fic

[kmo]

All of this talk about older femslash fandoms has made me wonder, do you remember the first femslash fic you read? Or pairing that you got into? What made you decide to give femslash a chance? Was it something specific about the characters or pairing that drew you in? How did the fic make you feel- about sexuality, femslash, female characters, etc?

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

[erinptah]

I have no idea what my first f/f fic was, but it definitely would've been a Sailor Moon fic. This was before any canon about Haruka and Michiru was available in English, so it was probably Rei/Usagi or some Inner Senshi pairing.

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.)