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

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[zvi]

there is one trope that I really like in melslash, which is MPREG, that I have yet to figure out how to do in f/f, because, "pregnancy i wasn't expecting and didn't think I had the body parts for," immediately leaps to the "I was roofied place," and dubious sexual consent is entirely NOT what I like about mpreg (I do sometimes like people to think about abortion, and also why are aliens/gods/macguffins so damn interested in getting other people pregnant), but the main buttons it pushes for me are body transformation + family building.

Has anyone seen somebody structure f/f impossible pregnancy fic (fpreg) which either precludes the roofied thing or addresses and disposes of it because some non-roofy thing happened instead and they found it out very fast?

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[havocthecat]

I see what you're saying, and I see why you have objections to the genre. But I think most people consider fpreg to preclude roofies/noncon/dubcon by its very nature.

Before someone who isn't familiar with the genre (not you, because you seem familiar with it and not in need of correction) chimes in, fpreg does not equal "female pregnancy," which is situation normal for many ladies. Fpreg equals "female pregnancy without the help of a dude, either via parthenogenesis or two mothers."

So anyway, most of the fpreg I've read (and written) doesn't even bring roofies or rape or dubcon into it, partly because of the assumption that this is a genre that doesn't generally include rape or roofies. It's always been either parthenogenesis or magic or two ladies and a piece of Atlantean or other alien technology, or even just random 'hey, so we did some testing and you're knocked up and it turns out you and this other lady are the parents, wtf?' and this isn't even a character that would generally be roofied. (That last part of the sentence blew through grammatically correct, past 'needs a beta' and into 'did you forget how sentences work?' territory. But I think it gets my meaning across, so I'm leaving it.)

As an example, there's at least one person who wrote a huge long series with Lorelai Gilmore and Alex Cabot where Lorelai wished on a monkey's paw and Alex got pregnant. And I know I wrote something for SGA where it was literally some Lantean tech in the water that got most of the women of the show pregnant.

Which is one of the reasons I love fpreg. It's one of the many ways that two women in a relationship can build a family with inextricable links to each other, along with bonus mystical handwavey MacGuffins that cause morning sickness. (Adoption is totally as valid for family building too! But it comes with slightly less mystical handwavey MacGuffins.)

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[zvi]

I think part of what happened, when I bounced* off the concept, is three-fold, one, in that I tend to prefer MPREG stories where MPREG is a giant WTF of impossibility, instead of something people are on the lookout for because it is either normal or because the characters knew something weird/alien/magical had happened and were waiting to find out what the effects were. (Basically "I didn't know I was pregnant!" but with dudes.) Second, the first time I started to write fpreg it was for a relatively realistic fandom (Grey's Anatomy) and when I was trying to think of how the characters would think about what had happened, and I figured that roofies was the natural conclusion in a world without magic or weird alien tech. And also, too many years of X Ray techs asking if I was really, really sure I wasn't pregnant, even though I am a giant lesbo who hasn't had vaginal intercourse with a dude in literal years.

But, yes, I will tread more willingly into fandoms where magic/aliens/SCIENCE! are givens, and see if I get the same feels.

*by bounce, I mean I thought about the idea and then avoided stories with the label, not objecting to it

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[erinptah]

I've written A/B/O fempreg, which has consent issues from the heat aspect, but not from the mere fact of being f/f.

Fempreg I've enjoyed with no dubious consent: Miraculous (BtVS, Buffy/Faith, the mothers are fine about it), One Wish (Sailor Moon, HarukaxMichiru, it's deliberately chosen by magic), Absolutes and Impossibilities (SJA, Sarah Jane/Maria; Sarah Jane frets over being an unexpected 'father', but Maria's fine doint the carrying), In Which Veronica Gets The Memo (Better Off Ted, Veronica/Linda, one surprise!kiss but the pregnancy is planned via Science!).

Re: Favorite Tropes as Applied to Femslash

[zvi]

Thank you for the recs!