Picking the Collective Femslash Brain: Femslash as a Fandom

[dagas_isa]

If there is in fact, a collective brain, I'd like to ask it a few questions. I've recently been wondering about Femslash fandom as a whole and thinking about whether it exists and how it manifests.

• Does femslash fandom (as a larger entity) exist?
  
• If it does, what, other than the obvious (having at least one f/f ship), are the central features of femslash fandom?
  
• How is femslash fandom culture different from (or the same as?) het fandom/guyslash fandom?
  
• What are the main fannish interactions in femslash fandom?
  
• Are there any femslash fans who are exclusively into femslash?
  
• What are the canons that you think most femslash fans would (or should) know through osmosis (that is, they might never have experienced them, but would know through discussion/meta)?
  
• What are your personal experiences being a femslasher in a (small/large/eastern/western/etc) fandom?
  

Tell me, what are your thoughts on femslash?

(I have thoughts, but it's easier to ask questions than give a hazy reply based on a limited sample and my experiences in small fandoms.)

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

Oooh, I am excited by your questions! I don't have a lot to say myself, but I am going to check back for comments.

I will say my experiences as a femslasher in a really boyslash-heavy fandom (& one in which people seem reluctant to read het as well: ew, girls *eyeroll*) have been kinda meh. I've been psyched to get the odd really positive comment on fic from people who do want to see the pairing, but it's been a lot of cricket chirping. Which... fair enough, there are lots of reasons that might happen in response to fic. But I get the distinct impression it's b/c people don't care about the female characters in a lot of cases, nevermind imagining them in pairings. That's partly b/c they are fairly minor in canon but also, yeah, I think girl cooties too.

[dagas_isa]

I hear the crickets chirping a lot too, especially in fandoms where the main appeal isn't the femslash. It's one thing to be in Sailor Moon or Final Fantasy fandoms and be into femslash (because there's lots of female character interaction), while a completely different thing to be into femslash in a more boy-centric fandom.

[h4hahn]

Excellent question(s). I've often pondered this as a find myself joining various femslash communities and then never paying attention to them.

I like the idea of femslash fandom. But for me, I guess I've decided that I like femslash within fandom. I have my little shows I follow and I follow their fannish activities. I gravitate to the femslash stories and fanart and vids, et al.but not exclusively. Maybe femslashers are just more well rounded and we like it all, where nonfemslash fans just want the het or just want the slash. We're no one trick pony. :)

[dagas_isa]

Yeah, I've noticed that a lot of femslash fans tend to be into het and/or boyslash as opposed to just being about the femslash. I really do love femslash on principle more than I love het or boyslash (well, I'm just a huge fan of seeing girls), but I'm less likely to obsess over just one f/f couple.

[havocthecat]

I think each of these bullet points sound like a meta/discussion post topic all on its own!

[dagas_isa]

^^;;

Yeah, maybe I should have started with the basic, "Does femslash exist, why or why not?" and seen where that led.

But I've totally been wondering about this whole weird amorphous fandom thing we femslashers have going. Because I think it exists but I can't pin any of it down and it all gels together.

[ranrata]

Interesting questions! There's definitely a larger femslash fandom/culture. I can't help but notice it, as someone who likes quite a few femslash pairings, but finds larger femslash fandom...inaccessible? I just kind of flit around the edges, occasionally finding something I like, occasionally contributing.

I've been trying to determine what causes certain ships/shows to become popular in femslash fandom. I can usually predict this for het and slash fandoms, even if I don't like said ship/pairing, but I'm continually baffled by what takes off (or doesn't) in femslash fandom. I've also noticed crossover pairings seem to be a lot more common.

I don't know if I've sampled a large enough selection, but there does seem to be a certain style to the fic that's quite distinct. I'm not sure how to describe it. I tend to prefer femslash that isn't written in this style, though.

This is regarding media fandom based on LJ/DW. I was heavily into Sailor Moon fandom for years, and the experience was completely different!

[dagas_isa]

OMG icon! ♥

*ahem* (PGSM Rei/Minako is something of an OTP for me)

I'm not hugely into media fandom, but I'm guessing the difficulty in guessing femslash fandoms is that it's harder to find shows with women interacting with each other so the relationship is built on what fans project on to the women versus something in their canon interaction. This could also explain crossovers, where canons have just one awesome female.

Which yeah, is so drastically different from Sailor Moon, where the femslash fandom is almost built in.

I'm continually baffled by what takes off (or doesn't) in femslash fandom?

What ships have surprised you (either by taking off or not)?

[ranrata]

PGSM Rei/Minako is something of an OTP for me
I always thought there was ~something~ going on between them in the manga, but PGSM just went into overdrive! (To this day I swear they were made slashier to make up for the absence of Haruka/Michiru.)

so the relationship is built on what fans project on to the women versus something in their canon interaction.
This makes sense...a lot of femslash fic reads this way to me.

What ships have surprised you (either by taking off or not)?
In Grey's Anatomy, I'm surprised Meredith/Cristina and Cristina/Teddy aren't the most popular non-canon pairings--Meredith kicks her husband out of bed for Cristina, and Cristina wanted to swap her boyfriend for Teddy! In Dollhouse, Caroline/Bennett was practically canon, but I've seen zero fic; instead Echo/Sierra (okay, they're friends...) and Claire/Adelle (huh?) are more common.

In House fandom, Cameron/13 is ridiculously popular. I think the two characters had one scene together, and I'm not sure they even spoke to each other in it. So I'm baffled by the lack of Amber/Cuddy, since they actually interacted, and there were some strong feelings there (granted, negative ones, but still). River/Amy is huge in Doctor Who right now...I'm not surprised people ship it, but I'm surprised by how big it is.

Even the big fandoms confuse me--Devil Wears Prada, the new Alice in Wonderland, Law & Order? Huh? But the fandom is near non-existent for Nurse Jackie (I know it's on Showtime, but still), where one of the women is canonically bisexual. I've become so confused about what will be popular that I second-guessed myself about Rizzoli & Isles taking off.

[pseudo_tsuga]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one confused by the popularity of The Devil Wears Prada femslash since I didn't twig on it at all. I think, though, that the hardened mentor/idealistic student is such a popular dynamic that people immediately became interested in Miranda/Andy even if the canon didn't quite back up all the ways people prefer to have it play out.

[shadowings]

I think some part of the surprising thing about which femslash pairings/fandoms take off is who writes for it too, because there is so much less of it compared to the glut of het/slash fic. Specifically when I think of DWP I think of those few writers that are talented and enjoy writing epics - the fandom seems to center around them.

Also there are shallow factors involved for sure. With House, Cameron and 13 are the conventionally thin, attractive alluring people that both look pretty and both look pretty together. Cuddy is older, and Amber isn't not attractive, but she's no Cameron or 13. With the Harry Potter fandom, the most popular femslash pairings by far and away are those that feature the young, femmey people. There's McGonagall fic and there's Hooch fic and there's Tonks fic in abundance, but it pales in comparison to Ginny, Hermione, Pansy, Fleur, Luna, other people.

(Hope thread-jumping is cool in here!)

[soukup]

there does seem to be a certain style to the fic that's quite distinct. I'm not sure how to describe it. I tend to prefer femslash that isn't written in this style, though.

I'm so curious about what you mean by this. While I can see that it makes total logical sense that in theory some sort of common style or set of conventions might evolve among femmeslash writers, I don't think I have enough basis for comparison to notice it myself! Are there any tropes or styles (or whatever, really) that stand out to you as being a part of this? Even if they only account for a tiny piece of the larger thing you meant, I'd still be very interested to hear about them.

(Also, btw, I am a femmeslasher, but I am very difficult to offend; if you wind up saying that you don't like something which I do, I will not be upset by that! *g*)

Re: (Hope thread-jumping is cool in here!)

[ranrata]

It's hard to describe, since I often backspace out of fic written in this style after a paragraph or two. It feels...very removed from canon. I recognize the characters, and the writing is fine (good, even excellent), but it reads like original fiction, somehow. Doesn't matter if it's pwp or what, I've seen it turn up in all types of fic. I wish I could be more specific, but I never really looked into it closely.

There were two fic written for a pairing I like recently, one I couldn't get through because it was written in this style. I really wish I could find the link for comparison.

Re: (Hope thread-jumping is cool in here!)

[soukup]

How interesting! I often feel like *all* of my writing probably reads like original fic -- in fact I'd say my favourite stories (both my own and those written by other folks) are the ones that really take the canon in new directions. I definitely haven't sampled enough of femmeslash fandom as a whole to evaluate whether that's a more general trend, but I'm going to keep my eye out for it from now on.

[pseudo_tsuga]

I dunno, I feel like my experience is really atypical in some ways. I read a lot of fic about anime/manga/video games and they all have way more femslash support if they aren't one of those canons where the majority of the cast are boys (like Oofuri). One on my main fandoms, Phoenix Wright, has a f/f couple as the second most popular pairing. It also seems like people are way more ready and willing to put girls together, especially as protest to big fandoms where they're both treated badly. In Naruto and Bleach, Orihimie/Rukia as well as Sakura/Ino or Sakura/Hinata have a sizable following from what I can tell. Of course the m/m and het pairings are more popular but there doesn't seem to be this drought that exists in Western media fandoms. Maybe I just know the wrong people for that though?

[dagas_isa]

I think animanga (and also J-drama/J-RPG) fandoms tend to have much more female character interaction than what you'd find in western fandoms. Yeah, the media tends to be more about guys and the female characters can get treated like crap, but you're also more likely to see girls talking to each other and not just about boys either, so it's easier to make the connections.

I'm not really recent with western media fandoms, but from what I can tell, it's the opposite here. Where women aren't maybe treated as bad, but they almost never interact.

[saekhwa]

Where women aren't maybe treated as bad, but they almost never interact.

THIS. It makes it so frustrating watching western media most days because you see all these awesome women, but they never talk to each other or hardly ever interact, which boggles my mind. Especially coming from animanga and comics.

[pseudo_tsuga]

Yes, I think both of you hit on the head. In manga they may be subject to a lot of ugly tropes but women at least talk to each other and form deep emotional connections, the perfect examples being Sakura & Ino in Naruto and Yoruichi & Soi Fon in Bleach.

[littlebutfierce]

*shrieks* Are you an Oofuri femslasher??? If so, now there are about 3 other people who might read my fic of us.

It's interesting, I feel like in animanga fandoms there's quite a big lack of femslash--but that might be partly b/c I'm pretty much not in non-anime fandoms right now (so have no point for comparison to Western fandoms), & my biggest fandom right now is Oofuri (which... ;_; for the ladies). & I don't read Bleach & Naruto. Clearly I am missing out!

[pseudo_tsuga]

Yes!! I haven't been on livjeournal in forever, though, so I must have missed your fics. Do you have any links? Are you on ao3?

Yeah, Oofuri is pretty bad because there are two main female characters and the moms...and that's it. Even if they're treated badly, Naruto and Bleach both have a lot of female characters who have lots of interactions with other females. Plus some have intense history together so it's sometimes almost laughably easy to write them together. I also have a very femslash-friendly flist including one person who digs up lots of f/f fanart so I'm willing to accept I may see more of it than the average fan. But I do still see a least a lot more visiblity. However, that also may be affected by the fandoms I read in as I'm sure stuff like Katekyo Hitman Reborn and Prince of Tennis (both of which I've never read) with mostly-male casts don't have much femslash.

ETA: Also, there's a lot more animanga where the femslash is canon and important. Some of them aren't even schoolgirl stories! sob. Just check out Lililicious and daily_yuri on livejournal. Whereas for TV shows we have...the L Word. And that's it.

[littlebutfierce]

Yes, all my Oofuri fics (most of which are femslash) are here. They're mostly not connected to each other but possibly better to start in date order? IDK... & no obligation to read, period, of course!! But yeah, there they are. Heh.

Given fandom's propensity for obsessing over even really minor & obscure characters, I kind of figured there would be more Oofuri femslash, even given the, um, limitations. (Shinooka is SO BORING in canon--by which I mean the anime & only the scanlated manga--that I almost feel like I have to write her to make her more interesting.)

Thanks for those links! I will check them out. I admit my perceptions of femslash fandom are colored by the fact that I v. v. rarely read fic in fandoms I'm not in--unlike lots of people, I don't generally tend to find it useful as a way to find new fandoms to get into (I like to read fic already knowing the background & able to spot the changes or openings the writer's made). Buuuut... I feel like I may have to revise that strategy w/femslash, cuz yes, I would like more of it! ;_; (& yet I have never really watched Sailor Moon, go figure.)

[soukup]

Being pretty new to fandom, I am totally unqualified to make any kind of sweeping statement about What Femslash Fandom Is or anything like that. But I can share my own limited experiences, for whatever they're worth!

Are there any femslash fans who are exclusively into femslash?

I think "exclusively" is kind of a strong word, but I'm pretty thoroughly a lesbian IRL, and that certainly carries over into my porn preferences. That's to say, I'll sometimes read porn with guys in it, if it comes highly recommended for other reasons, but it usually doesn't do too much for me sexually.

What are the canons that you think most femslash fans would (or should) know through osmosis

I've never been into either Buffy fandom (which I'm told has a good-sized crew of Faith/Buffy shippers) or Xena, but I've absorbed at least the names of the most commonly-femmeslashed characters and some basic information about the shows, just by reading metafandom off and on for a year or so.

Good questions! I'm excited to see where they go. And I'd be very interested in your "hazy reply," if you feel like taking the time to post it.

[dagas_isa]

Thanks for your responses. ^^

Buffy and Xena are definitely the top fandoms I can think of in terms of femslash (and I'm not into either as a fandom).

As for my hazy reply (that isn't too long). Just from the corner of femslash fandom I've been in, it does exist, but it centers more around a "You're not alone in liking/writing f/f pairings" camaraderie and pointing out canons that are particularly good at f/f fodder versus reading/commenting/reccing fic. There's also a lot fewer people who are exclusively into f/f as opposed to either liking every type of pairing, or liking slash pairings (m/m and f/f) in general, or liking pairings with at least one woman in them (m/f and f/f).

But that's based more on impressions than evidence.

[fred_mouse]

I'm in the odd headspace where I would like to read more femslash, because I don't find het or boyslash to be quite what I'm looking for, and yet, I haven't found an in yet. These is something about the way that the stories I've read have been presented that they manage to be whole in and of themselves, and don't inspire me to go looking for more of that pairing.

This may have something to do with the way that I end up in fandoms generally - I follow other people who do a lot of reading, and rec (and write) stuff that then gets me dragged in. And as yet, I haven't found that gateway person for femslash.

It also has to do with my tendency to grab hold of particular fandom, and not let go (I'm still stuck in Harry Potter fandom, for example, and have no desire to get out of it. I just haven't worked out who the perfect partner for Hermione is, for me), because I don't have the background in very many fandoms for the stories to grab me. Which I guess means that I'm not a 'femslash' fan specifically, but I am within the fandoms that I'm in (does that make any sense at all?)

[dagas_isa]

Kind of like, you're a fan of the fandom first, and then you look for the femslash in that fandom. That makes sense to me.

I'm not quite sure how to articulate my response to the rest of your post, except to say that it does make sense to me, and also maybe manages to put its finger on the reason why there isn't such a large open femslash fandom the way there is for maybe boyslash or het circles of fandom.

[twtd]

Answering the ones that I can:

Does femslash fandom (as a larger entity) exist?

I think that there is definitely a part of femslash fandom that wants to believe that it's all one entity, generally centralized around passion_perfect and the femslash_today newsletter, and there are efforts to inspire more pan-fandom community interaction though the online femslash con and things like that. So in that sense, there is a femslash fandom, though it isn't all encompassing.

In reality, everything is far too fragmented for that, and there are large swathes of fandom specific femslash communities that exist without any knowledge of a "wider" fandom being out there.

Are there any femslash fans who are exclusively into femslash?

This question actually strikes me as really funny, because I feel like femslash fandom, moreso than any other 'genre' can be incredibly insular. People read and write femslash without ever interacting with fandom outside of that, barely knowing it's out there. There's a reason that you don't see a lot of meta about femslash, why femslash is so profoundly under represented on the AO3, and it's because the community isn't as plugged into fandom at large as much as slash/het/gen fandom seems to be.

There was a discussion a couple of days ago (I forget whose journal it was on) about how people feel uncomfortable linking stories on f_t that involve het or slash relationships because they feel like the audience there isn't interested in anything that isn't exclusively femslash.

So, yeah, there are totally people out there who read femslash exclusively.

What are the canons that you think most femslash fans would (or should) know through osmosis (that is, they might never have experienced them, but would know through discussion/meta)?

I think Xean and Buffy are both big enough and pervasive enough that people get them through osmosis. And Xena did so much to establish the habits of femslash fandom. Maybe Star Trek: Voyager, as I think all of fandom gets Star Trek through osmosis and Voyager was the real outpost for femslash within the franchise.

[littlebutfierce]

because I feel like femslash fandom, moreso than any other 'genre' can be incredibly insular.

This is interesting to me--as a relatively new fic writer (one who writes femslash among other stuff), I feel like it's easy for femslashers in some fandoms to be ignored, b/c everyone is sooooooo into the guys. And so to me, I see it less as a cliquey, insular thing, more something motivated by being tired of putting stories out for them to not find an audience that really wants to read them.

[dagas_isa]

Thanks you for your perspective; it's definitely not a part of the femslash fandom that I've seen up close. (I've heard of femslash_today but usually in reference to yuri_today not taking off) The part of 'femslash fandom' I'm a part of doesn't necessarily have the critical mass or inclination to be exclusively into femslash, but it's interesting to see that exclusively femslash fandom exists.

I think Xean and Buffy are both big enough and pervasive enough that people get them through osmosis.

I definitely agree with that. Buffy is just one of the fandoms that I think anyone reading meta would know (and it has femslash and women to ship), while Xena is the one that always seems to be used as a reference point in meta or discussions on femslash. I haven't seen Voyager around so much, but I can see where it would be the preferred Star Trek for femslash.

[pseudo_tsuga]

Wow, I've actually never heard of either of those journals. *goes off to check it out*

[saekhwa]

I'd like to think that femslash fandom exists as a larger entity because I believe in that collective fandom awesomeness that we come together to talk (maybe not always squee) about common interests. But then again, I seriously can't find it. Maybe I'm missing the pulse of it because while I enjoyed Xena and Buffy, I wasn't really into the fandom side of things while it exploded. I was very much in the animanga and comics camp and mostly squeeing with my friends about the ladies of Sailor Moon or the id-tastic greatness of Tank Girl.

Having said all that, I can't really answer the follow up questions because I guess I don't feel that plugged into femslash fandom. I participate, but I always sort of feel like I'm on the outskirts, someone who enjoys it but isn't really included.

Me, personally? I'm into fantastic stories so I'll read anything: femslash, het, slash, gen. Not to say that I don't have my favorite pairings, but I don't have strict, hard boundaries either, so if a story has been recced or well-received or features a character that I love or seems like my bag of goodies, I'm there.

As to the last question, I often feel like I'm the only person who ships my teeny-tiny pairings. I watch some of the most obscure movies (e.g. Bitch Slap) and even for the not-so-obscure (e.g. Death Proof and maybe St Trinian's), I often feel like I'm playing in my own sandbox all by my little lonesome. I still write the stories I want to write, regardless, but I definitely feel like I'm missing something. Maybe the femslash fandom norms or culture? It's hard to pinpoint from where I'm standing.

[dagas_isa]

I still write the stories I want to write, regardless, but I definitely feel like I'm missing something.

I definitely feel ... maybe not 'alone' in being in femslash fandom...but more like playing alongside fellow fans in several cases as opposed to playing with. Which is still nice, because I'm not the only one reading/writing femslash even if I'm the only one who is reading/writing a particular pairings.

A lot of my purpose in writing the post is to wonder if it's this sense of being on the outskirts is actually the majority of femslash fandom or there's a 'fandom' in the more traditional sense.

[sqbr]

This is an interesting post but I'm too sleepy to answer your questions very well.

I think femslash fandom exists in a nebulous form: there are communities like this for example, but not the same coherent culture you get with a lot of fandoms around particular sources.

I would say there is a definitely a difference in the type of fic produced overall, all the same types of fic as in het/boyslash etc exist but in different ratios. More unrequited bittersweet endings and understated realism, I'd say, and less long plotty fics. From what I can see from DeviantArt with fanart there's a not insignificant proportion of male fans.

Xena is definitely one you can't really miss, also Devil Wears Prada.

The two fandoms I'm really in are Avatar the Last Airbender and Dragon Age Origins and they both seem pretty femslash friendly. Alas I don't like the main popular pairing for Avatar (Azula/Ty Lee) so don't actually read much femslash in the fandom but Dragon Age has a couple of canon f/f ships and my non-canon f/f has been quite popular, both with people who like f/f and those who just like those two characters.

It's been funny with my one Amy/River story: that's the only Dr Who story I've written, and I'm not really in the fandom (not even on the Amy/River community, since most people's approach to the pairing rubs me the wrong way) so the comments to it are my main connection to the fandom. When I encounter posts and links to mainstream Dr Who fandom I am reminded how HUGE and scary and weird (and aggressively obsessed with the het ships) it is compared to the nice friendly small backwater my fic sits in :)

[dagas_isa]

I would say there is a definitely a difference in the type of fic produced overall, all the same types of fic as in het/boyslash etc exist but in different ratios. More unrequited bittersweet endings and understated realism, I'd say, and less long plotty fics.

I've observed both of these things too, and I wonder if the less long plotty fics has to to with the fact that they require a higher amount of work for the likely feedback, and that as far as finding drive-by femslash, it requires a much higher commitment from readers. For me, I guess, reading say a 2,000 word f/f fic for a fandom I'm unfamiliar with is easier than reading a 20,000 word fic.

As for the higher degree of realism/bittersweetness: I do think it's a combination of more queer women writing femslash and trying not to write faux-lesbian porn.

[sqbr]

I do think it's a combination of more queer women writing femslash and trying not to write faux-lesbian porn.

Heh. Quite possibly in general, but with my reading habits the most common alternative to sad realism (and what I was thinking of) is cheerful silliness, not porn :D That said I do sometimes wonder if the fact that I prefer (and write) happy, often quite crack-ish femslash has anything to do with the fact that I'm straight and so relate to f/f relationships in a different way to all the lgbtq femslash writers. *pokes at metafandom femslash bookmarks* Here's a post I made about it

[summerstorm]

I do feel like femslash fandom as a larger entity exists, but I don't consider myself a part of it, not even close, so everything I say here is based on vague perceptions and not any kind of legitimate knowledge or experience.

Okay, while guyslash fandom, which I don't see as a larger entity the way I do femslash fandom, usually latches onto fandoms where there are strong male friendships/rivalries, I find femslash fandom seems to shift a lot towards fandoms where there are canonical f/f pairings. For instance, Grey's Anatomy had all these variations of Meredith/Cristina/Izzie/Addison possibilities from the start, but the femslashy side of the fandom didn't truly take off until Callie started dating Erica. Which I find funny because Erica is pretty widely disliked - except in femslash fandom, where people seem to love her, or at least write her a lot in many different pairings. She's not even on the show anymore, and now Callie's dating Arizona, who I absolutely love (though I'm half a season behind), but people are still all about the Erica/Callie and occasionally those two shipped with Addison. So even when it comes to canonical f/f couples, I don't understand how fandom picks and chooses.

Another example of ships/fandoms whose massive femslash presence I don't get: Devil Wears Prada. Huge fandom presence based on a one-shot movie from 200...5? which didn't even get that much hype in the first place (the way, say, Inception has). And the main ship is Andi/Miranda, i.e. Adorable Young Assistant/Fifty-Year-Old Boss. Which... is super random, because, okay, I like age differences (I have a ridiculous teacher/student kink), but it's so unusual for that kind of pairing to be the main one in a fandom, and even more so when you could also be shipping Andi/Emily, i.e. Adorable Young Assistant/Cold, Distant, Jealous Previous Assistant. They interact a lot. They're both gorgeous. I'm pretty sure if this were a slash fandom, Andi/Emily would be the most popular ship. But I digress.

Surprisingly for me, though, last year Glee fandom took off firstly with a f/f rivalry pairing, Rachel/Quinn, and then this summer Rizzoli & Isles seems to have gotten a lot of femslash presence, and I understand that's a cop show and Rizzoli and Isles are work partners/friends, so maybe (hopefully) those tendencies are changing.

Femslash fans who are exclusively into femslash: from what I see on femslash_today? There seem to be a lot. It's like that early slash hivemind where, when people moved fandoms, they moved to the next one with the big slashable m/m friendship (or Queer as Folk, but QaF always seemed to be kind of insular to me, in its own way, with a lot of fans who were, coincidentally, exclusively into QaF). That's what seems to be happening to femslash fandom as a collective entity.

This is actually one of the reasons I can't get into femslash fandom as such: I get into fandoms, and within those fandoms, I happen to like femslash pairings, as well as het pairings and m/m slash pairings and the occasional threesome. The thing is, I have a fair amount of people on my LJ flist who write femslash almost exclusively, sometimes in fandoms with canonical f/f pairings, but it never feels like they're part of that femslash fandom entity we're talking about. Maybe because I know them better and don't see them as part of a group, or because they have other interests that they talk about where I can see it.

I guess my point here is that I don't like that femslash fandom entity, because it doesn't make sense to me as a fannish collective. I'm not going to like a pairing just because it's femslash and that's somewhat rare. I'm not going to be interested in a fandom just because it has a strong femslash presence, or a canonical f/f ship. It can be a selling point, but not the only selling point. I liked the general idea of Emily/Naomi in season 3 of Skins, but I was so burned out by the show by that point that I had zero willingness to watch it. I'm glad there's a lesbian in Pretty Little Liars, but it's not even close to my favorite part of the show. I actually ship femslash pairings in it that "femslash fandom" seems to ignore solely because they're not Emily/one of her canonical love interests.

As to my experience shipping femslash (I wouldn't call myself a femslasher) in larger Western media fandoms: I feel alone. Not in a woe is me way, but in a "I'm going to write this pairing and out of the ten people, tops, who read it, four will read it because they're my friends, four out of curiosity/multishippiness/open-mindedness, and two because they're actually interested in the pairing." I don't feel alone in those fandoms, but I always feel a little bit like I'm the only one who cares and even thinks about my pairings. I had a great experience with Glee (before I lost interest in the show), but every other fandom where I ship femslash is taken over by het or slash or combinations of both. I recently got into The Vampire Diaries and there are so many female characters who regularly interact with each other, but almost no femslash fic. Bones fandom is OTP-ish to a fault, which means out of three women, two are basically taken, including the canonically bisexual one. (That said, I'm bound to be alone in my Bones ships, because I don't ship one of those OTPs—Angela/Hodgins—, and the character femslash fandom focuses on for Bones—Brennan—is a character who hits my embarrassment squick too painfully to read fic about her.)

This is such a long, disjointed comment. Sorry about that. And, again, disclaimer: this is all based on perceptions. I've been a lurker in many fandoms for a long time, but I could easily be way off about everything.

[dagas_isa]

Wow, thank you for this.

No, I know what you mean. I'm not really into western media type of fandoms at all (most of my experience with femslash as more than an isolated just-me entity actually comes from the Final Fantasy pan-fandom, and most of the rest comes from other Japanese media) so it's interesting to see what's going on with the sort of more concrete and insular western media Femslash fandom.

I can also sympathize with the feeling alone in writing femslash. I sort of liken the circle I run in is that we play alongside each other, as opposed to playing with each other. ^^;; Like no one necessarily cares about my pet pairings, but on the other hand, I don't feel so alone when I talk about f/f subtext, yuri goggles, or liking femslash, which can be nice in and of itself.

[summerstorm]

Oh, I like that description. My circle is sort of like that too—nobody looks at me weird for liking the pairings I like, and many people have their own pet pairings, though they're not usually f/f ones (but sometimes we'll write each other's pairings, anyway). I'm really happy with my friendslist.

[alixtii]

I'm pretty sure if this were a slash fandom, Andi/Emily would be the most popular ship.

Hell, if I were the King of DWP famdom, Andy/Emily would probably be the most popular ship. Which, I think, speaks to a central point: the typed of fantasies one enacts when one was is writing the opposite sex can be very different than when one is writing one's own.

What I think your analysis is missing, though, is Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Also all femslash written prior to Xena.) These are both polyshipper femslash fandoms, which makes something like femslash_minis possible: there are literally people who are willing to throw any two female characters together. I discuss this further here. (I actually have a list of different femslash meta posts I've written here, too.)

[unsettledink]

I really don't have enough experience to actually answer these questions well, but I thought I'd share a few femslash thoughts anyway.

I'm possibly a bit odd in that het really ucks me out, while I find both boyslash and femslash hot (and interesting in the non-smut variety). Which makes no sense.

I'm probably not really looking hard enough, but I tend not to find much femslash at all. It may also have to do that I'm not involved in some of the larger fandoms that seem to have a higher amount of femslash. But it tends to be the occasional rare finding for me. (although there are many tiny fandoms that could use some femslash for their awesome female characters.

...and then I started thinking on why *I* don't write the femslash I'm interested in seeing, and it comes down to 'it feels harder to write'. Which seems - odd, seeing as I'd think it would be easier writing about something I've more personal experience with. I think there's an element (for me) of feeling like I have to do it justice, i have to get it right, because I'll actually know the flaws. Whereas in boyslash I can mentally brush off a lot of those things with the terrible justification of "fantasy/how am I/readers supposed to know any way?" Which isn't good.

Something I've found that bugs me in a few of the femslash pairings I do read is pairing the girls up *because* their men have been paired up. I've seen this occasionally in the Ritchieverse Holmes fandom, where Mary and Irene are sort of thrown together just because Holmes and Watson *have* to be with each other. And that doesn't feel like it's being done for the women/femslash, but instead out of a feeling of guilt, and never reads well. (That's not to say I haven't seen Mary/Irene done very well.)

*snort* I also had a moment of 'wth?' when I realized I wanted to write a genderswap of two characters just so I could write femslash for them. There's something awfully askew about that...

[dagas_isa]

I'm possibly a bit odd in that het really ucks me out, while I find both boyslash and femslash hot (and interesting in the non-smut variety). Which makes no sense.

It does kind of. I think there's a good portion of people who like f/f who prefer all kind of slash pairings to het pairings to go along with people who prefer pairings with women in them (I'm in this group) along with the people who like everything and the exclusive femslashers.

...and then I started thinking on why *I* don't write the femslash I'm interested in seeing, and it comes down to 'it feels harder to write'. Which seems - odd, seeing as I'd think it would be easier writing about something I've more personal experience with. I think there's an element (for me) of feeling like I have to do it justice, i have to get it right, because I'll actually know the flaws. Whereas in boyslash I can mentally brush off a lot of those things with the terrible justification of "fantasy/how am I/readers supposed to know any way?" Which isn't good.

I've also seen a lot of discussion about the need for femslash to be more true to life than boyslash. Both from the awareness that f/f pairings when done wrong can definitely give off a "porn for straight guys" fake vibe that uh...isn't good. That and a lot of the larger f/f fandoms that I'm aware of are more grounded in reality than m/m fandoms.

*snort* I also had a moment of 'wth?' when I realized I wanted to write a genderswap of two characters just so I could write femslash for them. There's something awfully askew about that...

I think there's actually been discussion about whether genderswapped male characters counts as femslash. (And why genderswap doesn't happen in femslash) I think the consensus is that it's still either boyslash or in another "genderswap" category.

(Though I'd be (slightly) more likely to read a pairing of two canon male characters if it was a well-done genderswap than I would normally)

[unsettledink]

Mmm. I think it also has to do with the fact that the early het I found was *painfully* bad. Whereas I got lucky on the boyslash/femslash fronts and found some well done fics first. So I know I've a tendency to … not look at the het fics with much interest, although I bet I'd enjoy them a lot more now.

Yeah, I don't think I'd actually consider genderswap slash 'femslash'. I rarely see the appeal of genderswap at all, so ^that was extra baffling for me.

[fennel]

I'm possibly a bit odd in that het really ucks me out, while I find both boyslash and femslash hot (and interesting in the non-smut variety). Which makes no sense.

It does make sense, I think. I feel mostly like that.

Although I have a F/F preference, I still think some M/M is hot. Het never - the only het ship in recent years I could stand was because for a change, it wasn't dripping with sexism, and I still only found them somewhat cute, not particularly hot.

[unsettledink]

Thinking back, I can remember a few het fics I found actually hot - or interesting - so now I'm wondering why it holds so little appeal for me.

I'm wondering if it might have something to do with the fact that I really enjoy character whumping and extremely messed up relationship dynamics, and that feels … to close to life in het? I'm not sure. But when I think of some of the fics I enjoy most in m/m, reading those same situations in m/f would cause me to back button rather than UNF. …and thinking some more, I've read those situations in f/f and really enjoyed it. Hmmm.

[cleo]

Great questions. It's definitely interesting that these are the big questions that keep coming up in the little bit of femslash meta there is. That said, I do think femslash fandom as a larger entity thinks it exists, but there's definitely a an insularity overall and an insularity within. When it comes to the large fandoms or the new fandoms that create a lot of buzz, there's some community and a lot of visibility in the general femslash comms. But there are only a few large fandoms, and by comparison to slash or het heavy fandoms, they aren't really very large at all. It seems to me that femslash fandom as a whole is made up of a lot of small fandoms, incredibly fragmented and closed off to what else might be going on in other femslash fandoms/fandom as a whole.

It's hard to generalize about anything. With femslash fandom overall there seems to be something of an uneven split between people who are exclusively into femslash in one or two fandoms and people who are into a little bit of everything. I'm not saying one camp is better than the other, and those lines are definitely not so definite. But sometimes it really seems that a lot of femslash fandom isn't in touch with trends within fandom as a whole, that if there's a guy lurking in the story or a het relationship or slash relationship on the side, it's not readable or whatever. And it seems that there tends to be a reluctance to explore and branch out or to keep up with other things that might be going on...that's one reason twtd and I started the femslash Kink Meme...but I won't go into that. There's not a profusion of meta, which I think is why the meta that does get written goes to the big questions you're asking--and omg they're great questions.

Your questions about canons that femslash fans would/should know by osmosis...hmm, it really strikes me. I think give or six years ago Xena, Voyager, and SVU would have been the definite answers. Now, I'm not so sure. Again...not a ton of discussion and meta (which maybe is changing...) to absorb a lot of that from.

And naturally, twtd got here before I did and said pretty much the same things I've said. Lol...can you tell we live together and maaaaaybe have discussed these things? ;)

Here by metafandom

[fennel]

Interesting questions.

I sure think a femslash fandom exists - I'm in it for sure, after all! Well, it mostly is for japanimation/manga, not for western media, because anime usually is easier for femmeslash. Female characters actually interact, for one. Sure, manga characters often face sexist tropes, but so do characters in western media, equally so, if not worse. I generally find that female anime characters have it slightly better, as long as you don't go for big shonen fandoms.

The central feature is a kind of wish to have canon ships and focus on them. The femslash/yuri fandom I am a part of really likes canonical(ish) ships and latches to canons where it can get that. Like the Nanoha fandom, for example, where two women end up with a career in the military, raising a kid together, and sharing a bed, and being called a family unit by everyone else. Fandom obviously takes that as canon enough ^^

I am not sure how much it differs from het fandom/guyslash fandom, because I am mostly an exclusive femslash fan. I generally cannot stand het (because I get bombarded with heteronormativity IRL, thus I avoid het ships in stories, and even make a conscious choice to avoid media that mostly is het).

The main interactions I have seem to be forum based.

The canons most femslash fans I know are familiar with are Mariasama ga miteiru, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha, Kannazuki no Miko. Less so Strawberry Panic, Utena, Aoi Hana, and Sasameki Koto. All those do have canonical lesbian characters, or at least VERY deep subtext.


My personal experiences as a femslasher? Avoid big fandom communities like the plague.
Only recently have people stopped bashing femslash on principle. A couple years ago, people at, say, animesuki.com would routinely deny that even canonical lesbian characters could be lesbian. A decade ago, people would make up fake interviews to "prove" that a lesbian character was, somehow, actually a guy and thus didn't count ("Prince Uranus", a campaign to purge those scary lesbians from Sailor Moon).
Since I started to be in fandom back then, my experience with non-femslash fandom has been very negative, and I generally shy back from it. I greatly prefer the smaller, femslash oriented places.

Those are my thoughts, anyway. ^^; Hope they aren't too boring or useless.

via Metafandom

[miss_prince]

I'm always up for a femslash conversation! Although it's one in the morning so I'm probably pretty incoherent.

I'd say sort of yes, there's an overarching femslash fandom. As others have said, there's femslash_today and Passion & Perfection, but they're pretty narrow-focused imo and are really all about Western media fandom. Being a femslasher doesn't necessarily mean you're part of that overarching entity, though.

You know, it's weird, I've seen a lot more examination of femslash fandom(s) in a Western media context even though I'm really not in any Western media fandoms.

Some trends I've noticed in femslash in general... agreed on the sad, realistic ending thing. It's not like it's super common, but it's kind of hard for me to imagine the old "this is but a fleeting moment, now back to our lives apart" plot happening much in m/m. M/m always seemed more prone to tragic death if they were going to break a couple up. Anyway, I think this trope happens more for rarer ships where the fic is sticking closer to canon. There's also a tendency toward shorter fic, yes, and the porn is likely to be more impressionistic and less detailed, possibly due to not wanting to deal with naming parts. And yes, femslash fandoms spring up more readily around media with canon f/f, so you'll find obscure little movies like DEBS getting a decent trickle of fic, at least for a while.

None of these are hard and fast rules, obviously, and they apply mostly to LJ fandom. When I look for fic in other places, I'm more likely to find happy endings and longer plots and graphic porn, although I'm less likely to find decent writing.

Canons femslash fans would know... depends on the corner, I guess. East/west is a big divide there. For west, idk, probably Xena and Buffy. For animanga, Utena definitely, Sailor Moon, possibly Maria-sama ga Miteru, though that one doesn't get a lot of fic.

I would consider myself exclusively into femslash as much as possible without being a totally inflexible dolt. I've written gen and m/m for exchanges and a couple spur-of-the-moment crack!fics, I have one m/m/f threesome I occasionally enjoy, and the rest of my output and intake is femslash. I'm mostly in Ace Attorney fandom, which has a nice wide selection of women and some lesbian fanon floating around (it is pretty much impossible for me to imagine Adrian Andrews as straight now). I dabble in the Persona 3 and 4 fandoms, both of which have female characters interacting in their canons. 4 especially has a hefty f/f subset thanks to Chie and Yukiko's whole prince thing and general BFF-ness. And I circle around the edges of FFXIII fandom, which is completely made for femslash, but sadly not all that many people have played it. Most of my fandom activity is on kink memes, and I think prompt-based areas like that really encourage more rare pairs to be written, including femslash.

I should really go to bed now urrrrrk

[koredaze]

# Does femslash fandom (as a larger entity) exist?
# If it does, what, other than the obvious (having at least one f/f ship), are the central features of femslash fandom?
# How is femslash fandom culture different from (or the same as?) het fandom/guyslash fandom?

Better late than never. To me femslash is practically anti fandom. It's usually about what's not there in canon. For the most part it's inherently AU by fandom definition but not by femslash definition. In femslash AU tends to mean Uber and is often published with the characters clearly recognizable, but with different names in a different setting.

Femslash writers take characters and say hey, would they work? They're both strong awesome women, let me create this. Though the more it draws on something in canon usually the better it is received. And I do think femslash readers will read any pairing that sparks whether it is because of the characters or the actors. I've read fic from shows I never watched, or only tuned into because of the femslash fic it generated.

I only have one story written so I don't have a lot of experience, but I posted it first in a fandom fic community as opposed to femslash specific. The story plays off against canon and is the first of a series where women in femslash relationships take center stage. Wat killed me was getting feed back from a beta, that all the people in his writing group objected to a character that had a canon lesbian relationship being portrayed a lesbian, and were of course horrified that I put 'straight' characters in a relationship together. At least two had turned canon queers straight in their stories.

The fandom is also chalk full of M/M. And yeah, most is written by women. They have communities dedicated to the women in the series, seem to want non-femslash fics. What I got when I posted to the big bang is what I'd been warned of, pitifully few readers. On fanfic . net I got more and a few reviews from people reading because of the show and not the femslash. So that experience has been better.

I haven't posted to the femslash sites yet for fear of disappointment. It is not a pairing from a popular femslashed show, or even a pairing that's been done before. (except by the person who gave me the idea for it). Which brings me to another question. Am I shocked by what takes off and what doesn't. Yes. TDWPrada boggles my mind. The pairing possibilities that get overlooked stagger me. I wish I was some prolific writer that could fill in the gaps.

I find myself saying, well if it's a het or M/M writer I know is excellent I'll give it a read, if it's a character I'm trying to get a hold of for my writing I look. But I think I'm going to go back to cruising primarily femslash and let the rest go. There is too much femslash across the net in archives and what not I haven't read. As for the continuation of my story, I'm thinking of femslashing more characters than I originally intended. It'll make me happy.

[geekgrrllurking]

Hi there, I've stumbled upon this discussion, I'm not exactly sure how and felt compelled to add my two cents to the discussion.

Does femslash fandom (as a larger entity) exist?
I actually find this a little shocking that you've asked this. Probably because these are the only fandoms that I interact with online. I have no interest in all in m/m or het and maybe I am in a minority...

If it does, what, other than the obvious (having at least one f/f ship), are the central features of femslash fandom?
I think one of the main features of a femslash fandom is that there is a romance and not always just sexsexsex. A story needs to be well told and feelings explored in many various ways. I've always just assumed this was universal to all fandom type writing, but as I noted above I'm not well versed in other types out there. Strong female characters are important as well I think.

How is femslash fandom culture different from (or the same as?) het fandom/guyslash fandom?
I think femslash fandom culture really don't want men in the picture much at all. In fact strong female characters solving their own problems or telling our own stories is an attractive feature to femslash.

What are the main fannish interactions in femslash fandom?
I would say the femslash archive site Passion and Perfection found at www.ralst.com is how a lot of femslash readers find each other. That will eventually lead to the passion_perfect lj community. Also International Femslash Day had it's second annual appearance this summer. This was also the first year that an online femslash convention occurred at the same time, with panel discussions and many authors interacting with femslash fans. It was a ton of fun. There are also several boards out there dedicated to various specific fandoms where there can be a sense of community.

Are there any femslash fans who are exclusively into femslash?
*raises hand* and I somehow doubt I'm the only one. While I have dabbled on the straight side I thankfully realized it was just a phase I was going through in college that I grew out out *grin* As many, if not most, femslash readers seem to be lesbians they tend to only want to read f/f pairings only. I personally have no interest in het or m/m fic at all, generally speaking, although I do have a soft spot for SG1 fic with Jack and Daniel as a couple.

What are the canons that you think most femslash fans would (or should) know through osmosis (that is, they might never have experienced them, but would know through discussion/meta)?
There are several huge ones that come to mind, with Xena being the mother of them all. From Xena sprung online femslash like you wouldn't believe. Buffy, Law and Order SVU, Star Trek Voyager, and most recently Guiding Light's Olivia and Natalia aka Otalia was gigantic in the femslash world (also one of my personal favourites to both read and write)

What are your personal experiences being a femslasher in a (small/large/eastern/western/etc) fandom?
As a fan I love reading it and that tends to inspire me to write it too. I've devoured the archive sites at Passion Perfection, the Pink Rabbit Consortium www.altfic.com, the Bard's Corner over on www.ausxip.com, the fanfic site for Otalia at www.incandescentfire.com.
As a writer, I have many fandoms that I enjoy exploring, from the extrememly popular Otalia to the obscure like Bionic Woman (2007). I think the femslash culture is smaller, more intimate almost (or I suppose insular is an accurate description) and y'know what, I kind of like it like that.

If you haven't explored a lot of the femslash out there, I encourage you all to check out some of those archive sites to get you started!