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

[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