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

(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.