Introduction/Paryt/Hang Out Post!

[amaresu]

So, apparently this community has 211 members with 308 subscribers and I bet you barely know each other. I know that I barely know you. So we are having an introduction/party/hang out post of greatness!

What do you do here? Introduce yourself in a comment, reply to other peoples comments, talk about that bizarre idea you've had and didn't think anyone else would be interested in, throw out some ideas you think this comm could have fun with, basically have fun and get to know each other. There's no wrong way to do this. Except .gif spamming in a top level comment because there are still people out there on dial up.

I'll go first in the comments.

Comments

[amaresu]

So, things about me! I'm a mod around here, I hate to see this place active only once a year, I will eventually get around to make a masterpost of the mini-metas, and I desperately want an all-female version of something like The Losers.

Let's see, as much as I find those "Why I Slash" essays to be asinine and navel-grazy I really wish there were all sorts of "Why I Femslash" essays to match them. I think Vampire Diaries is probably the best show currently on tv (and I say that without any irony). I'm re-reading Animorphs and I wish that Discworld fic had more Susan/any-female-character-ever-but-really-Agnes-or-Unity-please, but I'm incapable of writing Susan it seems.

Also I'm terribly addicted to Echo Bazaar.

I'd love it if you'd let me know what you'd like to see done around here.

[lilacsigil]

The cool things about Vampire Diaries are so awesome (Elena! Caroline! Bonnie! Liz! Female friendships, mothers and daughters, Katherine and Emily) and the bad things so bad (woobie!Damon, all the characters of colour except one dying). But that doesn't stop me watching it, because most shows have those bad parts without the awesome to make up for it.

[cleo]

I started watching TVD with friends this season and then devoured the first season. Needs. More. Femslash. For real!

[catpella]

Yaaaay Animorphs! *cheer* Rachel is still one of my favorite examples of an amazing female character; she's strong-willed and courageous, but she's also flawed by her bloodlust and recklessness. I really loved that dichotomy of strong but vulnerable.

[havocthecat]

I really wish there were all sorts of "Why I Femslash" essays to match them.

I wrote one of those! I mean, the general consensus of everyone who commented was basically "women omg yay!" So I think that the answer is terribly, terribly obvious to most of us who are in femslash?

But I still wish there were a plethora of those essays out there.

I desperately want an all-female version of something like The Losers.

I think we should have a comm "make your own all-female team" post, maybe in the style of The Losers and Leverage both? Or a thread? Wait, I have a better idea. I'll start a thread for it!

[tamsin]

Have you read Not Exactly Human? It's Susan/Angua. I really enjoyed it.

I'd love to read more Granny Weatherwax/Nanny Ogg fic, but sadly there's not much out there.

Cool beans!

[dharma_slut]

I don't write fan fiction very much-- I write original fic in a sort of fannish way, I guess. I write a lot of women, because women just don't often get written about in the way I want to read them. So I do it myself.

And now that orig fic has been allowed-- at last-- I just picked me up a Kink_Bingo card, YAY! It's going to be mostly female centric for me.

I keep thinking... I have a number of "universes" that my characters exist in. If anyone wants to write in those same universes, I wouldn't mind!

One is an urban setting, not magical or anything like that-- just a group of different BDSM and leather oriented women, each on her different journey.

Another is a space opera setting, where the Ships are sentient and bonded to their pilots, and another is... well, that one is a shared universe already, looking for more sharers; http://pom.probablepossible.com/

Re: Cool beans!

[lately]

This is a fabulous idea. I love the collaborative nature of fandom, but we don't always get the right fnadoms to be able to pursue the ladies.

[lea_hazel]

I want to see the conversation about women in fiction expand, a lot, and I'm at a loss as to how to start that conversation myself. I want to talk about things like role models, broken women, women and trauma, asexuality, bisexuality, rough sex, threesomes, romantic friendships and other things. I just don't know where to start.

[amaresu]

I'd love to talk about all that too, but I think you'd really have to break it down. Maybe a series of posts? Or something? Is there any particular type of fiction?

[ein_myria]

Hi, I'm mostly a lurker and reader of femslash lol. I've been reading f/f online since the mid 90s, on a 28.8k modem, since amaresu mentioned dial-up. lol. I mostly rec femslash fics, with a few exceptions here and there.

I have a confession to make; I have never seen any eps of some of the fandoms I've read a lot of femslash in, and yet I have no problem in gushing over the fanfics. :) I wonder if it's just me. lol

[havocthecat]

It's not just you. I'll read the femslash when I've never seen an ep of a series quite often. The writers can come up with such vibrant stories you don't always need to, you know?

[aryas_zehral]

Its not just you. Some shows I've only come to because of fic. Some shows I don't even care that much about but I find one or two characters I just kinda wanna fic or read fic or read meta. Glee is one of those shows for me. I have favourite characters and least favourite characters and fic I'm following... but when I try and watch the show I pretty much fast forward over most of it. :S

[lilacsigil]

I like both reading and writing femslash! I didn't have internet access until I was 19, and immediately jumped into fandom - I know people sometimes scorn the millions of soft-focus falling-in-love stories, and the PSA-type coming out fics, but as a teenager in a rural town who didn't actually know lesbians existed, I would have loved those fics. I'm primarily a superhero comics fan, especially X-Men, and for all the debates about over-sexualised images, sexist writing, killing off female characters and so on, comics are still a great place to find a huge cast of women who interact with each other, have histories together and sometimes (see icon) canonically get together.

As for the comm, I'd love to see something like mini metas on, say, femslash-friendly fandoms, a place to ask for fic recs, ship manifestos and so on. "Meta" sounds so important that it can be intimidating to write!

[amaresu]

I've always wanted to be more into comics than I am. But even when I read them on a regular basis they tend to be the first thing cut when money gets tight. Also there's the problem of where to start with some things, like I read the Batwoman run and had a desire to maybe start exploring the Bat Family, but there's so much of it. Where do I even start?

[dagas_isa]

I write meta, f/f, and other female-centered fic (m/f and gen), and I actually really hate a lot of attention myself but I like saying things. Most of my fandoms are Final Fantasy/Anime/Manga etc, mostly stuff that isn't western TV, movies, or comics, and most of them are Yuletide fandoms. Mostly, I want to see some unabashed love and fangirling for (specific!) female characters and f/f ships going on. I'm really just very tired of the "how is [some series'] portrayal of female characters sexist" and "why do we not pay attention to female characters" meta, and definitely want to see more meta directly loving on or involving female characters casually (for example, a generic "how to write a sex scene" meta piece but including f/f pairings as examples).

[dharma_slut]

for example, a generic "how to write a sex scene" meta piece but including f/f pairings as examples).

You are so right. And I am so guilty of this. When I write about writing on lj/dw, I tend to use m/m examples because the preferences here are so much about slash.

When I write them elsewhere in the internet, I write them het, because I don't want to confuse the hets. But at least-- I write them women-led. I think.

[calvinahobbes]

I would not only love a generic "how to write a sex scene" featuring f/f pairings, I would actually also love a specific "how to write an f/f sex scene". I think I have seen something like that somewhere? But more's the better...

[cleo]

Hi, I'm cleo, another mod around here. I tend to write a lot of femslash but only read things that have been rec'ed to me or have really caught my eye in the header info somehow. I also, and I should hang my head for this, tend to talk about a lot of meta with twtd but never actually getting around to writing much of it. I'm really interested in how femslash functions different than slash for its readers and writers and how it functions in similar ways because I think there is a difference in how some femslash readers/writers relate to ff work. And I love just talking about women and their roles on tv and in books, etc. And subtext...yay subtext!

I tend to write rare or unusual pairings when they catch me...mostly for the challenge. My fandoms...tend to vary but include SVU and Rizzoli & Isles and then whatever else catches my attention. Right now I want to write some Camelot (Starz) femslash, but I have to get past my own knowledge of Arthurian legend and put myself wholly in the show's universe to get it done!

[calvinahobbes]

It probably goes without saying, but I bet there are many of us who would love to read your thoughts, if you ever wanted to write something down.

And I can relate to writing unusual pairings. Sometimes I think I'm doing it on purpose, selecting fandoms nobody knows or going for the pairing that is apparently not obvious to anyone else... (Not that I haven't written semi-popular pairings, as well.)

My All Female "The Losers"-style Team

[havocthecat]

Sophie Devereaux - Both a grifter and a mastermind (she evolved over the course of the series). I would say "what could go wrong?" but you know there would be problems if she tried to schedule a job and audition simultaneously.

Jenny Calendar - Every Losers-style team needs a computer hacker, and it's hard not to want one who packs a technomagical punch.

Laura Cadman - Because she likes to blow shit up. Also, she can probably fly things, and she's got those awesome contacts with the classified weirdos over at Cheyenne Mountain (and in Atlantis Antarctica).

Faith Lehane - The team needs its very own slightly unstable close combat specialist! (Plus then you have Faith for all your angsty treachery-and-redemption plotlines.)

Kate Freelander - Kate's your go-to gal for freelancing, shady, underhanded deals with the criminal types, and she's a damn good shot. They could use her.

[calvinahobbes]

Hello my name is Calvina. I lurk here. I originally subscribed to this comm, because I have always been vaguely interested in reading more f/f, but I am pretty firmly ensconced in m/m fandom, and I don't come across many f/f writers or recs. I hoped that general discussion in the comm would guide me towards authors and stories I'd want to read, so I'm saddened by the relative quiet here. But of course, it's mostly my own fault because I'm bad at seeking things out.

A couple of weeks ago I watched my first episode of Rizzoli and Isles, and I totally see it. I really, really do. I should make sure to watch some of that. (I had my own imaginary tv show with a cop couple, once upon a time, featuring Kate Moennig and Eliza Dushku. Good times...)

I am also newly fond of the web comic Girls With Slingshots, which has Jamie/Erin, who seem pretty darn ace to me. They are adorable.

And then of course I'm still hoping someone will write that epic Vastra/Jenny fic where they solve crime in Victorian London and have kinky sex together...

[amaresu]

I've been reading Girls With Slingshots since you linked it over at asexual_fandom and it's sucking up all my time. Pfft.

Maybe we need to make a general rec post over here? Post your top five favorite fics? Something like that?

[aryas_zehral]

Hiya,

I'm Sayra. I'm pretty much over at lj all the time but I keep meaning to spend more time over this away. I have been trying to read more female centric and femslash fic of late because it struck me a while ago that although I am a girl, and although almost all of my friends are female, and although I am a feminist who rails against how few awesome women there are around in fiction I.... tend to just read endless boyslash or fic about male characters. And it made me... unhappy. So I want to... redress the balance I guess. Find what is good, what are the tropes, be more demonstrative of my pride and interest and enthusiasm for women and female characters.

In terms of what I actually do.... well I'm working on an all femslash first line bingo for kink_bingo and I'm a mod over on LJ's femslash_land (although its having the summer off at the moment). Oh, and I have endless endless conversations about JJ/Emily on Criminal Minds. :D

What I would like, in terms of discussions, well maybe we could champion female characters or discuss history of femslash because- you know what- I've heard plenty about boyslash but femslash... really not heard that much. I'm also kind of with dagas_isa on the whole "we should start talking about what women do well and less on the fail of certain shows" even though I still have a tendancy to go right to that arguement (because, omg, there is so much fail!!). So, yeah, it would be good to have discussions but I think we want to try and not make it either too self-congratulatory or as self-defeating as many conversations about women characters are.

[amaresu]

I know I've heard some history of femslash, but I get the impression that it's not nearly as coherant as slash. There seems to have been little pockets that eventually merged. I agree that it's be nice to have a discussion on how people think it developed/precieved it to develop.

Also 3rding you and dagas_isa. More talking about the things that get done right.

[sophinisba]

Hey there, I'm Sophie. I mostly participate in fandom by writing fic and making podfic, including a lot of femslash and lady-centric het. I mostly write Merlin and even though most people seem to have given up on Gwen/Morgana as a pairing, I think the ship's opened up for some new and darker possibilities in the last two years. So I get the heartbreak and disappointment with the show but I'm still there shipping it.

Then I've always liked reading meta, though I tend not to write it much. I wonder if one way of getting more participation here would be to have some not-so-deep discussion topics, just like someone bringing up a trope they like (or don't) and other people could say whether that's something that comes up much in femslash in their fandoms, maybe talking about specific fanworks.

[amaresu]

So maybe just some general discussion posts? I can roll with that.

[sqbr]

I'm Sophie alias sqbr, I've been waiting to reply to this until I wasn't feeling so blah but that doesn't seem to be happening, so I apologise if this is a bit all over the place.

I must admit that femslash is a (large) minority of my fannish consumption/output, but I am all about the female characters. I mostly draw gen-ish fanart, plus the odd bit of fanfic. My two big fannish obsessions right now are the Bioware game Dragon Age and webcomic Homestuck, both of which combine lots of cool female characters and canonical f/f with extreme problematicness.

I agree with dagas_isa that it would be cool to have general fannish posts which place f/f and female characters as the assumed default but aren't only applicable to them. Also, I've been vaguely thinking that fandom has too many attempts at an authoritative "this is how fandom is" when we need more "This is how fandom works for me, what about you?". But that might just be because I'm better at the latter :)

A specific post I was pondering is the very simple: what kind of femslash do you like? What sorts of f/f relationships draw you in?

[piscaria]

I'm Piscaria. I pretty much lurk here, and on DW in general, but that could always change.

Let's see, a little about me. I've been writing fanfiction since I was in middle school, but I'm trying to branch out and submit some of my original work for publication (my goal is five submissions by September 1st, so I need to get on that!). Because of that, I've been thinking a lot lately about the divide between my original fiction, which is so centered around female characters that I need to remind myself to write some men into it, and my fanfiction, which is pretty male-dominated. I'd like to stop that trend, to write strong women in fanfiction and let some interesting men co-star in my original fic (because I'm not getting rid of my leading ladies, of course!).

I've written a few fan stories from female POVs, but the main issue for me is that the fandoms that call me to write in them never seem to have female characters that speak to me. There are shows with strong female characters that I LOVE (Doctor Who and Star Trek DS9 come to mind first), but I've written long-ass meta about the qualities that draw me to write fanfiction about something, so I won't bother to get into that here.

That said, my earliest fandom was probably The Baby-Sitters Club, and I still maintain that Claudia was crushing over Ashley Wyeth like nobody's business. I have a Claudia/Ashley WIP that I need to finish up one of these days. I also loved all of the Andy/Miranda stories that came out of The Devil Wears Prada.

I love stories that focus on all sorts of the relationships women have with each other: as lovers, as mothers, as daughters, as sisters, as friends, as mentors, as mentees, as enemies. I love the nuances in relationships between women.

[nocowardsoul]

I would read that Claudia/Ashley in a heartbeat.