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.

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/

[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.

[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

[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'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?

[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?

[lilacsigil]

Ha, yes, comics is a very big place, and a series that's excellent with one creator might be absolutely awful with another! I'm not so into the Bat-clan apart from Oracle, so Birds of Prey would be a good title to go to for lots of cool women. The Catwoman series written by Brubaker and drawn by Cooke is really good, too. So are all the various Batgirl series (with Barbara (Batgirl: Year One), Cass or Stephanie as Batgirl).

[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.

[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).

[cleo]

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

[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!

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.

Re: Cool beans!

[dharma_slut]

yes! What kind of universes would you want, to write women in?

We could start building them...

[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.

[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!

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.

[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?

[havocthecat]

If you wanted to have open posts about the subjects in this comm, and didn't always want to be the one to post to them, I would be happy to guest host something here.

Re: Cool beans!

[havocthecat]

This is a wonderful idea.

Re: Cool beans!

[lately]

I actually have a great example for this. I have a fictional universe of bands that I have two Nano novels about, and in the latest version, I introduced an all-girl queercore band for the boys to go on tour with... They weren't technically mine - characters made up by friends of mine, but fanon'd up, as it were, by yours truly... :)?

[amaresu]

Exactly. So many shows have so much fail and not a lot of awesome. It's nice to have a show with a lot of awesome even if it still fails.

[amaresu]

Lots more femslash! I want Anna/anybody to be honest.

[amaresu]

Animorphs was always a book series I regretted never finishing as a kid. So it's happy making to finally get around to it. Rachel is one of the most amazingly flawed characters ever. Period. I love how well rounded her character is, from teen shopping princess to death goddess, she's just awesome.