Fem Thoughts

Disclaimer: I 'm only speaking from my experience and am not way authoritative. I have never been in a fandom dominated by femslash. This may  affect my perspective.

Some fannish background

I am a fan in Marvel comics fandom, which 's weird in that while the X-Men part of it is big, the rest of it doesn't receive a lot of love. In fact, the current subset I'm in doesn't even exist until 2006. It's still small enough to qualify for Yuletide. The canon is complex, convoluted, with loads and loads of characters and over fifty years of history. It's pretty much like a maze and you need a guide to get into it. If you're new to it, you may not know what to begin. There're quite a amount of female characters, and there's enough canon to suppot certain pairings. But you have to first know they exist, not to mention how to find them.

This doesn't help you to find, not to say to build a pairing. In fact, my google-fu only managed to find 3 short femslash fics in my subset when I set out for it. The date stamp for femslash in Marvel in AO3, though may not be very representative, proves my perception. They only come into existence in two years.

Now the percentage of Marvel femslash on AO3 is still not high, a total of 33 out of 416. The percentage is similar to that in DCU and Homestruck and higher than the average 1000 stories updated in a month in AO3. It's higher than Harry Potter fandom and SGA, both the biggest  fandom  on AO3. A decent percentage, considering that there are femslash fanwork uncollected in kink meme and else where on LJ/DW.

How does it grow from practically zero to a newcomer like me to now? Well, it seems like boasting, but I contribute to it by writing 7 of them and inspires a remix of mine.  And I get into the joy of multi-shipping of femslash through the help of fans.

Firstly, my subset like many others is slash dominated, (in fact it starts from a slash epic), but the main hub of it 's very female-character friendly. (There were once a mod-initiated appreciation of canon love interest post ) Bashing of female characters as I know is not allowed on the main com. Several of the high profile fans write femslash as a background pairing. There's at least a femslash friendly area.

Secondly, the fans post about them. I get into Misty Knight/Colleen Wing (Badass POC female characters kick ass and be awesome together! Decades of friendship in canon! Meaningful glances and hugging and crying! One free from mind control due to sheer love of another!) through picspam and squee post of a fan. When I got curious and asked her about it, she  was very nice and guided me toward the way to get canon. I was totally convinced then. When I started to write, she betaed for me. I don't think I'll be a fan of the pairing without her.

When I start to write and post, I crosspost to wherever appropriate and hope for the best. I post in AO3 and tag like hell. I join the panfandom exchange and kink meme to prompt for femslash. I offer myself to write femslash pairing. I regularly leave prompts for femslash on comment fic com. I try my best to leave kudos and comment on the related fanwork.

My experience concluded:

1. Post, and people will follow. Writing fic is one of the means. But squee post, review ship manifesto, meta, recommendation, linkspam  are all good. Post to the bigger platform and attract people.

2.  Use every chance to increase you ship's visibility. Comment fic community, kink meme, panfandom exchange, everything. Prompt everywhere you can. To let people know that someone wants it. It can make a difference.

3. Connect to other fans. In comics fandom, there's a saying that there's never only you. I believe that it applies to all other fandoms. It's easier in a small fandom where everyone pretty much know everyone. But sometimes take the initiative and it may surprise you.

4. Try to maintain a femslash friendly environment everywhere you post.

5. Have fun, and don't give up!

It's my experience of shipping a rare pairing  in a small fandom. I would like to know yours.