I can't decide if this is meta or a rant...

[lyssie]

I've been seeing this... I don't know if I'd call it a trend, but perhaps it is one? But, basically, there's been comments in fandom_secrets and other places that generally boil down to:

No one writes the femslash I want to read.

Which is all well and good, but--look. What does that even mean?

Comments

[havocthecat]

No one writes the femslash I want to read.

Which is all well and good, but--look. What does that even mean?

Is it your fandom? Your pairing? The type of fic? Are you looking for curtains and fpreg and gun battles and existentialist arguments about the meaning of life when you have multiple bodies?

I don't know, because rarely do the people making the complaints bother to explain.

Honestly? My 100% honest, not nice at all opinion is that people think saying that is a nice way to make it LOOK like you'd be interested in fic about women, if only those darn femslashers would just read your mind and write what the commenter wanted.

Because it's a lot easier to say "no one writes the femslash I like" than to go out there, find the femslashers, engage with them, and find out what kind of femslash is out there and being written

[miss_prince]

Honestly? My 100% honest, not nice at all opinion is that people think saying that is a nice way to make it LOOK like you'd be interested in fic about women, if only those darn femslashers would just read your mind and write what the commenter wanted.

Not necessarily true. I read and write femslash almost exclusively. It's what I'm interested in; it's what I care about. But I have made comments to this effect before -- not that there's no one writing the kind of femslash I want to read, because that's really not true, but that there's a certain style of writing typical to a lot of (particularly Western media-based, although it does spill over into other types) femslash that I find... incredibly boring.

And it's sort of hard to define. I guess it's the sort that doesn't really have a plot, and the language is lyrical but the characters don't feel particularly strong, either. It ends up being very bland. And weirdly enough, the two places I'd point for examples of this are the femslash_today links (although I have found good stuff there on occasion

[havocthecat]

not that there's no one writing the kind of femslash I want to read, because that's really not true, but that there's a certain style of writing typical to a lot of (particularly Western media-based, although it does spill over into other types) femslash that I find... incredibly boring.

Hrm. I see your point! But I would also like to point out that you do find what you're looking for, if not as frequently as you'd prefer. Which is a shame, because it sounds like you're interested in some very-- I don't know, maybe intense-sounding? Is that the right word for the fics you're interested in? Plot-heavy? Would you mind giving examples of what you like? Because I'm curious now

[roga]

I do not know this community but I would totally pimp Bandom femslash there as part of my overall mission to pimp Bandom /o\

[miss_prince]

Would you mind giving examples of what you like? Because I'm curious now.

Well, fic with a strong A plot in addition to the romance B plot (or vice versa) is probably my favorite type of fic, yes :P But I'm also happy with one-shots and vignettes that really get the characters. As far as porn goes, I'd love more kink and more... I don't know, rawness? in femslash porn. A lot of f/f porn is just paced way too slowly for me, I think.

As far as lyrical writing goes... it's not always a bad thing, but I feel like it's often a veil thrown over really poor characterization -- not so much that the characters are OOC, more that they're coming off really generic.

I'd happily stalk a comm like that, and if the scope was broader than Western media-only, I'd contribute when I could :P

joining you fromn metafandom...

[dharma_slut]

As far as porn goes, I'd love more kink and more... I don't know, rawness? in femslash porn. A lot of f/f porn is just paced way too slowly for me, I think.

yes indeedy.

Which is so interesting, considering how many women pour their raw and kinky souls into boyslash, you would think that more of them would realise that it's their (female) selves that are raw and kinky!

or something like that. In any case, I have been encouraging my hardcore friends to write hardcore women. The results aren't always perfect, but yay for the first steps!

If you enjoy original fiction, you'll find mine at stellaomega.com I wrote nothing but porn for years-- am now trying to add plot to my toolbox heh heh

[havocthecat]

You do have to work hard to find the femslash community, unless you happen to know someone who's all, "SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE, CHECK OUT THIS FEMSLASH RIGHT HERE!"

I can't tell if it's gotten easier or if it's just that I know where to look now, you know?

But I do make a point of bringing it up to all the different types of shippers on my friendslist/circle, just because I remember how hard it was to find actual femslashers to talk to (as opposed to just femslash in fic archives, which was also hard, but not quite so hard) when I was just getting interested in femslash.

[mtgat]

So if someone says that the femslashers aren't writing what they want to see, I call either laziness or shenanigans.*raises hand

[alpha_beat]

But wait, what about avid femslash readers/sometime writers like myself who can't find a darned fandom out there in the Internet maze that both speaks to them AND has a semi-consistent stream of fic coming in? I admit I mostly read rather than write, since one of the more enjoyable parts about fanfiction (for me) is the element(s) of surprise... Not much is suspenseful (in the same way) when you're the one in the driver's seat! ;)

[trobadora]

So if someone says that the femslashers aren't writing what they want to see, I call either laziness or shenanigans.

Or it could just be dramatic overstatement. At least, that's what I usually mean when I say things like "no one writes what I want!" - and that applies to characters, pairings, genres, anything. It's not something particular to femslash. Of course some people do, just not many.

(And for the record, the only femslash fandom I've found where "my" kind of femslash is mainstream is Legend of the Seeker.)

[lyssie]

Yes. A lot of that, definitely. Though I do think there is a bit of truth to "no one is writing what I want to read", even if you're a multi-fandom, multi-shipping fan. But I usually end up writing it myself, anyway--or or

Or, like, that thing where I'm cruising over femslash_today, and I see a pairing like 'Jeanne/Jenny' from NCIS. And then I'm like, "ok, that, yes. MORE OF THAT, FANDOM"

eta: also, Havoc, why am I looking at Cleo's comment and going "I should totally run a rare-pairing femslash commentathon" (as a ficathon might be harder to organize, since, y'know, not everyone wants to read Alice (Wonderland)/Morgana from Merlin fic. Or write it. Or whatever. I should stop typing now)

[dharma_slut]

Dude, I would totally read that!

As long as it was.. raw. if you know what I mean. heh heh...