Femslash, and why it's awesome.

[havocthecat]

So. The five thousandth iteration of "why or why not is boyslash appropriative of gay people or marginalizing women or whatever" is going on. Everyone has lots of wonderful things to say about it

Comments

[mtgat]

I like femslash pairings where I can see it in the canon. In my last fandom, I 'shipped Diana/Audrey like burning, but very few people wrote it and fewer wrote it well. I watched Buffy, and I think if I were into the fandom itself, I would have read every possible femslash pairing, because I could see textual evidence for all of them.

My first femslash (reading) was probably Crusher/Troi as well, but wow, I'd give a lot for well-written Crusher/girl!Odan. :D

Clearly, someone needs to marathon Xena at me.

[havocthecat]

I plumbed the depths of the alt.tv.startrek-creative (I think that was the newsgroup name?)archive hunting for femslash. I found some Chapel/Uhura too, IIRC.

Buffy had TONS of femslash potential. People were writing it as early as first season, but it ended up exploding third season, when Faith was introduced. Go figure, right?

I keep pondering a Xena rewatch. Because watching it in order might make the series make more sense. (I watched it out of order mostly, because I don't think WGN aired it consistently, like, EVER. Or I was just the worst fangirl ever.)

[alias_sqbr]

I give you a recent Journalfen post asking for recs for Bechdel-test-passing femslashy texts which is full of happy femslashy squee ^_^

It's odd reading these conversations as a straight female femslasher and pondering which if any of the issues apply to me. I do worry sometimes that I'm being a bit heteronormative.

[havocthecat]

Ooh, thanks!

I'm a bi female femslasher who's married to a man. Straight female femslashers don't bother me! (Nor do straight male femslashers who don't try to appropriate women's issues just because they write femslash. And who don't continually write the same damn cardboard non-characters to gratify their straight male gaze. Imagine that, me asking that men who are interested in femslash treat the genre with respect. Who knew?)

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, I don't think me writing femslash is automatically bad, but I do think I have to be more careful not be inadvertently homophobic/hetero-normative.

Though so far the only story I've written that I decided afterwards is problematic that way is het.

[angelqueen04]

Just a SPOILER warning, as I'll be talking about various plotlines from Merlin's second season, so if you do not wish to be spoiled, I suggest you skip over this.

--SPOILERS--

Heh, well, Merlin has two female main characters, Morgana and Gwen (aka Guinevere, for those not in on the show), and from the beginning of the first season we get the feeling that these two are total BFFs, despite their mistress-and-servant relationship. They gained a lovely little following of femslashers (I myself love the pairing even if I've never written any fic for it), and naturally the treatment of the characters became a primary concern for many people involved. And naturally, there was a fair bit of gnashing teeth throughout the second season. Oy

[havocthecat]

You're determined to talk me into watching series two, aren't you? :)

[angelqueen04]

*cackles* Morgause=best female villain in a long, long while. Seriously, this lady pulls some ruthless stuff, stuff that Nimueh never had the gall to do. ;D

Series two has some serious problems that never fail to bug me, and they'd probably be even worse for you, but Morgause... *bg* She rules, big time. :D

[havocthecat]

I know! See, that's the problem. I just want to watch the scenes with the women. I'M SORRY. Arthur's a dear who means well, and Merlin's a terrific goof, but they don't do much for me.

(BTW, did you see there was awesome Morgana/Nimueh/Merlin fic posted to 3ships this year?)

And now to actually ponder your questions

[alias_sqbr]

When I was 10 I remember thinking "The Enchanted Castle" was Very Femslashy and taking a while to figure out that it was a result of the Victorian attitudes to physical affection between women being different. And although I didn't think of it as romantic exactly I was convinced that Anne and Diana from Anne of Green Gables were MUCH happier together than with their icky boyfriends. I used to be much more of a canon shipper so the first femslash couple I remember really engaging with is Susan/Talia from Babylon 5

Re: And now to actually ponder your questions

[havocthecat]

Veronica Mars had awesome femslash in it. I miss that show. I should really re-watch it.

I think the first canon femslash I ever saw was Susan/Talia, and, boy, that was interesting, because most of the people I watched it with at the time were convinced it was just a "close female friendship." Um. Yeah, no.

IDK, without getting too into it (I did a whole post on genderbending and femslash that got a lot of people bent out of shape), but canon!girl/boy-genderbent-female is, in my opinion, het. If you're turning a boy into a girl to write femslash, you're erasing a canonically female character in favor of a canonically male character, and calling that femslash makes me awfully uncomfortable. (That's not my opinion of fic featuring a canon character written as trans, which is different. Again, in my opinion.)

Also, I'm not judging anyone for writing genderbending fic. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm saying that some people do some things with genderbending fic that I don't agree with.

Re: And now to actually ponder your questions

[alias_sqbr]

On my first watching of Babylon 5 I was convinced for quite a while that the writers meant it as "close female friendship" but I was femslashing it despite them :) Mainly because I'd never encountered canon same sex relationships in tv sf before and had trouble believing they really meant to go there.

Yeah, I can see how in a lot of ways it's het. I answered your post at like 11pm and my brain refused to give me any other examples!

My brain keeps latching onto Trudy/Neytiri in Avatar even though there's the major obstacle that they are not only different species and sizes but can't breathe the same air.

Oh! And having watched part of SPN season 4 I feel it needs some femslash to make up for the OMG genderfail. Like...Jo/Ruby. Or Ruby/Faith!

I know Elle/Claire is actually fairly popular but someone should write some that I like.

..ok I'll stop now :)

[havocthecat]

SG1 has the biggest femslash presence of any of the Stargate shows, thanks to Sam/Janet. Sam/Vala is awesome, but there's less, because, well, Vala's been around a lot less time than Janet. (There are some recs here, if you're interested.)

As to the total amounts of femslash compared to the rest of the fic being produced? Um, if you get me started, I'll say rude and insensitive things.

Um, all of it? My favorite meta thing about femslash is that it deals with female desire and female relationships in a way that doesn't require the reader to be continually on edge. I love het, dearly, but every time I read a het fic I have to wonder what kind of women-unfriendly stereotypes might pop up. YES. THIS. (Though there are some authors whom I back away slowly from. But that's a complicated issue.) I love het, but, unless I know and trust the author, I'm clicking on a het story and totally aware that I could be going into something godawful, like Elizabeth Weir wondering which of the menfolk of Atlantis is going to save her this time

[miera_c]

like Elizabeth Weir wondering which of the menfolk of Atlantis is going to save her this time. Ew.

Now you're just goading me to write this ironically. ;P

[havocthecat]

I have to confess, I would be extremely excited wouldn't complain.