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Re: Lack of Femslash?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sorry, there aren't any good f/f relationships in this fandom that people are passionate about, it's a shame. But there is a REASON those same pairings get written over and over, and it's because people like them. Whether it's because they have better canon relationships or everyone is just obsessed with dicks I can't say, probably a bit of both. You can't say it shouldn't have to be a niche like people are purposely ignoring the idea as part of some anti-lesbian agenda, when really people are just writing and commenting on what they like.

Re: Lack of Femslash?

[(Anonymous)]

I think that the unfortunate thing about this discussion is that both points of view are 100% valid.

On the one hand, nobody should feel ashamed to write what they like, and a lot of the times what fans like is slash, angst, and stuff that does start to feel samey but it's what everyone wants. Fandom's gonna do what it does, and trying to change it is often pointless because it's a weird hive mind about what it likes or doesn't. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I enjoy a good Matt/Foggy fic as much as the next person, and that's the majority of what I write.

On the other hand, though, I really dislike when people make the "It's popular because most people like it the best" argument. Because the truth is, we are an echo chamber. People want to write fics that are going to be well-received and attract readers. They want to write things that fans like, as much as they want to write for themselves. And there may be truly great writers out there who looooove femslash, or love other things that we don't see a lot of here. And they may either be writing Matt/Foggy because they're under the impression that nobody cares about anything else anyway, or they may have left early on when they contributed great prompts and fills for femslash that everyone rejected, or they may just look at our fandom and think "this isn't for me" based on what they see. So "what everyone likes" sometimes starts to feel like "what everyone thinks everyone likes" and less about creativity and originality and transformation.

When I had an issue with Ben Urich's lack of fic, I wrote one. And you know what? I did get some great comments saying "I never thought to write about him before, but then I read this and suddenly was inspired to." They didn't materialize, but I bet if a couple of them had, we'd have more of that kind of fic around. All it takes is a couple of great fics in a genre for them to suddenly be all anybody wants to read (look at what's happening with the slavery prompts right now).

So it's a push/pull. Be the change you want to see in fandom. But also, don't let anyone tell you that you're the only one responsible for being that change because you're outnumbered. Because you may not be, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with putting it out there and saying "Are there any other femslash lovers around?" Even if you don't write it and only function as a cheerleader for others to, there's still value in that.

P.S. I'm also the OP above talking about the Best of the Meme-type challenge, and one of the categories I wanted to highlight was femslash, because tbh there were some great and well-received prompts for it earlier on that just didn't get filled. Same with poly fic. So maybe those could inspire some people. I think in general, bringing back some earlier prompts that everyone was really into at the time might give some inspiration back to people currently not feeling all the samey stuff. Because it's been a while since we've had a lot of Claire prompts, or Fisk/Vanessa, or Wesley, or other stuff that was really interesting.

Re: Lack of Femslash?

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen a couple Karen/Marci or Karen/Claire fic and they were boring af, tbh.

Re: Lack of Femslash?

[(Anonymous)]

Not the OP. This is sadly true.

I suspect some of the problems with femslash may come from how often femslash prompters are ONLY looking for smut/PWP. It's hard to make a real case for a rarer pairing and write an interesting fic when the only goal is hot sex, and for a lot of people the hot sex is only interesting when they already understand or care about the pairing.

I love to read plotty, lengthy fics featuring a femslash pairing (which is why JJ and Agent Carter fandom is fun). Feel free to disagree though. That may just be me.