meme_of_bilitis | I have doubts that [a femslash meme] would be very long-lived

The whole "that's not REAL femslash because you're a megafandom fan and therefore not a real fan either" thing there is probably one, maybe two, people, but God are they vocal about it. FF is rare enough anywhere! I'm not going to sneer at someone if they like Maria/Natasha or Wayhaught or some other ship that's too big. (Too Big To Ship? IDK)

The idea of a ship not being "real" is so weird to me. I ship characters who have never met! I ship characters from different canons! Look, we're all just having fun here so why so judgy about how other people play with their action figures?

The way I've seen it phrased is slightly different, like you're not a real femslasher if you ship femslash in majority-slash fandoms, like MCU. Honestly there's a lot of hubbub about "real" femslashers in general, going all the way back to complaining about people just pretending to like femslash pairings for the SJ cookies. I have no doubt there are some people out there like that, but the obsession with them means that femslash shippers have to pass some kind of test to prove they ~really ship f/f, and none of the het or slash shippers ever have to do that.

DA

It's the idea you can't like both slash and femslash, and I notice when I have a femslash ship and a slash ship in a canon like MCU where the female character interaction is sparser, people just assume its to "get them out of the way". No dude, I just don't ship het and I like both pairings. The idea that people are fake shipping it always feels so under-handed and half the time I feel they're angling for a "if you really liked women you would ship het" approach, because shipping a slash ship cancels it out I guess. In general I'd love to kill the idea one can't enjoy both ships without being a fake or lesser femslash shipper.

Yes, all of this.

I've seen that happen, too, and so often it boils down to not just that you have to ship het, but that you have to ship the correct het pairings. It often doesn't count unless you ship their het OTP.

I also see the notion that if you don't ship the approved canon het, it's proof that you're biphobic. That really bugs me, because it smacks of the notion that while it's OK for someone to be attracted to their own gender, they still have to be sexually available to the opposite gender. And it also smacks of the notion that if anyone has ever expressed any interest in the opposite sex, or dated or had a relationship with someone of the opposite sex, they can't truly be gay. I find both of these assumptions to be obnoxious, like people insisting that the closet isn't a thing, and a journey that a lot of non-straight people have experienced can't possibly be real.

And while it's mostly just ship war bullshit dressing itself up as being for Great Justice, it does sometimes come across as homophobic to me.

And while it's mostly just ship war bullshit dressing itself up as being for Great Justice, it does sometimes come across as homophobic to me.

+100 to all this, but especially that.

I'm a bi nonnie who is alert for possible bi female characters, and even I think that going "If you don't ship her in my fave canon het ship, you're biphobic" is bullshit. Do they say that people who *only* ship that het pairing without shipping any f/f for the female character in question are also biphobic? I highly doubt it.

And like. I want lots of bi women dating women in my fiction, because I'm a bi woman who primarily dates women. If "bisexual woman" in fiction came to mean "has dated a boy or two, I guess, but let's talk about all the women she's loved and her epic f/f endgame romance that we spend 8472 episodes on!" all the time, I would not complain. I want bi characters who get a LOT of f/f plot and are still bi. I want stuff where she could be attracted to the male hero and just doesn't end up with him, because hot girl. Or whatever.

So I find a lot of the "but consider: she could be bi!" stuff offputting because I'm nodding along like "Yes! Consider that this woman in my femslash ship could be bi!" and then instead of "So let's talk about how shippy she and her girlfriend are" it takes and detour into "So let's talk about how your headcanon doesn't include enough het and you should make her bang boys for great justice." Ughhh.

Like, I'm okay with reading a number of those ambiguously-bi-or-lesbian characters as bi, it's just that I still want the focus to be on the f/f.

And the idea that the only way to truly value a woman and show how feminist you are is to ship her with a dude is... .... ...really fucking stupid, and also homophobic.

I agree with you, nonny, and I also paused to consider if I knew of any canon endgame f/f where one or both girls is canonically bi. Korrasami came strongly to mind!

There's also this Lithuanian movie, Summer of Sangailė, where the main girl is having a teen sexual awakening and figuring herself out, and she has a fling with a teenage boy, kind of goes "that was nice," then has a passionate relationship with a girl for the rest of the movie.

In Glee, Brittany was bi,had 2 serious relationships with boys, but Brittana was always endgame.

ayrt

I really need to get around to seeing Legend of Korra! I loved AtLA and am curious about the next generation and the canon femslash at the end!

Hmm wonder if there's English subtitles for that movie! It sounds very RTMI. :D

ayrt

Personally, as someone who loved AtLA, I had a lot of problems with the writing on LoK, but the Korrasami was one of the redeeming features of it. I'd say go into it with lowered expectations, but know that the art is fantastically good (though they use a different studio for the first half of book 2, so it gets a little hinky there in spots) and the music is also amazing, and the rest...eh take what you can from it. If you start to get annoyed with it around book 2, know that the Korrasami buildup starts in book 3 (though they don't actually become a relationship until the last 30 seconds of the show, and they don't even kiss!) and a lot of fans felt the writing picks up a bit then too, though I wasn't terribly satisfied with that myself. The comics, however, do give the Korrasami relationship more focus (though I don't recommend jumping in with just those, the plot will make hardly any sense) and while I was a bit meh on some of the plot stuff in those too, I actually did really like how Korra and Asami were written together, and how societal homophobia/fears of coming out were at "realistic" feeling levels--not a total fantasy where no one bats an eye at two women in love, but not bi tragedy porn either. It actually had a lot more "realness" to it than I was expecting. I also liked how it did a good job of showing how they are together, as a couple, something I felt the show never gave us. And there are kisses in that as well!

I know Summer of Sangailė was on Netflix with subs, though I just checked and it doesn't seem to be there anymore. It looks like it's on Prime Video for $2.99, and on a couple of other pay services as well. Since I know endings are very important for f/f films, I'll spoil the ending in ROT13: Nsgre n cnffvbangr fhzzre syvat, gurl zhghnyyl tebj ncneg naq sbphf ba cercnevat sbe gurve pnerref. Gurl zrrg ntnva va gur raq, obgu univat znqr fgevqrf gbjneqf fhpprff, ohg n ovg jvfgshy gurve eryngvbafuvc svmmyrq bhg. Vg'f fbeg bs n ernyvfgvp raqvat gb n grra ebznapr, naq arvgure vf fgngrq gb or jvgu nalbar ryfr ng gur zbzrag, ohg vg vfa'g rknpgyl n "unccvyl rire nsgre" sbe gurve eryngvbafuvc rvgure.

Less spoilery answer to "do they die or end up with men"? No.

Also a content note, one of the themes of the movie is a character overcoming self-harm with support from her girlfriend, so there are scenes of cutting and dealing with scars from it.

It's a very atmospheric movie, it's very...tactile somehow, it's about the feeling of being a teenager in summer and being in love, it's somehow very nostalgic as well as being very sensual. Like you could almost smell the golden late-summer grass or the scented candles in the inner sanctum of your first girlfriend's bedroom.

DA

Korra is really good. S1 is flawed and S2 doubles down on those flaws, be warned - but S3 addresses them (and is the best season IMO) and S4 is great too. And yeah, the art - the scenery and costumes, the battles - is all amazing

Hmmm, maybe Shoot on PoI qualifies? I don't remember if Root is canon bi or I just think so, though.

Remy | Thirteen on House was canonically bi and got endgame F/F.

Oh, I remember her! I liked her a lot (and Olivia Wilde is gorgeous). As a supporting character with a non-doctor SO, the relationship didn't get a ton of narrative focus, but it was lovely just the same. And her random hookups were hot too.

Boy I feel you there. I ship MCU Steve/Bucky AND MCU Nat/Sharon and it's not to get Nat/Sharon "out of the way." And I really don't like the way Steve/Sharon was set up in MCU (I do like it in the comics) and I like Steve/Nat as BFFs.

In general I'd love to kill the idea one can't enjoy both ships without being a fake or lesser femslash shipper.

I just hate the idea of "fake shipping" in general. I'm sure there are people out there doing it just for cookies or whatever, and of course there was Aja with the infamous vegetables essay. And there's the background pairing tags on AO3 that are awful. But then the "fake shipper" label gets slapped on actual FF shippers as well and that sucks.

you're not a real femslasher if you ship femslash in majority-slash fandoms, like MCU

I am sooo tired of that attitude on meme. It seems to go along with the "that's too big to be a real femslash ship" wank.

the obsession with them means that femslash shippers have to pass some kind of test to prove they ~really ship f/f

YEAH, and I think that really stifles discussion, because who likes getting hit with "oh another megafandom fake femslash shipper" crap? That's really disappointing to see in a space that's majority women. Not that I was expecting Herland, but at least something a little bit better.

It's the worst! Especially since there are now enough women in the cosmic side of the MCU that I have a bunch of women I'm really excited to mix and match.

I have doubts that [a femslash meme] would be very long-lived

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