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

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

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Seriously! Someone always has to jump in to whine about "vegetables" even when people are having earnest, excited discussions about stuff we actually fucking like.

I've come to feel actual rage at the term "vegetables."

Just because YOU can't imagine liking this thing sincerely doesn't mean I don't. Leave me alone.

To be entirely fair, this is also my problem with actual garden vegetables.

DA

Yeah, I've mentioned over there before that yes, femslash is vegetables to me, inasmuch as I legitimately enjoy both and am tired of people acting like I'm just depriving myself of the real good stuff because I think I'm so virtuous.

I can understand people feeling pushed and angry about "shipping for great justice" (although I think representation does count, very much) but the way it comes up so often on FFA linked with Aja's infamous vegetables thing is....offputting, to say the least.

The thing about representation is, for some reason, a lot of people interpret it as a duty to portray things you're not personally interested in, that aren't relevant to you, with the unspoken belief that the poor charity cases needing that representation are unable to make their own, which is why it doesn't exist, the poor dears. When often, it's that a few rich straight white men at the top won't fund it.

Sometimes f/f is representation and it's also self-indulgent idfic. It's not that I don't lap up f/f from men or from straight women at times, or that I have a problem with them creating it, and there is an argument to be made for making your fiction reflect reality in all of reality's diversity, but there is a certain realness in stories about, by, and for wlw, and that's its own exciting, powerful thing that doesn't require representation-as-charity.

By the same token, I know plenty of wlw create things not about wlw--myself included!--and that's fine. You don't have a duty to Save the World. You're not "on" all the time. When you do it, it's because you want to, not because people are counting on you. Your existence is important, your happiness is important. It's just that being able to tell our stories is sometimes part of that happiness, that's "doing it for the representation" but it sure isn't "vegetables."

AYRT

The thing about representation is, for some reason, a lot of people interpret it as a duty to portray things you're not personally interested in, that aren't relevant to you

I think that's a really, really good point. Even as an older fan, seeing Rey pick up the lightsabre or Holtzmann kicking ass in Ghostbusters or Lorraine in Atomic Blonde, or a lot of other recent shows/movies that have had women in central roles, really meant something and felt amazing. And it sure was not a "guess I need to eat this broccoli now" feeling. I was surprised at how powerful and meaningful "hell yes that's a woman onscreen doing that" was.

And Black Panther was also a really joyous kickass example of representation, where whole black families went to see it AND it was also an amazing film. (And had plenty of women to boot!)

Yes, absolutely. Black Panther is a great example. Representation in entertainment is important, absolutely, but to be good representation it should also be good media, good entertainment!

Whereas the concept of "vegetables" implies a joyless chore, and by extension seems to imply that these things CAN'T be enjoyable and entertaining.

Whereas the concept of "vegetables" implies a joyless chore, and by extension seems to imply that these things CAN'T be enjoyable and entertaining.

EXACTLY that, yeah. Something good for you, but flavourless and not enjoyable. And I think that comes from taking the basic cultural default -- white, male, straight -- as a given, so anything outside that, whether it's a female Ghostbusters reboot or Mad Max with Furiosa as the lead or Black Panther, is unnatural and you have to force it, maybe.

IDK, I find it useful for describing fanworks that clearly have been created by people who thought they were Aja-style eating their vegetables by doing so, rather than doing it out of sincere liking.

da

Yeah, though usually I go by creator comments on that. Sometimes what might look from outside to be "vegetables" is actually something like adding self-insert details because they overidentify with a character, or just really loving plotless fluff. I've seen plenty of het and m/m plotless fluff, so I won't assume veggies when I see it in f/f.

On the other hand, the people who think they deserve to be thanked as saints for undergoing the trial of struggling to write f/f for the starving masses...yeah.

DA +1 to this.

I've read some dry, joyless F/F that you would swear was duty fic... that was actually written by an F/F enthusiast who loves F/F and only writes F/F. I don't think you can tell by the work itself.

+1

Some people aren't very good writers! Sometimes good writers don't always hit it out of the park! It's really, really hard to tell, if the author isn't telling you themselves.

Honestly, even Aja has written a f/f fic I like.

When I was new to writing fic I sucked. Plain and simple. I knew it, too, but that’s why I kept writing, to get better. I loved trying to write new femslash ships and other stuff. And now I’m leagues better. You really have to look beyond the surface.

NA

I kept getting matched with someone like this in several femslash exchanges in a row, and it was maddening! We're both queer women in relationships with women in real life, and both have A Lot Of Feelings about our f/f ships (some of which even coincide, thus why we kept getting matched). But omg our ids did NOT align and I found almost everything she wrote to be about as delicious as a cardboard diorama of vegetables. Just...absolutely nothing there for me to grab onto emotionally, even though she considered it very romantic. But she was 100% writing out of love. (I mean, who knows, she might also have been writing it out of a feeling that she should be writing it, but all her posts seemed pretty damn sincere.)

You really can't tell just from whether a story works for you as a reader, alas.

+1

Lacking an explicit statement of creator intent, it really is not possible to tell "I made this because I felt I had to" from "I made this but am just not very good at my chosen medium." People think they can tell, but no, they mostly really can't. Even when it feels like issuefic! There are plenty of people out there writing issuefic very awkwardly but sincerely!

I just hate this assumption in general that you can guess and then immediately judge a person's motivations for shipping or creating something. No. Fuck off.

+1

One of my fandoms had a ship week for the m/m juggernaut that had the ~complementary~ f/f ship tagged on for no reason. If that's not vegetables, I don't know what is. (And it pisses me off because I'd LOVE a ship week for the f/f ship, but I fucking hate the m/m ship and I KNOW a lot of people who ship both either ship the f/f ship out of duty or because it ~frees up~ the dudes. I've even seen someone post a huge fucking screed in the f/f ship's tumblr tag about how much they love the m/m ship with one whole line at the end about the f/f ship being good too. Utter dreck.)

I don't consider that "vegetables." I consider that mistagging.

na free up the dudes how?

DA Canon has F/M and F/M, or maybe just one big F/M pairing. If someone ships M/M, but doesn't want to make the female characters into harpies or kill them off, they may add the F/F ship in the background as bit players and make some noises about them being ~so important~.

/has a couple fandoms that have followed this pattern. It makes it really hard to search for your F/F ship, because everything with them is also tagged with M/M, and a small percentage of those will actually focus on your F/F ship, but if you screen out the M/M ship, you'll miss them

As an increasingly bitter Merrill/Female Hawke fan, I will drink with you nonny.

Almost 300 fics and at least 280 of them are actually Fenris/Anders.

Out of curiousity - Person of Interest fandom? Because this sounds like PoI fandom.

It sounds like a lot of fandoms tbh.

(deleted comment)

hey, anonfail O_O

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

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