28 femslash questions

[queenslayerbee]

I borrowed these from luckyzukky

1) First time you encoutered canon femslash

Well, I was a Xena fan from early childhood, so xD. I watched episodes as they were shown on tv, so I've never actually watched it the whole thing, and I should definitely remedy that.

2) First times you encountered femslash shipping

Circa 11 years old, when I first started lurking in the Buffyverse fandom.

3) Is femslash the main part of your fandom life?

Fandom-wise it might be more balanced, if only because in what's been my main fandom for over a year now (and most active fandom ever), aka DC comics, my best beloved characters happens to be a guy. I post and love a lot of het ships too (rn the ratio on my ao3 fics is 45 F/F, 42 F/M, I just looked lol).

Femslash is however extremely dominant in my original fiction. I write about women first and foremost, about the relationships between them, of any all of types, and if there's romance, it's 99% guaranteed to be F/F. I might utterly fall in love with (admittedly very few) male characters created by OTHER people (primary examples being Jason Todd or Black Sails' John Silver), but my personal creativity is extremely biased towards women LMAO.

4) Have you already started a canon just because you knew there would be femslash shipping opportunities?

Nah, not really. Sometimes a femslash ship reblogged on tumblr caught my eye, yes, but I need more than that to give a canon a try. Especially because my shipping preferences rarely are aligned with that of the rest of the fandom. I even made an ask meme about it once: give me a popular F/F ship, and I'll tell you which antagonistic F/F alternative I vastly prefer xDD

5) Canon, subtext, or make-everything-work-by-yourself ships?

It definitely depends, though I'd say most of my femslash ships are probably on the subtext territory first, canon second. In general, I need a canon push to become interested in a ship, with some exceptions. I like it when characters are important to each other, one way or another!

6) A femslash ship you feel like you're alone in shipping

I know there were a few other shippers around, but Rosita Bustillos/Waverly Earp (which I named Rosewaves on tumblr) definitely fits. Especially because it seems people shipped it as like... a nice rarepair to multiship alongside Waverly's canon relationship, and I could NOT care less for that one LMAO. I was ALL about Rosewaves, and I would've paid real money to see it be the show's ship instead of Wayhaugh.

7) Did you see a change in femslash fandom since the time you started fandom?

I didn't see as much of this... defanged, toothless, out-of-convenience-only femslash shipping when I started. Because homophobia xD, but also the trends in fandom misogyny. Before it was all about WHAT A BITCH the female characters in question were for getting in the way of my slash ship/being the object of interest of the guy EYE find hot/not being a perfect fluffer/whatever.

Now instead of insulting and bashing the woman, because that would make them Look Bad, it's all about how she's the BESTIE, the fujoshi, and sometimes, how ACTUALLY!!! she's a lesbian (even when she's shown no hint of it and often her life revolves around men in a way I'd find insulting for a lesbian character, tbqh)!!! ew how can you ship her with MEN who are UNWORTHY of her!! Nonono, let's pair her with this other woman (often someone she wouldn't be interested in in a million years, but okay) and put them in the background, being generic as fuck.

BUT. I don't really consider this as part of The Femslash Fandom, because again, this is Convenience Shipping and nothing that actually puts the care into the characters involved.

8) Some femslash poly ships? What are your opinions about f/f/m poly?

One of my longest original WIPs will involve a F/F/F triangle/messy triad, so there's that xD

In fandom I rarely seem to go for it? In general I ship things 1-on-1, it's how I like it lol, that kind of... claustrophobia. The few polyships I've been REALLY into (like Jason/Mia/Tim at the moment) were F/F/M or F/M/M.

I think in part it's because in general I prefer Triangulation Drama TM in my femslash over the classic Let's Solve Things With Polyshipping. If there's a set-up with more than two female characters with sexual an emotional tension between them, I'm more likely to want them to fight about it lol. Tbf that's also semi-present in my other poly configurations but. I REALLY want F/F conflict lol.

9) Do you feel like shipping femslash is different from shipping slash, het or other? How?

It's different in the sense that you better get used to be a minority in fandom and all that it entails LOL. Otherwise you'll be endlessly frustrated.

10) Favourites tropes for femslash ships?

One of my favourite things is older/younger woman configurations where the older one sees ~her younger self in the other and that configures how the relationship takes form (resentment? Protectiveness?). In general, "mirror" characters pair really well in F/F imo.

11) Fluff, humor, angst, or smut?

Angst is my area of expertise, though I definitely mix in the others. A little flavour makes the angst even sadder xD

12) Are there some m/m or m/f ships that you love genderswapped as f/f?

I'm not much for genderswapping, but I have done it once: a Pepper/Tony fic. Except it's based on the fact that Marvel *did* create a continuity where Tony was a woman. Generally speaking, if a given male character was genderswapped from the start, I would've probably liked them MORE lol, given my usual patterns, but the times I *really* like a male character... I like them as is and their gender and how they interact with it is usually a feature of it, not a bug, because it happens to be interesting on its own. 

13) Did you already write original femslash? If so, what was it about? If not, what would it be about if you did? If you would never, why?

Nothing complete that I've shared (well, some in an old writeblr, but that was deleted), but as I said, this is my primary interest in original fiction. Some of the examples in my original stories, for your amusement:

• stylish butch former pirate/princess + messy former assassin have a ons and then end up in the same space ship.
• powerful witch + her codependent best friend + a third woman who becomes enamoured with the first before everything goes sideways and has a hate/hate realtionship with the second before they slowly fall for each other.
• immortal scholar + the also immortal woman who's in unrequited love with her and wants her to kill her.
• secretary of a hardboiled detective that actually does the job and can hear echoes of the dead + the femme fatale who seduced her and used her + the sob-sister serious journalist wannabe investigating them.
• newest victim of a serial abuser + his former flame he still pines for. 
• doomed woman with little time to live + the butch princess she's obsessed with ever since she was kind to her once. 
• theatre diva with a dwindling career + the femmish literal angel who wants to become her.
• whatever the fuck is going with all the women in Underground Elysium which includes: the dictator, her ever-faithful guard, her human maid she regards as little more than a pet but gets horny for her vampire bites, the tyrant's rival who hates her for that one time she mutilated her, the rival's daughter who she groomed to beat the dictator, and a couple more others.
• many, MANY more lol.

14) Favorite femslash ship of all times

I couldn't pick just one, but I just finished reading Gideon the Ninth and Griddlehark has me on a chokehold at the moment. I need to finish the other two books before I allow it to consume me, though. I don't want spoilers or misinterpretations on my part xD

15) A guilty pleasure

N/A.

16) A fandom where I have so many femslash ships

DC comics is definitely high on the list, even if 1.) I think ultimately I have more het ones, or at least they're pretty level, and 2.) given how many women I love there, and how many possible combinations there are, it's very unsurprising.

17) A femslash pairing I like on principle without even being in the fandom

I have yet to start Interview with The Vampire, but I think I'll like Claudia and Madeleine.

18) A character I headcanon as lesbian/wlw without having big ships with her

Quite a few, probably, but the first one that came to my mind was Mary Winchester from Supernatural. I ship her with a few characters, but it's more lowkey than my desire to indulge in HOW FUCKED UP it'd be if she was a lesbian.

19) Rec day! Canon or fics, as long as it's femslash! Or even shippable!

• In Pursuit of Perfection by Camilla Andrew. Doomed, unbalanced femslash pair between an ambitious imperatrice and her too loyal warrior. Its sequels, though they have a central F/M ship, offer plenty of F/F possibilities, including an exes pair turned complicated best friends that mirrors this one.
• DEFINITELY check out The Locked Tomb because the F/F possibilities there are off-the-charts. Griddlehart has my heart but Ianthe/Corona broke my brain negl. 
• Red by resnullius-bells. Camilla/Laura ficlet with a Snow White/Sleeping Beauty vibe.
• I do love Carmilla as a novel as well LOL.

There's so much more but I'm drawing a blank here, guys xD. Some books/films/etc. I'm gonna recommend for femslash shpping, canon or not, Just Because: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Marjorie Liu's Monstress, Nikita, Person of Interest, Dangerous Liaisons, Judd Winick's Outsiders (2003), Paper Girls (comic and show, even cancelled as it is), The Handmaiden, Black Swan, Black Sails (the dyke drama in this one is SO important), or Killjoys.

20) Do you like your femslash homophobia-free?

If it's a secondary-world that pulls it off well, I welcome it. If it's our world? At this point I want to shout BRING IN THE HOMOPHOBIA ñalskfjaf. Well-done, of course, but I think that certain attitudes about it are less about wanting an homophobia-free world than about like... having trouble with any conflict more difficult than who takes the last orange home in the supermarket, and with wanting the straight characters to Look Good.

21) Thoughts about lesbian tragedy and bad endings?

Given how history has evolved there's obviously issues present, but... I think queer authors especially need room to freely want what they want to write. I'm a lesbian who loves writing about lesbians, and I love a good tragedy.

22) Thoughts about (purely fictional!) lesbian unhealthy relationships?

They are amazing and we should all support them wholeheartedly.

23) Historical, fantasy or sci-fi? (or, if none of the above, what and why?)

Love all of it and more.

24) A time where a canon really surprised you, in a good (and femslash) way

I'm gonna go with Black Sails and Max/Eleanor. I expected to outright dislike it, and yet I absolutely love everything about it.

25) A time where a canon really disappointed you (in a femslash or lack of femslash way)

Too many to count lol. I'm picking Wynonna Earp for the absolutely mid toothless main ship.

26) What do you love the most, and what do you love the least, about femslash fans?

They're passionate and committed to something that, lbr, gives little reward lol.

As for what I like least... the very few times a femslash ship happens to be MASSIVE? They're just as awful as every other fanbase of a juggernaut ship. Absolutely no difference, and equal ammounts of racism each and every time.

27) Very last time you encountered canon femslash. Was it a surprise or were you looking for it?

Again, I just read Gideon the Ninth, a novel from a series openly marketed as "dyke drama" xD

28) Now answer the important question about femslash I've forgotten to ask.

You didn't forget, but I'm taking this as an opportunity to link to all my F/F fics LOL.

Comments

[queenslayerbee]

Some things that people always ignore in that context are 1.) Jason is, at most, a year older than Mia. It might be as little as mere months (Mia turned 17 over a year before this encounter, and it was around that time that pre-War Games comics established Jason's 18th birthday). That, IMO, matters, but people always talk about this or Titans Tower (Tim is like two years younger than Jason) as if Jason was Teen Titans Deathstroke beefing with kids lol, and not a *peer*.

People also frame their confrontation as Jason MOCKING Mia's past and... I can't even wrap my mind around that. We've SEEN villains doing that with Mia, but Jason? Jason simply listed the facts, from a perspective of "and I RELATE to you because of this". EVEN if you don't think Jason too suffered CSA (and I think Winick was very unsubtle here with that subtext), he IS a victim of severe traumas, and THAT'S how he's approaching that conversation. Obviously he's doing it in an extreme assholish way LOL, but that doesn't stop the fact that he's approaching Mia's trauma with empathy and not scorn or discomfort. ETA: if anything, I think this says nothing good of the way people perceive victims of sexual abuse; as if it's something inherently shameful and perpetually taboo, you know?

I feel like a lot of people's opinion on this scene relies on ignoring who Mia is. Because Mia openly and often talks about her trauma. She WANTS to discuss it, to clear it up, to use it. Mia isn't at all uncomfortable with what Jason says about it here, and I feel a lot of people project their own feelings on her.

I also think that a lot of people infantilise her because like... lbr, Jason's attack was a regular Tuesday to Mia. She doesn't have a single cut. Compare that to, say, that time Doctor Light (who definitely mocked *and* sexualised her trauma!) almost killed her at home, after attacking her not-empty school and killing several classmates.

Stephcass to me wouldn't manage to last, and there's a set of canon relationship I think the same about too (Dickbabs, for example), where I VASTLY prefer them as exes. Cassrose as Cass's first post-breakup hookup might be in the cards for my WIPs ñadklfjasf. Cass WILL get around A LOT in that fic (AnissaGrace also had a breakup -temporary, in their case- so the dyke drama will be epic).

I define StephKara as Bosom Buddies and like to develop them on that front.

Literally every female bat has been linked romantically to at least one of the men, and it's definitely An Issue, so ultimately I prefer that TimCass didn't happen (especially when you add the racist undertones of Cass's corruption arc). BUT done right, it would've been epically messy LMAO. Otherwise, I headcanon Cass pretty solidly as a lesbian, and Tim as a... Kinsey 5, let's say xD (I also lowkey ship MiaTim. and JayMiaTim. I like mess, as I said LOL). AND you know Barbara and Bruce would've been FUCKING DELIGHTED about Tim and Cass dating each other, instead of getting involved with the likes of Steph or Kon añlsdkfasf. They would've been comphet x100.

[luckyzukky]

YEAHHH YEAH. you get it!!! there's such a lack of nuance in this conversation precisely because so many people refuse to confront their discomfort and pre-existing biases over mia and jason, who both are very emotionally loaded characters and thus hugely appeal projection-wise for many (especially jason; mia pales in comparison to the sheer number of jason fans who project onto him and have never heard of the second speedy except maybe in a jason/roy harper context). also the doctor light stuff damn you see even i forgot about that!!! shows how little people bring it up in fandom maybe. like that was a lot closer to what people see the jason mia encounter as in fandom than what it actually is and yet i never see it mentioned, damn. you're very right about mia herself being honest and open about her trauma - i think yeah it's such a heavy subject that people don't want to think realistically about a character like her and what is actually written on the page about her, so they put her into a box of "victim" and nothing else, and it's disrespectful to her character and writers like kevin smith and judd winick who wrote her the way they did.

yesss ex relationships <333 dickbabs are forever messy perpetually divorced exes to me. also rose being cass' rebound hookup MY GOD YOUR MIND!!!!! i encourage this!!!!! anissa/grace UGH i love them so much god if you set this in pre-boot outsiders cass era the dyke drama would be fucking glorious

yeah exactly re: tim/cass. it's for the best it didn't happen and that cass was settled in the way she was over time (well, except for the parts like the shit parts of batgirl 2008, which is most of it, evil cass arc, cass getting shipped off to hong kong during reborn era for racist reasons.... honestly most of the way she was settled into the bat-family which in other words was totally happenstance and against dan didio's wishes. fuck that guy btw)... but MAN the potential for mess there, god. also mia/tim!!! i think i had a fleeting thought of them when i was reading teen titans 2003. that'd be fun to explore! but yeah cass AND tim would be comphet the likes of which we have never seen before

[queenslayerbee]

Yes, exactly! They are two of my favourite characters, and I love how they're foils of each other (like, Winick wrote Mia like that On Purpose! The Robin who died and the Speedy who lived! etc. etc.). So it often frustrates me how much nonsense there's around it LOL. Idc that much when people misunderstand or malign Jason -I will argue against bad faith arguments, sure, but it's something I bitch about in the moment and then forget as soon as I talk about my buddies or other people about Actual Good Jason Takes xDD. Meanwhile, Mia is a much more minor character, and I feel a lot of her so-called fans are very, very uncomfortable with who she actually is, which is a pity.

(sidenote. As someone who doesn't care for reboot Jayroy much -though admittedly lowkey ships them prereboot lol-: I see Mia used as a weapon against its shippers way too often and it pisses me off when she's reduced to that. I also think it fundamentally misunderstands Roy as a person LOL. "Roy would hate Jason for what he did to Mia!!" Roy would think that's two teenagers fighting in a parking lot AND he's one of the most notoriously forgiving people in all of DC... that man doesn't hold grudges. The ONE (1) he does, and I firmly believe is temporary, is actually against Mia ñaldkfjasf).

Everything I write is Pre-Reboot! I don't really touch other comic continuities LOL. This fic with Cass at the centre is from a Futurish Canon series I've been thinking about for a while. It all started inspired by a Rebirth comic that briefly portrayed Damian as Inevitably Becoming Batman (and in so, Inevitably Becoming Evol Batman). I hate that kind of deterministic portrayal of him lol, so I started to think about how I'd write Damian having to (temporarily!) step in as Batman. From that, more fics followed: a couple focusing on a preboot version of Duke of my own (heavily featuring Jason), one with Dick and Dick/Helena, one with Steph and a lot of Steph & Kara... all with lots of messy relationships not just between the Bats but other characters, really expanding on the DCU and how *I'd* like to picture things going forward after the 2011 reboot.

And one of them, inspired by an ask I got in tumblr, is about an Outsiders team lead by Anissa and Cass. Both fresh out of a breakup, so that's fun xD. Grace is also in the team (AnissaGrace WILL get back together!! But it'll be messy in the meantime); Rose and probably Eddie will be there; Helena or Roy will help in an irregular capacity, but actually, thanks to my mutuals I love the idea of including JADE in the team lol, trying the Hero thing. On the Gotham/more Cass-centric side of things it'll also feature Onyx and my own version of Kate Kane (stiched together from various canons, my own imaginings, and some hints from a Devin Grayson interview about the Batwoman run she never got to run).

That fic is going to be Cass's slut era, btw. No doubt about it xD. Rose is only the beginning...

I have my misgivings about some parts in Batgirl 2000 (basically, I love a lot of the story beats but I would've written it MUCH differently. Especially everything regarding Shiva. I have very strong opinions about it). But everything afterwards sucks SO much lmao.

I shipped Mia/Tim after seeing them sparring in Teen Titans 2003! It's such a fun scene, they're clearly having a good time xD. And I already shipped both characters with Jason a lot, so it developed in an interesting direction. MiaTim is also fun in imagining how like... they'd probably get together in a fwb set-up thinking of the other as a Normal and Appropriate Romantic Choice (unlike their usual ones xD) and then eventually discover they're both freaks xDD