Is it just me, or there is a significant change of writing focus in Buffy fandom in the past couple of years, where femslash becomes more and more prominent, when male slash withers and dies
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Most of my focus has always been on the female characters; I entered Buffy fandom through Tara Maclay; even my fave male characters could be said to have a feminine texture to them; despite the way they are sometimes written (Giles; Oz; Spike - in order of appearance
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One thing I've always liked is that the female characters can, and do for me, exist entirely independently of the males, but this is not true in the reverse. Yeah, it's still very rare thing even in the modern shows. I can't even imagine how it could have felt 15 years ago. (Or probably most people didn't pay attention to that back in the day, given that only small percent of older Buffy fic was focused exclusively on female charcters.)
I always found it very strange; again it may be me (or possibly my asperger's which has only relatively recently been diagnosed), that the Buffy/Spike / Buffy/Angel rivalry between fans seemed so strong in what was supposed to be a feminist kind of show. It always felt to me like a 'who gets to bang Buffy last' contest.
I thought the cookie dough speech was really interesting in that regard; just wish she'd said it far earlier in the series.
I also get freaked by the all the fics pairing Willow with Spike as I can't think of a single time where any kind of sexual contact was implied that wasn;t at the very least sexual assault.
Fandom can be very strange in how it sees things sometimes. The vast majority of my sexual contacts have been male/male, but I cannot easily read fandom m/m fic very easily.
All those promos and fanmade Angel-Buffy-Spike posters was one of the reasons why I avoided watching BtVS for the long time. Because they gave me impression that "Buffy" is some 90s verion of Twilight focused on love triangle romance.
Speaking of Spander, there is a huge mystery. One day it is the second most prominent pairing in the fandom (right after Spuffy), another day - Spander basically doesn't exist anymore. It's like "Mary Celeste" abandoned ship mystery, only in the fandom.
I've written slash, het, and femslash, but I have noticed that my fics are leaning more towards het, gen, and femslash these days. I'm sure it's because I'm a semi-active participant in femslashminis though.
Actually, not so sure about popularity of het in Buffy fandom nowdays. Well, except for spuffy. Any pairings apart from Spuffy are becoming increasingly rare, even Bangel. (Or probably Bangel shippers group in some communities where I can't see them? I don't know anything but IWRY Marathon.)
There are some Bangel forums and web archives that have fanfic, but they've been pretty dead for a long time. I think Bangel shippers have largely been discouraged by the turn canon's taken. Not that I can really blame them, even though I'm still not convinced that Spuffy will go anywhere in the long run. But there haven't been any other viable canon het pairings in quite awhile, which I think affects it, too. Willow/Xander and Willow/Oz are are ancient history now. Xander/Dawn has never taken off, and Xander/Anya was never a huge pairing in fanfic anyway. Oz and his wife weren't even confirmed to have survived the Tibetan battle in S8. Giles is now too young to ship (unless you're into that sort of thing) and Andrew is canon gay now. Buffy and Spike are really the only game in town, canon het-wise.
Buffy and Spike are really the only game in town, canon het-wise. I was recently looking for long-ish (<5000 words) new non-spuffy stories, and I was expecting that there won't be much... But even so I was shocked how little I found.
Is it just me, or there is a significant change of writing focus in Buffy fandom in the past couple of years, where femslash becomes more and more prominent, when male slash withers and dies?
As a Su Herald editor, you'd have a much better idea than me, but it does seem to me that there's a lot of femslash on LJ these days compared to other pairings. A pity for me, I suppose, as I've not much interest in it.
I don't know if any of the old Buffyverse m/m slash BNFs are still writing. There used to be so many of them. I used to mainly write m/m myself. I do still occasionally write something, but my taste in pairings has changed a lot. Never liked Spander, liked Spangel but don't like it so much anymore. These days I'd rather read Spike and a less conventional partner - Giles or Riley for preference.
Yeah, all old m/m slash BNFs are gone, and new m/m writers barely appear at all. And it's not only on LJ, on AO3/FFnet/tumblr/forums I see the same picture. Probably because with the modern shows, where homoerotic subtext isn't even subtext anymore, BtVS and Ats don't look particularely appealing. Besides, death of all buffyverse m/m comms and archives also won't inspire anyone to write.
Probably because with the modern shows, where homoerotic subtext isn't even subtext anymore, BtVS and Ats don't look particularely appealing.
There is a lot to be said for this. Its coyness about homosexuality makes BtVS look very old fashioned these days. Back then, of course, the Willow/Tara thing was very bold and brave (from a US perspective). They wouldn't have got away with two men kissing, though.
It's been my impression that a lot of m/m slash readers and writers are fans not so much of particular canons or characters, but of m/m slash. So they'll go to whatever fandom has the hot new m/m pairing, which means that right now, they're all over in Teen Wolf or MCU fandom or wherever. (There's even been a term coined for this phenomenon: "Migratory slash fandom.") Or these days, there are a ton of relatively easily accessible original m/m romance novels to satisfy the itch for two random hot guys getting it on.
It's kind of a pity, because S10 has been an absolute Spander gold mine.
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Yeah, it's still very rare thing even in the modern shows. I can't even imagine how it could have felt 15 years ago. (Or probably most people didn't pay attention to that back in the day, given that only small percent of older Buffy fic was focused exclusively on female charcters.)
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I thought the cookie dough speech was really interesting in that regard; just wish she'd said it far earlier in the series.
I also get freaked by the all the fics pairing Willow with Spike as I can't think of a single time where any kind of sexual contact was implied that wasn;t at the very least sexual assault.
Fandom can be very strange in how it sees things sometimes. The vast majority of my sexual contacts have been male/male, but I cannot easily read fandom m/m fic very easily.
*does mash-up of a shrug/wtf/facepalm/oy vey*
:-)
kerk
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I was recently looking for long-ish (<5000 words) new non-spuffy stories, and I was expecting that there won't be much... But even so I was shocked how little I found.
Reply
As a Su Herald editor, you'd have a much better idea than me, but it does seem to me that there's a lot of femslash on LJ these days compared to other pairings. A pity for me, I suppose, as I've not much interest in it.
I don't know if any of the old Buffyverse m/m slash BNFs are still writing. There used to be so many of them. I used to mainly write m/m myself. I do still occasionally write something, but my taste in pairings has changed a lot. Never liked Spander, liked Spangel but don't like it so much anymore. These days I'd rather read Spike and a less conventional partner - Giles or Riley for preference.
Reply
Probably because with the modern shows, where homoerotic subtext isn't even subtext anymore, BtVS and Ats don't look particularely appealing. Besides, death of all buffyverse m/m comms and archives also won't inspire anyone to write.
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There is a lot to be said for this. Its coyness about homosexuality makes BtVS look very old fashioned these days. Back then, of course, the Willow/Tara thing was very bold and brave (from a US perspective). They wouldn't have got away with two men kissing, though.
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It's kind of a pity, because S10 has been an absolute Spander gold mine.
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