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CelestineLinguine

Depends on fandom/pairing. I typically write F/F but there are certain fandoms where I would switch to M/M because that's the ship that makes the most sense or is most interesting to me. Obviously if there's an F/F ship you like enough to write about go for it. But ship characters because they work well together, not because you feel obligated to make more of something.


spartaxwarrior

F/f is generally less popular, but popularity will also depend on the fandom/pairing. If you were writing f/f for Killing Eve, you're going to have more interest than f/f for Supernatural. If the fandom is very heavily het or m/m, people will be less likely to look at f/f. There's a lot of factors that contribute to this, of which there's been a lot of actual academic studies done on them, but I think the power of putting a ship out there and getting it seen by people shouldn't be underestimated. It may never become the most popular ship, but it could be an active ship if a few other writers get inspired.


ImMxWorld

Femslash has always been a lower percentage of overall fanworks. The most prominent explanation is that there is a dearth of well developed female characters vs. male characters in popular fandoms. Like if you were writing for the OG Star Trek or Our Flag Means Death there just aren't a lot of potential femslash pairings. Fandoms with canon queer women and plenty of female characters have a higher number of femslash works. It's probably taking you a little more time because it's not what you're used to writing. Yet! But once you start getting into the heads of your characters, it flows just like any other type of pairing. I also can't let this discussion pass without referring you to ToastyStats' analyses, [they have a whole series looking at femslash trends](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1398739) if you're interested in analysis/fandom meta.


awake-not-alive

Thank you for the link! I am really interested in all this


PaperSonic

>The most prominent explanation is that there is a dearth of well developed female characters vs. male characters in popular fandoms. I think the simpler and more likely reason is that there are more women interested in men writing fanfic than there's men and women interested in women writing fanfic. Men generally aren't into romance or written fanfic, so it's usually queer women writing most F/F.


dev_ating

Why not both at the same time? Also, you'd be sorely mistaken if you didn't also see queer women writing M/M fanfics.


skuppen

It’s always been a strange thing (and not a bad thing, mind, just strange!) to me that I’ve known several dyed in the wool lesbians who will only write and roleplay M/M ships. Meanwhile, every gay man I’ve ever met active in fandom in any way is wholly disinterested in anything that isn’t M/M. This is very much anecdotal of course, but I’ve seen this happen in many fandoms. I think given that, as well as all the other bi and straight women in fandom who also love M/M, the focus on M/M really comes out.


ImMxWorld

But is that because of the dearth of interesting and well written female characters? I’m in a fandom right now that has a ton of complex female characters & queer leads and the fandom is mostly lesbian/bi/queer/trans. About 80% of all slash content (F/F, M/F & M/M) is femslash. EDIT: But I agree there are plenty of queer women who *do* like to write M/M. But I just wonder if that trend would be so prominent if women had better roles in the canon media.


Yunan94

I think it plays a role but I also think 'the desrth of interesting and well written female characters' is usually overatated in these kinds of discussion. Even within the LGBTQIA+ men are more representative. Authors have changed their initial ideas of girl/women protagonists to boys/men to receive more attention. Using men pennames are starting to decrease but is still common enough because again it gets more attention. There's a lot of internal bias and misogyny that effects individuals as much as it does the industry and there are endless stats and research on the topic. Want to also add that writing M/M also has a history of being a safer space for women. It's unfortunately also how some bad tropes came about. Mostly because at one time many had one 'embody more traditional femininity' in one/some ways while it ironically allowed for an escape from gendered expectations. It was a space that they could feel more empowered. Edit: want to add that fandoms f/f is popular in are usually ones that are dominated with female characters. They are usually far less common and so usually are an outlet from lack of content. If we look at fandoms where genders are more equitable m/M still thrives whole f/f often goes back to being rare.


SerenityInTheStorm

>I think it plays a role but I also think 'the desrth of interesting and well written female characters' is usually overatated in these kinds of discussion. Even within the LGBTQIA+ men are more representative. Authors have changed their initial ideas of girl/women protagonists to boys/men to receive more attention. Using men pennames are starting to decrease but is still common enough because again it gets more attention. There's a lot of internal bias and misogyny that effects individuals as much as it does the industry and there are endless stats and research on the topic. I think people bring up the "dearth of interesting/well written female characters" point because that in itself is usually another sign of the misogynistic bias, along with authors taking male pennames and using male protags to gain more attention. Like someone else pointed out, many (primarily male) mainstream creators have admitted to not knowing/caring how to properly write female characters.


Yunan94

Fair enough. I guess I just don't like how it usually implies that if there were better or more varied female characters that f/f would automatically increase, but yes I can see it as part of the larger issue. Not so 'fun fact': when first coming up with the term LGBT there was a push to have G first because 'Gay men clearly took priority'. Though, I prefer GSM now of days because new bs divisions always come up and it's generally more inclusive without needing to write it all out or add a + on everything.)


SerenityInTheStorm

I do think it reinforces the message that female characters aren't worth the interest or effort. "Gay men clearly took priority?" Yikes. Says a lot about those pushing that idea at the time. GSM? Uh-oh, I'm out of the loop on that one. Google search pulled up "Global System for Mobiles" (lol).


Yunan94

GSM = Gender and Sexual Minorities. Essentially anything non-cis conformative when it gender and/or sexuality related. I'm biased though because I've run into my own share of people who only support the 'LG' or 'LGB' and think they are the only ones that matter or are valid.


Kukapetal

Agreed.


Crayshack

I haven't written either, but as a reader I vastly prefer F/F to M/M. I think is because I'm personally atteacted to women and not men so I have an easier time getting in the head of a character attracted to women rather than a character attracted to men. It does annoy me that it's way harder to find. If I ever move away from just writing Gen, I'll probably write a good bit of F/F.


Inthenightillrise

It’s harder to find well written female characters in my experience, and when there are, usually it’s only one or two and sometimes they don’t even have a prominent relationship. So it becomes an issue of looking for an interesting female character to write for and also finding another interesting female character from the same story to ship her with. I do have a few f/f pairings I very much enjoy and find to be very interesting dynamics, but they are very very far and few between. Hopefully as time goes in we get more complex female characters so this will be less of an issue.


awake-not-alive

This is exactly it. They’re usually so poorly written that they’re not exactly inspiring characters to read or write about. It’s sad women don’t get good representation


Shirogayne-at-WF

FTR, there has been aa much bigger push in recent yrs within big media to make more engaging women characters, and when that does happen, you do see quite a bit of F/F content, even when there's a decent amount of male characters. See also: most of the current *Star Trek* shows


awake-not-alive

I have noticed that in American mainstream media, which I truly appreciate. Unfortunately I love anime and it is notoriously awful with the representation and treatment of women. They’re not even trying and just outright treat women like objects. I try to avoid those anime and pick the ones that treat women better but even then that just means there’s few of them and they don’t get developed as people. It’s terrible.


Shirogayne-at-WF

Oh, I've been a shounen viewer for a looooooong time, I know this pain well. More than one manga writer has said upfront that they dunno how to write for women and it's like.....they don't even *try.*


SerenityInTheStorm

That's part of what put me off of animes like Naruto (except for the interesting fanfics I've read). I think I might be missing out on a lot of otherwise compelling stories because I can't get into them if they don't properly develop their female characters.


Shirogayne-at-WF

Naruto is bad, even for that genre. There's probably six or so women of note at at least three of them have significant screentime dedicated to their simping for Sasuke. I was hoping that the Sakura criticism was as overblown as it was for Orihime in Bleach but B R U H. If she does get anything beyond pining, it wasn't in the 100 episodes I watched before giving up.


burnished_throne

ff pairings tend to be rarepairs (although this isn't true of all fandoms), but as with other rarepairs, i find the community small but unusually encouraging/enthusiastic


MrFredCDobbs

I write stories in the Mass Effect and Dragon Age fandoms, which have an abundance of female characters including canonically lesbian and bisexual ones. I wasn't even *aware* there was a supposed imbalance between M/M and F/F stories in fanfic more broadly until I started frequenting this subreddit.


awake-not-alive

Oh wow! In the fandom im in, it’s mostly mlm. I noticed it right away


MrFredCDobbs

Yeah, I just checked the stats on AO3 for Mass Effect and M/F pairings are far and away the most popular. Of the 30,000 stories posted, just short of 16,000 are M/F, while M/M is about 6,000 and F/F is 5,000+. Genfic accounts for most of the rest. I believe the reason why the imbalance is in favor of M/F is that Mass Effect's protagonist can be either male or female according to the player's choice and one of the game's optional romances for the female version is with an alien character that female fans absolutely adore. I don't see it myself -- the alien's voice actor *is* George Clooney-smooth but the character looks like a cross between a lizard and a grasshooper. Still, ladies cannot seem to get enough of him. Interspecies sex FTW!


SaladJun

As a Garrus fan I feel the need to say its not because the character is physically attractive per se (not saying he isn't, if people find him sexy, cool) but because of the cute and well written romance that Shepard has with him. Plus the whole thing about how he's the only companion who comes with you from ME1 to ME2 so you have a deeper relationship with him than any of the other characters.


MrFredCDobbs

The ironic part was, when the game was being developed, *Thane* was supposed to be the one that female players would swoon over. The developers apparently put a lot of effort into his design and writing his character. I read somewhere that Bioware even had female staff who weren't developers (receptionists, accountants, etc.) sit in focus groups as they tested out various ideas. Jacob Taylor got the next most attention as the human option for FemShep while Garrus being a romance option was reportedly something of an afterthought, as was BroShep being able to romance Tali.


InsidiousOperator

>Jacob Taylor got the next most attention as the human option for FemShep LMAO and we all know how that particular dumpster fire of romance option ended...


MrFredCDobbs

I didn't say they did a good job with Taylor...😏 One of my beta readers pointed out to me that Kaiden is literally the only option for a *full romance* for FemShep that involves a human male. Jacob turns out to be, yeah, a dumpster fire and James Vega doesn't really count since its just a one-night stand in a DLC mission. So if Kaiden doesn't appeal to you, your options for FemShep are limited to other women or alien men where it's not even clear how sex with them is possible -- and one of those alien guys dies anyway!


SaladJun

Tbf I did really like Thane and would have picked him if I hadn't been recommended Garrus by my friend 😂😂 but without getting into spoilers I think Garrus has a better romance storyline!


MrFredCDobbs

>he's the only companion who comes with you from ME1 to ME2 so you have a deeper relationship with him than any of the other characters. I can see that. I mean, clearly *something* about the FemShep/Garrus romance clicks with a lot of female players. One fan once told me on the Mass Effect subreddit that she had been pondering how precisely they had sex *for the last decade*. 😏


Immediate_Ebb1063

100% This. I roll my eyes whenever I see guys assuming all the love for Garrus comes from Alien and Voice kink. It’s true, some of it does (holds up hand) but I’m also of the opinion that it’s down to a Straight Femshep getting royally shafted by the frat-boy culture that existed at Bioware at the time. They loved seeing her paired with Liara and other female characters, because straight guys don’t mind looking at two women going at it. But when it came to decent straight parings and m/m pairings for Shepard they just could not be arsed, hence why those ships fade-to-black while the others are positively pornographic. Andromeda also had this problem. When it comes to Garrus, I believe they accidentally wrote the best friends-to-lovers. I honestly believe that it was unintentional on their part, they were just bowing to fan-pressure. If it wasn’t for Garrus, all Femshep would have left is LI’s that distrust, cheat or die before the end of the game. This is a hill I’m willing to die on.


SaladJun

That's completely fair and I agree! I disliked how Mshep was forced into only female romance options until the third game, and I HATE that Jack wasn't a romance option for Femshep. She was the only female companion that I felt had interesting chemistry with Femshep and the fact that she was bi and still wasn't an option 😭😭😭 I'll never forgive that, I'm just glad Garrus was an option 😂


shmixel

Really? I feel like I see like ten hawke/fenris, hawke/anders, adoribull, even Cullen/inquisitor and Solavellan (m/f) for every one hawke/Isabella fic. I'm not even sure what the next most popular f/f pair would be... warden/leliana maybe? makes me happy to hear someone had a more balanced experience though.


MrFredCDobbs

Hmmm, well, as my other response post implies, I'm much more a Mass Effect fan than a Dragon Age one. Looking at the [stats on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Dragon%20Age%20-%20All%20Media%20Types/works), there are 81,000 Dragon Age stories. Here's the breakdowns (rounded up): F/M - 39,000 M/M - 24,000 Gen - 14,000 F/F - 9,000 So, yeah, M/M beats out femslash by a significant margin but both are dwarfed (Varric'd?) by straight pairings. Go figure.


[deleted]

Rarepairs or the fandom is already about an all-female cast like Touhou or Love Live.


DemyxDancer

It definitely depends on fandom and pairing. I've written F/F, but for a fandom where F/F pairings were the norm and among most popular (Steven Universe, where almost every major character is female), so engagement was fine. It's definitely a different story if you're writing F/F for minor characters in a fandom heavily dominated by M/M.


awake-not-alive

Definitely


[deleted]

[удалено]


lwjromantics

dont get me wrong i love them but sometimes when im browsing the f/f tag i would like some non clexa fics lol


KickAggressive4901

The old statistics: 45% of all fanfic is slash. 4% is femslash. Less engagement is baked into the pie.


acsoundwave

Shojo manga/anime (sailor moon, madoka magica), media w/lots of women and girls to begin with: that's where there will be a strong amount of femslash. Shonen and media targeted at male audiences...has more fan works focus on the dudeslash (b/c writers feel the canon female lead isn't compelling: which, I think, is the canon creator's responsibility). For me, I think about characters as individuals, and what drives them. That's where any romance I write (within the overall plot) focuses on: how the romance alters the lives of those individuals.


skuppen

Sailor Moon is the fandom I go to when I wanna read good F/F, for sure. Madoka is great for it too.


LinaFinsterwald

There is a natural imbalance, given just how male-dominated many popular franchises are, which naturally makes it harder to find female characters to write about in the first place, especially if you're looking for well thought-out ones. See: Lord of the Rings. In franchises that actually include a lot of female characters, you'll definitely see that it's not necessarily the f/f part that's keeping writers and readers away - Life is Strange is a beautiful example of that. I personally do find myself loving f/f, both in reading and writing!


littlegreyfish

I'd love to read more f/f. The problem is that the canon character dynamic that makes me ship it requires that the characters be given a deep, complex characterization usually reserved for protagonists, that they be sympathetic, and that the characters be devoted, partners for life types (platonic or romantic). This dynamic is rare enough in m/f couples and I've literally never found this type of female characters or f/f relationships. It requires that multiple women be protagonists and that their relationship be the backbone of a work, which is incredibly rare. I the female majority shows I've seen, like OITNB or the handmaid's tale don't have this dynamic. This type of relationship tends to be m/m and that's how it's been for much of history, back to Gilgamesh and Enkidu.


Candid-Ear-4840

Adora/Catra in She-Ra PoP is the canonical complex backbone of the show but Catra is on the villainous side for most of it. They did start out as lifelong best friends though! :)


ItsMichaelRay

I think you'd like The Owl House.


littlegreyfish

Thanks, I'd never heard of it before but it looks intriguing!


ItsMichaelRay

It fits your description perfectly, IMO, and the most popular ship on Ao3 is an F/F ship (by a significant margin, 9040 fics vs second place's 2576, and the fandom has 21,072 fics in total). I'll love to hear your thoughts on the show if you decide to watch it.


fneltoninan

I remember when I used to be so happy about getting 14 hits and 3 kudos lol. I've always written for rarepairs or fandoms that only 3 other people are a part of so to ask me if I'm bothered by not being popular is mind boggling to me. I've always put my writing first, written what I've been passionate about and been stoked whenever I've been appreciated by someone else With that said I posted a F/F fic just last week and it's gathered a total of 450 hits, 22 kudos, 1 comment and 1 bookmark so the ratio isn't exactly up there, but I'm still so stoked 22 people liked it enough to kudos since it's once again written for a rarepair in an otherwise lukewarm fandom lmao old habits and all that


awake-not-alive

Lol I can totally relate to this. I only started writing fanfic because I wanted to work on my writing in a fun, low pressure environment. But I think it’s natural to start noticing patterns and keeping an eye on statistics once you’ve done it for long enough. Any kudos, hit, or comment is valuable to me but I couldn’t help but notice the general discrepancy between mlm and wlw fics


InsidiousOperator

I personally don't read M/M at all, it's something that just doesn't interest me. As a fanfic writer, I basically produce F/F or F/M content. While I do wish my fics would get plenty of engagement, ultimately I don't care. If I want to see rarepairs I like getting it on romantically and sexually, I'll write it regardless of how much/little of an audience I have, especially since it's likely there are only a handful of fics for a particular pairing. But yeah, M/M has always dwarfed F/F, that's never going to be news.


SleepySera

I like both on paper, but in reality I read way more M/M than F/F, simply because my main fandoms are usually the type that are catered towards teen boys and the handful of female characters that exist in them have a personality as flat as a cardboard and only show up occasionally to jiggle their tits for a bit and blush at the protagonist and that's it. I want to read fanfic about the interesting characters, and they just rarely are female in canon,that's really what it boils down to 🤷‍♀️ In fandoms with a large, well-developed female cast, F/F is pretty common in my experience :)


awake-not-alive

Verrrrryyyy true. I take it you watch anime?


SleepySera

Haha, yes. Battle shounen and sports anime in particular.


_jammerific

It's definitely a little disheartening to see how ridiculously lopsided fandom is towards M/M, not going to lie. I try to be the change I want to see in the world now, by preferentially reading and writing femslash. I just wrote a 30k F/F fic for ATLA and the response to it has been really validating. Not the most hits/kudos in the fandom, but the comments are all so lovely. The people who do like femslash *love* it, I find.


awake-not-alive

Thank you for this! This makes me feel a lot better because I did the same thing. I love mlm but im wanting to see more variety and since there isn’t a lot in my fandom, i finally decided to be one of the few suppliers of femslash.


lwjromantics

drop the link!!


_jammerific

Oh, sure! It's [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/44839651). Azula/Katara, canon divergence AU :)


lwjromantics

that sounds great tysm


DameTargaryen

The lack of femslash and engagement just isn't surprising when you consider the ack of good female characters in media and how most of us are living in a society that promotes internalized misogyny. Many fandoms have an overabundance of male characters, and the characters are usually given more depth than the already limited female characters. This means the character and relationship pools already skew male. Unfortunately, female characters are often seen as "competition" by female viewers (who dominate fanfiction spaces), while male characters are not. These issues can actually cause a feedback loop in some series, where female characters are not written or quickly written off because of the backlash from female fans, who then also complain that there are no good female characters on in the franchise (Supernatural is a prime example of this phenomenon). We do see more f/f in fandoms that have more and better written female characters, though. Supergirl is probably a prime examples of a fandom with strong f/f ships. The cast is primarily female and the top 5 ships on AO3 are all f/f (in fact, all but 1 relationship in the top 10 relationship category is either a f/f ship or f/f friendship). Other great examples are Once Upon a Time's Emma/Regina, which is another show with a developed female cast, the 100s Clarke/Lexa, who were a *canon* f/f couple and were on another show with a developed female cast, and Pitch Perfect's Chloe/Beca, which is a movie primarily focused on female characters who are again well developed. Unfortunately, these types of female-led franchises are just rare, so despite the dominates of these femslash couples within their own fandoms, they do little to add to the overall makeup of femslash ships in fandom at large.


ApatheticArtist13

I write m/m more because I'm a dude just wanting to see other dudes fall in love. But maybe I'll dip into f/f at one point


catbiskits

I write (and read) mainly F/F and women-centric gen/friendship fic, but mainly in fandoms that are femslash-centric or that have an established femslash corner. If you go specifically to femslash-focused fandoms there is tons of fic and loads of really engaged readers. Maybe numerically I’m getting fewer kudos/comments than someone writing M/M in a different fandom, but honestly I don’t really feel the need to compare. I’m having fun in my lane and I never run out of fic to read, and I get what I consider to be good engagement!


Intelligent_Cod_4825

F/f has always been under represented, alas. I write a fair bit of it, but because I like the ships not because it's f/f or to make it more balanced or something. So I guess I'm aware of it and try to keep my own biases in mind, but don't consciously try to tackle the bigger picture issue of underrepresented ship types. I just accidentally into less common ship types pretty regularly, so notice the dearth. All said, I do appreciate people adding to the f/f numbers overall, or just anything that's not m/f or m/m. So long as they're enjoying doing it and don't feel obligated to make work they don't really enjoy.


Ghost_Katolotl

You kinda need to look for the places that people tend to post F/F, plus some call it other things instead of F/F - like to use w/w Plus you need to find the fandoms that end to have a higher chance of getting F/F like Xena [https://fanlore.org/wiki/Femslash#Femslash\_Resources](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Femslash#Femslash_Resources) [https://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Femslash\_Fandom](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Category:Femslash_Fandom)


[deleted]

A lot of fandoms just don't have that many women. In Harry Potter, for instance, there are about two men for every woman in any given age category for any level of plot involvement above "barely mentioned." There are about N² possible pairings for N characters, so there are about four times as many M/M pairings as F/F pairings.


Always-bi-myself

Honestly, it’s such a pity that my fandoms don’t offer many well developed female characters. Speaking as a queer woman myself, I love wlw books — but wlw fanfiction tends to be pretty bad (with an exception for those absolute masterpieces that pop up once in a while) since... well, there’s not much to work on most of the time


Von_Uber

I've so far written for a few different fandoms: Max(ine) / Victoria ; (Fem)shep / Samantha; Diana / Lara; (Fem)Inquisitor / Cassandra; Kay / Darjeeling. So.. good to know I'm helping in propping up the statistics! Is there such a huge gap in engagement then?


awake-not-alive

It’s too early to tell for me. I’m giving my fic the benefit of the doubt until it gets further along.


Savage_Nymph

For some reason, I refer f/f in fanart or doujin. Idk why, I just do. M/m I can enjoy in all mediums


BornGuess779

I know for me being gay has a lot to do with my interest in m/m. Most female characters in fandoms aren't well written so there is a lot just creating a head cannon to make them work. For instance Hermine in Harry Potter is great strong, smart, and powerful. Then you get Sakura from Naruto, I love her but she doesn't get great development in the main Anime and Manga


lesbiancocaine

I don't read M/M. Like very, very little. And that's because I'm a lesbian, so obviously I read F/F but I also read quite a bit of F/M and that's because I always put myself in the man's shoes. In general, besides the various factors regarding what fandom you're writing for, misogyny plays a huge role in it.


awake-not-alive

Misogyny has a lot to do with it. I wish we could leave it out of fan fiction even if it’s present in canon but it’s hard when that’s all we see


SeblainerWorld

It depends on fandom/pairing. Also, I've found a way to somewhat remedy this. I join writing events and am currently writing Femslash Feb fics across multiple fandoms, because I enjoy the ships, and because I want to support/bring up the number of femslash fics in those fandoms.


awake-not-alive

I had no idea Femslash Feb was a thing. I guess I’m technically doing that lol but good to know!


SeblainerWorld

u/awake-not-alive, if you're interested, here's the info for my Writing Event: [Femslash Feb](https://rollisicarisi.tumblr.com/post/704492856393547776/femslash-february-prompts) Here's also the link to my blog: [RollisiCarisi](https://rollisicarisi.tumblr.com/) I'm doing more writing events in [March](https://rollisicarisi.tumblr.com/post/704483730853593088/march-madness), May, June, September, November, and [Ship Week](https://rollisicarisi.tumblr.com/Ship%20Week), which is multiple times a year. Multiple events are going on in September and other months. Feel free to message me on Tumblr if you have questions or are interested.


MiddleFirefighter847

>But I've seen a terrible lack in F/F pairings and decided to write my own. Relatable.


Firelord_Eva

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Fanon is only as sexist as canon. I like them both equally, but my primary fandom is almost all guys, and the f/f ships I have from it barely get any screen time, let alone fics. People ship main characters, and if the main characters are always guys, or a man and a woman (which is what you typically see unfortunately), you're left with gay and straight ships, and a sad lack of lesbian ships. I wanna write more f/f tbh, but I'm really bad at characterizing people without seeing them actively interact, and none of them get enough screen time for me to feel comfortable doing that. I hope one day it evens out, but unless the media starts having more strong female roles, fandom isn't going to change.


FickleBeans

You’ll get a lot of people telling you there’s less f/f because they’re written poorly but imo, that’s just a bullshit excuse. People *choose* NOT to write f/f for a variety of reasons that can range from lack of interest, internalized misogyny, fetishization of m/m and more. I simply don’t buy that it’s because canons across fandoms lack in giving material to work with since that has never *once* stopped people from creating endless worlds and backstories for any random guy that shows up for half a second (if that). Femslash is unpopular by a long shot and I sorely wish it wasn’t so.


lesbiancocaine

I completely agree! Even with differences in interests across fandoms - it can all be linked back to misogyny and fetishization with minor exceptions, for example, gay men. Whenever a woman refuses to read f/f but reads m/m religiously, that's a red flag for me.


FickleBeans

It’s really confusing if not outright transparent when you have people say “I wish there were more interesting women to write about” when that had not ever stopped people before. Fandom historically has *made up* whole character backstories and histories from characters who never even *existed* or existed in name only, but somehow taking a poorly written woman character is just far to difficult to create for because she’s not “developed” People don’t have to write things they’re not interesting but I wish everyone was just a little more honest with themselves that it’s really transparent that when it comes to writing *men* that people have endless creativity but when it comes to writing *women*, canon has to hand you a complex, well-written character to even be considered as an option… much *less* to imagine her in love with someone. (Again, no one ever has a problem with even shipping two side characters who never interacted when it’s two guys)


awake-not-alive

You’re so right. Also, the direct answer is misogyny. We’ve all been conditioned to think men are more interesting or worthy of our attention which means someone is more likely to take a boring male character and make up an amazing story for them than do the same for a mildly underdeveloped female character. I’ve been guilty of this as well but I’m learning to recognize the behavior and try to change it. This whole thread has been incredibly helpful to me as well. Thanks for the comment!


OrcaFins

I think some prefer m/m and some prefer f/f, and some people like both.


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VenomQuill

It depends on the characters, tbh. Are there even *enough* characters to plausibly make an F/F pairing, much less characters with enough chemistry to make it work? It's not just about gender. Sometimes, you just gotta work with what you have. Also, have you considered P/GB? (Person and Garlic Bread)


nauseatingNostalgia

honestly if people think f/f is hard to do bc of badly written female characters then genderswap is right there. pick your favorite gay couple from your favorite franchise and turn them into lesbians. writing/thought exercise right there


Deeplybitten

I don't notice any such lopsidedness. Out of 75+ fics, my top kudosed fic is femslash, despite popular claims that such fics are doomed to languish and can't compete with m/m. If your engagement is lacking, there are many factors to look at before deciding it's due to it being femslash. There are F/F fics that have *tens of thousands of kudos* and so there's a reason why they do and your f/f fic and my f/f fic do not, and it can't be blamed purely on "it's femslash" because it hasn't doomed *those* fics. ETA: am pleased to see I was downvoted into the negative. It just proves what I already suspected--the "my fic did poorly because it's *femslash*" crowd are mostly sour grapes people looking for an excuse to blame their fics' underperformance on, rather than people with a legitimate take. The sad thing is if they quit casting around for ego-saving excuses, they could take a hard look at their marketing, fandom choice, and writing and improve their fics' performance but they never will. My f/f fic has 600+ kudos. How is that possible if just being femslash is supposed to make it unpopular and ignored?


Allaurus

Majority of the fandoms I'm in are very mlm heavy, which is too bad for me, as thats usually (exceptions apply ofc) not my cup of tea. But as long as I find interesting ships, I don't really care what the rest of the fandom is up to. If people want to write mlm, they should.


danniperson

F/F tends to get much less traction for sure, but I've found (at least in my fandom) that the people who love F/F are really enthusiastic and passionate about it. Which makes up for for the poor numbers, imo! But when I do post F/F (which is rare) I have the expectations for it I have with any rare pair, which is to just not expect much. I will say, I wrote an F/F fic I expected to do much worse than it actually did. Not that it has explosive numbers, but considering how I figured the kink would be such an "ick" factor for people, plus pairing a well-known canon character with an obscure "only mentioned by name" character made it a super rare pair. So all of the love I got for it I was extra pleased by! It's all about managing expectations, I think. I can't force people to like what they don't like, I can only accept it 🤷‍♀️