sophinisba | Merlin ladies

Have you seen

astolat's new Morgana vid, Watershed? Go watch omg! Be disturbed by Arthur/Merlin moments you usually find charming! Marvel at how well Vienna Teng's lyrics fit (what could be) Morgana's story! Tell Astolat to come back to Merlin fandom and make us more awesome stuff ~~like porn with Merlin on top~~!

I went ahead and signed up for

merlinfemfest! Sign-ups close tomorrow, so if you're like me and you've been dithering, make up your mind quick!

It was interesting looking at people's sign-ups at the fest and the patterns that form when we all read each other's requests. I think this is the first specifically femslash exchange I've signed up for. At most of the ones I've done if you look at the "things I don't want" and "things I won't do" you tend to see noncon, watersports, and scat. (Last year

eruthros had an interesting post about anti-kink messages and boundary policing in Yuletide letters that I had mixed feelings about but that got me thinking anyway.) At merlinfemfest you see again and again are noncon but also pregnancy, kidfic, genderswap, and sex with boys. I'd never thought of those as common squicks and, come to think of it, had all four of them in my giant Hunith/Nimueh fic last year (and only thought to warn for there being a het scene in a femslash fic).

I requested fic or art or a vid, which is another difference with my sign-ups at other fests because usually either they are just fic or I just request fic. But I realized earlier this year (during the last big blowup about fandom neglecting female characters) that most of my favorite fanarts and vids are about girls, even though most of the fic I read is about boys. So that seemed fine. If I get art I will feel anxious about not knowing how to comment ("Yay so pretty!") but I will be happy anyway.

But that got me noticing also that my request (and almost everybody's requests) is all about the kinds of stories I like, and nothing about the kind of art or vids I like. And that could be really annoying for an artist or vidder who gets assigned to me, not only that I'm not giving them any kind of guidance but I'm kind of ignoring their medium. But on the other hand I really don't know how to talk about what I like the way I can with fic, and I also don't know what kinds of things people tend to say in their requests. I did say no photomanips and am hoping that's not rude. Is it appropriate to suggest artists or songs for vids?

What kind of art do I like? The pretty kind! What kind of vid do I like? The kind that makes me cry and also the kind that makes me happy! I don't know! :(

Oh hey, I haven't watched any Rizzoli & Isles yet, but I know a few of you have been, so the Rizzoli & Isles Femslash Porn Battle might be relevant to your interests!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Huh, that's an interesting observation! I may have to go back and edit in some vid specific info into my own request, although I did try to make sure some of my 'likes' could apply to both in a general sense. I'm thinking artists and specific songs might be too much detail to negotiate in the sign-up format, although there's nothing stopping you doing a 'dear creator' letter so you have enough space to talk about that sort of stuff without it being too presumptuous/full of pressure to do any specific artist/song (although, I don't know if they intend to encourage that for this exchange, you might want to set up a holder post and edit a link into your sign-up info if you wanted to do one.) On the other hand, I'm going to go edit in a link to my fanmix tag and some general notes of the sort of music/clips I like in vids right now, heh.

Thank you, these are good suggestions. It's too bad so many of the posts on my music tag are flocked, or a person could get a pretty good idea of my tastes from that. :/ I will probably do a dear creator post though. Those are always fun to write anyway!

Thanks for the link to

eruthros's post. I've been revising the terminology I use to describe my kinks and squicks in Dear Challenge Writer letters over the past year or so (partly because I realized that I have a number of self-proclaimed kinky people on my dwircle/flist, and it would be nice to not unthinkingly insult their sexual preferences and/or identities). I'm not yet satisfied with my revised language, though, and that post--and especially the discussions in the comments--looks really helpful.

I did say no photomanips and am hoping that's not rude.

Not rude exactly--I think it's fine to have medium preferences in art and to express them--but what happens if the artist who's assigned to you can only do photomanips? Then she's stuck either defaulting or making you stick figure art.

Re: vids. On the couple of occasions when someone was making a vid for me, they asked for song suggestions. I'd recommend giving several options, and maybe also saying something about musical genres you like and/or dislike, so that if none of the songs you suggested works, the vidder will still know that, for instance, you like swing music but not experimental jazz. Saying that you like both happy and sad vids would probably also be helpful. (Assuming the latter's what you meant when you said that you like vids that make you cry; otherwise you could elaborate and say what exactly makes you cry in vids.)

You might also mention if you prefer vids that match the lyrics to the action in the clip (e.g. in Luminosity's "Vogue" where the words "look around" accompany a clip of a severed head spinning in the air; the vid's chock full of other examples, but that's one of the most obvious), or vids that have a strong narrative arc, or vids that focus on a particular theme, or vids that are just pretty clips set to music, or some combination of the above.

if you prefer vids that match the lyrics to the action in the clip ... or vids that have a strong narrative arc, or vids that focus on a particular theme, or vids that are just pretty clips set to music

Ha ha yes, I like all of those things. I'll try to think some more about my favorite things though and make a post. I guess it's hard to know, for a medium where I've never been a creator, how much talk about preferences is helpful and how much is stifling. :/

Eruthros's post and the comments were really...disconcerting and illuminating for me. I reacted against a lot of what was said there - about how it's *just* boundary policing and not really about what's likely to get written in a fest - but I don't know how well I was listening there. I could be defensive because she could very well have pulled a sentence from my Yuletide letter and then everybody could have made fun of my awkward phrasing about not wanting to read about piss and shit. :) It's definitely affected the way I write those for the better, although there's also the issue of other people making up sign-up forms, so for instance merlinfemfest has a space for "Things I won't touch with a ten-foot jousting stick" whereas I'd be more likely just to say "I would prefer not to write..."

I reacted against a lot of what was said there - about how it's *just* boundary policing and not really about what's likely to get written in a fest - but I don't know how well I was listening there.

I think it's not a very clear issue, even (practically, if not intellectually/emotionally) for

eruthros and the commenters to her post. My old, bad squick list at one point included a request to not receive "any 'extreme' kinks (e.g. bloodplay, scat, etc.)." I'd deliberately put "extreme" in quotation marks in my request in an attempt to acknowledge that there's nothing inherently more kinky about one practice than another, but my phrasing was still offensive and imprecise, and it put an unfair burden on my author to try to read my mind about what I in particular would consider extreme kink.

On the other hand,

eruthros wrote in her post, "Seriously, how often do people write watersports for people who haven't asked for it in fic exchanges?" So there are kinks that are considered ~~extreme~~...um...specialty items, even by people who identify as kinky and who are against boundary policing of sexual desire. But, of course, the reason that things like watersports are considered off-limits unless specifically requested is precisely because of previous iterations of boundary policing, which has created a community standard that's comforting to the majority and painful to the people who fall outside the boundaries. It's all very circular.

And it gets further complicated (for me, at least; I don't know if others feel this way) because I hesitate to give my writer a multi-paragraph essay about my kinks and squicks, especially for something like Yuletide, where the majority of the fic produced for the exchange is G-rated gen. I mean, I always write a note assuring my writer that I'm happy to receive a story of any rating, but I think it could be hard to write a PG-rated story with self-confidence when your recipient's Dear Challenge Writer letter includes an in-depth discussion of her feelings about a few dozen sexual kinks. So, yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with all of these conflicting considerations. :-)

Thanks for the reminder about the femfest - I'm going to go work on my sign-up right now!

Also, as an artist I maintain that "Yay so pretty" is a great comment. :D

Well, I also usually comment on fic with something like, "I liked this!", but if someone's making a gift especially for me I need to work at it a little more than that. :)

Nahh, I don't think that was rude. Manips just rub some people the wrong way (esp. H/D ones because the face + the body = DO NOT MATCH.)

You know, after I did my sign-up I realized the reason I really dislike a lot of the manips I've seen is the GIANT PENISES, which would probably not be an issue at a femslash exchange. But yeah, they are usually not my favorite art form even when they're done well. :/

LOL!

Thankfully, I've never seen one of those or I'd be scarred for life >_>
*hates rl visual pr0n, but is okay with fanart pr0n*

I've never seen one that's convincing except when reduced into icon size. Even if I don't notice the wrong shadows, lighting source, etc. I think I subconsciously picks it up and feels a vague sense of wrongness...

pick* it up

Merlin ladies

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