Subject: Sounds like an excuse for pluggage!
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Posted on: 2017-10-10 10:35:00 UTC

Rockall, Malin, Hebrides. Southwest gale 8 to storm 10, veering west. ~The Shipping Forecast

I am not, by and large, much of a shipper (except in my PPC characters, who I ship so much with each other that I ended up with family trees), but I do on occasion. I go for things that are compatible with canon, even if they're not canon themselves - I have a Susan Pevensie/Maglor story out there, which exemplifies this.

More recently, I've had my eye on femslash, for philosophical reasons: there isn't much out there, and that lack of representation bugs me. Turns out the reason is that it's hard to find two women who can be shipped in a canon-friendly manner - there's nothing viable in the Star Wars films, for instance (Leia/Mothma? But Leia is pretty straight, and this would just smack of 'they don't actively hate each other, so they must be in luuurve'). (Jyn/Rey could work if you could get around them being 30 years apart. But th'ain't no time travel in Star Wars.)

I have an in-process Luthien/Galadriel story, which does justify its existence alongside their canonical romances, but in general Tolkien's lack of women - especially unmarried women - and their lack of character development when they do exist throws things off. I could write steamy Diamond of Long Cleeve/Estella Bolger erotica, but I'd have to make their personalities up from whole cloth, so it wouldn't really count.

(Dropping back to the other kinds of ships, I tend to stick with canon in Middle-earth, and I've never seen a slash pairing that convinced me, though I have written both a gay elf and a lesbian dwarf.)

Other canons are more viable, mostly because when you have a large enough cast you can write anything. Sticking with the big-name canons, I can't pass up this opportunity to unveil my new fic: a femslash (as mentioned) tale from the USS Voyager, starring one of those minor characters who nevertheless is developed enough to write:

The Ill-Fated Love Life of Tal Celes, a romance in 11 chapters (rolling out over the next couple of weeks).

In summary? I will generally respect the canon (except when the canon is WRONG [/Team Jacob]), am not particularly attached to any specific ships, and will mostly write femslash if anything for philosophical reasons.

hS

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