Talk:Sapphic Fandom

Specific Fandoms and Popular Ships by loose genre/media type?

Thank you so much to the editors for this page! I've got some additions I'd like to contribute in a few sections. I was wondering what other editors would think about loosely grouping specific fandoms and/or popular ships by genre type or media type? For instance, Historical Dramas like Carol, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Gentleman Jack are all a distinct kind of lesbian/sapphic media with a large following; anime/manga series have another, TV series, animated shows, etc. I don't think we'd need to get too granular, but it might be useful to have sub-sections of some kind? Could I take a stab at creating sub-categories on the page with tables under each, or would someone be interested in collaborating on that kind of project? -- Lightdescending (talk) 17:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi! I'd definitely be up for some kind of collaboration! And yeah, that does sound like a good idea with the categorisation. Feel free to get started on it, and then we can discuss either on here or Tumblr about specifics :) -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 16:54, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Sounds great! I'll give it my best shot for the specific fandoms; I know that User:Error cascade did some really cool coding with a table for the Black Is Beautiful Exchange page that allowed for sorting by different columns and that might be cool to aim for in this table (sorting by intentionality, broad genre, title alphabetically)? So that kind of coding on this table might be worth investigating further down the line. For now I'm taking a look at the Category: Fandoms by Canon Type and some sub-pages of that to choose some initial genres! : ) Cheers, looking forward to helping! -- Lightdescending (talk) 17:43, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Ok, so I've made somewhat of a start on another potential table we could use, using the table code from the page you mentioned, and some of the categorisation and other stuff Error cascade recently added (thanks for that btw). If either of you, or anyone else, wants to add any thoughts, feel free. I'll come back and do some more when I get the chance. -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Finished an initial pass! Hope it gives a good start. Something weird happened when I saved the page and the table now appears below references; still, while this is probably not comprehensive I hope it works! Cheers. -- Robotki (talk) 00:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Name of the page

I would like to see something about the name of the page. Is it widely used in fandom? Where and since when? The last time I saw it, it was a minor term that hadn't gained a lot of traction (see all the femslash and altfic and yuri websites). Did it become more popular than other terms? If yes, that should be documented somewhere. --Doro (talk) 12:05, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi there. I named it 'Sapphic Fandom' more as a descriptor, rather than a term that is used regularly in fandom itself, and did so for a few reasons. For one, it differentiates it from Femslash Fandom, as not every sapphic ships femslash, and not everyone who participates in Femslash Fandom also participates in Sapphic Fandom. Sapphic Fandom also includes sapphics who don't engage with femslash, but who engage with fandom through a sapphic lens (I hope at some point to include reasons why some sapphics might not engage with femslash and how it impacts fandom more broadly). I also didn't want to name it 'Lesbian Fandom' as sapphic incorporates other identities such as mspec identities.

Though thinking about it, I could certainly put something about how and why the term 'Sapphic Fandom' isn't used particularly often as a whole, and explain the use of 'sapphic culture' and 'lesbian culture' and how it gets used in regards to fandom, as an alternative, though? -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 11:30, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this and a couple other pages too (ie: Bisexuality and Fandom, MSpec Fandom) - I appreciate a lot the effort to make these identity-based fandom pages inclusive. That said, as soon as we start bringing identity-based terms into Fanlore, things are inevitably going to get messy and I don't think we're going to reach full consensus because identity terms are so personal. For instance, not all lesbians or bisexuals refer to or think of themselves as sapphic or wlw (some even find those terms annoying) even if women are who they primarily orient themselves around, and even though sapphic / wlw can be leveraged as useful blanket terms or are really meaningful to other people. Some non-binary people think of or refer to themselves as lesbian, too; some don't. And from what I've seen, for some fans their sexuality/gender is very important in how they interact with fandom and what fandoms they participate in; others, not so much.

I think this and other pages like it are ambitious and could be very useful; that said, I also know that there are other pages on Fanlore that might be better suited to discussing more granular topics (ie: "why isn't there more femslash" which starts to discuss why femslash may not be engaged with as highly regardless of the fan's personal identity) so I'm not sure as an editor that these identity-based pages should try to definitively encompass everything there is to say about "how people with X Identity interact with fandom", because I don't think that's something we could ever achieve.

All this is to say - I think I get where the title came from, but there also a lot of reasons why "sapphic" isn't used as a whole, and I think considering the ultimate purpose of this page and limitations it'll have is important. Terms evolve and change, and have also been a flashpoint in LGBTQ spaces for intracommunity strife, so even understanding the merits of 'sapphic' I'm hesitant to say that it would be a widely accepted term for a page like this... but I also struggle to come up with an alternative beyond 'Lesbianism and Fandom' or similar. That kind of title would be in line with the titling on other pages like Bisexuality and Fandom, and I would argue doesn't inherently erase the complexities of sexuality and gender (ie: non-binary and trans lesbians, relationships between a lesbian and a bi character), but YMMV -- (Chanterelle (talk) 19:10, 2 April 2021 (UTC))

I think perhaps there needs to be a conversation about what exactly the goal of this page is to document? Looking at it currently - and I know that pages on Fanlore are never "complete" and their focus can always be changed, but as it is now - the page is primarily taken up by lists of fandoms and ships with a popular "sapphic" following. I honestly think the huge table would be better shifted to a subpage, but in general I think what this page lacks is the why. If there are fans who identify more closely with the term sapphic than femslash, as OfMonstersAndWerewolves pointed out, why is that and how does that affect how they interact with fandom? What makes sapphic fandom as a fandom group different from femslash or lesbian fandom?

OfMonstersAndWerewolves said they chose the page name to be inclusive, but the reason behind that choice I think is something that should be reflected in the page's content. Because otherwise, it's kind of hard to see why this information needs to be on this page specifically. The list of popular ships seems, at a very quick glance to my admittedly inexpert eye, to be a list of ships that you could also say are popular in femslash fandom, so why have them on this page? I think in making the page too broad we risk not really having a purpose for it, and so I think there needs to be more of a focus to what this page documents distinct from other pages about femslash fandom. Otherwise it's hard to really know how to add to it. Does that make sense? --enchantedsleeper (talk) 10:03, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

As an addendum - I think the fact that fans feel strongly about different identity-based terms as Chanterelle points out makes it very difficult to have a single page that encompasses all of them, and that's okay. The distinction between these fandom groups is something that should be reflected on Fanlore, so for that reason I'm inclined to have multiple, more specific pages where we can rather than trying to collect things under a single umbrella. --enchantedsleeper (talk) 10:05, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I will try and reply to everyone's points about this page eventually, I just don't have the spoons atm. -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 15:36, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Hey, that's okay! Discussions on Fanlore can unfold over months and years - the message I left above was itself replying to a comment left more than three weeks ago. Also, don't feel like you need to come back to everything people are suggesting about the page just because you created it. All pages on Fanlore are a community project, and so my message was addressed to anyone who might have an opinion about what the page should focus on. It's not your sole responsibility to reply or to address everything :) --enchantedsleeper (talk) 13:48, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

In terms of is sapphic fandom a good name for the page, I think it's probably the best overall but that there should be some redirects. Sapphic has the advantage of being a more established term than WLW, less clunky than Lesbian and Bisexual Fan Communities (although that could be a name for a redirect), less gendered than names qualified with women, and not as likely to elicit discomfort as a term than dyke or queer.

I don't feel up to writing anything out properly right now but I think the intro should be ammended to say something like "sapphic fandom is one of many possible terms for fan communities composed of or focusing on lesbians, or bisexual and m-spec women." I think it's also important to draw a continuity line from fanzines that explicitly sought out LGBT content (as compared to a less explicitly political early slash zine where the readers might have varying views about homosexuality in real life), to modern lesbian/sapphic/wlw fandom.

I think everything I'm saying is getting kind of messy, but I personally think there's a pretty clear divide between fandom stuff where lesbian interests are relevant and femslash. Like, Aziraphale/Crowley isn't really a femslash ship but it seemed like it was a popular cosplay subject for duos of young women (before the pandemic squashed a lot of cosplay). Or there's lots of people on tumblr who will have urls like "dykedeanwinchester" where Dean Winchester is very much a dude but fans will add a layer of lesbian/bi identification. Like, it's hard to define but it's definitely there. -- Error cascade (talk) 04:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Messy is okay! And these are great conversations to have here.

I don't have any big answers, but I'd like to emphasize this comment: "If there are fans who identify more closely with the term sapphic than femslash... why is that and how does that affect how they interact with fandom? What makes sapphic fandom as a fandom group different from femslash or lesbian fandom?" And then have those sections/questions on other similar pages. --MPH (talk) 12:29, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts + agreed that these are great conversations to have!

I really like the idea of redirects and amendment to the intro to make the scoping more clear, and I really appreciate what you said, Error cascade - you've touched on something I think is important too, which is that "there's a pretty clear divide between fandom stuff where lesbian interests are relevant and femslash"! The cosplay angle is a really interesting one to bring up too - anime/manga and video game fandoms have those kinds of popular couples or group cosplay.

To one of enchantedsleeper's points from above - the table of popular ships and media definitely do have a large following from lesbians/wlw/sapphics, although you're also right that currently it focuses on femslash-y media when there's a lot more characters and fandoms that could be highlighted as significant to sapphic fans.

I think for me the distinction is "anyone can be into femslash for any number of reasons, just like anyone can be into slash" whereas this page could hopefully look at - and may be intending to - highlight specifically when lesbian/sapphic/wlw interests and identity are being brought to bear in fandom. In that case, I'm not sure where to put examples of canon lesbian representation similar to what we see on Asexuality and Fandom, Bisexuality and Fandom, or Trans Characters in Fandom? If this is still the best page to do so, I would definitely continue to flesh that out, but it feels almost like that's a separate component from talking about how sapphics interact with fandom.

To put it differently, it feels like there are lots of elements that could be discussed across various pages: lesbian media migration, canon representation, "key media", intersectionality and inclusivity, femslash fandom, -phobias and how they're experienced by different fans, fandom history, etc. I'm definitely more convinced of the name of this page now, but now I'm also wondering if there are parts of this page that could be broken out onto separate pages!--Chanterelle (talk) 14:04, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

To answer your question of where we should document examples of canon lesbian representation, Chanterelle - I feel as if there is a danger of pages like these becoming overly "canon-heavy" if we set out to document every example of lesbian canon representation ever, so my inclination would be not to have that - at least not on a general page like this. To me it feels like it would be more relevant to explore on the pages for those characters, so that there can be a proper explanation of what that means to the fandom and how they have responded to it. Saying that, I took a look at the Asexuality and Fandom page and I do like how the list of examples on that page is done because it also includes headcanons and fans' theories and debates about each character. I think that if we do have such a list, we would need to include that fannish detail rather than just having it as a pure list of examples, and it could potentially become long enough to warrant its own page or subpage.

This is my issue with most of the page as it currently stands, which is that it is more oriented around canon than the fandom that is Fanlore's remit. While there are mentions of ships and fan followings, the lists on the page don't give an insight into the fandom or fannish interaction; all we know is that these ships/characters/actors are important to "sapphic fandom" without any explanation as to why that is, or what sets the way that sapphic fans value these ships/characters/actors apart from other corners of fandom. That's what I was trying to get at in my initial comment. It's not necessarily that we should be documenting something different, but we should be framing things differently - around what fans do, rather than around what canon does. --enchantedsleeper (talk) 22:26, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense to me - thanks for your explanation! That's definitely food for thought - I'll think about how I can add to this page (or related ones, or creating new pages!) and perhaps provide some context where I can. -- Chanterelle (talk) 02:29, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposed chart relocation

I wanted to split this off from the above convo (and tag in Doro, OfMonstersAndWerewolves, enchantedsleeper, Error cascade, and MPH for discussion if you like!). I'd like to propose relocating the chart of fandoms/pairings/characters and making it either a subpage of this one or moving it to be a subpage of a different page - possibly Femslash, linked to from Femslash#Canon_Lesbian_and_Bisexual_Women, History of Femslash Fandom, or Timeline of Femslash, since all the listed fandoms have large femslash following (which may include sapphics in addition to non-sapphics). The chart has some fandoms mentioned that aren't yet specifically included on any of those other pages, but the chart also duplicates some information contained elsewhere -- so maybe it just needs to have a different home.

If it stayed on a subpage of sapphic fandom, I think the "intentional" column could be repurposed or supplemented with notes about how and why the fandom in question is considered particularly meaningful to sapphic fandom.

I did remove the lists of fandoms-by-genre which duplicated what information was in the chart in an effort to streamline the page; hope that's okay! I'm willing to give the above chart relocation my best shot, but didn't want to do so without consensus that it'd be a good idea! Thoughts? -- Chanterelle (talk) 00:42, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what 'intentional' is supposed to mean in this context (is it a matter of "my pairing is more canon than yours"?) but I agree that there is a lot of duplicate information that is already on the femslash pages, especially as there already is a History of Femslash Fandom and Timeline of Femslash page. --Doro (talk) 15:38, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

My understanding is that the 'intentional' field is meant to discuss whether the creators of the particular source material intended for there to be subtext or canon representation in that material - I can definitely see how the lines between canon/subtext/queer-coding/queerbaiting/headcanons can get blurry (and I think there is likely room to discuss some of those nuances somewhere on Fanlore; I've been tracking down meta or posts related to the subject when I can find them) and I think the context notes in the table, where they exist, are helpful. -- Chanterelle (talk) 04:17, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi, sorry i've been meaning to come back to this discussion to explain my use of 'intentional' and whatnot and just haven't had the spoons until now. Anyway, my use of 'intentional' was related to whether the sapphic fandom that arose from the show was intentional in terms of things like target audiences etc. So for instance, She-ra's sapphic fandom was at least partly a consequence of the show and Noelle Stevenson catering to that audience and intentionally fostering one. Whereas something like Supergirl's reasons for having a large sapphic fandom is likely more complex and at least somewhat unintentional, at least at first.

Looking at it now though, it's a bit of an arbitrary categorisation that doesn't really take into account the nuances and complexities of the situation. So there's dialogue to be had about it's integration and use on the page. -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 13:33, 10 November 2021 (UTC)