Soon, this place is gonna be a party, and you're all invited.

[fiercelydreamed]

Within the next couple of weeks, this community will be hosting a festival of gen fanworks featuring sexual and gender minority characters of all tasty flavors -- queer, trans, gay, lesbian, intersex, bisexual, genderqueer, questioning, flamingly ambiguous. In short, the kinds of characters who are often marginalized or erased in fanwork festivals, in mainstream fiction, and in family-friendly tv shows and movies. It's also an opportunity to let these characters get out of the bedroom for once (or the supply closet, or the Canadian shack, or the alien holding cell, or wherever it is they've been having all their please-view-with-discretion fun).

Oh, and please tell the straight characters they can come play, too.

Here's the thing. For many of us who are queer, we're queer all the time. We're queer when we're grocery-shopping. We're trans when we're at the library. We're bisexual when we go on camping trips. We're questioning when we kick ass at kickball tournaments. We're intersex when we face off against our thesis defense committees. We're lesbians when we show up at our straight friends' houses after they've been brutally dumped by some jackass. And we're gay at (and quite possibly for) the dentist.

Drawing a line in the sand between "slash" and "gen" erases the fact that many of us live our daily lives aware of our identities and experiences as queer or genderqueer people. It's not something we only think about when we're falling in love, getting our hearts broken, or getting off. And we, like the queer and genderqueer characters we write, are done being told we can't come to your fan awards, your workplace chili cook-off, your seminary, or your transcontinental backpacking trip. So we're throwing our own, because we're tired of waiting for you to figure out we're the best shortstop who lives on your block.

There's a lot of details I still need to figure out. I'll probably need some advice on how to make this a really good party, and maybe some help getting it up and off the ground.

- I'll probably put up a few discussion posts, to help generate ideas for how to structure this festival or come up with prompts for those who want them, but I'm not planning on hosting intense debate or discussion here. That's already happening elsewhere, and frankly, I'm personally just not looking for it. I'm going with the premise that queer and genderqueer characters are just as welcome in gen fanworks as straight characters. If you want to argue about it, I respectfully ask that you choose another forum to do so.

- There are mirror communities on LJ and Dreamwidth. They probably won't be fully redundant, and I'm working on a good weigh to report the activities at the primary community on the secondary community.

- The type of fanworks and time frame will be relatively unstructured and as inclusive as possible. I'd like everyone who's interested to be able to come play. If you've already got ideas, feel free to get cracking, because I'm pretty sure they'll be able to find a home here.

- What "gen" means for the purpose of this festival has yet to be determined. Please feel free to comment if you've got a definition you like.

Questions, comments, concerns, hell yeahs? Weigh in below.

Comments

[mresundance]

Why limit it to a single festival or event? Why not have this comm as a place where people can come and post gen slash all the time? Just like any other fic comm, where you post fics (and some have prompts and the like), but just allow people to post fics which are gen and slash after said future festival or event?

I would love to see this be a permanent endeavor, and not some flash in the pan thing that only went on a few weeks, or happened a few weeks every year as some things in fandom do. Sure, it would be great to activities scheduled throughout the year, prompts. But like I said: something more permanent.

[ciaan]

A good thought.

[fiercelydreamed]

*nods* Your thoughts are right in line with my own. I staked out the community and put up this initial post without much pre-planning (or any at all, really), because I wanted other people who were looking for a constructive outlet to know there was one in the works. But I've been thinking over the last few days that, as people seem to be into this idea, it could be really good to use the festival as a kick-off event but let the community serve a longer-term function as a noticeboard where people could announce gen works about queer and genderqueer characters. I think periodic festivals, challenges, etc. could be a good way to keep momentum going (and if you have any ideas on those, I'd love to hear them).

But yes, I agree that there's appeal to having this fulfill a more permanent function, because like I said: we're queer all the time.

[sinatra]

Hell yeah!

[secondsilk]

A hell yeah! from me.

Also an immediate thought on the concept of gen for the purposes of community. Stories about the main character getting together with someone: no. Stories about the fall out of anyone else getting together: no. Established relationships: fine. Stories about hiccoughs in the established relationship: only if they're not about/resolved by sex. (In wider fannishness I wouldn't necessarily consider this gen, but given the focus of the community, an established-as-sexual relationship is a way to flag a previously-not-queer-identified character as queer; and I'm always for stories about relationships that happen to be sexual.)

For me, gen usually means not exactly lack of sex, but lack of shippiness, a story which does not advocate a particular pairing. (Which I don't usually like established relationship fic as it assumes and then does not have advocate a pairing, I like seeing the set up and discovery.) Showing a pairing is gen, arguing for it is shippy (het or slash).

[fiercelydreamed]

Ooh, interesting explanation! It seems similar to my own thinking: I'll be putting up the discussion post on defining gen soon, and so far my working definition is that gen works don't foreground romantic/sexual relationships, and the creator does not consider those relationships to be the point of the story. Do you think that fits with the examples you gave above?

[secondsilk]

Sorry for the late reply. I just thought I would say that, while that wouldn't necessarily be my most strict definition of gen, I think that it would absolutely work for a community of this sort.

[meri]

I am so in. I don't need another ficaton, but for more queer gen I'll do anything.

[alex_beecroft]

Brilliant idea! I'm in, and if it's an ongoing com, I'll be joining :)

[mad_jaks]

Linked to here by Jadesfire.

Supremely brilliant idea. Well done.

[lapistablet]

I'm in.

[druidspell]

HELL YEAH!
Here's the thing. For many of us who are queer, we're queer all the time. We're queer when we're grocery-shopping. We're trans when we're at the library. We're bisexual when we go on camping trips. We're questioning when we kick ass at kickball tournaments. We're intersex when we face off against our thesis defense committees. We're lesbians when we show up at our straight friends' houses after they've been brutally dumped by some jackass. And we're gay at (and quite possibly for) the dentist.

Hi, I'm a lesbian falling a little bit in love with you on the basis of that paragraph.

[executrix]

Also, there are queer virgins and queers who had (a) partner(s) at one time but don't now. It's one thing for Pam to pack her bags and leave because she fell in love with Jessica, or because she can't stand Carol leaving the tube off the toothpaste one more time--but she hasn't evicted Carol from lesbianism.

[keerawa]

I am VERY excited about this, and working on a story as we speak!

[orbitaldiamonds]

Ooh, this looks like fun!

And a place to post scenes from my book (with queer characters) as I write them.

**also is queer at everyone** :)