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Bechdel Test Comment Ficathon Episode II: The Sromance Strikes Back
Hello and welcome to the Bechdel Test Comment Ficathon Episode II: The Sromance Strikes Back.
Like my banner I made in five minutes in Microsoft Paint while at work? Yeah, I know you do.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen-who-love-ladies. The comment fic-a-thon devoted to the interactions between your favorite female characters is BACK (hopefully in an Original Trilogy, not a Prequel Trilogy kind of way).
The title comes, of course from the famous test for movies that says:
1. It has to have at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man
I'll be the first to admit that though I have lots of favorite fandoms that do pass this test, some of my other favorites often fail in this regard. But we are here to fix that!
THE PROCEDURE. READ IT.
PROMPT, WRITE, REVIEW, REPEAT
SPREAD THE NEWS LIKE MAD
FEEDBACK IS LOVE
1. Prompt format: [fandom] - [characters] - [prompt of any kind – lyric, single word, scenario, picture, song, whatever]
2. In the title line of your fic reply, indicate [fandom, characters, title, rating]
A NOTE. IT’S IMPORTANT.
I know that not every layout appeals to everyone or is easy for everyone to look at. I’ve changed mine for the duration of the ficathon in hopes that this will be easier to use than what I normally choose. My journal has one great superpower, however, and that superpower is: TITLE LINES. That’s right, I still have them. Title lines make ficathons vastly, vastly easier to use. So if you’re reading/scrolling through looking for prompts, feel free to stick ?format=light to the end of the url, if that makes it easier for you. But when you go to post your filled prompt/completed fic, please do it in my current layout so that you can include the information in number 2 above in the title line. This will make it much easier for people to find what they’re looking for and also much, much easier for someone to compile a master list if someone volunteers to do that at some point. Thank you!
THE RULES. READ THEM.
1. No boy characters are invited to this party. That's kind of the point. Boy authors on the other hand? More than welcome.
2. Any character who identifies as a lady is invited. For instance, Illyria from Angel the Series who is (as far as we can tell) a genderless being in a female body is a go, especially if you focus on the more female aspects of her existence in a female body; female-presenting robots (especially those played by female actresses) such as Cameron from Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles or Caprica Six from Battlestar Galactica count as ladies. Also, if they're questioning/genderqueer/etc. in canon, they can be included, such as Alistair from Huge; according to
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boosette: “Alistair has an XY set of chromosomes and a male actor, but they're fairly explicitly presented as being ambivalent toward that gender; later on, they experiment with alternate/female-coded presentation.”3. RPF is acceptable.
4. Please no gender!swaps of male characters (for instance, no female!Dean Winchester or female!Spock). I love genderswap more than just about anyone, but this isn’t the ficathon for that.
5. Male characters can be mentioned in passing if necessary, but the conversation CANNOT BE ABOUT THEM, even if it’s not about romance. For example, Say Kara and Sharon of Battlestar Galactica were planning a mission; they could mention that they'll need Lee to do this and Helo to do that, because the focus of the conversation is on the strategy session. On the other hand, we don't want Kara and Sharon sitting around talking about what a great pilot Lee is; even if romance doesn't enter into it at all, that's still a discussion about a man. Obviously this line can be a bit hazy; use your best judgment.
6. ALL FANDOMS WELCOME. Same with all female characters, no matter how insignificant.
7. Femslash is fine, though this isn’t primarily a shipping kind of ficathon. Differentiate between femslash prompts and platonic prompts with a slash symbol for femslash and a comma or ampersand for platonic stuff. If you don’t care, stick both in there! Like this: [BtVS - Buffy/Faith or Buffy, Faith - prompt] Or, you know, just say that you're cool with either. Like this: [BtVS - Buffy, Faith (either) - prompt] Writers, pay attention to what the prompter requests—if they don’t want the sexy stuff, don’t give it to them; if they do, try to deliver!
8. Crossovers are awesome, but the more canon-y prompts, the better.
9. AUs are fine.
10. You can link to us anywhere. Your journal? A community? Tumblr? Go for it!
11. Be nice to each other or Buffy and Kara and Sarah Connor and Rogue and Sydney Bristow and Zoe will all team up to kick your ass. Also, I'll delete your comment and ban you. Them's the breaks.
12. NO CHARACTER BASHING. I haven’t had a problem with this before, but I want to make sure it doesn’t happen. If a character hates another character canonically, it’s okay to mention that, but dwelling is usually not a good thing. And I don’t care how much you hate Martha/Bonnie/Jo/Dawn/Sansa, a lot of other people love her and have no desire to stumble across hate (and Rose/Caroline/Ellen/Willow/Dany DO NOT share your feelings of hatred, so keep that in mind. Well, Dark Willow might, but that’s another matter). This is another deletion/bannable offense.
13. Spoilers. There will probably be some. So avoid the fics for fandoms you're not all caught up on yet. Prompters can request no spoilers beyond a certain point—for example, if you haven’t seen this week’s episode of Vampire Diaries, it’s okay to request not to have any spoilers included. Or if, like me, you’ve only seen the first two seasons of Farscape, it’s okay to ask for canon up to that point only. If the writer wants to be especially kind (which I always recommend), you can indicate in the title line that the fic contains spoilers.
14. If a prompt is already filled, you’re more than welcome to write another fic for it.
15. If you have any questions, please do ask. I’m very nice, and I want people to be able to participate if they so wish.
BANNERS. USE THEM.
Banners, as they're accumulated, can be found here. You're free to use any you wish. You can also use the less-than-impressive one I made up at the top. But hopefully we'll have some better options soon.
In addition, any other banners from any fandom anyone wants to make (featuring two or more ladies from a given canon, please) are greatly appreciated. Link to them in the comments here, please.
[Instructions on using the banners for those of you who are not so technologically-savvy: You can hotlink to these banners. Copy/paste the following and then plug in the link to the banner where it says "URLOFIMAGEHERE." Pretty simple, really]
OR
do a nice simple text link like the one at the top of the page by copy/pasting the text below:
That should cover just about everything, but if I missed something, please do ask/comment below.
And...go!
[eta] Master List now up!
no subject
Vampire Diaries - Elena & Caroline - Muffins - PG (1/2)
The only reason Elena even gets out of bed that morning is that she doesn’t want to have to explain anything to anyone. The sudden influx of danger into her life, in addition to all of the other things that suck about it, has made all of the people she knows very sensitive about each other’s absences. If she doesn’t show up for school there will be at least three people banging on her bedroom door before first period is over.
So she drags herself out of bed, showers, gets dressed, and gets herself to school. She views it as a step-by-step process, and it helps a little: focus on the next step and nothing else. Once she’s at school, though, she has forty minutes before classes start and no real distractions. She sits down at a picnic table with an open textbook, hoping to a) get some studying in (vampires are terrible for her grades), and b) dissuade anyone from trying to make conversation.
Here’s the thing. When she was a kid, there was an annual town event called ‘Muffins with Moms’ where all the mothers with young children would take their kids to the town square and have a sort of breakfast party. One year, when Elena was seven, she’d been sick on Muffins with Moms morning. She’d been so disappointed that her mom promised they’d have their own muffin day just as soon as she was better. And they did. As soon as she was feeling up to it, the two of them spent an entire day (May 14, as it happened) baking muffins together. After that, it became tradition that on May 14, they’d eat muffins together, just the two of them. Even if it was just a quick five minute speed breakfast before school, they did it every year without fail.
It was a silly tradition, hardly as significant as Mother’s Day or a birthday, but it still meant a lot. Last year, it had fallen on a Thursday, so they’d eaten their muffins hastily over the sink while exchanging meaningless chit-chat. A little more than a week later, her parents were dead.
It’s May 14 and she has no one to share muffins with. Considering everything else going on in her life, it’s completely ridiculous to be so hung up on this. But she can’t help it. It’s just the cherry on top of the sundae of awful that her life has become, and there’s no hope of relief. There’s no light at the end of this tunnel: her parents are gone and they aren’t coming back.
It’s amazing how something like that can keep sneaking up on you and punching you in the stomach.
Her textbook plan works for all of ten minutes before there’s suddenly someone sitting across from her. She looks up from her book and is not the least bit surprised to find that Caroline has joined her. There’s no one like Caroline for ignoring keep-away signals.
Caroline rests her chin in one hand and examines Elena for a long moment.
“What?” Elena asks uncomfortably.
“I thought so,” Caroline says, totally ignoring Elena’s question. She pulls a brown paper bag out of her purse and hands it to Elena. “Here.”
Elena reaches into the bag and pulls out a muffin. It’s chocolate chip, from the bakery near the Grill, and the sight of it makes her eyes fill with tears, which is just ridiculous. It’s a muffin, for God’s sake. She should not be getting teary over a muffin. But she is, and she can barely stop herself from actually crying.
Suddenly Caroline’s arms are around her in a slightly awkward sideways hug. She was so focused on the muffin that she missed Caroline coming around the table to sit next to her.
Vampire Diaries - Elena & Caroline - Muffins - PG (2/2)
But when it comes to actions (Elena realizes/remembers as she looks down at the muffin in her hands), Caroline’s one of the best. Elena sets the muffin down gently and twists on the bench so that she can hug Caroline properly. She presses her face into Caroline’s hair, smelling shampoo and lotion and the subtle undertone that is purely Caroline, and finds that the urge to cry has lessened slightly.
“How did you know?” she asks, pulling away.
Caroline shrugs, looking a little uncertain.
“May 14,” she says. “Muffins with Mom. This is the first year since…I just—I thought you might like a muffin.”
Elena looks at the muffin again, then back at Caroline. Only Caroline would remember the significance of May 14, and only Caroline would think that Elena would be missing a muffin. Only Caroline would care enough to notice and to realize what it would mean.
“It’s perfect,” she says. “Thank you.”
Caroline smiles, relieved.
Elena hugs her again, reveling in the warmth the action fills her with. Everything that’s happened this past year—her parents dying, the sudden influx of vampires and the subsequent decline in Mystic Falls’ population, the fracturing of her friendship with Bonnie—has left her feeling cold and somewhat empty. Caroline, though, Caroline still smells the same, still hugs the same, still comforts with actions and struggles with words, and that is so comforting that Elena couldn’t explain it if she tried.
There’s been a distance between them lately, full of secrets and hurt and words that shouldn’t have been said, and Elena knows they’ll have to deal with it eventually. But right now it feels like there’s no distance at all, because her best friend brought her a muffin and is hugging her. There are no jokes about lesbianism, no accusations of exclusion, no blunt, hurtful words. Just a muffin and a hug and a bond of friendship fifteen years strong.
And that really is perfect.