Community Profile

This is a comm for fanfic, fanart and discussion about slash and femmeslash (same-sex) pairings from the Metal Gear universe; old-school Metal Gear, Metal Gear Solid, The Twin Snakes, Metal Gear Ac!d, Ghost Babel, the Digital Graphic Novel and the other comics, the Snake Tales, the audio drama, the novels, even Snake's Revenge - you name it!

If you already know this and just came here for something to read, start by going through the Memories. They're currently being re-archived, but all the fic and art from this comm's birth can be found there.



1) This comm is for MGS slash. Because there are so few fic and art communities for MGS, I will allow the posting of genfic and gen fanart under the 'relevant to my interests' rule. However, this is not for discussion on things such as trailers, leaks and rumours on upcoming games and game ports, David Hayter's voice, or how much you hate Ryan Payton. If there's a new trailer for some new canon and it's the sexiest thing ever and you have to share it with the comm, please justify it with some (behind a cut) speculation as to why you're posting it, and by that I don't just mean a one-liner like 'lots of new female characters this time, let's have some femmeslash' or 'that guy is hot, requesting Rule 34 of him with the other guy who's hot'. If you can't even write a fifty-word microdrabble about it saying that it might have some slash if you look sideways, then it doesn't belong on the comm. Sorry about that. You're after metal_gear.

Please don't post het here. We don't mind if one of your fics/arts/whatever has het in it, but the central focus must be the slash. You can post your hetfics to mgs_fic and your het art to mgs_art, both of which are pretty dead but only because no-one's posting in them.

I understand metal_gear isn't terribly receptive to things like character meta. Therefore, you are welcome to post essays about your thoughts here, including in-depth character studies and pairing analysis - or just to start an endless, pointless and circular argument about whether Snake's a natural blond or brunet. However, metal_gear is receptive to story meta. Your fanspec about how, in MGS5, it's going to all turn out to be a VR simulation in Purgatory does not belong here, no matter how well-justified it is - take it to metal_gear. An essay about Otacon and how he should be characterised in fic does belong here, post away! Picking a bad fanfic to death isn't welcome, and neither's complaining about a cliché without actually doing anything about it yourself, like opening discussion - you want fanficrants for that, or maybe even thes3plan. And all your silliness, unprovoked macro posting, videos, squeeing and/or general flailing belongs in capslock_mgs.


2) This comm is for creative content and meta.

YOU MAY
- Post fanfic, slash or subtexty gen
- Post fanart, slash or subtexty gen
- Post doujin drawn by other people, slash or subtexty gen
- Post fanvids, slash only
- Post icons, slash only. There are other comms for gen icons.
- Post FSTs, slash only - and by FSTs I mean you've made album covers and have posted a nice big fat ZIP or RAR file with all the tracks in, and have justified your track list. There are other comms for gen FSTs.
- Post actual audio, images or video from the game; slash or subtext or shameless fanservice only (for instance, you may want to rip Otacon's flailing over the beefcake poster or Fox yelling 'hurt me more!' or some particular sexy noise Snake makes, but this is not the place for ripping, say, the ending sequence of MGS3. If someone's actually requested you post it, I'll be much more lenient.)
- Post essays, slash or character-based only.
- Ask around for help collaborating on a directly-related project, such as a fic or doujin or, hell, even an audio drama. But go into detail and have a plan in mind.


YOU MAY NOT
- Post hetfic
- Post het fanart
- Post het doujin
- Post het fanvids. Or the Jungle Boogie vid, if only because it's been posted about six times and is older than the Internets anyway.
- Post an x-posted link to a post on a different journal bearing a gigantic slew of icons for various fandoms, three out of which are MGS related, and of which two are gen. We're only interested in the slash icons, so just drop them into the post itself, behind a cut if there's a lot, and give us a link telling us where to credit.
- Ask for help on the game unless it's for something very specific you couldn't get anywhere else, like finding a particular subtexty conversation. Don't ask us how you beat Liquid or get Laughing Octopus's mask.
- Copy-paste song lyrics, even for MGS related songs, unless it's a really, really special slash-related case.
- Post essays on plot, speculation about upcoming games, speculation about industry inner-workings, or anything that isn't character related. No, it doesn't count just because it has one sentence saying 'Ocelot felt strongly for Big Boss' - metal_gear doesn't care about characters, which is why you can post that stuff here, but it does care about plot, so you'll get a bigger audience.
- Advertise. Don't advertise your multifandom RP, don't recruit for your MGS blog crew, don't do anything like that unless it's specifically related to MGS slash.
- Make intro posts without adding some kind of creative content. If people want to know who you are, they'll go straight to your personal journal.
- Post ranting or bashing about characters, pairings or real life people. Don't even rant about het pairings here, and think you're safe just because this is a slash comm. You're not.


3) Justify, justify, justify! If you can convince me it's an on-topic post, it is!


4) Try to avoid being unpleasant. Yes, we know the poor new girl is doing it horribly, horribly wrong. Feel free to tell her that she's doing it horribly, horribly wrong, and tell her how, and snark at her/rant about her in relative private if you want, but don't get all serious business on her, please. Especially don't overreact and leap down her throat in a flurry of personal insults and profanity. I don't care how stupid she is. I don't care if she's hit your pet peeves. I don't care if she's a rabid screaming troll. I don't care if she's posted a ridiculously offensive racist sexist homophobic polemic.

No, that's wrong, I do care, because I don't want posts like that in the community. But don't treat people like that, ever.

All slash/femmeslash pairings are welcome. Please respect other people's favourite pairings, and understand that waving your own around like a complete idiot isn't very endearing. Also, while there is less femmeslash on this comm than there is slash, that doesn't mean that we don't like it. We do like it. We love it and want it.

Lots of us love the women of these games too, so don't assume that just because this is a man-loving comm that it's a woman-hating comm. Your essay called 'Why Merolgevawolfnaomisunnelisarose Should Catch Fire And Die' belongs in your personal journal and not here.


5) This comm is open to everyone. Mans, womens, childrens, newbies, oldbies, people who've only played the first game, people who've only played the third, people who haven't played the games at all and ended up in the fandom because we have awesome porn and are going to play the games as soon as their friend gives their console back they swear.

With that in mind, please try to avoid elitism - I know how difficult it is to avoid feeling elitist when you're talking to someone half your age who insists on spelling the main character's name 'Snack', but they're just a fan, just like you. As for the childrens, think of them and cut the porn, and leave a clear warning about what it is. As for the people who've not played certain games, think of them and cut the bit where you reiterate the entire ending of MGS7 - Advent Children. As for people with slow connections and easily-stretched flists, think of them and cut pictures, videos and fic.


6) Be clear. If you're posting a fic, don't just cut it without giving us a summary. Or a fandom. You don't need to write the pairing if you think it's a spoiler. You don't need to write warnings if you think they're spoilers. But ratings are mandatory.

Also, keep in mind there are things that might make your labelling a bit more ambiguous. Keep in mind that we've got a large amount of characters who go by the name Snake. Keep in mind that MGS1 Snake/Ocelot is a completely different kettle of fish to MGS3 Snake/Ocelot. And if you're writing for some kind of non-canon adventure like Ghost Babel, Metal Gear Ac!d/Ac!d², the Radio Drama or the Snake Tales (or even Snake's Revenge), please say so to avoid confusing people when Snake starts having sex with a character they've never heard of. In short, please say what game the fic is about, especially if it isn't automatically evident.

This isn't a rule so much as common sense. It'll also make things easier for memory mod saphrawn, whose job will be to archive posts. (Her job will also be to tell you if you're doing it wrong in terms of labelling your fic, so listen to her if she says something.)


7) Rule 7 is a secret. You will be banned for breaking it. This one's basically to cover my arse if I see someone doing something that clearly and definitely deserves a ban but I can't honestly find what rule it comes under.

I mean.

Let that be a warning to you.


8) I'm not the S3. My job is not to censor information or create context or any of that crap. I'm not infallible and I'm bound to screw up at some point. So, please, if I'm needed, or if you feel I've deleted/frozen/screened a bunch of comments unfairly, call me. I have no actual life, so I'm online for most of what is day in my crazy backwards Eurocommie timezone (GMT). Feel free to contact me via AIM (fireholly99) or MSN (haboism@yahoo.co.uk) or Yahoo! (haboism) or even Skype if you really need to scream abuse or do Solid Snake impressions at me to get your point across (fireholly99 there, too). I also check my email about once every six seconds like a nervous tic, so drop an email to me if you can't see me online or if you can't IM me for whatever reason. I'll see it.



Fly
LJ: firefly99
AIM: Fireholly99
Skype: Fireholly99
Yahoo!: haboism
Email/MSN: haboism[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk

Please contact me if anything comes up. Or if you just want to chat.



There's a monthly challenge here, for fanfic and fanart. You can read the rules here!

And if you're not sure how to post fics on the comm, please look here. Recently, we instated a system to help people ask for and reject concrit, so please look at them too. Thank you!