I have crafted a pie chart that explain the catalysts for my own personal queer awakening, and this is what it looks like:
A long time ago, in a cubicle far away, I was pretending to crunch numbers but was instead lurking on the Television Without Pity forums. Someone in the forums mentioned the old British primetime soap called Bad Girls and linked to some fan fiction about Helen Stewart and Nikki Wade, the prison warden and inmate who fell in deep/desperate homosexual love during the show’s first two seasons. I clicked on over to read about Helen and Nikki, thinking I would learn a little something about Her Majesty’s Prison System. Instead, I learned a little something about breasts and clitorises and the magical things that happen when they are pressed against one another. When I left my office that afternoon, my imagination had gone completely berserk and was never, ever, ever shifting back to normal.
Do you ever wonder why there’s such a shameful stigma surrounding fan fiction? If I learn to play the guitar by pinging out classics from the Eagles, no one judges me. If famous artists cover classic recordings, no one even blinks. It’s completely socially acceptable to play around artistically in the sandboxes created by musicians — but when we do the same thing with the art of storytelling, we’re branded as a bunch of weirdos.
I think the reason is twofold: Fan fiction is a female-dominated dimension, and fan fiction is a sex-positive space. The world has been trivializing women and shaming them for their desires for forever, and so of course society is going to ridicule a hobby where women are working out their sexuality and gender, and exploring a million ideas about the intersection of those things, and being encouraged by other women to not settle in relationships or settle in the sack. Fan fiction is a lust-filled town along the path to freedom where millions of sexually-satisfied women have gathered to break the chains of the patriarchy.
Also, it’s just a lot of fun and is a rewarding way to explore the full lives of queer TV characters when networks and showrunners and producers refuse to do it.
So. Starting today, I am going to review femslash fan fiction from every fandom under the sun. I’m kicking it off with Glee, because fandom has written these characters better than the writers of the actual show since all the way back in season one. Here are the 1o sexiest fics I could find.
10. Triune
Pairing: Brittany and Santana and Quinn, hey-o!
Plot: The Unholy Trinity are made for each other, in every way.
Hotness level: Sizzling
Show, Don’t Tell:
“Santana,” Brittany whined. “No fair.”
Santana grunted, and when she pulled away she had Quinn’s bottom lip caught between her teeth. She let it drag roughly before she finally released it. It made Quinn suck in a hissing breath and she flicked her tongue over it, tasting the way it was swollen and hot.
Brittany sat down on the other side of Quinn and her heart knocked in her chest, filled with anxiety. She kept sucking on her lip and she looked between Santana and Brittany, a little bit intimidated by how confident and easy they were, just sitting there in their underwear. Brittany’s was bubblegum pink with white polka dots and Quinn stared at the muscles on Britt’s stomach.
“Get comfy, Quinn.” Santana said, and she stood up quickly and pulled Quinn’s cardigan off. It left Quinn wearing a loose, billowy white top with tight black leggings underneath. She looked up helplessly at Santana and then over at Brittany, who only smiled at her and tucked a loose lock of Quinn’s hair behind her ear.
“Santana gets bossy sometimes,” Brittany explained. She shifted up and crawled towards the head of the bed, where Santana had a mountain of pillows. She patted the blankets until, reluctantly, Quinn followed. She shifted and sat until her back was resting against the pillows and Brittany began running her fingers through Quinn’s hair.
“Don’t act like you don’t like it,” Santana said, and she and Brittany shared a look that Quinn couldn’t penetrate.
“We have to be easy with Quinn,” Brittany said in response. “She’s like a delicate flower with a baby tree troll inside.”
Outsider Observations: Brittany, Santana and Quinn are the only triad relationship outside of Harry, Ron and Hermione that I could ever really see working. And now I have compared to Glee to Harry Potter. Feel free to hit me with a Cruciatus curse.
9. I’ll Teach You to Dance
Paring: Brittany and Santana
Plot: Britt and Santana meet in college and study a lot of anatomy.
Hotness Level: First time timid sweetness
Show, Don’t Tell:
“I’m serious,” I said reassuringly. “I feel so good when I’m with you.” I kissed her neck again and started to trail my fingers under her shirt.
“Hey, no, its okay,” she muttered. “We should…” She trailed off when I pressed my hands against her chest, over her bra. “Should…get…back to…studying.”
“You can’t tell me you’re not turned on right now,” I muttered against her throat. I felt her gulp and I smiled. “Why don’t you quiz me?” I wiggled my legs beneath her, wrapping one hand around her back as I lifted the other up under her shirt to her shoulder and easily flipped her onto her back. I started to attack her neck again and she groaned.
“God, Brittany,” she muttered. She had lifted her hand to her forehead and her other hand was scratching my bare side soothingly. “I can’t even remember anything.”
“Mm,” I said, licking her lips. She fell back into the pillow and let me slide my tongue into her mouth. I think we forgot about her needing to quiz me, because I stayed and made out with her for a while. It wasn’t until she twisted and let me run my tongue over her neck that she said anything at all.
“Where’s the… s-sternum?” she asked. She sounded so quiet and small, I barely heard her. But I moved down to her chest and ran my tongue over the ridge between her breasts.
“And th-the thoracic arch?” she groaned. I lowered, sucking and kissing every inch of skin between her sternum and the arch were her ribs ended. I felt her shudder beneath me as my fingers fumbled with her pants.
Outsider Observations: One of my favorite Glee things, both on the show and in real life, is how Brittany is the only one who makes Santana act as sweet as a basket of kittens.
8. drowning in your dizzy noise
Pairing: Rachel and Santana
Plot: Rachel and Santana hurt each other’s feelings about Finn/Quinn and Brittany all the time and make it up to each other with some breastplay.
Hotness Level: Slow-simmering deliciousness
Show, Don’t Tell:
Santana finds herself staring—only noticing Rachel’s slowing words in the vaguest sense—close enough now to see the flashes of pink tongue behind even white teeth. Such a waste, so much turmoil over Finn. A mouth like that…
A few seconds later, the heat of Rachel’s body occurs to Santana as an abstract sort of observation. It’s cozy and intimate and somehow pressed against the length of her own, her palms already cupping the girl’s cheeks. They’re warm, too, and she can feel Rachel’s jaw moving under her fingers as their lips brush together with slow pressure.
This isn’t even their first kiss.
It’s that thought that jolts Santana into breaking it. She pulls back dazedly to see Rachel staring back at her with wide eyes and her expression frozen in shock, salty tracks drying down to her chin as her mouth hangs slightly open. Santana can feel Rachel’s racing pulse under her fingertips as they stare at each other.
Her lips are shiny. She snaps her hands away from Rachel’s face like they’re burning as soon as it registers, stepping backwards unsteadily. Turning to put some much needed space between them, Santana bites down on her cheek to jolt some reality into head before she does something stupid, like suck that glistening lip back into her mouth.
What the fuck just happened.
Stray Observations: I’ve never really thought about Rachel and Santana as more than friends but now that I have, I can’t stop.
7. String Theory
Pairing: Brittany and Santana
Plot: Brittany thanks Santana, in public, for visiting her at MIT.
Hotness Level: Actual mention of scissoring!
Show, Don’t Tell:
Her fingers skimmed up a little higher, her own adrenaline starting to surge as she felt the skin under her fingertips growing warmer and warmer. She carefully edged up so high, she could feel a damp heat coming from inside her underwear. The lean, corded muscles in Santana’s legs were twitching under her bold touches and Brittany subconsciously licked her lips, her tongue dragging slightly over the salty, sensitive skin of her palm. Her eyes closed for a moment, letting herself imagine it wasn’t her own skin she was tasting.
Santana’s leg jerked even harder, the muscles taut and straining now. Brittany glanced up curiously to see rich, chocolate brown eyes fixed firmly on her mouth and realized that Santana had seen the movement. Now that it had stopped, she looked up to meet Brittany’s eyes and her jaw clenched, because Brittany was very familiar with what Santana looked like when she was really turned on, and unless everything about her sex drive had changed in the last few months, Brittany was very sure that they were going to be doing a lot more than cuddling tonight.
Her eyes glazed over, caught for a moment in a mental montage of all the things she wanted to do. Since they were sixteen, they had never gone this long without touching each other. Despite their personal issues, other relationships, and Santana’s deep denial, they excelled in finding excuses and justifications to have sex. Lots of sex. Any and every way they could think of.
It was the comforting constant in her life. Her safe place. Santana’s skin next to hers felt like home. One of the reasons why she loved scissoring so much was because it let every bit of their skin touch that was possible (and Brittany had done extensive testing to be sure).
Outsider Observations: Does Brittany chew on her lips a lot on Glee? I never noticed, but she chews on her lips in every Brittana fan fiction. It’s kind of adorable.
6. An Honest Mistake
Pairing: Quinn and Santana
Plot: None, just straight up phone doin’ it
Hotness Level: Middle of the Night Quickie Sexy
Show, Don’t Tell:
“Are you thinking about it? Thinking about me lying between your legs, my tongue licking at you just the way you need, until you can’t do anything but lie back, close your eyes, and beg for more.” Santana groans at her own words, bucks up into her hand as she remembers the feeling of Quinn tense and trembling, knotting her fingers in Santana’s hair as she tried to guide Santana’s mouth into giving her more.
“Tell me, Quinn, do you want my fingers, too? Ask for them nicely.” Quinn lets out this strangled little whine, like she wants to tell Santana to fuck off, but can’t quite make the words come out. Santana closes her eyes, tries to regain a little control of her breathing before she continues. “You didn’t seem to have any problems begging me last time, Quinn. I think you liked it.”
Outsider Observations: It’s always hard to tell in one-shots if characters are in-character, but I really do believe Santana would do dirty talk better than potentially anyone on earth.
5. Should Have Asked for Directions
Pairing: Rachel and Quinn
Plot: Rachel’s getting ready to marry some bullshit lady who isn’t Quinn, which leads Quinn and Rachel to remember literally every second of their relationship starting when they were sophomores in college.
Hotness Level: So good angst
Show, Don’t Tell:
“You took too long, Quinn. You drained me. You broke my heart twice and made me break yours just so I could fucking breathe. Everything I associate with you hurts me now! Do you know what that feels like?”
“Of course I know what that feels like! Every time a bus floats by with your face on it, a newspaper clipping with a review of you, and god, just grass! Grass, Rachel! Grass makes my heart ache because I think about the ring I put on your finger.”
And Rachel’s did, too. God, hers did, too. Quinn didn’t know how much and she didn’t need to know. She didn’t need to know Rachel thought of her when her fiancée proposed because they were sitting in grass. She didn’t need to know that. She didn’t need to know it took her day to decide simply because of a blade of grass. She didn’t need to know.
But looking at Rachel not responding to her, Quinn knew.
“You do, too. You feel it,” she whispered. And brown eyes darted from hers.
“No.”
“You do,” Quinn muttered and stepped forward. Rachel’s hands shook, her chest heaved, her teeth bit into her bottom lip and her weight shifted. All of her disguises evaporated. And it reached into Quinn’s chest and shocked her heart. She could do this. She could walk away with Rachel.
She stepped forward again and Rachel stepped back.
“I know you’re in love with me.”
“I’m not,” Rachel whimpered, begging for truth in the statement.
Outsider Observations: How come Rachel is a villain in every single fic that isn’t a Faberry fic? I’m calling a HBIC foul, fandom!
4. Dovekin
Pairing: Brittany and Santana
Plot: Brittany is the Dragonborn of legend and Santana is Jarl Ulfric’s daughter. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, Skyrim has never been a part of your life and that makes me sad in my heart.
Hotness level: If you love video games and Glee, find an air conditioned place to read this.
Show, Don’t Tell:
She only exposed the blade halfway before Brittany’s hand reached between them. With the slightest pressure, Brittany’s hand stopped the sword’s movement. Santana’s eyes jolted up at the physical contact. This was the second time today Brittany had maneuvered into her space without Santana even realizing it. Santana was used to not wearing gloves, but she hadn’t noticed Brittany’s lack of protection. Her fingers slid down the handle and grazed the outside Santana’s hand. A flood of warmth rushed from Santana and up Brittany’s arm. The sword remained suspended – half in and out of the sheath; like her words. Santana swallowed hard, but she was acutely aware of the other woman’s grip on the handle of her short sword. She had just spent the better part of her day tracking Imperials, watching sentries, and remaining undetected, but within a few minutes, Brittany had disarmed her of her sword and robbed her of her senses.
If she released, Brittany would have complete control, but she would be able to put her hand over Brittany. The space between them shortened. She flexed her fingers and considered what she would give up in order to touch the other woman so brazenly.
“Or whenever.” Brittany said. Santana lifted her eyes, grateful that she didn’t have to choose. “I know you’ve been scouting all day and I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day tomorrow. I just-” She paused and licked her bottom lip as if searching for the right word. “-I would just really like to learn. If you would teach me.”
Tomorrow.
The word hung and Santana suddenly felt a fool for getting caught star-gazing with Brittany. There were forces bigger and greater – and Brittany was one of them. It wasn’t the first time she wondered how Brittany had come to discover she was dragonborn – Dovahkiin. What had she been doing in the crypt and why was she here now? Santana look up into Brittany’s eyes. Did she realize how important she was?
“Tomorrow. It’s going to be chaos. Stay close to me, Dovekin.”
Outsider Observations: I had Brittany figured for a sneaky archer character and Santana figured for a heavy armor/warhammer character, but maaaan, I love some sword play.
3. Agendas Unspoken
Pairing: Brittany and Santana
Plot: Lord Tubbington is an international talk show sensation and Brittany has scored a hosting/producing gig for an MTV documentary about Quinn Fabray’s father, who is running for office. Santana is Quinn’s handler, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
Hotness level: Spicy-sweet
Show, Don’t Tell
You shift closer without even thinking about it. Her hips are level with the line of your eyes, and you take your hand back from hers and use it to pull the shirt from her pants. She asks Brittbut you don’t listen; you lift yourself up and you place your lips to the skin of her stomach, just above her jeans, just in that place where her hips dent inwards. She breathes deep and you watch her stomach rise, you watch the goosebumps jump across her skin, and you lean forward and kiss her again. When she says Brittany the way that she does, you pause and you pull your eyes back up to her face.
She asks what you’re doing, and you shoot her a wink, “Looking for awesomeness.”
“That’s a thing?”
“It’s an awesome friend thing,” you assure her, and when you lean forward this time, you don’t just press your lips up against her; you open your mouth, just slightly, and you suck her skin gently between your lips. When she hisses, you graze against her with your teeth and you pull back again. She’s looking at you and her eyes are wide, they’re dark and deep and her hands have found a grip on the comforter and she looks afraid to move.
And you know that this is more than friends, and you know this isn’t what she’s used to.
It makes you move slowly, yet still you move.
Outsider observations: If Glee‘s writers wrote Brittany five percent as well as fandom, Heather Morris would have won three Emmys already.
2. Got You Stuck On My Body (Like a Tattoo)
Pairing: Quinn and Santana
Plot: Quinn and Santana do angst-y scissoring all over the place and keep thinking about that slap fight they got into before going full lesbosexy all over each other at Will and Emmma’s wedding.
Hotness level: Three alarm pants fire
Show, Don’t Tell:
It might be okay. Maybe. Maybe this is just an inevitable conclusion, because it feels so good, and Quinn’s grinding hips agree with her. Her core burns with need and when Santana presses her knee against her, sparks snap in her brain and nearly cause her to crumple against her door.
Fuck, she wants this. She wants where this is going. The unforgiving, relentless pressure of Santana’s hard thigh, pressing so violently against her it’s almost painful. Santana’s fingers slide out of her mouth with a wet pop, smear saliva down her cheek before her lips are slanting hungrily against Santana’s.
Instead of a finger sliding inside her mouth, she gets Santana’s tongue plunging in with purpose and intent. The moan that rips out of Quinn is embarrassing, but she can’t even begin to care. Not when Santana’s lips slide hotly against hers, not when she’s sucking on that dangerous muscle that is so often Santana’s most dangerous weapon. It’s a dirty, lewd first kiss, and Quinn’s violent drunken impulses take hold when she fumbles between them to rip at Santana’s damn distracting button down shirt, tearing it open to get her hands on Santana’s perfect breasts.
Outsider observations: Quinn is universally the best at sex in all Glee fics, even the ones where she’s not the star of the story.
1. Room 47
Pairing: Brittany and Santana
Plot: Santana tries to convince herself to marry Sam by seeing a therapist named Brittany S. Pierce, who has a dog named Lucy and a motorbike with a vibrating seat. Rolls in the hay happen in literal hay.
Hotness level: Heaving bosom
Show, Don’t Tell:
She grabs both your wrists and suddenly spins you over, lying you down on your back against the hay and pinning your hands above your head once again. She climbs over you, looking down at you, her eyes laced with lust and conflict. Brittany slides her body up over yours so that she glides up over your stomach, then her breasts are pushing up against and sliding by yours.
Your gasp and you begin to pant again as her face comes up to meets yours. She’s lying on top of you and instead of pushing her away or feeling guilt you arch your back up into her needing the contact.
You need her to do something.
She does. She leans down and nudges your nose playfully with hers before her lips lean down and press gently against yours. You let out a whimper as you feel your body turn to mush under her weight. You feel her smirk against your lips and you whimper again, the feeling vibrating your lips against hers. She sinks her lips further and more forcefully down onto yours and your whole body is frozen and buzzing and you haven’t a fucking clue what to do. You’re breathing hard through your nose and your clammy hands grasp at the straws of hay at your side.
Outsider observations: Sam is super sexually incompetent in all femslash Glee fics, even though Riese and I feel pretty confident that he would be the best in bed of all Glee dudes.
My main beef with Glee fic is there’s not nearly enough Mercedes and Unique. If you’ve written something about them, I sure would love to read it. Next week is Pretty Little Liars; leave your recommendations in the comments!
Comments
I’m pretty sure one of the lesbian kindle novels Amazon tricked me into loving, “Taking The Long Way” started it’s journey into the world as a brittana fan fic, too. Def worth the cup of coffee or less I paid for it.
You’re right – it’s a Lingering Lillies story, I think
You’re right! And there’s a sequel too! Lily is wonderful and has written a couple brittana stories with names changed that she sells (:
Why thank you!
One of my greatest sorrows in life is the fact that ITYTD is discontinued, which is one of the worst things about fanfiction, that you fall in love with a story, and the author walks away from it.
Also, I have read all but one of the stories you sampled. I don’t know why I’m proud of this, but I am.
Also also, I too am one of those people who realized their love for lady-parts after stumbling on Hermione-centric femslash (Hermione-Tonks, to be exact).
So to summmarize, fanfiction made me gay.
Great article! Great list! I only wish there were more stories with Rachel (and Faberry)…my weaknesses.
Looking forward to your PLL picks
So many of my all time favorites are on this list as well!
I don’t know how I feel about that. But for now I’m taking it as, I have *excellent* taste in steamy glee fanfic. haha.
(Shout out to: “drowning in dizziness”, “honest mistake”, “string theory”, and “got you stuck on my body”)
thanks for the shout out! ;) [signed as timorous_scribe]
My pleasure! Your work is so great!!
Can we suggest fanfic pairings? My personal favorite, which is rather underrated in the sapphic community is Maegary/Sansa from Game of Thrones. Lemoncake lesbians is a fun tumblr dedicated to them.
I tried to imbed a picture but it didn’t work. Sad day.
But there is also tons of other fun girl on girl ships in GoT, and I’d love for some one else to direct me to all the hot fanfic out there about them :)
Excuse me while I go watch hours of shipper videos.
YES to Maergery/Sansa. I might also have a problem and ship Natalie Dormer with every girl she talks to, but in this case I really think that they’re characters wuold be perfect together (and super hot, ok yeah).
OK, I’ll for sure dedicate a week to Game of Thrones!
My biggest problem is I ship Natalie Dormer with myself.
But Maegary/Sansa belong together, and it is definitely teased throughout the tv series that Maegary is hitting on Sansa. In the books it’s also rumored that Maegary sleeps with her serving maids.
Anyway, that’s my foundation for the delusional belief that they will become cannon and rule over westeros like the power femmes they are!
I recently got into fic again and have spent some quality time this past week with Brittana (the best thing that will ever come from Glee). This is beautiful.
I was excited when I saw the title! But then it was mostly Brittany and Santana, Glee’s most disgusting and offensive couple. Sad. :(
I’d say an alternate 10 involving no one who outed Santana on the internet, tried to make Santana’s coming out all about her dumb t-shirt, or committed a horribly violating sex crime against her (is it too much to expect more from Autostraddle?):
1) I Don’t Want to Jump In (Unless This Music’s Thumping). https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9383463/1/I-Don-t-Want-to-Jump-In-Unless-This-Music-s-Thumping Santana/Rachel. Also read her zombieverse (which is my favorite) but that is less “hot”.
2) drowning in your dizzy noise. Agreed with above.
3) The O-Axis https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9050955/1/The-O-Axis Quinn/Santana one shot. They continue hooking up after I Do.
4) unpack my missteps- http://archiveofourown.org/works/754631 Quinn/Santana. Affair.
5) See This Is Exactly What Happens http://smc-27.livejournal.com/140765.html Rachel/Santana. Elevator Sex.
6) Strike Us Like Matches. http://archiveofourown.org/works/711351?view_adult=true Rachel/Santana. Rachel was pregnant in season 4.
7) Got You Stuck On My Body (Like a Tattoo). Totally agree.
8) Treasure Maps. https://m.fanfiction.net/s/8991835/1/Treasure-Maps Rachel/Santana reconnect years after high school.
9) This One’s Gonna Leave A Mark. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7611270/1/This-One-s-Gonna-Leave-A-Mark Santana/Rachel. Santana is a tattoo artist they have sex in the shop.
10) the white flag of a saturday night. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10525181/1/the-white-flag-of-a-saturday-night Quinn/Santana. Established couple. Makeup sex.
Really? I count only 5/ 10 being Brittana fics (6/10 if you count the Quinn threesome, which I’m not). I feel like that isn’t an overwhelming majority, especially given that they are the canon couple on the show. I thought Heather did a pretty sand up job showing fandom diversity.
And I say that as someone who is faaaaaaaaaaaaaar from being a fan of that couple. About as far away as one could get.
Half being devoted to a couple where one committed a sex crime against the other is a lot.
Wait, what happened? I stopped watching Glee awhile ago.
Brittany posted their sex tape to the internet, basically outing Santana to the entire universe and getting her into a lot of hot water. But of course none of the writers of took that subject seriously, they played it for laughs – as if teens aren’t doing that crap to each other and ruining each other’s lives today over posting explicit stuff.
Fans basically created Brittana before the show made them canon, so in my opinion, anything that has happened on the show is secondary to what happens in fanfiction.
Just shut up.Brittana is awesome and just because one asshole like you have something to say doesn’t make them any less awesome so go fuck yourself.
Well this is my new favorite AS feature. Weekly, you say? Hot damn.
THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER
for real, the whole fanfiction related sexual awakening thing? I feel it
THIS IS PERFECT OH MY GOSH
I read through the list thinking to myself that if Room 47 wasn’t on this list I was going to have to comment, but it is! And also a weird therapist/client relationship…
But I disagree that not all fic has Sam as being incompetent, there’s been some really stellar Brittany/Santana/Sam and Dani/Santana/Sam fic out there!
So this is offically awesome times a billion. Like the distance from here to Saturn awesome. Fanfiction has been my safe place to explore myself and who I am. It was the only place I could feel that way. So I love that this is going to be a thing even if I don’t want Glee or PLL. This will give me some good stories to read in the least.
Now I have to check out the OITNB page on fanfiction.net. Also you have to do Guiding Light. That page is basically Otalia with some Blake and Doris to make it interesting.
Sex positive and female oriented? Wow, that’s uh the absolute opposite of my first exposures to fan fiction. Not getting into details let’s just say they were bad, bad enough to send me running back to Girls Gone Wild infomercials.
Still I felt, and currently feel less guilt, over fan fic reading because a human made it for fun not to make money of the exploitation of drunk people.
Last year I encountered a Stephanie Rogers and Antonia Stark femslash that got me misty eyed, then uh a month or so ago I encountered a Steve and Tony slash story that was an unexpected caliber too.
So it’s ok kids I know the sex positive exists.
This week and last week I’ve been retreating into fanfiction of the Marvel Avengers and Thor films like a bear retreats into a cave for hibernation
I found one and only one fem Loki and Lady Sif femslash that had sex in it, but it was Loki’s groom. Lady Sif was one of the witnesses for the consummation.
He was an ass, and knew she and his bride were “close”so he made a show of it at the end.
Never has a version of “lesbian ends up with a man” has ever made me so angry before and it was just a ficlet.
So uh here’s my suggestion of some Marvel movie femslash for a future review?
Yes, OK! You got it! (Perfect GIF is perfect.)
Ooh, now this is a new topic I can definitely get into. You listed some great fics, and there are so many other great ones out there. A feel a little embarrassed admitting this, but I have a whole list of my favourites saved on my computer. While some fanfic is horrible, there are some truly great authors out there writing beautiful stories.
Will you share your list here in the comments?!
Don’t be embarrassed by what you enjoy, plus if it makes you feel better: i’ve been known to save entire fics (not just title/author in a list) to my g!docs or in .docx on my PC. Too many authors end up taking down their work, or ffnet does a ‘cleanse’ or whatever else. Can’t lose the good stuff! ;)
I do the same thing, leah! Otherwise they have a tendency to go ‘missing’.
Here are some of the other ones that I love:
* I need a Medic – Gorshenin
* Her Smile Hears Me – mamatots (and the follow up Keep Me Where the Light Is)
* (I’ve Got to Admit) It’s Getting Better – thefooliam (and the follow up Rhythms)
* Clockwork – Gorshenin
* A Different Life – hlnwst
* Love, and other drugs – sailormoon19
* Thunder, Clap Us Open – jellyfishheart
* They Bring Me Back – wherehoplies
* 2859 – Halfrobotchicken (and related follow up stories)
* Blue Creek Lodge – slaves4hemo
* Taking the Long Way – Lingering Lilies (and follow up Me and You and Daisies)
* If Only You Could See What I See – FrogsRcook (and the sequel A View From The Fire)
* Let Me Take Care of You – absedarian
* Serendipitous – faithangel3
* I’m Not Calling For A Second Chance – itainthardtryin
* Dance On Our Graves – pleasant-hell
* Where Are You Christmas – summerkid
There are so many more – if you ever want any more recs, let me know
My favorite Brittana fic would have to be Influence. I’ve read it a long time ago but it will always be the best for me. I guess it’s saying something because I’m not usually the type of person who goes for angst. Anyway, the list is good. :D
Looking forward for the PLL post and I’m hoping that Once Upon A Time fics get reviewed too.
Influence was the first long Glee fic I ever read, so I will always have a soft spot for it. So much angst, but oh so good.
OUAT, my guiltiest pleasure. How can such a terrible show inspire such amazing (swan queen) fanfic??
Also, just a word of warning. Parts of Glee fandom use the term “g!p”, which I’ve almost never seen elsewhere – it stands for ‘girl penis’, and despite that wording making me kind of uncomfortable from the get-go, I held out the extremely vain hopes that it’d be a sign of decent fic w/ trans women (because i am shamefully desperate for representation and those are extremely uncommon in the first place, let alone any that’re not horrible).
IT’S NOT. It’s their fandom’s equivalent of ‘futa’ porn, and it’s incredibly fetishizing and transmisogynist and really frequently rapey.
Oooh Sirens and Gallows Humor by XenaLives. Really awesome paily fics
Come on this is a cute little article but Heather a Emmy? She has is better that season 1, but come one.
I just came to AS to browse while waiting for the fanfiction board I’ve been reading all morning to get over it’s technical issues and load properly and this awesome post is here!
I have only ever really been into Buffy fanfic but yeah, those Tara/Willow fics definitely helped with the sexual awakening. And it’s nice to console your heart with after watching Seeing Red.
Also can I just ask, why do people use the term femmeslash instead of just slash? In my experience slash had always been a gender neutral term.
In my experience slash is used exclusively to refer to M/M fan fiction. I’m not saying that a gender-neutral term isn’t required, just that slash isn’t an obvious solution, imo.
I am glad this is a thing, because fanfiction helped me realize my queerness as well. Oddly enough, I was really disappointed that Legend of the Seeker was cancelled a few years ago (mainly because of Cara and Kahlan), and was on the internetz looking to console myself and found Kahlan + Cara fanfiction which led to more fanfiction and more fandoms…yeah. Anyway. In relation to this particular installment, I mostly read Faberry. But I always appreciated the fanfiction dynamics between the characters that the writers of the show seemed to ignore in the actual tv show and the fandom could explore (usually) pretty well.
My favorite favorite Glee fic though was a Faberry story that not only was discontinued, but taken down entirely!
Holy crap, thanks for the nod! drowning in your dizzy noise was a birthday gift for my bff last year, and i’m flattered it was chosen for your hottest list. We’re kind of a shallow pool, the femslash corner of any fandom, and as such, a couple of my friends are on your list, too.
There’s so so SO many more out there that are truly fantastic pieces of fiction. I’m endlessly amazed at the quality and raw talent that can be found in a totally free forum like this one, they (we) truly do it for the enjoyment and response. It’s also definitely a safe space for sexual exploration–my first forays into bdsm and kinkier topics came about first via fanfic. It’s very much an invaluable community for development in several aspects, from determining sexual proclivities, exercising safe emotional catharsis, not to mention improving the skill of composition, itself.
Great article, and topic. :) thanks!
I just NEED to recommend the following Faberry fics because these were my faves when I used to read them:
Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise
A Million Miles of Fun (This also has Brittana)
Crazy On You
I’ll Be
What Doors May Open
YES. Those are all so so good. I’ve also got a number of other favourites, but many of them aren’t smut-based or have any sex scenes.
I am thoroughly disappointed that only one Faberry fic is even on the list (but at least it’s SHAFD) since that is a major ship in the fandom.
One of the hottest fics I’ve ever read was “these strange steps” – that *definitely* needs to be on this list. I don’t even really ship Faberry, but I read all 272,000 words of that.
Is that the one where they’re in Las Vegas and Quinn’s a stripper? I remember that the author changed the name of the story to “and isn’t this exactly where you’d like me” and it was perfect and wonderful but it’s no longer on fanfiction.net.
Yup, that’s the one. “these strange steps” is the current title; I think the other was the title before she basically rewrote the ending. And she did delete everything from FFN, but all of her completed works are still on AO3. (Her screenname there is also thememoriesfire.)
First fanfic I ever read was ‘Blame it on the Heat’. Opened my eyes I tell you. Lurking on Afterellen.com, and crying at Skins episodes wasn’t enough to convince myself I was probably gay, but reading this story made me face things Id spent years looking away from. Bloody good writing, if memory serves me well. Anyone read it?
Glee and it’s fanfiction made me realize that I was gay. The show isn’t all that great now but like a part of me feels the need to stick with it until the end. I think ‘Should Have Asked For Directions” was the first femslash fic I ever read. I don’t think I ever finished it, but it meant a lot to me. I realized I was gay in between seasons 2 and 3, and for some reason I cared a lot more about Faberry than I did about Brittana. Although it did become equal later on.
Also I’ve never read femslash with Unique, but I have read like all of the Ryder/Unique fics on archiveofourown.
Alex/Olivia SVU fanfiction on ralst.com (found through TWoP forum, because everything good in my life came from there). Mira’s Five Kisses, The Summary of Errors, and especially One Hundred Things That Might Have Happened are the best.
If you feel like laughing, Del’s SVU fic is also amazing. Check out the “Silly Little…” series and Tease.
Alex/Olivia fanfiction didn’t make realize I’m queer, but it sure did confirm it.
Umm I need an option stronger than a thumbs-up for this comment. Because I feel that feel SO HARD. Except instead of TWoP I started out at svufiction.com back when that was still a thing. Memmmmmories!
“Do you ever wonder why there’s such a shameful stigma surrounding fan fiction? If I learn to play the guitar by pinging out classics from the Eagles, no one judges me. If famous artists cover classic recordings, no one even blinks. It’s completely socially acceptable to play around artistically in the sandboxes created by musicians — but when we do the same thing with the art of storytelling, we’re branded as a bunch of weirdos.” — *spoons this entire passage because everything in it is perfect*
I could not be more excite that this is going to be a regular column if I tried. Seriously.
I also discovered fanfiction via the TWoP forums, but in the beginning, before I realized I was queer, it was all Luke/Lorelai fics. If anyone knows of a femslash fic with Lorelai and a gender-flipped Luke, please direct that my way :)
Heather, I don’t know if you’ve watched Rookie Blue, but that is another show where fandom writes better than the actual writers. Holly and Gail (Golly, Gailly, OfficerLunchbox, whatever they’re called) are absolutely the best thing about that show, and I got into Golly fanfic before ever even seeing a single episode, just on the basis of a couple of youtube clips and Valerie’s recaps. They’ve been my go-to for more than a year now, and I could easily supply you with 10+ fics for a list :)
Gailly 5ever! The writers have screwed them so thank the internet for fanfic.
Really excited this is going to be a regular column! Fanfiction didn’t help me realize I was queer, but getting into the femslash community in tumblr (specifically in Glee fandom) and befriending some great writers there have me the motivation to try my own hand at fic writing. Some of my friends work is linked in this post, in fact. :)
My very favorite Glee fic ever, though, is the “Eyes Closed to Fingers Crossed” series by thememoriesfire on AO3. If you want to be convinced that Santana and Rachel are made for each other and also be completely destroyed in the process, read this fic.
Looking forward to PLL next week, too. If you have any Emily/Hanna recs I’d be super interested in those. Second choice Spencer/Hanna. Okay basically I just love Hanna.
Yesssss, the bible of Pezberry, ECFC. Seconded, that series is simply perfection for any fan of the characters in general, regardless of romantic attachments.
I’ve never read any PLL fic, but i’m excited for a weekly column that will filter the good finds in different corners of fandom i’ve never explored. Honestly, that’s how i’ve ended up in several fandoms (Glee included)–reading a story i heard was good, long before ever consuming the media that inspired it.
The pairing that really got me into Fanfiction were Tara/Willow, Buffy/Faith as well as different wrestling femslash pairs. I only saw Buffy for the first time fully like 4 years ago and Fanfiction was a way of keeping these pairings alive for me after the shows end. This is an interesting list also wish there was more Faberry though.
so look forward to reading these, but i don’t think i will be able to make it through what you’ll bring us next week. emily fields without censorship,….sigh damn
!!!!
This was the first post that I clicked on when signing onto AS.. two days ago. I got so distracted re-reading some of my favorites that I didn’t return to AS until now. :/
The reason I left afterellen and became an autostraddle reader years ago was because AE virtually became a total Fanfiction fantasyland and unless you were totally invested in the same couples/shows/levels of unreality the editors & writers were living in, it was completely irrelevant.
AS has always been relevant to reality and includes such a broad mix of culture, which is why I like it – So I really hope this stays one column and doesn’t permeate the rest of the site!!!
That’s my experience with Fan Fiction- it consumes people and makes them utterly boring to others! Don’t go down that dark road AS!!!!!
Oh do I feel like this confirms what you just said, but it is just so amusing a “Darcy” having a great dislike for fanfiction. So amusing I may just take a screen shot of your comment.
Dude you just don’t even know nor do you want to know precisely how amusing this is.
woops
I’m totally looking forward to reading this column! I think fanfiction has a really unfairly bad reputation. I know that some of the lesbian fics read like they’re written by a teenage boy who watches too much gross porn, but there are some really good, well-written stories too. (Hopefully mine are somewhere near the latter category…)
Unfortunately I don’t watch much current TV, so I don’t know if I’ll know many of the characters/fandoms covered in this column well, but I’ll be reading along anyway.
Praise Sweet Baby Vanderjesus for this post!
Oh, my soul is fulfilled!