Fanfiction Fridays: Transitions by Zethsaire

It’s common knowledge that fanfiction is positively lousy with gay relationships, and with an almost entirely queer cast of hopelessly attractive young adults, Marvel’s Young Avengers is grade-A shippable material. With two gay men, one lesbian, two bisexuals, and a genderfluid trickster god, the two presumed cishets are outnumbered three to one. I say presumed cishets, because it’s not as though we know everything about Kate Bishop or Tommy Shepherd, which leaves plenty of room to extrapolate.

The eponymously titled Transitions by Zethsaire on AO3 explores the idea that speedster Tommy Shepherd was assigned female at birth and is physically transitioning to male. Set in a slightly alternate version of the Marvel comics universe, it follows the relationship between Tommy Shepherd and Noh-Varr, two members of the Young Avengers, and details how Tommy’s gender identity and transition process affects both of their lives. It also deals briefly with different cultural perceptions of gender, since Noh-varr is also a Kree, and his perspective on the matter is different from the average human.

Enthusiastic white boy dancing.

Sexualized Saturdays: Friendship and Femslash

Recently, I have been reading a lot more femslash than I used to in my quest to read better fanfiction. And as a queer woman, you would think that I’d ship more femslash pairings. You’d think that when two female characters spent any significant amount of screen time together, my brain would immediately go to all kinds of happy slashy places.

Regrettably, though, that is not what happens. Well, not all the time. I started noticing that I was more drawn to certain female ships than others. In an article discussing the AO3 census, Luce mentioned that most male/male slash fanfiction pairings are usually either friends or rivals. I tend to gravitate toward femslash pairings where the two characters are rivals like Swan Queen (Emma Swan/Regina Mills from Once Upon a Time) but when two female characters are canonically good friends, I simply can’t ship them. It’s so rare to see good female friendships—or female relationships of any kind—that I feel the need to protect those relationships.

Not long ago, Luce also discussed some theories as to why there aren’t as many femslash pairings as there are male/male slash pairings. And I started wondering if maybe not being able to ship female friends contributes to the lack of femslash in fandom.

Sexualized Saturdays: Is Slash Fanfiction Degrading and/or Homophobic?

I have always felt that one of the biggest arguments against slash fanfiction is that it often takes gay romances and makes them heteronormative. In doing so, fanfic can become both degrading and homophobic.

There are a lot of issues to unpack here and for that reason this might end up being a topic I go back to again. Furthermore, this problem is tied to other issues I won’t touch on too much in this post because either I or one of the other authors have already addressed them in a different one.

Fanfiction Fridays: Prince Among Wolves by tylerfucklin

As many of you who read this blog know, I recently became obsessed with Teen Wolf. And of course my favorite part about joining a new fandom is, of course, all the new fanfiction! Now this is Teen Wolf so you know I have to talk about Sterek.

Okay, this pic isn’t really Sterek but just go with it because it’s cute!

Chances are, even if you don’t know anything about Teen Wolf or watched it at all, you probably know about Sterek. Maybe you see it on Tumblr constantly or maybe you were annoyed because “that fucking Teen Wolf pairing beat my favorite ship in an online poll again!” Yep, Sterek has made a name for itself in the slash community and that’s surprising, because the two characters in this pairing, Stiles and Derek, don’t actually share that many scenes together canonically speaking. But when they do interact the dynamic between the two is pure gold. Even if you don’t ship them, chances are you still love seeing them together.

Sterek dominates the Teen Wolf fandom, so there is a lot of fanfiction for it, but most of them are pretty standard. I have often heard that the Teen Wolf fandom has a reputation for having some bad fanfiction, but honestly I haven’t read anything too bad. I have even read fanfics where characters call themselves feminists and the female characters are still well written and never demonized for the sake of a slash pairing. But maybe I’m just finding good fics. Now, that being said, Teen Wolf fanfiction is pretty much the same as any other fanfiction. Same tropes, same plots, same type of pairings, but you know, with werewolves this time!

But then I found Prince Among Wolves by tylerfucklin and was blown away!

Sexualized Saturdays: Male Pregnancy in Fanfiction

Okay, so for the most part Sexualized Saturdays has been pretty tame. We have mostly talked about sexuality and the portrayal of relationships, with a couple notable exceptions, but now I am about to take you deep into the world of fanfiction and fetishes. Be warned, adult content ahead.

“I know fanfic authors, well, I know what they like.”

Let’s talk about one theme that shows up a lot in fanfiction: male pregnancy.