#got femslash

[my-meadowlark]

fic: a woman, not a queen [got/asoiaf: daenerys/ygritte]

Title: A woman, not a queen Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones Characters/Pairing: Daenerys Targaryen/Ygritte Rating: E Word Count: 3997 Content warnings: Complete disregard for canonical logic, general smuttery Summary:

Ygritte knows many things. Useful things. Things that keep you alive. Things that keep you dead. Things worth knowing.

Ygritte knows how to swim and how to control the muscles that make you breathe. How to keep them from seizing up and killing you when the ice shatters under your feet and you fall into the cold water underneath.

But Daenerys makes her feel out of her depth.

Notes: Written for the prompt “Kneeling” for my kinktober Bingo

Read it on AO3 HERE or under the cut.

Ygritte knows many things. Useful things. Things that keep you alive. Things that keep you dead. Things worth knowing.

Ygritte knows how to swim and how to control the muscles that make you breathe. How to keep them from seizing up and killing you when the ice shatters under your feet and you fall into the cold water underneath.

But Daenerys makes her feel out of her depth.

Like she’s three again and being thrown into the river so she’ll either sink or learn to swim.

“You think very loudly, Ygritte.”

Ygritte rolls onto her side to look at the naked woman next to her. A princess and a queen and a khaleesi and a mother of dragons and whatever else Missandei keeps repeating whenever she introduces her to someone new. A woman, at the end of the day. Just like Ygritte, who doesn’t even have a family name.

Southerners are like magpies, if you ask her. Collecting useless things like strings of titles just because they shine pretty when the sun hits them just right.

“What am I thinking about, then? Since you can hear.”

“Me.”

Ygritte puts on her best imitation of what she assumes southern ladies sound like. “Aye, Daenerys Targaralaleeday,” she knows it's Targaryen, but she prefers to watch an indignant little crinkle appear between Daenerys’s eyebrows instead, “mother of dragons, breaker of chains, reader of minds.”

“Tamer of wildlings,” Daenerys adds, one fingertip tracing the bruise she sucked onto the pale skin between Ygritte’s breasts just a few hours ago.

“You’ve tamed nothing, southern girl.”

“I’m not a girl.” There’s nothing cute about the frown on her face now. She’s angry, not just annoyed. Ygritte has known the signs of a storm in the horizon since before she could talk, and they’re all right there in Daenerys’ eyes. “I’m a Khaleesi.”

Ygritte lets out a quiet chuckle. She’s never been afraid of storms.

“I don’t care.” In one swift movement Ygritte is on top of Daenerys, strong lean thighs straddling round hips and calloused hands planted on the bed on either side of Daenerys’s head.

“All those titles of yours,” she leans forward and kisses Daenerys, and there’s no holding back the smirk on her face when she hears Daenerys’s quiet sound of protest as she pulls away, “all those names. They mean nothing here.”

“I’m still your queen.” Daenerys tries to sound serious, but Ygritte can see how much she wants to kiss her written all over her face.

“I’ve got no queen.”

Daenerys holds her gaze for a moment, and Ygritte wonders what she’s thinking. Is she thinking about punishing Ygritte? About having her men make her kneel for their queen? About how many of them Ygritte would probably kill (or maim, at the very least) before they succeeded?

“But you’re still on my side.” It’s not a question, but Ygritte feels like Daenerys meant it as one.

“On your side of what?”

Daenerys looks surprised by the question. Like it should be obvious. But Ygritte has nothing to do with whatever lords and ladies get up to south of the Wall, and she’s not interested in changing that.

“Nothing.” Daenerys finally answers, after a few moments of thought. “Everything.”

Ygritte’s never had the patience for riddles.

“You’ve got to learn some real words, you know. With some weight to them.” Ygritte knows ladies down south aren’t supposed to do much. She wonders if they teach them to keep even their words light so they won’t bother the men.

“What do you mean?” Daenerys sounds genuinely curious. Ygritte’s seen that look in her eyes before, when she’s taught her how to tell where the North is, how to follow the stars or how to track your next meal. She knows Daenerys knows all kinds of things Ygritte can’t even imagine, but when it comes to useful things – things that matter – she knows nothing at all.

“I mean,” Ygritte says, moving one hand from its place on the bed to wrap around Daenerys’s wrist, “you say on your side of everything and that means nothing, don’t it? No such thing as everything. I can’t promise you everything any more than I can promise you the moon.”

“But you could,” Daenerys argues, but she doesn’t fight Ygritte when she pins a slender wrist to the bed above Daenerys’s head, “you could say it.”

Ygritte shifts on top of Daenerys, puts more of her weight on the hand she has around Daenerys’s left wrist to free the other so it can do the same to the her right one.

“Is that what the southern lords do to you ladies? Lie?”

“It’s not lying. It’s…” Daenerys thinks for a moment, and Ygritte takes the chance to admire just how pretty she looks, naked and soft and letting Ygritte have her way with her instead of playing the part of a khaleesi or a queen. “It’s like a wish. You know it’s impossible, of course. But if it were possible, you’d do it.”

Ygritte lets out a huff of laughter. “No weight to it, none of that. Seen empty water skins with more substance to them than all those empty words.”

Daenerys looks almost offended, and Ygritte wonders if maybe she grew up dreaming of a fair prince who’d make weightless promises to her while bending his knee.

“Go on, then,” Daenerys says, and that defiant, queenly tone of hers comes through in every word, “show me those words with weight to them.”

Ygritte smirks, unable to hide the fact that she’s been waiting for a chance to do just that, and starts by pressing a kiss to Daenerys’s lips. Just because there’s a weight to that, too.

“I promise,” she starts, knee nudging Daenerys’s soft thighs apart, “I’ll keep you well kissed. And well fucked."

Ygritte sees the first hint of an eye roll on Daenerys's face, but she shifts her weight and presses her thigh against Daenerys's cunt, and the blonde's eyes flutter closed instead.

"I promise I'd kill for you. And I'd die for you."

"I should--" Daenerys arches her back, rocking against Ygritte's muscular thigh, "I should knight you. Make you captain of my queensguard."

Ygritte kisses the pulse at the base of Daenerys's throat, licks a path up the side of her neck, catches her earlobe between her teeth and grins when she feels her struggle against the hold of Ygritte's hands around her wrists.

"I don't give a fuck about the queen," she whispers, low and hot against Daenerys's ear, "but I'd fight an army for you."

Danerys shudders against her and rocks harder, faster against her thigh. She's soft and slick and if Ygritte didn't have her hands otherwise occupied, she'd have at least two fingers inside her by now.

"What else?" Daenerys breathes it out, pale skin flushed pink and pebbled nipples dragging against Ygritte's skin every time she moves. "What else would you do for me?"

Ygritte lets out a quiet, husky chuckle against her neck. "I'd fight dragons for you, southern girl."

Daenerys is too far gone – too close to the edge – to argue Ygritte's wording, but she does manage to choke out a quiet, "impossible" between moans.

"Aye. Impossible to fight them and win," Ygritte shifts just enough to change the angle of her thigh against Daenerys's cunt, and the blonde arches her back and rides it even faster, "but I'd die trying."

Ygritte doesn't know if it's the words or the new angle that does it, but Daenerys comes with Ygritte's name on her tongue, shuddering against Ygritte's drenched thigh and then falling limply back on the mattress like a well-loved rag doll.

She always seems to need a few moments to herself after she comes, and Ygritte lets her have them, lying next to her and waiting for the shorter woman to come to her when she's ready.

It doesn't take long at all.

"Ygritte," Daenerys says, rolling onto her side and lazily draping an arm and leg over the other woman, "if I asked you to kneel instead of killing or dying for me. Would you?"

Ygritte lets the question sit in her head for a while. "Kneel for you?"

Daenerys nods against Ygritte's chest. "For your queen."

Ygritte smiles and presses a kiss to platinum hair. Daenerys knows next to nothing about things that matter. "I've got no queen," she reminds her, voice soft but firm.

Daenerys sighs, but she doesn't protest.

***

  Ygritte doesn't think she'll ever get tired of watching Daenerys's dragons.

She watches them take off and fly around. Watches them land, heavy and graceful, and feels the thud of their massive bodies hitting the floor right inside her ribcage. Like when someone plays a drum right next to you.

Sometimes, she watches them hunt. She doesn't like that as much, just because there's no beast in the land who can put up a fair fight against them so it almost feels cheap. Like they haven't quite earned their meal.

And sometimes, like right now, she just watches them and lets them watch her.

Daenerys is a protective mother. Too protective, Ygritte thinks. So she'd never tell her she has a favorite dragon, because she's sure Daenerys would take offense on behalf of the other two. Especially because Ygritte's favorite is not the one Daenerys loves the most.

He's white – a warm white, like milk, not cold like snow – and gold. Mostly gold. He looks like he was forged instead of grown in an egg.

Ygritte crouches down, relaxes her stance, and watches Viserion come closer. He reminds her of a cat, somehow. When she tilts her head to the right, he does the same, nostrils flaring as his breath comes out in clouds of steam.

"I've got something for you," she says, triple checking that his brothers are distracted before reaching into her bag and pulling out one of the fish she caught earlier. Dragons can fish, she figures, but they don't know how to make holes in the ice to reach the water below. Maybe she'll teach them some time. Their mother sure won't.

Ygritte throws the fish up in the air and watches Viserion catch it between his teeth. He could've swallowed it whole, but he chews a couple times first, and she takes it as a compliment on her fishing skills.

"I'll teach you how to get more some time. Before you leave."

"You could come with us." Daenerys's voice doesn't quite startle her, but it comes as a surprise. "I'm sure he'd let you ride him South."

"Would you?" Ygritte is still looking at Viserion, and when she offers his hand he bumps it with his enormous snout. Like a massive, fire-breathing cat. "But I'd never ask. You're no horse."

She respects him too much to treat him like a horse or an ass or an ox.

"You could still come," Daenerys says once Ygritte stands up and turns around to face her, "we could both ride horses if that's what you'd prefer."

Ygritte shakes her head with a smile and walks towards the hut they've been calling a home for the last few weeks. At first Daenerys tried to pitch her silky, queenly tent, but facing one Northern night in it was enough to make her see the error of her ways.

"And what would I do in the South, Dany?" Ygritte much prefers the shorter name. Less of a mouthful. "Play the fiddle and sew?"

Dany lets out a quiet chuckle. "Ladies don't play the fiddle, if that's what you were going for."

"This lady would. If she were a lady."

"So you would. I'd have a fiddle made for you the minute we arrived."

Ygritte finishes feeding the fire, frees herself from her bow and quiver and her bag full of freshly caught fish, and even sheds the outer layer of furs she's wearing. Their hut is warm enough.

"I can't play the fiddle. You'd be wasting good wood."

Dany rolls her eyes. When Ygritte finally sits down and settles in near the fire, she immediately claims her place on the wildling's lap, thighs straddling Ygritte's legs. "I'd hire the best fiddle player to teach you." She kisses Ygritte's chapped lips. "If playing the fiddle is what you want, then I'll see to it that it happens."

"I don't want to play the fiddle." Dany's lips are soft and warm, like the rest of her. She's always warm.

"What is it that you want, then? Come with me and I'll give you anything you ask for." Dany kisses her again, and then a third time. "I'll give you fields full of game for you to hunt. I'll give you--" another kiss, deeper this time, just enough to make Ygritte let out a sound of protest when it ends, "whatever you want."

They've had this conversation before, but this time Ygritte wants to make sure Dany hears her. That she listens. So she hooks one finger under Dany's chin and tilts her face up until she's looking into Ygritte's eyes.

"Whatever I want is this."

This. The North and Dany and a hut that's always a little warmer than it should be because Dany is in it. Three dragons. Fresh fish for dinner. Freedom. And Dany.

She knows Dany's listening this time because her eyes glisten with unshed tears.

"Don't you love me?"

"Aye, I love you. I love you." Ygritte kisses her for good measure and lets Dany press herself even closer against her. "Not some khaleesi. Not the queen you'll be down South."

"That queen and I are one and the same. I am her, and she is me."

Ygritte sighs. "No."

She kisses Dany before she can protest. Before she can go on about birth rights and blood and gods know what else. She kisses Dany until she's quiet. Until she's soft and pliant against her. Until she wraps her legs around Ygritte's waist so she can carry her to bed. She kisses her as she lowers her onto the bed, and then she kisses her some more, calloused fingers making quick work of untying Dany's leather trousers and pushing them down her legs.

Ygritte doesn't want to waste time with the furs above Dany's waist, but when she pulls away from Dany's lips she sees the blonde herself has done the work for her, vest and shirt pulled open to give Ygritte full access to Dany's breasts.

"You're always so warm," Ygritte muses out loud, already making her way down Dany's body to kiss the swell of her right breast and flick her tongue against a pretty pink nipple.

"Fire and blood," Dany sighs, fingers tangling in unruly red hair, "but you're the one who's been kissed by fire."

Ygritte smiles against soft skin, sucks Dany's right nipple into her mouth and pinches the left between her fingers. When Dany's back arches off the bed, Ygritte lets the nipple in her mouth go and starts kissing a path down to Dany's bellybutton, and then to the soft curls between her legs.

"You're always so wet." Ygritte breathes in the scent of her, voice reverent like she guesses other people might sound when they bend the knee for their queen. But she's got no queen.

"Not always," Dany corrects softly, thighs spreading for Ygritte, "only for you."

Ygritte closes her eyes for a moment, lets the words sink into her chest like a glass of hot mead in a cold winter night. She kisses the inside of Dany's thigh, lets her lips linger there for a moment, hopes Dany understands how this is much more important than anything South of the Wall.

Once the moment passes – once Ygritte feels like she's breathing right once again – she turns her head and noses at soft silver-white hair, kisses Dany's swollen clit, and lets out a quiet moan at the first taste of her.

Ygritte knows many things worth knowing, but one of the most important things she knows is just how Dany likes to be fucked. And Ygritte knows that very well.

Soft at first, kisses and gentle licks and the pads of Ygritte's thumbs holding her folds open so she can worship every inch of her with her mouth. She waits until Dany's hips rock up against her mouth to suck on her clit and slide one finger deep inside her, and when Dany pulls on her hair Ygritte knows gentle is no longer what she needs.

She nips at sensitive skin, fucks Dany with two fingers and then three, feels Dany's thighs clamp around her head when she matches the thrusts of her fingers with her tongue against Dany's clit.

And then everything stills. Dany's whole body tenses, her cunt squeezes tightly around Ygritte's fingers, and she finally comes with a cry that sounds a lot like she's trying to say Ygritte's name.

She knows not to stop right away. She knows to be gentle, to help her ride out the waves of pleasure crashing over her until Dany softly pushes her away and Ygritte knows any more would be too much.

Ygritte crawls back up Dany's limp, sated body and kisses her deep and slow, letting her southern girl taste herself on Ygritte's tongue.

"Do you like the way you taste?"

Dany nods against Ygritte's lips, too spent to speak.

"That's not the taste of a queen," Ygritte says, and she sees a flash of something nearly dangerous in Dany's eyes, "that's the taste of a woman."

She kisses Dany again before she can argue.

"And a well fucked woman at that."

***

Ygritte doesn't help Dany pack up her things. She doesn't watch, either. She just lets it happen. She's a free woman. Dany isn't, but Ygritte won't add more chains to the ones she's been carrying around from birth.

Viserion lands right next to her, snout sparkling with frozen droplets of water. He's been fishing. Something aches in Ygritte's chest, like an arrowhead someone forgot to pull out.

"I've got to go." Dany's voice isn't as firm as she probably wanted it to be.

"You want to go," Ygritte corrects.

For a split second, Dany looks like she might cry. And then she looks like she might have Viserion burn Ygritte right where she stands.

"I am a queen. I'm their queen." Dany gestures towards the East, but Ygritte knows she meant to point South. Dany knows so few useful things. "They need me there."

Nobody needs a queen. That's what Ygritte wants to say. Nobody needs someone to kneel for. Someone to own them. Nobody.

"Well, I don't need you here--"

"I know."

"But I want you here."

Dany stares at her for a moment. The fire is gone from her eyes, and Ygritte would feel bad if she didn't know that's how you learn. You're thrown in ice water so you'll learn to float and save yourself. Nobody learns from people making things easy for them.

"Ygritte--"

"Run away with me."

Ygritte thinks the look Dany gives her is as close as a queen can get to pleading.

"Fuck being their queen," Ygritte continues, unwilling to bend to rules that mean nothing in the North, "stay and be my woman instead."

Dany frowns. She presses her lips together and sets her jaw, and then she talks about honor and duty and many other things that mean nothing to Ygritte. She's come to hate weightless, empty words.

"They don't care," Ygritte says, and she's not sure if Dany stops talking from the shock of being interrupted while talking about queenly shite, or because Ygritte raised her voice.

"They don't care," she says again, softer this time, hoping Dany will hear. "They don't care whose ass sits on the throne. Whose head's under the crown. They'll have them kneel for whoever wears it. If not you, then someone else. A Stark or a Mormont or whoever they can find. It doesn't matter. The head under the crown doesn't matter."

Dany looks like she's just been thrown in a river full of ice-cold water for the first time in her life. And Ygritte decides to help her remember how to breathe.

"The head between my thighs, though. That matters. If not you, then—well."

Dany shakes her head like she's silently begging her not to say it—silently begging her to let this be easy for her.

"Then no one else."

***

Daenerys doesn't stay North of the Wall.

And neither does Ygritte.

She rides Viserion exactly once, only because the alternative would have been a ship and she trusts the air more than the sea. Once he lands, heavy but graceful, she thanks him but decides her feet belong on firm ground.

The first thing Ygritte notices about Braavos is the warmth. She's only ever known winter, and she's never taken in a breath that didn't feel like ice in her lungs. She's never been outside and not seen her breath come out like puffs of smoke. She's never felt her skin warm up in the sun.

One of the first lessons she learns in Braavos is just how quickly the sun can burn her skin when it's not protected by furs.

She soon discovers she's the one who knows next to nothing in the Free City. She doesn't speak Braavosi or High Valyrian or any of the other tongues she hears around the city. She doesn't know how to haggle – she barely understands money – or how to navigate the maze of streets that all look the same to someone who's used to looking at trees instead.

But Ygritte's always been sharp. You don't survive up North if you're not quick on your feet, and she knows she'll learn sooner rather than later.

They live in a big house made of stone. Not made of rocks – made of stone, blocks of stone cut by a mason and built to last. It's got a red door in the front and a courtyard with a lemon tree at the back, and Ygritte doesn't think Dany will ever understand just how much of a luxury that is. Having their own lemon tree.

Braavos is loud and crowded and Ygritte doesn't quite belong, but Dany does. Not Daenerys Targaryen. Not a queen or a khaleesi. Dany. And Ygritte figures she'll end up belonging, too.

"The fish merchant said war's still raging in Westeros," Dany says one day as she walks out onto the courtyard.

Ygritte doesn't stop inspecting the small flowers that will become lemons with time. "So let it rage."

"Hundreds-- thousands of men will--"

"So let them die." Ygritte speaks slowly, purposefully, and finally looks at Dany. She knows she'll never stop feeling like she abandoned her people, no matter how many times Ygritte tells her the people of Westeros didn't even know she was alive. Ygritte was raised to survive, and she figures Dany was raised to serve.

To rule, Dany would say if Ygritte asked her. But Ygritte knows better.

Ygritte sees the struggle in Dany's eyes. She's fire and blood and that means something to her. So Ygritte walks closer, reaches for one of her hands, gives her something solid to anchor herself to. Something with a weight to it.

Dany lets out a sigh.

"Valar morghulis."

Ygritte nods, the pad of her thumb brushing Dany's soft knuckles. "Aye. But first, we live."

Dany kisses her like she's sealing a promise, soft but relentless, and when she's done Ygritte feels her lips tingle like she's put fresh lemon on them.

Still holding on to Dany's hand, she sinks down to her knees in front of her and wraps her fingers around the hem of Dany's dress to start pulling it up her legs.

"You finally bent the knee, my love."

Ygritte smiles against the soft skin of Dany's thigh and presses an open-mouthed kiss to it.

"For you," she says, feeling Dany's fingers in her hair as her lips start moving up, "not for a queen."

[ricky-mortis]

Hatchetfield @femslashfortnight Day 1: Make It Sapphic AU

[swordblade]

"I love toxic Yuri!!"

Shut up y'all couldn't even handle them

[frroggy]

me pushing the wlw wangxian agenda because I want what they hAVE AND I WANT A GF

[booasaur]

Special Ops: Lioness - 1x07

[lonelymoonrambles]

Good morning! It's a beautiful day to wake up and write angsty gay fanfiction!

[morninggloryworm]

Obligatory Reinayama for femslash february

They’re getting ready for a Valentine’s Day date ♥️

[fastcardotmp3]

Ronance; childhood friends; Barb Holland haunts the narrative; S1-2 AU; grief/mourning; 3.4k Written for @strangerthingsfemslash week day 1: different first meeting read day 2: women over thirty read day 3: secret relationship

Nancy technically meets her before she meets Barb, but the two events are inseparable in her memory. 

It all happens the same day, after all, five years old and being dropped off at a Summer day camp on the Hawkins High grounds because her mother is all ballooned up and wobbling with the little brother that’s already claimed the attention Nancy has gotten used to dominating. 

The day camp itself isn’t big because Hawkins isn’t either, but Nancy gets put in a room with the other first-graders-to-be and some teenager who seems infinitely old and wise from behind Nancy’s big round eyes and it feels big. She’s never spent all that much time with kids her own age before, not having made any proper friends in kindergarten and living in a house where day care was considered shameful since it meant Karen Wheeler wasn’t doing her job as a stay at home mom. 

This room is only kids her own age, though. A grand total of ten of them split into pairs of two and that’s when Nancy meets Robin, that’s why she technically meets her first. 

They’re declared buddies by the teenage girl in charge and told to stick together for the whole week they’ll spend here doing activities and playing games, and Nancy doesn’t know how to talk to kids her same age, but Robin doesn’t seem to have the same issue. 

She’s babbling about a book her mom is reading to her at bedtimes within the same second they’re turned loose with coloring pages and crayons, turning the leaves of a tree pink and orange and saving the green for the trunk. 

She’s got dirty blonde hair tied into two pigtails hanging over her shoulders and with pieces sticking out at the sides, but Nancy’s smart enough to know that just because a little girl talks to you doesn’t mean she wants to be your friend. 

It’s why she doesn’t talk much back, in those first five minutes before their lives are set on a path towards tragedy, because she isn’t sure how and she isn’t sure it’s worth it and she, generally speaking, isn’t sure. 

Five minutes. Nancy meets Robin first, in all technicality, and they might not have even been friends if it weren’t for a little redhead coming in and disrupting the even numbers as her frazzled mother apologizes for their lateness and—

Nancy meets Robin first, but it’s Barb that makes them what they are. 

She’s got these glasses that are too big for her face but just the right size for her attitude, all opinions and snark wrapped up in a little pink dress and white sneakers. They’re deemed the group of three in a class of pairs just by chance, just by the wave of a teenager’s hand making a decision that she’ll never think twice about but which will change all of their lives forever and which will— which will one day—

“Trees don’t look like that, you know,” Barb says as she peers over Robin’s shoulder, sitting up on her knees in the seat of the chair so she’s the tallest of them all. 

“Yeah, but I like it,” Robin responds simply, not an ounce of self-consciousness and not even an inkling that her feelings are hurt. 

“Okay,” Barb shrugs, like it’s easy as that, and then turns her attention across the small desk to Nancy. “Can I use your green?” 

Nancy hasn’t ever spent much time around girls her own age. Mostly they call her weird because she stares too much with eyes too big for her little face; mostly they don’t notice her at all because she doesn’t speak unless spoken too; mostly it’s her and her mom, but even that won’t last much longer, will it? 

Nancy stares at Barb across the table for a moment, so still in all this newness, but Barb doesn’t flinch. She just looks back at her expectantly, waiting for her question to be answered, waiting for Nancy to fill the empty space whenever she’s ready. 

“Here you go,” Nancy passes over her green crayon and Barb smiles. 

Robin tells them more about the book her mom is reading her at bedtimes. 

By the time they reach middle school they’re not just inseparable, they’re impenetrable. A trio— no more and no less— and anyone who tries to break that down or build it up simply can’t.

There’s no space for anyone else, not in romps through the woods in search of fairies and not in their corner of the lunch room where they gossip and giggle and roll their eyes at each other as much as the world around them. 

There’s no space for anyone but the three of them, and Nancy loves it. She loves being a part of this thing with these girls, not having to worry about relating to anyone but them and not having to be anyone other than herself. 

Because they allow that of her, don’t they? They drag out the dorky bits of her that don’t read ladylike the way she’s supposed to be and when they tease her it is as wonderful as it is relentless. 

Nancy chases Robin on their bikes down the road to the Holland house and they stay up all night watching movies and pretending that their laughter really is quiet enough to go unheard from upstairs. 

They’re thirteen when Robin, sitting out on the rickety dock over Lover’s Lake, looks down at her two friends clinging to the edge and still panting from trying to push each other under, says that Gareth Watson wants to go to the movies with me. 

And Nancy knows that something is off, even if she can’t tell what. Just because there’s no space for anyone else in their little world doesn’t mean she doesn’t still hear the way other girls their age talk. 

Boys and crushes and getting asked to the Snow Ball, it’s not the galaxy the three of them make their homes within, but she hears it. She knows. 

She senses the tension in Robin’s shoulders more than she even sees it, and she’s five years old and staring again. Staring to the point of eyes stinging and staring with ears burning as Robin and Barb go back and forth about it. 

Do you want to go to the movies with Gareth?

He’s a nice guy.

But do you want to?

I want to go to the movies with you guys.

Nancy stares, and her breath comes in sharp at the admission. She pulls herself up out of the water and sits on the edge of the dock shoulder-to-shoulder with Robin. 

“Then we’ll go to the movies,” she says, a nudge and a thought about plans for husbands and picket fences and babies and—

Her parents have been fighting a lot lately. 

Her parents have always been fighting, in their perfect little house at the end of the cul-de-sac. 

“We’ll all go to the movies, right, Barb?” she looks down, sees the way Barb looks up at her and feels that same itching at her skin, that sense of difference that’s chased her from childhood through to this moment and onwards forever. 

“Right,” Barb says with a small smile. 

Something goes loose in Robin’s posture. 

Something else moves them closer to the tipping point. 

Barb hates the idea of going to some party on a Tuesday night, but it’s Robin who hates the idea of Steve Harrington more specifically. 

It’s all is he even nice to you? with her. It’s all he’s a douchebag and do you know how he talks about girls? 

It’s all very vocal and it’s all very silly until it’s not and until it’s only two of them going to the Harrington house that night instead of all three. 

Nancy’s never gotten mad at Robin before, not like this anyway, not enough for them to split up like this, not go through what Nancy considers one of those teenage experiences they should be checking off together. 

“I could drive us to her place right now, you know,” Barb says from where they’re parked out on the street, Nancy changing out of one shirt and into a different, prettier one. 

“She didn’t want to come, Barbara.”

“Yeah, I wonder why, Nance!”

Barb doesn’t want to be here, but Nancy drags her along anyway. 

It’s Nancy who does it. 

It’s all Nancy. 

It will always have just been Nancy who brings Barb to that place and who lets all of her too-big feelings overflow past the flush of her skin and down the staircase to flatten her best friend for the second time in a day. 

It will always just be Nancy, trying to shake off all that sense of difference for one night, to just be normal, to be young and stupid. 

It will always be her fault, the blood that spills. 

“Something is wrong, something is so wrong, and no one is listening— Robbie, no one hears me, I’m just trying, I know I— I made you so mad and I’m so sorry, but we have to— no one is listening to me—”

“Okay, come here, I hear you, I know,” Robin drags Nancy the rest of the way through her ground floor bedroom window, the whole trembling and hysterical mess of her, and grips her tight in her arms. 

There’s no easy way to say it, that Nancy had taken her eyes off their best friend and now she’s gone. She’d taken her eyes off of her and let a boy touch her and now Barb is gone, Barb is gone and so is her car and nothing makes sense. 

There’s no easy way to explain it except the string of half-coherent confessions that spill out of her and onto the shoulder of Robin’s shirt— my fault it’s my fault it’s my fault mine mine my fault mine—

Robin is still upset with her. She’s upset about all of it, but Nancy knows she’s upset with her, even as they stumble into Jonathan Byers’ orbit and through the woods and into Hell. There’s a set to Robin’s mouth in everything she says, to her shoulders in every move she makes, that tells Nancy she’s messed it all up. 

She’s separated the inseparable, she’s broken the impenetrable. 

She’s ruined everything and Barb is dead and she is shooting a gun and burning a monster alive and she is the worst person on the planet because when Will Byers comes home, there’s a not small part of her which hates him. 

Someone took their eyes off of him too, but here he is. 

Someone let him get lost, but they’ll never have to live with the burden of not finding him again. 

Nancy ruined everything. 

“I need to go home,” Robin tells her when it’s all said and done and the Feds have driven away and the battle is over. 

Her voice cracks and her eyes dart everywhere except Nancy’s face and there are tears in her throat, Nancy hears them. 

“I need to go,” she repeats, clears her throat, and snatches her bike off the ground. 

They don’t speak for a year. 

She breaks Steve Harrington’s heart on Halloween and it feels like she’s dying. 

Her heart races too fast and her lungs don’t bring in enough air and she genuinely thinks this is the end, almost welcomes it, in fact. 

She breaks Steve Harrington’s heart and then before she knows it, she’s climbing through Robin’s bedroom window again. 

Crying again. 

Throwing up in a trash can, all stained in red, and passing out on her bed. 

It’s not that there hasn’t been space for words between them up until this point, but rather that there’s been too much of it. A whole person’s worth of emptiness too tender still to fill, but Nancy is drunk and she keeps hurting people in an effort to save herself and she doesn’t know that she can take it anymore— the unrelenting loneliness. 

She says as much, if in fewer and less coherent words, and Robin washes her face with a warm, damp washcloth on the floor of the bathroom before guiding her to bed and tucking them both between the twin-sized sheets. 

The space for words is massive, so impossible to breach. Nancy hopes that maybe the quiet and the dark and the surrealness of this moment might help cross that gap. 

I’m sorry. 

It’s not your fault, Nance. 

You can’t even look at me.

I don’t know how. 

To look at me?

To keep going. Without her. She didn’t even get a— a funeral, and I just. Don’t know how. 

A funeral. We need to give her a funeral. Her parents still think— they still believe—

I know. 

Robin, we have to give her a funeral. We have to prove that she’s…

Gone. 

Gone. 

Okay. 

Nancy’s never been one for mystery novels, never cared for the chasing of a puzzle like this. 

It doesn’t come to her naturally, but because she chooses it. It comes to her in a desperate feat of searching, of putting herself in dangerous situations because it’s the only option left if they’re going to be able to lay Barb to rest and grieve her out loud. 

Nancy scrambles through the mess of it, dragging them to the Lab for a long-shot attempt at catching them in a lie, dragging them to Illinois and a man who looks between the two of them with a knowing glint to his eye and a comment about oh, we liked Steve but he’s not really our type, is he? 

She and Robin sleep in the same bed because they’re in a stranger’s house and because suddenly the gaping, wide-open space between them feels painful. A tender bruise they’re prodding at with watered-down justice for the girl who made them. 

Because Barb did, didn’t she? In so many ways it was Barb who was the glue to their little trio. It was her house where they made their memories, it was her games they played, it was her confidence they chased through the creek on hot Summer days. 

Who are they without her? For the past year they’ve been nothing, been separate, been lost, but now there’s a sense of newness here. The painful sort of realization that maybe they are their own thing without her. NancyAndRobin. An entity all its own in the wake of what’s been stolen from them. 

They sleep in the same bed and then they return to Hawkins and another fight for humanity already in progress and by the time it’s all over for the second time around… 

“I missed you,” Robin admits, sitting on the hood of Nancy’s station wagon because neither of them are ready to go home yet, even if neither of them has said as much. 

The sun is rising out over Sattler’s Quarry where they’ve parked and the town feels heavy in its quiet, laden with more death and more hurt all over again. Bob Newby is dead and Nancy can’t really feel the weight of it. A whole lot of people at the Lab are dead and she can’t find it in herself to feel sorry for them. 

They brought this to their town. They’re the only ones other than herself where she can push blame. 

“Please don’t leave again,” Nancy croaks, no tears in her eyes but plenty of hoarse aftermath caught in her throat. 

“What?” 

“I can’t— After the funeral, if I lose you again—” she shakes her head, staring out at the rise of the sun, the fog hanging low atop the ground. “I can’t do it. I can’t keep—”

It gets stuck, the rest of the sentence, or maybe it’s just halted by the sudden drop of Robin’s hand above Nancy’s knee. Her fingers are so long, a spindly thing from the day they met, and Nancy has watched her grow into them with dexterous pressing of keys on her trumpet for so long. 

The touch itself is small, a single point of contact, and yet catastrophic to Nancy’s psyche all the same. She thinks about the last time Robin touched her, about a year ago in the Byers’ living room and the smell of gunpowder clinging to her clothes. 

It’s been a year. 

Nancy is a collapsing star, curling in on herself with the force of it, and although Robin doesn’t say it with her words, she does stay. 

She wraps her arms more fully around Nancy and she stays until the sun is in the sky again. 

On the day they bury an empty casket in the Hawkins Cemetery, Nancy laughs for the first time in over a year. 

A real laugh, no mask and no posturing, just genuine feeling spilling out of her body. 

There’s no closure here, not really, not when they can’t tell Barb’s parents what actually happened to her and not when Barb’s body will be forever lost to that terrible place, but something in Nancy snaps. 

In as good a way as snapping can go, probably. 

It’s like a piece of her settles in knowing that she did what she could, even if the grief isn’t remotely sated by the prospect. It’s like sitting down after too many hours spent on your feet, like release of tension, but maybe that’s just what it feels like when Robin holds her hand. 

They go out to Lover’s Lake when the service is done, when they’ve paid their respects and when they’ve had enough of curious and pitying looks shot at the girls who everyone knows knew her best. 

They sit at the end of the dock and pull their coats close around them against the cold of December, and although temperatures aren’t low enough for the lake to freeze, the water is frigid where it touches the tips of her fingers as she sets a tea light out to float. 

Nancy curls in close against Robin, sharing the warmth of bodies and watching orange flicker over the rippling surface of the water where they once made Summer days endless. 

You know there are weeds at the bottom that will wrap around your ankle and drag you under, right? Barb would tease at Nancy when they were ten, eleven, twelve. Little tentacles that’ll grab you! 

And then she’d push her weight against Nancy’s shoulders to dunk her in all of her squealing glory, Robin cackling from the dock before diving in to join. 

They don’t speak now, don’t tease, but Nancy wonders if Robin is thinking about it too. All the little comments Barb would make about their melancholy, all the pride she’d take in being missed so deeply. 

Nancy looks over, barely an inch between them, only to find Robin’s gaze already roaming across her curled-up form at the end of the dock. Her hands and wrists, her neck where her scarf comes loose, the undeniable pink of her nose and cheeks. 

Nancy watches her back, watches her focus travel, watches the winter-faded freckles on her cheeks glisten in the orange glow of an early sunset. 

She can’t help it, ultimately. Robin touches her again, but Nancy is greedy and Nancy needs more and she just needs to know, needs to test—

Robin tastes like the wind when Nancy kisses her, all cold and chapped. The surprised hum at the back of her throat is Nancy’s new favorite song and the fabric of her mitten where it comes up to cup at Nancy’s jaw is her favorite dance. 

She tastes like salt and she tastes like the little cheese cubes that they served with crackers at the wake and she tastes like the stuttering breath on Nancy’s own tongue as she pulls away quick after too-short a time. 

Robin looks at her still, watches her, but this time focused entirely on her eyes. Her lips are parted in stunned quiet and her eyebrows are pulled together all confused and sweet and wonderful. 

Nancy is filled with a fondness she can’t carry and she is overflowing with a loss she still knows is her own fault, no matter how many times Robin tries to tell her otherwise nowadays. 

Robin looks at her, still holding her face in one hand and hardly breathing. 

“Will you help me cut my hair short?”

On the day of her best friend’s funeral, Nancy Wheeler laughs. 

It doesn’t matter that she’s crying when she does. 

[tarochimochi]

FEMSLASH FEBRUARY DAY 5 WITH LEAFPIE! Their growing on me alot

(Link is safe as always it’s just the song i looped)

(Leafpie was requested by @cdmodule)

[mrcowboydeanwinchester]

🌸 Sapphicnatural Statistics Spreadsheet 🌸

link for the spreadsheet here!

hello hello! in may 2024 i completed a university essay studying the subversive shipping conventions of sapphicnatural fanfic in the Sapphicnatural Collection over on AO3, with the thesis that sapphicnatural ships are often rarepairs with little-to-no grounds in canon (e.g: a guest character/one-off character who have never met on screen), conversely to standard fanfic practice. as part of this, i gathered some statistics about the fics in the collection, got slightly carried away with the scope, and made a giant spreadsheet with 6 sheets of various data. with the project over, i thought it would be nice to share it with tumblr in case anyone else finds it helpful or just interesting!! i'm likely going to post the essay that i wrote alongside this in the next few weeks, so give me a shout too if that's something you'd like to see

to pique your interest, the spreadsheet includes:

Notes on methodology and the vocabulary used

Statistics on the popularity of each sapphicnatural ship in the collection and the frequency of characters featured

Analysis on some significiant ship factors: whether the characters have met in canon and how frequently characters re-occured in the show

'Ship potency', a new framework i'm workshopping to quantify how 'viable/strong' a ship is, specifically when measuring the makeup of femslash ships against mlm ships

i've written up some of the key points i found and some extra analysis about them under the cut, so read more if you're interested! <3

Contextual note: there are 129 fanfics in the Sapphicnatural collection.

Top 5 most popular Sapphicnatural ships:

donna/jody (10 fics)

anna/mary (7 fics)

jo/cassie (6 fics)

anna/ruby (5 fics)

kaia/claire (4 fics)

21 unique ships have 3 fics per ship. 24 unique ships have 2 fics per ship, and 52 unique ships have 1 fic per ship. So, only a quarter (25.3% of ships) have more than 3 fics written about them.

Rarepairs (and thus multishipping) are much more frequent in Sapphicnatural fanfiction than across most fandom fanfic collections which often centre around a specific ship

Have the characters met in canon?

Only 34.2% of ships involve two or more characters who have met on-screen in the show, with 59.6% of ships featuring two or more characters who have never met

4 out of the 5 top ships are between characters who met in the show's canon

BUT the most common dynamic is between two characters who could potentially meet in canon (are alive through the same seasons/at the same location (hell/heaven) at the same time) but who never meet in the show

This idea of 'canon potential' is the most exciting space for a lot of sapphicnatural writers, where finding gaps in the existing narrative and placing two similar women together to explore what their relationship could look often seems to be more inviting than those established on-screen

What is the spread of side/guest/one-off characters in ships?

A third (32.9%) of ships are made-up side/guest character

None of the characters featured are main characters (as none of the women spn characters can be realistically classed as 'main characters' lolol)

17 ships feature at least one one-off character, with 3 being one-off/one-off

Sapphicnatural fanfiction has a unique appreciation for reinforcing attention to minor characters, often as part of a feminist agenda to restore their agency

How frequently are individual characters featured?

Jo Harvelle is the most popular character in the sapphicnatural collection, involved in 15 unique ships across 34 fics. So, over a quarter (26.4%) of the fanfics in the collection feature Jo

Author's note: honestly this could be my individual impact on the collection as a jogirl oops

Mary Winchester is involved in 14 unique ships across 25 ships, so both Jo and Mary are significantly multi-shipped. Mary features twice across the top 5 ships

Sapphicnatural writers often write in service of a particular character rather than a ship - ie. exploring Jo's sapphic identity is more important than who her relationship is with

Charlie, Anna, Ruby, Claire, and Bela are the other characters involved in more than 10 fics each across the collection

Ship potency:

I explain this concept more on the sheet itself, but I essentially assign numerical values to whether a ship is (possible in) canon or not, how frequently characters re-occur in the show, and how popular a ship is respective to the fandom (as sapphicnatural is small, donna/jody is popular with 10 fics, for example)

This is to gain a measure of how 'strong' a ship is, assuming that a standard mlm ship will rank highly in most of these criteria (control variable of destiel ranks 29.5/30, whereas the average potency sum for a sapphicnatural ship is 11.8)

Across the top 5 ships, the average potency sum is 20.9

4/5 of the most popular sapphicnatural ships are in the top 5 for ship potency, with donna/jody, anna/mary, kaia/claire and anna/ruby having strong canon foundations and so high potency ratings.

jo/cassie is irregular as the third most popular ship because they only rank 14th for ship potency, as the pairing have not met on-screen in canon, and features a one-off character

Ships with higher potency sums do tend to be slightly more popular, but there isn't a clear pattern among any of the ships. I'd like to do some more work with this to fine-tune the system

Wordcount, kudos, and hits:

Average wordcount of a fic is 3,511 words. This fits with my other working theory (links to my post about my history essay on women's fiction through the feminist waves) that sapphicnatural writers utilise short stories and one-shots to most succesfully explore sapphic identities

Average kudos is 48, with a median of 13

Average hits is 353, with a median of 122

So: sapphicnatural fanfics receive a fairly low level of interaction, especially when compared to the mlm ships in the Supernatural fandom (destiel, etc). This is in-line with most fandoms and femslash as a whole - a small, dedicated community are reading and writing sapphicnatural

I didn't explore much here, but it would be interesting to go into further depth anout how many fics in the collection are written by different authors, etc

and that's it from me! if you've made it down here, you're an absolute gem and thank you for sticking with me! hope you foundd it as interesting to read through as i did to write up - and that you give the spreadsheet a nosey too if you fancy <3

[eatingsomegreeneggos]

Femslash February Day 12: Solarflare 🌞

I love the dynamic Bloom and Stella have so much they're the best <33 I need more content of them djfiakdnsj

[kuwdora]

Witcher Recs - Femslash - Sorceress Edition part 1

I come bearing more recs from my collection of bookmarks and downloads and stories I found in my saved tabsets from the last few years - and a few recent finds, too. There's always so much good fic out here and this is just a small recs list: 16 recs across two pairings. I love tag diving for femslash because I always find so many new gems when I look again. Witcher femslash is a wonderful bounty that I can't get enough of, so let me share this bounty with you! This post will contain Witcher Femslash Recs featuring Sorceresses. Fringilla/Francesca and Philippa/Triss are the theme of this post. All Witcher canons represented and will be noted in each rec.

Fringilla/Francesca

Our Feet Make Flowers Bloom by @ahh-fxck. 638w. Mature. TWN. Fringilla/Francesca. Touching. Psychic abilities, tenderness.

This is gorgeous prose, so full of tenderness and poetry and oh my god, it had my heart aching for Fringilla finally having a little bit of warmth and sunlight in her life. And Francesca being so gentle and kind! It’s so good.

Three Queens by @salamanderinspace. 678w. Mature. TWN. Fringilla/Francesca.Post-canon, hair-pulling, love. When Fringilla and Francesca kiss it's a study in contrasts.

This ficlet is also absolutely awe-inspiring and beautiful, full of such tenderness that makes one ache to the depths of their soul. It’s so, so lovely. The prose really does me in here and I love coming back to it when I need some beautiful softness.

Submission by LadyV_writes. 4298w. Explicit. TWN. Fringilla/Francesca. “Submission can be enjoyable under the right circumstances. Trust me.”

Extraordinarily hot. Fringilla trusting Francesca enough to fall apart. ❤️ Like, 10 million kinds of hot for Francesca guiding Fringilla through the process of letting go.

A Reward by chryysaskk. 66w. Gen. TWN. Fringilla/Francesca. “It’s a beautiful lullaby,” she hears her voice and she didn’t control it, but she found it sweeter than usual. She was rarely rewarded for not controlling.

This is fluff, but it’s a fluffy kind of ache since we know how canon turns out. But for a sweet, sweet moment, Fringilla and Francesca are okay and the world is full of possibilities as long as they are together.

make sure nobody sees you leave by @acemoppet TWN. Fringilla/Francesca. 260w. Mature. Angst, Secret relationship. Hurt no comfort. Kissing. “We tell no one.”

I can’t lie, I love secrets that characters keep. Secrets are hot. This is an angsty achey ficlet that made me fold in on myself. I want everything for them, but at least they can take these fleeting moments with each other.

the eye of the storm by @dancingwiththefae. 1279w. Mature. TWN. Fringilla/Francesca. Post-Thanedd, nudity, bathing/washing, hurt/comfort. She gently wiped away the blood. Francesca's fingers dug into her arms tight. She didn't need to say anything, the haunted expression in her eyes told her all she needed to know. All they had was each other.

The ache and hurt/comfort in this fic is so good, I read it three times. In the quietness after Thanedd, Fringilla and Francesca have each other and it’s wonderful.

wine-drunk by @limerental. 729w. Mature. TWN. Fringilla/Francesca. Post season 3, grief/mourning, alcohol abuse, hurt/comfort, angst. In the wake of Thanned, Fringilla and Francesca both struggle with sleep.

Love that this fic takes what we saw of Fringilla’s experience in season 3 and weaves that pain throughout. I also love it when Lim is writing Fringilla POV. This is so achey, so full of hurt and angst but Fringilla and Francesca do have each other. Even though the pain and trauma Fringilla’s been through, I’m left wondering if it’s enough.

Philippa/Triss

Into the wishy-washy dark that cannot let go by @sargassostories. 10,611w. Explicit. TWN. Philippa/Triss. Slow burn, Hanahaki disease, self-worth issues, d/s undertones, exhibitionism, domestic bliss. Triss Merigold survived the Battle of Sodden Hill-- and wished she hadn't. That is, until she experienced a mysterious mage healing her in her dreams, whose teasing, tempting touches begin to bring her back to life. Philippa Eilhart has taken a particular interest in a little witch's recovery, but what begins as a purely mercenary effort to gain an ally grows… complicated.

The hurt/comfort in this is fucking incredible. Triss is having a hard time with the world moving on after Sodden. Philippa’s own interest becoming intense and dark and twisted. The Hanahaki was weaved throughout the fic was really interesting and I thought added to the narrative of Triss’ pain and journey through the feelings and physical/psychological/emotional agonies she’d been enduring. I really fucking love this fic.

Wish such sugar’d words by @limerental. 5334w. Mature. TWN/book canon blending. Philippa/Triss. 5+1 things, lesbian political subterfuge, manipulation, pining, friends with benefits. Five times that Philippa and Triss use one another and one time perhaps that does not matter.

I always love the way lim does show/book canon blending and this fic is a great example of that. Giving just enough book elements to ground the fic in the vibes/politics/aesthetics of the world, he’s really zeroed in on the show versions of Philippa and Triss. Fic with the characters from the show always hit the sweet spot for me for this pairing because we were robbed of any canon interaction for them.

I Don’t Know How This One Ends Til I Die by Holliday_inn. 1248w. Explicit. Book canon. Philippa/Triss. Angst, more angst and smut, not major character death but could be. Philippa reflects on her life and relationships when she believes something’s been lost.

The Philippa POV in this is reallllllllllllllllly amazing. I don’t usually think of Philippa experiencing emotions, and this is a great fic showcasing her almost experiencing some grief and then attempting to sidestep the pain in favor of pleasure. A really interesting character study. I love seeing how this author writes all the Lodge characters.

This Is The Way by owlhart (saidanon). 1784w. Gen. Book/game canon. Philippa/Triss. Angst, softness, insecure Triss, tenderness. Philippa held her gaze, leaning forward and touching her forehead against hers as she placed Triss’ hand over her chest. The rhythmic thumping of Philippa’s heart pulsed against Triss’ fingertips, steady and soothing.  The tears fell from Triss’ eyes and Philippa shushed her gently, giving her hand a little squeeze and pressing it harder against her chest, fingers splayed between the gaps of hers. It beats - “For you and only you.”

I’d call this a relationship study and one thing I really like about this fic is how it uses the seasons to help ground the fic in the passage of time while also giving some wonderful glimpses into how Philippa Triss’ relationship looks when they’re together. It’s a poignant Triss POV, full of softness, some of Triss’ insecurities and does a great job of showing how Philippa acts in terms of love and affection.

The Rescue by finiarel. 2100w. Teen. Book canon. Philippa/Triss. Angst, hurt/comfort, Triss rescuing Philippa. They had taken Philippa Eilhart. Triss Merigold with the help of others is taking her back.

!!! The whole premise of this fic is great and I gobbled it up because Triss being the one to help rescue Philippa from torture and pain is *chefs kiss* opposite of what I might first associate with these two. The hurt/comfort in this is yummy as fuck if you enjoy that trope, but of course Philippa is in this fic and so the comfort part gets turned about and Triss gets insecure and needy all over again because of how much she needs Philippa.

Here For It by beyondthesilence. 738w. Gen Book canon. Philippa/Triss. Angst, hurt/comfort, owl Philippa. A one-shot about a sorceress dealing with emotions.

This fic is amazing. Short, not so sweet, but A++ glimpse at Philippa “dealing” with emotions, with an amazing ending and visual that’s gonna be stuck in my head for ages.

change of pace by scredgirl. 1285w. Explicit. Book/game canon. Philippa/Triss. PWP. Triss and Phil power dynamics. On the importance of sex as a relaxation method and the top/bottom balance in a relationship.

This is so fucking hot. Like, absolutely 100% hot with the sex but yes, especially hot look at the power dynamic in this relationship.

Focus by scredgirl. 2257w. Explicit. Book canon. Philippa/Triss. PWP. Smut at Thanedd. The banquet on Thanedd is a dramatic affair, and when Triss's mood turns sour, she can think of one good way to cope.

Thanedd PWP that I also wolfed down. It’s hot, but also this author brings an amazing look at Philippa and Triss’ power dynamic and how it plays out in another smutty scene, but with specific context of why Triss is particularly needy in that moment. This is chefs kiss hot on a character level, in addition to being fucking hot as hell with the sex.

Entanglement by Astrarian. 12262w. Game canon. Philippa/Triss. PWP. Bath sex. Post Blindingly Obvious TW3 quest. After liberating Philippa Eilhart from the bathhouse, Triss takes Philippa to her room at the Chameleon, where she can explain in private why they need Philippa's help. Talking isn't all they do.

This is shameless, utter horny PWP. Smut. It’s peak sapphic filth. It’s erotic. It’s also an incredible example of “what does the sex tell us about the characters headspace?” type of smutty fic. How do they view the world? It’s 12k long and the beginning shows the reader where Philippa and Triss are respectively in the context of The Witcher Wild Hunt game (briefly linked the side quest it’s nominally related to for skimming purposes), but the fic goes so deep into the headspace and character desires because of the smut. What Triss needs, what she wants. What Phil needs and what she also wants. The d/s in this is bar none is so fucking good I think my brain whited out.

I also need to repeat: this is so very extremely, extremely horny and sexy. 🔥🔥🔥

Previously on Kuwdora's Witcher Recs:

Villains and Bad Guys Part 1

Istredd Recs

[ambrozians]

world of wind got you insane.

jean grey/ororo munroe, 2k, rated: T, western au !

summary: she’s got long legs, a perfect smile, and trouble written all over her. unfortunately for jean, she’s got a thing for trouble. (or, a gang of thieves walk into a bar…)

[secretsofthewilde]

There's something particularly frustrating about how academic fandom studies tend to talk about fandom spaces as being a place for inclusiveness and queer representation when there's still a very prominent misogyny problem throughout them. Even when these studies address issues of racism within fandom shipping dynamics, they still tend to perpetuate the idea that fandom is the rare place where queer ships tend to be more popular than straight ones, without really addressing the fact that this tends to only true when it comes to cis, white, m/m ships. If you want some kind of numerical evidence of this, you just need to look at the statistics on ao3 to see that f/f ships are the least popular kind of pairing on that site. And when you think of the stereotypical big name fandoms, most of them are well known for their m/m ships, with the f/f ships often being dismissed or treated as a joke.

I'm not of the opinion, nor trying to make an argument in support of the idea, that this is due to the stereotype of fangirls fetishising queer men. Instead, I think it's largely due to misogyny* - shocker, I know. I really do think that the stereotypical fangirl gravitates towards slash pairings due to both internalised misogyny and the general prominence of male oriented media over female oriented media (which will therefore have more male characters that are fleshed out with more engaging writing as opposed to their female supporting cast).

However, it's one thing for the abundance of male driven stories to generate more fan works exploring said characters, and another entirely for those same fans to then ignore when we do have media that gives us well written and enjoyable female characters. I think it's in part due to our internalised misogyny that fangirls have a tendency to gravitate towards their familiar male orientated shows and then fixate on the same familiar character types, rather than exploring and celebrating the breadth of female-centric media we have finally been getting produced in recent years. And this inability to allow ourselves to enjoy female characters the same way we do with male ones is what leads to an abundance of slash pairings being celebrated in fandom spaces, while femslash ones struggle to get recognition**. The fact that there's a common joke in fandom spaces about popular pairings developing between two characters who never interacted (or for only a brief scene) is all very well and good fun, but this is almost always referring to a m/m pairing.

As fans we should really reflect on why we might celebrate a male character for doing morally grey things, but then hate a female character for exhibiting those exact same traits. It's fine to genuinely not enjoy the writing of a female character (especially when sexist writing is often to blame), but we should consider how much more willing we seem to be to forgive poor writing when it comes to male characters than we are with female characters. If we can make a million headcanons and claim to love a poorly written male character, who is now viewed as something so far removed from the canon of the media he appears in its practically a different character entirely, why do so many of us seem unwilling to do the same for female characters?

We should be doing the same with our female characters - we should be putting more female characters into our favourite dynamics and tropes. I want to see more enemies to lovers headcanons with femslash pairings; I want nbc hannibal levels of art and meta posts about toxic femslash couples; I want johnlock levels of delusion posts about a femslash couple the story writers are claiming they didn't write the subtext for. I would just really love to log into tumblr and see a femslash pairings tag is trending more than once in a blue moon.

*note: obviously misogny is not the only contributing factor, and this initial argument I'm raising doesn't address the issues surrounding racial, gender-queer identities, and other inequalities within fandom. Please do not think I'm ignoring or downplaying them.

**Theres also an argument to be made here about fangirls projecting themselves onto male characters in order to explore queer relationships, without having to challenge their own internalised misogyny/homophobia, but I'll come back to that later (and this in general) and expand on it some other time I think.

[booasaur]

Bottoms (2023)