Serpent

(1) It doesn’t glorify or romanticize colonialism. It is some real-ass shit.

(2) It has amazing art.

(3) The main human character is Native American.

(4) It doesn’t stereotype or generalize or dehumanize Native Americans.

(5) It’s about horses!!!!

I used to read & post mostly on ff.net so I didn’t get an AO3 account until about 2 years ago. Here are the ones I have bookmarked & subscribed to on AO3. (There are definitely some that are on both sites that I favorite on ff.net instead so those won’t be counted here.)

A Flicker of Light | Emma_Swan

Disenchanted | Emma_Swan

Everything Changes | PerditusFic

ill fitting pieces | Hoovahhoopah

Someone Will Remember Us | starsthatburn

step into my office, baby | foxbones

If the Blazer Fits | FlyYouFools (MK47)

we’ll make our home on the water | bayloriffic

Right There All the Time | devje

emma swan is a messy bisexual: a study

I just finished reading these two fics and am absolutely in love. I know I’m quite behind but if you haven’t read them, definitely check them out!

A Flicker of Light | Emma_Swan | In Progress

The Evil Queen returns from the Wishverse with a baby, and she isn’t the only one. Dark Swan soon follows, and in the confusion of their arrival, Emma and Regina find themselves taking on more than just babysitting their darker halves, and the newborn they share. They must finally deal with the toughest thing they’ve ever had to face: their feelings for one another.

Everything Changes | PerditusFic | In Progress

After a trip to reunite with Robin Hood ends with an unexpected surprise, Regina instead finds a potential new addition to her family. [Post 4A, SQ Semi Slow-Burn]

The Doctor is left alone with the Solitract, who takes the form of her wife.

“Hello sweetie”.

“River,” the doctor breathed. River looked just like she had that day on Trenzalore, with her white clothes, puffy hair, and all-knowing smile, draped languidly over a white chair. And it had been so long since they had spent that beautiful night on Darillium. The Doctor’s hearts felt like they were trying to punch holes through her chest.

“Who else?”

“Of course it would be you. Well, even though you aren’t really River Song,” the doctor said, “you’re just the Solitract trying to convince me to stay in this world. You brought Erik and Graham’s dead spouses back to them. I guess it makes sense to bring back mine.”

“Maybe,” River acknowledged, nodding. “Or maybe I’ve found a way to come back. You couldn’t really expect death to hold me back, could you?”

The doctor smiled sadly, crinkling her nose and cheeks as she stepped closer to her wife. “River, you faded long ago on Trenzalore. I’m so, so sorry, but you aren’t real. You died an even longer time ago.”

River uncrossed her legs quickly and crossed the hallway to fill the space between the two women.

“Let’s not worry about stupid things like life and death. You, of all people, should know that death isn’t the end, especially for your time-traveling wife. I have to say, I love your new body. It’s… refreshing and looks like fun,” she winked. “How about you and I go try a few things?”

The Doctor took a step back, trying to ignore that “River” smelled exactly the way she remembered: absolutely intoxicating. She shook her head and closed her eyes.

“You’re not River Song. Please, just let me go back to my universe. Why didn’t this form show up with Grace and Trine when I entered this world? Why now? You wanna know what I think? I think, deep down, you know that this form couldn’t keep me here. I’ve had a long time to mourn River and move on since I saw her last. She always thought I didn’t love her back, but I did. So much it hurt to even think about saying goodbye.”

The doctor’s voice faltered for a moment and then continued.

“My past lives might have spent hundreds of years here with you.”

“And you won’t?” River asked, “they’re still you”.

“I know how guilty they felt. They blamed themselves for your death. I’ve moved on. I have three new friends and I have a duty to protect them. So please, Solitract, River, sweetie, please let me go.”

There was a long silence.

For the fanfic authors who don’t get art of their fics

For the fanfic authors who can’t get to 1000/500/100 hits

For the fanfic authors who don’t get comments/reviews

For the fanfic authors who write for small fandoms

For the fanfic authors who write rarepairs or gen fics

For the fanfic authors who get hate for the ships/characters/fandoms they write

For the fanfic authors who write in English despite it not being their first language

For the fanfic authors who don’t write in English

For the fanfic authors who don’t think anyone reads or likes their work

For the fanfic authors who aren’t big name fans

For the fanfic authors who don’t get requests in their inboxes

For the fanfic authors who can’t write stories that are more than a thousand words

For the fanfic authors who only write one ship

For the fanfic authors who are just starting

For the fanfic authors who have been writing fic for years

For the fanfic authors who use fanfic to practice writing

For the fanfic authors who write self-insert fics

For the fanfic authors who write about their OCs

For the fanfic authors who write to vent or cope

For the fanfic authors who are just waiting for their big break

this is strictly about wlw couples. i don’t want to alienate mlm couples but im going to simply because this is what my beef is at the moment.

one of my biggest issues with queer women who cry representation are the ones who don’t support representation when we get it because it’s not the representation that fits their narrative.

so many times we have these wlw couples who are completely ignored for reasons that are sad to admit. it’s so frustrating because there are beautiful stories being told or developing and before we can even get to the meat of a “ship” the shows are cancelled, the characters are killed off, put on the back burner or the same recycled played out story is told even worse than the last.

when that happens those same people crying for representation want to cry trope or they deserved better etc etc. why only then? why show “support” or act like you cared when in reality you contributed to literally shunning a couple but now that it’s another queer couple that is no more now you’re upset?

then we have the ones who ship straight women together whilst there is a wlw couple on the show.

supercorp is the perfect example. sanvers was the typical trope storyline but it was like well this is probably as good as it’s gonna get when it’s a cw show. still people trashed sanvers for everything but cried about supercorp “not happening” or writers are baiting lesbians. no.. they’re not. it isn’t the writers fault that the audience feels supercorp should happen. at the end of the day it was never put out there that kara and lena would happen.

the saddest part about this is queer women were more upset about two straight women who are written as friends not being a couple than the actual wlw couple who literally got treated poorly.

sanvers was representation as terrible as they were written SOME of our stories were still in there somewhat. the actors playing those roles cared more about our community than a lot of queer women did. so is it representation that you really want or only when it’s convenient? because representation definitely is not forcing showrunners to put two straight women together for no reason other than to shut people up.

as a lesbian that isn’t the type of story that i would want as a way for people to understand our struggles. do straight women fall in love with each other? probably. so to each their own if that’s the kind of representation you’re looking for but it’s just sad when there are actual wlw couples on shows and queer women choose to be unsupportive for the pettiest reasons.

onto the color aspect. for years and even now i hate ever using color race or anything outside of facts to form an argument. but it’s so hard to not stoop to that level because it’s so obvious. interracial wlw couples are constantly ignored and i mean i don’t even think it’s intentional or think that queer women realize they do it but then on the other hand it is and they do.

too many times we have women of color who don’t care for wlw couples if the woman of color isn’t with a woman of color and too many times caucasian women who do the same. why is that? i personally just don’t understand it. i have heard people that i am ashamed to have been friends with now actually recently a “friend” of mine said she can’t support thundergrace because anissa isn’t with a black woman.

i literally asked her what that has to do with anything and her answer… representation. i laughed and said this is why it’s okay for showrunners to not give a shit about representation. this is why it’s okay for showrunners to use the community by baiting gays into watching their shows because it’s not about representation. it’s about literally that glimmer of hope that your fave might end up with someone that you feel represents you when it’s so much bigger than you. and she called me a sell out 🤣 why? cause apparently im “shaming black women”. needless to say we are no longer friends because she didn’t want to associate with a sellout.

i understand wanting to see yourself representated through a character or couple etc. but it can be done without people of the same color and background being together. at the end of the day it has been done. couples of all sorts. but the issue here is blatant disregard of a couple for reasons like well whites should be with whitesand blacks should be with blacks or another woman of color.

if you do that it alienates other members of the community who are in an interracial relationship or maybe a lesbian dating a bisexual or bisexual dating a transsexual, pansexual, asexual the list goes on. when people live inside this box where it’s only about the representation that they care about or want to see they’re no better than the people who don’t give a damn about our stories and the representation we’re fighting for.

it isn’t about you. it’s about the members in our community. it’s about all of our stories. whether you can relate or not because you don’t identify as whatever or find whoever attractive okay that’s fine. but don’t cry representation if you’re only crying because it’s not the representation that you want to see.

at the end of the day if we don’t care enough about each other, our stories and our commmunitiy outside of ourselves then we are contributing to a world that doesn’t care if our stories are told or how they’re told. it is entertainment of course but we still deserve to be portrayed in media just like heterosexuals are.

it starts with us. we can’t expect showrunners or writers to get it right when they don’t live this life. we can’t expect them to care when we’re complaining about straight women or being together because “they have chemistry”. that isn’t the point. the point is if we want representation, we need to show that by supporting wlw couples and pushing for these wlw couples stories to develop the characters to develop outside relationships as well. it’s hard cause most shows just don’t care but at least we’re putting it out there in hopes that someone else may see it and understand why this is so important to us as queer women. there’s so much more i want to say but this is long enough already.

when you find out it hasn’t been updated in years

The people who don’t have a best friend because their friends already have best friends

The people who want to make friends and don’t know how

The people who have lots of friends but always feel lonely

The people who get left behind in a group

The people who are alone and nobody notices

The people who put their soul into a friendship and watched it fall apart