Red Queen Week

Okay, well, this is two months overdue, but I’m still going to tag it Red Queen Week because that’s when I started it, and where I got the prompt from. It was for Day 2 - Seven Deadly Sins - Sloth, and the prompt was:  After a full moon, Ruby is always exhausted and Regina finds her asleep in the strangest of locations. 

Read on AO3

  The first time it happens, Regina almost trips over her on her way down to the kitchen for breakfast. Ruby is curled up in the hallway outside her door, snoring softly, and Regina can only smile in that fondly exasperated way that she reserves for her family. She’s not quite sure if her new lover counts as family yet, but she’s Snow’s best friend, so that probably makes her extended family, at the very least. She gently prods Ruby until she wakes up enough to be helped into Regina’s bed, then goes down to get started on breakfast.

When Ruby wakes, the house is empty, but there is hot coffee and a note that a plate of food is waiting in the fridge for her to warm up.  She smiles and makes plans to stop by the mayor’s office at lunch time to show Regina just how much she appreciates her thoughtfulness.

Well, it’s over, and I’m so very sad.  But also very happy.  This fandom is amazing, and this story is my enormous thank you, not only to the astounding @thegirl20, but to every single one of you lovely Red Queen enthusiasts like me.  It’s been an honor and a privilege to be a part of this event for three straight years now.  I’m proud of the work I entered, and have derived so much joy from the amazing stories all of my fellow Red Queeners have produced. 

All good things must come to an end.  That said, I’d like to leave you all with a misquote of Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, “So from all of us at Red Queen Week to all of you out there, wherever you are.  Remember: the light at the end of the tunnel may be you.  Goodnight!”

So, because I felt bad for the lack of our Ruby in this story, I added in a little vision scene hearkening back to Regina’s trance after her nightmare where she saw the life she should have had if Tink wasn’t such a crap fairy.  It’s pretty spicy, too.  And can be taken as a vision of the future that is canon for this little universe of mine.

Red leaves Snow’s court after the Evil Queen is banished, needing time alone to deal with who and what she is, or forget it entirely. Then Regina arrives with an offer and a purpose, and Red hesitantly accepts.

Pairing: Regina Mills/Red Rating: M Words: 7.5k

My horribly late entry (I’m sorry!) for @lovecanbesostrange for the Red Queen Week 2017 fic exchange, with the prompt:

“Give me something with Regina as the Evil Queen and finding herself a werewolf. You can decide wether Red is willing to be evil or if she gets to push Regina to the softer side of things. Red can be friends with Snow or maybe she hates her too for some reason? All your choice, just start with some darkness.“

So, earlier @thegirl20 suggested linking old RedQueen fics in tribute to our dearly departed annual event.  I thought that would be a great idea, so here are mine in no particular order:

1) A Red Queen Tale by KJmusings aka Karjens44

2) But You Can Save Me From Madness by @fourforyou aka missanomalous

3) Ruby’s Guide to Wooing a Lady by Girlblunder aka @beaglesinbowties

4) The shadow on the wall tells me the sun is going down by @thegirl20

There is another that has been taken down, I believe it was titled, “Lone Wolf” and had Regina in a relationship with Emma but falls in love with Ruby, who is being her awesome, 100% supportive self.  Sad I can’t find it.

I’ve told my Red Queen shipping story a few times, so I won’t go over that again. (It’s here if you’re interested.)

I had a brief conversation with @lex-noctis the other day about RQW and I said this:

I appreciate every single thing people contribute to RQW and to the fandom in general.  This really is a ship that’s been kept sailing purely through enthusiasm and imagination, and it’s really special to me for that reason.  It’s a ship made by the fans, not by the show and isn’t reliant on lots (or any) canon interaction.  It’s just whatever we can come up with in our heads.  And I think that’s pretty wonderful.

And I think that pretty much sums up why I’ve run a shipping week for this couple for the past four years.  

This ship should not exist.  It is not based on numerous overanalysed interactions between the characters.  We don’t have meaningful looks or accidental touches or dialogue that can be interpreted to suit an agenda.  Our canon is a handful of exchanged words and four or five glances IN SIX SEASONS.  

And yet, we are the second biggest Regina F/F ship on AO3.  And the second biggest Ruby F/F ship.  (Swan Queen and Red Beauty are the largest, respectively.)  Think about all the canon interaction Regina’s had with Snow.  Or Ruby’s had with Snow for that matter.  Think about Regina’s canon past with Maleficent or Ruby’s CANON ACTUAL TRUE LOVE GIRLFRIEND!! And yet, we are bigger than all of them.

And that is thanks solely to the imagination, creativity and dedication of the people who have chosen to contribute to this ship.  We have kept this ship afloat for years based on nothing but affection for these characters and the potential for stories we see in them.

I’ve loved championing this ship and running @redqueenweek because I’m constantly surprised and delighted by what people bring to it.  I’ve always kind of been drawn to little, obscure ships but I think this might be the littlest and most obscure.  But somehow, all of you out there, have made it feel big and friendly and fun.  Because shipping should be fun, you know?  

I could ramble on here, but I think I’ve said everything I wanted to say.  So I’ll end on a big thank you.  I wish I could namecheck all of you, but there are way more RQ fans than you’d think out there.  So I’ll settle for singling out the people who helped me get into the RQ fandom: @fourforyou, @royalarmyofoz, @100poundsofcatfish and @konako.  Whether through fics, art or conversation, each of you made me think about this ship as a real thing that I could love.

And finally, a huge and heartfelt thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Red Queen fandom, either as creator or consumer.  You have made it my absolute pleasure to be in the fandom and to run @redqueenweek these past few years.  So thank you.

Lots of love, @thegirl20

In my opinion, one of the key ingredients of the magic of both the ship and fandom around it is the fact that it’s a quintessence of fanon. It sprung up from a back in the day from a flicker of screen time. What was it in season 1 and 2? Ten minutes in total, twenty at best? It was created through an inquisitive though, just one question that has the most amazing properties: what if? And from that question idle thoughts jumped to parallels, comparisons, more and more possibilities that were there all along, invisible until the question was asked. 

I am entirely certain that the fact that RQ remained a purely fanon creation, with barely a scene of them together in the show up until season 6, and even them there wasn’t much, is the best thing that could have happened to the ship and fandom. Thus we completely avoided the tragic death of the show itself, the warping and narrative destruction of characters, the indignities of terrible writing decisions; as well as the violent toxicity of the 0uat fandom at large and the certain segment of it. For the ignorant worshipers of canon we weren’t even a blip on the radar. 

Our ship and out group have existed and will continue to do so not because or inspite of the show or the greater fandom, but rather unperturbed by it, in our own alternative space where frankly far better versions of the story exist. We were the ones to make it and gave it life of its own. 

We gave Ruby Red and Granny their last name. We basically decided it was that, and it was picked up by everyone without so much as a question – from Ao3 tags to the random appearances in other fandom’s creations. And I’M still kinda in awe of that and how organic this happened. 

I wanted to finish this, not entirely well structured or particularly well worded little bit of a tirade with a giant THANK YOU to @thegirl20 and all the others who contributed to making RQ and RQW what it was, but then I thought about it and… Yeah, sure all of you are amazing and thank you and all of that, but that sound too much like an ending, doesn’t it? A goodbye note? Which would be criminally incorrect. Because Red Queen isn’t going anywhere. We have kept it alive through little more than sheer enthusiasm and reliance on each other’s imagination for years. That isn’t going to change now, is it? I’m certainly gonna keep shipping it and writing for it (whenever I actually can do that is a different question entirely) and reading others and making graphics and talking about headcanons and reblogging gifs that look like Red Queen and so on. And I doubt anyone else of our little merry band would simply stop either. So let’s finish this way too long and windy response with something else. Hmm… Ah, I know just the thing! 

Long live the Queen!

… and her Wolf.  

Chat room for RQ fans to hang out in and chat for the last day of RQW.  

I’ve told my Red Queen shipping story a few times, so I won’t go over that again. (It’s here if you’re interested.)

I had a brief conversation with @lex-noctis the other day about RQW and I said this:

I appreciate every single thing people contribute to RQW and to the fandom in general.  This really is a ship that’s been kept sailing purely through enthusiasm and imagination, and it’s really special to me for that reason.  It’s a ship made by the fans, not by the show and isn’t reliant on lots (or any) canon interaction.  It’s just whatever we can come up with in our heads.  And I think that’s pretty wonderful.

And I think that pretty much sums up why I’ve run a shipping week for this couple for the past four years.  

This ship should not exist.  It is not based on numerous overanalysed interactions between the characters.  We don’t have meaningful looks or accidental touches or dialogue that can be interpreted to suit an agenda.  Our canon is a handful of exchanged words and four or five glances IN SIX SEASONS.  

And yet, we are the second biggest Regina F/F ship on AO3.  And the second biggest Ruby F/F ship.  (Swan Queen and Red Beauty are the largest, respectively.)  Think about all the canon interaction Regina’s had with Snow.  Or Ruby’s had with Snow for that matter.  Think about Regina’s canon past with Maleficent or Ruby’s CANON ACTUAL TRUE LOVE GIRLFRIEND!! And yet, we are bigger than all of them.

And that is thanks solely to the imagination, creativity and dedication of the people who have chosen to contribute to this ship.  We have kept this ship afloat for years based on nothing but affection for these characters and the potential for stories we see in them.

I’ve loved championing this ship and running @redqueenweek because I’m constantly surprised and delighted by what people bring to it.  I’ve always kind of been drawn to little, obscure ships but I think this might be the littlest and most obscure.  But somehow, all of you out there, have made it feel big and friendly and fun.  Because shipping should be fun, you know?  

I could ramble on here, but I think I’ve said everything I wanted to say.  So I’ll end on a big thank you.  I wish I could namecheck all of you, but there are way more RQ fans than you’d think out there.  So I’ll settle for singling out the people who helped me get into the RQ fandom: @fourforyou, @royalarmyofoz, @100poundsofcatfish and @konako.  Whether through fics, art or conversation, each of you made me think about this ship as a real thing that I could love.

And finally, a huge and heartfelt thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Red Queen fandom, either as creator or consumer.  You have made it my absolute pleasure to be in the fandom and to run @redqueenweek these past few years.  So thank you.

Lots of love, @thegirl20