#fandom thursdays

For those of you who have been following Femslash Revolution since the beginning, you know that instead of Rarepair Thursdays, we used to have Fandom Thursdays. This was a day devoted to spotlighting a popular F/F fandom and spreading the news about popular ships. We haven’t had a Fandom Thursday in quite a long time, but this week, we’re bringing it back with one of the cult hit shows of the past year.

What Is It?

Riverdale is an hour-long teen drama that first aired on The CW in January of 2017. Season one ran until May of 2017 and had 13 episodes. The show was an instant hit, and the second season debuted in October of 2017 and ran for 22 episodes with a winter break. Season three will begin on October 10, 2018.

This show is loosely based on the characters from the long-loved Archie Comics, created in 1941 by John L. Goldwater and Bob Montana. The Core Four—Archie, Betty, Veronica, and Jughead—have gone through decades of high school drama, musical performances, and wild wardrobe changes, and the focus has always been the love triangle between Archie, Betty, and Veronica.

But Riverdale’s noir-inspired versions of these characters aren’t from your grandparents’ Archie trades. Archie Andrews (K.J. Apa) is a tortured musician day-lighting as a star football player, Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse) is a brooding geek turned gang leader, and Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) and Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) are besties rather than frenemies. Fan favorite characters like Josie and the Pussycats (led by Ashleigh Murray), preppy Kevin Keller (Casey Cott), and gothic mean girl Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) all make appearances, and teen idols of the past (including Luke Perry, Molly Ringwald, and Skeet Ulrich) now star as the parents.

You’re…sensational.

Many femslash fans first had Riverdale on their radar due to our old enemy—queerbaiting. Yes, we fell victim once again. In the earliest trailers, we saw Betty and Veronica share a smooch in the gym, leading us to believe we’d get a romance between the two iconic rivals. But although the kiss did indeed occur in the pilot, it was nothing more than an attention grabber, and the girls remain friends instead of something more. The only actual LGBT characters in season one were Kevin Keller and his Southside Serpent boyfriend, Joaquin (Rob Raco). A lot of viewers were understandably frustrated, but the show’s over-the-top dialogue, soapy plotlines, and sexy stars kept everyone entertained (and possibly hate-watching).

Riverdale gained huge popularity between seasons. A lot of has to do with the cheese factor—let’s face it, the show can get pretty campy in the best way possible. And a lot of that has to do with breakout star Madelaine Petsch, who plays the waifish, slightly eerie queen bee, Cheryl Blossom. Cheryl started out as the misunderstood rich girl mourning her deceased twin brother, but in season two, her hidden depths were revealed, and she became one half of a very popular canon ship.

What Can I Ship?

In season two, we meet Toni Topaz (Vanessa Morgan), the pink-haired, bisexual Southside Serpent who becomes friendly with Jughead when he changes schools. She originally started as a rival for Jughead’s affections, locking horns with good-girl Betty, but after one hook-up, she tells Jughead she prefers dating girls. After half a season of being more of a background character, she meets Cheryl Blossom. Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz was practically a ship before they even shared screen-time—people could just tell they had amazing chemistry. Toni’s strength and empathy eventually melted Cheryl’s icy exterior, and the two girls ended up saving each other from abusive parents and dangerous rival gangs. A lot of femslashers are drawn to this ship because it features two bisexual characters.

Despite starting as queerbaiting, Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge still has a fan following and remains the second most popular F/F ship in the fandom. They do have amazing chemistry, and their devotion to each other and their friendship will always inspire shippy feelings.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL8QZhN7gQs)

What Is It?

Faking It is an hour-long romantic comedy-drama that began in October of 2013 on MTV. The first half of the second season ended in November of 2014 and is slated to pick up with the second half sometime in 2015.

The show revolves around the “faked” romance between Texas high school students and lifelong best friends Amy Raudenfeld (Rita Volk) and Karma Ashcroft (Katie Stevens) after their openly gay friend Shane (Michael Willett) mistakenly outs them as a couple in front of everyone at a party. Peppy, optimistic Karma, wanting to impress her crush Liam (Gregg Sulkin), gets cynical and dry-witted Amy to play along with their romance to gain popularity, though Amy is reluctant. As they get deeper in their fake dates, kisses, and coming out to parents, Amy realizes that her emotions towards Karma are not faked, and must deal with living the lie or coming clean. Though the girls remain friends when the secrets come out, more and more secrets, lies, and emotions are covered up, testing their friendship over and over again.

I Know.

When Faking It was first announced, many queer ladies who craved more queer representation in media were skeptical. Fake high school lesbians? Not the best idea. But as the series progressed, Amy’s emotions and struggles with her identity hit the audience hard, and she was easy to sympathize with as a questioning teenage girl exploring her sexuality in high school. By the time the second season rolled around, Karma also began to question her identity, creating a deeper conflict between the two friends.

There is a lot of female queer representation in the show—after “breaking up” with Karma, Amy dates cute cater-waiter/DJ Reagan (Yvette Monreal) and strengthens her relationship with her conservative, ambitious stepsister Lauren (Bailey De Young). Lauren, born intersex, must face her boyfriend and friends finding out about her intersexuality as well as her judgmental father, and the show deals with her struggles respectfully—and asserts that one’s sexuality or gender is none of anyone else’s business.

What Can I Ship?

The most popular ship overall is Amy/Karma. Though Karma does not yet identify as anything other than straight, she still considers Amy her closest companion and soul mate, saying they’ll spend the rest of their lives together no matter what. They’re the constant of the show and even though they argue and come into major conflicts, they can never be far apart for long. Their love, support, and protectiveness over one another (romantic and otherwise) creates a believable and completely plausible ship. For fans of angst, there’s plenty to be had.

Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: Carmilla (Web Series) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Laura Hollis/Carmilla Karnstein, Laura Hollis/Danny Lawrence, Carmilla Karnstein/Danny Lawrence, Laura Hollis/Carmilla Karnstein/Danny Lawrence Characters: Laura Hollis, Danny Lawrence, Carmilla Karnstein Additional Tags: ot3: dull thunk, guys this is so important Summary:  “There is one other option,” Carmilla says, her voice a bit lower and smoother than it’s been, and Laura swallows. “One that wouldn’t require me to leave the room.”

“And, um, what would that be?” Laura asks too tightly.

“I think you already know the answer to that.”

What Is It?

Carmilla is a comedy/romance/horror webseries that premiered in August 2014 on the YouTube channel Vervegirl TV. It is based on the Gothic novella of the same name by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, originally published in 1871. In December 2014, the first run of Carmilla concluded with 36 episodes.

The single-camera series revolves around Silas University freshman Laura Hollis (Elise Bauman), who realizes Silas isn’t a regular college after her roommate Betty goes missing and is mysteriously replaced by the brooding Carmilla Karnstein (Natasha Negovanlis). With the help of her dreamy TA Danny Lawrence (Sharon Belle), her maternal and worrisome floor don Lola Perry (Annie Briggs), and her adventurous bio-major friend LaFontaine (Kaitlyn Alexander), Laura devotes her first semester to finding out why girls are going missing on campus and how she can put an end to it once and for all—and maybe pass her classes on the way.

Useless, Tiny, and Tall

Carmilla is one of those shows that doesn’t need to address the sexuality of each character in order to have queer characters—they just are, and they go on with the drama of being students at the Night-Vale-esque Silas University while dealing with normal relationships problems. The fandom (called the Creampuffs) for Carmilla is very active and vocal, with some of the stars—mostly Alexander and Negovanlis—having an active social media presence with the fans. Several members of the cast also identify as queer.

Since the show isn’t even six months old, the fandom is only growing, producing large amounts of fan-fiction, edits, videos, and art of their favorite characters and ships. The meta community is also inventive and action, even creating fake Twitter and texting accounts for their fanworks and ships.  

What Can I Ship?

With a primarily female cast, a queer protagonist, and an all-female love triangle, what can’t be shipped in this show? There are a few main ships, all with active fandoms.

The first is Carmilla/Laura, one part of the love triangle. They hate each other at first—Carmilla can’t stand Laura’s optimism and do-good attitude, and Carmilla is the chocolate-stealing roommate from hell—but they slowly learn to trust and learn from each other. And any ship that involves a slow, teasing, blushing waltz in a college dorm room is a ship that will certainly go far.

The other part of the love triangle is Danny/Laura.  Danny is Laura’s literature TA and a member of the Summer Society, and Laura is obviously crushing on her since the first episode of the series. Danny made fans swoon with her Xena skills, protectiveness over Laura, and the way Belle is so tall next to Bauman she can hardly fit in the frame. Eventually, Laura asserts to Danny that she needs space to make her own choices, which Danny takes poorly, but its clear Danny still cares very much for Laura.

(Of course, the perfect solution to this love triangle is Carmilla/Danny/Laura, which many fans have taken advantage of).

The one ship the entire fandom can agree on is LaFontaine/Lola Perry, because they’re basically married. They’re that ship that worries about each other, cleans up each other’s messes, and always knows what to say to each other in times of crisis. They can usually be seen in the background touching and holding onto each other in some way. Even though they’ve only been identified as close friends in canon, everyone agrees that they’re basically soul-mates.

What is it?

If you've spent any length of time on Tumblr, you've probably run across Supernatural before. It's one of the hugest fandoms around, and one of the oldest. The show is set to start it's tenth season on the CW in September, charting the adventures of Sam and Dean Winchester. The two brothers hunt ghosts, demons and everything else that goes bump in the night - helped along the way by Castiel, an angel who rebelled against Heaven for the sake of humanity.

The show mixes arc plots about demons and angels with big plans to take over and/or destroy the world with the brothers' day-to-day lives hunting a variety of supernatural monsters. With a show centred around supernatural horror, it's probably not surprising that the show has a reputation for killing off characters, and it's rare for any character except for the central ones to last more than a handful of episodes.

Doesn't sound like much opportunity for femslash...

With no female characters on the main cast, you might think that there wouldn't be many F/F pairings to ship - but the huge number of posts we find for the show would prove you wrong. The world of Supernatural has a huge range of female characters - from demon queens to rebel angels, hardened hunters to screaming victims and everywhere in between.

While they may not appear a great deal on the show, these women are often surprisingly developed in their small amount of screentime, with backstories that fandom loves to explore. While there are no hugely popular femslash ships, a huge variety of potential pairings have small, devoted followings, even between characters who have never canonically met.

Popular Femslash Pairings

One popular ship is Annaby - Anna Milton, a fallen angel, with Ruby, a demon who helped her regain her grace. In one of the few episodes with two recurring female characters, the two were forced to work together with the Winchesters against the armies of both Heaven and Hell.

Anna is often also shipped in Joannael with Jo Harvelle, a hunter who helped the Winchesters battle the apocalypse. While the two never canonically met, they were both on the show around Season 5, and in many ways they mirror the hunter-and-angel relationship of main cast Dean and Castiel.

After several months of fandom spotlights, we're now running low on new femslash fandoms to share with you all. So, in place of Fandom Thursdays, we are happy to announce Rarepair Thursdays, a day to highlight pairings which are less frequently seen on this blog!

Title: Soldier

Creator: magicmilktea (spiffy_scribbler)

Fandom: Orange Is the New Black

Pairing: Alex Vause/Nicky Nichols, Alex Vause/Piper Chapman

Length: 30,695 words (WIP)

Rating: Mature