Mallory Lass’s Holiday F/F Fanfic Reading List
Mallory Lass is back! This time she joins Tara to share her holiday f/f fanfic reading list, with both holiday-themed stories and stories for people who want to avoid the season.
Listen to this episode here
Holiday Theme
These are full of common themes and plot devices. Christmas fics tend to be short and sweet, and a lot are written for some version of a holiday fic exchange or prompt fest. Most of them are Gen/Teen. Mistletoe features prominently.
- “Blue Christmas” Ch 1-9, Ch 10-13, Ch 14-17 by raginhoops. 23K words, rated Teen.
Fandom: Law and Order: SUV; Ship: Olivia Benson/Alexandra Cabot
Backstory: Olivia Benson, sexy butch detective in the special victims unit. Alexandra Cabot, blond bombshell assistant district attorney.
Rec: Tables are turned when Olivia is the one pursued.
Major Tropes: Workplace Romance, Rich Girl/Poor Girl
Content warnings: N/A
- “Holiday Wish” by miss_morland. <1K, rated Gen
Fandom: Harry Potter; Ship: Minerva McGonagall/Poppy Pomfrey
Backstory: Mrs. McGonagall is one of the most respected teachers in all of Hogwarts. Mrs. Pomfrey is a fantastic healer. Both are women of a certain age playing important, but minor roles in a massively popular series with a huge cast of characters.
Rec: A 5 things fic that regresses in time and reminded me of Sarah Waters’ Night Watch. It’s really, really sweet. Full of love, and a surprise ending. Short, but packs a punch.
Content warnings: N/A
Bonus: Podfic! Recorded by thriceandonce
- “Wrapped in Red” by cassiopeiasara. 1.5K words, rated Teen+
Fandom: Ghostbusters (2016); Ship: Jillian Holtzmann/Patty Tolan
Backstory: Ghostbusters all female female reboot was released to a lot of outside noise and negativity. In my opinion set the table for other all female reboot movies, like Ocean’s 8, to succeed. Also helped elevate Kate McKinnon’s reputation as a comedy genius in film.
Rec: This is positively smooshy! There is mistletoe and courting, and getting of the girl. The characterization is great.
Content warnings: N/A
Bonus: search the hashtag “#all I want for Christmas is this ficathon” on tumblr to find fics submitted for ratherembarassing’s 2016 challenge, some Supergirl ones are on ao3 as well.
- “She Sees You When You’re Sleeping; She Knows When You’re Awake” by T_Ninja. 2.3K words, rated Gen
Fandom: Person of Interest (TV); Ship: Root/Sameen Shaw
Backstory: This show follows a mix of hackers, cops, and former military as they take orders from an AI, the Machine, that was created to know when murders were premeditated and alert this group to stop them. Root/Shaw aka Shoot, we’re a pair full of slow burn subtext, which the show ultimately made canon in later seasons.
Rec: This cute Christmas story features The Machine playing matchmaker, mistletoe and Santa.
Content warnings: Full of canon typical wry humor, casual mentions of murder plots and guns.
- “Singles’ Night at the ER” by Keziah. 3.8K words, rated Teen+
Fandom: The 100 (TV Show); Ship: Abby Griffin/Raven Reyes | Doctor Mechanic
Backstory: A lot of the Doctor Mechanic subtext in this show occurred in the first and second seasons. It’s a tiny ship in a behemoth fandom with another main f/f ship.
Major Tropes: Age-gap, Modern AU
Rec: Perfect for fans of fluffy, fade to black, this is a cute modern AU fic set in the ER on Christmas Eve. Plus they go to a diner!
Content warnings: N/A
- “Marmite & Mistletoe” by ArcadiaArden. 155K words, rated Mature
Fandom: Rizzli & Isles; Ship: F/F
Backstory: Set in Season 5
Rec: A friend says it’s her favorite Christmas fic and I am looking forward to reading over the holidays myself.
Content warnings: Not fluffy, read the author notes
Holiday Avoidance
A lot of people don’t have the luxury of enjoying the holidays. There is a lot of stress and pressure for everything to be perfect, people are money strapped, people have anniversaries of loved ones deaths, queer people particularly tend to have rocky relationships with their families for a whole host of reasons. If you just need to escape into something, this list is for you!
- “The Greatest” fanvid by Bironic
Fandom & Characters: multifandom video featuring characters of color in over 75 canons – see tags.
Backstory: This video was commissioned for a charity auction, notes from the creator: “Don’t give up.” A celebration of some badass characters of color in recent science fiction, fantasy and horror TV and movies. Made for resolute as part of the Fandom Trumps Hate 2017-2018 charity auction.
Rec: I have watched this fanvid so many times, and every time it puts a massive smile on my face. I only know half of the original shows/movies, if that, but it’s fun picking out my faves. There is a f/f kiss from Timeless toward the end, see if you I can spot it.
Content Warnings: zombie beheading at 0:25, PG 13 to R rated movie typical violence
- “Gone to the Dogs” by avesnongrata and Woodface. 173K words, rated Mature.
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe; Ship: Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov
Backstory: This is an amazing and fairly small ship in a massive multiship fandom. Their portmanteau is BlackHill, which is pretty rad. A lot of the BlackHill writers read the Black Widow comics, so there is extra texture which makes for high-quality writing. Lots of hurt/comfort with this ship.
Rec: This is both a Black Widow origin story and a Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov spy girlfriends story. Each author wrote from one of the characters’ perspective and I think that is, in part, what makes it a really strong story. It will suck you in and you won’t be able to stop reading so make sure you have a good chunk of time.
Content warnings: PTSD, past abuse/abandonment, violence
Bonus Rec for Poly Positive Readers: “Women’s Weapons” by ThingsWithWings, 4.5K words, rated Explicit
Ship: Maria Hill/Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanov
More: 2 podfics linked inside the fic.
- “some kind of madness (has started to evolve)” by thecrackshiplollipop. 8.5K words, rated Explicit
Fandom: The 100 (TV); Ship: Abby Griffin/Raven Reyes
Backstory: Abby is a doctor in the show and in this AU also a yoga instructor. Raven is a engineer/mechanic extraordinaire who gets disabled in the show and in this AU she is a student, mechanic, and dealing with her disability.
Rec: One of those I didn’t know I needed till I read it stories. Sometimes you just need well written smut with a good plot. Really good treatment of Raven’s disability. Really good angst over the age gap which isn’t usually my cuppa. It’s just good dang it.
Major Tropes: Modern AU; Age Gap
Content warnings: N/A
Note: If Clarke/Lexa is more your thing check out their other work she has quite a few Clexa stories.
- “Chaos Theory” Series by andthatisterrible. 430K words, rated Teen -> Explicit (can avoid that part of series)
Fandom: Person of Interest (TV); Ship: Root/Sameen Shaw
Backstory: This show follows a mix of hackers, cops, and former military as they take orders from an AI, the Machine, that was created to know when murders were premeditated and alert this group to stop them. Root/Shaw aka Shoot, we’re a pair full of slow burn subtext, which the show ultimately made canon in later seasons.
Rec: The main story Sliding Towards Chaos, is rated Teen and then the author’s companion story Feedback Loops contains the Explicit interludes. They are all connected on ao3 (pay attention to the notes) and it’s a really interesting way to write to both audiences. It was also a Rec I received during my line standing time at ClexaCon.
Content warnings: Canon typical violence, rough sex in the explicit story typical of their early show interactions: pain play, light bdsm, destruction of clothes.
- “and when we’re there we’ll belong” series by andibeth82. 540K words, rated Mature
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe | The Acengers; Ship: Clint Barton/Laura Barton/Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Laura Barton/Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Laura Barton
Backstory: This is an absolute behemoth of a story, which the author has been pouring love into since 2015. It’s essentially a Clint and Natasha backstory, that meets up and connects to the Avengers movie timelines.
Rec: This is a Poly story! If you don’t like reading F/M or you don’t like Poly relationships, this is not the story for you. If you would like to see examples of how to build a Poly family, what and how to tell kids, etc. this story is for you. If you love found family, this story is for you. My only minor complaint is there isn’t enough Laura/Nat, it def skewed Clint/Nat, Clint/Laura because of the constraints of the MCU, but the writing is engaging. There is also a lot of domestic fluff, and dealing with the Barton Kids.
Content warnings: Canon typical violence and injuries, difficulties conceiving in first part, miscarriage (IIRC it is in part 3)
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100270
Artist: http://incompetech.com/
