FemslashREx: 5 under 5k
Jan. 10th, 2020 09:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hebethen posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fffridayHappy FFFriday! I finally got around to reading my FemslashEx 2019 bookmarks, so here's five recs for stories that clock in under 5,000 words. (The Original Works are essentially just short stories that happen to be published under AO3, and I recommend them even if you aren't usually a fic person!)
1. Formal Beauty (1481 words) by mothinthearclight
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Art Thief/Woman in Painting
Characters: Original Female Character(s)
Summary: Sometimes, Honorine keeps a painting for herself. This time, the painting keeps her.
A delicate, unsettling supernatural vignette; some of the language recalls "The Yellow Wallpaper", though it's a different flavor of horror.
2. Flourishing, and How It Is Done (2299 words) by AliceInKinkland
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hard-bitten Post-apocalyptic Wanderer/Lost Dimensional Traveler from a Better Timeline
Summary: There’s a legend that anyone who ends up on Helikar never gets off again.
A postapocalyptic sci-fi romance about what one is willing to risk for love: don't go where I can't follow. Warm and elegantly woven.
3. Art/Work (3214 words) by shaggydogstail
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Art Thief/Woman in a Painting
Characters: Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Stories about art, Romance, Art Theft, Magic
Summary: A thief. A portrait. A mystery. Some magic, and maybe a little bit of romance too.
A very different take on the same prompt as "Formal Beauty"! This sweet, entertaining fantasy flips the script on white male artists, at once hinting at its world's interesting magical differences and lightly critiquing what it has in common with ours.
4. Ride or Die (3552 words) by Ilthit
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Werewolf/Werewolf
Characters: Original Characters
Additional Tags: Cannibalism, Werewolves, Asexual Character, Blood and Gore, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Suicidal Thoughts
Summary: Anna had a plan for her life. Not a great plan, but it wasn't this.
Werewolves are a paranormal romance staple by now, but this story manages to make them agents of horror again -- not even because of the lycanthropy itself, but the chaste, soft, loving descent into an entirely human-attainable darkness.
5. The Heat That I Know (4992 words) by runobody2
Fandom: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Characters: Catra (She-Ra), Adora (She-Ra)
Additional Tags: Catra (She-Ra) Redemption, (Or at least part of it she still has a lot of work to do lmao), Catra POV, Post-Canon, (Presumably I don't know where noelle stevenson will deign to end her series), the horde is defeated however, at least two (2) incidents of people having mental breakdowns in the forest
Summary: Because Catra is a coward, in the moment she realizes she can have it all, and also have none of it: stop the Horde, save Adora, be sealed away for forever in a portal and never have to speak to or see another Etherian again, she is relieved. It’s not quite dying, she thinks, but it’s the next best thing.
"Catra redemption" is probably right up there with "Catradora" as juggernaut tropes in SPOP fandom go. This is not so much the story of that redemption as it is a slice of the aftermath: cleaning up the pieces, wrestling and reconciling with the damage. It's also a very compelling view of Catra's interiority.
1. Formal Beauty (1481 words) by mothinthearclight
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Art Thief/Woman in Painting
Characters: Original Female Character(s)
Summary: Sometimes, Honorine keeps a painting for herself. This time, the painting keeps her.
A delicate, unsettling supernatural vignette; some of the language recalls "The Yellow Wallpaper", though it's a different flavor of horror.
2. Flourishing, and How It Is Done (2299 words) by AliceInKinkland
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hard-bitten Post-apocalyptic Wanderer/Lost Dimensional Traveler from a Better Timeline
Summary: There’s a legend that anyone who ends up on Helikar never gets off again.
A postapocalyptic sci-fi romance about what one is willing to risk for love: don't go where I can't follow. Warm and elegantly woven.
3. Art/Work (3214 words) by shaggydogstail
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Art Thief/Woman in a Painting
Characters: Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Stories about art, Romance, Art Theft, Magic
Summary: A thief. A portrait. A mystery. Some magic, and maybe a little bit of romance too.
A very different take on the same prompt as "Formal Beauty"! This sweet, entertaining fantasy flips the script on white male artists, at once hinting at its world's interesting magical differences and lightly critiquing what it has in common with ours.
4. Ride or Die (3552 words) by Ilthit
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Werewolf/Werewolf
Characters: Original Characters
Additional Tags: Cannibalism, Werewolves, Asexual Character, Blood and Gore, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Suicidal Thoughts
Summary: Anna had a plan for her life. Not a great plan, but it wasn't this.
Werewolves are a paranormal romance staple by now, but this story manages to make them agents of horror again -- not even because of the lycanthropy itself, but the chaste, soft, loving descent into an entirely human-attainable darkness.
5. The Heat That I Know (4992 words) by runobody2
Fandom: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Characters: Catra (She-Ra), Adora (She-Ra)
Additional Tags: Catra (She-Ra) Redemption, (Or at least part of it she still has a lot of work to do lmao), Catra POV, Post-Canon, (Presumably I don't know where noelle stevenson will deign to end her series), the horde is defeated however, at least two (2) incidents of people having mental breakdowns in the forest
Summary: Because Catra is a coward, in the moment she realizes she can have it all, and also have none of it: stop the Horde, save Adora, be sealed away for forever in a portal and never have to speak to or see another Etherian again, she is relieved. It’s not quite dying, she thinks, but it’s the next best thing.
"Catra redemption" is probably right up there with "Catradora" as juggernaut tropes in SPOP fandom go. This is not so much the story of that redemption as it is a slice of the aftermath: cleaning up the pieces, wrestling and reconciling with the damage. It's also a very compelling view of Catra's interiority.
