Stories I would like to exist

[sophinisba]

leish asked me to talk about "a story you would really like to read that doesn't exist yet, or doesn't exist quite how you want it to" for the 17th.

Trying to answer this makes me uncomfortable for a bunch of related reasons, the main one being that I've pretty much stopped reading fic. So I feel like I will say, "I would like to have a modern AU where Gwen comes to terms with being queer" and then someone would give me a link to a really fabulous story in comments and I wouldn't actually want to read it. In the past I've been annoyed and sometimes hurt to read people complaining about how there's no decent Merlin femslash or whatever out there, and that is not what I mean to do here. So I'll just start out by saying, I don't mean to say there are none, and even if there were a ton of good ones I probably wouldn't be reading them. That's on me and not the authors. But this post expresses some frustration I've had. ETA: Feel free to drop links if you got 'em though! /ETA

So anyway a while back I found that the fics I was enjoying most were Arthur/Merlin modern AUs, and of course in general the main plot would be the romance but also there would be these bits about coming out to parents, or joining a queer organization at college or whatever, and I just wanted to spend all day snuggling up with those parts, which were so relatable and maybe a little bit achy but mostly optimistic and heartwarming. But as few lady-focused Merlin fics as there are, they mostly seem to be canon era ones, and canon was so depressing, and I was really longing for some good 10,000-50,000-word or so modern AUs starring the ladies of Merlin having snuggly hopeful queer adventures. In particular I had this idea that I could write something where Gwen compares herself to OBVIOUSLY LESBIAN Morgana and figures she (Gwen) must be straight and goes on to marry Arthur but then later comes to terms with the fact that she's also attracted to women and has these lingering feelings for Morgana (and also probably Gwen's amazing boss Annis comes into it). I never wrote ANY of this story. There are some good modern lesbian Merlin AUs out there, including some written by leish herself, but there are not enough.

I have also hungered for more fics about Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy being young and really hot for each other. At the time when I'd just seen The Amazing Spider-Man and was searching for these fics I mostly found Avengers fics with Peter Parker as a special guest star, and that was frustrating.

Then I was going to complain about this other pairing that scandalously had no fics for it last time I looked, but now there is ONE so I'm going to go read that, hooray!

Comments

[netgirl_y2k]

In the past I've been annoyed and sometimes hurt to read people complaining about how there's no decent Merlin femslash or whatever out there

Yeah. Even in the heyday of Merlin fandom we were such a small pool it was hard not to take that personally, like, what am I chopped liver? Even though it was coming from people who probably meant: I presume there's no decent Merlin femslash, even though I haven't actually looked.

In particular I had this idea that I could write something where Gwen compares herself to OBVIOUSLY LESBIAN Morgana and figures she (Gwen) must be straight and goes on to marry Arthur but then later comes to terms with the fact that she's also attracted to women and has these lingering feelings for Morgana (and also probably Gwen's amazing boss Annis comes into it).

I would have read this story every day and twice on Sundays. And I think the reason why I so desperately wanted a story like this at the time was, even those parts of the Merlin/Arthur modern AUs that should have been universal, coming out to parents, or joining a queer organisation are alienating to me when it's about a m/m couple. Which is just me, me and my irrational brain weasels, but it meant I felt the lack of the equivalent stories about women all the more keenly.

[sophinisba]

even those parts of the Merlin/Arthur modern AUs that should have been universal, coming out to parents, or joining a queer organisation are alienating to me when it's about a m/m couple

I think for me it would depend a lot on my mood, like there were times when I could just dig in to the Arthur/Merlin and find it really satisfying, but then maybe I'd go looking for the Gwen/Morgana companion piece and the fact that it just wasn't there made the next Arthur/Merlin story a little more difficult to read, particularly if it happened to be one where Gwen and Morgana were only there as props. :/

I feel good about how many Merlin femslash AUs I've podficced, including Protect Me From What I Want, but I do wish I'd written more.