leavethesky

In honor of International Blog Against Racism Week I thought I'd wrack my sickly, feeble brain and come up with some femslash gems that feature non-white principals...and wow, this is much harder than it should be. I know that media doesn't give us a hell of a lot to work with, but still... why is femslash so frickin' whitebread?

Please take note that most of these fics don't deal with the race issue at all, just hot sex and love between two women, one or more of whom is not of northern european descent. Also note that this post is far from comprehensive, I just wanted to get something out there to open up discussion and hopefully get more recs for myself :) 'cause I know my flist has more fics in their back pocket.

Storm/Ororo from the X-Men Universe should have libraries of fic dedicated to her, but I've only encountered a few. Granted, I don't know that much about the X-verse, but I have a feeling that Storm's underrepresented in the world of femslash.
Janine, aka

fembuck's Pack Up the Moon and Dismantle the Sun is Ororo/Jean, Mature angst. Janine's prose is beautiful and haunting as always.

fembuck writes Storm often so check out her LJ. I'm too tired to go digging through all of her wonderful fic.

BSG
BSG is one of the few fandoms that actually has multiple canon characters played by non-white actors, but race doesn't seem to be an issue in space. i guess when you're being hunted by the apocalyptic Cylon!other things like skin color don't really mean anything. Which is probably a cop-out on the part of the writers or, possibly, a hopeful and utopian ideal of how an 'advanced' culture should look and act.

Pressed by

tellitslant is Tory/Cain, NC-17. Ahhh, you know I'm a sucker for power dynamics and PWP and tellitslant DELIVERS.

Defragment by

exquiscadavre is Six/Galactica!Boomer, NC-17. This is hot in a compugeek, literary way that really makes me love it to death.

Intrinsic Betrayal by Harper is Starbuck/Boomer, NC-17. I've recced this before so I'll just say again that I loved it.

Satiation by

jennyo is Roslin/Maya, NC-17 and good ghod is it hot.

Set to Explode by

fox1013 is Starbuck/Kat, NC-17. Playing off all of that wonderful hate!sex tension.

Second Sin by

leyenn is Starbuck/Dualla, NC-17. Again with the scorching hot..and angsty. this is a fantastic piece with perfect characterization of a hollowed-out Starbuck looking for a little peace and finding it in Dee.

There are so many great fics in this fandom that actually feature characters who aren't blonde, blue-eyed, and pale. Check out

projectjulie's BSG femslash masterlist or

getyourtoaster for all the goods.

Hmmm, are there any fics that feature two non-white characters together?

Bend it Like Beckham is another great fandom for this theme. I've already recced fic from this fandom, here and here. New Kind of Real by afrai is one of the few fics in any fandom that takes on the issue of race and ethnicity and it's wonderfully done. One of the best fics in any fandom, hands down.

Firefly should have a ton of fic I could put in this post, but I guess Zoe's relationship with Wash makes it difficult because surely, SURELY Zoe's incredible hawtness would inspire hundreds of thousands of pages of fic. Anyone have any Zoe slash for me? Anyone?

The whiteness of the femslash Buffyverse is appalling. Then again, the whiteness of the Buffyverse is appalling so what can I expect? Faith seems to be the default Other character on the show, which just doesn't cut it.

MISC
Harper has several fics that feature the incredible hotness of Michelle Rodriguez:
Rule of Opposites is Charlotte/Diana in an NC-17 Sex in the City, Girlfight crossover that shouldn't work at all but is absolutely wonderful and perfect. This fic does tackle some issues, but it's class more than race. Still an incredible fic.

No Time for Apologies is Rain/Alice, NC-17 from Resident Evil and it's a wonderful and haunting behind-the-scenes look at the Rain/Alice ship.

Crush, Crushing, Crush is Eden/Ann-Marie, NC-17 from Blue Crush. Again, this is more about class than race, but still... Michelle fucking Rodriguez!

You know, I'm not sure this post was such a good idea. I don't feel like it's saying much about racism except that femslash, as a whole, seems to reflect media in its notable absence of non-white characters. Yes, there are a lot of very good exceptions, but I don't read a lot of fic that describe Zoe, or Boomer, or Storm as the beautiful, desirable, fierce and ass-kickingly gorgeous women they are. On the other hand I read LOTS of fic (actually, I stop reading lots of fic) that spend an inordinate amount of time describing Alex Cabot's milky white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair as if these are variables in some sort of equation that inevitably equals beautiful/sexy. The best fic doesn't, but the best fic is obviously the exception to the rule.

I know that femslash is mainly about teh sex, but the best fic manages to deal with complex issues and still give us the hot GOGA as well.

Also, I have to say that my flist is doing more than its part to right this imbalance. Which is one of the many reasons you're my flist. :)