-★- Non-kink Stories I like! -★-

Is an amazing superhero story about trauma (powers awaken during traumatic events and metatexually embody the trauma and trauma responses). Our POV character is Taylor Hebert a fifteen year old bully victim who three months before the start awakened the ability to control all bugs in a couple block radius of herself… and it never turns off, she is always in control of every single insect (can you guess how her power relates to her trauma?).

Things I love about worm, awesome prose, the MC is a dorky bug girl who's vaguely transfem coded+autism coded, 100% a repressed lesbian, she is utterly unhinged and also a shy bean, there's no slippery slope she can't slide down and gain trauma from, a massive cast and even those with little screen time usually feel like they have a lot of depth, the trauma is viscerally real, the Undersiders are all really well written and likeable, nazis die in it, and it's just a good book.

The downsides are: racism and racist caricatures (as typical of early 2010s stories), the nazis get the most sympathetic character development of all the gangs, the chronological pacing is ridiculous(but you might miss it), and the post timeskip stuff isn't as good as the earlier bits.

Gosh this is a good story! Olivia Octavius anarchocommunist transfem techy who's friend dies and this she becomes a crime fighting spider themed superhero protecting future new york. It's really extremely refreshing to read a superhero story with solid politics and themes, like gold star. Arachne is ACAB and while she is out stopping crime with the help of the AGI she accidently made, she's mostly helping folks as a friendly neighborhood hero. Not as much actual crime fighting so much as helping New York and frequently dealing with stuff no one else can. Lot of stuff to love, it's got a trans gay protagonist, really good disability stuff, intentional plural rep that's really good too, and a superhero that isn't playing rooftop fascist and is actually trying to help make the world a better place even if that doesn't usually involve punching street criminals. It's got one finished sequel and one unfinished one, and they are also quests! quests are basically choose your own adventures except the audience votes between updates for what happens next! even so you can just read it as a book that is in second person and it's great. Highly recommend.

Is a fun action adventure litrpg isekai about Ilea Spears, a nurse into boxing who gets sucked into a world and learns to fight her way to the top. Yea it doesn't sound like much, but it's written in a way that makes it really easy to read and follow along, the fight scenes are fun and watching her get more and more powerful is very satisfying.

Like really the litrpg system is the star of the show in how satisfying it is for her to unlock new abilities, not too strong, not too weak. It scratched that "number go up" itch really well while also giving you lots of fun fights and Ilea just having fun being a masochist.

It does take a while for the story itself to really bloom, the early parts are more about the power increases and the later parts are Ilea having made friends and getting involved in stuff which again is fun!

Is a story about an internet hacker who tries to troll someone and ends up helping her transition while the hacker discovers some gender feels of their own. It's funny, great prose, the main character being unable to be honest with themself is so endearing and funny and enjoyable, it's an adorkable egg fic that I love. Give it a read, it's also a reasonable length!

Gosh this fic is how I discovered the vast amount of modern transfem fiction on the internet. A kiwi gets trapped in America when she is transformed into a superpowered fox girl during a mass superpower awakening. It has action, feels, gender, a fox girl, lesbians, beating up nazis, anti-capitalist, anti-cop, anti-state themes. It's fun, and probably enjoyable even to folks who aren't queer despite the not-subtle-at-all queer theming.

Gosh has anyone not heard of Brandon Sanderson by now? Anyway Vin is a street urchin who almost immediately finds out she's actually a Mistborn, aka has fancy metal magic powers. The prose is very functional, the magic is a hard magic setting, they are doing an uprising to kill the immortal emperor of everything, and it's a good read. Downside is you can tell it was written by a Christian in that it just has religious vibes painted all over it, and some religious symbolism and everything being part of some higher power's plan.

This story gave me brain rot, and gosh it's hard to explain my love hate with this book. So I'm gonna do it anyway. In a world with supers (folks with superpowers they can control), powereds (folks who have powers but lack control of them), and regular humans, the US government set up a system where you can go to superhero college and get certified as a superhero to work as a cop in spandex fighting supervillains.

Our protagonists are powereds who undergo an experimental procedure that turns them into supers and now they are going to college to become superheros, but oh gosh people hate powereds for being useless and a burden so they have to hide that from their classmates while learning to control their powers for the first time in their lives.

It's not subtle in the "powereds represent disabled people." However it does fuck all with that metaphor!(or is it an allegory?(I always forget)) Also it's extremely pro cop, pro USA neoliberal democracy, it has all the political depth of a DC/marvel comic, but maybe less.

Yet for some reason these dorks doing superhero college is fun, and like the story wears its sexism on its sleeve, but oh wait, it has a gay subplot… no not of any of the college students being gay, nope it's the deadbeat dad of one of them, who is hated by one of the MCs (actually two because odd but good plural rep for some reason?) They do talk and resolve things eventually but anyway, it's fun. Zero substance but fun. It's the Independence Day(the movie) of superhero web serial novels. And like all superhero web serial novels it was absolutely inspired by Worm, and even includes the manton effect as a nod. However it's not nearly as good, and you shouldn't think about the worldbuilding without your American propaganda lenses on.

Imagine becoming a supercop and spending 4 years learning how to fight and 0 about learning anything related to the law itself. Just how to fight and how to kill... seriously they aren't taught a single law or how to apply it but oh gosh they are literally taught to escalate to extrajudicial murder based on their gut feelings. They have classes on how to break the law to catch criminals... All the worldbuilding and metaphors are yikes because none of this is ironic the author genuinely frames all that as good.

This short oneshot is so good. It's technically an egg fic but also a short fantasy story about a thief lost in the woods. It's tight its gripping, the prose is to die for, found out after the fact that the fae literally speaks in iambic pentameter and like that's the attention to detail in the story, it's beautiful and sweet and has a lovely message and is so dearly comforting in the end. Read it! (also I became friends with the author like a year later and she's really sweet). It was so good I had to make a scribblehub account to save it as a favorite.

A funny egg fic about two "dude bros" who make a bet to magically turn themselves into girls and try and convince their roommates they are trans, you know, to trick their friends, and obviously they have to outdo each other at being girls. Only logical. Anyway this story is stupid funny, absolutely hilarious and then the big climax was just… I had to actually stop after each line to laugh for several minutes on a reread because it's just so funny and silly and ridiculous and yea. Very definitively an egg fic so probably not suited for cis or even non-transfem audiences

The story starts off as a tf tg, vaguely egg fic story but turns into an urban fantasy/semi-portal fantasy. It's really good, like an actual solid lead that's kinky but the emotions are also some of the authors most visceral, its also one of the more violent stories by her and generally shows a protagonist making some not always the best but as good as she can manage decisions.

It does play with identity in later books in ways that are very nonstandard. The author very much has a unique and fluid take on identity because folks have theirs warped by magic often, and turn into new characters with new names and personalities and gender identities. Still it's gay, its kinky(but cuts to black), it has action and intrigue and magic and otherworldly politics that keep following the protagonist home to earth. The main character becomes chronically disabled and that's treated right by the narrative framing, and just, it's a good story. Not a perfect story but very solid. Might squick people out on the identity change but that kind of thing used to be a lot more common in older tg tf stories and if you've read them for a long time that probably won't phase you.

A transmasc and a transfem swap bodies and discover they are much better at being their new selves than their old selves. The transfem lead is relatable socially anxious, and the male lead is a himbo. Is trans het. A solid story.

A really good egg fic, someone transes their gender to own the libs and slowly gets introduced to being a good person by a cast of supportive queers who adopt her. A fun ride, lot of comedic double think which is always fun (and like the main fun of egg fics as a genre) really well written, very much recommend.