Femslash 2018
Aug. 21st, 2018 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lastwingedthingDear author, I'm so excited you're writing something for me!
Dislikes
I don't have any major DNWs and am ok with dubcon/noncon, violence, character death, etc - provided that it is warned for up front - though I would prefer that stories do not focus solely on trauma/horror/violence, and if these do come up as part of the story, I am more interested in the lead up and the aftermath than in dragging out the details of the act itself.
I would also prefer no (noncanonical) character death for requested characters in Star Wars or An Infamous Army, and I have a few specific caveats about handling a canon het pairing in the Star Wars section - however this only applies to one pairing (Anakin/Padme), and otherwise I am happy with you doing whatever you want with any canon male love interests. I am generally okay with unrequested background pairings of any description (slash, het, femslash - including as part of poly arrangements with requested characters) provided they are actually background. However, I would strongly prefer no background pairings in which either Ahsoka or Sabine is involved directly with a male character (dating a woman, who is dating a man, is fine).
Likes
I am generally pretty flexible with the things I like. Explicit porn is awesome, G-rated fluff with hand-holding is awesome, angst and bleakness are awesome, happy endings are awesome, humor is awesome, domesticity is awesome! Etc.
A few of my favourite things are banter and humor, adventures, politics, worldbuilding, stoic girls with feeeeelings, road trips (spaceship trips... actual ship trips... etc), female antiheroes or villains with complex motivations, enemies forced to work together by circumstance, reluctant heroes, found families, unexpected/unconventional happy endings, tragedies that are more-or-less inevitable given the nature of the individuals involved, and women living in less-than-ideal or even actively hostile situations who manage to carve out some kind of happiness, but by no means feel obligated to include any of these things!
For these fandoms, I am not very interested in the kind of AU where characters are in a completely different universe where they are pirates or cowgirls or something. AUs that explore the ramifications of a change to canon (what if character x survived/won the battle/etc instead) are always fascinating to me, however - I absolutely adore stories that really go into exploring the details of a scenario like this! "If X changed, what would be the consequences?" is a question that I always love to see explored.
If you'd like more fandom-specific detail, see below! I have tried to provide roughly the same amount of info for each pairing I am interested in - which means that I have written a lot more about some fandoms than others - but this is solely due to the varying numbers of pairings I have requested for each fandom. I would be equally excited by a story in any requested fandom!
Star Wars requests: Ahsoka Tano/Padme Amidala, Ketsu Onyo/Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla/Sabine Wren, fic
Quick note on DNW scenarios: I ship Anakin/Padme pretty hard, and am quite attached to Anakin, despite fully recognising what a terrible, awful, no-good failboat he is; I've also been burned REALLY hard by the way that a lot of slash fics write Padme out of the picture to get Anakin and Obi-Wan together, so certain scenarios will get a kneejerk NOPE reaction out of me even when they're in the service of femslash. Given this, while there are lots of ways I would be happy to see Anakin removed from the picture in service of femslash, there are a couple specific scenarios that are a hard no for me.
Scenarios I would be happy with include: Padme breaks up with Anakin once she fully realises how far into the Dark Side he's fallen; Anakin dies; AUs where he and Padme never met; ridiculously happy AUs where not only does everyone survive, Padme and Anakin work on their relationship to the extent that they can successfully manage healthy poly; fics with no Anakin and no discussion of his relationship appearing at all.
I would be unhappy to receive: a scenario where Anakin and Padme knew each other, but were ~just good friends~ (too many flashbacks to Padme the Supportive Sassy Best Friend With No Emotional Life Outside Of Overinvestment In Her Male Friends, which is in itself a well-worn and terrible trope); or a scenario where Padme never actually loved Anakin and had recognised that he was True Irredeemable Evil all along (a tumblr headcanon I find particularly upsetting for a lot of reasons - particularly if she married him anyway just to manipulate him). If you don't want to deal with Anakin, just kill him off or write him out, that's completely fine! But please don't do either of the things I describe here.
On to the positives!
So I've always read Ahsoka as having a bit of a crush on Padme - like Anakin, she gets very dramatic about the Prophetic Dreams Of Padme's Death she must save Padme from (she's SO MUCH more successful than Anakin at said rescue, oh my god), and they go on field trips together, and like many people I read Ahsoka as super, super gay. Sadly in canon Padme dies before Ahsoka is old enough to do anything about it, but what if she didn't? So many wonderful possibilities! Rebel Padme! Padme and Ahsoka reunited after thinking the other one is dead! It turns out Padme is still weak for a pretty, butch Jedi with a lightsaber (or two) and a crush! Etc. The time travel possibilities opened up by Rebels are particularly intriguing - now that I've imagined RotS-era Padme getting rescued by a mysterious, hot, butch older stranger who turns out to be Padme's old friend I just can't stop. Or would Ahsoka bring Padme forward into the late Rebellion era?? So many possibilities!
I only started watching Rebels this year - which was dumb, because it's delightful. I absolutely adore Sabine, who I firmly choose to believe is a beautiful baby lesbian with a gorgeous on-and-off ex voiced by Gina Torres. I would read almost anything about the relationship between Ketsu and Sabine! Imperial Academy shenanigans, bounty hunter adventures, The Big Breakup Angst, the gradual delicate process of getting back together, something set postseries where Sabine and Ketsu are working with Bo-Katan to rebuild Mandalore, distant future fic with an adult confident relationship between the two of them... In particular, I'd love some Ketsu backstory, and if that gets into ridiculous OTT Mandalorian politics/history, all the better! My secret headcanon - for maximum lesbian Romeo and Juliet drama, because everything Mandalorians do is Extra - is that Ketsu's clan belong(ed) to House Kryze and were pacifist New Mandalorians back in the day, which would then put a whole extra layer of complex tragedy on Ketsu's ice-cold, survivalist persona when we first meet her, not to mention complicating her relationship with House Viszla aligned Sabine. But honestly anything Ketsu, and Sabine/Ketsu, would be incredible.
Similarly, I love the big sister-little sister relationship between Hera and Sabine (Ezra might have decided Hera and Kanan were his surrogate parents, but I don't see that relationship dynamic applying to either of their relationships with Sabine at all) and I would love, love, love to see how their relationship might have changed and grown as Sabine gets older. Hera is my other Rebels fave - I love how driven and dedicated she is, and how she still manages to keep hold of her sense of compassion and joy no matter how bad things get - but she's also had SO MUCH to deal with, and I just want her to find some kind of happiness! I find the idea that Sabine spent the last few years of the Rebellion just sitting around on Lothal kind of eyerolly, and I'd love to see some kind of scenario where she was also working more closely with Hera and the Rebellion during this time. Or meeting up with Hera again after she and Ahsoka have found Ezra, and discovering how their relationship has changed? An AU where Kanan survives and Hera and Sabine still get together could also be fun!
Nirvana in Fire requests: Mu Nihuang/Xia Dong, Mu Nihuang/Gong Yu, Gong Yu/Qin Banruo, Consort Jing/Qin Banruo, fic
Another recent fannish discovery that has left me kicking myself for waiting so long to watch! I absolutely adore this show, and particularly the amazing complex layered characters.
I really loved Nihuang right off the bat, and her friendship with Xia Dong was the clincher - I just love their mutually supportive but still layered and painful relationship, and the ways they just get each other, as two women managing to balance and take on traditionally masculine roles in a deeply stratified society. The fact that they each have their own individual loyalties that at times take precedence over their friendship, and the way that they both regret this, honestly makes me love them even more - I love complicated, painful, difficult relationships as much as heartwarming happy ones - and I would love to see a fic that explored how romance would change (or not change) that balance, although I would also love to see a scenario where they put each other first for once. Preseries, missing scene, postseries or AU - anything would be wonderful!
Shipping Gong Yu with Nihuang is a bit more out there, but I really feel like the two of them have a lot in common - despite the massive class difference they both walk a similar tightrope between very feminine roles (princess, courtesan) and very masculine ones (general, assassin/soldier); both also spend a lot of time hiding their true feelings and allegiances behind a mask. And of course there's the bit where they're both in love with the same man... I usually find F/M/F love triangles tiresome, and shipping the two ladies together instead is my knee-jerk reaction, but especially given how the show ends, I can see a genuine relationship developing between the two of them, starting from a place of mutual grief and developing from there.
As much as I love most of the show, the treatment of the Hua people is the one jarring note. Yes Banruo is often terrible and Xuanji did some monstrous things, but the Hua people were also treated monstrously, and the only resolution offered was more genocide. I would really love a more complex, nuanced look at the Hua people, and particularly Banruo. I really loved the plotline where she came up against Gong Yu - they're another two characters with strong parallels, right down to Gong Yu's secret Hua heritage - and I'd love to see more of them interacting, either more directly as rivals or as an AU where they are temporarily forced to work together. Or something exploring Banruo's future (redemption or otherwise)?
Putting Banruo together with Consort Jing almost seems unfair; when it comes to manipulations Consort Jing is so far above her level! But I feel like any kind of relationship between them would be absolutely compelling - with Consort Jing feeling compassion for Banruo despite herself, and Banruo, in turn, maybe seeing (or not wanting to see) the ways Consort Jing could be like a kinder but no less driven or brilliant Xuanji (who I absolutely 100% believe Banruo is/was in love with). Both Banruo and Consort Jing are so powerless in many ways, but while Consort Jing has held onto her compassion no matter what, Banruo almost doesn't seem to remember what compassion is. I would love to see any kind of relationship between the two of them - whether as antagonists or whether they find some kind of common ground. In particular, I'd be fascinated by role reversals and AUs - perhaps an AU where Prince Yu's rebellion succeeded, and Banruo got everything she (thought she) wanted - and then what? Or a complete role reversal where Banruo was the privileged(/caged) palace lady with no real power, and Consort Jing was the spymaster working on the outside?
Mansfield Park requests: Mary Crawford/Fanny Price, fic
Mansfield Park isn't my favourite Austen, but it's definitely the one I've spent the most time thinking about, and its characters really stick with me. It's easy to write off Fanny as just a prude and a prig - which she is! - but her absolute, iron stubbornness and black-and-white moral thinking is so compelling, and it does make me wonder what could possibly make her break that. The relationship between Mary and Fanny, in particular, is so interesting - the way that Fanny keeps thinking that Mary is just using her, and that she doesn't like Mary at all, but then is still drawn to her; and the converse, the way that Mary's efforts to attract and keep Fanny's friendship come across almost like a seduction.
I would love to see any scenario where Fanny actually got to the point of admitting attraction to Mary - or feeling it but not admitting it - and particularly what it would take to get her there. An AU where she did end up marrying Henry, and so Mary married Edmund, would be so fascinating - particularly since I sincerely doubt either marriage would be particularly successful or happy in the long run. But I could also see situations where the canon ending could lead to a similar place, of Fanny becoming disillusioned in her marriage and getting to a place where she could admit interest and attraction to Mary. Or an AU where neither of them married men and ended up spinsters together would also be lovely!
An Infamous Army requests: Judith Worth/Barbara Childe, fic
An Infamous Army is kind of an unusual Heyer, and even though Barbara is every cliche of a ~bad girl~ with a tragic rapey past, I find her really compelling (as far as I know she's the closest Heyer came to actually letting the woman in one of her romances be the rake!) and in particular, I love her relationship with Judith. Judith can be snobby and self-absorbed, and she cares about appearances and reputation and doing the "right" thing, to an extent, but she also genuinely likes Barbara and understands first-hand why she feels the need to lash out, particularly against overbearing men who are telling her what to do. They have their ups and downs, but by the end of the book their relationship is in a really strong place - I would love to see that taken even further! In particular, while I find Charles pleasant and his relationship with Barbara quite believable, I dislike Lord Worth and cannot understand how on earth he and Judith ended up together. So it would be lovely to see Judith in a more genuinely loving, mutually respectful relationship!
Thank you again so much for writing for me!
Dislikes
I don't have any major DNWs and am ok with dubcon/noncon, violence, character death, etc - provided that it is warned for up front - though I would prefer that stories do not focus solely on trauma/horror/violence, and if these do come up as part of the story, I am more interested in the lead up and the aftermath than in dragging out the details of the act itself.
I would also prefer no (noncanonical) character death for requested characters in Star Wars or An Infamous Army, and I have a few specific caveats about handling a canon het pairing in the Star Wars section - however this only applies to one pairing (Anakin/Padme), and otherwise I am happy with you doing whatever you want with any canon male love interests. I am generally okay with unrequested background pairings of any description (slash, het, femslash - including as part of poly arrangements with requested characters) provided they are actually background. However, I would strongly prefer no background pairings in which either Ahsoka or Sabine is involved directly with a male character (dating a woman, who is dating a man, is fine).
Likes
I am generally pretty flexible with the things I like. Explicit porn is awesome, G-rated fluff with hand-holding is awesome, angst and bleakness are awesome, happy endings are awesome, humor is awesome, domesticity is awesome! Etc.
A few of my favourite things are banter and humor, adventures, politics, worldbuilding, stoic girls with feeeeelings, road trips (spaceship trips... actual ship trips... etc), female antiheroes or villains with complex motivations, enemies forced to work together by circumstance, reluctant heroes, found families, unexpected/unconventional happy endings, tragedies that are more-or-less inevitable given the nature of the individuals involved, and women living in less-than-ideal or even actively hostile situations who manage to carve out some kind of happiness, but by no means feel obligated to include any of these things!
For these fandoms, I am not very interested in the kind of AU where characters are in a completely different universe where they are pirates or cowgirls or something. AUs that explore the ramifications of a change to canon (what if character x survived/won the battle/etc instead) are always fascinating to me, however - I absolutely adore stories that really go into exploring the details of a scenario like this! "If X changed, what would be the consequences?" is a question that I always love to see explored.
If you'd like more fandom-specific detail, see below! I have tried to provide roughly the same amount of info for each pairing I am interested in - which means that I have written a lot more about some fandoms than others - but this is solely due to the varying numbers of pairings I have requested for each fandom. I would be equally excited by a story in any requested fandom!
Star Wars requests: Ahsoka Tano/Padme Amidala, Ketsu Onyo/Sabine Wren, Hera Syndulla/Sabine Wren, fic
Quick note on DNW scenarios: I ship Anakin/Padme pretty hard, and am quite attached to Anakin, despite fully recognising what a terrible, awful, no-good failboat he is; I've also been burned REALLY hard by the way that a lot of slash fics write Padme out of the picture to get Anakin and Obi-Wan together, so certain scenarios will get a kneejerk NOPE reaction out of me even when they're in the service of femslash. Given this, while there are lots of ways I would be happy to see Anakin removed from the picture in service of femslash, there are a couple specific scenarios that are a hard no for me.
Scenarios I would be happy with include: Padme breaks up with Anakin once she fully realises how far into the Dark Side he's fallen; Anakin dies; AUs where he and Padme never met; ridiculously happy AUs where not only does everyone survive, Padme and Anakin work on their relationship to the extent that they can successfully manage healthy poly; fics with no Anakin and no discussion of his relationship appearing at all.
I would be unhappy to receive: a scenario where Anakin and Padme knew each other, but were ~just good friends~ (too many flashbacks to Padme the Supportive Sassy Best Friend With No Emotional Life Outside Of Overinvestment In Her Male Friends, which is in itself a well-worn and terrible trope); or a scenario where Padme never actually loved Anakin and had recognised that he was True Irredeemable Evil all along (a tumblr headcanon I find particularly upsetting for a lot of reasons - particularly if she married him anyway just to manipulate him). If you don't want to deal with Anakin, just kill him off or write him out, that's completely fine! But please don't do either of the things I describe here.
On to the positives!
So I've always read Ahsoka as having a bit of a crush on Padme - like Anakin, she gets very dramatic about the Prophetic Dreams Of Padme's Death she must save Padme from (she's SO MUCH more successful than Anakin at said rescue, oh my god), and they go on field trips together, and like many people I read Ahsoka as super, super gay. Sadly in canon Padme dies before Ahsoka is old enough to do anything about it, but what if she didn't? So many wonderful possibilities! Rebel Padme! Padme and Ahsoka reunited after thinking the other one is dead! It turns out Padme is still weak for a pretty, butch Jedi with a lightsaber (or two) and a crush! Etc. The time travel possibilities opened up by Rebels are particularly intriguing - now that I've imagined RotS-era Padme getting rescued by a mysterious, hot, butch older stranger who turns out to be Padme's old friend I just can't stop. Or would Ahsoka bring Padme forward into the late Rebellion era?? So many possibilities!
I only started watching Rebels this year - which was dumb, because it's delightful. I absolutely adore Sabine, who I firmly choose to believe is a beautiful baby lesbian with a gorgeous on-and-off ex voiced by Gina Torres. I would read almost anything about the relationship between Ketsu and Sabine! Imperial Academy shenanigans, bounty hunter adventures, The Big Breakup Angst, the gradual delicate process of getting back together, something set postseries where Sabine and Ketsu are working with Bo-Katan to rebuild Mandalore, distant future fic with an adult confident relationship between the two of them... In particular, I'd love some Ketsu backstory, and if that gets into ridiculous OTT Mandalorian politics/history, all the better! My secret headcanon - for maximum lesbian Romeo and Juliet drama, because everything Mandalorians do is Extra - is that Ketsu's clan belong(ed) to House Kryze and were pacifist New Mandalorians back in the day, which would then put a whole extra layer of complex tragedy on Ketsu's ice-cold, survivalist persona when we first meet her, not to mention complicating her relationship with House Viszla aligned Sabine. But honestly anything Ketsu, and Sabine/Ketsu, would be incredible.
Similarly, I love the big sister-little sister relationship between Hera and Sabine (Ezra might have decided Hera and Kanan were his surrogate parents, but I don't see that relationship dynamic applying to either of their relationships with Sabine at all) and I would love, love, love to see how their relationship might have changed and grown as Sabine gets older. Hera is my other Rebels fave - I love how driven and dedicated she is, and how she still manages to keep hold of her sense of compassion and joy no matter how bad things get - but she's also had SO MUCH to deal with, and I just want her to find some kind of happiness! I find the idea that Sabine spent the last few years of the Rebellion just sitting around on Lothal kind of eyerolly, and I'd love to see some kind of scenario where she was also working more closely with Hera and the Rebellion during this time. Or meeting up with Hera again after she and Ahsoka have found Ezra, and discovering how their relationship has changed? An AU where Kanan survives and Hera and Sabine still get together could also be fun!
Nirvana in Fire requests: Mu Nihuang/Xia Dong, Mu Nihuang/Gong Yu, Gong Yu/Qin Banruo, Consort Jing/Qin Banruo, fic
Another recent fannish discovery that has left me kicking myself for waiting so long to watch! I absolutely adore this show, and particularly the amazing complex layered characters.
I really loved Nihuang right off the bat, and her friendship with Xia Dong was the clincher - I just love their mutually supportive but still layered and painful relationship, and the ways they just get each other, as two women managing to balance and take on traditionally masculine roles in a deeply stratified society. The fact that they each have their own individual loyalties that at times take precedence over their friendship, and the way that they both regret this, honestly makes me love them even more - I love complicated, painful, difficult relationships as much as heartwarming happy ones - and I would love to see a fic that explored how romance would change (or not change) that balance, although I would also love to see a scenario where they put each other first for once. Preseries, missing scene, postseries or AU - anything would be wonderful!
Shipping Gong Yu with Nihuang is a bit more out there, but I really feel like the two of them have a lot in common - despite the massive class difference they both walk a similar tightrope between very feminine roles (princess, courtesan) and very masculine ones (general, assassin/soldier); both also spend a lot of time hiding their true feelings and allegiances behind a mask. And of course there's the bit where they're both in love with the same man... I usually find F/M/F love triangles tiresome, and shipping the two ladies together instead is my knee-jerk reaction, but especially given how the show ends, I can see a genuine relationship developing between the two of them, starting from a place of mutual grief and developing from there.
As much as I love most of the show, the treatment of the Hua people is the one jarring note. Yes Banruo is often terrible and Xuanji did some monstrous things, but the Hua people were also treated monstrously, and the only resolution offered was more genocide. I would really love a more complex, nuanced look at the Hua people, and particularly Banruo. I really loved the plotline where she came up against Gong Yu - they're another two characters with strong parallels, right down to Gong Yu's secret Hua heritage - and I'd love to see more of them interacting, either more directly as rivals or as an AU where they are temporarily forced to work together. Or something exploring Banruo's future (redemption or otherwise)?
Putting Banruo together with Consort Jing almost seems unfair; when it comes to manipulations Consort Jing is so far above her level! But I feel like any kind of relationship between them would be absolutely compelling - with Consort Jing feeling compassion for Banruo despite herself, and Banruo, in turn, maybe seeing (or not wanting to see) the ways Consort Jing could be like a kinder but no less driven or brilliant Xuanji (who I absolutely 100% believe Banruo is/was in love with). Both Banruo and Consort Jing are so powerless in many ways, but while Consort Jing has held onto her compassion no matter what, Banruo almost doesn't seem to remember what compassion is. I would love to see any kind of relationship between the two of them - whether as antagonists or whether they find some kind of common ground. In particular, I'd be fascinated by role reversals and AUs - perhaps an AU where Prince Yu's rebellion succeeded, and Banruo got everything she (thought she) wanted - and then what? Or a complete role reversal where Banruo was the privileged(/caged) palace lady with no real power, and Consort Jing was the spymaster working on the outside?
Mansfield Park requests: Mary Crawford/Fanny Price, fic
Mansfield Park isn't my favourite Austen, but it's definitely the one I've spent the most time thinking about, and its characters really stick with me. It's easy to write off Fanny as just a prude and a prig - which she is! - but her absolute, iron stubbornness and black-and-white moral thinking is so compelling, and it does make me wonder what could possibly make her break that. The relationship between Mary and Fanny, in particular, is so interesting - the way that Fanny keeps thinking that Mary is just using her, and that she doesn't like Mary at all, but then is still drawn to her; and the converse, the way that Mary's efforts to attract and keep Fanny's friendship come across almost like a seduction.
I would love to see any scenario where Fanny actually got to the point of admitting attraction to Mary - or feeling it but not admitting it - and particularly what it would take to get her there. An AU where she did end up marrying Henry, and so Mary married Edmund, would be so fascinating - particularly since I sincerely doubt either marriage would be particularly successful or happy in the long run. But I could also see situations where the canon ending could lead to a similar place, of Fanny becoming disillusioned in her marriage and getting to a place where she could admit interest and attraction to Mary. Or an AU where neither of them married men and ended up spinsters together would also be lovely!
An Infamous Army requests: Judith Worth/Barbara Childe, fic
An Infamous Army is kind of an unusual Heyer, and even though Barbara is every cliche of a ~bad girl~ with a tragic rapey past, I find her really compelling (as far as I know she's the closest Heyer came to actually letting the woman in one of her romances be the rake!) and in particular, I love her relationship with Judith. Judith can be snobby and self-absorbed, and she cares about appearances and reputation and doing the "right" thing, to an extent, but she also genuinely likes Barbara and understands first-hand why she feels the need to lash out, particularly against overbearing men who are telling her what to do. They have their ups and downs, but by the end of the book their relationship is in a really strong place - I would love to see that taken even further! In particular, while I find Charles pleasant and his relationship with Barbara quite believable, I dislike Lord Worth and cannot understand how on earth he and Judith ended up together. So it would be lovely to see Judith in a more genuinely loving, mutually respectful relationship!
Thank you again so much for writing for me!
