Rarewomen Letter
Feb. 26th, 2014 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sprocketDear Rarewomen Author,
I am thrilled to my toes I get to ask for fic about some of my favorite less-represented female characters. Thank you! As this is rarewomen, you can be certain I will not be considering how your interpretation measures up to the hundreds of character- and pairing-centric fics on the AO3.
Optional details are optional! My biggest hope is that, like me, you have spent too much time thinking about the way these characters fit (or don't fit) into their worlds. If this engagement needs to be expressed through comedy or crackfic, or their interactions with characters I have neglected to include in my requests, go for it! Character requests are "or", not "and". I am also fine with OCs and, if you are in the mood, turning any vagueness in description into an opportunity to squeeze in more diversity.
If you're into gen, rock on. Gen is buddies. If you're in a porny mood, go for it! Add "in bed" to most of the below to get me hot and bothered. But please keep the knives and blood out of the sex. I'm not interested in mixing pain and orgasms. I know, I requested Cherryh, please scale this request to canon-appropriate levels of dubcon and power trips expressed through sex.
Fandom cliches that would make me happy include kidfic, apocalyptic, friendships, N Things, genderflip, darkfic, sedoretu, cuddling, backstory, timestamp, daemon-verse fusion (fusion-fic, period, if I know both fandoms) ... go for it. Treat the canon with love and affection (if not always great reverence), and have fun.
Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh (Elene Quen, Meg Kady, Sal Aboujib, Signy Mallory):
I would absolutely adore any flavor of Quen the politican. She's Pell Dockmaster in Merchanter's Luck and Stationmaster of long standing in Finity's End. And somehow, in all this, she raises two kids and doesn't destroy her marriage. (Along those lines... dear writer, I'm fine with rocky relationships, but please do not break up this band. I love OT3s, but cheating on your partner(s) is kind of my anti-kink.) Along those lines, I can certainly see Quen and Mallory dickering about the balance of power between Pell Station and Alliance Security. Or, did any of these characters cross paths, during or after the War? Quen and Mallory are mostly seen in positions of agency; Kady and Aboujib have to navigate life with rather fewer tools at their disposal. I would be thrilled by interstitial stories: there's a lot of time-gaps between Aboujib and Kady in Heavy Time and Quen in Finity's End.
Along those lines, I sort of love Mallory's character arc in Downbelow Station. At a point where she is offered every bad option, she is challenged to do the right thing, and she does it. Well, something like a right option, with a lot of death and betrayal and it's all very sobering, and the AU where she drags Damon and Josh to Earth and leaves Pell to die is one thing you could write, if you are in the mood for something really, really dark. I would be all right with the Making Of special too. She was forty-nine. The Beyonder Rebellion was far older than that; and she had been freighter pilot, rider captain, the whole gamut, all in the Earth Company's service. Does she know Kady or Aboujib? What compromises has she made to keep her ship and people alive, where other captains failed? What challenges does she face after the War, going after her former comrades?
If I have neglected to express my strong feelings on how much I would enjoy a story about Kady or Aboujib, it is because this prompt is already tl;dr. Quen and Mallory are mostly seen in positions of agency; Kady and Aboujib have to navigate life with fewer tools at their disposal. But I would be terrifically interested in a story about how they met, or, again, intersitial stories (life and friction with the Shepherds, shipping out after Hellburner, the compromises and patch-jobs later in the War... which carrier did they wind up attached to? The fluffy optimist in me says Norway, the critical thinker suggests Europe), or even something post-Downbelow Station.
Babylon 5 (Anna Sheridan, Catherine Sakai, Delenn, Susan Ivanova, Talia Winters, Timov): I would love some character-centric "missing scene / day in the life / AU" fic in this fandom. Wouldn't a "Talia doesn't die!" AU carried forward to S4 or S5 be awesome? Because clearly there would be Susan/Talia, and I see no bad there. Or, I would be vastly curious how much snark would be generated should Ivanova and Timov meet. Or maybe Anna Sheridan and Catherine Sakai crossed paths when IPX found something... interesting... on a Q-40-rich planet, and archaology vs geologcal exploitation conflicted... IN SPACE. Or maybe Sakai and Winters had professional dealings on B5? Or if you have Strong Feelings about S5 that must be expressed through the medium of fanfic, go for it.
And if you are scratching your head going "how do I do that?" ... write what you love. If a Daemonverse AU is what's speaking to you, or another off the wall concept, rock it.
Matthew Swift (Penny Ngwenya, Kelly Shiring):
My 100% bulletproof narrative thing, which will get me to read almost anything: place as character. The nearly-as-bulletproof thing is messy identity concepts. So, dear author, here we are, you and I, with London as character, and We are Swift, and I am the angels. Bullet. Proof.
I love those aspects of the novels. Others I find less cool. If you want to fix this weird pattern where many of the incredibly awesome women keep dying, please do. for Penny and Kelly, who clearly are on different life trajectories, but suffer some of the same problems (bosses, possible destruction of all London, that sort of thing). I would be all about The Adventures of Penny Ngwenya, Urban Sorceress. The Penny and Nabeela section of The Minority Council was my favorite part of the novel. Plus, Kelly: PA by day, Alderman by night! What is going on in her head? "Schedule the Warlocks and Witches Annual Dinner with the Mayor, spin class at five, assassinate rogue elements of the Minority Council, check!" How does such a perky, almost mundane young woman get mixed up with the magical side of London?
If you want to pull in characters from the Magicals Anonymous novels, go for it! The more the merrier.
I am thrilled to my toes I get to ask for fic about some of my favorite less-represented female characters. Thank you! As this is rarewomen, you can be certain I will not be considering how your interpretation measures up to the hundreds of character- and pairing-centric fics on the AO3.
Optional details are optional! My biggest hope is that, like me, you have spent too much time thinking about the way these characters fit (or don't fit) into their worlds. If this engagement needs to be expressed through comedy or crackfic, or their interactions with characters I have neglected to include in my requests, go for it! Character requests are "or", not "and". I am also fine with OCs and, if you are in the mood, turning any vagueness in description into an opportunity to squeeze in more diversity.
If you're into gen, rock on. Gen is buddies. If you're in a porny mood, go for it! Add "in bed" to most of the below to get me hot and bothered. But please keep the knives and blood out of the sex. I'm not interested in mixing pain and orgasms. I know, I requested Cherryh, please scale this request to canon-appropriate levels of dubcon and power trips expressed through sex.
Fandom cliches that would make me happy include kidfic, apocalyptic, friendships, N Things, genderflip, darkfic, sedoretu, cuddling, backstory, timestamp, daemon-verse fusion (fusion-fic, period, if I know both fandoms) ... go for it. Treat the canon with love and affection (if not always great reverence), and have fun.
Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh (Elene Quen, Meg Kady, Sal Aboujib, Signy Mallory):
I would absolutely adore any flavor of Quen the politican. She's Pell Dockmaster in Merchanter's Luck and Stationmaster of long standing in Finity's End. And somehow, in all this, she raises two kids and doesn't destroy her marriage. (Along those lines... dear writer, I'm fine with rocky relationships, but please do not break up this band. I love OT3s, but cheating on your partner(s) is kind of my anti-kink.) Along those lines, I can certainly see Quen and Mallory dickering about the balance of power between Pell Station and Alliance Security. Or, did any of these characters cross paths, during or after the War? Quen and Mallory are mostly seen in positions of agency; Kady and Aboujib have to navigate life with rather fewer tools at their disposal. I would be thrilled by interstitial stories: there's a lot of time-gaps between Aboujib and Kady in Heavy Time and Quen in Finity's End.
Along those lines, I sort of love Mallory's character arc in Downbelow Station. At a point where she is offered every bad option, she is challenged to do the right thing, and she does it. Well, something like a right option, with a lot of death and betrayal and it's all very sobering, and the AU where she drags Damon and Josh to Earth and leaves Pell to die is one thing you could write, if you are in the mood for something really, really dark. I would be all right with the Making Of special too. She was forty-nine. The Beyonder Rebellion was far older than that; and she had been freighter pilot, rider captain, the whole gamut, all in the Earth Company's service. Does she know Kady or Aboujib? What compromises has she made to keep her ship and people alive, where other captains failed? What challenges does she face after the War, going after her former comrades?
If I have neglected to express my strong feelings on how much I would enjoy a story about Kady or Aboujib, it is because this prompt is already tl;dr. Quen and Mallory are mostly seen in positions of agency; Kady and Aboujib have to navigate life with fewer tools at their disposal. But I would be terrifically interested in a story about how they met, or, again, intersitial stories (life and friction with the Shepherds, shipping out after Hellburner, the compromises and patch-jobs later in the War... which carrier did they wind up attached to? The fluffy optimist in me says Norway, the critical thinker suggests Europe), or even something post-Downbelow Station.
Babylon 5 (Anna Sheridan, Catherine Sakai, Delenn, Susan Ivanova, Talia Winters, Timov): I would love some character-centric "missing scene / day in the life / AU" fic in this fandom. Wouldn't a "Talia doesn't die!" AU carried forward to S4 or S5 be awesome? Because clearly there would be Susan/Talia, and I see no bad there. Or, I would be vastly curious how much snark would be generated should Ivanova and Timov meet. Or maybe Anna Sheridan and Catherine Sakai crossed paths when IPX found something... interesting... on a Q-40-rich planet, and archaology vs geologcal exploitation conflicted... IN SPACE. Or maybe Sakai and Winters had professional dealings on B5? Or if you have Strong Feelings about S5 that must be expressed through the medium of fanfic, go for it.
And if you are scratching your head going "how do I do that?" ... write what you love. If a Daemonverse AU is what's speaking to you, or another off the wall concept, rock it.
Matthew Swift (Penny Ngwenya, Kelly Shiring):
My 100% bulletproof narrative thing, which will get me to read almost anything: place as character. The nearly-as-bulletproof thing is messy identity concepts. So, dear author, here we are, you and I, with London as character, and We are Swift, and I am the angels. Bullet. Proof.
I love those aspects of the novels. Others I find less cool. If you want to fix this weird pattern where many of the incredibly awesome women keep dying, please do. for Penny and Kelly, who clearly are on different life trajectories, but suffer some of the same problems (bosses, possible destruction of all London, that sort of thing). I would be all about The Adventures of Penny Ngwenya, Urban Sorceress. The Penny and Nabeela section of The Minority Council was my favorite part of the novel. Plus, Kelly: PA by day, Alderman by night! What is going on in her head? "Schedule the Warlocks and Witches Annual Dinner with the Mayor, spin class at five, assassinate rogue elements of the Minority Council, check!" How does such a perky, almost mundane young woman get mixed up with the magical side of London?
If you want to pull in characters from the Magicals Anonymous novels, go for it! The more the merrier.