Femslashex Dear Author Letter (placeholder)

[breathedout]

Hello wonderful Femslashex Creator!

You're the best for making me a thing! I'm so excited for it. A little more info on me:

I am INTO: formidable yet complex women being formidable and complex together; sex writing that is emotionally nuanced and/or ratchets up the narrative tension more than it resolves it; unreliable narrators; atmospheric settings; lovely turns of phrase; strong narrative voices, and weird narrative tricks. 

I am NOT INTO: My huge, body-horror-level squick is pregnancy and babies; please avoid them if at all possible. Also I'd love it if you'd avoid animal cruelty or death.

Other than that, I'm up for pretty much whatever, including dub-con or even non-con as long as their treatment within the story depicts them as such (i.e. doesn't confuse rape with consensual sex—though I do recognize, and enjoy exploring in fiction myself, the areas where issues of consent may be complicated). I write a ton of porn and I love to read it, but it's in no way required or expected. For the first time this year a majority of the fandoms I'm requesting are comedies—and not even dark comedies, but feel-good comedies with a heart! A lot of what makes these canons for me tends to be the quickness of banter and the human-disaster-tries-their-best-and-sort-of-succeeds trope tends to win me over.

Feel free to disregard fandom-specific ramblings; but if you're interested, I've gone into a bit more detail below. Thanks again for writing me a thing! You rock. :-D

1. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Rosa Diaz/Amy Santiago, Rosa Diaz/Gina Linetti, Gina Linetti/Amy Santiago)
Rosa is, of course, the canonical "out" bisexual amongst the B99 group, but whenever I go back and watch early episodes I'm always surprised at the degree to which, of these three characters, she would have been my last guess for which of them would be dating women in a few years. I mean. Gina!

Dynamics I love about this canon: found family, the detail where Gina and Jake grew up together, Gina's wardrobe, Gina's unapologetic penchant for running experiments on her friends/coworkers, everything about Gina honestly, Amy's passionate love of organizational systems (so #relatable), the fact that Amy's dad is played by Jimmy "Bobby Simone" Smits, Rosa's seemingly out-of-character love of schmaltzy rom-coms, Rosa's smile and its ability to melt the heart of the coldest killer (this is somehow not a canonical detail but it's self-evident to any viewer with eyes), the fact that everyone on this show has achilles heels that neutralize their general competence and render them walking tragedies (cf: Amy trying to impress Holt, Rosa attempting to flirt by text).

2. The Good Place (Tahani Al-Jamil/Eleanor Shellstrop, Tahani Al-Jamil/Janet, Bad Janet/Tahani Al-Jamil)
I liked a lot of things about the second season of The Good Place, but was disappointed by the lack of development for Tahani, which is why my requested pairings all focus on her. I'd really just like to spend some more time with her, whether it's a speculative guess about how she's going to be reintegrated into the Season 3 "everyone gets a second chance back in the world of the living" plotline, or one of the failed versions of her time in the fake Good Place, or a snippet of the time she spent in the real Bad Place in that adorable disguise, doing that amazing John Wayne impression, omg. I for-real kind of ship Tahani/Eleanor, but Janet is also a favorite character of mine, and this show lends itself to so much versioning that I have to believe everything happened at some point.

Dynamics I love about this canon: everyone is an asshole; really: feel free to play up the horrible qualities of every character on this show; despite being assholes they come to genuinely care about each other; I mentioned it before but Tahani's short-haired John Wayne-ish American persona just kills me dead; the Eleanor/Tahani progression from enemies to frenemies to friends melts my heart; as does Eleanor's frank admission that their dynamic is weird yet precious; Janet's frank and cheerful, yet immovable, demeanor even in the face of probable disaster.

3. Jeeves & Wooster (Honoria Glossop/Bobbie Wickham, Honoria Glossop/Daphne Braythwait, Madeline Bassett/Stiffy Byng)
Honoria Glossop is a long-time favorite of mine in this canon. I love her hearty, blundering sportiness, her general lack of interest in men, and her seeming stable of similarly sporty female friends with whom she zips around the country in her motorcar. Pair her with Daphne, pair her with Bobbie (hijinks galore); hell, pair her with a real-life women's tennis or motor-racing or aviation hero of the day: I'm here for any of it. Honoria in the coming War is a possibility, as well: does she drive ambulances in France? Supervise the training of requisitioned war horses? Move to London and bluntly coordinate the system of bomb shelters during the Blitz, possibly in collaboration with Daphne and/or Bobbie? Whatever it is, I'm sure it's formidable.

Honoria aside, I've also long been intrigued by the Madeline/Stiffy relationship, which seems to be a fast friendship of long duration despite the fact that Stephanie is such a cutthroat, no-nonsense schemer, and Madeline is 100% drippy nonsense, all the time. What drew them together? Under what circumstances did they bond? I've never quite been able to imagine a scenario that satisfies me on this score, but if you can, please do. 

Other things I love about this canon: Any and all Wooster aunts (or other aunts), the clubbishness (do Honoria and/or Daphne have access to a female counterpart to the Drones, possibly through a golf or tennis club?), the periodic surfacing of musical theatre, the trips to the country for sporting and/or hunting week-ends, and then the typical stuff I feel everyone who loves Wodehouse loves about it, e.g. the uniquely burbly narrative voice, the star-crossed hijinks, the sneaking around stealing random objects in the night, etc. 

4. Black Sails (Anne Bonny/Max, Eleanor Guthrie/Max)
This canon is so rich in diverse interpersonal relationships. Anne is one of my personal emotional centers of the show, due to both her relationship with Jack and her relationship with Max. Although I'd love a thing focusing solely on Anne/Max, I'd appreciate it if such a story didn't tear down the Anne/Jack relationship in the process, since the show itself does such an amazing job of according both of those relationships huge amounts of weight and importance, both for Anne and for the other characters involved. That said, of course Jack needn't be directly present in a story that focuses on the dynamic between Anne and Max. In particular, I feel like the show leaves us at a place where it would be interesting to explore the process of rebuilding trust between the two of them during Anne's recovery, and/or how the relationship settles out a few years down the road, what with Anne's continued pirate-ing and Max's land-bound power consolidation.

I'd also love a glimpse into the pre-show evolution of the Max/Eleanor relationship, which in canon we only see at its end. How did their dynamic evolve? What was it like in their early days, and what did it look like as they started becoming more important to one another? Especially as their relationship would have been evolving at the same time as Eleanor (maybe both of them) were coming of age: how did getting to know each other coexist with the (forced) rapidity of coming into their own as adults?

Other things I love about this canon: In case it wasn't already obvious, I hugely value the diversity of queer relationship configurations on this show, and the way in which characters, no longer subject to normative models, create their own structures of love, family, friendship, partnership, etc. I also like the adventuring, the female ambition, and the many characters for whom self-protection and self-isolation gradually admits of genuine connection with other humans.

5. Original Work (Classic Hollywood Scriptwriter/Classic Hollywood Actress, Dodgy But Charming Covert Operative/Childhood Sweetheart from Before the Lies, Famous Author/Protagonist Who Wants to Retire, Court Poisoner/Court Physician)
I'm requesting the exact same set of original-work pairings that I'm offering this year, since I figured if they sounded like great fun to write myself, they would also be great fun to read! I don't have a lot more to say about these beyond what's in my general likes & squicks, but they all seem like they'd be great opportunities for lively banter. 

6. Chéri (Léa de Lonval/Charlotte Peloux)
I hold out no real hope of ever matching on this canon, but I request and offer it every year anyway as a matter of principle. Copy/pasted from a previous year: The dynamic between Léa and Charlotte is the thing I most adore about this novel: I love that their frenemy-ship predates Charlotte's son (Chéri); I love that it outlasts Léa's affair with him. I love that even though they are catty and critical of one another; even though they wound each other and hide from each other, and are products of an extremely male-centric culture; still, at the end of the day, the bond between them is the strongest thing in both their lives.

So I'd love some kind of story about Léa and Charlotte. A sexual/romantic liaison between them could go any number of different ways, and however you want to roll is cool by me. An affair de coeur slowly blossoming late in life? An ongoing frenemy-ship which occasionally extends to hate- or comfort-fucking; an early-life fling where they are learning together how to live in the world, before Charlotte became a mother—any or all of the above would be things I'd eat up with a spoon. I'd adore a post-Chéri story in which Charlotte comforts Léa in her typically backhanded yet unexpectedly sincere way. I'd REALLY adore a post-Fin de Chéri story where Léa comforts Charlotte (in a similarly complex way); or some combination of the last two ideas.

Or really, any Charlotte/Léa idea that occurs to you. I am all ears.

Comments

[thatyourefuse]

... it's very possible I'm looking forward to reading this letter.

[breathedout]

LOL! Well now you can! :-D I was like "my requests are all so light & comedic this year" and then I pasted this letter into 750words.com and the analytics still came back "Mostly about: Death" \o? Gins was like, "At least you're on-brand."

(Relatedly: I'm so psyched for exchange season!!)

[thatyourefuse]

I mean, I was ACTUALLY reading The Code of the Woosters on, like, Thursday, so that's a very relevant "ya KNOW. Now that you mention it!"