Femslash Exchange Letter (2018)

[millepertuis]

Dear Writer,

Hi! Let me start off by saying I'm very much looking forward to reading whatever you come up with. Here's a general overview of my likes and dislikes if you're looking for more direction than there was in my requests, feel free to pick and choose what strikes your interest or ignore the whole of it if you already have something in mind. Most importantly, have fun and thank you!

LIKES: best friends in love, antagonists in love, mutual obsession!!, female friendships, female agency, found families, messed-up families, dubious moralities, unapologetically amoral characters who don't care about being or doing good, unapologetically amoral characters who don't care about being or doing good but still try because the people they love do care, genuinely good characters who see the world in black and white, genuinely good characters who are willing to do wrong for the people they love, king and lionhearts dynamics, codependency, domesticity, unhealthy dynamics as long as they're recognized as such by the text if not by the characters, characters who work on being healthy together, slow build, character studies, unreliable narrators, all the usual cliché tropes (mutual pining, mistaken to be dating, fake relationship, accidental relationship, accidental marriage, arranged marriage, marriage of convenience, bed-sharing, mistaken identity shenanigans, etc.)


DISLIKES: unhappy or generally depressing endings, character bashing, rape/non-con, major character deaths, nominated characters being romantically or sexually involved with people outside of the ships requested, actually unrequited love; I'd prefer to avoid complete AUs, but canon divergence, or stories set in the same universe but with subtle differences, like daemons au or canon universes with elements of magical realism for example, are perfectly fine.

• CRAZYHEAD; amy/raquel, amy/susanne

I love both these ships, but not simultaneously? This is very much an either-or situation for me; and I very much want to avoid unrequited love situations, so I'd much rather that if you picked Amy/Raquel, Amy's relationship with Susanne were completely platonic, and vice-versa.
That being said, go wild! I absolutely loved the zany spirit of the show, so anything playing off that would be great, but I'd also welcome a more serious approach to these characters, the trauma and issues they might bring into a relationship. Or both. Both is also good.

I'd love anything post-s1, perhaps dealing with the aftermath of Amy's (retconned) love declaration to Raquel—was Amy lying when she later told Raquel she had meant it as friendly love, or in denial? Does Raquel secretly wish Amy had meant it? Or perhaps a more partners-to-lovers approach, something dealing with the dangerous situations they find themselves in and the trust they have in one another, and the codependency that might result from that.

For Amy/Susanne, we see Susanne is (un)alive at the end of the finale, but where do they go from there? Does Amy feel guilty over everything that happened to Susanne? Does Susanne feel guilty over being used to bait Amy and almost hurting her? Do they just go back to being best friends and roommates? Were they always in love, or did they only know it after Susanne died and came back and died again (and came back again)? Does Amy keep feeding Susanne her blood??

Also, I was looking over my requested ships to see if there might be any exception to my no-complete-AUs preference, and I got to thinking about the Dark Days Club books (no prior knowledge required), and actually demon-slaying in Regency England might be a fun AU for these characters if canon doesn't particularly inspire you.
 

 

• KILLING EVE; eve/villanelle

I fell for this show and this ship so hard. It just fits so many of the things I love in fiction. Mutual obsession! I love Villanelle and her amorality and her careless arrogance and her childishness and her occasional softness with Eve, but I'd particularly like something Eve-centric here.
I love her stubbornness, her drive, her humour, her awkwardness, I love her genuine and disturbing admiration for Villanelle and female killers. I love the side of her that cares more about the chase than about the law or even right and wrong. I love that she 'likes [Villanelle] too much.' I loved her whole speech before she stabs Villanelle so much. (Mutual obssession!!) I love that she actually stabbed Villanelle. I love that she freaked out right after and tried to help her.

Basically I love everything about them and this ship so the world's your oyster? I'd love anything post-s1, Eve and Villanelle resuming their game of cat-and-mouse, and the fallout of Eve stabbing Villanelle. I'd love some nebulously set in the future fic where Eve and Villanelle are on the run together, whether by choice or maybe forced together by circumstances and chased by the Twelves? Waller-Bridge described their meeting as love at first sight and I'd love anything exploring that or—I cannot stress it enough—their mutual obsession.

Or some canon divergence scenarios that might be interesting: what if, when Villanelle had Konstantin's daughter hostage and Eve begged her to just come with her, Villanelle had? What would have happened then? Did Eve actually want them to go away together? Would Eve still have tried to kill her eventually?
Or perhaps an alternate canon where Villanelle never killed Bill, and so it never became at least partly about revenge for Eve, how would that have affected their game?
 

 

• THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL; midge/susie

I want to see them fall in love so bad! I mean they're pretty much already there but still!

I'm pretty much looking for little-to-no-angst friends to lovers fic here, though if, idk, you particularly want to tackle what having a sexuality crisis might realistically feel like for a Jewish former-housewife with children who's starting up in the comedy scene in 1950s New York, you absolutely should.

Maybe something in the near future when Midge is still struggling to make it in stand-up comedy, or something after they get successful, or even some pre-canon divergence where they met and fell in love before Midge ever met Joel. Maybe something tropey where they suddenly end up living together, or maybe one day Midge's parents tell her out of the blue they've decided to make their peace with her lesbian relationship and she should invite Susie to dinner, and Susie ends up getting a phonecall about how could she maybe come to dinner and also pretend to be her girlfriend?
 

 

• POWERLESS; emily/jackie

I feel like I'd been waiting for this show all my life and then it got cancelled after a season and I will be bitter forever. And I got so into Emily/Jackie and I will be doubly bitter forever. And there is no fic for them whatsoever and I will be triply—

I just enjoyed their dynamic so much, the emotionally distant cynic—who discreetly drives a coworker to her chemo appointments, and does nice things for her friends as long as they don't know about it and/or she can roll her eyes throughout—being reluctantly won over by the bubbly overenthusiastic idealist, and I'd love absolutely anything with them. Especially if you want to have superheroes and supervillains and supercatastrophes just casually happening in the background.

Maybe something where Emily determinedly keeps up her campaign of winning Jackie's friendship and Jackie realizes she's falling in love with her—really, anything that involves Jackie being prickly and only showing affection covertly while Emily sees right through her would be wonderful.
Or something involving Jackie's new powers—does some supervillain eventually kidnap Emily to try and make Jackie do something for them? Or some canon divergence where Jackie already had her powers when they met and had sort of ended up being a vigilante and there are some identity issues shenanigans?
Or any of the usual tropes! Fake dating! Jackie got dosed with truth serum and she can't help but say nice things and is very annoyed about it! Jackie's ex is fighting for custody and she'd have a better chance if she was in a committed relationship, guess who volunteers to marry her! Inconvenient bed-sharing!