FemslashEx 2015 Letter
Dear FemslashEx Writer,
Okay, first of all, you are a glorious person for offering these ships, and I'm SO HAPPY that there's someone else out there who's interested in them. I'm
rosedamask on DW and LJ/
damask_and_dark on AO3, if you'd like to do some reading around, but this letter is going to get absurdly long, so if you want to just run off and start writing now, go for it - I'll love whatever you had in mind when you offered these pairings. I'm really omnivorous as a reader, and I'm really easy for these ships, so if you’d like to stay for the Director’s Cut on why I requested them, that’s fabulous, but if you already have something in mind, that’s equally fabulous. So, without further ado, here is my (ridiculously long) letter - written with the best efforts to keep things from getting too Wall of Text.
General | A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin | Crossovers - Shakespeare | Hannibal | Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke | Snow White and the Huntsman | Swan Lake
General
Likes:
fics of all ratings and genres, characters from everywhere on the moral spectrum, women in power, falling in love, falling from grace, sex with a focus on characterisation, seduction, kink, surprising attractions, distinctive/atmospheric settings, heightened realities, period detail, fairytales and mythology, supernatural elements and magical realism, allusions and homages to literature, character introspection, domesticity (whether it’s a mundane home or something more bizarre), affection, banter, characters knowing each other well (in either a well-worn friendship way or a more devious and Machiavellian way), schemes and intrigues, master/apprentice relationships, characters defying conventions or having complex feelings about what their societies expect from them.
Dislikes:
A/B/O, relationships where one character thinks of the other as being wholly their inferior, rape/noncon being featured in the requested pairings, mundane AUs for weird canons, extreme humiliation/degradation in kink.
A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
(Daenerys Targaryen/Melisandre of Asshai, Tyene Sand/Margaery Tyrell)
Daenerys Targaryen/Melisandre of Asshai
Oh man, Dany/Melisandre. With these two, I love how they’re both eminently powerful women of conviction who’ve risen from the ashes of slavery/subjugation, who are both framed by their narratives in relation to how they can be perceived as both blessed and terrible - and yet who are both allowed to be very human and nuanced in their POV chapters. And with both of them yearning to be agents of glory, and both of them being fire made flesh - basically, I think they’d make a glorious power couple, and I’d love to see anything with them together.
As far as prompty things go, I’d love some kind of “Melisandre sees Daenerys as Azor Ahai in the flames” AU, but anything else you can think of to get them together would be equally sublime. Melisandre as a knight-of-sorts to a would-be dragon queen is perfectly tailored to my love of fractured not-quite-fairytale dynamics, and I’d be completely fascinated to see anything that explores any of the ways they might reflect and relate to each other in that situation. Alternatively, what might they make of each other, in a more canon-compliant futurefic where Dany arrives in Westeros after Melisandre has been championing Stannis Baratheon? How would Mel fare in a trial by dragonfire, at the hands of a restored Targaryen queen? Would she find any perverse satisfaction/glory in it? What would it look like if Mel tried to seduce Dany to the side of R’hllor, in any universe, and to what extent might she succeed?
If you’d like to do a grand, sweeping rise-to-power fic or (proto-) Mad Queen Dany fic that explores the darker implications of a Dany/Mel reign, that would be awesome, because I’m always here for intrigue and revolution and fantasy women getting to be beautiful and terrible as the dawn and all that jazz. But I’d also love to see something gentler and more intimate for these two, like something where they find themselves drawn together not only be fate and prophecy but by shared childhood/girlhood experiences (with bonus Asshai worldbuilding?), or something where they draw strength from each other when they’re weary of performing queendom/priesthood and believing they live with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Also, at this point, I’ll just add that Mel’s fire-gazing in ADWD and Dany’s dragon-hatching in AGOT are two of my all-time favourite scenes from the whole series, so if you’d like to do some kind of trippy fire-centric ritual sex/soulbonding/magic fic with them, that would be COMPLETELY GLORIOUS. As is the nature of the beast with ASOIAF ships, there’s so many ways these two could go, as allies and/or antagonists, and I’d be really intrigued by any scenario you’d like to put them in - so, if this is your prompt, feel free to take this in any direction you’d like. :D
Tyene Sand/Margaery Tyrell
Basically, Tyene and Margaery are both SO perfectly calibrated to appeal to my love of courtly intrigue and silk-hiding-steel character tropes (and I’ll forever mourn the complete and utter lack of a book accurate Tyene on GoT), and I’d be beyond ecstatic to see anything that explores the kind of relationship they might have together. Both of them have the same public persona of unearthly, carefully-cultivated sweetness, but we know Tyene’s hands are dangerous and that Margaery is very much the restless huntress when she’s not courting adulation as a Queen of Hearts, and both of them wear the darker parts of their family heritage as well as they wear all their silk dresses (Tyene’s viper eyes, Margaery with “a little of her grandmother in her too”) - despite the long bloody history between the Martells and the Tyrells, I could definitely see each of them being attracted to the other for their effortless blending of delicacy and deadly precision, and I’d be all over any fic that explored this a little. Plotty courtship fic, or just a snippet of Tyene and Margaery’s Super Special Schemey Sewing Circles, or anything in between - it’d all be gorgeous, so long as it has Tyene and Marg bouncing off each other and playing at being the innocent flower and the serpent under’t.
For prompts: I’d love anything that explores how things might go down in King’s Landing/at Margaery’s trial, now Tyene’s been sent to infiltrate the Faith (especially if it involves lots of tropey sacrilegious juxtapositions between Tyene and Marg’s outward professions of piety and purity and the hints of a sharper, more venom-laced admiration blooming between them). I’d also love anything that plays with Tyene’s Reach heritage, and brings them together that way - futurefic with Tyene at Highgarden? Maybe an AU where Tyene and Margaery actually met by chance when Tyene was visiting her mother, or an AU that looks at what might have happened if Tyene had succeeded in helping Arianne run away to the Reach and marry Willas?
Alternatively, I’d also be really intrigued to see any kind of AU/futurefic with Marg in Dorne - maybe as a political exile following the outcome of her trial, with Tyene scheming to help her escape execution, or an AU where the Arianne/Sand Snake war plot had actually come to pass, and Margaery either joined their cause or got taken as a political hostage? Or, y’know, just futurefic with Marg visiting Dorne under her own steam/because she’s intrigued by that one septa who was there during her trial many years ago, and had to go seek her out. I’d also be TOTALLY down with some Tyene/Marg/Arianne OT3, if you’d like to do anything with that. But wherever they are, and however they’re together, Tyene/Margaery is totally my jam, and there’s no way you could ever go wrong with these two. <3
Crossovers - Shakespeare
(Lady Macbeth/Goneril, Lady Macbeth/Ophelia, Ophelia/Juliet Capulet)
Lady Macbeth (Macbeth)/Goneril (King Lear)
I think Goneril might actually be my favourite character in King Lear, though I love all the daughters' storylines - I'm always really intrigued by how the weight of life as the daughter of Lear seems to hang heaviest over her, as his eldest child, and by the all the ways she tries to carry this burden throughout the play. She's hardened and ruthless, yet there's so many hints of fear and bitterness and resignation when it comes to her dealing with her father's penchants for mind games and with her having the threat of debasement held over her head all the time, and I've always felt like there was a lot of potential for emotional nuance in her eternal wariness and her desperation to have someone on her side. So, in light of this, I'd be really fascinated to see how her pragmatism and ambition might complement that of Lady Macbeth. Any kind of handwavey alternate history fic that explores some kind of alliance between Lady Macbeth's Scotland and Goneril's Albany would be grand, as would any kind of more radical AU that gets them in the same universe as each other, however you’re moved (Macbeth and King Lear both seem to attract lots of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic stagings - maybe something in dystopian AU where they're queens of the ashes together?). Basically, I'd just really like to see Goneril and Lady Macbeth effectively meeting their match when it comes to ruthlessly competent yet psychologically complex queendom, and if they get to take over the world/small parts of a tiny wet island together and femslash it up in the process, I am 1000000% here for it.
I tend to really enjoy dark power couples in all their incarnations, and though I dearly love Macbeth/Lady Macbeth in that regard, I feel like Goneril/Lady Macbeth could also embody this dynamic beautifully. They both seem so deeply dependent on the realisations of all their keen, glittering ambitions as a way of attaining emotional fulfilment or being able to tell themselves that they’ve received their dues in life, and I’d love to see anything that looks at the kind of "grac'd palace" they might preside over if they ever got the chance to team up. But I also love how the sharp edges of their characters are offset by the glimpses of pain and thwarted yearning, so I’d be equally excited by anything that explores the kind of understanding they could come to together as far as their parallel would-be-queen crises of subjectivity are concerned. For Goneril, her assertions of power in Albany seem very much a desperate grab for control over something in her life, or a way of proving to herself that all of Lear’s fatherly manipulations can’t wholly strip her of her worth in life or life of its whole worth to her, so I'd be really intrigued by what she might make of Lady Macbeth's more darkly rapturous insistence on "sovereign sway." On the one hand, Lady Macbeth's calling on "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts" and her cravings for everyone to be "the same in act and valour" as they are in their hearts seems to mirror a lot of what Goneril found attractive in Edmund, but I think Lady Macbeth would also be able to understand her on a whole other level ("Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done't" - oh maaaaaan), and I’d love to see how that kind of dynamic might work. tl;dr Goneril could use someone on her wavelength and on her side, is what basically I'm saying with this prompt, and you write any of this happening with Lady Macbeth, I'll love it forever, so I'm wide open for anywhere you'd like to take this.
Lady Macbeth (Macbeth)/Ophelia (Hamlet)
Okay, I know this is somewhat arbitrarily informed by my thinking "welp, I can hypothetically throw any of my favourite Shakespeare ladies together for crossover requests," but... I actually do think the fic for this could be absolutely amazing, if you're inspired to write it, so I'm going ahead and putting this out there. For me, a lot of the power in Ophelia's storyline comes from the way she can only reveal her malcontention with society and its constraints in the extremity of her alleged madness (whether it's the genuine unravelling of her character or a striking kind of political performance or something in between), in ways that could be really complementary to Lady Macbeth's renunciation of humanity and her subsequent torment. So although Ophelia’s kind of been absorbed into literary culture as a symbol of fragile, blighted innocence, I think she and Lady Macbeth could be particularly fascinating together, as a study in women who’ve pushed against the boundaries of acceptable femininity and who’ve both found themselves on the edge of human existence.
Ophelia chooses a mermaid's waters as her final native element, Lady Macbeth asks for murderous spirits to turn her milk to gall, and both of them get frozen in these supernaturally-tinged moments of abdication from their plays' human worlds - but in their scenes of sleepwalking/madness, both of them are plagued by their knowledge that "we know what we are, but know not what we may be," so if you'd like to write anything where they get chance to put their uneasy minds together, I'd LOVE to read it. Maybe in an AU timeline, Ophelia is sent to the Scottish court at around the time Laertes is in France, and she gets some kind of Corrupt the Cutie arc when Lady Macbeth realises she's the perfect audience for her "look the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't" pro-tips. (And if so, how does that compare to the way Ophelia has to perform at the Danish court? Is it just as terrible, or does Lady Macbeth's urgings toward duplicity help her actually grasp the things she wants, for once?) Or maybe Claudius and Gertrude try to ship a mad Ophelia towards England like Hamlet before her, only for her to wash up on the shores of Lady Macbeth’s Scotland - and for Lady Macbeth to find herself a sibyl/Lear’s Fool-esque voice of conscience in the meads. (Hey, if the trailer’s anything to go by, Marion Cotillard's Lady Macbeth seems to spend a lot of her time wandering around in Pre-Raphaelite fields, so it could work!) Like I say, I'm really open for anything with these two. Courtly intrigue and prophecies, madness and guilt, "affliction, passion, hell itself," old men with so much blood in them and all the ways Ophelia and Lady Macbeth try to deal with the stains they leave behind - it's all super relevant to my iddy Shakespearian interests, and you’d be amazing for going there with this ridiculous prompt, so I’m 10000% sure that I'll love anything you come up with for this pairing. <3
Ophelia (Hamlet)/Juliet Capulet (Romeo and Juliet)
This is very much Shakespeare Crossover Femslash Requests: The Tragic Maidens Who Deserved Better From Life Edition. Because I love Ophelia and Juliet as two somewhat wary romantics who tried so hard to persevere, despite being constantly batted around by others' politics, and I'd love to see what might come of them being thrown together. They're both so bright and passionate, even when they’re tangled up in all the trapping of tragedy, and I think they could contrast and complement each other in some really fascinating ways.
I could definitely see Juliet’s dreamy, philosophical qualities being attractive to Ophelia, with her tendencies towards "music vows," and I'd be really curious as to what Juliet would make of Ophelia. Their characters are both so shaped by their conflicting doubts and desperations when it comes to love (Juliet's "swear not by the moon" manifesto/Hamlet's "doubt thou the stars are fire..." poem to Ophelia), and they’re also both girls who have to play the pawn to their families in increasingly awful ways, and I think anything that looked at how they might relate to each other on those levels would be gorgeous. Ophelia seems to be the more cautious and introverted of the two, the more painfully aware of the limits of pawndom and the more likely to champion a delicate approach to courtly machinations, but there’s so much defiance and pain that comes out in her "mad" scenes, and I'd love to see some of that explored next to the more open kind of quickness and fieriness that we in Juliet. So, do they have a wildly AU arranged marriage that actually works out, as they get to know each other and overcome all their scepticisms together? Or do they meet at some court revel or otherwise by chance, and form a much more perilous kind of attachment? If so, does Juliet's deviousness and Ophelia's caution see them through, or does Juliet still have cause to say "I should kill thee with much cherishing"? Or does entirely different transpire between them? Anything for these two would be lovely, and I love all that's dark and bright in their characters, so definitely take this prompt any way you'd like, and I'll be completely thrilled. :D
Hannibal
(Abigail Hobbs/Bedelia du Maurier, Abigail Hobbs/Chiyoh)
Abigail Hobbs/Bedelia du Maurier
Because my low-level crackshipping of this got kicked up about a thousand notches when I was watching Bedelia’s arc in season 3, oh man. SUCH PARALLELS, MUCH PAIN, SO FEMSLASHABLE WOW. I love them both for their ambiguity, and all the complexity surrounding their darker impulses, and the way they walk the line between killer/victim - so on one level, I could see them having a very headily suspenseful, Hitchcockian kind of courtship, since they’re both women who define and protect themselves through their distance and reserve. And yet when all the tower-climbing is over and done with, I think they could understand each other in a way the no one else ever has, because damn, they’ve both gone through so much as Bluebeard’s favourites, and I'd absolutely love any fic where they’re brought together under the shadows cast over them by cannibal ~persuasion.
Prompt-wise, I'd especially love an AU ending to season 2 where Hannibal leaves for Europe with Abigail and Bedelia, and the women find themselves turning to each other in their gilded murder cage (and wind up sticking together, when Hannibal leaves them to go find Will?). Or maybe something where ghost!Abigail takes a break from hanging around cathedrals with Will and goes to check in on Hannibal and Bedelia, or an AU where Bedelia didn't retire and became one of Abigail's psychiatrists, following the death of Garrett Jacob Hobbs. I’d be totally here for any kind of idol crush thing from Abigail’s perspective, or something that looks at how knowing Bedelia might influence who Abigail becomes later in life, but I’d also love anything that focused on what Bedelia might make of Abigail, and gives us her Abigail-centric thoughts on murder ingénues (and I’d be all over fic where, while Bedelia always has adequate armour to deal with Hannibal, it’s Abigail who has her losing all her ice queen chill). I’d also love to know more about younger Bedelia, and her pre-Hannibal backstory, so anything that plays with the parallels between them to that end would also be glorious - when Bedelia looks at Abigail, does she see her anything of past self, or only the mirror to her current predicament? Does Abigail ever strike her as a crushable wounded bird-type figure, or does she always see the survivalist shining through?
Also, this a super niche prompt that’s entirely centred around my idtacular literary obsessions, but, if you’re a fellow fairytale/Angela Carter enthusiast: picking up on the symbolism of Bedelia as Bluebeard’s wife, I’d also be 100000% good with a more triangular, femslashy retelling of both Bedelia’s European Adventures and “The Bloody Chamber,” where Abigail is there as a fellow wife figure with a rare talent for corruption and an overdeterminedly symbolic throat “like the stem of a young plant” - and where Bedelia maybe gets to be the woman who puts a “single, irreproachable bullet” through Bluebeard’s head. Ahem. But honestly, anything to bring them in the same room together would be wonderful. To go slightly show negative for a moment, Abigail’s final demise and Bedelia’s implied post-s3 fate are two of the things I’d most like to see revised/retold in fic (not least because of “she deserved it anyway” overtones that the latter had), so anything that gets them together and gives them either a different fate or a different perspective on their fates would be great, and I'd be beyond fascinated to see how things might play out between them however you’d like to take this. <3
Abigail Hobbs/Chiyoh
So, at witnessed above, season 3 of Hannibal did nothing to stop me from making it my mission in life to ship Abigail with all the women she’s never actually met. And the parallels between Abigail and Chiyoh were SO STRONG, I couldn’t resist. They’re both women who are defined by their affinity with hidden, dreamlike worlds and by their core values of/longing for independence, and the similarities between their situations and their outlooks are so compelling - I’d love to see something that got them together and explored that. Chiyoh’s steely enough to put her whole life on hold and send Hannibal a decades-long “lol nope” message re: trying to influence her, and Abigail’s all about survival-via-seeming-adaptation, yet they’re both women who’ve essentially spent their whole lives in waiting rooms, trying to wrest control over their own narratives, and they could do SO MUCH as a team. So, in a nutshell, I’d really love to know what they’d make of each other, and what kind of stories they could make for themselves together.
As far as prompts go, I’d love to see something with Abigail meeting Chiyoh in Lithuania. Comparing Chiyoh’s very coolly self-sufficient, Artemis-like introduction in “Secondo” with Abigail’s more openly tormented hunting scenes of “Potage,” I’d be really fascinated to see how Abigail would fare in Chiyoh’s domain, and see how Chiyoh would respond to having another Mischa substitute in her care. Perhaps in an AU where she’s been sent there as a test from Hannibal (with optional overtones of the Artemis and Iphigenia myth?), or where she survived “Mizumono” for real and she’s there to investigate with Will? Or, alternatively, I’d also love to see an AU where it’s Abigail who Chiyoh finds at Hannibal’s place in Florence (with optional high!Bedelia). I’d love to see more of Chiyoh’s metamorphosis, and maybe see something of an Abigail Rising arc at the same time, so some kind of “Dolce” AU where they team up to be two of Hannibal’s most terrible creations together would be THE most fabulous.
Also, there’s something so innately fairytale about them both, with Abigail’s complex stepfather relationships and Chiyoh’s guardianship of/imprisonment within Lecter Manor, so I’d also be completely here for any kind of folklore retellings with them (Abigail as a Red Riding Hood or Snow White, and Chiyoh as a huntsman? Chiyoh as a Rapunzel, and Abigail as her wandering prince? Something where Abigail flees from GJH/Hannibal and stumbles across Lecter Manor when she’s lost in the woods, a la Hansel and Gretel?). But really, I’d love to see Abigail and Chiyoh hanging out in any capacity, and any snippet of interaction between them would be glorious. Stalking through the forest by the light of the moon, talking about deer and the night and stuff? Subverting their Mischa substitute legacies by living it up as the ersatz Countesses of Lecter Manor? Becoming free together and exploring the world side-by-side? Basically, I love that Chiyoh effectively won at being a secondary character on Hannibal and got to wander off into the horizon to do her own thing, and I’d love to see anything where Abigail finally got her moment of metamorphosis/becoming in the company of a woman who understands means of influence other than violence - so I’d be completely up for anything with them together, however you’d like to do it. :D
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
(Emma Pole/Flora Greysteel)
Emma Pole/Flora Greysteel
Oh man, I love all the women of JSAMN so much, and Flora and Emma both have a special place in my heart (along with Arabella, of course - but although I’m also totally here for Emma/Arabella, I’m more about happy poly Arabella/Jonathan + Arabella/Emma equations, and I didn’t want to put any too het-dependent requests here). I’d really love to see anything that features Emma and Flora finding all the happiness they deserve, and I bow down to whoever nominated this, because their being happy together would be the most perfect thing. They’re both so bright and confident and charming and curious when we first see them, and both a little bruised by their encounters with magic and magicians by the time their last appearances come around, but I definitely think they could bring out the best in each other, if they met.
As far as prompty scenarios are concerned - I love how Flora’s so self-assured when it comes to beauty/her possession of other traditional feminine virtues (that bit where she’s standing by the water because she knows how flattering the light of the waves are on her skin is A++++), and yet we also hear that she’s “inclined to blame herself” and a little uncertain in other ways, so I’d love to see her taken under the wing of someone as fierce and outspoken as Emma. And as far as Emma goes, I’d be all over something where Flora joins Arabella in her estimation as one of the best of women, and where this admiration maybe leads to some seduction/courtship/~learning to love~ fic where Flora gets beyond all Emma’s defensive walls and helps her ease into post-enchantment contentment. I’d love a how-they-met/got-together fic, whether that’s something that happens in Italy or England (or maybe even in Lost-hope, in an AU timeline where the Gentleman actually did steal Flora away before Jonathan could warn the Greysteels?). I’d also be especially fascinated by anything that looks at what Emma’s doing with herself, now she has her freedom back, whether it’s some kind of longer fic about her role in an era of magic revival or something more domestic, and I could see her doing SO MANY things that would be attractive to Flora. Is Emma an eminent lady of letters/polemic author, as her furious post-enchantment writing at the end of the book would suggest? If so, I’d love to see something where Flora has something of an idol crush on her, or where Flora’s tendency towards quasi-Byronic magical crushes really draws her into Emma’s orbit (because if there was ever a woman who they’d call mad, bad, and dangerous to know…). I’m also really intrigued by Emma’s pre-marriage love of magical history, and Flora’s own brief-but-lovely magical education with Jonathan in Italy, and I’d adore something where Emma eventually goes about founding some kind of magical legacy of her own, in opposition to the cold masculine magic that previously harmed her - does she try to establish a tradition of magical women, and if so, does Flora join her as a figurehead in the movement? But there’s so many ways this could go, and I’d be really excited to see anything that explores where they might end up together, so go for anything you have in mind with these two, and I’ll love reading it. <3333
Snow White and the Huntsman
(Snow White/Greta)
Snow White/Greta
So, I totally fell for this retelling because Snow White/Ravenna is such a beautiful bright towering beacon of femslash potential - but I love Snow’s relationships with all the women of the film, and her bond with Greta has another special place in my heart, teeny though Greta’s role may be. So, I’d really love to see anything that expanded on this. From what we see of Greta in the tower, it looks like she could definitely be a match for Snow in terms of resilience and determination: she’s resourceful enough to leave for Duke Hammond’s castle when she still has a chance to survive her village massacre, but also ready to stand tall and learn the worst of her fate once she’s captured. And, given their shared experiences as prisoners and women who’ve had their beauty fed upon by Ravenna, I could definitely see them having a particularly intense/intimate connection to each other that would lend itself so readily to some gorgeous fairytale femslash - and I’d be down with anything you’d like to do with these two, whether it’s missing scenes of their captive bonding or something that looks at where they might go post-movie.
Thinking of prompts for them: as I kind of hinted above, I’m really interested in the co-captives aspect of their relationship, especially since Snow’s lingering awkwardness in the wider world is one of my most favourite things about her, and I’d be fascinated to see how Greta might be particularly dear to her as someone who really knows what life was like as a prisoner. What was it like, for Snow to finally have a companion and for Greta to learn she still has a princess to rally behind? What did they talk about, in the tower together? Did Greta tell her all about village life, and did Snow ever dream of escaping with her? Did Greta think of Snow after the escape, when she was up there alone with all her youth stolen, and did she ever dare hope she’d live to see Snow again? And I’d also really, really love to see some post-crowning fic that explores their court life together - is Greta now one of Snow’s ladies-in-waiting, or one of her counsel advisors/confidantes? What were Greta’s thoughts, when Snow came to take her kingdom back, steelier and fierier and more resolved than ever? How do they adapt to castle life together, after lifetimes as prisoners/peasants? Does Snow ever take Greta to the forests, to see the fairies and the hart? Is Greta ever the star of her own fairytale narrative - and if so, is it as a Cinderella or a Rapunzel figure, in the grand tradition of all the Imprisoned/Downtrodden Girl Is Beloved By Royalty folktales? Or is it as something completely different? I’m really open for anything with these two, basically - all the fairytale themes of clever maidens and good queens and magic and longing and suffering and triumph are totally my thing, and any kind of fic with them would be BLISS.
Swan Lake
(Odette/Odile)
Odette/Odile
Okay, this might be slightly less wordy than my blatherings for the other canons, because ballet, but that’s absolutely no reflection on the request itself, because I would LOVE anything about Odette and/or Odile. Odette’s all kinds of glorious as in her role as the cursed, tragic queen - she’s yearning and melancholy and so regally distant and so otherworldly compared to the very human Siegfried and his court, even when she falls in love with him. And Odile - who is Odile? She’s a cruel, glittering seductress in her appearance at the ball, and she seems to have the freedom that Odette lacks, but she’s still got that otherworldly, queenly quality that’s probably my favourite thing about Odette. They’re both fascinating, and I’d honestly just love anything that takes a look at the kind of dynamic they might have as doubles to each other. I love stories about women who are complementary opposites - it’s one of my top femslash tropes, and obviously these two get right to the heart of that, so I’ll be absolutely thrilled by anything you want to do with them.
For prompts: there’s such rich pre-canon potential here! Have they ever met or interacted, before the ball? Does Odile ever watch Odette from afar (she does mock and imitate her at the ball, after all)? Does Odile have powers of her own, and if so, what kind of enchantress might she be to Odette? If you’d like to write something inspired by the stagings where Odette’s curse is broken by Rothbart’s death and she presumably goes on to become Siegfried’s queen, what happens to Odile in this scenario? Also, thinking about the logistics of an Odette/Odile piece that’s set post-ballet, I’m also really fond of stagings where the story ends with Odette and Siegfried still alive but separated forever, after the fallout from the ball - partly because I think Swan Lake is really poignant when it’s a fairytale built around the tragedy of betrayal and how magical/emotional rifts intrude on its central love story, and partly because it leaves things open for further Odette/Odile interactions. So if you’d like to do something which takes place after that kind of ending, that would be totally fantastic. Or if you want to go totally AU, or make up your own revised Swan Lake narrative which centralises their relationship, that would equally glorious.
(And on that note: MAGICAL CO-QUEENS. Magical co-queens are always a good option, for any of my pairings, so if you want to write something where they end up ruling over the lake of swan maidens and/or Siegfried’s kingdom together, YES PLEASE.)
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Thank you so much for reading, mystery author, and I really hope you have a good time writing for this exchange! See you on the other side. <3