Dear Femslash Ex Writer (2018)
Aug. 11th, 2018 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scioscribeDear Femslash Ex Writer
Thank you for writing for me! I loved even getting a chance to write about these ships, so I hope the below is helpful, but feel free to strip the letter for parts and go in your own direction. I love this exchange and am excited for whatever you’ll write. I’m scioscribe on Tumblr and on AO3.
Likes
enemies-to-lovers, enemies-to-friends, opposites attract, conflicting worldviews and priorities, emotional vulnerability, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, fix-its, sympathetic bad guys/terrible people with moments of goodness or vulnerability, redemption, pining, obvious feelings that don’t quite get admitted to, unconventional gestures of affection, partnerships, power dynamics, ambiguously intense relationships, found family, first-time stories, betrayal with reconciliation, character death, amnesia, characters forced to cooperate, forced proximity, bedsharing, huddling/cuddling for warmth, 5 + 1 fics, slow-burns, fake/pretend relationship, arranged marriage/marriage of convenience, power couples, worldbuilding, magical realism, undercover work, loyalty, identity porn, complicated relationships, codependency, morally gray characters, moral complexity, long relationships that go through a lot of changes, werewolves with pack dynamics, canon-divergence AUs
Historical- and canon-typical language, violence, attitudes, and darkness-levels all okay to include.
Sex Likes/Kinks
BDSM, spanking (including breasts, thighs, and pussy), clothed sex, wall-sex, rough sex, dubcon/consent play/ambiguous consent, teasing, anal play/sex, oral sex, frottage, fingering, gags, dirty talk, hand and finger kink, hair-touching, nipple play, characters giving orders/instructions, roleplay, talking during sex, emotional sex, sleepy/lazy sex, humorous sex scenes, enthusiastic sex, tenderness, loss of virginity, bad/awkward sex (either charmingly funny or depressing), coming untouched, coming in pants, exhibitionism, collaring, people getting mussed, orgasm delay/denial, overstimulation, edging, begging, historical period- or location-specific sex, sex toys, praise kink, marking/bruising/biting
DNW
explicit sex for characters under sixteen, ageplay, modern AUs, mundane AUs, prolonged hospitalization, knotting, scat, vore; for the crossover ships involving Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I DNW the comics canon.
Carrie - Carrie White/Chris Hargensen, Chris Hargensen/Sue Snell, Carrie White/Sue Snell
Carrie White/Sue Snell
I’m all for real romance here, but also all for the dark or bittersweet, whatever you prefer. Carrie’s ghost haunting Sue after the canonical ending? Carrie somehow pulling Sue along in her wake when she leaves town after burning down the prom, complete with creepy dubcon mind-fucks? (That scene in the book of her brutally going through Sue’s memories has always given me chills.) Divided loyalties and the ongoing toll of telekinetic powers? An AU where Carrie’s powers are awakened by her sexual awakening with Sue? Maybe Sue starts getting Carrie’s powers transmitted to her somehow? I’m also all for use of telekinesis during sex in ways both fun and dark and for romantic use as well.
Carrie White/Chris Hargensen
This is an excellent enemy-ship. Look, Chris canonically likes rough sex and gets off on mutual spite, so we are all owed Carrie/Chris hate-sex with telekinetic kink. I tend to see this ship as full-on dark, so my mind immediately goes to Carrie Lives AUs where Chris is somehow pressured or blackmailed into protecting her or where something Carrie does with her powers leads to the two of them slipping off this plane of reality altogether on prom night. But also: Chris getting her revenge for missing prom by manipulating Carrie into a fake relationship or just taking advantage of Carrie’s rock bottom social status and desperate desire to be liked for favors that get rewarded with a kiss. Just--darkness and awfulness and maybe some blood play.
Chris Hargensen/Sue Snell
Ethical popular girl and unethical (and possibly sociopathic) popular girl. What is their history like? A few moments together between boyfriends that weren’t supposed to mean anything? An actual relationship that one of them wanted more than the other? What if Chris had targeted Sue for her revenge instead of Carrie, taking umbrage at Sue’s moral stance--what would she have done? If they had both lived, what would the aftermath of prom have been like, with the two of them among the only people who know the full story? How do they deal with the scrutiny and attention? Does Chris begin to actually feel any guilt, and does Sue sympathize with that, or find it to be too little too late? How would they get along as adults? (Given the format of the book, with all the excerpts from fake documents, I would totally read a mocked-up lesbian news profile of Chris and Sue all grown up and together and complicatedly loving and hating each other at the same time.)
Crossovers - Buffy Summers/Hela, Buffy Summers/Nebula, Faith Lehane/Valkyrie, Eilonwy/Keladry of Mindelan
Buffy Summers/Hela
So many delicious possibilities here. What if whatever realm Hela was imprisoned in had had a trap door that let her escape to Sunnydale? Does she come through with or without her powers? What if when Buffy had died, she had woken up in a cozy little Hela-controlled Underworld, Hela having worked out some deal with Glory? Do they both need to use their combined efforts to break out? Or what if Hela had never been imprisoned and had instead tried to take over Earth, and Buffy had had to fight against her? Enemy-sex? Does Hela consider Buffy the de facto most powerful person on Earth and decide to court her in a Hela-ish way, agreeing to spare Earth if Buffy marries her? A depowered Hela survives Ragnarok only to find herself on Buffy’s doorstep with complicated feelings about super-strong blonde do-gooders? Hot sex, leather pants, bondage, super strength, kink, enemies-to-lovers, mythology...
Buffy Summers/Nebula
I love Buffy/fucked-up people trying to redeem themselves and learn how to deal with the world, and in a weird way, she and Nebula seem like they would be a perfect match: I can see Nebula fascinating Buffy and Buffy grounding Nebula. So what if Nebula had been sent to reconnoiter Earth for Thanos, pre-GotG, and had run into Buffy? What if Thanos had purged Earth and taken on Buffy as one of his daughters? What if they met after the Snappening, when Buffy is exhausted by the latest apocalypse and Nebula is grieving and enraged, and they teamed up to kill Thanos? I’d love to see h/c involving Nebula’s body mods, passionate/tender sex, gradually developing feelings, culture clashes, etc.
Faith Lehane/Valkyrie
Two hot, complicated, angsty women with a lot of problems in their pasts trying to move on together. Post-Snappening Valkyrie lands on Earth and winds up working with Faith on some sort of quest? Faith in space--for literally whatever reason you come up with, I’m there for this--running into the fleeing Asgardians and being taken on as a second Valkyrie? Culture clashes? Hot, super-strong sex? Does Faith get a crush on Val first, and does she think she has a good chance there? I’m all for past Faith/Buffy, if you want to make a thing of Faith being drawn towards women who are like her but didn’t take her walk on the dark side. Hookups that start off casual and then build feelings and mutual pining?
Eilonwy/Keladry of Mindelan
Eilonwy comes to the Tortall court as a guest and Kel is assigned to protect her or to show her around the country? Given women’s narrower roles in Prydain, I can see Eilonwy being thrilled and intrigued by this Lady Knight, and Kel quickly warming to Eilonwy’s cleverness. I love stoic matched up with chatty. Plus, tons of loyalty kink potential if Kel becomes Eilonwy’s sworn protector: kneeling, hand-kissing, etc. Lots of camping out where Eilonwy, given her questing experience, is scrappier than Kel first thought. Tortall-Prydain mutual intrigue and confusion. Physical contrast, especially emphasizing Kel’s height and build and butch haircut.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle - Bethany Walker/Martha Kaply
These two are so cute together and I love how much fun and experimentation is built into their relationship. What if ending the game had meant that they ended the storyline and the active danger and then were just in Jumanji, this weird, controlled, inescapable environment? I’d love to see Bethany and Martha falling in love while stuck in bodies not their own, including Bethany getting to try out that penis and Martha getting to work on her flirting and do more sexy dance-fighting. Or what if they got out but the game kept multiplying, so it turned up in the App Store? Of course, the team would have to gear up to keep taking on the game, so they’d get to try out other bodies and skill-sets and adventures. But even aside from all the game stuff, I’d just love any post-movie stories with these two. Bethany’s had a little bit of a sexual awakening after being saved by “Ruby” and watching her fight, and now she’s crushing on Martha, who is convinced she’s the one with the hopeless feelings? Other people don’t understand the weird new connection between the popular girl and the loner geek girl, but their friendship keeps building and turns into something more. Dates, cute flirtation, bonding, weird Jumanji PTSD/hang-ups, etc.
Mansfield Park - Mary Crawford/Fanny Price
I love the contrast in their worldviews and personalities (and Fanny thinks Mary is excessively pretty!); they have a great blend of sparks, conflict, and sincere admiration. What if instead of Henry vowing to make Fanny fall in love with him, Mary vows to make Fanny think of her as her closest friend? She spends months cultivating their relationship and pretending to fall more in line with Fanny’s beliefs, but then she starts to genuinely change, and their “friendship” starts to cross over into something more complicated? What if Mary had gone to visit Fanny in Portsmouth and had either decided to spirit her away or had inserted herself into the life and circumstances of the Price family? How does Fanny feel about her glamorous quasi-friend seeing her family’s circumstances? And I’d love to see their first time in bed--I’m really intrigued by the idea of them losing their virginity together when they both have no experience but have hugely different levels of sexual awareness. Fanny’s utter ignorance of what to do against Mary’s false bravado. What do they try? Do they wind up with anything that’s not part of the “normal” playbook?
MCU - Hela/Valkyrie, Ava Starr/Nebula, Valkyrie/Sif, Gamora/Nebula
Hela/Valkyrie
These two have sizzling, spectacular potential for both enemies-to-lovers and lovers-to-enemies. If they were involved before Hela’s fall, what was their relationship like? Was Valkyrie loyal to Hela before Hela started becoming too bloodthirsty, or were things always contentious between them? How did Hela relate to the Valkyries in general? Was she their commander or a different thing entirely? I’m all for any Old Asgard worldbuilding you want to slip in here. Or what if Thor and Loki had succeeded in knocking Hela out of the Bifrost and she had been the one to land on Sakaar? Is the Grandmaster powerful enough that he could wind up ensnaring her to be his new champion, and if so, how does Val feel about that? Hate-sex, messed-up mutually-loathing dubcon? Feelings start to develop? Gritty semi-redemption arc for Hela? Or what if Val had been trapped in Hela’s prison with her for all those years? Would she sway Hela to her side or would Hela sway her to hers? I love redemption arcs, but also the idea of Val and Hela, power couple of darkness, breaking out at Odin’s death and leading a horrible conquest. Or would they just wind up eventually killing each other?
Ava Starr/Nebula
I love the instability they both have. They’ve both lived lives where they’ve been in constant pain and haven’t had much control over their own bodies; the control that they’ve had has been channeled towards making them as strong and unbeatable as possible. Does Ava’s strange energy draw Nebula to Earth while she’s searching for a weapon she can use against Thanos? Post-Snap, desperate for quantum energy to stabilize herself, does Ava hitch a ride into space in the hopes of finding more access to the quantum realm? I just like the idea of these two colliding, all rough edges and agony and desperation, being drawn to each other, and maybe being able to help each other.
Valkyrie/Sif
The perfect ship for illuminating their similarities and their differences. Post-Ragnarok, once the Ark picks up Sif, is she starstruck at running into the last surviving Valkyrie? Is she then disillusioned, or does she hold on firmly to the idea that Val is every bit as honorable as she has always been? I like the idea of Sif being the equivalent of the Valkyrie armor--something shiny to put on to remind of her who she used to be, but also something that maybe doesn’t necessarily fit her anymore. Were the Valkyries anything like what Sif imagined? How does Val feel about the contrast between her old comrades-in-arms and her new motley crew with only one other female warrior? Athletic sex, sparring leading to sex, weird Asgardian courtship rituals, stoicism, idealism vs. cynicism, comments from the Revengers peanut gallery, and costume porn?
I’d prefer the story not to rely on Agents of SHIELD canon, since I’m not familiar with that.
Gamora/Nebula
These two break my heart. I’d love anything that digs into the fraught messiness of their dynamic--Nebula’s insecurity and her love and hate for Gamora, Gamora’s more recent realization that Nebula had always wanted them to be sisters, Gamora’s newfound family and Nebula’s antisocial tendencies, the body modifications, the sheer crackling heat between them. Did they have any kind of relationship before GotG? I’m drawn to the idea that sex as comfort and consolation was pretty typical among Thanos’s “children,” and that Nebula’s concept of family has been so totally warped and controlled by Thanos that she thinks this is normal and doesn’t distinguish at all between her sister and her lover. Pining-while-already-having-sex is always a trope I love, too. Or what if they’d broken away from Thanos together and both become Guardians, or if Nebula had joined the Milano crew after Vol. 2? It would be great to see her trying to get used to this completely different environment and puzzling out her relationship with Gamora, and Gamora trying to figure out if her present is tainted by having her past following her around, and trying to sort out her own feelings. I’m also always up for Soul Stone shenanigans where Gamora is able to come back--and maybe come back wrong?--after Infinity War. Ghost-sex? Nebula trekking into the Underworld to bring Gamora back?
Original Works - Amazon/Greek Woman, Bodyguard/Musician, Classic Hollywood Scriptwriter/Classic Hollywood Actress, Confidential Informant/Handler, Dethroned and Dishonored Queen/Lone Loyal Female Knight, Dutiful Female City Guard/Female Thief Who Keeps Getting Caught, Female Private Eye/Femme Fatale, Princess Entering an Arranged Marriage/Her Princess Bride, Psychic/Paranormal Investigator
Amazon/Greek Woman
I really love the idea of a Greek woman with a much more limited set of possibilities coming face-to-face with an Amazon who feels none of those restraints. That combination of attraction, envy, wonder, and curiosity is just so potent. Maybe the Greek woman is wealthy, and has always lived in highly-controlled luxury, and the Amazon’s roughness appeals to her; maybe she’s poorer, and the strength seems glamorous. How do they meet? Does the Greek woman get shipwrecked on the Amazons’ island, or does the Amazon come to mainland Greece for some reason? An Amazonian ambassador to Greece who falls in love with one of the high-born women around the government or with one of the servants or slaves that her culture isn’t used to ignoring? I also just love the feel of ancient Greece, so costume porn of togas and Amazonian armor, food porn of banquets eaten by hand, and gorgeous marble buildings would all make for terrific details and scene-setting.
Bodyguard/Musician
I love bodyguard romances: the intimacy of being in close quarters with someone, the complex power dynamics of one person being the employer and the other person being physically stronger and more intimidating, the constant possibility of danger, the potential for hurt/comfort, the class issues, everything. I would especially love butch bodyguard/femme musician, with high mutual attraction. Admiring muscles, fight skills, target practice; admiring talent and glamour. I’m also a sucker for the musician writing a song about her bodyguard, especially covertly; for the bodyguard getting hurt protecting the musician and then getting comforted; for slow-builds where they don’t like each other at first (maybe the bodyguard is distant, or doesn’t want the job, or the musician seems high-maintenance or shallow, or hates violence, or assumes that the bodyguard isn’t smart enough to keep up with her). I’m okay with any kind of musician here--highly-managed pop star, classical violinist, folk artist, writes-her-own-songs artist, anything--and with any situation leading to the bodyguarding, whether that’s “immediate threat from a stalker” or just routine security on a tour.
Classic Hollywood Scriptwriter/Classic Hollywood Actress
So many awesome possibilities! I love classic Hollywood and its polished glamor with the tawdriness just underneath. And this pairing has so much flexibility. Is the actress demanding, insisting on multiple rewrites that the scriptwriter has to resentfully accommodate--before their late-night revision sessions lead to intimate conversations or just passionate hate-sex? Are they in a relationship and juggling the demands of the actress maintaining her studio-mandated public image, complete with fake boyfriend? Are they working on a movie together and slowly falling in love through flirtation? Do they love watching each other work, getting off on competence, talent, and wit? Is there costume porn? Screwball comedy banter? Noir intrigue? I love it all.
Confidential Informant/Handler
This is one of my all-time favorite dynamics. I love all the complications of control and morality and loyalty kink that you get with this: the handler has to keep sending her CI back into danger and maybe manipulating or blackmailing her to get her cooperation, the informant takes risks she shouldn’t because she trusts her handler or just wants to please her. Does the CI want to be an informant, or is the handler putting pressure on her because of a crime she’s committed? Does she view her informing as a continuous risk she wants to get rid of--at least consciously--or is it a shot at redemption? Is she involved in whatever illegal activity she’s reporting on, or is she more of a bystander? If the latter, what’s her role, and does it require her to maintain another relationship at the same time? Angst, identity porn, voyeurism, handcuffs, emotionally fraught sex, hurt/comfort, rescues, moral ambiguity?
Dethroned and Dishonored Queen/Lone Loyal Female Knight
All the loyalty kink in the world. What happened to get the queen dethroned and dishonored? Was she the victim of a coup or some Henry VIII-style divorce, or is it something darker that she was actually culpable in, something where it’s understandable that all her support except for the knight fell away? Why does the knight stay loyal to her? What did she give up to stay with her queen? Are they settled in some remote location? On the run together? What does the knight do to help keep the queen alive, and can the queen ever protect the knight in return? Pining, butch/femme, body appreciation, kneeling, Dom/sub, isolation, us against the world, complicated feelings about being stuck with only one person?
Dutiful Female City Guard/Female Thief Who Keeps Getting Caught
I love the idea of a bizarre courtship that plays out over multiple arrests, where the guard keeps diligently tracking down the thief and the thief keeps stealing partly to keep seeing her. Do the thefts escalate? How does the the thief show her feelings to the guard through her crimes? Does the guard want the thief to stop stealing, or is she secretly disappointed if it’s a long time between arrests? How does their attraction start and how does their relationship build over time? Does the thief hope to entice the guard to a life of crime? Does the thief decide to reform for the guard’s sake? Gratuitous use of handcuffs always welcome.
Private Eye/Femme Fatale
I love f/f noir so much. I especially like historical noir and will suspend some disbelief for a wisecracking, hardboiled female PI--maybe she used to be the front office girl, but since her boss was killed, she’s taken over the business and is taking on any case she can to make ends meet?--coming face-to-face with a knockout woman she can’t be sure she trusts. (I’m good with either true femme fatale or a seeming femme fatale whose motives and acts are questionable but is ultimately not trying to kill or frame anyone.) Costume porn, with forties hats and gowns. People smoking sexily. Classic noir dialogue. Climactic gunflights. I just love the private eye being in a little over her head and maybe in danger, smart though she may be, and still being drawn to the femme fatale like a moth to a flame. Is she able to eventually get the upper hand through some ruthlessness of her own? Do they wind up getting away with a crime together?
Princess Entering an Arranged Marriage/Her Princess Bride
I adore arranged marriages and marriages of convenience. Are they both princesses, or is one of them being elevated to that rank by the marriage? What are the political circumstances behind the marriage, and how do they both feel about it? Are their homes significantly different, to the point where the one who moves is going to have a ton of culture shock? Are they required to consummate the marriage on the first night, and if so, how awkward dose that make things, and if not, what’s the tension like between them as they build towards that? Are they two dutiful people trying to make this work or is one or both of them resentful? Is one of them instantly fairly happy with her lot, while the other isn’t? Any previous partners they would have preferred to have married? I love enemies-to-lovers, awkwardness-to-love, slow burns, bedsharing, forced proximity, etc., so I love basically everything that goes along with this.
Psychic/Paranormal Investigator
I love cynic/true believer and science/intuition ships, and I’ve always liked the idea of this ship. Is the paranormal investigator skeptical, and does she have to be won over into believing the psychic even as she’s being won over by her personally? Or are they working together, with the investigator already accepting the psychic’s validity and thrilled to have her along to stir up more activity? Bickering into attraction and love. Rivals to lovers. Geeky investigator girlfriend trying her psychic girlfriend’s patience with endless experiments to test her powers. Spooky haunted houses, outright horror, science fiction: anything that has the two of them going up against a bigger force.
Thoroughbreds - Amanda/Lily
Sleek, thoughtful, tense and full of crime and queer subtext: this movie is so very much my thing. I love Amanda and Lily’s fucked-up combination of intimacy, manipulation, and loneliness. AU where Lily does get sent to Brookmore and Amanda, as a fellow Girl with Severe Behavioral Problems, follows? Codependent roommates with mutual protectiveness? Gothic romance where Tim kills Mark but Mark hangs around as a vengeful ghost and Lily and Amanda have to deal with it? Ambiguous, unsettling hangouts, maybe with pool sex? More weird social norm-breaking moments? Lily secretly getting off a little on Amanda’s comparatively-unwashed scent? Possessiveness and longing? Sex with luxury porn? “Let’s fuck on Mark’s rowing machine!” Future fic where the two of them reunite? Do they have a Heavenly Creatures-style reputation that starts to give them ideas? Did they get a Lifetime movie that they wind up watching together?
You’re the Worst - Gretchen Cutler/Lindsay Jillian
I love their petty awfulness and garbage-monster behavior, from the abuse of a froyo sample policy to an attempted turkey-baster baby-trap, and I especially love how that combines with their deep affection for each other. (Also, they’re both incredibly hot. Porn is more than welcome.) I’d love to see their old college days--Lindsay trying to help Gretchen through her depression, with or without attempted magical healing sex? Or tropey Harlequin-style AUs: Lindsay as one of Gretchen’s publicity clients? (A spoiled and ditzy former backup singer now trying to make it on her own with her breakout single “New Phone, Who Dis?”) Rich Lindsay and slacker personal assistant Gretchen? Sugar baby hangers-on to rich guys who find themselves more interested in each other? Or any kind of canon-divergence AU, like Gretchen going home with Lindsay in the pilot rather than Jimmy, or the two of them hooking up when Lindsay was trying to end her marriage by banging everyone in sight or after Jimmy leaves Gretchen on the hill?
Thank you for writing for me! I loved even getting a chance to write about these ships, so I hope the below is helpful, but feel free to strip the letter for parts and go in your own direction. I love this exchange and am excited for whatever you’ll write. I’m scioscribe on Tumblr and on AO3.
Likes
enemies-to-lovers, enemies-to-friends, opposites attract, conflicting worldviews and priorities, emotional vulnerability, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, fix-its, sympathetic bad guys/terrible people with moments of goodness or vulnerability, redemption, pining, obvious feelings that don’t quite get admitted to, unconventional gestures of affection, partnerships, power dynamics, ambiguously intense relationships, found family, first-time stories, betrayal with reconciliation, character death, amnesia, characters forced to cooperate, forced proximity, bedsharing, huddling/cuddling for warmth, 5 + 1 fics, slow-burns, fake/pretend relationship, arranged marriage/marriage of convenience, power couples, worldbuilding, magical realism, undercover work, loyalty, identity porn, complicated relationships, codependency, morally gray characters, moral complexity, long relationships that go through a lot of changes, werewolves with pack dynamics, canon-divergence AUs
Historical- and canon-typical language, violence, attitudes, and darkness-levels all okay to include.
Sex Likes/Kinks
BDSM, spanking (including breasts, thighs, and pussy), clothed sex, wall-sex, rough sex, dubcon/consent play/ambiguous consent, teasing, anal play/sex, oral sex, frottage, fingering, gags, dirty talk, hand and finger kink, hair-touching, nipple play, characters giving orders/instructions, roleplay, talking during sex, emotional sex, sleepy/lazy sex, humorous sex scenes, enthusiastic sex, tenderness, loss of virginity, bad/awkward sex (either charmingly funny or depressing), coming untouched, coming in pants, exhibitionism, collaring, people getting mussed, orgasm delay/denial, overstimulation, edging, begging, historical period- or location-specific sex, sex toys, praise kink, marking/bruising/biting
DNW
explicit sex for characters under sixteen, ageplay, modern AUs, mundane AUs, prolonged hospitalization, knotting, scat, vore; for the crossover ships involving Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I DNW the comics canon.
Carrie - Carrie White/Chris Hargensen, Chris Hargensen/Sue Snell, Carrie White/Sue Snell
Carrie White/Sue Snell
I’m all for real romance here, but also all for the dark or bittersweet, whatever you prefer. Carrie’s ghost haunting Sue after the canonical ending? Carrie somehow pulling Sue along in her wake when she leaves town after burning down the prom, complete with creepy dubcon mind-fucks? (That scene in the book of her brutally going through Sue’s memories has always given me chills.) Divided loyalties and the ongoing toll of telekinetic powers? An AU where Carrie’s powers are awakened by her sexual awakening with Sue? Maybe Sue starts getting Carrie’s powers transmitted to her somehow? I’m also all for use of telekinesis during sex in ways both fun and dark and for romantic use as well.
Carrie White/Chris Hargensen
This is an excellent enemy-ship. Look, Chris canonically likes rough sex and gets off on mutual spite, so we are all owed Carrie/Chris hate-sex with telekinetic kink. I tend to see this ship as full-on dark, so my mind immediately goes to Carrie Lives AUs where Chris is somehow pressured or blackmailed into protecting her or where something Carrie does with her powers leads to the two of them slipping off this plane of reality altogether on prom night. But also: Chris getting her revenge for missing prom by manipulating Carrie into a fake relationship or just taking advantage of Carrie’s rock bottom social status and desperate desire to be liked for favors that get rewarded with a kiss. Just--darkness and awfulness and maybe some blood play.
Chris Hargensen/Sue Snell
Ethical popular girl and unethical (and possibly sociopathic) popular girl. What is their history like? A few moments together between boyfriends that weren’t supposed to mean anything? An actual relationship that one of them wanted more than the other? What if Chris had targeted Sue for her revenge instead of Carrie, taking umbrage at Sue’s moral stance--what would she have done? If they had both lived, what would the aftermath of prom have been like, with the two of them among the only people who know the full story? How do they deal with the scrutiny and attention? Does Chris begin to actually feel any guilt, and does Sue sympathize with that, or find it to be too little too late? How would they get along as adults? (Given the format of the book, with all the excerpts from fake documents, I would totally read a mocked-up lesbian news profile of Chris and Sue all grown up and together and complicatedly loving and hating each other at the same time.)
Crossovers - Buffy Summers/Hela, Buffy Summers/Nebula, Faith Lehane/Valkyrie, Eilonwy/Keladry of Mindelan
Buffy Summers/Hela
So many delicious possibilities here. What if whatever realm Hela was imprisoned in had had a trap door that let her escape to Sunnydale? Does she come through with or without her powers? What if when Buffy had died, she had woken up in a cozy little Hela-controlled Underworld, Hela having worked out some deal with Glory? Do they both need to use their combined efforts to break out? Or what if Hela had never been imprisoned and had instead tried to take over Earth, and Buffy had had to fight against her? Enemy-sex? Does Hela consider Buffy the de facto most powerful person on Earth and decide to court her in a Hela-ish way, agreeing to spare Earth if Buffy marries her? A depowered Hela survives Ragnarok only to find herself on Buffy’s doorstep with complicated feelings about super-strong blonde do-gooders? Hot sex, leather pants, bondage, super strength, kink, enemies-to-lovers, mythology...
Buffy Summers/Nebula
I love Buffy/fucked-up people trying to redeem themselves and learn how to deal with the world, and in a weird way, she and Nebula seem like they would be a perfect match: I can see Nebula fascinating Buffy and Buffy grounding Nebula. So what if Nebula had been sent to reconnoiter Earth for Thanos, pre-GotG, and had run into Buffy? What if Thanos had purged Earth and taken on Buffy as one of his daughters? What if they met after the Snappening, when Buffy is exhausted by the latest apocalypse and Nebula is grieving and enraged, and they teamed up to kill Thanos? I’d love to see h/c involving Nebula’s body mods, passionate/tender sex, gradually developing feelings, culture clashes, etc.
Faith Lehane/Valkyrie
Two hot, complicated, angsty women with a lot of problems in their pasts trying to move on together. Post-Snappening Valkyrie lands on Earth and winds up working with Faith on some sort of quest? Faith in space--for literally whatever reason you come up with, I’m there for this--running into the fleeing Asgardians and being taken on as a second Valkyrie? Culture clashes? Hot, super-strong sex? Does Faith get a crush on Val first, and does she think she has a good chance there? I’m all for past Faith/Buffy, if you want to make a thing of Faith being drawn towards women who are like her but didn’t take her walk on the dark side. Hookups that start off casual and then build feelings and mutual pining?
Eilonwy/Keladry of Mindelan
Eilonwy comes to the Tortall court as a guest and Kel is assigned to protect her or to show her around the country? Given women’s narrower roles in Prydain, I can see Eilonwy being thrilled and intrigued by this Lady Knight, and Kel quickly warming to Eilonwy’s cleverness. I love stoic matched up with chatty. Plus, tons of loyalty kink potential if Kel becomes Eilonwy’s sworn protector: kneeling, hand-kissing, etc. Lots of camping out where Eilonwy, given her questing experience, is scrappier than Kel first thought. Tortall-Prydain mutual intrigue and confusion. Physical contrast, especially emphasizing Kel’s height and build and butch haircut.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle - Bethany Walker/Martha Kaply
These two are so cute together and I love how much fun and experimentation is built into their relationship. What if ending the game had meant that they ended the storyline and the active danger and then were just in Jumanji, this weird, controlled, inescapable environment? I’d love to see Bethany and Martha falling in love while stuck in bodies not their own, including Bethany getting to try out that penis and Martha getting to work on her flirting and do more sexy dance-fighting. Or what if they got out but the game kept multiplying, so it turned up in the App Store? Of course, the team would have to gear up to keep taking on the game, so they’d get to try out other bodies and skill-sets and adventures. But even aside from all the game stuff, I’d just love any post-movie stories with these two. Bethany’s had a little bit of a sexual awakening after being saved by “Ruby” and watching her fight, and now she’s crushing on Martha, who is convinced she’s the one with the hopeless feelings? Other people don’t understand the weird new connection between the popular girl and the loner geek girl, but their friendship keeps building and turns into something more. Dates, cute flirtation, bonding, weird Jumanji PTSD/hang-ups, etc.
Mansfield Park - Mary Crawford/Fanny Price
I love the contrast in their worldviews and personalities (and Fanny thinks Mary is excessively pretty!); they have a great blend of sparks, conflict, and sincere admiration. What if instead of Henry vowing to make Fanny fall in love with him, Mary vows to make Fanny think of her as her closest friend? She spends months cultivating their relationship and pretending to fall more in line with Fanny’s beliefs, but then she starts to genuinely change, and their “friendship” starts to cross over into something more complicated? What if Mary had gone to visit Fanny in Portsmouth and had either decided to spirit her away or had inserted herself into the life and circumstances of the Price family? How does Fanny feel about her glamorous quasi-friend seeing her family’s circumstances? And I’d love to see their first time in bed--I’m really intrigued by the idea of them losing their virginity together when they both have no experience but have hugely different levels of sexual awareness. Fanny’s utter ignorance of what to do against Mary’s false bravado. What do they try? Do they wind up with anything that’s not part of the “normal” playbook?
MCU - Hela/Valkyrie, Ava Starr/Nebula, Valkyrie/Sif, Gamora/Nebula
Hela/Valkyrie
These two have sizzling, spectacular potential for both enemies-to-lovers and lovers-to-enemies. If they were involved before Hela’s fall, what was their relationship like? Was Valkyrie loyal to Hela before Hela started becoming too bloodthirsty, or were things always contentious between them? How did Hela relate to the Valkyries in general? Was she their commander or a different thing entirely? I’m all for any Old Asgard worldbuilding you want to slip in here. Or what if Thor and Loki had succeeded in knocking Hela out of the Bifrost and she had been the one to land on Sakaar? Is the Grandmaster powerful enough that he could wind up ensnaring her to be his new champion, and if so, how does Val feel about that? Hate-sex, messed-up mutually-loathing dubcon? Feelings start to develop? Gritty semi-redemption arc for Hela? Or what if Val had been trapped in Hela’s prison with her for all those years? Would she sway Hela to her side or would Hela sway her to hers? I love redemption arcs, but also the idea of Val and Hela, power couple of darkness, breaking out at Odin’s death and leading a horrible conquest. Or would they just wind up eventually killing each other?
Ava Starr/Nebula
I love the instability they both have. They’ve both lived lives where they’ve been in constant pain and haven’t had much control over their own bodies; the control that they’ve had has been channeled towards making them as strong and unbeatable as possible. Does Ava’s strange energy draw Nebula to Earth while she’s searching for a weapon she can use against Thanos? Post-Snap, desperate for quantum energy to stabilize herself, does Ava hitch a ride into space in the hopes of finding more access to the quantum realm? I just like the idea of these two colliding, all rough edges and agony and desperation, being drawn to each other, and maybe being able to help each other.
Valkyrie/Sif
The perfect ship for illuminating their similarities and their differences. Post-Ragnarok, once the Ark picks up Sif, is she starstruck at running into the last surviving Valkyrie? Is she then disillusioned, or does she hold on firmly to the idea that Val is every bit as honorable as she has always been? I like the idea of Sif being the equivalent of the Valkyrie armor--something shiny to put on to remind of her who she used to be, but also something that maybe doesn’t necessarily fit her anymore. Were the Valkyries anything like what Sif imagined? How does Val feel about the contrast between her old comrades-in-arms and her new motley crew with only one other female warrior? Athletic sex, sparring leading to sex, weird Asgardian courtship rituals, stoicism, idealism vs. cynicism, comments from the Revengers peanut gallery, and costume porn?
I’d prefer the story not to rely on Agents of SHIELD canon, since I’m not familiar with that.
Gamora/Nebula
These two break my heart. I’d love anything that digs into the fraught messiness of their dynamic--Nebula’s insecurity and her love and hate for Gamora, Gamora’s more recent realization that Nebula had always wanted them to be sisters, Gamora’s newfound family and Nebula’s antisocial tendencies, the body modifications, the sheer crackling heat between them. Did they have any kind of relationship before GotG? I’m drawn to the idea that sex as comfort and consolation was pretty typical among Thanos’s “children,” and that Nebula’s concept of family has been so totally warped and controlled by Thanos that she thinks this is normal and doesn’t distinguish at all between her sister and her lover. Pining-while-already-having-sex is always a trope I love, too. Or what if they’d broken away from Thanos together and both become Guardians, or if Nebula had joined the Milano crew after Vol. 2? It would be great to see her trying to get used to this completely different environment and puzzling out her relationship with Gamora, and Gamora trying to figure out if her present is tainted by having her past following her around, and trying to sort out her own feelings. I’m also always up for Soul Stone shenanigans where Gamora is able to come back--and maybe come back wrong?--after Infinity War. Ghost-sex? Nebula trekking into the Underworld to bring Gamora back?
Original Works - Amazon/Greek Woman, Bodyguard/Musician, Classic Hollywood Scriptwriter/Classic Hollywood Actress, Confidential Informant/Handler, Dethroned and Dishonored Queen/Lone Loyal Female Knight, Dutiful Female City Guard/Female Thief Who Keeps Getting Caught, Female Private Eye/Femme Fatale, Princess Entering an Arranged Marriage/Her Princess Bride, Psychic/Paranormal Investigator
Amazon/Greek Woman
I really love the idea of a Greek woman with a much more limited set of possibilities coming face-to-face with an Amazon who feels none of those restraints. That combination of attraction, envy, wonder, and curiosity is just so potent. Maybe the Greek woman is wealthy, and has always lived in highly-controlled luxury, and the Amazon’s roughness appeals to her; maybe she’s poorer, and the strength seems glamorous. How do they meet? Does the Greek woman get shipwrecked on the Amazons’ island, or does the Amazon come to mainland Greece for some reason? An Amazonian ambassador to Greece who falls in love with one of the high-born women around the government or with one of the servants or slaves that her culture isn’t used to ignoring? I also just love the feel of ancient Greece, so costume porn of togas and Amazonian armor, food porn of banquets eaten by hand, and gorgeous marble buildings would all make for terrific details and scene-setting.
Bodyguard/Musician
I love bodyguard romances: the intimacy of being in close quarters with someone, the complex power dynamics of one person being the employer and the other person being physically stronger and more intimidating, the constant possibility of danger, the potential for hurt/comfort, the class issues, everything. I would especially love butch bodyguard/femme musician, with high mutual attraction. Admiring muscles, fight skills, target practice; admiring talent and glamour. I’m also a sucker for the musician writing a song about her bodyguard, especially covertly; for the bodyguard getting hurt protecting the musician and then getting comforted; for slow-builds where they don’t like each other at first (maybe the bodyguard is distant, or doesn’t want the job, or the musician seems high-maintenance or shallow, or hates violence, or assumes that the bodyguard isn’t smart enough to keep up with her). I’m okay with any kind of musician here--highly-managed pop star, classical violinist, folk artist, writes-her-own-songs artist, anything--and with any situation leading to the bodyguarding, whether that’s “immediate threat from a stalker” or just routine security on a tour.
Classic Hollywood Scriptwriter/Classic Hollywood Actress
So many awesome possibilities! I love classic Hollywood and its polished glamor with the tawdriness just underneath. And this pairing has so much flexibility. Is the actress demanding, insisting on multiple rewrites that the scriptwriter has to resentfully accommodate--before their late-night revision sessions lead to intimate conversations or just passionate hate-sex? Are they in a relationship and juggling the demands of the actress maintaining her studio-mandated public image, complete with fake boyfriend? Are they working on a movie together and slowly falling in love through flirtation? Do they love watching each other work, getting off on competence, talent, and wit? Is there costume porn? Screwball comedy banter? Noir intrigue? I love it all.
Confidential Informant/Handler
This is one of my all-time favorite dynamics. I love all the complications of control and morality and loyalty kink that you get with this: the handler has to keep sending her CI back into danger and maybe manipulating or blackmailing her to get her cooperation, the informant takes risks she shouldn’t because she trusts her handler or just wants to please her. Does the CI want to be an informant, or is the handler putting pressure on her because of a crime she’s committed? Does she view her informing as a continuous risk she wants to get rid of--at least consciously--or is it a shot at redemption? Is she involved in whatever illegal activity she’s reporting on, or is she more of a bystander? If the latter, what’s her role, and does it require her to maintain another relationship at the same time? Angst, identity porn, voyeurism, handcuffs, emotionally fraught sex, hurt/comfort, rescues, moral ambiguity?
Dethroned and Dishonored Queen/Lone Loyal Female Knight
All the loyalty kink in the world. What happened to get the queen dethroned and dishonored? Was she the victim of a coup or some Henry VIII-style divorce, or is it something darker that she was actually culpable in, something where it’s understandable that all her support except for the knight fell away? Why does the knight stay loyal to her? What did she give up to stay with her queen? Are they settled in some remote location? On the run together? What does the knight do to help keep the queen alive, and can the queen ever protect the knight in return? Pining, butch/femme, body appreciation, kneeling, Dom/sub, isolation, us against the world, complicated feelings about being stuck with only one person?
Dutiful Female City Guard/Female Thief Who Keeps Getting Caught
I love the idea of a bizarre courtship that plays out over multiple arrests, where the guard keeps diligently tracking down the thief and the thief keeps stealing partly to keep seeing her. Do the thefts escalate? How does the the thief show her feelings to the guard through her crimes? Does the guard want the thief to stop stealing, or is she secretly disappointed if it’s a long time between arrests? How does their attraction start and how does their relationship build over time? Does the thief hope to entice the guard to a life of crime? Does the thief decide to reform for the guard’s sake? Gratuitous use of handcuffs always welcome.
Private Eye/Femme Fatale
I love f/f noir so much. I especially like historical noir and will suspend some disbelief for a wisecracking, hardboiled female PI--maybe she used to be the front office girl, but since her boss was killed, she’s taken over the business and is taking on any case she can to make ends meet?--coming face-to-face with a knockout woman she can’t be sure she trusts. (I’m good with either true femme fatale or a seeming femme fatale whose motives and acts are questionable but is ultimately not trying to kill or frame anyone.) Costume porn, with forties hats and gowns. People smoking sexily. Classic noir dialogue. Climactic gunflights. I just love the private eye being in a little over her head and maybe in danger, smart though she may be, and still being drawn to the femme fatale like a moth to a flame. Is she able to eventually get the upper hand through some ruthlessness of her own? Do they wind up getting away with a crime together?
Princess Entering an Arranged Marriage/Her Princess Bride
I adore arranged marriages and marriages of convenience. Are they both princesses, or is one of them being elevated to that rank by the marriage? What are the political circumstances behind the marriage, and how do they both feel about it? Are their homes significantly different, to the point where the one who moves is going to have a ton of culture shock? Are they required to consummate the marriage on the first night, and if so, how awkward dose that make things, and if not, what’s the tension like between them as they build towards that? Are they two dutiful people trying to make this work or is one or both of them resentful? Is one of them instantly fairly happy with her lot, while the other isn’t? Any previous partners they would have preferred to have married? I love enemies-to-lovers, awkwardness-to-love, slow burns, bedsharing, forced proximity, etc., so I love basically everything that goes along with this.
Psychic/Paranormal Investigator
I love cynic/true believer and science/intuition ships, and I’ve always liked the idea of this ship. Is the paranormal investigator skeptical, and does she have to be won over into believing the psychic even as she’s being won over by her personally? Or are they working together, with the investigator already accepting the psychic’s validity and thrilled to have her along to stir up more activity? Bickering into attraction and love. Rivals to lovers. Geeky investigator girlfriend trying her psychic girlfriend’s patience with endless experiments to test her powers. Spooky haunted houses, outright horror, science fiction: anything that has the two of them going up against a bigger force.
Thoroughbreds - Amanda/Lily
Sleek, thoughtful, tense and full of crime and queer subtext: this movie is so very much my thing. I love Amanda and Lily’s fucked-up combination of intimacy, manipulation, and loneliness. AU where Lily does get sent to Brookmore and Amanda, as a fellow Girl with Severe Behavioral Problems, follows? Codependent roommates with mutual protectiveness? Gothic romance where Tim kills Mark but Mark hangs around as a vengeful ghost and Lily and Amanda have to deal with it? Ambiguous, unsettling hangouts, maybe with pool sex? More weird social norm-breaking moments? Lily secretly getting off a little on Amanda’s comparatively-unwashed scent? Possessiveness and longing? Sex with luxury porn? “Let’s fuck on Mark’s rowing machine!” Future fic where the two of them reunite? Do they have a Heavenly Creatures-style reputation that starts to give them ideas? Did they get a Lifetime movie that they wind up watching together?
You’re the Worst - Gretchen Cutler/Lindsay Jillian
I love their petty awfulness and garbage-monster behavior, from the abuse of a froyo sample policy to an attempted turkey-baster baby-trap, and I especially love how that combines with their deep affection for each other. (Also, they’re both incredibly hot. Porn is more than welcome.) I’d love to see their old college days--Lindsay trying to help Gretchen through her depression, with or without attempted magical healing sex? Or tropey Harlequin-style AUs: Lindsay as one of Gretchen’s publicity clients? (A spoiled and ditzy former backup singer now trying to make it on her own with her breakout single “New Phone, Who Dis?”) Rich Lindsay and slacker personal assistant Gretchen? Sugar baby hangers-on to rich guys who find themselves more interested in each other? Or any kind of canon-divergence AU, like Gretchen going home with Lindsay in the pilot rather than Jimmy, or the two of them hooking up when Lindsay was trying to end her marriage by banging everyone in sight or after Jimmy leaves Gretchen on the hill?