how can life become her point of view?

[reflectedeve]

comica_obscura assignments are out! Mine's quite doable, I think. I won't be able to start work on it right away, but it's something to look forward to.

So, in case my lovely writer happens by:

First of all, thank you so much for writing this story for me. The fact that you volunteered any of my characters makes you cool by default. I'm quite sure I'll enjoy what you write for me, so please relax and enjoy yourself. ^^

Now, I'm not particularly picky, and the few notes I put in my request email could be more than sufficient. However, I know that some people like to have a little more direction, and this journal is really new, so there's not a lot here to judge by. I'll give you some thoughts here . . . please feel free to ignore if you like. I may tend to babble on; I'm enthusiastic about these characters.

Biggest general points are these: character death, non-con, and incest are all themes I just don't enjoy reading about (to each their own). Femslash is almost always encouraged, and smut is readily accepted; neither are required, or anything like that. When pairings are involved, I'm particularly a sucker for "first times." When it's one-character focused, thoughtful and introspective appeals in particular; humor is great too. Or really, whatever you like.

Here are a few points about each of the characters I requested:

Rachel Summers/Grey - She's been my favorite superhero since I was a little girl, but I've been really disappointed with her characterization since the "Reload." I'm all for her growing, becoming more self-confident and less drowning-in-angst . . . but, I'm not for this, well, shallowness that she's been exhibiting. I also really enjoyed Rachel as the Phoenix (I thought she was a much more interesting one than Jean), and this sudden denial of the connection bothers me. I always found the interplay of the human and the cosmic to be quite interesting, and it suited Rachel's revolutionary nature. Oh, and to be a little shallow for a moment, myself: my OTP is Rachel/Kitty. From the True Friends mini to their heartwrenching goodbye in Excalibur #75 to their married vibe in X-Men: The End (not to mention Kate Pryde referring to the younger Rachel as "my love"), I love them. You certainly don't have to write a pairing fic, but if that's your urge, they are my preference. (I've always found Rachel/Franklin to be kind of boring, since we don't really know him.)

Nightfall - I've always loved Nightfall's strength. She was the first female Wolfrider to really be depicted as a fighter, but she's also a strong and loyal friend to Cutter and Leetah, and her relationship with Redlance is kind of beautiful. She just has a number of very rich relationships to explore. Also . . . one of the concepts in ElfQuest that most bothers me (even though it also fascinates me) is Recognition. Nightfall and Redlance chose each other as lifemates, and are referred to as having "chosen" Recognition for themselves as well (there seems to be no worry that they will meet and Recognize others somewhere down the road). This is a particularly intruiging notion, to me. (Other interesting Nightfall moments would be her personality in relation to war, and her encounter with Khavi when she was cocooned.)

Sister Grimm - I've really enjoyed watching Nico's character mature as Runaways progressed, from her fear and denial in the first "series" to the strong leadership role she has currently taken. I'm interested in any insight into her character: her thoughts on that role and her new strength, her relationship to her magic, her childhood, her thoughts on her parents . . . etc. I'm not particularly interested in her thoughts on/relationship with Alex, to be honest (my least favorite couple in the comic). Unsurprisingly, my favorite of her relationships was with Karolina (not just because they were the available f/f pairing; they had somewhat complementary personalities and abilities).

Doctor Alison Mann - I meant it: really, aside from death, just about anything goes. I adore Dr. Mann's snarkiness, her somewhat closed-off personality, etc. (It's true; the lesbian thing doesn't hurt, either.) I'm not quite up-to-date on current Y issues (I buy it in trade), but I'm very spoiled, so setting the story whenever is just fine. Knock yourself out. :)

Anyway, I hope that didn't look . . . demanding, because really, I'm not asking you to try and reflect or match any of the above opinions or ideas. Those are just in case you want some inspiration, and as you can see, I can talk on forever about my favorite characters. ;)

Thanks again, so much!

Comments

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

My assignment is exciting in a scary way almost. It's in a fandom I haven't written before, so I'm a bit worried, but also really looking forward to writing it. So yay for signing up.

And while this post is not about Rachel's characterization, your calling her "shallow" made me realize that that's exactly why her characterization has been annoying me lately. I mean, you know, I think Rachel has been through a lot of crap and all the angst is justified, but there is just no need for "All must revolve around me"-ness. Piotr coming back from the dead sent her into a fit because of how it'll affect her, and I didn't mind that so much because of my extreme Piotr hate, but she is supposed to be his friend. And her issues with the Emma/Scott thing also bug me because while Scott is an asshole for ignoring her, he really doesn't owe her anything because he isn't really her father. But she makes his relationship with Emma all about her. I don't remember her acting this way with Maddie. And Emma is actually about just as nice to her as Jean ever was, and it's like, "Dude, stop canonizing your dead mother. It's not like everyone isn't doing it already." If Jean hadn't been just as indifferent towards her as Scott usually is, it would actually make sense. But I don't remember Jean and Rachel ever having formed the bond that Rachel seems to think they had.

[reflectedeve.livejournal.com]

Hey, nifty. Now I'm all curious. :p I can't wait to see what's going to get written for this (not just my own story).

I guess Rachel has always had really strong (if conflicted) feelings about Jean; there was all the angst between her and X-Factor!Jean, and then their brief encounters in Excalibur #71 and X-Men #30 . . . also, Jean left her a shart of holoempathic crystal and the Marvel Girl uniform (Rachel was even communicating with "Jean" in the crystal at one point, which was kind of odd). So she clearly feels really close to her "mother." While the recent canonization, as you put it, weirds me out, the closeness did make sense to me . . . after all, they are so alike, and they've shared similiar experiences (the Phoenix, notably). She identifies with Jean.

(I do wish that they would acknowledge that Jean wasn't exactly her mother, even in her own time . . . the Phoenix-as-Jean, or with-part-of-Jean's-soul, whatever, was her mother. Of course, they've screwed with the concept of the Phoenix so much that it's really hard to navigate that sort of thing anymore.)

The rest, though, I quite agree with. Rachel was really upset that Jean was dead and that Scott and Maddy's child was a boy, but I never got the impression that she was angry at either of them at that stage. I can't recall if she's ever fought Emma previous to this. I mean, Emma and Jean were definitely rivals in more than just Scott's affections (going back to their first encounter), and there was the whole semi-adultery thing, with Scott falling into Emma's arms the minute Jean was buried). Still, Rachel's anger struck me as more whiny than anything. And despite the fact that she has traditionally been a little ball of angst, I never saw it as having that edge of pettiness. The way she reacted to Piotr was ridiculous.

Claremont has apparently confessed to having "de-aged" her slightly, but aside from that, he claims that she's been the same character as always. Obviously he's lost a lot of his old skill. (And his health, did you hear he had a collapse of some kind, and now the dialogue in "his" last few issues of Uncanny is being written by someone else?)

[prozacpark.livejournal.com]

I could understand Rachel's general worship of Jean, but it just annoys me. I know she identifies with Jean, but Jean is barely aware of her existence most of the time. Did Jean and she even meet after she came back from the time-stream thing? I mean...Faith identifies with Buffy, but she doesn't idolize her. And I wish that sometimes, Rachel would be angry towards Jean. Or you know, do something different. I'm very frustrated by how her entire existence now is dependent on her issues with Jean. I would like to see a single issue go by that doesn't remind us that Rachel is an inferior version of Jean. I think it's kind of like what being with Piotr does to Kitty. In Excalibur, I think that a new reader could come in, read random issues, and never realize Rachel's relationship to Scott and Jean. And I miss that. I miss her having an existence outside of her non-parents. She is, like, the immaturity of all the Scott/Jean shippers personified in a character. She is generally evil to Emma, bitches about Scott's cheating, and is constantly whining about Jean being dead.

I have been reading some Cable and X-man issues because of the Maddie love, and Jean is actually way nicer to both Nate and Cable than she ever was to Rachel. And I don't exactly get that. I feel that even if Jean and Rachel couldn't have the relationship Rachel wanted, I would have really liked to have seen them becoming friends because they do have a lot in common.

But Jean always has seemed a bit insecure to me when it comes to Rachel, and I haven't figured out why yet.

Rachel's angst was one of the reasons I liked her, but in Excalibur it was really well done. Because her memories were generally blocked by the Phoenix force, she was kind of upbeaty almost, which worked for me. And then she had random moments where the angst would come in. God, I miss Excalibur!Rachel so very, very much.

I'm interested in this deaging of Rachel. How old is she now? Please, tell me that she's not fourteen.

And no, I did not know about Claremont's health. I wonder who is the ghost writer because he seems to have Claremont's ability to suck down.

I didn't even realize that I had this much bitterness left. ;)

And I do like the idea of Phoenix as Rachel's parent. It's very mythic and awesome. I'm pretty sure we talked about the Rachel= Helen of Troy thing before.

Was there a particular issue that implied that Rachel was Phoenix's daughter? And what's the current status of Phoenix's relationship to Rachel? It's so hard to keep track of all this!