I wish that I could be there right now

[reflectedeve]

Okay, I feel like talking about yuletide some more . . . people over at the community have been posting links to posts they've made musing over fandom choices, and now I feel like talking about mine.

Some fandoms I'm thinking about requesting. . . there are quite a few more, here, than I can actually request, but I don't think I'll decide for certain 'til I see the finished fandoms list, so why not.

1. Birds of Prey - Oracle, Black Canary, Catwoman (comics, femslash)
I'm actually more of a Marvel reader than DC, but well, my favorite pairing is currently split among core X-books. I was thinking about requesting classic Excalibur, but I think that's still too "big" a title . . . anyway, I digress. These two titles are probably too big as well, and as I discover that there are a lot of other things I want to read, I'm thinking that I won't suggest them. But . . . I picked up the original trade by Dixon a few months ago, and I was very taken with it. Of the original team-up, both Dinah and Babs have a great deal of appeal for me--one a pouty, sexy, but cynical super-type, the other an amazing geek who misses being super--and I love their symbiotic relationship. (Have to admit, all those scenes posted on scans_daily haven't hurt, either!) I was also grabbed by the storyline involving Catwoman, and her brief bits of banter with both Dinah and Babs. Ed Brubaker's more recent run on Catwoman has been one of my favorite "super" titles of all-time, as well.

Femslash is my favorite, always, and a threesome--with voyeurism!--how hot would that be? Plus they are all characters with a nice bit of depth to explore, and while BoP is a major and popular book, I haven't really been exposed to any fanfic. (I'll have to actually research and see what I can see.)

2. Y: The Last Man - Hero Brown, Beth II(comics, femslash?)
I've loved this comic since I started reading it, but I have to admit . . . I tend to be focused on pairing fic more often than not, and there wasn't really a pair I wanted more of (outside canon) until recently. However! Hero Brown and Beth "II" (the pregnant one, who lives in a church) have recently teamed up, as it were: two of my favorite secondary characters. Between Hero's issues and visions, and Beth's strength of mind and knowledge of theology (my pet topic), they're a duo made in heaven, for me . . . either in gen, or femslash, though I'd prefer the latter.

I have a real thing for women adventuring together--can you tell? ;)

3. Fairy Tales - Snow Queen, Gerda (femslash)
Hans Christian Andersen wrote two of my favorite fairy tales ever: The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen. It's a wrench to pick between them, but I've worked with TLM a great deal myself already. Besides, I'm fascinated by the moral/magical conflict presented in TSQ.

I find the notion of a Snow Queen/Gerda seduction very appealing, either sexually or spiritually, but ideally both. I was concerned about Gerda being too underaged (I don't like chan at all), but the story ends with a declaration that she and Kay have grown up, so it shouldn't be an issue. Besides, I like the age difference, so long as nobody's a child. (Gerda/robber girl would be lovely, too.)

I asked for this one last year and didn't get it, but I may try again anyway, as I like it so much.

4. Historic RPF (pirates) - Mary Read and Anne Bonney (femslash?)
There isn't a great deal of detail about the lives of these two famous female pirates--though I have recently come accross some information about their childhoods--but it's enough to be somewhat tantalizing. From the sound of it, they were independent, resourceful women, as well as brave ones (fighting alone when the navy came to capture their drunken crew). Of course, piracy wasn't nearly so pretty a picture as we tend to paint, but heck, this would be fanfic. Also, it involves women (well, woman: Mary) in drag, and that just clinches my interest. ;) Femslash would be just awesome, as usual.

5. Fingersmith - Sue Trinder and Maud Lilly (book and movie, femslash, smut?)
I don't like this book quite as much as Tipping the Velvet, but it's certainly interesting. I'm just always so frustrated with where it cuts off! After all that build-up, there's so little of the relationship between Sue and Maud. Ideally, I'd really love to read some smut between the two of them, exploring Maud's knowledge (which of course has never been applied). That reference to the words for "what [she] want[s] to do to [her]" is so tantalizing. And wow, it would be particularly amazing to have a story that dealt with the issue of stories and books . . . the library setting, Maud writing, Sue learning to read, even just reference to Victorian pornography in general. Mmm.

5. Howl's Moving Castle - Howl, Sophie (book, het)
It's all very well that Sophie and Howl are ready to live "happily ever after" at the end of the novel, and I rather appreciate the lack of sentimentality involved. However, I still want to know how it happens, how their relationship changes (or is fulfilled), all that nonsense. Something set between Howl's Moving Castle and The Castle In The Air. (There was a fun little story set after the end of HMC, last year, but I'd like something that focuses more on Sophie and Howl together, specifically.)

Other fandoms I'm considering at this point are Peter Pan (book or movies; Peter Pan, Wendy/Tiger Lily; femslash or gen), Jeeves & Wooster (tv; slash), ElfQuest (Cutter/Skywise slash), From Eroica With Love (Klaus/Dorian slash--getting them into bed would be nice), Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles (Lymond/Philippa, het) and Finder (comic; Marcie, Jaeger; gen).

I'm not going to talk about which fandoms I might offer to write (there's some overlap, but not a lot). I'm paranoid about giving too much away. ;)

Interestingly, one of my biggest challenges in the past hasn't been picking obscure enough material; this is really the first year that I've had potential trouble with that.

Rather, some of my fandoms are just too obscure. I've suggested and sometimes requested a number of things several times now, but I just have to give up, because nobody's familiar with them, or interested. There are the really random movies I love, like Victor/Victoria, which is just random (but awesome); The Court Jester, which is pretty damn old (but classic); and The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother, which no-one has even heard of. Then there's the indie comics, such as Desert Peach, Charm School, and Blue Monday . . . I'm worried about Finder.

Throw in a couple of books that nobody's read, like Patricia C. Wrede's The Raven Ring, or even better, Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla, and I wind up slightly frustrated.

Even with my less obscure "obscure" fandoms, I've a big preference for femslash. That's something of a disadvantage, even with yuletide, where there's a much greater concentration of it than in almost any of my fandoms.

I almost always wind up with fic for the least obscure fandom I've asked for (or offered). My first year, I wound up both reading and writing Good Omens, which I love, but which is really due to be dropped at this point.

Mind you, I've never heard of a good third of the fandoms that get written for (much less suggested). So it's hardly all bad: I get recommendations for some pretty fantastic things. And it's hardly all bad to get fic for a fandom you rarely see, even if it's not as wildly obscure as I start to imagine. Mine is a small frustration: it just came to mind very vividly as I was narrowing my immense list down from forty-four to six. ;) You know how that goes.

Comments

[mutecornett.livejournal.com]

Well! This awesome comic book library is all the more reason to move to Portland, then! :)