Dear rarewomen author

[ninety6tears]

First of all, a big thank you! I'm really excited about this exchange and can't wait to see what you come up with.

I'm afraid my tastes for what I like/dislike seem to vary from fandom to fandom so it's hard for me to start with a more general list, but to take a crack at it:

-My rating preferences run the whole spectrum from G-rated gen to explicit PWP (if pressed, I'd say I prefer semi-explicit, but in most cases it really depends on what the author is good at doing, so just run with your usual thing). I've got no preference over POV/tense/narrative style, just use whatever makes sense to you!
-I love UST, I love some pining, I love some angst. I love friendship stories that really are love stories, conveying camaraderie with the same gradual discovery and warmth as is usually associated with romance. I can go for pretty much any AU premise except for A/B/O stuff and fix-it fic that is only there for the sake of being fix-it fic (even if I don't like a canon ending I'd rather read an altered ending to something because it's an interesting place to go with it, not so much because it's happier or whatever). If it's sort of a crazy idea for an AU or a fusion but comes from an inspiring concept or connection between the canons/tropes, I love that stuff, and I love thought-provoking fork-in-the-road AUs. You are welcome to poke around my LJ or my delicious bookmarks or my goodreads to see what fandoms I'm familiar with if the idea of doing a crossover appeals to you.
-I do not really like super-fluffy slice-of-life curtain fic stuff that has more emphasis on being in love than on falling in love. I'm more interested in first times and established relationships where there is still some level of conflict to be resolved; once they get very comfortable together, I get pretty bored. But I'm full of exceptions: If the main point of the story isn't so much the relationship and especially if there's a lot of humor, it can work for me, as long as there's something entertaining or moving the story along besides "Look how together they are."



Dublin Murder Squad series
Cassie Maddox, Lexie Madison, Rosie Daly, Germaine "Jamie" Rowan
This is really the teeny-tiny fandom of my heart and just about anything written for it or any of these characters would make me happy, but let it be known that Cassie/Rob is a big OTP of mine and anything to do with them would be great. I also really enjoy Cassie's relationship with Frank Mackey and would enjoy some speculative backstory about their professional relationship. Probably the only thing I really wouldn't enjoy is a story centered sentimentally around Cassie/Sam; if you want to, say, explore the difficulties of how Cassie's professional life affects her relationships and do a lot of acknowledgment of the engagement that would be just fine, but a story of them having a romantic walk on the beach probably isn't going to be my cup of tea. As for the other characters requested, I don't have very specific ideas and you can pretty much mess around with them however you want. This is the type of series that makes me try to imagine how some characters who we've never witnessed in the same room might interact with each other, and I find a big multitude of the recurring characters pretty interesting so you needn't be afraid to throw in any of the guys/unlisted characters.

Millenium Trilogy
Lisbeth Salander, Miriam Wu
For starters, I'm not going to be picky about whether you're writing with the books or one of the films in mind but I'll admit to not having seen the second or third of the Swedish film trilogy and being a little partial to how the Fincher version of TGWTDT captured what is to me the real spirit of Lisbeth's character. Still, the differences there are subtle so I'd be happy with anything. I'm kind of a confused but enthusiastic Lisbeth/Mikael shipper; I can't see them being really together but the throttling of her feelings for him by the end of the trilogy gave me a bit of the sad :/ So basically I'd love something shippy but not too idealizing, though they are also interesting as a platonic team so anything set after the third novel (or maybe filling in some spaces of the first one) could be a lot of fun. If I have anything specific in mind for Wu, I really love the idea of her and Paulo Roberto becoming close buddies after their confrontation with Niedermann, maybe getting together at the gym and trying to get Lisbeth to hang out with them from time to time. I am a bit of a Lisbeth/Mimmi shipper too.

The Stand
Lucy Swann, Dayna Jurgens, Susan Stern, Nadine Cross
Okay: I love love Lucy/Larry; or at least I love the idea of it, because so much of it was merely brushed over in the development, so anything exploring this relationship and filling in some of the turning points/unanswered questions about it (What was their state of mind when they first hooked up? How did they emotionally negotiate moving in together when it was probably the day after they'd had a serious talk about his feelings for Nadine? When did Larry really begin to love Lucy?) would be awesome. Lucy only gets a couple scenes from her POV but Larry's feelings about her are kind of cryptic too so at least a loosely alternating POV would be lovely to read if it's something you'd want to do. Also, I didn't list Fran here 'cause for me there's more than enough of her in the book, but I will admit to having contemplated the premise of Larry making it back from the Vegas journey instead of Stu and him and Lucy helping Fran raise Peter, either as some kind of OT3 or just a close family unit. As for Dayna, she's my favorite badass in the book and I could probably ship her with almost anyone. I really like the idea of Dayna/Susan and would love to know what that night was like when Susan went out to see her off to Vegas. Generally I see Dayna as very open-minded and flirtatious and obviously very brave, and I like to think she has a way of making these qualities contagious in her relationships with others. With all of the women in the novel who are more blatantly the good characters, I'd love to be hit with a surprising dark side to one of them, considering that King didn't hesitate to make his good guys harshly flawed in some ways. As for Nadine, there's hardly a wealth of fic about her so I would be happy with a lot of things, but I'm mostly interested in her background. To me her past is so ambiguous and heavily filtered through her perspective and I was never sure if it was only figurative for her to be described as adopted because she didn't get the right amount of love from her parents or if there always was something mysterious/preternatural about her. For me her tragedy started long before the apocalypse because of the way she's always been relatively alienated from others and if you can capture a sense of that, I will probably love it.

Comments

[maerhys.livejournal.com]

All of your DMS thoughts are my thoughts so completely. \o/

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

\o/

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

Okay, I hope you don’t mind but I am butting in to say that for DMS and The Stand I think I could have written this letter myself, lol. I really hope you get DMS fic because this fandom is my darling and anything written for it would make me, well, ecstatic :D But ooooh, Dayna/Susan. I’d definitely love to see some of that too.

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I actually wasn't the first who showed up to nominate for DMS (and of course I offered it too). We'll see if you get somethin' to read out of this ; ) And man, I think even if Stand fandom was pretty active I'd have been lucky to find Dayna/Susan; that idea kind of came out of nowhere when I was rereading some bits and I was like "Oooh, I want that!"
BTW, thank you so much for the comment on AO3! (I wasn't sure you'd be notified if I replied there? I think it does ask you for your email if you comment without an account? *shrug*) I always like to hear your thoughts <3

[cosetteferaud.livejournal.com]

So you didn't nominate DMS? Cool! --I mean, I am always happy to know there are people out there who want DMS fic besides the two of us ;). Aaah, now I am excited.

I remembered you mentioned you liked Dayna/Susan so I might have been looking for hints while reading, and then I reached that bit about the night they spent together before Dayna left to Vegas and I was all “I want to read that”, heh. The Stand has to be the novel with more potentially awesome relationships that never were properly developed or developed at all, which I am not sure is a good or a bad thing (I wonder who wants to read about Fran/Stu, btw? No one? xD)

Mmm… I am not sure whether you get a notification when you leave a comment on AO3 without an account (though I think so? They do ask you for your email). Truth is I read a lot of fic there but as I don’t have the said account I normally leave kudos unless I know the author. Anyway, you are very welcome. It’s the least I can do!! It was a beautiful story and if you ask me a perfect post Stand read (it made me feel so much better about Lucy/Larry in a way. Gotta say, Lucy's fate was the saddest thing, especially in comparison to Frannie).

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I am always happy to know there are people out there who want DMS fic besides the two of us ;) Haha, I know, right? :D

Gotta say, Lucy's fate was the saddest thing, especially in comparison to Frannie Seriously, I could write a whole book about that unfairness. Like I could deal a whole lot better with Larry's death if I wasn't left wondering what made Stu and Fran so special that they got their happy ending. *sigh* But Lucy will be okay in the end, I think, so I guess that's partly why I wrote the fic and I'm glad if it came across more hopeful on that front.