Dear Rarewomen Author

[dhampyresa]

Thanks a lot for writing for me! This letter is almost all-comics-all-the-time, because I have a real fondness for comics as a medium. I hope my prompts are good enough but if they aren't or you're just not inspired, feel free to ignore them.

If you have any questions, such as 'can I write your fic in French?' (answer: 'yes') or 'are you familiar with the character of Erda in Wagner's Ring?' (answer: '...I've seen Rheingold and Siegfried, does that count?') or, really anything at all, please contact me.

In general, I prefer plot to introspection and hopeful fics to hopeless ones. I quite like worldbuilding, so long as it doesn't read like a geology textbook. I love love love anything related to mythology and folklore. If you want to write a fic in the styles of the Norse Sagas, or in Kalevalan meter or that reads like a fairytale? I would be delighted. Canon-divergent/what-if AUs are a great love of mine as is time-travel. I also like crossovers where i am familiar with all fandoms involved, so if you want to write one go ahead. PWPs aren't really my thing, but I don't mind porn as part of a story. I'm really more of a gen person but if you want to write femslash or het or poly, feel free. Do stay clear of underage and incest, please.

My ao3 name is sevenofspade. You can poke around my LJ or look at my yuletide letter if you want.

Here be a certain amount of spoilers.



La Geste des Chevaliers-Dragons: Any (Nominated characters:  Hessei (La Geste des Chevaliers-Dragons), Soriko (La Geste des Chevaliers-Dragons), Letty (La Geste des Chevaliers-Dragons), Farida (La Geste des Chevaliers-Dragons), Amarelle (La Geste des Chevaliers-Dragons) )

Look, I will be happy with anything you write about these characters. Literally anything. If you want to write fic about what happened to Letty and Hessei after they run away, or about how Soriko knows so much about the Fort's secrets, or the tangled webs of politics Farida has to deal with in both the Order and its relation to the nations of that world, or about Amarelle being a badass in the war, or about what happened to the great matriarch after she was demoted, or what any of the kids lives were like before the congregation happened, or about how they ended up with the order, or about a stealth mission by Amarelle and Soriko to go kill a dragon in Sarde territory or about Amarelle and Letty getting reunited years later, or about anything really, anything at all.

La Geste des Chevaliers-Dragons ('The Saga of the Dragon-Knights') is a series of French comicbooks/bande déssinées. Each volume tells an independent story and is illustrated by a different artist. The basic gist of it is: Women fight dragons. All the characters nominated are from volume 11 "Toutes les mille et une lunes", because, in my opinion, it has the strongest art and the strongest story. I'm not saying the series in general doesn't have flaws (most of the albums have the knights in vastly impractical armour and some of the worldbuilding is a bit awkward) but this album is pretty much flawless, imho. If you feel up to it and want to expand on the worldbuilding, please do! Of the characters, Amarelle is probably my favourite but I love all of them.



Locke & Key: Any (Nominated characters: Kinsey Locke, Miranda Locke, Nina Locke, Erin Voss, Ellie Whedon)

I love all the characters in Locke&Key. I will be happy with any fic in this fandom. You can write fic about the Locke kids discovering new keys (they can be silly keys, like the key whose only power is to make people look good in hats or serious keys that change the course of the series, like a key that allows you to go back in time), or about Miranda and Kinsey teaming up to fight the Whispering Iron somehow, about an AU in which Ellie Whedon doesn't die, about Kinsey/Jackie/Jamal/Scott and their epic frindship, about Erin getting her memories back, about Dodge being a literal eldritch horror from out of Lovecraft, about Nina and how she deals (or not) with the keys, about Kinsey deciding to fight crime and be a superhero because why not, about Miranda's exepriments and experiences with the gender key or about her one-woman war against the Redcoats or or or... I'll be genuinely happy with anything.

Locke&Key is a really amazing comic. I'm in awe of the way everything is set up from the very beginning and how it all comes together. There's this sense that anything can happen and anything most likely will, from the moment at the end of the first issue when you realise that this is a fantasy comic after all (I can hear that door slam every time I think of that scene) all the way to the most recent issues, passing through the ending to Keys to the Kingdom that blew my tiny mind. I'm also impressed by how real the characters feel and I desperately want them to have a happy ending, no matter how ridiculous it might be in context. In my head, they all live happily ever after and that counts for something, right? I also feel like this is the perfect setting for writing just about any trope and have in-canon justification.



DCU - Comicverse: Bette Kane, Cassandra Cain, Kate Kane, Margaret Sawyer, Nell, Stephanie Brown (DCU - Comicverse), Zatanna Zatara

I'm not terribly well read in the DC comic universe, but I've read every Batwoman issue in the DCnU and some earlier ones, all of Batgirl v3 and most of everything Stephanie Brown's ever been in, as well as all of Zatanna's own series and most of Justice League Dark. On the whole, feel free to use any and all characters you want and set your fic whenever you want, I can always look it up if I'm unfamiliar. Here are some prompts, feel free to ignore them. Stephanie Brown investigates what happened to the universe and why Cass and her aren't in it anymore. A day in the life of Maggie Sawyer. Bette Kane figting her demons. Nell being Batgirl and teaming up with Proxy. Kate Kane having adventures in a place that isn't Gotham, like Paris or Metropolis. Zatanna saves the day with stage magic and not backwards-speaking magic. Cassandra Cain becomes an internet meme. Anything would be nice, really.

I'm fairly new to DC and I'm not really liking the reboot so far. Most of my reading has been in the pre-reboot DCU. Here are some more prompts, because why not: Has anyone ever made a 'Nightwing and Flamebird' joke at Bette Kane? Cassandra Cain teams up with Cassandra Lang (Marvel comics) to get her back to her universe. Cass Cain and her adventures in the glorious world of books. What about an AU where Bruce Wayne never became Batman and Kate Kane started the Batfamily as Batwoman instead? How does Maggie Sawyer react when she learns that Kate is Batwoman? Batwoman and Batgirl team up. The continuing friendship of Nell and Damian Wayne. Anything inspired by Stephanie's Black Mercy hallucinations in Batgirl 24. Zatanna faces off against Klarion and/or they team up. The Zatanna in the DCnU is the same one as the DCU, she's just biding her time to fix things.



Runemarks Series - Joanne Harris: Any (Nominated characters: Mandy (Runemarks), Hel (Runemarks), Crazy Nan Fey, Maggie Rede, Maddy Smith)

I love all of these characters and would gladly read anything about them. I'll give you some prompts, but feel free to ignore them. What happened to Maddy Smith between Runemarks and Runelight? Did Nan Fey also have adventures with One-eye when she was younger? I'd like to know about Mandy: what's it like to be raven who is also a girl? has the situation at the end of Runelight changed anything for Hel and her kingdom? What about Maggie, will she ever come to terms with who her family is?

Runemarks is basically post-apocalyptic dystopian Norse-myths-based YA. It starts with the phrase "Seven o'clock, on a Monday morning, five hundred years after the end of the world, and goblins had been at the cellar again..." and it only gets more awesome from there. I really like the world building and how much punch the revelations have, even the ones that are foreshadowed beforehand. I feel strangely happy, knowing I'm not the only person who ships Hel/Baldr. The use of the Elder vs the Younger Futhark is clever. Re-reading the books is great, there are so many textual and meta-textual clues that you miss at first read who then hit you in the face on re-read. I love the way it pulls on tiny bits of the myths and draws them out to their natural conclusion: of course Mimir hates the Aesir, why wouldn't he? I wish we saw more of the characters that aren't Maddy, Loki or Odin, but the last two (and their relationship) is pretty much pitch perfect to my idea of the myths. And Maddy! I love her for how stubborn she is and how smart she is and how believable she is.



Norse Mythology: The Völva (Norse Mythology)

I've always been fascinated by the völva, who she is, where she comes from, what her motivations are. Why doesn't she have a name? Is her prediction of Ragnarök the biggest troll campaign in Norse Mythology? Where does her power to see the future come from? I'd really love anything about her. Feel free to use any character from any mythology you want. Maybe she has a Seers Anonymous meeting with the Delphi Oracle on the week-ends.

I've sometimes said that Norse myths was my first fandom and while it might not be strictly true, as I've first started reading fic for Naruto and was probably fannish about other things before (I've always been fannish and made up stories in my head about canons), it certainly has lots of tropes I love. It's got crossdressing, genderbending, shapeshifting, secret identities, oaths of loyalty and what happens when these get broken. It also has a strong undercurrent of predestination vs free will, which is one of my favourite themes. Yes, Loki's children are the end of everything, but if Odin hadn't treated them the way he did, would they have turned out the same way? I sincerely doubt it. This theme is personified by the völva: maybe her making the prophecy is the very thing that sets the world onto the path of chaos and maybe it isn't. Besides, that she's also a fascinating character. You've got thisgiantess who can see the future and who even the Allfather fears and that's a very interesting place for a character to be in.



Marvel (Comics): Cassandra Lang, Illyana Rasputin, Kavita Rao, Layla Miller, Leah 2 | The Herald, Rachel Summers, Valeria Richards, Wanda Maximoff

I could try to make a list of every Marvel comic I've read, but that would be complicated, a list of the ones I haven't, even more, so fell free to use any character/setting/etc you want, I can always look it up if I need to. Here are some prompts, but fell free to ignore them. Feel free to go completely wild too: if you want to write future!fic where Valeria Richards is Doctor Doom and Illyana Rasputin is Queen of Hell, that's more than fine by me. Kavita Rao saves the day with science. Layla Miller and her time in Latveria. Wanda Maximoff and her friendship with Hope or her relationship with the Phoenix. Actually, fic about Illyana, Rachel or Wanda dealing with the Phoenix sounds great. What did the Herald/Leah 2 do before Everything Burns? Was she trolling Loki all along? How Cassie Lang saved herself and came back from the dead. Rachel Summers tries to teach between emergencies.

I've read (what feels like) a lot of Marvel comics, but it's been all over the place. I'll go ahead and give you some more prompts, but feel free to ignore them. Cassandra Lang babysits Valeria Richards. Cassie shrinks to sub-atomic levels and enters the strange/charm world of  quarks and quantum physics. Illyana Rasputin finally summons the Elder Gods and promptly proceeds to banish them back. Kavita Rao teams up with Illyana and investigates how magic works. Kavita Rao and the prank wars of the office of pure empirical science. Layla Miller and how she deals with (not) knowing stuff/how the future will pan out. My main reaction to everything Burns was: "fuck canon, the Leahs live", so if you can make that work it'd be brilliant. How did Leah become the Herald? I really like that one panel page in X-men Legacy 262 where Rachel's psychic battle is represented in various ways (chess match, playground fight, armoured knights, etc) and I'd be really interested in anything exploring how that/telepathy in general works. Valeria is very interesting, especially with the parallels to Doom, like at the end of Hickman's FF/F4 run, when she echoes Doom's earlier "Here I can build". I really want to know what's up with that and what her long term goals were. I also really like little Valeria who makes light sabers for fun and really really enjoys science. Wanda Maximoff and Zatanna Zatara (DCU comics) talk shop magic. Wanda tutors Hope Summers in the way of being a badass lady who can reshape the universe with a thought.


Have fun writing!