The Tradëscan Codex

Dear 3_ships Sailor:

If you check out my userinfo, you'll find a 'thon policy which implores that you be true first and foremost to the prompt and your muse, and to consider whether I'd like a story as, at most, a secondary concern. I relax that a bit for yuletide, in that I recognize there is a sense that a story for it is explicitly a gift in a way which most 'thon fics aren't, but I don't really think about 3_ships like that; I approach it more like a regular ficathon, where the writer is required to craft her story to my prompt but I don't assume I'm even going to like it.

That said, if you want, you can certainly feel free to surf through this journal to get a feel for me, and here's a little bit more, if you are interested, to help you understands how I relate to the specific texts and characters in the fandoms I've requested and what I might like.

I'll ramble a little more, because if I'm going to write this letter at all than I might as well. My particular kinks are those historically disenfranchised, especially children and women, and so in particular young women, being awesome and pwning the universe.

Looking over my requests, though, if there's a theme to them this year over and above "young women pwning the universe" (which is my eternal bulletproof kink) then it's "delicious amorality." Don't confuse amorality with simple unprincipledness, however; every woman (well, maybe not Madison) I've requested has her own code of conduct, whether it be the hacker code or simply complete egoistic narcissism, which she will not be made to compromise easily, if at all. They simply refuse to let anyone else define what those principles will be for them. Lilly Kane would no more sleep with a boy not up to her (unorthodox set of) standards than Adelle would willingly sacrifice a Doll or Nimueh would turn away from her religion.

I'd like a fic which is affirming of these strong women rather than siding with the world (and in some cases, canon) against them.

I like both hate and love as the basis of sexual relationship, and my ideal threesome would have each leg of the triangle contain a different mixture of the two emotions than the other two. My requests are already pretty much set up for that, as most already include a pairing where one he character canonically hates the other (Veronica/Mac, Topher/Claire, Merlin/Nimueh). It was only just now looking over them that I realized in all three cases the hate isn't reciprocal--Topher doesn't hate Claire (how could he?), Nimueh doesn't hate Merlin, and while Madison doesn't seem to like Veronica very much, I don't think she cares nearly as much one way or the other about Veronica as Veronica does about her.

Feel free to go AU (as long you don't erase the dynamics which make the pairing interesting; a Veronica who doesn't hate Madisn just isn't Veronica); indeed, you'd probably have to in order to write Lilly/Mac/Cassidy or Nimueh/Morgana/Merlin, unless you want to write Lilly or Nimueh as ghosts, which would be fine too since there's canonical basis in both cases. (Writing them as ghosts might make porn hard, though.) Both AUs in which Lilly/Nimueh don't die and ones that rewrite canon so the threesome happens prior to their deaths are fine.

Beyond that, I like to think I'm easy to write for. I have few squicks; I'm fine with character death, BDSM, mpreg, dubcon, noncon, chan, infidelity, incest (I can't believe I got through the entire request form without requesting it, although I guess Mac/Madison sort of comes close), you name it, I'm probably okay with it. Just please no bashing of the women. Happy, uplifting fics are good, but so are soul-crushingly depressing ones so long as the moral isn't that being a strong woman is bad. Ambivalent fics where we're not sure whether we should cheer or cry are probably best of all. If I didn't like existentialism and pseudo-nihilism in my fic, I wouldn't be a Joss Whedon fan.

Suzie at Echidne of the Snakes, on how Dollhouse is and isn't (and should and shouldn't be) feminist, here. (I think we may disagree on whether or not sex work is inherently anti-feminist--I don't think it is--but that obscures the more important point that, both in real life and on the show, the way sex work is actually conducted is pretty clearly immoral in almost all cases.)

cesare, on using sexually explicit RPF and FPF, particularly those involving some type of queerness, as a mechanism of critique and attack and mockery, here and here. And for the record, no, I would have no problem with people writing RPF about me even if the purpose was to slander me, and even if they leave it in places I'll probably see it. The fact that they wanted to attack me would sadden me, of course, if I found out about it, but the particular method they chose would be one I'd consider legitimate and valid and even sort of awesome; all the world's a text and we should feel free to remix it.

The first rule of RPF is, of course, that the characters we never write are never the real people (if your metaphysics allows for such a thing) they purport to be; in this context, the very idea of RPF as an attack is logically incoherent. Which is not to say that doing anything at all with the intent to hurt somebody (or the knowledge that it would hurt them) is an okay thing, or that the mere knowledge that someone else acted with that intent couldn't itself be hurtful, but that's a very different critique, and I've seen people specifically claiming that intent isn't relevant to the discussion they were trying to have.

yhlee, on "how to avoid the wind-up toy effect," dealing with issues of worldbuilding especially in science fiction and fantasy settings, here. At some point I'm going to write why I think what she writes there is a useful corrective to what I found problematic or wrong coming out of the Science and Magic panel at writercon, but for now I'll settle on just linking it.

1. I signed up for the Anonymous Writing Feedback Meme; you can find me here.

THE ANONYMOUS WRITING FEEDBACK MEME

2. I have, I think, three DW invites if anyone needs them.

3. So, Dollhouse was renewed and TSCC cancelled. I really can't think of anything to say other than I look forward to more Whedon and mourn the seasons of Terminator which could have been. (And it looks like the temporal mechanics in the new movie make no sense, which would add insult to injury.) I'm glad it never came to me to have to choose between the two; I don't think I would have been able to do it.

I hope the fandom generates much fic for many years to come though; I really need my fix. Stupid Fox.