Coming this July...

So I'm writing a story for thelittlebang, y'all. It's coming out in the first week of July and it's called Slay Wars Buffy the Jedi Knight: The Sith Seduction. It's about Buffy being a Jedi Knight, proving there is some truth in advertising. Faith is also there. Forecast indicates a 97% chance of shenanigans, with a chance of naughtiness. Here is a prologue/preview to the main story.

( Girl, you know you want to know what kind of alien Rupert Giles is. )

Gender-bending: SERIOUS BUSINESS

I don't know how many of you read Before You Let It Go (remember, story of how Scott Free and Big Barda got together on Apokolips, with added slave-fic critique?), but I'm pretty proud of it. In fact, I'm thinking of filing the serial numbers off and seeing if I can make it pro-fic. It's already pretty AU, there's room for embellishing the backstory and lengthening the story, and it's not like many people are going to say "wait, I recognize this, this is Scott/Barda!"

The one thing I've been thinking about, because I don't want to redo something unless there's someplace interesting to go with it, is to change the pairing. Not that there's anything wrong with strong guy/stronger woman, but it's something I've already done (check your local library, betas-willing) and although there are worse ruts to fall into, I'd still rather be rutless. In fact, one of the appeals of the whole idea is that it's a story entirely without prophecies or subversion thereof. Seriously, my muse must really have it in for the Chosen One. But then, the Star Wars prequels, the Matrix sequels... can you blame it?

So anyway, long story short...

1. Barda's a man and Scott's a woman. This is much more cliched than the other two options, but obviously there's a market for this kind of thing or all those "Her Master's Wench" romance novels would never sell. Remember, story of Scott being Barda's servant and them falling in love.

2. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Leave Barda a woman and Scott a man, just change the names around. See above for objections.

3. Make them both girls. I think this could really work. I hear there's a dearth of leading lady on lady action (LOLA?), and it'd have a happy ending (take *that*, Kim Harrison), and it's still be kinda subversive. I'm just saying, if those Wicked books can make all that money off of lesbian subtext, imagine what I could do with lesbian maintext where they actually stay together instead of pairing off with menzor. I just don't know if there's an audience for a fantasy-adventure-romance about two women, one of whom is a fascist enforcer.

Plus, I have this idea for a steampunk adventure about a cross-dressing vigilante heiress who uses stiletto cattleprods and the impressionable young lass who falls in love with 'him'. (This should tell you something about me. "Cross-dressing Victorian adventuress with saphhic overtones? I'll see if I can get around to it. CATTLE PRODS UP HER SLEEVES? Let's write this mother!") That's two femslashy pro-fics right there, and I'm not Devin Grayson, I can't write about gay people all the time.

What do you, the f-list, think?

[Poll #1418179]

ETA: If you have time, could you tell me whether your answer is what you would rather read or what you think would do better? Or just why you chose one way instead of the other? I'd appreciate it.