Rosebriars and ink

Hi! I'm so excited about this fic exchange! Isn't it such an awesome idea?

I adore fairy tales and folklore indiscriminately and I had the worst time trying to pick out some that I liked best. There aren't any I like best! I love them all! So I just kinda... picked some of the ones I've really enjoyed adaptations of before and feel like have a lot of room to do awesome things with?

I am also LeaperSonata on AO3. (I made this lj specifically so I'd have a journal with the same username as my AO3 for fic exchanges.)

Character: The Sea Witch (Den lille Havefrue)
Link to a version available online
I'm less interested in the Little Mermaid herself and way more interested in the Sea Witch. Does she have a choice in what she takes from people as the price for their desires? Does she like her job? Has there only ever been one of her, or is the position passed down? Is she the Baba Yaga of the sea, punishing anyone who irritates her and rewarding those who amuse her, totally unpredictably and varying by her mood? Is she actually evil? (What kind of creature is she? Mermaid, octomaid, something stranger and darker? Is she deep and deep and sharp-edged and bioluminescent?) Basically write me something about the Sea Witch and I will love it. As loose an interpretation as you like, she doesn't have to be like the one in the original at all as long as she's a witch at the bottom of the sea who can grant your heart's desire for a price.

The Twa Sisters (Ballad)
Characters: Older Sister (The Twa Sisters), Younger Sister (The Twa Sisters)
Link to versions available online
I only nominated the two sisters, but if you want to go for the version where there's a middle sister as well, feel free! I'm happy with either a version where the younger sister becomes an instrument or one where she just dies. (Or is lost under the cold sea strand, at least. Does she die?) Any of the two (or three) sisters' perspective - or the suitor's? Does he really love *any* of them, or is he just playing them all for his own gain? Or hey - what if the sisters actually talked to each orher about it and decided that he's a jerk and threw *him* in the cold sea strand instead? I don't have one story I want to see with any of these - I'm going to be delighted with anything! FOLKLORE.

Tam Lin (Traditional Ballad)
Characters: Any
Link to versions available online
Bonus link to my favorite musical adaptation of the ballad (which you are not required to conform to of course but it's pretty)
I am happy with this being about anyone in the ballad - or implied in the ballad! What was Tam Lin's life like under the hill? Why did the Fairy Queen pick him? Is he the first she's chosen so? What happened to the others? Does she pick a successor and eat his heart of flesh and leave him with a heart of stone? Did Janet's father's really give her the wood at Carterhaugh? Why did he, if he did, since it's apparently well known that maidens shouldn't go there? Why did Janet choose to go? What happened to previous maidens to spawn the warning? (No rape/noncon please.) Janet is pregnant at the end of the ballad - what happens to that baby? Are the fairies interested in her, for good or for ill? How does Tam Lin do on settling down to married life and fatherhood instead of riding as a fairy knight and roving the wood?

Link to one version and link to another version
(Side note: The versions of this I am most familiar with are Robin McKinley's Beauty and Rose Daughter. You are in no way required to do anything with this information, but hey, if you've read one or both, feel free to reference! And if you haven't and you like Beauty and the Beast, I highly recommend them both, they're great.)
God damnit I restarted my browser without thinking while I was in the middle of editing this and I lost everything I was writing for this one. ARGH. SELF, WHY. Must try to reconstruct. Probably won't be as good. I apologize in advance.
Beauty has a varying number and gender of siblings - feel free to go with any or none. Though I would prefer if they weren't snobby jerkasses, if they exist. Beauty being all taunted and put-upon and accepting it all with a loving cheerful smile like a fairy tale heroine should is kind of frustrating. A very sensible and down-to-earth Beauty who had those stunningly obvious dreams from the Blue Fairy Book version would be fun - someone less dense than that Beauty would surely work it out immediately, right? And then what would happen? (A sensible girl might also keep her promises and not overstay with her family - whether it's a week or three months or a day or something in between - so that he doesn't nearly die.) The Marie de Beaumont version also has Beauty wake the Beast from near-death by pouring water on his head instead of kissing him or weeping on him, which is rather delightful and would bit in well with sensible!Beauty. (I'm picturing someone along the lines of Susan Sto Helit.) And what kind of mosnter is the Beast, anyway?



Bonus round: Cross any of these over with each other if you'd like! Or with other fairy tales/folklore/myths! Are mermaids actually the inhabitants of fallen Atlantis, magically mutated? Is the Sea Witch Baba Yaga's sister? (What would it follow that her house had instead of chicken feet? Fins? Tentacles? Jellyfish tentacles? Hm...) I have no idea! Let me know! :D

Additional bonus round: Make the story be about lesbians. Or polyamory. Or both. And I will be delighted.

I hope I've managed to give you useful prompts, dear author! I'm just INCOHERENTLY OVERFLOWING WITH ENTHUSIASM FOR FAIRY TALES.