Dear Yuletide Writer 2017
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write a context-free sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)
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General Information:
1. First, while you cannot go wrong by writing gen for me, that is not a requirement. I will also read and enjoy pretty much anything when it comes to ships -- het, slash, femslash, threesomes, poly, whatever -- as long as you put in a bit of character development so the relationships don't seem to come out of nowhere. I tend to skim past sex scenes, though, so your efforts are best spent in other directions.
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet (leaning toward happy) and a little complicated.
3. If I said 'any' characters, I meant it. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more. On a related note, I would prefer fic compatible with the worlds and situations that canon presents. Canon divergence AUs (of a "what if person X made choice A instead of choice B at moment Y" type) are cool, but high school/coffee shop/IN SPACE AUs are not what I'm looking for.
4. Stuff I really, really like: This can be boiled down to, 'Please treat characters as intelligent people who have understandable motives for their actions, please take the worlds seriously as settings, and please remember that sex and romance are not all there is to life. Also, ethics, metaphysics, and world-building are dead cool.'
The long version: I like character development; world-building; explanation of plot holes in canon; subtle humor; a sense of wonder; writing that evokes an emotional reaction as well as telling a story; close relationships that don't necessarily involve sex (i.e., friendship, families, teachers and students, coworkers, traveling companions, soldiers in the same cause, etc.); the consequences of actions and choices; a sense of place and time; dialogue that conveys character as well as plot information; politics; ethics; people being intelligent even if they make bad choices; people trying to do the right thing even if they make bad choices; conflict because of opposing goals that both have points in their favor; a lack of simple solutions; female characters treated as people instead of plot devices; male characters treated as people instead of plot devices; ideas that make me stop and think; the nature of memory; the nature of truth; possession; soul-searching; non-gratuitous torture (...I have a kink, shut up); war and battles; hand-to-hand fighting; swordfights; peace and diplomacy; magic that's properly magical and strange or magic that's explained as a science (but not both at once); books and reading; people exploring a new country/world/city; linguistics and languages; early Industrial Revolution technology (or whatever technology is suitable to the milieu); people using logic to investigate a problem; and fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
5. Stuff I'm not so keen on: obvious authorial hatred for characters I like and/or find interesting (which is generally all of them); sex or romantic love with no in-story justification (unless the people in question are already a canon couple); gratuitous angst/torture/rape (i.e., bad stuff that comes out of nowhere and is not necessary to make the plot or character arc work); idiot plots (i.e., problems that could be solved in five minutes if the characters asked one or two obvious questions); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
Okay. On to specific fandoms.
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The Lions of Al-Rassan:
(This is a standalone fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay.)
Characters: Jehane bet Ishak, Miranda Belmonte, Ammar ibn Khairan, Rodrigo Belmonte
Request: This is one of my all-time favorite books, and I'm sure I'll love anything you write! That said, I've always been interested in the canon gaps. For example, what else happened during the year Ammar and Rodrigo served in Ragosa? What was the Belmontes' marriage like before they had children? How did Jehane and Ammar adjust to Sorenica?
I am also interested in points at which the story might have turned and gone in a different direction. Such alternate paths are probably equally likely to end in tragedy, alas, but new and different flavors of bittersweet are worth sampling. *wry*
I like all ship types and am open to any combination of Jehane, Ammar, Rodrigo, and Miranda. My only caveat is that I dislike cheating, so any ship involving Rodrigo or Miranda with someone besides each other requires them to give permission. But I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance.
Thoughts: I love this book because, while you can't call it anything but fantasy, it is not particularly fantastical. It's excellently written historical fiction that happens to be set in a made-up world. (I grant that Kay's secondary world is suspiciously similar to Spain during the Reconquista, but the fantasy aspect frees him to create his own characters and plot rather than being a slave to historical accuracy.) Kay also learned a trick from Tolkien that adds extra poignancy: the constant refrain of beauty shattered and fading in a harsh, mortal world. There's an aching sense of lost possibilities, the hope that if just one or two things had gone differently... but then you look again at the larger situation of the world, and you realize historical forces are aligned against your dreams, and nothing lasts forever. As Rodrigo says, "Even the sun goes down."
This book makes me cry every time I read it -- literally cry, I mean, not just get a little sniffly. I don't cry over books like that. But Kay gets inside my heart, hooks it open, and leaves me raw and aching. I love that so much, that a fictional world and fictional people can be that real and true for me. I want them all to win, but there is no way for that to happen, and that's better than any old struggle between straightforward good and evil. Because it's real.
And now relationship stuff! I like the relationships Rodrigo has with both Ammar and Jehane, and I like polyamory, BUT I dislike cheating. Therefore if you write Rodrigo doing anything non-platonic with Ammar, Jehane, or both, please either have him get permission from Miranda or work her into the relationship as well somehow. (Perhaps creating a scenario where that makes any logistical sense is a good basis for a 'turn left' canon-based AU?) This applies in reverse if Ammar and/or Jehane somehow visit the Belmontes' home while Rodrigo is away. Also, I am okay with a sex scene if you're writing a relationship-centric story -- for any relationship among the four nominated characters, really -- but please don't make sex the only focus of your fic.
(Special bonus: if you wrangle a sedoretu AU out of this prompt, I will love you to the end of the universe and beyond. Just saying!)
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Saga of the Skolian Empire
(This is a long-running series of novels and short stories by Catherine Asaro that mixes military sf, hard sf, space opera, and romance. Also telepathy, because why not. This is a very fun canon, but not one that can be picked up in a day.)
Characters: Rocalisa Qox-Skolia
Request: This request is both very specific and very open-ended. Here is the specific part: Lisi leaves Prism as a young adult (use whatever plot justification works best for you), and encounters the giant tangle of post-Radiance War interstellar politics and its ramifications for her family. Here is the open-ended part: literally everything else.
I admit that I would love you forever if you can get Lisi to meet any of her relatives either in person or via the psiberweb (which is why I nominated Jai, Kelric, and Dehya), but that is not strictly necessary. Other things that would be received with great joy but which are not requirements include some kind of action/adventure plot and/or a romance. If that romance happened to be lesbian and/or poly, I would be even more thrilled -- canon is sadly short on lesbians, though we did get Althor being both bi and poly -- but again, that is a bonus rather than a demand.
If that prompt is really not working for you, here are some other ideas for Lisi-centric stories. Tell me about her growing up on Prism, or about returning to Prism to rebuild. Tell me about her years living on Earth with Seth: did she make friends; did she have a cute teenage romance; how hard was it to keep all the necessary secrets; did she adopt any pieces of Earth culture like Jai adopted Catholicism; etc. Just, tell me something about Lisi!
For this prompt, a focus on romance is obviously fine, though I would appreciate if you also put equal emphasis on at least one of the following: family, secrets, or action/adventure.
Thoughts: In July 2016 I posted some thoughts about this series. To summarize, what really gets me is the family stuff, the secrets, and the intersection of those secrets with dicey interstellar politics, leading to the situation where nobody can ever learn the truth about Jai's heritage without pulling everything down around everyone. Which means Lisi's very existence is a time bomb, if and when she ever ventures off Prism. (This is also true for Vitar and del-Kelric, obviously, but I'm not asking for them as my main character.)
I think all the Qox-Skolia children grew up with this interesting mix of innocence/naivety and gut-level knowledge of how terrible the universe can be (this will happen when you're raised in peaceful isolation, but your parents are telepaths who've been through some deep shit), and I'd really like to see how that plays out in someone other than Jai (since he gets plenty of focus as a major protagonist in canon). I'd also like to see how the matriarchal backdrop of the Skolian Empire plays out for a female protagonist who isn't coming from a (perceived) background of privilege like Soz, Dehya, and Roca (or a military background like Major Bhaajan) since obviously Lisi can't tell people about her heritage and would have to make her journey incognito.
...
Also I just want to see Lisi do a variation of Kelric's Ascendant Sun plot, only without the sexual objectification. *hands* I am a simple woman. I have simple needs. And in this particular case, they boil down to family, secrets, and bantering romances while on the run from space pirates or some convenient equivalent. (Or, you know, family stuff on Prism, or romance and secrets on Earth, or whatever, so long as Lisi's choices drive the story.)
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Daredevil (Comics)
(This is a long-running western superhero comics series set in Marvel's 616 universe. An awful lot of it is available online through various sources, but this is probably not the best fandom to get into in under two months.)
Characters: Karen Page, Milla Donovan, Rebecca "Becky" Blake, Elektra Natchios
Request: I admit upfront this is a peculiar character combination, and I hereby absolve you of having to write all four characters if you can't think of a way to fit them into the same story. But I would really like to see at least two of them, and see them interacting in a way that involves their professional lives rather than their romantic histories with Matt.
In other words, I want some kind of case!fic wherein Karen and/or Milla and/or Becky and/or Elektra get to exercise their various professional skillsets to resolve a problem. The scale can be as large or small as you like. You can pick whatever time period works best for your plot. Matt (and other characters) can be involved or not, as you please, though I would like the women to be at least as instrumental to the eventual resolution as he is. And if you can think of ways to work in any of the other women who have touched Matt's life over the years (whether lovers, friends, or enemies), that would be extra specially cool. :)
I genuinely don't care what you do with ships in this fic -- ship any of them, ship all of them, ship none of them, whatever! -- but romance should really not be the focus here, please.
Thoughts: I had been tangentially aware of Daredevil for a long time -- the 616 universe is a tangled mess of interconnected continuity; I read an isolated issue here or there over the years I worked in a magazine shop; and I have often been in the habit of reading entertainment journalism and/or fannish meta about canons I don't actually read or watch directly -- but my knowledge was very secondhand until the Netflix show hit in 2015.
Sustaining interest in audiovisual media is not easy for me, though, so my first reaction when falling in love with any audiovisual canon is to read every non-audiovisual tie-in I can hunt down. Which in this case are not really tie-ins but inspiration? But anyway, first I checked out a bunch of TPBs from my local library system. Then I got a Marvel Unlimited account, and I have been haphazardly poking around in the archives ever since.
The thing about a long-running series (in any medium) is that it changes dramatically over time, sometimes to the point where what seem like its defining characteristics in one decade become nearly irrelevant in another. I have enjoyed elements of every era I've read so far, wildly different though some of them are. But I think what I like best is when Daredevil writers keep their focus away from the cosmic absurdities of the 616 universe and tell more human-level stories.
(You can find my thoughts about some runs and arcs under the Daredevil tag here on my journal -- just scroll past the MCU stuff.)
Anyway, one of my long-term frustrations as a reader of superhero comics (and probably one reason I have never been a steady reader) is the treatment of women in that genre of that medium. So I want a story centered around some of the women who have moved in and out of Matt's life over the years, and I want a story that specifically DOES NOT focus on their relationships with Matt, except insofar as that's one obvious thing they have in common. Instead, I want to know who they are as people, and see as many of them interact with each other as is feasible. :D
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The Dispossessed:
(This is a standalone science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, though it is part of a rather haphazard universe called, variously, the Ekumen or the Hainish Cycle.)
Characters: any!
Request: This is also one of my all-time favorite books, and I am sure I will love any story you write for it. I am not at all fussy! I like the characters, the utopianism and related politics and philosophy, the crazy alien physics, the world-building for both Urras and Anarres, etc. I am also totally up for fic about "The Day Before the Revolution" and the rest of Laia Odo's life, if that strikes your fancy.
If you want plot hooks, I am fascinated by the way marriage (or the lack thereof) plays out in Anarresti society, and what that means for Shevek and Takver. Relatedly, family also seems to be a slippery concept and I'm sure that could lead to an interesting story centered around Sadik and her parents (or grandmother, perhaps?), or about the friend-groups Shevek and Takver construct around themselves. I am intrigued by the hints of Odo's own relationship with Taviri, and their joint activism. I enjoy the throwaway mentions of Urrasti legends and would love to see them turned into proper mythology. I am curious about the chaos in Benbili that was going on while Shevek was on Urras, and/or the reaction to his journey back on Anarres. I'd love to hear about Ambassador Keng's reaction to Urras both pre- and post-Shevek. Etcetera, etcetera -- there are infinite options!
I like all ship types, but I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance. Also, please do not have Shevek or Takver cheat on each other, though if you want to do something in a consensual poly direction, that's totally fine.
Thoughts: What I love about this book is everything. No, seriously -- everything. Shevek fascinates me, and I love how real all his relationships feel, especially the family he and Takver create and maintain. I like how he slowly learns to connect with other people, that he and Takver have problems and work through them, that they're good and loving parents but their own concerns affect their children. I like how Shevek's relationship with Sadik is in some ways a direct repudiation of his non-relationship with his own mother, Rulag, while in other ways Shevek and Rulag are very similar -- both direct, abrupt, and work-driven. I like the glimpses we get of Shevek's friends over the years.
I love the alien conception of physics, where science is assumed to automatically include moral and philosophical dimensions, and to describe only the physical world is only doing a fraction of the job. I love the descriptions of life on Anarres, how the people work together to carve life out of a barren, inhospitable world -- the parts where Takver studies sea life, or Shevek marvels at the abundance of species on Urras, are very striking.
I love the way the utopian anarchism of Anarres is not perfect; it must be maintained, carefully, and the gains come with corresponding losses. I love that the Anarresti themselves disagree over the ideal shape of their society, and are fighting against the human tendency to settle into power structures and fixed patterns of behavior. I love the way Urras is so rich and so poor at the same time, so gentle and so cruel; there is such abundance, yet they hoard power and build fences to keep people (women, the poor, people from other countries) from sharing in that abundance. I love how the people of both worlds are shaped by their cultures so they keep talking past each other. Neither world is perfect, and there is a clear symbiosis between them; in some ways they need one another to act as the symbolic Other. I love the hints of geopolitics that play out on Urras during Shevek's visit. He only stays in A-Io, but there is a sense of a greater world beyond his limited horizon; I am curious about the parts of Urras he doesn't get to see, and how the existence of Anarres and Shevek's presence on Urras play out in other cultures.
I am fascinated by the implication that both Urras and Anarres are in a long, slow-motion social change caused by the intrusion of other human species into their worlds -- the idea that they are descended from the Hainish must shake them, and I really like that Shevek is inspired by reading some of Einstein's Terran physics, though he thinks Einstein is all wrong about any number of things. I am also fascinated by the glimpses of Terra provided by Ambassador Keng, and how that post-apocalyptic culture shapes her attitude toward Urras and Annares. (If you want to show how Shevek's invention of the ansible helps nudge that totalitarian version of Earth toward the society later seen in City of Illusion, be my guest, though that's obviously outside the boundaries of my official request.)
As for "The Day Before the Revolution," Odo is a vivid, compelling character even in the brief glimpses we get during The Dispossessed, and she comes satisfyingly to life here. It's interesting that Le Guin chose not to write about the grand events of Odo's life, but to focus on a quiet day in her old age as she is learning (awkwardly, reluctantly, bitterly) to deal with physical and emotional loss, and realizing that the movement she inspired has grown beyond her. It's not the kind of story I'm used to reading in science fiction, which I think makes it more powerful than it would be in a different genre. Anyway, Odo is fascinating, so if you want to write about her instead of the later world, that would also be extremely cool.
As I said above, I am not fussy about what you write! As long as you write about Anarres and Urras, please feel free to use whatever canon and original characters you want! (And if you want to write sex and/or romance between Shevek and Takver, or between Odo and Taviri, that is fine by me. I just ask that the story include some character development and world-building as well, for balance.)
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And that is that. Thank you again, and happy writing!
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comments)
Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write a context-free sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)
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General Information:
1. First, while you cannot go wrong by writing gen for me, that is not a requirement. I will also read and enjoy pretty much anything when it comes to ships -- het, slash, femslash, threesomes, poly, whatever -- as long as you put in a bit of character development so the relationships don't seem to come out of nowhere. I tend to skim past sex scenes, though, so your efforts are best spent in other directions.
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet (leaning toward happy) and a little complicated.
3. If I said 'any' characters, I meant it. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more. On a related note, I would prefer fic compatible with the worlds and situations that canon presents. Canon divergence AUs (of a "what if person X made choice A instead of choice B at moment Y" type) are cool, but high school/coffee shop/IN SPACE AUs are not what I'm looking for.
4. Stuff I really, really like: This can be boiled down to, 'Please treat characters as intelligent people who have understandable motives for their actions, please take the worlds seriously as settings, and please remember that sex and romance are not all there is to life. Also, ethics, metaphysics, and world-building are dead cool.'
The long version: I like character development; world-building; explanation of plot holes in canon; subtle humor; a sense of wonder; writing that evokes an emotional reaction as well as telling a story; close relationships that don't necessarily involve sex (i.e., friendship, families, teachers and students, coworkers, traveling companions, soldiers in the same cause, etc.); the consequences of actions and choices; a sense of place and time; dialogue that conveys character as well as plot information; politics; ethics; people being intelligent even if they make bad choices; people trying to do the right thing even if they make bad choices; conflict because of opposing goals that both have points in their favor; a lack of simple solutions; female characters treated as people instead of plot devices; male characters treated as people instead of plot devices; ideas that make me stop and think; the nature of memory; the nature of truth; possession; soul-searching; non-gratuitous torture (...I have a kink, shut up); war and battles; hand-to-hand fighting; swordfights; peace and diplomacy; magic that's properly magical and strange or magic that's explained as a science (but not both at once); books and reading; people exploring a new country/world/city; linguistics and languages; early Industrial Revolution technology (or whatever technology is suitable to the milieu); people using logic to investigate a problem; and fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
5. Stuff I'm not so keen on: obvious authorial hatred for characters I like and/or find interesting (which is generally all of them); sex or romantic love with no in-story justification (unless the people in question are already a canon couple); gratuitous angst/torture/rape (i.e., bad stuff that comes out of nowhere and is not necessary to make the plot or character arc work); idiot plots (i.e., problems that could be solved in five minutes if the characters asked one or two obvious questions); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
Okay. On to specific fandoms.
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The Lions of Al-Rassan:
(This is a standalone fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay.)
Characters: Jehane bet Ishak, Miranda Belmonte, Ammar ibn Khairan, Rodrigo Belmonte
Request: This is one of my all-time favorite books, and I'm sure I'll love anything you write! That said, I've always been interested in the canon gaps. For example, what else happened during the year Ammar and Rodrigo served in Ragosa? What was the Belmontes' marriage like before they had children? How did Jehane and Ammar adjust to Sorenica?
I am also interested in points at which the story might have turned and gone in a different direction. Such alternate paths are probably equally likely to end in tragedy, alas, but new and different flavors of bittersweet are worth sampling. *wry*
I like all ship types and am open to any combination of Jehane, Ammar, Rodrigo, and Miranda. My only caveat is that I dislike cheating, so any ship involving Rodrigo or Miranda with someone besides each other requires them to give permission. But I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance.
Thoughts: I love this book because, while you can't call it anything but fantasy, it is not particularly fantastical. It's excellently written historical fiction that happens to be set in a made-up world. (I grant that Kay's secondary world is suspiciously similar to Spain during the Reconquista, but the fantasy aspect frees him to create his own characters and plot rather than being a slave to historical accuracy.) Kay also learned a trick from Tolkien that adds extra poignancy: the constant refrain of beauty shattered and fading in a harsh, mortal world. There's an aching sense of lost possibilities, the hope that if just one or two things had gone differently... but then you look again at the larger situation of the world, and you realize historical forces are aligned against your dreams, and nothing lasts forever. As Rodrigo says, "Even the sun goes down."
This book makes me cry every time I read it -- literally cry, I mean, not just get a little sniffly. I don't cry over books like that. But Kay gets inside my heart, hooks it open, and leaves me raw and aching. I love that so much, that a fictional world and fictional people can be that real and true for me. I want them all to win, but there is no way for that to happen, and that's better than any old struggle between straightforward good and evil. Because it's real.
And now relationship stuff! I like the relationships Rodrigo has with both Ammar and Jehane, and I like polyamory, BUT I dislike cheating. Therefore if you write Rodrigo doing anything non-platonic with Ammar, Jehane, or both, please either have him get permission from Miranda or work her into the relationship as well somehow. (Perhaps creating a scenario where that makes any logistical sense is a good basis for a 'turn left' canon-based AU?) This applies in reverse if Ammar and/or Jehane somehow visit the Belmontes' home while Rodrigo is away. Also, I am okay with a sex scene if you're writing a relationship-centric story -- for any relationship among the four nominated characters, really -- but please don't make sex the only focus of your fic.
(Special bonus: if you wrangle a sedoretu AU out of this prompt, I will love you to the end of the universe and beyond. Just saying!)
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Saga of the Skolian Empire
(This is a long-running series of novels and short stories by Catherine Asaro that mixes military sf, hard sf, space opera, and romance. Also telepathy, because why not. This is a very fun canon, but not one that can be picked up in a day.)
Characters: Rocalisa Qox-Skolia
Request: This request is both very specific and very open-ended. Here is the specific part: Lisi leaves Prism as a young adult (use whatever plot justification works best for you), and encounters the giant tangle of post-Radiance War interstellar politics and its ramifications for her family. Here is the open-ended part: literally everything else.
I admit that I would love you forever if you can get Lisi to meet any of her relatives either in person or via the psiberweb (which is why I nominated Jai, Kelric, and Dehya), but that is not strictly necessary. Other things that would be received with great joy but which are not requirements include some kind of action/adventure plot and/or a romance. If that romance happened to be lesbian and/or poly, I would be even more thrilled -- canon is sadly short on lesbians, though we did get Althor being both bi and poly -- but again, that is a bonus rather than a demand.
If that prompt is really not working for you, here are some other ideas for Lisi-centric stories. Tell me about her growing up on Prism, or about returning to Prism to rebuild. Tell me about her years living on Earth with Seth: did she make friends; did she have a cute teenage romance; how hard was it to keep all the necessary secrets; did she adopt any pieces of Earth culture like Jai adopted Catholicism; etc. Just, tell me something about Lisi!
For this prompt, a focus on romance is obviously fine, though I would appreciate if you also put equal emphasis on at least one of the following: family, secrets, or action/adventure.
Thoughts: In July 2016 I posted some thoughts about this series. To summarize, what really gets me is the family stuff, the secrets, and the intersection of those secrets with dicey interstellar politics, leading to the situation where nobody can ever learn the truth about Jai's heritage without pulling everything down around everyone. Which means Lisi's very existence is a time bomb, if and when she ever ventures off Prism. (This is also true for Vitar and del-Kelric, obviously, but I'm not asking for them as my main character.)
I think all the Qox-Skolia children grew up with this interesting mix of innocence/naivety and gut-level knowledge of how terrible the universe can be (this will happen when you're raised in peaceful isolation, but your parents are telepaths who've been through some deep shit), and I'd really like to see how that plays out in someone other than Jai (since he gets plenty of focus as a major protagonist in canon). I'd also like to see how the matriarchal backdrop of the Skolian Empire plays out for a female protagonist who isn't coming from a (perceived) background of privilege like Soz, Dehya, and Roca (or a military background like Major Bhaajan) since obviously Lisi can't tell people about her heritage and would have to make her journey incognito.
...
Also I just want to see Lisi do a variation of Kelric's Ascendant Sun plot, only without the sexual objectification. *hands* I am a simple woman. I have simple needs. And in this particular case, they boil down to family, secrets, and bantering romances while on the run from space pirates or some convenient equivalent. (Or, you know, family stuff on Prism, or romance and secrets on Earth, or whatever, so long as Lisi's choices drive the story.)
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Daredevil (Comics)
(This is a long-running western superhero comics series set in Marvel's 616 universe. An awful lot of it is available online through various sources, but this is probably not the best fandom to get into in under two months.)
Characters: Karen Page, Milla Donovan, Rebecca "Becky" Blake, Elektra Natchios
Request: I admit upfront this is a peculiar character combination, and I hereby absolve you of having to write all four characters if you can't think of a way to fit them into the same story. But I would really like to see at least two of them, and see them interacting in a way that involves their professional lives rather than their romantic histories with Matt.
In other words, I want some kind of case!fic wherein Karen and/or Milla and/or Becky and/or Elektra get to exercise their various professional skillsets to resolve a problem. The scale can be as large or small as you like. You can pick whatever time period works best for your plot. Matt (and other characters) can be involved or not, as you please, though I would like the women to be at least as instrumental to the eventual resolution as he is. And if you can think of ways to work in any of the other women who have touched Matt's life over the years (whether lovers, friends, or enemies), that would be extra specially cool. :)
I genuinely don't care what you do with ships in this fic -- ship any of them, ship all of them, ship none of them, whatever! -- but romance should really not be the focus here, please.
Thoughts: I had been tangentially aware of Daredevil for a long time -- the 616 universe is a tangled mess of interconnected continuity; I read an isolated issue here or there over the years I worked in a magazine shop; and I have often been in the habit of reading entertainment journalism and/or fannish meta about canons I don't actually read or watch directly -- but my knowledge was very secondhand until the Netflix show hit in 2015.
Sustaining interest in audiovisual media is not easy for me, though, so my first reaction when falling in love with any audiovisual canon is to read every non-audiovisual tie-in I can hunt down. Which in this case are not really tie-ins but inspiration? But anyway, first I checked out a bunch of TPBs from my local library system. Then I got a Marvel Unlimited account, and I have been haphazardly poking around in the archives ever since.
The thing about a long-running series (in any medium) is that it changes dramatically over time, sometimes to the point where what seem like its defining characteristics in one decade become nearly irrelevant in another. I have enjoyed elements of every era I've read so far, wildly different though some of them are. But I think what I like best is when Daredevil writers keep their focus away from the cosmic absurdities of the 616 universe and tell more human-level stories.
(You can find my thoughts about some runs and arcs under the Daredevil tag here on my journal -- just scroll past the MCU stuff.)
Anyway, one of my long-term frustrations as a reader of superhero comics (and probably one reason I have never been a steady reader) is the treatment of women in that genre of that medium. So I want a story centered around some of the women who have moved in and out of Matt's life over the years, and I want a story that specifically DOES NOT focus on their relationships with Matt, except insofar as that's one obvious thing they have in common. Instead, I want to know who they are as people, and see as many of them interact with each other as is feasible. :D
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The Dispossessed:
(This is a standalone science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, though it is part of a rather haphazard universe called, variously, the Ekumen or the Hainish Cycle.)
Characters: any!
Request: This is also one of my all-time favorite books, and I am sure I will love any story you write for it. I am not at all fussy! I like the characters, the utopianism and related politics and philosophy, the crazy alien physics, the world-building for both Urras and Anarres, etc. I am also totally up for fic about "The Day Before the Revolution" and the rest of Laia Odo's life, if that strikes your fancy.
If you want plot hooks, I am fascinated by the way marriage (or the lack thereof) plays out in Anarresti society, and what that means for Shevek and Takver. Relatedly, family also seems to be a slippery concept and I'm sure that could lead to an interesting story centered around Sadik and her parents (or grandmother, perhaps?), or about the friend-groups Shevek and Takver construct around themselves. I am intrigued by the hints of Odo's own relationship with Taviri, and their joint activism. I enjoy the throwaway mentions of Urrasti legends and would love to see them turned into proper mythology. I am curious about the chaos in Benbili that was going on while Shevek was on Urras, and/or the reaction to his journey back on Anarres. I'd love to hear about Ambassador Keng's reaction to Urras both pre- and post-Shevek. Etcetera, etcetera -- there are infinite options!
I like all ship types, but I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance. Also, please do not have Shevek or Takver cheat on each other, though if you want to do something in a consensual poly direction, that's totally fine.
Thoughts: What I love about this book is everything. No, seriously -- everything. Shevek fascinates me, and I love how real all his relationships feel, especially the family he and Takver create and maintain. I like how he slowly learns to connect with other people, that he and Takver have problems and work through them, that they're good and loving parents but their own concerns affect their children. I like how Shevek's relationship with Sadik is in some ways a direct repudiation of his non-relationship with his own mother, Rulag, while in other ways Shevek and Rulag are very similar -- both direct, abrupt, and work-driven. I like the glimpses we get of Shevek's friends over the years.
I love the alien conception of physics, where science is assumed to automatically include moral and philosophical dimensions, and to describe only the physical world is only doing a fraction of the job. I love the descriptions of life on Anarres, how the people work together to carve life out of a barren, inhospitable world -- the parts where Takver studies sea life, or Shevek marvels at the abundance of species on Urras, are very striking.
I love the way the utopian anarchism of Anarres is not perfect; it must be maintained, carefully, and the gains come with corresponding losses. I love that the Anarresti themselves disagree over the ideal shape of their society, and are fighting against the human tendency to settle into power structures and fixed patterns of behavior. I love the way Urras is so rich and so poor at the same time, so gentle and so cruel; there is such abundance, yet they hoard power and build fences to keep people (women, the poor, people from other countries) from sharing in that abundance. I love how the people of both worlds are shaped by their cultures so they keep talking past each other. Neither world is perfect, and there is a clear symbiosis between them; in some ways they need one another to act as the symbolic Other. I love the hints of geopolitics that play out on Urras during Shevek's visit. He only stays in A-Io, but there is a sense of a greater world beyond his limited horizon; I am curious about the parts of Urras he doesn't get to see, and how the existence of Anarres and Shevek's presence on Urras play out in other cultures.
I am fascinated by the implication that both Urras and Anarres are in a long, slow-motion social change caused by the intrusion of other human species into their worlds -- the idea that they are descended from the Hainish must shake them, and I really like that Shevek is inspired by reading some of Einstein's Terran physics, though he thinks Einstein is all wrong about any number of things. I am also fascinated by the glimpses of Terra provided by Ambassador Keng, and how that post-apocalyptic culture shapes her attitude toward Urras and Annares. (If you want to show how Shevek's invention of the ansible helps nudge that totalitarian version of Earth toward the society later seen in City of Illusion, be my guest, though that's obviously outside the boundaries of my official request.)
As for "The Day Before the Revolution," Odo is a vivid, compelling character even in the brief glimpses we get during The Dispossessed, and she comes satisfyingly to life here. It's interesting that Le Guin chose not to write about the grand events of Odo's life, but to focus on a quiet day in her old age as she is learning (awkwardly, reluctantly, bitterly) to deal with physical and emotional loss, and realizing that the movement she inspired has grown beyond her. It's not the kind of story I'm used to reading in science fiction, which I think makes it more powerful than it would be in a different genre. Anyway, Odo is fascinating, so if you want to write about her instead of the later world, that would also be extremely cool.
As I said above, I am not fussy about what you write! As long as you write about Anarres and Urras, please feel free to use whatever canon and original characters you want! (And if you want to write sex and/or romance between Shevek and Takver, or between Odo and Taviri, that is fine by me. I just ask that the story include some character development and world-building as well, for balance.)
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And that is that. Thank you again, and happy writing!
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