Dear Yuletide Writer 2020

Oct 25, 2020 16:07

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 -- so 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. AUs of a "what if person X made choice A instead of choice B at moment Y" type are cool, but high school or coffee shop 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; worldbuilding; 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)
*pining (just not my trope)
*cheating on one's partners (also just not my trope)

Okay. On to specific fandoms!

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The Darkangel Trilogy

(This is a fantasy/sci-fi trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce, which would probably be classed as YA if written today. The component books are The Darkangel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, and The Pearl of the Soul of the World. They're quick reads but it may take a little work to find copies.)

Characters: Erin, Oriencor

Request: I would like some backstory on female characters, please! You don't need to choose both Erin and Oriencor (I'm not sure how that would even work, anyway!), but tell me a story about at least one of them before they got tangled up in the events of the series. I am completely cool with dark!fic here, given that Erin is a slave and Oriencor is, well, Oriencor... but dark!fic is not a requirement. Light and hopeful stories are also great, though in both cases I think you'd probably be restricted to childhood for that. (Or possibly you could write something about Erin experiencing solidarity with fellow slaves?)

You can write shippy stuff if you want -- creepiness with Erin buying in to her position as a concubine, Oriencor having a youthful crush on someone or being super-bad-wrong with one of her adopted sons -- but gen is just as welcome. Also, any worldbuilding or additional female characters you can slide in around the edges will be welcomed with open arms!

My Thoughts: This series has been one of my favorites since I was quite young, and I love it madly and passionately because of everything it doesn't do. I mean, I love what it does do as well -- the utterly matter-of-fact fairytale atmosphere and the equally matter-of-fact way Pierce melds science fiction into that framework, the slow reveal of the post-apocalyptic elements, the lush descriptive language, the way Aeriel's power of heart is literalized through her mastery of the golden spindle, etc. -- but the characters and their world would not stick in my mind half as strongly if Pierce hadn't written what needed to happen instead of what narrative structures have trained us to expect will happen when you make a love story as central as Aeriel and Irrylath are.

Also the story hinges entirely on women's choices and women's relationships, and lets women be strong and central characters without forcing them into the Strong Female Character template. (Erin and Sabr come closest, and even they don't really fit into that box.) Women get to be heroes and villains and people just trying to go about their lives while occasionally getting swept up by grand events.

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Books of the Raksura

(This is a fantasy series by Martha Wells, composed of a trilogy, a duology, and two short story collections, starting with The Cloud Roads.)

Characters: Lithe, Shade

Request: I'd like to hear more about Lithe and Shade's childhood in Opal Night -- anything from their rescue and journey westward, to integration (or lack thereof) into the half of the court that stayed in the Reaches, to assorted childhood adventures. They're the only half-Fell we meet or hear about during the present day, but they weren't the only ones Malachite rescued; how did they get along with those others? Are they actual clutchmates, or are they just close because of their shared background?

Or, if you're feeling inspired to write something a bit longer and more involved, what about a canon divergence AU where Malachite either doesn't rescue them, or doesn't manage that until much later, so they're raised in a Fell flight but with Dusk around to give them some sense of Raksura culture? You could go in all kinds of directions from that turning point!

I am cool with dark!fic, fluff, action/adventure, hurt/comfort, whatever. Go nuts with mood and genre! As for romance, I'm okay with some lightly shippy stuff -- teen crushes, etc. -- but I'd prefer for this to be mostly gen.

My Thoughts: Okay, so these books are about shapeshifting flying dragon people who live in sort of... monarchical communist polyamorous collectives? And they have adventures in a world filled with both wonders and dangers at every turn. Anyway, the character stuff and adventure/mystery plots are great, but the real standout for me is Wells's worldbuilding, which is jaw-dropping AMAZING in its casual breadth and inventiveness.

This prompt is, above all, an excuse to go wild with both worldbuilding and Raksura interpersonal relationship stuff. Also backstory! I am a sucker for some good backstory, and there's so much potential for both angst and fluff in Lithe and Shade's childhoods. :)

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FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion Of Your Thesis Defense - Luke Burns

(This is a short magazine article. You can read it in five minutes. Here's a link to the article.)

Request: I just want to know what a world in which this nonsense is true would look like! What other completely ridiculous and dangerous traditions exist in other professions? How on earth did this particular tradition get started? What incomprehensible legal and ethical mess is OSHA stuck trying to sort out in a world where it's acceptable to occasionally kill doctoral candidates with venomous snakes?

Or you could just tell me about one doctoral candidate and their personal snake-fighting story. It's all cool. :)

If you are following one doctoral candidate's journey, I would prefer for that character to be female or non-binary. If you're following a group, mix them up however you want! I'd also prefer a mostly gen story, though background relationships of whatever kind are cool. The focus should be on world-building and/or an epic battle with a snake while simultaneously trying to defend a thesis.

My Thoughts: Worldbuilding is your friend. Seriously. That is at least 80% of what I want here -- the creation of a world in which this snake-fighting business makes any practical sense, and what additional nonsense must be lurking about in other walks of life.

I am also, as mentioned in the prompt, completely down for some stories of specific people making their way through the snake-fights. :D

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Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)

(Rusty Quill Gaming is a podcast in which a small group of people play a long-running Pathfinder campaign in a homebrew world whose flavor is best described as classic D&D meets steampunk 19th century Earth. The main campaign is at 174 episodes as of this letter's posting, and will take at least two weeks to listen all the way through.)

Characters: Sasha Racket, Azu, Grizzop drich acht Amsterdam

Request: I would like some found family feels, please! Basically, just these three (plus any other characters you want to include, no matter how much it breaks the timeline) spending time together, supporting each other, occasionally squabbling about trivialities and/or debating deep ethical issues, and hitting stuff with weapons. Happy or bittersweet endings only, please!

I'd prefer this to be set in the canon world, though if you want to whip up a canon divergence AU that's completely okay by me! (Rome is the worst.) I am also totally open to alternate first meetings and such, or class-swaps, but Alex's worldbuilding is a major point of appeal for me so I'd like that to stay as much as possible.

I'd also prefer this to be gen, though you can slide shippy hints around the sides for whatever your favorite ships happen to be. :)

My Thoughts: So the thing about RQG, right, is that Alex plays fair. Horrible things happen, and he jokes about being evil, but fundamentally he's creating a world big enough to hold all kinds of people and stories and he wants to do right by them. And Lydia, Ben, Helen, and Bryn also play fair -- they take that world and treat it seriously and treat their characters seriously, which means they can shift from a deluge of fish puns or innuendo about pump-holes to deep discussions about ethics and religion and love and loss on the turn of a dime, and then back again.

The net effect is that the story and the characters feel vividly real, and their relationships all make sense for who they are and how they relate to the world and to each other. The problem is that the story moves too damn fast for all the character moments! So I want some character moments, you know? I mean, I'm also totally cool with a sidequest to situate the character moments -- this doesn't have to be three people sitting around a coffee table or whatever -- but the main point is character interaction and feels.

And maybe also terrible puns. I am a sucker for terrible puns. :)

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And that is that. Thank you again, and happy writing! If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
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fandom: books of the raksura, fandom: the darkangel, yuletide 2020, fandom: snake fight thesis defense, liz is thinky, yuletide, fandom: rusty quill gaming, exchange letter: yuletide

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