Dear Yuletide Writer 2013
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. I will read anything when it comes to pairings -- 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 -- but I prefer gen, and I tend to skim sex scenes because the non-sex parts of the story are almost always more interesting to me. (Disregard this if you are writing the Karla-has-a-sex-life prompt! In that particular case, porn is just fine. In fact, even a context-free sex scene would be okay... though context is always better. *wry*)
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet and a little complicated.
3. When 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.
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 there's more to life than sex. 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; good spelling and grammar; 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.
6. If there are ugly social issues inherent in these things I love, and you want to talk about them, that is fine by me. That falls under 'taking the characters and settings seriously,' and I am always pleased when a story makes me stop and think. (This is not to say that I don't love more straightforward squeeing as well -- because I totally do! -- but if you want to go deeper, I am with you all the way.)
Okay. On to specific fandoms.
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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: Shevek
Request: I love the entire Ekumen, but I want fic specifically and only for "The Dispossessed." I picked Shevek to identify which book I'm interested in, not to force you to write about him in particular. I am not at all fussy about what you write! 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 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. I am also intrigued by the hints of Odo's own relationship with Taviri; 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; etc., etc. There are infinite options! I like all pairing types, but I would prefer a focus on plot, character development, and world-building instead of a focus on sex and/or romance.
My 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.
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 picked Shevek to point out which parts of the Hainish Cycle I am interested in, not to force you to write about him specifically. As long as you write about Anarres and Urras, please feel free to use whatever canon and original characters you want! :-)
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Lucifer:
(This is a completed eleven-volume comics series written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Peter Gross, Dean Ormston, Ryan Kelley, et al. It is based on character interpretations developed by Neil Gaiman in The Sandman, but you don't have to read that series to understand this one.)
Characters: any!
Request: Lucifer is my favorite, but I love pretty much all the characters. What I am especially interested in reading is a story about families -- Lucifer and his brothers; Lucifer, Michael, and Elaine; Elaine's human family, or how Cestis copes with 'her' new wife and son after the series end; Rachel and her resurrected brother (is he healed? how does she cope if he is or isn't?); Gaudium, Spera, and Lumen; Mazikeen and Lilith; Jill and Noema; Izanami and her sons; or any of the other family units in the series. Failing that, why not tell me what Gabriel was up to during the series? He seems to have vanished off the face of the universe after the incident with Lilith, and I would love an explanation of what happened to him. I like all pairing types, but I would prefer them to remain in the background.
My thoughts: I have a thing for the devil, okay? Not in the religious/ethical sense of worshipping evil, but as a character. I empathize with feeling trapped and coerced, and with lashing out against that. I like Satan in Paradise Lost. I like Lucifer in Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries. I like Lucifer in Angel Sanctuary.
And I like this version of Lucifer, as envisioned by Gaiman in The Sandman and fleshed out by Mike Carey in Lucifer. He is cold and proud, solitary, self-centered, and cruel... but he doesn't compromise, he keeps his bargains, he returns faith for faith given (if cutting a bit toward the letter of the law rather than the spirit), he cares about Michael and Mazikeen as much as he's able, and he never, ever lies. He is the one who tells God, "No." And he makes it stick.
Of course, Lucifer himself is not the only reason I love the series. I love Elaine in her confusion, and the way she grows and becomes so much more (personally, not just professionally) than she ever imagined. I love Mazikeen, how Carey found a warrior queen inside the lovestruck demon Gaiman first showed us. I love Michael's tortured attempts to understand and justify the flaws in the universe, and to do right by his duty and his daughter. I love how human all the angels and demons and centaurs and old gods and playing cards and humans are. I love the wheels within wheels of the plot, and how the seeds of the end are inevitable from the beginning if you look. I love the world-building that makes hell a living, breathing society. I love the storytelling, the patterns and word choices, the little asides Carey stops and makes in the middle of his epic. I love the scale, and the horrible edge to the choices Lucifer makes and forces other people to make. I love the stupid humor Gaudium, Spera, and some other characters bring to the table. I love that an epic saga of metaphysical war is packaged as a kitchen table story about dysfunctional families, about fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers. (I really, really like that part.)
But mostly I come back to Lucifer, and the idea of saying no. No lies. No compromises. No false choice between serving in heaven or reigning in hell. He insists there are other options, and he goes out and makes them. I respect the hell out of that.
(One note? If you write fic for this series, please, please, please use a light hand with italics. Yes, the comics are heavy on italics. But what works in one medium often falls flat in another, and excess italics make my head hurt.)
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Macbeth:
(This is a single volume play by William Shakespeare. The English is four centuries out of date, but aside from that, it is quick and easy to read.)
Characters: Lady Macbeth, Macbeth
Request: I want backstory on their courtship and early marriage, before it all went wrong. They strike me as genuine partners despite the power imbalance forced upon them by society's restrictive definition of appropriate female roles (which they both seem to have internalized to a greater or lesser degree), and even as they fall into depression and madness, they are still TOGETHER. I would like to see how they built that foundation. Sex is great if it serves to illustrate the characters and their relationship outside the bedroom, but please do not write PWP; character study is the important thing here.
My thoughts: I have had a soft spot for this play since I participated in a production in 7th grade -- we had eighteen witches, we cut half the scenes because of time limitations, and on opening night Macbeth accidentally knocked himself out with his own sword before Macduff could kill him, but what the hell, we had a fog machine and a cauldron filled with dry ice and an excuse to be waving swords around in the first place. That sort of thing sticks in the mind. :-)
But more seriously, I like that while the witches are the ones who set the plot into motion -- one gets the feeling neither Macbeth nor Lady Macbeth would have thought of betraying Duncan otherwise -- the minute the idea is presented, they cannot let go of it. You can say Lady Macbeth talked her husband into the murder, but Macbeth wouldn't have listened if he hadn't been more than half-convinced already. They were in it together, and it ruined them together. They were partners.
I would really like to see that partnership in happier days when they were still aimed at better ends, or watch them build it from the foundations.
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Villains by Necessity:
(This is a standalone fantasy novel by Eve Forward.)
Characters: any!
Request: I would like world-building, please! Specifically, I'd like a story about rediscovering and/or reestablishing worship of the dark/evil gods, or the power reshuffle in heaven, or why the good gods thought destroying the world was a great idea and/or didn't realize that was the result of their victory, or anything else to do with religious questions and issues. Religion in the novel is a weird mix of extremely superficial D&D gloss and actual deep lived beliefs, and I'd love to see the gimmicky stuff treated with the same seriousness that Kaylana's faith gets. I like all pairing types, but I would prefer them to remain in the background.
My thoughts: Villains by Necessity basically asks, "What if the forces of light and good in a D&D-eqsue world ever won, for good and for keeps? What would happen next?" and says, "The history of philosophy suggests that utopias are actually fucking awful places to live. Just saying." Then a misfit band of squabbling villains has to save the world from the heroes before their universe goes boom in one year. Whoops. It is a gloriously fun adventure with some wonderfully eccentric characters, who are surprisingly moving for people who start as a collection of stereotypes. (Well, the villains, anyway; they get character development by virtue of being the protagonists. The heroes remain pretty flat even in their own POV scenes.)
The thing is, Forward absolutely needs her setting to be constructed out of spare D&D tropes -- that is pretty much the point -- but as a result, the world-building veers wildly between glib superficiality and the more thoughtful character work and philosophy of free will. There are evil gods because D&D settings (and Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms, and so on and so forth) have evil gods, not because Forward has put much thought into how they would actually work in practice. I would like a story that does some of that thinking.
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Black Jewels:
(This is a sprawling fantasy series by Anne Bishop -- I believe there are currently nine component books, starting with Daughter of the Blood. This is probably not the best fandom to get into in under two months.)
Characters: Karla
Request: I want to see Karla having an actual sexual/romantic relationship with another woman. Or several relationships. Or one relationship with several women. Whatever! Her partner(s) can be canon or original, whichever is easiest for you. I don't care if you focus on the feelings or the sex, so long as you don't get outright drippy. Everyone in this world seems prickly to some degree and Karla is doubly so, so I would like her to retain her edges even while in love and/or lust. If you show how she balances her sex life with the pseudo-family she canonically formed with her Captain of the Guard and Della, that would be extra awesome -- I am all in favor of found families, the larger the better -- but if you want to write something set during her teen years or to gloss over that potential area of conflict, that is also fine by me. I just want Karla to act on her sexuality and be HAPPY, dammit. It is not so very much to ask!
(P.S. I have a huge soft spot for Karla/Wilhelmina, if you can think of a way to make that work, but that is totally not required.)
My thoughts: Bishop is not quite what I'd call a guilty pleasure, but this series hits a LOT of my id buttons, and hits them HARD, which keeps me reading even when her world-building often makes me go, "Ummm... are you sure?" So yes, please, bring on powerful people using that power, women unashamedly in charge, violence and vengeance all over the place, predatory behavior in otherwise human characters, and so on and so forth. Getting to see Karla in her role as Queen -- sitting in judgment, yanking the leashes on recalcitrant members of her various Circles, negotiating with other Territories, etc. -- would be awesome. There are never enough stories about women exercising power.
As for sex itself, should you choose to write anything explicit... Hmm. Okay, what the hell, I will tell you my porn preferences, because better TMI than a belated discovery that we have incompatible kinks, yeah?
Firstly, you are not obligated to write porn! Secondly, if you do so, vanilla is fine; canon itself is pretty vanilla when it comes to sex between protagonists and I have never felt any loss of sensuality there. Thirdly, I do not want non-con or dub-con in this context, though mention of past rape and/or threats thereof is okay.
Now, on to kinks and other details. Bloodplay during consensual sex is fine and more than fine, as is creative use of Craft for bondage or other games. (Phantom hands and seduction tendrils are neat, but seriously, they can't be the only options! Especially not for a Healer and Black Widow.) On that note, I am not really into D/s when used in the service of verbal or physical humiliation -- I am not into humiliation in general, FYI -- but bondage in and of itself is awesome. Being restrained can be about freedom and relaxation, or enhancing sensation by blocking off one sense, like sight or touch. Breast worship and nipple play are always a plus. Mild xeno is also cool if you want to write Karla with a character who is not physically fully human -- like the way people from Tigrelan have claws, or Eyriens have wings. I'm not into bestiality, though, and sex with Kindred would come too close to that for me.
Given Karla's reaction to her Virgin Night, I tend to think she doesn't seek penetration, though she may be perfectly happy to use Craft or a strap-on or a handheld dildo to penetrate a lover, should that lover so desire. Teasing is good -- Karla definitely strikes me as someone who would enjoy teasing (both giving and receiving) -- but in a spirit of mutuality, not with an emotionally cruel edge. Dirty talk is also good, but not in the sense of calling people by sexually degrading names (even in a reclamatory fashion) -- for example, saying "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z to you, and you're going to love it," is cool, but finishing with, "you filthy little slut," is really not what I'm looking for.
Lastly, if you are setting this after Queen of the Darkness, acknowledgement of Karla's injuries would be nice, though it doesn't have to be a big thing.
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And that is that. :-)
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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. I will read anything when it comes to pairings -- 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 -- but I prefer gen, and I tend to skim sex scenes because the non-sex parts of the story are almost always more interesting to me. (Disregard this if you are writing the Karla-has-a-sex-life prompt! In that particular case, porn is just fine. In fact, even a context-free sex scene would be okay... though context is always better. *wry*)
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet and a little complicated.
3. When 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.
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 there's more to life than sex. 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; good spelling and grammar; 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.
6. If there are ugly social issues inherent in these things I love, and you want to talk about them, that is fine by me. That falls under 'taking the characters and settings seriously,' and I am always pleased when a story makes me stop and think. (This is not to say that I don't love more straightforward squeeing as well -- because I totally do! -- but if you want to go deeper, I am with you all the way.)
Okay. On to specific fandoms.
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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: Shevek
Request: I love the entire Ekumen, but I want fic specifically and only for "The Dispossessed." I picked Shevek to identify which book I'm interested in, not to force you to write about him in particular. I am not at all fussy about what you write! 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 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. I am also intrigued by the hints of Odo's own relationship with Taviri; 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; etc., etc. There are infinite options! I like all pairing types, but I would prefer a focus on plot, character development, and world-building instead of a focus on sex and/or romance.
My 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.
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 picked Shevek to point out which parts of the Hainish Cycle I am interested in, not to force you to write about him specifically. As long as you write about Anarres and Urras, please feel free to use whatever canon and original characters you want! :-)
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Lucifer:
(This is a completed eleven-volume comics series written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Peter Gross, Dean Ormston, Ryan Kelley, et al. It is based on character interpretations developed by Neil Gaiman in The Sandman, but you don't have to read that series to understand this one.)
Characters: any!
Request: Lucifer is my favorite, but I love pretty much all the characters. What I am especially interested in reading is a story about families -- Lucifer and his brothers; Lucifer, Michael, and Elaine; Elaine's human family, or how Cestis copes with 'her' new wife and son after the series end; Rachel and her resurrected brother (is he healed? how does she cope if he is or isn't?); Gaudium, Spera, and Lumen; Mazikeen and Lilith; Jill and Noema; Izanami and her sons; or any of the other family units in the series. Failing that, why not tell me what Gabriel was up to during the series? He seems to have vanished off the face of the universe after the incident with Lilith, and I would love an explanation of what happened to him. I like all pairing types, but I would prefer them to remain in the background.
My thoughts: I have a thing for the devil, okay? Not in the religious/ethical sense of worshipping evil, but as a character. I empathize with feeling trapped and coerced, and with lashing out against that. I like Satan in Paradise Lost. I like Lucifer in Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries. I like Lucifer in Angel Sanctuary.
And I like this version of Lucifer, as envisioned by Gaiman in The Sandman and fleshed out by Mike Carey in Lucifer. He is cold and proud, solitary, self-centered, and cruel... but he doesn't compromise, he keeps his bargains, he returns faith for faith given (if cutting a bit toward the letter of the law rather than the spirit), he cares about Michael and Mazikeen as much as he's able, and he never, ever lies. He is the one who tells God, "No." And he makes it stick.
Of course, Lucifer himself is not the only reason I love the series. I love Elaine in her confusion, and the way she grows and becomes so much more (personally, not just professionally) than she ever imagined. I love Mazikeen, how Carey found a warrior queen inside the lovestruck demon Gaiman first showed us. I love Michael's tortured attempts to understand and justify the flaws in the universe, and to do right by his duty and his daughter. I love how human all the angels and demons and centaurs and old gods and playing cards and humans are. I love the wheels within wheels of the plot, and how the seeds of the end are inevitable from the beginning if you look. I love the world-building that makes hell a living, breathing society. I love the storytelling, the patterns and word choices, the little asides Carey stops and makes in the middle of his epic. I love the scale, and the horrible edge to the choices Lucifer makes and forces other people to make. I love the stupid humor Gaudium, Spera, and some other characters bring to the table. I love that an epic saga of metaphysical war is packaged as a kitchen table story about dysfunctional families, about fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers. (I really, really like that part.)
But mostly I come back to Lucifer, and the idea of saying no. No lies. No compromises. No false choice between serving in heaven or reigning in hell. He insists there are other options, and he goes out and makes them. I respect the hell out of that.
(One note? If you write fic for this series, please, please, please use a light hand with italics. Yes, the comics are heavy on italics. But what works in one medium often falls flat in another, and excess italics make my head hurt.)
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Macbeth:
(This is a single volume play by William Shakespeare. The English is four centuries out of date, but aside from that, it is quick and easy to read.)
Characters: Lady Macbeth, Macbeth
Request: I want backstory on their courtship and early marriage, before it all went wrong. They strike me as genuine partners despite the power imbalance forced upon them by society's restrictive definition of appropriate female roles (which they both seem to have internalized to a greater or lesser degree), and even as they fall into depression and madness, they are still TOGETHER. I would like to see how they built that foundation. Sex is great if it serves to illustrate the characters and their relationship outside the bedroom, but please do not write PWP; character study is the important thing here.
My thoughts: I have had a soft spot for this play since I participated in a production in 7th grade -- we had eighteen witches, we cut half the scenes because of time limitations, and on opening night Macbeth accidentally knocked himself out with his own sword before Macduff could kill him, but what the hell, we had a fog machine and a cauldron filled with dry ice and an excuse to be waving swords around in the first place. That sort of thing sticks in the mind. :-)
But more seriously, I like that while the witches are the ones who set the plot into motion -- one gets the feeling neither Macbeth nor Lady Macbeth would have thought of betraying Duncan otherwise -- the minute the idea is presented, they cannot let go of it. You can say Lady Macbeth talked her husband into the murder, but Macbeth wouldn't have listened if he hadn't been more than half-convinced already. They were in it together, and it ruined them together. They were partners.
I would really like to see that partnership in happier days when they were still aimed at better ends, or watch them build it from the foundations.
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Villains by Necessity:
(This is a standalone fantasy novel by Eve Forward.)
Characters: any!
Request: I would like world-building, please! Specifically, I'd like a story about rediscovering and/or reestablishing worship of the dark/evil gods, or the power reshuffle in heaven, or why the good gods thought destroying the world was a great idea and/or didn't realize that was the result of their victory, or anything else to do with religious questions and issues. Religion in the novel is a weird mix of extremely superficial D&D gloss and actual deep lived beliefs, and I'd love to see the gimmicky stuff treated with the same seriousness that Kaylana's faith gets. I like all pairing types, but I would prefer them to remain in the background.
My thoughts: Villains by Necessity basically asks, "What if the forces of light and good in a D&D-eqsue world ever won, for good and for keeps? What would happen next?" and says, "The history of philosophy suggests that utopias are actually fucking awful places to live. Just saying." Then a misfit band of squabbling villains has to save the world from the heroes before their universe goes boom in one year. Whoops. It is a gloriously fun adventure with some wonderfully eccentric characters, who are surprisingly moving for people who start as a collection of stereotypes. (Well, the villains, anyway; they get character development by virtue of being the protagonists. The heroes remain pretty flat even in their own POV scenes.)
The thing is, Forward absolutely needs her setting to be constructed out of spare D&D tropes -- that is pretty much the point -- but as a result, the world-building veers wildly between glib superficiality and the more thoughtful character work and philosophy of free will. There are evil gods because D&D settings (and Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms, and so on and so forth) have evil gods, not because Forward has put much thought into how they would actually work in practice. I would like a story that does some of that thinking.
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Black Jewels:
(This is a sprawling fantasy series by Anne Bishop -- I believe there are currently nine component books, starting with Daughter of the Blood. This is probably not the best fandom to get into in under two months.)
Characters: Karla
Request: I want to see Karla having an actual sexual/romantic relationship with another woman. Or several relationships. Or one relationship with several women. Whatever! Her partner(s) can be canon or original, whichever is easiest for you. I don't care if you focus on the feelings or the sex, so long as you don't get outright drippy. Everyone in this world seems prickly to some degree and Karla is doubly so, so I would like her to retain her edges even while in love and/or lust. If you show how she balances her sex life with the pseudo-family she canonically formed with her Captain of the Guard and Della, that would be extra awesome -- I am all in favor of found families, the larger the better -- but if you want to write something set during her teen years or to gloss over that potential area of conflict, that is also fine by me. I just want Karla to act on her sexuality and be HAPPY, dammit. It is not so very much to ask!
(P.S. I have a huge soft spot for Karla/Wilhelmina, if you can think of a way to make that work, but that is totally not required.)
My thoughts: Bishop is not quite what I'd call a guilty pleasure, but this series hits a LOT of my id buttons, and hits them HARD, which keeps me reading even when her world-building often makes me go, "Ummm... are you sure?" So yes, please, bring on powerful people using that power, women unashamedly in charge, violence and vengeance all over the place, predatory behavior in otherwise human characters, and so on and so forth. Getting to see Karla in her role as Queen -- sitting in judgment, yanking the leashes on recalcitrant members of her various Circles, negotiating with other Territories, etc. -- would be awesome. There are never enough stories about women exercising power.
As for sex itself, should you choose to write anything explicit... Hmm. Okay, what the hell, I will tell you my porn preferences, because better TMI than a belated discovery that we have incompatible kinks, yeah?
Firstly, you are not obligated to write porn! Secondly, if you do so, vanilla is fine; canon itself is pretty vanilla when it comes to sex between protagonists and I have never felt any loss of sensuality there. Thirdly, I do not want non-con or dub-con in this context, though mention of past rape and/or threats thereof is okay.
Now, on to kinks and other details. Bloodplay during consensual sex is fine and more than fine, as is creative use of Craft for bondage or other games. (Phantom hands and seduction tendrils are neat, but seriously, they can't be the only options! Especially not for a Healer and Black Widow.) On that note, I am not really into D/s when used in the service of verbal or physical humiliation -- I am not into humiliation in general, FYI -- but bondage in and of itself is awesome. Being restrained can be about freedom and relaxation, or enhancing sensation by blocking off one sense, like sight or touch. Breast worship and nipple play are always a plus. Mild xeno is also cool if you want to write Karla with a character who is not physically fully human -- like the way people from Tigrelan have claws, or Eyriens have wings. I'm not into bestiality, though, and sex with Kindred would come too close to that for me.
Given Karla's reaction to her Virgin Night, I tend to think she doesn't seek penetration, though she may be perfectly happy to use Craft or a strap-on or a handheld dildo to penetrate a lover, should that lover so desire. Teasing is good -- Karla definitely strikes me as someone who would enjoy teasing (both giving and receiving) -- but in a spirit of mutuality, not with an emotionally cruel edge. Dirty talk is also good, but not in the sense of calling people by sexually degrading names (even in a reclamatory fashion) -- for example, saying "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z to you, and you're going to love it," is cool, but finishing with, "you filthy little slut," is really not what I'm looking for.
Lastly, if you are setting this after Queen of the Darkness, acknowledgement of Karla's injuries would be nice, though it doesn't have to be a big thing.
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And that is that. :-)
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