Yuletide Letter 2019
General Info:
AO3 Name: mari4212
Quick and dirty rules:
If you love the canon and you love writing your story, I will probably love it. Every prompt I throw out is a suggestion to have fun playing with or to spark ideas, it is not set in stone. I will read any rating from straight G to very explicit, though most of my prompts will start off gen based.
Things I love across all fandoms:
Female characters with agency (ie, making choices, having consequences, going out and doing the things themselves because they want them done). Friendships, especially female friendships. Friendships and respect into love. Unrequited love/pining, as long as the pining character figures out how to go on with the rest of their life. Unrequited/pining turning into mutual love as respect and friendship builds. Time travel, especially with older versions of the characters going back and interacting with younger counterparts/younger versions of their group (i.e., tvtropes’ Peggy Sue). Lawful good characters not being lawful stupid. Lawful good characters in general (think Steve Rogers, 90% of Star Trek, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Keladry of Mindelan, most Heralds in Valdemar). Trickster/guile heroines. I enjoy canon typical stories and canon divergent AUs, the kind where you ask what would have happened had this person made this key choice differently.
Do Not Wants:
Rape/Non-con/Dub-con. Racism/homophobia/misogyny/et cetera being portrayed positively, if you have to portray it at all. Graphic descriptions of character/animal harm. Character bashing; even if it's not one of my nominated characters please assume I love everyone in all my canons and you'd be right more often than not. I squick on infidelity, so if you want to ship a couple that have significant others in canon, please set it in an au where the original couple never got together or somehow broke it off. On the other hand, I do like OT3 and consider it a very useful alternative to jealousy/shipping wars. AUs that drastically change the setting - no coffeeshop or high school aus for example.
Fandom-Specific:
The Lost World - tv
Requested Characters: Marguerite Krux, John Roxton
What I love: It's a post WW1 adventure setting with dinosaurs, shifting planes of reality and found family aspects, what's not to love? Moreover, I love the relationship between Marguerite and Roxton, how good they are for each other, how much they challenge and build one another up, and the chemistry was fantastic between the actors.
So in this fandom, Marguerite is my best beloved character and I love things that deal with how honestly complex she is as a character, how she is both extremely selfish and yet will sacrifice a lot for those she cares about, how she can be petty, cruel, and vindictive but also kind and compassionate with her own sense of honor. I love how she is unapologetic about being manipulative and using deception/leverage to succeed, especially when pretty much everyone else in the Treehouse charges straight ahead with no thought process/plan B. I love how she’s so strong and so vulnerable at once, and how she keeps going even when she’s the most wounded. Roxton is my next most beloved because he’s so much the lawful good archetype instead, and his courage/integrity and compassion play well against Marguerite’s pragmatism and focus. He’s also the one to stand toe to toe with Marguerite and call her on her worst. He can bring out her best, but he’s also correspondingly the one who often hurts her the most. I like how he sometimes loses his temper with her, because she can honestly be incredibly frustrating, but that when he’s in the wrong he apologizes. I love his protective streak, his nobility, and his sense of duty.
Prompts/Ideas: Play with something about their relationship, anything from super fluff to high drama, as long as they don’t end up permanently broken up. Give me character studyish something on one or both of them. Or give me something from one of the semi-AU episodes they had, like the one where Roxton went back to the Old West, and write a continuation of those characters. Or hey, the one episode in the first season with the Druids, where Marguerite, Roxton, and Malone ended up forgetting what they'd done. How would things have potentially changed if they'd remembered that incident? It gave a very different perspective of Marguerite for the first season.
I'm also fine with family-style fluff around the camp, especially the dynamics we saw in season 3 where they had gotten used to each other and had some trust built up. Or if you have some long and elaborate adventure story that you've always wanted to do with this series, go with that. I'm a sucker for time travel and older versions of characters meeting the younger, so if you want to play with third season versions of the characters seeing first season versions of characters again, it will make me squee high enough to make all the nearby bats start flying in circles. I mean, what would season three Marguerite do if she were back in season one and interacting with the other characters as they were then?
Dragon Jousters - Mercedes Lackey
Requested Characters: Kiron, Ari
I love Mercedes Lackey's writing in pretty much everything, but I loved her world-building and playing with Egypt here, and especially her dragons as they are amazing. I really fell in love with the books as Vetch/Kiron and Ari began to develop their relationship throughout Joust. They were both very badly broken by the system they were in, and the way that they sometimes tried to reach through their pain but sometimes failed at it as well was fantastic. And then with Alta and the way Kiron's world kept expanding, I loved that take. I really loved the way his feelings about Alta shifted as he grew to understand more and more of the political realities, and the choices that the dragonriders made as that developed. Every book went further into the understanding that people were complicated and the choices not as easy as they seemed before.
If you want a specific prompt, I'd like to see more of Ari's perspective, as the whole series is narrated through Kiron, and he is not what anyone would call unbiased. Other prompts include anything to do with dragon shenanigans from Avatre and Kashet, Kiron and Ari as the more equal brothers/friends they ended up as in the later books, or an AU based on different choices in the books. Please note, if you want to pull in other characters from the later books, especially Aket-ten and Nofret, I am completely fine with that. I love almost every character in this series, it's just that my best beloved characters are Ari and Kiron.
Please note that because of the power differences present through most of the books, as well as the age differences, I have a really hard time reading these two as romantic/sexual at all. I love these two more as brothers and friends who each had a reason to be isolated from their peers, and how that gives them a lot in common even when their original situations were so different.
The Story of Owen - E. K. Johnston
Requested Characters: Siobhan McQuaid, Courtney Speed
In this series, I fell in love with Siobhan and her world. I love the world building within the stories: the history, the changes in the course of events because dragons had an impact, the places in the world changed forever because of human interaction with dragons. I love the sense of place: the places they were at mattered, the town and its environment in the first book, the plains and the mountains in the second. I loved the fact that choices mattered and had an impact, I loved that every character had agency and consequences, and that the consequences were serious. I loved the foreshadowing in Prairie Fire, I could tell how it was going to end a few chapters ahead of time, and dreaded the climax, even when I admitted to myself that it was a truthful and right ending. I loved Hannah’s confession to Siobhan that the family had known how it was going to end, that they’d chosen that ending even when it hurt them because it was the right thing to do.
Prompts: I’d love more after the end of the book. We know Siobhan chose to move on with Courtney and Porter, and I’d love to see how that shakes out. They’ve had a bit of time to get to know each other and to tell their stories, but there is still a lot to learn from and adapt to one another, and I’d love to see that play out. What happens after the initial grief is processed? Do they stay where they were stationed or will they move on to another post in the Oil Watch? If that doesn’t give you a springboard, I’d also love inter-text moments within Prairie Fire, some more of the life on duty and early interactions. I love, love, love how the sisterhood within the barracks developed, all the ways in which Courtney and the others helped Siobhan with the practical tasks because she needed to be there and they needed to help her be there. I love the storytelling in the bunkers, the social dynamics at play, and would love to see more of that.
The Lady Astronaut Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Requested Characters: Elma York
This series is my new addition for Yuletide. I binged through the books in about two days this summer and instantly started passing them off to friends of mine to get other people as hooked. I fell in love with Elma, with her passion, her intelligence, her drive. I fell in love with the series' refusal to let her sit on her laurels, that she makes mistakes and things aren't always fixed with good intentions. I love how her anxiety issues are there and present and affect her, and also how she works with and past them. I love the space exploration and the ways it leaps off of our space program and into a realistic look forward.
Note: In my DNWs above I listed my general dislike in misogyny/racism/homophobia being portrayed positively, if you have to use them at all. In a book series like this, butting against racism and misogyny are part of the framework of the books, and are definitely present in a lot of the character's attitudes. I'm okay with you taking that into account, but please don't make the characters double down on the nasty attitudes beyond their starting points.
I'm not sure exactly what I want for this series, except more please. I nominated several characters that I love seeing Elma interact with, but I didn't pick any of them here because I'm open to seeing more of her interactions with all of them, or none of them as it appeals to you. Throw in several of the other characters both listed or from the book as you like - anything with more interactions between the other female astronauts and Elma would be fantastic, for example. For specific prompts: Elma and Nathaniel between the books, building the new balance they've found, or after The Fated Sky when Nathaniel joins them on Mars and they're part of building the new colony. Elma and Stetson - that uneasy tension where they are always talking past each other and misunderstanding each other is fascinating. They start to understand each other a little better on the voyage to Mars, but there's a lot more there to be explored and understood. Elma and Florence - Any more missing scenes as the book skips over parts of their journey, bits of understanding each other, all of that. Elma herself - cooking as her creative outlet, her family, all of that is stuff I would love to see played with.
AO3 Name: mari4212
Quick and dirty rules:
If you love the canon and you love writing your story, I will probably love it. Every prompt I throw out is a suggestion to have fun playing with or to spark ideas, it is not set in stone. I will read any rating from straight G to very explicit, though most of my prompts will start off gen based.
Things I love across all fandoms:
Female characters with agency (ie, making choices, having consequences, going out and doing the things themselves because they want them done). Friendships, especially female friendships. Friendships and respect into love. Unrequited love/pining, as long as the pining character figures out how to go on with the rest of their life. Unrequited/pining turning into mutual love as respect and friendship builds. Time travel, especially with older versions of the characters going back and interacting with younger counterparts/younger versions of their group (i.e., tvtropes’ Peggy Sue). Lawful good characters not being lawful stupid. Lawful good characters in general (think Steve Rogers, 90% of Star Trek, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Keladry of Mindelan, most Heralds in Valdemar). Trickster/guile heroines. I enjoy canon typical stories and canon divergent AUs, the kind where you ask what would have happened had this person made this key choice differently.
Do Not Wants:
Rape/Non-con/Dub-con. Racism/homophobia/misogyny/et cetera being portrayed positively, if you have to portray it at all. Graphic descriptions of character/animal harm. Character bashing; even if it's not one of my nominated characters please assume I love everyone in all my canons and you'd be right more often than not. I squick on infidelity, so if you want to ship a couple that have significant others in canon, please set it in an au where the original couple never got together or somehow broke it off. On the other hand, I do like OT3 and consider it a very useful alternative to jealousy/shipping wars. AUs that drastically change the setting - no coffeeshop or high school aus for example.
Fandom-Specific:
The Lost World - tv
Requested Characters: Marguerite Krux, John Roxton
What I love: It's a post WW1 adventure setting with dinosaurs, shifting planes of reality and found family aspects, what's not to love? Moreover, I love the relationship between Marguerite and Roxton, how good they are for each other, how much they challenge and build one another up, and the chemistry was fantastic between the actors.
So in this fandom, Marguerite is my best beloved character and I love things that deal with how honestly complex she is as a character, how she is both extremely selfish and yet will sacrifice a lot for those she cares about, how she can be petty, cruel, and vindictive but also kind and compassionate with her own sense of honor. I love how she is unapologetic about being manipulative and using deception/leverage to succeed, especially when pretty much everyone else in the Treehouse charges straight ahead with no thought process/plan B. I love how she’s so strong and so vulnerable at once, and how she keeps going even when she’s the most wounded. Roxton is my next most beloved because he’s so much the lawful good archetype instead, and his courage/integrity and compassion play well against Marguerite’s pragmatism and focus. He’s also the one to stand toe to toe with Marguerite and call her on her worst. He can bring out her best, but he’s also correspondingly the one who often hurts her the most. I like how he sometimes loses his temper with her, because she can honestly be incredibly frustrating, but that when he’s in the wrong he apologizes. I love his protective streak, his nobility, and his sense of duty.
Prompts/Ideas: Play with something about their relationship, anything from super fluff to high drama, as long as they don’t end up permanently broken up. Give me character studyish something on one or both of them. Or give me something from one of the semi-AU episodes they had, like the one where Roxton went back to the Old West, and write a continuation of those characters. Or hey, the one episode in the first season with the Druids, where Marguerite, Roxton, and Malone ended up forgetting what they'd done. How would things have potentially changed if they'd remembered that incident? It gave a very different perspective of Marguerite for the first season.
I'm also fine with family-style fluff around the camp, especially the dynamics we saw in season 3 where they had gotten used to each other and had some trust built up. Or if you have some long and elaborate adventure story that you've always wanted to do with this series, go with that. I'm a sucker for time travel and older versions of characters meeting the younger, so if you want to play with third season versions of the characters seeing first season versions of characters again, it will make me squee high enough to make all the nearby bats start flying in circles. I mean, what would season three Marguerite do if she were back in season one and interacting with the other characters as they were then?
Dragon Jousters - Mercedes Lackey
Requested Characters: Kiron, Ari
I love Mercedes Lackey's writing in pretty much everything, but I loved her world-building and playing with Egypt here, and especially her dragons as they are amazing. I really fell in love with the books as Vetch/Kiron and Ari began to develop their relationship throughout Joust. They were both very badly broken by the system they were in, and the way that they sometimes tried to reach through their pain but sometimes failed at it as well was fantastic. And then with Alta and the way Kiron's world kept expanding, I loved that take. I really loved the way his feelings about Alta shifted as he grew to understand more and more of the political realities, and the choices that the dragonriders made as that developed. Every book went further into the understanding that people were complicated and the choices not as easy as they seemed before.
If you want a specific prompt, I'd like to see more of Ari's perspective, as the whole series is narrated through Kiron, and he is not what anyone would call unbiased. Other prompts include anything to do with dragon shenanigans from Avatre and Kashet, Kiron and Ari as the more equal brothers/friends they ended up as in the later books, or an AU based on different choices in the books. Please note, if you want to pull in other characters from the later books, especially Aket-ten and Nofret, I am completely fine with that. I love almost every character in this series, it's just that my best beloved characters are Ari and Kiron.
Please note that because of the power differences present through most of the books, as well as the age differences, I have a really hard time reading these two as romantic/sexual at all. I love these two more as brothers and friends who each had a reason to be isolated from their peers, and how that gives them a lot in common even when their original situations were so different.
The Story of Owen - E. K. Johnston
Requested Characters: Siobhan McQuaid, Courtney Speed
In this series, I fell in love with Siobhan and her world. I love the world building within the stories: the history, the changes in the course of events because dragons had an impact, the places in the world changed forever because of human interaction with dragons. I love the sense of place: the places they were at mattered, the town and its environment in the first book, the plains and the mountains in the second. I loved the fact that choices mattered and had an impact, I loved that every character had agency and consequences, and that the consequences were serious. I loved the foreshadowing in Prairie Fire, I could tell how it was going to end a few chapters ahead of time, and dreaded the climax, even when I admitted to myself that it was a truthful and right ending. I loved Hannah’s confession to Siobhan that the family had known how it was going to end, that they’d chosen that ending even when it hurt them because it was the right thing to do.
Prompts: I’d love more after the end of the book. We know Siobhan chose to move on with Courtney and Porter, and I’d love to see how that shakes out. They’ve had a bit of time to get to know each other and to tell their stories, but there is still a lot to learn from and adapt to one another, and I’d love to see that play out. What happens after the initial grief is processed? Do they stay where they were stationed or will they move on to another post in the Oil Watch? If that doesn’t give you a springboard, I’d also love inter-text moments within Prairie Fire, some more of the life on duty and early interactions. I love, love, love how the sisterhood within the barracks developed, all the ways in which Courtney and the others helped Siobhan with the practical tasks because she needed to be there and they needed to help her be there. I love the storytelling in the bunkers, the social dynamics at play, and would love to see more of that.
The Lady Astronaut Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Requested Characters: Elma York
This series is my new addition for Yuletide. I binged through the books in about two days this summer and instantly started passing them off to friends of mine to get other people as hooked. I fell in love with Elma, with her passion, her intelligence, her drive. I fell in love with the series' refusal to let her sit on her laurels, that she makes mistakes and things aren't always fixed with good intentions. I love how her anxiety issues are there and present and affect her, and also how she works with and past them. I love the space exploration and the ways it leaps off of our space program and into a realistic look forward.
Note: In my DNWs above I listed my general dislike in misogyny/racism/homophobia being portrayed positively, if you have to use them at all. In a book series like this, butting against racism and misogyny are part of the framework of the books, and are definitely present in a lot of the character's attitudes. I'm okay with you taking that into account, but please don't make the characters double down on the nasty attitudes beyond their starting points.
I'm not sure exactly what I want for this series, except more please. I nominated several characters that I love seeing Elma interact with, but I didn't pick any of them here because I'm open to seeing more of her interactions with all of them, or none of them as it appeals to you. Throw in several of the other characters both listed or from the book as you like - anything with more interactions between the other female astronauts and Elma would be fantastic, for example. For specific prompts: Elma and Nathaniel between the books, building the new balance they've found, or after The Fated Sky when Nathaniel joins them on Mars and they're part of building the new colony. Elma and Stetson - that uneasy tension where they are always talking past each other and misunderstanding each other is fascinating. They start to understand each other a little better on the voyage to Mars, but there's a lot more there to be explored and understood. Elma and Florence - Any more missing scenes as the book skips over parts of their journey, bits of understanding each other, all of that. Elma herself - cooking as her creative outlet, her family, all of that is stuff I would love to see played with.