yuletide letter
Dear yuletide writer:
Hi! You have offered to write in one of these fandoms, so I like you already :)
Optional details are optional. As always, I want to say that if my prompts and ramblings and theories about these books don't work for you, I'd rather you wrote the story you liked and were enthusiastic about, than write me something that aligns perfectly with my requests and doesn't work for you. These specific prompt things are mostly me throwing out ideas: they're not story outlines for you to adhere to! Do what you think makes a good story.
I am ivy on AO3.
General likes and dislikes:
I enjoy:
*Adventuring, quests, "continued adventures of". All these books have characters going on quests or travelling or fighting or something, and this is totally what I look for in fic! Doesn't have to be Quests to Save the World like they are in the books or anything grand; they have such different lives that even an 'ordinary' day is pretty fascinating.
*What-if/fork-in-the-road AU! All these novels only show us a slice of what life is like there: there is so much to explore in an AU like that, which leads to my next point...
*Worldbuilding! EVERYTHING ABOUT IT. They're all fantasy or historical fiction, so the setting is different, and we often don't get to see enough about the world! Tell me more about the magic, or the customs, or the stories their culture passes down, or their worldview! I love original characters that deepen the worldbuilding, but not as an exclusive focus.
*Competence! I love people who are just really good at what they do--like Hermione, or Ilario de Sylvae (forever hearts about his swordsmanship and acting), or Simon Iddesleigh (ditto.)
*Magic, the fantastic, and to a lesser extent the supernatural! My absolute favourite genre is historical fantasy, and I love pretty much all the different subgenres of fantasy. Something about magic and spells and all that is simply (sorry) magical.
*History! I love seeing how things play out in alternate-universe history, or seeing different perspectives on X Historical Event in fiction. Medieval history is my favourite, but if you incorporate historical events into these I'd love that!
*I like long works, if you like writing longer stories!
I would prefer not to receive:
*No-magic AU, modern-day AU, magic disappears forever stories. The magic and the historical setting are the whole point.
*Grimdark fic. I'm pretty burned out on the "grittier the realer" trend. What I mean by this: depictions of rape, child abuse, gore, violence, prejudice, bigotry, torture etc are fine. What I don't like is the piling-on of everything bad, in order to make a story more "realistic". The tragic angsty backstory of a character who had everything bad happen to him, that's what I'm tired of.
*No crossovers or fusions please.
*Not a fan of terminal illnesses.
*I prefer past tense (instead of present) and 1st/3rd point of view (instead of 2nd). I find it a lot harder to immerse myself in these tenses/perspectives, whereas past tense/first and third POV is absolutely invisible to me and I just go right to the "enjoy story" stage.
Other:
*I'm neutral on sexually explicit fic. Apparently this year I didn't request any pairings (I don't know what happened), but I do multiship if you want to include them (my preferences are generally het, followed by femslash. Slash isn't a dealbreaker, I just rarely ship slash.)
*I nominated as many characters as I could, and requested even fewer, in order to make matching easier. If you include other characters, I would be thrilled.
*Nothing will RUIN MY CHRISTMAS/YULETIDE. I know I just gave you a heap of things I like and don't like, but I read eclectically and I'm open to trying new things. I am always delighted by what I get every yuletide, and some of these fandoms are so small that anything, absolutely anything, is contributing hugely to the fandom.
Specific fandoms and prompts:
[Hawk of May - Gillian Bradshaw]
Hawk of May - Gillian Bradshaw
Characters requested
*Gwalchmai ap Lot (Hawk of May)
These books! Oh my god. (I put it under the name "Hawk of May" in the hopes that someone would recognize it more easily than the series' title "Down the Long Wind", but I love the whole trilogy.) Gwalchmai is probably my favourite character, followed by Bedwyr and Arthur and Gwynhwyfar all together in a tie, because there's a goodness or something to them that can't be eradicated by the horrible circumstances around them.
I really love bildungsroman; the journey of Gwalchmai from a young boy to an adult--accelerated by Lugh or not--is one of my favourite parts. I love how he makes it from a child unable to keep up with Agravain to his equal; I also really love that in the intervening years, Agravain learns humility. I love that reunion scene--I love that the two of them manage to move on past wrongs, which many characters are unable to do (see: Arthur & Bedwyr, because one of them dies). It's an Arthurian story, so tragedy was incoming, but oh my god, was I unprepared for how terrible the unmaking of Arthur's golden age was.
I would love to see more about Gwalchmai's life in Arthur's Family, or while he's in Lugh's hall, or stuff later on: Gwalchmai gets sent to do a lot of diplomacy, and probably sees firsthand how Arthur's alliances and kingdom start coming apart. Or stuff about Gwyn! He is at the core of the dispute that runs three ways between him, Medraut, and Arthur--fic about this would be great too. (The part where Medraut, just before dying, realizes his brother is dead breaks my heart. Actually, a lot of In Winter's Shadow broke my heart.)
I talk about these books on my author tag for Gillian Bradshaw.
[Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey]
Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Characters requested:
*Morwen (Kushiel's Legacy)
*Berlik (Kushiel's Legacy)
To me, one of the super intriguing parts of the Kushiel's Legacy books are the people of the Maghuin Dhonn. Even though Moirin is one of them, we don't really get to see much of her people because a) she's off adventuring, b) Fainche is a hermit, c) a lot of their powers were broken generations ago.
But wind back to the Imriel trilogy, and while the Maghuin Dhonn are not terribly powerful, they're still there, a presence in all the wild places. Morwen's kind of ambiguous; she's pretty hell-bent on getting a child out of Imriel to keep her people alive, and then she's hell-bent on saving them from Dorelei & Imriel's child, and she doesn't seem to care so much about the consequences to herself or Imriel. She, like Berlik, has immense power. Berlik can transform into a bear, and I'm guessing that Morwen has similar powers. I'd love to see something exploring how the Maghuin Dhonn lived, how they might have reacted to the presence of Imriel (or if they reacted at all), the interactions between the Maghuin Dhonn and the other inhabitants of Alba. I'd love to see what Morwen and Berlik think about solving the problem regarding Imriel. Did Ferghus contribute? What stories do they tell, that the D'Angelines see the other side of? What kind of magic do they do, anyway? Basically anything about the Maghuin Dhonn would be awesome.
I talk about these books on my Terre d'Ange tag.
[Old Kingdom - Garth Nix]
Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Characters requested:
*Lirael (Old Kingdom)
*The Disreputable Dog
So I have a huge weak spot for the Disreputable Dog. How delightful I find her, one of the Seven as a completely shameless dog, I cannot even express. I love how she's so loyal, warm-hearted, and so rueful--at once a dog, and also holding the knowledge of who she was inside. Lirael, too: what an introduction we get to her! I was initially a bit disappointed there was a big gap between Sabriel and Lirael, but Lirael won me over so fast. I'd love to see the two of them on their adventures around the Glacier. We know Lirael turns into all these different creatures and crawls around the Library and finds things, but we only hear about the big discoveries. Lirael pretty much just has the Disreputable Dog as a friend for years and years. I'd love to see Lirael amongst the Clayr, or what the Disreputable Dog gets up to when Lirael's not there (when she disappears? Does she just...become part of the Charter or what?)
I'd also love to see an interlude of Lirael during or after the events of Abhorsen (and if you do go this route, post-Abhorsen, not including the Disreputable Dog is totally fine; she's moved on ;_;)
I talk about these books on my Garth Nix tag (this is intermixed with his other works, I'm afraid.)
[The Seventh Tower - Garth Nix]The Seventh Tower - Garth Nix
Characters requested:
*Great Uncle Ebbitt (Seventh Tower)
*Tal Graile-Rerem
THE WORLDBUILDING. I am forever sad that this was a six-book children's book series, because I wanted to know so, so much more about the Light Magic the Chosen employ, and the land of Aenir, and the Shield Maidens out on the Ice. Tal's kind of inexperienced, but we get to see him make huge leaps in magical ability; by the later books, he can conjure stairs out of light, stairs he can stand on. The tantalizing glimpses of what Light can do--the Achievements that Tal tries to compete with, the stuff that Great Uncle Ebbitt uses (on the sly), etc--all of those are indescribably fascinating to me.
Aenir is this weird, weird world which looks kind of like ours but is totally different. It's like a whole secondary fantasy world all on its own, and its inhabitants are equally distinct--I was expecting something like the shadowguard or Ebbitt's cat Spiritshadows, but the Storm Shepherds were something totally different. What about the Shield Maidens?
I love Great Uncle Ebbitt and his irreverance that conceals so much. I wonder why he got booted from Indigo? What does he do down in his ever-changing maze of things? What's it like in Indigo?
I talk about these books on my Garth Nix tag (this is intermixed with his other works, I'm afraid.)
Thank you, yuletide writer! I'm looking forward to what you come up with--happy yuletide!
Hi! You have offered to write in one of these fandoms, so I like you already :)
Optional details are optional. As always, I want to say that if my prompts and ramblings and theories about these books don't work for you, I'd rather you wrote the story you liked and were enthusiastic about, than write me something that aligns perfectly with my requests and doesn't work for you. These specific prompt things are mostly me throwing out ideas: they're not story outlines for you to adhere to! Do what you think makes a good story.
I am ivy on AO3.
General likes and dislikes:
I enjoy:
*Adventuring, quests, "continued adventures of". All these books have characters going on quests or travelling or fighting or something, and this is totally what I look for in fic! Doesn't have to be Quests to Save the World like they are in the books or anything grand; they have such different lives that even an 'ordinary' day is pretty fascinating.
*What-if/fork-in-the-road AU! All these novels only show us a slice of what life is like there: there is so much to explore in an AU like that, which leads to my next point...
*Worldbuilding! EVERYTHING ABOUT IT. They're all fantasy or historical fiction, so the setting is different, and we often don't get to see enough about the world! Tell me more about the magic, or the customs, or the stories their culture passes down, or their worldview! I love original characters that deepen the worldbuilding, but not as an exclusive focus.
*Competence! I love people who are just really good at what they do--like Hermione, or Ilario de Sylvae (forever hearts about his swordsmanship and acting), or Simon Iddesleigh (ditto.)
*Magic, the fantastic, and to a lesser extent the supernatural! My absolute favourite genre is historical fantasy, and I love pretty much all the different subgenres of fantasy. Something about magic and spells and all that is simply (sorry) magical.
*History! I love seeing how things play out in alternate-universe history, or seeing different perspectives on X Historical Event in fiction. Medieval history is my favourite, but if you incorporate historical events into these I'd love that!
*I like long works, if you like writing longer stories!
I would prefer not to receive:
*No-magic AU, modern-day AU, magic disappears forever stories. The magic and the historical setting are the whole point.
*Grimdark fic. I'm pretty burned out on the "grittier the realer" trend. What I mean by this: depictions of rape, child abuse, gore, violence, prejudice, bigotry, torture etc are fine. What I don't like is the piling-on of everything bad, in order to make a story more "realistic". The tragic angsty backstory of a character who had everything bad happen to him, that's what I'm tired of.
*No crossovers or fusions please.
*Not a fan of terminal illnesses.
*I prefer past tense (instead of present) and 1st/3rd point of view (instead of 2nd). I find it a lot harder to immerse myself in these tenses/perspectives, whereas past tense/first and third POV is absolutely invisible to me and I just go right to the "enjoy story" stage.
Other:
*I'm neutral on sexually explicit fic. Apparently this year I didn't request any pairings (I don't know what happened), but I do multiship if you want to include them (my preferences are generally het, followed by femslash. Slash isn't a dealbreaker, I just rarely ship slash.)
*I nominated as many characters as I could, and requested even fewer, in order to make matching easier. If you include other characters, I would be thrilled.
*Nothing will RUIN MY CHRISTMAS/YULETIDE. I know I just gave you a heap of things I like and don't like, but I read eclectically and I'm open to trying new things. I am always delighted by what I get every yuletide, and some of these fandoms are so small that anything, absolutely anything, is contributing hugely to the fandom.
Specific fandoms and prompts:
[Hawk of May - Gillian Bradshaw]
Hawk of May - Gillian Bradshaw
Characters requested
*Gwalchmai ap Lot (Hawk of May)
These books! Oh my god. (I put it under the name "Hawk of May" in the hopes that someone would recognize it more easily than the series' title "Down the Long Wind", but I love the whole trilogy.) Gwalchmai is probably my favourite character, followed by Bedwyr and Arthur and Gwynhwyfar all together in a tie, because there's a goodness or something to them that can't be eradicated by the horrible circumstances around them.
I really love bildungsroman; the journey of Gwalchmai from a young boy to an adult--accelerated by Lugh or not--is one of my favourite parts. I love how he makes it from a child unable to keep up with Agravain to his equal; I also really love that in the intervening years, Agravain learns humility. I love that reunion scene--I love that the two of them manage to move on past wrongs, which many characters are unable to do (see: Arthur & Bedwyr, because one of them dies). It's an Arthurian story, so tragedy was incoming, but oh my god, was I unprepared for how terrible the unmaking of Arthur's golden age was.
I would love to see more about Gwalchmai's life in Arthur's Family, or while he's in Lugh's hall, or stuff later on: Gwalchmai gets sent to do a lot of diplomacy, and probably sees firsthand how Arthur's alliances and kingdom start coming apart. Or stuff about Gwyn! He is at the core of the dispute that runs three ways between him, Medraut, and Arthur--fic about this would be great too. (The part where Medraut, just before dying, realizes his brother is dead breaks my heart. Actually, a lot of In Winter's Shadow broke my heart.)
I talk about these books on my author tag for Gillian Bradshaw.
[Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey]
Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Characters requested:
*Morwen (Kushiel's Legacy)
*Berlik (Kushiel's Legacy)
To me, one of the super intriguing parts of the Kushiel's Legacy books are the people of the Maghuin Dhonn. Even though Moirin is one of them, we don't really get to see much of her people because a) she's off adventuring, b) Fainche is a hermit, c) a lot of their powers were broken generations ago.
But wind back to the Imriel trilogy, and while the Maghuin Dhonn are not terribly powerful, they're still there, a presence in all the wild places. Morwen's kind of ambiguous; she's pretty hell-bent on getting a child out of Imriel to keep her people alive, and then she's hell-bent on saving them from Dorelei & Imriel's child, and she doesn't seem to care so much about the consequences to herself or Imriel. She, like Berlik, has immense power. Berlik can transform into a bear, and I'm guessing that Morwen has similar powers. I'd love to see something exploring how the Maghuin Dhonn lived, how they might have reacted to the presence of Imriel (or if they reacted at all), the interactions between the Maghuin Dhonn and the other inhabitants of Alba. I'd love to see what Morwen and Berlik think about solving the problem regarding Imriel. Did Ferghus contribute? What stories do they tell, that the D'Angelines see the other side of? What kind of magic do they do, anyway? Basically anything about the Maghuin Dhonn would be awesome.
I talk about these books on my Terre d'Ange tag.
[Old Kingdom - Garth Nix]
Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Characters requested:
*Lirael (Old Kingdom)
*The Disreputable Dog
So I have a huge weak spot for the Disreputable Dog. How delightful I find her, one of the Seven as a completely shameless dog, I cannot even express. I love how she's so loyal, warm-hearted, and so rueful--at once a dog, and also holding the knowledge of who she was inside. Lirael, too: what an introduction we get to her! I was initially a bit disappointed there was a big gap between Sabriel and Lirael, but Lirael won me over so fast. I'd love to see the two of them on their adventures around the Glacier. We know Lirael turns into all these different creatures and crawls around the Library and finds things, but we only hear about the big discoveries. Lirael pretty much just has the Disreputable Dog as a friend for years and years. I'd love to see Lirael amongst the Clayr, or what the Disreputable Dog gets up to when Lirael's not there (when she disappears? Does she just...become part of the Charter or what?)
I'd also love to see an interlude of Lirael during or after the events of Abhorsen (and if you do go this route, post-Abhorsen, not including the Disreputable Dog is totally fine; she's moved on ;_;)
I talk about these books on my Garth Nix tag (this is intermixed with his other works, I'm afraid.)
[The Seventh Tower - Garth Nix]The Seventh Tower - Garth Nix
Characters requested:
*Great Uncle Ebbitt (Seventh Tower)
*Tal Graile-Rerem
THE WORLDBUILDING. I am forever sad that this was a six-book children's book series, because I wanted to know so, so much more about the Light Magic the Chosen employ, and the land of Aenir, and the Shield Maidens out on the Ice. Tal's kind of inexperienced, but we get to see him make huge leaps in magical ability; by the later books, he can conjure stairs out of light, stairs he can stand on. The tantalizing glimpses of what Light can do--the Achievements that Tal tries to compete with, the stuff that Great Uncle Ebbitt uses (on the sly), etc--all of those are indescribably fascinating to me.
Aenir is this weird, weird world which looks kind of like ours but is totally different. It's like a whole secondary fantasy world all on its own, and its inhabitants are equally distinct--I was expecting something like the shadowguard or Ebbitt's cat Spiritshadows, but the Storm Shepherds were something totally different. What about the Shield Maidens?
I love Great Uncle Ebbitt and his irreverance that conceals so much. I wonder why he got booted from Indigo? What does he do down in his ever-changing maze of things? What's it like in Indigo?
I talk about these books on my Garth Nix tag (this is intermixed with his other works, I'm afraid.)
Thank you, yuletide writer! I'm looking forward to what you come up with--happy yuletide!