Dear Yuletide writer
Hi! First, let me congratulate you on excellent taste in tiny fandoms. :D I love all these fandoms, so if my optional details fill you with a deep and abiding sense of 'meh' or 'WTF', write what does grab you and I'm sure I will love it.
Things I like: Girls being awesome. Determination in the face of obstacles. F/F slash. M/M slash. Het that doesn't reinforce prescriptive gender roles. Fantasy worlds extrapolated into their future. Dialogue. Snark. Details of world-building. Characters Figuring Stuff Out (which is what makes me read everything from Hatchet to military SF). Awkward outsiders finding friendship and a place in the world. Best friends falling in love without realising. (I like buddy pairings better than antagonist pairings: Ron/Hermione rather than Harry/Draco. Not that I can't be sold on an antagonist pairing.) Epistolary or other documentary narrative.
Things I don't like: Incest, rape, explicit torture/physical cruelty, animal harm, desperately unhappy endings (though bittersweet is fine, if that's where the fic takes you), major character death (other than canon deaths).
1. Marlows - Antonia Forest.
Nicola Marlow is my One True Character, so anything involving her would make me incredibly happy. I slightly prefer the school books to the holiday books, so a school fic would be lovely - perhaps the term after Run Away Home, or what happens if Craven ever does decide to get to the bottom of Nicola being left off the junior netball team. That said, if a holiday story is what strikes your fancy, I'd love that too, especially if it deals with the fallout after Run Away Home*.
Recycling last year's request ahoy! I'm not sure what to add to this. Other characters I like are Miranda, Tim, Patrick and Rowan. Well, everyone, really, though I'm less interested in Ginty. I also share Miranda's fondness for Miss Cromwell. I love AF's distinctive way with dialogue and punctuation, I love Tim's sarcasm and Miranda's decided opinions, and I love Nicola's friendships and her slightly baffled way of navigating them.
(I haven't read Sally Hayward's Spring Term yet, incidentally, owing to the vagaries of international postage. I may have by Yuletide, but it's probably safer to assume I won't have, and I'm not considering its events to be canon.)
2. Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce.
I have a deep and dreadful longing for crack in this fandom, and would absolutely adore one of those fics where someone from our world (or similar - OCs and crossovers both welcome) gets sucked into Tortall and has to find their feet. Or something set in a modernised Tortall (Kel is obviously optional here) would be totally fun, especially with the modern characters reading/finding stuff out about/looking back at the canon era. Or if you don't want to go the cracktastic direction (for which I don't blame you), Kel femslash would be brilliant, or anything with Kel being awesome and proving the doubters wrong. I'd love to see what she gets up to after Lady Knight, for example.
I've been wanting a fic with someone from our world getting sucked into Tortall and having to find their feet/get a job/possibly but not necessarily save the world, because figuring out how to live in a new world hits my Figuring Stuff Out narrative kink. I also have a fondness for secondary fantasy worlds getting aged up, as it were, into modern time periods, so if that appeals to you, I'd love to read it.
As for the non-crack, femslash would be great (possible pairings that occur to me: Aly, Daine, Yuki), but gen is totally cool too. Adventure-fic, friendship fic (I have a particular soft spot for Neal and Owen), ship-focused fic, post-series fic, missing scenes from canon, I'm pretty easy. :D
3. Emberverse - S.M. Stirling.
Worldbuilding! I'd love to get to know Corvallis or the Dominions a bit better, for instance, or if you're burning to write a story about how your own area survives the Change, I would be all over that. Or else maybe something set in the early years of the quasi-Viking community in Maine, or a story that fills in some of the gap between Dies the Fire and The Protector's War. Or anything that grabs you, really. Preferably in the early years after the Change, but I wouldn't say no to, for instance, Matti taking over the reins of government from her mother. I'm a lot more interested in the day-to-day details of survival (especially farming and learning how to build new technology within the constraints of the setup) than I am in the war stuff, but I do enjoy politics, if that's what appeals to you about the series.
Things I love about this 'verse: Farming. Engineering. Bikes. Low-tech trains. Quasi-Vikings. Oregon. Some of my favourite characters are Mike Havel, Astrid Larsson and Mathilda Arminger, but I'm down with basically any character, OCs (or crossovers) included, except Norman Arminger and his feudal goons. (I mean, they can be in the fic if that fits what you want to write, but I'd rather not have their POV - reading about Evil alignments makes me uncomfortable.)
If contact with outside groups comes into your story, I would love it if there were some majority-POC groups who weren't, you know, pirates. (Why can't the Haida be traders, for instance? Grrrr.) I'm also not wedded to details of canon outside the settings we see first-hand in the books, so if you're writing about an area you know, feel free to change stuff that you think he got wrong.
4. Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones.
I've always really wanted to see how Millie got on at school - it seems like that would be the most amazing early 20th century school story, only with magic for extra hilarity and/or danger. Conversely, how did school not fit Millie's expectations? Tropetastic school stories are not always the best preparation for actual school. Or anything about Millie's early years learning how to fit in on World 12A - how does she cope with being, instead of the Living Asheth, an ordinary girl in the admittedly not-so-ordinary Chrestomanci Castle? How does she get on with everyone else who lives there? Are there cats?
I love how ordinary Millie is - or wants to be, despite being a powerful enchanter in her own right even when she's not being a goddess. I love her friendship with Christopher - I like them together as adults, but for Yuletide purposes I'd like to read about young Millie, with or without Christopher. Crossovers are welcome for this one, if you like that sort of thing - the series I know best are the Marlows (see above) and the Chalet School - but absolutely not required. Earth school, 12A school with magic or anywhere else you choose to put her - I predict awesomeness either way.
Also posted at Dreamwidth.
Things I like: Girls being awesome. Determination in the face of obstacles. F/F slash. M/M slash. Het that doesn't reinforce prescriptive gender roles. Fantasy worlds extrapolated into their future. Dialogue. Snark. Details of world-building. Characters Figuring Stuff Out (which is what makes me read everything from Hatchet to military SF). Awkward outsiders finding friendship and a place in the world. Best friends falling in love without realising. (I like buddy pairings better than antagonist pairings: Ron/Hermione rather than Harry/Draco. Not that I can't be sold on an antagonist pairing.) Epistolary or other documentary narrative.
Things I don't like: Incest, rape, explicit torture/physical cruelty, animal harm, desperately unhappy endings (though bittersweet is fine, if that's where the fic takes you), major character death (other than canon deaths).
1. Marlows - Antonia Forest.
Nicola Marlow is my One True Character, so anything involving her would make me incredibly happy. I slightly prefer the school books to the holiday books, so a school fic would be lovely - perhaps the term after Run Away Home, or what happens if Craven ever does decide to get to the bottom of Nicola being left off the junior netball team. That said, if a holiday story is what strikes your fancy, I'd love that too, especially if it deals with the fallout after Run Away Home*.
Recycling last year's request ahoy! I'm not sure what to add to this. Other characters I like are Miranda, Tim, Patrick and Rowan. Well, everyone, really, though I'm less interested in Ginty. I also share Miranda's fondness for Miss Cromwell. I love AF's distinctive way with dialogue and punctuation, I love Tim's sarcasm and Miranda's decided opinions, and I love Nicola's friendships and her slightly baffled way of navigating them.
(I haven't read Sally Hayward's Spring Term yet, incidentally, owing to the vagaries of international postage. I may have by Yuletide, but it's probably safer to assume I won't have, and I'm not considering its events to be canon.)
2. Protector of the Small - Tamora Pierce.
I have a deep and dreadful longing for crack in this fandom, and would absolutely adore one of those fics where someone from our world (or similar - OCs and crossovers both welcome) gets sucked into Tortall and has to find their feet. Or something set in a modernised Tortall (Kel is obviously optional here) would be totally fun, especially with the modern characters reading/finding stuff out about/looking back at the canon era. Or if you don't want to go the cracktastic direction (for which I don't blame you), Kel femslash would be brilliant, or anything with Kel being awesome and proving the doubters wrong. I'd love to see what she gets up to after Lady Knight, for example.
I've been wanting a fic with someone from our world getting sucked into Tortall and having to find their feet/get a job/possibly but not necessarily save the world, because figuring out how to live in a new world hits my Figuring Stuff Out narrative kink. I also have a fondness for secondary fantasy worlds getting aged up, as it were, into modern time periods, so if that appeals to you, I'd love to read it.
As for the non-crack, femslash would be great (possible pairings that occur to me: Aly, Daine, Yuki), but gen is totally cool too. Adventure-fic, friendship fic (I have a particular soft spot for Neal and Owen), ship-focused fic, post-series fic, missing scenes from canon, I'm pretty easy. :D
3. Emberverse - S.M. Stirling.
Worldbuilding! I'd love to get to know Corvallis or the Dominions a bit better, for instance, or if you're burning to write a story about how your own area survives the Change, I would be all over that. Or else maybe something set in the early years of the quasi-Viking community in Maine, or a story that fills in some of the gap between Dies the Fire and The Protector's War. Or anything that grabs you, really. Preferably in the early years after the Change, but I wouldn't say no to, for instance, Matti taking over the reins of government from her mother. I'm a lot more interested in the day-to-day details of survival (especially farming and learning how to build new technology within the constraints of the setup) than I am in the war stuff, but I do enjoy politics, if that's what appeals to you about the series.
Things I love about this 'verse: Farming. Engineering. Bikes. Low-tech trains. Quasi-Vikings. Oregon. Some of my favourite characters are Mike Havel, Astrid Larsson and Mathilda Arminger, but I'm down with basically any character, OCs (or crossovers) included, except Norman Arminger and his feudal goons. (I mean, they can be in the fic if that fits what you want to write, but I'd rather not have their POV - reading about Evil alignments makes me uncomfortable.)
If contact with outside groups comes into your story, I would love it if there were some majority-POC groups who weren't, you know, pirates. (Why can't the Haida be traders, for instance? Grrrr.) I'm also not wedded to details of canon outside the settings we see first-hand in the books, so if you're writing about an area you know, feel free to change stuff that you think he got wrong.
4. Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones.
I've always really wanted to see how Millie got on at school - it seems like that would be the most amazing early 20th century school story, only with magic for extra hilarity and/or danger. Conversely, how did school not fit Millie's expectations? Tropetastic school stories are not always the best preparation for actual school. Or anything about Millie's early years learning how to fit in on World 12A - how does she cope with being, instead of the Living Asheth, an ordinary girl in the admittedly not-so-ordinary Chrestomanci Castle? How does she get on with everyone else who lives there? Are there cats?
I love how ordinary Millie is - or wants to be, despite being a powerful enchanter in her own right even when she's not being a goddess. I love her friendship with Christopher - I like them together as adults, but for Yuletide purposes I'd like to read about young Millie, with or without Christopher. Crossovers are welcome for this one, if you like that sort of thing - the series I know best are the Marlows (see above) and the Chalet School - but absolutely not required. Earth school, 12A school with magic or anywhere else you choose to put her - I predict awesomeness either way.
Also posted at Dreamwidth.