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Dear Yuletide Writer 2016
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Hello! Thank you so much for offering to write me a story in one of my favorite rare fandoms! I really will be delighted to get anything about them, so--aside from the Do Not Wants--please feel free to ignore the rest of this letter. It’s really only here to give you inspiration if you don’t know what to write, but if you have your own ideas already, please go wild with them. I am always interested in seeing new and interesting takes on my favorites, especially ones I would never have thought of myself.
Anyway, let’s get those Do Not Wants out of the way:
-Long fic. Anything more than about 5000 words or so and I start getting anxious about reading and commenting in a timely fashion while still giving the story the attention it deserves, so I’d just rather you didn’t.
-AUs. Exceptions: Canon-divergence AUs, or crossovers/fusions with other fandoms I’m into. Those are great.
-Purely introspective stories with no action or character interaction.
-The focus of the story being on an unrequested ship. I am pretty much down with most ships in most fandoms, canon, non-canon, m/m, f/f, f/m, poly, other, whatever, so feel free to include them if you want--but if I haven’t specifically requested them, keep them in the background, okay?
-More specifically, for this set of requests, pairings I don’t want to see even in the background: Emil/Tuuri, Tori/Kindrie, and Khym/Hilfy.
-Choose-Your-Own-Adventure/interactive/game-style fic
-Christmas stories. Exception: Lively St. Lemeston, because Ash and Rafe canonically have interesting and differing views of Christmas, and I wouldn’t mind seeing that explored further.
Also, smut-specific Do Not Wants, in case you were thinking of writing me smut:
-Sounding
-Infantilization
-That thing where one or more of the people involved doesn’t know what sex is or realize they’re having it
-Religion kink--like, naughty nuns and priests and what have you
General likes: I really like all kinds of fic, from silly fluff, action and adventures and worldbuilding to smut and hurt/comfort. Feel free to take it darker, too: violence, character death, betrayal, consent issues sexual and otherwise, bad things happening to characters I like AND characters I like doing bad things. I’m open to different POVs and tenses, and unusual fic formats like poetry and epistolary/documentary fic.
A brief and really not exhaustive list of story elements I especially like: Comfort after a nightmare, self-sacrifice, loyalty and trust issues, elections, platonic bed-sharing, hugs, language geekery, communication issues, breakups (either the kind where the original relationship is eventually patched up, or where the people involved manage to forge a different but still mutually satisfactory type of relationship afterward, or where nothing is okay again and everything hurts), ethical dilemmas, food porn and food preparation, parenting/childcare, exploration of canon-appropriate religious themes.
And the smut-specific version: D/s dynamics, whether formally negotiated or just that one (or more) partner is bossy in bed and the other(s) really like it, sensation play, hand-kissing (especially on the palm), improvised restraints or sex toys, that thing where one partner can feel another partner’s breath, praise (especially praise that is very specific and in-character to the people involved), non-simultaneous orgasms.
Okay, and now, specific prompts!
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Characters: Emil Västerström, Tuuri Hotakainen
I love Emil and Tuuri’s friendship a lot. I love how easily they took to each other when they met, and I love how they give each other shit, often inadvertently just because they are both totally tactless. (Yes, Emil, they do have electricity and sugar in Finland--just not a lot of either. No, Tuuri, not everyone learns languages as easily as you.) I’d love to read about them having an adventure together, just hanging out together during downtime on the mission, or something about their post-mission lives. We’ve already seen Emil showing Tuuri around Mora--how about Tuuri showing Emil around Keuruu? Something where they use their specific skills to help each other in unexpected ways, or something with a bit of role-reversal, where Emil gets to be the smart one or Tuuri gets to be the fighter. Anything where they have to look after each other, take care of each other, or comfort each other.
Like I said above, I’m open to just about any ships in this fandom (except Emil/Tuuri), but I especially love Emil/Lalli. So having that in the background would make me happy, but it’s not necessary by any means.
Fandom: SkyWorld - Two Steps From Hell
Characters: n/a
This album isn’t a straightforward narrative, and there are a lot of possible interpretations of what’s going on here, but what I find really fascinating is the tension between utopia and dystopia, loss and return, sky and earth. Who are the lost and fallen race, and how did they happen to fall? Are the dancing dead the same ones from the Cherokee story of the deluge? Did Icarus ever meet the Queen of Crows, and what happened between them?
This is one canon where you really have a lot of blanks to fill in, so I’m not sure what else to tell you except that I would especially love unearthly worldbuilding and not-quite-human characters, but I will basically be delighted with anything that captures the weird, wide-open feel of this album.
Fandom: Lively St. Lemeston series - Rose Lerner
Characters: Ash Cohen, Rafe Cohen
And here we have a pair of brothers who are all the other has in the world, who would do anything for each other, who love each other the most, who fundamentally fail to understand each other in a lot of ways, who (in Ash’s case at least) are projecting like whoa about what their brother actually wants and needs in life. Also, the big brother is short and cynical and the little brother is giant and a giant sweetheart? And they are Jewish conmen in Regency England? Hello, my jam!
I would love to see anything from Ash and Rafe’s younger days, from when they were wee baby conmen up until right before the start of the book. Anything where they are looking after each other or being stupidly self-sacrificing for each other would be great. Caper fic would be awesome too. From the little we saw of her in the book and in the Purim ficlet from Rose Lerner’s website (scroll down the comments here to find it) Faige seemed pretty cool, so feel free to include her. Like I said above, I usually don’t like Christmas fic, but it’d be interesting to see how Ash and Rafe’s conflicting feelings about Christmas played out in Christmases past.
Alternatively, if you’d rather write something post-canon, how do the brothers maintain their relationship with Ash’s new identity and life? How does Rafe get along with his in-laws? (I would be quite happy with Rafe/Jamie, and of course Ash/Lydia is lovely.) I am especially intrigued by the idea of Ash and Lydia occasionally going on holiday as a different, Jewish couple, and would love to see Ash and Rafe coaching Lydia on Jewish things.
Fandom: Chronicles of the Kencyrath - P. C. Hodgell
Characters: Torisen Knorth
Okay, Tori is great. In a universe where Jame is running around righteously (if often accidentally) smashing institutions that need smashing, it’s nice to see Tori scrambling around desperately trying to preserve his people and their society, even when they hurt people terribly, even when he’s one of the ones they hurt, because they’re all he has and he loves them. I love how this sometimes leads him into bad mistakes and horrible belief systems, how sometimes he’s the bad guy but frankly you’d rather have him showing up at your house than Jame.
I also love how . . . well, okay, it doesn’t seem right to say that Tori is a realistic portrayal of someone with a mental illness, because he doesn’t have a real mental illness, he has a magical made-uppy mental illness. AND YET. It does ring very true to me, the (sometimes self-destructive) strategies he has for coping, the way that sometimes it’s better and sometimes it’s worse but it’s always there, the way he manages to be a good and compassionate and competent leader for his people despite everything, the way he sometimes just can’t. And the way that the people around him help him (and don’t), understand him (and don’t), take advantage of him (and don’t).
So, um, anything that deals with these issues would be great? Also, it was excellent how in Dark of the Moon Tori was surrounded by a crowd of small children, and I kind of miss them. Write me something with them, or with Tori’s next crop of hostages? How Tori’s relationship with Adric grew and changed over the years, and whether Tori’s own experience of mental illness helps him deal with Adric’s decline (or not)? If Tori ever met Bane?
People who I would be interested in seeing Tori in a romantic or sexual relationship with and I could believe it to be relatively healthy and happy by the fucked-up standards of the Kencyrath universe: Burr, Harn. People who I would be interested in seeing Tori in a romantic or sexual relationship with and good lord it would not be healthy in any way: Kallystine, Adric, Bane. People who I would be interested in seeing Tori in a romantic or sexual relationship with and it would literally destroy the universe: Jame.
(People who I have no interest in seeing Tori in a romantic or sexual relationship with, even as a background thing: Kindrie. Sorry, Tori/Kindrie shippers.)
Fandom: Chanur Series - C. J. Cherryh
Characters: Khym Mahn, Pyanfar Chanur
“Gods be fool man,” she said. “Love you like my sister.”
That’s it, that’s the ship.
Okay, I will expand on that a little bit: Aaaah, how are they so great together? They love each other so much, and they support each other in everything they do, and they refuse to give up on each other even if sometimes (well, mostly Khym, but Py too sometimes) they’re ready to give up on themselves. And they’re middle-aged and set in their ways and they’re trying to build a new kind of relationship and they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re short-tempered and sullen and snappish and constantly on the edge of a disaster that is much bigger than themselves and THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH I can’t handle it.
So, yeah, anything with Py and Khym on the Pride, trying to figure out how things are supposed to work now. Khym bringing out his legal skills, or his being fucking huge skills, or working on his culinary skills, and Pyanfar being all captainly and trusting him to get stuff done, them saving each other in exciting adventures or chilling together in more domestic moments. Or if you want to write backstory about their earlier married life, how they balanced Khym’s role as Lord Mahn and Pyanfar’s career in space, whether they found ways to work together even then. Something with their kids before that went to hell, or showing how that all went to hell?
Alternatively, I would love to get something smuttier for them as well! Canon is pretty quiet on how exactly hani sex works (although they are sort of roughly based on lions) so feel free to throw in whatever wild ideas you might have. And--okay. So you know that bit where Pyanfar and Khym are snuggling in bed and Pyanfar is like, “Hey, how would you feel about fucking the whole crew?” Make that happen for me, yuletide writer, and I will love you forever. (Please include Tully if you’re so inclined! But not Hilfy, because Khym feels weird about that.)
Fandom: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Characters: Damon Konstantin, Elene Quen, Joshua Talley
Damon Konstantin is the paladin-bureaucrat, the guy who knows it’s no good fighting for your civilization if it means everything that makes you civilized gets thrown out the window. Elene Quen is the woman who single-handedly created the Merchanter’s Alliance while waddling around pregnant. Josh Talley is the destroyer of worlds who finds the family that Damon and Elene have made for him to be the thing he can cling to when everything he knows turns out to be a lie. Hell yes, I ship it.
I loved seeing Damon and Elene working together in Downbelow Station, with their marriage pulling them one way and their different upbringings and philosophies pulling them another, but always having the best interests of their people at heart. The glimpse we got of Josh and Elene playing bad cop/worse cop in Merchanter’s Luck was delightful. (Too bad for Sandor that the good cop wasn’t in the room.) I’d love to read anything with the three of them working together, and I’m especially curious how Elene ended up becoming Stationmaster--I wouldn’t expect you to write me that whole story (especially with my “no long fic” request) but any part of it would be great.
Otherwise, write me a sexy or sweetly domestic scene when Josh visits Pell Station? Write me kidfic if that’s your thing; I’d especially like to see the place that Josh has in the life of Damon and Elene’s children.
If don’t want to include Josh in Damon and Elene’s sexual relationship, that’s cool too, as long as they’re still the home he comes back to no matter where he goes or who else he sleeps over with. (I am fine with Josh/Signy in the background, as long as it’s not the focus.)
One more general thing I want to add--I’m not requesting any five-minute fandoms like individual songs or picture books this year, but two of the canons I’m requesting are available in their entirety (or close enough to entirety) online, for free, legally, so if you haven’t yet I really do encourage you to check out Stand Still Stay Silent and SkyWorld, they’re great.
Anyway, If for some reason you want to stalk me, I am dead easy to stalk; I'm minutia_r (or occasionally minutia-r) all over the internet: LJ/DW, AO3, tumblr, deviantart, ff.net, 8tracks, and probably one or two other places I don't recall off-hand. (Minutiar on twitter is not me, though, oddly enough.)
Thank you once again, mystery writer! I am really looking forward to reading what you write for me, and I hope you get an awesome story too!
Hello! Thank you so much for offering to write me a story in one of my favorite rare fandoms! I really will be delighted to get anything about them, so--aside from the Do Not Wants--please feel free to ignore the rest of this letter. It’s really only here to give you inspiration if you don’t know what to write, but if you have your own ideas already, please go wild with them. I am always interested in seeing new and interesting takes on my favorites, especially ones I would never have thought of myself.
Anyway, let’s get those Do Not Wants out of the way:
-Long fic. Anything more than about 5000 words or so and I start getting anxious about reading and commenting in a timely fashion while still giving the story the attention it deserves, so I’d just rather you didn’t.
-AUs. Exceptions: Canon-divergence AUs, or crossovers/fusions with other fandoms I’m into. Those are great.
-Purely introspective stories with no action or character interaction.
-The focus of the story being on an unrequested ship. I am pretty much down with most ships in most fandoms, canon, non-canon, m/m, f/f, f/m, poly, other, whatever, so feel free to include them if you want--but if I haven’t specifically requested them, keep them in the background, okay?
-More specifically, for this set of requests, pairings I don’t want to see even in the background: Emil/Tuuri, Tori/Kindrie, and Khym/Hilfy.
-Choose-Your-Own-Adventure/interactive/game-style fic
-Christmas stories. Exception: Lively St. Lemeston, because Ash and Rafe canonically have interesting and differing views of Christmas, and I wouldn’t mind seeing that explored further.
Also, smut-specific Do Not Wants, in case you were thinking of writing me smut:
-Sounding
-Infantilization
-That thing where one or more of the people involved doesn’t know what sex is or realize they’re having it
-Religion kink--like, naughty nuns and priests and what have you
General likes: I really like all kinds of fic, from silly fluff, action and adventures and worldbuilding to smut and hurt/comfort. Feel free to take it darker, too: violence, character death, betrayal, consent issues sexual and otherwise, bad things happening to characters I like AND characters I like doing bad things. I’m open to different POVs and tenses, and unusual fic formats like poetry and epistolary/documentary fic.
A brief and really not exhaustive list of story elements I especially like: Comfort after a nightmare, self-sacrifice, loyalty and trust issues, elections, platonic bed-sharing, hugs, language geekery, communication issues, breakups (either the kind where the original relationship is eventually patched up, or where the people involved manage to forge a different but still mutually satisfactory type of relationship afterward, or where nothing is okay again and everything hurts), ethical dilemmas, food porn and food preparation, parenting/childcare, exploration of canon-appropriate religious themes.
And the smut-specific version: D/s dynamics, whether formally negotiated or just that one (or more) partner is bossy in bed and the other(s) really like it, sensation play, hand-kissing (especially on the palm), improvised restraints or sex toys, that thing where one partner can feel another partner’s breath, praise (especially praise that is very specific and in-character to the people involved), non-simultaneous orgasms.
Okay, and now, specific prompts!
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Characters: Emil Västerström, Tuuri Hotakainen
I love Emil and Tuuri’s friendship a lot. I love how easily they took to each other when they met, and I love how they give each other shit, often inadvertently just because they are both totally tactless. (Yes, Emil, they do have electricity and sugar in Finland--just not a lot of either. No, Tuuri, not everyone learns languages as easily as you.) I’d love to read about them having an adventure together, just hanging out together during downtime on the mission, or something about their post-mission lives. We’ve already seen Emil showing Tuuri around Mora--how about Tuuri showing Emil around Keuruu? Something where they use their specific skills to help each other in unexpected ways, or something with a bit of role-reversal, where Emil gets to be the smart one or Tuuri gets to be the fighter. Anything where they have to look after each other, take care of each other, or comfort each other.
Like I said above, I’m open to just about any ships in this fandom (except Emil/Tuuri), but I especially love Emil/Lalli. So having that in the background would make me happy, but it’s not necessary by any means.
Fandom: SkyWorld - Two Steps From Hell
Characters: n/a
This album isn’t a straightforward narrative, and there are a lot of possible interpretations of what’s going on here, but what I find really fascinating is the tension between utopia and dystopia, loss and return, sky and earth. Who are the lost and fallen race, and how did they happen to fall? Are the dancing dead the same ones from the Cherokee story of the deluge? Did Icarus ever meet the Queen of Crows, and what happened between them?
This is one canon where you really have a lot of blanks to fill in, so I’m not sure what else to tell you except that I would especially love unearthly worldbuilding and not-quite-human characters, but I will basically be delighted with anything that captures the weird, wide-open feel of this album.
Fandom: Lively St. Lemeston series - Rose Lerner
Characters: Ash Cohen, Rafe Cohen
And here we have a pair of brothers who are all the other has in the world, who would do anything for each other, who love each other the most, who fundamentally fail to understand each other in a lot of ways, who (in Ash’s case at least) are projecting like whoa about what their brother actually wants and needs in life. Also, the big brother is short and cynical and the little brother is giant and a giant sweetheart? And they are Jewish conmen in Regency England? Hello, my jam!
I would love to see anything from Ash and Rafe’s younger days, from when they were wee baby conmen up until right before the start of the book. Anything where they are looking after each other or being stupidly self-sacrificing for each other would be great. Caper fic would be awesome too. From the little we saw of her in the book and in the Purim ficlet from Rose Lerner’s website (scroll down the comments here to find it) Faige seemed pretty cool, so feel free to include her. Like I said above, I usually don’t like Christmas fic, but it’d be interesting to see how Ash and Rafe’s conflicting feelings about Christmas played out in Christmases past.
Alternatively, if you’d rather write something post-canon, how do the brothers maintain their relationship with Ash’s new identity and life? How does Rafe get along with his in-laws? (I would be quite happy with Rafe/Jamie, and of course Ash/Lydia is lovely.) I am especially intrigued by the idea of Ash and Lydia occasionally going on holiday as a different, Jewish couple, and would love to see Ash and Rafe coaching Lydia on Jewish things.
Fandom: Chronicles of the Kencyrath - P. C. Hodgell
Characters: Torisen Knorth
Okay, Tori is great. In a universe where Jame is running around righteously (if often accidentally) smashing institutions that need smashing, it’s nice to see Tori scrambling around desperately trying to preserve his people and their society, even when they hurt people terribly, even when he’s one of the ones they hurt, because they’re all he has and he loves them. I love how this sometimes leads him into bad mistakes and horrible belief systems, how sometimes he’s the bad guy but frankly you’d rather have him showing up at your house than Jame.
I also love how . . . well, okay, it doesn’t seem right to say that Tori is a realistic portrayal of someone with a mental illness, because he doesn’t have a real mental illness, he has a magical made-uppy mental illness. AND YET. It does ring very true to me, the (sometimes self-destructive) strategies he has for coping, the way that sometimes it’s better and sometimes it’s worse but it’s always there, the way he manages to be a good and compassionate and competent leader for his people despite everything, the way he sometimes just can’t. And the way that the people around him help him (and don’t), understand him (and don’t), take advantage of him (and don’t).
So, um, anything that deals with these issues would be great? Also, it was excellent how in Dark of the Moon Tori was surrounded by a crowd of small children, and I kind of miss them. Write me something with them, or with Tori’s next crop of hostages? How Tori’s relationship with Adric grew and changed over the years, and whether Tori’s own experience of mental illness helps him deal with Adric’s decline (or not)? If Tori ever met Bane?
People who I would be interested in seeing Tori in a romantic or sexual relationship with and I could believe it to be relatively healthy and happy by the fucked-up standards of the Kencyrath universe: Burr, Harn. People who I would be interested in seeing Tori in a romantic or sexual relationship with and good lord it would not be healthy in any way: Kallystine, Adric, Bane. People who I would be interested in seeing Tori in a romantic or sexual relationship with and it would literally destroy the universe: Jame.
(People who I have no interest in seeing Tori in a romantic or sexual relationship with, even as a background thing: Kindrie. Sorry, Tori/Kindrie shippers.)
Fandom: Chanur Series - C. J. Cherryh
Characters: Khym Mahn, Pyanfar Chanur
“Gods be fool man,” she said. “Love you like my sister.”
That’s it, that’s the ship.
Okay, I will expand on that a little bit: Aaaah, how are they so great together? They love each other so much, and they support each other in everything they do, and they refuse to give up on each other even if sometimes (well, mostly Khym, but Py too sometimes) they’re ready to give up on themselves. And they’re middle-aged and set in their ways and they’re trying to build a new kind of relationship and they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re short-tempered and sullen and snappish and constantly on the edge of a disaster that is much bigger than themselves and THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH I can’t handle it.
So, yeah, anything with Py and Khym on the Pride, trying to figure out how things are supposed to work now. Khym bringing out his legal skills, or his being fucking huge skills, or working on his culinary skills, and Pyanfar being all captainly and trusting him to get stuff done, them saving each other in exciting adventures or chilling together in more domestic moments. Or if you want to write backstory about their earlier married life, how they balanced Khym’s role as Lord Mahn and Pyanfar’s career in space, whether they found ways to work together even then. Something with their kids before that went to hell, or showing how that all went to hell?
Alternatively, I would love to get something smuttier for them as well! Canon is pretty quiet on how exactly hani sex works (although they are sort of roughly based on lions) so feel free to throw in whatever wild ideas you might have. And--okay. So you know that bit where Pyanfar and Khym are snuggling in bed and Pyanfar is like, “Hey, how would you feel about fucking the whole crew?” Make that happen for me, yuletide writer, and I will love you forever. (Please include Tully if you’re so inclined! But not Hilfy, because Khym feels weird about that.)
Fandom: Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh
Characters: Damon Konstantin, Elene Quen, Joshua Talley
Damon Konstantin is the paladin-bureaucrat, the guy who knows it’s no good fighting for your civilization if it means everything that makes you civilized gets thrown out the window. Elene Quen is the woman who single-handedly created the Merchanter’s Alliance while waddling around pregnant. Josh Talley is the destroyer of worlds who finds the family that Damon and Elene have made for him to be the thing he can cling to when everything he knows turns out to be a lie. Hell yes, I ship it.
I loved seeing Damon and Elene working together in Downbelow Station, with their marriage pulling them one way and their different upbringings and philosophies pulling them another, but always having the best interests of their people at heart. The glimpse we got of Josh and Elene playing bad cop/worse cop in Merchanter’s Luck was delightful. (Too bad for Sandor that the good cop wasn’t in the room.) I’d love to read anything with the three of them working together, and I’m especially curious how Elene ended up becoming Stationmaster--I wouldn’t expect you to write me that whole story (especially with my “no long fic” request) but any part of it would be great.
Otherwise, write me a sexy or sweetly domestic scene when Josh visits Pell Station? Write me kidfic if that’s your thing; I’d especially like to see the place that Josh has in the life of Damon and Elene’s children.
If don’t want to include Josh in Damon and Elene’s sexual relationship, that’s cool too, as long as they’re still the home he comes back to no matter where he goes or who else he sleeps over with. (I am fine with Josh/Signy in the background, as long as it’s not the focus.)
One more general thing I want to add--I’m not requesting any five-minute fandoms like individual songs or picture books this year, but two of the canons I’m requesting are available in their entirety (or close enough to entirety) online, for free, legally, so if you haven’t yet I really do encourage you to check out Stand Still Stay Silent and SkyWorld, they’re great.
Anyway, If for some reason you want to stalk me, I am dead easy to stalk; I'm minutia_r (or occasionally minutia-r) all over the internet: LJ/DW, AO3, tumblr, deviantart, ff.net, 8tracks, and probably one or two other places I don't recall off-hand. (Minutiar on twitter is not me, though, oddly enough.)
Thank you once again, mystery writer! I am really looking forward to reading what you write for me, and I hope you get an awesome story too!