Yuletide 2019
Nov. 4th, 2019 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lastwingedthingDear author, I'm so excited you're writing something for me!
Likes
I am generally pretty flexible with the things I like. Character-driven stories are awesome, plot-driven stories are awesome, explicit porn is awesome, G-rated fluff with hand-holding is awesome, angst and bleakness are awesome, happy endings are awesome, humor is awesome! Etc.
A few of my favourite things include:
-Politics, history and worldbuilding
-Road trips (or spaceship trips, actual ship trips, etc)
-Stoic girls with repressed feelings
-Female antiheroes or villains with complex motivations
-Enemies forced to work together by circumstance
-Time travel shenanigans (including Peggy Sues!) and what if/canon divergence AUs
-Unexpected and unconventional happy endings, or bittersweet endings
-Tragedies that are more-or-less inevitable given the nature of the individuals involved
-People living in less-than-ideal or even actively hostile situations who manage to carve out some kind of happiness despite that.
Porn likes include rough/frantic sex, emphasising nonhuman strengths/capabilities/anatomy for nonhuman or superpowered characters, dirty talk, mild D/s, and bondage/restraints.
I am okay with violence, noncon, character death, etc - provided that it is warned for up front - though I would prefer that stories do not focus solely on trauma/horror/violence, and if these do come up as part of the story, I am more interested in the lead up and the aftermath than in dragging out the details of the act itself. Also, if you want to write shipfic and need to work your way around a canon relationship (or just like writing it), I do enjoy poly!
DNWs:
-Different setting AUs (eg coffee shops or superheroes) - fusion AUs like sedoretus or daemons are fine
-Soulmate or soulmark universes
-Lengthy descriptions of violence/horror/noncon/major character death (as noted above)
-Noncon between requested characters (dubcon of the "don't want to want it but I do" variety is fine)
-Non-canon character death of requested characters
-Unrequested kinks
-Unrequested, non-canon het (canon pairings are fine)
-Unrequested gender or sexuality headcanons for requested canon characters.
As for the fandoms and pairings, I requested:
琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV)
Lanjin | Xiāo Jǐnghuán's wife
Gōng Yǔ
Mù Níhuáng
Qín Bānruò
To start with, this is an OR request not an AND request! I absolutely adored this show, and particularly the amazing complex layered characters, I'd be delighted to read a story about any of these characters in any combination. I've picked four favourites though there's a lot of other characters I'd love to see - some other particular favourites include Xià Dōng, Consort Jing, Princess Xuanji, Jǐngruì and Jǐngyǎn. Though seeing as MCS was the focus of the whole series, I'd be less interested in a story where he was a major protagonist. It's fine for him to show up, I'd just prefer the focus to be on other characters. And while I really enjoy and ship both MCS/Jingyan and MCS/Nihuang, I feel like the show gave me enough for both those pairings - I'd be happy to see them included as background but would prefer if any fic I received focused on a rarer pairing or gen. Shipwise I am pretty much open to anything - and I recently requested a bunch of ships for this fandom for the Femslash exchange so you could check that letter for ideas. For this fandom I'd prefer femslash or gen, though I'd also be open to stories exploring canon het relationships.
I love Nihuang's sense of duty and loyalty, how fiercely intelligent she is and how she always, always, always does what she thinks is right no matter what the personal cost might be. I love Gong Yu's quiet, passive determination, the way she walks a really interesting tightrope between highly feminised roles (musician, sex worker) and masculine ones (assassin and soldier) while still staying true to herself. I love Banruo so much in large part because of (not in spite of) how much she's outclassed as a spy/chess grandmaster compared to everyone she's up against - she's self-aware enough to know that she's no Xuanji, but her loyalty and commitment is such that she keeps fighting that losing battle anyway. And I love Prince Yu's wife, in the few scenes we see of her - her quiet unobtrusiveness combined with her active political work in support of her husband - and I would love, love, love to see what happens next for her and her child (who really ought to be a daughter, just saying!)
As much as I love most of the show, the treatment of the Hua people is the one jarring note. Yes Banruo is often terrible and Xuanji did some monstrous things, but the Hua people were also treated monstrously, and the only resolution offered was more genocide. While I love that a major theme of the show is the difference between revenge and justice - both Xuanji and MCS are brilliant schemers who suffered enormous injustice, but while Xuanji eventually failed because she was sidetracked into revenge and hurting everyone who was affiliated with anyone who'd hurt her, MCS stayed focused on justice (with people like the Jiangzhuo Alliance and Consort Jing on his side) and thus succeeded - there's also something a bit icky about the gendered, colonialist parallel. MCS is righteous and justified, but Xuanji is just evil? Really? I'd love to see a story that complicates that black-and-white picture.
This is also a fandom where I'm particularly fascinated by role reversals, canon divergence AUs and time travel (QIN BANRUO AS A FAILBOAT PEGGY SUE??) - there's always the classics, 'what if MCS lived' and 'what if the fake rebellion was stopped in time' but there's so many other possibilities as well! Perhaps an AU where Prince Yu's rebellion succeeded, and he and Banruo got everything she (thought she) wanted - and then what? Or a complete role reversal where a different group of characters were secretly Hua?
Hilary Tamar mysteries - Sarah Caudwell
Desmond Ragwort
Julia Larwood
Michael Cantrip
Selena Jardine
Everything about this fandom is just charming and delightful (except for the murders, I guess? Also the tax dodging in the third book has... not aged well) and I'd love any kind of story that gave me more of these characters, more of their relationships and hijinks and absurdity. I feel kind of annoying asking for this, but this is an AND not an OR request - while I love all the characters and I love pretty much all possible combinations and groupings, the thing I most want to see is the four of them together in some way - interacting, working together, whatever you like. Mostly because the thought of any one or two of them getting left out would make me really sad!
I'd love a casefic/adventure, I'd love some kind of missing scene from any of the books, I'd love slice-of-life - honestly just a standard evening of bickering and sarcasm over dinner would make me very, very happy. All the characters and their relationships with each other are just so hilarious and great. Selena's calm competence as she takes care of Julia is delightful - as is Julia herself, in all her scatty wildness. I really love how the two of them interact! Ragwort and Cantrip spend a lot of time bickering and not enough time working together, for my taste - I love the brief hints in canon that they do actually care about each other and I'd love to see more of that! Cantrip and Julia's bickering sibling-esque relationship is also fantastic - particularly their novel! And I love that Julia is the sexually-active pursuer and Ragwort is the one delicately holding onto his virtue in their relationship. I feel like Selena and Cantrip didn't interact as much - or if they did, it was less memorable - but I'd love to see more of them together!
I love Hilary too and would be delighted if Hilary showed up - outsider POV on the four of them, deus ex machina, just general busybodying - though please don't gender Hilary if you do (I realise this is kind of tricky with pronouns, I am fine with using 'they' in a gender-neutral way, or slightly awkward phrasing to avoid pronouns altogether).
Julia/Selena and Cantrip/Ragwort are probably my favourite subpairings, if you wanted to write shipfic, but honestly any of the het possibilities would be lovely too. And I'd absolutely adore some kind of poly fic, or an orgy - I feel like they'd all be up for it, and the kind of slightly-absurd scenario required to (figuratively) get them all into bed together seems like it would be perfectly in line with the books.
I do love a good trope, too, so if you wanted to do something like 'forced to get married (for the tax benefits!) AU' or 'sedoretu AU' - or 'forced to get married as a sedoretu (for the tax benefits!) AU' - I would absolutely adore it.
Finisterre: The Nighthorses - C. J. Cherryh
Carlo Goss
Danny Fisher
Guil Stuart
Tara Chang
The setting of these books is so immediately harsh and memorable, but as is usual for Cherryh, it's the characters that have stuck with me. Like Nirvana in Fire, this is an OR not an AND request - I'd be happy with any one or any combo of these characters, though if you were planning a story focused on just Carlo or just Guil I'd prefer something set during or post-canon.
Danny's an interesting, and interestingly flawed, protagonist - in some ways he's the standard 'teenage boy in over his head, succeeds anyway' but Cherryh does also show him failing in some interesting and unexpected ways. And also I've got to say I found his character a lot more interesting if I read him as closeted and queer, with a massive crush on Guil (and later I can definitely see Carlo as having a crush on Danny!) I could definitely read Danny's constant fixation on 'oh no, what if these intimidatingly competent older men do ~something terrible~ to me once we're out in the wilderness together' as actually subconsciously wanting that thing to happen - though given it's Cherryh, a straight-up fear of sexual assault would also be reasonable! Either way, given that a large part of this story is 'cowboys in space' I'd love to see something a bit queer about it, whether that's Danny and Carlo together as partners after the end of the second book, or Danny and Guil having some kind of moment together. But I'd also love either of those stories as gen relationships, or a story focused on any individual!
I also really, really loved Tara's pragmatism and determination - she's a bit fucked up, in the way that all of the riders are, but she's also dogged and determined and I love how much of a survivor she is, how she sympathises with Brionne and wants to protect her if she can, but if she can't, is perfectly willing to kill her to save everyone else. I haven't quite gotten my head around how her relationship with Guil might work in the longer-term, but I'd love to see it - or something with her on her own, or with Aby, or in Tarmin village before it all fell apart, or as a mentor figure to the younger riders.
If you'd like to write porn, there's some great possibilities with the canon influence of nighthorses in heat - it would be really interesting to see how different gender combinations among the horses or the humans would affect how that went, too! We've seen what happens when a male horse and rider meet a female horse and rider, but what happens when the gender configurations aren't so neatly heterosexual?
I'd also love to see any glimpse of what might happen to Brionne - seeing any of the characters, or any combination of characters, meet her again or just find out what happened between her and the ape-creature would be really fascinating.
I am familiar with Cherryh's Alliance/Union books (I haven't read Alliance Rising or most of the Chanur books) and would absolutely adore some kind of crossover, if you'd like to write that!
Terminator (movies)
Dani Ramos
Grace
SPOILERS FOR DARK FATE
So I just saw this movie, right before the end of signups, and I'd really like to thank whoever knew to nominate Dani and Grace! The movie was enjoyable, there were some nice moments, but mostly my takeaway was that I absolutely loved Dani and Grace's relationship and now I want so much more between them.
I'd love femslash or gen here, honestly - I came out of the movie thinking, WOW that was gay, and shipping them really hard - but even as a gen relationship, to have two women who are so loyal to each other with that bodyguard/commander relationship up on the big screen was wonderful and I'd love so much more.
I would really, really love fix-it fic, if you're up for that. Grace's death felt so predictable - she was the timetravelling guardian from the future, of course she was doomed. Blah. But also she felt so resigned to her own death, like she'd never expected to live for very long once she'd made it to the past. I would love to see how she would cope with a more hopeful future where somehow they did manage to kill the Rev-9, and now she and Dani and Sarah (and even Carl, if you wanted!) were awkwardly roadtripping around together, trying to stop Legion and stay alive.
Even if you didn't go with that particular scenario, I'd love to see Sarah show up in all her fucked-up, ambiguous-mentor figure glory; I also really liked Dani's brother and would absolutely love to see an AU where he survived and came along through the events of the movie. Dani had such a rough ride in this movie and it would be lovely to see her manage to keep part of her family, and have that sweet sibling relationship preserved.
But also, I'd love some kind of missing scene from canon between Dani and Grace - or something between the two of them from Grace's original universe? A future where Commander Dani remembers Grace when she meets her again and has to decide whether to risk losing her all over again?
In terms of canon knowledge, I have seen the first two movies and the Sarah Connor Chronicles series. I really, really love the 'time-travel creates multiple realities' aspect of the series - also the idea, I can't remember where I first read it, that the various Sarahs look different because in each universe Kyle Reese saved a different Sarah? If you wanted to do some kind of universe-crossing thing, or even just have characters from the TV show turn up (Jesse and Riley offer some really interesting parallels to Dani and Grace, I think!), that would be wonderful!
In general, some of my favourite things about the franchise are the time-travel weirdness (different people remembering different futures that now no longer exist, 'no fate but what you make', the infinite possibilities but also the inevitable repetitions) and the steady breakdown of the divide between human and machine. Grace is halfway to a terminator not only in her physical capabilities but also in her ruthless single-mindedness, while Carl has learned to love and care of his own volition (not forced into it via reprogramming, like the second T-800). Anything exploring these themes would be lovely!
Thank you so much for writing for me!
Likes
I am generally pretty flexible with the things I like. Character-driven stories are awesome, plot-driven stories are awesome, explicit porn is awesome, G-rated fluff with hand-holding is awesome, angst and bleakness are awesome, happy endings are awesome, humor is awesome! Etc.
A few of my favourite things include:
-Politics, history and worldbuilding
-Road trips (or spaceship trips, actual ship trips, etc)
-Stoic girls with repressed feelings
-Female antiheroes or villains with complex motivations
-Enemies forced to work together by circumstance
-Time travel shenanigans (including Peggy Sues!) and what if/canon divergence AUs
-Unexpected and unconventional happy endings, or bittersweet endings
-Tragedies that are more-or-less inevitable given the nature of the individuals involved
-People living in less-than-ideal or even actively hostile situations who manage to carve out some kind of happiness despite that.
Porn likes include rough/frantic sex, emphasising nonhuman strengths/capabilities/anatomy for nonhuman or superpowered characters, dirty talk, mild D/s, and bondage/restraints.
I am okay with violence, noncon, character death, etc - provided that it is warned for up front - though I would prefer that stories do not focus solely on trauma/horror/violence, and if these do come up as part of the story, I am more interested in the lead up and the aftermath than in dragging out the details of the act itself. Also, if you want to write shipfic and need to work your way around a canon relationship (or just like writing it), I do enjoy poly!
DNWs:
-Different setting AUs (eg coffee shops or superheroes) - fusion AUs like sedoretus or daemons are fine
-Soulmate or soulmark universes
-Lengthy descriptions of violence/horror/noncon/major character death (as noted above)
-Noncon between requested characters (dubcon of the "don't want to want it but I do" variety is fine)
-Non-canon character death of requested characters
-Unrequested kinks
-Unrequested, non-canon het (canon pairings are fine)
-Unrequested gender or sexuality headcanons for requested canon characters.
As for the fandoms and pairings, I requested:
琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV)
Lanjin | Xiāo Jǐnghuán's wife
Gōng Yǔ
Mù Níhuáng
Qín Bānruò
To start with, this is an OR request not an AND request! I absolutely adored this show, and particularly the amazing complex layered characters, I'd be delighted to read a story about any of these characters in any combination. I've picked four favourites though there's a lot of other characters I'd love to see - some other particular favourites include Xià Dōng, Consort Jing, Princess Xuanji, Jǐngruì and Jǐngyǎn. Though seeing as MCS was the focus of the whole series, I'd be less interested in a story where he was a major protagonist. It's fine for him to show up, I'd just prefer the focus to be on other characters. And while I really enjoy and ship both MCS/Jingyan and MCS/Nihuang, I feel like the show gave me enough for both those pairings - I'd be happy to see them included as background but would prefer if any fic I received focused on a rarer pairing or gen. Shipwise I am pretty much open to anything - and I recently requested a bunch of ships for this fandom for the Femslash exchange so you could check that letter for ideas. For this fandom I'd prefer femslash or gen, though I'd also be open to stories exploring canon het relationships.
I love Nihuang's sense of duty and loyalty, how fiercely intelligent she is and how she always, always, always does what she thinks is right no matter what the personal cost might be. I love Gong Yu's quiet, passive determination, the way she walks a really interesting tightrope between highly feminised roles (musician, sex worker) and masculine ones (assassin and soldier) while still staying true to herself. I love Banruo so much in large part because of (not in spite of) how much she's outclassed as a spy/chess grandmaster compared to everyone she's up against - she's self-aware enough to know that she's no Xuanji, but her loyalty and commitment is such that she keeps fighting that losing battle anyway. And I love Prince Yu's wife, in the few scenes we see of her - her quiet unobtrusiveness combined with her active political work in support of her husband - and I would love, love, love to see what happens next for her and her child (who really ought to be a daughter, just saying!)
As much as I love most of the show, the treatment of the Hua people is the one jarring note. Yes Banruo is often terrible and Xuanji did some monstrous things, but the Hua people were also treated monstrously, and the only resolution offered was more genocide. While I love that a major theme of the show is the difference between revenge and justice - both Xuanji and MCS are brilliant schemers who suffered enormous injustice, but while Xuanji eventually failed because she was sidetracked into revenge and hurting everyone who was affiliated with anyone who'd hurt her, MCS stayed focused on justice (with people like the Jiangzhuo Alliance and Consort Jing on his side) and thus succeeded - there's also something a bit icky about the gendered, colonialist parallel. MCS is righteous and justified, but Xuanji is just evil? Really? I'd love to see a story that complicates that black-and-white picture.
This is also a fandom where I'm particularly fascinated by role reversals, canon divergence AUs and time travel (QIN BANRUO AS A FAILBOAT PEGGY SUE??) - there's always the classics, 'what if MCS lived' and 'what if the fake rebellion was stopped in time' but there's so many other possibilities as well! Perhaps an AU where Prince Yu's rebellion succeeded, and he and Banruo got everything she (thought she) wanted - and then what? Or a complete role reversal where a different group of characters were secretly Hua?
Hilary Tamar mysteries - Sarah Caudwell
Desmond Ragwort
Julia Larwood
Michael Cantrip
Selena Jardine
Everything about this fandom is just charming and delightful (except for the murders, I guess? Also the tax dodging in the third book has... not aged well) and I'd love any kind of story that gave me more of these characters, more of their relationships and hijinks and absurdity. I feel kind of annoying asking for this, but this is an AND not an OR request - while I love all the characters and I love pretty much all possible combinations and groupings, the thing I most want to see is the four of them together in some way - interacting, working together, whatever you like. Mostly because the thought of any one or two of them getting left out would make me really sad!
I'd love a casefic/adventure, I'd love some kind of missing scene from any of the books, I'd love slice-of-life - honestly just a standard evening of bickering and sarcasm over dinner would make me very, very happy. All the characters and their relationships with each other are just so hilarious and great. Selena's calm competence as she takes care of Julia is delightful - as is Julia herself, in all her scatty wildness. I really love how the two of them interact! Ragwort and Cantrip spend a lot of time bickering and not enough time working together, for my taste - I love the brief hints in canon that they do actually care about each other and I'd love to see more of that! Cantrip and Julia's bickering sibling-esque relationship is also fantastic - particularly their novel! And I love that Julia is the sexually-active pursuer and Ragwort is the one delicately holding onto his virtue in their relationship. I feel like Selena and Cantrip didn't interact as much - or if they did, it was less memorable - but I'd love to see more of them together!
I love Hilary too and would be delighted if Hilary showed up - outsider POV on the four of them, deus ex machina, just general busybodying - though please don't gender Hilary if you do (I realise this is kind of tricky with pronouns, I am fine with using 'they' in a gender-neutral way, or slightly awkward phrasing to avoid pronouns altogether).
Julia/Selena and Cantrip/Ragwort are probably my favourite subpairings, if you wanted to write shipfic, but honestly any of the het possibilities would be lovely too. And I'd absolutely adore some kind of poly fic, or an orgy - I feel like they'd all be up for it, and the kind of slightly-absurd scenario required to (figuratively) get them all into bed together seems like it would be perfectly in line with the books.
I do love a good trope, too, so if you wanted to do something like 'forced to get married (for the tax benefits!) AU' or 'sedoretu AU' - or 'forced to get married as a sedoretu (for the tax benefits!) AU' - I would absolutely adore it.
Finisterre: The Nighthorses - C. J. Cherryh
Carlo Goss
Danny Fisher
Guil Stuart
Tara Chang
The setting of these books is so immediately harsh and memorable, but as is usual for Cherryh, it's the characters that have stuck with me. Like Nirvana in Fire, this is an OR not an AND request - I'd be happy with any one or any combo of these characters, though if you were planning a story focused on just Carlo or just Guil I'd prefer something set during or post-canon.
Danny's an interesting, and interestingly flawed, protagonist - in some ways he's the standard 'teenage boy in over his head, succeeds anyway' but Cherryh does also show him failing in some interesting and unexpected ways. And also I've got to say I found his character a lot more interesting if I read him as closeted and queer, with a massive crush on Guil (and later I can definitely see Carlo as having a crush on Danny!) I could definitely read Danny's constant fixation on 'oh no, what if these intimidatingly competent older men do ~something terrible~ to me once we're out in the wilderness together' as actually subconsciously wanting that thing to happen - though given it's Cherryh, a straight-up fear of sexual assault would also be reasonable! Either way, given that a large part of this story is 'cowboys in space' I'd love to see something a bit queer about it, whether that's Danny and Carlo together as partners after the end of the second book, or Danny and Guil having some kind of moment together. But I'd also love either of those stories as gen relationships, or a story focused on any individual!
I also really, really loved Tara's pragmatism and determination - she's a bit fucked up, in the way that all of the riders are, but she's also dogged and determined and I love how much of a survivor she is, how she sympathises with Brionne and wants to protect her if she can, but if she can't, is perfectly willing to kill her to save everyone else. I haven't quite gotten my head around how her relationship with Guil might work in the longer-term, but I'd love to see it - or something with her on her own, or with Aby, or in Tarmin village before it all fell apart, or as a mentor figure to the younger riders.
If you'd like to write porn, there's some great possibilities with the canon influence of nighthorses in heat - it would be really interesting to see how different gender combinations among the horses or the humans would affect how that went, too! We've seen what happens when a male horse and rider meet a female horse and rider, but what happens when the gender configurations aren't so neatly heterosexual?
I'd also love to see any glimpse of what might happen to Brionne - seeing any of the characters, or any combination of characters, meet her again or just find out what happened between her and the ape-creature would be really fascinating.
I am familiar with Cherryh's Alliance/Union books (I haven't read Alliance Rising or most of the Chanur books) and would absolutely adore some kind of crossover, if you'd like to write that!
Terminator (movies)
Dani Ramos
Grace
SPOILERS FOR DARK FATE
So I just saw this movie, right before the end of signups, and I'd really like to thank whoever knew to nominate Dani and Grace! The movie was enjoyable, there were some nice moments, but mostly my takeaway was that I absolutely loved Dani and Grace's relationship and now I want so much more between them.
I'd love femslash or gen here, honestly - I came out of the movie thinking, WOW that was gay, and shipping them really hard - but even as a gen relationship, to have two women who are so loyal to each other with that bodyguard/commander relationship up on the big screen was wonderful and I'd love so much more.
I would really, really love fix-it fic, if you're up for that. Grace's death felt so predictable - she was the timetravelling guardian from the future, of course she was doomed. Blah. But also she felt so resigned to her own death, like she'd never expected to live for very long once she'd made it to the past. I would love to see how she would cope with a more hopeful future where somehow they did manage to kill the Rev-9, and now she and Dani and Sarah (and even Carl, if you wanted!) were awkwardly roadtripping around together, trying to stop Legion and stay alive.
Even if you didn't go with that particular scenario, I'd love to see Sarah show up in all her fucked-up, ambiguous-mentor figure glory; I also really liked Dani's brother and would absolutely love to see an AU where he survived and came along through the events of the movie. Dani had such a rough ride in this movie and it would be lovely to see her manage to keep part of her family, and have that sweet sibling relationship preserved.
But also, I'd love some kind of missing scene from canon between Dani and Grace - or something between the two of them from Grace's original universe? A future where Commander Dani remembers Grace when she meets her again and has to decide whether to risk losing her all over again?
In terms of canon knowledge, I have seen the first two movies and the Sarah Connor Chronicles series. I really, really love the 'time-travel creates multiple realities' aspect of the series - also the idea, I can't remember where I first read it, that the various Sarahs look different because in each universe Kyle Reese saved a different Sarah? If you wanted to do some kind of universe-crossing thing, or even just have characters from the TV show turn up (Jesse and Riley offer some really interesting parallels to Dani and Grace, I think!), that would be wonderful!
In general, some of my favourite things about the franchise are the time-travel weirdness (different people remembering different futures that now no longer exist, 'no fate but what you make', the infinite possibilities but also the inevitable repetitions) and the steady breakdown of the divide between human and machine. Grace is halfway to a terminator not only in her physical capabilities but also in her ruthless single-mindedness, while Carl has learned to love and care of his own volition (not forced into it via reprogramming, like the second T-800). Anything exploring these themes would be lovely!
Thank you so much for writing for me!
