Yuletide 2021
Oct. 23rd, 2021 12:16 pm![[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, angst and bleakness are awesome, happy endings are awesome, humor is awesome! Etc.
Some of my favourite things include:
-Canon divergence AUs!
-Time travel shenanigans, particularly characters going back in time to change their own past (I always love a good Peggy Sue!)
-Politics, history and worldbuilding
-Road trips (or spaceship trips, actual ship trips, etc)
-Stoic women with repressed feelings
-Female antiheroes or villains with complex motivations
-Enemies forced to work together by circumstance
-Unexpected and unconventional happy endings
-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 generally 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.
If you need to work your way around a canon relationship of any configuration to write a pairing I've requested (or just like writing it), I do generally enjoy poly and open relationships! "They were together and then they broke up" and "don't even mention it" are also fine. Infidelity is also fine in most circumstances, I'm cool with reading about requested characters doing morally dubious things, so long as the cheated-on party doesn't get written as an OTT villain to justify it.
General DNWs:
-Modern/mundane and genre-shift AUs - basically anything that takes the requested characters/pairings out of their canon setting; fusions like a daemon AU that keep the canon setting are fine
-Soulmates and 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 - where one character really does desire the other, they just have something standing in their way that makes it difficult to say yes)
-Non-canon character death of requested characters (and if a requested character's canon character death is averted, please don't then kill them off in a different way!)
-Unrequested kinks
-Explicit underage (I'm fine with older teenagers having sex with each other, or with mentions of underage, I just don't want explicit adult/child sex)
-Unrequested, non-canonical gender or sexuality identities for requested canon characters.
Fandom-specific DNWs:
-Perryn - brief mentions for plot purposes are okay but nothing more than that
-Romantic Jill/Nevyn
-An explicitly male, female, nonbinary, agender etc Hilary Tamar - basically don't spell out what Hilary's gender is
-Nicholas Sayre/Sameth.
As for the fandoms, pairings and AUs, I requested:
Deverry Cycle - Katharine Kerr
Jill
Dallandra
Rhodry Maelwaedd
Gwin
I've loved this series since I was a kid, and pretty much any story about any character would delight me! A character study would be lovely - or a missing scene from canon - or ship fic - or a canon divergence AU exploring the ramification of a small change, or making someone's life better. Basically, go wild, it will almost certainly thrill me!
Jill was one of my formative fictional heroines, and a story set in pretty much any era of her life would be great. I'd particularly like to see what her life was like as a dweomermaster - learning to shapechange, perhaps, or learning about her past lives, or having an adventure on her own, or just what her daily life was like. And I also love Jill as a determined little tomboy learning the sword with her father - something set in the missing years between the pig war and meeting Rhodry would be great!
I also love Dallandra, I love the understated tragedy of all her lost years, and I'd particularly love to see something exploring that further. It's more obvious with Aderyn, of course, but by the end of the main series Dallandra is centuries younger than everyone she grew up with - how on earth would that feel? But I'd also love to see missing scenes from any era, or an adventure with her and Jill or Rhodry, or maybe even her meeting Rhodry or Jill's next incarnations?
I do have a soft spot for Rhodry still - particularly old, jaded, half-mad Rhodry - and again, I'd be fascinated by a story about him in any era. Particularly something exploring Dallandra telling him the truth about reincarnation after Jill's death - the implication is that it's the first step on the road to the dweomer. It doesn't really go anywhere in the books, but I'd be fascinated to see Dallandra as Rhodry's teacher - maybe in his next incarnation?
I love Gwin so much, and canon treated him so badly! It's such a tragedy that he spent half his life in love with a man who really did love him back, he just didn't have the self-awareness or courage to say so until years after Gwin was dead, it's awful. So an AU where Gwin and Rhodry did get together would be great! Or an AU where Gwin moved on and was able to find love and/or happiness with someone else instead? But any Gwin story would be lovely, really. Maybe just a slice of life finding happiness in Aberwyn some other way, or something about his childhood?
Pairing-wise, I'm pretty agnostic, except that I don't want to read any romantic Jill/Nevyn; I can see that their initial, mentor-student relationship would have become one of equals as Jill got older and mastered her powers, but I still wouldn't want to see it go in a romantic direction! (Ned/Branna is fine as a pairing, but I'm also not particularly interested in it.) Gen or friendship fic is also great! Particularly Jill and Rhodry's slightly tense friendship after they reconnected in the later books, or Rhodry and Dallandra's friends-with-benefits arrangement.
I shipped Jill/Rhodry a lot as a teenager; these days I have more mixed feelings about it (and the eighties romance novel trope of the hero proving his devotion by his jealousy really does not do it for me now), but I still have a soft spot for them. I also really like Rhodry/Dallandra's casual, friends-with-benefits relationship, I liked how they could have fun and still be friends. Gwin/Rhodry was a tragedy in canon and if you wanted to fix it and give them some time to be happy together that would be delightful! Otherwise, I would be particularly interested in Dallandra/Jill - I loved Jill and Dallandra's friendship in canon, they were so great together (even though, again, it ended in tragedy), and again if you'd like to write them as having had something more between them I would love it! And if it's relevant, some of the other ships involving these characters I enjoy include: Rhodry/Evandar, Alshandra/Dallandra, Jill/Ebany/Rhodry, Rhodry/Yraen, Jill/Rhodry/Gwin.
Canon divergence AUs are one of my all time favourite things and I feel like Deverry would be ripe for them! An AU where Rhys wasn't infertile, for example - this would mean that Rhodry would never be recalled, and maybe that the Old One would never use him as the centre of his Bardek plot - what would Jill and Rhodry's lives be like if they spent their lives on the road? Would Jill still find her way to the dweomer? Would Rhodry still find out the truth about his father?
Or what about an AU where Gwin survives his illness and goes on the road with Rhodry when he has to leave Aberwyn? An AU where Jill met Dallandra before she met Nevyn? The miserable AU where Jill decided to marry Rhodry and stay in Aberwyn after all? Really, go wild!
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.
This is an AND not an OR request - while I love all the characters and I love pretty much all possible combinations and pairings, 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 would be equally thrilled by gen, by ship fic involving any subset of the four, or by poly; I'm less interested in relationships between any one of the four and some other person - basically keep the focus on the four of them and I'll be very happy!
Normally I DNW genre shift AUs but for this fandom, I think a genre shift could be delightful! Provided that the focus was the relationship between the four of them, and they kept their dry humour and bickering, it would be really fun to see an AU with magic, or in space, or even a crossover/fusion with another fandom? (As well as the fandoms I requested this Yuletide, others I enjoy at the moment include Avatar: the Last Airbender, A Song of Ice and Fire, the Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, Star Wars, Temeraire, the Books of the Raksura, Emelan and Tortall, the Witcher (TV) and CJ Cherryh's Alliance-Union and Finisterre universes.)
Otherwise, 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 be delightful. All the characters and their relationships with each other are just so hilarious and great, and I always want more. 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 give Hilary an explicit gender identity 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.
Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
October of the Calendar Council
The Secular Missionary
The Gracious Widow
I've gotten really into Fallen London in the past couple of years and right now I'm particularly loving a lot of the recent content and additions - Parabola, Arbor, the Railway, lots more lore about the members of the Calendar Council and the Neath's history. But really most aspects of the Neath are great! I'm particularly into Urchins, Revolutionaries (though not the Liberation of Night), the Chessboard, Blemmigans, the Zee, the Abbey (WARRIOR! NUNS!), the Elder Continent, the Tomb-Colonies and Neathy history in general. I have finished the Heart's Desire ambition and am fine with spoilers for it, but no spoilers for the other ambitions, please.
I mentioned specific characters, though, because I actually do also love the characters of Fallen London as well. This is an OR not and AND request, I'd be happy with a story about any single character or combination.
Right now I am very into the intersection of women who are varying degrees of villainous, weird Parabola shit, and the Red Queen. October's fate was one of my favourite parts of the Heart's Desire storyline, I loved the revelation in the Parabolan War storyline that she's been passing the time since she's been trapped in Parabola fighting as a mercenary company of creepy ravens, and I also love that she's probably the Hallowmas Queen of Air and Darkness. I'm super into the idea of her serving as a terrible mentor into being a Red Queen avatar for various other awful Fallen London women! Or just generally haunting the 'real' world with her revolutionary creepiness and support for red on the Chessboard.
I also really love the Secular Missionary?? She's not a nice person but I love her. As in I paid real money so my Fallen London character could marry her, lol. I love how ruthless she is, under the fragile, feminine, Victorian mask, and I also kind of love how self-serving she is - compared to what her Liberationist husband is trying to achieve, that might not actually be a bad thing! But I also find it interesting that she's very tied to Surface politics and (maybe) the Great Game, rather than the more mystic elements of the Neath, and ends up over her head/losing part of herself in the Nadir. I'd really love a story with her as outside POV on some of the more outlandish parts of the Neath - maybe, post Nadir, she's haunted by October and Parabola, or maybe the Gracious Widow recruits her and she learns more about Neathy history?
The Gracious Widow is another favourite; I like how she's ruthless and criminal and cares about Urchins, and how there's hints she might have been more active as a Revolutionary against the Masters in the past. I'd be really interested to find out more about her - what her revolutionary past was like, why she stopped, and what it might take for her to start again (maybe October or the Secular Missionary is involved?). She's another person who's chosen pragmatism and self-serving in the here and now, but she's also an immortal being who's deeply involved in a lot of major Neath history; I'd love to see more about that contradiction. Also, I LOVE her rivalry with the Duchess and I ship them really, really hard. I love them as actual rivals (who maybe fuck occasionally), I love them as frenemies who dislike each other (or pretend to) but have known each other too long and have too much in common, and maybe will also work together when the occasion calls for it, I would love for their rivalry to actually be a front for something else!
Other characters I really like, in or out of the tagset, that might be fun to have appear in a story with my requested characters include the Duchess, the Appalling Socialite, Furnace Ancona, September, the Delightful Reverend or Sinning Jenny. I am mostly into femslash in this fandom but if you wanted to have the Bishop of Southwark show up, and give him a boyfriend, I would be into that! (The Revolutionary Firebrand would be a terrible choice, but also very funny.)
The Old Kingdom series - Garth Nix
Lirael
Nicholas Sayre
I love this fandom so much! I love the worldbuilding, I love the creepiness of the Dead paired with the beauty of the Charter magic and the delightful mundanity of Ancelstierre. The contrast between the high fantasy setting of the Old Kingdom and the 1920s English analogue of Ancelstierre is genius and I can never get enough of stories that bring the two sides together, whether that's solely through characters or whether it's a character who grew up on one side of the Wall getting a chance to visit the other side. I appreciate how Sabriel and Sam grew up connected to and part of both cultures, but honestly, I prefer the sheer fish-out-of-water wtf of Nick in the Old Kingdom or Lirael in Ancelstierre!
Lirael is one of my all-time favourite characters - shy and knowledge-obsessed and a really good, accurate description of an angsty teenage girl who really does have a lot of shit in her life to deal with, but is also, you know, a teenager. The way she grows in confidence and power as she finds her place in the world is fantastic, I love it every time I reread the series. And she's a warrior librarian! I also really like Nick, who is way in over his head but still tries his best (even when that's futile). He's such a good outsider POV on the Old Kingdom, and it's great to see him gradually learning more and figuring out how to use his strange powers. Though I'm not really a fan of stories where he disconnects with his family and stays permanently on the Old Kingdom side of the Wall; even if he chooses to make his home there, I'd prefer if he managed to stay connected to his family and even visit them occasionally.
I really like Nick and Lirael's friendship, but I also really ship them! They're just really genuine and cute, and I want them to be happy, after everything they've been through. Basically, either gen/friendship fic or ship fic would make me equally happy here.
I'd particularly like to see something set postseries - adventures in the Old Kingdom, more of Nick learning to use his powers at the Great Library of the Clayr, or maybe Lirael visiting Nick's family in Ancelstierre? It would be nice to see things flipped around so she is the fish out of water in a strange land, and he's the one getting to show her around! Also, would his ability to generate Charter magic still work in Corvere, and if so, could he keep her hand working? That could be very sweet. Something set in the distant future, rather than postseries, could also be really interesting - as sad as it would be, maybe something set after Ellimere is Queen and Lirael is the Abhorsen?
I always like an ensemble fic, and I like pretty much all the other main characters in the series - I'd love more Ellimere, in particular, since we mostly see her through Sam's biased perspective; or Lirael and Sabriel working together; or maybe Nick and Ferin bonding over both being strangers to the Old Kingdom? Or maybe for some reason Ferin is accompanying Sam, Lirael and Nick to Ancelstierre? I also love the Disreputable Dog (who doesn't??) and would be very happy for her to show up, or Mogget/Yrael, or both of them!
I really like Sabriel/Touchstone (please don't break them up) and Sam/Ferin (but I don't mind if you break them up), but if you do write Nick & Lirael gen, I would prefer if you don't pair either of them up with anyone else.
Thank you again 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, angst and bleakness are awesome, happy endings are awesome, humor is awesome! Etc.
Some of my favourite things include:
-Canon divergence AUs!
-Time travel shenanigans, particularly characters going back in time to change their own past (I always love a good Peggy Sue!)
-Politics, history and worldbuilding
-Road trips (or spaceship trips, actual ship trips, etc)
-Stoic women with repressed feelings
-Female antiheroes or villains with complex motivations
-Enemies forced to work together by circumstance
-Unexpected and unconventional happy endings
-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 generally 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.
If you need to work your way around a canon relationship of any configuration to write a pairing I've requested (or just like writing it), I do generally enjoy poly and open relationships! "They were together and then they broke up" and "don't even mention it" are also fine. Infidelity is also fine in most circumstances, I'm cool with reading about requested characters doing morally dubious things, so long as the cheated-on party doesn't get written as an OTT villain to justify it.
General DNWs:
-Modern/mundane and genre-shift AUs - basically anything that takes the requested characters/pairings out of their canon setting; fusions like a daemon AU that keep the canon setting are fine
-Soulmates and 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 - where one character really does desire the other, they just have something standing in their way that makes it difficult to say yes)
-Non-canon character death of requested characters (and if a requested character's canon character death is averted, please don't then kill them off in a different way!)
-Unrequested kinks
-Explicit underage (I'm fine with older teenagers having sex with each other, or with mentions of underage, I just don't want explicit adult/child sex)
-Unrequested, non-canonical gender or sexuality identities for requested canon characters.
Fandom-specific DNWs:
-Perryn - brief mentions for plot purposes are okay but nothing more than that
-Romantic Jill/Nevyn
-An explicitly male, female, nonbinary, agender etc Hilary Tamar - basically don't spell out what Hilary's gender is
-Nicholas Sayre/Sameth.
As for the fandoms, pairings and AUs, I requested:
Deverry Cycle - Katharine Kerr
Jill
Dallandra
Rhodry Maelwaedd
Gwin
I've loved this series since I was a kid, and pretty much any story about any character would delight me! A character study would be lovely - or a missing scene from canon - or ship fic - or a canon divergence AU exploring the ramification of a small change, or making someone's life better. Basically, go wild, it will almost certainly thrill me!
Jill was one of my formative fictional heroines, and a story set in pretty much any era of her life would be great. I'd particularly like to see what her life was like as a dweomermaster - learning to shapechange, perhaps, or learning about her past lives, or having an adventure on her own, or just what her daily life was like. And I also love Jill as a determined little tomboy learning the sword with her father - something set in the missing years between the pig war and meeting Rhodry would be great!
I also love Dallandra, I love the understated tragedy of all her lost years, and I'd particularly love to see something exploring that further. It's more obvious with Aderyn, of course, but by the end of the main series Dallandra is centuries younger than everyone she grew up with - how on earth would that feel? But I'd also love to see missing scenes from any era, or an adventure with her and Jill or Rhodry, or maybe even her meeting Rhodry or Jill's next incarnations?
I do have a soft spot for Rhodry still - particularly old, jaded, half-mad Rhodry - and again, I'd be fascinated by a story about him in any era. Particularly something exploring Dallandra telling him the truth about reincarnation after Jill's death - the implication is that it's the first step on the road to the dweomer. It doesn't really go anywhere in the books, but I'd be fascinated to see Dallandra as Rhodry's teacher - maybe in his next incarnation?
I love Gwin so much, and canon treated him so badly! It's such a tragedy that he spent half his life in love with a man who really did love him back, he just didn't have the self-awareness or courage to say so until years after Gwin was dead, it's awful. So an AU where Gwin and Rhodry did get together would be great! Or an AU where Gwin moved on and was able to find love and/or happiness with someone else instead? But any Gwin story would be lovely, really. Maybe just a slice of life finding happiness in Aberwyn some other way, or something about his childhood?
Pairing-wise, I'm pretty agnostic, except that I don't want to read any romantic Jill/Nevyn; I can see that their initial, mentor-student relationship would have become one of equals as Jill got older and mastered her powers, but I still wouldn't want to see it go in a romantic direction! (Ned/Branna is fine as a pairing, but I'm also not particularly interested in it.) Gen or friendship fic is also great! Particularly Jill and Rhodry's slightly tense friendship after they reconnected in the later books, or Rhodry and Dallandra's friends-with-benefits arrangement.
I shipped Jill/Rhodry a lot as a teenager; these days I have more mixed feelings about it (and the eighties romance novel trope of the hero proving his devotion by his jealousy really does not do it for me now), but I still have a soft spot for them. I also really like Rhodry/Dallandra's casual, friends-with-benefits relationship, I liked how they could have fun and still be friends. Gwin/Rhodry was a tragedy in canon and if you wanted to fix it and give them some time to be happy together that would be delightful! Otherwise, I would be particularly interested in Dallandra/Jill - I loved Jill and Dallandra's friendship in canon, they were so great together (even though, again, it ended in tragedy), and again if you'd like to write them as having had something more between them I would love it! And if it's relevant, some of the other ships involving these characters I enjoy include: Rhodry/Evandar, Alshandra/Dallandra, Jill/Ebany/Rhodry, Rhodry/Yraen, Jill/Rhodry/Gwin.
Canon divergence AUs are one of my all time favourite things and I feel like Deverry would be ripe for them! An AU where Rhys wasn't infertile, for example - this would mean that Rhodry would never be recalled, and maybe that the Old One would never use him as the centre of his Bardek plot - what would Jill and Rhodry's lives be like if they spent their lives on the road? Would Jill still find her way to the dweomer? Would Rhodry still find out the truth about his father?
Or what about an AU where Gwin survives his illness and goes on the road with Rhodry when he has to leave Aberwyn? An AU where Jill met Dallandra before she met Nevyn? The miserable AU where Jill decided to marry Rhodry and stay in Aberwyn after all? Really, go wild!
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.
This is an AND not an OR request - while I love all the characters and I love pretty much all possible combinations and pairings, 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 would be equally thrilled by gen, by ship fic involving any subset of the four, or by poly; I'm less interested in relationships between any one of the four and some other person - basically keep the focus on the four of them and I'll be very happy!
Normally I DNW genre shift AUs but for this fandom, I think a genre shift could be delightful! Provided that the focus was the relationship between the four of them, and they kept their dry humour and bickering, it would be really fun to see an AU with magic, or in space, or even a crossover/fusion with another fandom? (As well as the fandoms I requested this Yuletide, others I enjoy at the moment include Avatar: the Last Airbender, A Song of Ice and Fire, the Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, Star Wars, Temeraire, the Books of the Raksura, Emelan and Tortall, the Witcher (TV) and CJ Cherryh's Alliance-Union and Finisterre universes.)
Otherwise, 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 be delightful. All the characters and their relationships with each other are just so hilarious and great, and I always want more. 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 give Hilary an explicit gender identity 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.
Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
October of the Calendar Council
The Secular Missionary
The Gracious Widow
I've gotten really into Fallen London in the past couple of years and right now I'm particularly loving a lot of the recent content and additions - Parabola, Arbor, the Railway, lots more lore about the members of the Calendar Council and the Neath's history. But really most aspects of the Neath are great! I'm particularly into Urchins, Revolutionaries (though not the Liberation of Night), the Chessboard, Blemmigans, the Zee, the Abbey (WARRIOR! NUNS!), the Elder Continent, the Tomb-Colonies and Neathy history in general. I have finished the Heart's Desire ambition and am fine with spoilers for it, but no spoilers for the other ambitions, please.
I mentioned specific characters, though, because I actually do also love the characters of Fallen London as well. This is an OR not and AND request, I'd be happy with a story about any single character or combination.
Right now I am very into the intersection of women who are varying degrees of villainous, weird Parabola shit, and the Red Queen. October's fate was one of my favourite parts of the Heart's Desire storyline, I loved the revelation in the Parabolan War storyline that she's been passing the time since she's been trapped in Parabola fighting as a mercenary company of creepy ravens, and I also love that she's probably the Hallowmas Queen of Air and Darkness. I'm super into the idea of her serving as a terrible mentor into being a Red Queen avatar for various other awful Fallen London women! Or just generally haunting the 'real' world with her revolutionary creepiness and support for red on the Chessboard.
I also really love the Secular Missionary?? She's not a nice person but I love her. As in I paid real money so my Fallen London character could marry her, lol. I love how ruthless she is, under the fragile, feminine, Victorian mask, and I also kind of love how self-serving she is - compared to what her Liberationist husband is trying to achieve, that might not actually be a bad thing! But I also find it interesting that she's very tied to Surface politics and (maybe) the Great Game, rather than the more mystic elements of the Neath, and ends up over her head/losing part of herself in the Nadir. I'd really love a story with her as outside POV on some of the more outlandish parts of the Neath - maybe, post Nadir, she's haunted by October and Parabola, or maybe the Gracious Widow recruits her and she learns more about Neathy history?
The Gracious Widow is another favourite; I like how she's ruthless and criminal and cares about Urchins, and how there's hints she might have been more active as a Revolutionary against the Masters in the past. I'd be really interested to find out more about her - what her revolutionary past was like, why she stopped, and what it might take for her to start again (maybe October or the Secular Missionary is involved?). She's another person who's chosen pragmatism and self-serving in the here and now, but she's also an immortal being who's deeply involved in a lot of major Neath history; I'd love to see more about that contradiction. Also, I LOVE her rivalry with the Duchess and I ship them really, really hard. I love them as actual rivals (who maybe fuck occasionally), I love them as frenemies who dislike each other (or pretend to) but have known each other too long and have too much in common, and maybe will also work together when the occasion calls for it, I would love for their rivalry to actually be a front for something else!
Other characters I really like, in or out of the tagset, that might be fun to have appear in a story with my requested characters include the Duchess, the Appalling Socialite, Furnace Ancona, September, the Delightful Reverend or Sinning Jenny. I am mostly into femslash in this fandom but if you wanted to have the Bishop of Southwark show up, and give him a boyfriend, I would be into that! (The Revolutionary Firebrand would be a terrible choice, but also very funny.)
The Old Kingdom series - Garth Nix
Lirael
Nicholas Sayre
I love this fandom so much! I love the worldbuilding, I love the creepiness of the Dead paired with the beauty of the Charter magic and the delightful mundanity of Ancelstierre. The contrast between the high fantasy setting of the Old Kingdom and the 1920s English analogue of Ancelstierre is genius and I can never get enough of stories that bring the two sides together, whether that's solely through characters or whether it's a character who grew up on one side of the Wall getting a chance to visit the other side. I appreciate how Sabriel and Sam grew up connected to and part of both cultures, but honestly, I prefer the sheer fish-out-of-water wtf of Nick in the Old Kingdom or Lirael in Ancelstierre!
Lirael is one of my all-time favourite characters - shy and knowledge-obsessed and a really good, accurate description of an angsty teenage girl who really does have a lot of shit in her life to deal with, but is also, you know, a teenager. The way she grows in confidence and power as she finds her place in the world is fantastic, I love it every time I reread the series. And she's a warrior librarian! I also really like Nick, who is way in over his head but still tries his best (even when that's futile). He's such a good outsider POV on the Old Kingdom, and it's great to see him gradually learning more and figuring out how to use his strange powers. Though I'm not really a fan of stories where he disconnects with his family and stays permanently on the Old Kingdom side of the Wall; even if he chooses to make his home there, I'd prefer if he managed to stay connected to his family and even visit them occasionally.
I really like Nick and Lirael's friendship, but I also really ship them! They're just really genuine and cute, and I want them to be happy, after everything they've been through. Basically, either gen/friendship fic or ship fic would make me equally happy here.
I'd particularly like to see something set postseries - adventures in the Old Kingdom, more of Nick learning to use his powers at the Great Library of the Clayr, or maybe Lirael visiting Nick's family in Ancelstierre? It would be nice to see things flipped around so she is the fish out of water in a strange land, and he's the one getting to show her around! Also, would his ability to generate Charter magic still work in Corvere, and if so, could he keep her hand working? That could be very sweet. Something set in the distant future, rather than postseries, could also be really interesting - as sad as it would be, maybe something set after Ellimere is Queen and Lirael is the Abhorsen?
I always like an ensemble fic, and I like pretty much all the other main characters in the series - I'd love more Ellimere, in particular, since we mostly see her through Sam's biased perspective; or Lirael and Sabriel working together; or maybe Nick and Ferin bonding over both being strangers to the Old Kingdom? Or maybe for some reason Ferin is accompanying Sam, Lirael and Nick to Ancelstierre? I also love the Disreputable Dog (who doesn't??) and would be very happy for her to show up, or Mogget/Yrael, or both of them!
I really like Sabriel/Touchstone (please don't break them up) and Sam/Ferin (but I don't mind if you break them up), but if you do write Nick & Lirael gen, I would prefer if you don't pair either of them up with anyone else.
Thank you again so much for writing for me!
