Dear Yuletide Writer 2015
Oct. 24th, 2015 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingDear Yuletide Writer,
Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write a context-free sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)
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General Information:
1. First, while you cannot go wrong by writing gen for me, that is not a requirement. I will also read and enjoy pretty much anything when it comes to ships -- het, slash, femslash, threesomes, poly, whatever -- so long as you put in a bit of character development so the relationships don't seem to come out of nowhere. I tend to skim past sex scenes, though, so your efforts are best spent in other directions. (Except if you are writing the Karla-has-a-sex-life prompt! In that particular case, porn is more than welcome. *grin*)
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet (...okay, bittersweet leaning toward happy) and a little complicated.
3. If I said 'any' characters, I meant it. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more. On a related note, I would prefer fic compatible with the worlds and situations that canon presents. AUs of a "what if person X made choice A instead of choice B at moment Y" type are okay, but high school or coffee shop AUs are not what I'm looking for.
4. Stuff I really, really like: This can be boiled down to, 'Please treat characters as intelligent people who have understandable motives for their actions, please take the worlds seriously as settings, and please remember that sex and romance are not all there is to life. Also, ethics, metaphysics, and world-building are dead cool.'
The long version: I like character development; world-building; explanation of plot holes in canon; subtle humor; a sense of wonder; writing that evokes an emotional reaction as well as telling a story; close relationships that don't necessarily involve sex (i.e., friendship, families, teachers and students, coworkers, traveling companions, soldiers in the same cause, etc.); the consequences of actions and choices; a sense of place and time; dialogue that conveys character as well as plot information; politics; ethics; people being intelligent even if they make bad choices; people trying to do the right thing even if they make bad choices; conflict because of opposing goals that both have points in their favor; a lack of simple solutions; female characters treated as people instead of plot devices; male characters treated as people instead of plot devices; ideas that make me stop and think; the nature of memory; the nature of truth; possession; soul-searching; non-gratuitous torture (...I have a kink, shut up); war and battles; hand-to-hand fighting; swordfights; peace and diplomacy; magic that's properly magical and strange or magic that's explained as a science (but not both at once); books and reading; people exploring a new country/world/city; linguistics and languages; early Industrial Revolution technology (or whatever technology is suitable to the milieu); people using logic to investigate a problem; and fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
5. Stuff I'm not so keen on: obvious authorial hatred for characters I like and/or find interesting (which is generally all of them); sex or romantic love with no in-story justification (unless the people in question are already a canon couple); gratuitous angst/torture/rape (i.e., bad stuff that comes out of nowhere and is not necessary to make the plot or character arc work); idiot plots (i.e., problems that could be solved in five minutes if the characters asked one or two obvious questions); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
Okay. On to specific fandoms.
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The Dispossessed:
(This is a standalone science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, though it is part of a rather haphazard universe called, variously, the Ekumen or the Hainish Cycle.)
Characters: any!
Request: This has been one of my favorite books for twenty years, and I am sure I will love any story you write for it. I am not at all fussy! I like the characters, the utopianism and related politics and philosophy, the crazy alien physics, the world-building for both Urras and Anarres, etc. I am also totally up for fic about "The Day Before the Revolution" and the rest of Laia Odo's life.
If you want plot hooks, I am fascinated by the way marriage (or the lack thereof) plays out in Anarresti society, and what that means for Shevek and Takver. I am also intrigued by the hints of Odo's own relationship with Taviri; I enjoy the throwaway mentions of Urrasti legends and would love to see them turned into proper mythology; I am curious about the chaos in Benbili that was going on while Shevek was on Urras; I'd love to hear about Ambassador Keng's reaction to Urras both pre- and post-Shevek; etc., etc. There are infinite options! I like all pairing types, but I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance.
My thoughts: What I love about this book is everything. No, seriously -- everything. Shevek fascinates me, and I love how real all his relationships feel, especially the family he and Takver create and maintain. I like how he slowly learns to connect with other people, that he and Takver have problems and work through them, that they're good and loving parents but their own concerns affect their children. I like how Shevek's relationship with Sadik is in some ways a direct repudiation of his non-relationship with his own mother, Rulag, while in other ways Shevek and Rulag are very similar -- both direct, abrupt, and work-driven. I like the glimpses we get of Shevek's friends over the years.
I love the alien conception of physics, where science is assumed to automatically include moral and philosophical dimensions, and to describe only the physical world is only doing a fraction of the job. I love the descriptions of life on Anarres, how the people work together to carve life out of a barren, inhospitable world -- the parts where Takver studies sea life, or Shevek marvels at the abundance of species on Urras, are very striking.
I love the way the utopian anarchism of Anarres is not perfect; it must be maintained, carefully, and the gains come with corresponding losses. I love that the Anarresti themselves disagree over the ideal shape of their society, and are fighting against the human tendency to settle into power structures and fixed patterns of behavior. I love the way Urras is so rich and so poor at the same time, so gentle and so cruel; there is such abundance, yet they hoard power and build fences to keep people (women, the poor, people from other countries) from sharing in that abundance. I love how the people of both worlds are shaped by their cultures so they keep talking past each other. Neither world is perfect, and there is a clear symbiosis between them; in some ways they need one another to act as the symbolic Other. I love the hints of geopolitics that play out on Urras during Shevek's visit. He only stays in A-Io, but there is a sense of a greater world beyond his limited horizon; I am curious about the parts of Urras he doesn't get to see, and how the existence of Anarres and Shevek's presence on Urras play out in other cultures.
I am fascinated by the implication that both Urras and Anarres are in a long, slow-motion social change caused by the intrusion of other human species into their worlds -- the idea that they are descended from the Hainish must shake them, and I really like that Shevek is inspired by reading some of Einstein's Terran physics, though he thinks Einstein is all wrong about any number of things. I am also fascinated by the glimpses of Terra provided by Ambassador Keng, and how that post-apocalyptic culture shapes her attitude toward Urras and Annares. (If you want to show how Shevek's invention of the ansible helps nudge that totalitarian version of Earth toward the society later seen in City of Illusion, be my guest, though that's obviously outside the boundaries of my official request.)
As for "The Day Before the Revolution," Odo is a vivid, compelling character even in the brief glimpses we get during The Dispossessed, and she comes satisfyingly to life here. It's interesting that Le Guin chose not to write about the grand events of Odo's life, but to focus on a quiet day in her old age as she is learning (awkwardly, reluctantly, bitterly) to deal with physical and emotional loss, and realizing that the movement she inspired has grown beyond her. It's not the kind of story I'm used to reading in science fiction, which I think makes it more powerful than it would be in a different genre. Anyway, Odo is fascinating, so if you want to write about her instead of the later world, that would also be extremely cool.
As I said above, I am not fussy about what you write! As long as you write about Anarres and Urras, please feel free to use whatever canon and original characters you want! (And if you want to write sex and/or romance between Shevek and Takver, or between Odo and Taviri, that is fine by me. I just ask that the story include some character development and world-building as well, for balance.)
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The Lions of Al-Rassan:
(This is a standalone fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay.)
Characters: any!
Request: This is another of my all-time favorite books, and again I'm sure I'll love anything you write! That said, I've always been interested in the canon gaps. For example, what else happened during the year Ammar and Rodrigo served in Ragosa? What was the Belmontes' marriage like before they had children? How did Jehane and Ammar adjust to Sorenica? I am also interested in points at which the story might have turned and gone in a different direction. Such alternate paths are probably equally likely to end in tragedy, alas, but new and different flavors of bittersweet are worth sampling. *wry*
I like all pairing types and, with one caveat detailed in my letter, am open to any combination of the four characters nominated this year. (Those being Jehane, Ammar, Rodrigo, and Miranda.) But I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance.
I love this book because, while you can't call it anything but fantasy, it is not particularly fantastical. It's excellently written historical fiction that happens to be set in a made-up world. (I grant that Kay's secondary world is suspiciously similar to Spain during the Reconquista, but the fantasy aspect frees him to create his own characters and plot rather than being a slave to historical accuracy.) Kay also learned a trick from Tolkien that adds extra poignancy: the constant refrain of beauty shattered and fading in a harsh, mortal world. There's an aching sense of lost possibilities, the hope that if just one or two things had gone differently... but then you look again at the larger situation of the world, and you realize historical forces are aligned against your dreams, and nothing lasts forever. As Rodrigo says, "Even the sun goes down."
This book makes me cry every time I read it -- literally cry, I mean, not just get a little sniffly. I don't cry over books like that. But Kay gets inside my heart, hooks it open, and leaves me raw and aching. I love that so much, that a fictional world and fictional people can be that real and true for me. I want them all to win, but there is no way for that to happen, and that's better than any old struggle between straightforward good and evil. Because it's real.
And now the caveat I mentioned in my prompt! I like the relationships Rodrigo has with both Ammar and Jehane, and I like polyamory, BUT I dislike cheating. Therefore if you write Rodrigo doing anything non-platonic with Ammar, Jehane, or both, please either have him get permission from Miranda or work her in as well somehow. (Perhaps creating a scenario where that makes any logistical sense is a good basis for a 'turn left' canon-based AU?) This applies in reverse if Ammar and/or Jehane somehow visit the Belmontes' home while Rodrigo is away. Also, I am okay with a sex scene if you're writing a relationship-centric story -- for any relationship among the four nominated characters, really -- but please don't make sex the only focus of your fic.
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Black Jewels:
(This is a sprawling fantasy series by Anne Bishop -- I believe there are currently nine component books, starting with Daughter of the Blood. This is probably not the best fandom to get into in under two months.)
Characters: Karla
Request: I want to see Karla having an actual sexual/romantic relationship with another woman. Or several relationships. Or one relationship with several women. Whatever! Her partner(s) can be canon or original, whichever is easiest for you. I don't care if you focus on the feelings or the sex, but I would like Karla to retain her prickly edges even while in love and/or lust. If you show how she balances her sex life with the pseudo-family she canonically formed with her Captain of the Guard and Della, that would be extra awesome -- I am all in favor of found families, the larger the better -- but if you want to write something set during her teen years or to gloss over that potential area of conflict, that is also fine by me. I just want Karla to act on her sexuality and be HAPPY. It is not so very much to ask!
(P.S. I have a huge soft spot for Karla/Wilhelmina, if you can think of a way to make that work, but that is totally not required.)
My thoughts: Bishop is not quite what I'd call a guilty pleasure, but this series hits a LOT of my id buttons, and hits them HARD, which keeps me reading even when her world-building often makes me go, "Ummm... are you sure?" So yes, please, bring on powerful people using that power, women unashamedly in charge, violence and vengeance all over the place, predatory behavior in otherwise human characters, and so on and so forth. Getting to see Karla in her role as Queen -- sitting in judgment, yanking the leashes on recalcitrant members of her various Circles, negotiating with other Territories, etc. -- would be awesome. There are never enough stories about women exercising power.
As for sex itself, should you choose to write anything explicit... well, better TMI now than a belated discovery that we have incompatible kinks, yeah?
First, you are not obligated to write porn! Second, if you do so, vanilla is fine. Canon itself is pretty vanilla when it comes to sex between protagonists and I have never felt any loss of sensuality there. Third, I do not want non-con or dub-con in this context, though mention of past rape and/or threats thereof is okay.
Now, on to kinks and other details. Bloodplay during consensual sex is fine and more than fine, as is creative use of Craft for bondage or other games. (Phantom hands and seduction tendrils are neat, but they can't be the only options! Especially not for a Healer and Black Widow.) On that note, I am not into D/s when used in the service of verbal or physical humiliation -- I am not into humiliation or degradation in general, FYI -- but the general idea of taking care/being cared for is tasty, and bondage in and of itself is awesome, as are breast worship and nipple play. Mild xeno is also cool if you want to write Karla with a character who is not physically fully human, like the way people from Tigrelan have claws and Eyriens have wings. I'm not into bestiality, though, and sex with Kindred would come too close to that for me.
Given Karla's reaction to her Virgin Night, I tend to think she doesn't seek penetration, though she may be perfectly happy to use Craft or a physical object to penetrate a lover, should that lover so desire. Teasing is good, both giving and receiving, but in a spirit of mutuality rather than with an emotionally cruel edge. Dirty talk is also good, but not in the sense of calling people by sexually degrading names (even in a reclamatory fashion). For example, saying "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z to you, and you're going to love it," is cool, but finishing with, "you filthy little slut," is not what I'm looking for.
Lastly, if you are setting this after Queen of the Darkness, acknowledgement of Karla's injuries would be nice, though it doesn't have to be a big thing.
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Darkangel Trilogy:
(This is a fantasy/sci-fi trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce, which would probably be classed as YA if written today. The component books are The Darkangel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, and The Pearl of the Soul of the World. They're fairly quick reads but may not be easy to find by the fest deadline.)
Characters: Syllva, Eryka
Request: Syllva and Eryka are background characters in the trilogy itself, but what we hear about their lives is fascinating and I would love to know more about them.
Potential story seeds: What were their childhoods like? When did their parents die? How did Syllva meet the king of Avaric and what was Eryka's reaction to her sister leaving and handing her the government of Isternes? What did Syllva think of Avaric and Westernesse in general before everything went wrong? What was the sisters' relationship like between Syllva's return home and Eryka's own departure? What did Eryka think of Syllva's remarriage? What did Syllva think of Eryka's desire to travel, particularly after her own tragic experiences in Westernesse? What were Eryka's merchanting years like? Why did she go to Pirs and how did she meet the suzerain and his brother? Did Syllva and Eryka correspond during any of the periods they were living on different continents, or had Oriencor's influence broken down infrastructure too far by that point? What is the nature of government in Isternes and how is it related to the religion whose details Pierce declines to describe? Etc.
I like all pairing types, but I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance.
My thoughts: This series has been one of my favorites since I was quite young, and I love it madly and passionately because of everything it doesn't do. I mean, I love what it does do as well -- the utterly matter-of-fact fairytale atmosphere and the equally matter-of-fact way Pierce melds science fiction into that framework, the slow reveal of the post-apocalyptic elements, the lush descriptive language, the way Aeriel's power of heart is literalized through her mastery of the golden spindle, etc. -- but the characters and their world would not stick in my mind half as strongly if Pierce hadn't written what needed to happen instead of what narrative structures have trained us to expect will happen when you make a love story as central as Aeriel and Irrylath are.
Also -- and this is still unusual thirty years later -- none of the fathers implicit in the story ever gets a name. All but one of the mothers do. And what I want this year is a story about two of those mothers, whose lives (from the brief snippets we overhear) sound like they were full enough for a dozen people. In other words, I want to know more about Syllva and Eryka, because sisters are awesome. Sisters who are queens, adventurers, and intercontinental merchants are even better. *grin* I listed my most urgent questions in my prompt, but really, I would love almost anything about them.
My one caveat is that I don't want a story centered around Syllva mourning Irrylath's presumed death and Eryka comforting her in her grief. It is absolutely fine for that to be a side element in a story centered around something else, but I feel that Irrylath's tragedy gets enough focus in canon and I would like to hear about something else this year.
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Daredevil (Comics)
(This is a long-running western superhero comics series set in Marvel's 616 universe. An awful lot of it is available online through various sources, but again, probably not the best fandom to get into in under two months.)
Characters: Karen Page, Kirsten McDuffie, Elektra Natchios
Request: I admit upfront this is a slightly peculiar character combination, and I hereby absolve you of having to write all three women if you can't think of a way to fit them into the same story. But! I would really like to see more of Matt's lovers in situations OUTSIDE OF their relationships with him. In other words, show me the various ways in which they're awesome, and why anyone would be lucky to have them in their life. Maybe they fight an alien invasion, or work together on a court/crime case, or team up to rescue Matt from some villain's plot, or rescue each other from some villain's plot. (Perhaps a time-traveling villain? That might make a good excuse to smush various eras of canon together.) Anyway, women! Being awesome! Working together! And having lives of their own outside of romancing the main character! That is the general takeaway here. :D
(P.S. They weren't nominated so this is even more optional than regular optional details, but if you can fit Milla Donovan and Natasha Romanov in as well -- heck, maybe even Glorianna O'Breen or Heather Glenn? or Becky Blake and/or Dakota North, though they were friends rather than love interests? -- I will love you forever and a day.)
My thoughts: I suspect it is obvious what television show I fell in love with this spring. *wry* I mean, I had been tangentially aware of Daredevil for a long time -- the 616 universe is a tangled mess of interconnected continuity; I read an isolated issue here or there over the years I worked in a magazine shop; and I have often been in the habit of reading entertainment journalism and/or fannish meta about canons I don't actually read or watch directly -- but my knowledge was very secondhand.
Sustaining interest in audiovisual media is not easy for me, though, so my first reaction when falling in love with any audiovisual canon is to read every non-audiovisual tie-in I can hunt down. Which in this case are not really tie-ins but inspiration? But anyway, first I checked out a bunch of TPBs from my local library system. Then I got a Marvel Unlimited account, and I have been merrily reading away for several months now.
The thing about a long-running series (in any medium) is that it changes dramatically over time, sometimes to the point where what seem like its defining characteristics in one decade become nearly irrelevant in another. I have enjoyed elements of every era I've read so far, wildly different though some of them are. But I think what I like best is when Daredevil writers keep their focus away from the cosmic absurdities of the 616 universe and tell more human-level stories.
(You can find my thoughts about some runs and arcs under the Daredevil tag here on my journal -- just scroll past the MCU stuff.)
Anyway, one of my long-term frustrations as a reader of superhero comics (and probably one reason I have never been a steady reader) is the treatment of women in that genre of that medium. So I want a story centered around some of the women who have moved in and out of Matt's life over the years, and I want a story that specifically DOES NOT focus on their relationships with Matt, except insofar as that's one obvious thing they have in common. Instead, I want to know who they are as people, and see as many of them interact with each other as is feasible. :D
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And that is that. Thank you again, and happy writing!
Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write a context-free sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)
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General Information:
1. First, while you cannot go wrong by writing gen for me, that is not a requirement. I will also read and enjoy pretty much anything when it comes to ships -- het, slash, femslash, threesomes, poly, whatever -- so long as you put in a bit of character development so the relationships don't seem to come out of nowhere. I tend to skim past sex scenes, though, so your efforts are best spent in other directions. (Except if you are writing the Karla-has-a-sex-life prompt! In that particular case, porn is more than welcome. *grin*)
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet (...okay, bittersweet leaning toward happy) and a little complicated.
3. If I said 'any' characters, I meant it. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more. On a related note, I would prefer fic compatible with the worlds and situations that canon presents. AUs of a "what if person X made choice A instead of choice B at moment Y" type are okay, but high school or coffee shop AUs are not what I'm looking for.
4. Stuff I really, really like: This can be boiled down to, 'Please treat characters as intelligent people who have understandable motives for their actions, please take the worlds seriously as settings, and please remember that sex and romance are not all there is to life. Also, ethics, metaphysics, and world-building are dead cool.'
The long version: I like character development; world-building; explanation of plot holes in canon; subtle humor; a sense of wonder; writing that evokes an emotional reaction as well as telling a story; close relationships that don't necessarily involve sex (i.e., friendship, families, teachers and students, coworkers, traveling companions, soldiers in the same cause, etc.); the consequences of actions and choices; a sense of place and time; dialogue that conveys character as well as plot information; politics; ethics; people being intelligent even if they make bad choices; people trying to do the right thing even if they make bad choices; conflict because of opposing goals that both have points in their favor; a lack of simple solutions; female characters treated as people instead of plot devices; male characters treated as people instead of plot devices; ideas that make me stop and think; the nature of memory; the nature of truth; possession; soul-searching; non-gratuitous torture (...I have a kink, shut up); war and battles; hand-to-hand fighting; swordfights; peace and diplomacy; magic that's properly magical and strange or magic that's explained as a science (but not both at once); books and reading; people exploring a new country/world/city; linguistics and languages; early Industrial Revolution technology (or whatever technology is suitable to the milieu); people using logic to investigate a problem; and fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
5. Stuff I'm not so keen on: obvious authorial hatred for characters I like and/or find interesting (which is generally all of them); sex or romantic love with no in-story justification (unless the people in question are already a canon couple); gratuitous angst/torture/rape (i.e., bad stuff that comes out of nowhere and is not necessary to make the plot or character arc work); idiot plots (i.e., problems that could be solved in five minutes if the characters asked one or two obvious questions); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
Okay. On to specific fandoms.
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The Dispossessed:
(This is a standalone science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, though it is part of a rather haphazard universe called, variously, the Ekumen or the Hainish Cycle.)
Characters: any!
Request: This has been one of my favorite books for twenty years, and I am sure I will love any story you write for it. I am not at all fussy! I like the characters, the utopianism and related politics and philosophy, the crazy alien physics, the world-building for both Urras and Anarres, etc. I am also totally up for fic about "The Day Before the Revolution" and the rest of Laia Odo's life.
If you want plot hooks, I am fascinated by the way marriage (or the lack thereof) plays out in Anarresti society, and what that means for Shevek and Takver. I am also intrigued by the hints of Odo's own relationship with Taviri; I enjoy the throwaway mentions of Urrasti legends and would love to see them turned into proper mythology; I am curious about the chaos in Benbili that was going on while Shevek was on Urras; I'd love to hear about Ambassador Keng's reaction to Urras both pre- and post-Shevek; etc., etc. There are infinite options! I like all pairing types, but I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance.
My thoughts: What I love about this book is everything. No, seriously -- everything. Shevek fascinates me, and I love how real all his relationships feel, especially the family he and Takver create and maintain. I like how he slowly learns to connect with other people, that he and Takver have problems and work through them, that they're good and loving parents but their own concerns affect their children. I like how Shevek's relationship with Sadik is in some ways a direct repudiation of his non-relationship with his own mother, Rulag, while in other ways Shevek and Rulag are very similar -- both direct, abrupt, and work-driven. I like the glimpses we get of Shevek's friends over the years.
I love the alien conception of physics, where science is assumed to automatically include moral and philosophical dimensions, and to describe only the physical world is only doing a fraction of the job. I love the descriptions of life on Anarres, how the people work together to carve life out of a barren, inhospitable world -- the parts where Takver studies sea life, or Shevek marvels at the abundance of species on Urras, are very striking.
I love the way the utopian anarchism of Anarres is not perfect; it must be maintained, carefully, and the gains come with corresponding losses. I love that the Anarresti themselves disagree over the ideal shape of their society, and are fighting against the human tendency to settle into power structures and fixed patterns of behavior. I love the way Urras is so rich and so poor at the same time, so gentle and so cruel; there is such abundance, yet they hoard power and build fences to keep people (women, the poor, people from other countries) from sharing in that abundance. I love how the people of both worlds are shaped by their cultures so they keep talking past each other. Neither world is perfect, and there is a clear symbiosis between them; in some ways they need one another to act as the symbolic Other. I love the hints of geopolitics that play out on Urras during Shevek's visit. He only stays in A-Io, but there is a sense of a greater world beyond his limited horizon; I am curious about the parts of Urras he doesn't get to see, and how the existence of Anarres and Shevek's presence on Urras play out in other cultures.
I am fascinated by the implication that both Urras and Anarres are in a long, slow-motion social change caused by the intrusion of other human species into their worlds -- the idea that they are descended from the Hainish must shake them, and I really like that Shevek is inspired by reading some of Einstein's Terran physics, though he thinks Einstein is all wrong about any number of things. I am also fascinated by the glimpses of Terra provided by Ambassador Keng, and how that post-apocalyptic culture shapes her attitude toward Urras and Annares. (If you want to show how Shevek's invention of the ansible helps nudge that totalitarian version of Earth toward the society later seen in City of Illusion, be my guest, though that's obviously outside the boundaries of my official request.)
As for "The Day Before the Revolution," Odo is a vivid, compelling character even in the brief glimpses we get during The Dispossessed, and she comes satisfyingly to life here. It's interesting that Le Guin chose not to write about the grand events of Odo's life, but to focus on a quiet day in her old age as she is learning (awkwardly, reluctantly, bitterly) to deal with physical and emotional loss, and realizing that the movement she inspired has grown beyond her. It's not the kind of story I'm used to reading in science fiction, which I think makes it more powerful than it would be in a different genre. Anyway, Odo is fascinating, so if you want to write about her instead of the later world, that would also be extremely cool.
As I said above, I am not fussy about what you write! As long as you write about Anarres and Urras, please feel free to use whatever canon and original characters you want! (And if you want to write sex and/or romance between Shevek and Takver, or between Odo and Taviri, that is fine by me. I just ask that the story include some character development and world-building as well, for balance.)
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The Lions of Al-Rassan:
(This is a standalone fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay.)
Characters: any!
Request: This is another of my all-time favorite books, and again I'm sure I'll love anything you write! That said, I've always been interested in the canon gaps. For example, what else happened during the year Ammar and Rodrigo served in Ragosa? What was the Belmontes' marriage like before they had children? How did Jehane and Ammar adjust to Sorenica? I am also interested in points at which the story might have turned and gone in a different direction. Such alternate paths are probably equally likely to end in tragedy, alas, but new and different flavors of bittersweet are worth sampling. *wry*
I like all pairing types and, with one caveat detailed in my letter, am open to any combination of the four characters nominated this year. (Those being Jehane, Ammar, Rodrigo, and Miranda.) But I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance.
I love this book because, while you can't call it anything but fantasy, it is not particularly fantastical. It's excellently written historical fiction that happens to be set in a made-up world. (I grant that Kay's secondary world is suspiciously similar to Spain during the Reconquista, but the fantasy aspect frees him to create his own characters and plot rather than being a slave to historical accuracy.) Kay also learned a trick from Tolkien that adds extra poignancy: the constant refrain of beauty shattered and fading in a harsh, mortal world. There's an aching sense of lost possibilities, the hope that if just one or two things had gone differently... but then you look again at the larger situation of the world, and you realize historical forces are aligned against your dreams, and nothing lasts forever. As Rodrigo says, "Even the sun goes down."
This book makes me cry every time I read it -- literally cry, I mean, not just get a little sniffly. I don't cry over books like that. But Kay gets inside my heart, hooks it open, and leaves me raw and aching. I love that so much, that a fictional world and fictional people can be that real and true for me. I want them all to win, but there is no way for that to happen, and that's better than any old struggle between straightforward good and evil. Because it's real.
And now the caveat I mentioned in my prompt! I like the relationships Rodrigo has with both Ammar and Jehane, and I like polyamory, BUT I dislike cheating. Therefore if you write Rodrigo doing anything non-platonic with Ammar, Jehane, or both, please either have him get permission from Miranda or work her in as well somehow. (Perhaps creating a scenario where that makes any logistical sense is a good basis for a 'turn left' canon-based AU?) This applies in reverse if Ammar and/or Jehane somehow visit the Belmontes' home while Rodrigo is away. Also, I am okay with a sex scene if you're writing a relationship-centric story -- for any relationship among the four nominated characters, really -- but please don't make sex the only focus of your fic.
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Black Jewels:
(This is a sprawling fantasy series by Anne Bishop -- I believe there are currently nine component books, starting with Daughter of the Blood. This is probably not the best fandom to get into in under two months.)
Characters: Karla
Request: I want to see Karla having an actual sexual/romantic relationship with another woman. Or several relationships. Or one relationship with several women. Whatever! Her partner(s) can be canon or original, whichever is easiest for you. I don't care if you focus on the feelings or the sex, but I would like Karla to retain her prickly edges even while in love and/or lust. If you show how she balances her sex life with the pseudo-family she canonically formed with her Captain of the Guard and Della, that would be extra awesome -- I am all in favor of found families, the larger the better -- but if you want to write something set during her teen years or to gloss over that potential area of conflict, that is also fine by me. I just want Karla to act on her sexuality and be HAPPY. It is not so very much to ask!
(P.S. I have a huge soft spot for Karla/Wilhelmina, if you can think of a way to make that work, but that is totally not required.)
My thoughts: Bishop is not quite what I'd call a guilty pleasure, but this series hits a LOT of my id buttons, and hits them HARD, which keeps me reading even when her world-building often makes me go, "Ummm... are you sure?" So yes, please, bring on powerful people using that power, women unashamedly in charge, violence and vengeance all over the place, predatory behavior in otherwise human characters, and so on and so forth. Getting to see Karla in her role as Queen -- sitting in judgment, yanking the leashes on recalcitrant members of her various Circles, negotiating with other Territories, etc. -- would be awesome. There are never enough stories about women exercising power.
As for sex itself, should you choose to write anything explicit... well, better TMI now than a belated discovery that we have incompatible kinks, yeah?
First, you are not obligated to write porn! Second, if you do so, vanilla is fine. Canon itself is pretty vanilla when it comes to sex between protagonists and I have never felt any loss of sensuality there. Third, I do not want non-con or dub-con in this context, though mention of past rape and/or threats thereof is okay.
Now, on to kinks and other details. Bloodplay during consensual sex is fine and more than fine, as is creative use of Craft for bondage or other games. (Phantom hands and seduction tendrils are neat, but they can't be the only options! Especially not for a Healer and Black Widow.) On that note, I am not into D/s when used in the service of verbal or physical humiliation -- I am not into humiliation or degradation in general, FYI -- but the general idea of taking care/being cared for is tasty, and bondage in and of itself is awesome, as are breast worship and nipple play. Mild xeno is also cool if you want to write Karla with a character who is not physically fully human, like the way people from Tigrelan have claws and Eyriens have wings. I'm not into bestiality, though, and sex with Kindred would come too close to that for me.
Given Karla's reaction to her Virgin Night, I tend to think she doesn't seek penetration, though she may be perfectly happy to use Craft or a physical object to penetrate a lover, should that lover so desire. Teasing is good, both giving and receiving, but in a spirit of mutuality rather than with an emotionally cruel edge. Dirty talk is also good, but not in the sense of calling people by sexually degrading names (even in a reclamatory fashion). For example, saying "I'm going to do X, Y, and Z to you, and you're going to love it," is cool, but finishing with, "you filthy little slut," is not what I'm looking for.
Lastly, if you are setting this after Queen of the Darkness, acknowledgement of Karla's injuries would be nice, though it doesn't have to be a big thing.
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Darkangel Trilogy:
(This is a fantasy/sci-fi trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce, which would probably be classed as YA if written today. The component books are The Darkangel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, and The Pearl of the Soul of the World. They're fairly quick reads but may not be easy to find by the fest deadline.)
Characters: Syllva, Eryka
Request: Syllva and Eryka are background characters in the trilogy itself, but what we hear about their lives is fascinating and I would love to know more about them.
Potential story seeds: What were their childhoods like? When did their parents die? How did Syllva meet the king of Avaric and what was Eryka's reaction to her sister leaving and handing her the government of Isternes? What did Syllva think of Avaric and Westernesse in general before everything went wrong? What was the sisters' relationship like between Syllva's return home and Eryka's own departure? What did Eryka think of Syllva's remarriage? What did Syllva think of Eryka's desire to travel, particularly after her own tragic experiences in Westernesse? What were Eryka's merchanting years like? Why did she go to Pirs and how did she meet the suzerain and his brother? Did Syllva and Eryka correspond during any of the periods they were living on different continents, or had Oriencor's influence broken down infrastructure too far by that point? What is the nature of government in Isternes and how is it related to the religion whose details Pierce declines to describe? Etc.
I like all pairing types, but I would prefer that you focus at least as much on plot, character development, and world-building as on any potential sex and/or romance.
My thoughts: This series has been one of my favorites since I was quite young, and I love it madly and passionately because of everything it doesn't do. I mean, I love what it does do as well -- the utterly matter-of-fact fairytale atmosphere and the equally matter-of-fact way Pierce melds science fiction into that framework, the slow reveal of the post-apocalyptic elements, the lush descriptive language, the way Aeriel's power of heart is literalized through her mastery of the golden spindle, etc. -- but the characters and their world would not stick in my mind half as strongly if Pierce hadn't written what needed to happen instead of what narrative structures have trained us to expect will happen when you make a love story as central as Aeriel and Irrylath are.
Also -- and this is still unusual thirty years later -- none of the fathers implicit in the story ever gets a name. All but one of the mothers do. And what I want this year is a story about two of those mothers, whose lives (from the brief snippets we overhear) sound like they were full enough for a dozen people. In other words, I want to know more about Syllva and Eryka, because sisters are awesome. Sisters who are queens, adventurers, and intercontinental merchants are even better. *grin* I listed my most urgent questions in my prompt, but really, I would love almost anything about them.
My one caveat is that I don't want a story centered around Syllva mourning Irrylath's presumed death and Eryka comforting her in her grief. It is absolutely fine for that to be a side element in a story centered around something else, but I feel that Irrylath's tragedy gets enough focus in canon and I would like to hear about something else this year.
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Daredevil (Comics)
(This is a long-running western superhero comics series set in Marvel's 616 universe. An awful lot of it is available online through various sources, but again, probably not the best fandom to get into in under two months.)
Characters: Karen Page, Kirsten McDuffie, Elektra Natchios
Request: I admit upfront this is a slightly peculiar character combination, and I hereby absolve you of having to write all three women if you can't think of a way to fit them into the same story. But! I would really like to see more of Matt's lovers in situations OUTSIDE OF their relationships with him. In other words, show me the various ways in which they're awesome, and why anyone would be lucky to have them in their life. Maybe they fight an alien invasion, or work together on a court/crime case, or team up to rescue Matt from some villain's plot, or rescue each other from some villain's plot. (Perhaps a time-traveling villain? That might make a good excuse to smush various eras of canon together.) Anyway, women! Being awesome! Working together! And having lives of their own outside of romancing the main character! That is the general takeaway here. :D
(P.S. They weren't nominated so this is even more optional than regular optional details, but if you can fit Milla Donovan and Natasha Romanov in as well -- heck, maybe even Glorianna O'Breen or Heather Glenn? or Becky Blake and/or Dakota North, though they were friends rather than love interests? -- I will love you forever and a day.)
My thoughts: I suspect it is obvious what television show I fell in love with this spring. *wry* I mean, I had been tangentially aware of Daredevil for a long time -- the 616 universe is a tangled mess of interconnected continuity; I read an isolated issue here or there over the years I worked in a magazine shop; and I have often been in the habit of reading entertainment journalism and/or fannish meta about canons I don't actually read or watch directly -- but my knowledge was very secondhand.
Sustaining interest in audiovisual media is not easy for me, though, so my first reaction when falling in love with any audiovisual canon is to read every non-audiovisual tie-in I can hunt down. Which in this case are not really tie-ins but inspiration? But anyway, first I checked out a bunch of TPBs from my local library system. Then I got a Marvel Unlimited account, and I have been merrily reading away for several months now.
The thing about a long-running series (in any medium) is that it changes dramatically over time, sometimes to the point where what seem like its defining characteristics in one decade become nearly irrelevant in another. I have enjoyed elements of every era I've read so far, wildly different though some of them are. But I think what I like best is when Daredevil writers keep their focus away from the cosmic absurdities of the 616 universe and tell more human-level stories.
(You can find my thoughts about some runs and arcs under the Daredevil tag here on my journal -- just scroll past the MCU stuff.)
Anyway, one of my long-term frustrations as a reader of superhero comics (and probably one reason I have never been a steady reader) is the treatment of women in that genre of that medium. So I want a story centered around some of the women who have moved in and out of Matt's life over the years, and I want a story that specifically DOES NOT focus on their relationships with Matt, except insofar as that's one obvious thing they have in common. Instead, I want to know who they are as people, and see as many of them interact with each other as is feasible. :D
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And that is that. Thank you again, and happy writing!
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-26 03:22 am (UTC)I was a little surprised to see that you have a short description of each fandom at the beginning of your notes for the specific prompts. I see that this would be useful, given that the writer almost certainly won't be familiar with all of the fandoms and may be familiar only with the one on which the match was based, but it hadn't occurred to me to do this. I assumed that if my writer wasn't familiar with a fandom they would just skip over it, but I suppose if it's a standalone novel, it would be possible to read it and write a fic based on it in the time allotted. Do you know if anybody ever does that?
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-26 03:38 am (UTC)And yes, people write in non-matched fandoms all the time! I did that myself one year, when I was matched on a duology of books that I hadn't read since I was in my teens. Upon rereading them as an adult, I discovered that I now loathed the main character and the idea of writing a positive story centered around him stuck in my teeth. Whoops. So I tracked down and read a children's book my recipient had also requested (and which I had never even heard of until that year) and wrote a story for that fandom instead. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-26 06:08 pm (UTC)I am totally obsessing about my prompts now. Mainly I am trying to figure out how much to put in the prompt and how much to put in the Dear Author letter. I figure that the prompt should contain only the really essential information, but I feel like that ends up being uninspiring. I mean, I can't imagine getting my assignment and not looking at the Dear Author letter if there is one, but I suppose that happens. The post by liviapenn is giving me some ideas, and I have a few hours to rewrite my prompts (and longer to tinker with the letter).
I just checked, and one of my prompts is for a fandom for which there are now four requests and zero offers (assuming nobody put it in a bucket list)... Oh well, it's a novel that was only published a few months ago!