Dear Yuletide Writer 2022
Oct. 16th, 2022 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eccentric_hatHi anonymous writer!
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eccentric_hat. Yuletide is a highlight of my fannish year, and I'm happy to be back here again! I'm fannishly omnivorous and will look forward to whatever you write for me in one of these fandoms, all of which I'm extremely fond of. I wrote longer requests for some than for others, but that's mostly to do with how many characters are in the tag set. I'm also open to treats, since I guess the AO3 changed its settings and we have to specify that now.
I like first, second, and third person; romance and gen of all ratings; past, present, and future tense; canon-compliant stories and AUs; serious or sad fic and comedy and stuff that doesn't fall into those categories. So in general, go as your heart leads you.
To be a tiny bit more specific: These are all canons I like, and I'll be happy to see a fic that continues on in the same vein, but I also enjoy pushing back on canon or troubling its assumptions. I'm always up for a good character study (or, uh, city study, in the case where I've requested worldbuilding). I don't tend to enjoy stories where the members of a ship are too dim to realize their feelings toward each other and their friends have to shove them together. I like stories about people being unconventional in their relationships or life choices or tastes. I like stories containing a strong sense of setting or time, or a difficult moral quandary, or a distinct narrative voice. If this list of likes is totally unhelpful, ignore it and do what you want, because most of all I like to read something new in a tiny fandom I'm fond of, and a fic for any of these canons is definitely going to be that!
I don't have any real triggers; I would prefer not to read about graphic or sexual violence or unexpected (that is, non-canonical or not consistent with what's implied by canon) major character death. Addressing those topics to the degree they appear in canon is fine.
Characters: any (nominated: Sarah, Brody, Galatax, Jillian)
I really like this goofy, unexpected, gloriously cheap-looking show! It's funny when they're simply doing monster of the week battles, and then the Galatax angle and resolution of the story are so unexpectedly compelling. I'm casting a wide net here with an Any request because I really just think the show deserves more fic than it has (so...any fic at all). I would love to see some post-canon stuff with Jillian (bring in as many other members of the cast as you like!) and explore how the good guy/bad guy relationship got reconfigured after the events of the finale. Alternately, something about how the pilots got chosen could be really fun! I nominated a couple members of the team and would be happy to see the others make appearances too.
DNWs: sexual or graphic violence; major character death
Characters: Medric and Zanja
I'm just barely tweaking my request from last year, because my heart is constant on this one:
I started reading these books because someone told me about Medric. I thought he didn't show up until book 2 and was absurdly jazzed when, in the middle of book 1, Zanja found herself crashed on the bedroom floor of (I think this is the description) "a bespectacled book-hauling boy with a blue ribbon in his hair." Since then, the moments when these two characters interact have been among my favorites in the series. I love the way they trade questions back and forth when talking in fire logic to each other, the offhanded way she (like most of their family) cares for Medric and reminds him to put his glasses on, and the way he kind of wanders through their family life making himself at home while saying things people don't understand--and all of that is the surface level of a relationship built on enormous trust, intimacy, sorrow, and responsibility. Out of all their family, Medric might come the closest to understanding Zanja's conviction of her own guilt--even while he prefers to play his own sorrows close to the chest a lot of the time. (There's mention, I think at the start of book 2, that he doesn't drink alcohol, coffee, or tea or consume sugar because those things would interfere with his visions, and much later there's an offhand comment that the Sainnites remember him as a drunk. Oof.)
I would love to see more interaction between these two, whether it's an adventure, a card reading, or simply a shared meal. The fire logic that they share is so compellingly odd and any way you wanted to incorporate that into a fic would be really cool. I adore the whole family of which they're part--it makes me especially happy how, at the series midpoint, they start referring to their lovers as husband or wife, without apparently having done anything to formalize that status--and any and all members of that family are welcome to make an appearance.
DNWs: sexual or graphic violence (it's okay for fights to happen, given that this is a war story, just no vivid descriptions of injuries please); non-canonical major character death
Character: Worldbuilding
This book clawed its way into my brain when I first read it and has never left. I'm a little obsessed with what makes cities the way they are, and after I finished reading this I kept looking at all the spaces in my own city where I never go, thinking, why not? What gave me the message that the coffee shops on that street are not places for me but the ones on this street are? How can my friends who also live here know so little about the civic issues that consuming all my attention? I would love some exploration of what it's like to be in each of these two cities, and how each one can have a character when it has the other one in the way. What's public space like in Besźel? Is it nicer to go running by the river in Ul Qoma? Do politically active people in one city ever refer to the news from the other to make a case, or are they all determined to reinvent the wheel? Do kids ever sneak into somewhere they shouldn't be and tell each other they're really in Orciny? Or some in-universe text (history, literature, stuff from pop culture...) would be really fun.
DNWs: sexual or graphic violence
Characters: any (nominated characters are Seraphina, Orma, Spira, and Tess)
Confession, I am...only halfway through the last book. I like it very much, it's just been a tough year. But! I am definitely going to finish it soon, and I will absolutely finish it before reveals, so don't worry about that--just, if I say something here that makes you think "huh didn't this person read the books," there's a reason for that and it's not that I'm willfully ignoring something.
I would be happy with a lot of different stories for these books. Taking the characters one at a time:
Seraphina: I love how she's so emotional from her own perspective, so captivated by music and overwhelmed by love, but when we see her from the outside in the Tess books there's a real dragonish, analytic edge to her actions. I didn't have room to nominate Lucien and Glisselda but I like them both very much, and the relationship of those three to one another. I have to admit, though, my favorite relationship Seraphina has may be her bond with--
Orma: oh, this poor guy. Hartman's take on dragons is so interesting and there's a kind of strange, slow horror in the way Orma has ended up living as a human and having to endure human emotion, constantly trying to understand anything at all about the way humans feel toward each other or the way his sister felt toward Claude or the fact that Orma loved her enough to get into this situation. A couple things always stick with me about Orma--Seraphina's observation that he sits on his stacks of books because they're his hoard, and the conversation when she's horrified that his father bit him and he says, "We're dragons, Phina." Anything about Orma's dragon or human self is welcome here: what would it even mean for him to try to live as a dragon at this point, with his baggage? What can his relationship to Seraphina look like after the last time we saw him on the page?
Spira: I don't have as much to say about them because of how I haven't finished their book yet, but Spira is such a cool expansion of Hartman's depiction of dragonhood. There's so much gender happening here, and yet, for Spira, kind of none at all! So much about disability and other people trying to leverage it against them and Spira's simultaneously angry and thoughtful response to that, and of course it's connected--their reference to gender as a human affectation comes in the context of their having to live as a human because their condition makes it too painful to change. There's obviously kind of a question mark here because I haven't finished reading but Spira's a good character and I'd love to see more of them.
And finally, dear Tess! I read Tess of the Road before I even knew it was part of a series, and I loved it so much; I reread it earlier this year and I still love it, for the meditations on walking and the much harsher vision of the church than we previously had and the parts about the innocence of the body. I love the way she's depicted as so enmeshed in her family but needing desperately to get out from their influence. I think Seraphina looks more calculating from Tess' perspective because Tess herself is, for much of her youth, all feeling, all desperate desire, which can sometimes obscure the fact that she actually knows quite a lot. I'll take Tess in childhood learning Quootla, Tess the sailor, Tess the scholar, Tess learning to get along with either or both of her sisters, anything about Tess being thoroughly human always.
DNWs: graphic violence; non-canonical major character death; sexual violence is obviously a theme in these books and it's fine to address it to the same degree that canon does.
I'm
I like first, second, and third person; romance and gen of all ratings; past, present, and future tense; canon-compliant stories and AUs; serious or sad fic and comedy and stuff that doesn't fall into those categories. So in general, go as your heart leads you.
To be a tiny bit more specific: These are all canons I like, and I'll be happy to see a fic that continues on in the same vein, but I also enjoy pushing back on canon or troubling its assumptions. I'm always up for a good character study (or, uh, city study, in the case where I've requested worldbuilding). I don't tend to enjoy stories where the members of a ship are too dim to realize their feelings toward each other and their friends have to shove them together. I like stories about people being unconventional in their relationships or life choices or tastes. I like stories containing a strong sense of setting or time, or a difficult moral quandary, or a distinct narrative voice. If this list of likes is totally unhelpful, ignore it and do what you want, because most of all I like to read something new in a tiny fandom I'm fond of, and a fic for any of these canons is definitely going to be that!
I don't have any real triggers; I would prefer not to read about graphic or sexual violence or unexpected (that is, non-canonical or not consistent with what's implied by canon) major character death. Addressing those topics to the degree they appear in canon is fine.
Ultramechatron Team Go
Characters: any (nominated: Sarah, Brody, Galatax, Jillian)
I really like this goofy, unexpected, gloriously cheap-looking show! It's funny when they're simply doing monster of the week battles, and then the Galatax angle and resolution of the story are so unexpectedly compelling. I'm casting a wide net here with an Any request because I really just think the show deserves more fic than it has (so...any fic at all). I would love to see some post-canon stuff with Jillian (bring in as many other members of the cast as you like!) and explore how the good guy/bad guy relationship got reconfigured after the events of the finale. Alternately, something about how the pilots got chosen could be really fun! I nominated a couple members of the team and would be happy to see the others make appearances too.
DNWs: sexual or graphic violence; major character death
Elemental Logic
Characters: Medric and Zanja
I'm just barely tweaking my request from last year, because my heart is constant on this one:
I started reading these books because someone told me about Medric. I thought he didn't show up until book 2 and was absurdly jazzed when, in the middle of book 1, Zanja found herself crashed on the bedroom floor of (I think this is the description) "a bespectacled book-hauling boy with a blue ribbon in his hair." Since then, the moments when these two characters interact have been among my favorites in the series. I love the way they trade questions back and forth when talking in fire logic to each other, the offhanded way she (like most of their family) cares for Medric and reminds him to put his glasses on, and the way he kind of wanders through their family life making himself at home while saying things people don't understand--and all of that is the surface level of a relationship built on enormous trust, intimacy, sorrow, and responsibility. Out of all their family, Medric might come the closest to understanding Zanja's conviction of her own guilt--even while he prefers to play his own sorrows close to the chest a lot of the time. (There's mention, I think at the start of book 2, that he doesn't drink alcohol, coffee, or tea or consume sugar because those things would interfere with his visions, and much later there's an offhand comment that the Sainnites remember him as a drunk. Oof.)
I would love to see more interaction between these two, whether it's an adventure, a card reading, or simply a shared meal. The fire logic that they share is so compellingly odd and any way you wanted to incorporate that into a fic would be really cool. I adore the whole family of which they're part--it makes me especially happy how, at the series midpoint, they start referring to their lovers as husband or wife, without apparently having done anything to formalize that status--and any and all members of that family are welcome to make an appearance.
DNWs: sexual or graphic violence (it's okay for fights to happen, given that this is a war story, just no vivid descriptions of injuries please); non-canonical major character death
The City & The City - China Mieville
Character: Worldbuilding
This book clawed its way into my brain when I first read it and has never left. I'm a little obsessed with what makes cities the way they are, and after I finished reading this I kept looking at all the spaces in my own city where I never go, thinking, why not? What gave me the message that the coffee shops on that street are not places for me but the ones on this street are? How can my friends who also live here know so little about the civic issues that consuming all my attention? I would love some exploration of what it's like to be in each of these two cities, and how each one can have a character when it has the other one in the way. What's public space like in Besźel? Is it nicer to go running by the river in Ul Qoma? Do politically active people in one city ever refer to the news from the other to make a case, or are they all determined to reinvent the wheel? Do kids ever sneak into somewhere they shouldn't be and tell each other they're really in Orciny? Or some in-universe text (history, literature, stuff from pop culture...) would be really fun.
DNWs: sexual or graphic violence
Seraphina series - Rachel Hartman
Characters: any (nominated characters are Seraphina, Orma, Spira, and Tess)
Confession, I am...only halfway through the last book. I like it very much, it's just been a tough year. But! I am definitely going to finish it soon, and I will absolutely finish it before reveals, so don't worry about that--just, if I say something here that makes you think "huh didn't this person read the books," there's a reason for that and it's not that I'm willfully ignoring something.
I would be happy with a lot of different stories for these books. Taking the characters one at a time:
Seraphina: I love how she's so emotional from her own perspective, so captivated by music and overwhelmed by love, but when we see her from the outside in the Tess books there's a real dragonish, analytic edge to her actions. I didn't have room to nominate Lucien and Glisselda but I like them both very much, and the relationship of those three to one another. I have to admit, though, my favorite relationship Seraphina has may be her bond with--
Orma: oh, this poor guy. Hartman's take on dragons is so interesting and there's a kind of strange, slow horror in the way Orma has ended up living as a human and having to endure human emotion, constantly trying to understand anything at all about the way humans feel toward each other or the way his sister felt toward Claude or the fact that Orma loved her enough to get into this situation. A couple things always stick with me about Orma--Seraphina's observation that he sits on his stacks of books because they're his hoard, and the conversation when she's horrified that his father bit him and he says, "We're dragons, Phina." Anything about Orma's dragon or human self is welcome here: what would it even mean for him to try to live as a dragon at this point, with his baggage? What can his relationship to Seraphina look like after the last time we saw him on the page?
Spira: I don't have as much to say about them because of how I haven't finished their book yet, but Spira is such a cool expansion of Hartman's depiction of dragonhood. There's so much gender happening here, and yet, for Spira, kind of none at all! So much about disability and other people trying to leverage it against them and Spira's simultaneously angry and thoughtful response to that, and of course it's connected--their reference to gender as a human affectation comes in the context of their having to live as a human because their condition makes it too painful to change. There's obviously kind of a question mark here because I haven't finished reading but Spira's a good character and I'd love to see more of them.
And finally, dear Tess! I read Tess of the Road before I even knew it was part of a series, and I loved it so much; I reread it earlier this year and I still love it, for the meditations on walking and the much harsher vision of the church than we previously had and the parts about the innocence of the body. I love the way she's depicted as so enmeshed in her family but needing desperately to get out from their influence. I think Seraphina looks more calculating from Tess' perspective because Tess herself is, for much of her youth, all feeling, all desperate desire, which can sometimes obscure the fact that she actually knows quite a lot. I'll take Tess in childhood learning Quootla, Tess the sailor, Tess the scholar, Tess learning to get along with either or both of her sisters, anything about Tess being thoroughly human always.
DNWs: graphic violence; non-canonical major character death; sexual violence is obviously a theme in these books and it's fine to address it to the same degree that canon does.
