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Dear Yuletide Writer
Oct. 2nd, 2016 10:20 pmThank you so much for writing me a story! I'm super easy to please, I promise. Just having heard of/wanting to write one of my fandoms wins you a million points, so I'm sure I'll like whatever you write. All optional details really are optional - if none of my ideas are working for you or you already have a story you are dying to write, I'm sure I'll like that too! But here are some ideas to get you going, anyway. :)
Things I like: slash, femslash, OT3s, gen, complicated, intense, and fucked up relationships (romantic and otherwise), unconventional romance, plotty adventures and casefic, character studies, team-as-family, dub-con, consensual hate-sex, aaaaaall the hurt/comfort. I am always okay with porn, plotty or otherwise.
Things I don't like so much (any exceptions noted below): non-con, extremely graphic violence or gore, character bashing (especially female characters), BDSM, humiliation, non-canonical deaths/deathfic
More fandom specific thoughts:
Campaign (Podcast) - Trystan "Tryst" Valentine, Bacta
Campaign was the first roleplaying podcast I got into, and I think it may have set my bar ludicrously high for the genre. I adore the cast chemistry and the way they play off each other for ever-increasingly heights of silliness and terrible/amazing running jokes, the amount of fun they have with the world-building and tropes of the Star Wars universe, and their willingness to completely derail the plot for episodes worth of in-character nonsense and team meetings, and I also really appreciate that despite all that, they still keep the plot moving forward and give us genuine stakes and a lot of serious character work. I love all the character relationships/interactions and how unique and organic they feel, but I'm especially interested in Tryst and Bacta. I am really, deeply fond of both of them on their own - I love Tryst's breezy dedication to being a garbage person and the way he uses that persona to obscure the times when he actually takes things seriously, and Bacta's trying so hard to be a responsible adult type person on a crew of people who have never learned the meaning of the word - and I love the way they push against each other in their different personalities/styles/plans and the moments they have when they are able to acknowledge each other in a more serious way. Bacta/Tryst is kind of my OTP for the series, and I'd really like something that focuses on their relationship, but I'm happy with gen/friendship fic in that direction as well. I feel like this show is so ridiculously trope-y and over-the-top already, it lends itself really well to the silliest of fanfic tropes - I'd love to see something that goes full-out trope-fic, like body-swapping, undercover-as-lovers, accidentally married, sex pollen, that kind of thing. Or slice-of-life on the Mynock, with all the attendant nonsense that goes on there. Or something about their respective, very weird childhoods, with Tryst's experiences with slavery and his sisters and Bacta's experiences with training and his clone brothers. Bonus points for tattoo kink, Mynock rules/rituals/boards, and adorable (but still fail-y) co-parenting for Tamlin.
Sheath and Knife - Sister, Brother
There are a few different versions and quite a few covers of this ballad: the version I first heard and the one I had in mind for this request is this one by Ellie Bryan, an adaptation of the first version here. This song has easily become one of my all-time favorite murder ballads, and I'm fascinated by how different it is from most of the other entries in the (comparatively small) category of incest ballads. There's no rape or incest-reveal like in The King's Dochter Lady Jean or the Bonny Hind, and no impulsive murder like in Lucy Wan - both the incest and the sister's death appear to be consensual, and it gives the whole thing this sort of quiet, tragic, inevitable feeling. I'd be really interested in something set in the build-up to the song's events, about how this relationship happened and got to the point that it did, especially something that plays up the dark secrets, whispered gossip, claustrophobic feeling of them trying to hide this intense illicit relationship under the scrutiny of court. Alternatively, I really love the transition to the hall at the end of the song - something about the way he's sitting there in horrified shock at what he just did while the music and dancing continues on around him really catches me, it makes him seem so young and broken. I'd love to see something with the fall-out from that scene, as either the sister's death is discovered or he starts to break down - even something like a haunting - that plays up the contrast between what's happening inside his head and what everyone else knows.
City of Bones - Martha Wells - Khat, Sagai, Miram
The worst thing about this book is that it's a standalone, because it totally kills me that Wells didn't write anything else in this setting or with these characters. I really like the world-building here, and especially how much it gets centered on the politics and treacheries and biases of Charisat. And of course, I love all the characters - but especially Khat. I think his perspective as an outsider in a city that is hostile if not outright fatal to outsiders in general and krismen in particular brings so much to the story, and he has such a great, cynical narrative voice. I love his prickliness and his defensiveness and his unwillingness to open up or tell people things, and I love that the story lets us see how much of that comes from the dire circumstances he left the enclave and what his experience has been like in Charisat as a second-class non-citizen. And I also love that we get to see how he has let Sagai and Miram in (even as he tries to keep them at a wary distance), in a way he does with very few people, and how that was obviously the result of a lot of effort on their part to earn his trust and make him part of their family. I'd be really happy to see something set right after Sagai and Khat first meet, when Khat is recovering and Sagai and Miram are still trying to get him to even admit he speaks their language, or something about how they made that transition, after a year in the city, from being acquaintances to being relic hunting partners to sharing living space. Or something set after the end of the book, about what they end up doing once they all make it to Kenniliar. Or casefic about one of their adventures hunting relics. For this one, I'd be happy with either Miram/Sagai/Khat OT3 or Miram/Sagai+Khat as their friend who is basically family and needs someone to look after him. Bonus points for weird kris biology and Sagai and Khat relic hunting nerdery.
Things I like: slash, femslash, OT3s, gen, complicated, intense, and fucked up relationships (romantic and otherwise), unconventional romance, plotty adventures and casefic, character studies, team-as-family, dub-con, consensual hate-sex, aaaaaall the hurt/comfort. I am always okay with porn, plotty or otherwise.
Things I don't like so much (any exceptions noted below): non-con, extremely graphic violence or gore, character bashing (especially female characters), BDSM, humiliation, non-canonical deaths/deathfic
More fandom specific thoughts:
Campaign (Podcast) - Trystan "Tryst" Valentine, Bacta
Campaign was the first roleplaying podcast I got into, and I think it may have set my bar ludicrously high for the genre. I adore the cast chemistry and the way they play off each other for ever-increasingly heights of silliness and terrible/amazing running jokes, the amount of fun they have with the world-building and tropes of the Star Wars universe, and their willingness to completely derail the plot for episodes worth of in-character nonsense and team meetings, and I also really appreciate that despite all that, they still keep the plot moving forward and give us genuine stakes and a lot of serious character work. I love all the character relationships/interactions and how unique and organic they feel, but I'm especially interested in Tryst and Bacta. I am really, deeply fond of both of them on their own - I love Tryst's breezy dedication to being a garbage person and the way he uses that persona to obscure the times when he actually takes things seriously, and Bacta's trying so hard to be a responsible adult type person on a crew of people who have never learned the meaning of the word - and I love the way they push against each other in their different personalities/styles/plans and the moments they have when they are able to acknowledge each other in a more serious way. Bacta/Tryst is kind of my OTP for the series, and I'd really like something that focuses on their relationship, but I'm happy with gen/friendship fic in that direction as well. I feel like this show is so ridiculously trope-y and over-the-top already, it lends itself really well to the silliest of fanfic tropes - I'd love to see something that goes full-out trope-fic, like body-swapping, undercover-as-lovers, accidentally married, sex pollen, that kind of thing. Or slice-of-life on the Mynock, with all the attendant nonsense that goes on there. Or something about their respective, very weird childhoods, with Tryst's experiences with slavery and his sisters and Bacta's experiences with training and his clone brothers. Bonus points for tattoo kink, Mynock rules/rituals/boards, and adorable (but still fail-y) co-parenting for Tamlin.
Sheath and Knife - Sister, Brother
There are a few different versions and quite a few covers of this ballad: the version I first heard and the one I had in mind for this request is this one by Ellie Bryan, an adaptation of the first version here. This song has easily become one of my all-time favorite murder ballads, and I'm fascinated by how different it is from most of the other entries in the (comparatively small) category of incest ballads. There's no rape or incest-reveal like in The King's Dochter Lady Jean or the Bonny Hind, and no impulsive murder like in Lucy Wan - both the incest and the sister's death appear to be consensual, and it gives the whole thing this sort of quiet, tragic, inevitable feeling. I'd be really interested in something set in the build-up to the song's events, about how this relationship happened and got to the point that it did, especially something that plays up the dark secrets, whispered gossip, claustrophobic feeling of them trying to hide this intense illicit relationship under the scrutiny of court. Alternatively, I really love the transition to the hall at the end of the song - something about the way he's sitting there in horrified shock at what he just did while the music and dancing continues on around him really catches me, it makes him seem so young and broken. I'd love to see something with the fall-out from that scene, as either the sister's death is discovered or he starts to break down - even something like a haunting - that plays up the contrast between what's happening inside his head and what everyone else knows.
City of Bones - Martha Wells - Khat, Sagai, Miram
The worst thing about this book is that it's a standalone, because it totally kills me that Wells didn't write anything else in this setting or with these characters. I really like the world-building here, and especially how much it gets centered on the politics and treacheries and biases of Charisat. And of course, I love all the characters - but especially Khat. I think his perspective as an outsider in a city that is hostile if not outright fatal to outsiders in general and krismen in particular brings so much to the story, and he has such a great, cynical narrative voice. I love his prickliness and his defensiveness and his unwillingness to open up or tell people things, and I love that the story lets us see how much of that comes from the dire circumstances he left the enclave and what his experience has been like in Charisat as a second-class non-citizen. And I also love that we get to see how he has let Sagai and Miram in (even as he tries to keep them at a wary distance), in a way he does with very few people, and how that was obviously the result of a lot of effort on their part to earn his trust and make him part of their family. I'd be really happy to see something set right after Sagai and Khat first meet, when Khat is recovering and Sagai and Miram are still trying to get him to even admit he speaks their language, or something about how they made that transition, after a year in the city, from being acquaintances to being relic hunting partners to sharing living space. Or something set after the end of the book, about what they end up doing once they all make it to Kenniliar. Or casefic about one of their adventures hunting relics. For this one, I'd be happy with either Miram/Sagai/Khat OT3 or Miram/Sagai+Khat as their friend who is basically family and needs someone to look after him. Bonus points for weird kris biology and Sagai and Khat relic hunting nerdery.