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dolorosa_12) wrote2020-10-15 02:18 pm
dolorosa_12) wrote2020-10-15 02:18 pm
Entry tags:
Dear Yuletide 2020 writer
Thank you for writing for me!
I'm pretty easygoing about what type of fic you want to write for me. I read fic of any rating, and would be equally happy with plotty genfic or something very shippy. I read gen, femslash, het and slash, although I have a slight preference towards femslash, het, and gen that focuses on female characters. I mainly read fic to find out what happens to characters after the final page has turned or the credits have rolled, so I would particularly love to have futurefic of some kind. Don't feel you have to limit yourself to the characters I specifically mention — I'm happy with others being included if they fit with the story you want to tell.
Feel free to have a look around my Ao3 profile, as it should give you a good idea of the types of things I like to read. You can also look at my Yuletide tag, which includes past letters, and recs posts of my previous gifts and other fic I've enjoyed in previous Yuletide colletions.
General likes
Found families and 'us against the world' dynamics
Human/non-human pairings
Relationships with power imbalances
Hurt/comfort and/or trauma recovery
People with vastly different backgrounds, perspectives, or life experience working together - especially grudging enemies/antagonists-to-allies/lovers stories
Explorations of characters' religious/philosophical beliefs, especially if they clash with the beliefs of other characters
Fairytale, folktales or mythology being incorporated into fic
Characters with a strong sense of home and place (whether that 'home' is a city, or other people)
Characters who are migrants or refugees, and for whom this is an important component of their identity
DNWs
Fusions and crossovers
AUs, apart from canon-divergence AUs (basically, please don't change the setting)
Incest
Unrequested ships involving my requested characters (background pairings involving unrequested characters are fine though)
No death of requested characters
Several fandom-specific DNWs, which I will outline below
Fandom-specific prompts:
Benjamin January mysteries — Barbara Hambly
Requested characters: Chloe Viellard, Dominique Viellard
What I like about the series
The characters! I particularly enjoy the way it throws together characters from opposite ends of the social spectrum, with vastly different experiences and outlooks, and requires them to work together
Characters who have to navigate difficult (and often painful and dangerous) situations, and who use all the tools at their disposal, however meagre those tools might be, to do so
The setting — 1830s New Orleans (and the United States in general) is basically a dystopia for a good portion of the characters in the series. I love those characters' tenacity, and joy, and compassion, and celebrations of small scraps of happiness in the face of that.
The different forms resistance takes in this series — Hambly makes it clear that resistance can look like helping enslaved people escape through the Underground Railroad, but it can also look like tiny acts of passive resistance and kindness, and that all kinds of resistance, from the small, to the large, are to be celebrated.
The various found, extended, and unconventional (to modern eyes) families that appear throughout the series. The series is in some senses a celebration of family in the broadest sense of the word.
Prompts I'd love to see
I have requested Chloe and Dominique for this fandom, because I absolutely adore each character individually, and my favourite moments in the series have been when they've been thrown together. I would love to see anything that brings these two women together to solve a problem: a mystery, a thorny social situation, some drama involving Henri or either of their families — I'm not fussy. I love the idea of fic which would allow both Chloe and Dominique to make use of their very different skillsets — Chloe's analytical and mathematical mind, Dominique's prodigious knowledge of social connections, gossip, and the family history of everyone in New Orleans and surrounds. I love the idea of fic that involved each of them rescuing each other from different dangers. The setting — both New Orleans and the wider region — is one of my favourite things about the Benjamin January series, and I welcome fic about these two characters that explored this worldbuilding in more detail, or took place in a location as yet unvisited in Hambly's books. I am equally happy with gen or shipfic about this pair of characters.
I have no problem if any other characters in the tagset for this fandom make appearances in your fic, as long as the focus is on Chloe, Dominique, and their relationship.
Slavery and anti-black racism are obviously huge themes of the Benjamin January books. I do not mind these being mentioned, discussed, or explored in your fic, as long as this is done in a similar manner, and to a similar degree to the manner in which such themes are explored/discussed in canon.
Fandom-specific DNWs
I have not completed reading every book in this series — as of 15th October I have read as far as Crimson Angel. I would prefer not to read any fic which spoiled major events that happen in later books. If keeping a major spoiler unrevealed means that a fic might violate another DNW (I'm thinking of something like Chloe and Dominique being revealed to be related to one another, which would make any shipfic written for them incest), please feel free to reach out to me through the mods.
The Bone Season — Samantha Shannon
Requested characters: Warden | Arcturus Mesarthim, Paige Mahoney
What I like about the series
The intricate alternate world, particularly Scion London, with its underworld of criminal clairvoyants trying to eke out an existence in the face of oppression, the uneasy shifting alliances, and all the little details about the urban geography and history of Soho, Covent Garden and so on.
The pervasive sense of threat and menace that permeates the series, and the choices this forces the characters to make.
Paige and Warden's relationship — the initial mistrust, the power imbalances, the secrets they keep from each other, the way they share dreams, and the way Warden makes Paige a bit more supernatural and she makes him a bit more human.
The hurt/comfort potential for the Paige/Warden relationship — I absolutely loved The Dawn Chorus, since it was one whole novella of Paige/Warden hurt/comfort!
The tensions and contradictions in Paige's existence — becoming a criminal mollisher for Jaxon Hall gives her a measure of safety, but also puts her in greater danger, and in some ways the series represents her slow shift from pragmatism to risk-taking revolutionary leadership.
Prompts I'd love to see
Any fic that explores Paige and Warden's relationship, particularly the power imbalances, cultural differences, and the ways in which their relationship forces them to reflect on their respective identities as human and Rephaite. Missing moments from their time together in Paris, or when Paige was in hiding in London would be most welcome. I'd also love to read futurefic set just after the end of events in The Dawn Chorus — how are they coping on the run? Has Paige become unmoored without the familiarity of London and the syndicate to fall back on? I'd love to read fic set in another part of Samantha Shannon's alternate world — so far we've seen Scotland, England and Ireland, and glimpses of Paris but nothing of the rest of the world. What are other Scion countries like? Alternatively, a fic that takes place entirely within shared dreamscapes would be absolutely amazing! Given this series is a retelling of the myth of Prometheus and Pandora, any fic that really leans into this premise could also be really interesting.
Fandom-specific DNWs
I'm happy for other characters from the series to appear in any fic you write, but I would prefer it if your fic didn't focus on Jaxon Hall.
The Pagan Chronicles - Catherine Jinks
Requested characters: I've requested Pagan Kidrouk, Babylonne Kidrouk, and Isidore Orbus, but I'm happy for you to leave Pagan out if you don't want to write an AU where he lives long enough to meet Babylonne. Treat this as a request for either Babylonne AND Isidore, or Babylonne, Isidore AND Pagan.
What I like about this series
The found families — this whole series is just one long story of hurt/comfort within found families, and I love it!
I love that it's this multigenerational story of broken, damaged orphans finding each other, healing each other and making each other whole.
The strong sense of history, and the way it makes forgotten episodes in world history come alive.
The fact that the series doesn't shy away from its characters' religious faith, but shows that their observance and understanding of religion was more flexible and pluralistic than is generally portrayed in popular fictional depictions of the Middle Ages.
The compassionate, empathetic, and forgiving way the characters deal with the realities of their world — they expect people to be flawed, and the strong to hurt the weak, but this doesn't stop them being kind, and imaginative, and skilled at talking their way out of difficult situations.
Prompts I'd love to see
I would be eternally grateful for futurefic set after Pagan's Daughter in which Isidore and Babylonne have adventures in Bologna. I'd also be very open to a fix-it fic where Pagan didn't die before the events of Pagan's Daughter, as I would really love to see him actually interacting with Babylonne (possibly with Isidore as a traumatised bystander to the inevitable extremities of emotion, cutting sarcastic exchanges and furious verbal gymnastics that would follow any such encounter). I enjoy Babylonne/Isidore as a romantic pairing, and I nurse a secret wish to see how Pagan would react to discovering that the two of them had paired up. (I don't mind if you don't ship them, however, and if you prefer to write about their relationship from a gen perspective I would be equally thrilled!) I love how clever, talkative, argumentative and downright wordy all the characters in this series are, and any fic which gave free rein to their loquaciousness, differing religious perspectives, or similar ideas would be absolutely marvellous.
Fandom specific DNWs
Fic that pairs up Pagan and Isidore romantically/sexually.
I mentioned in my general DNWs that I don't want any character deaths for requested characters. I realise that for a fic to include all of Pagan, Babylonne and Isidore this means it has to be a canon-divergence AU. If you pick the option of writing a fic with just Babylonne and Isidore, it is fine for Pagan to have already died, as he would have done in canon. What I don't want is fic about all three of the characters in which Pagan — or any of them — dies. (Basically I don't want a fic whose focus is on the death of one of the requested characters and how the other characters react.) Feel free to reach out to the mods if you need further clarification.
Don't feel you have to stick rigidly within the bounds of my prompts. As long as your fic is focused on the characters I requested, I will be thrilled to receive anything you write for me, as these really are some of my most beloved fandoms of the heart, and the existence of any fic for them will make me extremely happy.
I'm pretty easygoing about what type of fic you want to write for me. I read fic of any rating, and would be equally happy with plotty genfic or something very shippy. I read gen, femslash, het and slash, although I have a slight preference towards femslash, het, and gen that focuses on female characters. I mainly read fic to find out what happens to characters after the final page has turned or the credits have rolled, so I would particularly love to have futurefic of some kind. Don't feel you have to limit yourself to the characters I specifically mention — I'm happy with others being included if they fit with the story you want to tell.
Feel free to have a look around my Ao3 profile, as it should give you a good idea of the types of things I like to read. You can also look at my Yuletide tag, which includes past letters, and recs posts of my previous gifts and other fic I've enjoyed in previous Yuletide colletions.
General likes
DNWs
Fandom-specific prompts:
Benjamin January mysteries — Barbara Hambly
Requested characters: Chloe Viellard, Dominique Viellard
What I like about the series
Prompts I'd love to see
I have requested Chloe and Dominique for this fandom, because I absolutely adore each character individually, and my favourite moments in the series have been when they've been thrown together. I would love to see anything that brings these two women together to solve a problem: a mystery, a thorny social situation, some drama involving Henri or either of their families — I'm not fussy. I love the idea of fic which would allow both Chloe and Dominique to make use of their very different skillsets — Chloe's analytical and mathematical mind, Dominique's prodigious knowledge of social connections, gossip, and the family history of everyone in New Orleans and surrounds. I love the idea of fic that involved each of them rescuing each other from different dangers. The setting — both New Orleans and the wider region — is one of my favourite things about the Benjamin January series, and I welcome fic about these two characters that explored this worldbuilding in more detail, or took place in a location as yet unvisited in Hambly's books. I am equally happy with gen or shipfic about this pair of characters.
I have no problem if any other characters in the tagset for this fandom make appearances in your fic, as long as the focus is on Chloe, Dominique, and their relationship.
Slavery and anti-black racism are obviously huge themes of the Benjamin January books. I do not mind these being mentioned, discussed, or explored in your fic, as long as this is done in a similar manner, and to a similar degree to the manner in which such themes are explored/discussed in canon.
Fandom-specific DNWs
I have not completed reading every book in this series — as of 15th October I have read as far as Crimson Angel. I would prefer not to read any fic which spoiled major events that happen in later books. If keeping a major spoiler unrevealed means that a fic might violate another DNW (I'm thinking of something like Chloe and Dominique being revealed to be related to one another, which would make any shipfic written for them incest), please feel free to reach out to me through the mods.
The Bone Season — Samantha Shannon
Requested characters: Warden | Arcturus Mesarthim, Paige Mahoney
What I like about the series
Prompts I'd love to see
Any fic that explores Paige and Warden's relationship, particularly the power imbalances, cultural differences, and the ways in which their relationship forces them to reflect on their respective identities as human and Rephaite. Missing moments from their time together in Paris, or when Paige was in hiding in London would be most welcome. I'd also love to read futurefic set just after the end of events in The Dawn Chorus — how are they coping on the run? Has Paige become unmoored without the familiarity of London and the syndicate to fall back on? I'd love to read fic set in another part of Samantha Shannon's alternate world — so far we've seen Scotland, England and Ireland, and glimpses of Paris but nothing of the rest of the world. What are other Scion countries like? Alternatively, a fic that takes place entirely within shared dreamscapes would be absolutely amazing! Given this series is a retelling of the myth of Prometheus and Pandora, any fic that really leans into this premise could also be really interesting.
Fandom-specific DNWs
I'm happy for other characters from the series to appear in any fic you write, but I would prefer it if your fic didn't focus on Jaxon Hall.
The Pagan Chronicles - Catherine Jinks
Requested characters: I've requested Pagan Kidrouk, Babylonne Kidrouk, and Isidore Orbus, but I'm happy for you to leave Pagan out if you don't want to write an AU where he lives long enough to meet Babylonne. Treat this as a request for either Babylonne AND Isidore, or Babylonne, Isidore AND Pagan.
What I like about this series
Prompts I'd love to see
I would be eternally grateful for futurefic set after Pagan's Daughter in which Isidore and Babylonne have adventures in Bologna. I'd also be very open to a fix-it fic where Pagan didn't die before the events of Pagan's Daughter, as I would really love to see him actually interacting with Babylonne (possibly with Isidore as a traumatised bystander to the inevitable extremities of emotion, cutting sarcastic exchanges and furious verbal gymnastics that would follow any such encounter). I enjoy Babylonne/Isidore as a romantic pairing, and I nurse a secret wish to see how Pagan would react to discovering that the two of them had paired up. (I don't mind if you don't ship them, however, and if you prefer to write about their relationship from a gen perspective I would be equally thrilled!) I love how clever, talkative, argumentative and downright wordy all the characters in this series are, and any fic which gave free rein to their loquaciousness, differing religious perspectives, or similar ideas would be absolutely marvellous.
Fandom specific DNWs
Fic that pairs up Pagan and Isidore romantically/sexually.
I mentioned in my general DNWs that I don't want any character deaths for requested characters. I realise that for a fic to include all of Pagan, Babylonne and Isidore this means it has to be a canon-divergence AU. If you pick the option of writing a fic with just Babylonne and Isidore, it is fine for Pagan to have already died, as he would have done in canon. What I don't want is fic about all three of the characters in which Pagan — or any of them — dies. (Basically I don't want a fic whose focus is on the death of one of the requested characters and how the other characters react.) Feel free to reach out to the mods if you need further clarification.
Don't feel you have to stick rigidly within the bounds of my prompts. As long as your fic is focused on the characters I requested, I will be thrilled to receive anything you write for me, as these really are some of my most beloved fandoms of the heart, and the existence of any fic for them will make me extremely happy.