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Yuletide 2016 Letter
Dear author,
You got me! I hope you'll have a fun Yuletide, so if you've got an idea that you really want to run with - write it! Everything in this letter is just a suggestion; optional details are optional and I am an omnivorous reader who doesn't really have squicks and I'm excited to read whatever it is you come up with. :)
tl;dr: Gen is great, porn is great, you are great
Likes
If you want to porn it out:
Dislikes:
OKAY, here we go. I am going to ramble a lot: take as much or as little as you want!
Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold: Aral Vorkosigan, Oliver Jole, Simon Illyan
Feel free to OR the characters: I'm happy with any combination/single person thereof. I didn't request Cordelia, but please don't shoot her into a burning sun or anything. I am very much for Aral and Simon having a complex relationship, but am happy with slash or gen or Barrayaran. :)
WHERE DO I BEGIN. What I love about the series: service, loyalty, empire, questions about the rule of power and speaking truth to power, managing feudalism and managing a military; I feel like Bujold's world gives us a lot more to work with than she works on herself. Gentleman Jole left me feeling annoyed but at the same time pleased that there're decades worth of untold stories about how Jole happened.
I adore the dynamic of Simon being a (watch)dog of and for Aral: if you're going to write from any one given perspective, I would love to see you do Simon's. My prompts are going to start from his perspective and fan out for that reason, but mostly mbecause writing about these three separately is somehow extremely hard right now.
LMB drops hints about Simon shouldering a lot of tension over Jole's integration into Aral's... ecosystem of love and trust: I'd love to read more about that. Was there a private or professional conflict for Simon? How did Aral negotiate it – if he even bothered negotiating it at all? Was Jole a moment of "hot, let's bone him" or a more thoughtful conquest? Were there systems of getting Jole in and out of Residences, of offices, of making sure Jole wasn't affecting work done by Aral for Barrayar? Or was that not a concern – what's Aral's view on the intersection of relationships and his regency? On Jole's career? If any of them did, who viewed whom as selfish or acting selfishly?
(On that tangent: the missing scene where Aral punts Jole out, almost literally, into space to go live his life. That. What, how, when – all of those things. 100% of those things.)
Tell me about Simon's personal relationship with Aral and how that shifts to accommodate Jole. Is Simon ever cruel to Jole? Simon's a lonely man who's given up most of his personal life, and he has to contend with a much-junior officer who, from certain angles, seems to get everything right. I'll posit that Aral treats Jole with dignity; from that angle, Simon has to deal with an entity who doesn't fit into the convenient category of "Countess", "mistress", or "fling." I'd love to see your take on whether Simon is jealous – or maybe envious is the better word. And if he is, of whom? Is he ever bitter? Aral canonically has very different attitudes towards different officers of his: after all, some (cough) he allows to be thrown into dungeons as a learning moment even as he gives them his son for awkward safe-keeping, while others (double cough) he shoots off on a ladder-climbing career that ends in a hilariously convenient posting as the Admiral of Sergyar.
How does Jole integrate into the rarefied air of Aral's (even Simon's) social/sociopolitical landscape? Does he integrate? Do they keep him at arm's length? How does Aral treat a soldier who he's fucking – who he's sharing a life with – differently from any of his other men? Where is Jole Oliver instead of Lieutenant? How does he treat Jole the same as he does Cordelia or anyone else he deeply and privately cares for?
Tell me about security. Tell me about the things Simon does in the dark – whether that's to protect something extant or to cut something off before it ever reached a head. What kinds of problems did the Aral-Jole-Cordelia trifecta produce that Simon had to solve? And did they ever try to solve for him, the unsleeping Horus eye of ImpSec? Did Aral take risks that Simon considered selfish?
Threesome porn: +100 points. Two-person sex with voyuerism: +100 points. Two-person sex with exhibitionism: +100 points, too! The gen version of Barrayar is basically my list of kinks minus the sex, so trust me when I say anything you write will be gold in my books.
Here are more concrete prompts, because I'm amazed you survived reading any of that drivel up top:
- Simon monitoring Jole way more than Jole needs to be monitored. Jole finding out. Or Aral finding out. Or everyone finding out. Double points for Aral making pithy comments in the vein of oh, I know what being stalked by Simon feels like.
- "Monitoring" Jole
- "Monitoring" Jole and Aral
- Jole at a fancy party. Or Jole at a military fancy party. 100 uniform kink options here. 100 identity porn options here, where Aral and Jole and Simon gavotte about a room pretending they don't know what the other people think they know about each other knowing things the others don't know. Cordelia laughing into her cup for the rest of time as a result.
- Jole and Simon meet far outside of Aral's orbit – on a space station, on a ship, on an ImpSec audit – and see each others' qualities properly for the first time.
- Simon fixing a problem, in which the problem a person: the Jole-Aral connection gets found out and blackmail of some sort results.
The Culture - Iain M. Banks: Cheradenine Zakalwe, Diziet Sma, GCU Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
ONE DAY MY SHIP WILL COME. This is my perennial request, except this year with more Sma! While I'd love all three of these characters together, I get that they're kind of hard to throw into a box - a bit like herding cats - so, once again, OR away. Two or more would be great, but if you want to solo-worldbuild one of them? Fantastic.
I mean come on how could you not.
See also my letter fromlast last-last last-last-last year.
Gosh do I want to see the fallout (or fall-in) of a Culture AI actually going literal meatfucker. FOTNMC took over a human body and everything, but that's a very different place to be than having sexual relations with a human body. Or, hell, invasive mental sex with a human mind.
Honestly, though, The Culture is one fandom in which I'd love to see an author take an idea and go wild. I adore everything about it: from the sprawling plots, to the worldbuild about Orbitals, to the gender-fluidity, to the essential point that even a post-scarcity world will find its own problems. Whether it's a piece expanding on potential meta (suicide in Ships? Anti-AI but pro-Culture human factions?); a piece entirely made out of Ship-to-Ship dialogue (!!); crossovers; I'd be happy no matter what you give me.
If that's not helpful: I like the idea of the Ships prodding the(ir) humans. Giving Players of Games games to play, and changers of worlds worlds to change. I like the idea that they find the right hole if they have the right peg, instead of just the other way around. I like that Sma might work more with AIs than with humans.
I like that some Ships just Nope right out of the game, whether it's to go on long tours or to become Ostracised. What motivates those decisions? How do you get bored when you're an AI running at a million light-years a second? How do you not go Eccentric when you're out of the normal swing of The Culture?
I like that Sma is one of the most Ship-like humans we see, while being enormously human herself. I like that Cheradenine can blow up continents and reorganise monarchies and still not get within touching range of Sma when Sma doesn't want him to. On that note: Sma as a matchmaker for Zakalwe could be hilarious, terrible, or both, and god would I love to read that. Even moreso if she matchmakes him with a Ship.
What non-Contact means does The Culture employ to not end up at war? Alternatively, how do non-Contact people view Special Circumstances? Or, hell, how do Contact people view Special Circumstances?
If you're in any way a fan of the Iliad and want to write the Culture equivalent of the list of Ships and men? /incoherent noise here
If you want to experiment with fic structures, I'd adore a Ship-to-Ship log. Or even a Ship's log, if one of them might be so antiquated-ly inclined as to keep something traditional like that; a verbal diary of sorts.
Since The Culture is about the most worldbuildy mc-worldbuild fandom there is, a few more concrete thingamabobs:
- Multiple-Mind ships (interpret that noun as you wish): give me a peek at how much stays separate, how much melds together. Do shipminds ever break up with each other after they get together? Is it like a happy poly relationship, or something more familial – are there ships that join up/leave once every, oh, few hundred years? See my do-want list above...
- Demeisen going through an upgrade. One hundred pages of him drooling over new inventory? Amen. Or: what GCU does he dock with for his refitting? What GCU would want to take him? Or what GCU would reject him? Demeisen talking it over with Zakalwe...
- Sma dolls Zakalwe up in an attempt to help the man fucking unwind a moment. Fucking ensues. Unexpected fucking.
- Zakalwe attempting to learn any amount of Culture technology. Him getting a crash course in certain bits of tech – point-and-shoot-y or otherwise – from Demeisen?
- Sma and FOTNMC have a talk about Contact. Philosophical, ah, disagreements ensue.
For porn, allow my enthusiasm for XENO XENO XENO XENO to be clearly expressed :) or anything involving Zakalwe tied to a chair. (Sma/Demeisen go at it in front of him? Clearly it's, ah, cognitive behavioural therapy, right?)
[edit]: If you in any way manage to sneak in a reference to this (http://aboardtheworld.com/) absurd bit of our real world life, I will... I don't know, author, but it'll involve a lot of exclamation marks.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson: Muire Lo
If this prompt is a little shorter than the two above, you'll have to forgive me: I've had years to sit on The Culture and Vorkosigan Saga, both of which are fairly open-ended multi-book series. The Traitor Baru Cormorant, on the other hand, idly walked into my life earlier this year, reached a hand into my chest, and ripped out my heart.
It's a hard book. Both in general and both because of how the message reads to me, personally. It treats colonialism, education, sexuality, and biculturalism in ways that hit astoundingly close to home and I like it that way. I like the way it hurts. I love the way it hurts, because of how Baru and Muire goes many ways, and it's anyone's guess what that meant to her by the end.
I didn't request Baru in part because we see so much of her. The book's one that I wouldn't normally search out fic for in part because of how tightly woven the narrative is. But Muire? Muire's much like Baru, but without the benefit of genius and – perhaps – mad ambition.
Tell me more about this. Tell me what it was like to try and survive the Masquerade's descent on his homeland. I'd love to hear what bent him, what broke him, what changed in him and what stayed the same. As with Baru: what doublethink does he have to engage with to get through the day? Canon tells us the Masquerade came when he was two years old: what survived to get to him? What was already corrupted? What the hell does corrupted mean?
Questions I'd love to see tackled, foreground or background: what is the Masquerade, what is a Masquerade, what is a country and what is loyalty and what is patriotism and what the hell does any of that mean, in a world where truth is mostly determined power.
I'd love to hear about his formative later-teen years, when he'd have been honing himself into a person that could serve as the sort of secretary he was for Baru. What was his education like, considering he wasn't hand-picked to go upend other worlds? What was education like in Masquerade-ruled Aurdwynn? What was education for an operative like, if education could be the word there? Education and indoctrination are janus-faced twins in this world and I'd love to see you expand on how.
I'd love to hear what he felt when Baru arrived and it seemed his world would change. What did he think was changing? What were his fears and then – god help him – his hopes? Who did he have around to fear for?
Concretely:
- Changes in dress and custom in Aurdwynn over the years, through Muire's eyes or someone's eyes on Muire's. His personal choices in those realms, and whether they are ever acts of silent defiance or constant camouflage.
- A view into Muire's tutors, mentors, tormentors. How much of his loyalty was bought by the carrot, and how much by the stick?
- Muire acting in secrecy, whether for himself (did he have a family? a lover? an intellectual pasttime too dangerous to speak of?) or for his people (who are they?)
Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu - Any
My god. I just inhaled this canon because of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
multiplicative and now my head is on fire. I have adored rakugo for a long time, and everything about this show blew me away. It wastes no time, it tenders no mercies, and nothing about it is wasted. Everything has a reading, a meta-reading, and an alternate reading and I fucking want to just rewatch it until every line is burned into my brain.
What do I love? I love that they are storytellers but also characters, and aware of it. Each story is interpreted and reinterpreted and re-reinterpreted and the meta-textual nature of it is amazing. I love the concept of voice, the concept of personal voice. The historical considerations, too: that there's art but also an evolution of art that tries but fails to exist in a vacuum from socio-political-economic factors. I love the generational aspect of the deshi-shisho system, for all of its many, many, many flaws. I love the superstructure of the Association. Most of all I love how the characters, as performers and as humans, are almost tied together by the craft and, gods above, by the karma.
I could go on literally forever. A few caveats: I do have a weirdo academic background in this field, but please don't let that hang over you. While I'd love a fic that has historical and classic pieces , I am in this as much for the thematic and character aspects as for the history/literature. If you want to go wild on research, I will be the most enthusiastic and appreciative reader; but if you don't, it absolutely isn't a thing you should be concerned about.
Worldbuild/Historical/Gen
- I'd love, to degrees I cannot name, to read about the Rakugo Association and its development from the Showa period to the present. What is the Yuurakutei family reputation? They're at 8-daime by Kikuhiko's time, so if we take that to be ~30 years per generation that's over 240 years of Yuurakutei history. How have things changed, how have they stayed the same? How does the theatre change? What opens and what closes?
- Kikuhiko and Hatsuta in their zenza or futatsume years taking care of the logistics of everyday theatre life: the chores, the cleaning, the slow influx of new juniors as the post-war period progresses
- Clothing porn. If you've survived this anime, you don't need me to encourage you, right? I mean. I mean. Kiku's obsessive need to be well-dressed; Hatsuta/Sukeroku's disregard for personal experience; Konatsu's Showa style; Yotaro's... Yotaro-ness. What do any of the characters wear on stage and in real life? For stage-wear: what rituals do they have getting dressed and undressed?
- Take an existing rakugo story and spin the characters through it, whether as something they tell or as a broader narrative device. I PROMISE I WILL COME BACK HERE AND UPDATE WITH RESOURCES SOON. Or take any other Japanese narrative tradition and run a thousand miles with it.
[edit]: I've been swamped and can't quite get references in just yet, but Kindle Unlimited on Amazon has a surprisingly good book Five Japanese Rakugo Stories by Chris Gould. While I wouldn't count on the translations, he does go into (somewhat absurd) detail on performance halls and modern day bits of rakugo culture. I might not spend money on it, but if you've got a subscription anyway it's worth a peek.
Character specific:
- Kikuhiko (SOB): give me anything. God above. I want this man to be happy but I understand that it's not in his cards. Tell me about his feelings about Sukeroku – I'd love to read his struggle to deal with his abandonment issues, with his personal relations, with his sexuality. I 100% ship complex everyone/everyone in this series, so everyone/anyone works. Tell me about his interim years post the accident and before Yotaro.
- Also Kikuhiko giving anyone from the yakuza the beatdown if they try to come for Yotaro.
- Sukeroku goes to Yoshiwara, but not to visit women this time.
- Sukeroku and Kikuhiko and Konatsu in that brief, halycon period they have together. How do they learn to be with one another?
- Konatsu and Yotaro doing any amount of caretaking of Kikuhiko, especially after they hear the story. Kikuhiko struggling to accept that caretaking. Matsuda-san literally being the Alfred of this Batfamily and greasing all the wheels he can.
- Yotaro just being so good for Kikuhiko because he's an outsider, but also because he's Yotaro
Fix-it:
- Sukeroku and Miyo survive and Kikuhiko beats their heads around to living a life together. How do they negotiate beyond the toxicity? Or, if they don't, who breaks and when?
- Alternate shinjuu: I'd love to read how your take on what might have happened if Sukeroku'd chosen Kikuhiko instead. Double plus bonus points if this ends up Sukeroku/Kikuhiko.
- Konatsu forgiving Kikuhiko for things Kikuhiko can't even forgive himself for.
- AUs: modern life! Writer AU! Sukeroku as an active ghost! Reincarnation! Reincarnation as a supernatural being!
Porn/what the fuck:
- Let's not pretend that Kikuhiko taking Yotaro in isn't at least a little bit about Yotaro reminding him about Sukeroku. TAKE THAT HOWEVER YOU WILL.
- Sukeroku and Kikuhiko during their futatsume days: let's not forget Sukeroku telling Miyo that Kiku is a lecher himself. Convenient handjobs? Massive UST? These two are extraordinarily physically affectionate, after all.
- Going to hell version: Konatsu/Yotaro with Kikuhiko in any way participating. Voyuerism. Actual participation. Caveat: no daddy-kink, please.
You got me! I hope you'll have a fun Yuletide, so if you've got an idea that you really want to run with - write it! Everything in this letter is just a suggestion; optional details are optional and I am an omnivorous reader who doesn't really have squicks and I'm excited to read whatever it is you come up with. :)
tl;dr: Gen is great, porn is great, you are great
Likes
- Easy reference: my recs and my AO3 bookmarks
- Old friendships and ex-relationships: people who were close but who then drifted or were driven apart, and how they come together again. The internal struggle of renegotiating new/old territory; unrequited/unresolved tension. I really like pining that aches, and I don't mind not having a happy (or any) resolution.
- On that same riff: background wink/nods/assumptions that the reader can read into; not quite breaking the fourth wall but acknowledging it
- People who know each other very well, and who translate that knowledge into a variety of things - whether that's intimacy, sex, codependency, codeswitching or otherwise.
- Service/loyalty/betrayal/contractual obligations
- Personal versus public battles, and how a character balances the two. Winning one only to lose the other; difficult compromises.
- Cross-class interactions; the bigger the divide, the better.
- Worldbuilding, especially economic worldbuilding
- On the more lighthearted side of things? Heists, romps, crossovers that make hilarious sense.
If you want to porn it out:
- Powerplays and mindfucking, whether in bed or out of it. Cavalier but not careless use of personal power.
- Dom/sub dynamics, but not as a lifestyle (This one's weird - so.... A commander/subordinate relationship with lots of sir-ing? Delicious. Bringing a BDSM master/slave relationship out of the bedroom without a supporting non-bedroom context? Nah. :))
- Age gaps, and gaps in general - of experience, of personal wealth, of language
- Breathplay
Dislikes:
- Again, I'm omnivorous: this list is more writer-be-aware than I-won't-read
- Gen PWPs (go nuts if you're writing porn), in the sense that I'm not a huge fan of mindless fluff or introspection - I don't mind it as a scene, o'course, but I'd rather not it be the whole fic
OKAY, here we go. I am going to ramble a lot: take as much or as little as you want!
Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold: Aral Vorkosigan, Oliver Jole, Simon Illyan
Feel free to OR the characters: I'm happy with any combination/single person thereof. I didn't request Cordelia, but please don't shoot her into a burning sun or anything. I am very much for Aral and Simon having a complex relationship, but am happy with slash or gen or Barrayaran. :)
WHERE DO I BEGIN. What I love about the series: service, loyalty, empire, questions about the rule of power and speaking truth to power, managing feudalism and managing a military; I feel like Bujold's world gives us a lot more to work with than she works on herself. Gentleman Jole left me feeling annoyed but at the same time pleased that there're decades worth of untold stories about how Jole happened.
I adore the dynamic of Simon being a (watch)dog of and for Aral: if you're going to write from any one given perspective, I would love to see you do Simon's. My prompts are going to start from his perspective and fan out for that reason, but mostly mbecause writing about these three separately is somehow extremely hard right now.
LMB drops hints about Simon shouldering a lot of tension over Jole's integration into Aral's... ecosystem of love and trust: I'd love to read more about that. Was there a private or professional conflict for Simon? How did Aral negotiate it – if he even bothered negotiating it at all? Was Jole a moment of "hot, let's bone him" or a more thoughtful conquest? Were there systems of getting Jole in and out of Residences, of offices, of making sure Jole wasn't affecting work done by Aral for Barrayar? Or was that not a concern – what's Aral's view on the intersection of relationships and his regency? On Jole's career? If any of them did, who viewed whom as selfish or acting selfishly?
(On that tangent: the missing scene where Aral punts Jole out, almost literally, into space to go live his life. That. What, how, when – all of those things. 100% of those things.)
Tell me about Simon's personal relationship with Aral and how that shifts to accommodate Jole. Is Simon ever cruel to Jole? Simon's a lonely man who's given up most of his personal life, and he has to contend with a much-junior officer who, from certain angles, seems to get everything right. I'll posit that Aral treats Jole with dignity; from that angle, Simon has to deal with an entity who doesn't fit into the convenient category of "Countess", "mistress", or "fling." I'd love to see your take on whether Simon is jealous – or maybe envious is the better word. And if he is, of whom? Is he ever bitter? Aral canonically has very different attitudes towards different officers of his: after all, some (cough) he allows to be thrown into dungeons as a learning moment even as he gives them his son for awkward safe-keeping, while others (double cough) he shoots off on a ladder-climbing career that ends in a hilariously convenient posting as the Admiral of Sergyar.
How does Jole integrate into the rarefied air of Aral's (even Simon's) social/sociopolitical landscape? Does he integrate? Do they keep him at arm's length? How does Aral treat a soldier who he's fucking – who he's sharing a life with – differently from any of his other men? Where is Jole Oliver instead of Lieutenant? How does he treat Jole the same as he does Cordelia or anyone else he deeply and privately cares for?
Tell me about security. Tell me about the things Simon does in the dark – whether that's to protect something extant or to cut something off before it ever reached a head. What kinds of problems did the Aral-Jole-Cordelia trifecta produce that Simon had to solve? And did they ever try to solve for him, the unsleeping Horus eye of ImpSec? Did Aral take risks that Simon considered selfish?
Threesome porn: +100 points. Two-person sex with voyuerism: +100 points. Two-person sex with exhibitionism: +100 points, too! The gen version of Barrayar is basically my list of kinks minus the sex, so trust me when I say anything you write will be gold in my books.
Here are more concrete prompts, because I'm amazed you survived reading any of that drivel up top:
- Simon monitoring Jole way more than Jole needs to be monitored. Jole finding out. Or Aral finding out. Or everyone finding out. Double points for Aral making pithy comments in the vein of oh, I know what being stalked by Simon feels like.
- "Monitoring" Jole
- "Monitoring" Jole and Aral
- Jole at a fancy party. Or Jole at a military fancy party. 100 uniform kink options here. 100 identity porn options here, where Aral and Jole and Simon gavotte about a room pretending they don't know what the other people think they know about each other knowing things the others don't know. Cordelia laughing into her cup for the rest of time as a result.
- Jole and Simon meet far outside of Aral's orbit – on a space station, on a ship, on an ImpSec audit – and see each others' qualities properly for the first time.
- Simon fixing a problem, in which the problem a person: the Jole-Aral connection gets found out and blackmail of some sort results.
The Culture - Iain M. Banks: Cheradenine Zakalwe, Diziet Sma, GCU Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
ONE DAY MY SHIP WILL COME. This is my perennial request, except this year with more Sma! While I'd love all three of these characters together, I get that they're kind of hard to throw into a box - a bit like herding cats - so, once again, OR away. Two or more would be great, but if you want to solo-worldbuild one of them? Fantastic.
I mean come on how could you not.
See also my letter from
Gosh do I want to see the fallout (or fall-in) of a Culture AI actually going literal meatfucker. FOTNMC took over a human body and everything, but that's a very different place to be than having sexual relations with a human body. Or, hell, invasive mental sex with a human mind.
Honestly, though, The Culture is one fandom in which I'd love to see an author take an idea and go wild. I adore everything about it: from the sprawling plots, to the worldbuild about Orbitals, to the gender-fluidity, to the essential point that even a post-scarcity world will find its own problems. Whether it's a piece expanding on potential meta (suicide in Ships? Anti-AI but pro-Culture human factions?); a piece entirely made out of Ship-to-Ship dialogue (!!); crossovers; I'd be happy no matter what you give me.
If that's not helpful: I like the idea of the Ships prodding the(ir) humans. Giving Players of Games games to play, and changers of worlds worlds to change. I like the idea that they find the right hole if they have the right peg, instead of just the other way around. I like that Sma might work more with AIs than with humans.
I like that some Ships just Nope right out of the game, whether it's to go on long tours or to become Ostracised. What motivates those decisions? How do you get bored when you're an AI running at a million light-years a second? How do you not go Eccentric when you're out of the normal swing of The Culture?
I like that Sma is one of the most Ship-like humans we see, while being enormously human herself. I like that Cheradenine can blow up continents and reorganise monarchies and still not get within touching range of Sma when Sma doesn't want him to. On that note: Sma as a matchmaker for Zakalwe could be hilarious, terrible, or both, and god would I love to read that. Even moreso if she matchmakes him with a Ship.
What non-Contact means does The Culture employ to not end up at war? Alternatively, how do non-Contact people view Special Circumstances? Or, hell, how do Contact people view Special Circumstances?
If you're in any way a fan of the Iliad and want to write the Culture equivalent of the list of Ships and men? /incoherent noise here
If you want to experiment with fic structures, I'd adore a Ship-to-Ship log. Or even a Ship's log, if one of them might be so antiquated-ly inclined as to keep something traditional like that; a verbal diary of sorts.
Since The Culture is about the most worldbuildy mc-worldbuild fandom there is, a few more concrete thingamabobs:
- Multiple-Mind ships (interpret that noun as you wish): give me a peek at how much stays separate, how much melds together. Do shipminds ever break up with each other after they get together? Is it like a happy poly relationship, or something more familial – are there ships that join up/leave once every, oh, few hundred years? See my do-want list above...
- Demeisen going through an upgrade. One hundred pages of him drooling over new inventory? Amen. Or: what GCU does he dock with for his refitting? What GCU would want to take him? Or what GCU would reject him? Demeisen talking it over with Zakalwe...
- Sma dolls Zakalwe up in an attempt to help the man fucking unwind a moment. Fucking ensues. Unexpected fucking.
- Zakalwe attempting to learn any amount of Culture technology. Him getting a crash course in certain bits of tech – point-and-shoot-y or otherwise – from Demeisen?
- Sma and FOTNMC have a talk about Contact. Philosophical, ah, disagreements ensue.
For porn, allow my enthusiasm for XENO XENO XENO XENO to be clearly expressed :) or anything involving Zakalwe tied to a chair. (Sma/Demeisen go at it in front of him? Clearly it's, ah, cognitive behavioural therapy, right?)
[edit]: If you in any way manage to sneak in a reference to this (http://aboardtheworld.com/) absurd bit of our real world life, I will... I don't know, author, but it'll involve a lot of exclamation marks.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson: Muire Lo
If this prompt is a little shorter than the two above, you'll have to forgive me: I've had years to sit on The Culture and Vorkosigan Saga, both of which are fairly open-ended multi-book series. The Traitor Baru Cormorant, on the other hand, idly walked into my life earlier this year, reached a hand into my chest, and ripped out my heart.
It's a hard book. Both in general and both because of how the message reads to me, personally. It treats colonialism, education, sexuality, and biculturalism in ways that hit astoundingly close to home and I like it that way. I like the way it hurts. I love the way it hurts, because of how Baru and Muire goes many ways, and it's anyone's guess what that meant to her by the end.
I didn't request Baru in part because we see so much of her. The book's one that I wouldn't normally search out fic for in part because of how tightly woven the narrative is. But Muire? Muire's much like Baru, but without the benefit of genius and – perhaps – mad ambition.
Tell me more about this. Tell me what it was like to try and survive the Masquerade's descent on his homeland. I'd love to hear what bent him, what broke him, what changed in him and what stayed the same. As with Baru: what doublethink does he have to engage with to get through the day? Canon tells us the Masquerade came when he was two years old: what survived to get to him? What was already corrupted? What the hell does corrupted mean?
Questions I'd love to see tackled, foreground or background: what is the Masquerade, what is a Masquerade, what is a country and what is loyalty and what is patriotism and what the hell does any of that mean, in a world where truth is mostly determined power.
I'd love to hear about his formative later-teen years, when he'd have been honing himself into a person that could serve as the sort of secretary he was for Baru. What was his education like, considering he wasn't hand-picked to go upend other worlds? What was education like in Masquerade-ruled Aurdwynn? What was education for an operative like, if education could be the word there? Education and indoctrination are janus-faced twins in this world and I'd love to see you expand on how.
I'd love to hear what he felt when Baru arrived and it seemed his world would change. What did he think was changing? What were his fears and then – god help him – his hopes? Who did he have around to fear for?
Concretely:
- Changes in dress and custom in Aurdwynn over the years, through Muire's eyes or someone's eyes on Muire's. His personal choices in those realms, and whether they are ever acts of silent defiance or constant camouflage.
- A view into Muire's tutors, mentors, tormentors. How much of his loyalty was bought by the carrot, and how much by the stick?
- Muire acting in secrecy, whether for himself (did he have a family? a lover? an intellectual pasttime too dangerous to speak of?) or for his people (who are they?)
Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu - Any
My god. I just inhaled this canon because of
multiplicative and now my head is on fire. I have adored rakugo for a long time, and everything about this show blew me away. It wastes no time, it tenders no mercies, and nothing about it is wasted. Everything has a reading, a meta-reading, and an alternate reading and I fucking want to just rewatch it until every line is burned into my brain.What do I love? I love that they are storytellers but also characters, and aware of it. Each story is interpreted and reinterpreted and re-reinterpreted and the meta-textual nature of it is amazing. I love the concept of voice, the concept of personal voice. The historical considerations, too: that there's art but also an evolution of art that tries but fails to exist in a vacuum from socio-political-economic factors. I love the generational aspect of the deshi-shisho system, for all of its many, many, many flaws. I love the superstructure of the Association. Most of all I love how the characters, as performers and as humans, are almost tied together by the craft and, gods above, by the karma.
I could go on literally forever. A few caveats: I do have a weirdo academic background in this field, but please don't let that hang over you. While I'd love a fic that has historical and classic pieces , I am in this as much for the thematic and character aspects as for the history/literature. If you want to go wild on research, I will be the most enthusiastic and appreciative reader; but if you don't, it absolutely isn't a thing you should be concerned about.
Worldbuild/Historical/Gen
- I'd love, to degrees I cannot name, to read about the Rakugo Association and its development from the Showa period to the present. What is the Yuurakutei family reputation? They're at 8-daime by Kikuhiko's time, so if we take that to be ~30 years per generation that's over 240 years of Yuurakutei history. How have things changed, how have they stayed the same? How does the theatre change? What opens and what closes?
- Kikuhiko and Hatsuta in their zenza or futatsume years taking care of the logistics of everyday theatre life: the chores, the cleaning, the slow influx of new juniors as the post-war period progresses
- Clothing porn. If you've survived this anime, you don't need me to encourage you, right? I mean. I mean. Kiku's obsessive need to be well-dressed; Hatsuta/Sukeroku's disregard for personal experience; Konatsu's Showa style; Yotaro's... Yotaro-ness. What do any of the characters wear on stage and in real life? For stage-wear: what rituals do they have getting dressed and undressed?
- Take an existing rakugo story and spin the characters through it, whether as something they tell or as a broader narrative device. I PROMISE I WILL COME BACK HERE AND UPDATE WITH RESOURCES SOON. Or take any other Japanese narrative tradition and run a thousand miles with it.
[edit]: I've been swamped and can't quite get references in just yet, but Kindle Unlimited on Amazon has a surprisingly good book Five Japanese Rakugo Stories by Chris Gould. While I wouldn't count on the translations, he does go into (somewhat absurd) detail on performance halls and modern day bits of rakugo culture. I might not spend money on it, but if you've got a subscription anyway it's worth a peek.
Character specific:
- Kikuhiko (SOB): give me anything. God above. I want this man to be happy but I understand that it's not in his cards. Tell me about his feelings about Sukeroku – I'd love to read his struggle to deal with his abandonment issues, with his personal relations, with his sexuality. I 100% ship complex everyone/everyone in this series, so everyone/anyone works. Tell me about his interim years post the accident and before Yotaro.
- Also Kikuhiko giving anyone from the yakuza the beatdown if they try to come for Yotaro.
- Sukeroku goes to Yoshiwara, but not to visit women this time.
- Sukeroku and Kikuhiko and Konatsu in that brief, halycon period they have together. How do they learn to be with one another?
- Konatsu and Yotaro doing any amount of caretaking of Kikuhiko, especially after they hear the story. Kikuhiko struggling to accept that caretaking. Matsuda-san literally being the Alfred of this Batfamily and greasing all the wheels he can.
- Yotaro just being so good for Kikuhiko because he's an outsider, but also because he's Yotaro
Fix-it:
- Sukeroku and Miyo survive and Kikuhiko beats their heads around to living a life together. How do they negotiate beyond the toxicity? Or, if they don't, who breaks and when?
- Alternate shinjuu: I'd love to read how your take on what might have happened if Sukeroku'd chosen Kikuhiko instead. Double plus bonus points if this ends up Sukeroku/Kikuhiko.
- Konatsu forgiving Kikuhiko for things Kikuhiko can't even forgive himself for.
- AUs: modern life! Writer AU! Sukeroku as an active ghost! Reincarnation! Reincarnation as a supernatural being!
Porn/what the fuck:
- Let's not pretend that Kikuhiko taking Yotaro in isn't at least a little bit about Yotaro reminding him about Sukeroku. TAKE THAT HOWEVER YOU WILL.
- Sukeroku and Kikuhiko during their futatsume days: let's not forget Sukeroku telling Miyo that Kiku is a lecher himself. Convenient handjobs? Massive UST? These two are extraordinarily physically affectionate, after all.
- Going to hell version: Konatsu/Yotaro with Kikuhiko in any way participating. Voyuerism. Actual participation. Caveat: no daddy-kink, please.
no subject
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Creepers gonna creep. The dude has so much damage. I also have so much damage. To my bank account, that is - I just ordered $50 of rakugo books from Amazon.co.jp because I am... So whipped... By this series...