karanguni | Dear Yuletide Author 2018

Dear Yuletide author,

Thank you for writing for me! I hope you have a fun Yuletide - if you have an idea that you want to write, the details in my letters are always optional: I'm an omnivorous reader who doesn't really have squicks, and I'd love to read anything you come up with!

Jump:

Likes/DNWs
The Sparrow (Emilio Sandoz)
Small Gods (Any)
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Mori, Thaniel)
The Bedlam Stacks (Merrick)
The Culture (Zakalwe, Diziet, FOTNMC - feel free to OR or to worldbuild)

tl;dr: Gen is great, porn is great, you are great; ignore or take as many parts of this wall of text as you want. I am karanguni on AO3.

Likes

Old friendships and 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.
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 - that aren't easily read or understood by third parties. Ingroup/outgroup dynamics!
Service/loyalty/betrayal/contractual obligations.
Perseverance under pressure and the need for pressure to thrive.
People wielding technical proficiencies like a knife
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. Double points if it's not just a case of "I've got X and you've not", but rather how two people challenge each other across said divides.
Worldbuilding, especially economic and political worldbuilding
AU and crossovers are fine by me: please just get a mod or someone to ask me if I know the fandom first! If I've written in that fandom on AO3, it is automatically fair game. I have AO3 bookmarks of some fandoms that I do not know the canon of, so you might want to ask a mod first if you're looking at those.

Did someone say porn?

Powerplays and mindfucking, whether in bed or out of it. Cavalier but not careless use of 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. :)) I give a carte blanche for any kink exploration.
Age gaps, and gaps in general - of experience, of personal wealth, of language, of social class.
Breathplay, button-pushing, voyeurism/exhibitionism, clothing or uniform porn, mostly-dressed sex.

Dislikes:

Again, I'm omnivorous! I have no hard DNWs or squicks. If you're going to avoid anything, I'd only request avoiding solely fluff- or introspection-based gen pieces - I don't mind it as a scene, but I'd rather not it be the whole fic.

The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell

Characters: Emilio Sandoz

What I love most about The Sparrow is how human everyone and everything is, for better or for worse; the way MDR writes human interaction and that constant (deadly) curiosity - of people with each other or with the world(s) around them. That said: Emilio! Oh, Emilio. I love Emilio at his happiest and most transcendental, I love Emilio at his worst and angriest moments. I love Emilio the kid-who-got-out and I love Emilio the-adult-who-came-back. The emotional range of his character really appeals to me, and I'd love to see that explored. Backstory, in-novel story, post-novel fic - all options are good options.

I'm also here for Emilio's competence porn: one line that stuck out to me was Anne talking about the Jesuit way of doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. Tell me about how Emilio does that! Whether it's washing dishes in the Edwards' home or being bent over esoteric work, I'd love to read about the small things which make Emilio magnetic.

I've only requested Emilio, but I'd be thrilled if you want to write him interacting with anyone else nominated or otherwise.

Some concrete prompts:

Emilio and languages: how does he deal with codeswitching? In and out of the Jesuit brotherhood, in and out of Puerto Rico, in and out of writing or speaking or thinking. Go wild with language worldbuild: I'll eat up anything you give me.
Emilio and his people: how does Emilio feel about his connections inside and out of the Jesuits? Give me a look into his relationship with D.W: is he aware - at all - of D.W's sexuality? How does he deal with D.W. getting bearish at him on the ship?
Or his relationship with Anne: is he similarly clueless about how she felt and continues to feel? Is it a learned cluelessness? A genuine obliviousness?
How does he come to terms with Sofia? What is their relationship like as she becomes closer to D.W.? As two of of the most mentally vigorous of an already incredibly smart crew, are there moments where they lean on each other? What do they learn from one another?
Emilio under pressure: I enjoyed, probably more than I should, watching Emilio's struggles at all junctures of the book
Emilio angry: tell me about that terrible, sullen time before his interview, or any other time when he deals with his situation with anger
Exploration of his faith: if you want to write something with a religious flavour, go for it! How does Emilio's relationship with God and the Order evolve over time?
Ship fic: a closed-room fic about something happening on the Stella Marie would be amazing. Maybe something dramatic happens to the ship's systems. Or, conversely, something mundane: Emilio and his adventures in... reading? Cooking?
The Jesuit institution: I adore the patient, nerveless Hand of God-ness of the order, in all its amoral and terrible and wonderful contradictory glory. Tell me about Emilio's experiences within it: his ridiculous assignments, the ridiculous asks they make of him. I love the trope of being sent into the unknown with not much more than your wits with you, and that seems to have been Emilio's life at so many points: tell me more!

I am fine with the canon in its entirety: you have my go-ahead if you want to wander the dark corridors of Emilio's time in captivity or his recovery or the treatment of his character. I have also read the sequel: I'm fine with you referencing it or treating it as if it doesn't exist.

Small Gods - Terry Pratchett

Characters: Any

Of all of the Discworld novels, Small Gods sits at the very top for me: it's a simultaneously sympathetic and critical look at faith and belief rendered with all of Pratchett's great observational skills and humour. I love that it challenges religion without either dismissing or evangelising. I love that it does the same to philosophy and science in the same brushstroke. I love that one person can change so much, and not because they are smart or clever or powerful or rich.

I'd adore both character- and worldbuild-centric fic for this fandom, whether in or out of Pratchett's pastiche. I love the whole book from top to bottom, so whether you want to deal with the high abstract concepts or the idiosyncrasies of daily life, go for it!

If you want to write something character-centric:

Tell me about Brutha's relationship with Om. I'd love a post-book exploration of what he does publicly for all of Om and what he is like personally behind closed doors.
Tell me about Brutha's relationship with the desert. The imagery of Vorbis walking alone, forever, through the sands is one of my favourite scenes in the book: tell me about Brutha's own explorations out into the vast nothingness, religious or physical.
Does Brutha ever catch on to the Monks of Time? I am a shameless Lu Tze fangirl, so if your inclinations go that way...
Does Om try to cheat and keep Brutha... forever?
What is Om like as an individual entity during Brutha's tenure? Does he change? Does the religion? Does Om's belief in belief?
I'd love a look at Om in the height of his power – then or now. Hit me with the religious imagery, whether in a public or private setting: how does Om look like to his believers? Is it different for everyone? How does he look like to Brutha?
As for Vorbis - tell me about the institutions he set up, how he made so many souls buy into something so soulless.
Tell me about his time in that interminable, unending desert...

I would love any worldbuild you come up with, so here are some other ideas around that:

Religion from the point of view of Cut-Me-Own-Hand-Off Dhblah. Bonus points if this is on a piece of marketing.
A philosopher and an Omnian and a scientist walk into a bar...
Anything about the philosophers, really: go wild, and the more esoteric references... the better!

I am familiar with most of the Discworld canon, if you want to reference something, with the exception of the Tiffany Aching series.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley

Characters: Keita Mori, Thaniel Steepleton

Oh, Watchmaker: escapist fantasy/magical realism of my dreams. I love the backdrop of dreary Victorian England and how Mori at once both blends right in and then quietly smashes it to pieces, dragging Thaniel with him. Tell me more about how they navigate the cross-cultural and chronological gap between them and I'll be a happy camper. I'm fine with either a slash or gen focus.

Tell me more about Mori: Keita's family, or Keita's personal feelings about leaving Japan in the middle of the Meiji Restoration and coming to England. What motivated him to take that risk? Does he have in him that potential clockwork villain personality that Grace thinks he might: would he ever have let Thaniel go, if Thaniel hadn't been attracted to him in return? If you want to write an AU where Thaniel does leave, or one in which Keita can't find him...
Tell me more about Keita's watches. How are they special? Has he given them to anyone else? How do they (ah-ha) tick? Or tell me how Keita moves through time: how long is his lifespan? How much can he actually do?
What does the Mori-Steepleton household look like: how do they raise their, ah, orphan; what languages are spoken between them; how do they deal with being so unusual? Does Six inherit any... interesting powers?
Or, tell me about the age gap between Thaniel and Mori - how do they navigate their differences in experience and age? Does Thaniel end up in that park, feeding ducks alone like he thought he would? I dearly love fic that deals with age gaps and how they influence a relationship in both directions: does Thaniel help Mori thaw out a bit, or does Mori spin their lives out into something strange and insular?
What is this bi-cultural relationship like in 1880s England? What do they stumble over? Tell me about Keita's ability to be a bit of a chameleon: how does he blend in when it is so apparent he does not belong?

The Bedlam Stacks - Natasha Pulley

Characters: Merrick Tremayne

I am here for Merrick the East India Company man, oh yes I am. While I am perfectly happy if you want, dear author, to write Merrick(& or /)Raphael, I'd be delighted by backstory on Merrick's time with the EIC. I love reading about terrible things involving the British empire and colonialism: how it reshaped the world, in many cases cruelly, for sometimes the pettiest and/or most commercial of reasons. (Sidenote: I'm certainly not asking for a justification or apology for the EIC/colonialism in general – it was a pretty terrible thing – but I have always been fascinated the ridiculous and absurd stranger-than-fiction realities it produced.)

Merrick's backstory is a giant open field of possibilities there, all of which I would love to see.

Tell me about what the EIC sent Merrick to do, and how he was hardened and became jaded by it. Feel free to put him anywhere, any place: China during the Opium Wars? Somewhere in India under the British Raj?
What of Merrick's relationship with his boss, who is himself such a twisted product of the EIC's operations?
Alternatively, tell me about the kinds of survival skills Merrick had to develop in his time with the Company: what did the demands of his job do to him over time?
If you want to cross over into Watchmaker territory and have Mori and Merrick go on a very jaded jaunt together, feel free! Or expand on Merrick meeting Mori again later on.

If the EIC isn't your cup of tea: tell me about Merrick's forced retirement. How does a man like that adapt (besides "poorly")? Or tell me about the time "in between": the slow waiting. Does he write? Does he dream dreams that aren't his own?

If you want to write a soulmate AU (I'd prefer platonic, for Merrick/Raphael, but I can be convinced otherwise!) with an interesting conceit, I'd love to see that! Or tell me about how Merrick deals with time, and communication with Raphael over vast stretches of it.

I'd also be extremely interested in worldbuilding:

Tell me more about inter-generational inheritances. Are the Tremaynes special, or are there others like them?
Pour on the magical realism! Is Merrick, after he returns to England, the same, or does he see more, feel more, know more?

The Culture - Iain M. Banks

Characters: Cheradenine Zakalwe, Diziet Sma, GCU Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints
Amazon: Use of Weapons and Surface Detail are the only two you need for this letter, but in all honesty if you wrote any characters for any Culture novel, I would not care and would still love you forever.

If you were matched to me on other fandoms, rest assured that I want all of these equally: it's just that The Culture has been my forever-fandom for a long, long, long while. Forgive its multi-year accumulated length!

ONE DAY MY SHIP WILL COME. While I'd love all three of these characters appearing, I have reached a point where I am perfectly happy any Culture fic at all - so feel free to treat matching as OR, or just go wild and worldbuild. One or more of my requested characters would be great, but if you want to just go off and write the Culture fic in your head? Fantastic. I can't wait to read it.

I mean come on how could you not.

Anything you want to do with The Culture, I'd love to read. I adore everything about it: from the sprawling plots, to the worldbuilds-in-worldbuilds, to the very random, very human side plots, to the everything-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 also like that, conversely, some Ships just Nope right out of the game, whether it's to go on long tours or to become Ostracised and cut off from the social morass of The Culture's trillions of souls. 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? How is it being an anti-social member of a hyper-social society? Are there humans that do this too? Is there some Culture monastery somewhere out there that is a halfway between withdrawing entirely from the Culture and being involved in it on a day-to-day basis?

While we're on this general topic: what non-Contact means does The Culture employ when making contact? Alternatively, how do non-Contact people view Special Circumstances? Or, hell, how do Contact people view Special Circumstances? How do Special Circumstances people view Sma or Zakalwe or FOTNMC? Is there someone trying to spreadsheet who the other members of SC are? Are there SC groupies? How often do Zakalwe or Sma end up entangled in folks who are more interested in their job than them?

Speaking of which... I've always adored the alternately batty and brilliant agents of Special Circumstances, and Sma, oh Sma! I like that - like the other spotlighted humans of the Culture - Sma is almost Mind-like while being enormously human herself. I like that Sma probably works more with AIs than with humans. I'd love any story involving how she got around to being an SC handler: how did they train her? What is it about the women of the Culture that they're so often front and centre in Contact's many capers? Tell me about the people and AIs Sma met along the way: her agents, or her own handlers. How does she juggle them all? How do they juggle her? Who handles the handlers, anyway? Was she ever an agent in her own right, and if so what were her adventures?

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. Give me a glimpse of their relationship at any point in their timeline, or the future! Is there ever a time that Zakalwe whisks Sma out of the fire instead of the other way around? Or is there just more of her being on top of his stuff, maybe even femdom literally... Other Sma/Zakalwe thoughts: Sma as a matchmaker for Zakalwe could be hilarious, terrible, or both - does she ever try to foist him off on other handlers or humanoids? One million more points if she hooks him up with a Ship. If that ship is FONMC, I might actually expire on Yuletide of joy.

As always, gosh do I want to see the fallout (or fall-in) of a Culture AI actually going literal meatfucker. FOTNMC + human + sex it actually cares about = ? Can a ship like FOTNMC - or any ship - even "care" about sex? What does that look like? Or, to hell with high thinking, FOTNMC having invasive mental sex with a human mind. Whether it's consensual or something darker, I'm here for your porn.

As for all three of them together, an SC caperfic would be amazing. Maybe someone has to hunt down FOTNMC. Maybe FOTNMC is hunting down someone. Zakalwe gets into trouble and Sma calls in a favour, perhaps. Or Zakalwe ends up on FOTNMC on assignment and they end up going... rather outside the bounds of their authority, which Sma has to deal with. Or Sma getting in trouble and these two relative strangers finding it in them to go after her.

If you want to experiment with fic structures, I'd adore a Ship-to-Ship log. Or even an individual 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. Or... Zakalwe's personal diary: what if he were forced to keep a medical diary? Or any one of the three working through some type of inventory taking notes...

Some more random ideas:

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. Him window-shopping for a new body? YES. 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.
Sma, Demeisen, and hatefucking over their comparative SC philosophies after having a talk about Contact. Or the exact opposite: Sma and Demeisen having a complete and frightening meeting of SC minds.
Zakalwe attempting to learn any amount of Culture technology; is he like a clueless tech-support nightmare with his first touchscreen device? Him getting a crash course in certain bits of tech – point-and-shoot-y or otherwise – from Demeisen. Or a piece contrasting the tech Zakalwe is brilliant at with the other types of Culture tech he's totally useless about.
Sma and FOTNMC have a talk about Contact. Philosophical, ah, disagreements ensue.

If you want to write porn: I'm up for it all. What better fandom to do it in? Xeno or not xeno, I'm excited. One particular thought: Anything involving Zakalwe tied to a chair. (Sma/Demeisen go at it in front of him? Clearly it's, ah, cognitive behavioural therapy, right?) Sma/Zakalwe with Sma topping the hell out of him. Demeisen watching them both for bonus points, triple points if he's pitching in instructions!

Dear Yuletide Author 2018