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K ([personal profile] karanguni) wrote2023-10-16 08:12 pm
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Dear Yuletide Writer 2023

Dear Yuletide writer,

Thank you for writing for me! I'm a generally omnivorous reader and excited to read anything that you come up with – everything in this letter is optional. Have fun!

AO3: karanguni
tl;dr: I happily opt into gen, porn, unusual media types, and crossovers with fandoms I have read/written/requested before; ignore or take as many parts of this wall of text as you want! My AO3 account has gifts enabled for treats.

General Likes

I genuinely mean that I'm an omnivorous reader: if you have something that you want to write, I'm happy to read it. Please don't sweat stuff like first/second person POV, archive-warning content, &c. That said, if you want some jumping-off ideas:

  • 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. Pining is great, 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/contractual obligations.
  • High-pressure situations - whether immediate or over a long time span - and how people respond to them.
  • Competence porn: people who have worked very hard to become highly proficient in their skillsets, whether that's being an assassin or meticulous scholarship.
  • Private versus public conflicts, 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, in-group, and political worldbuilding.
  • AUs, crossovers, non-traditional media (IF, art, whatever!) are all fine with me. Anything I've written for or in my AO3 bookmarks is fair game, but I do bookmark things that I do not have canon knowledge of, so please hit me up via a mod inquiry if you're worried!
  • Porn likes will go here once I sign up for Yuleporn :)
  • Crossover prompts will go here once I sign up for 2F1 :)

Dislikes/DNWs:

I have no general DNWs; all DNWs are fandom-specific and listed with each prompt. In terms of general dislikes, for porn I would prefer not to read long, detailed descriptions of daddy kink or scat, but am fine with mentions of it.

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The Bedlam Stacks - Natasha Pulley

Keita Mori, Merrick Tremayne

Well here are a pair of thoroughly dubiously amoral Company boys: Merrick, tossed around by life & time(s) (or Keita?) into thinking he isn't full of his own competencies; and Keita such a mess of pining and attempting to escape out from his own abilities/heritage and to some only theoretical future. I'm fascinated by how Keita basically pushes Merrick forward/overboard into his own future: how sure was he that that was going to work out? And then there was that flash of regret we see from him in the book: what did he have to give up and forget by pushing Merrick away? Keita's so very alone for so very long, and such a prickly creature: yet he and Merrick were clearly close, and remained close enough through Watchmaker and beyond to rely on one another/show up unannounced at each other's places. Whether you set it when Keita is younger in their Company days or later in the game after Merrick's gone and found Bedlam or even post-Watchmaker series, I just want more of their amazing and complicated relationship.

I'd also thoroughly love an AU – there are so many dead-ends that could've been sprawling in the trees of possibility in Keita's timelines.

  • What if Keita never gets Merrick injured? What if he never leaves the Company?
  • What if Thaniel never ends up in the picture or leaves the picture abortively, whether because Keita realises he can't get to him in time or by other happenstance? Or what if Keita needs Merrick's help and, goodness, has to ask for it?
  • Merrick and Keita as pirates. Somehow.
  • What happens if Merrick is a younger man? Would Keita have possibly chosen him instead?
  • Or what happens if all goes as per Bedlam, and Keita visits? Or helps Merrick live his best South American life somehow?

Either gen or shipfic for these two would be lovely. If you prefer Keita/Thaniel and/or Merrick/&Raphael, I am also well and truly in those camps, so some ideas that lap into that territory:

  • Keita introduces Thaniel to Merrick after as many or few events of Watchmaker/Pepperharrow as you desire. Maybe at Christmas. Maybe there are dogs...
  • Merrick introduces Keita to Raphael, whether in Peru or... Heligan :3
  • Botany adventures. These two doing anything botany or horticulture related would be quite incredible to me, like a crossover with Gardeners World somehow, somewhen, I mean, timey-wimey, right?
  • Downtime during the bad old days in the Company. I'd love it if Keita saw in Merrick real, genuine friendship because Merrick looks at all of his eldritchness and... doesn't care even though he sees clearer than most
  • Merrick visiting Keita in Japan, at any stage.
  • Keita taking Six to visit Merrick and the sheer amount of semi-grandfatherly indulgences that might involve...

DNW: unhappy endings for either Keita or Merrick. Bittersweet or ambiguous is fine, but please avoid nothing-will-ever-be-good-again levels of despair!

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The Culture - Iain M. Banks

GOU Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints

Acquiring the canon: out of The Culture series, you only need Surface Detail, which can be found anywhere books are sold

I mean come on how could you not.

The good ship Culture is looking a little different in my requests this year mostly but not completely identical to last year: it's time to Fall Outside some of the Normal Moral Constraints! I'd love something about our delightfully badly-behaved-but-within-S.C.-if-not-straightforward-moral-constraints Picket Ship. FOTNMC is a darling because it's such a bucket of contradictions: it's a bad boy, but also clearly not a loose canon. Despite its atrocious behaviour, in all the ways that seem to count FOTNMC is hardly "Mawhrin-Skel" from The Player of Games, exiled from S.C. for being too dangerous: it does its job.

So! What is it like being a "picket" ship in a rather post-war timeline? What is it like consenting (maybe) to be engineered to be exactly what S.C. wants you to be? What is its relationship with being part of the Culture's not!army – I've requested oodles of Zakalwe in the past and been rewarded with just such excellent fic about our human(ish) mercenary man-weapon, and I'd love to see the Mind/ship side of that explored. We get all these whiffs and hints of how S.C. ships and rank and committees work throughout the various books: I'd love to see that fleshed out.

I also would really like an exploration of FOTNMC's actions during the - probably large amounts of - downtime it has. If you, like me, think that it kept up with Led after the events of Surface Detail, I'd love anything you could whip up about it. The epilogue of the book mentions that it hangs around GSVs: tell me more about that, maybe – about ship-class interactions, how the physical bodies that Mind(s) get put in sort of are or are not deterministically linked to the Mind(s) themselves.

Some ideas:

  • FOTNMC gets put into a different ship body, for Some Reason
  • What are the Normal Moral Constraints anyway? Is there a standard for the panhumans and a standard for Minds? What's Moral in the Culture anyhow?
  • Who was FOTNMC's parent ship and/or parent S.C. committee? Does he ever get checked up on?
  • Was FOTNMC born into S.C.? Are all Picket Ship Minds? How do other Minds feel about that – especially, perhaps, the older (or oldest) ones from the Idirian War or the formation of the Culture?
  • I'm also here for just FOTNMC having a very merry holiday season indeed: FOTNMC gets a dream refit? Or maybe it gets to pick apart equivalent-level tech?
  • Does FOTNMC ever... read a book or something? It's got so much spare time, it claims not to be social...
  • Does FOTNMC ever go into the happy place that the Minds go, that land of infinite fun space? Or does it find it a load of rubbish?
  • FOTNMC's transmissions with Led
  • FOTNMC's transmissions with [any named Ship of your choice from the books]

I've read all of The Culture books and am happy for you to reference them, but I'm just as happy happy to disregard anything outside of Surface Detail, since that's the only one needed for this request.

Crossovers: I'd adore a crossover with the Culture, whether complete crack or very serious. Quite out-there but extremely compelling to my brain this season: what if Estraven from the Left Hand of Darkness lived and ended up working for the Ekumen, but what if... the Ekumen is really Contact/Special Circumstances? Or, if that's too much of a stretch, what if the Ekumen ships him off to a sector of space where he meets Special Circumstances and FOTNMC? I managed to convince people to ship Estraven off to Star Trek last year, and would dearly love to see him romp into The Culture. To go from a planet where life and death are no laughing matter to the land of (erstwhile) Happy Fun Times and giga-death wars: what perspective could Estraven give a warship or vice-versa? Could they philosophically could end up on the same level? What if Estraven could Pacific Rim-style Drift with a ship because of the Handdara? /terrible thoughts.

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平家物語 | Heike monogatari | The Tale of the Heike

Taira no Shigemori (Tale of Heike)

Oh Shigemori, cinnamon roll of the Heike, too good for this world. I am absolutely open to any adventures you might take him on, and I mean that in the truest sense: whether canon fill-in or grand Legends of the Galactic Heroes space opera AU or a tumble through Japanese mythology/Noh plays/???, I am down for anything you can come up with. He's just so... good. For what little time we get him, Shigemori is a force of nobility and dignity and old-time Taira awesome, the last of the Good Ones, a mirrored bookend on the other side of the tale from, say, Atsumori.

I adore Shigemori's competence, his ability to stand up to his father, his presence in the story despite how little time he has. The bittersweet tragedy of him not living long enough to become a villain (come on, who really gets out of the Genpei drama without some egg on their face?) is like candy to me.

Some ideas:

  • What happens if he lives and Kiyomori doesn't?
  • I am 100% – nay, 1000% – here for something a little magical realist or mythological: there are so many SIGNS! and SYMBOLS! in Heike. Was there something about the whirlwind before Shigemori's death that was significant? Does he come back as a ghost? Do you want him to haunt Kiyomori until Kiyomori stops being an asshole sees skulls and dogs baying? Or maybe he comes back as a hidden bodhisattva?
  • I will read anything competence porn related for Shigemori. You could write about him sitting at a desk thinking about trade deals, urban planning, the logistics of keeping a household fed, what to wear next season, or wood drying and I would love it. Maybe a bit of his journal? Some of his letters?
  • External point of view of his retainers or [choose your own major character]?
  • I hereby opt-in for wish fulfilment semi-crack. Shigemori in a modern corporate AU, where he could maybe have not fallen ill and chosen Another Way for the Taira clan zaibatsu? Or something IN SPACE! You really can't go wrong with IN SPACE!
  • Going wildly in another direction, if you feel so inclined as to invent a Shigemori Noh play... I'd love even a sketched out version or liner notes of what that might look line.
  • Random in-universe (?) crossovers (?): I have absolutely no justification for wanting Shigemori to chill with/school Yoshitsune, but I do. Or, what would have happened if Soujoubou randomly adopted Shigemori?
  • I very much love the general fatalistic mood of the canon, and how rocks-fall-everybody-dies doesn't matter because the candleflames of people's lives still burn bright for a while. I happily opt-in to character death and sadness &c. &c., as well as you pairing Shigemori up with anyone if you want to go that way.

Regarding canon and related canons: I am thoroughly unfussed about canon sources. My English copy is the Royall Tyler and I own it in annotated classical Japanese as well – but romanise however you want! My Heike knowledge is broad but also really piecemeal, as is my general knowledge of Japanese literature as a whole; I will happily suck up any links to source material/footnotes if you feel inclined to go Heike-wild. It would make my year to receive some random reference to anything Genji/Genpei/Hogen/Heiji/random Noh or kabuki or movie or anime/poetry/woodblock carvings/weirdly obscure facts about Kyoto. If, for some reason, you stick some Japanese references in, I will happily go look them up. But I also honestly don't care if you wallpaper all of that in favour of just going with... Shigemori vibes, for a lack of a better term: I'm not fussed with historical accuracy if you're not aiming for historical accuracy.

P.S. If you're reading this section of my letter and comprehending anything I'm writing to begin with, believe me when I say I'm already just gleeful that someone out there wants to read or write some Heike too.

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Hikaru no Go (Anime)

Touya Kouyou, Ogata Seiji. (Use one or both)

Hikaru no Go, back in the tagset for one renewed/last glorious year! I'd love to see, above all, old man troll Touya Kouyou, happy in his retirement and ravaging the Go universe with his newfound freedom from giving a damn about all the boring bits related to professional Go like showing up for events or being polite or, you know, making sense. I love the idea of the man being freed from the chains of being a generational Face For Go and just rolling around doing whatever he wants, wherever he wants, whenever he wants, breaking young players' brains and generally being finding new ways to play a game he's loved forever. Perhaps he's learned how to be a different kind of parent/teacher/person since his game with Sai?

Out of Kouyou's somewhat zany collection of students, I particularly love Ogata because he's as zany as Akira and Hikaru but in his own crazy mid-30s way. He's so clearly physically an outsider but also just as clearly a Go insider – he's got an impeccable Go lineage and the wins to match even as he's sports-car-driving, obsessive doesn't-see-daylight person surrounded mostly by fishtanks. How did he end up where he is?

Put together, I am a sucker for the difference in their personalities and ages. I love how Ogata is voiced in the anime: all deferential to his teacher and politeness when he's usually running around chainsmoking and roughing up teenagers. How did they meet? Did Ogata have a tough time getting into the Go world and was Kouyou his ticket in? Have they ever fought? Has Kouyou ever intentionally needled Ogata into reacting in a certain way For His Development?

Some ideas:

  • Young man Kouyou: does he have his own go inheritance cross to bear, or was he the first?
  • Give me pre-retirement Kouyou, helping Ogata become the player he ends up being, whatever that looks like! Is there a study group war between Ogata and Akira? :3???
  • What is being Kouyou's apprentice even like? How has he changed over time? How did they meet?
  • What I would give for Touya Study Group dynamics. Kouyou and his motley crew, looking so dignified but actually just as go-mad as everyone else. Tell me whether he's the sort of teacher who drops students who don't achieve high rank, or does he see value in people for other traits: teaching, spying on others, actual emotional intelligence? (Spoiler alert: I'd love the latter) I'd adore a slice of life of that group if you want to go there!

Additional prompts in this letter:

  • Mid-career Kouyou: what was it like when he started getting all the titles and the fame and media attention was bearing down on him?
  • I'm 100% here for Kouyou's outsider opinion on anything, too, so if you want to write a Hikaru&/Akira story that's narrated from his POV, that would be incredible. The snark.
  • How does Kouyou make Ogata somehow behave like a real human being when they're both in the same room at the same time? What does he think of all those fish?
  • Ogata teaching Kouyou how technology works...
  • 5 times there was a sort of barrier (language, age, experience) between them and 1 time there was not

While I'm on this Japanese board game trip, I'd also adore a crossover with March Comes In Like A Lion, whether it involves one or both of these two! I am particularly fond of Shimada and Souya, and think it would be quite excellent to see these two worlds mushed together.

DNWs: Kouyou being end-game malicious towards Ogata (i.e. intending serious psychological harm as opposed to "I'm pushing you in a particular instance to make you better"). I'd be happy with either gen, ambiguous, or shippy fic, but would request no breaking up/persistent unhappiness in the Touya family as a result of it – you can either just not mention Kouyou's wife/Akira's opinions or have them ultimately be cool about it, even if there's initial discomfort.

I'm caught up on the manga as well if you want to use content from that!

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Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Kusanagi Motoko, Togusa. (Use one or both)

Whew, I recently re-watched the 1995 movie and am all awash with feelings about GitS again. SAC is so smart, so sharp, so good at what it does, and no one smashes competence porn buttons the way the Major does. Then there's Togusa, who's his own brand of sharp-as-a-tack with his physical fragility but with all of that detective-story goodness to what he brings to Section 9. I love the whole team top to bottom, honestly, but in the interest of scoping down this request...

I'd love to get another look at the Major and Togusa on the same case, whether they're working together or working it from completely separate angles. The Major states in the '95 movie that Togusa's in Section 9 because a system that's too one-of-a-type is doomed to eventually fail: I want to see that glorious interplay of their individual bests at work.

Case-fic is understandably hard, so maybe some bite-sized chunks could be...

  • Something a little crackier, where the case is a no-/low-stakes one involving... Section 9 supplies? Chief Aramaki? Everyone's favourite equipment?
  • A snippet in the middle of a case that the fic doesn't necessarily solved: maybe they're in the middle of tracking down something/one very unusual, like someone totally without cybernetics at all who somehow ends up on their radar: give me a slice of what part of that investigation looks like when handled by either one of them/the way they might react philosophically towards a dead end in that case?

Alternatively, in this fandom I'd be up to receiving fic that focuses only on one or the other of the two! Some thoughts:

Kusanagi:

  • What does she do during her time off? I particularly have always loved that small scene we see of her in bed with others while she surfs her external memories... Are those friends of hers? Something else?
  • How she feels about cybernetics as they evolve over time
  • What time/memory feels like to her
  • What does she feel about the individual members of her team?

Togusa:

  • What does Togusa look like when he's, say, Aramaki's age?
  • I adore Togusa and Batou banter: show me something where brain beats out brawn to the great amusement of the rest of the Section, maybe?
  • How did Togusa feel training for Section 9? Are there times where he has to re-up qualifications that feel particularly burdensome to him, or does he breeze through in ways people don't expect?

In general, I love the lush world of Ghost in the Shell and how well SAC has aged given everything; it remains one of my favourite philosophical canons to think about and chew on. If you want to delve into the Major disappearing into the vastness of the ocean of data and what that looks like: go for it! Other conceptual ideas I'd be fascinated to see played with are things like... how does game-playing look in the world of SAC? How do you detach from Section 9, if ever? If you want to cross this fandom over into, say, The Culture (Special Circumstances??), or Discworld (Vimes??) or something else, I'd be delighted to read it.

Alternatively, I'd love something lighter-hearted as much as something with a lot of thinky-thoughts. Maybe...

  • What does a Section 9 party look like?
  • How do the Tachikoma deal with Togusa having a very bad cold?
  • When is the Major... more human? Is she secretly very bad at, say, blending in at... an art gallery?

DNW: perma-death of any Section 9 member. Any other kind of death/reincarnation/reconstitution/entering the Matrix 'net is totally up for philosophical grabs :D

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Sex Therapy - Cathexis (Webcomic)

Andreas Hughes, Elliot Graham

(This canon is available for free!)

While I am all aboard the OT3 train for this canon, I have an especial fondness for Andreas/Elliot – I am 100% here for Andreas executing emotional intelligence competence porn and Elliot living his best life while also simultaneously pining away in denial. (If you'd like to write OT3 and matched to me, even though I'm not requesting Haruto, go for it, though!)

Andreas seems to know exactly how deep in he is while he plays a game of catch-and-release with Elliot while not getting into a pissing contest with Haruto: all that lived experience from his divorce and accepting himself late in the game coming into play. I would love to see more of his kill-them-with-kindness approach, whether it's in the way his d/s dynamic with Elliot plays out or just in the way he conducts his relationships outside of the bedroom. Or of Elliot realising in turn how deep in he is too, and whatever sort of mental gymnastics he has to do to make that work for him.

That said, like I mentioned above, the awesome thing about Sex Therapy is how each of the boys bring their own competencies and damage to the table, and I'm here for all of it and their hopeful happily-ever-after: them figuring out a long-term arrangement for themselves, them continuing their slow-boil simmer of unresolved tension, magical future fic where it's all figured out, alternate universes... As long as Andreas and Elliot are front and centre, feel free to write anything about the three main characters in pretty much any setting you can think of.

Some ideas:

  • Elliot continuing to use d/s bedroom dynamics to manage his emotional vulnerabilities until
  • Andreas/Elliot and kink. You can't go wrong here. I will read a billion words about their d/s dynamic, or Elliot getting spanked for his birthday. Happy, sad, mad, ALL OF IT.
  • I love the interplay of Elliot letting himself be looked after by Andreas and then letting himself look after Haruto as time goes on. What does this look like played allll the way out?
  • Andreas Gets Mad, you pick the reason: maybe he sees Haruto take shit from someone outside of their normal interactions, or one of Elliot's other hookups do something bad
  • Food porn and edging. Yup. Why not.
  • Someone has to go out of town for a prolonged period of time. Phone sex, or email sex, or incredibly good-bad sexting ensues.
  • It's dress-up day.
  • There's a bet/dare/challenge. They're all of them grown adults who shouldn't be doing stupid things because of a stupid bet. And yet... Some ideas: most number of days someone can hold out without getting off, try need food month, Kinktober IRL...
  • Elliot and the vocabulary of dating and what it means to him
  • Do anything that concerns their spread in age, life experiences, and energy and I'll love it. Maybe hanging out with Haruto injects some spontaneity back into Andreas' life; maybe basking in Andreas' stability and emotional openness settles Haruto down; maybe Elliot's professional career is taking out and it requires some changes/compromises

If you really want to lean into the pining, I'd love fic set before the potential resolution of the OT3/otherwise! Some ideas:

  • Andreas taking Elliot on the most romantic of dates and Elliot being so entirely happy about it as long as no one mentions how it's romantic. Bonus points for Andreas managing to derail Elliot from panicking if/when Elliot realises what's happening
  • Elliot overhears Andreas talking to Jenn about him and has feelings
  • For Reasons, their pets have to be together for some duration of time (someone's apartment's water main shuts down and a hotel won't take pets on short notice, maybe?) and... love each other. Hmmmmm....

Please also feel free to cash out this HUGE BLANK CHEQUE I'd like to write for any kink in this canon: omorashi/watersports, comeplay, impact play, edging, public sex &c. &c. I have read all of the additional Sex Therapy content on Cathexis' Patreon if you want to use that as canon, but am just as happy to pretend it doesn't exist. While my general dislikes indicate please no lingering daddy kink, it's okay to have it come up in this fandom during sex scenes – it's certainly part of the canon dynamic! I'd prefer if it were kept to light teasing/namecalling rather than going into a very long scene kinking on it :)

DNWs: I am all here for any of the three main characters pining like crazy during the course of whatever you produce, but I'd prefer no ugly other-person-blaming jealousy. Jealousy that the other person exists and is such an awesome person is great! Bitterly wanting bad things to happen to the other person or viewing them as a negative obstacle, please avoid.

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