Dear Yuletide Writer 2021
Oct. 20th, 2021 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raspberryhunterDear Yuletide Writer,
My Yuletide Tradition is to write Way Too Many Words in my letter. Feel free to ignore these ideas and use your own — I love seeing how other people think about my favorite fandoms, and I love seeing interpretations that are different from mine (some of my favorite fics are the ones that made me look at things in a new way). Also, please don't read anything into the amount of stuff I have written for each fandom; I would be extremely pleased to receive anything for any of these, otherwise I would not have requested them. :D
General: I am open to most things! I am a fan of gen, but I'm totally open to het/slash/femslash. I very much welcome alternative ways of telling stories -- IF, epistolary fic, text messages/tweets, poetry, DW-thread-comments, what-have-you, yes please!! Crossovers would also be more than fine between these fandoms. Darkfic/character death is great and even encouraged for at least some of these fandoms (though please tag and check the fandom-specific DNWs). I love fork-in-the-road type AUs for any fandom. For setting-changed AUs, I would adore them for the RPF categories, but not for the others. Basically I'm okay with most things as long as you tag for it so I know what I'm getting into!
Things I love: (I don't expect all of these by any means, this is just a sampling of Things That Make Me Happy): I love worldbuilding fic and plotty fic. I love character-driven fic that thinks hard about the ramifications of characters' choices. I love most of all for there to be some sort of character arc, or characters (and/or the reader) coming to a greater understanding of something or someone during a fic. I love and adore deep friendship/partnerships, especially platonic ones, of all gender-variety. I love loyalty and duty bonds (and I have a special place in my heart for physical expressions of fealty bonds, like kneeling or ritualized oath-swearing). I love it when all the characters are understandable rather than straight-out villainous or malicious, or where expectations of malice are subverted. I love when something or some implication is clear to the reader that is not clear to the characters, or some subset of the characters, because we have knowledge (about the actual canon, for example) that they don't have.
DNW: PWP; unrequested poly; graphic gratuitous violence/gore; infidelity involving characters whose fidelity is an important part of their character (e.g. Consort Jing, Brother Thomas) or involving characters who plausibly or canonically have faithful romantic relationships (like Jeff/Dicey). (I have no problems with infidelity that plausibly occurs in canon, like the Emperor.) For tragic/dark endings: Please check the canon-specific DNWs, as for some of my requested fandoms/characters I don't want them to hvae an unhappy ending, or an ending with no hope. But if I don't have a canon-specific DNW about it, then tragedy/death/whatever is fine -- and encouraged! -- if tagged. Please no references to current politics/current events.
Tillerman Cycle - Voigt (Any) - This is an OR/ANY request.
I am blown away by how amazing these books are in terms of depth of character, thematic development of love and friendship and growing up and holding on and letting go and community and how we give to each other… I would love anything for these books. Any character. What you want to write, what interests you, that's what I want to hear about! I requested some I love, and I have a couple of prompts I'm super interested in, but really any character at all would be wonderful, and in the spirit of how Voigt is always thinking about the humanity of all the characters. I have gotten some amaaaaazing fic for this fandom, and I am greedy so I want more :D
I nominated Brother Thomas specifically because I reread A Solitary Blue this year, and I already loved Brother Thomas because of his cheerful snarkiness, but then he broke my heart with his crisis of faith -- the part where he keeps on his habit because he's not sure he would put it on again if he took it off? Oh, Thomas <3 Horace Greene seems to think it's an issue of living in love, which clearly harks back to his own experiences; is he being perceptive or is he projecting? I would just love to read more about this. I totally see Brother Thomas, Horace Greene, and Jeff Greene as a family; whether you want to write Thomas/Horace as a ship or not is up to you (and certainly it is complicated by Thomas' vows), write this in whatever way is true to your conception of the characters and I will love it -- I'd just request that Thomas not break his vows, so if there were a sexual relationship it would have to be after giving up his vocation. I only care very much that all three of them are bonded by love. (And the different kinds of families bonded by love, of course, is a major theme of the Tillerman books.) I think that there is some textual evidence that he remains a monk -- at the end of Come a Stranger, years later, he's referred to as Brother Thomas -- but I'm happy to read about it either way and I think either way could be super interesting; just tag if he doesn't remain a monk :)
And Mina Smiths! I just madly adore Come a Stranger and its moving depiction of her family and community, and how they are a whole entity. <3 What happens to Mina? How does she find law school? I imagine it will be interesting for her trying to juggle her career ambitions and romance; how might this play out? I kinda ship her and Tamer's son Samuel in a "if they met again as grownups they might really understand each other well" kind of way -- what would it be like if they met again as grownups? How does her friendship with Dicey progress? Does it change as they pursue their careers and their lives with their families and communities (however that looks)?
And then there's Gram, who also breaks my heart when I think about her living with her husband after Bullet's death. For years, just the two of them. And then he dies and she's all alone. Agh! And then there's her other son John, who looked like he was on his way to replicate his father -- is there a way he can be saved from that, can he and Gram reconcile in any way?
I have a whole lot more words about these books (with a lot more prompts) in the series of posts here.
Canon-specific DNWs: My no-infidelity DNW also includes infidelity of Thomas with respect to God, as mentioned above. Also, I don't want Dicey POV (only since we get a lot of it in the books; I don't mind Dicey showing up in the story at all). I really, really want a Tillerman story to have a good ending, by which I don't mean an unalloyed happy ending — what I guess I mean here is I need a fic where the characters grow and learn, and where they're able to keep their family together, and I'm assured they're going to be OK together, even if bad things happen in the meantime. Gram dies and the adult kids come together to figure it out as they've always figured it out? Great! Alternate-universe fic where Verricker meets James and Sammy and absolutely crushes them but Maybeth sees right through him and puts her brothers straight in the end? Bring it on! Alternate-universe fic where the kids never make it to Gram in Homecoming and get separated into orphanages forever? Or fic where Johnny propagates his father's ways without changing? Please no. Thank you!
琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV) (Consort Jing)
This show, wow. All the complicated characters and plot twists and identity shenanigans, and deep deep bonds of loyalty and friendship and family, and private vs. public duty, the wonderful ensemble scenes, and awesome female characters and awesome moms of both the good and evil persuasions. And of course the most awesome mom of them all is Consort Jing. She's super nice, super smart, super perceptive, is playing the long game -- but can be ruthless when that's called for. She is just the best.
I basically want anything with her! Some ideas (but write whatever you would like with her!):
-I never got over the throwaway line where she went into the palace to doctor Consort Chen and then she never came out again, gahhhh. Surely she, even years back, was canny and thoughtful enough to get out of having to marry the Emperor, and it doesn't sound like the sort of life she'd choose -- so what happened? Did the Emperor threaten/blackmail her in some way? Was she trying to protect Consort Chen?
-Anything about her navigating the tricky politics of the Inner Court. Consort Jing and Consort Chen solving mysteries together? Go for it!!
-The last scene with her and the Emperor is one where she finally shows her true feelings about the Chiyan case and he is angry with her -- and we know he dies a while later -- but what happens in between? (My headcanon is that she nurses him through that -- but what would that have been like? What is their relationship like then? Gosh.)
-Post-canon fic where she takes a break from being Empress Dowager (or whatever her title would be after the Emperor dies) and wanders around as the itinerant doctor she was before she was a concubine, and at some point runs across Fei Liu or perhaps Lin Chen. (And/or, if you wanted to make it a fix-it AU, Lin Shu...)
-...actually, now that I think about it, anything with Consort Jing and Lin Chen together, set at any point during, pre, or post canon, would be hilarious and I am so up for that!
-I don't think Consort Jing gets to talk much to Nihuang or Xia Dong in canon, but wouldn't that be amazing?
Canon-specific DNW: I do not want Consort Jing to have an ending of death or despair. I would like her to live, and even if terrible things happen to her or those she loves, let her move toward grace and acceptance as she's so good at doing in canon. (Character death for anyone else is fine.)
The Scholomance (Worldbuilding) - ETA 10-25: Apparently I also requested Scholomance?? Anyway, it's an OR request at least in one direction: Scholomance does NOT need to be a character, but if you write about the Scholomance I'd expect at least a bit of worldbuilding in there :) ) There will be spoilers for The Last Graduate in this writeup; I will try to keep them as implicit as possible but probably best not to read if you haven't read Graduate yet.
-I would love anything about the Scholomance or from the Scholomance's POV. What did it think about... everything that happened?? What was it like for the Scholomance when it was founded, what was it thinking about all the years that it had all those kids dying, what was it thinking during the events of Education and Graduate, eeeeeverything! In Education, had it come up with a plan yet? Was all of what happened in that book part of its plan? Or did it only come up with one after seeing those events? (In the last scene of Graduate, my heart kind of broke in a really happy way for the Scholomance, which is... not something I would have thought before reading Graduate.)
-You know, one of the things I was totally not expecting to be touched by and totally was, was the London enclavers and how they made their role at the end, and I was touched by what El said about how maybe all the idealism they were taught sank in more than their parents wanted it to. I reeeeeally want to know what they were thinking during the events of The Last Graduate, and how they came to decide that they were going to do that (I imagine it would be something that involved a Lot of discussion and back-and-forth), how they went from totally buying into the selfish-enclave-only paradigm to something where of their own free will they chose to be all in to El's plan, more than she had even asked them to be.
-The Shanghai enclavers! Would love to know what's going on from their point of view and whether they made something of the emotional journey that we see a tiny bit of with the Londer enclavers, or whether they just resent El the whole time (ugh, I hope not -- or at least I hope not all of them do!) and double points if there's more about the outside conflicts and maybe how that plays into all of this. And also that reveal about El being like a reviser -- we are probably going to get more about that in the third book, so I dont' necessarily need a fic that builds post-book plot on that (although honestly would love that if that's what you want to do!!) but I'm quite interested on how the Shanghai enclavers react to that observation during Graduate and how it informs how they feel and what they do.
-The wizards who founded the Scholomance. What were they thinking about as they designed it, how did their idealism clash with their dated assumptions about society? What various powers did they give the Scholomance, and how did that combine to make the Scholomance we know from the books?
Competency porn here where the wizards are just Really Really good at what they do and describing how the spells do different things and mesh up completely or whatever would be Quite Welcomed :D (Also, I think the founders are probably mostly old white guys, but I would LOVE for there to be a few women and POC in there, as long as it doesn't get issueficcy, like, I don't want the fic to be all about How POC-Female-OC Totally Pwned Old White Guys, but it stands to reason that there might be some great non-old-white-guys who had some extremely useful skills, and it would go along with the theme of the books in working together and would maybe also explain how the Scholomance got some of its ideas...? ...I realized while writing this that my headcanon for Scholomance founding is sort of this vague crossover with Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, which if you wanted to run with either implicitly or explicitly would be fine with me :D Or other crossovers that I'm familiar with would be great as well! "A Study in Emerald" might be amazing!)
-If you have some other idea about worldbuilding, WRITE IT FOR ME, I AM ON BOARD. Want to fanwank how so many kids could get killed by mals without the entire wizard population getting killed off? Explain where mals came from in the first place? Examine the power dynamics between the different enclaves and the non-enclaved in the outside world? Examine how the economics of a world works where power is based on doing things you hate (except, I guess, for Orion)? DO IT! I WANT IT ALL :D
Fandom-specific DNW: I don't want a fic from the POV of El or Orion. (I love them and would be totally happy for them to have a major part in the fic, just don't want their POV for this particular request.) Extremely dark is encouraged and canon-compliant :) but would rather not have zero hope at the end -- if your story takes you there, then so be it, but please tag! (And to be clear, "rocks fall everyone dies" is an acceptable non-zero-hope ending IF it means that they died for something, that their dying wasn't in vain and that they knew that.)
The Matter of Seggri (Worldbuilding) - I saw this in the tagset and immediately realized I had to rejigger my requests so I could request it :D Le Guin's prose is so spare and beautiful, and her worldbuilding and ethnographical sensibilities are so sharply perceptive -- and Seggri is such a horror story of a society, and yet the true horror is in the way it's a mirror to our society and mirrors horrors we almost take for granted (and then there are horrors they don't have that our mirrored society does... but, to balance it, they have horrors we don't have). And yet there is some hope, at the end...!
I want everything! This is a canon where everything falls under Worldbuilding, so I am also happy if you write about one of the "canon" characters (what happened to Kaza? To Ittu? To Ardar -- what was his life like if/when he returned as a mobile?) I love how there are different sorts of media that tell the story, and all the things that could be elaborated upon. A short story or memoir that gives a different perspective? What is The Founding of Emmo like, or any of the other Epics? Is there ever an exception to men having no power, perhaps one of the Lords of the Castles or something like that? Ardar tells us of the early days after the Open Gate Law; what is it like after what we get in the story? Is there anything like fandom in Seggri, and what is it like?
No formal canon-specific DNWs. I think I'd prefer if there were some hope to the story (or, like canon, if there are several stories but only the last one has hope, that would be great) -- but idek! There are really interesting stories to tell here that don't! So it's totally okay if it doesn't, just please tag for dark/despairing endings, thank you!
18th Century CE Frederician RPF (Fritz, Voltaire, Heinrich)
I would prefer all three characters; however, I am aware that some of my prompts don't lend themselves to all three showing up in a major way, so I'm happy for one of the three to have a more cameo role. This includes Voltaire showing up only in snarky quotes (real or made-up is fine!), which I am more than happy with :D
I got pulled into this fandom a while back and have been finding myself totally enthralled by the relationships between this set of characters. I am fascinated by Fritz' brother Heinrich, who had an extremely dysfunctional love/hate relationship with his brother (where Fritz treated him in a way that was strongly reminiscent of the way that his father treated him, and Heinrich alternately fought against it and knuckled down to it).
And then there's Voltaire, who is just awesome in the way that he Could Not Let Things Go (which had both good and bad consequences), and his hateship-can't-live-with-him-can't-live-without-him with Fritz is just hilarious :D
Some thoughts/prompts, but don't feel restricted to these:
-Voltaire has to rescue Frederick the Great from being taken captive (by Maria Theresia??) by the power of his pen, which Fritz is NOT happy about! (About being beholden to Voltaire, that is, who is obviously neeeeever going to let Fritz live this down.) Meanwhile, Heinrich is regent...
-This fandom in SPAAAAACE, can you imagine the space battles between Maria Theresia and Fritz, and Heinrich as a SPAAAACE general :D (SPAAACE Abbess Amalie, y/y??) Or really any AU! Time-traveling? Corporate? Magic with dragons? Magic AU European history in Scholomance world?? Yes please!
-Anything with Heinrich and Catherine the Great/Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst being BFFs, I think it is hilarious and awesome that this is canon. Really, anything! I would particularly love the AU where Heinrich has to marry Sophie and this devolves into them double-crossing and back-stabbing each other, as long as they were able to remain friends and enjoying each other's company even while plotting against each other :D
-Fritz Freaky-Friday bodyswitch! Fritz/Heinrich? Fritz/someone else, like Fritz/Mme Pompadour?? Can you imagine how Voltaire would react?!assuming he didn't die of laughter Would it be great for Fritz to have to depend on Émilie Du Châtelet, of all people, to be the architect of figuring out how to get them to switch back, y/y? :D
16th Century CE Hapsburgs RPF (Any) - okay, I just found out about these Awesome People this year, and I waaaaaant fic about them! A few potential prompts (I'm not prompting for everyone, but just to be clear, I'd love fic about any of them):
-I feel bad for Charles V that he forever regretted not breaking his word to Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, especially since actually executing Luther would probably have made him a martyr and the Reformation would have happened anyway. I'd love a story where Charles was able to see the AU and see what would have happened, and that killing Luther wouldn't in fact have been the right choice either (although idk, maybe that would trigger an even more profound spiritual crisis because what does it mean to a faithful Catholic that the Reformation was inevitable??)
-Barbara Blomberg taking on the Duke of Alva and Philip II and winning tickles me, and would love to see fic of that!
-Juana I, who I had learned as a teenager was mad -- but whose madness, I learned recently... was mostly talked about by people who had something to gain from it... really what I want for her is fix-it fic! (But non-fix-it "let's see how it could have been broken" would also be welcome!)
-Margaret of Parma: She is so cool, and also it's heartbreaking how Philip would never just, you know, let her be cool and had to always be overruling her! Something where she gets to outwit Philip or do something awesome despite him? Fix-its always welcome! Or! Gotta say I am now suuuuuuper curious as to what she thought of her first husband Alessandro de Medici and all his shenanigans. Would love to read about TeenDetective!Margaret slowly uncovering the Clues as to what was going on with his assassination and everything...
-Any setting-changed AU, yes please!
Fandom-specific DNWs: none
Where to find canon / How much canon:
The Tillerman series is seven books, but they're fast reads. Available at most libraries/bookstores, I think?
I don't know where to find Nirvana in Fire currently, but I'm sure the folks at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nirvana_in_fire would know and be more than happy to help! It's 54 episodes! but they go very quickly :)
Two out of the three Scholomance books have been published; they should be available at your local bookstore and/or library :D Fast reads!
"The Matter of Seggri" is available here. Short story/novelette, though it packs a lot into a relatively small space.
Frederician RPF now has its own community atrheinsberg, and if there's any character that you are interested in, clicking on the tag for that character will give you a wealth of information. Note that the tags are by the Anglicized name, so Heinrich, for example, comes out as "Prince Henry of Prussia."
You can read about the Hapsburgs in Game of Queens by Sarah Gristwood.
My Yuletide Tradition is to write Way Too Many Words in my letter. Feel free to ignore these ideas and use your own — I love seeing how other people think about my favorite fandoms, and I love seeing interpretations that are different from mine (some of my favorite fics are the ones that made me look at things in a new way). Also, please don't read anything into the amount of stuff I have written for each fandom; I would be extremely pleased to receive anything for any of these, otherwise I would not have requested them. :D
General: I am open to most things! I am a fan of gen, but I'm totally open to het/slash/femslash. I very much welcome alternative ways of telling stories -- IF, epistolary fic, text messages/tweets, poetry, DW-thread-comments, what-have-you, yes please!! Crossovers would also be more than fine between these fandoms. Darkfic/character death is great and even encouraged for at least some of these fandoms (though please tag and check the fandom-specific DNWs). I love fork-in-the-road type AUs for any fandom. For setting-changed AUs, I would adore them for the RPF categories, but not for the others. Basically I'm okay with most things as long as you tag for it so I know what I'm getting into!
Things I love: (I don't expect all of these by any means, this is just a sampling of Things That Make Me Happy): I love worldbuilding fic and plotty fic. I love character-driven fic that thinks hard about the ramifications of characters' choices. I love most of all for there to be some sort of character arc, or characters (and/or the reader) coming to a greater understanding of something or someone during a fic. I love and adore deep friendship/partnerships, especially platonic ones, of all gender-variety. I love loyalty and duty bonds (and I have a special place in my heart for physical expressions of fealty bonds, like kneeling or ritualized oath-swearing). I love it when all the characters are understandable rather than straight-out villainous or malicious, or where expectations of malice are subverted. I love when something or some implication is clear to the reader that is not clear to the characters, or some subset of the characters, because we have knowledge (about the actual canon, for example) that they don't have.
DNW: PWP; unrequested poly; graphic gratuitous violence/gore; infidelity involving characters whose fidelity is an important part of their character (e.g. Consort Jing, Brother Thomas) or involving characters who plausibly or canonically have faithful romantic relationships (like Jeff/Dicey). (I have no problems with infidelity that plausibly occurs in canon, like the Emperor.) For tragic/dark endings: Please check the canon-specific DNWs, as for some of my requested fandoms/characters I don't want them to hvae an unhappy ending, or an ending with no hope. But if I don't have a canon-specific DNW about it, then tragedy/death/whatever is fine -- and encouraged! -- if tagged. Please no references to current politics/current events.
Tillerman Cycle - Voigt (Any) - This is an OR/ANY request.
I am blown away by how amazing these books are in terms of depth of character, thematic development of love and friendship and growing up and holding on and letting go and community and how we give to each other… I would love anything for these books. Any character. What you want to write, what interests you, that's what I want to hear about! I requested some I love, and I have a couple of prompts I'm super interested in, but really any character at all would be wonderful, and in the spirit of how Voigt is always thinking about the humanity of all the characters. I have gotten some amaaaaazing fic for this fandom, and I am greedy so I want more :D
I nominated Brother Thomas specifically because I reread A Solitary Blue this year, and I already loved Brother Thomas because of his cheerful snarkiness, but then he broke my heart with his crisis of faith -- the part where he keeps on his habit because he's not sure he would put it on again if he took it off? Oh, Thomas <3 Horace Greene seems to think it's an issue of living in love, which clearly harks back to his own experiences; is he being perceptive or is he projecting? I would just love to read more about this. I totally see Brother Thomas, Horace Greene, and Jeff Greene as a family; whether you want to write Thomas/Horace as a ship or not is up to you (and certainly it is complicated by Thomas' vows), write this in whatever way is true to your conception of the characters and I will love it -- I'd just request that Thomas not break his vows, so if there were a sexual relationship it would have to be after giving up his vocation. I only care very much that all three of them are bonded by love. (And the different kinds of families bonded by love, of course, is a major theme of the Tillerman books.) I think that there is some textual evidence that he remains a monk -- at the end of Come a Stranger, years later, he's referred to as Brother Thomas -- but I'm happy to read about it either way and I think either way could be super interesting; just tag if he doesn't remain a monk :)
And Mina Smiths! I just madly adore Come a Stranger and its moving depiction of her family and community, and how they are a whole entity. <3 What happens to Mina? How does she find law school? I imagine it will be interesting for her trying to juggle her career ambitions and romance; how might this play out? I kinda ship her and Tamer's son Samuel in a "if they met again as grownups they might really understand each other well" kind of way -- what would it be like if they met again as grownups? How does her friendship with Dicey progress? Does it change as they pursue their careers and their lives with their families and communities (however that looks)?
And then there's Gram, who also breaks my heart when I think about her living with her husband after Bullet's death. For years, just the two of them. And then he dies and she's all alone. Agh! And then there's her other son John, who looked like he was on his way to replicate his father -- is there a way he can be saved from that, can he and Gram reconcile in any way?
I have a whole lot more words about these books (with a lot more prompts) in the series of posts here.
Canon-specific DNWs: My no-infidelity DNW also includes infidelity of Thomas with respect to God, as mentioned above. Also, I don't want Dicey POV (only since we get a lot of it in the books; I don't mind Dicey showing up in the story at all). I really, really want a Tillerman story to have a good ending, by which I don't mean an unalloyed happy ending — what I guess I mean here is I need a fic where the characters grow and learn, and where they're able to keep their family together, and I'm assured they're going to be OK together, even if bad things happen in the meantime. Gram dies and the adult kids come together to figure it out as they've always figured it out? Great! Alternate-universe fic where Verricker meets James and Sammy and absolutely crushes them but Maybeth sees right through him and puts her brothers straight in the end? Bring it on! Alternate-universe fic where the kids never make it to Gram in Homecoming and get separated into orphanages forever? Or fic where Johnny propagates his father's ways without changing? Please no. Thank you!
琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV) (Consort Jing)
This show, wow. All the complicated characters and plot twists and identity shenanigans, and deep deep bonds of loyalty and friendship and family, and private vs. public duty, the wonderful ensemble scenes, and awesome female characters and awesome moms of both the good and evil persuasions. And of course the most awesome mom of them all is Consort Jing. She's super nice, super smart, super perceptive, is playing the long game -- but can be ruthless when that's called for. She is just the best.
I basically want anything with her! Some ideas (but write whatever you would like with her!):
-I never got over the throwaway line where she went into the palace to doctor Consort Chen and then she never came out again, gahhhh. Surely she, even years back, was canny and thoughtful enough to get out of having to marry the Emperor, and it doesn't sound like the sort of life she'd choose -- so what happened? Did the Emperor threaten/blackmail her in some way? Was she trying to protect Consort Chen?
-Anything about her navigating the tricky politics of the Inner Court. Consort Jing and Consort Chen solving mysteries together? Go for it!!
-The last scene with her and the Emperor is one where she finally shows her true feelings about the Chiyan case and he is angry with her -- and we know he dies a while later -- but what happens in between? (My headcanon is that she nurses him through that -- but what would that have been like? What is their relationship like then? Gosh.)
-Post-canon fic where she takes a break from being Empress Dowager (or whatever her title would be after the Emperor dies) and wanders around as the itinerant doctor she was before she was a concubine, and at some point runs across Fei Liu or perhaps Lin Chen. (And/or, if you wanted to make it a fix-it AU, Lin Shu...)
-...actually, now that I think about it, anything with Consort Jing and Lin Chen together, set at any point during, pre, or post canon, would be hilarious and I am so up for that!
-I don't think Consort Jing gets to talk much to Nihuang or Xia Dong in canon, but wouldn't that be amazing?
Canon-specific DNW: I do not want Consort Jing to have an ending of death or despair. I would like her to live, and even if terrible things happen to her or those she loves, let her move toward grace and acceptance as she's so good at doing in canon. (Character death for anyone else is fine.)
The Scholomance (Worldbuilding) - ETA 10-25: Apparently I also requested Scholomance?? Anyway, it's an OR request at least in one direction: Scholomance does NOT need to be a character, but if you write about the Scholomance I'd expect at least a bit of worldbuilding in there :) ) There will be spoilers for The Last Graduate in this writeup; I will try to keep them as implicit as possible but probably best not to read if you haven't read Graduate yet.
-I would love anything about the Scholomance or from the Scholomance's POV. What did it think about... everything that happened?? What was it like for the Scholomance when it was founded, what was it thinking about all the years that it had all those kids dying, what was it thinking during the events of Education and Graduate, eeeeeverything! In Education, had it come up with a plan yet? Was all of what happened in that book part of its plan? Or did it only come up with one after seeing those events? (In the last scene of Graduate, my heart kind of broke in a really happy way for the Scholomance, which is... not something I would have thought before reading Graduate.)
-You know, one of the things I was totally not expecting to be touched by and totally was, was the London enclavers and how they made their role at the end, and I was touched by what El said about how maybe all the idealism they were taught sank in more than their parents wanted it to. I reeeeeally want to know what they were thinking during the events of The Last Graduate, and how they came to decide that they were going to do that (I imagine it would be something that involved a Lot of discussion and back-and-forth), how they went from totally buying into the selfish-enclave-only paradigm to something where of their own free will they chose to be all in to El's plan, more than she had even asked them to be.
-The Shanghai enclavers! Would love to know what's going on from their point of view and whether they made something of the emotional journey that we see a tiny bit of with the Londer enclavers, or whether they just resent El the whole time (ugh, I hope not -- or at least I hope not all of them do!) and double points if there's more about the outside conflicts and maybe how that plays into all of this. And also that reveal about El being like a reviser -- we are probably going to get more about that in the third book, so I dont' necessarily need a fic that builds post-book plot on that (although honestly would love that if that's what you want to do!!) but I'm quite interested on how the Shanghai enclavers react to that observation during Graduate and how it informs how they feel and what they do.
-The wizards who founded the Scholomance. What were they thinking about as they designed it, how did their idealism clash with their dated assumptions about society? What various powers did they give the Scholomance, and how did that combine to make the Scholomance we know from the books?
Competency porn here where the wizards are just Really Really good at what they do and describing how the spells do different things and mesh up completely or whatever would be Quite Welcomed :D (Also, I think the founders are probably mostly old white guys, but I would LOVE for there to be a few women and POC in there, as long as it doesn't get issueficcy, like, I don't want the fic to be all about How POC-Female-OC Totally Pwned Old White Guys, but it stands to reason that there might be some great non-old-white-guys who had some extremely useful skills, and it would go along with the theme of the books in working together and would maybe also explain how the Scholomance got some of its ideas...? ...I realized while writing this that my headcanon for Scholomance founding is sort of this vague crossover with Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, which if you wanted to run with either implicitly or explicitly would be fine with me :D Or other crossovers that I'm familiar with would be great as well! "A Study in Emerald" might be amazing!)
-If you have some other idea about worldbuilding, WRITE IT FOR ME, I AM ON BOARD. Want to fanwank how so many kids could get killed by mals without the entire wizard population getting killed off? Explain where mals came from in the first place? Examine the power dynamics between the different enclaves and the non-enclaved in the outside world? Examine how the economics of a world works where power is based on doing things you hate (except, I guess, for Orion)? DO IT! I WANT IT ALL :D
Fandom-specific DNW: I don't want a fic from the POV of El or Orion. (I love them and would be totally happy for them to have a major part in the fic, just don't want their POV for this particular request.) Extremely dark is encouraged and canon-compliant :) but would rather not have zero hope at the end -- if your story takes you there, then so be it, but please tag! (And to be clear, "rocks fall everyone dies" is an acceptable non-zero-hope ending IF it means that they died for something, that their dying wasn't in vain and that they knew that.)
The Matter of Seggri (Worldbuilding) - I saw this in the tagset and immediately realized I had to rejigger my requests so I could request it :D Le Guin's prose is so spare and beautiful, and her worldbuilding and ethnographical sensibilities are so sharply perceptive -- and Seggri is such a horror story of a society, and yet the true horror is in the way it's a mirror to our society and mirrors horrors we almost take for granted (and then there are horrors they don't have that our mirrored society does... but, to balance it, they have horrors we don't have). And yet there is some hope, at the end...!
I want everything! This is a canon where everything falls under Worldbuilding, so I am also happy if you write about one of the "canon" characters (what happened to Kaza? To Ittu? To Ardar -- what was his life like if/when he returned as a mobile?) I love how there are different sorts of media that tell the story, and all the things that could be elaborated upon. A short story or memoir that gives a different perspective? What is The Founding of Emmo like, or any of the other Epics? Is there ever an exception to men having no power, perhaps one of the Lords of the Castles or something like that? Ardar tells us of the early days after the Open Gate Law; what is it like after what we get in the story? Is there anything like fandom in Seggri, and what is it like?
No formal canon-specific DNWs. I think I'd prefer if there were some hope to the story (or, like canon, if there are several stories but only the last one has hope, that would be great) -- but idek! There are really interesting stories to tell here that don't! So it's totally okay if it doesn't, just please tag for dark/despairing endings, thank you!
18th Century CE Frederician RPF (Fritz, Voltaire, Heinrich)
I would prefer all three characters; however, I am aware that some of my prompts don't lend themselves to all three showing up in a major way, so I'm happy for one of the three to have a more cameo role. This includes Voltaire showing up only in snarky quotes (real or made-up is fine!), which I am more than happy with :D
I got pulled into this fandom a while back and have been finding myself totally enthralled by the relationships between this set of characters. I am fascinated by Fritz' brother Heinrich, who had an extremely dysfunctional love/hate relationship with his brother (where Fritz treated him in a way that was strongly reminiscent of the way that his father treated him, and Heinrich alternately fought against it and knuckled down to it).
And then there's Voltaire, who is just awesome in the way that he Could Not Let Things Go (which had both good and bad consequences), and his hateship-can't-live-with-him-can't-live-without-him with Fritz is just hilarious :D
Some thoughts/prompts, but don't feel restricted to these:
-Voltaire has to rescue Frederick the Great from being taken captive (by Maria Theresia??) by the power of his pen, which Fritz is NOT happy about! (About being beholden to Voltaire, that is, who is obviously neeeeever going to let Fritz live this down.) Meanwhile, Heinrich is regent...
-This fandom in SPAAAAACE, can you imagine the space battles between Maria Theresia and Fritz, and Heinrich as a SPAAAACE general :D (SPAAACE Abbess Amalie, y/y??) Or really any AU! Time-traveling? Corporate? Magic with dragons? Magic AU European history in Scholomance world?? Yes please!
-Anything with Heinrich and Catherine the Great/Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst being BFFs, I think it is hilarious and awesome that this is canon. Really, anything! I would particularly love the AU where Heinrich has to marry Sophie and this devolves into them double-crossing and back-stabbing each other, as long as they were able to remain friends and enjoying each other's company even while plotting against each other :D
-Fritz Freaky-Friday bodyswitch! Fritz/Heinrich? Fritz/someone else, like Fritz/Mme Pompadour?? Can you imagine how Voltaire would react?!
16th Century CE Hapsburgs RPF (Any) - okay, I just found out about these Awesome People this year, and I waaaaaant fic about them! A few potential prompts (I'm not prompting for everyone, but just to be clear, I'd love fic about any of them):
-I feel bad for Charles V that he forever regretted not breaking his word to Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, especially since actually executing Luther would probably have made him a martyr and the Reformation would have happened anyway. I'd love a story where Charles was able to see the AU and see what would have happened, and that killing Luther wouldn't in fact have been the right choice either (although idk, maybe that would trigger an even more profound spiritual crisis because what does it mean to a faithful Catholic that the Reformation was inevitable??)
-Barbara Blomberg taking on the Duke of Alva and Philip II and winning tickles me, and would love to see fic of that!
-Juana I, who I had learned as a teenager was mad -- but whose madness, I learned recently... was mostly talked about by people who had something to gain from it... really what I want for her is fix-it fic! (But non-fix-it "let's see how it could have been broken" would also be welcome!)
-Margaret of Parma: She is so cool, and also it's heartbreaking how Philip would never just, you know, let her be cool and had to always be overruling her! Something where she gets to outwit Philip or do something awesome despite him? Fix-its always welcome! Or! Gotta say I am now suuuuuuper curious as to what she thought of her first husband Alessandro de Medici and all his shenanigans. Would love to read about TeenDetective!Margaret slowly uncovering the Clues as to what was going on with his assassination and everything...
-Any setting-changed AU, yes please!
Fandom-specific DNWs: none
Where to find canon / How much canon:
The Tillerman series is seven books, but they're fast reads. Available at most libraries/bookstores, I think?
I don't know where to find Nirvana in Fire currently, but I'm sure the folks at
nirvana_in_fire would know and be more than happy to help! It's 54 episodes! but they go very quickly :)Two out of the three Scholomance books have been published; they should be available at your local bookstore and/or library :D Fast reads!
"The Matter of Seggri" is available here. Short story/novelette, though it packs a lot into a relatively small space.
Frederician RPF now has its own community at
rheinsberg, and if there's any character that you are interested in, clicking on the tag for that character will give you a wealth of information. Note that the tags are by the Anglicized name, so Heinrich, for example, comes out as "Prince Henry of Prussia." You can read about the Hapsburgs in Game of Queens by Sarah Gristwood.
