Dear Yuletide Santa
Oct. 19th, 2015 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brigdhHi! Thank you so much for offering one of my fandoms. I look forward to whatever you write, and if you want to completely ignore the rest of this letter, that's totally fine. I am a big supporter of "optional details are optional". If anything is unclear or you want to ask a question, please feel free to contact me through the mods or leave an anonymous comment, and I'll reply as soon as possible. Some of my fandoms have more prompts than others. Please believe that has to do with how long I've been in a fandom, and not how much I care about it! I've simply had time to think about some canons more than others.
If you're into Yuletide stalking (and who isn't?), here's where to find me:
Email: brigdh at gmail
AO3: Brigdh (You'll probably notice that I've written for some of the fandoms I requested, but that doesn't mean you have to write the same sort of stories that I do. One of my favorite things is to see the way different people have different takes on the same story.)
Tumblr: Brigdh
Livejournal:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wordsofastory (obviously.)
Previous years' letters
Basics:
I'm open to porn, dark-fic, gen, and pretty much anything else you could think of. Happy endings, sad endings, and open/ambiguous endings are all welcome. Want to write death fic or angsty unrequited love? Go for it! Fluffy, teeth-rottingly cute kidfic? I'm into that. Completely filthy, shameless PWP? Yup. Plotty adventure or casefic? Love it. Missing scenes or worldbuilding/character studies where nothing happens? My favorite! Tentative slow-build first times, or fic with already established relationships? Both are wonderful! Weird stylistic conventions, like second person POV or iambic pentameter or unreliable narrators? Awesome!
- Feel free to include injury, illness, death, infidelity, racism, homophobia, classism, etc, as needed for your story. Or feel free to ignore such elements of the canons below! I'm good either way.
- Do not feel obligated to include Christmas (or whatever winter holiday-equivalent is appropriate to the fandom), but if you want to, feel free.
- For each of my requests, the characters are very much OR instead of AND. Want to write a story about Rose without Hannibal, TJ without Amal, etc? Go ahead! (You could probably guess this from the prompts I give below, but I wanted to be clear about it.)
- I also give prompts for characters I didn't request, and I want to give explicit permission that you are absolutely allowed to ignore my requested characters and write for any other character I mention. Or you can ignore those prompts, of course, if you prefer the characters we matched on!
- You'll notice that I list ships in each of my requests. This is just to provide useful information. I am always equally happy to read any of those relationships as platonic friends instead of lovers, or gen focused on a single character.
Dislikes:
I'm doing these first because there's fewer of them! I don't have any squicks, triggers, or strong DNWs (there's one exception, but it's fandom-specific, so I've got it down below in that fandom's section). There's very little in fic that I outright refuse to read; a good story will convince me to like almost anything. With that said, here are some of the tropes that I'm less interested in: soulbonding and soul mates; amnesia; bodyswap; mpreg; jealousy or possessiveness as a good, natural, or normal relationship element; Groundhog Day AUs; age difference as a kink (some of my ships canonically have age differences, and that's fine. Just please don't play it up as a power differential) and age regression. That's it! I'm a pretty easy-going reader. :)
Likes:
This section is much more fun! I like A LOT of stuff, as I said above. Action, case-fic, humor, curtain-fic, introspection, pining: all of them are great! I love nuance and subtlety (hmm, that is probably the worst request ever. I like it when authors complicate things?). I really love stories that dig deep, exploring a world or a character's interior.
- I LOVE found families, families of choice, loyalty kink, and everything similar to that. I especially love it when there are reasons why it's difficult or unusual for the characters to have a relationship, but they defy expectations by being devoted to one another anyway. I LOVE one character risking their life/sacrificing themselves to protect another. I really like it when characters show affection in unusual ways: if someone can never express themselves through words, but has to do it through touch; if someone expresses "I love you" by saying "ugh, you're the worst"; if someone always has to turn deep moments into a joke because their feelings are too strong to express seriously. Loyalty kink expressed through service or some kind of support (being your second in a fight! back-up in a debate! general sidekick duties) would be excellent. I'm also a big fan of poly relationships - the more the merrier! :D This can be happy threesomes where the feelings are equal on all three sides, but feel free to also write about messy relationships, about V-shaped relationships, about negotiations that go wrong, about characters who do not equally love all their partners.
- Established relationships are my jam. Show me how comfortable people have gotten with each other, how they know one another well enough to know all of their jokes and triggers and erogenous zones. And established doesn't have to mean problem-free! There's all sorts of troubles that tend to come up in relationships long after the first time, and I'd love a story about a fight and working through it. (Or resulting in a break-up, that'd be good too.)
- Hurt/comfort of all kinds, especially if the comfort leads to a deepening relationship. People getting ill, people getting beat up, people choosing to be tortured to protect someone else, people hiding injuries while trying to soldier on, people enduring long-term poor conditions (especially cold! I HATE being cold, and so I deeply identify with a character barely avoiding hypothermia), last minute rescues, confessions of feelings due to thinking you're about to die, care-taking, giving the hurt character a bath (especially hair washing!), and characters learning to be loved.
- I love funny stories, and all sorts of humor and banter and snark. Comedies of manners and farces are MY FAVORITES.
- I love vivid imagery and rich descriptions (it is hard to be too 'purple prose' for my taste), and all the things that fall under that: clothing-porn, food-porn, elaborately detailed settings and landscapes, etc. I love historical details and characters who make lots of obscure allusions in their dialogue. Epistolary fic is a HUGE favorite of mine. I also love stuff dealing with language itself, and how it can be used well or poorly: language barriers, bilingual conversations, translations, code-switching, slang, jargon, secret codes – anything and everything like that is like candy to me.
- I adore all sorts of silly fanfic tropes, but here are some of my favorites: Genderswap (particularly of the "always-a-girl/boy" type rather than "woke up one morning" type), crossdressing, arranged marriage/marriage of convenience, pretend couple/fake dating, roadtrips, huddling for warmth, masquerades/disguises/undercover, trapped together (snowed in cabin, handcuffs, etc), "five things", swordfights, sexual tension (mutual or not; resolved or unresolved), friends-to-lovers and especially FWB to more, sex pollen, A/B/O, and platonic bed sharing.
- I love AUs, both of the "canon divergent" and the "completely alternative setting" types. I think they're a fantastic way of exploring what is essential to a character's personality, and what is merely surface, and that's what I find most interesting about them. It's so neat to explore how a different setting/upbringing/choice might or might not change a person. Some specific types of AUs I like are: pirates, pretty much any historical period, Robin Hood/conmen/criminals, rebels, steampunk, cyberpunk, apocalypses (especially zombies!), daemons, and circuses.
Porn: I love everything from PWP to ship fic with fade-to-black to gen. If you're interested in including sex scenes in your fic, my details are here.
Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly - Rose, Hannibal
What is it? A 13 book series about Benjamin January, a free black man who solves mysteries in 1830s New Orleans. If you're considering picking up this fandom, I would recommend reading the third book, Graveyard Dust, as it's probably the most comprehensive single book in terms of characters. But to be honest, this would be a hard fandom to pick up at the last minute. I have a tag for this fandom, if you'd like to see some other things I've written about it: http://wordsofastory.livejournal.com/tag/ben%20january
My Ships: Ben/Rose/Hannibal (or any two of the three, or V-shaped configurations), Rose/Cora, Hannibal/Dominique, Dominique/Chloe(/Henri), Ben/Ayasha, Augustus/Madeleine Mayerling
My Request: Some of my favorite things about this series are the amazing historical detail and world-building, the treatment of complex real-world issues, and the kindness and respect and love of the characters for one another, as well as their humor and total dorkiness. I love how huge the world is; you could write a story about any background character and I would be fascinated by it. With Rose, I love her determination and stubbornness to have the life she wants, and how she's capable of being utterly ruthless when the situation calls for it. I also love her awkward, logical kindness. She tends to prefer books to people, and I am SO THERE with her. I love how cool and unemotional she is in a crisis, and her wry sense of humor at others' more dramatic emotions.
With Hannibal, I love that he is SUCH a fucking failbucket, and yet utterly aware of it, and how he's so grateful to those who are friends with him anyway. I really like the times when he manages to subtly undercut the privileges of his position compared to the others. I love how he makes friends with absolutely everyone he meets, and I love the slow growth over the series of his natural empathy, from a passive, fatalistic sympathy to actively going out of his way to do what he can for others.
Optional prompts:
- Really, anything at all about my OT3. Domestic fluff with them cooking and playing music and making dumb Latin jokes and critiquing opera or going to a Mardi Gras party in costumes. I'm sure Hannibal would be very willing to help either of them expand their sexual repertoire. Give them a new case to solve, or an adventure that doesn't start with Ben playing detective! Are there backstories to the nicknames Hannibal uses for them, Athene and amicus meus? Hannibal goes through terrible Days of the Dead/Feast of All Souls in both 1835 (the end of ‘Days of the Dead’) and 1836 (the end of ‘Dead and Buried’), so I feel he deserves a happy, fluffy experience of the holiday (1837’s would fall between ‘The Shirt on His Back’ and ‘Ran Away’, just fyi). I would LOVE a first time fic set post-'Crimson Angel', where the events of that book leads to a change in their relationship.
- For a focus on Rose/Hannibal, how did their first meeting go? How about Hannibal teaching Rose to pick locks (and/or the two of them attempting to teach Ben!)? Tell me more about what they did around the time of 'Hagar'. I'd love to hear more about what Rose was thinking during 'Dead and Buried', and what she thinks about Hannibal's backstory. In ‘Crimson Angel’ there’s an offhand mention that Hannibal is writing a poem for Rose; despite all of his quotations, he’s so detached and ironic that it’s really hard to picture him being open and earnest enough to write a poem, so I want to hear all about that. (Also, does he write a poem for Ben?)
- For Ben/Hannibal, the world NEEDS furtive make-outs in the backroom of some opera/ball/private party. Or tell me about Ben's feelings when Hannibal moves away to Mexico. I'd like to see Ben comparing Hannibal to Edgar Allan Poe either during or after 'Good Man Friday'; they have some obvious similarities, and also obvious differences. These trips to Mexico and DC are also excellent opportunities for epistolary fic.
- This fandom does not yet have a single modern AU! You should write one. :D
- I'd love withdrawal angst fic, either about Hannibal's first failed attempt (mentioned in 'Dead Water') or second successful effort (in 'The Shirt on His Back'). This would also be an excellent excuse for H/C OT3 fic, just saying.
- If you want to write gen, Rose-backstory about her time at school in New York would be AMAZING.
- I'd also love something about Rose and Cora, either as children or after Cora comes to New Orleans, or about Rose and Chloe being academic women friends. Rose/Cora or Rose/Chloe femslash would also be great.
- Hannibal seems to be friends with Marie Laveau (in 'Ran Away'), and I'd love to know how they met or how they get along. I would also love a story about Hannibal and Minou hanging out and being flirtatious gossiping BFFs. Does Hannibal help her prepare her clothing/make up/hair before a ball? Does she offer to comfort him after some other woman breaks up with him? Does he tease her about Henri (and/or Chloe)? Or maybe they're just totally platonic fuckbuddies who enjoy each other's company! Poetry and music and being charming and fashion and coffee would all be wonderful elements.
- Ben/Ayasha: I want to know everything about their relationship, from beginning to end. An AU where Ayasha gets to meet either Rose or Hannibal would also be wonderful.
- Dominique/Chloe: with potential Henri, if you like. Actual femslash would be awesome, but so would gen about Chloe's feelings about their situation. Or Minou's!
- The Mayerlings: especially about how they met, or how their relationship started, anything to do with the really early days – did they like each other before Madeline's first husband died? How did that work?
- Olympe and Marie Laveau: as friends or more.
- It's so cheesy, but I'd also love kidfic for the fandom. Charmian and Baby John are SO CUTE. I'd love to read about them interacting with anyone other than their parents. Do Livia or Shaw get stuck babysitting? Does Minou make Hannibal hold Charmian every time he comes to visit? Did Marie Laveau come to Baby John's Christening party?
A fandom-specific DNW: Please don't enslave Ben or Rose. Pretend, undercover slavery of the sort they do several times in canon is totally fine; being threatened with slavery by a bad guy during a case or adventure or them being aware of it as a possible consequence of something they do is totally fine; hell, if you even want to do some sort of AU and enslave Hannibal or Shaw, that's okay. But please no AUs or darkfic that is about Ben, Rose, or any of the other black characters as slaves (even if it's just fantasy sex slaves or some other not-canon option).
Finishing School - Gail Carriger – Soap
What is it? A three book YA series about a girls' finishing school set in a steampunk England populated by werewolves and vampires. The books are short and lots of fun, so this would be a fairly easy series to pick up. There's a fourth book scheduled to come out later this year – I'll make sure to read it before the stories are revealed, so if you want to include spoilers, feel free. On the other hand, don't worry about writing something that will get jossed; I'll be absolutely happy with a story that only uses the first three books.
My Ships: Soap/Sophronia, Soap/Sophronia/Felix, or Soap/Felix rival-slash. Please no Sophronia/Felix without Soap.
My request: I LOVE SOAP. He is by far my favorite character in this series. I love how cheerful he is, despite his circumstances, his big smile and friendliness and jokes. I like how he has knowledge and experience from a very different realm than the other characters, and the emphasis on book smarts not being the only kind of cleverness. I like his ambition - being 'mayor' of the other sooties, learning to read, considering becoming a claviger for the rank even though he doesn't seem that into the supernatural part of it. I love everything about the Soap and Sophronia relationship, and anything you write with them will make me very happy, from gen friendship to mild flirting to straight-up PWP. I like how they have a great deal of affection, understanding, and trust for one another, and yet also how there are so many things that make it hard for them to have a relationship, and how they're both very aware of those difficulties.
Optional prompts:
- I'd love gen backstory about Soap's life before the first book. What happened to his parents? Where and how did he grow up? How was he hired and trained as a sootie? What is sootie life like when Sophronia's not around? Any sort of worldbuilding that involves Soap and/or the race and class issues of his position would be fantastic.
- the scene in book 2 where Soap kisses her hand: MORE LIKE THAT, PLEASE!
- Sophronia describes the antagonism between Felix and Soap as "some kind of whose-top-hat-is-the-biggest contest", which: HAHAHAHA. If you want to write about the literal (or symbolic) version of that contest, I would be all about it.
- There's a line in book 3 where Sophronia enjoys the idea of Felix wearing a dress. Anything and everything you want to do with that would be great. Felix crossdresses! Soap crossdresses! Sophronia crossdresses!
- Sophronia/Soap first time fic! How do they actually get together? Who makes the first move? When and how do they see each other again after the dramatic ending of book 3? How does Sophronia react to Soap being of an "acceptable" social status now? How does Soap react to that?
- I'd love to see future fic with werewolf!Soap and spy!Sophronia. Domestic fluff would be great, as would something complicated about their position and the differences between them. How would Sophronia's family react to Soap? What would an important ball be like for them as a married couple?
The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal – TJ, Amal
What is it? A completed webcomic about two strangers who go on a spur of the moment cross-country road-trip together in the modern-day US and end up falling in love. It can be found here and is relatively short; you could probably read the whole thing in a few hours.
My ships: TJ/Amal, of course!
My request: The things I love about this fandom are the complexity and depth of each guy, the subtle way their angst and connection are portrayed (I love the detail of TJ not knowing how to work an iPod, for example), the landscape porn, the way their relationship is so very much not easy but they still manage to make it work. I also love the humor, especially their arguments about “who would win in a fight” or “top five albums”. More of that dorkiness would be great. I just want to know everything about these guys!
Optional prompts:
- What happens immediately post-canon: okay, now they know they love each other, but what next? They’re currently living on opposite sides of the country, so do they do the long-distance thing for a while, and if so, how does that work out for them? (This would be a great excuse for an epistolary fic all full of emails and texts!) If they decide to move to be together, how do they chose which one moves and which one stays, and what are the consequences of that? A story about one of them visiting the other and having to deal with only being able to spend a relatively short amount of time together would be lovely.
- Fic set further in the future would be great, too! I’d love something about Amal introducing TJ to his family, or the reverse: does TJ have someone important he wants Amal to meet? The problems of established relationships: living together, getting a pet, sharing chores, infidelity, etc. Marriage fic! Or, alternatively, fic where they talk about marriage and decide it’s not for them. Kid fic! Whether their own or a story about them babysitting the kids of a friend or relative. Does Amal ever get a tattoo? Does TJ consider getting a college degree? How do they deal with one another's world?
- Write me a missing scene from canon, or just a PWP! THESE GUYS ARE HOT AND I WANT MORE.
- It would be so great to see them go on another road-trip! Do they do they same drive, or go somewhere new? Maybe they go on a different kind of trip: a cruise? a flight? by bus? by train?
- There’s so many differences between them (class and race being just the most prominent) and a fic about them dealing with the inevitable misunderstandings from that would be the fic of my heart.
- I really liked TJ’s old girlfriend in “Kung Fu Hustlers”, so a story about their relationship would be awesome.
- Gen prompts: I’d love fic about either of their backstories! We got a lot more specifics about what TJ’s life has previously been like, but I’d love it if you wanted to expand on any of that. I’d also be interested in a story about Amal’s childhood, his relationship with his family, or his friendship/unsuccessful relationship with Kavita.
Sorcerer to the Crown - Zen Cho - Zacharias Wythe, Prunella Gentleman
What is it? A novel set in a Regency England with magic and a direct doorway to Fairy. However, the historical prejudices of Regency England still exist, which causes problems for Zacharias (the son of slaves raised by the country's previous head sorcerer to prove a point) and Prunella (a poor, mixed-race orphan). This would be the easiest of my book requests to pick up, since there's only the one.
My ships: Zacharias/Prunella, Prunella/Henrietta. Please no stories focused on Rollo/Damerell, though it's fine as a background pairing.
My request: THIS BOOK IS SO GREAT. I love so many aspects of it: the Heyer and Wodehouse feel of the humor, and the over-the-topness of so many of scenes, especially those involving Prunella. I also completely adore the digs at racism, sexism, colonialism, etc. The marriage of these two things is everything I want out of life. Zacharias is my favorite character, and I love how entirely nice he is, and also how that's shaded by his knowledge that he has no other option. Zacharias just wants to be left alone to do research: I FEEL YOU BUDDY. I love how he's completely unaware of the many people who admire his handsome melancholy. But Prunella is such an unstoppable force of nature, entirely self-confident and heedless and full-steam-ahead, that she also won my heart.
Optional prompts:
- I desperately need the story of Zaharias and Prunella's wedding and/or honeymoon. Given these characters and their often opposing personalities, the planning and compromise and inevitable madcap adventures involved in such an event has got to be hilarious.
- I really want fic about Zacharias's childhood. It could be sad, it could be fluffy, whatever you like, I'm just fascinated by this period of his life. Write about him learning magic, or not – were there any other subjects he preferred to study? Who are his childhood friends? Does he go to parties as a teenager? Explore the differences of perception between him and the older Wythes.
- I'd love anything about Prunella and her familiars. Worldbuilding about how familiars work would be great, as would cute fic about squabbles between the familiars or all of them learning to do magic. Feel free to go very dark with this prompt also; one of my absolutely favorite moments in the book was the ruthless choice Prunella makes, and I'd love to see that explored, or more detail on its ramifications.
- I do ship Zacharias and Prunella, but I also love her unromantic declaration to marry a rich man. I want to see more of that! Prunella at parties, Prunella flirting with strangers, Prunella trying to use her status as Royal Sorcerer to collect additional proposals, Damerell and/or Maria's advice on how best to go about social climbing.... Give me all of it.
- TALKING CATERPILLARS. I need more!
- I requested Zacharias and Prunella, but there's a lot of other characters in this book that I'd love to see as well. Mak Genggang and her followers and the lamia are AMAZING, and you could basically do anything with them and I'd be ecstatic. I'm also very intrigued by the sultana. What's her backstory? How does she deal with her new state after the end of the book? What's raising a baby vampire like? (Also, come on, she is totally the power behind the throne! Tell me all about that.) Henrietta Stapleton also seems like a very sweet character, and I'd love to see friendship fic or femslash between her and another student or Prunella, either while they're both at school, or later after the world of female magic has drastically changed. Or a story about Henrietta's crush on Zacharias! That could be adorable.
If you're into Yuletide stalking (and who isn't?), here's where to find me:
Email: brigdh at gmail
AO3: Brigdh (You'll probably notice that I've written for some of the fandoms I requested, but that doesn't mean you have to write the same sort of stories that I do. One of my favorite things is to see the way different people have different takes on the same story.)
Tumblr: Brigdh
Livejournal:
wordsofastory (obviously.)Previous years' letters
Basics:
I'm open to porn, dark-fic, gen, and pretty much anything else you could think of. Happy endings, sad endings, and open/ambiguous endings are all welcome. Want to write death fic or angsty unrequited love? Go for it! Fluffy, teeth-rottingly cute kidfic? I'm into that. Completely filthy, shameless PWP? Yup. Plotty adventure or casefic? Love it. Missing scenes or worldbuilding/character studies where nothing happens? My favorite! Tentative slow-build first times, or fic with already established relationships? Both are wonderful! Weird stylistic conventions, like second person POV or iambic pentameter or unreliable narrators? Awesome!
- Feel free to include injury, illness, death, infidelity, racism, homophobia, classism, etc, as needed for your story. Or feel free to ignore such elements of the canons below! I'm good either way.
- Do not feel obligated to include Christmas (or whatever winter holiday-equivalent is appropriate to the fandom), but if you want to, feel free.
- For each of my requests, the characters are very much OR instead of AND. Want to write a story about Rose without Hannibal, TJ without Amal, etc? Go ahead! (You could probably guess this from the prompts I give below, but I wanted to be clear about it.)
- I also give prompts for characters I didn't request, and I want to give explicit permission that you are absolutely allowed to ignore my requested characters and write for any other character I mention. Or you can ignore those prompts, of course, if you prefer the characters we matched on!
- You'll notice that I list ships in each of my requests. This is just to provide useful information. I am always equally happy to read any of those relationships as platonic friends instead of lovers, or gen focused on a single character.
Dislikes:
I'm doing these first because there's fewer of them! I don't have any squicks, triggers, or strong DNWs (there's one exception, but it's fandom-specific, so I've got it down below in that fandom's section). There's very little in fic that I outright refuse to read; a good story will convince me to like almost anything. With that said, here are some of the tropes that I'm less interested in: soulbonding and soul mates; amnesia; bodyswap; mpreg; jealousy or possessiveness as a good, natural, or normal relationship element; Groundhog Day AUs; age difference as a kink (some of my ships canonically have age differences, and that's fine. Just please don't play it up as a power differential) and age regression. That's it! I'm a pretty easy-going reader. :)
Likes:
This section is much more fun! I like A LOT of stuff, as I said above. Action, case-fic, humor, curtain-fic, introspection, pining: all of them are great! I love nuance and subtlety (hmm, that is probably the worst request ever. I like it when authors complicate things?). I really love stories that dig deep, exploring a world or a character's interior.
- I LOVE found families, families of choice, loyalty kink, and everything similar to that. I especially love it when there are reasons why it's difficult or unusual for the characters to have a relationship, but they defy expectations by being devoted to one another anyway. I LOVE one character risking their life/sacrificing themselves to protect another. I really like it when characters show affection in unusual ways: if someone can never express themselves through words, but has to do it through touch; if someone expresses "I love you" by saying "ugh, you're the worst"; if someone always has to turn deep moments into a joke because their feelings are too strong to express seriously. Loyalty kink expressed through service or some kind of support (being your second in a fight! back-up in a debate! general sidekick duties) would be excellent. I'm also a big fan of poly relationships - the more the merrier! :D This can be happy threesomes where the feelings are equal on all three sides, but feel free to also write about messy relationships, about V-shaped relationships, about negotiations that go wrong, about characters who do not equally love all their partners.
- Established relationships are my jam. Show me how comfortable people have gotten with each other, how they know one another well enough to know all of their jokes and triggers and erogenous zones. And established doesn't have to mean problem-free! There's all sorts of troubles that tend to come up in relationships long after the first time, and I'd love a story about a fight and working through it. (Or resulting in a break-up, that'd be good too.)
- Hurt/comfort of all kinds, especially if the comfort leads to a deepening relationship. People getting ill, people getting beat up, people choosing to be tortured to protect someone else, people hiding injuries while trying to soldier on, people enduring long-term poor conditions (especially cold! I HATE being cold, and so I deeply identify with a character barely avoiding hypothermia), last minute rescues, confessions of feelings due to thinking you're about to die, care-taking, giving the hurt character a bath (especially hair washing!), and characters learning to be loved.
- I love funny stories, and all sorts of humor and banter and snark. Comedies of manners and farces are MY FAVORITES.
- I love vivid imagery and rich descriptions (it is hard to be too 'purple prose' for my taste), and all the things that fall under that: clothing-porn, food-porn, elaborately detailed settings and landscapes, etc. I love historical details and characters who make lots of obscure allusions in their dialogue. Epistolary fic is a HUGE favorite of mine. I also love stuff dealing with language itself, and how it can be used well or poorly: language barriers, bilingual conversations, translations, code-switching, slang, jargon, secret codes – anything and everything like that is like candy to me.
- I adore all sorts of silly fanfic tropes, but here are some of my favorites: Genderswap (particularly of the "always-a-girl/boy" type rather than "woke up one morning" type), crossdressing, arranged marriage/marriage of convenience, pretend couple/fake dating, roadtrips, huddling for warmth, masquerades/disguises/undercover, trapped together (snowed in cabin, handcuffs, etc), "five things", swordfights, sexual tension (mutual or not; resolved or unresolved), friends-to-lovers and especially FWB to more, sex pollen, A/B/O, and platonic bed sharing.
- I love AUs, both of the "canon divergent" and the "completely alternative setting" types. I think they're a fantastic way of exploring what is essential to a character's personality, and what is merely surface, and that's what I find most interesting about them. It's so neat to explore how a different setting/upbringing/choice might or might not change a person. Some specific types of AUs I like are: pirates, pretty much any historical period, Robin Hood/conmen/criminals, rebels, steampunk, cyberpunk, apocalypses (especially zombies!), daemons, and circuses.
Porn: I love everything from PWP to ship fic with fade-to-black to gen. If you're interested in including sex scenes in your fic, my details are here.
Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly - Rose, Hannibal
What is it? A 13 book series about Benjamin January, a free black man who solves mysteries in 1830s New Orleans. If you're considering picking up this fandom, I would recommend reading the third book, Graveyard Dust, as it's probably the most comprehensive single book in terms of characters. But to be honest, this would be a hard fandom to pick up at the last minute. I have a tag for this fandom, if you'd like to see some other things I've written about it: http://wordsofastory.livejournal.com/tag/ben%20january
My Ships: Ben/Rose/Hannibal (or any two of the three, or V-shaped configurations), Rose/Cora, Hannibal/Dominique, Dominique/Chloe(/Henri), Ben/Ayasha, Augustus/Madeleine Mayerling
My Request: Some of my favorite things about this series are the amazing historical detail and world-building, the treatment of complex real-world issues, and the kindness and respect and love of the characters for one another, as well as their humor and total dorkiness. I love how huge the world is; you could write a story about any background character and I would be fascinated by it. With Rose, I love her determination and stubbornness to have the life she wants, and how she's capable of being utterly ruthless when the situation calls for it. I also love her awkward, logical kindness. She tends to prefer books to people, and I am SO THERE with her. I love how cool and unemotional she is in a crisis, and her wry sense of humor at others' more dramatic emotions.
With Hannibal, I love that he is SUCH a fucking failbucket, and yet utterly aware of it, and how he's so grateful to those who are friends with him anyway. I really like the times when he manages to subtly undercut the privileges of his position compared to the others. I love how he makes friends with absolutely everyone he meets, and I love the slow growth over the series of his natural empathy, from a passive, fatalistic sympathy to actively going out of his way to do what he can for others.
Optional prompts:
- Really, anything at all about my OT3. Domestic fluff with them cooking and playing music and making dumb Latin jokes and critiquing opera or going to a Mardi Gras party in costumes. I'm sure Hannibal would be very willing to help either of them expand their sexual repertoire. Give them a new case to solve, or an adventure that doesn't start with Ben playing detective! Are there backstories to the nicknames Hannibal uses for them, Athene and amicus meus? Hannibal goes through terrible Days of the Dead/Feast of All Souls in both 1835 (the end of ‘Days of the Dead’) and 1836 (the end of ‘Dead and Buried’), so I feel he deserves a happy, fluffy experience of the holiday (1837’s would fall between ‘The Shirt on His Back’ and ‘Ran Away’, just fyi). I would LOVE a first time fic set post-'Crimson Angel', where the events of that book leads to a change in their relationship.
- For a focus on Rose/Hannibal, how did their first meeting go? How about Hannibal teaching Rose to pick locks (and/or the two of them attempting to teach Ben!)? Tell me more about what they did around the time of 'Hagar'. I'd love to hear more about what Rose was thinking during 'Dead and Buried', and what she thinks about Hannibal's backstory. In ‘Crimson Angel’ there’s an offhand mention that Hannibal is writing a poem for Rose; despite all of his quotations, he’s so detached and ironic that it’s really hard to picture him being open and earnest enough to write a poem, so I want to hear all about that. (Also, does he write a poem for Ben?)
- For Ben/Hannibal, the world NEEDS furtive make-outs in the backroom of some opera/ball/private party. Or tell me about Ben's feelings when Hannibal moves away to Mexico. I'd like to see Ben comparing Hannibal to Edgar Allan Poe either during or after 'Good Man Friday'; they have some obvious similarities, and also obvious differences. These trips to Mexico and DC are also excellent opportunities for epistolary fic.
- This fandom does not yet have a single modern AU! You should write one. :D
- I'd love withdrawal angst fic, either about Hannibal's first failed attempt (mentioned in 'Dead Water') or second successful effort (in 'The Shirt on His Back'). This would also be an excellent excuse for H/C OT3 fic, just saying.
- If you want to write gen, Rose-backstory about her time at school in New York would be AMAZING.
- I'd also love something about Rose and Cora, either as children or after Cora comes to New Orleans, or about Rose and Chloe being academic women friends. Rose/Cora or Rose/Chloe femslash would also be great.
- Hannibal seems to be friends with Marie Laveau (in 'Ran Away'), and I'd love to know how they met or how they get along. I would also love a story about Hannibal and Minou hanging out and being flirtatious gossiping BFFs. Does Hannibal help her prepare her clothing/make up/hair before a ball? Does she offer to comfort him after some other woman breaks up with him? Does he tease her about Henri (and/or Chloe)? Or maybe they're just totally platonic fuckbuddies who enjoy each other's company! Poetry and music and being charming and fashion and coffee would all be wonderful elements.
- Ben/Ayasha: I want to know everything about their relationship, from beginning to end. An AU where Ayasha gets to meet either Rose or Hannibal would also be wonderful.
- Dominique/Chloe: with potential Henri, if you like. Actual femslash would be awesome, but so would gen about Chloe's feelings about their situation. Or Minou's!
- The Mayerlings: especially about how they met, or how their relationship started, anything to do with the really early days – did they like each other before Madeline's first husband died? How did that work?
- Olympe and Marie Laveau: as friends or more.
- It's so cheesy, but I'd also love kidfic for the fandom. Charmian and Baby John are SO CUTE. I'd love to read about them interacting with anyone other than their parents. Do Livia or Shaw get stuck babysitting? Does Minou make Hannibal hold Charmian every time he comes to visit? Did Marie Laveau come to Baby John's Christening party?
A fandom-specific DNW: Please don't enslave Ben or Rose. Pretend, undercover slavery of the sort they do several times in canon is totally fine; being threatened with slavery by a bad guy during a case or adventure or them being aware of it as a possible consequence of something they do is totally fine; hell, if you even want to do some sort of AU and enslave Hannibal or Shaw, that's okay. But please no AUs or darkfic that is about Ben, Rose, or any of the other black characters as slaves (even if it's just fantasy sex slaves or some other not-canon option).
Finishing School - Gail Carriger – Soap
What is it? A three book YA series about a girls' finishing school set in a steampunk England populated by werewolves and vampires. The books are short and lots of fun, so this would be a fairly easy series to pick up. There's a fourth book scheduled to come out later this year – I'll make sure to read it before the stories are revealed, so if you want to include spoilers, feel free. On the other hand, don't worry about writing something that will get jossed; I'll be absolutely happy with a story that only uses the first three books.
My Ships: Soap/Sophronia, Soap/Sophronia/Felix, or Soap/Felix rival-slash. Please no Sophronia/Felix without Soap.
My request: I LOVE SOAP. He is by far my favorite character in this series. I love how cheerful he is, despite his circumstances, his big smile and friendliness and jokes. I like how he has knowledge and experience from a very different realm than the other characters, and the emphasis on book smarts not being the only kind of cleverness. I like his ambition - being 'mayor' of the other sooties, learning to read, considering becoming a claviger for the rank even though he doesn't seem that into the supernatural part of it. I love everything about the Soap and Sophronia relationship, and anything you write with them will make me very happy, from gen friendship to mild flirting to straight-up PWP. I like how they have a great deal of affection, understanding, and trust for one another, and yet also how there are so many things that make it hard for them to have a relationship, and how they're both very aware of those difficulties.
Optional prompts:
- I'd love gen backstory about Soap's life before the first book. What happened to his parents? Where and how did he grow up? How was he hired and trained as a sootie? What is sootie life like when Sophronia's not around? Any sort of worldbuilding that involves Soap and/or the race and class issues of his position would be fantastic.
- the scene in book 2 where Soap kisses her hand: MORE LIKE THAT, PLEASE!
- Sophronia describes the antagonism between Felix and Soap as "some kind of whose-top-hat-is-the-biggest contest", which: HAHAHAHA. If you want to write about the literal (or symbolic) version of that contest, I would be all about it.
- There's a line in book 3 where Sophronia enjoys the idea of Felix wearing a dress. Anything and everything you want to do with that would be great. Felix crossdresses! Soap crossdresses! Sophronia crossdresses!
- Sophronia/Soap first time fic! How do they actually get together? Who makes the first move? When and how do they see each other again after the dramatic ending of book 3? How does Sophronia react to Soap being of an "acceptable" social status now? How does Soap react to that?
- I'd love to see future fic with werewolf!Soap and spy!Sophronia. Domestic fluff would be great, as would something complicated about their position and the differences between them. How would Sophronia's family react to Soap? What would an important ball be like for them as a married couple?
The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal – TJ, Amal
What is it? A completed webcomic about two strangers who go on a spur of the moment cross-country road-trip together in the modern-day US and end up falling in love. It can be found here and is relatively short; you could probably read the whole thing in a few hours.
My ships: TJ/Amal, of course!
My request: The things I love about this fandom are the complexity and depth of each guy, the subtle way their angst and connection are portrayed (I love the detail of TJ not knowing how to work an iPod, for example), the landscape porn, the way their relationship is so very much not easy but they still manage to make it work. I also love the humor, especially their arguments about “who would win in a fight” or “top five albums”. More of that dorkiness would be great. I just want to know everything about these guys!
Optional prompts:
- What happens immediately post-canon: okay, now they know they love each other, but what next? They’re currently living on opposite sides of the country, so do they do the long-distance thing for a while, and if so, how does that work out for them? (This would be a great excuse for an epistolary fic all full of emails and texts!) If they decide to move to be together, how do they chose which one moves and which one stays, and what are the consequences of that? A story about one of them visiting the other and having to deal with only being able to spend a relatively short amount of time together would be lovely.
- Fic set further in the future would be great, too! I’d love something about Amal introducing TJ to his family, or the reverse: does TJ have someone important he wants Amal to meet? The problems of established relationships: living together, getting a pet, sharing chores, infidelity, etc. Marriage fic! Or, alternatively, fic where they talk about marriage and decide it’s not for them. Kid fic! Whether their own or a story about them babysitting the kids of a friend or relative. Does Amal ever get a tattoo? Does TJ consider getting a college degree? How do they deal with one another's world?
- Write me a missing scene from canon, or just a PWP! THESE GUYS ARE HOT AND I WANT MORE.
- It would be so great to see them go on another road-trip! Do they do they same drive, or go somewhere new? Maybe they go on a different kind of trip: a cruise? a flight? by bus? by train?
- There’s so many differences between them (class and race being just the most prominent) and a fic about them dealing with the inevitable misunderstandings from that would be the fic of my heart.
- I really liked TJ’s old girlfriend in “Kung Fu Hustlers”, so a story about their relationship would be awesome.
- Gen prompts: I’d love fic about either of their backstories! We got a lot more specifics about what TJ’s life has previously been like, but I’d love it if you wanted to expand on any of that. I’d also be interested in a story about Amal’s childhood, his relationship with his family, or his friendship/unsuccessful relationship with Kavita.
Sorcerer to the Crown - Zen Cho - Zacharias Wythe, Prunella Gentleman
What is it? A novel set in a Regency England with magic and a direct doorway to Fairy. However, the historical prejudices of Regency England still exist, which causes problems for Zacharias (the son of slaves raised by the country's previous head sorcerer to prove a point) and Prunella (a poor, mixed-race orphan). This would be the easiest of my book requests to pick up, since there's only the one.
My ships: Zacharias/Prunella, Prunella/Henrietta. Please no stories focused on Rollo/Damerell, though it's fine as a background pairing.
My request: THIS BOOK IS SO GREAT. I love so many aspects of it: the Heyer and Wodehouse feel of the humor, and the over-the-topness of so many of scenes, especially those involving Prunella. I also completely adore the digs at racism, sexism, colonialism, etc. The marriage of these two things is everything I want out of life. Zacharias is my favorite character, and I love how entirely nice he is, and also how that's shaded by his knowledge that he has no other option. Zacharias just wants to be left alone to do research: I FEEL YOU BUDDY. I love how he's completely unaware of the many people who admire his handsome melancholy. But Prunella is such an unstoppable force of nature, entirely self-confident and heedless and full-steam-ahead, that she also won my heart.
Optional prompts:
- I desperately need the story of Zaharias and Prunella's wedding and/or honeymoon. Given these characters and their often opposing personalities, the planning and compromise and inevitable madcap adventures involved in such an event has got to be hilarious.
- I really want fic about Zacharias's childhood. It could be sad, it could be fluffy, whatever you like, I'm just fascinated by this period of his life. Write about him learning magic, or not – were there any other subjects he preferred to study? Who are his childhood friends? Does he go to parties as a teenager? Explore the differences of perception between him and the older Wythes.
- I'd love anything about Prunella and her familiars. Worldbuilding about how familiars work would be great, as would cute fic about squabbles between the familiars or all of them learning to do magic. Feel free to go very dark with this prompt also; one of my absolutely favorite moments in the book was the ruthless choice Prunella makes, and I'd love to see that explored, or more detail on its ramifications.
- I do ship Zacharias and Prunella, but I also love her unromantic declaration to marry a rich man. I want to see more of that! Prunella at parties, Prunella flirting with strangers, Prunella trying to use her status as Royal Sorcerer to collect additional proposals, Damerell and/or Maria's advice on how best to go about social climbing.... Give me all of it.
- TALKING CATERPILLARS. I need more!
- I requested Zacharias and Prunella, but there's a lot of other characters in this book that I'd love to see as well. Mak Genggang and her followers and the lamia are AMAZING, and you could basically do anything with them and I'd be ecstatic. I'm also very intrigued by the sultana. What's her backstory? How does she deal with her new state after the end of the book? What's raising a baby vampire like? (Also, come on, she is totally the power behind the throne! Tell me all about that.) Henrietta Stapleton also seems like a very sweet character, and I'd love to see friendship fic or femslash between her and another student or Prunella, either while they're both at school, or later after the world of female magic has drastically changed. Or a story about Henrietta's crush on Zacharias! That could be adorable.
