Sprocket

Dear Yulegoat,

Thanks so much for writing for me! I will be thrilled to receive a story in any of these tiny canons. If you already have an idea you're fired up to write, please get started! Finding out what other people love about a canon is one of the things I like about fandom.

Stuff I Like: people working together to overcome obstacles, snark and snappy dialogue, banter, darkfic, place as character, postapocalyptic, N Times Characters Did A Thing. Solving love triangles with OT3s. Worldbuilding. Food descriptions! I have a bulletproof love of competence, including competence at being villainous, and characters finding connections and trusting each other. If crossovers and fusions are your things, go for it: I am a fan.

Do Not Wants: PWP, bloodplay, coffeeshop AU, high school/college AU, explicit descriptions of sexual assault, cross-generation (May-December) ships, violence much more intense than canon-typical levels.

Gen or Shippy? Add "in bed" to any of the likes and ship away. I am in favor of consenting adults enjoying each others' company and quirks (and kinks).

Happy Yuletide!

Prompts below, with comments for color:

( Ivory Series - Doris Egan )

( The Paladin - C. J. Cherryh )

( Fall of Ile-Rien - Martha Wells )

Dear Yulegoat,

Thanks so much for writing for me! I will be thrilled to receive a story in any of these canons, so please don't read too much into the prompt lengths. If you already have an idea you're fired up to write, please get started! Finding out what other people love about a canon is one of the things I like about fandom.

Stuff I Like: people working together to overcome obstacles, snark and snappy dialogue, banter, darkfic, place as character, postapocalyptic, N Times Characters Did A Thing. Solving love triangles with OT3s. Worldbuilding. Food descriptions! I have a bulletproof love of competence, including competence at being villainous, and characters finding connections and trusting each other. If crossovers and fusions are your things, go for it: I am a fan.

Do Not Wants: PWP, bloodplay, coffeeshop AU, high school/college AU, explicit descriptions of sexual assault, cross-generation (May-December) ships, cheating and/or infidelity, violence much more intense than canon-typical levels.

Gen or Shippy? Add "in bed" to any of the likes and no not wants and ship away. I am in favor of consenting adults enjoying each others' company and quirks (and kinks).

Happy Yuletide!

( The Company Novels - Kage Baker )

( Alliance-Union novels - C. J. Cherryh )

( Ile-Rien - Martha Wells )

It is a truth sometimes acknowledged that, if I plan to write N for a challenge, it's far more probable I will hit the closing line and discover I have written Z', Gimel, or possibly Phi.

I defaulted on Yuletide. I... don't feel great about that.

But I still received a gift. The Flower of Tisarwat is (Imperial Radch, gen, 1461 words) is Tisarwat in the aftermath of Anaander Mianaai's meddling, with poetry as a coping device. Go, read it!

I've also seen the new Star Wars movie. Twice. There is literally nothing I could say that has not already been said.

( Because... history has its eyes on you. )

Dear Yuletide writer,

We like the same rare fandoms, clearly only good can come of our match-up. And by "good" I may mean interstellar siege warfare, or the terrible things people do when they've lost everything, or ways of making a new home in another world entirely. I love all these fandoms, so don't feel like prompt length has anything to do with desirability. The character requests are the characters I am most excited about getting fic for, and I would suggest, even encourage, additional characters if that's where your story takes you. And if your story includes just some of these characters, that's fine too.

What do I like? N things, place as character, fork in the road AUs, hugs, comfort sex. Misunderstandings and their resolutions. Worldbuilding! Stories that play on the worldbuilding, using some quirk of the major McGuffins or themes for Reasons. Competence, whether it's at scholarship, or diplomacy, or shooting things. Consequences, good or bad. If you're moved to write a crossover, go for it. Anon comments are enabled if you want to ask about a hypothetical crossover, or any other question.

Gen or shippy fic are both up my alley. OT3 is one of my favorite solutions to love triangles. The pan-fandom ship I will go down with is Favorite Characters/Happiness. (The road to Character/Happiness may be fraught. I eat that up with a spoon.) Rape, bloodplay, and infidelity are major turn-offs.

Other do not wants: epistolary fic, coffeeshop / modern day AUs, explicit descriptions of sexual assault, violence that's more intense than canon-typical levels.

( Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh: Damon Konstantin, Elene Quen, Joshua Talley )

( Fall of Ile-Rien - Martha Wells: Tremaine Valiarde )

( Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie: Seivarden Vendaai, Sphene, Tisarwat, Zeiat )

But most of all, dear writer, have fun! I don't get to read a lot of fic in any of these fandoms, so I really will be happy if you just write that one story you've wanted to get out, however serious or silly, and haven't gotten around to. Happy yuletide!

P. S. So matching snuck up on me and I made some tweaks on 10/30. HTH, writer.

fringe_exchange: I got a Fringe/Pacific Rim crossover, "Cortexiphan Alpha was the name of the Jaeger once" which sweetly and precisely fitted my request for Olivia, Etta, and a Jaeger.

yuletide (1,000 words): the time has come to open Written? Kitten! and a vein. There's a notable lack of prompt-appropriate stories in me this month, but I'm going to try to pull one off regardless.

In that vein, I'm trying to not to be seduced by the possibilities of titling a Fringe/YW crossover "Fear Death by Water". (Two words: Reiden Lake.) Nothing like a deadline to make anything else look like a great idea.

trickortreatx: waiting on reveals!

fringe_exchange (750 words): 1440 words, some even in sequential order. Three steps forward, two steps back, a step over here, a step over there...

yuletide (1,000 words): assignments are out! I have an idea for mine, though there will be a moment where people go, Oh it's you. Hopefully disguised in the noise of the canon's Oh it's you issues.

trickortreatex (300 words): first draft completed. Hooray for low word count exchanges! I'm excited to think this might get done early. I'm not thinking too hard about pinching or treating (in the traditional sense of exchange treats) until the primary story is posted.

fringe_exchange (750 words): 100 words! Noodling with more words! The story idea is in line with my recip's likes (I hope).

On the sidelines, there are three really compelling plot bunnies that are going to wait their turn.

yuletide (1,000 words): the tagset is up!. Can it be signups now? In a new twist, there's fandoms I am even more excited about offering than about requesting, a first for me.

Thank you for offering to write fic in my rare fandom. I am thrilled to my toes about this. Optional details are optional! seekingferret said last year, "I just want a story that celebrates what's cool about these fandoms and digs into the gaps and questions what isn't cool... it's the intellectual engagement with the source material that I'm seeking." That is how I feel about these fandoms. And this engagement may be expressed through the medium of crackfic.

If you're into gen, rock on. Gen is buddies. If you're in a porny mood, go for it! Add "in bed" to most of the below to get me hot and bothered. But please keep the knives and blood out of the sex: I am not a big fan of mixing pain and orgasms. Likewise, not so much with the BDSM.

Fandom cliches that have made me happy include kidfic, friendships, N Things, genderflip, darkfic, sedoretu, superpowers, cuddling, backstory, timestamp, apocalyptic... go for it. Treat the canon with love and affection (if not always great reverence), and have fun.

100 Books that SHOULD be written (Any):
I love that this is basically a series of transformative works about life. What a great chance to write 1,000 words about the title that strikes your fancy, or how the book came to be, or what inspired the graphic artist(s) in that universe to make that cover (bonus: alternate history and/or alternate future history), the impact of one (or more) of these 100 (fictional) books on an OC's life (bonus: crossovers), whatever floats your boat. This is a great chance to talk about something you love deeply. (There is a cover for a Dahl novel! For Dawkins! For Tesla and art and the Dalai Lama and Canadian politics. Writer, geek out about gaming the Academy Awards or Morris dancing or emacs vs vm or apocafic - hi, Cormac McCarthy - write what you love.)

If we matched on another fandom which has left you scratching your head, this is a great fallback option. Or if you think this would cross over with another requested fandom, go for it!

Matthew Swift (Penny Ngwenya, Dr Seah, Oda, Nabeela Hirj):
Writer, I asked for four awesome women, and now that I look at the request I am a little puzzled as to how to wedge that much awesome into 1,000 words. Please consider character requests optional.

So my 100% bulletproof narrative thing, which will get me to read almost anything: place as character. The nearly-as-bulletproof thing is messy identity concepts. So, gentle Yuletide Writer, here we are, you and I, with London as character, and We are Swift, and I am the angels. Bullet. Proof.

I love those aspects of the novels. Others I find less cool. If you want to fix this weird pattern where many of the incredibly awesome women keep dying, please do. If you want to have a round of "Oda blows things up, maybe with identity angst" go for it. I beg for the blue electric angels to be involved with the explosions. Or a round of Penny blowing things up? I would be all about The Adventures of Penny Ngwenya, Urban Sorceress. The Penny and Nabeela section of The Minority Council was my favorite part of the novel. How did Dr. Seah wind up a magical medical go-to resource? What does she do when she's not patching up Swift? Or if you love your city, I'm sure a younger Swift visited it. Write a love story about the city of your heart, with magic in the sewers and libraries and crackling in the streetlights, and I will love it forever.

If you want to pull in characters from the Magicals Anonymous novels, go for it! The more the merrier.

Mortal City (Dar Williams) (Any):
I love the progression from isolation to a sense of connection with everyone in the city. I love the word-poem. I love the idea this could spawn a character study, and/or a cuddly vignette, and/or super-futuristic Delaneyesque 25th Century city with genderqueer characters, and/or magical realism. I would love to know how the narrator wound up in this city, or what she and her dinner guest did the next morning, whether she stayed in the city or left or dated this guy and why.

Stargate Universe (Vanessa James, Tamara Johansen, Lisa Park):
I stopped watching SGU halfway into S1, and some time after its cancellation was encouraged to give it another shot. At which point I discovered some of the things I found intensely problematic had been dialed down or were heavy-handed setup for long-term character development. And some completely random items were added - Park/Greer, d'awwww - that I liked. I liked characters forming bonds and fixing the ship - a lot - and the explorations of people's connections in times of uncertainty. But the show - how to say this? - does not always do all that well spreading the narrative wealth across its characters. Women tend to be reactive to things that happen to them - pregnancies, alien kidnappings, random blindness - rather than getting stories that promote agency.

So I'd love stories that connect these characters. Stories where knowing medicine and physics and how to shoot a gun really well or keep your head in are at least as important as who your boyfriend is.

This is a great fandom for sex-positive!Park smut or "fix the McGuffin" (where McGuffin = topic close to the writer's heart) stories. Or TJ + James "sister officers" friendship. Or Park and James connecting on, well, anything. Do they have backstory? Maybe they were in the same SG survival course! Maybe they miss their families! Maybe they both knit! Canon is a bit thin on the ground about what choices brought these characters to Icarus and Destiny, feel free to fill that in.

Valdemar (Stephen): I would love post-Vanyel Stephen and the political machinations he likely gets into to fulfill that thing at the end of "Magic's Price". If that doesn't strike your fancy, (a) OPTIONAL DETAILS ARE OPTIONAL, (b) I love all things Tarma and Kethry, (c) I also love all things Savil, including knocking sense into her mopey favorite nephew's head, or hanging out with Vanyel's new (and nearly only) friend.

Please have fun with this prompt and write what you love most about these novels.

I loved Valdemar in my teens. Now I love it for comfort reading, but it has many issues rooted in failing to consider second-order worldbuilding effects, as well as late '80s LGBT failing to translate well 25 (!) years later. Feel free to explore those aspects. Also feel free to write five double-drabbles about Stephen getting into trouble as a Bardic trainee. Or that time Tarma and Kethry communed with some far Northern spirits (because everyone else has made a cameo appearance in the Forest of Sorrows, why not these ladies as well?).

If these prompts work for you, great! If not, write from the heart. Thank you for gracing my fannish life with anything at all in these fandoms.