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Yuletide Letter
Oct. 19th, 2023 03:08 pmYuletide Letter
I'm Gammarad on AO3 and I have requested the following:
Almost Nowhere
Empire Star
Patternist series
Provenance
My general likes page
Almost Nowhere is here on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8341348
Nominated characters are Azad, Cordelia, Sylvester, and Cat
As long as you include one of those four, anything about this novel would be great. It's been a bit of a companion to me since I started using ao3 and I'm excited to be able to request it in an exchange.
For Azad, a story about translation would be cool, he's especially interesting to me as a translator. Or a ship story with any of his canonical relationships if that's what you're most interested in writing - I really enjoy getting to vicariously enjoy someone else's enthusiasm via reading. Or something that's epistolary as in, a thing notionally written by Azad, either canonically or divergently.
For Cordelia, a story about being a fan, as she is the most fangirlish of the characters, or a story about any of her canonical ships, or about her interactions with the Ells? Or her pursuits after the novel's end. Again, a document supposedly written by her would be very interesting to me, also.
For Sylvester, he is to me the most interesting of the anomaling characters, so I'd love to see his point of view explored. Maybe he has some more to share, information wise or experience, or maybe he splits off and part of him does something different? His take on some of the events of the story where the reader doesn't really get to see how he reacts would also be super intriguing.
For Cat, who is a very minor character, I kind of would like to know Cat's POV and also back story. And a fix-it for Cat where the terrible fate that ends up happening is softened a bit would be sweet, if it's possible. Angst about Cat is also a potential way to go, with Eleven POV maybe, or one of the other Beasts who perhaps was Cat's friend.
DNW: Change of setting AUs and crossovers (canonical setting change *crashes* are fine, though! It can superficially look like a setting change AU / crossover as long as it eventually proves to be in the novel setting really.) Deaging characters to preadolescence. / ships between requested characters and OCs.
Patternist Series by Octavia Butler - character: Anyanwu
Anyanwu is the main character in Wild Seed and I'd be fine with a story that is based just on Wild Seed, but also happy with one that draws from the other books in the Patternist series (I have read them all, though it was long ago).
DNW: explicit sex of any kind, implied sex with people under 18, unrequested crossovers, depiction or description of injuries that clearly involve exposed bone
Prompts: There are a lot of possibilities for Anyanwu to interact with various people throughout her long life. With her children, with their other parents, with her descendants, with strangers. In all sorts of shapes, or her own. This is really wide open, but what I'd like is to see how Anyanwu is Anyanwu no matter who or what she's "being" at that given moment. Hope that makes sense. I also really love worldbuilding, so anything you can do to show how Doro's project or the rise of psychics changes Anyanwu's world from ours would be great. As long as she's in the story, she doesn't have to be the focus of it if you're doing a worldbuilding kind of story. Also feel free to use any other characters from the series, and any characters from the two crossover option books.
Crossover requests: Who Fears Death - Nnedi Okorafor; Touch - Claire North
Provenance by Ann Leckie - part of the Imperial Radch series
Characters: Tic Uisine and the Geck Ambassador
It's clear from the events of Provenance that Tic and the Geck Ambassador go way back, but the exact thing that's going on has a lot of room for stories. I'd be happy for any type of story that focuses on either of these two characters and includes both of them. It is fine for it to also include other aspects of the Imperial Radch series and characters that aren't in Provenance, whether or not you'd think of that as a crossover.
I love the whole Imperial Radch series but I'm most interested in Provenance and its characters. If you want to combine these or make additional world-building topics in Provenance parts of the universe, I'm here for it. What I love about Provenance: the characters, the different cultures and how they all interact, the intensity of the strained relationships each of the nominated characters has with their parents and how those tie into the way their world is arranged -- the parental figures have used these characters to advance what they see as the right way of their cultures, and it's cost them all.
some freeforms I've requested in the past that might serve as prompts:
Adopted Sibling RelationshipParent/child relationship - difficult relationshipParent/child relationship - different worldviews
Complicated Relationship with a Parental Figure
Small lie or pretense spirals out of control
Character struggling with carrying a legacy they have been bestowed with
Small moment of happiness before everything falls apart
Rashomon-Style Conflicting Narratives
Character does horrible things on purpose; agrees they're horrible; is very sorry; does them anyway
Finicky Details About What It's Like To Live In A Particular Setting
DNW: Setting change AU, unrequested crossover, explicit sexual content, injuries to humans involving exposed bone
Empire Star is a space opera fairy tale about oppression, the loss of innocence, and the author's feelings about being a queer black New Yorker crystallized into metaphorical eternity. It is a contender for the most identity porn ever crammed into a single short novel.
I also requested this in writing rainbow white, and the tags there make a perfect constellation of the range of things I would like in a fic for this novel. These are the freeforms:
Sad character earns deserved happy ending
So many delicious setting details and so much atmosphere
outer space is super cool but also completely terrifying
Does It Count As Saving the World If You're the One That Put it in Danger?
Fairy Tale Elements
outsider pov
Past wrongs result in not quite forgiveness and not quite not forgiveness either
Legendarily Bad Taste In People To Be Attracted To
Bonding over bearing the burden of cursed knowledge
Anything you think I might like
Adopting an Alien Pet
Sufficiently Advanced Alien Is Indistinguishable From A Cat
DNWs: explicit underage smut, injuries to humans involving exposed bone, crossovers unless cleared through the moderators
-----
My worldbuilding likes are pretty much all the types.
I like the long discursive essay about how the sewer system works in the middle of the chase scene through the sewer, and I like the careful insertion of telling detail into the chase scene almost unnoticed until you realize at the end of it that you know exactly why this sewer has bends there and low ceilings here. I also like when the characters stop to argue about why the sewer is like this and get caught.
I think my favorite is when the worldbuilding communicates a strong point of view about the stuff it's showing/telling, and when seemingly separate bits of it turn out to be deeply connected.
I'm Gammarad on AO3 and I have requested the following:
Almost Nowhere
Empire Star
Patternist series
Provenance
My general likes page
Almost Nowhere is here on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8341348
Nominated characters are Azad, Cordelia, Sylvester, and Cat
As long as you include one of those four, anything about this novel would be great. It's been a bit of a companion to me since I started using ao3 and I'm excited to be able to request it in an exchange.
For Azad, a story about translation would be cool, he's especially interesting to me as a translator. Or a ship story with any of his canonical relationships if that's what you're most interested in writing - I really enjoy getting to vicariously enjoy someone else's enthusiasm via reading. Or something that's epistolary as in, a thing notionally written by Azad, either canonically or divergently.
For Cordelia, a story about being a fan, as she is the most fangirlish of the characters, or a story about any of her canonical ships, or about her interactions with the Ells? Or her pursuits after the novel's end. Again, a document supposedly written by her would be very interesting to me, also.
For Sylvester, he is to me the most interesting of the anomaling characters, so I'd love to see his point of view explored. Maybe he has some more to share, information wise or experience, or maybe he splits off and part of him does something different? His take on some of the events of the story where the reader doesn't really get to see how he reacts would also be super intriguing.
For Cat, who is a very minor character, I kind of would like to know Cat's POV and also back story. And a fix-it for Cat where the terrible fate that ends up happening is softened a bit would be sweet, if it's possible. Angst about Cat is also a potential way to go, with Eleven POV maybe, or one of the other Beasts who perhaps was Cat's friend.
DNW: Change of setting AUs and crossovers (canonical setting change *crashes* are fine, though! It can superficially look like a setting change AU / crossover as long as it eventually proves to be in the novel setting really.) Deaging characters to preadolescence. / ships between requested characters and OCs.
Patternist Series by Octavia Butler - character: Anyanwu
Anyanwu is the main character in Wild Seed and I'd be fine with a story that is based just on Wild Seed, but also happy with one that draws from the other books in the Patternist series (I have read them all, though it was long ago).
DNW: explicit sex of any kind, implied sex with people under 18, unrequested crossovers, depiction or description of injuries that clearly involve exposed bone
Prompts: There are a lot of possibilities for Anyanwu to interact with various people throughout her long life. With her children, with their other parents, with her descendants, with strangers. In all sorts of shapes, or her own. This is really wide open, but what I'd like is to see how Anyanwu is Anyanwu no matter who or what she's "being" at that given moment. Hope that makes sense. I also really love worldbuilding, so anything you can do to show how Doro's project or the rise of psychics changes Anyanwu's world from ours would be great. As long as she's in the story, she doesn't have to be the focus of it if you're doing a worldbuilding kind of story. Also feel free to use any other characters from the series, and any characters from the two crossover option books.
Crossover requests: Who Fears Death - Nnedi Okorafor; Touch - Claire North
Provenance by Ann Leckie - part of the Imperial Radch series
Characters: Tic Uisine and the Geck Ambassador
It's clear from the events of Provenance that Tic and the Geck Ambassador go way back, but the exact thing that's going on has a lot of room for stories. I'd be happy for any type of story that focuses on either of these two characters and includes both of them. It is fine for it to also include other aspects of the Imperial Radch series and characters that aren't in Provenance, whether or not you'd think of that as a crossover.
I love the whole Imperial Radch series but I'm most interested in Provenance and its characters. If you want to combine these or make additional world-building topics in Provenance parts of the universe, I'm here for it. What I love about Provenance: the characters, the different cultures and how they all interact, the intensity of the strained relationships each of the nominated characters has with their parents and how those tie into the way their world is arranged -- the parental figures have used these characters to advance what they see as the right way of their cultures, and it's cost them all.
some freeforms I've requested in the past that might serve as prompts:
Adopted Sibling RelationshipParent/child relationship - difficult relationshipParent/child relationship - different worldviews
Complicated Relationship with a Parental Figure
Small lie or pretense spirals out of control
Character struggling with carrying a legacy they have been bestowed with
Small moment of happiness before everything falls apart
Rashomon-Style Conflicting Narratives
Character does horrible things on purpose; agrees they're horrible; is very sorry; does them anyway
Finicky Details About What It's Like To Live In A Particular Setting
DNW: Setting change AU, unrequested crossover, explicit sexual content, injuries to humans involving exposed bone
Empire Star is a space opera fairy tale about oppression, the loss of innocence, and the author's feelings about being a queer black New Yorker crystallized into metaphorical eternity. It is a contender for the most identity porn ever crammed into a single short novel.
I also requested this in writing rainbow white, and the tags there make a perfect constellation of the range of things I would like in a fic for this novel. These are the freeforms:
Sad character earns deserved happy ending
So many delicious setting details and so much atmosphere
outer space is super cool but also completely terrifying
Does It Count As Saving the World If You're the One That Put it in Danger?
Fairy Tale Elements
outsider pov
Past wrongs result in not quite forgiveness and not quite not forgiveness either
Legendarily Bad Taste In People To Be Attracted To
Bonding over bearing the burden of cursed knowledge
Anything you think I might like
Adopting an Alien Pet
Sufficiently Advanced Alien Is Indistinguishable From A Cat
DNWs: explicit underage smut, injuries to humans involving exposed bone, crossovers unless cleared through the moderators
-----
My worldbuilding likes are pretty much all the types.
I like the long discursive essay about how the sewer system works in the middle of the chase scene through the sewer, and I like the careful insertion of telling detail into the chase scene almost unnoticed until you realize at the end of it that you know exactly why this sewer has bends there and low ceilings here. I also like when the characters stop to argue about why the sewer is like this and get caught.
I think my favorite is when the worldbuilding communicates a strong point of view about the stuff it's showing/telling, and when seemingly separate bits of it turn out to be deeply connected.
