Yuletide Letter
Oct. 14th, 2023 06:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesDear Yuletide Writer!
First off, thank you for doing this. This is my first Yuletide in ten years, so I'm looking forward to it. For ease of use, I'm using subheadings and stuff in this letter so if you only know one fandom, you can just click around. I'm also having a general instructions set first.
Of note, one of the fandoms I requested (The October Daye series by Seanan McGuire) has two new books coming out this fall. I have read one and will likely edit this post when I read the other. Out of courtesy, I will mark spoilers for those in the section. All other spoilers are unmarked, especially as The Kaiju Preservation Society is a single book.
I read pretty widely, but I do like interesting worldbuilding and insights into characters or relationships I wouldn't necessarily have thought of. Don't be afraid to do something experimental, like an epistolary story or 2nd person, or interactive fiction. Of course, I also like a cozy and traditional 3rd person story with a straightforward beginning, middle and end.
I like adventure and romance and friendship, and am less interested in unresolved angst and tragedy. Given some of the characters and fandoms I nominated, 'things are awful and have been awful for a long time and it will take time to resolve this, but things will slowly get better' is an acceptable level. Basically think 'optimistic ending' rather than 'happy ending'. I'm also fine with hurt/comfort for that reason.
Sex scenes can be hit or miss for me. In general, I'm okay with them being the climax of a romance story, but not on their own.
Fusions, crossovers and alternate-universes (of the 'what if?' or the 'altered setting') ones are delightful, especially if you use this as an excuse to worldbuild. As long as the fandom characters and relationships are front and center, and you work at showing how it's clearly the same people despite the altered setting, feel free to create something really weird and wonderful.
I can include a list of Yuletide fandoms I also know for fusions and crossovers, or you can examine my writing journal,invoking_urania. Honestly, if you think you can write it as if it is an original canon, you can pick something I might not know.
DNW: Not a fan of graphic violence, or any form of sexual violence. (If canon includes some level of consent issues, I will note that.) I'm uninterested in tragic or downer endings. Also, not a fan of infidelity when it comes to romance.
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What is it? An 18 novel series about a part-fae knight and detective in modern San Francisco. October Daye had spent 14 years transformed into a koi in the Tea Gardens, ruining the mortal life she'd been trying to build, and causing her to hide away from her contacts in Faerie, until a murder and a geas brings her back into the fae life. A LOT has happened in the 6 years since, including a number of deaths, revelations, surprise family members, found family, a divorce (not October's) and several weddings (okay, one is October's). The author also has a bunch of novellas (many sold with the novels) and short stories on her Patreon, going into the backstories of many characters. (I still need to read all the Tybalt ones, but I can.)
Book 16 dropped a major revelation into the plot, and Books 17 and 18 follow straight on after a cliffhanger (same time period, but we get a non-October narrator for Book 18), and no doubt book 19 next year will be hella fallout. If you don't want to engage with the spoilers from books 17 and 18, here are some prompts.
1. In order to keep her promise to Quentin AND get a honeymoon to Disney with Tybalt; Toby agreed to let Brigit (and Etienne?) take Quentin, Raj and Chelsea to Disney, and August mentioned being allowed to come along with Dean and Peter as an extra adult. I want to be a fly on the wall for that trip. Or just general 'Toby's army of teenagers' antics, with or without Rayseline.
2. August and Rayseline both had a long period of isolation that might make for some interesting interactions. (Well, if August's dad can deal with this without a panic attack; poor Simon.). Or Rayseline and April, for that matter, as April was also an attempt to put together things that wouldn't necessarily work together (albeit, her moms could be more intentional, and also one had luck powers).
4. More Undersea stuff with Simon, Patrick and Dianda, with or without the kids. (August counts as a 'kid'.) Also, I think Half-Moon Bay would now count with the Undersea, if you want to explore how Gillian fits within here and how she is coping now that she got brought into Faerie, despite Toby's best intentions.
5. Past adventures of Toby and her teenaged friends, written with the full knowledge of the Book 16 Spoiler would be fun, in a 'this story is a lot more ominous in retrospect' sort of way.
I'm going to add some spoiler prompts after I read Book 18, because I want to know the other half of that story. Look down here!
6. Seeing that Simon, August and Toby kind of make a functional family, I kind of want to see what happens if somehow we got a version of Toby that still, say, had Gillian, or a Sylvester that married Luna and had Rayseline (who isn't that much older than Gillian), but grew up with Simon as her stepdad and August as her sister. (I don't know how to make this happen short of 'Simon never met Patrick, and so never dragged him to a party where Patrick met Dianda'.)
7. I kind of want to see Gillian and Peter make friends during the four months where they are stuck in Saltmist.
8. Or, honestly, anyone in Toby's circle POV during the last two books; because they are getting a Toby-style adventure without having remembered any of the preceding ones. Especially the people (like Simon) who are aware that the world has been changed, but are trying to puzzle out what that means for them personally.
9. Or if you want to do something fluffy, May teaching August to bake.
Fandom-Specific DNW: Given the canon just hit everyone with a giant mess of Stuff, I'm not interested in piling on more, just looking at the fallout, or pre-Book 17 stuff. (If you are doing AUs or fusions, feel free to disregard as well.) Also, given that we know Oleander was having sex with Simon while Simon was under Evening's mind-whammy (which I consider rape even if Simon doesn't ever use that word[1]), I'd rather that not come up with any more detail than it does in canon. In general, canon levels of violence or less is a good call.
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Characters Requested: Tazendra, Aerich
What is it? Several interconnected book series set in the same world (Dragaera) featuring a divide between 'elfs'/Dragaerans and Easterners. Both are humans, with the Dragaerans being more obviously altered from baseline. Both maintain they are human, and the other species are something else. The characters I'm requesting appear in The Phoenix Guards and sequels, which as an elevator pitch is 'the Dragaeran version of Alexander Dumas (Paarfi of Roundwood) writes 'historical novels' and Steven Brust is translating them for us'. So, imagine The Three Musketeers, but with elves and wizards.
Look, let me be frank, writer. See the characters I requested? I ship it. (I also can be persuaded to Aerich/Tazendra/Pel as an OT3, whether you see that as a V or triad, as long as one arm of the V is Aerich/Tazendra.)
I know there are problems, like that serious cross-House relationships are a Big Scandal in the setting, that Aerich in particular has a stick up his ass when it comes to proper behavior, both characters died in canon, and so on. Doesn't mean I don't want to see what you do, whether you go AU (either a canon divergence or altered setting) or try to make it work in canon.
If that doesn't work for you, I also like 'missing scenes' of adventures or day in the life-s, and friendship. Or heck, what do some of the Vlad-era stuff look like if somehow Aerich and Tazendra survived to that point, especially given Sethra would have had another apprentice.
DNWs: I can't think of anything that's not in my general DNW.
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Characters Requested: Ren and/or Guina Tremantis
What is it? A trilogy set in a colonized city, about a con artist (Ren) trying to win a place for herself, and the past and present of the city and its mysterious vigilante (the Rook). There's swordfights and romance and several excellent magic systems and found family and all sorts of good things. (Also a Good Dog and an Adorable Kitten.)
So, family is a big theme in the series. Ren has Tess and Sedge, the Traementis family (which she didn't really mean to get emotionally attached to, and yet...), discovering her birth family, and now marrying Grey and getting his sister-in-law and her kids as her family, and Vargo . Family stories that might get complicated but end well are a thing I'd like to see, especially as it blends so many elements of the world the books are set in.
I also like Giuna and how she grew up during the series and really took Ren as an older sister figure without copying her. So that interaction would be nice, or Guina on her own as her mother's heir.
(I'd rather keep Ren and Grey together as a couple, but I'm not opposed to Ren/Grey/Vargo as a threesome.)
DNW: Keep any violence to the level it was in canon. Dealing with past (and present) bigotry and imperialism means that sometimes this comes up -- especially given Grey's canonically-abused-child background, and both Ren and Vargo growing up on the streets -- but I'd rather it not be a major feature.
Back to Top
What is it? A single novel. Former grad student Jaime Grey lost their[2] job at a start-up, leaving them to deliver take-out in a locked-down 2020 New York City, and slowly fall behind on the rent. Jaime happens to run into a friend of a friend, Tom, who asks Jaime if they can be a last-minute replacement for his personal assistant at the NGO he works at, KPS. (Also, how does Jaime feel about fieldwork and animals. Big animals.) Jaime ends up making friends with the other newbies, does a lot of interesting thing, and not only learns about the 'kaiju' part of the name, but the 'preservation' part.
The good thing about this canon is that it is a single book, so if you aren't vibing with my other prompts and you can read a book quickly enough, try this.
Being set largely on a research station on an alternate Earth, this is a good place for 'normal antics involving scientists and engineers and support staff' and 'weird field work'. I'm a science nerd, so feel free to do all the weird worldbuilding about Kaiju Earth as you want. Or if you like, you can go into the backstory of the characters. We know how Jaime got recruited for KPS; what about Niamh, Aparna or Kahurangi?
Also, this is probably the easiest setup for a crossover possible, since it literally involves alternate worlds. Sure, our Earth and Kaiju Earth are the only two that have breeched the barrier between worlds (and Kaiju Earth largely happens by evolutionary accident rather than 'messing around with fissionable materials'), but you can always add more.
DNWs: I can't think of anything that's not in my general DNW.
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[1] Simon also over-inflates his agency during the century he was working for Evening Winterrose, usually to emphasize what a monster he is. Simon Lorden needs some therapy; thankfully, he was getting it until everyone in the Mists, Silences and Golden Shore got hijacked into the Age of Titania. [Back to Letter]
[2] The novel is in first person, and offers very little description of characters. There's maybe one line that could construe Jaime as male (or it could be regional slang, the way 'guy' is). Scalzi has done this before; I tend to see Jaime as male, but wouldn't object to a female/NB Jaime. I'm going to use they/them pronouns in the letter because Jaime never specifies. If you want a canon character that uses they/them, there is always Niamh. [Back to Letter]
First off, thank you for doing this. This is my first Yuletide in ten years, so I'm looking forward to it. For ease of use, I'm using subheadings and stuff in this letter so if you only know one fandom, you can just click around. I'm also having a general instructions set first.
Of note, one of the fandoms I requested (The October Daye series by Seanan McGuire) has two new books coming out this fall. I have read one and will likely edit this post when I read the other. Out of courtesy, I will mark spoilers for those in the section. All other spoilers are unmarked, especially as The Kaiju Preservation Society is a single book.
| General Instructions | October Daye | Dragaera | The Rook And Rose | The Kaiju Preservation Society |
General Likes, Dislikes and Do Not Wants (DNWs)
I read pretty widely, but I do like interesting worldbuilding and insights into characters or relationships I wouldn't necessarily have thought of. Don't be afraid to do something experimental, like an epistolary story or 2nd person, or interactive fiction. Of course, I also like a cozy and traditional 3rd person story with a straightforward beginning, middle and end.
I like adventure and romance and friendship, and am less interested in unresolved angst and tragedy. Given some of the characters and fandoms I nominated, 'things are awful and have been awful for a long time and it will take time to resolve this, but things will slowly get better' is an acceptable level. Basically think 'optimistic ending' rather than 'happy ending'. I'm also fine with hurt/comfort for that reason.
Sex scenes can be hit or miss for me. In general, I'm okay with them being the climax of a romance story, but not on their own.
Fusions, crossovers and alternate-universes (of the 'what if?' or the 'altered setting') ones are delightful, especially if you use this as an excuse to worldbuild. As long as the fandom characters and relationships are front and center, and you work at showing how it's clearly the same people despite the altered setting, feel free to create something really weird and wonderful.
I can include a list of Yuletide fandoms I also know for fusions and crossovers, or you can examine my writing journal,
invoking_urania. Honestly, if you think you can write it as if it is an original canon, you can pick something I might not know. DNW: Not a fan of graphic violence, or any form of sexual violence. (If canon includes some level of consent issues, I will note that.) I'm uninterested in tragic or downer endings. Also, not a fan of infidelity when it comes to romance.
Back to Top
The October Daye series, by Seanan McGuire
What is it? An 18 novel series about a part-fae knight and detective in modern San Francisco. October Daye had spent 14 years transformed into a koi in the Tea Gardens, ruining the mortal life she'd been trying to build, and causing her to hide away from her contacts in Faerie, until a murder and a geas brings her back into the fae life. A LOT has happened in the 6 years since, including a number of deaths, revelations, surprise family members, found family, a divorce (not October's) and several weddings (okay, one is October's). The author also has a bunch of novellas (many sold with the novels) and short stories on her Patreon, going into the backstories of many characters. (I still need to read all the Tybalt ones, but I can.)
Book 16 dropped a major revelation into the plot, and Books 17 and 18 follow straight on after a cliffhanger (same time period, but we get a non-October narrator for Book 18), and no doubt book 19 next year will be hella fallout. If you don't want to engage with the spoilers from books 17 and 18, here are some prompts.
1. In order to keep her promise to Quentin AND get a honeymoon to Disney with Tybalt; Toby agreed to let Brigit (and Etienne?) take Quentin, Raj and Chelsea to Disney, and August mentioned being allowed to come along with Dean and Peter as an extra adult. I want to be a fly on the wall for that trip. Or just general 'Toby's army of teenagers' antics, with or without Rayseline.
2. August and Rayseline both had a long period of isolation that might make for some interesting interactions. (Well, if August's dad can deal with this without a panic attack; poor Simon.). Or Rayseline and April, for that matter, as April was also an attempt to put together things that wouldn't necessarily work together (albeit, her moms could be more intentional, and also one had luck powers).
4. More Undersea stuff with Simon, Patrick and Dianda, with or without the kids. (August counts as a 'kid'.) Also, I think Half-Moon Bay would now count with the Undersea, if you want to explore how Gillian fits within here and how she is coping now that she got brought into Faerie, despite Toby's best intentions.
5. Past adventures of Toby and her teenaged friends, written with the full knowledge of the Book 16 Spoiler would be fun, in a 'this story is a lot more ominous in retrospect' sort of way.
I'm going to add some spoiler prompts after I read Book 18, because I want to know the other half of that story. Look down here!
Prompts that spoil Sleep No More/The Innocent Sleep
6. Seeing that Simon, August and Toby kind of make a functional family, I kind of want to see what happens if somehow we got a version of Toby that still, say, had Gillian, or a Sylvester that married Luna and had Rayseline (who isn't that much older than Gillian), but grew up with Simon as her stepdad and August as her sister. (I don't know how to make this happen short of 'Simon never met Patrick, and so never dragged him to a party where Patrick met Dianda'.)
7. I kind of want to see Gillian and Peter make friends during the four months where they are stuck in Saltmist.
8. Or, honestly, anyone in Toby's circle POV during the last two books; because they are getting a Toby-style adventure without having remembered any of the preceding ones. Especially the people (like Simon) who are aware that the world has been changed, but are trying to puzzle out what that means for them personally.
9. Or if you want to do something fluffy, May teaching August to bake.
Fandom-Specific DNW: Given the canon just hit everyone with a giant mess of Stuff, I'm not interested in piling on more, just looking at the fallout, or pre-Book 17 stuff. (If you are doing AUs or fusions, feel free to disregard as well.) Also, given that we know Oleander was having sex with Simon while Simon was under Evening's mind-whammy (which I consider rape even if Simon doesn't ever use that word[1]), I'd rather that not come up with any more detail than it does in canon. In general, canon levels of violence or less is a good call.
Back to Top
The Dragaera books, Steven Brust
Characters Requested: Tazendra, Aerich
What is it? Several interconnected book series set in the same world (Dragaera) featuring a divide between 'elfs'/Dragaerans and Easterners. Both are humans, with the Dragaerans being more obviously altered from baseline. Both maintain they are human, and the other species are something else. The characters I'm requesting appear in The Phoenix Guards and sequels, which as an elevator pitch is 'the Dragaeran version of Alexander Dumas (Paarfi of Roundwood) writes 'historical novels' and Steven Brust is translating them for us'. So, imagine The Three Musketeers, but with elves and wizards.
Look, let me be frank, writer. See the characters I requested? I ship it. (I also can be persuaded to Aerich/Tazendra/Pel as an OT3, whether you see that as a V or triad, as long as one arm of the V is Aerich/Tazendra.)
I know there are problems, like that serious cross-House relationships are a Big Scandal in the setting, that Aerich in particular has a stick up his ass when it comes to proper behavior, both characters died in canon, and so on. Doesn't mean I don't want to see what you do, whether you go AU (either a canon divergence or altered setting) or try to make it work in canon.
If that doesn't work for you, I also like 'missing scenes' of adventures or day in the life-s, and friendship. Or heck, what do some of the Vlad-era stuff look like if somehow Aerich and Tazendra survived to that point, especially given Sethra would have had another apprentice.
DNWs: I can't think of anything that's not in my general DNW.
Back to Top
The Rook and Rose, by M. A. Carrick
Characters Requested: Ren and/or Guina Tremantis
What is it? A trilogy set in a colonized city, about a con artist (Ren) trying to win a place for herself, and the past and present of the city and its mysterious vigilante (the Rook). There's swordfights and romance and several excellent magic systems and found family and all sorts of good things. (Also a Good Dog and an Adorable Kitten.)
So, family is a big theme in the series. Ren has Tess and Sedge, the Traementis family (which she didn't really mean to get emotionally attached to, and yet...), discovering her birth family, and now marrying Grey and getting his sister-in-law and her kids as her family, and Vargo . Family stories that might get complicated but end well are a thing I'd like to see, especially as it blends so many elements of the world the books are set in.
I also like Giuna and how she grew up during the series and really took Ren as an older sister figure without copying her. So that interaction would be nice, or Guina on her own as her mother's heir.
(I'd rather keep Ren and Grey together as a couple, but I'm not opposed to Ren/Grey/Vargo as a threesome.)
DNW: Keep any violence to the level it was in canon. Dealing with past (and present) bigotry and imperialism means that sometimes this comes up -- especially given Grey's canonically-abused-child background, and both Ren and Vargo growing up on the streets -- but I'd rather it not be a major feature.
Back to Top
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
What is it? A single novel. Former grad student Jaime Grey lost their[2] job at a start-up, leaving them to deliver take-out in a locked-down 2020 New York City, and slowly fall behind on the rent. Jaime happens to run into a friend of a friend, Tom, who asks Jaime if they can be a last-minute replacement for his personal assistant at the NGO he works at, KPS. (Also, how does Jaime feel about fieldwork and animals. Big animals.) Jaime ends up making friends with the other newbies, does a lot of interesting thing, and not only learns about the 'kaiju' part of the name, but the 'preservation' part.
The good thing about this canon is that it is a single book, so if you aren't vibing with my other prompts and you can read a book quickly enough, try this.
Being set largely on a research station on an alternate Earth, this is a good place for 'normal antics involving scientists and engineers and support staff' and 'weird field work'. I'm a science nerd, so feel free to do all the weird worldbuilding about Kaiju Earth as you want. Or if you like, you can go into the backstory of the characters. We know how Jaime got recruited for KPS; what about Niamh, Aparna or Kahurangi?
Also, this is probably the easiest setup for a crossover possible, since it literally involves alternate worlds. Sure, our Earth and Kaiju Earth are the only two that have breeched the barrier between worlds (and Kaiju Earth largely happens by evolutionary accident rather than 'messing around with fissionable materials'), but you can always add more.
DNWs: I can't think of anything that's not in my general DNW.
Back to Top
[1] Simon also over-inflates his agency during the century he was working for Evening Winterrose, usually to emphasize what a monster he is. Simon Lorden needs some therapy; thankfully, he was getting it until everyone in the Mists, Silences and Golden Shore got hijacked into the Age of Titania. [Back to Letter]
[2] The novel is in first person, and offers very little description of characters. There's maybe one line that could construe Jaime as male (or it could be regional slang, the way 'guy' is). Scalzi has done this before; I tend to see Jaime as male, but wouldn't object to a female/NB Jaime. I'm going to use they/them pronouns in the letter because Jaime never specifies. If you want a canon character that uses they/them, there is always Niamh. [Back to Letter]
