Dear Yuletide Writer (2020)

Dear Yuletide Writer,

 

2020 is its own punch line

Dog on fire says "this is all fine."

But I will take delight

In whatever you write

For these smallish fandoms of mine!

 

(Optional details are optional! Please feel free to write anything about these fandoms/characters, this is just to provide some suggestions if you're interested.)

 

I'm also primeideal on Ao3 (and Tumblr), and Ember Nickel on FFN. I have many previous dear author letters from which much of this is copied, pasted, and endlessly rewritten. I've written/blogged more heavily about several of these fandoms than others at times (especially this year when I've had a lot of time for (re)reading long book series on my hands), but I would be equally delighted with fic for any one of them.

General Likes:

-canon-divergence AUs

-five things

-worldbuilding

-dialogue

-wit and wordplay

-nonstandard formats (documentation, epistolary, etc.)
-interactive fiction--I prefer formats like Twine to open-ended parsers.

-happy endings

-sad endings (when providing some measure of closure or melodrama; I'm fine with character death!)

General DNWs (see fandom specific-notes for further details)

-explicit sex

-underage characters having sex

-rape/noncon

-second person POV (in "normal" prose, happy with it in IF or the like)
-moralizing/didactic stories (characters Learning An Important Lesson about the value of tolerance, etc.)
-allegories of current events and/or contemporary politics

-character or religion bashing

-cliffhanger endings

-themes of cynicism or futility, or that the (canon's) main plotlines "are for nothing"

FTL

Any character (none nominated for this fandom)

Anything for this fandom. A few ideas:
-The Crystals! What is their relationship with the Rocks? How did they evolve the Lockdown ability? Are they annoyed at you for bringing the rebellion into their hidden sector?

-The repair drones! Do they really not know or care where you came from? Are they the only ones in the galaxy who don't care? Why do they speak in rhyme?
-The final battle! Is the flagship AI just waiting for those pesky humans to die so it can assume power? Why does the player ship have to fight it, and what is the rest of Federation leadership doing? Who programmed the "multiple layers of defenses" strategy?

Feel free to go as morbid as you like with character death, it's part of the game! (A very big part if you've been unsuccessful as long as I have...)
 

Mystery of Time and Space

Any character (none nominated for this fandom)

So this game has been probably abandoned, but I want to know more! What happens next? Does the protagonist ever find out what in the world is going on? Do they create a paradox by interacting with themselves after they travel in time? Are there other clones waking up and being confused elsewhere?

I enjoy the silly "narration" voice when you click on things you can't use ("I need needful things, why aren't there any here.") So something goofy or fourth-wall breaking, playing with that, would be neat.

Worldbuilding in general could be cool--what's in all those books about time travel and stuff? Why does everyone love Commodore 64s? Does the jazz music exist in-world? Just tell me what's going on in this universe.

The original site is defunct, but you can find an archive copy of the game on Flashpoint here.
 

Ninety-Three (Quatrevingt-Treize)

Gauvain

I have a lot of feelings about doomed moral-victor idealists and he definitely qualifies!

Pre-canon fic showing how he became the kind of leader he is? Interactions with Cimourdain or Lantenac? What do Radoub and the other soldiers think of him?

An AU where things diverge from canon much earlier? What if he'd been deployed to Paris rather than the Vendée? What if his aristocratic background had disqualified him from service?

For this fandom, I think there could be some humor from having Gauvain interact with characters from other canons of the same era, and/or putting him in a different setting, and seeing what form his principles take. Gauvain meets the Conventionist from Les Misérables, and/or survives until the events of that novel? He interacts with the "Hamilton" versions of Lafayette or Jefferson as they argue what path to take with regards to the revolution? 21st-century Gauvain's struggles to keep his idealism intact on Twitter? (Again, I don't want a serious focus on modern real-world issues or people, but if it's done for humor, then feel free.)

This Wikisource translation is in the public domain.
 

The Prestige

Alfred Borden, Robert Angier

Friends to enemies to...increasingly obsessed enemies. I would be interested either in shipfic or gen for these two.

-Maybe they developed feelings for each other when they were both starting out? Julia never comes into the picture and disaster is averted.

-What if there were no duplicates, and Angier's "with you awaiting execution for my murder" was just that? His obsession with Borden leads him to kill himself in order to bring about Borden's death.

-The movement of the "teleporter" coincides with "Borden's" impending execution, so what if it really was a teleporter and Angier was reluctantly setting it up to whisk Borden away at the last moment, deciding he tolerated him after all? (Can be an AU in which there's only one "Borden.")

 

For this fandom, I'm okay with "dubious consent due to identity issues" (ie Angier thinks he's in a relationship with Borden, but actually, there are two Bordens and he doesn't know). But please no incest or violent non-con.
 

Remembrance of Earth's Past/Three-Body Problem (三体)

Any character (Ye Wenjie, Yang Dong, Cheng Xin, Yun Tianming nominated)

For this request, I'm not really interested in "The Redemption of Time" as canon--feel free to draw ideas from it if you like, but I don't want to take it as read.

Ye Wenjie: secrets at Red Coast Base? Some more of the "declassified" documents? The early days of the ETO? What did she work out about Dark Forest theory before meeting Luo Ji?

Yang Dong: for someone who has very little time "on screen," she casts a long shadow over all of the books. More about her friendship with the programmer from "Death's End," and/or with Luo Ji? What if she'd survived--what would she have made of her mother's betrayal? How would things have gone with Ding Yi?

Yun Tianming: His re-incarnation and interaction with the Trisolarans? How did he realize he would need to write the "fairy tales" if he wanted to communicate with Earth someday, and how did he decide what to include? A fix-it where he and Cheng Xin don't miss each other at their star?

Cheng Xin: see above for Xin/Tianming fix-it prompt! But I would also be interested at any kind of outside POV on her and the many different hats she wears. Older men patronizing her during Project Staircase? The humans resenting her in Australia? Luo Ji and the museum? What if she'd stayed on the cylinder worlds near Jupiter where things felt "normal" and 2000s-y? Her relationship with Guan Yifan--is he really a different kind of human for having been to space, or are they more two sides of the same coin?

Worldbuilding: anything for this fandom, tbh, in all its scope. More of the "video game" that taught people about Trisolaris--what were others' experiences like playing it? The aftermath of Gravity and Blue Space? The four-dimensional artifact Guan Yifan talks to? The legacy of the old universe in the new?

If it's relevant to the story you want to tell, feel free to bring in some of the historical issues that canon touches on (like how the Cultural Revolution shaped Ye Wenjie), just no contemporary hot takes (about China or anywhere else).
 

Wheel of Time

Egwene al'Vere

-Egwene's time among the Aiel. Culture shock? Unexpected similarities? I like Egwene/Aviendha if that's a dynamic you want to include.
-More of Egwene's private war against Elaida in the Tower. How she demonstrates the different Ajahs' strengths and works to build up/inspire the novices around her.
-How is Egwene's legacy viewed by future Amyrlins? Heroically? Critically? Misremembered?
-Any kind of weird magical worldbuilding. (Tel'aran'rhiod? The parallel universes from the Accepted test?)
-What if she survived the last battle? Would she be an Amyrlin for centuries, or would people worry she was getting too powerful? What if she'd burned out and had to return to non-magical life?
--
Again, this is all optional, feel free to use as little or as much as is useful. Thank you so much!