Yuletide 2023

[marianainthemoatedgrange]

Dear incipient author,

First of all, thank you so much for writing for me! As is usually the case, I'm sure I'll be stoked for whatever you can come up with for me, but as far as specific guidance/extra brownie points go, here is a list of things I generally enjoy, followed by fandom-by-fandom suggestions:

Yes Please:

- WORLDBUILDING

- Lyrical prose bordering on the purple

- Poetry

- Mythology/folklore wank

- Fake meta/academic sorts of writing, like in-universe research papers and such

- Character studies

- Casefic/plotfic (what can I say, I'm easy to please story-wise)

- Travel narratives

- OCs (no, seriously, I love pretty much all the characters who have been nominated but especially if you're doing a worldbuilding deep dive then please feel free to throw some in)

- Food porn

- Scenery porn

- Porn porn (vanilla is fine, kinky is fine, non-/dubcon is fine for specified prompts, see below)

- Longfic (obviously shortfic isn't a dealbreaker, but I'm not a person who gets put off by receiving longfic for an exchange and will happily read as many thousands of words as you can put to paper/pixels)

Hard Limits:

- Eye harm

- The usual extremely niche kinks (scat/watersports, shota, AB/DL, vore - basically if you would hesitate to write it for someone without a very specific request, err on the side of caution, or at least get a mod to clarify. Also, please do not have anyone call anyone else "daddy/mommy" during sex. Not that I really think such a thing would come up for most of these fandoms, but just to cover all my bases here.)

- A/B/O (no shade on any A/B/O enjoyers, I just really have to be in the mood for it)

So now, onto specific fandoms: 

Thief (Video Game Original Series, Accept No Crappy Stephen Russell-less Substitutes): God. This is definitely one of those JUST WRITE ME SOMETHING AND I'M SURE I'LL LOVE IT ones, but as far as specifics... well, I do ship the hell out of Garrett and Artemus, so anything from them first getting together as Keepers (no doubt with the EXTREME DISAPPROVAL of everyone around them) to Artemus sneaking off to fuck see Garrett after his defection to Garrett angstily reminiscing about him post-Deadly Shadows would be absolute cake for me. Otherwise, worldbuilding is good, (we see the City in such relatively tiny, disparate little snippets, any kind of effort to make those cohere would be delightful) theft mission casefic is good, something involving Garrett clashing with the various factions is good (I also ship the absolute fuck out of him and Viktoria, so shipfic along those lines would also be very welcome if you are so inclined. Inappropriate use of vine arrows encouraged but not necessary, lol.)

Winter Rose - Patricia A. McKillip: Best Tam Lin retelling ever, don't @ me. Some kind of legacy fic bridging the gap between it and Solstice Wood would be super cool, as would something about Tearle and Corbet's time in the fairy realm (maybe something specific about Corbet's decision to return to the human world and how he actually pulled it off, with the rose pond and everything?) Rois and Corbet actually getting to know each other following all the drama and presumably discovering that they do legitimately love each other beyond any and all perverse fascination would be nice, whether snapshots or a whole courtship epic.

Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield: Please, for the love of Glob, tell me more about the Center. As much as I enjoyed the book overall, I am one of those people who will take the most beautifully-crafted character study with any kind of fantastic/magical realistic elements whatsoever and proceed to completely ignore the characters and themes in favor of "yes, but what about the METAPHYSICS of it all?!" Was that thing at the end some kind of shared hallucination, or something they were sent down there to study, or something that was being studied by the Center with its reactions to the sub crew, or what? What the hell kind of research methodology was that anyway? Was it some kind of very roundabout sacrifice to fucking Cthulhu/Leviathan/whatever to keep it placated? (IDK, I'm just spitballing here.) Also, I did genuinely love Miri and Leah's relationship, so if you wanted to just do more about their relationship that'd also be cool. (Maybe marry that and the metaphysics and have Miri get some kind of ultimate closure with Leah still existing in some form? As much as the tragedy of the ending as it was was resonant and powerful I am a complete sucker for ultimately happy, or especially bittersweet, endings in that vein.)

The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison: I love Maia-centric fic, I love nohecharei fic, Maia/Csethiro/Csevet is possibly my foremost OT3 of all time, I would love anything worldbuildy, especially anything bringing the worlds of Amalo and Cetho a little bit closer together (I have really enjoyed them both, but the tech, fashion, and sort of general atmosphere of TGE just seems so different than what we see in Cemeteries of Amalo that I've been having to do a lot of mental gymnastics to sort of reconcile the two, so some fic help in that vein would honestly be awesome.) Witness casefic featuring Celehar, or the great platonic power couple of Celehar and Tomasaran, would be great, some sort of character study of one of the other named ones (ARBELAN! VEDERO! IANA!) would be wonderful, I ship Maia with basically everyone but especially the abovementioned two and his nohecharei so anything from complete fluff to complete filth would be absolutely lovely, (or Thara/Iana, or Thara/Maia which is perhaps my foremost TGE rarepair at this point in time) or maybe some postcanon stuff... IDK, I'm easy to please with TGE, lol. Surprising clocks and a fairly ridiculous amount of focus on tea suggested but not required.

The Amberlough Dossier Series - Lara Elena Donnelly I am down for whatever about whoever. Cutesy curtainfic about Aristide and Cyril postcanon! Jinadh and Lilian (and Stephen) adjusting to life in postwar Amberlough! Precanon stuff about any of them! And please, please don't skimp on the worldbuilding detail. More about the Chuli would be super cool, or one of the other countries we get to briefly see, (I was super curious about the Porachin film industry or some stuff about pre-war Weimar Amberlough circa when everyone was still a stripper or a spy. (Also, I know Cordelia wasn't nominated, but I would love something about her, especially the Catwalk operations between Amberlough and Armistice that we don't get to see.) 

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke  Okay, let's get one thing straight up front: if you write me Gentleman/Stephen Black fic, I will be evermore in your debt. Anything from straight noncon (with the Gentleman still 100% convinced he's doing Stephen a favor, of course) to Stephen enjoying it despite himself to full-on Stockholm Syndrome would be absolutely wonderful. If the above is less your jam, however, I am an absolutely huge sucker for anything about the particular effects that English Magic a) has had on the development of the country and b) the ones that the Return of English Magic will have in the future. Stuff about the change of management in Faerie, the subsequent study and practice of magic by later students and the further traditions that might crop up, something along the lines of that truly hilarious Brexit AU fic someone wrote a few years ago... going specifically by the nominated characters, something about Catherine of Winchester or more John Uskglass stories (either in the vein of the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner one or just some stuff about his time as king of Faerie) would both be super cool, but as per above I'm sure I'd be good with fic about pretty much anyone who was nominated.

Once again, thanks in advance for the gift and a very happy holidays/Yuletide to you, whoever you may be. <3/Mari