Yuletide 2018 // Dear Author

[felinejumper]

[cross-posting from Tumblr]

hello! hi! wow! wow.

I'm so excited to be doing Yuletide this year, it is my very first time so we’ll see how it goes. But in general, I am SO hyped that you're writing for me and so excited for Dec. 25th.
My three fandoms that I am requesting are: The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf, Emelan/Circle of Magic by Tamora Pierce, Traitor Baru Cormorant by the mysterious Seth Dickinson!

Wants & DNWs:Broadly, I like explicit slash and I like genfic and I like in depth wandering character studies for all of these fandoms, although to varying degrees for each. Thematically, here are some things I really like in stories (but please feel free to take your plot and machinations any way you like!! write what you’re excited about!)

• failed or successful queer mentorship
• femslash (just wildly indulgent explicit porn anywhere and at all times)
• good faith miscommunication, resolved or unresolved
• people excelling at their chosen craft (craft VERY loosely defined here)
• endings that are not The Pair Getting Paired Off, happy or sad
• ambiguous or contrary feelings
• girls with swords! girls fighting! this often leads to aggressive femslash!
• a secret text that means canon was *deliberately* framed to hide xyz queer activity
• complex feelings about polyamory, poorly or well executed polyamory
• hasty momentary reprieves from the war outside
• reveries on the past

Hard do-not-wants: big age-gap slash, non-canon-typical intentional dub- or non-con, non-canon-typical violence, a/b/o dynamics or mpreg

Some prefer-nots: massive AUs (change-one-things are fun though), porn-without-feelings (but deeply buried and never-coming-to-light falls into the ambiguous and contrary category), bad faith misunderstandings

The Voyage Out:I read this as part of a 8 month deep Woolf-dive, and feel all kinds of ways! I was especially intrigued and hungry for the themes of unspoken queer mentorship between all four of the major female characters -- stately Clarissa, nurturing-through-literature Helen, confusingly-attractive Evelyn, and Rachel herself.
DNW: Helen/Rachel or Clarissa/Rachel
Themes I'd love to see explored in any depth, although by no means an exhaustive list:

• Rachel/Evelyn! What is Evelyn looking for when she asks Rachel all those questions about truth and realness? Why is Rachel so alternately horrified/attracted to her? ahhhhh! I am also super down for indulgent smut for these two before they return to their men. Just like. Emotionally fraught filth.
• Clarissa: I love Mrs. Dalloway, so incorporation of that canon is a-ok and even welcomed
• Rachel & Clarissa! Is this Rachel's queer awakening, and is she aware? Is Clarissa aware? Or do they pass like ships in the night? What the hell is up with Richard and Clarissa from Rachel’s POV?
• Clarissa & Helen, Clarissa/Helen! What do two middle-aged queer ladies talk about in 1915? Do they understand each other at all? Do they like, get down in the lifeboats? (Do they have lifeboats?) Were they lovers twenty years ago?

Emelan - Tamora Pierce: Oh man, man, I've loved these since I was a very small person!! I prefer the original residents of Discipline Cottage most, but I have read all of the Circle Opens/Reforged and am happy with any stories set in that world: pre-canon through post-Circle Reforged. I am happy with gen or slash, and I’d prefer whoever and whatever get a happy ending.
Themes/Prompts, a not-exhaustive list:

• Little Bear.
• Lark/Rosethorn: them planning their lives, them meeting, them domestically living together, them managing each other's moods, them dealing with being long distance, them going to the circus together. And, uh, explicit loving femslash
• Queer mentorship between the circle their mentors; anybody coming out to anybody and it going well; anybody modelling their own queerness on someone older.
• Protective!mentors
• Briar & Rosethorn: gardening together! mentorship of two prickly pals! Hanging out with the shakkan!
• Daja & Frostpine: silently hammering together! making practical art together! navigating being cultural outsiders together!
• Lark & Sandry: navigating social circles together! Finding new cloth! Collaboration!
• Tris & Niko: reading too many books together! Being, for some reason, forced to clean out a stable and vowing to never speak of it again! Cranky social outcasts bonding over how cranky they both are!
• Slash between any of the main quartet & how it affects the dynamics of the whole! Polyamory also welcome. A happy ending is *not* necessarily a romantic relationship working out, but again, no perma-relationship-endings

The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Oh God I worry about everyone in this book so much and I have so many unexamined feelings. I would welcome:

• character studies
  
• battle plans
  
• extremely hot and tense Baru/Tain Hu in a tent before battle
  
• Baru's internal monologue ever
  
• Tain Hu's internal monologue ever
  
• Aminata’s internal monologue ever, Aminata having a nice interlude in a port somewhere
  
• anybody dreaming about a better world
  I also would not be opposed to a believable and in-character fix-it fic.
  I will have read Monster by December, so if you have and want to include that canon, please feel free! Otherwise, I would prefer not-future fics so it doesn't get muddled with new canon and so I can enjoy whatever you write for a long time! I particularly enjoyed the pain of this fic, but again, I’m psyched to see anything set here, because I love being emotionally wrecked.