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auroracloudDear Yuletide writer,
Thank you for offering to write whichever of these rare fandoms we matched on! Sorry it took me a while to get the full letter up. I’m also sorry it’s anything but concise – that’s not why it took me so long to finish - rather, it’s the case that when I got myself organized enough to write this, I wrote a lot.
First, I’m into a lot of different kinds of stories, so relax and don’t fret too much. I don’t have a huge load of DNWs and I enjoy seeing different ways people interpret the same source material, the different possible stories they come up with. I’m often a multi-shipper – doesn’t mean I like every ship, but I’m not jealously guarding an OTP in most cases – and I genuinely like gen as much as I like shippy stuff. Given how found family heavy some of these fandoms are, maybe that’s not too difficult to believe!
But I’ll give you a bit about some of the things I like, and some more thoughts and prompts for each fandom, in case that kind of thing helps you. However, if you aren’t the kind of writer who works better with prompts; if these restrict you rather than inspire you; then don’t pay attention them. Seriously! I want you to write what inspires you. Often I don’t even know what I’ll enjoy reading before I read it, and the most enjoyable stories are usually ones that the writer was passionate about writing. But if these extra ramblings, lists and ideas help you pick a direction or a starting point, here, make use of them.
If you need an emergency fandom because the one we matched on doesn't work for you after all, I'd say The Beacon and This Is How You Lose the Time War would be the easiest to pick up on a short time-frame. I've described them a bit from that perspective after the request part. I'd guess We Fix Space Junk wouldn't be that hard either - while there are three seasons, they're 8 episodes each and the episodes aren't that long.
Stuff I like in stories and in general; feel free to use anything that happens to fit
• Space, stars, astronomy
• Science, nature, animals
• People being geeky about what they do or love. People being into culture and arts; or culture as a part of worldbuilding.
• Friendship and found/chosen family. Doesn’t need to be just the good sides of
• Touching, hugging, clinging, physical comfort, whether platonic or not. I’m a by nature tactile person in a touch-phobic culture and now there’s a pandemic going on.
• Dreams and nightmares
• letters, epistolary format, diaries, unusual formats like encyclopedia entries or news articles or what have you
• Allllll the queers. Feel free to make any characters queer, please don’t make any characters straight who aren’t straight in the canon.
• Nature and animals
• Getting together stories, but also figuring out how to be together stories
• Hurt/comfort, in the sense where the comfort really is an important part of the story, rather than just focusing on hurting the characters
• characters dealing with bad stuff that happens to them in canon, which not all canons give that much room to…
• morally complicated characters, people having layers
• moderate amounts of pining, not being able to pretend to yourself you aren’t attracted to someone
• slice of life, domestic
• missing scenes, or canon scenes from a different point of view
• fork-of-the-road AUs: what if something had gone differently?
• exploring character motivations, or thoughts and feelings they try to hide from each other
• learning to be loved, or to accept you need contact and community with others
• strong people learning they don’t have to be strong every moment
Do Not Wants
In cases where the fandom contains these things, they’re fine at the level they’re present in canon, just don’t go more descriptively into it.
• gore, strong violence, torture
• non-canonical death of canon characters. Dealing with canon death is fine
• Underage, child abuse, incest
• non-con, rape, very dubious consent
• Unhappy endings (ambiguous/bittersweet is fine if that's how the story rolls)
• completely dark fic
Dealing with mental health stuff is fine, sometimes even suggested in the prompts, but please warn/notify in the tags, so I can prepare myself.
The Requests
Here are the requests, with the details I wrote in the sign-up plus whatever additional things I have to add in the letter. The request part is in italics, and whatever additional stuff I rambled now is in a normal font. Sorry some of the DNWs part keeps being repeated, but there are also fandom-specific differences.
The Beacon (Podcast
Characters: any (nominated characters: Bee, Fox, Newt, Thalassal)
The nominated characters are Bee, Fox, Newt, and Thalassal, but I didn’t select specific ones because I’m happy with literally any of these characters. I wish I could have nominated more characters from the show, I love the whole Team Super Magic and those around them. Magic shenanigans, friendship, romance, arguments, trying to balance schoolwork and magic, trying to conceal a prince from a fantasyland in your college dorm room, whatever works!
Some prompts:
- Bee and Fox and their online conversations at any point prior to S2 finale
- something from Fox’s POV. I’m very curious about her!
- cute Bee/Fox romance. I ship them extremely much!
- Newt and his Emotional Support Bee.
- Newt accidentally enjoying something and forgetting to be moody and emo goth about it.
- What happens when Newt hosts Lassie in his room? For the record, I totally ship them. You don’t need to go there if you don’t feel like it, though.
- Any terrible/amusing arguments and fights Bee and Thalassal (and Wolf if you want – I adore her and wanted to nominate her but there were limitations!) had during S2 when Lassie was staying in her room.
- Literally anything with Thalassal being a huge geek.
- And seriously, you can just pick absolutely any real-life situation, from cooking to playing Animal Crossing to dealing with the pandemic, put some of these characters into that situation and see what happens, and I’ll be happy.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my generic DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
- definitely don’t want to ship Bee (or Fox for that matter) with either of the boys.
- character bashing, also of unrequested characters. I love all these people and their friends.
- Bee is ace, so don’t please don’t write her romance with Fox involving sex.
I discovered this podcast this autumn, and listened to both seasons in something like three weeks, and I love it very much. I’m sad that there isn’t any fic, and I’m trying to do my part in changing that, for example by requesting it here. If you don’t know it but are curious, it’s basically an urban fantasy podcast about dealing with unexpected magical powers while you’re also in college, and with lots of friendship and found family elements, and lots of very queer characters. If you get curious about it, there are two seasons currently available wherever you listen to podcasts, and it shouldn’t take awfully long to listen through them, as it didn’t for me either. And you can probably write something for these characters even without finishing S2, though I highly recommend finishing it as the show only keeps getting better.
I dropped in quite a few prompts in the sign-up, so I’m not going to add more. Just saying that I really really wished I could have added more characters when I nominated this – I especially was really torn about not nominating Wolf, as I love her relationship with Bee and the whole gang; so if you feel like including her, feel welcome to. But I also could have just added everyone and then not chosen a character for my request, and said just write me about some or all of them. I love the dynamics, I love the characters being so young and vulnerable and having to deal with superpowers at a time when even dealing with life can be just way to much, but also how it ultimately brings them community and makes them grow.
Also with a special note about Thalassal, he’s such an interesting character to bring into the show because he’s so, so lost but keeps trying to be authoritative and right, though deep down all he wants to do is geek out. And I’ve shipped him and Newt since Newt attempted to explain to Bee just why he’s got drawings of Lassie lying around.
Also a brief note about Fox as we have far less canon about her than about the others - I’m just super curious about her, what her story is and how she’s felt about her interactions with Bee and what might happen to their relationship now that they’re in the same place, and just how very awkward Bee will get about it. While I’m sure S3 will tell us many things, I’d just love to read a bit of fic exploring her as well based on what we know now.
Fandom: Wolf 359
Characters: Renée Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace
I love almost all the characters in this show, but also, I especially really want fic about Minkowski and Lovelace because they’re both great. But feel free to include any of the others from their time on the Hephaestus if you feel like it, as long as Minkowski and Lovelace are central.
I love these amazing, powerful, complex women, and also how their relationship grows from mutual suspicion and even enmity to close trust and friendship and caring. I also ship them a lot because they’ve got amazing chemistry that leads my mind that way, but I welcome gen and shippy fic equally, and I genuinely mean that.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my generic DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
- Also, do not want Minkowski/Eiffel in my gift fic. I adore their relationship madly but prefer it gen. And I’m generally really into neither Minkowski nor Lovelace getting shipped with any of the men on the Hephaestus. Minkowski/Koudelka is fine, as long as the focus is more on Minkowski and Lovelace.
Additional details: Hoo, boy. I’m a bit late into the show – I’ve been actively into audio drama for a couple of years so there’s been catching up to do. The long story short (heh) is that I started listening to this show on the week after the pandemic lockdowns started in my country, listened to the first season in about 2-3 days, got pretty far into the second season in as many days, but then had to slow down as the story was starting to grip my heart more and more tightly and was no longer just a bit of fun to take my mind off the world. I’ve been much slower with seasons three and four because I just had to protect my poor heart. At the time of writing this letter, I’m still recovering from the series finale, so forgive me if I make even less sense than in any other part of the letter, or ramble unnecessarily.
But while the show could hurt me like hell, I also don’t know how I’d have made it through the last several months without everything it’s given me, there’s so much in it, in the characters, the story, and the world. And this isn’t to put pressure on you, dear writer. Because there’s so much I love in it, you have lots and lots of directions you can take your story and I’ll be happy. Anything from silly shenanigans and gratuitous pop culture references and everyone groaning at Eiffel trying to be funny, to complicated relationships and poignant and messy post-canon healing processes. From found family to hot romance.
Here are some specific things that I know I want to keep reading in this fandom, involving these characters:
- Minkowski and Lovelace learning to appreciate, respect and like one another, and how they become such a powerful team in the end
- S2 stuff: balancing between the distrust and even hostility, and, well, other feelings, whether that’s some romantic/sexual feelings budding up or just respecting one another and acknowledging they’re all each other have
- Minkowski and Lovelace dealing with Eiffel being missing and the station falling apart in the beginning of S3
- in the beginning of S3, in Pan-Pan, there’s still a lot of hostility between Lovelace and Hera. I’m curious about how they got from there to the trust and respect of later times. I know I didn’t request Hera, but Minkowski probably played a role there.
- dealing with what’s revealed about Lovelace at the end of S3/beginning of S4. Would be super into them comforting each other about everything that’s happened
- otherwise dealing with the bad stuff that happens during the story. Take your pick!
- Eiffel is Minkowski and Lovelace’s joint-custody dumbass. (I totally stole this expression from a fanfic I read yesterday but I forget which one, sorry.) I mean this is just a fact of canon, but I love stories featuring their relationship like this.
- post-canon with Minkowski, Eiffel, Hera, Lovelace and Jacobi (Minkowski’s husband optional) getting a house and living there together and trying to learn how to be and live
- more immediately post-canon: comforting each other on the journey back to Earth
And since I said I’m happy to include any other characters from the Hephaestus crews as well (and honestly I wish I could have nominated everyone), then just in case you want to include some shippy stuff that isn’t Minkowski/Lovelace, here’s a comprehensive list of the ships I’m into:
Minkowski/Lovelace, Eiffel/Hera, Hera/Maxwell, Jacobi/Eiffel, Kepler/Jacobi.
But I also like gen versions of each of the above relationships, and I’m super into the other very gen relationships that are also important in this show, like the relationship between Minkowski and Eiffel, and the friendship of Jacobi and Maxwell. I love that the canon itself is basically fully gen, even though I also enjoy shipping potential between various characters. And I’m really into the found family potential here.
Fandom: This Is How You Lose the Time War – Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Characters: Red, Blue
Would just love anything with this lovely book and its characters and world. Some examples:
- letters or scenes during the story that we didn't see in the book, or expanding on something that only got a brief mention
- Red and Blue after the book ends! How do they recover from all the stuff that they go through? How do they communicate with each other in real time? How do they set up their own little bridge between time lines and defend it? How many dogs do they get and what are they like? Slice of life, scenes/snapshots, cuteness, smooches, conflicts, learning to understand one another, still writing each other letters, drinking tea, puns, angst, declarations of love, whatever you like!
- Generic time traveller / time agent awesomeness and time weirdness, Red and/or Blue on missions, what they love or don’t love about particular times and places, how they’ve influenced history or where. Geeking out about obscure or not-so-obscure culture from a certain strand. Knowing the best strand and time and place to get the perfect chocolate biscuits. Casually meeting historical figures we know — or alternate versions of them. And so forth. For something in this vein, feel free to focus on just one of the requested characters rather than both of them, though it is nice if you can include at least references to the other. Little signs of the other’s effect on this same time strand, for example.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my general DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
This could be a good emergency fandom if it turns out you can’t work with the fandom we matched on (and it wasn’t this one), as it’s a novella and doesn’t take that long to read, depending on how much you want to savour it while reading. If you enjoy SFF that’s really poetic and more focused on character, feelings and atmosphere than on detailed worldbuilding, but has an interesting concept of a time war between rivalling futures, and if you like time travel, enemies-to-lovers, and/or epistolary fiction, check this out, it’s beautiful and it won just about every eligible novella award, and I’ve read it several times.
If you have read it, I want to add that while I love the beautiful, poetic style of the book, you don’t need to try to match that – while I love stories that sound like they could continue the book, I also would be very happy to read something in a completely different style from the book. Also, as the book is sparse on worldbuilding details, if you want to write something that’s a lot more focused on worldbuilding, time travel mechanics etc., feel free to do so, I’d enjoy that as well though it’s not what the book focuses on.
But if you’d rather just write about Red and Blue feeding ducks or exchanging smouldering glances over tea or over the backdrop of a temporally significant ballroom or whatever you fancy, just admiring how lovely the other is, I’m also super game for that. And hey, I seem to have dropped you some other prompts in this paragraph, feel free to take!
Fandom: The Books of the Raksura – Martha Wells
Characters: Moon, Chime, Jade
If you want to focus on just two out of three, that’s fine, as long as one of them is Chime because I love Chime very much. I would enjoy either gen-focused adventures or slice-of-life somehow involving the three of them, or more shippy fic, either Moon/Jade and Moon/Chime separately, or Moon/Jade/Chime as a triad. Feel free to include any other characters or ships from the canon, as long
Some things I love in this canon: worldbuilding, Raksura culture, Moon being confused and awkward about something related to being a Raksura until Jade or Chime or someone helps him figure it out, social dynamics within or between courts, Moon Not Being Your Usual Consort, Jade being awesome, Chime being awesome, Moon being awesome, touching and hugging and everyone sleeping in a big pile, etc. And many other things.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my general DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
- please no jealousy between Chime and Jade over Moon; in the canon I’ve seen no sign of that, and polyamory is a norm for the Raksura
- please no other-universe AUs (like college, werewolf, whatever) since the world of the canon is such a big part of what makes this story special
I finished the last novel in the series, Harbors in the Sun, a couple of months ago, and I’ve been so excited about this! I just love the general feeling of community, found family, and a way of looking at gender, relationships, affection, and sex, that’s really different from the Western heteronormative monogamous norm. I love Moon’s storyline from being an outsider loner who doesn’t know anything about himself, to becoming a part of a community but only slowly learning how to really belong there. I love how it totally subverts gender norms. And I love how the Raksura are characters who in your standard traditional epic fantasy would probably be cast as the “villain race” (and we see evidence that’s how many people’s of the Three Worlds see them) but since we’re in their point of view, we see their intricate social relationships, rich culture, their need to survive in a complicated world, and they are our heroes.
I don’t really have anything huge to add to the prompts, just this general note: while I’m fine with including dark stuff like exploring characters’ insecurities or traumas, or danger that makes an epic adventure happen, I really love the themes of community, hope, and learning to accept loving and being loved that are central to these books. Given the year we’re all having, I’m hoping the fic leans more towards one or more of those things than it does on dark stuff.
Fandom: We Fix Space Junk
Characters: Kilner, Samantha
I’d seriously love any space shenanigans or daily life aboard the Yellow Submarine that you can think of. Or the characters dealing with creepy Automnicon weirdness, fall-out from one of their adventures, just canon-typical humans being weird, etc. Dealing with the AI characters is also always loads of fun and I’m always there for that. I’d love either gen or femslash for this fandom, I love the unlikely friendship and partnership Samantha and Kilner have in the show, but also enjoy their chemistry in a shippy sense. Am perfectly fine with any canon ships (past or present) that you wish to include in the story.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my general DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
- please no other-universe AUs (like college, werewolf, whatever) since the world of the canon is such a big part of what makes this story special
Additional details: Just saying that if you’ve finished listening to S3, you know that there’s a beautiful moment Samantha and Kilner friendship and what they mean to one another, and I’d totally love to explore that even more. I also love how they can be so honest with one another, and trust each other very much, and can be vulnerable with each other. And how they’re determined to keep helping the people they meet along the way, even though they live in a big mean universe owned by a big mean corporation.
Also, I love how helpful and decent the AIs in this universe are (except for Ringo), and I love so many of the supporting characters, both recurring and one-off. So including any of them will also make me happy! I also really enjoy the weird planets Kilner and Samantha end up on, and the weird pieces of tech they have to repair, and how many of those have risen from really everyday needs that have just gone very far when the technical progress has allowed it.
Thank you for offering to write whichever of these rare fandoms we matched on! Sorry it took me a while to get the full letter up. I’m also sorry it’s anything but concise – that’s not why it took me so long to finish - rather, it’s the case that when I got myself organized enough to write this, I wrote a lot.
First, I’m into a lot of different kinds of stories, so relax and don’t fret too much. I don’t have a huge load of DNWs and I enjoy seeing different ways people interpret the same source material, the different possible stories they come up with. I’m often a multi-shipper – doesn’t mean I like every ship, but I’m not jealously guarding an OTP in most cases – and I genuinely like gen as much as I like shippy stuff. Given how found family heavy some of these fandoms are, maybe that’s not too difficult to believe!
But I’ll give you a bit about some of the things I like, and some more thoughts and prompts for each fandom, in case that kind of thing helps you. However, if you aren’t the kind of writer who works better with prompts; if these restrict you rather than inspire you; then don’t pay attention them. Seriously! I want you to write what inspires you. Often I don’t even know what I’ll enjoy reading before I read it, and the most enjoyable stories are usually ones that the writer was passionate about writing. But if these extra ramblings, lists and ideas help you pick a direction or a starting point, here, make use of them.
If you need an emergency fandom because the one we matched on doesn't work for you after all, I'd say The Beacon and This Is How You Lose the Time War would be the easiest to pick up on a short time-frame. I've described them a bit from that perspective after the request part. I'd guess We Fix Space Junk wouldn't be that hard either - while there are three seasons, they're 8 episodes each and the episodes aren't that long.
Stuff I like in stories and in general; feel free to use anything that happens to fit
• Space, stars, astronomy
• Science, nature, animals
• People being geeky about what they do or love. People being into culture and arts; or culture as a part of worldbuilding.
• Friendship and found/chosen family. Doesn’t need to be just the good sides of
• Touching, hugging, clinging, physical comfort, whether platonic or not. I’m a by nature tactile person in a touch-phobic culture and now there’s a pandemic going on.
• Dreams and nightmares
• letters, epistolary format, diaries, unusual formats like encyclopedia entries or news articles or what have you
• Allllll the queers. Feel free to make any characters queer, please don’t make any characters straight who aren’t straight in the canon.
• Nature and animals
• Getting together stories, but also figuring out how to be together stories
• Hurt/comfort, in the sense where the comfort really is an important part of the story, rather than just focusing on hurting the characters
• characters dealing with bad stuff that happens to them in canon, which not all canons give that much room to…
• morally complicated characters, people having layers
• moderate amounts of pining, not being able to pretend to yourself you aren’t attracted to someone
• slice of life, domestic
• missing scenes, or canon scenes from a different point of view
• fork-of-the-road AUs: what if something had gone differently?
• exploring character motivations, or thoughts and feelings they try to hide from each other
• learning to be loved, or to accept you need contact and community with others
• strong people learning they don’t have to be strong every moment
Do Not Wants
In cases where the fandom contains these things, they’re fine at the level they’re present in canon, just don’t go more descriptively into it.
• gore, strong violence, torture
• non-canonical death of canon characters. Dealing with canon death is fine
• Underage, child abuse, incest
• non-con, rape, very dubious consent
• Unhappy endings (ambiguous/bittersweet is fine if that's how the story rolls)
• completely dark fic
Dealing with mental health stuff is fine, sometimes even suggested in the prompts, but please warn/notify in the tags, so I can prepare myself.
The Requests
Here are the requests, with the details I wrote in the sign-up plus whatever additional things I have to add in the letter. The request part is in italics, and whatever additional stuff I rambled now is in a normal font. Sorry some of the DNWs part keeps being repeated, but there are also fandom-specific differences.
The Beacon (Podcast
Characters: any (nominated characters: Bee, Fox, Newt, Thalassal)
The nominated characters are Bee, Fox, Newt, and Thalassal, but I didn’t select specific ones because I’m happy with literally any of these characters. I wish I could have nominated more characters from the show, I love the whole Team Super Magic and those around them. Magic shenanigans, friendship, romance, arguments, trying to balance schoolwork and magic, trying to conceal a prince from a fantasyland in your college dorm room, whatever works!
Some prompts:
- Bee and Fox and their online conversations at any point prior to S2 finale
- something from Fox’s POV. I’m very curious about her!
- cute Bee/Fox romance. I ship them extremely much!
- Newt and his Emotional Support Bee.
- Newt accidentally enjoying something and forgetting to be moody and emo goth about it.
- What happens when Newt hosts Lassie in his room? For the record, I totally ship them. You don’t need to go there if you don’t feel like it, though.
- Any terrible/amusing arguments and fights Bee and Thalassal (and Wolf if you want – I adore her and wanted to nominate her but there were limitations!) had during S2 when Lassie was staying in her room.
- Literally anything with Thalassal being a huge geek.
- And seriously, you can just pick absolutely any real-life situation, from cooking to playing Animal Crossing to dealing with the pandemic, put some of these characters into that situation and see what happens, and I’ll be happy.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my generic DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
- definitely don’t want to ship Bee (or Fox for that matter) with either of the boys.
- character bashing, also of unrequested characters. I love all these people and their friends.
- Bee is ace, so don’t please don’t write her romance with Fox involving sex.
I discovered this podcast this autumn, and listened to both seasons in something like three weeks, and I love it very much. I’m sad that there isn’t any fic, and I’m trying to do my part in changing that, for example by requesting it here. If you don’t know it but are curious, it’s basically an urban fantasy podcast about dealing with unexpected magical powers while you’re also in college, and with lots of friendship and found family elements, and lots of very queer characters. If you get curious about it, there are two seasons currently available wherever you listen to podcasts, and it shouldn’t take awfully long to listen through them, as it didn’t for me either. And you can probably write something for these characters even without finishing S2, though I highly recommend finishing it as the show only keeps getting better.
I dropped in quite a few prompts in the sign-up, so I’m not going to add more. Just saying that I really really wished I could have added more characters when I nominated this – I especially was really torn about not nominating Wolf, as I love her relationship with Bee and the whole gang; so if you feel like including her, feel welcome to. But I also could have just added everyone and then not chosen a character for my request, and said just write me about some or all of them. I love the dynamics, I love the characters being so young and vulnerable and having to deal with superpowers at a time when even dealing with life can be just way to much, but also how it ultimately brings them community and makes them grow.
Also with a special note about Thalassal, he’s such an interesting character to bring into the show because he’s so, so lost but keeps trying to be authoritative and right, though deep down all he wants to do is geek out. And I’ve shipped him and Newt since Newt attempted to explain to Bee just why he’s got drawings of Lassie lying around.
Also a brief note about Fox as we have far less canon about her than about the others - I’m just super curious about her, what her story is and how she’s felt about her interactions with Bee and what might happen to their relationship now that they’re in the same place, and just how very awkward Bee will get about it. While I’m sure S3 will tell us many things, I’d just love to read a bit of fic exploring her as well based on what we know now.
Fandom: Wolf 359
Characters: Renée Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace
I love almost all the characters in this show, but also, I especially really want fic about Minkowski and Lovelace because they’re both great. But feel free to include any of the others from their time on the Hephaestus if you feel like it, as long as Minkowski and Lovelace are central.
I love these amazing, powerful, complex women, and also how their relationship grows from mutual suspicion and even enmity to close trust and friendship and caring. I also ship them a lot because they’ve got amazing chemistry that leads my mind that way, but I welcome gen and shippy fic equally, and I genuinely mean that.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my generic DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
- Also, do not want Minkowski/Eiffel in my gift fic. I adore their relationship madly but prefer it gen. And I’m generally really into neither Minkowski nor Lovelace getting shipped with any of the men on the Hephaestus. Minkowski/Koudelka is fine, as long as the focus is more on Minkowski and Lovelace.
Additional details: Hoo, boy. I’m a bit late into the show – I’ve been actively into audio drama for a couple of years so there’s been catching up to do. The long story short (heh) is that I started listening to this show on the week after the pandemic lockdowns started in my country, listened to the first season in about 2-3 days, got pretty far into the second season in as many days, but then had to slow down as the story was starting to grip my heart more and more tightly and was no longer just a bit of fun to take my mind off the world. I’ve been much slower with seasons three and four because I just had to protect my poor heart. At the time of writing this letter, I’m still recovering from the series finale, so forgive me if I make even less sense than in any other part of the letter, or ramble unnecessarily.
But while the show could hurt me like hell, I also don’t know how I’d have made it through the last several months without everything it’s given me, there’s so much in it, in the characters, the story, and the world. And this isn’t to put pressure on you, dear writer. Because there’s so much I love in it, you have lots and lots of directions you can take your story and I’ll be happy. Anything from silly shenanigans and gratuitous pop culture references and everyone groaning at Eiffel trying to be funny, to complicated relationships and poignant and messy post-canon healing processes. From found family to hot romance.
Here are some specific things that I know I want to keep reading in this fandom, involving these characters:
- Minkowski and Lovelace learning to appreciate, respect and like one another, and how they become such a powerful team in the end
- S2 stuff: balancing between the distrust and even hostility, and, well, other feelings, whether that’s some romantic/sexual feelings budding up or just respecting one another and acknowledging they’re all each other have
- Minkowski and Lovelace dealing with Eiffel being missing and the station falling apart in the beginning of S3
- in the beginning of S3, in Pan-Pan, there’s still a lot of hostility between Lovelace and Hera. I’m curious about how they got from there to the trust and respect of later times. I know I didn’t request Hera, but Minkowski probably played a role there.
- dealing with what’s revealed about Lovelace at the end of S3/beginning of S4. Would be super into them comforting each other about everything that’s happened
- otherwise dealing with the bad stuff that happens during the story. Take your pick!
- Eiffel is Minkowski and Lovelace’s joint-custody dumbass. (I totally stole this expression from a fanfic I read yesterday but I forget which one, sorry.) I mean this is just a fact of canon, but I love stories featuring their relationship like this.
- post-canon with Minkowski, Eiffel, Hera, Lovelace and Jacobi (Minkowski’s husband optional) getting a house and living there together and trying to learn how to be and live
- more immediately post-canon: comforting each other on the journey back to Earth
And since I said I’m happy to include any other characters from the Hephaestus crews as well (and honestly I wish I could have nominated everyone), then just in case you want to include some shippy stuff that isn’t Minkowski/Lovelace, here’s a comprehensive list of the ships I’m into:
Minkowski/Lovelace, Eiffel/Hera, Hera/Maxwell, Jacobi/Eiffel, Kepler/Jacobi.
But I also like gen versions of each of the above relationships, and I’m super into the other very gen relationships that are also important in this show, like the relationship between Minkowski and Eiffel, and the friendship of Jacobi and Maxwell. I love that the canon itself is basically fully gen, even though I also enjoy shipping potential between various characters. And I’m really into the found family potential here.
Fandom: This Is How You Lose the Time War – Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Characters: Red, Blue
Would just love anything with this lovely book and its characters and world. Some examples:
- letters or scenes during the story that we didn't see in the book, or expanding on something that only got a brief mention
- Red and Blue after the book ends! How do they recover from all the stuff that they go through? How do they communicate with each other in real time? How do they set up their own little bridge between time lines and defend it? How many dogs do they get and what are they like? Slice of life, scenes/snapshots, cuteness, smooches, conflicts, learning to understand one another, still writing each other letters, drinking tea, puns, angst, declarations of love, whatever you like!
- Generic time traveller / time agent awesomeness and time weirdness, Red and/or Blue on missions, what they love or don’t love about particular times and places, how they’ve influenced history or where. Geeking out about obscure or not-so-obscure culture from a certain strand. Knowing the best strand and time and place to get the perfect chocolate biscuits. Casually meeting historical figures we know — or alternate versions of them. And so forth. For something in this vein, feel free to focus on just one of the requested characters rather than both of them, though it is nice if you can include at least references to the other. Little signs of the other’s effect on this same time strand, for example.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my general DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
This could be a good emergency fandom if it turns out you can’t work with the fandom we matched on (and it wasn’t this one), as it’s a novella and doesn’t take that long to read, depending on how much you want to savour it while reading. If you enjoy SFF that’s really poetic and more focused on character, feelings and atmosphere than on detailed worldbuilding, but has an interesting concept of a time war between rivalling futures, and if you like time travel, enemies-to-lovers, and/or epistolary fiction, check this out, it’s beautiful and it won just about every eligible novella award, and I’ve read it several times.
If you have read it, I want to add that while I love the beautiful, poetic style of the book, you don’t need to try to match that – while I love stories that sound like they could continue the book, I also would be very happy to read something in a completely different style from the book. Also, as the book is sparse on worldbuilding details, if you want to write something that’s a lot more focused on worldbuilding, time travel mechanics etc., feel free to do so, I’d enjoy that as well though it’s not what the book focuses on.
But if you’d rather just write about Red and Blue feeding ducks or exchanging smouldering glances over tea or over the backdrop of a temporally significant ballroom or whatever you fancy, just admiring how lovely the other is, I’m also super game for that. And hey, I seem to have dropped you some other prompts in this paragraph, feel free to take!
Fandom: The Books of the Raksura – Martha Wells
Characters: Moon, Chime, Jade
If you want to focus on just two out of three, that’s fine, as long as one of them is Chime because I love Chime very much. I would enjoy either gen-focused adventures or slice-of-life somehow involving the three of them, or more shippy fic, either Moon/Jade and Moon/Chime separately, or Moon/Jade/Chime as a triad. Feel free to include any other characters or ships from the canon, as long
Some things I love in this canon: worldbuilding, Raksura culture, Moon being confused and awkward about something related to being a Raksura until Jade or Chime or someone helps him figure it out, social dynamics within or between courts, Moon Not Being Your Usual Consort, Jade being awesome, Chime being awesome, Moon being awesome, touching and hugging and everyone sleeping in a big pile, etc. And many other things.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my general DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
- please no jealousy between Chime and Jade over Moon; in the canon I’ve seen no sign of that, and polyamory is a norm for the Raksura
- please no other-universe AUs (like college, werewolf, whatever) since the world of the canon is such a big part of what makes this story special
I finished the last novel in the series, Harbors in the Sun, a couple of months ago, and I’ve been so excited about this! I just love the general feeling of community, found family, and a way of looking at gender, relationships, affection, and sex, that’s really different from the Western heteronormative monogamous norm. I love Moon’s storyline from being an outsider loner who doesn’t know anything about himself, to becoming a part of a community but only slowly learning how to really belong there. I love how it totally subverts gender norms. And I love how the Raksura are characters who in your standard traditional epic fantasy would probably be cast as the “villain race” (and we see evidence that’s how many people’s of the Three Worlds see them) but since we’re in their point of view, we see their intricate social relationships, rich culture, their need to survive in a complicated world, and they are our heroes.
I don’t really have anything huge to add to the prompts, just this general note: while I’m fine with including dark stuff like exploring characters’ insecurities or traumas, or danger that makes an epic adventure happen, I really love the themes of community, hope, and learning to accept loving and being loved that are central to these books. Given the year we’re all having, I’m hoping the fic leans more towards one or more of those things than it does on dark stuff.
Fandom: We Fix Space Junk
Characters: Kilner, Samantha
I’d seriously love any space shenanigans or daily life aboard the Yellow Submarine that you can think of. Or the characters dealing with creepy Automnicon weirdness, fall-out from one of their adventures, just canon-typical humans being weird, etc. Dealing with the AI characters is also always loads of fun and I’m always there for that. I’d love either gen or femslash for this fandom, I love the unlikely friendship and partnership Samantha and Kilner have in the show, but also enjoy their chemistry in a shippy sense. Am perfectly fine with any canon ships (past or present) that you wish to include in the story.
Do Not Want (DNW):
- my general DNWs: gore and graphic violence, rape/non-con, incest, underage sex (under 16 years), non-canonical major character death of requested characters or others in the tagset
- please no other-universe AUs (like college, werewolf, whatever) since the world of the canon is such a big part of what makes this story special
Additional details: Just saying that if you’ve finished listening to S3, you know that there’s a beautiful moment Samantha and Kilner friendship and what they mean to one another, and I’d totally love to explore that even more. I also love how they can be so honest with one another, and trust each other very much, and can be vulnerable with each other. And how they’re determined to keep helping the people they meet along the way, even though they live in a big mean universe owned by a big mean corporation.
Also, I love how helpful and decent the AIs in this universe are (except for Ringo), and I love so many of the supporting characters, both recurring and one-off. So including any of them will also make me happy! I also really enjoy the weird planets Kilner and Samantha end up on, and the weird pieces of tech they have to repair, and how many of those have risen from really everyday needs that have just gone very far when the technical progress has allowed it.
