Dear Yuletide Author 2020 - Letter Now Complete!

[opalmatrix]

Thank you very much for writing me a Yuletide Story. My biggest request is no tragedies, no darkness unless followed by light. I have a rough time emotionally when the days are short. But, contrariwise, I am a definite believer in the idea that tensions or even pain make a sweet ending better, so go for salt caramel or even black licorice rather than cotton candy.

Have some optional details about what I like and don't like in a story, followed by my musings on what I like about my requested fandoms and what I might like in a story.

Preferences

I Don't Like:

• Sickly-sweet, coy, cutesy romantic stuff (anything in the "tee-hee-hee, is he looking at me?" category is definitely out)
• Extensive use of epithets, or epithets that don't match the character POV (no one should think of his or her long-time lover as "the green-eyed man," for example): these will throw me right out of a story
• Characters acting out of character, especially if the purpose is to force them into a relationship (doubly bad if that relationship is romantic or sexual)
• By-the-numbers, every-action-described sex (a/k/a Ikea Erotica - link goes to TVTropes). Note that actual sex is fine (I love me some sexy stories) — just don't like it when the descriptions turn into a set of exact stage directions.
• Mpreg, rape, forced sex (including sex pollen and fuck-or-die), hatesex. Dubcon is OK, especially the sort when the reluctant partner really wants the other person but is just not quite feeling ready yet or doesn't think se wants it in this particular way but gets off on it anyway.
• Humiliation or betrayal (without a damn good plot reason) of a character by a friend or lover
• A/B/O and related kinks/tropes, incest (unless canon), scat/watersports/emetophilia, tentacles, non-human genitalia.

I Like:

• Strong characterization (including character-appropriate dialog: no earthy, uneducated characters using $100 words)
• Positive emotional payoffs that are well-earned
• Passions that are strong without being mushy/fluffy
• Moments of realization — satori
• Friendships - although I am a romantic person, not every relationship must be romantic (I do like the trope of friends becoming lovers, however)
• Wry and even dark humor in the course of a more serious story
• And I like any of the following "cool bits":
  • For Yuletide, wintery/solstice seasonal details where possible but not overtly religious except if it goes with the canon (so Cherryh characters seem to celebrate New Year's but not Christmas, for example)
  • hurt-comfort
  • being cozy indoors when it's rainy or snowing
  • whispered admissions of love or forgiveness
  • brushing long hair or riffling fingers through short hair
  • romantic partners who are both competent
  • someone gradually waking and smiling when they realize their beloved is there
  • a stronger partner submitting willingly to the desires of a weaker one
  • family-of-choice, nakama, or True Companions
  • cynics with secretly soft hearts
  • impulsive acts of valor (especially on behalf of the weak or an underdog)
  • In-jokes among family members or close friends
  • shopping or planning scenes, where people are working together to pick things out
  • food descriptions: "food porn"
  • an autumn leaf or item of clothing as the only bit of color in a bleak landscape
  • cynics with secretly soft hearts
  • a study or library as a refuge against the outside world
  • leaning comfortably against a friend or lover; feeling them chuckle or speak
  • Realistically depicted animal companions; cute is OK, as long as it is realistically cute
  • unexpected gifts that turn out to be Just Right

I'm quite content with both straight and gay relationships. I do tend to ship the canon relationships, unless it's a character who has had no clear relationships shown in the story. I'm not comfortable with sexual relationships shown in children under the age of, say, 14 or so, and even then it's better in context (teens with other teens or in a societal setting where girls expect to marry by 16-18 anyway).

Fandoms and Prompts

Teixcalaan Series - Arkady Martine

My absolutely favorite thing about this novel is the friendship between Three Seagrass and Twelve Azalea. How often do we get friendship stories between male and female friends in fiction, especially as adults? I want more of these two. Give me pre-canon and/or missing scenes between these two. Have them help each other through tough times, or solve problems or mysteries, and let them be happy together in the end.

Alternatively, Mahit is so earnest and plucky and such a fangirl. I'm most interested in her time in Teixcalaan, but the novel covers most of the time there pretty closely, leaving little room for missing scenes. So perhaps it might need to be a little AU to have a missing scene with her and Three Seagrass and Twelve Azalea, or Five Agate? Being a little surprised or shocked by something in Teixcalaan culture, and then coming to appreciate it anyway?

Finally, I'm intrigued by Five Agate. Something re-canon, showing more of how she became the person we see, or a canon event from her viewpoint, giving us more of her personality and past. And ending with her and her child together, happy.

But author, if you have a different great idea that doesn't go against anything I've said about the book here, go for it.

Chronicles of Tornor - Elizabeth Lynn

Obviously, given this set of characters, I'm all about The Northern Girl. This book is a tremendous comfort read for me, up until the point where Sorren goes off on her own. At that point, it's just another story for me. I like Sorren well enough, and she's a huge part of the lives of the other three women. But they are the characters that attract me to this story.

Arre is in so many ways all that a local ruler should be. I love her satisfaction in keeping order, her lack of care for her appearance on a day-to-day basis but appreciation of dressing up for a special occasion, her occasional childish impulses (to eat sweets, to run rings around someone in conversation). I can sympathize with her frustration with her brother, her concerns with the L'hel's plotting, and her nostalgia for her relationship with Paxe.

Paxe reminds me in some ways of Catlin in Cherryh's Cyteen and Graff in Hellburner. She is the good soldier, and duplicity and subterfuge are uncomfortable for her. In Lynn's egalitarian and mostly peaceful world, she can also be a parent and a lover. I love how her friendships with various others around the city are depicted. I am somewhat disturbed about her physical relationship with Sorren, who is so much younger and is in a legally subservient position (although Sorren's mistress is Arre, not Paxe), even though I understand that the sexual ethics of Lynn's Arun are not ours.

We never get Marti's viewpoint, but I am delighted with her ease with her old age, and even her own death in the not-too-distant future: "I intend to be remembered ... I can hear them now: 'The old lady wouldn't do that, and she wouldn't let you do that!'" I enjoy what we see of her life, where she is still very much in charge of her own household and her district of the city, a lover of books and beauty (her garden, Arre's attractively arranged study, Sorren in a nice outfit), a student of humanity. She is the wise crone I would hope to become.

And Sorren is ... Sorren, the Northern Girl, sensual in a healthy way, painfully naive still about much of the world. For me, she's mainly a catalyst for the actions of the other three.

Give me a story about these three grown women, with as much of the one girl as is needed. Arre's first year of ruling in her mother's stead, with Paxe's support and Marti's advice? Paxe's first encounters with Sorren, and how that relationship developed? The bittersweet ending of Paxe and Arre's relationship, which Paxe describes in such dispassionate terms (to Sorren's frustration)? Marti's viewpoint on the canon events? Arre finally taking that trip upriver to see Tarn Ryth, and Paxe and Marti handling something that happens in her absence? Or something else that you want to write about these wonderful characters?

(Perhaps you could even answer the question of why Arre never taught Sorren to read, nor had her taught.)

Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh

I'm a huge CJC fan, and Alliance-Union is my favorite of her settings. Hellburner is my very favorite book in this setting.

I identify hugely with Graff, mainly in the way he takes responsibility for his people, even when it puts him the hot seat, and stays loyal even when he realizes he can no longer trust his own superiors. I also appreciate his relationship with the Hellburner team: he was there from their beginnings as a ridership crew, and as of the release of the ebook version, Word of God is that they end up on Norway (in CJC's recent ebook afterword), as Graff does (canon, from Downbelow Station)

Dek and Ben have a very special, dysfunctional relationship. To some extent, Dek is Ben's Morality Pet, and Ben is Dek's (canon) Sanity Anchor. I don't ship them, but if that's your preference, go for it, as long as this doesn't leave Meg and Sal out in the cold or fridged.

Meg and Dek are to me, one of CJC's most successful couples. The tender little scene where they get together after Dek is broken out of station hospital by Graff, and Meg is surprised and flattered and worried by Dek's advances, and then she calms him when he starts mourning Cory: "Hush, it's Meg" -- that hit so many of my buttons. And then they have the argument about flying together! They are so *real*. Anything with these two, as long as it ends with happiness or at least contentment.

I love the close found-family relationship the Hellburner four have, and the unsentimental ways they express it, snark and all. I love Sal too, but nominations, man ... four characters only is hard for me with this fandom.

Or, Author Dear, maybe everyone just ends up in a hell of a New Year's party aboard ship or on shore leave somewhere. Or Ben finally gets to set foot on a planet (probably Pell, rather than Earth, thing being as they are ... or maybe even Cyteen?) and see an ocean!

Always Coming Home - Ursula K. Le Guin

Stone Telling made so much out of the poor hand she was dealt. I'd love to see more of her life toward the end of the story, after returning from Condor, when she embraced her home and its culture. Give her a challenge to meet and tell me how it all works out. (One weird thought: what if her father were not dead after all? Or if someone else she knew in Condor showed up, a refugee? Not her husband: that would be too fraught.)

I loved Flicker's story. My gifts aren't nearly as impressive as hers, but I identify with the issues she had dealing with what she was, and how it isolated her in many ways. It would be wonderful to see more of her life after her children are grown and gone, respectively.

Finally: I think these two would enjoy each other, perhaps become friends. Bring them together in some interesting circumstance, and let them play.

Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie

Seivarden is such a mess, isn't she? I'd enjoy some further character development with her. Put her in a tough situation and let her grow, and have a happy ending to this episode.

I also enjoyed the Penis Festival, and I love the station AIs. It seems to me that the stations probably enjoy it when their residents have a festival and most of them are happy. So if you want to let your imagination run wild, world-building-wise, and come up with some interesting celebration on a station stop (at a station we haven't met yet) and set the characters loose there, that could also be great.

Finally, perhaps everyone on Mercy (and the Mercy itself) decides (on the pretext of some event, anniversary, or holiday) that they want to do something for their captain, and Kalr Five thinks up just the thing. Maybe it's some special music recording, or she finds that the current station stop has a talented musician or musicians that specialize in some traditional music form that Breq would like.

These are just ideas! Maybe you have better ones, or riffs on mine. In any case, there should be a little bit of on edge to what happens, somewhere, to make the ending sweet but not saccharine.

Cyteen Series - C. J. Cherryh

I love Florian and Catlin II and their relationship with each other and their citizen. Florian is actually my favorite out of the three of them, for his emotional intelligence, but I also have a soft spot for Catlin, the good soldier, so often out of her depth with flux states. You could go slightly AU with a disaster scene that never happened during the canon time period while they're still kids, or carry things forward a little from Regenesis.

Grant and Justin are just one huge ball of hurt/comfort, aren't they? I love the way they are two halves of a whole. It would be easy to create a side scene in canon for them, or you could carry the storyline forward a bit, in their new home. The two of them are always a choice target for anyone hoping to get at Ari II.

Several New Years celebrations are pivotal settings in canon. You could use another one as the setting or pretext for other events, and it would be very seasonal!

Again, some edge/problem/challenge before the resolution to a happy or at least contented ending ifs welcome, and if you have your own ideas, please go for them, as long as nothing I've specified character- or mood-wise is violated.