Dear Unsent Letters Correspondent (2025)

[opalmatrix]

Thank you so much for writing me some Unsent Letters! Here are many optional details about what I like and don't like in a story, plus some prompts for the fandoms.

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 (for more about epithets, see this)
• 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":
  • hurt-comfort
  • senses of smell and touch and memories attached to them
  • warm and oversized bathrobes/dressing gowns or sweaters/jerseys
  • someone's profile silhouetted against the light
  • impulsive acts of valor (especially on behalf of the weak or an underdog)
  • drops of water clinging to hair and/or skin
  • leaning comfortably against a friend or lover; feeling them chuckle or speak
  • romantic partners who are both competent
  • whispered admissions of love or forgiveness
  • finding in a fight that one's ally feels like a protective wall
  • family-of-choice, nakama, or True Companions
  • cynics with secretly soft hearts
  • In-jokes among family members or close friends
  • shopping or low-tension planning scenes, where people are working together to pick things out
  • caper-type operations: crazy elaborate plans that work out well in the end, especially if parts of them are silly/funny

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

Books of the Raksura - Martha Wells

I love Delin's relationship with Moon: how they have come to appreciate each other. For this prompt, I'd want to see a particular canon fact included: Moon is literate in a couple of common languages, but he is only just becoming literate in Raksuran, and I don't think he can write fluently at all. So someone would have to help him correspond with Delin. Chime would be an obvious choice, but maybe one of the Mentors would do it for him. Perhaps Delin asks about Moon and Jade's babies?

Another possibility would be some correspondence between Moon and his sister Celadon. They missed an entire childhood together. Again, Moon would need some assistance in making this work.

The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison

I love how this series remains cozy even in the face of assassination and ghouls. I'm a sucker for details of custom, food, and clothing.

For the correspondence among the four nohecharei, this could be working notes from one team to the other, either in day-to-day affairs or in a circumstance that sees the two teams split apart in location, perhaps one on the road with Maia and the other back in Alcethmeret.

For the correspondence between Cellar and the archprelate, one could either go a bit AU and have Cellar correspond about events of the two published volumes about Amalo, or one could pick up at the end of The Grief of Stones and have them talk about Celehar's new role.

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells

I'm fascinated with the idea of what Amena's and Iris' lives are like as young adults in Wells' setting.

I imagine that Farai, Amena's other mother, worries a great deal about the fact that her co-spouse Ayda Mensa is bringing Amena into all these dangerous situations. I'd be interested in some mother-daughter correspondence about this.

Iris was raised with Perihelion as a sibling. I Imagine that Peri was on some training missions without Iris before her fathers were willing to let her go along. Messages between them on such an occasion or occasions would be appreciated.

Nine Worlds Series - Victoria Goddard

I discovered Goddard about 18 months ago and have been reading everything I can find. I read Greenwing & Dart over the winter holidays, which had me finish Plum Duff around 12th Night -- so appropriate! Stargazey Pie was rather awkward, but after that, I tore through the series as fast as I could. For me, the feeling is vaguely like Sorcery and Cecelia, but Goddard is much more generous with details.

I have warm family feels about Kip and his nephew Gaudy. We know that canonically. they were corresponding as Kip rose through the administrative hierarchy of the palace. Give me some of that, perhaps something where Gaudy has misunderstood what Kip has told him, and Kip explains.

Jemis seeks Violet's hand and the favor of her mother in this endeavor, and Lady of Alinor assents. He specifically asks whether he can send letters. Let's have some of that correspondence. The events of Plum Duff might be worth re-hashing, or anything else that occurs to you.

Correspondence between Jemis and Dart while the former is at university (before everything goes to hell) would be great. Perhaps we will see what Dart likely missed about his friend's relationship with Lark.

The Silver Branch - Rosemary Sutcliff

I'd love to see the events of the earlier part of the book, before Flavius and Justin go undercover, in letters from Flavius to his great aunt, and her responses and advice.

Witch King - Martha Wells

I love Wells' lush world building in her fantasies. It seems like there is a lot of scope for fan fiction of all kinds in the period between the present and past storylines of Witch King .

I imagine that Ziede and Tahren were often on separate missions during their courtship. I'd love some love letters back and fourth. I don't imagine that either of them is sticky-sweet in her tone in such writing, but Tahren might be given to occasional epic declarations of love, while Zeide is likely to be briefly tart-sweet in her affection.

In one of the scenes early on in the novel, Kai sends an elemental spirit to check on their home (apparently they have a family-of-choice group home, which warms my heart) and manages to get in contact with Zeide's daughter Tanis. I'd love a little plotty correspondence between mother and daughter.