Dear Yuletide Writer 2025
Sep. 16th, 2025 02:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenluaThank you in advance, kind stranger! I have requested some rather niche fandoms and I'm SO delighted by the possibility of any fic for any of these. I'm pretty easygoing & omnivorous when it comes to fic-reading, so please have fun writing, and follow your inspiration where it leads, even if it doesn't entirely match the prompts here!
(Also: I'm happy to receive treats!)
General Likes:
* gratuitous meta / worldbuilding, backstories, character studies, strong settings / setting-as-character
* working through bitterness / badfeels with family and friends (and other complicated relationships), (inverted) power dynamics (and exploration thereof), depictions of "home", melancholy & reminiscing, people who are very different from each other struggling & striving & learning to understand each other
* people avoiding their feelings with various varieties of self-destructive behavior, scoundrel-y characters being scoundrels, smart characters being smart, heists
* awkward dinner parties (e.g. characters are forced to make surface-level polite small talk with people who suck due to some particular Circumstance; the cringier the better), pathetic men
I mostly read gen, but I also enjoy very shippy or smutty fic, so long as there's still significant plot and/or character study elements. To that end I also have a list of:
Smutty Likes
* mutual using (e.g. they're both not over their dead ex and they're using each other to fill the void)
* or, just one person is using (e.g. sleeping with someone while thinking about some other person they'd ACTUALLY like to be sleeping with the entire time)
* sleeping around for political purposes
* cheating
* accidental dubcon/noncon due to Catastrophically Poor Communication
* in general i'm open to a lot of stuff & pretty hard to squick, so the answer for most specific kinks (choking/bondage/voyeurism/whatever) is "sure!"—my primary interest is in there being some feeling beneath the scene (be that fucked-up badfeels, a happy catharsis, whatever), and so long as that feeling is there, i'll be pleased with whatever action is happening
I mostly enjoy things that stick close to canon facts/settings. However, I do enjoy setting-based AUs when the new setting has a ton of flavor (e.g. coffee shop AUs or standard college AUs tend to be too bland for me, but I've enjoyed stuff like "they're all national park rangers" AU or "US Revolutionary War" AU, etc). Canon divergent AUs / "what if?" AUs are also great if you've got a cool idea for one!
What I've written, bookmarked, and been gifted on AO3 does a pretty good job of showing the range of things I'm most delighted to read.
Do Not Wants (DNWs): AUs where the primary focus is erotic (e.g. omegaverse, d/s verse, slavefic, etc), vomit/feces/piss
Okay, on to the fandom-specific stuff~
Gilead Series - Marilynne Robinson
These books rewrote my brain this past year & I'm still not over it.
My super-offbeat prompt suggestion: while I was reading Lila, it occurred to me that Robinson's writing style and setting would be incredibly well-suited for some kind of horror. The startling clarity of Lila's thoughts, the way her memories circle back to the same Events From Her Past over and over, the almost-ethereal feeling Robinson's prose gives even mundane things... I'm just saying, an AU where Lilla was a vampire hunter or something would totally work, and be very entertaining to me, personally. (Or any other horror or horror-adjacent concept that strikes your fancy, with any/all of these characters; I'm not picky.)
If you are NOT interested in horror and/or any kind of AU, I'd also be delighted with anything that fills out more about Lila, Jack, or Glory. If you need someplace to get started with that: I really loved Lila and Jack's interactions; there's that bit where they both know the same implied-to-be-crude/off-color tune while hanging out on some porch or another in Gilead that really stuck with me. What other ways might their pasts come up, and how might they connect with each other? As for Glory, I'd love a look at her time before returning home to stay—perhaps the visit home or phone call or letter that convinced her it was time to return to take care of dad, or more filling-out of what "Mr. Love Letters" was like, or even what she was like as a teacher. (Or whatever other aspect of Gilead you think could use more filling out! I'll be so excited to read whatever you're most excited to write in this universe.)
The True Deceiver - Tove Jansson
I know the whole book is exploring the dynamic between Anna and Katri, but, I still want more :P
I'd be thrilled with femslash for this; edgy/dark femslash or some sort of AU setting that pushes it in that direction would be awesome. I can imagine twisting some canon knobs that could make Anna/Katri into some relationship/hookup-shaped thing, but of course it'd be messy and weird and hushed and some sort of weird thinly-veiled power struggle. (I'd be pleased with anything on the spectrum from "sloppy angry kiss after one of their arguments" to "sexy knifeplay after Mats has fallen asleep, because Katri is horny and angry and tired of Anna not listening to her about money, and Anna goes all bratty-sub and eggs her on," etc. So, go where your id leads, haha.)
If you're not interested in the shipping angle, there's plenty to else to explore about these two. Perhaps some more scenes once Anna's seemed to "catch on" to the effect Katri's having on her, or what it's like for Anna to (temporarily) lose her skill in art near the end.
Even a little post-novel scene may be a lovely strange coda to it all—is Anna able to paint again? does the dog ever come back? does Katri ever have enough money to be satisfied? (Actually, now that I'm typing it—maybe a scene where Katri's trying to "hear" the earth the way Anna does, or goes to chat with Anna while Anna's painting—gosh, that's on the sweeter/softer side than I'd usually like, but I think I'd like it here a lot.)
Mostly I loved the story's general focus on cold places and cold people (my initial review here!). Any fic with those two things will make me very happy.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Margot (Expedition 61), Lisette (Expedition 56), Emilie (Expedition 41), and Albert (Expedition 39) are all characters we know about only from their expedition journals. I would love love love any fic you'd like riffing on one of those journals.
Some of my own thoughts, if you need more than that to get going:
In Emilie's case, I was so charmed that their journal is signed, not "Emilie, Expedition 41" but "Emilie, Expedition WOLF 41." To me it has the ring of some sort of cheesy moniker the expedition chose for themselves—"team wolf!"—and the jocular, devil-may-care tone is endearing. Would love to see how their nevron-bagging competition developed and what the team dynamics were like in their expedition.
Lisette's journal gives us probably the starkest revelation of any of the journals—her expedition captured Alicia (!!!) and presumably tried to get her to talk—where was Renoir and Verso during that, I wonder? How did that play out? And leading up to it, the tragic romance implied by her description of Simone—I love a tragic love story & a crazed revenge quest as much as the next guy; would love to see details about all that if that's what you're stirred to write.
Margot's journal, found in the Reacher, has an outsider's description of the odd little society that exists on the Reacher & its axon. "Never seen [them] fighting amongst themselves before" is an interesting detail for these nevrons! And what's the axon like when it's not just a brief sighting in a cutscene after the Reacher battle? Any worldbuilding you'd like to do here, or just showing the experience of the expeditioners as they scaled this strange & baffling place, would be very fun.
And Albert's journal is an eerie outsider's look at Visages, with similar interest—what did they make of it? How did they meet their end?
If you'd like to instead riff on some other expedition journal, OR riff on some other journals in addition to one of these, please feel free! I only request that you avoid making Expedition 60 the focus, as that one's more fun to me as the one-off charming gag it is in the game. But I'd be thrilled with any other previous-expedition content you'd like to write.
Teixcalaan Series - Arkady Martine
I'd love either a worldbuilding-centered piece or a Twenty Cicada-centered piece that explores the "homeostat-cult" that Twenty Cicada belongs to. Or anything about religion in the world of Teixcalaan in general, really. This is a deliberately open-ended prompt because, well, the book itself was very open-ended on this topic. We know that the "homeostat-cult" he belongs to seems important to him in some way—at the least, important enough that it's worth the price of Nine Hibiscus's benign, unspoken, but surely-known-to-him confusion/scorn, and we know it's not commonly practiced in the empire, but that's about all we've got. What does the founding of a religion look like in spacefaring cultures? is it part of a larger ethnic identity of some sort for Twenty Cicada? are there any rituals or practices that are inconvenient given the demands of his position? I'd be delighted with any tensions or background you choose to explore on the topic.
(Also: I'm happy to receive treats!)
General Likes:
* gratuitous meta / worldbuilding, backstories, character studies, strong settings / setting-as-character
* working through bitterness / badfeels with family and friends (and other complicated relationships), (inverted) power dynamics (and exploration thereof), depictions of "home", melancholy & reminiscing, people who are very different from each other struggling & striving & learning to understand each other
* people avoiding their feelings with various varieties of self-destructive behavior, scoundrel-y characters being scoundrels, smart characters being smart, heists
* awkward dinner parties (e.g. characters are forced to make surface-level polite small talk with people who suck due to some particular Circumstance; the cringier the better), pathetic men
I mostly read gen, but I also enjoy very shippy or smutty fic, so long as there's still significant plot and/or character study elements. To that end I also have a list of:
Smutty Likes
* mutual using (e.g. they're both not over their dead ex and they're using each other to fill the void)
* or, just one person is using (e.g. sleeping with someone while thinking about some other person they'd ACTUALLY like to be sleeping with the entire time)
* sleeping around for political purposes
* cheating
* accidental dubcon/noncon due to Catastrophically Poor Communication
* in general i'm open to a lot of stuff & pretty hard to squick, so the answer for most specific kinks (choking/bondage/voyeurism/whatever) is "sure!"—my primary interest is in there being some feeling beneath the scene (be that fucked-up badfeels, a happy catharsis, whatever), and so long as that feeling is there, i'll be pleased with whatever action is happening
I mostly enjoy things that stick close to canon facts/settings. However, I do enjoy setting-based AUs when the new setting has a ton of flavor (e.g. coffee shop AUs or standard college AUs tend to be too bland for me, but I've enjoyed stuff like "they're all national park rangers" AU or "US Revolutionary War" AU, etc). Canon divergent AUs / "what if?" AUs are also great if you've got a cool idea for one!
What I've written, bookmarked, and been gifted on AO3 does a pretty good job of showing the range of things I'm most delighted to read.
Do Not Wants (DNWs): AUs where the primary focus is erotic (e.g. omegaverse, d/s verse, slavefic, etc), vomit/feces/piss
Okay, on to the fandom-specific stuff~
Gilead Series - Marilynne Robinson
These books rewrote my brain this past year & I'm still not over it.
My super-offbeat prompt suggestion: while I was reading Lila, it occurred to me that Robinson's writing style and setting would be incredibly well-suited for some kind of horror. The startling clarity of Lila's thoughts, the way her memories circle back to the same Events From Her Past over and over, the almost-ethereal feeling Robinson's prose gives even mundane things... I'm just saying, an AU where Lilla was a vampire hunter or something would totally work, and be very entertaining to me, personally. (Or any other horror or horror-adjacent concept that strikes your fancy, with any/all of these characters; I'm not picky.)
If you are NOT interested in horror and/or any kind of AU, I'd also be delighted with anything that fills out more about Lila, Jack, or Glory. If you need someplace to get started with that: I really loved Lila and Jack's interactions; there's that bit where they both know the same implied-to-be-crude/off-color tune while hanging out on some porch or another in Gilead that really stuck with me. What other ways might their pasts come up, and how might they connect with each other? As for Glory, I'd love a look at her time before returning home to stay—perhaps the visit home or phone call or letter that convinced her it was time to return to take care of dad, or more filling-out of what "Mr. Love Letters" was like, or even what she was like as a teacher. (Or whatever other aspect of Gilead you think could use more filling out! I'll be so excited to read whatever you're most excited to write in this universe.)
The True Deceiver - Tove Jansson
I know the whole book is exploring the dynamic between Anna and Katri, but, I still want more :P
I'd be thrilled with femslash for this; edgy/dark femslash or some sort of AU setting that pushes it in that direction would be awesome. I can imagine twisting some canon knobs that could make Anna/Katri into some relationship/hookup-shaped thing, but of course it'd be messy and weird and hushed and some sort of weird thinly-veiled power struggle. (I'd be pleased with anything on the spectrum from "sloppy angry kiss after one of their arguments" to "sexy knifeplay after Mats has fallen asleep, because Katri is horny and angry and tired of Anna not listening to her about money, and Anna goes all bratty-sub and eggs her on," etc. So, go where your id leads, haha.)
If you're not interested in the shipping angle, there's plenty to else to explore about these two. Perhaps some more scenes once Anna's seemed to "catch on" to the effect Katri's having on her, or what it's like for Anna to (temporarily) lose her skill in art near the end.
Even a little post-novel scene may be a lovely strange coda to it all—is Anna able to paint again? does the dog ever come back? does Katri ever have enough money to be satisfied? (Actually, now that I'm typing it—maybe a scene where Katri's trying to "hear" the earth the way Anna does, or goes to chat with Anna while Anna's painting—gosh, that's on the sweeter/softer side than I'd usually like, but I think I'd like it here a lot.)
Mostly I loved the story's general focus on cold places and cold people (my initial review here!). Any fic with those two things will make me very happy.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Margot (Expedition 61), Lisette (Expedition 56), Emilie (Expedition 41), and Albert (Expedition 39) are all characters we know about only from their expedition journals. I would love love love any fic you'd like riffing on one of those journals.
Some of my own thoughts, if you need more than that to get going:
In Emilie's case, I was so charmed that their journal is signed, not "Emilie, Expedition 41" but "Emilie, Expedition WOLF 41." To me it has the ring of some sort of cheesy moniker the expedition chose for themselves—"team wolf!"—and the jocular, devil-may-care tone is endearing. Would love to see how their nevron-bagging competition developed and what the team dynamics were like in their expedition.
Lisette's journal gives us probably the starkest revelation of any of the journals—her expedition captured Alicia (!!!) and presumably tried to get her to talk—where was Renoir and Verso during that, I wonder? How did that play out? And leading up to it, the tragic romance implied by her description of Simone—I love a tragic love story & a crazed revenge quest as much as the next guy; would love to see details about all that if that's what you're stirred to write.
Margot's journal, found in the Reacher, has an outsider's description of the odd little society that exists on the Reacher & its axon. "Never seen [them] fighting amongst themselves before" is an interesting detail for these nevrons! And what's the axon like when it's not just a brief sighting in a cutscene after the Reacher battle? Any worldbuilding you'd like to do here, or just showing the experience of the expeditioners as they scaled this strange & baffling place, would be very fun.
And Albert's journal is an eerie outsider's look at Visages, with similar interest—what did they make of it? How did they meet their end?
If you'd like to instead riff on some other expedition journal, OR riff on some other journals in addition to one of these, please feel free! I only request that you avoid making Expedition 60 the focus, as that one's more fun to me as the one-off charming gag it is in the game. But I'd be thrilled with any other previous-expedition content you'd like to write.
Teixcalaan Series - Arkady Martine
I'd love either a worldbuilding-centered piece or a Twenty Cicada-centered piece that explores the "homeostat-cult" that Twenty Cicada belongs to. Or anything about religion in the world of Teixcalaan in general, really. This is a deliberately open-ended prompt because, well, the book itself was very open-ended on this topic. We know that the "homeostat-cult" he belongs to seems important to him in some way—at the least, important enough that it's worth the price of Nine Hibiscus's benign, unspoken, but surely-known-to-him confusion/scorn, and we know it's not commonly practiced in the empire, but that's about all we've got. What does the founding of a religion look like in spacefaring cultures? is it part of a larger ethnic identity of some sort for Twenty Cicada? are there any rituals or practices that are inconvenient given the demands of his position? I'd be delighted with any tensions or background you choose to explore on the topic.
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