Dear Yule Writer,

[reflectedeve]

Hello! Thank you so much for being my writer this year. I always look forward to Yuletide, but this year is ... something else. Getting to participate in a big, creative gift exchange with a huge pile of other fans is exactly what I need right now, and I very much hope it's a fun and fulfilling experience for you, too. Seriously: if you have fun writing a story for one of these fandoms, you'll have given me what I want by definition.

I'm one of those people who gives you a giant pile of words about each fandom, which you're welcome to use if you want but are absolutely not expected to do. Optional Details Are Optional, and letters doubly so. You clearly have great taste (given that you picked one of these books) - write what you want to write! I can't wait to read it.

A note for intrepid letter-browsers: all of my fandoms this year are SFF books/series which were at least partially released in the last decade, and can be found in print, ebook and audiobook formats (availability from specific sources may vary).

General Likes | DNWs | Gamechanger | The Left-Handed Booksellers of London
The Locked Tomb | The Queen's Thief | Wayfarers

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General Likes

close tone/style matches to canon

humor

found/chosen family of all flavors

non-traditional languages/demonstrations of love/friendship

close/complex sibling relationship dynamics

focus on female characters and their relationships with each other

focus on canonically gender non-conforming characters

expanded worldbuilding

canon divergence AUs

caper fic

pastiche and playing with genre conventions

deliberate trope subversions

metafiction

playing with power dynamics (not necessarily in a sexual context)

smut

happy/hopeful endings


DNWs

AUs (except for canon divergence AUs)

unrequested crossovers

unrequested (non-canon) pairings

non-consensual sex (mild dubcon is okay where it fits canon/characterization)

explicit sex involving characters under 17

incest

infidelity (ethical non-monogamy is welcome)

character-bashing

non-canon character death

excessive (i.e. non-canon-typical) violence

child or animal harm

grim or excessively dark overall tone/endings (no Crueltide pls)

A/B/O

soulmarks/mates

earnest use of Daddy/Mommy kink or terminology*

bestiality

vore

brutalizing/heavy damage kink/play

piss/scat/vomit

detailed mention of medical needles or surgery

*I specify "earnest" because Ianthe Tridentarius is a troll and I wouldn't want to DNW that.

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Gamechanger Series - L.X. Beckett
Cherub "Rubi" Whiting, Gimlet Barnes

Description: Sprawling post-post-apocalyptic worldbuilding extravaganza featuring a society founded on social media mechanics, VR MMORPG celebrities, semi-sentient app sidekicks, disappearing children, conspiracies, and more. Oh yeah, and a canon queer rivals-to-lovers romance with a slow-build history and a kiddo in the mix. Stands alone, though there’s an upcoming sequel that will set a few years after the first book. (Fandom promo here.)

For Gamechanger, I must admit, I’m feeling especially shippy. This book is absolutely packed with worldbuilding and plot threads, and if any piece of that in particular really speaks to you, I’d be delighted with a story that centers on it, featuring Rubi and Gimlet. AI, aliens, and evil old rich people, oh my; all of that is my jam. I’m mostly going to give prompts that are specific to Rubi & Gimlet’s relationship, but it’s not meant to be restrictive!

There’s just such a fun meta aspect to this pairing, and I find it particularly irresistible. Larger-than-life hero and villain archetypes! Real people with complicated lives, families and issues behind all that! The intersection of the public and the private, the fictional and the real, is just … catnip to me. Playing that up, contrasting it, telling me stories that give the flashy side AND the mundane domestic side, etc, would delight me above all.

Some loose prompts/ideas:

the story of how they first met, or how their rivalry/attraction developed!

a particular game they played (pre-canon, probably) which lead to a steamy encounter! Have fun with the in-game worldbuilding and banter!

post-book story where they sort things out together! How do they cope with the remnants of Gimlet’s dissolving group marriage? How does Rubi handle being a co-parent, or whatever her relationship with Frankie shapes up to be? How do they sort out their public and private personas/dynamic?

potentially fun framing for a post-book story: the public chatter about them getting together! gossip! Fans! (Ooh, I bet there’s fanfic … of them as their various in-game characters, and ‘RPF’ … that might be fun to play with.)

smut would be very welcome (but not required)

Mini-challenges: Wrapping Paper, Yuleporn, Season's Treatings

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The Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Garth Nix
Susan Arkshaw, Merlin St. Jacques, Vivien St. Jacques

Description: delightfully indulgent fantasy romp through London and various bits of English countryside, following a young woman looking for answers about her absent father and the ancient society of magical secret agents/bookstore employees she gets tangled up with. Fairies, goblins, ley lines, giant wolves, a dashing fashion-obsessed arguably genderfluid love interest and his more down-to-earth badass nerd of a sister, intrigue, betrayal and books. Etc. Stands alone; has series potential, but I don’t know if that’s planned. (Tiny fandom promo here.)

“Delightfully indulgent romp” was basically my feeling about this one. I love reinterpretations of fairy lore, folktales, etc, and this one reminded me a bit of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust in tone (but urban fantasy), while throwing in fun sibling dynamics and a quickly-cemented sense of family (chosen and extended)/team dynamics as well. I enjoyed the various background Bookseller characters quite a lot and would be pleased if you felt like featuring some of them, expanding on the history and workings of their organization, etc. I’d also love to see your take on a Left-Handed Booksellers version of any mythic beastie, ballad or legend you care to play with. Or you could lean further into the way the Booksellers are ALSO one big licensed-to-disenchant extended family with all the bonds and ancient petty grievances that entails! Oh, and the book didn’t really do much with its setting in an alternate-history 1980s; I’d love to see that played up a bit more.

Mainly, though, I loved Susan, Merlin and Vivien as a team and would enjoy more of the three of them in action! I like Susan/Merlin and am also intrigued by the prospect of Susan/Vivien … not sure about two siblings dating the same person, but hey, I DO enjoy v-shaped polyamorous relationships, and you don’t see them much in fic. What kind of hilarious disaster would Merlin and Vivien be as metamours, I wonder? (With absolutely no incest vibes please!)

Some loose prompts/ideas:

the tale of a scrape Merlin & Vivien got into when they were younger (or okay, a scrape Merlin got into that Vivien was obliged to help him out of)

Susan and Vivien team up to rescue Merlin from a mess he’s in, possibly while fake-dating! (My favorite silly trope, tbh.)

what do family bonding rituals look like when your family is an ancient order of secret agents dedicated to keeping supernatural forces in check, and also runs two enormous bookstores, at least one hotel, some number of London black cabs … pays regular visits to a strange liminal realm … and has the capricious spirits of generations of cantankerous grandmothers and their dogs lurking in the basement? I mean, the potlucks must be something else.

how does Susan’s newly-established status continue to affect her interactions with Old World types she encounters? How does this complicate things as she finally starts Uni?

if Merlin decided that, in fact, he is/definitely wants to be a girl, how would that go? (Please avoid featuring transphobia as a major factor or theme.) I assume it wouldn’t change the wardrobe much, though she might fill it out a bit differently.

... which brings me to. I’d rather no PWP for this fandom, as I’d like all three characters to be featured, just not all in the same bed (etc) at the same time. That said, sex scenes and the like are welcome.

Mini-challenges: Wrapping Paper, Season's Treatings, Femslash Festivus

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The Locked Tomb Trilogy - Tamsyn Muir
Gideon Nav, Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Ianthe Tridentarius, Abigail Pent

Description: lesbian necromancers in space, rife with feelings and meme references. One of the most-nominated fandoms of the year … I mean, do I really need to describe this one? (Trilogy, with two books out and one we’re breathlessly waiting for.)

I can’t get enough of this series. From the ridiculous sense of humor and blatant meme references, to the main characters’ intense, traumatic, intertwined backgrounds and complicated history, to the bizarre mix of a baroque gothic fantasy aesthetic with spacefaring sci-fi … it just makes me want more. And having to pick four characters is just painful!

That said, it’s fine if you don’t want to focus on (or even feature) all of these four! Or if They were my top choices when forced to pare down, but I love most of the cast. (Okay, admittedly I’m just not that interested in the Eighth or Second house pairs, when you come right down to it? But just about everyone else fascinates me. Palamedes, in particular, was very nearly on here instead of Ianthe or Abigail. Painful choices.)

Gideon Nav’s narrative voice (whether first or third person) is one of my favorite things ever. I love her as a framing POV for every other character/event in the series,very much including the times when they fly over her head or under her radar, or when she takes them WAY less seriously than they take themselves. She and Harrow are delightful foils for each other that way.

Oh, Harrowhark. Born with the weight of a world on her shoulders and a crowd of ghosts in her soul, tiny determined self-hating goth princess extraordinaire. I love how fierce and miserable and in need of a hug (which she would hate, and puncture with her bony elbows, or possibly someone else’s) she is. And all that next-level denial: brain surgery and memory AUs, I mean, talk about someone who takes relatable personality traits and cranks them up to eleven.

Gideon/Harrow is very much my OTP. I’m fine with it if you don’t want to write them as together, but please leave that possibility (fraught as it is) as least as open as the books do. (I mean - one of them was literally created to open the tomb; the other was just as literally created to guard it and keep it closed. Best enemies and only-friends. Currently—?—occupying the same body. Gideon died for Harrow; Harrow gave herself DIY brain surgery for Gideon. Etc!)

You might note that I generally have a soft spot for snark, quips and banter, so of course I love Ianthe too. She’s an unapologetically terrible person, a devoted sister (but not in an especially healthy way), ambitious for ambition’s sake, and just adds excellent entertainment value (and occasionally, truly disgusting necromantic constructs) to any scene she’s in. I don’t precisely ship her with anyone in a romantic sense, but her insistence on flirting at Harrow and her semi-contemptuous bantering with Gideon both have distinct possibilities for poor hook-up choices. More on that later.

And Abigail. I was so pleased that the second book gave us more of her. History nerd, incredibly powerful ghost-summoner (even as a ghost herself), down-to-earth non-nonsense take-charge competence with a wry sense of humor, I mean. If I had to pick a character in this series I’d like to date … but er, anyway. I enjoy her comfortable, bantering relationship with Magnus, her protective streak towards the Fourth teens, her irrepressible curiosity, and how much of a stone-cold badass necromancer she turns out to be, too. I’m dying for more of her behind-the-scenes side of Harrow’s little AU flashback dream-play, and of her when she was alive, too.

OKAY. Some loose prompts/ideas:

take any of Harrow’s escalating series of AU scenarios and play them out - maybe with alternating Harrow/Gideon POV?

what if Harrow’s AU scenarios DIDN’T happen in the middle of a life-or-death scenario; what if, say, they happened in Harrow’s sleep, and Gideon’s consciousness could spectate or even play along?

what if Gideon were in conscious control of Harrow’s body every time Harrow went off to her little reimagined Canaan House? Sneaking around spying on Lyctors at night, or doing secret workouts since Harrow wasn’t lifting or doing press-ups on her OWN, damn it (leading Harrow to wonder why she keeps waking up sore).

Gideon/Harrow/Ianthe body-sharing smut! Ianthe is having sex with Harrow, but Harrow and Gideon keep swapping control of Harrow’s body and doing things differently and everyone’s arguing but also super into it even if they’re trying to pretend like they’re not?

or if not smut, another scenario (another group dinner! A mission the two baby Lyctors are on alone together!) where Gideon and Harrow are actively body-sharing and everyone is flirting/arguing (probably creating considerable havoc, and if Ianthe and “Harrow” aren’t alone, desperate attempts to hide what's happening from their bemused elders)

behind-the-scenes (from Harrow’s perspective) in the alternate Canaan House play/death bubble! The story of Abigail figuring out what’s going on and taking charge! Bonus for lots of Dulcinea - she was the other character I had to reluctantly cut from my sign-up, and if you want to write her I would be so delighted to see more of her brilliant, dazzling refusal to accept any particular limitations anymore, her horniness for revenge, and her humor and deceptively delicate touch.

Post-battle with the Sleeper, Abigail finds her way to Palamedes’ bubble and gets inside somehow; they share commentary on various events and she helps him with his romance novel sequel. Or perhaps they come up with a scheme to haunt--er, help--Camilla and the Eden people, or perhaps Harrow/Gideon? Anything with those two nerds nerding it up together - but platonically, please, I don’t especially ship it.

the story of Abigail and Magnus’s courtship (preferably with plenty of shenanigans and Abigail basically owning him at everything). I love them very much.

Mini-challenges: Wrapping Paper, Yuleporn, Femslash Festivus

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The Queen’s Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Eugenides, Attolia (Irene), Eddis (Helen)

SPOILERS FOR RETURN OF THE THIEF BELOW.

Description: much beloved fantasy series begun in the mid-90s, set in a very ancient-Mediterranean-flavored world. The three small, independent countries of Sounis, Eddis and Attolia struggle with internal and international political strife and machinations! The Queen’s Thief (a traditional court position) of Eddis wreaks havoc sneaking around meddling with everything before becoming a slightly terrifying High King over everyone. The gods meddle in mortal affairs, and an overseas empire threatens the three little kingdoms’ autonomy, making it necessary for them to band together in spite of their differences. There are six books in all; the long-awaited sixth and final of which was just released on October 5.

The Queen’s Thief series is very close to my heart, and has been the kind of comfort reading that gets me through difficult times. (I listened to the first four audiobooks twice over while working on my Masters thesis project.) I’ve always been a little reluctant to read fic, but I recently re-read the entire series and then Return of the Thief, and now I want so much of it. The giddiness of a newly-closed canon!

The Thief caught me with fantastic banter and rich character development, and held me with the twist at the end … but the second and third books are the ones that got their hooks all the way into my heart and wouldn’t let go. And while, if allowed just one more character, I would totally be requesting Costis and Kamet (hearts), well, I can’t help always coming back to these three. Eugenides the cocky-ass thief turned reluctant but terrifyingly effective king, Irene the slow-to-trust, slyly humorous woman beneath the queen who is an extremely effective scythe, and Helen the soldierly, mostly very sensible ruler of a tiny mountain country that she knows is not going to outlive her in its present form. And the strong, complicated and often painful bonds between all three.

You have Eugenides and Helen, who grew up together and then weathered a drastically changed power dynamic with their mutual devotion intact (if never quite simple). Eugenides and Irene, with literal torture between them and a complicated dance of trust and a less-than-straightforward capacity to express/receive affection for each other (especially in public). And Irene and Helen, queens with diametrically opposed backgrounds and early experiences who went from bitter enemies to, at the very least, close allies in both public and private contexts. I ship Eugenides/Irene and Helen/Irene - Eugenides and Helen are cousins, but they hit me right in my "sibling dynamics" feels (and I very much prefer them to be platonic).

(Please feel free to include as much of the rest of the cast as your heart desires, also. I especially love Costis, Kamet, the Magus, Telius, Relius and Pheris.)

Anyway! Have some loose prompts/ideas:

I am dying to read about Eugenides and Irene learning to be parents, and how that interacts with their own already fairly complicated relationship. Their relationship has done a lot to help Irene, once so guarded, open up emotionally … but this is a whole other level. And Eugenides … if Eugenia takes after him, is it a “curse” along the lines of “may you have a kid who puts you through what you put your parents through”? Or are father and daughter a pair of holy terrors? (Poor, poor Uncle Costis.)

after their first scene together at the end of The Queen of Attolia, there was just never enough focus on Irene & Helen together for me, especially from one of their own perspectives. We saw them beginning to tentatively bond after years of Irene’s resentful jealousy and Helen’s horror/pity/vengeful anger. You could spend a story with them just hanging around the garden describing the most embarrassing members of their respective courts to each other, and I’d be thrilled. I want the queens’ shared take on … anything and everything from King of Attolia on.

I would very definitely love the story of Irene & Helen’s return to Attolia while Eugenides stayed on to chase the Mead army. A war to process, and each with her respective pregnancy to experience and cope with. And Helen was with Irene for the birth of the twins! It might be fun to frame this as one (or both of them, with their different perspectives) telling Eugenides the story after the fact.

to go with something set mid-series and a little less on the intense end-of-canon stuff … imagine that Irene and Helen are occasional lovers, and Eugenides, being ridiculous (but not, I think, genuinely jealous - or at least, not in a “this occasional non-monogamy is not okay, actually” sort of way) instigates some kind of competition to see who is better at wooing and courting his wife. All kinds of amusement and wry humor and the odd cutting remark or two ensue ... and Irene very likely winds up turning the tables on him in some fashion.

Mini-challenges: Wrapping Paper, Femslash Festivus

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Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Sidra, Tak, Pepper, Owl

Description: Wayfarers is a series of three loosely-connected novels with a fourth and final volume coming up next year; however, for Yuletide purposes I’m focused on the second book, A Close and Common Orbit. It’s one of my favorite books … of all time, actually. Dual narratives about two characters (a newly-installed AI navigating a humanoid body she was never designed to inhabit, and a genetically-engineered factory slave who escapes and survives and grows up to escape the rest of the way), featuring themes around creating family/a life out of nothing, disability and access, trauma and basically learning to be a person. All within the context of the wider Wayfarers universe, where fucked up things happen and various ruling institutions certainly suck, but a wide variety of species from across the galaxy manage to live together more or less in the spirit of curiosity, cultural exchange, and cooperation. (Happy sigh.)

You don’t need to focus on all four requested characters. I love them all and I certainly wouldn’t object if they all appeared, but a story built around any two-or-more combination would be wonderful. (I’d also be thrilled if other characters from the series were featured - as much or as little as you want.) In shippy terms, I definitely ship Sidra with any/all three of the others (I would never want to see Pepper and Blue broken up - but I think Blue and Sidra would make excellent and interesting metamours).

Some loose ideas/prompts:

I love the way Pepper is, well, fannish - a piece of media is basically central to her survival and identity! Sidra loves stories too, but seems to experience them very differently. A story where Pepper shares her perspective with Sidra (and maybe they play a sim together, or attend some kind of convention/event), leading to mutual learning and bonding (platonic or otherwise) would be very cool. (It strikes me that, now that Sidra isn’t so dependent on Pepper anymore, they could both open up in new ways and find more of an equal footing - this could be one way they do that!)

just … a “typical” night at Home (with any number of new and weird patrons, interpersonal drama, experimentation with using petbots for whatever, handling a rush, or what have you) would be lovely … I adore the whole idea of the space and would really enjoy seeing it in action.

Sidra meets Tak’s dads and encounters some Aeluon family drama?

One night at Home, Pei, the Aeluon from The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet is there having a drink during shore leave and observes Sidra and Tak being clueless about each other. Maybe she gives Tak some friendly advice/encouragement on the whole taboo interspecies dating front? Maybe Sidra seeks out HER advice (after an introduction/some background from Pepper and/or Blue)?

Sidra decides to explore the concepts of dating and/or sex, to see whether/how they're for her. Tak, her usual partner in social exploration, takes her on a date - and is surprised (or not surprised) by how much it’s not “just an exercise” for zir? Sidra winds up navigating social conventions AND very real feelings (Tak’s, and maybe hers too)?

Sidra explores the .. range of her sensory analogues, picking up from that one dance scene with the Aandrisks, with either Tak or Pepper as a partner in exploration.

I am so fascinated by Sidra’s petbots. A story exploring the way they operate would be fabulous. What is it like for her to transition to and from the way she exists at Home, as opposed to out in the world? How does she experience her inputs on a typical evening? How do unsuspecting customers interact with the bots, and what is that like? What about her friends? Do they tease her through them in some way? Does she use them to flirt?

what is it LIKE for two unusual AIs with very different life experiences to share memory banks? That seems like a rather intense level of intimacy. What do Sidra and Owl learn from each other, and how does that relationship evolve? Please feel free to get atmospheric.

the others support Sidra in confronting her confusing earliest beginnings … reaching out for some kind of connection/cathartic interaction with Jenks, or maybe stumbling into it when the Wayfarer crew shows up at Home? (Please do not link those two up romantically. Sidra very much isn’t Lovey, and Jenks would have to know that. But Lovey’s death affected them both so profoundly … and Sidra’s earliest memories are learning about this impossible-seeming love affair and tragedy, of that as a POSSIBILITY she wasn’t programmed to consider, and of her unexpected, painful failure to be someone else entirely.)

Mini-challenges: Wrapping Paper, Yuleporn, Femslash Festivus

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Happy Yuletiding!