FFFX 2024 letter

[fiberglasshorsereplica]

Fandoms: Tortall, Peter Wimsey, Name of the Rose, Old Kingdom

General Likes:

• pining
• period-typical internalized homophobia, where relevant
• romance
• polyamory
• casefic
• people having gay experiences
• bodyswaps
• strong, distinctive character and/or narrator voices
• epistolary works or interludes
• canon divergence AUs
• creative choices of prose, perspective, or format
• stories that surprise me

General DNWs

• modern AUs
• mundane AUs
• coffee shop AUs
• the cthulu mythos (including related concepts, e.g. things being “eldritch” or involving “Elder Gods”)
• bathroom humor/gross-out humor
• detailed description of vomiting or other excretion/bodily waste
• explicit depiction of characters under 16 having sex

Fandoms:

Tortall:
Alanna/Delia, Alanna/Alex, Kel/Dom, Kel
10k fic
Alanna/Delia, Alanna/Alex:
I’d love to read either of these ships, either set during the book 2 era where Alex and/or Delia seem to be normal people getting slowly pulled in to Roger’s orbit, or the book 3/4 era where they are doggedly enacting an insane scheme to kill everyone and also themselves by exploding a city. Alex and Delia are both really interesting to me in how they occupy simultaneous positions of strength or social power relative to Alanna that still leave them vulnerable to Roger’s influence, either coercively or just because they’re seduced by promises of power. We don’t get a lot of insight into Alex or Delia’s perspectives on why they’re doing what they’re doing, either. How much are they conniving villains out for themselves vs. people trying to rationally protect themselves in a medieval society vs. active victims of Roger? Ideally all three to some extent.

Casefic about Alanna learning earlier than in canon what Roger’s scheme is (for either scheme) would be great.
I’m also interested in either of these ships as Alanna, at any point in canon, trying to get close to Alex or Delia to learn more about Roger’s schemes, and ending up getting rather closer than she bargained for! She wouldn’t be particularly good at subtlety or fishing for information, but maybe she doesn’t have to be.

Alanna/Delia is especially delicious during the parts of book 2 where she’s torturing Jon by dancing attendance on Alanna, and I think there’s lots of room for her to either keep escalating into actually seducing Alanna, or to develop a genuine interest in Alanna, whose behavior is so much less fatuous than everyone else’s.

For Alanna/Alex one thing I’m really interested in is a sexual/romantic relationship that arises out of their rivalry as swordsmen, including if those feelings of rivalry are simultaneously part of what interests Alex in ‘Alan’ and what makes it easy for Roger to influence Alex to attack her. Very happy to have you lean into the total homoeroticism and gender confusion of this, and for Alex to still relate to Alanna as a fellow squire foremost, rather than having his feelings of competitiveness shift from learning her identity, if he does.

For either ship, feel free to have things end up happy/with Delia or Alex no longer helping Roger, or as overt manipulation by one or both parties/with a failure to avert later canon events. Totally fine with an unhappy ending. Side ships (Alanna/Jon, Alex/Roger, Delia/Roger, etc) are totally fine, and I’m very down with infidelity as a part of the drama these ships would likely involve.

Kel, Dom/Kel:
I would really love some canon divergence or postcanon POTS fic. Kel has the most interestingly open-ended personal life and my favorite potential relationship to politics and nobility of the Tortall protagonists, and I would love fic that features her navigating those points. Some possible angles: how does her high-profile status as a war hero with her transgressive social gender role? Does Kel get called back to the capital to act as an actual general? Does it bring her into more conflict with Jonathan now that she has a public reputation of her own to leverage in political maneuvering?

Are there particular causes or policies for the well-being of common people that she takes up as ‘Protector of the Small’? How do these make her especially unpopular in a feudal society, and how does she handle that/who tries to assassinate her about it?

I’m not at all inclined to hold to the word-of-god retcon that Kel is ace/aro, and I do find it kind of frustrating that the protagonist who’s the least feminine-looking/conventionally attractive/romantically successful is the one who got assigned the aro-ace identity. I would really enjoy reading about Kel continuing to have a romantic life, including navigating the ways in which that’s complicated by her social role, gender presentation, etc.

I like Dom/Kel because there’s a lot of scope for pining, complexity introduced by the fact that she (I think?) outranks him in canon, feelings about gender and attractiveness, and what it would even mean in this society to have a marriage between two military officers. Other Kel pairing(s) are also totally welcome.

Fandom-specific DNWs:
Extensive, uncomplicated focus on Yaman (I find the canon treatment of Yaman/Yamani culture in particular kind of frustratingly orientalist & narrow; including the individual Yamani characters featured in the books is fine)
Narrative focus on/extensive discussion of Kel having an asexual or aromantic identity (Choosing not to depict Kel as having romantic or sexual interests or relationships postcanon is completely fine, including mentioning explicitly that she has no such interests! I just don’t want a fic *about* that fact or ahistorically making it an ‘identity’ in the way we would talk about it now.)
AUs in which Kel stops pursuing knighthood to marry Cleon


Name of the Rose:
William of Baskerville; Adso of Melk; William of Baskerville & Adso of Melk

Have *you* ever wanted to write tens of thousands of words of fic about intra-church politics in medieval Italy? If so I would love to see it. I hate to even contemplate constraining you with prompts.

Truly there are so many options. William of Baskerville's pre-canon life trying to moderate the ascetic inclinations of the most fervently anti-fun Franciscans at monasteries across Europe! Adso of Melk's *second* adventure with William of Baskerville, in which he is continually convinced that there are highly allegorical miseries hidden behind every action in what is in fact a totally normal monastery! Adso meets William of Ockham in exile and is dazzled again by the concept of parsimony!

If you have a favorite Thing about the medieval church that you just really want to work in: *please do*. Nothing would please me more for this fandom than to receive the fruits of your obsession with the practices of the Cathars.

Lord Peter Wimsey
Harriet/Peter; Harriet; Peter; Dowager Duchess
10k or 2 5k fics

This is my all-time favorite mystery series, and part of what I love is how human and well-drawn the main characters are. Feel free to set fic at any time in canon.

I'd absolutely love mystery-solving casefic for this canon with any combination of characters sleuthing things out-- the Dowager Duchess solving a case essentially on her own, for example, would be hilarious and delightful. Harriet pre- or post-canon would also be totally equal to mystery-solving! I love a mystery that is also a character study of the sleuth, too, if you want to do that.

I also love Harriet and Peter's relationship-- the difficulty and pride they both negotiate to finally come together & the care they show each other once (& before) they do. A largely romance-focused fic with the two of them would be wonderful. I'm also definitely open to Harriet/Peter/Bunter if you'd like.

Also very welcomed is close attention to the setting & ways in which the characters have very particular habits/speech patterns/modes of dress that (while contemporary when written) are now *very* 20s/30s British. No pressure to do any particular research, but including historical details about what their lives would involve & contemporary historical events (including WWII if you like) is very welcome.

I particularly like Peter's constant classics/poetry quotations & manuscript collection habit, if you happen to have a favorite piece of historical writing you'd like to work in or make a plot point. Ditto including more of the Oxford setting/characters from Gaudy Night.


Old Kingdom - Garth Nix:
Sabriel; Lirael; Lirael/OFC
10k or 2 5k fics

The concept of two neighboring universes, one of which is ~1912 England and one of which is ~1600s Scotland with magic, is thrilling to me, but frankly I don't think Nix takes it far enough. Ancelstierre and the Old Kingdom should be really different culturally and linguistically! If you like, I'd love to see Sabriel dealing with more of the strangeness there post-Sabriel/pre-Lirael, or just more of what it looks like for regular people to try to engage in trade/move around between the two countries.

I'm also really interested in what kind of local governance/organization arose during the interregnum period in the Old Kingdom and how Touchstone & Sabriel have to deal with that while trying to reassert central government.

In general the setting is really interesting but also has a lot of weird gaps and implications, and I'd love to see someone dig into that, especially with some reference to how different societies really do become across the kind of technological and physical gap that the two countries are supposed to have.

Sabriel and Lirael are both really exciting to me as characters, and I'd be very happy with a fic about one or both of them living their lives in the Old Kingdom, solving necromantic problems, researching magic, etc. Canon divergence where they meet earlier, or with Lirael striking out on her own differently from how she does in canon, would be great! Lirael-in-the-library (or Sabriel-meets-Lirael-in-the-library) is always good.

I'd also love Lirael/OFC fic; Lirael's angst about her identity and separation from her society of origin lend themselves really well to gay angst/coming of age as well. As one example, I'd be really interested in a Lirael pairing another Clayr, especially digging into the fact that Lirael has what I can only describe as "Clayr dysphoria", since being a Clayr is so ontological and given such weirdly biological significance that it is essentially a gender assignment.

Fandom-specific DNWs:
I'd prefer Sabriel-focused fic to either be set prior to her having kids, or not focus extensively on her role as a mother rather than as Abhorsen/her political role as Queen Consort/etc.

DNW fic drawing heavily from Clariel or Goldenhand's worldbuilding/settings/characterizations, which were written long enough after the first trilogy that they really seem like separate works to me.