Yuletide 2017

Hey there, dear Yuletide Writer!

Thank you so much for writing for me, and I hope you have a great Yuletide! I hope you’ll find this letter useful; I’ve gone ahead and listed some prompts/ideas for my requested fandoms, but please don’t think they’re the be-all end-all for me. If you’ve got something else in mind already or have an idea for something completely different, go right ahead and write that instead! I’ll be looking forward to reading whatever you come up with.

In case you want to find me elsewhere: My AO3 is cadmean, and I’m on tumblr as teumesia. I’m really only here on DW because it’s easier for letter formatting/readability, haha. (That said by now I have started to accumulate some letters here, so if you want to have a poke at those as well then they’re there.)

Now, some general things:

General Likes:

worldbuilding, missing-scene type fic, character studies, banter, us against the world, found family/family of choice, moral conflicts, loyalty, pragmatic characters, people kicking ass together, unlikely allies, competence, darkfic, horror, cosmic horrors – the more grotesque and inhuman, the better, things getting destroyed in totally over-the-top ways, action scenes and battles, trust and trust issues, power dynamics/power imbalance, dysfunctional/codependent relationships, ambiguous or downright unhappy endings.

 

I’m also super down for any kind of work that plays with presentation and format – epistolary fic, IF, etc. Likewise, I have no hard preferences for POV or tense.

 

Porn—if you get the inspiration to write porn for any of my fandoms and requested characters below then sure, go for it! I’m just as happy with gen, however, so feel free to do whatever. I tend to like porn that’s heavier on the manipulative plot/sex-for-power side of things rather than straight-up fluff, so dubcon, breathplay, etc are all appreciated – though again, my only hard nopes are the ones listed below, so if you want to have a go at something else go right ahead! I’m easy to please and always happy to try new things.

 

DNWs:

mundane AUs; unrequested crossovers; pregnancy/mpreg/kidfic; A/B/O; overly graphic descriptions of bodily fluids other than blood.

 

On to fandom specifics! Though please note that any differences in length come down entirely to how well (or not) I was able to condense my thoughts, and not any sort of preference for one fandom over the others. All three fandoms are near and dear to my heart (else I wouldn’t be requesting them), and I’d be absolutely delighted to receive fic for any of them \o/

Kill Six Billion Demons
Characters: Incubus, Jagganoth

I honestly can’t remember how I first came across this webcomic, only that by page three weird spiky horsebeast-riders were riding around and chopping off a dude’s head, and then that dude just went about his business regardless, and—well. By that point I was hooked!

I love the intricate world Abbadon’s built – the angels, devils, demiurges, and all the various other kinds of beings living in Throne and the rest of the 777,777 universes. The worldbuilding, like the super cool artstyle, is very colorful but also depressing: you have all these worlds, and also these seven people with near unlimited power, and this is what comes out of it? I don’t know about you, but I can definitely see where Zoss is coming from when he tells Allison to have a go at killing six billion demons and reclaiming Throne.

Now, as for Jagganoth and Incubus: unholy alliances are my jam, and I was so happy when it turned out that they’re working together. (Or, uh, at least not actively trying to kill each other. That’s almost the same thing, isn’t it!) I love trickster-god types with glaring issues, which Incubus has plenty of, and then Jagganoth takes the dumb-brute trope and turns it on its head by being the smartest demiurge out of all of them – they make a great team, and I can’t wait to see what further havoc they’ll end up wreaking.

Some ideas:

--Like I said unholy alliances are my jam, so I’d be super interested in why exactly these two decided to ally up. Who approached who, what were the terms, what were the circumstances? And what happens if either of them break it off? Incubus seems to be mainly in it to screw over the other Demiurges (but why go to Jagganoth, of all people?), but what exactly is Jagganoth, a dude so powerful the other six had to team up to stalemate him during the first war, getting out of allying with him? The power differential there is ridiculous, is all I’m saying. And then of course Incubus has his side deal with Allison as well.

--The early days of the Second Conquest! What was their relationship like back when all of the various demiurges were doing their best to kill each other, and was there any change when the Pact of the Seven-Part World was made? Do any of the other seven have any opinions on this, and just how aware are they of Jagganoth and Incubus working together in the current era?

--In KSBD, legend and history blur together all the time. So: how are Incubus and Jagganoth viewed by the common population of Throne? What tales are told about them, and just how accurate are they to what actually happened? I find the psalms and spasms super fun additions to the comic, so anything in the vein of those would be cool.

(A note: I’m up-to-date with the canon and plan to stay that way, too, so don’t worry about spoilers or anything. Likewise, I don’t mind canon divergence, so if a later update josses something you’ve written please don’t worry about it.)

 

The Half-Made World – Felix Gilman
Characters: Any (John Creedmoor, Liv Alverhuysen, Marmion)

I love weird west stories, and The Half-Made World is amazing weird west – the characters are great, and I’ll get to them in a second, but the setting! I love how Gilman actually incorporated the idea of unexplored lands being literally unformed, and how Gun and Line, anarchy and order, fight for dominion out in those lawless lands. How the west literally isn’t fully-formed yet, and you nobody knows what happens if you walk out into the unmade-ness, and the eastern countries are all more scientific than the west, and how science and the west’s general unfinished state of being clash – there’s probably more eloquent ways to put this, but basically it’s super cool and I love the world Gilman built in all its dusty glory. 

Of course I love the characters a whole lot, too! I really like the way Liv and Creedmoor contrast each other; how Liv starts out as being super by-the-books and eventually becomes incredibly pragmatic and even a bit ruthless, in her own way; how she serves as both a moral compass and a catalyst for Creedmoor going through with what he couldn’t do on his own and finally leaving the service of the Gun. And Marmion – well, I find the relationship the spirits of the Gun have with their Agents to be super interesting in and of itself, and with Marmion and Creedmoor it’s not a simple give-and-take, but more the both of them constantly trying to see how far they can push the other to get what they want.

The prompts I’ve put up are more character-focused, but as you’ve maybe already gathered I’m super into all types of worldbuilding so if you’d rather go that direction, I wouldn’t mind at all! Also feel free to mix and match the three characters in any way you want, and please don’t feel the need to include all three of them if that’s not what you were going for anyhow.

Some ideas:

--Marmion and Liv never directly got to interact, so basically anything with the two of them holding an actual conversation (however they end up doing that) would be super awesome! Liv isn’t fond of the Gun and Marmion basically tried to get Liv out of the way the moment she showed up-- them actually interacting without Creedmoor as a buffer between them would be very interesting, I think.

--What if Creedmoor had chosen differently, at the end? After the battle of New Design, there’s only a handful of Linesmen left – what if he had killed them, what if Liv had never had the chance to stab Creedmoor, what if he had taken the General and tried to make it back to civilization? How would Liv deal with a Creedmoor who chose the Gun instead of humanity?

--Since it’s Harry Ransom narrating The Rise of Ransom City we never really do get to find out what exactly happened when Knoll and Marmion catch up to Creedmoor in White Rock; or how Liv and Creedmoor’s journey back to civilization went; or what happened to them after they split with Ransom, how they made it to the World’s Wall Mountains and what exactly they found there… Basically, I’d love anything about Liv and Creedmoor’s adventures and what they were up to in general while Harry Ransom was busy making it big (or trying to, in any case) as a salesman.

--Wait, I lied, have a worldbuilding prompt: Something exploring the spirits of the Gun – and the Line, if you feel like it, and both sides’ relationship with the people they employ. There’s a line in the book where Marmion says, “All our Agents are unruly, and we love you for it” – and that seems to be true enough, because even though the spirits of the Gun seem to really like being in charge, they don’t keep their Agents under their heel like the Line does with their men.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen – Steven Erikson
Characters: Dancer, Dassem Ultor

The ridiculously detailed worldbuilding is one of my favorite things about the books, as well as the way Erikson manages to flesh out his characters pretty well over comparatively little screentime. Cotillion and Dassem are two of my favorite characters because they have super cool character arcs! And I like how their characters/plots mirror each other a bit, with Dancer being focused on Empire and Azath Things and quite frankly being kind of a dick, but Cotillion caring about others to the point that other characters remark on him being unsuited to being a god; while Dassem pretty much embodied the ‘Father to His Men’ trope but Traveller is hell-bent on getting his revenge and nothing else matters. What rounds it all out for me is that Dancer and Dassem were fairly good friends before they both ascended, but that it didn’t stop Cotillion and Shadowthrone from using Dassem for their own plans re: Rake, while Dassem himself is just so focused on getting his revenge on Hood that he doesn’t care about anything or anyone else.

Basically I really like how they have to reconcile the relationship they had before they both abandoned the empire with the one they have now as ascendants, and how it’s just super awkward for everyone involved. (I do happen to ship them, so I would not at all be opposed if you wanted to go in that direction, too :D)

Some ideas:

--Early empire adventures! Did they partner up sometime to go kill/intimidate/thoroughly confuse some neighboring kingdom’s ruler?  Did Dancer and Kellanved take Dassem along to explore Shadow at any point? How exactly did they end up getting Hood’s Mortal Sword to be a part of their group? Also, at one point Apsalar tells Crokus and Fiddler that “Dancer trusted but two men. One was Kellanved. The other was Dassem Ultor, the First Sword” – I’d love to know how that happened!

--Anything at all to do with the last Chaining of the Crippled God. We know that Dancer attended it while Kellanved apparently happened to be conspicuously absent, and Dassem was there as Knight of High House Death only to have Hood kill his daughter. So . . . what exactly went down there? Did Dassem bring Dancer along to the Chaining; if not, how did Dancer get access? How did Dassem’s daughter die, how did she end up in the Deadhouse – and how did all that affect the relationship between Dancer and Dassem (and Kellanved)?

--Post-canon fic would also be lovely! After Toll the Hounds Dassem is a wreck; after Orb Sceptre Throne he finally seems to be doing a bit better now that he has a whole island of Seguleh to worry about. The last time he and Cotillion talked was presumably during the whole Darujhistan thing, so I’d be super interested in seeing them meeting again afterward – maybe they talk it out, maybe they don’t, but either way I’d really love to see something that deals with the personal consequences that having Rake kill Hood had for the two of them, and where they go from there.

(A note: I’ve read all of Erikson’s and ICE’s books, and once Deadhouse Landing comes out in November I’ll be reading that as well. So a) no worries about spoilers, but also b) I don’t mind canon divergence at all, so if there’s something in DhL or in basically any of the books aside from Erikson's main ten that josses what you’ve written please don’t worry about it.)

And that's that! Hope you have fun :D