DYW 2016

[teumesia]

Hey, dear Yuletide Writer!

Thank you so much for writing for me, and I hope you have a great Yuletide!

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.

Some general things:

Likes: worldbuilding; missing-scene type fic; character studies; banter; us against the world; found family; moral conflicts; loyalty (and loyalty kink); people kicking ass together; unlikely allies; competency; UST; cosmic horrors; dub-con; power dynamics; dysfunctional/codependent relationships.

DNWs: mundane AUs (i.e. highschool, coffee shop, etc); crossovers; pregnancy/mpreg/kidfic; A/B/O; overly graphic descriptions of bodily fluids; issuefic.

 

On to fandom specifics! I've gone ahead and provided some ideas, but that's more for inspiration than anything -- you don't have to follow them them; I'd be happy with anything! And 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 four are the tiny book canons of my heart, and I’d be absolutely delighted to receive fic for any of them \o/

 

Otherland – Tad Williams
Characters: Felix Jongleur

Probably my favorite thing about the Otherland books is how diverse the setting is by virtue of largely taking place inside a computer simulation. The giant House world and ancient, mythical Egypt are my favorites, and I thought that it was really cool how all the different worlds worked, and how the characters then interacted with those worlds.

As for Jongleur -- he’s a clever, ruthless old bastard but he does it very, very well, and I think that makes him an absolutely fascinating character! I mean, just the sheer amount of determination and bitterness to make outlasting death as long as possible at the cost of everything else his highest prerogative is pretty impressive. And he’s so overly dramatic that it borders on the ridiculous – which, for the record, I love – and he does it with everything! Look at Abydos-that-was! Look at the Uncle Jingle! Look at all of Otherland, really – because honestly, who goes “I don’t want to die” and then proceeds to build a huge virtual network out of the minds of children so that your own consciousness can be uploaded into it…after trying to have a female clone of yourself get pregnant with a male clone of yourself? Really, Jongleur? Really?

I’m rambling, but seriously, I love Jongleur’s particular brand of megalomania because it made for a super fun read.

Some ideas:

--Anything at all set during the 150+ years he lived. Jongleur maybe getting some roundabout payback on the kids who bullied him in school? First meeting Yacoubian and Wells and all the others; coming up with and proposing the Grail Project? Avialle – I still can’t decide whether he actually felt any kind of parental love for her or whether it was all just weird possessiveness, so something exploring their relationship would be cool, too.

--Near the end of Sea of Silver Light, Jongleur escapes the simulation by using his override code on Yacoubian’s lighter. But let’s assume he didn’t! Maybe the override code didn’t work; maybe Azador ended up not stealing the lighter for him. Whatever the reason, I’d love any kind of take on how things inside the heart of Otherland might’ve gone if he had still been there for its (and his own) final hours.

--So we know that the Grail Brotherhood people all got to design several different simulations inside the network, because what’s the point in being immortal if all you have is Kunohara’s bug world, right. Jongleur did Abydos-that-was and that unsettling cartoon world – what else? What other worlds did he design, and why? Basically, feel free to go wild with the (quite literal) worldbuilding here ;D

 

 

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!

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 | Cotillion, Dassem Ultor | Dessembrae

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.

 

 

The Stand – Stephen King
Characters: Lloyd Henreid, Randall Flagg

The Stand is one of those books I end up rereading every couple of years, whether I intend to or not – it just happens, haha. And deus-ex-machina ending aside (Hand of God? Why, Stephen King, why), it’s one of my favorite books! The early parts, where the viral apocalypse was happening and the whole country was basically going to hell were absolutely fantastic, and whatever faults the novel may have I love it to pieces because of how well King wrote those parts.

I requested Lloyd and Flagg because I think the relationship they have in the novel is super interesting! I really like how Lloyd, despite realizing near the end of the novel that sticking with Flagg is very likely going to get him killed, still doesn’t even properly consider fleeing. Flagg starts out super good at manipulating people, but then as time goes on and his magic powers develop and things start going bad he sort of loses that touch, but even so he’s still strangely charismatic, especially to Lloyd. I mean, even by post-viral-apocalypse standards Flagg is a pretty bad boss, but he’s done more for Lloyd than anyone else, and Lloyd sticks with him and all the other doomed people in Vegas simply because he feels like that’s the best he can do. And Flagg knows that Lloyd is way too loyal to him, and takes advantage of it where he can. It’s a pretty fucked dynamic, and the main reason I ship it.

Some ideas:

--Literally anything about their day-to-day interactions in Vegas. No, really. Flagg seems like a really hands-on boss when he’s not off in the desert doing magic (how does that end up working out with leading a city, on that note?), so I’d really love to see him – and Lloyd, too –  interacting more with the people he called to Vegas. I mean, later on he deals with problems by crucifying the people involved, but he couldn’t have done that early on because otherwise people would’ve run! But he’d probably still be super intimidating, and I’d really like any sort of take on how that plays out in regard to Vegas.

--The trip from the prison Lloyd was in all the way to Las Vegas! In the book it skips from Flagg and Lloyd leaving the prison to them already having established themselves in Vegas, so. What happened along the way – did they run into other survivors, how did they deal with the country being practically dead, did Lloyd ever actually get that fancy meal Flagg promised him? Vaguely creepy roadtrip shenanigans is something I’d be super into, basically.

--What would also be cool is something exploring how things might’ve gone if Lloyd actually had left (or tried to leave) with Whitney Horgan and Jenny Engstrom – would they have made it? Would Flagg have let them, and how would he react in general? And what made Lloyd see enough sense to try and make a run for it?

 

 

And that’s that! Thanks for reading; I hope it wasn’t too long. I’m really looking forward to see what you come up with :D