Dear Yuletide Writer,
It's nice to "meet" you! I’m
ellida on AO3 and
pearlsthatwereeyes on tumblr. (Tumblr says that my account may contain sensitive media—as near as I can tell, it’s mad about something I posted forever ago, and I haven’t had the patience to sort out what that is.)
I am completely thrilled that we love the same tiny canon(s)! Since I am a person who likes receiving detailed requests, I've nattered on a bit below. If that's not you, no worries--I guarantee I will love whatever you write for me!
Generally speaking, regardless of the canon/medium, I’m here for the characters. I will eat up anything you can tell me about their internal thoughts and motivations or their relationships with each other. I also love worldbuilding and atmosphere—I love reading stories that play around in and build out the canon world. And finally, I’m here for THE FEELS. Whatever those feels are! Angst, tragedy, comedy, romance, happy endings, bittersweet endings, TERRIBLE WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME endings—they’re all welcome!
More Specific General Likes:
-Worldbuilding
-Epistolarity
-Experimental writing styles
-Social and political intrigue
-Strong but complicated family relationships
-Friends as found family
-Origin stories
-In-universe arts and culture
-Fantasy religion and mythology
-Literary and pop-cultural allusions, either to real-world things (if that fits the canon) or to in-universe things
-Snark and banter
-Women pinning other women against walls
-Women having thorny, complicated, rich relationships with other women
-Women being awesome lady friends who have each other's backs
-Actually just women being awesome in general
-People grappling with the aftermath of terrible decisions and betrayals and figuring out how to find a way forward together
General DNW's:
-Rape/sexual assault/non-con/dub-con
-Non-canonical incest
-Non-canonical major character death
-Any sexual content involving characters younger than late teens
-Alternate settings (canon-divergence AU's are fine!)
-A/B/O
-Graphic depictions of torture or abuse (mentions of canonical or canon-typical events are fine, just please don't make them the focus)
-Social justice issuefic (mentions of canonical oppression or social justice struggles is fine, I'd just rather that dealing with oppression not be the center of the fic)
-Plagues/diseases/pandemics/illness (mentions of canonical events are fine, but again, I'd rather this not be the focus)
-Eye injuries
Fandom-Specific Prompts:Archivist Wasp Series - Nicole Kornher-Stace: Wasp|Isabel, SairyI love this series for the characters who’ve hardened themselves to survive their very bleak world but hide soft squishy hearts underneath, the ghosts and the journeys through the underworld, the importance of friendship and the way these friends take fierce care of each other, even when it doesn’t come naturally to them. I love how Isabel and Sairy grope their way through their traumas to connect with each other and take care of the people (and in Isabel’s case, ghosts) around them.
You don’t need to include both characters, though you can if you want to! I love both Sairy and Wasp, and I’d be happy with a story about either or about both.
Some prompt ideas:
Wasp|Isabel: I’d love anything that fills in the gaps between Archivist Wasp and Latchkey. When and why and how does Isabel decide to set up the ghost fires and completely block out the Ghost and Foster? How does she grow into her grudging leadership role?
Sairy: I’m also fascinated by Sairy’s outsider POV. What is her experience like during Archivist Wasp? What was her friendship like with the upstart Isabel tried and failed to spare? What is building their community of ex-upstarts like for her? In Latchkey, we see Sairy treating Isabel with such tenderness and making repeated overtures of friendship that fly right over Isabel’s head—what is it like for her to keep reaching out and out and out, and why does she keep doing it?
Canon-Specific DNW: Spoilers for
Firebreak or any of the Patreon content!
Bright Smoke, Cold Fire Duology - Rosamund Hodge: Juliet Catresou, Mahyanai RunajoI love these books for the unabashed Shakespearean mash-up (Shakespeare totally wishes he’d thought of putting blood-sacrifice nuns in R & J), the atmosphere, the complicated politics, the angst, the stabby-and-would-definitely-kill-you girls, and the queer subtext.
I particularly love Juliet’s and Runajo’s relationship, how complicated and fraught and angsty it is, as their different traumas and goals rub up against each other and they try to survive their world (and each other). I love how much they hurt each other and how much they still care about each other despite themselves. I’d love some fic that explores that relationship. I’d particularly love it if you turned their queer subtext actually textual, but if you’d rather explore their dynamic from a friendship angle, I’m down for that too.
Also, the library. I fucking love a magical library.
Prompt ideas:
Missing scenes of Juliet and Runajo during the aftermath of Juliet's killing of the Catresou. We see a little bit of this in canon, but I want more! How do they navigate their horrible twisty knot of guilt, betrayal, and dependence? What does their path forward look like? How do they move on from that together? Can they?
Alternately, how do Runajo and Juliet pick up the pieces of their lives post-canon? I'd love to watch them rebuilding their families and their city and finding their place there, but still being drawn back into each other's orbits.
Or: Juliet and Runajo have to venture back into the library for some reason, either during their time with the Sisters or post-canon. What do they find there?
Canon-specific DNW:-Focus on Romeo or Juliet's relationship with him. I don't really care whether you have them together romantically, broken up somehow, or retconned as friends, but I'd prefer he be mostly off-screen.
-Vai portrayed as a cis woman.
신입사관 구해령 | Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung: Goo Hae-ryung, Song Sa-huiI love this show for all of the awesome lady characters, the complicated court intrigue and tangled loyalties, the humor and sweetness, the completely badass political protests, and the love the characters have for history and for each other. I particularly love Hae-ryung and Sa-hui. I love Hae-ryung for her absolute irrepressibleness, her flouting of convention, her determination, her kindness, her loyalty, her dedication to pursuing what she thinks is right at all costs, and her fierce love for her brother; I love Sa-hui for her reserve, her stubbornness, her grace under pressure, her fierce pride, her conviction that the ends outweigh the means, and
her determination to remain true to herself and do what she thinks is right at all costs.
It is one of the great sadnesses of my TV-watching life that Hae-ryung and Sa-hui never quite manage to bridge the gap between them and become the opposites-attract friends (or more than friends! I ship them like whoa, but it's okay if you don't) that I am convinced they were meant to be. I'd love a story where they manage to do just that, whether that means a canon divergence or a story set post-canon.
More specific prompt ideas:
Hae-ryung manages to win Sa-hui over and the two of them manage to thwart the Second State Councillor's plans much sooner and with much less collateral damage!
Post canon, Sa-hui eventually returns to the Office of Records. Perhaps Min U-Won (or Hae-ryung, much later) has succeeded to the position of First Officer and invites her back? Perhaps Yi Jin has reinstated her? How do she and Hae-ryung navigate their changed hierarchy and the prospect of working together again?
If I can somewhat borrow a scenario from sigaloenta/ricardienne, some kind of post-canon future conflict where the wishes of the royal family conflict with the historians' mandate to record the truth, where both sides are well-intentioned and yet nevertheless clashing. I'd love either Hae-ryung and Sa-hui on the same side of this conflict, or Hae-ryung and Sa-hui themselves clashing over what the historians should do! (Bonus points for creative historian protests!)
Canon-specific DNW: Focus on Catholicism or the persecution of Catholics. Brief references to canon events are fine, but please don't make Catholicism the focus. Similarly, focus on Dowon or Hae-ryung's relationship with him! Again, I don't really care whether you have them broken up, retconned as friends, or together romantically, but I'd prefer he be mostly off-screen.
The Silence of Bones - June Hur: Seol | Jeong Jeong-yun, Inspector Han | Jeong InhoI love this book for the vividness and historical detail of the setting, the many fascinating and complicated lady characters, and especially for Seol and Inspector Han. I love Seol's curiosity, her tenacity, her compassion for everyone who crosses her path even though her role as a damo is an inherently adversarial one (and the way she chafes at that even as she's fascinated by the mysteries she's trying to solve!), her loneliness and the hesitant steps she takes towards friendship and connection, and her unswerving love for and loyalty to her brother and sister. I love Han's uncompromising pursuit of what he believes is right, and I find his conflict between his desire for vengeance and his love for his little sister both beautiful and deeply, tragically heartbreaking. Mostly, I just want to see more of their relationship and what it could have become or what it was back when things were good between them!
Prompt ideas:
I would love fix-it fic for that ending! I was devastated when Inspector Han died before he and Seol got a chance to reconcile, and I'd love for them to get a do-over. Let them restore their family's house together bit by bit (and their relationship along with it), work another case together and get to know each other that way, or visit their sister together! Let Han and Seol (but especially Han) take their memories of each other down off their pedestals and really dig into the hard, complicated work of rebuilding their relationship as the people they've become!
Alternately, if pre-canon is more your style, show me some happy memories of Inho's and Jeong-yun's childhood! I'd prefer not to focus exclusively on Inho's desire for vengeance or the tragedy of what happened to their parents, though that can be present if you like. I'd love something showing me the bond that eventually leads Jeong-yun to give up everything she knows (and become Seol) to find him. Maybe they're goofing off at the seaside together or Inho is standing up for Jeong-yun against their parents/their sister/some other kids.
Canon-specific DNWs:-Any reference to Inspector Han's canonical death. Please either write me an AU where he didn't die or set your story before his death becomes imminent.
-Focus on Catholicism or the persecution of Catholics. Brief references to canon events are fine, but please don't make Catholicism the focus.
Bonus Request: 신입사관 구해령 | Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung and The Silence of Bones - June Hur CrossoverI consumed these canons back-to-back and couldn't help thinking of them in conversation with each other! I'd love to see them actually cross over in some way! If you're going this route, I'd love to see Hae-ryung and Seol interact in particular--feel free to leave out Sa-hui and/or Inspector Han if they don't quite fit into your story!
Specific prompts:
-AU where Seol is Hae-ryung's maid/companion instead of Seol-geum! (Maybe the Jeongs' family friend got Han a position in the civil service or Office of Records instead of in the police department, so Seol's sister finagled her a position with the Goo household to get her closer to Han that way. Or maybe Seol's and Han's parents died as part of the Seoraewon massacre rather than in a general anti-Catholic purge, and she ended up with Jae-kyung and Hae-ryung that way.) In any case, I'd love to see the way Seol's search for her brother intersects with Hae-ryung's quest to become a historian. How do they support each other? What kind of hijinks do they get up to?
-AU where one of Seol's and Inspector Han's investigations bring them into the palace and/or Office of Records, where Seol crosses paths with Hae-ryung. Does Hae-ryung help or hinder Seol's investigation? Does Hae-ryung discover Seol's quest to find her brother and shamelessly meddle until she resolves everything?
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