wordplay

I've been super busy with Yuletide, as you might expect, but also have managed to watch and read and play and stuff!

What I've recently finished reading:

Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher, and - this one felt a little too romancy for my taste, actually. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but so much "omg I adore this other person but it's clear they don't care for me!" and that's not my favorite type of story.

I also re-read the first two books of the Kindom Trilogy by Bethany Jacobs - These Burning Stars and On Vicious Worlds, which I really enjoyed when I first read them - because I realized the conclusion of the trilogy is out now (which somehow I had forgotten about). Complex political schemes IN SPAAAACE!, toxic relationships, sweet relationships, interesting treatment of gender, major relationships are f/f, f/nb, and m/m/f, a great structure going back and forth in time, and a few really excellent plot twists. I'm now reading the third book, This Brutal Moon, and enjoying it a lot.

What I've recently finished watching:

S1 of Star Trek: Lower Decks which was great fun, though we're not used to such snappy short episodes and so it was a little whiplash-inducing. We'll probably watch more seasons later, but this was a good stopping point.

The Other Bennet Sister, which thisbluespirit recommended, and I keep mentally getting confused with The Other Boleyn Girl. Aw! Both B and I enjoyed this one, which had moments that felt as though they were going to hit the embarrassment squick but almost always pulled away just in time. I mean, I'm a nerdy Mary type, who would rather read about geology than go to a ball, so it very much pinged that familiarity chord. Very sweet - I really loved the bit with Mr. Hayward and Mr. Ryder both paying court to Mary as Caroline Bingley fumed in the background.

What I've recently finished playing:

I finished Ghost of Tsushima - I was ready for it to be over! Didn't do any of the DLC, or continue cleaning up the island. I did enjoy that they had a lot of excellent female characters who kicked ass just as much as the male characters. It's a beautiful game, for sure, though it felt over-long to me, maybe a bit repetitive. I did like some of the sneak-quests, though, and some of the shrine quests which felt a bit like Horizon quests!

Now I'm playing Dressmaker, like everyone else I know :-) I feel sadly un-artistic, but it's fun, and the story is very entertaining. And it works well on my laptop, which is coming with me to Arizona, while my desktop alas stays behind.

Thank you for writing a story for me! I am Isis on AO3. As long as you generally stick with things I like and avoid things I dislike, I will enjoy your story even if it doesn't take on any of my vague prompts, which are really just suggestions. All my prompts are at least mildly spoilery so you may want to take care expanding those sections.

If you're not feeling inspired about your assignment and want to try something else, Midnight in Paris (2011) is just over an hour and a half long, and the Swordheart series is just two books so far (and I’m requesting a character who’s only in the second). The Checquy Files is (currently) a four-book series, and the Bobiverse is (currently) a six-book series; I’m requesting Worldbuilding for both of these, so technically you could get by with just one book of either, but my prompts assume you’ve read the whole series (and you should read them both, anyway, they are wonderful, and Bobiverse doesn’t really get rolling until book 2). For my Shardlake request, you need only the fifth book, but my request is highly spoilery and ideally you should read the book before looking at my request, which seems like a big ask!

Treats are enabled and welcome! I've included general art likes in the "nattering" section for artists interested in making Wrapping Paper treats (and if you draw me a treat I'll try to write you the story that goes with it!).

Likes: I like historical (if appropriate) and worldbuildy detail, scenery porn, what-if AUs, original characters (along with, not instead of, any requested ones, unless otherwise specified), pastiche of canon style, time travel, bodyswap, bodysharing, ghost/afterlife stories, mythological and supernatural elements, and magical realism. (These fantasy elements are welcome in canons that don’t have them, unless specified.) As you can probably tell from my specific fandom details, the setting and worldbuilding are as important to me as the characters, so I'm not a fan of AU that completely changes the setting, but if you have a brilliant idea, go for it; I would prefer "interesting" to "mundane" AUs, e.g., in SPAAAACE yes, coffeeshop no. (Coffeeshop in SPAAAACE, okay!). I would like happy endings and no major character death, though feel free to kill off original or minor characters as your story requires.

DNW: I do not want fic focusing on pregnancy or children (mentions of either are fine), A/B/O or BSDM dynamics, mundane modern AUs, or major character death (other than canon deaths). I do not want anything that contradicts the characters being cisgender as presented in canon, unless they are canonically not cisgender. I do not want fic that uses neopronouns (e.g. 'xie') – please use 'they' for nonbinary or agender characters, or whatever these characters use in canon. I do not want nonstandard capitalization or punctuation other than in the title. I very strongly prefer past tense; if you feel your story really needs to be in present tense for stylistic reasons that's fine, but I want it to be a conscious choice, not a default.

I do not want unrequested noncanon ships involving canon characters even in the background, other than those I've specifically mentioned I'm okay with. Canon ships, mentioned past relationships with OCs, and implicitly canon ships (such as people’s parents) are fine, as are OC/OC relationships. Please don't break up any specified relationships or put my requested characters in relationships other than the ones I've mentioned I like.

Other general nattering about my tastes - characters, crossovers, style, sex likes, art likes

Characters: The characters I've chosen are the ones I want the focus on, but the choice of what kind of story to write and who to include in it lies with you. Feel free to take things in whatever direction you like and/or include characters I haven't mentioned, including original characters, though please keep the focus on my requested characters (except as noted). For worldbuilding requests, feel free to use canon characters or original characters as you choose.

Crossovers: I love crossovers, but if you choose to write one, please make sure (either through checking my fic, tags [reading will find books, viewing will find movies and TV shows, games will find games, and some fandoms have tags as well; also you can check my Goodreads 'read' shelf for books, though I haven’t updated it in a while], asking my friends, or asking one of the other mods to ask me) that I know the other source. I have a particular soft spot for crossovers with real historical characters in historical-fiction fandoms. I do have a few specific crossover prompts in some fandoms.

Style: I generally prefer plot (as in, things happening; doesn't have to be elaborate or long – as contrasted with character studies), past tense, and lots of dialogue. But these are preferences, not hard DNWs, and if you have a brilliant idea that requires present tense and no dialogue, go ahead – but please make these actual choices rather than defaults. My only hard preferences are for conventional pronouns (he/she/they as appropriate), capitalization, and punctuation. I'm happy with epistolary fic or journal entries, and if you want to create interactive fiction (second person is fine for this, or otherwise as you prefer), go for it! I have no preference on story length - make it as long (or as short) as it needs to be.

Sex and relationships: Explicit sex okay, non-explicit sex is okay, no sex is okay, but any sex should be in believable language for that era or fandom. UST, gen, het, slash, femslash, whatever. It's all good. I don't care for PWP, as I need at least a little context that establishes the world and those characters. I also prefer sex scenes that focus on emotions and perceptions rather than on the mechanics of what goes where: think M-rating rather than E-rating, and I'm totally fine with fade-to-black. I am rather vanilla in my preferences where kink is concerned: mouths, hands, genitals, toys, all are fine, but I am not interested in BSDM, bloodplay, watersports, spanking, or fetish play. I like kissing, touching, oral sex, penetrative sex, frottage, pegging, mutual masturbation, outdoor sex, indoor sex, and pretty much any position two bodies can contort themselves into. I am not interested in threesomes, moresomes, or poly fic in these fandoms. I am absolutely fine with a gen work in any of these fandoms, and for most of them I prefer this.

Wrapping paper challenge art treats: I would love art for any of these fandoms! I like both serious portraits and funny little cartoons. I have a soft spot for art in which one character is doing something typical-but-alarming, and the other is rolling his or her eyes, or reacting with horror, or getting ready to douse them with a bucket of water, or whatever. Stylistically, I love interesting and experimental compositions, unusual perspectives, emphasis on textures such as hair and clothing, and scenery porn (Mountains! Trees! Cliffs with water crashing on them! Brooding ruins of an ancient castle!) and I like line drawings as well as full color. I really like stylized artwork that depends on a limited color scheme (my favorite colors are blues and greens; I also like black-and-white and grayscale), and not-too-detailed sketches that feel dynamic. I like art-pastiche such as playing cards and tarot cards, posters, and so on. If I receive any art treats, I will do my best to write a ficlet for the artist based on the art!

And now, on to the prompts!

Bobiverse - Dennis E. Taylor: Any (Theresa Sykorsky, Bridget, Worldbuilding)

I listened to the first Bobiverse book, We Are Legion (We Are Bob) while on a road trip; my husband had acquired the audiobook because he’d seen reviews that compared it to Murderbot. (Spoiler alert: it’s nothing like Murderbot.) I was a little predisposed to dislike it because it’s very obviously written by a nerdy male engineer cum science fiction fan. But I ended up loving it (eventually – it gets better after the first book), mostly because the set-up of having a main character who replicates himself endlessly (and imperfectly) in order to explore the universe allows for exploration of all the SF staples: sentient space ships, strange new worlds, terraforming, first contact with primitive alien life, first contact with advanced alien life, space war among competing powers, space colonization, rogue AI, and so on. And while the various iterations of Bob are basically iterations of Bob, the other characters he encounters are great, and there are a lot of super interesting philosophical questions one can tease out of the narrative.

I’ve listened to all six books available so far, but it’s fine if you haven’t read The Infinite Extent or Not Till We Are Lost (though my prompts may be somewhat spoilery for those books).

If you choose to write about Bridget, I’m mostly interested in her post-life life, and while that implies Bridget/Howard, I would prefer something on the gen side rather than about her relationship, since that’s well covered in the books. I would love to see her nerding out over the xenobiology of canonical or invented planets, or her POV on the events on Heaven’s River or Jabberwocky, especially driving non-humanoid mannies. (Please don’t just rewrite canon scenes from her POV, though.)

Theresa is really my favorite character in these books, and I was so happy to see her join the Bobiverse! If you choose to write about her, I’d be interested in either her POV on the events Heaven’s River – how did she figure out that Bob wasn’t a quinlan, and why did she keep her opinions to herself? – or her post-life-life, especially her embassy to the Pav and her views on the Bobiverse, humans, and other species. I ship her with Bob; I’m not specifically interested in a sexual relationship, but if you want to include that as part of a fic, the nerdy technical details of how they manage with mannies/quinnies/some neutral third creature constructed bodies could be entertaining!

I’m also interested in Bridget and Theresa’s friendship, and their implied growing friendship with Bobbie, and in general the idea of female friendship in the sea of brothers that is the Bobiverse.

If you choose to write worldbuilding – go wild! Weird planets, weird solar systems, weird alien life, weird spaceships, whatever. Write about one of the civilizations that formed the Pan-Galactic Federation, or about the PGF, or the fate of the Centaurs or the Dragons or the Deltans after encountering the Bobs. Truly, pretty much anything in this universe will make me happy.

Murderbot seems like it might be a fun and natural crossover, among others!

The Checquy Files - Daniel O'Malley: Worldbuilding

These books are super fun, sort of like Rivers of London but with Ghostbusters-level humor. I liked the first book, The Rook, the best, because the premise is so wonderful: a woman wakes up with amnesia and learns, through letters written from her former self, that she's a high-up bureaucrat in a secret organization of people with supernatural powers who deal with supernatural crimes and threats to the country. But I also really liked the fourth book, Royal Gambit, because it was so over-the-top.

Basically, I’m up for any canon-like shenanigans: people with bizarre and nonsensical powers, threats to the government that are thwarted in unexpected ways, the weird lives of people in the Checquy, and the possibly weirder lives of the “normal” government and military people that intersect with them. I’d love to see more about the American equivalent, or the equivalent in any country. I’m happy with canon characters or original characters or a mix of both. I’m less interested in the Grafters—feel free to include them as needed, but I’d rather have the focus be on Checquy-style powers.

I ship Myfanwy/Shantay, and also Felicity Clements/Odette Leliefeld, and am happy to have either (or both) in a story, though I would still like the focus to be on the weird and wacky worldbuilding of this series.

Crossovers could be super fun here, especially with canons that are also nominally real-world but have magic or other weird shit going on. I haven’t been into Harry Potter for decades, but a light touch with that could be funny; I have only read the first few books of the Rivers of London series, but that could also work. Due South? The Invisible Library? The Diplomat?

In a completely different direction, one specific crossover I would love to see stems from an easter egg in the third book, Blitz, where Lyn is learning about her family’s heritage and historical people with powers, who of course concealed them:

The librarian part of Lyn's mind perked up and cleared its throat. "Gaul was ruled by the Romans then, right?" she asked.

"Well, not entirely," said Arndt. "There was some village in Brittany that they never managed to conquer. But apart from that, yes, Gaul was occupied by the Romans."

YES I don’t care how you jam the canons together, maybe all modern powers stem from the magic potion, whatever, I would love a crossover with Asterix!

Additional DNW for this fandom: I dislike the Gestalts and would prefer to not have them present in the fic, other than brief mentions if needed for the plot.

Midnight in Paris (2011): Any (Adriana, Worldbuilding)

This movie is so up my alley: hack screenwriter hoping to become a novelist, on vacation in Paris with his fiancee and her parents. An old-fashioned car somehow takes him back in time to the 1920s and meets famous historical literary and art figures! And it's hilarious and sparkling and the various historical characters are amazing.

I enjoyed the movie for what it was, such that I really don’t feel the need for too much further exploration of what happened in canon. However, there are a couple of open-ended questions that I would love to see explored:

Adriana, the model and costume designer who has seemingly had affairs with all the great artists, longs for the Belle Époque, and when a similar sort of time-travel mechanism (a carriage, this time) takes her and Gil back to that era, she decides to stay and design ballet costumes. So – what happens with her? Does she meet any other travelers? Do any of the artists longing for the Renaissance go back in time?

Or just delve into the worldbuilding itself, the mechanism of art and love of art pulling writers and artists and designers through time. Are there further visitors to the 20s? Are any of the famous figures we meet in the movie actually from the future – maybe a farther future?

DNW exception: I’m fine with any pairing you care to include here, either Adriana and any artist or literary figure, or among any of the artists or writers and original travelers.

Additional DNW for this fandom: Please don’t undo Gil’s decision to go back to his time, or the way the movie ends.

Matthew Shardlake Series - C. J. Sansom: Hugh Curteys

I read the first few Shardlake books a few years ago, and then read the rest of them in one fell swoop last summer. I feel like they just got better and better! Heartstone, where we meet Hugh Curteys, was possibly my favorite, because it contains one of my favorite tropes, and if you haven't read these books please stop here because MAJOR SPOILERS...

...I am absolutely weak for the "girl disguises herself as boy" plot, especially in historical contexts where women's lives are circumscribed by the prevailing social/religious attitudes. I really love the way Sansom has written Hugh here; he fully inhabits the character he has taken on for himself. Even once Shardlake figures it out, he still refers to Hugh with male pronouns, which implies to me that for Hugh, being male is not just his cover story but the identity he has chosen to live.

I'd really love a story about Hugh's new life in Antwerp working in the cloth trade, and I'm fine with it being set with him back in England talking to Shardlake, or epistolary, or just completely about Hugh with no involvement from Shardlake and the other characters. I'm fine with gen, or with him attempting a romance either with a man or a woman (original character) - it's up to you whether it goes well or disastrously, considering his secret and the setting. But please keep things firmly set within the historical context of these books.

Additional DNW for this fandom: No Hugh/Jack or Hugh/Matthew. I'm cautiously open to Hugh/Nicholas, and although there are not a lot of appropriate female characters in these books, if you can think of one, that's fine. Original characters are of course fine here.

Swordheart Series – T. Kingfisher: Large Francis Building

I actually just read these books in the past few weeks, because I was intrigued by all the Yuletide nominations! Yes, adorable romances, yes, dashing adventures – but I want to know what happens with Francis’ embassy to the humans. Tell me about her diplomatic experiences in Archenhold! I would love to have her viewpoint on her adventures with Edmund and his group, or her diplomatic discussions with the Archon and the representatives of the various guilds and religions. An epistolary story with her letters back to her people would be amazing. Does she set up a new trade route? What happens when the giant bugs come to town? Does some enterprising businessperson set up an inn catering to them?

I’m fine with all the canonical relationships in these stories – please don’t break them up!

I have read Saint of Steel but nothing else in the Temple of the White Rat universe.