Dear Yuletide Writer

[mayhap]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you for writing for me! I don't know who you are, but I love you kind of a lot already.

You may be skeptical of my love, pointing out that, as mentioned above, I don't actually know you, and thus it cannot possibly have a particularly sound basis. But seriously, just the fact that we matched on at least one (1) of these fandoms is an entirely sufficient condition, owing to the transitive nature of my overpowering love for them. I'll try to ramble on here a bit about my requests to hopefully give you something to be inspired by, but I really do mean it when I say that these are suggestions and possibilities, and that I specifically chose my fandom/character combinations for their potential to delight me in just about any conceivable way.

I am super-easy to please and I like a wide range of stories—short, punchy stories and longer, plottier stories, explicitly porny and/or kinky stories and coy stories that are all about the teasing and the implication, stories with some kind of meta angle to them and stories that engage with the source material 100% on its own terms.

I'm a bit of sucker for crossovers; I've read some brilliant ones for Yuletides past and I also find as a writer that starting from a crossover, like starting from a pairing, can be a good starting point to shake a story idea onto a blank page. I put together a list 2012 certified Yuletide-rare fandoms that I plan to read stories in, in case anything jumps out at you among, anything I've written in or about is obviously fair game, and if you have an idea for a crossover of your heart with a fandom not covered above, feel free to contact me through the mods! Conversely, feel free to ignore this option entirely and focus all of your attention on our awesome shared fandom, which is one of the following:

Curse Workers series — Holly Black
Cassel Sharpe
Lila Zacharov

I think these two have absolutely smoldering chemistry throughout the entire trilogy, and I would absolutely love a story about what they're like when they're not in an adversarial relationship--or, more realistically, a less adversarial relationship. Feel free to delve into the magical politics of the 'verse, which are awesome and fascinating, or to completely handwave the future magicopolitical situation if you're not writing that kind of story. A con story would be great fun, even--or maybe especially--if it's a very small or silly con. On the pornier side, I would love an exploration of Cassel's very obvious budding kinky side, including his early taste for masochism and submission (ear-piercing scene, whee!). If you want to write kinky, feel free to let your own tastes and/or characterizations lead you where they will under that general rubric; it'll be hotter and more convincing that way. My only squicks here are permanent non-decorative disfigurement (piercings or scarification would actually be kind of in character for this pairing...) and 24/7 D/s in a non-BDSM AU.

Elemental Logic series — Laurie J. Marks
Zanja na'Tarwein
Karis

I would love any kind of story about Zanja and Karis, whether that be set sometime after Water Logic or a missing scene from any of the books. You could write straight-up smut (this is pretty much always an option, really, I just wanted to throw it out there), or explore any aspect of the worldbuilding that catches your fancy—I especially love the use of the invented texts in the books, the glyphs and of course the four elements themselves. I love Emil/Medric and if you want to write them and it makes sense to have them as a background pairing or even a co-pairing in your story, go for it! If anyone is the primary focus, though, I would like it to be Zanja/Karis.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams
Zaphod Beeblebrox
Arthur Dent

This request is meant to encompass, in descending order of specificity (but NOT, I assure you, of preference!) Arthur/Zaphod, Arthur&Zaphod, or Zaphod solo character exploration fic. I adore Zaphod: his raging insecurities alternating with his raging egomania, his flamboyant use of galactic slang, his convoluted past as a confidence trickster, a galactic political figurehead sleeper agent and a smoke-filled room schemer, not necessarily in that order. I happen to be of the opinion that Zaphod's Zaphodness is particularly nicely highlighted by contrasting it with Arthur's essential Arthurness, because they are such opposites and spend so much time sniping at each other, which I am totally happy to read in a shippy way. It would be interesting to me, for example, if Arthur finally managed to unequivocally impress Zaphod in some way and maybe (even more remarkable) forced him to admit it somehow. Hitchhiker's canon being what it is, feel free to fold, spindle or mutilate the timeline(s) to find an appropriate setting for any story that you want to tell. Time travel is never not a bonus.

Although this fandom is nominated under books, I am 100% conversant with book canon and you can write for me without giving another version of canon a second thought, I have also listened to the radio dramas a lot over the years and I feel that I would be doing you a disservice as a Hitchhiker's fan and my Yuletide writer if I did not point out that a.) the radio dramas are exceedingly entertaining to listen to, b.) listening to audio versions of your Yuletide canon can be a fun way to do a canon review and/or get character voices into your head, and c.) the end of the second series, where it diverges the most sharply from book canon with the long subplot about the Lintillas, clone archaeologists, puts Arthur and Ford with Zaphod when he meets the man who runs the universe. The final episode has completely open ending which also happens to work as a great prompt for some Arthur/Zaphod hatesex or miscellaneous adversarial shenanigans, which I proffer for your inspection:

What does the future hold for our heroes now? What does the past or present hold for that matter?

Will Arthur Dent now embark on a terrible and protracted vendetta against Zaphod Beeblebrox? Will he be all right alone in the Universe with only the Infinite Improbability Drive, Marvin the Paranoid Android, Lintilla the archaeologist, Eddie the shipboard computer, a lot of chatty doors and a battered copy of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy for company?

Will there ever be another series of that wholely remarkable and mystifying entity The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy? … Find out if you can!

So those are some questions that should be explored by someone, possibly you, at some juncture, possibly this one.

For stalking purposes, I am mayhap on Dreamwidth, crossposted to mayhap on Livejournal, and mayhap on AO3; on tumblr I am pinchofnutmeg, because mayhap was taken. Feel free to take a gander at these tags ("dear author" and "yuletide") for stuff from Yuletides past if you so desire.

Thanks again, and happy Yuletiding!