Dear Yuletide Writer

[rachelmanija]

My AO3 name is Edonohana.

Thank you for creating for me! If you have any questions, please check with the mods. I am a very easy recipient and will be delighted with whatever you make for me. I have no special requirements beyond what's specifically stated in my DNWs. I'm fine with all POVs (i.e., first, second, third), tenses, ratings, etc. I enjoy both shipfic and gen. I am fine with sex if it suits the story, or no sex if that suits the story.

General DNWs: Current political figures, literal coronavirus (diseases and pandemics in general are fine), on-page rape or child abuse, a focus on human pregnancy or babies (brief references are fine), graphic depictions of eye or tooth trauma, digestive upsets, death of canonical characters who don't die in canon, dementia/brain damage, real-life terminal illnesses, and detailed descriptions of bodily fluids other than blood, sweat, and tears. 

Worldbuilding

I have requested worldbuilding for all my canons this year.

Don't worry about failing to fulfill the "worldbuilding" aspect of the prompt - it would be almost impossible for you to do that by accident. For the purposes of Yuletide, I consider a worldbuilding story to be one which explores the world/setting of the canon. This could involve exploring a corner of the world we don't see much in canon, getting into more detail on a part of the world we do see a lot of in canon, making some interesting custom or culture or place a big part of the story, or simply telling a story which includes vivid and atmospheric details of the world. 

Basically, for the canons I nominated, I really love the world and want to see more of it. However, I do want an actual story with characters, not something like a travel guide or an encyclopedia article. 

You can use either original or canon characters. I've noted canon-specific preferences about this in the sections on the individual canons.

Gateway - Frederik Pohl
Worldbuilding

This request is just for the novel Gateway, not for any of the sequels. Please consider the book a standalone for the purposes of the story. 

I love the world of the story, with its desperate characters and unsolved mysteries and the ships that can take you literally anywhere, but you don't know where and it's a coin-toss whether you'll return alive.  This book has no equal for haunting mysteries beyond human ken and the dark side of the sense of wonder. So I'd like more of that. 

I'd like a story that takes place at least partly in a ship, rather than a story set entirely on Gateway or Earth or Venus. 

I'd prefer a story focusing on original characters, though if you want to reference the ones who appear in the book or give them cameos that's fine. If you prefer to write about the canon characters, how about an unseen mission one of them went on, like Klara's that went so badly that she ended up terrified to ship out again?

I loved the interstitial material like the mission reports, classified ads, etc, and if you wanted to include some of that I'd be delighted, but please don't do only interstitial material that doesn't tell a story. But if it also tells a story, such as a story in the form of a complete mission report, that would be great.

Here's a few other possible prompts. If they inspire you, great, but they're just in case you find prompts helpful. You can write anything you like!

Gothic in space: a prospector realizes the others on her ship intend to murder her to get her share of the bonus.  (Or do they?!)

Someone decides to stay at their destination, whether because they can't get back alive anyway or they prefer it to returning to Gateway.

A story about one of the scientists who can't resist shipping out, or someone else who actually wants to ship out, even if they're also scared. 

What happened to one of the ships that didn't come back?

Feel free to write horror or otherwise go very dark for this canon. Equally, feel free not to if you come up with a happier or bittersweet idea. 

Shadows of the Apt - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Worldbuilding

I've read the ten main books, the books of short stories, and Echoes of the Fall. Feel free to draw on any of that canon. 

For this story, please feel free to either create original characters or to write about any canon character in the series, with the exception of Totho. Like many characters in the series, I DNW Totho. My favorites include the nominated characters and their friends, Taki and the other Fly pilots, the original four friends, and Grief in Chains/aka other names. But seriously, I love everyone. 

I love, love, love the kinden. I would love it if you invented a kinden and wrote me a story about them. I would also love if you explored a canonical kinden in more depth. I was especially intrigued by the Butterflies (their names especially fascinate me) and the Woodlice (they're Apt AND Inapt, what is up with that?!) and the Starfish (are they really non-sentient, WTF???), but honestly I'd be thrilled with a story focusing on any kinden. 

I'd prefer a story that isn't war or politics-centric, as we got plenty of that in the series. You could write me a story about a lonely Roach girl taming a wild ladybug, or Thorn Bugs falling in love, or the first Earthworm student at Collegium, or a Pillbug doing whatever Pillbugs do in their downtime. Or if you focus on canon characters, you could write about Straessa and Castre Gorenn (or Tynisa and Che, or Atryssa and Tisamon, etc) going out on the town with a focus on their cultural/kinden differences and similarities, or Taki flying into an unexplored area, or what Che does after the end of the series.

Thousand Worlds - George R. R. Martin
Worldbuilding

Works in this setting: The canon is scattered in a bunch of short stories and two novels, Dying of the Light and Tuf Voyaging. The collection Dreamsongs Volume 1 is in print, and collects nine of the stories in the Thousand Worlds universe. They are "A Song for Lya," "Bitterblooms," "The Stone City," "The Way of Cross and Dragon," "The Tower of Ashes," "The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr," "Nightflyers," and "Sandkings."  Other stories in the setting include "The Glass Flower" and "In the House of the Worm."

Canon-specific DNW: Corpse-handlers and their animated corpses.

I'd prefer a story that doesn't center on the main characters and major settings from Dying of the Light and Tuf Voyaging. I like them but I also got a whole novel worth of them, so I'm more interested in the less-explored corners of the universe. 

I love the lush detail, the sense of wonder, and the feeling of an immensely vast, strange, beautiful, terrifying universe. They make me feel like I'm looking up at the stars and imagining inhabited planets orbiting those suns, with each planet inhabited by beings living their own fascinating stories. 

My favorite stories in this universe are "A Song for Lya," "The Stone City," and "Sandkings." The first two use setting and local culture to explore bittersweet themes, while the third is a straightforward horror story that depends entirely on very cool alien creatures: all quintessential worldbuilding stories. 

But all the Thousand World stories make marvelous use of worldbuilding: Morgan's gifts and the contrast of the inside/outside settings in "Bitterblooms," the city where rationality ends in "The Stone City," the eerie tower and world of "This Tower of Ashes," the decadent culture of "In the House of the Worm," the central game and the various beings of "The Glass Flower," the spooky beauty of Wraithworld in "With Morning Comes Mistfall."

So please write me something set in some corner of this vast universe, maybe a different part of one of the worlds we see, maybe one that's just mentioned, or maybe one you made up that fits the feel of the world. I'd be happy with either original or canon characters. If you do use canon characters, please have them be from one of the stories I mentioned in this letter - there's others set in this canon that I'm less familiar with.

Altered men, psychics, spaceships, decadent horror, bittersweet longing, ancient ruins, strange forests and the even stranger things that lurk in them, incomprehensible or all-too-comprehensible aliens: I'm here for whatever inspires you.