A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

Thank you for writing 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 write 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, story lengths, unusual formats, etc.

My AO3 name is Edonohana. I am open to treats. Very open. I love them.

I like hurt-comfort, action/adventure, horror, domestic life, worldbuilding, evocative descriptions, camaraderie, loyalty, trauma recovery, difficult choices, survival situations, mysterious places and weird alien technology, food, plants, animals, landscape, X-Men type powers, learning to love again or trust again or enjoy life again, miniature things or beings, magic, strange rituals, unknowable things, epistolary fiction/found footage/art described in fiction. And many other things, too, of course! That list is just in case something sparks an idea.

( General DNWs )

( Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander  )

( Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin )

( The Iron Dragon's Daughter - Michael Swanwick )

( Piranesi - Susanna Clarke )

( The Stand - Stephen King )

( Watership Down - Richard Adams )

I had a great Yuletide. I got three wonderful stories, and the collection seemed exceptionally good. I'm still reading through my long list of bookmarks.

I wrote four stories this Yuletide.

Dragonlance - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Leather and Steel. 1896 words. Explicit. Laurana/Kitiara.

My favorite Dragonlance pairing! I think all you need to know to read it is that Laurana is an elf, Kitiara is human, and they're on opposite sides of a war.

This was a pinch hit. Here's the request that made me lunge to snap it up: Honestly, i want these two to just have it out. Tanis is boring and they should realise that. I envision them in a battle, which takes a turn for the... kinky, to be honest. Not enemies to lovers exactly, more like enemies to enemies who sometimes have amazing hate sex. Kit would have no issues teaching this elf a lesson in who is boss, and i feel like Laurana would give back as good as she got.


The Fall of the House of Usher - TV

This is a stylish, gruesome, quotable updating of a bunch of Poe stories into a family saga. If I'd had time, I'd have treated every single request for it.

If you want to read my stories without having seen the series, probably all you need to know is that Verna (an anagram of raven) is a morally ambiguous supernatural being, Arthur Pym ends up as the Usher family's ruthless lawyer/hit man, and Madeline and Roderick Usher met Verna in a bar once and made a deal with her, with disastrous results.

Click to see an iconic image of Verna.

a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime. Arthur Pym & Verna. 1585 words.

An Arctic cosmic horror story. I love cosmic horror but I'd never written Arctic horror before. I had a lot of fun taking the show's hints about their first meeting and creating a story around them. Especially the bit about the hollow world, an old pulp fiction trope that I love and no one seems to do any more now.

There's another take in the collection on the same prompt, The Margin, which I recommend if you like mine.

the miraculous lustre of her eye. Madeline Usher/Verna. 1954 words. Explicit.

Power plays, sex magic, and totally literal flirting with Death.

I love writing dark FF, so it was a treat for me to get to write two of them this Yuletide.


Piranesi - Susannah Clarke

The Sixth Statue. 1890 words.

Matthew Rose Sorensen explores the House. This was my assignment. The request was for House exploration and "Do other animals ever visit?" I never get tired of creating statues for this fandom.

Yuletide signups end at on Saturday, 2:00 PM Pacific Time. Here is a countdown. Come on in! It's fun!

You can find a how-to and a link to eligible fandoms in the tagset at yuletide_admin.

Anyone still trying to make up your mind?

Yuletide nominations are open now! Nominate your favorite obscure canons via yuletide_admin!

This year we get to nominate four fandoms with four characters each. FF.net no longer counts toward eligibility, so some older fandoms are now eligible again.

I have nominated Mary Stolz's Cat in the Mirror, Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Agatha Christie's Miss Marple (Lucy Eyelesbarrow, Mary Dove, Mr. Rafiel, and Miss Marple), and Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles.

What are you nominating for Yuletide?

May you all have a happy holiday, whether it involves saffron buns, Chinese food and a movie, rolling around in fanfic, or some other celebration.

I received THREE Cass Neary stories, which are all so good that I am struggling comment on them in the way they deserve. But I now am showered and dressed and have fed the chickens, and I have a mug of coffee with a splash of Frangelico, and I am sitting down to re-read and comment at leisure.

I shall do proper Yuletide recs tomorrow. For today, please make my holiday that little bit more enjoyable and comment to tell me what you're going to eat today, if you plan to eat something special.

I'm having duck confit, salad, and potatoes I will dig out of the garden right before I cook them.

You have 24 hours to sign up for Yuletide, and I need a distraction.

Thank you for writing 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 write 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, story lengths, unusual formats, etc.

My AO3 name is Edonohana. I am open to treats. Very open. I love them.

I like hurt-comfort, action/adventure, domestic life, worldbuilding, evocative descriptions, camaraderie, loyalty, trauma recovery, difficult choices, survival situations, mysterious places and weird alien technology, food, plants, landscape in general, X-Men type powers, learning to love again or trust again or enjoy life again, miniature things or beings, and animals. And many other things, too, of course! That list is just in case something sparks an idea.

( General DNWs )

( Cass Neary Series - Elizabeth Hand )

( Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander  )

( Piranesi - Susanna Clarke )

( Space Trilogy - C. S. Lewis  )

( Shadows of the Apt - Adrian Tchaikovsky )

( The Tillerman Cycle - Cynthia Voigt )

TERRIFY yourself by watching the countdown clock!

THRILL to the stories you want to read in the collection!

As of the moment of posting, there are 1831 stories in the collection, and 13 hours, 22 minutes, and 1 second to write!

Who will join me in spreading cheer at a time when we could really need it, and spend the day raising the number of stories in the collection to a nice even 2000?

Also, apart from your own gift stories, what have you found by browsing fandoms and shaking presents that you look forward to reading?

Personally, I am particularly looking forward to the Salieri/Mozart/Constanze threesome for Amadeus, stories for Judy Blume's Fudge series, Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy, Caitlin Kiernan's The Red Tree, Stephen King's Dark Tower, and the multiple stories in The Darkangel, Dragonriders of Pern, Malory Towers, Mushishi, Nirvana in Fire, and the Onmyouji movies.

It's the final countdown!

Here's a countdown clock.

Here's sign-up instructions.

Any last-minute signers up or waverers?

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.