schneefink

Hi! Thank you very much for writing a story for me! :D

Things I like:
* I love friendship/team/found family fic. Characters who grow to like each other, trust each other, and eventually would do many things for each other, yes please. Especially when they started out enemies/opponents/are in slightly different positions/places/there are obstacles etc.
* Hurt/comfort in its many variations is wonderful. The focus can be on either but I like it best if there's a little bit of both.
* I'm a big fan of loyalty, betrayal, sacrifice, and related tropes.
* Canon-divergent AUs and time travel stories are great.
* Some other things I love: competent characters, plot, happy (or at least optimistic) endings, hugs…

Things I don't like for Yuletide:
* Stories with a very dark or hopeless ending
* Explicit rape or abuse
* Character bashing
* Stories focusing on harlequin romance tropes or explicit sex
* Different world AUs, like coffeeshop AUs or Harry Potter fusions. I love the canon worlds of all these fandoms so I'd prefer to read fic taking place there.

Have fun! The prompts below are guidelines, I hope they help you think of ideas.

Tales of the Otori – Lian Hearn
Muto Taku

I've wanted fix-it fic for "The Harsh Cry of the Heron" since immediately after I first finished the book. So many possibilities. Actions have far-reaching consequences also for family, but I had hoped for happier endings especially for the "next generation," i.e. Takeo's children and their friends. My favorite character is Muto Taku; once I got over my grief that he died I actually liked how he died, but that doesn't change the fact that I much prefer him alive. He's part of the Muto family, which is full of great characters, and he has many interesting relationships with other people.

I like his close relationship with Hiroshi and would enjoy seeing more of that. Exploring his relationship with Kenji and the wider Muto clan could be interesting (also Kenji could teach Taku more so he becomes a better spymaster…), or Taku's feelings toward Takeo and how much he is or isn't loyal to him. Or Taku's relationship with his mother Shizuka which we saw very little of, and even Taku's relationship with Zenko could be interesting to explore (even though I usually want to set Zenko on fire. But what if they got along better?) I enjoyed Taku/Sada (to my own surprise), and Maya as their kitten. We barely see Taku interact with Miki or Shigeko in canon, I wonder what that could look like. Or Taku could interact with people he doesn't meet in canon at all, like Hisao, or Yuki.

If you want some more concrete prompts:
- What if instead of fleeing Taku&Sada&Maya had decided to kill Akio and succeeded?
- What if Taku figured out Zenko's and Akio's plans sooner, how would he deal with them?
- What if Taku and/or Kenji managed to take Hisao away from the Kikuta as a child or teenager?
- What if Yuki had refused to die when ordered and escaped back to the Muto family, with or without Hisao?

I'm very open when it comes to pairings; the only semi-canonical pairing I'm not a huge fan of, because of the age difference and timing, is Hiroshi/Shigeko. It's interesting to see what could become of characters if they made different choices, but the one character where I definitely don't want to see a redeemed version is Kikuta Akio.

Bloodrights – N. Lee Wood
Antonya Terhune, Kerrick, Morgan

My favorite part of the book were these three characters and the relationships between them. I like how Antonya chooses Kerrick from the beginning and always keeps him close and how Kerrick is loyal to her but also sees how she is changed by events and worries; how Antonya comes to trust Morgan despite the circumstances of their acquaintance and how loyal Morgan is to her, even as he asks her not to ask him to be friends; and the antagonistic relationship between Kerrick and Morgan but that they also respect each other and (to some degree) trust each other. I would be happy with a story featuring any two of the three, and all three would be extra nice. There is a ton of potential for h/c here, or adventures, or future fic etc.

Some more concrete prompts, if you want them:
- What if the Weird was even more active? (In general, adding a bit of extra magic to this canon is cool.)
- Sometime in the future, finally in a moment without a crisis, everything Antonya has not been thinking about is there again.
- Antonya and friends! We saw in the book that she is surprisingly good at making friends and I want more, especially female friends, trying to both support her and take care of her. It would be nice to see Verbena again, for example.
- Kerrick is still figuring out the line between being loyal to Antonya and supporting her, and calling her out on her bullshit when necessary.
- Morgan does not have friends. Stop that, what are you doing. It would be great to see him accidentally become closer with Antonya and Kerrick and try to deal with that, and/or with the fact that somehow Antonya's people think he's a war hero and respect instead of fear him.

Elemental Logic – Laurie J. Marks
Medric, Emil Paladin

My two favorite relationships in this series are Medric/Emil and the whole family together (closely followed by Emil&Zanja and then Zanja/Karis), and I would love a fic with some of both.

I would love fic about Medric pre- and/or during book 1: a seer who grew up in a society that usually kills anyone with Elemental blood, who showed himself useful early enough to survive and helped his commander kill many people, who is trying to understand and come to terms with his visions, which side he's on, and what his own future will hold. In canon he only has very vague visions of Emil and his future family, but feel free to expand on that a little and give him more if you want :) The exact scope of his abilities is never clearly described anyway. I also love his relationship with Emil: both scholars who'd prefer not to fight, enemies at first, clearly soulmates. The age difference is interesting too, Emil is almost twice Medric's age.

Or fic about Medric, Emil, and their whole family settling down for the first time. It would take some time for all of them to become comfortable living together, to grow from pairs and friends into a family who all love each other, and it couldn't have happened without at least some misunderstandings and arguments and fights, especially considering they have people from three different elemental logics. On top of that they had to learn how to raise a kid!, something most of them had little to no experience with. And I'm sure they had some adventures together.

I also like Garland the cook a lot, especially him taking care of the family and in particular Medric and Emil. Shortly after he met the group Emil killed Zanja, they could use a lot of care-taking. Also later with the family trying to settle into their new roles, Karis as the G'deon and poor Emil as General, Garland would try to make their new ugly house feel like home.