nnozomi

Amended from past years:

Thank you for writing something for me. With the exception of the do-not-like stuff, please take any and all of this as optional suggestions only, and do what works for you. Not all of the stuff I like, for instance, may be applicable to all the fandoms I've requested; choose what makes sense to you.

Do not like: darkfic in general, incest, humiliation, NC-17 for either violence or sex (no moral objections, it's just not what I enjoy reading), blatant out-of-characterness, rape/dubcon, Christmas themes (again, not opposed to their existence in general, just not Christian myself).

Enjoy in particular: snappy dialogue, families of choice, playing with language(s), cuddling, work (in all definitions) and people being competent at it, futurefic, scenes from everyday life.

I tend to prefer genfic, but have no objection at all to background romance/relationships, or even a slow-burn romance fic with a high gen ratio, as it were. Any pairing (m/f, m/m, f/f, threesome, you name it) is fine as long as you can make me believe in it.

By fandom (characters):

The Story of Owen Series (E.K. Johnston): Any

I love Siobhan, her tenacity and her sense of humor and her music—as an orchestra geek myself I would be delighted to read a completely music-focused fic. I like Courtney, and I’d like to see what Prairie Fire looks like through her eyes. Kaori only gets a little bit of pagetime, but I like her “bass clarinet” low-key wry steadiness, and if you are reasonably well versed in Japan stuff I’d like to know more about her. I’d like to know how Sadie sees Lottie’s efforts to change the paradigm, and where she goes with it after the books. Futurefic for any or all of the characters is always good, whether it’s two days or twenty years later (or both). Also, I am not Canadian but I enjoy the emphasis on Canadian-ness which is part of the worldbuilding, so go to town there if you want to.

A Season of Daring Greatly (Ellen Emerson White): Any

Every year I seem to request one completely obscure book fandom of zero, and this is it for this year. Anyway: Jill! I love Jill’s stoic good sense and subversive humor; there is pretty much nothing you could give me with Jill in it that I’d complain about. Future fic when she’s a success in the big leagues, or trying to decide whether to quit and go to college, or out of baseball and doing something neat like the high school project she talks about?

Marcus I just like as a character, and I would like to see more of him; Jill’s first season from his point of view? Working with Jill again years later, when he’s a sports doctor and she’s a veteran pitcher?

Lauren seems like another interesting character we don’t actually get to see much of; I’m just curious to see more of her, and if you are too then go to town with whatever interests you. Maybe she and Jill inevitably drift apart, and then something happens to bring them back together a few years down the road?

Shosuke, or kids in his position, I know forwards and backwards from the other end: the high school baseball hero who’s a star at the Koshien tournament, gets a chance at the draft for all the NPB teams, and turns them all down to plunge into MLB, arrogant and bold. So it’s interesting to see him from the other side, struggling in the American minor leagues. It would be fun to hear his voice, as it were—maybe epistolary fic, Shosuke’s letters or email or social media posts to his family, his girlfriend, his ex-teammates?

Other characters are welcome too, especially Sofia and/or Theo.

The Secret Country (Pamela Dean): Fence, Laura Carroll

I’m interested in the way, especially after the reveal about the five children, Fence and Laura’s relationship seems to shift from “court wizard and cute small child he pats on the head” to “colleagues in a specialist field”, and I’d like to see more of their interactions in the future. If you ship them, once Laura’s grown up, I can go with that; if not, I like them working together in Ted’s court, Laura learning to manage her visions and maybe do other magical things? They seem to have some personality traits in common (non-flamboyance, compared to the rest of the cast, and a kind of stoic practicality) and I like the particular sense of their relationship. Any other characters welcome too, as long as the focus is on Fence and Laura.

The Steerswoman (Rosemary Kirstein): Zenna, Steffie

This is the request I make every year, and I still want it. What were Steffie and Zenna doing after Rowan and Bel left Alemeth? I’d love to see Steffie learning how to be a steersman from Zenna and also working to balance his ambitions with how the people of Alemeth have always seen him. Maybe casefic of some kind for the two of them, either something happening in Alemeth or something old that emerges as they sort the archives? (I selected these characters as the two I’d most like to read about, but would also be especially happy to read something about Reeder, particularly after the events of the series so far.)

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Natasha Pulley) Keita Mori, Grace Carrow

I’d like to see something set after the book, from Mori’s perspective: dealing with their changed lives, his status between nations, Thaniel’s music, maybe a new and strange clockwork order? And what happens to Grace? I don’t think anyone that driven is going to become serene and contented easily, in whatever context, say she marries Matsumoto or not. (I do kind of like her with Matsumoto, but I don’t think it’s going to be smooth.) Maybe some Foreign Office intrigue gets Matsumoto and Thaniel in trouble, and Mori and Grace have to work together to get them out of it?

Again, thanks for writing and I look forward to seeing what happens. J.