Yuletide 2018 letter

[pearwaldorf]

Hey there. Thanks for doing this. The fact that people are even willing to consider things I want in stories is enough, so I’m sure I’ll love whatever you write. If you have an idea in mind already, great! But if you need something a little more concrete to work with (as I do), please look below.

You probably don’t know me. Here are places you can find me:

Twitter: pearwaldorf
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Things I love in fic:

• Female-centric (although as long as your characterization feels true I honestly won’t care who you focus on)
• Friendship/genuine regard between characters, especially if they’ve clashed in the past
• People who like/love each other hanging out
• Characters finding their way/their place in the world, especially after something bad/significant has happened
• Found families
• Deep worldbuilding (give me specific details of the nerd-ass thing you’ve always wanted to explore about the work!)
• Mutually oblivious pining, especially if everybody else around them notices it
• Allllll the silly romcom/fanfic tropes (ONLY ONE BED WHAT DO, huddling for warmth, undercover as couple, fakeout makeout)
• Fake relationships/forced intimacy, especially if feelings make it awkward
• Comedies of errors/farce

I really love attempts at connection and understanding, both of self and other characters, especially when they succeed.

I am agnostic on explicit sex/porn. Don’t write it if it makes you uncomfortable, but I’m certainly not going to be sad if it’s there.

Please do not feel obligated to make your fic holiday themed. If you think it will add to the story, great!

 

Do not want

• Rape/non-con (dub-con is fine)
• Unhappy endings (if things get bad/dark but are resolved by the end that’s fine)
• Non-canonical character death
• Character bashing/sidelining to further ships (especially if they’re female)
• Soulmate/soulmark anything
• A/B/O anything
• Mpreg

Fandoms

The Dragon Prince
Harrow, Viren, Amaya, Gren

Season one is all about establishing relationships between the kids, and that’s fine. What I’m most curious about is the relationships that have already been formed: between Harrow and Viren; Amaya and Gren. There is History between these pairs, and I want to know some of it.

What I thought of when I saw Viren and Harrow interacting in the first episode was Maric and Loghain’s dynamic in The Stolen Throne, a Dragon Age tie-in novel. It's very liege and vassal, with all the attendant power dynamics and a nice layer of UST. Maybe a story from the previous conflict, how Harrow and Viren met and started working together? How they became friends (and perhaps more)?

What an intimate thing it is, to be somebody's literal voice. I'd love to see a story about how Amaya and Gren found each other, and what the circumstances were around Gren becoming her interpreter. She obviously trusts him a great deal, and I am very curious to see how he earned it. Platonic or shippy, I don't care. Just give me that good good backstory.

 

Crimson Peak
Edith Cushing, Lucille Sharpe, Thomas Sharpe

An acquaintance (who is a cis white dude) once mentioned that he didn't really understand Crimson Peak, and I told him it was because it wasn't made for him. I mean, Guillermo del Toro is a cis man, but he understands girls/women better than a lot of male filmmakers. Crimson Peak is a more modern gothic romance, where the girl saves herself, and I appreciate that.

On the other hand, WHERE IS ALL OF THE DARK POSSIBLY DUB-CON FEMSLASH WE DESERVE? Or the fucked-up incestuous threesomes? If you feel comfortable writing jealousy/possessiveness/obsessive dynamics for this fandom, that's totally cool.

 

Horizon: Zero Dawn
Aloy, Avad, GAIA

I love the way the game shows you the world as it is, and then peels it back, layer by layer, to show you how it was. And in doing so, it has a lot to say about hope, survival, cultural memory, and legacy; in some cases, literal seeds of a garden you’ll never get to see. I love Aloy: her determination and focus, her incredible strength (physical and otherwise), and the way she smirks when she knows she's going to whack something into the ground.

I'm curious to see what Aloy does after the end of the game. Does she wander the world, visiting the friends she's made (and bang all the ladies)? Or does she find a place and settle down, perhaps with one of the nice ladies she’s met? Alternately, does she throw herself into restoring the things the ancients left?

Alternately, I haven’t read an Aloy/Avad story that’s really scratched the itch properly. I have a lot of Thoughts on how both she and Ersa are probably the only people who Avad can relate to as a person, as opposed to a king, and what that does for him.

One of the things I would love to see (but is absolutely not required!) explored is her relationship with GAIA, and how both sides navigate and negotiate. Obviously Aloy is not Elisabet, but there's no way that doesn't influence how they interact.

I have not played through or watched The Frozen Wilds, although I will by the time fic is due.

I hope you have fun writing, and I look forward to reading your story!