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Hello! I'm keerawa on the AO3. In the fandoms where I requested multiple characters, my requests are Any/Or, not a request for all of them interacting. Optional details are optional, and I know I'll love anything you write me in any of these fandoms, but if you'd like some further information on how to rock my world for Yuletide, here are some ideas.
Table of Contents for navigating this monster
General Likes, Dislikes, and Hot Sex tips
The Expanse (TV) - Naomi, Chrisjen, Amos
킹덤 Kingdom (TV 2019) - Any
A Taste of Honey - Kai Ashanti Wilson - Any
Binti series – Nnedi Okorafor - Binti
221b Baker Towers(5-minute fandom!) - Sherlock Holmes
Shuri (Comics) - Shuri, Okoye
General Likes
I'm a fan of plotty stories and case fic. I like it when interesting things happen, characters need to do something or figure something out. Even in a story where the sex or relationship is the main focus, I love having some kind of additional conflict, mystery or action going on, something that shows these characters have lives and outside interests. Characters being smart and competent really pleases me, and if some of those characters are women, queer, or people of color, all the better!
I like tight POV's, where I can really get into the narrator's head. I like questions of identity, magical realism and all kinds of world-building. I can get into past or present tense, 3rd or 1st person POV.
I enjoy angst and darkfic, up to and including deathfic, in most of my fandoms. Now, don't feel that you have to go there - I like light, happy stories too! But if your Muse leads you somewhere dark, I'm delighted to go there with you. I like it when a character's dark side and flaws are intimately related to their best qualities. It's not that I enjoy the exploration of evil, per se. More that I'm fascinated by the search for love and redemption in even the darkest of circumstances. Unless otherwise specified, I want even my dark stories to have some kind of happy, positive, or hopeful ending.
Unreliable narrators are a particular thrill for me. I like original characters and outsider POVs, so feel free. I'm a sucker for fannish tropes like amnesia fic, omegaverse, and soulbonds. Canon-divergence AUs fascinate me. I'm always interested in stories that reveal character backstory, and I love stories about people who know and trust each other working together as a team. If you see potential for an open or poly relationship in canon, I would enjoy reading about it! And if you are in the mood to treat, I love short fic, including drabbles.
General Dislikes
I don't enjoy kid fic, and pregnancy completely squicks me. Plots that depend on characters failing to communicate with each other bug me. Pure romantic fluff with no conflict or other plot doesn't generally work for me, and I'm not a fan of 'These characters are now pirates in the 1700's' or coffee shop alternate setting AUs. I'd rather avoid fics focusing on cheating or infidelity. Gender-bending generally disappoints me, unless there is canonical reason to question or alter the character's gender. I avoid crack-fic. No holiday-themed stories, unless you are inventing holidays as part of your world-building, in which case, please carry-on! Although I admire a well-crafted sentence, I'm not really into poetic or flowery language.
Hot Sex
I read and enjoy lots of G-PG fic, and most of my requests this year are gen. But if you should be in the mood to write porn, yay! I like slash, het, and femme-slash. I'm a fan of intense relationships. People who love each other beyond all reason. Even if you're writing about a hook-up or business transaction, I want it to be in response to some deep need, not just a casual fling. Kink works for me, if you want to go there. You don't have to - one of the hottest stories I ever read never went past a purely vanilla first base. Passionate, nervous first-time kissing. Mmmmm.
My favorite kinks include dirty talk, voyeurism, masturbation, pain, bloodplay, knife-play, marking, bondage, orgasm denial, xeno, tentacles, loyalty kink, and power-imbalances. Most importantly, though, it needs to be in-character, be about these two people, what they want and need. Kinks are all about trust. I don't generally enjoy non-con or trash party scenarios, but dub-con, especially when a character is forced into something they secretly want and enjoy, but could not take, sets me off like a fire-cracker. (*coughs* omega-verse) Mind control is very, very hot, with or without consent play involved. I'm absolutely into mind control, hypnosis, sex pollen, etc, where someone is forced into participating in and enjoying sex. I enjoy the build-up and character reveal of kink negotiation, but being thrown right into the middle of an intense scene can also be very powerful and arousing. Both work for me.
I'm not generally into fisting, golden showers, scat-play, clothing-fetishes, DS as a lifestyle, necrophilia, or bestiality. Those are soft no's. One thing that seriously turns me off is fic where the character's kink is because of some childhood trauma, sexual assault, or anything like that. Pregnancy, male or female, is a hard no.
The Expanse (TV): Naomi Nagata, Chrisjen Avasarala, Amos Burton
THIS SHOW! All the found family love, distinct and competing cultures on Earth, Mars, and the Belt, issues of class and imperialism, plots that depend on all the people, even when in opposition to each other, being so damn smart. What a fabulous diverse cast. Three seasons in, and I am blown away by the plotting, world-building, and characters. The science even makes sense! I haven’t read the books, but if you want to share some insight from them with me as a part of your story, feel free.
Because this show is such a wonderful ensemble, I had a difficult time deciding which characters to request. Please consider my character request Any of the above, rather than a requirement that they all be in the given fic. Jim seems like a nice enough guy, but I’d prefer a story that didn’t focus on him.
DNW: Pregnancy/childbirth, proto-molecule horror or body horror, non-con between major characters, unhappy endings
ETA: I haven't watched season 4 yet, but should be able to by the 30th of the year. So if anyone might want to use material from season 4, please tag. It'll take me a few days to catch up with you and comment, but I'll be SO EXCITED when I do!
* Naomi is a big damn hero. She's intelligent and moral. She makes choices, and accepts the consequences of those choices without flinching. (Responsibility for Amos, taking refugees onto the Somnambulist, saving the protomolecule specimen.) I would appreciate any story showcasing this aspect of her personality and history.
* Naomi/Camina. I got a wonderful story featuring them last year, and I'd like more! These two women are Belter to the core. They hit my competency kink hard, in all the right ways. They obviously have a lot of respect for each other, and I can see them figuring out how to be together while still leaving space for each other’s jobs and decisions. Having them supporting each other in a crisis, even as they disagree over the best plan of action, would be fantastic. If you don't fancy a serious relationship piece, you could write them as good friends or give me some fun, messy, kinky, zero-g porn with these two gorgeous women, and I would be delighted!
* Chrisjen was born into a position of privilege and wealth. She worked with intelligence, charm, insane ambition, Machiavellian pragmatism, and her uniquely female style of hard-ball politics, until she’s close to running the whole planet. It seems less a selfish ambition than her not trusting anyone else to be in charge and without fucking things up. I’m not quite sure what to ask for here. More Chrisjen, basically. Maybe Chrisjen dealing with the emotional fall-out of some hard decision, certain what she did was necessary? I can imagine her waking up from a nightmare of the Belter children dying, getting comfort from her husband, looking in on her own children, and then making sure the video evidence is suppressed.
* Chrisjen & Bobbie Draper: I would love to read a story in which Chrisjen is determined to win Staff Sergeant Draper's loyalty - not only because she is a skilled bodyguard, or because her reliable testimony could be vital in the future, but because Chrisjen wants to be worthy of that loyalty, to prove it to herself as much as to Bobbie. I don't really see this as a romantic or sexual pairing, but now that I bring it up, I'm intrigued, and Chrisjen is absolutely willing to use sexual attraction to her advantage, so if you'd like to include some aspect of that dynamic, go right ahead.
* Amos fascinates me! He’s apparently a former sex worker, possibly a former organized crime figure, current mechanic and ship-mate, protecting his people and dedicating himself to a Good Person who will tell him when it’s okay to kill, because he can’t seem to figure out the rules. (He reminds me of Bothari, from the Vorkosigan books, in that sense.) I’d like to read some of his back story. Feel free to go very dark with it, as long as there is some happy ending, resolution, or redemption to be found.
* Amos &/ any It's not that I think Amos is the fandom's little black dress, or can make friends with anyone. On the contrary, I think he finds it incredibly difficult to relate to other people. So I would be delighted to read a story where Amos truly connects with someone, whether in his past, present, or future. That could be sexual, or not. Naomi, Alex, Anna, Praxidike, an OC - you decide!
* Tattoos: Naomi gets a traditional Belter tattoo after leaving the Rocinante. Amos has a whole set of them. I’d love to read a story showing the how/when/why either or both of them decided to get their tattoos. (Of course, for Amos, it might not have been his decision.)
* World-building: I’m fascinated by what we see of Belter culture, and the Belter language. I’m not a linguist, but if you have any inclination to explore that, I would be incredibly excited to read what you come up with! Belter bed-time or ghost stories? Earth fairy tales transmuted over time, distance, and cultural drift to something that speaks to the Belters? Traditional songs? Write me the heart of the beltalowda. If you have a Belter world-building story in mind that doesn't feature any of my requested characters, you have my explicit permission to write it.
* History is written by the victors. Show me the conflicting coverage of some canonical event by different sources – Earth, Mars, and Belter, absolutely. But what about the pirate broadcasts on Earth, or the OPA party line versus rumor out among the asteroid hoppers?
* Fusion with The Wire or Black Sails. I'd love to read a story where one or more of my favorite characters from The Wire (Omar Little, Stringer Bell, Bubbles, Kima Greggs) are part of Amos's backstory, growing up in Baltimore, OR are Belters. Naomi/Kima and Amos/Omar both sound amazing.
* The parallels between Nassau and Belter culture interest me, with that tension between a distant imperial corporate super-power and the people trying to live between the cracks and make a future for themselves and their people. I would be thrilled to see some of the Black Sails characters make their way in this future. You could even do something clever, crossing over or set in both time periods, if you felt inspired. Gen, Naomi/Max or Amos/Flint would be great Flint would be such a terrible moral compass for Amos!
킹덤 Kingdom (TV 2019): any (ie Seo-bi, Yeong-sin, Queen Consort, or the Crown Prince)
This intense 6 episode TV series shows a zombie apocalypse in Korea during the Joseon period. It showcases fabulous costumes, political intrigue, thrilling action and true zombie horror as the plague gradually overtakes the countryside. It's available on Netflix and there is a second season being filmed now! Feel free to write me gen, or any het, slash or femme-slash relationship that you'd enjoy. This show has a lot of dark themes, and I am totally on board for canonical levels of horror, gore, etc. Character death is entirely acceptable, and if you want to write grimdark, this is the fandom where I'd want to read it.
DNW: pregnancy/childbirth
* This canon seems like it would make for a perfect interactive fiction, with lots of horrific and varied death-by-zombie endings and just one or two ways you might make it out alive.
* Seo-bi is clearly an excellent physician, and (as the scene where the magistrate tries to propose to her shows) just as clearly terrible with people. A story using this for some dark humor would be a lot of fun to read.
* Yeong-sin's backstory intrigues me, especially since it seems he was actually involved in the campaign where the zombie infection was first weaponized. Anything exploring this would be fantastic.
* This is very dark, but I would like to read a story from the perspective of someone who has been infected, knows it, and is desperately trying to complete one essential task.
* I would like to see the Queen Consort find a way to exert her own agency and power against or over her father.
* The Crown Prince is the only character in canon I don't really get. If you do, please write a story that shows me what he's all about.
* I'd love to read the introduction to an article in a scholarly journal / get a guided tour of an exhibit in modern day examining some aspect of the Joseon zombie incident.
A Taste of Honey- Kai Ashante Wilson: any (ie Aqib, Lucrio, or Femysade)
I'm intrigued by what we see of Olorum culture; the tremendous divide between men and women of the upper classes, with an emphasis on hyper-masculinity for men, while literacy, mathematics, physics, medicine and psionics are all restricted to women. The 'gods', whether similar to human or very, very different, manipulating these people and cultures from a distance. The Sybil, possibly another human/other hybrid, and her monstrous desires and prophecies. The varied 'magical' abilities of the Cousins. The twist at the ending floored me.
And Aqib - sweet, kind, loving, self-sacrificing Aqib. Brave not because he is fearless, but because his love and compassion are more powerful than his fear. I adore him. This story's emotional arc is strange, swinging between joy with moments of fear, and sorrow with moments of happiness, all with that subtle undercurrent of horror. Feel free to explore any or all of those emotions in your fic.
DNW: pregnancy/childbirth; a focus on child-rearing, body horror, non-con, unhappy endings in this fandom.
* Aqib growing into a stronger, more confident version of himself, rejecting the views of his home culture and family that shamed him for looking and acting different than a 'real man' should.
* Aqib/Lucrio, as they first return to Daluca. I'm fascinated by this m/m 'adoption' tradition they have. It reminds me of a pirate's matelotage. Show me more!
* Aqib's first time with Lucrio, full of body worship, joy, laughter, and tenderness.
* The monstrous Sybil's fragmented view of the many future possibilities and probabilities as she sends Lucrio to Olorum to meet his love, anticipating his bitter tears. This could take experimental forms, from verse to IF. This prompt (and any other IF or multiple timelines fic) is an exception to my DNW unhappy endings, as some of the potential endings can and should be dark and unhappy.
* Aqib, along with several women, all threw themselves into the sea, willing to drown to follow their lovers in the Dalucan ship. It seemed like more than an individual impulse - is this a part of their culture? I am curious about the legend or truth behind it.
* Femysade chose Aqib on the strength of watching him dance the sacred dance like only a woman could, and watching him play with Sabah like a child. She wanted a man who was not a man, and it seems the two of them were close friends and occasional lovers for many years. I would enjoy learning more about their relationship from her perspective.
* The Prophet Adonane didn't just come looking for Femysade. She specifically needed LucretiaAqibFemysade - the Femysade who was wife of Aqib and mother of Lucretia. I wonder why. Perhaps your story can show me.
* World-building of any and all kinds, including OC's, epistolary fic, sacred art and scripture, an introduction to the standard text on the ethics of psionics, or an Ashean's scientific overview of the breeding experiment that is the Sacred Cousins of Olorum. (One possible explanation for why homosexuality is so violently rejected in their engineered society.)
Binti series – Nnedi Okorafor: Binti
This series of Afrofuturism novellas blew my mind. They shatter so many of the expectations and conventions of science-fiction. This is a truly different imagining of our future, and one that I want to read more of. Technology based on organics and the mind, used for war, yes, but also for understanding, communication, and peace-making. Binti is a genius mathematician, a master-harmonizer, a selfish daughter, and a gentle warrior. She survives horrors and emerges deeply changed, but stronger each time. And rather than use her new understanding and power to punish those who hurt her, she uses it to make peace. The author’s endless creativity in the truly, radically different aliens she imagines as the scholars of Oomza University is marvelous. The found family aspect of the stories delights me, as does the deep optimism of it. This is a story about the power of curiosity and love to overcome any barrier and transform us into our best selves.
DNW: pregnancy/birth; a focus on child-rearing or non-con; Binti betraying her own principles; unhappy endings in this fandom, non-canonical character deaths
* Tell me the story hinted at right at the end of book 3, of Binti’s journey to the Falls, with her friends Mwinyi, Okwu, New Fish, Haifa, and the Bear.
* Binti/Mwinyi porn where she enthusiastically loses her virginity. I wonder how her varied cultures treat that transition? I'd like to read about the two of them exploring her needs and desires, physiologically and emotionally, now that she is not only human. I do love me some tentacle porn, so feel free to have the two of them enjoying the okuoko!
* The Night Masquerade is both a costumed sham, and an expression of a deeper cultural truth. I’m interested in this – show me more?
* Binti learns more about another paired ship/person, or one of the many species at Oomza University.
* Binti canonically experiences PTSD and panic attacks. There's gore, horror of war, and body horror in canon as she goes through a variety of genetic changes. There is character death and grieving, both true, untrue, and temporary. If you would like to explore any of these issues, I'm very interested. Please offer some hope or happiness in the end!
* In the last book, it is hinted that Okwu might give birth to Binti’s child. I can suspend my usual pregnancy DNW for an exploration of this intriguing concept, but please make it distinctly inhuman. How does Meduse reproductive biology work? What about their family structures? How would Binti’s found family, and her birth family back on Earth, both Himba and Enyi Zinariya, react? I would welcome Binti/Okwu or Binti/Okwu/Mwinyi xeno for this prompt, the more weird and wondrous the better, or the genetic transfer could happen in a non-sexual context.
* Binti is culturally conditioned, as a woman of the Himba people, not to allow herself to express, or even really feel, anger. The Meduse seem to spend a lot of their time in a joyous rage, and after Binti’s genetic modifications, that is a part of her emotional make-up. I’d like more exploration than we got in canon for how she adapts to this, and learns to accept and use that rage.
221b Baker Towers: Sherlock Holmes
Imagine fandom’s reaction if the next big Holmes adaptation to come along had Holmes and Watson as British, yeah - young black British men, living case to case on a council estate in a dodgy area of London. How fandom would react if Sherlock Holmes didn’t employ street kids and homeless people like trained animals to do his bidding, but instead part of that invisible underclass; if instead of having his eccentricities tolerated~ by Scotland Yard on account of being the Great White Genius, Sherlock Holmes, BME, school dropout, and sometime addict, was regarded by the police as practically a criminal already, one more thug, one more junkie, one more dealer in the making. If he had to choose between buying the week’s groceries or palming a twenty to a bored constable for the chance to spend five minutes on a crime scene, in the hope that whoever’s under enough pressure to deal with crime rates in the neighbourhood will pay him enough for a perp to feed himself and Watson for a month or two. If the greatest threat to his safety were police brutality, or the prospect of being done for a snitch; if his arch enemy weren’t Moriarty, but the systemic poverty and inequality that has him helping out his oppressors just to get by, and that makes the other side of the law look more tempting to someone with his skills every day.
This is a Tumblr-based, crowd-sourced fan adaptation of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. You can find some of the fic, art, and meta created for it here: http://221b-baker-towers.tumblr.com. I had two amazing stories gifted to me in this canon last year, and it just makes me hungry for more about THIS Sherlock Holmes. The line between canon and head-canon is nonexistent, in this fandom, and they can be contradictory, so here’s a few of my preferences. I love John (Jan, Jahan, or Jawan?) as an immigrant, possibly undocumented, from Afghanistan. Remember, 36.7% of London's population is foreign born, 24.5% from outside of Europe. I see Sherlock as atypical in some way the system read as needing special education, whether that was ADHD, autism spectrum, dyslexia, or some other difference. (If that doesn’t make sense to you, feel free to avoid it.) You can make the relationship between Sherlock and John platonic or romantic, but I would like it to be important to them both. This fandom lends itself to going very dark; I’ll be right there with you if you want to go there. Police brutality, drugs addiction, poverty, corruption, homophobia, sexual assault, anti-sex worker or anti-immigrant violence – it would all fit.
DNW: Major characters race-bent back to white.
* Show me what Sherlock loves about London, and what he hates about it.
* Case fic! Could be a remix of an original Doyle case into Sherlock’s world, or take some local police blotter detail and show me Sherlock behind the scenes of it.
* I see John as part of a large family, who takes care of his younger siblings financially, emotionally, etc. Sherlock, on the other hand, is very much alone. How does John balance his responsibilities to his family and his friendship/relationship with Sherlock? Is his time with Sherlock an escape? Does he feel guilty for it, or guilty for the time at home, when Sherlock gets himself into all kinds of trouble without John there to look out for him?
* Harrowing Interactive Fiction or groundhog day style story, with Sherlock just trying to make it through one damn day with himself and John alive and free. Maybe it’s really happening, maybe he’s blazed and his own powers of deduction are spinning out of control and driving him round the bend – your call. If I, as the reader, can’t tell, either, more power to you.
* "Toss out what's impossible. Then take a good hard look at whatever's left, bruv, 'cause don't matter how mad, it's true." Write me a cross-over with Rivers of London, with Sherlock believing the evidence of his senses, but very, very suspicious of PC Grant and some posh DCI in his ends ‘taking an interest’.
* Sherlock code-switching language and communication style, sometimes honest and sometimes lying his arse off as he deals with different people, trying to blend in, get by, and get one over on the system.
* Problematic Sherlock/ Moriarty. They’re black, brown, bent, and bloody brilliant. Moriarty first spotted Sherlock as a promising young gang recruit. Feel free to creep me out with Moriarty grooming a too-young Sherlock, and Sherlock walking into the relationship with eyes open, eager for the attention and the material benefits of being Moriarty’s boy, as well as the promise of someone who might actually understand him. It’s mostly over now, but they still fuck sometimes, and have each other’s back when things go bad. John doesn’t understand it, and doesn’t want to.
Shuri (Comics): Shuri, Okoye
I've just started getting into comics, and Nnedi Okorafor's Shuri blew me away. I'm not familiar with a lot of the larger canon from the generations of Marvel comics out there, so feel full to pull from them, ignore them, or flatly contradict them, as best serves the story you want to tell. I would welcome pure world-building or stories focusing on Shuri or Okoye.
DNW: protagonist or narrative focus on any too-big-for-Yuletide Marvel character who appears in the comics, such as Tony Stark, Spider Man, Groot, or Rocket.
* I would enjoy any and all world-building in this universe, whether it is something from Shuri's ancestors POV, something about the Dora Milajae, or a look at how Wakandan technology differs from Western tech.
* Shuri, as 'Ancient Future', has learned to cope with the constant internal commentary and advice of her ancestors. Show me the bumps along the road as she came to grips with it?
* A story focusing on Shuri's joy in flying, and the challenges she has overcome to do it, would be marvelous, from engineering and piloting flying craft, to designing the individualized tech for wings for herself and the Dora Milajae, and then finally when she uses her ancestor-granted powers to fly like a bird.
* Shuri's friendship with the hacker Muti interests me. I'd like a story that goes deeper than canon on how they came to know and trust each other.
* General Okoye says, "The Dora Milajae read and V.R. often. Education is a lifelong practice." I'd like to learn about her education and training, or how (and why) she altered the training regimen of the Dora Milajae when she was promoted. This could go a bit meta, contrasting the original Black Panther comic's 'wives of the King' with the modern fighting force.
* In the Black Panther movie, a scene was cut in which General Okoye was flirting with Ayo. It's definitely my headcanon that she's queer. If you can indulge me, that's great, and if not, I understand. Perhaps Okoye livens up a day of very dull ceremonial duties by fantasizing about what they'll do when she gets home, and is still alert enough to save the day when something goes wrong?.
* Okoye/f/m with femdom and the male as a special treat for an established f/f couple.
* I'd also enjoy a story where General Okoye has to balance her public and private personas or conflicting responsibilities.
* I adore the Elephant's Trunk, with a small random selection of women of all ages, professions, and positions secretly coming together to discuss the emergency facing Wakanda. I'd enjoy a story showing how Okoye selected each of these women, and their reaction when she informed them they had been called to serve Wakanda.
In Conclusion
To me, fanfic is all about getting a chance to explore characters in ways that the original source didn't allow. I love these characters, these worlds - show me something I didn't know about them, and that's the best present you can give me.
Your Eager Recipient,
- keerawa
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Edit: Here's the link to my letter, if you're interested: https://sugar-fey.dreamwidth.org/307908.html