Yuletide 2018 letter

[ricardienne]

Hello Friendly Writer,

Thanks for looking at my letter-- and for considering writing for me! I signed up late and so threw most of the notes I had been slowly making for prompts into the sign-up. There's a bit more detail here, and hopefully a bit better organization. I apologize for the poor formatting: I can't seem to make either Rich Text or HTML behave very well on dreamwidth. So I've tried to err on the side of simplicity.

General Likes and DNWs * * * Clemenza di Tito * * * In Other Lands * * * Winter of Ice and Iron

General Likes and DNWs

General likes: Loyalty/fealty, conflicting loyalties, unequal power dynamics, power play, comedies of manners, court-culture, intense friendship, social intrigue, mirrors for princes, in-universe art/literature/music/pop-culture/food/ritual/ettiquette,

General DNWs: noncon, death of canon characters, apocalypse and large-scale destruction, extreme violence & gore, graphic psychological torture or/and breakdown, watersports/scat, A/B/O, dehumanization, mundane AUs, unremittingly bleak endings

(some fandom-specific comments on these DNWs are included with the prompts for each fandom)

I'm requesting 3 fandoms this year:

#1:La Clemenza di Tito - Mozart/Mazzolà/Metastasio

What I love about it: the intense drama and angst over loyalty and conflicting loyalties! Annio and Sesto's devoted friendship! Tito's and Sesto's passionate friendship and loyalty-relationship! Sesto's helpless passion for Vitellia and even more helpless angst over having betrayed Tito! Servilia, the only character willing to do things to try to fix the messes that her brother has got himself and her into. The courtly pageantry and themes of panegyric & mirrors-for-princes. The baroque-ancient-Rome.

Fandom-specific DNWs: unhappy endings, darkfic, any AU that requires modifying the monarchical framing of the original, Peter Sellars' 2017 production, breaking up Servilia/Annio

Characters:
I requested Tito, Sesto, and Servilia -- you don't have to include all three, and I also have some prompts that involve Annio, who wasn't nominated, and Vitellia, who was. You are welcome to ignore those if you don't want to write either of those two characters. But conversely, you're welcome to include them even if you aren't following a prompt that mentions them.

I'm open to gen or shipfic, with practically any combination*, but I'm most interested in Sesto & Tito, Sesto & Annio, Servilia & Annio, Servilia & Tito, and Tito & Sesto & Annio. (The ampersands can all be replaced by slashes if you want -- I love Sesto and Tito and Sesto and Annio as intense friendships/loyalty relationships without necessarily an erotic component, and I'm also extremely interested in shippy versions, if that's up your alley.)

(*Except for Servilia/Tito. I think I'm only willing to entertain Sesto/Servilia as Sesto/Annio/Servilia, where it's hormone-fueled teenage experimentation (I mean... people who sing Annio are also usually singing Cherubino…) or BFFs-with-benefits or the solution to Annio's intense love and devotion to both siblings (because everything works out for Annio! He has no problems with his emotional relationships conflicting ever! )

Setting Note: honestly, I don't care! If you want to dig into the Flavian Rome historical setting, that's fine; if you want to run with the 18th century baroque!fantasy!ancient!Rome composition setting, that's even more fine! If you're inspired by a particular production, or want to do a space!AU or whatever, that's also cool! I guess my only DNW here would be: no crossovers or fusions, no mundane AUs or AUs that require significantly modifying or ignoring the opera's court panegyric/absolute monarchy frame. 

Prompts

-I love how much Sesto loves Tito, and how dependent Tito seems to be on his friends. So I'd be happy with anything that explored Tito and Sesto's friendship (or more-than-friendship-- however you want to play it!): how did it grow, and why is Sesto's friendship in particular so important to Tito? (A backstory adventure in which Sesto's loyalty and devotion first impressed themselves on Tito would right up my alley. Or/and what was their friendship like before Tito became emperor? (Were they friends even before Vespasian took the throne? What happened when Tito became emperor?).

-If you want to write about any of these prompts with Sesto and Annio, that's cool too.

-The big penultimate Sesto & Tito scene in Act II is probably one of my favorite parts of the whole opera, from Tito's private angst up to and of course culminating in 'deh per questo', but one of the most brilliant startling bits is where Tito says "the emperor isn't here: it's just me, your friend, tell me what happened, one friend to another." Total fantasy on Tito's part that he can ever banish the emperor? Or actually the way things used to be between them?

-Does Tito ever try to recover that ease? Can Sesto endure it?

-How does Sesto try to prove his repentance and loyalty to Titus? Is it extremely awkward and uncomfortable for everyone? How does he figure out/get shown that he doesn't have to self-flagellate about this anymore?
-That said, in this staging of "deh per questo" Stéphanie d'Oustrac's Sesto makes Tito sign his death warrant and (re)bind his wrists, and it is extremely intense and quite hot. So, you know, that's a direction, too.
-Here are some other 'deh per questo''s that I love:

Elina Garanca: https://youtu.be/wwdOPAuvUJs
Kate Lindsey: https://youtu.be/cG3DPeZPaHc
 

-Anything about the backstory of Sesto, Annio, and Servilia: how did they come through the regime changes up to this point? (If you want some specific prompts: I'd love to see someone figure out how to make these characters in Clemenza line up with the possible historical models).
 
-Servilia! Gosh I love Servilia. She's forthright and brave and willing to say what she thinks and do what's necessary to save the people she loves even (especially) when it involves difficult and potentially dangerous conversations: saying no to the emperor-- in the presence of his head of security who is always nosing out treasonous speech, no less! And going to confront the newly named Empress whom she knows resents her!

-Post-opera: Servilia is still the only person Titus knows is brave enough to speak the truth to him -- could this result in him coming to appreciate her and even depend on her counsel in a way separate from her brother? If Sesto is still in disgrace (self-imposed or actual), does Servilia take it upon herself to be the mender of bridges?

-Servilia/Annio is adorable, and I love it. I hesitate to invoke "cinnamon roll, too pure" -- but these two really are. They're the characters whose various loyalties don't ever come into conflict. ...what if they did?

-E.g. the missing scene of Annio and Servilia in private after Sesto's arrest, trying to make sense of and figure out what to feel about Sesto's betrayal of Tito, and debating/agonizing over whether they have to put their loyalty to Tito first, whether this means that Sesto has learned something about Tito that makes him unworthy of their loyalty, whether they should stand by Sesto anyway… Does Servilia know that Vitellia is the manipulator behind Sesto's actions? 

#2: In Other Lands - Sarah Reese Brennan

What I love about this canon: I found everything about In Other Lands just a perfect delight, but I especially loved the Elves. The level of casual misandry was pitched just right and with the perfect Heyerish spin that I was tearing up with laughter. It's not that I didn't like Elliot and Luke and all the rest, but what I desperately want more of are Chaos-of-Battle rouées and their awful sexist society.

Fandom-specific DNWs: none

I thought that Brennan hit just the right balance of lighthearted treatment and casual exposure of toxic gender hierarchies, and I'd prefer fic that didn't stray too far toward either end: by all means portray all the flaws and awful assumptions of elven society, but please nothing unremittingly dark that focuses only on the abuse, oppression, internalized misandry, etc. suffered by elven men or the negative effects of toxic gender essentialism and chauvinism on elves of all sexes.

Characters requesting: Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, Swift-Arrows-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, Sure-Aim-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle. Feel free to treat this as "or" matching: most of my prompts involve two of the three requested characters, and you don't need to include them all.

Prompts:
-We only see a little bit of Serene's interaction with her mother -- tell me about their falling out: was it always a tense relationship, or did it worsen when Serene entered her wild phase?

-Serene uncovering and being delighted by one of Sure-Aim's scandalous youthful escapades.

-Serene and her father. We don't even know his name, but we know that Serene will defend his honor at the drop of a hair. What is he like? Is Serene embarrassed to find that word of her extensive human conquests has reached his ears? Insofar as Brennan's elves are to a large extent gender-flipped Regency/Georgian romance heroes, I'd love to see the relationship between a proud, willful utterly chauvinist warrior and her "gentler" parent (perhaps in that interim when Serene returns home in order to set off to war?). Does Serene's experience with the very different mores of Border Camp humans and Elliot change her view of her father and her parents' relationship?

-Sure-Aim-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle and Serene's father: the grand romance. Give me the story of a rakish noble war-leader and the gentleman whose pure, true love finally made her fit for civilized elven society. In an even more old fashioned, conservative world than the one Serene lives in! (I see quite a lot of Heyer's Dominic Alastair in Serene, and so I'm tempted to see Sure as Justin Alastair… but feel free to ignore this (especially if you're not familiar the reference.))

-An escapade from Serene's childhood (or: the summer before she went to Border camp?) with Swift as the cocky older cousin.

-The episode where Swift tried to help Serene forget her troubles by taking her to a brothel.

-Serene's scandalous exploits at Border Camp and/or her courship of Golden-Hair as filtered through Swift's perception.

-Serene finding Swift's correspondence with Elliot and yelling at her for toying with his affections.

-I found Golden-Hair kind of flat (as is appropriate for the token love interest), but I'm willing to be persuaded.

Worldbuilding: if you want to do straight-up worldbuilding with no named characters, that's fine, too! I would love…
-More Elvish plays, or epic poetry or operas, or etiquette books, or historiography, or anything you please!

I mean, consider the elven equivalent of Ovid's Amores and Ars Amatoria!

Or Taming of the Shrew.

-I'd be okay with tragedy/darkfic in an in-universe cultural production

-Elven lesbian/homosocial relationships. It wasn't not completely clear from In Other Lands whether sexual f/f relationships are accepted and ordinary among elves, or tacitly accepted as normal in certain circumstances (e.g. young women in the military) but expected to be kept discreet, or/and difficult to disentangle from homosocial romantic (often shading into erotic/sexual?) friendships between women that co-exist with an expectation of heterosexual marriage at least for the procreation of children. Exploring any of these or other possible social configurations and their effects on individuals would be amazing! Either with the two elves we are told are lovers, or in any other configuration (Swift and Serene in an erastria-eromenê type of erotic mentoring relationship???).

#3: Winter of Ice and Iron - Rachel Neumeier

I read this fantasy novel while feverish and flu-ridden in a too-hot summer . That's why, probably, the atmosphere of the book imprinted on me so hard: icy wintry landscapes, numinous powers, a hard, proud, powerful, tormented co-protagonist with an honorable core. I enjoyed the whole book, but the parts that really hit my id were the parts with Innisth and his land and people. Why? Loyalty- and service-centric relationships; relationships with a massive power difference taken for granted by the characters; the operation of power -- both the obligations it entails and the indulgences it allows; rulership & control of the self as a difficult process. It's also a rare book in that I finished it with a very clear feeling that I had been cheated on explicit sex scenes. So in essence this is the one fandom where I'm ok with PWP.

Characters: I'm requesting Innisth, Caèr, and Verè, but you don't have to include them all (and if you are going to write shipfic, I'd prefer either Innisth/Caèr or Innisth/Verè but not all three together), and I also have some more worldbuilding-centric prompts that might involve other characters or none.

I'd be happy with anything from gen that focuses on worldbuilding and/or the relationships between the characters entirely absent any sexual component to smut.

As far as canon relationships: I'm not especially interested in Innisth/Kehera/Caèr but I'm absolutely fine with Innisth/Kehera alongside any other relationship, if you choose to write post-canon. If you are writing Innisth/Verè, I'd prefer that you just ignore Verè/Eöté.

Fandom specific DNWs: all covered in the general DNWs above

Prompts: (for this canon, I've divided them by pairing/worldbuilding)

Innisth/Caèr
-This is the main thing I was missing from the novel itself! There are a million possibilities here: the thing that I really like is Caèr's devotion and Innisth's trust, within a relationship with profoundly messed-up power dynamics that are never completely erased (I mean Innisth has power of live or death over anyone in his province). So as long as you don't erase this aspect, I'll be delighted with whatever you write. 

-That first night. How did it go from when Innisth went upstairs? Or/and show me Innisth and Caèr's relationship developing from initial wariness/fear (or whatever you imagine it to be) to the trust and genuine affection and measured familiarity that they have by the time the novel proper opens.

-Caèr's motivation for requesting the position/perspective on Innisth. It seemed like this was left very open in the book, because we only saw it from Innisth's point of view. Was it ambition to rise? A desire to get out of his current arrangement? An impulse born of relief and gratitude for the changes Innisth seemed to be making as ruler? Or/and did Caèr already know that he himself preferred rougher sex? Did he feel some desire for Innisth? (It makes sense that Innisth would never really have noticed Caèr, but Caèr, growing up in the house, probably had plenty of time to notice and develop opinions about Innisth, whether positive or negative)

-Caèr makes several comments about the way that both Innisth's and his own ties to Eänetaìsarè affect their relationship and the kind of sex they have. I'd love to see how that works, particularly from Caèr's perspective: what does an ordinary person's tie to their land's Immanent Power look like, especially when it's a dominating, harsh power like Eänetaìsarè? Does it nudge Caèr to want to submit in the converse way that it nudges Innisth want to dominate and abuse the people in his power?

Innisth/Verè:
-Verè says yes, either because he does genuinely want it, or because he doesn't quite feel that he can defy Innisth. (I would classify this latter as dubcon by in-universe standards; if you go this route I'd prefer the darker version where Verè remains conflicted/reluctant even though he pretends to be enthusiastic. At least until Innisth realizes that Verè has been deceiving him and deceiving him into crossing the consent line that he thinks he has set for himself and flies into a rage…)

-The thing I love about the dynamic between these two is that Verè seems to think he has to do more and prove his worth and demonstrate his loyalty and make amends for mistakes, whereas Innisth seems to see no conditions to his reciprocal loyalty once he's decided that Verè is his man. Perfect set-up for feudalism angst! So any situation where Verè gets to prove his loyalty or realizes that he doesn't need to. Trying to re-earn Innisth's good opinion of his competence after he screws up with []? Having to prove himself to the rest of the armsmen after the "accident"? Some scenario that arises after Innisth becomes king? (These prompt could go gen- or ship-)

General/non-relationship centric prompts:
-Any perspective on Innisth "from below". I love the Upstairs/Downstairs genre (a grand household as seen partly or even largely from the perspective and through the lives of the servants rather than the masters), and I'd love a story about the duke's household adjusting to Innisth as their new master. How do the hierarchies downstairs shift? How do his people recover from the reign of terror that seems to have preceded him and adjust to his caprices? Or/and how does the duke's household adjust to the changes at the end of the novel? How do the slaves Kehera freed fit into the existing order of things? What's going to happen as Eäneté becomes the capital and the duke's house a royal court? What does the household really think about Kehera?

-Worldbuilding: I think about book culture a lot, so it's always a safe bet to write me a story about in-universe books and reading culture. I'd love to know what kind of literature exists in this world, especially in Pohorir. The duke of Eäneté has a librarian, apparently-- so what's in that library? I think it would be especially interesting to see didactic literature: what kinds of "Mirrors for Princes" do people write for lords of Pohorir? What kinds of books did Innisth's father educate him on? Caèr used to be the librarian's clerk -- was there a particular book or books that he encountered that helped form his desires or/and expectations of Innisth?