Yuletide 2021 letter

[ricardienne]

Dear Yuletider,

Thanks for writing for me! I'm requesting 3 canons: Bright Smoke Cold Fire (character: Runajo), Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung (character: Hae-ryung), and The Queen's Thief (characters: Attolia, Teleus, Relius).

I've listed general likes and DNWs first, then prompts for each canon. Hopefully the prompts will give you an idea of the kinds of things that I'm excited about, but please don't feel bound by them! If they spark your imagination in another direction, I'm sure I'll be happy with the result.


Likes
Here are some things that I like in general, and would be overjoyed to see in any fic for any canon:
-Loyalty/fealty relationships
-unequal power dynamics
-Close relationships intersecting with unequal power dynamics
-Intense friendships
-Platonic life partners
-Comedies of manners
-Court-culture,
-Social intrigue
-Mirrors for princes/panegyric/shitty court rhetoric/bad court poetry
-In-universe art/literature/music/rhetoric/pop-culture/food/ritual/folklore
-Difficult decisions about whether to do what is right or what is expedient/conducive to survival, having to compromise your principles, and finding ways to live with the consequences.
-Unreliable narrators; protagonists with imperfect information.
-Linguistic games and code-switching, puns, allusions to other works of literature, whether in-universe or extra-universe, pastiche
-letters & in-universe documents/literature. (I'm completely, enthusiastically on board with epistolary fic, journal-entry fic, archive fic, far-future-historian-looks-back-on-these-events fic, ridiculous in-universe fictionalization of the character fic--- any weird experiments with genre and form.)

And, correspondingly, DNWs (starred* DNWs = brief mentions of canon plotlines that deal with these things are ok): death of canon characters beyond canon deaths; mass death & genocide*; apocalypse and large-scale destruction*; blowing up planets or cities*; violence & gore beyond what is in canon; psychological torture or/and breakdown*; A/B/O; dehumanization*; noncon*; unremittingly bleak endings; non-canon incest; mundane and/or modern AUs; kidfic; fic centered on the struggles of a character in a real-world marginalized identity*; Christianity and Christian-conversion narratives*;

Request 1: 신입사관 구해령 | Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung
Character: Goo Hae-ryung

What I love about this show: Hae-ryung's intellectual confidence and curiosity, unafraid frankness, clever humor, and moral seriousness; Hae-ryung's relationships with the other female historians; Hae-ryung and Min U-won's mentor-mentee-to-mutual respect relationship; Min U-won and Yi Jin's friendship and the tensions their respective positions place on it; useless noblemen of the scholar class being dragged for not being able to carry even a single stick of wood; everything about and everyone in the Office of Records; the way historiography and future memory get weaponized in political and dynastic intrigue; the emphasis on historiographical integrity and independence, and the importance of recording and preserving the truth; angst about doing one's duty vs. doing what is right; everyone is constantly reflecting on what good government and good rulership and the right relationship between governors and governed mean.

Canon-specific DNWs: any kind of romantic or erotic relationship between Goo Hae-ryung any of her senior colleagues (including Min U-won); fic focusing on Hae-ryung’s romance with Dowon or anyone else (background pairings of all kinds – canon and not – are fine!); focus on Christianity (background mention of canon events is fine).

Possible Prompts:

• Anything set in the Office of Records: during canon, or post-canon. Honestly I'd be happy with low-key slice of life archival shenanigans involving Hae-ryung, Officer Min, and everyone else in the office.
  • Especially: Hae-ryung, Eun-im, Ah-ran, and Sa-hui teaming up and supporting each other through whatever mess or political drama the Office is embroiled in.
• The day Hae-ryung gets promoted from apprentice to full historian.
• Anything set during the 3 years where they are writing up the Annals of the previous reign and emending the Annals of the old king: deciding between different versions! Dealing with political pressure!
• An AU in which Hae-ryung and Sa-hui become closer friends: after all, they do have in common a very strong stubborn streak of honor and doing what is right. What if Hae-ryung found out about the hold that the Second State Councillor has over Sa-hui? Could they team up to fix everything thwart him?
• Post-canon, when Min U-won has returned to the Office of Records and Hae-ryung has become an officer herself; their working relationship as colleagues (obviously U-won still has seniority and rank on Hae-ryung, but she's not an apprentice anymore), especially if Hae-ryung is up to her usual determination to Fix An Injustice.
• If I were to be honest, Historians vs. Power is the thing I love the absolute most about the show, and would love post-canon fic about any sort of dramatic conflict between the historians and the wishes of Yi Jin, where both parties are well-intentioned and determined and have very good reasons for what they are demanding, but the needs of raison d’état are at odds with the imperative to record the unadulterated truth.
• Alternately Hae-ryung pre-canon: I love Hae-ryung's relationship with Jae-kyeong, and I'd love to see them at an earlier point in their lives as mildly eccentric yangban siblings of modest means after they returned to Joseon; or how Hae-ryung discovered her passion for astronomy, or her (mis)adventures as a Reader. (Hints of Jae-kyeong's guilt and their Past are okay, but I'd prefer a story that didn't focus on it.)
• I'm too ignorant to make a really detailed prompt about political theory and/or philosophy and/or the classical scholarship that Hae-ryung is trained in, but I would love anything that involved debating any of these, whether in general, or in relation to specific questions/debates current in the period.

Request 2: Bright Smoke Cold Fire Duology - Rosamund Hodge
Character: Mahyanai Runajo

What I love about this canon: the order of the sisters of Thorn and their implacable terrifying rituals; the doctrine of inkaan; doing terrible things that you know are terrible because the alternative is even worse; the weird and wonderfully gothic architecture of the convent; the lost library; the politics and beliefs and rituals of the different factions and clans of Viyara: the old nobility, the new-comer noble clans, the smaller groups of refugees; the Mahyanai's Epicureanism; the angst - oh god the angst; the sheer number of angry depressed girls with wielding different kinds of power;

What I love about Runajo: she's the bitter and angry and fiercely independent and frustrated and cynical and driven and lonely and deeply depressed character of my own heart.

Canon-specific DNWs: portraying Vai as a ciswoman; focus on romantic relationships (background mentions are fine); focus on the death of Runajo's mother (mentions are fine).

Possible Prompts:

• Pre-canon: Runajo's early days as a novice with the Sisters: how did she manage to alienate absolutely everyone and come to despite them so quickly while simultaneously becoming so good at the weaving and so knowledgeable about the history and secrets of the sisters of Thorn?
• Post-canon: Runajo having to take a ruling role in the Cloister in a new world: how do you build new religious practices and new worship when blood sacrifice is no longer necessary? Runajo balancing the demands her her family against Inyaan's expectation of her cooperation with her plans as Exalted against the Cloister's traditional autonomy while also trying to figure out whether she can become part of what Juliet/Romeo/Paris/Vai have together. I'd prefer this to be somewhat happy, but it could also be bittersweet, if you think Runajo would always be somewhat on the outside.
• Runajo becoming adviser and power-behind-the-throne to Inyaan as they work more closely together. I'm curious what Runajo will/would do with temporal power and the latitude of actually being in charge of of something and having the power to make things happen.
• THE LIBRARY. I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE LIBRARY.
  • Post-canon: can Runajo go back, now that the Revenants are gone? Can the library be restored to its glory?
  • During-canon: Runajo and Juliet (or Runajo/Juliet…) have to make another secret foray past the Revenants.
• Worldbuilding prompts (it wasn't nominated, but maybe you really want to write it):
  
  • Anything about the founding of the Sisters of Thorn and their relationship with Death, the development of their theology, the way their bindings and weavings took shape.
  • The story of the end of the library: the last sacrifice of so many, from the point of view of the Sister who wrought the final binding and paid the final debt of inkaan.
  • I'd love to know more about the beliefs and mythology and customs of the Mahyanai -- and how they square with the fact that Mahyanai do join the Sisters of Thorn

Request 3: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Characters: Attolia | Irene, Teleus, Relius

What I love about it: Loyalty and trust in incredibly difficult circumstances for trust to exist. The court politics and ceremony of Attolia - I love that the monarchs (even Eddis and even Eugenides) don’t show their likability or relatibility by completely ignoring ceremony or dismissing the forms of respect that they are owed or the social restrictions on their positions (well to some extent anyway), even as they know it’s all a little bit silly. The little references to literature and culture. The Byzantine-Classical Mediterranean setting, the way loyalty and duty and kingship are thematized, and the balance between hopefulness/idealism and cruelty/raison d'état. The way books and recording and ways of telling stories are so important in-universe and how the characters are aware of their role as objects/subjects of history! I love how being able to take control of the story and write one's narrative is a symbol of power and finding one's power in the world. When Return of the Thief happened and we got Pheris Becoming! A! Historian! I practically died with glee.

Canon-specific DNWS: fic with a darker tone than canon [but I'm fine with QoA and KoA levels of brutality and raison d'état are ok; and, with a pre-canon story ending with Attolia in the fairly dark place that she starts from in QoA!]; dubcon & sexual coercion; Attolia/Teleus/Relius (but Teleus/Relius alone is a ship I am enthusiastically here for);

Possible Prompts:

• Attolia early in her reign, when she's learning to exercise the limits of her power in order to stay alive and force her barons to obey.
• I would love to see more of Attolia's early relationships with Relius and/or Teleus, whether through some key plotty episode or in slice of life everyday: what cements their absolute loyalty to her? How does she negotiate the fact that she depends on their advice and the practical force/information they give her while still making it clear that she is their queen and that her authority is always paramount? How do they negotiate not overstepping when they both come from backgrounds that would prevent them from having the power that they in fact wield in her court? This would be amazing from the perspective of any of the three, and I'd be just as interested in a fic that centered on the experience of just one of them over this period.
• The development of Relius's and Teleus's relationship either against this background or as the focus in itself: how did they go from being colleagues to being lovers? At what point does Attolia realize?
• Angst set during KoA when Teleus thinks he has to decide between Relius and the Queen–and knows that it's not really a choice, and that Relius would agree. [Conversely, I would prefer not to read a story about Teleus mourning Relius during RotT]
• One of the things I adore about this series is the way MWT plays with narrators and the power of the narrator to shape the story he tells. It's SO SUGGESTIVE that Relius is the one who inspires Pheris to write history-- did Relius ever begin a history himself? A memoir? Did he start a Procopius-like "Secret History" full of snark and bitter prognostications when Eugenides first became king and Relius was sure he was a) a disaster and b) out to destroy him? How does Teleus figure in any of Relius' writings, whether reports or memoranda or memoirs?
• Worldbuilding-centric prompts
  • Anything about previous history and narratives thereof: tell me about the battle on the wall of the study! About the kind of history Attolia read as a young woman and her opinions about it! Are there *any* queens of the Little Penninsula that Attolia could look to as a model? Did she try? Or does she define herself *against* exempla of Attolian womanhood?
  • I would love to know about Mirrors for Princes in this universe, and how Attolia's people theorize rulership and government and the reciprocity between monarch and subject based on her rule.
  • Attolia's palace is one of my favorite fictional buildings: we get just enough about it that my imagination has always gone wild in filling in corridors and courtyards and intricate carvings and secret passages. And that's not even getting into the library… so anything about the workings of the palace and all of its pieces would be fascinating to me, whether from the POV of one of my requested characters (Teleus working out a system of guards and watches so that the monarchs are always guarded but the pattern of patrols and changes of the guard is never so consistent that it can be easily learned and evaded?) or not (the daily grind of a random clerk or scribe?).