Dear Yuletide Writer

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Well, hello! I’m sorry things are a bit bare around here, I’m hoping between my prompts and this letter you get enough info to have fun writing a story for me.

General info

Things I am fine with: gen, friendship, romance of many kinds (het, slash, three-or-more-somes), character death, happy endings, bittersweet endings, sad endings, character-driven, plot-driven, Bechdel test-passing (women in the fic who talk to each other/do things that don’t revolve around a man)

Things I’m not so into: plotless porn, cross-overs

Please no: torture, non-consensual sex, sex with dubious consent

I recently wrote out a whole list of narrative kinks. I hope that’s not too offputting! Don’t take it too seriously, and since a bunch of them are world-building things hopefully you won’t butt into them too much anyway. Also, I don’t think I chose any fandoms with telepaths in them. So don’t worry about telepaths. (ETA: what was I thinking? The Hainish Cycle has telepathy, but Le Guin makes sparing use of it and suggests it is used sparingly. Feel free to go into that if you like.)

Cardiac Arrest (Any)

Gosh, if you have seen this television series I’ll gladly read anything you want to write in it. I’m especially keen for anything set after series 3.

A few specific prompts in case it helps, but feel free to go with your muse:
– Phil and Rajesh both owe Mr Docherty a major debt for saving their careers. Rajesh especially didn’t ask him to do so. Say one or the other of them starts to resent it; what happens then?
– anything where Claire gets inappropriately interested in a patient’s case (as with the boy who needs an organ transplant)

Oh my fandom of one. I wrote a whole post on this recently if you want to see what I like about it.

Hainish Cycle – Ursula K. Le Guin (Any)

I’m really into minor characters and lesser known worlds in this cycle! Anything with that emphasis would be great (truly!) but I’ve done some prompts in case it helps:
– characters from a world/culture with a rigid hierarchy and notion of honour (eg Teyeo or Ramarren) making a life in a world where there isn’t the equivalent
– characters shortly after nearly as fast as light travel, dealing with the loss of their friends, family or other things they loved on their home world
– off-worlders falling in love and becoming part of local relationship structures, eg sedoretu on O or the maz relationships on Aka

Wow, the Hainish Cycle. I love the sheer possibilities for human society, and the shared humanity of all the characters.

I had a couple of specific prompts for this on top of the general ones here they are in case you’re into specific prompts or just want a better idea of things I might like:

– Sutty (the Telling) finds love again on Aka, but needs to reconcile it with the maz’s tradition of monogamy even beyond death
– A sedoretu in the city, on O (Fisherman of the Inland Sea etc). We’ve seen how it works on the farms and serves their needs, how does it work in the urban areas?

Nochnoy Dozor | Night Watch – Sergei Lukyanenko (Any)

I like “grey” things in this fandom, moral ambiguity FTW! I’d probably prefer plot-drive to character-driven in this fandom.

Some possible thoughts, at least to give you a sense:
– anything Arina does!
– the Night Watch and the Day Watch reluctantly cooperating, especially if it’s to foil the Inquisition
– Svetlana distrusting the Night Watch, and turning out to be right to do so
– Zavulon deflating Anton’s or Gesar’s self-importance
– Zavulon being polite and helpful and leaving everyone wondering what that’s going to cost, exactly

A couple of notes: I don’t speak or read Russian, I’ve read these novels in translation. I only know the bookverse, I haven’t seen the movies! And finally, I know several of the characters are evil, but I’d probably prefer if the story stayed only about as dark as the novels.

I love the politics of this series. Everyone’s iron self-belief combined with their constant compromising with each other, and their adherence to the Great Compromise, by which I mean the Treaty.

Again, I had a couple of specific prompts I edited out of my request, but that you could use if you’re stuck:

– what did Arina do for Zavulon (or threaten him with) such that the Day Watch was uninterested in helping the Inquisition pursue her? (Twilight Watch)
– Anton’s or Svetlana’s next contact with Arina after she escapes at the end of Last Watch/Final Watch
– toddler Nadya’s casual use of her unconscious but immense powers
– Svetlana and teenage Nadya respond to Gesar’s attempts to recruit her into the Night Watch

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke (Arabella Strange, Lady Pole, Stephen Black)

Arabella, Lady Pole and Stephen were thrown together in their horrible, weird prison and enchantment. I’d love to have some post-novel fic in which they are in some way thrown together again, and deal with each other as intelligent, free people who are still variously marked by their experience.

I’m find with any pairing or none among these three.

I don’t have a lot to add in this one. My imagination isn’t wild enough for this fandom, often. I’d like to see Stephen Black and Lady Pole now that they have some power over their lives though.

Introducing Cardiac Arrest

Sometimes I feel like a fandom of one on this one. I’ll nominate it for Yuletide, but will there be any takers?

Cardiac Arrest, television series. Aired on the BBC from 1994–1996, available on DVD since 2007.

Setup: it’s an NHS hospital, full of overworked junior doctors who are variously catty, idealistic, mean, careless, frustrated and always always sleep deprived.

Things going for it:

  • black humour
  • funny black humour
  • Dr Claire Maitland, snarky talented resident/registrar. Will probably remind House fans of him to some extent, except without the singular medical genius, or heavy-handed attempts on the part of the producers to heal her of her mean ways. In terms of drug use I think she only gets to cigarettes and alcohol though.
  • It was written by someone who left his junior position at the NHS to write it. British doctors loved it. If you have knowledge of medical settings it’s apparently pretty good in terms of being humour about your life.
  • reasonable representation (by which I mean, appearances of, realistic portrayals of I can’t speak to as well) of minorities and their experience working in the NHS.

Basically, if you like the idea of unvarnished black humour about doctors, I recommend this.

Things you might not like (I realise some people are cool with these, or enjoy them, but for those who don’t, here’s some warnings):

  • character death
  • at times, kind of random minor character death, but it is a hospital drama and I think they’re going for more realistic death rates
  • multiple depictions of self-harm (by women doctors)
  • some graphic-ish depiction of medical procedures
  • a large number of bungled medical procedures
  • at some point I think every point-of-view character knowingly perpetrates at least one of sexism (including harassment), ableism, racism or classism. They aren’t portrayed as sympathetic actions in and of themselves (in my reading) but you will be expected to sympathise with some of those same characters later. And it’s not a series where proportionate punishments are dealt out for this kind of thing, ie, there’s not always a moral
  • the first series in particular has notoriously nasty portrayals of nurses. They aren’t absent like in a lot of medical dramas, but they’re worse at their jobs than doctors. This improves mightily in series three in particular, when a sister becomes a major player in the plot
  • it never portrays hospital bureaucrats at all affectionately
  • the first series is very low budget, the writing is still finding its feet, the lighting is poor and it’s the one in which the junior doctors are most hopelessly trapped by their chosen career. Fortunately it’s short and was popular enough that someone gave them more money for series two. You should still watch it, and it’s not unrepresentative of the show, but if you’re thinking “I’d like it if it knocked off the rough edges” hang in there