Yuletide Letter 2021

[sadlikeknives]

Dear Author,

AO3 user sadlikeknives here, really excited to find out what you're going to write for me! I'm sure it's going to be great.

Basic likes: I strongly prefer third person prose in fic, including that for canons originally in first person. I like pining, hurt/comfort, people using other people's prejudices and expectations of them to their own advantage, loyalty kink, competence kink, scars, soulbonds and soulmates, sexy-type biting and related bloodplay, size kink (I really like both the bigger guy manhandling the smaller guy and the smaller guy loving it, and the smaller guy bossing the bigger guy around and the bigger guy loving it). You are probably going to notice that I really like werewolves and vampires and generalized urban fantasy-ness. And if you want to write wintery, Christmasy fic (or other-winter-holiday fic) I'm totally into that for any of these fandoms!

DNWs:
- bestiality (including sexual content involving shapeshifters in animal form)
- scat or watersports
- cannibalism/vore
- noncon or dubcon
- infidelity/cheating involving requested characters
- omegaverse, aka a/b/o, or any other type of mpreg
- graphic animal harm (for example: mention of a werewolf eating a bunny: fine; graphic description of what happened to the bunny: not great)
- permanent death of requested characters

Alpha & Omega - Patricia Briggs
Asil Moreno, Leah Cornick

I really really really want Asil and Leah to be forced into the get-along shirt. Like, okay, they got off to a bad start, but Leah didn't know why Asil was going crazy when she flirted with him, so she deserves some slack there, and I think it's safe to assume that Sage stoked the fires there for her own purposes. And they're both such bitchy people. They have so many things in common! For example, they both enjoy fashion, and being annoyed by Bran. They don't have to be best friends (best frenemies, maybe), I'd just like to see them come to an alliance/understanding.

Maybe they reluctantly, begrudgingly have to work together and become friends along the way. Maybe post-Wild Sign something comes up that Leah has past experience with, or maybe Bran just thinks unspeakable violence will cheer her up, and he has to send Asil along because the FBI already knows about him and Charles and Anna are on parental leave, and besides Leah needs a Designated Liar, or whatever. Or maybe they just both happen to be shopping in Missoula or wherever at the same time and get caught up in a shootout or something tedious like that. Maybe they get snowed in somewhere together. Maybe Leah just finds herself gravitating toward Asil because he's the only person who's not walking on eggshells around her after Wild Sign, because Asil is constitutionally incapable of walking on eggshells. And maybe they bond over how Sage screwed them over or how annoying Bran is or how delicious vegan Thai food is or something and everyone else being relieved for like 0.25 seconds before realizing, "Those two getting along is terrifying, actually."

Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Abishag Shaw, Benjamin January
You remember waaaaaaaaaay back at the end of A Free Man of Color when Shaw's standing by Ben's table at the Place des Armes Because Society and Ben's like, "Or you could sit the fuck down one of these days?" Gentle Author, I shipped it then, and I ship it still. I just want to shove them together like a couple of really tall Ken dolls and go, "NOW KISS." I love how they navigate their godawful society's expectations and restrictions, how they often communicate via what's not said. I love how tentative Ben has always been to trust Shaw, in the face of evidence that Shaw is All In on trusting Ben, and then how in Murder in July he realizes Shaw would march off to assassinate the Queen of England if he asked him to (although it sort of drives me crazy that then at the end of the book Hannibal and Ben decided they needed to pull a fast one on Shaw just in case he randomly decided to confiscate the papers at the expense of Rose, like that's a thing he would ever do). I love how committed to justice they both are, and how they recognize that's different from the rule of law, and their mutual frustration with society's preference for a tidy resolution over true justice being done. I love how respectful they both are of the other's skills, and how they both use other people's expectations of their behavior. In short, I love them, and I want more of them.

Quick note: As I said above I'm really not into straight up infidelity/cheating, and Ben, of course, has a wife. So if you don't want to write the poly option, you could set your fic before Ben met Rose, or handwave the whole relationship away/platonic, or have Rose be really open-minded because she's Rose, but please: no straight-up cheating.

Additional note: I think we as a fandom have come to a consensus on this by now but just to be clear: I generally picture Shaw as more, you know, sexy scruffy (like, Hollywood historical scruffy) than with the level of hygiene, if one can even call it that, described in the books, because seriously, he's an intelligent man, he knows what soap is for, why will he not use it?? It's not cute.

Prompts
1. Possibly Shaw could be pining after Ben. I feel like this makes a lot of narrative sense. Like, he knows it's useless and never gonna happen (but then it DOES?) and probably beats himself up over it, but ooooh that commitment to justice and all that expertise, so sexy. Possibly Rose has known about this for a while and is amazed Ben has been so oblivious.
2. Concept I know I've been banging like a drum for a while now, but that's because I love it so: Abishag 'what is bathing, and also, I can track you through a hurricane' Shaw is a werewolf. (And just maybe Hannibal is a vampire?) Ben finds out (Silver allergy? Something connected to a case?). He's intrigued. Possibly, together they fight supernatural crime.
3. While so much of these books is in the setting, I just really love modern New Orleans. Like a lot. And it's still very atmospheric, no? Picture it: Shaw's still a cop, Ben's a surgeon who moonlights in a jazz band. Rose is a badass chemistry professor at Tulane. Together, they solve crimes. And make out.
4. Shaw realizes that, vis a vis the end of Murder in July, Ben has not yet gotten the memo that he's All In, and his feelings are really hurt, but he's trying to be, like, an adult about it. Things get awkward. Possibly Rose has to knock some heads together.
5. Shaw stays in Texas instead of Hannibal in Lady of Perdition that's it, that's the prompt. Listen, I just found it hilarious how the book kept hanging a lampshade on how Shaw would have been the better choice to help actually investigate the murder, but it had to be Hannibal who stayed Because Of Reasons.
7. I would also really like to see Shaw interact with Olympe and/or Livia? Olympe and Shaw both strike me as coldly practical in a way a lot of the rest of the cast likes to think they are but they're really not, and Shaw and Livia clearly hate each other and it's amazing. I had some prompts in this line in my Shipoween letter from last year.

Kate Daniels - Ilona Andrews
Christopher Steed, Hugh d'Ambray
Okay, so after the part in Magic Triumphs where Christopher tells Kate that A) unlike pretty much everyone else outside the Iron Dogs, he paid enough attention to figure out what Roland was doing to control Hugh pretty early on and B) Hugh took better care of him when he was in the cage than previously thought, and possibly than he was supposed to, considering it's mentioned he fed and talked to him only at night when no one else was around, and Hugh's guilt-flashback re: Christopher in the cage in Iron & Magic and how he thinks about Christopher as the only Legatus he could ever stand, I went back and reread Magic Rises and I realized that maybe Hugh set Kate up to rescue Christopher on purpose with the 'anything in this courtyard' wording (like, maybe not consciously, because of Roland's conditioning and because he really didn't expect to lose that match, but on some level I really think he knew what he was saying there, because Hugh is not wired to withstand someone suffering on his watch like that and he had to fix it somehow).

And now I ship it. Or I at least want to see them interact, even if it's not shippy. It's a whole mess of history and dynamics to dig into and I'm into it. Like: they were horrible men, and they were equals. And then one of them kept the other one in a cage. And now they're both different people in some ways, living in the aftermath of all of that, and it's just...really interesting to me.

Note: If you're writing something set during the era of the books, as opposed to the pre-canon Preceptor/Legatus era, please nothing sexual during the period when Christopher was mentally unstable. As far as the canon relationships go, I'm happy for Hugh's marriage to Elara to remain a professional business arrangement, or with some form of polyamory, whatever you want to do there. As far as Christopher's relationship with Barabas, I can't really see Barabas sharing Christopher with Hugh d'Ambray, but, I mean, maybe? Or maybe they didn't get together. However you can make it work!

Prompts! Some of these are shippy but some of them can go either way, I think. I have...a lot of prompts. I'm sorry.
1. Some kind of FWB arrangement set during their days as Legatus and Preceptor that maybe gets more serious than either of them meant it to, or mutual pining and both of them aware that it's a REALLY BAD IDEA as far as Roland is concerned, and then maybe after everything they meet up again and realize they have a second chance.
2. Or in that same period, something with Christopher and Hugh working together to salvage a situation, possibly one that's gone south thanks to Roland's meddling/not listening to Hugh/maybe even brainwashing Hugh. Like, when Omaha got broken, was that...was that what was supposed to happen? Or were they both pretty sure for about five minutes there that they were super going to die (and then possibly "I can't believe we survived that" sex?)?
3. Something to do with Christopher losing his wing in Magic Triumphs, because I have this notion that Hugh is the healer you call in to deal with the situation when you've got an actual avatar with an extra-crispy appendage, and then you've got Christopher, of course, devastated, and Hugh feeling really guilty about being unable to save the wing and yes good angst. (I mean, we now know it grew back, but that was still very much in doubt at the end of Magic Triumphs.
4. Something set during the preparations to face Neig, with Hugh and Christopher both being weirded out by how easily they fall into a groove of working together again and the Iron Dogs enthusiastically embracing Christopher because it's always nice when someone they used to know A) is alive and B) isn't trying to kill them, and possibly also ragging the hell out of Hugh for having A Type, because haha wow are there some similarities between Elara and Christopher. Meanwhile I feel like Elara and Christopher would be somewhere between "initially slightly spooked by each other" and this.
5. So oops it turns out Hugh can't marry Elara to seal their alliance because he and Christopher are already married. Maybe they didn't realize that thing they did as a quick way to solve a problem one time was legally binding. Maybe it was entirely on purpose and a secret. Maybe they're trying to get a quickie divorce and absurd romcom style obstacles keep falling in their path. Whatever just run with it.
6. I noticed on reread that Hugh grows throughout the course of the series—something in the range of four to six inches. While I'm pretty sure this is just another authorial inconsistency like his country of origin switching from England to France, it could also be fanwanked as the result of his stint healing in a phoenix egg, so something with Christopher reacting to his new height (and Hugh to Christopher's new shoulders?) could be a thing.
7. Elara finally finds out that Hugh knows how to make panacea when he and Christopher start bickering about some fine point of its preparation right in front of her salad.
8. Wingkink? Wingkink.
9. Anything to do with them after the series ends, dealing with the fact that they were both really horrible people who did horrible things (and that Hugh did some of those things *to* Christopher), and now...here they are in the aftermath, in some ways very different people but in some ways still who they always were.

Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Kyle Brooks, Warren Smith
Let's talk about how much I have always loved Warren and Kyle. Like, on paper, they don't work: a hundred and fifty year old Texas cowboy werewolf who works at a gas station and a rich, human, Ivy League educated lawyer. And they both know that. And it doesn't matter. I love Kyle's ridiculous marble statues, and his vanity and the chip on his shoulder, and the way Warren loves those things too and sees Kyle's good heart. I love how easygoing and Texan Warren is, and all the pain and violence that's simmering away under the surface, and how Kyle doesn't care about all of the werewolf shit, he just loves him—and how Kyle, as he says in the short story "In Red, with Pearls," is his own kind of predator, and that just because he eviscerates his prey in court, not, you know, literally, doesn't mean he can't understand Warren's wolf.

Prompts!
1. There's like seven or eight rough months for Warren and Kyle between Moon Called and Blood Bound that we know very little about, and I'm really interested in this period—the pining and the draw that kept them coming back to each other (Were they sleeping together at any point in this period? That must have been really bittersweet) and saw Kyle hiring Warren, especially, but also how the 'so, werewolves' conversations went (and the fights, you know there were fights).
2. Concept: Kyle gets turned into a werewolf. I feel like he'd probably be pretty good at it. How does that happen? Is it on purpose, like he's sick or something? Or does some rogue or some other pack trying to come at Columbia Basin, now that they're exiled, attack him? How does that affect the pack structure? How many bed frames do he and Warren break while Kyle is learning his new strength?
3. In Frost Burned, Kyle reveals that his mating bond with Warren is starting to be two-way, but, being human, he just thought he was going crazy. And then we never really hear about that again. So: how does that psychic bond work for a human? Do he and Warren have enough control over it for it to be useful? Does it have sexytimes applications?
4. Something dealing with Kyle's family. Maybe his sister he still speaks to is coming to visit for Christmas and he's freaking out, or his deploying the nuclear option with regards to his father in Frost Burned comes back to bite him (possibly on multiple fronts, I know you were going through a rough time but using your boyfriend as blackmail material was sort of...not cool, Kyle) and has to be dealt with somehow.
6. As per some hinting in Storm Cursed, Kyle apparently wants kids. I feel like Warren would not even have thought about kids because...that wasn't an option. So either they have an adult discussion about this and figure out whether they, in fact, want to pursue parenthood, or they semi-accidentally acquire like, some kind of magic toddler or something. Or like, both.

Night World - L.J. Smith
Mary-Lynette Carter

This fandom is like, foundational for me. Vampires! Soulmates! Hidden societies! As a tween I ate it up and I love it deeply to this day.

I've always been kind of bummed that we never got to see Mary-Lynette come back into the picture and see her react to the wider Night World and everything that's happened since Ash left in Daughters of Darkness, both in terms of his character development and, like...the societal upheaval/oncoming civil war & apocalypse situation. So how does she handle it? How does she adjust? Does she decide to become a vampire after all? Who of the entire crew does she become friends with?

And I've always been bummed that we didn't get to see a lot of the characters react to Mary-Lynette. Like, you know Ash talked her up as this amazing brilliant girl he had to become worthy of, but I feel like most people would be like, "Okay, well, that's soulmate rose-colored glasses and Ash being extraordinarily dramatic as usual, what's she really like?" I feel like possibly there are bets on this, and also possibly people grilling Quinn, who's like, "I...barely remember her?" (He might be lying to screw with Ash.)

Crack prompt: Mary-Lynette uses her mad astronomy skillz to calculate why Strange Fate the millennial apocalypse is twenty-one years late and counting. *cough*