A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you so much for writing for me! I am already excited to read whatever you come up with. If you want even more details, click on the tags for the fandoms. If you get stuck on a story for what you actually matched on, the easiest fandom to pick up in a hurry is Rocannon's World, which is a novella-length novel. My name on AO3 is Edonohana.

If you're not my writer and are just reading this, please do not comment to say that you hate my canons or find them problematic or triggering.

Prompts for all canons contain spoilers. Prompts for The Leftovers are particularly spoilery.


General Likes: Hurt-comfort - all h/c tropes that don't infantilize anyone are delicious to me. Injured and stuck without medical care on another planet/behind enemy lines/etc, bedside vigils, tender caretaking, stoic characters pretending they are JUST FINE right up until they collapse - I love it all. The only thing I don't like is characters getting tons of care taking lavished on them for minor illnesses like colds - that hits my infantilization button. (But fevers with delirium are lovely, especially if they make characters babble secrets or true feelings that they'd never in a million years admit to if sober.) Emotional h/c is also excellent.

Loyalty, conflicting loyalties, being torn between a cause or job and the woman she loves - I adore all that. I love knight's vows, soldiers' camaraderie, and tight-knit groups - or being an outcast from a group.I love bonding through shared hardship or a shared hard job, through both being outcasts or both having a secret. I love characters who trust each other with their lives. I also love characters who don't trust each other for good reasons, but are forced to work together/depend on each other.

I like platonic and romantic relationships equally. I like characters entering new or dangerous emotional or sexual territory, like if they're control freaks or emotionally damaged and have never really relaxed and enjoyed themselves, or let themselves be vulnerable, or depended on another person, or lost control of their emotions or desires.

I like BDSM, especially if it's extremely informal (like, the characters might not have even heard the term, they just know they like being pinned down/tying up their girlfriend/etc). I like bruising (spontaneous or ornamental), and rough and/or frantic/desperate sex. I like "let's have sex because we might die tomorrow/we might not survive the war." I like fingering and frottage, especially when partly clothed, reaching into clothes, touching through clothes, etc. I like praise, bondage, honor bondage, and characters discovering kinks for the first time.

I like lavish descriptions of things, from food to clothing to scenery to the human body. I love sexy clothing, which could be slinky 40s dresses or battle-worn leathers. Scars and brands and tattoos are hot.

I like worldbuilding, whether it's of literal worlds or exploring the setting/culture of our real world. I love strange, beautiful/deadly, post-apocalyptic, alien, and mysterious landscapes. I have a thing for ancient but still working, poorly understood machinery or magical items. I like any sort of survival narrative.

I like any kind of writing, from completely straightforward to 5 Things to any sort of odd format that serves the story. I even like second person if there's a reason for it.



General DNWs: Issuefic, real-life terminal illness like cancer (non-realistic stuff like super-soldiers with a limited lifespan is fine), dementia and brain damage, A/B/O, PWP (porn without plot), unrequested change-the-setting AUs (canon divergence AUs or anything I requested for AU Exchange are fine), non-canon human pregnancy and babies or a heavy focus on canon human pregnancy or babies (alien lizard babies, adorable kittens, etc are fine), infantilization, extreme body horror, and the gross kinds of bodily waste (blood, sweat, and tears are fine). Please no rape, dubcon, or death of requested characters unless I specifically say it's OK for that canon.



The Dispossessed - Le Guin
Shevek (The Dispossessed - Le Guin)
Takver (The Dispossessed - Le Guin)

This is one of my favorite Le Guin books and one of my favorite novels, period. The language is so beautiful, the characters and world are so fascinating, and the themes are so powerful.

I would like the story to be set on Anarres. To me, it really is an ambiguous utopia; it's very flawed on all sorts of levels and it would drive me crazy if I had to live there, and yet there's a lot about it that really is good and appealing and does things better. The way that the characters are all actively engaged with what it means to live in and create their community, and how they wrestle with whether things in it are good (or even whether they personally like them) fascinate me. I love all the details of their lives: the food, the famines, the party where Shevek and Takver haven't yet connected and they all end up talking about pain and brotherhood, the jobs, the little gifts.

I'd love to see a slice of Shevek and Takver's lives, at any stage or an AU where they either connect earlier or meet up again at a different time. They're such great characters in such a great setting that they're so passionately engaged with, anything with them would be wonderful, whether they're dealing with Shevek's return from Urras or figuring things out as young people or being parents or starting a new revolution or getting a new shared posting or going on vacation together. (Do Annarestis ever really go on vacation, or do they do enjoyable postings serve that function? Do people wrangle to get brief vacation-y postings?)

DNW: Death of any canon characters who aren't already dead in canon.



Finisterre: The Nighthorses - C. J. Cherryh
Jennie Sabotay
Rain (Finisterre: The Nighthorses)
Brionne Goss

You do not need to include all the characters in your story. I would like a story about Jennie and Rain OR a story about Brionne OR a story about all three of them. For all of these, I would like either something post-canon or a canon-divergence AU. I like all the characters in the tag set (also Carlos, Spook, and Jennie's parents) so feel free to include any of them if you like.

The cold hard world full of deadly telepathic creatures is such a compelling setting, and its unrelenting hostility and starkness makes any moments of warmth and comfort something to treasure. It's a great fandom for hurt-comfort, hypothermia, a horse carrying an unconscious rider to safety, etc. And the idea of non-sentient animals who can get into your head (and then eat you) is terrifying. So you could go either very dark or very comfort-y with this canon.

I love Jennie and Rain. They're both so young in some ways and so emotionally mature and sure of what they want in others. I'd love to see them explore the world a bit more, alone or on the promised journey with Danny or with some other riders. What's their first actual job like? How do other people react to both their girl/colt match and to their ages? I'd like to not age them up too much for this story as the way their choices land them in positions they're ridiculously young for is a big part of what I like about them.

Do they ever pursue Brionne and her monkey-monster into uncharted lands, or run into her wreaking havoc in another town? Or if you wanted to do a canon-divergence AU, what if they had a more direct confrontation in the town at the time? Jennie and Brionne, and Rain and the monkey thing, are paralleled a lot in the story, as kind of bright and dark mirrors. I'd love to see more of that. I don't see Jennie becoming a sociopath or Brionne ever not being one, but even with their essential natures intact, do they ever find some commonalities in each other, or aspects of the others' life that's in some way enviable? Is there any situation dire enough to force them onto the same side, however briefly and reluctantly.

A solo, post-book Brionne story would probably be difficult to write but if you have an idea for one, I would love to read it. What are the uncharted lands they head for like? Does she come up with some creepy Mary Sue scenario to account for her new life? Does she ever try to insinuate herself into a town that doesn't know about her, or outright try to take one over? It's OK if Brionne dies if it fits the story.

DNW: Jennie or Rain dying or being permanently harmed. (Emotional trauma or injuries they can recover from is fine.) Underage people in sexual situations.



The Leftovers (TV)
Nora Durst
Kevin Garvey, Jr.

For one of my prompts, I would be fine with a story just about Nora, or about original characters only; see prompts below. For the rest, I would like a story featuring both Nora and Kevin.

I love Nora and Kevin as a couple. The handcuffs summarized a lot of what I liked about them together: their damage but also their strengths: Nora's practicality, Kevin's sweetness, and how super-hot they were together (the handcuffs were hot too). I love most of the characters on the show and would be happy with major or minor appearances from anyone except the ones listed in my DNWs. I loved the scene between Kevin and John at the end of S2 and wish there had been more like that; Matt and Nora were also wonderful together, as were Nora and Erika, and Nora and Laurie.

I loved the raw emotion of the show, the way the characters felt incredibly real no matter what sort of weird things they were doing, the dark/bizarre humor (dog people! two-factor penis authentication! Frasier eating God!), and the setting in a world of miracles and wonders, sometimes terrible, sometimes beautiful, sometimes absurd. Kevin singing karaoke in the International Assassin hotel lounge to resurrect himself in the real world summed up everything I loved about the show: it was completely batshit yet deeply emotional, it made sense in terms of his character while also operating on surreal dream-logic, and it made me cry.

I loved Kevin's vulnerability and dreamscapes, and Nora's ferocious doggedness and practicality. I loved how for any given moment, it was often unclear if something was a miracle, a mental illness, a con or lie, a perfectly natural event that only seemed mysterious because we hadn't yet seen the full picture, someone's psychological landscape playing out in reality or dream, a vision, a religious allegory, or, often, several of the above operating at once.

That being said, I think the 2% world really exists and Nora really went there. The Departure going both ways was an elegant and satisfying explanation that still preserved plenty of mystery. It was also very emotionally resonant: Nora and her family landing on opposite sides made her the world's unluckiest woman where she was, but them the world's luckiest family where they were.

On a larger scale, it raised a lot of interesting questions about how people on the 2% world coped. We saw how not being directly affected by the Departure on the 98% world didn't mean you were untouched: Jarden was spared, but how people reacted to that really screwed up the town. (And as Michael pointed out, missing out on one disaster doesn't mean you're spared in any other way.)

In the world we saw, people's losses were so unevenly distributed that it led to competitive suffering, people feeling like their suffering was insufficient and feeling guilty over that, people's suffering being ignored because it was unrelated to the Departure, etc. Everyone grieved individually without much of a chance to pull together on rebuilding things or keeping things running, because there wasn't much physical destruction.

But the 2% world would have had a lot of the initial survivors killed immediately (almost everyone in planes, many or even most people in cars, etc.) and not enough people to keep things like rapid travel or, apparently, the internet running. They'd have had to band together just to survive. And the losses, though more devastating, were also more universal: nearly everyone lost nearly everyone. Did this cause more of a sense of community and empathy? Did the 2% end up less psychologically damaged? Or just differently psychologically damaged? Did they have their own cults? What significance do people attach to Jarden being wiped off the map? Did Nora's family have to deal with a version of Meg's problem, where they were perceived as lucky when they'd actually suffered a terrible loss?

So, if you want to write about Nora's time in the 2% world, I'd love to see what it was like for Nora to have her identity as the person who suffered the greatest loss ever be upended. What was it like for her to visit? Did she have any strange or surreal experiences there along the lines that she did in the show? Did she meet any of the others who came through, apart from the scientist? What if Kevin somehow found out what she'd done and followed her there?

Alternately, I'd enjoy a story set in the 2% world with original characters only. (Or with just characters known to have Departed from the 98% world, like the ones we know of from Mapleton.) I'm not looking so much for a survival story (though elements of survival are fine and I do enjoy that) as one using the themes/style of the show, only set on that far less populated world: grief, trauma, wrestling with the inexplicable; miracles and wonders and strangeness.

The "original characters only or Nora only is OK" just goes for the 2% world prompt. If you set your story within the world we saw on the show, please do use both Nora and Kevin. If so, I'd like it to be set in season two, season three, or post-show.

What if Nora (as herself, not playing a character a la the Vice President) somehow followed Kevin into International Assassin world at any point? Would she have been able to shape the dreamscape/afterlife/whatever it was to suit her own and undoubtedly very different inner landscape? Would there have been some level of push-pull between their symbolic worlds? Or what if roles were somehow reversed, so Nora got her own dream/Purgatory world and Kevin was the one to follow her there?

How did Kevin and Nora do post-series? One big loose end, in my mind, is that he's probably still pretty mentally fragile and we never saw Nora reconcile herself to that. How would she deal if he started having stress-induced dead people sightings again? Would she be more okay with it now that she knows her children aren't dead? Do they ever end up with a child? We saw with the scapegoat and the doves that it's still an ambiguously miraculous world; have the types of maybe-miracles changed now that it's been 17 years post-Departure and the world seems to be moving on? Have any new cults sprung up?

DNW: Meg, Tommy, Holy Wayne. The Guilty Remnant other than Patti. (Mentions of them are fine, just not a focus on them.) Kevin and Nora breaking up. (Setting it during the period when they're canonically separated is fine.) Permanent death of characters who aren't dead in canon. (Temporary death is fine.) On-page dog or cat death, or any gruesomely described animal death. Non-graphic hunting for food, goat sacrifices, birds buried in boxes, etc, is fine; referencing the canonical dead dogs is fine if there's no dead dog descriptions; referencing the dog people is both fine and hilarious.



The Punisher (TV 2017)
Frank Castle
David "Micro" Lieberman
Sarah Lieberman
Leo Lieberman

You do not need to include all the requested characters. I would like some combination of Frank Castle with one or more of the Liebermans. You can also leave out the Liebermans and write Frank with Billy Russo - I was foiled by the character limit or I would have requested him as another option. I like them equally but went with the Liebermans as they work more as a set.

I ship David/Frank/Sarah and Frank/Billy; I also like them in messily complicated platonic and/or ambiguous relationships. I love Frank's surrogate dad relationship with Leo.

I'd love to see Frank squabbling with or cooking with or for David, or teaching Leo something or working on some home repairs together or having more book discussions (based on "Kandahar," he's more well-read than one might expect), or having more awkward-sweet interactions with Sarah, or getting in an action-y adventure with any or all of them (it wouldn't have to be violent though that would also be fine - it could be something like "stranded in the wilderness"), or embarking on some mission of vengeance he doesn't care if he survives but other people have strong feelings about him surviving, or hurt-comfort involving Frank getting shot or beaten half to death or something like that, or role-reversal hurt-comfort where he has to take care of someone else, or just some moment when he reluctantly finds himself getting attached to a person or to being alive.

I thought the series' portrayal of PTSD and the lure of violence and how adrift the veterans felt without a war was all dead-on, so something involving that would also be great.

My AU Exchange letter has a ton of prompts for AU scenarios with Frank and various iterations of the Liebermans, and Frank and Billy. Those are all completely valid to use for Yuletide purposes. The general prompts for Frank and Billy in my Chocolate Box letter are also still valid to use for Yuletide, as are any other Punisher prompts in that letter that work with the pairings/groups I've requested this time. I like all the characters on the show so feel free to include anyone, whether or not they're in the tag set or my requests.

DNW: Adult/child pairings. Please don't put down Sarah or Maria or any of the other female characters. I'm mostly fine with canon-typical levels of violence/darkness but please no graphic descriptions of major damage to eyes and teeth. Black eyes and split lips are fine; detailed descriptions of broken teeth are not fine.



Rocannon's World - Ursula K. Le Guin
Any characters.

I love this book, which makes me think of Le Guin doing Leigh Brackett. I love the set piece scenes, from the creeping horror of the city of angel-insects to the myth-meets-sf of Semley's slower-than-light time travel and the magical armor/impermasuit to the beauty of riding the winds on a flying cat. I have a review of it here where I talk more about what I like about it.

I am so sorry I don't have much more specific prompts than "more of that, please," but what I'd really like is an untold story from some point where Rocannon and his companions are traveling across the world. Alternately, I would enjoy a story with all original characters that just explores more of the world as it is at the time of the novel - I'm not so interested in what happens after it becomes part of the wider galactic world, as presumably happens eventually.

I would love to see more of the nameless wordmasters, the Kiemhrir. Are there other, unknown intelligent beings on the world? Also, I loved the windsteeds (what's not to love about giant flying winged cats that you can ride) and would like to have them appear in the story. Basically just give me someone traveling around on a windsteed (or trying to tame a wild one, or some such) and some descriptions of cool things in the world, and I will be completely happy.

DNW: Sex or a focus on romance.



True Detective
Rustin "Rust" Cohle
Martin "Marty" Hart

I love Rust and Marty together. I do ship them but I also like them platonically. Rust pontificating in a car or being hopelessly weird while attempting to do some normal thing like have dinner, while Marty gets increasingly exasperated, is always good.

This is such a strange canon, feel to write something strange. I am down for anything weird or experimental or that delves into stuff like Rust hallucinating on a regular basis. I am also down for straight-up casefic or hurt-comfort immediately post-series (or during series, lots of opportunities there too), or tropes like going undercover in a gay bar as a couple. How does post-series Rust cope with starting to doubt the nihilism he's clung to for so long? It can be just as hard and painful to hope as it is to despair, if not more so (which probably explains a lot.)

What if the hints at supernatural aspects to the crimes had been more than hints? It was never clear to me whether the cult was a real cult (i.e., they believed they were worshipping something real) or if those were just trappings to obfuscate their crimes. What if they actually did summon something? Was the old lady with dementia right about death not being the end? What if the weird aspects of Carcossa were taken just a bit farther? I'm familiar with Chambers' The King in Yellow if you want to do something referencing that.

I absolutely loved Rust as Crash - that hit me right in the id. If you liked those parts too, please give me ALL the sweaty shooting up/snorting and sweatier coming down, and all the feelings Marty has about having to watch. I liked his relationship with Ginger with its weird sexual overtones (snorting coke off his hand, really?) What if Rust had spent more time as Crash when he'd been partnered with Marty, or had to return to the persona later on? Or, if Crash was thoroughly burned, did Rust ever create a different persona with which to have an excuse to do fucked up, self-destructive things? Sex work perhaps?

DNW: Death of characters who don't die in canon. Please don't put down Maggie or Audrey, I like them. I know toxic masculinity is one of the big themes of the show but please don't show Marty (or anyone) being horrible to women in canon-appropriate ways; I just find it depressing and not fun to read.