psocoptera

Hi! I've been doing Yuletide for awhile and it's always a good time! I always think it's neat to see someone else's take on a character I've been thinking about, so, I really hope you my writer have fun writing for me. I like a lot of different things - romance and angst and worldbuilding and humor and plot and smut. Whatever makes a good story that you're interested to tell. More under the cut.

I don't have any particular triggers to avoid. No pets or pet ownership please. I can't stand the word "pleasure" used as a verb.

Translation State - Ann Leckie
Reet Hluid, Qven

I loved Reet and Qven and I would love to get to spend a little more time with them. Post-canon? Missing scene, before, during, or right after their "matching"? AU where they make a different choice?

Yes to:
- alien biology, goopiness, grossness, weirdness
- nerdy biology-technobabble detail
- fun with whatever anti-entropy or multidimensional thing they've got going on
- unsettling hints about the Presger
- the interesting contrast between being awkward, cute young humans-by-choice and their various not-human inclinations and abilities
- plot? would they like to have an adventure, or some peril?

I'd rather not:
- matching feeling nonconsensual or violating. I really liked the matching as an exploration of the "fuck or die" trope, how there was this biological imperative to merge but consent still mattered, and they were able to figure out another option so it wasn't in fact just match or die. I wouldn't want to read either Reet or Qven deciding that consent didn't matter after all.

I have read the entire Imperial Radch series so if you're excited to write Reet and/or Qven interacting with someone from another book, that's okay, but it's been awhile, so please be kind to my aging memory and put in a little reminder of who the heck they are exactly. :) But I'm mostly just interested in Reet and Qven and whoever Reet+Qven might be. What kinds of experiences are they eager to go have next? What's hard or surprising for them about being matched? What's hard or surprising for Reet's parents about Reet being part of this new person?

Wú Míng | Hidden Blade (2023)
Secretary Ye

I would love to see a glimpse of Secretary Ye post-canon. Maybe he runs into Ms. Jiang - as an ally, as an enemy, just a chance encounter? Is she grateful to have been spared? Would they disagree, or try to recruit or persuade each other? Maybe he thinks Director He should get out of the spy business, or Director He thinks *Ye* should get out of the spy business, but the other one wants to keep working together? Do they miss their days at No. 76 together? Do they ever think about their big fight? Has anyone touched Ye that much since then? Is there some kind of V or triangle relationship between Ye, He, and Ms. Chen, and how does that work for them? Or maybe Captain Wang's little sister suspects that Ye killed her brother, and tracks him down to confront him. Maybe Ms. Fang actually survived Captain Wang's attack but faked her death for spy reasons, and now she and Secretary Ye have encountered each other again (as allies, as enemies, just by chance) and it's a second chance for Ye to tell her the truth (or not). Or maybe Ye is just out there in the world, thinking about his past - maybe it's much later, what's he doing in his middle age or old age, if he made it that far?

Yes to:
- conflict and disagreement
- unhappy or unresolved endings
- Ye having sex with any/all of these characters (except if it's the little sister please set it far enough in the future that's she's an adult)
- polyamory/nonmonogamy in general - I'm a multishipper and tend to be open to basically any combination/arrangement of characters
- violence
- spy stuff
- mentions of historical context or events
- longing, pining, grieving, mourning, regret, angst in general
- characters who are using each other, lying to each other, or generally having fucked-up relationships
- characters who are trying to be kind and caring to each other even in fucked-up situations
- characters finding little ways to be true to themselves or give themselves or others a moment of comfort when they mostly can't
- mentions of clothing, music, art, culture. I really enjoyed the costume design in the movie and if you have fun doing fashion description or historic details, go for it - feel free to put everyone in the sharpest suits/most glamorous dresses/etc that fit the setting/time period. Or name-drop a song or movie or poem even if it's outside what my narrow American media literacy is probably familiar with. I have Google and I like learning stuff.
- crossdressing, genderfuckery, characters being trans or genderfluid or viewing gender as just another spy tool
- dubcon, sex for spy reasons
- kink, any of the six letters in BDSM (bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, masochism), restraints, impact play, sensation play, toys, penetration w/objects. I'm more interested in character dynamics than in any particular act and I'm more interested in their emotions than their genitals but if it feels like the right details for the characters and the situation I'm probably good to read it. I don't have any top or bottom preferences for any characters.

I'd rather not:
- "darkness" in the sense of characters just not caring about other people, or gratuitously indulging in hurting people for fun. I see all these characters (Mr. Ye, Mr. He, Ms. Chen, Ms. Jiang, Ms. Fang, Wang-meimei) as people of high integrity and high ideals, and while I'm happy to see them be ruthless and brutal for their various causes, and for those causes to (perhaps) fundamentally disagree at times, I don't see any of them being abusive or amoral in the sense you sometimes see in "dark" stories.
- heavy focus on any particular historical faction or policy. China suffered some terrible things in the 20th century, and all of these characters are patriots and spies and political operatives, so, of course historical events are their context. I'm happy to read them talking politics, or having personal experiences or feelings about events. I'd just rather not feel like the point of the story is either condemning or excusing the actions of any particular party or historical figure. (But characters struggling with a loss of faith in their party or government could be interesting, as long as it's character-focused. I hope that makes sense.)
- breaking up Director He and Ms. Chen. Ye/He/Chen or Ye/He + He/Chen are fine, but please no Ye/He in a world that doesn't also have He/Chen somewhere in the background.
- original characters as main characters. Obviously fill out the story with whoever you need in whatever roles, but I'd rather not have a focus on a Ye/OC relationship or on any children of existing characters.
- kink involving food or eating

When the Angels Left the Old Country
any

Okay, this is the longest of longshots, but are you the person who wants to write the Angels/Golem and the Jinni crossover that obviously should happen? Any character crosses paths with any character, one day in New York (or elsewhere) at any plausible historical time. Maybe someone from Angels observes one of the events of Golems (or Hidden Palace)? Or meets someone later? Otherwise, look, I just love Uriel and Little Ash so much, I more or less fell for them at first sight, and I would love to spend more time with them doing anything. A slice-of-life story. A holiday story. Maybe they have a reason to travel (elsewhere in the US, or abroad), or they attend the opening of the Central Park Zoo in 1934, or they somehow get stuck babysitting, or someone briefly gets a magical cold or magical amnesia or magically shrunken/enlarged/transformed/transmogrified somehow and they have to deal with that, or they cross paths with the All-of-a-Kind Family, or they take up gardening. Send them to the Public Library or the Brooklyn Botanic Garden or up the Empire State Building. Or, heck, send them to space in the future! What does Jewish life and Jewish emigration look like in a few hundred years, or more? Or let them solve someone's mystery, or help someone with a problem. Something nice.

Yes to:
- Judaism, Jewish cultural detail
- Uriel and Little Ash having a disagreement or misunderstanding and working it out
- humor, banter, fluff
- magic or science fiction

I'd rather not:
- unhappy endings
- sex
- graphic violence
- Uriel and Little Ash ending up estranged or separated