Not For Prime Time author letter

[andromache]

So this is my first time doing Not For Prime Time and I'm excited as hell. I have a knack for getting into canons a year or more after their fandom's heyday. So something like this is exchange is a godsend for me. Basically, I'm really excited to see what you write!

Aaand now I hope you don't mind if I copy paste what I wrote for my yuletide 2013 letter. I always agonize over what to put in this intro bit, and I think I finally nailed it for that particular exchange and very little has changed in terms of general preferences. The individual requests are where the new stuff is going to be!

I hope you have fun with what you write, and don't stress yourself out too much on my behalf. It's always ridiculously cool getting to see what people do with my prompts, and I'm certain I'll enjoy what you write. Also I love and want fanworks from all of these fandoms in equal measure, even if some of the writeups wind up longer than others.

I'm cool with nearly all genres, and I like both past and present tense. Gen is fine, shipping is fine, smut is fine (particularly if it's part of a larger story.) I have very few squicks, and I like both happy and dark fic. The turn "dramedy" was invented for me, I swear.

Basically!!! go where the muse takes you. For me, the most interesting thing, in almost any canon, is the characters and their interactions with one another. The second most interesting thing tends to be the world created by the author. Canons that are character-driven with a strong sense of time/place tend to be the ones that win my heart. I also tend to get interested in characters that are on the periphery of things, and I always want to hear more about them and how they relate to their world.

Things I don't like: Torture porn (violence is fine, especially for some of these canons but not as the focus), second-person, scat and watersports, toilet humor in general, character bashing (the kind of bashing where characters hate on characters that they actually like in canon. This makes me cringe even if I don't like the character being based. Having characters hate on each other in in-character ways is totally fine though!)

As for fandom specific stuff... (I'm gonna throw a bunch of ideas at you but trust me! These are guidelines not hard and fast rules!)


Fandom #1: D-Grayman
Character(s): Lavi Bookman, Lenalee Lee

Love these two, love this canon, struggling a bit to articulate what I want from them but I WILL TRY. So, right, Lavi and Lenalee are both big on the abnegation of the self. Lavi is, of course, all about knowledge, while Lenalee works herself to death trying to help others while having very little for herself. They also have pretty traumatic backstories. And, while making my way through canon, they have this slowburn connection that neither really asked for that builds and builds and it's really fascinating. I particularly dug their interactions when Allen went missing/presumed dead and they both leaned on each other even more. Basically, I'd love to see missing scenes type fic between the two of them at pretty much any point in the series, something that sketches in their connection even more. (though I'm most drawn to the whole arc where Allen's missing, and also the Ark Arc.)

(And, yeah, I ship them with each other, and I ship both with Allen, and I ship all three of them in an OT3 so if you wanted to go into any of those ships gooo right aheaddd.)


Fandom #2: Tales of the Abyss
Character(s): Anise Tatlin

I love Anise in all her prickly, self-loathing, ambitious, affectionate, wise beyond her years (yet still very much a kid who's had to grow up to fast) glory. *Deep breath* And I'd seriously love future fic with her. I am SO taken with the idea of her as the first female fon master, and, you know, I think she'd be good at it, too. There are some moments- like the sidequest where she shows Luke the pillars of faith- where you realize she actually does take the Order of Lorelei very seriously. And, of course, there's bound to be a spiritual vacuum in Auldrant given everything that happens in the course of the game. I think a grownup Anise would be a pretty great leader in terms of setting the tone for healthier philosophies to follow. So I'd be super excited to see an exploration of Anise as a fon master. Haha, and since Natalia would be queen in Kimlasca it would be doubly awesome to see them meeting up as adults and talking about being leaders. If this is all a bit too speculative for you- and I totally get that, the ending of the game is more than a little opaque- then I'm totally down for backstory fic too. It would be great to see stuff about Anise growing up in the Order of Lorelei and meeting Ion, Arietta, and/or Jade. Because I think all those relationships are fascinating.

(If none of this works for you AND you suddenly realize you don't want to write Anise after all, I feel like I should throw out there that I think the Luke and Ion friendship is the cutest damn thing ever and I am always down for fanworks related to it.)


Fandom #3 The Song of the Lioness - Tamora Pierce
Character(s): Thayet jin Wilima, Buriram Tourakom

I'd love to see more of their feelings on Sarain, and how they can never go home (and in Thayet's case even had it prophesied that she would never go home.) I've always been a bit surprised about how, once they move to Tortall, Sarain is rarely mentioned again. I imagine both have very complicated feelings about the country of their childhood, and I'd love to see a bit more that delves into how Thayet and Buri are part of a diaspora due to war. There are so many scenarios I'm interested in; the two of them growing up together, or Buri and Thayet on the run with all those orphan kids (I really love stories about surviving and traveling under very desperate circumstances.) You could also explore their first few years in Tortall; the books are glowing about how well-received Thayet was, but was their any culture shock? homesickness? people chafing at having a queen who was a refugee? How does Buri feel about the differences in warrior code between Sarain and Tortall? Also, I imagine Thayet getting to name her daughter Kalasin was an emotional moment for both of them! Or, if you want to write about them during the timeline of the later books, there's a lot of material to mine there. I'd love to see them having a conversation about Daine, for example, since Daine is also a refugee who's had a tough life due to sexism. Basically, anything that delves into Thayet and Buri as two survivors from Sarain would be really exciting for me to read about!