[yuletide 2012] Dear Yuletide Writer
Oct. 27th, 2012 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twopunchDear Yuletide writer,
Hello! It looks like we share some fandoms, which, awesome! Thank you for offering to write it, and thank you also for deciding to go through with the match.
(An aside: We’re -- unfortunately -- not royalty, justAlpharius a joint requester: two people who, like a Voltron robot with only two parts, combine to form 2/5ths of a mech... uh. Anyways, using “we” because there are actually two people involved, prettymanly and punchdrunkard.)
This is our second year participating in Yuletide. We found it a lot of fun last year and look forward to more of the same this year. We want you to enjoy yourself too, so please be assured that we’re going to be happy with pretty much any kind of story you want to tell. We really just want to read more fics (or any fics...) in our favourite sadpanda fandoms.
You can read our letter from last year here for a general idea of how excitable like a parcel of puppies we were over this exchange. Sadly it looks like we’re not getting more coherent in our twilight years.
Onwards~!
------------
General
We’re into some bleak, grimdark works with violence and mature themes. We’re also into some shiny, rainbow-filled works with pantless wonders and plenty of bling. Which means you can write that super serious fic if that’s what gets you going, or you can write that fun madcap sparkle pony fic if you’re feeling particularly fabulous in the morning. Don’t feel confined to our suggestions, they’re only there in case you need some inspiration.
Here’s a quick list of some basic likes and dislikes we have. The Likes list doesn’t encompass every single thing we like, as otherwise we’d be here till Christmas, but please try to avoid the things on the Dislikes list and we would be grateful for that consideration.
Likes
Story features:
- Brotherhood
- Manly tears, manly punching of faces
- Fighting, rivals, hate, good guys on the wrong side, bad guys who are also good
- Action, thrills
- Friendship, reluctant friendships, cuddling
- Angst
- Epicness
- Humour, banter
- Food
- Military, weapons & martial arts
- Sexy times!
- Fashion (armoured or uniformed)
- CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT
Genres: Slice-of-life, action, character studies, romance/friendship stories, rival/nemesis stories, 5 things type stories, AUs, mystery, noir, military/mission, comedy of errors, westerns
Sex/Sexuality: slash, gen, UST, asexuality; light BDSM, armour/clothes/hair/weapon fetish, tentacles~
Dislikes
- noncon, excessive humiliation (some is ok), underage sex (prepubescent), nonconsensual bodyhorror
------------
Fandom Specifics
Fandom: REDLINE (2009, dir: Takeshi Koike)
Character(s): Sweet JP, Frisbee, Machinehead, Colonel Volton (eta: choose any of them, alone or in combination or superteam!)
Request: Expand on any of the character’s histories, or exploration of the setting/universe presented. Friendship fics between Sweet JP and Frisbee, fics about previous or future races, fics about the effect of the results of Redline on the world and characters. Fic about Machinehead and Colonel Volton's forbidden love. UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ optional.
Why we love it: This movie was a visual-audio orgy of amazeballingness. The sheer joy and love put into the work is present in every frame, and the excitement just leaps out and rolls over for a belly scratch before speeding away in a cloud of sparkles and vibrating rainbow colors.
What we’d like to see: All the characters that show up in this movie were a blast. We’d have nominated every last character if we could. Given its medium, it was light on character and worldbuilding history. So! It’d be great to explore any of the requested characters histories, who they are, why they do what they do, their favourite cars, their best races and/or moments, their friends and family. How did Sweet JP and Frisbee become friends (and stay friends! and where did they pick up a multi-limbed mechanic!)? Where did they grow up? Machinehead, how did you get so awesome? What goes on in your... machine head? Colonel Volton! Be more swish! What’s life like in the army? What is the fallout from all that theoretical science invading their planetary space?
Or if you want to write a race story, or a future story (with a race) of after the end of the movie -- what became of the shenanigans that revealed Roboworld’s secret weapons? Who was in fact behind it all? Does JP even care, or does he have his eye set on his next goal (whatever that is?)
In conclusion: We understand this work might be hard to expand upon, and it’s going to be tough to capture the exuberance and energy of the animation in prose form.
Don’t worry about that. We requested this fandom because we couldn’t think of anything to write for it either! And that means any crazy crackpot backstory or character study you want to come up with is totally going to fly with us.
And when all else fails, remember: Pompadour. EPIC GODLY pompadour.
Info: Wikipedia entry
Movie trailers (everyone should at least watch the Special Version trailer because that song is like crack and also it is perfect)
Soundtrack: youtube playlist (UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ)
--
Fandom: Eisenhorn (Dan Abnett)
Characters: Gregor Eisenhorn, Cherubael, Midas Betancore, Godwyn Fischig (eta: choose any of them, alone or in combination or superteam!)
Request: Exploration of Eisenhorn and Cherubael’s relationship (adversarial, sexual or otherwise), or Eisenhorn’s relationship with Betancore or Fischig (friendship preferred but anything is fine), or character pieces about Betancore or Fischig (history before/during/after working with the Inquisition). Case fic or slice-of-life in 40K is cool too, or everything all together in one fic, even.
Why we love it: Warhammer 40,000 has eaten our souls. This... thing that it is provides our mealy brains with such succor, it cannot be good for us, and yet it is. (Or not, see: the amount of sleep and money we’ve lost on this fandom.)
And it all started with this damn book.
This book really immerses you in the environment of “domestic” 40K (vs warfront 40K) through a detective-type story thanks to the nature of inquisitorial work. It gives you glimpses of so many aspects of life in that universe, both appropriately crapsack and surprisingly poignant. Abnett writes great characters and exciting action scenes,
Yes, the characters, let us speak of the characters: they’re all awesome and we love them so.
What we’d like to see:
The tight focus of Eisenhorn’s first-person narration and the nature of his life didn’t spare any room for the secondary cast of Eisenhorn’s friends, associates, coworkers, and team. Characters like Titus Endor, Midas Betancore, Godwyn Fischig, are people he considered friends; what were these friendships like, what harrowing and hilarious adventures did they have together? Tell us all about Midas’s coat, or Fischig and Eisenhorn butting heads over working styles!
There’s Eisenhorn and Cherubael. Our addiction to rival!ships needs moar of their strange and disturbing relationship. Eisenhorn spent 100 years dreaming of a “blank-eyed man”, Cherubael spent 100 years orchestrating events to get Eisenhorn in range; they tried to kill each other several times (Eisenhorn succeeds! briefly), Eisenhorn enslaved Cherubael a few times; and now Eisenhorn is pretty much alone, having burned all his bridges to do what needed to be done, and the companion he still has is Cherubael. And he’s starting to think of Cherubael as a person... Delicious. The stories can be comedy gold (extreme odd-couples), creepy romance/(un)sexytimes (everything is wrong with this relationship and yet...!), use of weapons (Eisenhorn, you and your terrible the-only-choice decisions), sweet and snarky and ominous, fun things to do with a daemonhost, fun things to do with an inquisitor, gossip at the Inquisition watercooler about What Are Those Radicals Fucking Up Now?
(Note: If you decide you want to write Eisenhorn and Cherubael, this is the one couple/story we’re requesting where you can go to town with the horror and sticky bits. We see it more as psychological horror, but horror or unsettling sex and dub-con wouldn’t be out of line. I mean, daemonhost. Duuuuude. No nonconsensual body horror, please - if you're uncertain where to stop, then please just avoid body horror altogether.)
For Midas Betancore, well. There’s barely anything about him in canon, so make up everything! Tell us about the pilot academies of Glavia, tell us about his family, how he fell in with the Inquisition, how “Aegis” ended up being his codename. Medea wasn’t nominated for this year’s Yuletide, but you can write about her too if you want, since the Betancores are clearly an awesome lineage.
Fischig! Or shall we say, Hound. He got the same raw deal as Betancore in that Eisenhorn didn’t deign to tell us much about him. Despite rocky beginnings, Fischig and Eisenhorn seemed pretty buddy-buddy later on, which of course makes the end of the line of that friendship even more painful. Fischig’s position as an Arbites enforcer, used to being one of the top dogs in his society, makes for an interesting personality clash with Eisenhorn as an Inquisitor. Agency rivalries, yes?
Or, case files! We’d love to hear more about everyone or anyone’s adventures while scuttling around, bringing the God-Emperor’s wrath down on the enemies of the Imperium (or a pissed off daemon prince’s adventures in bringing down the Imperium). Murder mysteries, strange artifacts, genestealer extermination, breaking in new leather coats, what they do for summer vacation -- tell ussssss.
In conclusion:
We haven’t read the newest trilogy’s opening salvo yet (Pariah), so we ask that you please try to avoid spoilers from that book. (We have read “Perihelion” though, so if you want to mention or allude to things from that, we’ll cry from the angst with you~)
While it’s obvious we love Eisenhorn a lot, we really do love everything about Eisenhorn and the related stories in that slice of the universe. If you want to include or write team!stories, we’d be just as happy to read those as we would specific character or pairing stories.
In fact, if you want to write the Daniverse crack fic based on Abnett’s IKEA ending scenario... muahahahah. (I also just noticed Abnett refers to Cherubael as a “he” now too... HERESY! *blam!*)
Oh, and yes, don’t worry about taking a few liberties with the 40K fluff, we’ll probably not even notice as we’re still shell-shocked from the likes of Space Marine.
Info: The Inquisition
Gregor Eisenhorn on the WH40K wiki
Cherubael on the WH40K wiki
Additional: The Strange Demise of Titus Endor (involving the eventual fate of one of Eisenhorn’s friends)
--
Fandom: Ciaphas Cain (Sandy Mitchell)
Characters: Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!, Ferik Jurgen
Request: Cain and Jurgen slash (preferable, but canon-ambiguous is good too), friendship/relationship/whatever their ship is fics. Mundane or adventure fics are good too. Canon-POV/voice/footnotes fic are not required, but could be fun to play with. Can feature other Valhallans, Space Marines, filthy xenos scum, or certain inquisitors too, don’t be shy~
Why we love it:
These books are what currently passes as the “lightest” in the Black Library, in that tonewise they’re meant to be a (blackly) humorous romp through the 40K setting. It even makes fun of the other books sometimes (see shades thrown at Gaunt, shades thrown with Sulla’s prose style)! Despite all that, it still maintains all the grim and dark of the grittiest 40K books.
Cain as the narrator has a very strong, distinctive voice, down to constantly repeating certain phrases at certain times. This makes the books hit and miss with people. We, of course, found ourselves perfectly happy with it. In fact, one of the neatest things about the books is how Mitchell plays around with the voice in various texts presented.
So yes, we love Cain and his attitude towards his job and himself and his hat. He’s reliably unreliable yet strangely reliable. We also love Jurgen, Cain’s faithful adjutant -- or servant, companion, null ex machina. We also really really love how Cain will mention Jurgen about every other page.
What we’d like to see:
Cain and Jurgen! Jurgen and Cain! Doing things together! Possibly doing sexy things together, somehow! Or if that’s not your thing, platonic and sweet and kind and happy things together, because Cain and Jurgen! Jurgen and Cain! Are totally lifemates.
Gimme all your strange romances, or mundane domesticity, or how other people see them. Maybe Amberley Vail finds some private Cain journals? Perhaps Jurgen kept journals amongst his porno slate collection? In fact, what kind of bizarre porn does Jurgen look at (he’s totally on the grimdark ffnet/ao3 and writing lovely fics about Gary Stu!Cain, isn’t he)?
We’d like some kind of relationship fic for these guys, but if that’s not your bag, the field is wide open. Gimme the propaganda reels, the unauthorized biographies (fanfic!) the Administratum distribute, what Cain’s classes at the military academy are like, in fact, if you’re feeling really inspired, you can go ahead and write the official biography, To Serve the Emperor: A Commissar's Life.
Or write misadventure fics that can range from little incidents like the one time Cain tried to resolve Jurgen’s hygiene problem, or Jurgen off having adventures of his own. Or Jurgen’s life before he met Cain, or shenanigans Cain got up to when he was growing up. Or if you want to break our hearts, you can write deathfics. If you, sob, must.
In conclusion:
HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!
Nah, don’t worry about trying to emulate Cain’s voice and don’t worry about making footnotes. If you can write it in a character voice (ho ho, any character!), we would be in awe.
Info: Ciaphas Cain series on Wikipedia
Covers at Black Library (just look at those lovely idealized propaganda posters XD )
Random blog entry (if you’re curious about the tone of the books)
In case you did want to use footnotes but were wondering how to format them, here's a reference.
--
Fandom: Gaunt’s Ghosts (Dan Abnett)
Characters: Ibram Gaunt, Elim Rawne
Request: Gaunt and Rawne slash. Fight, or fuck fics (or fight and fuck), or things in general getting fucked (up). Friendship and trust building fics are good too. Or mission, adventure, or mundane fics featuring one or both, and the rest of the Tanith can come along. An Abnett prompted IKEA ending with Ravenor and Eisenhorn story would be triple bonus hilarious.
Why we love it:
Aw yeah, military action.
Okay, besides that. Much as we all wish we were Space Marines, the Imperial Guard is... well, human. While the Guard is made up of individuals, they rarely stand out as such, because they function so often as meat for the grinder. [something something setting]
And again, we really love this series for its characters. Our favourites are Gaunt and Rawne, because oh hey look at that enmity between them, and how it changes and grows into grudging respect and then almost genuine friendship. They still fight and put on the pretense of hating each other, but they also trust and offer to take bullets for each other. Also Rawne is just awesome with his snaky knifey ways, and Gaunt has a nice hat.
Of course, all the Tanith First & Only are pretty damn awesome, even if they’re dropping like flies.
What we’d like to see:
… military action?
We’d love stories exploring Gaunt and Rawne’s relationship -- as antagonists, comrades, or sexual partners, it’s all good~ If you ever desperately wanted to write sweaty arm wrestling or giant burrito eating contests with eye-fucking and hidden knives, this is your chance to shine. We see Rawne as desperately always trying to get one over Gaunt, but conceding the point in the end because Gaunt is, well, Gaunt. And they both like it that way.
If you want to write a more general story featuring either or both Gaunt and Rawne (and the rest of the Tanith too if you like!), we’d love mission fic, or perhaps they have to attend an officers’ dinner and must look sharp in their dress uniforms, or maybe the Tanith adopt a furry animal at some point.
Angst or dark themes are okay -- hard to avoid in 40K -- but if possible we’d like at least a happy ending, or bittersweet, or just a smidge of the Emperor’s light shining on the Ghosts.
eta2: Random idea that just occurred to us, but maybe a Rawne history fic? Like, what did he do back on Tanith that landed him in the Guard? Gangster fic? :D
In conclusion:
Military action!
For Tanith! And all those other places. Oh and uh, THE EMPEROR.
We received lovely fics for GG last year and we are greedy for more, oh ho ho.
Info: Gaunt’s Ghostpedia
------------
Finally
Thank you (and congratulations if you made it to the end of our version of War & Peace) and good luck. We love you. In all the approved ways.
Hello! It looks like we share some fandoms, which, awesome! Thank you for offering to write it, and thank you also for deciding to go through with the match.
(An aside: We’re -- unfortunately -- not royalty, just
prettymanly and punchdrunkard.)This is our second year participating in Yuletide. We found it a lot of fun last year and look forward to more of the same this year. We want you to enjoy yourself too, so please be assured that we’re going to be happy with pretty much any kind of story you want to tell. We really just want to read more fics (or any fics...) in our favourite sadpanda fandoms.
You can read our letter from last year here for a general idea of how excitable like a parcel of puppies we were over this exchange. Sadly it looks like we’re not getting more coherent in our twilight years.
Onwards~!
------------
General
We’re into some bleak, grimdark works with violence and mature themes. We’re also into some shiny, rainbow-filled works with pantless wonders and plenty of bling. Which means you can write that super serious fic if that’s what gets you going, or you can write that fun madcap sparkle pony fic if you’re feeling particularly fabulous in the morning. Don’t feel confined to our suggestions, they’re only there in case you need some inspiration.
Here’s a quick list of some basic likes and dislikes we have. The Likes list doesn’t encompass every single thing we like, as otherwise we’d be here till Christmas, but please try to avoid the things on the Dislikes list and we would be grateful for that consideration.
Likes
Story features:
- Brotherhood
- Manly tears, manly punching of faces
- Fighting, rivals, hate, good guys on the wrong side, bad guys who are also good
- Action, thrills
- Friendship, reluctant friendships, cuddling
- Angst
- Epicness
- Humour, banter
- Food
- Military, weapons & martial arts
- Sexy times!
- Fashion (armoured or uniformed)
- CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT
Genres: Slice-of-life, action, character studies, romance/friendship stories, rival/nemesis stories, 5 things type stories, AUs, mystery, noir, military/mission, comedy of errors, westerns
Sex/Sexuality: slash, gen, UST, asexuality; light BDSM, armour/clothes/hair/weapon fetish, tentacles~
Dislikes
- noncon, excessive humiliation (some is ok), underage sex (prepubescent), nonconsensual bodyhorror
------------
Fandom Specifics
Fandom: REDLINE (2009, dir: Takeshi Koike)
Character(s): Sweet JP, Frisbee, Machinehead, Colonel Volton (eta: choose any of them, alone or in combination or superteam!)
Request: Expand on any of the character’s histories, or exploration of the setting/universe presented. Friendship fics between Sweet JP and Frisbee, fics about previous or future races, fics about the effect of the results of Redline on the world and characters. Fic about Machinehead and Colonel Volton's forbidden love. UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ optional.
Why we love it: This movie was a visual-audio orgy of amazeballingness. The sheer joy and love put into the work is present in every frame, and the excitement just leaps out and rolls over for a belly scratch before speeding away in a cloud of sparkles and vibrating rainbow colors.
What we’d like to see: All the characters that show up in this movie were a blast. We’d have nominated every last character if we could. Given its medium, it was light on character and worldbuilding history. So! It’d be great to explore any of the requested characters histories, who they are, why they do what they do, their favourite cars, their best races and/or moments, their friends and family. How did Sweet JP and Frisbee become friends (and stay friends! and where did they pick up a multi-limbed mechanic!)? Where did they grow up? Machinehead, how did you get so awesome? What goes on in your... machine head? Colonel Volton! Be more swish! What’s life like in the army? What is the fallout from all that theoretical science invading their planetary space?
Or if you want to write a race story, or a future story (with a race) of after the end of the movie -- what became of the shenanigans that revealed Roboworld’s secret weapons? Who was in fact behind it all? Does JP even care, or does he have his eye set on his next goal (whatever that is?)
In conclusion: We understand this work might be hard to expand upon, and it’s going to be tough to capture the exuberance and energy of the animation in prose form.
Don’t worry about that. We requested this fandom because we couldn’t think of anything to write for it either! And that means any crazy crackpot backstory or character study you want to come up with is totally going to fly with us.
And when all else fails, remember: Pompadour. EPIC GODLY pompadour.
Info: Wikipedia entry
Movie trailers (everyone should at least watch the Special Version trailer because that song is like crack and also it is perfect)
Soundtrack: youtube playlist (UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ UNTZ)
--
Fandom: Eisenhorn (Dan Abnett)
Characters: Gregor Eisenhorn, Cherubael, Midas Betancore, Godwyn Fischig (eta: choose any of them, alone or in combination or superteam!)
Request: Exploration of Eisenhorn and Cherubael’s relationship (adversarial, sexual or otherwise), or Eisenhorn’s relationship with Betancore or Fischig (friendship preferred but anything is fine), or character pieces about Betancore or Fischig (history before/during/after working with the Inquisition). Case fic or slice-of-life in 40K is cool too, or everything all together in one fic, even.
Why we love it: Warhammer 40,000 has eaten our souls. This... thing that it is provides our mealy brains with such succor, it cannot be good for us, and yet it is. (Or not, see: the amount of sleep and money we’ve lost on this fandom.)
And it all started with this damn book.
This book really immerses you in the environment of “domestic” 40K (vs warfront 40K) through a detective-type story thanks to the nature of inquisitorial work. It gives you glimpses of so many aspects of life in that universe, both appropriately crapsack and surprisingly poignant. Abnett writes great characters and exciting action scenes,
Yes, the characters, let us speak of the characters: they’re all awesome and we love them so.
What we’d like to see:
The tight focus of Eisenhorn’s first-person narration and the nature of his life didn’t spare any room for the secondary cast of Eisenhorn’s friends, associates, coworkers, and team. Characters like Titus Endor, Midas Betancore, Godwyn Fischig, are people he considered friends; what were these friendships like, what harrowing and hilarious adventures did they have together? Tell us all about Midas’s coat, or Fischig and Eisenhorn butting heads over working styles!
There’s Eisenhorn and Cherubael. Our addiction to rival!ships needs moar of their strange and disturbing relationship. Eisenhorn spent 100 years dreaming of a “blank-eyed man”, Cherubael spent 100 years orchestrating events to get Eisenhorn in range; they tried to kill each other several times (Eisenhorn succeeds! briefly), Eisenhorn enslaved Cherubael a few times; and now Eisenhorn is pretty much alone, having burned all his bridges to do what needed to be done, and the companion he still has is Cherubael. And he’s starting to think of Cherubael as a person... Delicious. The stories can be comedy gold (extreme odd-couples), creepy romance/(un)sexytimes (everything is wrong with this relationship and yet...!), use of weapons (Eisenhorn, you and your terrible the-only-choice decisions), sweet and snarky and ominous, fun things to do with a daemonhost, fun things to do with an inquisitor, gossip at the Inquisition watercooler about What Are Those Radicals Fucking Up Now?
(Note: If you decide you want to write Eisenhorn and Cherubael, this is the one couple/story we’re requesting where you can go to town with the horror and sticky bits. We see it more as psychological horror, but horror or unsettling sex and dub-con wouldn’t be out of line. I mean, daemonhost. Duuuuude. No nonconsensual body horror, please - if you're uncertain where to stop, then please just avoid body horror altogether.)
For Midas Betancore, well. There’s barely anything about him in canon, so make up everything! Tell us about the pilot academies of Glavia, tell us about his family, how he fell in with the Inquisition, how “Aegis” ended up being his codename. Medea wasn’t nominated for this year’s Yuletide, but you can write about her too if you want, since the Betancores are clearly an awesome lineage.
Fischig! Or shall we say, Hound. He got the same raw deal as Betancore in that Eisenhorn didn’t deign to tell us much about him. Despite rocky beginnings, Fischig and Eisenhorn seemed pretty buddy-buddy later on, which of course makes the end of the line of that friendship even more painful. Fischig’s position as an Arbites enforcer, used to being one of the top dogs in his society, makes for an interesting personality clash with Eisenhorn as an Inquisitor. Agency rivalries, yes?
Or, case files! We’d love to hear more about everyone or anyone’s adventures while scuttling around, bringing the God-Emperor’s wrath down on the enemies of the Imperium (or a pissed off daemon prince’s adventures in bringing down the Imperium). Murder mysteries, strange artifacts, genestealer extermination, breaking in new leather coats, what they do for summer vacation -- tell ussssss.
In conclusion:
We haven’t read the newest trilogy’s opening salvo yet (Pariah), so we ask that you please try to avoid spoilers from that book. (We have read “Perihelion” though, so if you want to mention or allude to things from that, we’ll cry from the angst with you~)
While it’s obvious we love Eisenhorn a lot, we really do love everything about Eisenhorn and the related stories in that slice of the universe. If you want to include or write team!stories, we’d be just as happy to read those as we would specific character or pairing stories.
In fact, if you want to write the Daniverse crack fic based on Abnett’s IKEA ending scenario... muahahahah. (I also just noticed Abnett refers to Cherubael as a “he” now too... HERESY! *blam!*)
Oh, and yes, don’t worry about taking a few liberties with the 40K fluff, we’ll probably not even notice as we’re still shell-shocked from the likes of Space Marine.
Info: The Inquisition
Gregor Eisenhorn on the WH40K wiki
Cherubael on the WH40K wiki
Additional: The Strange Demise of Titus Endor (involving the eventual fate of one of Eisenhorn’s friends)
--
Fandom: Ciaphas Cain (Sandy Mitchell)
Characters: Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!, Ferik Jurgen
Request: Cain and Jurgen slash (preferable, but canon-ambiguous is good too), friendship/relationship/whatever their ship is fics. Mundane or adventure fics are good too. Canon-POV/voice/footnotes fic are not required, but could be fun to play with. Can feature other Valhallans, Space Marines, filthy xenos scum, or certain inquisitors too, don’t be shy~
Why we love it:
These books are what currently passes as the “lightest” in the Black Library, in that tonewise they’re meant to be a (blackly) humorous romp through the 40K setting. It even makes fun of the other books sometimes (see shades thrown at Gaunt, shades thrown with Sulla’s prose style)! Despite all that, it still maintains all the grim and dark of the grittiest 40K books.
Cain as the narrator has a very strong, distinctive voice, down to constantly repeating certain phrases at certain times. This makes the books hit and miss with people. We, of course, found ourselves perfectly happy with it. In fact, one of the neatest things about the books is how Mitchell plays around with the voice in various texts presented.
So yes, we love Cain and his attitude towards his job and himself and his hat. He’s reliably unreliable yet strangely reliable. We also love Jurgen, Cain’s faithful adjutant -- or servant, companion, null ex machina. We also really really love how Cain will mention Jurgen about every other page.
What we’d like to see:
Cain and Jurgen! Jurgen and Cain! Doing things together! Possibly doing sexy things together, somehow! Or if that’s not your thing, platonic and sweet and kind and happy things together, because Cain and Jurgen! Jurgen and Cain! Are totally lifemates.
Gimme all your strange romances, or mundane domesticity, or how other people see them. Maybe Amberley Vail finds some private Cain journals? Perhaps Jurgen kept journals amongst his porno slate collection? In fact, what kind of bizarre porn does Jurgen look at (he’s totally on the grimdark ffnet/ao3 and writing lovely fics about Gary Stu!Cain, isn’t he)?
We’d like some kind of relationship fic for these guys, but if that’s not your bag, the field is wide open. Gimme the propaganda reels, the unauthorized biographies (fanfic!) the Administratum distribute, what Cain’s classes at the military academy are like, in fact, if you’re feeling really inspired, you can go ahead and write the official biography, To Serve the Emperor: A Commissar's Life.
Or write misadventure fics that can range from little incidents like the one time Cain tried to resolve Jurgen’s hygiene problem, or Jurgen off having adventures of his own. Or Jurgen’s life before he met Cain, or shenanigans Cain got up to when he was growing up. Or if you want to break our hearts, you can write deathfics. If you, sob, must.
In conclusion:
HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!
Nah, don’t worry about trying to emulate Cain’s voice and don’t worry about making footnotes. If you can write it in a character voice (ho ho, any character!), we would be in awe.
Info: Ciaphas Cain series on Wikipedia
Covers at Black Library (just look at those lovely idealized propaganda posters XD )
Random blog entry (if you’re curious about the tone of the books)
In case you did want to use footnotes but were wondering how to format them, here's a reference.
--
Fandom: Gaunt’s Ghosts (Dan Abnett)
Characters: Ibram Gaunt, Elim Rawne
Request: Gaunt and Rawne slash. Fight, or fuck fics (or fight and fuck), or things in general getting fucked (up). Friendship and trust building fics are good too. Or mission, adventure, or mundane fics featuring one or both, and the rest of the Tanith can come along. An Abnett prompted IKEA ending with Ravenor and Eisenhorn story would be triple bonus hilarious.
Why we love it:
Aw yeah, military action.
Okay, besides that. Much as we all wish we were Space Marines, the Imperial Guard is... well, human. While the Guard is made up of individuals, they rarely stand out as such, because they function so often as meat for the grinder. [something something setting]
And again, we really love this series for its characters. Our favourites are Gaunt and Rawne, because oh hey look at that enmity between them, and how it changes and grows into grudging respect and then almost genuine friendship. They still fight and put on the pretense of hating each other, but they also trust and offer to take bullets for each other. Also Rawne is just awesome with his snaky knifey ways, and Gaunt has a nice hat.
Of course, all the Tanith First & Only are pretty damn awesome, even if they’re dropping like flies.
What we’d like to see:
… military action?
We’d love stories exploring Gaunt and Rawne’s relationship -- as antagonists, comrades, or sexual partners, it’s all good~ If you ever desperately wanted to write sweaty arm wrestling or giant burrito eating contests with eye-fucking and hidden knives, this is your chance to shine. We see Rawne as desperately always trying to get one over Gaunt, but conceding the point in the end because Gaunt is, well, Gaunt. And they both like it that way.
If you want to write a more general story featuring either or both Gaunt and Rawne (and the rest of the Tanith too if you like!), we’d love mission fic, or perhaps they have to attend an officers’ dinner and must look sharp in their dress uniforms, or maybe the Tanith adopt a furry animal at some point.
Angst or dark themes are okay -- hard to avoid in 40K -- but if possible we’d like at least a happy ending, or bittersweet, or just a smidge of the Emperor’s light shining on the Ghosts.
eta2: Random idea that just occurred to us, but maybe a Rawne history fic? Like, what did he do back on Tanith that landed him in the Guard? Gangster fic? :D
In conclusion:
Military action!
For Tanith! And all those other places. Oh and uh, THE EMPEROR.
We received lovely fics for GG last year and we are greedy for more, oh ho ho.
Info: Gaunt’s Ghostpedia
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Finally
Thank you (and congratulations if you made it to the end of our version of War & Peace) and good luck. We love you. In all the approved ways.