Dear Builder of Worlds

[machiavellijr]

 

Dear mystery author, Thank you for signing up, thank you for writing, whatever you give me will be deeply welcomed and appreciated. I apologise for whatever DW has done to the formatting of this post, it has gone completely kerflooey and I can't sort it out.

General likes: 

Plot. Worldbuilding. Casefic. Melodrama. Keeping your head whilst all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. Competence porn. Costume porn. Actual porn. Humour. Farce. Epistolary. Wordplay. Swordplay.

 

General Do Not Want:

Explicit slash

Non-con

Tight focus on babies/pregnancy (OK, not such a problem for some of these)

Addiction plots front and center

Contemporary politics - obviously RoL is set in 2010s London including its political situation, and anything about rebellion and insurgency is going to resonate with the current situation in the Middle East, but I deal with both of those every day, more of either is not what I need right now.

Rivers of London:

WB: Integration of magic into modern worldview after presumed future reveal (RoL); WB: the demi-monde (RoL); WB: human non-Newtonian magic systems (RoL); WB: Death/birth/rebirth of genii locorum (RoL) Any or No Characters (Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch); Grace Yutani (RoL); Caroline Linden-Limmer (RoL)

Fanfiction; In-Universe Meta I kind of love how well the masquerade works in RoL and anything about how the demi-monde and beyond manages to exist in the real world, or how anyone in particular handles The Reveal, will be absolute catnip to me. What stories do people tell themselves to enable them to get along in 2010s London? How, if at all, will the magic-users of the rest of the world react to a Reveal which in canon will presumably start in London and involve at least Peter in a fairly central role (though come to think of it, making our beloved heroes react to magic being unveiled somewhere else first would be cool)?

Star Wars:
WB: Organizing an alliance made of rebels (SW:OT); WB: Imperial defectors in the Rebellion (SW:OT); WB: Different Rebel factions and ideologies (SW:OT); WB: Structure and logistics of the Rebellion (SWOT); WB: Day to day life on a Rebel base (SWOT); WB: Alderaan’s role in the Rebellion (SWOT)

Leia Organa (SWOT); Mon Mothma (SW:OT); Any or No Characters (Star Wars Original Trilogy)

Fanfiction; In-Universe Meta

So in light of <flails at last 23 years' global politics>, how do you be an effective rebel against the Empire and keep your soul (or not)? What does that do to your daily life, how you relate to people with different answers? Andor suggested some of these questions and answered some of them, but a fairly narrow and TV-friendly perspective. It's a big galaxy out there!

Chalion Saga

WB: Women in the Bastard's Order (Chalion); WB: The White God's Seminary at Rosehall (Chalion); WB: Men in the Mother's Order (Chalion); WB: Women in the Son's Order (Chalion); WB: How Demons View Each Other (Chalion)

Any or No Characters (Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold); Penric kin Jurald; Desdemona (Chalion)

Fanfiction; In-Universe Meta

I adore the theology in this series and the Penric novellas have made it even better. It's a very humane theology, which as I am a horrible cynical person does mean I occasionally have flashes of wondering how it could be abused - but life is depressing enough already without getting too deep into that. On the different orders and how they work, I'd love to see someone try to make the Quadrenes make sense - like obviously their original portrayal is very hard not to see as a racist caricature of Al-Andalus but in-universe they do manage to function, apparently pretty well, despite their theology being objectively and demonstrably Wrong. Alternatively, how do you train divines of the Bastard's Order? It must be like herding cats; having spent enough time herding both regular academics and Christian seminarians, the job of head of the White God's seminary sounds like a gloriously nightmarish undertaking. 

Vorkosigan Saga:

WB: Cetagandan Occupation (Vorkosigan Saga); WB: Stories about Earth during the Time of Isolation (Vorkosigan Saga); WB: Betan Viewpoints on Cordelia (Vorkosigan Saga); WB: Galactic politics and Barrayar (Vorkosigan Saga); WB: Blending traditional and modern (Vorkosigan Saga); WB: Yuri Vorbarra's Civil War (Vorkosigan Saga); WB: Who Re-Discovered Barrayar (Vorkosigan Saga); WB: Dorca's Conquest of Barrayar (Vorkosigan Saga) 

Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan; Ezar Vorbarra; Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan; Olivia Vorbarra Vorkosigan; Dorca Vorbarra; Any or No Characters (Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold)

Fanfiction; In-Universe Meta

I adore the whole series, anything that springs to mind in any of those areas will be joyous. I'd be particularly interested in that brief, shining moment after the Rediscovery and before the Cetagandans turn up - what might have been without the Occupation, how Dorca was getting on managing the transition in an unprecedentedly peaceful time. The timeline has some fairly large holes in, in particular I can't work out how much of the cod-Stalinist setup we see Ezar ending at the end of Shards is how Dorca intended to deal with things and how much is post-Occupation (or a holdover from the Ceta puppet regime). Dorca, after all, is The Just, not 'The Good' or 'The Reasonable'.