valmora | Dear Yuletide Writer!

Hi, um. This is a bit awkward; I'm rather shy, so. I will continue to not complete my sentences, clearly.

(I'm also likely to edit this slightly over the next couple of days, ahaha, sorry)

This is the first time I've done Yuletide (though I wrote an NYR a couple years back), so if I come across as unpleasant, it's not deliberate.

So. I guess this should start with something along the lines of, "whoa! thanks! I'm so glad you're my Yuletide writer!" although that sounds a bit strange and sarcastic, as I don't know you. But I am glad, and I hope that you have as much fun writing as I will reading.

Um.

As for things in fic - I have widely varying tastes depending on the characters involved, so I'll just plop down elaboration on my requests below -

LoA: Daud/Farraj

Something that involves, whether as focus or as side
flavoring to the piece, their romantic relationship.

I thought Daud and Farraj were kind of underrepresented characters in basically every way that didn’t involve their being homoeroticised relative to Lawrence. However, in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, TEL is very clear when they are introduced that they were very much exclusively romantically attached to each other; he compares them to a married couple (for the especially prurient, Farraj is the girl). I thought that was very striking, especially since I thought that their story in the movie was very bare-bones, so I just want to see some fic that focuses on them.
I really don’t have a preference for whether the story is primarily about their romantic/sexual relationship or mostly about their interactions with the rest of the cast, but I would very much like to be able to see that their interactions with each other are influenced by the explicitly romantic aspect to their relationship.

In general relating to LoA, I'm really fascinated by the Arab culture aspects of the story (LoA is basically why I am studying Arabic in college at the moment), and the cultural dichotomies between Britain and the tribes. I'm not a big fan of the "romantic savage" trope on an intellectual plane but I confess that I greatly enjoy reading it.
I really enjoy reading boys acting like boys and men acting like men, especially if they're also homosexual. Er. That sounded a lot worse than I meant it. So all of the stupid, and the social-aptitude-of-a-brick, and the graciousness, and the strength, of being human and male - that's what I like reading. (I love all of the LoA characters for basically all of those reasons)

Broken Saints: Oran/Raimi

Focusing on the relationship between Oran and Raimi,
anywhere during or after the series. Slash (requited, unrequited,
established, whatever) preferred but not required.

I thought that Raimi and Oran had an interesting sort of antagonistically-deeply-fond-of-one-another relationship that I felt really strongly. I really like both of them a lot as characters, so I’d just like to see something with them in it.
And because my mind is in the gutter, if you wanted to make them attracted to each other (or unrequited affection, or whatever) I would be a very happy camper. Don’t think it’s mandatory, though; I’d hate to make someone write something they didn’t feel.

One of the things I liked about the series was the feeling of paranoia that it inspired. I saw someone with a shirt that I read as "WEEP" a month or two ago and it really freaked me out, even though their shirt didn't say that at all. It was kind of an amusing experience.
I love Raimi's narrative voice because he's snarky and sarcastic and, deep beneath being hurt by the world, an idealist; I love Oran because he never, ever compromises on what's really important, and I think he's an idealist as well, in a lot of ways, who has been broken down and rebuilt into someone completely different by being Iraqi Muslim in the current world.
(I like Kamimura a lot also, because he's kind of adorable in that amusing-silly way, and then when he gets down to business he's very scary and formidable.)

Yoshitsune: Benkei/Yoshitsune

Slash preferred. By preference either during
the flight across Japan or soon after the fight on the 5th Avenue
Bridge.

I was very struck in the part of the book I read on how thematically yaoi-clichéd Benkei and Yoshitsune would be. I also saw the Kurosawa film “The Men who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail,” with the same effect, so I want to see something that explores that potential. I wouldn’t mind something exploring their relationship as master-retainer and very good friends, though, if sexualizing that relationship isn’t something doable.

I first heard about Yoshitsune and Benkei in a class on the Japanese samurai mythos and the story just kind of made me go, "oh really, now?" I really like period-appropriateness but since a lot of the aspects of the Yoshitsune story were fictional anyway I'm not going to be terribly picky (tengu, anyone?). I like flights of fantasy and inter-scene moments.

Vorkosigan saga: Dag Benin

Gen by preference.

I like Dag Benin. I think he’s in an interesting position in the Cetagandan Empire, which is of course a little bit like Barrayar if Barrayar had been colonized by people fascinated with traditional/idealized East Asian culture, and I just want to see Dag Benin being his awesome paranoid detectivey self in the Cetagandan Empire without Miles there being Miles and endangering innocents.
Also, I have an especial fascination with Cetagandan face-painting, because it reminds me of kabuki and Chinese opera masks, and it's very clearly an important part of Cetagandan public life, so more on ghem-face painting would be really cool.
I love intrigue and the specific paranoia that is endemic in Vorkosigan, and manipulation, and all of that jazz.

I hope that doesn't ruin any ideas you had stewing (feel free to write them anyway!) - or that it gave you some if you didn't have any before - and that you'll enjoy writing. Um. Have a happy Yuletide!