runespoor | Dear Yuletide Writer 2024

I'm Runespoor on Ao3 and I want to thank you for writing a story for me.

my account is open for treats!

General likes:
• stories where the relationship changes/deepens in the characters’ eyes: whether it’s a get-together or a character’s opinion changing over time, rivals being forced to see one another in a moment of vulnerability and promising never to tell, a character lying to protect another when they didn’t expect it
• denial, mutual pining, complicated and intense relationships: codependency, relationships that straddle the line between “&” and “/”, being scared of how you feel for this person because it’s giving them too much power, “I would do terrible/amazing things for you” and "I have done terrible things to you", relationships where the front the characters put on for the peanut gallery don’t reflect exactly the private truth of the relationship
• putting characters through the wringer, angst
• second person pov and third person pov
• secrets
• politics: lawmaking, every day urban planning, negotiations, intrigue, alliances, etc!
• journeys to the center of the mind/inside someone's dreams/nightmares to save them (Eurydice plot with "inside their own mind/nightmares" as "the underworld" = A++)
• forced reveals: truth-telling pollen! confessing things/feelings while delirious!

Dislikes:
• Christmas fics
• different setting AU
• A/B/O
• a fic that's nothing but fluff (schmoop, WAFF, slice-of-life where people have a nice day and the focus is on that, comfort fic)
• babies/children fic, wedding fic, proposal fic
• non-con (the kind where someone isn’t having a good time)
• bleak, banal unhappiness
• kink-wise: pet-play, voyeurism, being caught in the act, language kink (by which I mean "speaking a foreign language as a kink"), daddy kink, TPE, gags, toys.
• shovel talks
• I have a bit of an embarrassment squick
• current events

smut-wise, if you're writing Magical Diary or Folk of the Air:

i like sex that is obviously a terrible idea but is so good, dirty talk, non-negotiated kink, begging/desperation, wall sex, rough sex, antagonistic sex, holding down/pinning down, oral or vaginal fingering, riding, penetrative sex (+two-in-one, +spitroasting), fuck-or-die, a need for secrecy/~forbidden relationships~,"I could do anything to you right now and you would let me", “you are such a bastard”, the more experienced/less vulnerable partner not being in control emotionally (switching/powerbottoming/turning the tables), gentle sex as a powerplay, gentle sex as an admission you're not ready to make, the inherent intrigue of banging a royal (rounding back to "political favors")

i don't like first- or second-person pov in smutty contexts, formalized kink, safewords in contexts where “no” would work, sex where someone is in total control, spanking, TPE, daddy or mommy kink, pet-play, voyeurism unless planned by the person(s) being watched, being caught in the act, non-con where someone isn’t enjoying themselves, omegaverse, ageplay

Folk of the Air
characters: Jude; Cardan
(both characters must feature)

DNW: PWP, fluff, curtain fic, major non-canonical permanent character death, setting change, non-con, shovel talks, marriage/proposal/pregnancy except as fitting their use in canon (I wouldn't enjoy reading about happy, romantic marriage preparations, but fake-marrying or marrying for political gain is fine), non-canonical pregnancies, children, pre-canon divergence.
I’m not caught up on the Stolen Heir & following, so I’d rather you didn’t touch on it.

I love the characters, and the intense, layered relationships between them, and I love Faerie and its politics. I love Jude! I love angry girls intent on survival with precious little room for morality (but who do turn out to have morals despite everything), and Cardan is such a wonderful Trash Fave. I think it’s very very very funny when the Cool Edgy love interest is the first to fall and is panicky about it (like a NERD) and tries to play it, you know, cool. (“i’m going to bully her into obeying me, not that i have fantasies about it or anything. oh noooo she didn’t obey she stood up to me, oh, that’s definitely not going to awaken anything in me.””yes I’m going to secret marry her!!! this is definitely not going to break my own heart or anything” what a NERD i like him so much) I would like More Of Their Relationship, and my prompts are a bunch of ideas of how that could work. (for the record, I love Taryn and Madoc lots, so if your idea involves them, I will not not mind a little bit!)

Here’s a few prompts:

Orpheus-and-Euridyce plot: one of them is struck by a curse and falls into a deep sleep or something of that sort and the other has to bring them back by delving deep into their subconscious! (picture: Jude and Cardan making their way through a sea of horrors and every once in a while Cardan is desperately trying to kill the signs that make it obvious his subconscious is into Jude - to Jude’s obliviousness - or Jude tries to knock Cardan out rather than have him see her memories of her parents. they arrive at a little house and there’s blood going out the door. a tiny whimper escapes Jude’s mouth.)

more of the set-up of mid-book two. A canon divergence where it lasts longer! I love the “enemies having sex as they run the court, it’s more complicated than that but they don’t really trust one another” setting and basically I would love more of that. Intrigue and we-shouldn’t-but-we-totally-do. Slow-burn hatred that's a bit more complicated than hatred and politics. I live for this shit. I would have read three more novels of this.

if you wanted to write a canon-divergence about either of Cardan’s older brothers momentarily winning the crown and badwrong sex with Jude, while Jude and Cardan find themselves into an uneasy alliance and hatebang about it, I am there for it.

whump fic? whump fic! set before they get together maybe, one of them gets caught/imprisoned/tortured, and the other rescues them for their own reason? as little comfort as you can bring yourself to write, I'm more interested in the awkwardness/guardedness/vulnerability, sincerity, and sincere promises of revenge/working toward revenge, than in comfort. I’m not picky about which gets whumped, follow your heart.
genuinely if you write Cardan being a loser-nerd-trash-fave over Jude before they got together I’d love that. I did read How the King of Elhame Learned to Hate Stories but it’s not the same. how much did he hate himself for it. did he wank sadly. what unrealisable plan of did he imagine to make it all work out.

pre-end of the first book, is there a situation where they’d have to work together? Something dangerous? And they snark a lot? And oh no they’re making out? (maybe an AU where Cardan falls into working for the Court of Shadows? Or one where Cardan is supposed to spy on Madoc and the way to do that is pretend that he’s dating Jude? I'm good with Cardan thinking he’s in for a shovel talk but I wouldn't want the scene to be the focus of the fic or Madoc to be simply playing that rôle straight.)

I’m waiving the dnw about setting change for the purpose of saying, if you wanted to add the Homestuck quadrants to this series, I,,,,, would not be in any way opposed,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, “Jude/Cardan and quadrants” has been living in my brain rent free for a few years now...... (for the purpose of this prompt you can ignore the DNW about unrequested non-canonical pairings, because quadrants are more fun when you can mention other things, even if they're past or unrequited.)

Magical Diary
characters: Damien Ramsey; Mary Sue
(both characters must feature)

DNW: Christmas fic, fluff, language kink, pre-canon, permanent major non-canonical character death, setting change, marriage unless it's for intrigue purposes (and if it’s a Mary/Damien marriage, not unless it’s one of those one year and a day deals/there’s a built-in escape route), pregnancy, voyeurism, the jealous kind of possessiveness, amnesia, body switching, non-con, Damien becoming a good person
As far as names go, I like Mary Sue!

I'm interested in fics that build up on the foundation that by the end of the year Damien doesn't have *all* the power in the relation due to how emotionally compromised he is, and to the fact that Mary is now better aware of what's up. I like messed-up relationships and the idea of Damien's lover "stealing back" power from him/being able to "fight back"/manipulate him etc (it's revenge + obsession all in one sexy package!). I like that Mary started out vaguely pitying Damien, that she kind of rolls her eyes at his drama at times.

I love love love post-canon fics and most of my prompts are about variations of that. They're examples and flexible.

in general any fic about them tugging the power between them, trying to see how far they can push the other, what each can get from the other, being attracted and obsessed and loving and hating each other. Using magic to keep track of one another, Mary using Empathy on Damien every time they meet, Mary recognizing the spell Damien used on the ring he gave her, etc

post-canon SECRET RELATIONSHIP! Mary and Damien seducing one another, Mary balancing Horse Hall (and her support system there) and Damien and sneaking around to meet him, all that good stuff.

a fic in the timeline where Mary lost her powers! one of my favorite things about this ending is how in-over-his-head Damien is. (come to flirt/make out with and threaten a bit the girl you’ve unfortunately fallen for and are incapable of killing, get suddenly that girl losing her powers and now you're the only thing between her and memory wipe!) how do they survive? what does their search for returning Mary's powers involve? (research in Illyria ? mixing magic and science; maybe that squares with breaking oaths of people sworn not to work against the current rules of the wizarding world?) does Mary manage to extract a promise from Damien to ensure her safety? does he resent her for it?

whump-ish future fic where Damien gets In Trouble and it’s up to Mary to rescue him (is he even in need of rescue or does he just want to see how far she’ll go for him? does the trouble become real after all?). What kind of trouble is that? Legal, wizard trouble? Otherworld trouble?

I would also love that generic-ish prompt about “someone is cursed and now someone else must go through their mind to find them back.”

waiving the setting change dnw here to say that,,,, if you wanted to add Homestuck quadrants,,,,,,,, the quadrant-flipping and quadrant-confusion in these relationships,,,,,, or if you literally want to write a Homestuck AU I'm here for it too. (for the purpose of this prompt you can ignore the DNW about unrequested non-canonical pairings, because quadrants are more fun when you can mention other things, even if they're past or unrequited.) I like the idea of Mary’s feelings flipping from pity (or thinking “I can fix him!” pale) to kismessisitude.

Triangle Strategy
characters: Cordelia; Avlora
(both characters must feature, with an exception explained below)

DNW: Christmas, fluff, PWP, setting changes, marriage, pregnancy, Glenbrook-family-incest, non-canonical death of either of them, non-con (I see the marriage with Gustadolph as being unconsummated)

These two. I love their dynamic. Cordelia was always one of my favorite characters in the game - I’m very impressed with her strength and her fragility, how resourceful and determined and brave she was even as she was stuck in an impossible situation, and how she bent but bided her time. She very much understands the necessities of realpolitik but at the same time she sincerely would let her people judge her and swear to serve them. And Avlora, with her reputation and her honor and her reserved disillusionment with the Aesfrost royal family, grows from slight yet sympathetic contempt to swearing herself to this slip of a girl, this girl with a vision asking for Avlora’s strength to make it real. The swoon-worthy romanticism of the scene of Cordelia showing her vulnerabilities to Avlora, reading Avlora perfectly, and Avlora swearing herself to Cordelia? pheewwwwwww. I got goosebumps.
I’m not super interested in the Golden Ending post-canon set-up, but if you want to write Cordelia and Avlora during the chapters when Avlora is part of the army I'd be interested in that!

Route-wise I confess to a slight preference for the surrendering Roland in ch7 and going with Frederica's plan in ch13 - I like the drama of it all and I think Cordelia benefits from making Roland escape a lot, it's a really good route for her. This is more telling as the backdrop I think would work best to showcase these two rather than a "I would HATE a story that doesn't occur in that route", go with what makes most sense for your specific story.
I'd prefer the Roselle to have been defended in ch11 if it comes up, I’m going to mull over it if it comes up that they haven't.

Here's a few prompts:

get-together

I'd love to read about the canon divergence where Cordelia has time to implement her plan as explained to Avlora. I would love intrigue and the oppressive atmosphere of Cordelia (and Avlora!) working against Aesfrost right under Thalas and Erika's nose, or earlier (after Cordelia has Roland escape, frex) Cordelia spying on Aesftost and penning letters to Royalist allies/the Wolfforts with her info. If they start a oh-it's-a-terrible-idea-and-they-shouldn't relationship - or if they don't, but they know it's almost as if they were - it would also be amazing.

Queen Cordelia: the AU where when Roland realizes he wants to abdicate, Cordelia steps up. How this happens is up to you, I just felt the lack of mention of the possibility was a weakness in the game! And Avlora returns from the dead to help her queen.

Queen Cordelia: Frederica's ending version. In this one let's say Cordelia stays behind, because that bothered me in the game that there's no discussion about it. You can change Benedict's epilogue and the wider political balance as you see fit, I adore Benedict's epilogue but I feel Cordelia being around as Queen might have changed things; I especially think he might end working with her. You can choose not to include Avlora if the fic is about Cordelia and Benedict politicking.

I’d love to know more about Avlora's changing opinion on Cordelia. More about their time together while Gustadolph was in Whiteholm! Maybe Cordelia already putting out feelers to Patriatte?

AU for the rebuilding of Glenbrook where Avlora is still around and helping and it’s awkward. Also dealing with Cordelia shielding Avlora from Roland in 14c asklfkd I GASPED! Avlora watching over Cordelia in the infirmary waiting for her to wake up! Or being thrown in jail and only being taken out because Cordelia woke up and wanted to see her (everyone is Not Talking about Cordelia protecting Avlora very loudly, except Roland might be demanding about it even louder)! And then there’s a confession!