Dear Julegoat

[extrapenguin]

juletide for info.

Likes

• Same-sex relationships, especially F/F.
• Narratives of reconstruction: fixing something, whether that be a country, a piece of equipment, a relationship, or a person. (Examples: Nirvana in Fire, Zuko's arc in Avatar: the Last Airbender)
• Journeys of discovery, whether the discoverers be the characters or the reader.
• Redemption arcs. Rehabilitative justice.
• Narratives where something happens; plot. External conflicts. Casefic.
• Comedy of Errors -type things.
• Crack taken seriously.
• Untitled Goose Game crossovers of the type where the goose comes to visit the canon.
• Alien settings: Dyson spheres, ringworlds, planets tidally locked to their red dwarf stars, artificial habitats on otherwise inhospitable planets, planets with large axial tilts, planets that are actually moons of gas giants, etc.
• Engineering, especially of the sort that keeps civilization running – sewage, maintenance, transport etc – plus fault analysis and infrastructure design stuff.
• Characters expressing caring for each other by feeding each other/giving each other tea.
• Good mentor figures/teachers who have their students' best interests at heart and succeed.
• Class issues and other tensions between origins and current presentation (eg. alien whose species is considered monsters in disguise as a human).
• Worldbuilding!
• Weird physics.
• Tea.
• Competence porn.
• Enthusiasm in general.
• Xenobiology, aliens, very alien aliens.
• Loyalty, loyalty kink, people loyal way past the point of reasonableness.
• Loving descriptions of small details/of how systems run; insertion of Shown Their Work details.
• Happy endings.

I like both shipfic and gen. If you're choosing between something you think the characters would do in a situation and something on my likes list, please err on the side of what you feel is right for the characters and story in general.

DNW

• Setting change AUs (eg: Hogwarts AU, Coffee Shop AU) (exception: In Space AUs of canons not already In Space are fine)
• Christianity, mentions of "sinning".
• Humiliation, especially public.
• Incest, including foster/adopted relationships. (Unless requested – Shen Wei/Ye Zun is fine.)
• Stories about motherhood.
• Unrequested het between humans or humanoid creatures. (Dolphins are fine, spiders are fine, people having parents is fine, the fabric of society being canonical and het-enabling is fine.)
• Requested characters being presented as/rendered utterly helpless; the "damsel in distress" trope; woobiefication.
• Stories about mourning unwelcome changes to/realizations about the body, with "body" defined broadly, (ex: acquiring a disability, infertility, weight gain) and the associated grief/angst.
• Stories about mourning a dead person.
• Purity kink – this includes soulmates, demisexuality, single-target sexuality, etc.

镇魂 | Guardian (TV) Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan
I absolutely love the aliens and the science fiction stuff of the show! I also like the first half's cases and lightness.
Note: Please don't write me anything with characterization or worldbuilding elements taken from the novel.

• Shen Wei wakes up from the dirt later and is discovered by the SID Chief Zhao Yunlan on a camping trip, instead of the party from Dixing led by Ding Dun.
• Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan deal with Zhu Jiu's nefarious plans! Zhu Jiu the fire code inspector who writes eleventy billion citations based just on the exterior? Zhu Jiu finds someone whose Dixing power is stuffing cassowaries in boxes and sends them to the SID (and everyone blames Da Qing, who'd totally sign up for Bird in a Box and not read the fine print)?
• The baiji river dolphins didn't actually go extinct; they were all Baiji Tribe Yashou and they shapeshifted into their human form and walked out of the Yangtze when it wasn't satisfactory anymore. Then they ... get involved with the Envoy/the SID somehow.
• Canon divergences where Zhao Yunlan meets the Black-Cloaked Envoy first, notices the very strong initial reaction, and starts pursuing him. (I love Zhao Yunlan getting over himself and being okay with romancing the alien in canon, so, Zhao Yunlan falling in love with the alien?)
• Shen Wei is an utter and complete nerd who starts talking about his scientific experiments in bed.
• For Reasons, the Black-Cloaked Envoy puts on glasses. Is this the final clue Zhao Yunlan needs to figure out Shen Wei's double identity? Does Zhao Yunlan have no idea who Professor Shen is (yet), but have this sight nonetheless arouse interests in him? Is Zhao Yunlan all googly-eyed at his wonderful nerd boyfriend?

The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling Em Arasgain, Gyre Price
I absolutely loved the caves and caving and the sheer horror of resources running out and feeling like one is being watched. I enjoyed Gyre as a protagonist, bitter and desperate and willing to do a great many things but with a moral core. Em worked very well as a narrative foil for her, both women driven to extremes due to the fact that their mothers left, and thus consequently understanding each other well.

• I have a lot of canon divergence ideas! Gyre finds Em's mother's corpse?
• At Camp Four, instead of emptiness, Gyre comes across a very alive Eli?
• Due to Tunneler presence, the cave's collapsed/Gyre for other reasons can't take a route she takes in canon, and has to go exploring in the cave system?
• Or, more about the Tunnelers! If you have always wanted to write a worldbuilding infodump about Tunnelers, please do. What do they eat? What do the researchers do with the data they got from Gyre's encounter? What sort of stuff has Em collected into her company's archives?
• Why did Gyre feel the call to go deeper into the cave? Was it just psychological things, or the cave? Is it common to all caves, or just this one?
• After going offworld, does Gyre still feel a pull to caves, either in general or the one she visited in specific?

教主和小师妹的故事 | Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story (2019) Ye Xiaoqi, Xiao Rufeng
This is absolutely adorable, full of cheesy femslash, 14 minutes long, and available for free online! Engsubs + canon link. I loved how big a badass Xiao Rufeng is, and how the cheerful Ye Xiaoqi melts her icy heart enough to get in herself.

• Training sequences. Touchy training sequences.
• What does the demonic sect actually do in Shuzhou? Is Xiao Rufeng slandered, or does she actually do morally unsavoury things? If so, what? How does Ye Xiaoqi react?
• What sorts of adventures do they get up to post-canon? How do Xiao Rufeng's subordinates react to this sudden bubbly new disciple who keeps smiling at their sect leader?
• Why was Xiao Rufeng wandering around in Jiangnan? Was there some demonic sect internal problem? How does the politics change when she brings Ye Xiaoqi back?
• Porn. They have a very nice height difference! I imagine Ye Xiaoqi would be a very enthusiastic sub.

Uplift Series - David Brin Creideiki
My very favorite dolphin, the wily philosopher! I love the setting with its "and even the kitchen sink" attitude towards space opera worldbuilding eg the five different means of FTL travel, and the fact that the universe is vast and wondrous and has umpteen billion alien species in it. I love the dolphins, Creideiki and Hikahi and Keepiru, and Trinary and poetry.
Note: Please don't dwell on Creideiki's head injury. Mentions are fine if relevant, but don't write a fic centered on it.

• I'd love to see more of Creideiki & co's galactic escape adventure! How do they reach Earth?
• Does their escape adventure/some training cruise of Creideiki's go through E-Space, and perhaps yield them with some new knowledge of how E-Space works? Or do they actually encounter a mad sentient who prefers it to other modes of hyperspace travel?
• Are there still Progenitor relics to be found? Did the Progenitors all unifiedly disappear one day, or did they gradually fade out? Does their find in the Shallow Cluster lead them to another set of clues, or did Creideiki's hunch to investigate the Shallow Cluster come from some prior experience with Progenitor relics?
• How did Creideiki and Hikahi first meet? (I do ship it!)
• Do they stumble across some (illegal) Uplift process? Or a failure/"failure" of an Uplift process?
• What's it like to think in Trinary all day? What does a Trinary courtship look like? What are Creideiki's (and Hikahi's and Keepiru's) favorite wordplays?
• Do they have some additional encounters with Galactic bureaucracy, either before or after the whole "everyone wants to murder Earthclan" thing?

* Hands and fire?
      Hands and fire!
* Use them, use them
      To leap higher!
* Dreams and song?
      Dreams and song!
* Use them, use them
      To leap-long! *