Pear's Yuletide letter

Dear writer,

Thank you, for playing in these worlds. It means so much to me to load up the archive and find a story waiting for me like a shiny, sparkling present. I love sparkly things. Also, you are the greatest.

What can I tell you that would help you? I'm melancholy at heart. Tragedies always draw me in, and I gravitate towards those stories of people making difficult if not impossible choices. I love the darkness, real and metaphorical. I love the cold, probably because I don't get enough of it living in Texas. I love open skies, manifest destiny, the stars, magic, the road that goes on and on, stories about the end of the world & revolutions. I love stories that make you ache, from desire and grief and hope.

So what do I like in fanfiction? Stories that capture the voices of the characters, the quirky humor of the source, adventures, deep bonds of fellowship, tension of all kinds, love... oh this list gets long too. My reading tastes are pretty varied. I enjoy sad stories most, but I enjoy funny stories and adventure stories and love stories. I enjoy a good G and ferocious NC17 and everything between from straight to gay to the entire queer spectrum. The only things I try specifically to avoid are mpreg and scat. My preferred kinks are bondage, and unresolved sexual tension. I am okay with violence.

I've been working on my signup for three days now. I think it is time to submit it and finish this letter. With luck, I've cast a wide net that will give you some ideas but also let you run free with your own. Have fun!

Many thanks and happy Yuletide!
Pear


Shadow of Israphel - Yogscast web series
I would love back story on Honeydew and Xephos, such as how they came to be companions. Or why Old/Knight Peculiar came to Terrorvale, or how Fumblemore became a wizard. Funny or serious!

This may be the most hilarious thing on the internet, and the entire reason I started playing Minecraft. I can't believe how amazing it is that someone started this massive RPG is a game made of blocks and built such a wonderful collaborative story with so many characters! I would love anything set in this universe. A hilarious campfire tale one night while Xephos and Honeydew are trying to ignore the sounds of zombies and skeletons outside the Yog Cave? Just how did a dwarf and a spaceman become such good friends anyhow? And how did they get stuck on that island? Where does Honeydew come up with those catchy songs? Did Xephos crash land in Minecraftia? This request doesn't have to be serious, given the mad hilarity of the series. (But if you somehow make some serious grim story out of the truly scary Israphel business, I will love it. There's some real heartbreak - Daisy kidnapped, many deaths, terrifying temples and dungeons, the original Wall built by Verigan, etc.) Extra bonus points if the Diggy Hole song is involved somehow.


Nochnoy Dozor | Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
I love Anton's moral conflicts, and the eternal struggle of balancing light and dark. What would Anton do with vampires who sparkled and broke the law? I'm really interested in his relationship with his vampire neighbors and his conflicted feelings about Kostya and how that balances with his work for the Watch. Or just how his conflicts affect his life in general.

Okay, this book is one of my favorite things. I went in search of it after seeing the movie by myself one afternoon. It is some of my favorite urban fantasy and it has everything from crazy collisions of cultures and time and magic and technology. The world just seems so rife with possibility. The story also lends itself to those hard choices that I find so interesting and appealing in fiction. There is grimness, but often bounded by light and beauty. I think I've made this request for the past couple years and I'll keep at it until someone writes it! Bonus points for setting fire to the rain, Christmas time in Moscow or killing Edward/Bella.


iRobot Products (anthropomorfic)
I have a Roomba and a Scooba at home and I adore them. Yay robots! Any kind of awesome story about the robots would be welcome from funny to epic tragedy to the rise of self aware robots.

Robots! Yay! I love them. I hope they don't grow up to be evil! But they might! Who knows!?! I'm just really glad they clean the floor for me. It is strange to know iRobot has a major contract with the military to create bomb finding robots and other military tech. So I'd like to read stories about Roomba and Scooba, just doing their thing or aspiring to great heights. Bonus points for including the flying roomba from Questionable Content or his family. Yeah, I just wanted to see the flying Roomba again.


Questionable Content
I would love to see future fic, or even alternate universe fic with this cast. Twenty years down the road, what are they doing? What if they were all space marines? Or members of First Hundred in turn of the century New York?

I love QC. (See the flying roomba above!) I like to imagine how all their awkward personality traits would play out in different settings - like a 1905 New York ballroom or the invasion of Mars or zombie apocalypse or something. Having also recently read Jennifer Egans The Goon Squad I also find myself wondering how their intertwining lives play out over the course of decades. So many possibilities and a good excuse for world building. Basically, I just want to know what the future holds. Or the past.

this is where we are

You should watch this entire video. It's making the rounds on the wired tonight. It shows a peaceful protest of university students, sitting on a goddamned quad at UC Davis. (Why do you need riot police when a bunch of students are sitting in a quad? Really?) A police officer stands directly in front of them and douses them with pepper spray. Just right in the face, almost like he's showing off for the observers. Several are cuffed and dragged away. The crowd of students drives the huddle of police back, shouting "Shame on You" and later "We are giving you a moment of peace, we will not follow you, you can go."

I've been thinking a lot lately about the first time I read Transmetropolitan and that moment where the eye of the world stops injustices. Every other hand is holding a cell phone or a tablet aloft, taking pictures and recording video. My future is strangely not dissimilar from the one I read about in novels and comics. But will it be enough now? Are there enough people left to care, to drive change forcefully against the walls of power and money?

I honestly have no idea. But I suppose we have to try or our future will probably be darker.