Yuletide assignments are out!
...time to go reserve some books at my local library.

And, a note for my Yuletide writer!

This time, I'm asking mostly for things I've requested before. (Okay, I'm asking mostly for things I requested last year.) So, here's my last year's letter, and most of the things in it still apply, especially the part about how I'm largely unsquickable and just want anything in these fandoms. At all. But I'm going to write a new letter anyway, because I am not passing up a chance to squee about my small fandoms!

And last year, my writer ended up writing in a canon she'd never heard of before. I am *all about* encouraging that, so if our matching fandom doesn't inspire you, dip into the others! None of 'em have much you need to learn, and I've put mini fandom intros in this letter.

Tek Jansen - This is a satirical, intentionally bad space opera, which is a comic book based on a cartoon series based on a non-existent self-published novel written by the fictionalized version of Stephen Colbert who appears on the Colbert Report. (Though under my tinhat I suspect that the real Stephen Colbert wrote him first.)

For canon, we have three comics, 10 five-minute cartoon shorts, and various leaked book excerpts. You can download .cbz¹ of all three comics, and a rip of the first-season DVD, at my webspace: http://melannen.katycat.net/tek/tekissue1.cbz , http://melannen.katycat.net/tek/tekissue2.cbz , http://melannen.katycat.net/tek/tekissue3.cbz , http://melannen.katycat.net/tek/TekJansenS1.zip . The rest of the cartoons stream online at flickerlab. (and the S1 cartoons are up at colbertnation.com, if you'd rather stream than download.) And I don't care about the book.

I'd really love anything Tek Jansen-related, as my request probably conveyed. If you're in Fake News Fandom, anything meta-tastic (or a crossover!) would be awesome. (especially if it involves the Wriststrong bracelet that's currently in Earth orbit. Or Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Or canon alternate universes and Muppets. Or, you know, go wild.) If you're not but want to try writing it anyway, or just don't feel like meta, than something set in the Tek Jansen world that takes it on its own merits, of which it has many, would also be awesome.

E. L. Konigsberg - From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. This is the one I requested last year that my writer tried but did not manage. It's a short, classic YA novel about some kids who run away and hide at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but it's told in first-person by a wonderfully eccentric old lady who is telling it to her lawyer, Saxonberg, while teasing him and flirting with him in textual asides.

I really want fic that 'ships those two. Ummm.... if the bondage thing worries you, I was totally kidding. I swear. (If it didn't worry you, I love you forever and will be stalking you later.) Luckily, someone else has also requested the fandom this year, so maybe even if I don't get this pairing they will! w00t.

If you're really, really stuck on trying to write the old folks, I would also adore future-fic with Claudia and Jaime as adults, or near-adults. (In fact, if you're into that sort of thing, write me the story where our Claudia ends up rooming with Claudia Kishi at art school, and I will be so delighted I won't even noticed you chickened out on the old people sex. Promise.)

Ellis Peters - Cadfael Mysteries; Philip/Olivier. Okay, here's the thing. I'm not usually into OTT angst and pining and manpain and H/C. Except when it's canon. With Philip and Olivier, it's canon, and it's glorious, and it's honorable, and it's manly, and there isn't nearly enough of it.

Um... I don't care if the pairing actually gets together, in fact Philip's admiration remaining unrequited is fine, but I would prefer a story that ends in hope rather than despair, even if it's melancholy hope, something that fits the tone of the books, y'know? And if you can't do the OTT emotional stuff (I feel for you, why do you think I'm requesting and not writing this?) than anything with Philip in it, where Philip's doomed passion at least gets referenced, would still be great, because I love the characters almost as much as the pairing.

The only book in the series which you need would need to read for this is Brother Cadfael's Penance, the very last one. Not that I would *complain*, if you worked in characters and stuff from the others. They're murder mysteries set in early medieval England and Wales, and I love the historical stuff, but I don't actually give a fig how accurate it is, as long as you make minimal effort. (Also, if you make it a Torchwood crossover, you have to use the BBC series casting. :D

--no, really, Torchwood crossover, think about it! So much possibility.)

Ursula K. Le Guin - Hainish Universe I asked for only Left Hand of Darkness characters, because that's my very favorite, and I love anything that plays with gender. Also I haven't actually read all of the others, though if you have and want to bring characters or settings from elsewhere into a Gethenian-focussed story (either set on Gethen or about Gethenians travelling in the wider universe) that would be great.

The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic science fiction novel, set on a world where gender and sex do not work the way - everyone is neuter, except for once a month, when they go into the sexual phase of their cycle and become either male or female. There is pon farr! Soulbonding! Huddling for warmth! Orgies! Incest! Erotic alien rituals! --political intrigue, some really interesting religion and mythology, heroic self-sacrifice -- it's full of wonderful things. And it was one of the first SF novels to really take a penetrating look at gender. You can download an e-book copy of it at http://melannen.katycat.net/hidden/Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness.rtf .

There are also two short stories on Gethen - "Winter's King", which is in The Wind's Twelve Quarters. It's set well after TLHoD, on a post-contact Gethen, but was written before she even knew they had unusual gender (she went back and switched the switched the pronouns later). And "Coming of Age in Karhide", which is in The Birthday of the World, set after "Winter's King", which is, really, nothin' but sex, yay. Both of these use female pronouns for the androgynes, so if my request for unusual pronounage intimidated you, just use female ones and I will be happy. (If you want to get creative I will also be happy though.)

..and, um, if you need an idea to get you started, take characters from pretty much any large media fandom past or present, and put them in an AU crossover where they're Gethenians, and you'll make my day.

¹ .cbz files are comic-book-archive files, readable with cdisplay, the free comic book reader, among other programs. If you aren't into that you can also just change the suffix to .zip to get at the individual image files for each page.