Dear Yulegoat

[bagheera_san]

This is my first Yuletide! As such, my expectations regarding my requests aren't super-high, and my anxieties regarding my offers rather bigger, so don't fret.

In general, I like slash and gen with the occasional but rare het pairing that strikes my fancy - if you're not a slasher, you'll probably make me happiest with gen. I like my romance somewhat understated, happy endings are great but I'm not big into schmoop or fluff. I tend to write somewhat angsty fic, but what I enjoy most are actually plotty, adventurous and in-character fics. Though I do like darkfic sometimes, I don't like "everyone dies, doom and gloom" stories that much (which is one of the reasons I rather like Marvel's version of Norse mythology.) Humour is great, but I'm afraid I'm not much into parody. What I care about most is keeping things in-character, though obviously for The Mahabharata, "in-character" might not even be a valid label.

Thor (Marvel)

My request: I'm most into the more recent arcs and the Simonson run of Thor, but will be equally happy if you use any other parts of canon, such as Ultimate, or if you play fast and loose with Marvel canon. My absolute favourite character is Loki, closely followed by Balder and Thor, but I also love the Warrior's Three and Karnilla. Pairing-wise, I'd love to see Loki/Balder, Loki/Thor or Karnilla/Balder, but I'd also be quite happy with a gen fic. As for plot: I never get tired of Asgard/Midgard culture clashes, I like "gods lose their powers and have to live as mortals for a bit" stories (Thor has done it, of course, but how about his brothers as mortals?), cameos from the wider Marvel-verse (especially Avengers or any villains, or gods from other pantheons - wouldn't say no to a fic with Thor and Hercules, or with any non-greek pantheons! how about Loki meeting another, more cheerful trickster like Coyote?) are lovely, I'd enjoy anything with female!Loki (or Loki in any other different shape) or I'd love a Marvel-esque re-telling of a real Norse myth. Feel free to go AU.

Basically, I'll love you if you write me Loki fic - if you don't feel like it, that's great, there are plenty of other characters to play with. If you do: I love him as a trickster, and that's tricky - essentially my view of Marvel!Loki is that he's not entirely iredeemable, but still not a nice guy, and it's in the nature of a trickster to never entirely be good or evil. Another aspect of Loki that I really like is his shape/gender/species-bending and I'd love to see more of that in the Marvel-verse.

I have a huge sweet spot for Marvel!Balder, too, even though myth!Baldr doesn't really interest me. What I like about Marvel!Balder is both his angst and his occasional failure at being the hero he is (like in the phase he had in Simonson's run where he was fat and depressed, or the Latveria debacle with him as ruler of Asgard), but I also love him being all earnest and straight-forwardly heroic. Balder/Karnilla is a rare case of a het pairing I adore, because Karnilla is great (I'd prefer her as not-quite-reformed).

I love the faux-Shakespearian speech patterns Marvel gives the Asgardians, but if you don't feel comfortable with it, no problem!

I'm quite into Norse mythology, the Eddas and Saga literature, so if you use elements from that, great!

The Mahabharata

I first read this as a teenager and I'm really excited about the possibility of there being fic for it.

However, I hope you're not big into het, because I must confess that I don't really find any of the female characters all that gripping. Gen about any character or plotty fic is wonderful, though! My favourite character is Vasudeva/Krishna (he's also the one character where I would actually be interested in any pairing, even het). I'll love any details about Indian culture or Hinduism, Hindu cosmology, etc.

My request:
Of particular interest to me would be a fic with Arjuna and Krishna, whether it's slash or gen, just about their friendship or maybe about what it's like to be friends with a guy who it turns out is basically one of your main gods (or what it’s like being the avatar/incarnation of a god but also a mortal man) - especially if it's set after the Bhagavad Gita.

A fic about the Pandavas in exile would also be great, or something set at the very end of the epic or in afterlife. One thing I’m not keen on is a modern AU / reincarnation fic set in the present – keep it historical/mythical.

A Study in Emerald

I never planned to request this, but when I saw it on the list I suddenly had ideas!

I've read quite a bit of Lovecraft, I love many of Neil Gaiman's works and I've liked various incarnations of Sherlock Holmes (for example the movie "The 7 1/2 percent solution", the RDJ movie, Moffat's "Sherlock" despite underlying issues, House, and the original Sherlock Holmes stories). What it comes to down, for me, is that I really love Holmes as an archetype, both when he's highly effective and when he's rather anti-heroic. I tend to ship Holmes/Watson, but I also love enemy-slash so Holmes/Moriarty would be interesting.

For this fandom obviously clever fics are cool, but also anything that explores the characters more in-depth. Whether Great Old Ones are defeatable is debatable, but I wouldn't say no to plotty saving-the-world fic, either. Go wild with mad Victorian pseudo science, invented martial arts or even magic. Also cool would be a look at other parts of the world in the this 'verse beyond Britain.

Request:

These are suggestions, you can ignore them completely or combine them or use them separately or in modified ways...

Anything that deals with this universe, its history or its future.

Anything with historical figures cameos or fictional characters from other novels which would be appropriate to insert into the pastiche either because they're contemporary or from the same genre (so particularly Gothic, Detective and Spy novels and 19th century fiction).

Slash, if you like it, of any pairing permutation, preferably not extremely fluffy because obviously this 'verse doesn't lend itself to fluff.

Plotty and adventurous stuff.

Nyarlathotep!

Something with Holmes playing the violin and The Music of Erich Zann.

Holmes dabbling either in mad science or magic to defeat Great Old Ones.

How Sherlock Holmes read the Necronomicon and did not go insane (or did he?)

Something with Mycroft Holmes being awesome.

Moriarty decides to switch sides and oppose the Great Old Ones.