aretestarseeker | Yuletide Letter 2023 (Stellarete)

Dear Author,

Thank you so much for writing me a story!

General likes: worldbuilding, in-universe mediums/documentation/etc. incorporated as part of a fic, moderate amounts of angst, moral complexity, characters heroically sacrificing themselves for what they perceive as the Greater Good, characters displaying competence at things they are canonically good at, characters who act strategically, characters with secrets that would destroy their life if ever revealed

General dislikes: explicit narrative endorsement of deontological ethics (deontologist characters are fine), vengeance quests as a primary focus of a fic

General DNWs: explicit sexual content (fade-to-black is okay if it's not the focus of the fic), explicit violence (canon-typical is blanket okay), romance as a focus of the fic (incidental romance is fine, especially if it's a canonical pairing), mundane AUs

If you picked me up as a pinch hit and are hoping to get into one of these canons quickly:

Fandom for Robots is a short story (~4600 words). It's freely and legally available here.
We Know The Devil is a visual novel available on itch.io or Steam for $6.66 USD. It's possible to play through the whole game (including all endings) in a couple hours.

I am open to treats!

Terra Ignota

Carlyle Foster, 9A, Worldbuilding

Clarification on character inclusion: Please include either {both Carlyle and 9A}, or Worldbuilding. If you want to include both (or even just worldbuilding + one of them) that's totally fine and would make me very happy, but I don't want to overly constrain the story.

I love this series!

I really like the worldbuilding. I love how detailed it is, like every time you zoom in to look closer there's more details hiding beneath the surface. I especially like the societal worldbuilding -- alternative government structures, handling of religion, the Hive system, etc.

I chose Carlyle + 9A because I think they play off each other really well. Also because they are such good tragic people :(

Some potential prompts for this fandom:

More of 9A, Carlyle, and co. trying to run a sort-of-vaguely functional city during the war, possibly with whatever worldbuilding details you feel like including
Carlyle as 9A's sensayer (pre/during/post-canon are all fine for this -- if post-canon, feel free to handwave something like 'the synthesized resurrection potions were able to somehow bring back 9A)
Any sort of worldbuilding you think would be interesting -- daily life for ordinary people? education? post-war society? something else?
By whatever coincidence is necessary to justify them being in a position to notice, Carlyle notices that 9A is ~turning into Mycroft before the process is actually finished, and has to decide what to do about this

Fandom-specific DNWs: fic focused on Madame (mentions are fine)

We Know The Devil

Venus, Jupiter, Neptune

Clarification on character inclusion: I want Venus to be featured, and at least one of Jupiter and Neptune, but it's okay if you want the fic to focus on Venus and Jupiter or Venus and Neptune.

Venus is my favorite character.

Some potential prompts for this fandom:

How (any of the red/blue/yellow) endings affect the characters -- not necessarily the one who became the Devil, looking at how it affected another character is also totally fine
More exploration of any character's relationship with religion
Trying to return to normal life after the (red/blue/yellow) ending
Truth-or-dare goes on a little longer and manages to get Even Worse for the characters

General DNWs: explicit sexual content (fade-to-black is okay if it's not the focus of the fic), explicit violence (canon-typical is blanket okay)

Exception to general DNWs: Romance-focused fics are okay in this fandom

Fandom for Robots

bjornruffian, Computron

I love these two adorable nerds! I love the depiction of fandom in this fic! Some prompts I think could be interesting include:

bjorn and Computron starting to explore more aspects of fandom that weren't the main focus
bjorn and Computron getting into some other fandom together (for this prompt, feel free to use a fandom that actually exists - you can assume I'm familiar with anything I've previously requested or written in the past, and additionally I think Murderbot or Catnet could work well for these specific characters)
bjorn finding out that Computron is a robot
bjorn and Computron being able to actually meet up in person

Fandom-specific DNWs: unhappy/bleak endings

Amenta

Worldbuilding

I'm honestly assuming that if you signed up to write worldbuilding for this fandom, you know what you want to write about, and I'm happy to hear about whatever you have in mind! If you didn't have something in mind, feel free to use any of the following as prompts (but don't feel beholden to them):

Closer looks at schools and education -- especially any of the particularly unusual/specialized schools
Jobs that look very different on Amenta
The entire country of Doet

This is a fandom where I'd be particularly interested in seeing in-universe documents/media/Tumblr posts/etc.

I'd prefer pre-FTL stories for this fandom, but otherwise I'm happy with whatever you want to do timeline-wise.