We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

Amended from past years:
Thank you for writing something for me. With the exception of the do-not-like stuff, please take any and all of this as optional suggestions only, and do what works for you.

Do not like: darkfic in general, incest, humiliation, graphic violence, PWP or graphic parts-and-fluids sexual descriptions (no moral objections, it's just not what I enjoy reading), blatant out-of-characterness, rape/dubcon, Christmas themes (not Christian myself), coronavirus/quarantine references etc.

Enjoy in particular: work (in all definitions) and people being competent at it, hurt/comfort, futurefic, ensemble pieces, playing with language(s), cuddling, scenes from everyday life.

Genfic is good, shipfic is good, although in the case of the latter I’d rather have a story that has something going on as well as pure romance, whether it’s a separate plot thread or a characterization arc.

I'm open to treats if anyone is so kind.

By fandom/characters (alphabetical):
The Crater School – Chaz Brenchley (Any)
The mixture of “boarding school story” with “science fiction” absolutely delights me and basically I just want more (set specifically at the school rather than in the larger setting, ideally). Of the characters I nominated, I love Mary Ellen “Mae”’s relationship with reading and writing, and Levity’s arc of getting comfortable at school, discovering her inherited talent for art, and falling in love; as far as Rachel is concerned, honestly I just want to see her (along with Jessica, of course) be explicitly Jewish (in whatever sense) on page, I refuse to buy that all the way on Mars even a girl named Rachel Abramoff has to be Christian! However, you can use any or none of these three, and/or other existing characters, and/or make up a set of original characters altogether; I’d just like to see the school doing its thing. (Something leaning more toward Antonia Forest than Elinor Brent-Dyer would be wonderful, but that definitely falls under optional-details-are-optional.) ETA: I finished reading Radhika's book just barely too late to nominate her, but I love her and I would be delighted to see her in a fic if you feel like writing about her too.

The Incandescent - Emily Tesh (Worldbuilding)
I have a thing about administration-saves-the-day (not that it does exactly here, but I love how big a part school administration plays in the book) and I love magic integrated into a modern-day setting, so this book did good things for me. Here again more than anything I kind of want a slice of life at school, set during the book itself or otherwise; I loved the A-level students, especially Aneeta, and would be delighted to have a fic focusing on them, but something from the teacher/staff perspective would be great too, or else feel free to make up entirely original characters if you’d rather. If you want to look into what the school (or one of the new schools/programs!) looks like after the events of the book, that would be fascinating too.

Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary – Pamela Dean (Any)
I’m always about equally fascinated and frustrated by this book, and Gentian’s friends are what I like most about it—they have the most interesting takes on the themes of the novel, femininity and gender in general, religion, art and science, conventionality and unconventionality, romance and friendship, togetherness and solitude, what you have in common with people and what makes you different from them. I’d love a missing scene from the book, futurefic, or anything from their perspectives, especially if it provides a bit of comforting closure for the ending, or else a canon divergence where things go better in the first place. You can throw in romance in any combination among them if you’re interested or keep it to friendship, whatever works.

The Melendys – Elizabeth Enright (Rush Melendy)
I love all the Melendys and their friends (and would be happy to see any and all of them appearing, in and out of the tagset), but I’m especially fond of Rush, the sarcastic, cheerful, quick-witted, occasionally self-doubting polymath who spends hours at the piano; I would love to see Rush a little older and what he’s making of himself, in whatever context. Again, really an ensemble fic in which Rush has his fair share of page time would be great too. I’d rather no focus on romance for this canon (although if you want to give Willy Sloper a love life with any non-Melendy person, that would be delightful!).

叛逆者|The Rebel (Wang Shi’an)
I got a spectacular Wang Shi’an fic a few Yuletides back, and I have never quite stopped thinking about him and wanting even more. (You can find my thoughts on him AT LENGTH under the "pannizhe" tag here--please feel free to read or ignore as you like.) I can't help wanting a story in which, without necessarily being a better human being, he's compelled by circumstance to turn his talents (thinking on his feet, lying and deceiving as needed, planning ahead, balancing temper and calm...) to good purposes instead of bad ones. I know that is a weird, and weirdly specific request, and I will not hold you to it; basically anything Wang Shi'an-centric, whether canon-compliant or -divergent, would be wonderful.
I’ve requested only Wang Shi’an himself so as not to complicate matters, but please also feel free to bring in any other characters who occur to you—Lin Nansheng and Chen Moqun, with whom he has incredibly complex relationships; Lan Xinjie, Lao Gu or Lao Ji, Meng Annan, even poor dumb loyal Secretary Zhang or Wang Shi’an’s blink-and-you-miss-her wife. One request I do have for this canon is attention to the historical context--I don't mean you have to do a huge research project, but I feel like the story has to be grounded in the time and place for the characters to be who they are.

Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch (Abigail Kamara, Indigo)
Indigo and her foxspeak and her adoration of Abigail all delight me, and Abigail’s brilliance and teenage-ness and resilience likewise; I’d love to see them having an adventure of some kind, large or small, details up to you. Any other characters (original ones included) welcome too, although I especially enjoy the way Abigail looks to Nightingale as a mentor and her unlikely friendship with Simon. (My other favorite character is Kim Reynolds; I can’t exactly see how she could fit easily into an Abigail-focused story, but if something occurs to you, go for it!)

Taiwan Travelogue – Yang Shuang-zi (Any)
Because their futures are less determined by the canon, I’m especially curious to read about Ozawa Reiko and Tan Tshiok-bi (Chen Chueh-wei? Chin Jakubi? why is romanization so linguistically and sociopolitically complicated; come to think of it, should Reiko be piped with Ta-tse Li-tzu? sorry, just doodling); what their friendship/romance was like and what happened to them after the events of the book, in Taiwan or Japan or elsewhere, whether they mirrored Chizuko and Chizuru’s relationship, as they do in the book to some extent, or developed in their own unexpected directions. That said, if you want to focus on Chizuko and Chizuru (Chien-ho|Tshian-hoh…), either with missing scenes from the book’s history or giving them an alternate future, that would be lovely too. In either case, one request I do have for this canon is attention to the historical context--I don't mean you have to do a huge research project, but I feel like the story has to be grounded in the time and place for the characters to be who they are. (I speak Japanese and some Chinese, so the more of either, as needed, you want to throw into the fic the better, as long as you’re confident in it!)

Thank you again!