Yuletide Letter 2013
Dear Yuletide author,
I am so thrilled that you are writing for me! Yuletide is my absolute favorite part of the holiday season (such as it is) and this year I am very excited about all six (!) of my requests and looking forward eagerly to seeing what you create for me. These requests are all for canons that I love very deeply and enthusiastically, so I am just delighted that you loved one of them enough to want to write about it.
All of these canons deal with some complicated issues of violence, trauma, and power dynamics, and I know that can be hard to write about for a lot of different reasons. Do what feels comfortable to you - I know my requests are pretty heavy, but if you want to take something in a lighter, fluffier direction then I won't mind. I'm requesting characters that I love, and while I'm really interested in seeing the thornier parts of their stories explored, I also would be glad to read stories about them being happy.
Things I love in stories - depictions of trauma, resilience, and survival after trauma; world-building; backstory; questions of adaptation and narrative (creating your own narrative, knowing what kind of story you're in); mythology and fairy tale and allusions to such; power-play and D/s; female character-centered gen; LGBT and poly relationships; plot divergence AUs; tense and complicated interpersonal dynamics.
Things I'm not so fond of - victim-blaming or "she/he secretly wanted it" dub or non-con (I'm fine with non and dub-con otherwise, it's just that trope I can't handle); setting-changing AUs; most PWP (though for Deathless I think I could go for it); crossovers with large fandoms; any association of mental illness or trauma with weakness.
If you're looking to get a sense of my tastes, my own stories are up here and on AO3 (also under Assimbya). I'm on tumblr as chthonic-cassandra.
Fandom: Dangerous Liaisons
Characters: Madame de Tourvel, Cecile de Volanges
This is an either/or request - you don't need to include both Cecile and Tourvel in the same story, though I would certainly be interested in seeing them meet! We get very limited glimpses of the inner lives of both of these women in the novel, and I would love to see these characters explored with respect and dignity. Cecile is one of the novel's only survivors - what does the rest of her life look like, in the wake of Valmont and Merteuil's manipulations? I would love to hear about Tourvel's life pre-Valmont, or what her experience of her relationship with him was like. (I also have a strong fascination with the fact that Tourvel and Merteuil never interact in the novel and would love exploration of that.) I do ask that you don't treat Valmont's rape of Cecile humorously or imply that she wanted it - I know those are heavy topics, but that kind of victim-blaming is really sensitive for me.
So, this is mostly a gen request, though I could go for Valmont/Tourvel (or Merteuil/Tourvel, ooh). What I didn't say in my request is that I could definitely go for an AU where Tourvel lives (actually, AUs of this book in general are very appealing)- her death felt very unfair to me in a lot of ways, and I would like to see her getting a chance to rebuild her life.
Again, because it's worth reiterating - I know some versions have made the Valmont/Cecile scene consensual, but I read the scene in the novel as unambiguous rape and would be really squicked by seeing it written otherwise. I recently watched the 2003 miniseries of the film starring Catherine Deneuve (which is really good, if you like the novel you should try and get a hold of it) and was very much struck by how Cecile seemed like a quite sympathetic and understandable young woman, rather than humorously naive, as she is shown in most adaptations. I would really like to see Cecile as a young woman trapped in a difficult situation who is trying to make the best of it.
Fandom: The Scarlet House - Angela Carter
Characters: Any
"The Scarlet House" shows us a little piece of an intriguing and terrifying world, and I would love more. What does our narrator not see, and how much of her perception of events is accurate? What is actually going on with the Count and Madame Shreck? What are the stories of the other captive women? How did the Count's project begin? In the narrator's resistance to the Count's manipulations, are we seeing the beginning of a rebellion?
I am just enamored with this story and would love pretty much any direction that you could take it. I particularly adore the way Carter suggests that surviving violence/degradation does not always mean overt rebellion, that the narrator's small gestures of resistance with which she uneasily maintains her selfhood can be meaningful even if they do not have any visible effect on the world around her.
Crossovers with other Carter stories or novels would be welcome, especially Heroes and Villains or Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (and doesn't Madame Shreck reappear in Nights at the Circus? Maybe that's something to play with?).
Fandom: Ariane et Barbe Bleu - Dukas/Maeterlinck
Characters: Any
I love this eerie, delicate, impressionist opera and all its unanswered questions. I would love to read more about the things that the opera only hints at. I would love a stories about the other wives, either their lives before Ariane's rescue or their experience in the aftermath of the opera, dealing with the ramifications of their choice to stay. Or the story of what happens to Ariane after the opera, as she walks off alone into her future.
If we matched on this I am just astonished that anyone even knows this opera, let alone wants to write fic about it. I think the only thing I have to add here is that playing with intersections/divergences from other Bluebeard versions (*hums* like a certain Bartók opera...) could be really interesting.
Fandom: Deathless
Characters: Koschei, Marya
Koschei and Marya hit all my kinks and make me cry, and I just want more of them, separely or together. Koschei/Marya/Ivan OT3 is the best thing ever, and mind games and powerplay between the three of them would be delicious. I would also love more tense negotiation between Koschei and Marya either in Buyan or in Marya's basement, stories about Koschei's life before Marya (I want more of the Yelenas, his coldness and the horrible tragedy of it), episodes from Marya's time as a heartless general...I am very, very easily to please here.
Yeah, I think this is the only one of my requests where I feel really shippy and would be into getting a more PWP-ish story, though plotty stories or character pieces or very meta explorations of fairy tale and archetype would be equally welcome!
Now for the Elizabeth E. Wein block....I'm going to put these together, though, of course, you may have read one and not the other and this is of course okay.
Fandom: Code Name Verity
Characters: Anna Engel, Julie Beaufort-Stuart
I love Anna and Julie so much it makes my heart ache, and I want to see more of the two of them interacting, especially since we get these tantalizing glimpses of the parts of their interactions that Julie was concealing when Anna talks to Maddie. I'm also very interested in Von Linden as a character, so developing either of the women's interactions with him would be much welcome. Anything that gets us inside Anna's head or shows more of Julie's beautiful resilience would be incredible. I've read Rose Under Fire, so it's fine if you want to incorporate any of the addition information on Anna that we get there.
Fandom: Rose Under Fire
Characters: Anna Engel
(Yes, I am indeed requesting the same character in two different books. I love her sort of a lot.) I love Anna, and her bitterness and her brittle strength and her perseverance. Rose Under Fire gave us these hints of her at all different parts of her life, and I would love to see any of them explored - her days in Ravensbruck as a pharmacist and then as a prisoner, her years in post-war Germany, whatever happens after the end of the novel (is she imprisoned? What is that like? What does she do afterwards?). I feel that she deserves a story of her own just as much as Maddie or Rose or Julie!
If Anna really isn't inspiring you right now, I would also love more of Roza or Irina.
So apparently I really like Anna Engel (and also Julie! I love Julie! And Roza and Irinia and Maddie...I adore all of the girls). Pretty much anything you might write about her would thrill me; I think my only caveat with these books is that I wasn't that fond of Jaime/Maddie as a pairing, so if that couldn't be front-and-center in your story I would appreciate it.
If you want to write something romantic, I could absolutely go for Maddie/Julie, Rose/Róza, or Anna/Julie - or probably any of the other possible femslash pairings in this fandom.
Thank you so much and have a wonderful season!
I am so thrilled that you are writing for me! Yuletide is my absolute favorite part of the holiday season (such as it is) and this year I am very excited about all six (!) of my requests and looking forward eagerly to seeing what you create for me. These requests are all for canons that I love very deeply and enthusiastically, so I am just delighted that you loved one of them enough to want to write about it.
All of these canons deal with some complicated issues of violence, trauma, and power dynamics, and I know that can be hard to write about for a lot of different reasons. Do what feels comfortable to you - I know my requests are pretty heavy, but if you want to take something in a lighter, fluffier direction then I won't mind. I'm requesting characters that I love, and while I'm really interested in seeing the thornier parts of their stories explored, I also would be glad to read stories about them being happy.
Things I love in stories - depictions of trauma, resilience, and survival after trauma; world-building; backstory; questions of adaptation and narrative (creating your own narrative, knowing what kind of story you're in); mythology and fairy tale and allusions to such; power-play and D/s; female character-centered gen; LGBT and poly relationships; plot divergence AUs; tense and complicated interpersonal dynamics.
Things I'm not so fond of - victim-blaming or "she/he secretly wanted it" dub or non-con (I'm fine with non and dub-con otherwise, it's just that trope I can't handle); setting-changing AUs; most PWP (though for Deathless I think I could go for it); crossovers with large fandoms; any association of mental illness or trauma with weakness.
If you're looking to get a sense of my tastes, my own stories are up here and on AO3 (also under Assimbya). I'm on tumblr as chthonic-cassandra.
Fandom: Dangerous Liaisons
Characters: Madame de Tourvel, Cecile de Volanges
This is an either/or request - you don't need to include both Cecile and Tourvel in the same story, though I would certainly be interested in seeing them meet! We get very limited glimpses of the inner lives of both of these women in the novel, and I would love to see these characters explored with respect and dignity. Cecile is one of the novel's only survivors - what does the rest of her life look like, in the wake of Valmont and Merteuil's manipulations? I would love to hear about Tourvel's life pre-Valmont, or what her experience of her relationship with him was like. (I also have a strong fascination with the fact that Tourvel and Merteuil never interact in the novel and would love exploration of that.) I do ask that you don't treat Valmont's rape of Cecile humorously or imply that she wanted it - I know those are heavy topics, but that kind of victim-blaming is really sensitive for me.
So, this is mostly a gen request, though I could go for Valmont/Tourvel (or Merteuil/Tourvel, ooh). What I didn't say in my request is that I could definitely go for an AU where Tourvel lives (actually, AUs of this book in general are very appealing)- her death felt very unfair to me in a lot of ways, and I would like to see her getting a chance to rebuild her life.
Again, because it's worth reiterating - I know some versions have made the Valmont/Cecile scene consensual, but I read the scene in the novel as unambiguous rape and would be really squicked by seeing it written otherwise. I recently watched the 2003 miniseries of the film starring Catherine Deneuve (which is really good, if you like the novel you should try and get a hold of it) and was very much struck by how Cecile seemed like a quite sympathetic and understandable young woman, rather than humorously naive, as she is shown in most adaptations. I would really like to see Cecile as a young woman trapped in a difficult situation who is trying to make the best of it.
Fandom: The Scarlet House - Angela Carter
Characters: Any
"The Scarlet House" shows us a little piece of an intriguing and terrifying world, and I would love more. What does our narrator not see, and how much of her perception of events is accurate? What is actually going on with the Count and Madame Shreck? What are the stories of the other captive women? How did the Count's project begin? In the narrator's resistance to the Count's manipulations, are we seeing the beginning of a rebellion?
I am just enamored with this story and would love pretty much any direction that you could take it. I particularly adore the way Carter suggests that surviving violence/degradation does not always mean overt rebellion, that the narrator's small gestures of resistance with which she uneasily maintains her selfhood can be meaningful even if they do not have any visible effect on the world around her.
Crossovers with other Carter stories or novels would be welcome, especially Heroes and Villains or Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (and doesn't Madame Shreck reappear in Nights at the Circus? Maybe that's something to play with?).
Fandom: Ariane et Barbe Bleu - Dukas/Maeterlinck
Characters: Any
I love this eerie, delicate, impressionist opera and all its unanswered questions. I would love to read more about the things that the opera only hints at. I would love a stories about the other wives, either their lives before Ariane's rescue or their experience in the aftermath of the opera, dealing with the ramifications of their choice to stay. Or the story of what happens to Ariane after the opera, as she walks off alone into her future.
If we matched on this I am just astonished that anyone even knows this opera, let alone wants to write fic about it. I think the only thing I have to add here is that playing with intersections/divergences from other Bluebeard versions (*hums* like a certain Bartók opera...) could be really interesting.
Fandom: Deathless
Characters: Koschei, Marya
Koschei and Marya hit all my kinks and make me cry, and I just want more of them, separely or together. Koschei/Marya/Ivan OT3 is the best thing ever, and mind games and powerplay between the three of them would be delicious. I would also love more tense negotiation between Koschei and Marya either in Buyan or in Marya's basement, stories about Koschei's life before Marya (I want more of the Yelenas, his coldness and the horrible tragedy of it), episodes from Marya's time as a heartless general...I am very, very easily to please here.
Yeah, I think this is the only one of my requests where I feel really shippy and would be into getting a more PWP-ish story, though plotty stories or character pieces or very meta explorations of fairy tale and archetype would be equally welcome!
Now for the Elizabeth E. Wein block....I'm going to put these together, though, of course, you may have read one and not the other and this is of course okay.
Fandom: Code Name Verity
Characters: Anna Engel, Julie Beaufort-Stuart
I love Anna and Julie so much it makes my heart ache, and I want to see more of the two of them interacting, especially since we get these tantalizing glimpses of the parts of their interactions that Julie was concealing when Anna talks to Maddie. I'm also very interested in Von Linden as a character, so developing either of the women's interactions with him would be much welcome. Anything that gets us inside Anna's head or shows more of Julie's beautiful resilience would be incredible. I've read Rose Under Fire, so it's fine if you want to incorporate any of the addition information on Anna that we get there.
Fandom: Rose Under Fire
Characters: Anna Engel
(Yes, I am indeed requesting the same character in two different books. I love her sort of a lot.) I love Anna, and her bitterness and her brittle strength and her perseverance. Rose Under Fire gave us these hints of her at all different parts of her life, and I would love to see any of them explored - her days in Ravensbruck as a pharmacist and then as a prisoner, her years in post-war Germany, whatever happens after the end of the novel (is she imprisoned? What is that like? What does she do afterwards?). I feel that she deserves a story of her own just as much as Maddie or Rose or Julie!
If Anna really isn't inspiring you right now, I would also love more of Roza or Irina.
So apparently I really like Anna Engel (and also Julie! I love Julie! And Roza and Irinia and Maddie...I adore all of the girls). Pretty much anything you might write about her would thrill me; I think my only caveat with these books is that I wasn't that fond of Jaime/Maddie as a pairing, so if that couldn't be front-and-center in your story I would appreciate it.
If you want to write something romantic, I could absolutely go for Maddie/Julie, Rose/Róza, or Anna/Julie - or probably any of the other possible femslash pairings in this fandom.
Thank you so much and have a wonderful season!