Yuletide Letter 2016
Dear Yuletide Author,
Thank you very much for writing for me this year! I am very excited about the fandoms I've requested this year (all of them are as-yet unfilled repeats from previous Yuletides, so whichever one you write for you will be an extraordinary excitement), and looking forward very much to whatever you come up with. As ever, don't worry about matching anything in this letter or my requests exactly; everything here is only if it's helpful to you.
If you want to get a sense of my tastes, I’m on AO3 also as Assimbya, and currently a little more active on tumblr as chthonic-cassandra.
I tend to write meditative female character-centric gen about trauma recovery, and/or fucked-up dub-con darkfic, and those are both totally things I love to read about as well, but neither of those are your style, no worries! I also really, really love romance(particularly in poly relationships), sexy D/s stuff, and world-building or plot-heavy casefic; I'm just not as good at writing any of those.
Some assorted other things I like in fic: complicated or tense relationship negotiation, power dynamics (sexual or not); poly relationships; little moments of hope/resilience within suffering; canon divergence ('what if?' AUs), darkfic/horror, D/s and related kink (especially bondage, humiliation, pain - I'm into healthy and negotiated kink and also fucked-up dub or non-con stuff), depictions of trauma recovery or otherwise putting one's life together after devastation, characters who are smart and competent and passionate about things; allusion, experimention, meta-fictional stuff, playfulness with form; historical details and world-building; things in generally being complicated and messy and nuanced.
Some things I’d prefer not to read about: dub-con which involves ‘they secretly wanted it’ or ‘they didn’t want it at first but then learned they actually did’ tropes (other kinds of dub- or non-con are fine); setting-changing AUs; crossovers; PWP (any level of explicit content is fine - one exception for Alice in Wonderland, below, where I would prefer no sex at all - but I prefer when sex isn’t the entire focus of a fic); heavy focus on bodily fluids of any kind; focus on animal harm or death; pregnancy or being a parent of young children
Les Contes d'Hoffman - Olympia, Giulietta, Dapertutto
I would love a story that gives some more development to one (or more!) of the women and/or villains of the internal stories of the opera. I’ve requested Olympia, Giulietta, and Dapertutto, but I’d be fine with a story that only includes one or two of them if that works better for you.
Some questions I'd be interested in seeing explored:
- What kind of consciousness does Olympia have, and how might it challenge the assumptions made about her both by her inventors and by Hoffman himself?
- What is actually going on with Giulietta, and how did she become involved with a reflection-stealing sorcerer in the first place?
- Could the villains have some kind of shared consciousness that persists through the various inset narratives - could Dapertutto be deliberately engineering all of Hoffman's weird experiences? What about the women, different as they are?
Meta-fictional experiments with the form of the opera would be awesome, as would more straightforward narratives that flesh out these pretty under-developed characters. I would be happy with a dark and eerie tone on this fandom, or a gentle or whimsical one.
So, I keep trying with this one, and no one bites! I think it's such a weird, fic-worthy opera, and I keep hoping that someone else thinks so too. As suggested in my prompt, I'd love something either as weird and out there or as straightforward as you like. Olympia and artificial intelligence/constructions of femininity would be awesome; so would Giulietta and her magic; so would villain/heroine stuff. I'm not so interested in something that focuses on Hoffman himself - frankly, I find him way less interesting than any of the characters who surround him.
Elemental Logic - Zanja
I love Zanja very, very, very much. I love her magic and her religious faith; her tendency towards self-sacrifice and her storytelling; I love her romance with Karis and her friendship with Emil; I love her as a survivor of torture and genocide, who has lost everything she once had but keeps her faith and her sense of purpose, even when she is hallucinating or despairing.
I would be delighted with a story that explored almost any part of her life (caveat because I'm not that interested in further extrapolations of the period of Water Logic), and especially one which involved some degree of Zanja/Karis, whose romance I adore. Maybe something about Zanja's recovery early on in Fire Logic, or taking place in the gap between Fire Logic and Earth Logic? Or something focusing on her religious faith? I would love to see Zanja and Karis working out the rough spaces and their relationship and learning how to be meaningfully supportive partners to one another, or something about Zanja on her own, fighting injustice or making meaning inside her own head.
Looking at this prompt I see it's very Zanja/Karis-centric - obviously I ship them, but Zanja on her own is equally exciting, and friendship stuff with Emil and Medric would also be great. Feel free to make Zanja and Karis poly if you want to pair her with anyone else, but I would rather not break them up.
I'd rather not anything that treats Zanja's religious faith as a false or trivial in any way, including her self-sacrifice in Earth Logic, which I was personally very moved by (I know it was a controversial plot choice! I don't know, I like sacrificial heroine stuff, I do Greek tragedy).
Alice in Wonderland - Bill the Lizard
I didn't nominate this fandom or this character, but I was delighted beyond belief that they were nominated! I have a very great fondness for Bill, and have always felt sad at how horribly he is treated by his fellow characters. I would very much like a story in which something positive happens to Bill for once - maybe he gets to go to a tea party, or grows particularly lovely cucumbers, I don't know.
My favorite characters in Wonderland are the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, so Bill somehow interacting with (maybe being accepted by?) them would be lovely.
Either light or serious is fine with this prompt, but I would prefer no straight-up darkfic, as I really am not into that with Wonderland - treating the characters/setting either emotionally realistically or whimsically would both be great though. Clever wordplay or thoughtful intersections with Looking-Glass Land or The Hunter of Snark would be amazing bonuses.
Okay, so funny story about this prompt: I made almost exactly this request in my first Yuletide, 10+ years ago. No one filled it then, and I let it drop off my requests over the years. This year I saw the character nominations, and I was astonished - someone else wants a story about Bill the Lizard! How can it be! So, I'm a little giddy about this still.
I've read lots of Carroll, so if you have too and want to pull in things from his other books, I would be delighted, but no need if you'd rather not. I would prefer that nothing from any of the movies/other adaptations canon makes its way in, and also am really, really, really not a fan of edgy darkfic Alice AUs - this is a place in which my dislike of setting-changing AUs is even stronger than usual.
(The one sort of Alice interpretation theory that I do ascribe to is the thesis of the Jonathan Miller film - that Wonderland is in some ways a child's interpretation of the absurdity of middle-class Victorian adult life. If you're interested in that informing your story, sure. But I'd rather no 'Alice is actually mentally ill!' stuff.)
In this fandom alone I would prefer no explicit sexual content. Shippy stuff is fine - I ship Mock Turtle/Gryphon and Hatter/Hare, not sure who Bill might be happy with but am open to ideas - but actual sex would be a squick for me here.
Thank you so much!
Thank you very much for writing for me this year! I am very excited about the fandoms I've requested this year (all of them are as-yet unfilled repeats from previous Yuletides, so whichever one you write for you will be an extraordinary excitement), and looking forward very much to whatever you come up with. As ever, don't worry about matching anything in this letter or my requests exactly; everything here is only if it's helpful to you.
If you want to get a sense of my tastes, I’m on AO3 also as Assimbya, and currently a little more active on tumblr as chthonic-cassandra.
I tend to write meditative female character-centric gen about trauma recovery, and/or fucked-up dub-con darkfic, and those are both totally things I love to read about as well, but neither of those are your style, no worries! I also really, really love romance(particularly in poly relationships), sexy D/s stuff, and world-building or plot-heavy casefic; I'm just not as good at writing any of those.
Some assorted other things I like in fic: complicated or tense relationship negotiation, power dynamics (sexual or not); poly relationships; little moments of hope/resilience within suffering; canon divergence ('what if?' AUs), darkfic/horror, D/s and related kink (especially bondage, humiliation, pain - I'm into healthy and negotiated kink and also fucked-up dub or non-con stuff), depictions of trauma recovery or otherwise putting one's life together after devastation, characters who are smart and competent and passionate about things; allusion, experimention, meta-fictional stuff, playfulness with form; historical details and world-building; things in generally being complicated and messy and nuanced.
Some things I’d prefer not to read about: dub-con which involves ‘they secretly wanted it’ or ‘they didn’t want it at first but then learned they actually did’ tropes (other kinds of dub- or non-con are fine); setting-changing AUs; crossovers; PWP (any level of explicit content is fine - one exception for Alice in Wonderland, below, where I would prefer no sex at all - but I prefer when sex isn’t the entire focus of a fic); heavy focus on bodily fluids of any kind; focus on animal harm or death; pregnancy or being a parent of young children
Les Contes d'Hoffman - Olympia, Giulietta, Dapertutto
I would love a story that gives some more development to one (or more!) of the women and/or villains of the internal stories of the opera. I’ve requested Olympia, Giulietta, and Dapertutto, but I’d be fine with a story that only includes one or two of them if that works better for you.
Some questions I'd be interested in seeing explored:
- What kind of consciousness does Olympia have, and how might it challenge the assumptions made about her both by her inventors and by Hoffman himself?
- What is actually going on with Giulietta, and how did she become involved with a reflection-stealing sorcerer in the first place?
- Could the villains have some kind of shared consciousness that persists through the various inset narratives - could Dapertutto be deliberately engineering all of Hoffman's weird experiences? What about the women, different as they are?
Meta-fictional experiments with the form of the opera would be awesome, as would more straightforward narratives that flesh out these pretty under-developed characters. I would be happy with a dark and eerie tone on this fandom, or a gentle or whimsical one.
So, I keep trying with this one, and no one bites! I think it's such a weird, fic-worthy opera, and I keep hoping that someone else thinks so too. As suggested in my prompt, I'd love something either as weird and out there or as straightforward as you like. Olympia and artificial intelligence/constructions of femininity would be awesome; so would Giulietta and her magic; so would villain/heroine stuff. I'm not so interested in something that focuses on Hoffman himself - frankly, I find him way less interesting than any of the characters who surround him.
Elemental Logic - Zanja
I love Zanja very, very, very much. I love her magic and her religious faith; her tendency towards self-sacrifice and her storytelling; I love her romance with Karis and her friendship with Emil; I love her as a survivor of torture and genocide, who has lost everything she once had but keeps her faith and her sense of purpose, even when she is hallucinating or despairing.
I would be delighted with a story that explored almost any part of her life (caveat because I'm not that interested in further extrapolations of the period of Water Logic), and especially one which involved some degree of Zanja/Karis, whose romance I adore. Maybe something about Zanja's recovery early on in Fire Logic, or taking place in the gap between Fire Logic and Earth Logic? Or something focusing on her religious faith? I would love to see Zanja and Karis working out the rough spaces and their relationship and learning how to be meaningfully supportive partners to one another, or something about Zanja on her own, fighting injustice or making meaning inside her own head.
Looking at this prompt I see it's very Zanja/Karis-centric - obviously I ship them, but Zanja on her own is equally exciting, and friendship stuff with Emil and Medric would also be great. Feel free to make Zanja and Karis poly if you want to pair her with anyone else, but I would rather not break them up.
I'd rather not anything that treats Zanja's religious faith as a false or trivial in any way, including her self-sacrifice in Earth Logic, which I was personally very moved by (I know it was a controversial plot choice! I don't know, I like sacrificial heroine stuff, I do Greek tragedy).
Alice in Wonderland - Bill the Lizard
I didn't nominate this fandom or this character, but I was delighted beyond belief that they were nominated! I have a very great fondness for Bill, and have always felt sad at how horribly he is treated by his fellow characters. I would very much like a story in which something positive happens to Bill for once - maybe he gets to go to a tea party, or grows particularly lovely cucumbers, I don't know.
My favorite characters in Wonderland are the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, so Bill somehow interacting with (maybe being accepted by?) them would be lovely.
Either light or serious is fine with this prompt, but I would prefer no straight-up darkfic, as I really am not into that with Wonderland - treating the characters/setting either emotionally realistically or whimsically would both be great though. Clever wordplay or thoughtful intersections with Looking-Glass Land or The Hunter of Snark would be amazing bonuses.
Okay, so funny story about this prompt: I made almost exactly this request in my first Yuletide, 10+ years ago. No one filled it then, and I let it drop off my requests over the years. This year I saw the character nominations, and I was astonished - someone else wants a story about Bill the Lizard! How can it be! So, I'm a little giddy about this still.
I've read lots of Carroll, so if you have too and want to pull in things from his other books, I would be delighted, but no need if you'd rather not. I would prefer that nothing from any of the movies/other adaptations canon makes its way in, and also am really, really, really not a fan of edgy darkfic Alice AUs - this is a place in which my dislike of setting-changing AUs is even stronger than usual.
(The one sort of Alice interpretation theory that I do ascribe to is the thesis of the Jonathan Miller film - that Wonderland is in some ways a child's interpretation of the absurdity of middle-class Victorian adult life. If you're interested in that informing your story, sure. But I'd rather no 'Alice is actually mentally ill!' stuff.)
In this fandom alone I would prefer no explicit sexual content. Shippy stuff is fine - I ship Mock Turtle/Gryphon and Hatter/Hare, not sure who Bill might be happy with but am open to ideas - but actual sex would be a squick for me here.
Thank you so much!