Dear Yuletide Author
Hello, dear Yuletide writer!
Fantastic, we share a fandom and characters! Great! I’ll be really happy for fic about any of these, as there simply isn’t enough. I try to provide lots of prompts and general likes and such in the hope that it helps you on with your writing, but you don’t need to feel any pressure to incorporate specific likes or use specific prompts. I’m always happy with either gen or shippy fic, and even if the request sounded like I’d prefer shippy, rest assured that gen is always wonderful and welcome, too. You can always modify or combine prompts, too, or take a shippy-sounding prompt and turn it gen or vice versa.
I’m listing my general likes, dislikes and DNWs, and then each request and some additional prompts and details for it. I first include the request as it was in the sign-up, and then provide some additional details. Except for the Count of Monte Cristo request, because it was already in a sort of a prompt list format, so I simply expanded it. (And included some gen prompts and ideas as well, because I realised after the sign-ups that I’d written the request with shippy assumptions.)
As long as you avoid my DNWs, feel free to create anything you like with these fandoms and characters, and I hope you will have fun writing!
General likes:
- Historical stuff
- Space stuff, science stuff
- Adventures
- Romance
- Daily slices of life, domestic
- Emotions and relationship stuff, including friendship and family
- Women being awesome, women supporting each other
- Books, music, geekiness
- Humour
- Mild to moderate angst with a happy/comforting/hopeful ending
- Hurt/comfort (leaning rather towards the comfort than the hurt)
- Friendship and found/chosen family; intense feelings about friends
- Touching, hugging, clinging, physical comfort, whether platonic or not
- Friends to lovers scenarios
- Epistolary fic
- Banter
- Canon divergence AUs (what if…)
- Missing scenes
- Past fic, pre-canon
- Future fic
- In shippy stories, I’m happy with anything from the most general-audiences handholding and loving looks to full-out porn, and anything in between. But even in stories with lots of sex, I don’t want the story to be just about the sex, but especially about the characters and their relationship.
General dislikes and Do Not Wants
- Gore, descriptive violence, permanent character death, torture.
- Horror (beyond mild gothic horror)
- Domestic abuse or abusive relationships, especially between the requested characters or any canon pairing they are/have been in.
- Non-con, underage sex (under 16), characters being uncomfortable with the sex they’re having
- Character bashing
- A/B/O scenarios
- Wildly different AUs of the coffee shop / high school / college / werewolf / vampire / pirates / etc. variety. - Canon divergence is fine.
- Porn focusing heavily on a specific kink. Don’t want to see the following kinks at all: watersports, scat, mpreg, bloodplay, breathplay, ageplay, animal play, mommy/daddy kink.
Requests:
Emma - Jane Austen
Characters: Emma Woodhouse (Emma - Austen), Jane Fairfax (Emma - Austen)
Request: I always loved Jane Fairfax and wished we could have got to know her better, and Emma's intense rivalry of her that eventually changes into appreciation is one of my favourite relationships in the book. I'd love exploring their relationship either after the canon ending, when they are becoming friends, or at some unexplored canon point or even before canon. I'd also really love femslash, since I think they'd be great for each other, and Emma's intense rivalry of Jane could very well conceal feelings she doesn't want to admit to herself. Emma is, after all, excellent at not knowing her own heart. I'd also totally love a canon divergence where instead of getting married to their canon men, Emma and Jane end up together.
One of my favourite Austen books, only I always wanted more of the relationship between these two characters. Regardless of whether you go gen or femslash, stay in the canon story or go canon divergence AU, you can do with the canon pairings what you will or not use them at all, but I would prefer not a huge focus on the marriages (either Emma to Mr Knightley or Jane to Frank Churchill). I don't hate them, but they're not my favourite things either and I would rather focus on these two ladies. But if the marriages provide an useful background, go for it.
Specific prompts, if you want to use any:
- Emma tries to be better and more studious from now on, but it isn’t always easy. Perhaps Jane can help her.
- If Jane indeed ends up married to Frank Churchill, I doubt he’s really going to be as good a husband as she deserves. Perhaps Emma can offer her some support.
- Jane and Emma catching up on the years of friendship they’ve missed.
- Jane’s point of view on Emma or some of the events in canon.
- A canon divergence AU where Emma tries to matchmake for Jane and discovers she herself has feelings for her.
- Something involving correspondence! I have such a weakness for letters.
- Emma is nothing if not determined and strong of will. I could imagine her using this to defend Jane if any problem arises for her, or to convince Jane to stand up for herself in some way, and this could be fascinating to see.
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo | Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Characters: Eugénie Danglars, Louise d’Armilly
These two are obviously a lesbian couple in a 19th century novel (er, hopefully nobody who offered the fandom and the characters disagrees about that?) and I love that and love them. I'll be happy with anything more of their relationship. Here are some suggestions:
- What happens to them after the events described in the book. How will their life (and their artistic careers) turn out?
- some of their courtship either before or during the times we see them in the book. How they become interested in each other, become aware of their feelings, and how their relationship progresses behind the scenes. Eugénie being quite the intellectual lady and writing poetry, it could also be fascinating to see the written word play a role - Eugénie’s poetry, letters, anything you like.
- If you don’t want to write a shippy story, it would be intriguing simply to see how they became so friendly and close originally, and how the whole thing went down with Eugénie’s family. After all, it says that Eugénie can’t be seen with Louise publicly because she is destined for stage, but at the same time, it seems quite fine that they spend extensive amounts of time together.
- Anything involving music, their musical careers, rehearsing, Louise teaching Eugénie, four-handed piano playing, etc. Seeing how they get started in their life in Rome would be interesting. Are they going to be off to a successful start and or find a lot of obstacles on the way? How is Eugénie, accustomed to wealth and luxury, going to adapt to her new circumstances as an aspiring artist? Do they get to perform together in something?
- Feel free to include any other characters from the novel, especially any of the women. I'm particularly interested in Valentine and how her relationship with Eugénie is, and Haydée (whose beauty Eugénie admires in the opera, and whom I would love to see more of away from that whole "father figure as love interest" thing she has going on in the book, because she's pretty amazing in her bravery and determination).
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Characters: Fanny Price (Mansfield Park - Austen), Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park - Austen)
Request: I'd love anything where these two have to come closer and understand each other better, and especially Fanny has to overcome her strong dismissal of Mary that we see in canon. I have a craving for femslash between these two, because there's such weird and fascinating intensity between them and Mary seems to genuinely like Fanny ,and Fanny can't quite stop thinking about her either; but I would also be happy with a story where they become friends or at least appreciate each other and cooperate on something. It could take place within canon, after the canon, or diverge from canon at some point.
I like this book a lot, with a lot of caveats. I won't launch into a several-page essay now; for the purpose of this request, I will just say that: I would love to see how Fanny might have to reconsider her very strict judgements on people and their morality and introduce more shades of grey into her worldview; I would love to see sides of Mary that the canon doesn't show, and I feel that both Fanny and the canon narration are at least somewhat unfairly biased against her; I would also love to see in more depth how she's affected by some of the goings-on in canon, or how the story might have turned out differently. I don't like Edmund or the fact that the book has Fanny get married to him in the end, so I'd be more than fine with either problematizing that relationship at least somewhat, or simply not having him around or only in the background. No offence meant to anyone with different tastes.
Specific prompts, if you want to use any:
- Something involving Mary’s harp playing. I have a fascination with music, and considering how delicate and ethereal the harp sounds, I like to think her skill with the instrument could point to a side of her that the canon doesn’t show. Fanny being such an introspective, sensitive character, it could become a fascinating point of contact for them, even if in the society of the time an accomplished young lady like Mary also just ”had” to have an instrument or other artistic skill.
- Something involving that fateful play, or some other form of theatre. The scene where Mary asked Fanny to rehearse with her was fascinating, and as I personally love theatre, I would love it to end up having a different role in their relationship than it did in the book.
- Any time after the canon ending, Mary reaches out to Fanny in some way, or they’re brought together by coincidence. They’re both changed by the events of the book, and their situations are different. How does their relationship develop?
- A canon divergence where neither Fanny nor Mary gets married, but instead they get to know each other better, maybe become spinsters together (and/or lovers, if you want to go there). Or a canon divergence where marriages work out differently than they do in the book.
- Mary’s point of view to some events in the book that brings out a different perspective of her than the narration of the book gives.
Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Characters: Rosemary Harper, Sissix Seshketet, Kizzy Shao
This series and especially the Wayfarer crew are my happy place, and these three are among my favourite characters, and I'd love anything with them! Friendship and camaraderie, daily domestics aboard the Wayfarer, a trip to a planet or a moon, space adventures, Kizzy's weird inventions, etc. Feel free to include any other Wayfarer crew members or even characters from the other books in the series, I love them all.
This can very well be gen with Rosemary and Sissix's relationship in the background (or only developing, if you set it during canon), or you can focus more on their relationship and leave Kizzy to a somewhat smaller role if you prefer. But even if it's mainly a Rosemary/Sissix fic, I'd like the Wayfarer and its crew to be present at least in the role of Kizzy, because being on the Wayfarer together and being part of that crew and found family is such an integral part of their relationship. I also love the crew being Sissix's feather family, so anything involving that would be lovely.
I threw a few specific prompts into the request details already, but here are a few more, in the case they get your brain going:
- Kizzy taking them to meet her fathers and have those lovely pancakes.
- Kizzy’s reaction to finding out Rosemary and Sissix are together. That must have been a delight!
- Comfort or relaxation after the events in the end of the book.
- Rosemary and Sissix trying to have something like a romantic evening together (to the extent that the Aandrisk concept of relationships lends itself to romanticism, anyway) but crew members, Wayfarer technical issues, surprise space adventures or anything else you like keep interrupting them.
- Trying out weird new foods or traditions (weird and new for at least one of the characters, not necessarily all of them).
- Food things in general. I love Dr. Chef, just for the record.
- Cultural misunderstandings, or very earnest attempts to navigate one another’s cultural habits that don’t quite work out. For example, Sissix trying to do something for Rosemary that Rosemary would find romantic, consulting Kizzy and/or Ashby for what that could be, and not quite getting it right.
- Something involving arts and entertainment, or navigating one of the world’s many subcultures.
- Exploring the Aandrisk family concepts in any way, I find that culture fascinating!
This entry was originally posted at https://auroracloud.dreamwidth.org/75822.html. Feel free to comment on either site.
Fantastic, we share a fandom and characters! Great! I’ll be really happy for fic about any of these, as there simply isn’t enough. I try to provide lots of prompts and general likes and such in the hope that it helps you on with your writing, but you don’t need to feel any pressure to incorporate specific likes or use specific prompts. I’m always happy with either gen or shippy fic, and even if the request sounded like I’d prefer shippy, rest assured that gen is always wonderful and welcome, too. You can always modify or combine prompts, too, or take a shippy-sounding prompt and turn it gen or vice versa.
I’m listing my general likes, dislikes and DNWs, and then each request and some additional prompts and details for it. I first include the request as it was in the sign-up, and then provide some additional details. Except for the Count of Monte Cristo request, because it was already in a sort of a prompt list format, so I simply expanded it. (And included some gen prompts and ideas as well, because I realised after the sign-ups that I’d written the request with shippy assumptions.)
As long as you avoid my DNWs, feel free to create anything you like with these fandoms and characters, and I hope you will have fun writing!
General likes:
- Historical stuff
- Space stuff, science stuff
- Adventures
- Romance
- Daily slices of life, domestic
- Emotions and relationship stuff, including friendship and family
- Women being awesome, women supporting each other
- Books, music, geekiness
- Humour
- Mild to moderate angst with a happy/comforting/hopeful ending
- Hurt/comfort (leaning rather towards the comfort than the hurt)
- Friendship and found/chosen family; intense feelings about friends
- Touching, hugging, clinging, physical comfort, whether platonic or not
- Friends to lovers scenarios
- Epistolary fic
- Banter
- Canon divergence AUs (what if…)
- Missing scenes
- Past fic, pre-canon
- Future fic
- In shippy stories, I’m happy with anything from the most general-audiences handholding and loving looks to full-out porn, and anything in between. But even in stories with lots of sex, I don’t want the story to be just about the sex, but especially about the characters and their relationship.
General dislikes and Do Not Wants
- Gore, descriptive violence, permanent character death, torture.
- Horror (beyond mild gothic horror)
- Domestic abuse or abusive relationships, especially between the requested characters or any canon pairing they are/have been in.
- Non-con, underage sex (under 16), characters being uncomfortable with the sex they’re having
- Character bashing
- A/B/O scenarios
- Wildly different AUs of the coffee shop / high school / college / werewolf / vampire / pirates / etc. variety. - Canon divergence is fine.
- Porn focusing heavily on a specific kink. Don’t want to see the following kinks at all: watersports, scat, mpreg, bloodplay, breathplay, ageplay, animal play, mommy/daddy kink.
Requests:
Emma - Jane Austen
Characters: Emma Woodhouse (Emma - Austen), Jane Fairfax (Emma - Austen)
Request: I always loved Jane Fairfax and wished we could have got to know her better, and Emma's intense rivalry of her that eventually changes into appreciation is one of my favourite relationships in the book. I'd love exploring their relationship either after the canon ending, when they are becoming friends, or at some unexplored canon point or even before canon. I'd also really love femslash, since I think they'd be great for each other, and Emma's intense rivalry of Jane could very well conceal feelings she doesn't want to admit to herself. Emma is, after all, excellent at not knowing her own heart. I'd also totally love a canon divergence where instead of getting married to their canon men, Emma and Jane end up together.
One of my favourite Austen books, only I always wanted more of the relationship between these two characters. Regardless of whether you go gen or femslash, stay in the canon story or go canon divergence AU, you can do with the canon pairings what you will or not use them at all, but I would prefer not a huge focus on the marriages (either Emma to Mr Knightley or Jane to Frank Churchill). I don't hate them, but they're not my favourite things either and I would rather focus on these two ladies. But if the marriages provide an useful background, go for it.
Specific prompts, if you want to use any:
- Emma tries to be better and more studious from now on, but it isn’t always easy. Perhaps Jane can help her.
- If Jane indeed ends up married to Frank Churchill, I doubt he’s really going to be as good a husband as she deserves. Perhaps Emma can offer her some support.
- Jane and Emma catching up on the years of friendship they’ve missed.
- Jane’s point of view on Emma or some of the events in canon.
- A canon divergence AU where Emma tries to matchmake for Jane and discovers she herself has feelings for her.
- Something involving correspondence! I have such a weakness for letters.
- Emma is nothing if not determined and strong of will. I could imagine her using this to defend Jane if any problem arises for her, or to convince Jane to stand up for herself in some way, and this could be fascinating to see.
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo | Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Characters: Eugénie Danglars, Louise d’Armilly
These two are obviously a lesbian couple in a 19th century novel (er, hopefully nobody who offered the fandom and the characters disagrees about that?) and I love that and love them. I'll be happy with anything more of their relationship. Here are some suggestions:
- What happens to them after the events described in the book. How will their life (and their artistic careers) turn out?
- some of their courtship either before or during the times we see them in the book. How they become interested in each other, become aware of their feelings, and how their relationship progresses behind the scenes. Eugénie being quite the intellectual lady and writing poetry, it could also be fascinating to see the written word play a role - Eugénie’s poetry, letters, anything you like.
- If you don’t want to write a shippy story, it would be intriguing simply to see how they became so friendly and close originally, and how the whole thing went down with Eugénie’s family. After all, it says that Eugénie can’t be seen with Louise publicly because she is destined for stage, but at the same time, it seems quite fine that they spend extensive amounts of time together.
- Anything involving music, their musical careers, rehearsing, Louise teaching Eugénie, four-handed piano playing, etc. Seeing how they get started in their life in Rome would be interesting. Are they going to be off to a successful start and or find a lot of obstacles on the way? How is Eugénie, accustomed to wealth and luxury, going to adapt to her new circumstances as an aspiring artist? Do they get to perform together in something?
- Feel free to include any other characters from the novel, especially any of the women. I'm particularly interested in Valentine and how her relationship with Eugénie is, and Haydée (whose beauty Eugénie admires in the opera, and whom I would love to see more of away from that whole "father figure as love interest" thing she has going on in the book, because she's pretty amazing in her bravery and determination).
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Characters: Fanny Price (Mansfield Park - Austen), Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park - Austen)
Request: I'd love anything where these two have to come closer and understand each other better, and especially Fanny has to overcome her strong dismissal of Mary that we see in canon. I have a craving for femslash between these two, because there's such weird and fascinating intensity between them and Mary seems to genuinely like Fanny ,and Fanny can't quite stop thinking about her either; but I would also be happy with a story where they become friends or at least appreciate each other and cooperate on something. It could take place within canon, after the canon, or diverge from canon at some point.
I like this book a lot, with a lot of caveats. I won't launch into a several-page essay now; for the purpose of this request, I will just say that: I would love to see how Fanny might have to reconsider her very strict judgements on people and their morality and introduce more shades of grey into her worldview; I would love to see sides of Mary that the canon doesn't show, and I feel that both Fanny and the canon narration are at least somewhat unfairly biased against her; I would also love to see in more depth how she's affected by some of the goings-on in canon, or how the story might have turned out differently. I don't like Edmund or the fact that the book has Fanny get married to him in the end, so I'd be more than fine with either problematizing that relationship at least somewhat, or simply not having him around or only in the background. No offence meant to anyone with different tastes.
Specific prompts, if you want to use any:
- Something involving Mary’s harp playing. I have a fascination with music, and considering how delicate and ethereal the harp sounds, I like to think her skill with the instrument could point to a side of her that the canon doesn’t show. Fanny being such an introspective, sensitive character, it could become a fascinating point of contact for them, even if in the society of the time an accomplished young lady like Mary also just ”had” to have an instrument or other artistic skill.
- Something involving that fateful play, or some other form of theatre. The scene where Mary asked Fanny to rehearse with her was fascinating, and as I personally love theatre, I would love it to end up having a different role in their relationship than it did in the book.
- Any time after the canon ending, Mary reaches out to Fanny in some way, or they’re brought together by coincidence. They’re both changed by the events of the book, and their situations are different. How does their relationship develop?
- A canon divergence where neither Fanny nor Mary gets married, but instead they get to know each other better, maybe become spinsters together (and/or lovers, if you want to go there). Or a canon divergence where marriages work out differently than they do in the book.
- Mary’s point of view to some events in the book that brings out a different perspective of her than the narration of the book gives.
Wayfarers Series - Becky Chambers
Characters: Rosemary Harper, Sissix Seshketet, Kizzy Shao
This series and especially the Wayfarer crew are my happy place, and these three are among my favourite characters, and I'd love anything with them! Friendship and camaraderie, daily domestics aboard the Wayfarer, a trip to a planet or a moon, space adventures, Kizzy's weird inventions, etc. Feel free to include any other Wayfarer crew members or even characters from the other books in the series, I love them all.
This can very well be gen with Rosemary and Sissix's relationship in the background (or only developing, if you set it during canon), or you can focus more on their relationship and leave Kizzy to a somewhat smaller role if you prefer. But even if it's mainly a Rosemary/Sissix fic, I'd like the Wayfarer and its crew to be present at least in the role of Kizzy, because being on the Wayfarer together and being part of that crew and found family is such an integral part of their relationship. I also love the crew being Sissix's feather family, so anything involving that would be lovely.
I threw a few specific prompts into the request details already, but here are a few more, in the case they get your brain going:
- Kizzy taking them to meet her fathers and have those lovely pancakes.
- Kizzy’s reaction to finding out Rosemary and Sissix are together. That must have been a delight!
- Comfort or relaxation after the events in the end of the book.
- Rosemary and Sissix trying to have something like a romantic evening together (to the extent that the Aandrisk concept of relationships lends itself to romanticism, anyway) but crew members, Wayfarer technical issues, surprise space adventures or anything else you like keep interrupting them.
- Trying out weird new foods or traditions (weird and new for at least one of the characters, not necessarily all of them).
- Food things in general. I love Dr. Chef, just for the record.
- Cultural misunderstandings, or very earnest attempts to navigate one another’s cultural habits that don’t quite work out. For example, Sissix trying to do something for Rosemary that Rosemary would find romantic, consulting Kizzy and/or Ashby for what that could be, and not quite getting it right.
- Something involving arts and entertainment, or navigating one of the world’s many subcultures.
- Exploring the Aandrisk family concepts in any way, I find that culture fascinating!
This entry was originally posted at https://auroracloud.dreamwidth.org/75822.html. Feel free to comment on either site.