Dear Yuletide Entity
Dear Yuletide Entity,
First, thank you!
In general: I like happy or at least hopeful endings. I'm usually okay with slash, het, or gen; I'm not crazy about 'cest. Gore and graphic violence are squicks; I'd rather not read about any non-con sex that isn't in the source material.
Specifics:
Jennie Lindquist, The Golden Name Day series: These were some of my absolutely favorite books as a child; I loved the depictions of Swedish-American culture and the hints of Polish-American culture, the depictions of New England, the relationships between the characters, everything. This is NOT a fandom where I want a cracky "please ruin my childhood memories" fic; I want a fic that's true to the spirit of the original stories. (I don't consider slash inherently cracky, and I'd be fine with a slash pairing if that's the story that calls you, but given the time period, I would consider "Nancy and Elsa or Alex and Ben are out of the closet and everyone's vocally cool with it!" to be cracky. "These two same-sex characters live together, and everyone acts like they're just housemates" I'd buy.) Other than that, the field is yours.
I nominated the characters Nancy, Elsa, Wanda, and Alex; I'd genuinely be fine with anyone, but I think Yuletide may require you to use one of them. If you really want to write about a character that wasn't nominated, it's fine with me if you meet the requirement by having your main character write to (or *gasp* telephone! wow! new technology!) one of the other characters.
A few random ideas: Something from Wanda's POV, looking at the Polish traditions her family practices. Something set 20-30 years later, where the characters are teaching their children about their Swedish heritage. Elsa travels to Sweden to see where her family came from. Alex's feelings about being a disabled man unable to enlist in WWI, especially if Ben does enlist. (TGND and TLSH take place in 1909-1910, per the date of Easter in the Swedish Almanac in TGND, so Alex would be just about old enough to enlist in 1918.) Swedish funeral and mourning traditions when one of the older family members dies. Swedish wedding traditions when one of the characters marries. Or really, whatever plot bunny grabs you with its little sharp teeth.
Alexandre Dumas, Count of Monte Cristo: I love this book deeply, but every time I reread, I find myself annoyed about the standard Mercédès is held to. Mercédès gets screwed over by the story for the sin of being a woman who decided to go on with her life after losing her beloved (and reasonably believing him to be dead!!!), and I want a happy ending for her. Maybe Edmond returns to her as a widower many years later and they finally marry; maybe she finds a true vocation as a nun and rejoices to have become a bride of Christ; maybe she gets a hot young man as a fantastic lover and life partner; maybe she discovers a talent she hadn't realized she had and creates some really cool stuff. In any case, I want to see her rising above the tragedies of her past to build an amazing and happy life for herself.
Real Genius: Jordan is my favorite character in the movie. I've written one fic about her possible future life (Number One), but I'd like to see someone else's take on what she does after the movie. I want her to still be doing STEM, as I can't see her dropping that and being happy, but I'm open to different takes on what she's doing -- does she work in a lab (or run a lab, God help her postdocs)? Is she in a developing country helping people build helpful tech that they can actually maintain themselves? Is she working for a private spaceflight company? Is she a spy? Is she annoyed because she won the Nobel prize in literature (for the poetry she wrote at nights because she doesn't sleep) rather than the Nobel prize in chemistry? Does she read papers in mathematics journals and play with what they mean for particle physics? Does she run her own business? Give me Jordan being her hyper and smart and fascinating self.
Betsy-Tacy Series, Maud Hart Lovelace: The story I'd really like: Post-WWI, looking at either Betsy Ray Willard or Emily Webster Wakeman. Joe doesn't come home; how does Betsy rebuild her life, especially if Bettina (or Joe Jr.) was conceived while Joe was home on leave for Tib's wedding? Or Jed doesn't come home; Emily's rebuilt herself once, but can she do it again after this larger loss? Or both, and Emily and Betsy become closer friends through dealing with their mutual loss? Or a compare-and-contrast between the two couples -- one man comes home and one doesn't? Given the topic, I don't expect a *happy* ending, but I do want hopeful; the character doesn't have to be okay, but she needs to be able to see "okay" as a place she can get to in a few years.
But if those ideas are too dark for you, then anything with people from the Deep Valley crowd as adults would be interesting, and as with my Golden Name Day requests, if you really want to write about someone who isn't on the nominated characters list, I'm fine with a story about that character (Carney? Cab? Tony?) and a brief cameo by a character who *is* on the list.
Miss Marple, Agatha Christie: Basically, any casefic involving Miss Marple being her wise, implacable, Nemesis self. If you want to write a straight Christie pastiche set in the general timeframe of the novels, great; if you want to write Miss Marple in the days when she lived in St. Mary Mead, that's fine (though I'd prefer her old enough to have developed her "no human evil can shock me, because I know what depths we can sink to" trait); if you want to write Miss Marple set in another place or time or crossover Yuletide-nominated-fandom-verse, go for it -- as long as she's recognizably Jane Marple, observant, calm and unflappable, fiercely intelligent, frighteningly just, easily mistaken for harmless by the ignorant, respected (and somewhat feared) by those who really know her, and of course wielding her knitting, I'll be happy.
Again, thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/56311.html; comment where you like.
First, thank you!
In general: I like happy or at least hopeful endings. I'm usually okay with slash, het, or gen; I'm not crazy about 'cest. Gore and graphic violence are squicks; I'd rather not read about any non-con sex that isn't in the source material.
Specifics:
Jennie Lindquist, The Golden Name Day series: These were some of my absolutely favorite books as a child; I loved the depictions of Swedish-American culture and the hints of Polish-American culture, the depictions of New England, the relationships between the characters, everything. This is NOT a fandom where I want a cracky "please ruin my childhood memories" fic; I want a fic that's true to the spirit of the original stories. (I don't consider slash inherently cracky, and I'd be fine with a slash pairing if that's the story that calls you, but given the time period, I would consider "Nancy and Elsa or Alex and Ben are out of the closet and everyone's vocally cool with it!" to be cracky. "These two same-sex characters live together, and everyone acts like they're just housemates" I'd buy.) Other than that, the field is yours.
I nominated the characters Nancy, Elsa, Wanda, and Alex; I'd genuinely be fine with anyone, but I think Yuletide may require you to use one of them. If you really want to write about a character that wasn't nominated, it's fine with me if you meet the requirement by having your main character write to (or *gasp* telephone! wow! new technology!) one of the other characters.
A few random ideas: Something from Wanda's POV, looking at the Polish traditions her family practices. Something set 20-30 years later, where the characters are teaching their children about their Swedish heritage. Elsa travels to Sweden to see where her family came from. Alex's feelings about being a disabled man unable to enlist in WWI, especially if Ben does enlist. (TGND and TLSH take place in 1909-1910, per the date of Easter in the Swedish Almanac in TGND, so Alex would be just about old enough to enlist in 1918.) Swedish funeral and mourning traditions when one of the older family members dies. Swedish wedding traditions when one of the characters marries. Or really, whatever plot bunny grabs you with its little sharp teeth.
Alexandre Dumas, Count of Monte Cristo: I love this book deeply, but every time I reread, I find myself annoyed about the standard Mercédès is held to. Mercédès gets screwed over by the story for the sin of being a woman who decided to go on with her life after losing her beloved (and reasonably believing him to be dead!!!), and I want a happy ending for her. Maybe Edmond returns to her as a widower many years later and they finally marry; maybe she finds a true vocation as a nun and rejoices to have become a bride of Christ; maybe she gets a hot young man as a fantastic lover and life partner; maybe she discovers a talent she hadn't realized she had and creates some really cool stuff. In any case, I want to see her rising above the tragedies of her past to build an amazing and happy life for herself.
Real Genius: Jordan is my favorite character in the movie. I've written one fic about her possible future life (Number One), but I'd like to see someone else's take on what she does after the movie. I want her to still be doing STEM, as I can't see her dropping that and being happy, but I'm open to different takes on what she's doing -- does she work in a lab (or run a lab, God help her postdocs)? Is she in a developing country helping people build helpful tech that they can actually maintain themselves? Is she working for a private spaceflight company? Is she a spy? Is she annoyed because she won the Nobel prize in literature (for the poetry she wrote at nights because she doesn't sleep) rather than the Nobel prize in chemistry? Does she read papers in mathematics journals and play with what they mean for particle physics? Does she run her own business? Give me Jordan being her hyper and smart and fascinating self.
Betsy-Tacy Series, Maud Hart Lovelace: The story I'd really like: Post-WWI, looking at either Betsy Ray Willard or Emily Webster Wakeman. Joe doesn't come home; how does Betsy rebuild her life, especially if Bettina (or Joe Jr.) was conceived while Joe was home on leave for Tib's wedding? Or Jed doesn't come home; Emily's rebuilt herself once, but can she do it again after this larger loss? Or both, and Emily and Betsy become closer friends through dealing with their mutual loss? Or a compare-and-contrast between the two couples -- one man comes home and one doesn't? Given the topic, I don't expect a *happy* ending, but I do want hopeful; the character doesn't have to be okay, but she needs to be able to see "okay" as a place she can get to in a few years.
But if those ideas are too dark for you, then anything with people from the Deep Valley crowd as adults would be interesting, and as with my Golden Name Day requests, if you really want to write about someone who isn't on the nominated characters list, I'm fine with a story about that character (Carney? Cab? Tony?) and a brief cameo by a character who *is* on the list.
Miss Marple, Agatha Christie: Basically, any casefic involving Miss Marple being her wise, implacable, Nemesis self. If you want to write a straight Christie pastiche set in the general timeframe of the novels, great; if you want to write Miss Marple in the days when she lived in St. Mary Mead, that's fine (though I'd prefer her old enough to have developed her "no human evil can shock me, because I know what depths we can sink to" trait); if you want to write Miss Marple set in another place or time or crossover Yuletide-nominated-fandom-verse, go for it -- as long as she's recognizably Jane Marple, observant, calm and unflappable, fiercely intelligent, frighteningly just, easily mistaken for harmless by the ignorant, respected (and somewhat feared) by those who really know her, and of course wielding her knitting, I'll be happy.
Again, thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
Crossposted from http://castiron.dreamwidth.org/56311.html; comment where you like.