Yuletide 2017
Dear Yuletide Writer
Thanks for taking a look at this letter! I have a bunch of ideas here - I hope they help give some inspiration. Feel free to do something that doesn't stick to these ideas! I'm interested in a lot of things, and something you want to write is far more likely to be fun to read. As long as it doesn't hit any points on my DNW list, it's all good.
--
Etnoe
General likes: worldbuilding, epistolary/in-universe documentation stories, larger-than-life events and personalities, body swap (but uh, preferably no more than is canon for Get Out), soulmate AU (platonic or romantic are both good), body horror, arranged relationships, role swap AUs, PWP*
* Possible kinks, but don't feel limited to these: Sex as comfort, rough sex (including rough-but-light-hearted), sensation play, ritual sex, scent kink, furtive & hurried liaisons (especially still-half-clothed), in heat, marking, sex pollen, touch starvation, impreg (in kinky dirty talk or actually happening for the characters), xeno.
Please do not include: unhappy endings with zero hope (bittersweet is fine), infidelity/cheating, rape, death of major characters (where it's not prompted), detailed torture, spanking, fisting, Dom/sub, underage sex. And a specific DNW for Get Out: Chris or Rod being arrested on anything more than a really short, limited basis.
Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
Korse, Motorbaby | Grace, Kobra Kid, Party Poison. (All of them do not have to be included in the fic.)
There is a primer with links to the major elements of the universe outside of the album itself: A Fabulous Killjoys Primer by kidjoy. I don't know the comics or much about the band, but feel free to include whatever provides inspiration so long as it's easy to follow.
I love the mood of the album and the videos - the freedom hunting and self-indulgent thrill-seeking, the rebellion against how the world works, finding a new kind of home and way of living, the whole extremely nonsensical dystopia with tightknit gangs of misfits in fab outfits racing away from really weird police on fancy vehicles as they wail about saving each other: HELL YEAH.
Why does Korse tell them to keep running in the "Na Na Na" video, and how does he get away with that when he reports back? Has Korse ever captured Party Poison pre-music video canon? And what is he screaming at him about in the beginning of "Na Na Na"? In the "Sing" video Korse seems to be kept on ice until activated by someone else - how willing is he to be working for Better Living Industries?
I'd love more context for the Danger Days story: How the gang came to be in the zones, including Motorbaby. How they picked their names. Party Poison becoming the leader. Kobra Kid getting himself ghosted (perhaps during the events outlined in "The Only Hope For Me Is You"?) as mentioned in "Jet-Star and the Kobra Kid/Traffic Report". The others taking revenge on Kobra Kid's behalf.
Anything riffing off the lines "You can run away with me / any time you want" + "highways I call home". Who's encouraging who to run away? Maybe the Killjoys are trying to make everyone in the safer zones get out of there. Maybe something about Motorbaby settling into the Killjoys lifestyle, and being surprised to find herself enjoying the quieter times after all the excitement.
Feel free to do pretty messed-up things with this canon! Hero/villain, mind control, something riffing off "cut my hair / gag and bore me", hardscrabble survival life, constant violent battles...
"Everybody wants to save the world / but no one, no one wants to die" vs. the slogan "Killjoys never die". Are the runaways who decide to go under the name Killjoys the ones who make themselves known as fighters against the ruling powers - is that why they're heroes? Have they managed to turn themselves into zombies?
Taking metaphorical lines from songs as if they were literal, or at least worked in a magical realism way - e.g. "Gravity / don't mean to much to me" to mean one of the Killjoys isn't really affected by it and almost feels like everyone else is making a big fuss about nothing. The kind of relationship that could result from someone with a bulletproof heart meeting someone with a hollow-point smile. "Eight legs to the wall" what happened to this person--or maybe they're wearing a costume, or spider mutations are pretty prestigious.
A depiction of the "Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back" situation; desperate last stands for the sake of friends are great. A last-minute rescue/escape wouldn't hurt! But anything works so long as the others escape.
Why is Grace important to both sides and where does she want to be? She seems to love being with the Killjoys but to be pretty okay in Better Living Industries too, which is interesting to me. It's sweet when she sends a card to her mother, and I'd love more about that.
What kind of horrifying/hilariously over-the-top articles go in the magazine Modern Exterminator? Also Shiny and Murder. Is anyone in the publishing industry trying to send out the kind of messages that the Killjoys send out via radio? And then it also cracks me up that the Venda-hack dispenses batteries and RAY GUNS. What kind of economy is this! More like that would be great.
Genghis Khan
Characters: Gold Nose Villain, Secret Agent
Link to the music video: the official Genghis Khan vid. It is adorable and ate my brain. I would love more of these two in any capacity, as long as they get to be happy.
My favourite part is Secret Agent doing an about-face and wielding the jazz-hand of declared intent as he goes to get his man. But how does that translate into non-dance communication - what does he say to convince Gold Nose this is for real, he wants him bad?
Secret Agent and Gold Nose get a little Genghis Khan about each other! Jealousy, staking claims, obsessive and tormented thoughts... Some of my other favourite parts of the video are when Gold Nose flips out before the second time he tries to kill Secret Agent, and that when they start dancing together, there's a bit that looks like fighting - it makes me want a fight scene with more going on under the surface than there should be, or the two of them getting "enemy mine" about being the only people to go up against each other.
Some worldbuilding. How does supervillainy on a 9-5 schedule work? Did the Secret Agent's agency try and retrieve him while he was strapped down in the lab?
The minions' reactions. That one guy who contributes a clearer "ooh-hoo-oo" than most looks like he knows what's up, and everybody seems fine with the boss opening himself to the love of the enemy. What's the breakroom chatter like surrounding the incidents of the video?
Anything showcasing competence - Gold Nose is having a ball with his job in the beginning, he's got a lot of people working for him and can afford both a nice base and flat, so it looks like he's achieved success. There's not much to see of Secret Agent's competencies, but I'd love to have him as one of the top people in his field (there must be a reason he got to be Gold Nose's arch-enemy), or he's a great homemaker, or excellent at whatever job he has after taking up with Gold Nose and the fam. Or maybe something where one of them rescues the other, or they protect the kids.
Any first times post-confession, like the first non-violent touch, hand-holding, date, kissing, or having a meal together. If it's about their first time having sex, some possible kinks: I would love ... trust porn, I guess, where it's something of an ingrained habit to be wary about being vulnerable to each other; claiming and marking; dancing leading to sex; uniform/suit kink.
Re: my infidelity DNW: I'd like it if the wife is told, post-confession scene, that Gold Nose wants a divorce rather than him and the Secret Agent having a relationship under her nose, or having hook-ups before the events of the video (intense obsessive pining all the way).
If the wife is present as per the coda to the video, I'd love for her to get a happy ending - a villain, sure, but ultimately not vilified. It would be nice to enjoy OTT grandstanding, evil plans, and obstacles strewn across the path of the happy new lovers, but also for the wife to move past Gold Nose. And getting time with the kids.
Pick any names you want for the characters, I'm just using the obvious terms for convenience.
Get Out
Characters: Andre Hayworth, Chris Washington, Rod Williams
SAVE ANDRE. And maybe others who were dragged into this body-snatching scheme? But definitely Andre. Maybe Rod and Chris have to find their way back into the Armitages' house in order to steal notes on the whole brain/personality transplant process, the better to try reversing it. Maybe they find and team up with other people who are desperate to believe that their loved ones could be saved out of this whole horror show. Or they could run into more difficulties making people believe what was happening. Or, when the Armitages' deaths are being investigated, details about the whole truth come out - and people try to save the victims, but other people try to emulate the scheme...
I'd be into something where Andre, Chris, and Rod are a team who try and help others, with Andre all the while also needing help to keep his mind and body his own, or something solely focused on getting Andre out. A good amount of hurt/comfort would also be great, for Andre and/or Chris. But basically I really want ANDRE BEING SAVED.
PS: I'd be entirely open to any shipping between these three characters.
Howl Series: Castle in the Air - Diana Wynne Jones
Characters: Abdullah, Flower-in-the-Night, Hasruel (All of them do not have to be included in the fic.)
I'd love anything post-series! They've all been thrown into new lives and different experiences to what they were used to, so it would be interesting to see the ramifications explored.
The diplomatic tour. Abdullah and Flower-in-the-Night experiencing new things together, hanging out with their princess friends, helping to better Ingary's reputation, genuinely having to mediate between their new home kingdom and other places when they disagree with the King and/or with whoever they're visiting, walking into different kinds of fairy and folk tales...
Hasruel coming to the realisation of how much fun it is to be bad, even while mostly wanting to stay on the side of good. Does he interact with other djinns in this time? Do any of his angels decide to rebel? Maybe some of the djinns on the bad side try and lure him over, but he draws a line there. I'd also love insight into his relationship with his brother, and what it was like to raise him.
Anything Abdullah/Flower-in-the-Night, I love them. Domestic fluff. This time, Abdullah gets kidnapped, and Flower has to save him. Kid fic. AU where the Ingary crowd and/or djinns never comes into their lives - but somehow Abdullah still gets a magic carpet or something, and they still stumble into the prophecy where they get married and having to avoid Abdullah being killed by her father.
First time, or established relationship sex. Flower-in-the-Night charms me with her intense readiness to experience life in contrast to how little of it she's been allowed to experience, and she was so ready for make-outs, so a lot of her perspective would be especially great. I'd also love it if they garnered a ton of bedroom tips from the princesses they know, and maybe from princes that they meet too. And it just occurred to me that Abdullah/Flower-in-the-Night/Hasruel would be kind of great, if Hasruel could bring himself to be with two humans (at least one's royalty!). Dubcon would work for me too, if he casts some kind of compulsion on them that makes them more likely to hook up with him. Or maybe a curse, or he wants to say thank you for the fun they helped him have?
A crossover with another Diana Wynne Jones canons could be neat - Magidsverse (different styles of magic clashing?), Eight Days of Luke (David opening another magical "lock" and ending up in another universe, Luke genially sowing disaster), Dogsbody (Abdullah already managed to charm Calcifer, maybe he can do the same with other star beings), The Homeward Bounders (please give Jamie friends, and/or Helen)... I don't know Chrestomanci, Black Maria, the Dalemark Quartet, A Sudden Wild Magic, or Fire and Hemlock that well, but other books should work fine.
Like Real People Do
Characters: Honey, Narrator
My favourite version of the song: Video
And the lyrics.
Sweet & creepy is one of my fave atmospheres, so bringing that aspect of the song out in fic form would be wonderful. I want anything on Revenant Would-Be Lover, putting thoughts and memories and something like a life back together, and their tentative but persistent affection for Honey. Honey doesn't have to have romantic feelings for them, but I'd prefer Revenant to stay more on the sweet side and less on the creepy in the case of unrequited love.
Any genders are OK. And you don't have to call the narrator "Revenant" or the other person "Honey", I'm doing that for convenience. The Barn on the Farm version of the song has ruined me slightly and has got me tending to imagine this story playing out in a rural setting. If there's any sex, please make Revenant not be a grody type zombie with bits falling off, though unsettling physiology is okay. For both of them, even, depending on what you decide to do with Honey.
I really like this as a love story, but thinking about it, a gen focus would be great too, whether with very background romance or no romance at all (but even without romance, I'd prefer Honey to be around and maybe helping out). The first verse has Revenant being very, very slow to figure out what's real, strange, normal, possible, plausible... I'd love a look at that process.
"Real people" - where did the contrast get a chance to develop? How did Revenant pick this description? Is it possible to ever feel more like a real person?
Was Honey also brought back from the dead? That could be an explanation for the second verse, and "someone that dug long ago" could be Revenant, having brought Honey back to life years ago. Maybe they're going round in circles of life and death with each other. Or maybe there's some other necromancer running round the joint and bringing back wistful zombies and that's what Revenant's remembering, and they show up in the story too. Or Honey's tried to bring Revenant back before, deemed previous attempts unsatisfactory, and reburied them.
Honey was looking for someone else entirely, but on digging up Revenant couldn't leave them there.
Where DID these two come from that they don't want to speak about? For Revenant's case especially, any depictions of an afterlife are fine, but if it's a punishment-based one please avoid gory details if there was any torture. In this case, I'm more for creepy hints or punishments with a psychological bent (like Sisyphus from Greek myth, for example; the boulder was gruelling work, but the real punishment was the boulder rolling back down to the bottom every time).
Revenant's thought processes changing from "we should just kiss", to would kiss, to could kiss. Pining and weird perceptions of romance would be great.
Thirsty - MT Anderson
Character: Chris
Asking for a happy ending to get wrangled out of this book feels like rather a betrayal of its spirit, but, just, poor Chris! He was not equipped to deal with the kind of decisions he got saddled with. If this goes really dark before it gets better, that's fine - maybe he just can't quell that vampiric thirst anymore, even before he gets out of his house or neighbourhood - but I would really love a happier ending for him. Maybe some other power can get use out of a proto-vampire on the cusp of sealing the deal, and offers him self-control in exchange for using his blood. Maybe some other, more terrifying angels can help after all.
I'd also love anything more about the details of this urban fantasy life Chris lives, even if it doesn't touch on the main plot of the book - the portrayal was really interesting. That one story mentioned where a woman put her babies in the fire on the suspicion that there was a changeling - but only one turned out to be a changeling, and the other one was a normal human - still sticks in my mind. Maybe something about other changelings? Or about how the supernatural elements work in other countries - how bound they are to localities, or if they grow markedly different if they manage to travel.
It was darkly humorous how the book played up the standard challenges of growing up into something epic, life-and-death, due to the interplay of normal life and the supernatural. More of that would be great, like the changes of puberty alongside monstrous bodily changes, or something with an older Chris struggling with a supernatural debt as his peers struggle with college debt.
Thanks for taking a look at this letter! I have a bunch of ideas here - I hope they help give some inspiration. Feel free to do something that doesn't stick to these ideas! I'm interested in a lot of things, and something you want to write is far more likely to be fun to read. As long as it doesn't hit any points on my DNW list, it's all good.
--
Etnoe
General likes: worldbuilding, epistolary/in-universe documentation stories, larger-than-life events and personalities, body swap (but uh, preferably no more than is canon for Get Out), soulmate AU (platonic or romantic are both good), body horror, arranged relationships, role swap AUs, PWP*
* Possible kinks, but don't feel limited to these: Sex as comfort, rough sex (including rough-but-light-hearted), sensation play, ritual sex, scent kink, furtive & hurried liaisons (especially still-half-clothed), in heat, marking, sex pollen, touch starvation, impreg (in kinky dirty talk or actually happening for the characters), xeno.
Please do not include: unhappy endings with zero hope (bittersweet is fine), infidelity/cheating, rape, death of major characters (where it's not prompted), detailed torture, spanking, fisting, Dom/sub, underage sex. And a specific DNW for Get Out: Chris or Rod being arrested on anything more than a really short, limited basis.
Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys
Korse, Motorbaby | Grace, Kobra Kid, Party Poison. (All of them do not have to be included in the fic.)
There is a primer with links to the major elements of the universe outside of the album itself: A Fabulous Killjoys Primer by kidjoy. I don't know the comics or much about the band, but feel free to include whatever provides inspiration so long as it's easy to follow.
I love the mood of the album and the videos - the freedom hunting and self-indulgent thrill-seeking, the rebellion against how the world works, finding a new kind of home and way of living, the whole extremely nonsensical dystopia with tightknit gangs of misfits in fab outfits racing away from really weird police on fancy vehicles as they wail about saving each other: HELL YEAH.
Why does Korse tell them to keep running in the "Na Na Na" video, and how does he get away with that when he reports back? Has Korse ever captured Party Poison pre-music video canon? And what is he screaming at him about in the beginning of "Na Na Na"? In the "Sing" video Korse seems to be kept on ice until activated by someone else - how willing is he to be working for Better Living Industries?
I'd love more context for the Danger Days story: How the gang came to be in the zones, including Motorbaby. How they picked their names. Party Poison becoming the leader. Kobra Kid getting himself ghosted (perhaps during the events outlined in "The Only Hope For Me Is You"?) as mentioned in "Jet-Star and the Kobra Kid/Traffic Report". The others taking revenge on Kobra Kid's behalf.
Anything riffing off the lines "You can run away with me / any time you want" + "highways I call home". Who's encouraging who to run away? Maybe the Killjoys are trying to make everyone in the safer zones get out of there. Maybe something about Motorbaby settling into the Killjoys lifestyle, and being surprised to find herself enjoying the quieter times after all the excitement.
Feel free to do pretty messed-up things with this canon! Hero/villain, mind control, something riffing off "cut my hair / gag and bore me", hardscrabble survival life, constant violent battles...
"Everybody wants to save the world / but no one, no one wants to die" vs. the slogan "Killjoys never die". Are the runaways who decide to go under the name Killjoys the ones who make themselves known as fighters against the ruling powers - is that why they're heroes? Have they managed to turn themselves into zombies?
Taking metaphorical lines from songs as if they were literal, or at least worked in a magical realism way - e.g. "Gravity / don't mean to much to me" to mean one of the Killjoys isn't really affected by it and almost feels like everyone else is making a big fuss about nothing. The kind of relationship that could result from someone with a bulletproof heart meeting someone with a hollow-point smile. "Eight legs to the wall" what happened to this person--or maybe they're wearing a costume, or spider mutations are pretty prestigious.
A depiction of the "Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back" situation; desperate last stands for the sake of friends are great. A last-minute rescue/escape wouldn't hurt! But anything works so long as the others escape.
Why is Grace important to both sides and where does she want to be? She seems to love being with the Killjoys but to be pretty okay in Better Living Industries too, which is interesting to me. It's sweet when she sends a card to her mother, and I'd love more about that.
What kind of horrifying/hilariously over-the-top articles go in the magazine Modern Exterminator? Also Shiny and Murder. Is anyone in the publishing industry trying to send out the kind of messages that the Killjoys send out via radio? And then it also cracks me up that the Venda-hack dispenses batteries and RAY GUNS. What kind of economy is this! More like that would be great.
Genghis Khan
Characters: Gold Nose Villain, Secret Agent
Link to the music video: the official Genghis Khan vid. It is adorable and ate my brain. I would love more of these two in any capacity, as long as they get to be happy.
My favourite part is Secret Agent doing an about-face and wielding the jazz-hand of declared intent as he goes to get his man. But how does that translate into non-dance communication - what does he say to convince Gold Nose this is for real, he wants him bad?
Secret Agent and Gold Nose get a little Genghis Khan about each other! Jealousy, staking claims, obsessive and tormented thoughts... Some of my other favourite parts of the video are when Gold Nose flips out before the second time he tries to kill Secret Agent, and that when they start dancing together, there's a bit that looks like fighting - it makes me want a fight scene with more going on under the surface than there should be, or the two of them getting "enemy mine" about being the only people to go up against each other.
Some worldbuilding. How does supervillainy on a 9-5 schedule work? Did the Secret Agent's agency try and retrieve him while he was strapped down in the lab?
The minions' reactions. That one guy who contributes a clearer "ooh-hoo-oo" than most looks like he knows what's up, and everybody seems fine with the boss opening himself to the love of the enemy. What's the breakroom chatter like surrounding the incidents of the video?
Anything showcasing competence - Gold Nose is having a ball with his job in the beginning, he's got a lot of people working for him and can afford both a nice base and flat, so it looks like he's achieved success. There's not much to see of Secret Agent's competencies, but I'd love to have him as one of the top people in his field (there must be a reason he got to be Gold Nose's arch-enemy), or he's a great homemaker, or excellent at whatever job he has after taking up with Gold Nose and the fam. Or maybe something where one of them rescues the other, or they protect the kids.
Any first times post-confession, like the first non-violent touch, hand-holding, date, kissing, or having a meal together. If it's about their first time having sex, some possible kinks: I would love ... trust porn, I guess, where it's something of an ingrained habit to be wary about being vulnerable to each other; claiming and marking; dancing leading to sex; uniform/suit kink.
Re: my infidelity DNW: I'd like it if the wife is told, post-confession scene, that Gold Nose wants a divorce rather than him and the Secret Agent having a relationship under her nose, or having hook-ups before the events of the video (intense obsessive pining all the way).
If the wife is present as per the coda to the video, I'd love for her to get a happy ending - a villain, sure, but ultimately not vilified. It would be nice to enjoy OTT grandstanding, evil plans, and obstacles strewn across the path of the happy new lovers, but also for the wife to move past Gold Nose. And getting time with the kids.
Pick any names you want for the characters, I'm just using the obvious terms for convenience.
Get Out
Characters: Andre Hayworth, Chris Washington, Rod Williams
SAVE ANDRE. And maybe others who were dragged into this body-snatching scheme? But definitely Andre. Maybe Rod and Chris have to find their way back into the Armitages' house in order to steal notes on the whole brain/personality transplant process, the better to try reversing it. Maybe they find and team up with other people who are desperate to believe that their loved ones could be saved out of this whole horror show. Or they could run into more difficulties making people believe what was happening. Or, when the Armitages' deaths are being investigated, details about the whole truth come out - and people try to save the victims, but other people try to emulate the scheme...
I'd be into something where Andre, Chris, and Rod are a team who try and help others, with Andre all the while also needing help to keep his mind and body his own, or something solely focused on getting Andre out. A good amount of hurt/comfort would also be great, for Andre and/or Chris. But basically I really want ANDRE BEING SAVED.
PS: I'd be entirely open to any shipping between these three characters.
Howl Series: Castle in the Air - Diana Wynne Jones
Characters: Abdullah, Flower-in-the-Night, Hasruel (All of them do not have to be included in the fic.)
I'd love anything post-series! They've all been thrown into new lives and different experiences to what they were used to, so it would be interesting to see the ramifications explored.
The diplomatic tour. Abdullah and Flower-in-the-Night experiencing new things together, hanging out with their princess friends, helping to better Ingary's reputation, genuinely having to mediate between their new home kingdom and other places when they disagree with the King and/or with whoever they're visiting, walking into different kinds of fairy and folk tales...
Hasruel coming to the realisation of how much fun it is to be bad, even while mostly wanting to stay on the side of good. Does he interact with other djinns in this time? Do any of his angels decide to rebel? Maybe some of the djinns on the bad side try and lure him over, but he draws a line there. I'd also love insight into his relationship with his brother, and what it was like to raise him.
Anything Abdullah/Flower-in-the-Night, I love them. Domestic fluff. This time, Abdullah gets kidnapped, and Flower has to save him. Kid fic. AU where the Ingary crowd and/or djinns never comes into their lives - but somehow Abdullah still gets a magic carpet or something, and they still stumble into the prophecy where they get married and having to avoid Abdullah being killed by her father.
First time, or established relationship sex. Flower-in-the-Night charms me with her intense readiness to experience life in contrast to how little of it she's been allowed to experience, and she was so ready for make-outs, so a lot of her perspective would be especially great. I'd also love it if they garnered a ton of bedroom tips from the princesses they know, and maybe from princes that they meet too. And it just occurred to me that Abdullah/Flower-in-the-Night/Hasruel would be kind of great, if Hasruel could bring himself to be with two humans (at least one's royalty!). Dubcon would work for me too, if he casts some kind of compulsion on them that makes them more likely to hook up with him. Or maybe a curse, or he wants to say thank you for the fun they helped him have?
A crossover with another Diana Wynne Jones canons could be neat - Magidsverse (different styles of magic clashing?), Eight Days of Luke (David opening another magical "lock" and ending up in another universe, Luke genially sowing disaster), Dogsbody (Abdullah already managed to charm Calcifer, maybe he can do the same with other star beings), The Homeward Bounders (please give Jamie friends, and/or Helen)... I don't know Chrestomanci, Black Maria, the Dalemark Quartet, A Sudden Wild Magic, or Fire and Hemlock that well, but other books should work fine.
Like Real People Do
Characters: Honey, Narrator
My favourite version of the song: Video
And the lyrics.
Sweet & creepy is one of my fave atmospheres, so bringing that aspect of the song out in fic form would be wonderful. I want anything on Revenant Would-Be Lover, putting thoughts and memories and something like a life back together, and their tentative but persistent affection for Honey. Honey doesn't have to have romantic feelings for them, but I'd prefer Revenant to stay more on the sweet side and less on the creepy in the case of unrequited love.
Any genders are OK. And you don't have to call the narrator "Revenant" or the other person "Honey", I'm doing that for convenience. The Barn on the Farm version of the song has ruined me slightly and has got me tending to imagine this story playing out in a rural setting. If there's any sex, please make Revenant not be a grody type zombie with bits falling off, though unsettling physiology is okay. For both of them, even, depending on what you decide to do with Honey.
I really like this as a love story, but thinking about it, a gen focus would be great too, whether with very background romance or no romance at all (but even without romance, I'd prefer Honey to be around and maybe helping out). The first verse has Revenant being very, very slow to figure out what's real, strange, normal, possible, plausible... I'd love a look at that process.
"Real people" - where did the contrast get a chance to develop? How did Revenant pick this description? Is it possible to ever feel more like a real person?
Was Honey also brought back from the dead? That could be an explanation for the second verse, and "someone that dug long ago" could be Revenant, having brought Honey back to life years ago. Maybe they're going round in circles of life and death with each other. Or maybe there's some other necromancer running round the joint and bringing back wistful zombies and that's what Revenant's remembering, and they show up in the story too. Or Honey's tried to bring Revenant back before, deemed previous attempts unsatisfactory, and reburied them.
Honey was looking for someone else entirely, but on digging up Revenant couldn't leave them there.
Where DID these two come from that they don't want to speak about? For Revenant's case especially, any depictions of an afterlife are fine, but if it's a punishment-based one please avoid gory details if there was any torture. In this case, I'm more for creepy hints or punishments with a psychological bent (like Sisyphus from Greek myth, for example; the boulder was gruelling work, but the real punishment was the boulder rolling back down to the bottom every time).
Revenant's thought processes changing from "we should just kiss", to would kiss, to could kiss. Pining and weird perceptions of romance would be great.
Thirsty - MT Anderson
Character: Chris
Asking for a happy ending to get wrangled out of this book feels like rather a betrayal of its spirit, but, just, poor Chris! He was not equipped to deal with the kind of decisions he got saddled with. If this goes really dark before it gets better, that's fine - maybe he just can't quell that vampiric thirst anymore, even before he gets out of his house or neighbourhood - but I would really love a happier ending for him. Maybe some other power can get use out of a proto-vampire on the cusp of sealing the deal, and offers him self-control in exchange for using his blood. Maybe some other, more terrifying angels can help after all.
I'd also love anything more about the details of this urban fantasy life Chris lives, even if it doesn't touch on the main plot of the book - the portrayal was really interesting. That one story mentioned where a woman put her babies in the fire on the suspicion that there was a changeling - but only one turned out to be a changeling, and the other one was a normal human - still sticks in my mind. Maybe something about other changelings? Or about how the supernatural elements work in other countries - how bound they are to localities, or if they grow markedly different if they manage to travel.
It was darkly humorous how the book played up the standard challenges of growing up into something epic, life-and-death, due to the interplay of normal life and the supernatural. More of that would be great, like the changes of puberty alongside monstrous bodily changes, or something with an older Chris struggling with a supernatural debt as his peers struggle with college debt.