Yuletide Letter
Dear YT Author,
Sorry for posting this later than intended! Also, thank you so much for writing me fic. I look forward to reading whatever you come out with, so please don't worry too much about whether I'll like it. Part of the pleasure of reading fic, for me, is experiencing other people's visions and interpretations. So if none of my thoughts below touches you, please do as you will. :)
In case you could use more of a starting point, though, here are some thoughts on the fandoms I picked, for whatever they're worth and in some instances copy-pasted from my past-year letters:
Casablanca
What are your feelings on Louis/clueless!Rick?
If none, then what is Sam's story? Or the story of Ilsa and Victor's fraught journey to Casablanca? What happened to Rick's Cafe under its new management?
Spider-Woman
Just started hunting down her books in Marvel's digital archive and have pretty much fallen in love with her personality and insecurities and relationship with Carol. Her 2010(?) miniseries was beautiful and well written. I particularly enjoyed her sense of being alone in the world, and the revelation that she truly wasn't.
The Exeter Book
Tbh, I wasn't sure whether this was an anthropomorphic fandom or not, since the different works in the book are listed as characters. Whether you want to write it that way or choose a work from within it and write traditional fic about, say, the Wanderer or the Wife, either is great. I'm just super intrigued about where this can be taken.
The Thrawn Trilogy
My first Star Wars novels! I read these back in the '90s over and over again, as a natural extension of my dire love for the original movies. (This was well before the prequels, of which we will not speak. Unless we're speaking of Obi-Wan and Qui Gon Jinn. We can talk about them all day.) Zahn's trilogy led me to read a number of other SW novels, which were fun, but didn't quite seem to capture the characterization of the movie characters the way Zahn did.
I'm afraid I'm not too crazy about the two books Zahn wrote to follow up his own trilogy. Mara/Luke doesn't really do it for me, and Karrde's romantic storyline didn't ring true for me either. So I kind of handwave these books away from my idea of EU canon. Afraid I never got into the EU books that followed.
So. A few things I love about the original Zahn trilogy:
- How all the characters had motivations that fit their situations and personalities. They didn't all default to acting out of a basic sense of right and wrong, but considered their own interests, goals, and priorities when making decisions. That said, they sort of came round to their good inclinations when it mattered, and I like that too.
- Mara and Karrde's loyalty to each other. She frees him from the clutches of the Empire, and he goes after her in the end. I ship these two in a complicated way. Whether their relationship is sexual or not, it's intimate and based on their experiences together, and Karrde has this fascination/curiosity about her that itself is part of his personality--he likes puzzles and thinks deeply. I would actually really love a story that focused on their relationship.
- Plot twists and dramatic developments and surprising events. This story really kept me on my toes.
Akira
I have so much love for this movie and the manga. The teens act like teens--kind of goofy at times, saying dumb stuff, making questionable decisions that make sense in teen-think, but also feeling everything with an intensity that in my experience dissipates into adulthood. They feel torn between their sense of fairness and the demands of their rage. I also like the nature of the violence--falling debris will actually land on people, when someone is hit, they are injured. Violent incidents in the city mirror the outbursts of the JDs living at its edges. When Tetsuo finally comes into his power, the consequences for the city feel inevitable. So there's all that, but what also touches me is the story of friendship at the heart of Akira. Friendship is redemptive. SML.
Gargoyles
So a lot of human characters on the fandom list, which appealed to me because while I adore all the chars, I really really find the humans fascinating. Both in terms of who they are, and of their adjustment to a world that's a lot more magical than they assumed. Things that particularly appeal:
- Elisa and Matt fighting crime is basically the best thing ever.
- Elisa and Dracon having passionate hate!sex is basically the even betterer best thing ever.
- NOIR DETECTIVE STORIES
- Xanatos + Elisa's distrust of him.
- Demona + her homicidal vendetta against Elisa.
General Likes -- NOT required; just to give you a sense of my tastes
Plot, realistic characterization, adventure, h/c, tropes such as amnesia, kidnapping/rescue, having to randomly take care of a kid, stranded somewhere together
Not So Much
Deathfic, sexual violence, AU, animal transformation and the like, crackfic
In conclusion, thanks again! I hope you enjoy writing the fic!
Sincerely,
Port
Sorry for posting this later than intended! Also, thank you so much for writing me fic. I look forward to reading whatever you come out with, so please don't worry too much about whether I'll like it. Part of the pleasure of reading fic, for me, is experiencing other people's visions and interpretations. So if none of my thoughts below touches you, please do as you will. :)
In case you could use more of a starting point, though, here are some thoughts on the fandoms I picked, for whatever they're worth and in some instances copy-pasted from my past-year letters:
Casablanca
What are your feelings on Louis/clueless!Rick?
If none, then what is Sam's story? Or the story of Ilsa and Victor's fraught journey to Casablanca? What happened to Rick's Cafe under its new management?
Spider-Woman
Just started hunting down her books in Marvel's digital archive and have pretty much fallen in love with her personality and insecurities and relationship with Carol. Her 2010(?) miniseries was beautiful and well written. I particularly enjoyed her sense of being alone in the world, and the revelation that she truly wasn't.
The Exeter Book
Tbh, I wasn't sure whether this was an anthropomorphic fandom or not, since the different works in the book are listed as characters. Whether you want to write it that way or choose a work from within it and write traditional fic about, say, the Wanderer or the Wife, either is great. I'm just super intrigued about where this can be taken.
The Thrawn Trilogy
My first Star Wars novels! I read these back in the '90s over and over again, as a natural extension of my dire love for the original movies. (This was well before the prequels, of which we will not speak. Unless we're speaking of Obi-Wan and Qui Gon Jinn. We can talk about them all day.) Zahn's trilogy led me to read a number of other SW novels, which were fun, but didn't quite seem to capture the characterization of the movie characters the way Zahn did.
I'm afraid I'm not too crazy about the two books Zahn wrote to follow up his own trilogy. Mara/Luke doesn't really do it for me, and Karrde's romantic storyline didn't ring true for me either. So I kind of handwave these books away from my idea of EU canon. Afraid I never got into the EU books that followed.
So. A few things I love about the original Zahn trilogy:
- How all the characters had motivations that fit their situations and personalities. They didn't all default to acting out of a basic sense of right and wrong, but considered their own interests, goals, and priorities when making decisions. That said, they sort of came round to their good inclinations when it mattered, and I like that too.
- Mara and Karrde's loyalty to each other. She frees him from the clutches of the Empire, and he goes after her in the end. I ship these two in a complicated way. Whether their relationship is sexual or not, it's intimate and based on their experiences together, and Karrde has this fascination/curiosity about her that itself is part of his personality--he likes puzzles and thinks deeply. I would actually really love a story that focused on their relationship.
- Plot twists and dramatic developments and surprising events. This story really kept me on my toes.
Akira
I have so much love for this movie and the manga. The teens act like teens--kind of goofy at times, saying dumb stuff, making questionable decisions that make sense in teen-think, but also feeling everything with an intensity that in my experience dissipates into adulthood. They feel torn between their sense of fairness and the demands of their rage. I also like the nature of the violence--falling debris will actually land on people, when someone is hit, they are injured. Violent incidents in the city mirror the outbursts of the JDs living at its edges. When Tetsuo finally comes into his power, the consequences for the city feel inevitable. So there's all that, but what also touches me is the story of friendship at the heart of Akira. Friendship is redemptive. SML.
Gargoyles
So a lot of human characters on the fandom list, which appealed to me because while I adore all the chars, I really really find the humans fascinating. Both in terms of who they are, and of their adjustment to a world that's a lot more magical than they assumed. Things that particularly appeal:
- Elisa and Matt fighting crime is basically the best thing ever.
- Elisa and Dracon having passionate hate!sex is basically the even betterer best thing ever.
- NOIR DETECTIVE STORIES
- Xanatos + Elisa's distrust of him.
- Demona + her homicidal vendetta against Elisa.
General Likes -- NOT required; just to give you a sense of my tastes
Plot, realistic characterization, adventure, h/c, tropes such as amnesia, kidnapping/rescue, having to randomly take care of a kid, stranded somewhere together
Not So Much
Deathfic, sexual violence, AU, animal transformation and the like, crackfic
In conclusion, thanks again! I hope you enjoy writing the fic!
Sincerely,
Port