Yuletide 2012: Dear Yuletide Writer Letter
Dear Yuletide writer:
Yay, we have at least one fandom in common! Just for that, may I say that you totally rock! I hope that you have an eventful Yuletide.
Below you will find what basically amounts to an essay on what I like lol. I can’t help it, I just tend to get a bit carried away when it comes to fic and what I love about it. Kind of like the snowball effect, once you get me talking about it, I find it a bit hard to slow down. First off, may I preface all of this by saying that these are general ideas. If you have a particular idea that really hits you, I know what that can be like. You lock the plot bunny in the cellar only to find that it tunnels its way out :P If you have a specific fic you want to write, please do. I promise you I will be thrilled with it. Just having fic written in any of the below fandoms would be amazing as it’s not something that I get to experience all too often.
Enough waxing eloquent, onto the good stuff now, right?
p.s. - before you get into reading prompt specifics later on in this letter, please be aware that the prompt for each fandom is likely rife with spoilers (mostly canonical moments that I’m using to demonstrate what I love about the story or moments I would love to see expanded on in fan-fic). If you hit a fandom where you’d like to read the canon material but haven’t, and that is not the prompt you are visiting this letter for, I would recommend skipping that entire prompt and finding the fandom/prompt we share in common.
General Likes
I am a whumper through and through. My favorite genres are hurt/comfort and angst. I am not such a huge fan of permanent disability maiming; I like more acute trauma and then fics that focus on the aftermath and the recovery phase. My favorite dynamic is probably when you have one character not really taking care of themselves after getting injured. Cue a friend stepping in and fussing over them (such cuteness!). I love fics where people are protective of their loved ones as a general rule.
That’s one dynamic I like, I also have several others! I love cute fuzzy animals in all forms. Any fic that focuses on the relationship between a character and an animal (pet, animal that followed them home, etc.) is amazing.
I like fics that have an element of surprise in them. I like when you have one character being underestimated, or ones where they really do something that their loved ones didn’t expect, something out of left field that really humbles them. Maybe a character has secret hobby that no one knows about that would impress them. Maybe it's a specific sacrifice that the character makes for another teammate or loved one. I really love fics where we get to see a new side of our favorite characters that brings further depth to how we perceive them.
I like fics that have an element of pursuit to them. Maybe it’s a character running away because they are just overwhelmed and need some time to process and think about something that’s happened in their life. I love the idea that a friend or other individual cares enough about them to go outside their normal routine, track that individual down, comfort them, and tell them that it’s going to be okay. There are other iterations of this as well. Maybe a character is missing and a friend organizes the search to locate and/or rescue them. This one’s pretty open to interpretation.
I am a person who loves angst in all of its forms. I like characters who face hardship that breaks them in some visceral way, that has warped them into something that at first glance doesn’t meet the definition of beauty. Despite that, though, characters thrive and they find a way to move through it and past it and find someone who sees that bent shape not as something broken, but unique, a testament to the hardships they’ve faced and successfully overcome. I would ask that if you are going angst heavy (which I do so love!) to maybe balance it out with a few light moments too, and happy endings are much appreciated :D
I like fics that flesh out a character’s back story. For instance, some of my favorite fics fuse the past and the present. It’s often a character with a shadier past who doesn’t really share much about their life, but through some event or another parts of their past leak out. Their friends are there to help them with the fallout, and remind them that even if they had a hard past, they can make up for it in the present.
To balance out the angst factor, I also really do love fluff and the kind of fic that makes your heart melt. Humor is great, believable crack is excellent, unexpected shenanigans are pure gold.
I am a bit of a tomboy myself in real life so I also really love fics that play with gender dynamics. For example, I love Disney’s Mulan because we see a woman riding off to war and throwing off pretty much every female stereotype in existence. I love fics where a female is perhaps underestimated and somehow saves the day, etc.
I will say that I tend to fall on the gen side of the shipping spectrum. I usually prefer friendship fics where a team or a group of friends has become almost like a family unit. If you prefer to ship your characters, I’m totally fine with that, write what comes naturally to you. I’m pretty flexible about such things, but would ask that if you are shipping the fic focus on the emotional as opposed to physical relationship.
I’m also a bit odd in that there are specific stylistic devices that I love to see in fic, to me it really just lifts the fic one peg higher. One major one that I really love is when the fic has a sense of circularity about it. By circularity, I mean a fic that starts with an idea, a line, and somehow the author manages to bring that idea/line back at the end. It just gives the fic a really nice feeling of tying up all the loose ends. I also have a weird thing for extended metaphors, when an author is able to employ them well it can be a thing of true beauty.
If you’ve stayed with me thus far you will probably see that one of the strongest themes that runs through many of the things that I like revolves around one character expressing how much they care for a friend or loved one, whether it be expressed through protectiveness, caring for them in the aftermath of an injury, taking the time to seek them out, etc. I’ve requested many such fics and have received many wonderful ones in turn.
This year I am also trying to take the opportunity to step into another realm, which is expanding on interesting characters or moments in the fandoms I’ve selected that aren’t huge moments in the canon. It’s often just an idea or person that the author had and I stop for a minute and think, “That is *so* cool! I would love to read more about this particular idea!” Some fics are awesome because they are all about the hurt/comfort, but some are awesome simply for the elegance of their plotline. I’ve made a sordid attempt to choose a few fandoms/prompts that fall into this category, small moments or concepts or minor characters from stories that I would love to read more about. If you want to throw in some of the hurt/comfort stuff for these, I will of course, be thrilled. More than anything, though, just tell me a good story. Flesh out those characters or ideas that the author just didn’t have the space to write about in their books and I will be thrilled and bouncing up and down with squee, I promise :D
At least for me, I’ve also found it useful when recipients have linked me to stories they have adored for one reason or another. It gave me a starting point to go from. If you are interested, these are a few stories that I’ve really enjoyed. Most are in one particular fandom (Leverage), so if you are not familiar don’t worry about it. This is more just another resource if you’re curious, but feel free to totally skip over it if you’d like.
Escapology - (Leverage Fandom) - http://pogrebin.livejournal.com/79455.html?style=mine - I really like this fic for the style, it’s one of the best-written fics I’ve ever read. The use of an extended metaphor is also amazing.
Thicker Than Blood - (Leverage Fandom) - http://scout-lover.livejournal.com/24293.html#cutid1 - This fic is a wonderful use of backstory, fic circularity, and angst that I just sort of adore.
Four Times Parker Dreamed About Having a Family- (Leverage Fandom) - http://amazonziti.livejournal.com/26719.html - I loved this fic for the character back story and believable angst.
Home Sweet Home - (Leverage Fandom) -http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5805723/1/Home_Sweet_Home - This is an example of the pursuit-oriented fic that I love. A character is not living in her apartment, her friends engage in a humorous game of Cat and Mouse to figure out where she is living these days.
The River Serpent - (Mulan, Twisted Princesses Fandom) - http://archiveofourown.org/works/302477 - This is one of those fandoms where I saw the image and wanted to know more about it. This story fleshes out the back story quite nicely and I just *adore* the storytelling. There are those stories that are excellent for their plots, this is one of those fics.
This is just a small slice of fics that I love. For a longer list, feel free to check out my delicious page with the tag “noteworthy:” http://www.delicious.com/hollow_echos/noteworthy. If you are worried about being triggered for anything and would like a summary of the stories listed above before reading them, all three stories listed above can be found my my delicious page here with summaries to go with them.
General Dislikes
Unless designated otherwise, I prefer gen and friendship fics to shipping. I prefer fics that focus on the emotional relationship between two characters as opposed the physical/sexual side. If you like to write smut, indulge! There is absolutely nothing wrong with a good sex scene, but I would ask that the overall focus of the story be on the emotional side of the relationship instead of PWP. I also generally prefer fics based at least loosely in the canon!verse as opposed to crossovers or AU’s. Minor AU's are totally fine (and can be a lot of fun, I write many of these myself), where you take a moment in a fic and move out in a different direction than what the canon followed. The kind of AU's I generally have found a bit harder to get into are the ones that take the characters from a show/series and place them in a different universe, time period, etc.
I totally respect that everyone has their own kinks, I assure you, I certainly have some odd ones too. I do have a few squicks though, that I would ask be avoided unless they are critical to the plot. Squicks for me include death fic, mpreg, and incest.
Prompt Specifics
Fandom: Twisted Princesses
Character(s): Fa Mulan
Prompt as it appears in my Yuletide sign-up:
I was actually introduced to this fandom for the first time through Yuletide last year. Suffice to say, I found the concept of the art absolutely fascinating and fell in love with the fandom. Disney has sold the beautiful princess with the storybook ending to generations of young girls, my own generation included. It’s precisely that reason that I find the Twisted Princess artwork so interesting, it takes this stereotype and flips it on its head, reimagining Disney Princesses from a more horror-esque perspective.
For this particular request, I have asked for a reimagining of the Mulan story based on the Twisted Princess artwork. I love the original movie for how it plays with gender dynamics. As a bit of a tomboy myself, I really do love that Mulan masquerades as a man and goes off to war to save her father, and basically teaches her entire country to never underestimate a woman. I would ask that you please keep Mulan as a strong independent woman, put it on her to do what the men of China’s army couldn’t, defeat the Huns and drive them from their lands. If you are looking for a place to start or a more specific prompt, maybe the story starts the same (Mulan masquerades as a soldier and goes to war), but the story dives into an AU from there, where Mulan becomes a different person, driven to different lengths, to defend her country. If you have your own idea from looking at the artwork that is something totally different, please don’t feel limited to this idea, run with whatever you are most excited to write!
I have a thing for stories with darker themes, stories of the apocalypse, or characters twisted into something different than what a person with upstanding morals would possess. I’ve always been intrigued by the question, “what happens to a character when things don’t go according to plan? What lengths are they willing to go to in order to survive or accomplish their goals?”
For this prompt I would ask that you ignore the back stories that the artist has put forth to accompany the artwork and use only the concept art as the basis for your fic. Feel free to go dark with your fic, take Mulan away from the morals she possessed in the movies. Make her into the person she needs to be to win this war for her people, or avenge her fallen comrades, or whatever challenges face her in the world you have imagined around this concept art.
I would ask that you keep your fic in the spirit of the artwork. Happy endings are fine (as are twisted ones if that’s what you’d prefer!), but don’t make it “poof! And then the world was all fixed.” As we often see with apocalyptic fic or horror fics, there often is some sort of light on the horizon at the end of the fic, but it’s a different world with different rules and a great distance to go before there is anything resembling that fairytale ending.
If you’d like examples of fics in this fandom that I’ve enjoyed, these are two from last year’s Yuletide that I really liked how the authors interpreted the artwork and translated it into fic:
The River Serpent - (Mulan, Twisted Princesses Fandom) - http://archiveofourown.org/works/302477 - This story fleshes out the back story quite nicely and I just *adore* the storytelling. There are those stories that are excellent for their plots, this is one of those fics. I also really like that Mulan is willing to do whatever it takes to win back China for her people.
Dài lóng wénshēn de nǚhái - (Mulan, Twisted Princesses Fandom) - http://archiveofourown.org/works/300982 - I really loved how the author incorporated the artwork into fic here. It was something very different than what I had imagined but it still fits the artwork so very well.
Fandom: Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
Characters: Kvothe and Bast
This series, again, is just such an exceptional example of storytelling that I couldn’t *not* request for more tales in this ‘verse for Yuletide. I can never get enough of this series and would love to receive a fic expanding on the canon. There are so many wonderful puzzles that we have just been given the slightest teasers as to what they really are, from the Chandrian and the shroud of mystery that hangs over them to what ultimately happened to Kvothe that changed him from a thick-skulled adventurer to a barkeep in a quiet town focused on minding his own business.
The relationship in this series that fascinates me to no end is the friendship between Kvothe and Bast. Bast is *such* an interesting character who is so very devoted to Kvothe. I would love some background on this relationship, how did they meet, what adventures have they had together? Bast is also undyingly loyal to Kvothe, or at least the shadow of himself that’s left. What Bast really wants is to get Kvothe to remember who he used to be, that miscreant who never took no for an answer, and move on from this dusty town to finish the adventure he started in his youth.
It’s almost a bit alarming, at times, the length to which Bast will go to protect Kvothe, such as the scene where he hires thugs to raid the bar in an attempt to get a rise out of Kvothe. When Kvothe takes an injury, Bast not only transfers it to himself during the process of healing Kvothe, but he later on ravages the men he hired, telling them that they took it way too far in how much they attached Kvothe. We see it in how Bast manipulated events to have the Chronicler visit the town in an attempt to get Kvothe to recount and remember who he was. We see it in the threats Bast makes to the Chronicler that he best follow his instructions to the letter or risk Bast’s wrath. The relationship has a bit of an obsession to it, but despite its dysfunctionality, this friendship has always intrigued me. Why is Bast so loyal to Reshi? Maybe write a fic demonstrating another one of these moments where the depth of Bast’s devotion to Kvothe is made truly apparent. This goes hand in hand with the hurt/comfort dynamic I adore. It’s one friend having an undying loyalty to the other, doing whatever it takes to watch over that person, even when they can’t do it for themselves.
If you’d like to take this fic in another direction, there are *so* many other moments from canon that I would love to see more of. I really fell in love with Cthaeh, a talking tree who wants to drive the world toward chaos. Bast seemed so very alarmed at the fact that Kvothe had interacted with this particular tree and I would love to see how this plays out down the road, what does Cthaeh’s conversation with Kvothe ultimately lead to? Maybe he has another run in with Cthaeh later on in his travels.
If you’d like other ideas, I’m equally fascinated by Lord Haliax and would adore any fic detailing a run in between him and Kvothe. Really, I love how Kvothe is so high-spirited. He doesn’t let people tell him no. What more, when someone does try to put him or his aspirations down and stop him in his tracks, he not only finds a way around the blockade, but he often manages to outwit and/or humiliate the person who has gone after him. Not to say that this doesn’t sometimes end badly, it’s a double edged sword. But I would be equally thrilled with a tale of the university era or of his other adventures where he manages to outwit his adversary in a way that you just have to smile and shake your head at the pure hijinks of it all, the ridiculousness of it, and somehow, even while flying by the seam of his pants, Kvothe somehow manages to pull it off. All in all, this canon is filled to the brim with fascinating characters, ideas, and world building and I would be thrilled by a fic that explores this story further.
Fandom: The Light Bringer Series - Brent Weeks
Characters: Iron Fist, Kip Guile, Gavin Guile
Brent Weeks is just one of those authors that manages to come up with some revolutionary fantasy concepts to base his worlds around and the Light Bringer series is no exception. I love the magic system he’s envisioned with the colors and splitting light. There’s been a lot of fantasy books written over the years and the genre has given birth to many common tropes and clichés. I love that Brent Weeks neatly sidesteps many of these pitfalls to have come up with something as unique as the magic system in this series.
For this prompt I have requested 3 characters: Gavin Guile, Kip Guile, and Iron Fist. It’s probably imperative to define which character I mean by Gavin Guile since there was a switcheroo pulled after the False Prism’s War. By Gavin Guile I mean the current acting Prism (not the one locked up in a cell).
While all of the characters in this series are fascinating, Kip is really the one who hits me close to home. He’s not the typical hero at the beginning of the book, he’s a gangly kid brought up in destitute poverty. Through meeting the Prism his life is catapulted in a different direction with a far greater trajectory than he would’ve ever probably imagined for himself most likely. What I love about Kip is that he really doesn’t seem to get just how important his is going to be in the coming years. With Gavin losing his colors, Kip could very well be next in line to take over that role. One of the tropes I adore in fiction in general is when you have one character underestimating their own worth and the people around them actually being the ones to demonstrate just how important that individual is.
Take Kip for example. Gavin takes great lengths to cover up the results of the test that show how many colors Kip can split and work. Gavin understands Kip’s implicit worth, and sets Iron Fist, commander of the Blackguard, to watch after him. What Kip sees as his father thinking him unworthy to join him in his pursuits against the color wights is actually Gavin’s attempt to protect Kip. Yes, Kip may be a tool in his arsenal, but he’s one with an important role to play out ultimately.
We see many hints of Kip’s strength in the colors, from how he can recognize ultraviolet hues to figuring out how to go Green Golem all on his own. I would love to see a fic where Kip gets shown just how important he really is, or where he does something that really makes everyone pause and realize it too. Maybe there’s another instance of him displaying this almost supernatural gift for light splitting that takes everyone aback, maybe he’s threatened by an outside force or an enemy of Gavin’s and the Prism and/or Ironfist come to rescue him and wreak vengeance upon those who have threatened Kip. I’m pretty open ended on this particular prompt.
Really, I am intrigued by the disparity between how Kip often times sees himself as less than worthy, and someone who is holding his father back, and how important he really is going to be in how events play out given his strength with the colors. I would absolutely treasure a fic that explores this theme in any capacity.
Prompt as it appears in my Yuletide sign-up:
Fandom: The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Characters: FitzChivalry Farseer and Burrich
Prompt as it appears in my Yuletide sign-up:
This series is filled with everything I could want in a good story, from the angst to the characters that are so deep and real that I don’t know if I would blink twice if they strode right out of the story and into real life. Robin Hobb has a mastery of characters that is hard to match. The characters are real people that make mistakes, they make the wrong decisions and sometimes you just want to grab them by their shoulders, set them down on the right path, and give them a good kick in the behind to give them some momentum toward sorting out their problems.
Perhaps more than anything else in this trilogy, I was really intrigued by the Wit, wherein a character is able to telepathically bond with an animal. I wrote a bit earlier in this letter about how I have a special place in my heart for any relationship between human and animal. I’ve had pets all my life and really do view them as little people almost, with their own personalities that are endlessly entertaining.
I really fell in love with how Robin Hobb chose to approach this relationship wherein animals really did become primary characters, capable of thought and communication. To Fitz, the relationship he forges with his animal compatriots are some of the most important and long lasting ones he makes in the books. I would love a fic exploring the Wit in any way you see fit. I always found it fascinating how Burrich and Fitz came to odds on this topic. For Fitz, the Wit is something he couldn’t live without. For Burrich, it’s a tainted magic to be avoided at all costs.
I would really just love to read a fic focusing on the Wit in whatever capacity you see fit, whether it bring Night Eyes into the mix or maybe it’s a fic earlier in Fitz’s childhood where Burrich is still trying to break him from his habit of using the Wit entirely. It could be about the morals of using the Wit, (a human can force his will on an animal if he really pushes it, how do morals come into play when those who carry the Wit have to decide whether it’s acceptable to do that?). Is it immoral to bond an animal against it’s will? How does that play into Burrich’s and Fitz’s views on the Wit? There are also things that come in the later books revolving around the Wit, how Fitz travels with Night Eyes and his pack for a time, how does that play into Burrich’s views on the Wit when he has to try to bring Fitz back to being a human again?
These are some general ideas, feel free to pick one (I don’t expect to see all of these ideas in a single fic, this was more just something to get the plot bunnies hopping) or none at all and run with your own spin on the topic. This Yuletide, for me, is about finding those little moments and concepts in fic and fleshing them out. The Wit is another one of those original ideas that just struck me and really resonated. I would be absolutely thrilled to receive any fic that somehow revolves around this fascinating concept.
In Summation
Well, I feel like I’ve written an essay :P I hope that I haven’t overwhelmed you with too much here. I’ve been caught before where I just didn’t feel that I had enough information to go on when writing a gift fic for someone so I really try to make sure that you don’t have the same issue. I’ve basically thrown together a conglomeration of everything that I could think of in hopes that something would catch your eye/spark a plot bunny, and you could run with it. Please, please, please, don’t assume that all of this needs to go into a fic, I think that fic might read a bit strangely and disjointed lol. Take what pieces work for you and play with those, don’t worry about the rest. More than anything else, write what feels write to *you,* I want this to be as much fun for you to write as it will be for me to read!
Happy Yuletide, good luck writing, and I cannot wait to see what you produce :D
Thanks,
hollow_echos
Yay, we have at least one fandom in common! Just for that, may I say that you totally rock! I hope that you have an eventful Yuletide.
Below you will find what basically amounts to an essay on what I like lol. I can’t help it, I just tend to get a bit carried away when it comes to fic and what I love about it. Kind of like the snowball effect, once you get me talking about it, I find it a bit hard to slow down. First off, may I preface all of this by saying that these are general ideas. If you have a particular idea that really hits you, I know what that can be like. You lock the plot bunny in the cellar only to find that it tunnels its way out :P If you have a specific fic you want to write, please do. I promise you I will be thrilled with it. Just having fic written in any of the below fandoms would be amazing as it’s not something that I get to experience all too often.
Enough waxing eloquent, onto the good stuff now, right?
p.s. - before you get into reading prompt specifics later on in this letter, please be aware that the prompt for each fandom is likely rife with spoilers (mostly canonical moments that I’m using to demonstrate what I love about the story or moments I would love to see expanded on in fan-fic). If you hit a fandom where you’d like to read the canon material but haven’t, and that is not the prompt you are visiting this letter for, I would recommend skipping that entire prompt and finding the fandom/prompt we share in common.
General Likes
I am a whumper through and through. My favorite genres are hurt/comfort and angst. I am not such a huge fan of permanent disability maiming; I like more acute trauma and then fics that focus on the aftermath and the recovery phase. My favorite dynamic is probably when you have one character not really taking care of themselves after getting injured. Cue a friend stepping in and fussing over them (such cuteness!). I love fics where people are protective of their loved ones as a general rule.
That’s one dynamic I like, I also have several others! I love cute fuzzy animals in all forms. Any fic that focuses on the relationship between a character and an animal (pet, animal that followed them home, etc.) is amazing.
I like fics that have an element of surprise in them. I like when you have one character being underestimated, or ones where they really do something that their loved ones didn’t expect, something out of left field that really humbles them. Maybe a character has secret hobby that no one knows about that would impress them. Maybe it's a specific sacrifice that the character makes for another teammate or loved one. I really love fics where we get to see a new side of our favorite characters that brings further depth to how we perceive them.
I like fics that have an element of pursuit to them. Maybe it’s a character running away because they are just overwhelmed and need some time to process and think about something that’s happened in their life. I love the idea that a friend or other individual cares enough about them to go outside their normal routine, track that individual down, comfort them, and tell them that it’s going to be okay. There are other iterations of this as well. Maybe a character is missing and a friend organizes the search to locate and/or rescue them. This one’s pretty open to interpretation.
I am a person who loves angst in all of its forms. I like characters who face hardship that breaks them in some visceral way, that has warped them into something that at first glance doesn’t meet the definition of beauty. Despite that, though, characters thrive and they find a way to move through it and past it and find someone who sees that bent shape not as something broken, but unique, a testament to the hardships they’ve faced and successfully overcome. I would ask that if you are going angst heavy (which I do so love!) to maybe balance it out with a few light moments too, and happy endings are much appreciated :D
I like fics that flesh out a character’s back story. For instance, some of my favorite fics fuse the past and the present. It’s often a character with a shadier past who doesn’t really share much about their life, but through some event or another parts of their past leak out. Their friends are there to help them with the fallout, and remind them that even if they had a hard past, they can make up for it in the present.
To balance out the angst factor, I also really do love fluff and the kind of fic that makes your heart melt. Humor is great, believable crack is excellent, unexpected shenanigans are pure gold.
I am a bit of a tomboy myself in real life so I also really love fics that play with gender dynamics. For example, I love Disney’s Mulan because we see a woman riding off to war and throwing off pretty much every female stereotype in existence. I love fics where a female is perhaps underestimated and somehow saves the day, etc.
I will say that I tend to fall on the gen side of the shipping spectrum. I usually prefer friendship fics where a team or a group of friends has become almost like a family unit. If you prefer to ship your characters, I’m totally fine with that, write what comes naturally to you. I’m pretty flexible about such things, but would ask that if you are shipping the fic focus on the emotional as opposed to physical relationship.
I’m also a bit odd in that there are specific stylistic devices that I love to see in fic, to me it really just lifts the fic one peg higher. One major one that I really love is when the fic has a sense of circularity about it. By circularity, I mean a fic that starts with an idea, a line, and somehow the author manages to bring that idea/line back at the end. It just gives the fic a really nice feeling of tying up all the loose ends. I also have a weird thing for extended metaphors, when an author is able to employ them well it can be a thing of true beauty.
If you’ve stayed with me thus far you will probably see that one of the strongest themes that runs through many of the things that I like revolves around one character expressing how much they care for a friend or loved one, whether it be expressed through protectiveness, caring for them in the aftermath of an injury, taking the time to seek them out, etc. I’ve requested many such fics and have received many wonderful ones in turn.
This year I am also trying to take the opportunity to step into another realm, which is expanding on interesting characters or moments in the fandoms I’ve selected that aren’t huge moments in the canon. It’s often just an idea or person that the author had and I stop for a minute and think, “That is *so* cool! I would love to read more about this particular idea!” Some fics are awesome because they are all about the hurt/comfort, but some are awesome simply for the elegance of their plotline. I’ve made a sordid attempt to choose a few fandoms/prompts that fall into this category, small moments or concepts or minor characters from stories that I would love to read more about. If you want to throw in some of the hurt/comfort stuff for these, I will of course, be thrilled. More than anything, though, just tell me a good story. Flesh out those characters or ideas that the author just didn’t have the space to write about in their books and I will be thrilled and bouncing up and down with squee, I promise :D
At least for me, I’ve also found it useful when recipients have linked me to stories they have adored for one reason or another. It gave me a starting point to go from. If you are interested, these are a few stories that I’ve really enjoyed. Most are in one particular fandom (Leverage), so if you are not familiar don’t worry about it. This is more just another resource if you’re curious, but feel free to totally skip over it if you’d like.
Escapology - (Leverage Fandom) - http://pogrebin.livejournal.com/79455.html?style=mine - I really like this fic for the style, it’s one of the best-written fics I’ve ever read. The use of an extended metaphor is also amazing.
Thicker Than Blood - (Leverage Fandom) - http://scout-lover.livejournal.com/24293.html#cutid1 - This fic is a wonderful use of backstory, fic circularity, and angst that I just sort of adore.
Four Times Parker Dreamed About Having a Family- (Leverage Fandom) - http://amazonziti.livejournal.com/26719.html - I loved this fic for the character back story and believable angst.
Home Sweet Home - (Leverage Fandom) -http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5805723/1/Home_Sweet_Home - This is an example of the pursuit-oriented fic that I love. A character is not living in her apartment, her friends engage in a humorous game of Cat and Mouse to figure out where she is living these days.
The River Serpent - (Mulan, Twisted Princesses Fandom) - http://archiveofourown.org/works/302477 - This is one of those fandoms where I saw the image and wanted to know more about it. This story fleshes out the back story quite nicely and I just *adore* the storytelling. There are those stories that are excellent for their plots, this is one of those fics.
This is just a small slice of fics that I love. For a longer list, feel free to check out my delicious page with the tag “noteworthy:” http://www.delicious.com/hollow_echos/noteworthy. If you are worried about being triggered for anything and would like a summary of the stories listed above before reading them, all three stories listed above can be found my my delicious page here with summaries to go with them.
General Dislikes
Unless designated otherwise, I prefer gen and friendship fics to shipping. I prefer fics that focus on the emotional relationship between two characters as opposed the physical/sexual side. If you like to write smut, indulge! There is absolutely nothing wrong with a good sex scene, but I would ask that the overall focus of the story be on the emotional side of the relationship instead of PWP. I also generally prefer fics based at least loosely in the canon!verse as opposed to crossovers or AU’s. Minor AU's are totally fine (and can be a lot of fun, I write many of these myself), where you take a moment in a fic and move out in a different direction than what the canon followed. The kind of AU's I generally have found a bit harder to get into are the ones that take the characters from a show/series and place them in a different universe, time period, etc.
I totally respect that everyone has their own kinks, I assure you, I certainly have some odd ones too. I do have a few squicks though, that I would ask be avoided unless they are critical to the plot. Squicks for me include death fic, mpreg, and incest.
Prompt Specifics
Fandom: Twisted Princesses
Character(s): Fa Mulan
Prompt as it appears in my Yuletide sign-up:
I was actually introduced to this fandom for the first time through Yuletide last year. Suffice to say, I found the concept of the art absolutely fascinating and fell in love with the fandom. Disney has sold the beautiful princess with the storybook ending to generations of young girls, my own generation included. It’s precisely that reason that I find the Twisted Princess artwork so interesting, it takes this stereotype and flips it on its head, reimagining Disney Princesses from a more horror-esque perspective.
For this particular request, I have asked for a reimagining of the Mulan story based on the Twisted Princess artwork. I love the original movie for how it plays with gender dynamics. As a bit of a tomboy myself, I really do love that Mulan masquerades as a man and goes off to war to save her father, and basically teaches her entire country to never underestimate a woman. I would ask that you please keep Mulan as a strong independent woman, put it on her to do what the men of China’s army couldn’t, defeat the Huns and drive them from their lands. If you are looking for a place to start or a more specific prompt, maybe the story starts the same (Mulan masquerades as a soldier and goes to war), but the story dives into an AU from there, where Mulan becomes a different person, driven to different lengths, to defend her country. If you have your own idea from looking at the artwork that is something totally different, please don’t feel limited to this idea, run with whatever you are most excited to write!
I have a thing for stories with darker themes, stories of the apocalypse, or characters twisted into something different than what a person with upstanding morals would possess. I’ve always been intrigued by the question, “what happens to a character when things don’t go according to plan? What lengths are they willing to go to in order to survive or accomplish their goals?”
For this prompt I would ask that you ignore the back stories that the artist has put forth to accompany the artwork and use only the concept art as the basis for your fic. Feel free to go dark with your fic, take Mulan away from the morals she possessed in the movies. Make her into the person she needs to be to win this war for her people, or avenge her fallen comrades, or whatever challenges face her in the world you have imagined around this concept art.
I would ask that you keep your fic in the spirit of the artwork. Happy endings are fine (as are twisted ones if that’s what you’d prefer!), but don’t make it “poof! And then the world was all fixed.” As we often see with apocalyptic fic or horror fics, there often is some sort of light on the horizon at the end of the fic, but it’s a different world with different rules and a great distance to go before there is anything resembling that fairytale ending.
If you’d like examples of fics in this fandom that I’ve enjoyed, these are two from last year’s Yuletide that I really liked how the authors interpreted the artwork and translated it into fic:
The River Serpent - (Mulan, Twisted Princesses Fandom) - http://archiveofourown.org/works/302477 - This story fleshes out the back story quite nicely and I just *adore* the storytelling. There are those stories that are excellent for their plots, this is one of those fics. I also really like that Mulan is willing to do whatever it takes to win back China for her people.
Dài lóng wénshēn de nǚhái - (Mulan, Twisted Princesses Fandom) - http://archiveofourown.org/works/300982 - I really loved how the author incorporated the artwork into fic here. It was something very different than what I had imagined but it still fits the artwork so very well.
Fandom: Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
Characters: Kvothe and Bast
This series, again, is just such an exceptional example of storytelling that I couldn’t *not* request for more tales in this ‘verse for Yuletide. I can never get enough of this series and would love to receive a fic expanding on the canon. There are so many wonderful puzzles that we have just been given the slightest teasers as to what they really are, from the Chandrian and the shroud of mystery that hangs over them to what ultimately happened to Kvothe that changed him from a thick-skulled adventurer to a barkeep in a quiet town focused on minding his own business.
The relationship in this series that fascinates me to no end is the friendship between Kvothe and Bast. Bast is *such* an interesting character who is so very devoted to Kvothe. I would love some background on this relationship, how did they meet, what adventures have they had together? Bast is also undyingly loyal to Kvothe, or at least the shadow of himself that’s left. What Bast really wants is to get Kvothe to remember who he used to be, that miscreant who never took no for an answer, and move on from this dusty town to finish the adventure he started in his youth.
It’s almost a bit alarming, at times, the length to which Bast will go to protect Kvothe, such as the scene where he hires thugs to raid the bar in an attempt to get a rise out of Kvothe. When Kvothe takes an injury, Bast not only transfers it to himself during the process of healing Kvothe, but he later on ravages the men he hired, telling them that they took it way too far in how much they attached Kvothe. We see it in how Bast manipulated events to have the Chronicler visit the town in an attempt to get Kvothe to recount and remember who he was. We see it in the threats Bast makes to the Chronicler that he best follow his instructions to the letter or risk Bast’s wrath. The relationship has a bit of an obsession to it, but despite its dysfunctionality, this friendship has always intrigued me. Why is Bast so loyal to Reshi? Maybe write a fic demonstrating another one of these moments where the depth of Bast’s devotion to Kvothe is made truly apparent. This goes hand in hand with the hurt/comfort dynamic I adore. It’s one friend having an undying loyalty to the other, doing whatever it takes to watch over that person, even when they can’t do it for themselves.
If you’d like to take this fic in another direction, there are *so* many other moments from canon that I would love to see more of. I really fell in love with Cthaeh, a talking tree who wants to drive the world toward chaos. Bast seemed so very alarmed at the fact that Kvothe had interacted with this particular tree and I would love to see how this plays out down the road, what does Cthaeh’s conversation with Kvothe ultimately lead to? Maybe he has another run in with Cthaeh later on in his travels.
If you’d like other ideas, I’m equally fascinated by Lord Haliax and would adore any fic detailing a run in between him and Kvothe. Really, I love how Kvothe is so high-spirited. He doesn’t let people tell him no. What more, when someone does try to put him or his aspirations down and stop him in his tracks, he not only finds a way around the blockade, but he often manages to outwit and/or humiliate the person who has gone after him. Not to say that this doesn’t sometimes end badly, it’s a double edged sword. But I would be equally thrilled with a tale of the university era or of his other adventures where he manages to outwit his adversary in a way that you just have to smile and shake your head at the pure hijinks of it all, the ridiculousness of it, and somehow, even while flying by the seam of his pants, Kvothe somehow manages to pull it off. All in all, this canon is filled to the brim with fascinating characters, ideas, and world building and I would be thrilled by a fic that explores this story further.
Fandom: The Light Bringer Series - Brent Weeks
Characters: Iron Fist, Kip Guile, Gavin Guile
Brent Weeks is just one of those authors that manages to come up with some revolutionary fantasy concepts to base his worlds around and the Light Bringer series is no exception. I love the magic system he’s envisioned with the colors and splitting light. There’s been a lot of fantasy books written over the years and the genre has given birth to many common tropes and clichés. I love that Brent Weeks neatly sidesteps many of these pitfalls to have come up with something as unique as the magic system in this series.
For this prompt I have requested 3 characters: Gavin Guile, Kip Guile, and Iron Fist. It’s probably imperative to define which character I mean by Gavin Guile since there was a switcheroo pulled after the False Prism’s War. By Gavin Guile I mean the current acting Prism (not the one locked up in a cell).
While all of the characters in this series are fascinating, Kip is really the one who hits me close to home. He’s not the typical hero at the beginning of the book, he’s a gangly kid brought up in destitute poverty. Through meeting the Prism his life is catapulted in a different direction with a far greater trajectory than he would’ve ever probably imagined for himself most likely. What I love about Kip is that he really doesn’t seem to get just how important his is going to be in the coming years. With Gavin losing his colors, Kip could very well be next in line to take over that role. One of the tropes I adore in fiction in general is when you have one character underestimating their own worth and the people around them actually being the ones to demonstrate just how important that individual is.
Take Kip for example. Gavin takes great lengths to cover up the results of the test that show how many colors Kip can split and work. Gavin understands Kip’s implicit worth, and sets Iron Fist, commander of the Blackguard, to watch after him. What Kip sees as his father thinking him unworthy to join him in his pursuits against the color wights is actually Gavin’s attempt to protect Kip. Yes, Kip may be a tool in his arsenal, but he’s one with an important role to play out ultimately.
We see many hints of Kip’s strength in the colors, from how he can recognize ultraviolet hues to figuring out how to go Green Golem all on his own. I would love to see a fic where Kip gets shown just how important he really is, or where he does something that really makes everyone pause and realize it too. Maybe there’s another instance of him displaying this almost supernatural gift for light splitting that takes everyone aback, maybe he’s threatened by an outside force or an enemy of Gavin’s and the Prism and/or Ironfist come to rescue him and wreak vengeance upon those who have threatened Kip. I’m pretty open ended on this particular prompt.
Really, I am intrigued by the disparity between how Kip often times sees himself as less than worthy, and someone who is holding his father back, and how important he really is going to be in how events play out given his strength with the colors. I would absolutely treasure a fic that explores this theme in any capacity.
Prompt as it appears in my Yuletide sign-up:
Fandom: The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Characters: FitzChivalry Farseer and Burrich
Prompt as it appears in my Yuletide sign-up:
This series is filled with everything I could want in a good story, from the angst to the characters that are so deep and real that I don’t know if I would blink twice if they strode right out of the story and into real life. Robin Hobb has a mastery of characters that is hard to match. The characters are real people that make mistakes, they make the wrong decisions and sometimes you just want to grab them by their shoulders, set them down on the right path, and give them a good kick in the behind to give them some momentum toward sorting out their problems.
Perhaps more than anything else in this trilogy, I was really intrigued by the Wit, wherein a character is able to telepathically bond with an animal. I wrote a bit earlier in this letter about how I have a special place in my heart for any relationship between human and animal. I’ve had pets all my life and really do view them as little people almost, with their own personalities that are endlessly entertaining.
I really fell in love with how Robin Hobb chose to approach this relationship wherein animals really did become primary characters, capable of thought and communication. To Fitz, the relationship he forges with his animal compatriots are some of the most important and long lasting ones he makes in the books. I would love a fic exploring the Wit in any way you see fit. I always found it fascinating how Burrich and Fitz came to odds on this topic. For Fitz, the Wit is something he couldn’t live without. For Burrich, it’s a tainted magic to be avoided at all costs.
I would really just love to read a fic focusing on the Wit in whatever capacity you see fit, whether it bring Night Eyes into the mix or maybe it’s a fic earlier in Fitz’s childhood where Burrich is still trying to break him from his habit of using the Wit entirely. It could be about the morals of using the Wit, (a human can force his will on an animal if he really pushes it, how do morals come into play when those who carry the Wit have to decide whether it’s acceptable to do that?). Is it immoral to bond an animal against it’s will? How does that play into Burrich’s and Fitz’s views on the Wit? There are also things that come in the later books revolving around the Wit, how Fitz travels with Night Eyes and his pack for a time, how does that play into Burrich’s views on the Wit when he has to try to bring Fitz back to being a human again?
These are some general ideas, feel free to pick one (I don’t expect to see all of these ideas in a single fic, this was more just something to get the plot bunnies hopping) or none at all and run with your own spin on the topic. This Yuletide, for me, is about finding those little moments and concepts in fic and fleshing them out. The Wit is another one of those original ideas that just struck me and really resonated. I would be absolutely thrilled to receive any fic that somehow revolves around this fascinating concept.
In Summation
Well, I feel like I’ve written an essay :P I hope that I haven’t overwhelmed you with too much here. I’ve been caught before where I just didn’t feel that I had enough information to go on when writing a gift fic for someone so I really try to make sure that you don’t have the same issue. I’ve basically thrown together a conglomeration of everything that I could think of in hopes that something would catch your eye/spark a plot bunny, and you could run with it. Please, please, please, don’t assume that all of this needs to go into a fic, I think that fic might read a bit strangely and disjointed lol. Take what pieces work for you and play with those, don’t worry about the rest. More than anything else, write what feels write to *you,* I want this to be as much fun for you to write as it will be for me to read!
Happy Yuletide, good luck writing, and I cannot wait to see what you produce :D
Thanks,
hollow_echos