Dear Yuletide Writer!
Dear Yuletide Writer,
First of all, thank you! Please go ahead and ignore all my suggestions and write whatever you want, if you want! :) As always, I'm going with "too much detail", but please ignore this if you'd like.
I am lannamichaels basically everywhere, including AO3. I hang out in the Yuletide IRC chat as Lanna. (There is also Lan, who is
elanya/
measured_words.)
General information and stuff:
Things I like: Character studies! Character-driven stuff! Day in the life! People sitting around and talking, with no discernible plot! People disagreeing with each other without one of them being vilified for having a different opinion. I like plot! I like power and exploring power relationships and dynamics. I like queering everything. I like BDSM; my biggest love in BDSM is when the sub just wants the big bad dom to shut up already and do it. So it probably goes without saying that I also like foreplay! I like "just kiss already!" I like fading to black! I also love gen!
I love alternate universes! I love unreliable narrators and non-linear narratives. I have been conducting a torrid love affair with second person, which uses up a lot of commas and breaks grammar into tiny pitiful pieces, and so it goes without saying that I would love second person! Or first person or third, etc. I like parentheses (like these) and fun with sentence structures and people talking over each other. I love dialogue! If you want to write a story entirely in dialogue, I would love to read a story entirely in dialogue!
I love magical or supernatural fusion stuff. I love crackfic. I love futurefic. I love vampires. I love AUs of all sorts. I love mindfucking and mind control! I love vampires who actually bite people. I love telepathic bonds. (Also, bondage.) (And oral sex.) (And telepathically arguing while having sex.) (I like dialogue is I think my point.)
I love happily ever afters. I love old married couples. I love people who still love each other both despite and because of all their flaws. I love friendships. I love shiny happy people holding hands. I love alliteration! I love stream of consciousness! I love a lot of other things not covered above!
If you want to string as many tropes together as you'd like, I am totally here for that, that would be phenomenal. If you have, for example, a wingfic a/b/o sedoretu arranged marriage comedy of manners hurt/comfort AU that you want to write, I would love to receive it.
Things I do not want: Any violence to fingers or eyes. (That's the big one.) Non-canonical child abuse. Apocalypse, disaster, or dystopia fic. Zombies. Character bashing. Humiliation. Slavery. Unrelenting angst. Terminal illness. "My way or the highway" coercion in dubcon. If there is going to be sex: no rimming or scat, please. Also, I would prefer that it not be a Christmas-themed story.
Please don't consider the length of my blabbing on any indication of me wanting one fandom more than another. It says more about me blathering than about anything else. I would really love any fic in any of these fandoms. ♥
In alphabetical order, my requests are:
Austra Family - Elaine Bergstrom (Characters: Any)
Nominated characters:
Charles Austra
Helen Wells
Stephen Austra
Gregory Hunter
AKA my eternal hopeless fandom of hopelessness (in my years of asking, it has only been ever offered once), but MAYBE ONE DAY, I HAVE HOPEEEEE.
Okay, so what is this fandom? Where can it be found? I'm glad you asked! The Austra family series is a series of books about ALIEN VAMPIRES. Yes, alien vampires, it is AMAZING. Okay, so they are a family of aliens who are blood drinkers and all that vampire stuff, they are also all artistic as fuck. They create stained glass windows of utter gorgeousness, they are great at music, they are just the most creative vampires you will ever see, and they are also VERY CONCERNED ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS, because obviously living forever = concerned about the future.
SO, THESE BOOKS ARE OUT OF PRINT, for the most part, but there are Kindle editions, if that is your thing. (The author website, alas, appears to have lapsed in its hosting.)
Please understand, when I say "any" character here, the rules indicate that this means "any nominated character". I actually mean this as "really any character." If you were matched on this fandom/somehow found your way here otherwise and are contemplating writing this, and none of the nommed characters speak to you? PLEASE GO AHEAD AND WRITE ANY OTHER CHARACTER. Really, any other character.
I love this canon to bits and pieces and really just want there to be fic for it. I nommed the characters I did because I would love fic with them, but I love all the characters, so would be perfectly happy with any of them. Really.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke (Characters: Arabella Strange, John Childermass, John Uskglass | The Raven King, Stephen Black)
If I were more creative, I would write this request in the form of a footnote, but I am not that creative, so please just assume this is a rambling digression... hey, wait, it's totally a random digression. I win?
So, JSMN. This book is wonderful and the last third is fantastic and I love all of these four characters in so many ways. I am open to every kind of thing you would like to do! (If you do write Arabella in a romantic relationship with one of the others, please do it pre-canon or post-canon, or, like, she and Jonathan have an arrangement during the war and then the Raven King shows up one night and she thinks it's Jonathan but it's not, and then consensual stuff happens. Something like that. Basically, no cheating, and in post-canon, she's "not being a widow" and she and Jonathan are both cool with each other having other relationships)
In terms of prompts: I would really love post-canon fic for this. Please don't feel the need to shove all four of them into one fic if you do not want to. But I love all the potential interactions between all of them. What's it like for Stephen in Faerie? Does he invite the Raven King over for a banquet? What is Arabella up to, now that she is famously Not Dead Anymore? And Childermass and Raven King interactions, or Childermass and King Stephen Black interactions, have so much potential for amazing things.
I'm also cool with different settings, such as modern day, or in space, but if you change the setting, please keep the magic.
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (Character: Dorothy "Dot" Williams)
DOT DESERVES EVERYTHING GOOD AND HAPPY AND WONDERFUL IN THIS LIFE.
...Yeah, that's kind of what it comes down to. I want Dot to get good things and get the things she wants. If that's Hugh, I want Hugh to shape up and not be an asshole to her. If it's to open her own ladies detective agency after the war, then I want that for her. If it's to be a grandma teaching her grandkids essential life skills while solving mysteries, then I want that for her. If she wants to do anything, I want it for her. (I'm open to a life of crime, if Dot would like to do that as well. Basically, I want Dot to be happy.)
I am totally cool with Dot/Hugh (I shipped them for the first two seasons), and I'm basically open to Dot shipped with anyone except Phryne. (If you really want to write me a fic with Dot in a romantic relationship with Phryne, please do it in an AU where Dot hasn't been Phryne's employee.)
Despite the capslocking above, I'm also good with angst and other things. One of the things I find fascinating about this show is the looming spectres of both World Wars, and they don't know the second one is coming. If you want to write about Dot during the second war, focusing on what she's doing, that would be great. (Please no Holocaust references.) Also things after the war! I'm in favor.
Case fic is great! Day in the life is also great! Introspection is great! Porn is great! Basically I just love Dot and want her to shine.
A side note: I know that Dot's Catholicism is a very important part of her character. That said, I would prefer if the fic did not focus heavily on questions or intricacies of her religion, or the issue with Hugh having to convert so they can get married.
Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett (Characters: Any)
The nominated characters were:
Alice "Wazzer" Goom (Monstrous Regiment)
Betty "Shufti" Manickle (Monstrous Regiment)
Jack Jackrum (Monstrous Regiment)
Polly "Ozzer" Perks (Monstrous Regiment)
I went with Any, because ANY OF THEM and also ALL OF THEM. Please write whichever one(s) of these you want, and in whatever combination you would like! I really love this book. (sidenote, since this book does cover some gender stuff: I consider myself genderqueer, in a sort of "*shrug*, well, I suppose that's the best word I can find" way. So I am totally cool with you either/both examining the gender stuff, or just ignoring it completely.) (If you do decide to ignore it completely, please keep Jackrum a "he", though)
Some thoughts:
Sergeant Jackrum: JACKRUM IS THE BEST, JACKRUM IS MY FAVORITE. spoiler: they are all my favorites. But Jackrum is my MOST FAVORITE. They are his LITTLE LADS.
Ahhhhh, Jackrum, he is the best. I am open to so much with Jackrum. How he got started, what it was like to navigate being widowed and pregnant, the discussion with his grandmother about taking the baby, how he learned to manipulate officers, when he first found out there were other wartime crossdressers, when he started helping them out in their careers, the first time he had to blackmail one of them to help one of his little lads, ANYTHING. Would love him going back to his son's family and making a place for himself there. What does he do to avoid boredom?
I am also COMPLETELY OPEN to every kind of gender stuff when it comes to Jackrum. If you want to explore how Jackrum thinks of his gender, I am TOTALLY OPEN TO THAT. Textually, it seems he went in as crossdressing just to follow William, did it stay that way? Did his ideas on gender morph over time? Did he never really think about it in depth and was just like "yep, I'm a man" and it was so gradual he never noticed? Or was it that she always considered herself a woman (UPON MY OATH, I AM NOT A LYING MAN) and wearing trousers and fighting in wars didn't change anything about being a woman, and, look, there are a ton of other women around, it's not like this isn't a normal thing for a Borogrovian woman to do.
JACKRUM ♥
Polly: POLLY POLLY POLLY. Hi, Polly, you are GREAT. I feel bad that I cannot come up with as long as nattering about any of the others as I can about Jackrum, but that doesn't mean I love them any less. I love Polly's POV on everything, I love her journey, I love everything about it, I love the ending. In terms of shipping, I love her with Shufti, but I am totally cool with her with any of the squad.
Shufti: FUCK YEAH, SHUFTI. I really love her journey through the book, I love everything about her, I love it. Like all of them, I'd love to see post-canon things for her, how her life is like now, what's going on. (As above, I ship her with Polly.)
Wazzer: Oh, poor dear Wazzer. I would really like to see her post-canon, her first time enjoying real freedom. How does she like being with the General, what's her philosophy on life, does she still talk to the Duchess? Or, mid-canon, what's it like for Wazzer, following the Duchess, hoping that it will all work out, but knowing that hope doesn't really do much.
General prompts for this fandom: post-canon fic where the squad get together for a reunion weekend/drink night would be GREAT. Do they have annual reunions? Do they get together every ten years and swap stories? Do Polly and Mal keep in touch with Jackrum afterwards? What happens after Jackrum dies, does his secret get out, and what's the repercussions for everything? Does Polly ever have to use the list that Jackrum sent?
I'm also a fan of AUs for any fandom, and just want to say that, despite those prompts all being canon-compliant, that I would also really like any kind of AU you could come up with!
The President's Daughter series - Ellen Emerson White (Character: Meghan Powers)
Let me tell you a story about the President's Daughter series. I read Long Live The Queen first (it was my older sister's copy, I took it from her bookshelf), then bought the first one at some point after that, then got the second one out from inter-library loan what must have been years later, then a few years ago, someone's yuletide letter informed me that another book had come out and so I read that one also.
AND WHEN I READ THIS SERIES AS A KID, I was so very very very sure that Preston was coded as being gay, and with a crush on Meg's dad.
When I read it as an adult, I realized that the author shipped Preston and Meg really hard. And I was like, wait, WHAT.
I still feel a bit WAIT WHAT about it. I love their friendship and their banter and, if you want to write Preston, I would love to see ALL OF THAT, but please don't make this shippy between them. (Preston being in a relationship with Meg's dad, as poly OT3 or a poly V with Meg's mom, though, is totally fine with me, so long as all the adults are fully consenting.)
Meg's journey in Long Live The Queen meant a whole fuckton of a lot to me, in a way that it's still hard, even now, for me to express. The way she has the hurt, the way she saves herself, not in a pithy "and then she hit them over the head and ran away laughing" way, but in a hard slog with pain and sacrifice and coming close to dying, and then has to earn her recovery, has to work through everything. It was probably the best trauma recovery plot I could have read at that time of my life.
There are parts of the book that I still quote to myself and I deeply, deeply love it. I would love anything that explores Meg's recovery, that took it a few years into the future and how Meg deals with getting her life back, maybe they catch the guy and Meg has to deal with the trial. Maybe a few years down the line, Meg and her mom have a hard conversation about what happened, when Meg's old enough that she has some perspective, and her mom sees her as an adult, not a child to be protected.
I have to say that I didn't like parts of Long May She Reign and I feel like it coming out like 20 years after the rest of the series probably played a huge part in it. I'm not really convinced about Meg's choice of colleges or about other things, but I would LOVE to see future fic in which Meg works through her PTSD and living her life and how that goes.
And, saying that about Long May She Reign, but Preston's bit in it about how he had to look at the pictures because Meg's parents just couldn't, how he was on-point for all of it, oh my god. Because it's personal and it's also his job, and he doesn't get to say "we were too close friends for me to do this, I'm opting out". It's because they were close, it's because he could recognize her, it's because he would know her, and that's so important. This is something he can do for Meg, even though they all had to have thought she was dead.
And, speaking of the other nominated characters, Meg's relationships with her brothers is just so wonderful and has so much potential. Like Meg, they have to go through being the President's kids, but then when Meg is kidnapped and presumed dead, they have to deal with that. They have to live with that. And then Meg is back, and oh, man, there is so much potential here.
In terms of politics, I self-identify as a political junkie and have been since I was pretty young. This was, to say it lightly, not the only political-based fiction I was reading during that time period. ;) I do feel like the original setting is pretty important in terms of context and so I would prefer you keep the original Nebulous Now of the 80s, meaning that Meg is an adult in the 90s.
Please do not crossover with recent political events. I am open to crossovers with other fictional politics universes (such as The West Wing and Yes Minister) or specific real life people involved in commenting on politics (such as Rachel Maddow and the Daily Show alum cohort). If there's one you're thinking of but don't know if I know it, the yuletide mods can get in touch with me.
In terms of shipping, if I ship Meg with anyone, it's Beth (as Beth wasn't nominated, feel free to ignore that!). In terms of the nominated characters, I would definitely love a fic about Meg growing up, having adult relationships, and how her relationship with Preston, or her brothers, changes over time, and how things organically change, and what sort of hard conversations do they have to have to work through some of the shit that's happened.
Basically, I just loved these books so much and they hold a special place in my heart. Meg means a lot to me as a character. I'd love to see her again.
Solar System (Anthropomorphic) (Characters: Any)
Nominated characters:
Juno (NASA Spacecraft)
New Horizons (NASA Spacecraft)
Philae (ESA Spacecraft)
Planet 9 (Astronomy)
Rosetta (ESA Spacecraft)
Eris (Astronomy)
Pluto (Astronomy)
The important thing about this fandom is that I begged two people into nominating it for me because I didn't have room on my noms form for it. :P So just the fact that it's here IS THE BEST THING.
So! I sort of group these in a couple different ways, but please do not take that as I'm not interested in mixing up between these categories!
The Space Vehicles group: Juno, Rosetta, New Horizons, Philae. THESE ARE ALL SO COOL. I love what all each of them are doing individually and I love how New Horizons is on its way to check out a Kuiper Belt Object. I'm so interested in these machines and their adventures and their discoveries, how there are things we can't really know from Earth, so they are going out to FIND OUT WHAT'S OUT THERE, because until they do, they don't know it. There's just so much out there to know, that we don't know, but we've sent these machines out there to find out, THAT'S THE BEST.
The Mike Brown Effect group: Pluto, Eris, and the hypothesized Planet 9. I wanted these planets in particular because of their relationship via the issues surrounding the discoveries of new planetary objects and hypothesized planetary objects, and what's out there that we don't know about. One of the coolest things I love about astronomy is that this stuff has always been there, and we're still finding it. There's so much to learn and so much still to figure out. There's so much we don't know! And that's so cool!
So, to sum up the back story, Eris was found and this led to the reclassification of Pluto from being grouped with solar system objects like Earth, and started grouping it with solar system objects like Eris. Mike Brown's twitter handle is even, proudly, "plutokiller". More recently, Mike Brown has been involved with the hypothesized Planet 9, which looks mathematically likely, but hasn't actually been spotted yet.
Speaking personally, I've always been a little disappointed about various things ruling out MORE GIANT PLANETS in the solar system WHY IS THERE A KUIPER CLIFF WHERE'S MY GIANT HIDDEN JUPITER SKULKING AROUND THE EDGES OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, so when the Planet 9 thing happened, I WAS SO PSYCHED. I really want this planet to exist. :D
But, y'know, it might not exist! Eris and Pluto might be lolling that we're hunting for the wrong thing to explain what the fuck is going on with some trans-Neptunian objects.
A note on Pluto: in case it's not clear from the above, I am perfectly fine with the decision to group solar system objects like Pluto separately, and I believe strongly that if people are going to put Pluto in with "the planets", they should also include the rest of the Pluto-like solar system objects in their counting. I can sometimes get twitchy about arguments about Pluto's nomenclature that appeal more to sentiment and nostalgia rather than the actual issues with the IAU's definition. I feel like distinctions are for human purposes, are fundamentally changeable, and that if it makes it easier to analyze Pluto by putting it into a group with similar objects, I am fine with that. (When I was buying a solar system picture book for my space-interested niece, I made sure I got one that was updated and didn't sentimentalize the issue.) So, if you go the Pluto route, I would rather the planet nomenclature issue not be the focus of the story.
Another note: although I really love space, I'm not an astrophysicist nor do I play one on the internet. So please don't worry about things being 100% accurate. If you want to go the distance, that is great! But if you want to take artistic license, that is also great!
TL;DR: SPACE!!11!!!!11!!!! THERE'S SO MUCH WE DON'T KNOW, BUT BY JOVE, WE'RE GOING TO TRY TO FIND IT OUT.
This entry was originally posted at http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/938158.html.