Dear Yuletide author 2016
Dear Yuletide writer
Thanks so much for offering one of my tiny fandoms - I think pretty much everything I'm requesting is a fandom of one, so I'm really excited about whatever you give me. I had real difficulty trimming my requests down to 6 this year (hence the lateness of my sign up and this letter), so whichever you've matched on I am guaranteed to be very enthusiastic about.
I have a few big Do Not Wants (DNWs). No major character death, intense focus on grief or grieving, gore, non-con, incest, infidelity please.
I would also prefer not to receive crossovers, pwp or kink (unless it's there to demonstrate some other facet of the relationship), total AUs, zombies, soul bonds or omegaverse. However any rating from G to explicit is fine.
General things I like are: happy endings; complex paths to get there; unexpected kindness; people being smart and competent; triple-crosses; second chances; characters wresting grace out of chaos; lovers who value, trust and like each other; gen het or slash; families of choice.
I dislike "love" that really needs a restraining order and characters who are too stupid to live.
On to the specific requests, all of which are spoilery to a greater or lesser extent.
Queen of Atlantis - story by Sarah Rees Brennan
(can be found online at https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/summer_2011/queen_of_atlantis_by_sarah_rees_brennan )
characters: Mede (Queen of Atlantis) The Prince (Queen of Atlantis)
I love Mede's courage, her strength of character, her integrity, that though she feels that she is always slightly inadequate compared to her older sister, when it really comes down to it she's the one who will do the right thing, even at tremendous personal cost. I also love the way she can cut right to the chase - e.g. " Life or death. Either one would be an answer.” “It would be a help if you knew which one was the r-right answer!”
I love the Prince for his kindness, his integrity, the way that anger, betrayal and despair have tempered over time so that although he may be without hope for himself or his land, he can still act with gentleness and courtesy towards a long line of young and horrified princesses and will use neither force nor trickery to try to persuade one to stay.
I love the way that even as they see the sea rush in, Mede's reaction is to turn to "her" Prince, who still looks like a monster and say "It’s our wedding day. Kiss me again."
While I think the story's ending is thematically perfect, I still really, really want fix it for this fandom, not just to give Mede and her prince longer to live, but also to see their relationship develop with a chance to know and trust each other better. When Mede chooses to marry the Prince, the best case scenario is that they might both survive and would each be married to a stranger, something which in other circumstances that would be pretty terrifying. But it's worth it because even the worst case scenario would bring salvation of a sort to both their people. I'd love to see growing trust and affection in something closer to the best case. They each demonstrate both strong personal qualities and intense commitment and loyalty: I'd really like to see that relationship developed further.
I don't think the only two options need to be the rotting, living death status quo of the start of the story or becoming human again; fix-it in this context might mean that the Prince's land is renewed and everyone lives after all, but it could also mean that as the land is drowned by the sea, none of them actually die, but go through a "sea-change into something rich and strange" (like Ariel's song from the Tempest only still alive and living in a city below the sea). I think it could be really interesting to see the characters dealing with that kind of change alongside learning to know and trust each other and working out what their lives would be like going forward.
One last request - no zombies please! I'm fine with the canonical descriptions of the Prince as monster, but I don't want to see animated bodies without human minds.
Amaluna - show by Cirque du Soleil
characters: Cali (Amaluna) Romeo (Amaluna) Miranda (Amaluna)
I saw this show in theatre last winter and I was entranced. I'm a fan of Cirque du Soleil's spectacle in any case, but with this show I also love the way the acrobatics interacted with and spun out the storyline. Interpretation of non-spoken theatre is always going to be more subjective than the written word, but this is some of how I see the show:
I love the drama and the energy and the joy, the bold colours and the feats of skill. I also love the way that the show subverts the Tempest and tackles many of the things that leave me lukewarm about that play. I love the way the focus is on the female characters as strong and powerful. I love the fact that Miranda has grown up on a magical island, is deeply engaged with its magic and its magical creatures and has all her own agency as she comes of age (rather than being put into a magical sleep whenever Prospero does anything interesting). I love the fact that Prospera and Miranda are powerful but live alongside and within the magic rather than needing to dominate or tame it. I love the fact that "happy ever after" means that Romeo is able to stay on the magical island with her rather than that she leaves everything she knows to follow him.
The programme notes (which I only read after I saw the show) describe Cali as Miranda's jealous pet, but watching the show I didn't see him as either a pet or jealous. He seemed to me to be protective rather than jealous and every bit as much a person as the other characters, even if he is not entirely human (and really, how many people on the island are human?) It probably didn't hurt that he was played by an utterly gorgeous performer in the show I saw, but it also helps far more that unlike Shakespeare's Caliban he didn't attempt to rape Miranda as a toddler. And while I really enjoyed his dynamic with Miranda - which seemed a dynamic of equals - I also really enjoyed his dynamic with Romeo which seemed to me to begin in rivalry and mistrust, but also involve a certain fascination (possibly on both sides) that develops into a grudging respect and even liking. Could that become loving?
For Miranda, the show is obviously about coming of age, coming into her magic, owning her own emotions. Romeo is torn away from everything he know and there is clearly a point where he needs to choose to stay with Miranda and engage with her world and live his life in it, which has to be a much more deliberate choice than just being entranced by a beautiful girl following a shipwreck.
I mentioned in my sign up that I'd love to see OT3 with these characters where Miranda is strong and powerful now she has come into her inheritance, Romeo adapts to life in an entirely new world (just what is that like when the new world is so full of magic?), and Cali is still deeply protective and sometimes tricksy, but Romeo is now included in that protectiveness. However failing OT3, I'd also be happy with Romeo/Miranda, Romeo/Cali or ambiguous gen. But I'd still like to see all three characters included with strong bonds of whatever kind between them.
Fandom: Magical Makeover (Interactive Fiction)
(can be found online at http://philome.la/Citrushistrix/magical-makeover-fixed/play )
characters: Player Character (Magical Makeover) Amherst (Magical Makeover) Fairy (Magical Makeover)
This is a repeat request from last year. This "game" is interactive fiction, though rather less interactive than most - you make three choices near the start about three "beauty" products to use, and the rest of the story unfolds from there. It's quirky and offbeat and frivolous, with more depth than you would necessarily initially think. The author describes it as "An interactive story inspired in part by fairy-tales, and in part by terrible "makeover" Flash games targeted towards girls." I strongly recommend it and I think it would appeal to people who like Diana Wynne Jones' Rough Guide to Fantasyland etc.
Once you've played it through once there is a author's note page which will give you a crib sheet of how to get the different endings. I particularly like the option b endings which have the extra interaction with the fairy, the endings with Amherst and the final ending in the fairy library with access to all the different worlds. When I come back to the game I'm always surprised how strong the characters are and how much I like them.
I really like the protagonist, the way her apparent incompetence is mixed with a sense that of course she'll do the right thing and a back story that is full of genuinely wild travels, adventures, astral projection etc. I'd love to see her being awesome in her unique and inept way; she is so determined to be selfish and shallow, but that doesn't stop her going into danger or freeing a captive cassowary. Maybe your story could include further adventures into other worlds or exploring the fairy library, which seems an utterly awesome place, with possibilities for either travelling to other worlds, just looking at them, or having an adventure right there.
And of course in the library, the power dynamics between the protagonist and the fairy are reversed and the fairy is the one with power (The protagonist thought it was okay to keep a fairy in a jar? Seriously? The fairy has clearly managed to work out a perfectly pleasant lifestyle in the jar, and is so much more competent that I'm sure she could have escaped if she had really wanted to, but there's no denying the protagonist is at best clueless about her.)
I'd be particularly interested in seeing her shipped with the fairy or with Amherst or both, though preferably not with Mildred. (Although I don't think her gender is technically specified, I read her as strongly coded female and given her canonical relationships are all with women, if you make her female please keep her a lesbian). I'm fine with Mildred in the story though and I like the Cassowary a lot, but I'm not so interested in her relationship with her parents. And I don't mind you only including either Amherst or the fairy but not both if it's so you can ship the protagonist with that character.
Dark Parables (Video Games)
(wiki available at http://dark-parables.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Parables_Wiki )
characters: Teresa | Theresa (Dark Parables) Eldra (Dark Parables) Raphael (Dark Parables)
Dark Parables is a series of "casual" games with a mixture of hidden object sceness and puzzles, but has more continuity of storyline and character between the instalments than seems usual in this type of game. My request characters appear in "The Red Riding Hood Sisters", a relatively early instalment and I will be the first to admit that both storyline and dialogue are clunky compared to later games. However the story has so much potential that I want more and particularly fix-it. (We do get more back story for Teresa and Rafael later in the series, but that doesn't alter the "everyone dies" ending of their story.)
To recap the relevant storyline (spoilers up to The Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide), Teresa is a king's daughter who loved the forests, but was cursed along with her sisters and turned into a mermaid. She met Eldra and Raphael when they were all young (it's not quite clear whether they were still children or teenagers) and they together found the magical doodad needed to make her human again. Eldra and Teresa were then trained by the red riding hood sisters while Raphael became an adventurer and fortune hunter. Ultimately Eldra and Teresa rise to the top of the order until they are rivals for its leadership, whereupon Eldra kills the wolf king, is corrupted by the Wolf Talisman and becomes the evil Wolf Queen.
So Eldra and Teresa have always been friends and rivals and even as Wolf Queen, Eldra had Teresa brought back to the Mist Kingdom rather than being left to die where she lay. Was Teresa that important to her, even in Eldra's corrupted state? And did Teresa ever realise that the woman whose claws wounded her was her dearest friend? Then Raphael - who turns out to be the last descendant of the protectors of the Mist Kingdom before it was overrun by the mist wolves tracks Eldra (by smell!) to try to rescue her, not realising what she has become. He clearly loves her (and Teresa?), whether as friends or something more and in the end she is free from the Wolf Talisman though very much weakened and he stays with her rather than escaping from the Fabled Land with the other characters. (Oh and the Mist Kingdom where Teresa's body is, no longer seems cut off from the rest of the world.)
I'd love OT3, but otherwise I prefer Teresa/Eldra to Raphael/Eldra. I'd adore fix-it, with or without pairings. The fairytale detective finds Teresa's body in the Mist Kingdom, but are we sure she was dead? She had after all been paralysed when she was attacked by the Wolf Queen. And though we seem to see the Fabled Land destroyed with Raphael and Eldra still there, it's plausible he could have dived through a portal with her at the last minute. So what would happen then? I imagine they - or at least Raphael - would want to find Teresa. Then Eldra clearly has a lot of healing to do, both physically and emotionally, plus coming to terms with everything she did as the big bad Wolf. If Teresa is alive, she is also going to be in need of at least physical healing and they might well not want to go back to their old lives. I can't see Raphael leaving either of the others. A story with all three of them healing and finding each other again would be perfect. But if you don't think you can do fix-it, maybe something with the three characters together in their younger days seeking out the fire orb to break Teresa's curse?
Fandom: Neolithic Sites of Southern England (Anthropomorphic)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history/
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/avebury/history/
characters: Stonehenge (Henge) Avebury (Henge)
This was the last-minute addition to my requests that caused me to be so late with my sign up and this letter. I agonised over which of my other requests to cut, but I'm fascinated by Neolithic sites so when I saw they were in the tag set, I couldn't resist.
I think anthropomorphic requests are necessarily the most open to interpretation of anything in yuletide, so if you have a story you long to tell go for it. It seems to me though that stories could fall into two rough camps - a) all out anthropomorphic fic where the henges have human type personalities and talk to each other/email each other/complain about whether their stones are being shown off to best advantage/bitch about upstart more recent monuments getting all the attention or b) something less humanised but still with a sense of place or identity or personality of an incredibly ancient place. (And yuletide people are very imaginative, so I'm sure I've missed other possible story structures).
If you go for something in the vein of a) then I'd like both Stonehenge and Avebury to be included, but for something more along the lines of b) feel free to only use one of them. Perhaps that could be a story about successive eras of people using the circles for different purposes or giving them different meanings, maybe even a "story of humanity" as seen by entities who were not remotely human. Or a look at how an anthropomorphised stone circle regards the different generations and cultures of people who come to it.
I really have a bit of a thing for Neolithic sites - I'll always want to visit if I'm holidaying anywhere nearby - and the unbelievably ancient people who built them and used them. I'm much more interested in the actual prehistory than in either modern Pagan practice and understanding of the sites or "aliens built the pyramids" type fantasy, but I don't expect you to be an expert in prehistory or the latest archaeological interpretations. Part of the attraction and part of the reason for making this request is just that the stone circles are so very very old, but part is that even though we do know that they were built and adapted and used over unbelievably long time periods we still know so little about why they were built and how their use changed over time. So things that are purely speculative, or that involve "modern-type!human thinking in prehistoric trappings" are both great and something more modern would be okay too so long as there's a sense of their tremendous age. I'd love to see anything you can come up with for this fandom, so you could probably even sell me on aliens building the henges if you tried hard enough.
West Kennet Long Barrow and Waylands Smithy were also in the tag set. I didn't request them because I feel that their history is somewhat less unknown - we at least know that they were used for burials, even if the significance of which burials still escapes us. However if you want to add both or either to a story about one of the henges, go for it - West Kennet is only just over a mile from Avebury after all.
Daisy Dalrymple Series - Carola Dunn
characters: Ben Dalrymple Martha Dalrymple Susannah Prasad Norville Sybil Sutherby
I adore this mystery series for all its warmth and good humour - I wouldn't read it for exciting suspense or to puzzle out whodunnit, but I still find it utterly delightful. I really like the way that Daisy genuinely likes people so much and that the plot often flows from that and I enjoy the strong family dynamics in many of the stories and that they are often between found family as well as those related by blood.
I also often find myself caring about the minor characters or the characters who only appear in the plot of one book and I often find myself at the end of the book wanting to know more about what comes next for them. Daisy and Alec may have solved the crime, but the other characters are almost always left dealing with the fallout of a murder or a murderer in the family, changes in their social standing, unexpected revelations about each other et cetera. I nominated four minor characters who I find really interesting and requested them all, but please read what follows to see the circumstances in which I'd be happy with a story focusing on just some of them or on other characters altogether. I also do really like Daisy and Alec and would be very happy to see them in the story including at the linchpin of the story so long the requested characters don't just become window dressing for an Alec-and-Daisy story.
So as regards my requests, optional details are optional, and if you can bring all four requested characters together in any way then go for it and I expect I'll enjoy almost anything you write. I don't think bringing them together is as unlikely as it may initially sound either; after "Heirs of the Body", I think that Daisy may be less reluctant to spend time visiting Edgar and Geraldine; she has a family and home of her own now, the loss Fairacres as her childhood home is now more distant, she's got know them both better and they will now have Martha and Ben and their families living with them, who are also now friends of Daisy and Belinda. It's not hard to imagine Geraldine encouraging Daisy to bring some other friends to stay too.
However I also have some specific scenarios I'm interested in following the end of four of the books, as the individuals or families in question grapple with their new circumstances. So if you want to write for any of the following prompts including how the characters in question adapt, cope and move on, then there's no need to include all - or even any - of my requested characters.
(I do appreciate the irony of my overall request for no major character death or focus on mourning in the context of people dealing with the aftermath of murder, but please do still avoid going into too much introspective detail of the experience of grief - as opposed to acknowledging that a character may be grieving or setting a story a little in the future with a focus on other things. Also, please don't kill off significant characters unless it's because they are an arrested murderer now brought to justice. In particular, if you chose to include/deal with Lucy's family, even though Lord Haverhill obviously doesn't have too long left to live, please don't have him die or dying during your story.)
Mistletoe and Murder - the Norville family must be left in turmoil. One of Susannah's sons has been arrested and will likely be hanged for murder; the other is now heir to a title and his brother's son presumably becomes his heir. Add to this that the titled relatives have always refused to acknowledge such an unsuitable (read not white) family and it's not necessarily a bad thing that Mrs Susannah Norville has been taken under Daisy's mother's wing. I can't help feeling that having the Dowager Vicountess in her corner would be a distinctly mixed blessing, though Mrs Norville herself is so grounded and dignified that I don't think she would either be phased by the Dowager taking her into society or want to take society by storm. For this book, so long as the focus is on the family dealing with what has happened to them and adapting to their new circumstances, I'd be happy with a story about just Susannah or a story about her family generally, especially Miles and Felicity.
Another Mrs Norville idea - maybe Daisy introduces her to her friend, Sakari. I'm sure they would get on well and have some things in common as Indian ladies living in England, (they also seem to have the same surname which strikes me as odd) but as Susannah Norville was apparently raised Christian and as there is no suggestion that they are from the same region of India or even have the same first language, they may not have as much in common as Daisy might think.
A Mourning Wedding - these characters were not in the tag set, but if you prefer them to those I did request, I'd happily accept a story about just what did happen to all of Lucy's family after the police had gone home. Just how do you go on when the eldest son and heir has been murdered by his own son and heir? What about all the publicity? We know that Lucy married Gerald quietly in a registry office, so I'm more interested in follow-up about the other members of the family, especially the earl and countess, Lucy's young cousins and Rev'd Tim & his family who is now presumably heir to the earldom.
Gone West - again, I'd really like a story about what happens next and life going on. I chose to nominate Sybil - what does her life look like now? Is she deeply in love with Roger Knox? (I like them both tremendously). Does she stay in close contact with the Birtwhistles - or those at least who are not in prison. I'd also be interested in a story about her writing. I know she decided she did not want to continue the westerns without Humphrey, but What kind of books does she write now? does she adopt a different nom de plume and can she leverage being 'Eli Hwake's co-author to get a better reception with publishers? Alternatively, and sticking with the theme of what happens next and life going on, I'd be very happy with the story about the remaining Birtwhistle family, Ruby, Simon and Myra, with or without Sybil. I really liked the way that Simon and Myra started off as deeply unpromising characters, but flourished in difficult circumstances. Plus I love the sense of found family - as Simon says about Myra "she may be a little idiot but she's our little idiot".
Heirs of the body - I nominated Ben and Martha and I'd really like a story about either or both of them and their families, both their blood family and their new extended family of distant relatives at Fairacres focusing on how they deal with all of the changes about to happen in their lives . How does Ben get on as the ward of a Viscount? How is his life changed? What about his elder sister? She's about to go from probably having to give up school to care for her siblings to living on an English country estate. Does she gets to finish school and even go to university? And what about Martha and Sam, what's it like to suddenly be thrust into life as Edgar's heir. It's going to help that Edgar and Geraldine are warmhearted people with no great interest in London society, but I'm sure Daisy's mother will have something to say about it all, not to mention the rest of polite society - and that may be even worse for Ben, can his new guardians protect him and his siblings from racism? I'd really love to see a "found family" theme here and dealing with a total - though good - upheaval of life; I'd be happy with the story focusing on any one of Ben, his sister and other siblings, Martha, her nuclear family and the new extended family household.
Thanks so much for offering one of my tiny fandoms - I think pretty much everything I'm requesting is a fandom of one, so I'm really excited about whatever you give me. I had real difficulty trimming my requests down to 6 this year (hence the lateness of my sign up and this letter), so whichever you've matched on I am guaranteed to be very enthusiastic about.
I have a few big Do Not Wants (DNWs). No major character death, intense focus on grief or grieving, gore, non-con, incest, infidelity please.
I would also prefer not to receive crossovers, pwp or kink (unless it's there to demonstrate some other facet of the relationship), total AUs, zombies, soul bonds or omegaverse. However any rating from G to explicit is fine.
General things I like are: happy endings; complex paths to get there; unexpected kindness; people being smart and competent; triple-crosses; second chances; characters wresting grace out of chaos; lovers who value, trust and like each other; gen het or slash; families of choice.
I dislike "love" that really needs a restraining order and characters who are too stupid to live.
On to the specific requests, all of which are spoilery to a greater or lesser extent.
Queen of Atlantis - story by Sarah Rees Brennan
(can be found online at https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/summer_2011/queen_of_atlantis_by_sarah_rees_brennan )
characters: Mede (Queen of Atlantis) The Prince (Queen of Atlantis)
I love Mede's courage, her strength of character, her integrity, that though she feels that she is always slightly inadequate compared to her older sister, when it really comes down to it she's the one who will do the right thing, even at tremendous personal cost. I also love the way she can cut right to the chase - e.g. " Life or death. Either one would be an answer.” “It would be a help if you knew which one was the r-right answer!”
I love the Prince for his kindness, his integrity, the way that anger, betrayal and despair have tempered over time so that although he may be without hope for himself or his land, he can still act with gentleness and courtesy towards a long line of young and horrified princesses and will use neither force nor trickery to try to persuade one to stay.
I love the way that even as they see the sea rush in, Mede's reaction is to turn to "her" Prince, who still looks like a monster and say "It’s our wedding day. Kiss me again."
While I think the story's ending is thematically perfect, I still really, really want fix it for this fandom, not just to give Mede and her prince longer to live, but also to see their relationship develop with a chance to know and trust each other better. When Mede chooses to marry the Prince, the best case scenario is that they might both survive and would each be married to a stranger, something which in other circumstances that would be pretty terrifying. But it's worth it because even the worst case scenario would bring salvation of a sort to both their people. I'd love to see growing trust and affection in something closer to the best case. They each demonstrate both strong personal qualities and intense commitment and loyalty: I'd really like to see that relationship developed further.
I don't think the only two options need to be the rotting, living death status quo of the start of the story or becoming human again; fix-it in this context might mean that the Prince's land is renewed and everyone lives after all, but it could also mean that as the land is drowned by the sea, none of them actually die, but go through a "sea-change into something rich and strange" (like Ariel's song from the Tempest only still alive and living in a city below the sea). I think it could be really interesting to see the characters dealing with that kind of change alongside learning to know and trust each other and working out what their lives would be like going forward.
One last request - no zombies please! I'm fine with the canonical descriptions of the Prince as monster, but I don't want to see animated bodies without human minds.
Amaluna - show by Cirque du Soleil
characters: Cali (Amaluna) Romeo (Amaluna) Miranda (Amaluna)
I saw this show in theatre last winter and I was entranced. I'm a fan of Cirque du Soleil's spectacle in any case, but with this show I also love the way the acrobatics interacted with and spun out the storyline. Interpretation of non-spoken theatre is always going to be more subjective than the written word, but this is some of how I see the show:
I love the drama and the energy and the joy, the bold colours and the feats of skill. I also love the way that the show subverts the Tempest and tackles many of the things that leave me lukewarm about that play. I love the way the focus is on the female characters as strong and powerful. I love the fact that Miranda has grown up on a magical island, is deeply engaged with its magic and its magical creatures and has all her own agency as she comes of age (rather than being put into a magical sleep whenever Prospero does anything interesting). I love the fact that Prospera and Miranda are powerful but live alongside and within the magic rather than needing to dominate or tame it. I love the fact that "happy ever after" means that Romeo is able to stay on the magical island with her rather than that she leaves everything she knows to follow him.
The programme notes (which I only read after I saw the show) describe Cali as Miranda's jealous pet, but watching the show I didn't see him as either a pet or jealous. He seemed to me to be protective rather than jealous and every bit as much a person as the other characters, even if he is not entirely human (and really, how many people on the island are human?) It probably didn't hurt that he was played by an utterly gorgeous performer in the show I saw, but it also helps far more that unlike Shakespeare's Caliban he didn't attempt to rape Miranda as a toddler. And while I really enjoyed his dynamic with Miranda - which seemed a dynamic of equals - I also really enjoyed his dynamic with Romeo which seemed to me to begin in rivalry and mistrust, but also involve a certain fascination (possibly on both sides) that develops into a grudging respect and even liking. Could that become loving?
For Miranda, the show is obviously about coming of age, coming into her magic, owning her own emotions. Romeo is torn away from everything he know and there is clearly a point where he needs to choose to stay with Miranda and engage with her world and live his life in it, which has to be a much more deliberate choice than just being entranced by a beautiful girl following a shipwreck.
I mentioned in my sign up that I'd love to see OT3 with these characters where Miranda is strong and powerful now she has come into her inheritance, Romeo adapts to life in an entirely new world (just what is that like when the new world is so full of magic?), and Cali is still deeply protective and sometimes tricksy, but Romeo is now included in that protectiveness. However failing OT3, I'd also be happy with Romeo/Miranda, Romeo/Cali or ambiguous gen. But I'd still like to see all three characters included with strong bonds of whatever kind between them.
Fandom: Magical Makeover (Interactive Fiction)
(can be found online at http://philome.la/Citrushistrix/magical-makeover-fixed/play )
characters: Player Character (Magical Makeover) Amherst (Magical Makeover) Fairy (Magical Makeover)
This is a repeat request from last year. This "game" is interactive fiction, though rather less interactive than most - you make three choices near the start about three "beauty" products to use, and the rest of the story unfolds from there. It's quirky and offbeat and frivolous, with more depth than you would necessarily initially think. The author describes it as "An interactive story inspired in part by fairy-tales, and in part by terrible "makeover" Flash games targeted towards girls." I strongly recommend it and I think it would appeal to people who like Diana Wynne Jones' Rough Guide to Fantasyland etc.
Once you've played it through once there is a author's note page which will give you a crib sheet of how to get the different endings. I particularly like the option b endings which have the extra interaction with the fairy, the endings with Amherst and the final ending in the fairy library with access to all the different worlds. When I come back to the game I'm always surprised how strong the characters are and how much I like them.
I really like the protagonist, the way her apparent incompetence is mixed with a sense that of course she'll do the right thing and a back story that is full of genuinely wild travels, adventures, astral projection etc. I'd love to see her being awesome in her unique and inept way; she is so determined to be selfish and shallow, but that doesn't stop her going into danger or freeing a captive cassowary. Maybe your story could include further adventures into other worlds or exploring the fairy library, which seems an utterly awesome place, with possibilities for either travelling to other worlds, just looking at them, or having an adventure right there.
And of course in the library, the power dynamics between the protagonist and the fairy are reversed and the fairy is the one with power (The protagonist thought it was okay to keep a fairy in a jar? Seriously? The fairy has clearly managed to work out a perfectly pleasant lifestyle in the jar, and is so much more competent that I'm sure she could have escaped if she had really wanted to, but there's no denying the protagonist is at best clueless about her.)
I'd be particularly interested in seeing her shipped with the fairy or with Amherst or both, though preferably not with Mildred. (Although I don't think her gender is technically specified, I read her as strongly coded female and given her canonical relationships are all with women, if you make her female please keep her a lesbian). I'm fine with Mildred in the story though and I like the Cassowary a lot, but I'm not so interested in her relationship with her parents. And I don't mind you only including either Amherst or the fairy but not both if it's so you can ship the protagonist with that character.
Dark Parables (Video Games)
(wiki available at http://dark-parables.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Parables_Wiki )
characters: Teresa | Theresa (Dark Parables) Eldra (Dark Parables) Raphael (Dark Parables)
Dark Parables is a series of "casual" games with a mixture of hidden object sceness and puzzles, but has more continuity of storyline and character between the instalments than seems usual in this type of game. My request characters appear in "The Red Riding Hood Sisters", a relatively early instalment and I will be the first to admit that both storyline and dialogue are clunky compared to later games. However the story has so much potential that I want more and particularly fix-it. (We do get more back story for Teresa and Rafael later in the series, but that doesn't alter the "everyone dies" ending of their story.)
To recap the relevant storyline (spoilers up to The Little Mermaid and the Purple Tide), Teresa is a king's daughter who loved the forests, but was cursed along with her sisters and turned into a mermaid. She met Eldra and Raphael when they were all young (it's not quite clear whether they were still children or teenagers) and they together found the magical doodad needed to make her human again. Eldra and Teresa were then trained by the red riding hood sisters while Raphael became an adventurer and fortune hunter. Ultimately Eldra and Teresa rise to the top of the order until they are rivals for its leadership, whereupon Eldra kills the wolf king, is corrupted by the Wolf Talisman and becomes the evil Wolf Queen.
So Eldra and Teresa have always been friends and rivals and even as Wolf Queen, Eldra had Teresa brought back to the Mist Kingdom rather than being left to die where she lay. Was Teresa that important to her, even in Eldra's corrupted state? And did Teresa ever realise that the woman whose claws wounded her was her dearest friend? Then Raphael - who turns out to be the last descendant of the protectors of the Mist Kingdom before it was overrun by the mist wolves tracks Eldra (by smell!) to try to rescue her, not realising what she has become. He clearly loves her (and Teresa?), whether as friends or something more and in the end she is free from the Wolf Talisman though very much weakened and he stays with her rather than escaping from the Fabled Land with the other characters. (Oh and the Mist Kingdom where Teresa's body is, no longer seems cut off from the rest of the world.)
I'd love OT3, but otherwise I prefer Teresa/Eldra to Raphael/Eldra. I'd adore fix-it, with or without pairings. The fairytale detective finds Teresa's body in the Mist Kingdom, but are we sure she was dead? She had after all been paralysed when she was attacked by the Wolf Queen. And though we seem to see the Fabled Land destroyed with Raphael and Eldra still there, it's plausible he could have dived through a portal with her at the last minute. So what would happen then? I imagine they - or at least Raphael - would want to find Teresa. Then Eldra clearly has a lot of healing to do, both physically and emotionally, plus coming to terms with everything she did as the big bad Wolf. If Teresa is alive, she is also going to be in need of at least physical healing and they might well not want to go back to their old lives. I can't see Raphael leaving either of the others. A story with all three of them healing and finding each other again would be perfect. But if you don't think you can do fix-it, maybe something with the three characters together in their younger days seeking out the fire orb to break Teresa's curse?
Fandom: Neolithic Sites of Southern England (Anthropomorphic)
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history/
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/avebury/history/
characters: Stonehenge (Henge) Avebury (Henge)
This was the last-minute addition to my requests that caused me to be so late with my sign up and this letter. I agonised over which of my other requests to cut, but I'm fascinated by Neolithic sites so when I saw they were in the tag set, I couldn't resist.
I think anthropomorphic requests are necessarily the most open to interpretation of anything in yuletide, so if you have a story you long to tell go for it. It seems to me though that stories could fall into two rough camps - a) all out anthropomorphic fic where the henges have human type personalities and talk to each other/email each other/complain about whether their stones are being shown off to best advantage/bitch about upstart more recent monuments getting all the attention or b) something less humanised but still with a sense of place or identity or personality of an incredibly ancient place. (And yuletide people are very imaginative, so I'm sure I've missed other possible story structures).
If you go for something in the vein of a) then I'd like both Stonehenge and Avebury to be included, but for something more along the lines of b) feel free to only use one of them. Perhaps that could be a story about successive eras of people using the circles for different purposes or giving them different meanings, maybe even a "story of humanity" as seen by entities who were not remotely human. Or a look at how an anthropomorphised stone circle regards the different generations and cultures of people who come to it.
I really have a bit of a thing for Neolithic sites - I'll always want to visit if I'm holidaying anywhere nearby - and the unbelievably ancient people who built them and used them. I'm much more interested in the actual prehistory than in either modern Pagan practice and understanding of the sites or "aliens built the pyramids" type fantasy, but I don't expect you to be an expert in prehistory or the latest archaeological interpretations. Part of the attraction and part of the reason for making this request is just that the stone circles are so very very old, but part is that even though we do know that they were built and adapted and used over unbelievably long time periods we still know so little about why they were built and how their use changed over time. So things that are purely speculative, or that involve "modern-type!human thinking in prehistoric trappings" are both great and something more modern would be okay too so long as there's a sense of their tremendous age. I'd love to see anything you can come up with for this fandom, so you could probably even sell me on aliens building the henges if you tried hard enough.
West Kennet Long Barrow and Waylands Smithy were also in the tag set. I didn't request them because I feel that their history is somewhat less unknown - we at least know that they were used for burials, even if the significance of which burials still escapes us. However if you want to add both or either to a story about one of the henges, go for it - West Kennet is only just over a mile from Avebury after all.
Daisy Dalrymple Series - Carola Dunn
characters: Ben Dalrymple Martha Dalrymple Susannah Prasad Norville Sybil Sutherby
I adore this mystery series for all its warmth and good humour - I wouldn't read it for exciting suspense or to puzzle out whodunnit, but I still find it utterly delightful. I really like the way that Daisy genuinely likes people so much and that the plot often flows from that and I enjoy the strong family dynamics in many of the stories and that they are often between found family as well as those related by blood.
I also often find myself caring about the minor characters or the characters who only appear in the plot of one book and I often find myself at the end of the book wanting to know more about what comes next for them. Daisy and Alec may have solved the crime, but the other characters are almost always left dealing with the fallout of a murder or a murderer in the family, changes in their social standing, unexpected revelations about each other et cetera. I nominated four minor characters who I find really interesting and requested them all, but please read what follows to see the circumstances in which I'd be happy with a story focusing on just some of them or on other characters altogether. I also do really like Daisy and Alec and would be very happy to see them in the story including at the linchpin of the story so long the requested characters don't just become window dressing for an Alec-and-Daisy story.
So as regards my requests, optional details are optional, and if you can bring all four requested characters together in any way then go for it and I expect I'll enjoy almost anything you write. I don't think bringing them together is as unlikely as it may initially sound either; after "Heirs of the Body", I think that Daisy may be less reluctant to spend time visiting Edgar and Geraldine; she has a family and home of her own now, the loss Fairacres as her childhood home is now more distant, she's got know them both better and they will now have Martha and Ben and their families living with them, who are also now friends of Daisy and Belinda. It's not hard to imagine Geraldine encouraging Daisy to bring some other friends to stay too.
However I also have some specific scenarios I'm interested in following the end of four of the books, as the individuals or families in question grapple with their new circumstances. So if you want to write for any of the following prompts including how the characters in question adapt, cope and move on, then there's no need to include all - or even any - of my requested characters.
(I do appreciate the irony of my overall request for no major character death or focus on mourning in the context of people dealing with the aftermath of murder, but please do still avoid going into too much introspective detail of the experience of grief - as opposed to acknowledging that a character may be grieving or setting a story a little in the future with a focus on other things. Also, please don't kill off significant characters unless it's because they are an arrested murderer now brought to justice. In particular, if you chose to include/deal with Lucy's family, even though Lord Haverhill obviously doesn't have too long left to live, please don't have him die or dying during your story.)
Mistletoe and Murder - the Norville family must be left in turmoil. One of Susannah's sons has been arrested and will likely be hanged for murder; the other is now heir to a title and his brother's son presumably becomes his heir. Add to this that the titled relatives have always refused to acknowledge such an unsuitable (read not white) family and it's not necessarily a bad thing that Mrs Susannah Norville has been taken under Daisy's mother's wing. I can't help feeling that having the Dowager Vicountess in her corner would be a distinctly mixed blessing, though Mrs Norville herself is so grounded and dignified that I don't think she would either be phased by the Dowager taking her into society or want to take society by storm. For this book, so long as the focus is on the family dealing with what has happened to them and adapting to their new circumstances, I'd be happy with a story about just Susannah or a story about her family generally, especially Miles and Felicity.
Another Mrs Norville idea - maybe Daisy introduces her to her friend, Sakari. I'm sure they would get on well and have some things in common as Indian ladies living in England, (they also seem to have the same surname which strikes me as odd) but as Susannah Norville was apparently raised Christian and as there is no suggestion that they are from the same region of India or even have the same first language, they may not have as much in common as Daisy might think.
A Mourning Wedding - these characters were not in the tag set, but if you prefer them to those I did request, I'd happily accept a story about just what did happen to all of Lucy's family after the police had gone home. Just how do you go on when the eldest son and heir has been murdered by his own son and heir? What about all the publicity? We know that Lucy married Gerald quietly in a registry office, so I'm more interested in follow-up about the other members of the family, especially the earl and countess, Lucy's young cousins and Rev'd Tim & his family who is now presumably heir to the earldom.
Gone West - again, I'd really like a story about what happens next and life going on. I chose to nominate Sybil - what does her life look like now? Is she deeply in love with Roger Knox? (I like them both tremendously). Does she stay in close contact with the Birtwhistles - or those at least who are not in prison. I'd also be interested in a story about her writing. I know she decided she did not want to continue the westerns without Humphrey, but What kind of books does she write now? does she adopt a different nom de plume and can she leverage being 'Eli Hwake's co-author to get a better reception with publishers? Alternatively, and sticking with the theme of what happens next and life going on, I'd be very happy with the story about the remaining Birtwhistle family, Ruby, Simon and Myra, with or without Sybil. I really liked the way that Simon and Myra started off as deeply unpromising characters, but flourished in difficult circumstances. Plus I love the sense of found family - as Simon says about Myra "she may be a little idiot but she's our little idiot".
Heirs of the body - I nominated Ben and Martha and I'd really like a story about either or both of them and their families, both their blood family and their new extended family of distant relatives at Fairacres focusing on how they deal with all of the changes about to happen in their lives . How does Ben get on as the ward of a Viscount? How is his life changed? What about his elder sister? She's about to go from probably having to give up school to care for her siblings to living on an English country estate. Does she gets to finish school and even go to university? And what about Martha and Sam, what's it like to suddenly be thrust into life as Edgar's heir. It's going to help that Edgar and Geraldine are warmhearted people with no great interest in London society, but I'm sure Daisy's mother will have something to say about it all, not to mention the rest of polite society - and that may be even worse for Ben, can his new guardians protect him and his siblings from racism? I'd really love to see a "found family" theme here and dealing with a total - though good - upheaval of life; I'd be happy with the story focusing on any one of Ben, his sister and other siblings, Martha, her nuclear family and the new extended family household.