Dear yuletide author:
Dear Yuletide author,
What a pleasure it will be to meet you - after all, I already know you have great taste. :) Thank you very much for writing for me. This letter is to set out various things I like and don't like, and a handful of prompts that happen to be in my mind, but if you have the story of your heart planned out and ready: go forth, my friend! I will love it whatever it is. These details are only if you'd like them.
Just so you know, I have no triggers or squicks. I'm ophiodophobic, but not in text format.
Generally, here are some things I like:
-Dialogue, wit, banter. Straight-up competence and people being good at what they love. Found families and unusual friendships. Queer gen. Quiet moments between people amidst crisis, and otherwise. A sense of place.
Things I don't like:
-PWPs, and changing characters' queernesses (straightening queer characters, or making bisexual characters straight/gay - if on the other hand you want to queer up the straight characters, I am here for that!).
In terms of ships, go wild - I'm good with anything you like, if you want to make the attempt to convince me.
Fandoms:
Hilary Tamar mysteries - Sarah Caudwell
Characters: Selena Jardine, Julia Larwood
I love these books so much, I can't even tell you. I only read them for the first time this year, all in one week, and, just, where have they been all my life, oh my goodness. For the uninitiated, these are a sequence of sparkling, witty, terribly clever murder mysteries set among the junior counsel of the Chancery Bar. The narrator, Hilary, an Oxford academic and legal historian (and the laziest detective in the history of the world) helps them solve murders, in and around their appearances in court for their various clients, which naturally always turn out to have some relevance to the case at hand.
Although they are all my favourite, I think Julia and Selena are a little bit my most favourite. If you want to write them getting together, I would LOVE THAT, omg, I ship them like mad. (It is, after all, a commonly-held notion.) As a related note, I do love how bisexuality is a thing in this universe (e.g. beautiful Ned from the beautiful Inland Revenue, whose virtue is lovingly plundered by both Kenneth and Julia). But honestly, if you write them interacting, I will be happy. As a matter of full disclosure, I am an English lawyer, non-practising, between Temple and High Holborn, and so if you want to write an exceptionally dull courtroom drama about Julia's construction of the year's Finance Acts I am there for it with bells on.
One small request, in this fandom: If you write about Hilary at all, could you not gender them? I know lots of people have very strong opinions about Hilary's gender, but here I am, still trying to believe that Hilary really is as genderqueer as their narration suggests.
A Spy Among Friends
Characters: Kim Philby, Nicholas Elliott
"I thought it would be you."
Christ. That this is a true story, with a denoument like that - yeah.
This is an odd one for me, actually - it's RPF, which I have never requested/written before, but I read Macintyre's book at the beginning of this year and was just taken back by the sheer nail-biting drama of it. I feel like if we have matched on this, then you already know this, but the story of Philby and Elliott, their friendship and its incredibly complex and lethal consequences is completely captivating to me. It's the way they really were friends, against that background of epic betrayal and ideology: friends who loved each other and got drunk together and were at each other's weddings and thought of each other across oceans.
Fic-wise, I'd prefer you didn't put them in a happily-ever-after AU, but otherwise I'm easy (and do write them having fraught sex, if that's what you're here for!). My favourite historical detail about them - if it helps - is Elliott's threat to get a final revenge on his friend in Moscow by making a public statement, long after the defections. "I can finally state that Kim Philby was the bravest man I have ever known" - or similar. MI6 would never let him do it.
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
Characters: Thaniel Steepleton, Keita Mori
Oh, I love these two so much. So, so much. This novel was one of my favourites of 2015 (and here's my original review). I love the quiet, heartfelt prose, and the beautifully-evoked vision of London. I'd love anything you wanted to write me about these two and their lives together - especially something with the quietness of the original. I'm afraid this is not very helpful. If you're interested in specific prompts: hmmm. How about something to do with language difficulties (or just, language learning?) Or something about Thaniel's synaesthesia? Or - something that has just occurred to me - the novel is set largely in 1884, so Thaniel and Mori meet just in time for the passage of the Labouchere Amendment. I wonder how they deal with that (or don't).
Grantchester
Characters: Sidney Chambers, Amanda Kendall, Jennifer Chambers, Leonard Finch
NB. I know that Yuletide matching is AND, not OR, but I appreciate that it would be difficult to get all these characters into one story. I love them all, and I'm happy for you to foreground one or another of them.
So I love this show beyond the telling of it. I live in Cambridge, a couple of miles along the river from Grantchester, and I have written about it extensively elsewhere but it is beautiful, heartfelt, and, I don't know, capacious. There's enough room for so much in it: these themes of war and loss, but so quiet, so subtle, so Sidney's depression is real and vivid and sometimes frightening, but it's all right; he's loved and human, and he will be all right. Oh, I love this show, I love their ridiculous self-assembled adorable family. I love Sidney and Jennifer and Geordie and Mrs Maguire and Leonard and Amanda. And DICKENS. Basically you could write anything here, and I would be delighted. If you'd like a prompt: queerness and faith? (Oh, Leonard.) Sidney's past? Or (ouch) Sidney and Amanda after her marriage?
A final note: even those who love me best could not honourably describe me as a ray of sunshine. (Perhaps you know me, and know this already.) Which is to say, if the story of your heart is a sad one, or a dark one, or with a bittersweet resolution - I want to hear it. Equally if it's a joyful fluffy delight! But just in case, I mention it.
Just for your reference: my AO3 name is
singlecrow.
All best to you:
raven
raven is also at Dreamwidth: there is or are
comment(s). Comment there or here.
What a pleasure it will be to meet you - after all, I already know you have great taste. :) Thank you very much for writing for me. This letter is to set out various things I like and don't like, and a handful of prompts that happen to be in my mind, but if you have the story of your heart planned out and ready: go forth, my friend! I will love it whatever it is. These details are only if you'd like them.
Just so you know, I have no triggers or squicks. I'm ophiodophobic, but not in text format.
Generally, here are some things I like:
-Dialogue, wit, banter. Straight-up competence and people being good at what they love. Found families and unusual friendships. Queer gen. Quiet moments between people amidst crisis, and otherwise. A sense of place.
Things I don't like:
-PWPs, and changing characters' queernesses (straightening queer characters, or making bisexual characters straight/gay - if on the other hand you want to queer up the straight characters, I am here for that!).
In terms of ships, go wild - I'm good with anything you like, if you want to make the attempt to convince me.
Fandoms:
Hilary Tamar mysteries - Sarah Caudwell
Characters: Selena Jardine, Julia Larwood
I love these books so much, I can't even tell you. I only read them for the first time this year, all in one week, and, just, where have they been all my life, oh my goodness. For the uninitiated, these are a sequence of sparkling, witty, terribly clever murder mysteries set among the junior counsel of the Chancery Bar. The narrator, Hilary, an Oxford academic and legal historian (and the laziest detective in the history of the world) helps them solve murders, in and around their appearances in court for their various clients, which naturally always turn out to have some relevance to the case at hand.
Although they are all my favourite, I think Julia and Selena are a little bit my most favourite. If you want to write them getting together, I would LOVE THAT, omg, I ship them like mad. (It is, after all, a commonly-held notion.) As a related note, I do love how bisexuality is a thing in this universe (e.g. beautiful Ned from the beautiful Inland Revenue, whose virtue is lovingly plundered by both Kenneth and Julia). But honestly, if you write them interacting, I will be happy. As a matter of full disclosure, I am an English lawyer, non-practising, between Temple and High Holborn, and so if you want to write an exceptionally dull courtroom drama about Julia's construction of the year's Finance Acts I am there for it with bells on.
One small request, in this fandom: If you write about Hilary at all, could you not gender them? I know lots of people have very strong opinions about Hilary's gender, but here I am, still trying to believe that Hilary really is as genderqueer as their narration suggests.
A Spy Among Friends
Characters: Kim Philby, Nicholas Elliott
"I thought it would be you."
Christ. That this is a true story, with a denoument like that - yeah.
This is an odd one for me, actually - it's RPF, which I have never requested/written before, but I read Macintyre's book at the beginning of this year and was just taken back by the sheer nail-biting drama of it. I feel like if we have matched on this, then you already know this, but the story of Philby and Elliott, their friendship and its incredibly complex and lethal consequences is completely captivating to me. It's the way they really were friends, against that background of epic betrayal and ideology: friends who loved each other and got drunk together and were at each other's weddings and thought of each other across oceans.
Fic-wise, I'd prefer you didn't put them in a happily-ever-after AU, but otherwise I'm easy (and do write them having fraught sex, if that's what you're here for!). My favourite historical detail about them - if it helps - is Elliott's threat to get a final revenge on his friend in Moscow by making a public statement, long after the defections. "I can finally state that Kim Philby was the bravest man I have ever known" - or similar. MI6 would never let him do it.
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
Characters: Thaniel Steepleton, Keita Mori
Oh, I love these two so much. So, so much. This novel was one of my favourites of 2015 (and here's my original review). I love the quiet, heartfelt prose, and the beautifully-evoked vision of London. I'd love anything you wanted to write me about these two and their lives together - especially something with the quietness of the original. I'm afraid this is not very helpful. If you're interested in specific prompts: hmmm. How about something to do with language difficulties (or just, language learning?) Or something about Thaniel's synaesthesia? Or - something that has just occurred to me - the novel is set largely in 1884, so Thaniel and Mori meet just in time for the passage of the Labouchere Amendment. I wonder how they deal with that (or don't).
Grantchester
Characters: Sidney Chambers, Amanda Kendall, Jennifer Chambers, Leonard Finch
NB. I know that Yuletide matching is AND, not OR, but I appreciate that it would be difficult to get all these characters into one story. I love them all, and I'm happy for you to foreground one or another of them.
So I love this show beyond the telling of it. I live in Cambridge, a couple of miles along the river from Grantchester, and I have written about it extensively elsewhere but it is beautiful, heartfelt, and, I don't know, capacious. There's enough room for so much in it: these themes of war and loss, but so quiet, so subtle, so Sidney's depression is real and vivid and sometimes frightening, but it's all right; he's loved and human, and he will be all right. Oh, I love this show, I love their ridiculous self-assembled adorable family. I love Sidney and Jennifer and Geordie and Mrs Maguire and Leonard and Amanda. And DICKENS. Basically you could write anything here, and I would be delighted. If you'd like a prompt: queerness and faith? (Oh, Leonard.) Sidney's past? Or (ouch) Sidney and Amanda after her marriage?
A final note: even those who love me best could not honourably describe me as a ray of sunshine. (Perhaps you know me, and know this already.) Which is to say, if the story of your heart is a sad one, or a dark one, or with a bittersweet resolution - I want to hear it. Equally if it's a joyful fluffy delight! But just in case, I mention it.
Just for your reference: my AO3 name is
singlecrow.
All best to you:
raven
raven is also at Dreamwidth: there is or are
comment(s). Comment there or here.