Yuletide Letter
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Thank you for signing up to write one of these fandoms! I'm already looking forward to reading whatever you come up with. I'm extremely easy to please, really--all four of these fandoms are very rare and the very idea of fic for any of them makes me very happy.
If you want to know more about my ficcish tastes, I like angst-with-happy-endings, I like plot and adventure and mystery, I like sweet romantic interludes and character studies and missing moments from canon. I also like it when a story completely turns some canon moment on its head. And I always like h/c, and people taking care of each other under difficult circumstances. I like AUs and crossovers and Christmas stories and - well, there's not a lot I don't like in fics. As far as sex goes, I tend to prefer less detail to more, in general, and I find intense platonic relationships of all sorts every bit as fascinating as romantic relationships. If you want to play around with the canons, question them, go AU, pair up different characters, that's all stuff I like too. Like I say, I'm easy to please.
Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love, Housman
I'm going to be unhelpful here and say that I don't have any concrete ideas of what I want for this, just that any fic involving Housman being sarky about people's translations, or anything else, or trying to be a poet and a scholar all at once, or heartbroken over Jackson, or anything with some flavour of the play, would make me incredibly happy. This canon is more or less RPF, and if you want to go further into that territory and explore some of the historical setting and attitudes, go right ahead. But really, the very idea of Invention of Love fic makes me very happy.
I went to see this play when I was studying classics and loved it instantly, and loved it even more on re-reading. I love the language and Housman's distinctive voice, the classical references and jokes, the setting... it's hilarious and poignant by turns and I adore it. This is a tricky one to write fic for, and one of the reasons I'm asking for it is that I have no idea what I would write if this were my assignment. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to love anything you can come up with. Incidentally, if you want to write about a character other than Housman, that's okay too - I'm not hung up on which characters you use. And feel free to play with classical references as much as you want--I'll probably be able to follow them.
The Hunt For Red October, Marko Ramius
I'd love anything about Marko Ramius, really. Ramius and Vassily backstory, Ramius and Jack in the US, Ramius as a Lithuanian in the USSR, anything else you can think of. Slash, het, gen, whatever you like.
I saw this film a month ago and was absolutely enthralled. I loved the way the characters all have to be so smart to solve their problems, I loved the claustrophobic submarine atmosphere, I loved the relationships between the characters, I loved the Cold War ambience, I loved that Ramius was a Lithuanian because I went there last summer and the old Russian memories were still so strong there and that came across in the film... in fact, I loved everything about it. And most of all I loved Marko Ramius and his intelligence and his sense of honour and his relationships with the other characters, and I want more.
Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen series, Gundhalinu
I fell in love with this character when I read the books, and I just want to see more of him being clever and honourable and angsty. Though if you felt like writing him working with Nyx LaisTree and show how they get on as partners, that would be particularly wonderful. Or perhaps something involving Jerusha or the other Blues, or Reede. But I'll be delighted to see any fic involving Gundhalinu.
(This is a repeat of a prompt from last year, because I still can't find any fic for this series anywhere.) I really liked the mythic approach to sf that Vinge takes, with the sibyls and the business with Vanamoinen and Ilmarinen and the fiery lake and all the other things that might be science and might be fairy tales. And I adored Gundhalinu, who is probably a bit of a Mary Sue but presses all my id-buttons anyway. The first book I came across was Tangled Up in Blue, and I fell in love with him then and was delighted to discover that he was a prominent character in all the other books too. So I just want more Gundhalinu, really. If you want some more specific ideas, I'd love to see him working in partnership with Nyx LaisTree, perhaps between Tangled Up in Blue and The Snow Queen--they're such a classic buddy-cop pairing and I like the dynamics between them. Or something with Reede/Vanamoinen playing with the multiple identities thing Vinge has going on there. Or anything else you can think of!
Connie Willis - Oxford Time Travel universe, Mr Dunworthy, Polly Churchill
So if you're offering Polly then I am going to assume you've read both Blackout and All Clear (anyone else reading this, beware spoilers). I would love after-the-end adjustment to returning to their real time fic, I would love slice-of-life in the Blitz fic, I would love anything else featuring these two that you can think of. And if you'd rather, I'm happy for you to write either one of them alone or with other characters instead (Mr Dunworthy figuring out what's going wrong with the drops? Polly and Sir Godfrey not-flirting? Mr Dunworthy in Oxford dealing with events in one of the other books? Anything, really.) I should note that I'm definitely not asking for Polly/Mr Dunworthy--they're very firmly in a mentor-student relationship in my head.
I was absolutely blown away by Blackout and All Clear, which have joined TSNOTD on my list of Very Favourite Books (I liked The Doomsday Book too, but rereading it is agonising). I loved what Willis did with the Blitz setting, I loved all the characters, I loved the meta in the book (is it a tragedy or a comedy?), I loved the drama and the tension and the odd little touches of humour--really, I loved it all. And anything you can write that shows a bit more about the characters and their experiences would be absolutely wonderful.
But really, all I really want is a fic, any fic at all, in one of these fandoms. So if tearing up my requests and starting out with a blank piece of paper works better for you, then please, write the fic you want to write. And Happy Yuletide!
- Philomytha
Thank you for signing up to write one of these fandoms! I'm already looking forward to reading whatever you come up with. I'm extremely easy to please, really--all four of these fandoms are very rare and the very idea of fic for any of them makes me very happy.
If you want to know more about my ficcish tastes, I like angst-with-happy-endings, I like plot and adventure and mystery, I like sweet romantic interludes and character studies and missing moments from canon. I also like it when a story completely turns some canon moment on its head. And I always like h/c, and people taking care of each other under difficult circumstances. I like AUs and crossovers and Christmas stories and - well, there's not a lot I don't like in fics. As far as sex goes, I tend to prefer less detail to more, in general, and I find intense platonic relationships of all sorts every bit as fascinating as romantic relationships. If you want to play around with the canons, question them, go AU, pair up different characters, that's all stuff I like too. Like I say, I'm easy to please.
Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love, Housman
I'm going to be unhelpful here and say that I don't have any concrete ideas of what I want for this, just that any fic involving Housman being sarky about people's translations, or anything else, or trying to be a poet and a scholar all at once, or heartbroken over Jackson, or anything with some flavour of the play, would make me incredibly happy. This canon is more or less RPF, and if you want to go further into that territory and explore some of the historical setting and attitudes, go right ahead. But really, the very idea of Invention of Love fic makes me very happy.
I went to see this play when I was studying classics and loved it instantly, and loved it even more on re-reading. I love the language and Housman's distinctive voice, the classical references and jokes, the setting... it's hilarious and poignant by turns and I adore it. This is a tricky one to write fic for, and one of the reasons I'm asking for it is that I have no idea what I would write if this were my assignment. But I'm pretty sure I'm going to love anything you can come up with. Incidentally, if you want to write about a character other than Housman, that's okay too - I'm not hung up on which characters you use. And feel free to play with classical references as much as you want--I'll probably be able to follow them.
The Hunt For Red October, Marko Ramius
I'd love anything about Marko Ramius, really. Ramius and Vassily backstory, Ramius and Jack in the US, Ramius as a Lithuanian in the USSR, anything else you can think of. Slash, het, gen, whatever you like.
I saw this film a month ago and was absolutely enthralled. I loved the way the characters all have to be so smart to solve their problems, I loved the claustrophobic submarine atmosphere, I loved the relationships between the characters, I loved the Cold War ambience, I loved that Ramius was a Lithuanian because I went there last summer and the old Russian memories were still so strong there and that came across in the film... in fact, I loved everything about it. And most of all I loved Marko Ramius and his intelligence and his sense of honour and his relationships with the other characters, and I want more.
Joan Vinge - The Snow Queen series, Gundhalinu
I fell in love with this character when I read the books, and I just want to see more of him being clever and honourable and angsty. Though if you felt like writing him working with Nyx LaisTree and show how they get on as partners, that would be particularly wonderful. Or perhaps something involving Jerusha or the other Blues, or Reede. But I'll be delighted to see any fic involving Gundhalinu.
(This is a repeat of a prompt from last year, because I still can't find any fic for this series anywhere.) I really liked the mythic approach to sf that Vinge takes, with the sibyls and the business with Vanamoinen and Ilmarinen and the fiery lake and all the other things that might be science and might be fairy tales. And I adored Gundhalinu, who is probably a bit of a Mary Sue but presses all my id-buttons anyway. The first book I came across was Tangled Up in Blue, and I fell in love with him then and was delighted to discover that he was a prominent character in all the other books too. So I just want more Gundhalinu, really. If you want some more specific ideas, I'd love to see him working in partnership with Nyx LaisTree, perhaps between Tangled Up in Blue and The Snow Queen--they're such a classic buddy-cop pairing and I like the dynamics between them. Or something with Reede/Vanamoinen playing with the multiple identities thing Vinge has going on there. Or anything else you can think of!
Connie Willis - Oxford Time Travel universe, Mr Dunworthy, Polly Churchill
So if you're offering Polly then I am going to assume you've read both Blackout and All Clear (anyone else reading this, beware spoilers). I would love after-the-end adjustment to returning to their real time fic, I would love slice-of-life in the Blitz fic, I would love anything else featuring these two that you can think of. And if you'd rather, I'm happy for you to write either one of them alone or with other characters instead (Mr Dunworthy figuring out what's going wrong with the drops? Polly and Sir Godfrey not-flirting? Mr Dunworthy in Oxford dealing with events in one of the other books? Anything, really.) I should note that I'm definitely not asking for Polly/Mr Dunworthy--they're very firmly in a mentor-student relationship in my head.
I was absolutely blown away by Blackout and All Clear, which have joined TSNOTD on my list of Very Favourite Books (I liked The Doomsday Book too, but rereading it is agonising). I loved what Willis did with the Blitz setting, I loved all the characters, I loved the meta in the book (is it a tragedy or a comedy?), I loved the drama and the tension and the odd little touches of humour--really, I loved it all. And anything you can write that shows a bit more about the characters and their experiences would be absolutely wonderful.
But really, all I really want is a fic, any fic at all, in one of these fandoms. So if tearing up my requests and starting out with a blank piece of paper works better for you, then please, write the fic you want to write. And Happy Yuletide!
- Philomytha