Yuletide!
Yuletide sign-ups have begun! I took the plunge and joined this year. Found out there were some more fandoms I could offer without having to refresh my memory by research because I had watched/read the source material only recently. (And even written meta about them!)
On the other hand, I discovered that there are several German fandoms on the offering this year - Karl May's Winnetou novels, Michael Ende's Momo and Perry Rhodan (aka our longest running pulp Sci Fi series), and I felt a bit bad for not signing up for any of them, considering that Karl May was literally the first writer I ever read (Dad & my grandfather were fans and told me tales, so the first year in school, once I could read, I grabbed Winnetou I) and I still have a nostalgic fondness for those books, I do love Michael Ende and PR is a case of childhood & teenage nostalgia again. But the thing is, a) I'd have to reread because it's been so many years, and I just don't have the time, real life strikes again, and b) it would feel weird to me to write in English for these fandoms. Because I do hear the narrative voice and the characters in German in my head, you know? It's not so much that I first encountered them in German - I saw all Star Trek shows dubbed before I saw them in the English original, for example, and these characters do have their English-language voices in my head - it's probably that I can't imagine how they would sound in English at all. Especially Karl May's earnest Wilhelminian prose. Wie der Westman zu sagen pflegt. But if someone else were to try, that would be awesome.
Anyway. The list of requested and offered fandoms so far is here, and if even half of this gets written, it should be fantastic reading for the holidays. As for my own requests, this is as good a place as any to write the obligatory letter to the gracious soul who'll fulfill one of them.
Dear Yuletide Writer,
first of all, thank you! I hope you'll find one of the prompts to your liking. If you want to go in another direction with the characters, by all means, as long as nobody gets bashed and those I indicated show up in a prominent fashion. As for the shipping level, I leave that to your discretion - gen, het or slash is all fine by me. (Mind you, if, say, you pick the B5 prompt and come up with an X-Rated Bester/G'Kar/Londo threesome instead of a gen encounter I would be... surprised, but if that's what tickles your fancy and you can pull it off in character, go you!)
Which is as good a place as any to list my original prompts:
RequestFandom1: The Prestige (movie)
RequestFandomChar1: Alfred Borden/Olivia Wenscombe
RequestDetail1: The surviving Borden (who loved Sarah) encounters Olivia post-movie.
RequestFandom2: Rome (tv)
RequestFandomChar2: Lucius Vorenus/Mark Antony
RequestDetail2: Preferably Vorenus and Marc Antony during their time in Egypt, but I'd be happy about any interaction between them during any other point on the show as well.
RequestFandom3: Hilary Mantel - A Place of Greater Safety
RequestFandomChar3: Camille Desmoulins/Georges-Jacques Danton/Lucile Desmoulins/Maximilien Robespierre
RequestDetail3: I do love the Camille/Danton/Lucille (sub?)text and in a different way the Danton/Camille/Robespierre triad, but really, any fanfic featuring any of these four would be welcome.
RequestFandom4: Babylon 5
RequestFandomChar4: Alfred Bester/GKar/Londo Mollari/Vir Cotto
RequestDetail4: Bester never met either Londo, G'Kar or Vir on screen, so story in which he does, before, during or post show, would be great.
Generally speaking, I'm an ensemble fan; listing some characters but not others doesn't mean I dislike the rest in the respective fandom, it's just an indication of focus preference. I also appreciate when something of the world buliding makes it into the fanfic - for example, Rome was really good at getting the different belief systems and cultural backgrounds across, and A place of greater safety really manages to be about the French Revolution as well as about individual participants. (Considering that as a writer I'm far better at dialogue and character exploration than at a decent plot or atmospheric descriptions, I'm all the more in awe of people who excell at the later two.) Which doesn't mean that if you choose to write a sonnet instead of a 2000 words long adventure, I wouldn't be thrilled as well.
Again, thanks so much for signing up!
On the other hand, I discovered that there are several German fandoms on the offering this year - Karl May's Winnetou novels, Michael Ende's Momo and Perry Rhodan (aka our longest running pulp Sci Fi series), and I felt a bit bad for not signing up for any of them, considering that Karl May was literally the first writer I ever read (Dad & my grandfather were fans and told me tales, so the first year in school, once I could read, I grabbed Winnetou I) and I still have a nostalgic fondness for those books, I do love Michael Ende and PR is a case of childhood & teenage nostalgia again. But the thing is, a) I'd have to reread because it's been so many years, and I just don't have the time, real life strikes again, and b) it would feel weird to me to write in English for these fandoms. Because I do hear the narrative voice and the characters in German in my head, you know? It's not so much that I first encountered them in German - I saw all Star Trek shows dubbed before I saw them in the English original, for example, and these characters do have their English-language voices in my head - it's probably that I can't imagine how they would sound in English at all. Especially Karl May's earnest Wilhelminian prose. Wie der Westman zu sagen pflegt. But if someone else were to try, that would be awesome.
Anyway. The list of requested and offered fandoms so far is here, and if even half of this gets written, it should be fantastic reading for the holidays. As for my own requests, this is as good a place as any to write the obligatory letter to the gracious soul who'll fulfill one of them.
Dear Yuletide Writer,
first of all, thank you! I hope you'll find one of the prompts to your liking. If you want to go in another direction with the characters, by all means, as long as nobody gets bashed and those I indicated show up in a prominent fashion. As for the shipping level, I leave that to your discretion - gen, het or slash is all fine by me. (Mind you, if, say, you pick the B5 prompt and come up with an X-Rated Bester/G'Kar/Londo threesome instead of a gen encounter I would be... surprised, but if that's what tickles your fancy and you can pull it off in character, go you!)
Which is as good a place as any to list my original prompts:
RequestFandom1: The Prestige (movie)
RequestFandomChar1: Alfred Borden/Olivia Wenscombe
RequestDetail1: The surviving Borden (who loved Sarah) encounters Olivia post-movie.
RequestFandom2: Rome (tv)
RequestFandomChar2: Lucius Vorenus/Mark Antony
RequestDetail2: Preferably Vorenus and Marc Antony during their time in Egypt, but I'd be happy about any interaction between them during any other point on the show as well.
RequestFandom3: Hilary Mantel - A Place of Greater Safety
RequestFandomChar3: Camille Desmoulins/Georges-Jacques Danton/Lucile Desmoulins/Maximilien Robespierre
RequestDetail3: I do love the Camille/Danton/Lucille (sub?)text and in a different way the Danton/Camille/Robespierre triad, but really, any fanfic featuring any of these four would be welcome.
RequestFandom4: Babylon 5
RequestFandomChar4: Alfred Bester/GKar/Londo Mollari/Vir Cotto
RequestDetail4: Bester never met either Londo, G'Kar or Vir on screen, so story in which he does, before, during or post show, would be great.
Generally speaking, I'm an ensemble fan; listing some characters but not others doesn't mean I dislike the rest in the respective fandom, it's just an indication of focus preference. I also appreciate when something of the world buliding makes it into the fanfic - for example, Rome was really good at getting the different belief systems and cultural backgrounds across, and A place of greater safety really manages to be about the French Revolution as well as about individual participants. (Considering that as a writer I'm far better at dialogue and character exploration than at a decent plot or atmospheric descriptions, I'm all the more in awe of people who excell at the later two.) Which doesn't mean that if you choose to write a sonnet instead of a 2000 words long adventure, I wouldn't be thrilled as well.
Again, thanks so much for signing up!