dear yuletide writer 2015!
Hi, writer! Thank you so much for writing for me - I hope you find something here that inspires you. I have some prompts for each fandom if you want to use them, but if something else occurs to you, feel free to disregard them - they're just a jumping-off point. This letter's pretty long, so have some jump cuts to go where you want to go:
likes | dislikes | the virgin suicides| the witch's house | oculus | true detective s1
and if you'd like to read my letter in light format, click here.
likes:
I like intense relationships, strong bonds/loyalty - and if you want to go a darker route, relationships that are a bit too intense and obsessive. I like darkfic and horror; scary fic is welcome, body horror is fine by me. I like canon divergence and seeing the way things could have gone if things had happened differently. Family and people working together, especially in weird situations or with people who don't know/like each other much, are awesome. Worldbuilding, backstory, and missing canon scenes are great too; I like knowing more about the canon/characters. And I generally prefer fic in the same tone as canon.
dislikes:
I'd rather not get porn this Yuletide - sorry if that's what you were planning on writing! I also am not a huge fan of non-canon AUs, or crossovers/fusions. I've also listed some incest ships as possibilities in my prompts - if you go with that I only ask that you don't make it super lighthearted/blase about the incest; I generally go for incest ships because of the fucked-up-ness/darkfic potential!
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the virgin suicides
Characters: Any
Even before I fell in love with the characters, I fell in love with the atmosphere of this movie. It's so lazy and dreamy and weird. It's almost deceptive, because going in it seems sort of like another coming-of-age teen movie, but then it's just...not. Completely the opposite, actually, considering the Lisbon sisters never come of age, and the boys/Trip are entirely fixated on the past. It's nostalgic but it's an obsessive, creepy nostalgia.The whole movie is looking towards the past - and maybe that's why the narrator is so fascinated with the Lisbon sisters. They'll be young forever, myterious forever. At least from the boy's perspective, which is all we ever get. I really like that too, the way we only get to see what the boys see - which is probably at least partly unreliable given that they're remembering something from years ago, and that tends to distort the facts somewhat. I can understand why they're so incredibly curious about the girls - I am too! All the little things the boys learn about their lives, from Cecilia's diary, watching Lux on the roof, the postcards...it makes me want to know them better.
Along with the mysterious sisters, the setting of the movie adds for extra weird. When I think of the story, beautiful sisters kept in their house by strict/religious parents...it seems like a gothic story to me. But instead it's set in suburbia, which I think really makes the strange atmosphere - in a gothic setting, it would just be a straight up gothic/horror movie. But in an ordinary place it becomes this weird dreamlike story, harder to pin down. Add to that things like the gas-mask party, the trees dying, and it makes for really eerie undertones, which I absolutely love.
Prompt ideas:
- going into the trees dying, etc - was there maybe something supernatural going on - or something apocalyptic?
- going along more with canon, I'd love to see some missing scenes - what happened that made Cecilia decide to kill herself? what about the rest of them? or just scenes/conversations that add to the story
- maybe there was a conspiracy; maybe the girls were murdered/threatened, or maybe their deaths were faked somehow so they could escape
- canon divergence where one/more of the sisters runs away instead
- what if the boys' memory is really, really unreliable (or just a lie), and they killed the girls to keep them young/mysterious forever?
- I'd be interested in a dark sister/sister pairing (maybe Lux/Cecilia?), or maybe a Flowers in the Attic type story - though if that's not your thing I completely understand!
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the witch's house
Characters: Ellen, Viola
I love how simple The Witch's House is, while still being incredibly scary (and sad - god, that ending). The creepy things you have to do right from the beginning, like cutting off the teddy bear limbs, contributes to the atmosphere of not-quite-rightness that I love. And then at the end it turns out that by playing the game you were basically helping Ellen do all that stuff to Viola. The creepiness of the setting is so great too, the rooms that change and get darker or when things fall off the shelves. And the bloody handprints that appear! I also really like the notes and the diary entries, and the way you get all these hints along the way that make so much sense when you get to the end. Ellen's backstory is also really interesting to me - I'd love to see mentions of it if you've read it, or if you want to explore a different idea for a backstory I'd love that too!
One of the most interesting parts of the game to me (and also sort of the most horrifying) is Ellen and Viola's interactions. What we're told of how they met and so on, and also, of course, the interactions through the house. Ellen is an incredibly frightening antagonist, once you know her whole story, but Viola is really tough and resilient too. I mean, she perseveres to the very end, even manages to harness powers she's never had before. I'd really like to see more of that interaction (in whatever form) if possible!
Prompt ideas:
- what does Ellen do after the end, with a new healthy body? does she still have powers - does she get in touch with the black cat or another demon?
- I'd love something about Viola and/as the house, manipulating it, watching Ellen through it, and what it was like to suddenly have those powers
- canon divergence where Viola manages to get back into her body, but has been changed by the experience and is now subtly...different - maybe Ellen being in her body changes who she is (Ellen leaves something of herself behind that corrupts Viola)
- something from Viola's POV during the story - something we see in the game or a missing scene?
- different ending; what if Viola teamed up with Ellen and became evil?
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oculus
Characters: Kaylie Russell, Tim Russell
Thiiiis movieee. I love it. I love how scary it is, the way it uses non-paranormal fears, like your parents suddenly acting weird/hurting each other and there's nothing you can do about it. Even without the mirror, that would have been pretty fucking scary. The moment when they call 911 and there's just this distorted voice repeating "the doctor will be there tomorrow" - holy shit. And the meshing of past and present, the way it seemed almost like fate that they end up in the same place they did when they were kids. I loved young!Kaylie's strength and the way she did anything she had to to defend Tim; she's such a badass. And then how she stuck with her resolve to kill the mirror with no concrete proof, and the only person who knew what had happened in a mental institution.
I'd really love something in the tone of canon - I'd be interested to know more about the mirror and how it works, and other things that happened during their childhood that we didn't necessarily get to see. The feeling of paranoia in the movie is great, and the way the characters are never really sure what they're actually doing and what is just an illusion.
Prompt ideas:
- canon divergence where Tim dies instead; what would Kaylie do?
- Tim resurrects Kaylie/gets her out of the mirror, but she comes back wrong somehow, subtly (this would also be interesting from Kaylie's POV - maybe it takes a while for even her to realize something is wrong!)
- something from the mirror's POV would be super cool, especially if it thinks and perceives the world in strange ways
- their childhood - is there something they don't remember that would help them? maybe something the mirror made them forget?
- what did Kaylie do after everything happened, with Tim gone and both her parents dead, and in the years before Tim got out?
- mirror!Kaylie/Tim - similar to their father/Marisol?
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true detective s1
Characters: Martin "Marty" Hart, Rustin "Rust" Cohle
I swear, it's like this show was made for me. The southern gothic, the cults, Rust and Marty, just...all of it. And the visuals, god the visuals. I actually saw the opening theme before I knew anything about the show itself, and that was enough to catch my interest.
I requested Marty and Rust; my favorite part of the show is their relationship. I love the way they know each other very well and trust each other, but still are such jerks to each other and bicker all the time. They're both such strong and completely different people. I'd love slash - though I'd rather nothing explicit - but gen is also wonderful. I love the way they're bound together by their experiences and in the present day scenes have to reconcile the experiences they had with who they are now. So I'd love to see more scenes of them together; missing scenes from the show itself (maybe from when Marty was staying with Rust?), scenes after the show ends, whatever you like.
Prompt ideas:
- Marty gets Rust to move in with him; they bicker and learn to get along (gen or Rust/Marty is fine)
- for a darker take on the above prompt, maybe one/both of them has PTSD, or was cursed by the cult/the yellow king
- magical realism; one/both of them finds out there's some truth behind the yellow king/Carcosa
- Rust's hallucinations are actually prophecies/visions
- they go back to Carcosa afterwards
- something relating to the theme song lyrics?
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