Dear Yuletide Author
Firstly: OMG. Thank you so much for participating this year! I am absurdly excited for whatever you write me. I love every one of my prompts and their sources and I know I'm going to be delighted with what you produce. I hope you enjoy writing for me and have fun with it!
Secondly, I know things are really tight this year. I've tried to make my prompts as open ended as possible, and have done my best to give you a lot of options. If we matched on one but it's not working for you, all of these are pretty easy switches--I have a movie, a movie that hasn't been released yet and what can be boiled down to a kid's book. Feel free to do whatever with actual plot events, and definitely feel free to let a prompt take you where it wants to go. I want to read these stories, but more than that, I want to read your story. I hope that something in these prompts will click for your and evolve organically into a story.
This letter is a million billion years long because if I had my way, I would do a full psychoanalysis of my recipient before beginning to write for her. I like having something to chew on. Long letter is long, but it's definitely not a laundry list of prompt specifications. It's mostly me rambling about how I see the characters and engage with the canons. Hopefully I don't overwhelm you with stuff! Feel free to ignore me. No really. This definitely got away from me and a lot of it is just feelings rambling.
That said, like anyone else, I have some likes and dislikes.
:DDD
- LADIES. Give me all your ladies and their rich inner lives and the people who love them. If you want my opinion of the Bechdel test and women in fiction, read this
- Complex, emotionally charged interpersonal relationships, both romantic and not.
- I love romance and kissin' and stuff! I like my pairings to be equals who make each other better, who grow and change with each other, who challenge one another. I love me some epic romance and intense feelings and desperate longing that is eventually assuaged. I love reading about love as a source of strength, about love that changes us, about the things we do for love--for better or worse. I'm interested in relationships in extraordinary circumstances and in love in dangerous times. Basically, I just really like complex emotional stews!
- Genderswap and genderfuck. I'm of the "let's make everybody girls" school of genderswap. I love seeing what happens when you turn male characters into women--what character notes stay the same and what changes. I also love fic that plays with or queers gender.
- Character as fate--the sense that destiny is not an external decree but rather is the result of who we are fundamentally and how we actualize ourselves in the world. The idea that we are destined to be ourselves.
- I have "happy endings" listed in my interests. While I do love an everybody lives, rose ending, what I mean by that is more complex. I like stories about growth and struggle and change, with organic endings that affirm those struggles as necessary.
:(((
- Misogyny! Ladies pitted against ladies, especially for the affections of a dude; breaking one lady down to build another up (this isn't Highlander-- there can be more than one!); madonna/whore dichotomies; slut shaming; femininity and feminine presentation being regarded as weak or worthless; ladies' agency being taken away; women being awarded to men as a prize at the end of the narrative for doing whatever dudely heroic thing I'm supposed to care about...I think you get the picture
- Relational power imbalances that don't even out in some other respect. I really dislike large age differences and am especially squicked by older dude/younger lady.
- Unremitting angst and unearned happy endings.
- Second person most of the time and first person all of the time. I find the former is usually jarring and the latter almost impossible to do well from a characterization standpoint.
Other stuff: I'm cool with sex and violence, character-/setting-appropriate kink and general weirdness--if that's an organic part of your story or relevant to/ revelatory of the characters' psychology, absolutely go with that. In the balance between plot and characterization, I'll pick characterization every time. I really am quite flexible and I read in all genres and ratings. As long as you care about the characters and write from a place of affection, I'm going to enjoy your fic.
On to the specifics!
The Matrix
Prompt: Trinity, Neo
I'd love an AU where the job of the One is not to singlehandedly messiah the Matrix out of existence, but to teach others to manipulate the Matrix and to free themselves--so that everyone becomes the One. Or an AU where Neo is a girl. I really love Trinity and I'd like to see lots of her; feel free to include other characters as you wish. If that's not to your taste, I'd really like an exploration of Trinity--her past, her future, her relationship with Neo. Feel free to ignore the sequels.
"I forgot how good that movie was. Too bad they never made any sequels." No seriously, just forget those happened. We'll all be much happier. I just cannot with them. I think the failure of the sequels was (among other things) an overcommitment to the hero's journey narrative. That plus the whole messiah thing gave the sequels a super individualistic flavour that sits really poorly with me. I'd love to see a more communal vision of humanity saving itself.
The Matrix was formative as fuck for me. Trinity is among my favourite fictional characters of all time (of all time!!) and Neo/Trinity was one of my early OTPs: badass lady/ slightly goofy dude who happens to be ~the chosen one who is in awe of her. I just really, really love this movie. It's become problematic for me as I've gotten older, in that I find a lot of its narrative elements kind of questionable--like, white dude messiah? really? was that the best we could do? And I also recognize some of the problems with Trinity as a Strong Female Character (TM) but at the same time I love her so much, and she has a lot to do with where and how my feminism started. Basically, I'd love a look at this that questions or rewrites some of the more problematic points of this film.
Arthurian Mythology
Prompt: Guenevere, Arthur, Launcelot
I'm fascinated by the relationship between these three, by the complex ties of love and duty that bind them; I'd like to read something that explores these characters individually, in relation to one another and in relation to their setting. I'd love an OT3 dynamic, but if you want to write gen that's cool too. I would really enjoy AU/Futurefic where they all return at Arthur's last calling and/or something with meta elements. Or perhaps something about Guenevere, her power and role in the court and her relationship to her king and her champion. All I ask is that you not villify any of the three. But other than that, I would be delighted with anything!
I have the most ludicrous excess of feelings about King Arthur. To the point where I've been trying to write this part of the letter and it keeps exploding into 1000+ words of meta and my feelings. I engage with the text in a lot of ways, both intellectually and emotionally. Here is the bare bones version! It's still super long, but then again, "Arthurian mythology" means a lot of things to a lot of people, so some clarification might be helpful.
- I'm captivated by this mythically destined high king, and the conflict between/intersection of big destinies and small personal emotions. I love this story about good people who try their best--and who fail in their ultimate end, but not before creating something beautiful. I love the noble futility of building a golden age that will pass away--due in no small part to the reasons it was great in the first place. I love that this is a court built on love and mutual obligation--that the golden age is not merely a matter of might but also of a recognition of interpersonal relationships and deeply felt responsibility to others. That love and duty shift in and out of one another--sometimes they're the same thing, sometimes they're in conflict, but they're always there.
- I'm a Malory girl; grew up on Rosemary Sutcliffe's retelling of Malory, The Sword and the Circle. I'm also fascinated by the Welsh Arthur and the nationalistic impulses the mythology grapples with and tries to articulate in the face of political occupation and within a history of political occupation.
- Fascinated by the fact that the Matter of Britain is a work of many hands and a story of many stories. I love the meta dimensions to the Morte--its authorial interjections, its self-consciousness in the act of writing and use of language. I think it's really interesting and might be fun to play with if you are so inclined.
- I definitely read the Arthur/Guenevere/Launcelot thing as a triad, but either way I find it so compelling and tragic. I really see each of these three characters as good people trying their best to do right by one another and by the kingdom. They all love each other deeply, there's no question of that--the ways in which that love might be erotic is up for interpretation (mine happens to be "threesomes!" but ymmv). Their relationship makes them all better people, but it also proves to be their undoing. I'm super fascinated by the fact that the social structures Camelot relies on--particularly fealty and courtly love/fin'amor-- encourage multiplicity of love between king, queen and champion while condemning its erotic aspects as aberrant.
- I would love some kind of fic where these crazy kids get to work it out. Arthur is recalled for the last great battle and Launce and Guenevere come with him--where they one more have to struggle with their burdens but finally have a chance to write their happy ending and sort out the things that fucked them up in the first place. AND STUFF.
- Or something that explores Guenevere's role and the validity of her power in the court and her relationships with Arthur and Launcelot, which is something I'm fascinated by. She's definitely a powerful lady--but what does her power look like? how does it work?
I would just love anything about these three, ot3 or gen. I am just obsessed by the enormous depth and complexity of the love that binds these three people together. If you feel like writing something sexy, I would also be down for that! If you want to get weird or AU or experimental or whatever, feel free! I would love something kind of off-the-wall. I think this is the most open-ended of the prompts in that I would be happy with literally whatever that explores this relationship.
Snow White & The Huntsman
Prompt: Snow White
I'd love to read about Snow White's journey--how she goes from passive girl to warrior woman. I have a serious thing about lady knights and warrior women, and this film is playing right into that. Rewriting the fairytale romance with the prince could be fun--I'd like something that depicts them as equals. And maybe they save each other? But really, I just want to read about her coming into her own and being a powerful lady with passions and conflicts and strength. Feel free to make things up as you go, as the canon isn't much.
Well, this one is entirely ridiculous, as the canon currently consists of...a trailer. Yes, good job. If we matched on one of my other prompts and you hate me because of it, this might be a good switch, as the current source material is, oh two minutes long. I've heard rumours of a leaked script, but I haven't read it and would never expect you to track it down. The two minute trailer + basic fairytale knowledge is more than enough! Feel free to screw around with the source and make stuff up as you see fit.
I am just so enamoured of the concept and aesthetic of this film. The thing that just makes me giddy about this movie is that it's taking a very old school fantasy plot--hero is threatned by evil monarch, flees to safety, learns to fight, comes back to lead rebellion and wins--except the hero is a girl. The fact that this film is subverting a fairytale specifically is icing on the cake. There were two stories really important to me growing up: Tamora Pierce's Tortall books, and King Arthur. Let's just say I have a complex about lady knights like DAMN. So there is something so fucking vindicating to me about seeing these very mild mannered girl characters become reimagined fierce sword-wielding warrior women (See also: Burton's Alice).
One thing: vulnerable young woman/older dude mentor figure really skeeves me out, so I think Snow/Huntsman is probably not to my taste. I'd enjoy Snow/Prince if you feel like writing romance. I'd like to see them as complementary equals; I'd love something about them saving each other, which is fun ground for subverting the original--he saves her with a kiss, she saves him with a sword? Yes please.
But really I just want to read about Snow White and her ~journey and her fierceness. Subvert the fuck outta some fairytales. Go wild!
I hope I didn't scare you off there! I really am easy to please. If you would like to stalk me for maximum recconaissance, I have a tumblr that is a pretty good indication of my interests. Once again, thank you for writing for me! If you write what you love, I'm sure to love it too. I hope you have a fun time and a merry Yuletide season!
Secondly, I know things are really tight this year. I've tried to make my prompts as open ended as possible, and have done my best to give you a lot of options. If we matched on one but it's not working for you, all of these are pretty easy switches--I have a movie, a movie that hasn't been released yet and what can be boiled down to a kid's book. Feel free to do whatever with actual plot events, and definitely feel free to let a prompt take you where it wants to go. I want to read these stories, but more than that, I want to read your story. I hope that something in these prompts will click for your and evolve organically into a story.
This letter is a million billion years long because if I had my way, I would do a full psychoanalysis of my recipient before beginning to write for her. I like having something to chew on. Long letter is long, but it's definitely not a laundry list of prompt specifications. It's mostly me rambling about how I see the characters and engage with the canons. Hopefully I don't overwhelm you with stuff! Feel free to ignore me. No really. This definitely got away from me and a lot of it is just feelings rambling.
That said, like anyone else, I have some likes and dislikes.
:DDD
- LADIES. Give me all your ladies and their rich inner lives and the people who love them. If you want my opinion of the Bechdel test and women in fiction, read this
- Complex, emotionally charged interpersonal relationships, both romantic and not.
- I love romance and kissin' and stuff! I like my pairings to be equals who make each other better, who grow and change with each other, who challenge one another. I love me some epic romance and intense feelings and desperate longing that is eventually assuaged. I love reading about love as a source of strength, about love that changes us, about the things we do for love--for better or worse. I'm interested in relationships in extraordinary circumstances and in love in dangerous times. Basically, I just really like complex emotional stews!
- Genderswap and genderfuck. I'm of the "let's make everybody girls" school of genderswap. I love seeing what happens when you turn male characters into women--what character notes stay the same and what changes. I also love fic that plays with or queers gender.
- Character as fate--the sense that destiny is not an external decree but rather is the result of who we are fundamentally and how we actualize ourselves in the world. The idea that we are destined to be ourselves.
- I have "happy endings" listed in my interests. While I do love an everybody lives, rose ending, what I mean by that is more complex. I like stories about growth and struggle and change, with organic endings that affirm those struggles as necessary.
:(((
- Misogyny! Ladies pitted against ladies, especially for the affections of a dude; breaking one lady down to build another up (this isn't Highlander-- there can be more than one!); madonna/whore dichotomies; slut shaming; femininity and feminine presentation being regarded as weak or worthless; ladies' agency being taken away; women being awarded to men as a prize at the end of the narrative for doing whatever dudely heroic thing I'm supposed to care about...I think you get the picture
- Relational power imbalances that don't even out in some other respect. I really dislike large age differences and am especially squicked by older dude/younger lady.
- Unremitting angst and unearned happy endings.
- Second person most of the time and first person all of the time. I find the former is usually jarring and the latter almost impossible to do well from a characterization standpoint.
Other stuff: I'm cool with sex and violence, character-/setting-appropriate kink and general weirdness--if that's an organic part of your story or relevant to/ revelatory of the characters' psychology, absolutely go with that. In the balance between plot and characterization, I'll pick characterization every time. I really am quite flexible and I read in all genres and ratings. As long as you care about the characters and write from a place of affection, I'm going to enjoy your fic.
On to the specifics!
The Matrix
Prompt: Trinity, Neo
I'd love an AU where the job of the One is not to singlehandedly messiah the Matrix out of existence, but to teach others to manipulate the Matrix and to free themselves--so that everyone becomes the One. Or an AU where Neo is a girl. I really love Trinity and I'd like to see lots of her; feel free to include other characters as you wish. If that's not to your taste, I'd really like an exploration of Trinity--her past, her future, her relationship with Neo. Feel free to ignore the sequels.
"I forgot how good that movie was. Too bad they never made any sequels." No seriously, just forget those happened. We'll all be much happier. I just cannot with them. I think the failure of the sequels was (among other things) an overcommitment to the hero's journey narrative. That plus the whole messiah thing gave the sequels a super individualistic flavour that sits really poorly with me. I'd love to see a more communal vision of humanity saving itself.
The Matrix was formative as fuck for me. Trinity is among my favourite fictional characters of all time (of all time!!) and Neo/Trinity was one of my early OTPs: badass lady/ slightly goofy dude who happens to be ~the chosen one who is in awe of her. I just really, really love this movie. It's become problematic for me as I've gotten older, in that I find a lot of its narrative elements kind of questionable--like, white dude messiah? really? was that the best we could do? And I also recognize some of the problems with Trinity as a Strong Female Character (TM) but at the same time I love her so much, and she has a lot to do with where and how my feminism started. Basically, I'd love a look at this that questions or rewrites some of the more problematic points of this film.
Arthurian Mythology
Prompt: Guenevere, Arthur, Launcelot
I'm fascinated by the relationship between these three, by the complex ties of love and duty that bind them; I'd like to read something that explores these characters individually, in relation to one another and in relation to their setting. I'd love an OT3 dynamic, but if you want to write gen that's cool too. I would really enjoy AU/Futurefic where they all return at Arthur's last calling and/or something with meta elements. Or perhaps something about Guenevere, her power and role in the court and her relationship to her king and her champion. All I ask is that you not villify any of the three. But other than that, I would be delighted with anything!
I have the most ludicrous excess of feelings about King Arthur. To the point where I've been trying to write this part of the letter and it keeps exploding into 1000+ words of meta and my feelings. I engage with the text in a lot of ways, both intellectually and emotionally. Here is the bare bones version! It's still super long, but then again, "Arthurian mythology" means a lot of things to a lot of people, so some clarification might be helpful.
- I'm captivated by this mythically destined high king, and the conflict between/intersection of big destinies and small personal emotions. I love this story about good people who try their best--and who fail in their ultimate end, but not before creating something beautiful. I love the noble futility of building a golden age that will pass away--due in no small part to the reasons it was great in the first place. I love that this is a court built on love and mutual obligation--that the golden age is not merely a matter of might but also of a recognition of interpersonal relationships and deeply felt responsibility to others. That love and duty shift in and out of one another--sometimes they're the same thing, sometimes they're in conflict, but they're always there.
- I'm a Malory girl; grew up on Rosemary Sutcliffe's retelling of Malory, The Sword and the Circle. I'm also fascinated by the Welsh Arthur and the nationalistic impulses the mythology grapples with and tries to articulate in the face of political occupation and within a history of political occupation.
- Fascinated by the fact that the Matter of Britain is a work of many hands and a story of many stories. I love the meta dimensions to the Morte--its authorial interjections, its self-consciousness in the act of writing and use of language. I think it's really interesting and might be fun to play with if you are so inclined.
- I definitely read the Arthur/Guenevere/Launcelot thing as a triad, but either way I find it so compelling and tragic. I really see each of these three characters as good people trying their best to do right by one another and by the kingdom. They all love each other deeply, there's no question of that--the ways in which that love might be erotic is up for interpretation (mine happens to be "threesomes!" but ymmv). Their relationship makes them all better people, but it also proves to be their undoing. I'm super fascinated by the fact that the social structures Camelot relies on--particularly fealty and courtly love/fin'amor-- encourage multiplicity of love between king, queen and champion while condemning its erotic aspects as aberrant.
- I would love some kind of fic where these crazy kids get to work it out. Arthur is recalled for the last great battle and Launce and Guenevere come with him--where they one more have to struggle with their burdens but finally have a chance to write their happy ending and sort out the things that fucked them up in the first place. AND STUFF.
- Or something that explores Guenevere's role and the validity of her power in the court and her relationships with Arthur and Launcelot, which is something I'm fascinated by. She's definitely a powerful lady--but what does her power look like? how does it work?
I would just love anything about these three, ot3 or gen. I am just obsessed by the enormous depth and complexity of the love that binds these three people together. If you feel like writing something sexy, I would also be down for that! If you want to get weird or AU or experimental or whatever, feel free! I would love something kind of off-the-wall. I think this is the most open-ended of the prompts in that I would be happy with literally whatever that explores this relationship.
Snow White & The Huntsman
Prompt: Snow White
I'd love to read about Snow White's journey--how she goes from passive girl to warrior woman. I have a serious thing about lady knights and warrior women, and this film is playing right into that. Rewriting the fairytale romance with the prince could be fun--I'd like something that depicts them as equals. And maybe they save each other? But really, I just want to read about her coming into her own and being a powerful lady with passions and conflicts and strength. Feel free to make things up as you go, as the canon isn't much.
Well, this one is entirely ridiculous, as the canon currently consists of...a trailer. Yes, good job. If we matched on one of my other prompts and you hate me because of it, this might be a good switch, as the current source material is, oh two minutes long. I've heard rumours of a leaked script, but I haven't read it and would never expect you to track it down. The two minute trailer + basic fairytale knowledge is more than enough! Feel free to screw around with the source and make stuff up as you see fit.
I am just so enamoured of the concept and aesthetic of this film. The thing that just makes me giddy about this movie is that it's taking a very old school fantasy plot--hero is threatned by evil monarch, flees to safety, learns to fight, comes back to lead rebellion and wins--except the hero is a girl. The fact that this film is subverting a fairytale specifically is icing on the cake. There were two stories really important to me growing up: Tamora Pierce's Tortall books, and King Arthur. Let's just say I have a complex about lady knights like DAMN. So there is something so fucking vindicating to me about seeing these very mild mannered girl characters become reimagined fierce sword-wielding warrior women (See also: Burton's Alice).
One thing: vulnerable young woman/older dude mentor figure really skeeves me out, so I think Snow/Huntsman is probably not to my taste. I'd enjoy Snow/Prince if you feel like writing romance. I'd like to see them as complementary equals; I'd love something about them saving each other, which is fun ground for subverting the original--he saves her with a kiss, she saves him with a sword? Yes please.
But really I just want to read about Snow White and her ~journey and her fierceness. Subvert the fuck outta some fairytales. Go wild!
I hope I didn't scare you off there! I really am easy to please. If you would like to stalk me for maximum recconaissance, I have a tumblr that is a pretty good indication of my interests. Once again, thank you for writing for me! If you write what you love, I'm sure to love it too. I hope you have a fun time and a merry Yuletide season!