Dear Yuletide writer
Oct. 22nd, 2024 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitMy apologies for taking so long to finally get this posted. And a lot of it's copied from previous Yuletides, because my general likes and dislikes haven't changed. So here goes:
Dear Yuletide Writer,
First of all, thank you for writing for me. I'm thrilled that you share my interest in one of these fandoms, and I can't wait to read your story.
What follows is a little more information about what I like and don't like. But I want to say right away that I hope you will write a story you find interesting and enjoy writing, even if it goes in a different direction from the things I mention here. It could turn out to be the story I didn't know I wanted.
The thing that appeals to me most in a fanfic is character exploration. I love getting to know characters with more depth and intimacy than in canon, as well as seeing them in a new light or from a new perspective. Character studies and stories that focus on emotional developments rather than outside events work well for me. I certainly would be happy to read something plotty if you enjoy writing plot (and if you do, I envy you!), but I look at plot as a bonus rather than a requirement.
Something else I adore is worldbuilding, whether it's a fantasy world with magic, an alternate history, or the real world we live in. I love the details of material culture (clothes and food and such) but also, or especially, the details of the social world: who's got what kinds of power, how people relate to one another, their jokes and superstitions and traditions and what they do for fun. I will happily wallow in this kind of stuff, so if you like worldbuilding, go wild!
I'm not terribly picky about genre, style, or tone. I like happy stories and melancholy stories (and best of all I love a combination of the two), straightforward narratives and stylistic experiments, missing scenes and metafictions, canon-compliance and what-ifs, backstory and futurefic. Feel free to take an idea and run with it. One caveat, however: I'm not a big fan of AUs that completely change the premise of the canon (such as coffee shop AUs, high school AUs, or things like omegaverse). I love the original settings too much to want to lose them in an AU. Canon AUs, however (where some canonical event turns out differently and alters what comes afterwards) are very welcome.
For some of my requested fandoms, I've asked primarily for gen, and gen is welcome in any fandom. (Please don't erase canon relationships, though.) When I have given shippy prompts, they're male/male; het fic really isn't my cup of tea.
Specifically regarding sex scenes: don't feel obliged to write one, even for a pairing fic. If you do want to write one, I love a sex scene that explores, reveals, or develops the characters or the relationship in some way. I'm not especially into PWPs or porn for porn's sake in fic. And even more specifically regarding kink: my taste in fictional kink is so idiosyncratic, with kinks and squicks cheek-by-jowl sometimes, that I usually ask for vanilla-only in fic exchanges. But of course one of my requested fandoms, "Our Retired Explorer," features Michel Foucault, and the historical Foucault was into BDSM. That, combined with Foucault's philosophical interest in the various manifestations of power and knowledge, opens up amazing storytelling possibilities. So if that's a story you're interested in telling, go for it.
And regarding violence/gore/horror: One of my fandoms is specifically horror, and another could easily go in that direction, but I'm squeamish. I'm okay with violence and gore up to about the level of the Hannibal TV show (especially if it's stylized, as Hannibal's violence mostly was), but that's my limit. And I'm really, no-joke, strongly squicked by decay and insects. Please don't. What I like in horror is dread, the unknown/unknowable, psychological horror, existential and cosmic horror, the horror of chaos and the equal-and-opposite horror of totalizing systems.
I don't think I have much to add about my specific requests, so I'm just posting them below as they appeared in my sign-up.
Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature (Podcast)
Characters requested: Worldbuilding
Anterra is fascinating and I just want to know more about it! Feel free to include any canon characters or original characters you want to, but I'd like the focus to be on Anterran history, culture, myth, etc.
Don't feel you need to solve every (or any) Anterran mystery in your fic. In fact, a story that explores the fragmentary nature of archaeology, the way theories are stitched together from ruins and bits of text, would be awesome. (One of my biggest unanswered questions is how anyone managed to decipher the Anterran language, and how certain they can actually be about their translations. I'd love to see an exploration of how we can know anything textual about Anterra.)
On the other hand, if you do feel like tackling the big mystery of how and why Anterra changed between the second and third empires, more power to you. I think canon has given us some significant hints, but there's plenty of room to explore.
Some other possibilities, left vague for you to play with: Anterran ideas and practices of gender, the early myths of the creation of the gods, the role of seeing in maintaining the world, the Idiot Kings and how/whether they "ruled." You could also dive deep into the material foundations of Anterran society: how did second empire Anterra avoid building its prosperity on conquest and slavery?
Setting and structure are totally up to you: present day, the Anterran era, or the deep time of Anterran myth; a new lecture from the Professor, an academic paper, letters, Anterran texts of any kind, a straightforward narrative, or whatever tickles your fancy.
Do Not Wants: Anterrans as aliens, Anterrans as white people, explicit scenes of rape (mentions are okay), explicit scenes of violence (implied/lightly described is okay, but I'm someone who can't watch horror movies because of the gore).
World Gone Wrong (Podcast)
Characters requested: Jamie, Malik, Worldbuilding
Must feature 1 or more requested characters, giver's choice.
Anything goes for this fandom, really (except my DNWs, listed below). I love the canon a lot, from Malik and Jamie's friendship to the weirdness of things like the "spaghetti circles" that no one can remember existing before, to the all-too-familiar banality of the apocalypse (the world may be ending, but you'd still better pay your rent and show up for your shift!). I'd love to read about new aspects of this changed world, or a deeper dive into things we've already heard about, like the vampire-werewolf alliance or the pod people. I listed some characters in my request, but if you'd rather do pure worldbuilding without canon characters, feel free! In fact I'd love to see what's happening in other parts of the country or the world.
One thing I especially enjoy about the canon is how much it's of the now, of the internet age, A story incorporating that in structure or content (a Reddit post and replies? A Discord chat? Comments on a YouTube or TikTok video? Scammers taking advantage of the new weird world? The challenges of spotting misinformation when anything seems to be possible? New games, new ads, new terms of service?) would be amazing.
You can keep the tone mixed as in the canon, where the dark implications are leavened with plenty of laughs) or go grim if you want to. But I do like the way the canon emphasizes that people are surviving, and going on with their changed lives, and even managing to be a little better than baseline, sometimes.
Do Not Wants: Jamie/Malik romance, non-canon AUs, backstory set exclusively before the world begins to change, rape (mentions are okay but no explicit rape scenes, rape as an important plot point or character backstory point, or any monsters committing rape as part of their m/o), explicit torture, explicit gore (as in, no detailed scenes of dismemberment or the like), decomposition, insects.
Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961 - The Weakerthans (Song)
Requested Characters: The Retired Explorer, Michel Foucault
Must feature 1 or more requested characters, giver's choice.
This song makes me go WTF in all the best possible ways. Its premise is so weird, so please feel free to write something weird!
Some possibilities: (1) Antaractica itself. I love the narrator's description of Antarctica, which mixes longing and fear. What were his past experiences in Antarctica like? How might he feel about the ways Antarctica and the human presence there have changed since his youth? What if he does manage to return (perhaps with Foucault)? What might Foucault have to say about Antarctica and the people/nations/corporations who claim it? (If you're a Foucault fan, please go ahead and make whatever you write as Foucauldian as your heart desires.)
(2) Sex, desire, power. I'm not really interested in a PWP, or for that matter in an uncomplicated "and they lived happily ever after" romance. But I'm very there for any of the potentially weird, complicated, difficult stuff a relationship between these characters could lead to. For example, what if Foucault can somehow arrange a ship? What might the explorer want or need to do in return, and what could come of a relationship with its roots in a transaction? Or what about the queerness of polar exploration, especially in contrast with the world of the early 1960s and the first stirrings of a queer liberation movement? Or what about the alignment, or not, of different kinds of desires: Foucault's evident desire for the explorer, the explorer's desire to return to Antarctica but also his desire to show Foucault Antarctica? Physical and sexual exploration? The desire to analyze vs. the desire to explore?
(2a): The historical Foucault was into BDSM. It's not exactly my kink, and so I'm not interested in an explicit BDSM scene just for its own sake. But BDSM as a way to explore questions of power is very welcome.
(3) Isolation, loneliness, homesickness. The explorer longs to go "home" to a place that's isolating and hostile to human life; how much does the hostility of Antarctica parallel the hostility of a homophobic society to queer men trying to make a life in it? (I tend to read the explorer as queer himself, because I think the song is more interesting that way.)
Having said all that, I also love how much the song is silly. If you feel like writing a slapstick comedy about the perils of dragging a French philosopher along on an Antarctic expedition, or a comedy of manners about the world's most awkward date, that would be cool!
DNWs: Anything based on the song video (which tells a very different story from the song itself), the explorer being homophobic, rape (mentions okay, but nothing onscreen or as a major plot point or character backstory point), any AUs that remove the Antarctic exploration or Foucault being a philosopher.
Astreiant Series - Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett
Requested characters: Istre b'Estorr
I'm fascinated by Istre himself, and by the academic-magical milieu he inhabits, which we haven't seen a lot of in the books. I'd be happy with anything about him, whether it's a character study, a slice-of-academic life tale, or a dramatic adventure. But below are some prompts if you'd like a place to start.
What do necromancers actually do when it doesn't involve crime? Are they basically historians, or does their work have practical applications? Are there rogue necromancers out hunting lost treasure or robbing graves?
What does being surrounded by ghosts all the time mean for Istre's life? Does he ever wish he could get rid of them? Or is he happier with ghosts than with most living people? (I'd be very on board with a ghost/Istre love story, by the way.) Do his ghosts help him understand the world better, or keep him separate, or some combination of both?
Istre and Philip have a sometimes awkward relationship. Do they manage to get past their jostling for a place in Nico's life, and if so, how? (I don't think Istre is unrequitedly in love with Nico. Sometimes things are just tense between old friends and new(ish) lovers.)
If you felt like going a more melancholy route, how about an old Istre and the ghosts of Nico and/or Philip? (Or even a still-young Istre, if you feel like killing off Nico and Philip untimely!) It could be ghost-tide, and a bittersweet reunion of old friends, or a quest to see justice done so the ghost(s) can rest, or anything in between.
One thing I adore about the novels is all the worldbuilding detail, so I'd be more than happy to see plenty of minutia about ghosts, or university life, or astrology, etc. etc.
Do Not Wants: rape (rape is canonically rare in this world so I'd prefer not even a mention); torture (not even a mention); any violence that's gorier/more severe than in canon; a m/f romance for Istre (mentions of past ones okay); Istre unrequitedly in love with Nico; non-canon AUs (but "what if canon event X had gone differently" AUs are fine).
Dear Yuletide Writer,
First of all, thank you for writing for me. I'm thrilled that you share my interest in one of these fandoms, and I can't wait to read your story.
What follows is a little more information about what I like and don't like. But I want to say right away that I hope you will write a story you find interesting and enjoy writing, even if it goes in a different direction from the things I mention here. It could turn out to be the story I didn't know I wanted.
The thing that appeals to me most in a fanfic is character exploration. I love getting to know characters with more depth and intimacy than in canon, as well as seeing them in a new light or from a new perspective. Character studies and stories that focus on emotional developments rather than outside events work well for me. I certainly would be happy to read something plotty if you enjoy writing plot (and if you do, I envy you!), but I look at plot as a bonus rather than a requirement.
Something else I adore is worldbuilding, whether it's a fantasy world with magic, an alternate history, or the real world we live in. I love the details of material culture (clothes and food and such) but also, or especially, the details of the social world: who's got what kinds of power, how people relate to one another, their jokes and superstitions and traditions and what they do for fun. I will happily wallow in this kind of stuff, so if you like worldbuilding, go wild!
I'm not terribly picky about genre, style, or tone. I like happy stories and melancholy stories (and best of all I love a combination of the two), straightforward narratives and stylistic experiments, missing scenes and metafictions, canon-compliance and what-ifs, backstory and futurefic. Feel free to take an idea and run with it. One caveat, however: I'm not a big fan of AUs that completely change the premise of the canon (such as coffee shop AUs, high school AUs, or things like omegaverse). I love the original settings too much to want to lose them in an AU. Canon AUs, however (where some canonical event turns out differently and alters what comes afterwards) are very welcome.
For some of my requested fandoms, I've asked primarily for gen, and gen is welcome in any fandom. (Please don't erase canon relationships, though.) When I have given shippy prompts, they're male/male; het fic really isn't my cup of tea.
Specifically regarding sex scenes: don't feel obliged to write one, even for a pairing fic. If you do want to write one, I love a sex scene that explores, reveals, or develops the characters or the relationship in some way. I'm not especially into PWPs or porn for porn's sake in fic. And even more specifically regarding kink: my taste in fictional kink is so idiosyncratic, with kinks and squicks cheek-by-jowl sometimes, that I usually ask for vanilla-only in fic exchanges. But of course one of my requested fandoms, "Our Retired Explorer," features Michel Foucault, and the historical Foucault was into BDSM. That, combined with Foucault's philosophical interest in the various manifestations of power and knowledge, opens up amazing storytelling possibilities. So if that's a story you're interested in telling, go for it.
And regarding violence/gore/horror: One of my fandoms is specifically horror, and another could easily go in that direction, but I'm squeamish. I'm okay with violence and gore up to about the level of the Hannibal TV show (especially if it's stylized, as Hannibal's violence mostly was), but that's my limit. And I'm really, no-joke, strongly squicked by decay and insects. Please don't. What I like in horror is dread, the unknown/unknowable, psychological horror, existential and cosmic horror, the horror of chaos and the equal-and-opposite horror of totalizing systems.
I don't think I have much to add about my specific requests, so I'm just posting them below as they appeared in my sign-up.
Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature (Podcast)
Characters requested: Worldbuilding
Anterra is fascinating and I just want to know more about it! Feel free to include any canon characters or original characters you want to, but I'd like the focus to be on Anterran history, culture, myth, etc.
Don't feel you need to solve every (or any) Anterran mystery in your fic. In fact, a story that explores the fragmentary nature of archaeology, the way theories are stitched together from ruins and bits of text, would be awesome. (One of my biggest unanswered questions is how anyone managed to decipher the Anterran language, and how certain they can actually be about their translations. I'd love to see an exploration of how we can know anything textual about Anterra.)
On the other hand, if you do feel like tackling the big mystery of how and why Anterra changed between the second and third empires, more power to you. I think canon has given us some significant hints, but there's plenty of room to explore.
Some other possibilities, left vague for you to play with: Anterran ideas and practices of gender, the early myths of the creation of the gods, the role of seeing in maintaining the world, the Idiot Kings and how/whether they "ruled." You could also dive deep into the material foundations of Anterran society: how did second empire Anterra avoid building its prosperity on conquest and slavery?
Setting and structure are totally up to you: present day, the Anterran era, or the deep time of Anterran myth; a new lecture from the Professor, an academic paper, letters, Anterran texts of any kind, a straightforward narrative, or whatever tickles your fancy.
Do Not Wants: Anterrans as aliens, Anterrans as white people, explicit scenes of rape (mentions are okay), explicit scenes of violence (implied/lightly described is okay, but I'm someone who can't watch horror movies because of the gore).
World Gone Wrong (Podcast)
Characters requested: Jamie, Malik, Worldbuilding
Must feature 1 or more requested characters, giver's choice.
Anything goes for this fandom, really (except my DNWs, listed below). I love the canon a lot, from Malik and Jamie's friendship to the weirdness of things like the "spaghetti circles" that no one can remember existing before, to the all-too-familiar banality of the apocalypse (the world may be ending, but you'd still better pay your rent and show up for your shift!). I'd love to read about new aspects of this changed world, or a deeper dive into things we've already heard about, like the vampire-werewolf alliance or the pod people. I listed some characters in my request, but if you'd rather do pure worldbuilding without canon characters, feel free! In fact I'd love to see what's happening in other parts of the country or the world.
One thing I especially enjoy about the canon is how much it's of the now, of the internet age, A story incorporating that in structure or content (a Reddit post and replies? A Discord chat? Comments on a YouTube or TikTok video? Scammers taking advantage of the new weird world? The challenges of spotting misinformation when anything seems to be possible? New games, new ads, new terms of service?) would be amazing.
You can keep the tone mixed as in the canon, where the dark implications are leavened with plenty of laughs) or go grim if you want to. But I do like the way the canon emphasizes that people are surviving, and going on with their changed lives, and even managing to be a little better than baseline, sometimes.
Do Not Wants: Jamie/Malik romance, non-canon AUs, backstory set exclusively before the world begins to change, rape (mentions are okay but no explicit rape scenes, rape as an important plot point or character backstory point, or any monsters committing rape as part of their m/o), explicit torture, explicit gore (as in, no detailed scenes of dismemberment or the like), decomposition, insects.
Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961 - The Weakerthans (Song)
Requested Characters: The Retired Explorer, Michel Foucault
Must feature 1 or more requested characters, giver's choice.
This song makes me go WTF in all the best possible ways. Its premise is so weird, so please feel free to write something weird!
Some possibilities: (1) Antaractica itself. I love the narrator's description of Antarctica, which mixes longing and fear. What were his past experiences in Antarctica like? How might he feel about the ways Antarctica and the human presence there have changed since his youth? What if he does manage to return (perhaps with Foucault)? What might Foucault have to say about Antarctica and the people/nations/corporations who claim it? (If you're a Foucault fan, please go ahead and make whatever you write as Foucauldian as your heart desires.)
(2) Sex, desire, power. I'm not really interested in a PWP, or for that matter in an uncomplicated "and they lived happily ever after" romance. But I'm very there for any of the potentially weird, complicated, difficult stuff a relationship between these characters could lead to. For example, what if Foucault can somehow arrange a ship? What might the explorer want or need to do in return, and what could come of a relationship with its roots in a transaction? Or what about the queerness of polar exploration, especially in contrast with the world of the early 1960s and the first stirrings of a queer liberation movement? Or what about the alignment, or not, of different kinds of desires: Foucault's evident desire for the explorer, the explorer's desire to return to Antarctica but also his desire to show Foucault Antarctica? Physical and sexual exploration? The desire to analyze vs. the desire to explore?
(2a): The historical Foucault was into BDSM. It's not exactly my kink, and so I'm not interested in an explicit BDSM scene just for its own sake. But BDSM as a way to explore questions of power is very welcome.
(3) Isolation, loneliness, homesickness. The explorer longs to go "home" to a place that's isolating and hostile to human life; how much does the hostility of Antarctica parallel the hostility of a homophobic society to queer men trying to make a life in it? (I tend to read the explorer as queer himself, because I think the song is more interesting that way.)
Having said all that, I also love how much the song is silly. If you feel like writing a slapstick comedy about the perils of dragging a French philosopher along on an Antarctic expedition, or a comedy of manners about the world's most awkward date, that would be cool!
DNWs: Anything based on the song video (which tells a very different story from the song itself), the explorer being homophobic, rape (mentions okay, but nothing onscreen or as a major plot point or character backstory point), any AUs that remove the Antarctic exploration or Foucault being a philosopher.
Astreiant Series - Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett
Requested characters: Istre b'Estorr
I'm fascinated by Istre himself, and by the academic-magical milieu he inhabits, which we haven't seen a lot of in the books. I'd be happy with anything about him, whether it's a character study, a slice-of-academic life tale, or a dramatic adventure. But below are some prompts if you'd like a place to start.
What do necromancers actually do when it doesn't involve crime? Are they basically historians, or does their work have practical applications? Are there rogue necromancers out hunting lost treasure or robbing graves?
What does being surrounded by ghosts all the time mean for Istre's life? Does he ever wish he could get rid of them? Or is he happier with ghosts than with most living people? (I'd be very on board with a ghost/Istre love story, by the way.) Do his ghosts help him understand the world better, or keep him separate, or some combination of both?
Istre and Philip have a sometimes awkward relationship. Do they manage to get past their jostling for a place in Nico's life, and if so, how? (I don't think Istre is unrequitedly in love with Nico. Sometimes things are just tense between old friends and new(ish) lovers.)
If you felt like going a more melancholy route, how about an old Istre and the ghosts of Nico and/or Philip? (Or even a still-young Istre, if you feel like killing off Nico and Philip untimely!) It could be ghost-tide, and a bittersweet reunion of old friends, or a quest to see justice done so the ghost(s) can rest, or anything in between.
One thing I adore about the novels is all the worldbuilding detail, so I'd be more than happy to see plenty of minutia about ghosts, or university life, or astrology, etc. etc.
Do Not Wants: rape (rape is canonically rare in this world so I'd prefer not even a mention); torture (not even a mention); any violence that's gorier/more severe than in canon; a m/f romance for Istre (mentions of past ones okay); Istre unrequitedly in love with Nico; non-canon AUs (but "what if canon event X had gone differently" AUs are fine).
