![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Oct. 14th, 2030 12:42 pmHi Yulegoat! You are lovely and amazing and you volunteered to write in one of my tiny tiny fandoms! This makes you a truly beautiful person. Yuletide is magic and so are you. :D The first half of this letter is basically the same as last year's, but the fandom thinkings are the same. So on to the letter:
KINKS/LIKES
--Strong characterization/characters being written IC (big, big, big one for me)
--Hurt/comfort
--Angst
--Humor
--Porn as plot (sex that either advances plot or helps to define characters)
--Plot without porn
--Meticulous attention to grammar/beta'ed fic
SQUICKS/DISLIKES
--Non-con/dub-con (though wrt statutory, I have no problem with kids above 14 or so who are roughly the same age having consensual, healthy sexual relationships)
--Incest
--OOC characterization
--Porn without plot
--Very graphic violence (I’m more OK with violence than a lot of people, I just don’t want like gouts of blood spraying everywhere or brains smeared on walls or whatever described in great visual detail)
--Characters being constantly referred to by their hair color (“The blonde looked at the brunette...”) Please, please, just use their names, even if it seems a little repetitive, or come up with some other way of identifying them. /pet peeve
As for the suggested questions elyn outlined in the "Optional Details" post on yt_admin last year:
-I'm not a big crossover person and I don't think any of my fandoms are particularly well-suited to that. I like AUs that branch off in a new direction from a turning point in the source material, but not ones that put the characters in completely different setting ("now the characters from In the Heights are doctors living in 19th-century Australia!") And if "gender-bending" means genderswap, while I think it's an interesting thing it doesn't work for me for these fandoms/characters.
-Elyn asked "Do they want dark/fluff/relationship/action adventure?" Yes! :)
-About pairings: I'm a femslash girl by default, but I definitely enjoy both het and m/m too. My only real problem would be rewriting the Songcatcher source material to de-lesbianify Elna and Harriet either. Oh OTP.
One more random note: when I last checked, no one had volunteered to write any of these fandoms except In the Heights. Which is a fandom I love, 4 srs. But if you were interested in picking up another fandom, all of my other ones should be easy to get, as two of them are in-print books that are available for cheap, and the other one is a movie that, last I checked, was available for free in the on-demand-or-whatever-it’s-called section of Netflix. I’ve spoiler-cut relevant pieces of the summaries of those so that if you decide to pick them up you can read the spoilers later.
And so. To the fandoms!
The Shining - Stephen King
Characters: Danny Torrance, Mr. Grady's Daughter, Dead Boy in the Concrete Ring, Spirit of the Overlook [note: fic does not necessarily have to contain all characters]
OK, so it’s clear from my requested characters that I’m requesting something kind of atypical here. One of the things that fascinated me about The Shining was that the hotel was, as Danny said, “stuffed” with ghosts/evil powers, and there are so many of whom we get a tantalizing glimpse, no more. I listed Mr. Grady’s daughter (the one who tries to burn the Overlook down, please) and the dead boy in the concrete ring because we get a bare glimpse of them; I’d like more information on what happened with the Gradys and particularly with that one daughter before the murder/suicide, either over the months of their isolation or right before the tragedy, and I want to know what happened to the boy in the concrete rings and why that is the place that he haunts. But the book also mentions how many children are scared of the playground -- is that dead child the only ghost there? That sort of thing -- the stories barely hinted at or never told at all -- is the main thing that fascinates me. When Jack is down in the basement poring through the boxes he finds bloody cloths, a dismembered teddy bear, bits of correspondence and weird poetry (why does “Medoc, are you here/I’ve been sleepwalking, my dear/The plants are moving under the rug” grab me so? Maybe for the echoes of The Yellow Wallpaper? I don’t even know). What’s the story behind those things? I’m not that interested in the ghosts we actually see or learn a lot about -- Mrs. Massey, the attendees of the masked ball, etc. I’m interested in the back stories of those we never get to meet. As for Spirit of the Overlook, you can interpret that how you will. I never much liked its being called the “manager” -- it seems too pedestrian and boring. I like the part at the end where it rises out of the hotel in a black shape that looks like burning wallpaper. Anyway, if that’s not a character/concept that you feel like including in the fic, feel free to skip it. I’m just interested in the being that’s running the show. If it wasn’t clear before, I’m most interested in something eerie, creepy, etc. -- something in the tone of the book.
The Girl in the Box - Ouida Sebestyen
Characters: Jackie McGee, April Beckner, Mrs. McGee (Jackie's mom) [note: fic does not necessarily have to contain all characters]
OK, I’m just going to lay it out: what I’m looking for here is fix-it fic. I cannot deal with the ending. Cannot. I love Jackie and EXCUSE ME OUIDA SEBESTYEN WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING WITH THAT ENDING. So, yeah. (spoiler; select to view) Anything where Jackie survives would be super. Could be a fic about her re-acclimating to life outside the cellar, could be a daring escape when the kidnapper comes back for her. It could also be along the lines of a scenario I’ve seen mentioned in a couple reviews: the idea that she was never in the cellar at all, that it’s all a psychotic episode. I’m interested in mental illness issues, so if you feel like you could pull that off realistically that would be cool. (Maybe the cellar is actually a psych ward? Maybe she winds up in a psych ward at the end and that’s the real-world parallel for the ending Sebestyen gives us? I dunno, I’m just throwing stuff out there.) As for April, one AU idea that interests me is that of their being trapped in the cellar together. What would they do -- like, what would the plot of an AU novel along those lines be? How would the fight they had before they were kidnapped affect the way they relate in a crisis like that? A lot? Not at all? I imagine they’d cling to each other in desperation, but would they trust each other fully or not? (I could buy it either way, so it would be your call.) As for Mrs. McGee, I kind of threw her into the mix because I thought it might be interesting to write about the experience of Jackie’s family and friends while Jackie is trapped. If you decide to go in another direction she doesn't necessarily have to be in it. So, you know, I just gave you like eighteen different directions you could go! If you’re looking for inspiration, I hope one of them suits!
Songcatcher (2000)
Characters: Harriet Tolliver, Elna Penleric
OK, this fandom is my baby and has been for like ten years. There was no fic for it until last year, when mithen wrote an AMAZING one for me. Seriously, I loved that fic SO MUCH. That’s not to say that you’d have to write a fic with the same tone or anything, though, unless you felt like it. There is no such thing as fic about Harriet and Elna that I would not adore. Fluff or angst, snippets of their lives running the school, a fix-it fic for the ending -- I’d love love love for them to meet again and work things through. Mithen said last year that another fic idea she was considering was to have Lily go looking for Harriet, which sounds awesome, but any way for them to find each other again is fine by me. I love these two when they are being cute and sweet and I love them when they are being troubled and frustrated with the closet they’re in and I just basically love them all the time in all the ways. I love them on the mountain running the school and I love them off the mountain doing whatever they would be doing in that period in a city or town. I also love Lily, by the way, and would like to see her in a fic, but I’d like Harriet and Elna to be the main show. Deladis is adorable and Tom’s not bad either -- I think he and Lily are a match for one another. And Viney is great -- I love how sensible and blunt and funny/kind she is without ever being saccharine or soft-focus. Oh, I know a lot of people think the plot of this movie is melodramatic and silly and I can’t even disagree with them but I love all the characters and I even love the melodramatic silly.
In the Heights - Miranda
Characters: Nina Rosario, Usnavi, Vanessa [note: fic does not necessarily have to include all characters, though I adore them all]
This is such a fabulous show. As you can see, I requested Usnavi and Nina and Vanessa but not Benny; Benny’s not my favorite, and I’m not that interested in Nina/Benny. I ship both Usnavi/Vanessa and Vanessa/Nina, although there’s hardly any fic for the latter (and one of them I wrote). I’m interested in Nina’s experiences at college, so anything exploring that in-depth would be great. I’m also interested in how Usnavi and Vanessa make a relationship work post-curtain. I don’t imagine it would be particularly easy; I think Vanessa’s life has been too complicated to let her learn how to trust anyone enough to make a relationship easy or simple, but I think Usnavi would be good at smoothing things over and helping to make things work. Nina/Vanessa friendship fic is good, Nina/Vanessa femslash fic is great. Background fic for Vanessa would be great; we get just a few sidelong glances at what her life has been, and it would be interesting to expand on them. I hardly ever say this, but kidfic -- not, like, kindergarten fic, but middle school or high school or something -- could work for me in this fandom; I think it would be interesting to see how they all interacted when they were younger, how their relationships formed, etc. I also think they’d make kind of adorable kids. (If you went in this direction, Benny could be in it, as he’s a central part of the group.)
So there are my three million and four plotbunnies! I hope I haven’t been too directive. Again, if you have your own ideas that grab you, you should definitely write those. I’m just throwing stuff out there because I know that I personally do better when I have a sense of what specific ideas my recip is interested in, but it’s absolutely not a prescription. The main thing is that I really hope you enjoy writing for me! That always shines through in the writing.
Happy writing, Yulegoat, and thank you again!
KINKS/LIKES
--Strong characterization/characters being written IC (big, big, big one for me)
--Hurt/comfort
--Angst
--Humor
--Porn as plot (sex that either advances plot or helps to define characters)
--Plot without porn
--Meticulous attention to grammar/beta'ed fic
SQUICKS/DISLIKES
--Non-con/dub-con (though wrt statutory, I have no problem with kids above 14 or so who are roughly the same age having consensual, healthy sexual relationships)
--Incest
--OOC characterization
--Porn without plot
--Very graphic violence (I’m more OK with violence than a lot of people, I just don’t want like gouts of blood spraying everywhere or brains smeared on walls or whatever described in great visual detail)
--Characters being constantly referred to by their hair color (“The blonde looked at the brunette...”) Please, please, just use their names, even if it seems a little repetitive, or come up with some other way of identifying them. /pet peeve
As for the suggested questions elyn outlined in the "Optional Details" post on yt_admin last year:
-I'm not a big crossover person and I don't think any of my fandoms are particularly well-suited to that. I like AUs that branch off in a new direction from a turning point in the source material, but not ones that put the characters in completely different setting ("now the characters from In the Heights are doctors living in 19th-century Australia!") And if "gender-bending" means genderswap, while I think it's an interesting thing it doesn't work for me for these fandoms/characters.
-Elyn asked "Do they want dark/fluff/relationship/action adventure?" Yes! :)
-About pairings: I'm a femslash girl by default, but I definitely enjoy both het and m/m too. My only real problem would be rewriting the Songcatcher source material to de-lesbianify Elna and Harriet either. Oh OTP.
One more random note: when I last checked, no one had volunteered to write any of these fandoms except In the Heights. Which is a fandom I love, 4 srs. But if you were interested in picking up another fandom, all of my other ones should be easy to get, as two of them are in-print books that are available for cheap, and the other one is a movie that, last I checked, was available for free in the on-demand-or-whatever-it’s-called section of Netflix. I’ve spoiler-cut relevant pieces of the summaries of those so that if you decide to pick them up you can read the spoilers later.
And so. To the fandoms!
The Shining - Stephen King
Characters: Danny Torrance, Mr. Grady's Daughter, Dead Boy in the Concrete Ring, Spirit of the Overlook [note: fic does not necessarily have to contain all characters]
OK, so it’s clear from my requested characters that I’m requesting something kind of atypical here. One of the things that fascinated me about The Shining was that the hotel was, as Danny said, “stuffed” with ghosts/evil powers, and there are so many of whom we get a tantalizing glimpse, no more. I listed Mr. Grady’s daughter (the one who tries to burn the Overlook down, please) and the dead boy in the concrete ring because we get a bare glimpse of them; I’d like more information on what happened with the Gradys and particularly with that one daughter before the murder/suicide, either over the months of their isolation or right before the tragedy, and I want to know what happened to the boy in the concrete rings and why that is the place that he haunts. But the book also mentions how many children are scared of the playground -- is that dead child the only ghost there? That sort of thing -- the stories barely hinted at or never told at all -- is the main thing that fascinates me. When Jack is down in the basement poring through the boxes he finds bloody cloths, a dismembered teddy bear, bits of correspondence and weird poetry (why does “Medoc, are you here/I’ve been sleepwalking, my dear/The plants are moving under the rug” grab me so? Maybe for the echoes of The Yellow Wallpaper? I don’t even know). What’s the story behind those things? I’m not that interested in the ghosts we actually see or learn a lot about -- Mrs. Massey, the attendees of the masked ball, etc. I’m interested in the back stories of those we never get to meet. As for Spirit of the Overlook, you can interpret that how you will. I never much liked its being called the “manager” -- it seems too pedestrian and boring. I like the part at the end where it rises out of the hotel in a black shape that looks like burning wallpaper. Anyway, if that’s not a character/concept that you feel like including in the fic, feel free to skip it. I’m just interested in the being that’s running the show. If it wasn’t clear before, I’m most interested in something eerie, creepy, etc. -- something in the tone of the book.
The Girl in the Box - Ouida Sebestyen
Characters: Jackie McGee, April Beckner, Mrs. McGee (Jackie's mom) [note: fic does not necessarily have to contain all characters]
OK, I’m just going to lay it out: what I’m looking for here is fix-it fic. I cannot deal with the ending. Cannot. I love Jackie and EXCUSE ME OUIDA SEBESTYEN WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING WITH THAT ENDING. So, yeah. (spoiler; select to view) Anything where Jackie survives would be super. Could be a fic about her re-acclimating to life outside the cellar, could be a daring escape when the kidnapper comes back for her. It could also be along the lines of a scenario I’ve seen mentioned in a couple reviews: the idea that she was never in the cellar at all, that it’s all a psychotic episode. I’m interested in mental illness issues, so if you feel like you could pull that off realistically that would be cool. (Maybe the cellar is actually a psych ward? Maybe she winds up in a psych ward at the end and that’s the real-world parallel for the ending Sebestyen gives us? I dunno, I’m just throwing stuff out there.) As for April, one AU idea that interests me is that of their being trapped in the cellar together. What would they do -- like, what would the plot of an AU novel along those lines be? How would the fight they had before they were kidnapped affect the way they relate in a crisis like that? A lot? Not at all? I imagine they’d cling to each other in desperation, but would they trust each other fully or not? (I could buy it either way, so it would be your call.) As for Mrs. McGee, I kind of threw her into the mix because I thought it might be interesting to write about the experience of Jackie’s family and friends while Jackie is trapped. If you decide to go in another direction she doesn't necessarily have to be in it. So, you know, I just gave you like eighteen different directions you could go! If you’re looking for inspiration, I hope one of them suits!
Songcatcher (2000)
Characters: Harriet Tolliver, Elna Penleric
OK, this fandom is my baby and has been for like ten years. There was no fic for it until last year, when mithen wrote an AMAZING one for me. Seriously, I loved that fic SO MUCH. That’s not to say that you’d have to write a fic with the same tone or anything, though, unless you felt like it. There is no such thing as fic about Harriet and Elna that I would not adore. Fluff or angst, snippets of their lives running the school, a fix-it fic for the ending -- I’d love love love for them to meet again and work things through. Mithen said last year that another fic idea she was considering was to have Lily go looking for Harriet, which sounds awesome, but any way for them to find each other again is fine by me. I love these two when they are being cute and sweet and I love them when they are being troubled and frustrated with the closet they’re in and I just basically love them all the time in all the ways. I love them on the mountain running the school and I love them off the mountain doing whatever they would be doing in that period in a city or town. I also love Lily, by the way, and would like to see her in a fic, but I’d like Harriet and Elna to be the main show. Deladis is adorable and Tom’s not bad either -- I think he and Lily are a match for one another. And Viney is great -- I love how sensible and blunt and funny/kind she is without ever being saccharine or soft-focus. Oh, I know a lot of people think the plot of this movie is melodramatic and silly and I can’t even disagree with them but I love all the characters and I even love the melodramatic silly.
In the Heights - Miranda
Characters: Nina Rosario, Usnavi, Vanessa [note: fic does not necessarily have to include all characters, though I adore them all]
This is such a fabulous show. As you can see, I requested Usnavi and Nina and Vanessa but not Benny; Benny’s not my favorite, and I’m not that interested in Nina/Benny. I ship both Usnavi/Vanessa and Vanessa/Nina, although there’s hardly any fic for the latter (and one of them I wrote). I’m interested in Nina’s experiences at college, so anything exploring that in-depth would be great. I’m also interested in how Usnavi and Vanessa make a relationship work post-curtain. I don’t imagine it would be particularly easy; I think Vanessa’s life has been too complicated to let her learn how to trust anyone enough to make a relationship easy or simple, but I think Usnavi would be good at smoothing things over and helping to make things work. Nina/Vanessa friendship fic is good, Nina/Vanessa femslash fic is great. Background fic for Vanessa would be great; we get just a few sidelong glances at what her life has been, and it would be interesting to expand on them. I hardly ever say this, but kidfic -- not, like, kindergarten fic, but middle school or high school or something -- could work for me in this fandom; I think it would be interesting to see how they all interacted when they were younger, how their relationships formed, etc. I also think they’d make kind of adorable kids. (If you went in this direction, Benny could be in it, as he’s a central part of the group.)
So there are my three million and four plotbunnies! I hope I haven’t been too directive. Again, if you have your own ideas that grab you, you should definitely write those. I’m just throwing stuff out there because I know that I personally do better when I have a sense of what specific ideas my recip is interested in, but it’s absolutely not a prescription. The main thing is that I really hope you enjoy writing for me! That always shines through in the writing.
Happy writing, Yulegoat, and thank you again!
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
