PurimGifts Letter
Dear Mystery Author,
First of all, my biggest apologies for you having to wait: LJ ate the first two copies of this, and of course it was during the first week of the spring term! (I’ll spare you the tale of my angst, but aaaauuugh, I’m sorry)
I'm pretty easy to please, Mystery Author, and I like a lot of things. I like hearing about adventures, derring-do, and the kinds of stories you bring home to dazzle dinner guests at your "welcome home" party. I like hearing about people who do unexpected things, and why they did them. I like realism, love stories that leave a little glow after they're told, and variety. The epistolary format rocks my world. Attention to little details (especially in period pieces) and witty banter can make me smile so hard, my face hurts. Anything from gen-fic to something a little hotter is fantastic. Mysteries make me happy. Relationships of all kinds are great: familial, friends, romantic. Bodies that don't belong to supermodels? Fine! Want to try your hand at a historical or modern AU? Go for it! Sly little geeky or pop-culture jokes? Love them! Slow build-up in a relationship? Yay!
On the flip-side, I have my dislikes too, though it's a pretty short list, and they're fairly straightforward. Please avoid things like breath-play, blood-play, and bodily fluids that don't occur naturally during intercourse (read: no bathroom-play). Really hardcore BDSM, like being hung upside-down from the ceiling while blindfolded and gagged, before being whipped with chains...that doesn't do it for me. Neither does incest. I prefer drug-use and self-harm to be off-screen, and not be described in a very graphic fashion. Same for abuse, regardless of whether it’s towards adults, children, or animals. Rape/non-consensual sex is a deal-breaker for me.
Star Trek
My love goes to The Original Series and The Next Generation. It's been a long time since I saw any DS9 or Voyager, and I never saw Enterprise, so I don't usually read them. I wanted to grow up to be like Beverly Crusher. I liked learning about Deanna Troi's mixed heritage, about Uhura's life in general, and I thought Guinan was cool. Keiko and Molly always made me smile. I wanted to know more about Worf's human mother, Helena - what was it like for her, to adopt and raise a child of a completely different race (who also had a different view on life, and also probably PTSD)? I haven’t seen the reboot movies -- though I’ve borrowed my mother’s copies so I can! There are a lot of ways you can do something here, and I'll be thrilled to ride pillion with you.
Fairy Tales
This is very general, and encompasses a lot, but quite honestly, there's a lot of room for you here. There’s very little I won’t read in this category. Maria Morevna, La Belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty), Morgiana, the Goose Girl, the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Little Red Riding Hood, The Rough-Face Girl...and that’s just off of the top of my head! Modern AUs, location changes (e.g. Cinderella in New Orleans, Long Leda and Little Rosa in Germany), trope subversion, shifts in historical period (e.g. Beauty and the Beast in Ancient Rome, Hansel and Gretel in Restoration England), missing scenes, what-ifs, and “what happened after the ‘happily ever after?’” If any of them met each other, would they have anything to say to one another?
*I believe Disney is not included in this category, but after other exchanges where they get lumped together, I want to warn you that if you do want to go that route, I haven’t seen Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Enchanted, or Frozen. I intend to remedy that when I have more free time, but just a heads-up!
Harry Potter
Soft-spot for Hermione aside, there's a lot of room here too. How do the girls we don’t know as well spend their time in the years before everything goes down at the Final Battle? What sort of relationships (friendly, familial, or romantic) do they have with each other, especially the Purebloods who’ve known each other all their lives? What sort of mischief do girls with magical powers get up to when there aren’t any adults to watch them? What happens to the girls who have to spend that hellish year at Hogwarts? How do they cope with the complete upheaval to their lives, especially the girls who’ve lost friends or family, and do they try to find some sense of normalcy in the middle of it? I tend to read more about the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw girls, but maybe you’d rather tell me about how the ones in Slytherin or Hufflepuff got through their days, before or during the War. What happens to any of them after they leave school? Do they write tell-alls, or try to forget? Which ones go off to have careers, and are they successful? How do the ones who were injured get around their new limitations? Bonus points for Andromeda during the First War, Minerva, Millicent, and Luna.
Yoroiden Samurai Troopers | Ronin Warriors
Ah, my first foray into fandom! It’s so, so 80s, but when it re-aired in the 2000s, I still got hooked. Tell me how Nasuti/Mia dealt with not only trying to help her grandfather do his research, but then also take on five teenage boarders who needed her to keep them sane while they learned more about their powers and abilities, all while fighting an enemy with way more firepower. How did she keep from going completely around the bend, feeding and housing them (and Jun/Yuli, and Byakuen/White Blaze), and - oh, yes - trying not to be kidnapped? Or tell me about After: does she keep in touch with them? Go on to teach, or travel, or get a PhD?
And what about Kayura? Is there any regret for the family she used to have once her memories come back? How does she move forward after Shuten dies, and she has to fill his role at the same time as helping to rebuild with the other warlords? Does she try to build some kind of friendship with Nasuti/Mia, since they can both at least somewhat understand each other’s new position?
I know we don’t know much about Luna or Nadia, but if you want to go that way, I’m all for that too!
The Avengers
My knowledge is of the movie-verse, and I haven't seen all the films (especially Thor 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier; I intend to fix that too), but that doesn't stop me from reading anyway. Heh. I have a soft-spot for Natasha and her many facets, and also for Darcy and her general attitude towards life. Jane’s grown on me, with some amazing fanon thoughts on her. And is there any argument that Maria Hill is anything but bad-ass? What was life before the war like for Peggy (I haven’t seen Agent Carter)? Or maybe you’d rather tell me about the women we don’t know who work for Shield - the secretaries, scientists, HR personnel, or weapons-developers - what is it like working for Shield when you’re not a superhero and/or specially-trained assassin, and when it’s not at all wise to tell people who your employer is?
The Mummy/The Mummy Returns
Ah, Evy. I identified with herself perhaps a little too much: though I didn’t want to be a librarian, I understood her love for books, relics, adventure, and men who have a softer side (even if Rick hides it). What was it like for her, straddling the worlds of Edwardian and 1920s England and the land of the Pharaohs? How does she deal with the death of her parents and the fact that her brother constantly gets into trouble with a combination of inheritance money and a weakness for get-rich-quick schemes? Do her recovered memories of Nefertiri make life…interesting…after things settle again? How do Rick, Alex, and Jonathan treat her after she’s brought back? Does motherhood affect her differently, as both the daughter of a Very Different Kind of Woman and as a woman who isn’t content to sit at home? How do she and Rick navigate their first few years together?
I also admit I’ve developed a soft spot for Ardeth/Evy/Rick. The things what-ifs will do to you, you know? (Ha!)
Newsies
I’ve never seen the play, and I know the historical accuracy and character development in this movie is…not always the greatest. But I have such a nostalgic thing for it. A lot of people despise Sarah, but I think she had potential (with more screen time, better development, and not being pigeon-holed)! Tell me about what she thinks as David starts throwing himself into the strike and she’s not allowed to (though it didn’t stop her!), and what she feels when she still gets treated like collateral when the Big Men want promises for Jack. What’s it like for her as the daughter of immigrants? Did she lose friends because of her ties (and David’s) to the newsies? What kind of dreams does she have? How do you think memories of the strike impacted her once she grew into an adult?
Anne of Green Gables
I’m a little nervous to ask for this, because this series is still so much a part of me. But I have such a craving for missing scenes too! We know Diana gets a little jealous reading Anne’s letters from Queen’s because she thinks Anne will come back and think her too countrified, but does she still think the same by the time Anne goes to Redmond and writes letters that include stories of Pris, Stella, and Phil? What does she think of Roy, and Anne spurning Gilbert? Does she ever compare their lives, as even the best friends are wont to do once in a while?
What about the other girls Anne knows from Avonlea? What are their lives like with Anne in it? Or maybe you’d rather focus on the older women before we meet them: Rachel Lynde (like Rebecca Dew, you can’t separate those names!), Marilla, the Aunts at Windy Poplars (especially since Aunt Kate always shipped out with her Captain when he was alive), or Aunt Jamesina? What goes into the letters to Aunt Josephine (because surely Diana or Anne keep her abreast of the major things in their lives)? What sort of places does Katherine get to see once she stops teaching? And we know Little Elizabeth kept house for her father - did she always, and did she and her father travel together like they planned?
Anne and Gilbert are one of my very, very few OTPs, and I tend to stick to gen with this fandom. I know, I’m strange. :)
Labyrinth
*So you know, I’ve never read the manga or the movie tie-in novel - I’m going based solely off the movie.
Mystery Author, tell me what happens to Sarah after she comes back with Toby! Does she throw herself into the Real World with a vengeance, and try to forget? Does she try to go back at any point? How does the experience affect her view of/relationship with Toby? And do she and her stepmother ever manage to patch things up? What kind of relationship does she have with her mother after Sarah puts away the pictures and clippings she’d saved?
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit
I’m like a lot of people -- I like to know about what happens off-screen. What Rosie thinks when Sam’s gone off with Mister Frodo, how Arwen and Aragorn (and Eowyn and Faramir) fight through the after-effects of battle and move into their roles as peacetime rulers, and what Tauriel decides to do after her world gets turned upside-down twice. What’s Lobelia Sackville-Baggins’ take on all of this? What would have Belladonna Took said if she’d been offered a road to explore? Does Sam and Rosie’s daughter Elanor have any adventures of her own? What happened to Bard’s daughters Sigrid and Tilda, and does Tauriel ever visit them (and maybe teach them healing)?
Chronicles of Narnia
I admit that I’m more interested in Susan and Lucy than I am in Jill. What were happy memories from their reigns as Narnia’s Queens, or was there a particularly skilled coup that one or both of them pulled off that Edmund and Peter always brought up after that at banquets? Tell me what Susan did once she was the only one left, or how Susan and Lucy reassured Edmund over the years that they still loved him. Did they prefer to hone both their weapons skills and their diplomatic roles with their brothers or with each other? Were there any sisterly rituals or bonding activities they kept for each other? Were there any remnants of that once they were brought back to London, and were there any Susan kept on her own?
Roswell
I know, I know! This was such a 90s teen romance-drama, and sometimes there were plotholes through which you could send a sky-diver with ease, but oh, the memories! This is one of the few places where I have ship-y type feelings, and it’s totally for Michael and Liz. I don’t know why. I don’t know how it happened, either, because I used to be all for Max. Did Liz, Maria, and Izzy decide to chase the dreams they’d always had, just in different ways? Or did they find different dreams altogether? I admit I like the idea of finding Michael and Liz developing a deeper relationship somewhere along the road, maybe new memories in different places, and finding somewhere to call their own and stop running. You never know.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Gaby, like Shrek, is an onion, with so many complicated layers. Nothing’s quite like it seems with her, to the point where, if she is honest with you, you don’t really believe her (or at least not at first). Does that make things complicated with Solo and Illya? How does she define her role in their little unit? They know she can hold her own, but are there still ways they accommodate her in the middle of a fight, or during their downtime? Any thoughts on what her life behind the Iron Curtain was like, before the English approached her?
The West Wing
So many women, so little time. I have a weakness for Mrs Landingham, but how can someone not like that sass and resilience? Tell me about a normal day in Josh’s office (and why he can never give Donna’s filing system its due credit), or an impressive move CJ pulled, or what Abby does when she’s alone (besides fret, if the situation calls for it). Tell me what it’s like to be the daughter of the President, and having your friendships, relationships, and life choices make front page news. Did Zoe leave the spotlight after the Bartlet administration, or did she stay in on her own merits? Or tell me about Ainsley and her little victories, or Margaret and the type of things that make up her day!
Star Wars
I’m not even sure what I want here, because there are so many options! For starters, how did Rey get through growing up on Jakku, when she had (as far as we know) nothing going for her? What kinds of changes does she have to navigate, going from being no one in the desert to Someone in a world of green? How does she feel around Leia? And what about Leia, the only woman to be a diplomat, Resistance leader, a general, and have Force abilities (talk about a second career…)? What’s going through her mind as Han leaves, Luke disappears, and Ben is lost? What about her ducklings, like Poe? Are there any women pilots on whom she keeps tabs, trying to help them through things? Or maybe tell me about the pilots themselves - there are women front-and-center this time!
I hope this helps, Mystery Author, and I hope you have a good time with it! See you at the reveal!