Jukebox Fest letter
Dear Writer
Thank you for tackling a fic for me! Here's a general idea of what I'd like to see in it, but go where the inspiration takes you, especially since there's so much room for interpretation in this fic fest. I've written more for some songs than others, but rest assured fic for any of these would make me happy.
What I'd really prefer not to have in the fic: extremes of violence, rape/non-con, total hopelessness, infidelity, incest.
I'm cool with: any rating. The characters within the songs don't have to match up with the artists who perform the songs - feel free to play with era, gender, nationality, etc. - though I do have a few preferred exceptions below, indicated in brackets. I use the singers' pronouns in the request write-ups, but that's for ease of reference.
It could be interesting to see some metaphors in the songs taken literally. Not so much with e.g. having a fic that stars a bag of dirt that happens to be teenaged, but if say in King and Lionheart somebody is walking around with a lion's heart jammed into their probably-expanded chest cavity, or someone in Bulletproof Heart has decided it would be a grand plan to replace all their teeth with hollow point bullets, I'd dig it.
I don't mention the videos aside from "Push Me to the Floor", because mostly I'm asking for fics based on the music, but if the song has a video, feel free to take as much inspiration from it as you want.
Close Your House Down - Cordero (Song)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyol0UEtEME
Lyrics: http://www.lyricstime.com/luis-gerardo-cordero-close-your-house-down-lyrics.html
Why is the narrator out to warn one person specifically, convinced the storm is after that person? Is the narrator right or completely out of touch with reality? What would it be like to be hunted by a storm? Something along those lines would be great, but I also find this song so atmospheric that anything that evokes the general feeling rather than the specifics would also be good. As long as there is an increasingly menacing, hard-to-stop, strange kind of danger approaching, and a surprising, urgent and equally strange warning preceding it, it's cool.
Bulletproof Heart - My Chemical Romance (Song)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seFu9fQ_-FI
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mychemicalromance/bulletproofheart.html
Feel free to use the rest of the Killjoys universe as set-up, or do something solely inspired by the song - though I don't know the comics, so please avoid a lot of references to that. Admittedly I would like a setting for this that's a little sci-fi-ish, set in the future, whatever you decide on. That's what the aesthetic of the album and the material that surrounds it makes me think of.
But mostly I like the wild freedom hunting and self-indulgent thrill-seeking I read into "Gravity / don't mean to much to me" + the begging people to come back home + the references to being on the run, and the kind of relationship that could result from someone with a bulletproof heart meeting someone with a hollow point smile. And why do they need all this saving, anyway?
Where did you sleep last night - Nirvana (Song)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcXYz0gtJeM
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nirvana/wheredidyousleeplastnight.html
I find this song darkly humourous and would really like a story in that vein. The first few times listening to it I got the impression of pretty standard, though creepy and outraged jealousy. Then one day I sussed out the lyrics properly and the song transformed in my head to:
Goddamnit, where were you
I need to know
Don't lie to me, woman
I really want to know!
DID YOU DECAPITATE A MARRIED MAN AND STEAL AWAY HIS BODY????
I REALLY WANT TO NOOOOOOO NEVER MIND
I'M GOING TO GO STAND IN THE WOODS AND DIE OF PNEUMONIA.
And I started laughing because that's far from standard, and also why is this guy in a relationship with someone where his first thought with regards to brutal murder is 'that was totally my girlfriend', and his reaction really oughtn't be to scream about it and then run away. It was altogether so unexpected and wrong that I ended up finding it funny.
For another option, I've seen an interpretion of the song as including the man and the woman's POV, with the guy saying "where did you sleep last night?" and the woman's response being "in the pines". A serious and creepy take on the song that takes that interpretation into account would also be great.
(I'd really like Decapitating Girlfriend to be female.)
King and Lionheart - Of Monsters and Men (Song)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76a_LNIYwE
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ofmonstersandmen/kingandlionheart.html
The story of the song has a general atmosphere made up of my favourite things, with the whole "people marching through an apocalyptic disaster area, lifted up by loyalty and determination" thing. I'd love the world as described in the song to be used in the story, howling ghosts, monsters, flying ships and all. Is the king a literal king, or is this what Lionheart says as encouragement? Are the two of them leading others as the world comes to an end?
(I'd prefer the Lionheart character to be female. At least some of the time, since both the male and female vocals refer to a king and a lionheart.)
Push Me To the Floor - The Parlotones (Music Video)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPo3KLZ4SpM
Lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/the_parlotones/push_me_to_the_floor.html
There was a Yuletide request in 2012 for the characters in this video to be a kind of nascent version of the Addams Family, and once I saw the video that's what I wanted too. I don't know, the house is built in a place where Strange Forces influence its inhabitants, and the inhabitants know but find that they pretty much enjoy it? Maybe they were weird from the word go and no one else knows what to make of it. I'd love something that's a mix of cartoony, creepy, and fun; loving and violent and sexy.
Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus (Song)
listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC3y9llDXuM
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/wheatus/teenagedirtbag.html
Once I saw someone say that they interpreted the narrator in this song as having a crush on both Noel and her boyfriend, due to the way the verses are mirrored. Noel and Dick Boyfriend getting Dirtbag into their relationship would be awesome.
Otherwise I'd like to know how Noel noticed Dirtbag and got her own crush. How much dancing around each other was there before the great reveal of loving Iron Maiden together?
Also, listening to the radio a lot when these songs were popular left me wanting a crossover fic where this song's Noel/Dirtbag couple met the would-be couple of Narrator/Nona in "Girl All the Bad Guys Want" by Bowling for Soup (listen, lyrics), where they double date and possibly go poly.
Thank you for tackling a fic for me! Here's a general idea of what I'd like to see in it, but go where the inspiration takes you, especially since there's so much room for interpretation in this fic fest. I've written more for some songs than others, but rest assured fic for any of these would make me happy.
What I'd really prefer not to have in the fic: extremes of violence, rape/non-con, total hopelessness, infidelity, incest.
I'm cool with: any rating. The characters within the songs don't have to match up with the artists who perform the songs - feel free to play with era, gender, nationality, etc. - though I do have a few preferred exceptions below, indicated in brackets. I use the singers' pronouns in the request write-ups, but that's for ease of reference.
It could be interesting to see some metaphors in the songs taken literally. Not so much with e.g. having a fic that stars a bag of dirt that happens to be teenaged, but if say in King and Lionheart somebody is walking around with a lion's heart jammed into their probably-expanded chest cavity, or someone in Bulletproof Heart has decided it would be a grand plan to replace all their teeth with hollow point bullets, I'd dig it.
I don't mention the videos aside from "Push Me to the Floor", because mostly I'm asking for fics based on the music, but if the song has a video, feel free to take as much inspiration from it as you want.
Close Your House Down - Cordero (Song)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyol0UEtEME
Lyrics: http://www.lyricstime.com/luis-gerardo-cordero-close-your-house-down-lyrics.html
Why is the narrator out to warn one person specifically, convinced the storm is after that person? Is the narrator right or completely out of touch with reality? What would it be like to be hunted by a storm? Something along those lines would be great, but I also find this song so atmospheric that anything that evokes the general feeling rather than the specifics would also be good. As long as there is an increasingly menacing, hard-to-stop, strange kind of danger approaching, and a surprising, urgent and equally strange warning preceding it, it's cool.
Bulletproof Heart - My Chemical Romance (Song)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seFu9fQ_-FI
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mychemicalromance/bulletproofheart.html
Feel free to use the rest of the Killjoys universe as set-up, or do something solely inspired by the song - though I don't know the comics, so please avoid a lot of references to that. Admittedly I would like a setting for this that's a little sci-fi-ish, set in the future, whatever you decide on. That's what the aesthetic of the album and the material that surrounds it makes me think of.
But mostly I like the wild freedom hunting and self-indulgent thrill-seeking I read into "Gravity / don't mean to much to me" + the begging people to come back home + the references to being on the run, and the kind of relationship that could result from someone with a bulletproof heart meeting someone with a hollow point smile. And why do they need all this saving, anyway?
Where did you sleep last night - Nirvana (Song)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcXYz0gtJeM
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/nirvana/wheredidyousleeplastnight.html
I find this song darkly humourous and would really like a story in that vein. The first few times listening to it I got the impression of pretty standard, though creepy and outraged jealousy. Then one day I sussed out the lyrics properly and the song transformed in my head to:
Goddamnit, where were you
I need to know
Don't lie to me, woman
I really want to know!
DID YOU DECAPITATE A MARRIED MAN AND STEAL AWAY HIS BODY????
I REALLY WANT TO NOOOOOOO NEVER MIND
I'M GOING TO GO STAND IN THE WOODS AND DIE OF PNEUMONIA.
And I started laughing because that's far from standard, and also why is this guy in a relationship with someone where his first thought with regards to brutal murder is 'that was totally my girlfriend', and his reaction really oughtn't be to scream about it and then run away. It was altogether so unexpected and wrong that I ended up finding it funny.
For another option, I've seen an interpretion of the song as including the man and the woman's POV, with the guy saying "where did you sleep last night?" and the woman's response being "in the pines". A serious and creepy take on the song that takes that interpretation into account would also be great.
(I'd really like Decapitating Girlfriend to be female.)
King and Lionheart - Of Monsters and Men (Song)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76a_LNIYwE
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ofmonstersandmen/kingandlionheart.html
The story of the song has a general atmosphere made up of my favourite things, with the whole "people marching through an apocalyptic disaster area, lifted up by loyalty and determination" thing. I'd love the world as described in the song to be used in the story, howling ghosts, monsters, flying ships and all. Is the king a literal king, or is this what Lionheart says as encouragement? Are the two of them leading others as the world comes to an end?
(I'd prefer the Lionheart character to be female. At least some of the time, since both the male and female vocals refer to a king and a lionheart.)
Push Me To the Floor - The Parlotones (Music Video)
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPo3KLZ4SpM
Lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/t/the_parlotones/push_me_to_the_floor.html
There was a Yuletide request in 2012 for the characters in this video to be a kind of nascent version of the Addams Family, and once I saw the video that's what I wanted too. I don't know, the house is built in a place where Strange Forces influence its inhabitants, and the inhabitants know but find that they pretty much enjoy it? Maybe they were weird from the word go and no one else knows what to make of it. I'd love something that's a mix of cartoony, creepy, and fun; loving and violent and sexy.
Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus (Song)
listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC3y9llDXuM
Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/wheatus/teenagedirtbag.html
Once I saw someone say that they interpreted the narrator in this song as having a crush on both Noel and her boyfriend, due to the way the verses are mirrored. Noel and Dick Boyfriend getting Dirtbag into their relationship would be awesome.
Otherwise I'd like to know how Noel noticed Dirtbag and got her own crush. How much dancing around each other was there before the great reveal of loving Iron Maiden together?
Also, listening to the radio a lot when these songs were popular left me wanting a crossover fic where this song's Noel/Dirtbag couple met the would-be couple of Narrator/Nona in "Girl All the Bad Guys Want" by Bowling for Soup (listen, lyrics), where they double date and possibly go poly.