Dear Yuletide Writer letter for 2009
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Thank you! Thank you for participating in Yuletide, thank you for writing for me, and thank you for reading this letter. Before we get started, there are two major points I'd like you to keep in mind.
1. None of the fandoms on my list is a gimme/consolation-prize fandom. One of the fandoms I've requested is going to be a ridiculously easy match, one is going to be reasonably easy (and easy to pick up after the fact if that happens), and the other two are going to be fairly difficult. I knew this, and I deliberately chose fandoms to make sure at least one of them would be easy to match -- but this doesn't mean I wouldn't be delighted to receive a fic for any of them! I'll be posting links to sources for my fandoms here, just for informational purposes, but please don't make that think you should feel obligated to switch fandoms to do something I "want more." If you matched me on it, I want it and I'll love it.
2. Above all else, I want you to write something you want to write. One of the great joys in Yuletide is writing in a rare fandom, and I want you to really enjoy the act of writing for me. To that end, please remember that all my optional details are optional! Heck, for that matter, my characters list is optional; I've listed the ones I'd most like to read about, but for the two fandoms in which I've requested individual characters, I love the ensemble casts and would be delighted to read a fic about any of them, if that's what inspires you. I've listed specific likes and dislikes under the individual fandoms, and I'd appreciate it if you paid attention to that, but at the end of the day, what I really want from my Yuletide story is something crafted with joy and love for our shared rare fandom. If that means writing completely off my prompt, I don't mind at all.
With that out of the way, here are some general notes about my taste in fic:
Likes: Gen, whether plot-based or just slice-of-life; I'm not a huge fan of fluff or angst for their own sake, but low-key pieces that develop characters are great. Similarly, I like stories that develop settings -- tastes of everyday life in fantastic worlds, imaginary histories, that sort of thing. I enjoy fic set all along the time spectrum, from pre-canon events to fill-in-the-holes to post-canon. I enjoy happy endings, and in general notes of hope and optimism are always appreciated.
Dislikes: PWP/excessively mechanical porn; I prefer that porn be used as a tool to develop the characters involved and their relationship with one another, and therefore "$character did $sexact to $othercharacter all night long hooo baby" exercises don't do much for me. For similar reasons, I don't like crack pairings, and in general I'm not fond of crack or excessive AU-ing. ("What if?"s based on canon are great, but "what if they were all in high school/in a band/in a weyr on Pern/generally not actually in their canon" AUs just don't work for me.) I also don't like character-bashing exercises or excessively downbeat endings.
Squicks: Incest, rape (I respect that this can be used as a legitimate plot device and isn't automatically fetish fuel, but I still would rather not read about it, sorry!), hatesex, porn involving excessive or non-sexual bodily byproducts (a bit of spit here and there is fine, but please no bloodplay, watersports, scat, truly ludicrous amounts of sexual fluids, etc.), underage sex (below about 15-16 or so), pairings involving heavy power inequality or abuse of privilege (teacher/student and what have you), heavy BDSM
And here are my individual prompts and notes:
Dar Williams - The Honesty Room (album) / Alleluia
Request: I'd really love a "case file" fic about the Narrator's work with self-destructive youth, as described in the last verse; as (presumably) an angel, just how is she allowed to intervene on Earth, and how does she? Barring that, something about the Narrator's relationship with the Magenta-Haired Angel and their continuing adventures in this very strange Heaven would be great. Gen and femslash are obviously both wonderful.
Although a plot would be great, the "case file" idea doesn't have to be excessively plotty. One of the reasons I asked for it is that I'm interested in the Narrator's character development: how does she go from the nihilistic dead kid of the first verse ("that's okay 'cause noone's gonna make the next century") to the responsible one of the last one ("don't be like me: forever young, forever stupid"), and how does her past influence her work on Earth? This is stuff I wonder about when I listen to the song, and I'd really love a proper fic about that.
If you'd rather not go that route, though, Narrator/Magenta-Haired Angel femslash (as explicit or non-explicit as you want) would be great too, especially if you took a closer look at Heaven in the process. The depiction of Heaven and God in this song fascinates me: kitschy and weird on one hand, but really loving and forgiving on the other. Whatever the afterlife here is like, it surely can't be boring.
If you need a refresher (or are coming upon this one blind), the song's available on YouTube here.
Siren (game) / Akira Shimura, Tamon Takeuchi, Yoriko Anno
Request: Any combination of these three would be absolutely fantastic: pre-game fic involving the Shimura and Takeuchi families, Akira and Yoriko during their time together in-game, or Tamon and Yoriko together more or less whenever. If you can't get anything to work with them together, feel free to write a fic about any one of them -- that's fine too! I'm a fan of Tamon/Yoriko as a romantic pairing, but I also like their canonical relationship, so gen or het are both fine. (I'd rather that Akira not be paired with anyone besides his deceased wife, though.)
Just to say it explicitly here: while I requested specific characters, any Siren-based fic would be wonderful, and there are a lot of general scenarios I resisted listing in my response to avoid overload. Any exploration of the game's backstory, or of general life and unlife in Hanuda, would be fantastic: what's it like inside a Shibito's head, or a Kajiro's head, or Hisako's? What about poor Harumi, post-game? What's the story behind the Miyata Clinic and its inhabitants -- not just Mina, but poor Miyako in the basement and Shimura-kun in the crate? I could go on, but my point is that there's more or less nothing you could write about Siren that I wouldn't love. Go nuts.
To get back on the subject of my actual request, though... the thing that I really like about the three characters I requested, particularly together, is that they're all both heroic and tragic figures in their own right, and their plot arcs intersect interesting. This is particularly interesting with Akira and Yoriko -- his initial strength failing when faced with the burden of his past and the horror in front of him, versus her initial confusion hardening into resolve and determination -- while Tamon is somewhere in between, if just as burdened by tragedy as Akira. I think they're all great characters, and I'd love to read about them.
I know I said above that I prefer happy endings, but obviously this is a lot more difficult to do with Siren, given the intense bleakness of the canon. Don't feel obliged to write something happy, but glimmers of hope here and there would be great, even if it's of the "released into a peaceful afterlife" sort of hope. My absolute guilty pleasure in the fandom would be some sort of post-game AU where Tamon and Yoriko actually manage to escape from the Underworld, possibly having an adventure in the process; this is not a fic premise I could ever ask someone to write, because it's patently ridiculous, but if by some chance you do, you'll make my year.
The best resource I know of for Siren online is the Let's Play of it archived here, which features videos of a full playthrough, screenshots of all the archive items, and assorted other game info.
Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth / Any
Request: I'd prefer gen in this fandom, please. Something set post-novel would be ideal, whether it's about the lands of Wisdom after Milo (preferably not reverting to the pre-novel status quo) or about Milo's life afterwards. Really, though, anything about this wonderful world and the people in it would be great fun to read.
As the request sort of implies, there are really only two kinds of fic I don't want to read in this fandom: explicit porn (gen preferred, but non-explicit pairings are okay too) and "after Milo leaves, Azaz and the Mathemagician start squabbling again, Rhyme and Reason intervene and are banished again, and in general everything goes back to the pre-Milo status quo just in time for some other kid to have a tollbooth adventure" fic. This isn't to say I don't like any element of this in post-book fic -- obviously, Azaz and the Mathemagician will keep squabbling more or less indefinitely, and fic about another Tollbooth traveler could be great fun -- but I'd just rather not see all of Milo and his friends' work made completely moot.
Other than that, I really would love to see more or less anything about this book; I love Wisdom and its inhabitants, and I love Milo. A greater exploration of the setting would be wonderful, as would be future adventures for Tock and the Humbug; if you'd rather focus on the real world, though, I'd love to see how Milo takes his experiences in Wisdom into his later life. I've always found the book's message about critical thinking and appreciation of the world around you very inspiring, and an adult Milo still taking strength from his adventures seems only right to me. (Or, for that matter, a weary adult Milo rediscovering the Tollbooth could also be very sweet, whether he goes back for another adventure or just to visit old friends.)
I don't know of any good online resources for the Phantom Tollbooth, but there's an interview with Norton Juster in Salon that may be of interest -- maybe not directly for writing fanfic, but it's an interesting read!
Mother 3 / Duster, Kumatora
Request: I'd really love a Duster/Kumatora story, whether it's romantic or just friendship-focused. There are a lot of potential angles here: their adventures together throughout the game, the time Kumatora spent undercover working at Club Titiboo while Duster played with DCMC, the post-game world... anything with these characters being themselves, and clearly caring about each other, would be wonderful to read.
Mother 3 is another fandom where, quite frankly, I could read anything and be happy. Like a lot of the other fandoms I like, it's got a fascinating world and a lot of spaces to fill in; I've always been curious about the events leading up to the White Ship voyage and the foundation of Tazmily, for example, and Yokuba/Fassad is a character who fascinates me to this day. That said, I requested Duster and Kumatora because a) I love them as a pairing, and b) I think in general they're underappreciated in the (very, very small) fandom, which is nearly all Lucas- and Claus-focused. (I do like Lucas and Claus, but they already have the lion's share of a very sparse fanfiction load.)
I like Duster and Kumatora as individual characters for the way they transcend their stereotypes, which is unfortunately so rare in RPG characterization. Duster's soft-spoken and a bit diffident, but he's never weak, and the only time he even arguably lets anyone down is entirely out of his control (his amnesia); as forceful and sharp as Kumatora can be, she's also clearly caring, and she's prepared to do heroic things to save her world and her friends. I like the two of them together because of this subtle role reversal -- Kumatora the outwardly strong one, Duster the outwardly deferential, but both of them working together as an effective team -- and the way they both fulfill these half-sketched roles in Tazmily's aborted mythology: Kumatora the princess without a kingdom or a family, Duster the guardian without a clue what he's really guarding. They both have the feeling of being out of phase with day-to-day Tazmily life, which is an edge of bittersweetness I really like, whether they're a couple or just good friends. (Potentially just as bittersweet and as interesting: the Club Titiboo period, where Kumatora's undercover in an identity she clearly despises, and of course "Lucky" doesn't know any better. What might she be prepared to do to try and bring him to his senses? This is a scenario where I see explicit sex maybe being the most likely, but it's also a fairly bleak one in the short term.)
A brief digression: since nobody in Mother fandom can come to a consensus on how old Duster is, I should probably note that I see him as about five years older than Kumatora: 21-22 at the beginning of the game (to her 16-17) and 24-25 from Chapter 4 on (to her 19-20). I don't consider their age difference to be a dealbreaker at all, since it's not huge and they're clearly peers in most ways, but if you do want to write explicit fiction, I'd prefer it be set in the Titiboo period or later.
All this talk aside, though... if Duster and Kumatora aren't moving you, I'd love to see anything about this world. Whether it's the villagers, or the Magypsies, or the Pig Army, or even Porky himself, Mother 3's a rich canon with a lot to offer; if you're writing it, focus on having fun and telling the story you want to tell.
The obvious online resource for Mother 3 is Starmen.net's portal on the subject, which has a walkthrough and a fair number of useful links. That said, if for some reason you're looking for more insights as to how I view Duster, I have an old Duster-centric fic I wrote over on FF.net. (It also features bonus Wes, and who doesn't like that?)
In closing, thank you once again, dear Yuletide writer -- for reading through all of my ramblings, and for participating in the exchange. I hope you have a great time writing for Yuletide this year, whether it's for me or for others, and that your generosity is returned with an awesome gift fic of your own. Happy Yuletiding!
Yours in ridiculous seasonal fic exchanges,
Wasuremono
Thank you! Thank you for participating in Yuletide, thank you for writing for me, and thank you for reading this letter. Before we get started, there are two major points I'd like you to keep in mind.
1. None of the fandoms on my list is a gimme/consolation-prize fandom. One of the fandoms I've requested is going to be a ridiculously easy match, one is going to be reasonably easy (and easy to pick up after the fact if that happens), and the other two are going to be fairly difficult. I knew this, and I deliberately chose fandoms to make sure at least one of them would be easy to match -- but this doesn't mean I wouldn't be delighted to receive a fic for any of them! I'll be posting links to sources for my fandoms here, just for informational purposes, but please don't make that think you should feel obligated to switch fandoms to do something I "want more." If you matched me on it, I want it and I'll love it.
2. Above all else, I want you to write something you want to write. One of the great joys in Yuletide is writing in a rare fandom, and I want you to really enjoy the act of writing for me. To that end, please remember that all my optional details are optional! Heck, for that matter, my characters list is optional; I've listed the ones I'd most like to read about, but for the two fandoms in which I've requested individual characters, I love the ensemble casts and would be delighted to read a fic about any of them, if that's what inspires you. I've listed specific likes and dislikes under the individual fandoms, and I'd appreciate it if you paid attention to that, but at the end of the day, what I really want from my Yuletide story is something crafted with joy and love for our shared rare fandom. If that means writing completely off my prompt, I don't mind at all.
With that out of the way, here are some general notes about my taste in fic:
Likes: Gen, whether plot-based or just slice-of-life; I'm not a huge fan of fluff or angst for their own sake, but low-key pieces that develop characters are great. Similarly, I like stories that develop settings -- tastes of everyday life in fantastic worlds, imaginary histories, that sort of thing. I enjoy fic set all along the time spectrum, from pre-canon events to fill-in-the-holes to post-canon. I enjoy happy endings, and in general notes of hope and optimism are always appreciated.
Dislikes: PWP/excessively mechanical porn; I prefer that porn be used as a tool to develop the characters involved and their relationship with one another, and therefore "$character did $sexact to $othercharacter all night long hooo baby" exercises don't do much for me. For similar reasons, I don't like crack pairings, and in general I'm not fond of crack or excessive AU-ing. ("What if?"s based on canon are great, but "what if they were all in high school/in a band/in a weyr on Pern/generally not actually in their canon" AUs just don't work for me.) I also don't like character-bashing exercises or excessively downbeat endings.
Squicks: Incest, rape (I respect that this can be used as a legitimate plot device and isn't automatically fetish fuel, but I still would rather not read about it, sorry!), hatesex, porn involving excessive or non-sexual bodily byproducts (a bit of spit here and there is fine, but please no bloodplay, watersports, scat, truly ludicrous amounts of sexual fluids, etc.), underage sex (below about 15-16 or so), pairings involving heavy power inequality or abuse of privilege (teacher/student and what have you), heavy BDSM
And here are my individual prompts and notes:
Dar Williams - The Honesty Room (album) / Alleluia
Request: I'd really love a "case file" fic about the Narrator's work with self-destructive youth, as described in the last verse; as (presumably) an angel, just how is she allowed to intervene on Earth, and how does she? Barring that, something about the Narrator's relationship with the Magenta-Haired Angel and their continuing adventures in this very strange Heaven would be great. Gen and femslash are obviously both wonderful.
Although a plot would be great, the "case file" idea doesn't have to be excessively plotty. One of the reasons I asked for it is that I'm interested in the Narrator's character development: how does she go from the nihilistic dead kid of the first verse ("that's okay 'cause noone's gonna make the next century") to the responsible one of the last one ("don't be like me: forever young, forever stupid"), and how does her past influence her work on Earth? This is stuff I wonder about when I listen to the song, and I'd really love a proper fic about that.
If you'd rather not go that route, though, Narrator/Magenta-Haired Angel femslash (as explicit or non-explicit as you want) would be great too, especially if you took a closer look at Heaven in the process. The depiction of Heaven and God in this song fascinates me: kitschy and weird on one hand, but really loving and forgiving on the other. Whatever the afterlife here is like, it surely can't be boring.
If you need a refresher (or are coming upon this one blind), the song's available on YouTube here.
Siren (game) / Akira Shimura, Tamon Takeuchi, Yoriko Anno
Request: Any combination of these three would be absolutely fantastic: pre-game fic involving the Shimura and Takeuchi families, Akira and Yoriko during their time together in-game, or Tamon and Yoriko together more or less whenever. If you can't get anything to work with them together, feel free to write a fic about any one of them -- that's fine too! I'm a fan of Tamon/Yoriko as a romantic pairing, but I also like their canonical relationship, so gen or het are both fine. (I'd rather that Akira not be paired with anyone besides his deceased wife, though.)
Just to say it explicitly here: while I requested specific characters, any Siren-based fic would be wonderful, and there are a lot of general scenarios I resisted listing in my response to avoid overload. Any exploration of the game's backstory, or of general life and unlife in Hanuda, would be fantastic: what's it like inside a Shibito's head, or a Kajiro's head, or Hisako's? What about poor Harumi, post-game? What's the story behind the Miyata Clinic and its inhabitants -- not just Mina, but poor Miyako in the basement and Shimura-kun in the crate? I could go on, but my point is that there's more or less nothing you could write about Siren that I wouldn't love. Go nuts.
To get back on the subject of my actual request, though... the thing that I really like about the three characters I requested, particularly together, is that they're all both heroic and tragic figures in their own right, and their plot arcs intersect interesting. This is particularly interesting with Akira and Yoriko -- his initial strength failing when faced with the burden of his past and the horror in front of him, versus her initial confusion hardening into resolve and determination -- while Tamon is somewhere in between, if just as burdened by tragedy as Akira. I think they're all great characters, and I'd love to read about them.
I know I said above that I prefer happy endings, but obviously this is a lot more difficult to do with Siren, given the intense bleakness of the canon. Don't feel obliged to write something happy, but glimmers of hope here and there would be great, even if it's of the "released into a peaceful afterlife" sort of hope. My absolute guilty pleasure in the fandom would be some sort of post-game AU where Tamon and Yoriko actually manage to escape from the Underworld, possibly having an adventure in the process; this is not a fic premise I could ever ask someone to write, because it's patently ridiculous, but if by some chance you do, you'll make my year.
The best resource I know of for Siren online is the Let's Play of it archived here, which features videos of a full playthrough, screenshots of all the archive items, and assorted other game info.
Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth / Any
Request: I'd prefer gen in this fandom, please. Something set post-novel would be ideal, whether it's about the lands of Wisdom after Milo (preferably not reverting to the pre-novel status quo) or about Milo's life afterwards. Really, though, anything about this wonderful world and the people in it would be great fun to read.
As the request sort of implies, there are really only two kinds of fic I don't want to read in this fandom: explicit porn (gen preferred, but non-explicit pairings are okay too) and "after Milo leaves, Azaz and the Mathemagician start squabbling again, Rhyme and Reason intervene and are banished again, and in general everything goes back to the pre-Milo status quo just in time for some other kid to have a tollbooth adventure" fic. This isn't to say I don't like any element of this in post-book fic -- obviously, Azaz and the Mathemagician will keep squabbling more or less indefinitely, and fic about another Tollbooth traveler could be great fun -- but I'd just rather not see all of Milo and his friends' work made completely moot.
Other than that, I really would love to see more or less anything about this book; I love Wisdom and its inhabitants, and I love Milo. A greater exploration of the setting would be wonderful, as would be future adventures for Tock and the Humbug; if you'd rather focus on the real world, though, I'd love to see how Milo takes his experiences in Wisdom into his later life. I've always found the book's message about critical thinking and appreciation of the world around you very inspiring, and an adult Milo still taking strength from his adventures seems only right to me. (Or, for that matter, a weary adult Milo rediscovering the Tollbooth could also be very sweet, whether he goes back for another adventure or just to visit old friends.)
I don't know of any good online resources for the Phantom Tollbooth, but there's an interview with Norton Juster in Salon that may be of interest -- maybe not directly for writing fanfic, but it's an interesting read!
Mother 3 / Duster, Kumatora
Request: I'd really love a Duster/Kumatora story, whether it's romantic or just friendship-focused. There are a lot of potential angles here: their adventures together throughout the game, the time Kumatora spent undercover working at Club Titiboo while Duster played with DCMC, the post-game world... anything with these characters being themselves, and clearly caring about each other, would be wonderful to read.
Mother 3 is another fandom where, quite frankly, I could read anything and be happy. Like a lot of the other fandoms I like, it's got a fascinating world and a lot of spaces to fill in; I've always been curious about the events leading up to the White Ship voyage and the foundation of Tazmily, for example, and Yokuba/Fassad is a character who fascinates me to this day. That said, I requested Duster and Kumatora because a) I love them as a pairing, and b) I think in general they're underappreciated in the (very, very small) fandom, which is nearly all Lucas- and Claus-focused. (I do like Lucas and Claus, but they already have the lion's share of a very sparse fanfiction load.)
I like Duster and Kumatora as individual characters for the way they transcend their stereotypes, which is unfortunately so rare in RPG characterization. Duster's soft-spoken and a bit diffident, but he's never weak, and the only time he even arguably lets anyone down is entirely out of his control (his amnesia); as forceful and sharp as Kumatora can be, she's also clearly caring, and she's prepared to do heroic things to save her world and her friends. I like the two of them together because of this subtle role reversal -- Kumatora the outwardly strong one, Duster the outwardly deferential, but both of them working together as an effective team -- and the way they both fulfill these half-sketched roles in Tazmily's aborted mythology: Kumatora the princess without a kingdom or a family, Duster the guardian without a clue what he's really guarding. They both have the feeling of being out of phase with day-to-day Tazmily life, which is an edge of bittersweetness I really like, whether they're a couple or just good friends. (Potentially just as bittersweet and as interesting: the Club Titiboo period, where Kumatora's undercover in an identity she clearly despises, and of course "Lucky" doesn't know any better. What might she be prepared to do to try and bring him to his senses? This is a scenario where I see explicit sex maybe being the most likely, but it's also a fairly bleak one in the short term.)
A brief digression: since nobody in Mother fandom can come to a consensus on how old Duster is, I should probably note that I see him as about five years older than Kumatora: 21-22 at the beginning of the game (to her 16-17) and 24-25 from Chapter 4 on (to her 19-20). I don't consider their age difference to be a dealbreaker at all, since it's not huge and they're clearly peers in most ways, but if you do want to write explicit fiction, I'd prefer it be set in the Titiboo period or later.
All this talk aside, though... if Duster and Kumatora aren't moving you, I'd love to see anything about this world. Whether it's the villagers, or the Magypsies, or the Pig Army, or even Porky himself, Mother 3's a rich canon with a lot to offer; if you're writing it, focus on having fun and telling the story you want to tell.
The obvious online resource for Mother 3 is Starmen.net's portal on the subject, which has a walkthrough and a fair number of useful links. That said, if for some reason you're looking for more insights as to how I view Duster, I have an old Duster-centric fic I wrote over on FF.net. (It also features bonus Wes, and who doesn't like that?)
In closing, thank you once again, dear Yuletide writer -- for reading through all of my ramblings, and for participating in the exchange. I hope you have a great time writing for Yuletide this year, whether it's for me or for others, and that your generosity is returned with an awesome gift fic of your own. Happy Yuletiding!
Yours in ridiculous seasonal fic exchanges,
Wasuremono