YULETIDE LETTER '15
Dearest Yulematch & interested parties,
It's everyone's favorite time of year again-time for suffering, time for joy! Time for us to work together to make some magic! Thanks in advance for playing.
GENERAL STUFF: I like Morally Bankrupt, Narratively & Sexually Intricate (Brinkman)Ships, which is heavily the theme of my requests this year. I really, really like precisely rendered sexual/emotional power games and within that am not here for noncon; I also don't like kidfic or ABO. I love AUs of all kinds (noir AU and theatre AUs are special faves). That's pretty much it. Here are prior yuletide letters, for refs, and I've linked my tumblr tag for each of these things so you can get a feel for what I like, vibes, &c. Feel free to benignly stalk the blog for headspace ideas.
And now let me reiterate my AO3 requests here for the general audience:
SEVENWATERS TRILOGY
Fainne of Sevenwaters, Eamonn Dubh, Lady Oonagh
I wrote:
Okay. I'm sorry about this. But: FAINNE/EAMONN AWFUL MARRIAGE. (FAINNE/EAMONN GONE GIRL AU-jk but not jk.) Give me her marrying him and fucking. him. UP. Give me the prelude to the marriage, in which she fucks him UP, give me my baby vengeance witch/repressed would-be-Bluebeard deceptive-power-imbalance misery sexmatch, give me this disaster.
If we match for this but this (terrible, sexually weird) ship grosses you out, I pose you this challenge: Make the lady Oonagh a person. I don't care how you do it-prequel? media-res set during Child of the Forest? reflection set after?-just give her some of the interiority everyone else gets that she so conspicuously lacks.
To elaborate:
1. I feel so grody about how into Fainne/Eamonn I am but I basically want everything to be like that time Eamonn taught her chess and she immediately started winning and he was like >:?. Or that time she thought about how inconceivable it would be to marry him but also that she'd never, ever be afraid of him hurting her because she was a terrifying witch and she'd like to see him try. Or all those times she told him to shut up and listen to her master plan, which was "marry ME I am A BABE WHO WANTS TO HURT THE SAME PEOPLE AS YOU, AND CAN." It is so many of her worst things, and yet so many of her best: her power, the closest thing she gets to self-affirmation. I found the book fundamentally infuriating mostly because of how often it'd get in Fainne's way and not let her make her own choices, because often the choices she'd want to make were a) bad b) narratively interesting! Courting Eamonn is consistently a bad thing she chooses to do. Because she doesn't care about him! (Except sometimes-but no, Pity Is Weak, etc. etc.)
Anyway. So let him marry her. Let Fainne go full vengeance witch and marry the worst dude in the series. It will go well for absolutely nobody but me; also their sex life will be confusingly amazing.
Or, God, honestly I'd just take more Sexually Charged Chess.
2. THE ALTERNATIVE, OONAGH. I think the biggest flaw in the entire trilogy is that Oonagh is BORING and that's because Marillier is NOT INTERESTED IN HER AS A PERSON. This is a problem bc it's lazy writing and also AGAIN WITH MY COTP PROBLEMS gets in the way of Fainne as a character as well! Their plot is so so interesting, the disgraced fairytale sorceress shaping her heir in her image to go exact vengeance on the family that wronged her-except that Oonagh isn't a person. Just a sexy chaotic-evil device that's easy to hate.
So, obviously my first instinct is: fight it. For you that means, make her feel & think & tick. I'd love to see more of her and Fainne, as much as her side of the first book.
+my tag
PENNY DREADFULHecate Poole, Evelyn Poole, Sir Malcolm Murray, Vanessa Ives
I wrote:
Some stories you could tell ft. newfound love of my life Hecate Poole:
- Hecate/Ethan as mutually assured monsters chasing each other around the world and running cons and toying with each other, two predators trying self-righteously to take each other for prey
- Hecate/Vanessa as awful wicked-gay fairytale-stepsister mirrors (would take the awful AU where Malcolm and Evelyn get married and they have to be ACTUAL sisters as well as foils while they both kind of want to fuck/have fucked their parental figure in question. Like, worst family ever? Please.) (Also they share a boyyyyfrieeeeeeend.)
- Her solo deal. Whatever!
On an unrelated note I am deeply trash for Vanessa/Malcolm. As mentioned.
To elaborate:
HECATE POOLE! My little lamia daughter who wants too much and too aimlessly! Just pretty much ~wants~ and directs herself at her desires until things explode or start raining blood or whatever. I love her. If you also love her then we'll profit tremendously.
I love this show deeply for its wonky filial sex vibes, I am pretty much here for all of them. The shipping, per this season, is like...Evelyn/Malcolm/Vanessa/Ethan/Hecate/Evelyn and I am super into all relationship angles of this in collision and parallel and ignition and explosion.
(I would take the awful AU idea as High Gothic but also as a terrible small-college-town kinda thing, though that's probably because I read Lili Anolik's awful attempt at college-town gothic and got SO MAD and now want it fixed. Anyway, do you.)
+my tag
STARDUST (2007)
Lamia, Septimus of Stormhold
I wrote:
Take these two characters. Find some narrative logic to put 'em together. Tell the hot, evil fairytale that ensues.
To elaborate:
Self-explanatory. This is basically moving fairytale archetypes around; you're very free on this.
+my tag
INAMORATA - MEGAN CHANCE
Sophie Hannigan, Joseph Hannigan
I wrote:
Would love Hannigans backstory, Hannigans future, Hannigans anything. Hannigans! But while I'm here I'd happily take any permutation of Core Four shenanigans as well; I love this foursome at every angle. (I'd take AUs, too. Put them anywhere.)
To elaborate:
Also self-explanatory. These are just characters I adore and want to spend more time with, and am not picky as to how.
+my tag
STILYAGI (2008)
Katya, Fred
I wrote:
AU where Katya is the "suitable Party wife" that Fyodor (Fred)'s father picks out for him (honestly why WASN'T that what happened?)
To elaborate:
Katya: immaculate face of the Komsomol, secret hungry heart, fire under ice, conforms because she "doesn't think she's better than anyone" but leads her Komsomol kids with an iron fist, rebels by putting on one of her mother's dresses. Fyodor: suave face of the stilyagi, son of a diplomat, gets away with everything, throws the best parties, rebels casually and aesthetically until he's forced to put on a good face and cut his hair and marry a Party girl as opposed to a party girl! Both of them: BABES. How did they not marry each other? They would be so prickly and she would be so ideologically furious and he would be so sullen until he found out that she's mysteriously good at dancing and she found out that he's been weaned on the Party line. It would be miraculous. Also she'd have to go to America which would be incredible. (New dresses-with that surprisingly muted color palette he talks about. Heyyy.)
+my tag
-
That's us! Have the most fun you possibly can.
Have a great season,
Ya girl, lj & ao3 user marketchippie / tumblr user hotelsongs
It's everyone's favorite time of year again-time for suffering, time for joy! Time for us to work together to make some magic! Thanks in advance for playing.
GENERAL STUFF: I like Morally Bankrupt, Narratively & Sexually Intricate (Brinkman)Ships, which is heavily the theme of my requests this year. I really, really like precisely rendered sexual/emotional power games and within that am not here for noncon; I also don't like kidfic or ABO. I love AUs of all kinds (noir AU and theatre AUs are special faves). That's pretty much it. Here are prior yuletide letters, for refs, and I've linked my tumblr tag for each of these things so you can get a feel for what I like, vibes, &c. Feel free to benignly stalk the blog for headspace ideas.
And now let me reiterate my AO3 requests here for the general audience:
SEVENWATERS TRILOGY
Fainne of Sevenwaters, Eamonn Dubh, Lady Oonagh
I wrote:
Okay. I'm sorry about this. But: FAINNE/EAMONN AWFUL MARRIAGE. (FAINNE/EAMONN GONE GIRL AU-jk but not jk.) Give me her marrying him and fucking. him. UP. Give me the prelude to the marriage, in which she fucks him UP, give me my baby vengeance witch/repressed would-be-Bluebeard deceptive-power-imbalance misery sexmatch, give me this disaster.
If we match for this but this (terrible, sexually weird) ship grosses you out, I pose you this challenge: Make the lady Oonagh a person. I don't care how you do it-prequel? media-res set during Child of the Forest? reflection set after?-just give her some of the interiority everyone else gets that she so conspicuously lacks.
To elaborate:
1. I feel so grody about how into Fainne/Eamonn I am but I basically want everything to be like that time Eamonn taught her chess and she immediately started winning and he was like >:?. Or that time she thought about how inconceivable it would be to marry him but also that she'd never, ever be afraid of him hurting her because she was a terrifying witch and she'd like to see him try. Or all those times she told him to shut up and listen to her master plan, which was "marry ME I am A BABE WHO WANTS TO HURT THE SAME PEOPLE AS YOU, AND CAN." It is so many of her worst things, and yet so many of her best: her power, the closest thing she gets to self-affirmation. I found the book fundamentally infuriating mostly because of how often it'd get in Fainne's way and not let her make her own choices, because often the choices she'd want to make were a) bad b) narratively interesting! Courting Eamonn is consistently a bad thing she chooses to do. Because she doesn't care about him! (Except sometimes-but no, Pity Is Weak, etc. etc.)
Anyway. So let him marry her. Let Fainne go full vengeance witch and marry the worst dude in the series. It will go well for absolutely nobody but me; also their sex life will be confusingly amazing.
Or, God, honestly I'd just take more Sexually Charged Chess.
2. THE ALTERNATIVE, OONAGH. I think the biggest flaw in the entire trilogy is that Oonagh is BORING and that's because Marillier is NOT INTERESTED IN HER AS A PERSON. This is a problem bc it's lazy writing and also AGAIN WITH MY COTP PROBLEMS gets in the way of Fainne as a character as well! Their plot is so so interesting, the disgraced fairytale sorceress shaping her heir in her image to go exact vengeance on the family that wronged her-except that Oonagh isn't a person. Just a sexy chaotic-evil device that's easy to hate.
So, obviously my first instinct is: fight it. For you that means, make her feel & think & tick. I'd love to see more of her and Fainne, as much as her side of the first book.
+my tag
PENNY DREADFULHecate Poole, Evelyn Poole, Sir Malcolm Murray, Vanessa Ives
I wrote:
Some stories you could tell ft. newfound love of my life Hecate Poole:
- Hecate/Ethan as mutually assured monsters chasing each other around the world and running cons and toying with each other, two predators trying self-righteously to take each other for prey
- Hecate/Vanessa as awful wicked-gay fairytale-stepsister mirrors (would take the awful AU where Malcolm and Evelyn get married and they have to be ACTUAL sisters as well as foils while they both kind of want to fuck/have fucked their parental figure in question. Like, worst family ever? Please.) (Also they share a boyyyyfrieeeeeeend.)
- Her solo deal. Whatever!
On an unrelated note I am deeply trash for Vanessa/Malcolm. As mentioned.
To elaborate:
HECATE POOLE! My little lamia daughter who wants too much and too aimlessly! Just pretty much ~wants~ and directs herself at her desires until things explode or start raining blood or whatever. I love her. If you also love her then we'll profit tremendously.
I love this show deeply for its wonky filial sex vibes, I am pretty much here for all of them. The shipping, per this season, is like...Evelyn/Malcolm/Vanessa/Ethan/Hecate/Evelyn and I am super into all relationship angles of this in collision and parallel and ignition and explosion.
(I would take the awful AU idea as High Gothic but also as a terrible small-college-town kinda thing, though that's probably because I read Lili Anolik's awful attempt at college-town gothic and got SO MAD and now want it fixed. Anyway, do you.)
+my tag
STARDUST (2007)
Lamia, Septimus of Stormhold
I wrote:
Take these two characters. Find some narrative logic to put 'em together. Tell the hot, evil fairytale that ensues.
To elaborate:
Self-explanatory. This is basically moving fairytale archetypes around; you're very free on this.
+my tag
INAMORATA - MEGAN CHANCE
Sophie Hannigan, Joseph Hannigan
I wrote:
Would love Hannigans backstory, Hannigans future, Hannigans anything. Hannigans! But while I'm here I'd happily take any permutation of Core Four shenanigans as well; I love this foursome at every angle. (I'd take AUs, too. Put them anywhere.)
To elaborate:
Also self-explanatory. These are just characters I adore and want to spend more time with, and am not picky as to how.
+my tag
STILYAGI (2008)
Katya, Fred
I wrote:
AU where Katya is the "suitable Party wife" that Fyodor (Fred)'s father picks out for him (honestly why WASN'T that what happened?)
To elaborate:
Katya: immaculate face of the Komsomol, secret hungry heart, fire under ice, conforms because she "doesn't think she's better than anyone" but leads her Komsomol kids with an iron fist, rebels by putting on one of her mother's dresses. Fyodor: suave face of the stilyagi, son of a diplomat, gets away with everything, throws the best parties, rebels casually and aesthetically until he's forced to put on a good face and cut his hair and marry a Party girl as opposed to a party girl! Both of them: BABES. How did they not marry each other? They would be so prickly and she would be so ideologically furious and he would be so sullen until he found out that she's mysteriously good at dancing and she found out that he's been weaned on the Party line. It would be miraculous. Also she'd have to go to America which would be incredible. (New dresses-with that surprisingly muted color palette he talks about. Heyyy.)
+my tag
-
That's us! Have the most fun you possibly can.
Have a great season,
Ya girl, lj & ao3 user marketchippie / tumblr user hotelsongs