Dear Yule Writer,
I hope you’re as excited as I am! Yuletide is one of my favorite things - period, really. As such, my top priority is that everyone has as much fun as possible; when I say that I will love whatever you write, I mean it from the bottom of my heart. As a creator, I happen to really like getting prompts, so I always try and provide a fair amount of material (as a resource). Optional details are optional, though; what I’d like best is a story YOU are invested in/enjoy writing.
So thank you thank you for offering to write for one of these fantastic books/series! There are … two time travel narratives, two stories about grassroots rebellion/collective action, found family/community galore, three canonically queer sets of characters, three sci-fi tales set in the future, metafiction, coming of age, culture clash, and settings ranging from a digital interface to 1930s Italy to outer space to Orange County in 1993 to 1960s American suburbia to Edo-era Japan. I love it ALL.
My general likes include heavy focus on female characters (and their relationships with each other), found families, expanded worldbuilding, future fic, and caper fic. Snarky dialogue and banter. Good communication, and bad communication that gets re-evaluated and resolved. Non-traditional languages/demonstrations of love/friendship. Opposites who attract. Smart trope subversions, and pastiches/playing with genre conventions/experimentation with form.
I'll note that while I enjoy a certain amount of angst and tension for spice, my Yuletide fic preferences tend strongly towards the upbeat, silly, hopeful or quietly comforting.
DNWs across the board: non-consensual sex (etc), character death, underage sex, excessive (ie non-canon-typical) violence, A/B/O, soulmarks/mates. I also tend to be kind of picky about AUs and crossovers - it’s all about things “fitting” with canon in a satisfying, believable way, if that makes sense. (So I’m not really into most coffee shop, random-historical-era, Hogwarts, etc, AUs, with the occasional exception of really deliberate metafiction/pastiche.)
Specific preferences/prompts/etc by fandom, in alphabetical order (there is definitely no order of preference):
A Song For A New Day: Rosemary Laws
I have a little bit of a THING for stories focused on bands, music scenes, etc. (I was a bandom person back in the day, but I think it goes back further than that even, so yeah.) Combine that with quasi-dystopian sci-fi and underground rebellion, and I am over the moon. I did a fandom promo post over here.
While I thought the book ended well, I was left with ALL the “what happens next??” feels. And one of the things I really enjoyed was the way it played with the different experiences of community in the digital and “real” worlds, and the complexity of transitioning between those (for people who are thoroughly acclimated to one or the other). The book did a great job of balancing perspectives on, and pros/cons for, both worlds, which I thought was great. So I think what I’m most interested in is a sense of the broader impact, conversation, and burgeoning movements that grow from the events of the novel.
I requested Rosemary because she’s definitely the character whose viewpoint I’m most interested in centering, but any of the others are welcome too. If Luce is the catalyst/symbol for change, how does she experience the reality that comes next - and, I should think, the inevitable inclusion/integration of digital community and experience? What about Joni? How does she respond to Rosemary’s choices? Is reconciliation in the cards? Members of the various bands that we met in the course of the story are welcome, Alice the surly bouncer, Jeremy from Quality Control (who IS he anyway??), and so on. Show me the early days of the revolution, old-school rock show veterans venturing into the world of virtual fandom, shut-in children of the Crash learning to cope with sharing embodied space, corporate repression being thwarted, etc!
Chronin: Mirai Yoshida, Hatsu
This story hit me in the feels so hard and unexpectedly, dang. I’m pretty sure I’d love literally any exploration of/expansion on canon material, but I’m also super predictable: more than anything, I’d like more Mirai/Hatsu.
While I love their adventures and first connections in the Edo era, I think I’m most interested in learning more about how they cope after their successful arrival in the 2040s; the bits in between that first glimpse of Hatsu’s mother and older Kuji waiting by the machine, and the gang getting together for Gilbert’s return. Debriefing, quarantine, culture shock, Mirai’s reception by her program and family, teaching Hatsu English (which she appears to be fluent in by the end), Hatsu’s mother learning to use electronic appliances, and of course, exploring Hatsu & Mirai’s feelings for each other and building a relationship. (And hey, does Hatsu wind up reading/watching Rurouni Kenshin? How much does she tease Mirai about it??)
The Enchanted April: Lotty Wilkins, Lady Caroline Dester
I read this book earlier in the year, hoping for something gentle and comforting and indulgent. And it mostly was that, except for the part where I was super angry about Lady Caroline’s piece of the ending!! I decided to request it for Yuletide on the spot.
Scrap was perhaps my favorite character in the book. While some of her wealthy, bored persona might have been hard to sympathize with at first, the descriptions of her frustration with her life, with being expected to be ornamental and pleasant and available to all, were so well-realized and poignant; one of the best parts of the book, for me. She was a woman who was desperate to be "unsympathetic" and real, but completely trapped in the male gaze and its interpretation of her. The whole POINT of her story was the desire to be seen as a person, to connect with someone who wasn’t stuck on her surface; I was actually astonished that von Arnim's "happy ending" for her was a “romance” with a dude who “fell in love” with her at first sight - sight, mind you, not knowing anything about her personality at all. Capitulation to exactly the kind of social narrative she so vividly found suffocating? What?? (Sure, the book is very committed to pairing everyone up and rehabilitating troubled heterosexual relationships, but at least the other women are allowed some self-actualization and change; there's a sense that they are coming into their own power within those relationships! Argh.)
One of my OTHER favorite parts of the book, however, was the way the character of Lotty became this catalyst for positive change for the other women, through bonding with them and encouraging a sort of hybrid of authenticity and dreamlike optimism. She and Scrap are from such different backgrounds, but she was the only character Scrap really took to (in a way that felt genuine to me, at least). I would love a fix-it AU where the two of them wind up together instead, in keeping with the dreamy and cheerfully optimistic feel of the book.. (Lotty’s husband also totally didn’t deserve her, even if she was able to nudge him into a more acceptable shape; I also suspect he wouldn’t have any deep objection to his wife’s romantic connection with THE Lady Caroline Dester, even if his understanding of the situation were a bit, hmm, lacking. It seems distinctly plausible to me that arrangements could be made which would be amenable to all.)
The Future of Another Timeline: Beth, Berenice, Enid
This book feeds my love of parallel narratives and in-depth historical settings something fierce. I adore the clever alternate history touches (everything from Senator Harriet Tubman to Tim Burton’s Wonder Woman movies), as well as the in-depth ruminations on personal experience, growth and responsibility. And of course, the unabashed feminist themes. I did a fandom promo post over here!
So please don’t feel like you need to write about all three of the characters I requested; I’m interested in exploring any, but not necessarily all of them! On the one hand, I’m dying to know more about Beth’s future, especially as it might wind up interacting with travelers and/or the Daughters of Harriet (though of course, we know she doesn’t particularly want to be a traveler herself) - who she is as an adult, with her experiences and her knowledge of her own alternate-timeline suicide, Lizzy/Tess and who she was/could be, and so on.
Also, the stories of Enid and Berenice were just small pieces of the larger narrative of the book, but they squeezed my heart, and I’d love an expansion on any or all of it. The different versions of their lives together, how they met, how it feels when they’re in a future where Enid remembers NOT meeting Berenice. If Berenice remembers meeting Enid when she was young, now, and what that’s like. Love and survival and being co-revolutionaries (and academics).
If you wanted, it wouldn’t be hard to link up these threads--one can imagine Beth and Berenice running into each other at a show, I think! But really, whatever you want to run with. I’m into it. And feel free to play with a new choice of historical era or two in the mix, if you like!
The Witch Family: Amy, Clarissa, Hannah, Lurie
I loved this book when I was a kid. Friendship, metafiction, playing with notions of right and wrong, brave little girls, found family … I mean, damn. (As an adult I find it a bit preachy and saccharine at times, but for the most part, it holds up beautifully.)
For this beloved childhood favorite, the thing I find myself considering most is future-fic. How do Amy and Clarissa’s friendship and storytelling evolve as they get older? (And how might Lurie and Hannah’s mirror and/or prefigure those changes? I know that Hannah was supposed to never age, but I’d prefer to ignore that bit of canon.) How does Amy’s perspective on creativity, morality and magic evolve? What do the girls grow up to do and be? Playing with metafiction would be fabulous, and/or identity (the … similarities between the “real” girls and their magical counterparts) ... and I’d happily ship both/either pair. (How might trying to figure out liking girls and dating a mermaid have interesting parallels that could be explored? Ahem.)
While I’d prefer things to ultimately be upbeat, please feel free to reduce the schmaltz level a little and be realistic about the characters’ flaws (perhaps especially Amy’s). I’d also be thrilled if you kept to the historical setting (the book came out in 1960, so assuming the girls were 7 that year …)
Wayfarers: Sidra, Pepper, Tak, Owl
I desperately want to read more about these characters building relationships and lives together in their own ways. I totally ship Sidra/Pepper (in a vee-shaped polyamorous sort of situation with Blue, because Pepper/Blue is important, and I think Sidra and Blue could be awesome metamours), and also Sidra/Tak, and exploring the complexities and differences of a relationship like Sidra’s and Owl’s would be fascinating as well! More than anything, though, the whole chosen family theme is the most important bit for me.
Honestly, I hardly know where to start with the things I loved about A Closed and Common Orbit, and these characters and their relationships with each other. The meaning of identity and personhood is a favorite theme, as is people from vastly different backgrounds (and with different personalities and priorities) learning to coexist and loving each other. The importance of a piece of media (a fannish experience!) to Pepper’s survival and identity! Sidra creating a space for herself, her way; making something really new rather than either falling back on her past or conforming to other peoples’ ideas of how she should live! Tak’s gender and the related social norms (and the way those interacted with their choice to live in such a multicultural, less traditional setting), and also their past with academia and the different choices they made there. Playing with any of that would be delightful.
Also, I loved the whole core cast, and I loved loved loved the entire concept of Sidra’s bar. So inclusion of these things is heavily encouraged where appropriate ;)
One specific gen idea that could be interesting, if probably painful, would be a reconnection between these characters and the crew of the Wayfarer, post-ACACO. Sidra isn't Lovelace isn't Lovey. How would everyone come to terms with that?
As for specific character dynamics ...
Sidra/Pepper
I loved how contentious these two were, and how much they loved each other even as they dealt with some pretty difficult disagreements and misunderstandings. Both of them had to learn how to be, for some value of the term, human … but their experiences, and the conclusions they drew from them, were often so different! I’d especially like something post-book, I think … now that Sidra has her own place, her own direction, I’d really enjoy seeing them continue that trajectory. Whether in a romantic direction or not.
Sidra/Tak
These two had a lot of coming to terms to do, but I especially loved the bit where Tak would take Sidra out and be understanding of her different needs and interests. That willingness to learn and adapt, especially after the initial shock, was lovely. It might be nice to have a mid-book story where they do other kinds of exploring together. Maybe Tak takes Sidra on a date, and she gets to learn about that and decide whether she’s into the concept? (Maybe in her own way?) I also had a random plotbunny a while back: what if Pei is visiting Home on a supply stop (with or without the Wayfarer crew) and notices something between Tak and Sidra, and perhaps gives the (somewhat nervous and/or oblivious) Tak a nudge? Or gives Sidra advice on wooing an Aeluon?
(Bonus for continuing to explore Sidra’s sensation-analogue memory library … ;))
Sidra/Owl
Two unusual AIs with very different life experiences sharing memory banks! How does that work for/feel to them both? What do they learn from each other?
… and that is quite enough from me! Happy writing, and I hope you have a fun and un-stressful Yuletide! Thank you again!!
This entry was originally posted at my dreamwidth. (
comments)
So thank you thank you for offering to write for one of these fantastic books/series! There are … two time travel narratives, two stories about grassroots rebellion/collective action, found family/community galore, three canonically queer sets of characters, three sci-fi tales set in the future, metafiction, coming of age, culture clash, and settings ranging from a digital interface to 1930s Italy to outer space to Orange County in 1993 to 1960s American suburbia to Edo-era Japan. I love it ALL.
My general likes include heavy focus on female characters (and their relationships with each other), found families, expanded worldbuilding, future fic, and caper fic. Snarky dialogue and banter. Good communication, and bad communication that gets re-evaluated and resolved. Non-traditional languages/demonstrations of love/friendship. Opposites who attract. Smart trope subversions, and pastiches/playing with genre conventions/experimentation with form.
I'll note that while I enjoy a certain amount of angst and tension for spice, my Yuletide fic preferences tend strongly towards the upbeat, silly, hopeful or quietly comforting.
DNWs across the board: non-consensual sex (etc), character death, underage sex, excessive (ie non-canon-typical) violence, A/B/O, soulmarks/mates. I also tend to be kind of picky about AUs and crossovers - it’s all about things “fitting” with canon in a satisfying, believable way, if that makes sense. (So I’m not really into most coffee shop, random-historical-era, Hogwarts, etc, AUs, with the occasional exception of really deliberate metafiction/pastiche.)
Specific preferences/prompts/etc by fandom, in alphabetical order (there is definitely no order of preference):
A Song For A New Day: Rosemary Laws
I have a little bit of a THING for stories focused on bands, music scenes, etc. (I was a bandom person back in the day, but I think it goes back further than that even, so yeah.) Combine that with quasi-dystopian sci-fi and underground rebellion, and I am over the moon. I did a fandom promo post over here.
While I thought the book ended well, I was left with ALL the “what happens next??” feels. And one of the things I really enjoyed was the way it played with the different experiences of community in the digital and “real” worlds, and the complexity of transitioning between those (for people who are thoroughly acclimated to one or the other). The book did a great job of balancing perspectives on, and pros/cons for, both worlds, which I thought was great. So I think what I’m most interested in is a sense of the broader impact, conversation, and burgeoning movements that grow from the events of the novel.
I requested Rosemary because she’s definitely the character whose viewpoint I’m most interested in centering, but any of the others are welcome too. If Luce is the catalyst/symbol for change, how does she experience the reality that comes next - and, I should think, the inevitable inclusion/integration of digital community and experience? What about Joni? How does she respond to Rosemary’s choices? Is reconciliation in the cards? Members of the various bands that we met in the course of the story are welcome, Alice the surly bouncer, Jeremy from Quality Control (who IS he anyway??), and so on. Show me the early days of the revolution, old-school rock show veterans venturing into the world of virtual fandom, shut-in children of the Crash learning to cope with sharing embodied space, corporate repression being thwarted, etc!
Chronin: Mirai Yoshida, Hatsu
This story hit me in the feels so hard and unexpectedly, dang. I’m pretty sure I’d love literally any exploration of/expansion on canon material, but I’m also super predictable: more than anything, I’d like more Mirai/Hatsu.
While I love their adventures and first connections in the Edo era, I think I’m most interested in learning more about how they cope after their successful arrival in the 2040s; the bits in between that first glimpse of Hatsu’s mother and older Kuji waiting by the machine, and the gang getting together for Gilbert’s return. Debriefing, quarantine, culture shock, Mirai’s reception by her program and family, teaching Hatsu English (which she appears to be fluent in by the end), Hatsu’s mother learning to use electronic appliances, and of course, exploring Hatsu & Mirai’s feelings for each other and building a relationship. (And hey, does Hatsu wind up reading/watching Rurouni Kenshin? How much does she tease Mirai about it??)
The Enchanted April: Lotty Wilkins, Lady Caroline Dester
I read this book earlier in the year, hoping for something gentle and comforting and indulgent. And it mostly was that, except for the part where I was super angry about Lady Caroline’s piece of the ending!! I decided to request it for Yuletide on the spot.
Scrap was perhaps my favorite character in the book. While some of her wealthy, bored persona might have been hard to sympathize with at first, the descriptions of her frustration with her life, with being expected to be ornamental and pleasant and available to all, were so well-realized and poignant; one of the best parts of the book, for me. She was a woman who was desperate to be "unsympathetic" and real, but completely trapped in the male gaze and its interpretation of her. The whole POINT of her story was the desire to be seen as a person, to connect with someone who wasn’t stuck on her surface; I was actually astonished that von Arnim's "happy ending" for her was a “romance” with a dude who “fell in love” with her at first sight - sight, mind you, not knowing anything about her personality at all. Capitulation to exactly the kind of social narrative she so vividly found suffocating? What?? (Sure, the book is very committed to pairing everyone up and rehabilitating troubled heterosexual relationships, but at least the other women are allowed some self-actualization and change; there's a sense that they are coming into their own power within those relationships! Argh.)
One of my OTHER favorite parts of the book, however, was the way the character of Lotty became this catalyst for positive change for the other women, through bonding with them and encouraging a sort of hybrid of authenticity and dreamlike optimism. She and Scrap are from such different backgrounds, but she was the only character Scrap really took to (in a way that felt genuine to me, at least). I would love a fix-it AU where the two of them wind up together instead, in keeping with the dreamy and cheerfully optimistic feel of the book.. (Lotty’s husband also totally didn’t deserve her, even if she was able to nudge him into a more acceptable shape; I also suspect he wouldn’t have any deep objection to his wife’s romantic connection with THE Lady Caroline Dester, even if his understanding of the situation were a bit, hmm, lacking. It seems distinctly plausible to me that arrangements could be made which would be amenable to all.)
The Future of Another Timeline: Beth, Berenice, Enid
This book feeds my love of parallel narratives and in-depth historical settings something fierce. I adore the clever alternate history touches (everything from Senator Harriet Tubman to Tim Burton’s Wonder Woman movies), as well as the in-depth ruminations on personal experience, growth and responsibility. And of course, the unabashed feminist themes. I did a fandom promo post over here!
So please don’t feel like you need to write about all three of the characters I requested; I’m interested in exploring any, but not necessarily all of them! On the one hand, I’m dying to know more about Beth’s future, especially as it might wind up interacting with travelers and/or the Daughters of Harriet (though of course, we know she doesn’t particularly want to be a traveler herself) - who she is as an adult, with her experiences and her knowledge of her own alternate-timeline suicide, Lizzy/Tess and who she was/could be, and so on.
Also, the stories of Enid and Berenice were just small pieces of the larger narrative of the book, but they squeezed my heart, and I’d love an expansion on any or all of it. The different versions of their lives together, how they met, how it feels when they’re in a future where Enid remembers NOT meeting Berenice. If Berenice remembers meeting Enid when she was young, now, and what that’s like. Love and survival and being co-revolutionaries (and academics).
If you wanted, it wouldn’t be hard to link up these threads--one can imagine Beth and Berenice running into each other at a show, I think! But really, whatever you want to run with. I’m into it. And feel free to play with a new choice of historical era or two in the mix, if you like!
The Witch Family: Amy, Clarissa, Hannah, Lurie
I loved this book when I was a kid. Friendship, metafiction, playing with notions of right and wrong, brave little girls, found family … I mean, damn. (As an adult I find it a bit preachy and saccharine at times, but for the most part, it holds up beautifully.)
For this beloved childhood favorite, the thing I find myself considering most is future-fic. How do Amy and Clarissa’s friendship and storytelling evolve as they get older? (And how might Lurie and Hannah’s mirror and/or prefigure those changes? I know that Hannah was supposed to never age, but I’d prefer to ignore that bit of canon.) How does Amy’s perspective on creativity, morality and magic evolve? What do the girls grow up to do and be? Playing with metafiction would be fabulous, and/or identity (the … similarities between the “real” girls and their magical counterparts) ... and I’d happily ship both/either pair. (How might trying to figure out liking girls and dating a mermaid have interesting parallels that could be explored? Ahem.)
While I’d prefer things to ultimately be upbeat, please feel free to reduce the schmaltz level a little and be realistic about the characters’ flaws (perhaps especially Amy’s). I’d also be thrilled if you kept to the historical setting (the book came out in 1960, so assuming the girls were 7 that year …)
Wayfarers: Sidra, Pepper, Tak, Owl
I desperately want to read more about these characters building relationships and lives together in their own ways. I totally ship Sidra/Pepper (in a vee-shaped polyamorous sort of situation with Blue, because Pepper/Blue is important, and I think Sidra and Blue could be awesome metamours), and also Sidra/Tak, and exploring the complexities and differences of a relationship like Sidra’s and Owl’s would be fascinating as well! More than anything, though, the whole chosen family theme is the most important bit for me.
Honestly, I hardly know where to start with the things I loved about A Closed and Common Orbit, and these characters and their relationships with each other. The meaning of identity and personhood is a favorite theme, as is people from vastly different backgrounds (and with different personalities and priorities) learning to coexist and loving each other. The importance of a piece of media (a fannish experience!) to Pepper’s survival and identity! Sidra creating a space for herself, her way; making something really new rather than either falling back on her past or conforming to other peoples’ ideas of how she should live! Tak’s gender and the related social norms (and the way those interacted with their choice to live in such a multicultural, less traditional setting), and also their past with academia and the different choices they made there. Playing with any of that would be delightful.
Also, I loved the whole core cast, and I loved loved loved the entire concept of Sidra’s bar. So inclusion of these things is heavily encouraged where appropriate ;)
One specific gen idea that could be interesting, if probably painful, would be a reconnection between these characters and the crew of the Wayfarer, post-ACACO. Sidra isn't Lovelace isn't Lovey. How would everyone come to terms with that?
As for specific character dynamics ...
Sidra/Pepper
I loved how contentious these two were, and how much they loved each other even as they dealt with some pretty difficult disagreements and misunderstandings. Both of them had to learn how to be, for some value of the term, human … but their experiences, and the conclusions they drew from them, were often so different! I’d especially like something post-book, I think … now that Sidra has her own place, her own direction, I’d really enjoy seeing them continue that trajectory. Whether in a romantic direction or not.
Sidra/Tak
These two had a lot of coming to terms to do, but I especially loved the bit where Tak would take Sidra out and be understanding of her different needs and interests. That willingness to learn and adapt, especially after the initial shock, was lovely. It might be nice to have a mid-book story where they do other kinds of exploring together. Maybe Tak takes Sidra on a date, and she gets to learn about that and decide whether she’s into the concept? (Maybe in her own way?) I also had a random plotbunny a while back: what if Pei is visiting Home on a supply stop (with or without the Wayfarer crew) and notices something between Tak and Sidra, and perhaps gives the (somewhat nervous and/or oblivious) Tak a nudge? Or gives Sidra advice on wooing an Aeluon?
(Bonus for continuing to explore Sidra’s sensation-analogue memory library … ;))
Sidra/Owl
Two unusual AIs with very different life experiences sharing memory banks! How does that work for/feel to them both? What do they learn from each other?
… and that is quite enough from me! Happy writing, and I hope you have a fun and un-stressful Yuletide! Thank you again!!
This entry was originally posted at my dreamwidth. (
comments)