JukeboxFest Letter 2016
Hi! I always find "general likes and dislikes" tough to do for Jukebox because it's sort of more open-ended than when I'm asking for fic based on specific canons, so I'll keep the intro section relatively short. I'm asking for fic in all fandoms and I'm fine with any tense or POV and with weird/experimental style stuff (though I do like capital letters); I'm also okay with any rating and any type of pairing, though if you're writing smut I'm really only interested in f/f for that. I don't want pregnancy or kidfic, issuefic, or unrelenting sadness and despair. If you have any questions about if something is okay or not, feel free to ask. (My DW has also become the Exchange Letter Depository, so if you really really want a better idea of my interests you can also look back a little.)
The Beekeeper - Dessa (Song) (song, lyrics)
The lyrics of this song have always evoked a post-apocalyptic and/or dystopian setting for me. Scarce resources, perhaps technological regression ("Sweet Prometheus, come home / They took away our fire"), widespread poverty, despotic rulers. And the Beekeeper is an interesting figure. Is she sinister or benevolent? Is she drugging people to keep them complacent? Is the sleep she brings death? Or is it some kind of respite from the harsh realities of daily life?
Basically, what I would most love to see from a story based on this song is for someone to flesh out the world/society that the song hints at. (The above is just me spitballing; you don't have to use all or even any of my ideas about what that world is like as long as it relates to the song.) What kind of story you want to tell in that setting is up to you--a broad overview of the society? A vignette about one character's daily life? A story about someone trying to stand up to the authorities or find a solution to some of the environmental or technological problems?
I hope I'm not being so vague as to be unhelpful, but there are honestly a hundred stories I can imagine coming out of this song, and there are probably a hundred more I've never considered.
Jenny - Studio Killers (Music Video) (video, lyrics)
I've always liked the song, but as catchy as it is and as much as I enjoy the love story (mildly stalkerish though it may be), I don't think I would have nominated it without the video, which makes the world the two characters live in seem so colorful and weird. There's anthropomorphic animals, except sometimes they turn into less anthropomorphic animals and chase you into the wilderness? Sometimes you date a guy who never takes his luchador mask off and he also turns into a wolf and so you have to turn into a tiger so your new girlfriend can ride you to freedom? I just really enjoy the playful oddness of it and would love to see a story expanding on that, whether it's telling more of the story of Jenny and the singer's* relationship leading up to the events of the video or looking at what happens after it while they're on the run together or whatever.
* Her name in the larger Studio Killers, uh, mythos? is Cherry, but of course since that doesn't appear in the song, you don't have to use it.
The Lady Came from Baltimore - Joan Baez (Song) (song, lyrics)
So obviously I nominated this cover of the song rather than the original because: femslash. What can I say, I just feel like there aren't enough stories out there about conwomen falling in love with their (female) marks--Fingersmith is a great book, but if the het version of the trope can lead to a ton of different works of fiction, surely the lesbian version can too. Mostly I'd just like to see a more fleshed-out version of the story sketched out by the song--like, what was the con, even? And what is Susan like besides "sheltered rich girl," and what drew her and the narrator together in spite of everything? The song sort of feels like it doesn't take place in the modern day (and, I mean, even if it does take place in the present of when it was written, that's still fifty years ago), so if you feel like rolling with that (though a modern setting is cool too!), it's okay if they don't literally get married at the end. Please do keep the happy ending, though!
Only If for a Night - Florence + the Machine (Song) (song, lyrics)
Okay, I know what Florence says the song is about, but something something death of the author, because I prefer to believe that it's about ghost girlfriends. Well, a ghost girlfriend and a live human girlfriend, but you know what I mean, I hope. Maybe they're at a girls' boarding school? And maybe there's other creepy supernatural stuff going on that they have to deal with, based on the chorus? Though if it's just bittersweet ghost girlfriend stuff that's fine too.
Pick Up the Phone - Dragonette (Song) (song, lyrics)
For a song that seems to be about a couple of delinquents on a petty crime spree, this is just so much gosh-darn fun. I don't know what's going on in their lives that makes "fuck everything up and then drive off into the sunset" an appealing option (are they just bored, or is something worse going on for one or both of them?), but the narrator seems so upbeat about it, and I find it hard not to hope it works out well for them.
Mostly I want more of the narrator and Cherry and their relationship, whether that's backstory or fleshing out of one or more of the events mentioned in the song or something that happens after they drive off into the sunset. I love the narrator's sort of affectionately teasing manner towards Cherry and the wild one/serious one dynamic they seem to have going on. I'd especially love to know more about Cherry, maybe see how all of this looks from her perspective.
The Poisoner - Fern Knight (Song) (song, lyrics--scroll down, I promise they're there)
I've always felt like there was an absolutely fascinating dark fantasy/weird fiction/whatever-you-wanna-call-the-border-between-fantasy-and-horror story lurking within this song that I just can't quite piece together. So there's something about the narrator and the mysterious, otherworldly stone-walled village from whence (as she doesn't know at first, but eventually realizes) she came and to which she is destined to return (and what does that mean for her?). And then in the chorus there's the eponymous poisoner and the people they have apparently poisoned, but how do these things fit together? Who is the poisoner? Is it even a person? Why does the narrator refer to them as "my past and my future" (the same terms in which she refers to the village)?
This definitely lends itself to the kind of story where there's a lot of ambiguity and things left to the imagination, so I don't necessarily need all these questions answered or anything, I just would really love to see someone take some of the imagery in this song and make a clearer narrative out of it.
Skeleton Song - Kate Nash (Song) (music, lyrics)
For a while after I first got this album I didn't listen to this song's lyrics very closely and sort of assumed it was about someone's relationship to their own body, but then I paid more attention and realized that it literally seemed to be about the singer being friends with an actual animate skeleton. Or maybe it's an imaginary friend? A kind of morbid Calvin & Hobbes thing? Which would explain why it's getting more awkward as she grows up. Or maybe this is a world where everyone has some kind of nonhuman friend/guardian as a child that's supposed to go away when you're older, and hers was always weird, but now she's an adult it's getting really embarrassing that it's still there? I don't know, I'm throwing out random ideas here, but I'm just really intrigued by the weirdness of the whole image combined with how unremarkable the narrator seems to find it (I mean, it seems to be a bit unusual, but unusual more like having a security blanket or teddy bear past the age where that's accepted than like... having a skeleton friend), and by the combination of cheerful quirkiness and darkness in the song.
Winter Fields - Bat for Lashes (Song) (song, lyrics)
Something about this song has always given me the impression that the singer and her briefly-referenced sister aren't human--I mean, they're something humanoid enough to live in houses and drive cars and so on, but underneath that veneer there's all the stuff about "sharp teeth" and "wild things." And I think the references to escaping and getting away are interesting in light of that, because it seems less like fleeing an immediate danger and more like getting out of a situation you can't put up with anymore, so maybe blending in and living the human life isn't something the singer really wants to keep doing. (So does she get out of it and escape into the snowy landscape, or does she just wish she could?) I don't have particularly strong feelings about what kind of creature the singer is, so feel free to get as creative with that as you want.