yuletide letter [2017]
Oct. 1st, 2017 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiphianaDear Yuletide Author,
Hello! \o/ As always, writing this letter is very exciting, and I’m even more excited to read what you write. This letter is intended to provide a guide to my tastes and interests and dislikes. Apart from my dislikes, though, it’s definitely more “guidelines” than “rules” - please have fun and follow your own inspiration too!
My username on AO3 is bigsunglasses.
First, a guide to my general tastes. I want to be left happy or optimistic at the end of a story - please, no bitter or sad endings. I am attached to the settings as much as the characters, so avoid AUs/fusions, etc, or anything cracky in tone. I also prefer fics with some action or interaction, rather than ones that are just one character reflecting/introspecting. Finally, please don't write any ships that break up canon ships unless I specifically say otherwise.
Do not want.
Pregnancy loss, or difficulties. Rape. Character death (referencing a canon death in passing is fine, someone dying in the fic is not). Terminal illness. Infidelity. Explicit torture. Gore. Gaslighting. Humiliation. Incest.
Lovelist of general & specific things.
* Worldbuilding! History, cooking, wildlife …
* Friendship, fluff, romance, tenderness in general.
* Loyalty and protectiveness.
* H/C.
* Creating and building things (families, meals, cities, houses, books … )
* Adventure and exploration.
* Themes of truth and justice and honesty.
* Touch starvation.
* Huddling for warmth.
* Marriages of convenience/fake!dating.
* Hair brushing.
* Non-sexual romantic touch – massages, holding hands.
* Rivers and oceans.
* Wilderness (countryside, trees, wildflowers).
Smut.
If the muse moves you towards smut, go for it! But I'd love there to be at least some plot or framing story, rather than outright PWP. I'm rarely interested in reading sex for sex's sake, but in reading how and why particular characters do sex. Be as explicit or not as you want but I don’t want to receive anything kinky.
Golden Hill – Francis Spufford
Richard Smith, Tabitha Lovell
NB: I am happy to receive fic that only focuses on one of these characters.
I was so surprised by how much I liked this book – it was an out-of-the-blue gift and I usually am really wary of books I didn’t pick myself. But it grew on me page by page until I was totally hooked by the end. I loved the historical setting, beautifully shown without becoming info-dumpy, and I loved the characters moving through it. I think my biggest yearning is for post-canon fic. Where does Richard go and does he (do they!) succeed in setting up a new and stable life? Does he ever see England or New York again? Does he think of those he left behind, in either place? Although he tried to be in control, I also often got the sense of a young man adrift on bigger seas than he realised, and I wonder what he’ll become as an older man. Does he end up married? A father? Wiser, or very much as he always was?
And Tabitha, oh, Tabitha. Her story sort of makes me want to cry. So brilliant and so self-poisoningly snarled up inside. I loved the unexpected epilogue, where we suddenly get her POV – show me more of that, of the long years after the novel. Fill in the story of her subsequent life and relationships that she sketched in so terribly lightly.
I don’t usually ask for AUs, but I will here: show me a future with Richard/Tabitha in it. I don’t think they could ever achieve a sugar-and-fluff happiness, but they might achieve a certain companionable, co-conspirator, partners-in-crime contentment of what might not even be a romantic nature – that’d be interesting to explore. They’d never be bored with each other.
My Friend the Professor - Lucilla Andrews
Estelle Dexter
Estelle’s story is so great in canon and I have always wanted more of it! She was raised wealthy, pampered and adored, and turned out not a bit spoiled. She has the guts to defy expectations and train to be a nurse, gets on brilliantly, and then has her health ruined so she can't nurse again. Towards the end of the novel, the heroine thinks this single tantalising line, which has stayed with me ever since I was a tween reading the book for the first time (that was a couple of decades ago...): she thinks that Estelle should go read medicine now. YES! Please write me Estelle coming to that conclusion herself, with or without pestering from Frances, and how she gets on in medical school c. the late 1950s/early 1960s. There was no legal barrier to women becoming doctors, but a lot of cultural barriers. How did it go for Estelle?
One of my favourite things about this book is how it's a social history primary source in fiction form - it creates this insular medical world with its culture, its roles and its rules, so absorbingly. I'd love to get some more period detail. For that reason, I'd prefer not to receive a fic about a much older or retired Estelle - I'm very into the setting of the novel.
If medical details aren't your thing, I'd also love an exploration of Estelle and Bart's relationship, from any stage during the novel or in the early years afterwards. They exist in the sidelines of Frances's romance in canon, so all we see is Estelle and Bart struggling to communicate - Estelle's running shy of him, he is basically a puppy adoring from afar. But I'd love to see how their original attraction flared, and how their relationship developed even when she was so prickly. I'd also be thrilled to see how their relationship develops post-canon, with Estelle recovering then studying, and Bart studying, and them trying to set themselves up in the world.
If you decide to write Estelle (or anyone) on a particular patient's case, please remember my DNW's above & don't make it a terminal illness or a pregnancy-related problem - otherwise, go wild.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Burrows
Juliet Ashton, Dawsey Adams, Sidney Stark, Piers Langley
NB: I am happy to receive fic that only focuses on one of these characters.
This was a riotously delightful and emotional book. I’ve seen some people critiquing it for Juliet being too sort of twee, but I say pshaw to that. The determined hopefullness and joy at the heart of the book is so important to what it is, especially counterbalanced by the deep sadness of some parts.
Sidney/Piers just begs to be ficced (imo!): particularly the whole Australian PTSD/broken leg thing. As mentioned, I really love h/c and would eat up a fic of that nature with a spoon, whether fluffy and tropey or a darker piece exploring these two building their connection in the wake of horror. What were “their” wars like? How do they build a life for themselves going forward? Was it Piers that Sidney was visiting in Rome?
Juliet/Dawsey is equally delicious. I would screech with delight to read fluff where Juliet helps Dawsey bind up his sprained ankle (oh, Juliet! First Sidney’s leg …). Or where they go for romantic and this time uninterrupted walks around the island. I would dig domestic fluff with Kit, too, or dinner parties with the rest of the gang. Does Sophie ever get to visit? How do Dominic and Kit get on?
I’d love to see Dawsey’s POV on falling in love with Juliet. I’d love some kind of outside POV on Juliet in general, actually. We see her from her own perspective through the letters a lot; it’d be great to see how she comes across to others.
Also, I love the epistolary style of the novel, but I also love regular prose, so pick your style, I won’t mind!
The Tales of Einarinn - Juliet E McKenna
Allin Mere, Temar D'Alsennin
NB: I am happy to receive fic that only focuses on one of these characters.
I love these two, and not just because I ship them. They are two people who are so very far from their beginnings, who can never go back, and have to do their best with that. It’d be lovely to see something about them at any point from canon onwards. If you're going for gen, I'm happy for the fic to focus more on one character than the other. Does Allin ever see her family again? (does Temar ever meet them? Could be some great culture clash there.) What were her first months in Hadrumal like? Or it'd be fascinating to gain some insight into the difficult time for Temar between the end of The Swordsman's Oath and the beginning of The Warrior's Bond, during the second establishment of the colonists.
Or I'd also be delighted if you wrote Temar/Allin. Maybe a proposal scene, or an admitting-feelings scene. Their first times doing various things together. Pick any moment from their relationship that you fancy exploring! Working together as a team on a problem or adventure. Temar helping Allin learn/define her social role as Maitresse. Her teaching him more about the modern world. Becoming parents. Doing magic together. Curtainfic of a colony-building kind.
And if you want to add bits of worldbuilding about Kellarin and its canonical present and its possible future, please do - one of my favourite things about this series is the worldbuilding, the sense of a place where time and history really do change things. It’s a busy, diverse and changing world filled with busy, diverse and changing people who all are living their own lives and ambitions as best they can.
Hello! \o/ As always, writing this letter is very exciting, and I’m even more excited to read what you write. This letter is intended to provide a guide to my tastes and interests and dislikes. Apart from my dislikes, though, it’s definitely more “guidelines” than “rules” - please have fun and follow your own inspiration too!
My username on AO3 is bigsunglasses.
First, a guide to my general tastes. I want to be left happy or optimistic at the end of a story - please, no bitter or sad endings. I am attached to the settings as much as the characters, so avoid AUs/fusions, etc, or anything cracky in tone. I also prefer fics with some action or interaction, rather than ones that are just one character reflecting/introspecting. Finally, please don't write any ships that break up canon ships unless I specifically say otherwise.
Do not want.
Pregnancy loss, or difficulties. Rape. Character death (referencing a canon death in passing is fine, someone dying in the fic is not). Terminal illness. Infidelity. Explicit torture. Gore. Gaslighting. Humiliation. Incest.
Lovelist of general & specific things.
* Worldbuilding! History, cooking, wildlife …
* Friendship, fluff, romance, tenderness in general.
* Loyalty and protectiveness.
* H/C.
* Creating and building things (families, meals, cities, houses, books … )
* Adventure and exploration.
* Themes of truth and justice and honesty.
* Touch starvation.
* Huddling for warmth.
* Marriages of convenience/fake!dating.
* Hair brushing.
* Non-sexual romantic touch – massages, holding hands.
* Rivers and oceans.
* Wilderness (countryside, trees, wildflowers).
Smut.
If the muse moves you towards smut, go for it! But I'd love there to be at least some plot or framing story, rather than outright PWP. I'm rarely interested in reading sex for sex's sake, but in reading how and why particular characters do sex. Be as explicit or not as you want but I don’t want to receive anything kinky.
Golden Hill – Francis Spufford
Richard Smith, Tabitha Lovell
NB: I am happy to receive fic that only focuses on one of these characters.
I was so surprised by how much I liked this book – it was an out-of-the-blue gift and I usually am really wary of books I didn’t pick myself. But it grew on me page by page until I was totally hooked by the end. I loved the historical setting, beautifully shown without becoming info-dumpy, and I loved the characters moving through it. I think my biggest yearning is for post-canon fic. Where does Richard go and does he (do they!) succeed in setting up a new and stable life? Does he ever see England or New York again? Does he think of those he left behind, in either place? Although he tried to be in control, I also often got the sense of a young man adrift on bigger seas than he realised, and I wonder what he’ll become as an older man. Does he end up married? A father? Wiser, or very much as he always was?
And Tabitha, oh, Tabitha. Her story sort of makes me want to cry. So brilliant and so self-poisoningly snarled up inside. I loved the unexpected epilogue, where we suddenly get her POV – show me more of that, of the long years after the novel. Fill in the story of her subsequent life and relationships that she sketched in so terribly lightly.
I don’t usually ask for AUs, but I will here: show me a future with Richard/Tabitha in it. I don’t think they could ever achieve a sugar-and-fluff happiness, but they might achieve a certain companionable, co-conspirator, partners-in-crime contentment of what might not even be a romantic nature – that’d be interesting to explore. They’d never be bored with each other.
My Friend the Professor - Lucilla Andrews
Estelle Dexter
Estelle’s story is so great in canon and I have always wanted more of it! She was raised wealthy, pampered and adored, and turned out not a bit spoiled. She has the guts to defy expectations and train to be a nurse, gets on brilliantly, and then has her health ruined so she can't nurse again. Towards the end of the novel, the heroine thinks this single tantalising line, which has stayed with me ever since I was a tween reading the book for the first time (that was a couple of decades ago...): she thinks that Estelle should go read medicine now. YES! Please write me Estelle coming to that conclusion herself, with or without pestering from Frances, and how she gets on in medical school c. the late 1950s/early 1960s. There was no legal barrier to women becoming doctors, but a lot of cultural barriers. How did it go for Estelle?
One of my favourite things about this book is how it's a social history primary source in fiction form - it creates this insular medical world with its culture, its roles and its rules, so absorbingly. I'd love to get some more period detail. For that reason, I'd prefer not to receive a fic about a much older or retired Estelle - I'm very into the setting of the novel.
If medical details aren't your thing, I'd also love an exploration of Estelle and Bart's relationship, from any stage during the novel or in the early years afterwards. They exist in the sidelines of Frances's romance in canon, so all we see is Estelle and Bart struggling to communicate - Estelle's running shy of him, he is basically a puppy adoring from afar. But I'd love to see how their original attraction flared, and how their relationship developed even when she was so prickly. I'd also be thrilled to see how their relationship develops post-canon, with Estelle recovering then studying, and Bart studying, and them trying to set themselves up in the world.
If you decide to write Estelle (or anyone) on a particular patient's case, please remember my DNW's above & don't make it a terminal illness or a pregnancy-related problem - otherwise, go wild.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Burrows
Juliet Ashton, Dawsey Adams, Sidney Stark, Piers Langley
NB: I am happy to receive fic that only focuses on one of these characters.
This was a riotously delightful and emotional book. I’ve seen some people critiquing it for Juliet being too sort of twee, but I say pshaw to that. The determined hopefullness and joy at the heart of the book is so important to what it is, especially counterbalanced by the deep sadness of some parts.
Sidney/Piers just begs to be ficced (imo!): particularly the whole Australian PTSD/broken leg thing. As mentioned, I really love h/c and would eat up a fic of that nature with a spoon, whether fluffy and tropey or a darker piece exploring these two building their connection in the wake of horror. What were “their” wars like? How do they build a life for themselves going forward? Was it Piers that Sidney was visiting in Rome?
Juliet/Dawsey is equally delicious. I would screech with delight to read fluff where Juliet helps Dawsey bind up his sprained ankle (oh, Juliet! First Sidney’s leg …). Or where they go for romantic and this time uninterrupted walks around the island. I would dig domestic fluff with Kit, too, or dinner parties with the rest of the gang. Does Sophie ever get to visit? How do Dominic and Kit get on?
I’d love to see Dawsey’s POV on falling in love with Juliet. I’d love some kind of outside POV on Juliet in general, actually. We see her from her own perspective through the letters a lot; it’d be great to see how she comes across to others.
Also, I love the epistolary style of the novel, but I also love regular prose, so pick your style, I won’t mind!
The Tales of Einarinn - Juliet E McKenna
Allin Mere, Temar D'Alsennin
NB: I am happy to receive fic that only focuses on one of these characters.
I love these two, and not just because I ship them. They are two people who are so very far from their beginnings, who can never go back, and have to do their best with that. It’d be lovely to see something about them at any point from canon onwards. If you're going for gen, I'm happy for the fic to focus more on one character than the other. Does Allin ever see her family again? (does Temar ever meet them? Could be some great culture clash there.) What were her first months in Hadrumal like? Or it'd be fascinating to gain some insight into the difficult time for Temar between the end of The Swordsman's Oath and the beginning of The Warrior's Bond, during the second establishment of the colonists.
Or I'd also be delighted if you wrote Temar/Allin. Maybe a proposal scene, or an admitting-feelings scene. Their first times doing various things together. Pick any moment from their relationship that you fancy exploring! Working together as a team on a problem or adventure. Temar helping Allin learn/define her social role as Maitresse. Her teaching him more about the modern world. Becoming parents. Doing magic together. Curtainfic of a colony-building kind.
And if you want to add bits of worldbuilding about Kellarin and its canonical present and its possible future, please do - one of my favourite things about this series is the worldbuilding, the sense of a place where time and history really do change things. It’s a busy, diverse and changing world filled with busy, diverse and changing people who all are living their own lives and ambitions as best they can.
