Dear Yulegoat,
Nov. 13th, 2009 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
froggimus_rexThis is only my second Yuletide, and my first where I've actually written a letter, so apologies for getting a bit babbly and tl;dr.
First off, thank you so much for writing for me. All of these are fandoms and characters that I crave fic for, so whatever you end up writing in whichever fandom I'm going to be ecstatic.
Which means you can pretty much ignore the most of the herds of teal deer below if you need to.
Secondly, three of my requests are leaning towards the femslash side, but I'm perfectly fine with gen if you're not feeling the ship, as well as acknowledgement of canon pairings (though I'd really prefer those not to be the focus).
I'm good with any rating that you're comfortable writing, and while I like the smut, the build-up and after-math are just as much fun to read. I'm not fussed on the type of story either. Long plotty epics, short character studies (or epic character explorations and short plotty pieces), five things, epistolary stories, playing around with narrative structure, pretty much whatever you want to write it's all good for me.
Some things I like are:
epic friendships, banter, geekiness, witty humour, characters who are intelligent, flawed characters who are still likeable and/or sympathetic, bisexuality, strong women of all descriptions, evocative language, sex being fun/playful, lovers who are also friends, people who have trouble verbally displaying affection, doppelgangers with wildly divergent personalities, pragmatic idealists and idealistic pragmatists, snark/cynicism/prickliness as defense mechanism, characters paying attention to/noticing other characters' hands, light playful bondage, happy endings, bittersweet yet hopeful endings, 'earned' angst/woobieness, multiple/parallel/alternative worlds (seriously, three of my four fandoms touch on the idea in some way), AUs, mind-fucks which avoid incomprehensibility, crossovers, world-building, stories which go into the unexplored nooks and crannies of canon, self-deprecation, power balances in relationships, healthy doses of crackiness, wildly different personality types getting along as much because of the rough edges snagging as despite it, healthy relationships, but also relationships (sexual or otherwise) that are kinda fucked-up but know it.
Basically, I like a whole bunch of different things and I'm very easy to please.
Dislikes:
non-canonical character death, hardcore BDSM, gratuitous unrelenting angst, gratuitous fluff, overly flowery euphemisms (I mind it less if it's IC for the viewpoint character, but I really prefer either blunter or elided language instead, character assassination/derailment for the sake of plot/shipping, explicit/detailed scenes of torture, rape, or child abuse (though implicit scenes or references to them is fine, especially when supported by/important to the canon).
Squicks:
scat/water-sports/bloodplay/bodily fluids, vore, gorn/torture porn, abusive/predatory relationships being portrayed as healthy and romantic, animal abuse, character bashing.
Now, onto ze fandoms...
Franklyn
Emilia/Sally
They never actually met/interacted in the film, but I'd love fic of them together. Doesn't have to be femslash, but if you're up for it, that'd be awesome. Fic exploring what the hell Sally actually was/is, or about Emilia pre/post canon would also be cool.
So, yeah, I'm totally asking you to play to my doppelganger kink/mad girl-crush on Eva Green with this request. That said, I do think that between Emilia's general fucked-upness and the whole part where Sally may or may not be real could make for some interesting, twisty, messed-up fic, regardless of if you went the gen or femslashy route with it.
I love this film in all its somewhat flawed, dystopic steam-punked, ambiguously realitied, lower budget but you'd never know from how very prettily it's shot, mind-fucky glory, so I'd be happy with anything that expanded on it involving either of these two characters.
At just over ninety minutes, this is the shortest of my four canons, so if you didn't match on this but want to check it out anyway, your main problem will be actually getting hold of the damn thing, since even though it's been out in the UK for a while now, it's only actually been released in North America this week.
Naturally, I would never advocate any other means of watching this film. Ever.
The Guild
Cyd Sherman aka Codex/Riley
Riley wants Codex. Badly. Could be one-sided, or reciprocated, or however you want to play it (just so long as Codex doesn't end up locked in a closet like Zaboo). Any rating's fine.
Riley is (canonically, even!) hot for flaily, red-headed gamer geek girls, and pretty much anything dealing with that would be awesome, however you handled it. One-sided longing on Riley's part, wacky hijinks as Riley woo-ed an oblivious (or not) Codex to whatever degree of success, or anything.
Pretty much the only thing I wouldn't want here is a repeat of the same dynamics as Riley has with Zaboo. It's not healthy, and I like the spine Codex has been growing over the course of the series and I'd hate to see it crushed.
This is definitely the easiest of my canons to get up to speed on if we didn't match on it. The episodes are all relatively short (so far the longest clocks in at under nine minutes), and the runtime of all three seasons combined is about three hours give or take.
You can stream it legally from MSN, the official site, and a couple of other places, and the official twitter makes it easy to keep up to date with.
Phillip Pullman - His Dark Materials
Mary Malone/Serafina Pekkala
Mary/Serafina is my OTP for the series so I'd be happy with pretty much anything focused on them, regardless of whether it's shippy or just genfic about their epic BFF-dom.
Seriously, anything with about Mary and Serafina, whether they were together or just BFFs would make me happy. Whether you wanted to fill-in those two weeks they spent together off-screen "discussing forbidden witchlore" or something post-canon (Mary Malone on the astral plane!) I got a lovely to drabble along the lines of the latter last year as a stocking filler, and it filled me with shippy glee. So yeah, anything.
One of my favourite things about the books is the world-building, so if you wanted to do something there with regards to the witches that'd be cool.
If we didn't match on this, it's definitely a canon that'd (depending on your reading speed) take a decent amount of time and effort to catch up on since the trilogy ends up clocking in at about a thousand pages, and the unabridged audio-books go for thirty-plus hours all up.
If you did want to get hold of it, you should be hopefully be able to find the books in the young adult section of your local library, and if not, once again I do not advocate any alternate methods of finding a copy.
Primal (game)
Jen/Scree
Just something with Jen and Scree being their awesome odd-couple/siblingish/BFFy selves. Could be set anytime during (or even post-) canon.
I love the relationship between Jen and Scree in the game so much. It's just so dynamic and multi-faceted, and Hudson Leick and Andreas Katsulas (yes, the plot of this games is in fact Callisto and G'Kar save the universe and it's awesome) completely sold that this was a girl and gargoyle who genuinely liked and cared about each other, even when they're bickering.
I loved that Jen is an (incredibly) reluctant hero, who still manages to step up and do the right thing because there's no one else who can, all the while pointing out that someone who wasn't a coffee waitress might just be a better choice. I love that Scree is noble without being flawless (or more importantly presented as flawless), and that when he does or suggests doing something ethically/morally dodgy for the greater good, he gets called on it.
So, yeah, anything that focuses on their friendship would be awesome.
Now the fact this is a video game would normally make it the hardest of these four to catch up on, however the cut-scenes from the game, as well as a play-through (higher sound and video quality but twenty-odd videos longer), are up on youtube, so if we didn't match on this and you do want to check it out, those'll save you the time and effort of actually finding and playing the game.
Once again, thank you for writing a story in one of my fandoms for me, and I'm sure that whatever you end up writing will be totally awesome.
First off, thank you so much for writing for me. All of these are fandoms and characters that I crave fic for, so whatever you end up writing in whichever fandom I'm going to be ecstatic.
Which means you can pretty much ignore the most of the herds of teal deer below if you need to.
Secondly, three of my requests are leaning towards the femslash side, but I'm perfectly fine with gen if you're not feeling the ship, as well as acknowledgement of canon pairings (though I'd really prefer those not to be the focus).
I'm good with any rating that you're comfortable writing, and while I like the smut, the build-up and after-math are just as much fun to read. I'm not fussed on the type of story either. Long plotty epics, short character studies (or epic character explorations and short plotty pieces), five things, epistolary stories, playing around with narrative structure, pretty much whatever you want to write it's all good for me.
Some things I like are:
epic friendships, banter, geekiness, witty humour, characters who are intelligent, flawed characters who are still likeable and/or sympathetic, bisexuality, strong women of all descriptions, evocative language, sex being fun/playful, lovers who are also friends, people who have trouble verbally displaying affection, doppelgangers with wildly divergent personalities, pragmatic idealists and idealistic pragmatists, snark/cynicism/prickliness as defense mechanism, characters paying attention to/noticing other characters' hands, light playful bondage, happy endings, bittersweet yet hopeful endings, 'earned' angst/woobieness, multiple/parallel/alternative worlds (seriously, three of my four fandoms touch on the idea in some way), AUs, mind-fucks which avoid incomprehensibility, crossovers, world-building, stories which go into the unexplored nooks and crannies of canon, self-deprecation, power balances in relationships, healthy doses of crackiness, wildly different personality types getting along as much because of the rough edges snagging as despite it, healthy relationships, but also relationships (sexual or otherwise) that are kinda fucked-up but know it.
Basically, I like a whole bunch of different things and I'm very easy to please.
Dislikes:
non-canonical character death, hardcore BDSM, gratuitous unrelenting angst, gratuitous fluff, overly flowery euphemisms (I mind it less if it's IC for the viewpoint character, but I really prefer either blunter or elided language instead, character assassination/derailment for the sake of plot/shipping, explicit/detailed scenes of torture, rape, or child abuse (though implicit scenes or references to them is fine, especially when supported by/important to the canon).
Squicks:
scat/water-sports/bloodplay/bodily fluids, vore, gorn/torture porn, abusive/predatory relationships being portrayed as healthy and romantic, animal abuse, character bashing.
Now, onto ze fandoms...
Franklyn
Emilia/Sally
They never actually met/interacted in the film, but I'd love fic of them together. Doesn't have to be femslash, but if you're up for it, that'd be awesome. Fic exploring what the hell Sally actually was/is, or about Emilia pre/post canon would also be cool.
So, yeah, I'm totally asking you to play to my doppelganger kink/mad girl-crush on Eva Green with this request. That said, I do think that between Emilia's general fucked-upness and the whole part where Sally may or may not be real could make for some interesting, twisty, messed-up fic, regardless of if you went the gen or femslashy route with it.
I love this film in all its somewhat flawed, dystopic steam-punked, ambiguously realitied, lower budget but you'd never know from how very prettily it's shot, mind-fucky glory, so I'd be happy with anything that expanded on it involving either of these two characters.
At just over ninety minutes, this is the shortest of my four canons, so if you didn't match on this but want to check it out anyway, your main problem will be actually getting hold of the damn thing, since even though it's been out in the UK for a while now, it's only actually been released in North America this week.
Naturally, I would never advocate any other means of watching this film. Ever.
The Guild
Cyd Sherman aka Codex/Riley
Riley wants Codex. Badly. Could be one-sided, or reciprocated, or however you want to play it (just so long as Codex doesn't end up locked in a closet like Zaboo). Any rating's fine.
Riley is (canonically, even!) hot for flaily, red-headed gamer geek girls, and pretty much anything dealing with that would be awesome, however you handled it. One-sided longing on Riley's part, wacky hijinks as Riley woo-ed an oblivious (or not) Codex to whatever degree of success, or anything.
Pretty much the only thing I wouldn't want here is a repeat of the same dynamics as Riley has with Zaboo. It's not healthy, and I like the spine Codex has been growing over the course of the series and I'd hate to see it crushed.
This is definitely the easiest of my canons to get up to speed on if we didn't match on it. The episodes are all relatively short (so far the longest clocks in at under nine minutes), and the runtime of all three seasons combined is about three hours give or take.
You can stream it legally from MSN, the official site, and a couple of other places, and the official twitter makes it easy to keep up to date with.
Phillip Pullman - His Dark Materials
Mary Malone/Serafina Pekkala
Mary/Serafina is my OTP for the series so I'd be happy with pretty much anything focused on them, regardless of whether it's shippy or just genfic about their epic BFF-dom.
Seriously, anything with about Mary and Serafina, whether they were together or just BFFs would make me happy. Whether you wanted to fill-in those two weeks they spent together off-screen "discussing forbidden witchlore" or something post-canon (Mary Malone on the astral plane!) I got a lovely to drabble along the lines of the latter last year as a stocking filler, and it filled me with shippy glee. So yeah, anything.
One of my favourite things about the books is the world-building, so if you wanted to do something there with regards to the witches that'd be cool.
If we didn't match on this, it's definitely a canon that'd (depending on your reading speed) take a decent amount of time and effort to catch up on since the trilogy ends up clocking in at about a thousand pages, and the unabridged audio-books go for thirty-plus hours all up.
If you did want to get hold of it, you should be hopefully be able to find the books in the young adult section of your local library, and if not, once again I do not advocate any alternate methods of finding a copy.
Primal (game)
Jen/Scree
Just something with Jen and Scree being their awesome odd-couple/siblingish/BFFy selves. Could be set anytime during (or even post-) canon.
I love the relationship between Jen and Scree in the game so much. It's just so dynamic and multi-faceted, and Hudson Leick and Andreas Katsulas (yes, the plot of this games is in fact Callisto and G'Kar save the universe and it's awesome) completely sold that this was a girl and gargoyle who genuinely liked and cared about each other, even when they're bickering.
I loved that Jen is an (incredibly) reluctant hero, who still manages to step up and do the right thing because there's no one else who can, all the while pointing out that someone who wasn't a coffee waitress might just be a better choice. I love that Scree is noble without being flawless (or more importantly presented as flawless), and that when he does or suggests doing something ethically/morally dodgy for the greater good, he gets called on it.
So, yeah, anything that focuses on their friendship would be awesome.
Now the fact this is a video game would normally make it the hardest of these four to catch up on, however the cut-scenes from the game, as well as a play-through (higher sound and video quality but twenty-odd videos longer), are up on youtube, so if we didn't match on this and you do want to check it out, those'll save you the time and effort of actually finding and playing the game.
Once again, thank you for writing a story in one of my fandoms for me, and I'm sure that whatever you end up writing will be totally awesome.
