measured_words (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
measured_words) wrote2017-10-03 08:53 pm
measured_words) wrote2017-10-03 08:53 pm
Entry tags:
Yuletide Letter 2017
Dear Amazing Yuletide Author:
Thanks, first of all, for writing! That is really the most important thing, and I will be delighted with whatever I wind up getting. I am scamming most of this from my last year’s letter (including this line!), so hopefully it will retain some amount of coherency.
So first of all.... Generally speaking, I like stories that tell me a little bit more about the characters or the world they live in. I like stories with plot - with adventure, intrigue, and wacky hijinks. I also like stories that are more focused on character exploration – I don't need action if I have interesting introspection. I like both insider and outsider PoV stuff, and I feel like it is perfectly legit to write a story about a character that isn't from their perspective. I enjoy stories that are very emotionally intense, whether that means they are spilling over with ~feels~ or dark and unrelenting in tone – I enjoy horror, especially psychological horror, but also feel-good fluff. I am into both Crueltide and Yuleporn, so if those are your jam, please have at! I plan to post to the challenge posts with some ideas for each. I'm also open to other sub-challenges, if my requests fit the bill and you're inspired :)
I like porn, but I do not require it. If you have a preference for or against in whatever you wind up writing, knock yourself out, I will appreciate it. If you include porn, I prefer it to be somehow relevant to the story – either it develops character relationships, or is vital to some zany caper or what have you. I’m not a big fan of pwp, though I think porn can certainly *be* the main action, so to speak, as long as it is showing me something new about characters or their relationship. I'm really hard to squick, so don't be afraid to show me your kinks! More than anything, when it comes (heh) to porn I want to be able to believe that the sex I'm reading is in character for whoever I'm reading about – not necessarily that it is something they want, but that the reactions I'm reading are true to whoever is having them, if that makes any sense.
If you are looking to find out more about me, I have a more mundane and fairly neglected lj/dw over at [personal profile] elanya, and I am I am often online in the yuletide chat (which you can find out how to access here), either as Lan-home, hippo-Lan, or some other similar configuration of Lan- somethingorother. I am also Measured_Words on AO3 :)
On to the specifics! Please note that these are in no meaningful order. Some of these requests are more elaborate purely because there was more to scan from previous letters -
it doesn't mean I wan them any more or less than the others. Also, Optional Details are Optional - I hope these will give you some ideas if you need them, and some helpful insights into what I love about the canons and the characters, but if you have other ideas I haven't thought of feel free to run with them as well :D
Colonel Blood | The King's Rogue - Max Peacock
Requested Characters: Any!
Nominated Characters: Christopher Hallam (Colonel Blood), George Villiers 1st Duke of Buckingham (Colonel Blood), Nancy Edwards (Colonel Blood), Thomas Blood (Colonel Blood)
This book is amazing. It was released in Canada (and maybe the US?) as Colonel Blood, and The King's Rogue in the UK, in 1954. I picked it up on a whim from a display of 50s pulps at a used bookstore - I know that this is a longshot request because god knows if anyone other than me and the handful of people I've forced to read it will have even heard of it. But that's what Yuletide is for! Maybe your local library has it! You should check it out even if you don't write this request - it is pretty much the definition of a rollicking adventure story. Probably if you look up 'Rollicking' in the dictionary you will see a picture of this book. It looks like this:
Fair warning - It is a product of its time, and has a lot of casual racist/sexist/ablist tropes. It's also loosely based on actual 17th century English History. There really was a Colonel Blood, and he really did a lot of the things attributed to him in the book.
Colonel Blood is not actually the protagonist though. He's the antagonist. Our actual protagonist is Christopher Hallam, a hapless member of Yorkshire's landed gentry, come to eek out his fortune in the Big City until his brother (crippled at a young age by a tragic carriage accident) conveniently dies. He finds employment first in the fencing school of "Pietro Masoni", really Peter Mason, a fellow Yorkshireman who realizes the only way he can get fencing students is to pretend to be Italian. Later, Christopher works for the Duke of Ormund, Blood's nemesis. There is also a love interest, Nancy Edwards, who is actually pretty cool for a woman in a mostly sausage fest adventure "romance", but who is first introduced as a maguffin in a ploy by the Earl of Rochester (yes that Rochester) to win a bet. Another secondary villain who schemes against literally everyone is The Duke of Buckingham, because why not? It's convoluted and ridiculous and its very own special brand of amazing. I want fic! I really would be interested in just about anything based on the shenanigans that constitute this novel, but here are some more concrete ideas:
-Any of the other exploits of Colonel Blood, whether as part of his vendetta with the Duke of Ormund, after he starts 'working' for the crown, or whatever, really!
--Colonel Blood has to foil a real plot against the throne, or becomes embroiled in one? --Possibly a plot headed by Buckingham, who is jealous of Blood's relationship with the king!
-Christopher and/or Nancy get drawn into some other kind of shenanigans against their will/better judgment
--Shenanigans involving Colonel Blood!
-Take me further! I'd be interested in explorations of any of the following pairings form the nommed characters - Christopher/Blood, Nancy/Blood (or the failure of Blood to seduce her because she remembers him mostly as a boring parson), Peter/Blood, Blood/Buckingham. Or surprise me! There are a lot of male relationships in the book, with Christopher particularly, that could be taken further. Nancy is just about the only female character with lines though. There's Henrietta, a femme fatale witha very brief appearance, and I guess Nancy's mother? But whatever. Nancy is mostly too good for this lot, but there's always an AU where Rochester abducts her himself, then she gets away on her own and takes over London's criminal underground on her own (or with Henrietta?), or something? I dunno- bring it!
The Broken Earth Trilogy - N. K. Jemisin
Requested Characters: Alma Innovator Dibars, Yaetr Innovator Dibars
I'm not even really sure how to go about describing this amazing series. I love all of Jemisin's stuff that I've read, but this series especially. It is both post-apocalyptic in the sense that a long long looooooooong time (geological time) ago, something happened to fuck up the Earth (the moon is gone), and that the aftereffects of this are sill being felt in what's called Fifth Seasons - little mini apocalpyses based on drastic climate changes usually brought about by geological instabilities (supervolcanos, etc). Also, in the first book one of the characters opens a rift to the earth's mantle to fuck things up again/more, for Reasons. There are wild mages, Orogenes, who can do really impressive kinds of earth-related magic, but can't always control it very well. The main character is one of these. She's trying to find her daughter after her husband murdered her son, after finding out the rest of his family were secret earth mages (no one likes them, because they can freeze people to death and cause earthquakes if they get cranky), and trying to survive the new Season. There's a lot of other things going on, but that's the heart of it.
In between the chapters of the main plot are little historical tidbits form different sources, talking about different seasons and different Orogenes and their connections. In the third book, it becomes clear that at last some of these related to a particular scholar (Yaetr) who is trying to research the relationships between the two, drawing on various obscure texts. And then they get a letter from a...friend? peer? something more? saying that they are at risk of losing their funding or worse if they don't stop looking in to this, and acknowledging that a major longstanding conspiracy is at work to keep this news under wraps.
So... tell me about these two! What is heir relationship? Why Does Yaetr trust Alma in the first place? What happens to Yaetr's project and notes? Does Yaetr take Alma's advice Does (she? he? I'm not sure of gender for either, so run with that however you like) try and get the word out despite Alma's warnings, and how does that go? What are Alma's feelings about all of this? I'm super curious!
Ghost Soup Anthropomorphic
Requested Characters: Ghost Soup Infidel Blue (Character) Ghost Soup Infidel Purple (Character) Ghost Soup Infidel (Manga) (Character)
I don't know who nominated this but it's.... beautiful and perfect.
So also please note that I didn't request Ghost Soup: The Musical! (Character), because that's not a real fandom, even by Ghost Soup standards.
But wow think of the possibilities here... Ghost soup as a dysfunctional family? Ghost soup as a therapy support group? Ghost soup as washed up superheroes? Badly negotiated poly triad? Latch-key kids terrorizing the neighborhood of more responsible fandoms? I don't even know. Like - go nuts!
The Death of the Necromancer - Martha Wells
Requested Characters: Arisilde Damal (The Death of the Necromancer) Nicholas Valiarde (The Death of the Necromancer - Martha Wells)
I love this book - it remains my favourite of Wells's novels. I love the setting - Victorian gaslight fantasy - and I love that the protagonists are of ambiguous morals. I love that Nicholas is a devious schemer with his own agenda. I love that Arisilde ruined himself out of spite.
Arisilde and Nicholas vie for my favourite character, and I love their relationship as well. I would love either something plotty, or something that explores their relationship in greater depth than we see in the books. I'm interested more in the periods that book-end the book - what was their friendship like before Edouard was executed? What were things like between them afterwards? (I am always up for something looking at Nicholas having to cope with losing a friend to drugs on top of just losing his godfather) Or - tell me about their adventures between this book and the next set? Something in the immediate aftermath of Madeline's death? Or later, when they're playing with the gates? I just really love both of these characters.
I'm open to various interpretations of their levels of intimacy, as well.
The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Requested Character: Murderbot
Only the first book of this series is out yet (All Systems Red), but I absolutely fell in love with Murderbot, the socially anxious cyborg! Murderbot is incredibly relatable in some ways - It's an introvert who just wants to be left alone and not have to do any work, but is actually incredibly good at its job. It doesn't want to be human, but is still trying to work out what it does want out of life. It has hacked its governor unit, taking charge of its own autonomy more fully. I would love a story that involved Murderbot trying to figure out more what it means to have that level of self-determination, and what all it is willing to do to preserve that autonomy. Murderbot does have a conscious and sense of responsibility, even if it is grudging at times, and it is interesting to see how people react to it. So basically - more of that? Maybe something about Murderbot before ASR? Trying to subtly navigate and manipulate the bureacratic systems and get nice safe boring jobs? Making friends with other SecUnits, or other computers/systems? Other humans? Murderbot is very clearly define as asexual, and I would prefer to see that respected, but I would be intersting to see what a close relationship might look like and how it might arise!
Alternately - Murderbot does (dystopian future) yuletide, nominating all its favourite soap operas.... but something goes awry and the challenge needs saving!
Thanks, first of all, for writing! That is really the most important thing, and I will be delighted with whatever I wind up getting. I am scamming most of this from my last year’s letter (including this line!), so hopefully it will retain some amount of coherency.
So first of all.... Generally speaking, I like stories that tell me a little bit more about the characters or the world they live in. I like stories with plot - with adventure, intrigue, and wacky hijinks. I also like stories that are more focused on character exploration – I don't need action if I have interesting introspection. I like both insider and outsider PoV stuff, and I feel like it is perfectly legit to write a story about a character that isn't from their perspective. I enjoy stories that are very emotionally intense, whether that means they are spilling over with ~feels~ or dark and unrelenting in tone – I enjoy horror, especially psychological horror, but also feel-good fluff. I am into both Crueltide and Yuleporn, so if those are your jam, please have at! I plan to post to the challenge posts with some ideas for each. I'm also open to other sub-challenges, if my requests fit the bill and you're inspired :)
I like porn, but I do not require it. If you have a preference for or against in whatever you wind up writing, knock yourself out, I will appreciate it. If you include porn, I prefer it to be somehow relevant to the story – either it develops character relationships, or is vital to some zany caper or what have you. I’m not a big fan of pwp, though I think porn can certainly *be* the main action, so to speak, as long as it is showing me something new about characters or their relationship. I'm really hard to squick, so don't be afraid to show me your kinks! More than anything, when it comes (heh) to porn I want to be able to believe that the sex I'm reading is in character for whoever I'm reading about – not necessarily that it is something they want, but that the reactions I'm reading are true to whoever is having them, if that makes any sense.
If you are looking to find out more about me, I have a more mundane and fairly neglected lj/dw over at [personal profile] elanya, and I am I am often online in the yuletide chat (which you can find out how to access here), either as Lan-home, hippo-Lan, or some other similar configuration of Lan- somethingorother. I am also Measured_Words on AO3 :)
On to the specifics! Please note that these are in no meaningful order. Some of these requests are more elaborate purely because there was more to scan from previous letters -
it doesn't mean I wan them any more or less than the others. Also, Optional Details are Optional - I hope these will give you some ideas if you need them, and some helpful insights into what I love about the canons and the characters, but if you have other ideas I haven't thought of feel free to run with them as well :D
Colonel Blood | The King's Rogue - Max Peacock
Requested Characters: Any!
Nominated Characters: Christopher Hallam (Colonel Blood), George Villiers 1st Duke of Buckingham (Colonel Blood), Nancy Edwards (Colonel Blood), Thomas Blood (Colonel Blood)
This book is amazing. It was released in Canada (and maybe the US?) as Colonel Blood, and The King's Rogue in the UK, in 1954. I picked it up on a whim from a display of 50s pulps at a used bookstore - I know that this is a longshot request because god knows if anyone other than me and the handful of people I've forced to read it will have even heard of it. But that's what Yuletide is for! Maybe your local library has it! You should check it out even if you don't write this request - it is pretty much the definition of a rollicking adventure story. Probably if you look up 'Rollicking' in the dictionary you will see a picture of this book. It looks like this:
Fair warning - It is a product of its time, and has a lot of casual racist/sexist/ablist tropes. It's also loosely based on actual 17th century English History. There really was a Colonel Blood, and he really did a lot of the things attributed to him in the book.
Colonel Blood is not actually the protagonist though. He's the antagonist. Our actual protagonist is Christopher Hallam, a hapless member of Yorkshire's landed gentry, come to eek out his fortune in the Big City until his brother (crippled at a young age by a tragic carriage accident) conveniently dies. He finds employment first in the fencing school of "Pietro Masoni", really Peter Mason, a fellow Yorkshireman who realizes the only way he can get fencing students is to pretend to be Italian. Later, Christopher works for the Duke of Ormund, Blood's nemesis. There is also a love interest, Nancy Edwards, who is actually pretty cool for a woman in a mostly sausage fest adventure "romance", but who is first introduced as a maguffin in a ploy by the Earl of Rochester (yes that Rochester) to win a bet. Another secondary villain who schemes against literally everyone is The Duke of Buckingham, because why not? It's convoluted and ridiculous and its very own special brand of amazing. I want fic! I really would be interested in just about anything based on the shenanigans that constitute this novel, but here are some more concrete ideas:
-Any of the other exploits of Colonel Blood, whether as part of his vendetta with the Duke of Ormund, after he starts 'working' for the crown, or whatever, really!
--Colonel Blood has to foil a real plot against the throne, or becomes embroiled in one? --Possibly a plot headed by Buckingham, who is jealous of Blood's relationship with the king!
-Christopher and/or Nancy get drawn into some other kind of shenanigans against their will/better judgment
--Shenanigans involving Colonel Blood!
-Take me further! I'd be interested in explorations of any of the following pairings form the nommed characters - Christopher/Blood, Nancy/Blood (or the failure of Blood to seduce her because she remembers him mostly as a boring parson), Peter/Blood, Blood/Buckingham. Or surprise me! There are a lot of male relationships in the book, with Christopher particularly, that could be taken further. Nancy is just about the only female character with lines though. There's Henrietta, a femme fatale witha very brief appearance, and I guess Nancy's mother? But whatever. Nancy is mostly too good for this lot, but there's always an AU where Rochester abducts her himself, then she gets away on her own and takes over London's criminal underground on her own (or with Henrietta?), or something? I dunno- bring it!
The Broken Earth Trilogy - N. K. Jemisin
Requested Characters: Alma Innovator Dibars, Yaetr Innovator Dibars
I'm not even really sure how to go about describing this amazing series. I love all of Jemisin's stuff that I've read, but this series especially. It is both post-apocalyptic in the sense that a long long looooooooong time (geological time) ago, something happened to fuck up the Earth (the moon is gone), and that the aftereffects of this are sill being felt in what's called Fifth Seasons - little mini apocalpyses based on drastic climate changes usually brought about by geological instabilities (supervolcanos, etc). Also, in the first book one of the characters opens a rift to the earth's mantle to fuck things up again/more, for Reasons. There are wild mages, Orogenes, who can do really impressive kinds of earth-related magic, but can't always control it very well. The main character is one of these. She's trying to find her daughter after her husband murdered her son, after finding out the rest of his family were secret earth mages (no one likes them, because they can freeze people to death and cause earthquakes if they get cranky), and trying to survive the new Season. There's a lot of other things going on, but that's the heart of it.
In between the chapters of the main plot are little historical tidbits form different sources, talking about different seasons and different Orogenes and their connections. In the third book, it becomes clear that at last some of these related to a particular scholar (Yaetr) who is trying to research the relationships between the two, drawing on various obscure texts. And then they get a letter from a...friend? peer? something more? saying that they are at risk of losing their funding or worse if they don't stop looking in to this, and acknowledging that a major longstanding conspiracy is at work to keep this news under wraps.
So... tell me about these two! What is heir relationship? Why Does Yaetr trust Alma in the first place? What happens to Yaetr's project and notes? Does Yaetr take Alma's advice Does (she? he? I'm not sure of gender for either, so run with that however you like) try and get the word out despite Alma's warnings, and how does that go? What are Alma's feelings about all of this? I'm super curious!
Ghost Soup Anthropomorphic
Requested Characters: Ghost Soup Infidel Blue (Character) Ghost Soup Infidel Purple (Character) Ghost Soup Infidel (Manga) (Character)
I don't know who nominated this but it's.... beautiful and perfect.
So also please note that I didn't request Ghost Soup: The Musical! (Character), because that's not a real fandom, even by Ghost Soup standards.
But wow think of the possibilities here... Ghost soup as a dysfunctional family? Ghost soup as a therapy support group? Ghost soup as washed up superheroes? Badly negotiated poly triad? Latch-key kids terrorizing the neighborhood of more responsible fandoms? I don't even know. Like - go nuts!
The Death of the Necromancer - Martha Wells
Requested Characters: Arisilde Damal (The Death of the Necromancer) Nicholas Valiarde (The Death of the Necromancer - Martha Wells)
I love this book - it remains my favourite of Wells's novels. I love the setting - Victorian gaslight fantasy - and I love that the protagonists are of ambiguous morals. I love that Nicholas is a devious schemer with his own agenda. I love that Arisilde ruined himself out of spite.
Arisilde and Nicholas vie for my favourite character, and I love their relationship as well. I would love either something plotty, or something that explores their relationship in greater depth than we see in the books. I'm interested more in the periods that book-end the book - what was their friendship like before Edouard was executed? What were things like between them afterwards? (I am always up for something looking at Nicholas having to cope with losing a friend to drugs on top of just losing his godfather) Or - tell me about their adventures between this book and the next set? Something in the immediate aftermath of Madeline's death? Or later, when they're playing with the gates? I just really love both of these characters.
I'm open to various interpretations of their levels of intimacy, as well.
The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Requested Character: Murderbot
Only the first book of this series is out yet (All Systems Red), but I absolutely fell in love with Murderbot, the socially anxious cyborg! Murderbot is incredibly relatable in some ways - It's an introvert who just wants to be left alone and not have to do any work, but is actually incredibly good at its job. It doesn't want to be human, but is still trying to work out what it does want out of life. It has hacked its governor unit, taking charge of its own autonomy more fully. I would love a story that involved Murderbot trying to figure out more what it means to have that level of self-determination, and what all it is willing to do to preserve that autonomy. Murderbot does have a conscious and sense of responsibility, even if it is grudging at times, and it is interesting to see how people react to it. So basically - more of that? Maybe something about Murderbot before ASR? Trying to subtly navigate and manipulate the bureacratic systems and get nice safe boring jobs? Making friends with other SecUnits, or other computers/systems? Other humans? Murderbot is very clearly define as asexual, and I would prefer to see that respected, but I would be intersting to see what a close relationship might look like and how it might arise!
Alternately - Murderbot does (dystopian future) yuletide, nominating all its favourite soap operas.... but something goes awry and the challenge needs saving!