dear yuletide writer!
Oct. 19th, 2015 01:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverflight8Hi yuletide writer! Thanks for offering to write these fandoms :)
In general I am very easy to please; I always get caught up in I GOT A PRESENT HOORAY and I will be very happy with what you write! I've included my likes and dislikes and fandom-specific commentary/prompts to give you an idea of what I like, but if a story seizes your fancy, feel free to go with that!
General likes and dislikes:
Likes!
Dislikes:
I want to stress again that I have just given you a big pile of things I like and things I don't (and there is even more to follow!) but I am fairly flexible. I don't have any triggers and nothing will ruin my Christmas/holidays/yuletide. So go ahead and write the fic you want if my requests don't work for you!
Fandom-specific:
Any character (Gwalchmai ap Lot, Arthur, Gwynhwyfar, or Bedwyr)
I've asked for this fandom a lot during yuletide and it's because it's my favourite Arthurian adaptation. I know it focuses fairly narrowly on a few characters and drops a lot of the mythological elements, but I love the characters and the writing in the novels.
Gwalchmai! ♥ Oh god, where do I even start?
I really love bildungsroman; the journey of Gwalchmai from a young boy to an adult--accelerated by Lugh or not--is one of my favourite parts. I love how he makes it from a child unable to keep up with Agravain to his equal; I also really love that in the intervening years, Agravain learns humility, and that the two of them truly become brothers, not just in blood. I love that reunion scene--I love that the two of them manage to move on past wrongs, which many characters are unable to do (see: Arthur & Bedwyr, because one of them dies). It's an Arthurian story, so tragedy was incoming, but oh my god, was I unprepared for how terrible the unmaking of Arthur's golden age was.
I would love to see more about Gwalchmai's life in Arthur's Family, or while he's in Lugh's hall, or stuff later on: Gwalchmai gets sent to do a lot of diplomacy, and probably sees firsthand how Arthur's alliances and kingdom start coming apart. Or stuff about Gwyn! He is at the core of the dispute that runs three ways between him, Medraut, and Arthur--fic about this would be great too. (The part where Medraut, just before dying, realizes his brother is dead breaks my heart. Actually, a lot of In Winter's Shadow broke my heart.)
Gwalchmai is our POV character for the first book, and so he doesn't know what happens in a lot of parts - the two years he's off in Lugh's feast hall, nor what the rest of the island is like, doesn't get to see Arthur's actions except second- or third-hand from messengers and his father. I would love to see fic about Arthur or Bedwyr building up the kingdom during this time. Likewise, we don't see much of how Arthur and Gwynhwyfar's relationship develops (even though she is the one who reports it...); Gwynhwyfar's childhood/growing up is also not explored in the books. I would also love to see expansion on the prophetic dreams and seeings that are dropped in Hawk of May by Taliesin and Sion ap Rhys.
I'd love fic with pretty much all the rest of the cast - Agravain, Cei, Rhys ap Sion, Eivlin, Morgawse, Medraut, Taliesin. I'd prefer not to have any secondary character carry the plot themselves, though--the four characters I nominated are probably my favourites. You don't need to include all four, but one of them, please!
The one thing that was frustrating (beyond the whole "this is the end of it all") that made me sad about In Winter's Shadow was the lack of resolution among a lot of characters, though if it happened in canon I'd feel it misplaced. Fix-it in fic, though--oh god yes please. Bedwyr never gets to really work anything out with...well, anyone, because he's stuck in Car Aes; you can tell he is sick that he of all the people survived. Gwynhwyfar and Arthur never really hash it out. I would love to see something dealing with the ending.
Matt Cruse, Kate de Vries
[Note: I forgot to go back and request ANY for this fandom. I realize that if you matched to me you matched on at least Matt & Kate, but I would seriously be happy with any of the nominated characters - a fic about just Grunel or Nadira would be perfect too.]
I love these books because Kate and Matt are adorable, I love the airships and the whole aeronautics part of the books, and because I love the alternate universe that Oppel's built.
First, the Aurora: from the descriptions it sounds like a huge, fancy floating hotel, or a cruise ship - the Titanic of the skies, maybe; they have a cinema, workout rooms, lounges, kitchens, smoking rooms, luxurious state rooms. Hidden in the crew-only areas is a fascinating other world, with the huge air cells made of goldbeater's skin, the rigging and catwalks that surround the ship, the bridge, the bays. And it's staffed by, what, seventy, eighty crewmembers? It's a world all by itself up in the air. I would love to see more of the ship.
Then there is the Hyperion, which has been sailing the lonely high Skyberia for years and years, packed full of unimaginable treasures, animals and things thought to be mythical, an absolute fortune, and ingenious inventions that exist nowhere else. This ship freaked me out. It was wonderful and it was terrifying, because of how inhospitable it was, so far up, and because of all the ghosts it carried; but I imagine that even when Grunel was flying in it, it must have been curiously desolate. He told his captain--poor captain--to simply fly anywhere, nowhere, confined himself to his quarters, saw no one--how bleak and lonely must it have been? Flying above so many people, but not allowed to communicate with any of them below, everyone thinking you've died, probably crashed in the ocean somewhere. So many wonderful inventions, like the machine to make endless hydrium, enough to make beautiful cities in the air, gardens in his ship to look at plant growth midair--yet no one was using them. Did he ever mean to come back down to earth, after finishing his machine? I would love to see more of the Hyperion, the inventions, the mythical beasts (did Grunel kill the yeti, for example? Did he buy it from someone and get them to hush up about it?), how he made his inventions, about Grunel himself.
Kate! She's motivated hugely by her curiosity about (just about) everything, but most especially biology and natural science. She clearly has read a lot about the subject and wants to be an explorer. I love her enthusiasm and gung-ho attitude. When she first finds out the goldbeater's skin is cow intestines, she says--instead of being grossed out, as would have been understandable--she says in fascination that it must have taken a great many cows. In the following book, she discovers aerozoans which terrified and fascinated me (the electricity! there are those things floating in the sky? AAaA!) I'd love to see what she does with those, or other organisms she discovers--Matt makes the admiring comment that she just thinks differently: maybe a creature the size of a whale sailing the skies, feeding on tiny plankton-esque air organisms, just undiscovered! A scientific treatise on Creatures of the Air, I could totally see her writing, whether for her thesis as she studies or just for kicks. I'm sure she's written papers for the discovery of the cloud cat, probably the aerozoan too. (If you want to do the science angle, I'd love to see your take on the lighter-than-hydrogen hydrium. Maybe in that world hydrogen has two protons, or IDK maybe hydrogen is always deuterium, or something totally different. Or you can also handwave all this too, I don't mind.)
Regarding Nadira--like Kate, she's a go-getter. We get a bit of backstory when she talks to Matt about her past; she seems caught between two cultures. She's notorious by her name as the daughter of Szpirglas--I'd love to see more about her story, her getting involved. What does she do with her share of the gold? Do they ever cross paths again?
Finally, I would love to see more about the alternate history that Oppel has created. There are little touches of change (the Pacificus, the Depressionist paintings instead of Impressionist, the prevalence of Canada on the world stage :P) and it would be so cool to see more of that!
Any character (Tal Graile-Rerem, Milla, Great Uncle Ebbitt)
THE WORLDBUILDING. I have to start with this because OH MY GOD THE WORLDBUILDING. THE MAGIC. I am forever sad that this was a six-book children's book series, because I wanted to know so, so much more about the Light Magic the Chosen employ, and the land of Aenir, and the Shield Maidens out on the Ice. Tal's kind of inexperienced, but we get to see him make huge leaps in magical ability; by the later books, he can conjure stairs out of light, solid, tangible stairs. The tantalizing glimpses of what Light can do--the Achievements that Tal tries to compete in, the stuff that Great Uncle Ebbitt uses (on the sly), etc--all of those are indescribably fascinating to me. I am a huge sucker for magic system and for colour-based stuff (systems, hierarchies, sorting) and the two of them together are complete catnip to me. I would love to see stuff expanding on the magic. Seriously. Just that and I'd be so happy.
The Tower--what are lectures on Light like? (Boring, apparently, and they're holding back.) What's it like for adults? What sort of jobs are there? What are the other Achievements like? What do kids do for fun? What are the other towers like? Is there a big difference between, say high-ranking Green and low-level Blue?
Aenir is this weird, weird world which is almost a parallel to ours. In this context though it's like a whole secondary fantasy world all on its own, and its inhabitants are equally distinct--I was expecting something like the shadowguard or Ebbitt's cat Spiritshadows, but the Storm Shepherds were something totally different. I'd love to see more of how Aenir is like-and-unlike the world in shadow beneath. (Also, how adorable is it that when Tal says goodbye to his spiritguard he realizes the reason it liked one form particularly is because that's what the spiritguard is up in Aenir. They may be shadows of themselves but they clearly retain personalities, memory, etc from Aenir).
What about the Shield Maidens? I love that they are sort of like two cultures that never meet; the Tower people practically never go out, and the Shield Maidens are anyway a very small group of people that move around a lot. They clearly run on the same sort of magic; the crones are able to disrupt the nightmare machine from the Tower. It would be fascinating to see more of them and the Ice people in general. (Also, how exactly does one train oneself to wake up after a set number of breaths/heartbeats?!)
I love Great Uncle Ebbitt and his irreverence that conceals so much. I wonder why he got booted from Indigo? What does he do down in his ever-changing maze of things? What's it like in Indigo? What's it like in the other colours? He doesn't seem to visit Tal and his family much; does he just stay down in his rooms? Where or how did he learn his magic? How did he find out about the steam/laundry thing anyway?
Whew, hopefully you made it through my tl;dr. I hope there was something inspirational in there somewhere. Happy writing!
In general I am very easy to please; I always get caught up in I GOT A PRESENT HOORAY and I will be very happy with what you write! I've included my likes and dislikes and fandom-specific commentary/prompts to give you an idea of what I like, but if a story seizes your fancy, feel free to go with that!
General likes and dislikes:
Likes!
- I like magic and space and fantasy and historical fiction. Some form of those four comprise the majority of what I read.
- I like adventure/action and quests. You know how in portal fantasy, the protagonists are always going on quests? Or missions? Yeah! I love that. Canon-esque adventures? Always yes!
- I like fics that extend the canon (prequels, sequels, missing scenes), I love canon AU divergences and what-if AUs.
- Did I mention magic? I love magic. If there are magical/fantastic elements in the canon, I would love to see exploration, expansion, or just more use of the magic system! I read a lot of fantasy because I love the magic systems, the fantastical elements.
- I love worldbuilding! The setting in many of these books are really cool and I'd love to know more about it! Historical context, filling in people (adding OCs to flesh out the world is always cool!), talking about places mentioned but not seen, customs and culture worldbuilding, law science literature music history worldbuilding--I would love to see those!
- If you want to write long fic, I love long form. This is not an obligation--I've gotten almost exactly 1000-word fics and they're stories I still love and go back to even today. But if you find your story wants to go long, go for it. I'd be thrilled to get that!
Dislikes:
- Grimdark stories--stuff that is angsty and grim to be grim. I'm totally fine with violence, fighting, etc; I don't mean everything needs to be eternally happy! But I just don't like novels and stories that seem to believe darker = more real. The canons I've requested also tend to fall on the optimism side, even when bad/tragic things happen. I also do not like maiming or terminal illnesses.
- I prefer past tense and first or third person POV. Other styles often break my immersion and it's harder to enjoy stories, but I've definitely read really good novels in other formats. I mean, the Matt Cruse novels are first-person present-tense, as are the Down the Long Wind novels, so fic for those fandom in first-person is fine.
- Magic disappearing forever endings, fic that changes the setting, no superpowers AU--I really liked the settings and the magical and fantastical elements! Please don't take those away. AU divergences are fine, what-if AUs are fine, but please, don't take away the fantastical or historical or speculative elements.
I want to stress again that I have just given you a big pile of things I like and things I don't (and there is even more to follow!) but I am fairly flexible. I don't have any triggers and nothing will ruin my Christmas/holidays/yuletide. So go ahead and write the fic you want if my requests don't work for you!
Fandom-specific:
Any character (Gwalchmai ap Lot, Arthur, Gwynhwyfar, or Bedwyr)
I've asked for this fandom a lot during yuletide and it's because it's my favourite Arthurian adaptation. I know it focuses fairly narrowly on a few characters and drops a lot of the mythological elements, but I love the characters and the writing in the novels.
Gwalchmai! ♥ Oh god, where do I even start?
I really love bildungsroman; the journey of Gwalchmai from a young boy to an adult--accelerated by Lugh or not--is one of my favourite parts. I love how he makes it from a child unable to keep up with Agravain to his equal; I also really love that in the intervening years, Agravain learns humility, and that the two of them truly become brothers, not just in blood. I love that reunion scene--I love that the two of them manage to move on past wrongs, which many characters are unable to do (see: Arthur & Bedwyr, because one of them dies). It's an Arthurian story, so tragedy was incoming, but oh my god, was I unprepared for how terrible the unmaking of Arthur's golden age was.
I would love to see more about Gwalchmai's life in Arthur's Family, or while he's in Lugh's hall, or stuff later on: Gwalchmai gets sent to do a lot of diplomacy, and probably sees firsthand how Arthur's alliances and kingdom start coming apart. Or stuff about Gwyn! He is at the core of the dispute that runs three ways between him, Medraut, and Arthur--fic about this would be great too. (The part where Medraut, just before dying, realizes his brother is dead breaks my heart. Actually, a lot of In Winter's Shadow broke my heart.)
Gwalchmai is our POV character for the first book, and so he doesn't know what happens in a lot of parts - the two years he's off in Lugh's feast hall, nor what the rest of the island is like, doesn't get to see Arthur's actions except second- or third-hand from messengers and his father. I would love to see fic about Arthur or Bedwyr building up the kingdom during this time. Likewise, we don't see much of how Arthur and Gwynhwyfar's relationship develops (even though she is the one who reports it...); Gwynhwyfar's childhood/growing up is also not explored in the books. I would also love to see expansion on the prophetic dreams and seeings that are dropped in Hawk of May by Taliesin and Sion ap Rhys.
I'd love fic with pretty much all the rest of the cast - Agravain, Cei, Rhys ap Sion, Eivlin, Morgawse, Medraut, Taliesin. I'd prefer not to have any secondary character carry the plot themselves, though--the four characters I nominated are probably my favourites. You don't need to include all four, but one of them, please!
The one thing that was frustrating (beyond the whole "this is the end of it all") that made me sad about In Winter's Shadow was the lack of resolution among a lot of characters, though if it happened in canon I'd feel it misplaced. Fix-it in fic, though--oh god yes please. Bedwyr never gets to really work anything out with...well, anyone, because he's stuck in Car Aes; you can tell he is sick that he of all the people survived. Gwynhwyfar and Arthur never really hash it out. I would love to see something dealing with the ending.
Matt Cruse, Kate de Vries
[Note: I forgot to go back and request ANY for this fandom. I realize that if you matched to me you matched on at least Matt & Kate, but I would seriously be happy with any of the nominated characters - a fic about just Grunel or Nadira would be perfect too.]
I love these books because Kate and Matt are adorable, I love the airships and the whole aeronautics part of the books, and because I love the alternate universe that Oppel's built.
First, the Aurora: from the descriptions it sounds like a huge, fancy floating hotel, or a cruise ship - the Titanic of the skies, maybe; they have a cinema, workout rooms, lounges, kitchens, smoking rooms, luxurious state rooms. Hidden in the crew-only areas is a fascinating other world, with the huge air cells made of goldbeater's skin, the rigging and catwalks that surround the ship, the bridge, the bays. And it's staffed by, what, seventy, eighty crewmembers? It's a world all by itself up in the air. I would love to see more of the ship.
Then there is the Hyperion, which has been sailing the lonely high Skyberia for years and years, packed full of unimaginable treasures, animals and things thought to be mythical, an absolute fortune, and ingenious inventions that exist nowhere else. This ship freaked me out. It was wonderful and it was terrifying, because of how inhospitable it was, so far up, and because of all the ghosts it carried; but I imagine that even when Grunel was flying in it, it must have been curiously desolate. He told his captain--poor captain--to simply fly anywhere, nowhere, confined himself to his quarters, saw no one--how bleak and lonely must it have been? Flying above so many people, but not allowed to communicate with any of them below, everyone thinking you've died, probably crashed in the ocean somewhere. So many wonderful inventions, like the machine to make endless hydrium, enough to make beautiful cities in the air, gardens in his ship to look at plant growth midair--yet no one was using them. Did he ever mean to come back down to earth, after finishing his machine? I would love to see more of the Hyperion, the inventions, the mythical beasts (did Grunel kill the yeti, for example? Did he buy it from someone and get them to hush up about it?), how he made his inventions, about Grunel himself.
Kate! She's motivated hugely by her curiosity about (just about) everything, but most especially biology and natural science. She clearly has read a lot about the subject and wants to be an explorer. I love her enthusiasm and gung-ho attitude. When she first finds out the goldbeater's skin is cow intestines, she says--instead of being grossed out, as would have been understandable--she says in fascination that it must have taken a great many cows. In the following book, she discovers aerozoans which terrified and fascinated me (the electricity! there are those things floating in the sky? AAaA!) I'd love to see what she does with those, or other organisms she discovers--Matt makes the admiring comment that she just thinks differently: maybe a creature the size of a whale sailing the skies, feeding on tiny plankton-esque air organisms, just undiscovered! A scientific treatise on Creatures of the Air, I could totally see her writing, whether for her thesis as she studies or just for kicks. I'm sure she's written papers for the discovery of the cloud cat, probably the aerozoan too. (If you want to do the science angle, I'd love to see your take on the lighter-than-hydrogen hydrium. Maybe in that world hydrogen has two protons, or IDK maybe hydrogen is always deuterium, or something totally different. Or you can also handwave all this too, I don't mind.)
Regarding Nadira--like Kate, she's a go-getter. We get a bit of backstory when she talks to Matt about her past; she seems caught between two cultures. She's notorious by her name as the daughter of Szpirglas--I'd love to see more about her story, her getting involved. What does she do with her share of the gold? Do they ever cross paths again?
Finally, I would love to see more about the alternate history that Oppel has created. There are little touches of change (the Pacificus, the Depressionist paintings instead of Impressionist, the prevalence of Canada on the world stage :P) and it would be so cool to see more of that!
Any character (Tal Graile-Rerem, Milla, Great Uncle Ebbitt)
THE WORLDBUILDING. I have to start with this because OH MY GOD THE WORLDBUILDING. THE MAGIC. I am forever sad that this was a six-book children's book series, because I wanted to know so, so much more about the Light Magic the Chosen employ, and the land of Aenir, and the Shield Maidens out on the Ice. Tal's kind of inexperienced, but we get to see him make huge leaps in magical ability; by the later books, he can conjure stairs out of light, solid, tangible stairs. The tantalizing glimpses of what Light can do--the Achievements that Tal tries to compete in, the stuff that Great Uncle Ebbitt uses (on the sly), etc--all of those are indescribably fascinating to me. I am a huge sucker for magic system and for colour-based stuff (systems, hierarchies, sorting) and the two of them together are complete catnip to me. I would love to see stuff expanding on the magic. Seriously. Just that and I'd be so happy.
The Tower--what are lectures on Light like? (Boring, apparently, and they're holding back.) What's it like for adults? What sort of jobs are there? What are the other Achievements like? What do kids do for fun? What are the other towers like? Is there a big difference between, say high-ranking Green and low-level Blue?
Aenir is this weird, weird world which is almost a parallel to ours. In this context though it's like a whole secondary fantasy world all on its own, and its inhabitants are equally distinct--I was expecting something like the shadowguard or Ebbitt's cat Spiritshadows, but the Storm Shepherds were something totally different. I'd love to see more of how Aenir is like-and-unlike the world in shadow beneath. (Also, how adorable is it that when Tal says goodbye to his spiritguard he realizes the reason it liked one form particularly is because that's what the spiritguard is up in Aenir. They may be shadows of themselves but they clearly retain personalities, memory, etc from Aenir).
What about the Shield Maidens? I love that they are sort of like two cultures that never meet; the Tower people practically never go out, and the Shield Maidens are anyway a very small group of people that move around a lot. They clearly run on the same sort of magic; the crones are able to disrupt the nightmare machine from the Tower. It would be fascinating to see more of them and the Ice people in general. (Also, how exactly does one train oneself to wake up after a set number of breaths/heartbeats?!)
I love Great Uncle Ebbitt and his irreverence that conceals so much. I wonder why he got booted from Indigo? What does he do down in his ever-changing maze of things? What's it like in Indigo? What's it like in the other colours? He doesn't seem to visit Tal and his family much; does he just stay down in his rooms? Where or how did he learn his magic? How did he find out about the steam/laundry thing anyway?
Whew, hopefully you made it through my tl;dr. I hope there was something inspirational in there somewhere. Happy writing!
