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HELLO YULETIDE WRITER. I love this exchange, I love the tradition, and I am excited for another year! I'm mostly active on Tumblr these days, and a little bit active on AO3 here.
General likes: humor, friendship, family relationships and found families, adventures, happy endings, character studies, great dialogue, explorations of the world around the characters. Ratings from G to NC-17 are fine, though please keep the canon atmosphere in mind.
General DNWs: graphic violence, rape, major character death, general grimdarkness, infidelity, bearding, A/B/O, watersports, scat, eye and dental trauma.
Cinderella (Bourne)
The Angel, Cinderella, The Pilot
I love the melancholy, romantic, dangerous take on this story, with the ultimate message that things may not be perfect yet but that love and hope survive. Anything that fits the moody tone that still makes room for romance and magic would be lovely. Maybe Cinderella realizes the magic of what happens; maybe she's just plain Ella or Eleanor and wonders how much power that mysterious Angel in white had. Maybe the Pilot recognizes the Angel as a fallen comrade. Maybe the Angel continues to guide their lives.
I feel like this is the least likely fandom to get written, but maybe someone will be reading this letter and be intrigued. In a nutshell: Matthew Bourne's staging of Prokofiev's "Cinderella" is set during the London blitz, with the prince a pilot and the fairy godmother a mysterious angel in a suit made of parachute silk. It's gorgeous and sad and romantic and magical. You can find a filmed version on Vimeo.
I'm a sucker for fairytales and retellings, and this is a particularly well-executed one. From the very opening of this ballet, with the dancers clustered together as if waiting for the end of a raid, it's an immersive world - and yet one with its own rules. The Angel doesn't just provide a dress and a ride to the ball, he seems able to reverse and maybe even stop time. I would love further explorations into the story, at any point in the timeline. The Pilot stumbles in with a head injury - did he sustain that in London, or did the Angel somehow transport him there as well? Do Cinderella and the Pilot ever see the Angel after they marry? Do they continue to find magic throughout their lives? I'd just ask that you not end up with the Pilot and Cinderella breaking up to have one or the other end up with the Angel, though a supernatural ot3 would be fascinating. (As a side note, if you also just want to write some improbably athletic missing-scene sex for Cinderella and the Pilot, that is also totally fine and great.)
Stardust (2007)
Tristan Thorn, Yvaine
The movie is a rollicking, swashbuckling romp, and I'd love more of Tristan and Yvaine in that vein. I do love the part of the ending of the book where they go off to have more adventures rather than ruling, and if you wanted to go that route, I'd be delighted (you absolutely do not have to have read the book, though). Or maybe Stormhold is threatened by other lands beyond and they have to deal with that. Perhaps the borders between England and Faerie are more porous and the new royals have to figure out how to handle an influx of mundane folk - or a sudden loss of their own people who stumble across the border. Or it could be something everyday for a pair of newly crowned royals in a fairy-tale realm like pixies infesting their great hall. Just something that allows them to face challenges while ultimately knowing they have each other's backs.
I enjoy the original book (and adore the Charles Vess illustrations), but the movie of Stardust is one of those cases where I think the adaptation is so much better by doing its own thing. It offers so many intriguing glimpses into a fully realized fairytale world, and Tristan and Yvaine have such different perspectives on it. And I love their relationship - Tristan coming to realize he cares for this strange, sharp-tongued, literally alien woman, and Yvaine finding that her ancient heart is capable of such a human emotion as love, and the pair of them only able to conquer their foes together. (The starlight destroying the witch is some Princess Serenity bullshit and I love it.)
So: really, anything you would like to do with the pair of them will most likely enchant and delight me. I offered some suggestions above, but I'd be happy for other nominated or non-nominated characters to show up too. Maybe Tristan and Yvaine attempt to go adventuring in disguise, which totally fails when the queen literally glows! (Maybe they get hit by sex pollen, and it doesn't affect Yvaine at all because she's a star but Tristan is extremely fucked up by it!) Maybe they find out what the regular (well, "regular") people thought while the weird succession shenanigans were going on with the remaining royals and attempt to figure out how to undo the rules that call for siblings to murder each other to gain the throne, because what the actual fuck. Maybe Tristan and Yvaine both get to know Una and navigate their newfound relationships with her. I just want the two of them together, and the rest is up to you.
The Belles - Dhonielle Clayton
The world of Orleans is so unusual and so vividly drawn that I would enjoy anything that really explores it. If you want to use a nominated character to do that, feel free - if you'd like to talk about the Academy where Remy learned to be a soldier, or Edel's time at her teahouse and her escape to the lands beyond Orleans, or Camellia's childhood, go for it! Or delve into one of the other aspects, like the noble families that support the royal family's rule, or the creepy hidden origins of the Belles themselves, or the lives of the servants who support it. I'll read anything that captures the spirit of the universe with delight. Have fun! Go wild!
While I was reading this book I kept announcing that it was COMPLETELY BONKERS, and it IS. I deliberately didn't request any characters because I'm more interested in the worldbuilding than any one of the particular plot threads - and I'm sure those are going to come up in the sequel, too. But I'm so fascinated by the world Clayton has set up and all the underlying stuff we only see parts of. The gods are apparently real and cursed humanity - is there more religion that we don't see? How do the various tools and supplies of the beautification work or not work? How does this beauty economy work for those who are too poor to visit a Belle on a regular basis? What does the rest of the world think about this completely wacky society founded on beauty - do they still have to trade for it? What about the lives of those other Belles kept captive for their skills? ARE all the Belles just lab-grown clones? How many Camellias have there been? The only real thing I'd ask you avoid are super specifically gory descriptions of the actual beautification transformations - there were some parts I had to skim through in the book, and I'd prefer you not get too deep into that.
Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
This is the novel of my heart, and I'd love basically anything for it. Missing scenes from the years that Dean skims past in her writing! The rest of senior year as Janet gets more and more pregnant and Tina and Molly offer their own brands of helpful advice and encouragement! Thomas's perspective on any or all of the events of canon! I'd really prefer something that doesn't delve too deeply into the danger and threat of Medeous and her court, especially not to the baby if you choose to write something set further in the future, but incorporating elements of the fairies is totally fine.
Oh, Tam Lin. I discovered this book when I was maybe twelve or thirteen and I've lost track of how many times I've read it since. I almost stole my library's copy because it was out of print for ages and I needed to have it for my own. (I did not actually steal it.) It's probably at least partly responsible for my decision to major in classics, though I was never inducted into a cult with immortal beings that went for midnight rides on Halloween. I love the vividly drawn atmosphere, how you can see and almost smell and feel the various dorms and buildings and the landscape around Blackstock. I love Janet as a heroine, stubborn and clever and yet very bad at seeing her own flaws most of the time, and a giant nerd in very specific ways. I love her friendships with Molly and Tina (though she could be kinder to Tina, generally) and how they support each other in that curious way that the friends you make in college can become your second family. I love her relationship with Thomas and the incredibly fucking slow burn from "dropping a book almost on your feet" to "let's be friends with benefits" to "oh shit I might actually love you and I guess I have to save your soul from a fairy queen" to one of my favorite closing lines ever, "I'm writing you a poem." I love the seasons and the passage of time and all the weird shit floating around the edges that doesn't quite fit in, because why not have some of Shakespeare's actors hanging out, and some ghosts too.
So. I know this is frustratingly non-specific, but I really would be happy with many things for the nominated characters. Molly and Tina connect really well on their own, it's clear, and Tina and Thomas have history - and what does Tina really think about all of this, especially in the aftermath of the climax? Is she as frustratingly logical and normal as Janet thinks? How does Thomas view all of these events? How long was he pining for Janet? Or you could go super lighthearted and write about the chaos of wedding planning while writing a thesis and meeting Thomas's actual family. Again, basically the only thing I don't want is a "Medeous wins" sort of scenario, especially with the baby - if Medeous comes back, that's fine, given the "and two dearer" bit, but a baby or small child in peril is not what I want out of Yuletide.
Ghost Quartet - Malloy
Pearl White, Rose Red
"Oh, Rose. You're my sister, and you're my lover, and you're my child, and you're my best friend. And - and Rose, don't you recognize me? It's me. It's me, it's me, your little girl. I'm your little girl."
The relationships between Rose and Pearl are so complicated and so fascinating to me, and something exploring those would be great. Whether it's a closer look at the existing versions we know of and see in the show, or ones we never see at all, or maybe different perspectives on what we do already have. (Feel free to include the guys as needed, but I want something focused on Rose and Pearl.) It doesn't necessarily have to make sense - the tangled timelines and gaps and contradictions are part of what makes the show so spookily wonderful - but if it feels like stories being whispered in a dark room, that's perfect.
GHOST QUARTET. I'm one of the people who got into Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 and then found out about Malloy's other works, and I was lucky enough to see Ghost Quartet at the New York Theater Workshop last fall. I love the feeling of four friends telling stories, but also channeling these souls that keep living and dying and reenacting the same tangled stories, and trying over and over to get things right. Or maybe not.
And I'm particularly interested in Rose and Pearl, and the many ways they relate to each other. We only see flashes of each part of the cycle, and there's so much room to explore in and among them. Rivalry among sisters, mothers grieving their daughters, strangers meeting with a strange sense of familiarity, lovers who know their betrayal lurks... make it as complicated and messy and tangled as you like. I'd also love something that preserves the atmosphere of the show, hanging out in a little room, cluttered with cameras and odd bookends and instruments and a bottle of whiskey. This is also the fandom I think is best suited to something unusual; if you've been hankering to write your own ballads or bust out some interactive fiction, go for it. It's a circular story, after all, and it can take many forms.
General likes: humor, friendship, family relationships and found families, adventures, happy endings, character studies, great dialogue, explorations of the world around the characters. Ratings from G to NC-17 are fine, though please keep the canon atmosphere in mind.
General DNWs: graphic violence, rape, major character death, general grimdarkness, infidelity, bearding, A/B/O, watersports, scat, eye and dental trauma.
Cinderella (Bourne)
The Angel, Cinderella, The Pilot
I love the melancholy, romantic, dangerous take on this story, with the ultimate message that things may not be perfect yet but that love and hope survive. Anything that fits the moody tone that still makes room for romance and magic would be lovely. Maybe Cinderella realizes the magic of what happens; maybe she's just plain Ella or Eleanor and wonders how much power that mysterious Angel in white had. Maybe the Pilot recognizes the Angel as a fallen comrade. Maybe the Angel continues to guide their lives.
I feel like this is the least likely fandom to get written, but maybe someone will be reading this letter and be intrigued. In a nutshell: Matthew Bourne's staging of Prokofiev's "Cinderella" is set during the London blitz, with the prince a pilot and the fairy godmother a mysterious angel in a suit made of parachute silk. It's gorgeous and sad and romantic and magical. You can find a filmed version on Vimeo.
I'm a sucker for fairytales and retellings, and this is a particularly well-executed one. From the very opening of this ballet, with the dancers clustered together as if waiting for the end of a raid, it's an immersive world - and yet one with its own rules. The Angel doesn't just provide a dress and a ride to the ball, he seems able to reverse and maybe even stop time. I would love further explorations into the story, at any point in the timeline. The Pilot stumbles in with a head injury - did he sustain that in London, or did the Angel somehow transport him there as well? Do Cinderella and the Pilot ever see the Angel after they marry? Do they continue to find magic throughout their lives? I'd just ask that you not end up with the Pilot and Cinderella breaking up to have one or the other end up with the Angel, though a supernatural ot3 would be fascinating. (As a side note, if you also just want to write some improbably athletic missing-scene sex for Cinderella and the Pilot, that is also totally fine and great.)
Stardust (2007)
Tristan Thorn, Yvaine
The movie is a rollicking, swashbuckling romp, and I'd love more of Tristan and Yvaine in that vein. I do love the part of the ending of the book where they go off to have more adventures rather than ruling, and if you wanted to go that route, I'd be delighted (you absolutely do not have to have read the book, though). Or maybe Stormhold is threatened by other lands beyond and they have to deal with that. Perhaps the borders between England and Faerie are more porous and the new royals have to figure out how to handle an influx of mundane folk - or a sudden loss of their own people who stumble across the border. Or it could be something everyday for a pair of newly crowned royals in a fairy-tale realm like pixies infesting their great hall. Just something that allows them to face challenges while ultimately knowing they have each other's backs.
I enjoy the original book (and adore the Charles Vess illustrations), but the movie of Stardust is one of those cases where I think the adaptation is so much better by doing its own thing. It offers so many intriguing glimpses into a fully realized fairytale world, and Tristan and Yvaine have such different perspectives on it. And I love their relationship - Tristan coming to realize he cares for this strange, sharp-tongued, literally alien woman, and Yvaine finding that her ancient heart is capable of such a human emotion as love, and the pair of them only able to conquer their foes together. (The starlight destroying the witch is some Princess Serenity bullshit and I love it.)
So: really, anything you would like to do with the pair of them will most likely enchant and delight me. I offered some suggestions above, but I'd be happy for other nominated or non-nominated characters to show up too. Maybe Tristan and Yvaine attempt to go adventuring in disguise, which totally fails when the queen literally glows! (Maybe they get hit by sex pollen, and it doesn't affect Yvaine at all because she's a star but Tristan is extremely fucked up by it!) Maybe they find out what the regular (well, "regular") people thought while the weird succession shenanigans were going on with the remaining royals and attempt to figure out how to undo the rules that call for siblings to murder each other to gain the throne, because what the actual fuck. Maybe Tristan and Yvaine both get to know Una and navigate their newfound relationships with her. I just want the two of them together, and the rest is up to you.
The Belles - Dhonielle Clayton
The world of Orleans is so unusual and so vividly drawn that I would enjoy anything that really explores it. If you want to use a nominated character to do that, feel free - if you'd like to talk about the Academy where Remy learned to be a soldier, or Edel's time at her teahouse and her escape to the lands beyond Orleans, or Camellia's childhood, go for it! Or delve into one of the other aspects, like the noble families that support the royal family's rule, or the creepy hidden origins of the Belles themselves, or the lives of the servants who support it. I'll read anything that captures the spirit of the universe with delight. Have fun! Go wild!
While I was reading this book I kept announcing that it was COMPLETELY BONKERS, and it IS. I deliberately didn't request any characters because I'm more interested in the worldbuilding than any one of the particular plot threads - and I'm sure those are going to come up in the sequel, too. But I'm so fascinated by the world Clayton has set up and all the underlying stuff we only see parts of. The gods are apparently real and cursed humanity - is there more religion that we don't see? How do the various tools and supplies of the beautification work or not work? How does this beauty economy work for those who are too poor to visit a Belle on a regular basis? What does the rest of the world think about this completely wacky society founded on beauty - do they still have to trade for it? What about the lives of those other Belles kept captive for their skills? ARE all the Belles just lab-grown clones? How many Camellias have there been? The only real thing I'd ask you avoid are super specifically gory descriptions of the actual beautification transformations - there were some parts I had to skim through in the book, and I'd prefer you not get too deep into that.
Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
This is the novel of my heart, and I'd love basically anything for it. Missing scenes from the years that Dean skims past in her writing! The rest of senior year as Janet gets more and more pregnant and Tina and Molly offer their own brands of helpful advice and encouragement! Thomas's perspective on any or all of the events of canon! I'd really prefer something that doesn't delve too deeply into the danger and threat of Medeous and her court, especially not to the baby if you choose to write something set further in the future, but incorporating elements of the fairies is totally fine.
Oh, Tam Lin. I discovered this book when I was maybe twelve or thirteen and I've lost track of how many times I've read it since. I almost stole my library's copy because it was out of print for ages and I needed to have it for my own. (I did not actually steal it.) It's probably at least partly responsible for my decision to major in classics, though I was never inducted into a cult with immortal beings that went for midnight rides on Halloween. I love the vividly drawn atmosphere, how you can see and almost smell and feel the various dorms and buildings and the landscape around Blackstock. I love Janet as a heroine, stubborn and clever and yet very bad at seeing her own flaws most of the time, and a giant nerd in very specific ways. I love her friendships with Molly and Tina (though she could be kinder to Tina, generally) and how they support each other in that curious way that the friends you make in college can become your second family. I love her relationship with Thomas and the incredibly fucking slow burn from "dropping a book almost on your feet" to "let's be friends with benefits" to "oh shit I might actually love you and I guess I have to save your soul from a fairy queen" to one of my favorite closing lines ever, "I'm writing you a poem." I love the seasons and the passage of time and all the weird shit floating around the edges that doesn't quite fit in, because why not have some of Shakespeare's actors hanging out, and some ghosts too.
So. I know this is frustratingly non-specific, but I really would be happy with many things for the nominated characters. Molly and Tina connect really well on their own, it's clear, and Tina and Thomas have history - and what does Tina really think about all of this, especially in the aftermath of the climax? Is she as frustratingly logical and normal as Janet thinks? How does Thomas view all of these events? How long was he pining for Janet? Or you could go super lighthearted and write about the chaos of wedding planning while writing a thesis and meeting Thomas's actual family. Again, basically the only thing I don't want is a "Medeous wins" sort of scenario, especially with the baby - if Medeous comes back, that's fine, given the "and two dearer" bit, but a baby or small child in peril is not what I want out of Yuletide.
Ghost Quartet - Malloy
Pearl White, Rose Red
"Oh, Rose. You're my sister, and you're my lover, and you're my child, and you're my best friend. And - and Rose, don't you recognize me? It's me. It's me, it's me, your little girl. I'm your little girl."
The relationships between Rose and Pearl are so complicated and so fascinating to me, and something exploring those would be great. Whether it's a closer look at the existing versions we know of and see in the show, or ones we never see at all, or maybe different perspectives on what we do already have. (Feel free to include the guys as needed, but I want something focused on Rose and Pearl.) It doesn't necessarily have to make sense - the tangled timelines and gaps and contradictions are part of what makes the show so spookily wonderful - but if it feels like stories being whispered in a dark room, that's perfect.
GHOST QUARTET. I'm one of the people who got into Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 and then found out about Malloy's other works, and I was lucky enough to see Ghost Quartet at the New York Theater Workshop last fall. I love the feeling of four friends telling stories, but also channeling these souls that keep living and dying and reenacting the same tangled stories, and trying over and over to get things right. Or maybe not.
And I'm particularly interested in Rose and Pearl, and the many ways they relate to each other. We only see flashes of each part of the cycle, and there's so much room to explore in and among them. Rivalry among sisters, mothers grieving their daughters, strangers meeting with a strange sense of familiarity, lovers who know their betrayal lurks... make it as complicated and messy and tangled as you like. I'd also love something that preserves the atmosphere of the show, hanging out in a little room, cluttered with cameras and odd bookends and instruments and a bottle of whiskey. This is also the fandom I think is best suited to something unusual; if you've been hankering to write your own ballads or bust out some interactive fiction, go for it. It's a circular story, after all, and it can take many forms.
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