Yuletide 2009 'Dear Santa' letter
Dec. 25th, 2009 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingDear Yuletide Writer,
I'm pretty easy to please -- so long as you write a grammatically correct story that isn't simply a long sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version.
---------------
General Information:
1. I will read almost anything when it comes to pairings -- het, slash, femslash, threesomes, poly, whatever, so long as you put in a bit of character development so the relationships don't seem to come out of nowhere -- but I prefer gen, and I tend to skim detailed sex scenes because the non-sex parts of the story are almost always more interesting to me. (In other words, the fade to black is your friend. *grin*)
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods (so you can write schmoopy fluff or angsty deathfic and I'll be fine either way), but my favorite endings are bittersweet and a little complicated, kind of like life.
3. When I said 'any' characters, I meant it. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more.
4. Stuff I really, really like: This can be boiled down to, 'Please treat characters as intelligent people who have understandable motives for their actions, please take the worlds seriously as settings, and please remember that there's more to life than sex. Also, ethics, metaphysics, and world-building are dead cool.'
The long version: I like character development; world-building; explanation of plot holes in canon; subtle humor; good spelling and grammar; a sense of wonder; writing that evokes an emotional reaction as well as telling a story; close relationships that don't necessarily involve sex (i.e., friendship, families, teachers and students, coworkers, traveling companions, soldiers in the same cause, etc.); the consequences of actions and choices; a sense of place and time; dialogue that conveys character as well as plot information; politics; ethics; people being intelligent even if they make bad choices; people trying to do the right thing even if they make bad choices; conflict because of opposing goals that both have points in their favor; a lack of simple solutions; female characters treated as people instead of plot devices; male characters treated as people instead of plot devices; ideas that make me stop and think; the nature of memory; the nature of truth; possession; soul-searching; non-gratuitous torture (...I have a kink, shut up); war and battles; hand-to-hand fighting; swordfights; peace and diplomacy; magic that's properly magical and strange or magic that's explained as a science (but not both at once); books and reading; people exploring a new country/world/city; linguistics and languages; early Industrial Revolution technology (or whatever technology is suitable to the milieu); people using logic to investigate a problem; and fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
5. Stuff I'm not so keen on: obvious authorial hatred for characters I like and/or find interesting (which is generally all of them); sex or romantic love with no in-story justification (unless the people in question are already a canon couple); gratuitous angst/torture/rape/whatever (i.e., bad stuff that comes out of nowhere and is not necessary to make the plot or character arc work); idiot plots (i.e., problems that could be solved in five minutes if the characters asked two or three obvious questions, but wild plot contortions prevent any such rational behavior); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
6. If there are ugly social issues inherent in these things I love, and you want to talk about them, that is fine by me. That falls under 'taking the characters and settings seriously,' and I am always pleased when a story makes me stop and think. (This is not to say that I don't love more straightfoward squeeing as well -- because I totally do! -- but if you want to go deeper, I am with you all the way.)
Okay. On to specific fandoms.
---------------
The Lions of Al-Rassan:
(This is a long standalone fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay.)
Request: Anything would be great, but I'm most interested in the canon gaps. For example, what else happened during the year Ammar and Rodrigo served in Ragosa? What was the Belmontes' marriage like before they had children? When and why did Ishak learn medicine, and how did he come to Almalik's attention? I like both het and slash, but I prefer gen.
I love this book because, while you can't call it anything but fantasy, it is not particularly fantastical. It's excellently written historical fiction that just happens to be set in a made-up world. (Yes, I grant that Kay's secondary world is suspiciously similar to Spain during the Reconquista, but the fantasy aspect frees him to create his own characters and plot rather than being a slave to historical accuracy.) Kay also learned a trick from Tolkien that adds extra poignancy: the constant refrain of beauty shattered and fading in a harsh, mortal world. There's an aching sense of lost possibilities, the hope that if just one or two things had gone differently... but then you look again at the larger situation of the world, and you realize historical forces are aligned against your dreams, and nothing lasts forever. As Rodrigo says, "Even the sun goes down."
This book makes me cry every time I read it. I never cry over stories. But Kay gets inside my heart, hooks it open, and leaves me raw and aching. I love that so much, that a fictional world and fictional people can be that real and true for me. I want them all to win, but there is no way for that to happen, and that's better than any old struggle between straightforward good and evil. Because it's real.
I particularly like the friendship between Rodrigo and Ammar, the way Jehane is an independent, competent adult, and the Belmontes' marriage.
---------------
The Acts of Caine:
(This is a fantasy/science-fiction series by Matthew Woodring Stover. Currently there are three books: Heroes Die, The Blade of Tyshalle, and Caine Black Knife. The first and third are of moderate length. The second is a doorstopper.)
Request: Almost anything would be great, but I'm most interested in the vast swathes of backstory Stover only has time to hint at. Caine's early training in Overworld, Deliann's life as the Changeling Prince, the discovery of other planes and the founding of the Studio, Shanna talking the Studio into backing Simon Jester, the banning of the gods, the HRVP plague years on Earth, etcetera, etcetera. (If possible, please do not focus on Berne; he tends to bore me.) I like both het and slash, but I prefer gen.
How much do I love this series? THIS much! I stumbled across Heroes Die by accident back in 1999. I was on a trip and had run out of reading material, so I bought what looked to be an entertaining slash-em-up. And I got that... but I got so much more. Because Stover is not just content to write kick-ass action scenes. He wants to hook your mind and your heart and your social conscience as well as your adrenal glands.
What I love most about this series is the Big Questions that Stover raises and never quite answers -- because really, who ever answers them to her own satisfaction, let alone everybody's satisfaction? What I love second-most (and it is only second by half a hairsbreadth) is the world-building: two interconnected worlds, which start out looking like a typical Tolkienesque knockoff fantasy (Overworld) and a dime-a-dozen dystopian sci-fi future (Earth), but which reveal layers and complications and become raw and bloody and real. What I love third-most is the cast, bloody-minded foul-mouthed bastards though most of them are. I like or love most of the characters, and even those I dislike I find interesting (except Berne; he never really clicked for me).
So basically, show me around the worlds in interesting company and make me think. Action scenes are a wonderful bonus, but not strictly necessary. (Uh, and if you are willing to write fighting porn, weapon porn, or non-gratuitous torture porn -- by which I mean the eroticization of torture or fighting or descriptions of weapons, not actual sex involving those elements -- this is the fandom to do that in. Though perhaps not in Caine's POV, unless you are willing to be very foul-mouthed about it, and be honest about sex and violence both tending to involve a lot of disgusting fluids and stuff. But I would love you forever and ever if you wrote something like that.)
---------------
Song for the Basilisk:
(This is a short to moderate-length standalone fantasy novel by Patricia McKillip.)
Request: Just make me hear the music. *grin* If that's too vague, maybe explain how Arioso Pellior learned magic, tell what happened to Caladrius and/or Luna after the end of the book, or find Damiet a new purpose in life. Using magic, music, AND politics - all three in one story - would be a lovely bonus. I like both het and slash, but I prefer gen.
What I love most about McKillip is the quality of lucid dreaming that infuses her writing. I'm sure that's extremely difficult to imitate, so I don't mind if you don't try... but I'd love a fic with the sense of wonder and grace that she also conveys, the notion of secret worlds hidden beside and within our own, just waiting for you to turn your head and look at them from a new angle. I also love that her characters, while tangled in the same story, come to it from different places and with different motives, and I'm sure that they continue on with their own plans and desires after the story as well.
Song for the Basilisk has always struck me as a perfect, self-contained world of which we see only the tiniest fraction, and I long to push aside the veil another inch and look deeper. Please help me do that. Please tell me more about Berylon, or the hinterlands, or the quiet northern courts where Sirina went when she left Rook. Tell me about bards and power, or farming and trade, or anything to recreate the sense of wonder rooted in ordinary things grown suddenly strange.
And, of course, I am a thwarted musician (and former dilettante music theory student), so if you can work in stuff about instruments, singing, rehearsals, composing, playing in bars or at court functions, or anything else music-related, I will be happy as a clam. *grin*
---------------
Lucifer:
(This is a completed eleven-volume comics series written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Peter Gross, Dean Ormston, Ryan Kelley, and various other artists. It is based on character interpretations developed by Neil Gaiman in The Sandman, but you don't have to read that series to understand this one.)
Request: Lucifer is my favorite, but I love pretty much all the characters. What I am especially interested in reading this year is a story about families - Lucifer and his brothers; Lucifer, Michael, and Elaine; Elaine's human family, or how Cestis copes with 'her' new wife and son after the series end; Rachel and her resurrected brother (is he healed? how does she cope if he is or isn't?); Gaudium, Spera, and Lumen; Mazikeen and Lilith; Jill and Noema; Izanami and her sons; or any of the other family units in the series. Failing that, why not tell me what Gabriel was up to during the series? He seems to have vanished off the face of the universe after the incident with Lilith, and I would love an explanation of what happened to him. I like both het and slash, but I prefer gen.
I have a thing for the devil, okay? Not in the religious/ethical sense of worshipping evil, but as a character. I suppose I empathize with feeling trapped and bound and coerced, and with lashing out against that. I like Satan in Paradise Lost. I like Lucifer in Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries. I like Lucifer in Angel Sanctuary.
And I like this version of Lucifer, as envisioned by Gaiman in The Sandman and fleshed out by Mike Carey in Lucifer. He is cold and proud, solitary, self-centered, and cruel... and he doesn't compromise, he keeps his bargains, he returns faith for faith given (if cutting a bit toward the letter of the law rather than the spirit), he cares about Michael and Mazikeen as much as he's able, and he never, ever lies. He is the one who tells God, "No." And he makes it stick.
Of course, Lucifer himself is not the only reason I love the series. I love Elaine in her confusion, and the way she grows and becomes so much more (personally, not just professionally) than she ever imagined. I love Mazikeen, how Carey found a warrior queen inside the lovestruck demon Gaiman first showed us. I love Michael's tortured attempts to understand and justify the flaws in the universe, and to do right by his duty and his daughter. I love how human all the angels and demons and centaurs and old gods and playing cards and humans are. I love the wheels within wheels of the plot, and how the seeds of the end are inevitable from the beginning if you look. I love the world-building that makes hell a living, breathing society. I love the storytelling, the patterns and word choices, the little asides Carey stops and makes in the middle of his epic. I love the scale, and the horrible edge to the choices Lucifer makes and forces other people to make. I love the stupid humor Gaudium, Spera, and some other characters bring to the table. I love that an epic saga of metaphysical war is packaged as a kitchen table story about dysfunctional families, about fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers. (I really like that part.)
But mostly I come back to Lucifer, and the idea of saying no. No lies. No compromises. No false choice between serving in heaven or reigning in hell. He insists there are other options, and he goes out and makes them. I respect the hell out of that.
(One note? If you write fic for this series, please, for the love of my sanity, use a light hand with italics. Yes, the comics are heavy on italics. But what works in one medium often falls flat in another, and excess italics are getting closer and closer to being an automatic back-button issue for me these days. They make my head hurt.)
---------------
And that is that.
I'm pretty easy to please -- so long as you write a grammatically correct story that isn't simply a long sex scene, I'll be thrilled just to get a fic in one of the fandoms I asked for. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version.
---------------
General Information:
1. I will read almost anything when it comes to pairings -- het, slash, femslash, threesomes, poly, whatever, so long as you put in a bit of character development so the relationships don't seem to come out of nowhere -- but I prefer gen, and I tend to skim detailed sex scenes because the non-sex parts of the story are almost always more interesting to me. (In other words, the fade to black is your friend. *grin*)
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods (so you can write schmoopy fluff or angsty deathfic and I'll be fine either way), but my favorite endings are bittersweet and a little complicated, kind of like life.
3. When I said 'any' characters, I meant it. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more.
4. Stuff I really, really like: This can be boiled down to, 'Please treat characters as intelligent people who have understandable motives for their actions, please take the worlds seriously as settings, and please remember that there's more to life than sex. Also, ethics, metaphysics, and world-building are dead cool.'
The long version: I like character development; world-building; explanation of plot holes in canon; subtle humor; good spelling and grammar; a sense of wonder; writing that evokes an emotional reaction as well as telling a story; close relationships that don't necessarily involve sex (i.e., friendship, families, teachers and students, coworkers, traveling companions, soldiers in the same cause, etc.); the consequences of actions and choices; a sense of place and time; dialogue that conveys character as well as plot information; politics; ethics; people being intelligent even if they make bad choices; people trying to do the right thing even if they make bad choices; conflict because of opposing goals that both have points in their favor; a lack of simple solutions; female characters treated as people instead of plot devices; male characters treated as people instead of plot devices; ideas that make me stop and think; the nature of memory; the nature of truth; possession; soul-searching; non-gratuitous torture (...I have a kink, shut up); war and battles; hand-to-hand fighting; swordfights; peace and diplomacy; magic that's properly magical and strange or magic that's explained as a science (but not both at once); books and reading; people exploring a new country/world/city; linguistics and languages; early Industrial Revolution technology (or whatever technology is suitable to the milieu); people using logic to investigate a problem; and fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
5. Stuff I'm not so keen on: obvious authorial hatred for characters I like and/or find interesting (which is generally all of them); sex or romantic love with no in-story justification (unless the people in question are already a canon couple); gratuitous angst/torture/rape/whatever (i.e., bad stuff that comes out of nowhere and is not necessary to make the plot or character arc work); idiot plots (i.e., problems that could be solved in five minutes if the characters asked two or three obvious questions, but wild plot contortions prevent any such rational behavior); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
6. If there are ugly social issues inherent in these things I love, and you want to talk about them, that is fine by me. That falls under 'taking the characters and settings seriously,' and I am always pleased when a story makes me stop and think. (This is not to say that I don't love more straightfoward squeeing as well -- because I totally do! -- but if you want to go deeper, I am with you all the way.)
Okay. On to specific fandoms.
---------------
The Lions of Al-Rassan:
(This is a long standalone fantasy novel by Guy Gavriel Kay.)
Request: Anything would be great, but I'm most interested in the canon gaps. For example, what else happened during the year Ammar and Rodrigo served in Ragosa? What was the Belmontes' marriage like before they had children? When and why did Ishak learn medicine, and how did he come to Almalik's attention? I like both het and slash, but I prefer gen.
I love this book because, while you can't call it anything but fantasy, it is not particularly fantastical. It's excellently written historical fiction that just happens to be set in a made-up world. (Yes, I grant that Kay's secondary world is suspiciously similar to Spain during the Reconquista, but the fantasy aspect frees him to create his own characters and plot rather than being a slave to historical accuracy.) Kay also learned a trick from Tolkien that adds extra poignancy: the constant refrain of beauty shattered and fading in a harsh, mortal world. There's an aching sense of lost possibilities, the hope that if just one or two things had gone differently... but then you look again at the larger situation of the world, and you realize historical forces are aligned against your dreams, and nothing lasts forever. As Rodrigo says, "Even the sun goes down."
This book makes me cry every time I read it. I never cry over stories. But Kay gets inside my heart, hooks it open, and leaves me raw and aching. I love that so much, that a fictional world and fictional people can be that real and true for me. I want them all to win, but there is no way for that to happen, and that's better than any old struggle between straightforward good and evil. Because it's real.
I particularly like the friendship between Rodrigo and Ammar, the way Jehane is an independent, competent adult, and the Belmontes' marriage.
---------------
The Acts of Caine:
(This is a fantasy/science-fiction series by Matthew Woodring Stover. Currently there are three books: Heroes Die, The Blade of Tyshalle, and Caine Black Knife. The first and third are of moderate length. The second is a doorstopper.)
Request: Almost anything would be great, but I'm most interested in the vast swathes of backstory Stover only has time to hint at. Caine's early training in Overworld, Deliann's life as the Changeling Prince, the discovery of other planes and the founding of the Studio, Shanna talking the Studio into backing Simon Jester, the banning of the gods, the HRVP plague years on Earth, etcetera, etcetera. (If possible, please do not focus on Berne; he tends to bore me.) I like both het and slash, but I prefer gen.
How much do I love this series? THIS much! I stumbled across Heroes Die by accident back in 1999. I was on a trip and had run out of reading material, so I bought what looked to be an entertaining slash-em-up. And I got that... but I got so much more. Because Stover is not just content to write kick-ass action scenes. He wants to hook your mind and your heart and your social conscience as well as your adrenal glands.
What I love most about this series is the Big Questions that Stover raises and never quite answers -- because really, who ever answers them to her own satisfaction, let alone everybody's satisfaction? What I love second-most (and it is only second by half a hairsbreadth) is the world-building: two interconnected worlds, which start out looking like a typical Tolkienesque knockoff fantasy (Overworld) and a dime-a-dozen dystopian sci-fi future (Earth), but which reveal layers and complications and become raw and bloody and real. What I love third-most is the cast, bloody-minded foul-mouthed bastards though most of them are. I like or love most of the characters, and even those I dislike I find interesting (except Berne; he never really clicked for me).
So basically, show me around the worlds in interesting company and make me think. Action scenes are a wonderful bonus, but not strictly necessary. (Uh, and if you are willing to write fighting porn, weapon porn, or non-gratuitous torture porn -- by which I mean the eroticization of torture or fighting or descriptions of weapons, not actual sex involving those elements -- this is the fandom to do that in. Though perhaps not in Caine's POV, unless you are willing to be very foul-mouthed about it, and be honest about sex and violence both tending to involve a lot of disgusting fluids and stuff. But I would love you forever and ever if you wrote something like that.)
---------------
Song for the Basilisk:
(This is a short to moderate-length standalone fantasy novel by Patricia McKillip.)
Request: Just make me hear the music. *grin* If that's too vague, maybe explain how Arioso Pellior learned magic, tell what happened to Caladrius and/or Luna after the end of the book, or find Damiet a new purpose in life. Using magic, music, AND politics - all three in one story - would be a lovely bonus. I like both het and slash, but I prefer gen.
What I love most about McKillip is the quality of lucid dreaming that infuses her writing. I'm sure that's extremely difficult to imitate, so I don't mind if you don't try... but I'd love a fic with the sense of wonder and grace that she also conveys, the notion of secret worlds hidden beside and within our own, just waiting for you to turn your head and look at them from a new angle. I also love that her characters, while tangled in the same story, come to it from different places and with different motives, and I'm sure that they continue on with their own plans and desires after the story as well.
Song for the Basilisk has always struck me as a perfect, self-contained world of which we see only the tiniest fraction, and I long to push aside the veil another inch and look deeper. Please help me do that. Please tell me more about Berylon, or the hinterlands, or the quiet northern courts where Sirina went when she left Rook. Tell me about bards and power, or farming and trade, or anything to recreate the sense of wonder rooted in ordinary things grown suddenly strange.
And, of course, I am a thwarted musician (and former dilettante music theory student), so if you can work in stuff about instruments, singing, rehearsals, composing, playing in bars or at court functions, or anything else music-related, I will be happy as a clam. *grin*
---------------
Lucifer:
(This is a completed eleven-volume comics series written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Peter Gross, Dean Ormston, Ryan Kelley, and various other artists. It is based on character interpretations developed by Neil Gaiman in The Sandman, but you don't have to read that series to understand this one.)
Request: Lucifer is my favorite, but I love pretty much all the characters. What I am especially interested in reading this year is a story about families - Lucifer and his brothers; Lucifer, Michael, and Elaine; Elaine's human family, or how Cestis copes with 'her' new wife and son after the series end; Rachel and her resurrected brother (is he healed? how does she cope if he is or isn't?); Gaudium, Spera, and Lumen; Mazikeen and Lilith; Jill and Noema; Izanami and her sons; or any of the other family units in the series. Failing that, why not tell me what Gabriel was up to during the series? He seems to have vanished off the face of the universe after the incident with Lilith, and I would love an explanation of what happened to him. I like both het and slash, but I prefer gen.
I have a thing for the devil, okay? Not in the religious/ethical sense of worshipping evil, but as a character. I suppose I empathize with feeling trapped and bound and coerced, and with lashing out against that. I like Satan in Paradise Lost. I like Lucifer in Neil Gaiman's Murder Mysteries. I like Lucifer in Angel Sanctuary.
And I like this version of Lucifer, as envisioned by Gaiman in The Sandman and fleshed out by Mike Carey in Lucifer. He is cold and proud, solitary, self-centered, and cruel... and he doesn't compromise, he keeps his bargains, he returns faith for faith given (if cutting a bit toward the letter of the law rather than the spirit), he cares about Michael and Mazikeen as much as he's able, and he never, ever lies. He is the one who tells God, "No." And he makes it stick.
Of course, Lucifer himself is not the only reason I love the series. I love Elaine in her confusion, and the way she grows and becomes so much more (personally, not just professionally) than she ever imagined. I love Mazikeen, how Carey found a warrior queen inside the lovestruck demon Gaiman first showed us. I love Michael's tortured attempts to understand and justify the flaws in the universe, and to do right by his duty and his daughter. I love how human all the angels and demons and centaurs and old gods and playing cards and humans are. I love the wheels within wheels of the plot, and how the seeds of the end are inevitable from the beginning if you look. I love the world-building that makes hell a living, breathing society. I love the storytelling, the patterns and word choices, the little asides Carey stops and makes in the middle of his epic. I love the scale, and the horrible edge to the choices Lucifer makes and forces other people to make. I love the stupid humor Gaudium, Spera, and some other characters bring to the table. I love that an epic saga of metaphysical war is packaged as a kitchen table story about dysfunctional families, about fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers. (I really like that part.)
But mostly I come back to Lucifer, and the idea of saying no. No lies. No compromises. No false choice between serving in heaven or reigning in hell. He insists there are other options, and he goes out and makes them. I respect the hell out of that.
(One note? If you write fic for this series, please, for the love of my sanity, use a light hand with italics. Yes, the comics are heavy on italics. But what works in one medium often falls flat in another, and excess italics are getting closer and closer to being an automatic back-button issue for me these days. They make my head hurt.)
---------------
And that is that.
