Dear NFE Writer
Jun. 24th, 2015 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingNote: I am repurposing my stock Yuletide letter here, which is why some of the sections may seem slightly off-topic for a single fandom exchange.
Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write context-free porn, I'll be thrilled just to get a response to one of my prompts. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)
---------------
General Information:
1. I will read 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 sex scenes because the non-sex parts of the story are almost always more interesting to me. So while you can do whatever you like with background pairings, they are not what I am most interested in.
(Please feel free to disregard this if you are writing the Lucy/Sea Girl prompt! In that particular case, I am totally okay with a sex scene, though I would definitely like some context around it to explain how they found each other again.)
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet and a little complicated.
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 (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 one or two obvious questions); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
6. If you want to know more about my general approach to Narnia, all my fanfic is available on this masterlist. Some of my meta posts are also listed there, down at the bottom of the page.
The three most important things to note are as follows:
A) The books are my canon, not any of their various adaptations to film.
B) My personal stance on the Pevensies after their initial return from Narnia is that they really did become children again, in mind as well as in body. So they are children who remember being adults, but those memories are filtered through children's brains and general perspective on the world. This is only directly relevant to the Lucy/Sea Girl prompt, but I figure that since this seems to be a minority viewpoint in the fandom and I'm asking for a tailored gift, I might as well mention it.
C) I am not Christian. However, Lewis's use of Christian mythology is central to the series, which I find creates an interesting tension for many writers that doesn't occur in stories built on mythologies that aren't in widespread current use. So while I prefer stories that stick to the general canon assertions that Aslan is a god and a Christ-analogue, that he created the Narnian world, and that he is good (but not safe), I would also prefer stories that acknowledge the existence of other gods in the Narnian world, in the world of England, and any other worlds that become relevant. I would like a recognition that good does not always equal right, ethics are complicated and often situational, and there isn't always one right answer. And I do not want to be preached at.
Thank you for your consideration!
Okay. On to specific prompts.
---------------
Aravis meets Rabadash:
Prompt: I would like a story in which Aravis meets Rabadash prior to the events of HHB. Maybe he comes to Calavar for some reason. Maybe they attend the same party at the Lake of Mezreel. Maybe we go a little AU and Aravis tries to follow her brother off to the western rebellions, where Rabadash is leading part of the army. I would just like to see them interact in Calormen at a time when Aravis has no reason to think ill of him.
The main qualification I make to this prompt is that I don't want Rabadash to be consciously cruel to Aravis. I don't mind if he's dismissive -- in fact, that's his most likely response, since I suspect he's not accustomed to or interested in dealing with young girls! And of course it is in-character for him to be cruel to people around her, which Aravis may or may not notice since this is before her character arc in HHB about learning to treat servants as people. I also request that Rabadash neither propose nor countenance an offer of marriage involving Aravis. Beyond that I leave the details up to you, though if you can work in Hwin somehow, in her disguise as an ordinary horse, that would be lovely.
Mostly I want to see Aravis and Rabadash in a situation I have yet to see explored in Narnia fanfic, and to get a bunch of world-building about Calormen around the edges. Also, please note that while I have some highly elaborated headcanons about Calormen, you are under no obligation to use them! I love any and all attempts to create a full and functional society from the hints and glimpses Lewis gives us. :-)
---------------
Lucy/Sea Girl femslash:
Prompt: I would like some Lucy/Sea Girl femslash, please! I have only two stipulations. First, I DON'T want this set in Aslan's Country. Second, I DO want them to meet again and have a happy ending. Beyond that, the details are up to you. (I have checked the Dimension Travel and Time Shenanigans tags because I think those are the only ways for them to meet outside of Aslan's Country.)
I realize that getting these two to meet outside of Aslan's Country is tricky, and I am sorry about that. However, I find TLB infuriating on multiple levels, and I want a story where the characters are alive, not one where their reunion is a consolation prize after death. I think Dimension Travel or Time Shenanigans are the best way to accomplish this, and I would love to see creative ways to make Lucy and the Sea Girl find each other again.
I definitely want a happy ending, but the emotional tone of the preceding story is up to you -- anything from angsty pining to determined adventures to fluffy schmoop is fine with me. I am likewise fine with any level of reunion. If you want to write explicit sex, that's awesome. If you want to stop at blushes and holding hands, that's awesome too, so long as it's clear that this IS a romantic relationship that will get to sex sooner or later. :-)
---------------
Archenland and the Long Winter:
Prompt: I would like a story about Archenland during the Long Winter, or during the first years after Narnia's sudden reemergence from its magical bonds. They are sister countries, after all, and Archenland's royal family has a blood-right claim to the Narnia throne. Narnia's loss and recovery must have been wrenching changes. I'd love to see the initial reaction to the Winter, people trying to break down the magical barriers (whose existence I must assume to explain the ridiculous isolation evident in LWW), Lune and his wife meeting the Pevensies, etc. Just something dealing with the Winter from an Archenlandish perspective.
You may have noticed that I have some relatively fixed headcanons about Archenland, both regarding its relationship with Calormen and its history during the Winter and the Golden Age. If you want to use those ideas, you have my permission. On the other hand, please do not feel obligated to fit your story into my world! As I said above, one of the things I love about fanfiction is getting to see how other people take the same pieces of canon and elaborate them in ways that would never occur to me.
Basically what I'm saying is that I will love your story whether it fits into my own personal fanon or not.
---------------
The Telmarine invasion:
Prompt: What led to the Telmarine invasion and conquest of Narnia? Aslan says it was a famine, but famine alone is unlikely to lead to the entirety of a settled people migrating to a new country; some must have stayed in Telmar. Was the migration a regional thing, or did families split down the middle? Was Caspian I royalty before the invasion or did he only rise to prominence in Narnia? How quickly (and why) did the Narnian Telmarines lose contact with their home country? What exactly was the disorder that made Narnia vulnerable to invasion? That entire episode is crying out for exploration and I would like to see your take on it!
In contrast to Archenland, I have hardly any headcanon about Telmar... but in this case I would like you to work within what little I do have. I think Telmar is a country in the same mountain range that Archenland is part of, but much further west. It doesn't directly border Archenland -- there is at least one other mountain kingdom between them. It doesn't border Narnia either. Instead, it lies south of the Western Wild, which is a land populated only by Beasts, Beings, and the remnants of Jadis's armies. I also accept Lewis's assertion that the Telmarines didn't conquer Narnia until nearly a thousand years after the Pevensies left.
Those are my touchpoints. Beyond that, everything is up to you!
---------------
Polly and Digory
Prompt: I would like a story set within the first few years after The Magician's Nephew, while Digory and Polly are still children. What did Polly think of Digory's mother once she began to recover and take an interest in her son's new friend? (Relatedly, how did she get along with Aunt Letty?) What methods did Polly and Digory use to maintain a long-distance friendship? How did Polly's parents react to the Kirkes inviting her to spend weeks or months away from home (particularly if she already went to a boarding school)? What strange and magical things did they find in the Kirkes' newly-inherited country house? How did Digory feel about having his father around all the time instead of away in India? What became of Uncle Andrew's other magical research materials (and were any of them truly magical and/or dangerous)? Those are just a few potential story starters, though -- feel free to take this in any direction that catches your imagination!
I think this is fairly self-explanatory. Anyway, I've mostly seen (and written) stories about Polly and Digory as adults, which is fair as they're the only Friends of Narnia who get adult lives in England, but I'm curious about the things Lewis covers so glancingly in the last few pages of MN, and also how they went about maintaining a deep platonic friendship in a time, place, and social class where that probably got very awkward within a couple years of their grand adventure.
---------------------------------------------
And that is that.
Hi, and thank you in advance for writing a story for me! I'm pretty easy to please -- unless you write context-free porn, I'll be thrilled just to get a response to one of my prompts. *grin* But I realize that's not terribly helpful, so here's the (very!) long version. (I am sorry for the tl;dr, but I like to talk about things I love and I figure more details are better than fewer.)
---------------
General Information:
1. I will read 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 sex scenes because the non-sex parts of the story are almost always more interesting to me. So while you can do whatever you like with background pairings, they are not what I am most interested in.
(Please feel free to disregard this if you are writing the Lucy/Sea Girl prompt! In that particular case, I am totally okay with a sex scene, though I would definitely like some context around it to explain how they found each other again.)
2. I read all kinds of genres and moods, from schmoopy fluff to angsty deathfic, but my favorite endings are bittersweet and a little complicated.
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 (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 one or two obvious questions); and predestination, prophecies, and anything else that denies free will.
6. If you want to know more about my general approach to Narnia, all my fanfic is available on this masterlist. Some of my meta posts are also listed there, down at the bottom of the page.
The three most important things to note are as follows:
A) The books are my canon, not any of their various adaptations to film.
B) My personal stance on the Pevensies after their initial return from Narnia is that they really did become children again, in mind as well as in body. So they are children who remember being adults, but those memories are filtered through children's brains and general perspective on the world. This is only directly relevant to the Lucy/Sea Girl prompt, but I figure that since this seems to be a minority viewpoint in the fandom and I'm asking for a tailored gift, I might as well mention it.
C) I am not Christian. However, Lewis's use of Christian mythology is central to the series, which I find creates an interesting tension for many writers that doesn't occur in stories built on mythologies that aren't in widespread current use. So while I prefer stories that stick to the general canon assertions that Aslan is a god and a Christ-analogue, that he created the Narnian world, and that he is good (but not safe), I would also prefer stories that acknowledge the existence of other gods in the Narnian world, in the world of England, and any other worlds that become relevant. I would like a recognition that good does not always equal right, ethics are complicated and often situational, and there isn't always one right answer. And I do not want to be preached at.
Thank you for your consideration!
Okay. On to specific prompts.
---------------
Aravis meets Rabadash:
Prompt: I would like a story in which Aravis meets Rabadash prior to the events of HHB. Maybe he comes to Calavar for some reason. Maybe they attend the same party at the Lake of Mezreel. Maybe we go a little AU and Aravis tries to follow her brother off to the western rebellions, where Rabadash is leading part of the army. I would just like to see them interact in Calormen at a time when Aravis has no reason to think ill of him.
The main qualification I make to this prompt is that I don't want Rabadash to be consciously cruel to Aravis. I don't mind if he's dismissive -- in fact, that's his most likely response, since I suspect he's not accustomed to or interested in dealing with young girls! And of course it is in-character for him to be cruel to people around her, which Aravis may or may not notice since this is before her character arc in HHB about learning to treat servants as people. I also request that Rabadash neither propose nor countenance an offer of marriage involving Aravis. Beyond that I leave the details up to you, though if you can work in Hwin somehow, in her disguise as an ordinary horse, that would be lovely.
Mostly I want to see Aravis and Rabadash in a situation I have yet to see explored in Narnia fanfic, and to get a bunch of world-building about Calormen around the edges. Also, please note that while I have some highly elaborated headcanons about Calormen, you are under no obligation to use them! I love any and all attempts to create a full and functional society from the hints and glimpses Lewis gives us. :-)
---------------
Lucy/Sea Girl femslash:
Prompt: I would like some Lucy/Sea Girl femslash, please! I have only two stipulations. First, I DON'T want this set in Aslan's Country. Second, I DO want them to meet again and have a happy ending. Beyond that, the details are up to you. (I have checked the Dimension Travel and Time Shenanigans tags because I think those are the only ways for them to meet outside of Aslan's Country.)
I realize that getting these two to meet outside of Aslan's Country is tricky, and I am sorry about that. However, I find TLB infuriating on multiple levels, and I want a story where the characters are alive, not one where their reunion is a consolation prize after death. I think Dimension Travel or Time Shenanigans are the best way to accomplish this, and I would love to see creative ways to make Lucy and the Sea Girl find each other again.
I definitely want a happy ending, but the emotional tone of the preceding story is up to you -- anything from angsty pining to determined adventures to fluffy schmoop is fine with me. I am likewise fine with any level of reunion. If you want to write explicit sex, that's awesome. If you want to stop at blushes and holding hands, that's awesome too, so long as it's clear that this IS a romantic relationship that will get to sex sooner or later. :-)
---------------
Archenland and the Long Winter:
Prompt: I would like a story about Archenland during the Long Winter, or during the first years after Narnia's sudden reemergence from its magical bonds. They are sister countries, after all, and Archenland's royal family has a blood-right claim to the Narnia throne. Narnia's loss and recovery must have been wrenching changes. I'd love to see the initial reaction to the Winter, people trying to break down the magical barriers (whose existence I must assume to explain the ridiculous isolation evident in LWW), Lune and his wife meeting the Pevensies, etc. Just something dealing with the Winter from an Archenlandish perspective.
You may have noticed that I have some relatively fixed headcanons about Archenland, both regarding its relationship with Calormen and its history during the Winter and the Golden Age. If you want to use those ideas, you have my permission. On the other hand, please do not feel obligated to fit your story into my world! As I said above, one of the things I love about fanfiction is getting to see how other people take the same pieces of canon and elaborate them in ways that would never occur to me.
Basically what I'm saying is that I will love your story whether it fits into my own personal fanon or not.
---------------
The Telmarine invasion:
Prompt: What led to the Telmarine invasion and conquest of Narnia? Aslan says it was a famine, but famine alone is unlikely to lead to the entirety of a settled people migrating to a new country; some must have stayed in Telmar. Was the migration a regional thing, or did families split down the middle? Was Caspian I royalty before the invasion or did he only rise to prominence in Narnia? How quickly (and why) did the Narnian Telmarines lose contact with their home country? What exactly was the disorder that made Narnia vulnerable to invasion? That entire episode is crying out for exploration and I would like to see your take on it!
In contrast to Archenland, I have hardly any headcanon about Telmar... but in this case I would like you to work within what little I do have. I think Telmar is a country in the same mountain range that Archenland is part of, but much further west. It doesn't directly border Archenland -- there is at least one other mountain kingdom between them. It doesn't border Narnia either. Instead, it lies south of the Western Wild, which is a land populated only by Beasts, Beings, and the remnants of Jadis's armies. I also accept Lewis's assertion that the Telmarines didn't conquer Narnia until nearly a thousand years after the Pevensies left.
Those are my touchpoints. Beyond that, everything is up to you!
---------------
Polly and Digory
Prompt: I would like a story set within the first few years after The Magician's Nephew, while Digory and Polly are still children. What did Polly think of Digory's mother once she began to recover and take an interest in her son's new friend? (Relatedly, how did she get along with Aunt Letty?) What methods did Polly and Digory use to maintain a long-distance friendship? How did Polly's parents react to the Kirkes inviting her to spend weeks or months away from home (particularly if she already went to a boarding school)? What strange and magical things did they find in the Kirkes' newly-inherited country house? How did Digory feel about having his father around all the time instead of away in India? What became of Uncle Andrew's other magical research materials (and were any of them truly magical and/or dangerous)? Those are just a few potential story starters, though -- feel free to take this in any direction that catches your imagination!
I think this is fairly self-explanatory. Anyway, I've mostly seen (and written) stories about Polly and Digory as adults, which is fair as they're the only Friends of Narnia who get adult lives in England, but I'm curious about the things Lewis covers so glancingly in the last few pages of MN, and also how they went about maintaining a deep platonic friendship in a time, place, and social class where that probably got very awkward within a couple years of their grand adventure.
---------------------------------------------
And that is that.
