Dear NFE Writer!
Jul. 13th, 2016 01:27 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 (...okay, bittersweet leaning toward happy) and a little complicated.
3. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more, so any world-building you can sneak in around the edges of a story or in the background details of a picture will be received with great joy. I am also totally open to OCs and/or the development of canon characters who might as well be OCs, as you may note from the structure of several prompts.
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, in Charn, 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, and you have my enthusiastic approval to use them, you also have my enthusiastic approval to ignore them and invent your own. 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. :)
---------------
The Telmarine court:
Prompt: I would like a story about the Telmarine court in the years leading up to Prince Caspian. This can be before or after Caspian's birth, and also before or after his parents' deaths. I have listed various characters and relationships present at one point or another over those decades, but please do not feel obligated to use all of them! They are mostly there to give you options and reassure you that my interest is in the setting rather than any particular time or set of players. Mostly I want to know how the Telmarine government and castle WORKED on a day-to-day basis -- for the royal family, for their servants, or for both. If you can work in some of the nobles mentioned in PC and VDT (the brothers of Beaversdam, the Passarids, the seven banished lords, Glozelle, Sopespian, etc.) that would be extra awesome though obviously not necessary.
One caveat aside, I am open to anything you come up with. Caspian IX meeting his future wife (or Miraz meeting his future wife)? Great! Caspian's mother trying desperately to protect her infant son from her brother-in-law? Tragic, but I'd love it! Caspian's nurse and/or Doctor Cornelius navigating the murky household politics of Miraz's dictatorship? Wonderful! Any of the rulers doing foreign diplomacy, insofar as Telmarine Narnia had any foreign relations? Bring it on! I am really not picky, and there's so much fascinating stuff implicit in Lewis's offhand background narrative, you know?
And now my one caveat! I decided, a while back, that Caspian's mother was named Zarabel Passarid, and her family's desire to investigate her death was one reason Miraz went after them so determinedly. I would be very grateful if you don't contradict that headcanon.
---------------
Rilian and the Lady of the Green Kirtle:
Prompt: Rilian was enchanted for about ten years. He canonically didn't spend all of them in Underworld -- we first meet him and the Lady of the Green Kirtle riding on the road from Harfang, and he himself says she takes him aboveground to accustom his eyes to sunlight, though he's not allowed to show his face or speak to anyone on those trips. He also seems to have a position of some minor authority in the Lady's city, though what exactly he uses it for is anyone's guess. I would like to see some of his day-to-day life under enchantment, and through that, some of the world he and the Lady moved in.
Obviously any response to this prompt should have a creepy undertone, because Rilian is not in his right mind (and if his relationship with the Lady is in any way sexual, that's rape), but I'm more interested in everyday practical details. In other words, where did the Lady take him on those trips? What did he DO all day underground? How did the food and clothes and supplies (and horses!) get to Underworld? What kind of diplomatic relationships does the Lady have with other people who live north of Narnia? (Secondarily, who are those people? We know about Harfang, but a castle like that can't exist in isolation; it needs a society to support it.) There's a very medieval romance feel to the Lady, her environs, and her spells, and I'd like to see them through a more realistic lens.
I am inclined to think that Rilian didn't age while enchanted (except maybe in his one hour of freedom each night), which might make for extra background creepiness if anyone notices that aspect of the spell and the Lady either handwaves it or makes him forget.
---------------
Let's talk about Charn!
Prompt: I would like a story about Charn! Literally, anything about Charn -- not limited to Jadis and her sister. There are thousands of years to explore, not to mention an entire world (which seems to be a proper planet like ours, rather than Narnia's odd pocket dimension). I am sure the city-state of Charn didn't rule that entire planet for all of that world's history. And we have that canonical room of effigies showing us the progression of Charn's own history, from a kingdom that might not have been terribly different from Narnia through to a totalitarian empire built on slavery and brutality. There's a lot to work with and I'd love to see someone pick a corner and go exploring!
I have written a fair amount about Charn. Please do not feel in any way constrained by my own headcanons. (Conversely, if you want to borrow any of them and take them for a spin, go for it!) Uh, except I do have one restriction. I have read a few fics that made Jadis's sister a genuinely good and pure person trying to save the world from her evil dirty sister, and while that makes for nice symbolism, I do not believe it for a New York minute. If you write about those sisters, I would like them both to be products of their culture.
But there's so much more to Charn than its last days! I would be really interested in knowing about the giants who are apparently the ancestors of the House of Charn -- were they native to that planet, or did they come there with Lilith? Are there other sentient species on that world as well? Or what is the mythology of Charn like? What kind of stories develop when Lilith is your holy All-Mother, your sun is the color of blood, and your solar system is apparently nearly isolated in the intergalactic void? Or who first discovered the Deplorable Word, and why was that knowledge allowed to continue existing when anyone with an ounce of logic could have predicted that great oaths not to learn or use it would eventually be broken? Or answer some question I have never thought to ask! I am sure there are many. :)
---------------------------------------------
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 (...okay, bittersweet leaning toward happy) and a little complicated.
3. I fall in love with worlds and themes as much as I fall in love with characters, if not more, so any world-building you can sneak in around the edges of a story or in the background details of a picture will be received with great joy. I am also totally open to OCs and/or the development of canon characters who might as well be OCs, as you may note from the structure of several prompts.
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, in Charn, 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, and you have my enthusiastic approval to use them, you also have my enthusiastic approval to ignore them and invent your own. 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. :)
---------------
The Telmarine court:
Prompt: I would like a story about the Telmarine court in the years leading up to Prince Caspian. This can be before or after Caspian's birth, and also before or after his parents' deaths. I have listed various characters and relationships present at one point or another over those decades, but please do not feel obligated to use all of them! They are mostly there to give you options and reassure you that my interest is in the setting rather than any particular time or set of players. Mostly I want to know how the Telmarine government and castle WORKED on a day-to-day basis -- for the royal family, for their servants, or for both. If you can work in some of the nobles mentioned in PC and VDT (the brothers of Beaversdam, the Passarids, the seven banished lords, Glozelle, Sopespian, etc.) that would be extra awesome though obviously not necessary.
One caveat aside, I am open to anything you come up with. Caspian IX meeting his future wife (or Miraz meeting his future wife)? Great! Caspian's mother trying desperately to protect her infant son from her brother-in-law? Tragic, but I'd love it! Caspian's nurse and/or Doctor Cornelius navigating the murky household politics of Miraz's dictatorship? Wonderful! Any of the rulers doing foreign diplomacy, insofar as Telmarine Narnia had any foreign relations? Bring it on! I am really not picky, and there's so much fascinating stuff implicit in Lewis's offhand background narrative, you know?
And now my one caveat! I decided, a while back, that Caspian's mother was named Zarabel Passarid, and her family's desire to investigate her death was one reason Miraz went after them so determinedly. I would be very grateful if you don't contradict that headcanon.
---------------
Rilian and the Lady of the Green Kirtle:
Prompt: Rilian was enchanted for about ten years. He canonically didn't spend all of them in Underworld -- we first meet him and the Lady of the Green Kirtle riding on the road from Harfang, and he himself says she takes him aboveground to accustom his eyes to sunlight, though he's not allowed to show his face or speak to anyone on those trips. He also seems to have a position of some minor authority in the Lady's city, though what exactly he uses it for is anyone's guess. I would like to see some of his day-to-day life under enchantment, and through that, some of the world he and the Lady moved in.
Obviously any response to this prompt should have a creepy undertone, because Rilian is not in his right mind (and if his relationship with the Lady is in any way sexual, that's rape), but I'm more interested in everyday practical details. In other words, where did the Lady take him on those trips? What did he DO all day underground? How did the food and clothes and supplies (and horses!) get to Underworld? What kind of diplomatic relationships does the Lady have with other people who live north of Narnia? (Secondarily, who are those people? We know about Harfang, but a castle like that can't exist in isolation; it needs a society to support it.) There's a very medieval romance feel to the Lady, her environs, and her spells, and I'd like to see them through a more realistic lens.
I am inclined to think that Rilian didn't age while enchanted (except maybe in his one hour of freedom each night), which might make for extra background creepiness if anyone notices that aspect of the spell and the Lady either handwaves it or makes him forget.
---------------
Let's talk about Charn!
Prompt: I would like a story about Charn! Literally, anything about Charn -- not limited to Jadis and her sister. There are thousands of years to explore, not to mention an entire world (which seems to be a proper planet like ours, rather than Narnia's odd pocket dimension). I am sure the city-state of Charn didn't rule that entire planet for all of that world's history. And we have that canonical room of effigies showing us the progression of Charn's own history, from a kingdom that might not have been terribly different from Narnia through to a totalitarian empire built on slavery and brutality. There's a lot to work with and I'd love to see someone pick a corner and go exploring!
I have written a fair amount about Charn. Please do not feel in any way constrained by my own headcanons. (Conversely, if you want to borrow any of them and take them for a spin, go for it!) Uh, except I do have one restriction. I have read a few fics that made Jadis's sister a genuinely good and pure person trying to save the world from her evil dirty sister, and while that makes for nice symbolism, I do not believe it for a New York minute. If you write about those sisters, I would like them both to be products of their culture.
But there's so much more to Charn than its last days! I would be really interested in knowing about the giants who are apparently the ancestors of the House of Charn -- were they native to that planet, or did they come there with Lilith? Are there other sentient species on that world as well? Or what is the mythology of Charn like? What kind of stories develop when Lilith is your holy All-Mother, your sun is the color of blood, and your solar system is apparently nearly isolated in the intergalactic void? Or who first discovered the Deplorable Word, and why was that knowledge allowed to continue existing when anyone with an ounce of logic could have predicted that great oaths not to learn or use it would eventually be broken? Or answer some question I have never thought to ask! I am sure there are many. :)
---------------------------------------------
And that is that.
