Yuletide Letter 2022
Oct. 16th, 2022 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
natsinatorHello Yuletide writer! Thank you in advance <33 I'm ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
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Note: for any fandoms i requested 'any' characters for, you really truly are welcome to write about any characters you want. I left a list of my faves in case you want to go off that, but it is 100% not required.
This year, I'm requesting
TBCH I'm a very easy person to please even if you have no desire to write something that tends darker. I just really like anything that is willing to like... embrace complexity, in whatever form that takes.
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
What is it?
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is a space opera anime from the 80s/90s based on novels of the same name, consisting of 110 episodes + two movies + a spinoff prequel series. It takes place in the far future, and is mostly about the war between two galactic-scale countries (representing democracy and autocracy). It's a complicated military and political show, with a huge cast of characters, and is possibly the best anime ever made. It also has a modern updated anime, Die Neue These, which is still ongoing.
If I'm curious, where should I get started with this canon?
Where can I experience it?
Legally, the OVA and movies are on Hidive, Die Neue These is on Crunchyroll, the novels all have English translations available on Amazon.
General Notes
Although I am requesting the 1988 anime, feel free to write about DNT/michihara manga/novels/Golden Wings if you prefer! I love either shipfic or genfic for this canon, and I'll probably be happy with any character you decide to write about, even/especially if you want to write about someone super minor.
Fave characters
Fandom specific DNW
Tallahassee - the Mountain Goats
What is it?
Tallahassee is a 2002 concept album by the Mountain Goats about the dissolution of a marriage between an incredibly dysfunctional couple. It's based on an earlier series of songs that all have the word 'alpha' in the title. It fucks severely.
Where can I experience it?
General Notes
Although the fandom listed is only the Tallahassee album, I'm fine with either incorporating the rest of the Alpha Couple songs or ignoring them lol.
Fandom specific likes
Fandom specific DNW
Emelan - Tamora Pierce
What is it?
Emelan is a series of YA fantasy novels, mainly about four young adults who have ambient magic-- magic that connects them deeply to some aspect of the natural world. At the beginning of the series, the four teens accidentally bind their magic together such that they become mentally part of each other (can use each other's magic/hear their thoughts/feel what they are feeling). The series follows them as they learn to use their magic and grow into adults. There are four main books (Circle of Magic series) that focus on each one of the quartet in their younger years, four books where each character goes off on their own (The Circle Opens), one more mature standalone book about the characters reuniting (The Will of the Empress), and a couple spinoff books (Melting Stones and Battle Magic).
If I'm curious, where should I start?
Circle of Magic book 1: Sandry's Book! Or, possibly, if you don't mind being slightly confused and want a more mature take on the series, skip directly to The Will of the Empress
Where can I experience it?
Wherever books are found tbh.
Fave characters
Fandom specific likes
What is it?
Young Wizards is a series of YA fantasy novels. The plot revolves around Nita and Kit, two teens who are granted wizardry, which they pledge to use to fight the forces of entropy in the universe. The series is "SF flavored fantasy" and incorporates religious elements and imagery.
Where do I go if I'm curious?
Start with the first book, So You Want to Be a Wizard. I recommend the New Millennium editions sold on the author's website, as they update the timeline to "modern-ish" rather than confusedly jumping between the 80s and mid 2000s as the characters get older more slowly than the books were originally published lol.
Fave characters
Fandom specific DNW:
What is it?
Gattaca is a SF movie set in the near-future where most people were genetically screened before birth to remove any possible health problems, and essentially create a race of perfect humans. Those whose parents did not do this for them are an underclass in society and are denied employment on the basis of this "disability". The movie follows one man in this class who is desperate to become an astronaut, so he buys the identity of one of the "perfect" men who has become disabled in a car crash, and goes through elaborate hoops to fake living his life. This movie is like. so perfect for my brain. It does so much and throws away its political point completely in the last 5 minutes, and even though it's #problematic... honestly i love it for that lol.
Fandom specific likes
Fandom specific DNW
What is it?
The Young Pope is an HBO miniseries that dares to ask the question: what if the pope... was hot? Anyway it's basically the best TV show ever made. No, but really. The plot follows Lenny, an American bishop in his 50s, who is elected pope possibly due to political schemes in the Vatican and possibly due to the actual will of God. It very quickly becomes clear to everyone that Lenny is an extremely broken man, and he is about to make that everybody else's problem.
Where should I start?
Just watch it. Pretty sure it's on HBO legally but you can probably find it anywhere without trouble. The sequel (The New Pope) is imo bad though so don't bother.
Fave characters:
Note: for any fandoms i requested 'any' characters for, you really truly are welcome to write about any characters you want. I left a list of my faves in case you want to go off that, but it is 100% not required.
This year, I'm requesting
- Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
- Tallahassee - the Mountain Goats (Album)
- Emelan - Tamora Pierce
- Young Wizards - Diane Duane
- Gattaca (1997)
- The Young Pope (TV)
- worldbuilding heavy fic
- fic with unusual format (ie in-universe documents, anything that takes an adversarial relationship to the og text, interactive fiction, tbh literally anything that you wonder 'this is a strange choice... will anyone like it?' the answer is yes i will love it)
- angst
- anything that "takes the problems seriously" (in terms of interpersonal problems, plot conflict, or problems inherent to the setting)
- people who make each other worse
- never escaping the labyrinth (metaphorically)
- canon typical violence
- canon typical sexism/homophobia/etc
- messy and complicated relationships between people (both platonic/familial/romantic/dutiful/etc)
- #gender
- self-destruction
- literary/historical references and allusions
- layers of meaning
- crackfic/comedy
- parent/child incest
- pwp (porn in larger plot is fine)
- whump without plot (fine in larger plot)
- everybody lives/nobody dies AUs/fix-it AUs in general
- basically anything that goes out of its way to handwave away conflict
- sweet/untroublesome heterosexual domesticity
- gender/sex swap AU
- afterlife fic
TBCH I'm a very easy person to please even if you have no desire to write something that tends darker. I just really like anything that is willing to like... embrace complexity, in whatever form that takes.
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
What is it?
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is a space opera anime from the 80s/90s based on novels of the same name, consisting of 110 episodes + two movies + a spinoff prequel series. It takes place in the far future, and is mostly about the war between two galactic-scale countries (representing democracy and autocracy). It's a complicated military and political show, with a huge cast of characters, and is possibly the best anime ever made. It also has a modern updated anime, Die Neue These, which is still ongoing.
If I'm curious, where should I get started with this canon?
- If your favorite thing in stories is character drama, start with the movie Overture to a New War
- If you just want to watch a pretty 90 minute anime movie, start with My Conquest is the Sea of Stars
- If you like military sf and/or Takes about history, start with episode 1 of the OVA
- If you like modern anime, start with episode 1 of Die Neue These
- If your main way of engaging with any series is through gay fanfiction, start with A Wheel Inside a Wheel
Where can I experience it?
Legally, the OVA and movies are on Hidive, Die Neue These is on Crunchyroll, the novels all have English translations available on Amazon.
General Notes
Although I am requesting the 1988 anime, feel free to write about DNT/michihara manga/novels/Golden Wings if you prefer! I love either shipfic or genfic for this canon, and I'll probably be happy with any character you decide to write about, even/especially if you want to write about someone super minor.
Fave characters
- Yang
- Reuenthal
- Annerose
- Hilda
- Reuenthal/Mittermeyer
- Reuenthal/Elfriede
- Yang/Schenkopp (unrequited)
- Yang/Dusty
- Annerose/Magdalena (but they have to be kinda messy about it)
- Elfriede/Dominique
- Reinhard/Hilda (but in a 'they're both gay and this was a mistake that they now have to live with' way)
- Yang/Jessica Edwards/Jean Robert Lapp (in the messiest way possible)
- actually it might just be helpful to direct you to my silly little (gigantic) ship chart
- taking a relatively minor aspect of canon and narrowing in on it
- the running theme of "what do children inherit from their fathers"
- democracy vs autocracy as a lens to explore how relationships of power between people destroy them
- wacky power dynamics in general
- exploration of the violence/sexism/homophobia/classism/etc inherent to the canon
- using the SF aspects as more than just set dressing
- using the historical aspects as more than just set dressing
- fic about empire/alliance/phezzan/earth church society
- fic about (ultra)minor characters
- wacky rarepairs that explore something interesting thematically
- genfic or shipfic
Fandom specific DNW
- AUs that remove conflict (ie DNW coffee shop AU, but a 1800s naval AU is cool)
- primary ship in the fic being reinhard/kircheis (background is fine)
- yang/reinhard
- yang/julian
- post-canon fic centered on Alexander and Felix's relationship with each other (Alex and/or Felix fic about their relationship to other characters is fine)
Tallahassee - the Mountain Goats
What is it?
Tallahassee is a 2002 concept album by the Mountain Goats about the dissolution of a marriage between an incredibly dysfunctional couple. It's based on an earlier series of songs that all have the word 'alpha' in the title. It fucks severely.
Where can I experience it?
- a link to just the Tallahassee album on youtube
- a link to a youtube playlist of all the alpha couple songs
- a link to a mountain goats resource page
General Notes
Although the fandom listed is only the Tallahassee album, I'm fine with either incorporating the rest of the Alpha Couple songs or ignoring them lol.
Fandom specific likes
- really atmospheric settings
- mundane moments elevated to horror though sensory detail
- problems that could be solved if the people who had them were different people (but, crucially, they are not)
- coping with fear/hatred/anger/any negative emotion by eroticising it (specifically for this fandom i waive my DNW of PWP)
- utterly rancid heterosexuality
- doing things that are bad for you just because they make you feel something
- the flip-switch between love and hatred and between elation and despair
- two people who hate each other equally but want to be the one who hates the other more
- escalation
- homes as sites of horror
- burning everything down (but maybe not getting any catharsis out of it)
Fandom specific DNW
- please do not make any attempt to permanently and genuinely solve these characters' problems unless their solution is something along the lines of "let's do a murder-suicide" lmao
- setting/time change AUs unless like there's something really compelling about it
- post-canon fic
- not a hard DNW but i think it's really fun how the alpha couple are not named and it would be nice if they could remain nameless
- anything that looks like "formal" bdsm where it's clear the characters are in some way doing a scene/sat down and talked about it before hand
Emelan - Tamora Pierce
What is it?
Emelan is a series of YA fantasy novels, mainly about four young adults who have ambient magic-- magic that connects them deeply to some aspect of the natural world. At the beginning of the series, the four teens accidentally bind their magic together such that they become mentally part of each other (can use each other's magic/hear their thoughts/feel what they are feeling). The series follows them as they learn to use their magic and grow into adults. There are four main books (Circle of Magic series) that focus on each one of the quartet in their younger years, four books where each character goes off on their own (The Circle Opens), one more mature standalone book about the characters reuniting (The Will of the Empress), and a couple spinoff books (Melting Stones and Battle Magic).
If I'm curious, where should I start?
Circle of Magic book 1: Sandry's Book! Or, possibly, if you don't mind being slightly confused and want a more mature take on the series, skip directly to The Will of the Empress
Where can I experience it?
Wherever books are found tbh.
Fave characters
- Daja
- Tris
- Daja/Tris/Sandry/Briar ot4
- Daja/OFC
- Tris/Briar
Fandom specific likes
- post Will of the Empress fic (it doesn't have to be set then, i just particularly like it)
- a more mature take on canon (not necessarily like "adult" just "what if this series was not written for the 12-16 age group, what themes and ideas would end up highlighted")
- what does it really mean to truly share part of your mind with other people
- political conflict
- the tension between academic and ambient magic
- religion
- confronting the issue of class
- winding circle as an idyll (and what that means when you can't go home, or when the idyll is disrupted, or when it's revealed there are problems that were not immediately obvious)
- the way that all these characters conceptualize themselves through their magic and how that influences their perception of their place in the world
- overwhelming displays of power contrasted with tiny moments of intimacy
- the cool scientific/technical/discipline specific details that make ambient magic "run"
- being a channel for the power of the natural world and being overwhelmed by it
- students outgrowing their teachers
- shipfic or genfic is fine
- i waive my DNW of PWP if and only if you want to write ot4 PWP lol
- AUs that remove conflict or the general way the characters exist inside each other's heads (ie DNW coffee shop AU, but a space opera AU is cool)
- teacher/student ships
- canon character/OMC
- magical or supernatural elements that are wildly different from what is presented in canon
What is it?
Young Wizards is a series of YA fantasy novels. The plot revolves around Nita and Kit, two teens who are granted wizardry, which they pledge to use to fight the forces of entropy in the universe. The series is "SF flavored fantasy" and incorporates religious elements and imagery.
Where do I go if I'm curious?
Start with the first book, So You Want to Be a Wizard. I recommend the New Millennium editions sold on the author's website, as they update the timeline to "modern-ish" rather than confusedly jumping between the 80s and mid 2000s as the characters get older more slowly than the books were originally published lol.
Fave characters
- Dairine
- Nita,
- The Lone Power
- Ronan
- Kit
- Nita/Kit/Ronan
- Nita/The Lone Power
- Nita/Kit
- Dairine as half human and half machine (real autism hours...)
- the fear of getting older
- being a vessel for something much much larger than yourself
- the cost of breaking an oath vs the cost of keeping it
- the difference between obligation and morality
- picking at the messy edges of the fact that this series is CS Lewis style catholic apologetics
- having the capacity to love in a fundamentally broken world vs if the world were not fundamentally broken love would not be necessary
- genuine self-sacrifice
- self-sacrifice because it's easier than the alternative (and that makes it the worse choice)
- living with the consequences
- refusing to make a choice
- making the wrong choice
- making a good choice and regretting it
- making a bad choice and refusing to regret it
- mobile society
- I waive my afterlife fic DNW for this fandom only if you plan to do something really interesting with it
Fandom specific DNW:
- mundane (never had magic) AUs ("lost magic somehow" AU is fine)
- magical or supernatural elements that are wildly different from what is presented in canon
- teenager style relationship drama
- issuefic
What is it?
Gattaca is a SF movie set in the near-future where most people were genetically screened before birth to remove any possible health problems, and essentially create a race of perfect humans. Those whose parents did not do this for them are an underclass in society and are denied employment on the basis of this "disability". The movie follows one man in this class who is desperate to become an astronaut, so he buys the identity of one of the "perfect" men who has become disabled in a car crash, and goes through elaborate hoops to fake living his life. This movie is like. so perfect for my brain. It does so much and throws away its political point completely in the last 5 minutes, and even though it's #problematic... honestly i love it for that lol.
Fandom specific likes
- love jerome/vincent and all its messy complexity
- false identities and what it means to live as someone other than yourself
- deep dive into the way the society actually functions
- giving and receiving as acts of love and/or obligation (and how those change over time)
- living vicariously through another person and the combination of jealousy and love that brings
- the body as a tool
- the body as a shell
- the body as a prison
- the body as the hole of a needle through which all experience must pass
- fire and water symbolism
- giving of yourself as self-harm
- you are what you pretend to be (so be careful what you pretend to be)
- swimming
- suicide
- all the wacky architecture in this movie and just the aesthetic in general
- It's fine if you only include one of the requested characters 👍
Fandom specific DNW
- setting change AUs that do not replace the fundamental premise of the setting with something equally interesting
- changing the ending to save the characters
What is it?
The Young Pope is an HBO miniseries that dares to ask the question: what if the pope... was hot? Anyway it's basically the best TV show ever made. No, but really. The plot follows Lenny, an American bishop in his 50s, who is elected pope possibly due to political schemes in the Vatican and possibly due to the actual will of God. It very quickly becomes clear to everyone that Lenny is an extremely broken man, and he is about to make that everybody else's problem.
Where should I start?
Just watch it. Pretty sure it's on HBO legally but you can probably find it anywhere without trouble. The sequel (The New Pope) is imo bad though so don't bother.
Fave characters:
- Lenny
- Voiello
- Sister Mary
- Bernardo
- Lenny/Bernardo (either unrequited or not)
- Lenny/Dussolier (unrequited)
- feeling free to ignore pretty much everything that happens in the new pope (unless you want to try to fix that mess lmfao)
- character studies
- being horny for god
- true belief and lack of belief
- really grappling with the politics
- adults who feel trapped by their childhoods
- the hazy non-reality of canon
- aesthetics
- AUs that remove conflict (ie DNW coffee shop AU, but a space opera AU is cool)
- teacher/student ships
- magical or supernatural elements that are wildly different from what is presented in canon
- lenny meeting his parents for real
