Yuletide letter 2022 (complete!)
Oct. 22nd, 2022 03:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ageorwizardryHello, Yuletide Writer!
One of the greatest pleasures of Yuletide for me has been getting wonderful surprises I couldn't even have thought of to ask for in the first place, so if you get a different idea from the specific suggestions in any of my requests, please go for it, and I'll be so interested to see what you come up with!
I have no squicks or triggers you need to avoid, and you can find a lot of my other likes and dislikes in previous years' letters if you want more than what I've said in each of my requests below.
Happy Yuletide!
Butter (Anthropomorphic)
Eastern U.S. Butter Stick
Western U.S. Butter Stick
(my Butter fandom promo post)
Request: So of course I nominated this because, as in classic slash fanfic tradition, the Eastern U.S. butter stick is longer and thinner, while the Western U.S. butter stick is shorter and thicker...
Are the butter sticks going to be truly anthropomorphic, i.e. human-shaped? Are they still actually going to be butter sticks? How do two butter sticks have sex anyway?
Feel free to get as meta with this as you like! Or as weird, or as silly :-D The AnthropomorFic authors of yuletide have produced some brilliant stuff, and I'm excited to see what people might come up with; it'll be fun!
Treats are welcome.
Do you maybe want to name the butter sticks variations on Elgin and Stubby/Stubbs based on the regional nicknames I just learned about from the video linked below?
Someone in the yuletide discord posted this link to a great video explaining why butter sticks are shaped differently in different regions of the U.S.! (Thank you, yuletide discord!)
A commenter to my promo post had some interesting ideas as well!
A couple other meta things I had on my mind while contemplating this fandom are:
A post I tragically cannot find again in the form of a medieval-esque instructional dialogue between a teacher and student on the topic of, when two people with penises are having sex it is somehow, invariably, a natural law that one of the penises will be longer and thinner and the other will be shorter and thicker.
The legendary Dancing Penises skit/cosplay that involved people costumed as Kirk's and Spock's penises, and "Kirk of course was a little shorter and thicker, Spock was taller and thinner—" because even decades ago this was already an established tradition in slash fanfiction!
(Someone in the yuletide discord said the phrase "long butter" made them think of "long pig" and thus "human...butter?" and I'm just saying, I did not have cannibalism in mind when I nominated this (..what even would constitute cannibalism among butter sticks, one wonders?) but hey, I liked Hannibal, so if anyone does have some wild cannibalism-inflected ideas for this, go for it, I'm up for it!)
The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Attolia | Irene
Eugenides (Queen's Thief)
Relius (Queen's Thief)
Request: Write me the relationships between these three characters: all the twisty complexity and the sincere love.
I have a longing for Gen/Irene/Relius threesome fic—I have a thesis that there is AT LEAST as much justification for Gen/Irene/Relius as there is for the more abundant Gen/Irene/Costis (which I definitely also see and understand!)—but if you are not so inclined, there is certainly plenty of complexity at work in these relationships with or without there being a threesome. (And of course, Relius has Teleus and his "many, many" other lovers too, for whatever part you may want them to play in the story!)
I'd love a closer look at any part of the path from Gen bringing Irene to visit Relius in the infirmary after his arrest, torture, and pardon, to Relius as an "unassailable" royal favorite of them both in the final book.
How are they all kind to each other? For instance, in canon, we've seen Attolia comforting Gen after a nightmare about her cutting off his hand—do Gen and Relius ever have a similarly fraught moment over their mutual (and arguably mutually inflicted) hand trauma, and what would that look like? (Is there hand kissing??)
Treats are welcome.
There's a certain distance in MWT's writing between the reader and the characters; there are things that are all the more compelling for having not been made perfectly clear, so I return to them again and again like a riddle. I don't think I've ever really understood Gen and Irene's relationship, for instance, though I find it fascinating and am 100% on board with it.
The centerpiece of my longing for Gen/Irene/Relius is this passage:
I wish to point out that this DOES NOT specify WHERE Gen kisses Relius (which reliably makes me go a bit feral). On the cheek would make sense, in parallel with his kiss to Irene. On the forehead would make sense, since Gen brushes his hair aside first. But we do not actually KNOW, and it could be almost anything! (Also not specified: precisely what Relius is longing for. Closeness with the queen would be the safe bet, but Gen's response doesn't make much sense in relation to that unless it's a joke, and it's not a joke.)
I intend to read Moira's Pen when it comes out, so if you also read it and see anything there you want to incorporate into your story, that will be fine!
The Bus - Paul Kirchner (Comics)
Worldbuilding (The Bus - Paul Kirchner)
(my fandom promo post for The Bus!)
Request: Explore this surreal world! "Worldbuilding" does not have to mean a grand scale—if you do have a grand theory unifying all the different strips that would be *fascinating*!—but you could equally well just expand upon a single strip among them all (or of course, somewhere in the middle, any selection of a subset that intrigues you!).
You are welcome to include/focus on the central character of the commuter, or any other character who appears in any of the strips (one of the Hieronymus-Bosch-esque creatures? the magical/indestructible old ladies who do things like fold the commuter up in her shopping bag so she can take the seat he's in, or leave the bus crashed behind her when it runs into her? any of the other human or non-human passengers, like the billboard figure who departs from her billboard on the bus?), or, of course, entirely original characters (or no characters at all?).
Or take any situation in or suggested by any strip and explore it further! What about those impossible landscapes seen through the bus windows? What does a destination of ELSEWHERE or ONWARD mean? (Is it possible this is a bus system through Fairyland?)
Or instead of basing your story on specifics from the strips, you could just use them as a jumping-off point into new territory. (What would other transit systems in this world look like, for instance?)
Whatever ideas you have, I'll be interested to see them!
Treats are welcome.
The second volume adds a meta layer, in case you'd find that fun to play with: "In 2012, interest in 'The Bus' suddenly revived. A new generation of fans demanded new strips. The old studio was reopened and plans were made to reassemble the original team. Sadly, Harvey P. Farquhar, the actor who played the commuter, was now 80 and unable to handle the demands of the role. Fortunately, his son, Harvey P. Farquhar Jr., an aspiring actor currently between roles, bore a close enough resemblance to his father to make an ideal replacement."
If you are interested in focusing on the character of the commuter, the author has some thoughts about him in the Postscript of the first volume that may spark interest: "As for the commuter, the dull-looking businessman, we learn very little about him. Who is he? How does he feel about the constant surprises sprung on him? Does he actually have an office to go to in the morning and a home to return to at night, or does he just live for the trips?"
La Fille du Diable | Devil's Daughter (1946)
Isabelle (La fille du diable | Devil's Daughter)
(my Devil's Daughter fandom promo post, including where you can buy the DVD!)
Request: I'm not sure how to give Isabelle happiness, but I'd love to see her unleashed!
It would be lovely to see her escaping her tiny town, becoming more powerful as a criminal mastermind, perhaps replacing/becoming Saget (Dread Pirate Roberts-style) or even working with him as her "inside man" in respectable society? It would also be interesting to see some exploration of her softer side (without losing her sharper edges)—the strong bond she has with Jacques (whether romantic or not), the kindness and even tenderness she shows the Tadpole and Jacques.
Treats are welcome.
I also requested this in two previous exchange letters.
Isabelle saves newspaper clippings about Saget and passionately expresses what he means to her: he's strong! he's brave! "For ten years all the police in Europe have been after him, he doesn't care! Nothing can stop him, nothing can touch him! He can't be caught!" It reminds me a lot of fandom and the ways people can engage with stories—how she sees what she needs in the story of him, whether or not it's really there in the man himself. She's devastated to learn that Saget has assumed an ordinary identity in her town, the nephew of a woman who sells fishing rods, and he has no intention of escaping back into his life of spectacular crime. He was probably the one thing she ever allowed herself to love that she thought was safely remote from ever being destroyed by the town she lived in—and then it destroyed him (or what she valued in him) too.
If you want to include Saget himself at all—I was thinking when re-watching the film that he seems to really enjoy some of the benefits and privileges that come with being seen as a respectable citizen (I can just tell the police what's so and they don't argue with me!), and perhaps he and Isabelle could somehow work together as she ascends in the crime world and he can function as an "inside man" in polite society (I think he'd also enjoy the chance to get back at the doctor who forced him into the position of Respected Eminent Citizen, whether the doctor knows of his resumed criminal activities or not).
One of the greatest pleasures of Yuletide for me has been getting wonderful surprises I couldn't even have thought of to ask for in the first place, so if you get a different idea from the specific suggestions in any of my requests, please go for it, and I'll be so interested to see what you come up with!
I have no squicks or triggers you need to avoid, and you can find a lot of my other likes and dislikes in previous years' letters if you want more than what I've said in each of my requests below.
Happy Yuletide!
Butter (Anthropomorphic)
Eastern U.S. Butter Stick
Western U.S. Butter Stick
(my Butter fandom promo post)
Request: So of course I nominated this because, as in classic slash fanfic tradition, the Eastern U.S. butter stick is longer and thinner, while the Western U.S. butter stick is shorter and thicker...
Are the butter sticks going to be truly anthropomorphic, i.e. human-shaped? Are they still actually going to be butter sticks? How do two butter sticks have sex anyway?
Feel free to get as meta with this as you like! Or as weird, or as silly :-D The AnthropomorFic authors of yuletide have produced some brilliant stuff, and I'm excited to see what people might come up with; it'll be fun!
Treats are welcome.
Do you maybe want to name the butter sticks variations on Elgin and Stubby/Stubbs based on the regional nicknames I just learned about from the video linked below?
Someone in the yuletide discord posted this link to a great video explaining why butter sticks are shaped differently in different regions of the U.S.! (Thank you, yuletide discord!)
A commenter to my promo post had some interesting ideas as well!
A couple other meta things I had on my mind while contemplating this fandom are:
A post I tragically cannot find again in the form of a medieval-esque instructional dialogue between a teacher and student on the topic of, when two people with penises are having sex it is somehow, invariably, a natural law that one of the penises will be longer and thinner and the other will be shorter and thicker.
The legendary Dancing Penises skit/cosplay that involved people costumed as Kirk's and Spock's penises, and "Kirk of course was a little shorter and thicker, Spock was taller and thinner—" because even decades ago this was already an established tradition in slash fanfiction!
(Someone in the yuletide discord said the phrase "long butter" made them think of "long pig" and thus "human...butter?" and I'm just saying, I did not have cannibalism in mind when I nominated this (..what even would constitute cannibalism among butter sticks, one wonders?) but hey, I liked Hannibal, so if anyone does have some wild cannibalism-inflected ideas for this, go for it, I'm up for it!)
The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Attolia | Irene
Eugenides (Queen's Thief)
Relius (Queen's Thief)
Request: Write me the relationships between these three characters: all the twisty complexity and the sincere love.
I have a longing for Gen/Irene/Relius threesome fic—I have a thesis that there is AT LEAST as much justification for Gen/Irene/Relius as there is for the more abundant Gen/Irene/Costis (which I definitely also see and understand!)—but if you are not so inclined, there is certainly plenty of complexity at work in these relationships with or without there being a threesome. (And of course, Relius has Teleus and his "many, many" other lovers too, for whatever part you may want them to play in the story!)
I'd love a closer look at any part of the path from Gen bringing Irene to visit Relius in the infirmary after his arrest, torture, and pardon, to Relius as an "unassailable" royal favorite of them both in the final book.
How are they all kind to each other? For instance, in canon, we've seen Attolia comforting Gen after a nightmare about her cutting off his hand—do Gen and Relius ever have a similarly fraught moment over their mutual (and arguably mutually inflicted) hand trauma, and what would that look like? (Is there hand kissing??)
Treats are welcome.
There's a certain distance in MWT's writing between the reader and the characters; there are things that are all the more compelling for having not been made perfectly clear, so I return to them again and again like a riddle. I don't think I've ever really understood Gen and Irene's relationship, for instance, though I find it fascinating and am 100% on board with it.
The centerpiece of my longing for Gen/Irene/Relius is this passage:
Eugenides looked from one silent face to another. "You must speak sometime." He brushed his wife's cheek with his hand and bent to kiss her softly on the cheek. Some of Relius's longing must have showed on his face because the king turned to him with a smile.
"Jealous, Relius?" With no sign of embarrassment, or of jest, he brushed the former secretary's hair back and kissed him as well.
It was laughable, surely, but as the king left, Relius blinked the water from his eyes. The kiss had been gentle, and the king's eyes as he delivered it had not smiled.
I wish to point out that this DOES NOT specify WHERE Gen kisses Relius (which reliably makes me go a bit feral). On the cheek would make sense, in parallel with his kiss to Irene. On the forehead would make sense, since Gen brushes his hair aside first. But we do not actually KNOW, and it could be almost anything! (Also not specified: precisely what Relius is longing for. Closeness with the queen would be the safe bet, but Gen's response doesn't make much sense in relation to that unless it's a joke, and it's not a joke.)
I intend to read Moira's Pen when it comes out, so if you also read it and see anything there you want to incorporate into your story, that will be fine!
The Bus - Paul Kirchner (Comics)
Worldbuilding (The Bus - Paul Kirchner)
(my fandom promo post for The Bus!)
Request: Explore this surreal world! "Worldbuilding" does not have to mean a grand scale—if you do have a grand theory unifying all the different strips that would be *fascinating*!—but you could equally well just expand upon a single strip among them all (or of course, somewhere in the middle, any selection of a subset that intrigues you!).
You are welcome to include/focus on the central character of the commuter, or any other character who appears in any of the strips (one of the Hieronymus-Bosch-esque creatures? the magical/indestructible old ladies who do things like fold the commuter up in her shopping bag so she can take the seat he's in, or leave the bus crashed behind her when it runs into her? any of the other human or non-human passengers, like the billboard figure who departs from her billboard on the bus?), or, of course, entirely original characters (or no characters at all?).
Or take any situation in or suggested by any strip and explore it further! What about those impossible landscapes seen through the bus windows? What does a destination of ELSEWHERE or ONWARD mean? (Is it possible this is a bus system through Fairyland?)
Or instead of basing your story on specifics from the strips, you could just use them as a jumping-off point into new territory. (What would other transit systems in this world look like, for instance?)
Whatever ideas you have, I'll be interested to see them!
Treats are welcome.
The second volume adds a meta layer, in case you'd find that fun to play with: "In 2012, interest in 'The Bus' suddenly revived. A new generation of fans demanded new strips. The old studio was reopened and plans were made to reassemble the original team. Sadly, Harvey P. Farquhar, the actor who played the commuter, was now 80 and unable to handle the demands of the role. Fortunately, his son, Harvey P. Farquhar Jr., an aspiring actor currently between roles, bore a close enough resemblance to his father to make an ideal replacement."
If you are interested in focusing on the character of the commuter, the author has some thoughts about him in the Postscript of the first volume that may spark interest: "As for the commuter, the dull-looking businessman, we learn very little about him. Who is he? How does he feel about the constant surprises sprung on him? Does he actually have an office to go to in the morning and a home to return to at night, or does he just live for the trips?"
La Fille du Diable | Devil's Daughter (1946)
Isabelle (La fille du diable | Devil's Daughter)
(my Devil's Daughter fandom promo post, including where you can buy the DVD!)
Request: I'm not sure how to give Isabelle happiness, but I'd love to see her unleashed!
It would be lovely to see her escaping her tiny town, becoming more powerful as a criminal mastermind, perhaps replacing/becoming Saget (Dread Pirate Roberts-style) or even working with him as her "inside man" in respectable society? It would also be interesting to see some exploration of her softer side (without losing her sharper edges)—the strong bond she has with Jacques (whether romantic or not), the kindness and even tenderness she shows the Tadpole and Jacques.
Treats are welcome.
I also requested this in two previous exchange letters.
Isabelle saves newspaper clippings about Saget and passionately expresses what he means to her: he's strong! he's brave! "For ten years all the police in Europe have been after him, he doesn't care! Nothing can stop him, nothing can touch him! He can't be caught!" It reminds me a lot of fandom and the ways people can engage with stories—how she sees what she needs in the story of him, whether or not it's really there in the man himself. She's devastated to learn that Saget has assumed an ordinary identity in her town, the nephew of a woman who sells fishing rods, and he has no intention of escaping back into his life of spectacular crime. He was probably the one thing she ever allowed herself to love that she thought was safely remote from ever being destroyed by the town she lived in—and then it destroyed him (or what she valued in him) too.
If you want to include Saget himself at all—I was thinking when re-watching the film that he seems to really enjoy some of the benefits and privileges that come with being seen as a respectable citizen (I can just tell the police what's so and they don't argue with me!), and perhaps he and Isabelle could somehow work together as she ascends in the crime world and he can function as an "inside man" in polite society (I think he'd also enjoy the chance to get back at the doctor who forced him into the position of Respected Eminent Citizen, whether the doctor knows of his resumed criminal activities or not).