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dear yuletide 2013
Oct. 6th, 2013 07:51 pmDear yuletide writer,
Wow, thank you so much for offering to write a story in one of my crazy canons! I, uh, wrote a lot of words. I tend to do that. Feel free to ignore pretty much all of them — I love seeing how other people think about my favorite fandoms, and I love seeing interpretations that are different from mine (some of my favorite fics are the ones that made me look at things in a new way).
( In random order: The People - Zenna Henderson; Tillerman Cycle - Cynthia Voigt; Instrumentality of Man - Cordwainer Smith; Mabinogion )
General: Things I love (I don't expect all of these by any means, this is just a random sampling of Things I Like): I love worldbuilding fic and plotty fic because I can't write it myself, but by the same token I know it is hard to write and I certainly don't expect it. I love character-driven fic that thinks hard about the ramifications of characters' choices. I love for there to be some sort of character arc or characters (and/or the reader) coming to a greater understanding of something or someone during a fic. I love and adore friendship/partnerships, especially platonic ones, of all gender-variety. I love it when all the characters are understandable rather than straight-out villainous or malicious, or where expectations of malice are subverted. I am more a fan of gen than anything else, but I'm open to both het and slash, though I tend to be respectful of healthy overt canon pairings (which basically here means that I respect the Tillerman pairings and the People pairings).
Things I don't like: gratuitous violence or gratuitous character death. I'm not a huge fan of anything above PG-13 and will probably skim over anything really explicit unless something about the explicitness itself plays into character or plot development, in which case all bets are off :) I would prefer no darkfic or zany-AU for these fandoms, if that's okay (I'm usually happy with either, but not for these particular fandoms), except for Mabinogion -- I just realized that I would not say no to Arianrhod being the queen of a dystopian AU, or a stellar empire, as long as she retains her power and mystery, and if you want to write darkfic for Mabinogion, heck, Welsh stories always end in tragedy, go for it... (Fork-in-the-road AU is always welcomed.) (ETA 11-29-13: Sorry for the late notice, but it just occurred to me that Cordwainer Smith is often bittersweet or with endings that are surface-tragic, and I am ALL ABOUT THAT, that would be lovely. It's more the "rocks falls everyone dies" sort of darkfic I don't want -- I want there to be some hope!)
If you get stuck with your match… The Mabinogion is probably the smallest canon here (the Four Branches are the relevant bit). As for the others: The People is a large canon of work, but the stories are a fast read, and you could probably read a couple of them ("Ararat" is probably a must, and perhaps "Shadow on the Moon" to get the second-gen perspective) and get the feel of it pretty quickly -- I don't think Henderson herself worried too much about keeping everything strictly canon-compliant detail-wise. Cordwainer Smith are short stories, but a bit harder to find. I'd very much recommend We the Underpeople as the best introduction that's easily available in the US and cheap. If you happen to be in the UK, my favorite Smith anthology is The Rediscovery of Man. (I'd recommend "The Dead Lady of Clown Town," "Under Old Earth," "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," and "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell," or some subset thereof, to get a sense of it.) Voigt is seven books long, but they are fast reads and probably available at your local library, and really if you read Sons from Afar you could write something on that one alone on James or Sammy, without reading the others, that would make me really really happy, or A Solitary Blue and Seventeen Against the Dealer (which do sort of need to be read as a pair) and something about Jeff, or Come a Stranger alone and something about Mina (although it's curiously hard to find).
Again, please write whatever you want. A lot of this is just my talking to myself; I want to know what you think of my beloved canons! And thank you again!
(Edited Cordwainer-Smith section 10-14-13, added AU/darkfic for Mabinogion and link to Cordwainer Smith 10-15-13. Edited darkfic sec 11-29-13.)
Wow, thank you so much for offering to write a story in one of my crazy canons! I, uh, wrote a lot of words. I tend to do that. Feel free to ignore pretty much all of them — I love seeing how other people think about my favorite fandoms, and I love seeing interpretations that are different from mine (some of my favorite fics are the ones that made me look at things in a new way).
( In random order: The People - Zenna Henderson; Tillerman Cycle - Cynthia Voigt; Instrumentality of Man - Cordwainer Smith; Mabinogion )
General: Things I love (I don't expect all of these by any means, this is just a random sampling of Things I Like): I love worldbuilding fic and plotty fic because I can't write it myself, but by the same token I know it is hard to write and I certainly don't expect it. I love character-driven fic that thinks hard about the ramifications of characters' choices. I love for there to be some sort of character arc or characters (and/or the reader) coming to a greater understanding of something or someone during a fic. I love and adore friendship/partnerships, especially platonic ones, of all gender-variety. I love it when all the characters are understandable rather than straight-out villainous or malicious, or where expectations of malice are subverted. I am more a fan of gen than anything else, but I'm open to both het and slash, though I tend to be respectful of healthy overt canon pairings (which basically here means that I respect the Tillerman pairings and the People pairings).
Things I don't like: gratuitous violence or gratuitous character death. I'm not a huge fan of anything above PG-13 and will probably skim over anything really explicit unless something about the explicitness itself plays into character or plot development, in which case all bets are off :) I would prefer no darkfic or zany-AU for these fandoms, if that's okay (I'm usually happy with either, but not for these particular fandoms), except for Mabinogion -- I just realized that I would not say no to Arianrhod being the queen of a dystopian AU, or a stellar empire, as long as she retains her power and mystery, and if you want to write darkfic for Mabinogion, heck, Welsh stories always end in tragedy, go for it... (Fork-in-the-road AU is always welcomed.) (ETA 11-29-13: Sorry for the late notice, but it just occurred to me that Cordwainer Smith is often bittersweet or with endings that are surface-tragic, and I am ALL ABOUT THAT, that would be lovely. It's more the "rocks falls everyone dies" sort of darkfic I don't want -- I want there to be some hope!)
If you get stuck with your match… The Mabinogion is probably the smallest canon here (the Four Branches are the relevant bit). As for the others: The People is a large canon of work, but the stories are a fast read, and you could probably read a couple of them ("Ararat" is probably a must, and perhaps "Shadow on the Moon" to get the second-gen perspective) and get the feel of it pretty quickly -- I don't think Henderson herself worried too much about keeping everything strictly canon-compliant detail-wise. Cordwainer Smith are short stories, but a bit harder to find. I'd very much recommend We the Underpeople as the best introduction that's easily available in the US and cheap. If you happen to be in the UK, my favorite Smith anthology is The Rediscovery of Man. (I'd recommend "The Dead Lady of Clown Town," "Under Old Earth," "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard," and "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell," or some subset thereof, to get a sense of it.) Voigt is seven books long, but they are fast reads and probably available at your local library, and really if you read Sons from Afar you could write something on that one alone on James or Sammy, without reading the others, that would make me really really happy, or A Solitary Blue and Seventeen Against the Dealer (which do sort of need to be read as a pair) and something about Jeff, or Come a Stranger alone and something about Mina (although it's curiously hard to find).
Again, please write whatever you want. A lot of this is just my talking to myself; I want to know what you think of my beloved canons! And thank you again!
(Edited Cordwainer-Smith section 10-14-13, added AU/darkfic for Mabinogion and link to Cordwainer Smith 10-15-13. Edited darkfic sec 11-29-13.)
