Dear Yuletide 2020

[raspberryhunter]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Yet again I have written Way Too Many Words. Feel free to ignore these ideas and use your own — 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). Also, please don't read anything into the amount of stuff I have written for each fandom; I would be extremely pleased to receive anything for any of these, otherwise I would not have requested them. :D


General: I am open to most things! I am a fan of gen, but I'm totally open to het/slash/femslash. I very much welcome alternative ways of telling stories -- IF, epistolary fic, text messages/tweets, poetry, DW-thread-comments, what-have-you, yes please!! Crossovers would also be more than fine between these fandoms. Darkfic/character death is great and even encouraged for at least some of these fandoms (though please tag and check the fandom-specific DNWs). I love fork-in-the-road type AUs for any fandom. For setting-changed AUs, I would adore them for Frederician/Voltaire RPF and for Onegin, but not for the others. Basically I'm okay with most things as long as you tag for it so I know what I'm getting into!

Things I love: (I don't expect all of these by any means, this is just a sampling of Things That Make Me Happy): I love worldbuilding fic and plotty fic. I love character-driven fic that thinks hard about the ramifications of characters' choices. I love most of all 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 deep friendship/partnerships, especially platonic ones, of all gender-variety. I love loyalty and duty bonds (and I have a special place in my heart for physical expressions of fealty bonds, like kneeling or ritualized oath-swearing). I love it when all the characters are understandable rather than straight-out villainous or malicious, or where expectations of malice are subverted. I love when something or some implication is clear to the reader that is not clear to the characters, or some subset of the characters, because we have knowledge (about the actual canon, for example) that they don't have.

DNW: PWP; unrequested poly; graphic gratuitous violence/gore; infidelity involving characters whose fidelity is an important part of their character (e.g. Tatyana, Consort Jing) or involving characters who plausibly or canonically have faithful romantic relationships (like Jeff/Dicey). (I have no problems with infidelity that plausibly occurs in canon, like Pelleas or the Emperor.) Tragic/dark endings are often fine (though please tag), though please check the canon-specific DNWs as for some of my requested characters I don't want them to hvae an unhappy ending. (If I don't have a canon-specific DNW about it, then tragedy/death/whatever is fine.) Please no references to current politics/current events.



Pelléas et Mélisande - Debussy/Maeterlinck (Golaud, Pelléas, Mélisande)
OK, I love Pelleas et Melisande, I love the lovely ripply music and the mystery of it and how everything seems to exist in this sort of odd shadowy world where things lurk beneath the surface of what we actually see and hear.

...And I realize this makes me a Philistine, but I found myself all through it wanting the actual magical-fantasy-fairy-tale story that keeps being hinted at instead of the highly-symbolic-characterizing-inner-emotions opera that it actually is. Please write this for me! Let the magic wood Golaud is lost in at the beginning be an actual magic wood! The ring Melisande lost -- in a well! -- that Golaud is so concerned about is a magic ring, right? That concerns the health of the kingdom? And what's going on with the cave? And all the water -- is Melisande a water-fairy? Or a nixie who doesn't understand humans? Or is this somehow a Grail story? If you want to put lots of character-specific symbolic stuff in, that's fine and I will be very pleased with it, but I do really want external plot/worldbuilding here if possible :)

If that's not what you want to do, I totally understand! Perhaps a fork-in-the-road AU? What would happen if a small change was made -- could this lead to something better for the characters? Is there anything that could have stopped Golaud from his path at the end?)

Not necessary, but I will squee all over it if you redo/fix the conflict between Pelleas and Golaud so that it's more complicated than being about just a GIRL. I know, that's sort of the point of the opera, but people are more complicated than that and there are so many other possibilities; maybe they disagree as to how the kingdom should be run, or have an argument over how best to save the king or kingdom? Or perhaps Golaud is under a magical compulsion where he can't reveal the exact nature of the magic ring? Or they have to fake conflict for some plot-related reason? (I definitely don't want you to whitewash Golaud's abusive treatment of Melisande (if you leave that in) by being all "oh whoops it was magic," but feel free to AU-tinker with that if you want -- maybe the two of them (three of them?) are working together to deceive someone else, and he's only pretending to mistreat her?) And as for Melisande herself -- the production I saw had her wafting away in a boat in the end instead of dying, and I would love it if she didn't die, though it's fine if she does; it's canon, after all.


Евгений Онегин | Eugene Onegin - Tchaikovsky/Pushkin - (Tatyana) I asked for Tchaikovsky since Tatyana was nominated; Pushkin and Tchaikovsky are very similar, and I would be totally happy for you to write for either Pushkin or Tchaikovsky or both :) I love about the opera its increased characterization of Tatyana's husband/Gremin and the way everyone's portrayed just a touch less cynically, especially Olga and Lensky; and I love about the book its last scene, with Tatyana declaring herself and not really even letting Onegin get a word in, who has made up her mind that she's going to be true to her husband and that's it. But I love them both!

I have a burning OTP for this canon, and it's Tatyana/happiness. Please write me a Tatyana who finds her way to happiness somehow! In canon, she has such depth of character in rejecting Onegin though she loves him still -- and in Pushkin I love how it's almost an aside: sure, she loves him, but that's tangential to the real points... I would love a Tatyana who got to be happy.

-What if she used some of that strength and awesomeness she used to send Onegin away to talk to her husband about how she would like to spend more time in the country and away from the court which she hates, and all the things she's sad about in that last scene? (I had an amazing giftfic written with this as part of the premise, but I would love more!) It's interesting that in the opera, Tchaikovsky put a lot of this sentiment in Gremin's mouth in his lovely aria... but there's nothing in either book or opera that even hints that the two of them have talked about this at all. I don't think they could probably spend all their time away from the court, but would it be possible for her to really fall in love with her husband if they were able to connect in their love for the country? (Which is specifically something Onegin basically fails at in the book.)

-A tropey AU? Maybe Tatyana and Onegin have to have an Fake Engagement for Reasons, and Onegin is bored by this at first, and then Tatyana wins him over because she's awesome like that. Or -- maybe Tatyana and Gremin have a Fake Engagement that blossoms into love while Onegin reaps the consequences of being such a huge jerk?

-What if the ghost of Lensky comes to Tatyana and... what?

-What if Olga and Tatyana have a heart-to-heart that makes everything better somehow?

-Setting-changed AU would be awesome! Tatyana and Onegin and Lensky on Facebook, yes please! I would LOVE to see how all the gossipy bits translate to social media :D (...though maybe for this one Onegin shouldn't actually kill Lensky, maybe just do something terribly embarrassing?)

-Canon-divergence is great -- I wrote one version where the duel is averted, but there are of course lots of ways that could happen; I would be up for another one! I do ask that if you go Tatyana/Onegin, make him work for it, because he is a super-huge jerk and Tatyana wouldn't be happy with him unless he fundamentally changed (and ideally didn't kill Lensky).

Canon-specific DNWs: Please do not break my canon ship of Tatyana/happiness :) That is to say, angst is just fine, but let her have a good ending. I am fine if she ends up with Onegin or Gremin (or even Lensky, though I honestly don't see how that would work), or if she doesn't end up with a romantic ship at all, as long as she herself is content.


Tillerman Cycle - Voigt (Jeff, Mina, Maybeth) - This is at the heart of it an OR/ANY request.

I am blown away by how amazing these books are in terms of depth of character, thematic development of love and friendship and growing up and holding on and letting go and community and how we give to each other… I would love anything for these books. Any character. What you want to write, what interests you, that's what I want to hear about! I requested some I love, but really any character at all would be wonderful, and in the spirit of how Voigt is always thinking about the humanity of all the characters — what does Jeff's college roommate think of the events of Seventeen? What is Mr. Lingerle's perspective? Can Johnny Tillerman, whom we never saw but who from Bullet's memory rather looked like he was going to follow in his father's toxic footsteps, figure himself out and have healthier relationships? Other minor characters? Toby? Brother Thomas?

If you want to write the specific characters requested, that would be equally as wonderful -- Maybeth never got a book! If she had gotten a book, what would it look like? Gram thinks she needs an older man to take care of her -- okay, I must admit that I have a veeeeery low opinion of Gram's romantic picker in the books, and I would LOVE for her to be proven wrong about this. Does Maybeth even need a romantic relationship at all? Does she stay at the farm as a beloved unmarried matriarch at the center of a ton of siblings and friends and nieces and nephews (and chickens?? hee) who are always making life interesting? In general, how does she strike a balance between listening to her more-intellectually-capable family and making her own heart-capable decisions? Given that her upbringing had so much more support than her mother's, can she avoid her mother's fate? (Yes. The answer here should be yes. :P :) )

I love Jeff Greene very much, and would love to read anything you would like to write about him. What was Jeff thinking during the events of Seventeen Against the Dealer — how does he deal with being at college, having a new separate group of friends, seeing Dicey drift away from him, what is he thinking when she suddenly says she wants to marry him? He's so empathic, he probably knows something of what's going on with her — but how much? And clearly his past family relationships affect the way he thinks about all of this… does he ever talk to the Professor about what's going on with him and Dicey? Or Brother Thomas? What do they think of it? (In general, I'm super curious about both of them as well and the surprising depths that are revealed in them. What happens to them?) Does he ever talk to the other Tillermans about Dicey? We know that he talks to them about other things, and I'd love to see those conversations too, the way he keeps up his relationships with them even while it seems his relationship with Dicey is imploding.

And Mina Smiths!! I just madly adore Come a Stranger and its moving depiction of her family and community, and how they are a whole entity. <3 What happens to Mina? How does she find law school? I imagine it will be interesting for her trying to juggle her career ambitions and romance; how might this play out? I kinda ship her and Tamer's son Samuel in a "if they met again as grownups they might really understand each other well" kind of way -- what would it be like if they met again as grownups? How does her friendship with Dicey progress? Does it change as they pursue their careers and their lives with their families and communities (however that looks)?

I have a whole lot more words about these books (with a lot more prompts) in the series of posts here.

Canon-specific DNWs: I don't want Dicey POV (only since we get a lot of it in the books; I don't mind Dicey showing up in the story at all). I really, really want a Tillerman story to have a good ending, by which I don't mean an unalloyed happy ending — what I guess I mean here is I need a fic where the characters grow and learn, and where they're able to keep their family together, and I'm assured they're going to be OK together, even if bad things happen in the meantime. Fic where Gram dies and the adult kids come together to figure it out as they've always figured it out? Great! Alternate-universe fic where Verricker meets James and Sammy and absolutely crushes them but Maybeth sees right through him and puts her brothers straight in the end? Bring it on! Alternate-universe fic where the kids never make it to Gram in Homecoming and get separated into orphanages forever? Or fic where Johnny propagates his father's ways without changing? Please no. Thank you!


琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV) (Consort Jing)

This show, wow. All the complicated characters and plot twists and identity shenanigans, and deep deep bonds of loyalty and friendship and family, and private vs. public duty, the wonderful ensemble scenes, and awesome female characters and awesome moms of both the good and evil persuasions. And of course the most awesome mom of them all is Consort Jing. She's super nice, super smart, super perceptive, is playing the long game -- but can be ruthless when that's called for. She is just the best.

I basically want anything with her! Some ideas (but write whatever you would like with her!):

-I never got over the throwaway line where she went into the palace to doctor Consort Chen and then she never came out again, gahhhh. Surely she, even years back, was canny and thoughtful enough to get out of having to marry the Emperor, and it doesn't sound like the sort of life she'd choose -- so what happened? Did the Emperor threaten/blackmail her in some way? Was she trying to protect Consort Chen?

-Anything about her navigating the tricky politics of the Inner Court. Her and Consort Chen solving mysteries together? Go for it!!

-The last scene with her and the Emperor is one where she finally shows her true feelings about the Chiyan case and he is angry with her -- and we know he dies a while later -- but what happens in between? (My headcanon is that she nurses him through that -- but what would that have been like? What is their relationship like then? Gosh.)

-Post-canon fic where she takes a break from being Empress Dowager (or whatever her title would be after the Emperor dies) and wanders around as the itinerant doctor she was before she was a concubine, and at some point runs across Fei Liu or perhaps Lin Chen. (And/or, if you wanted to make it a fix-it AU, Lin Shu...)

-...actually, now that I think about it, anything with Consort Jing and Lin Chen together, set at any point during, pre, or post canon, would be hilarious and I am so up for that!

-I don't think Consort Jing gets to talk much to Nihuang or Xia Dong in canon, but wouldn't that be amazing?

Canon-specific DNW: I do not want Consort Jing to have an ending of death or despair. I would like her to live, and even if terrible things happen to her or those she loves, let her move toward grace and acceptance as she's so good at doing in canon. (Character death for anyone else is fine.)



Circle of Voltaire RPF (Émilie du Châtelet)

Émilie du Châtelet was super awesome. She was Voltaire's lover, but she could run circles around him in terms of science and mathematical prowess. One of her mathematics tutors wrote to a friend when he first began giving lessons to her and to Voltaire that she was 'altogether remarkable,' while he could not even make the other understand what mathematics was. She couldn't find a good textbook to teach her son physics, so she just wrote her own! She wrote a translation/analysis of Newton's Principia (and was correcting the proofs while recovering from childbirth, and sent them off a day before she died) that was so great that it is still the standard in France today.

Anything with her being awesome! Double points if it involves science, but it doesn't have to. There are stories about her swordfighting and learning how to win at gambling that may be apocryphal but I don't care if it's strictly historical, I will eat it up! Émilie getting frustrated at Voltaire not understanding science, and staying up late and sneaking around to enter her own scientific explanation of fire to the Academy competition? Émilie writing her analysis of the Principia? Also double points for Voltaire being his Voltaire self :D


18th Century CE Frederician RPF (Heinrich, Amalie)

I got pulled into this fandom a while back and have been finding myself totally enthralled by the relationships between this set of characters. This time around I am fascinated by Fritz' brother Heinrich, who had an extremely dysfunctional love/hate relationship with his brother (where Fritz treated him in a way that was strongly reminiscent of the way that his father treated him, and Heinrich alternately fought against it and knuckled down to it). And by their sister Amalie, who never married, and was treated horribly by their mother, but also seems to have told it like it is.

And I'm also fascinated by the central dysfunctional event in their family: their brother August Wilhelm dying of grief (or so they all thought) after Fritz stripped him of military command and continued emotionally attacking him for military setbacks that weren't, in the end, really his fault.

This is an OR match; for my main gift I would like either Heinrich or Amalie (or of course both, but one is OK) to have a substantial part in the fic, though neither has to be a main-character (e.g., some of the AU prompts below don't lend themselves to both or either being main characters). For treats, anything goes :)

Some thoughts/prompts, but don't feel restricted to these:

-Voltaire has to rescue Frederick the Great from being taken captive (by Maria Theresia??) by the power of his pen, which Fritz is NOT happy about! (About being beholden to Voltaire, that is, who is obviously neeeeever going to let Fritz live this down.) Meanwhile, Heinrich is regent...

-Fandom AU! How would this work? Would Maria Theresia and Fritz be fandom nemeses? Would Voltaire be the BNF fanfic writer? Would Fritz and Voltaire and Heinrich are all extremely active in trolling each other on anon memes and in namespace with socks?? What if they all did Yuletide?? Is Fritz going to have an internet manipulative long-distance "relationship" with boy who is way too in love with him *cough*Peter III of Russia*cough*? :D (thank you alley_skywalker for the Peter prompt!)

-This fandom in SPAAAAACE, can you imagine the space battles between Maria Theresia and Fritz, and Heinrich as a SPAAAACE general :D (SPAAACE Abbess Amalie, y/y??)

-Anything with Heinrich and Catherine the Great being BFFs, I think it is hilarious and awesome that this is canon. Really, anything!

-Amalie and her sisters-in-law; she loved one of them and didn't get along with two of the others (and one sister-in-law was in love with another sister-in-law's husband). Tell me about that! Tell me about any set of the four of them, the more the better, and all the complicated emotions that must have been juggled between all of them.

-Amalie and her love affair with Bach's music. I can imagine his music giving her a lot of solace. I don't know exactly what I want here, but there's got to be a story in this.

-Amalie and her brother August Wilhelm's decline/death. She was the one who was with him, and the one who wrote the letter to Fritz saying he'd died. What was she thinking? Break my heart again with this.

-even though I'm not requesting Voltaire, bonus points if you make up scathing Voltaire quotes and/or quote actual scathing Voltaire quotes, for any of these scenarios

For assignment-fic I would prefer the nominated characters, but for treats anything is awesome! If you have a desire to write a treat with any of the nominated characters or even un-nominated characters from this era, go wild. Voltaire-centric fic where he either uses his mad detective/justice!! skillz to help someone who needs it, or pulls off some kind of heist for $$$$ ? Anything about Maria Theresia's daughter-in-law Isabella of Parma? Historically-based/informed crackfic about Friedrich Wilhelm accidentally conscripting Peter the Great? Go for it!


Where to find canon / How much canon:

Pelleas: there's a production Pelleas et Melisande here, but the English subtitles disappear after a while. I also have one I could share without subtitles (but with Simon Keenlyside!) that takes place in what looks like a large cistern, which I love but which is kind of a modern-ish production. An English libretto is here (this one looks kinda Google Translate-y) and a probably better one here (PDF link). Probably pretty easy to pick up, and you could even mostly read the libretto.

Onegin: There is a Best Production, it is the Met production with Hvorostovsky and Fleming. It is The Best First Onegin :D As far as I know it is not publicly available online but I can... help with access to this if necessary (but it might take me a while). (I also have one with Keenlyside and Stoyanova that I love a lot of things about but which is Not a Good First Onegin.)

The Tillerman series is seven books, but they're fast reads. Available at most libraries/bookstores, I think?

I don't know where to find Nirvana in Fire currently, but I'm sure the folks at nirvana_in_fire would know and be more than happy to help! It's 54 episodes! but they go very quickly :)

Frederician RPF now has its own community at rheinsberg, and if there's any character that you are interested in, clicking on the tag for that character will give you a wealth of information. Note that the tags are by the Anglicized name, so Heinrich, for example, comes out as "Prince Henry of Prussia." This is also a good place to browse around for the characters in Circle of Voltaire RPF.

Comments

[rosaxx50]

Nirvana in Fire!! It's my favourite historical crack. (Also, you mention her last scene with the Emperor, and that is one of my favourite scenes in the entire series. There's another reason why this case has to come to light -- the truth. Indeed!)

[raspberryhunter]

:D I watched it last year and it was SO GOOD :D

That last scene! Consort Jing is THE BEST :D

[mildred_of_midgard]

I got pulled into this fandom a while back

I regret nothing. :P

(thank you alley_skywalker for the Peter prompt!)

Oooh! Where did this happen? I always enjoy alley_skywalker's Peter III requests and their fills.

You didn't offer Voltaire RPF, did you? I see there are 2 requests and 3 offers, and I know selenak and I offered, but I'm wondering if we have a surprise 3rd offerer.

Wilhelmine: Doesn't she go by Mina in the books? And her full name is Wilhelmina Smiths, not Wilhelmine?

Which leads me to wonder just *which* Wilhelmina/e her mother the history buff named her after.

I was going to point out that the app says you requested Dicey, but I see that's changed. :)

This is going to be fun! I have ideas!

[raspberryhunter]

Oooh! Where did this happen? I always enjoy alley_skywalker's Peter III requests and their fills.

On the promo post! I put the prompt in the Fandom AU section but of course it wouldn't have to be a fandom AU, I just thought that would make it even more hilarious :D

I did NOT offer Voltaire RPF (hahahaha at the thought I could write that, though I am Here to enthusiastically read) so I am really reeeeeally excited that someone else is offering! :DDDDD YAY!!

Wilhelmine: Doesn't she go by Mina in the books? And her full name is Wilhelmina Smiths, not Wilhelmine?

Which leads me to wonder just *which* Wilhelmina/e her mother the history buff named her after.

...I am mixing up my fandoms like crazy, as you can tell :P *facepalm* Thank you for noticing that! I've changed it in the letter. That's so embarrassing! Anyway, yeah, now I wonder that too!

[mildred_of_midgard]

On the promo post!

ZOMG, I did not see this! We should invite them into our discussions. We (I) need someone who knows Russian!

I did NOT offer Voltaire RPF (hahahaha at the thought I could write that, though I am Here to enthusiastically read) so I am really reeeeeally excited that someone else is offering! :DDDDD YAY!!

I didn't think so, but I had to check. YAY!

...I am mixing up my fandoms like crazy, as you can tell :P *

I could tell. :P Ngl, I was calling Fritz's sister Mina for a while at the beginning, for this reason. (Okay, mob boss AU has her go by Mina, which didn't help, but it was mostly Mina Smiths in my head.)

ETA: You changed it in the text of the letter but not in the list of nominated characters at the top of the section.

[raspberryhunter]

Yay! :DD

(Also, *facepalm* okay, it should be OK now? Thanks!!)

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yes, it looks fine now!

[mildred_of_midgard]

So I was looking at the Tillerman books recently, and I noticed something I had never noticed before:

Mina's first name is Wilhemina, not Wilhelmina. Etymologically completely incorrect, which is why I never noticed!

Unless my Kindle copy has it wrong, but using the search feature, I see it's consistent. There's only one occurrence of "Wilhelmina."

Weird!