raspberryhunter

Jukebox 2013 is open here. Go read and comment! :) morbane has helpfully made a playlist here.

My story is, um, probably completely guessable by all of content, theme, and approach to canon. One day I will quit writing the same story, but today is not that day. Guess my story correctly and I will... umm... listen to any song you want? :) (Okay, fine, I would probably do that anyway.)

Dear jukebox writer,

Thanks so much for writing one of my songs! I really love all these songs, as well as have questions about them, and I'm sure I'll love whatever you write!

I have some suggestions below, but really, feel free to do whatever idea these songs give you. I picked these songs because they seem to have a lot of stories hidden in them, and if you find a story that's totally different from the ones I see offhand (and have thus provided vague prompts for), then I would be so thrilled to see that additional interpretation of the song.

Scarborough Fair (Youtube (King Singers), lyrics) - I've always wondered about this song, from the very first time I heard it. Why was she once a true love? What do the tasks have to do with it? Are they riddles the true love has to solve — and if so, why, and what are the answers to the riddles? Is it a hidden message? And what in the world do parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme have to do with it, and why sage? :) (My friend pointed out to me that parsley, rosemary, and thyme all go together, but sage is a bit the odd one out.)

There are versions with extra verses from the ex-true-love, where she poses additional riddles, and then it becomes clear (to me) that they're just both giving each other impossible tasks because they don't really want to get back together. (This is also why I didn't request the Mediaeval Baebes version, which I do think is gorgeous.) I don't think I really like this interpretation, as it seems like much too easy a solution — but if your muse takes you that way, I'm game for it: convince me!

Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd) (Youtube, lyrics) - Okay, I know (vaguely) the history to this song, and that it's supposed to be a tribute to Syd Barrett etc. etc., but like all good songs, I think there's a lot more there that could be explored and fic written about. Who are the two lost souls? (One answer is a split personality, of course, but I feel like there could be a more compelling explanation.) Why are they in a fishbowl? Why the ironic refrain, "Wish you were here"? The heaven-from-hell, blue skies from pain, green fields from a cold steel rail… seems like it was just meant for a spaaaaace AU, or a cyberpunk AU, or a dystopian AU… It really seems like it could make a really great science-fiction story -- or really any kind of story: a coffeeshop of quiet desperation?

Chiron Beta Prime (Jonathan Coulton) (Youtube, lyrics) - so many questions! What did they do that sent them to Chiron Beta Prime? What is Earth like? (Apparently not overrun with robot overlords, if they're sending messages there.) Do they ever escape? What was redacted? I would love to get the POV of a robot overlord, or a letter written to them from Earth, or... the possibilities are endless!) I also like the video; I think it's awfully cute — but I'm not particularly wedded to it, so feel free to ignore it.

The Demon Lover (Traditional Ballad): Youtube, lyrics (scroll down) This is another one where I just wonder what is going on! I mean, on the surface it's a morality tale against leaving with one's lover, I guess, but that's so boring. How did she not know her lover was a demon? Why did she mourn leaving her son and not her husband, and if she did, why did she go in the first place? I do really, really want the heroine to have rather more agency and intelligence than she seems to in the song, and am totally fine with you changing the ending if that helps make that work. Any kind of setting — spaaaace, cyberpunk, academia (a professor, her department chair, and a… venture capitalist?), historical!fic… I don't really care.

(I also love the John M. Ford SF story "Walkaway Clause," which makes the heroine an awesome and sexy businesswoman, makes all three parties in the love triangle totally sympathetic, and which obviously (sort of) throws the ending out… but you are, of course, not required to have read it or even have heard of it. I'm just throwing it out there as an example of what I like, in case you have.)

They Can't Take That Away from Me - George Gershwin and Ira Gerswin (Song): Youtube, lyrics. Okay, this is the one where I actually want something specific: the dark sci-fi AU where memory wipes are on the table (my prompt said I wanted a bit of plot -- sorry about that and NOT REQUIRED -- I would love anything along the dark SF lines, from atmospheric to scientific worldbuilding to an angsty character study to... whatever you please!)… I hope that's okay! I know it's kind of a wacky prompt, and if you signed up hoping to do a more conventional take, well… convince me! :) (I don't remember anything about Crazy for You, so don't worry about that canon at all.)

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 (although in these songs I don't know that I see much of either). 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.

Things I don't like: gratuitous violence or gratuitous character death. (If it's logical, then okay — I'd be surprised if there wasn't character death of some sort, robot or human, in a Chiron Beta Prime fic.) 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 for Scarborough Fair, unless you can make a really strong case for it. I think I'd prefer darkfic for Chiron Beta Prime to have some lightness/humor/sarcasm to it as well, but I'm not sure about that, and you could convince me otherwise. Darkfic for "Wish You Were Here" would be quite in keeping with the canon, and I'm kinda asking for darkfic of some sort (though it could have a happy ending) for "They Can't Take That Away From Me."

AU and such: I actively encourage AU for "Wish You Were Here" and "Demon Lover"; I mentioned SF prompts, but any other AU would be fine, as would canon-era fic. "Scarborough Fair" I would be fine with AU (a fantasy AU might be really interesting?) and also fine with folksy setting, anything is fine. Same for Abraham's Daughter — I'm wildly curious to see something set in our world, but I could see AU being brilliant as well. "Chiron Beta Prime" is a bit specific to a specific SF-nal setting, so for that one I think (?) I'd rather not have an AU.

Seriously, if you wanted to write a story that was just inspired by the imagery in these songs, I would be so up with that. I want you to take one of these songs (or more — I mean, if you, for example, wanted to make a SF-nal setting inspired by Pink Floyd and set a Scarborough-Fair-ish plot, I would be all over that) and make something fascinating out of them, however you feel is the best way to do that, so don't let anything I've written here stop you from doing what YOU want to do with any of these songs! And thank you!

I pinch-hit a Les Mis (Brick) fic for voksen, who had this awesome prompt about a fix-it fic where Montparnasse and Valjean interact after the barricades. One of my favorite bits of the Brick, which I'd totally forgotten about before my latest reread, is the one where Montparnasse tries to jump Valjean and ends up on the ground with Socially Awkward St. Valjean giving him a twenty-minute rant about how awful prison is...

As usual, my betas made this so much better. Many thanks to carmarthen and sprocket!

The Perils of Walking in the Rue de l'Homme-Armé (3690 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Montparnasse & Jean Valjean
Characters: Montparnasse (Les Misérables), Jean Valjean
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It
Summary:

In which Montparnasse finds that the perils of walking in the Rue de l'Homme Arme are twofold: first, that one might begin to think; and second, that one might come across a weak old man.

I like nothing more than to natter on solipsistically about my own fics, and ollipop requested, so!

The Family Business is this Greek Myth SF-virtual-reality AU in which the Olympian gods are the executive management team for a large virtual-reality ("simspace") corporate entity. The story's about Minerva and her (and her family's) involvement in this simspace business, including a retelling of the Arachne story.

( Cut for lots of talk about writing this fic, and themes, and things I thought were themes but maybe weren't so much. Spoilers for the story, of course! Artistry. Truth. Family. )

YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I GOT THE MOST AWESOME STORIES!

I got TWO stories for rarewomen, first time I've ever gotten more than one, both Dido-focused Aeneid stories, and they are completely different and I love them both so much and I am so, so glad I asked for Didofic because YAY. Go read and comment!

The Wanderer (1298 words) by Adlanth
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Aeneid - Virgil
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Dido of Carthage, Anna (Greek and Roman Mythology)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, IN SPACE!, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And also not AU

Those alt-universe tags, incuding the "And also not AU" one? Yup. Gorgeous story, gorgeous prose, playing with time and alternate Didos and mythology.

Trouble Any Which Way (1033 words) by misura
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Aeneid - Virgil
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Dido of Carthage, Aeneas (Greek and Roman Mythology), Iris (Greek and Roman Mythology)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Space

Dido in SPAAAACE! Dido gets to kick butt and just be awesome! YAY!

(I also wrote three stories, which I'll talk about in another post someday...)

Hey, so, for those of you I hooked on Force Over Distance (and by the way, it's now posted on AO3 YAY), cleanwhiteroom now has a livejournal and a dreamwidth where she is posting all kinds of awesome meta about it. Or, at least, so far, she has one awesome meta post up about Faust as a central theme of FoD, which kind of changed a bunch of my thoughts about it, and is promising more.

Seriously, if you liked the fic (and in general if you just like writing meta, honestly) it's worth checking out.

Umm. Instead of a) doing all the RL work I have to do, b) working on the post on the Aeneid I have only owed ricardienne for the last month, c) working on the SGU fic, or d) working on my rarewomen fic, I have instead written my first Les Mis fic, because it apparently bothers me that much when people say that Javert won't be in heaven because he committed suicide.

On AO3 here.

Title: Resignation (974 words)
Summary: Javert isn't singing in Barricade Heaven, but it's not because he committed suicide.

Notes: Barricade Heaven is, of course, from the movie. I've tried to stick to the book otherwise, especially Javert's book characterization.

( Javert had expected darkness. )

[Edited 3-5-13 to add a link to my book discussion of the Aeneid. Edited 3-4-13 to take out inaccuracy in Susan Calvin and to give People prompt ideas. Sorry!]

Dear rarewomen writer,

Thank you so much for writing for me and my wacky fandoms! I am so excited that you, like me, love these wonderful women, and I am excited for whatever you write!

I, uh, don't have much to say that I didn't say in the prompts, but let me see:

The Aeneid - Virgil (Dido): Dido is awesome! But she doesn't get to be awesome in the Aeneid. Make her awesome! I'd love the AU where she never falls in love with Aeneas, but joins forces with him and does something cool -- take down her brother, or a god or two? (I'm not real excited about the gods in the Aeneid.) Or really anything where she got to be awesome and politically savvy, the way we're told she is -- maybe the story of how she led her people to freedom, the story of how she got married in the first place... anything would be great, except for Dido/Aeneas (I am not a huge fan of their Doomed Romance). Crack AU's (spaaaace, post-apocalyptic, ivory-tower academia, whatever) would be fine for this one :)

ETA 3-5-13: Oh, I should also link to my ongoing discussion of the Aeneid so you have more details as to what I think of it: here. Life sort of got in the way, but I'll probably post on the last half in the next couple of weeks.

Robots - Isaac Asimov (Susan Calvin): I love how smart and capable and no-nonsense and snarky Susan Calvin is -- she is one of my childhood heroes. More! Casefic along the lines of the original stories would be awesome, but really anything showing off her smarts and snarkiness :)

Oh, actually I have a little more to say about this one re the childhood hero stuff. Susan Calvin may have been the only awesome female scientist I read in my classic-SF days when I was a kid, and even though I didn't realize it as a kid, looking back on it, I think she had an influence on me. She was so very good at what she did that she needed no other justification. The others (mostly men) ragged on her, but they also admired her. I think she's great! And she and Byerly in "The Evitable Conflict" are awesome, and I would definitely not say no to more of their interaction.

The People - Zenna Henderson (Any): I adore Zenna Henderson's People stories and always have, and just want more! The thing I love most about it, I think, is the effervescent joy, the childlike wonder, that permeates each page. But also... the moving depictions of familial and mentoring relationships; the utter sense of belonging: to a people, to a community, to a family (and which also plays into the teacher-child relationships she depicts); the drive to make things whole; the lovely understated way she's constantly drawing from Biblical imagery and quotations and tropes for the themes and images of the stories.

If you need ideas... I'd love to know what Shadow's story is; she's always been in a secondary role as Bethie-too or Remy's Shadow; how does she step into her own rightful place? Did Dr. Curtis learn anything from Dita? What's up with the Kroginolds' story -- they were always troublemakers; I imagine there's a story in how they grew up? But really anything with any character (or none at all, a new story with original characters would be quite excellent), with some of that joy and wonder in it, some of that exuberant borrowing and flavoring with Biblical tropes and quotes, would be totally lovely.

I will say that I tend to be more interested in the Earth stories than in Home or New Home, and I didn't like "Return" as well as some of the others (I guess I just don't like whiny narrators?), but hey, if your muse takes you there, go for it. I have a strong preference for a story that is at least mostly gen, but I'm open to either het or slash as long as canon pairings are respected (e.g., Valancy/Jemmy as a long-standing relationship is canon, and I'd rather Valancy didn't run off with Karen or something).

General: I love 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 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, um, basically means that I respect the Zenna Henderson pairings, and I'd rather Dr. Calvin not be in a romantic long-term relationship unless it's motivated really really well; Dido/Aeneas is not healthy and I'd rather not see that; I do respect Dido/Sychaeus).

Things I don't like: gratuitous violence or gratuitous character death. (If it's logical, then okay, but for these fandoms I'd prefer only minor character death. Aeneas would be okay; Dido, please not.) 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 usually like darkfic, but not for these particular fandoms, please (the Aeneid is quite dark enough!) I would not mind a crack AU for the Aeneid (though am also fine with canon time/place), but I don't want AU for the Asimov or Henderson.

If you get stuck with your match, I think all three of my fandoms this time are a fairly small body of work. Basically only cantos 1 and 4 of the Aeneid are relevant to Dido (though knowing the whole thing might give a little more context); most of the Susan Calvin stories are all collected in I, Robot, which is easily available at libraries and online (the comment below reminded me that there are more sprinkled here and there -- I think All the Robot Stories has them all -- but the ones in I, Robot would be enough to go off of; my favorites are "The Evitable Conflict" and "Intuition," the latter of which isn't in I, Robot); and 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.

Thank you again, and I'm sure I will love whatever you write!

In your own space, ask for recs. Something as simple as "I like XYZ (where XYZ is a kink, a pairing, a trope, etc) - please rec me some."

I am going to wholesale steal< shewhostaples's idea because I think it is so very awesome (uh, I hope you don't mind?):

What I really like, in book fandoms, is fics where the author has managed to pull off a pastiche - where the style is comparable to the original - where you remember a bit of the plot a few months later and wonder for a moment if that was actually canon... Any book fandoms: even if I don't know it, if it's a reasonable synthesised approximation to canon, I shall be able to use it as a guide to see whether I want to investigate said fandom.

(In the comments to el_staplador's post, I recced these book pastiche fics:
The End and the Way, LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness
The Lord of Joiry, C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry
The Derelict, C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories
Queen of Berries, Tolkien's Smith of Wootton Major
Ears to Hear (Tillerman Saga - Voigt)
In the Dark Hours of the Morning - Code Name Verity, but if you haven't actually read CNV pleeeeeeease don't read this first BECAUSE SPOILERS

..and of course Vorkosigan fic has a lot of these; some of my favorites:
Aral Vorkosigan's Dog -- this is told from the POV of a different character so the voice isn't completely spot on, but it's pretty close... actually pretty much everything Philomytha writes is gold
Twenty-Year Man
Money Always Costs Too Much)

More, please? Any fandom?

(I will probably get to 10-12, someday, but because I've just got a little tiny bit of time and I'm thinking about this right now...)

I know many of you have read and loved CleanWhiteRoom's super-epic Stargate:Universe fic, Force Over Distance (now being revamped and put on AO3! The finished original is on ff.net). I recommended it enthusiastically here. It's possible to read it with minimal knowledge of SGU, even.

elementals_ao3 has taken it to another level by using her amazing podficcing skills on it. Seriously, if you liked FoD, you have to hear her do Eli. And Volker-and-Brody comedy team. And Young-and-Rush-and-AI aaaaaaaaah.

Let me put it this way: I generally don't listen to podfics; I'm not much of an aural person, I can't deal with audiobooks most of the time, for instance. But this podfic is so awesome that I am totally hooked. elementals' reading and CWR's prose/dialogue work together so well.

It's a work in progress, but it's updating regularly (the AO3 says once a week, but it's way more frequently than that right now).

[Podfic] Force over Distance (681 words) by elementals
Chapters: 7/?
Fandom: SGU, Stargate Universe, Stargate - All Series
Rating: Mature
Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Nicholas Rush/Everett Young, Eli Wallace/Ginn
Characters: Adam Brody (SGU), Nicholas Rush, Everett Young, Tamara Johansen, Eli Wallace, Chloe Armstrong, Ronald Greer, Camile Wray, Dale Volker, Rodney McKay
Summary: This is cleanwhiteroom's epic-length conclusion for the cancelled series Stargate: Universe....in which they fix what they can.