Dear Yulewriter (2014 edition)
Oct. 27th, 2014 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reliaHi, Yulewriter!
I remembered to do my letter on time this year. Already I'm batting a thousand. :) (Note to anyone reading -- my requests are yuleporn and crueltide friendly!)
You're here because you were matched on one of my three prompts this year -- Fate/Zero, Johannes Cabal, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. So already I'm psyched for whatever you decide to write for me. I'll talk a little bit about what I generally enjoy, writing-wise, then I'll talk about each of the specific fandoms I requested and what I like about them. Hopefully some of that'll be helpful to you in getting a better idea of my interests.
General things I like:
I don't know which of my prompts you might've gotten matched to me on, but one thing I did want to mention is that I know they tread into some dangerous territory, as far as what a person might be comfortable writing for a stranger. And while, as noted, you don't have to write in the directions I've suggested if you don't want to, if you're up for it, I thought I'd at least try to help out by providing a little bit of reassurance about where my comfort zone is as a reader. (This might be especially useful if, like me, you're looking at writing for Crueltide this year -- I love things kind of dark, so I'll try to get into what flavors of dark I most enjoy.)
I am definitely cool with smut, first off, whether you're writing something dark or not. Smut is a wonderful thing, and I'd pretty much never turn it down. PWP is fine. Beyond that, most flavors of .
Noncon and dubcon are both just fine for me, with dubcon being more my bent. Violence is totally okay also, and BDSM. (Guro is not my preference, however, as that isn't something I'm into -- and I'm not into straight cannibalism/vore, unless you're talking about Horst's ~dark vampiric urges~ here.) Brainwashing/mind control/manipulation are totally welcome, and people being horrible to people they care about is A-okay with me. I love things that are deeply messed up. I love seeing people cry. (I am, in short, probably a terrible person -- sorry, dear yulewriter.) I love people loving people who are horrible to them, or who do bad things to them. If you're going the Crueltide route, I would love a story that's dark and messed up but has a sort of not-entirely-miserable ending, or better. I ship these things, even if I ship them in sad, pathetic, unhealthy ways. I love seeing Johannes comfort Horst. I love seeing Diarmuid keep taking Kayneth back even when Kayneth's a short-sighted ass. I love HAL not understanding why you can't keep the things you love under lock and key.
I like things that are dark or twisted or angsty or just plain fucked up. I wouldn't say I'm into grimdark, as I do enjoy good relationships with a messed up element to them as much as I do bad relationships with a messed up element to them.
I like baggage. I like the interplay of love and hate or of pleasure and pain. I love people who are complete messes being in relationships with other people who might also be complete messes.
I don't love curtainfic or crackfic, generally -- I generally prefer something a bit less light.
PROMPTS:
Fate/Zero -- Diarmuid Ua Duibhne | Lancer; Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi (Fate/Zero)
Team Lancer -- what a horrible, hideous train wreck. After the events of Fate/Zero, the best thing you can probably say for these characters is that at least, in death, they never have to see each other again, and that's probably for the best. So, naturally, I want them to see each other again. What I'd love here is to see Diarmuid and Kayneth reincarnated in the same time and place and dealing with each other again -- all the guilt and bitterness and masses of baggage, but also all the complicated feelings of people who are irrevocably caught up in each other/bound to each other by their shared past.
Please see my letter for more specific thoughts/suggestions, but I should note here that I am a Diarmuid/Kayneth shipper and would absolutely love if you were interested in writing shipfic for me. (But if you're not, I would still be pleased as punch to receive a genfic!) I'm also totally up for crueltide this year if, like me, you authorially like being bad to people and making them cry. (I love seeing Kayneth cry.) Any rating is okay for this request, and smut would be more than slightly well-received if you choose to do it.
Additional comments: As I said, if you're not into writing Diarkay, please don't feel obligated! Regarding physical status, I am totally down with Kayneth being wheelchair-bound in some way if you so choose (and don't consider that mutually exclusive with smut, either, if you're going that route). Regarding Sola-Ui, I don't mind you including her in some fashion (whether as a neutral figure/antagonist, etc.) -- but I'm not interested in a threesome/OT3 ending here. I enjoy poly dynamics, but not in this particular instance.
What I love about Diarmuid: He's a noble, tragic figure who -- after all Kayneth's put him through, should rightfully despise Kayneth and in any number of lifetimes not bother to piss on him if he were on fire, and yet. Kayneth is his master and always will be. As much as he might fully intend to take revenge on Kayneth (and if, for example, he came back with some sort of berserker affect, he might not necessarily be able to control that urge regardless) -- all the same, Diarmuid will also always be at least 60% spear-wielding Disney Princess -- could he really see Kayneth terrified or broken or upset and be unaffected by it? He has a heart, and a stupidly big heart, at that -- and I adore him for it.
What I love about Kayneth: Wow, what a self-involved uptight ass. The world has owed Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi his comeuppance for a long time, and in canon, he sure does certainly get it. But in a lot of his attitude, I think you see someone who's driven and talented and creative, and would perhaps like to be a little freer in his heart of hearts (he has art hobbies and designed his own clothes, oh Kayneth), if he weren't so deeply, cripplingly insecure. He's someone who thinks that the keys to making people like you are to be powerful and successful and amazing, rather than, say, a human being who's ever tried relating to other human beings on an emotional level. He has absolutely no ability to handle failure or rejection or even just the fear of failure or rejection, and he behaves with snide, hissing resentment toward anyone he perceives as being a threat to Kayneth's status as the most powerful, successful, amazing, and therefore (in his mind) desirable man in the room (to wit, Diarmuid -- sorry, Diarmuid). He's the kind of person who's terrible at saying he's sorry because he's too obsessed with his own fear that his apology would be rejected and he'd be humiliated.
Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L. Howard -- Johannes Cabal; Horst Cabal
For the sake of not mincing words, please be warned that this is a Horst/Johannes incest/shipfic request. These books are delightful whatever ill-advised adventure Johannes has gotten himself into, but for me, they're at their best when Horst and Johannes are interacting in a way that best resembles a three-legged race charged with extreme amounts of sexual tension. Horst and Johannes are brothers, and they obviously love each other (whether you read it as familial or something less savory), but also, one of them locked the other one in a tomb for eight years, and there's a lot of anger and bitterness there.
Some possibilities: a missing scene during Necromancer when their relationship is still very bitter and not very trusting; a missing scene during Brothers where maybe Horst is struggling with his dark vampire urges; a missing scene from Johannes's recovery during the beginning of Brothers where Horst uses vampiric compulsion for less than admirable reasons and then compels Johannes to forget what happened. Or anything else of your choosing. Please see my letter for more specific thoughts/details on what interests me with Horst and Johannes.
I'm also up for crueltide this year if, like me, you're up for that! Any rating is okay for this request, and smut is certainly very welcome.
Additional Comments: If you've read the books, I probably don't have to describe what I think Horst and Johannes's relationship is like -- we get to see quite a bit of it on-screen, and whether you read anything incestuous into it or not, the Cabal brothers are delightful.
What I love about Horst: He's confident and caring and a thoroughly, deeply good person. He's also one of those people who is a desperate extrovert -- someone who almost ceases to exist when he stands in an empty room. He's empathic, witty, garrulous -- and also a silly, lazy layabout who's no doubt squandered some of his life's potential in his younger days. He appears to have a desperate need to be liked by people (sometimes even by people he doesn't even like). He's the kind of person who's utterly convinced that everyone would like him if they got to know him, and who can't seem to let go of the matter if, God forbid, someone doesn't. He's desperately bitter at Johannes, but he's also and forever Johannes's older brother, and he can't seem to truly stop loving his baby brother, even while he also hates him -- nor to shrug off his innate desire as his older brother to protect his younger sibling. He thinks he's God's gift to levity. He makes Johannes roll his eyes constantly.
What I love about Johannes: First of all, I love everything about Johannes. Doesn't everyone? I love his horribly bad decisions. I love his attempts and failures to be heartless. I love how baffled he is when he does good deeds just because he wants to. I love his obvious attachment to his brother. However much he's always hated his older brother, he also -- however irrationally -- has this obvious belief in the magical power of older brothers to be able to solve any problem and know how to do things. Had Horst had any experience running a carnival when Johannes dug him out of the tomb in Necromancer? Definitely not, but Johannes was in trouble and (in addition to having no friends), he had an irrational certainty that his brother both could and would fix it. I love that Horst is the one good person Johannes always believes in. Even when Horst is bitter and angry with him. Even when Horst is having trouble believing in his own goodness. I love seeing Johannes having to comfort and reassure Horst, awkward but sincere. It's such an obvious role reversal for them -- I'm a sucker for that.
Please note that while I've written my prompt to indicate my interest in Horst/Johannes as a ship, the general prompt ideas I threw out there are very open-ended, and wouldn't necessarily result in a shipfic whatsoever. That's totally cool with me -- as you can see from my commentary about what interests me about them/their relationship, these things hold true whether or not they're in the context of a romantic involvement, and any story that maintains the fact that these are brothers who care about each other (no matter how much they resent each other) really is going to be just what I'm looking for.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) -- HAL 9000; David Bowman
HAL's half-crazy all for the love of you, Dave. For this request, I would absolutely love to see your take on HAL/Dave noncon/dubcon where the perpetrator is a bodiless AI. I love robot/human dynamics and interdependencies, and the ways in which these turn paranoid, fearful, and bitter when either party lacks some of the other's abilities, even while it remains true that by their very design, robots/AI "complete us" in the Jerry Maguire sense. There's something very personal, very raw and darkly romantic in that, and I love the many ways in which that unfolds.
Please see my letter for more specific details/commentary on what I like about 2001 and HAL/Dave. I'm also up for crueltide this year if, like me, you like things to get a little uncomfortably dark sometimes. Any rating is okay for this request, and smut is obviously 100% good with me.
Additional Comments: My 2001: ASO prompt probably gets across that I like stories with robot/monster/inhuman boyfriends(/girlfriends) involved. I love the interplay and often the shamefully close relationships between human beings and things that aren't human, and the ways in which the power dichotomies differ in those kinds of relationships depending on the nature of their origins. This is definitely my most open-ended prompt, because I'd badly love to see what you do with it as a writer. I'd love to see your take on these things and what you want to explore about them. Please feel free to explore, experiment, and make a terrible mess -- I'll love it if you do. Keep in mind, also, that non-con/dubcon do not necessarily mean that anything graphically sexual has to occur, and this is certainly something I take into account when considering what you might come up with here -- and something that I am completely okay with! A fic about HAL and Dave's dubious/non-consensual relationship in general does not actually have to be sexual at all to still be about an unhealthy and harmful power dynamic - what I'm most into is seeing how you explore the concept of an AI and the ways in which it conceives of emotions differently than/similarly to a human being. In HAL's case, we see how this ultimately ends in the film, but I'd love a look into HAL's inner world, however you conceive of it.
I really hope some of this has been helpful!
The honest truth is that this year, once again I picked what I consider to be three pretty great fandoms to be getting fic in, full stop. While I have particular things that I'd love to see, and my requests reflect that, you should please know that I'm going to adore anything you might write if you're writing for one of these fandoms, even if it's far afield from my request details. If it's about the fandoms/characters I've asked for, please have fun with it and I know it'll be awesome. <3
Thanks in advance,
Your excited recipient
I remembered to do my letter on time this year. Already I'm batting a thousand. :) (Note to anyone reading -- my requests are yuleporn and crueltide friendly!)
You're here because you were matched on one of my three prompts this year -- Fate/Zero, Johannes Cabal, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. So already I'm psyched for whatever you decide to write for me. I'll talk a little bit about what I generally enjoy, writing-wise, then I'll talk about each of the specific fandoms I requested and what I like about them. Hopefully some of that'll be helpful to you in getting a better idea of my interests.
General things I like:
I don't know which of my prompts you might've gotten matched to me on, but one thing I did want to mention is that I know they tread into some dangerous territory, as far as what a person might be comfortable writing for a stranger. And while, as noted, you don't have to write in the directions I've suggested if you don't want to, if you're up for it, I thought I'd at least try to help out by providing a little bit of reassurance about where my comfort zone is as a reader. (This might be especially useful if, like me, you're looking at writing for Crueltide this year -- I love things kind of dark, so I'll try to get into what flavors of dark I most enjoy.)
I am definitely cool with smut, first off, whether you're writing something dark or not. Smut is a wonderful thing, and I'd pretty much never turn it down. PWP is fine. Beyond that, most flavors of .
Noncon and dubcon are both just fine for me, with dubcon being more my bent. Violence is totally okay also, and BDSM. (Guro is not my preference, however, as that isn't something I'm into -- and I'm not into straight cannibalism/vore, unless you're talking about Horst's ~dark vampiric urges~ here.) Brainwashing/mind control/manipulation are totally welcome, and people being horrible to people they care about is A-okay with me. I love things that are deeply messed up. I love seeing people cry. (I am, in short, probably a terrible person -- sorry, dear yulewriter.) I love people loving people who are horrible to them, or who do bad things to them. If you're going the Crueltide route, I would love a story that's dark and messed up but has a sort of not-entirely-miserable ending, or better. I ship these things, even if I ship them in sad, pathetic, unhealthy ways. I love seeing Johannes comfort Horst. I love seeing Diarmuid keep taking Kayneth back even when Kayneth's a short-sighted ass. I love HAL not understanding why you can't keep the things you love under lock and key.
I like things that are dark or twisted or angsty or just plain fucked up. I wouldn't say I'm into grimdark, as I do enjoy good relationships with a messed up element to them as much as I do bad relationships with a messed up element to them.
I like baggage. I like the interplay of love and hate or of pleasure and pain. I love people who are complete messes being in relationships with other people who might also be complete messes.
I don't love curtainfic or crackfic, generally -- I generally prefer something a bit less light.
PROMPTS:
Fate/Zero -- Diarmuid Ua Duibhne | Lancer; Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi (Fate/Zero)
Team Lancer -- what a horrible, hideous train wreck. After the events of Fate/Zero, the best thing you can probably say for these characters is that at least, in death, they never have to see each other again, and that's probably for the best. So, naturally, I want them to see each other again. What I'd love here is to see Diarmuid and Kayneth reincarnated in the same time and place and dealing with each other again -- all the guilt and bitterness and masses of baggage, but also all the complicated feelings of people who are irrevocably caught up in each other/bound to each other by their shared past.
Please see my letter for more specific thoughts/suggestions, but I should note here that I am a Diarmuid/Kayneth shipper and would absolutely love if you were interested in writing shipfic for me. (But if you're not, I would still be pleased as punch to receive a genfic!) I'm also totally up for crueltide this year if, like me, you authorially like being bad to people and making them cry. (I love seeing Kayneth cry.) Any rating is okay for this request, and smut would be more than slightly well-received if you choose to do it.
Additional comments: As I said, if you're not into writing Diarkay, please don't feel obligated! Regarding physical status, I am totally down with Kayneth being wheelchair-bound in some way if you so choose (and don't consider that mutually exclusive with smut, either, if you're going that route). Regarding Sola-Ui, I don't mind you including her in some fashion (whether as a neutral figure/antagonist, etc.) -- but I'm not interested in a threesome/OT3 ending here. I enjoy poly dynamics, but not in this particular instance.
What I love about Diarmuid: He's a noble, tragic figure who -- after all Kayneth's put him through, should rightfully despise Kayneth and in any number of lifetimes not bother to piss on him if he were on fire, and yet. Kayneth is his master and always will be. As much as he might fully intend to take revenge on Kayneth (and if, for example, he came back with some sort of berserker affect, he might not necessarily be able to control that urge regardless) -- all the same, Diarmuid will also always be at least 60% spear-wielding Disney Princess -- could he really see Kayneth terrified or broken or upset and be unaffected by it? He has a heart, and a stupidly big heart, at that -- and I adore him for it.
What I love about Kayneth: Wow, what a self-involved uptight ass. The world has owed Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi his comeuppance for a long time, and in canon, he sure does certainly get it. But in a lot of his attitude, I think you see someone who's driven and talented and creative, and would perhaps like to be a little freer in his heart of hearts (he has art hobbies and designed his own clothes, oh Kayneth), if he weren't so deeply, cripplingly insecure. He's someone who thinks that the keys to making people like you are to be powerful and successful and amazing, rather than, say, a human being who's ever tried relating to other human beings on an emotional level. He has absolutely no ability to handle failure or rejection or even just the fear of failure or rejection, and he behaves with snide, hissing resentment toward anyone he perceives as being a threat to Kayneth's status as the most powerful, successful, amazing, and therefore (in his mind) desirable man in the room (to wit, Diarmuid -- sorry, Diarmuid). He's the kind of person who's terrible at saying he's sorry because he's too obsessed with his own fear that his apology would be rejected and he'd be humiliated.
Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L. Howard -- Johannes Cabal; Horst Cabal
For the sake of not mincing words, please be warned that this is a Horst/Johannes incest/shipfic request. These books are delightful whatever ill-advised adventure Johannes has gotten himself into, but for me, they're at their best when Horst and Johannes are interacting in a way that best resembles a three-legged race charged with extreme amounts of sexual tension. Horst and Johannes are brothers, and they obviously love each other (whether you read it as familial or something less savory), but also, one of them locked the other one in a tomb for eight years, and there's a lot of anger and bitterness there.
Some possibilities: a missing scene during Necromancer when their relationship is still very bitter and not very trusting; a missing scene during Brothers where maybe Horst is struggling with his dark vampire urges; a missing scene from Johannes's recovery during the beginning of Brothers where Horst uses vampiric compulsion for less than admirable reasons and then compels Johannes to forget what happened. Or anything else of your choosing. Please see my letter for more specific thoughts/details on what interests me with Horst and Johannes.
I'm also up for crueltide this year if, like me, you're up for that! Any rating is okay for this request, and smut is certainly very welcome.
Additional Comments: If you've read the books, I probably don't have to describe what I think Horst and Johannes's relationship is like -- we get to see quite a bit of it on-screen, and whether you read anything incestuous into it or not, the Cabal brothers are delightful.
What I love about Horst: He's confident and caring and a thoroughly, deeply good person. He's also one of those people who is a desperate extrovert -- someone who almost ceases to exist when he stands in an empty room. He's empathic, witty, garrulous -- and also a silly, lazy layabout who's no doubt squandered some of his life's potential in his younger days. He appears to have a desperate need to be liked by people (sometimes even by people he doesn't even like). He's the kind of person who's utterly convinced that everyone would like him if they got to know him, and who can't seem to let go of the matter if, God forbid, someone doesn't. He's desperately bitter at Johannes, but he's also and forever Johannes's older brother, and he can't seem to truly stop loving his baby brother, even while he also hates him -- nor to shrug off his innate desire as his older brother to protect his younger sibling. He thinks he's God's gift to levity. He makes Johannes roll his eyes constantly.
What I love about Johannes: First of all, I love everything about Johannes. Doesn't everyone? I love his horribly bad decisions. I love his attempts and failures to be heartless. I love how baffled he is when he does good deeds just because he wants to. I love his obvious attachment to his brother. However much he's always hated his older brother, he also -- however irrationally -- has this obvious belief in the magical power of older brothers to be able to solve any problem and know how to do things. Had Horst had any experience running a carnival when Johannes dug him out of the tomb in Necromancer? Definitely not, but Johannes was in trouble and (in addition to having no friends), he had an irrational certainty that his brother both could and would fix it. I love that Horst is the one good person Johannes always believes in. Even when Horst is bitter and angry with him. Even when Horst is having trouble believing in his own goodness. I love seeing Johannes having to comfort and reassure Horst, awkward but sincere. It's such an obvious role reversal for them -- I'm a sucker for that.
Please note that while I've written my prompt to indicate my interest in Horst/Johannes as a ship, the general prompt ideas I threw out there are very open-ended, and wouldn't necessarily result in a shipfic whatsoever. That's totally cool with me -- as you can see from my commentary about what interests me about them/their relationship, these things hold true whether or not they're in the context of a romantic involvement, and any story that maintains the fact that these are brothers who care about each other (no matter how much they resent each other) really is going to be just what I'm looking for.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) -- HAL 9000; David Bowman
HAL's half-crazy all for the love of you, Dave. For this request, I would absolutely love to see your take on HAL/Dave noncon/dubcon where the perpetrator is a bodiless AI. I love robot/human dynamics and interdependencies, and the ways in which these turn paranoid, fearful, and bitter when either party lacks some of the other's abilities, even while it remains true that by their very design, robots/AI "complete us" in the Jerry Maguire sense. There's something very personal, very raw and darkly romantic in that, and I love the many ways in which that unfolds.
Please see my letter for more specific details/commentary on what I like about 2001 and HAL/Dave. I'm also up for crueltide this year if, like me, you like things to get a little uncomfortably dark sometimes. Any rating is okay for this request, and smut is obviously 100% good with me.
Additional Comments: My 2001: ASO prompt probably gets across that I like stories with robot/monster/inhuman boyfriends(/girlfriends) involved. I love the interplay and often the shamefully close relationships between human beings and things that aren't human, and the ways in which the power dichotomies differ in those kinds of relationships depending on the nature of their origins. This is definitely my most open-ended prompt, because I'd badly love to see what you do with it as a writer. I'd love to see your take on these things and what you want to explore about them. Please feel free to explore, experiment, and make a terrible mess -- I'll love it if you do. Keep in mind, also, that non-con/dubcon do not necessarily mean that anything graphically sexual has to occur, and this is certainly something I take into account when considering what you might come up with here -- and something that I am completely okay with! A fic about HAL and Dave's dubious/non-consensual relationship in general does not actually have to be sexual at all to still be about an unhealthy and harmful power dynamic - what I'm most into is seeing how you explore the concept of an AI and the ways in which it conceives of emotions differently than/similarly to a human being. In HAL's case, we see how this ultimately ends in the film, but I'd love a look into HAL's inner world, however you conceive of it.
I really hope some of this has been helpful!
The honest truth is that this year, once again I picked what I consider to be three pretty great fandoms to be getting fic in, full stop. While I have particular things that I'd love to see, and my requests reflect that, you should please know that I'm going to adore anything you might write if you're writing for one of these fandoms, even if it's far afield from my request details. If it's about the fandoms/characters I've asked for, please have fun with it and I know it'll be awesome. <3
Thanks in advance,
Your excited recipient
