Dear yuletide letter
Note to most of my friendships: If you don't do the yuletide fan fic exchange, and aren't terribly interested in my thoughts on Starlight Express, Little Women, and Tanz der Vampire, this is a good post to skip. :)
Dear Yuletide writer,
First off, as everybody starts, thank you very much for signing up and taking a chance to write in one of my pet fandoms. Whatever it is you decide to write about, believe me when I say I'm very excited about it, and I'm quite certain I'll love it. This is my second time doing yuletide, and it was an absolute blast last year. My AO3 name is Chiana606, and I also post on fanfiction.net as Elisabeth Harker.
I'm pretty much all over the place with this letter, and list a whole lot of contradictory things that I'd like to see. I'm the sort of writer who likes to write with prompts myself, so there are quite a few prompts and ideas within the letter. A lot of them would not work well together in the least, so please don't feel like you have to use everything in the letter. Or anything, for that matter. Just seeing stories with my favorite characters will make me more than thrilled.
First off, some general things that I like:
character driven fics -- Although I have nothing against big epic plots, I don't feel like a story needs one in order to be interesting. If the story reveals some interesting things about the focus characters, it doesn't really matter to me if they're off having madcap adventures, or just hanging out at home dusting their bookshelves (actually, I usually prefer smaller scale plots to bigger ones, though there are exceptions, and please write what you like best. ).
relationships - Not neccesarily in the romantic sense. If character A and character B have interesting interactions together, I want to see it. I enjoy friendship stories a lot. Alternately, I also enjoy stories where there interactions between the characters are just really, really complex, and not so easily definable as friendship/love/hate etc.
hurt/comfort - I don't know why, but this is probably my favourite fan fic trope ever.
AU - Specifically, I like stories that stick very close to canon, but then throw a wrench in it by changing one major aspect. I prefer that aspect to be some sort of outside force, rather than something related to the personality of the main character being written about. By outside force, I mean anything -- death of a major character (or not-death of someone who is supposed to die in canon), change in the outcome of some important event, zombies, whatever. (worth noting that I also love non-AU canon based fic).
Now some fandom specific stuff --
Starlight Express - Once upon a time I was so obsessed with this musical that it wasn't funny. I even skipped my senior prom to go see the US tour of the musical (dressed as Dinah. :P ). That was about six years ago, but I still feel a very affectionate fondness towards Starlight Express. My favourite character by far is Dinah, so I'd like to see a story focusing on her. Once upon a time, Dinah/CB ( Caboose) used to my OTP. I still would love a story where the two of them get together, but I'm not as fixated on the idea as I used to be, and I can think of quite a few other scenarios that I'd like just as much. For example, what about a story focusing on interactions between Dinah and Rusty? I've always thought the two of them had some things in common, and it would be interesting to see them talk, as they never do in the musical. Dinah and the other coaches could be cool too.
My favourite version of the Starlight Express canon is the original London (so, with Belle and CB), or the Bochum. However, I understand that the show has undergone tons upon tons of changes, and the production you've seen or listened to might be quite different, which is fine as well. :)
Tanz Der Vampire - I like Alfred. Any story with a heavy Alfred focus will be well received. I'm most interested in Alfred post musical, and how he would make the transition into vampire, as that is such a big change for him.
Some notes on how I see Alfred -- I don't see him as wimpy, or whiny by any stretch, nor do I see him as stupid. I tend to think of him as a fairly normal man thrust into a very crazy situation, and reacting about as well as most people would, given the circumstances. Some things I like about the character is how sweet and earnest he is, and also how ineffective he is as a vampire hunter (it's a nice break from the Van Helsing character-type).
I like Alfred/Herbert, Alfred/Sarah, and really whatever tickles your fancy in terms of romances or relationships for Alfred. I have a tendency to like dubcon with Herbert/Alfred, but that's not a requirement at all. Sarah as a vampire, and what she'd be like interests me. In fact, ANY of the mortal characters vampire-selves interests me (honestly, my interest in vampires makes me quite easy to please in terms of Tanz der Vampire fic. A writer, could conceivably just fill a text document with the word "vampire" repeated 1000 times, and I'd come away from reading it grinning like an idiot.).
The one thing I don't like in Tanz der Vampire fics are stories where Herbert is potrayed as basically an overgrown child. I like a Herbert who can be over the top, flamboyant, and even silly, but is still intellegent and dangerous.
Little Women This is the fandom that I currently stalk fanfiction.net looking for more stories, ANY STORIES for. I've read all three books in the series, and just adore it to bits. If you write something, rest assured that I'll love it and reread it a dozen times. Now, the more specific stuff.
Jo/Laurie - Like a lot of the fandom, this is my favourite thing about the book. I don't think I'd be *in* the fandom had I not first read the book during a forty hour train ride of doom, and been left with out any other literature for many hours post reading to go back over my favourite parts over and over, and come to the impassioned conclusion that the two of them should have gotten together.
The fact is, though, I'm a lot less impassioned about that these days -- Not about the relationship, so much as the hard and fast belief that Laurie and Jo should have been married, and that's it. I like them as friends. I like them as lovers. I like them as friends who could have been lovers. I like stories where Laurie wants Jo and she doesn't want him. I like stories where they have vaugely romantic interactions, that could still be viewed as just friendship. I like lemons, limes, and gen. Really, it's just all about interaction of any sort when it comes to those two, and establishing what the relationship -is- exactly. I like the way that they talk to eachother, and how they both care very deeply for one another, no matter the other circumstances. I won't pretend that I don't like the angst.
I'm happy to read about Jo and Laurie at any place in the books, though I do particularly like younger Jo/Laurie. By younger, I mean at any point between when the first meet and their marraiges to Amy and Bhaer. The period between the end of Little Women and the start of Jo's Boys also is interesting, because quite a few things change between the end of the first book and the start of the last. I don't like stories where Amy or Bhaer are potrayed as evil, because they are not. I'm also not, as a rule, very fond of stories in which Laurie and Jo have affairs behind Amy/Bhaer's backs (Though I can think of one that I liked. Hi Rese!). Also, I'd rather not read an AU of the proposal scene, just because it's been done at least three times that I can think of.
I tend to like stories where terrible things happen to Jo, for some reason. I also sort of like the idea of a lesbian Jo (but clearly also like the idea of a straight Jo, hence the whole Jo/Laurie shipping thing.).
Meg / Nan - For this prompt, you can write either Nan or Meg. It doesn't have to be both of them together, though it can be if you want. Meg I'd mostly like to see, because nobody really writes about her. Nan for the same reason, actually. With Nan, I love how strong she is, and would love to see her have some sort of exciting adventure. Or maybe a conversation between her and one of the characters that she doesn't interact with as much in canon (Nat, Dan, or Laurie, for example? Or Meg, since she's also in the prompt). Meg? I'm not sure. I know I like young Meg (Little Women/Good Wives) a lot. On one hand, it would be fun to see Meg go on an adventure, or be thrust into doing something herioc. On the other, just a look at her domestic life, or interactions between her and one of the other sisters (Amy or Beth, since there's a lot of her and Jo in the books) would be fun. What about a story about how Meg deals with Beth becoming sicker and eventually dying? Or... I don't know, a shopping trip with her and Marmee a few days before her wedding to Brooke? Feel free to use or ignore prompts.
