Dear Yuletide Writer

[swan_tower]

Hello, Yulemouse! Before we get to anything else, I want to thank you. It's always a delight to have somebody write a gift fic for me, and I can't wait to see what you come up with.

The optional details below are optional; they are also, shall we say, a bit long. Please do not be put off by this. It's mostly me babbling about why I like the sources, and then offering a variety of tidbits that I hope will be useful to you. Basically, I'm just trying to feed the plotbunnies. (There are also more general notes about my tastes at the bottom.) (Also, way too many parenthetical asides.)

My username on AO3 is russian_blue, if you're the sort of Yuletider who mines previous gifts and/or fics for data before you start writing. :-)

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Fandom: Gabriel Knight
Characters: Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakimura

This is the request that inspired me to create the Some Day My Fic Will Come mini-challenge. We are the few, the stubborn, the ones who obsessively ask for the same thing year after year!

If you didn’t match with me on this fandom, you probably aren’t going to write it, but juuuuust in case, I should mention that you can now buy all three games on GOG.com. Or you can buy novelizations of the first two games (not the third, unfortunately), or it looks like there are some Let's Play videos on Youtube. And there's an HD remake of the first game out now! (I've reviewed it here, if you're curious.)

Anyway, if you like the old Sierra point-and-click style adventure games, this series is really fun. (And not as horror-ish as the descriptions would have you believe: it's more a matter of horror tropes than lots of gore or jump moments.)

What I love about the source: These days, with companies like Bioware around, the notion of a computer game with character development and a genuinely dramatic plot isn't such a big deal. But back when I first played these, it was mind-blowing! There's still a lot of humour (because Sierra's like that), but it's used as leavening for some weightier stuff. I also loved the way Jensen made use of real-world history and folklore, and the sense that Gabriel was a flawed guy who was, step by step, becoming a better person.

What I'd love to get: Closure. Pleeeeeeeeease.

This is the downside to having actual character development: when the arc gets cut short, it leaves the audience hanging. The relationship between Gabe and Grace built up over three games, until they slept together in Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, but then they never really talked about it, and then Grace bailed out and we didn't even get to read her note and auuuuuuuggggggggggggggh.

I'd like to see that hanging thread tied up. The closure could take whatever form you like, and be from whichever point of view you like, or both. Grace, presumably, was going to talk to that guy in India she'd been e-mailing, about how she could fight supernatural evil in her own right. Maybe Gabe goes after her. Maybe he doesn't (I can see him not having the confidence to do so), and she shows up again a few years later, after becoming some kind of full-blown Schattenjäger equivalent herself. Maybe they run into each other without warning when they both go after the same supernatural beastie. I'd love to see Grace treated as Gabe's professional equal (I think she's always been his equal in personal terms), rather than a sidekick, and for him to accept her as such -- which is not to say he should have a personality transplant and suddenly be without flaws or blind spots, but I feel like he's been struggling with a lot of issues there, and it would nice to see him continue to grow.

I'd like there to be a happy ending eventually -- get your mind out of the gutter! I mean happy emotions! -- but I don't mind angst along the way. (Where "happy endings" are concerned, wink wink nudge nudge -- eh, I really care more about the emotional resolution. They can sleep together or not, as you like, but I'd prefer that not to be the main focus of the story.) If you have the time and energy, I would ADORE something plotty, with a supernatural threat they have to take care of. Flavor of threat is entirely up to you: rumour has it the fourth game would have taken place in Scotland and dealt with ghosts; run with that if you want, or grab any cool bits of folklore and history that you know and want to play with.

If, on the other hand, you detest that entire relationship and can't bring yourself to give it a HEA, then I would also be delighted with a story that is just about Grace doing something cool, post-canon, with or without Gabriel appearing. You don't have to be a Ritter and the Schattenjäger to do that kind of thing, after all, and Grace is awesome.

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Fandom: Elfquest
Characters: any

A repeat request, because this is a fandom I adore so much, I don't think I could ever get tired of it.

What I love about the source: Oh god, where do I start? This was, for many years, the only comic book I had ever read. It's still one of the deep foundational stories in my mind. I love how well-realized the characters are, and the capacity for the narrative to be about the ensemble and subsets thereof, rather than being just Cutter's story with everybody else playing bit parts. I love the way conflict is handled, never being casually dismissed, or treated as if violence is a get-out-of-jail-free card for everything. I love the consequences, and the fact that the characters experience both real losses and real victories. And I've got a big ol' soft spot for the soul-names thing, and the various bonds that can be created from that, both voluntary and not, both good and bad.

If you need to refresh your memory or want to get in on this awesome series, virtually all of it is available for free online.

What I'd love to get: If you're willing to tackle something that isn't character-specific, I would love to get anything expanding the setting, whether geographically or historically. I've read possibly everything there is -- certainly I've read most of it, including the far-future Jink stuff, and the part of the Final Quest that got posted online -- though nothing after Kings of the Broken Wheel hit me quite as deeply. There's so much richness there, and also so much open space to develop new things. Possible angles include:

1) A story about a tribe of your own devising, either meeting one of the canonical groups or off doing their own thing. This could explore an environment not already covered (in a previous year I got subterranean volcanic elves!), or be your own take on something the canon already touched on. (I love the idea of sea elves, for example, but the actual canonical Wavedancers didn't really do it for me.) My academic background is in anthropology, so elves adapting socially and physically to different environments is really interesting to me -- which sounds high-falutin', but really what I mean is yay cool stuff!

2) A historical incident for any of the canonical groups. Life under a past Wolfrider chief, early days of the Sun Village, Go-Backs vs. trolls, the Gliders before they fell into decadence and apathy -- a story about any of those would be cool. The High Ones right after the fall. Etc. Whatever strikes your fancy.

3) Human contact. This one could combine with any of the other prompts. Maybe your invented tribe runs into humans, or has even learned to co-exist with them in (non-warped-Glider-style) peace. Or maybe there were other contacts that we haven't been told about, for the canonical tribes or individual characters therefrom. We've already had a few examples of how that could go, but there's room for a lot more variety.

4) If you'd prefer to stick closer to the actual series rather than haring off into the wild blue yonder with your own ideas, I am cool with any of the nominated characters! (One of the reasons I can ask for Elfquest every year is, there are basically no characters I don't like.) There are enough of them this year that I can't list individualized prompts for all of them, but I really will be happy with whichever people you offered to write. Or people you didn't offer to write, if you get a brainstorm for one of them, or tailored your offers to avoid specific kinds of prompts but are happy to write them when you have a clear field. The above bits have probably given you an idea of where my interests lie: the individual character of each tribe, the things that are unique to being an elf (long life, soul name, magical gifts), how different groups deal with things, etc. Even a character like Teir, who has spent most of his life isolated from any normal elven society, is interesting to me precisely because of that lack.

Really, I just want MOAR ELFQUEST DAMMIT, whether it's following the existing material somewhere new or breaking fresh ground entirely. Whatever idea you have, if you think I'll like it, then go for it!

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Fandom: Songs for a New World
Character: King of the World

I heard this song for the first time last year, and immediately put it on my Yuletide list. That's how awesome it is. :-D

What I love about the source: It's allllllmost the sort of song you've heard before, energetic and determined and hopeful, only the piano sounds ever so slightly off-kilter, and then you start listening to what the guy is saying -- and then you start listening to what he isn't saying . . . .

What I'm looking for: I am dying to know this guy's backstory -- some kind of explanation of who he is and what happened to him. I don't have a specific idea as to what form that explanation should take; you're free to do pretty much whatever you like. The rest of what follows here is me rambling about the things I hear in the song and what they make me think of, in case that helps give you a direction, but don't feel that you have to treat those thoughts as a straitjacket.

More than anything, the singer strikes me as a deeply unreliable narrator. He says over and over again that he had good intentions, etc, and he talks about how much people loved him, but I can't help but feel his perception of that doesn't exactly match reality. Did he take over by force? Or did they welcome him in at first, and then it went sour? He keeps acting like there's no good reason for him to be locked up, but yeeeeeah, I somehow doubt that. So what went wrong?

Did he actually have supernatural powers? I could see that being the case, but it could also just be poetic exaggeration. I sort of imagine this as a fantasy setting anyway, whether he has powers or not -- like he's the tyrannical ruler the Chosen One has to overthrow. Or maybe he's the Chosen One, and he took a wrong turn somewhere. Or maybe he's the Chosen One, and he didn't really take a wrong turn per se, but there's a problem with the whole concept of Chosen-ness to begin with. It also makes me think of the French Revolution, and the way that people can take their lofty ideals in absolutely horrible directions.

I keep being struck by the emotion that breaks through when he speaks of his son, his family. Who are they? I get the impression that whoever they are, he really does care about them. (Maybe they're the only thing he really cares about.) Doesn't mean they return the sentiment, though, especially depending on what he did to get thrown in prison.

The only firm request I'll make here is that you not present him as a totally ordinary guy locked up in a mental hospital. I am not at all a fan of the sort of "fantasy" where it's just the viewpoint character's delusions, so please don't take the source in that direction. I believe the singer really did do something; he had genuine power and it went genuinely wrong.

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Fandom: Sengoku Avengers
Characters: any
Fandom: Jidaigeki X-Men
Characters: any

I'm combining my notes for these two because they have the same core concept, and what I'm looking for is more or less the same in both instances. Please don't take that as a sign that I'm less interested in either one, or less interested in this pair than my other fandoms -- nothing could be further from the truth!

What I love about the source: How awesome is this? Superheroes reinvented in a historical Japanese context! Okay, okay, I am a very special kind of nerd, and I know it. But I adore the way the artist worked in details of the time periods and the folklore, with things like Kaibutsu's ofuda or making Onryou an outright ghost.

What I'm looking for: Dude. ANYTHING. Anything at all that plays around with superpowered people in historical Japan. If there's a specific event or historical person or cultural detail you happen to know pretty well, and you want to use that as the basis for your story, GO FOR IT. I would be especially delighted to devour anything that makes use of Japanese folklore; that's already woven into a number of the characters' backgrounds, so if you want to do more like that (with religion or yokai or superstitions or what have you), I fall at your feet in glee. :-)

Character-wise, I'm totally cool with you using any of the characters, in any combination you like -- including mashing together these two canons, if that floats your boat. (There's also a Chambara JLA on his site, though I personally find their backstories less effective than those in these sets.) You can also port other suitable characters in, if you have a brilliant idea for how to historical-Japanese-ify someone else from comics canon. And don't feel obliged to stick to every single detail of the backstories, either; in general I think they're cool and would love to see what a writer could do with them, but there are lots of ways they could be tweaked while still keeping to the original spirit of the thing. (For example, it would make a lot of sense if Kaminchu's people were Ainu or Ryukyuan or something like that. I would have no problem with a change of that sort.)

If "any characters; anything!" is too open-ended and you need some kind of direction to go in, I think the ladies of the Jidaigeki group are especially nifty, and in the Sengoku group, I think Kaibutsu, Kagami, and Raijin have the best backstories. I really would be happy with any of them, though.

Pretty much the only thing I don't want is the usual continuity personalities with a historical Japanese paint job slapped on top. If I want normal Avengers fic, there is an endless ocean of it out there for me to read, and ditto the X-Men. Which is awesome, but the reason I'm asking for these versions is because I find the reinvention of the core concepts fascinating. I will eat that up with a spoon.

(Minor nitpicky note: the romanization of Takajyō's name annoys me. So please, if you include him, write it as Takajō or Takajou. Or Takazyo/Takazyou, which is at least still consistent -- but JSL kind of makes my eyeballs bleed, so.)

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More generally: For the first time I'm going to take a crack at splitting my general commments into clear divisions, on the grounds that it might be more convenient for my writer. These are grouped in descending order of how much I want them.

Things That Are Yay: plot! (Casefic, etc. If you have the time and energy -- I know it can be a lot of work.) Exploration of character motivations, exploration/expansion of the setting. Fic that could fit into canon. Drama, up to and including aaaaaangst. Characters getting whumped on. Witty humour, especially if it's used as the jab to set up the dramatic roundhouse that follows.

Things That Are A-okay: violence, up to a point (see below). Non-explicit sex. AUs of the "what if this event went differently?" sort. Inclusion of nominated characters I didn't request. Inclusion of canonical characters who haven't been nominated. Original characters as needed for the story (in the case of my Elfquest prompt, the whole story can be OCs if you like). Most povs, tenses, narrative formats, etc.

Things That Are Meh: straight-up character introspection (barring my Songs for a New World prompt, which might lend itself to that). Nonfiction-style worldbuilding (though now that I think of it, I could probably like a really well-done mock encyclopedia entry for the King of the World). Second person pov without a really good reason (it might work for Songs for a New World -- clearly there's a pattern here, with one of my fandoms lending itself to weirder approaches than the rest).

Things That Are Nay: radical AUs like coffee shop, genderswaps, a/b/o, etc. Explicit smut and its associated kinks/tropes. "Five Things"-type stories (I've read some good ones, but that format rarely does it for me; I much prefer one continuous tale). Requested characters having only a cameo in the story, unless otherwise specified in the prompt. Gross-out humour. Humiliation. Characters being flat-out stupid. Character bashing. Torture porn, especially with female victims. Women being sidelined in general.

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As mentioned before, I'm russian_blue on AO3, so feel free to rummage around in the entrails of what I’ve got there if you need more data on what I like. And above all: have fun!