Dear Yuletide Writer
Oct. 15th, 2012 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mme_hardy(I keep this journal mostly locked; this will show up as one of very few entries.)
First of all, thank you so much; this is an awesome and kind thing for you to do, and I hope you enjoy writing it. I am so pleased to see fic in any of these sources that I will squee for days.
General Stuff
I love: wit, swordfights (bonus rapier and main-gauche or rapier and cloak; I don't know much about fencing, so you don't have to either), masked balls, melodrama, clothing and decor neep (Tell me about your chaise longue, baby), swashbuckling, repartee, descriptions of food, kidnappings. If you're up for plot, I love plot; no sex required. (Although plot, sex, and rhetoric are good too.) Humor is always appreciated.
Explicit sex (slash, het, polymorphous, your kink goes here) is fine, but gen is great! Really! As far as sex goes, I like love-hate sex; emotional conflict; the edge cases of non-con; bring on the sex pollen or the "must do it to save the universe" if you like that sort of thing. I have written BDSM, and don't object if that's where you want to go. See small list of Avoids. Anything else is fair game.
I love things that are over the top and/or pseudo-quasi-Victorian and pseudo-quasi-Edwardian. I loved the movie of Phantom of the Opera, because it adhered to the theory that Too Much Is Not Enough. I loved the Baz Luhrmann Moulin Rouge. I am not wild about steampunk plots in practice, although I love the visuals. I am very fond of operetta plots. I love vintage musicals, all the usuals as well as things like early Rodgers and Hart and Wodehouse and deeply, deeply cracky plots like "Chee-Chee". [I am not suggesting Chee-Chee fic, because it's so horribly Orientalist there is no saving it. I just like the total insanity that created a plot based around castration jokes, with a chorus of singing eunuchs.] I am Sondheim's utter slave.
Things I would strongly prefer you avoid: urine and feces play, incest, violent rape, bestiality, mutilation, actor RPF, social humiliation humor.
Feel free to be silly; feel free to be serious. Whichever you pick, I love snark and wit and humorous asides. My sense of humor is pretty damn dark, except for humiliation humor, which squicks me.
Specifics
Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time", Narrator.
Isn't this a fabulous song? Something unusual is happening in that bar. Is it the end of the world? Is it merely the end of the drinks? Who is the "very sweet companion"? What brought the Narrator to that time and place? Fill in the plot, if you'd like to. Write a surreal swirl of images. Lift your glass to the awful truth that you can't reveal to the ears of youth.
YouTube: Closing Time. Note: I'm not linking to the official video, because I'd rather have your own interpretation of the images.
Anthony Hope's Zenda novels/movies, Rupert of Hentzau:
Ah, Rupert of Hentzau. Dashing, handsome, competent, witty, and stuck with the Worst Boss Ever. Seriously, Black Michael couldn't plot his way into overthrowing a paper bag. (Why imprison King Rudolf? Why not just kill him? Rupert would have.) I am well aware that Rupert is Not A Nice Guy; he isn't just the hero's foil, but he is ruthless and threatens to commit rape on at least one occasion. However, let's face it, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. diving through a window is one of the great moments in film.
Some ideas that may or may not work for you: Rupert/Rassendyll -- you never know where a corps-a-corps might lead; Antoinette de Mauban -- who is not a wimp -- going up against Rupert and winning; Colonel Sapt confronting and then cashiering a young Rupert earlier in their careers. Do not feel constrained: these are plot bunnies and I bet yours are better. Feel free to use the entire "Prisoner of Zenda" pseudo-canon: book, as well as any movie based on the Zenda plot including The Great Race. if you've read Rupert of Hentzau, go for it, but don't feel obliged to seek it out for this challenge. Bring in any supporting characters that work for you, but please make the fic Rupert-licious. (Rupert of Hentzau, but I'm serious, don't feel obliged.)
Procopius, The Secret History: Theodora
Isn't The Secret History the best celebrity dish in history? I mean, geese eating grain off Theodora's naked ladyparts. You don't get that in Classics Illustrated.
Want: You to go to the outer limits of your imagination. Write weird stuff. Theodora Confessing All to Justinian and his saying it's fine as long as she brings him along next time. Theodora doing it all in order to spread space herpes under the bidding of her alien masters. Sex being the only effective way to bring together the disparate religious ideals of Byzantium and Theodora nobly sacrificing herself to the cause. A much, much better idea that you are even now envisioning. Slash and het are both welcome; if you can write gen, it's not really in the spirit of the source, but I will applaud your audacity.
Do not want: Scholarly explanations of how Procopius Got It All Wrong -- unless they're cracky. Take it for granted that Procopius is an unreliable source, but for the purposes of this fic he is either reliable or responding to entertaining outside pressures.
The Secret History (one of many translations)
First of all, thank you so much; this is an awesome and kind thing for you to do, and I hope you enjoy writing it. I am so pleased to see fic in any of these sources that I will squee for days.
General Stuff
I love: wit, swordfights (bonus rapier and main-gauche or rapier and cloak; I don't know much about fencing, so you don't have to either), masked balls, melodrama, clothing and decor neep (Tell me about your chaise longue, baby), swashbuckling, repartee, descriptions of food, kidnappings. If you're up for plot, I love plot; no sex required. (Although plot, sex, and rhetoric are good too.) Humor is always appreciated.
Explicit sex (slash, het, polymorphous, your kink goes here) is fine, but gen is great! Really! As far as sex goes, I like love-hate sex; emotional conflict; the edge cases of non-con; bring on the sex pollen or the "must do it to save the universe" if you like that sort of thing. I have written BDSM, and don't object if that's where you want to go. See small list of Avoids. Anything else is fair game.
I love things that are over the top and/or pseudo-quasi-Victorian and pseudo-quasi-Edwardian. I loved the movie of Phantom of the Opera, because it adhered to the theory that Too Much Is Not Enough. I loved the Baz Luhrmann Moulin Rouge. I am not wild about steampunk plots in practice, although I love the visuals. I am very fond of operetta plots. I love vintage musicals, all the usuals as well as things like early Rodgers and Hart and Wodehouse and deeply, deeply cracky plots like "Chee-Chee". [I am not suggesting Chee-Chee fic, because it's so horribly Orientalist there is no saving it. I just like the total insanity that created a plot based around castration jokes, with a chorus of singing eunuchs.] I am Sondheim's utter slave.
Things I would strongly prefer you avoid: urine and feces play, incest, violent rape, bestiality, mutilation, actor RPF, social humiliation humor.
Feel free to be silly; feel free to be serious. Whichever you pick, I love snark and wit and humorous asides. My sense of humor is pretty damn dark, except for humiliation humor, which squicks me.
Specifics
Leonard Cohen's "Closing Time", Narrator.
Isn't this a fabulous song? Something unusual is happening in that bar. Is it the end of the world? Is it merely the end of the drinks? Who is the "very sweet companion"? What brought the Narrator to that time and place? Fill in the plot, if you'd like to. Write a surreal swirl of images. Lift your glass to the awful truth that you can't reveal to the ears of youth.
YouTube: Closing Time. Note: I'm not linking to the official video, because I'd rather have your own interpretation of the images.
Anthony Hope's Zenda novels/movies, Rupert of Hentzau:
Ah, Rupert of Hentzau. Dashing, handsome, competent, witty, and stuck with the Worst Boss Ever. Seriously, Black Michael couldn't plot his way into overthrowing a paper bag. (Why imprison King Rudolf? Why not just kill him? Rupert would have.) I am well aware that Rupert is Not A Nice Guy; he isn't just the hero's foil, but he is ruthless and threatens to commit rape on at least one occasion. However, let's face it, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. diving through a window is one of the great moments in film.
Some ideas that may or may not work for you: Rupert/Rassendyll -- you never know where a corps-a-corps might lead; Antoinette de Mauban -- who is not a wimp -- going up against Rupert and winning; Colonel Sapt confronting and then cashiering a young Rupert earlier in their careers. Do not feel constrained: these are plot bunnies and I bet yours are better. Feel free to use the entire "Prisoner of Zenda" pseudo-canon: book, as well as any movie based on the Zenda plot including The Great Race. if you've read Rupert of Hentzau, go for it, but don't feel obliged to seek it out for this challenge. Bring in any supporting characters that work for you, but please make the fic Rupert-licious. (Rupert of Hentzau, but I'm serious, don't feel obliged.)
Procopius, The Secret History: Theodora
Isn't The Secret History the best celebrity dish in history? I mean, geese eating grain off Theodora's naked ladyparts. You don't get that in Classics Illustrated.
Want: You to go to the outer limits of your imagination. Write weird stuff. Theodora Confessing All to Justinian and his saying it's fine as long as she brings him along next time. Theodora doing it all in order to spread space herpes under the bidding of her alien masters. Sex being the only effective way to bring together the disparate religious ideals of Byzantium and Theodora nobly sacrificing herself to the cause. A much, much better idea that you are even now envisioning. Slash and het are both welcome; if you can write gen, it's not really in the spirit of the source, but I will applaud your audacity.
Do not want: Scholarly explanations of how Procopius Got It All Wrong -- unless they're cracky. Take it for granted that Procopius is an unreliable source, but for the purposes of this fic he is either reliable or responding to entertaining outside pressures.
The Secret History (one of many translations)
no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 09:22 pm (UTC)OMG YES. Also love the Cohen choice.
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Date: 2012-10-15 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-16 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-16 03:04 pm (UTC)