Dear Yuletide Writer...

[daisyninjagirl]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

 

Thank you! I'm really looking forward to the story you're going to write, and I hope you have a good time with this exchange.

 

General Stuff About Me

I've been participating in Yuletide for a few years now and really enjoying it - both for the writing and the sheer cheerful juggernaut nature of the event. ;-) Some things I've noticed about myself is that I tend to enjoy more stories that are reasonably consistent with the original canon - so sequels and prequels and inbetween scenes, and I love it when a minor character gets their story expanded or someone does a nifty bit of world building on some little detail and makes it all make sense. Original characters are also fine, and I've seen some AUs and crossovers that have really blown me away, so please take this paragraph as an 'optional details are optional' section and write the story that will make you happy. The prompts I've given are also optional, please have fun with what you choose to write.  Also, stories that pass the Bechdel Test Are Love

 

Squicks and Do Not Wants

I'm seriously not into non-consensual or underage sex. I also don't like graphic torture scenes or incest. Consensual BDSM isn't a squick for me, but it's also not something I'm particularly interested in reading about; likewise I'd rather not have a story where pregnancy or infertility is the main focus, although as a minor detail is fine. I don't have a problem with where you want to write characters on the Kinsey Kaleidoscope with respect to pairings, but I guess I'm more interested in how characters' relationships work out with each other than erotica. I would rather not get an M or E rated story.

Zog - Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

(Zog, Princess Pearl, Sir Gadabout the Great (or any subset of that you like))
This is a fun children's book, which follows the trials and tribulations of a growing dragon with joyful practicality and a straight "you don't have to be what people expect you to be, and that's OK" ending.  Our copy came with the talking book reading with Imelda Staunton, which is a lot of fun.  Some prompts!

- What is this crazy ecosystem they're in where the dragons are expected to capture "hundreds of princesses before they're fully grown."  What do the dragons expect to do with them?  Are they talking themselves up, or is there really so large a number of princesses that the population must be managed?

- A tale of the Flying Doctors in their new career.  How does it go?  The kinds of illnesses that turn up often seem very peculiar.

- We get the version of events from Zog's point of view, what is growing up like for Princess Pearl and Sir Gadabout?  They seem to have their own frustrations in life...

- What, I say, what is the story behind Sir Gadabout's moustache?

 The Hunting of the Snark - Batt & Carroll (Live Concert)

 (The Butcher, The Beaver, The Snark, The Boots | Mike Batt (or any subset of that you like))

This concert was a really big event in my childhood back in those far off days where you watched what they were broadcasting and that was it, and we listened to the soundtrack over and over. Now I get to revisit it, and I'm back watching the concert/listening to the soundtrack over and over because my son really likes it. (It handles repeat listens super well.) If you're reading this prompt because we matched on something else, check out the concert here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKitp2gmRas&t=2707s (I'll wait.)

 

I love the incredible solemnity of the concert, in the old fashioned sense of everyone gets dressed up to have a wonderful time. Everyone in the Albert Hall is decked out in their best, fanciful clothes and giving the audience curtseys, and bowing to each other after their solos. All the cast and musicians have got big grins on their faces because why wouldn't you, and the bit where The Banker|Midge Ure finishes his solo and then walks down to stand with the other Snark Hunters for the opening song is another "well, why wouldn't you" moment. And The Butcher|Justin Hayward's performance of "As Long As The Moon Can Shine" is one of my favourite love songs of all time.

 

Some Prompts:

- "The danger was past, they had landed at last" - maybe a prequel story about the journey to the Snark's land.

- Rare for me - maybe some RPF about the making of the concert. Reading Mike Batt's various accounts of what he had to do to get the concert staged it was such a battle, maybe some vignettes about how people got involved.

- What happened to The Butcher and The Beaver after the end of the story? How does their friendship/love story pan out when the voice of the Jub Jub is a more distant memory?

- A number of the Snark Hunters from the original poem get their spotlight time in the concert, but others don't. What might the Mike Batt treatment of other characters in the original text been?

- If you want to be more serious and post-colonial (or silly and post-colonial, what do I know?), I don't think it's a coincidence that this story about a great quest into the unknown was written in the middle of Britain's great age of colonialism. Everyone has their idea of what the snark is going to be like, with their great lists of things it does or attributes it has, but in the end it's a great unknowable. There are all these images of consumption (even more so in some of the poem text that didn't make it into the lyrics), but in the end it is The Baker who is consumed. Any idea of what happened to him after he vanished away? What are the events from the snark's perspective?

- Or something bonkers that just happens to strike you about the performance. Have fun with it!

Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
(Henry Tilney)

I was really struck by a comment in the introduction to an edition of Northanger Abbey which suggested that Henry Tilney functions as an authorial stand in for Jane Austen.  She was about the same age as Tilney when she wrote the first draft of this novel, old enough to be a bit wiser than the 17 year olds being newly thrust into social life, and keen on digesting the nuances of a social situation or genre of novels and spitting out a summary in the form of a witty epithet - but when it counts, such as Catherine's embarrassingly Gothic flight of fancy, he retreats to a position of kindness, which is the kind of thing Austen's family had to say about her.  And for all that Henry comes equipped with the trappings of masculinity: boots and guns and greatcoats and a well built curricle that he drives well, he is equally confident navigating the paraphernalia of the women's world: novels and balls and the intricacies of muslin. 

I would really like a story that explores this idea of a person in both camps in a strongly gendered society, whether with Henry as someone who identifies as male and is confident in liking whatever he damn well likes, as a true androgyne, or perhaps as someone who, by modern standards, would be considered transgender or gay.

If that's not your thing, we're good!  How about a story of his married life?  Does his taste for reading Gothic novels parlay into a taste for writing them?  Does his love of teasing people ever get him into trouble?  Does Catherine ever get to be in the position of setting him straight and choosing to be terribly kind about it afterwards?

Women of NASA RPF
(Katherine Goble Johnson, Mae Jemison, Margaret Hamilton, Sally Ride (or any other female employee of NASA you admire))
I was recently rewatching the Tom Hanks/Ron Howard oeuvre of space TV (that is Apollo 13 and From the Earth to the Moon) and they're great.  They have the sense of urgency, and technical competence, and the politics, and the sense of a big sprawling organisation that has to work together to get incredible things done... but there was something missing.  The only women who get voices are wives and girlfriends, who perform the sacral role of being an emotional anchor for the astronaut corps and/or mourning their deaths, and that's important, but what is also important is that there were women in the organisation to whom NASA owes everything, not for the poignancy of their feelings, but because they were smart and tenacious and very good at their jobs.

So the story I would like is about the women who were drawing down a paycheck.  Katherine Goble Jonson was so brilliant that the astronauts wanted her to double check the course calculations coming out of the computer, and in her own quiet rule-flouting way challenged the rules around segregation and 'women's work' just by existing.  Margaret Hamilton's ruthless attitude to safety at all costs meant that the Apollo 11 navigation computer kept going even through an overload caused by human error in the most fragile of conditions - what would that have felt like, knowing your design choices had been that critical?  Mae Jemison and Sally Ride, from a later period of space flight, both had to achieve the staggering technical and physical competence required to make it to astronaut training, on top of people asking dumb questions and making dumb assumptions about them.  If you have another female employee of NASA that you particularly admire, please do make your story about them if you'd prefer.
 


Ocean's 8
This is such a bonkers and silly movie, and I love it to bits. Debbie's very focused "we're going to do this, and this, and this, and you were there with me, every step of the way" obsession with her plan going ahead; the clear sense of history between her and Lou and Tammy; the casting choice to bring together a very different group of women and give them time to riff off each other; the obvious delight of the costume designer in having such a diverse group of women to dress up to the nines (it's nice to see a bit of jiggle in high fashion, is all I'm saying); the Go Big Or Go Home attitude to setting this heist at the most famous party in the world and enlisting real celebrities to come along and be extras. And of course they'd build their plot around staging a big walkout from the theft in evening gowns, hidden in plain sight - no other exit would have enough hubris to satisfy Debbie.

I asked for Any in the characters, and I've split my prompt suggestions into several groups. Please write any subset that appeals to you.

General: What would the Ocean's 9 sequel look like? Who would the ninth member of the crew be? Tammy's daughter or some other 8 year old girl who's been dreaming of crime? Some other person? In the hypothesis where Danny Ocean has been faking his own death, what does he think of Debbie and her crew? Do any members of his own team turn up and have feelings about what's going on? Does the cuddly little insurance investigator get involved again? Or the prison guard from the opening scene?

The Old Hands: Debbie, Tammy and Lou have got such a lot of history with each other, with clearly a lot of ups and downs and friendship renegotiations. So a story about their past, an old caper of theirs, how they met, some of the ins and outs of their relationships would be good. Also, most of the fragile points in Debbie's plan are papered over by her and Lou's superhuman ability to con people - do they ever get a bit meta about it?

The Fashionistas: Daphne Kluger and Rose Weil have got such a different life to the others, where it's normal for both themselves and their friends to be appearing in magazine articles and being interviewed and having their images plastered over taxis and billboards; with a general engagement with the entertainment press part of the deal. Do they have extra worries laundering their share of the cut? What's the theme of Rose's next exhibition? Or her next conversation with her friend Anna Wintour for that matter? How does Daphne's quest for some closer female friendships pan out?

The New Kids: Constance, Nine Ball, and Amita are so adorable. They're all so very good at what they do, but also a little unpolished. What kind of friendships do they keep up after the heist. Do they get involved in a little baby con and need to get bailed out by the more experienced criminals? What are their dating ups and downs? Their social media conversations?