Dear Yuletide Writer
Nov. 9th, 2009 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksDear Yuletide Writer:
First of all, thank you so much! Your very existence makes me happy. I am sure I am going to love whatever you end up doing for me.
Okay, so you almost certainly weren't matched to me for more than one of these fandoms. In fact, I will be shocked if you were. However, do not despair if it turns out that the one you were matched to me for is something you clicked by mistake or just don't feel right now; these aren't huge or complex.
In alphabetical order:
Flight of the Conchords: This is an HBO television series about Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement (played by Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement), who together make Flight of the Conchords, the second-most-popular novelty band in New Zealand, and their adventures upon moving to NYC together to break into the novelty hit market. Both seasons are available on DVD, and watching two or three episodes of either should give you a sense of the basic flow of the show and the way it works. Or you can sit down and watch most of a season in an evening (I have). I like the gentle surreality of it all, the bickering-friendly-slashy dynamic between Bret and Jemaine, the show's occasional experiments with meta and genderplay, and the way the music is both funny and actually pretty good music. I also like Mel, who resembles Fans I Have Known, and Murray (New Zealand: It's Not Australia). One could go for angst in this fandom, but that really isn't what I like about it.
MeruPuri (Marchen Prince): Screwball comedy fantasy manga by Matsuri Hino, only four volumes and entirely available in English. Pretty sure it's even in print. Some people have age-squick about this manga; I rationalize it on the grounds that 1) they are crazy elf-people from a magical dimension who have wonky lifespans anyway and 2) this is not even pretending to be realistic fiction and also, fictional. That said, the things I like most about MeruPuri are not inextricably involved with the main pairing; I'm much fonder of the character interactions involving the side cast. Also not so much with the angst for me in this fandom, and, um, I don't particularly want porn for it either-- if you'd prefer to write smut, I would be blazingly happy to see it for Conchords or Venetia.
Venetia, by Georgette Heyer. A good library should have this. I thiiiiiink it may have been reprinted in the Great Heyer Reprinting Boom of the last few years, but I'm not absolutely certain. This is pretty much my Platonic ideal of romance novel, and I've always rather mourned the fact that Heyer, being who she was and writing when she did, was not obliged to put sex in it, because this is not only the only couple of hers I think has real tension and chemistry but one of the few couples I think that about in the entire romance genre. (For calibration: my other favorite Heyers are The Convenient Marriage, The Grand Sophy, The Talisman Ring, Cotillion, These Old Shades and Devil's Cub, and The Masqueraders. I hate The Foundling, Faro's Daughter, and False Colours passionately and find A Civil Contract unremittingly depressing. I have not read any of her mysteries, even the ones people tell me are good, as of yet.)
Whit, or, Isis Among the Unsaved, Iain Banks. A good library should have this. I have no idea whether it is in print. This is categorized as one of Banks' mainstream novels, as opposed to the SF he writes under the untraceable pen-name of Iain M. Banks, but in my opinion it is a fantasy novel. Canonically asexual heroine = PLEASE NO SMUT. I love the picaresque of Isis' wandering, the way she interacts with everyone and everything at angles due to her upbringing, her practicality, stubbornness, and honesty. I also have a horrified fascination for her aunts' Scots-Indian food (IIRC at one point they had haggis vindaloo). Basically, any fic in which Isis remains the sort of person who when faced with a giant four-poster bed will without a moment's hesitation string a hammock between two of the bedposts will make me happy.
I'm sorry this is so long-winded, and I'm looking forward very much to whatever you come up with.
First of all, thank you so much! Your very existence makes me happy. I am sure I am going to love whatever you end up doing for me.
Okay, so you almost certainly weren't matched to me for more than one of these fandoms. In fact, I will be shocked if you were. However, do not despair if it turns out that the one you were matched to me for is something you clicked by mistake or just don't feel right now; these aren't huge or complex.
In alphabetical order:
Flight of the Conchords: This is an HBO television series about Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement (played by Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement), who together make Flight of the Conchords, the second-most-popular novelty band in New Zealand, and their adventures upon moving to NYC together to break into the novelty hit market. Both seasons are available on DVD, and watching two or three episodes of either should give you a sense of the basic flow of the show and the way it works. Or you can sit down and watch most of a season in an evening (I have). I like the gentle surreality of it all, the bickering-friendly-slashy dynamic between Bret and Jemaine, the show's occasional experiments with meta and genderplay, and the way the music is both funny and actually pretty good music. I also like Mel, who resembles Fans I Have Known, and Murray (New Zealand: It's Not Australia). One could go for angst in this fandom, but that really isn't what I like about it.
MeruPuri (Marchen Prince): Screwball comedy fantasy manga by Matsuri Hino, only four volumes and entirely available in English. Pretty sure it's even in print. Some people have age-squick about this manga; I rationalize it on the grounds that 1) they are crazy elf-people from a magical dimension who have wonky lifespans anyway and 2) this is not even pretending to be realistic fiction and also, fictional. That said, the things I like most about MeruPuri are not inextricably involved with the main pairing; I'm much fonder of the character interactions involving the side cast. Also not so much with the angst for me in this fandom, and, um, I don't particularly want porn for it either-- if you'd prefer to write smut, I would be blazingly happy to see it for Conchords or Venetia.
Venetia, by Georgette Heyer. A good library should have this. I thiiiiiink it may have been reprinted in the Great Heyer Reprinting Boom of the last few years, but I'm not absolutely certain. This is pretty much my Platonic ideal of romance novel, and I've always rather mourned the fact that Heyer, being who she was and writing when she did, was not obliged to put sex in it, because this is not only the only couple of hers I think has real tension and chemistry but one of the few couples I think that about in the entire romance genre. (For calibration: my other favorite Heyers are The Convenient Marriage, The Grand Sophy, The Talisman Ring, Cotillion, These Old Shades and Devil's Cub, and The Masqueraders. I hate The Foundling, Faro's Daughter, and False Colours passionately and find A Civil Contract unremittingly depressing. I have not read any of her mysteries, even the ones people tell me are good, as of yet.)
Whit, or, Isis Among the Unsaved, Iain Banks. A good library should have this. I have no idea whether it is in print. This is categorized as one of Banks' mainstream novels, as opposed to the SF he writes under the untraceable pen-name of Iain M. Banks, but in my opinion it is a fantasy novel. Canonically asexual heroine = PLEASE NO SMUT. I love the picaresque of Isis' wandering, the way she interacts with everyone and everything at angles due to her upbringing, her practicality, stubbornness, and honesty. I also have a horrified fascination for her aunts' Scots-Indian food (IIRC at one point they had haggis vindaloo). Basically, any fic in which Isis remains the sort of person who when faced with a giant four-poster bed will without a moment's hesitation string a hammock between two of the bedposts will make me happy.
I'm sorry this is so long-winded, and I'm looking forward very much to whatever you come up with.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 12:59 am (UTC)Also, I love Venetia. It has some real darkness and, as you said, sexual tension. Also I like the brother.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 02:13 am (UTC)Nine
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 03:18 am (UTC)Basically the point is that if you've ever read a book/seen a movie/watched an anime and gone OMG I want more of that, and then realized that no one else on the internet appears to have had this impulse, Yuletide is the way of scratching that itch.
Highlights from previous years include the truly terrifying Care Bears S&M fic, numerous contributions from various professional authors, an all-new Gilbert & Sullivan-characters opera in rhyme, a Beowulf fic in Old English, and a piece with an attached midi of original music. Last year I wrote a sequel to Much Ado About Nothing, in iambic pentameter. But the only requirement is that one write a thousand words to get a thousand words.
It's a good time. It's basically the only fanfic thing I do.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 03:54 am (UTC)You have just inclined me to read this book.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 04:33 am (UTC)Lila borrowed my copy; if you can't find it elsewhere, just ask.
Nine
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 04:45 am (UTC)It's a haruspex from the Hemlock Province (or Shokkal Mountains) of
no subject
Date: 2009-11-10 05:36 am (UTC)Nine