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Dear Yuletide Author 2022
Oct. 13th, 2022 08:54 amDear yuletide author,
I can't believe that the last time I fully participated in yuletide was in 2017. Life just kind of kept getting in the way there! But I am BACK!! And so pumped to get a fic from you in any of these fandoms.
Edit: looks like according to the yuletide mods, this year you're supposed to specify whether you want treats or not, so for the record, I love treats!
My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier
Requested character: Rachel Ashley
I read this book for the first time this year and it sent me feral for a week straight; I could not stop thinking about it, I wanted to talk about it with anyone I could pin down, I wrote a 2,000 word review of it because I had so many thoughts to get out. (you can read all my thoughts here if you're interested!)
What I want most of anything for this fandom is fic about RACHEL. I don't know more specifically than that what I want, but her perspective on things is so systematically hidden from the reader behind Philip's POV, and I want to know more! Or maybe I want to be teased more about hidden information? :P A five things fic could be really fun for this fandom, with five different versions of Rachel POV on what might be going on from her perspective! Or five different OTHER outside POV's other than Philip's! I don't know, you're the boss, I just want more of SOMETHING so that I can go feral some more about this book. Because! This book!!!
Just Plain Maggie, by Lorraine Beim
Requested character: Beth Morgan
It's an out-of-print 1950's children's book about summer camp, and if you happen to be familiar with it too then my year is already MADE. I loved this book as a kid! It's interested in FRIENDSHIP and the OUTDOORS and CANOEING and it's great! I have so much fondness and nostalgia for it! And I particularly love that it's a children's book that actually does contain engaged and helpful adults, while still also leaving room for the children to make their own decisions and experience growth.
(It's also, unfortunately, a book that contains an entire chapter dedicated to nothing but the reproduction of harmful Indigenous stereotypes. Let's cut that chapter out of the book.)
The titular Maggie is of course the main character, and I love her a lot, but of the girls in Maggie's cabin, Beth is the one who fascinates me the most. She starts out as an antagonist, but her own struggles are eventually revealed. And it becomes clear that her behaviour comes out of a very understandable reaction to the terrible parenting she's receiving, as a kid from whom all affection is withheld unless she manages to be The Best at everything. It messes her up! But then Beth tries her hardest to learn new patterns of behaviour, even though it doesn't come naturally or easily to her!
So I'd love love love to read more about Beth, whether directly after the events of the book when she goes home and leaves behind the supportive environment of her cabin, or next summer at camp, or when she grows up, or whatever! Let her continue to be complex, and continue to struggle, but I want happiness for her so much! (and I'd definitely be open to shipping Beth/Maggie if you're interested :D)
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, by Orson Scott Card
Requested character: none
So like, okay. The very premise of this book is racist, and then there's all those other racist/misogynistic/ableist/christian-primacy takes in the book as well. It's bad! It's bad. And yet in amongst all the many problems, Card does somehow manage to create these amazing characters and some interesting ideas, and I can't quite let go of caring about it.
(why yes I DO have an entire post outlining my problems with this book!)
The very idea of the Pastwatch organization fascinated me when I was a teen, and especially the way that Tagiri approached it, moving further and further backwards in time in order to find the causes of things, and seeing ordinary individual humans to be immensely worthwhile.
Tagiri herself is presented as an oddball, an outsider, but this is never a BAD thing about her; it's a good thing that she's weird. Hunahpu as well is a wonderful oddball outsider and a nobody! The people Tagiri and her team study are people whose stories were lost to recorded history, but every single one of them matters. There are so many wonderful characters in this book, all trying their best to be good people according to what they see as good, struggling but caring, being themselves.
I feel like this is a book where the heart is somehow "everybody matters, ordinary people are valuable for being just as they are, everyone deserves good things, everyone deserves to be remembered" and then it got warped under the huge weight of Card's bigotry and also his love of Great Man History, to become....what it is.
So there are many things you could write here that would make me happy. Something that tells the story of the Pastwatch characters as it should have been told, or something that pushes back explicitly against the issues Card embedded in the narrative, or a small story about Tagiri (or Hunahpu, or anyone) just being their wonderful weird selves, or an expansion on the story of any of Tagiri's ancestors or the slaves from Tagiri's history of slavery project. Basically I'm just shoving the book at you going "this is problems, please help" lol. Please take that where you want to!
I can't believe that the last time I fully participated in yuletide was in 2017. Life just kind of kept getting in the way there! But I am BACK!! And so pumped to get a fic from you in any of these fandoms.
Edit: looks like according to the yuletide mods, this year you're supposed to specify whether you want treats or not, so for the record, I love treats!
My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier
Requested character: Rachel Ashley
I read this book for the first time this year and it sent me feral for a week straight; I could not stop thinking about it, I wanted to talk about it with anyone I could pin down, I wrote a 2,000 word review of it because I had so many thoughts to get out. (you can read all my thoughts here if you're interested!)
What I want most of anything for this fandom is fic about RACHEL. I don't know more specifically than that what I want, but her perspective on things is so systematically hidden from the reader behind Philip's POV, and I want to know more! Or maybe I want to be teased more about hidden information? :P A five things fic could be really fun for this fandom, with five different versions of Rachel POV on what might be going on from her perspective! Or five different OTHER outside POV's other than Philip's! I don't know, you're the boss, I just want more of SOMETHING so that I can go feral some more about this book. Because! This book!!!
Just Plain Maggie, by Lorraine Beim
Requested character: Beth Morgan
It's an out-of-print 1950's children's book about summer camp, and if you happen to be familiar with it too then my year is already MADE. I loved this book as a kid! It's interested in FRIENDSHIP and the OUTDOORS and CANOEING and it's great! I have so much fondness and nostalgia for it! And I particularly love that it's a children's book that actually does contain engaged and helpful adults, while still also leaving room for the children to make their own decisions and experience growth.
(It's also, unfortunately, a book that contains an entire chapter dedicated to nothing but the reproduction of harmful Indigenous stereotypes. Let's cut that chapter out of the book.)
The titular Maggie is of course the main character, and I love her a lot, but of the girls in Maggie's cabin, Beth is the one who fascinates me the most. She starts out as an antagonist, but her own struggles are eventually revealed. And it becomes clear that her behaviour comes out of a very understandable reaction to the terrible parenting she's receiving, as a kid from whom all affection is withheld unless she manages to be The Best at everything. It messes her up! But then Beth tries her hardest to learn new patterns of behaviour, even though it doesn't come naturally or easily to her!
So I'd love love love to read more about Beth, whether directly after the events of the book when she goes home and leaves behind the supportive environment of her cabin, or next summer at camp, or when she grows up, or whatever! Let her continue to be complex, and continue to struggle, but I want happiness for her so much! (and I'd definitely be open to shipping Beth/Maggie if you're interested :D)
Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, by Orson Scott Card
Requested character: none
So like, okay. The very premise of this book is racist, and then there's all those other racist/misogynistic/ableist/christian-primacy takes in the book as well. It's bad! It's bad. And yet in amongst all the many problems, Card does somehow manage to create these amazing characters and some interesting ideas, and I can't quite let go of caring about it.
(why yes I DO have an entire post outlining my problems with this book!)
The very idea of the Pastwatch organization fascinated me when I was a teen, and especially the way that Tagiri approached it, moving further and further backwards in time in order to find the causes of things, and seeing ordinary individual humans to be immensely worthwhile.
Tagiri herself is presented as an oddball, an outsider, but this is never a BAD thing about her; it's a good thing that she's weird. Hunahpu as well is a wonderful oddball outsider and a nobody! The people Tagiri and her team study are people whose stories were lost to recorded history, but every single one of them matters. There are so many wonderful characters in this book, all trying their best to be good people according to what they see as good, struggling but caring, being themselves.
I feel like this is a book where the heart is somehow "everybody matters, ordinary people are valuable for being just as they are, everyone deserves good things, everyone deserves to be remembered" and then it got warped under the huge weight of Card's bigotry and also his love of Great Man History, to become....what it is.
So there are many things you could write here that would make me happy. Something that tells the story of the Pastwatch characters as it should have been told, or something that pushes back explicitly against the issues Card embedded in the narrative, or a small story about Tagiri (or Hunahpu, or anyone) just being their wonderful weird selves, or an expansion on the story of any of Tagiri's ancestors or the slaves from Tagiri's history of slavery project. Basically I'm just shoving the book at you going "this is problems, please help" lol. Please take that where you want to!
