elisem: (Default)
 Dear Yuletide Writer,

First, thank you for signing up and offering things. Yuletide is something to look forward to every year, so thank you for keeping it going!

Here are my requests and a little bit about what I like about them and what might be interesting points of departure -- but please, if you have a better idea than any of the prompts or notions I listed, go for it. Do what your writerly heart wants you to do, and I will happily go along for the ride.

Arcadia - Bernard Nightingale, Valentine Coverly, and Hannah Jarvis are great characters. I've been wondering what it might be like to have Hannah be somewhere in ace space; it’s your call if she is also aro, though I confess to being curious about what an ace but not aro Hannah might have to say about the other two and their (unrequited? requited in romance but not sex? whatever works for the fic) desires/feelings toward her (or each other, or whoever). Basically, acerbic and insightful Hannah commentary of any kind will make me pleased, whatever you envision her various aspects to be. Think of the “Pigeons! Literature! Sex!” scene in the play for illustration. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Hannah’s lines there, especially the glorious ranty bits.
 
Into the Woods - I’m curious about what advice the characters  would have to give someone about to go into the woods, and what advice they’d elicit from the other characters (yes, even the ones who died during the play). Any metacommentary from them will delight me. Approach it from any angle you like: compare news stories on the event from a Very Staid Newspaper, and Online Gossip Rag, and whatever publications you like? Or maybe tell it in diary entries where they analyze each other’s motivations and behaviour? Or what do they each write in the Guestbook of the woods, if the woods has a Guestbook for visitors to sign and write their reactions to their journeys into the woods?
 
Ask a Mortician - Caitlyn Doughty! I love her. I love her snarky humor and her generosity of spirit, as shown in her reaction to the drag queen impersonating her (who was beyond awesome, by the way.) Put her in some unlikely circumstances. Maybe give her a time machine? She does a lot of looks at historical deaths and dispositions; maybe she could do some famous fictional deaths and dispositions, maybe as crossovers even? Set her free to voyage through the possibilities?
 
 
It’s funny how / Humans are Space Orcs - I adore this so much that I am completely incoherent about it. Anything you do to expand on this in any way will make me happy. Anything from any angle. Compiled damage reports and analysis files from observing entities and agencies? What department issues warp cores anyhow? What were the  side effects of any of the things mentioned? Or what did things look like from the inside? Or are there scholars arguing about. this stuff decades later? You can do whatever, and it will make me glad. Seriously, I love this one so so so much.
 
The People - Zenna Henderson’s books about the People were a huge part of my adolescence. What have the People been up to lately? Or what were the untold stories from back then? Again, anything at all you do here would thrill me, so don’t be afraid to go wild.
 
 
The Waste Land - Again, anything you do will most likely delight me. This poem is fascinating, and the characters must have much to say. Show me how they got here, where they’re going, what any of them might say if asked? Write an AU where they’re all government officials? Or baristas? Or archaologists? Maybe they are offering courses during a summer session, or workshops at a big conference or art retreat? I dunno. Have fun, basically, and go as far afield as you like.
 
 
General note:  As you have probably noticed, I enjoy metacommentary, epistolary stories, weird narrative, unexpected viewpoints, AU stuff, backstories and what-happened-later stories, and I love reading about what characters think of other characters, how they understand and misunderstand each other. Crossovers are fine with me if that's what lights your fire. I like worldbuilding a lot too.  Or you could do collections of drabbles for any of these and make me very happy. 

Thank you!  I look forward to reading!
elisem: (Default)
Dear Yuletide Author:

Thank you for writing a Yuletide something for me. I'm pretty much going to be delighted by anything at all, so go ahead and try things you've wanted to try, or do a cozy thing that might seem "too quiet," or whatever else you like, because it will make me happy that you tried a thing.

I have a couple of DO NOT WANTS. They are:

1. Please don't end with a character trapped in a hopeless-feeling situation. (It's odd that I need to say that, but I did get bit by it recently in a story. I'm not the audience for that kind of cliffhanger at all.)

2. Please don't give me non-consensual sexual activity. (Especially as tragic backstory.) Thanks.

3. Do not use a disability or disfigurement to signify that a character is eeeeevil. Thanks.


I have some DO WANTs, or maybe they are DO LIKEs:

1. Stories where characters risk being vulnerable. Maybe only a tiny bit, but a tiny bit can be a big deal sometimes.

2. Ensemble casts and the ways characters communicate to each other and take care of each other.

3. Stories "without enough action" are just fine with me. A set of related drabbles also works fine for me. Stories told in epistolary form, or in a series of quotes, or in a chronological set of museum labels if that's what you got -- whatever you do like that is probably going to make me coo with delight.

4. AU shenanigans, larking about with crossing worlds, breaking the fourth wall, building new walls in order to have the opportunity to break them, crossovers of many sorts, time travel that makes the narrative linear structure all wibbly-wobby: those are all fine with me! Have fun!

5. Characters telling us things we didn't know about them, or how something REALLY happened and why it got told the way it did before. I love stories that make me think about characters in new ways.

6. I like watching writers have fun.

7. I am not afraid of cozy stories and character studies and worldbuilding fics. Bring 'em on! Do whatever you are called to do, however it comes out!


Thank you so much, Yuletide Author. I really appreciate your time and work and imagination.

Love,
LionessElise
elisem: (Default)
[NOTE: I might add bits of elaboration to this over the next day or three, because I am writing this at the last minute before sign-ups close.]



Hello, dear Yuletide Author! Thank you for being willing to write a thing!

Fandom: Shadow Unit
Characters: Any

I love Shadow Unit a lot, and part of what I love about it is how the different members of the team see each other. They are very interesting, very different people, and they work together under extreme and demanding circumstances, and I am fascinated about the teamwork and what each of them has to do to make their team work -- and, sometimes, to survive their team as well as helping their team survive. I want to see how they deal with feelings of belonging/not-belonging. You can go anywhere you need to go with this, as long as you've got two (or more) viewpoints that have different takes on the same things.

Bonus points for doughnuts and team dynamics, and strategies and tactics relating thereunto.

Also, Frost fascinates me, so if she appears somewhere in whatever you write, I will bliss. Doesn't have to be her POV, but anything that gives a hint of how she handles things and how others react to and deal with her will make me very happy.


Fandom: Arcadia, Stoppard

I'm hoping for a fic from the POV of the staff of the Croom household. Comedy, drama, whatever -- I will take anything, as long as it's backstairs commentary.


Fandom: Birdhouse In Your Soul - (song) They Might Be Giants

This is a song that's one of Juan's and my "our songs." This request is a long shot, but... can you write me a polyamory-positive fic from this song?

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Elise Matthesen

April 2025

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