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Oct. 5th, 2016 10:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretDear Yuletide Author,
Thank you for writing for me! I am not a difficult author to write for. I do not ask for you to write anything in particular for me, only that you write something that you have fun writing. The rest of the letter consists of prompts, designed to kickstart your imagination, not actually requests for story elements I particularly want. What I most want out of fanfic exchanges is to be surprised.
Some stuff on fandoms:
Manhattan Project RPF - Leo Szilard
I requested Szilard because he seems like a glue character, someone who has told enough stories about his time at Los Alamos that he connects to virtually every other major figure in the project in some fashion. What most attracts me to the Manhattan Project as human drama is the combination of the stakes and the massive cast of interesting characters, so don't feel like your story needs to focus on Szilard. Write about whoever most interests you. I will say that my take on Feynman seems different than a lot of the fandom- I tend to read a lot of the comic stories in Surely You're Joking as being dark horror about the consequences of the youthful Feynmann's inability to take his work with the appropriate seriousness.
My own Manhattan Project fics have been crossovers with Back to the Future. I encourage crossovers and playful historical revisionism, as much as I welcome fiction that confronts the lurking darkness inherent in the subject.
1850s London Cholera Epidemic RPF - John Snow (1850s London Cholera Epidemic) Reverend Henry Whitehead (1850s London Cholera Epidemic)
I was given The Ghost Map for Yuletide bookswap last year and I fell in love with it and with the Snow/Whitehead relationship. Science!Detectives! BFFs! Adventurers! I love how much they had to risk, not just the not-inconsiderable physical danger of venturing into the cholera-stricken neighborhoods of London, but the reputational risk of taking a heterodox position on miasma theory, and they selflessly risked it all to save lives. And the quote Steven Johnson digs up from Whitehead, after Snow's death, about how the work he did with Snow was the best and most important thing he ever did in his life, and he'll never forget how Snow changed his life... That made me have shippy feelings.
Also, Henry Whitehead's beard is epic.
Something realistic focusing on their relationship while investigating would be great. Something steampunky and ridiculous would also be welcome.
A Void - Adair - Anton Vowl
Should a story in lipogrammatic form, arising from your wanting to copy from canon as your primary inspiration, show up in my inbox in honor of this fanfic holiday, I would tip my cap to your skill with wordsmithing. That lipogrammatic constraint is so important to what A Void is. But I think that you could find a distinct approach to Anton Vowl's conflict, should that turn out too difficult. I'm not picky, this fandom is odd and surprising all on its own.
Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant - Sandia Labs
I requested this last year because I was requesting fandoms with stupidly long names, but I'm genuinely fascinated by so many elements of this report. Obviously, it is tangentially connected to the Pandora's Box opened by my first request, Manhattan Project RPF, and the new challenges and new ways of thinking about the world forced by the development of nuclear energy. Crossovers welcome! But mostly what I'm interested in is the Markers as a setting, a space for whatever characters seem interesting to you to come against the dangerous realities of nature and the even more perilous nature of human communication. Really, there's so much content in this report and you could go anywhere with it, so I encourage you to use your imagination and see what kind of future encounter with the markers you can dream up.
The Cape (2011) - Max Malini
My favorite thing about this show was the training montages, how they were entertaining and imaginative and also character-building. I'd love to see an expansion of the training montages, of Max imparting wisdom to Vince. I'd love to see Max training other members of the carnival of crime, or to see Max's own education in crime and gymnastics.
There is much about The Cape that is silly, and that is also something I embrace. Palm City is a town that knows darkness. In a lot of senses it's a completely failed city of the type that populates the darker and more ponderous Batman films (*coughcough*Christopher Nolan*coughcough*), but unlike those films, it knows that solving the problem of a failed city by means of vigilante justice is a fundamentally silly idea, not to mention an empty gesture. It's probably why the show failed, but it's also why the show's silliness should be taken seriously. If you're interested, I'd love a story that did meta things with the governance of Palm City and its issues.
Edit Letter finished, I suppose!
Thank you for writing for me! I am not a difficult author to write for. I do not ask for you to write anything in particular for me, only that you write something that you have fun writing. The rest of the letter consists of prompts, designed to kickstart your imagination, not actually requests for story elements I particularly want. What I most want out of fanfic exchanges is to be surprised.
Some stuff on fandoms:
Manhattan Project RPF - Leo Szilard
I requested Szilard because he seems like a glue character, someone who has told enough stories about his time at Los Alamos that he connects to virtually every other major figure in the project in some fashion. What most attracts me to the Manhattan Project as human drama is the combination of the stakes and the massive cast of interesting characters, so don't feel like your story needs to focus on Szilard. Write about whoever most interests you. I will say that my take on Feynman seems different than a lot of the fandom- I tend to read a lot of the comic stories in Surely You're Joking as being dark horror about the consequences of the youthful Feynmann's inability to take his work with the appropriate seriousness.
My own Manhattan Project fics have been crossovers with Back to the Future. I encourage crossovers and playful historical revisionism, as much as I welcome fiction that confronts the lurking darkness inherent in the subject.
1850s London Cholera Epidemic RPF - John Snow (1850s London Cholera Epidemic) Reverend Henry Whitehead (1850s London Cholera Epidemic)
I was given The Ghost Map for Yuletide bookswap last year and I fell in love with it and with the Snow/Whitehead relationship. Science!Detectives! BFFs! Adventurers! I love how much they had to risk, not just the not-inconsiderable physical danger of venturing into the cholera-stricken neighborhoods of London, but the reputational risk of taking a heterodox position on miasma theory, and they selflessly risked it all to save lives. And the quote Steven Johnson digs up from Whitehead, after Snow's death, about how the work he did with Snow was the best and most important thing he ever did in his life, and he'll never forget how Snow changed his life... That made me have shippy feelings.
Also, Henry Whitehead's beard is epic.
Something realistic focusing on their relationship while investigating would be great. Something steampunky and ridiculous would also be welcome.
A Void - Adair - Anton Vowl
Should a story in lipogrammatic form, arising from your wanting to copy from canon as your primary inspiration, show up in my inbox in honor of this fanfic holiday, I would tip my cap to your skill with wordsmithing. That lipogrammatic constraint is so important to what A Void is. But I think that you could find a distinct approach to Anton Vowl's conflict, should that turn out too difficult. I'm not picky, this fandom is odd and surprising all on its own.
Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant - Sandia Labs
I requested this last year because I was requesting fandoms with stupidly long names, but I'm genuinely fascinated by so many elements of this report. Obviously, it is tangentially connected to the Pandora's Box opened by my first request, Manhattan Project RPF, and the new challenges and new ways of thinking about the world forced by the development of nuclear energy. Crossovers welcome! But mostly what I'm interested in is the Markers as a setting, a space for whatever characters seem interesting to you to come against the dangerous realities of nature and the even more perilous nature of human communication. Really, there's so much content in this report and you could go anywhere with it, so I encourage you to use your imagination and see what kind of future encounter with the markers you can dream up.
The Cape (2011) - Max Malini
My favorite thing about this show was the training montages, how they were entertaining and imaginative and also character-building. I'd love to see an expansion of the training montages, of Max imparting wisdom to Vince. I'd love to see Max training other members of the carnival of crime, or to see Max's own education in crime and gymnastics.
There is much about The Cape that is silly, and that is also something I embrace. Palm City is a town that knows darkness. In a lot of senses it's a completely failed city of the type that populates the darker and more ponderous Batman films (*coughcough*Christopher Nolan*coughcough*), but unlike those films, it knows that solving the problem of a failed city by means of vigilante justice is a fundamentally silly idea, not to mention an empty gesture. It's probably why the show failed, but it's also why the show's silliness should be taken seriously. If you're interested, I'd love a story that did meta things with the governance of Palm City and its issues.
Edit Letter finished, I suppose!