Dear yuletide author:

[raven]

My letter to my author will go here. Eventually.

Dear author,

Hello! How nice of you to write for me. I hear that this time around, it's more likely than usual that we may match on more than one of my requests, and even if we only match on the one, may I take a moment to commend you on your impeccable taste.

If you like extra pointers when you write, here are some things I like: snappy dialogue, clever plots, characters' affection for each other, happy endings, sad endings, humour, women being awesome. I don't tend to like PWP and character-bashing, and other than that I'm easy as pie.

Here's what I requested, with a bit of extra detail if you find it helpful:

Hilary McKay - Casson family series

The fact I've specified the four Casson children doesn't mean I don't love Tom, or Eve, or David, or Sarah, or even Darling Michael! What I would really love for this fandom is an ensemble piece, like the books. I love the collective joie de vivre of the Casson family, and I love how they all play off each other.

That's pretty much it! I put gen because I genuinely love gen stories, and I don't want you to feel you have to write a romance of some sort. Equally, don't feel you shouldn't! I really have nothing special I want here, other than more about these lovely characters.

Diana Wynne Jones - Chronicles of Chrestomanci

I love Chrestomanci, I love Millie, I especially love them together. Any story with them in would probably make me happy, but I'd especially like a story about them as adults, because their lives together retreat to the background after Charmed Life.

To elaborate on that: I think there's a way she has of not writing about adults' lives in Chrestomanci's world - once Christopher and Millie have grown up, the focus shifts to Cat - and that's a gap I'd love to see filled.

Also - okay, this is really cheeky, and I'm very aware that optional details are optional! But if you like this idea at all, here it is. I have a personal bugbear about Millie's origin story - it suggests, pretty unequivocally, that she isn't white. Series Ten sounds like it could be analagous to the Middle East, or to South Asia, or to any number of not-Europe-or-North-America places, and I would absolutely love to see something done with that notion, or something that even mentions it.

It's just an idea, though, and please, please ignore it if you'd rather.

Scott Lynch - Gentleman Bastard sequence

I love these two, and I will be happy whatever you write for them. Other ideas: what happened after Red Skies? Was it all very angsty and sad? Or alternatively, AU hijinks with Ezri? Or something else awesome I hadn't thought of?

I am perfectly okay with death in stories, I should mention. But, seriously, I'd go for happy or sad. I love Jean and Locke's friendship, I love Ezri and Jean's romance, I love Zamira's ship of amazing women. I love the high fantasy and the astonishingly creative bad language of this universe - "May a shark suck your cock!", anyone? - and its amazing sense of fun. A story that got at any of those would be fabulous.

But, a general caveat: anything I've said here is optional. If you have your perfect story in mind, please write that! Please, please do, I will guarantee I'll love it.

Oh, also! I have no triggers.

Thank you again!

-Raven

Comments

[gavagai]

Dear yuletide author: Ignore everything raven says, all she is really looking for in a story is really bad jokes. Underflooring.

KISSES

[raven]

UNDERFLOORING. ilu.

[gavagai]

Can we just fling random abuse at each other til I have used up all my Trek icons? It will take a while.

raven has a lever arch file in her room filled only with printouts of wingfic.

[gavagai]

raven once reviewed a TNG fic with the comment, "This was pretty good, but I really felt it could have used more Wesley".

[gavagai]

raven is the person who has been trolling where_no_woman with amateur porn videos.

[raven]

gavagai loves Riker.

[raven]

She especially loves his facial hair.

[gavagai]

In the sense that the presence/absence of Rikerian facial hair is an excellent first step in figuring out whether a piece of TNG is worth watching, actually yes I do.

raven's Firefox homepage is Shatner's Toupee.

[raven]

And gavagai's most-played in iTunes is William Shatner's version of "Common People".

[gavagai]

raven almost precipitated a breakup on her last anniversary, when she asked her partner if he wouldn't mind gaining a few stone, pulling out most of his hair and communicating only in spoken-word Beatles lyrics. As a special treat.

[raven]

gavagai keeps her partner in a box and feeds him only bread and water and Angel Delight.

[gavagai]

He loves it. The water is lemon and lime flavoured, I'm not a complete beast. raven is cheating on her partner with the 100 people queuing up to marry her, which went up to 4000 when she added the story about vomiting on a BJP politician to her cheapandmeaninglessanimalsex.in profile.

...aaaand I think that's all! Though we could cycle through them all again. I feel quite dirty yet strangely sated.

[raven]

yeah well gavagai secretly pines after Marc Alaimo.

[gavagai]

FUCKING LOW BLOW

raven wondered aloud at a convention exactly where else Cardassians have ridges.

[raven]

THAT ONE'S TRUE WHAT OF IT

gavagai's favourite episode of Trek is "Threshold", so there.

[gavagai]

The mutated Tom Paris was made into an action figure, with three of his offspring as accessories. WELL AT LEAST NOW I HAVE YOUR BIRTHDAY PRESENT SORTED.

raven thinks there should have been much more Seven/Chakotay in Voyager, it was her favourite part.

[raven]

gavagai thinks Chakotay is wonderful and all the episodes should have been about him. They should have called it Star Trek: Chakotay.

[gavagai]

ahahaha OMFG ACTUALLY CANNOT STOP LAUGHING. I love you.

raven is petitioning for an audiobook version of the Robert Beltran Gripe Generator, for her personal use, if you know what I mean, eh.

[raven]

<3333! 872 gripes!

I freely admit that I liked "Human Error", by the way. Plz still love me.

[gavagai]

Oh honey of course I still love you. I don't even judge you as much as I probably should because I love Seven unto infinity and I can't judge anyone too harshly for liking a Seven episode. Still judging you a little bit, mind.

I don't have any Voyager icons, what even is fucking with that.

[gavagai]

raven can't remember when to close a <s> tag.

[raven]

it was a [strike] tag YOU HEATHEN.

edited because I'm an idiot.

[gavagai]

LOLOLOL

REST MY CASE YR HONOUR

NOT SURE WHAT MY CASE IS BUT REST IT.

[petra]

Thank you for having your arguments in public where other people can benefit from them by snorfing coffee.