Yuletide Letter and Wee Fandom Promotion
Nov. 22nd, 2010 03:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiki_engDear Yuletide Writer,
Hi! Thank you so much for writing a story for me in one of these fandoms!
My requests, optional details and fandom promotional efforts (There are pictures):
Black Books
Optional Details: I’d love to see something of Bernard’s original children’s story (I want to read about the lens-grinder in Omsk.) – an excerpt, a review, serious academic literary criticism if that’s up your alley. A fic focusing on some wee thing from the show would be awesome. You could write about the Jehovah’s witnesses, Bernard and Manny’s constructed AU as high-flying children’s authors, or the night Bernard isn’t allowed to remember. You could write about how Fran and Bernard met, Bernard’s sexuality and him “[finding] out about the prohibitive standards of hygiene and all that dancing”, or some new adventure the trio get up to. Anything would be fantastic: serious, comic, true to the show or spun off from it.
Black Books is this farcical British sitcom. It’s set in a bookshop, which is awesome, because sometimes they talk about books. (Mostly they just smoke and drink and get themselves embroiled in improbable and hilarious scenarios.) There is genre-mocking that includes the summer book niche.
This is Bernard. He’s the proprietor of Black Books and hates customers. He’s bitter, mean, sometimes manic and has a questionable standard of hygiene. Part of what this translates into is that some of his interactions with customers are incredibly satisfying for someone who has dealt with their ilk before and they’re all generally hilarious.
This is Bernard’s friend, Fran, who owns the shop next to his. She’s awesome. She’s a little bit mad, friendly, undignified, and the same alcoholic chimney that Bernard is. She’s also completely uncowed by him and wins most of their battles.
She makes him take on Manny, who’s good-natured, downtrodden, and a little naive. Manny ends up picking up a lot of the pieces of stuff that Bernard has no interest in, like customer service. He’s a lot of fun in that he gets himself into ridiculous situations.
All of them have an aspect of childishness to their personalities and all of them gloat. There are also a lot of really awesome lines in this and a lot of brilliant one-off characters and props.
Bernard makes his taxes into a casual jacket. There are books. Fran produces wee little dolls of them all at one point. There is a wine lolly in one episode. The props are fantastic.
Manny is the Igor to Bernard’s mad scientist and Bernard gets fiercely possessive of him. Fran and Bernard are terrible people together. Fran and Mannny bond over pop culture. They’re strange and amazing together.
They have fantastic misadventures and interact with the outside world and each other in a hilarious way. Books! Bitterness! Wine! Shenanigans! (It’s awesome.)
Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec
Optional Details: I’d love to read about what happens to Adèle on the Titanic, where and how her disguises get put together, her first meeting with the President, or her researching/writing her last book – anything with Adèle being generally awesome would be fantastic. Or you could write about how Professeur Ménard and Marie-Joseph Esperandieu know each other and them hanging out as younger men, Dieuleveult being himself, or either Andrej or Agathe after the events of the film. I love all of the little side characters so am not much fussed who you write about. If there’s some moment or thread of comedy that would be fantastic, but it’s not required. I love the world and the characters in this; any direction you choose to go will make me happy.
This picture? Is pretty much how I feel about the entire film. Adèle, pictured above, is the main character. She is kick-ass. The film is set in 1911. In the first five minutes of the film a pterodactyl hatches.
Here is another picture of Adèle, because she is ridiculously pretty and I am going to talk about her a bit. You may have noticed that she has amazing hats. She does, indeed, have amazing hats. (Everyone’s wardrobe in this film is fantastic.) She is pretty much made of awesome. She is an author, and has fanboys. Also: she is hardcore. There have been Indy comparisons but she is more awesome than he is.
She’s independent, no nonsense and fantastically unphased by everything. She is caustic, polite, and not terribly dignified. She has deep emotional pain and guilt and feelings.
This is her with Dieuleveult. He also has feelings; they are fantastic. He is a villain, and he is wonderful and three dimensional while still having villain-y rage and an evil laugh. Their interaction is excellent and he has just the right amount of sliminess.
Everyone in this film is kind of who they are to a ridiculous extent, like they’ve fallen out of a book. This is Inspecteur Caponi. He’s a copper, essentially. He’s this bravado-filled man who’s simultaneously downtrodden and dealing with what appears to be a massive sleep debt.
There’s some really wonderful bureaucracy and politics on display in this film. Also: Caponi’s boss, Cheval, has this amazing face; he has eyes and a moustache (this is a film worth watching for the moustaches alone, I swear) and a voice - it’s pretty awesome, for all that he’s this itty bitty part of the movie.
These two scientists are also pretty awesome. Andrej, the younger, is like an adorable puppy; he’s a fan and besotted with Adèle and kind of brilliant and awkward. Ménard is awesome; he’s a slightly mad scientist and just generally this fantastic old man.
There’s a chase sequence in the credits with Ménard and this guy, Justin de Saint-Hubert. There is an old man with a gun manically shooting at things; that is pretty much how the film ends.
Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec is a film that I’m completely and unrepentantly in love with. It’s this glorious mad-cap French adventure-fantasy-comedy and it’s chockfull of amazing characters and sets and costumes and it is just generally shiny.
New Waterford Girl
Character: Moonie Pottie
Optional Details: Any story you write involving Moonie in some way is going to make me absurdly happy. You could write about her home life, her adventures at school in New Waterford or New York, or how her relationship with her mother or her town changes. I’d love to read something about her relationship with Mr. Sweeney, how he processes that and moves on with his life. (I kind of ship them, so future fic where they keep in touch or where they meet again and end up friends or in a healthy romantic relationship would be neat.) Something with Moonie and Lou hanging out would be awesome, as would a story with Joey or Meeker as a main character. Anything would be glorious, whatever genre, rating, or pairing.
This film is just fantastically Canadian. I want to say that it’s like someone crossed the Ferguson brothers’ description of CanLit (in How to be a Canadian) with an episode of The Vinyl Cafe (one with a Dave and Morley story), but it’s really not, not any more than a good chunk of all Canadian content is, anyway.
It has a bleak and rural setting. There are shots of the coast line. Its humour is quirky. It features religion and outsiders. There is a hockey game any time the television is turned on. All of the live music in this film has a strong folk tradition. There is a cameo by a famous Canadian musician. It’s Canadian, firmly rooted in that genre, and near wallowing in it; it is fantastic.
Moonie is this amazing teenager. She’s petulant and strange and an outsider, who wants out of her wee little town. She’s dramatic and the type of smart that chooses to make her school assignments more interesting. She’s also independent and clever; she’s awesome.
Her friend Lou is likewise awesome. She, like Moonie, is this wonderful combination of practical and whimsical. Lou’s incredibly outgoing, self-assured, and this bright spot of colour and positivity in the town.
The small town is a small town; it has a miniscule main drag, fields, and locals, who gossip. It’s exactly what it should be, right down to the nightlife. Lou and Moonie shuffle down the sidewalk drinking chocolate milk and wander the town aimlessly. It’s accurate and the type of ridiculous that the actual thing is.
The film tends toward a particularly Canadian brand of ridiculous. There’s a slow motion sequence with sweaty hockey players. There’s also a lot of neuroses on display in this thing. Moonie’s family is good for this, the random guy on the beach is good for this; the neuroses and the issues and the general interestingness are pretty universal to all of the characters. Everyone is very distinct in that way; it’s fairly awesome.
Cecil Sweeney has issues. He came to New Waterford to find himself, lives in a trailer and is inappropriately attached to Moonie. They have chemistry and are a lot of fun to watch.
Moonie’s mother, Cookie, is very emotional, protective, and caring of her children; she’s pretty awesome with it. New Waterford Girl is awesome in general; it’s odd and Canadian and fun.
The Philadelphia Story
Two words: “zombie apocalypse”. I’d love to read about them facing down some terrible threat with snappy dialogue, hunting rifles, and probably copious amounts of alcohol. Alternatively, you could write about Dinah when she’s older, some other time Imbrie and McCauley went undercover, or McCauley realising how awesome Liz is. Fic about Dexter and Tracy’s second marriage and its differences from their first go would be neat, as would something about the exploits of Uncle Willie. I’m going to be ridiculously excited whatever subset of the characters you write about and wherever you take them – any genre, any rating would be awesome!
This film has Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart, and they are snide and cutting and in love with each other, pretty much. It’s a festival of wonderful and wonderfully delivered lines. Stewart won an Oscar for this (Jimmy and Donald Ogden, who wrote the screenplay, both, actually.) and it’s just this utterly brilliant romantic comedy.
This is Elizabeth Imbrie and Macaulay Connor, a photographer and writer, respectively. They’re both awesome and kind of cynical. Liz is a little sharper and more practical than Macaulay. She’s got a very dry sense of humour, tends towards being an observer rather than a participant, and is just generally fantastic.
Macaulay tends towards a kind of boyishness and idealism. He is also utterly fantastic drunk.
Macaulay, drunk, talking to C.K. Dexter Haven, sober. People get utterly smashed on champagne in this film and it is amazing. Uncle Willie is brilliant for this. He goes up to the bar, drunk, and excitedly orders, "Champagne... and again, and again, and again!" His morning after is comically terrible and he spends part of it hanging “around in the pantry doing weird and wonderful things” with alcohol.
The upper class family in this, the Lords, is pretty fantastic. They’ve got family issues and all of the men in it are subpar really, but its women are fantastic. They band together when they need to and run circles around external threats.
C.K. Dexter Haven and Tracy Lord are divorcees that spend most of their time bickering and taking shots at each other. They’re vicious and scathing; it’s satisfying.
Tracy is significantly less vicious drunk. (The drunk and hungover sequences in this film are fantastic.) Just about everyone in this film is kind of secretly fond of one another; it’s a lot of fun.
The Philadelphia Story is this awesome and hilarious classic film. Its got a really strong ensemble cast and is incredibly amusing.
Likes, dislikes, and other useful information:
If you want to write me a story in French for Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec feel free to do that. If you’re writing in English please don’t indicate that a character is French by replacing “the” with “ze” in their speech, or by inserting un-translated French phrases or expressions into their speech.
I like sex safe and consensual. The student/teacher aspect of Cecil/Moonie is an issue rather than a kink for me.
If you’re writing New Waterford Girl you might notice that the AO3 tag for the character is “Moonie” and the official film stuff has her down as “Mooney”; spell it whichever way you like. (I encourage you to spell “Macaulay” properly if you’re writing that, though, in contrast to my optional details.)
There’s some drinking and driving that goes on in The Philadelphia Story; it makes me uncomfortable and it’s not something I want to see in any story. There’s also some harassment in that film; I don’t like it but I think it’s important.
I don’t like character-bashing, erasure, or the word "girlie" being used as a substitute for a person's name.
I really like strong female characters and strong characters in general.
I love fanfic. I love it for its ability to fill in gaps in a story, to flesh out characters, to explore an idea, to make a point, to be diverting, to show me something I didn't see before. I love its many versions of the same story; I love its tropes. Please, write what you want to write; the optional details are optional. Anything that you write is going to make me ridiculously happy.
Have fun! And thank you so much, again, for writing something in one of these fandoms. You're awesome. ♥
-me
Hi! Thank you so much for writing a story for me in one of these fandoms!
My requests, optional details and fandom promotional efforts (There are pictures):
Black Books
Optional Details: I’d love to see something of Bernard’s original children’s story (I want to read about the lens-grinder in Omsk.) – an excerpt, a review, serious academic literary criticism if that’s up your alley. A fic focusing on some wee thing from the show would be awesome. You could write about the Jehovah’s witnesses, Bernard and Manny’s constructed AU as high-flying children’s authors, or the night Bernard isn’t allowed to remember. You could write about how Fran and Bernard met, Bernard’s sexuality and him “[finding] out about the prohibitive standards of hygiene and all that dancing”, or some new adventure the trio get up to. Anything would be fantastic: serious, comic, true to the show or spun off from it.
Black Books is this farcical British sitcom. It’s set in a bookshop, which is awesome, because sometimes they talk about books. (Mostly they just smoke and drink and get themselves embroiled in improbable and hilarious scenarios.) There is genre-mocking that includes the summer book niche.
This is Bernard. He’s the proprietor of Black Books and hates customers. He’s bitter, mean, sometimes manic and has a questionable standard of hygiene. Part of what this translates into is that some of his interactions with customers are incredibly satisfying for someone who has dealt with their ilk before and they’re all generally hilarious.
This is Bernard’s friend, Fran, who owns the shop next to his. She’s awesome. She’s a little bit mad, friendly, undignified, and the same alcoholic chimney that Bernard is. She’s also completely uncowed by him and wins most of their battles.
She makes him take on Manny, who’s good-natured, downtrodden, and a little naive. Manny ends up picking up a lot of the pieces of stuff that Bernard has no interest in, like customer service. He’s a lot of fun in that he gets himself into ridiculous situations.
All of them have an aspect of childishness to their personalities and all of them gloat. There are also a lot of really awesome lines in this and a lot of brilliant one-off characters and props.
Bernard makes his taxes into a casual jacket. There are books. Fran produces wee little dolls of them all at one point. There is a wine lolly in one episode. The props are fantastic.
Manny is the Igor to Bernard’s mad scientist and Bernard gets fiercely possessive of him. Fran and Bernard are terrible people together. Fran and Mannny bond over pop culture. They’re strange and amazing together.
They have fantastic misadventures and interact with the outside world and each other in a hilarious way. Books! Bitterness! Wine! Shenanigans! (It’s awesome.)
Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec
Optional Details: I’d love to read about what happens to Adèle on the Titanic, where and how her disguises get put together, her first meeting with the President, or her researching/writing her last book – anything with Adèle being generally awesome would be fantastic. Or you could write about how Professeur Ménard and Marie-Joseph Esperandieu know each other and them hanging out as younger men, Dieuleveult being himself, or either Andrej or Agathe after the events of the film. I love all of the little side characters so am not much fussed who you write about. If there’s some moment or thread of comedy that would be fantastic, but it’s not required. I love the world and the characters in this; any direction you choose to go will make me happy.
This picture? Is pretty much how I feel about the entire film. Adèle, pictured above, is the main character. She is kick-ass. The film is set in 1911. In the first five minutes of the film a pterodactyl hatches.
Here is another picture of Adèle, because she is ridiculously pretty and I am going to talk about her a bit. You may have noticed that she has amazing hats. She does, indeed, have amazing hats. (Everyone’s wardrobe in this film is fantastic.) She is pretty much made of awesome. She is an author, and has fanboys. Also: she is hardcore. There have been Indy comparisons but she is more awesome than he is.
She’s independent, no nonsense and fantastically unphased by everything. She is caustic, polite, and not terribly dignified. She has deep emotional pain and guilt and feelings.
This is her with Dieuleveult. He also has feelings; they are fantastic. He is a villain, and he is wonderful and three dimensional while still having villain-y rage and an evil laugh. Their interaction is excellent and he has just the right amount of sliminess.
Everyone in this film is kind of who they are to a ridiculous extent, like they’ve fallen out of a book. This is Inspecteur Caponi. He’s a copper, essentially. He’s this bravado-filled man who’s simultaneously downtrodden and dealing with what appears to be a massive sleep debt.
There’s some really wonderful bureaucracy and politics on display in this film. Also: Caponi’s boss, Cheval, has this amazing face; he has eyes and a moustache (this is a film worth watching for the moustaches alone, I swear) and a voice - it’s pretty awesome, for all that he’s this itty bitty part of the movie.
These two scientists are also pretty awesome. Andrej, the younger, is like an adorable puppy; he’s a fan and besotted with Adèle and kind of brilliant and awkward. Ménard is awesome; he’s a slightly mad scientist and just generally this fantastic old man.
There’s a chase sequence in the credits with Ménard and this guy, Justin de Saint-Hubert. There is an old man with a gun manically shooting at things; that is pretty much how the film ends.
Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec is a film that I’m completely and unrepentantly in love with. It’s this glorious mad-cap French adventure-fantasy-comedy and it’s chockfull of amazing characters and sets and costumes and it is just generally shiny.
New Waterford Girl
Character: Moonie Pottie
Optional Details: Any story you write involving Moonie in some way is going to make me absurdly happy. You could write about her home life, her adventures at school in New Waterford or New York, or how her relationship with her mother or her town changes. I’d love to read something about her relationship with Mr. Sweeney, how he processes that and moves on with his life. (I kind of ship them, so future fic where they keep in touch or where they meet again and end up friends or in a healthy romantic relationship would be neat.) Something with Moonie and Lou hanging out would be awesome, as would a story with Joey or Meeker as a main character. Anything would be glorious, whatever genre, rating, or pairing.
This film is just fantastically Canadian. I want to say that it’s like someone crossed the Ferguson brothers’ description of CanLit (in How to be a Canadian) with an episode of The Vinyl Cafe (one with a Dave and Morley story), but it’s really not, not any more than a good chunk of all Canadian content is, anyway.
It has a bleak and rural setting. There are shots of the coast line. Its humour is quirky. It features religion and outsiders. There is a hockey game any time the television is turned on. All of the live music in this film has a strong folk tradition. There is a cameo by a famous Canadian musician. It’s Canadian, firmly rooted in that genre, and near wallowing in it; it is fantastic.
Moonie is this amazing teenager. She’s petulant and strange and an outsider, who wants out of her wee little town. She’s dramatic and the type of smart that chooses to make her school assignments more interesting. She’s also independent and clever; she’s awesome.
Her friend Lou is likewise awesome. She, like Moonie, is this wonderful combination of practical and whimsical. Lou’s incredibly outgoing, self-assured, and this bright spot of colour and positivity in the town.
The small town is a small town; it has a miniscule main drag, fields, and locals, who gossip. It’s exactly what it should be, right down to the nightlife. Lou and Moonie shuffle down the sidewalk drinking chocolate milk and wander the town aimlessly. It’s accurate and the type of ridiculous that the actual thing is.
The film tends toward a particularly Canadian brand of ridiculous. There’s a slow motion sequence with sweaty hockey players. There’s also a lot of neuroses on display in this thing. Moonie’s family is good for this, the random guy on the beach is good for this; the neuroses and the issues and the general interestingness are pretty universal to all of the characters. Everyone is very distinct in that way; it’s fairly awesome.
Cecil Sweeney has issues. He came to New Waterford to find himself, lives in a trailer and is inappropriately attached to Moonie. They have chemistry and are a lot of fun to watch.
Moonie’s mother, Cookie, is very emotional, protective, and caring of her children; she’s pretty awesome with it. New Waterford Girl is awesome in general; it’s odd and Canadian and fun.
The Philadelphia Story
Two words: “zombie apocalypse”. I’d love to read about them facing down some terrible threat with snappy dialogue, hunting rifles, and probably copious amounts of alcohol. Alternatively, you could write about Dinah when she’s older, some other time Imbrie and McCauley went undercover, or McCauley realising how awesome Liz is. Fic about Dexter and Tracy’s second marriage and its differences from their first go would be neat, as would something about the exploits of Uncle Willie. I’m going to be ridiculously excited whatever subset of the characters you write about and wherever you take them – any genre, any rating would be awesome!
This film has Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart, and they are snide and cutting and in love with each other, pretty much. It’s a festival of wonderful and wonderfully delivered lines. Stewart won an Oscar for this (Jimmy and Donald Ogden, who wrote the screenplay, both, actually.) and it’s just this utterly brilliant romantic comedy.
This is Elizabeth Imbrie and Macaulay Connor, a photographer and writer, respectively. They’re both awesome and kind of cynical. Liz is a little sharper and more practical than Macaulay. She’s got a very dry sense of humour, tends towards being an observer rather than a participant, and is just generally fantastic.
Macaulay tends towards a kind of boyishness and idealism. He is also utterly fantastic drunk.
Macaulay, drunk, talking to C.K. Dexter Haven, sober. People get utterly smashed on champagne in this film and it is amazing. Uncle Willie is brilliant for this. He goes up to the bar, drunk, and excitedly orders, "Champagne... and again, and again, and again!" His morning after is comically terrible and he spends part of it hanging “around in the pantry doing weird and wonderful things” with alcohol.
The upper class family in this, the Lords, is pretty fantastic. They’ve got family issues and all of the men in it are subpar really, but its women are fantastic. They band together when they need to and run circles around external threats.
C.K. Dexter Haven and Tracy Lord are divorcees that spend most of their time bickering and taking shots at each other. They’re vicious and scathing; it’s satisfying.
Tracy is significantly less vicious drunk. (The drunk and hungover sequences in this film are fantastic.) Just about everyone in this film is kind of secretly fond of one another; it’s a lot of fun.
The Philadelphia Story is this awesome and hilarious classic film. Its got a really strong ensemble cast and is incredibly amusing.
Likes, dislikes, and other useful information:
If you want to write me a story in French for Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec feel free to do that. If you’re writing in English please don’t indicate that a character is French by replacing “the” with “ze” in their speech, or by inserting un-translated French phrases or expressions into their speech.
I like sex safe and consensual. The student/teacher aspect of Cecil/Moonie is an issue rather than a kink for me.
If you’re writing New Waterford Girl you might notice that the AO3 tag for the character is “Moonie” and the official film stuff has her down as “Mooney”; spell it whichever way you like. (I encourage you to spell “Macaulay” properly if you’re writing that, though, in contrast to my optional details.)
There’s some drinking and driving that goes on in The Philadelphia Story; it makes me uncomfortable and it’s not something I want to see in any story. There’s also some harassment in that film; I don’t like it but I think it’s important.
I don’t like character-bashing, erasure, or the word "girlie" being used as a substitute for a person's name.
I really like strong female characters and strong characters in general.
I love fanfic. I love it for its ability to fill in gaps in a story, to flesh out characters, to explore an idea, to make a point, to be diverting, to show me something I didn't see before. I love its many versions of the same story; I love its tropes. Please, write what you want to write; the optional details are optional. Anything that you write is going to make me ridiculously happy.
Have fun! And thank you so much, again, for writing something in one of these fandoms. You're awesome. ♥
-me
(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-23 04:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-11-24 05:40 am (UTC)If I didn't already love it, I surely would now. :)
(no subject)
From: