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Dear Yuletide Writer
Oct. 26th, 2014 06:19 pmThank you so much in advance. I'm sure whatever you'll write, I will cherish and read with delight. *big hugs* I hope you have a happy holiday season!
I'll read much of anything but if there are sexual things in what you're writing, but please avoid all major kinks (BDSM, D/s, bringing bodilly secretions into the bedroom). Little nibbling is okay if you go with the vampires (biting and blood-drinking is a big part of the Laura&Carmilla relationship) but not a gore-fest, please. Nothing too dark, angsty is fine. I love a good romance and am a friend of fluff. Please stick to the spirit of the canon if you write about either Carmilla or Dracula, with the Mercy Thompson novels I think you have leeway to be a little more creative as Warren and Kyle are a little bit more supporting characters than limelight characters.
Here are some fandom-specific thoughts.
Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu
Let me say this first: I'm an academic. I've studied this novella to tatters. (Almost.) Yet I do still love it, even after spending years on writing about it. I love how Le Fanu doesn't judge Laura and Carmilla for their love, even though the traditional 19th century vampire narrative frame present in the story can only have one end, that of Carmilla's death. Yet I feel there's lot left unresolved (thought I do like the reading-between-the-lines mode of reading one has to use to read Carmilla).
Carmilla/Millarca/Mircalla is a monster in that her blood-lust drives her on, yet I feel her love for Laura is genuine, despite the psycho-babbale about a vampire choosing one special victim to "husband and govern" mentioned in the last chapter. Their love is tragic, but it doesn't have to be ugly. Also, I live in denial of Carmilla's death. And the last words of the novella leave much to interpretation.
Also, while I have read one fanfic based on Carmilla, I'd love to read more. I've written a few, but it's boring reading stuff you've written by yourself.
Dracula (Bram Stoker)
I have a sort of hate-love relationship with Dracula. It was one of the primary source texts in my MA thesis and almost lead to my not graduating because it was so hard to write about. That stemmed from me not liking the status Stoker's novel is attributed with in the realms of vampire academia but also from how the female vampires were treated in the novel.
Lucy especially. She is not given a narrative voice after her transformation into a vampire and she's dispatched in a drawn out gore-fest with rape symbolism while Dracula himself is killed inside one paragraph and almost as a by-thought. I'd love to read about vampire-Lucy's thoughts. Maybe someone finds some letters she wrote, or a diary, in the spirit of the mish-mash novel itself, which is composed of diary&journal entries, letters, telegraphs etc.
Mercy Thompson Series
As I said in my AO3 signup, I'd just love Warren filling Kyle in about his cowboying days. Maybe even taking it into the bedroom? *winkwinknudgenudge* But I'd love anything. Them being domestic. Kyle settling into life as the boyfriend of a werewolf. Cutesy stuff.
I'll read much of anything but if there are sexual things in what you're writing, but please avoid all major kinks (BDSM, D/s, bringing bodilly secretions into the bedroom). Little nibbling is okay if you go with the vampires (biting and blood-drinking is a big part of the Laura&Carmilla relationship) but not a gore-fest, please. Nothing too dark, angsty is fine. I love a good romance and am a friend of fluff. Please stick to the spirit of the canon if you write about either Carmilla or Dracula, with the Mercy Thompson novels I think you have leeway to be a little more creative as Warren and Kyle are a little bit more supporting characters than limelight characters.
Here are some fandom-specific thoughts.
Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu
Let me say this first: I'm an academic. I've studied this novella to tatters. (Almost.) Yet I do still love it, even after spending years on writing about it. I love how Le Fanu doesn't judge Laura and Carmilla for their love, even though the traditional 19th century vampire narrative frame present in the story can only have one end, that of Carmilla's death. Yet I feel there's lot left unresolved (thought I do like the reading-between-the-lines mode of reading one has to use to read Carmilla).
Carmilla/Millarca/Mircalla is a monster in that her blood-lust drives her on, yet I feel her love for Laura is genuine, despite the psycho-babbale about a vampire choosing one special victim to "husband and govern" mentioned in the last chapter. Their love is tragic, but it doesn't have to be ugly. Also, I live in denial of Carmilla's death. And the last words of the novella leave much to interpretation.
Also, while I have read one fanfic based on Carmilla, I'd love to read more. I've written a few, but it's boring reading stuff you've written by yourself.
Dracula (Bram Stoker)
I have a sort of hate-love relationship with Dracula. It was one of the primary source texts in my MA thesis and almost lead to my not graduating because it was so hard to write about. That stemmed from me not liking the status Stoker's novel is attributed with in the realms of vampire academia but also from how the female vampires were treated in the novel.
Lucy especially. She is not given a narrative voice after her transformation into a vampire and she's dispatched in a drawn out gore-fest with rape symbolism while Dracula himself is killed inside one paragraph and almost as a by-thought. I'd love to read about vampire-Lucy's thoughts. Maybe someone finds some letters she wrote, or a diary, in the spirit of the mish-mash novel itself, which is composed of diary&journal entries, letters, telegraphs etc.
Mercy Thompson Series
As I said in my AO3 signup, I'd just love Warren filling Kyle in about his cowboying days. Maybe even taking it into the bedroom? *winkwinknudgenudge* But I'd love anything. Them being domestic. Kyle settling into life as the boyfriend of a werewolf. Cutesy stuff.
