Dear Yuletide Author
Oct. 3rd, 2016 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eccentric_hatHey there author, and thank you for writing in one of these micro-fandoms! Each one has all of TWO fics on AO3 so far. That's criminally little in my opinion, and it means that no matter what you do, I'm gonna be thrilled that someone wrote it.
I don't have any triggers. I'd prefer not to read about rape and murder, though. This year in particular, fandom is kind of my frivolous happy place when the world is making me sad. As you can probably tell from the fandoms I requested, I think it's fun to to play with structure and ideas. I get a kick out of fiction with ideas in it, and fiction that pretends to have ideas in it, and fiction that isn't really set up as fiction, though I also take a lot of pleasure in straightforward storytelling, character studies, adventures, and shenanigans. I'm mostly interested in gen, although if you manage to see some shippy potential in any of these prompts you can certainly have at it.
Oh, also, I celebrate Christmas and can't predict my availability when stories are revealed, but I will definitely be excited to read your story!
Here are my requests--this is the same stuff as I included in my signup.
Gödel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter
Character: Achilles (Gödel Escher Bach)
How the heck do you go from the Trojan War, to a starring role in a famous paradox, to a leisurely life listening to fugues with a bunch of anthropomorphic animals? Is this Achilles' afterlife? Has he been taken out of his life midstream, and is he still going to die from an arrow to his ankle? If so, when he goes home, is he going to try to talk to Patroclus about tesselations? These are just some of the vaguely nonsensical questions one could ask about this character. Straight pastiche would be fun; parody would be fun; taking the premise over-seriously would be fun; using a formal structure would be fun. The sheer existence of fanfic about Hofstadter's weird world of logic and paradox and music and art would be fun.
Anathem - Neal Stephenson
I nominated my four favorite characters--Fraa Jad, Fraa Orolo, Jules Verne Durand, and Cord. Then I looked at their names and thought, this is like if you went to the grocery store and bought tofu and strawberries and Reese's Pieces and squash. It's not obvious how you make a meal out of it. So I'm requesting "any," and you can pick which of the characters to write about and maybe see if you can find a way to make them interact (easier with some pairs/sets than others).
Some ideas for each one:
Fraa Jad: Backstory! Hijinks in the Millenarian Math! Warping the relative positions of the multiverse by sheer use of the human brain! Designing a sextant from first principles! Singing in a creepy low rumbling voice!
Cord: Seeing the math from the outside; seeing Erasmas go in as a child and wondering about what life he is having; holding her own in the machine shop and also making jewelry with the tools there; finally having a chance at an adventure and a bit of the life of the mind.
Fraa Orolo: "Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.” Bless this earnest goofy man. Early life in the math, or wandering the earth after his Anathem, perhaps?
Jules Verne Durand: I'm rather fond of how French he is. And he has a keen sense of exile that seems like fruitful ground for storytelling. It seems like political life is awfully complicated aboard the Daban Urnud; lots to explore there.
Compendium of World Knowledge - John Hodgman
Characters: Franz Boas, Meister Schulze
Hodgman's books contain so many tiny stories, and I wanted to request one of them in particular to make this a reasonable request, but I also found it super hard to choose! I'm going with Boas and Schulze, the dudes from the chapter on the secret 51st United State of Ar/Hohoq, because 1) I really like this part of Areas of My Expertise but 2) I don't know what fic I would write about it myself.
Some potential prompts:
1 - Boas' first trip to Hohoq, and what the heck is life like there. (Boas was a real person! It could be interesting to include some real historical material here, though it's certainly not required.)
2 - Boas studies and/or interacts with some other people mentioned in the books. (Colonel Robert Wilson and/or the Loch Ness Monster; the actuaries; the conmen; the hobos; or something from farther afield, like the molemen or one of the types of ghosts listed in That Is All.)
3 - Schulze resumes his true form, returns to Hohoq, and faces the consequences of his deception
If you don't find these suggestions fruitful, you could also just forget everything I said and write something about any of the other nominated characters. I mean it; if someone really does write Hodgman fanfic for me, I will never be mad about it.
I don't have any triggers. I'd prefer not to read about rape and murder, though. This year in particular, fandom is kind of my frivolous happy place when the world is making me sad. As you can probably tell from the fandoms I requested, I think it's fun to to play with structure and ideas. I get a kick out of fiction with ideas in it, and fiction that pretends to have ideas in it, and fiction that isn't really set up as fiction, though I also take a lot of pleasure in straightforward storytelling, character studies, adventures, and shenanigans. I'm mostly interested in gen, although if you manage to see some shippy potential in any of these prompts you can certainly have at it.
Oh, also, I celebrate Christmas and can't predict my availability when stories are revealed, but I will definitely be excited to read your story!
Here are my requests--this is the same stuff as I included in my signup.
Gödel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter
Character: Achilles (Gödel Escher Bach)
How the heck do you go from the Trojan War, to a starring role in a famous paradox, to a leisurely life listening to fugues with a bunch of anthropomorphic animals? Is this Achilles' afterlife? Has he been taken out of his life midstream, and is he still going to die from an arrow to his ankle? If so, when he goes home, is he going to try to talk to Patroclus about tesselations? These are just some of the vaguely nonsensical questions one could ask about this character. Straight pastiche would be fun; parody would be fun; taking the premise over-seriously would be fun; using a formal structure would be fun. The sheer existence of fanfic about Hofstadter's weird world of logic and paradox and music and art would be fun.
Anathem - Neal Stephenson
I nominated my four favorite characters--Fraa Jad, Fraa Orolo, Jules Verne Durand, and Cord. Then I looked at their names and thought, this is like if you went to the grocery store and bought tofu and strawberries and Reese's Pieces and squash. It's not obvious how you make a meal out of it. So I'm requesting "any," and you can pick which of the characters to write about and maybe see if you can find a way to make them interact (easier with some pairs/sets than others).
Some ideas for each one:
Fraa Jad: Backstory! Hijinks in the Millenarian Math! Warping the relative positions of the multiverse by sheer use of the human brain! Designing a sextant from first principles! Singing in a creepy low rumbling voice!
Cord: Seeing the math from the outside; seeing Erasmas go in as a child and wondering about what life he is having; holding her own in the machine shop and also making jewelry with the tools there; finally having a chance at an adventure and a bit of the life of the mind.
Fraa Orolo: "Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.” Bless this earnest goofy man. Early life in the math, or wandering the earth after his Anathem, perhaps?
Jules Verne Durand: I'm rather fond of how French he is. And he has a keen sense of exile that seems like fruitful ground for storytelling. It seems like political life is awfully complicated aboard the Daban Urnud; lots to explore there.
Compendium of World Knowledge - John Hodgman
Characters: Franz Boas, Meister Schulze
Hodgman's books contain so many tiny stories, and I wanted to request one of them in particular to make this a reasonable request, but I also found it super hard to choose! I'm going with Boas and Schulze, the dudes from the chapter on the secret 51st United State of Ar/Hohoq, because 1) I really like this part of Areas of My Expertise but 2) I don't know what fic I would write about it myself.
Some potential prompts:
1 - Boas' first trip to Hohoq, and what the heck is life like there. (Boas was a real person! It could be interesting to include some real historical material here, though it's certainly not required.)
2 - Boas studies and/or interacts with some other people mentioned in the books. (Colonel Robert Wilson and/or the Loch Ness Monster; the actuaries; the conmen; the hobos; or something from farther afield, like the molemen or one of the types of ghosts listed in That Is All.)
3 - Schulze resumes his true form, returns to Hohoq, and faces the consequences of his deception
If you don't find these suggestions fruitful, you could also just forget everything I said and write something about any of the other nominated characters. I mean it; if someone really does write Hodgman fanfic for me, I will never be mad about it.
