Dear Yulemouse 2016
6 October 2016 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammer(Context: Yuletide is an annual fanfiction gift exchange for very small fandoms, notable for its large number of participants and the high average quality of stories. I took the last couple years off because toddler, but I'm participating again this year, once more offering and requesting only public-domain fandoms.)
Dear Yulemouse,
Thank you for wanting to write in one of these fandoms. They are awesome, and you are too. I can only hope you enjoy writing a story as much as I will reading it -- for certainly, there will be squees ringing off the mountains when it arrives given, dude, it's in a fandom I wanted.
The best way you can please me is if you have fun. Wit, sex, and cracktasticly silly rom-com are all possibilities, but go with whatever floats your boats. Slash, het, poly, and gen are all great. Turn-offs are humilation-based humor and torture for its own sake. Find something and make it your own, the thing you love writing, and easy odds are I'll like it.
The rest of this is really just expansions on my Optional Details Are Optional.
Táng Cháo | Tang Dynasty RPF -- characters: Li Bai, Du Fu
It is known that Li Bai claimed to have taken up the sword in his wandering youth -- in other words, that he was a youxia. So what about the other Tang Dynasty poets, like Du Fu and Wang Wei? What I would love, dear Yulemouse, is a wuxia story in which Li Bai and Du Fu, plus any other poets you wish to include, have an adventure. Martial-arts poetry battles not required but would be vigorously applauded.
Questions to consider: Just how good was Li Bai's drunken master technique? Was Du Fu's long last illness the result of a qi attack? Are some of his accupressure points blocked? Can any of his poems be read in a way that supports the possibility? Whose kung fu really is stronger?
Resouces: There are multiple translations of Li Bai and Du Fu's poems out there. A.C. Graham's Later Tang poets collection focuses on poems from the last decade of Du Fu's life, which may shed light on any aftermath.
长恨歌 | Changhen ge | Song of Everlasting Sorrow - Bái Jūyì - character: Yang Guifei
Anything with Yáng Yùhuán/Yáng Guìfēi. This can be a Her Version retelling, or a fix-it fic, or their reincarnations trying to get it right, or pre-revolt PWP of her and Emperor Xuanzong getting it on, or a space-opera AU (or jazz-age AU, or hard-boiled noir) -- whatever strikes your muse's fancy. Feel free to bring in real history into this or just stick to the canon version.
Given the sweep and tenor of Bai Juyi's original (and, yanno, Chinese history in general), more than my other requests this could accommodate a truly tragic story. Or, contrariwise, a fix-it. Your call.
Resources: Here are several translations, some with potentially useful annotations: Wikisource, Barnstone, Ying Sun, unknown, Bynner, Giles, A.S. Kline (it's not clear how much that last is original work and how much patched together from ponies/other translations, but I include it for completeness).
Liáo zhāi zhì yì | Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - Pú Sōnglíng - character: any
Anything. Seriously, anything -- especially if it brings out the strange, ironic humor of Pu Songling. Feel free to riff any story in the canon (and there's plenty to chew on) or write a new one of your own.
I've written in this fandom before, if you want a sample of what I like about it.
Resources: My current favored translation, which is among the most easily found, is John Minford's (Penguin Classics) selection of about a third of the stories. I've also enjoyed this China-published version which has more tales. Project Gutenberg has Herbert Giles's Victorian translation of the better-known stories, which is predictably bowdlerized but still evocative.
竹取物語 | Taketori Monogatari | Tale of the Bamboo Cutter - character: Emperor
I would like a fix-it fic explaining what REALLY happened to the elixir of life. I mean, burning it seems like such a chancy way to dispose of it. (Can a mortal fire do anything an elixir of life? If it can, would the results be non-toxic?) For some possible answers, see this post and comments -- but I want to see yours.
Resources: I don't have a good source for the source text. I'll add any here, when I find them.
Again, thank you!
---L.
Dear Yulemouse,
Thank you for wanting to write in one of these fandoms. They are awesome, and you are too. I can only hope you enjoy writing a story as much as I will reading it -- for certainly, there will be squees ringing off the mountains when it arrives given, dude, it's in a fandom I wanted.
The best way you can please me is if you have fun. Wit, sex, and cracktasticly silly rom-com are all possibilities, but go with whatever floats your boats. Slash, het, poly, and gen are all great. Turn-offs are humilation-based humor and torture for its own sake. Find something and make it your own, the thing you love writing, and easy odds are I'll like it.
The rest of this is really just expansions on my Optional Details Are Optional.
Táng Cháo | Tang Dynasty RPF -- characters: Li Bai, Du Fu
It is known that Li Bai claimed to have taken up the sword in his wandering youth -- in other words, that he was a youxia. So what about the other Tang Dynasty poets, like Du Fu and Wang Wei? What I would love, dear Yulemouse, is a wuxia story in which Li Bai and Du Fu, plus any other poets you wish to include, have an adventure. Martial-arts poetry battles not required but would be vigorously applauded.
Questions to consider: Just how good was Li Bai's drunken master technique? Was Du Fu's long last illness the result of a qi attack? Are some of his accupressure points blocked? Can any of his poems be read in a way that supports the possibility? Whose kung fu really is stronger?
Resouces: There are multiple translations of Li Bai and Du Fu's poems out there. A.C. Graham's Later Tang poets collection focuses on poems from the last decade of Du Fu's life, which may shed light on any aftermath.
长恨歌 | Changhen ge | Song of Everlasting Sorrow - Bái Jūyì - character: Yang Guifei
Anything with Yáng Yùhuán/Yáng Guìfēi. This can be a Her Version retelling, or a fix-it fic, or their reincarnations trying to get it right, or pre-revolt PWP of her and Emperor Xuanzong getting it on, or a space-opera AU (or jazz-age AU, or hard-boiled noir) -- whatever strikes your muse's fancy. Feel free to bring in real history into this or just stick to the canon version.
Given the sweep and tenor of Bai Juyi's original (and, yanno, Chinese history in general), more than my other requests this could accommodate a truly tragic story. Or, contrariwise, a fix-it. Your call.
Resources: Here are several translations, some with potentially useful annotations: Wikisource, Barnstone, Ying Sun, unknown, Bynner, Giles, A.S. Kline (it's not clear how much that last is original work and how much patched together from ponies/other translations, but I include it for completeness).
Liáo zhāi zhì yì | Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio - Pú Sōnglíng - character: any
Anything. Seriously, anything -- especially if it brings out the strange, ironic humor of Pu Songling. Feel free to riff any story in the canon (and there's plenty to chew on) or write a new one of your own.
I've written in this fandom before, if you want a sample of what I like about it.
Resources: My current favored translation, which is among the most easily found, is John Minford's (Penguin Classics) selection of about a third of the stories. I've also enjoyed this China-published version which has more tales. Project Gutenberg has Herbert Giles's Victorian translation of the better-known stories, which is predictably bowdlerized but still evocative.
竹取物語 | Taketori Monogatari | Tale of the Bamboo Cutter - character: Emperor
I would like a fix-it fic explaining what REALLY happened to the elixir of life. I mean, burning it seems like such a chancy way to dispose of it. (Can a mortal fire do anything an elixir of life? If it can, would the results be non-toxic?) For some possible answers, see this post and comments -- but I want to see yours.
Resources: I don't have a good source for the source text. I'll add any here, when I find them.
Again, thank you!
---L.