Dear Yuletide '22 Author

[robberbaroness]

Welcome, dear author, and happy festivities! I’m very flattered that you picked one of my fandoms, and very eager to see what you might do with them!

 

General likes: Fairy tales, gothic literature, film noir, revenge tragedies, bodice rippers, melodrama, dark comedy, heroine/villain/hero love triangles, heroine/villain dynamics, rescue romance, mythology, maledom (non and dubcon are welcome), bdsm, bondage, character studies, what-if AUs, genre swapping AUs, vampires, folklore, knight and lady dynamics, epistolary fic,  interactive fiction.

 

DNWs: Pushing away female characters, fetish universes, character bashing, fully mundane AUs for fantastical settings, unrequested identity headcanons, Christmas or other Christian holiday-themed fic, abrupt character death (character death fully earned and explored is fine), A/B/O, scat, watersports, comeplay.

 

I’m open to both Crueltide and Yuleporn, but I’m also okay with getting neither of those.

 

Tarot of the Haunted House

 

Raven Wandsworth | The Fool, Knight of Cups, Worldbuilding

 

If you are such a magical person as to have offered fic for a tarot deck, thank you so much! This is one of my favorite decks, illustrating the Fool’s Journey from beginning to end through melodramatic yet truly eerie adventures. I love the recurring characters, I love that it blends gothic romance novels with bloodier Hammer Horror fare, and I love all the little stories contained within the suits. Horror, romance, or something playing off the tarot’s mysticism- give me what you’ve got! (Just don't kill off the nominated characters.)

 

Some ideas:

 

• This house seems to have endless secrets hidden within. Tell me some of them, and just why and how Raven ended up owning it on the World card! You can take one of the stories told by the suits (I particularly like the one about the cult!) and expand it into a full narrative. Is this house the nexus of great power, is there a curse, or is it all tied into being owned by magical and dangerous people?
   
• I love that Raven and the Knight of Cups are an item! You could flesh out his backstory as an angel- a fallen angel, or here for a purpose? A romance could be an oasis of happiness against a stormy backdrop, or a source of dangerous attraction on its own. And how does he interact with all the other characters? Are there allies, enemies, rivals for Raven?
   
• If all else fails, draw yourself a spread and come up with something based on that! Any use of lore around the tarot would be a wonderful addition here (and I’m not too concerned about historical accuracy!)

 

 

Climax - 2018

 

Selva, Psyche

 

This movie absolutely blew my mind. The whole experience was so bizarre and horrible and beautiful, I knew I had to have more of it. I saw a description that said Gaspar Noe’s films are all about immersion and so this is like having actually been to a fucked up party, and I think I agree! The movie itself is maddening so you can get a bit experimental with form if you want (more interviews?), or simply with the psychology of the characters. I love that Selva, the closest thing to our protagonist and our Final Girl, survives not because she’s the only morally pure character but because the actress and director decided together that this is how it would go for her, and that she quite literally makes love not war. I’m fascinated by questions around Psyche- was she a sadist who wanted to hurt everyone around her, a naive hippie who thought she was helping everyone expand their consciousnesses, or a callous manipulator who simply wanted to see what would happen?

 

 

Some ideas:

 

• I thought of the maenads and of the play The Bacchae watching this movie, and I think playing out this story in different times and places could bring out all kinds of themes and twists.  Maenads turn a celebration on its head, a ball at pre-revolutionary Versailles goes mad, a 1920s artist’s cabaret has the ultimate surrealist experience. You can also make this fit a mythological setting- is Psyche a witch? Does her name connect her to the bride of Eros?
   
• What happens if Selva decides to take revenge on Psyche for all the lives lost because of her? You could dip into the whole New French Extremity genre and send her on a brutal journey where she loses what remains of her sanity, or fall into Revenge Tragedy mode where she seeks to give Psyche something poetically just, even if it means giving up her own morality or even life. In either case, can she go through with it? Would Psyche retaliate? (I would prefer if Psyche didn’t get to kill Selva and walk away fine here, but that doesn’t mean she can’t end up dead at the end.)
   
• Could all that psychic agony and ecstasy leave behind a dance troupe of ghosts? Could this warehouse turn into a miniature version of the Overlook Hotel where shades of the dead dance forever, whether they understand their own existence or not? If Selva came back, what would she find? If Psyche came back, what would they do to her?

 

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty: A Gothic Romance

 

Characters: Aurora, Caradoc, Leo

 

This ballet was just made for me, just absolutely made for me.  A love triangle between a kindhearted maiden, a predatory vampire and an innocent youth?  That’s just my favorite dynamic ever!  And everything was so pretty!

Some ideas:
 

• Give me the darkest, wickedest captivity story about Aurora and Caradoc.  Rescue at the end by Leo is welcome but optional.
   
• If Leo has rescued Aurora, where are they going to go from there?  How are they doing to heal together?
   
• Caradoc just impotently pining is fun, too.
   
• Flesh out a bit about the vampire world.  How are a pair of sweet kids like Aurora and Leo going to adjust to what they have become?  Will they be outcasts in vampire society or come to rule it?
   
• How will all the characters integrate- or not- to waking up in the 21st century?

The Invitation (2022)

Characters: Walter, Evie, Lucy

I just saw this and had to RUN to my Yuletide signup to add it! Nobody ever needs to make a sexy Dracula movie ever again, this is the definitive one. Some ideas right while I'm still all hyped up!

• An AU based on the vampire media of your choice! How would this be different if they were Anne Rice vampires? Or Vampire the Masquerade vampires? Or What We Do in the Shadows vampires?
   
• I did get a little annoyed at the throwaway use of the names Jonathan and Mina Harker, so I'd be all for you using the real Harkers in a crossover with the original Dracula novel! This could be still in the modern day, or an AU where it all goes down during the 1890s. Evie would be the absolute heart of that friend group/polycule! (Just don't make the Dracula heroes racist towards her, please!)
   
• If you're interested in dubcon or consensual-but-a-bad-idea smut with Walter/Evie or Walter/Evie/Lucy, I would be all for that.
   
• What's Evie's life as a vampire hunter going to be like? I hope it's awesome!
   
• Is there any way Lucy could have survived the movie? 

• It wasn't in the tagset, but any opportunity you find for worldbuilding in a fic would be great. Are there other vampire families out there to worry about? And what's the story behind all the layers of weirdness in the subservient families?