Dear Yuletide Author
Oct. 26th, 2015 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brainwaneDear Yuletide author: thank you for offering to write a story for me! I hope you enjoy writing it, and I hope these facts and ideas help you do so. (This is my first year as a Yuletide signer-upper so forgive inadvertent omissions or high-handedness in this letter.)
I'm Sumana Harihareswara, a mid-thirties Indian-American cisgender woman in New York City. I have made a couple vids and written a few bits of fanfic. Right now I've just finished reading Ann Leckie's Ancillary Mercy and watching The Legend of Korra, and am listening to the Hamilton soundtrack quite a lot. I would love to rewatch "Ball of Fire" (1941) and "All About Eve" (1950). I'm rereading Jacques Pepin's memoir The Apprentice in bits and snatches, along with various cookbooks, The Orwell Reader, and Irvin D. Yalom's therapy memoir Love's Executioner.
I have been voluble about discussing some things I like and do not like in fiction generally. In my Yuletide fanfic, I prefer gen that goes into the work lives of women, especially women of color. I am a fan of adding original characters to the text, including queer characters, and please also feel free to queer the straight characters. I can deal with deaths, including children and animals, and descriptions of gore and bloodshed. I am fine with depictions of abuse, including nonconsensual sex, as long as I'm not being asked to root for the abuser.
Here are my Archive Of Our Own bookmarks in case that helps guide your thinking!
Baahubali: The Beginning (2015): Sivagami
[Edited to add link to someone else's Dear Yuletide Author letter that summarizes the film and links to trailer/video]
Sivagami is clearly a powerful leader; I would love a gen story about her leadership style and the ways she overcomes sometimes sexist reluctance to follow her orders or understand her vision. I'm mildly interested in her role as a mother, and don't want stories about sex or romance.
I'm also interested in Avantika and in the other girls and women in this universe as sly, formidable characters (I really did not like the sequence in which Baahubali tricked Avantika and transformed her into a supermodel).
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho: The Grand Sorceress
My family is from Karnataka and so I am super loving that the Grand Sorceress holds court there, and is possibly from there and a Kannadiga. I would prefer a story in English but I can deal with it if you have a lot in Kannada; I'd get family to help translate. Anything about her work and life in Karnataka would be great; I prefer gen about her work life to stories about romance and sex. In this post about Sorcerer I suggest that it would be cool to talk about the goings-on at Tipu Sultan's Court in Srirangapatna -- idfic reminiscent of "Fifty Years in the Virtuous City" is very welcome!
I'm also interested in gen about Mak Genggang, the witches of Janda Baik, Prunella Gentleman, and other women and people of color in this universe. Might the Grand Sorceress and a Janda Baik witch once have schemed by shewstone?
Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin: any character
I love that BSC is about work, about a small business and its daily triumphs and travails. I love that it's about young women learning to make their ideas real and to use their often-underappreciated strengths (Mallory on Strike is about demanding to get paid for emotional labor!). It was great getting to see Claudia and Janine as two very different Asian-American girls. And as I explored in my own tiny BSC fic, these babysitters give lonely kids chances to meet other people who care about the same things they do.
A few ideas: I'd love gen about the Kishis meeting other Asian-American immigrant families, or an AU where Kristy and her pals enter a Y Combinator-style startup accelerator.
Thanks and best wishes.
I'm Sumana Harihareswara, a mid-thirties Indian-American cisgender woman in New York City. I have made a couple vids and written a few bits of fanfic. Right now I've just finished reading Ann Leckie's Ancillary Mercy and watching The Legend of Korra, and am listening to the Hamilton soundtrack quite a lot. I would love to rewatch "Ball of Fire" (1941) and "All About Eve" (1950). I'm rereading Jacques Pepin's memoir The Apprentice in bits and snatches, along with various cookbooks, The Orwell Reader, and Irvin D. Yalom's therapy memoir Love's Executioner.
I have been voluble about discussing some things I like and do not like in fiction generally. In my Yuletide fanfic, I prefer gen that goes into the work lives of women, especially women of color. I am a fan of adding original characters to the text, including queer characters, and please also feel free to queer the straight characters. I can deal with deaths, including children and animals, and descriptions of gore and bloodshed. I am fine with depictions of abuse, including nonconsensual sex, as long as I'm not being asked to root for the abuser.
Here are my Archive Of Our Own bookmarks in case that helps guide your thinking!
Baahubali: The Beginning (2015): Sivagami
[Edited to add link to someone else's Dear Yuletide Author letter that summarizes the film and links to trailer/video]
Sivagami is clearly a powerful leader; I would love a gen story about her leadership style and the ways she overcomes sometimes sexist reluctance to follow her orders or understand her vision. I'm mildly interested in her role as a mother, and don't want stories about sex or romance.
I'm also interested in Avantika and in the other girls and women in this universe as sly, formidable characters (I really did not like the sequence in which Baahubali tricked Avantika and transformed her into a supermodel).
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho: The Grand Sorceress
My family is from Karnataka and so I am super loving that the Grand Sorceress holds court there, and is possibly from there and a Kannadiga. I would prefer a story in English but I can deal with it if you have a lot in Kannada; I'd get family to help translate. Anything about her work and life in Karnataka would be great; I prefer gen about her work life to stories about romance and sex. In this post about Sorcerer I suggest that it would be cool to talk about the goings-on at Tipu Sultan's Court in Srirangapatna -- idfic reminiscent of "Fifty Years in the Virtuous City" is very welcome!
I'm also interested in gen about Mak Genggang, the witches of Janda Baik, Prunella Gentleman, and other women and people of color in this universe. Might the Grand Sorceress and a Janda Baik witch once have schemed by shewstone?
Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin: any character
I love that BSC is about work, about a small business and its daily triumphs and travails. I love that it's about young women learning to make their ideas real and to use their often-underappreciated strengths (Mallory on Strike is about demanding to get paid for emotional labor!). It was great getting to see Claudia and Janine as two very different Asian-American girls. And as I explored in my own tiny BSC fic, these babysitters give lonely kids chances to meet other people who care about the same things they do.
A few ideas: I'd love gen about the Kishis meeting other Asian-American immigrant families, or an AU where Kristy and her pals enter a Y Combinator-style startup accelerator.
Thanks and best wishes.
