cherith

Okay, so the profit of course isn't monetary, but you'll be due my eternal gratitude for writing one of these cool fandoms. I'm late to sign-up this year, so I'm especially grateful for whatever you put together. I'm all about the whim of the writer, consider my likes and dislikes as you would the pirate code (merely guidelines) and if the story takes you somewhere else, go with it. I will love it all the same.

Love: Dark comedy, witty banter, vivid imagery, literary & historical references, melancholy tone, religious: identities or references and subtle mockery thereof, character introspection & retrospection, reading and research, irony, gentle mockery, moral and sexual ambiguity, social commentary, emotionally intense relationships without an acknowledged sexual relationship, serious and/or goofy story twists (with or without red herrings), writing, characters with crazy hobbies, nostalgia, music, changes in power dynamics, unreliable narrators, f/f relationships that may or may not be explicitly sexual, light and dark image dichotomies

Do Not Love: bad grammar, strict PWPs, mpreg, non-con/rape

And now for more Fandoms

Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland: : Hatter & Alice preferably conversational, and not overtly sexual. I like implied encounters. Also any inclusion of the Red Queen or Queen of Hearts gets bonus points.
: (extra things that might be useful to know) If you check the tags at this journal, you can read the stories I've done - which differ greatly in tone. I'm really happy with anything Hatter and Alice related, dark is good, insane is better.

Carnivale: : I love the mystery between Ben and Management. Including Brother Justin is awesome, but not necessary.
: (extra things that might be useful to know) I'm not into the Carnivale fandom, but I miss the show a lot. Mostly, it plays on all my religious brain kinks that I have and I love the dark and light dichotomies in the show. This is something that I'm fairly easy to please in.

Fairy Tales (Little Red Riding Hood):
: Red and the wolf, dark is good here, the original is supposed to be scary. For an extra challenge, mentions of other Fairy Tales (like Snow White and Rose Red, or Briar Rose) would be welcome, obviously, I like the color themes.
: (extra things that might be useful to know) I've been reading a lot of books of retellings of popular stories, as well as rereading the original Grimm's stories. I have always loved how dark the original stories are. There's a video game called the "The Path" available for very cheap through Steam, which was a Little Red story with a twist: instead of one girl, there were seven. And each girls worked her way to grandmother's house, but could encounter the wolf each time she ventured off the path. The wolf was a different creature depending on which girl was making her way to grandma's. I mention the game only to mention the imagery about the wolf being distinct to the Red Riding Hood, I love the idea and imagery that's involved in that -- because there's so many things you can do with it. I have a thing for the colors red and black and I've always felt this story was more about the visual than the written images in the story. I might not need to say it again, but I will, dark stories are okay here (and preferred).

Witchblade (TV):
: I absolutely love both the televisions series and the Witchblade comics. I would prefer something with Sara and/or Ian or Sara/Conchobar.
: (extra things that might be useful to know) If you use Conchobar -- I adore "Cathain" the song that Conchobar (Grant Lee Phillips) sings. If you use Ian -- well, I'm probably going to love it no matter what, because he more than Sara is what drew me to the story in the first place. Obviously, if you've read my other fandom requests you know that the dark vs. light elements in stories appeal to me, and Witchblade is no exception.

Title: Until You Belong to Me
Author: Cherith
Genre: Horror, Supernatural
Word Count: 11,224
Rating: M
Warnings: religious subversion, something very much like dubcon, femslash, graphic/violent scenes, fire
Summary: Sorrow is a demon trying to get away from her master, and she enlists the help of an old friend. Written as a companion piece to last year's: Blind Denial the Long Way Down (also written for OFBB).

( Sorrow's Story Part #2 )

[Written for a prompt at the Dragon_Age Community on LJ]

“Sister, what do I say? What do I tell him?”

“Bethany, I’m not the one to ask. If you feel the need to leave a letter, then do so. You already know the limits of what you can safely say to him.”

Bethany nodded and looked back down to the parchment under her fingertips. If she wrote it quickly, wrote it the way Marian had asked her to, she wouldn’t be saying anything at all- not really. And she couldn’t imagine what that might do. For him to find such a letter. For him to know that she had left not just the Gallows, but Kirkwall altogether, but nothing of how she felt, how she wanted to stay, not how she wished that things had been different- oh, so different.

Marian would have her say none of that. Not to say that she was leaving, not to say that she cared for him (and in a way that no mage should care for a Templar) and especially not to say that her sister, her sister, was bringing Anders with them. Maker, how could she fit all that into a single letter? Or a pile of them.

She couldn’t.

But, she knew words that he would understand. Even, if there was nothing else to go with them.

Carefully, she penned the Canticle of Trials, just two verses. It was all she would need, if she put his name at the top and her name at the bottom, then he would know. He would know.

When she was done, she showed it to Marian who nodded her approval. ”If you had to write something,” her sister sighed, “then that was well written. In that you didn’t really write it at all.”

Her sister’s voice was dismissive, as she handed the parchment back and Bethany found it hard to smile, though Marian had approved of it in her own way. Bethany frowned, because she knew it wasn’t complete. It wasn’t everything, but it would have to be enough. She turned it over, putting his name again on the other side so that when she rolled it, his name would show. Then, she placed it within plain sight on the desk in her room.

Strangely, once her fingers had left the parchment, she felt an odd sense of peace about it. This way, no one would know, but she and him. This way, it looked only like the Second Enchanter had assigned words of remembrance and peace in a dire time to the new Knight-Commander of Kirkwall.

Maybe in them, Cullen would find some strength.

I wish I could've done more this year, and in fact I applied for a TON of pinch-hits, but only got one of them. That's okay though, I got pretty wrapped up in on of my stories, and was writing down to the wire.

YULETIDE
I wrote two stories:
FairyTales: East of the Sun, West of the Moon: An Interstellar Search for Love in the Four Corners of the Universe for Phantom.
This is quite basically East of the Sun, West of the Moon IN SPACE!
Eastwick (TV): The Restorative Powers of Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows on a Winter’s Afternoon for roadmarks
I have never written Eastwick before, and might not ever again, but I enjoyed writing this.

And I received 3 stories!
FairyTales: Little Red Riding Hood: The Funeral Dress by antartic and Scarlet by calenlily.
Alice in Wonderland: The Queen's Special Tea by foxtwin.

I love them all.


I also participated in this year's Secret Swooper exchange at at swooping_is_bad.
Dragon Age: Origins: Cautiously, but Onward for jessicajones_1.

I have not as of yet received a SS gift in return, though I've been assured that I'm supposed to get one. *shrug* At this point, I'm not holding my breath.


With the Holiday totals, this means I wrote about 68k words in fic for this year, not including what I did in non-fiction for NaNoWriMo. That's not shabby. Though if I'd been able to do the Alice in Wonderland BB and the Inception BB, it would've hit 100k, or damn near close. Maybe I can try that for 2011. :)

scifibigbang sign-ups are coming up soon, and I think I might try that again this year.

Okay, so the profit of course isn't monetary, but it's still my eternal gratitude for writing something I already know will be awesome.

Note: This is my second year of yuletide, so I'm just excited to have someone writing for me. I want you to write what makes you happy, and enjoy your yuletide experience. About my notes and requests: I loved naraht's 2009 letter enough that I borrowed some favorite things and rather not seen things.

I'm all about the whim of the writer, consider my likes and dislikes as you would the pirate code (merely guidelines) and if the story takes you somewhere else, go with it. I will love it all the same.

My 2009 letter is here if you want to read it, though three out of four fandoms are the same with similar info.

Love: Dark comedy, witty banter, vivid imagery, literary & historical references, melancholy tone, religious: identities or references and subtle mockery thereof, character introspection & retrospection, reading and research, irony, gentle mockery, moral and sexual ambiguity, social commentary, emotionally intense relationships without an acknowledged sexual relationship, serious and/or goofy story twists (with or without red herrings), writing, characters with crazy hobbies, nostalgia, music, changes in power dynamics, unreliable narrators

Do Not Love: bad grammar, PWPs, mpreg, S&M, rape

And now for more Fandoms

Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland:
: Hatter & Alice preferably conversational, and not overtly sexual. I like implied encounters. Also any inclusion of the Red Queen or Queen of Hearts gets bonus points.
: (extra things that might be useful to know) If you check the tags at this journal, you can read the stories I've done - which differ greatly in tone. I'm really happy with anything Hatter and Alice related, dark is good, insane is better.

Carnivale:
: I love the mystery between Ben and Management. Including Brother Justin is awesome, but not necessary.
: (extra things that might be useful to know) I'm not into the Carnivale fandom, but I miss the show a lot. Mostly, it plays on all my religious brain kinks that I have and I love the dark and light dichotomies in the show. This is something that I'm fairly easy to please in.

Fairy Tales (Little Red Riding Hood):
: Red and the wolf, dark is good here, the original is supposed to be scary. For an extra challenge, mentions of other Fairy Tales (like Snow White and Rose Red, or Briar Rose) would be welcome, obviously, I like the color themes.
: (extra things that might be useful to know) I've been reading a lot of books of retellings of popular stories, as well as rereading the original Grimm's stories. I have always loved how dark the original stories are. Last year, a video game called "The Path" came out which was a Little Red story with a twist: instead of one girl, there were seven. And each girls worked her way to grandmother's house, but could encounter the wolf each time she ventured off the path. The wolf was a different creature depending on which girl was making her way to grandma's. I mention the game only to mention the imagery about the wolf being distinct to the Red Riding Hood, I love the idea and imagery that's involved in that -- because there's so many things you can do with it. I have a thing for the colors red and black and I've always felt this story was more about the visual than the written images in the story. I might not need to say it again, but I will, dark stories are okay here (and preferred).

Witchblade (TV):
: I absolutely love both the televisions series and the Witchblade comics. I would prefer something with Sara and/or Ian or Sara/Conchobar.
: (extra things that might be useful to know) If you use Conchobar -- I adore "Cathain" the song that Conchobar (Grant Lee Phillips) sings. If you use Ian -- well, I'm probably going to love it no matter what, because he more than Sara is what drew me to the story in the first place. Obviously, if you've read my other fandom requests you know that the dark vs. light elements in stories appeal to me, and Witchblade is no exception.

I LOVE this so much. Thank you so much to wtfbrain for your hard work on this!!

Title: Blind Denial the Long Way Down (or How a Demon nearly Killed the Band)
Author: cherith

Summary: Sorrow is an assassin, she’s a demon employed by other demons to take care of the dirtiest of business. Tinamou is an alternative band that’s just made their first record deal. They are small time, from a small town and yet somehow the band manages to cross paths with the dedicated contract killer known by the full name: "Sorrow and Grief Defeated in Lovers Tears" again and again.
Warnings: Violence/Death, Unrequited Love, Language
Author’s Note: Guys, I don’t even know. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

( Blind Denial the Long Way Down (or How a Demon nearly Killed the Band) Part Two )

Title: At My Request
Author: cherith
Beta: The lovely yappichick
Word Count: 27,085
Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins
Rating: PG-13 ish
Pairings: f!warden/Alistair, Leliana/Zevran, Alistair/Morrigan, Leliana/Zevran/f!Warden/Isabela
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Fairytale
Summary: The Warden proposes a way for everyone to get their minds off what they're doing day in and day out. As they make their way across Ferelden to battle the blight, they gather at night around the campfire and tell stories of myth, lore and legend to help get them through.

Warnings: TONS of spoilers for the main plot of Dragon Age: Origins - with lots of liberties taken of course, plus plenty of drama and angst, several implied relationships, some mentioned violence -- all a bit like the game really.

Authors Notes: Written for scifibigbang. A big thanks goes to yappiechick for being my beta!! It looks like my artist may have flaked, so at the moment I don't have anything. But, I'll probably throw a mix together and add that in soon.

This story tried to be a bunch of things when I was starting out, but as soon as I started writing, the idea that the group might need some way to pass all those boring nights around camp really stuck with me. So, that's what it became, a way to tell their story by using stories that have been so well known for so long. At least I hope that's what I did. Enjoy!

PS. Not all the stories used are traditionally fairy tales, nor are they necessarily the same as their popularized versions. So, for the curious, there's a list of the stories I used in the order they appear at the end of the fic. Thanks for reading.

Link to story at AO3