Jukebox 2014 Letter

My username on AO3 is within_a_dream

Hello, and thank you for writing for me! I’ll start off with a list of general things I like:

            -Fantasy, sci-fi, and historical settings (Although I like all other settings and genres, too)

            -Unreliable narrators

            -Prose that tends towards the poetic (e.g. unusual turns of phrase, unconventional structure, etc)

            -Any and all points of view and perspectives, especially the ones everyone else seems to hate (like first-person present-tense, and second person)

            -Slash, and femslash (although I like het and gen too!)

I’m fine with any level of violence or sexual explicitness. My only squick is graphic descriptions of pregnancy and (especially) childbirth. Brief mentions of pregnancy/childbirth, pregnant characters, etc, are fine, as long as the story doesn’t go into a lot of detail.

            My prompts for the songs got a bit long, and you definitely shouldn’t feel like you have to include everything in one story. Also, I tend to assume that the gender of the narrator is the gender of the singer, and that’s how I’ve written my prompts, but feel free to mix that up if you want. I don’t have strong opinions about the gender of any of the characters.

Becoming a Jackal- The Villagers

            I’m not really sure what’s going on in this song, but it definitely has a story behind it. Who’s the narrator, and who is the “you” he stays with? (I’ve always imagined the “you” as a woman, and I’ll use female pronouns for ease of writing, but feel free to go with whatever gender you want.) I got the impression that she took the narrator in when he was young and/or vulnerable, and is keeping him from leaving her to join the jackals. Who are the jackals, anyway? A literal pack of jackals, or perhaps shape-shifters? A bike gang? I’d love to see your ideas.

            I especially love the last stanza or so of the song:

                        So before you take this song as truth

You should wonder what I'm taking from you

How I benefit from you being here

Lending me your ears while I'm selling you my fears

            I’d love a story that plays on this uncertainty. Is what the narrator tells us really the truth? What’s his motivation for telling us this story?

In Another Life- Vienna Teng

            I’d love to hear more about any of the three past lives mentioned in the song, either a story about the deaths as detailed in the lyrics or just a day in the life of the narrator and her love. (I’m not at all picky about historical accuracy.) Alternatively, I’d love a story about the narrator and her love in the present day. I love the way the last verse describes the way the memories of past lives creep into the narrator’s thoughts, and I’d like to hear more about that—does she remember everything about her past lives, or does she just have vague flashes of forgotten memories? Does her love remember anything of their past as well?

No Death- Mirel Wagner

            I’ve always interpreted this as a story of necromancy gone wrong: a woman attempts to resurrect her lover, or keep her from dying, and ends up with an undead girlfriend. I’d love to hear about how things ended up this way—how did the lover die, and how did the narrator manage to bring her back to life?

            I also love the image of death trying to break in and steal the lover back. I’d love a story that treats death as a humanoid character and details the narrator’s attempts to evade him.

            If you write for this song, I’d prefer that both the narrator and her lover are women.

White Winter Hymnal- Fleet Foxes

            This song has always felt to me like there’s a story behind it…but I have no idea what that story is. I’d love to hear your idea of what’s going on. Who is Michael, and what happens to him? Who is the narrator, and why is he following the pack?

The Wondersmith and His Sons- Astronautalis

            I’m very interested in the backstory/childhood of the narrator and his brothers. Tell me about how they grew up learning to be con men, and/or the disaster that tore their family apart. The song gives so few details about this, and I’m curious: how did the youngest brother die? Who’s “the other skeleton”? What happens to the rest of the family? (Perhaps one of them is the other skeleton?)

            If that doesn’t interest you, I’d love to hear about the narrator as an adult, maybe the story of a con he’s running (either drawing on the one described in the song, or something else.) If we go by the music video (which you definitely don’t have to), his attempt to go after the “woman weak for charming men” doesn’t go well. What went wrong?

Thanks again for writing for me, and I look forward to reading your story!