Jukebox 2021 Letter

[kiraly]

Dear Jukebox Creator,

Hello! Welcome to my music library (or, well, a tiny portion of it). I’m excited to see what you come up with, and I’m pretty easy to please. The prompts in this letter are to help get you started, but if you have an idea already, feel free to run with it! I’m sure I’ll love whatever it is, as long as you steer clear of my DNWs.

If you want to know more about me, feel free to poke around here (it’s mostly exchange letters, haha). You can also find me on Tumblr: worldsentwined or check out my AO3: Kiraly

General Likes:

I really love character-driven stories with a lot of emotion. I’m all about the fluff, but I also enjoy angst with a happy ending - and a lot of these songs probably lend themselves to angst more than fluff. For gen fics, I love to see characters building friendships, working together, going on adventures, getting into (and out of) trouble. Found family and loyalty are always welcome.

For shippy fics, I have a huge weakness for cuddling, (mild) hurt/comfort, and, uh...characters getting soaked and having to snuggle to warm up, haha. Kisses are good (awkward or sweet or steamy). I’m also totally down for things like “characters have to share a bed for some reason” or other situations where the characters kind of get thrown together and then develop feelings for each other. Mutual pining is great, though I prefer it to end happily. Most of my ships in other fandoms can be summarized as “idiots to lovers” so feel free to make use of that dynamic.

I don’t really care if you keep the genders of the characters the same as listed in the song - I welcome characters of any genders and in any romantic combo (including trans and nonbinary characters). I’m also open to characters of any sexuality, including asexual or aromantic characters.

I’ve requested fic for all of these, but art treats are welcome!


Speculative: In general I’m a huge fan of any kind of sci-fi or fantasy setting, especially if there’s adventure and romance. A (non-exhaustive) list of character tropes I enjoy:

* knights * princesses * ladies with swords * librarians * sailors * mermaids * cyborgs * artificial intelligence * bards/musicians * space pirates/crews * witches * magical creatures hiding in human form * dragons * fair folk * mothman * ghosts

I enjoy the traditional versions of these character types, but in a lot of cases I’m even more excited to see them turned on their heads, with characters who are defying expectations.

I also enjoy stories set on ships (sailing ships, airships, spaceships - take your pick!), post-apocalyptic settings*, and fairy tales (especially with a twist). I also like stories where the setting is mostly our modern world, but with a hint of magic or supernatural elements. Quest-type adventures are great, but I also love quiet moments in between the action when characters can decompress together, regardless of the wider setting.

*although I like post-apocalyptic stuff, I’d prefer to avoid anything that touches too closely on our current situation. Far-future post-apocalypse is preferred, or people coping with some disaster other than a pandemic.

Contemporary: I’ve known I had a weakness for domestic fluff and modern settings like coffee shops, universities, etc, but in the past year that’s been like...most of what I’ve been able to read. So! If you’d prefer to focus less on worldbuilding and magic, and more on a couple of idiots figuring things out in our own world, by all means do so! Some of the specific prompts will have more details, but I love stories about longtime friends growing closer (and maybe falling in love), lonely people finding friendship for the first time, characters realizing that their weird bits are actually worth loving, and the messy complicated feelings that come from growing up in a small town or otherwise isolated.

Dislikes (Do Not Want):
Character death or maiming, including characters getting infected with some terminal disease. Some background violence is okay, but nothing too graphic (and no torture!) Abusive relationships. Incest. Sexual violence of any kind. Explicit sex (allusions to sex or situations that get kind of steamy are okay, just...keep it teen rated or lower, please). I’d prefer to steer away from homophobia or transphobia too. If possible, I’d prefer nothing with a completely hopeless ending.


Anyway, on to the songs!

Flares - The Script (Song)

Link Lyrics

This song gives me such a feeling of hope in dark times. I get a strong mental image of a huge, empty plain, with someone trying to figure out where to go, and suddenly lights flare up in the distance. Whether it’s a lonely adventurer finally finding companionship, or separated friends/lovers finally reuniting, there’s a lot of room for a happy ending here. The other elements of the song - smoke, losing something, breaking, crying - give plenty of opportunities for a sad setup. This song also has lots of references to light in the darkness, and again whether you choose to take that literally or metaphorically is up to you.



The Inventor’s Daughter - Branches (Song)

Link Lyrics

I heard this song for the first time a few weeks ago and could not stop thinking about the story it suggests. What is the deal with the Inventor’s Daughter? Why is she called that when we never actually see the Inventor in the song, only a protective older brother who seems to have his own issues? How does this chance encounter between the Inventor’s Daughter and the Beggar’s Son lead to something more? I would love to see these two characters learning more about each other and working to help each other through their complicated family issues, maybe meeting in secret because they can’t be open about their relationship. Also, this is one where you can especially feel free to disregard the implied genders of the characters in the song.



Laughter Lines - Bastille (Song)

Link Lyrics

This song gives me such a strong sense of childhood friends through the years - either sticking together through everything, or falling apart and reconnecting as they grow and change. It could either be a tale of friendship alone, or of friendship that expands into romance later. I love the imagery of the tree stump with its many rings, of that being someone’s favorite place on earth. I can easily see this being a story told in smaller scenes through the years, of the two characters coming together at the tree stump at different stages in their lives. If you want to add a bit of a speculative twist to it, the conviction in the chorus of “I’ll see you in the future when we’re older” could be read as something prophetic or fated.



The Moss - Cosmo Sheldrake (Song)

Link Lyrics

From the first time I heard this song, I’ve always been fascinated by the stories referenced within the song. Some connect directly to nursery rhymes I remember (the cow jumping over the moon, the old woman in the shoe) and others are more obscure. I’d love to read a story that reimagines one or more of these, or one about the storyteller who tells all these stories. Where do they get their ideas? What if it turns out there is some truth in them? It would also be delightful if the more mundane elements (moss growing on the north side of trees, plants eating sunbeams with their leaves) were written to be just as fantastical as the other stories.



Power Over Me - Dermot Kennedy (Song)

Link Lyrics

This song has great potential for like...twisty magic stuff, or fair folk, or simply someone who’s pining so hard after someone else that they can’t think about anything else. Maybe a magic user, in an attempt to reveal their true love, has accidentally cast a spell that makes them constantly think about the person they love but unable to admit their feelings unless the other person speaks first. Maybe a fae monarch wants to win over a human without using magic to seduce them and tries increasingly ridiculous methods. Or, a darker twist, a human learns their true name and the fae has to do their bidding or suffer...but the human has no idea, and ends up asking for something that puts them both in danger. There’s also an element of urgency to the song, so possibly the person under the spell will face consequences if their love isn’t returned within a certain amount of time.

I really like the “remember that lake in the moonlight” verse, so something involving that imagery would be amazing!



Secrets (Cellar Door) - Radical Face (Song)

Link Lyrics

This song has so many juicy possibilities - neighbor kids with weird necromantic powers? Sign me up. The narrative seems to suggest that one character can raise the dead and the other can see ghosts, but feel free to be creative with your interpretation. Maybe they can both do those things, or maybe they can find ways to use their powers together. Maybe the focus isn’t even on the use of those powers, but the relief of finding someone else who can sort of understand these things that other people don’t. Or maybe these connections to the dead are actively putting one or both of the characters in danger, so they have to work together to create a place of safety.



Walk Me Home - Pomplamoose ft. Cimorelli (Song)

Link Lyrics

I really love the implied relationship between the people in this song; it gives this idea of familiarity and comfort that is just really lovely. Walking someone home is a way of making sure they’re safe, and that person asking the other to stay is sort of the reciprocal way of doing that. I feel like it could work in a lot of settings, from a post-apocalyptic landscape or fantasy world where people are in danger from literal monsters, to our real-world setting where being out alone can be dangerous for more mundane reasons. I can imagine a series of these late night sessions that lead up to a romance, or friends who stick with each other no matter what happens.



A note about the YouTube links: They should all work in the U.S., but in the event that you’re located elsewhere and something is region-locked for you, feel free to leave me an anonymous comment and I’ll try to find a better version. Also, I have a Spotify Playlist with all of the songs on it, if you want to listen to them in one concentrated place (and that place is Spotify).