Jukebox Letter

[pameluke]

 

Dear Boxer of Jukes,

It’s my first time doing this exchange, and I’m very excited and looking forward to your gift.

I’ve written the following letter as a sort of buffet so you can pick and select whatever catches your fancy and write something we’ll both enjoy. 

I’m a firm believer in Optional Details are Optional, so as long as you respect my few DNWs it’s going to be great! 

I’m fine with any rating, and I’ve requested fanfic or podfic for all my requests. The only caveat for podfic is that I’m a non-native speaker, so please don’t talk too fast ;)

 

 

GENERAL DNW’S 

First things first, I’m from Belgium, so please no references, even implied or offhand, to anything terrorism related, civilians dying, or bombs. Thank you.

• No Non-Con
• No Underage
• No Humiliation
• No Infantilisation
• No Scat

I’d like to avoid real-life politics and religion where possible.

Otherwise, I’m game. The rating can be as high or low as you want, as long as it’s consensual I’m okay with any kink, and the fouler the language the better.  

 

GENERAL LIKES, TROPES, AND AUs 

I love slice of life fic, adventures in nature, food and cooking related fic, loyalty kink, competence kink, hurt-comfort, found families, random domesticity. 

I love fic in which a relationship is explored, and don’t mind if that’s the main plot. I can deal with angst, but I’d like to have some kind of happy resolution at the end, even if it’s Happy For Now. 

I’m very big on a lot of tropes. I love tropes. Seriously, give me all the fandom cliches, I gobble them up. I especially love inversions and subversions, or just played straight. Some of my favorites: 

• Soulbonds, in all forms, with marks or no marks, with relationships between the actual bonds or out of them, telepathic powers, or only bad side-effects.
• Fake relationships that turn real. In all forms. For all reasons
• Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends, Friends to Lovers
• Living by the Nile, or “What feelings? Me? No Way, Good Sir, Never (I love you)”
• Elaborate Plans Gone Wrong
• Awkward Flirting
• Awkward Sex
• Competent People and the People who fall for them, all the Competence Kink, seriously
• N Times Characters Did A Thing
• Marriage/Relationship of convenience, turned REAL
• Found families
• Interspecies Relationships

 

GENERAL PORN KINKS & LIKES

Definitely don’t feel obligated to include any, but if you’re so inclined feel free to go wild with the following: 

• Enthusiastic consent, this is my biggest kink always
• Anal Sex, Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex, Non-Penetrative Sex
• Awkward Sex, Awkward Sexual Situations
• Biting, Claiming Bites, Marking
• Body Worship
• Cunnilingus, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Fingerfucking
• Desperate Arousal/Sexual Frustration, Desperate Sex
• Floor Sex, Wall Sex, Table Sex
• Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Hair-pulling
• Lazy/Gentle Sex, Comfort Sex
• Manhandling/Shows of Athleticism During Sex
• Outdoor Sex, Sex in Nature
• Pegging
• Rending of Clothing
• Reunion Sex
• Rough Sex
• Sex Toys
• Something Made Them Do It (All of them)
• Wet & Messy

In general, I like narrative sex and a little plot with my porn. I love character introspection, character development, and relationship development through sex. For me, sex is both about the pleasure people can derive from each other and about the emotional connection that can be made. 

Everything is hotter when emotions are involved.

You can ignore everything that’s not to your liking or doesn’t inspire you. On to the song-specific stuff, YAY.

 

Motherland - Natalie Merchant (Song) 

listen here | lyrics

Take one last look behind

Commit this to memory and mind

Don't miss this wasteland, this terrible place

When you leave

Keep your heart off your sleeve 

 

I love this song so much. Natalie Merchant is a great storyteller in general, but this song always, always gets to me. I think it really grabs the mixed feelings people who had to leave somewhere with the place they left, but also with the place they currently live.

So many immigration stories that can be told to this song, either focusing on the former homeland or the new homeland. People seldom leave their country for happy reasons, so I’d definitely be fine with a story exploring that. There’s a lot of people leaving or trying to leave bad situations in the song, so feel free to run with one of those. The song itself always feel comforting and hopeful to me, so I’d prefer it if the story had a similar tone. 

Don’t feel like you have to stick to existing countries and situations. I would love a story set in a fantasy universe, or a sci-fi setting, possibly on another planet. I’va always been fascinated with space colonisation, especially of empty planets. What motivates people to leave everything they know behind, to risk it all, to go settle emptiness? 

I also really like the story of the woman - a hooker who somebody falls in love with and they hastily marry. I always headcanoned that the narrator (can be male or female) was the one with the means out of the wasteland, and fell in love with a hooker, who they married to get them out of there as well.

 

 

You've Got the Silver - The Rolling Stones (Song) 

listen here | lyrics

You got my heart you got my soul

You got the silver you got the gold

You got the diamonds from the mine

Well that's all right, it'll buy some time

 

I fell in love with this song when I watched Shine A Light for the first time, which is why I linked that version. I think it’s something in the vulnerability of his voice that gets to me - this is a pretty straightforward love song, but it’s tender and vulnerable and loving, and I love it so much.

I’m all for out of the box interpretations for this song. I’ve often thought it could be a dwarven love song, depicting some kind of dwarven wooing tradition. Or just straight up a dwarf falling in love with an excellent miner, terribly out of their league.

Also, I’ve always been fascinated by the “it’ll buy us some time” line. Time from what? From the mines to collapse? From their illicit relationship having been found out? A monster they’ve awoken by mining to deep, eating gems and diamonds?

I know I mentioned dwarves, but I’d be thrilled by any kind of mining community setting: humans, aliens, gnomes, earthbender like humans, elves. I’d love het, slash, femslash, and would be thrilled with interspecies romance as well.

Also, feel free to ignore the lines about airplanes and go for a traditional fantasy setting, or fun with it and make it an urban fantasy type setting, or set somewhere in space. 

 

 

State Trooper - Deana Carter (Song)

listen here | lyrics

  New Yersey Turnpike ridin' on a wet night 'neath the refinery's glow, out where the great black rivers flow 

License, registration, I ain't got none, but I got a clear conscience 

'Bout the things that I done 

Mister state trooper please don't stop me..Who did she murder and why?

 

It’s probably because of watching too many crime shows, but the moment people start worrying about state troopers stopping them, I assume there’s a (dead) body in their trunk. Especially if they’re driving that little bit under the speed limit. 

So I’d love a story exploring why this woman ended up driving with a body in her trunk, where she’s going with it, and who it is she killed. It can be straight up murder, or accidental manslaughter in self-defense. The “the only thing that I got's been botherin' me my whole life” always made me think she grew up in a very bad situation, but it could also be that she simply was born as a psychopath, and is a straight up serial killer. If you go that route, I’d love it if you’d combine that with the fact she’s got a clean conscience and feels no remorse for what she’s done. Maybe she kills for justice? As some kind of vigilante?

There’s also the fact that she loses her patience, which if you start the song with the headcanon that she killed something, makes you wonder what will happen if the state trooper does stop her. Does she kill them? Is the line about them having a wife and a kid, some subtle kind of threat?

I’m fine with any rating for this story, and feel free to make it as violent and bloody (or not) as you want. I’d just like the violence mainly be dealt out by the narrator, and please no rape whatsoever. 

 

First We Take Manhattan - Leonard Cohen (Song) 

listen here | lyrics

 They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom 

For trying to change the system from within 

I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them 

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin 

 

I know it's all supposed to be metaphors, but honestly, I've always seen it as a sci-fi possibly post-apocalyptic dystopian revolution story. It could be either a fringe-movement, young kids making plans in a basement somewhere, that never surmount to anything, or a straight up massive revolt of the people, with the narrator as one of the leaders.

I always interpreted the first line as the narrator being sentenced to prison, and then the fight starts after that, or they escape as part of the revolution. The people moving through the station, are similary people being moved to prison / detention camps, or people trying to escape the conflict by traveling away. I’d love a (sub)plot of two people seperated by their part in the conflict, or their stance on the conflict itself. (The only thing I really want to avoid here is the trope of: Woman dies and man learns something valuable about himself.”)

I’ve always been fascinated by the birthmark line as well, which allows for some kind of supernatural angle. I’m not a huge fan of The Chosen One storylines, but I do like inversions or subversions of the trope. So a Chosen One For The Revolution who loses, is definitely something I’d love. 

The only thing I’d ask is that this story is set in a fictional world, and isn’t based on real life conflicts. I’d prefer it if there was no religion at the base of the conflict either. Also please avoid bombings. Otherwise I’m fine with any violence, any rating you’d want, and with either a female or male narrator, and if you’d like to go into relationships I’m fine with het, slash or femslash.

 

Sweetheart Like You - Bob Dylan (Song)  

listen here | lyrics

Steal a little and they throw you in jail

Steal a lot and they make you king

There's only one step down from here, baby

It's called the land of permanent bliss

What's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this ?

 

This is my favorite Bob Dylan song. I love it on two levels, the story about the woman working in a bar, and on the level of social commentary, and class. If you don’t feel like getting into the dirty gritty of the latter one, I’m totally fine with that.

I’ve always wanted to know what happened to the woman (I’m not really interested in the narrator in this story), and if and how she got herself out of that dump. While I like to agree with Dylan that she deserves someone nice to love her, I also like to think she gets herself out of her situation. Maybe she takes over the bar, maybe she steals a little and has to go on the run, Thelma and Louise style (“You know you can make a name for yourself, You can hear them tires squeal”). Maybe she steals a lot, and becomes a queen of some kind, either figuratively, or literally as the queen of her own country. While I’m not necessarily headcanoning this setting as fantasy or sci-fi, I’m fine with you running with it that way.

I’m also always moved and impressed by the lines: “You can be known as the most beautiful woman, Who ever crawled across cut glass to make a deal.”. Mostly because it shows her dedication to better her situation. So feel free to do a time skip, and have her be old and weathered and scarred, beauty almost entirely faded, looking back on how she conquered everything, and carved out a good life for herself.

I also like the line that runs through the song of a conman/cardshark teaching her some tricks, so if you’d like her to end up making her riches in Vegas, that sounds awesome as well.

So, I’m interested in a story about the girl, preferably without the narrator, I’d love a view in her relationships and would be fine with het or femslash.

 

Shelter From The Storm - Bob Dylan (Song)  

listen here | lyrics

And if I pass this way again you can rest assured

I'll always do my best for her on that I give my word

In a world of steel-eyed death and men who are fighting to be warm

"Come in," she said,

"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

 

This is just a hopeful warm song that always fills me with hope, and there's so much story in it. I’m just so very much here for people giving shelter and comfort to other people. “Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm” Indeed. You could either run with following the narrators adventures and struggles, and how they keep ending up with the woman. Obviously it goes wrong at some point (and yet she still gives them shelter), so I’d love a story about what happened between them at that point as well.

I also think that you can view each stanza as a different person finding shelter with this woman, so I’d love a story about her, and all the strays and wanderers that cross her fields. There’s obviously a war at this point, and I like the idea of her sheltering wounded soldiers, no matter who’s side they’re on.

I’d also love a story that’s focused on her view on things, why she offers this comfort to stranger(s), how she feels about it.

Any setting is fine, any relationships, and I’d be fine with a bittersweet ending for this one as well.

 

 

You Will Miss Me When I Burn - Soulsavers (Song)  

listen here | lyrics

Will you miss me

When I burn, and will you eye me

With a longing

It is longing that I feel

To be missed for, to be real

When you have no one,

No one can hurt you

 

This is devastatingly lonely, and often painful to listen to, but at some point it becomes this roaring song filled with rage and spite, and I kind of love that about it. It becomes a statement instead of a question, and that’s just so… strong.

I’ve often thought it was a song sung by a witch (or other supernatural being) being burned alive at the stake, mourning their loneliness and sadness, but ending with this threatening stanza “There is absence, there is lack, There are wolves here abound, You will miss me, When I turn around”. Cue revenge spree, either after they died, or they make their escape in the nick of time, and simply set the village on fire instead. 

I especially like the contrast between the lines they sing to themselves in comfort, that if they no one, they can’t get hurt. So I’d love a story of why they are so alone, how they longed for connection, for someone to care for them, and how that obviously doesn’t work. They do feel, they do get hurt, and they burn with it.

Basically I’m here for a story that deals with loneliness, and how that gets acted out on other people in the end. I’m fine with either a male of female main character, and if there’s (one-sided) relationships you’d like to explore (all that longing that they almost not recognize as such), I’m fine with het, slash and femslash. I’m fine with any level of violence, and with character death, as long as the tone of the story ends either bittersweet, or victorious, aka going out with a bang.

 

 

 

Human Touch - Bruce Springsteen (Song)  

listen here | lyrics

So you been broken and you been hurt 

Show me somebody who ain't 

Yeah I know I ain't nobody's bargain 

But hell a little touchup 

And a little paint... 

 

I love this song so much, even though it’s pretty simple and straight forward. There’s just somehting about people wanting to connect, have some physical comfort with someone that gets to me, everytime.

I especially like that this isn’t a song about young people necessary, but about people with history and complicated pasts, who’ve gone through stuff. But they are loved and desired anyway, and the narration stresses that everyone is a little broken and a little hurt, and that’s okay.

So for me the beauty of the song is in the tone and in the comfort, so I’d love a story with a similar tone, two people looking and finding comfort. 

I’ve got a thing for people who are touch-starved being touched a lot and finding comfort in other bodies and physical affection, so that would be awesome to read. 

This could just be played straight in a modern setting, but I’d also with a non-human narrator and a (doomed) inter-species romance, focussed on touch and the cultural and species differences around it.