Dear Yuletide Writer 2015
Optional details are optional. That said, I like female characters being awesome (which can take many different forms!) and having agency; I like femslash and female friendship; I like fluff and darkfic and pretty much everything in between. I like gen and porn with plot and pretty much everything in between. I like polyamory where the women outnumber the men. I'm fine with noncon, dubcon, incest, and cross-gen. I don't mind experimental uses of tense, POV, or story structure or formatting. I have few squicks and no triggers.
If you're interested in what was going on in my head when I made my requests, read on. . . .
Fandom: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) RPF
Characters: Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza
Request: Friends to lovers. Or friends with benefits. Or people who tolerate each other suprisingly well for people who engage in hatesex as much as they do. Or whatever other potentially difficult-to-classify relationship they might fall into together.
I nominated this as Scott Pilgrim RPF, since that's the most well-known film both Kendrick and Plaza were in together, but feel free to set this at any point in time: past, present, or future.
How is this pairing not already on the archive? They're canonical BFFs! They couldn't get any slashier if they tried, for the simple reason that they clearly are deliberately trying. (Maybe they'd be even slashier if they tried less?)
There's plenty of material for this pairing, starting of course with their own Twitter accounts,
AnnaKendrick47 and
evilhag, but I also want to recommend Kendrick's Vogue photo diary for the 2014 Oscars, and--well, Google is your friend. Trust me, there's plenty of material.
Fandom: Half-Moon Hollow - Molly Harper
Characters: Ophelia Lambert, Georgie Lambert, Gigi Scanlon
Request: The Lambert sisters and Gigi, with emphasis on Ophelia being Ophelia.
Ophelia Lambert is, hands down, my favorite character in this series. One of my bulletproof narrative kinks is the radically autonomous teenager, the adolescent (preferably adolescent girl) who acts as, and in as accepted as, the equal of the adults in the narrative. Obviously Ophelia (and to a lesser extent, Georgie and Gigi) feeds into this kink pretty well. I'm interested in the ways that Ophelia does and doesn't present herself as a teenager--and the ways that role ends up being more true than she would really like. She may be 400 years old, but that doesn't stop her from acting like a petulant child. I don't see her as either a villain or a woobie, but she clearly enjoys being in control and not being in control scares her more than she would ever admit.
If you set your fic after The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire, then it would make sense to focus on Ophelia in college, making new enemies (or maybe even friends?) and trying to heal her relationship with Georgie and Gigi (and of course Jamie). But feel free to set it earlier in canon as well.
Fandom: A Brother's Price - Wen Spencer
Characters: Jerin Whistler, Rennsellaer, Halley, Odelia
Request: Jerin and his wives, post-novel.
I picked Rensellaer, Halley, and Odelia because I had to pick just three, but I love Trini and Lylia too, and would even be interested in seeing more of the younger sisters. All the sisters are great, with their complementary strengths and weaknesses and overall personalities. Halley in particular intrigues me, with her tragic backstory of still getting over her lover who couldn't accept her scarred face (and then left her for Kij!). But there's a lot to love in Odelia's flirty hedonism, Trini's practicality, and Lylia's idealism, too.
I feel like I should say something about worldbuilding here, because I know this fandom has been requested before for Yuletide with worldbuilding prompts. I feel like we can take it for granted that the author, the readers, and the main characters all know that buying and selling men isn't okay. Yes, the way the characters accept the social situation and find their own happy ending within it without disrupting the overall structure can be said to normalize it in ways which are problematic, but sometimes we need to let idfic be idfic. That said, there are a couple of areas of worldbuilding which do interest me:
- Homosexuality. It seems fairly clear that, if not lesbianism per se, then at least situational female bisexuality is considered to be normal and accepted in the universe of the novel. Female prostitutes who serve other women are common. Halley has had a bad breakup with a former female lover. Indeed, I read Halley as being fairly high on the Kinsey scale, notwithstanding her real affection for Jerin (I don't think they know each other well enough to really call it love yet) and her being the first of the sisters to bear him a child.
- Incest. Incest is still a taboo in the novel's society, but doesn't seem to be nearly as strong a taboo as in the actual world. It's treated more as a sexual indiscretion--something everyone knows happens but which polite people don't talk about--than a fundamental, instinctual prohibition. Eldie Porter "isn't really incestuous fruit" since their parents are closer to cousins/step-siblings than what we might recognize as brother and sister. Indeed, I'm not sure sex between sisters would be recognized as incestuous at all; after all, they're all already making love to the same man, and genetic consanguinity wouldn't be an issue since they can't get each other pregnant.
- Religion. There are a lot of references to the gods (who seem to be based on the Greco-Roman pantheon) in the novel, but no one seems particularly devout. The gods' prohibitions (e.g., against adoption) seem to be accepted more due to their pragmatic purpose than out of piety as such. There's also a reference to the Prophets--with the nice touch of a token male prophet--which makes Queensland religiosity an interesting mix of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, and secularizing elements.
It probably sounds at this point that I just want a big polyamorous incestuous orgy, which--well, I certainly wouldn't say no to that being part of the fic, but I'm also not looking for PWP or curtain fic. Just something which shows Jerin interacting with two or more of the sisters post-novel in a way which reveals character and speaks at least a little bit to the id. What type of intimacy you choose to show is totally up to you; honestly, I tend to just skim over most sex scenes. A bit of political intrigue and/or a domestic conflict between the sisters would be just right to get the fic rolling.
Fandom: Interstellar (2014)
Characters: Amelia Brand, Murphy Cooper
Request: Amelia and Murphy interacting, at any point in canon, twisting canon however much you have to in order to make it happen. Femslash or gen.
I'd like to see Murphy and Amelia interacting, bonding, and/or sexing--pretty much anything which passes the Bechdel test is good with me, femslash or gen or in-between. Feel free to diverge from canon and/or use relativistic effects to play with the ages of the characters as you see fit, although dirtybadwrong cross-gen would be just fine too. You could write a missing scene between Murphy and Amelia before the latter leaves for space, or an AU where Amelia stays behind and acts as mentor to Murphy, or some sort of epistolary romance, and/or have Murphy use science to be waiting for Amelia (with or without Joseph) on Edmunds' planet (which is how I actually expected the movie to end). I just really enjoyed these strong, intelligent characters and wished they had had more time on screen to interact. And that this fandom had more opportunities for femslash, ahem, or even any sort of meaningful female homosocial relationships. (The film itself arguably does pass the Bechdel test, but just barely.)
As with the other prompts, I'm not bothered by incest (and honestly, I can see both Amelia/John and Murphy/Joseph working).
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