I only use this platform for yuletide letters...
Thank you in advance for your awesomeness, author! I hope you find this letter helpful, but feel free to ignore any and all of it. Optional details are optional, and I would rather read a fic my author was invested in than one catering to my whims.
(Also, yes, large chunks of this were c/p'ed from previous year’s letters. Also, all three of these are variants on things I've requested in the past. This doesn't mean I wasn't delighted with what I received before, it just means that I'm greedy.)
Here is some non-fandom specific stuff that might help you:
The Wire (Namond Brice, Howard "Bunny" Colvin, Stringer Bell, Avon Barksdale)
Request - I would love any fic for this fandom, truly. Feel free to ignore all my prompts and write whatever you want. If you want some ideas, though, I have plenty:
How did Stringer and Avon get to their positions at the beginning of the series? What does a Barksdale family dinner look like? (And what about Stringer’s family? We know a lot about Avon’s.) Or how about an AU where one of them got out of the game?
Also, I know this is a ridiculously specific and hard prompt probably of interest only to me, but if you did want to write me the AU where Stringer became a baseball player and Avon followed his canon trajectory while they still remain codependent, and the messiness that would ensue, I would certainly not object.
As for Namond and Bunny, I would love to see some fic set post-season 4. Namond settling in with the Colvins? Namond post-high school? Really, I just want to know what happens to them. They're left as one of the few happy endings from the show, but do things run smoothly? Does Namond go see his father again? Does he go to college? Really, just tell me a bit more about their future and I'll be pleased. (Also, it doesn't have to be happy, this is Wire fic after all.)
Also, I realize I have two very separate sections of my prompts involving the characters I requested. I would be fine if you didn't include all four in your fic.
About the Fandom - The Wire is an HBO drama about Baltimore that ran for 5 seasons. It is deeply realistic, with a wide range of characters. While it is often billed as a procedural, it is so much more. Each season focused on a different aspect of Baltimore: the cops and dealers in the projects, the docks, politics, schools and newspapers. And it was utterly brilliant.
It is like a great novel put on screen, with layers and histories building up. Each season adds more depth to the city and the characters in it. It is well acted, directed and written. All the pieces work together at a high level to create something wonderful.
Every bit of this universe is so fully realized. Everything has consequences The impacts of each decision ripple out throughout the city and community. There are not characters existing in isolation, or plot-lines that exist only for sweeps. Everything matters, because everything works together. As a result, things change and grow.
I recommend this pimping post if you are considering starting this canon.
My favorite characters I didn’t request include Bodie, Carver, Shardene and Bubbles, while I am least interested in the season 5 characters, McNulty or Carcetti.
About my request - I love this show and just want more fic for it. I love these characters. I love the bleakness. I love that the good guys don’t always win, and when they do win it doesn’t mean that things improve. I love that everything has consequences. Basically ♥ my show.
This year my request can be broken into two different requests that don't need to be combined.
The first is for Avon and Stringer. Yes, I do ship them. And yes, I would love fic about their relationship, though it does not have to be slashy.
I love their codependency (B&B enterprises!) I love how their skill sets balance out each other and their temperaments do too. I love that after the events of season 1 they keep growing in different directions and yet how they can never disentangle from one another. I love the heartbreak of their canon endings, so unless you go full blown AU, please don’t try to fix that. I would rather have a fic in this fandom stay grounded in the show’s reality and break my heart than go for a false happily ever after.
As for Namond & Bunny, I really am looking for future fic. I want to know what happens and really to see if their found family stays strong down the line. Does Namond go to college, work? Does he ever drift back towards his old life? How does he interact with Mrs. Colvin?
The first (couple) times I watched the show I didn't like Namond, really. Why did this annoying braggart get the happy ending that almost every other person on the show was denied? But now I am so happy with it. Namond didn't fit into the life he was living and he overcompensated. Feel free to write him as a brat if you so choose, is what I'm saying.
As for Bunny, I adores him from the start. If you want to concentrate on him, maybe future fic that deals with the current social and political climate. (How would Tumblr etc react to Hamsterdam?) I realize I'm not writing as much about him as the others, but honestly he is my favorite of the four. Just solid and moral and good in a way few others on The Wire were.
NewsRadio (Dave Nelson, Catherine Duke)
Request - I love the ridiculousness of NewsRadio, so something off the wall would be great. How about Dave and Catherine, dueling spies (The real reason she left was top secret!) The NewsRadio gang vs. the apocalypse! Wacky AUs are canon, so feel free to bring the good crack. If you prefer canon-based, future fic on the farm would be most amazing. Or how about the NewsRadio team versus the internet or trying to adapt to podcasting? Prefer gen or mild Dave/Lisa.
About the Fandom - NewsRadio is a 90s workplace sitcom that ran for 5 seasons. It features the ridiculous adventures of Dave Nelson as the manager of a news radio station in New York, but it was really all about the ensemble, at least for me. It was also characterized by its visual style (single camera, but with great use of the frame and people falling into and out of) and its lack of a straight man. And by that, I do not mean it was an 'everybody's gay' AU but that everybody's funny.
The show was also a fan of AUs. (I would have requested an in Spaaaace!au, but the show already provided. \o/) Think hijinks and weddings to hobos and an insane millionaire boss (the perfectly ridiculous Jimmy James) who provided the impetus for many a crazy plot. Though really, all the characters are lovable and insane and fully capable of creating situations for comedy.
The show, however, did suffer a very real life tragedy between the 4th and 5th seasons when one of its stars (the hugely talented and funny Phil Hartman) was killed by his wife. And while the 5th season wasn't quite as bad as I remembered, it is much more uneven.
About the Request - I love the banter and laughs and pratfalls and the way the characters all genuinely love each other. (If you can watch the first episode or season 5 and not cry, well, you are made of stone. Stone, I tell you.) But don't feel that you have to go straight up antics for a fic in this fandom. The best episodes all have a bit of darkness to them. Like, what about an apocalypse (shut up, my tastes in fic are valid) where Matthew, Catherine and Dave all have to try and get to safety and New Hampshire?
Or, there was this episode where the group finds out that Dave was really from Canada. He says he always hides it because obviously if kids had known when he was little they would have thought he was a spy for Canada. Dear Yuletide writer, I want Dave to actually be a spy from Canada. He has a talent for throwing knives! He can throw his voice! He can tap-dance at a semi-professional level! OK, so the last one doesn't quite work, but you get the drift. And I think Catherine has the sexy, smart skills to be his foil.
If you think those ideas are certifiably insane, I would take any AU. (The knights of the WNYX fighting for the honor of their king Jimmy James?) Or if you do want to write in canon, future-fic set in New Hampshire could be adorable. Or what about meeting Bill's family? (Good times, good times.)
My favorite characters are Dave, Bill, Catherine and Lisa. Though I also adore Beth and Jimmy and Joe. Basically, everyone is my favorite except Matthew and Max. As for relationships, I do like Dave and Lisa's canon relationship (and don't mind the way canon ended it) but other than references to that I would prefer gen. Because while the romances were fun, it was the friendships that really defined the show.
Graceland - Paul Simon (Album) (Moses)
Request - I have been fascinated by the stories this album tells for years. What is the connection between the former talk show host and the former army post? I also would love crossovers between the songs - maybe the boy from 'Diamonds...Shoes' grew up to be the former talk-show host? Feel free to play with story structure - what about a fic about the couple from 'Diamonds... Shoes' told backwards and forwards ala "The Last Five Years"? Gen or non-explicit het, slash or femslash.
About the Fandom - Graceland is a Paul Simon album from 1986, which means if you matched on one of my other fandoms and are feeling stuck, this is the easiest one to pick up.
Graceland is eclectic pop with a wide range of influences. I've been listening to this album for years and love every single track. I nominated as many songs as I could, but would love to hear your take on any song from the album, even those not nominated.
About the Request - I am easy for this fandom. The album is my happy place I would love to read any interpretations you can come up with. I should probably note, I don't know much about Paul Simon himself, or really care. I want a fic based around the music, not the musician. Please don't make this traditional songfic with all the lyrics included in the text of the fic. Other than that, this is really my anything goes fandom. I would be fascinated to see what you come up with if your chose this prompt as I got some great fic from this a scary amount of years ago.
This entry was originally posted at http://kristin.dreamwidth.org/49612.html. Feel free to comment where you feel more comfortable.
(Also, yes, large chunks of this were c/p'ed from previous year’s letters. Also, all three of these are variants on things I've requested in the past. This doesn't mean I wasn't delighted with what I received before, it just means that I'm greedy.)
Here is some non-fandom specific stuff that might help you:
- Find me:
Kristin (Ao3) | kristin (#yuletide) - I tend to throw out a lot of prompts in my requests. There are none I would like to see more than the others and no need to try and combine all of the prompts into a frankenfic.
- I am OK with character death/in-fic violence/gore/swearing/unhappy endings etc. and I love apocafic. If you run out of other ideas, kill (almost) everybody in the world off and I will love it. The darker and creepier the better.
- I prefer gen to het/slash/femslash
- I prefer not to read: character bashing, infidelity, pregnancy/kidfic, incest, schmoop, 2nd person and PWPs.
- I love: plot, ensembles, adventures, banter, found families, fully realized characters and settings, interesting narrative voices and people who bring the funny.
The Wire (Namond Brice, Howard "Bunny" Colvin, Stringer Bell, Avon Barksdale)
Request - I would love any fic for this fandom, truly. Feel free to ignore all my prompts and write whatever you want. If you want some ideas, though, I have plenty:
How did Stringer and Avon get to their positions at the beginning of the series? What does a Barksdale family dinner look like? (And what about Stringer’s family? We know a lot about Avon’s.) Or how about an AU where one of them got out of the game?
Also, I know this is a ridiculously specific and hard prompt probably of interest only to me, but if you did want to write me the AU where Stringer became a baseball player and Avon followed his canon trajectory while they still remain codependent, and the messiness that would ensue, I would certainly not object.
As for Namond and Bunny, I would love to see some fic set post-season 4. Namond settling in with the Colvins? Namond post-high school? Really, I just want to know what happens to them. They're left as one of the few happy endings from the show, but do things run smoothly? Does Namond go see his father again? Does he go to college? Really, just tell me a bit more about their future and I'll be pleased. (Also, it doesn't have to be happy, this is Wire fic after all.)
Also, I realize I have two very separate sections of my prompts involving the characters I requested. I would be fine if you didn't include all four in your fic.
About the Fandom - The Wire is an HBO drama about Baltimore that ran for 5 seasons. It is deeply realistic, with a wide range of characters. While it is often billed as a procedural, it is so much more. Each season focused on a different aspect of Baltimore: the cops and dealers in the projects, the docks, politics, schools and newspapers. And it was utterly brilliant.
It is like a great novel put on screen, with layers and histories building up. Each season adds more depth to the city and the characters in it. It is well acted, directed and written. All the pieces work together at a high level to create something wonderful.
Every bit of this universe is so fully realized. Everything has consequences The impacts of each decision ripple out throughout the city and community. There are not characters existing in isolation, or plot-lines that exist only for sweeps. Everything matters, because everything works together. As a result, things change and grow.
I recommend this pimping post if you are considering starting this canon.
My favorite characters I didn’t request include Bodie, Carver, Shardene and Bubbles, while I am least interested in the season 5 characters, McNulty or Carcetti.
About my request - I love this show and just want more fic for it. I love these characters. I love the bleakness. I love that the good guys don’t always win, and when they do win it doesn’t mean that things improve. I love that everything has consequences. Basically ♥ my show.
This year my request can be broken into two different requests that don't need to be combined.
The first is for Avon and Stringer. Yes, I do ship them. And yes, I would love fic about their relationship, though it does not have to be slashy.
I love their codependency (B&B enterprises!) I love how their skill sets balance out each other and their temperaments do too. I love that after the events of season 1 they keep growing in different directions and yet how they can never disentangle from one another. I love the heartbreak of their canon endings, so unless you go full blown AU, please don’t try to fix that. I would rather have a fic in this fandom stay grounded in the show’s reality and break my heart than go for a false happily ever after.
As for Namond & Bunny, I really am looking for future fic. I want to know what happens and really to see if their found family stays strong down the line. Does Namond go to college, work? Does he ever drift back towards his old life? How does he interact with Mrs. Colvin?
The first (couple) times I watched the show I didn't like Namond, really. Why did this annoying braggart get the happy ending that almost every other person on the show was denied? But now I am so happy with it. Namond didn't fit into the life he was living and he overcompensated. Feel free to write him as a brat if you so choose, is what I'm saying.
As for Bunny, I adores him from the start. If you want to concentrate on him, maybe future fic that deals with the current social and political climate. (How would Tumblr etc react to Hamsterdam?) I realize I'm not writing as much about him as the others, but honestly he is my favorite of the four. Just solid and moral and good in a way few others on The Wire were.
NewsRadio (Dave Nelson, Catherine Duke)
Request - I love the ridiculousness of NewsRadio, so something off the wall would be great. How about Dave and Catherine, dueling spies (The real reason she left was top secret!) The NewsRadio gang vs. the apocalypse! Wacky AUs are canon, so feel free to bring the good crack. If you prefer canon-based, future fic on the farm would be most amazing. Or how about the NewsRadio team versus the internet or trying to adapt to podcasting? Prefer gen or mild Dave/Lisa.
About the Fandom - NewsRadio is a 90s workplace sitcom that ran for 5 seasons. It features the ridiculous adventures of Dave Nelson as the manager of a news radio station in New York, but it was really all about the ensemble, at least for me. It was also characterized by its visual style (single camera, but with great use of the frame and people falling into and out of) and its lack of a straight man. And by that, I do not mean it was an 'everybody's gay' AU but that everybody's funny.
The show was also a fan of AUs. (I would have requested an in Spaaaace!au, but the show already provided. \o/) Think hijinks and weddings to hobos and an insane millionaire boss (the perfectly ridiculous Jimmy James) who provided the impetus for many a crazy plot. Though really, all the characters are lovable and insane and fully capable of creating situations for comedy.
The show, however, did suffer a very real life tragedy between the 4th and 5th seasons when one of its stars (the hugely talented and funny Phil Hartman) was killed by his wife. And while the 5th season wasn't quite as bad as I remembered, it is much more uneven.
Or, there was this episode where the group finds out that Dave was really from Canada. He says he always hides it because obviously if kids had known when he was little they would have thought he was a spy for Canada. Dear Yuletide writer, I want Dave to actually be a spy from Canada. He has a talent for throwing knives! He can throw his voice! He can tap-dance at a semi-professional level! OK, so the last one doesn't quite work, but you get the drift. And I think Catherine has the sexy, smart skills to be his foil.
If you think those ideas are certifiably insane, I would take any AU. (The knights of the WNYX fighting for the honor of their king Jimmy James?) Or if you do want to write in canon, future-fic set in New Hampshire could be adorable. Or what about meeting Bill's family? (Good times, good times.)
My favorite characters are Dave, Bill, Catherine and Lisa. Though I also adore Beth and Jimmy and Joe. Basically, everyone is my favorite except Matthew and Max. As for relationships, I do like Dave and Lisa's canon relationship (and don't mind the way canon ended it) but other than references to that I would prefer gen. Because while the romances were fun, it was the friendships that really defined the show.
Graceland - Paul Simon (Album) (Moses)
Request - I have been fascinated by the stories this album tells for years. What is the connection between the former talk show host and the former army post? I also would love crossovers between the songs - maybe the boy from 'Diamonds...Shoes' grew up to be the former talk-show host? Feel free to play with story structure - what about a fic about the couple from 'Diamonds... Shoes' told backwards and forwards ala "The Last Five Years"? Gen or non-explicit het, slash or femslash.
About the Fandom - Graceland is a Paul Simon album from 1986, which means if you matched on one of my other fandoms and are feeling stuck, this is the easiest one to pick up.
Graceland is eclectic pop with a wide range of influences. I've been listening to this album for years and love every single track. I nominated as many songs as I could, but would love to hear your take on any song from the album, even those not nominated.
About the Request - I am easy for this fandom. The album is my happy place I would love to read any interpretations you can come up with. I should probably note, I don't know much about Paul Simon himself, or really care. I want a fic based around the music, not the musician. Please don't make this traditional songfic with all the lyrics included in the text of the fic. Other than that, this is really my anything goes fandom. I would be fascinated to see what you come up with if your chose this prompt as I got some great fic from this a scary amount of years ago.
This entry was originally posted at http://kristin.dreamwidth.org/49612.html. Feel free to comment where you feel more comfortable.