it's that time again...
to my dearest, beloved yuletide writer....
so i’m going to paraphrase from my past yuletide letters here, and start by saying that if you're as excited about any of these fandoms as i am, i'll probably love what you write me no matter what. that said, i'm a fan of giving more information in the hopes that it will give you greater freedom in your writing, and because i know i'm going to want to know as much about the person i'm writing for as possible and figure i should give what i hope to get. :D
so here are some paragraphs of perhaps tl;dr-level specificity, and please feel free to ignore all of it if there's a story in any of these fandoms that you really, really want to write. i trust you. XD
i like slash or het or gen. characterization is my weak spot; show me the nuances of a character i love, show me a secret side of them i've never seen before, and i'm sold. i love worldbuilding; expand on the setting and expand the world as it’s described in canon and i’m sold. if you write sex, awesome; it's not a requirement by any means, but i certainly wouldn't say no to it. and to borrow a clarification phrase straight from someone else's letter, When I say "explicit" I mean "I have a good idea who's doing what to whom," and not so much paragraph-long descriptions of penises. Not especially a fan of that. i'm all about the emotions; as you'll see if you peruse my rec list, any fic that packs an emotional punch is guaranteed to win me over.
as far as genre goes, it's kind of up to you. i love action and mystery, i like ship-centered fic as much as fic where the ship is a sidebar to the plot, i like happy or serious or funny or sad. i would definitely prefer a hopeful ending to whatever you write, if an actual happy ending isn't appropriate or fitting; however if your story is leading you toward a waterfall of angst that'll end with an emotional sucker punch, go for it! wow me with angst, show me just how evil the bad guy really is, scare the crap out of me if you want. write what your heart wants you to write. some of my all-time favorite fics are pieces that i would never have guessed i'd enjoy, so please surprise me!
stuff i love in fic / kinks :
slash, femmeslash, interesting het, worldbuilding / strong sense of the world, strong friendships/partnerships, snarky partnerships with lots of ust, angst with a happy ending, angst with sex and a we-don't-ever-talk-about-it ending, hurt/comfort, stories where they've been sleeping together and not talking about their feelings but they secretly love each other (♥), snarky banter, collective / ensemble badassery, fight scenes, people bandaging each other up after a battle, surprising each other with badassery, forbidden attraction, a little bloodplay never hurt anyone, old friends and inside jokes, past history, magic, illusion spells, misunderstandings / misdirection through magic, travel, spy/undercover deception, long plotty stories where the ship is a slow build (though definitely not expecting a long fic, just saying i do enjoy them), plot twists, long-suffering irritation (especially as a mask for growing fondness or attraction), stories where person a can't have person b so they start something up with person c to distract themselves (and either make person a jealous or actually end up falling for person c), physical altercations that highlight attraction, origin stories, flashbacks, first times, emotional first times, power play / bdsm fun, wit and snark and people being smart, flirting, drawn-out seduction, women being awesome, happy endings.
squicks : death, mpreg, hardcore fetishes and heavy bdsm, humiliation, rape/noncon, extreme gore.
and now onto the specific requests!
fandom : kraken (billy, dane, collingswood, wati)
details : sincerely, any fic from this book will make me a happy woman, but my preference is strongly for dane/billy. i would love a fic exploring their relationship while they were on the run; was there more there that the book didn't tell us about, or not? after the end of the book, how does billy deal with dane being gone? and of course, being a sap, i would love a fic reinterpreting dane’s demise, or billy using the more unconventional means now available to him to try and get dane back. A+ for collingswood and wati cameos, cus i love both of them to bits.
so first of all, if you have not read this book yet and you’re thinking of choosing it to write for me, i promise you will not regret it. this book is incredible and you should read it. the end. :D you can download the e-book here!
however. if we did get matched on this request, AHHHHHH, and let me translate that to mean sincerely whatever you write me, i will LOVE. the worldbuilding, this version of london, is so amazing and enthralling, so you can feel free to explore that if you’d like. write me a story about one of the cults if you want, about the londonmancers, the worshippers of the great flood. but if you do go the dane/billy route, there is honestly no way for you to go wrong. i love the relationship between these two whether the ship is explicit or not-- the closeness and the rapport between them makes me wibble, the way they fixate on each other and are always so focused on getting back to the other, how they keep saving each other’s lives, anything. the line right as they’re going into battle at the end, “they looked something at each other”-- there’s so much unspoken between them, and i would love love love a further exploration of that. and if you do give me a fic explaining how billy goes about getting dane back i will probably cry of joy. make it as weird and twisty and angsty as you want, as sappy and woobie as you like, i promise i will love whatever you do.
fandom : the eagle (marcus, esca)
details : this is another fandom in which, quite honestly, anything you write me will make me happy. i’m a huge fan of the book but i love how the movie brought it to life. i love the distance between marcus and esca at the outset, and the way they come to realize the similarities between them. i love how they both have All The Feelings and exploring how those develop into feelings for each other. what i’d love best, though, is post-canon fic about their life after returning from beyond the wall. in the book they buy a farm together and i love that idea, that building a life together makes them realize what they mean to each other. domestic fluff is totally awesome here, but i would love plot as well. and if you’ve read the book and would like to ot3 the boys with cottia that would put me over the moon with joy.
basically my request lays out most of it; show me how marcus and esca fall in love, what makes them realize it, what does it mean to each of them to know that their feelings are reciprocated? the level of emotion in this canon and between these two characters is what hooks me; i like lots of angst with a happy ending for this ‘ship. also like i said, i’m really in love with the dynamic between the boys and cottia and would LOVE to see an ot3 story with them. i love that they're three broken people, three outcasts, who make a family together. so if you want to go the book canon route i'd love to see a story set a year / a few years in the future where esca is realizing that he's falling / has fallen for both marcus and cottia in equal measure, and how he discovers his feelings are returned.
i really recommend this fandom in either of its forms. the book is short and lovely; you can download it here. and the movie is both beautiful and interesting (and damn but if jamie bell doesn't make everything better ;)) it's here if you need it.
fandom : covert affairs (auggie, jai, annie)
details : for this i prefer jai/auggie but an ot3 with annie is fine too. i’m really interested in jai and auggie’s past history as well as their current adversarial relationship in the DPD. i love the snark between them, and the parallels between them in the things they have to fight for and the ways they both seem to want what they don’t (or can’t) have. i would love fic of annie and jai out in the field and auggie talking them through their mission on the other side. i’d love fic dealing with jai’s conflictedness about his father and his loyalties to arthur, and how auggie fits in / helps him deal with that (or makes it worse!). any sort of mission fic, any sort at all, would be awesome.
i’ve been wanting jai/auggie fic since the start of the show, and it’s only gotten more intense as more episodes air. i love all the layers to their relationship, the way they’re always trying to get one up on each other but they can never deny that the other is really really good at what he does. i love that they both obviously care for annie a lot, and that neither seem to have much use for ben mercer. :D i would definitely prefer a story focusing just on the two of them, but cameos by any of the other characters would be great, especially annie or joan (or riva, where the heck did she go, i love her!). i would love for this to be an action-centric fic; the show thrives on that fast pacing and i also think the best of jai and auggie come out when they’re in the thick of things. having either one of them in the field is so awesome i literally can’t handle it. i also love that jai is drawn into this web of politics in a totally different way than auggie-- something where auggie finds out that henry is the leak, and then finds out that jai knew?-- i don’t know, i could ramble about all the fic i want to see for this show for like an hour, lol, basically just give me something that shows the complexity of their relationship as it relates to their jobs, however that plays out for you, if it’s shippy i will adore it no matter what. /rambling
eta : i had debated putting this in, but after seeing last week's ep i have to say, i LOVE annie/ayel and if you wanted to write them as a sidebar to auggie/jai, that would be great. and if you're stuck and feel like annie/ayel would be easier for you to write, i'd be totally fine with that, as long as there's some auggie/jai snark in there somewhere. :)
if you're looking to pick up the show, i sadly don't have links for you, but it should be relatively easy to find on the DLing comm of your choice. it's easy to get into, i think, and extremely enjoyable as well as well-acted.
fandom : the wanderer (narrator, lord)
details : i’m a huge old english nerd; i’ve translated this poem myself in the past, and studied it often. mainly from this fic i want to see the backstory with the wanderer and his lost lord. a slashy interpretation is best (and not difficult to read into the text, either :)). and for the record, there are many translations of this poem, but this is the one i like best : http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/texts/wanderer.htm
not much elaboration needed on this one. it’s a short canon, probably the fastest to pick up if my other requests don’t appeal to you (though the language is dense so if complex, wordy poetry isn’t your thing, maybe best to avoid this one). mostly i just want a peek into the past relationship between the exile and his lost beloved lord. if you also decide to narrate through how everything went to shit and the lord ended up dead, fantastic. i’d love best if the feelings the narrator had were reciprocated, but either way you portray it i’ll love it. make me cry with this one if you can; the poem still brings me to tears sometimes if i read it when i’m sad, and i feel like piling on the angst is appropriate to the canon. i also love crossovers, so if you want to tie this into one of my other fandoms (which you can find a list of here) that would rule.
so yes, i am very verbose and i hope this was helpful rather than intimidating. :D i am so excited for the story you're going to write, honestly, if you have even close to the same amount of love for these fandoms as i do, i know i'm going to go nuts for whatever you write me. i hope you're excited too. happy writing! :D
<3 emily
so i’m going to paraphrase from my past yuletide letters here, and start by saying that if you're as excited about any of these fandoms as i am, i'll probably love what you write me no matter what. that said, i'm a fan of giving more information in the hopes that it will give you greater freedom in your writing, and because i know i'm going to want to know as much about the person i'm writing for as possible and figure i should give what i hope to get. :D
so here are some paragraphs of perhaps tl;dr-level specificity, and please feel free to ignore all of it if there's a story in any of these fandoms that you really, really want to write. i trust you. XD
i like slash or het or gen. characterization is my weak spot; show me the nuances of a character i love, show me a secret side of them i've never seen before, and i'm sold. i love worldbuilding; expand on the setting and expand the world as it’s described in canon and i’m sold. if you write sex, awesome; it's not a requirement by any means, but i certainly wouldn't say no to it. and to borrow a clarification phrase straight from someone else's letter, When I say "explicit" I mean "I have a good idea who's doing what to whom," and not so much paragraph-long descriptions of penises. Not especially a fan of that. i'm all about the emotions; as you'll see if you peruse my rec list, any fic that packs an emotional punch is guaranteed to win me over.
as far as genre goes, it's kind of up to you. i love action and mystery, i like ship-centered fic as much as fic where the ship is a sidebar to the plot, i like happy or serious or funny or sad. i would definitely prefer a hopeful ending to whatever you write, if an actual happy ending isn't appropriate or fitting; however if your story is leading you toward a waterfall of angst that'll end with an emotional sucker punch, go for it! wow me with angst, show me just how evil the bad guy really is, scare the crap out of me if you want. write what your heart wants you to write. some of my all-time favorite fics are pieces that i would never have guessed i'd enjoy, so please surprise me!
stuff i love in fic / kinks :
slash, femmeslash, interesting het, worldbuilding / strong sense of the world, strong friendships/partnerships, snarky partnerships with lots of ust, angst with a happy ending, angst with sex and a we-don't-ever-talk-about-it ending, hurt/comfort, stories where they've been sleeping together and not talking about their feelings but they secretly love each other (♥), snarky banter, collective / ensemble badassery, fight scenes, people bandaging each other up after a battle, surprising each other with badassery, forbidden attraction, a little bloodplay never hurt anyone, old friends and inside jokes, past history, magic, illusion spells, misunderstandings / misdirection through magic, travel, spy/undercover deception, long plotty stories where the ship is a slow build (though definitely not expecting a long fic, just saying i do enjoy them), plot twists, long-suffering irritation (especially as a mask for growing fondness or attraction), stories where person a can't have person b so they start something up with person c to distract themselves (and either make person a jealous or actually end up falling for person c), physical altercations that highlight attraction, origin stories, flashbacks, first times, emotional first times, power play / bdsm fun, wit and snark and people being smart, flirting, drawn-out seduction, women being awesome, happy endings.
squicks : death, mpreg, hardcore fetishes and heavy bdsm, humiliation, rape/noncon, extreme gore.
and now onto the specific requests!
fandom : kraken (billy, dane, collingswood, wati)
details : sincerely, any fic from this book will make me a happy woman, but my preference is strongly for dane/billy. i would love a fic exploring their relationship while they were on the run; was there more there that the book didn't tell us about, or not? after the end of the book, how does billy deal with dane being gone? and of course, being a sap, i would love a fic reinterpreting dane’s demise, or billy using the more unconventional means now available to him to try and get dane back. A+ for collingswood and wati cameos, cus i love both of them to bits.
so first of all, if you have not read this book yet and you’re thinking of choosing it to write for me, i promise you will not regret it. this book is incredible and you should read it. the end. :D you can download the e-book here!
however. if we did get matched on this request, AHHHHHH, and let me translate that to mean sincerely whatever you write me, i will LOVE. the worldbuilding, this version of london, is so amazing and enthralling, so you can feel free to explore that if you’d like. write me a story about one of the cults if you want, about the londonmancers, the worshippers of the great flood. but if you do go the dane/billy route, there is honestly no way for you to go wrong. i love the relationship between these two whether the ship is explicit or not-- the closeness and the rapport between them makes me wibble, the way they fixate on each other and are always so focused on getting back to the other, how they keep saving each other’s lives, anything. the line right as they’re going into battle at the end, “they looked something at each other”-- there’s so much unspoken between them, and i would love love love a further exploration of that. and if you do give me a fic explaining how billy goes about getting dane back i will probably cry of joy. make it as weird and twisty and angsty as you want, as sappy and woobie as you like, i promise i will love whatever you do.
fandom : the eagle (marcus, esca)
details : this is another fandom in which, quite honestly, anything you write me will make me happy. i’m a huge fan of the book but i love how the movie brought it to life. i love the distance between marcus and esca at the outset, and the way they come to realize the similarities between them. i love how they both have All The Feelings and exploring how those develop into feelings for each other. what i’d love best, though, is post-canon fic about their life after returning from beyond the wall. in the book they buy a farm together and i love that idea, that building a life together makes them realize what they mean to each other. domestic fluff is totally awesome here, but i would love plot as well. and if you’ve read the book and would like to ot3 the boys with cottia that would put me over the moon with joy.
basically my request lays out most of it; show me how marcus and esca fall in love, what makes them realize it, what does it mean to each of them to know that their feelings are reciprocated? the level of emotion in this canon and between these two characters is what hooks me; i like lots of angst with a happy ending for this ‘ship. also like i said, i’m really in love with the dynamic between the boys and cottia and would LOVE to see an ot3 story with them. i love that they're three broken people, three outcasts, who make a family together. so if you want to go the book canon route i'd love to see a story set a year / a few years in the future where esca is realizing that he's falling / has fallen for both marcus and cottia in equal measure, and how he discovers his feelings are returned.
i really recommend this fandom in either of its forms. the book is short and lovely; you can download it here. and the movie is both beautiful and interesting (and damn but if jamie bell doesn't make everything better ;)) it's here if you need it.
fandom : covert affairs (auggie, jai, annie)
details : for this i prefer jai/auggie but an ot3 with annie is fine too. i’m really interested in jai and auggie’s past history as well as their current adversarial relationship in the DPD. i love the snark between them, and the parallels between them in the things they have to fight for and the ways they both seem to want what they don’t (or can’t) have. i would love fic of annie and jai out in the field and auggie talking them through their mission on the other side. i’d love fic dealing with jai’s conflictedness about his father and his loyalties to arthur, and how auggie fits in / helps him deal with that (or makes it worse!). any sort of mission fic, any sort at all, would be awesome.
i’ve been wanting jai/auggie fic since the start of the show, and it’s only gotten more intense as more episodes air. i love all the layers to their relationship, the way they’re always trying to get one up on each other but they can never deny that the other is really really good at what he does. i love that they both obviously care for annie a lot, and that neither seem to have much use for ben mercer. :D i would definitely prefer a story focusing just on the two of them, but cameos by any of the other characters would be great, especially annie or joan (or riva, where the heck did she go, i love her!). i would love for this to be an action-centric fic; the show thrives on that fast pacing and i also think the best of jai and auggie come out when they’re in the thick of things. having either one of them in the field is so awesome i literally can’t handle it. i also love that jai is drawn into this web of politics in a totally different way than auggie-- something where auggie finds out that henry is the leak, and then finds out that jai knew?-- i don’t know, i could ramble about all the fic i want to see for this show for like an hour, lol, basically just give me something that shows the complexity of their relationship as it relates to their jobs, however that plays out for you, if it’s shippy i will adore it no matter what. /rambling
eta : i had debated putting this in, but after seeing last week's ep i have to say, i LOVE annie/ayel and if you wanted to write them as a sidebar to auggie/jai, that would be great. and if you're stuck and feel like annie/ayel would be easier for you to write, i'd be totally fine with that, as long as there's some auggie/jai snark in there somewhere. :)
if you're looking to pick up the show, i sadly don't have links for you, but it should be relatively easy to find on the DLing comm of your choice. it's easy to get into, i think, and extremely enjoyable as well as well-acted.
fandom : the wanderer (narrator, lord)
details : i’m a huge old english nerd; i’ve translated this poem myself in the past, and studied it often. mainly from this fic i want to see the backstory with the wanderer and his lost lord. a slashy interpretation is best (and not difficult to read into the text, either :)). and for the record, there are many translations of this poem, but this is the one i like best : http://faculty.uca.edu/jona/texts/wanderer.htm
not much elaboration needed on this one. it’s a short canon, probably the fastest to pick up if my other requests don’t appeal to you (though the language is dense so if complex, wordy poetry isn’t your thing, maybe best to avoid this one). mostly i just want a peek into the past relationship between the exile and his lost beloved lord. if you also decide to narrate through how everything went to shit and the lord ended up dead, fantastic. i’d love best if the feelings the narrator had were reciprocated, but either way you portray it i’ll love it. make me cry with this one if you can; the poem still brings me to tears sometimes if i read it when i’m sad, and i feel like piling on the angst is appropriate to the canon. i also love crossovers, so if you want to tie this into one of my other fandoms (which you can find a list of here) that would rule.
so yes, i am very verbose and i hope this was helpful rather than intimidating. :D i am so excited for the story you're going to write, honestly, if you have even close to the same amount of love for these fandoms as i do, i know i'm going to go nuts for whatever you write me. i hope you're excited too. happy writing! :D
<3 emily