Dear Yuletide Author....
Dear Author,
Hello! Thank you for offering to write fic in one of these fandoms - I hope my requests didn't scare you too much. This is my third Yuletide as a participant, and I've been delighted by what I received in previous years, so I'm not too worried about that part :) Just write a story you love, in one of these fandoms I assume we both love, and that end should take care of itself. So if you've got a great idea and don't want to be interrupted, go ahead and ignore the rest of this. If, though, you are looking for some more guidance, then read on...
General stuff first, mostly copied from my last two letters. Then the fun fandom stuff at the end.
Cautionary notes:
- I have a massive embarrassment squick. This is accentuated when it is characters I love being blindly socially inept, but applies to everyone really. I can get past it, but I'll be reading through my fingers.
- My porn-preferences normally run to R-rated rather than NC-17, but it's not a big deal. I like semi-euphemistic without being flowery, but I can read most things. (Just in case - no fluids that aren't sexual, no falling in love with rapists, no explicit D/s - bondage is fine though). Of course, there doesn't need to be sex at all!
- There are very few characters I dislike enough, especially in these fandoms, that I think they need to be attacked for my guys to look good.
- In this particular ficathon, I'd rather not have character death or predominant angst. But I'm always willing to be persuaded that the story demanded it. However, wistfulness/'man, that sucked for a while there'/'we're okay but, wow, everything else is screwed-up' themes are not only fine but positively encouraged.
- I'd appreciate it if you could avoid love-triangles or infidelty-angst.
Things I love:
- Romances of more than two people, or at least the acknowledgement that other people than the pairing exist. Curiously, I am also very much in favour of 'it's us against the world' dynamics, I just like it when 'us' can be widened out to include family/found family.
- Snark.
- Talking. Seriously, I can quite happily read thousands of words of two guys in a room.
- Happy endings and hurt/comfort. Angst en route to the good bits.
- Awkward, character-specific, possibly non-verbal, displays of affection
- Time-jumping, odd POVs, odd tenses, old tricks in new ways... Things which make me go "ohhhh, clever/pretty".
- Fading antagonism, histories, found families.
- Little details and domestic (for their own value of domestic) scenes.
- These are my del.icio.us favourites and my own stuff.
- If you do browse through my posts you will probably be pick up that I'm normally a slasher. But I also love gen, femslash, and some of the less usual het! (And some of the usual het, depending how I'm feeling that day). Don't feel you have to write slash or threesome because that's what I normally write - I want to read your story, not the one I should stop being lazy and write myself ;)
- AUs/well-done cliches/dystopia/apocafic etc etc etc. This year I've even picked fandoms where that could play out!
- Holiday stories are welcome, but not necessary.
NB: As per some discussion on yuletide I am perfectly all right with you choosing to addess a problematic issue in the fandom, if that's the story that catches you. Race/gender/sexuality/ablist privilege are all fair game as topics of discussion but again, don't feel like that's a necessary part of the story if it's not what draws you.
RPF - American Idol S1-6: Ryan Seacrest/Simon Cowell
Anything with these two snarking and being awkwardly affectionate will make me happy. If you want to write something during the show, I'd love a disaster show where Ryan has some rescuing to do. And if you do go with the relationship it'd be great to see something about loving their jobs and loving each other, and negotiating the ways those two don't necessarily mesh well.
Hollywood/Media-type 'canons' fascinate me. There's something I find really compelling about that confict between the public and the private; how the personal becomes public and political. And how life-or-death the whole thing could feel if you were part of it. That said, I also think Ryan Seacrest may be too magical to be a real person and almost everything he does makes me flail. Twitter, readings from New Moon, kissing Simon Cowell on national television... Simon and Ryan have this odd relationship where there are moments I swear Ryan wants to punch him right there in front of the cameras, and then other times where it looks so much like the whole thing is this long-running joke they're playing on the rest of us. They're clearly close friends in real life, and how close is something we can only speculate about. Anything you chose to write about these guys would make me really very happy indeed. My own fic is tagged here, if you want to see some of the scenarios my mind has been playing with :)
Warehouse 13: Artie Nielsen/Claudia Donovan/Myka Bering
Any of these three in pairing or threesome or gen would make me happy (though I'd rather it not be explicit if it's Artie/Claudia). Plot-wise I'd be interested in some more of Artie's history with the Warehouse, or an artifact playing up, or maybe Claudia and/or Myka rescuing Artie for a change. Otherwise I'd love Claudia and Myka ganging up together or looking out for each other, in whatever way that worked out.
**Don't feel you have to write all three characters if you don't want to.** There are some canons where a big part of me loving them is their sense of place, and community within that place. Eureka, Firefly, Stargate Atlantis on its good days, Bones and Criminal Minds in a slightly different way. Where one of the themes is: this is place where it's okay to be a little bit different. Where you're loved for all those things that make you not quite fit in the 'real world'. Warehouse 13 pings that for me, and also offers a bevy of the sci-fi cliches that I love so well. I'm crazy in love with Claudia (and her goggles): her vulnerability and the way she teases Artie and insinuates herself into the Warehouse so well. I love Artie for being smarter than everyone else, and the way he's not quite able to tell them that he cares about them all deeply, and for the bits of screwed-up past we get. But Myka's the one I identify with most: she's wound up tight, and she's careful and she wants to get things right and she wants Artie to see her for who she is. She's not quite sure how she got there, or whether or not she belongs, but she's getting to that place slowly. I don't need pairing here, though if you want to do that, or do the threesome, I'd love to see it. But all I really need is some wacky sci-fi shenanigans and any or all of these characters being awesome.
Terry Pratchett - Discworld: Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully/Ponder Stibbons
Gen or slash - the reasons for Ponder's loyalty to UU and the Archchancellor. Or maybe some rewards for this loyalty when they take the trip to Pseudopolis to help with the emergency. Anything that played with their parallel betrayed states in Unseen Academicals would be excellent.
I've been reading Discworld since I was about 10 or 11 I think, and I'm in love with the world and with PTerry's writing. But don't feel like you need to imitate that style if you don't want to or if you find it difficult. Possible slash pairings don't crop up in the books very often, and this one did jump out at me on first reading, but it definitely doesn't need to be an explicit relationship. I've loved Ponder as a character for a long time - his mixture of sighing resignation and flashes of optimistic hope that someone else might care about his work as much as he does are really endearing to me. I'm especially intrested in the way that he's gradually become more important in the faculty, to the point where in Unseen Academicals he's pretty much Ridcully's right hand man. Who sometimes issues edicts on his behalf. And there's that moment, when Ponder tells Ridcully that he was offered a position at Brazeneck too, Ridcully gets ready to explode, and Ponder says that he didn't ask how much it would have paid because he turned them down straight away. There's a silence there - Ponder seems to have been 'betrayed' by Adrian the way the Archancellor was by the Dean - and then they go back to normal. But there's a certain hint in the offer at the end of the book, to go to Pseudopolis and 'help', that they're going to have some fun together feeling vindicated. And now I've sounded horribly prescriptive when what I meant to say was: here's why I think they're interesting together, anything you want to do with that would be lovely.
FlashForward: Demetri Noh/Mark Benford
Gen or slash with them being partners would be great. If canon hasn't taken us there yet, maybe Mark talking to Demetri about the alcohol in his flashforward. I'd love something in line with those moments we saw in the pilot, when they're bantering about their wives and job, mixed in with some of the later throwing each other into walls and fighting about how to tackle the investigation
This is the request where I'm least sure what I want, so if you have an idea, do please go ahead! Demetri (and John Cho) is my favourite thing about FlashForward. He breaks my heart week to week. And in the first episode he and Mark were really sweet together, sharing relationship drama in the car. Which I forgot about for a little while, until they were chasing down the suspect in a trailer park, got into fight, slammed each other around, and then Mark called him 'Dem.' Since then, other people (definitely Zoey, possibly another agent) have done this too, but it reminded me that before all the chaos, they must have been pretty close partners. If you'd like to write slash and can do it without ignoring wives/fiancees I'd be interested in seeing that. If not I'd just love to see some of that partnership, or the effects the black-out has had on it. It'd be interesting if Mark could acknowledge that, like Demetri, he doesn't want the future to pan out like that either. Or if Demetri could take note of Mark's relationship issues and try to do it differently with Zoey. But as I said, I really don't know have any hard and fast ideas what I want with this one, so go wild.
Thanks so much for writing for me, and I'm sure I'll love whatever you come up with. Just so you know, I'll be with family on the 25th, so while I'll try and comment that day, it may slip to the next. Just don't think I'm ignoring you or hate the story!
Hello! Thank you for offering to write fic in one of these fandoms - I hope my requests didn't scare you too much. This is my third Yuletide as a participant, and I've been delighted by what I received in previous years, so I'm not too worried about that part :) Just write a story you love, in one of these fandoms I assume we both love, and that end should take care of itself. So if you've got a great idea and don't want to be interrupted, go ahead and ignore the rest of this. If, though, you are looking for some more guidance, then read on...
General stuff first, mostly copied from my last two letters. Then the fun fandom stuff at the end.
Cautionary notes:
- I have a massive embarrassment squick. This is accentuated when it is characters I love being blindly socially inept, but applies to everyone really. I can get past it, but I'll be reading through my fingers.
- My porn-preferences normally run to R-rated rather than NC-17, but it's not a big deal. I like semi-euphemistic without being flowery, but I can read most things. (Just in case - no fluids that aren't sexual, no falling in love with rapists, no explicit D/s - bondage is fine though). Of course, there doesn't need to be sex at all!
- There are very few characters I dislike enough, especially in these fandoms, that I think they need to be attacked for my guys to look good.
- In this particular ficathon, I'd rather not have character death or predominant angst. But I'm always willing to be persuaded that the story demanded it. However, wistfulness/'man, that sucked for a while there'/'we're okay but, wow, everything else is screwed-up' themes are not only fine but positively encouraged.
- I'd appreciate it if you could avoid love-triangles or infidelty-angst.
Things I love:
- Romances of more than two people, or at least the acknowledgement that other people than the pairing exist. Curiously, I am also very much in favour of 'it's us against the world' dynamics, I just like it when 'us' can be widened out to include family/found family.
- Snark.
- Talking. Seriously, I can quite happily read thousands of words of two guys in a room.
- Happy endings and hurt/comfort. Angst en route to the good bits.
- Awkward, character-specific, possibly non-verbal, displays of affection
- Time-jumping, odd POVs, odd tenses, old tricks in new ways... Things which make me go "ohhhh, clever/pretty".
- Fading antagonism, histories, found families.
- Little details and domestic (for their own value of domestic) scenes.
- These are my del.icio.us favourites and my own stuff.
- If you do browse through my posts you will probably be pick up that I'm normally a slasher. But I also love gen, femslash, and some of the less usual het! (And some of the usual het, depending how I'm feeling that day). Don't feel you have to write slash or threesome because that's what I normally write - I want to read your story, not the one I should stop being lazy and write myself ;)
- AUs/well-done cliches/dystopia/apocafic etc etc etc. This year I've even picked fandoms where that could play out!
- Holiday stories are welcome, but not necessary.
NB: As per some discussion on yuletide I am perfectly all right with you choosing to addess a problematic issue in the fandom, if that's the story that catches you. Race/gender/sexuality/ablist privilege are all fair game as topics of discussion but again, don't feel like that's a necessary part of the story if it's not what draws you.
RPF - American Idol S1-6: Ryan Seacrest/Simon Cowell
Anything with these two snarking and being awkwardly affectionate will make me happy. If you want to write something during the show, I'd love a disaster show where Ryan has some rescuing to do. And if you do go with the relationship it'd be great to see something about loving their jobs and loving each other, and negotiating the ways those two don't necessarily mesh well.
Hollywood/Media-type 'canons' fascinate me. There's something I find really compelling about that confict between the public and the private; how the personal becomes public and political. And how life-or-death the whole thing could feel if you were part of it. That said, I also think Ryan Seacrest may be too magical to be a real person and almost everything he does makes me flail. Twitter, readings from New Moon, kissing Simon Cowell on national television... Simon and Ryan have this odd relationship where there are moments I swear Ryan wants to punch him right there in front of the cameras, and then other times where it looks so much like the whole thing is this long-running joke they're playing on the rest of us. They're clearly close friends in real life, and how close is something we can only speculate about. Anything you chose to write about these guys would make me really very happy indeed. My own fic is tagged here, if you want to see some of the scenarios my mind has been playing with :)
Warehouse 13: Artie Nielsen/Claudia Donovan/Myka Bering
Any of these three in pairing or threesome or gen would make me happy (though I'd rather it not be explicit if it's Artie/Claudia). Plot-wise I'd be interested in some more of Artie's history with the Warehouse, or an artifact playing up, or maybe Claudia and/or Myka rescuing Artie for a change. Otherwise I'd love Claudia and Myka ganging up together or looking out for each other, in whatever way that worked out.
**Don't feel you have to write all three characters if you don't want to.** There are some canons where a big part of me loving them is their sense of place, and community within that place. Eureka, Firefly, Stargate Atlantis on its good days, Bones and Criminal Minds in a slightly different way. Where one of the themes is: this is place where it's okay to be a little bit different. Where you're loved for all those things that make you not quite fit in the 'real world'. Warehouse 13 pings that for me, and also offers a bevy of the sci-fi cliches that I love so well. I'm crazy in love with Claudia (and her goggles): her vulnerability and the way she teases Artie and insinuates herself into the Warehouse so well. I love Artie for being smarter than everyone else, and the way he's not quite able to tell them that he cares about them all deeply, and for the bits of screwed-up past we get. But Myka's the one I identify with most: she's wound up tight, and she's careful and she wants to get things right and she wants Artie to see her for who she is. She's not quite sure how she got there, or whether or not she belongs, but she's getting to that place slowly. I don't need pairing here, though if you want to do that, or do the threesome, I'd love to see it. But all I really need is some wacky sci-fi shenanigans and any or all of these characters being awesome.
Terry Pratchett - Discworld: Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully/Ponder Stibbons
Gen or slash - the reasons for Ponder's loyalty to UU and the Archchancellor. Or maybe some rewards for this loyalty when they take the trip to Pseudopolis to help with the emergency. Anything that played with their parallel betrayed states in Unseen Academicals would be excellent.
I've been reading Discworld since I was about 10 or 11 I think, and I'm in love with the world and with PTerry's writing. But don't feel like you need to imitate that style if you don't want to or if you find it difficult. Possible slash pairings don't crop up in the books very often, and this one did jump out at me on first reading, but it definitely doesn't need to be an explicit relationship. I've loved Ponder as a character for a long time - his mixture of sighing resignation and flashes of optimistic hope that someone else might care about his work as much as he does are really endearing to me. I'm especially intrested in the way that he's gradually become more important in the faculty, to the point where in Unseen Academicals he's pretty much Ridcully's right hand man. Who sometimes issues edicts on his behalf. And there's that moment, when Ponder tells Ridcully that he was offered a position at Brazeneck too, Ridcully gets ready to explode, and Ponder says that he didn't ask how much it would have paid because he turned them down straight away. There's a silence there - Ponder seems to have been 'betrayed' by Adrian the way the Archancellor was by the Dean - and then they go back to normal. But there's a certain hint in the offer at the end of the book, to go to Pseudopolis and 'help', that they're going to have some fun together feeling vindicated. And now I've sounded horribly prescriptive when what I meant to say was: here's why I think they're interesting together, anything you want to do with that would be lovely.
FlashForward: Demetri Noh/Mark Benford
Gen or slash with them being partners would be great. If canon hasn't taken us there yet, maybe Mark talking to Demetri about the alcohol in his flashforward. I'd love something in line with those moments we saw in the pilot, when they're bantering about their wives and job, mixed in with some of the later throwing each other into walls and fighting about how to tackle the investigation
This is the request where I'm least sure what I want, so if you have an idea, do please go ahead! Demetri (and John Cho) is my favourite thing about FlashForward. He breaks my heart week to week. And in the first episode he and Mark were really sweet together, sharing relationship drama in the car. Which I forgot about for a little while, until they were chasing down the suspect in a trailer park, got into fight, slammed each other around, and then Mark called him 'Dem.' Since then, other people (definitely Zoey, possibly another agent) have done this too, but it reminded me that before all the chaos, they must have been pretty close partners. If you'd like to write slash and can do it without ignoring wives/fiancees I'd be interested in seeing that. If not I'd just love to see some of that partnership, or the effects the black-out has had on it. It'd be interesting if Mark could acknowledge that, like Demetri, he doesn't want the future to pan out like that either. Or if Demetri could take note of Mark's relationship issues and try to do it differently with Zoey. But as I said, I really don't know have any hard and fast ideas what I want with this one, so go wild.
Thanks so much for writing for me, and I'm sure I'll love whatever you come up with. Just so you know, I'll be with family on the 25th, so while I'll try and comment that day, it may slip to the next. Just don't think I'm ignoring you or hate the story!