Dear Yuletide author

[eyebrowofdoom]

Hello author!

I have been doing the tide of yulez for many years and it's the highlight of my fannish year - it's my secret fannish Christmas that I prefer to 'normal' Christmas. Hope you feel the same. I am basically happy to read anything you want to write with the nominated characters and fandom. So the proviso to everything in this letter is: only comply if it feels both possible and fun to do so. :)

General stuff:

I'm into:

• happy endings that are authentically earned, or interesting ambivalent endings, or unhappy endings that resolve the dramatic tension of the story.
• emotional realism. I like romance to be messy, difficult and embarrassing just like it is in life. People not being sure what sex means or how they feel about it. People cracking jokes while sad inside. People pursuing a certain agenda instead of what they really want because it's too hard or scary or hopeless to pursue what they really want.
• I love a quite literary style of fic (i.e. non tropey) but I can also go for certain tropes like wildfire. Some favourite tropes: fake marriage/dating, going undercover, secret identities, sleeping with someone then later finding out they are your boss/long-lost uncle, kidnapper/thief/criminal and their victim falling in love. Basically: I love secrecy and conflict.
• in slash, I particularly enjoy pining, emotional repression and apparently-unrequited-but-actually-requited love or initially-unrequited-but-eventually-requited love. I love men having trouble being emotionally vulnerable or emotionally articulate/self-aware. I like a bit of realistic queer psychodrama, i.e. characters worrying about queerness/coming out in a way that is realistic for them to do given the society or time period they come from.
• in my het fic I like to smash the patriarchy but in a warm and civilised, perhaps even stylish, way, ha. Particularly enjoy eroticised conflict in which the woman wins.
• I like gen too and am happy to see characters bounce off each other and have interesting drama with each other without it needing to turn into romance or sex (this means: if I have written the prompt as if I want smut, it's cool to write it as gen).
• I appreciate things being beta-read. :) I am Australian and so prone to notice British-Commonwealth characters not talking like British-Commonwealth characters. (On the other hand, I appreciate this is a time-limited gift exchange, so don't kill yourself.)

I'm not into: extreme gore or violence, rape. Body fluid related kinks. Formally negotiated/ritualised BDSM (though informal/playful kinkiness or power exchange is awesome). Intense grimness or angst for the sake of it. Non-canon character death. Bashing women characters. Too much patriarchy or gender normativity. Fluff or cliches of traditional romance.

For convenience, my prompts copypasta'ed from the signup:

• Batman vs Superman: Bruce/Diana - I feel that Bruce needs to be outsmarted, embarrassed and perhaps even entertainingly smacked around by Diana, back in the phase of the relationship before they have joined forces. There could be some sort of multi-step heist going on and she wipes the floor with him at every step. Possibly smut but I could go either way.
• Magic Mike: Rome/Mike - Would love to read something either suggestive or overtly smutty about a powerful and charismatic Rome teaching a young and impressionable Mike how to perform (or perhaps how to please a woman more generally, whoop whoop).
• Talented Mr Ripley: Peter/Tom - (1) A fixit that gives these two a happy ending. I wrote this myself last year but can't get enough of it. I wouldn't even mind if it were a sequel to the one I wrote last year (though this is definitely not compulsory).

(2) A story about them having a covert affair during the events of the movie. If you are not fix-it-ing Peter's death I'd rather the story stopped before it actually happened, though (too much sad :( ).

• Coriolanus: Martius/Aufidius - Interested in the erotic tension and the confusion between violence/admiration/envy/lust in their relationship. I would love it if when Martius turns himself over to Aufidius in Antium, Aufidius demands he prove his submission sexually. Or I imagine an erotically (or is it violently) charged scene where Aufidius recriminates with Martius about how all the Volsci have begun to admire Martius too much.
• Hornblower: Bush/Hornblower - Something with Hornblower being brilliant and socially awkward and Bush admiring him possibly a bit too much. They could shag, but honestly also their platonic love is so beautiful, I could go either way. OR there could be a battle! Bush could be kidnapped or taken prisoner and Hornblower could nearly die of anguish and have to rescue him with extreme bravery and cleverness. THEY COULD HAVE TO CUDDLE WHILE HIDING IN THE WILDERNESS (wait whoops I am just narrating the plot of the novels).

x-posted at Dth with
comments. Comment wherever you like (scraps of paper posted in the tree outside your house may not be received right away).