dear yuletide writer
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Hello, happy Yuletide, and thank you so much for writing for me! I am really excited to see whatever you come up with. Here are some ideas, but don't feel too bound by them if you have something more fun in mind. This letter got a bit long, but don't let that intimidate you--as long as you try to avoid the basic DNWs, I am going to be super happy to see fic for any of these fandoms. Don't worry about following a specific prompt if that's not where your ideas go. :)
So, a couple of general things. I'm Ladymercury_10 on the AO3, and if you are interested I'm ladymercury-10 on Tumblr as well. Feel free to poke around if you feel like it or to completely ignore both those links.
Things I generally like, although I'm totally flexible about these: Light-hearted stories, ridiculous adventures, or introspective things are all good. I love character-driven stories best of all, but I definitely enjoy plot as well. I will happily read slice-of-life, even just characters hanging out. Little nods to canon make me really happy, and I love stories that feel grounded in their world or a specific place. I really like light angst or light fluff. Hurt/comfort (emotional or physical) is probably my favorite trope. Compassion, recovery, and characters working through hard times are all things I enjoy reading about. I like characters who are really screwed up but still try to look out for each other and make it in life, and characters who are trying to learn how to be people. I love reading about friendships or families--I'm really interested in close platonic relationships. I like seeing characters confronting the edges of their relationships (whether they come out of it as lovers or friends) and dealing with intimacy they're not used to. Girl saves boy is a fave. I enjoy good-natured bickering, sarcasm, and banter. And I have a weakness for snuggling and hair-petting.
Things I would prefer to avoid: Non-/dub-con, explicit underage, incest, and bestiality are squicky for me. I’d rather not see character death (mentions of canon deaths are fine), suicide, horror, or really dark endings. I’m not particularly looking for PWP or kink. I’m not really into mpreg (or babyfic in general), and deaging, bodyswap, and genderswap don't do a lot for me. AU tropes like high school, coffeehouse, or a/b/o AUs aren't really my thing. I'm not a big fan of first-person narration. No character bashing, please.
I’m not big on holiday fic, but if you want to go for a winter theme, that's totally fine.
Don't worry too much about spoilers--I don't think that should be a problem for these fandoms, but if you somehow manage to accidentally spoil me for something, I honestly don't mind. Crossovers aren't really what I'm here for, but if you want to bring in characters from related fandoms (different X-Men, say, or other characters from Marvel 616) that's fine as long as the focus of the fic is still the characters I requested.
And now on to the fandoms!
Fandom: Silk (Comics)
Character(s): Cindy Moon, Felicia Hardy
Optional Details:
This is really an and/or request--feel free to go with just Cindy, just Felicia, or both of them. Since they both started out as Spider-Man supporting characters, you can also feel free to set your story elsewhere in continuity if you like. (Just no Superior Spider-Man, please.) I'm more familiar with Felicia's appearances as a morally ambiguous cat burglar than a crime boss, so my requests may skew that way, but I'm happy with wherever you want to take her as long as she's not straight-up 100% evil. (Self-interested, criminal, and morally suspect, though, totally fine.)
I adore Cindy--her fierce devotion, her awkwardness and self-doubt, her nostalgia and slightly skewed sense of humor. ("Is Pokemon still a thing? Asking for a friend.") I also love Felicia--how she doesn't let other people tell her who to be, how deeply she feels things, and how much fun she has whether she's committing crime, fighting crime, or just swinging around the city. I also think her powers are really cool--she literally makes her own luck, and she does it with the power of probability! And Silk is such a lovely little comic. It does a really good job of balancing sweetness, playfulness, and melancholy.
I ship both Cindy and Felicia with Peter Parker, and I also enjoy their friendships with him--Peter trying to be a good friend to Cindy while she tries to sort out her feelings about their weird/awesome relationship has been really sweet, and Felicia being Peter's ex-girlfriend/best friend was one of my favorite things in Spider-Man comics before they parted ways. A fix-it where Felicia and Peter try to repair their relationship after her revenge trip would be more than welcome. I also ship Cindy with Jessica Drew, which is kind of random but if you're interested and can make it work, you might just be my new favorite person. (Run into each other on a mission? Bump into each other while trying to do the street level hero thing? Undercover in a gay bar?) I know Silk is coming back after Secret Wars, but I don't mind spoilers or stories that aren't perfectly canon-compliant. The solicits make it look like Cindy and Felicia might be teaming up and going in a sort of Thelma & Louise direction, so that would be fun to explore. I really enjoyed the issue where Cindy went dancing with her friends and had an awkward date/crime fighting session with Johnny Storm. Girl saves boy is one of my favorite tropes, so if you wanted to have Cindy and/or Felicia save Peter that would be fun. Or anything about Cindy trying to find her place in the here-and-now (maybe by herself? finding an unlikely friend in Felicia? hanging out with Jess & Anya & the lady-spider crew?). Also, I would love to read anything about Felicia's luck powers--are they more like math or magic? Honestly, I'm excited to read whatever you feel like writing here.
Fandom: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Character(s): Agnieszka, Sarkan | The Dragon
Optional Details:
Okay, so I loved this book a lot. The magical world-building was really interesting to me--the different schools of thought among the wizards, intuitive magic vs. more rigorous magical study, the different sorts of spellbooks, the magical ailments and healing, the power of the Wood. I really enjoyed Agnieszka and Sarkan's prickly relationship and their different approaches to magic. My favorite part of the book was when they were first starting to work together in the Tower--I enjoyed seeing them move from an initially very tense arrangement to a mutual respect and rapport. I also liked their awkward collaboration and Sarkan's magical library. And I was really interested in the physical influence of the Wood and the healing spells to combat it.
I do ship Agnieszka and Sarkan, but I'd be just as happy with gen and I wouldn't say no to Agnieszka/Kasia as long as Sarkan was around somewhere, too. As for prompts, I'd love to see fic set while Agnieszka was first living in the tower--maybe another aspect of her training? I'd also be interested in post-book fic. Do Agnieszka and Sarkan go back to the tower together? Do they have to rebuild it? Maybe he stays with her in Dvernik, or they travel separately but always come back to one another. Another thing that would be interesting to see is what happens with the Wood. Is there any fallout from the Wood-Queen giving up her power over it? I'd also be happy with something more slice-of-life. Agnieszka and Sarkan comparing notes/spellbooks? And as I said before, I really liked the healing spells, so if you wanted to go for magical h/c either in combination with any of the above prompts or as a story of its own, I would be so super excited to read that.
Fandom: What If Wes Anderson Directed X-Men?
Character(s): any (Jean Grey, Scott Summers, Bobby Drake)
Optional Details:
If you haven't seen this before, it's a parody trailer and you can watch it here and it's amazing. It's pretty much all my favorite things rolled into one--I love the X-Men and Wes Anderson movies, and lovingly ironic (ironically loving?) mashups. I love the tone and the aesthetic, and the little details are great, too--the cozy messiness of Hank's library/lab, Jean's Star Wars poster, Bobby jumping rope. I'd love to read pretty much anything set in this universe. Feel free to explore whatever aspect of the Wes-Anderson-y-ness or the X-Men you like. How is this different from other versions of the Xavier School? It would be great to see ridiculous field trips/paramilitary excursions, whatever passes for classes at this place (Wolverine is the art teacher!), or just the students hanging around the school in the evenings. Do they watch movies? Hang out in the library? Use their powers for hilariously mundane purposes? Reluctantly grow into an awkward found family?
I requested "any" for this fandom, so I would be happy to get fic about any or all of the nominated characters (Jean, Scott, and Bobby). I love how dour Jean is--does she have a warmer side, or is she just grumpy and ominous all the time? And what about that Star Wars poster? Scott is so serious all the time--is he still the leader of the other students? What's that like in this school? And Bobby, I love how awkward and earnest he is, and his sort of outsider POV on the whole thing. Feel free to go ensemble, or to include other characters (including characters from the comics--my faves include Illyana Rasputin, Kitty Pryde, and Laura Kinney), but I'd like to keep the nominated characters front and center. I ship Scott and Jean, but I'm happy with gen, too. I would prefer not to see any student/teacher pairings for this fandom.
Thanks again and happy writing!
Hello, happy Yuletide, and thank you so much for writing for me! I am really excited to see whatever you come up with. Here are some ideas, but don't feel too bound by them if you have something more fun in mind. This letter got a bit long, but don't let that intimidate you--as long as you try to avoid the basic DNWs, I am going to be super happy to see fic for any of these fandoms. Don't worry about following a specific prompt if that's not where your ideas go. :)
So, a couple of general things. I'm Ladymercury_10 on the AO3, and if you are interested I'm ladymercury-10 on Tumblr as well. Feel free to poke around if you feel like it or to completely ignore both those links.
Things I generally like, although I'm totally flexible about these: Light-hearted stories, ridiculous adventures, or introspective things are all good. I love character-driven stories best of all, but I definitely enjoy plot as well. I will happily read slice-of-life, even just characters hanging out. Little nods to canon make me really happy, and I love stories that feel grounded in their world or a specific place. I really like light angst or light fluff. Hurt/comfort (emotional or physical) is probably my favorite trope. Compassion, recovery, and characters working through hard times are all things I enjoy reading about. I like characters who are really screwed up but still try to look out for each other and make it in life, and characters who are trying to learn how to be people. I love reading about friendships or families--I'm really interested in close platonic relationships. I like seeing characters confronting the edges of their relationships (whether they come out of it as lovers or friends) and dealing with intimacy they're not used to. Girl saves boy is a fave. I enjoy good-natured bickering, sarcasm, and banter. And I have a weakness for snuggling and hair-petting.
Things I would prefer to avoid: Non-/dub-con, explicit underage, incest, and bestiality are squicky for me. I’d rather not see character death (mentions of canon deaths are fine), suicide, horror, or really dark endings. I’m not particularly looking for PWP or kink. I’m not really into mpreg (or babyfic in general), and deaging, bodyswap, and genderswap don't do a lot for me. AU tropes like high school, coffeehouse, or a/b/o AUs aren't really my thing. I'm not a big fan of first-person narration. No character bashing, please.
I’m not big on holiday fic, but if you want to go for a winter theme, that's totally fine.
Don't worry too much about spoilers--I don't think that should be a problem for these fandoms, but if you somehow manage to accidentally spoil me for something, I honestly don't mind. Crossovers aren't really what I'm here for, but if you want to bring in characters from related fandoms (different X-Men, say, or other characters from Marvel 616) that's fine as long as the focus of the fic is still the characters I requested.
And now on to the fandoms!
Fandom: Silk (Comics)
Character(s): Cindy Moon, Felicia Hardy
Optional Details:
This is really an and/or request--feel free to go with just Cindy, just Felicia, or both of them. Since they both started out as Spider-Man supporting characters, you can also feel free to set your story elsewhere in continuity if you like. (Just no Superior Spider-Man, please.) I'm more familiar with Felicia's appearances as a morally ambiguous cat burglar than a crime boss, so my requests may skew that way, but I'm happy with wherever you want to take her as long as she's not straight-up 100% evil. (Self-interested, criminal, and morally suspect, though, totally fine.)
I adore Cindy--her fierce devotion, her awkwardness and self-doubt, her nostalgia and slightly skewed sense of humor. ("Is Pokemon still a thing? Asking for a friend.") I also love Felicia--how she doesn't let other people tell her who to be, how deeply she feels things, and how much fun she has whether she's committing crime, fighting crime, or just swinging around the city. I also think her powers are really cool--she literally makes her own luck, and she does it with the power of probability! And Silk is such a lovely little comic. It does a really good job of balancing sweetness, playfulness, and melancholy.
I ship both Cindy and Felicia with Peter Parker, and I also enjoy their friendships with him--Peter trying to be a good friend to Cindy while she tries to sort out her feelings about their weird/awesome relationship has been really sweet, and Felicia being Peter's ex-girlfriend/best friend was one of my favorite things in Spider-Man comics before they parted ways. A fix-it where Felicia and Peter try to repair their relationship after her revenge trip would be more than welcome. I also ship Cindy with Jessica Drew, which is kind of random but if you're interested and can make it work, you might just be my new favorite person. (Run into each other on a mission? Bump into each other while trying to do the street level hero thing? Undercover in a gay bar?) I know Silk is coming back after Secret Wars, but I don't mind spoilers or stories that aren't perfectly canon-compliant. The solicits make it look like Cindy and Felicia might be teaming up and going in a sort of Thelma & Louise direction, so that would be fun to explore. I really enjoyed the issue where Cindy went dancing with her friends and had an awkward date/crime fighting session with Johnny Storm. Girl saves boy is one of my favorite tropes, so if you wanted to have Cindy and/or Felicia save Peter that would be fun. Or anything about Cindy trying to find her place in the here-and-now (maybe by herself? finding an unlikely friend in Felicia? hanging out with Jess & Anya & the lady-spider crew?). Also, I would love to read anything about Felicia's luck powers--are they more like math or magic? Honestly, I'm excited to read whatever you feel like writing here.
Fandom: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Character(s): Agnieszka, Sarkan | The Dragon
Optional Details:
Okay, so I loved this book a lot. The magical world-building was really interesting to me--the different schools of thought among the wizards, intuitive magic vs. more rigorous magical study, the different sorts of spellbooks, the magical ailments and healing, the power of the Wood. I really enjoyed Agnieszka and Sarkan's prickly relationship and their different approaches to magic. My favorite part of the book was when they were first starting to work together in the Tower--I enjoyed seeing them move from an initially very tense arrangement to a mutual respect and rapport. I also liked their awkward collaboration and Sarkan's magical library. And I was really interested in the physical influence of the Wood and the healing spells to combat it.
I do ship Agnieszka and Sarkan, but I'd be just as happy with gen and I wouldn't say no to Agnieszka/Kasia as long as Sarkan was around somewhere, too. As for prompts, I'd love to see fic set while Agnieszka was first living in the tower--maybe another aspect of her training? I'd also be interested in post-book fic. Do Agnieszka and Sarkan go back to the tower together? Do they have to rebuild it? Maybe he stays with her in Dvernik, or they travel separately but always come back to one another. Another thing that would be interesting to see is what happens with the Wood. Is there any fallout from the Wood-Queen giving up her power over it? I'd also be happy with something more slice-of-life. Agnieszka and Sarkan comparing notes/spellbooks? And as I said before, I really liked the healing spells, so if you wanted to go for magical h/c either in combination with any of the above prompts or as a story of its own, I would be so super excited to read that.
Fandom: What If Wes Anderson Directed X-Men?
Character(s): any (Jean Grey, Scott Summers, Bobby Drake)
Optional Details:
If you haven't seen this before, it's a parody trailer and you can watch it here and it's amazing. It's pretty much all my favorite things rolled into one--I love the X-Men and Wes Anderson movies, and lovingly ironic (ironically loving?) mashups. I love the tone and the aesthetic, and the little details are great, too--the cozy messiness of Hank's library/lab, Jean's Star Wars poster, Bobby jumping rope. I'd love to read pretty much anything set in this universe. Feel free to explore whatever aspect of the Wes-Anderson-y-ness or the X-Men you like. How is this different from other versions of the Xavier School? It would be great to see ridiculous field trips/paramilitary excursions, whatever passes for classes at this place (Wolverine is the art teacher!), or just the students hanging around the school in the evenings. Do they watch movies? Hang out in the library? Use their powers for hilariously mundane purposes? Reluctantly grow into an awkward found family?
I requested "any" for this fandom, so I would be happy to get fic about any or all of the nominated characters (Jean, Scott, and Bobby). I love how dour Jean is--does she have a warmer side, or is she just grumpy and ominous all the time? And what about that Star Wars poster? Scott is so serious all the time--is he still the leader of the other students? What's that like in this school? And Bobby, I love how awkward and earnest he is, and his sort of outsider POV on the whole thing. Feel free to go ensemble, or to include other characters (including characters from the comics--my faves include Illyana Rasputin, Kitty Pryde, and Laura Kinney), but I'd like to keep the nominated characters front and center. I ship Scott and Jean, but I'm happy with gen, too. I would prefer not to see any student/teacher pairings for this fandom.
Thanks again and happy writing!