Dear Yuletide Writer
*dusts off old LiveJournal account*
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 worry about following a specific prompt if that's not where your ideas go--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.
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 enjoy: In terms of story types, 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. 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. 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. 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 unless it's canonical, suicide, or really dark and hopeless endings. I’m not particularly looking for PWP or kink-centric fic. I'm interested in the characters as depicted in canon, so deaging, bodyswap, and genderswap don't do a lot for me, nor do AU tropes like high school, coffeehouse, or a/b/o AUs. I would prefer not to get fic where characters have gender identities other than what is explicit in canon. 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 cool as long as the focus of the fic is still the characters I requested.
And now on to the fandoms!
Fandom: New Mutants (Comics)
Character(s): Illyana Rasputin
Optional Details:
As far as continuity goes, I'm not very familiar with the 2003 series or the New X-Men follow-up, but I've read all of the 2009 New Mutants series, a fair amount of the original 80s comics, the Dead Souls mini, and I'm following the ongoing. I've also read a lot of recent X-Men comics featuring Illyana. I have a soft spot for the 80s comics and their retro charm, but honestly you should be good wherever you want to set your fic. The things I love best about New Mutants hold true pretty much across time--how vivid and sort of ridiculous their whole world is, the field trips/missions and the weird adventures and the comradery of the team. I also love seeing explorations of whatever space they're in--whether it's the X-Mansion, the sewers, or literal outer space.
As for Illyana: Gosh, I love her and her soul sword. She has such a great backstory--she basically grew up in hell and now she's literally learning to master her demons and make them work for her. Her dry sense of humor and unusual perspective on the "normal" world are also great. She's kind of a classic 80s sword & sorcery heroine, and I just really enjoy her as a character. Magical adventures, trying to find a place for herself outside of Limbo, checking out a haunting in the X-Mansion (or wherever she finds herself), something exploring her relationships with other X-people--there are a lot of directions you could take this. I love her bond with Kitty, I think she could have awesome team-ups with Valkyrie Dani, and I think she and Rahne have a lot in common after growing up feeling monstrous. I will be super happy with gen, but I also think there's a lot of great femslash potential here, especially if you want to go with Illyana and Kitty (who just kissed a girl and liked it in Marauders!). The only real caveats I have are that I would prefer not to get fic centered totally on Illyana's Darkchylde persona, or involving movie canon (I haven't seen it yet).
Fandom: FF (Comics)
Character(s): Scott Lang
Optional Details:
The Fraction/Allred FF run is one of my all-time favorite comics. I love the zany, fourth-wall-breaking, rainbow-bright world. The dysfunctional found-family dynamics of the school are great, and all the characters are really fabulous. Shrinking things! Trips to the moon! It's all very Magic School Bus and I would love to see one of their fieldtrips. I would also be happy with a more reflective story, character interactions with the team and/or the students, or even something shippy (okay, I shipped Scott/Darla really hard! you don't have too, though).
Something I loved a lot about this run is how everyone, especially Scott, is genuinely trying their best while being desperately out of their depth. Trying to manage a superhero school with minimal directions and saving the world and dealing with personal issues is a lot, and yet, they all keep trying. There's a real warmth despite the chaos. Scott in particular is coping with grief and insomnia and not really getting any breaks. His pain feels very real and present without overwhelming the story or becoming OTT--I just want someone to give him a hug, honestly. If you want to take this as an opportunity for h/c, I would be super down with that. I would also love to see interactions with any of the other characters--the kids are hilarious, and I love team Fantastic Faux. She-Hulk can be such a scary badass and I adore her; Darla is delightfully sweet yet strong and comes from her own quirky pop world; and Medusa loves so deeply despite the regal distance she sometimes projects. Another thing that could be interesting is Scott coming back to visit the FF (maybe with Cassie now that she's alive again?). Really, you could write about anything and I would be excited for the chance to dive back into this world.
Fandom: The Locked Tomb
Character(s): Palamedes Sextus, Camilla Hect
Optional Details:
I love The Locked Tomb so much. It's like someone put all the things I like into a blender--it's about queer goth witch nuns exploring a haunted palace in space. And as much as I love Gideon and Harrow, I also adore the Sixth House. They're library nerds who do necromancy and fight dirty! I really love Cam and Pal's relationship--they're really devoted to each other in this sort of functional codependence. They know each other so deeply and both of them, not just Cam, are really dedicated to keeping the other one safe. I also love the Sixth House conceptually and would love to know more about it. (If you haven't read The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex yet, do yourself a favor and check it out! It's a cute little oneshot that Tamsyn Muir set when Cam and Pal were kids.)
I would prefer to avoid AUs and bodyswap, but other than that, feel free to take pretty much anything from canon and run with it. I really enjoyed the soul siphoning in GtN--gosh, the loyalty kink and the h/c potential were both so strong. If you could find a way to incorporate either of those things I would be over the moon. I'd really like to see Cam and Pal taking care of each other in whatever way that manifests; it doesn't have to be in a hurt/comfort context. Platonic touch is wonderful. I love haunted houses, I love libraries, I love space. I love all the nerdy things--old books, math, puzzles, that always-prepared boyscout-y-ness they have. I'd love adventures and I'd love a quiet day, where they mostly did nothing. Feel free to include whatever other characters you like. (Palamedes' romance with Dulcinea is of course fine to include/mention, but I would prefer it not to be the focus.) Also, if you want to try first person for this fandom, go for it! I loved Camilla's voice in the Doctor Sex story I linked above.
Anyway, thanks for putting up with my rambling. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
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 worry about following a specific prompt if that's not where your ideas go--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.
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 enjoy: In terms of story types, 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. 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. 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. 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 unless it's canonical, suicide, or really dark and hopeless endings. I’m not particularly looking for PWP or kink-centric fic. I'm interested in the characters as depicted in canon, so deaging, bodyswap, and genderswap don't do a lot for me, nor do AU tropes like high school, coffeehouse, or a/b/o AUs. I would prefer not to get fic where characters have gender identities other than what is explicit in canon. 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 cool as long as the focus of the fic is still the characters I requested.
And now on to the fandoms!
Fandom: New Mutants (Comics)
Character(s): Illyana Rasputin
Optional Details:
As far as continuity goes, I'm not very familiar with the 2003 series or the New X-Men follow-up, but I've read all of the 2009 New Mutants series, a fair amount of the original 80s comics, the Dead Souls mini, and I'm following the ongoing. I've also read a lot of recent X-Men comics featuring Illyana. I have a soft spot for the 80s comics and their retro charm, but honestly you should be good wherever you want to set your fic. The things I love best about New Mutants hold true pretty much across time--how vivid and sort of ridiculous their whole world is, the field trips/missions and the weird adventures and the comradery of the team. I also love seeing explorations of whatever space they're in--whether it's the X-Mansion, the sewers, or literal outer space.
As for Illyana: Gosh, I love her and her soul sword. She has such a great backstory--she basically grew up in hell and now she's literally learning to master her demons and make them work for her. Her dry sense of humor and unusual perspective on the "normal" world are also great. She's kind of a classic 80s sword & sorcery heroine, and I just really enjoy her as a character. Magical adventures, trying to find a place for herself outside of Limbo, checking out a haunting in the X-Mansion (or wherever she finds herself), something exploring her relationships with other X-people--there are a lot of directions you could take this. I love her bond with Kitty, I think she could have awesome team-ups with Valkyrie Dani, and I think she and Rahne have a lot in common after growing up feeling monstrous. I will be super happy with gen, but I also think there's a lot of great femslash potential here, especially if you want to go with Illyana and Kitty (who just kissed a girl and liked it in Marauders!). The only real caveats I have are that I would prefer not to get fic centered totally on Illyana's Darkchylde persona, or involving movie canon (I haven't seen it yet).
Fandom: FF (Comics)
Character(s): Scott Lang
Optional Details:
The Fraction/Allred FF run is one of my all-time favorite comics. I love the zany, fourth-wall-breaking, rainbow-bright world. The dysfunctional found-family dynamics of the school are great, and all the characters are really fabulous. Shrinking things! Trips to the moon! It's all very Magic School Bus and I would love to see one of their fieldtrips. I would also be happy with a more reflective story, character interactions with the team and/or the students, or even something shippy (okay, I shipped Scott/Darla really hard! you don't have too, though).
Something I loved a lot about this run is how everyone, especially Scott, is genuinely trying their best while being desperately out of their depth. Trying to manage a superhero school with minimal directions and saving the world and dealing with personal issues is a lot, and yet, they all keep trying. There's a real warmth despite the chaos. Scott in particular is coping with grief and insomnia and not really getting any breaks. His pain feels very real and present without overwhelming the story or becoming OTT--I just want someone to give him a hug, honestly. If you want to take this as an opportunity for h/c, I would be super down with that. I would also love to see interactions with any of the other characters--the kids are hilarious, and I love team Fantastic Faux. She-Hulk can be such a scary badass and I adore her; Darla is delightfully sweet yet strong and comes from her own quirky pop world; and Medusa loves so deeply despite the regal distance she sometimes projects. Another thing that could be interesting is Scott coming back to visit the FF (maybe with Cassie now that she's alive again?). Really, you could write about anything and I would be excited for the chance to dive back into this world.
Fandom: The Locked Tomb
Character(s): Palamedes Sextus, Camilla Hect
Optional Details:
I love The Locked Tomb so much. It's like someone put all the things I like into a blender--it's about queer goth witch nuns exploring a haunted palace in space. And as much as I love Gideon and Harrow, I also adore the Sixth House. They're library nerds who do necromancy and fight dirty! I really love Cam and Pal's relationship--they're really devoted to each other in this sort of functional codependence. They know each other so deeply and both of them, not just Cam, are really dedicated to keeping the other one safe. I also love the Sixth House conceptually and would love to know more about it. (If you haven't read The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex yet, do yourself a favor and check it out! It's a cute little oneshot that Tamsyn Muir set when Cam and Pal were kids.)
I would prefer to avoid AUs and bodyswap, but other than that, feel free to take pretty much anything from canon and run with it. I really enjoyed the soul siphoning in GtN--gosh, the loyalty kink and the h/c potential were both so strong. If you could find a way to incorporate either of those things I would be over the moon. I'd really like to see Cam and Pal taking care of each other in whatever way that manifests; it doesn't have to be in a hurt/comfort context. Platonic touch is wonderful. I love haunted houses, I love libraries, I love space. I love all the nerdy things--old books, math, puzzles, that always-prepared boyscout-y-ness they have. I'd love adventures and I'd love a quiet day, where they mostly did nothing. Feel free to include whatever other characters you like. (Palamedes' romance with Dulcinea is of course fine to include/mention, but I would prefer it not to be the focus.) Also, if you want to try first person for this fandom, go for it! I loved Camilla's voice in the Doctor Sex story I linked above.
Anyway, thanks for putting up with my rambling. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!