Dear Yuletide Writer
Dear Yuletide Writer,
First, thank you for writing a fic for me and taking the time to read this first. I hope that you didn't read my sign-up and thought "what on earth am I supposed to do with this?" If you did ... I'm sorry, and I hope that this letter will make things better for you and not worse.
I've never participated in Yuletide before, so I hope I'm doing this right. I looked at some other people's letters and tried to write something similar. As it is, you're getting a few lists of things I like and things I don't like and some rambling about the fandoms and characters I requested (I'm sure I'll be repeating a lot of things I already said in the "optional details" of my sign-up). I hope my rambling is somewhat helpful. Of course I don't expect you to include all the things I'm going on about here. I'm sure I will enjoy any fic you write about these characters we apparently both like, although I would appreciate if you didn't include the things I actively dislike. ;)
Things I like:
- I like slash, while I'm not a big fan of het or femslash. For all four fandoms listed here, I ship the two chracters I requested with each other. I'm rather OTP-ish about my ships, so even if you don't want to write shippy fic about them together, I'd prefer not to see them shipped with somebody else (except maybe in a meaningless one night stand or something like that, but nothing more serious). I like porn as much as I like more subtle sexual tension, I like unrequited pining as much as happy requited love, I like first time fics and established relationships, I like fluffy vanilla sex with cuddles and I like kinky smut. I'd just ask that everyone is in character, I'm not a fan of shippy fics in which the characters are OOC just to make the ship work. I'd rather read a fic with in character UST than out of character smut or fluff.
- I also like gen a lot: character studies, pieces about my favourite characters interacting with each other, their thoughts and opinions on each other, their first meetings and first impressions (especially if we don't get to see the beginnings of their relationship in canon), background stories about characters' past, missing scenes from canon, fics that explore why the characters made the choices they made in canon, what-if fics about scenarios in which characters made different choices than in canon, future fics that explore where these characters are going ...
- I'm fine with dark themes (violence, angst, depression, non-con, whatever you need for the plot), but I'd prefer if my fic wasn't completely tragic. A bit of hope would be nice, even if it's bittersweet.
- I like themes like loyalty, codependency, obsession, trust and commitment issues.
- I like characters dealing with moral dilemmas, having to question their principles, or simply wanting to do things they think they shouldn't be doing, for whatever reason. I like fics that deal with all the guilt, shame and embarrassment that come with such situations.
Kinks (should you choose to write smut, which is absolutely not necessary):
- any sort of power play, D/s, humiliation (only if it's fitting for the ship), but I'd prefer no non-con for any of the ships I requested here
- asphyxiation, petting/biting/grabbing the other's neck/throat
- clothes fetish: either a fixation on a certain type of clothes the other wears (suits, armour, uniform, boots, gloves etc.) or sex between a dressed and a naked person or characters dressing/undressing each other
- guns, knives, blood play (again, only if it makes sense for the characters to do this sort of thing)
Some things I do not like:
- major character death, especially of my favourite characters
- complete AUs (in-world AUs are fine as long as they are believable, but no high school AUs or coffeeshop AUs or anything like that). The only exception: I like daemon fics a lot. Just about everything is better with daemons. (Daemons are a concept from the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials: daemons are basically people's souls, in the form of animals, meaning the kind of daemon someone has says a lot about their personality. But if you're not familiar with the concept or if you don't like it, don't worry about it.)
- characters being massively OOC for the sake of the plot/ship
- if I've mentioned any characters or pairings I dislike, please don't include them. Chances are that'd ruin the fic for me.
- genderbend fics of any kind, mpreg, A/B/O, characters being vampires/werewolves/anything other than human (unless they actually ARE something other than human in canon, obviously)
- I have a major pet peeve for phrases like "the blond one said this", "the blue-eyed man continued", "the taller man did that", "the soldier replied". Please use characters' names and pronouns. I don't need to be reminded of a character's hair colour or height or profession in every paragraph. ;)
About my fandoms
Justified
Raylan Givens, Tim Gutterson
Justified is my favourite show ever, Tim/Raylan is one of my favourite ships from all my fandoms. One of the things I love most about this show are the dialogues, the snarkiness of all the characters, the moral ambivalence everywhere, and the intelligence of the writing. I love everyone on this show (except for Winona, but that's not really the point here), but Raylan and Tim are my favourites. I love Raylan with all his anger issues, with his unwavering sense of what's right and wrong that makes him do seriously fucked up things all the time. I love how on the one hand he's capable of loving deeply, but at the same time he has incredible commitment issues and he would never give up his job, or rather his vocation, for anyone. I love Tim because he's so layered, all that obvious competence, all that sarcasm and snark, which just hides a bucket full of issues, his PTSD, his lack of real purpose in life, his anger, his loneliness. I love that they're both assholes, in their own way, but still incredibly likeable.
I find their relationship really fascinating because on the one hand, they don't seem to like each other all that much, but at the same time they do rely on each other, and Tim at least does Raylan a lot of favours - while still calling him out on all his bullshit. There's a certain sense of understanding and comradery between them. I ship them incredibly hard, maybe because I don't imagine that they were ever particularly romantic with each other; I don't think their relationship had "traditional" beginnings like dating and so on. I see them more as a colleagues-with-benefits arrangement that could turn into more under the right circumstances.
I'm perfectly fine with any other characters from the show appearing in the fic. I love Art, Boyd, Ava, Wynn Duffy ... really, I love everyone. I just don't like Winona, so I'd prefer if she didn't appear in the fic and if Raylan didn't spend the whole fic thinking about her. I also really don't ship Raylan/Boyd in any way, as much as I love their canon relationship. So please no Raylan/Boyd.
So the things I would love to see most in this fandom would be:
- any exploration of Tim and Raylan's relationship, whether shippy or gen, especially how they see each other and how that changes over time; this includes any sort of everyday fic about them working a case together, spending hours in a car together, getting drunk after work, snarking at each other over paperwork etc.
- if you write something shippy, I'd love to see their first time(s) and any potential development of their relationship afterwards
- a background story about Tim to explore how he became the person we see in canon: his childhood, his time in the Army, his Army buddies, his decision to leave the Army and become a Marshal, what he does in his free time, how he deals with his PTSD and whatever other issues he may have etc.
The Wire
Stringer Bell, Avon Barksdale
I only watched The Wire recently (I'm late to the party, I know), and while I liked many characters, I only developed a big emotional attachment to these two. Both individually, but mostly to their relationship. I have a soft spot for characters who trust each other completely, who are extremely codependent and rely on each other, who can barely imagine existing without each other. Two characters who just belong together. The fact that these two ended up so tragically only makes me love them more.
I would definitely enjoy gen fic exploring their relationship, but I also ship them. A lot. However, if you do choose to write slash, I'd appreciate if you also dealt with the fact that they're probably very repressed or at least feel guilty about their attraction to each other. They come from a background where being gay is a huge taboo, and especially Stringer frequently calls everyone and everything "faggot" and "cocksucker", so I doubt that these two are 100% comfortable with any attraction or sexual relationship with each other. So if you write slash, please consider that there's probably quite a bit of shame/guilt/embarrassment going on for them. That being said, I would LOVE to see that explored in a fic. But again, I would be just as interested in a gen fic about them if you don't want to write slash.
What I'd love to see:
- a background fic that explores how they grew so close, how they became friends, how they ended up where they are at the beginning of the show
- any sort of character and relationship study set during the show timeline, what's going on in their heads during all these canon events
- I'm absolutely not averse to some sort of fix-it fic that changes the events of season 3 into something less depressing. Or an AU in which things go differently at the end of season 3, but are still not necessarily happy.
Coldfire Trilogy
Damien Vryce, Gerald Tarrant
If you've read the books you must have noticed how extremely homoerotic their relationship is. The whole theme of Tarrant "seducing" Damien, their growing closeness, their literal canonical SOULBOND, Damien constantly going on about how seductive and elegant and beautiful Tarrant is ... So while I won't object to any gen fic if you don't ship them, I'd love to see something more explicitly slashy than the books were.
I don't care if the fic is set during the books - as a character study, as an exploration of what's going on in their heads during the canon events, their thoughts about each other, the discussions they must have had on the road etc. - or after the canon events. However, I'm not a big fan of the canon ending. So if you do write a post-canon fic, I'd appreciate if Tarrant survived as Tarrant: not with a new body, a new name and a new identity, but as himself. Whether he's human or still the Hunter is up to you, I just want him to still be Tarrant. If he survives as a human, I'd love to see Damien help him adjust to being mortal again. If he survives as the Hunter - or any other kind of undead, immortal being - I'd love to see how Damien deals with the fact that he truly cares about Tarrant by then, but that he has sworn to kill the Hunter after everything is over.
I think I just rephrased all the things I said in the optional details of my sign-up.
Welcome to the Punch
Max Lewinsky, Jacob Sternwood
I love this movie, and not just because I'm a very obsessive Mark Strong fan. ;) I'm so intrigued by Max's obsession with Jake and by how his view of him changes once they're forced to work together. I'm intrigued by Jake developing such a strong attachment to a guy who wants to lock him up.
I definitely wouldn't say no to a fic that's set during the movie or something that explores Max's obsession with Jake over the years, but what I'd love to see most would be a post-movie fic. The ending is pretty damn depressing, in my opinion, considering that chances are that Max will be framed for multiple murders and spend the rest of his life in prison (good times for a cop). So I like to think that after Max saved his life, Jake wouldn't want to leave him behind, but break him out of prison and run away with him. And Max would probably have trouble dealing with that: being on the run, technically becoming a criminal, having nobody left in the world but the guy who ruined (and then saved) his life ...
Like with all my character combos here, I ship them a lot, but I won't say no to gen fic either if that's more your thing.
That got long. I ramble a lot, I'm sorry. Again, all of this is only supposed to help give you an idea of what kinds of fic I like, it's not at all meant to be restrictive and make your life harder than it already is, having to write for me. ;) If you need more information on the stuff I like, I use the same username everywhere, LJ, AO3, tumblr. I also have anon asks on tumblr on, so if you want to ask me anonymous questions about anything, you can do that.
Soooo, thank you already for doing this, dear writer. I hope you'll be having at least a little bit of fun writing something for me instead of wishing every day you had ended up with someone else. ;)
Thanks,
Linn (linndechir)
First, thank you for writing a fic for me and taking the time to read this first. I hope that you didn't read my sign-up and thought "what on earth am I supposed to do with this?" If you did ... I'm sorry, and I hope that this letter will make things better for you and not worse.
I've never participated in Yuletide before, so I hope I'm doing this right. I looked at some other people's letters and tried to write something similar. As it is, you're getting a few lists of things I like and things I don't like and some rambling about the fandoms and characters I requested (I'm sure I'll be repeating a lot of things I already said in the "optional details" of my sign-up). I hope my rambling is somewhat helpful. Of course I don't expect you to include all the things I'm going on about here. I'm sure I will enjoy any fic you write about these characters we apparently both like, although I would appreciate if you didn't include the things I actively dislike. ;)
Things I like:
- I like slash, while I'm not a big fan of het or femslash. For all four fandoms listed here, I ship the two chracters I requested with each other. I'm rather OTP-ish about my ships, so even if you don't want to write shippy fic about them together, I'd prefer not to see them shipped with somebody else (except maybe in a meaningless one night stand or something like that, but nothing more serious). I like porn as much as I like more subtle sexual tension, I like unrequited pining as much as happy requited love, I like first time fics and established relationships, I like fluffy vanilla sex with cuddles and I like kinky smut. I'd just ask that everyone is in character, I'm not a fan of shippy fics in which the characters are OOC just to make the ship work. I'd rather read a fic with in character UST than out of character smut or fluff.
- I also like gen a lot: character studies, pieces about my favourite characters interacting with each other, their thoughts and opinions on each other, their first meetings and first impressions (especially if we don't get to see the beginnings of their relationship in canon), background stories about characters' past, missing scenes from canon, fics that explore why the characters made the choices they made in canon, what-if fics about scenarios in which characters made different choices than in canon, future fics that explore where these characters are going ...
- I'm fine with dark themes (violence, angst, depression, non-con, whatever you need for the plot), but I'd prefer if my fic wasn't completely tragic. A bit of hope would be nice, even if it's bittersweet.
- I like themes like loyalty, codependency, obsession, trust and commitment issues.
- I like characters dealing with moral dilemmas, having to question their principles, or simply wanting to do things they think they shouldn't be doing, for whatever reason. I like fics that deal with all the guilt, shame and embarrassment that come with such situations.
Kinks (should you choose to write smut, which is absolutely not necessary):
- any sort of power play, D/s, humiliation (only if it's fitting for the ship), but I'd prefer no non-con for any of the ships I requested here
- asphyxiation, petting/biting/grabbing the other's neck/throat
- clothes fetish: either a fixation on a certain type of clothes the other wears (suits, armour, uniform, boots, gloves etc.) or sex between a dressed and a naked person or characters dressing/undressing each other
- guns, knives, blood play (again, only if it makes sense for the characters to do this sort of thing)
Some things I do not like:
- major character death, especially of my favourite characters
- complete AUs (in-world AUs are fine as long as they are believable, but no high school AUs or coffeeshop AUs or anything like that). The only exception: I like daemon fics a lot. Just about everything is better with daemons. (Daemons are a concept from the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials: daemons are basically people's souls, in the form of animals, meaning the kind of daemon someone has says a lot about their personality. But if you're not familiar with the concept or if you don't like it, don't worry about it.)
- characters being massively OOC for the sake of the plot/ship
- if I've mentioned any characters or pairings I dislike, please don't include them. Chances are that'd ruin the fic for me.
- genderbend fics of any kind, mpreg, A/B/O, characters being vampires/werewolves/anything other than human (unless they actually ARE something other than human in canon, obviously)
- I have a major pet peeve for phrases like "the blond one said this", "the blue-eyed man continued", "the taller man did that", "the soldier replied". Please use characters' names and pronouns. I don't need to be reminded of a character's hair colour or height or profession in every paragraph. ;)
About my fandoms
Justified
Raylan Givens, Tim Gutterson
Justified is my favourite show ever, Tim/Raylan is one of my favourite ships from all my fandoms. One of the things I love most about this show are the dialogues, the snarkiness of all the characters, the moral ambivalence everywhere, and the intelligence of the writing. I love everyone on this show (except for Winona, but that's not really the point here), but Raylan and Tim are my favourites. I love Raylan with all his anger issues, with his unwavering sense of what's right and wrong that makes him do seriously fucked up things all the time. I love how on the one hand he's capable of loving deeply, but at the same time he has incredible commitment issues and he would never give up his job, or rather his vocation, for anyone. I love Tim because he's so layered, all that obvious competence, all that sarcasm and snark, which just hides a bucket full of issues, his PTSD, his lack of real purpose in life, his anger, his loneliness. I love that they're both assholes, in their own way, but still incredibly likeable.
I find their relationship really fascinating because on the one hand, they don't seem to like each other all that much, but at the same time they do rely on each other, and Tim at least does Raylan a lot of favours - while still calling him out on all his bullshit. There's a certain sense of understanding and comradery between them. I ship them incredibly hard, maybe because I don't imagine that they were ever particularly romantic with each other; I don't think their relationship had "traditional" beginnings like dating and so on. I see them more as a colleagues-with-benefits arrangement that could turn into more under the right circumstances.
I'm perfectly fine with any other characters from the show appearing in the fic. I love Art, Boyd, Ava, Wynn Duffy ... really, I love everyone. I just don't like Winona, so I'd prefer if she didn't appear in the fic and if Raylan didn't spend the whole fic thinking about her. I also really don't ship Raylan/Boyd in any way, as much as I love their canon relationship. So please no Raylan/Boyd.
So the things I would love to see most in this fandom would be:
- any exploration of Tim and Raylan's relationship, whether shippy or gen, especially how they see each other and how that changes over time; this includes any sort of everyday fic about them working a case together, spending hours in a car together, getting drunk after work, snarking at each other over paperwork etc.
- if you write something shippy, I'd love to see their first time(s) and any potential development of their relationship afterwards
- a background story about Tim to explore how he became the person we see in canon: his childhood, his time in the Army, his Army buddies, his decision to leave the Army and become a Marshal, what he does in his free time, how he deals with his PTSD and whatever other issues he may have etc.
The Wire
Stringer Bell, Avon Barksdale
I only watched The Wire recently (I'm late to the party, I know), and while I liked many characters, I only developed a big emotional attachment to these two. Both individually, but mostly to their relationship. I have a soft spot for characters who trust each other completely, who are extremely codependent and rely on each other, who can barely imagine existing without each other. Two characters who just belong together. The fact that these two ended up so tragically only makes me love them more.
I would definitely enjoy gen fic exploring their relationship, but I also ship them. A lot. However, if you do choose to write slash, I'd appreciate if you also dealt with the fact that they're probably very repressed or at least feel guilty about their attraction to each other. They come from a background where being gay is a huge taboo, and especially Stringer frequently calls everyone and everything "faggot" and "cocksucker", so I doubt that these two are 100% comfortable with any attraction or sexual relationship with each other. So if you write slash, please consider that there's probably quite a bit of shame/guilt/embarrassment going on for them. That being said, I would LOVE to see that explored in a fic. But again, I would be just as interested in a gen fic about them if you don't want to write slash.
What I'd love to see:
- a background fic that explores how they grew so close, how they became friends, how they ended up where they are at the beginning of the show
- any sort of character and relationship study set during the show timeline, what's going on in their heads during all these canon events
- I'm absolutely not averse to some sort of fix-it fic that changes the events of season 3 into something less depressing. Or an AU in which things go differently at the end of season 3, but are still not necessarily happy.
Coldfire Trilogy
Damien Vryce, Gerald Tarrant
If you've read the books you must have noticed how extremely homoerotic their relationship is. The whole theme of Tarrant "seducing" Damien, their growing closeness, their literal canonical SOULBOND, Damien constantly going on about how seductive and elegant and beautiful Tarrant is ... So while I won't object to any gen fic if you don't ship them, I'd love to see something more explicitly slashy than the books were.
I don't care if the fic is set during the books - as a character study, as an exploration of what's going on in their heads during the canon events, their thoughts about each other, the discussions they must have had on the road etc. - or after the canon events. However, I'm not a big fan of the canon ending. So if you do write a post-canon fic, I'd appreciate if Tarrant survived as Tarrant: not with a new body, a new name and a new identity, but as himself. Whether he's human or still the Hunter is up to you, I just want him to still be Tarrant. If he survives as a human, I'd love to see Damien help him adjust to being mortal again. If he survives as the Hunter - or any other kind of undead, immortal being - I'd love to see how Damien deals with the fact that he truly cares about Tarrant by then, but that he has sworn to kill the Hunter after everything is over.
I think I just rephrased all the things I said in the optional details of my sign-up.
Welcome to the Punch
Max Lewinsky, Jacob Sternwood
I love this movie, and not just because I'm a very obsessive Mark Strong fan. ;) I'm so intrigued by Max's obsession with Jake and by how his view of him changes once they're forced to work together. I'm intrigued by Jake developing such a strong attachment to a guy who wants to lock him up.
I definitely wouldn't say no to a fic that's set during the movie or something that explores Max's obsession with Jake over the years, but what I'd love to see most would be a post-movie fic. The ending is pretty damn depressing, in my opinion, considering that chances are that Max will be framed for multiple murders and spend the rest of his life in prison (good times for a cop). So I like to think that after Max saved his life, Jake wouldn't want to leave him behind, but break him out of prison and run away with him. And Max would probably have trouble dealing with that: being on the run, technically becoming a criminal, having nobody left in the world but the guy who ruined (and then saved) his life ...
Like with all my character combos here, I ship them a lot, but I won't say no to gen fic either if that's more your thing.
That got long. I ramble a lot, I'm sorry. Again, all of this is only supposed to help give you an idea of what kinds of fic I like, it's not at all meant to be restrictive and make your life harder than it already is, having to write for me. ;) If you need more information on the stuff I like, I use the same username everywhere, LJ, AO3, tumblr. I also have anon asks on tumblr on, so if you want to ask me anonymous questions about anything, you can do that.
Soooo, thank you already for doing this, dear writer. I hope you'll be having at least a little bit of fun writing something for me instead of wishing every day you had ended up with someone else. ;)
Thanks,
Linn (linndechir)