Dear Yuletide Writer (or treater, or person of morbid curiosities)
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Hello! Firstly, thank you so much for volunteering and doing this. Yuletide has become one of my favorite parts of the holiday season, and every year writing this letter starts out that excitement on the right foot. In that vein, I'm thrilled that you’ve been picked to be my writer, and I hope that my requests are simultaneously challenging and fun for you. If you can't match them exactly, don't worry about it. I want these to provide inspiration to make your Yuletide writing experience as interesting as possible. This letter will, hopefully, make things simpler for you, and adequately clear up issues like likes, dislikes, and general notes on requests.
The General Stuff
So, first there's the question of likes and dislikes as general rules of thumb. What I love most of all is a well-written story, and as close to the feel and sound of canon as you can get. All the characters I choose I like because of their canon personalities, both their ups and their downs. I would rather have excellent characterization than an exact fill of a request, but if you can combine those two elements, you will make me the happiest reader in Yuletide!
I love reading stories in which the style and mood of the original source material is well preserved, from the tense, horror-story feel of ‘Whitechapel’ to the quietly ordinary styles of ‘The Last Detective’ to the joyful camp of ‘Adam Adamant’. And I think it's pretty obvious from my choices of fandoms that I love a good mystery. I also love humor and adventure and unsentimental romance. Banter is a glorious thing, as is any other form of zippy dialogue and prose. I love clever plots. I love adventures. I love horror stories that scare the pants off me. I love long brilliant case fics, and I love short, sharp moments in time that are all the more powerful for their brevity. I love an elaboration of a world I thought I knew in a way I hadn’t anticipated.
Of course, there are also things that I generally avoid reading if I can. Non-consensual sexual acts involving main characters are not something I enjoy reading, although as a fan of case fic in law enforcement fandoms I know that such things can be involved in the case aspects involving secondary characters, and that’s just fine as long as it’s necessary to the plot. I would also prefer not to read stories about character death unless it’s canon.
As for ratings I prefer, I’m open to anything. A wonderfully quiet G to a steamy NC-17: they can all be thrilling! If you think a character would do something, and you believe you can write it convincingly, go for it! That's pretty much what I'll always keep coming back to. If you believe you can write it and keep it in character and in the style of the fandom (warts and all!), I'm going to love it. I enjoy slash, gen and het in equal measure, depending on the character pair (or lack thereof).
Please don't let these likes and dislikes intimidate you! I believe in being up-front with you, but I also believe that when you decide what you're going to write, it's going to be fantastic. Most of all, have fun! I can't wait to read your story on the 25th.
So, without further ado, let’s get on to the specifics of my requests:
The Last Detective (TV)
Characters: Dangerous Davies, Ray Aspinall, Philip Pimlott, Darren Barrett
Optional Text: Gen request for an exploration of Dangerous’ gradual transition from the team’s pariah to the glue that holds their dysfunctional unit together.
Explanation: This is, quite honestly, one of my favorite series of all time. The quiet melancholy that permeates it, in spite of the humor, fascinates me, and the painful humanity of the characters gets me every time I watch. I love how Dangerous can seem so disillusioned with his life and so perpetually hopeful all at the same time. I love that jaded, bitter shell that Aspinall has, and the cracks you see every now and then. I love that Pimlott, despite being a grade-A asshole, gets very serious by the fourth season, and you can see in him the makings of a genuinely good policeman and even a decent person. I love that Barrett jokes around all the time, that he has no sense of proper occasion, and that when he mellows out he’s also very good at what he does. I love that even at their worst they can unexpectedly do good, and even at their best they can fail. I love how this series sketches out a group of real people, with all the triumphs and tragedies that go along with being real and ordinary and fallible. Oh, and I take an unhealthy glee in the fact that Barrett and Pimlott seem to share a tie collection (really, play ‘spot the wandering pink tie’ sometime while watching.)
One of the most fascinating things about this series, to me, was the organic growth of Dangerous’ unit from something completely incapable of working together or even being particularly professional to the unit in season four that came together brilliantly in a crisis or gathered around the hospital bed of a friend. I would love a story that explores that transition while still retaining all the imperfection and lapses in judgment that make them the characters they are. It could be a series of vignettes, a single case, or just a conversation in the squad room. Or anything else you can think up that would work. I just … I really ended up loving all four of the guys on the unit (in between wanting to slap all of them silly) and would love to read more about them and their relationships with one another. This is a gen request, but I’m not opposed to slash, particularly between Barrett, Pimlott, and their mutual tie collection. Canon relationships (Dangerous/Julie, Mod/Slew of Girlfriends) are fine to mention, but I would prefer this story focus on the squad.
Adam Adamant Lives!
Characters: Adam Llewellyn De Vere Adamant, William E. Simms, Georgina Jones
Optional Text: What happens with Adam, Simms, and Georgie when there aren’t villains to defeat and worlds to save? Are there perils to every-day life even more hair-raising than fighting a villain du jour? A gen request for an ordinary day made extraordinary because Adam, Simms, and Georgie lived it.
Explanation: ‘Adam Adamant Lives!’ is one of those series I will probably always love. Its sense of whimsy and camp, and the sheer joyful silliness of the series can always put me in a good mood. I love how much fun the series is: the crazy plots, the action, the sword fights, the over-the-top villains. I love that this series could be the very definition of camp, but it never comes off as forced, rather it feels that everyone involved was in on the joke and having as much fun as you are.
And I love the characters. I love Georgie being smarter and more charming than she had any right to be, as well as determined and courageous. I love her insistent modernity in the face of Adam’s culture shock. I love Simms being clever and sarcastic and unexpectedly heroic. I love his limericks and the snarky banter he and Georgie have between them (yeah, okay, I might ship these two a bit). I love Adam’s fish-out-of-water story, and how he clings to what he was and a world that is gone. I love his sense of himself, and his determination to still be a hero in an era that doesn’t seem to need one. I love the moments for all of them when they have to get serious and save one another, and how obvious their mutual affections are in such a situation. And while I love Adam being heroic, I have to admit I’m a massive sucker for the day being saved by his sidekicks. Every episode in which Georgie and Simms get to somehow save the day makes me automatically love it more.
For this fic, I really want something in the spirit of the series: fun, funny and action-packed. And yet, I would love it centered around a completely ordinary day, with all the peril generated by our favorite trio. I don’t care if that peril isn’t really perilous except to their minds, or if it really is something extremely dangerous, harrowing, and yet ordinary. We’ve got to see them in extraordinary circumstances so often, but we’ve only caught glimpses of what ‘normal’ is for them, and how they respond to something that isn’t a kooky villain or an overblown plot of world domination. So I want to see their crazy, perilous version of ordinary, still treated with the same glorious, overblown camp of the series. I would love to see all of them overwhelmed, extraordinary, and fantastic in the face of something terrifying, life-threatening, and mundane.
Whitechapel
Characters: DI Joseph Chandler and DS Ray Miles
Optional Text: Another day, another terrifying case with historic precedence. Because Chandler and Miles are incapable of catching an ordinary domestic. Chandler/Miles and Chandler&Miles welcome in equal measure.
Explanation: This is a more recent series than I usually request, but I can’t help myself when it hits so many right notes. The writing and research that go into each case (particularly those in the first two series) is fantastic, and the performances are all top notch. I love the way the design of the show changed to fit each historic case they focused on. I loved the subject matter, and how it got as close as I’ve seen in recent years to a proper horror detective series. Two of my favorite genres at once? Please and thank you.
And I love the way Chandler and Miles fall into so many stereotypes of the detective genre, but through some wonderful writing and even better performances manage to constantly feel original. I love how Chandler is so aware of historic precedence and how much of its weight he feels. I love the portrayal of his OCD and his many neuroses, and how he succeeds and fails to overcome them at turns. I love that his triumphs feel all the more triumphant because he has to overcome himself to manage them. I love that Miles went from totally antagonistic to the rock that holds Chandler together when he’s at his worst. I love that Miles still ribs him mercilessly, still disagrees with him, and still never lets him stray too far from the simple facts of the case. I love that they balance one another out, but never quite reach equilibrium, instead constantly pushing and pulling, but when everything hits the fan they are unquestionably by one another’s side.
There are not enough stories about Chandler and Miles in this world, either slash or gen. Their friendship is incredible and I would be joyful for gen, but I would also love to see you explore the slashier dynamics between them if you think you can pull it off. And I have to say, if there is any one thing I would LOVE to see, it’s case fic in the style of the series. There’s barely any case fic of either the gen or slash variety, and that’s a shame, given the strength of the cases in the series. I would love to see another historic copycat, or even some tangentially related case in the style of series 3.
The rest of the team are welcome to join in the fun, of course! Buchan in particular is a character I can never get enough of, and Riley has made a wonderfully strong showing of herself in series 3. Mansell gets more and more interesting as time goes on, as does Kent. But please, no Chandler/Kent. I don’t have anything against it, but it really isn’t my thing and it’s already well enough represented in the fandom. I would prefer that the story keep most of its focus on Chandler and Miles, in whichever permutation you decide is appropriate.
If you’re worried you can’t write a full case, I would love a snippet of a case, with hints of a larger plot and generally creepy atmosphere. I would love FALLOUT from a case, for either of them (or both of them). But, hey, if you want to go the whole hog and write some monster of an historic case with horror elements, mystery, and all the general awesome that is ‘Whitechapel’, be my guest. No, be my hero.
So that’s it, Yuletide writer! Every request fills me with anticipation and glee, and I hope for all of them equally. I hope you have as much fun writing as I did requesting. If any of these requests are stumping you, please note that I try to include in the explanations the reasons I love that series, and the things about it that I find particularly fantastic. Even if my specific request is proving unworkable, hopefully you can look at my likes about the series, and come up with something else you think will work! I want this to be a fun experience for everyone, and so I will love any story that made you happy or proud or satisfied to write. Have a great Yuletide and thank you, thank you, thank you!
All my admiration and gratitude,
Nemo the Everbeing