Dear Yuletide Writer,
Hi! And thanks in advance. Please don't worry too much about writing for me, I'm very flexible about the kind of fics I read and really would be happy with almost anything about my chosen characters. If you're struggling with my prompts and you've got a different idea you like better, or you like my prompts from previous years better than this year's, feel free to run with that instead.
I'm on AO3 as
Nomad (nomadicwriter). I have some miscellaneous bookmarks there and also a gen recs comm at
nomads_gen_recs if you want more idea of the sort of fics I like.
General Likes and Dislikes
I Love:
* Frenemies! Enemies showing their respect for each other or working together in a crisis? Yes please!
* Emotionally repressed characters wrestling with awkward feelings.
* Canon-divergent AUs that explore how one small change might alter events.
* Outside POVs - minor/side characters or OCs observing how the main characters interact with each other.
I'm Cool With:
* Gen fic - please don't think I'm just offering it as an out and I'd rather have shipfic! Not true.
* Both het and slash pairings: I'm flexible about who characters are shipped with and have no OTPs.
* Darkfic, character death and unhappy endings if you want to go there. (But happy fluff is good too!)
* OCs and Character/OC pairings if the story you're telling requires them.
I Don't Really Like:
* Explicit sex scenes.
* Scenes of characters being embarrassed/humiliated.
* AUs that transplant characters into completely settings or change the rules of the canon universe.
* Established relationships. (I can buy most ships, but only if the fic shows how they got together.)
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Crossovers
If you know more than one of my fandoms, feel free to cross them over with each other. Some of them are comics that are part of shared universes: crossovers with other comics in the same continuity are fine (though I'd prefer if you stuck to Yuletide-sized ones and avoided too much focus on more popular characters). But please no fusions that transplant the characters from canon A into the roles/setting from canon B - they fall under my dislike of AUs that change the setting and canon rules too much.
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Fandom-Specific Details:
From Eroica With Love
Request:
- Klaus von dem Eberbach
Anything Klaus centric! I'm just fascinated by the way his mind works. I'd love something about his relationship with his father, or backstory fic about his childhood being raised by his dad and butler. Canon era wacky spyjinks would also be great: I love all the spy movie tropes like hidden microfilms, truth serums, brainwashing, etc. in this fandom, whether it's played for comedy or as a thriller. I also like futurefic about how Klaus and his priorities might change as he gets older, and I'm always interested in what outsiders like his NATO coworkers or neighbours think of him and his eccentric ways.
I also feel like the Eroica universe lends itself well to including sci-fi or supernatural elements if you want to go that way (though I prefer stories where the characters are encountering weirdness for the first time rather than a complete AU or a reveal that they've known about the supernatural world all along). Ghosts? Vampires? Time machines? Anything like that could be fun.
Klaus/Dorian is welcome but I'm not an OTP-er - I'd be happy to read Klaus/Z or Klaus/anyone really, since it's the idea of Klaus dealing (or not) with a romantic/physical relationship that most fascinates me. I'm not usually a big fan of explicit sex scenes, but since Klaus has such issues around sex I'm okay with stories that get into that. Alternatively, I can also buy Klaus being portrayed as asexual (though obviously he wouldn't know or use that term for it) or just straightforward gen fic is fine too.
More Info:
I'm pretty flexible about what I'll read for this manga - I love the way that the combination of light-hearted tone and more gritty Cold War setting mean that you can write anything from a fluffy screwball comedy to a dark and violent spy thriller and it fits equally well.
I love the KGB characters as adversaries or prickly temporary allies, and Klaus dealing with his hapless Alphabets and annoying boss, plus I have a weird soft spot for James, so really, feel free to include any of the extended cast you want. As I say, ship-wise I'll read Klaus/anyone, including OC relationships, though I can't really buy him in a functional heterosexual relationship (I don't mind dysfunctional attempts if you want to go there, though).
Potentially Useful Links:
* My Eroica prompts from previous Yuletides:
2014,
2013*
Eroica fandom primer I wrote for
smallfandomfest Fantastic Four (Comicverse)
Request:
- Victor von Doom
- Reed Richards
- Valeria Richards
- Franklin Richards
I always love stories where Doom works together with the good guys, whether due to common goals or because it suits his self-image to be magnanimous. I especially love the whole circumstances surrounding the birth of Valeria Richards, where Doom's method of scoring a victory over Reed is not to hurt his family when they're vulnerable, but to help them instead so he can rub Reed's face in having been there for them when Reed couldn't. More like that, please! I really dig the way he's appointed himself unofficial uncle/godfather to Valeria and seems genuinely fond of her, but I'm interested in Franklin's less explored (and far more hostile) relationship with Doom too.
I'd love any sort of story where Doom ends up coming to the aid of the Richards kids in some way: trapped in another dimension together? Saving them from another supervillain? The only one on-hand when one of them's hurt? Or maybe there's a magical threat that Reed has to ask for his help with. Alternatively, I could go for any sort of time-travel/de-aging hijinks that sees the Richards kids interacting with the young Victor before he became Doctor Doom. Or perhaps Reed's perspective on Doom's godfather relationship with Valeria; I feel like Reed still has a kernel of hope that Doom could become a better man, so I imagine he'd have very mixed feelings.
This is mostly a gen request, since it's essentially about the kids, but if you want to include Doom/Reed elements, Reed/Sue or any of Doom's canonical involvements, go for it.
More Info:
I'm pretty well read up on both my Fantastic Four history and Doctor Doom's appearances in other titles if you want to incorporate details from any canon storylines. I especially love Doom's 616 backstory and the way it was expanded on in Books of Doom, and would love any fic that gets into that. While Doom is my favourite character, I love Reed Richards too, and I like the canon Reed/Sue relationship, so while obviously anything from Doom's POV is going to be pretty biased, I'm really not looking for any character/relationship-bashing.
My favourite versions of Doom are as written by Jonathan Hickman and John Byrne, where he may be volatile, petty and dangerous, but he genuinely does try to care for the people of Latveria in his iron-fisted way and believes that he's saving the world by trying to conquer it. I'm really not a fan of the moustache-twirling senselessly eeevil version from Mark Waid's 'Unthinkable' arc or the one-dimensional Silver Age throwback from the Fraction/Allred FF run.
Potentially Useful Links:
* My F4 prompts from previous Yuletides:
2014,
2012,
2011* My LJ community
doomfans*
A compilation of versions of Doctor Doom's origin story Judge Dredd (Comics)
Request:
- Any
There's almost no comicverse Dredd fic out there, so really, anything at all in this fandom would be awesome. I nominated the characters from Dredd's clone family because that's my favourite long-running storyline from the comics, so anything related to that would be gold: another awkward family Christmas? Dolman's life outside the judge system? Him and Rico bonding at the academy? The relationship between Rico and Dredd? (I like how Rico seems to have developed a snarky streak and he and Dredd have grown more comfortable joking with each other over time.) Plus there's the under-explored fact that Dredd and his clones sometimes get psychic flashes from each other, or the so-far dropped story of the child Vienna gave up for adoption. I also love Vienna's perspective as an outsider, the way she sees Dredd as an actual person separate from being a judge in a way that nobody else really does.
Alternatively, feel free to ignore the clone angle and write me any kind of Dredd-focused story: I love the ongoing themes of his aging, increasing doubts in the system and wrestling with the completely alien idea of democracy. Exploration of his relationships with other Dreddverse characters, or having one of his family meet them, would be great too.
I'm mostly expecting gen in this fandom due to Dredd's basic nature, but if you want to do something with DeMarco's feelings for him or the idea of one of the Dredd clones having a different sort of relationship with romance and sexuality (Dolman canonically had a girlfriend, for instance), then go for it.
More Info:
I've read most of the Dredd comics that have been released in collected form; I've fallen a bit behind on keeping up with the new strips in 2000AD, though, so the last major storyline I read was Day of Chaos. (No problem with spoilers, though, as long as there's enough info in the fic for me to grasp what's going on.)
I genuinely would be happy with anything at all in this fandom! Besides the clones some other characters I'm especially fond of are DeMarco, Anderson, MacGruder, Edgar and Beeny; I like the Tour of Duty storyline, anything where Dredd has to deal with political manoeuvring, and stuff involving Fargo and/or Dredd's 'childhood' growing up with his clone brother. Casefic would be great, or some kind of canon-divergent AU, or I'd love to read an outside POV on Dredd and his relationship with his niece or clone-brothers. Seriously, anything.
Potentially Useful Links:
* My Dredd prompts from previous Yuletides:
2014,
2013,
2012*
A collection of scans from the clone family stories The Rat Patrol
Request:
- Hans Dietrich
- Jack Moffitt
- Sam Troy
I love all the episodes where Dietrich and the Rats end up forming a tense truce for some reason or other. (And the fact that the show was so shameless about coming up with every possible pretext it could for that to happen.) Any story where they have to work together to survive or help each other out for humanitarian reasons would be completely up my street, or really just anything where they're interacting without shooting at each other for a change. Chance encounter in a neutral town? Another situation where they end up taking Dietrich hostage (or maybe he turns the tables)? Or perhaps an exploration of the subthread running through season two of Dietrich's increasing discomfort with his orders and willingness to go against his superiors. I'd also love anything set post-war that has them encountering each other again.
Gen is fine, but I'd be up for slash of any pairing too. I picked Troy and Moffitt from the Rats as they're my two favourites, but you don't have to include both if you've got a story idea that works better with only one of them. (Or you could even substitute Tully and/or Hitch instead: it's the Dietrich-Rats interaction angle that interests me most, whatever the circumstances.)
More Info:
I love that the writers of this show were clearly just as fond of frenemies and honourable enemies tropes as I am, and wasted no time going there early and often. The show already managed to do a lot of the classic fanfic setups in canon, but I'm always up for similar scenarios or maybe an AU twist on one of the canon episodes.
Given that it's a wartime canon there's always the possibility for tragedy and character death, so I'm okay with that if you want to go there, but something lighter-hearted and more hopeful in tone is just as welcome. If you go the slash/slashy UST route I'd prefer some acknowledgement of the attitudes of the time, but it doesn't have to be an angst-fest dwelling on that.
Potentially Useful Links:
* My Rat Patrol prompts from previous Yuletides:
2013,
2012*
The Sun Compass fan site has info on the vehicles, equipment, etc. seen in the series
Ultimate FF
Request:
- Victor Van Damme
- Susan Storm
So, this series was cancelled so fast it had no time to smooth out the flaws, but on the other hand, it also did everything I always wanted someone to do with Ultimate Doom: retcon the nonsense in Ultimatum, bring the real Victor back from the Zombieverse, and team him up with the good guys for a change. Which leaves us with a fascinating status quo: in this universe, Victor's still pretty young, and didn't have the chance to do anything particularly heinous in his brief career in supervillainy, while Reed Richards was the one who became a much bigger villain. And since Sue grew up with both of them at the think tank, and would have known Victor for years before they got their powers, I'm fascinated by the two of them being on the same team together in Ultimate FF. What's the relationship between them now? How does Sue feel about working with Victor again? What kind of feelings does he have towards her?
Also, in the UU, Sue's a biologist and studied the F4's powers, so she might well be interested in the chance to make her first real examination of Victor's. Since Victor's metal body can't feel pain (and probably not much else), it could be interesting to see how he'd react to being temporarily reverted to his human form, or some kind of evolution of his powers like Ben went through.
Ship them if you want, but gen is also fine. Or feel free to bring in elements of Reed/Sue or Reed/Victor (maybe even make it an awkward three-way triangle?); I'm not so interested in Sue's canon relationship with Ben, but don't mind it coming up as a plot element.
More Info:
I've read nearly all of the original Ultimate Fantastic Four run if you want to incorporate any backstory from that. I kept up with general events in the Ultimate Universe as far as Ultimatum, but am a bit hazy after that: I've read the Ultimate Enemy trilogy, this series, and kept up with Ultimate Spider-Man until a dozen issues or so into the Miles Morales years, but that's about it; feel free to involve events/characters from other Ultimate books, just bear in mind I might need some exposition.
Obviously also go ahead and include the other characters from the Ultimate FF line-up too if you want (it's a shame there was so little chance to see them working together as a team), but it's the Sue-Victor dynamic I'm really interested in here.
Potentially Useful Links:
*
My recaps/reviews of Ultimate FF issues * * *
Anyway, feel free to ignore as much of this rambling as you want, and I hope you enjoy writing for me! Please don't stress out, I'm really very easy to please.