Dear Yuletide Author
HELLO AUTHOR! I'M JUST EDITING MY LETTER TO TELL YOU SOMETHING! So, I just noticed while rereading this letter that the first part of my letter, which is copy-pasted basically verbatim from previous years, may sit really oddly with some of my specific-to-this-year requests. I signposted this with Chronicle, but Young Adult is hardly a fluffy fandom, and neither is Can't Hardly Wait if Denise is around and -- anyway. So in case you were like "AAAH AAAAAAAAAH" when reading this letter, let me just stress that my fandoms are a little darker this year and I recognize that, so fluff can be way, way toned down. I like optimistic endings as much as ever but definitely want cynical characters to stay in character. SORRY IF THAT WAS CONFUSING. I got confused myself rereading this and I wrote it in the first place.
Also, hiii. HIIII. I'm so excited you're here and assigned to me! No stress. I'll love whatever you write!!
Zlot out.
Dear, dear Yuletide Writer,
Thank you SO MUCH for offering to write in one of these fandoms. You are clearly a person of discernment and taste, and I am absolutely going to love whatever you write! I am a very easy person to please, so please write a story that makes you happy, above all. I’m going to give you some ideas about the sort of thing I enjoy, in the hopes that it might be helpful, but no pressure -- disregard everything that follows if it causes more stress rather than less!
First of all, I'd really be happy with any of these fandoms -- any of them would make for a stupidly exciting gift, so don't read into the differing space I spend talking about my various requests! If we're inauspiciously paired somehow and you want to get acquainted with a new fandom, you're in luck -- three out of four are movies this year, and the fourth has a really good film adaptation, so anything can be caught up on pretty quickly if absolutely necessary.
In general, I do lean towards stories that feature romance, and I've largely organized my requests by pairing. But don’t feel pressured to write relationship-based stories if you don’t feel comfortable. Gen is fine in any fandom. Mainly what I love is affection and deep bonds and how relationships grow and change, and those things can manifest themselves in lots of different ways! To write friendship well is its own amazing and wonderful talent.
Here are some things I loooove:
I don’t really love:
As you probably noticed, my journal is locked down, but feel free to check out the few things I've written. My public internet presence these days is mostly limited to my tumblr (mostly pop cultural gifs, but whatever).
Young Adult
Mavis Gary, Matt Freehauf
Oh God I ship it more than I can express. Future fic would be best of all: Mercury blew and Mavis finally left it behind, but I want Matt to get out too - could they encounter each other in the Minneapple down the road? If shipping isn't for you, I'd take gen of anything from their friendship, either from the movie's timeframe, OR: what if they'd become secret friends in high school?
I love this movie. It’s the sort of thing that even my closest friends, whose taste so often mirrors my own, don’t get. I’m a Midwesterner myself and it’s an almost painfully accurate depiction of the kind of shitheel town I come from, right down to the painfully uncool sports bar that you nonetheless have to go to constantly from a pure lack of options. And while I was nothing like her, I find Mavis extremely compelling, in that she is both unapologetically herself - refusing to repent, even when you feel like the movie is Punishing Her Like a Bad Person - and yet heartbreakingly never herself. She’s always acting (and dressing) a part. I both admire her skill and long for her to get to take a break from being Mavis Gary. It seems exhausting. That’s part of why I love her with Matt: he seems to remove her need to perform. Is this for awful shitty reasons, namely that Matt is uncool and abject enough that there’s no need to impress him? Maybe at first. But I am incredibly moved, every time, when I watch Mavis go to Matt at her absolute lowest. Their sex scene feels incredibly real, almost uncomfortably so; there’s nothing pretty or performative about it. And that creates such a sense of relief and rest, for me.
I always feel like that moment (and her talk with Sandra) help Mavis get out of Mercury, not just spatially but mentally, but I want that for Matt too. If you can give me future fic of them encountering each other again, that would be amazing. It shouldn’t be schmoopy, of course, but in my mind, even if they’re mocking each other and being bitches, there’s a sense that they won’t be parting from each other again.
If you’re not feeling the post-canon, I’d happily take a missing scene from the movie, or even them in high school - maybe the AU version where they were secret boozehound friends that shat on everybody at Mercury High.
I’d be happy for Sandra to make an appearance in whatever you write - she’s fab. Also, I’m fine with (but would never require) Mavis being attributed the kind of shitty attitudes that are her hallmark, including her ableism, if it’s consistent with canon.
Chronicle
Andrew Detmer, Steve Montgomery
Slash or gen both welcome. I love this relationship, but I also don’t want it fixed: what interests me most are the messy, unpleasant realities of Andrew’s relationship to the other guys, and how the sudden connection between Andrew and Steve does and does not transcend or fix the complicated stuff.
I am usually a fix-it junkie but I just cannot with Chronicle since it would seem to miss the point so much - the powers themselves are an attempted fix-it on Andrew’s life, and of course they fix nothing because everything’s already destroyed. Still, even if it’s doomed, there’s still that charmed time where everything seems wonderful, and that’s the little space where I love Andrew and Steve together. I ship it, cards on the table, but I’m also into the friendship, so feel free to write it however you want! In either case, there’s the elephant in the room that Andrew was nobody to Steve before he was something (or everything) and that there are huge gaps in what they can understand about each other even at the best of times. There’s also the fact that Andrew is not a compassionate person. It may not be his fault, but that doesn’t make him any nicer at bottom. So while I love the banter (WE’RE HIS MISTRESS!), and so much of this movie is about “aww, boys” for me, and quasi-training montages, and stupid conversations, and FUN - it would be so incredible if you could find a way to reconcile the sweet with the bitter reality. (I usually want marshmallow-sweet stories, but if this is the prompt you write, it’s better for that not to happen. On the other hand, I don’t think that the only thing that makes a relationship valuable is if it’s built to last forever. Little things, short things, doomed things: they have their value too. To the extent that a balance can be struck between unremitting angst and sunshiny optimism, that would be fab.)
I didn’t request Matt but I don’t mind his presence. I like Matt!
ETA: I realized today also that I didn't really give you any prompts. Since I'd love something within the time frame of the film, I'm thinking some missing scenes? More experimenting with powers, maybe some missions, some heart to hearts, some getting closer, some pushing away? I'm more into interaction than DENSE PLOTTING so whatever pretexts you come up with for examining their relationship are cool with me.
Can’t Hardly Wait
Denise Flemming, Kenny Fisher
I would love some post-canon fic exploring Denise and Kenny's relationship. They don't get the same "They are still together" benediction that Preston and Amanda got, but I believe they are way more epic. I assume a lot of their lives were spent in bathrooms.
I just watched this movie again the other day and found myself wondering about Denise and Kenny’s fucked-up fated relationship that brought them together, after years of not speaking, on the day of graduation, right before one of them headed to UCLA and the other to NYU. What happens next? How many bathrooms did they have sex in? Did they make it through college? Did they break up for real only to have fate intervene (fucked-up-edly) again? What happened to Denise when she (inevitably) became less alienated once high school was over? What happened to Kenny when he ditched (inevitably) his homeboy style?
Whatever fic about these two you want to write, I want to read. Since they’re a canon couple I’m kind of taking it for granted that they’ll be together, but if you don’t want to focus on the romance, maybe you could write an adventure for them. As long as they’re sniping at each other but being unexpectedly, heart-expandingly sweet like they are in the movie… I’ll be so happy.
Any other characters you want to throw in, I’m happy to see. I love Denise and Preston’s friendship so much, and Kenny’s doofy friends are pretty funny.
Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Sebastian, Antonio
Give me anything: how they met, their first time (I ship it like a freight train), how they find each other again, how the Illyrian recession forced them to become pirates MUCH AGAINST ANTONIO’S WILL, I don’t care.
I have such trouble with Twelfth Night, dear author, because it is so perfect and yet AAAAH AAAAAAAAAAAAH AAAAAAAAH what the fuuuuuuck AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Okay, so what I meant by all that screaming is: Olivia married a dude she’d never met!!!!! This is one of those things where Shakespeare is like, “This is perfect” and I am like, “WHAT???” Orsino and Viola are great, they were best friends and totally into each other even when Orsino thought it probably meant he was gay, it’s fine. But Sebastian and Olivia is never going to quite work for me, especially when Sebastian has already GOT a man. I cannot read the things Antonio and Sebastian say to each other without dying of ship-related agony. It’s my #1 ship on a ship! (Move over, Aubrey/Maturin.) He plucked his love out of the sea. I mean… it’s beautiful. And yet I always have to remember Antonio, beautifully played by Nick Farrell in the Trevor Nunn film version, walking away from the wedding feast and the couples arrayed in their finery, off alone into the blue somewhere. Why, Shakespeare, why?
So, I’ll take a fix-it or post-canon super gladly if you’re up to it, and this is probably what I had in mind when I made the request - but I’ll also take anything else. I’ll take the aforementioned plucking from the sea, or piratical shenanigans (I know Antonio is anti-piracy but needs must, maybe?). I’ll take them as lovers NO PROBLEM, but I’ll also be happy with a lovely and passionate friendship like they have in the play. AU, crossover, you name it. If they are characterized like in the play, I will love it. (And if you can pull off the characterization, the use of super-accurate Shakespearean diction isn’t necessary. I’m sure when you offered this you had an idea of how you’d like to deal with the language issue - and what you come up with, I’m excited to read.)
I’d be excited for any other characters to be involved. Sir Andrew is my special favorite, and I love Viola/Orsino very much.
GOD, this is so tl;dr. But listen: I love you. Thank you for taking this on. I am going to be so excited on Christmas morning whatever you come up with. I hope you have fun with this, and that you get a wonderful story yourself, and that your holiday season is absolutely lovely. Until I know who you are, I will be thinking of you.
Love,
zlot
Also, hiii. HIIII. I'm so excited you're here and assigned to me! No stress. I'll love whatever you write!!
Zlot out.
Dear, dear Yuletide Writer,
Thank you SO MUCH for offering to write in one of these fandoms. You are clearly a person of discernment and taste, and I am absolutely going to love whatever you write! I am a very easy person to please, so please write a story that makes you happy, above all. I’m going to give you some ideas about the sort of thing I enjoy, in the hopes that it might be helpful, but no pressure -- disregard everything that follows if it causes more stress rather than less!
First of all, I'd really be happy with any of these fandoms -- any of them would make for a stupidly exciting gift, so don't read into the differing space I spend talking about my various requests! If we're inauspiciously paired somehow and you want to get acquainted with a new fandom, you're in luck -- three out of four are movies this year, and the fourth has a really good film adaptation, so anything can be caught up on pretty quickly if absolutely necessary.
In general, I do lean towards stories that feature romance, and I've largely organized my requests by pairing. But don’t feel pressured to write relationship-based stories if you don’t feel comfortable. Gen is fine in any fandom. Mainly what I love is affection and deep bonds and how relationships grow and change, and those things can manifest themselves in lots of different ways! To write friendship well is its own amazing and wonderful talent.
Here are some things I loooove:
- Some humor, even within a ‘serious’ fic. If you can write crisp banter, lay it on me! If you can’t, that’s okay, neither can I really. Dialogue is my favorite part of any fic, especially if you can nail a character voice!
- Domesticity! I adore slice-of-life missing-moments stuff, because I think it’s awesome when romance emerges out of the mundane. I love the little things -- the details. And I'm the kind of person who is really bad at giving fic prompts because they're always like MAKE THEM BAKE A CAKE TOGETHER! Or THEY SHOULD GO ON A ROAD TRIP! (NB: you don’t have to include cakes, those were just examples.)
- The edges of canon -- backstory, first-meeting first-time first-love, post-canon. I like feeling like time has passed.
- Happy endings. I’m basically made of marshmallow, and sometimes enjoy fluffy stories as long as they’re not, you know, EMBARRASSINGLY nauseatingly sweet. Nothing has to be unremittingly cheerful all the way through - I like conflict and complex emotions and serious feelings and Reasons We Can't Be Together hugely - but to end on an optimistic note would be nice! It’s Christmas. (The exception might be Chronicle -- see prompt for reasons why. Holiday stories are totally fine but not necessary, by the way.)
- I guess I have a few idiosyncratic things that I like, not that I need them all to be present. I love getting to read characters' mail/emails/texts/tweets/telegrams/g-chat conversations/notes passed in classrooms. I love scenes depicting eating (esp. breakfast). I love dancing. Literary references. Bickering. These are all so optional that it's silly, but I figure too much information is always better than too little. You can throw out whatever's not helpful.
I don’t really love:
- Character bashing, especially when the character is female. Slut shaming, also.
- PWP. Sex is awesome, totally love it (especially when it’s character-driven and character-specific), but it’s the dessert, you know? Not the main course. And of course you don’t have to write sex at all if you don’t want.
- Really kinky shit, non-con, character death - the usual. Humiliation kind of freaks me out. I’m not really into hurt/comfort.
- Unremitting angst.
As you probably noticed, my journal is locked down, but feel free to check out the few things I've written. My public internet presence these days is mostly limited to my tumblr (mostly pop cultural gifs, but whatever).
Young Adult
Mavis Gary, Matt Freehauf
Oh God I ship it more than I can express. Future fic would be best of all: Mercury blew and Mavis finally left it behind, but I want Matt to get out too - could they encounter each other in the Minneapple down the road? If shipping isn't for you, I'd take gen of anything from their friendship, either from the movie's timeframe, OR: what if they'd become secret friends in high school?
I love this movie. It’s the sort of thing that even my closest friends, whose taste so often mirrors my own, don’t get. I’m a Midwesterner myself and it’s an almost painfully accurate depiction of the kind of shitheel town I come from, right down to the painfully uncool sports bar that you nonetheless have to go to constantly from a pure lack of options. And while I was nothing like her, I find Mavis extremely compelling, in that she is both unapologetically herself - refusing to repent, even when you feel like the movie is Punishing Her Like a Bad Person - and yet heartbreakingly never herself. She’s always acting (and dressing) a part. I both admire her skill and long for her to get to take a break from being Mavis Gary. It seems exhausting. That’s part of why I love her with Matt: he seems to remove her need to perform. Is this for awful shitty reasons, namely that Matt is uncool and abject enough that there’s no need to impress him? Maybe at first. But I am incredibly moved, every time, when I watch Mavis go to Matt at her absolute lowest. Their sex scene feels incredibly real, almost uncomfortably so; there’s nothing pretty or performative about it. And that creates such a sense of relief and rest, for me.
I always feel like that moment (and her talk with Sandra) help Mavis get out of Mercury, not just spatially but mentally, but I want that for Matt too. If you can give me future fic of them encountering each other again, that would be amazing. It shouldn’t be schmoopy, of course, but in my mind, even if they’re mocking each other and being bitches, there’s a sense that they won’t be parting from each other again.
If you’re not feeling the post-canon, I’d happily take a missing scene from the movie, or even them in high school - maybe the AU version where they were secret boozehound friends that shat on everybody at Mercury High.
I’d be happy for Sandra to make an appearance in whatever you write - she’s fab. Also, I’m fine with (but would never require) Mavis being attributed the kind of shitty attitudes that are her hallmark, including her ableism, if it’s consistent with canon.
Chronicle
Andrew Detmer, Steve Montgomery
Slash or gen both welcome. I love this relationship, but I also don’t want it fixed: what interests me most are the messy, unpleasant realities of Andrew’s relationship to the other guys, and how the sudden connection between Andrew and Steve does and does not transcend or fix the complicated stuff.
I am usually a fix-it junkie but I just cannot with Chronicle since it would seem to miss the point so much - the powers themselves are an attempted fix-it on Andrew’s life, and of course they fix nothing because everything’s already destroyed. Still, even if it’s doomed, there’s still that charmed time where everything seems wonderful, and that’s the little space where I love Andrew and Steve together. I ship it, cards on the table, but I’m also into the friendship, so feel free to write it however you want! In either case, there’s the elephant in the room that Andrew was nobody to Steve before he was something (or everything) and that there are huge gaps in what they can understand about each other even at the best of times. There’s also the fact that Andrew is not a compassionate person. It may not be his fault, but that doesn’t make him any nicer at bottom. So while I love the banter (WE’RE HIS MISTRESS!), and so much of this movie is about “aww, boys” for me, and quasi-training montages, and stupid conversations, and FUN - it would be so incredible if you could find a way to reconcile the sweet with the bitter reality. (I usually want marshmallow-sweet stories, but if this is the prompt you write, it’s better for that not to happen. On the other hand, I don’t think that the only thing that makes a relationship valuable is if it’s built to last forever. Little things, short things, doomed things: they have their value too. To the extent that a balance can be struck between unremitting angst and sunshiny optimism, that would be fab.)
I didn’t request Matt but I don’t mind his presence. I like Matt!
ETA: I realized today also that I didn't really give you any prompts. Since I'd love something within the time frame of the film, I'm thinking some missing scenes? More experimenting with powers, maybe some missions, some heart to hearts, some getting closer, some pushing away? I'm more into interaction than DENSE PLOTTING so whatever pretexts you come up with for examining their relationship are cool with me.
Can’t Hardly Wait
Denise Flemming, Kenny Fisher
I would love some post-canon fic exploring Denise and Kenny's relationship. They don't get the same "They are still together" benediction that Preston and Amanda got, but I believe they are way more epic. I assume a lot of their lives were spent in bathrooms.
I just watched this movie again the other day and found myself wondering about Denise and Kenny’s fucked-up fated relationship that brought them together, after years of not speaking, on the day of graduation, right before one of them headed to UCLA and the other to NYU. What happens next? How many bathrooms did they have sex in? Did they make it through college? Did they break up for real only to have fate intervene (fucked-up-edly) again? What happened to Denise when she (inevitably) became less alienated once high school was over? What happened to Kenny when he ditched (inevitably) his homeboy style?
Whatever fic about these two you want to write, I want to read. Since they’re a canon couple I’m kind of taking it for granted that they’ll be together, but if you don’t want to focus on the romance, maybe you could write an adventure for them. As long as they’re sniping at each other but being unexpectedly, heart-expandingly sweet like they are in the movie… I’ll be so happy.
Any other characters you want to throw in, I’m happy to see. I love Denise and Preston’s friendship so much, and Kenny’s doofy friends are pretty funny.
Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Sebastian, Antonio
Give me anything: how they met, their first time (I ship it like a freight train), how they find each other again, how the Illyrian recession forced them to become pirates MUCH AGAINST ANTONIO’S WILL, I don’t care.
I have such trouble with Twelfth Night, dear author, because it is so perfect and yet AAAAH AAAAAAAAAAAAH AAAAAAAAH what the fuuuuuuck AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Okay, so what I meant by all that screaming is: Olivia married a dude she’d never met!!!!! This is one of those things where Shakespeare is like, “This is perfect” and I am like, “WHAT???” Orsino and Viola are great, they were best friends and totally into each other even when Orsino thought it probably meant he was gay, it’s fine. But Sebastian and Olivia is never going to quite work for me, especially when Sebastian has already GOT a man. I cannot read the things Antonio and Sebastian say to each other without dying of ship-related agony. It’s my #1 ship on a ship! (Move over, Aubrey/Maturin.) He plucked his love out of the sea. I mean… it’s beautiful. And yet I always have to remember Antonio, beautifully played by Nick Farrell in the Trevor Nunn film version, walking away from the wedding feast and the couples arrayed in their finery, off alone into the blue somewhere. Why, Shakespeare, why?
So, I’ll take a fix-it or post-canon super gladly if you’re up to it, and this is probably what I had in mind when I made the request - but I’ll also take anything else. I’ll take the aforementioned plucking from the sea, or piratical shenanigans (I know Antonio is anti-piracy but needs must, maybe?). I’ll take them as lovers NO PROBLEM, but I’ll also be happy with a lovely and passionate friendship like they have in the play. AU, crossover, you name it. If they are characterized like in the play, I will love it. (And if you can pull off the characterization, the use of super-accurate Shakespearean diction isn’t necessary. I’m sure when you offered this you had an idea of how you’d like to deal with the language issue - and what you come up with, I’m excited to read.)
I’d be excited for any other characters to be involved. Sir Andrew is my special favorite, and I love Viola/Orsino very much.
GOD, this is so tl;dr. But listen: I love you. Thank you for taking this on. I am going to be so excited on Christmas morning whatever you come up with. I hope you have fun with this, and that you get a wonderful story yourself, and that your holiday season is absolutely lovely. Until I know who you are, I will be thinking of you.
Love,
zlot