Dear Yuletide Writer
Dear Yuletide Writer,
Hi, new favorite person!! I'm so excited that you're writing a story for me. I love all of these fandoms, and the fact that you love one of them enough to offer it means that you are inherently awesome and I love you automatically :D Here are some basics on what I like to read before I get on to the specific requests!
Likes: character-driven stories, romance (I generally lean towards canon pairings as specified below), female friendships, slow burn UST, porn (if appropriate), backstory and missing scene fic, best friends who fall in love, banter and bickering. I have a preference for happier/more hopeful endings. Female characters tend to be my favorites. I talk a lot about romance in my requests, but I love reading great gen and friendship fic as well. I really love AUs, and I've specified a few fandoms below that I would love to receive an AU for! If you have any questions on this, ask the mods and I'll be happy to answer it. (This goes in general, actually. I am happy to provide any clarification as needed.)
Dislikes: misogyny, noncon or dubcon, major character death (you can use anything that’s already canon of course), character bashing, excessive embarrassment.
If you'd like to take a look at some of what I've written to get a better idea, my fic master list is located here and almost everything is archived over at for-the-coast or AO3, otherwise it's in my fic tag on Tumblr. My journal is primarily locked and not very active (although if you go through my Yuletide tag, my past letters are all public), but I am pretty active on Tumblr (x) and I have a public GoodReads account (x) as well, and both of those are a pretty good reflection of what I like.
I'm the type of writer who likes more details rather than less when I'm writing a story for someone, so my requests generally reflect that. You can choose what you would like to take or leave based on what works for you. These are just some of my ideas, but they are certainly not the complete list of stories I would like to read for any of these fandoms. I know whatever you write is going to be great!
Request #1: Betsy-Tacy Series - Maud Hart Lovelace
Characters: Betsy Ray, Tacy Kelly, Tib Muller, Joe Willard
I would love to read a modern AU, but really anything that expands on this world and these characters would be wonderful!
I love everything about this series from the characters and relationships to how relatable it still feels to me, 100+ years later. I have requested it for Yuletide in the past (x) and for fic-corner once as well (x).
The relationship between the three girls is one of my all-time favorite friendships in any media, but all of the friendships in the larger group/the Crowd are wonderful and I'd even love to read about characters who don't interact as much in canon. I ship all of the canon pairings, particularly Betsy/Joe and Carney/Sam. I always loved Tacy/Harry and Tib/Jack as well, and my one real non-canon pairing is I always had a soft spot for Tacy/Tom.
If AUs are your thing, I would love to read a modern AU for this series. If AUs aren't your thing, any canon verse fic would be wonderful as well. You don't need to include all of my requested characters if you would like to write a story focusing on just one, and appearances by any other character would be welcome as needed!
Some ideas for things I would like to read in canon verse:
Betsy/Joe fic that explores anything beyond what we got in the series. Post-canon fic that deals with him coming home from the war, anything that explores their relationship from his POV, maybe some of the things that happened during the gap between Betsy and Joe and Betsy and the Great World (as much as it pains me to think about because I JUST WANT THEM HAPPY ALWAYS), their eventual family life with Bettina, ANYTHING.
Tacy is one I really, really want to read more about. She's usually the individual character I request, and anything I've listed in old letters is still valid as things I'd like to read. Specifically: more about her family and in particular her relationship with Katie and Paul, her relationship with her much older siblings and/or her relationship with her father (with whom I always got the impression that she was close, although it was never specifically stated in canon), the romance between Tacy and Harry, an AU that explores Tacy/Tom, her friendship with Tib or Carney or Alice Morrison, or even just more on her friendship with Betsy through the years. There is nothing you could write me about Tacy that I wouldn't love.
For Tib, her relationship with Jack happens so quickly! What was that like for her? What was it like after Jack went off to war? What about some of her friendships outside of Betsy and Tacy? What about just her relationship with Tacy, which we don't see very often as just the two of them? What about her time in Milwaukee before she returned to Deep Valley? Again, there is nothing I wouldn't like to see here!
Request #2: Dancing with the Stars (US) RPF
Characters: Meryl Davis Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Anything that explores their relationship during or after DWTS.
I did not intend to ship this; it just happened. (Story of my life, tbh.) I think it really happened for me around week 6, but it was probably coming a lot longer than that, and now I ship it like burning. But really, you cannot have a celebratory family dinner and not expect me to ship it. I AM NOT MADE OF STONE.
Anyway, I would love to read something about their possible romantic relationship. When and how did it start (during the show or after or victory celebrations or a slow development)? If it didn't develop until later, how did comments from the judges (in particular Carrie Anne and "First of all, I think you guys should get married") and Erin complicated things? What were things like when the cameras weren't rolling? How did their relationship change after the show? If you want to include appearances by Val and/or Charlie in this, it would be wonderful, or any of the rest of the DWTS cast (Sharna and Witney are two of my other favorites). Meryl and Charlie's relationship is very important to me so I really don't want that belittled, but while I do ship Meryl/Charlie, I'm really much more into Meryl/Maks and would rather any story I receive not include Meryl/Charlie on a romantic level.
If you'd like to see more, this is really an easy fandom to catch up on. I have a tumblr tag for them (x) for reference, and there rehearsal compilation is here (x) and their dances are here (x).
Fandom #3: Persuasion - Jane Austen
Characters: Anne Elliot, Frederick Wentworth, Sophia Croft, Admiral Croft
More on their relationship after the book.
Over the years, this has become my favorite Austen. While I still love the others, something about the story of finding lost love really speaks to me, and I would love to see more about the relationship between Anne and Frederick.
My specific request is for something after the end of the book. I included Admiral Croft and Sophia because I love them and I would really love to see their reaction to the relationship between Anne and Frederick and maybe something about them welcoming her into their family. If you'd rather just write about Anne and Frederick though, I would be more than open to that. Anything from Frederick continues to write Anne love letters because the last one he wrote worked so well, to general gross domestic fic to Anne learning to love her new life as a navy captain's wife, as well as her new friends and family.
Fandom #4: Psy Changeling series - Nalini Singh
Characters: Sascha Duncan, Nikita Duncan, Naya Hunter, Sahara Kyriakus
I would love more about any of these characters in any combination.
This is one of my favorite romance series. The world building and characters and relationships are all so fascinating to me, so my general request is just: MORE. In any way that you want to explore that.
It's absolutely not necessary to include all four requested characters. I would love a story that focuses on just one, or a story that maybe incorporates a relationship between two or more of them. Last year, I included Sascha and Nikita as part of my Psy Changeling request, and I am more or less going to recycle everything I asked for last year in addition to new requests for Naya and Sahara.
Among the things I would love to read about:
-Sascha and Nikita's relationship at any point in time, including what might happen going forward with the fall of Silence and the extreme importance of the Empaths as per Shield of Winter. Nikita can be so cold, but she knew her daughter's designation from the beginning, her own way of trying to protect her. PLUS, she went through great lengths to obtain the book on the E-designation and send it to Sascha. So there's some great complicated history to explore there, and in particular now that Sascha is a mother herself, does that play a part?
-What about Nikita and Naya? What is the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter, or what could it become in the future? What does Sascha tell her daughter about Nikita?
-Naya growing up and learning about her unique history and the potential abilities she might have as a half-changeling, half-psy child. How does that shape her relationship with the other pack children? How does she work with her parents to hone her abilities?
-Anything about Sascha herself, adjusting to her new life and working with the Empaths. Adjusting to motherhood. Sascha and her relationship with Lucas. Sascha and her relationship with the other sentinels. Sascha and her love of baked goods (there is great potential for a story about Sascha and Sahara and how much they love non-Psy food, really).
-Sahara is another one of my favorites, and I would loooove to read more about her. Kaleb/Sahara is my top series OTP, so anything more about them, either as children or in the future, would be amazing. I also loved the quick reference in Shield of Winter to the fact that Sahara and Mercy are good friends, so I would love to see that explored. And Sahara and Sascha is a relationship I would LOVE to see more of. I see Sahara and Kaleb having children one day (I have extensive shared headcanon with several friends about how Sahara and Kaleb might choose to adopt an orphaned or unwanted empath child because Kaleb in particular would worry about passing on his genetic material), and Sahara and Sascha talking motherhood would be something I'd love to read about. Sahara babysitting Naya so Sascha and Lucas can have some alone time. Sahara in general interacting with the different changeling packs. Sahara and Brenna is another relationship I would love to see more of, especially since Kaleb and Judd have their own friendship.
-In addition to Nikita's relationship with her daughter and granddaughter, I also unapologetically ship Nikita/Anthony and that relationship is FASCINATING to me. They are business partners and so in sync in the Council (when that existed). Kaleb's POV comments on how he feels like he's interrupting something between them always speak volumes to me about the possibility there. These two Psy are so powerful and have spent so long adhering to Silence, but who both had children defect from the Net and still managed to retain their power? SUCH A GREAT DYNAMIC. I'd love to see more of it, whether the development of their relationship over time or something about where it could go in the future. (Or, what is Kaleb really interrupting when he observes how in sync they are??)
-Sahara and her family, her father and her uncle and her cousin. SUPER AWKWARD KYRIAKUS FAMILY DINNERS, where Leon calls Kaleb "son" but Anthony pretends that Kaleb is not sleeping with his niece. Anthony eventually bringing Nikita along. Sahara and Faith forcing Kaleb and Vaughn on double dates. ANYTHING about the Kyriakus family dynamic.
-Naya/Julian. Yes, yes, they're children right now. But when they grow up? I see no reason why Julian remarking that "she smells like a girl" shouldn't be an indication of how they are definitely going to mate in the future, as adults. I can definitely see them having a special relationship as they grow up (and Roman too), and then it developing slowly over time, or there being a moment of "OH, shit, she's hot" when Julian suddenly realizes that actually, she's really quite grown up and wow, isn't that inconvenient. Anything you want to write about how they might get together in the future would be great!
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the things I'd like to read about these characters! Pick one or two (or all of them, if you so choose) and write me anything about that. Also, any and all AUs are welcome in this verse.
For reference: in addition to the pairings mentioned above, my favorite pairings in this series are Mercy/Riley, Walker/Lara, Max/Sophie, and Judd/Brenna.
Fandom #5: Veep
Characters: Amy Brookheimer, Dan Egan
Absolutely anything you want to write about these two, from enemy coworkers to reluctant lovers.
I love Amy and Dan so much, in any context. I ship them romantically, but if you wanted to write me something about them working together and undermining each other at every point possible, that would be just as much fun! If you did want to write something romantic, I'd love fake dating, secret dating, backstory on what happened to them pre-series, fic where they awkwardly babysit nieces and nephews, campaign sex, pretty much any AU. One specific story that I've been thinking would be really fun is if there was a groundhog day scenario where Amy and Dan have to relive a terrible day on the White House to prevent Selina from doing something catastrophic, but every day something new goes wrong (and with this cast of characters, you know something would). Bonus romantic shenanigans while trying to prevent the coming catastrophe would also be fun, if you wanted to include them!
Any other characters from the show you want to include would be welcome! I really like everyone.
Anyway, I think that's it! I hope you found this at least somewhat helpful. Thank you again and I know I will love whatever you write! Happy Yuletide!
Love,
spyglass_
Hi, new favorite person!! I'm so excited that you're writing a story for me. I love all of these fandoms, and the fact that you love one of them enough to offer it means that you are inherently awesome and I love you automatically :D Here are some basics on what I like to read before I get on to the specific requests!
Likes: character-driven stories, romance (I generally lean towards canon pairings as specified below), female friendships, slow burn UST, porn (if appropriate), backstory and missing scene fic, best friends who fall in love, banter and bickering. I have a preference for happier/more hopeful endings. Female characters tend to be my favorites. I talk a lot about romance in my requests, but I love reading great gen and friendship fic as well. I really love AUs, and I've specified a few fandoms below that I would love to receive an AU for! If you have any questions on this, ask the mods and I'll be happy to answer it. (This goes in general, actually. I am happy to provide any clarification as needed.)
Dislikes: misogyny, noncon or dubcon, major character death (you can use anything that’s already canon of course), character bashing, excessive embarrassment.
If you'd like to take a look at some of what I've written to get a better idea, my fic master list is located here and almost everything is archived over at for-the-coast or AO3, otherwise it's in my fic tag on Tumblr. My journal is primarily locked and not very active (although if you go through my Yuletide tag, my past letters are all public), but I am pretty active on Tumblr (x) and I have a public GoodReads account (x) as well, and both of those are a pretty good reflection of what I like.
I'm the type of writer who likes more details rather than less when I'm writing a story for someone, so my requests generally reflect that. You can choose what you would like to take or leave based on what works for you. These are just some of my ideas, but they are certainly not the complete list of stories I would like to read for any of these fandoms. I know whatever you write is going to be great!
Request #1: Betsy-Tacy Series - Maud Hart Lovelace
Characters: Betsy Ray, Tacy Kelly, Tib Muller, Joe Willard
I would love to read a modern AU, but really anything that expands on this world and these characters would be wonderful!
I love everything about this series from the characters and relationships to how relatable it still feels to me, 100+ years later. I have requested it for Yuletide in the past (x) and for fic-corner once as well (x).
The relationship between the three girls is one of my all-time favorite friendships in any media, but all of the friendships in the larger group/the Crowd are wonderful and I'd even love to read about characters who don't interact as much in canon. I ship all of the canon pairings, particularly Betsy/Joe and Carney/Sam. I always loved Tacy/Harry and Tib/Jack as well, and my one real non-canon pairing is I always had a soft spot for Tacy/Tom.
If AUs are your thing, I would love to read a modern AU for this series. If AUs aren't your thing, any canon verse fic would be wonderful as well. You don't need to include all of my requested characters if you would like to write a story focusing on just one, and appearances by any other character would be welcome as needed!
Some ideas for things I would like to read in canon verse:
Betsy/Joe fic that explores anything beyond what we got in the series. Post-canon fic that deals with him coming home from the war, anything that explores their relationship from his POV, maybe some of the things that happened during the gap between Betsy and Joe and Betsy and the Great World (as much as it pains me to think about because I JUST WANT THEM HAPPY ALWAYS), their eventual family life with Bettina, ANYTHING.
Tacy is one I really, really want to read more about. She's usually the individual character I request, and anything I've listed in old letters is still valid as things I'd like to read. Specifically: more about her family and in particular her relationship with Katie and Paul, her relationship with her much older siblings and/or her relationship with her father (with whom I always got the impression that she was close, although it was never specifically stated in canon), the romance between Tacy and Harry, an AU that explores Tacy/Tom, her friendship with Tib or Carney or Alice Morrison, or even just more on her friendship with Betsy through the years. There is nothing you could write me about Tacy that I wouldn't love.
For Tib, her relationship with Jack happens so quickly! What was that like for her? What was it like after Jack went off to war? What about some of her friendships outside of Betsy and Tacy? What about just her relationship with Tacy, which we don't see very often as just the two of them? What about her time in Milwaukee before she returned to Deep Valley? Again, there is nothing I wouldn't like to see here!
Request #2: Dancing with the Stars (US) RPF
Characters: Meryl Davis Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Anything that explores their relationship during or after DWTS.
I did not intend to ship this; it just happened. (Story of my life, tbh.) I think it really happened for me around week 6, but it was probably coming a lot longer than that, and now I ship it like burning. But really, you cannot have a celebratory family dinner and not expect me to ship it. I AM NOT MADE OF STONE.
Anyway, I would love to read something about their possible romantic relationship. When and how did it start (during the show or after or victory celebrations or a slow development)? If it didn't develop until later, how did comments from the judges (in particular Carrie Anne and "First of all, I think you guys should get married") and Erin complicated things? What were things like when the cameras weren't rolling? How did their relationship change after the show? If you want to include appearances by Val and/or Charlie in this, it would be wonderful, or any of the rest of the DWTS cast (Sharna and Witney are two of my other favorites). Meryl and Charlie's relationship is very important to me so I really don't want that belittled, but while I do ship Meryl/Charlie, I'm really much more into Meryl/Maks and would rather any story I receive not include Meryl/Charlie on a romantic level.
If you'd like to see more, this is really an easy fandom to catch up on. I have a tumblr tag for them (x) for reference, and there rehearsal compilation is here (x) and their dances are here (x).
Fandom #3: Persuasion - Jane Austen
Characters: Anne Elliot, Frederick Wentworth, Sophia Croft, Admiral Croft
More on their relationship after the book.
Over the years, this has become my favorite Austen. While I still love the others, something about the story of finding lost love really speaks to me, and I would love to see more about the relationship between Anne and Frederick.
My specific request is for something after the end of the book. I included Admiral Croft and Sophia because I love them and I would really love to see their reaction to the relationship between Anne and Frederick and maybe something about them welcoming her into their family. If you'd rather just write about Anne and Frederick though, I would be more than open to that. Anything from Frederick continues to write Anne love letters because the last one he wrote worked so well, to general gross domestic fic to Anne learning to love her new life as a navy captain's wife, as well as her new friends and family.
Fandom #4: Psy Changeling series - Nalini Singh
Characters: Sascha Duncan, Nikita Duncan, Naya Hunter, Sahara Kyriakus
I would love more about any of these characters in any combination.
This is one of my favorite romance series. The world building and characters and relationships are all so fascinating to me, so my general request is just: MORE. In any way that you want to explore that.
It's absolutely not necessary to include all four requested characters. I would love a story that focuses on just one, or a story that maybe incorporates a relationship between two or more of them. Last year, I included Sascha and Nikita as part of my Psy Changeling request, and I am more or less going to recycle everything I asked for last year in addition to new requests for Naya and Sahara.
Among the things I would love to read about:
-Sascha and Nikita's relationship at any point in time, including what might happen going forward with the fall of Silence and the extreme importance of the Empaths as per Shield of Winter. Nikita can be so cold, but she knew her daughter's designation from the beginning, her own way of trying to protect her. PLUS, she went through great lengths to obtain the book on the E-designation and send it to Sascha. So there's some great complicated history to explore there, and in particular now that Sascha is a mother herself, does that play a part?
-What about Nikita and Naya? What is the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter, or what could it become in the future? What does Sascha tell her daughter about Nikita?
-Naya growing up and learning about her unique history and the potential abilities she might have as a half-changeling, half-psy child. How does that shape her relationship with the other pack children? How does she work with her parents to hone her abilities?
-Anything about Sascha herself, adjusting to her new life and working with the Empaths. Adjusting to motherhood. Sascha and her relationship with Lucas. Sascha and her relationship with the other sentinels. Sascha and her love of baked goods (there is great potential for a story about Sascha and Sahara and how much they love non-Psy food, really).
-Sahara is another one of my favorites, and I would loooove to read more about her. Kaleb/Sahara is my top series OTP, so anything more about them, either as children or in the future, would be amazing. I also loved the quick reference in Shield of Winter to the fact that Sahara and Mercy are good friends, so I would love to see that explored. And Sahara and Sascha is a relationship I would LOVE to see more of. I see Sahara and Kaleb having children one day (I have extensive shared headcanon with several friends about how Sahara and Kaleb might choose to adopt an orphaned or unwanted empath child because Kaleb in particular would worry about passing on his genetic material), and Sahara and Sascha talking motherhood would be something I'd love to read about. Sahara babysitting Naya so Sascha and Lucas can have some alone time. Sahara in general interacting with the different changeling packs. Sahara and Brenna is another relationship I would love to see more of, especially since Kaleb and Judd have their own friendship.
-In addition to Nikita's relationship with her daughter and granddaughter, I also unapologetically ship Nikita/Anthony and that relationship is FASCINATING to me. They are business partners and so in sync in the Council (when that existed). Kaleb's POV comments on how he feels like he's interrupting something between them always speak volumes to me about the possibility there. These two Psy are so powerful and have spent so long adhering to Silence, but who both had children defect from the Net and still managed to retain their power? SUCH A GREAT DYNAMIC. I'd love to see more of it, whether the development of their relationship over time or something about where it could go in the future. (Or, what is Kaleb really interrupting when he observes how in sync they are??)
-Sahara and her family, her father and her uncle and her cousin. SUPER AWKWARD KYRIAKUS FAMILY DINNERS, where Leon calls Kaleb "son" but Anthony pretends that Kaleb is not sleeping with his niece. Anthony eventually bringing Nikita along. Sahara and Faith forcing Kaleb and Vaughn on double dates. ANYTHING about the Kyriakus family dynamic.
-Naya/Julian. Yes, yes, they're children right now. But when they grow up? I see no reason why Julian remarking that "she smells like a girl" shouldn't be an indication of how they are definitely going to mate in the future, as adults. I can definitely see them having a special relationship as they grow up (and Roman too), and then it developing slowly over time, or there being a moment of "OH, shit, she's hot" when Julian suddenly realizes that actually, she's really quite grown up and wow, isn't that inconvenient. Anything you want to write about how they might get together in the future would be great!
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the things I'd like to read about these characters! Pick one or two (or all of them, if you so choose) and write me anything about that. Also, any and all AUs are welcome in this verse.
For reference: in addition to the pairings mentioned above, my favorite pairings in this series are Mercy/Riley, Walker/Lara, Max/Sophie, and Judd/Brenna.
Fandom #5: Veep
Characters: Amy Brookheimer, Dan Egan
Absolutely anything you want to write about these two, from enemy coworkers to reluctant lovers.
I love Amy and Dan so much, in any context. I ship them romantically, but if you wanted to write me something about them working together and undermining each other at every point possible, that would be just as much fun! If you did want to write something romantic, I'd love fake dating, secret dating, backstory on what happened to them pre-series, fic where they awkwardly babysit nieces and nephews, campaign sex, pretty much any AU. One specific story that I've been thinking would be really fun is if there was a groundhog day scenario where Amy and Dan have to relive a terrible day on the White House to prevent Selina from doing something catastrophic, but every day something new goes wrong (and with this cast of characters, you know something would). Bonus romantic shenanigans while trying to prevent the coming catastrophe would also be fun, if you wanted to include them!
Any other characters from the show you want to include would be welcome! I really like everyone.
Anyway, I think that's it! I hope you found this at least somewhat helpful. Thank you again and I know I will love whatever you write! Happy Yuletide!
Love,
spyglass_