Not Prime Time Writer Letter
Dear Not Prime Time Author-person,
Thank you so much for taking on the task of writing something for me. I try not to be difficult, and in fact, I'm sure I'll love anything written in good faith. That said, I know I respond better to a list of concrete likes/dislikes and at least a bit of a general prompt or episode/season that my recipient would like to see. So while OMG!long letter is long, I'm already thrilled that you're writing something just for me. So as you know, my optional details are optional!
• Things I like: angst, hurt/comfort, banter, happy endings and humor. Honestly... if I don't dislike it enough to list it in the next bullet, then I'm good with it. I'd rather weed out the few things I really don't care for, because if we avoid those, I'm good with anything else! :)
• Things I don't care for: death stories, partner betrayal, stuff that will leave our heroes in danger of embarrassing themselves unrealistically. (You know the set up - our two guys, with *really* good reasons for not making their relationship public, have sex in the glass-walled office just because no one is around *right now*, but we all know that someone *could* walk by at any time and our heroes would, realistically, never be that careless. That sort of thing.)
Additionally, If a fandom takes place in the 'real world', I'd love it if you could avoid the seriously supernatural or bizarre. M'preg, vampires, they time travel back to Ancient Rome... that kind of thing. Can we please keep the real world in the real world? Thanks! Obviously Torchwood kind of has it's own rules, I'm willing to go with the weird there, because, well, weird is cannon. ;)
• Sex is good; but not at all necessary. In each of the requests I've made, I've listed my OTP. If you like that pairing enough to write them at any stage of their relationship, great! If you're not keen on that, I *adore* a well-done gen story. Seriously, I do. I will say that if I've listed a pairing, I'm going to be less enthusiastic about a story that heavily features any other pairing. Again, gen is totally cool! But, you know, I wouldn't turn away from a hot PWP about my OTP either. ;) I'm good with the BDSM set up if it's done well and in character. I'm also okay with non-con/dub-con as long as the characters I've asked for are not the villain in the situation and there is the attendant comfort from the partner.
• The kind of stuff I write is the kind of stuff I like to read. So if you want a good way to get an idea of that, check out what I have at AO3.
• I adore it when anyone who's making something for me can weasel in a ferret. Unfortunately, after seven years of dropping that prompt, I've had two occasions that have taught me to spell this out: I have ferrets. I love my ferrets like nothing else. If you choose to incorporate a ferret, please do not make it evil or have a character do anything evil to it. (I would have thought most people would assume that, but I've been burned twice now, so yeah.. I'm going to be clear.) Like I said, this is just a little thing I like to toss out to see what happens. Feel totally free to ignore this.
I know some authors want only some broad guidelines, others like the idea of having some specific ideas to get them going. If you'd like to see a bit more about what I'd like to see in each fandom... here's a few things I was thinking...
I'm a huge Sherlock/John slasher, but I can totally get behind a humorous gen piece as well. I love a few of the fandom tropes - Sherlock is a virgin before John, Sherlock has to make up for terrorizing someone with PTSD after Hounds... things like that. I've seen Reichenbach, but I'm just not keen on Post-Fall stories. I'll read anything well-done, but they aren't what I tend to look for first.
A few general things that always make me happy: hurt/comfort (I'd love to see Sherlock attempting to take care of a sick/injured John). Care-taker!John (mostly on the emotional side, getting Sherlock through tricky emotional times without Sherlock pissing off everyone in the room and/or getting utterly confused by the emotions and getting pissed off himself). And like I said, humor (bad!sex cracks me up when done well and not just over-the-top ridiculously, miscommunications and their effects, things like that.)
I'm a huge Steve/Danny slasher. They kind of knock the 'b' right out of that so-called 'bromance'.
My uber-happy fic would be to actually fix "Pa Make Loa (H50)/Touch of Death(NCIS LA)" and get Steve and Sam in the same room. It can be a follow up to the ep where they end up together again, a re-write of it, whatever. I know *why* Steve wasn't in those eps, but I was so phenomenally disappointed by that fact.
But if you're not keen on dealing with NCIS: LA, that's cool too.
I love hurt/comfort. It can be a be a big thing like, I don't know, one of them rolling their car or getting shot, or a little thing like trying to get through the day with a sprained wrist or trying not to overdose on Sudafed when a seriously wicked cold/flu rolls through Honolulu. Or anything in between so long as the other is at least trying to take care of them (hey they're both GUYS, not nannies or nurses. :)
I love angst. It can be of the "OMG, I love him and he'll never love me" sort or the canon stuff we get like the whole Danny's brother thing, the death of Danny's former partner or whatever.
And humor is always a winner. I'd love to see something odd-couple-esque about when Danny and Steve were living together and how neither of them can possibly understand why the other does things the way he does.
My poor, poor Ianto.
There isn't much I don't care for in Torchwood. Gwen isn't my favorite character, but as long as she isn't overly self-righteous, I don't mind her too much, so if you'd like to make this 'a team thing', that's fine. I never did watch Miracle Day, so I'm kind of keen on Torchwood 1.5 (Assuming that with Suzie they were 1.0 and the group we saw in S1 and S2 would then be 1.5.)
I love woobie!Ianto. He's actually a very strong character! He saved his half-cyber girlfriend, wrangled his way back into an organization that screwed him over after *severely* traumatizing and almost killing him and then snuck her in to try and save her! He headbutted a canibal to try and save Tosh! He shot his own team member because he thought it was the right thing to do. And that was just the first season!
So it takes a lot to woobify him well, but I just love when a writer accomplishes that and Jack is there to pick up all the pieces.
I like stories that get Ianto and Jack out of the hub alone, but together. It can be chasing down aliens/alien tech somewhere or just road tripping to Soho for weekend with the stopwatch. :)
So, again, thank you so much for writing for me. I'm sure I'll love it, whatever you do! :)