Yuletide Letter 2013

Oct 14, 2013 17:01

Dear My Amazing Masked Writer,

You, are currently, the light at the center of my fandom Christmas. My bright star, cherry on the top of my pie. I will be bated and breathless and adore whatever is waiting for me the morning of Christmas Reveal. I adore you madly already for signing up and taking on the challenge, both for me and for the entire existence of this exchange.

I want you to have tons fun with this challenge and not feel pigeon holed, thus do not feel locked, chained and bound to any of the details I will place below. I am a fan of all relationships, slash and het and fem and gen with equal squee. So please feel free to go with whatever fits you best in your writing and know that I'll love it regardless.

I do not like: characters who are one dimensional, characters who sound like they are fourteen or twenty when they aren't, weak underdeveloped villains, nonconsensual anything scenes (unless it's actually show in the canon before hand), abuse, needless character bashing or setting up of people (character a and b go together in this fic thus c and d and e and f must be together to make a and b have happened), weak women, and really unless it's very well written, and has a solid point to plot, I skim most sex scenes.

Things that should definitely be avoided, because they get me on edgy/uncomfortable/annoyed incredibly quickly. Mpreg, possessiveness/overruling jealousy, embarrassment/humiliation, first person present-tense, RPF of all kinds, prejudice, racism, misogyny, bigotry, completely breaking something canon already proved, hatesex, hyper-dependence, high school AUs, furies, infantilism, BDSM (in canons or character it doesn't fit in).

Not all of these dislikes are absolutely universal. I've enjoyed several of these that were done amazingly well, by writers I trust, in canon bubbles I trust. I don't have that same kind of safety net in an anonymous exchange though, and so it's easier for me side with caution over reckless abandon.

I like: plots and character development, especially deeper into the canon which we haven't gotten to see. I love relationships; friends, family, lovers (together and unrequited). Prose that is written as poetry. Good spelling and proper grammar. Narrators (though this one is very hard to have pulled off correctly). I like happy and I like dark. Set the right, true depth in a scene and I'll be there whatever you put it. Scenery and setting, and all the people and places this connects to being present is important.

Strong characters, over whelming emotions, hard truths, hypocritical humanity (or beingness), to be able to feel and touch and hear what is happening, details that fill out the world around my characters makes my heart soar. Emotions, banter, secrets revealed, journals, poetry, literacy. Believable alternate universes, flawed characters, formal wear, bare feet, multiculturalism, twisted endings and what if endings. All sorts of weather, especially windy fall, snowy winter, sunny spring and rain.

I like case fics, adventure fics, family fics, team fics, mystery fics, snapshot fics, back in the day flashback fics. I like plot, so much that it's hard to have that be three tiny words. I adore, above and beyond everything, actual canon details and historical call backs/shout outs to things that happened before. I like worlds that are diverse. I like characters/casts that are diverse. I like varieties of and diversity in everything: women, men, children, race, skin color, multiculturalism, religion, age, disabled, not disabled, gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, gender box figuring out.

I love love stories, too, perhaps, best of all. I don't mean just fluff, but any kind of story even unrequited or parted lovers, deaths, family, friends, etc love stories. If it has love in it somewhere, that is true and beating and not perfect, I will love it.

~*~

I. Strangers in Paradise
Characters: Katchoo Choovanski, Francine Peters, Casey, Tambi, David
This is the oldest and longest of my fandoms listed. I was reading this comic back when I was sixteen and the manager of a comic store, and I've read this series through all of its existence.

With this one I would love some kind of story, or snapshots of where everyone went from where it ended. Which can be five minutes later or twenty years later. I want this world to continue ever going onward. I want to know everything, always seem them, glorious and beautiful, all living, loving, making mistakes and going forward being the every beautiful group they are.

II. Haven
Characters: Audrey Parker, Nathan Wournos, Duke Crocker, Jennifer, Vince Teague, Dave Teague, Dwight
This is one of my three most favorite shows at current, and the only one with a small enough fanbase/AO3 presence that it can be part of Yuletide. I love, love, love, love Haven. I've have been glued to Haven and Audrey since the first episode came out. You could probably do anything with a main focus on almost anyone in this cast (except Jordan, who don't mind as a tertiary character, but don't really want as a main) and I would madly love it.

Tell me about the past, tell me about the future. Tell about Duke & Nathan's childhood animosity. Or about Sarah, Vincent and Dave. Or about The Brothers, Lucy, and James. Tell me about Jennifer's background pre-S4. Tell me anything and everything about the 6 month period between S3 and S4, how Haven handled, what Dwight did. I love this world. I love all of this world. Whatever you decide in this one will make me happy. That said, I'm very much a Nathan/Audrey person, and I don't step outside those lines or canon here.

III. Arrow
Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Felicity Smoak, John Biggle, Thea Queen, Tommy Merlyn, Malcolm Merlyn
This show is so much better than it has any right to be. Those were the words, from a close friend, that sold me on checking out this show, and it's the truest thing I can think to say about it every time someone asks me to think or speak about it.

I love this world. I love the flashbacks. I love the city. I love the changing morals. I love all of the characters. I love all of the different, complicated stories going on. This is another world where you could literally write almost anything and I would love it. Tell me anything and everything. Give me Laurel & Oliver history. Tell me what Felicity & Diggle, or Thea & her boyfriend got up to in the season break. Tell me how Moira is handling everything. Give me a million Tommy & Oliver lovely historical things. Everything, I will love.

IV. Revenge
Characters: Emily Thorne, Jack Porter, Nolan Ross, Daniel Grayson, Charlotte Grayson
I have a mini-love affair, due to my last relationship, with Dante/The Long Game from The Count of Monte Cristo, so when this show came out it snapped me write up, and now I belong to Emily/Amanda/The Long Game now.

I love this world. I love the character. I love their emotions. I love how deeply flawed they all are and how simple all the things they truly want are. My favorite is Emily/Amanda, then probably Jack and Nolan both after her. Everyone else is loved, but very much in the third their. Anything that you could do with those three, anywhere in the timeline would be amazing, too.

V. Nikita (2010)
Characters: Nikita Mears, Michael, Alexandra Udinov, Seymour Birkoff
Another show I never expected to love as much as I do. Though differing from the others these are my four main favorite characters. I don't mind guest appearance of other people, or mentions of them, but I'd rather have a story about these four people or even one of them than have one on anyone else in the rest of the show.

Again, within those four, go anywhere, do anything, and I'll love it. Tell me more about anyone's background, tell me where they ended up previous to the show itself, or things they've been doing around it.

Thank you, again, so very very much for writing me this story!

Also, while I will leave you metaphorical milk and cookies, I celebrate Yule as a day of birth and Christmas as family day, so this does not have to be set near the holiday. (But I do have a soft spot for the rare holiday fic done well, too, so long as they really aren't 'miracle' reliant or religious propaganda. Christmas and Yuletide, the challenge itself in this season, just tends to give me warm fuzzies, too.)

[This entry was originally posted at http://wanderlustlover.dreamwidth.org/2252841.html. Comment on either at your leisure.]

holidays, holiday: yule, yuletide, yuletide letter

Previous post Next post
Up