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blithers · 3 years

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Dear Yuletide Writer 2021

Hello Yuletide writer! I love Yuletide every year, and I’m so happy you’re here, writing for me. I’m active here on tumblr, somewhat active on twitter, and I’m blithers on AO3.

Things I Like: Characters who yearn for something better. Intense romantic longing. Humor. Jokes. Flirting. Really blatant flirting. First times. Sex! Porn! Codependency, all the way to its unhealthy extremes. Sarcasm. Arguments as foreplay. Forced marriages. Pretending to be in a relationship. Bittersweet endings. Happy endings. Things that are left unsaid. Phone sex. Tropes. Soulmate AUs. Awkward make outs. Awkward sex. Kissing. Cunnilingus. Guys who are virgins. Sharing a bed/sleeping together without having sex. Truth or dare. Secret identities, and their reveal. Sex pollen. Desperation. Epistolary narratives. People who are extremely competent at their work. Found families. Road trips.

Do Not Want (DNW): Major character death. Pregnancy/babies.

Requests for: Tale by the Riverside (Webcomic), Run (TV 2020), The Folk of the Air - Holly Black

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Tale by the Rivershore (Webcomic)

Blanche, Merman

This little webcomic is so dang charming, and I’ve been enjoying reading the slowly-unfolding story all this year. If you haven’t seen it already, it’s a short read, still a WIP, and can be found on webtoons. I feel both platonic and gently shippy about the two main characters, so anything exploring that relationship in either direction, or where the story might conceivably go next, would be wonderful. One thing I enjoy about the comic is the combination of Blanche’s understated melancholy and ennui about her day-to-day life, contrasted with her refreshingly practical solutions to very unusual problems (housing a merman in her washing basin!), so anything more of her clever, pragmatic way of approaching life would be fantastic. How do Blanche and the merman learn to communicate with each other? Can they figure out how to communicate with gestures or words, or does the merman actually understand humans and isn’t sharing that knowledge yet (I feel like there’s a hint or two that might be the case).

Or what sort of cultural misunderstandings might arise as they do get to know each other? I love tropes where one character doesn’t realize what the action of another actually means - that they are being wooed in a way they don’t understand, or they don’t fully realize the gravity of something the other tells them. Any worldbuilding you might want to do around the merman, where he might be from or what his society is like, would be fun here. This story is so wide open, you could really take this request in a variety of ways, and I would be thrilled.

Here’s the link to the comic if you’re interested: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/tale-by-the-rivershore/list?title_no=602142&page=1

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The Folk of the Air - Holly Black

Jude Duarte, Cardan Greenbriar

There’s such an intensity to their relationship - on Jude’s side, and especially on Cardan’s side - I would love to read so much more about these two. I’d absolutely love to read more about their wedding night: they got married, they are husband and wife now, and it happens so suddenly. It seems like they’d have so much to talk about, and a lot of heady feelings about belonging to another person that might bubble up in intense, possessive, strange sorts of ways - and that Cardan in particular must have been extremely pleased and triumphant that Jude accepted his proposal.

Or I’d love to read more about them making out/doing sexual stuff together while still hating each other (late first book/earlier second book-era), and it just keeps happening and they’re each other’s greatest allies but they also still don’t trust each other yet. What if they come to an arrangement where they decide that Jude will start sleeping in Cardan’s room to protect him from random assassination and seduction attempts in the middle of the night, post-Nicasia’s failed crossbow attempt? Or, I’d love to read more of Cardan corresponding with Jude while she’s in exile (and her actually receiving any letters he writes) - both of them working through their feelings and situation via letters and having what I can only assume is the equivalent of a horribly torrid already-married affair with words and lots of complicated emotions.

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Run (TV 2020)

Billy Johnson, Ruby Richardson

I just flipped for the chemistry between the two leads in this show, and I’d love to read literally anything more for them. I (like many people, it seems) struggled with where the show eventually went, and how the first season ended before being cancelled - so, fix-it fic! You could tackle the first season cliffhanger-esque ending - for example, what if Billy and Ruby kept in touch after that, and continued their relationship or worked things out in their lives via texting or email before seeing each other again? I’d also love to read more of the relationship between Billy and Ruby as established in the first couple episodes without the thriller aspects that the show eventually pivoted to - just more of the two of them on a train, figuring out their past and future together, bantering and talking, perhaps having a lot of sex.

This show is also a perfect opportunity to go AU - for example, what about a soulmates or a soulbond universe (giving a lot of poignancy to their decision in college to break up, if they were soulmates), or a band AU (the reason they’re back together after years is for a reunion tour!). I’ll also note that there’s a lot of complicated stuff in the relationship between Billy and Ruby, and I’m comfortable with however you’re like to deal with Ruby’s infidelity, from outright ignoring it to grappling with it as the show itself does (although I’d prefer for infidelity to not be the entire focus of the fic, please). I’d also be perfectly thrilled with anything from a perfectly happy to bittersweet to a cuttingly sad ending for a story. I just really enjoy these two characters together, and I’d love to read anything more about them.

#yuletide 2021 #yuletide #the folk of the air #tale by the rivershore #run hbo #run

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reconditarmonia · 5 years

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Dear Equivalent Exchange Author

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’ve just completed my first watch of FMA:B and am obsessed, and very excited for the first single-fandom exchange I’ve done.

I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3 (and have been since LJ days, but my LJ is locked down and I only have a DW to see locked things). I have anon messaging off, but mods should be able to contact me if you have any questions.

Riza and Roy | Ishval | Briggs | Olivier/Izumi

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

– I have no idea how a Simoun AU/fusion would work for any of the (military-related, I guess) prompts, but if you know that anime, hell, go for it.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships.

A note: I’m generally fine with “/” ships where the fic doesn’t contain a kiss, overt declaration of love, etc. I’ll trust that you wrote it with shippy intent and don’t expect you to force in something that wouldn’t fit the story.

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Female Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye; Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang

I love the loyalty kink in this ship - the trust and competence and stoically hidden but very very intense feelings, the willingness to risk oneself or the other person, or to stake a lot on the other person’s competence (and willingness to hurt or sacrifice the other person because their shared cause says it’s right, too, all the times that comes up), the fighting together in tandem. I have an unbelievable need for f!Roy fic that plays up all the dynamics I love in canon: a dangerous mission (or intelligence-collecting situation) where their deep familiarity/trust/awareness of each other’s presence and fighting style and communication come into play (god, that bit in canon where Hawkeye shoots two guys right over Mustang’s shoulder), or where they worry about each other’s safety? I love the intimacy of their work relationship and personal history, on levels from casual to very intense, and would love it with sexual tension in how they notice and appreciate each other's physicality and presence and competence (hands??? muscles?)

Also potentially interesting: some kind of document or documents (newspaper, history book) or other outsider perspective on President Mustang and her decades-long professional relationship with Riza Hawkeye, so close they even live together/travel together/entertain guests together, neither of them ever married, that sort of thing.

I’d also be up for canon-gendered fic with absurd levels of platonic smarm: cuddling (for warmth or otherwise), bed-sharing for plot reasons, helping with clothes due to injury or for a fancy event, quasi-domestic working together, etc. as well as with the said loyalty kink.

When reading genderswapped characters, I have no strong preference for character names, with a slight preference for sticking with their canon names; it’s up to you whether you want to justify any resulting names that would be unusual for women or just gloss over it.

in conclusion: loyalty kink.

DNW: unrequested ships for these characters, including passing mentions thereof.

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Scar & Original Ishvalan Character(s); Miles & Original Ishvalan Character(s); Scar & Miles

One of the things that really hits close to home about canon, for me as a Jewish fan whose relatives went through the Holocaust, is the Ishval plot; I like that it’s important and not just backstory or setup for other stuff, and that there are multiple characters who are Ishvalan or of Ishvalan descent, rather than a genocide plot being a convenient reason to have one or no Ishvalan perspectives in the story. I’d really be interested in reading anything about, well, what do you do during or in the wake of a genocide: Miles’s seemingly increasing identification with his Ishvalan background; one or both of them in the post-canon rebuilding; what is is to be Amestrian *and* Ishvalan; what Scar (or OCs) are able to keep from their culture and community and what was lost (and what evolves), whether that’s in “Amestrian” cities and towns during or after canon, or in post-canon Ishval; saving the testimonies or the culture. Doesn’t need to be angsty if that’s not what you’re into; indeed, surviving/building a new life/finding joy/celebrating one’s culture and heritage after that kind of thing are meaningful too.

DNW: Please don’t give Scar a name; I personally am fine eliding any narration issues with “how would he refer to himself in his own POV?” in my brain. I would also prefer that Ishvalan culture be worldbuilt rather than borrowed wholesale from a real-life culture.

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Briggs Soldiers & Officers; Olivier Mira Armstrong & Miles

I love the entire Briggs dynamic and its mix of heartwarming and id-satisfying loyalty kink. (The watch! Buccaneer handing Olivier a clean pair of gloves after she kills Raven! Constant and deeply sincere saluting) Any combination of Briggs characters (Olivier? Miles? Buccaneer? Falman? The doctor? Engineer Bobby? OCs?), whether in ordinary or extraordinary circumstances - daily life in the fort, a battle with Drachma where they work together seamlessly, surviving a storm or the typical winter cold - would make me happy, but I especially love those shows of loyalty. Entire Briggs Is Gay would also non-ironically be neat, as would other ways of exploring the idea of Briggs being a united wall made up of people with a lot of secrets and/or racial and gender differences. I’ve also requested Olivier & Miles specifically and am basically interested in the same sort of thing (feel free to pull ideas from my other Miles requests as well). Olivier has no patience for anyone’s shit and I adore her.

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Olivier Mira Armstrong/Izumi Curtis

So competent! So angry! They hit it off as soon as they meet! (Olivier’s previously aware of that woman who stole from Briggs for a month before she took command, but not by name/face.) It’d be hot!

DNW: infidelity angst or poly negotiation; I'd rather just tacitly assume Izumi and Sig have an open relationship.

#dear author letters #fma

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miss-m-calling · 5 years

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Yuletide 2019 letter

Requests:

Jack Irish (TV) -- Simone Bendtsen, Jack Irish

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV) -- Lenny Bruce, Miriam “Midge” Maisel, Susie Myerson

Starred Up (2013 movie) -- Oliver Baumer, Eric Love

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with. I hope whatever I put down sparks your creativity, and feel free to reach out through the mods if you have any questions! My likes and DNWs are all the way on the bottom of the letter.

Without further ado…

Requests:

Jack Irish (TV)

Simone Bendtsen, Jack Irish

What is this canon: Australian TV show comprising three 90-minute episodes (with individual titles, like TV movies) in the first season, followed by two seasons of six hour-long episodes each. Guy Pearce plays the titular character, a hotshot Melbourne lawyer whose life goes down the drain when his wife is murdered, he quits his job, starts drinking and working as a debt collector. Despite not being a licensed PI, he keeps investigating suspicious disappearances, deaths, thefts, you name it, and getting into loads of trouble along the way. One of his sidekicks is Simone, played by Kate Atkinson, a fast-talking, snarky computer whiz and all-around odd duck, whose very existence on the show delights me endlessly. If you are in Oz, you can probably track this down easily, and if you’re in the US, the whole show streams on Acorn TV and the first two seasons are also available on DVD.

I enjoyed this show a lot: how often and unexpectedly funny it was, how absorbing the mysteries were even when I didn’t buy every plot twist, how the canon treated complicated adult relationships as complicated and adult, how everyone wound up in a better place by the end of every season than they’d been at the start but this didn’t always (or almost ever, really) mean a conventional HEA. I liked the intricate plots and all the Australian details of the setting, but I loved especially the character interactions and the ensemble cast, and these two reminded me of couples from old screwball comedies in how they played off each other.

Jack: dryly funny, always deadpan, tragic backstory but not overburdened with it, bit of a lone wolf but also with a lot of very different, good people in his life, sometimes his own worst enemy, not an alpha male at all and that’s just fine by him. And Simone, oh I loved Simone: smart, snarky, motor-mouthed, independent but also wanting to be taken care of a bit, somewhat socially awkward, hypercompetent, self-deprecating. I started shipping them right at the start (the “do you always talk this fast?” “do you always listen this slow?” exchange), loved how they keep needling and bantering easily, how during the time skip between seasons they become super close and rely on each other as both coworkers and friends. If you prefer to keep it platonic between them, I am also 100% on board for a really-close-friends version of their canon dynamic of mutual snarky respect! I have various, low degrees of tolerance for their canon relationships, so feel free to ignore or handwave those (in fact, please do ignore or handwave those!), and anyway: despite being clueless about pop culture, Jack knows Simone well enough to buy her a vintage Han Solo figurine in original packaging as a wedding present – and then promptly gets mistaken for her new husband!

Prompts:

-Casefic! Between Simone’s investigative skills and Jack’s willingness to get beaten up a lot and his sorta action skills, there’s no mystery they can’t solve. Possibly one or both go undercover in a dodgy company, or a dodgy government office, or at an ethnic wedding, or in another tight-knit subculture like the ones we see at the race track and the Prince of Prussia. Plus Simone in her ninja costume breaking into a medical research facility with a blasé Jack and a nonplussed Cam delighted me. Or how about an adventure which also includes Cam, Harry, Cynthia, Gus, Stanley and his Cherry Blossom…

-Jack brings Simone along (or Simone invites herself along) on a stakeout or a road-trip to run down money Harry’s owed. There’s banter. Lots of banter. And possibly falling asleep in the car.

-Simone gets to interact more with Cam and Harry, or with the old codgers at Jack’s local. Whether she and Jack are together or not, everyone can see it.

-Show me them growing close during the time between seasons: how they went from him calling her always “Miss Bendtsen” and teasing her about her dating profile handle to her wanting him at her wedding.

-Canon divergence: Jack goes to Manila to investigate the Holman-Dang Bank and brings Simone along, or calls/Skypes her for snarky consultations and finally asks her to fly out and help him. Danger, thrills, bringing down an international crime syndicate, and possibly sex ensue. Bonus points if they work together with Marek/Orton, he of the dry wit and the extensive local knowledge. Or Jack and Simone take part in some handwavy local ritual and wake up married.

-Takeout and movie night. Jack’s cluelessness about pop culture gets an airing, as do Simone’s definitive opinions on the merits of various movies and TV shows. There is banter, of course. All the banter. And probably some whiskey too.

-Instead of the council forcing Jack to move his horse out of his yard, he enlists Simone in helping him smuggle the horse (to a paddock on Melbourne’s outskirts, or another temporary shelter as ill-suited as Jack’s yard had been) in the middle of the night. If one or both of them end up riding the horse, all the better.

-Simone spends so much time and energy trying to be “normal” (get married, hold down an office job, be happy happy shiny happy), even as her true self keeps shining through, I would love to see her embrace herself for the square peg she is and just run with it, and with Jack trying to keep up, as he tends to do when she really goes off.

-Their first time. Especially if it’s a little awkward, and a little funny, and maybe they had a few drinks to psyche themselves up, and maybe they’re still figuring out whether they’re better as friends or they have real potential as a couple – and it ends up being enjoyable despite their hang-ups and insecurities. Then the morning after is its own special kind of awkward and defensive, but things still shake out alright.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)

Lenny Bruce, Miriam “Midge” Maisel, Susie Myerson

What is this canon: Dramedy about Midge Maisel (played by Rachel Brosnahan), a young 1950s Jewish housewife from New York whose husband has delusions of talent as a standup comedian. When he abruptly leaves her for his secretary, Midge gets drunk and performs a hilarious off-the-cuff set at hubby’s favorite Greenwich Village dive, attracting the attention of Susie (Alex Borstein), the perpetually over-it club manager who offers to be Midge’s agent and help her build a career as a professional standup comedian. Also in the mix is Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby), yes that Lenny Bruce, already an established comic and a sort of mentor (and bail buddy -- it makes sense in context) to Midge. Much fast-talking hilarity ensues, as does some family and relationship drama with Midge’s parents and husband, which IMO isn’t nearly as interesting as Midge building her career and interacting with Susie and Lenny. This is an Amazon Prime original show, so you can stream it there. Right now, it’s two seasons of 18 episodes in total; a third seasons drops in early December, and you absolutely do not need to watch that if you are writing me a fic for this canon! In fact, I would prefer it if you didn’t, as I may not have time to watch the new episodes before the Yuletide collection is revealed. Just use seasons 1 and 2, easy peasy.

I’m here for Midge’s adventures in the intoxicating, foul-mouthed, and often-frustrating world of comedy, so her dynamic with Susie and Lenny is where it’s at. Shippy or platonic, I just love the interactions between these three, and between every pair combination among them: Midge and Susie bantering and swearing and tits-upping even when they irritate each other, Midge and Lenny bringing the pathos as well as the humor, and Lenny and Susie both being hardened old pros with still a little glimmer of starry eyes. I am good with L/M/S or L&M&S or L/M & M/S – so, if you go the shippy route, either a V-shaped triad or hey, Susie (whom I absolutely read as gay) might find a way to be good with a full-on triangle… If you want to keep it platonic, True Companions all the way, always there for each other, even when they want to strangle each other. And as much as I like the comedy inherent in the characters, I also love that they’re all three, each in their own way, messed up people and dysfunctional to various degrees. So yeah, I just want Midge to hand the kids over to her parents, ditch Joel once and for all, marry (interpret that as literally or as loosely as you want) both Susie and Lenny, and for the three of them to ride off into the sunset to make comedy history.

Prompts:

-Does Susie manage them both? Does Midge open for Lenny on tour? Does he open for her??? Or they become equal stars on the comedy circuit?

-Maybe Lenny joins Shy Baldwin’s six-month tour, or they run into him while touring Europe or the US, and they all tool around, and yes I would love as much period detail and geography porn as you can throw at me. And while Lenny and Midge have seen the world, Susie hasn’t – her reaction to different foods, languages, customs, landscapes would be spectacular to witness. Especially if “different” is someplace as close to New York as Jersey or Connecticut, or someplace as far away and different as, say, Japan.

-If they do go to Europe, somehow or other they also tour the Soviet Bloc. Cue culture clashes, getting followed (or thinking they’re being followed) by the secret police, getting hammered on vodka and herring and pickles, and then when they get back to the States, the Feds grill them. It’s all dead serious, and Midge and Lenny refuse to take it as seriously as they should, while Susie is trying but the whole thing is really pissing her off…

-Lenny’s burned out, and Midge is just getting started. This dissonance may or may not find some sort of resolution. One thing’s for sure: Susie has limited patience for both Lenny’s depression and Midge’s need to make everything pretty.

-Instead of going to Joel for a no-way-is-that-closure fling after the Steve Allen Show taping, Midge goes to have a drink or seven with the two people who have, in their own ways, always been there for her and never let her down.

-Midge goes on TV again, this time as the star: longer set, prime time slot, dressing room, the works. She’s dying of nerves. Lenny and Susie coach her through it.

-Midge and Susie head out west to make it big and stay with Lenny once they’re in Los Angeles, and it’s marvelous (ha ha) and disastrous in equal measure.

-They all three get drunk, maybe with a hint of sadness if it’s the holidays (you can ignore my DNW about holidays, but please let that be just the background, not the lynchpin of the story) or someone’s birthday, and there’s a bar fight, running from the cops, eating greasy food at ass o’clock, and possibly kissing, not necessarily in that order.

-One or two or all three of them get arrested/have court appearances all over America and have to bail each other out, or find someone to bail them all out, or secure legal counsel – you get the drift. Or all three of them are trying to explain to a single lawyer what happened, talking over each other, the two pros not being able to resist landing zingers and Susie not being far behind, and the lawyer just getting more and more confused.

-They get in trouble some other way – offended patrons, surly management, shitty hotels, tour bus breaks down in the middle of Wyoming – and have to have each other’s backs because no one else will.

-Three-person road trip or tour, and only Susie knows how to drive. So Midge decides to learn, right then and there. And Lenny… Lenny may or may not be too lazy/hungover/lying about not knowing how. There’s supposed to be a rotation so everyone gets to stretch out on the back seat for equal lengths of time, but you know the system doesn’t work too well in practice. Also, they play games in the car to while away the time, and they do it their own way of course: I spy, cows on my side, yellow car, never have I ever, 20 questions, or riffing on whatever’s playing on the radio…

-They sit down to watch the moon landing (you can move it up a bit so it’s not happening a whole decade after S2) – by which I mean, Midge is all gung-ho about the moon landing, and Lenny and Susie are like whatever – and things don’t quite go to plan, but a good time is eventually had by all.

-It’s Yom Kippur again, and Midge wants to do the whole production: synagogue, breaking fast, the lot. Lenny and Susie would rather eat glass. Midge gets her way, of course. Does she decide to bring Susie and Lenny home to meet – or meet properly – her parents??? I bet Abe and Rose’s reactions would be something to see. (This too is an exception to my DNW about holiday settings – I just want stuff to get as crazy as it did the two times we saw Yom Kippur celebrated on the show, and for everything to still somehow turn out relatively OK.)

-Midge and Lenny have cheered each other up when the going got extra rough. I want for Susie to be especially down in the dumps – maybe her boozehound of a mother died, maybe some asshole told her she’s a shit manager and got her right in her insecurities – and Midge to rope Lenny into trying to cheer her up. And for Susie to fight them every step of the way but still be glad they care enough to try.

-Inspired by Susie’s brother looking just like her, by which I mean she and he and their sister look nothing alike, and by Lenny’s “she’s my mother” quip about Midge at the TV studio – Midge, Susie, and Lenny pretend to all be blood relatives, or mafiosi, or spies, or something else they’re not, while out in public, say in a restaurant. Just to be assholes and see how long they can keep it going before they break character or people figure them out, or call the cops, or something. There’s totally a bet on who corpses and breaks character first.

-Lenny and Midge do a (comeback) tour of the Borscht Belt, and all the Steiner Mountain Resort guests (especially the gossipy old hens from the beauty salon) and staff go to see them – and heckle.

-Stuff happens and they end up performing at some hole in the wall place where no one knows who they are (or no one believes it’s really those people they’ve seen on TV) – tough crowd, but a good workout for the two comics, and if Susie gets to threaten to rip off someone’s head, all the better.

-Lenny and Midge honing their routines – and maybe developing a double act – and Susie being all “oh my fucking god, what the fuck!!! … They’re actually good. I’m so proud.”

-Sharing a bed with two other people is an ongoing project: who sleeps (or refuses to sleep) in the middle? Who gets up during the night and why? Who starfishes across most of the bed? Who snores, and how does this get handled? If alcohol or pot have happened, how does that affect the sleeping arrangements? Also, Susie and Lenny witness and react to Midge’s beauty routine, ‘nuff said. Or, for various reasons one person after another ends up decamping to another room/bed/couch, but it doesn’t help them get much sleep or even stay there very long (this is inspired by my love of Shirley Jackson and her short story/humorous essay “The Night We All Had Grippe”). If you prefer to keep it platonic, most of this would work if they’re just sharing a double bedroom on tour (I leave the reason for why Lenny is bunking with the women up to you).

Canon-specific DNWs: S3 spoilers, explicit sex, and pairing any two as a / couple with the third as a & hanger-on. I’m here for equality in this three-way dynamic and the banter and the surprise!feels and the companionship. And of course all the comedy, situational or stand-up. Oh, and Lenny can still be his RL messed-up, drugged-up self – albeit the gentler version the show gives us – but it would be good if he didn’t kick the bucket a handful of years down the line.

Starred Up (2013 movie)

Oliver Baumer, Eric Love

What is this canon:

Gritty British prison drama about Eric (Jack O’Connell), a violent young offender who gets “starred up” (sent to an adult prison before he is legally an adult) and quickly gets into conflict with several other prisoners as well as guards and staff. He also gets roped into participating in a therapy group run by Oliver (Rupert Friend), a well-meaning if sometimes out-of-his-depth “posh boy” who sees Eric as something more than just an incorrigible thug. Not helping matters is the entire prison system, as well as the fact that Eric’s own father is doing a life sentence in the same prison and has very narrow views on how Eric should be behaving -- and talking about his feelings is not a part of it. The free-flowing conversations in the group therapy scenes are easily the film’s highlight, for me, as is the complicated dynamic between Eric and Oliver. So far as I can tell, this movie isn’t available to stream (well, not legally), but it is available on DVD.

More about this canon and these characters: Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Role reversal: Oliver as the con (jittery, shut off, sticking out like a sore thumb in prison with all his fancy learning, yet no pushover) and Eric as the newbie counselor (kid from the wrong side of the tracks made good? Youthful hoodlum turned around his life, now trying to help others via tough love and lots of swearing and maybe a bit of manipulation when called for?)

Likes:

I love pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories. I love character-driven and plot-driven stories equally, and I love fics which mix humor and angst/serious business when appropriate for the canon.

I love stories about characters at work and play, group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too, etc.

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

I especially love workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters are competent and dedicated to the job, and while they may not be exactly friends and they may well irritate one another, they still manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise and sometimes reluctance/discomfort). Or, if they can’t get along, show me why not and what’s preventing them from finding common ground.

In terms of ship dynamics, I love (where it fits the characters) banter, competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved), oh-god-why-did-it-have-to-be-you-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this, bickering yet loving couples, characters who are serious about their romantic interests, characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are, characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed, fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping. A dynamic I cannot resist is shipping a couple who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, one betrayed the other or they betrayed each other), and while they love and want each other they’re also not willing to change sides or surrender/compromise their identity for the other’s benefit, and how they might (or not) make their relationship work anyway.

I don’t have any very specific likes for smut, other than smut fitting the characters – show me how their canon dynamics spill over into the bedroom (or other place of congress). I also like sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves (e.g., the person who’s usually quiet or more passive taking charge, the more aggressive person goes with it possibly snarking or commenting on it as long as they can). And I like sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition, antagonism, oh-god-this-is-a-bad-idea-but-we’re-going-for-it-hammer-and-tongs, not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not, or just people getting way more into it or being more affected by it than they thought they would. When it fits the characters and their canon dynamic, you also can’t go wrong with we-both-wanted-this-for-forever-and-now-we-both-know-it-so-here-we-go-diving-in-headfirst. For het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – it’s all good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death, serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon

#yuletide #yuletide 2019 #dear author letter

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pickalilywrites · 7 years

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Half

Request: Could you do one with Erwin and Levi? I have a feeling you've been asked this before, but all I want is a totally platonic, non-shippy interaction between the two because I love their dynamic. They're both so brutally honest, almost rude to each other, but it's very clear they respect the hell out of the other. So could you? :) If not that, then maybe a Mikasa/Sasha story?

Word Count: 1,653

She likes to pay attention to how her friends eat. She can lie and say it's because she cares about them getting the proper nutrition everyday, but it's really because she's monitoring how much food she can pilfer off of them. Take, for example, Armin. He's really easy to steal food off of because he's always spacing out. Even if he does notice he's nice about letting Sasha sneak a bite anyway. Jean's more of a stickler about food, whining whenever she tries to sneakily take a piece of meat although occasionally she'll manage to haggle him for a vegetable instead because if she dips it in meat sauce it's relatively scrumptious. She never thinks about taking anything from Eren because he pretty much inhales whatever is on his plate as soon as he sits down. Historia used to give her food back when she went by Christa but she looked too much of a robot for Sasha to take any food without a clear conscious after she revealed her true identity. She has to fight Connie for any food off of his plate but he'll sometimes claim that he's full some nights and give her his leftovers, which she's always thankful for. Mikasa's kind of tough to judge. Most of the time she'll smack Sasha away as soon as she reaches out for even a grain of rice. Sometimes she'll catch Mikasa in a good mood though and the stoic girl will pretend she doesn't see her food being smuggled away from her. And now? Well…

"I don't think she's eating," Sasha suddenly says to Connie and Jean over dinner.

"Who?" Connie asks.

Jean is unsurprisingly the one who figures out who Sasha is talking about first. He's had an eye for Mikasa since the first day of training. "She means Mikasa."

"Yeah," she says. "Mikasa's never been one to wolf down her dinner like Eren or anything but I've noticed that she hasn't eaten very much at all ever since Eren and Historia were kidnapped."

"That's probably why," Jean mumbles, picking at his food a tad sullenly. It's no secret that he's pretty jealous about Mikasa's close relationship to Eren.

"Shouldn't she be eating more then?" Connie asks through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. "It's important that she keeps up her stamina. She can't possibly save Eren on an empty stomach. And Captain Levi did order us to eat up."

"She doesn't really like the captain in the first place so why would she even listen to him?" Sasha says, lowering her voice so that no one overhears her. She's pretty sure she's far from the captain's favorite already and she doesn't want him to dislike her anymore than he already does.

Jean stands up suddenly. "I'm going to talk to her."

Connie snickers, not even trying to hide the fact that he's laughing at his friend. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asks. "Most of the time you end up a blabbering mess in front of her."

He sits back down, crossing his arms across his chest like a disgruntled child. "What? So you're going to try to talk to her because that's a better idea? You'd be even worse than me!"

"Yeah, you can be kind of annoying," Sasha says without thinking.

She's never seen Connie look so shocked or offended. "You think I'm annoying?"

"Maybe I should go talk to her," Sasha says hurriedly, hoping to make Connie forget what she had just said but the way he looks at her tells her that she's not letting her off the hook anytime soon.

"Yeah, because you're a much better option than any of us," Jean snickers. "You're probably the one she likes the least because of all of the food you've stolen from her during our training days. Maybe that's the whole reason you want to talk to her in the first place. You're hoping her mood will make it even easier for you to get food from her." His chin rests on his hand and he smiles at Sasha smugly as if he's figured her all out.

She'll admit that that's the reason why she noticed in the first place. It's been so easy to steal food from Mikasa these past few days but she's insulted that Jean can't imagine her genuinely being worried for her comrade. Angry, she stands up. "I'm going to talk to her," she says, glaring at Jean.

Both Jean and Connie are startled. "Right now?" Connie asks.

"Yep!" she says, taking her dinner with her.

She can feel their eyes following her as she sits down across from Mikasa. Both Armin and Mikasa look up. Armin looks surprised but Mikasa looks like she couldn't care less that the bubbly hunter had taken a seat at her table.

"Hi, Sasha," Armin mumbles, forcing a smile on his face. He's probably hurting as much as Mikasa is, Sasha realizes, but at least he's not starving himself. Then again, his gloomy presence is most likely not helping Mikasa in the least bit.

"Jean wants to talk to you," Sasha says to Armin. She doesn't think she can handle both Armin and Mikasa at the same time and Armin has gotten along with Jean despite their differences. Maybe Jean could help him snap out of it while she talks to Mikasa.

Armin points to himself, startled. "He wants to talk to me?" He glances over where Connie and Jean sit and the two boys just stare stupidly and blankly back at him, more interested in watching Mikasa rather than the blonde genius. "He doesn't look like he's expecting me."

"Trust me, he does," Sasha assures him, waving him off.

He looks at her doubtfully but eventually does get up and leave, much to her relief.

When Mikasa sees that she's alone with Sasha, she sighs but doesn't say anything.

"Hi, Mikasa," Sasha says cheerfully. She usually counts on her chipper attitude to lighten the mood but she feels as if making the atmosphere around Mikasa less gloomy is an impossible feat. "Are you enjoying dinner?"

Mikasa picks at her food, moving around her plate with her fork. "It's okay," she responds.

Sasha notices that the food does look like it's been nibbled at a little bit but it mostly just looks as if Mikasa just pushed it around her plate a lot. The meat is cut up and spread apart making it seem as though it's been mostly eaten but Sasha suspects that Mikasa has only taken a bite of it at the very most. "The potatoes are good," Sasha says, desperately to talk about anything. "I mean, they're a little salty but they're better than usual."

"Hm."

"And the meat isn't dry this time!"

"Hm."

It's so frustrating talking to her. It's like talking to a tree or something, some sort of object that you know is alive but just can't or won't interact with you no matter how much you talk at it. "Come on, Mikasa, you've got to eat something. Armin's eaten more than you at dinner than all of your meals combined today and that guy eats like a mouse!"

"I've been eating," Mikasa says stiffly but the way that she avoids Sasha's gaze shows that she's lying. "I'm just not particularly hungry right now."

Sasha sighs. "Look, I know you miss Eren," she says quietly. She was hoping to avoid talking about Eren altogether but it seems like the only way to talk to Mikasa is to speak about things directly instead of beating around the bush. "We all miss him but not eating isn't going to help us get him back any faster."

"This food just tastes like garbage," Mikasa mumbles under her breath. She sounds like the captain for a second but Sasha decides this thought is best kept unsaid.

"It's better than nothing. If you don't eat, you won't be at your top form. Your movements will be sluggish and your reactions will be slow. You don't want that, do you?"

"Hm." It's the same response but the way she says it is different. She's fiddling with her food again but she actually looks like she's contemplating the thought of eating it instead of just picking it apart on her plate to make like she ate something. Sasha takes this as a sign of improvement even if the progress seems miniscule.

She's not really sure what else to do at this point but she has an idea and begins to tear her meat in half and then slapped it onto Mikasa's plate rather messily. Sasha ignores Mikasa's confused expression and sits back, a smile on her face. "Go on! Eat it. You can half of my meat. You can't not eat food that someone gives you! That'd be rude."

Mikasa's a little speechless for a while but then a grin spreads across her face. "This is supposed to be half?" she asks, stabbing the meat with her fork and bringing it up to inspect it closer. "This is more like a quarter of your share."

Sure enough the slab of meat on Sasha's plate is a whole lot bigger than the portion on Mikasa's and Sasha can't help but feel a little bit embarrassed. "Well, I factored in the pep talk from earlier when I was splitting it up so what I gave you is generous enough," she mumbles.

"Hm," Mikasa says again, but she nibbles at the beef that Sasha had given her. She's by no means happy right now but her expression is less blank than it was before and Sasha is happy to see Mikasa making an effort to eat her food.

By the end of mealtime Mikasa's plate is pretty much cleaned off. It's probably the first time Sasha has been happy about food that hasn't gone to her. She's not thinking of sharing meals with anyone again anytime soon but, damn, sharing her food feels pretty good.

#snk #sasha braus #mikasa ackerman #connie springer #jean kirstein #armin arlert

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faleronofkingsreach · 7 years

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Yuletide Letter 2017

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hello, and thanks for writing for me! This is my third year doing Yuletide, I’ve had fantastic experiences both other times, and I’m really excited about all of my requests (and offers, though that’s probably less relevant to you). I actually had a hard time narrowing down my requests for this year, which I think bodes well.

I am alessandralee on AO3, faleronofkingsreach on tumblr, and alessandra_lee on LJ.

My fandom requests are: Orphan Island - Lauren Snyder, Call the Midwife, Emerald City, Provost’s Dog - Tamora Pierce, The Bold Type, and Wayward Children Series - Seanan McGuire.

General Likes: worldbuilding, fics that focus on the relationships between characters (be they romantic/platonic/familial/adversarial/etc.), backstory, slice of life, future fic, pining, happy endings, holiday fic (winter holidays, universe-specific holidays, or otherwise).

General dislikes: 1st/2nd person point of view, focus on non-canon pregnancy/children, non-canon character death, explicit sex, rape/noncon, incest, graphic violence, gore, character bashing. Also, I’m not really interested in receiving AUs for Yuletide this year (with 1 exception mentioned under Wayward Children).

The Bold Type (Jane Sloan & Ryan Decker) I let friends and a barrage of Facebook ads talk me into starting this show and I fell in love with it, and with Jane Sloan specifically. I love that things scare her and embarrass her, but she does them anyway (and then writes something honest and heartfelt about it). I love her friendship with Kat and Sutton, so feel free to include them and any other characters from the show in your fic. I like Ryan, hence my requesting him, but the TBT really only shows him from Jane’s point of view, so I have a hard time really pinning him down.

I really enjoy the two of them together, and would love to receive a fic that involves the two of them giving a serious, exclusive relationship a try. Jane clearly has a certain idea about what Ryan is looking for from a woman, but she hasn’t given him much of a chance to prove otherwise (nor has he put much effort into getting one). But what if he did want to date Jane seriously, and only date her? It seems like he at least entertained the idea. I’m sure there would be some missteps along the way, but I’d love to see them put in the effort. Maybe they have to go separate ways for a while, but run into each other years down the line and find that the attraction’s still there. Do they give it another go? Or do they give casual another shot, only to eventually find they want to be less casual, and then try to broach the topic again?

Call the Midwife (Trixie Franklin & Christopher Dockerill) I forget how I started watching this show, but I’ve watched the last few seasons over long weekends with my mother. I love the historical aspect (fashion! medical breakthroughs! the horrible trauma of a generation that survived World War II!), as well as the focus on women and all the different types of relationships that they have. It took me a season or two to warm up to Trixie, but as we’ve gotten to see more sides of her I’ve come to love the vulnerability that she hides under her perfectly applied eyeliner. I’ve been hoping she’ll get some sort of happy ending since she broke off her engagement to Tom, and I like the idea of Christopher being that for her. Neither one of them was entirely forthcoming about their pasts at the start of their relationship, but it was to avoid getting hurt (and in Christopher’s case, also to avoid his daughter getting hurt).

Please, please, please give me a happy ending (or middle) for these two. Whether it’s a sweet holiday interlude (I love the show’s Christmas episodes, but I’m also in for any other holiday), or something that has them both opening up a little more about their pasts (Trixie’s childhood and alcoholism, and Christopher’s divorce), and not letting that get in the way of their future. I’d love to see more of Trixie getting used to the idea of being in a relationship with a man who has a child. Trixie was really great with Alexandra during their first meeting, but things aren’t always that easy or pleasant when there’s a child involved. Alternately, I think there could be a lot to explore by having Christopher be formally introduced to the rest of the nuns and midwives. I love all of the canon pairings on the show, so feel free to include them, but I’d like the focus to be on Trixie and Christopher.

Emerald City (Dorothy Gale & Lucas/Roan) Oh man, this show sucked me in from the first episode and I was so sad to hear that it was canceled. I love tv shows/books/movies that take a well-known story and twist it up, and this was no exception. At the start, Dorothy was so clearly thrown off-kilter by being sent to a world with completely different rules than her own, but she learned to play by them and play by them well. I also love how emotional she could be. When something affected her, it was clear for everyone to see.

For this fandom, I’d like to see something that picks up where the show left off. I think there’s so much to explore there, with Dorothy returning to Oz and also being around Lucas/Roan again. Something that shows them trying to figure out where they stand with each other now would be much appreciated. They were lovers and they were enemies, and they very nearly killed each other. How do they reconcile that? Is he Lucas or is Roan or is he some combination of both of them now? Where are his loyalties now? Can they trust each other? So much of their relationship is completely up in the air and can go down so many different paths. It’s exciting to think about. I also really loved both of their relationships with Sylvie, so feel free to include her.

Orphan Island - Laurel Snyder (Abigail) I am a children’s librarian and I read this book for a committee I’m on at work. I wouldn’t say that I like the way it was open ended and mysterious, but I loved the book and the unanswered questions have definitely been circling around in my head since I finished. I will give Laurel Snyder a lot of credit, because usually books like this annoy me rather than intrigue me.

So I’d love to have your take any of the many unanswered questions. Who was Abigail, where was she from, and what happened to her? How did the first children end up on the Island? Where to the children start out from before coming to the Island, and where do they end up afterwards? Is there a purpose to the Island? How does the Island manage to provide the children with everything they need (at least until it’s rules are broke, and then how does it know the rules have been broken)? I know I requested Abigail, but if you’d like to focus on any other character or just give me worldbuilding, you do not need to include her.

Provost’s Dog - Tamora Pierce (Sabine) I’ve been reading Tamora Pierce’s books since I was a kid, and about two years ago I did a re-read of everything she’s written. I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about the Provost’s Dog trilogy when it originally came out, but the second time around I got so much out of it. As an adult, I loved seeing the Tortall of the past, as well as all these events/trends/movements/etc that created the Tortall we see in Pierce’s other books.

Sabine in particular is a great example of this. We tend to think that as time moves forward society gets more progressive, but Sabine is a lady knight in a society that is becoming more narrow in its gender roles. It would be fantastic to receive something that explores that more. How does the Cult of Gentle Mother affect her life as a knight, or even her life farther down the line when she’s put down her sword? How does it affect women knights as a whole? Alternately, something that shows Sabine processing/recovering from Tunstall’s betrayal and coming to terms with the inequality he saw in their relationship would be wonderful, as would something showing her relationships with Bekah and/or Clary in the wake of this.

Wayward Children series - Seanan McGuire (any) Oh man, I was in love with this series from the moment I first read a description. And then I was completely awed by Seanan McGuire’s handling of it, especially in regards to the worlds she created for these children to have spent time in. I found every character in this tagset so interesting, and they each have so much about them to be explored, so whoever it was that you offered and whoever it is that you ended up writing about, I’m sure I’ll love it. I’m not really interested in anything shippy with regards to this series (I don’t think I really have ships for this series), so feel free to have any characters interacting in any way. Also, this is my first time requesting ‘any’ in an exchange, so I’m sorry if I’m explaining things I shouldn’t or not explaining things that I should.

Some ideas: We’ve seen/heard in first person what Nancy and the twins’ worlds were like, so I’d love to see or hear more about where Loriel, Christopher, Eleanor, and Kade went. That could be done set in their first trips to those worlds, or because one of them finds a portal back, or whatever interests you. I’d also love to see an alternate universe in which Loriel does make it back to her world. We know the Spider Queen mourned her for a long time; what was their relationship like? What happens to Jack, Jill, and/or Nancy now that they’re back in the worlds they longed for? Is it different now that things are permanent, now that they have a more concrete understanding of where they are and how they got there and where they were from? For Eleanor, what happens if she run out of time and her door closes? What happens when Eleanor goes through her door, and Kade is now in charge of the school? What would it be like for Kade to cross paths with someone who had been to the same world that he was in (maybe someone who wants to go back)? Also, any sort of worldbuilding would be much appreciated, regardless of which world you are building and which characters appear.

So that’s my letter. I hope it was easy to follow and that you now have an idea about what it is that you want to write. I am eagerly looking forward to opening your fic.

Best of luck!

Alessandra

#yuletide #yuletide 2017 #the bold type #call the midwife #emerald city #orphan island #provost's dog #wayward children

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reconditarmonia · 7 years

Text

Dear Yuletide Writer

Hello, lovely writer!

I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3 (and have been since LJ days, but my LJ is locked down and I only have a DW to see locked things).

General likes:

-- Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

-- Loyalty kink, whether commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms, and the trust associated with it. Sometimes-but-not-always relatedly, idealism. I guess the two combined might be, in general, the idea of nobility of character and what that means.

-- Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

-- Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff.

-- Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

-- Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

-- Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

-- Eucatastrophe.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; Christmas/Christian themes; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex.

Fandom: Dòu Máah Dáan | Peking Opera Blues (1986)

Characters: Tsao Wan

This film is so much MORE than I ever dreamed. More hilarious, more shippy, more dramatic. I think what I want most from this fandom is something on a similar emotional scale - not necessarily something where the plot itself has a national or international scope, but something that has room for opera slapstick, corpse puppetry, and torture; material concerns, and high aspirations; saving each other’s lives, and having sleepovers. Thematically, I’m really interested in the way the film shows friendship and familial love sometimes dovetailing with ethics and ideological goals and sometimes conflicting with them, and in the various ways women can find, or seek, their own independence.

Tsao Wan is the only character I’ve put in my request. I was fully expecting to come out of the film with femslash ships, and instead I have a big OT5 and a huge crush on Brigitte Lin (okay, that part I could see coming), so I’d be happy with any combination of the main five, including the two men, who were not nominated, as long as Tsao Wan is there. Some combination possibilities: how do any of them meet up again after the events of the film, whether by chance - do Bai Niu and/or Sheung Hung happen to be making a tour stop somewhere Tsao Wan has a mission? does Tsao Wan and Ling’s work take them near Tung’s village farm? - or intentionally - how would a new opera about Tsao Wan and Ling’s exciting adventures be created by Bai Niu and/or Sheung Hung, in terms of research and role creation? Or maybe Tsao Wan needs Bai Niu’s skills for a mission. In fact, maybe she needs everyone’s skills for a mission. Recruitment road trip! Some solo possibilities: what was Tsao Wan’s time in Europe like? Was she involved in any political activity there? What does she do post-film as History continues? In anything set post-film, I’d like to know that all five characters are important to each other, even if they’re not actually in the fic and/or sexually involved.

If you want to get really plotty, I love heist and con stuff like Leverage, Ocean’s Eleven (remake), and The Italian Job (original), where there’s a Plan with steps and roles, and then it plays out. If straight-up casefic isn’t your style, it could be fun to throw some shippy tropes at this canon (fake marriage where Tsao Wan is pretending to be the husband? hurt/comfort or sickfic? hell, I’d read accidental baby acquisition), but tropey stuff is not necessary - I’m just trying to throw out some ideas to get things moving. Ideally there’d be at least a figleaf of plot in the background, even if it’s not casefic.

Fandom-specific DNW: Explicit references to torture are still a hard DNW (I covered my eyes during the scene in question when watching the film), but I recognize it’s part of canon and consequently might be part of the world of the fic. If someone is tortured or creatively executed in your story, it’s fine to mention it but I do not want to know how.

---

Fandom: Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

Characters: Bathsheba Everdene

I didn’t nominate this and it didn’t occur to me that it would be in the tagset, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it! One thing that always sticks in my mind about this novel is the way Hardy calls Bathsheba “the young farmer” just as he refers to the men as farmers - which, just saying, is more than most people writing about this story can do - and so, that being the case, what I’m most interested in is something about Bathsheba as farmer. One day in the life or four seasons in the life or five plantings/harvests in the life, or pseudo-academic fic about a case study of a woman farmer in the Victorian era, or a conflict between the farm and nature that Bathsheba has to decide how to solve.

Feel free to bring in the other nominated characters or other major characters if it suits what you’re trying to do, but what I’m really looking for is a focus on Bathsheba’s work, determination, and process of learning. I’d also love to read something like a merchant ship AU (as the first alternate setting that came to mind where it would be not exactly the done thing for her to captain her inherited ship and make commercial decisions herself - although I do have to point out that contrary to popular belief, there were a lot of women on shipboard in the age of sail, may this be useful - but also where nature and luck/fate are as influential as they are in the original setting), or something in which the land, superstition, and ritual were more overtly magical.

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Fandom: 月刊少女野崎くん | Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Characters: Kashima Yuu, Nozaki Umetarou

Pick a trope. Have them fuck it up.

That’s one of the things that makes me love this canon - the simultaneous send-up of and indulgence in tropes, in a very good-natured way. (Another way I’ve described its genre: “nothing happens, but very dramatically.” Everything is shocking or devastating or the pinnacle of bliss.) Kashima and Nozaki are two of the characters whose propensity to do this is most likely to set a story in motion, due to Nozaki’s experimentation/observation for his manga and Kashima’s princely self-fashioning and going 120% on everything; I also love Kashima’s bifauxnen-ness, acting talent, and earnest failboating, and the way that Nozaki could have been written as a tall-dark-handsome-stoic cipher guy and instead is just as quirky as anyone else. That said, this is an OR request, not an AND, and I’d also be happy to read stories about pretty much anyone from the nominated tagset (except Mikoshiba or Mayu; I don’t know Mayu very well because I originally got into this through the anime, and Mikoshiba just isn’t my fave, although I have no objection to his appearing in the story).

There are all sorts of lists out there of common shoujo(/romcom/fanfic) tropes if you’re not sure where to start. And, because Nozaki is all about subverting gendered characterization and role-boxing, and also about people trying to make their lives conform to narrative, go ahead and apply those tropes to whichever characters you feel would be the most interesting or fun. Feel free to pick non-high-school-setting ones, too, if there's magical/historical/high-society shoujo you want to see them tackle, or to take a play that Kashima (and whoever else) is involved in as a jumping-off point.

As you may have gathered, I love the way the canon plays with romance tropes, but I would prefer no overt Shipfic. If you’d like to include a ship, whether slash/femslash or het, I’d like for it to be handled without much seriousness, and for friendship with characters who aren’t part of the ship to be a significant part of the fic, as per canon. I do really like the show’s variety of friendships between characters of different temperaments, interests, and sexes.

If you’re really getting a “why don’t you just rewatch/reread the canon, reconditarmonia” vibe off this, which I’m kind of giving myself, you could try sex comedy future fic? Give them magical powers? What I’m most interested in, wherever you go with this, is the playing-with-tropes thing.

Fandom-specific DNW: I love Hori and Kashima’s relationship, but I’d strongly prefer that her feelings for him not be written as overtly romantic. High levels of ambiguity/intensity/tropey-ness are fine and great.

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Fandom: Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett

Characters: Any (Alice “Wazzer” Goom, Jack Jackrum, Magda “Tonker” Halter, Maladict, Polly “Ozzer” Perks, Tilda “Lofty” Tewt)

Give me all the loyalty kink for this fandom. Characters rescuing each other from peril, risking their reputation or position or ethics to defend each other, accomplishing the impossible or sacrificing things without even thinking twice because one trusts the other’s orders or judgment. Or A not going off the leash or into danger to defend B because B said not to, to protect A’s conscience or life or reputation. Can be romantic or platonic - I ship Polly/Mal and Tonker/Lofty, but I would also be delighted with Polly&Jackrum, Wazzer&Polly, or other non-romantic twosomes or moresomes in situations of loyalty and trust. Maybe Polly sends Mal on a dangerous mission, or Tonker is captured after she and Lofty burn down another place where women and girls are being abused, or Polly protects Jackrum’s secret/s from someone who could reveal them, or Wazzer ends up in the field again with the general’s retinue and Polly and Mal rescue her from danger (or vice versa!!). What strengths or sacrifices do they have at their disposal for each other?

Pratchett-esque voices would be great. He’s really, really good at sucker-punching the reader with sincerity in an overall satiric mode, and I think that style lends itself well to this sort of thing.

I’m not going to lie, Polly is my fave. I like that this could have been a generic coming-of-age or women-in-war story, where the protagonist learns that she’s brave or worthwhile and then the crisis is past, but instead Polly learns that she’s a cunning bastard and a hell of a sergeant, and being a one-off hero in a country that’s at peace and making slow social progress isn’t good enough for her. That said, just because I’m better able to articulate what I like about Polly doesn’t mean I’d be less excited for fic about anyone else! I think that’s something I’d want to explore for any of the characters who enlist in the course of the story - what are these women good at? What lets them fulfill their potential? What do they want when their hand isn’t being forced? Or for Jackrum, who’s already gone through that whole process by the time the story begins, any more backstory would be fabulous.

If you’re going the Polly/Mal route, I also love ludicrous levels of sexual tension in a military context (I think it’s the unavoidable proximity + the presence of others making it hard to act on it).

Fandom-specific DNW: vampire romance tropes (such as turning and/or immortality) as focus; non-female pronouns/headcanons.

Fandom: Simoun (Anime)

Characters: Any (Aaeru, Dominuura, Halconf, Mamiina, Neviril, Paraietta, Plumbish Priestesses, Rodoreamon)

Simoun somehow ended up being a really weirdly meaningful show to me. I loved how all these women got to be flawed and fucked-up, noble and loyal. How, in the mold of all my favorite epic shoujo anime, it starts off beautiful and fine and then Shit Gets Very Real and that’s actually one of the themes of the show - we had a little debate a few weeks ago on FFA as to whether or not Simoun was a military canon, and the fact that circumstances have remade a team of priestesses in fancy quarters and magic flying machines who are there to pray to God, put off their choice of sex, use their talents, maintain or claw their way into a social position, into a military force involved in a war - that’s an idea that the characters themselves struggle with in the show. (Neviril’s scene in the hearing is one of my favorites.) How everyone gets character development, in the sense of learning and changing, and even what seem like annoying mandatory straight subplots actually end up serving that thematic or character development, to say nothing of the more focal relationships between the leads (not just Neviril and Aeru, but also Mamiina and Rodoreamon, Neviril and Paraietta...)

I’d really like to read a fic where an individual character’s development or two characters’ relationship is similarly tied in to plot developments; it doesn’t have to be a plotty fic as such, but I was very interested in the way the developments of the war and the pilots/priestesses’ actions in it precipitated changes in their relationships. So how might Neviril and Aeru’s relationship develop in the other world (what are they doing?), or Mamiina and Rodoreamon’s on the Messis when they’re not the narrative focus before Mamiina’s last mission and the braid thing? (Or if this is more your speed, dig into that and see how a character grows or the relationship between characters develops when that’s not being moved along by outside events in the same way, especially if they’re aware of that being an issue. When Neviril and Aeru are outside the normal flow of time, or Paraietta and Rodoreamon are civilians, for example.) I’m also interested in all the permutations of loyalty we see in the show - like loyalty to a position over loyalty to a side (as with the Plumbish priestesses’ siding with our Sibyllae), loyalty that develops before liking or friendship, the devoted loyalty to Neviril. I like the show’s military themes despite its magical-girl visuals. I think this is also a canon where it would make sense for sexual first times to be part of a fic - what does that mean for the characters you choose?

I should also say that due to all the magic and timespace warping in the show, I am more than okay with post-canon fic that gets characters back together who were separated by canon, if that’s what you want. You can resurrect Mamiina, or have Neviril and Aeru visit the main reality/timeline again. Or play with timespace even more - time loop fic? (Edit: This didn’t even occur to me until I found out about the IF post, but this fandom might lend itself to interactive fiction, too.)

#yuletide #peking opera blues #far from the madding crowd #gsnk #monstrous regiment #simoun #dear author letters

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