Dear Yuletide Writer 2019
Annual actual use of this journal
Dear Yuletide Writer,
I’m so excited for Yuletide this year! The fandoms are such a mix of new things and favorite classics, many of which I scrolled by on the tags list and just wanted to read, whether I receive or write for them!
DISLIKES Before I get into the fandoms individually, I suppose I should let you know what my squicks are None of these are triggers in particular, I’ve got depression, but it’s managed, and I don’t have any major traumas to worry about in particular. I don’t mind NSFW/explicit fic, but it’s also not often my reason for reading. That said, the following tags make me likely to hit the back button: watersports, alpha/omega, knotting, feces, mpreg. I’m not particularly fond of girl!penis as a kink, though it’s different if the character is actually dealing with being trans or intersex. I’m not that crazy about smut in general. I’m the kind who likes to use fanfic to expand stories, to explore the world a universe processes, or to explore the found-families in a narrative past the happily ever after.
LIKES One thing I do like that a lot of people don’t is bloodplay, and I’m good with consensual BDSM.
I’m bi, with a deeply abiding love for f/f fic. I definitely have het ships that I’ll fill you in on, but I still love stories where those ladies interact with their female friends. I’m very pro kid!fic, I adore time stamps, alternate POVs, epistolary fic, social media fic, anything that explores the world that an author has already built. I wasn’t ever the kid simply rubbing their Barbies together, I acted out Barbie and Ken meeting while they babysat Kelly and Tommy. (True story: these stories were also written down in a notebook I carried around at school. Basically, I started writing Barbie fanfic at the age of eight.)
I’ve received some great Yuletide gifts via letters where I’ve spelled out specific desires, but this year I don’t have specific stories I want written so much as worlds I’d like to see explored further. What are they? Glad you asked, friend!
What I put in here is what I’m putting in the form because I do it at the same time.
The Afterward:
E.K. Johnston is one of my favorite writers, and I love this book so much even though high fantasy isn’t usually my thing. I nominated this one, and I picked these characters very specifically because I love the idea of Olsa and Kalanthe raising this two girls, their backgrounds clashing, guiding them through grief, and helping them discover who they want to be, even if that’s not who their guardians are.
The Rescuers
I nominated this one, too. At some point this year, the R-E-S-C-U-E song got stuck in my head, and I found myself wondering, basically, what the fuck? How did we basically get the equivalent of the mouse UN dedicated to rescuing people who contact them, in one case specifically via a message in a bottle!? Do other animals have similar organizations? Are they at all related to the mouse-universe of The Great Mouse Detective? I don’t know, YTW, but maybe you do! Characters chosen because Miss Bianca and Bernard are the best, and there are only two other RAS members.
Carmilla
The Carmilla web series introduced me to this book, and I love them both shamelessly. However, I feel like fics based on the web series tend to overlook the horror; likewise Carmilla, princess or queen of vampires is mentioned in other vampire lit, but her lesbianism is ignored, as well as the implied turning of Laura-or the only way the novel ends without them both dead. I want the story of both of them, a vampire countess and a newly turned provincial girl, painting the world red over the centuries. All the pomp and circumstance of a vampire story, as well as the blood. The romance, without ignoring the horror. Biting and bloodplay encouraged, but I don’t want the whole thing to be smut, please. Feel free to go deeper into Carmilla’s backstory, too. Maybe via another scholar in our day discovering their story through a more modern lens? or a more simple narrative, up to you.
Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess
I nominated this series, and I love everything about it. The adorable heart-eye relationships, the diversity of the crew, the accurate depiction of a spectrum of sexualities and abilities. I’d love to know more about this world, and possibly how it connects/interacts with the world of Princeles as a whole, but anything set in this world would appease me. Accidental Cabin Child Acquisition! Adventure fic! Visiting settled friends and their kids years later! I guess I do love the idea of there being kids involved, mostly because I imagine Ximena taking in all of the lost kids they find in port cities and villages, and looking on fondly while raven teaches them to sword fight, but just more at-sea adventures would be stellar, too!
The Lady Astronaut Series
There’s going to be a third book in this series next year and I am thrilled. I love Elma’s voice, and the world Kowal created, and I want to know more about it. I didn’t include Stetson because i’m not interested in that rivalry. I want to know more about the world post-asteroid. The time that the book crosses over between them moving from Florence’s house to the resurrected space agency. How the refugees are settled, how the era effects that, what things are like for a family who isn’t as close to things as the Wexlers. Kowal goes into it a bit, but anything expanded would be great.
Nevernight
These. Books. Oh. Em. Gee. Feel free to do anything with any characters tbh, back series or sequel-esque. I want to know more about this world to be honest, its pseudo-Roman vibes, what happens after Mia destroys Godsgrave, because I can’t imagine her and Ashlinn not getting involved in what comes next in some way, even if it’s just them ensuring that no child orphaned by what happened has to grow up vindictive and parentless. Like, can’t you see them caring for other orphans in the name of Mercurio and Jonnen? But I could also get behind stories of little street-child Mia! Honestly just more. More of. this.
Dear Yuletide Writer,
I’m so excited for Yuletide this year! The fandoms are such a mix of new things and favorite classics, many of which I scrolled by on the tags list and just wanted to read, whether I receive or write for them!
DISLIKES Before I get into the fandoms individually, I suppose I should let you know what my squicks are None of these are triggers in particular, I’ve got depression, but it’s managed, and I don’t have any major traumas to worry about in particular. I don’t mind NSFW/explicit fic, but it’s also not often my reason for reading. That said, the following tags make me likely to hit the back button: watersports, alpha/omega, knotting, feces, mpreg. I’m not particularly fond of girl!penis as a kink, though it’s different if the character is actually dealing with being trans or intersex. I’m not that crazy about smut in general. I’m the kind who likes to use fanfic to expand stories, to explore the world a universe processes, or to explore the found-families in a narrative past the happily ever after.
LIKES One thing I do like that a lot of people don’t is bloodplay, and I’m good with consensual BDSM.
I’m bi, with a deeply abiding love for f/f fic. I definitely have het ships that I’ll fill you in on, but I still love stories where those ladies interact with their female friends. I’m very pro kid!fic, I adore time stamps, alternate POVs, epistolary fic, social media fic, anything that explores the world that an author has already built. I wasn’t ever the kid simply rubbing their Barbies together, I acted out Barbie and Ken meeting while they babysat Kelly and Tommy. (True story: these stories were also written down in a notebook I carried around at school. Basically, I started writing Barbie fanfic at the age of eight.)
I’ve received some great Yuletide gifts via letters where I’ve spelled out specific desires, but this year I don’t have specific stories I want written so much as worlds I’d like to see explored further. What are they? Glad you asked, friend!
What I put in here is what I’m putting in the form because I do it at the same time.
The Afterward:
E.K. Johnston is one of my favorite writers, and I love this book so much even though high fantasy isn’t usually my thing. I nominated this one, and I picked these characters very specifically because I love the idea of Olsa and Kalanthe raising this two girls, their backgrounds clashing, guiding them through grief, and helping them discover who they want to be, even if that’s not who their guardians are.
The Rescuers
I nominated this one, too. At some point this year, the R-E-S-C-U-E song got stuck in my head, and I found myself wondering, basically, what the fuck? How did we basically get the equivalent of the mouse UN dedicated to rescuing people who contact them, in one case specifically via a message in a bottle!? Do other animals have similar organizations? Are they at all related to the mouse-universe of The Great Mouse Detective? I don’t know, YTW, but maybe you do! Characters chosen because Miss Bianca and Bernard are the best, and there are only two other RAS members.
Carmilla
The Carmilla web series introduced me to this book, and I love them both shamelessly. However, I feel like fics based on the web series tend to overlook the horror; likewise Carmilla, princess or queen of vampires is mentioned in other vampire lit, but her lesbianism is ignored, as well as the implied turning of Laura-or the only way the novel ends without them both dead. I want the story of both of them, a vampire countess and a newly turned provincial girl, painting the world red over the centuries. All the pomp and circumstance of a vampire story, as well as the blood. The romance, without ignoring the horror. Biting and bloodplay encouraged, but I don’t want the whole thing to be smut, please. Feel free to go deeper into Carmilla’s backstory, too. Maybe via another scholar in our day discovering their story through a more modern lens? or a more simple narrative, up to you.
Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess
I nominated this series, and I love everything about it. The adorable heart-eye relationships, the diversity of the crew, the accurate depiction of a spectrum of sexualities and abilities. I’d love to know more about this world, and possibly how it connects/interacts with the world of Princeles as a whole, but anything set in this world would appease me. Accidental Cabin Child Acquisition! Adventure fic! Visiting settled friends and their kids years later! I guess I do love the idea of there being kids involved, mostly because I imagine Ximena taking in all of the lost kids they find in port cities and villages, and looking on fondly while raven teaches them to sword fight, but just more at-sea adventures would be stellar, too!
The Lady Astronaut Series
There’s going to be a third book in this series next year and I am thrilled. I love Elma’s voice, and the world Kowal created, and I want to know more about it. I didn’t include Stetson because i’m not interested in that rivalry. I want to know more about the world post-asteroid. The time that the book crosses over between them moving from Florence’s house to the resurrected space agency. How the refugees are settled, how the era effects that, what things are like for a family who isn’t as close to things as the Wexlers. Kowal goes into it a bit, but anything expanded would be great.
Nevernight
These. Books. Oh. Em. Gee. Feel free to do anything with any characters tbh, back series or sequel-esque. I want to know more about this world to be honest, its pseudo-Roman vibes, what happens after Mia destroys Godsgrave, because I can’t imagine her and Ashlinn not getting involved in what comes next in some way, even if it’s just them ensuring that no child orphaned by what happened has to grow up vindictive and parentless. Like, can’t you see them caring for other orphans in the name of Mercurio and Jonnen? But I could also get behind stories of little street-child Mia! Honestly just more. More of. this.