GLAD TIDINGS! » Yuletide Letter 2013
Hello dear Yuletide Author! Before we even begin, I just want to say a) this is my first time doing Yuletide (HI!), and b) how extremely grateful and bonkers excited I am to read whatever it is you choose to write.
Before we get into the actual requests, I figured I'd cover the more general things I like and dislike when it comes to fic.
Things I love: Dialogue! I love snappy, in-character dialogue. The more banter, the better. And beyond that, all those characterization-building quiet moments. Nine times out of ten, I’m more interested in characterization than I am in complicated plot structure. I just really love character dynamics, and I especially love reading/witnessing the bonds built between characters and the relationships developed from there (be they platonic or romantic).
In the romance column (should you go that route), I LOVE SEXUAL TENSION BETWEEN CHARACTERS. That warranted all-caps, man. The build-up is almost always my favorite part where romance is concerned. Also, tied to the romance department of “Things I Love,” I honestly love when a writer runs with a commonly used trope - fake dating! sharing a bed! friends with benefits! all the clichéd things! - yet finds a way to put a fresh and fun spin on them. Smut/porn is more than okay by me, but not necessary. If you decide to go to there, I definitely prefer realistic, even awkward sex over anything else. But mainly, I just really love characters who are obviously - even if it’s to everyone else and not themselves - into each other and appreciate each other.
AUs! I love AUs! I’m not sure how well that’d vibe with the fandoms I’ve listed below, but if your heart desires an AU, believe me when I say, mine will as well. (In conjunction, I love crossovers too! I just really love characters I love interacting. At the bottom of this post will be a link to my tumblr in case you want to peruse what other fandoms I’m into should a crossover be something you’d want to write!). It can be a whole big overhaul AU where the characters and their story are now set in a Wild West ghost town, on a space station, in gangland 1920s Chicago etc., etc., or an AU that diverts from the original canon but is still set in the same universe: I am into both.
Also, I will never say no to a zombie apocalypse AU.
I like angst to a believable degree (sometimes the world sucks!) but I also really enjoy happy, or at least hopeful, endings (though I’m not much of a fan of gratuitous fluff). I think what I am trying to say is, I don’t want to be depressed on Christmas, and I like a good balance between happy and sad. (And as a postscript to the word Christmas, I’d be more than okay and in fact most likely thrilled if the story you choose to write is set during the holidays; that’s a plus not a minus for me).
A catch-all list of other things I love: nonlinear storytelling, road trips, characters hanging out at bars, characters getting drunk (sometimes at bars), stories set in hotels, first times, makeouts, friendships, found families.
And, the things I don’t like: Babies or kid!fic (we’ll throw mpreg under this umbrella, too). Non-con or extreme kink. Major character deaths. Character bashing, slut-shaming, all of that business.
Despite all that text, I’m not that difficult to please. Honestly. You offered to write characters I love, and to say I am appreciative is a real understatement.
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Rubicon
Tanya MacGaffin, Will Travers
I got into this show three years too late. I suppose though regardless of when I watched it, thirteen episodes would still seem like too short of a run to me. I wanted more to everyone’s stories! What I would really love to read is more about Tanya. It can be pre-series, it can be post-series, it can be smack-dab-in-the-middle-of-the-series. You can flesh out her addiction narrative if you want to, or talk about her stint in rehab, or how she got the job at API, or whether she really does quit in the finale. Or something else altogether! I’d love if Will (and if you want, Miles and Grant) played a role in whatever story you choose to tell, as I always really enjoyed her interactions with him (as well as with Miles and Grant, should you desire to include them as well!). One of my favorite scenes from the show was the scene between Will and Tanya in the stairwell leading to the roof and she was mad at him because he didn’t have her back during the team meeting which led Will to talk about good versus bad fear and how good fear serves their job well but the bad fear doesn’t. I just found that interaction between the both of them so fascinating, and would have loved to have seen more of it on the show, and would certainly love to read fic that featured the both of them in some capacity.
I also think I’d love a story that picked up a couple years later from where the finale left off. It wouldn’t need to be Tanya-centric, but I’d love to check in with her and with Will and see what’s become of them and what has happened to them in the intervening years.
A lot of options here! And, hey, if you’re game I’m totally game for more espionage and paranoia and intrigue, haha, whether that means more on the Fishers Island gang or a whole new conspiracy for Will et al to uncover (or abet, I suppose! plot twist!).
Hart of Dixie
Wade Kinsella, Lemon Breeland
Lemon is easily my favorite character on Hart of Dixie, and I was so happy with last season’s plot development where both her and Wade went into business as co-bar owners. Their dynamic is so much fun to me! There’s so much history there and so much mutual antagonism that has given way to this really awesome, begrudging friendship. I’d love more of that, and for that friendship to dovetail into a wacky romance while they struggle to run a successful bar and restaurant.
I really don’t have a specific request here. As I mentioned above, I am game for all the romantic comedy tropes, haha. They embark on another, more disastrous road trip! Bad weather strikes Bluebell and they’re stuck at the Rammer Jammer! Or, running with what was set up during the third season premiere: fake dating! I am all in for whatever crazy shenanigans you might cook up for them to endeavor upon, whether it’s any of those trope-y suggestions or something else altogether.
The Bridge (TV 2013)
Sonya Cross, Marco Ruiz
I really enjoyed the first season of this show, and I think my favorite part about it was the evolution of Sonya and Marco’s relationship. I’d love to see more of that explored - more unexpected visits by Sonya at Marco’s house, more shared drinks and conversation, more of Sonya opening up.
I’d definitely be open to casefic for these two, whether you invent an entire new crime for them to investigate or you continue the girls of Juarez plot that really started to take off towards the end of the season, but it’s not a necessity. I’m not particularly invested or interested in the “revenge” portion of Marco’s plot established at the end of the season finale, but if you felt you could mine something interesting and something involving Sonya from that, I’d be happy to read that. What I am really interested in is just furthering the relationship between Sonya and Marco, platonically or otherwise. (And by otherwise, I mean bad decision-making on both their parts resulting in a drunken one-night stand - or a succession of one-night stands - rather than a full-fledged romance).
I really loved all the characters on the show, so feel free to include Hank or Fausto or anyone else.
Mad Men
Peggy Olson, Stan Rizzo
You know how I mentioned I loved AUs above? This is definitely where I can see that love playing out, haha. Not that I don’t enjoy them in their actual canon setting (and I’d be more than jazzed to read that! so no worries!), but for me the sky’s the limit where AUs are concerned with the two of them. They are such distinct and awesome characters that I think they can be plunked down into any universe and it would work, haha. Modern-day advertisers? Sure! Presidential campaign workers in the 1960s, 1970s, or present-day? ABSOLUTELY. College!AU where Peggy’s all about the dean’s list and Stan’s an obnoxious frat boy? Definitely. Hollywood screenwriters, beleaguered journalists, disaffected graphic designers in Portland, squabbling bar workers Cheers-esque AU - yes to all the above!
In all seriousness though, one of my favorite things about Mad Men is how quietly and along-the-sidelines Peggy and Stan’s relationship has progressed. Stan obviously respects and admires Peggy so much and I loved loved loved how after Peggy left SCDP in Season Five, Season Six showed the two of them and their seemingly regular nighttime phone chats and that they hadn’t fallen out of touch. Honestly, if this fic was just a whole random catalog of phone conversations the both of them have had over the course of their shared existences, I’d be over the moon to read that.
Rectify
Amantha Holden
Rectify was one of my favorite TV shows I watched this past year and for a good while after the finale I couldn’t get the show out of my head. I just really loved the atmosphere and the slow approach to the entire show and how much focus was given to all these great character moments.
I think I loved Amantha the most, and what I would love to read more than anything is just more about her. What was her life like when her brother Daniel was first arrested and then sentenced to death? Does she ever have doubts, even if they are just to herself, of his innocence? What has happened for her in the 19 years Daniel’s been in prison? What was she doing in Atlanta? What is she going to do now that she’s moved back home? I just have so many curiosities and questions about her and the life that exists for her outside those few days depicted in the first season of the show. I’d love to read a fic that explored any of these questions or presented new ones.
Once again, I can't thank you enough, stranger! If you still need other references for what I'm into, there is my tumblr, and my LJ fic tag is here and my AO3 account is here. YOU ARE THE BEST.
Much love,
falseeeyelashes