DEAR YULETIDE WRITER ♥
This is my first year, and I’m blown away by the thought that you’re reading this to write me something. Because I’m a little bit psychic, I just know I’m going to love my present. This letter is my Yuletide request + general extra things (if that helps!)
THINGS ABOUT ME
-AO3
-Tumblr
-Fandom tags: 2 Broke Girls • Archer • Bride & Prejudice • Brooklyn Nine-Nine • Emma Frost • Galaxy Quest
LIKES:
-AU.* Put the ‘alternate’ in AU: unusual occupations (ballet company, croupier, realistic spy, shoemaker, IDK) and crazy scenarios (a gulag, the ISS, a deadly tournament, space opera, etc.)
-Dialogue. Witty banter, casual danger dialogue, unintentional reveals about the characters, suspense-ratcheting, etc.
-Happy endings.
-Plot-driven stories, rather than pure character studies. It doesn’t have to be the most intricate plot since Inception; just a simple or plotty (or anything in between) storyline connecting the beginning and the end.
*This is only if you want to. I love the canon of the requested fandoms as much as I love AUs, so I would be genuinely happy with either.
DISLIKES:
-Clichés (mooks being simple-minded or easy to defeat, overdone romance tropes, Villain Ball).
-Excessive angst or character death. Pure fluff.
-Medieval Europe fantasy. If you want to go fantasy, or add fantasy fiction elements, that are not Eurocentric, I’m all for it!
-PWP. I’m ambivalent to explicit sex scenes in general. Bring on the UST and the build-up and then… fade to black, give me the general idea of what happens next, leave them hanging, whatever you want.
FANDOM SPECIFIC THINGS
My requests have “Any” in the character field because I don’t want to force you to write a character or combination you’re not comfortable with. But since “Any” is also extremely vague, here are things I like. You can always mix and match prompts, or bypass them in favour of something cooler!
2 BROKE GIRLS
What I would like to see:
-Some of the terrible, awful, non-PC humour of the show.
-Caroline and Max having a larger than adventure.
-Secondary characters, e.g. the usual diner staff, past friends, love interests, nemeses, Reefer, Sophie, etc. I’m especially partial to Candy Andy, but he’s not necessary.
Prompts (optional):
-Something set from the time they had their own cupcake shop. Their misadventures in getting funded, maybe involving an old Wharton classmate.
-Earl, his forgery skills, Caroline and Max run some illegal-ish side business out of the diner.
-Caroline’s dad gets parole? Dies and returns as a ghost? Max now has a third roommate.
-They enter Chestnut in a horse show, and get very competitive with the owners of the other better-groomed thoroughbreds.
-Noir AU where they run the worst PI agency ever.
ARCHER (Cartoon)
What I would like to see:
-HOLD BACK NOTHING. Go as OTT or ridiculous with the scenarios and schemes as your heart desires.
-Archer being good at his job. Archer being a decent guy deep, deep, deep down.
-Series villains popping up to create conflict. Brand-new OC villains are cool too.
-My favourites are Archer, Cheryl, Lana, and Ray. I ship Archer and Lana like a boss, but a romance fic is not necessary.
Prompts (optional):
-Intrigues in a remote, deceptively harmless English countryhouse. (May or may not be haunted.)
-Mission set in an incongruously idyllic foreign city (Bruges, Firenze, Postdam) with canon-typical Anachronism Stew Cold War politics in the background. Someone pockets a priceless relic as a ‘souvenir’?
-Cheryl or Lana undercover as a reporter on some ridic news show (think Sit Up, Britain! from Bridget Jones’s Diary).
-World War (either) AU involving real world spy shenanigans. Bordellos. Cryptography. Double agents. War being fought outside Europe.
-Space opera AU. (Return of cyborg!Barry if you like.)
BRIDE & PREJUDICE (2004)
What I would like to see:
-Kiran’s relationship with her family and genuine friendship with Darcy.
-Lakhi’s relationship with her madcap mother.
-The hotel life, the hotel business, the tourism industry (totally optional).
-Just more of the film’s jokey attitude to family pressures, conformity, and the beautiful disaster that is the Bakshi household.
-Culture! Real culture, and not the Incredible India infomercial that Lalita’s speeches tended to become.
Prompts (optional):
-Kiran at Oxford. Punting, disdain of the old libraries, cobblestone streets, pubs, faculty gardens, hot boys, the overabundance of chapels. Optional bonus for incorporating Balraj and Darcy!
-Somebody known to the whole extended family is getting divorced, and the fallout. (The couple could be one who got together in the film, side characters, OCs, whatever you like.)
-Lakhi gets her first job. Is she happy with it or utterly bored? Did her dad needle her into it? Does her mother approve or find unrespectable? Instead of a job, it could be her chosen college course.
-Things we never got to know about Georgie. The film gave us so little, so an unusual skill or hobby of hers? How does she pursue it? Who does it bring her in contact with? What is she aiming to accomplish with it?
-More on the Pride & Prejudice aspect of Lalita hanging out with a married Chandra; how does Mr. Kohli affect their (hopefully epic) friendship?
BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (TV)
What I would like to see:
-Ensemble-oriented or following the misadventures of a combination of characters.
-Casefic. Precinct shenanigans. Rivalries. Wagers.
-Amy and Rosa being epic buddy cops together. Jake and Rosa’s epic Academy-era friendship.
-My favourites are OH MY GOD EVERYTHING Gina, Jake, Kevin, Rosa and Terry. I love Sophia and her relationship with Jake, but that’s really not necessary to include.
Prompts (optional):
-The Case of the Week is something whacky and unexpected (chandelier thefts, modern piracy, villain’s calling card is an éclair that melts and get sticky by the time the crime scene is discovered, etc).
-More on Rosa’s rivalry with the DA from Season One’s ‘Old School’, or Rosa generally generating bad blood with people she has to see again in the course of her job.
-Someone joins the gym (for whatever reason) and drags an equally unenthusiastic exercise buddy with them. Finds the place bursting with cops who take their physical fitness very, very seriously.
-The 99 getting sued for the collateral damage they cause (could or could not be frivolous litigation). How do they make the charges go away?
-Superhero AU.
EMMA FROST (Comic)
What I would like to see:
-Dysfunctional sibling dynamic that somehow works. Them being briefly loyal to each other to suit their own ends.
-Anything set during the Higher Learning arc or before i.e. before things really go south for the family, or set post-series.
-Everything about Adrienne. Psychometry. Being the worst ever big sister. How she meets Steven post-series. Being ruthless in getting to the top.
-The relationship of the two oldest (she seemed genuinely shaken by the fallout of the Dante Incident). Adrienne and Cordelia dealing with living at home with an ill mother.
-Idyllic rich people things: horse-riding, pianos, that massive sprawling estate, having reporters in their back pocket, badminton, etc.
Prompts (optional):
-Adrienne blackmailing Christian into helping her with work, but a surprising (short-lived) truce evolving from it.
-Christian having a Cole Porter discography and memorabilia collection. How far he goes to maintain it, bidding on rare pieces at auctions, etc.
-Cordelia ruining her older siblings’ dates or being nosy about their lives.
-The trials and tribulations of Adrienne taking over Frost Enterprises. Or something about her embezzlement schemes while she was working there.
-AU or canon story about the characters being in Venice during Carnival. Something that makes use of masks, deception and the grandiosity of it all.
GALAXY QUEST (1999)
What I would like to see:
-The interpersonal dynamic of the cast being in the foreground. Romance is great, but I'd prefer it if all ships happened in the background.
-More of their lives as celebrities (think America’s Sweethearts and the gumshoe aspects of fame: appeasing the press, weird merchandise, terrible talk shows, bad interviews, booking their next job, their entourages).
-The (hilarious) frustrations of being overlooked and/or still being friends with Jason Nesmith.
-Hard science fantasy. Go wild with the technobabble, pseudo-science, fantastical alien races, space ship engineering. (Totally optional because I know this isn’t every writer’s cup of tea, and the film is the gentlest parody of this concept).
-My favourites are EVERY ONE OF THEM, but I would love it if you threw in some of Alexander’s friendship with Gwen and/or Jason, and Tommy being wonderful.
Prompts (optional):
-The Galaxy Quest cast and crew is forced to go on a team-bonding exercise in some remote or ridiculous location (the woods, a Hollywood ‘ashram’, the basement of the Paramount studio, IDK). Hijinks ensue.
-Sir Alexander starring in a play he’s rather proud of, and his friends showing up to watch his performance. He doesn’t want them there. At all.
-Alien tech that goes awry and causes them to switch bodies. What happens to the person who switches with Laliari, who isn’t humanoid by any stretch of the imagination?
-Fred starts experimenting at home, and adds hi-fi alien additions to household gadgets. Cue disaster, especially when handled by someone who doesn’t know what he’s done.
-Sgt. Bilko AU where an army camp is run by a well-meaning commander, but is falling apart nonetheless. Jason’s unit mostly runs gambling rackets, pulls the wool over their CO’s eyes, and helps further his relationship with the smart blonde who won’t put up with his nonsense. Tommy as the hyper-competent new recruit, Alexander as the long-suffering objector, Fred as the one who obliviously goes along with everything, etc.
PLEASE REMEMBER
The prompts are TO BE TREATED AS OPTIONAL. If none of them seem feasible to you, that’s fine! I requested these fandoms specifically because I’d be thrilled with literally whatever you write (whether or not it’s based on this letter).
This Yuletide gift is a two-way street, and I hope it’s as awesome for you as I know it will be for me ♥
THINGS ABOUT ME
-AO3
-Tumblr
-Fandom tags: 2 Broke Girls • Archer • Bride & Prejudice • Brooklyn Nine-Nine • Emma Frost • Galaxy Quest
LIKES:
-AU.* Put the ‘alternate’ in AU: unusual occupations (ballet company, croupier, realistic spy, shoemaker, IDK) and crazy scenarios (a gulag, the ISS, a deadly tournament, space opera, etc.)
-Dialogue. Witty banter, casual danger dialogue, unintentional reveals about the characters, suspense-ratcheting, etc.
-Happy endings.
-Plot-driven stories, rather than pure character studies. It doesn’t have to be the most intricate plot since Inception; just a simple or plotty (or anything in between) storyline connecting the beginning and the end.
*This is only if you want to. I love the canon of the requested fandoms as much as I love AUs, so I would be genuinely happy with either.
DISLIKES:
-Clichés (mooks being simple-minded or easy to defeat, overdone romance tropes, Villain Ball).
-Excessive angst or character death. Pure fluff.
-Medieval Europe fantasy. If you want to go fantasy, or add fantasy fiction elements, that are not Eurocentric, I’m all for it!
-PWP. I’m ambivalent to explicit sex scenes in general. Bring on the UST and the build-up and then… fade to black, give me the general idea of what happens next, leave them hanging, whatever you want.
FANDOM SPECIFIC THINGS
My requests have “Any” in the character field because I don’t want to force you to write a character or combination you’re not comfortable with. But since “Any” is also extremely vague, here are things I like. You can always mix and match prompts, or bypass them in favour of something cooler!
2 BROKE GIRLS
What I would like to see:
-Some of the terrible, awful, non-PC humour of the show.
-Caroline and Max having a larger than adventure.
-Secondary characters, e.g. the usual diner staff, past friends, love interests, nemeses, Reefer, Sophie, etc. I’m especially partial to Candy Andy, but he’s not necessary.
Prompts (optional):
-Something set from the time they had their own cupcake shop. Their misadventures in getting funded, maybe involving an old Wharton classmate.
-Earl, his forgery skills, Caroline and Max run some illegal-ish side business out of the diner.
-Caroline’s dad gets parole? Dies and returns as a ghost? Max now has a third roommate.
-They enter Chestnut in a horse show, and get very competitive with the owners of the other better-groomed thoroughbreds.
-Noir AU where they run the worst PI agency ever.
ARCHER (Cartoon)
What I would like to see:
-HOLD BACK NOTHING. Go as OTT or ridiculous with the scenarios and schemes as your heart desires.
-Archer being good at his job. Archer being a decent guy deep, deep, deep down.
-Series villains popping up to create conflict. Brand-new OC villains are cool too.
-My favourites are Archer, Cheryl, Lana, and Ray. I ship Archer and Lana like a boss, but a romance fic is not necessary.
Prompts (optional):
-Intrigues in a remote, deceptively harmless English countryhouse. (May or may not be haunted.)
-Mission set in an incongruously idyllic foreign city (Bruges, Firenze, Postdam) with canon-typical Anachronism Stew Cold War politics in the background. Someone pockets a priceless relic as a ‘souvenir’?
-Cheryl or Lana undercover as a reporter on some ridic news show (think Sit Up, Britain! from Bridget Jones’s Diary).
-World War (either) AU involving real world spy shenanigans. Bordellos. Cryptography. Double agents. War being fought outside Europe.
-Space opera AU. (Return of cyborg!Barry if you like.)
BRIDE & PREJUDICE (2004)
What I would like to see:
-Kiran’s relationship with her family and genuine friendship with Darcy.
-Lakhi’s relationship with her madcap mother.
-The hotel life, the hotel business, the tourism industry (totally optional).
-Just more of the film’s jokey attitude to family pressures, conformity, and the beautiful disaster that is the Bakshi household.
-Culture! Real culture, and not the Incredible India infomercial that Lalita’s speeches tended to become.
Prompts (optional):
-Kiran at Oxford. Punting, disdain of the old libraries, cobblestone streets, pubs, faculty gardens, hot boys, the overabundance of chapels. Optional bonus for incorporating Balraj and Darcy!
-Somebody known to the whole extended family is getting divorced, and the fallout. (The couple could be one who got together in the film, side characters, OCs, whatever you like.)
-Lakhi gets her first job. Is she happy with it or utterly bored? Did her dad needle her into it? Does her mother approve or find unrespectable? Instead of a job, it could be her chosen college course.
-Things we never got to know about Georgie. The film gave us so little, so an unusual skill or hobby of hers? How does she pursue it? Who does it bring her in contact with? What is she aiming to accomplish with it?
-More on the Pride & Prejudice aspect of Lalita hanging out with a married Chandra; how does Mr. Kohli affect their (hopefully epic) friendship?
BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (TV)
What I would like to see:
-Ensemble-oriented or following the misadventures of a combination of characters.
-Casefic. Precinct shenanigans. Rivalries. Wagers.
-Amy and Rosa being epic buddy cops together. Jake and Rosa’s epic Academy-era friendship.
-My favourites are OH MY GOD EVERYTHING Gina, Jake, Kevin, Rosa and Terry. I love Sophia and her relationship with Jake, but that’s really not necessary to include.
Prompts (optional):
-The Case of the Week is something whacky and unexpected (chandelier thefts, modern piracy, villain’s calling card is an éclair that melts and get sticky by the time the crime scene is discovered, etc).
-More on Rosa’s rivalry with the DA from Season One’s ‘Old School’, or Rosa generally generating bad blood with people she has to see again in the course of her job.
-Someone joins the gym (for whatever reason) and drags an equally unenthusiastic exercise buddy with them. Finds the place bursting with cops who take their physical fitness very, very seriously.
-The 99 getting sued for the collateral damage they cause (could or could not be frivolous litigation). How do they make the charges go away?
-Superhero AU.
EMMA FROST (Comic)
What I would like to see:
-Dysfunctional sibling dynamic that somehow works. Them being briefly loyal to each other to suit their own ends.
-Anything set during the Higher Learning arc or before i.e. before things really go south for the family, or set post-series.
-Everything about Adrienne. Psychometry. Being the worst ever big sister. How she meets Steven post-series. Being ruthless in getting to the top.
-The relationship of the two oldest (she seemed genuinely shaken by the fallout of the Dante Incident). Adrienne and Cordelia dealing with living at home with an ill mother.
-Idyllic rich people things: horse-riding, pianos, that massive sprawling estate, having reporters in their back pocket, badminton, etc.
Prompts (optional):
-Adrienne blackmailing Christian into helping her with work, but a surprising (short-lived) truce evolving from it.
-Christian having a Cole Porter discography and memorabilia collection. How far he goes to maintain it, bidding on rare pieces at auctions, etc.
-Cordelia ruining her older siblings’ dates or being nosy about their lives.
-The trials and tribulations of Adrienne taking over Frost Enterprises. Or something about her embezzlement schemes while she was working there.
-AU or canon story about the characters being in Venice during Carnival. Something that makes use of masks, deception and the grandiosity of it all.
GALAXY QUEST (1999)
What I would like to see:
-The interpersonal dynamic of the cast being in the foreground. Romance is great, but I'd prefer it if all ships happened in the background.
-More of their lives as celebrities (think America’s Sweethearts and the gumshoe aspects of fame: appeasing the press, weird merchandise, terrible talk shows, bad interviews, booking their next job, their entourages).
-The (hilarious) frustrations of being overlooked and/or still being friends with Jason Nesmith.
-Hard science fantasy. Go wild with the technobabble, pseudo-science, fantastical alien races, space ship engineering. (Totally optional because I know this isn’t every writer’s cup of tea, and the film is the gentlest parody of this concept).
-My favourites are EVERY ONE OF THEM, but I would love it if you threw in some of Alexander’s friendship with Gwen and/or Jason, and Tommy being wonderful.
Prompts (optional):
-The Galaxy Quest cast and crew is forced to go on a team-bonding exercise in some remote or ridiculous location (the woods, a Hollywood ‘ashram’, the basement of the Paramount studio, IDK). Hijinks ensue.
-Sir Alexander starring in a play he’s rather proud of, and his friends showing up to watch his performance. He doesn’t want them there. At all.
-Alien tech that goes awry and causes them to switch bodies. What happens to the person who switches with Laliari, who isn’t humanoid by any stretch of the imagination?
-Fred starts experimenting at home, and adds hi-fi alien additions to household gadgets. Cue disaster, especially when handled by someone who doesn’t know what he’s done.
-Sgt. Bilko AU where an army camp is run by a well-meaning commander, but is falling apart nonetheless. Jason’s unit mostly runs gambling rackets, pulls the wool over their CO’s eyes, and helps further his relationship with the smart blonde who won’t put up with his nonsense. Tommy as the hyper-competent new recruit, Alexander as the long-suffering objector, Fred as the one who obliviously goes along with everything, etc.
PLEASE REMEMBER
The prompts are TO BE TREATED AS OPTIONAL. If none of them seem feasible to you, that’s fine! I requested these fandoms specifically because I’d be thrilled with literally whatever you write (whether or not it’s based on this letter).
This Yuletide gift is a two-way street, and I hope it’s as awesome for you as I know it will be for me ♥