that time of year again
Dearest Yuletide writer, I am so looking forward to your fic!
In general, I’m a trope-happy lover of anything from emotional vignettes to casefic to historical AUs. I love found families and people who will bicker about everything endlessly and 110% have each other’s backs without anyone needing to ask, should anything try to get in between them. Platonic friendships that mean as much or more than romantic connections are my jam. The intricacies of trust that pop up in any kind of enemies-to-friends story is something I’d read book after book about (and if it was a story about people who love and trust each other having to fake being enemies and pretend to be an untrustworthy danger each other in order to achieve some goal, oh my god, what good shit.)
DNWs: outright non-con/dub-con, infidelity outside of a negotiated and well-communicated open or polyamorous relationship, a lot of angst in general but particularly for detailed descriptions of rape or sexual assault, animal death (real fuckin' serious about this one, no mentions please and thank you!), or non-canon major character death. I'm not real enthusiastic about body horror or pregnancy. I'd prefer to stay away from a/b/o stuff. I think that should mainly cover it? I sometimes like some kink but I don't think any of my fandoms this year really lend themselves enough to anything that I'd need to do a rundown of preferences.
Hadestown
I love the Beauty and the Beast genre of story that the original Hades/Persephone myth is, and this being the followup to that story, a geologic age later. There's such a challenge to happiness between them- even once they come to a place where they can think about improving their relationship, doing so is like shifting a mountain, because they aren't people with the short, fleeting lives of humans but rather something set and eternal. The musical is about trying and being persistent in the face of a story that has a set ending, so what does that mean for Hades and Persephone? How many times do they go around the loop, and how can they introduce gradual changes to make something new? I'd love to read them repairing the damage to their marriage after the play, or about why Hades turned the river Styx into a wall and how it comes down again, or idk, walking their hellhounds.
The Indranan War
I love this series, the first time I read the trilogy Iimmediately went back to the first one to start again because I found it just that compelling. I think it’s fascinating to see the juxtaposing of Hail’s life outside of the law and her life above the law, and what she does to fight or protect the other people defined by those spaces. It’s also really interesting that romance is not really a force in Hail’s story, even when creating an heir to secure the leadership she recently cemented is a completely legitimate concern, and that instead her found family is the truest bond she has and she draws an heir from that. I adore the relationships she has with Emmory and Zin and with Hao, especially. If you wanted to write about platonic bedsharing where Zin and Emmory climb into bed with Hail to calm her nightmares, I’d love that; if casefic is something you like writing, Hail and Hao dealing with something gone wrong in their gunrunning days would delight me. Competency porn is something I absolutely love, and these people are competent af, so anything that shows that off is brilliant.
The Adventure Zone: Amnesty
I was so damn happy when this series was announced to bewhat the McElroys were going to do with season 2; I love when Appalachia is treated as more than just a punchline (and Justified was another show that respected the region as more than just one-dimensional jokes, that’s another fandom I’ve written and read a lot for, if that helps at all.) All of these people making Kepler their home (and by extension Sylvain) and then fiercely protecting it really drew me into this story and I love the family they created for themselves. A few suggestions for stories that you certainly don’t have to stick to, but maybe show where my mind is at:
-post-series, how does Duck/Minerva become a thing? Where in the epilogue to their grand destinies do they figure out how to make a new path for themselves, and why do they choose to do it together?
-Aubrey’s relationship with Mama is so interesting, from the “Come with me if you want to live” vibe of them first meeting to the end when Aubrey also takes up a mantel of being caretaker to a world and its doors. A story exploring that would be good.
-I definitely did cry in public on the bus at Ned’s goodbye letters. The earnestness and emotional truth to them was overwhelming, as was Ned’s whole emotional journey when it came to Aubrey, and him being so afraid that the truth would destroy this group they had become if it ever got out to the point where he could accept her anger and affirm the realness of it so that she could be everything she could be. It’s no small thing, him sacrificing his desire to be loved for her to find healing. Maybe Ned wrote letters all along, expecting he would have to leave suddenly at some point; maybe in another timeline, he survived, and had to live with the aftermath of what he did and Aubrey reading the letter he wrote her. However you look at it, Ned finally giving up running away from consequences is a hell of a thing, and a good story to dig into.
-Look, I always love a good fic about people being snowed in, and Amnesty Lodge is right there on a mountain, a fic where the gang gets snowed in is sure to be great.
In general, I’m a trope-happy lover of anything from emotional vignettes to casefic to historical AUs. I love found families and people who will bicker about everything endlessly and 110% have each other’s backs without anyone needing to ask, should anything try to get in between them. Platonic friendships that mean as much or more than romantic connections are my jam. The intricacies of trust that pop up in any kind of enemies-to-friends story is something I’d read book after book about (and if it was a story about people who love and trust each other having to fake being enemies and pretend to be an untrustworthy danger each other in order to achieve some goal, oh my god, what good shit.)
DNWs: outright non-con/dub-con, infidelity outside of a negotiated and well-communicated open or polyamorous relationship, a lot of angst in general but particularly for detailed descriptions of rape or sexual assault, animal death (real fuckin' serious about this one, no mentions please and thank you!), or non-canon major character death. I'm not real enthusiastic about body horror or pregnancy. I'd prefer to stay away from a/b/o stuff. I think that should mainly cover it? I sometimes like some kink but I don't think any of my fandoms this year really lend themselves enough to anything that I'd need to do a rundown of preferences.
Hadestown
I love the Beauty and the Beast genre of story that the original Hades/Persephone myth is, and this being the followup to that story, a geologic age later. There's such a challenge to happiness between them- even once they come to a place where they can think about improving their relationship, doing so is like shifting a mountain, because they aren't people with the short, fleeting lives of humans but rather something set and eternal. The musical is about trying and being persistent in the face of a story that has a set ending, so what does that mean for Hades and Persephone? How many times do they go around the loop, and how can they introduce gradual changes to make something new? I'd love to read them repairing the damage to their marriage after the play, or about why Hades turned the river Styx into a wall and how it comes down again, or idk, walking their hellhounds.
The Indranan War
I love this series, the first time I read the trilogy Iimmediately went back to the first one to start again because I found it just that compelling. I think it’s fascinating to see the juxtaposing of Hail’s life outside of the law and her life above the law, and what she does to fight or protect the other people defined by those spaces. It’s also really interesting that romance is not really a force in Hail’s story, even when creating an heir to secure the leadership she recently cemented is a completely legitimate concern, and that instead her found family is the truest bond she has and she draws an heir from that. I adore the relationships she has with Emmory and Zin and with Hao, especially. If you wanted to write about platonic bedsharing where Zin and Emmory climb into bed with Hail to calm her nightmares, I’d love that; if casefic is something you like writing, Hail and Hao dealing with something gone wrong in their gunrunning days would delight me. Competency porn is something I absolutely love, and these people are competent af, so anything that shows that off is brilliant.
The Adventure Zone: Amnesty
I was so damn happy when this series was announced to bewhat the McElroys were going to do with season 2; I love when Appalachia is treated as more than just a punchline (and Justified was another show that respected the region as more than just one-dimensional jokes, that’s another fandom I’ve written and read a lot for, if that helps at all.) All of these people making Kepler their home (and by extension Sylvain) and then fiercely protecting it really drew me into this story and I love the family they created for themselves. A few suggestions for stories that you certainly don’t have to stick to, but maybe show where my mind is at:
-post-series, how does Duck/Minerva become a thing? Where in the epilogue to their grand destinies do they figure out how to make a new path for themselves, and why do they choose to do it together?
-Aubrey’s relationship with Mama is so interesting, from the “Come with me if you want to live” vibe of them first meeting to the end when Aubrey also takes up a mantel of being caretaker to a world and its doors. A story exploring that would be good.
-I definitely did cry in public on the bus at Ned’s goodbye letters. The earnestness and emotional truth to them was overwhelming, as was Ned’s whole emotional journey when it came to Aubrey, and him being so afraid that the truth would destroy this group they had become if it ever got out to the point where he could accept her anger and affirm the realness of it so that she could be everything she could be. It’s no small thing, him sacrificing his desire to be loved for her to find healing. Maybe Ned wrote letters all along, expecting he would have to leave suddenly at some point; maybe in another timeline, he survived, and had to live with the aftermath of what he did and Aubrey reading the letter he wrote her. However you look at it, Ned finally giving up running away from consequences is a hell of a thing, and a good story to dig into.
-Look, I always love a good fic about people being snowed in, and Amnesty Lodge is right there on a mountain, a fic where the gang gets snowed in is sure to be great.