yuletide 2021!
Can't believe it's that time of year again. Good god. I have to remember how to write.
But hopefully digging up that ability isn't too tough for my assigned fic author!
Some general things I'm into:
- Found family
- Navigating trust issues among people who have every reason not to trust each other but choose to anyway
- There was only one bed!
- Fake relationships
- Tropey shit in general! Bottle episodes! Groundhog Day time loops!
- People being hopeful in the midst of dystopia as a radical act, especially when they recognize that the ties they have with each other is what will allow that hope to come true
- Queerness! I love women who love women especially, but also queerness that makes a life outside of heteronormative standards
- Casefic
- Competence porn
- Slow burn romance
- Friendship between women that's just as important as any romance
The DNWs:
- noncon/dubcon
- infidelity (but this does not include negotiated polyamory or open relationships, I like those fine), also love triangles that aren't resolved with a thruple
- a/b/o
- animal death
- pregnancy-centric or baby-centric fic
And now, the fandoms!
12 Monkeys
I've gone from like "oh this sounds interesting" to absolutely feral in about a week because of this show. As I write this letter, I've just finished the s2 finale, and omgggggggggggg! These characters! Their faces! I'll be done with the show long before Yuletide, so no worries about spoilers, and also I may be editing this letter to add more things as I continue watching.
OBVIOUSLY I ship Cole and Cassie, have you seen their faces? Lately when it comes to romance on screen I flinch at a lot of pairings that seem to be rushing into a romantic relationship before they've fully had the chance to flesh out their connection; those shows don't give me a chance to pine for romance before it's given to me. 12 Monkeys, though? By the time Cassie kissed Cole, and then COLE KISSED HER BACK, I was absolutely there.
I can't believe the show gave us so much fic fodder in just 2x12-13. Cassie and Cole spent years in the 1950s? Jones spent months becoming a fucking badass with a shotgun and a dog alone in the compound? Jennifer is thrust into leadership in the shadow of her older self when she's fresh off the devastation of having gotten women following her killed? Are you kidding me?
I'd love to read about Cassie and Cole's eleven months looking for the Primary in 1957; I'm fascinated by Cassie's rage that drives her through season 2, and how much she relies on her anger to survive and stay focused-- first from the trauma of everything in season 1, then from Aaron's betrayal and death and Cole defending Ramse when he was the one who killed her whole world, and then from the Witness getting inside her head and making her do things against her will. I think it was a totally reasonable response to all that when she was thrust into a basic survival scenario with the considerable daily trauma of knowing anyone can die at any time. In those eleven months in 1957, how did they live together? Cole having sheets and a pillow on the couch was shown, but did he really sleep on a couch that long while working full factory days? (I guess a couch is better than the camping he spent most of his life doing, but STILL.) Were there nights Cassie got tired of looking at him curled up there and told him to just take the other side of the bed, for god 's sake, and they spent those nights with their backs to each other cursing that they weren't ready to reach for each other yet? Did Cole pack their lunches every day, not taking for granted the ability to easily provide food for someone else?
And once they made a home in their house, how did Cassie start to let her guard down? What was it like for her, knowing she was set free from the burden of being a Historical Figure in 2016 during the plague and could just treat patients as a nurse who knows too much and finally has the ability to really make a measurable difference? How do she and Cole mark major events-- I'm sure at the very least they would have been interested in the US launching monkeys into space in 1959, Twilight Zone first airing on television, and the test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile in February. Their time there was also a period of massive nuclear threat-- how was it for them, living around the fear of nuclear annihilation when they're also trying to stop being afraid of annihilation themselves?
I'm also open to reading more about Jennifer; she's just so good! I especially am intrigued by her trip into the future to replace her older self as leader of the Daughters, and how, after being too mentally ill to really live a normal life in her own time, she is suddenly too normal to be taken seriously by all the women she's supposed to lead, and has to rely on fortune cookies and movie quotes to produce the off-the-wall "wisdom" they expect from her.
If you feel like writing about Katarina Jones, oh my god am I here for that. There's basically no fic focused on her on AO3 and I don't know why, because Barbara Sukowa is incredible and I am just obsessed with Jones. I love how morally grey she is, knowing that the machine she's feeding test subjects into to be turned inside out is honestly awful but making the choice to press on regardless because the end will outweigh the means-- and the way she juggles her choices with the possibility of a future where no one was ever hurt by those choices. She's absolutely committed to the mission, but the thing that breaks her is the death of a man she barely knew and didn't love, but who loved her, and it's enough to send her over the edge and task Cassie with killing her before she can pursue time travel. That's a lot to go through and then have to think about when spending months alone with her dog. (Also, Cassie and Cole pulling off loops and loops of trying to save Hannah but fake her death while dodging Spearhead guards? I love a good Groundhog Day episode, I would have fun reading about them trying to get that right.) And I was so happy with how far she had come by season four, loving the family that she had made and reading Donne to them, and wanting more time with her daughter and grandson when the full truth was revealed. The final moments she had with Cole were so very, very her.
Good god, I have a lot of feelings. I hope you also have feelings about all these perfect idiots that you'd like to share with me.
Queen Sono
Am I the only person that watched this? I hope not. It was delightful and I'm sad we're not going to get a season 2 and there doesn't seem to be an explosion of Netflix Africa content being made.
For anyone who sees this letter and might be inspired to give Queen Sono a try:
It's a gorgeous six-episode Netflix show set in South Africa. Queen Sono, a seasoned field operative of a South African intelligence agency called Special Operations Group (SOG) and daughter of Safiya Sono, a deceased South African anti-apartheid revolutionary leader and freedom fighter, has always struggled to understand the mystery around her mother's assassination, which she witnessed as a child, and gets more reckless in her work as she pursues answers about the person behind her mother's death. But balancing her clandestine work with the safety of the people she loves comes with the cost of leaving her isolated and vulnerable, just as she becomes the focus of a predatory CEO who wants to profit off creating political upheaval in the region.
I love the concept: the daughter of the revolution has to live in the complicated aftermath of the world her revolutionary martyr of a mother left to her, and she really struggles with being in her mother's shadow when she has no intention of following in her mother's footsteps. The trauma of her mother being killed in front of her translates into her difficulty connecting with the people she loves in her adult life, even as she tries to protect them from the violence that took her mother. Queen is so messy and reckless and I love it. The espionage side of the show is exciting, and the setting isn't one I've gotten to see in a show like this before.
As for what I'd like to read, I would definitely be interested in Queen and William having a rocky road towards repairing their friendship, and if Queen would have to break the rules to tell him what she actually does. I also love Queen's friendship and teasing with her coworkers Fred and Viljoen, and would enjoy them having to use their talents to get out of a mission gone wrong. Spy shows lend themselves so well to casefic and competence porn, and I'm into it.
Hench
What a fucking delight this book was! There are very few people who could make spreadsheets and data collection into compelling heroics. Anna's journey into being a hench and then a villain in her own right was so meticulously built and fleshed out that there was no leap needed to fully be on her side. The worldbuilding, too, was fantastic, and echoed what I've thought every time I see a superhero movie and a building collapses because of a grand fight and the camera never looks back at the people whose lives and homes were in what's now rubble. Vigilanteism has costs, and Anna measures them well.
It was also just really nice to see Anna forge unique relationships with the different people in her life, and how her bisexuality is a part of that-- not just for people who are possible romantic interests, but even in her looking around and being able to appreciate the attractiveness and merits of people she has platonic relationships with. Her complex feelings for Leviathan were shown really well, where her growing love for him wasn't just romantic, and wasn't just platonic friendship, and wasn't just love for a mentor, it was a lot of different things and each of those things was respected and developed meaningfully. If you wanted to explore some of these relationships further, and how their different facets shine, that would be cool.
And Anna's relationship with June! Their ups and downs felt really realistic, as they got to be closer and closer friends and how that's what strained their friendship, as Anna started taking risks that June (reasonably!) wasn't comfortable with. If you wanted to do something from June's perspective, I think that could be interesting! Especially after she cuts Anna off entirely but probably can't avoid mention of her in the world and on the news.
But hopefully digging up that ability isn't too tough for my assigned fic author!
Some general things I'm into:
- Found family
- Navigating trust issues among people who have every reason not to trust each other but choose to anyway
- There was only one bed!
- Fake relationships
- Tropey shit in general! Bottle episodes! Groundhog Day time loops!
- People being hopeful in the midst of dystopia as a radical act, especially when they recognize that the ties they have with each other is what will allow that hope to come true
- Queerness! I love women who love women especially, but also queerness that makes a life outside of heteronormative standards
- Casefic
- Competence porn
- Slow burn romance
- Friendship between women that's just as important as any romance
The DNWs:
- noncon/dubcon
- infidelity (but this does not include negotiated polyamory or open relationships, I like those fine), also love triangles that aren't resolved with a thruple
- a/b/o
- animal death
- pregnancy-centric or baby-centric fic
And now, the fandoms!
12 Monkeys
I've gone from like "oh this sounds interesting" to absolutely feral in about a week because of this show. As I write this letter, I've just finished the s2 finale, and omgggggggggggg! These characters! Their faces! I'll be done with the show long before Yuletide, so no worries about spoilers, and also I may be editing this letter to add more things as I continue watching.
OBVIOUSLY I ship Cole and Cassie, have you seen their faces? Lately when it comes to romance on screen I flinch at a lot of pairings that seem to be rushing into a romantic relationship before they've fully had the chance to flesh out their connection; those shows don't give me a chance to pine for romance before it's given to me. 12 Monkeys, though? By the time Cassie kissed Cole, and then COLE KISSED HER BACK, I was absolutely there.
I can't believe the show gave us so much fic fodder in just 2x12-13. Cassie and Cole spent years in the 1950s? Jones spent months becoming a fucking badass with a shotgun and a dog alone in the compound? Jennifer is thrust into leadership in the shadow of her older self when she's fresh off the devastation of having gotten women following her killed? Are you kidding me?
I'd love to read about Cassie and Cole's eleven months looking for the Primary in 1957; I'm fascinated by Cassie's rage that drives her through season 2, and how much she relies on her anger to survive and stay focused-- first from the trauma of everything in season 1, then from Aaron's betrayal and death and Cole defending Ramse when he was the one who killed her whole world, and then from the Witness getting inside her head and making her do things against her will. I think it was a totally reasonable response to all that when she was thrust into a basic survival scenario with the considerable daily trauma of knowing anyone can die at any time. In those eleven months in 1957, how did they live together? Cole having sheets and a pillow on the couch was shown, but did he really sleep on a couch that long while working full factory days? (I guess a couch is better than the camping he spent most of his life doing, but STILL.) Were there nights Cassie got tired of looking at him curled up there and told him to just take the other side of the bed, for god 's sake, and they spent those nights with their backs to each other cursing that they weren't ready to reach for each other yet? Did Cole pack their lunches every day, not taking for granted the ability to easily provide food for someone else?
And once they made a home in their house, how did Cassie start to let her guard down? What was it like for her, knowing she was set free from the burden of being a Historical Figure in 2016 during the plague and could just treat patients as a nurse who knows too much and finally has the ability to really make a measurable difference? How do she and Cole mark major events-- I'm sure at the very least they would have been interested in the US launching monkeys into space in 1959, Twilight Zone first airing on television, and the test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile in February. Their time there was also a period of massive nuclear threat-- how was it for them, living around the fear of nuclear annihilation when they're also trying to stop being afraid of annihilation themselves?
I'm also open to reading more about Jennifer; she's just so good! I especially am intrigued by her trip into the future to replace her older self as leader of the Daughters, and how, after being too mentally ill to really live a normal life in her own time, she is suddenly too normal to be taken seriously by all the women she's supposed to lead, and has to rely on fortune cookies and movie quotes to produce the off-the-wall "wisdom" they expect from her.
If you feel like writing about Katarina Jones, oh my god am I here for that. There's basically no fic focused on her on AO3 and I don't know why, because Barbara Sukowa is incredible and I am just obsessed with Jones. I love how morally grey she is, knowing that the machine she's feeding test subjects into to be turned inside out is honestly awful but making the choice to press on regardless because the end will outweigh the means-- and the way she juggles her choices with the possibility of a future where no one was ever hurt by those choices. She's absolutely committed to the mission, but the thing that breaks her is the death of a man she barely knew and didn't love, but who loved her, and it's enough to send her over the edge and task Cassie with killing her before she can pursue time travel. That's a lot to go through and then have to think about when spending months alone with her dog. (Also, Cassie and Cole pulling off loops and loops of trying to save Hannah but fake her death while dodging Spearhead guards? I love a good Groundhog Day episode, I would have fun reading about them trying to get that right.) And I was so happy with how far she had come by season four, loving the family that she had made and reading Donne to them, and wanting more time with her daughter and grandson when the full truth was revealed. The final moments she had with Cole were so very, very her.
Good god, I have a lot of feelings. I hope you also have feelings about all these perfect idiots that you'd like to share with me.
Queen Sono
Am I the only person that watched this? I hope not. It was delightful and I'm sad we're not going to get a season 2 and there doesn't seem to be an explosion of Netflix Africa content being made.
For anyone who sees this letter and might be inspired to give Queen Sono a try:
It's a gorgeous six-episode Netflix show set in South Africa. Queen Sono, a seasoned field operative of a South African intelligence agency called Special Operations Group (SOG) and daughter of Safiya Sono, a deceased South African anti-apartheid revolutionary leader and freedom fighter, has always struggled to understand the mystery around her mother's assassination, which she witnessed as a child, and gets more reckless in her work as she pursues answers about the person behind her mother's death. But balancing her clandestine work with the safety of the people she loves comes with the cost of leaving her isolated and vulnerable, just as she becomes the focus of a predatory CEO who wants to profit off creating political upheaval in the region.
I love the concept: the daughter of the revolution has to live in the complicated aftermath of the world her revolutionary martyr of a mother left to her, and she really struggles with being in her mother's shadow when she has no intention of following in her mother's footsteps. The trauma of her mother being killed in front of her translates into her difficulty connecting with the people she loves in her adult life, even as she tries to protect them from the violence that took her mother. Queen is so messy and reckless and I love it. The espionage side of the show is exciting, and the setting isn't one I've gotten to see in a show like this before.
As for what I'd like to read, I would definitely be interested in Queen and William having a rocky road towards repairing their friendship, and if Queen would have to break the rules to tell him what she actually does. I also love Queen's friendship and teasing with her coworkers Fred and Viljoen, and would enjoy them having to use their talents to get out of a mission gone wrong. Spy shows lend themselves so well to casefic and competence porn, and I'm into it.
Hench
What a fucking delight this book was! There are very few people who could make spreadsheets and data collection into compelling heroics. Anna's journey into being a hench and then a villain in her own right was so meticulously built and fleshed out that there was no leap needed to fully be on her side. The worldbuilding, too, was fantastic, and echoed what I've thought every time I see a superhero movie and a building collapses because of a grand fight and the camera never looks back at the people whose lives and homes were in what's now rubble. Vigilanteism has costs, and Anna measures them well.
It was also just really nice to see Anna forge unique relationships with the different people in her life, and how her bisexuality is a part of that-- not just for people who are possible romantic interests, but even in her looking around and being able to appreciate the attractiveness and merits of people she has platonic relationships with. Her complex feelings for Leviathan were shown really well, where her growing love for him wasn't just romantic, and wasn't just platonic friendship, and wasn't just love for a mentor, it was a lot of different things and each of those things was respected and developed meaningfully. If you wanted to explore some of these relationships further, and how their different facets shine, that would be cool.
And Anna's relationship with June! Their ups and downs felt really realistic, as they got to be closer and closer friends and how that's what strained their friendship, as Anna started taking risks that June (reasonably!) wasn't comfortable with. If you wanted to do something from June's perspective, I think that could be interesting! Especially after she cuts Anna off entirely but probably can't avoid mention of her in the world and on the news.