Yuletide letter 2015
Dear Yuletide Author,
Thank you so much for writing for me! It's been a while since I've done Yuletide, but I loved doing it, and I'm excited to be back.
I've tried to give you some prompts and things I like about the characters/canon, but if none of this inspires you, feel free to write anything you like - you might have way better ideas than I do, and if so, I'd rather read them! :) Also, I'm requesting my absolute favourite characters to make matching easier, but I love lots of the other characters too, so feel free to include them if you'd like to.
[As an aside, some of these prompts also featured in my previous Yuletide letter (see here if you're interested - LJ link because there's bonus question-answering in the comments). I've loved the previous fics I've been given; the prompts are the same because I love seeing different people's takes on things. Even if every YT participant wrote a fic based on my prompts, I'd still want more (and also be so thrilled I might spontaneously combust).]
If you'd like even more of an idea about the sort of plots/characters I like, there's a post here. I've also signed up for Crueltide if you're into the darker side of things. And again, thank you for writing for me. I can't wait to see what you come up with!
General stuff
Stuff I'd like
Genfic (you don't have to break up canon relationships or anything, but I generally prefer fics where romance/shipping is kept to a minimum); hurt/comfort; action-adventure; whump; iron/stoic woobies; angst; happy endings; missing scenes; casefic. My favourite thing is all the terrible things happening to my faves, but they're still awesome, and it all turns out alright in the end :)
Stuff I'm not so keen on (and/or stuff I'd rather not have for Yuletide)
Shipfic (where the focus of the fic is all about romantic relationships); 1st- or 2nd-person POV; crossovers; major character death; unhappy endings; crackfic; non-canon ships; AUs where the characters are in a different world/setting.
Squicks
Incest; mutilation; body horror; infidelity; humiliation/embarrassment.
Triggers
None.
Stuff I'm okay with, in case you were wondering
Violence; torture (as long as it doesn't get into mutilation/body horror); what if/canon AUs; noncon.
Requests
Pushing Daisies - Ned
Ned is one of my favourite characters ever - he's just so awkward and adorkable. I love pretty much all of the other characters too, so feel free to throw them in there. I'd love to see a fic where Ned's childhood nightmare comes true - someone finds out about what he can do. Is it a shady branch of the government, bad guys, creepy scientists? Do they want to experiment on him, or use his powers for their own gain? (Preferably with bonus rescue by any or all of Emerson, Chuck and Olive.) Or a fic where Ned finally sees his father again - how do they both deal with that, and does his dad have any excuse for what he did? Or something that could come from a typical episode - a mystery, waking and baking, pie-related shenanigans. Ooh, or a missing scene(s) from canon. Basically, PD ended way too soon, and I want more of it in any form I can get.
Relevant quote from Ned: "Ever since I was a kid, I'd have this dream where somebody would find out what I could do. It starts off with lots of ice cream and balloons and ends in a small white room where little bits are cut out of me until there's nothing left to cut."
Pushing Daisies is such a great show, and it finished way too soon. I love the mixture of saccharine fluff and creepy weirdness, and the odd characters and plots. I'm cool with a fic that falls anywhere on the fluffy-dark spectrum. If you want to try to emulate the style of PD (the narrator, the quirkiness, etc), go for it, but don't feel like you have to - and I couldn't, so I wouldn't blame you! I'd prefer that there not be any relationship drama between Ned and Chuck, or any drama with the Ned/Chuck/Olive triangle. (Obviously you don't have to include Olive and/or Chuck at all if you don't want to, though, since I didn't request them, but if you want to include either of them or Emerson, I'm all for it.) And if you want to pretend that the end of the last episode never happened, I'm totally okay with that - things got a bit rushed and weird there.
Mission Genesis - Reb
Reb is my favourite character, so anything that contains him is cool with me. I'd love a fic that could be a canon episode - the crew explore a planet, something threatens the ship, they meet up with more refugees from Earth, something like that. Feel free to steal and adapt a plot from your favourite scifi show :D Or a fic about how things were after the first woke up, how they adjusted to life on board ship, worked out their routines, how they got to know each other, things like that. I love all of the other characters as well, so feel free to include any or all of them.
If you haven't seen Mission Genesis, or you want a refresher, you can watch all the episodes here. This is a show (and book series, actually) from my childhood, so there's lots of happy nostalgia here. I love the trope of a disparate group of characters having to work together, and figure out how to get along and get things done even if they don't all like each other all the time. If you want to write the canon ships (Yuna/Reb and/or Bren/Gret) as being together that's cool; if you want to stick with gen or UST, that's cool too. I particularly like Reb and Bren's antagonistic relationship, and Reb and Yuna's more subtle competitiveness, and Lise is my second favourite character because she's freaking awesome. I really like all of the characters, though, and I'd love to see any of them that you like included. And really, there are about a dozen fics for this fandom total, so I'd be ridiculously excited with absolutely anything you want to write.
The Goblin Emperor - Csevet Aisava
Csevet is the best. I love his hyper-competence, and his loyalty, and how much he obviously cares about Maia as a person as well as an emperor. I'd love to see something based around the loyalty between him and Maia - someone trying to get Csevet to betray Maia and he won't do it, or someone accusing Csevet of something and Maia won't believe them. Or else someone trying to use Csevet's influence over Maia for their own gain - kidnapping Csevet, or hurting him in some way to get to Maia. Something h/c-ish or whumpy or angsty would be great. Or something about Csevet's past, before he met Maia - his childhood/family, or other incidents during his courier days. Or an AU where Tethimar doesn't make his assassination attempt, but he sure does remember who gave him that scar... If none of these prompts grab you, absolutely anything else involving Csevet would be great. I love pretty much all of the other characters, too, especially Maia, Csethiro, Beshelar, Cala... just everyone, basically.
I love this book so much - I'd happily read an entire series of books that covered all the years of Maia's reign in the same amount of detail as this one, plus another series all about the minor characters, and... basically, there could never be enough TGE in the world for me to be entirely satisfied. I have so many questions about Csevet. Why did Chavar send him to work for Maia? Is he as self-confident as he generally seems to be? What was it like to go from poor to courier to emperor's secretary, and how do the other members of the court feel about this? Do people assume he's using his ~wanton courier's wiles~ to influence Maia? And really, does he ever sleep? Anything you want to write is cool - h/c, slice-of-life, angst, drama, whatever. I don't ship any of the characters, but I do love their relationships with each other, and the constant balance between formality and caring that goes on. (And I would definitely not object to the breakdown of said formality in a moment of extreme emotion.) There's about a million prompts here already, so the only other thing I'll say is that I really love the whole ear-related body language thing, so feel free to throw that in there somewhere.
Thank you so much for writing for me! It's been a while since I've done Yuletide, but I loved doing it, and I'm excited to be back.
I've tried to give you some prompts and things I like about the characters/canon, but if none of this inspires you, feel free to write anything you like - you might have way better ideas than I do, and if so, I'd rather read them! :) Also, I'm requesting my absolute favourite characters to make matching easier, but I love lots of the other characters too, so feel free to include them if you'd like to.
[As an aside, some of these prompts also featured in my previous Yuletide letter (see here if you're interested - LJ link because there's bonus question-answering in the comments). I've loved the previous fics I've been given; the prompts are the same because I love seeing different people's takes on things. Even if every YT participant wrote a fic based on my prompts, I'd still want more (and also be so thrilled I might spontaneously combust).]
If you'd like even more of an idea about the sort of plots/characters I like, there's a post here. I've also signed up for Crueltide if you're into the darker side of things. And again, thank you for writing for me. I can't wait to see what you come up with!
General stuff
Stuff I'd like
Genfic (you don't have to break up canon relationships or anything, but I generally prefer fics where romance/shipping is kept to a minimum); hurt/comfort; action-adventure; whump; iron/stoic woobies; angst; happy endings; missing scenes; casefic. My favourite thing is all the terrible things happening to my faves, but they're still awesome, and it all turns out alright in the end :)
Stuff I'm not so keen on (and/or stuff I'd rather not have for Yuletide)
Shipfic (where the focus of the fic is all about romantic relationships); 1st- or 2nd-person POV; crossovers; major character death; unhappy endings; crackfic; non-canon ships; AUs where the characters are in a different world/setting.
Squicks
Incest; mutilation; body horror; infidelity; humiliation/embarrassment.
Triggers
None.
Stuff I'm okay with, in case you were wondering
Violence; torture (as long as it doesn't get into mutilation/body horror); what if/canon AUs; noncon.
Requests
Pushing Daisies - Ned
Ned is one of my favourite characters ever - he's just so awkward and adorkable. I love pretty much all of the other characters too, so feel free to throw them in there. I'd love to see a fic where Ned's childhood nightmare comes true - someone finds out about what he can do. Is it a shady branch of the government, bad guys, creepy scientists? Do they want to experiment on him, or use his powers for their own gain? (Preferably with bonus rescue by any or all of Emerson, Chuck and Olive.) Or a fic where Ned finally sees his father again - how do they both deal with that, and does his dad have any excuse for what he did? Or something that could come from a typical episode - a mystery, waking and baking, pie-related shenanigans. Ooh, or a missing scene(s) from canon. Basically, PD ended way too soon, and I want more of it in any form I can get.
Relevant quote from Ned: "Ever since I was a kid, I'd have this dream where somebody would find out what I could do. It starts off with lots of ice cream and balloons and ends in a small white room where little bits are cut out of me until there's nothing left to cut."
Pushing Daisies is such a great show, and it finished way too soon. I love the mixture of saccharine fluff and creepy weirdness, and the odd characters and plots. I'm cool with a fic that falls anywhere on the fluffy-dark spectrum. If you want to try to emulate the style of PD (the narrator, the quirkiness, etc), go for it, but don't feel like you have to - and I couldn't, so I wouldn't blame you! I'd prefer that there not be any relationship drama between Ned and Chuck, or any drama with the Ned/Chuck/Olive triangle. (Obviously you don't have to include Olive and/or Chuck at all if you don't want to, though, since I didn't request them, but if you want to include either of them or Emerson, I'm all for it.) And if you want to pretend that the end of the last episode never happened, I'm totally okay with that - things got a bit rushed and weird there.
Mission Genesis - Reb
Reb is my favourite character, so anything that contains him is cool with me. I'd love a fic that could be a canon episode - the crew explore a planet, something threatens the ship, they meet up with more refugees from Earth, something like that. Feel free to steal and adapt a plot from your favourite scifi show :D Or a fic about how things were after the first woke up, how they adjusted to life on board ship, worked out their routines, how they got to know each other, things like that. I love all of the other characters as well, so feel free to include any or all of them.
If you haven't seen Mission Genesis, or you want a refresher, you can watch all the episodes here. This is a show (and book series, actually) from my childhood, so there's lots of happy nostalgia here. I love the trope of a disparate group of characters having to work together, and figure out how to get along and get things done even if they don't all like each other all the time. If you want to write the canon ships (Yuna/Reb and/or Bren/Gret) as being together that's cool; if you want to stick with gen or UST, that's cool too. I particularly like Reb and Bren's antagonistic relationship, and Reb and Yuna's more subtle competitiveness, and Lise is my second favourite character because she's freaking awesome. I really like all of the characters, though, and I'd love to see any of them that you like included. And really, there are about a dozen fics for this fandom total, so I'd be ridiculously excited with absolutely anything you want to write.
The Goblin Emperor - Csevet Aisava
Csevet is the best. I love his hyper-competence, and his loyalty, and how much he obviously cares about Maia as a person as well as an emperor. I'd love to see something based around the loyalty between him and Maia - someone trying to get Csevet to betray Maia and he won't do it, or someone accusing Csevet of something and Maia won't believe them. Or else someone trying to use Csevet's influence over Maia for their own gain - kidnapping Csevet, or hurting him in some way to get to Maia. Something h/c-ish or whumpy or angsty would be great. Or something about Csevet's past, before he met Maia - his childhood/family, or other incidents during his courier days. Or an AU where Tethimar doesn't make his assassination attempt, but he sure does remember who gave him that scar... If none of these prompts grab you, absolutely anything else involving Csevet would be great. I love pretty much all of the other characters, too, especially Maia, Csethiro, Beshelar, Cala... just everyone, basically.
I love this book so much - I'd happily read an entire series of books that covered all the years of Maia's reign in the same amount of detail as this one, plus another series all about the minor characters, and... basically, there could never be enough TGE in the world for me to be entirely satisfied. I have so many questions about Csevet. Why did Chavar send him to work for Maia? Is he as self-confident as he generally seems to be? What was it like to go from poor to courier to emperor's secretary, and how do the other members of the court feel about this? Do people assume he's using his ~wanton courier's wiles~ to influence Maia? And really, does he ever sleep? Anything you want to write is cool - h/c, slice-of-life, angst, drama, whatever. I don't ship any of the characters, but I do love their relationships with each other, and the constant balance between formality and caring that goes on. (And I would definitely not object to the breakdown of said formality in a moment of extreme emotion.) There's about a million prompts here already, so the only other thing I'll say is that I really love the whole ear-related body language thing, so feel free to throw that in there somewhere.