[Yuletide] Dear Writer: this is my letter.
Dear Yulewriter,
Hi! Through no fault of your own, you've been matched with me. I'm aware that my letters have, historically, been very vague and probably less than helpful. I'm going to attempt to do a bit better with that this particular Yuletide.
I'll lead with my one Serious Massive Do Not Want, to get it out of the way: bad things happening to small children (it's a trigger).
General likes:
I have wide-ranging tastes. I like a lot of things. Apparently, my head is in the "fandoms where I read mainly things with pairings rather than fandoms where I read mostly gen" space this year, but given that I have whole fandoms where I read (and sometimes write) mostly gen, I feel it is safe to state that I like it, so if you're a gen writer, fret not! I like stories that have relationships in them, yet the actual focus is something else, I like those stories that are all about the relationships. Either way, I do delight in physical descriptions: taste, touch, sight, sound, smell: all the senses! Whee! Go dark, go light, go some sort of tasteful mid-tone that really goes well with anything. If it's not called out in the General dislikes section, you're probably fine to write it. (Seriously: got a secret hankering to write babyfic? Go ahead, knock yourself out!)
General dislikes:
Shockingly few, as I think almost everything can be written well, though I'll own that I'm not what you'd call a fan of bodily waste products in a sexual context. Bad things happening to pets is also a thing of which I am not fond. Major character death that doesn't undo itself, also not one I tend to go for often.
For Yuletide, for any of the canons I've requested, I'm probably going to be a hard sell on things like coffeeshop AUs. They have their place, and sometimes that place is in my bookmarks and AO3 subscriptions, but that's also usually for fandoms where there's plenty of things taking place the canon setting. Same with crossovers/fusions. And, fine, I'll admit that this is probably one case where I'm also probably a hard sell on A/B/O.
Note: if you're a writer who is just fine and dandy with vagueness, please take all following suggestions with as much of a salt lick as you need and do whatever makes it work for you. As ever, optional details are optional things.
Further fandom-specific information on likes/dislikes/preferences will be contained in each fandoms's section of this post.
Fantastic Four (Movies 2005-2007)
[Ben Grimm, Johnny Storm]
Note: I, err, utterly failed to include Alicia as a character when I nominated, and if anyone else nominated it, they did too, but if you happened to have been matched with me on this, and you happen to be into Alicia, her lack of inclusion in the character set is not to be taken as a slight against her character or an indication that, should you happen to be into Alicia, she must be excluded. Sadly, it only occurred to me AFTER nominations closed that I could have skipped Reed and included her, seeing as I like Alicia better than Reed anyhow.
This is my "I'm vaguely embarrassed by the fact that I even want this, let alone how much I want this, hi!" request, for the record. I resisted watching the movies for, y'know, a decade, and then when I finally did, I was not expecting to react quite so strongly to the dynamic between Ben and Johnny. I promptly, in fact, went to AO3 to seek out what there was, which, sadly, was not a lot. (That which there is, I have possibly re-read and bookmarked.)
I'm not going to lie: I'd be pleased as punch with slash here (if you are in Camp Alicia, yes, Alicia is welcome everywhere). Totally okay with gen, though!
In terms of tone, it's all good. This is an anything basically goes fandom for me. Aliens-make-them-do-it, stranded together somewhere and getting on each other's nerves, superhero downtime, insert your favorite trope here.
The Losers (2010)
[Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez, Jake Jensen]
Sooner or later, and I expect sooner rather than later, The Losers is going to be too big for Yuletide, so I might as well request it now, right?
This has been comfort viewing for me since it came out. Best Supernatural-related movie purchase I ever made (I mean, the competition was Devour and House of Wax, which set a very, very low bar, but I actually sincerely love the movie and watch it a few times a year, and once or twice a year, I go read everything on AO3 again.)
Gen or slash are both fine here: I read & as well as / for these two. Other characters also welcome, be they on the list or not.
Writer, if you are matched with me here, I apologize for my failure to have any prompts. Things to do in Bolivia When You're Legally Dead? You know, I think this is the point where I hit up the trope and kink bingo cards and throw in the ones that made me go, "Huh. I could see that."
Tone: light that has a bite to it, dark has some comedy.
Push (2009)
[Cassie Holmes, Nick Gant]
Between sign ups last year and the actual Yuletide reveal, this is a thing that happened to me. When I say this is a thing that happened to me, I mean, "I admit that I seriously side-eyed the primary fandom pairing, but then I watched the movie, and then when I was done watching, I went and read everything with said pairing in English, and when that was done, I went and used various methods of translation to read the handful of things not in English."
Take two of things I love in a narrative (shady government agencies and kids who've been forced to grow up/get by on their own too soon, which applies to both Cassie and Nick) and mix them together, and apparently, I get very invested. It's a fucked up world, which is a thing I've spent tens of thousands of words exploring, and if I'm very lucky, will be done exploring before Yuletide. (tl;dr, I accidentally went from cleaning up something written from a prompt to having a novel-length WIP that is basically the bulk of the writing I've done this year, and am, in fact, totally procrastinating on transferring handwritten pages for said WIP to my Scrivener project by writing this letter. I have at least two other Push WIPs, including femslash, because the fandom ate my brain.)
For the record, there is a sad lack of fuck or die in this fandom. Other interests include "we're pretty sure we're going to die, and ordinarily this would be a bad idea, but again, pretty sure we're going to die" followed by "well, we didn't die, and now we have to deal with the fallout" and the precog being blindsided by turns of events, be it blindsided by it actually happening or blindsided by seeing it happen at a future date.
Reader, if you are matched with me, I apologize for my lack of gen prompts.
If you're matched with me on this and go the pairing route, I'm okay with underage, so long as we're talking 15/16 and up. It's an explicitly problematic pairing, which is part of the appeal for me. Also, for various reasons, the whole explicitly and patiently waiting until someone is of age everywhere when both parties are aware that this waiting is occurring isn't my favorite narrative choice.
Tone preference: mid-tone to darker, though probably not ultra dark.
Selfie (TV)
[Eliza Dooley, Henry Higgs]
Falling as it does under the banner of Shows Too Soon Gone, Selfie is one of those fandoms where what I want most of all is to see what could have played out between Eliza and Henry. And, okay, fine, this is one where ridiculous AUs and situations could be amazing.
Eliza and Henry + Zombies!
Which is the only one I can come up with off the top of my head, but imagine Eliza Dooley fighting zombies and then see if you can try to think of anything else. Imagine ALL of them fighting zombies! This is a prompt that totally works as gen or romantic!
Non-zombie growing into each other, also awesome. (Though seriously, zombies.)
Tone: light with a side of angst, light with a side of fluff, cloudy with a chance of the undead.
What's Your Number? (2011)
[Ally Darling, Colin Shea, Daisy Darling]
This is my sock sorting movie. Because I have watched it many times while doing a routine, boring task, I have spent slightly more time thinking about it than is probably good for me. It's a gender-inverted Manic Pixie Dream girl situation. Uneven and somewhat problematic as the movie is, I find that to be just absolutely fantastic as a thing that exists.
And, it's a romcom: the whole point is we see them fall in love, but then what?
How does Ally, who has spent her whole romantic life trying to be someone she's not for someone else's sake, deal with not being that person? What's that adjustment like? Or Colin's adjustment to trying to actually be in a relationship, for that matter.
How do they deal with their respective families? How do their respective families deal with them? They're coming from wildly different backgrounds, after all.
Would Daisy even let them babysit?
What stupid things do they wind up fighting about, and how do they make up?
Also, what else is going on with the various weirdos in their building?
Tone: light
PS, if you're looking at the various challenges around Yuletide this year, Yuleporn is a thumbs up for any of them. Specifics regarding my tastes in such things available in a supplemental post here: http://minim-calibre.dreamwidth.org/766519.html
PPS,
minim_calibre is the AO3 account.
minim-calibre is the Tumblr one.
PPPS, Crueltide for those fandoms specified here: http://minim-calibre.dreamwidth.org/767559.html Crossposted from http://minim-calibre.dreamwidth.org/765776.html. Should it tickle your fancy, you can comment there using OpenID. Comments there:
Hi! Through no fault of your own, you've been matched with me. I'm aware that my letters have, historically, been very vague and probably less than helpful. I'm going to attempt to do a bit better with that this particular Yuletide.
I'll lead with my one Serious Massive Do Not Want, to get it out of the way: bad things happening to small children (it's a trigger).
General likes:
I have wide-ranging tastes. I like a lot of things. Apparently, my head is in the "fandoms where I read mainly things with pairings rather than fandoms where I read mostly gen" space this year, but given that I have whole fandoms where I read (and sometimes write) mostly gen, I feel it is safe to state that I like it, so if you're a gen writer, fret not! I like stories that have relationships in them, yet the actual focus is something else, I like those stories that are all about the relationships. Either way, I do delight in physical descriptions: taste, touch, sight, sound, smell: all the senses! Whee! Go dark, go light, go some sort of tasteful mid-tone that really goes well with anything. If it's not called out in the General dislikes section, you're probably fine to write it. (Seriously: got a secret hankering to write babyfic? Go ahead, knock yourself out!)
General dislikes:
Shockingly few, as I think almost everything can be written well, though I'll own that I'm not what you'd call a fan of bodily waste products in a sexual context. Bad things happening to pets is also a thing of which I am not fond. Major character death that doesn't undo itself, also not one I tend to go for often.
For Yuletide, for any of the canons I've requested, I'm probably going to be a hard sell on things like coffeeshop AUs. They have their place, and sometimes that place is in my bookmarks and AO3 subscriptions, but that's also usually for fandoms where there's plenty of things taking place the canon setting. Same with crossovers/fusions. And, fine, I'll admit that this is probably one case where I'm also probably a hard sell on A/B/O.
Note: if you're a writer who is just fine and dandy with vagueness, please take all following suggestions with as much of a salt lick as you need and do whatever makes it work for you. As ever, optional details are optional things.
Further fandom-specific information on likes/dislikes/preferences will be contained in each fandoms's section of this post.
Fantastic Four (Movies 2005-2007)
[Ben Grimm, Johnny Storm]
Note: I, err, utterly failed to include Alicia as a character when I nominated, and if anyone else nominated it, they did too, but if you happened to have been matched with me on this, and you happen to be into Alicia, her lack of inclusion in the character set is not to be taken as a slight against her character or an indication that, should you happen to be into Alicia, she must be excluded. Sadly, it only occurred to me AFTER nominations closed that I could have skipped Reed and included her, seeing as I like Alicia better than Reed anyhow.
This is my "I'm vaguely embarrassed by the fact that I even want this, let alone how much I want this, hi!" request, for the record. I resisted watching the movies for, y'know, a decade, and then when I finally did, I was not expecting to react quite so strongly to the dynamic between Ben and Johnny. I promptly, in fact, went to AO3 to seek out what there was, which, sadly, was not a lot. (That which there is, I have possibly re-read and bookmarked.)
I'm not going to lie: I'd be pleased as punch with slash here (if you are in Camp Alicia, yes, Alicia is welcome everywhere). Totally okay with gen, though!
In terms of tone, it's all good. This is an anything basically goes fandom for me. Aliens-make-them-do-it, stranded together somewhere and getting on each other's nerves, superhero downtime, insert your favorite trope here.
The Losers (2010)
[Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez, Jake Jensen]
Sooner or later, and I expect sooner rather than later, The Losers is going to be too big for Yuletide, so I might as well request it now, right?
This has been comfort viewing for me since it came out. Best Supernatural-related movie purchase I ever made (I mean, the competition was Devour and House of Wax, which set a very, very low bar, but I actually sincerely love the movie and watch it a few times a year, and once or twice a year, I go read everything on AO3 again.)
Gen or slash are both fine here: I read & as well as / for these two. Other characters also welcome, be they on the list or not.
Writer, if you are matched with me here, I apologize for my failure to have any prompts. Things to do in Bolivia When You're Legally Dead? You know, I think this is the point where I hit up the trope and kink bingo cards and throw in the ones that made me go, "Huh. I could see that."
- Handcuffed together
- Breathplay
- Snowed in
- Telepathy/mindmeld
- Accidental baby acquisition
- Casual relationship with pining
Tone: light that has a bite to it, dark has some comedy.
Push (2009)
[Cassie Holmes, Nick Gant]
Between sign ups last year and the actual Yuletide reveal, this is a thing that happened to me. When I say this is a thing that happened to me, I mean, "I admit that I seriously side-eyed the primary fandom pairing, but then I watched the movie, and then when I was done watching, I went and read everything with said pairing in English, and when that was done, I went and used various methods of translation to read the handful of things not in English."
Take two of things I love in a narrative (shady government agencies and kids who've been forced to grow up/get by on their own too soon, which applies to both Cassie and Nick) and mix them together, and apparently, I get very invested. It's a fucked up world, which is a thing I've spent tens of thousands of words exploring, and if I'm very lucky, will be done exploring before Yuletide. (tl;dr, I accidentally went from cleaning up something written from a prompt to having a novel-length WIP that is basically the bulk of the writing I've done this year, and am, in fact, totally procrastinating on transferring handwritten pages for said WIP to my Scrivener project by writing this letter. I have at least two other Push WIPs, including femslash, because the fandom ate my brain.)
For the record, there is a sad lack of fuck or die in this fandom. Other interests include "we're pretty sure we're going to die, and ordinarily this would be a bad idea, but again, pretty sure we're going to die" followed by "well, we didn't die, and now we have to deal with the fallout" and the precog being blindsided by turns of events, be it blindsided by it actually happening or blindsided by seeing it happen at a future date.
Reader, if you are matched with me, I apologize for my lack of gen prompts.
If you're matched with me on this and go the pairing route, I'm okay with underage, so long as we're talking 15/16 and up. It's an explicitly problematic pairing, which is part of the appeal for me. Also, for various reasons, the whole explicitly and patiently waiting until someone is of age everywhere when both parties are aware that this waiting is occurring isn't my favorite narrative choice.
Tone preference: mid-tone to darker, though probably not ultra dark.
Selfie (TV)
[Eliza Dooley, Henry Higgs]
Falling as it does under the banner of Shows Too Soon Gone, Selfie is one of those fandoms where what I want most of all is to see what could have played out between Eliza and Henry. And, okay, fine, this is one where ridiculous AUs and situations could be amazing.
Eliza and Henry + Zombies!
Which is the only one I can come up with off the top of my head, but imagine Eliza Dooley fighting zombies and then see if you can try to think of anything else. Imagine ALL of them fighting zombies! This is a prompt that totally works as gen or romantic!
Non-zombie growing into each other, also awesome. (Though seriously, zombies.)
Tone: light with a side of angst, light with a side of fluff, cloudy with a chance of the undead.
What's Your Number? (2011)
[Ally Darling, Colin Shea, Daisy Darling]
This is my sock sorting movie. Because I have watched it many times while doing a routine, boring task, I have spent slightly more time thinking about it than is probably good for me. It's a gender-inverted Manic Pixie Dream girl situation. Uneven and somewhat problematic as the movie is, I find that to be just absolutely fantastic as a thing that exists.
And, it's a romcom: the whole point is we see them fall in love, but then what?
How does Ally, who has spent her whole romantic life trying to be someone she's not for someone else's sake, deal with not being that person? What's that adjustment like? Or Colin's adjustment to trying to actually be in a relationship, for that matter.
How do they deal with their respective families? How do their respective families deal with them? They're coming from wildly different backgrounds, after all.
Would Daisy even let them babysit?
What stupid things do they wind up fighting about, and how do they make up?
Also, what else is going on with the various weirdos in their building?
Tone: light
PS, if you're looking at the various challenges around Yuletide this year, Yuleporn is a thumbs up for any of them. Specifics regarding my tastes in such things available in a supplemental post here: http://minim-calibre.dreamwidth.org/766519.html
PPS,
minim_calibre is the AO3 account.
minim-calibre is the Tumblr one.
PPPS, Crueltide for those fandoms specified here: http://minim-calibre.dreamwidth.org/767559.html Crossposted from http://minim-calibre.dreamwidth.org/765776.html. Should it tickle your fancy, you can comment there using OpenID. Comments there: