Dear yuletide author
First of all, a big thank you! This is actually my first year doing yuletide, I'm really excited and I can't wait to see what you come up with.
I'm afraid my tastes for what I like/dislike seem to vary from fandom to fandom (though it's often a matter of varying for the better in that I sometimes surprise myself by liking something different) and it's hard for me to start with a more general list, but to take a crack at it:
-Rating preferences: the whole spectrum from G-rated gen to explicit PWP is fine (if pressed, I'd say I prefer semi-explicit to super-graphic, but really I'll read anything). I've got no preference over POV/tense/narrative style, just use whatever makes sense to you!
-I love UST, I love some pining, I love some angst. I love friendship stories that really are love stories, conveying camaraderie with that gradual discovery and warmth that's more commonly associated with romance. I love any kind of amusing/surprising/touching interactions between characters that don't usually get one-on-one time in canon. I can go for pretty much any AU premise, though I do have issues with fix-it fics that are only there for the sake of being fix-it fics (even if I don't like some things in the canon I'd rather read an altered ending to something because it's an interesting place to go with it, not simply because it's happier). If it's sort of a crazy idea for an alternate universe or a fusion but comes from an inspiring concept or connection between the canons/tropes, I love that stuff, and I love thought-provoking fork-in-the-road AUs. You are welcome to poke around my LJ or my pinboard bookmarks or my goodreads (or even my tumblr, which is under the same username) to see what fandoms I'm familiar with if the idea of doing a crossover appeals to you.
-I do not really like super-fluffy slice-of-life curtain fic that has more emphasis on being in love than on falling in love. I'm more interested in first times, or complicated/irresolute attraction, or established relationships where there is still some level of conflict to be resolved; once they get very comfortable together, I get pretty bored. But I'm full of exceptions: If the main point of the story isn't so much the relationship and especially if there's a lot of humor, it works for me. The dividing line is that there's just something moving the story along besides "Look how together they are."
-To be on the safe side I'll say I'm not into A/B/O, mpreg, BDSM, any body fluid kinks, or incest (though it's fine if it's handled as a serious theme, I would steer clear of treating it as a kink).
-Note: This disclaimer may feel redundant to a yuletide vet (or maybe not) but there were some characters I could have requested and didn't for ease of matching, and some characters I'd like that weren't even nominated, and if I mention any of those you should obviously not feel pressured in any way to write them; but I figured it's all worth mentioning in case we both love a character that wasn't in the tag set or some such thing :) Also, even as the system technically requires you to include all characters I requested, I don't want you to feel you have to if you get to a place where you're scratching your head over thinking of a way to write someone else in. And please forgive my TL;DR on some of these fandoms - I'm trying to be as specific as possible in case you like specifics; and on the other hand don't be discouraged if I didn't talk as much about the fandom you matched me on as some of the others, it really doesn't reflect any favorites ;)
Dublin Murder Squad Series - Tana French
any
If you're matched with me on this you just might find be finding the "any" a bit daunting, as the books are all stand-alones with diverse sets of characters, but this is really the teeny-tiny fandom I've been perpetually searching for fic for and almost anything written for the series/any of the protagonists would make me happy; your favorite non-nominated character from any of the books is totally invited to the party. Probably the only thing I really wouldn't enjoy is a story centered sentimentally around Cassie and Sam O'Neill; acknowledging their relationship is fine, but a romantic walk on the beach probably isn't going to be my cup of tea.
Cassie/Rob is a big OTP of mine and anything to do with them would be great, whether it's a "missing scene" from their partnership or some situation that forces them back into the same room with each other in the future. Pretty much the same goes for the Kennedy & Curran relationship; there's no fic about them yet and I would love anything that might break my heart all over again for that doomed friendship/partnership - and if you wanted to make it shippy (unrequited or otherwise) I wouldn't say no. I also really enjoy Cassie's relationship with Frank Mackey and would enjoy some speculative backstory about their professional relationship (and I'm not big into Cassie/Frank but maybe the right fic would persuade me).
As for the other characters, I don't have very specific ideas and you can pretty much mess around with them however you want. This is the type of series that makes me try to imagine how some characters we've never witnessed in the same room might interact with each other, so if you wanted to shuffle around some of the detectives or just expand on any character's backstory, I'd be pretty excited about that.
It - Stephen King
Beverly Marsh, Ben Hanscom
As a big-time Ben/Bev shipper, I have to say I felt the open-endedness of their relationship at the end had its place but still I was left wishing we got a lot more of their interaction as adults and coming together in the end. I'll go ahead and say that if you're into writing smut I would absolutely love some emotional porn with these two, but there are plenty of other implied developments between them (maybe both in the present and the past) that I would love to have filled out more fully. Of course if you're more for writing them as kids, or writing them along with the other Losers, I would hardly be opposed. I happen to particularly love Bev's friendship with Richie, and any permutation of the Bill&Eddie&Richie sub-circle, but really any single combination of all seven (or six) of them can warm my heart, and if you're very inclined to focus the fic on someone other than Bev and/or Ben it would be totally fine. I should mention I think the main characters would be really fun to read thrown into some AU setting where they meet some completely different challenge together, or just have fairly normal lives (to be honest, if no one ever writes a high school AU I might have to do it myself, LOL).
Rush (2013)
Niki Lauda, James Hunt
So far the James/Niki fic is probably outweighing anything else in this fandom so I'll say first of all that I'd really love some genfic focusing in any way on these two, whether it's the two of them growing to have an actual close friendship more like they had in real life, or remaining frenemies with very concealed affection (and protectiveness ♥) for each other, or anywhere in-between. That being said, if you ship J/N like burning and you're kind of stuck on how to get into writing it platonically, I will happily take the slash. This will probably be my most oddly specific prompt, but if you're not opposed to genderbend fic I think I'd be pretty delighted by James/girl!Niki - just throwing that out there?
And for the record I'd hardly outlaw Marlene from appearing, even if I don't really want a fic that's heavily Niki/Marlene. I'm amused by the idea of her and James interacting if/when James and Niki build up more of a rapport. The reality is that Niki and Marlene eventually divorced but are still essentially close friends and family to each other, and I actually find it very poignant for people to separate but still be close, so whether you wanted to idealize the marriage or portray it more accurately there's plenty of room for some attachment between them.
If you wanted to do something that focuses more prominently on one character or the other, I'm definitely partial to Niki, but hey, if you're really a James fan and you want to develop a side of him we didn't get enough of in the film and try to make him grow on me more, I'm all for that. On a more general note, I've never followed F1 but ever since seeing the movie I've gotten sucked into googling and reading a lot about the history of Hunt and Lauda and even a lot of other stuff about the sport, so if you are a fan or would like to do some research yourself I would definitely get a kick out of any historical anecdotes/references you might sneak in (I for one am kind of wishing we'd gotten a little more than a brief implication in the film about Hunt's totally adorable love of animals), but by all means don't stress at all if you're just working from the details and characterization built into the movie.
The Stand - Stephen King
Larry Underwood
First of all, I have a whole lot of love for Larry/Lucy. Even with their relationship being sadly underdeveloped I really thought the sort of desperate yet reluctant give-and-take to it was more complicated and more true to the post-apocalyptic context than just about any other relationship in the novel, and I guess I'm saying this so that it's clear that I like that they're a bit messy and loose-ended and uncertain. Anything exploring this relationship and filling in some of the turning points/unanswered questions about it (What was their state of mind when they first hooked up? How did they emotionally negotiate moving in together when it was probably the day after they'd had a serious talk about his feelings for Nadine? When did Larry really begin to love Lucy?) would be awesome. But I also love Larry's friendships with several of the other people in Boulder, if you don't want to do anything shippy, and any bits of the Free Zone Committee bonding and messing around outside of meetings can be fun. Let's just say I'm as much about Larry's smartass humor as I am about his insecurity and moral conflicts.
Now, I'm going to mention that I was this close to requesting Dayna Jurgens, one of my other favorite characters, and if you're cool with writing her I'd be really interested in her relationship with Susan Stern; the friendship is poignant enough but I do totally ship it ;)
Tiger & Bunny
Kaburagi T. Kotetsu | Wild Tiger
(I'm going to go into several off-the-tags-and-requests options here, but again, I'm just trying to give you a lot of possible places to start from.) I ship Kotetsu/Barnaby very hard (the latter I understand fell short of getting nominated), if you're inclined in that direction; while I'm pretty open to many different things with that pairing I'll point out that I would like to see something exploring the possibility of them starting off with a sort of weakly negotiated friends-with-benefits kind of thing, complete with a lot of complications when the romantic feelings kick in and neither of them are good at communicating about it, especially if this overlaps with other conflicts that happened between them in the series. I also adore Kotetsu's friendships with Antonio and/or Nathan and could definitely enjoy some fleshing out of how they work as buddies or have in the past, or of course a gen friendship focus on Kotetsu and Barnaby that fills in some of the canon gaps would be lovely too. If you're open to writing a lot more characters, I would have fun reading about a lot of the heroes just hanging out together between jobs and/or all the trust and friendship that might develop between them as they continue to know each other for years; for that type of thing I could be particularly interested in how Karina's or Pao-Lin's relationships change as they get older and relate more and more to the others as adults (even if the older heroes can't help being protective daddies some of the time). I would actually love to read about Karina having grown out of her crush on Kotetsu but having a fairly close relationship with him when she's somewhere in her mid-twenties.