Dear Yuletide Writer

[scribblemyname]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

This year, I'm keeping my requests to the fandoms and/or fics I probably can't get written anywhere else. I would love you for any of these, and some I'm the only person in the fandom that I can tell. I would love you for any of these.

Links to my profiles on other sites are in the header on this page. If you want to ask questions of a writing buddy/best friend of mine, I recommend in_the_blue.

The Kinds of Fic I Love: I have especially near and dear to my heart kinds of stories, and I admit to leaning heavily literary/poetic.

• I love deep delving into characters and relationships, not just romantic relationships, but familial relationships and deep friendships. I always want to know more about the bond and the interaction, the intimacy (romantic or otherwise), and the best sex is that which characterizes and makes me know the characters more and better. In that vein, I love romantic, intimate sex, but I'm just as likely to love friendship and asexuality that allows more delving into character headspace, and big sprawling families or intense focus on one relationship within a family hit all my sweet spots. Some of my favorite fics are genfic for that reason.


• I also love beautiful language and layers of meaning packed into a single scene. It's definitely not a requirement, as I can fluff and humor with the best of them, but I do adore being able to read more between the lines and see worlds of meaning and layers of implied history seeping between the seams of a story. The more you can immerse me, the more I will absolutely love you.


• This is probably a big part of why I love parallel/backstory and slow build stories where I get to see a lot of different parts of a developing relationship/character arc. Getting to see how different points in a longer timeline all feed into one emotional resolution is so compelling to me. Most of my favorite fics give a longer view than just one moment in time. (Though yes, I love those too. I'm easy to please.)


• Also, worldbuilding. That thing about immersion? Yes, please. I want to drop smack in the middle of your feels and ideas and impressions of the world. Generally, I want to know more about the world in a greater sense: how it feels, how it works, how the characters interact or are situated within it, how it affects them—just more. You cannot go wrong by giving me more of the world of the story.

Things I Do Not Love/Please Avoid Writing This For Me:

• tragedy


• deathfic (I will love your deathfic and I will weep and I will hate that I read it and and loved it and wept)


• bloodplay


• oral sex


• bodily fluids (as focus/play)


• mpreg


• breakup of canonical pairings


• ageplay


• underage


• noncon


• dubcon (with few exceptions)


• embarrassment at all


• body-related humor


• bashing (whether that be character, political, religious, etc.)


• out of character


• characters reflecting on how out of character they are acting because romance changes them


• romance changing a character


• any relationship changing a character (I love seeing how a character can be themselves and grow, expand, deal with a relationship as themselves)


• incompetence


• unhappy endings or implied unhappy endings (ambiguous but satisfying and/or status quo endings fine)


• gore


• gratuitous violence


• porn without plot (with plot/heavy characterization is awesome)


• most sex-related slang (squicky much)


• most dirty talk (I actually love it but not with a lot of that slang, so don't name body parts?)


• uncensored profanity

Razor Sharp (2006)

Canon: On Vimeo, and the entire movie is a little less than half an hour long. It does not take long to watch, is super fun, and has an amazingly awesome cast. There's a grifter with a thing for Macy's (Cassidy Freeman before Smallville), her Russian tech guy who used to work with her dad, a kid hacker, and Michael T. Weiss from The Pretender being awesome at cheesy, sleazy guy handing out the job. You like funny, offbeat, and adventure/action? This is sooo it. The cast is awesome and the movie is awesome. And the dialogue is hilarious.

Yes Please: I really have a hankering for chosen family fic with Isis settling into the family dynamic. I'd love to keep the humor and banged up nature of their operation and see more of the worldbuilding between the chinks of the short movie. Tech love, hacker shenanigans, mission fic, and backstory/continuing story all super, super welcome. Awesome dialogue would be my number one wish though. I don't write it half as well as the writer of Razor Sharp and I just LOVED the style of humor in here. Wouldn't mind a crossover with Leverage if that makes it easier to write, as it's a world of grifters, so yeah, but if that's not helpful, no problem.

No Thank You: Please no body-related humor or embarrassment as both squick me something awful. Also please no consent issues or blackmail on any front, gore, gratuitous violence, or profanity. Censored profanity okay.

Nashville (TV)

Canon: Three seasons and takes a while to watch if you haven't seen it already. I picked it up on Hulu Plus because 1) awesome music and 2) Hayden Panettiere and got totally sucked in. I'm telling you, it's all about the characters, which are three dimensional people with knotty, complex relationships and backstories going on. The relevant part to my requested pairing is in season 2 and especially inspired by "They Don't Make 'Em Like Daddy Anymore."

Yes Please: Liam McGuinnis/Scarlett O'Connor is a pairing that snuck up on me and didn't sell me until that episode and the following one where Rayna orders Liam to break it off. What really got me was that for once someone gave something to Liam and opened up something in him where he was always the one doing that for everyone else and the comment about he didn't have anyone waiting for him, then she looked at his lyrics, and just yes, yes, yes. I would love to see this explored. An AU where they get together or futurefic or even just the missing scene where she's looking at his lyrics and seeing that connection, though I admit, I want something more romantic.

I'm seriously looking for intimacy and connection and characterization here and would love some of that offscreen Liam stuff you don't see. I think Scarlett opened up something more vulnerable in him that no one else got to because he kept the walls up with them and he didn't need them with her after that one point, so yeah. That.

No Thank You: Please no porn without plot (with plot, I'm all over it), oral sex, embarrassment, unhappy endings, crack or overly humorous fic here.

The Lesson - Billy Collins (poem)

Canon: This poem is available free online here. I love the character of History with queens in the pockets of his coat that might fall out and the whole idea of how he visited the narrator and seriously, about that coat...

Yes Please: I want to know more about History and his personal effects and how that coat works and how he carries history/historical figures with him and more lighthearted stuff and/or why he was visiting the narrator and who the narrator is. Meta and experimental fic also welcome.

No Thanks: Deeply angsty/tragic stuff, romance, sex, embarrassment, bashing of any variety, current political issues.

Doppelganger series — Marie Brennan

Canon: The original duology is here and should definitely be read as a set. The prequel is free online at Beneath Ceaseless Skies and is equally amazing and wonderful and stands alone. Dancers and warriors and magic and deep characterization and ethical issues and serious study of said magic and engaged deity and all of it, just yes, please.

Yes Please: I am fascinated by the entire new focus the Void ray is going to be taking on moving forward and how to incorporate this whole new aspect of Starfall's culture. I want a post-duology story where the newly merged Naspeth-Urishin (preferably with a name) interacts with Mirei, where we see the new aspects to the Void ray or more research into Void magic, especially with Mirei, but also will take Naspeth-Urishin, Satomi, any of them really. I'm into the worldbuilding here and how this affects everything.

And please more of the Starfall hunting school and the interaction among Mirei, Eclipse, and Jaguar regarding it (I adored his claim on half of Mirei at the end of the second book). How this all works together with raising the girls together just fascinates me.

Alternatively, I LOVE the Mirei/Eclipse pairing and want more, more, more—characterization, intimacy, working out new boundaries, sorting out history from present relationship, adult situations yes please, and them working together at Starfall. More about Sen and Kerestel's history between Dancing the Warrior and the books would also be welcome.

No, Thank You: Politics please! The books are heavy on politics because they need to be, but that's why I'm not that interested in reading more about the politics. I'm really interested in the cultural shift and the worldbuilding and the characters and the Void power and how things work under the surface. So yeah. Also, please no gore or gratuitous violence or profanity.


Again, thank you so much!

Love,

the scribbler