Dear Yulegoat 2018
Oct. 9th, 2018 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meretriculaHappy Yuletide and thank you in advance for writing for me! I really hope you'll have fun. This post has some prompts and general info about my preferences, but Optional Details Are Optional so if there's a story of your heart that you've been waiting to write about the characters I've requested, don't worry about sticking too close to my prompts: write the story you're into! So long as you respect my DNWs I'm sure I'll love it if you loved writing it. I'm meretricula on the AO3 (and Tumblr), if you need to find me!
Yes, Please!
-Happiness. I want everybody to be happy or at least not overtly miserable at the end of the fic. They can suffer and be angsty in the beginning or middle but please please please let the ending be sunshine and rainbows or the promise of sunshine and rainbows on the not-too-distant horizon. I'm also happy to get a fic that's 100% fluffy sunshine and rainbows all the way through.
-Characters having lots of feelings about each other. I'm a big fan of tropes where characters have a lot of history between them -- friends to lovers, childhood sweethearts, best frenemies, sibling relationships, etc. I'm not a big fan of porn for porn's sake but if you want to write about people expressing their feelings via sex, that's great! If you don't want to write shipfic, something focusing on friendship or family bonds is great too.
-Gen, het, slash, femslash and poly (including poly relationships where A is romantically involved with both B and C but B and C are not romantically interested in each other) are all good with me.
-tropes and cliches (if you want to write "snowed in at the hotel and there's ONLY ONE BED", sedoretu, unexpected baby acquisition, genderswap, somebody inexplicably has wings, etc., but are worried that it wasn't specifically prompted, please know that I love that kind of stuff and follow where your muse leads you -- only exceptions are I'm not too keen on soulmarks and A/B/O when they're done straight)
-subverted/inverted tropes and cliches (including soulmarks and A/B/O if they strike your fancy)
-lots of dialogue; limited third person POV; epistolary/mixed media/documentation fic
-canon settings (feel free to throw in some worldbuilding!)
-canon divergences (i.e. fork in the road AUs)
-alternate universes (the wackier the better; personal faves include Regency settings, Star Trek or similar space settings, magic, and "bring your fandom to work" AUs)
-food; competence; found families
No, Thanks!
-unhappy endings
-unrequited love
-major character death (as in, this character is gone and not coming back; death followed by resurrection or altered form of existence is fine so long as the character is still around)
-humiliation; intense angst; graphic violence and gore
-noncon and dubcon; kink involving bathroom functions or vore
-first and second person POV
-fics that center around dealing with discrimination or identity issues (it's fine if these things are addressed in the course of the narrative but I don't want it to be the point of the story)
-AUs that change the nature of characters' backstory together (e.g. if two people have known each other since childhood I'd rather not have an AU where they meet for the first time as adults, and if they've been best friends their whole lives I'd rather not read an AU where they're enemies instead)
-I seriously doubt that this will be an issue for these fandoms, but just as a note, I spent many years of my life studying Latin, so please don't throw random Google-translated Latin into the fic or use it for a title.
...And on to this year's fandoms!
Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku - Momose Narumi, Nifuji Hirotaka
Oh my god, these nerds are so dumb and I love them so much. I love their stupid slice of life adventures and I love their obsessive interests and I love how they support each other even when they're making fun of each other and I WANT TO KNOW WHEN NARUMI IS GOING TO CLUE IN. Hirotaka is Suffering and so am I. (But! I also love that he is not Nice Guy-ing her and genuinely just enjoys hanging out with her??? The DreamTM.) Please can we get some requited love up in here. I'd love get-together fic and I'd also love futurefic where they've already gotten their shit together and are experiencing other relationship milestones, in the nerdiest possible way of course. Can you imagine the epic Combining of the Household Goods that would happen when they move in together? The arguments over how their games should be organized and stored and whether Narumi's manga deserves an equal share of space. Would they hold an in-game wedding for their avatars as practice for the real thing? Would Hirotaka be nine billion times more stressed about everything being perfect for the in-game wedding than the real one???? WOULD THEY HAVE TO GO ON A QUEST TO GET THE WEDDING RINGS. I also adore the flashbacks to their childhood days together (Naoya almost spilling the beans about Hirotaka having a crush on Narumi cracks me up every time) and something tying together a story about their past and a story about their present would be adorable. I love all the characters in this show and would be delighted to have any and all of them show up -- the nerd quartet's adventures are hilarious and so true to life, and Naoya and Kou are SO CUTE, I'M DYING. I'm reading the manga in addition to watching the anime, and I'll read the latest volume as soon as it comes out in English in November so you won't be spoiling me if you mention something that happens in it, but definitely don't worry about incorporating anything from the manga if you don't want to.
The Grand Sophy - Sancia | La Marquesa de Villacañas, Sir Vincent Talgarth, Augustus Fawnhope
The hijinks highlight of this extremely hijinks-heavy book is definitely the final act at Lacey Manor, complete with Sophy shooting Charlbury and then handing people ducklings, but probably my favorite part is Augustus Fawnhope wandering around with absolutely no clue what's happening looking for (1) cool-looking architecture (2) ink (3) Sancia, so he can read her this old poem he found. Nothing fazes him. But you know what the best part is? Sir Vincent, equally unfazed by this dude who has apparently invited himself along on Sir Vincent and Sancia's honeymoon, just sort of shooing him along and getting him out of the rain and keeping him from poisoning himself with ink. (Sancia, professionally unfazed by anything except exertion, is also the best part.) I desperately want more of this supremely delightful OT3 dynamic. Is Augustus just going to keep following them around forever? Are they just going keep fondly tolerating his weirdness? What happens when Sir Vincent, forever the opportunist, invites their beautiful dim-witted poet to join them in their marital bed? How pleased is Sancia when she realizes she can now send the boys off to play together anytime she wants a nap? What on earth is going through Augustus Fawnhope's empty but extremely good-natured head? What happened before they showed up at Lacey Manor together -- did Sir Vincent really give Sophy a full run-down of how Augustus ended up coming along? And how are they going to prevent Sophy from trying to "fix" things for them?
Tennis RPF - Andrea Petkovic, Courtney Nguyen
This is definitely a shot in the dark, but maybe you too have followed Andrea Petkovic (mid-level German professional tennis player) and Courtney Nguyen (former lawyer turned sports journalist) for years on Twitter and been charmed by their banter about daily life on the WTA tour and also their mutual love of music and film. They're just... really cute? That's it, that's the prompt. What if they still had these intense jobs that involved vast amounts of travel and were each other's bright spots on social media and saw each other all the time and bonded over loving the same things and were super cute AND ALSO KISSED. Petko's had a really rough time of it over her career and I would like her to have someone in her corner supporting her and telling her she's an amazing tennis player and also a brilliant person who has so much more to give the world than just her athletic ability. (Although, yes, that person being a journalist who covers women's tennis is entering "holy conflict of interest, Batman" territory. Whatever, it would be handwaved in a romcom.) This would be a great chance to write epistolary fic -- maybe their DMs over the years? -- or some good old-fashioned hurt/comfort about Andrea's shitty luck with injuries and general angst about getting old for playing sports professionally. (If there's anyone in a position to give reassurances about restarting your life in your thirties, it is probably Courtney "ditched my career in corporate law because I wanted to be a tennis blogger full-time" Nguyen.) Or if you're down for an AU, I would love a band AU, either one where they're in some obscure indie band together and living that disgusting tour bus life or where Petko is a musician and Courtney is a music journalist. I do have one special request for this fandom and it's that you archive-lock any fic you write about these characters for me. I'm pretty sure they would find it otherwise (I have seen this happen with fic about journalists before), and I'd rather not deal with that.
You Could Make A Life - David Chapman, Kiro Volkov
I'm fond of the Between the Teeth arc, but it doesn't really get enjoyable for me until Kiro shows up -- and then it gets delightful really fast. It was always obvious that canon was never going to give me the ship, and I do love David and Kiro as friends, but look, if I can't ask for fanfiction where David ends up with the person I wanted him to for Yuletide, what even is the point. I love how sweet and protective and supportive Kiro is with David, and I love how hard David tries to reciprocate even though he doesn't really know what he's doing. I also really love how Kiro is always careful to communicate clearly, and I think that if he and David did ever slide from friends to something more, clear communication would be key! Especially if Emily is also involved -- I love Emily and would be delighted for her to be involved, to be clear, although obviously you should also feel free to handwave her existence or have an amicable break-up offscreen if you'd rather not. (If you do go with the poly triad, I'd be over the moon for Emily & David interactions, but please respect his canon orientation and don't have them be involved sexually.) Tell me about how they get together? I can imagine a number of places in canon where things could have diverged to a David/Kiro destination, but maybe the night of the NHL awards? It's the summer of Kiro! HE LOVES AND SUPPORTS DAVID SO MUCH. Alternatively, David and Kiro are great candidates for some cuddling & snuggling (Orange can come too!) and the evergreen hurt/comfort option -- since we get a lot of Kiro comforting David in canon, I would actually be especially interested in David failboating his way through comforting Kiro for something or sickfic where he has to nurse his unfortunate Russian back to health. And if you wanted to give a cameo to Dave or Oleg or Mary Anne as a supportive parental figure, that would be the cherry on the happy shipper sundae! Finally, if you're interested in going the meta route, I would also love to read the fanfic and ship manifestos that are being written about them in-universe (but please don't make David find out about them, I think his head would explode).
Yes, Please!
-Happiness. I want everybody to be happy or at least not overtly miserable at the end of the fic. They can suffer and be angsty in the beginning or middle but please please please let the ending be sunshine and rainbows or the promise of sunshine and rainbows on the not-too-distant horizon. I'm also happy to get a fic that's 100% fluffy sunshine and rainbows all the way through.
-Characters having lots of feelings about each other. I'm a big fan of tropes where characters have a lot of history between them -- friends to lovers, childhood sweethearts, best frenemies, sibling relationships, etc. I'm not a big fan of porn for porn's sake but if you want to write about people expressing their feelings via sex, that's great! If you don't want to write shipfic, something focusing on friendship or family bonds is great too.
-Gen, het, slash, femslash and poly (including poly relationships where A is romantically involved with both B and C but B and C are not romantically interested in each other) are all good with me.
-tropes and cliches (if you want to write "snowed in at the hotel and there's ONLY ONE BED", sedoretu, unexpected baby acquisition, genderswap, somebody inexplicably has wings, etc., but are worried that it wasn't specifically prompted, please know that I love that kind of stuff and follow where your muse leads you -- only exceptions are I'm not too keen on soulmarks and A/B/O when they're done straight)
-subverted/inverted tropes and cliches (including soulmarks and A/B/O if they strike your fancy)
-lots of dialogue; limited third person POV; epistolary/mixed media/documentation fic
-canon settings (feel free to throw in some worldbuilding!)
-canon divergences (i.e. fork in the road AUs)
-alternate universes (the wackier the better; personal faves include Regency settings, Star Trek or similar space settings, magic, and "bring your fandom to work" AUs)
-food; competence; found families
No, Thanks!
-unhappy endings
-unrequited love
-major character death (as in, this character is gone and not coming back; death followed by resurrection or altered form of existence is fine so long as the character is still around)
-humiliation; intense angst; graphic violence and gore
-noncon and dubcon; kink involving bathroom functions or vore
-first and second person POV
-fics that center around dealing with discrimination or identity issues (it's fine if these things are addressed in the course of the narrative but I don't want it to be the point of the story)
-AUs that change the nature of characters' backstory together (e.g. if two people have known each other since childhood I'd rather not have an AU where they meet for the first time as adults, and if they've been best friends their whole lives I'd rather not read an AU where they're enemies instead)
-I seriously doubt that this will be an issue for these fandoms, but just as a note, I spent many years of my life studying Latin, so please don't throw random Google-translated Latin into the fic or use it for a title.
...And on to this year's fandoms!
Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku - Momose Narumi, Nifuji Hirotaka
Oh my god, these nerds are so dumb and I love them so much. I love their stupid slice of life adventures and I love their obsessive interests and I love how they support each other even when they're making fun of each other and I WANT TO KNOW WHEN NARUMI IS GOING TO CLUE IN. Hirotaka is Suffering and so am I. (But! I also love that he is not Nice Guy-ing her and genuinely just enjoys hanging out with her??? The DreamTM.) Please can we get some requited love up in here. I'd love get-together fic and I'd also love futurefic where they've already gotten their shit together and are experiencing other relationship milestones, in the nerdiest possible way of course. Can you imagine the epic Combining of the Household Goods that would happen when they move in together? The arguments over how their games should be organized and stored and whether Narumi's manga deserves an equal share of space. Would they hold an in-game wedding for their avatars as practice for the real thing? Would Hirotaka be nine billion times more stressed about everything being perfect for the in-game wedding than the real one???? WOULD THEY HAVE TO GO ON A QUEST TO GET THE WEDDING RINGS. I also adore the flashbacks to their childhood days together (Naoya almost spilling the beans about Hirotaka having a crush on Narumi cracks me up every time) and something tying together a story about their past and a story about their present would be adorable. I love all the characters in this show and would be delighted to have any and all of them show up -- the nerd quartet's adventures are hilarious and so true to life, and Naoya and Kou are SO CUTE, I'M DYING. I'm reading the manga in addition to watching the anime, and I'll read the latest volume as soon as it comes out in English in November so you won't be spoiling me if you mention something that happens in it, but definitely don't worry about incorporating anything from the manga if you don't want to.
The Grand Sophy - Sancia | La Marquesa de Villacañas, Sir Vincent Talgarth, Augustus Fawnhope
The hijinks highlight of this extremely hijinks-heavy book is definitely the final act at Lacey Manor, complete with Sophy shooting Charlbury and then handing people ducklings, but probably my favorite part is Augustus Fawnhope wandering around with absolutely no clue what's happening looking for (1) cool-looking architecture (2) ink (3) Sancia, so he can read her this old poem he found. Nothing fazes him. But you know what the best part is? Sir Vincent, equally unfazed by this dude who has apparently invited himself along on Sir Vincent and Sancia's honeymoon, just sort of shooing him along and getting him out of the rain and keeping him from poisoning himself with ink. (Sancia, professionally unfazed by anything except exertion, is also the best part.) I desperately want more of this supremely delightful OT3 dynamic. Is Augustus just going to keep following them around forever? Are they just going keep fondly tolerating his weirdness? What happens when Sir Vincent, forever the opportunist, invites their beautiful dim-witted poet to join them in their marital bed? How pleased is Sancia when she realizes she can now send the boys off to play together anytime she wants a nap? What on earth is going through Augustus Fawnhope's empty but extremely good-natured head? What happened before they showed up at Lacey Manor together -- did Sir Vincent really give Sophy a full run-down of how Augustus ended up coming along? And how are they going to prevent Sophy from trying to "fix" things for them?
Tennis RPF - Andrea Petkovic, Courtney Nguyen
This is definitely a shot in the dark, but maybe you too have followed Andrea Petkovic (mid-level German professional tennis player) and Courtney Nguyen (former lawyer turned sports journalist) for years on Twitter and been charmed by their banter about daily life on the WTA tour and also their mutual love of music and film. They're just... really cute? That's it, that's the prompt. What if they still had these intense jobs that involved vast amounts of travel and were each other's bright spots on social media and saw each other all the time and bonded over loving the same things and were super cute AND ALSO KISSED. Petko's had a really rough time of it over her career and I would like her to have someone in her corner supporting her and telling her she's an amazing tennis player and also a brilliant person who has so much more to give the world than just her athletic ability. (Although, yes, that person being a journalist who covers women's tennis is entering "holy conflict of interest, Batman" territory. Whatever, it would be handwaved in a romcom.) This would be a great chance to write epistolary fic -- maybe their DMs over the years? -- or some good old-fashioned hurt/comfort about Andrea's shitty luck with injuries and general angst about getting old for playing sports professionally. (If there's anyone in a position to give reassurances about restarting your life in your thirties, it is probably Courtney "ditched my career in corporate law because I wanted to be a tennis blogger full-time" Nguyen.) Or if you're down for an AU, I would love a band AU, either one where they're in some obscure indie band together and living that disgusting tour bus life or where Petko is a musician and Courtney is a music journalist. I do have one special request for this fandom and it's that you archive-lock any fic you write about these characters for me. I'm pretty sure they would find it otherwise (I have seen this happen with fic about journalists before), and I'd rather not deal with that.
You Could Make A Life - David Chapman, Kiro Volkov
I'm fond of the Between the Teeth arc, but it doesn't really get enjoyable for me until Kiro shows up -- and then it gets delightful really fast. It was always obvious that canon was never going to give me the ship, and I do love David and Kiro as friends, but look, if I can't ask for fanfiction where David ends up with the person I wanted him to for Yuletide, what even is the point. I love how sweet and protective and supportive Kiro is with David, and I love how hard David tries to reciprocate even though he doesn't really know what he's doing. I also really love how Kiro is always careful to communicate clearly, and I think that if he and David did ever slide from friends to something more, clear communication would be key! Especially if Emily is also involved -- I love Emily and would be delighted for her to be involved, to be clear, although obviously you should also feel free to handwave her existence or have an amicable break-up offscreen if you'd rather not. (If you do go with the poly triad, I'd be over the moon for Emily & David interactions, but please respect his canon orientation and don't have them be involved sexually.) Tell me about how they get together? I can imagine a number of places in canon where things could have diverged to a David/Kiro destination, but maybe the night of the NHL awards? It's the summer of Kiro! HE LOVES AND SUPPORTS DAVID SO MUCH. Alternatively, David and Kiro are great candidates for some cuddling & snuggling (Orange can come too!) and the evergreen hurt/comfort option -- since we get a lot of Kiro comforting David in canon, I would actually be especially interested in David failboating his way through comforting Kiro for something or sickfic where he has to nurse his unfortunate Russian back to health. And if you wanted to give a cameo to Dave or Oleg or Mary Anne as a supportive parental figure, that would be the cherry on the happy shipper sundae! Finally, if you're interested in going the meta route, I would also love to read the fanfic and ship manifestos that are being written about them in-universe (but please don't make David find out about them, I think his head would explode).
