Dear Yulegoat 2019
Oct. 28th, 2019 09:57 pm![[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, with the exception of Shadows (where the canon is written in first person and I'd be totally fine with fic being written the same)
-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.
A Countess Below Stairs - Susie Rabinovitch, Tom Byrne
I loved Susie and Tom's relationship in A Countess Below Stairs and I was really bummed that aside from the one scene at the dress ball, we didn't really get to see them interacting. Anything with Tom and Susie will make me happy, so go wherever the spirit leads you!
If you feel up to it, I would really love details about the role Jewish tradition plays in their life together -- maybe their first major holiday together? (But only if you want to and feel comfortable with that!) Alternatively, what does Susie think about all the craziness going on with Rupert's wedding? What is their married life like? Or their early courtship? Or the seventeen other times Tom proposed to Susie? Or their wedding? I adore their families and friends, so feel free to include as large an ensemble cast as you like. I really love the feel of the book and would be super happy to get something in the same vein as canon, whether it's pre-canon, missing scene or alternate POV during the events of the book, or post-canon. That said, if you want to make them space pirates or college students or whatever and you can think of a way to make that work, go for it! The sky's the limit. Or the final frontier, if you're writing Star Trek AUs. (Annnnnd now I've made myself want a Star Trek AU. Dammit, self.) I know WWII is looming in the future for all these characters but I emphatically Do Not Want to have Holocaust foreshadowing in my happy Yuletide place. Thanks for understanding!
Shadows - Maggie, Takahiro
I really enjoy both the world-building and character development in Shadows, but I always get to the end and go, wait, THAT'S IT? We just got to the good part! (Both in terms of the revolution and Maggie and Taks' relationship.) I'd love to know what happens next, or maybe something in Taks' POV, or both!
If you'd like to write from Takahiro's perspective I would love to know what he's thinking at any point before, during, or after the events of the book. Did he develop romantic feelings for Maggie as suddenly as she realized she liked him like that, or was it more of a slow build for him? Is he less clueless about the political environment than Maggie? Gonna be honest here, if you wanna go full-on paranormal shifter romance about Taks being a werewolf and having Feelings About His Mate or whatever I would eat it up with a spoon. If you'd rather do outsider-POV, what does Val think about these teenagers going all gooey-eyed in the middle of the revolution? I really like Maggie and Takahiro as a couple (friends to lovers and childhood sweethearts are some of my favorite tropes) so I'd be happy with straight-up shipfic, or something else with them being cute in the background if that's more your speed, although I would prefer that things stay PG-13 or under in this fandom. (Make-outs are fine; teenage stressing about how to stage the perfect first time while trying to overthrow the government is fine; parental destruction of perfect first time planning with well-meaning "chats" about prophylaxis is fine; please don't actually describe Takahiro and Maggie's first time in explicit detail.) As a side note, I absolutely adored the level of detail that McKinley put into the animal characters of the book, and if you wanted to include Majid and his inexplicable fondness for Takahiro (and/or Maggie's relationship with Mongo or any of the other Family members) that would be amazing!
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, with the exception of Shadows (where the canon is written in first person and I'd be totally fine with fic being written the same)
-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.
A Countess Below Stairs - Susie Rabinovitch, Tom Byrne
I loved Susie and Tom's relationship in A Countess Below Stairs and I was really bummed that aside from the one scene at the dress ball, we didn't really get to see them interacting. Anything with Tom and Susie will make me happy, so go wherever the spirit leads you!
If you feel up to it, I would really love details about the role Jewish tradition plays in their life together -- maybe their first major holiday together? (But only if you want to and feel comfortable with that!) Alternatively, what does Susie think about all the craziness going on with Rupert's wedding? What is their married life like? Or their early courtship? Or the seventeen other times Tom proposed to Susie? Or their wedding? I adore their families and friends, so feel free to include as large an ensemble cast as you like. I really love the feel of the book and would be super happy to get something in the same vein as canon, whether it's pre-canon, missing scene or alternate POV during the events of the book, or post-canon. That said, if you want to make them space pirates or college students or whatever and you can think of a way to make that work, go for it! The sky's the limit. Or the final frontier, if you're writing Star Trek AUs. (Annnnnd now I've made myself want a Star Trek AU. Dammit, self.) I know WWII is looming in the future for all these characters but I emphatically Do Not Want to have Holocaust foreshadowing in my happy Yuletide place. Thanks for understanding!
Shadows - Maggie, Takahiro
I really enjoy both the world-building and character development in Shadows, but I always get to the end and go, wait, THAT'S IT? We just got to the good part! (Both in terms of the revolution and Maggie and Taks' relationship.) I'd love to know what happens next, or maybe something in Taks' POV, or both!
If you'd like to write from Takahiro's perspective I would love to know what he's thinking at any point before, during, or after the events of the book. Did he develop romantic feelings for Maggie as suddenly as she realized she liked him like that, or was it more of a slow build for him? Is he less clueless about the political environment than Maggie? Gonna be honest here, if you wanna go full-on paranormal shifter romance about Taks being a werewolf and having Feelings About His Mate or whatever I would eat it up with a spoon. If you'd rather do outsider-POV, what does Val think about these teenagers going all gooey-eyed in the middle of the revolution? I really like Maggie and Takahiro as a couple (friends to lovers and childhood sweethearts are some of my favorite tropes) so I'd be happy with straight-up shipfic, or something else with them being cute in the background if that's more your speed, although I would prefer that things stay PG-13 or under in this fandom. (Make-outs are fine; teenage stressing about how to stage the perfect first time while trying to overthrow the government is fine; parental destruction of perfect first time planning with well-meaning "chats" about prophylaxis is fine; please don't actually describe Takahiro and Maggie's first time in explicit detail.) As a side note, I absolutely adored the level of detail that McKinley put into the animal characters of the book, and if you wanted to include Majid and his inexplicable fondness for Takahiro (and/or Maggie's relationship with Mongo or any of the other Family members) that would be amazing!
