dear yulegoat 2024
Oct. 18th, 2024 06:48 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! Treats are very welcome, if you should be so inspired.
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, A/B/O, or other "fated mates" universes 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; it is TOTALLY OKAY to give me an AU even if I didn't ask for one specifically)
-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, UNLESS (as with Shadows and Spinning Silver) the canon is written in first person POV, in which case matching canon is fine
-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 do not mean no complete change-of-setting AUs, I love AUs, just try to translate the essential nature of the canon relationship to whatever setting you pick
-writing my requested characters in relationships with other, unrequested characters (if you don't vibe with my ships, please just write friendship fic!)
-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.
This year I have requested...
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!
My Fair Concubine - Yan Ling, Chang Fei Long, Li Bai Shen
The romance between Fei Long and Yan Ling is not, in my opinion, Jeannie Lin's strongest story, but there's something so compelling about the hints at the friendship Li Bai Shen has with both of them. The plot suddenly makes a lot more sense when you infer a prior relationship between Fei Long and Bai Shen -- and his presence makes Fei Long's relationship with Yan Ling feel much more fun! I'd love it if you could explore that OT3 dynamic.
This book drove me bonkers because it had the SKELETON of something truly amazing in there, but the limits of the category romance were really not working for it. Li Bai Shen teaching Yan Ling how to be a lady was such a good set up! How convenient that Fei Long just happened to have a guy friend whom he trusted implicitly and ALSO knew everything about acting like a woman! What else could he teach Yan Ling? And on the other side of that relationship, Yan Ling's friendship with Bai Shen was so cute. I'd love to see them ganging up on Fei Long, in a sexy or platonic fashion! Fei Long kind of annoyed me at times, but he was at his best when he admitted he was in trouble and let the people who loved him help. I loved the setting -- feel free to tell me more about Fei Long and Bai Shen showing Yan Ling around the city. Maybe they could go see more plays together? But also, if you'd rather write an AU, that's totally fine! Contemporary setting (maybe Fei Long needs to turn Yan Ling into a movie star and Bai Shen is a stylist?) to space royalty (that one seems pretty suited to the original plot, actually) or anything in between is lovely.
Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty - Wang Zhi, Jia Kui
I love almost everything about Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, but one of my very favorite parts is speculating about what on earth is going on with Jia Kui at any given time. Why is he so loyal to Wang Zhi? The show doesn't show us anything that he's feeling or thinking, only how he acts. I'm fine with a romantic or platonic interpretation of the relationship between Jia Kui and Wang Zhi, but whatever it is, it seems like it must be intense.
I love a pragmatic true believer, and that's exactly what Wang Zhi is -- the show does SUCH a good job slowly revealing that he's genuinely loyal to the emperor. (Side note, I love the twists and turns of the relationship between the emperor, the Noble Consort, and the Noble Consort's beloved sort-of-son-sort-of-minion. Young stepdad who is also your boss is an underrated dynamic!) But what does Jia Kui believe in? Why would a guy who was forced to leave his family and go to prison for clearly bullshit reasons just flip a switch and suddenly become willing to die to protect an evil kitten who thinks of nothing but murder and preserving corrupt systems of power all day? I also love the sudden realization that a person you thought was bad has actually been good all along... is Jia Kui picking up on that sooner than the audience does? I do wholeheartedly ship Sui Zhou and Tang Fan, by the way, and if you wanted to explore the parallels between Sui Zhou and Jia Kui (or make them stoic silent buddies) I would love that! Just a quick note to say that while I have "unrequested ships" in my DNWs, it's fine to reference Wang Zhi having other relationships (sexual or non) and Jia Kui's mysterious off-screen family; I just don't want that to be the focus of the story.
Thank you again for writing for me! I'm so excited to read whatever you come up with!
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, A/B/O, or other "fated mates" universes 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; it is TOTALLY OKAY to give me an AU even if I didn't ask for one specifically)
-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, UNLESS (as with Shadows and Spinning Silver) the canon is written in first person POV, in which case matching canon is fine
-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 do not mean no complete change-of-setting AUs, I love AUs, just try to translate the essential nature of the canon relationship to whatever setting you pick
-writing my requested characters in relationships with other, unrequested characters (if you don't vibe with my ships, please just write friendship fic!)
-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.
This year I have requested...
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!
My Fair Concubine - Yan Ling, Chang Fei Long, Li Bai Shen
The romance between Fei Long and Yan Ling is not, in my opinion, Jeannie Lin's strongest story, but there's something so compelling about the hints at the friendship Li Bai Shen has with both of them. The plot suddenly makes a lot more sense when you infer a prior relationship between Fei Long and Bai Shen -- and his presence makes Fei Long's relationship with Yan Ling feel much more fun! I'd love it if you could explore that OT3 dynamic.
This book drove me bonkers because it had the SKELETON of something truly amazing in there, but the limits of the category romance were really not working for it. Li Bai Shen teaching Yan Ling how to be a lady was such a good set up! How convenient that Fei Long just happened to have a guy friend whom he trusted implicitly and ALSO knew everything about acting like a woman! What else could he teach Yan Ling? And on the other side of that relationship, Yan Ling's friendship with Bai Shen was so cute. I'd love to see them ganging up on Fei Long, in a sexy or platonic fashion! Fei Long kind of annoyed me at times, but he was at his best when he admitted he was in trouble and let the people who loved him help. I loved the setting -- feel free to tell me more about Fei Long and Bai Shen showing Yan Ling around the city. Maybe they could go see more plays together? But also, if you'd rather write an AU, that's totally fine! Contemporary setting (maybe Fei Long needs to turn Yan Ling into a movie star and Bai Shen is a stylist?) to space royalty (that one seems pretty suited to the original plot, actually) or anything in between is lovely.
Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty - Wang Zhi, Jia Kui
I love almost everything about Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, but one of my very favorite parts is speculating about what on earth is going on with Jia Kui at any given time. Why is he so loyal to Wang Zhi? The show doesn't show us anything that he's feeling or thinking, only how he acts. I'm fine with a romantic or platonic interpretation of the relationship between Jia Kui and Wang Zhi, but whatever it is, it seems like it must be intense.
I love a pragmatic true believer, and that's exactly what Wang Zhi is -- the show does SUCH a good job slowly revealing that he's genuinely loyal to the emperor. (Side note, I love the twists and turns of the relationship between the emperor, the Noble Consort, and the Noble Consort's beloved sort-of-son-sort-of-minion. Young stepdad who is also your boss is an underrated dynamic!) But what does Jia Kui believe in? Why would a guy who was forced to leave his family and go to prison for clearly bullshit reasons just flip a switch and suddenly become willing to die to protect an evil kitten who thinks of nothing but murder and preserving corrupt systems of power all day? I also love the sudden realization that a person you thought was bad has actually been good all along... is Jia Kui picking up on that sooner than the audience does? I do wholeheartedly ship Sui Zhou and Tang Fan, by the way, and if you wanted to explore the parallels between Sui Zhou and Jia Kui (or make them stoic silent buddies) I would love that! Just a quick note to say that while I have "unrequested ships" in my DNWs, it's fine to reference Wang Zhi having other relationships (sexual or non) and Jia Kui's mysterious off-screen family; I just don't want that to be the focus of the story.
Thank you again for writing for me! I'm so excited to read whatever you come up with!
