Dear Yuletide Author (2017)

[rsadelle]

Hi! I'm excited you're writing me a story! Thank you for taking on one of these requests.

First up, what I do and don't like in fic. In addition to the like/dislike blocks below, I have fic likes and dislikes tags on Tumblr and here on DW. I'm cool with gen or pairing fic, sex or no sex. I've tried to give you a variety of ideas for each fandom if you want somewhere to start from, but please feel free to go somewhere else with your story if there's something else you want to write. I've cut the specific kink likes and dislikes from this year's letter because I'm not really thinking about kink for any of these fandoms, but if you really want to go that way, you can refer to last year's letter for that element.

Likes: Clothes sharing, women, relationships between equals, people being smart/competent, people acting like adults, soulbonding and other variations on meant to be, they have to get married, cuddling, happy endings, well-structured endings, kids and babies, dialogue, snappy dialogue, people who are practically married before the romance/sex, slowly developing relationships, relationship negotiations of all kinds, unconventional parenting arrangements, judicious parceling out of backstory/exposition, people making reproductive choices, werewolves, non-creepy possessiveness, polyamorous/polyamorous V/open/unconventional relationships, nonsexual intimacy (sex is also good), power dynamics, feminist themes.

Dislikes: Embarrassment (especially teenage embarrassment), misogyny, randomly inconsistent pov, abrupt endings, endings that throw out the entire premise of the rest of the story, an overabundance of teenage angst, trope inversions, infodumps, things that are going to make me feel anxious or full of dread while reading (I like things that are prickly and difficult, just not in a doom is coming or embarrassment sort of way).

Now on to specific fandoms:

Draft Day (2014) - Vontae Mack. I love this movie so much, and I really want to read more about Vontae. I would read gen, het, slash about pretty much anything about his life.

Some specific things I would read:

• Vontae's nephews become friends with Brian Drew's daughter (maybe they go to tumbling together) and that's how Vontae and Brian become friends.


• Vontae gives Sonny and Ali a gift for the baby.


• Vontae babysits.


• Family dinner with Vontae, his grandmother, the nephews, and whoever they have invited to join them.


• Vontae meets a guy.


• News stories Vontae breaks and/or finds out about on Twitter.


• Vontae meets Barb.


• Vontae navigating professional football and raising the nephews.

Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng - Nath Lee (Everything I Never Told You), Jack Wolff (Everything I Never Told You). I read this book for one of my book clubs earlier this year and completely fell in love with it. I am down with whatever story you want to tell me about Nath and Jack. This is a fandom where I would be okay with something other than a happy ending: Ng is so attuned to history for so much of the book that while I was excited about that one line about Nath and Jack at the end, I also thought, "In a decade, a significant portion of their generation of gay men will be dead."

Some specific things I would read:

• By the time Nath realizes, Jack is already dying.


• Hannah is married with kids and has a generally functional family life. Jack and Nath are the kids' cool gay uncles.


• The ways Nath and Jack's relationship parallels James and Marilyn's, and the ways it doesn't.


• How Nath finds out that Jack wants him.


• The ways Lydia and her absence inform their relationship, or don't.

Home Again (2017) - Any. This was such a charming figuring out your life/found family movie. I'm not even sure what my ideal story would be here; I really did love everyone and their journeys. I would be happy with pairings/threesomes or found family gen.

Some specific things I would read:

• Harry grows up, and when he's older and has lived through his wild times period, he and Alice have a chance at a relationship that works for both of them.


• George/Teddy, either as its own thing or as part of an Alice/Harry story.


• Found family dinner, either a specific one or some kind of five times type story.


• George/Alice in a future time when he's had time to really live his life and see that this is what he most wants.


• Alice/Harry, George/Alice polyamorous V that may or may not include the George/Alice/Harry threesome that is the way she runs wild one birthday and/or the aftermath of that threesome.


• Something Isabel-centric. Maybe she's grown up and reflecting on her unconventional childhood/telling someone about it/promoting the play/movie/book she wrote based on it. Maybe she's a teenager navigating dating and teenage life with what amounts to five parents. Maybe she and Rosie are comparing their very different memories of the time George, Harry, and Teddy lived with them.


• Alice and Harry are moving on with their separate lives. Her birthday is an exception.

Jane the Virgin (TV) - Jane Villanueva, Petra Solano, Rafael Solano. I love that this show's setup is completely ridiculous but it works because everyone is so sincere about it. Saturday brunch is the thing that made me want fic about Jane, Petra, and Rafael. I love that once a week they set aside everything else and have brunch as a family, and also what it says about Jane and Petra's relationship. I would be perfectly happy with gen, any pairing involving two of the three of them, any sort of polyamorous V configuration, or threesome fic. Please feel free to fold in any of the other characters too.

Some specific things I would read:

• Anything about Saturday brunch.


• Mateo is a sweet, well-behaved teenager. Anna and Elsa are going through a rebellious phase.


• How Rafael first finds out about Saturday brunch and/or his first brunch with them.


• The negotiation and trial and error involved in making a polyamorous V (with anyone at the center point) work.


• One of them is dating someone who isn't one of the other two. Does the new partner get invited to brunch?

Quest For A Maid - Frances Mary Hendry - Meg Wright. This is one of my all-time favorite books. I would love post-canon fic. If you want to turn their story into something like a space AU, I would be into that. I only requested Meg because she's the only one I absolutely want in a story, but I love everyone, so feel free to include any or all of the other characters.

Some specific things I would read:

• Meg and Peem's wedding night.


• The power dynamics of Meg and Peem's relationship.


• The four of them making their way in Germany.


• Meg, Peem, and Davie handling a young man courting Marie.


• Meg's potential for supernatural powers in the aftermath of Inge's death. Do they require worship of the same god as Inge's, or are they a different type? Does she go it alone, or does she find a mentor/teacher?

I hope that gives you some good ideas to start from, and I hope you have a good Yuletide experience! ♥