Dear Yuletide Author (2018)

[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 want this to be fun for you!

Likes: Clothes sharing, d/s, 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, kink negotiation, 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, historical AUs based on actual history (I do like fake historical AUs, like regency romances where same-sex marriage is just as respectable as opposite-sex marriage), randomly inconsistent pov, abrupt endings, endings that throw out the entire premise of the rest of the story, an overabundance of teenage angst, first person, 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), daddykink (I'm not categorically opposed to it; it's just not a thing I want in a story written just for me).


Now on to specific fandoms:



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 any 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 stage of life, 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.


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


• Isabel isn't a nominated character this year, but if you have any interest in her, here is my Isabel-centric bullet point from my letter from last year that could incorporate other characters: 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.

Once a Thief (TV) - The Director (Once a Thief), Mac Ramsey. My bff and I watched the entire series in August of last year, and spent the whole month sending each other emails that said things like, "Whaaaaat?" and, "Who made this show?" and, "This is so ridiculous." It was a good time! The show is ridiculous and fun and wacky. I expected to come out of it shipping Mac/Vic/Li Ann and somehow instead ended up super into The Director/Mac. If you are not into The Director/Mac, I would be into gen or any other pairings as long as the story is mostly about Mac and the The Director. I also nominated Vic and Li Ann, so I am certainly into anything including them.

Specific things I would be into in a story:

• Wacky hijinks of any variety.


• Case fic, ideally involving something strange.


• References to Dobrinsky's love of marching bands.


• Kink. One of the things I loved about the show was how much Mac just went along with The Director's kinkyness.


• Returning to the sex club.


• The team finally seeing The Director's striptease/burlesque performance.


• A return of Special Agent Diller and Special Agent Clansey from the X-Files spoof ep.

Rainbow - Kesha (Album). I heard "Praying" and then "Hymn," and I was afraid to listen to the whole album for fear that the rest of it wouldn't live up to those two, but then I fell in love with the whole album and kept getting different songs stuck in my head.

I want to emphasize again that I want you to enjoy writing this! If you offered this because there's something about this album you want to write, please write that.

Here's the weird thing I really want in my heart of hearts: It's the distant future. This album or a few songs from it still exist. Maybe there's a religion built up around it. Maybe the prevailing opinion is that Kesha was some sort of priestess or other maker of sacred music. Maybe there has always been speculation that the same artist who made "Praying" also made "Tik Tok," but now someone has unearthed proof, thus upending the existing academic consensus. Maybe there's some other sort of scholarship around the album or songs from it. There are a lot of things you could do around stories about the people involved in any of those (or other) possibilities. It's also something I think would work really well as an unusual story if that's your kind of thing: like articles/media clips about the current state of or new advances in Kesha scholarship, an introductory brochure/website/whatever replaces brochures and websites in the far future describing the religion, abstracts from a conference which might include papers about other artists, a student research paper about the album/songs from it, speculation about whether the god Kesha sings about is a male deity or if she was ushering in a goddess religion, or some other type of fictional archival source.


Underworld (Movies) - Selene (Underworld), Lena (Underworld). I unironically love these movies. I love Selene and her ever-increasing powers. I only requested Selene and Lena because they're the only two I absolutely want in a story, but I did also nominate David and Eve, so feel free to include them too. As much as I love Michael being Selene's one and only love, if you want to go to a Selene/Lena place, I could be into that too.

What I'm really interested in is what happens next after Blood Wars. This could be the politics/war element if you want, or I would love to see Selene settling in as a respected elder. Some things that might make for interesting exploration:

• How does Selene's past as a death dealer mix with Lena's past dedication to a more peaceful/sacred path?


• How does Selene integrate the death dealer and mystical sides of herself? (I loved the symbolism of Selene's outfit at the end of Blood Wars combining death dealer black with the Nordic Coven light colors.)


• If you want to write about David, I'd be interested in what Selene and Lena's relationship is with him in this new era.


• I would definitely be interested in Selene meeting Eve again, or Selene and Lena having actual or wordless conversations about what Eve means to each of them.

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