Ruth Sadelle Alderson

Happy Halloween! Welcome to the fourteenth annual edition of virtual trick-or-treating.



Knock or ring the bell by leaving me a comment, and I'll reply with a treat of some sort. It might be a fic snippet, a picture, a song, or something else I come up with in the moment. Lurkers and anonymous trick-or-treaters are welcome! (But if you're posting anonymously or with a DW account that is completely friends-locked and you want a treat specific to your interests, let me know something about why you know me.)

(Not my actual door. Photo by Flickr user LiteralDean, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.)

Happy Halloween! Welcome to the twelfth annual edition of virtual trick-or-treating. We're doing this early this year because I'm practicing Shabbat and also going to an outdoors, socially distanced Halloween lunch so I won't be on the internet for much of tomorrow.



Knock or ring the bell by leaving me a comment by noon Pacific Time on Halloween, and I'll reply with a treat of some sort. It might be a fic snippet, a picture, a song, or something else I come up with in the moment. Lurkers and anonymous trick-or-treaters are welcome! (But if you're posting anonymously or with a DW account that is completely friends-locked and you want a treat specific to your interests, let me know something about why you know me.)

(Not my actual door. Photo by Flickr user Olivia Mobbs, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.)

Happy Halloween! Welcome to the tenth annual edition of virtual trick-or-treating. Can you believe it's been ten years?



Knock or ring the bell by leaving me a comment, and I'll reply with a treat of some sort. It might be a fic snippet, a picture, a song, or something else I come up with in the moment. My intention is to post all treats before I go to bed on Halloween. Lurkers and anonymous trick-or-treaters are welcome! (But if you're posting anonymously or with a DW account that is completely friends-locked and you want a treat specific to your interests, let me know something about why you know me.)

(Not my actual door. Photo by Flickr user Mandee Johnson, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.)

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, Everything I Never Told You, Home Again, Jane the Virgin, Quest for a Maid )


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

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 LJ. 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. Most of the suggestions below are pretty mild, but I am totally into kink fic if that's something you want to write.

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, a/b/o, d/s AUs, people making reproductive choices, werewolves, non-creepy possessiveness, poly/poly V/open/unconventional relationships, nonsexual intimacy (sex is also good), power dynamics, feminist themes, dialogue.

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).

Now on to specific fandoms:

( AT&T Lily Commercials, Bourne (Damon movies), The Killing, Ned & Stacey, Push (2009) )

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. The long version is below, and I have fic likes and dislikes tags on Tumblr and here on LJ if you want more than that. Short version: I like nonsexual intimacy (sex is good too), power dynamics, relationships between equals, feminist themes, dialogue. I dislike misogyny, abrupt endings, 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). 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, but please feel free to go somewhere else with your story if it works. Most of the suggestions below are pretty mild, but I am totally into kink fic if that's something you want to write.

Likes: Clothes sharing, D/s, women, relationships between equals (and yet D/s; it’s like a less complicated romance/erotica version of a koan), 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, a/b/o, D/s AUs, people making reproductive choices, werewolves, non-creepy possessiveness, poly/poly V/open/unconventional relationships.

Dislikes: Embarrassment (especially teenage embarrassment), misogyny, historical AUs based on actual history (fake historical AUs, like regency romances where same-sex marriage is just as respectable as opposite-sex marriage, are awesome), randomly inconsistent pov, abrupt endings, badly written endings, endings that throw out the entire premise of the rest of the story, an overabundance of teenage angst, first person, trope inversions, infodumps.

Now on to specific fandoms:

( Dance Academy, Ice Princess, The Killing, Make It or Break It, Stitchers )

First lines from the last twenty-one stories posted to AO3. (The original meme says last twenty-one stories written, which this is not since this covers some of the much older things I finally got around to posting in December.)


( First Lines )

Happy Halloween! Welcome to the fourth annual edition of virtual trick-or-treating.



Knock or ring the bell by leaving me a comment, and I'll reply with a treat of some sort. It might be a fic snippet, a picture, a song, or something else I come up with in the moment. (I will be offering treats until nine PM Pacific Time, but if I don't get to it by then, I'll leave you a treat tomorrow morning.)

(Not my actual door. Photo by Flickr user jeremympiehler, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.)

Apparently there is a top ten hit count at AO3 meme. I'm having a feeling bad about my writing day (I think/hope it is mostly hormones + exhaustion + allergies and will go away with a few days and some extra sleep), so I thought I would do this too. I am mostly comforted by the fact that I'm not the only one who obsesses over her hit counts.

( Top Ten )

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

Now, I know you're really here to figure out what the heck I might like. Luckily, I can help you with that. I did the very long kink/trope meme a while back, and here is a shorter fic likes and dislikes post. The very short summary version: I like women, dialogue, intimacy along the nonsexual plane (although sex is good too), and relationships between equals. I dislike misogyny, randomly inconsistent pov, abrupt endings, and anything that makes me feel anxious or embarrassed for the characters.

And now, some specifics about the fandoms I requested:

Make It Or Break It - The story of my heart is the one where Payson is a lesbian. If that is not your thing, that is okay! I would especially love anything about Payson's relationships with other women (I'm the person who nominated both Kim Keeler and Heather, even though I didn't specifically request either of them), or really anything about Payson as a person.

Push - I can't tell you why I love this movie so much. I think it's some combination of the fantastic colors, Dakota Fanning, and the psychic abilities. I would love a threesome or some other kind of Cassie-Nick-Kira chosen family thing, but really anything with all three of them would make my day.

Rizzoli & Isles - The thing I love most about this show is their bantering and conversation. I would also read femslash. Or a casefile. Or anything else that involves Jane and Maura being their awesome selves.

Thank you again, writer, for taking on my request(s). I'm looking forward to reading what you come up with!

♥ and happy writing,
Ruth