FAIREST OF ALL THE YULETIDE WRITERS:
I am very sorry about the lateness of this letter. I promise I have excuses, but listing them seems weird. but because I don't have a lot of time, this letter will be a lot less detailed than the ones from previous years. so if you want more details about me and the things I like, check out my yuletide letter tag.
I believe in overexplaining so that people can pick and choose the stuff they want to care about. well, it's what I like receiving for prompts. I understand that it can seem like a lot of pressure. by all means, this is NOT me describing the contents of my dream kitchen which I want replicated down to the exact color of the shiny shiny stand mixer that will sit on my purple marble counters. inspiration is weird, so I'm just going to throw out as much stuff as I can in the hopes that something will help. I've been doing yuletide for years now and have been disappointed exactly never. I think this is one of those cases where just trying to make me happy is enough.
all of the details for the prompts are going to have spoilers for the canon in them. so if you haven't seen something, keep that in mind. I am absolutely 100% willing to upload anything from this canon for you if you want. even if has nothing to do with the fic and you're just curious.
ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT: graphic non-con. dubiously consensual situations treated like that's totally normal. or basically any dub-con outside of the americans and orphan black. (will explain more in those sections.) objectification and dehumanization masquerading as love/romance. suffering for suffering's sake. manpain!
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I'm gonna be straight-up honest right now, if there is a straight white dude in my fiction, there is a 98% chance that I do not give a shit about him. his chances improve if he thinks that a lady I like is the greatest thing since the invention of oxygen, but only if he's not a creeper about it. I care about people from disenfranchised minority groups a hundred bazillion times more. (especially women, people of color, people who don't fit the traditional gender binary and folks with health/disability issues.)
ABSOLUTELY DO WANT: ladies! value placed on the relationships between ladies! hugs! consent!
my favorite types of stories focus on HOW things work. I'm more interested in seeing HOW sarah connor built her robot fighting empire than how she FEELS about it. I want to see all of the gears inside of the watch. I want to know how the really mundane things work. so I really like slice-of-life style fics where not a ton of stuff happens plot-wise. I prefer characterization to plot. and as much as I love worldbuilding, I prefer characterization. I hope that makes sense.
I'll try to simplify it more. sarah connor kills a bunch of robots < sarah connor has feelings about killing robots < how sarah connor kills robots < how sarah connor gets the guns she needs to kill the robots < what sarah connor's life is like in the spaces that aren't shown in the movies/show
SHIPPING: I generally don't like to read about white guys penis fencing. I love friendships. I am fine with reading all levels of explictness, but I don't really want to read about beastiality or watersports. my favorite thing in romantic relationships is adoration. like, when one person looks at the other one and is just blazingly happy that s/he exists. (also my favorite thing in friendships.)
1. The Americans (2013) - Nina, Claudia, Elizabeth Jennings
LADY SPIES! This show is all about hard decisions and it doesn't shy away about what that means for women and I love it and all of these women are METAL AS FUCK. I love them.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 1 season. 13 episodes. 42 minutes each. currently airing, on hiatus. set in the cold war era, about the lives of russian spies deep undercover living in america. and the systems surrounding them.
WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: it looks unflinchingly at the way that being a female spy sucks specifically more than a male one. and specifically looks at the ways in which is horrible and unfair. I love spy shenanigans, it is one of my biggest narrative weaknesses. I just love all of the secrets and the politics and the information brokering. these women are tougher than their male counterparts. because they have to be. they are terrifyingly resilient.
MORE DETAILS: I love nina the best. nina is my favorite favorite and I would throw a parade for her any day of the week. claudia is the one I find most fascinating. I love elizabeth to tiny pieces but her 'will their marriage be a real one or not?!' plotline has begun to annoy me. I mean, it'd be pretty impossible to have a story without her marriage involved, but I don't want that to be the focus.
here's the big thing I'm going to be picky about: I DESPISE amador. I am seriously creeped out by how the show venerated him after his death. leaving aside all of the spying stuff, that dude was stabbed because he was stalking his ex-girlfriend and threatening her new boyfriend with violence and all of the power he gets from his job. that dude treated women like fuckholes from when we met him until he died and he is not a person worth fighting a crusade for. that dude is the reason we have fucking workplace sexual harassment laws. if he's treated like a hero in the fic, it'll seriously bother me.
and another thing: nina's relationship with her cia handler. she clearly has that dude enspelled by her lady parts and is working that advantage as best as possible. but it started because of a serious abuse of power on his part and nina just sort of salvaged what she could from the shit pile. the man who was blackmailing her and had access to information which could get her legit killed showed up drunk and wanting to fuck her, what else could nina have done?
consent stuff: the nature of consent when it comes to their jobs and the alliances they have to make and their personal relationships is really murky. and I get that some stuff is straight up hinky consent-wise. I'd rather acknowledge that fact than pretend that anybody is able to 100% enthusiastically consent to what they are doing. I'd prefer to not focus on rapey stuff or have an exploration of straight up rape stuff, but if that has a part in the story just try really hard not to victim-blame, okay?
2. The Immortals (Tamora Pierce) - Daine Sarrasri, Numair Salmalin
Nostalgia! I just reread this series on a long plane flight and oh man when I was a baby I shipped Daine/Numair SO HARD and those books hold up SO WELL. And so anything that has the two of them being together and happy would be enough to have me super jazzed.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: it's a 4 book YA series set in a larger collective universe by the same author, but the other books are not really necessary. THERE IS A GIRL WHO CAN TALK TO ANIMALS. and basically it is like a baby feminist utopia everywhere. all of the ladies get agency! and hugs!
WHY I LOVE THESE BOOKS: I don't even know any more! because they exist, basically. I love the characters and the setting and the fantastical animals and how magic is a talent and not a gift, something you have to practice and master and not just something bestowed upon the cosmically deserving penis of justice. also daine and numair are a fucking amazing pair. I love they way they overreact when the other one is in trouble. (especially daine. her temper tantrum at the end of book 3 is literally legendary.)
MORE DETAILS: I don't care about having a big fancy plot. I would rather read a fic where daine and numair snuggle platonically on a mountain while he feeds her grapes. slice-of-life stuff! stupid domestic arguments! do you want to write kissing stuff? I am all for that!
I realize that the age difference and power imbalance and student/teacher roles complicate this a lot, but I ship them to a hyperbolic degree. he's just so nerdy and uptight and she does not give a fuck! it's almost like book smarts vs common sense! or like I don't even know. seriously I would just like to read about them bickering about gardening and then smooshing their faces together. they engage my brain at a really deep level that doesn't care about thinky thoughts. (childhood ships, man.)
3. Orphan Black - any
CLONES!
I am really interested in the idea of their bodies being property and anything they make with their bodies is derivative property and that is so creepy and awful. I also like the adventures of clone club. Or Felix could host a clone club sleepover with cookies and excessive amounts of alcohol. There's so much here that would make me happy, I loved the series so much that I just want more of it.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 1 season. 13 episodes total. 42 minutes each. currently airing, on hiatus. CLONES. there are a lot of clones. and two secret evil conspiracies fighting against each other! and ladies everywhere all over the place! found families! lesbians! science! clone club!
WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: it's some damn good scifi. I care about everybody except for paul and the rest of the creepy white guys. I love how the show can go from felix and allison snuggling as they watch old musicals and critique the costumes to an in-depth look at the long term effects of childhood trauma on adult development to a conspiracy thriller to straight up action movie to crushing bleakness and tears everywhere. the show contains multitudes! also, LADIES. and felix! and science lesbians!
MORE DETAILS: in terms of a potential fic, I'd sort of either like a really in-depth look at what it's like running that kind of kind of conspiracy (what kind of surveillance did they have? what there the non-interference protocols? how did they get the money to pay their staff?) OR felix and the clones snuggling on the couch while being snarky about things. so I guess I'm drawn to the extremes that the show holds. I don't have a favorite clone. I don't have a favorite character, although I am especially fond of mrs s.
consent stuff! so much of the show is based on deception, and not just on sarah's part. the cosima/delphine relationship is 7 different flavors of fucked up. I really like it, but then I also realize that delphine was pressured into doing whatever it took to get cosima to trust her and then turned around and abused the hell out of that trust. so it's not healthy. sarah and paul's relationship is awful. allison's relationship with her husband is terrifying. everybody has ulterior motives for wanting to fuck the people they fuck and it all makes the whole thing super uncomfortable for me. not that relationships should be avoided at all, just that I need that fact to be acknowledged.
4. Elementary - Joan Watson, Irene Adler/Moriarty
I know that Ms. Hudson isn't on here, or Clyde, but I love them too! I have kind of been really desperately wanting a story where Ms Hudson, Clyde, and Joan Watson team up to foil crime (Moriarty.) Or something serious. Or everybody gets snuggles.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 2 seasons. 22 episodes in season 1, season 2 is currently airing and I don't have access to it. 42 minute episodes. currently broadcasting, but I haven't seen any of season 2. THE ONLY ADAPTATION OF SHERLOCK HOLMES THAT I CARE ABOUT. sherlock's brilliance doesn't give him a license to step on other people's heads and joan watson is my freaking hero.
WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: here's the deal, I usually DESPISE case-of-the-week and procedural shows. hate them! hate crime shows! but I love this one. and it's because I am really attached to joan and sherlock. they are trying the best that they can to be good people and it means a whole lot for me to see. sherlock is a genius and he's fucked up and he has the emotional problems and drug addiction but then the show never lets that excuse anything he does. and he tries to be kind to people. and joan doesn't let him get away with shit and the show treats that like a good thing. it's the kindness that I like the best, I think. it's a very kind show, but it's a very practical kindness. (also sherlock openly adores every molecule of joan all the fucking time.)
MORE DETAILS: so I love sherlock. but I didn't put him as a character because I don't want him to be the focus of a story written for me. side character, not main. I am completely happy with joan and sherlock being platonic or fucking like bunnies. I seriously do not care. do whatever you like, so long as he continues to treat her like she is the greatest person on the planet.
I like all the recurring characters, but I care about the ladies the most and the white dudes the least. there is not a ship that bothers me, except that I don't care about gregson getting any. CLYDE IS THE GREATEST PET ON TELEVISION. (I had pet turtles as a kid. they were amazing.)
I guess that what I love best about this show is that it's not super scary n terms of worrying about bad things happening to the characters I love, but the dark things in the show are shown to be properly dark and awful and real without turning into tragedy porn. sherlock's drug addiction was genuinely life-shattering.
shit, I forgot to write about the characters I actually requested. okay, so. joan is magically able to genuinely care about people without taking any of their shit. and she gets all kinds of stuff done. and she's brave and strong and empathetic and curious and fantastic. she's just the best. sometimes I've noticed that a lot of sherlock holmes adaptations don't really know what to do with watson. there's this supergenius and he's brillaint and witty and the supersmartest white due ever to be a white duded and then another guy follows him around and he's okay I guess. but with elementary I get the sense that sherlock's big brain is just running in crazy directions all the time and he needs some kind of focal point. so first he had irene and now he has joan and they are IMPORTANT. sherlock isn't sherlock in a bottle. all of my favorite parts of that dude are when he tries his hardest to be respectful to joan. (which is all the time. but especially in emphasizing the partnership always.)
and irene/moriarty, the lady who was not fridged! gosh, what a stone-cold badass. she is so bitter and furious and such a good actress about it except when she has feelings about stuff and then you can see all of her resentment leaking out around the edges. I just think she's amazing. even if your fic doesn't include any moriarty at all, I'd mostly just like acknowledgment of the effect she's had, because it is towering. AND SHE WAS NOT DEFEATED BY A DUDE! she lost because she underestimated joan, which is my favorite thing probably ever. what a fucking great show.
I'm really not sure how to describe what I'd want from a fic in this fandom, this has for sure been the hardest thing to write. I'd say, honestly, if in doubt I'd love to read anything about snuggling. everybody getting snuggles. or irene conning the fuck out of people until joan accidentally stumbles upon the scheme and foils it and then they maybe make out? I AM IN FAVOR OF EVERYBODY KISSING. kissing with mutual respect!
IN CONCLUSION: thank you! (sorry for the lateness!) I'm really looking forward to the story, so thanks again.
I am very sorry about the lateness of this letter. I promise I have excuses, but listing them seems weird. but because I don't have a lot of time, this letter will be a lot less detailed than the ones from previous years. so if you want more details about me and the things I like, check out my yuletide letter tag.
I believe in overexplaining so that people can pick and choose the stuff they want to care about. well, it's what I like receiving for prompts. I understand that it can seem like a lot of pressure. by all means, this is NOT me describing the contents of my dream kitchen which I want replicated down to the exact color of the shiny shiny stand mixer that will sit on my purple marble counters. inspiration is weird, so I'm just going to throw out as much stuff as I can in the hopes that something will help. I've been doing yuletide for years now and have been disappointed exactly never. I think this is one of those cases where just trying to make me happy is enough.
all of the details for the prompts are going to have spoilers for the canon in them. so if you haven't seen something, keep that in mind. I am absolutely 100% willing to upload anything from this canon for you if you want. even if has nothing to do with the fic and you're just curious.
ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT: graphic non-con. dubiously consensual situations treated like that's totally normal. or basically any dub-con outside of the americans and orphan black. (will explain more in those sections.) objectification and dehumanization masquerading as love/romance. suffering for suffering's sake. manpain!
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I'm gonna be straight-up honest right now, if there is a straight white dude in my fiction, there is a 98% chance that I do not give a shit about him. his chances improve if he thinks that a lady I like is the greatest thing since the invention of oxygen, but only if he's not a creeper about it. I care about people from disenfranchised minority groups a hundred bazillion times more. (especially women, people of color, people who don't fit the traditional gender binary and folks with health/disability issues.)
ABSOLUTELY DO WANT: ladies! value placed on the relationships between ladies! hugs! consent!
my favorite types of stories focus on HOW things work. I'm more interested in seeing HOW sarah connor built her robot fighting empire than how she FEELS about it. I want to see all of the gears inside of the watch. I want to know how the really mundane things work. so I really like slice-of-life style fics where not a ton of stuff happens plot-wise. I prefer characterization to plot. and as much as I love worldbuilding, I prefer characterization. I hope that makes sense.
I'll try to simplify it more. sarah connor kills a bunch of robots < sarah connor has feelings about killing robots < how sarah connor kills robots < how sarah connor gets the guns she needs to kill the robots < what sarah connor's life is like in the spaces that aren't shown in the movies/show
SHIPPING: I generally don't like to read about white guys penis fencing. I love friendships. I am fine with reading all levels of explictness, but I don't really want to read about beastiality or watersports. my favorite thing in romantic relationships is adoration. like, when one person looks at the other one and is just blazingly happy that s/he exists. (also my favorite thing in friendships.)
1. The Americans (2013) - Nina, Claudia, Elizabeth Jennings
LADY SPIES! This show is all about hard decisions and it doesn't shy away about what that means for women and I love it and all of these women are METAL AS FUCK. I love them.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 1 season. 13 episodes. 42 minutes each. currently airing, on hiatus. set in the cold war era, about the lives of russian spies deep undercover living in america. and the systems surrounding them.
WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: it looks unflinchingly at the way that being a female spy sucks specifically more than a male one. and specifically looks at the ways in which is horrible and unfair. I love spy shenanigans, it is one of my biggest narrative weaknesses. I just love all of the secrets and the politics and the information brokering. these women are tougher than their male counterparts. because they have to be. they are terrifyingly resilient.
MORE DETAILS: I love nina the best. nina is my favorite favorite and I would throw a parade for her any day of the week. claudia is the one I find most fascinating. I love elizabeth to tiny pieces but her 'will their marriage be a real one or not?!' plotline has begun to annoy me. I mean, it'd be pretty impossible to have a story without her marriage involved, but I don't want that to be the focus.
here's the big thing I'm going to be picky about: I DESPISE amador. I am seriously creeped out by how the show venerated him after his death. leaving aside all of the spying stuff, that dude was stabbed because he was stalking his ex-girlfriend and threatening her new boyfriend with violence and all of the power he gets from his job. that dude treated women like fuckholes from when we met him until he died and he is not a person worth fighting a crusade for. that dude is the reason we have fucking workplace sexual harassment laws. if he's treated like a hero in the fic, it'll seriously bother me.
and another thing: nina's relationship with her cia handler. she clearly has that dude enspelled by her lady parts and is working that advantage as best as possible. but it started because of a serious abuse of power on his part and nina just sort of salvaged what she could from the shit pile. the man who was blackmailing her and had access to information which could get her legit killed showed up drunk and wanting to fuck her, what else could nina have done?
consent stuff: the nature of consent when it comes to their jobs and the alliances they have to make and their personal relationships is really murky. and I get that some stuff is straight up hinky consent-wise. I'd rather acknowledge that fact than pretend that anybody is able to 100% enthusiastically consent to what they are doing. I'd prefer to not focus on rapey stuff or have an exploration of straight up rape stuff, but if that has a part in the story just try really hard not to victim-blame, okay?
2. The Immortals (Tamora Pierce) - Daine Sarrasri, Numair Salmalin
Nostalgia! I just reread this series on a long plane flight and oh man when I was a baby I shipped Daine/Numair SO HARD and those books hold up SO WELL. And so anything that has the two of them being together and happy would be enough to have me super jazzed.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: it's a 4 book YA series set in a larger collective universe by the same author, but the other books are not really necessary. THERE IS A GIRL WHO CAN TALK TO ANIMALS. and basically it is like a baby feminist utopia everywhere. all of the ladies get agency! and hugs!
WHY I LOVE THESE BOOKS: I don't even know any more! because they exist, basically. I love the characters and the setting and the fantastical animals and how magic is a talent and not a gift, something you have to practice and master and not just something bestowed upon the cosmically deserving penis of justice. also daine and numair are a fucking amazing pair. I love they way they overreact when the other one is in trouble. (especially daine. her temper tantrum at the end of book 3 is literally legendary.)
MORE DETAILS: I don't care about having a big fancy plot. I would rather read a fic where daine and numair snuggle platonically on a mountain while he feeds her grapes. slice-of-life stuff! stupid domestic arguments! do you want to write kissing stuff? I am all for that!
I realize that the age difference and power imbalance and student/teacher roles complicate this a lot, but I ship them to a hyperbolic degree. he's just so nerdy and uptight and she does not give a fuck! it's almost like book smarts vs common sense! or like I don't even know. seriously I would just like to read about them bickering about gardening and then smooshing their faces together. they engage my brain at a really deep level that doesn't care about thinky thoughts. (childhood ships, man.)
3. Orphan Black - any
CLONES!
I am really interested in the idea of their bodies being property and anything they make with their bodies is derivative property and that is so creepy and awful. I also like the adventures of clone club. Or Felix could host a clone club sleepover with cookies and excessive amounts of alcohol. There's so much here that would make me happy, I loved the series so much that I just want more of it.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 1 season. 13 episodes total. 42 minutes each. currently airing, on hiatus. CLONES. there are a lot of clones. and two secret evil conspiracies fighting against each other! and ladies everywhere all over the place! found families! lesbians! science! clone club!
WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: it's some damn good scifi. I care about everybody except for paul and the rest of the creepy white guys. I love how the show can go from felix and allison snuggling as they watch old musicals and critique the costumes to an in-depth look at the long term effects of childhood trauma on adult development to a conspiracy thriller to straight up action movie to crushing bleakness and tears everywhere. the show contains multitudes! also, LADIES. and felix! and science lesbians!
MORE DETAILS: in terms of a potential fic, I'd sort of either like a really in-depth look at what it's like running that kind of kind of conspiracy (what kind of surveillance did they have? what there the non-interference protocols? how did they get the money to pay their staff?) OR felix and the clones snuggling on the couch while being snarky about things. so I guess I'm drawn to the extremes that the show holds. I don't have a favorite clone. I don't have a favorite character, although I am especially fond of mrs s.
consent stuff! so much of the show is based on deception, and not just on sarah's part. the cosima/delphine relationship is 7 different flavors of fucked up. I really like it, but then I also realize that delphine was pressured into doing whatever it took to get cosima to trust her and then turned around and abused the hell out of that trust. so it's not healthy. sarah and paul's relationship is awful. allison's relationship with her husband is terrifying. everybody has ulterior motives for wanting to fuck the people they fuck and it all makes the whole thing super uncomfortable for me. not that relationships should be avoided at all, just that I need that fact to be acknowledged.
4. Elementary - Joan Watson, Irene Adler/Moriarty
I know that Ms. Hudson isn't on here, or Clyde, but I love them too! I have kind of been really desperately wanting a story where Ms Hudson, Clyde, and Joan Watson team up to foil crime (Moriarty.) Or something serious. Or everybody gets snuggles.
IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS BEFORE: 2 seasons. 22 episodes in season 1, season 2 is currently airing and I don't have access to it. 42 minute episodes. currently broadcasting, but I haven't seen any of season 2. THE ONLY ADAPTATION OF SHERLOCK HOLMES THAT I CARE ABOUT. sherlock's brilliance doesn't give him a license to step on other people's heads and joan watson is my freaking hero.
WHY I LOVE THIS SHOW: here's the deal, I usually DESPISE case-of-the-week and procedural shows. hate them! hate crime shows! but I love this one. and it's because I am really attached to joan and sherlock. they are trying the best that they can to be good people and it means a whole lot for me to see. sherlock is a genius and he's fucked up and he has the emotional problems and drug addiction but then the show never lets that excuse anything he does. and he tries to be kind to people. and joan doesn't let him get away with shit and the show treats that like a good thing. it's the kindness that I like the best, I think. it's a very kind show, but it's a very practical kindness. (also sherlock openly adores every molecule of joan all the fucking time.)
MORE DETAILS: so I love sherlock. but I didn't put him as a character because I don't want him to be the focus of a story written for me. side character, not main. I am completely happy with joan and sherlock being platonic or fucking like bunnies. I seriously do not care. do whatever you like, so long as he continues to treat her like she is the greatest person on the planet.
I like all the recurring characters, but I care about the ladies the most and the white dudes the least. there is not a ship that bothers me, except that I don't care about gregson getting any. CLYDE IS THE GREATEST PET ON TELEVISION. (I had pet turtles as a kid. they were amazing.)
I guess that what I love best about this show is that it's not super scary n terms of worrying about bad things happening to the characters I love, but the dark things in the show are shown to be properly dark and awful and real without turning into tragedy porn. sherlock's drug addiction was genuinely life-shattering.
shit, I forgot to write about the characters I actually requested. okay, so. joan is magically able to genuinely care about people without taking any of their shit. and she gets all kinds of stuff done. and she's brave and strong and empathetic and curious and fantastic. she's just the best. sometimes I've noticed that a lot of sherlock holmes adaptations don't really know what to do with watson. there's this supergenius and he's brillaint and witty and the supersmartest white due ever to be a white duded and then another guy follows him around and he's okay I guess. but with elementary I get the sense that sherlock's big brain is just running in crazy directions all the time and he needs some kind of focal point. so first he had irene and now he has joan and they are IMPORTANT. sherlock isn't sherlock in a bottle. all of my favorite parts of that dude are when he tries his hardest to be respectful to joan. (which is all the time. but especially in emphasizing the partnership always.)
and irene/moriarty, the lady who was not fridged! gosh, what a stone-cold badass. she is so bitter and furious and such a good actress about it except when she has feelings about stuff and then you can see all of her resentment leaking out around the edges. I just think she's amazing. even if your fic doesn't include any moriarty at all, I'd mostly just like acknowledgment of the effect she's had, because it is towering. AND SHE WAS NOT DEFEATED BY A DUDE! she lost because she underestimated joan, which is my favorite thing probably ever. what a fucking great show.
I'm really not sure how to describe what I'd want from a fic in this fandom, this has for sure been the hardest thing to write. I'd say, honestly, if in doubt I'd love to read anything about snuggling. everybody getting snuggles. or irene conning the fuck out of people until joan accidentally stumbles upon the scheme and foils it and then they maybe make out? I AM IN FAVOR OF EVERYBODY KISSING. kissing with mutual respect!
IN CONCLUSION: thank you! (sorry for the lateness!) I'm really looking forward to the story, so thanks again.
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