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blindmadness) wrote2015-10-18 04:20 pm
blindmadness) wrote2015-10-18 04:20 pm
Dear Yuletide Author,
GENERAL NOTE: This letter contains varying degrees of spoilers for all of the fandoms listed (with the exception of tennis RPF because, uh... obviously). If you're planning on consuming any of them at any point, a. don't read this yet, and b. DO SO. DO SO IMMEDIATELY. DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200, JUST DO IT.
Why hello there, dearest author! ♥ I am so very pleased to make your acquaintance-- I'm thrilled that you'll be writing something just for me, and I know for a fact I will love whatever you write me. I am one of those people that's extremely easy to shop for because anything you get me thrills me to my bone, since I'm just so happy that someone was thinking of me at all-- so trust me when I say that I'm delighted to just be getting fic, regardless of what it is, as long as you have fun writing it!
Overall, I like Yuletide to be a happy time of year for me, so the only things I will ask you to strictly abide by is happy endings (I will also accept "bittersweet but hopeful" or "open-ended but generally uplifting," just-- not overtly sad or dark), which means no serious, lasting tragedy (e.g., rape, character death, intense torture, serious unfixable injury, etc. etc.) and no serious real-world issues not already explored in canon. (For example, Captive Prince takes place during a war, The Departed involves hardcore criminals-- so any attempts to avoid those issues is pretty much impossible, given how ingrained they are in the canon. However, I don't want to see anything added to the canon that doesn't exist there already -- please don't introduce any serious trauma and don't give me any intense institutional discrimination. Keep it realistic and not overly traumatic.) (The ONE EXCEPTION to all this is Crimson Peak, which will be elaborated on in that particular request.)
A basic overall look at my taste:
I love: banter, UST/pining/slow burn, first kisses/makeouts that don't immediately lead to sex (either by design or by accidental interruption), people being really really dumb about their feelings and taking ages to get their shit together, awesome ladies!!, little nods to canon that will make me kick my feet in glee, really ridiculous tropey gross romance-novel/rom-com scenarios, people being very competent at what they do (and other people, ahem, enjoying it), found families, character- rather than plot-driven stories, cute animals, and my favorite characters/people BEING HAPPY!!
I don't love: misogyny in m/m relationships, misogynistic dirty talk, noncon/dubcon, character-bashing (unless EVERYONE agrees that they're fucking awful-- e.g., the Regent from Captive Prince), excessive jealousy/possessiveness, first- or second-person POV, heavy kink, and although I mentioned my love of gross romantic tropes above, I genuinely do not enjoy the miscommunication trope -- which is to say, I'm totally cool with characters who are canonically terrible at talking about their feelings continuing to be terrible at doing so, but if the conflict could have been resolved with a single, simple, not-difficult-to-utter statement of clarification, rest assured I am gently beating my head against the wall at the entire thing.
More generally, in case you get stuck and need inspiration, here are my results from the trope sorting meme! Aaand in case you go the porn route, here are my results from the kink sorting meme as well. >_>
And finally, I don't think it's likely to come up, but just in case: I have a big ol' needle phobia, so please keep them out of the story. I can be okay with a quick mention of them if it's necessary, as long as you just make it brief and please, please warn for it. Thank you for your consideration!!
My prior two Yuletide letters are the prior two posts on this journal; meanwhile, I'm mostly on Twitter these days at either my personal, locked account (@devilputaside; if you drop me a line about who you are, I'm happy to give you access!) or my public liveblogging account (@yellingaboutit; if you matched with me on Captive Prince or HTGAWM, I liveread Prince's Gambit and rewatched S1/am livetweeting S2 there, respectively). If you want a look at the Tumblr to which I haven't posted in over half a year, WHOOPS, it's allthroughoursplendor, and I have a fandom list here if you want to consult that. :3 And my AO3 is here, wherein you can see what I've written and what I've bookmarked as shit I really love!
So! That's enough of that. ON TO THE FANDOMS!
Captive Prince
• Damen, Laurent
I really just want something--anything--with these two, because I absolutely adore them. Give me a missing scene from what exists, a potential future scene from Book 3, an extra-future scene in which everything is settled and they're nice and domestic, a canon AU, a total AU--honestly, anything! I just want their sexual tension, their deep connection, their love, to be explored in whatever manner you choose.
So I was a little late to the Captive Prince train, only reading the books this past spring/summer, but let me tell you that I fell so very, very hard, oh my sweet god. Throughout the first book the exceedingly slow-build sexual tension slowly killed me, and when they finally kissed in the second, I literally had to set my laptop down and lie down on the floor in sheer agony. (I'm not kidding. I actually, physically did this. I'm not proud.)
Anyway, I enjoy the setting and I enjoy the writing, but I absolutely fucking love Damen and Laurent. (Especially Laurent. It was about 75% into the first book when I went "...oh, god, this asshole is my asshole, isn't he? I have chosen this asshole to be my fave. This one is mine. This is my son." It's a very stressful life I lead.) I love them individually, and I love them together, and I love every nuance of their developing relationship -- the initial hatred and distrust and power plays, the slow, slow development of trust, the UST dear god the UST, and the cumulation of all of it, their falling in love, their sex-- EXCUSE ME I NEED TO LIE DOWN AGAIN JUST THINKING ABOUT IT!!!
So, as I said, pretty much what I want here is THEM. I want their dynamic explored in some way, and I really don't care how you choose to do it. Missing scenes from canon? Future scenes from canon? (I'm personally on Team Laurent Totally Knows, but if you want to write me something hella angsty [if eventually happily resolved] about him Finding Out, I'd be thrilled with that too.) Future scenes from post-canon where they're married and everything is excellent and lovely and domestic?? A canon AU in which they have an arranged marriage or Laurent is the one being enslaved or--idk, anything? A complete situational AU in which they meet in any other way, under any other circumstances? A rule 63 AU of any kind?? Honestly, I am SUPER FLEXIBLE here, and pretty much any way you choose to give them to me, I'll be thrilled. As long as they're bantering and ending happily, I will be so very, very happy.
Given the source material, I feel like this should probably go without saying, but--sex is 100% a-okay, and in fact encouraged! I'm totally okay with no sex either, but honestly even if you wanted to go the PWP route, which is not usually my cup of tea for Yuletide, I'll be thrilled. Any and all levels of sexiness are welcome.
The Departed (2006)
• Billy Costigan
What I really want here is the ending, and the justice, that Billy Costigan deserved. I want him to end happily, or at least not miserably. I don't care what that ending entails, as long as he is alive and looks as if he'll stay that way. Just fix this for me, please!
I! love! this!! movie!!! I love it!!! I love it even more now that I've been living in Boston for a few years and adore it, and thus have an innate fondness for any and all media set here. I think it's an excellently acted and brilliantly crafted movie, with an exciting plot and a great soundtrack, and I have one enormous problem with it: Billy Costigan.
I fucking love Billy Costigan. I LOVE HIM. Has there ever been a character more in need of a good hearty dinner, a warm blanket, and a good, safe night's sleep?? I CRY JUST THINKING ABOUT EVERYTHING THIS POOR CHILD HAS BEEN THROUGH. And then it ends with him dying, all of his work for nothing?? (Yes, I know that Sullivan dies too, and thank goodness for that, but THAT DOES NOT MAKE UP FOR IT!!) Okay, I understand that not every movie is going to have a happy or even fair ending, and I know that that's sort of the entire point of this movie, and my boyfriend claims that I can't say I love the movie if I hate the ending because of that, but I DON'T CARE. I WILL NEVER BE OVER THIS. IT IS WRONG AND AWFUL AND I DON'T LIKE IT!!
So: give me justice for Billy Costigan. Let him live. Let him survive, and let the chips fall as they may after that. It's okay if his life afterward isn't perfect (hell, how could it be, under the circumstances?). I'm okay with fic for this going a little darker than I usually like, as long as I can imagine even some tiny semblance of light at the end of the tunnel. I want Billy to live, and I want him to be able to move on, even if it takes a long time and even if the road is rough. I don't care how you get him there, and I don't care what it takes. All I want is for him to be alive.
While I'm usually a big-time shipper, for this fandom I would actually pretty strongly prefer gen. Go ahead and bring Madolyn back if you so desire, or whatever noncanon ship (I know Costigan/Dignam is really popular-- it's not usually my cup of tea, but if it's yours please feel free to include it!), but I'm certainly not going to object if poor traumatized Billy isn't up for any romance in his life just yet.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
• Gaby Teller, Ilya Kuryakin, Napoleon Solo
Honestly, what I want MOST here is OT3 fic; they all had such fantastic chemistry, I shipped it within the first ten minutes of the movie. If you don't ship it, that's fine -- given that I ship all three of them, I'm happy with any romantic combination, as long as all three characters, and all three of their dynamics, get equal screentime. I'm fine with established relationship fic or getting-together fic, and all of them working together or performing a new operation or missing scenes from the movie or--! Really anything with the three of them being badasses all together.
Okay, so here is my story with TMFU: I knew it was happening, and I didn't really pay much attention to it because it didn't seem like my jam and I don't see movies in theatres very often (partially because it's not an experience I usually find necessary and partially because it's EXPENSIVE AS FUCK). Then my darling friend
antediluvian, who is lovely beyond what words can describe, told me that I had to see it in order to write her threesome fic (she is very demanding like that ♥). I told her I couldn't really afford to do so immediately, and before I knew it she was PayPaling me the money to do so, because -- as I said a minute ago -- she is lovely beyond what words can describe. (I... have not actually written her said fic yet, but I WILL, I PROMISE. IT WILL HAPPEN.)Anyway, I went and I saw it, and point to Rae, because within the first ten minutes of the movie, I knew two things: 1. this movie was incredible and I adored it; 2. these three characters were going to fall PROFOUNDLY IN LOVE AND NEEDED TO BANG SO VERY, VERY MUCH.
I really, absolutely loved the movie, and it's primarily because of the characters. Yes, the plot was excellent, and the dialogue was hilarious and lovely, but seriously, these three beautiful, hypercompetent, delightful spies!!! Napoleon protecting Gaby, Ilya falling MADLY IN LOVE with her, Gaby playing both of them from the start, Napoleon and Illya having absolutely no idea what to do with each other!! I absolutely adored every single one of them, and every single one of their interactions with one another. How many amazing, incredible adventures are they going to have working together?!
So, as I said, what I really, really want here is the threesome, and the exploration of what that means of the dynamic for all three of them. I would love this most, because I definitely saw the potential all the way around-- but if that's not your preference, I will honestly take any relationship. Gaby/Illya, Illya/Napoleon, Napoleon/Gaby (!!) -- I love it all. My only two requests are these: if you go Illya/Napoleon, please do still include Gaby and don't downplay her importance to both of them; and regardless of what you decide to write, please don't shaft the Napoleon-Gaby interactions. I felt like the movie started off so well with them but then didn't follow through in ways that I wanted, so I'd absolutely love to see more of them together.
Apart from that, I'm not very picky about what you do with these silly kids! I would prefer canon over AU (rule 63 AU being the exception, because more lady spies yes good always), but if you have a good idea, please go ahead! (I would request no mundane AUs, though, unless you think of a really good subversion; part of the fun with them is the weird shit they get into and how good they all are at their intense jobs, so I'd rather Harry Potter AU or high fantasy AU or something over coffee shop/college/etc., unless like, that's their cover story???) I'd prefer getting-together fic but established-relationship fic is also totally fine, and whether you want to do missing scenes from the movie or canon divergence or post-movie fic-- really, the floor is yours here. Just delight me with their shenanigans and partnerships. (And porn, if you go shippy in any direction. Porn is not necessary but will be welcomed with open arms!)
If for whatever reason you really only feel like focusing on one character, missing scenes from the movie (especially for Gaby!) or backstory from any of them (especially Napoleon!) would be excellent, too. I adore all of them, but I have to confess to (predictably, for anyone who knows me at all) Napoleon being my Fave, so anything with him being Good at His Job but Terrible at His Feelings in general would delight me beyond reason.
Tennis RPF
• Novak Djokovic
I love Novak Djokovic more than I love most things, so I really just want to read about him. Give me gen, give me canon relationship fic with him and Jelena and baby Stefan (!!!), give me him with Nadal or Murray or Federer or-- anyone, really! Legitimately pretty much anything as long as it's positive and Nole-centric, I want it. ANYTHING AT ALL.
Okay, so given I requested this last year and the year before that, it looks like it's shaping up to be an annual kind of thing (even though I got a glorious and excellent treat the first time I requested it; I'm greedy, okay?!). So if you want more details about what I'd like to see, please feel free to consult my prior two letters, as they've got more specifics about what I want.
To sum up: Novak Djokovic is an incredibly important public figure to me personally, and I love him and I want him to be happy, and I want to read fic about him being happy forever, so I would love something fluffy, or something introspective, or something heavy but with a happy and neat resolution. Any pairing is excellent (my faves are Nadal, Murray, or Jelena), as is gen; any rating is excellent; canon is preferred but AUs are also great; any inclusion of Stefan is HIGHLY ENCOURAGED but certainly not mandatory. Please, please no homophobia, internalized or otherwise. I am once again totally fine with being my own Serbpicker. I DON'T EVEN CARE.
How to Get Away with Murder
• Connor Walsh, Laurel Castillo, Michaela Pratt, Wes Gibbins
There are a few different kinds of stories I'd love to see here. First, single-character-focus backstories: if you want to pick one of the above and write some life-before-Middleton (or missing scenes from the show with them, or even potential looks into the future), I'd be absolutely thrilled. I'm so curious about all of these assholes and what brought them to law school! Second, shippy fics: with the exception of Frank/Laurel, I love all of their canon ships, and I'm also completely fine seeing them shipped with one another. Go canon, go AU, go tropey-- go wild, basically. I'm fine with all of it. And finally, friendship ensemble fic: my absolute favorite thing from this show has been seeing the growing camaraderie between these four (past just being murder buddies), and I would adore seeing more of that in fic, their growing trust and love for one another and their banter-laden prickly interactions.
I love this show!! MY GOD do I love this show. Every time Viola Davis opens her mouth, she demonstrates exactly why she deserved the Emmy for this role. I clutch my chest in glee and/or horror and/or shock and/or EMOTIONS at least once per episode. I almost never see the twists coming. I laugh, I cry, I grow horribly attached to the great majority of the characters. Yes, it's ridiculous, and yes, it's campy, and yes, it's grossly and dramatically unrealistic. But MY GOD, DO I LOVE THIS SHOW.
A few things out of the way before I get to prompts: I adore all of these terrible assholes, but Connor is my child, my son, my problematic fave. I love him with Oliver and I LOVE his friendship with Michaela. I'm begrudgingly growing fonder and fonder of Asher, though I still don't love him as much as the other four. Annalise is my queen, of course, and I still haven't forgiven Bonnie for killing my daughter Rebecca (who's only not included here because I couldn't bear to kick out one of the other four), but I respect her as a character and enjoy her complexity. The only person I cannot stand on this show is Frank (and thus Frank/Laurel, girl what are you even DOING), so please for the love of god, include him as minimally as possible in whatever you write me. Cameos from anyone and everyone else are highly encouraged.
So! What I would most want to see here is fic that includes all of the above characters bonding with one another, slowly trusting one another and becoming closer and closer. Watching all of them go from hatred, distrust, and open competition to a scene like the one in 2x03 where they openly discuss their sex lives, bantering and teasing one another, is everything my found-family-adoring little heart could ever desire. Basically anything that illustrates them becoming a group rather than just people thrown together by chance would be absolutely amazing to me. The more slice-of-life, the better. (They deserve a break in fic after all of the shit they go through in canon, don't you think?)
If you'd prefer a more narrow focus, I'm a huge fan of romance, so any kind of shippy fic is also guaranteed to delight me. Hell, combine the two and give me OT4, even! (They have now CANONICALLY DISCUSSED HAVING AN ORGY, OKAY?! IT'S EVERYTHING I WANTED. I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE.) Past that, I'm generally a multishipper and pretty flexible about it; there's no particular combination of characters here that would be a NoTP for me, so go for wherever your heart leads you. (The obvious exception being Connor ending up permanently and romantically with a woman, but I think there are certainly circumstances in which he could engage in sexy activities with women, so just tread carefully in that regard.) I also love the canon ships (again, with the exception of Frank/Laurel), so feel free to bring any of the canon partners in here, too, or like... almost anyone else from the show you might ship any of them with? Anything Connor/Oliver, as mentioned earlier, would be incredible and lovely.
And, finally, if for some reason only one of these characters is tickling your inspiration, I do genuinely love all of them, so a focus on any of the four is completely welcome! I'm insanely curious about all of their backstories-- how did Michaela reinvent herself (and did it have anything to do with her being adopted)? What brought Wes to law school, what made him interested in it to begin with? What has Connor's family life been like--he loves his sister, but what about their parents? WHAT DOES LAUREL'S FATHER DO AND HOW DOES IT AFFECT HER??? Missing scenes with any of them from the show (at whatever point, really), would also be amazing, as would any future snippets you think would be interesting to explore. (Like, I'm not saying Michaela should eventually be Connor and Oliver's surrogate or anything, but like... yes. Yes, I am.) This show is so twisty, any look into the future is sure to be disproven in a week or two, but it's fun to think about, isn't it??
(I have talked about Oliver a fair amount in this letter, and I apologize, because it's something of a cop-out given I didn't request him-- optional details are optional, of course, so please please don't feel obligated to include him! I'll be perfectly happy with just the four characters I did request; just, if you wanted to include Oliver, I'd welcome it. But again, if you're not feeling it, it's absolutely not something I require.)
With regards to circumstances, really, go wild here -- any flavor of AU, canon divergence, missing scenes, future scenes, etc. etc. I'm fond of the canon, but I don't think these characters are married to it, so I'm down with seeing whatever you choose to do with them. :3
Crimson Peak (2015)
• Thomas Sharpe, Lucille Sharpe
I'm completely, horribly fascinated by these two awful codependent humans, and I would love to see more of them. Mostly I want backstory, although I would take missing scenes from the movie as well. Don't shy away from how fucked up this dynamic is, because I LOVE IT AND I WANT TO SEE IT.
Okay, so here is a thing you should know about me: I am a horrible wuss who is afraid of EVERYTHING, so at first sight this movie did not seem like it would be my jam whatsoever. But then I read the summary on Wikipedia, and I saw the character descriptions (including Charlie Hunnam's !!!), and I saw the full theatrical trailer, and I was like "...dammit, this is going to have to happen, isn't it?" So I saw it the day after it came out, during a matinee (because, again, horrible wuss, I am not touching that thing in the dark NO WAY NO HOW), and...
...I loved it! I was kind of surprised by how much, but given that it was barely scary and only a little gory, and more creepy and unsettling than anything else, it made sense. I loved poor classic gothic heroine Edith, and long-suffering Alan, and all of the awful things you just knew were coming with every hint of the plot-- it was gorgeously shot, of course, and there were quite a few things I couldn't quite guess at that kept me off-balance. And look, I really, really loved Thomas and Lucille.
Here is the deal: I have a serious weakness for sibling incest. I just do. It's terrible, I know, I am the worst, but I LOVE it, most especially when it's a contentious relationship or a deeply codependent one and acknowledges how deeply fucked up the whole thing is. The whole time I was watching the trailers and reading the information about the movie, and most especially when I was seeing it, Thomas and Lucille were pinging my incest radar, but -- and this is true -- I thought it might have been too obvious a route, so I wasn't sure if it would actually happen. (Note to self: not everyone grew up in fandom and so always thinks of the most fucked up option.) True story: every hint the movie dropped, the friend with whom I saw it and I kept going "ARE THEY GOING TO--NO? no? okay," and then when it finally happened it was like that one gif of the Elmo-like muppet thing raising its arms against a background of flames. WE KNEW IT. AND IT WAS EXCELLENT.
So, I really, desperately need to know more about these horrible incestuous creepers. How did it all start? How has it gone through the years? Were they always the only people in one another's lives before the marriage plot started? How did the marriage plot start? Whose idea was it at first, and did the other person hate it? Did Thomas go along with the murders willingly at the start, or did he always have to be talked into it? Was Lucille violently jealous of all of his previous wives or did she know Thomas only had eyes for her? --or did he really, and did he feel affection for all of them before Edith, too? We know that Lucille loves Thomas madly--in every sense of the word--but are his feelings for her gentler, or are they just as dark and obsessive beneath the surface? Did he think he could make her better, or did he accept all of her madness from the start? What happened with the damn BABY?? Did either of them ever think of leaving? What were they thinking from the start of the movie, once Edith started making her way into their lives? Did Lucille confront Thomas after finding out that he and Edith slept together? Were any of the wives ever invited into their beds as well or would all of them have been horrified? (I didn't request Edith because I would only want fic with her in this context, BUT if you did want to give me a threesome with them, I would be so fucking pleased I cannot even tell you.)
There are JUST A FEW of the myriad questions I have about these two, so feel free to use them as a springboard, or just-- give me whatever, with them. I definitely don't want any AUs for this unless they're canon divergent; I would also accept rule 63 with both of them as ladies, or with lady Thomas and boy Lucille. I'm definitely fine with anything explicit (if you choose to do this we can carpool to hell together), and although I think it's entirely possible that Lucille was abusive in some way to Thomas, I'd prefer him not to be woobified or anything; despite his eventual misgivings about the whole murder plot, he's clearly also a deeply fucked up and at least somewhat amoral person, so let's not make him a saint. Also, since we all obviously know for a fact that this movie ends badly, I'm fine with fic for this going AS DARK AS YOUR HEART DESIRES (with the exception of rape; dubcon is okay but noncon isn't). I mean, if you want to write an AU of the movie ending where they survive and ride off creepily and murderously into the sunset, I'm not going to ARGUE, but I'm also perfectly fine with the sad dark end canon gave us, and whatever fucked up things may happen along the way.
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