Dear Yuletide Author,

Hello hello!! I am so, so exceedingly sorry for the very lenghty delay in getting this together -- not to bore you with the details, but October was pretty rough for me both in general and in terms of making my brain form words, so it took a while for November to pick up on both fronts. It DOES mean that Yuletide has been even more of a light at the end of the tunnel for me than usual; I always really love Yuletide, but this year it is specially keeping me going. So as usual, I will say that no matter what you write, I will be so thrilled to read it -- and this year, I will be extra grateful to you for putting up with my letter shenanigans and working off of my scant initial prompts. I hope these longer ones inspire you further, and if not, I hope you write something that you truly enjoy writing, because I guarantee you that if you've loved creating it, I'll love reading it! ♥

Now, having said that -- let's talk specifics!

Broadly speaking, the things usually I want out of Yuletide are character- rather than plot-driven stories (not that the two can't happily coexist, of course, but my favorite stories tend to follow an emotional arc or a relationship development rather than characters dealing with an external conflict or a really intricate plot) with happy or at least hopeful endings (I'm fine with a more bittersweet hinting-at-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel type ambiguity, but would strongly prefer more overt happiness, and I really and truly do not want any serious or lasting tragedy involved).

My major DNWs are needles (I have a huge phobia and would deeply rather no mention of them at all, but if it does come up, please please please keep it brief and be sure to clearly warn for me!) and serious issues beyond those explored in canon (e.g., racism, homophobia, character death, serious assault/injury, etc. etc.). I don't think any of my requested canons this time around really touch on any -isms or any serious or dark themes, so -- let's play it safe and avoid those altogether this year!

More specifically, here are some overall likes and dislikes:

Likes: banter, UST/pining/slow burn, first kisses/makeouts that don't immediately lead to sex (either by design or by accidental interruption), gross fluffy ridiculous romcom-y tropes, people being very competent at what they do (and other people, ahem, enjoying it), little canon easter eggs, found families, intricate tangles of relationships among large groups of people, cute animals, puns, and the general concept of hope and humanity's essential goodness triumphing over darkness and existential despair! (Especially this year, oh dear god.)

Dislikes: misogyny in m/m relationships/demonization of female characters for the sake of m/m, misogynistic dirty talk (e.g., "slut"/"whore"), noncon/dubcon, infidelity, excessive jealousy/possessiveness, excessive kinky elements, A/B/O, mpreg, daddy kink, first- or second-person POV, and contrived miscommunication conflicts that could be resolved with a single, simple statement of clarification!

Some additional references include my trope sorter and kink sorter results -- the rankings should be treated pretty flexibly, as the first half-dozen or so on each list are all pretty close together in terms of things I love! I am also blindmadness on AO3.

Annnnd now the fandoms--!! Obviously, SPOILERS ABOUND below (although, uh, that's only really relevant for half of them, ha).

( Black Mirror: Striking Vipers )

( Duel With Manuel - Ppallo (Tweet) )

( Warby Parker 'Step Into The Future' Ads )

( Galavant (TV) )