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Dear Yuletide Santa
Oct. 24th, 2012 05:02 pmHello!
I love you already. Thank you so much for offering one of my fandoms! You clearly have excellent taste. I am a firm believer of "optional details are optional", so feel free to use these comments as inspiration, or to write something entirely else. I'm pretty much guaranteed to like whatever you do, mainly because I've usually forgotten what I requested by the time Yuletide opens, and so it's all a happy surprise.
In general, I really admire any story that can do plot, action, and/or humor well, because I personally am bad at writing those things. On the other hand, I also like character studies, poetic language (which is my polite term for purple prose; it is hard to be too purple for my taste), angst, and introspection, which is why I write them. I like dark themes and happy endings (though probably not in the same story). I like fun stories, the sort that make you smile to read them, but am not so fond of fluff. I like nuances (hmm, that is probably the worst request ever. I like it when authors complicate things?). I really love stories that dig deep, exploring a world or a character's interior. Most of the characters I love are pretty fucked up on the inside, but are also capable of great strength. I like that balance, not a woobie but not a standard hero either. Most of my favorite characters can be encapsulated by the Hemingway quote, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places". That's what really gets me: the refusal to give up, even when it's pointless.
I tend to like a lot of dysfunction in my fictional relationships. They can be happy, but I'm not terribly fond of lots of sap or schmoop, or really any sort of overt romance. I much prefer the unspoken to the outright-stated. Pretty much all of my requests revolve around a relationship (whether you chose to write that as gen or romantic), and I really love reading about how people work (or don't) together. How do they help one another? How do they hurt? How do they understand or misunderstand? What is easy between them, and what is complicated; what is spoken and what is not? Etc. In general, I like my couples to succeed together, but I like it to be hard to get there.
Do not feel obligated to include Christmas (or whatever fantasy-equivalent winter holiday is appropriate to the fandom), but if you want to, feel free. I absolutely adore AUs, whether completely different universes (everyone's in high school! everyone has daemons! everyone is a pirate! And also a vampire!), or the "what if this character had made a different choice?" sort. I think AUs are a fantastic way of exploring what is essential to a character's personality, and what is merely surface, and that's what I find most interesting about them. It's so interesting to explore how a different setting/upbringing/choice might or might not change a person.
Porn is always welcome, of any variety (m/m, f/m, f/f, poly, kinky, vanilla, monogamous or not), but don't feel obligated if you don't like to write it. I don't have any squicks or triggers, so write whatever appeals to you.
My dislikes include OOC, even for the sake of humor. I don't like songfic? Although it would be appropriate for Pitch Perfect, now that I think about it. Man, dislikes are hard. In short, I will be pleased with any story you write. Thank you in advance!
I've written several meta posts about the sort of things that I love in stories. You can use these for inspiration, if you like:
My Top 10 Story Kinks
My favorite 'cool bits'
What I look for in OTPs
If you're interested, my own stories are (mostly) on AO3, but the complete list of them is collected here. I've written for some of the fandoms I requested, though that doesn't mean you have to write the same sort of stories that I do! One of my favorite things is to see the way different people have different takes on the same story.
( My Requests: Yami no Matsuei; Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner; Pitch Perfect (2012); Japanese History RPF )
I love you already. Thank you so much for offering one of my fandoms! You clearly have excellent taste. I am a firm believer of "optional details are optional", so feel free to use these comments as inspiration, or to write something entirely else. I'm pretty much guaranteed to like whatever you do, mainly because I've usually forgotten what I requested by the time Yuletide opens, and so it's all a happy surprise.
In general, I really admire any story that can do plot, action, and/or humor well, because I personally am bad at writing those things. On the other hand, I also like character studies, poetic language (which is my polite term for purple prose; it is hard to be too purple for my taste), angst, and introspection, which is why I write them. I like dark themes and happy endings (though probably not in the same story). I like fun stories, the sort that make you smile to read them, but am not so fond of fluff. I like nuances (hmm, that is probably the worst request ever. I like it when authors complicate things?). I really love stories that dig deep, exploring a world or a character's interior. Most of the characters I love are pretty fucked up on the inside, but are also capable of great strength. I like that balance, not a woobie but not a standard hero either. Most of my favorite characters can be encapsulated by the Hemingway quote, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger at the broken places". That's what really gets me: the refusal to give up, even when it's pointless.
I tend to like a lot of dysfunction in my fictional relationships. They can be happy, but I'm not terribly fond of lots of sap or schmoop, or really any sort of overt romance. I much prefer the unspoken to the outright-stated. Pretty much all of my requests revolve around a relationship (whether you chose to write that as gen or romantic), and I really love reading about how people work (or don't) together. How do they help one another? How do they hurt? How do they understand or misunderstand? What is easy between them, and what is complicated; what is spoken and what is not? Etc. In general, I like my couples to succeed together, but I like it to be hard to get there.
Do not feel obligated to include Christmas (or whatever fantasy-equivalent winter holiday is appropriate to the fandom), but if you want to, feel free. I absolutely adore AUs, whether completely different universes (everyone's in high school! everyone has daemons! everyone is a pirate! And also a vampire!), or the "what if this character had made a different choice?" sort. I think AUs are a fantastic way of exploring what is essential to a character's personality, and what is merely surface, and that's what I find most interesting about them. It's so interesting to explore how a different setting/upbringing/choice might or might not change a person.
Porn is always welcome, of any variety (m/m, f/m, f/f, poly, kinky, vanilla, monogamous or not), but don't feel obligated if you don't like to write it. I don't have any squicks or triggers, so write whatever appeals to you.
My dislikes include OOC, even for the sake of humor. I don't like songfic? Although it would be appropriate for Pitch Perfect, now that I think about it. Man, dislikes are hard. In short, I will be pleased with any story you write. Thank you in advance!
I've written several meta posts about the sort of things that I love in stories. You can use these for inspiration, if you like:
My Top 10 Story Kinks
My favorite 'cool bits'
What I look for in OTPs
If you're interested, my own stories are (mostly) on AO3, but the complete list of them is collected here. I've written for some of the fandoms I requested, though that doesn't mean you have to write the same sort of stories that I do! One of my favorite things is to see the way different people have different takes on the same story.
( My Requests: Yami no Matsuei; Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner; Pitch Perfect (2012); Japanese History RPF )
