Dear Yuletide Writer 2024

[porcupinegirl]

Dear Yuletide Writer:

First, thank you for participating and writing a gift for me! I haven't done Yuletide (or written a dear yuletide writer letter) in over a decade, and I'll be honest, I don't do a lot of multifandom exchanges so I don't have a letter ready to copy and paste, so I hope this covers everything you'd want to know.

I'm PorcupineGirl on AO3 and porcupine-girl on tumblr, and would welcome treats!

I have opted in for Interactive Fiction, Chromatic Yuletide, and Crueltide - only for certain fandoms, see my comments on those posts for more info re: prompts, interests, etc.

Favorite tropes in general:

• Soulmate AUs, especially if you've thought through the sociological consequences of whatever type of soulmate you're doing (e.g. if the first words they say to you are on everyone's wrist, why would you ever greet a stranger with something generic like "Hello" if you haven't found your soulmate yet? etc) but if you're not up for that then I am truly not picky. As long as it's a magical realism type soulmate situation, not the concept of soulmates in real life as we know it.
• Omegaverse, especially queer omegaverse (ie alpha/alpha, omega/omega, any combo that would not be treated as "straight" in their universe), again especially if you've thought through some of the sociological/biological worldbuilding. I am not a fan of overly-stereotypical alpha/omega relationships. Omegaverse doesn't have to only be smut, either!
• D/s and power exchange Bondage optional, mild S/M okay (especially biting and hair pulling) but no impact play or anything that would draw blood. I enjoy this most when it's not some random encounter in a club or something, but a way for the participants to express their intimacy within a committed relationship.
• Any experimental or non-typical writing format (including first/second person POV, epistolary, interactive, plays/scripts, and anything weirder!)
• Fake relationships
• Competence kink (not necessarily in a sexual situation, just finding someone's competence extremely attractive)
• Witty banter (assuming it's a character who might reasonably be expected to be witty lol)
• Trope subversion - especially of tropes I like such as those listed here - so long as you don't do it because you hate the trope. The subversions I like best come from people who love the trope itself but want to play with it.
• Getting together/first kiss/love confessions
• Selfcest - For any canon that I'm open to smut for (so not TMAGP, basically), if you can think of a way for selfcest to happen (magical realism or sci fi AU, dream, whatever) I'm there for it. This can be in place of any of my requested ships, I'm always ready for selfcest.

General DNWs:
Note: Most of these do not apply to Countless! I will put a * by those that you can ignore for that canon.

• Permanent major character death *
• Unhappy endings * (including ending a fic with a requested ship broken up)
• Scat/watersports
• Daddy/mommy kink *
• Impact play *
• Any kink activity that could draw blood (knifeplay etc) EXCEPT bites from actual vampires *
• Non-con between any ship I've specifically asked for (CNC and dubcon are fine) *
• Incest (selfcest is fine) *
• Miscommunication/misunderstanding as a plot device * - Some characters are just bad at communicating, so minor slipups are fine, but please don't make it a major plot point (e.g., the central conflict in the A/B fic is A overhearing something and assuming B doesn't want them anymore and runs away without talking to B about it)
• IRL soulmates - soulmate AUs need to have some kind of clear worldbuilding indicating that the soulmate aspect is not one that exists in our world (i.e. soulmate marks, omegaverse biology, etc). Please do not have characters in a mundane world like our own referring to each other as soulmates, indicating that their relationship is fate/destiny, or that this is the only person they could ever have been happy with romantically, etc.*
• Weight loss/diet talk (unless the character is portrayed as having an eating disorder)

NOTE ABOUT COUNTLESS AND TMAGP: For both of these (especially countless) I am opting into Crueltide and am open to receiving darkfic of many types. However, if the fic involves gore, graphic description of injuries, or body horror I would appreciate a warning about it just so I know it's coming. If there's not one I won't be upset, but it would be nice. Thank you!

Fandom: Countless - Cai Guoqing & Chen Chusheng & Zhang Yuan & Yu Haoming (Call Me By Fire 2023 Performance)

I super hope you give 无数 (Countless) a chance - it's a single musical performance from a Chinese variety show, only 6.5 minutes! You can watch it with English subs (which I added just for Yuletide) here. Cai Guiqing plays a psychiatrist/therapist of some sort, and the other three singers represent three aspects of the patient's psyche: Chen Chusheng (ratty grey cardigan, first one singing) is his anxiety, Yu Haoming (nice suit and glasses) is his anger, and Zhang Yuan (striped shirt, shaggier hair) is his self-restraint - which is clearly barely hanging on lol. (If you want, you can watch the full episode it's from, which is where you find out which parts they're playing as it shows them preparing for the performance, but this is totally not necessary.) Note that this is not about RPF of the singers, this is about the characters they play in this performance.

It's a great opportunity for darkfic - fucked up doctor/patient, selfcest between the different parts of the psyche, or non-shippy just exploring this dynamic, and the patient's experiences so far. This doesn't exactly seem like a nice psychiatric hospital, and there is a distinct contrast between the clean, stylish clothes of the psychiatrist and the dingy surroundings, so how did the patient wind up here, what has happened to him since he got here (I get possible unethical-experimentation vibes from the setup?), why is he losing his grip on reality? Is the psychiatrist actually looking out for his best interest and he just can't see it? Is "let me give you the world" sincere, or patronizing? I feel like there is just so much meaty and potentially disturbing possibility in this one little performance!

Fandom-specific DNWs: fluff and alternate-setting AUs. Happy endings in general are fine, but not happy psychiatrist/patient ship endings - they can end up together, but it's gotta be fucked up. But if the patient gets out or gets better or whatever, that's ok. Note that happy endings are not required, though. I do plan to opt in to Crueltide for this fandom only. In terms of AUs, if you want to throw soulmates or omegaverse or things like that into the setting in the video, that's cool, just nothing that takes these characters and puts them somewhere else. Note that most of my general DNWs do not apply to this fandom.

Fandom: For All Mankind (TV 2019)

Note: You do NOT need to include all four requested characters in a fic! I'd prefer a fic that has both Kelly & Aleida or both Margo & Sergei rather than just one of the four, but below I explain one circumstance in which I don't require any of them to be in the fic, which is why I chose option 2 for the additional tags instead of option 3.

I would loooooove to get some Kelly/Aleida, or Kelly/Aleida/Victor, smutty or not. Canon divergent S4, or something that would fit into canon where you can't see it, or post-S4 are all good. Or if you can find a reason for them to get to know each other before S4!

If that ship isn't your cup of tea, Kelly & Aleida is also great, or I'd also enjoy Margo/Sergei. If you're up for it, I wrote a Soulmate Goose fic for Ellen & Larry, and I think one for Margo/Sergei would be amazing. Just, if you write Margo/Sergei, give them a happy ending or at least the clear potential for one, even if you don't take it all the way to the end of S4. If you don't like either of those pairings, focusing on any of these characters is fine.

I don't want alternate setting AUs, BUT things that take the canon universe and twist it in some way would be great - whether that's soulmate/omegaverse, or adding some kind of supernatural/fantasy element, or something like a time loop. It tries to be such a realistic show, grounded in how this alternate reality might play out given politics etc, it'd be fun to see how that would get twisted by throwing a fantasy element of some kind in.

Also: What is UP with China in the FAM universe? Did Mao do exactly the same shit, since he was mostly ignoring the rest of the world anyhow, or did what was going on on the moon catch his eye somehow? What is the status of their space program? How do they feel about NK being in M7 without them? If you're somewhat knowledgeable about real-world 20th century Chinese history then I would love your takes on this - even if it involves none of the requested characters! (Or heck, even none of the characters we know at all.)

DNW: Margo/Sergei that includes Sergei's death or implies that the story will progress as in canon and so he will die the same way (for example, a fic showing them getting together while they are both in Houston in S4, but there are no other changes so the KGB would still be after him), alternate setting AUs (changes to canon setting as mentioned above and canon divergence are fine, just don't make them all coffee shop employees or whatever)

Fandom: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin

This was my first fandom, and one I'll never really leave in my heart. I love fics that look at what the girls are up to once they're grown. Ship any of them together if you want, or don't. Maybe some of them go to college together, maybe some of them reconnect after many years - or any of the girls with side characters (whether that's romantically, platonically, or as like coworkers or something).

My favorites are Claudia and Mary Anne, but focusing on anyone nominated is great. I'm not as excited about Charlie without any of the girls, but maybe you'll surprise me!

If it's not an intentional AU (see below), I would prefer they stay in the timeframe the original books were written - so they were in middle school in the 80s/90s and would be in their 30s-40s today. So if you're writing about them being in college, it would be set in the late 90s or early 00s, for example. However, if you have a huge itch to modernize them, that's fine, this is just a moderate preference and I'd rather you go with what inspires you.

Possible prompt: If you want to set your fic while they are in middle school, it might be fun to do it in some wildly AU way - they're on a generation ship heading across the galaxy, they're settlers in the mid-1800s a la Little House on the Prairie, they use magic in their babysitting, etc etc etc.

DNW: Abby was introduced after I'd outgrown reading the books regularly, so please don't put a lot of focus on her or include her in a main ship, or generally expect the reader to know her well. No smut of any character younger than 16, and if they're still in high school it should be age-appropriate, they're not having D/s orgies or doing intricate bondage at that age.

Fandom: The Magnus Protocol

I love fan-written statements - and it's fun that unlike TMA, statements can (somehow) be made up of not just people telling the story straight out, but "found footage" so to speak with emails, social media posts (including videos), etc.

I'm also curious where Sam wound up! Is this Celia from the TMA universe? Did she find a way out before they restored it to normal? If so, did he wind up in the Fear-dominated world or the post-Fears world? Or is she from a third universe we haven't seen yet? He took the Archivist with him - is that Archivist now in conflict with the new universe's Archivist? Or had The Eye not found a suitable avatar there yet?

Or, now that Sam is gone, Colin is dead, and Gwen is in charge, what happens next in this universe? They seem to have gotten rid of one avatar, are Alice and Gwen ready to go after another? Do they take on a new hire - and is that new hire ready to deal with this stuff, or is there maybe something wrong with them? What about the JMJ errors and computer voices - how are Jon, Martin, and Jonah involved here, and do any of them ever get out of the computer? If they do, is that a good or a bad thing for this universe and the OIAR? "What if they listened to Colin?" implies that there is another company doing Magnusy stuff, and it seems likely that this is where Teddy is working now - what's up with that? What did Teddy want to talk to Alice about before she left to find Sam and Celia?

Any of the Fears are fine, but my favorites are the Stranger, the Spiral, and the Web, and my least favorite are the Flesh, the Hunt, and The End.

DNW: Mr. Bonzo, non-canon ships, AUs other than canon divergence, smut of any kind.

Fandom: Sherlock & Co.

I'm interested in Sherlock/John or Sherlock/John/Mariana, and either can be both romantic and sexual, queerplatonic, or only romantic but not sexual - or Mariana's involvement with either or both boys could be sexual but not romantic (I would prefer Sherlock/John be romantic or some flavor of queerplatonic). Lots of potential combinations there to choose from! Especially interested in getting together fic for any of these combos, or smut that includes Mariana. Not as interested in smut that's only Sherlock & John, but I won't say no to it.

Keeping them all platonic is okay, too.

Casefic is fun, but also 221A/B slice of life has a lot of potential. If you go with that, I'd prefer something showcasing the craziness of everyday life with Sherlock (and a dog, and a business manager who lives downstairs) rather than domestic fluff.

Also fun: Crossovers or isekai-type situations (where the characters wake up in a different universe) with other Sherlock Holmes canons. This is the only alternate setting AU I'm interested in for this fandom, and even then it should be the characters being from this canon/universe originally, but displaced into another canon. The Holmes adaptations I'm most familiar with are ACD, BBC Sherlock, Elementary, and House MD, but if you use one I'm not familiar with I won't be mad.

DNW: John/Mariana or Sherlock/Mariana (romantically, sexually, or QPR) without the other man (it's ok if only two appear in the fic, even for smut, as long as it's made clear that Sherlock and John are romantically involved as well), infidelity between these three, alternate setting AUs except as noted above.

Comments

[porcupinegirl]

soqht