Yuletide letter!

[labellementeuse]

Dear Yuletide writer,

Hi! Happy Yuletide! Thank you so much for matching with me on whatever fandom we matched on. I am so thrilled to be playing, just as I am every year, and I can't wait to see what you produce! It's really important to me that you have fun with Yuletide, so please treat my requests with exactly the degree of attentiveness that you need for a good Yuletide experience, and no more. If what I say below bugs you or is going to, like, mess with your creative impulses, feel free to ignore it: if I requested it for yuletide, I will pretty much read absolutely anything.

With this in mind, I deliberately kept my sign-up as low-key as possible and if that works for you, please run with that and don't read any further.

But if you're like me, you probably need more information. I like a nice thorough letter, so I write my letter with people like me in mind (i.e. it's ridiculously detailed). It's in two parts: general stuff about my likes and dislikes, and specific stuff about my fandoms. Feel free to read any of it, part of it, or none.

This is my fifth Yuletide; you can see previous letters here (2010 yuletide letter), here (2009 yuletide letter), here (2008 letter), and here (2007 letter, holy shit).

Me Generally

Things I like: I really prefer happy endings. Women. Het, slash (both kinds!), and gen. Porn. G-rated friendship or romance. Kidfic. Breakup-makeup! Characters of colour. The appearance of cooking, music or handcrafts in fic. Women being professional and competent, children, careers, futurefic, porn, not-porn, makeouts, camping, conspicuous consumption of caffeine, adventure stories, gratuitous use of magic, slash cliches, reinvented romance tropes, feminism, women, unusual relationships, siblings being siblingy, emotional misunderstandings and/or RESOLVED emotional neglect, third person narrative, music and people playing musical instruments.

Things I'm not so big on: Major character or requested character deathfic; racism; ableism; sexism; stories featuring rape as a major plot point.


Did that give you an idea? Maybe you don't need to read my more specific notes! You can go away again now if you like!


Still here? OK, on to commentary about my requests.

Young Wizards, Any
I said:

This is the fandom of my heart and I will totally be happy with anything you want to write - slash, het, femslash, gen, I'm totally easy. If there's something you've always wanted to write about but haven't had the motivation, I totally request that fic! (If we matched on this and this request freaks you out: don't worry, I'll tell you more in my letter.)

Just in case, here's a generic prompt: first times (any kind: milestones, first spells, Ordeals ... and the sexy kind too, of course: first time, first threesome, first whatever.) And here are some pairings (gen or shippy) and characters I like: Dairine/Carmela, Tom/Carl, Nita/Kit, Nita/Joanne, Darryl, Irina, Nita/Kit/Ronan, Kit/Ronan.

What I want you to know: I'll like anything so if we matched on this, just have fun! The only pairing I'm really OTPish about here is Tom/Carl, and I'd prefer not to see them in a relationship with anyone other than each other (but it's totally cool if you just write them in the background per canon or, of course, not at all.) Anyone else feel free to get together and break up at will! And if I've spoiled you for choice: Dairine/Carmela are my hot new pairing lately, and anything focusing on them (AU or otherwise, gen or slashy) would thrill me. But I requested any, and I meant any. Want to write an in-depth biography of Angelina Pellegrino? Be my guest! (Would actually be amazing. Did she ever meet Ed?) Or how about Kit/Ronan, roadtrip fic? Nita/Joanne, college fic? Nita/Kit, "the grown-ups who are wizards"? Anyone/Lone Power? Tom/Carl, the first time they got promoted? The first time Carmela chatted on Alien Internet? The first time Nita and Kit have sex? Ensemble gen? Harry has a barbecue and invites all the wizards? Seriously, whatever you want to write, I want you to write.

This is a traditional request for me, so if nothing grabs you go ahead and look back through previous years' letters.

EDIT: I'm concerned this request comes across like this is the fandom I want most. I wanted to assure you that that's not true. This request is longer and more detailed than the other two only because I requested "Any", and I wanted to be sure that if I got someone who only offered Roshaun, Sker'ret, and Carl, they'd still feel confident writing a story. I love all my Yuletide fandoms with an absolute passion.

Newsflesh, Shaun and George

I said:

I love these kids SO MUCH. Pre-Deadline Original Flavour George or Deadline-era clone!George or hallucination!George are all great. More details will be in my (completely optional) letter.

So, uh, the reason I stress optional here is: I would LOVE some really filthy quasi-incestuous porn. I would, actually, really like to hear about how George and Shaun started sleeping together - if your interpretation of canon is that they were (mine is, but I'd like to read other perspectives too - before George died. Lay on the kink if you dig it, don't if you don't of course. HOWEVER if you are really a gen fan or just don't want to write smut the OTHER thing I really want to know about Shaun and George is their process of becoming journalists and breaking away from their parents. Anything that digs down into the blogging worldbuilding - feel free to throw in Mahir, Becks, Buffy, whoever else you like. I love fic about colleagues and professionals and people who love what they do, so seeing Shaun and George like this would be a huge plus for me.

Emelan 'verse (Circle of Magic 'verse), Daja, Tris

I said:

I feel like Daja and Tris are the characters whose friendship I least understand. I really love them both and I'd like to understand their relationship better, so I would love friendship fic. (If you feel the urge to slash them? Many, many bonus points.) Please, no fatphobic language wrt Tris.

I love Daja's steady honesty and strength of character. I love Tris' unpredictability and deep-down affection for books. I love this fandom's take on magic (SO MUCH) and I love the Circle friendship passionately. But while I understand Sandry and Daja, and Sandry and Briar, and Tris and Briar, and Tris and Sandry - Tris and Daja don't seem to have gotten a lot of time together and I'd just, I'd really like to see some of that. It can be as gen-y or as slashy as you like. Comedy hour at Number 3 Cheeseman St! Epistolary fic set during the Circle Opens! Romance over pastries! Porn in which they haggle a lot! I would be fascinated if you can get Daja and Tris together, but alternatively I ship Briar/Tris and Sandry/Daja (or, uh, Daja/anyone *fans self*). Throw in as many side characters as you like (or don't), there's nobody I hate in this fandom.


Okay. I'm sure by now you're absolutely replete with detail! If we've never met, I can't wait to meet you; if we have met, I still kind of can't wait to meet you on 25 Dec. For stalking purposes, you can find me as labellementeuse on LJ, DW, Twitter, Ravelry and, of course, the AO3. Take care and happy Yuletide!