Dear Yuletide Writer

[opalsong]

Dear Yuletide Writer:

 

Firstly, YOU ARE AWESOME!

You are the best!  I'm sure I'll love anything you make.  I have all the fandom specific stuff at the bottom so skip to that if you want.  I am super excited to have you with me in this endeavor and I cannot wait to see what you come up with.  Now a little bit about me to, hopefully, help you out.  I'm going to ramble here for a bit as that more information is probably better than none.

A general note about my reading habits is that I don’t enjoy fiction that is depressing - this can be anything from a story where a main character dies to a story that has an overarching feeling of hopelessness - I read fic to feel good.  Feel free to explore all sorts of themes and issues, but please keep the tone of the story mostly upbeat (not that bad things can't happen but... I like my happy endings :D)

Triggers/Squicks
I have no triggers, well unless you count horrible second hand embarrassment…

Squicks: The only thing bordering on a trigger I have is non-con hugs (and other non-sexual romantic gestures).  I CANNOT STAND adultery/cheating/lying to a partner.  It is the one thing that I absolutely will not read about, won't even click on in a *what is this horrible train wreck/this concept looks intriguing* sort of way.  Otherwise, one of the only hardcore squicks I have is generation gap/huge age differences in pairings (included under this umbrella are things like student/teacher relationships, and parent/child incest).  Stories where one character bullies another and it isn't addressed (or is treated like they are friends or a couple) are a definite squick.  Fatshaming is also something to avoid.  If you’re going to do porn; I’m not a fan of humiliation, watersports, or non-con.  Other than that, I can’t really think of any things (off the top of my head) that will make me avoid a fic out of hand.

Things I'm not super into: There isn't much that will make me avoid a story out of hand (and I've listed those things above) but there are a couple of things that I'm not super fond of.  I'm okay with angst as long as that isn't the point of the story.  I can't do unhappy endings, sorry.  Non-canonical major character death is generally a no-go for me (there are circumstances in which I can handle it but it is probably safer to avoid it). Domestic fic is just not my jam. Connected to that: Coffee-shop aus and really any mundane aus or rom-com fics are just not my thing.  (Highschool aus are cool though).


Things I Love
Crossovers: I love crossovers (and fusions) from the very bottom of my heart.  Feel free to crossover some of my requests with fandoms I know nothing about; just please include a link to a primer or good wiki article.  and Hey! you might just get me into a new fandom.  I love people pushing norms (like genderswap, crossdressing, or an omega that acts like an alpha for example).  Also people pushing their boundaries or being pushed. Creature!fic (werewolfs, mermaids, sirens, moon spirits, someone being a magical creature) is amazing.  I love kid!fic, and people being awesome (secret badass fic is a perpetual fave), and soulbonding (and sentinel!aus), and people having to pretend to be in a relationship.  Also Fix-it fic - I love fic where it fixes things that are sad in canon.  I do also love dark!fic but this is trickier because I don't like depressive or overly angsty fic (a fic about ppl happily serial!killing is okay, a fic about how terrible someone's life is, is not.)  While I'm not a fan of time travel in general, I do love me some fix!it fic so if someone's using time travel to fix things I am 100% there for that, in the front row, with popcorn.  If we're talking porn: I love the use of sex toys.  Bondage and crossdessing are great, as is BDSM; however, all these come with the caveat of no humiliation which is sometimes hard to find.  If you write me a fic with orgasm denial (with the same caveat) I will love you forever.  Though, if you write me an awesome (and anything you do is going to be awesome!) G rated gen fic I'll also hold you forever fondly in my heart too, so there is that.

Pairings
I don't focus on pairings so much as specific characters.  I've requested the characters I am interested in seeing.  If I have specific pairings in mind I’ll let you know in the fandom specific part.   If you don't see your favourite rare-pairing for a character there but really want to share the good news that is that pairing it is probably cool!  I'm a super fan of threesomes/moresomes/polyamory so if you want to go there I'll be right there with you. I will eat it up with a spoon if you give me a crossover pairing.

One last thing to note I think before I talk about my fandoms specifically: my Pinboard account is HERE and on it are fic that I read and like.  You can see what I normally read and what I enjoy most.  Two tags of specific note are Extra:Favorite - those are my favourites - and Quality:Whale - these are the best written and also very enjoyable fics on there.

 

Now on to specifics :)  I'm just going to throw out a bunch of ideas.  Feel free to take what you want and discard what you don't like.

This Alien Shore

This is the most open of my requests.  This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman is a book that I love deeply.  I love the world that it creates.  Mostly what I want is MORE.  More of the world, more of the characters, just more stories set in this world.  On that note, I am not picky about what you want to do in the world.  I requested Jamisia, Masada, and Phoenix mostly so I had some characters to pick, but I’d be totally happy with an OC or a minor character as the focus as well.  Some thoughts I had (in case you want direction): Jamisia settling into life as part of her new society; Phoenix working with Masada on coding stuff; Jamisia and Phoenix meeting years later when both are more settled and seeing where that goes; a fusion with your favourite fandom where those characters are a part of this world.  The only thing I don’t really want is a focus on Earth.  It is just the most boring of places in this universe.

 

Dota 2 RPF

So I accidentally fell into Dota (I did it to myself by accident.  I have (no) regrets.) this year just in time to watch all of TI8.  ALL OF IT. (well all of the non-group round matches) I had the time off.  It was wild.  Also connected to my request is the fact that my queer-radar is apparently stuck on the “queers sit in chairs improperly” meme.  Which means that I got caught up in OG’s Cinderella Story and latched on to N0tail sitting weird in his chair (he is the only player that cameras caught doing this, regardless of what my straight dota playing bro says about dota players “all doing it”).  All of this came together in my brain and now I want fic about N0tail being queer and winning TI8.  That is it.  That is all I want from this fandom.  (This can take many forms – if you want to write a long introspective fic about N0tail’s journey towards winning TI8 while being a queer person that is awesome, if you want to write a super porny fic about N0tail getting banged by various players in a post win haze that is also awesome, if you want to write a short hilarious fic where N0tail and his team chill and banter and they joke about his queerness like it is no big deal that it awesome too! Or anything else you can think of.) (I have used queer here to be as broad as possible, while in my head I am thinking gay, it doesn't have to be.  Feel free to pick whatever gender/orientation you want that falls under the non-cishet umbrella.)

 

Prozzäk

To be very clear right off the bat, I am looking for fic about the Simon and Milo that exist in the world of Prozzäk’s music videos.  I recently went to a concert of theirs and saw a bunch of their videos again and now have a GREAT NEED for fic.  Their plot includes the fact that Simon has to find his soulmate to break the spell so they can go back to their own time/world.  Pretty much every video ends with Milo rescuing Simon from something.  I DESPERATELY need fic where Milo was Simon’s soulmate all along.

 

Thanks so much and happy yuletide,
Opalsong