22. Dear Yuletide Writer 2024
Oct. 23rd, 2024 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slowpartsDearest Yuletide writer or treater,
Sorry for saying that I would have this letter completed by 10/19 and then not doing that. It has been a whacky autumn for me! I am wrapping up my first semester of grad school, planning for my wedding in the spring, and recovering from a brutal cold in between. Thanks for being patient with me even though I'm every Yulegoat's worst nightmare probably. I never seem to get ahead of these things even though I tell myself I will next year, next year, next year for sure...
Treats are welcome, as always!!!
Anyway, I hope that 2024 has been kind to you. I am so touched that you are here reading this because it means you will be writing a thing for me and you want to know what would make me happy. That means a lot. I do want to preface this by saying, as I do every year, that I will be delighted by whatever you create for me, whether it fulfills one of the prompts below or runs off in its own direction—it will be special to me because you wrote it! So don't stress!
You can find me on Tumblr these days for vibe checks.
I AM INTO (ODAO):
I AM NOT INTO (DNWs): big ones first—rape, incest, underage, abuse of any kind (if it's a canon part of a character's backstory, just don't be gratuitous). beyond that—heavy or detailed gore, marriage/pregnancy fic, established relationship fic (with certain exceptions), first person POV (unless it's epistolary), character bashing, angst with no happy ending, actually unrequited love (for any ships I request), high school/college/coffee shop/florist/tattooist AUs, modern AUs (for fandoms that take place in the past/a fantasy world/whatever)
EXTREMELY OPTIONAL NSFW LIKES:
FANDOM #1! FINAL FANTASY IX
Garnet Til Alexandros XVII, Zidane Tribal
Ohhhh, my lord. I played this game for the first time over the summer and uh. Can we talk about the objective fact that it's a masterpiece? That this, unknown indie video game Final Fantasy IX is so stupendous? I don't think people talk about that enough. OK. Garnet and Zidane are in love. Like, love-love. Wow Platinum! So much to chew on. I'm a sucker for a princesses-don't-marry-kitchen-boys dynamic, the Anastasia of it all, the Roman Holiday of it all—but also the heart-bending existential questions Zidane grapples with, the distance those create between him and Garnet, how much of it is self-inflicted, his and Garnet's mutual loss of identity and rebirth, how they find themselves within each other. So much complexity there.
Feel free to bring in as many other characters from the party as you like. I have a particular fondness for Steiner, Freya, and Eiko.
Some ideas!
###
FANDOM #2! TWISTERS
Kate Carter, Javier "Javi" Rivera
I like Tyler. I have no quarrel with him. I just think these two are more interesting i.e. dysfunctional i.e. sexy. All that is to say, the tornado throuple is okay with me. I have just not had much fun reading in this fandom because of the oversaturation of Kate/Tyler that ignores Javi completely. And yes we are all tilling our own fields it's true but is the soil not so much richer in mine? I'm 15% kidding.
I’m fine with Javi/Kate/Tyler, prefer Javi/Kate, and DNW Kate/Tyler without Javi’s involvement.
Some ideas!
FANDOM #3! CHALLENGERS
Tashi Donaldson, Art Donaldson
The failmarriage ever. But also, is it so fail? As with Twisters, I'm so very jacked in to the throuple node, but when Patrick is in the mix people seem to forget Tashi exists in a meaningful way, so I'm covering my tracks. Please, acknowledge the reality of the throuple as much as you would like, don't hold back for my sake. I would just love to experience it through these two.
Some ideas!
Thank you so, so much again for writing for me. I hope that you are safe and warm and happy wherever you are, and wish you every kindness in the new year.
Love,
Brella
Sorry for saying that I would have this letter completed by 10/19 and then not doing that. It has been a whacky autumn for me! I am wrapping up my first semester of grad school, planning for my wedding in the spring, and recovering from a brutal cold in between. Thanks for being patient with me even though I'm every Yulegoat's worst nightmare probably. I never seem to get ahead of these things even though I tell myself I will next year, next year, next year for sure...
Treats are welcome, as always!!!
Anyway, I hope that 2024 has been kind to you. I am so touched that you are here reading this because it means you will be writing a thing for me and you want to know what would make me happy. That means a lot. I do want to preface this by saying, as I do every year, that I will be delighted by whatever you create for me, whether it fulfills one of the prompts below or runs off in its own direction—it will be special to me because you wrote it! So don't stress!
You can find me on Tumblr these days for vibe checks.
I AM INTO (ODAO):
- unpacking canon traumatic events
- the pining-longing-yearning triptych
- character studies, ship studies
- the 5 times + 1 time format
- epistolary fic
- girls and their burdens
- nonlinear narratives
- almost kisses
- confessions under the influence
- angst with a happy ending
- emotional hurt/comfort
- fake/pretend relationships
- found families
- friends to lovers
- worldbuilding
- unresolved romantic/emotional tension
- WOMEN, WOMEN!
- the tender miracle of human connection in whatever form it may take
- nature imagery
- "What Comes After" as a concept (basically anything post-canon)
I AM NOT INTO (DNWs): big ones first—rape, incest, underage, abuse of any kind (if it's a canon part of a character's backstory, just don't be gratuitous). beyond that—heavy or detailed gore, marriage/pregnancy fic, established relationship fic (with certain exceptions), first person POV (unless it's epistolary), character bashing, angst with no happy ending, actually unrequited love (for any ships I request), high school/college/coffee shop/florist/tattooist AUs, modern AUs (for fandoms that take place in the past/a fantasy world/whatever)
EXTREMELY OPTIONAL NSFW LIKES:
- pegging, femdom
- power imbalance
- praise kink
- phone sex
- friends with benefits and navigating the territory thereof
- somebody's fingers being in somebody's mouth as like a trust thing but also as a sexy thing
- cute endearing human clumsiness
- face-sitting (and cunnilingus from any angle tbh)
- guided masturbation
- a little blowjob between friends
- distraction kink (is that a thing?)
- sex that leads to an impulsive and ill-timed "i love you"
- sex that is quite possibly more talking than actual sex
FANDOM #1! FINAL FANTASY IX
Garnet Til Alexandros XVII, Zidane Tribal
Ohhhh, my lord. I played this game for the first time over the summer and uh. Can we talk about the objective fact that it's a masterpiece? That this, unknown indie video game Final Fantasy IX is so stupendous? I don't think people talk about that enough. OK. Garnet and Zidane are in love. Like, love-love. Wow Platinum! So much to chew on. I'm a sucker for a princesses-don't-marry-kitchen-boys dynamic, the Anastasia of it all, the Roman Holiday of it all—but also the heart-bending existential questions Zidane grapples with, the distance those create between him and Garnet, how much of it is self-inflicted, his and Garnet's mutual loss of identity and rebirth, how they find themselves within each other. So much complexity there.
Feel free to bring in as many other characters from the party as you like. I have a particular fondness for Steiner, Freya, and Eiko.
Some ideas!
- Give me the long agonizing delicious courtship. The slipping in through windows after dark. The tokens left in empty chambers. The caught glances, the motions under banquet tables, the walks in gardens, the liaisons in empty stables. The secret language that only the two of them speak, all the gestures and signs and codes. The scandals in the palace court, the acts of service. I kind of love the idea of Zidane not settling down at the palace, stealing Garnet away every now and again, or her coming to find him, summering with Tantalus (causing many a hernia for Steiner). I love the idea of them having an unconventional romance, ships passing and meeting.
- A later scholar's writings on Queen Garnet Til Alexandros XVII's contentious and ambiguous relationship with a traveling thief. Was it romantic? Records are so hard to find these days...
- Epistolary fic for these two would make me sooooo crazy. Whether it's in the intervening years between Zidane's "death" and the game's ending, or as time wears on and he's traveling with the theater troupe and she's running a queendom—the letters UNSENT, perhaps... what Garnet wrote to him when he was gone... what he wrote to her, and almost sent... the bad poetry that Blank and Marcus ride his ass about...
- Garnet was my fave in the game so I would love her POV. A post-game character study, a rumination on her healing, a What-Comes-After for her. Defy the notion that at journey's end she has no more adventures. There are so many more to be had. Islands, caverns, countries, forests, deserts, treasures, dangers—I want her to have them all.
###
FANDOM #2! TWISTERS
Kate Carter, Javier "Javi" Rivera
I like Tyler. I have no quarrel with him. I just think these two are more interesting i.e. dysfunctional i.e. sexy. All that is to say, the tornado throuple is okay with me. I have just not had much fun reading in this fandom because of the oversaturation of Kate/Tyler that ignores Javi completely. And yes we are all tilling our own fields it's true but is the soil not so much richer in mine? I'm 15% kidding.
I’m fine with Javi/Kate/Tyler, prefer Javi/Kate, and DNW Kate/Tyler without Javi’s involvement.
Some ideas!
- Give me the messiest, trashiest friends with benefits after the accident you've got. I firmly believe that in their overwhelming grief and trauma these two hooked up at least once after their friends died and massively regretted it. But also maybe didn't, not entirely, not as much as they should have. To quote myself: i think javi and kate deserve to have had miserable sex Once after their friends died. i think javi deserves to have kissed her still-healing scar. i think they could have hated themselves a little bit after and have had that compounded by a true, genuine solace. [image from 30 Rock of Liz Lemon spreading her arms proudly as the subtitle reads "(crowd booing)"] i think kate deserves to have been thinking about jeb until suddenly she wasn't. maybe i should log off
- Give me their partnership post-movie, how Tyler meshes with it, how they rediscover their adoration for storms again. Give me a Kate character study, the move from New York back to Oklahoma that both Tyler and Javi show up to help her with, the long drive home, the motels along the way and what happens in them... the THROUPLING. The learning how to be loved, again.
- Give me the guilt, the longing, the understanding, the long-term friendship, the shifts that occur now that Kate remembers the look on his face when he said, "There was a time I'd do anything for you, Kate." As if she could un-hear that! The fact that Kate isn't even considering that Javi sold his soul to stop the thing that killed his friends. ALL OF IT!
- I love Javi unconditionally. I want more of his emotional interiority on EVERYTHING, from pre-canon (discovering a love of storms, going to Muskogee State, growing up Latino in Oklahoma—he says he's from "Miami" but I wonder if this was a mispronunciation of Miami, Oklahoma, which if you're local is pronounced more like "Miamuh") to mid-canon (friend group shenanigans with Jeb, Kate, Praveen, Addy; coping with their deaths, maybe having an ill-considered grief hook-up with Kate, joining the military to run away but just obsessively chasing tech that might have saved his friends if he had just invented it sooner, connectihg with Scott, gearing himself up to reach out to Kate—canonically he visits her mom!—pining longing guilt yum) to post-canon (in love with Kate again, finding community in the wrangler crew, slowly opening himself up to love and adventure again).
FANDOM #3! CHALLENGERS
Tashi Donaldson, Art Donaldson
The failmarriage ever. But also, is it so fail? As with Twisters, I'm so very jacked in to the throuple node, but when Patrick is in the mix people seem to forget Tashi exists in a meaningful way, so I'm covering my tracks. Please, acknowledge the reality of the throuple as much as you would like, don't hold back for my sake. I would just love to experience it through these two.
Some ideas!
- I'm just so fascinated by how clear it is that, from the beginning, Tashi was drawn to and attracted to Art. There is a foundational energy between them that's fundamentally different from their respective energies with Patrick. I'd love to see this really dug into. When Tashi says good tennis is like a relationship—but the tennis she plays with Art is only ever in the context of training, teaching... what does that say about them? Five things Tashi taught Art, and one thing he taught her?
- Give me the fucking timeless Lorde Tennis Court East Egg summer they spend with Patrick after the Phil's Tire Town challenger.
- Give me the fraught silences between them when they're both thinking about Patrick. Did they ever talk about him? Did they ever confess that they missed him? Did they both keep his clothes and wear them around each other? What is the Patrick-shaped hole in this relationship? What is there around it, what is real, what are they both afraid of, how are they alike? As Judith Guest once wrote, You are beautiful, and you are unpredictable, but you're so cautious. That's Tashi. That's BOTH of them. Patrick POV on this vibe...
- Give me the weddingggggggggg. Give me Patrick crashing the weddinggggggggggggggg.
- Would LOVE Tashi POV if you're up for that. A Tashi character study, a proper elegy to the art she has lost; the emotions of that scene where she sits down beside the tree and stares at her knee, but a whole fic length. I am reminded of this New York Times profile of Keith Jarrett. “Right now, I can’t even talk about this,” he said when the issue came up, and laughed his deflective laugh. “That’s what I feel about it.” And while the magnificent achievement of “Budapest Concert” is a source of pride, it’s not hard to see how it could also register as a cosmic taunt. “I can only play with my right hand, and it’s not convincing me anymore,” Mr. Jarrett said. “I even have dreams where I am as messed up as I really am — so I’ve found myself trying to play in my dreams, but it’s just like real life.”
Thank you so, so much again for writing for me. I hope that you are safe and warm and happy wherever you are, and wish you every kindness in the new year.
Love,
Brella
