Dear Yuletide Author 2023
Oct. 14th, 2023 08:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayhapDear Yuletide author,
I am so pleased that we share an interest in one of these fandoms and I can’t wait to read whatever you write for me this Yuletide!
I enjoy a wide variety of stories, all year round but especially at Yuletide. I love short, punchy stories and longer, plotter stories, explicitly smutty and/or kinky stories and coy stories that are all about the teasing and the implications, stories with some kind of meta angle to them and stories that engage with the source material 100% on its own terms, stories with ships that are canon and stories with ships that aren’t.
I am![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
mayhap on AO3 as well. I have checked to make sure I have gifts enabled.
Chronos (Austins) Series — Madeleine L’Engle
Zachary Gray
I adore Zachary in all his messy, self-sabotaging glory. I think L’Engle must have felt something similar, since she brought him back in another book and had him enact virtually same scenario all over again, and then did it twice more in the Kairos books for good measure. I eat it up with a spoon every single time.
I’d love any any Zach-centric fic, especially one that explores what he might do next. I’ve always been particularly interested in his relationship with Vicky, which affected him profoundly and set the pattern that he gets caught up in repeating. I don’t necessarily think they would or should see each other again after what happened between them, but I do think it could be fascinating if they did, having both experienced more of life in the interim.
I’d love to see Uncle Douglas follow up on the desire he expressed to paint Zach; I feel like he could be a really interesting, potentially positive figure in his life. In a more antagonistic vein, I find Dr. Austin and his infuriating brand of ‘benevolent’ chauvinism most interesting when it is intersecting with Zach’s daddy issues, and I think that could be explored further. But of course it’s completely up to you which other canonical characters you want to include, if any!
I’ve requested this under Chronos, but of course Zachary is one of the characters who cross and connect Chronos and Kairos. Feel free to handle that canonical crossover in any way you like—you could fully disregard the books set in Kairos, fully incorporate the events, characters, and more fantastical elements from the Kairos books, or anything in between. Any of these approaches would interest me equally.
National Football League RPF
Patrick Mahomes
Travis Kelce
What happens when you pair a tight end who always gets open with a quarterback with a particular gift for making unconventional plays? It’s like they were born to play together, to win Super Bowls together, to take over all the ad breaks with their sponsorships together. They’re both so skilled at reading defenses and adjusting to what they see on the fly that sometimes it amounts to virtual mind reading, and they make the incredible seem routine. It’s truly a delight to watch them play.
Until recently, Kelce’s level of stardom hasn’t equalled the virtuosity of his play, but that changed pretty rapidly when he started a podcast with his brother, played in a Super Bowl against him and won, hosted SNL, and, last but not least, made a certain friendship bracelet. I’ve loved seeing him get to put himself out there and shine, and it’s so cool that he shares a bit of what the NFL season and his teammates are like, among other things. They both seem like a couple of fun dudes who hit it off as soon as they met and have gotten really close over the years.
I’d love any kind of fic about them hooking up with each other, in the football sense or in the romantic one. Maybe they really can read each other’s minds, or they accidentally unlock that ability from playing together and shenanigans ensue. Maybe they wake up married in Vegas after they were partying there after winning their first Super Bowl. Maybe they find themselves in a wacky body swap situation. Or if there are any other fun tropes or ideas you have, romantic or platonic, I want to read them!
The situation is fluid and she’s not a nominated character, but if you’re interested in writing about Travis’s relationship with Taylor Swift, I’m fully down for that! I’m not familiar with the deep Swiftie lore but I’ve been picking it up as I go along and that’s been fun. They both seem really happy together so far and it’s very cute!
DNWs: mentions of wives and girlfriends in pairing fic (if gen, do whatever you prefer!); featuring Tyreek Hill prominently off the field (including him as a teammate/former teammate is fine); AUs where Mahomes and Kelce aren’t football players
Plain Girl — Virginia Sorenson
Esther Lapp
Mary
I love how delicately and yet powerfully this book explores Esther’s thoughts and feelings—about her family, the Amish community, their way of life, and of course about her new friend Mary, whom she finds so beautiful, not just for her pretty dresses, but also things like her silky hair and her dimpled elbows as well as her wonderful kindness and tact in welcoming her to school and becoming her bosom friend. It’s written as a seduction and that seduction is a good thing, a fountain that sends forth sweet water and not bitter. I see flashes of an eroticism as well, like Esther touching Mary’s hair and finding it so beautiful that a shiver goes through her fingers and her heart starts to beat very fast, or Mary showing Esther her petticoat when they’re planning to change clothes with each other, which I find really lovely.
Even though they don’t end up wearing each other’s clothes at school they must do it eventually, somewhere, sometime! I’d love for that to be explored in a story, at any age or perhaps more than once, as they get older. Anything exploring their relationship and how it develops in the future would be wonderful. There’s a lot of potential for angst and difficulty but also for love and sharing. Esther, of course, has her new sister-in-law and her brother in her corner when it comes to blending the old and the new, with her parents much more tentatively open, but Mary’s family is wide open for exploration, and so are the rest of their peers. I’d love gen or getting together or established relationship or pre-ship fic all equally.
The Professor — Charlotte Brontë
Frances Evans Henri
Hunsden Yorke Hunsden
William Crimsworth
I am fascinated the role that Hunsden Yorke Hunsden plays in this story, who is of the things that makes it different from Vilette, which is essentially a heavily-revised second draft of The Professor. From the beginning he alternates between needling William and performing these extremely thoughtful favors for him, although it's not always easy for him to get under William's skin as William perversely enjoys some of his bluntness. He brings out such an interesting side of Frances when he meets her, too -- I love that promptly she gets into three arguments with him in a row, and the third time she doesn't even believe in the argument she's making; she just wants to fight with him!
I'm particularly interested in a story set when William and Frances are living in England and Hunsden is their neighbor. I love how he has apparently latched onto their family in lieu of starting their own, especially the way he seems to practically be a coparent to Victor when he’s at home. I would love more about their daily life as it's sketched all too briefly in that last chapter, or a story about something that happens as Victor gets older and goes to school, which William worries about.
I would also love threesome fic! William would be almost hopelessly scandalized by the prospect, I think, and surely Frances too, but then with the dynamic both she and Hunsden have with William where they love to tease him I can imagine it working out somehow. I do love stories where characters fumble their way into unusual relationships or sexual practices without quite knowing what they're doing or having the usual vocabulary to talk about it, which is sort of what I would picture here. But I absolutely would be just as happy with a story that explores the dynamic among them some other way.
I am so pleased that we share an interest in one of these fandoms and I can’t wait to read whatever you write for me this Yuletide!
I enjoy a wide variety of stories, all year round but especially at Yuletide. I love short, punchy stories and longer, plotter stories, explicitly smutty and/or kinky stories and coy stories that are all about the teasing and the implications, stories with some kind of meta angle to them and stories that engage with the source material 100% on its own terms, stories with ships that are canon and stories with ships that aren’t.
I am
Chronos (Austins) Series — Madeleine L’Engle
Zachary Gray
I adore Zachary in all his messy, self-sabotaging glory. I think L’Engle must have felt something similar, since she brought him back in another book and had him enact virtually same scenario all over again, and then did it twice more in the Kairos books for good measure. I eat it up with a spoon every single time.
I’d love any any Zach-centric fic, especially one that explores what he might do next. I’ve always been particularly interested in his relationship with Vicky, which affected him profoundly and set the pattern that he gets caught up in repeating. I don’t necessarily think they would or should see each other again after what happened between them, but I do think it could be fascinating if they did, having both experienced more of life in the interim.
I’d love to see Uncle Douglas follow up on the desire he expressed to paint Zach; I feel like he could be a really interesting, potentially positive figure in his life. In a more antagonistic vein, I find Dr. Austin and his infuriating brand of ‘benevolent’ chauvinism most interesting when it is intersecting with Zach’s daddy issues, and I think that could be explored further. But of course it’s completely up to you which other canonical characters you want to include, if any!
I’ve requested this under Chronos, but of course Zachary is one of the characters who cross and connect Chronos and Kairos. Feel free to handle that canonical crossover in any way you like—you could fully disregard the books set in Kairos, fully incorporate the events, characters, and more fantastical elements from the Kairos books, or anything in between. Any of these approaches would interest me equally.
National Football League RPF
Patrick Mahomes
Travis Kelce
What happens when you pair a tight end who always gets open with a quarterback with a particular gift for making unconventional plays? It’s like they were born to play together, to win Super Bowls together, to take over all the ad breaks with their sponsorships together. They’re both so skilled at reading defenses and adjusting to what they see on the fly that sometimes it amounts to virtual mind reading, and they make the incredible seem routine. It’s truly a delight to watch them play.
Until recently, Kelce’s level of stardom hasn’t equalled the virtuosity of his play, but that changed pretty rapidly when he started a podcast with his brother, played in a Super Bowl against him and won, hosted SNL, and, last but not least, made a certain friendship bracelet. I’ve loved seeing him get to put himself out there and shine, and it’s so cool that he shares a bit of what the NFL season and his teammates are like, among other things. They both seem like a couple of fun dudes who hit it off as soon as they met and have gotten really close over the years.
I’d love any kind of fic about them hooking up with each other, in the football sense or in the romantic one. Maybe they really can read each other’s minds, or they accidentally unlock that ability from playing together and shenanigans ensue. Maybe they wake up married in Vegas after they were partying there after winning their first Super Bowl. Maybe they find themselves in a wacky body swap situation. Or if there are any other fun tropes or ideas you have, romantic or platonic, I want to read them!
The situation is fluid and she’s not a nominated character, but if you’re interested in writing about Travis’s relationship with Taylor Swift, I’m fully down for that! I’m not familiar with the deep Swiftie lore but I’ve been picking it up as I go along and that’s been fun. They both seem really happy together so far and it’s very cute!
DNWs: mentions of wives and girlfriends in pairing fic (if gen, do whatever you prefer!); featuring Tyreek Hill prominently off the field (including him as a teammate/former teammate is fine); AUs where Mahomes and Kelce aren’t football players
Plain Girl — Virginia Sorenson
Esther Lapp
Mary
I love how delicately and yet powerfully this book explores Esther’s thoughts and feelings—about her family, the Amish community, their way of life, and of course about her new friend Mary, whom she finds so beautiful, not just for her pretty dresses, but also things like her silky hair and her dimpled elbows as well as her wonderful kindness and tact in welcoming her to school and becoming her bosom friend. It’s written as a seduction and that seduction is a good thing, a fountain that sends forth sweet water and not bitter. I see flashes of an eroticism as well, like Esther touching Mary’s hair and finding it so beautiful that a shiver goes through her fingers and her heart starts to beat very fast, or Mary showing Esther her petticoat when they’re planning to change clothes with each other, which I find really lovely.
Even though they don’t end up wearing each other’s clothes at school they must do it eventually, somewhere, sometime! I’d love for that to be explored in a story, at any age or perhaps more than once, as they get older. Anything exploring their relationship and how it develops in the future would be wonderful. There’s a lot of potential for angst and difficulty but also for love and sharing. Esther, of course, has her new sister-in-law and her brother in her corner when it comes to blending the old and the new, with her parents much more tentatively open, but Mary’s family is wide open for exploration, and so are the rest of their peers. I’d love gen or getting together or established relationship or pre-ship fic all equally.
The Professor — Charlotte Brontë
Frances Evans Henri
Hunsden Yorke Hunsden
William Crimsworth
I am fascinated the role that Hunsden Yorke Hunsden plays in this story, who is of the things that makes it different from Vilette, which is essentially a heavily-revised second draft of The Professor. From the beginning he alternates between needling William and performing these extremely thoughtful favors for him, although it's not always easy for him to get under William's skin as William perversely enjoys some of his bluntness. He brings out such an interesting side of Frances when he meets her, too -- I love that promptly she gets into three arguments with him in a row, and the third time she doesn't even believe in the argument she's making; she just wants to fight with him!
I'm particularly interested in a story set when William and Frances are living in England and Hunsden is their neighbor. I love how he has apparently latched onto their family in lieu of starting their own, especially the way he seems to practically be a coparent to Victor when he’s at home. I would love more about their daily life as it's sketched all too briefly in that last chapter, or a story about something that happens as Victor gets older and goes to school, which William worries about.
I would also love threesome fic! William would be almost hopelessly scandalized by the prospect, I think, and surely Frances too, but then with the dynamic both she and Hunsden have with William where they love to tease him I can imagine it working out somehow. I do love stories where characters fumble their way into unusual relationships or sexual practices without quite knowing what they're doing or having the usual vocabulary to talk about it, which is sort of what I would picture here. But I absolutely would be just as happy with a story that explores the dynamic among them some other way.