Dear Yuletide Writer 2017
Oct. 9th, 2017 02:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
metaphasiaHappy Yuletide! First, thank you for volunteering for Yuletide, and I hope that you have a great time! The best part about Yuletide is the spirit of positivism around it and the sense of community that it builds. I hope that the information below is useful in helping you to figure out what sort of fic to write, but if there is anything that you don't feel comfortable with writing, keep in mind that this is Yuletide! The optional details are optional and anything you write for me, I can already guarantee I will love, so if you find yourself completely deviating from what I outline below, don't worry about it; these are just general ideas to help you find a starting point if you need one.
If you're looking for some generic plot ideas that I love to see, regardless of fandom, I love tropes that have a sense of casual intimacy such as those of friends with benefits, unexpected co-parenting, road trips, and bodyswap or bodysharing/telepathy. I also really like the symbolism of windows, whether they're being used as doors or when adjacent houses having matching windows that people talk through. And giant 80s lasers are always "seasonally appropriate" for Yuletide!
On the other hand, I do not mind sex or action scenes, but prefer fic that has a focus on plot or character development primarily. I don't have many triggers, but the few things that really turn me off are emotional blackmail/guilt trips and social awkwardness/embarrassment/humiliation.
Bad Night - Abby, Kate I saw this movie pop up in my recommendations on Netflix, and I fell in love with it based on the description alone. I am a huge sucker for female friendships and action heroines, and this movie just hit all of my buttons. I would love to see more about the continuing adventures of Kate and Abby, especially if those adventures involve more undercover police work and unintentional dealings with the crime world. While these two are amazing friends, I would not be opposed to seeing them in a romantic relationship.
This is one of those movies that isn't super complicated, but doesn't need to be, because it knows that it's a fairly mindless action adventure film, and doesn't feel the need to be more than what it is. But it does manage to do so with a mainly female cast, including all four of the main protagonists, and manages to make them all unique individuals with interesting relationships. I think Kate and Abby make for pretty unlikely friends, but that's one of the reasons that I like their friendship so much, because I am a fan of unusual pairings and found families. I also love the way they have crazy traditions like dressing in ridiculous costumes to go out to dinner and dealt with being thrust into a very dangerous situation.
The Space Between Us – Gardner Elliot, Tulsa This movie manages to hit all my buttons for tropes that I love. The film leaves a lot of unanswered questions about where the characters will proceed moving forward. I would love to see more about the continuing adventures of Gardner and Tulsa after the film ends – I feel it's kind of inevitable that Tulsa will end up on Mars at some point. Alternatively, I think an epistolary story of them trying to make a long distance relationship work in the meantime, or telling each other stories (I can only imagine the The Martian level shenanigans that had to have happened with five astronauts and a baby and no supplies on the entire planet).
As soon as I first heard about this movie, I knew I was going to fall in love with it. A science fiction, romance movie, that involves a road trip and stars Britt Robertson? This movie could not have been more designed for me if it had tried. I have a theory that since at the end of the film both Tulsa and Gardner are wearing a copy of the wedding ring, they secretly got married when they visited Shaman Neka, which only plays into my favorite tropes more. Seriously, there is so much wide open space in this film, appropriately, that you can go absolutely nuts here.
Nearlyweds - Erin (Nearlyweds), Casey (Nearlyweds), Stella (Nearlyweds) I love the interactions between the three women, and I love the fact that while most movies end with the characters getting married, this movie begins with it and is about making a relationship work. And while I really like the canon relationships between the women and their husbands (well, not Mark, but the others), I also would not have minded if the movie ended with the montage of the three of them living together, and if you want to write them as polyamorous lesbians instead of best friends forever, I would love that as well.
This is the white whale of my fandoms, the eternal request that will never be fulfilled. Nearlyweds was a Hallmark movie that came out a few years ago, and it's one of my feel good, rainy-Sunday, movies. I love the three women and the way they work so well together. I think that their relationship works equally well as best friends and as lovers. I'm a fan of unconventional relationships, and I was shipping them from the beginning of the movie, and that was before the musical montage of the three of them living alone together. I would love to see them either together, or with their canonical relationships, because I think that both of those outcomes work in terms of the characters.
Tomb Raider – Lara Croft, Samantha Nishimura I never really played the Tomb Raider games before the 2013 release, and I just fell in love with this game when I did. It was so over the top in the best action movie way, that it was often hard to take it seriously when Lara just shrugged off mortal injury after mortal injury and kept pushing forward for the love of her life, I MEAN PLATONIC BEST FRIEND, Sam. I would love to see further adventures of the two after Yamatai, traveling the world and stopping various cults together, all while Lara is unearthing various relics and Sam is filming her doing so.
If the developers of this game were trying to imply that Lara and Sam were anything other than madly in love, they clearly failed. I mentioned how this game is over the top, and about an hour or so into it, I completely suspended my disbelief and just ran with it; there is no trope or situation you can throw these characters into that I would find implausible and if you are the type of writer to take that as a challenge, YOU SHOULD, you should absolutely accept that challenge.
Past Yuletide Letters: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012
While I love both angst and happy fics in general, Yuletide is a really happy time (it's the most wonderful time of the year!) and because of that, I would prefer something that ends on a high note or is just generally upbeat in tone. However, if you have an amazing idea that's angst, don't let that discourage you, I will still be totally happy with it! Similarly, while I usually love crazy AUs, I would prefer fiction that is closer to the source material for Yuletide; I think the point of this exchange is the rare fandoms, and getting too far away from those sources seems to defeat the purpose to me.
If you're looking for some generic plot ideas that I love to see, regardless of fandom, I love tropes that have a sense of casual intimacy such as those of friends with benefits, unexpected co-parenting, road trips, and bodyswap or bodysharing/telepathy. I also really like the symbolism of windows, whether they're being used as doors or when adjacent houses having matching windows that people talk through. And giant 80s lasers are always "seasonally appropriate" for Yuletide!
On the other hand, I do not mind sex or action scenes, but prefer fic that has a focus on plot or character development primarily. I don't have many triggers, but the few things that really turn me off are emotional blackmail/guilt trips and social awkwardness/embarrassment/humiliation.
Bad Night - Abby, Kate I saw this movie pop up in my recommendations on Netflix, and I fell in love with it based on the description alone. I am a huge sucker for female friendships and action heroines, and this movie just hit all of my buttons. I would love to see more about the continuing adventures of Kate and Abby, especially if those adventures involve more undercover police work and unintentional dealings with the crime world. While these two are amazing friends, I would not be opposed to seeing them in a romantic relationship.
This is one of those movies that isn't super complicated, but doesn't need to be, because it knows that it's a fairly mindless action adventure film, and doesn't feel the need to be more than what it is. But it does manage to do so with a mainly female cast, including all four of the main protagonists, and manages to make them all unique individuals with interesting relationships. I think Kate and Abby make for pretty unlikely friends, but that's one of the reasons that I like their friendship so much, because I am a fan of unusual pairings and found families. I also love the way they have crazy traditions like dressing in ridiculous costumes to go out to dinner and dealt with being thrust into a very dangerous situation.
The Space Between Us – Gardner Elliot, Tulsa This movie manages to hit all my buttons for tropes that I love. The film leaves a lot of unanswered questions about where the characters will proceed moving forward. I would love to see more about the continuing adventures of Gardner and Tulsa after the film ends – I feel it's kind of inevitable that Tulsa will end up on Mars at some point. Alternatively, I think an epistolary story of them trying to make a long distance relationship work in the meantime, or telling each other stories (I can only imagine the The Martian level shenanigans that had to have happened with five astronauts and a baby and no supplies on the entire planet).
As soon as I first heard about this movie, I knew I was going to fall in love with it. A science fiction, romance movie, that involves a road trip and stars Britt Robertson? This movie could not have been more designed for me if it had tried. I have a theory that since at the end of the film both Tulsa and Gardner are wearing a copy of the wedding ring, they secretly got married when they visited Shaman Neka, which only plays into my favorite tropes more. Seriously, there is so much wide open space in this film, appropriately, that you can go absolutely nuts here.
Nearlyweds - Erin (Nearlyweds), Casey (Nearlyweds), Stella (Nearlyweds) I love the interactions between the three women, and I love the fact that while most movies end with the characters getting married, this movie begins with it and is about making a relationship work. And while I really like the canon relationships between the women and their husbands (well, not Mark, but the others), I also would not have minded if the movie ended with the montage of the three of them living together, and if you want to write them as polyamorous lesbians instead of best friends forever, I would love that as well.
This is the white whale of my fandoms, the eternal request that will never be fulfilled. Nearlyweds was a Hallmark movie that came out a few years ago, and it's one of my feel good, rainy-Sunday, movies. I love the three women and the way they work so well together. I think that their relationship works equally well as best friends and as lovers. I'm a fan of unconventional relationships, and I was shipping them from the beginning of the movie, and that was before the musical montage of the three of them living alone together. I would love to see them either together, or with their canonical relationships, because I think that both of those outcomes work in terms of the characters.
Tomb Raider – Lara Croft, Samantha Nishimura I never really played the Tomb Raider games before the 2013 release, and I just fell in love with this game when I did. It was so over the top in the best action movie way, that it was often hard to take it seriously when Lara just shrugged off mortal injury after mortal injury and kept pushing forward for the love of her life, I MEAN PLATONIC BEST FRIEND, Sam. I would love to see further adventures of the two after Yamatai, traveling the world and stopping various cults together, all while Lara is unearthing various relics and Sam is filming her doing so.
If the developers of this game were trying to imply that Lara and Sam were anything other than madly in love, they clearly failed. I mentioned how this game is over the top, and about an hour or so into it, I completely suspended my disbelief and just ran with it; there is no trope or situation you can throw these characters into that I would find implausible and if you are the type of writer to take that as a challenge, YOU SHOULD, you should absolutely accept that challenge.
Past Yuletide Letters: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012
