Dear Yuletide Writer, 2020

[hopefulnebula]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you for writing for me! You clearly have great taste. ;)

First of all, I want to say that I truly don't want any single request more than any other one that's listed here. I realize some of my requests are much longer than others, but that's primarily due to the number of characters nominated in each. So if you got matched on Sunshine and are looking at the length of my HDM prompts, put it out of your mind, I will love what you write just as much regardless of how long the requests are.

Second, this is my first time in a while doing one spoiler cut per prompt. Wish me HTML luck.

On to the letter itself.

Let's get the "generally do not want" list out of the way first. I'm fine with canon-typical violence for each canon, but please don't focus on gratuitous descriptions of gore. Also please don't spend a lot of time glorifying the nasty things people do to each other. If you're going to include them in the story, that's fine, but please treat them like the terrible things they are. My other hard DNW for the year is animal harm or death.

Now that that's out of the way, a non-exhaustive list of the general things I like:

- Fiction that's in the spirit of the source material. I love me some "original flavor" fic (not linking to the TVTropes page because then you'll never get anything written). Explore the things that the canon doesn't explore in a way that the canon would do it, and I'll be a happy camper.
- Non-human/human-but-neurologically-atypical characters not thinking the way neurotypical humans do, without being caricatures of themselves.
- Unexpected/odd POVs (external POVs of relationships, for instance).
- Epistolary fiction (that is, stories told in the form of letters/e-mails/telegrams/notes sent by carrier pigeon between characters)
- Strong character voices (I love hearing the characters speak the lines I read in my head).
- Stories that explore the characters' reactions to things around them (what makes them who they are? How does that relate to how they react to things now?)
- Anything that passes the Bechdel test (has at least two female main characters who communicate with each other about something other than a man)
- Past-fic, future-fic, missing scenes, sets of vaguely connected drabbles, weirdly formatted fics, plotless "slice of life" fics, fix-it fics, and probably about a hundred other things I could think of.
- AUs, particularly of the "what-if" variety.
- I like happy endings, but I also like it when things don't end exactly as the protagonist plans. I like bittersweet and even sad endings. But please don't make it a "rocks fall, everyone dies" ending. There should be something happy or hopeful to grab onto.

I'm open to all ratings, so write whatever you're comfortable writing, and while my prompts tend to lean toward gen-ness, I do like to read romance as well, so if you're a shipper of any sort, please don't feel obligated to avoid it for my sake.


The prompts themselves are below, along with some commentary on what I love about each source material. Caution: here be spoilers.


Alphas - Gary Bell, Anna Levy

What is Anna's day-to-day life like? How does she work with her local community? How and why did she join Red Flag? How did she get to such a high position in the group? What was her childhood like? How did she create her language, and who was the first person to understand it for what it was? Who does she work with at Red Flag, and what are their interactions like? What have her interactions with Stanton Parrish been like, and what did she do to piss him off?

How did Anna and Gary's relationship go from Gary hanging up on Anna to Gary disobeying orders to try to save her life? What was their correspondence like? What does she think of him?

Fic about Gary is also most welcome! Something highlighting his relationships with the rest of the team? Yes, please. Or an episode tag would be awesome too. Or a post-series fic (taking the finale into account or handwaving it, I don't care) would also be amazing. What is he doing five years from now? Ten? (Has he taken over Red Flag and led it in a non-violent direction? Is he making oodles of money as a consultant on the side? Who knows? You do!) The world needs more Gary.

(If you only want to write about one character or the other for this prompt, that's cool with me, I'm just selecting them both because Reasons.)

I've loved Anna since the second they introduced her.

I love antagonists who aren't necessarily wrong (though I obviously don't condone Red Flag's methods). I love that they make her relatable, but obviously very different from "normal" humans. I even love that she's been misdiagnosed all her life because none of her doctors knew about alphas. I love how sympathetic she is. I love that she and Gary bonded so quickly.

One thing that fascinates me as well is the possibility that her ability might allow her to understand what people mean versus what they actually say.

(From a Watsonian perspective, I hate how she died. From a Doylian perspective, I totally understand it and am fascinated by the implications. This isn't to say I desperately want an AU where she lives, though I'm definitely open to that possibility, and I'd be kind of fascinated to see what Anna-ten-years-from-now would be up to.)

And then there's Gary. Gary, Gary, Gary. I love how they (both the showrunners and the characters) treat Gary as an individual. His autism is an integral part of who he is, but he's not the token oddball or the savant or the Very Special Episode The Writers Put In So Neurotypical Viewers Can Feel Good About Themselves. (And speaking of which, this show is literally the only time I've encountered the word "neurodiversity" in mass media. Which says quite a lot.) Sometimes it's helpful, and sometimes it's debilitating. He does get the lion's share of the funny moments, but it's not in an exploitative way.

In short: Anna and Gary are both the best. If you can make them be the best together, all the better. If not, they're still the best! (Best-ness is not zero sum.)

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The Darkside Detective - Any

I would love to see any combination of these characters going on some kind of paranormal adventure. Maybe something a few years on, when Raxa has her degree and signs onto the Darkside Division (or does whatever else she wants to do with it)? Maybe she ends up confronting the corruption in the rest of the TLPD. What adventures has Dooley gone on with the Bloodwolves? Has Nigel the Totally Real Human kept in touch as he promised? And how about McQueen? Why did he join the Darkside Division in the first place? What does he have to do to be taken seriously by the department as a whole?

Basically anything that has these characters interacting with each other, or their universe as a whole, is fair game here.

So, uh, true story: I played through this entire game in like ten hours last winter just after nominations closed and was pissed that I couldn't retroactively sneak these folks into the tagset somehow. So I set myself a calendar reminder so I'd nominate them this year instead, and had to pick a date for the reminder to actually happen, and that date ended up being the actual last day of nominations. So I really lucked out here. (If you haven't played this but it sounds intriguing, it's available on Steam, as is a free demo of the first case and a demo of the upcoming/eventual next chapter.)

I just really love all these characters. I love how we get little fleshed-out details of their lives, and the world they're in. I love the banter. I love how protective McQueen is of Dooley, and how Dooley sees the world, and how the supernatural is just one more thing that happens in Twin Lakes. I love the intrigue and the worldbuilding and the snarkiness. I love the way they all lean on the fourth wall without ever actually breaking it. I love how Dooley's brain works.

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Exit/Corners - Any

I said "any" here and I mean it. One of my favorite things about E/C is the interactions between the characters, and their ever-shifting dynamics as they learn more about each other. There's a lot of stuff that happens during the course of the game that we never get to see because Ink isn't there. (Also the drink-testing conversation Aether mentions in one of the good endings - we never actually see that in game, but it might be fun to include a missing scene like that). Fill in the negative space! There's also a lot of potential for exploring some characters' relationships with their Contacts, and the conversations they have. Or: how do the remaining characters end up surviving/thriving after the end of the game? Are the people in charge right in their calculations that the players will eventually forgive them? Or, give me Sent's POV of any point during the game. What do they actually think of what's happening? What's their relationship like with the game's creators? What goes into their decision at the end of the game?

E/C is... well, not a five-minute fandom, but a "whoops, it's 3am" fandom, and it's the most easily accessible of all of my requests. If you like visual novels with light (but skippable) puzzles and meaningful choices, the genre of "we all woke up in this place none of us has seen before and a shadowy force is making us participate in a creepy, potentially lethal game," and complex, engaging characters, the VN is available for free at http://exitcorners.com. That said, I wouldn't feel good recommending it without also providing content warnings. By their nature, these warnings will spoil the game, so if you want to read them I'll put them in a "highlight to read" bit at the end of this part of the letter. Also, these prompts are largely based on the best ending, whose save code you can find in this comment at the E/C subreddit. Feel free to disregard that, though, and go with whichever ending you choose, if that's the direction your muse takes you.

I mean it when I say that my favorite part of the game is the character interactions. I'd love to see something from Aether's point of view, since she's clearly going to view the other characters differently than they view each other. I'd like to see further backstory or flashes-forward for any of the characters - how does Liza come to terms with what she knows about her family, and what they've done to her? Does Ink actually become a detective? What steps does Rae take to repair his social life, post-game? Does Sent communicate privately with anyone else during the game? Does the remaining team stay friendly years later? How do they cope?

SPOILERY CONTENT NOTES (highlight to read): (skip) E/C is an amazing game, but it does include (in no particular order) blood/gore, limb amputation, gaslighting/manipulation, abusive parents, transphobia, suicide references, and character death.





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His Dark Materials - Any

"Any" here actually means any character (or none of them), regardless of whether they were nominated - I love me some worldbuilding/found material/mythology as well. More on that later, because I want to include at least a couple of prompts for each nominated character.

For Iorek: I feel like we don't see the bears enough. Anything set on Svalbard would be amazing - how does King Iorek assert the bears' sovereignty (and bearliness) after overthrowing Iofur? What about a few years on - how has the bears' political (and physical) landscape changed from the few parts we see?

For Lee: I adore Lee and his relationship with Lyra - maybe a missing scene with them in the north? Or something from Lee's own childhood in Texas, and his relationship with Hester? Or another adventure from his past, as he makes a name for himself in the world?

For Mary: What's her relationship with her daemon like after the series, now that she can see him? What parts of her time in other worlds keep becoming apparent in her own world, afterward? What parts of her time with Atal didn't we get to see?

For Serafina: What's day-to-day life like, being a queen among witches? How much of it is politics and intrigue, and how much of it is just making sure everybody in the clan is well-fed and safe? What are her priorities as clan leader? What was it like for her to grow up as a witch?

And now to the general worldbuilding, if that's your jam. I'd love to hear stories, myths, and legends from any of the other worlds we see. If there's a geographic area and/or time period you love, I'd love to see what life is like in that time/place in Lyra's world - create a character and send them on an adventure in Lyra's world. Or you know those snippets of documents/other materials in Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North? Excerpts from things like that - from any world - would be amazing as well, and don't feel obligated to stick only to nominated characters.

I've loved this series for nearly 20 years now and I think it'll always be one of the fandoms of my heart. I especially love the worldbuilding and the depth of the characters.

As much as I love HDM, there's not much I can say here that isn't also included in my prompt. There's the worldbuilding as mentioned above - seriously anything is welcome, from folk tales to pop culture to figuring out how organized sports work in a world where people's souls are tangible and you can't touch any but your own - but also the characters. I really do mean "any".

A note regarding Book of Dust and the TV show: I'm fine if you include elements from them, but please keep your focus toward the original books.


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Sunshine (2007) - Corazon

We didn't see enough Corazon in this movie, we just didn't. What was she working on before the Icarus project? How was she chosen, and why wasn't she chosen for Icarus I? What are her relationships with the rest of the crew like? What leads her to make the decisions she makes in the movie? What happens in the AU where she (somehow!) survives, or was never chosen to be on the crew in the first place? What are her letters home like? I would truly treasure anything you choose to write that focuses on her.

...Look, sometimes a girl just has to request a story in which the world doesn't end, OK? Good. As long as we have that clear.

So, part of the reason I'm choosing Corazon specifically is because my brain kinda short-circuits whenever Michelle Yeoh is on screen. I just love what she does with characters. And Corazon's brand of quiet badassery is something that just resonates in me. Seriously, though. Anything with a focus on her will make me happy, especially if she interacts with the rest of the crew. Or about her past, or (somehow?) her future. If you want to lean into the hard sci-fi aspects of keeping plants in space, that would be great! If you want to base your fic entirely on her relationships? Also amazing. Something from her point of view? Something about her from another character's point of view? Go to town!



Thanks again for matching to me, dear writer, and I look forward to "meeting" you in December.

-Neb (aka HopefulNebula on AO3)