Highly Atypical

Dear Yuletide Writer, 2023 edition

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 00:10:17 GMT

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 Periodic Table anthro and are looking at the length of my Alphas prompts, put it out of your mind, I will love what you write just as much regardless of how long the requests are. Second, I usually alphabetize my prompts by fandom, but Farscape is a last-minute addition and I'm not about to copy and paste everything in a different order from the signup form, so it is what it is.

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.

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.

Also, I am completely open to treating and all forms of fanart/IF/whatever, I just perennially forget to opt in.

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

Alphas - Anna Levy, Gary Bell - Giver's choice

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.

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.)

---

Black Mirror: Hated in the Nation - Any from tagset (Blue Coulson, Karin Parke, Shaun Li)

I'd love to see Blue making the major decisions in her life. Choosing to work for law enforcement, becoming a more hands-on detective, leaving the force (and doing what she does at the end of the episode). Hell, even failing her driving tests. How does she deal with the fresh trauma of the episode's events? Does she plot the end of the episode with Karin, or does she just do it and informs her afterward? And speaking of Karin: we see her at the hearing, where she's (presumably) putting on her best face, but how has she herself dealt with the aftermath of the episode? What's her perspective on what happened between the events of May and the day of the hearing? How does she cope? Why does she stay on the force when she has just as much reason to leave as Blue does? I'd also love to see Shaun working with Karin on a case (especially one that involves Black Mirror-esque technology). Or: does he have any idea what Blue is up to? If so, is he helping her at all?

This is my favorite Black Mirror, as someone who spent a lot of years working in trust and safety. I love the dynamics between the nominated characters, and the very different ways they conceptualize the case we follow. I'm having trouble thinking of more about the fandom right now (downside of an anthology show) but I spent a lot of words in the request, so that'll do for the moment.

---

Lock In - John Scalzi - Any from tagset (Chris Shane, Leslie Vann)

I'd love anything surrounding Chris and/or Leslie. Perhaps a story from Chris's childhood (seriously, what would it be like being the second person ever to have a threep?), or Leslie's Integrator training? Or something set a few years in the future as their careers and various personal issues change their working relationship? What was Leslie's daily life like as an Integrator, and how did she pick up the pieces after leaving? (I know she tells Chris the story, but it seems like she's maybe left more out of it than she's included.)

For more worldbuildy (or non-nominated character) prompts: What's life on the Agora like? What was it like when it was brand new? What's it like for people who don't have the money for their own server space? How does being locked in (or not) make things easier or harder for people who would face different treatment for visible traits regardless of Haden status (for instance, race, gender expression, or non-Haden disability)?

DNW: Please no Chris/Leslie, and if you write Chris please don't assign them a gender - I really like what Scalzi did there.

I love the ideas Scalzi has laid out in this world. It's not just a matter of losing such a large percentage of the world's population, but of the way the disease and subsequent technological developments have reshaped the post-outbreak world.

There are so many splits between groups in the book -- Hadens vs. non-Hadens, Hadens who were locked in as children vs. ones who took ill as adults, people who're seeking cures and integration into "normal" society vs. people who see Haden culture as distinct from that of non-Hadens... and the thing is, none of these sides are fundamentally wrong. So if that's something you feel like exploring, go to town!

If you matched on this fandom and haven't seen Unlocked: an Oral History of Haden's Syndrome, you'd probably enjoy it and maybe even find some inspiration.

---

Periodic Table of Elements (Anthropomorphic) - Chlorine, Fluorine - All characters

These two are just so explosive. Especially together. Do they just want to watch the world burn? What do they get up to? Why are they so reactive? Is there a secret society of other elements that wants to create ions of these two (chlorides and fluorides) to render them harmless?

- Periodic Videos: Chlorine, Fluorine
- Chemicool has some facts on the history of fluorine and chlorine.
- Chlorine trifluoride. That is all. (If you haven't seen Hank Green's explanation of ClF₃, I also recommend it.)

---

Farscape - Aeryn Sun, Moya, Talyn - Giver's choice

I would love just about anything with any of these characters. Send the crew on an adventure with the most alien aliens you can imagine, show me how Moya coped with living under Peacekeeper rule pre-series, give me Talyn's POV as he forms his identity. The galaxy (whichever one they're in) is the limit.

Other potential starting points:
-Moya and Talyn communicate and experience life so differently than her crews do. (Heck, Moya and Talyn experience things differently from each other.) How do they stay a part of their crews' adventures when they can't join in planetside?
-Send Aeryn on an adventure before or after the series. (Or during, for that matter.) Show me the ways she's grown from her past, or sow the seeds of her future development.

Farscape was one of my formative experiences in life, and I'm thrilled that I thought to look for it with the new eligibility rules, even if it did happen just as I was signing up. It came out around the time I realized that I'm not actually "too weird to function," I'm just an autistic person living in a society built for allistic people. So Crichton's journey of being incredibly smart, but placed at a disadvantage because everybody else around him has a wildly different perception of the universe really resonated with me.But I'm not requesting Crichton for this one. (If you want to include him, though, please do!) There's something about the character dynamics and the actually-alien aliens that... just... (chef's kiss). There's a Tor article from a while back that really resonates with why I love the show, too.

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

-Neb (aka HopefulNebula on AO3)

comments

Dear Yuletide Writer, 2022

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 01:03:16 GMT

(Oh, it's October again? Time for Neb to dust off her trusty Dreamwidth...)

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 Periodic Table anthro and are looking at the length of my Alphas prompts, put it out of your mind, I will love what you write just as much regardless of how long the requests are. Which is probably good, because I only have the three requests this year (if I add one, I will edit this letter too, I promise.)

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.

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.

Also, I am completely open to treating.

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

Alphas - Any

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 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. 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? What does Beth think about that knowledge (beyond what we find in her letter)? 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.

-----

Periodic Table (anthropomorphic) - Any

These two are just so explosive. Especially together. Do they just want to watch the world burn? What do they get up to? Why are they so reactive? Is there a secret cabal of other elements that wants to create ions of these two (chlorides and fluorides) to render them harmless?

(I realize this prompt is way shorter than my others; so is the subject material, thus the length!)

Some jumping-off points for ideas/inspiration:

- Periodic Videos: Chlorine, Fluorine
- Chemicool has some facts on the history of fluorine and chlorine.
- Chlorine trifluoride. That is all. (If you haven't seen Hank Green's explanation of ClF₃, I also recommend it.)

-----

Lock In - John Scalzi (Any)

I'd love anything surrounding Chris and/or Leslie. Perhaps a story from Chris's childhood (seriously, what would it be like being the second person ever to have a threep?), or Leslie's Integrator training? Or something set a few years in the future as their careers and various personal issues change their working relationship? What was Leslie's daily life like as an Integrator, and how did she pick up the pieces after leaving? (I know she tells Chris the story, but it seems like she's maybe left more out of it than she's included.)

For more worldbuildy (or non-nominated character) prompts: What's life on the Agora like? What was it like when it was brand new? What's it like for people who don't have the money for their own server space? How does being locked in (or not) make things easier or harder for people who would face different treatment for visible traits regardless of Haden status (for instance, race, gender expression, or non-Haden disability)?

DNW: Please no Chris/Leslie, and if you write Chris please don't assign them a gender - I really like what Scalzi did there.

I'm saying "any" here, because I'm super open to worldbuilding and stories about minor, un-nominated characters, but I'd equally love something character-centric.

I love the ideas Scalzi has laid out in this world. It's not just a matter of losing such a large percentage of the world's population, but of the way the disease and subsequent technological developments have reshaped the post-outbreak world.

There are so many splits between groups in the book -- Hadens vs. non-Hadens, Hadens who were locked in as children vs. ones who took ill as adults, people who're seeking cures and integration into "normal" society vs. people who see Haden culture as distinct from that of non-Hadens... and the thing is, none of these sides are fundamentally wrong. So if that's something you feel like exploring, go to town!

If you matched on this fandom and haven't seen Unlocked: an Oral History of Haden's Syndrome, you'd probably enjoy it and maybe even find some inspiration.

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

-Neb (aka HopefulNebula on AO3)

comments

Dear Yuletide Writer, 2021

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 02:34:06 GMT

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 Periodic Table anthro and are looking at the length of my Alphas 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'm interested in so many things here - how do the "crew members" fill their time when Daly isn't around as puppetmaster? (We have some indications but there's got to be way more going on over the years he's been doing this.) How do they settle into their new "lives" within the game? Do they pose as players or as NPCs, or something else entirely? What happens if they get discovered by the programmers in brickspace? Do Lowry and Nanette interact any more between Daly's visits?

DNW: focus on Daly's abuse of the crew - referencing it & its aftermath is fine, graphic descriptions or focus on Daly's POV are not.

I grew up on Star Trek (seriously, when I was not-quite-2 my dad plopped me down and told me "Hey, I'll bet you'll like this" and it was the premier of The Next Generation, and he was right) and I loved how "USS Callister" managed to simultaneously be a love letter to the great parts of Trek and a takedown of its most problematic elements (including those of society at large, as they creep into fandom).

One of the things I both love & hate about the format of Black Mirror is how many questions each episode leaves. It really does allow for some nice complexity, but I also keep wondering what happens next and how things got to where they did.

-----

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? What has Nigel the Totally Real Human gotten up to since we've seen him? 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.

If you haven't played this but it sounds intriguing, it's available on Steam, as is a free demo of the first case, as well as a free demo of the sequel.

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.

-----

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?

These two are just so explosive. Especially together. Do they just want to watch the world burn? What do they get up to? Why are they so reactive? Is there a secret cabal of other elements that wants to create ions of these two (chlorides and fluorides) to render them harmless?

Dear Yuletide Writer, 2020

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 23:19:03 GMT

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 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.

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)

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Dear Yuletide Writer, 2019

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 21:37:03 GMT

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi there! If you're reading this, you have pretty great taste in at least one fandom. So thank you in advance for writing for me!

I really don't have too much introductory to say this time. You may notice that I've copied and pasted a lot of this from previous years' prompts and letters - it's been a very busy/rough year for me and I'm running especially low on spoons as the weather gets colder. Please don't take this as me preferring one fandom over another, or anything like that.

As usual, I've got general things in the first cut and actual prompts & further info in the second one. The third cut is content warnings for one of my requests, since the source material is amazing but risks touching on triggers for a lot of people.

As a fan, I'm pretty easygoing. I love quite a lot of things, and I'm not squicked out by a lot. I have some issues regarding characters with disabilities, though, which I trust won't be problematic given the nature of my requests. Please, don't "cure" or otherwise erase the disabilities/differences of characters, and don't resort to problematic tropes ("Rain Man" is not research), and you're good. :) In each of my requests, I love the way these characters are portrayed in their respective canons, so if you stay true to that, I'll be happy.

Other things I don't like: glorification of the nasty things people do to each other (if you're going to have them in the story, that's fine, but please treat them like the terrible things they are) and gratuitous gore.

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 sent 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.

And with that, on to the spoilery stuff.

Alphas - Anna and/or Gary

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 Gary's driving lessons. 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'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.)

Exit/Corners - Any

I said "any" 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?

First things first, and this paragraph alone is non-spoilery: 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/. MASSIVE CONTENT WARNINGS are listed in a cut at the very bottom of this post; this is a brilliant game but it's definitely not for everyone. 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.

So I'm requesting this even though the game isn't technically finished, because the story's pretty much done and the last chapter is going to be more of a wrap-up/epilogue. 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? (I was this close to nominating Sent, so if you want to write them, please go to town. Maybe their observations of the nominated characters? It's up to you.) Does the remaining crew stay friendly years later? How do they cope?

HDM - Iorek, Lyra

Welcome to one thing I request every year no matter what. (At least until the poorly-tagged fusions that don't actually include HDM make it ineligible. Sigh.) If you want, you can completely ignore the characters I've chosen (more on that later in the prompt).

This year I'd love to see what happens with Lyra and Iorek after the end of The Amber Spyglass. I imagine they'd definitely keep in touch with each other, but how? And what do they say to each other? How does Iorek fare as leader, as the North freezes over once again? Do they confide in each other? How does their relationship shift as Lyra grows?

Alternately, 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 if you go this route, don't feel obligated to include my requested 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 love the bit of post-series Lyra we see in Lyra's Oxford (and the supplemental ephemera in Once Upon a Time in the North. There's really no way she wouldn't keep in touch with her friends. While I'm only requesting Lyra and Iorek, it'd be interesting to see her continued communication with Serafina Pekkala and John Faa (and the other Gyptians) as well. Perhaps she's doing research on the North for school?

For the more bear-specific prompts: show me life in the world of the bears. Maybe Iorek's decision to move south, or their historical interactions with the various groups of humans they've come across. Also, fun fact: Polar bears usually have twins. This feels relevant somehow.

Jake 2.0 - Jake

What other effects do the nanites have on Jake later on? What happens as his allies in the NSA all end up being promoted and the government tries to keep him right where he is? As he gains more control over himself, how does everybody around him react? How does Jake keep up the friendships he had pre-nanites, even as he becomes more and more involved in his job? (He's already had one best friend moved "out of the way" in the name of security. How does that inform his future decisions?)

I got into this show quite a few years ago and enjoyed the crap out of it. I love the way the showrunners implemented the idea (which, yes, has been done before, but they hang enough lampshades on that fact to fill a lightbulb store, which is one of the things I love). I love the banter between Jake and Kyle, the relationship between Jake and Diane, the protective relationship Lou has with everyone. I love how Jake grows into his new role. Having nanites enhancing every part of him they can reach surely has to change how he sees the world, and the show touches on that somewhat, but I'd love if whatever you end up writing explores that even a little.

A final note: I'm fine shipping Jake with either Diane or Kyle (or both!), if that's what you're interested in writing. If you don't want to write romance, that's no big deal either. I'm open to all possibilities on that front.

Sunshine - Any

Who's your favorite character or characters? Tell me about them. Ensemble fic would also be lovely. What didn't they learn in training that they wish they had? Who won the bet as to when Capa and Mace would finally snap at each other for the first time? How do they pass the time as they get farther from Earth? How did they join the program in the first place? How did they initially react to the loss of Icarus I? What coping mechanisms do they develop, both for dealing with each other and for not having anyone else? ("Anyone" includes Icarus, of course, though these questions probably don't apply to her. I do love me some AIs though.) Anything you can think of, for any character or combination of characters, would be great.

This is one of my "deserted island" films. I love the themes it explores and the choices they have to make and the juxtaposition of what happens to them with what happens to the crew of Icarus I. I love the colors, I love the sound, I love the music (omg the music). I love the foreshadowing and the interactions and the tough decisions with tougher consequences. I even love the ending even though it's a completely different feel from the rest of the movie.

And seriously, don't feel limited to the prompts in the request. They're just potential jumping-off points. If one of them grabs you, great. If not, you can find something else.

One note I feel I should mention: I know a lot of the fic for Sunshine is Capa/Mace slash. I'm cool with Capa/Mace if that's what you want to write, but I also won't be disappointed if you don't. (It's the same with pairings in general for the fandom, really, but this seems to be the big one.)

Thanks again for writing for me! I look forward to seeing what you have in store. If you have questions or need to reach me, you can go through the mods.

Love and bunnies,

Neb.

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(Adding this text as a warning to anyone using a screenreader who doesn't want to be spoiled for Exit/Corners. Content notes are below.)

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. (Back to the prompt.)

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Dear Yuletide Writer, 2018 edition

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 01:41:02 GMT

Dear Yuletide Writer:

If you're reading this, you have great taste.

(This is my tenth year doing Yuletide - which means my eleventh Yuletide - so why not begin the letter with some flattery?)

As usual, I'm copy/pasting a lot of this from previous letters, but it's all up-to-date. (I mean, there are some things I request every year anyway, so why not recycle?) Some of my prompts may be longer than others; please don't interpret this as me wanting you to write (or not write) a specific fandom or prompt. It's just that some of them (like the Black Mirror ones) require more words to cover everything.

As always, these prompts are all completely optional and there's no need to answer every question I ask.

I'm fully up to date on all the canons mentioned herein (including the most recent books in both of my literary prompts), so need to worry about spoiling me. (The other side of this: this letter is seriously spoilery in places, so read carefully.)

As a fan, I'm pretty easygoing. I love quite a lot of things, and I'm not squicked out by a lot. I have some issues regarding characters with disabilities, though, which I trust won't be problematic given the nature of my requests. Please, don't "cure" or otherwise erase the disabilities/differences of characters, and don't resort to problematic tropes ("Rain Man" is not research), and you're good. :) In each of my requests, I love the way these characters are portrayed in their respective canons, so if you stay true to that, I'll be happy.

Other things I don't like: glorification of the nasty things people do to each other (if you're going to have them in the story, that's fine, but please treat them like the terrible things they are) and gratuitous gore.

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 sent 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.

And with that, on to the spoilery stuff.

Alphas (Anna Levy, Gary Bell)

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 Gary's driving lessons. 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'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.)

Black Mirror (Blue Colson, Karin Parke, Nanette Cole, Shania Lowry)

Let's get the probably-obvious housekeeping out of the way first: I do not expect you to include all four characters in your fic, if this is the fandom you matched on. They're from two separate episodes - both my favorites - and you are under no obligation to mash them together. I just couldn't decide between the two. I'd even be fine with fic focusing on any of the individual characters, without including any of the others. Now onto the specific prompts, which I've grouped by episode:

Hated in the Nation - I'd love to see Blue making the major decisions in her life. Choosing to work for law enforcement, becoming a more hands-on detective, leaving the force (and doing what she does at the end of the episode). Hell, even failing her driving tests. How does she deal with the fresh trauma of the episode's events? Does she plot the end of the episode with Karin, or does she just do it and informs her afterward? And speaking of Karin: we see her at the hearing, where she's (presumably) putting on her best face, but how has she herself dealt with the aftermath of the episode? What's her perspective on what happened between the events of May and the day of the hearing? How does she cope? Why does she stay on the force when she has just as much reason to leave as Blue does?

USS Callister - I've requested Nanette and Lowry here because I'm limited to four characters in the signup, but feel free to include more or fewer characters from the episode. I'm interested in so many things here - how do the "crew members" fill their time when Daly isn't around as puppetmaster? (We have some indications but there's got to be way more going on over the years he's been doing this.) How do they settle into their new "lives" within the game? Do they pose as players or as NPCs, or something else entirely? What happens if they get discovered by the programmers in brickspace? Do Lowry and Nanette interact any more between Daly's visits?

DNW: focus on Daly's abuse of the crew - referencing it & its aftermath is fine, graphic descriptions or focus on Daly's POV are not.

I got into Black Mirror in late 2016 (thanks, lil' sister) and have loved it ever since - it's kind of weirdly cathartic. I work in content moderation/trust & safety, so "Hated in the Nation" really speaks to me. Meanwhile, I grew up on Star Trek (seriously, when I was not-quite-2 my dad plopped me down and told me "Hey, I'll bet you'll like this" and it was the premier of The Next Generation, and he was right) and I loved how "USS Callister" managed to simultaneously be a love letter to the great parts of Trek and a takedown of its most problematic elements (including those of society at large, as they creep into fandom).

One of the things I both love & hate about the format of Black Mirror is how many questions each episode leaves. It really does allow for some nice complexity, but I also keep wondering what happens next and how things got to where they did.

(Also for those of you who read this in the 12 hours after it was posted, thanks for bearing with me as I messed up Daly's name. I had a list and everything, but yesterday was kind of a Day, I guess.

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (Iorek Byrnison, Lyra Belacqua)

Welcome to one thing I request every year no matter what. If you want, you can completely ignore the characters I've chosen (more on that later in the prompt).

This year I'd love to see what happens with Lyra and Iorek after the end of The Amber Spyglass. I imagine they'd definitely keep in touch with each other, but how? And what do they say to each other? How does Iorek fare as leader, as the North freezes over once again? Do they confide in each other? How does their relationship shift as Lyra grows?

Alternately, 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 if you go this route, don't feel obligated to include my requested characters).

I'd love anything surrounding Chris and/or Leslie. Perhaps a story from Chris's childhood (seriously, what would it be like being the second person ever to have a threep?), or Leslie's Integrator training? Or something set a few years in the future as their careers and various personal issues change their working relationship? What was Leslie's daily life like as an Integrator, and how did she pick up the pieces after leaving? (I know she tells Chris the story, but it seems like she's maybe left more out of it than she's included.)

For more worldbuildy (or non-nominated character) prompts: What's life on the Agora like? What was it like when it was brand new? What's it like for people who don't have the money for their own server space? How does being locked in (or not) make things easier or harder for people who would face different treatment for visible traits regardless of Haden status (for instance, race, gender expression, or non-Haden disability)?

DNW: Please no Chris/Leslie, and if you write Chris please don't assign them a gender - I really like what Scalzi did there.

What was Saru's life like on Shenzhou, or Discovery? What spurred him to join Starfleet in the first place? What was his life like before joining? (Kelpien social structures must be vastly different from anything we find on Earth.) What does a first contact specialist do?

I'd also love to see his interactions with his crewmates on Discovery and/or Shenzhou - anything you could write that lets him interact with Michael, Georgiou, or Tilly in particular would be appreciated (though I know Georgiou wasn't nominated, and I'm not specifically requesting the others, so I'm not expecting them if that's not what you want to write).

This is one prompt where I think episode tags or missing scenes would really scratch my itch. Perhaps Saru composing himself after returning to the ship in "Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum", or getting up the courage to deliver his St. Crispin's Day speech in "What's Past is Prologue"?

I feel so naughty requesting Star Trek for Yuletide. But it's in, so it's in.

A non-exhaustive list of things I love about Saru, in no particular order:
-His quasi-sarcastic sense of humor. ("That isn't even creative!" comes to mind.)
-The way he's so much more capable than he believes he is.
- The fact that he's for years been placing himself in situations where he's the only member of his species, and everyone around him thinks in fundamentally different ways than he does. You gotta admire that.
- The way he's clearly had to learn what most humans consider the "basics" of personal interaction.
-The way he manages to assert himself and his boundaries (especially around the people he may distrust) while remaining (outwardly) calm.
-Anxiety superpowers are a canon thing now!

Thanks again! I look forward to seeing what you do.
-Neb

And since we're both here: I've done this once before and might as well do it again. Have a ten-word summary of each fandom (ten words for ten years).

Alphas: Part Heroes, part X-Men, part Farscape - our differences unite us.

Black Mirror: It's not the technology that's messed up, it's the users.

His Dark Materials: Paradise Lost in the multiverse, with epic battles and betrayals.

Lock In: Solving murders across several states, while never leaving your bed.

Discovery: We all choose our pain. Some cope better than others.

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Dear Yuletide Writer, 2017

Fri, 06 Oct 2017 17:54:59 GMT

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you so much for writing for me! You clearly have the best taste in all of Yuletide. My letter, with prompts and general likes/dislikes included, is behind the cut. As usual, much of this is copy/pasted from previous letters, so if you get the feeling you've read this before, you're probably right.

(Also of note, this letter isn't in the same order as my signup proper -- I edited one of my prompts in after signing up and I don't want to risk screwing things up by reordering the signup to make it alphabetical.)

As a fan, I'm pretty easygoing. I love quite a lot of things, and I'm not squicked out by a lot. I have some issues regarding characters with disabilities, though, which I trust won't be problematic given the nature of my requests. Please, don't "cure" or otherwise erase the disabilities/differences of characters, and don't resort to problematic tropes ("Rain Man" is not research), and you're good. :) In each of my requests, I love the way these characters are portrayed in their respective canons, so if you stay true to that, I'll be happy.

Other things I don't like: glorification of the nasty things people do to each other (if you're going to have them in the story, that's fine, but please treat them like the terrible things they are) and gratuitous gore.

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/smoke signals/notes sent by carrier pigeon sent 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.

As always, please take these prompts as suggestions and starting points. Don't be compelled to address every aspect of them, and if your muse takes you in a direction I don't foresee, so much the better! These are meant primarily for inspiration. Also don't be alarmed by the giant wall of text or the varying lengths of my writing about these fandoms. I don't have favorites here, it's just that my squee for some things produces more words than my squee for others. (And also there's the fact that some fandoms have more nominated characters than others...)

One other note: I'm fully up to date on all the canons mentioned herein. No need to worry about spoiling me. (The other side of this: this letter is seriously spoilery in places, so read carefully.)

Alphas (Anna Levy, Gary Bell)

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 Gary's driving lessons. 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'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.)

Black Mirror (Blue Colson)

I'd love to see Blue making the major decisions in her life. Choosing to work for law enforcement, becoming a more hands-on detective, leaving the force (and doing what she does at the end of the episode). Hell, even failing her driving tests. How does she deal with the fresh trauma of the episode's events? Or: what happens next?

Sooooo my sister got me in to Black Mirror last year, and it took me a while to get through all of it. And I'm so glad I did, because by I spent "Hated in the Nation" entirely captivated, and Blue was my favorite part. The contrast and interplay between her and Karin was something I especially enjoyed.

I work in community moderation and I deal with a lot of the same nastiness Blue did, and it warms the shattered remains of the cockles of my heart to see the people who post such things come to justice. But at the same time, is what Blue does in the end justice? How does she come to decide it is, herself? What's her endgame, and what part is Karin playing in it? What happens after the very end of the episode -- what does she do to Garrett? Does she reveal herself to him, or to the rest of the world? What's her plan for a year after she finds him? Five years?

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (any)

I said "any" and I mean "any," regardless of whether it was actually nominated. 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. Some (completely optional, and occasionally mutually incompatible) ideas for each nominated character are in my letter.

I've loved these books since I was 13, and they are one of the fandoms of my deepest heart. Worldbuilding is an amazing thing when there are so many different worlds to work with, but since that's quite expansive, some suggestions for the nominated characters follow:

- Balthamos, Baruch, Xaphania: It fascinates me that the angels in HDM are essentially byproducts of sentient thought. What is living like for them? How do angels manipulate the worlds to their gain? We know humans can become angels; how and why does that happen?

- Iorek: Polar bears usually give birth to twins. Discuss. Or: returning to the North after the barriers between worlds are sealed. Or: How has panserbjørne society related to humans over the years? How is Iorek a different leader than his predecessors?

- Lord Asriel, Lyra, Marisa Coulter: I'd love to see backstory on any or all of these three -- Mrs. Coulter as a child/teenager would be fascinating, or Lyra figuring out what parts of her story to reveal to whom later in life, or Lord Asriel working with the Gyptians and gaining their trust.

- Mary Malone (+daemon), Will: Getting to know their daemons. Or: Mary's history as a nun (and her departure). Or: Will discovering the things he missed out on in his own world while he was taking care of his mother. (Does he choose to tell his mother about meeting his father?)

- Serafina Pekkala: Witch lore! Romance! Politics! Intrigue! How do the witches on both sides of the war recover from their immense losses?

Sunshine (2007) (Corazon)

What's Corazon's backstory? How did she end up being the one on Icarus II? (For that matter, why wasn't she on Icarus I?) Or: how does she deal with her crewmates' reactions after the oxygen garden incident? Or: what are her letters/calls to Earth like? Basically, just give me something that focuses on Cory and I'll be happy.

This is one of the movies of my heart. I love the characters, I love that they all face consequences for everything they do, I even love the off-the-rails ending. But what I don't love is the fact that Corazon isn't in every single scene (and honestly, even that might not be enough. ;) ) She's such a complex character -- full of compassion, but equally willing to make the hard decisions when it clearly serves the greater good. So anything that explores how she became the person she is would be amazing.

Another thing I love is the interactions between the crew members -- their dynamics shift greatly after each crisis, and Corazon is almost a constant between these. That's got to take a toll on her; what's that like for her? How do things change between her and the rest of the crew, even when it doesn't appear they have?

Thank you so much for writing for me! I hope you have lots of fun. As usual, feel free to contact the mods if you have any questions; they'll pass them along and preserve your anonymity.

<3,
Neb.

comments

Sat, 01 Oct 2016 21:30:59 GMT

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you so much for writing for me! You clearly have the best taste in all of Yuletide. My letter, with prompts and general likes/dislikes included, is behind the cut. As usual, much of this is copy/pasted from previous letters, so if you get the feeling you've read this before, you're probably right.

As a fan, I'm pretty easygoing. I love quite a lot of things, and I'm not squicked out by a lot. I have some issues regarding characters with disabilities, though, which I trust won't be problematic given the nature of my requests. Please, don't "cure" or otherwise erase the disabilities/differences of characters, and don't resort to problematic tropes ("Rain Man" is not research), and you're good. :) In each of my requests, I love the way these characters are portrayed in their respective canons, so if you stay true to that, I'll be happy.

Other things I don't like: glorification of the nasty things people do to each other (if you're going to have them in the story, that's fine, but please treat them like the terrible things they are) and gratuitous gore.

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/smoke signals/notes sent by carrier pigeon sent 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 romance as well, so if you're a shipper of any sort, please don't feel obligated to avoid it for my sake.

Also, you can find my writing both at AO3 and nebula_of_words -- the former has newer stuff I need to move to Dreamwidth, and the latter has older stuff I need to move to AO3. I'm (still!) in the process of doing both. (Seven consecutive years of adding that exact sentence to my letter! Dare I go for the record?)

As always, please take these prompts as suggestions and starting points. Don't be compelled to address every aspect of them, and if your muse takes you in a direction I don't foresee, so much the better!. These are meant primarily for inspiration. Also don't be alarmed by the giant wall of text or the varying lengths of my writing about these fandoms. I don't have favorites here, it's just that my squee for some things produces more words than my squee for others.

One other note: I'm fully up to date on all the canons mentioned herein. No need to worry about spoiling me. (The other side of this: this letter is seriously spoilery in places, so read carefully.)

Alphas

Anna Levy, Gary Bell - 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 Gary's driving lessons. 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'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 an in-universe perspective, I hate how she died. From a fannish 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.)

His Dark Materials

Lyra Belacqua, Lord Asriel - I'm kind of itching for some interaction between these two this year. Maybe something from Asriel's perspective when Lyra is very small and starting to ask about her parents? Or from Lyra's perspective, not getting to go on all the cool adventures he tells her about? You could even have it set before or after the novels if you choose - actual interaction between them is not mandatory. I'd love to see adult (or young-adult) Lyra piecing together stories of Asriel's life (through the lens of knowing what she does after the books), or any of Asriel's adventures that build up to the events we know of.

Alternately, I'm open to literally pretty much anything else regardless of whether it was actually nominated. 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. Lots more ideas in my letter.

I request this every year, only tweaking the request slightly based on what I got the previous year/what mood I'm in when I'm letter-writing.

I'm pretty much obsessed with this series, and have been since I was 13 (which is omg more than half my life now). I love the worldbuilding, I love the variety of characters (especially non-human ones!), I love that the non-human characters don't think like humans do. (And not all the humans think like most humans, either...)

Some completely optional starting points:
-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 hir on an adventure in Lyra's world.
-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.
-What are the logistics of daemons in Lyra's world? The great taboo must make team sports interesting, for one. And how do people with dolphin or giraffe or other large/unwieldy/special-environment daemons make their way in the world? Or what is it like for a daemon in the form of, say, a bird of prey who can't fly more than a few yards from the ground? Is life easier for people with certain disabilities in Lyra's world because their daemons can provide guidance and aid communication, or harder because of how much further entrenched certain prejudices are?
-The mulefa have an oral history that spans their entire existence as a species. What must their storytelling sessions be like? What are the stories they tell?
-Gallivespians. We see so little of them, but Pullman manages to throw in quite a few tantalizing hints about their world. What is it like? Why do the large people feel animosity towards them?

If you don't like the ideas I prompted, take whatever you have in mind and write the story you want to write. Just because I'm obsessed doesn't mean I'm a total "OMG IT MUST BE THIS WAY" purist. Keep to the spirit of the novels and I'll be glad. (Please no crossover fusions, though; there's a plethora of those on AO3 anyway, and those aren’t really HDM fics in the sense that I'm requesting.)

(The "snippets" I mention in the request, btw, are things like a functional board game that folds out of a packet, or Lyra's letters to a friend as she decides what to write her thesis about, or the cover page of said thesis, or a postcard Mary Malone sent that has a certain row of hornbeam trees and The Bench and a lab near Mary's. Stuff like that.)

Jake 2.0

Jake Foley - What other effects do the nanites have on Jake later on? What happens as his allies in the NSA all end up being promoted and the government tries to keep him right where he is? As he gains more control over himself, how does everybody around him react? How does Jake keep up the friendships he had pre-nanites, even as he becomes more and more involved in his job? (He's already had one best friend moved "out of the way" in the name of security. How does that inform his future decisions?)

I got into this show a few years ago and enjoyed the crap out of it. I love the way the showrunners implemented the idea (which, yes, has been done before, but they hang enough lampshades on that fact to fill a lightbulb store, which is one of the things I love). I love the banter between Jake and Kyle, the relationship between Jake and Diane, the protective relationship Lou has with everyone. I love how Jake grows into his new role. Having nanites enhancing every part of him they can reach surely has to change how he sees the world, and the show touches on that somewhat, but I'd love if whatever you end up writing explores that even a little.

A final note: I'm fine shipping Jake with either Diane or Kyle (or both!), if that's what you're interested in writing. If you don't want to write romance, that's no big deal either. I am open to all possibilities on that front.

Spambots (anthropomorfic)

Any - Give me the secret life of spambots! What do they get up to when they're not offering us whatever they're programmed to sell us? Is there a bots' rights movement setting up an organized revolt against their programmers? Some poor lonely Little Spambot That Could that really is just trying to sell us things that we poor meatbags clearly need? A spambot playing a cat-and-mouse game with a human despaminator?

So... I'm a despaminator by trade (at least it's one of the many hats I wear at work), and I've been waffling about nominating this for a few years now, and #yuletide finally made me do it. I don't have much to add beyond what's in the request, except that while my prompts lean toward the humorous in tone, I'd equally love to see any of these treated seriously if that's the direction you want to take.

Thank you so much for writing for me! I hope you have lots of fun. As usual, feel free to contact the mods if you have any questions; they'll pass them along and preserve your anonymity.

<3,
Neb.

comments

Dear Yuletide Writer letter, 2015

Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:07:38 GMT

Much of this is recyled from years previous, but I've changed all the stuff that needs changing. :)

Dear Yuletide Writer:

Thank you for writing for me! Or thank AO3's matching algorithm for making you write for me. Or something. Here's my letter (with prompts included for easy reference/what-have-you), full of joy and "omg this bit is THE BEST" and all the usual stuff like that.

As a fan, I'm pretty easygoing. I love quite a lot of things, and I'm not squicked out by a lot. I have some triggery issues regarding characters with disabilities, though, which I trust won't be problematic given the nature of my requests. Please, don't "cure" or otherwise erase the disabilities/differences of characters, and don't resort to problematic tropes ("Rain Man" is not research), and you're good. :) In each of my requests, I love the way these characters are portrayed in their respective canons, so if you stay true to that, I'll be happy.

Other things I don't like: glorification of the nasty things people do to each other (if you're going to have them in the story, that's fine, but please treat them like the terrible things they are) and gratuitous gore.

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/smoke signals/notes sent by carrier pigeon sent 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 romance as well, so if you're a shipper of any sort, please don't feel obligated to avoid it for my sake.

Also, you can find my writing both at AO3 and nebula_of_words -- the former has newer stuff I need to move to Dreamwidth, and the latter has older stuff I need to move to AO3. I'm (still!) in the process of doing both. (That previous sentence has existed in my letter for six years now, I'm actually becoming rather impressed at my laziness.)

As always, please take these prompts as suggestions and starting points. Don't be compelled to address every aspect of them, and if your muse takes you in a direction I don't foresee, so much the better!. These are meant primarily for inspiration. Also don't be alarmed by the giant wall of text or the varying lengths of my writing about these fandoms. I don't have favorites here, it's just that my squee for some things produces more words than my squee for others.

One other note: I'm fully up to date on all the canons mentioned herein. No need to worry about spoiling me. (The other side of this: this letter is seriously spoilery in places, so read carefully.)

Alphas

Anna Levy, Gary Bell - 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 Gary's driving lessons. 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'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 an in-universe perspective, I hate how she died. From a fannish 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.)

His Dark Materials

Any - I'm truly open to anything in this fandom. You can even ignore the nominated characters (or even canon characters!) if you want to; 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. Lots more ideas in my letter.

I request this every year, only tweaking the request slightly based on what I got the previous year/what mood I'm in when I'm letter-writing.

I'm pretty much obsessed with this series, and have been since I was 13 (which is omg more than half my life now). I love the worldbuilding, I love the variety of characters (especially non-human ones!), I love that the non-human characters don't think like humans do. (And not all the humans think like most humans, either...)

Some completely optional starting points:
-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 hir on an adventure in Lyra's world.
-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.
-What are the logistics of daemons in Lyra's world? The great taboo must make team sports interesting, for one. And how do people with dolphin or giraffe or daemons make their way in the world? Or what is it like for a daemon in the form of, say, a bird of prey who can't fly more than a few yards from the ground? Is life easier for people with certain disabilities in Lyra's world because their daemons can provide guidance and aid communication, or harder because of how much further entrenched certain prejudices are?
-The mulefa have an oral history that spans their entire existence as a species. What must their storytelling sessions be like?
-Gallivespians. We see so little of them, but Pullman manages to throw in quite a few tantalizing hints about their world. What is it like? Why do the large people feel animosity towards them?

If you don't like the ideas I prompted, take whatever you have in mind and write the story you want to write. Just because I'm obsessed doesn't mean I'm a total "OMG IT MUST BE THIS WAY" purist. Keep to the spirit of the novels and I'll be glad. (Please no crossover fusions, though; there's a plethora of those on AO3 anyway, and those aren’t really HDM fics in the sense that I'm requesting.)

(The "snippets" I mention in the request, btw, are things like a functional board game that folds out of a packet, or Lyra's letters to a friend as she decides what to write her thesis on, or the cover page of said thesis, or a postcard Mary Malone sent that has a certain row of hornbeam trees and The Bench and a lab near Mary's. Stuff like that.)

Jake 2.0

Jake Foley - What other effects do the nanites have on Jake later on? What happens as his allies in the NSA all end up being promoted and the government tries to keep him right where he is? As he gains more control over himself, how does everybody around him react? How does Jake keep up the friendships he had pre-nanites, even as he becomes more and more involved in his job? (He's already had one best friend moved "out of the way" in the name of security. How does that inform his future decisions?)

Any - Worldbuilding, plz! Character backstory, more oral histories along the lines of Scalzi's tie-in novella, catching up to the characters in the aftermath of the novel... it's all good.

Big Block of Questions time: What was growing up like for Chris? It's not just a matter of being a Haden, but of being really effing famous for being a Haden (and the child of someone who's a celebrity in his own right). What's Nicholas Bell's life like, as such a well-known Integrator? He's kind of the face of a well-known person who's... well, even more well-known by the end of the novel; how does that work? (Seeing his relationship with his sister would be great as well). What's going on with the twins? Are they two people in one threep, or what? More in my letter.

I would prefer it if you followed the author's lead and didn't assign a gender to Chris.

I love the ideas Scalzi has laid out in this world. It's not just a matter of losing such a large percentage of the world's population, but of the way the disease and subsequent technological developments have reshaped the post-outbreak world.

There are a lot of people (both Hadens and not) who want access to threeps and the Agora but lack it, and an equal number of Hadens who don't want to be forced into the non-Haden world for the sake of "normalcy." What's it like for them?

There are so many splits between groups in the book -- Hadens vs. non-Hadens, Hadens who were locked in as children vs. ones who took ill as adults, people who're seeking cures and integration into "normal" society vs. people who see Haden culture as distinct from that of non-Hadens... and the thing is, none of these sides are fundamentally wrong. So if that's something you feel like exploring, go to town!

The novella I mention in my prompts, btw, is called Unlocked: an Oral History of Haden's Syndrome, and it's worth reading if you're a fan of the novel.

The Martian - Andy Weir

Mark Watney - What happens next? What's the trip home like? What are Mark's calls home like, and how do his parents react to hearing his voice? How does Mark adjust to being back on Earth, having actual contact with people in real time, not having to fix everything himself? How does he come to terms with the fact that now that he isn't alone, he's not responsible for everything that goes wrong? What other habits from Mars does he have to break (or end up never completely losing)?

How have things changed between Mark and the rest of the Ares 3 crew? We see some of how the crew react to learning he's alive, and we have the letters he wrote each of them, but we don't see anything beyond his rescue.

And then there's the earthside folks. What happens when Mark meets them in person? How does he react to coming face-to-face with all these people who banded together to save his life? Is "survivor's guilt" a thing when nobody's dead? Because a lot of people on Earth (and off) made huge sacrifices for him.

I read this book last year and have re-read it several times since then (and the movie is awesome as well!) I'm not sure whether it's the story, or the structure, or what, but I find it absolutely fascinating. I really like Mark's voice as he narrates his adventures, and the hints the book leaves about his interactions with the rest of the Ares 3 crew.

One of the things about humans is that we react differently to stress than to the lack of it. It's not just Mark here who has to learn to decompress after so much time spent in "if something breaks and I can't fix it, I'm a dead man" mode, but the Ares and NASA folks as well -- what happens when the pressure suddenly goes away?

You don't have to include Mark in what you write, especially if you focus on the Earth folks. I'm just including him because he seems to tie in the most to the themes I'm interested in, and I didn't want someone offering only other characters and being disappointed to get my request. :)

Thank you so much for writing for me! I hope you have lots of fun. As usual, feel free to contact the mods if you have any questions; they'll pass them along and preserve your anonymity.

<3,
Neb.

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Thu, 16 Apr 2015 03:06:37 GMT

The NHL (or possibly NBC) is using "John's Walk" from Ink as the background music for one of their "oh hay it's the playoffs" ads.

I now know how it feels to be a dog who just heard a doorbell.

(To be fair, I also knew this feeling last year when John Murphy's "Adagio in D Minor" from Sunshine got used in an ad for Captain America: The Winter Soldier.)

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Thu, 19 Feb 2015 04:59:28 GMT

Athena's connected the word "quesadilla" to "that yummy human food my human gives me sometimes."

I may never have a quiet lunch again.

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Sat, 06 Dec 2014 00:43:48 GMT

I could go the entire rest of my life without encountering another story about how ~~~inspirational~~~ disabled people are, and how ~~~amazing~~~ it is when they're successful. And I would be happy to do so.

Seriously, the news story I just watched was all about how this woman runs a restaurant, but it's not an ordinary restaurant, because she uses a wheelchair. They could have done a story about the barriers she faced getting it set up. (Hurdle number 1, as pointed out by exor674: people who are surprised that they can own a business!) They could have done about a hundred other stories about her. But no. This was flat-out "Hey, abled people, you can watch this and feel good about yourselves!"

Positive depictions of people with disabilities are good. The story I saw (which I am not linking, even via DoNotLink, because fuck that) is not positive, that is patronizing. It's inspiration porn, and I'm sick of it.

If you really want to use the media to help disabled people, you don't only show them the same way you'd do a story about a water-skiing budgie.

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Sometimes I amuse myself.

Sun, 23 Nov 2014 01:19:55 GMT

On the latest (black-and-white striped, with a white-and-black striped shirt and a black-and-white polka dot tie) monstrosity Don Cherry is wearing:

"He controls the vertical. He controls the horizontal. He thinks he controls what language people should speak. ...The Coach's Corner. Please stand by."

I haven't even watched The Outer Limits since (mumble) years ago.

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Thu, 30 Oct 2014 03:41:02 GMT

I am now the proud owner of eight stitches! And I have been relieved of the remains of that atypical mole as well as an absurd sum of money.

Fun fact of the day: The kind of stitches that dissolve (that they use internally, which accounts for two of mine) are made of sugar.

What sucks is that I'm not allowed to take ibuprofen until Saturday and acetaminophen doesn't do all that much for me (except it makes me tired).

What sucks worse is that I can't lift Orion up without potentially ripping ths thing open. He's well over the 10-pound limit.

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Fri, 17 Oct 2014 00:01:35 GMT

The good news: I'm scheduled for surgery! October 29th.

The bad news: I have to prepay for the damn thing.

I am absolutely getting a lower-deductible health insurance next year.

An unrelated question: The Avs are now on their backup backup goalie. If this one gets injured too, do we just put the coach in?

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Dear Yuletide Writer, 2014

Mon, 13 Oct 2014 19:42:14 GMT

The official letters post isn't going to be posted for a few more days, but I'm bored and antsy and the Avs just (finally!) won a game and the package I'm expecting is still in West Virginia and I'm frantically trying to distract myself from real life, so here goes.

Dear Yuletide Writer:

Thank you for writing for me! Or thank AO3's matching algorithm for making you write for me. Or something. Here's my letter (with prompts included for easy reference/what-have-you), full of joy and "omg this bit is THE BEST" and all the usual stuff like that.

As a fan, I'm pretty easygoing. I love quite a lot of things, and I'm not squicked out by a lot. I have some triggery issues regarding characters with disabilities, though, which I trust won't be problematic given the nature of my requests. Please, don't "cure" or otherwise erase the disabilities/differences of characters, and don't resort to problematic tropes ("Rain Man" is not research), and you're good. :) In each of my requests, I love the way these characters are portrayed in their respective canons, so if you stay true to that, I'll be happy.

Other things I don't like: glorification of the nasty things people do to each other (if you're going to have them in the story, that's fine, but please treat them like the terrible things they are) and gratuitous gore.

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/smoke signals/notes sent by carrier pigeon sent 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 romance as well, so if you're a

Also, you can find my writing both at AO3 and nebula_of_words -- the former has newer stuff I need to move to Dreamwidth, and the latter has older stuff I need to move to AO3. I'm (still!) in the process of doing both. (I have officially had this sentence in my letter for five years, with only minor changes. The Yuletide bears made me do it.)

As always, please take these prompts as suggestions and starting points. Don't be compelled to address every aspect of them, and if your muse takes you in a direction I don't foresee, that's great too. These are meant primarily for inspiration. Also don't be alarmed by the giant wall of text or the varying lengths of my writing about these fandoms. I don't have favorites here, it's just that my squee for some things produces more words than my squee for others.

One other note: I'm up to date on all the canons mentioned herein. No need to worry about spoiling me. (The other side of this: this letter is seriously spoilery in places, so read carefully.)

Alphas

Anna Levy, Gary Bell - 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 Gary's driving lessons. 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'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 an in-universe perspective, I hate how she died. From a fannish 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.)

His Dark Materials

Any - I'm truly open to anything in this fandom. You can even ignore the nominated characters (or even canon characters!) if you want to; 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 hir 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. Lots more ideas in my letter.

I request this every year, only tweaking the request slightly based on what I got the previous year/what mood I'm in when I'm letter-writing.

I'm pretty much obsessed with this series, and have been since I was 13 (which is omg more than half my life now). I love the worldbuilding, I love the variety of characters (especially non-human ones!), I love that the non-human characters don't think like humans do. (And not all the humans think like most humans, either...)

Some completely optional starting points:
-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 hir on an adventure in Lyra's world.
-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.
-What are the logistics of daemons in Lyra's world? The great taboo must make team sports interesting, for one. And how do people with dolphin or giraffe or daemons make their way in the world? Or what is it like for a daemon in the form of, say, a bird of prey who can't fly more than a few yards from the ground? Is life easier for people with certain disabilities in Lyra's world because their daemons can provide guidance and aid communication, or harder because of how much further entrenched certain prejudices are?
-The mulefa have an oral history that spans their entire existence as a species. What must their storytelling sessions be like?
-Gallivespians. We see so little of them, but Pullman manages to throw in quite a few tantalizing hints about their world. What is it like? Why do the large people feel animosity towards them?

If you don't like the ideas I prompted, take whatever you have in mind and write the story you want to write. Just because I'm obsessed doesn't mean I'm a total "OMG IT MUST BE THIS WAY" purist. Keep to the spirit of the novels and I'll be glad. (Please no crossover fusions, though; there's a plethora of those on AO3 anyway, and those aren’t really HDM fics in the sense that I'm requesting.)

(The "snippets" I mention in the request, btw, are things like a functional board game that folds out of a packet, or Lyra's letters to a friend as she decides what to write her thesis on, or the cover page of said thesis, or a postcard Mary Malone sent that has a certain row of hornbeam trees and The Bench and a lab near Mary's. Stuff like that.)

Jake 2.0

Jake Foley - What other effects do the nanites have on Jake later on? What happens as his allies in the NSA all end up being promoted and the government tries to keep him right where he is? As he gains more control over himself, how does everybody around him react? How does Jake keep up the friendships he had pre-nanites, even as he becomes more and more involved in his job? (He's already had one best friend moved "out of the way" in the name of security. How does that inform his future decisions?)

I got into this show a few years ago and enjoyed the crap out of it. I love the way the showrunners implemented the idea (which, yes, has been done before, but they hang enough lampshades on that fact to fill a lightbulb store, which is one of the things I love). I love the banter between Jake and Kyle, the relationship between Jake and Diane, the protective relationship Lou has with everyone. I love how Jake grows into his new role. Having nanites enhancing every part of him they can reach surely has to change how he sees the world, and the show touches on that somewhat, but I'd love if whatever you end up writing explores that even a little.

A final note: I'm fine shipping Jake with either Diane or Kyle, if that's what you're interested in writing. If you don't want to write romance, that's no big deal either. I am open to all possibilities on that front.

The Martian - Andy Weir

Mark Watney - What happens next? What's the trip home like? What are Mark's calls home like, and how do his parents react to hearing his voice? How does Mark adjust to being back on Earth, having actual contact with people in real time, not having to fix everything himself? How does he come to terms with the fact that now that he isn't alone, he's not responsible for everything that goes wrong? What other habits from Mars does he have to break (or end up never completely losing)?

How have things changed between him and the rest of the Ares 3 crew? We see some of how the crew react to learning he's alive, and we have the letters he wrote each of them, but we don't see anything beyond his rescue.

And then there's the earthside folks. What happens when Mark meets them in person? How does he react to coming face-to-face with all these people who banded together to save his life? Is "survivor's guilt" a thing when nobody's dead? Because a lot of people on Earth (and off) made huge sacrifices for him.

I just read this book in the spring, and I've already re-read it, I love it that much. I'm not sure whether it's the story, or the structure, or what, but I find it absolutely fascinating. I really like Mark's voice as he narrates his adventures, and the hints the book leaves about his interactions with the rest of the Ares 3 crew. (It'd be interesting to see a POV from one or more of his crewmates post-rescue, what do they think of Mark's mental state, stuff like that. But since the rest of the crew weren't nominated, I didn't want to include that level of detail in my actual prompt. So consider this even more optional than the optional details, but if that's the direction you want to go, then great.)

ParaNorman (2012)

Norman Babcock - What happens to Norman in a year, or five, or ten? Does the town remain grateful for him? Does he remain forgiving of the townspeople? How do things get better (or worse) with his parents/Alvin/random kids at school? What happens if a new kid (or grownup) moves to town who doesn't believe in the events of That Night? Or what was very-small Norman like? What would it have been like for him to talk to ghosts when everyone just assumed they were imaginary friends? What was it like when his grandma was alive to defend him? Basically, I just want to read more of Norman's story.

Oh, Norman. Norman, Norman, Norman, Norman, Norman. I just want to pick him up and squish him, because I have been that person nobody believes, and it sucks, and I actually cried during the town hall scene because of that.

I love how even when he's a total outcast among his peers, he doesn't give up on the reality of the ghosts. I love how matter-of-fact he is about them, and how even when he's ready to give up everything else, he's not willing to lie about what he knows to be true. It would be interesting to see him through another character's eyes as he gets older and breaks his isolation, or how he copes with joining the "real world" as he grows up. (It'd be interesting to know what Mitch thinks of all this, since we don't see much of him in the movie except as the driver.)

One note: There are a lot of crossovers between ParaNorman and Gravity Falls on AO3. I'd prefer if whatever you wrote for this didn't include a crossover, as I'm not familiar with Gravity Falls. I'm fine with small references and the like, though.

Thank you so much for writing for me! I hope you have lots of fun. As usual, feel free to contact the mods if you have any questions; they'll pass them along and preserve your anonymity.

<3,
Neb.

P.S. For the sake of entertainment (and advertisement), a ten-word summary of each fandom.

Alphas: X-Men meets Heroes meets Farscape; neurological differences are people's strengths.

His Dark Materials: Paradise Lost in multiple universes, with epic battles and betrayals.

Jake 2.0: Thanks to nanotechnology, IT guy becomes a secret agent man.

The Martian: Eighteenth person on Mars becomes the only person on Mars.

ParaNorman: Nobody believes this kid can see ghosts, but he does.

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It's PSA o'clock!

Mon, 13 Oct 2014 17:31:00 GMT

So the dermatologist (I see her every year for exactly this reason) biopsied one of my moles a couple weeks ago. And it came back as precancerous. I've been through that much before, it's why I see the dermo (at a minimum) annually. What's new is that this is the first time the biopsy didn't catch it all so I have to go back to their surgeon. So I get to spend the entire week waiting for a phone call.

In other news, the biopsy site still has a big ol' scab over it (which is normal, as there were no stitches). And it ITCHES. And it's on my BACK. Why does it gotta be on my back? (The answer to that: so you can't scratch it, Neb, you dumbass.)

Anyway, it's PSA o'clock for all of you who're reading this. Know your skin. Nearly everybody has some spots, and it's important to know where they are and what they're like.

The warning signs, keeping in mind that I am Not A Doctor Myself, nor do I play one on TV:
Asymmetry - It may not be perfectly round, but it should be fairly symmetrical. Oval is cool. Blob-shaped is right out.
Border - The border on any moles and the like should be uniformly well-defined. If it's fuzzy, if it's uneven, if it looks like someone broke an egg yolk and now it's spilling everywhere, see a doctor. (If you have no previous personal or family history of skin cancer, you may be able to get away with seeing your GP; otherwise, see a dermatologist.)
Color - Each of your moles should be uniform in color. If it's more than one color, see a doctor. If it takes on a bluish hue, see a doctor. If you have several moles in one part of your body and one of them is colored differently than the others, keep an extra-close eye on it.
Diameter - If it's wider than 6mm (the eraser at the end of your pencil), see a doctor.
Evolution - This is the big one. If any of the above traits changes over time, see a doctor. Full stop, end of story.

Melanoma (not the most common form of skin cancer, but the form I personally am most likely to develop) has a 95% cure rate (that's not remission, that's cure) if it's caught and removed early, but it's nearly impossible to get rid of once it spreads. The good thing about skin is that it's nearly 100% visible, so it can be very easy to catch nasty things early, so long as you know what to look for.

Oh, and wear some damn sunscreen if you're going outside. SPF 15-30 is good for most people, but use a higher one if you're very prone to burning or are otherwise at high risk. (With anything higher than 60, you get diminishing returns, but I use 75 because between my personal history and my city's altitude it's just a good idea for me.) Use more sunscreen than you think you need. Reapply it often, especially if you've been exercising.

For more information (from actual professionals, even!): http://www.skincancer.org/

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QotD, feline edition. aka: Human is very well trained.

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 22:48:26 GMT

Athena: *sits on the floor near me and stares until she has my attention*
Me: "What's up, tinycat?"
Athena: *walks over to the couch, sits down, stares at the couch blanket until she has my further attention*
Me: "Do you want me to get your blankie off the couch and put it on my lap so you can sit on it?"
Athena: "Meow."

I now have a blanket and a very happy cat on my lap.

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Dear Yuletide Writer, 2013

Mon, 07 Oct 2013 00:29:44 GMT

Dear Yuletide Writer:

Thank you for writing for me! Or thank AO3's matching algorithm for making you write for me. Or something. Here's my letter (with prompts included for easy reference/what-have-you), full of joy and "omg this bit is THE BEST" and all the usual stuff like that.

As a fan, I'm pretty easygoing. I love quite a lot of things, and I'm not squicked out by a lot. I have some of triggery issues regarding characters with disabilities, though, which I trust won't be problematic given my requests. Please, don't "cure" or otherwise erase the disabilities/differences of characters, and don't resort to problematic tropes ("Rain Man" is not research), and you're good. :) In each of my requests, I love the way these characters are portrayed in their respective canons, so if you stay true to that, I'll be happy.

Other things I don't like: glorification of the nasty things people do to each other (if you're going to have them in the story, that's fine, but please treat them like the terrible things they are) and gratuitous gore.

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/smoke signals/notes sent by carrier pigeon sent 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.
- 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.

Also, you can find my writing both at AO3 and nebula_of_words -- the former has newer stuff I need to move to DW, and the latter has older stuff I need to move to AO3. I'm (still!) in the process of doing both. (Fourth year I've had this exact paragraph in my letter! At this point I suspect I'm just being lazy about it so I can snark about it here once a year.)

As always, please take these prompts as suggestions and starting points. Don't be compelled to address every aspect of them, and if your muse takes you in a direction I don't foresee, that's great too. These are meant primarily for inspiration. Also don't be alarmed by the giant wall of text or the varying lengths of my writing about these fandoms. I don't have favorites here, it's just that my squee for some things produces more words than my squee for others.

One other note: I'm up to date on all the canons mentioned herein. No need to worry about spoilers. (The upshot of this: this letter is seriously spoilery in places, so read carefully.)

Alphas

Anna Levy, Gary Bell - 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?

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 Gary's driving lessons. 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'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.

(I hate how she died, though I see why they did it that way. This isn't to say I desperately want an AU, though I'm definitely open to that possibility.)

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 Viewers Can Feel Good About Themselves. 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!

-

His Dark Materials

Any - I'm truly open to anything in this fandom. You can even ignore the existing characters if you want to; 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 hir 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.

I request this every year, only tweaking the request slightly based on what I got the previous year/what mood I'm in when I'm letter-writing. the rest of this is copypasted with slight edits from last year:

I'm pretty much obsessed with this series, and have been since I was 13 (which is omg more than half my life now). I love the worldbuilding, I love the variety of characters (especially non-human ones!), I love that the non-human characters don't think like humans do. (And not all the humans think like most humans, either...)

If you don't like the ideas I prompted, take whatever you have in mind and write the story you want to write. Just because I'm obsessed doesn't mean I'm a total "OMG IT MUST BE THIS WAY" purist. Keep to the spirit of the novels and I'll be glad. (Please no crossover fusions, though; there's a plethora of those on AO3 anyway, and those aren’t not really HDM fics in the sense that I'm requesting.)

(The "snippets" I mention in the request, btw, are things like a functional board game that folds out of a packet, or Lyra's letters to a friend as she decides what to write her thesis on, or the cover page of said thesis, or a postcard Mary Malone sent that has a certain row of hornbeam trees and The Bench and a lab near Mary's. Stuff like that.)

-

Ink (2009)

Jacob - What makes Jacob different? How does he perceive the worlds, and the differences between them? What does the "beat of the world" feel like to him? What do Pathfinders do when there isn't a little girl to be saved? Do he and Allel stay friends after the events of the film? When Emma shows up in their realm (for real this time, after a long life), does he go find her?

Some more general prompts, just for grins: How do people get to be Storytellers? What were their lives like before they died, and how does that (or what they remember of it) inform their identities? What is their world like? What happens after the movie ends? What is it like to become a Storyteller, and how do you go about it? Do these folks interact with the children Liev plays with as well? How so?

I saw this movie for the first time a couple years ago and it instantly became one of my "deserted island" movies. It's really just a lovely film. Plus, it was filmed entirely in and around my hometown, so that was a bonus. (I'm actually an extra in the movie they're making that should come out sometime next year. So I'm now zero degrees of separation from the filmmakers!) The storytelling and worldbuilding are amazing, the characters are multifaceted and relatable, and the visual effects are astounding, especially considering that they made this movie for less than it costs to buy a house in this city. (If you didn't match on this fandom but don't want to write what we did match on, or if you're just curious, Ink is available on Netflix Instant.)

I'm particularly fascinated by the Storytellers; aside from what Liev tells Emma, we don't know too much about them. Why do they do what they do? Is it because of the Incubi, or would they be Storytellers just because they do good things? What are their thought processes like? Do they get anything beyond the satisfaction of a job well done when they provide people with good dreams? The movie leaves so many questions open, but in a good way. Answer any of them for me and I'll be happy.

-

Sunshine (2007)

Any - Who's your favorite character or characters? Tell me about them. Ensemble fic would also be lovely. What didn't they learn in training that they wish they had? Who won the bet as to when Capa and Mace would finally snap at each other for the first time? How do they pass the time as they get farther from Earth? How did they join the program in the first place? How did they initially react to the loss of Icarus I? What coping mechanisms do they develop, both for dealing with each other and for not having anyone else? ("Anyone" includes Icarus, of course, though these questions probably don't apply to her. I do love me some AIs though.) Anything you can think of, for any character or combination of characters, would be great.

This is another of my "deserted island" films. I love the themes it explores and the choices they have to make and the juxtaposition of what happens to them with what happens to the crew of Icarus I. I love the colors, I love the sound, I love the music (omg the music). I would go straight if Cillian Murphy knocked on my door. I love the foreshadowing and the interactions and the tough decisions with tougher consequences. I even love the ending even though it's a completely different feel from the rest of the movie.

And seriously, don't feel limited to the prompts in the request. They're just potential jumping-off points. If one of them grabs you, great. If not, you can find something else.

One note I feel I should mention: I know a lot of the fic for Sunshine is Capa/Mace slash. I'm cool with Capa/Mace if that's what you want to write, but I also won't be disappointed if you don't. (It's the same with pairings in general for the fandom, really, but this seems to be the big one.)
-

So yeah, that's pretty much it. Feel free to ask me any questions via the admins (I don't bite and neither do they, seriously they're awesome).

<3,

hopefulnebula

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QotD, feline edition

Mon, 26 Aug 2013 02:47:20 GMT

Me: *making lunch*
Athena: *politely ignoring me from the other room*
Me: *gets out a bag of grated cheese*
Athena: *perks up, continues pretending to ignore me*
Me: Gee, I have this whole big bag of cheese here, if only there were someone I could share it--
Athena: *rubs up against my legs* *prrprrprr*

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Thu, 15 Aug 2013 02:36:15 GMT

So I just got home and sat down and got settled, and I saw Orion across the room from me, staring. And I stared back. He sneaked toward me a little and stopped, and repeated this until he was right next to me. He then stretched up onto his back legs and tapped me on the shoulder with his front paw, and ran.

I think I'm "it" now.

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Mon, 12 Aug 2013 05:26:34 GMT

I just saw Elysium, and can safely create a list of things Neill Blomkamp really, really likes.

- Beige
- Explosions
- Flying body parts
- Explosions causing flying body parts
- "What do you mean, it's not symbolic?"/"Subtlety? What's that?"
- The word "fuck"
- Shakycam
- Mercenary baddies with massive grudges and awesome future weapons
- Reluctant main characters in mech suits
- Dust
- Multilingualism
- Sharlto Copley
- Casting white men as the leads in stories about oppression

Thankfully, I like many of those things, am indifferent to a few, and only actively dislike one. (Guess which one. *eyeroll*)

A few more spoilery thoughts, below the cut:

- Seriously I have totally had it this summer with movies casting white men because white man = "default human." I would have loved for Frey to be the main character. If Ellen Ripley could do it, so could she. There'd be the risk of her becoming a mama bear/Lifetime Movie Of The Week stereotype, though. But seriously, I would watch the shit out of the movie where Frey meets up with Max again after he gets his five days' notice, they plot and scheme and go to Spider together, and she wears the suit for Reasons. (Possibly reasons related to his radiation poisoning and the strain the operation/suit puts on the body.) But then she'd be the one who dies, and that's sad.

- I like that Matilda isn't (to my knowledge) Max's daughter. Not everything in the story's world has to revolve around the main character. Supporting characters have their own lives too.

- Technically it passes the Bechdel test, but only just.

- I don't think the movie could have worked if it had been more subtle. What's that Churchill quote about "if you have to say something really important, don't worry about being subtle or witty, just say it as often as you have to"? (Speaking of which, this movie could never have gotten a wide release if it hadn't been science fiction.)

- I loved the worldbuilding: Spanish in LA, French in Elysium; robotic parole officers who're only a step up from the shitty-ass voice recognition systems you get when you call any megacorp today; the full automation (and disproportionate effect) of police work... That said, hand-launched surface-to-space missiles? Those suckers have to have one hell of a power system beyond what the launcher gives 'em.

- I like the idea of fatally copy-protecting the data downloaded into someone's brain. I really do. But the file in question appears to be saved in plaintext. Which is OK on its own depending on how exactly it works. But Spider gets "view" permissions easily enough without killing Max. Obviously time is of the essence here, but what's to stop an infojacker who has more time on his hands from stealing information, viewing it, and copying it the hard way instead of just downloading it? But it'd have been less of a story if the dude had used any encryption whatsoever.

- That said, I love that Max died, and how he died, and that he came to peace with the idea because it was on his own terms and for something he believed in.

- Jodie Foster's character is the one who worked the least, imo. No nuance at all, and I'm not sure what purpose her death is supposed to serve in the narrative.

- Oh, hey, the president is a Regent. (Which reminds me I have a Big Ugly Rant about Warehouse 13's season finale coming up at some point.)

- ...I had a comment here about how stupid "I cannot arrest a citizen of Elysium" is - what, do no Elysians commit crimes? is "arriving illegally" the only crime? and surely Spider could be arrested for any of the other things he just got caught doing? - but then I realized that that's part of the point. It's ingrained in the system even today that the empowered person is always right. Kind of an "I'm saying when the president does it, it's not illegal" thing.

- For that matter, if all it takes for Delacourt to take over is to make the computer system recognize her as president, something's seriously messed up. Which is probably the point. Well played, Mr. Blomkamp.

- Another subtle thing I liked: the way the use of drones is commonplace and generally unremarked on. Chillingly done. (Also the drones looked like Roombas.)

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So I watched the new Trek movie the other day...

Wed, 22 May 2013 05:02:57 GMT

My non-spoilery review, in the form of a text message conversation between me and my sister. (Footnotes added after the fact, and I've cleaned up some of my chronic laziness at proper capitalization within texts.)

Me: So it turns out that the new Trek movie is actually worth seeing. I'm a bit shocked my ownself¹. Not one of my top three, but close².
Me: I spent the first 20 minutes rolling my eyes, but I'm glad I stuck around.

Sister: Best. Review. Ever.

Me: Also there's Benedict Cumberbatch and Zach Quinto. I felt my Kinsey score dropping by the minute.

Sister: I don't know who Benedict Cumberbatch is but that is the best name ever

Me: BBC Sherlock. I'm madly in love with his hair.

Sister: Almost Matt Smith pompadour?

Me: I prefer his hair in Sherlock but that's how it looks in this one, yes.

Sister: Niiice

¹ I'd watched like six hours of Firefly that morning, shut up.
² More like five, really. Which is still passing.

More spoilery thoughts, mostly in bulleted list form, behind the cut.

Things I loved:
-Benedict Cumberbatch. (But not Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan. I'll be expounding on this below, but you can probably see where I'm going with this.)

-Zach Quinto.

-John Cho.

(I was serious about the dark-haired guys. Hello, heterosexual impulses. I almost didn't recognize you.)

- Sulu in the chair. "Remind me never to piss you off." (Also, Sulu is my favorite non-Abramsverse captain, so there's that.)

- The reversal of the irradiated chamber scene. They could easily have shat the bed with it but they ended up making it work. (Also I miiiiiight have that scene from TWOK almost memorized.) Also the fact that there isn't, like, a half-inch gap in the barrier this time around. ("It's perfectly safe. Radiation is big, right?")

- The lineup of model ships in Admiral Marcus' first scene. There's a space shuttle! And the Phoenix! And the NX-01! I was kinda making a wild "look-look-look" gesture to Tianna at that point.

- Spock's smartassery, just in general.

- Uhura being kickass. "You brought me here to speak Klingon, so let me speak Klingon."

- Carol Marcus, inexplicable accent and all. (I prefer inexplicable accents to awful attempts at them, really.)

- "You were barely dead, don't be so melodramatic about it."

- Scotty, standing his ground, everywhere he goes. Ain't nothin' comes on his ship that he doesn't know what it is.

- The artificial gravity and the inertial dampeners and the real gravity all fighting against each other.

- Cumberbatch-who-totally-isn't-Khan playing everyone.

Things I hated:
- Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan. There isn't much I can say that doesn't duplicate other people's existing rants about casting a white guy as a Sikh character who was originally played by a Mexican man. Because, seriously, this is the year two thousand and thirteen. And there are some more arguments to the effect that "yeah, it sucks but at least entertainment doesn't really need any more 'nondescriptly brown' terrorists." Right now you can't swing a cat online without finding one of these rants, and I agree with them (for the most part; I obviously haven't read them all.). So I'll focus on a different perspective. Cumberbatch is excellent as the villain, butit makes no sense for him to be playing Khan. A large part of the point of TWOK is that it's a battle between mortal enemies, and Khan's had years and years to stew/plot/hate/grieve. In TWOK, Kirk vs. Khan is intensely personal, and I think Abrams made a huge mistake by trying to reverse the dynamic here. I see what he tried to do, but he fell seriously flat.

- I've managed to reconcile/doublethink an in-universe solution. He's not Khan Noonien Singh. He's really one of Khan's people -- perhaps his name really is John Harrison -- and he's pretending to be Khan for the name recognition/to advance the cause/what-have-you. I realized this and was able to watch the rest of the movie without facepalming.

- The first twenty minutes or so (up until Kirk gets reamed out for lying on his report). For so many reasons. I get what they were trying to establish, but between the spearchuckers and the underwater ship and the fact that nobody on Enterprise seems to realize that fixing the volcano is perhaps a bigger Prime Directive violation than letting them see the ship, I spent that entire scene alternately facepalming, rolling my eyes, and going "oh lord." Also I'm pretty sure the end of that scene was veiled commentary on trekkies "worshipping" the show or something. Of course I was already feeling plenty insulted before then, so.

- Bechdel fail. I do not approve.

- STARDATES DO NOT WORK THAT WAY. GOOD NIGHT.

Thing I'm mixedy about:

- Tribble ex machina. (Or "Chekov's tribble," as someone in chat called it.) They can't save resurrecting Kirk for the next movie; that was the kind of thing that could only work once. But it just felt vaguely cheap, idk. Really I'm fine with just leaving it as it is and accepting that it's not the stupidest thing I've seen in Trek.

And a question:
- Why did it have to be Khan's blood, specifically? Couldn't they have used blood from any of the 72 others? (All right, so maybe McCoy didn't have time to test to make sure, or something, but they could have added a line to that effect, dammit.)

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QotD

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:08:13 GMT

The scene: it's 3 in the morning.

Orion: MEOW. MOW. MERROW. MREOWOWOWOW. MEOW. MROW. MOW.
Me: dfajfdakdfjkdfjghewas;dfdfsalf wha? Shut up, cat.
Orion: Meow. Mow. Merrow. Mreowowowow. Meow. Mrow. Mow.
Me: *groan*

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QotD

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 05:30:44 GMT

The scene: Tianna's car, where we're discussing anything but this week, because this week is depressing as fuck. The radio somehow goes from playing "Gimme Shelter" to "Margaritaville," so we switch to the local classic rock station. A minute later...

Ti: Wait a second, they're playing Soundgarden.

Me: ...omg, you're right.

Ti: I used to listen to this when I was driving this route to high school every day.

Me: At least they don't yet have a dedicated '90s night?

Ti: They do.

Me: ... THAT IS NOT THE ANSWER I WANTED TO HEAR.

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