dizmo: (comics: shortpacked bat squeee)
Erin ([personal profile] dizmo) wrote2020-10-23 10:34 pm
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It's that time of year...

Oh boy, here we go again for my fifteenth time...

Dear Yuletide Author,

Hi! If you have or will browse through my other assorted Dear Author letters over the years, you'll probably notice I've cribbed a good portion of this letter (including pretty much this entire preface) from them, with some changes. You know how it goes. Besides, plagiarizing from yourself is the only plagiarizing that's actually reasonably ethical! :p

That said, hello! Welcome to my letter, I hope it helps to alleviate any possible stress over your assignment instead of making it worse. It's a whole new slate of fandoms I'm requesting this year and I honestly don't have a lot in the way of firm things I absolutely want to see. Which on the one hand gives you a lot of leeway, but on the other can be a bit intimidating, so I'll be trying to spitball a few ideas in each fandom to give you a starting point if you feel like you need one.

If you're trying to glean my personality or general demeanor from my journal here, then I am extremely sorry for its sparseness over the last few years, but feel free to check out my tumblr or twitter or even my reddit account if those are the kind of thing that helps you out. (Although I honestly barely use tumblr anymore, I haven't changed that much from when I did.) If you could care less, then great, carry on!

My general likes include banter, happy endings (although I am perfectly fine with bittersweet or even sad if that's where your muse takes you), throwing in little canon details that you might miss on first read but totally make you squee come the second time around, wit, humor, dramatic irony, and missing scenes. I also like slice-of-life stuff, as is kind of evident some of my requests this year, although what a slice-of-life looks like certainly depends on the life in question.

As much as I love fic that feels like it could fit right into canon, I also have a soft spot for AUs, so if you get bitten by an AU bug, go right ahead, I'll more than likely adore it. Another thing that I often like is outsider POVs, so if you get a bunny that involves that, I would be completely on board.

Dislikes aren't many. Not really a huge fan of major character death for Yuletide, even if I don't mind reading it on a normal basis. Also, and I really doubt this will be much of a problem, but in the interest of full disclosure, depiction of injury to fingernails or toenails skeeves me out more than I can even begin to describe, so if somehow you have a bunny where that might come up, even if it wouldn't really fit in the majority of the fandoms I requested, maybe try to avoid it? Other than that, though, I won't really have much trouble with where you decide to take the fic!

Also, don't feel tied down to the characters I've requested. You can totally feel free to add ones that aren't listed, even in a reasonably large capacity, as long as (this probably goes without saying) you keep the focus on the requests. :)

And now that I've blathered on quite long enough, on to my requests! It'll go as follows. The requests themselves, a little bit on the fandom, how to access it (should you either need a refresher or decide you just cannot write what we matched on and need to write something else badly!) and why I love it, and then a bit more elaboration on my requests themselves (And please, do not take the order or relative lengths of the various elaborations as any indicator as to which fandoms I want more. I would be overly thrilled with a gift in ANY of them!)

Taskmaster (UK TV) RPF
* Alex Horne
* Greg Davies
I have kind of fallen into Taskmaster this year and have not regretted a moment of it. I honestly just need more fic with Greg and Alex in the world! I do quite happily slash them (because let's be honest, the show doesn't really shy away from slashing them), but if you can't bring yourself to do it, I would not mind at all some gen, as long as you get the essence of their fun and ridiculous bantery interplay!

Taskmaster. Holy crap, what do I say about Taskmaster? If you've watched it, you'll probably know why it's amazing, and if you haven't, you should. Most of the episodes are available on Youtube in their entirety in many places and it's just... worth a watch. Greg and Alex's relationship as depicted in the show is fascinating on many levels. (And as evidenced by the fact that 'Dom/sub' is apparently the most-used Additional Tag in the fandom on AO3, can definitely be easily read in some remarkably kinky directions which I am more than happy to follow along with.)

As I said in my brief prompt, I absolutely slash these two. If, however, you cannot bring yourself to write slash for the fandom, that is fine and if you want to bounce them off each other in a fun genfic way, I'll be perfectly cool with it. I dig AUs in the fandom if you want to toss their interplay in another setting, but behind the scenes show fic or a never-before-seen task response would be great too. Feel free to include any and all contestants from the show, even substantially, but do let the Taskmaster and his assistant shine, because they're the throughline that holds the show together. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

The Victorian Way (Web Series)
* Avis Crocombe
I am so generally charmed by Mrs Crocombe, so anything you would like to do with her is fine, especially if the tone feels much like the videos themselves. Slice-of-life with a bit of sass is totally up my alley, after all. Feel free to include any and all other characters your heart desires, whether or not they were nominated

It's a series of mostly cooking videos on a history-focused Youtube channel! Why is it so compelling? Let's be honest. It's entirely Mrs Crocombe. She brings the (sometimes delicious-looking, sometimes... questionable) food and of course a sassy undercurrent. How can you not love it?

As intimated in my signup prompt, I love the tone of those videos. They're like a warm fuzzy blanket for the soul, but they're not so glurgey that I just bounce off. Anything that feels tonally like it belongs with the character, I will most likely adore. I promise not to be too much a stickler for historical accuracy re: the time period, but if you're really into doing your research about it, I promise that I won't ignore that effort either. Spitballing a few ideas... Mrs Crocombe discussing menu ideas with Lady Braybrooke... A day in the life of the kitchen and interactions with the other staff!... What she does when she's not in the kitchen! Just give me more of my favorite Victorian head cook!

Homeward Bound (Movies)
* Chance
* Sassy
* Shadow
Honestly, I've only seen the first movie so anything set while they were on that long trek would be great. Other vignettes than were depicted while they were out in the great outdoors, or maybe even something set after they got back!

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, streaming on D+, has never once failed to make me burst into tears over the final ten minutes. (Honestly. It came out when I was twelve. I just turned forty. Maybe at some point I'll stop sobbing like an infant over these good pets, but now is not that day.)

As I've said, I've only seen the first movie, so any references to the sequel will be completely lost on me. But two good dogs and a good cat can get up to so much while lost in the great expanses of nature, I'd love to see things they got up to that weren't depicted in the movie. Or as I said, if you want to delve more into what happened after they got home, that's cool too! Going through that had to change both the animals and their people to some degree and it would be interesting to see what that might be! I'll be fascinated to see what you come up with!

Happy Wheels
* Any
WHAT ARE ANY OF THESE PEOPLE *THINKING*? Seriously, have they all taken leave of their senses? Focus on whoever you'd like but I would really love to know what is going through their ever-loving minds while going through these horrible horrible perils.

Happy Wheels! Flash game (in the process of being ported to Javascript before Flash dies) full of trying to get from point A to point B in treacherous areas and all the carnage, cartoon blood, guts, and gore, and stunningly over-the-top ragdoll physics you could ever want.

As far as prompts? Honestly, this one is pretty much summed up on the signup. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE HELL, ANY OF YOU. Just what the fuck. SOME OF Y'ALL ARE BRINGING CHILDREN ALONG AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE BRINGING CHILDREN ALONG. DEATH AWAITS YOU. WHY? OSHA DOES NOT APPROVE OF ANY OF THESE PLACES. Ahem, sorry, I shall stop capslocking. But yeah, any nominated character, cool, any character that you love that's not nominated, also cool. I would just love to know what the fuck even, basically!





If you're still looking down here... Just enjoy writing for me, and may your Yuletide be amazing!

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