Yellow gingham on the bed, remember?

Hi, Yuletide writer! Thank you so much in advance for writing for me, I deeply look forward to whatever you have in store. ♥ I've been around the Yuletide block several times and you can find my previous letters here if you're interested. I'm pretty easy, and my preferences haven't changed that much.

My AO3 name is prodigy. You can find me on Tumblr at ourlightsinvain or consult my good friend relia/lifecrystals if you're interested in scoping out my tastes.

I like: all ratings; happy and unhappy endings; romance; explicit sex and porn in non-PWP stories; gothic, horror-, and suspense-themed stories; canon-typical casefic and self-contained plots; linear and nonlinear storytelling; humor, including in dark and dramatic situations; canon-divergent AUs; pre-canon and backstory fic; interactive fiction; uneven and fraught power dynamics; worldbuilding.

I don't like: PWP; fluff or domesticity fic; setting-based AUs (college, historical, etc.); crossovers and fusions.

I'm opting into Crueltide and IF, which will both be links when they're up!

( Fate/Zero )

( Lackadaisy )

( Alien: Covenant )

Hello, Yuletide writer! Hello, journal I use once a year! Thank you so much in advance for writing for me--I'm tremendously excited for the results. First off, don't sweat it, no pressure, and everything of that nature: if you have an idea you're passionate about that bends or breaks one of the preferences I express in this letter, I'd much rather read the fic you want to write than the fic I envisioned. You can consult my AO3 account and my Tumblr for more information about me and my likes. If you have any further questions, feel free to consult my friend relia or the mods, as suits you.

I like: plot and character arcs; canon-divergence what-if AUs; humor, whether wry and bittersweet or screwball; family relationships and friendships; politics (in the sense of in-universe maneuvering); adventure and hijinks; angst and bad things and tragedy (where applicable); world and backstory development.

I'm not so into: fluff; pure introspection; PWP.

As for other preferences: I love interactive fiction! I normally am all down with Crueltide but I don't know if any of my prompts suit it this year--if some particularly nasty idea gets into your head, though, go for it, I don't have any particular squicks. As for Yuleporn, I'm totally fine with and happy with sex being incorporated into the fic at large, but I don't necessarily like PWP, as I said.

( Lymond Chronicles )

( Hamilton )

( 80 Days )

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hello and apologies that this letter's so late-- I got your message through the mods, please excuse my tardiness due to IRL busyness. Thank you in advance for putting this much thought into writing me a gift I'll like! I'm sure it'll be great and I hope you have fun writing it and don't stress too much.

If you've read my letter from last year or previous years, then you already know some general stuff. Not much has changed in that department, except that the kinds of requests I have this year may lend themselves to different things-- you can still find me on Tumblr at ourlightsinvain where I update a lot more than I do here.

A couple words on dark content and triggers and other stuff: several of these are at least semi-horror canons, several are violent, and one contains an at least borderline-abusive, if not straight-up abusive relationship. I wanted to say you can consider yourself to have basically carte blanche on violence, horror, abuse, and such to your discretion as suits the canon of each--I don't really have fic triggers and as long as everything is properly marked I'd be happy to receive IC darkfic. More details on how that applies to the individual canons below.

I'm also open to fic of any rating--I might put a comment on the Yuleporn post saying so, but it mostly just applies to my BioShock: Infinite request. More on that in its section. But basically, if you have an idea for something but it involves content you're worried about, go ahead-- I read body horror, guro, dubcon and noncon, and a bunch of other stuff in that vein, so I wouldn't worry about putting me off, if it suits the story. I'm not sure that'll come up much with my particular requests, but I figured I'd let you know. Also, if you're not interested in writing darkfic whatsoever don't worry about it-- that's not a request, just a disclaimer.

Onto the requests! I have them all blacked out in spoiler text since three of the canons came out just this year and ALMN would look, uh, lonely by itself.

( American Elsewhere )

( The Folly of the World )

( A Little Night Music )

( BioShock Infinite )

If you have any more questions, you can go through the mods or, alternately, feel free to ask my friend relia/lifecrystals, who knows my preferences fairly well. Thanks again for your interest and your efforts, and happy writing!

Joyeux Noel to e'eryone who celebrates. ♥

For Yuletide this year I got a lovely, bittersweet little Scarlet Pimpernel fic, The Truth of Her Face. Thank you, nonnie!

The challenge seems to have gone off this year with hardly any hitches at all, aside from some on the participant end of things (whoa, that is a lot of defaulters); overall it's been great, however, and I hope everyone's having a good holiday season whether or not you participate.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi there, mysterious person! Thanks in advance for writing my Yuletide fic, I’m sure it’s going to be awesome. I think I should let you know right off the bat that I am pretty damn easygoing about challenge and exchange fics: below and in the prompts I’ve listed what I had in mind requesting each fandom, but if you find yourself fired by a burst of inspiration that gives you a different idea, do it. \o/ I’m sure I’ll be thrilled.

I figure I’ll just list some stuff I generally like and don’t like in fic, to give you a better idea of my tastes! Keep in mind these are all totally optional and in fact not all of them are going to fit any given prompt or fandom, so please don’t stress about how to include a particular thing -- they’re meant to help you brainstorm! In addition, you can check out my AO3 account for fics I’ve written and bookmarked, my DW profile for some of my interests, and my Tumblr to watch me dick around for whatever reason.

… incidentally, this appears to be the year where I requested four different angst-and-tragedy prompts by coincidence so ahahaha sorry about that. Apparently this Yuletide is my Year of Starcrossedness. Also, as three out of four of my requests turned out to be recent novels, I’m putting them all behind individual cuts as well as highlight-to-read spoiler text, just in case. The Scarlet Pimpernel prompt is not actually spoilery, but it looked lonely all by itself.

Some stuff I generally like: well-deployed humor and banter, bittersweetness, plot!, backstory, fun and detailed settings, non-linear storytelling, linear storytelling, meta, realistic and non-glorified depictions of war and violence, romance, social or humanist themes, politics, sex (also BDSM and BDSM dynamics), AUs and AU interpretations, fic that is critical or questioning of the source material, pastiche, fucked-up and problematic relationship dynamics, love-hate relationships, semi-unrequited love and other disparities in feeling, academic bullshit.

Some stuff I generally don’t: fluff and schmoop (errr however you define these terms, I’m using them to mean “fic written specifically to showcase some cute moment in a couple’s lives” or what have you), total canon-rigidity/canon-worship, sanitization of history, narratives where one person in a relationship is Completely Right.

( CNV )

( OTTU )

( TSP )

( CA )

In conclusion, please don’t freak out too much about your fic, as useless a reassurance as that is. You now know basically all you need to know about me in order to write a fic I’ll like, and I know one important thing about you: we have shared tastes. And that means you’re awesome. Go knock ‘em dead. ♥

Love,
prodigy

Yulerecs! I rest from a frantic cleaning all-nighter to work on this! This wouldn’t have happened if I ever cleaned otherwise! Why do I do this to myself!

First, I have my two awesome gifts, one a full-length Yulegift and one a treat. My gift from my assigned writer was the amazing and atmospheric Ulula cum lupis, cum quibus esse cupis, a full-length Sleep No More story written so perfectly to my request that I can only assume that my writer read my letter/journal up and down -- it's a chronicle of a guest's surreal experience at the McKittrick Hotel, so thank you so much, writer, for getting everything right. I also received a neat little treat in the form of Breathe, an introspective drabble-length The Debt fic from the perspective of Rachel Singer: thank you, anonymous Santa #2!

There are a lot of other amazing fics in the archive, though, and some of my personal favorites were:

( @MayorEmanuel, American Horror Story, Black Swan, Echo Bazaar, Game of Thrones, Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Mulan/Twisted Princesses, Nightrunner, These Old Shades, Tron )

 So you know how I mentioned thinking about what I'm going to request for Yuletide this year?  And you know how I mentioned not being able to sleep last night?  And you know how I mentioned pink highlighter?

OKAY SO.  I wrote this list of general possible Yuletide requests I might want to put in when the challenge rolls around this winter -- look, stop looking at me like that, I'm always idly pondering it by this point, it's just this time I am admitting it on paper -- with pros and cons.  I do not expect anyone to give a half-baked shit other than myself.

( How much is that Yuledoggie in the REALLY FAR AWAY window? )

First of all, hi! You and I don't yet know each other -- unless, of course, we do -- but already I'm glad we're on this ride together. Ain't no stopping this train we're on. Thank you so much for writing my Yuletide fic; I hope you have fun with it and that my requests aren't overly demanding or difficult for you to write. This is my seventh year doing Yuletide (please do not look up my Yuletide fics from my first years) and whether you're a similar old-timer or newer to this, this is my favorite fandom event literally ever and I hope it turns out to be a blast for you.

Second of all, everything in this letter is optional. If you get seized by a great idea that violates one or more of my requests below, run with it, I don't care. I'd rather you write something you think is inspired and you have fun writing than otherwise -- I bet I'll have more fun reading it too.

Before I go into specifics for my requests, I think I'll touch on a couple things I like in fic. The reason why I do this is that while you could look around here (and find nothing) or my LJ (and find more, admittedly), pretty much none of it would be my own writing or fics I've favorited or fic communities I'm on -- I'm primarily a RPG and originals writer. For good or for ill, Yuletide is also my only fandom activity. So if you're a recipient-stalker like me looking for fic they're into I know that can get pretty frustrating.

I love wit and seriousness, things that make me grin -- even just a little, and even just in gallows humor -- at the same time they make me wince, or smile the same time they make me tear up a little. I'm big into banter, though not over-the-top OOC, and I love funny narration; I'm a big Burn Notice fan though I didn't request it this year, and as that might suggest I think internal character commentary has the potential to be characterizing, insightful, and hilarious all at the same time. Of course, not every fic and moment calls for levity -- especially in my Echo Bazaar request I imagine the tone might be overwhelmingly grim, The Town also. I really like a sense of setting, a feeling the writer knows the world they're writing in and the characters inhabit it; I'm a shipper and the pairings I requested (OotS, TF2, EB) I'd really love to see as pairings. That being said, feel free to give your fic more of a plot and point and focus than just romance/sex -- not that I mind the romance and sex, mind you, au contraire. But still, for example, even more than I'd love to read a good Heavy/Medic fic I'd love to read a good Team Fortress 2 fic period. Other things I like: interesting structure, making up character details that weren't canon but seem like they should be, ratings that seem to fit the story (meaning not shoehorning one way or the other).

( Order of the Stick, Team Fortress 2, The Town, Echo Bazaar )

That was like a thesis in Yuletide. A symphony in Yuletide minor. A Study in Yuletide. The Sign of Yuletide. Yuletide and Peace. The Guinness Book of Yuletide. Anyway, thank you for making it through that all just to make this a very special Christmas for me -- I'm so elated, delighted and looking unbelievably forward!