Entry tags:
Yuletide Letter 2017
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![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
prodigy. You can find me on Tumblr at ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
ourlightsinvain or consult my good friend ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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: Arturia Pendragon & Lancelot of the Lake - King Arthur and Lancelot of the Lake are two people who, in any universe, never seem to be done with one another; I feel the same way about their Fate/Zero selves. Basically I'd love anything expanding on the tragic and evidently close Arturia/Lancelot relationship: I'd totally go for Camelotfic and/or any kind of canon-divergence AU that gives them more time and interaction in the Fourth War and/or a future meeting in a future war. I ship them romantically--I could see them as already involved, or as it being a one-way thing on Lancelot's part, but if you're not into it I'm also down with them as blood-brotherlike friends. I am also really into: the conflict over Guinevere, Arturia/Guinevere, Lancelot knowing (and loving?) Arthur as a man.
Man, I love Arturia, I love Lancelot, and I adore the tragic Big Reveal when it happens--I'm a big fan of friends turned to enemies, and enemies with history, and the fact that Lancelot is the next-to-last or perhaps the last person in the world that Arturia would want to kill but that was how it worked out between them. I dig that Arturia thinks of Lancelot as her failed responsibility--I like to imagine, with their perspectives interchanged, that Lancelot might feel the same in reverse. As far as Camelot backstory goes, I'd be really interested in their entanglements over Guinevere and how Lancelot and Arthur's perceptions of Arthur's gender (however you choose to interpret that) factor into that, and in the love and fealty between them before everything went sour: I can envision Lancelot being Arthur's most stalwart defender in life, and to see that corrupted in unlife (mixed with a cocktail of repressed pre-existing bitterness) is soooo sad and soooo my jam. If you're interested in writing about their lives during Fate/Zero, or in some kind of futurefic AU in a different War, I'd love to see them clash again, or be forced to work together or work out their issues. Maybe if Lancelot and Arturia get summoned again, it's into different classes this time?
As for gen vs. pairing dynamics, I am perfectly happy with exploring their relationship as friends or ex-friends, but I will also ship them in hell, so: for this pairing I'm obviously into tragedy and pain, though if you want to finagle a hard-earned happy ending for them in AU fic I would also be delighted. This is one where I'd be into dubcon and guiltridden rough sex if you want to go that route with any Berserker Lancelot, though I'm not into direct noncon for this pairing. As mentioned, I love loyalty and fealty kink, and I can also get down with unrequitedness on Lancelot's part if you want to interpret it that way!
As for canon-specific likes and dislikes: I also like Arturia/Irisviel and Arturia/Diarmuid, and would be happy to see either character included; I feel similarly about Lancelot/Kariya. I do not like Arturia/Shirou and would prefer not to receive fic where Shirou is a major focus. I'm more interested in the characters of Fate/Zero than the characters of Fate/stay night, by and large, but I wouldn't mind the inclusion of Rin, Sakura, and/or Illya as potential Masters.
Crueltide note: I'm all for blood, violence, mind control/possession, psychological horror, body horror, haunting, character death, and dubcon, if you want to go that route.
Lackadaisy: Mitzi May & Mordecai Heller - The meaty backstory of Lackadaisy is where it's at for me as a canon--I love everything that's hinted at and everything we learn in drips and drabs; it's a story very much steeped in history. I especially love Mitzi and Mordecai's charged, half-sibling-like relationship, and all the entanglement concerning them and Atlas: the betrayal, the resentment, the bitterness, the unspoken and unresolved business. They're my two favorite Lackadaisy characters and I would be happy with either speculative backstory fic about them, fic that takes place in the present/future of the Lackadaisy timeline, or canon-divergent AU fic of some kind. I love how Atlas basically made each of them, picked them up from their respective backgrounds and shaped them, for good or for ill, into the people they are now--but I'm also interested in how they made themselves, and each other. I do ship them, but I'd also be happy with a gen interpretation of their relationship.
Lackadaisy starts out so madcap and lighthearted (but then again, does it really?) and then winds up hitting a bunch of my noir buttons--one of them being A Long Time Ago, We Used To Be Friends, and nobody quite encapsulates that dynamic in Lackadaisy for me like Mitzi and Mordecai do. Boy, do they ever have history. They're products of their individual history--you can see their younger selves in them, and how their younger selves were transformed into the bitterer, harder, more dangerous people they are today--and of their shared history, and their history with Atlas. It excites me that we don't know all of that history, just as it excites me that we've found some of it out over time; if you're interested in delving into that in pre-canon backstoryfic, I'd be very happy. If you'd be interested in writing a plot set in the current or future timeline of the comic--I love fic where adversaries-with-history are forced to work together, for instance--that would also be great. Basically I love the bitterness, I love the reluctant understanding, I love the unhappy bonding that comes of being the only two people who quite understand the position they were once in--whatever you interpret that position to have been.
I ship them, but you don't have to! If you choose to, like I said above I love forced alliances, I love miserable exes and bittersweet memories; I love the relationships between people who knew each other when they were more younger and vulnerable and can still see that in each other, but also have a healthy regard for one another as formidable grown-up individuals in their own right. Each of them is also pretty silly and ridiculous and prone to embarrassing their own dignity, and I love that about them.
As for canon-specific likes and dislikes: I also like Mitzi/Zib and Mordecai/Viktor, if you choose to include either of those characters. I'm fond of Atlas and Asa, in their hateable ways. This is a canon where I like self-contained plot/"casefic"/caperfic, so if inspiration strikes you, feel free.
Crueltide note: I love canon-typical blood and violence -- which is pretty violent and bloody! -- and injury/illness, character death, and haunting.
Alien: Covenant: Elizabeth Shaw & David-8 - I am all, 100%, totally here for the dark mess that is David and Shaw's relationship--starting in Prometheus, ending before Covenant, outlasting all of that in David's fractured psyche. I love her conflicted feelings about him, her distrust and animosity giving way to fondness and pity after a fashion, and some kind of friendship, before everything turns awful between them; I love his obsession, his childlike love and violence and cruelty. Given that, I don't expect any kind of favorable interpretation of their relationship or even a reciprocal one: if you want to go that way, particularly in AU, I'd be happy, but it's by no means required. I'd love anything that explores what happened, the why (and how, if you want to go dark) of how he killed her, her POV on him or his delusional POV on her--or an AU where something else happens, and things go differently.
Oh man. I think the core of David and Shaw's relationship is what makes Prometheus--and even Covenant--for me as a movie. I love Shaw, I love her obstinacy and integrity and faith, and I think it's a damn shame she didn't get to feature more in Covenant: so if you want to fix that in a fic one way or another, be entirely my guest. I love David--I really do think childlike is the right word for him, he joins a long line of innocent and cruel boy-children in fiction, AI and otherwise, and I think of HAL singing Daisy Bell to Dave when he shuts him down--and I think the question of whether or not he 'truly' loved and loves Shaw isn't so much what I'm interested in exploring as what that means in his particular mind, and how she feels about him in return. I see it as pity, and reluctant friendship, and betrayed trust; I don't see her as ever fully Stockholm succumbing to him, but I do think she's an empathetic person who has trouble not empathizing with him, against her better judgment. As I said, if you're interested in writing a fix-it for Covenant where she lives, I'd definitely be into that. I'd also be into any manner of canon-compliant darkfic exploring what exactly did happen pre-Covenant, or any kind of canon divergent AU. I'm interested in her POV, in her interiority and how she feels during all of this, including on horrifying events; I'm also interested in his, and in the challenge of depicting a worldview like his.
I will also ship them in hell. I'm fully aware that this is not everyone's cup of tea, particularly since Covenant makes it clear that he at least murdered her and may also have sexually assaulted her in his obsession--he certainly implies it when he assaults Daniels. Even if you don't want to touch that, I still am not sure Shaw would ever fully return David's feelings because I don't think she sees him as capable of adult, conscious love, perhaps rightly so. So I'm into the unrequited obsession, I'm into her despair and mercy and strange forgiveness for him--this is my darkest Yuletide prompt and I'm all here for dubcon and noncon and unhappy, fraught sex.
As for canon-specific likes and dislikes: I like Walter and Daniels and Walter/Daniels too, and unrequited David/Walter and even some AU version of Walter/Shaw, though I'm pretty sure Shaw would have some of the same issues with seeing Walter as a consenting sentient person as she does David.
Crueltide note: This is a very Crueltidey fandom for me! I love noncon, dubcon, body horror, character death, haunting, hallucinations, mind control/possession, imprisonment, psychological horror, and blood/gore.
My AO3 name is
relia/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: Arturia Pendragon & Lancelot of the Lake - King Arthur and Lancelot of the Lake are two people who, in any universe, never seem to be done with one another; I feel the same way about their Fate/Zero selves. Basically I'd love anything expanding on the tragic and evidently close Arturia/Lancelot relationship: I'd totally go for Camelotfic and/or any kind of canon-divergence AU that gives them more time and interaction in the Fourth War and/or a future meeting in a future war. I ship them romantically--I could see them as already involved, or as it being a one-way thing on Lancelot's part, but if you're not into it I'm also down with them as blood-brotherlike friends. I am also really into: the conflict over Guinevere, Arturia/Guinevere, Lancelot knowing (and loving?) Arthur as a man.
Man, I love Arturia, I love Lancelot, and I adore the tragic Big Reveal when it happens--I'm a big fan of friends turned to enemies, and enemies with history, and the fact that Lancelot is the next-to-last or perhaps the last person in the world that Arturia would want to kill but that was how it worked out between them. I dig that Arturia thinks of Lancelot as her failed responsibility--I like to imagine, with their perspectives interchanged, that Lancelot might feel the same in reverse. As far as Camelot backstory goes, I'd be really interested in their entanglements over Guinevere and how Lancelot and Arthur's perceptions of Arthur's gender (however you choose to interpret that) factor into that, and in the love and fealty between them before everything went sour: I can envision Lancelot being Arthur's most stalwart defender in life, and to see that corrupted in unlife (mixed with a cocktail of repressed pre-existing bitterness) is soooo sad and soooo my jam. If you're interested in writing about their lives during Fate/Zero, or in some kind of futurefic AU in a different War, I'd love to see them clash again, or be forced to work together or work out their issues. Maybe if Lancelot and Arturia get summoned again, it's into different classes this time?
As for gen vs. pairing dynamics, I am perfectly happy with exploring their relationship as friends or ex-friends, but I will also ship them in hell, so: for this pairing I'm obviously into tragedy and pain, though if you want to finagle a hard-earned happy ending for them in AU fic I would also be delighted. This is one where I'd be into dubcon and guiltridden rough sex if you want to go that route with any Berserker Lancelot, though I'm not into direct noncon for this pairing. As mentioned, I love loyalty and fealty kink, and I can also get down with unrequitedness on Lancelot's part if you want to interpret it that way!
As for canon-specific likes and dislikes: I also like Arturia/Irisviel and Arturia/Diarmuid, and would be happy to see either character included; I feel similarly about Lancelot/Kariya. I do not like Arturia/Shirou and would prefer not to receive fic where Shirou is a major focus. I'm more interested in the characters of Fate/Zero than the characters of Fate/stay night, by and large, but I wouldn't mind the inclusion of Rin, Sakura, and/or Illya as potential Masters.
Crueltide note: I'm all for blood, violence, mind control/possession, psychological horror, body horror, haunting, character death, and dubcon, if you want to go that route.
Lackadaisy: Mitzi May & Mordecai Heller - The meaty backstory of Lackadaisy is where it's at for me as a canon--I love everything that's hinted at and everything we learn in drips and drabs; it's a story very much steeped in history. I especially love Mitzi and Mordecai's charged, half-sibling-like relationship, and all the entanglement concerning them and Atlas: the betrayal, the resentment, the bitterness, the unspoken and unresolved business. They're my two favorite Lackadaisy characters and I would be happy with either speculative backstory fic about them, fic that takes place in the present/future of the Lackadaisy timeline, or canon-divergent AU fic of some kind. I love how Atlas basically made each of them, picked them up from their respective backgrounds and shaped them, for good or for ill, into the people they are now--but I'm also interested in how they made themselves, and each other. I do ship them, but I'd also be happy with a gen interpretation of their relationship.
Lackadaisy starts out so madcap and lighthearted (but then again, does it really?) and then winds up hitting a bunch of my noir buttons--one of them being A Long Time Ago, We Used To Be Friends, and nobody quite encapsulates that dynamic in Lackadaisy for me like Mitzi and Mordecai do. Boy, do they ever have history. They're products of their individual history--you can see their younger selves in them, and how their younger selves were transformed into the bitterer, harder, more dangerous people they are today--and of their shared history, and their history with Atlas. It excites me that we don't know all of that history, just as it excites me that we've found some of it out over time; if you're interested in delving into that in pre-canon backstoryfic, I'd be very happy. If you'd be interested in writing a plot set in the current or future timeline of the comic--I love fic where adversaries-with-history are forced to work together, for instance--that would also be great. Basically I love the bitterness, I love the reluctant understanding, I love the unhappy bonding that comes of being the only two people who quite understand the position they were once in--whatever you interpret that position to have been.
I ship them, but you don't have to! If you choose to, like I said above I love forced alliances, I love miserable exes and bittersweet memories; I love the relationships between people who knew each other when they were more younger and vulnerable and can still see that in each other, but also have a healthy regard for one another as formidable grown-up individuals in their own right. Each of them is also pretty silly and ridiculous and prone to embarrassing their own dignity, and I love that about them.
As for canon-specific likes and dislikes: I also like Mitzi/Zib and Mordecai/Viktor, if you choose to include either of those characters. I'm fond of Atlas and Asa, in their hateable ways. This is a canon where I like self-contained plot/"casefic"/caperfic, so if inspiration strikes you, feel free.
Crueltide note: I love canon-typical blood and violence -- which is pretty violent and bloody! -- and injury/illness, character death, and haunting.
Alien: Covenant: Elizabeth Shaw & David-8 - I am all, 100%, totally here for the dark mess that is David and Shaw's relationship--starting in Prometheus, ending before Covenant, outlasting all of that in David's fractured psyche. I love her conflicted feelings about him, her distrust and animosity giving way to fondness and pity after a fashion, and some kind of friendship, before everything turns awful between them; I love his obsession, his childlike love and violence and cruelty. Given that, I don't expect any kind of favorable interpretation of their relationship or even a reciprocal one: if you want to go that way, particularly in AU, I'd be happy, but it's by no means required. I'd love anything that explores what happened, the why (and how, if you want to go dark) of how he killed her, her POV on him or his delusional POV on her--or an AU where something else happens, and things go differently.
Oh man. I think the core of David and Shaw's relationship is what makes Prometheus--and even Covenant--for me as a movie. I love Shaw, I love her obstinacy and integrity and faith, and I think it's a damn shame she didn't get to feature more in Covenant: so if you want to fix that in a fic one way or another, be entirely my guest. I love David--I really do think childlike is the right word for him, he joins a long line of innocent and cruel boy-children in fiction, AI and otherwise, and I think of HAL singing Daisy Bell to Dave when he shuts him down--and I think the question of whether or not he 'truly' loved and loves Shaw isn't so much what I'm interested in exploring as what that means in his particular mind, and how she feels about him in return. I see it as pity, and reluctant friendship, and betrayed trust; I don't see her as ever fully Stockholm succumbing to him, but I do think she's an empathetic person who has trouble not empathizing with him, against her better judgment. As I said, if you're interested in writing a fix-it for Covenant where she lives, I'd definitely be into that. I'd also be into any manner of canon-compliant darkfic exploring what exactly did happen pre-Covenant, or any kind of canon divergent AU. I'm interested in her POV, in her interiority and how she feels during all of this, including on horrifying events; I'm also interested in his, and in the challenge of depicting a worldview like his.
I will also ship them in hell. I'm fully aware that this is not everyone's cup of tea, particularly since Covenant makes it clear that he at least murdered her and may also have sexually assaulted her in his obsession--he certainly implies it when he assaults Daniels. Even if you don't want to touch that, I still am not sure Shaw would ever fully return David's feelings because I don't think she sees him as capable of adult, conscious love, perhaps rightly so. So I'm into the unrequited obsession, I'm into her despair and mercy and strange forgiveness for him--this is my darkest Yuletide prompt and I'm all here for dubcon and noncon and unhappy, fraught sex.
As for canon-specific likes and dislikes: I like Walter and Daniels and Walter/Daniels too, and unrequited David/Walter and even some AU version of Walter/Shaw, though I'm pretty sure Shaw would have some of the same issues with seeing Walter as a consenting sentient person as she does David.
Crueltide note: This is a very Crueltidey fandom for me! I love noncon, dubcon, body horror, character death, haunting, hallucinations, mind control/possession, imprisonment, psychological horror, and blood/gore.