Dear Yuletide Author (2020)

[enchantedsleeper]

Dear Yuletide author,

Thank you so much for checking out my letter! I’ve provided some general likes/dislikes below and then some fandom-specific prompts and headcanons to hopefully make your life as easy as possible this Yuletide. :3

However, I’m a very easy-going person as long as my DNWs are avoided and I’m super happy just to get fic! As always, Optional Details Are Optional. I hope you have a great Yuletide!

Things I love:

• Humour
• Fluff and general cuteness
• Snark and banter
• Happy/feel-good endings
• Found family dynamics
• Unusual AUs (AUs of any kind are awesome!)
• Clever, kick-ass female characters
• What-ifs and gap-fillers
• Tropes involving sleep and dreaming (e.g. sharing a bed, or nightmares if you want to go down the hurt/comfort route)
• Characters being in denial of their feelings (either friendship or romantic :D)
• Non-cis, non-het interpretations of characters (this probably goes without saying in fandom, but then again, why not say it anyway? QUEER ALL THE CHARACTERS)

I am happy for the fic to be as long or as short as you please. I love shippy fic, but gen, close friendship and implied/open to interpretation relationships are super awesome as well.

Plotty fic is great, worldbuilding is great, plot-light character or relationship-driven fics are REALLY great.

General DNWs:

• Non-canonical character death and tragedy; in general I like humour and happiness in my fics, or at least the knowledge that things will turn out okay
• Plots or tropes revolving around deception – including infidelity (n.b.: I'm willing to make a bit of an exception for Baby - Clean Bandit, e.g. having character A wishing they were with character B while with character C, but would prefer no actual cheating)
• Amnesia
• Gore – I’m okay with violence, but preferably not graphic descriptions thereof
• Body horror
• A/B/O dynamics
• Pregnancy
• Rape/non-con (I’m also not a fan of dubcon tropes like sex pollen, fuck or die, aliens made them do it, etc.)
• Stripper AU
• Master/slave AU or dynamics
• Scat, vore, bloodplay
• Bestiality

If you’d like to check out my fics, I’m enchantedsleeper on AO3. My bookmarks list isn’t exhaustive but will likely give you an idea of what I like to read. I also edit Fanlore if you want to check out the kinds of pages I edit there!

Fandom-specific thoughts/prompts:

Charger | Reed.co.uk TV ad 2016

Requested characters: James Reed, Robert (Reed.co.uk TV ad 2016)

Thoughts/Prompts: If you haven’t seen it, this is one of the best unintentionally gay TV ads I have seen in my life, and I’ve shipped it since the ad first aired. (Here is a YouTube link to the ad). James Reed, literal knight in shining armour, swoops in to save the fainting, miserable Robert from his unsatisfying job in some bland office somewhere and they ride away together on a white horse. Fairytale stuff.

But what came before, and what happens next? I would love any kind of fic that imagines the moments leading up to Robert’s ‘rescue’ that caused James Reed to intervene (outsider POV would be amazing) and what happens afterwards. Where do they go? Who is James Reed, anyway, and does he make a habit of swooping in and rescuing gentlemen in distress?

You don’t have to be overly literal with the fact that this is an advert for a jobs website, but you absolutely can if it tickles you :D It’s Yuletide, so feel free to go a bit cracky/weird!

I would ideally like this to be shippy or with a strong homoerotic subtext. I mean: bridal carry. White horse. Need I say more?

Baby – Clean Bandit ft. Luis Fonsi & Marina (Music Video)

Requested characters: Blonde Bride, Wedding Crasher in Red Suit

Thoughts/Prompts: The music video for this song is beautiful and so sad, and I desperately need fix-it fic or just more stories featuring these two and their relationship. I would love:

• ‘Present-day’ fic: perhaps a canon divergence AU where the Wedding Crasher (feel free to come up with a name for her!) makes it to the wedding in time to stop the Bride and Groom saying their I Dos, or manages to intervene and contact her old flame before the wedding even happens.
  
  
  • If you would like to create an “everybody wins” OT3 scenario, that’s fine by me! I would be happy for the Bride and Groom to have a healthy, loving relationship where the Groom is invested in his future wife’s wellbeing and wants to help her connect to her childhood sweetheart if that’s what makes her happy. But if you would rather go the route of writing him out of the story or having him not really enter the picture, well, I won’t be that upset. xD


• Childhood/‘High school’ era fic exploring the relationship that the Blonde Bride and her Wedding Crasher had before it all went wrong. Maybe a fix-it where they defy homophobic parents and stay together? Or reconnect five years or so down the line in their early 20s, both living away from home and able to do what they like? The sky’s the limit.


• Some permutation of shippy fic with these two that I haven’t thought of would also be lovely! (Maybe they get back together much later in life? Maybe Wedding Crasher later gets married and the Blonde Bride shows up to crash her wedding? That would be a twist!)

With all of these prompts, including angst is fine as long as it’s not angst-to-the-exclusion-of-all-else – as I mentioned in the beginning of my letter, I prefer there to be some hope and/or a happy ending wherever possible. It’s also fine to have the characters deal with homophobia (as that’s basically part of canon) but I would prefer the fic not to focus exclusively on that. Anything else that’s not mentioned in my DNWs is golden!

The Murderbot Diaries

Requested characters: Murderbot, Asshole Research Transport, Dr. Mensah

DNWs: Murderbot and/or ART engaging in a sexual relationship of any kind (whether that be together or with another bot or human) is a hard DNW. I also have a bit of a squick for overly shippy Murderbot/ART – I know that Network Effect hints pretty heavily at their relationship being something more than friendship, but I imagine it as more of the AI equivalent of a QPR (queerplatonic relationship), especially given Murderbot’s allergy to romance. If you really want to make it shippy, I won’t say no, but I would prefer for any ‘romance’ to be super understated and/or very unconventional by human terms.

Thoughts/Prompts: I love Murderbot so much that you could probably write me pretty much anything featuring these characters and I’d be over the moon. However, I have some suggestions for specifics as well! I’m hoping that you’ve read Network Effect because if you haven’t, warning for potential Network Effect spoilers ahead.

Also, as I mentioned in my sign-up, I am happy to have fic that includes Murderbot and ART or Murderbot and Dr. Mensah – you do not necessarily need to include all three (though my cup would be overflowing if you did!).

Some specific prompts/thoughts:

• Murderbot & ART friendship fic. Literally anything featuring these two would be brilliant. This was originally going to be the entirety of my prompt before I saw the tagset and thought of all the other possibilities that these wonderful characters present, but I love Murderbot and ART’s friendship most of all. I would love some post-Network Effect fic where Murderbot goes on the mission with ART’s crew, gets to know them and possibly adventures ensue. Or if you like, you can set it before Network Effect/in some alternate timeline where Murderbot and ART meet again under vastly different circumstances. You could set it during Artificial Condition! All of these would work very well for me indeed.


• I would also adore anything focusing on Murderbot and Dr. Mensah’s relationship, which I adore (almost on the same level as Murderbot and ART’s friendship). If you manage to include ART as well, that would be fantastic (what does ART think of Mensah and Murderbot’s relationship to her? Could there be some kind of mission that involves ART’s crew and our favourite group from Preservation?). Or just Murderbot and Mensah hanging out, maybe with Pin-Lee and Overse and Ratthi and Arada – again, I just love these characters so much <3


• Murderbot gets therapy! Or maybe, ART and Dr. Mensah Believe That Murderbot Needs Therapy (But Murderbot Disagrees). Network Effect tantalisingly raised the possibility of Murderbot getting some proper help and I can’t help but feel like it’s vastly overdue (but could also possibly be a complete trainwreck xD). Maybe Murderbot doesn’t actually get therapy, but it would be fun to explore that idea and have Murderbot’s reaction to it.


• Murderbot, ART and Amena-centric fic – Amena was one of my favourite new characters from Network Effect, and I adore the dynamic between her, Murderbot and ART. I would love some fic of ART and Murderbot ‘co-parenting’ her, maybe also involving ART’s crew – Network Effect dropped some pretty big hints that she might decide to study at Pansystem University, and it would be really fun to follow that eventuality, maybe with Murderbot and ART being slightly overprotective AI guardians :D


• Anything featuring SecUnit 3 would be really fun! I love this new character and would love to have Three show up in the fic in any capacity. Murderbot, ART and Three would be an amazingly awkward bot friendship trio.

The Road to El Dorado

Requested characters: Chel, Miguel, Tulio

Thoughts/Prompts: These characters are so hilarious and great that I would love anything that plays off their very specific dynamic and/or develops it a bit further. I am fully on the OT3 bandwagon for these three but if that’s not your cup of tea, any permutation of Chel/Tulio, Chel/Miguel or Miguel/Tulio would be awesome (especially if the last one features an exasperated Chel who is So Done with those two dancing around each other, or who is scheming to get them to admit their feelings). If romance is not your cup of tea, I’m also a massive fan of queerplatonic dynamics!

I would love post-canon fic that explores what the trio got up to after leaving El Dorado, and the adventures that they have. Or maybe a canon divergence fic where they all stay in El Dorado? Maybe Tzekel-Kan is redeemable (or never escapes the city)?

I would also be delighted with any kind of AU setting – historic, modern, futuristic, go wild! If you go down the AU route I would love for Al Tivo to be there in some form (especially if you can find a creative way to work him in) but it’s not a must-have (which is why I didn’t request him as a character), just a nice-to-have!


More than anything, I hope you have an amazing Yuletide, and thanks so much for being my author!