Dear Yuletide Writer (2021)

Hi!

Thank you for writing me a story! I hope you enjoy writing it, and if you need to contact the mods for clarifications to do so, please do it! That's for DNWs, other than that as you probably know, Optional Details Are Optional and the prompts are just for inspiration and you don't have to use them. 

General Do-Not-Wants:

• hopeless endings
• characters being secretly evil
• omegaverse
• explicit gore
• pedophilia
• incest (cousin incest is fine)
• non/dub-con (the exception is when there is no sentient perpetrator, like some versions of the sex-pollen trope and non-sentient tentacles)
• sex scenes with characters under 15, including all types of sex acts (mentions and fade to black is fine, non-explicit masturbation is fine)
• a Christmas-themed story (emphasis on themed, characters celebrating Christmas if it's their holiday is fine, just avoid doing that thing where you pack in as many festive details as possible)

Edit 26/10:
Now that I'm not so annoyed about this text editor, I'm gonna add some likes, soft dislikes, and warning requests. I didn't want to just use the ones from last year because they were written for ITPE where I requested different fandoms.
Also here: nontraditional works opt-in, and TTS compatibility if you're up for it.

Likes (things that make me happy): Queerplatonic and alterous relationships, aro (including aroace) characters and relationships, queer friendships, trans characters, enby and gnc gender feels/gender expression, neurodivergent characters, characters finding their people, characters finding common ground with people who are not their people, good consent, friendly sex, flirting and bantering, polyamory, canon-divergence AUs

Soft dislikes (not hard DNWs, but work better when clearly portrayed as personal to the character rather than universal): sex as consummation of the relationship, one kind of sex as the kind that "really counts", love triangles better solved by polyamory, surprise kisses (kinda falls under the DNW of non/dub-con, but people don't always see it that way), jealousy that is seen as sexy

Please tag or otherwise warn for character death, suicidal ideation, and ableism.

Nontraditional works
I have a vague memory of nontraditional written works being opt-in, but I can't find it in the rules. Either way, I hereby opt in. Poetry, filks, interactive fiction, epistolary fiction (yes I've read a bunch of epistolary Superstition fanfic, yes I would read a bunch more), things I haven't thought of, whatever you come up with. Also first person and second person POVs are fine even if not canon-typical. Edit: crossovers are also opt-in, so: it would have to be self-explanatory because there's a lot of popular media I don't know, but hey, I've never complained about a Pacific Rim fusion in my life, despite never having watched any, so. Please no Harry Potter, though.


Text-To-Speech Compatibility
You super don't have to do this, especially since I forgot to include it earlier, plus I can read visually, but since it's a gift for me and I use a TTS reader often, it would be nice. If you want to try, here's what will help (1-3 are the most important, and 4 if there's a lot of texting):

1. Don't spell out accents. Mention that someone has one if you like, but don't spell their dialogue to match, because English is not phonetically spelled and the TTS can't read that.
2. Pay attention (or ask your beta to pay attention) to comma placement. I know it can be a stylistic choice/artistic freedom issue, but correct comma placement is necessary for correct intonation, which is something I personally need if I want to understand TTS and not get tired out really fast.
   
3. Use 1-3 asterisks or whatever you prefer for scene breaks. More than 3 is very unpleasant, and some TTS readers, including mine in particular, don't read horizontal lines.
   
4. If there's texting in the fic, make it clear that it's a text and consider whether the timestamp is really necessary. If you want to indicate impaired texting, try to use bad or missing punctuation rather than typos. Bad punctuation makes the text harder but not impossible to understand, but intentional typos might make it completely indecipherable. 
5. Make sure it's possible to understand that the speaker has changed without knowing you started a new paragraph. This is not usually an issue, so you don't have to worry about it unless there is some unusual conversational flow. For example, if a character is replying to their own question, you have to indicate that in the text or I will assume that the other character is the one replying, because that's how questions and replies usually work.
6. Don't use allcaps, because it might try to read it as an acronym.
   

Either way you don't have to do it! 

The reader I use is an Android app called Evie. If you like listening to podfic and audiobooks, you should try it! TTS has gotten very good, but you have to pick the network version of the voice you choose, the local one is flat.

End edit 26/10

Superstition by Superstition_hockey

Requested characters: Luc Chantal, Oliver Jackson

Fandom specific DNW: Luc/Sveta smut

The shortest description I have for this is "codependent hockey husbands".

For a longer one, I don't think this is the kind of story in which "spoilers" matter, so here it is: Luc and Jacks meet when they're seven and become instant bffs, and they kind of grow up together, determined to make it to the NHL and win the Stanley cup together. Then they accidentally get married in Vegas, except that's no accident, it may be a drunk mistake but they were acting pretty married the whole time... Jacks, who is gay, was a normal alloromantic kind of in love with Luc the whole time, and he's a practical thinker so he wants the marriage annulled. Luc has had no sexual interest in men by that point, but he's aro and Jacks has been his person the whole time, so he just goes "nope, he's mine now, I'm not giving him back", and convinces Jacks to stay married, but fails to explain the "you're my person" thing. Then it's years of long distance marriage and hockey successes and failures while they try to make their way to the same team so they can win the cup together like they promised. There also may or may not be magic and hockey gods. Like, Luc thinks so, and there’s nothing to contradict it, ever.

The series on AO3

The main series, in case you don't want to read everything (most of my prompts are from these stories)

Podfic of main series

Podfic of part 1 from the alternate POV

I have so many prompts for this one! Of course you don't have to use any of them if you don’t want to, but probably looking through a bunch of them will give you a good idea of what I’m interested in.

 

I don't mind any of the other nominated characters being in the story too.

I love Superstition because it's an aro love story, and that's really important to me, but also for other reasons. I love that it's poly, I love team stuff, I love Luc's attitude towards sex and how the story depicts sex, I love the way Luc reads autistic to me in such a relatable way, and I also just love the sheer amount of love in the story. Luc loves so strongly. So aro qpp feels (the ones Luc tried to explain with "you're my husband!") would be lovely, but if that's not something you relate to, that's fine. I would prefer in that case that you didn't write about Luc's feelings for Jacks, though. Jacks's POV, gen, smut that doesn't touch much on feelings, those would all be great.

Prompts:

AU:

I would love love love to get an AU fic for this. I've posted a lot of ideas on @what-if-superstition on tumblr, it's mostly either canon divergence or ways in which Jacks was literally gifted to Luc so he can play hockey: supernatural being, android, soulmates. I'd love literally any of those except for the one where Jacks eats people, but the ones I’m most interested in right now are these:

• The one with Jacks writing and posting angsty arranged marriage RPF about him and Luc during their first year in the NHL, and what he does with it once he gets his happy ending. Or it's in a fiction fandom, but heavily inspired by his understanding of his situation with Luc. In that case, does anyone clock it after Jacks is known as an author and his AO3 is an open secret?
• The one where Jacks knows he’s fictional and possibly uses it to rewrite his life. Or, he doesn’t think he’s fictional, but some things happen the way he wrote them in secret stories with changed names and he gets scared and guilty and definitely uses it anyway, but probably mostly sparingly?
• All the different supernatural being!Jacks AUs that include Luc having power over him and using it carelessly and then trying not to use it and then trying to figure out how to use it consensually.
• The one where Jacks gets a boyfriend in juniors and Luc is still all over him so the boyfriend dumps him, and then Luc tries to be romantic with Jacks to make up for it

 

If you don't like AUs, here are some other things I might like:

• After the big revelation at the awards, Jacks tries to tell Luc he's been in love with him since forever. Luc, unsurprisingly, doesn't get it. He's loved Jacks since forever too, duh?
• Jacks getting some education on other LGBT+ identities, since it doesn’t seem like the Chantals ever did have that talk with him. I’m guessing Luc never explains anything other than personal feelings because they have this dynamic where Jacks is the one who knows things, not Luc. So where does he get it? Does he google things trying to figure Luc out? Does he learn from online communities he’s in? Does he have a secret Tumblr?
• Something about Jacks's novel (literal excerpts might be cool) and/or his life with the rest of the family while Luc is training for mt. Everest.(The canon for this is not in the main series and kind of hard to find, but I think the biggest one is this one, which only gets smutty and kinky in a very unique way after the bit where Jacks talks to Luc's doctor, and there's this chapter from Kinktober that has no smut in it, and this chapter that is smutty but also has a bit about Jacks's novel and how he felt when Luc was gone, it's mixed in with the smut.)
• Something about Luc’s gender or lack thereof. Especially lack thereof.

 

Raya and the Last Dragon

Requested characters: Raya, Namaari

Fandom-specific DNW: mundane or western AU, a Christmas-analogous holiday

So, technically this will be spoilery, for a thing that happens quite close to the beginning, so if you haven't seen the movie and want to watch it first, go do that! It's an animated children's movie, and though the story and message don't always make sense to me, it's visually beautiful, and the characters are great.

Alright, ready now? Well, the truth is that my favorite thing about this movie is the enemies-to-lovers subtext. It's really nice to see that much shippy potential, but in femmeslash. So, I would love to see a lot of banter and mildly antagonistic flirting. However, to me, enemies-to-allies is an important stage in an enemies-to-lovers progression, so the fic doesn't have to be shipfic to fill that enemies-to-lovers craving. Fics that focus on how being on opposite sides in similar positions just gives them that much more in common are no less satisfying. They've been through some shit together, apart, and because of each other. They have intense feelings about each other, whatever kind of feelings they may be. As long as you don't try to make it explicitly hetero, I'll be happy.

Regarding other characters, it's more than fine if they have a role to fill in the story, so don't worry about including characters I didn't request, especially Sisu. It's also okay if you want to heavily focus on one of the characters I requested and not the other, as long as the other one is also in the story and clearly important to her (doesn't have to be physically present though).

Smut would be great if that's your thing, though it would be nice if it was also a vehicle for some emotional stuff other than romance (the romance can be there too).

Possible prompts:

• The movie talks a lot about trust, but not nearly enough about seeing the other person's point of view. You can trust someone to be a good person in general, while still seeing that from their point of view, they have no choice but to betray you. So, something where Raya learns that. Maybe Benja as well, if it's post canon and you're up for it.
• Or, maybe it's not post canon. Maybe she figures it out earlier, so she and Namaari manage to work together earlier. How does that go? Do they keep it a secret? Do they get accused of only working together because they're into each other?
• Raya being comically distrustful of gifts, subconsciously interpreting them as a precursor to betrayal
• Other trauma response to all the shit they've been through
• How isolated had Raya been in those six years, exactly? Did she avoid people? Did she not avoid people, but still feel isolated because she was keeping her identity a secret? What effect did the loneliness have on her? How does it feel to be back to civilization?
• On the flipside, how long has Namaari been a soldier? How young did she start? Did she get to have a little more normal-ish childhood before that, since Fang is surrounded by water?
• What if the betrayal took a little longer, and in the meantime Raya and Namaari have a few days of age-appropriate puppy love? Does that change things later? How badly does it fuck Namaari up? To be clear, the romance bit has to come from Namaari herself and not be part of her mission. No honeypotting the 12-year-old on purpose, please. XD

These prompts mostly don't actually contradict each other or demand full focus, so you could also mix and match!

Enola Holmes Series - Nancy Springer

Requested characters: Enola Holmes, Cecily Alistair

Fandom specific Do Not Wants: Enola marrying a man, Tewksbury as a love interest 

This is similar in spirit to the movie but quite different in details and plot, so it's not the same! Movie Tewksbury is great and all, but that romantic plotline is pasted on even in the movie, and it's just not there at all in the books, especially since he’s 12 years old to Enola’s 14. I don't mind if he's in the fic as a friend and ally, as long as he’s not a love interest.

Enola is the younger sister of Sherlock holmes. Her distant mother runs away when Enola is 14, and leaves her a lot of money to finance her own escape. Enola runs away because her brother Mycroft, who is in charge of her, is sending her to boarding school, where girls have to endure tight-lacing. She becomes a "perditorian", finder of lost people and things, posing as the adult secretary and later assistant to a man who she made up so that people take her office seriously. Victorian sensibilities tend to be a plot point - places a man can't go, things a woman wouldn't talk to a man about, women's undergarments. Class comes up a lot as well. Loneliness is also a theme: being on the run from her brothers means Enola has to be alone, even though she craves affection, acceptance, and attention from her family. Lady Cecily is an older girl whom Enola rescues twice. She longs to be her friend, but she can’t make friends because she’s on the run. There’s some subtext there, the kind we used to write male slash about, so I definitely ship it, but I’m good with friendship too. Also platonic or queerplatonic life partnership!

A seventh book came out very recently, which I didn’t know about when I nominated the fandom, so I didn’t know to nominate characters from it. That’s on me, so of course you’re not obligated to write them. But if you have read Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche or want to, and are interested in writing Tish and Flossie, I would be delighted to see them, especially Tish. I loved seeing Enola confidently make friends, and I'd love to see Cecily, the friend she dreamed of when she could not be so confident, added to that mix. I would also be glad to see more of the kind of relationship Enola has with Sherlock in Black Barouche, as well as Tewkesbury.

To find the books, probably check your public library first. If you have a Scribd subscription, all seven books (plus one short story which I didn’t like) are available there as audiobooks. Look up Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche separately, because it’s not listed as part of the series. You can find a list of links to buy each of the first 6 books on the publisher's site, but again you’d have to look up Black Barouche separately because it’s not on there. The books are quite short!

 

Prompts:

• Enola’s first visit to Cecily and trying to make friends outside of crisis situations
• Enola and Cecily trying to figure out effective charity and/or socialism. In the books, Enola goes out and gives the poorest of the poor what they need until she runs out, while Cecily gets frustrated that she can’t help everyone and tries for socialism. Did her ordeal with Alexander Finch put her off it, or is she ready to figure out how to help for real? Does she get in an argument with Enola about donating to strike funds? Does she go into (behind the scenes) politics? And does Enola use her new friendships and connections to reach more people and areas with her charity work so that no one is left without?
• Something focused on art, like sketches they do of each other or sketching dates

If you’ve read Black Barouche:

• Cecily being impressed with Enola’s new butch-ish style of clothing, and/or Enola especially liking dressing like that to meet with Cecily in particular because it gives her butch/femme dynamic feels

If you’re willing to write Tish and Flossy:

• Cecily meeting Tish and Flossy
• Tish clocking Enola’s crush on Cecily (maybe because they’re such good friends now and she knows her so well, or maaaaybe because she’s queer too)

If you want to include Enola's brothers, that's more than fine. 

And that's it! Please remember to have fun!