Love In The Asylum

Thank you so much for writing me a story! I'm super easy to please, I promise. Just having heard of/wanting to write one of my fandoms wins you a million points, so I'm sure I'll like whatever you write. All optional details really are optional - if none of my ideas are working for you or you already have a story you are dying to write, I'm sure I'll like that too! But here are some ideas to get you going, anyway. :)

Things I like: slash, femslash, OT3s, gen, complicated, intense, and fucked up relationships (romantic and otherwise), complex, messy, but ultimately loving family relationships, unconventional romance, plotty adventures and casefic, character studies, team-as-family, dub-con, consensual hate-sex, aaaaaall the hurt/comfort. I am always okay with porn, plotty or otherwise.

Things I don't like so much (any prompt-specific exceptions noted below): non-con, extremely graphic violence or gore, character bashing (especially female characters), BDSM, humiliation, non-canonical deaths/deathfic, issue-fic and identity headcanons, a/b/o, modern AUs

More fandom specific thoughts:

1. Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens: Hazel Wong, Daisy Wells

I discovered this series this year and immediately fell in love with how completely charming and fun they are, while still managing to cover some pretty serious material, both in terms of the crimes and what we learn about the Deepdean girls and Hazel and Daisy's personal experiences. And for me, the heart of it is totally Daisy and Hazel's friendship - I love what an intense, slightly messed-up person Daisy is, and that we see how rare it is for her to trust someone as much as she does Hazel and how important that friendship is to her, and on Hazel's side, I love that we see her come into her own as a person because of her friendship and experiences with Daisy, and that some of that is being able to stand up for herself and push back when Daisy's running roughshod over her. I'd really like to see something about the two of them together as adults after they are out of school - maybe when the war breaks up they end up getting recruited by Felix for espionage. Or maybe after things have settled down they start a detective agency together, solving all the crimes the police can't figure out. I'd love Daisy/Hazel, but them just being really great friends is awesome too, although I'd prefer no focus on other love interests.

2. Oxenfree (Video Game): Anna Shea, Margaret "Maggie" Adler

Anna and Maggie's story is super fascinating to me - it's so central to what happened to the Sunken and what is happening now to Alex and her friends, but all we see of it is little fragments, and all of them are so, so sad. The Morse code messages especially broke my heart, knowing that while Maggie blamed herself for failing Anna and running away, Anna was still trying to reach out and signing all her codes with "love". I'm really interested in seeing some of time travel shenanigans/fix-it AUs for this one where their attempt to contact the Sunken goes a little bit differently than it did in canon. Maybe instead of Anna getting absorbed, Maggie and Anna get stuck in their own time loop the way Alex did, and have to try to find ways to escape it and fix things? Or maybe Anna still gets trapped, but some of her messages get through, and Maggie starts investigating every way she can think of to send messages back, and try to pull her out again? Feel free to get weird and have fun with the game/time glitch mechanics for this one, for sure! I'd really love Maggie/Anna for this one.

3. In the Forests of Serre - Patricia A. McKillip: Euan Ash, Unciel (Forests of Serre)

This was the very first McKillip book I ever read, years and years ago, and it's still my very favorite - it's such a lovely, elegiac, mystical little fairy tale. And in the middle of all the kings and witches and monsters and people getting thrown out of windows and turning into birds, I love how quiet and domestic Euan and Unciel's scenes at the cottage are. I feel like this is very much a story about healing, and I love that healing for Unciel, who has faced an unspeakable evil, is about puttering in the garden growing things and sitting with the cat and eventually, painfully, finding ways to speak about it. And I will always adore Euan, who has so much wonder and fondess for Unciel (and kind of a crush?) and has these wild, visionary dreams even though he's otherwise the kind of person who puts his boots in the same place every time. I'd love to see something about what they do after the end of the book, now that Unciel's monster has finally been exorcised - do they stay at the cottage, gardening and writing down his stories and teaching Euan how to cook without throwing everything in one pot? Does Unciel go back out into the world to do more wizard things, now with his new assistant/biographer? Does Euan learn more about magic? I'd also really love to see how their relationship changes in the wake of what happened and how they've come to know each other - Unciel/Euan would be totally welcome here!

4. Stellar Firma (Podcast): Trexel Geistman, David 7

I would love to see some Trexel/David 7 that is just as bonkers and ridiculous as the show. Trexel is such a terrible, incompetent, selfish person, but I think in his own completely awful way he does actually really care about David, somehow, and I'd love to see him trying to act on that in the most Trexel way possible - inept, embarrassing courtship rituals, bizarre ideas for a romantic date with someone who has barely ever left his room, completely terrible, damp, weird sex. Meanwhile, David is a person whose human interaction is 90% Trexel and 9% IMOGEN (and 1% Hartro being terrifying), so he's certainly got some weird ideas of how relationships and sex are supposed to work on his end too, along with his own weird kinks and frustrations to work out on Trexel. I'm totally down for Dom!David/sub!Trexel for this one, but mostly just have fun with it.

Thank you so much for writing me a story! I'm super easy to please, I promise. Just having heard of/wanting to write one of my fandoms wins you a million points, so I'm sure I'll like whatever you write. All optional details really are optional - if none of my ideas are working for you or you already have a story you are dying to write, I'm sure I'll like that too! But here are some ideas to get you going, anyway. :)

Things I like: slash, femslash, OT3s, gen, complicated, intense, and fucked up relationships (romantic and otherwise), unconventional romance, plotty adventures and casefic, character studies, team-as-family, dub-con, consensual hate-sex, aaaaaall the hurt/comfort. I am always okay with porn, plotty or otherwise.

Things I don't like so much (any exceptions noted below): non-con, extremely graphic violence or gore, character bashing (especially female characters), BDSM, humiliation, non-canonical deaths/deathfic, issue-fic, a/b/o

More fandom specific thoughts:

1. Campaign (Podcast) - Sneak, Tubaik

For minor antagonists who only exist because JPC couldn't stop making ridiculous sounds with his face when they were setting up the BHIKKE plot, I am embarrassingly over-invested in these two jerks. I love how hard Tubaik tries to come across as the suave-and-sophisticated villain type despite the fact that he has the worst lines and zero chill, I love all the quasi-canon history of Sneak in the army, breaking hearts and smuggling contraband, I love their massive, heavily-branded arms and bounty-hunting empire - they're just a lot of fun and silliness in a way that feels so perfectly Campaign, and definitely one of my favorite parts of the BHIKKE arc. I started shipping them pretty hard when Sneak first showed up disguised as a waiter to life-coach Tubaik through his fake-date, and by the time Sneak tried to shoot Vous-Vous just for insulting Tubaik they were pretty much my biggest Campaign OTP - that kind of 'being totally over-invested in each other's happiness but oblivious to the possibility they might both want more' relationship is absolutely my kryptonite. I'd love to see anything about the two of them together, especially if it involves maximum hijinks - more trope-y stuff like the fake-date, awkward sex-pollen incidents, both of them being oblivious while the entire Sneak&Tubaik bounty-hunter crew tries to match-make for them. Something about them trying to get an actual relationship going after the kiss-fall would be pretty awesome, or them running into the Mynock crew again as a couple, or even just general tooling around bounty-hunting. Bonus points for: the Mynock crew being super smug about being the ones to get them together, fun times with weird alien genitals, Sneak's past as a clone-Lothario coming back to make trouble for him

2. Living with Ghosts - Kari Sperring - Gracielis

I love an awful lot of things about this book - the court politics and political maneuvering, the hints of class issues and other tensions we get around the edges of the main plot, the eeriness of the ghosts and the whole magical system, the way so much of the story centers on people's history and mistakes and regrets and failings coming back to haunt them (metaphorically and, uh, literally) and how they try to move past that - but my heart really belongs to Gracielis. He has been broken in such interesting ways, and for so much of the story he is really convinced of the hopelessness of what they're doing and his own worthlessness in trying to stop it - and yet when his back is against the wall at the end he does find it in himself to face Quenfrida, even though he thinks it will be the death of him. I feel like he's in a really interesting place at the end of the book, and I'd love to see something that explores what he does after he leaves the city - how he handles being undarios now, changing careers, leaving the kind of life he had as a courtesan in the city, rebuilding his sense of himself after so many years of being under Quenfrida's thumb. I have no strong ship preferences - I'm happy with Gracielis/Thiercelin if you're interested in them having another go at it once they've got some distance from what happened, or Gracielis/OMC if you'd like to give him a nice boyfriend without so much baggage, or just Gracielis finding himself after so long of belonging to other people.

3. Administration - Val Toreth, Keir Warrick

I really love all the dystopian world-building that Francis does for this series, but my biggest draw is definitely Warrick and Toreth's relationship. I love that we get to see how it develops over such a long time into something really serious, and how that changes both of them, both in terms of how they are with each other - the sacrifices Warrick decides he's willing to make to keep Toreth in his life on Toreth's terms, the ways that Toreth does try to be someone Warrick needs even though emotionally he's really really bad at it - and just how they are as people - the choices Toreth makes in First Against The Wall are not, I think, the choices he would have made before they met, and neither are the choices Warrick makes in Family Values. I'd be really interested in something that looks at their relationship from an outsider POV - not someone who's been in on the whole thing, like Sara or Cele, but something like the other I&I investigators, once Toreth being in a long-term thing starts making the gossip pool, or what Warrick's business partners make of Toreth's dramatics. Or a hurt/comfort scenario with Toreth being the hurt one (I'd prefer a temporary illness/injury for this one) - how they deal (or don't deal) with Toreth being in a temporarily more vulnerable position and having to put up with being taken care of. Or casefic is always good as well! Since the BDSM element is so central to their relationship, I'm fine with it being included in any sex scenes - however, I find the psychological control games that Toreth plays with him more interesting than the straight physical kinks, so I'd prefer more of the focus to be on that, and I'd rather no scenes with the suspension cabinet.

4. Dream Daddy - Dadsona, Ernest

I was not expecting Ernest to my favorite of the kids (excepting Amanda, of course!), but oh man, he really, really is. He's such a terrible little shit, but I love the little hints we get of his squishier side - his love of terrible movie romances, how cute he is with Duchess Cordelia - it really makes him feel realistically like he's not a bad kid, just struggling a lot with his authority issues and his dads' divorce and acting out. I'd be really happy with something about Dadsona awkwardly trying to feel out his place in their family without stepping on any toes, once he and Hugo have started getting serious/long-term, and trying to figure out how to win Ernest over/co-parent reasonably with Hugo and his ex. Dadsona+Ernest bonding would be pretty great (maybe he secretly loves terrible romances too and they become movie buddies?), or them having an uneasy, we're-not-hostile-but-we're-not-friends truce that gets shaken up by a minor crisis when Hugo and his ex are unavailable (maybe Ernest crashes his skateboard and Dadsona is the one who stays at the ER with him all night?) and leads to bonding. If it leads to Ernest easing up on the being-a-little-shit thing a bit and building a better relationship with his dad that would also be great. I'm not interested in any Ernest ships but if you'd like to give him an embarrassingly obvious one-sided crush on, like, Pablo, I wouldn't say no. Bonus points for them still getting a dog, Amanda being Cool Big Step-Sister-y.

Thank you so much for writing me a story! I'm super easy to please, I promise. Just having heard of/wanting to write one of my fandoms wins you a million points, so I'm sure I'll like whatever you write. All optional details really are optional - if none of my ideas are working for you or you already have a story you are dying to write, I'm sure I'll like that too! But here are some ideas to get you going, anyway. :)

Things I like: slash, femslash, OT3s, gen, complicated, intense, and fucked up relationships (romantic and otherwise), non-conventional romance, plotty adventures and casefic, character studies, team-as-family, dub-con, consensual hate-sex, aaaaaall the hurt/comfort. I am always okay with porn, plotty or otherwise.

Things I don't like so much (any exceptions noted below): non-con, extremely graphic violence or gore, character bashing (especially female characters), BDSM, humiliation, non-canonical deaths/deathfic

More fandom specific thoughts:

The Grass King's Concubine - Kari Sperring - any character

I read this book as part of the FFA book club, and instantly fell in love with both worlds - the unsettling weirdness of the WorldBelow, the intricate court politics mixed up with messy personal politics, the budding industrial and social revolution in Aude and Jehan's city - and more or less all the characters. I'd love something about any of the nominated characters, by themselves or in any combination. Something about Sujien and/or Liyan set in the court before it fell apart would be great - I found myself really wanted to see more of the Cadre's dynamic, how they interacted and bounced off each other, and something that got more into Sujien's (kind of messed up) headspace would be great. Or something after the book about Liyan, getting into trouble and causing explosions and exploring all of the exciting innovations that the new world has for him. Or Aude and Jehan going back to the city and being rabble-rousers with the labor movement. Or world-building fic about the court and how it worked/works would be great too. I'm not overly invested in any ships for this book, but I would not say no to Aude/Jehan/Liyan, or to Sujien/someone unrequited and ill-considered. Bonus points for ferrets.

Bedlam's Bard - Mercedes Lackey - Eric Banyon, Beth Kentraine, Korendil

Eric, Beth, and Kory were my OT3 before I even understood what that meant, and I think they will always be the OT3 of my heart, as silly and trope-y and oh-so-90s as these books are. I love everything about their relationship, how cute and affectionate they are in San Francisco, how Eric and Kory are there for Beth when her fearlessness fails her, how Beth and Eric help Kory find more of a purpose, how Eric finally has people who love him but also make him grow the fuck up. I'd love something set right after book one and the bus station, when they've just gotten their feelings out in the open and are still trying to figure out what that means and how they fit together as a three-way relationship, especially if it involves Eric being insecure/unsure of his place, or struggling to deal with wanting Kory. Or domestic-y OT3 shenanigans in San Francisco would be pretty great too. Or just threesome porn, that is also fine. I found the no-homo retcon of their relationship in the later books very frustrating, so I'd prefer fic that takes place before those (although an AU where they don't break up and Beth and Kory go to New York with Eric would be pretty fun. So if you want to try that, have at it!). Bonus points for hot-tubbing and Eric and Beth playing with Kory's ears.

Doctrine of Labyrinths - Sarah Monette - Felix Harrowgate, Malkar Gennadion

So, these books are basically the pure distillation of my id, and Felix and Malkar's relationship is kind of the pinnacle of that. I hesitate to say that I ship it, as such (okay, no, I totally do, sorry), but I do find it absolutely fascinating - completely and utterly toxic and abusive, but fascinating - how much of an influence Malkar has on Felix, the way he acts and thinks about magic and other people and himself, the ugliest parts of his personality he can't stop himself from showing, even down to little gestures and ways of speaking he copied from him. I'd really love any fic that explores more of their relationship. I'm going cheat and link to the conversation that I had right after I read Melusine: this is something I would love to see - more of the little cult of personality Felix built around himself at the court, and how Malkar disrupts that, tormenting him in innocuous, horrible ways that Felix can't explain to anyone else. Or something set further in the backstory - more of Felix's daily life with Malkar in Arabel and how he trained him and broke him, or about how Felix decided/managed to (somewhat) break the Oblige d'Sange, or Felix's introduction to the Mirador under Malkar's patronage. Given that their relationship involves canonical child sexual abuse and rape, I'm fine with non-con for this canon, but I'm more interested in the psychological abuse than very graphic physical abuse. However, bonus points for creepy non-con touching, especially face-touching.

Escort Mission - Cracked.com - L33t (Escort Mission), N00b (Escort Mission)

I really was not expecting to fall for this series as hard as I did - I'm not more than a casual gamer - but the slightly-antagonist-friends dynamic between Leet and Noob kind of hooked me, Michael Swaim is somehow always funny even when he shouldn't be, and then they started getting all slashy and cuddling and yeah, now I ship it. I'd love get-together fic for the two of them - something where they've mostly accidentally ended up basically dating without realizing it, or courtship via video games, or courtship via video game tactics which goes somehow horribly, horribly wrong (but then right). Gen is also fine with me, as long as they are still roommates/friends - anything in the tone of the series would be great. Or throw them in the middle of a zombie outbreak! I'm not familiar with a ton of video games, but I still like reading about games I don't know, so feel free to throw in some video game commentary/jokes if you'd like. The weirder the better - visual novels, dating sims, obscure indie games, whatever you like/seems likely to be funniest in context. Bonus points for couch-cuddling.

Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner - Katherine Talbert

I just - KATHERINE IS GREAT I LOVE HER. I was prepared not to love her - I read The Fall of the Kings before I read this, and she is not the nicest person in that book. And then I got to this one and, she's still a Tremontaine through and through, so difficult, and a bit of a terrible person. But she's so dashing and romantic and loyal to her friends and unwilling to put up with fuckery, I really do love her a lot. I found the ending to the book a little frustrating, since between the ending and the epilogue it skips over all the most interesting stuff I wanted to see. I'd love a fic set right after Alec and Richard left about her taking over the duchy, building up her powerbase in the city, winning over the loyalty of Alec's staff, swordfighting sexist jerks, etc. And making out with girls, that would also be good. Or a story where she and the actress playing the swordsman in the play have sex while roleplaying as boys? More about the duality of her identity as a swordfighter in general would be pretty interesting. Bonus points for ridiculous romantic literature.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you so much for writing me a story! I'm super easy to please, I promise. Just having heard of/wanting to write one of my fandoms wins you a million points, so I'm sure I'll like whatever you write. All optional details really are optional - if none of my ideas are working for you or you already have a story you are dying to write, I'm sure I'll like that too! But here are some ideas to get you going, anyway. :)

Things I like: slash, femslash, OT3s, gen, complicated, intense, and fucked up relationships (romantic and otherwise), non-conventional romance, plotty adventures and casefic, character studies, team-as-family, dub-con, consensual hate-sex, aaaaaall the hurt/comfort

Things I don't like so much: non-con, extremely graphic violence or gore, character bashing (especially female characters), BDSM, humiliation, non-canonical deaths/deathfic

More fandom specific thoughts:

Guilded Age - Frigg

There aren't too many characters in Guilded Age I don't like an awful lot, but Frigg is absolutely, hands-down, 100% my favorite. I love how brave she is, how tough she is, how much she swears, how few fucks she gives for what other people think/do, and how she is kind of a terrible person - but also, when it comes down to it, how she clearly cares about her friends and wants to fight for/with them, even if she would rather pull her own arm off than admit it. So anything Frigg-centric would make me super happy, whether it's adventure-fic with her hitting all the things with her magic hammer, sexytimes fic where she gets to clear the dust out (any pairing is great, although I'd prefer not breaking up Syr'Nj/Byron), backstory about her time pre-comics with the Sisterhood, or backstory about her character outside the game/in the tube, because she sounded really interesting IRL too. Bonus points for Frigg+Syr'Nj awkward friendship, creative swearing, and for things being Complicated with Rachel.

Lakeside View Apartment Suites - any

Like I said in my sign-up, I really just want more of the people and the life that we see in this song - there's so much suggested but not answered of who these guys are, how they ended up as drug dealers, how they met each other, how they are going to try to keep going or get out or fail miserably. Anything that expands on the glimpses of the characters we get and their relationships would be great too. If you'd like to give me a happy ending where they all turn their lives around and become teachers and play basketball with at-risk kids I will not complain at all! But if you'd like to keep with the melancholy tone of the song and give them a long slow bad ending that is totally great too. Bonus points for setting it in interesting/unusual cities and mutually drugged-up sex.

The Bill - Craig Gilmore, Gina Gold

Not gonna lie, I started watching The Bill because I heard through the grapevine it was a cop show with a gay storyline, and then I fell head-over-heels for Craig 50 episodes before Luke even showed up. I'm really fascinated with how much he feels like he has prove himself constantly, how outspoken and confrontational he is when people try to hassle him or other gay characters, and how under the pushiness that's forced on him he really is just kind of a sweet awkward dork. So anything that looks at how Craig deals (or, uh doesn't) with other people, and with homophobia in the police force, would be pretty great. I'd also like to see more of him and Gina as friends - I love the way she sort of ends up as the person he can trust talking about his relationships to, even though they don't have that much in common on the surface. Or Gina-POV/Gina-centric fic, instead! Because competent older women who don't put up with any bullshit because they have a fucking job to be doing, thanks are kind of my catnip, and she is such a beautifully hard-ass unrepentant bitch I can't help but adore her. If you'd like to do casefic, or just canon-esque day-in-the-station-house fic, that would be super. Bonus points for Craig/Luke, and Reg Hollis being all Reg Hollis-y, because *heart*.

Cyteen - Justin, Grant, Ari II

So, I may be just a little over-invested in Grant/Justin. There's just so much there - Justin's massive trauma, Grant being an azi, Ari II's existence, the incredibly repressive atmosphere at Reseune - putting tremendous pressure on them, and they still manage to work out the healthiest unhealthy relationship they can manage with each other. My mental image of the two of them is just sitting in their apartment, clinging to each other like drowning victims in a storm. So something that explored the dynamic between them more than we see in canon would be great. Or something from an outsider POV. Or throw another source of pressure at them and see how they deal with it. Or just show one of those quiet moments of domesticity and emotional support between them. Bonus points for Justin being the one who is there emotionally for Grant. I'd also be interested in something plotty with Ari II that deals with the tension between their relationship with each other and their relationship with her (and Ari, as we all know very well, is not above manipulating that for herself). Or any of the above from Ari's POV, because the way she reads Justin and Grant (with what she knows about Ari I) is pretty fascinating to me as well. Or just something about Ari being Ari (scary-smart, dangerous, manipulative, but still trying to do more or less the right thing).

The Picture of Dorian Gray - any

So, I may have become slightly obsessed after seeing Oscar Wilde: The Opera, and reread both versions of the novel and watched every single (semi-decent) adaptation in existence and given myself a lot of feelings. But I'd really love something that looks at Dorian's character - for as much as he tries to play himself as the corrupted innocent, even in his first scenes there's still an edge of cruelty to him, of holding his feelings above everyone else's, and something that looked at what was in him that was so susceptible to Harry's influence would be really interesting. I'd also be pretty happy with any combination of Dorian/Basil, Harry, or Alan, under any circumstances - one of Basil's painting sessions, or more of how he deals with his tortured crush on Dorian, Harry's designs on Dorian's rather precarious virtue, or especially something about just what, exactly, Dorian was using to blackmail Alan with. Or, you know, just straight up porn. Bonus points for literary allusions, loss of virginity, and Victorian sexuality - whether it's 'let's all repress our boarding school homosexual experiences,' or in the school of Sins of the Cities of the Plains and Romance of Lust.

Valor Series - any

I tried really hard to narrow myself down to specific characters, but it too hard - there's just too much interesting stuff going on in this universe for me to pick. So if you have a personal favorite character, or you'd like to make up some OCs and run with the world-building, have at it! But I wouldn't say no to: slice of life from Torrin and Craig's marriage (or snarky romance with Torrin and Craig, or Torrin and Craig having adventures), The Romantic Gunslinging Adventures of Binti Mashona, Lady-Kissing Sniper, Haysole/Hollice romance fic or one-night stand fic or friendship fic, some of Haysole's choicer pranks in the station, Ressk and Werst overcoming their differences to fuck with everyone or just take over the world, and gen missionfic with Sh'Quo Company, set before Valor's Choice or any point in the novels. If you'd like to do more with the Everyone is Bi theme in the books - Torrin's ex-girlfriends? Craig's ex-boyfriends? Gender-neutral drunken spin-the-bottle on station down-time? All the gay makeouts? - that would be awesome. I know these books have a high bodycount, but I'd prefer if you kept the character death to a minimum - and if you'd like to pretend that any canonically dead characters (*cough*Haysole*cough*) made it out alive I won't tell on you. Bonus points for Torrin kicking all the ass, wild rumors about what Sh'Quo company does to the enemy/to new recruits/on leave, and sex pollen.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you for writing me a story! And don't worry - I'm really easy to please when it comes to Yuletide. Just knowing one of my fandoms enough to want to write about already wins you a million points in my book, so I'm sure I'll like whatever you write. And if none of my requests are working for you and you have something different in mind, I'm sure I'll like that too. I really just want you to have fun! But here are some ideas to get you going.

Things I like: slash, femslash, threesomes, gen, complicated relationship dynamics (romantic and otherwise), non-conventional romance, plotty adventure fic and case fic, character studies, teams as makeshift families, consensual hate-sex, hurt/comfort

Things I don't like so much: character bashing (especially female characters), rape/non-con, non-canonical deaths/deathfic, BDSM, very graphic violence/torture, humiliation

More fandom-specific thoughts:

Warrior Baek Dong Soo

I'll be honest, I really, really love Yeo Un, even though he's crazier than a box of cats. Possibly because he's crazier than a box of cats - I'm fascinated by how damaged he is in every possible way, how convinced he is that he is irredeemable and fated to be the villain, and how he just stands there staring at his feet and refusing to defend himself when other people accuse him of bad things, because he is secretly desperate for them to realize how unhappy he is and save him from himself. So a story that focused on him and his internal turmoil would make me pretty happy. Or a story that focuses on how that tangles up with his relationship with Dong Soo - which is my other favorite things about the show, it's so knotted up and intense and painful to both of them (and I maybe have a thing for rival-friends turned enemies with lots of homoerotic subtext, what can I say). A story about them having adventures when they were both trainees would also be fun, or an encounter in the years between Un leaving for the assassins and the ginseng plot. Or if you would like to focus on Jin Ju, that would also be amazing. I'd love something about her relationship with Jin Ki, or with Ga-Ok (such as it is), or her having adventures as a bandit, or more about her (adorable!) romance with Hong Do.

Andrew in Drag

One of the things I like about this song (aside from it being impossibly catchy) is how much room for more there is in it. Is the narrator straight or gay/bi or willing to make an exception? Is Andrew trans or genderqueer or a cross-dresser or just really drunk? How did he get talked into it - or was it his idea? Do they never talk about it again or does the narrator pine forever or does he sell his Jag so they can run off to Paris and live like dissolute bohemians in love? Or something completely different! I just really want to see the characters and the story fleshed out a little bit more, whether it's about what happened in the song, what happened before, or what happened after. Genderplay and more crossdressing would not go unappreciated. And even if you don't get the narrator and Andrew together, I'd prefer some kind of happy ending for both of them.

Hairy Bikers RPF

Okay, if you're offering it I guess you aren't going to judge me too much for shipping two hairy middle-aged British men talking about beer and bacon. I don't even know - but I was sold the first time Dave called Si "beef cheeks". They just have a really fun, domestic thing going on, whether you read it as slashy or just as two blokes who get on well together. What I'd really like to see for this one is road-trip b/romance fic - so, basically, something similar to Food Tour of Britain, but with more kissing. Or just them being BFF motorcycle buddies, that is also great. Bonus points for plenty of good-natured banter, and maybe some food porn? By which I mean not sex-with-food-involved so much as just talking about amazing food. Because it's not Hairy Bikers if someone isn't getting excited about locally sourced produce and English cheese.

Cyteen

So, I may be just a little over-invested in Grant/Justin. There's just so much there - Justin's massive trauma, Grant being an azi, Ari II's existence, the incredibly repressive atmosphere at Reseune - putting tremendous pressure on them, and they still manage to work out the healthiest unhealthy relationship they can manage with each other. My mental image of the two of them is just sitting in their apartment, clinging to each other like drowning victims in a storm. So something that explored the dynamic between them more than we see in canon would be great. Or something from an outsider POV. Or throw another source of pressure at them and see how they deal with it. Or just show one of those quiet moments of domesticity and emotional support between them. Bonus points for Justin being the who is there emotionally for Grant. I'd also be interested in something plotty with Ari II that deals with the tension between their relationship with each other and their relationship with her (and Ari, as we all know very well, is not above manipulating that for herself). Or any of the above from Ari's POV, because the way she reads Justin and Grant (with what she knows about Ari I) is pretty fascinating to me as well. Or just something about Ari being Ari (scary-smart, dangerous, manipulative, but still trying to do more or less the right thing).

Yuletide reveals are up! So now I can tell you that this year I wrote:

Title: Mastering thee Arte of Masonry for calamity_kitten
Fandom: Elenium/Tamuli Series (David Eddings)
Rating: T-ish for violence
Pairing: Berit/Khalad
Word Count: 9220
Summary: Every great Pandion knight has to fail at least once. Some do it more dramatically than others.
Beta: colourofsaying, who not only read the whole Elenium along with me (and shared in many many jokes about Bevier's tragically awful sex life), but put up with two weeks of me calling at 10pm because I couldn't figure out how to get two teenage boys to punch each other in the face.

I had so much fun writing this. It's been awhile since I've written something with an action plot - maybe not since I was doing Star Trek fic? - and I tried to go in really well-prepared. I had an outline and everything! Although I actually ended up cutting out several scenes for lack of time to get them written - in my original outline there was going to be a bandit attack in the middle, and possibly a big sword fight at the monastery. And a lot more shirtless carpentry. I do think it hangs together a lot tighter now then it would have if I'd added in all the extra material, though I'd like to go back in a few weeks and tweak the ending more. Still, I'm pretty happy with it overall, and I'm glad I got to take a deeper look at Berit, since he's an interesting (and adorable) character I hadn't thought about that much before.

Also, in the process of writing this I learned a lot about roofing practices in medieval England and Scotland.

Three Things (The Almost Christmas! Edition)

1. OMG BAKING. I feel like I end up doing more cookies every year, or maybe it's just that I keep deciding to try completely new kinds of cookies so that I never get a holiday routine going to settle into. In any case, the last few days I've barely left the kitchen. Wednesday I made refrigerator dough and baked 10 dozen sugar cookies. Yesterday was raspberry pinwheels, again about 10 dozen, which were...not the most successful experiment. I rolled the dough out too big before I rolled them up with the jam, and put the first few batches too close together on the baking sheet, so instead of neat little spirals I ended up with a kind of crazed Lovecraftian geometry. Still interesting looking, though, and pretty tasty, so at least they aren't a total write-off. I also made about as many plain chocolate cookies to use for peppermint sandwiches. And today I made 4 dozen chocolate-cherry biscotti. Tomorrow I am making approx a million pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and then I have to ice the sugar cookies, make the peppermint sandwiches, and do a raspberry-chocolate dip for the biscotti, and then my dad's girlfriend will be coming over to help box them up to give out. AND THEN I WILL BE DONE UNTIL NEXT YEAR.

2. OMG YULETIDE. I am slowly but steadily chipping away at it - lots of procrastinating, but a big step up from last year or the year before. And I'm only panicking a little about getting it done in time! I hit 1000 words a little earlier tonight, and I've just about made it into the main part of the story. Someone had already been punched in the face, and soon there will be stabbing. And so many more words. Whyyyy did I decide I needed a plot?

3. OMG RUROUNI KENSHIN TRAILER. I am so ridiculously gleeful about this movie. I feel like I'm in 7th grade again, camping out in front of the tv after school to watch the latest episode on Cartoon Network. Saaaaaaaaano ♥

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thank you tons for writing me a story! And don't worry too much - I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to YT, and just you knowing/wanting to write one of these fandoms earns you a million points. If none of these suggestions work for you, and you have something else you are really excited about writing instead, I'll still probably like it a lot. Mostly I just want you to have fun with this. But here are some ideas to get you going. (Bonus points is for stuff that is extra extra optional, just small details that would make me happy to see)

( Tokyo Dogs, Lucifer Box, Acropolis Now, Niels and Gang )

I've heard that you should spend New Year's doing what you want to being doing in the coming year. If that's true, than in 2011 I have a greater than usual chance of being eaten by a great white shark.

No, I don't know why there was a Jaws marathon either. But my father was in charge of the remote, I couldn't do much about it.

Last night was also the Yuletide reveal! So here is my story:

Title: Lefty Sings The Blues
Fandom: Pancho and Lefty (song)
Recipient: luzula, who asked for more about the relationship between Pancho and Lefty and what happened in Mexico
Warnings: canon character death
Rating: PG-13 ish
Notes: a special thanks to colourofsaying, hand-holder, idea-bouncer, and beta-reader, and my mother, who is an invaluable blues reference.
Summary: A bank robbery, a hide-out, a betrayal. A blues song.

I came really close to defaulting this year, because while I had this story plotted out about two days after I got my assignment, I left the bulk of the writing to the weekend before the deadline. And then the whole thing with my grandfather happened, and I wasn't in any kind of shape to hold a coherent conversation, let alone write a story. But I've been kind of obsessed with the idea of this story since November (ask colourofsaying how many times I've flailed at her about it over the phone), and I didn't want to give up on it. I think I hit 1000 words at 11.57 on Monday Night, and posted a terribly incomplete story just before the deadline hit. And then spent the next several days trying to finish it, culminating in an all-nighter on Thursday. I'm not sure this is the story it would have been if circumstances hadn't been what they were, but I think I'm still happy with it.

My room is looking really empty right now since all my stuff is packed up. Miraculously, I managed to fit my new boots and one of my new cookbooks into my suitcase without running out of room for (most) of my clothes - it probably helps that I am leaving my job interview suit here, since I shouldn't be needing it in California. Leaving for the airport in a couple of hours, and should be back on campus around midnight or so. Wish me luck!

Merry Christmas, if you do that sort of thing!

Someone wrote me Cesc Fabregas/Robin Van Persie at the World Cup for Yuletide, and OMG it is the greatest thing ever. It is full of things that make me wonderfully happy: Cesc and Gerard Pique hanging out and being idiots together (and pranking Iker Casillas, because YES)! Partying with the Germans! Sergio Ramos! And in the middle of all the wacky pre-finals Spanish hijinks a really sweet story about wanting a lot of different things and knowing that having some of them means maybe losing out on others, especially when you are playing a world championship against your boyfriend. You should all go read it right now, because it is amazing.

Also it has Victor Valdes/Philipp Lahm. MY LIFE IS COMPLETE.

I got up early and made scones, and then we went to my grandmother's to open presents. Tiny cousin was so overwhelmed by the sudden profusion of new toys that he just spent twenty minutes running in circles. I am home briefly for the traditional Star Wars and Yuletide Christmas afternoon interval, and then we're heading back to my grandma's for dinner. After that I'll be at my mom's for the rest of the weekend. Lots of good food, lots of family, just what I need.

Hope everyone else is having a good holiday!