dear yuletide!

[ishie]

Hello Yuletider! THANK YOU FOR WRITING FOR ME <3 I'm already excited to see what you do. Full stop! Yuletide is wonderful but also full of terrifying. If it starts to tilt too far toward terrifying for you, or if my requests make you want to pull out all your teeth, remember: Optional details are optional! My DNWs are relatively small, and above all, I hope you have a great exchange with wonderful gifts of your own and a story you loved writing!

Here's my annual blanket LIKE/NO LIKE thing. (Bottom line is really: if it serves the story, do what makes you happy!)

LIKE: apocafic, both hopeful and bleak; fight scenes that make me ache; snappy dialogue; character studies; narrative-heavy stories; missing moments; AUs both serious and crack; bickering for bickering's sake and UST-y banter; road trips; what-ifs; fix-its; tropes played straight and subverted; canon-compliance; crossovers; original characters; experiments in tone and tense; mood pieces and action-tastic epics; SCIENCE!; friendships romantic and platonic; history stuff; worldbuilding and backstory explorations; that kind of fic where you spend six hours researching something that winds up being two words out of the whole story. I generally prefer het and canon relationships, unless otherwise specified, and I am terribly vanilla when it comes to kinks.

NO LIKE: animal deaths/cruelty are hard nopes for me; non- or dub-con, rape, abuse, and/or incest glamorized or done up as ~romance~; a/b/o; gratuitous character-bashing; treating female characters like crap for no reason (but again that goes back to: if it serves the story, as not every story treats its female characters nobly or well). Other than that, it's pretty much all fair game.

I have a lot of requests this year somehow. I tried to put as much into the sign-up fields as possible in case you didn't make it to the letter and needed some ideas. But since you're here, the requests are expanded a little bit below. :D?

But anyway. I'm ishie on AO3 if you want to see my fic and past gifts (♥♥), there's some older stuff on ishieland too, and a terribly organized tumblr that might make you cry with how disjointed and capslocky it is.

If you have questions that this letter doesn't answer, probably through the Yuletide mods is the best way to go? But you could probably also ask UH PLACEHOLDER SORRY I FORGOT TO ASK PEOPLE IF IT'S OKAY TO ASK THEM.

So, these requests, in no particular order!

ARTHURIAN MYTHOLOGY
Elaine of Benoic, Elaine of Astolat, Elaine of Garlot, Elaine of Corbenic
source: wikipedia; your battered old copy of Malory; Project Camelot;

Elaines! Repeating this request from last year because it resulted in FANTASTIC stories and I'm greedy. I'm completely fascinated by these four Elaines, some of whom we know a lot about and some of whom we don't. Which of them are distinct and separate women and which aren't? What if Elaine of Astolat didn't give a shit about Lancelot the way the story tells it (or what if she did! Let's have her tell it!) or what if Elaine of Corbenic is only remembered as tricking him because that's the story he tells. If you want to roll with the canonical stories (whichever canon you want to go with!) instead and maybe flesh them out a little more so they aren't just "and then so-and-so did this and so-and-so did that and so they did smite them on the pate" things? I'm getting dizzy. Anything, everything, all the Elaines, one Elaine, Multi-Laine 3000, a hundred duck-sized Elaines, Elaines who hate Lancelot, Elaines who are Lancelot, Elaines who seduce Guinevere instead, Elaines who are daughters and mothers and lovers and friends, Elaines whose stories aren't romantic or easy or whose are, maybe even Elaines who weren't technically nominated added into the mix? OH WOW, DID YOU JUST FEEL THE EARTH MOVE?

Again, I hit the freaking jackpot last year with this request and would totally not mind if lightning struck again.
(Last year's fics, if you'd like to read them:
A Disambiguation of Elaines (Scifi AU; very inventive and clever and fun)
The Elaines (a fairy story of sorts; really lovely and imaginative, beautiful language)
Elaine (a 5+1 that plays with the different identities and choices; lyrical and moving))

Growing up it never occurred to me to question any of the mythologies I read, even when they contradicted each other, but the older I get the more I wonder where the kernels of original stories live within the many versions that followed. I'm not a scholar of the time period or the genre by any stretch, so feel free to indulge your imagination and creativity if you go with this fandom!


CORMORAN STRIKE SERIES
Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott
source: ebook & print

I finished Career of Evil just before filling out my signup, so no worries about spoilers. (Also I'm so angry that apparently my copy came with the final chapter ending in a MOST UNSATISFACTORY SPOT which is surely a publishing error and not JKR being evil????) Anyway, these two are so great and I need them to put their hands and faces and bodies on each other. The end. But if you're not inclined to sexy and/or romantic shipping, I would LOVE some casefic. Or curtainfic. Or anything. ANYTHING. PS I hate Matthew and Charlotte, sry2say.

Uh, so I am super into detective stories of all kinds, everything from Monk and Wishbone to Dashiell Hammett, Law & Order(s), and Agatha Christie. The whole range of it. I love it. I LOVE IT. I also love casefic like burning. What I love best about this series, though, is Cormoran/Robin. I think the latest book is the most well-written of the series so far, with the tidiest and most satisfying conclusion and the least irritating "I know something you don't know" reveal from Cormoran himself. I ship these two dummies like whoa, though. The slow burn is THE BEST but it is also KILLING ME, BUSTER. If you want to play with that or just have them be good friends, I'm fine either way. But if you have them make out I will probably try to make out with you through the computer screen, so, just. You know. Let that be a warning and/or incentive? (It would be really great if you stayed in the time period after Robin comes to work for Cormoran, as I'm much less interested in their backstories than in their now-stories.)

I genuinely adore JKR's facility with voices and pacing, and if you'd like to include any of the other characters, that would be lovely! I am not kidding about hating Matthew and Charlotte, though I don't particularly want bad things to happen to them. (Some mildly bad things, maybe. Mostly whatever it takes to get them far, far, far, far away with no takebacks.) I am also a big big big fan of how Cormoran's amputated limb is such a big part of his life in the novels and would love to see that in fic as well.


BACK TO THE FUTURE
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, Gertrude Tannen, Griff Tannen, Biff Tannen
source: streaming 1, 2, 3; and is on DVD and Blu-ray

I'm writing this request on Back to the Future Day! I've asked for this in the past but it's probably understandable why no one wants to write about these characters. I really enjoy complexity in characters, and was disappointed that the Tannens were so one-dimensional in the movies, and I've always wanted to know more about Buford and Biff, and the never-seen Gertrude, and where did Griff come from, and and and. Does Biff go somewhere else between picking up the sports book and 1955? What happened between 1955 and 1985 and 2015 in the first improved timeline to make him so obsequious in middle-age and so bitter in old? Could Griff turn out to not be a dumbass? (Is he in love with one or both of Marty's kids?) Does the casino timeline bleed into another and a Tannen has to fix it instead of a McFly? Does Doc's family run across a Tannen we didn't meet? Do they interfere with Buford's hanging? Or or or. And! Tom Wilson is pretty great—often my favorite part of all three movies on rewatching—so if you channel him, I will adore you for the rest of time. Or OUTATIME. (I'm sorry. It was just sitting there. I had to.)

Yeah, yeah, Marty and Doc and Jennifer and Lorraine and George. I love them. We all do. They're great! But I want to know about TANNENS. I said "and" all four, but a story about any one or combination of them would be fantastic. Do you want to take it back or forward to other generations? DO IT. Did Buford have a wife? Why did he turn to outlawin'? How did he get to be in California? Who raised his baby? How did they deal with living where Buford harassed everybody and was eventually hanged? Who's Gertrude (Biff's grandma)? Buford's (great-?)granddaughter? Daughter-in-law? Who does Biff marry in the improved non-casino original timeline to wind up with a child that eventually produces Griff? What if aside from Buford, Biff, and Griff, the Tannen line is unmarried women who keep their names!! What if all the dudes aren't big dumb jerkfaces! What's your headcanon for this family? I'd really like to read about them being treated fairly as people, not all good or all bad, but definitely not nice people. Maybe a timeline where someone makes a different choice and it isn't a McFly who changes the course of a Tannen's life?


EDGE OF TOMORROW
Rita Vrataski, William Cage
source: streaming & dvd/bluray

I actually don't care about William Cage so do whatever with him, but I do like their dynamic where she is the kickass and he is the coward. I mean, I love Rita Vrataski. I'm disappointed that the movie had to be Cage's and not hers because I'm much more interested in how she worked the time loop and seeing her get the win. If you wanted to rewrite it that way, I'm down! If you want to hook them up after, I'm cool! If you want her to get the power back somehow or have never lost it in fact, I'm in!

That's actually pretty much it! I was super into the movie and super into Rita Vrataski and the bits of her story we got and still wish every time I watch it that Cage is incapacitated or dead somewhere on the last run and Rita has to finish the mission. I CAN'T HELP IT THEY MADE HER TOO GREAT. Okay and I lied because I do like Cage's arc--the callow shallow coward growing over the course of the movie into a true hero is great. I'd really be happy with just about anything in this one.


KING CREOLE (1958)
Crawfish Seller, Danny Fisher
source: streaming; it runs infrequently on TCM on US cable; and is on dvd & bluray

Another repeated request for a fandom with zero fic. Let me just say: I would be so happy with anything. ANYTHING. Crawfish Seller and Danny Fisher. Tell me a story. *chinhands* (OKAY SO. Have you seen this movie? I'm sure you have because why would you be offering... Let's start over. THIS MOVIE!!! :DDDD!!!! It's great and I love it so much and I hate to do this to you but: let's ignore everything that happens after the opening song! :D: You know, this one: Crawfish, with Kitty White (from 1:37 on in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQOlgXaSDy8). Because here is what I want. What I forever want. I want Danny and the Crawfish Seller to be in love and secretly together, and everything he's doing and everything she's doing is to try to make it so they can be together when everything around them basically exists to make that impossible. AND THE SONG IS PRETTY OBVIOUSLY CODE FOR WHEN THEY MEET SECRETLY AT NIGHT AMIRITE OR AMIRITE.

We know about him. I want to know about her, and her and him. So, maybe she thought it was only a fling, just to see what it would be like to pretend to be a girl in a world where it doesn't matter who she falls in love with. OR MAYBE HE KNOWS IT'S DOOMED AND ALL OF THE MOVIE IS HIS STUPID ACTING OUT TO GET HER TO HATE HIM? God, he is an unthinking dick aka nineteen-year-old dude, though, so this would work. Or tell me what she's doing during the movie when she's not on screen, which is ALL OF IT after this song. :( Tell me how she struggles and triumphs. Tell me how their paths cross if you aren't starting out with them being together or wanting to be together, or even if you are! Tell me whether she likes selling the crawfish, whether she likes driving the cart, whether she likes standing in knee-high water in the bayou in the mornings, and whether she's pulling up the big cages and thinking how someday maybe she'll have a rice field to flood instead, or it's late afternoon and she's sold her share for the day and she's not in school anymore and she can't afford college and she's not ready for XYZ and now she has a minute to do what she likes. God. Just. Everything. I want everything. Tell me about anything. (I mostly super want them to be a couple though, I can't lie.)

I feel like this is perpetually the longest of shots in my requests. But I want. Crawfish Seller/Danny Fisher, sweet jeebus, yes, gimme. It's all because of A) this song (♥♥ again, I'm gonna keep linking ittttt) and B) that big smacking kiss he throws at like 42 minutes into the movie, which is probably to the dancer across the street but IT'S NOT IT'S TO HIS LOVE THE CRAWFISH SELLER and I CAN'T BE RATIONAL ABOUT THIS. I'M SO SORRY. It's just that they made this movie right at the cusp of the major civil rights movement in America (though without showing any of that in the movie of course! and without having any characters of color who aren't background!), about as deep as you can get in the South, and almost a decade before Loving v Virginia officially killed interracial marriage bans in law (though not always in practice obvs), and I watch it or listen to the song on repeat, and I want it to be this other hugely complex and painful and wonderful thing instead. I WANT THESE POSSIBILITIES IN MY HEAD TO BE THE REALITY OF THE STORY SO BAD. But mostly I want to learn about crawfish and New Orleans and this girl who drives her cart through the French Quarter every morning and maybe about the boy who sings with her, too.


TRUE GRIT
Mattie Ross, LaBoeuf, Rooster Cogburn
source: intermittently available on streaming; dvd & bluray

What I love about this movie (and book), which is in my Top Five of all-time: Mattie Ross. She's such a little persimmon, as likely to pray for your soul as to damn you to hell herself, and so loyal and vengeful and mean and innocent. I love Rooster Cogburn in all his offensive, awful, rude, drunk, valiant glory. I love LaBoeuf's braggadocio and hunger for notoriety as much as his idiocy. I'd love any kind of adventure, solo/duo/trio as long as Mattie is there, either on the road where we didn't see or years later. Or character pieces. I'd be delighted by anything but death or torture, really. (Even those are negotiable.)

Right off the bat I need to tell you that I ship Mattie/LaBoeuf years down the line. And any story about Mattie after the events in the territory that doesn't deal with her amputation is kind of a deal-breaker for me. I don't expect a story has to be about it entirely, but erasing or eliding it is a no-go.

Found families are my JAM and this is one of the best examples of it in Western literature and film, in both senses of the word Western. As with the Arthurian request I am not a scholar of this period or genre, but I am a sucker for period detail and realism--I want ugly and awful and bloody and ruthless with this fandom. I think it's a disservice to the characters not to include those things. Kind of like, oh, say, a film version starring John Wayne that ignores all the dirty for the schmaltz instead! But I have such fondness for these three boneheads that if you wanted to wrap them all in cotton batting and feed them delicate candies and delectable roasted meats that would be great, too. If you love them, then I'd like to read the story you want to tell about them.


Okay, hopefully this didn't scare you off! Seriously, thank you for whatever you write this year. I'm very excited to read it! I hope you get the stories you want, too!! Happy Yuletide!!