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thefourthvine) wrote2018-10-10 07:38 am
thefourthvine) wrote2018-10-10 07:38 am
Yuletide 2018 Letter
Dear Writer,
Hi!
I am, as always, going to provide you with all the details, because that's what I hope to get from my recipient. But if details aren't your thing, please tap out of this letter now. Just know that I really, really cannot handle child or animal harm or death, and I love you for volunteering to write in one of these tiny fandoms. See you on the 25th!
Or, if you want to know more, read on.
About Me
I love so many things! Here is a small sample:
So that's the general stuff. Let's talk fandoms.
Chunder and Honks Poems — K. R. Fabian, Chunder, Honks
Request: Please just — tell me the tale of Chunder and Honks and their amazing love! Take a trope, any trope — even one of the ones that have already been done in verse — and go hog-wild. Whatever is good, as long as it’s light and frothy and there’s pining and denial and true love ever after. But I do have suggestions, in case you want more.
What about urban fantasy Chunder and Honks? Like. We hear a lot about magicians in urban fantasy, but less about extremely posh, idiot rich blokes who are, okay, yes, also related to elves/part-dryad/actually magic, but their parents would never let them go to anything as low-class as a school for magicians. (If you want to cross over, Rivers of London seems like a natural fit here.)
What about arranged marriage Chunder and Honks? (Their parents hope marriage will settle them down, I imagine.) Marriage of convenience Chunder and Honks? (They can avoid any unwise marriage choices by marrying their best friend. Brilliant!) Accidental marriage Chunder and Honks? (Katy does provide a nice potential outline of this one. But also there’s the Vegas wedding after they were so moved by Hazza’s, or the joke that they both carried on too long.) Fake dating Chunder and Honks? (Was it all a laugh, but it got out of hand?)
Amnesia? Perhaps Chunder forgets who he is and Honks shows him all his favorite things, hoping to bring Chunny back to him, but there is Some Confusion. Bodyswap? Maybe they think it will be the easiest thing in the world and it isn’t. (Or perhaps they swap into bodies other than each other’s. Imagine if one of them ended up as someone important!) Historical? What if Chunder and Honks lived in 1815 or 1563?
And if you’ve got a trope in mind I haven’t listed, go for that, instead. I don’t think there are any I don’t like, aside from death fic and dark fic and such. Mostly, I just want to marvel at the Chunder and Honks of it all, in any context and situation whatsoever.
Additional information: I was on Twitter watching Katy write this in real time, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I loved it, and it was perfect, and I wanted more. I have never seen a poem so made for tropes, or a poem that spoke so clearly to me. (“Fic” is pretty much what it said, by the way.)
I’d love for you to tell me more about Chunder and Honks — backstory or future or alternate universe — as long as the fundamentals about them remain true (they are dumb and ridiculous and hopeless and I would probably mostly want to punch them in real life, and they are in love, so very much in love, and don’t know it). And I’d love you to honor fannish traditions in the process.
I’m hoping for something that will make me smile or even laugh, and also something that will make Chunder and Honks happy. And that’s really all I have on this one.
If you’re looking for the poems, they are all available from this twitter thread, collated for your amazed reading convenience. Oh, and while the canon is poetry, I’m definitely hoping the fic is prose.
Historical Farm (UK TV), Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands, Peter Ginn
Request: I’d love to read about these three actually traveling in time. I can think of few people more ready, more willing, and more able, and honestly it seems like a dream they all share. How does it work? When do they go to? Do they like it? Did they volunteer, or was it an accident? Are they stuck there, or do they know how to get back? How do their relationships – both to each other and to history – change, once they’re doing this stuff for real? What’s it like for them, to know they can’t just take off the clothes and go back to the modern era at the end of the day?
If you’re up for a crossover or fusion, Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel universe seems like an obvious choice – you could write about their youthful adventures as time-traveling historians, or about them as older, more experienced historians, maybe dealing with a net crisis or rescuing historians in trouble.
I’d be delighted with either gen or Alex/Peter here. Also, feel free to include other characters from the series as you choose – maybe Ruth’s daughter gets stuck back in time with them (I do love Eve), or Professor Ronald Hutton shows up somehow, as he always seems to.
However it goes, I’m definitely hoping for a happy ending.
Additional information: And I’m back on the Farms for another year, because sometimes watching people pick daffodils is the only thing that gets me through the day. I love these series, and the people are what makes them all work. I love Ruth because she clearly loves the people of the past without romanticizing them, and because she's so fucking competent. I love watching her master old cooking equipment and make old recipes without either a "tee-hee, people ate such gross stuff!" or a "the Glorious Wisdom of the Past" tone. I love seeing her grimly haul herself out of bed in the dark to get the range going, or her sort of "I have no idea how I'm going to manage this, but I'm for sure going to manage it" attitude when she sees their new home at the start of a series.
I love the guys because they are sort of the bumbling, enthusiastic adolescent Labrador Retrievers of the farm. I love watching them get better at farming and stock-keeping over time, and develop their interests (like Alex's slightly weird love of chickens), and I also love watching them try hard and totally screw up, which shows just how difficult this shit really is. I love how Peter is incapable of doing anything without getting dirty, and how Alex is the worrywart of the group, always fretting over the harvest and the weather and the livestock. I also love the way their relationship has developed over time, the way they have gone from being the hapless boys in Green Valley to the relatively skilled farmers who play off each other so perfectly.
I love how all three of them interact – helping each other, talking and eating together, enjoying each other’s company, being a slightly non-traditional family.
Also, if you want to write pairing fic, which I am VERY INTO as an idea, let me just note that in Wartime Farm, Alex and Peter apparently shared a room and might do it again, in case that's a helpful detail.
(DNW note: this is a farming series. Obviously, a lot of animal death occurs, because it's a farm. If you could keep it off the page as much possible, I would greatly appreciate it, but if you've got them eating their own sheep or whatever, or some tension about if an animal is going to make it (and it does), that's fine.)
To pick up this series, click on one of these links and then just keep on. Be riveted by the magic of historical farming!
Edwardian Farm, episode 1.
Tudor Monastery Farm, episode 1.
Wartime Farm, episode 1.
Victorian Farm, episode 1.
Bonuses:
Tales from the Green Valley playlist. (This is the pilot and fun, but it's older and not like the others.)
Secrets of the Castle, episode 1. (Not a farm, but still fun. Unfortunately, the one I watched is no longer up, and this upload isn't great quality. Sorry!)
Full Steam Ahead, episode 1. (This is their latest series, and it’s about the development of the railway in the UK. It’s not a farm, and they’re not always in period clothing or doing period things, but it’s still fun. And Alex is back!)
If You’re Over Me – Years & Years (Music Video), no characters
Request: Worldbuilding, please! Any worldbuilding you want to write!
Some possible questions you might want to answer: Why are the humans, who presumably built the androids (or did they?), now in a situation where the androids appear to hold power over them? Why are the androids hoping to feel human emotion, when many humans would give a lot not to, and the androids have no special reason to value it? (Or I guess they do, but what is the reason?) Why have the androids chosen their mostly very human (but sometimes not, and -- why?), varied appearances, while the humans, at least the cabaret humans, are mostly pretty similar? Are there other humans in this world who have power, or is it androids on top, humans all the way down? What is life like in a human cabaret, and how do you end up there? What do the androids do when they’re not at a cabaret? What is it like being an android trying to learn about human emotions via observation and deduction, and hoping to get from there to feeling, which is undefinable and weird? How does that go down? What is the DEAL with “Midnight approaches. Embrace the dark”?
Or, if you want to go down the human/human pairing road: What is it like being in a human cabaret? How does constantly performing emotions for androids affect your ability to own your own emotions, or believe other people’s emotions, or to value feelings at all? How does it affect your relationship with other humans, especially, you know, romantic relationships?
Or, if you, like me, love a good android/human pairing: How does this world’s weird focus on human emotion influence that kind of relationship? I’m assuming there’d be some “can you even have feelings for me?” and some “is my ability to make you feel things the only reason you care about me?” But there’s bound to be a LOT more baggage in this, and I am here for all of it, as long as it ends happily.
Or I am also absolutely here for android/android, in which case: How do androids develop a romantic and/or sexual relationship? How does it play out with respect to feelings, both physical and emotional? Do they still attend human cabarets, or are these androids ones who get their feelings fix elsewhere? I’d rather they not be doing it solely in imitation of humans, but otherwise, I’m open.
Basically, I just want to know more about this world. You cannot go wrong with that. I am good with most pairings (although ideally, I’d like to avoid m/f this year) and all ratings and whatever character you want to write about, whether they’re in the video or not.
I would appreciate a happy ending. This is not a year for additional grimness or darkness for me.
Additional information: This video became a Yuletide fandom for me before it even started. As soon as that title card about the human cabarets being attended by androids appeared, I was in this for life and for fic, because androids and robots are my own true love, and worldbuilding is my own true love, and also people having trouble with feelings is my own true love. This could not be more made for me. I just need a whole lot more of it.
And while my heart is full of nothing but love for this concept, my head is ENTIRELY QUESTIONS, and Years & Years did not exactly cram the video full of answers, although I definitely appreciate everything they did find the space for. I just want a level of detail that is not possible in a video the length of a single song. But that does mean you can pick pretty much any detail and write about it and bring me joy. (FYI: I know nothing at all about Years & Years or the people in it, so if you throw in references to them, or their other videos, it might be helpful to provide some links in the author’s notes so I can get up to speed before I read your fic.)
Any part of this world that you want to flesh out and make real is a part of this world that I am very eager to read about.
If you want to pick this one up, good news! It’s like four minutes long and readily available on YouTube. Note: Not work-safe, unless you work in a very relaxed environment.
Men’s Basketball RPF, Earvin Johnson, Larry Bird
Request: I -- genuinely think Magic Johnson and Larry Bird might have soulbonded at the NCAA Championship in 1979. They certainly went from zero to intense, eternal focus pretty damn quickly. So what I want to know is -- what happened? Where did it go from there? How does that work, when you're playing against each other, when one of you doesn't even LIKE the other, when you're such incredibly different human beings?
If you go with the actual soulbond, there are lots of interesting possibilities here - Larry fighting the bond because of course he would, the way it affected them and their game, how it drove them to play. Or you could talk about how they finally accepted the soulbond and what it's like now, being comfortable with it and each other, years after the fighting and the struggle finally ended. Just, anything.
And if you take the non-soulbond route (which is of course entirely welcome; this definitely doesn't have to be a literal soulbond), just what IS going on? They have SOME kind of bond, that much is clear, and I'd love to hear what it's like: forever friendship, repeating reincarnation as people obsessed with each other, multiverse-spanning romance, whatever. I just want more about this intense *thing* they have going.
I'm good with gen, slash, and poly. Just please no straight-up infidelity. There's always gen, or unmarried AUs, or setting the sex before the marriage, or spousal knowledge and consent (my favorite!), or spousal involvement. Or something else you come up with! LET THE MAGIC (hee!) OF BIRD AND JOHNSON GUIDE YOU, basically.
Additional information: Okay, I am a trifle concerned that my request makes me sound like an exceptionally weird tinhat. No! No! I am merely reporting the truth, which is that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird appear to have a real-life soulbond!
...That didn't help my case. But I have solid evidence. The documentary A Courtship of Rivals (YouTube link to full documentary, but you only need to watch the first ten minutes to see the literal discussion of the soulbond) could not be clearer. These guys are bonded in some way. And I just find that fascinating. You could not have two more different people playing the same game (unless, like, one of them was a Vulcan - SHUSH NO WRONG FANDOM). You could not have a more intense rivalry. And yet it's abundantly clear they have a ton of respect for each other, a ton of very genuine love for each other, and they know each other so well - every appearance I've ever seen them in has just been so great for that. We have Magic, dude who loves people, hugs, and fame, and Larry, dude whose basic approach to life is "go away and leave me alone because I have a lot of very important scowling to do," and they love each other, and that is the greatest thing to me.
Basically, I adore these guys. And I am riveted by their great and weird relationship. Anything you write about them navigating that relationship while being their extremely awesome selves will be wonderful.
And if you're up for pairing fic, I would love that, any rating.
To pick this fandom up, watch that documentary. Marvel at its dedication to pushing the soulbond storyline!
Nomads (1986) — Eileen Flax, Veronique Pommier
Request: These women have, by the end of the movie, a relationship that was made for fic, and so I’m hoping for something set after the movie. How do things go when you simultaneously remember someone as your new friend made while surviving a terrible ordeal and your beloved wife? How do things go when you’re on the run with someone you barely know except she also has the memories of the person you know best in the world?
And there’s also the issue of practical matters. How do they live? Eileen’s ability to practice medicine is going to be somewhat limited, at least at first, since being on the run tends to inhibit your ability to obtain a license and a job. Does she become a doctor for people with paranormal maladies, or for supernatural people, or just for other people on the run? And what does Veronique, who came to this country hoping for some peaceful downtime and did not at all get that, in fact got the opposite of that, do after the trauma of the movie?
I would be delighted with femslash. I would be delighted with gen. I would be delighted with them turning around and taking the battle to the Nomads (though how, I cannot possibly tell you). I would be delighted with them encountering a new kind of evil and becoming a two-woman, three-sets-of-memories supernatural detection team. I just want to know how things go after the movie ends for these two. And please please please give them some kind of happily ever after, or the potential for one.
Additional information: I have a somewhat questionable history with this movie. Back when movie rentals were still a thing you went to an actual store to do, my sister rented this movie approximately 3.5 million times. (She had a thing for an actor appearing in it. You could very reasonably ask why she didn’t just buy the movie, but I have no answer for that, except possibly a desire to give all of her money to rental companies. I suspect her eventual loss of interest in this movie is what caused Blockbuster to go out of business.) I mostly watched it with her, technically, but unfortunately this was before I could understand movies, so I was largely watching an entirely different movie (with similar dialogue) in my head.
Many years later, my wife and I watched it together, and once I understood what I was watching I immediately came to an important realization: for me, this movie is essentially one long prologue to fic. Like, okay, I’m sorry, but Eileen literally has Veronique’s dead husband’s memories and they literally drive off into the sunset together to make a new life. I just ... feel like that needs exploring, you know? I mean, yay Nomads, yay vaguely creepy paranormal whatever, but what of the relationship?
And these are two fascinating women. I mean, Veronique takes in a woman who is apparently crazy and ranting and who seems to know her dead husband way too well and is basically incredibly kind to her, even though Niki’s life is going SUPER not well. And Eileen is this analytical, problem-solving person who is going to find out what happened and fix this problem even if it, you know, destroys her life and drives her insane. (Also, her first thought when she wakes up in Veronique’s bed is apparently “Wait, did we have sex?” I am just saying. It was not far from Eileen’s mind.) They are both willing to burn down lives they loved to stay alive, and I believe that means they can build something new in the ashes. I love them both, and hope they find happiness on the other side of their Nomad-Related Life Implosion.
This is technically a horror movie, but a) it’s so non-horrifying that I, a noted wimp, can watch it even after dark (except the deeply creepy abbey/nun sequence, because I am still a wimp) and b) I’m not really here for the horror aspect. I mean, okay, Pierce Brosnan, vaguely punkish Nomads acting like people in a gang in a movie, memory stealing, fine, that’s all good. But. Well. It’s not actually my focus. My focus is on how people survive events this weird, how they make new lives after surviving, and how it all affects them.
I will be happy with any rating you care to write on this one. If you’re going to write a pairing, I’m only really interested in Eileen/Veronique here.
If you want to pick this up — uh, it’s on Netfix, I think? It’s definitely available for rental on Amazon. And there’s also this copy, although I cannot vouch for its quality, on YouTube.
Hi!
I am, as always, going to provide you with all the details, because that's what I hope to get from my recipient. But if details aren't your thing, please tap out of this letter now. Just know that I really, really cannot handle child or animal harm or death, and I love you for volunteering to write in one of these tiny fandoms. See you on the 25th!
Or, if you want to know more, read on.
About Me
I love so many things! Here is a small sample:
- Happy endings. (Um, I mean of the everyone lives happily ever after kind. Although I am also a big fan of orgasms, not gonna lie.)
- Humor.
- Slow burn romances and slow build sex scenes.
- Action and adventure.
- Snappy dialogue.
- Classic fan fiction tropes, whether played straight or inverted. (Soulbonds! Werewolves! Bodyswap! Arranged marriages! Fake dating! Amnesia! And so on.)
- Families (found, biological, synthetic, hologrammatic, whatever) being good to each other.
- Robots, spaceships, aliens, space opera, military science fiction.
- Urban fantasy, magical politics, dryads in backwards Dodgers caps, parking spells, secret libraries full of Starbucks-sipping, bluetooth-headset-wearing magical theory students.
- People who have problems with feelings.
- Pining and denial of the I-am-definitely-not-feeling-anything kind.
- Animal and child harm or death. These are my only dealbreakers; I can't handle them at all.
- Embarrassment and humiliation.
- Rape.
- The abuse of women.
- Infidelity.
- Zombies or cannibalism.
- Character death or characters with cancer.
- Pairings with big power imbalances -- teacher/student, doctor/patient, huge age gaps, etc -- or a male/female power imbalance with the woman on the less powerful end.
- Unhappy endings.
So that's the general stuff. Let's talk fandoms.
Chunder and Honks Poems — K. R. Fabian, Chunder, Honks
Request: Please just — tell me the tale of Chunder and Honks and their amazing love! Take a trope, any trope — even one of the ones that have already been done in verse — and go hog-wild. Whatever is good, as long as it’s light and frothy and there’s pining and denial and true love ever after. But I do have suggestions, in case you want more.
What about urban fantasy Chunder and Honks? Like. We hear a lot about magicians in urban fantasy, but less about extremely posh, idiot rich blokes who are, okay, yes, also related to elves/part-dryad/actually magic, but their parents would never let them go to anything as low-class as a school for magicians. (If you want to cross over, Rivers of London seems like a natural fit here.)
What about arranged marriage Chunder and Honks? (Their parents hope marriage will settle them down, I imagine.) Marriage of convenience Chunder and Honks? (They can avoid any unwise marriage choices by marrying their best friend. Brilliant!) Accidental marriage Chunder and Honks? (Katy does provide a nice potential outline of this one. But also there’s the Vegas wedding after they were so moved by Hazza’s, or the joke that they both carried on too long.) Fake dating Chunder and Honks? (Was it all a laugh, but it got out of hand?)
Amnesia? Perhaps Chunder forgets who he is and Honks shows him all his favorite things, hoping to bring Chunny back to him, but there is Some Confusion. Bodyswap? Maybe they think it will be the easiest thing in the world and it isn’t. (Or perhaps they swap into bodies other than each other’s. Imagine if one of them ended up as someone important!) Historical? What if Chunder and Honks lived in 1815 or 1563?
And if you’ve got a trope in mind I haven’t listed, go for that, instead. I don’t think there are any I don’t like, aside from death fic and dark fic and such. Mostly, I just want to marvel at the Chunder and Honks of it all, in any context and situation whatsoever.
Additional information: I was on Twitter watching Katy write this in real time, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I loved it, and it was perfect, and I wanted more. I have never seen a poem so made for tropes, or a poem that spoke so clearly to me. (“Fic” is pretty much what it said, by the way.)
I’d love for you to tell me more about Chunder and Honks — backstory or future or alternate universe — as long as the fundamentals about them remain true (they are dumb and ridiculous and hopeless and I would probably mostly want to punch them in real life, and they are in love, so very much in love, and don’t know it). And I’d love you to honor fannish traditions in the process.
I’m hoping for something that will make me smile or even laugh, and also something that will make Chunder and Honks happy. And that’s really all I have on this one.
If you’re looking for the poems, they are all available from this twitter thread, collated for your amazed reading convenience. Oh, and while the canon is poetry, I’m definitely hoping the fic is prose.
Historical Farm (UK TV), Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands, Peter Ginn
Request: I’d love to read about these three actually traveling in time. I can think of few people more ready, more willing, and more able, and honestly it seems like a dream they all share. How does it work? When do they go to? Do they like it? Did they volunteer, or was it an accident? Are they stuck there, or do they know how to get back? How do their relationships – both to each other and to history – change, once they’re doing this stuff for real? What’s it like for them, to know they can’t just take off the clothes and go back to the modern era at the end of the day?
If you’re up for a crossover or fusion, Connie Willis’s Oxford Time Travel universe seems like an obvious choice – you could write about their youthful adventures as time-traveling historians, or about them as older, more experienced historians, maybe dealing with a net crisis or rescuing historians in trouble.
I’d be delighted with either gen or Alex/Peter here. Also, feel free to include other characters from the series as you choose – maybe Ruth’s daughter gets stuck back in time with them (I do love Eve), or Professor Ronald Hutton shows up somehow, as he always seems to.
However it goes, I’m definitely hoping for a happy ending.
Additional information: And I’m back on the Farms for another year, because sometimes watching people pick daffodils is the only thing that gets me through the day. I love these series, and the people are what makes them all work. I love Ruth because she clearly loves the people of the past without romanticizing them, and because she's so fucking competent. I love watching her master old cooking equipment and make old recipes without either a "tee-hee, people ate such gross stuff!" or a "the Glorious Wisdom of the Past" tone. I love seeing her grimly haul herself out of bed in the dark to get the range going, or her sort of "I have no idea how I'm going to manage this, but I'm for sure going to manage it" attitude when she sees their new home at the start of a series.
I love the guys because they are sort of the bumbling, enthusiastic adolescent Labrador Retrievers of the farm. I love watching them get better at farming and stock-keeping over time, and develop their interests (like Alex's slightly weird love of chickens), and I also love watching them try hard and totally screw up, which shows just how difficult this shit really is. I love how Peter is incapable of doing anything without getting dirty, and how Alex is the worrywart of the group, always fretting over the harvest and the weather and the livestock. I also love the way their relationship has developed over time, the way they have gone from being the hapless boys in Green Valley to the relatively skilled farmers who play off each other so perfectly.
I love how all three of them interact – helping each other, talking and eating together, enjoying each other’s company, being a slightly non-traditional family.
Also, if you want to write pairing fic, which I am VERY INTO as an idea, let me just note that in Wartime Farm, Alex and Peter apparently shared a room and might do it again, in case that's a helpful detail.
(DNW note: this is a farming series. Obviously, a lot of animal death occurs, because it's a farm. If you could keep it off the page as much possible, I would greatly appreciate it, but if you've got them eating their own sheep or whatever, or some tension about if an animal is going to make it (and it does), that's fine.)
To pick up this series, click on one of these links and then just keep on. Be riveted by the magic of historical farming!
Edwardian Farm, episode 1.
Tudor Monastery Farm, episode 1.
Wartime Farm, episode 1.
Victorian Farm, episode 1.
Bonuses:
Tales from the Green Valley playlist. (This is the pilot and fun, but it's older and not like the others.)
Secrets of the Castle, episode 1. (Not a farm, but still fun. Unfortunately, the one I watched is no longer up, and this upload isn't great quality. Sorry!)
Full Steam Ahead, episode 1. (This is their latest series, and it’s about the development of the railway in the UK. It’s not a farm, and they’re not always in period clothing or doing period things, but it’s still fun. And Alex is back!)
If You’re Over Me – Years & Years (Music Video), no characters
Request: Worldbuilding, please! Any worldbuilding you want to write!
Some possible questions you might want to answer: Why are the humans, who presumably built the androids (or did they?), now in a situation where the androids appear to hold power over them? Why are the androids hoping to feel human emotion, when many humans would give a lot not to, and the androids have no special reason to value it? (Or I guess they do, but what is the reason?) Why have the androids chosen their mostly very human (but sometimes not, and -- why?), varied appearances, while the humans, at least the cabaret humans, are mostly pretty similar? Are there other humans in this world who have power, or is it androids on top, humans all the way down? What is life like in a human cabaret, and how do you end up there? What do the androids do when they’re not at a cabaret? What is it like being an android trying to learn about human emotions via observation and deduction, and hoping to get from there to feeling, which is undefinable and weird? How does that go down? What is the DEAL with “Midnight approaches. Embrace the dark”?
Or, if you want to go down the human/human pairing road: What is it like being in a human cabaret? How does constantly performing emotions for androids affect your ability to own your own emotions, or believe other people’s emotions, or to value feelings at all? How does it affect your relationship with other humans, especially, you know, romantic relationships?
Or, if you, like me, love a good android/human pairing: How does this world’s weird focus on human emotion influence that kind of relationship? I’m assuming there’d be some “can you even have feelings for me?” and some “is my ability to make you feel things the only reason you care about me?” But there’s bound to be a LOT more baggage in this, and I am here for all of it, as long as it ends happily.
Or I am also absolutely here for android/android, in which case: How do androids develop a romantic and/or sexual relationship? How does it play out with respect to feelings, both physical and emotional? Do they still attend human cabarets, or are these androids ones who get their feelings fix elsewhere? I’d rather they not be doing it solely in imitation of humans, but otherwise, I’m open.
Basically, I just want to know more about this world. You cannot go wrong with that. I am good with most pairings (although ideally, I’d like to avoid m/f this year) and all ratings and whatever character you want to write about, whether they’re in the video or not.
I would appreciate a happy ending. This is not a year for additional grimness or darkness for me.
Additional information: This video became a Yuletide fandom for me before it even started. As soon as that title card about the human cabarets being attended by androids appeared, I was in this for life and for fic, because androids and robots are my own true love, and worldbuilding is my own true love, and also people having trouble with feelings is my own true love. This could not be more made for me. I just need a whole lot more of it.
And while my heart is full of nothing but love for this concept, my head is ENTIRELY QUESTIONS, and Years & Years did not exactly cram the video full of answers, although I definitely appreciate everything they did find the space for. I just want a level of detail that is not possible in a video the length of a single song. But that does mean you can pick pretty much any detail and write about it and bring me joy. (FYI: I know nothing at all about Years & Years or the people in it, so if you throw in references to them, or their other videos, it might be helpful to provide some links in the author’s notes so I can get up to speed before I read your fic.)
Any part of this world that you want to flesh out and make real is a part of this world that I am very eager to read about.
If you want to pick this one up, good news! It’s like four minutes long and readily available on YouTube. Note: Not work-safe, unless you work in a very relaxed environment.
Men’s Basketball RPF, Earvin Johnson, Larry Bird
Request: I -- genuinely think Magic Johnson and Larry Bird might have soulbonded at the NCAA Championship in 1979. They certainly went from zero to intense, eternal focus pretty damn quickly. So what I want to know is -- what happened? Where did it go from there? How does that work, when you're playing against each other, when one of you doesn't even LIKE the other, when you're such incredibly different human beings?
If you go with the actual soulbond, there are lots of interesting possibilities here - Larry fighting the bond because of course he would, the way it affected them and their game, how it drove them to play. Or you could talk about how they finally accepted the soulbond and what it's like now, being comfortable with it and each other, years after the fighting and the struggle finally ended. Just, anything.
And if you take the non-soulbond route (which is of course entirely welcome; this definitely doesn't have to be a literal soulbond), just what IS going on? They have SOME kind of bond, that much is clear, and I'd love to hear what it's like: forever friendship, repeating reincarnation as people obsessed with each other, multiverse-spanning romance, whatever. I just want more about this intense *thing* they have going.
I'm good with gen, slash, and poly. Just please no straight-up infidelity. There's always gen, or unmarried AUs, or setting the sex before the marriage, or spousal knowledge and consent (my favorite!), or spousal involvement. Or something else you come up with! LET THE MAGIC (hee!) OF BIRD AND JOHNSON GUIDE YOU, basically.
Additional information: Okay, I am a trifle concerned that my request makes me sound like an exceptionally weird tinhat. No! No! I am merely reporting the truth, which is that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird appear to have a real-life soulbond!
...That didn't help my case. But I have solid evidence. The documentary A Courtship of Rivals (YouTube link to full documentary, but you only need to watch the first ten minutes to see the literal discussion of the soulbond) could not be clearer. These guys are bonded in some way. And I just find that fascinating. You could not have two more different people playing the same game (unless, like, one of them was a Vulcan - SHUSH NO WRONG FANDOM). You could not have a more intense rivalry. And yet it's abundantly clear they have a ton of respect for each other, a ton of very genuine love for each other, and they know each other so well - every appearance I've ever seen them in has just been so great for that. We have Magic, dude who loves people, hugs, and fame, and Larry, dude whose basic approach to life is "go away and leave me alone because I have a lot of very important scowling to do," and they love each other, and that is the greatest thing to me.
Basically, I adore these guys. And I am riveted by their great and weird relationship. Anything you write about them navigating that relationship while being their extremely awesome selves will be wonderful.
And if you're up for pairing fic, I would love that, any rating.
To pick this fandom up, watch that documentary. Marvel at its dedication to pushing the soulbond storyline!
Nomads (1986) — Eileen Flax, Veronique Pommier
Request: These women have, by the end of the movie, a relationship that was made for fic, and so I’m hoping for something set after the movie. How do things go when you simultaneously remember someone as your new friend made while surviving a terrible ordeal and your beloved wife? How do things go when you’re on the run with someone you barely know except she also has the memories of the person you know best in the world?
And there’s also the issue of practical matters. How do they live? Eileen’s ability to practice medicine is going to be somewhat limited, at least at first, since being on the run tends to inhibit your ability to obtain a license and a job. Does she become a doctor for people with paranormal maladies, or for supernatural people, or just for other people on the run? And what does Veronique, who came to this country hoping for some peaceful downtime and did not at all get that, in fact got the opposite of that, do after the trauma of the movie?
I would be delighted with femslash. I would be delighted with gen. I would be delighted with them turning around and taking the battle to the Nomads (though how, I cannot possibly tell you). I would be delighted with them encountering a new kind of evil and becoming a two-woman, three-sets-of-memories supernatural detection team. I just want to know how things go after the movie ends for these two. And please please please give them some kind of happily ever after, or the potential for one.
Additional information: I have a somewhat questionable history with this movie. Back when movie rentals were still a thing you went to an actual store to do, my sister rented this movie approximately 3.5 million times. (She had a thing for an actor appearing in it. You could very reasonably ask why she didn’t just buy the movie, but I have no answer for that, except possibly a desire to give all of her money to rental companies. I suspect her eventual loss of interest in this movie is what caused Blockbuster to go out of business.) I mostly watched it with her, technically, but unfortunately this was before I could understand movies, so I was largely watching an entirely different movie (with similar dialogue) in my head.
Many years later, my wife and I watched it together, and once I understood what I was watching I immediately came to an important realization: for me, this movie is essentially one long prologue to fic. Like, okay, I’m sorry, but Eileen literally has Veronique’s dead husband’s memories and they literally drive off into the sunset together to make a new life. I just ... feel like that needs exploring, you know? I mean, yay Nomads, yay vaguely creepy paranormal whatever, but what of the relationship?
And these are two fascinating women. I mean, Veronique takes in a woman who is apparently crazy and ranting and who seems to know her dead husband way too well and is basically incredibly kind to her, even though Niki’s life is going SUPER not well. And Eileen is this analytical, problem-solving person who is going to find out what happened and fix this problem even if it, you know, destroys her life and drives her insane. (Also, her first thought when she wakes up in Veronique’s bed is apparently “Wait, did we have sex?” I am just saying. It was not far from Eileen’s mind.) They are both willing to burn down lives they loved to stay alive, and I believe that means they can build something new in the ashes. I love them both, and hope they find happiness on the other side of their Nomad-Related Life Implosion.
This is technically a horror movie, but a) it’s so non-horrifying that I, a noted wimp, can watch it even after dark (except the deeply creepy abbey/nun sequence, because I am still a wimp) and b) I’m not really here for the horror aspect. I mean, okay, Pierce Brosnan, vaguely punkish Nomads acting like people in a gang in a movie, memory stealing, fine, that’s all good. But. Well. It’s not actually my focus. My focus is on how people survive events this weird, how they make new lives after surviving, and how it all affects them.
I will be happy with any rating you care to write on this one. If you’re going to write a pairing, I’m only really interested in Eileen/Veronique here.
If you want to pick this up — uh, it’s on Netfix, I think? It’s definitely available for rental on Amazon. And there’s also this copy, although I cannot vouch for its quality, on YouTube.