life is fucking nuts, isn't it?

ETA: treats so welcome! <3 <3 <3

Will I ever use this account again for anything but yuletide? Idk, but weirdly I've actually been semi-active in a writing/posting sense on tumblr lately -- hmu if you want that account info.

In the meantime,

Likes: close-to-canon canon divergence, missing scenes, awkward conversations about feelings, close relationships that don't map to family structures, people figuring out (usually belatedly) how to Deal With Their Shit. Feel free to poke around on my Ao3/bookmarks for vibes.

DNWs: Brain damage or memory loss, graphic sexual violence, permanent main character death

( Yuletide letter by fandom! )

Dear my yuletide match,

Hi! How are you this fine day? I'm so excited to read whatever you come up with--for some reason, yuletide is exempt from my general grinchiness around the holidays, and everything about participating thrills me. First, I want to say that I am totally a believer in optional details being optional--with the exception of the few things that I have a genuine problem reading (which I'll list below), I would pretty much always prefer for you to completely forget everything in this letter and write a story you're really invested in telling than to force yourself to write something that fits my tastes.

The only things I'm not really up for in the fic I read are brain damage, mind control or amnesia, and I'd prefer not to read anything that involves my favorite characters committing acts of sexual violence. Other than that, the playing field is pretty wide-open.

I'm a confirmed multishipper, so if there's a particular ship in any of these fandoms that you either want to try out or are really into, chances are I'll be totally down for that. I also read a lot of gen, so if shipping isn't your cup of tea, either in general or in whatever fandom we match up in, that's awesome too.

Fresh Meat (Oregon Shawcross, Vod Nordstrom)

These girls, man, they slay me. I usually try to stay kind of ship-neutral in these letters so my writer doesn't feel pressured, but I'll admit it here, I totally ship it. Truly, madly, deeply. If you feel like going in a gen direction that's totally cool, too--I bet they'd have some rad gen hijinks, maybe getting their first apartment together out of school, say, or protest-hopping to trawl for boys. Like, I'm not knocking the appeal of their straight, unadulterated friendship. But if you feel like writing them into a relationship, or just into bed, I would be in no way at all displeased. Just throwing that out there.

What I love about these two when they interact is that even when they're bad for each other, even when they fuck each other up, when Vod expects Oregon to do her homework or Oregon lies about her identity or they have a falling-out while backpacking (and I'm totally curious about how that vacation of theirs really went down) there's such caring underlying the ways that they're awful to each other that there's never any question that they'll move past it. I'd love to see Vod pursue acting, I'd love to see Oregon not being a good writer and knowing it and keeping on writing anyway, I'd love to see them supporting each other in a myriad of all-encompassing, over-the-top, ridiculous, round-about ways. I want Vod to start taking some hesitating, clumsy steps towards dealing with some of the issues her mother left her with. I want them to have dinner with Oregon's parents. Basically, I want anything at all you can throw at me, so if this show is your show, come at me, bro. Do your worst.

(I also love every other character on the show, p. much, so if you feel like moving in an ensemble direction, that's perfect too [though if there's any Josie-bashing I will probably cry--my friend I watch the show with is pretty anti-Josie and idgi at all--she's my delusional-sunshine-murder-baby].)

Poldark (TV 1975) (Demelza Carne, Jinny Carter, Francis Poldark, Ross Poldark)

Poldark. Okay, massive overshare/storytime. The Poldark series had a weirdly massive influence on my childhood--when I was a kid, my mom used to check the VHSs of it out from the library and watch it after I went to bed when I was in elementary school. Since I was a teeny tiny insomniac, I would lie awake in the next room and listen to the whole thing. I would do this with a lot of the movies she watched, but for some reason, Poldark was the one that I couldn't take just listening to without being able to see, so a couple of nights (and episodes) in, I got out of bed and walked in to the living room. I was expecting my mom to send me back to bed, and I still don't know why she didn't, but she moved over on the couch and let me sit and watch with her for hours. I can't say I totally understood all of it at the time, but I was pretty enthralled anyway, and there were scenes from it stuck in my head for years and years afterwards.

Fast forward to this past summer, me just graduated from college and at loose ends and living with my mom while I figure out my next step. I heard that there was going to be a reboot starring Aiden Turner, and I got really excited. I told my mom, and we spent an entire night looking up everything else the actors in the original cast had ever done. The next day, I went in to the local library I hadn't been to since I left for school and braved my years-ignored library fine to check out the DVDs. We watched them all in a rush, and I was as charmed by the show's overblown sentiment and '70s-interpretation-of-period-hair hair as I was the first time, but it kept hitting me that the pace just moved so fast, there wasn't time to explore these character dynamics fully. Basically, what I'm saying is that if our match-up fandom is Poldark, no matter what you do, I'm going to just be so incredibly gratified to get a peek into someone else's thoughts about the show (and if you feel like chatting about it post-yuletide, I'd be totally up for that).

I think Demelza is one of the most fascinating characters in the world, and anything you feel like writing about her will thrill me. Jinny is actually my favorite, I'd be so interested in anything from her point of view. I'm also interested in Ross's relationship with her entire family, so if that's something you feel like grappling with, feel free. Ross is a pretty odd, intense dude, so it makes sense that pretty much all of his relationships are likewise odd and intense. I'm always intrigued by his relationship with Francis, who always grows on me in the strangest way as the series goes on. Francis's actions are so tied up in Ross's reactions and pushing Ross's buttons, whereas Ross barely seems to think about Francis at all--until the scene with the cards, that is, when he notices Francis being picked on and sweeps in in a way that feels habitual to me, like that was their dynamic in childhood. I didn't have enough character options to nominate Verity, too, but if you felt like looking at her relationships with Francis and/or Ross, I'd also be into that.

Political Animals (Anne Ogami, Douglas Hammond, TJ Hammond)

Like the entirety of tumblr, I have a massive weakness for Sebastian Stan right now, which is why I embarked on my Political Animals rewatch this summer. By the end of it, though, I realized that as much as I love TJ, my stand-out favorite at this point is Anne. I'd love anything about her carving out a place for her in the Hammond/Barrish family, especially anything where she spends some time with TJ, or more interactions with Margaret, and anything that addresses how messed up it was when the family chased her and Douglas down to crash their elopement would definitely be something I'd be into. I'm also really intrigued by TJ and Douglas's relationship, so if Anne's not as interesting to you as she is to me, I'd also love to read anything about those two growing up.

Hanna (Hanna Heller, Sophie)

Basically anything about these two reconnecting as adults, or about what Hanna does next after the end of the movie. Honestly, if you're into AUs, I'd be interested in that for these two, too. Feel free to take it to a shippy place, but no pressure. I'm also into crossovers if I have any familiarity with the other fandom, so if that's what you're into, feel free to poke around in my journal or my AO3 bookmarks. Basically, if this is where we match up, I'm up for pretty much anything, though it'd make me extra pleased if it could end happily or at least ambiguously--poor Hanna deserves a break, you know?

Boyhood (Mason Evans, Olivia Evans, Mindy Welbrock, Randy Welbrock)

I enjoyed this movie so much, and one of the reasons was that it put things on-screen that I could really connect to, types of relationships that I hadn't really seen depicted in fiction before, and was only familiar with from my life. One of those things was the way Mason and Samantha and Mindy and Randy interacted in that brief period when their parents were married--less than family and more than friends, close in a way that was slightly forced but still genuine. The way it was their parents' relationships that completely dictated their own because they were children and their connections to each other had always been out of their control. I'd love either a closer look at those kids finding ways to fit together when they were kids, and trying to find a dynamic that worked for all of them, or maybe a story about them reconnecting later in life somehow.

Bad Education (Chantelle Parsons, Frank Grayson, Stephen Carmichael)

Chantelle and Stephen's friendship is pretty much my favorite thing in the world, I'd love a closer look at that, and if you felt like getting into how they got to know each other, that'd be awesome, too. I'd also love more of Frank and Stephen's relationship--if there's one thing about this last season that surprised me, it was how much it hurt to hear Frank Grayson say "I'm not pedigree." I mean, I still laughed, but it was one of those choking, incredulous types of laughs that stuck in my chest. This is one of those absurd, over-the-top shows that doesn't stray into genuine emotion very often. I'm not sure whether I'd more like to read a story that's as absurd as the show, or one that digs into the characters a little more and fills them out. Either one would be fantastic. Both would be transcendent. If you feel like writing about these three characters spending time together at some point, though, that's something I would love.


So hey, mystery writer! I hope I haven't overwhelmed you here--I've had exchange assignments light on details enough to make me nervous, and I don;t want to do that to someone else, but seriously, feel free to ignore any of this you don't want to deal with.

Thank you in advance for writing my story!

<3

-pc