Yuletide 2018

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Hi! Thank you for writing for me, I am super excited to see what you might come up with!

General stuff

I love angst (with or without a happy ending), I love hurt/comfort, I love porn. I love fantasy/sci-fi/magical realism AUs for canons which are normally very realistic, rivals who develop a grudging respect for one another, guilt and redemption, control and losing it (consensually or otherwise), I love pining and characters who struggle to open up emotionally or live in denial. I love reading fic that makes me think about canon in a new light or consider a different perspective, I love role reversal or canon-divergent AUs and I really enjoy missing scenes or codas.

DNW: eye trauma, amputation, pregnancy

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Valencia

Valencia, my shallow, vicious darling girl! She’s my favourite character in the show - just as vulnerable and eager for love/camaraderie as Rebecca but showing it very differently. I love her transformation from someone who doesn’t have female friends to throwing herself wholeheartedly into the #gurlgroup4evah and eventually going on to fall for another woman; I love the glimpses we see of her loneliness and hurt and the giant walls she throws up to pretend otherwise; I love how excited she was to be friends with Rebecca, despite everything that had happened between them, I love seeing all the hints that she’s equally fucked-up and in need of professional help, and how deeply she cares for her friends without ever losing her cattiness completely.

I know that the creators said otherwise but I do see Valencia as a closeted lesbian who was in denial and violently repressing her attraction to women (freaking out when Rebecca first kissed her, avoiding being close to women for years, building all her goals for her life around reaching all the traditional heteronormative goalposts with Josh and then getting over her boyfriend of ten years super quickly). I’d prefer not to read anything about her being “straight but with an exception”.

I ship both Rebecca/Valencia and Heather/Valencia, and I’d be interested in seeing some more of the Beth/Valencia relationship development we didn’t get on screen and I love Valencia’s friendships with Rebecca, Heather and Paula. I’d also be interested in getting more more of her backstory with some of the other characters she refers to - like her old high school friends, “that bitch I cannot stand” Denise Martinez, or Susie Reynolds, the formerly homeless classmate whose political career Valencia seems to follow super closely.

Prompts

• Valencia says “ghosts are obsessed with me” and is really quick to accept that the reason nobody is acknowledging her great revenge plot is because she’s dead. Give me Valencia the paranormal enthusiast secretly fighting against the supernatural! The squad going on a road trip to a haunted (or “haunted”) house! Any AU where she’s a vampire hunter or ghostbuster or a witch!

• There are a lot of hints that Valencia has an eating disorder (she claims to have been starving herself since she was about 9!), she sets up the whole hashtag movement to avoid confronting her own emotions about Rebecca’s suicide attempt and she was super casual about her high school English teacher and the statutory rape in 1.02. I’d love to read anything which delved into her perspective a bit more around any of her issues or the ways in which she’s dealing with the changes in her life

• Valencia’s developing feminism! Give me Valencia reading bell hooks and Roxane Gay, give me Valencia reacting to different writers and thinking about all those inspiring speeches that resonate with her even when Rebecca quickly forgets them and exploring ideas that go outside Rebecca’s (kinda narrow) frame of reference, looking to find stuff out and taking pleasure in the fact that she can come to her own opinions and moving past her insecurities around not being smart!

• Rebecca tries to help Valencia come out with some form of Antic; disaster ensues! Maybe Rebecca pushes for a big dramatic declaration followed by immediate reassurance and acceptance from Valencia’s family and is shocked to discover that real life doesn’t work so easily, maybe she tries to manipulate a rom-com plot around Valencia and some other woman like they’re in ‘Set It Up’. Heck, maybe Rebecca finds out that Valencia has a crush on another woman and decides to pose as her girlfriend for reasons that seem very solid at the time?

• Elaborate revenge plots, kidnappings, pissing on stuff, heists or other canon-typical Antics with any combination of the #gurlgroup members!

• Valencia trying to figure out her identity as a gay woman who can be funny and smart. Going to a Pride parade! Going to a gay bar! Intentionally flirting with another woman! Probably drawing from a lot of stereotypes (she doesn’t even own a flannel shirt)!

• The Good Place fusion: If you’re familiar with The Good Place, I think there’s a lot of similarities in the two series, how they’re both interested in redemption and looking at why their characters do forked-up things without absolving them of all responsibility for their actions (a la “It wasn’t technically Hitler’s fault”) and how their characters find meaning and grow through their connections with other people. I’d be interested in seeing how Crazy Ex Girlfriend characters would deal with sharing an afterlife in the good place and how ideas like soulmates would play out

The Spy Who Dumped Me

Morgan & Audrey

This film was so much fun! I’m always a sucker for female friendship and massive explosions, and I’d really love to read fic that matched that mostly irreverent tone of the film (but with occasional heartfelt moments about Morgan and Audrey’s friendship not, y’know, their rapidly increasing body count). I really loved Morgan’s energy and her 100% ride-or-die commitment to Audrey, and I loved how Audrey wasn’t limited to just being the stick-in-the-mud who had to try and reign in her wacky friend but instead got to say “nah, fuck that, everyone but you and me are boring!” and enjoyed the adventure too.

I really enjoyed how the film played with a lot of different spy film tropes and I’d love to see anything that riffed on James Bond/Eurospy/’super glamorous lifestyle interrupted with occasional assassination attempts’. This is one film where I really enjoy the goofiness so I wouldn’t enjoy gritty realism as much.

When it comes to ships, I’d enjoy reading either romance or friendship between the two of them. I liked Morgan and Audrey’s friendship a lot - especially how intensely they loved one another, like the moment when their Facebook messages are taken out of context to make them sound like they’ve been planning a murder spree for a long time - but, truth be told, I did misunderstand the trailers at first and I thought that Morgan was going to be revealed as Audrey’s spy ex-girlfriend and I’m still slightly disappointed I didn’t get that film. I liked Sebastian well enough and I’m fine with background Audrey/Sebastian but I would prefer the focus of the fic by on Morgan and Audrey.

Prompts

• Morgan and Audrey’s misadventures prior to the spy revelation. From the weird (the magician who literally disappeared) to the kind of sad (Audrey talks about being on antidepressants, Morgan says that Audrey’s her only friend because everyone else finds her too much), back to the extra weird (Minion porn)!

• Missions after they both become spies or anything riffing on spy fiction - pulling heists, blowing things up, one of them has to fake their death after a mission goes wrong, escaping death traps and high-stakes adventures

• Going undercover as a couple! (Or the ever-delightful variant, going undercover in a sex club!)

• The AU where Morgan actually was the spy who dumped Audrey and her auditions were just cover stories for going off on top secret missions, and then they get caught up in an adventure together

• Hurt/comfort - one of them is injured during a mission and the other has to take care of them until help can arrive?

The Good Place

Tahani

Oh, man, I love this show so much! It’s so charming and funny, and Tahani in particular has gone from being the one character I really couldn’t stand at first to becoming one of my all-time favourites. She’s so gloriously self-absorbed and insufferable but desperate for external validation at the same time - whether that comes from boasting about changing the consciousness of a nation, name-dropping in hell or when she’s explaining her sex jokes to Eleanor to make sure that she gets the pun :)

I only have a passing familiarity with some of the philosophers the show talks about but I really do enjoy seeing them learn about different schools of thought about how to act ethically. Anything inspired by other moral philosophers (John Stuart Mill? David Hume? Looking at different religions or non-Western thinkers? Everyone says ‘oh, fuck this’ and starts tearing down the system?) would be a lot of fun!

I really enjoy all of Team Cockroach and their interactions with one another but in terms of pairings, I particularly enjoy Tahani/Eleanor for how much they frustrate and challenge one another but still end up finding some common ground. While I love how Tahani and Jason bring out the best in one another, I enjoy them more as friends than romantic partners. I’ve also left a couple of prompts for Vicky/Tahani below which doesn’t have a whole lot of basis in canon but would be hilarious and/or heartbreaking to see Tahani have to struggle to readjust her expectations for a fairytale romance when it’s with someone tasked with torturing her for all eternity, especially as Vicky’s passion for the arts is bound to remind Tahani of all the ways in which Kamilah was gifted and celebrated for her achievements.

Prompts

• In the “everyone survives!” timeline, how did Tahani almost dying (and Kamilah taking the credit for saving her) affect their relationship? Will Tahani’s knowledge of the afterlife encourage her to try and rebuild some kind of relationship with her sister?

• I really loved how Tahani and Jason reacted to the revelation that they were doomed to burn in hell - just having fun giving random people money - and I thought it was really touching that the two characters who we’d seen the least introspection from were the most resilient in that respect. More of Jason introducing Tahani to fast food, the pair enjoying one another’s company and letting loose a little!

• Further adventures of the Soul Squad! The gang decide that the whole system is forked-up and go to war against the good and bad places together? They talk about designing different tests, or having a different plan for the afterlife?

• Series 1 is just one long response to Sartre’s Huis Clos, and I’d really love to read fic reacting to that - whether that’s Tahani and Chidi discussing how Michael quite obviously ripped off Sartre, the gang discussing existentialism, or Tahani and the “look”.

• Everyone is in fandom AU! Tahani’s a fic writer who feels permanently overshadowed by BNF Kamilah, Michael’s an admin of their fandom comm which is being plagued by trolls, Eleanor may have accidentally plagiarised and Chidi’s her long-suffering beta reader trying to keep everyone on track?

• Vicky/Tahani! Maybe in one of the rebooted versions of the neighbourhood, Vicky was paired up as Tahani’s soulmate and probably spent a lot of time emphasising how talented she was at singing/playing musical instruments/dancing/acting, and then talking about how great it was that she could spend her afterlife with Tahani, the sister of one of the world’s greatest musicians/actors/directors. Or maybe the Soul Squad’s activities saving people from damnation gets the attention of the bad place, who send Vicky to try and infiltrate the group. Or maybe Michael decides that if he can learn to care about other people, so can the other demons?

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Hansel & Gretel

So I’m aware that this part of my letter is significantly shorter than some of the others, but that’s not because I want it any less. There’s just only so many words you need to say “this movie was trashy and iddy in the best kind of ways; also those incest vibes were SUPER INTENSE, yes?!”

Yes.

If sibling incest is not your jam, I would also enjoy reading anything about the pair killing witches together which captured that “you and me are together forever, and the rest of the world can go burn” vibe between them. For so long, it’s just been the two of them and the belief that all witches are automatically evil, so anything which speaks to how they can only trust one another or how they’re both dealing with their childhood would be fun.

Prompts

• We know about the first witch they killed when they were children, but what happened after that? I’d love to see some more about them planning to go after more witches, any of their previous witch hunts or how they started to make a name for themselves

• Victory sex. “Thank God you’re alive, I almost lost you” sex. Having sex just to feel something.

• Hansel reacts to finding out the truth about their mother and Gretel’s magic

• Hansel gets jealous over Ben/Edward/some other man paying attention to Gretel
  

• Hurt/comfort and that desperation to make sure the other gets through whatever's causing them pain! Whether Hansel's ill with the sugar sickness or Gretel's injured during a fight with a witch, they're both vulnerable and far from any town where they could get help, and one has to fight against all the odds to keep the other alive