Dear Yuletide Author

[mayachain]

Dear Yuletide Author,

I am very happy that you offered to write for me! Getting to read a rare, new story will be truly wonderful! Here are a few suggestions that you don't have to follow, naturally, but that I nevertheless hope will be helpful to you:

I am comfortable reading slash, het and gen. However, for these particular Yuletide fandoms, I would prefer that the story stick to canon pairings. Any rating you feel is most fitting for the story you want to write is fine. (here are my pinboard bookmarks, in case you feel they might help you.)

Things I'm a fan of:
- found family, strong friendship, loyalty
- good step-parent & step-kid relationships (formalized through marriage or not)
- sibling relationships
- women being awesome
- outsider pov
- future fic
- character studies
- slice of life
- school reunions
- time travel, dimension crossings
- comfort after nightmares
- platonic bed sharing
- touch starved character gets much-needed (not necessarily sexual) touches
- scars have meanings
- exploration of traditions (cultural or personal)
- how to phrase this - sex written for the sake of the relationship involved rather than the sex itself.

Things I am not a fan of*:
- characters cheating on partners or willfully betraying friends
- "breaking up and making up"
- "cute" romantic comedy misunderstandings
- love triangles
- character bashing, especially female characters
- songfic
- a character being called a slut
- assumed-to-be-dead/surprise revival
- mpreg
- self injury
- drug use
- characters smirking at every turn
- violence or coercion as the sole point of the story
- in case of yuletide, complete AUs and non-canon character death.

*There's no need to pretend any of these aren't part of canon if they are, but if they aren't, please don't incorporate them in your fic.


If we were matched for Perry Moore's Hero, yay! It's your story to write, but I would love a glimpse of the future with Thom/Goran + Goran's brother as a family, or some fleshing out of Goran's and his little brother's backstory.

- Does either remember a time without war (or even a lull in dangerous times), how much did young!Goran understand/how did his understanding of their situation change over time before the loss of their parents, what is it that he did and won't talk about to ensure his little brother's survival? Did he manage to save others while he was at it or was the death of people he knew/people in his proximity a price paid for his brother's sake? And what does the kid remember of it? How much - if any - of this could either ever reveal to Thom (or someone else, for that matter)?

- If you aren't comfortable writing the war part, the brothers' beginnings in the U.S. would be great, too. What situation did they find themselves in, two traumatized boys with the elder in particular hardly inclined to trust anyone? While there's no mention of the then-minors being split up at some point, I get the impression from Goran that nobody helped them much - except maybe people at the youth center? If so, how did *that* start out? How did Dark Hero get onto anyone*s radar? And when exactly did Goran begin "lying" to his brother?


If we were matched for White House Down, yay! I would love to see something of the aftermath, both political and personal.

- How does it work, being the PotUS after all that? Does someone raise the question whether Sawyer technically is the President anymore, if so, how is it answered? We are told that world leaders rally behind him - how does it actually play out, short-term and/or long-term? And then there are the Sawyer women whom we virtually saw nothing of - how does the First Family reunite and how are they, as a family, affected by what happened (both to Sawyer and their home)?

- As for Cale - how does his family cope, bad-ass as they may be, how do they adjust to their sudden fame, how does John settle into his job, what are the father&daughter / mother&daughter / ex-marrieds relationships like now? Is or isn't Carol a part of this beyond her role as John's co-worker/boss?

- And regarding both families, does a friendship/mentorship develop (further) between James&John / James&Emily, does Emily become friends with the First Daughter, do either form a connection to the First Lady... or does real life prevent all that now that the drama is over?


If we were matched for The State Within, yay! I won't lie and say I wasn't rooting for Brocklehurst/Styles pretty much the whole time and biting my nails at Styles' downward spiral.

- A tag with Brocklehurst dealing once the dust has settled would be great, preferably without woobifying him or the dead lover who made some shitty choices. Or perhaps an alternate take of events that allows for a somewhat happier ending for the both of them? Surely Brocklehurst might have figured something out if he'd had the time :)

- Alternately, Azzam - how does Azzam fare after the kidnapping/dead parents/fatherhood reveals? Does he ever learn all the secrets, what is he still in the dark about? Where is the poor kid now?


If we were matched for The Buried Giant (now with extra Nobel Prize credetials), yay! ( Old Axl/Beatrice were so sweet, even with the increasing hints that the rose colours were... perhaps... a bit... wrong.

- How does Beatrice fare on the island? Are they ever reunited or did the boatman lie, as Axl suspects at the end? What changes to the kingsdom does Axl witness while he waits for his turn?

- I also wonder about the little berserker-to-be. Will he bring the devastation as promised, and will there be times when he remembers the kindness Beatrice and Axl showed him?


I hope this helps you along, dear mystery Author!

Looking forward to your story,

- mayachain