Yuletide Letter 2018

[lovebeyondmeasure]

Hello, dear writer! Happy Yuletide!

I love Yuletide. This is only my second year participating, but I’ve been following it for years. A time of joy! A time of fic!

I want to promise you on the outset: I am open to almost anything. Literally just avoid my DNWs and I will be THRILLED with whatever you have, because what I love most about fic is people loving the characters and the world and the writing they’re doing. So if you’re not inspired by any of my prompts, feel free to just take a couple of tropes and go running into the wild blue yonder. (I even provide a list of my favorite tropes! You’re not going in blind here!)

Dear writer, I have faith that whatever you write you will write with love (and possibly panic, as I have done for nearly all of my own exchange fics. C’est la vie!) And therefore I will love it in return. Please do not be nervous about writing for me. You are gonna do GREAT!

Now, I’m putting various tropes I think fit the character(s)/fandom best under each one, but there’s a masterlist of Tess’s Favorite Tropes at the end. Grab what grabs you.

As for myself, I’m Tess, I’ve been in fandom for over a decade now. You can find my fandom shit over on my tumblr, and you already have access to my Ao3 account, both of which you are free to browse for things I like. I have plenty of bookmarks and thousands of posts to give you a glimpse into what I’m into. If you’re panicking, anon is always on over on my tumblr; shoot me a line and I’ll let you know how I feel!

With that out of the way, here’s the things I requested, and how I feel about them. It might be lengthy, but as you may have noticed, I write like I talk, which is to say I ramble ;)

MANIAC
Chars: Annie Landsberg

Ok, I was SO INTO this show. I watched it in like two days. I will be THRILLED with whatever I get.

• I liked Annie and Owen together, so you are more than free to include him however you want. Two damaged people trying to help each other? Crack to me. It doesn’t have to be romantic, even. Missing scenes from the show- other lives they might have lived together?
• Or, obvious, post-canon road trip! Tell me about them making their way to Salt Lake City. Do they end up with an Ad Buddy for a hundred miles to pay for gas? What happens when the truck breaks down? Do they get a motel room and gasp- there’s only one bed? Do they get a cheap mattress on whatever weird-future-Craigslist is and sleep in the truck bed together, awkwardly cracking jokes about it would be easier if they were still “married” like in their B-pill dreams? Honestly, a series of unconnected scenes of Owen learning how to function a bit more healthily with other people by watching Annie drive and joke with cashiers and tell him stories would be amazing. I’ll take whatever road-trip goodness you’ve got.
• If you wanna go pre-canon, Annie and Ellie’s childhood is obviously a place to explore. You could frame it as the present, or Annie remembering stories from the past; I thought their relationship was really cool and would love to see it explored further.
• Similarly, Annie and her father had an interesting dynamic; write about Annie from his POV, or write the lead-up to him getting in the isolation pod, and how Annie reacted to it.
• If you want to do a character exploration of Annie, I’m down for that too. Taking the A pills like that wore a neural path for that memory; what happens to her now? Does she dream it over and over? How does it impact her going forward?
• If you just want to explore the weird little universe, please do. I find it endlessly fascinating.

THE HOLIDAY
Chars: Iris Simpkins, Miles Dumont

This is one of my favorite holiday movies, no lie. I love the found-family aspects especially! And the mutual pining! Oh man, and I LOVE Iris and Miles. Love them. Froodley-doo!

• Gimme that post-canon goodness. How do they make it work? Does Iris move to LA? Does Miles love England so much he never wants to leave? Do they split their time?
• MILES PROPOSING- DOES HE SING IT? TELL ME HE WRITES HER A SONG.
• More of them with Arthur! I love Arthur, tell me how he gives Miles pointers about not screwing up with Iris, because she’s been hurt before. Tell me about how they adopt him like a grandfather and have family dinners and pinocle nights. Tell me about Arthur mentioning to them off-handedly that he’s written them into his will! Tell me about them naming their son after him, oh my god.
• Iris is a writer, and yes she’s a wedding columnist, but she’s a writer. Tell me about how she writes a biography of Arthur. (If the biography is after he dies, well. Please at least make it good. I understand.) Tell me about how Iris and Miles choose the right pictures, how they track down people who knew him when to get anecdotes. If he’s still alive, tell me how she hid it from him until she had a rough draft, tell me how he reacts.
• If you’re into H/C, break them up, then get them back together. They couldn’t make it work, jobs got in the way, time zones are hard, etc etc…… Iris crying into her ice cream, Miles writing nothing but sad music. Then pep talks from their friends! Arthur smacking some sense into Miles! Then a big gesture from one of them! Do it.

THE BOOK OF LIFE
Chars: Manolo Sánchez, María Posada, Joaquín Mondragón

Honestly, I don’t have as many prompts for this one. I just love these characters. Manolo and his guitar, María and her badassery, Joaquín and his insecurity.

• Obviously, ot3 me. Whatever you want, with the three of them together. Manolo and Maria deciding that they’d actually like to include him? Maria getting tired of the boys arguing and just saying “I don’t want to choose and I don’t see why I should have to”? If it fits, it ships. Go for it.
• Don’t want to write ot3? That’s totally cool! Tell me about their continuing adventures. Do they set out across Mexico, helping to right wrongs? Does Manolo follow along behind his warrior girlfriend, setting her escapades to music? What’s Joaquin up to, without his enchanted medal?
• More childhood adventures, of course. The scene with the pigs is pretty indicative of how things went- give me more of that! Racing barefoot through the fields, stealing fruit from the fields, sneaking out to tell ghost stories, whatever appeals to you!

CROSSROADS SERIES
Chars: Any

I don’t know if anyone will offer it, but it’s worth a shot! If we matched on Crossroads, god bless and keep you.

• Post-canon: what happens now? BJ going out ot bring the various groups home, some of them unwilling to come back? BJ, afraid to let anyone new into Crossroads, because of what happened last time she did so?
• More centaurs! Tell me about how the changes BJ encouraged affect the group. Tell me about the pushback as Polyta changes the old ways, and how minds are changed. Tell me about a life that wouldn’t have been there, but. Tell me how about an ounce of prevention, and the pound of cure it brings about.
• BJ’s daughter, and how she grew, and who she became.
• AU: Horvat Lives.

TESS’S FAVORITE TROPES
Banter, bottle episodes, character studies.
Hand holding, hair touching, forehead leaning.
Pining, mutual pining, bed sharing, fake dating/married.
Found family, friends to lovers, learning to trust.
Light to medium angst, fluff, alternate universes. 
Staying up all night and watching the sun rise.
Happy (or at least hopeful) endings.

If you're having trouble, please don't hesitate to get in touch (via the mods or on anon on my tumblr) because I don't want to this be stressful for you at all! If you want to write a series of connected ficlets, or a 5+1 things, or something like that, please feel free. As I said at the beginning, I'm not super picky. If it's written with love, that's what really counts in my eyes.

Have fun!