Dear Yuletide Writer!
Oct. 16th, 2022 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorindaHello, Writer! However you ended up writing something for me, I thank you--I'm glad and grateful we share these little fandoms. ♥
Edited To Add: The Yuletide admins have asked that we clarify whether we're open to receiving treats...Yes I certainly am!!!
(And let me just say that you'll notice it's not uncommon for me to ask for many of the same fandoms from year to year. If you've written for me previously, please do not ever think this is because I don't still love your gift! I do--it's just that these fandoms are so small and I love them so much. And I am greedy. :D)
If you already have something in mind you think I'll like, go ahead and write it! I want you to enjoy yourself.
If more information about my preferences would help and inspire you, then here's some:
SOME OF MY PREFERENCES:
* Hopeful/happy endings. Melancholy/bittersweet tones can work too, just not hopeless/grim please.
* Shipping, if possible. Not mandatory in the non-canon pairings, of course--Optional Details Are Optional!--but if you're willing, please pair the characters up romantically/sexually (and if you're not shipping them, please have their connection be at least as intense as it is in canon). On-page sex is fine but not required, whatever suits the story--I'm interested in dynamics like:
Discovery, realization
Breaking through fears and repression and damaging levels of self-denial/self-control
Reaching out, finding refuge
Stumbling/falling, only to find they are safely caught/can catch each other
Those tiny moments of intensity and connection, both emotional and physical
* Some tropes and approaches I particularly enjoy:
Trust
Loyalty
Worry
Protectiveness
Hurt/Comfort
Pining (eventually requited)
Tenderness, especially when unexpected
Angst (with a happy/hopeful resolution)
Uncovering a secret
A shell cracking to reveal vulnerability beneath
Physical care like tending wounds/washing/etc.
Nurturing with food/drink/warmth
Expressing deepest feelings with ordinary words (like, I love when there's some seemingly-innocuous phrase that they both know is actually a powerful declaration)
* Classic frameworks are always welcome! Including though not limited to:
Bedsharing
Huddling for warmth
Pretend couple
Discovering they became a couple without realizing
Undercover as a rentboy
Mistaken for a couple, including mistaken for sugar daddy/trade
Rescues
Suffering/sacrificing for the other
Stranded somewhere
Etc.
One jumps in the way of the other getting hurt? (Especially if the saved one is then mad about it?) One gets attacked and the other rises in wrath, GET BACK HE IS MINE? One awkwardly expresses the depth of his feelings with a painstakingly fried egg on toast? A desire to impress him, an effort to figure out how to be silently vulnerable with him, a need for him that he hadn't understood until now or had hidden while pining? Yes plz.
Big drama is good, quiet subtlety is good. ♥
Here are my signups, in alphabetical order: HIStory3: Trapped, Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers, Spy Game (2001), The Sting (1973).
HIStory3: Trapped
Any characters (The nominated characters are: Meng Shaofei, Tang Yi, Jack, Zhao-zi)
My signup:
This has been a comfort-rewatch for me, despite some of the difficult things that happen in it... I love the characters, and the way they're there for each other.
I love Meng Shaofei's dogged determination (both in his work and his personal life), and also the way his feelings for Tang Yi snuck up on him...he's usually emotionally fluent and skilled in talking to others, but doesn't seem to turn that perception on himself as often. But once he does realize his feelings, he accepts them without hesitation or guilt, just letting things be as they are. He has a peacefulness.
I love Tang Yi's determination as well, but his is more self-demanding and made of sharp steel--he tries so hard to be everything for those he loves (living and dead), and ends up nearly driving himself into the ground. He is endlessly loyal and courageous, but his protective shell made him brittle--he really grew over time, opening up his softer/fragile side with Meng Shaofei, willing to be emotionally vulnerable with him.
I love Zhao-zi's eccentricity and sweetness, undimmed by his past losses and whatever he might encounter on the job. He's a little weirdo, so resilient, so hard to figure out--just when Jack might think he has him typed (for instance, kidnap & intimidate, it works all the time on much harder men than this), Zhao-zi turns around and surprises him.
I love Jack's aura of wry experience, almost always with that small smile in his eyes and/or on his lips. He's the most morally flexible of all of them, making a life in grey areas, and seems potentially the best able to adapt and handle himself in any situation. Full of secrets, but clearly dazzled by someone who seems not to have any true secrets at all.
I love the show's many uses of food and cooking!
Special mention to Tang Yi and Jack without their shirts on OMG.
I'd love to see more of either couple after the show...
* What happens during the prison term, to either or both of TY and MSF? What are the ramifications rippling through the local underworld, and the police force? How do they nurture their fledgling connection even when they're apart... What's it like when they're back together?
* Jack's entire life up to now has been a very different shape, full of risk and shades of grey, and that's what he seems used to. What does he do now, how does he adapt? How does he deal with ZZ's job? And the same for Zhao Zi--though I would love it if ZZ is surprising as usual, for instance having the least trouble adapting to a strange new situation. (Including their love life...what if ZZ surprises Jack there somehow too?)
I'd love to see more backstory...
* A scene from Tang Yi's youth with Tang Guodong? From Meng Shaofei's past with Li Lizhen? Maybe there are other things their fallible but loving mentors had in common, that TY and MSF find out more about.
* Anything about Jack's past, which is a tantalizing black box. How did he get where he is/how he is? How did he learn to play both sides? How have his emotions developed?
Happy or at least hopeful ending, please!
Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Eiluned Price, Sylvia Marriott
My signup:
During my most recent umpteen millionth re-read of the Wimsey corpus, I found myself thinking about Eiluned and Sylvia, and wishing I could spend more time with them. And then I saw that someone had nominated them for Yuletide this year! Must be fate.
We only get a couple of scenes with them, but I love every minute. I love Eiluned's no-nonsense brusqueness, her straightforwardness, and also her sense of humor. I love Sylvia's lighter touch, gentler sensibility, but also the way she repeatedly (and quite amiably) defends Eiluned to Lord Peter (before she's fully realized that that's not necessary). I love how Eiluned ends up honestly in favor of Peter, who has shown that he's able and willing not to be Stereotypical Man, and in fact is able to relax into a roomful of women as if he were an honorary member. And of course I love how protective of and knowledgeable about Harriet they are.
I only nominated those two characters, but that's just to be maximally flexible--it's perfectly fine for you to include any other character(s) you want to, or just to focus on Sylvia and Eiluned. For instance:
* You could write about them alone, whether before, during, or after canon-- Could be about their own relationship, about their view of canon (or post-canon) events, their time together later on (what do they do during WWII?), anything at all.
* You could include Harriet-- Does she stay with them right after being freed from prison? (I'd hope so, so they could fend off all the journalists and curiosity seekers and all that--forcibly when necessary!) Does she retreat to them after the up-and-down events of Have His Carcase, and find some kind of comfort there that helps her settle herself in advance of the events of Gaudy Night? Does their basically married state help her start to heal, after what Philip's nonsense did to her sense of/desire for domesticity and vulnerability to a partner?
* You could include Harriet and Peter--do they come to spend time with Sylvia and Eiluned after being married?
* You could include Harriet, Peter, and Bunter--are Eiluned and Sylvia invited to stay at Talboys for a holiday or similar? I'd love to see them accepted into the menage, even in fact as a sort of role model couple, being longer married. Plus, I'd love to see Eiluned meet my beloved Bunter. Potential for a clash, yes--but I think in the end, he'd be able to pass her test, at least in terms of him being another willing protector and admirer of Harriet (and Eiluned would surely understand his even deeper, soul-deep, care for Peter)--and in return, I think he'd end up appreciating her hard-won approval of Peter. They're both on the same side, even being so different.
Happy or at least hopeful ending, please!
Spy Game (2001)
Nathan Muir, Tom Bishop
My signup:
I love the high level of skill and competence they both have. Nathan, especially, with his vast experience, and his ability to think on his feet, change plans in a moment, lie and charm and manipulate, and even to be as utterly cold-blooded as he has to be (but then to show himself ultimately more warm-hearted than he's ever admitted--in one particular arena).
I love the way they look, whew, two variations on the sun-brown Golden Boy.
I love the age difference and training relationship, and how it turned into a partnership. I love how Tom is the only one who's been able to get down beneath Nathan's protective camouflage, and openly reaches out to him (like finding out his true birthday, in order to give him the flask. What did Nathan think of that? Did it scare him?). I love how Nathan is such a hard-shelled clam of a character, and yet when it comes to Tom, he gave up absolutely everything, and did things he explicitly said he would never do--in fact, things he had tried to teach Tom never to do. So intense and satisfying to see him blow up his own spot, all for Tom. Did he know all along that he would do that, but just successfully hid it the way he hid so much else? Or did he surprise himself?
Some idle thoughts:
Training scenes--what other skills does Nathan teach Tom? Training or missions--what other ways does Tom pull against Nathan's worldview, or share it?
The intimacy of that Cold War, isolated, paranoid me-and-him against the world. Did it ever turn into something more, back in the day? Did it threaten to, but not quite (maybe leaving a capital-A Almost that gets resolved post-canon?)? Others have pointed out the way these characters are perfectly suited for Undercover as Gay/Rentboy/Sugar Daddy And Trade, etc, and I certainly agree.
Post-movie of course is full of delightful promise, especially ship-wise--how is it for Nathan, having given up everything he had and shattering his own rules all in one fell swoop? What would he do if Tom found him--would he be able to admit what he did and why, how he felt, or would Tom have to help him? Pry it (screw it??) out of him?
Happy or at least hopeful ending, please!
The Sting (1973)
Henry Gondorff, Johnny Hooker
Inspirational (and educational!) links from a menswear blog, using plenty of screencaps:
https://bamfstyle.com/2013/12/31/the-sting-newman-tux/
https://bamfstyle.com/2016/08/11/sting-redford-tux/
https://bamfstyle.com/2013/08/19/sting-redford-gray-suit/
https://bamfstyle.com/2013/01/10/the-sting-brown-pinstripe/
https://bamfstyle.com/2013/01/28/sting-newman-brn-plaid/
My signup:
I love Henry's knowledge and competence, his history and status, his close and loyal inner circle. I love how protective and worried he gets, how he bears such weight on his shoulders. I love Johnny's eagerness to get involved and to learn, his neediness and hunger, even his risky-carelessness. The way he runs like a deer, the way his eyes glow across a crowded room.
Special mention to the way Henry and Johnny look in strap undershirts. Also: Henry's hat.
I love how their partnership changes, from awkward and uncertain to close and trusting, with barely-repressed emotional undertones. But there's that communication issue under the surface--Johnny keeping so many secrets, Henry aware he's hiding things and pleading with him to speak up ("You can't play your friends like marks, Hooker."). They depend on nuanced and wordless connection on the job, but backstage and onstage are different things, to Henry (even though he can still read Johnny either way). In the end he skips to the part where he discovered Johnny's secrets and protected him, but what's the aftereffect? Has Johnny learned to trust him more? Or is it going to take more time and effort?
What do they do after the end of the movie? Does Johnny get impatient? Does Henry teach him new things?
How was Henry taught his trade back in the day, and does it still work? Why didn't Henry have an apprentice already? Did he before, did it go badly, or is Johnny a surprise exception?
What if something goes wrong? Relying on the grifter community-- or, those times and places when all they have to rely on is each other.
What about Johnny being protective of Henry for a change?
A closeup on the Henry/Johnny relationship is great, but I also am totally into the whole parallel grifter society beneath the surface of the regular world, sort of a mixture of a huge extended family and an experienced repertory theater company. So if you want, feel free to paint a larger picture.
A new con, large or small, is welcome, but you don’t have to focus on that if you don’t want to. I’m also into the time between jobs (or offstage during a job), long train trips or fancy hotels or rides hitched in a dusty jalopy, risk-junkies on the road together.
If it becomes relevant, I ask that the good guys’ cons be against deserving targets--fitting the Robin Hoodish tone of the movie, where you go after the well-heeled and greedy, using their own greed to trap them. The con as reparative justice.
Happy or at least hopeful ending please!
Have fun writing, and thank you! *\o/*
Edited To Add: The Yuletide admins have asked that we clarify whether we're open to receiving treats...Yes I certainly am!!!
(And let me just say that you'll notice it's not uncommon for me to ask for many of the same fandoms from year to year. If you've written for me previously, please do not ever think this is because I don't still love your gift! I do--it's just that these fandoms are so small and I love them so much. And I am greedy. :D)
If you already have something in mind you think I'll like, go ahead and write it! I want you to enjoy yourself.
If more information about my preferences would help and inspire you, then here's some:
SOME OF MY PREFERENCES:
* Hopeful/happy endings. Melancholy/bittersweet tones can work too, just not hopeless/grim please.
* Shipping, if possible. Not mandatory in the non-canon pairings, of course--Optional Details Are Optional!--but if you're willing, please pair the characters up romantically/sexually (and if you're not shipping them, please have their connection be at least as intense as it is in canon). On-page sex is fine but not required, whatever suits the story--I'm interested in dynamics like:
Discovery, realization
Breaking through fears and repression and damaging levels of self-denial/self-control
Reaching out, finding refuge
Stumbling/falling, only to find they are safely caught/can catch each other
Those tiny moments of intensity and connection, both emotional and physical
* Some tropes and approaches I particularly enjoy:
Trust
Loyalty
Worry
Protectiveness
Hurt/Comfort
Pining (eventually requited)
Tenderness, especially when unexpected
Angst (with a happy/hopeful resolution)
Uncovering a secret
A shell cracking to reveal vulnerability beneath
Physical care like tending wounds/washing/etc.
Nurturing with food/drink/warmth
Expressing deepest feelings with ordinary words (like, I love when there's some seemingly-innocuous phrase that they both know is actually a powerful declaration)
* Classic frameworks are always welcome! Including though not limited to:
Bedsharing
Huddling for warmth
Pretend couple
Discovering they became a couple without realizing
Undercover as a rentboy
Mistaken for a couple, including mistaken for sugar daddy/trade
Rescues
Suffering/sacrificing for the other
Stranded somewhere
Etc.
One jumps in the way of the other getting hurt? (Especially if the saved one is then mad about it?) One gets attacked and the other rises in wrath, GET BACK HE IS MINE? One awkwardly expresses the depth of his feelings with a painstakingly fried egg on toast? A desire to impress him, an effort to figure out how to be silently vulnerable with him, a need for him that he hadn't understood until now or had hidden while pining? Yes plz.
Big drama is good, quiet subtlety is good. ♥
Here are my signups, in alphabetical order: HIStory3: Trapped, Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers, Spy Game (2001), The Sting (1973).
HIStory3: Trapped
Any characters (The nominated characters are: Meng Shaofei, Tang Yi, Jack, Zhao-zi)
My signup:
This has been a comfort-rewatch for me, despite some of the difficult things that happen in it... I love the characters, and the way they're there for each other.
I love Meng Shaofei's dogged determination (both in his work and his personal life), and also the way his feelings for Tang Yi snuck up on him...he's usually emotionally fluent and skilled in talking to others, but doesn't seem to turn that perception on himself as often. But once he does realize his feelings, he accepts them without hesitation or guilt, just letting things be as they are. He has a peacefulness.
I love Tang Yi's determination as well, but his is more self-demanding and made of sharp steel--he tries so hard to be everything for those he loves (living and dead), and ends up nearly driving himself into the ground. He is endlessly loyal and courageous, but his protective shell made him brittle--he really grew over time, opening up his softer/fragile side with Meng Shaofei, willing to be emotionally vulnerable with him.
I love Zhao-zi's eccentricity and sweetness, undimmed by his past losses and whatever he might encounter on the job. He's a little weirdo, so resilient, so hard to figure out--just when Jack might think he has him typed (for instance, kidnap & intimidate, it works all the time on much harder men than this), Zhao-zi turns around and surprises him.
I love Jack's aura of wry experience, almost always with that small smile in his eyes and/or on his lips. He's the most morally flexible of all of them, making a life in grey areas, and seems potentially the best able to adapt and handle himself in any situation. Full of secrets, but clearly dazzled by someone who seems not to have any true secrets at all.
I love the show's many uses of food and cooking!
Special mention to Tang Yi and Jack without their shirts on OMG.
I'd love to see more of either couple after the show...
* What happens during the prison term, to either or both of TY and MSF? What are the ramifications rippling through the local underworld, and the police force? How do they nurture their fledgling connection even when they're apart... What's it like when they're back together?
* Jack's entire life up to now has been a very different shape, full of risk and shades of grey, and that's what he seems used to. What does he do now, how does he adapt? How does he deal with ZZ's job? And the same for Zhao Zi--though I would love it if ZZ is surprising as usual, for instance having the least trouble adapting to a strange new situation. (Including their love life...what if ZZ surprises Jack there somehow too?)
I'd love to see more backstory...
* A scene from Tang Yi's youth with Tang Guodong? From Meng Shaofei's past with Li Lizhen? Maybe there are other things their fallible but loving mentors had in common, that TY and MSF find out more about.
* Anything about Jack's past, which is a tantalizing black box. How did he get where he is/how he is? How did he learn to play both sides? How have his emotions developed?
Happy or at least hopeful ending, please!
Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Eiluned Price, Sylvia Marriott
My signup:
During my most recent umpteen millionth re-read of the Wimsey corpus, I found myself thinking about Eiluned and Sylvia, and wishing I could spend more time with them. And then I saw that someone had nominated them for Yuletide this year! Must be fate.
We only get a couple of scenes with them, but I love every minute. I love Eiluned's no-nonsense brusqueness, her straightforwardness, and also her sense of humor. I love Sylvia's lighter touch, gentler sensibility, but also the way she repeatedly (and quite amiably) defends Eiluned to Lord Peter (before she's fully realized that that's not necessary). I love how Eiluned ends up honestly in favor of Peter, who has shown that he's able and willing not to be Stereotypical Man, and in fact is able to relax into a roomful of women as if he were an honorary member. And of course I love how protective of and knowledgeable about Harriet they are.
I only nominated those two characters, but that's just to be maximally flexible--it's perfectly fine for you to include any other character(s) you want to, or just to focus on Sylvia and Eiluned. For instance:
* You could write about them alone, whether before, during, or after canon-- Could be about their own relationship, about their view of canon (or post-canon) events, their time together later on (what do they do during WWII?), anything at all.
* You could include Harriet-- Does she stay with them right after being freed from prison? (I'd hope so, so they could fend off all the journalists and curiosity seekers and all that--forcibly when necessary!) Does she retreat to them after the up-and-down events of Have His Carcase, and find some kind of comfort there that helps her settle herself in advance of the events of Gaudy Night? Does their basically married state help her start to heal, after what Philip's nonsense did to her sense of/desire for domesticity and vulnerability to a partner?
* You could include Harriet and Peter--do they come to spend time with Sylvia and Eiluned after being married?
* You could include Harriet, Peter, and Bunter--are Eiluned and Sylvia invited to stay at Talboys for a holiday or similar? I'd love to see them accepted into the menage, even in fact as a sort of role model couple, being longer married. Plus, I'd love to see Eiluned meet my beloved Bunter. Potential for a clash, yes--but I think in the end, he'd be able to pass her test, at least in terms of him being another willing protector and admirer of Harriet (and Eiluned would surely understand his even deeper, soul-deep, care for Peter)--and in return, I think he'd end up appreciating her hard-won approval of Peter. They're both on the same side, even being so different.
Happy or at least hopeful ending, please!
Spy Game (2001)
Nathan Muir, Tom Bishop
My signup:
I love the high level of skill and competence they both have. Nathan, especially, with his vast experience, and his ability to think on his feet, change plans in a moment, lie and charm and manipulate, and even to be as utterly cold-blooded as he has to be (but then to show himself ultimately more warm-hearted than he's ever admitted--in one particular arena).
I love the way they look, whew, two variations on the sun-brown Golden Boy.
I love the age difference and training relationship, and how it turned into a partnership. I love how Tom is the only one who's been able to get down beneath Nathan's protective camouflage, and openly reaches out to him (like finding out his true birthday, in order to give him the flask. What did Nathan think of that? Did it scare him?). I love how Nathan is such a hard-shelled clam of a character, and yet when it comes to Tom, he gave up absolutely everything, and did things he explicitly said he would never do--in fact, things he had tried to teach Tom never to do. So intense and satisfying to see him blow up his own spot, all for Tom. Did he know all along that he would do that, but just successfully hid it the way he hid so much else? Or did he surprise himself?
Some idle thoughts:
Training scenes--what other skills does Nathan teach Tom? Training or missions--what other ways does Tom pull against Nathan's worldview, or share it?
The intimacy of that Cold War, isolated, paranoid me-and-him against the world. Did it ever turn into something more, back in the day? Did it threaten to, but not quite (maybe leaving a capital-A Almost that gets resolved post-canon?)? Others have pointed out the way these characters are perfectly suited for Undercover as Gay/Rentboy/Sugar Daddy And Trade, etc, and I certainly agree.
Post-movie of course is full of delightful promise, especially ship-wise--how is it for Nathan, having given up everything he had and shattering his own rules all in one fell swoop? What would he do if Tom found him--would he be able to admit what he did and why, how he felt, or would Tom have to help him? Pry it (screw it??) out of him?
Happy or at least hopeful ending, please!
The Sting (1973)
Henry Gondorff, Johnny Hooker
Inspirational (and educational!) links from a menswear blog, using plenty of screencaps:
https://bamfstyle.com/2013/12/31/the-sting-newman-tux/
https://bamfstyle.com/2016/08/11/sting-redford-tux/
https://bamfstyle.com/2013/08/19/sting-redford-gray-suit/
https://bamfstyle.com/2013/01/10/the-sting-brown-pinstripe/
https://bamfstyle.com/2013/01/28/sting-newman-brn-plaid/
My signup:
I love Henry's knowledge and competence, his history and status, his close and loyal inner circle. I love how protective and worried he gets, how he bears such weight on his shoulders. I love Johnny's eagerness to get involved and to learn, his neediness and hunger, even his risky-carelessness. The way he runs like a deer, the way his eyes glow across a crowded room.
Special mention to the way Henry and Johnny look in strap undershirts. Also: Henry's hat.
I love how their partnership changes, from awkward and uncertain to close and trusting, with barely-repressed emotional undertones. But there's that communication issue under the surface--Johnny keeping so many secrets, Henry aware he's hiding things and pleading with him to speak up ("You can't play your friends like marks, Hooker."). They depend on nuanced and wordless connection on the job, but backstage and onstage are different things, to Henry (even though he can still read Johnny either way). In the end he skips to the part where he discovered Johnny's secrets and protected him, but what's the aftereffect? Has Johnny learned to trust him more? Or is it going to take more time and effort?
What do they do after the end of the movie? Does Johnny get impatient? Does Henry teach him new things?
How was Henry taught his trade back in the day, and does it still work? Why didn't Henry have an apprentice already? Did he before, did it go badly, or is Johnny a surprise exception?
What if something goes wrong? Relying on the grifter community-- or, those times and places when all they have to rely on is each other.
What about Johnny being protective of Henry for a change?
A closeup on the Henry/Johnny relationship is great, but I also am totally into the whole parallel grifter society beneath the surface of the regular world, sort of a mixture of a huge extended family and an experienced repertory theater company. So if you want, feel free to paint a larger picture.
A new con, large or small, is welcome, but you don’t have to focus on that if you don’t want to. I’m also into the time between jobs (or offstage during a job), long train trips or fancy hotels or rides hitched in a dusty jalopy, risk-junkies on the road together.
If it becomes relevant, I ask that the good guys’ cons be against deserving targets--fitting the Robin Hoodish tone of the movie, where you go after the well-heeled and greedy, using their own greed to trap them. The con as reparative justice.
Happy or at least hopeful ending please!
Have fun writing, and thank you! *\o/*
