Yuletide Letter (2019)

[millepertuis]

Dear Writer,

Hello! I hope you're as excited about writing for these characters than I am to read about them! I love these fandoms and these characters a whole lot and I'm going to be super happy whatever you come up with; this letter is just possible directions you might venture in if you're looking for inspiration, nothing you particularly need to abide by if you have something in mind already.

I hope you have fun writing, and thank you!



GENERAL LIKES:

best friends in love, antagonists in love, mutual obsession!!, codependency, domesticity, female friendships, female agency, found families, messed-up families, slow build, character/relationship studies, unreliable narrators; i have a preference for canon or canon divergence settings rather than complete AUs, but it's definitely not absolute

on the more light-hearted side of things, i love banter and silly antics and domesticity—and domestic polyamory—and i love all the usual cliché tropes (mutual pining, mistaken to be dating, fake relationship, accidental relationship, accidental marriage, arranged marriage, marriage of convenience, soulbonding, bed-sharing, temporary amnesia, mistaken identity shenanigans, etc.)

on the more serious side of things: loyalty kink!!, king and lionheart dynamics!, people on a mission, morally gray characters, amoral characters, righteous characters, where do you put the line and what do you believe in and what are you willing to compromise on and what are you wiling to sacrifice, just the different ways people relate to right and wrong and guilt and responsibility and all that jazz; time travel shenanigans; unhealthy dynamics as long as they're recognized as such by the text if not by the characters; characters who aren't quite there yet—there being a healthy dynamic or being good or happiness—but want to work together or push each other towards it


GENERAL DISLIKES:

unhappy or generally depressing endings, character bashing, rape/non-con, major character deaths, unrequited love, cheating, nominated characters being romantically or sexually involved with people outside of the ships requested

• CRAZYHEAD; amy, raquel francis, suzanne

(i’d be perfectly happy with gen fic but i also ship both amy/raquel and amy/suzanne, though very much in an either/or way, please no poly situation or unrequited love scenario.)

i absolutely /loved/ the zany spirit of the show, so anything playing off that would be great, but i'd also welcome a more serious approach to these characters, their trauma, their issues. or both. both at once is also good.

i'd particularly love anything set post-s1, maybe some amy/raquel where amy realizes her 'i love you' wasn't as platonic as she had thought, or the three of them trying to somehow lead a normal life even with suzanne being undead (which can totally have amy/suzanne or be a gen fic), or some silly demon-slaying shenanigans in the spirit of the show (bonus if someone has to make up a lie on the spot to hide the existence of the supernatural and fails spectacularly)

or an AU inspired by the dark days club books—no prior knowledge required—that might be fun if canon doesn’t particularly inspire you: demon-slaying shenanigans in regency england


if you happen to be interested in writing amy/raquel or amy/suzanne fic, i'm adding additional details i put for them on another exchange, if anything inspires you:

Was Amy lying when she later told Raquel she had meant it as friendly love, or in denial? Does Raquel secretly wish Amy had meant it? Or perhaps a more partners-to-lovers approach, something dealing with the dangerous situations they find themselves in and the trust they have in one another, and the codependency that might result from that.

We see Susanne is (un)alive at the end of the finale, but where do they go from there? Does Amy feel guilty over everything that happened to Susanne? Does Susanne feel guilty over being used to bait Amy and almost hurting her? Do they just go back to being best friends and roommates? Were they always in love, or did they only know it after Susanne died and came back and died again (and came back again)? Does Amy keep feeding Susanne her blood??

 

• KILLJOYS; dutch, johnny jaqobis

Basically this scene happened,
 

(source)

and I never recovered.

There's just, he's just so completely devoted to her and she has so much faith and relies so completely on him in return that I don't know how to deal with myself. (QUEEN AND LIONHEART, but she's also her own damn knight.) The love and trust and respect between them is my happy place, and if you want to go romantic with this, yes, absolutely, but there's no need to if you enjoy the platonic aspect of their relationship, I'd just like anything focusing on them, though if you want to feature the absolute nonsense that is their found/grudgingly extended family, I'd welcome it as well.

Maybe some pre- or post-canon job shenanigans. Maybe they kind of got married at some point on some planet for some reason and it comes up again. Maybe some friends to lovers/mutual pining. Maybe an alternate take on the post-S4 fallout. The world is your oyster!

 

• THE QUEEN'S THIEF; attolia, costis ormentiedes, eugenides

 

i love love love these books and these three and the love and—again!—devotion there is between them, and anything leaning into that would be amazing. king and queen and lionheart dynamics!!

i’d love anything set around or directly after the king of attolia but that’s definitely not a requirement (though i uh, still haven’t gotten around reading thick as thieves, so please no spoilers!). gen being gen. costis miserably pining after his queen and king. pre-relationship or established relationship fic where costis and irene are madly in love with gen and frankly annoyed about it. political/court intrigue, ridiculous shenanigans, intradiegetic mythology, epic romance, etc., i love all the aspects of the books and would be happy with anything.

i'm also open to canon divergence or alternate universes. attolia/eugenides arranged marriage AU (with or without pining costis!)! regency setting (with or without pining costis, which you can consider as applying everywhere)! space opera setting! modern politics AU!

(i’d love poly fic but i’m also super fine with gen, i mean non-shippy, or only attolia/eugenides. i joke about pining costis but please no unrequited love, happy endings only. and i’d also be fine with something costis/gen-centric, but please no cheating or breaking up attolia/gen or killing off irene)

 

 

• TIAN GUAN CI FU (also known as HEAVEN'S BLESSING); quan yizhen, yin yu

I fell into chinese novels through the MDZS donghua, uh, about a year ago now and I still haven't crawled my way out. I've read the whole book thanks to suika's translation, and I'm assuming if you've offered these characters, you have as well? Otherwise, spoilers ahead.

I absolutely loved these two and their dynamic. I don't think I can speak coherently about Yin Yu's last scene. I just went to reread it while writing this and I'm just as overwhelmed as before. So he's petty and jealous, so what? So he resents and hates Yizhen, so what? He wanted to be kind if he couldn't be powerful but he couldn't be that either. God!! I just, have a lot of emotions.

I'd just love anything exploring their relationship, Yin Yu's pride and resentment and Quan Yizhen's absolute worship of him, how despite everything Yin Yu liked him, when they were just two disciples of the same sect, liked taking care of him, liked that Quan Yizhen only cared for him, up until his inferioriy complex soured even that. It doesn't need to be romantic if you're not into that, but if you are, yes please.

I'd be happy with any canon or canon divergent setting, be it back before Yin Yu fell, or while he was running away from Quan Yizhen (feel free to lean into the comical aspect of it if you want), or some post-canon fix-it. Maybe they get magically stuck or stranded together at some point and are forced to deal with each other. Maybe their relationship wasn't quite entirely platonic during or pre-canon. Maybe uh, fixing the post-canon situation involves some marriage ritual or dual cultivation, I'm ready to blame Airplane-bro for it if you are.

Most of all I just want them to be happy, or to be consciously working towards happiness.