Yuletide 2018!

[umbralpilot]

Dear Yuletide author:

Hello! How exciting to have you over. I do hope my fandoms slot into yours in at least some vague way. I'm sure you'll do brilliantly! Here are a few words about me, anyway. I will try to make them sensible (though I do so love talking about me).

Things I like!

• Atmospheric stories, rich prose, stylized dialogue, whimsy and meta.
• Winter settings, cold, snow, rain, long nights, harsh weather, creepy shit in the dark.
• ADVENTURE~! and sensawunda.
• Friendship and found families, other relationships that are very strong but hard to define or categorize.
• High competence, genius (but not the insufferable kind), ambition and vision in both heroes and villains.
• Cultural flavour and World Facts, with a preference for the real but also happy with the inventively fictional.
• Food. All the food. Cooking, eating, talking food, I will take anything with food in it I love food so much.
• Stupid hurt/comfort stories in which characters with minor head colds make for terrible patients seriously just don't ask.
• In case of smut: sensory detail, bit of temperature play, bit of body worship and ritual.

Do Not Wants!

• Love triangles, will-they-or-won't-they, mutual pining and generally all belaboring of romance due to misunderstandings and poor communication. Poly resolutions and one-sided pining are a-ok.
• Mentor/student or guardian/charge.
• Harm to cats. Particular but important.
• Bullying and petty cruelties.
• Just-want-to-be-normal angst, "death makes life worth living" aesops, evil science.
• High key self-loathing, self-harm, suicidal ideation.
• PWP. I don't terribly mind smut but I don't really enjoy it most of the time, so I'd rather fics weren't sex-focused.
• Smut hard no: Noncon, underage, incest, bodily fluids, stretching/gaping, object insertion, blood/pain/injury, A/B/O, bestiality. Basically I'm vanilla AF.

Fandom-Specific!

Star Trek: Discovery:

So, Michael and Tilly. They are essentially everything sweet and good about that show and my thirst for content is endless. Romance or friendship or sisters in arms or something in between, I'll take it, I just want them to be Very Very Starfleet together. I love that Tilly is a Federation Sweet Summer Child who believes the best of people always and I'd love to see her show more of that conviction and remind Michael of hers. If you're going the romance way I would adore seeing Michael work through what she had with Ash with Tilly's help and come to being ready to love again. I'm also all for humour and nonsense in space. I just really need those to to be in some proper Star Trek scenarios with some tone closer to TNG or DS9 please, they deserve it.

The Expanse: 

So you know how Miller is the worst? And Holden is kind of the worst as well in his golden child way? And I really love these kind of in a mirror darkly dynamics? And they absolutely did not get enough space for further development and resolution in their relationship in canon NEVER ENOUGH. My most ferocious need is for a shortly post Eros rescue fic with shades of h/c (I still cannot believe how much I enjoy seeing Miller whumped) and rivalry and snark and weird inexplicable attraction. But if this particular scenario doesn't appeal I will take a play on any of its components, and also anything with Naomi reacting to this weird frienmity nonsense and the way Miller grows on her like some kind of space lichen. Just please don't whump Holden, he doesn't suffer prettily at all (I'm also really not into Holden/Naomi so I can take it in the background but if you could avoid any of her being his emotional crutch please.)


Ravages of Time: 

MY HOLY GRAIL CANON. Here you have two options. Firstly, if you'd rather stick with the nominated characters, that is A-OK and I love them to death and I think we can all agree that if ever something needed a fixit fic it was Xiao Meng's fate in Xiapi and if you wish to write this fixit, whether it's Huo that rescues him or Zhang Liao, or he ends up rescuing either of them, or if Sima Yi sees Xiao Meng at the crucial moment and changes his mind, or is forced into changing his mind, or if Xiao Meng decides to survive and pursue his own revenge possibly in the company of Liu Bei or a pardoned Luu Bu or another anti-Cao player (idk Zhuge Liang?) or really anything that lets that boy have another chance, I will take it. I will take literally anything to heal my broken soul. Huo/Meng is my OTP but my real OTP is Xiao Meng/a chance at happiness.

For the second option, if you're willing, my actual favourites are Cao Cao's Geniuses and the weird tangled relationship between them. I love Jia Xu best and adore how he's the Worst Genius but he tries so hard anyway and keeps pushing Guo Jia and supporting him and speaking of Xiapi I'd love to see more between him and Xun Yu after he joins the Cao camp and basically makes it two to the Darkness Strategy against one for the light. I feel like at that point in canon especially there is some terrific subtext that could be made into text. So, if it strikes your fancy.


Thank you for whatever you happen to write - and I hope you have a good time at it!!