Dear Yuletide Writer 2023

[suburban_sun]

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Thanks for signing up for this always-fun exchange! I'm looking forward to reading whatever you write! (And for anyone else stumbling across this letter, know that treats are always welcomed.)

Below you’ll find the following:

• My Requests
• About Me
• General Likes
• General DNWs
• Fandom Specifics/Prompts

My Requests:

• Mythic Quest - Ian Grimm, Poppy Li
• Clueless - Cher Horowitz
• Marvelous Mrs. Maisel - Midge Maisel, Lenny Bruce

I’ve tried to list some varied prompts for each fandom, but please don’t feel like you have to stick to what I’ve come up with. If the rest of my letter gives you another idea you’d like to write, I’d love to read it!


A little about me to start:

My AO3 name is SuburbanSun; you can also check out my Tumblr if you’d like: unbreakablejemmasimmons.


General Likes:

Fave shippy tropes:

• Rivals/enemies to lovers
• Secret dating/sneaking around
• FWBs that turns into something more
• Fake dating
• Mutual pining
• “The love is requited they’re just idiots"/idiots to lovers
• Truth serum/in vino veritas

Fave gen tropes and story elements:

• Found family dynamics
• Competency/mutual respect
• Shenanigans/heists
• Time travel
• Time loops

Subversions of tropes are also great!

Most of my prompts tend toward canon universe ideas because that’s just what I tend to think of first, but I enjoy AUs too, and here are a few types that I’m always a sucker for:

• Secret Service/bodyguard/witness protection AUs
• Private eye AUs
• Politics AUs (like my requested characters running for office or working on a campaign)
• Vampire slayer AUs
• Food truck or food critic AUs

Epistolary style, either as a small part of a story or as all of it, is always fun to me, if it’s up your alley. Phone calls! Emails! Letters! Post-It notes! I love it all!

General DNWs:

DNWs: Superangst and sad endings. Babyfic/kidfic/pregnancy. First person POV (except in epistolary elements).

Fandom Specifics/Prompts:

Mythic Quest
Ian Grimm, Poppy Li

This show was such a fun discovery for me as I browsed Apple+. I’d heard good things, but the first episode hadn’t grabbed me, and I’m glad I stuck around because by episode 3 I was cackling out loud. Then the quarantine episode had me crying, followed by Everlight, which buoyed my heart. It’s been a wild ride!

I love the relationship between Ian and Poppy as it’s laid out in the show. I don’t ship them romantically, but I love their prickly partnership, their codependency, and the way that they are maybe the only people in the world who really, begrudgingly, get each other. I love everyone in this bar, so any other characters are welcome.

Prompts:

• I’d love something that explores either of the characters’ personal lives, since we see so few glimpses of them in the show.
• It really tugged on my dumb heartstrings when Ian sought out Poppy when he was in the hospital in season 2, or when he showed up--unexpectedly, but right when she needed him--at her doorstep in the quarantine episode, so while I don't really ship them romantically, I would welcome more of that neediness and comfort.
• Sarian made me cry. Happy to get more flashbacks with these two, from the early stages of their partnership or from even before that.

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Clueless
Cher Horowitz

This is one of my favorite nostalgia movies, and such a fun watch even all these years later. Maybe especially all these years later! Cher is such a great character. She’s smart and idealistic and good at communicating her ideas and being a connector of people, and so what if she’s also into fashion and stuff like that?

I ship Cher and Josh, but I’m a lot more interested in her, so if you choose to write them paired up, that’s totally fine! And if you’d rather leave him out, that’s totally fine too!

 

Prompts:

• I’d love to get a look at Cher as an adult— what job does she end up having? Does she follow her dad’s footsteps into law, or maybe even go into politics?
• I’ll never tire of a vampire slayer AU. So— Cher the Vampire Slayer? Cher dealing with any kind of paranormal creature or ghoul or beastie sounds good to me, actually, and I'm probably only partially saying that because I'm writing this 10 days before Halloween.
• What happens when Cher goes off to college? Does she end up getting involved in clubs, or student government?

 

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Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Midge Maisel, Lenny Bruce

While I thought the final season of Maisel was pretty good, I was disappointed in what short shrift this friendship/maybe-something-more was given! I loved some of their earlier scenes together in the show so much, especially the Carnegie Hall stuff at the end of season 4.

Part of the appeal of the pair of them in the show is knowing how it will end-- or how it won't end, really, which is to say, it won't end well. There is an undercurrent of foreboding and bittersweetness in all their scenes, but they still crackle with tension and life. And while that sense of dramatic irony is so important to the pairing, I would prefer not to read about his death. Something that takes place at any point in the show timeline is great though!

Prompts:

• I love it when they talk about comedy-- really get in the weeds about the work, and what it's like to be a comedian, and how much they live or die by making people laugh, so any convo or banter or argument about that would be great!
• An extended version of their encounter at the airport in the final season. Maybe they have time to get one last drink together, at least.

 

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So, that’s that! I really hope you enjoy the whole process of writing and receiving something in return, and thanks for participating! Happy writing!