gwyn | Yuletide letter 2023

Thank you for signing up to write a story for me! And thank you for your patience with my slowness to get my letter up (which will make sense below).

Some of the things I enjoy most: happy or hopeful endings, romance, humor/banter, romantic ships (slash or het), gen/friendship stories, character studies, plotty fics with wonderful world-building, fluff or drama, capers. I love first times and falling in love, people finding one another again after being apart, and relationships between equals. Friends to lovers and found families are my ultimate tropes. What I love about my fandoms are the canon universes they inhabit, so I'd prefer to keep characters within them, rather than mundane AUs like coffee shops or school or similar. But what-if types of canon divergences can be really neat!

Other favorites: protectiveness (without possessiveness or jealousy), hurt/comfort, partners against the world, people who enjoy nurturing others. I'll always take the classics: time travel/time loops, competence kink, having to share a bed, huddling for warmth and/or stranded somewhere (blizzard! cave-in!), situations where one suffers or sacrifices for the other, rescues, everybody lives!, etc. If the words hijinks and shenanigans are part of your writing toolkit, I would swoon.

My hard Do Not Wants: No bdsm/anything particularly sexual kink-oriented, abo/mpreg, and that sort of thing (usually, if there are initials used for it, that's a safe bet I'm not into it), non-con of any type, emotional abuse, any kind of animal harm, or anything about amputations. I intensely dislike jealousy, and related to that, love triangles. I was diagnosed with an incurable cancer this year and it has been a very, very rough time for me, so something that might make me depressed or fic about illnesses or death would not be ideal (but if that's the direction your story goes, I'm also not the kind of person who'd freak out about it). Please, no sportsball or characters spending a lot of time talking/thinking about sportsing. And absolutely no Reader or original character self-insert-POV type fic.

Fandoms:

Fast Color: This is such a beautiful movie and a fascinating if underexplored world they've built. I'd love to know more about everything, especially what happens to Bo after the ending. I have always loved stories where two people who loved each other reconnect later in life after separating, and it would be amazing to see what happens between Bo and Dean, maybe while she's doing whatever happens with the agency. (Note: I see he's listed as Ellis in most resources, but Bo distinctly calls him Dean twice, so I think of him that way.) It's clear they loved each other but ended up apart to protect Ruth, and I would love to know what happened there, or what they will do now that Bo is determined not to hide her powers anymore. Could they rekindle their love or find some common place together again? Will he help her in the future--or would she even let him? Can Bo, Ruth, and Dean reconnect as a family unit--I love Ruth going on a mission with Lilah, but I'd also really love to see the family unit in their new future. They've lost so much, can they recover and love one another?

Tone preference: Hopeful, emotional, healing through the power of love.

Amsterdam: I'm a bit of a military history buff, so I would honestly love to see something with Harold and Burt's developing relationship in the war, or how they became so devoted to Meekins, or just anything related to their service. I absolutely loved General Dillenbeck because he's based on my hero, Smedley Butler, and if you wanted to write about the first meeting of the three friends with the general, or about their relationships after the events of the movies, I would adore that (it's a hard road ahead in some ways, maybe they reconvene to punch more Nazis or help someone out of a jam, the general would be well connected and possibly helpful to them again). As much as I would love to see the general in the story, if that doesn't work for you, something about the trio's time in Amsterdam would be lovely, or maybe we could see what happens after the movie, how they might keep their little polycule together, with Irma, I assume, and maybe they all fight crime or do heists or something? Or maybe they get involved (with or without the general) in some form of rescuing refugees when WWII begins. Feel free to bring in tropes here, these characters are perfect for hijinks and shenanigans, and more punching Nazis is always good.

Tone preference: Acknowledges the world they're in, but focuses on love and friendship and their inherent goodness.

Abbott Elementary: I think Barbara Howard is one of the most amazing characters ever created for TV. I worship her, whether she's right or wrong. Literally anything about her you'd like to explore would be great--maybe more about her personal life (what's her husband like? he has to be pretty stellar to have won her hand), or her wonderful friendship with Melissa, or something from her significant experience as a teacher. The thing that would send me over the moon would be a story about Sea Barbara, who is very different than Land Barbara. I think that's one of the funniest lines I've ever heard and would just love to meet Sea Barbara on her all-inclusive cruise.

Tone preference: Realistic, but with lightness and kindness (like the show itself).