Dear yuletide author:

[raven]

edited to add: this letter has spoilers for episode 3x09 of Lower Decks, "Trusted Sources"

Dear yuletide author,

Thank you very much for writing a story for me. I hope you enjoy writing it, and please don't feel bound by the details in this letter which I include only if they're helpful to you. The only thing I do not want is violence against women.

About my tastes generally: I like stories, that are about kind people and competent people; I'm happy with sex or no sex in stories but I don't generally like PWPs; I don't do Christmas myself but I'm happy for it to be in Yuletide stories. I like sad and bittersweet stories as well as happy ones, and if the story of your heart is a sad one, please don't decide against it because you think I won't like it.

Also useful: my AO3 name is singlecrow, and I'm very open to (and grateful for!) treats.

Specific fandoms:

Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Character: Robin Humphries

I have been rereading my old Chalet School books this year and I'd forgotten how moreish they are! (And deeply weird, omg, language immersion does not work like that.) Like most people I'm much more familiar with the Tyrol years than the later ones and it really struck me this time how in the journey from Tyrol to Guernsey and then the mainland (basically a book and a half) Robin goes from this kind of sentimental, angelic child character to a capable young adult, which makes sense when you realise Robin is about sixteen or seventeen by this point, but it makes me wonder, what does Robin feel about it all, anyway? What effect did the flight from the Nazis have on her? Does she think about her parents at all? When did her name lose the definite article? The books also seem to forget that she's French, and her first language is French - but presumably Robin herself didn't forget it, especially during the war years! Basically, any story you might have to tell about Robin would fascinate me, I would love to hear it.

Star Trek: Lower Decks

MARINER. JEN. I adore these two and their enemies-to-lovers relationship! Honestly, anything. More of Mariner meeting Jen's hilarious friends. More of Jen getting to know Mariner's hilarious friends. What date night looks like. Is it true Mariner can't bear to get serious, or is she just being Mariner about it? Does Mariner's mom know about the relationship and does she have any feelings about it! Is there Pride on the Cerritos? And how about things about Jen-as-Andorian - they have plural marriages in canon which we don't know much about, how might that work? And Jen as alien, too, fascinates me; her sensitive antennae, wow.

also another wistful little prompt is a story post-break-up. When Jen discovers that Mariner never sold any of them out, that she's gone off with Petra because she thought they all banished her for no reason. She gave her candle back! Aaaaah, I adore them.

We Are A Picturesque Small Town And We Refuse To Be The Setting For Your RomCom (McSweeney’s)
(no characters)

This is a short humour piece at McSweeney's which I extremely recommend to everyone. I have to say, I don't have much specific in mind here except I love the gentle skewering of the tropes and would love to see any fun subversion of it you did. I mean, presumably visitors to and inhabitants of Spirit Falls break the rules where they can? Or maybe they uphold them assiduously? And what about Chet Anderson, anyway? He's gonna find love, rules be damned. So there we are.

NB. if you matched with me on the other two and that now feels like a mistake, this might be a good alternative choice? It will take you two minutes to read and it's a delight.

That's it! Many good wishes for the season, and I can't wait for your story.

singlecrow xx

Comments

[toft]

this is making me think I might enjoy the Chalet School books! I never encountered them as a teenager but I loved the Enid Blyton boarding school series.

[raven]

I would love to know what you think of them, if you read them! I love the Blyton stories as well and they do have quite a similar vibe but the CS books are different imo because of the setting and the time. The first books are written and set in the late 1920s, they're taking place in the Austrian Tyrol and they advance in real time. Which means at about book 10 you hit the Anschluss and then the outbreak of war, and a bunch of the main characters flee from the Nazi occupation and make it to Switzerland and then to England, but also a lot of them don't? And the books are remarkably clear-eyed about what might be happening to the girls and teachers who were left behind, which is all the more hard-hitting for the fact Brent-Dyer was still writing the books contemporaneously and didn't know what would become of anything. (Which is why, famously, the school has to flee the Nazis twice.) There's literally another 50 books after that with a steady decline in quality, but all of this is why I still think of the books years later.